#just paragraphs and paragraphs of bullet points LOL

[shamedumpster]

A Midsummer night's Dream Play AU?

Both you and @is-it-mungojerry-or-rumpelteazer asked about this one ^^

This is one of two that I basically just have a thorough outline done for. The basic summary is it's the Amis final year of high school, and their final play they're all doing together, which happens to be Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Enjolras is a trans man who has specifically asked to be given a male part, and Grantaire basically just wants the closest seat possible to watch Enjolras perform. Further summary below the cut:

Unfortunately, their casting director ignores Enjolras' request to be cast male, and casts him as Titania instead. And Grantaire is cast as Bottom.

(If you don't know A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania is essentially temporarily cursed by Puck to fall in love with an ass, that "ass" being Bottom, who's had his head magically turned into that of a donkey, also by Puck.)

[love cursed] Titania: “Thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me on the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.”

What follows is the two of them getting closer and bonding throughout rehearsals (and private line-practicing), and Grantaire trying to find a way behind the scenes to make this part more comfortable for Enjolras to play, be they against the director's wishes or not.

Also Bottom is just very R coded. For example:

Bottom: “Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that.”

thank you for the ask!

[dott-reblogs]

uughh i wanna post all my jhutch au's and writing drabbles but theyre so unreadable rn

but heres the ideas i have w little to context:

future man angel au (i alr have fanart for this but it Needs the context)

future man amnesia au

robot josh futturman

future man fix it ending (bc the ending sucked and i dont believe in it)

future man x fnaf crossover

jhutch superhero au (every character is a superhero/villain)

daycare au

so much franklin angst (why is there no fandom for him!!)

derek angst

body guard x guarded darnett au

pirates darnett au

[dmclemblems]

if it's alright, can i ask why you like dimi/claude so much? like, the particular reasons you like them lol hope that doesn't come off as "how the hell do you like them" kind of thing

Yeee, tis fine! I feel like I’ll probably miss some of the reasons why I love them so much, but I’ll try to cover everything.

uh oh it got beeg

Things from the game itself:

I like that they hang out together sometimes (in the main story and in the DLC), when the lords don’t usually hang out together in their free time. Out of all the combinations of them, only Dimitri and Claude hang out together (with a story based exception during the DLC with Dimitri and Edelgard that never gets touched upon again even though it’s actually important and story relevant). There’s also the implication that they train/spar together in GD, with Dimitri saying “as ever” he has proven to be no match for Claude. During the “going to GM cutscene”, they’re walking together and talking together (a theme that Nintendo uses in their official art in almost every official of the three lords lmao).

Claude’s crest symbol is a moon, and Dimitri’s route is called Azure Moon (which is also coincidentally the only route they’re able to ally in because Dimitri dies in VW)

They’re a package deal in the game and in official art from Nintendo! Cipher promotions? Both of them got plastered on it together. The 2019 happy holidays artwork? Sitting down together while Edelgard is standing up (with Dimitri ??? staring at Claude with this oddly happy and dreamy look??? hey, Nintendo???). the artwork of Edelgard turning around while the lords are walking, but she’s behind the other two who are both walking together and talking? And... so on.

Another instance of “damn, how much time do you actually spend together where we aren’t aware of it” is Dimitri referring to Claude as his “friend” in the DLC to Aelfric. That point of the game is still very early on, but Dimitri doesn’t just toss the word “friend” around with everyone. He uses other terms like acquaintance, companion/companionship, etc. Rather than use any similar words for Claude, he just outright uses “friend”, and he doesn’t use that term unless he really believes it.

In the game itself, the start of it is Edelgard almost being killed and Byleth protects her, but with the other two nowhere to be seen for... some reason. When Edelgard is safe, suddenly they both come running up together and smile at each other like “lol sorry we got distracted by each other’s beauty but hey glad you’re both safe uwu”. Listen, it’s a tiny thing but WHEN IT ADDS up...!

Very cute moment for me when, if you’re playing GD, Dimitri takes a keen interest in Claude’s “schemes”. Most people consider his supposed schemes to be a bad thing and dread it openly. Dimitri is just out here like ooo tell me more, I wanna know! 

During the mock battle, Claude tries to tease him and fails miserably. By the time of the actual Battle of the Eagle and Lion (and Deer, wah wah), Dimitri is used to Claude’s teasing and jokes with him! Instead of a deadpan response where he just doesn’t know Claude well enough to know how he behaves, this time Dimitri is used to him and responds to him with a more “lol okay Claude” vibe. It’s much more apparent in the JP dialogue that he’s aware Claude is teasing/joking, but he goes along with it.

There’s a bit more of a rivalry between Dimitri and Edelgard, oddly. Even this early, he’s seeing her as more of an adversary (maybe to foreshadow, since the BotEaL had a boatload of foreshadowing) and seeing it as a more serious competition. With Claude, he’s much more relaxed and seeing their battle as more of a test of skill and mutual gain to learn from. He says he will “happily” battle Claude and urges him not to hold back. In contrast, he tells Edelgard that the thought of fighting her is “troubling at best” and is bothered by her “joke” (Claude jokes with him too and he’s much more receptive. Edelgard’s “joking” was more foreshadowing, but he doesn’t take well to it and that same joke/response happens again after the battle too). The direction of both conversations is the polar opposite, and he doesn’t feel at ease when fighting her.

Following that, his relationship with Edelgard is tense, and it’s a huge contrast to how he feels around Claude. That is, notably, whenever him and Edelgard interact there’s a wall between them (such as when she’s walking by with Manuela, going to their mission, and her and Dimitri have a misunderstanding that ends in a tense ending to their conversation) Due to their circumstances, their relationship is pretty rocky even during the first half of the game in BL. Throughout the first half of the game, this aspect of their relationship is static (until of course he finds out her identity as the Flame Emperor and it just goes downhill from there). Then we have him and Claude, where starting at the mock battle, Dimtiri misses Claude’s silly behavior and is more serious about the battle as mentioned before. Over time though he’s obviously learned what Claude is like, and during the official battle you can clearly see a difference in Dimtiri’s overall attitude when he hears Claude joke with him. This time he knows what to expect and is receptive to Claude’s behavior, going along with it and being glad to have this battle with him. His demeanor toward Edelgard, however, doesn’t change at all. He still doesn’t like the idea of fighting her seriously, nor takes well to her “jokes” and  yet seems to see her as more of an adversary to overcome. Around Claude, Dimtiri has more friendly vibes in both their routes and is pretty open to learning about Claude and talking to him casually.

Kind of a small instance but with a little more meaning to me?: them fighting side by side at Garreg Mach when the Empire invades. Dimitri was in his Very Nutty state, and even more so if you’re playing BL. He’s so out of it that Dedue has to direct everyone in his place. Due to the BLs knowing what he’s going through, you’d think at least one of them would be keeping an eye on him during the battle. Instead, it’s Claude he’s fighting alongside! Dimitri was very expressive about wanting to be the one to reach Edelgard in that battle, but the cutscene shows him with Claude, rather than rushing for Edelgard.

Gronder! Even though Dimitri gives out his famous, stolen-from-Miklan-because-Miklan-said-it-first-and-apparently-inspired-Dimitri-to-use-it-later-in-life line, “kill every last one of them”, his actual dialogue with Claude is very different from that (on both routes). All he says is that he wants Claude to move and has no time to talk. If he meant it that he really wanted to kill people from the Alliance or didn’t care about Claude as a person, he would have tried to run him down for getting in his way. Claude even said he wouldn’t budge, which normally would prompt Dimtiri at that point to attack him and kill him to get him out of the way. In AM Claude retreats when defeated, but Dimitri lets him escape and doesn’t mind at all that he’s fleeing. Because of that you can specifically clarify that Dimitri doesn’t think of him as an enemy, because he chases enemies down and kills them at that point (remember all those dead soldiers we were hearing about early into the timeskip?). When Edelgard tries to escape, Dimitri doesn’t just let her go without attempting to follow her. This clarifies that he sees her as an enemy, because again, he’ll chase down anyone considers his enemy. When Claude left, even though he can intentionally stand in Dimitri’s way, Dimitri won’t kill him even though he probably could.

When Claude requests aid, he doesn’t ask for Byleth’s help. He doesn’t ask for Seteth or the Church’s help (which is working with Byleth/the Kingdom and the direct enemies of the Empire). He asks for the Kingdom’s aid. This Dimitri centric view continues through all of chapter 19, with him specifically believing in Dimitri and his mentality.

Hurray Failnaught! Normally characters give their Relics to Byleth (for game mechanic/convoy purposes), but Claude gives him specifically to Dimitri. Since he plans to leave Fodlan and return to Almyra where they don’t fight with these weapons, he likely feels he has no reason to bring it with him. Instead, he leaves it with someone he trusts both with his family heirloom and Fodlan itself. Claude doesn’t trust easily, but he had faith that Dimitri would finish the war and restore Claude’s second home.

In the same chapter, Claude... somehow knows a LOT about Dimitri. Obviously he learned everything offscreen and we don’t know how or why, but not only does he know that Dimitri can still be reasoned with (Teach will talk and he’ll listen), suggesting that he’s aware that the person Dimitri was is not gone despite the meeting they had in Gronder, but during the “here have my family heirloom” scene, he tells Dimitri that the dead cling to them without regard for their own/the living’s lives. During the Academy phase we don’t have any indication that he knows what’s going on with Dimitri... but then, I recall them fighting side by side during the invasion of the monastery, so perhaps Claude started to put the pieces together if he was able to see the state Dimitri was in. Canon? Not necessarily, but it’s something I consider when I want to answer why Claude knows this stuff about Dimitri when Dimitri didn’t tell him about it.

Yes, Teach will talk and he’ll listen, but by then Dimitri had already  made the decision to help the Alliance- er, well, Claude. The Alliance itself? Hm. Claude? Yes, let’s go help Claude-- er, the Alliance, he means! The Alliance! But... but also Claude! Okay, I’m kind of joking. Kind of. A lil bit. By which I mean, Dimitri is very vocal about saving Claude more than he is the Alliance. Leave the latter part to Lorenz, I guess. It’ll make him happy and that would make me happy!

So, on the topic of him already making the decision to go aid Claude, not only was Claude correct, but Dimitri literally went to begin their march to the Alliance the next day after they recaptured their own capital. They celebrated and then the very next day he’s like “uh yeah sorry for this guys, but Claude wants our help so we’re leaving. Now. Pack your things. If you’re not ready in ten I’m leaving without you. Claude needs help.” I’M JOKING. Mostly. A lil bit.

They reach the battle destination and Dimitri is uh, very specific that “they will not let Claude die”. He only recently came out of his nommy nom, chewy enemies state, and he’s already over here like hell nah we ain’t lettin’ Claude die. I didn’t spare him at Gronder for nothin’. Let’s go, let’s go!

Claude, who he doesn’t know nearly as well as the BLs, “crosses too many dangerous bridges for his liking”. For sure, Claude does some risky things, but he’s not someone who is within Dimitri’s immediate friend group. All the same, Dimitri worries about him (a lot in this chapter, too) and expresses that he doesn’t like Claude taking these kind of risks (that could endanger his life).

“This must be one of your jokes”. Not sure Claude was ever really one to often make jokes that we know of? The way it’s phrased, “one of your jokes”, sounds like more of an inside thing? As in, “I know you well enough to know you behave like this”, kind of thing. Doesn’t sound like much, until I start adding up all the times they’re together/talking to each other. For reference, times such as ones I’ve mentioned in this post (walking to GM with Byleth between them and Edelgard, if you’re playing GW Dimitri implies he’s sparred with Claude and uses “as ever” as if to say it happens often enough that it’s a familiar result, them hanging out during their free time after the mock battle, them fighting side by side during the invasion of GM even though Dimitri insisted he was going to basically rush the battle and ker-slice Edelgard’s head off and show up at Enbarr with it in hand...) Suddenly it doesn’t seem so odd that they might know each other a little bit more than the story that we get to see lets on. Even if it was small talk, enough of that and enough sparring/fighting alongside each other would add up enough for them to start learning things about each other.

Kudos to Dimitri for being the only person in the game that gets a pet name from Claude. Teach is just a casual way of saying “professor”, and “princess” is literally what Edelgard is. Princeliness is... Quite A Title I Guess. “Princess” is dropped and Claude refers to Edelgard as just Edelgard in the timeskip, but Dimtiri gets a nickname update! Now he’s “Kingliness” instead!

Some Hopes ones (I shipped them way  before Hopes was a thing but these made me happy!):

Background similarities! In Hopes if you play AG, they talk very early on (before the timeskip) about Dimitri’s life after the Tragedy. To sum it up, he was being targeted by his own family with murder attempts and he was very isolated (one NPC describes it as nearly being like house arrest with how isolated he was). Even if you don’t consider Hopes to be too much canon with its character background lore, the isolation part checks because in Houses, Dimitri says he didn’t have any friends left after the Tragedy. He only had Dedue for companionship after that in the castle itself, unable to see his other friends as often due to them living in different territories.

Another similarity from Your Hopes Truly is Dimitri being paranoid on expeditions. As he puts it, he “can't help but peer over his shoulder lest an assassin lodges his blade in his back”. He’s literally paranoid of assassins... a lot like how Claude sleeps with a knife under his pillow. :’( They both worry a lot about having to be vigilant because they could die at any time. Even though Edelgard is also royalty, her trauma expresses itself differently and she doesn’t worry about assassins as outwardly (possible also because she has Hubert around, who would be more likely to catch assassins lurking around than the people around Dimitri and Claude). I’m sure she knows people will be after her because she’s royalty, but she doesn’t worry about it in the same way.

This one is more recent and Hopes based, but in AG the game decides to be Big Dumb and is like “nobody in the BL house trusts Claude... for some... reason...” but Dimitri is gung ho adamant that they can trust Claude. His portrait even switches to his smiling portrait! “I’ve never known him to be a liar” despite how little time they had together at the Academy in this game is a big amount of trust imo.

On the same note, AG is like a mirror of AM’s chapter 19! Claude trusts Dimitri and that he will show up to help. In AG, they need the Alliance’s help and Dimitri trusts Claude to show up without question. When the Alliance shows up and Claude isn’t there, he wonders where Claude is, and when Claude does show up being the smart little sneaky not-literal-bastard-because-he’s-actually-a-legitimate-child bastard he is, Dimitri is like :D I knew you would come no matter what. This man literally implicitly trusts Claude. Sounds like someone had a crush when they were younger... Now his crush is helping them and he’s all bubbly and excited inside... uwu... uwu... UWU...

More Hopes stuff despite the bad writing moments. In SB, Claude confronts Edelgard because they were so focused on locating Rhea that they didn’t even consider Dimitri’s motivations for being part of that battle. His portrait is even his upset portrait for them “not even sparing a thought for Dimitri’s motivations”, in his exact words. He’s not all too happy that they were so determined by their goal that they didn’t consider Dimitri, specifically.

Similarly, if you get the Arval chapter, Dimtiri worries for Claude’s safety if Claude tries to take the Church out of power. Despite that Dimitri lists off reasons why That’s A Really Fucking Bad Idea, he also includes that he doesn’t want Claude to be in danger, and their discussion ultimately ends with Claude saying “you really are too good for me!”. Claude, that’s sus.

Not game specific, but motivated by the contents of the game:

Claude is a very casual person, and Dimtiri wants that in his relationships (of any kind). Actually, he repeatedly asks people to be casual with him and doesn’t want to be treated like a prince. In no way does Claude treat him like a prince and just treats him exactly the way Dimtiri would prefer, without even having to be asked to do so. This is part of what makes me wonder if the reason Dimitri is so receptive to Claude and why they bounce so well off each other’s personalities, despite seeming so different in demeanor, is because Dimitri experiences those kind of informal exchanges with him that most others won’t grant him.

More often than not, even in GD, Claude expresses being an outsider. That means that even though the people around him are mostly/generally pretty chill with him (i.e. his GD classmates just treat him like another classmate and not the foreigner in the class), he still doesn’t feel totally accepted there. Likely, it’s the little things he picks up about them, such as Hilda’s negative comments about Almyra. They’re pretty chill together, but he’s Almyran, and royalty at that, yet she doesn’t know that. For him, that could be like, okay so she’s one of the people I proooobably should definitely not tell my identity to, like, ever. I’m not saying Hilda specifically is the only person he would have to be wary of, but the problem is still there.

On the other hand, Dimitri... literally does not give a fuck who is a foreigner and who is not. More than anyone else besides, equally, Claude, he pushes to have people from other lands seen as equals to those in Fodlan and wants them to be just as accepted.

Also, Claude’s post timeskip advice box:

What did these two do, share notes? Pass notes in class? Skip class and hang out in the bathroom while they skipped?

To be specific, Dimitri highlights all aspects that Claude guns for too. He hates that he’s been hated all his life for his lineage and never saw it as fair. Dimitri wouldn’t see that as fair either. Claude doesn’t think his lineage or bloodline matters when it comes to being accepted and what relationships he has. That’s also Dimitri’s line of thinking when he insists he doesn’t want to be treated as a prince. He just wants normal relationships. This also applies to Crests, where in which he doesn’t believe having or not having one should decide a person’s, well, anything.

Being two races, Claude has struggled to feel accepted on either side. Meanwhile, Dedue has struggled a lot to get by in Garreg Mach because of the prejudice against Duscur’s people. Even if some of the people of Duscur did do what everyone accused them of, they’re dragging those accusations well beyond that and treating Dedue as if he had anything to do with it. In Dimitri’s B support with Dedue, he makes it extremely clear to his own soldiers that he’ll have nothing to do with that behavior. He sees Dedue as another human being, as he would anyone else. Even though most characters don’t care what race someone is, most of them don’t actively try to fight for justice for other races of people being mistreated in Fodlan. Dimitri is one of the only people who will walk up to someone and tell them to fuck off for being racist, and mind you, if this wasn’t a T rated game and more explicit curse words were allowed to be used, I am quite positive Dimitri would quite literally tell those people to fuck off. He acts all upstanding and polite, but he’d also curse at someone who deserves it and is definitely angry enough to be a semi-big curser lol.

Both of them discuss faith with Byleth, too. While Claude doesn’t like the idea of praying to gods and often talks about how he isn’t in with the whole Sothis religion, Dimitri says the same thing, basically. In his Goddess Tower conversation, he expresses his feelings about “the goddess”, and it pretty much equals that he couldn’t give a flying fuck about her because she doesn’t help those in need despite supposedly watching over their land. He feels that she’ll watch and do nothing to help, not even reach out a hand to people who need her. Dimitri firmly does not believe in the religion that Fodlan follows, even despite literally being the crown prince of a nation that was legitimatized by Rhea herself. Neither of them care about Fodlan’s religion personally, but they both accept people who do and don’t badmouth her in front of devout followers. For example, Claude talks to Ignatz about the goddess and jokes with him. He doesn’t try to tell Ignatz he’s wrong for being faithful to a goddess that Claude himself doesn’t believe in. Dimitri doesn’t care about the Seiros faith at all, but he’s very friendly with Seteth and on great terms with him (especially in Hopes! They’re very close in AG!). Even if Seteth personally is not very devout (which is actually the truth), he’s still Rhea’s second in command. You also have people like Mercedes, who are extremely if not almost excessively devout, but Dimitri never puts her down for that. That’s how Claude is with Ignatz, and Ignatz is very devout. Basically, both Dimitri and Claude hate the idea of believing in the goddess of Fodlan, but they never judge someone who does believe in that very goddess. In fact, after Duscur, I’m sure Dimitri felt he could never forgive the goddess for not saving his father, Glenn and all the others who died there. Even if she wasn’t from a goddess of Duscur, she didn’t even attempt to save Fodlan’s people, at the very very least. It’s not a surprise in that sense that Dimitri isn’t devout.

In the case of ideologies, both of them even use the exact same word here. No matter what someone believes or thinks should happen, no matter how people think lands should be managed, neither of them feel like that’s cause to judge someone. They both feel that people can have different ways of thinking no matter how vast those ways of thinking might be, and still get along just fine.

This basically sums up both of what they want tbh, and it’s something they both strive for as early as the first half of the game.

Other aspects I love:

Other than that, I like to think about their personalities too! They’ve been through a lot of the same things and have a lot of the same feelings, so I think they would understand really well how to help each other. While Claude doesn’t think he deserves the treatment he gets, Dimitri tends to think he deserves all sorts of bad things. I feel like Claude could teach Dimitri to care about himself more and to stop thinking so poorly about himself. For Claude, I think he’d have “might get killed at any moment” ingrained into him, but I think he’d feel safe around Dimitri but also accepted and loved. Dimtiri is extremely straightforward and honest, and I think Claude would know for a fact that he can trust that Dimitri is honest about his feelings. He wouldn’t have to question if Dimitri actually loves him and if he secretly hates that he’s half Almyran. Because of how Dimitri has always been, I don’t think he’d actually worry about that and any worry that might nag him in passing he’d be able to tell himself is only a paranoid habit.

Also, Almyra loves strength! Pretty sure if Claude walked back into Almyra with a 6′2 superhuman-strength Blaiddyd on his arm that Almyra would be, to say the least, impressed lol. Not only would Dimitri be on par with their strongest generals, but if he got the attention of royalty, regardless of their feelings on that royalty, I think they’d have to take notice. I have headcanons about how the Almyran children would love learning from Dimitri and eventually run around pretending to be as strong as him when he starts helping them train. 🥺 Most of the adults wouldn’t like Dimitri at first because he’s from Fodlan, and even more than that a royal form Fodlan, but I think they’d come around after seeing how much the kiddos respect him and how kind he is to them. Even if they were meh about him being with Claude, I think they would start to respect Dimitri as an individual and not only appreciate when he’s around, but enjoy having him there for competitions, because Dimitri also loves being competitive and training.

You also get the silly opposites aspect with their homelands! Claude would be freezing in Faerghus, especially Fhirdiad. You know he’d be stealing all the blankets and be a Claude burrito by morning. Dimitri would have to accommodate him with lots of warm clothes because poor Claude would be shivering in full armor! It gives lots of room for cuddles and snuggies tho!!! !!! !!! 6′2 warm man and lots of blankets means lots of warmth and comfy sleep zzzzz...

Then you have Dimitri in Almyra and he hates hot weather (specifically, hates, so he says in an advice box letter). Claude would have to tend to him to keep him cool, sure, but I think Dimitri would whine a lot about the heat and I think it’d be rly cute and I think Claude would also think so. He’d have to bring Dimitri to the sea to let him stay in the water for a while, and then struggle to get him out of the water.

Something else I like to consider is how Dimitri would probably love to learn Almyran since he’s bilingual as it is, and I feel like he’d love to learn their culture and whatnot as well. Like I said, he’s really big on people from different places mingling, and he’s been trying really hard to get Duscur to be seen as an intendent land again. In Hopes, he’s trying to fix relations with Sreng (which Claude even considers Sreng in VW when mentioning his dream in full toward the end of the game). Getting to learn about Almyra would be something I feel that Dimitri would love experiencing.

Personality wise Dimitri’s a lot more on the formal speaking side, but they can absolutely both joke and be little shits! I’d love to see them banter with each other because they both have it in them. In fact, I think it would lead to lots of laughs and silly times and I think after everything, they both really need that!

tap tap am i missing something am i missing anything from this fic-sized essay tap tap my cat was staring at me for at least 50% perfect of this. i mean, straight up just staring and watching me from my bed and i just think that’s something i should share

OH YEAH I also love the interracial aspect because it really drives home their desire about race and everyone getting along. 🥰

Also, I feel like Claude needs someone he can really, truly trust and Dimitri needs someone who can make him really start to care about and respect himself again.

[u3pxx]

COMMISSION CARRD | TOS | SAMPLES OF MY ART

hi there :^D announcing that i'll be opening commissions on JULY 20! i'll be opening 4 SLOTS in total but i will have a waitlist! focusing on 4 things at a time just makes things easier for my brain (also, trying out a new method of collecting responses, just testing it out if this method is easier for me lol)

on july 20, i'll be releasing a google form to collect responses, commissions are first come first serve, so if you want to be one of the first ones, i ask that you prepare a:

description of what you want me to draw (formatted in bullet points, not paragraph form)

character reference/reference pictures (you can send more as we go through the commission. send in either a png/jpeg file, a drive folder containing the reference photos, or even a google document containing the references)

if you have any more questions, feel free to look over my commissions carrd or send me an ask! reblogs are very appreciated, and thank you so much always for the support 🫶💥

[lukolabrainrot]

I have a few thoughts on the Spain trip and the timing of Luke’s post the day after A posted the story.

I want to focus on the slide with the two people on the beach. I do not believe that this picture is of two random people on the beach. He could have easily panned the camera to the left or right or even cropped these people out of the picture. I think he was deliberate in leaving those people in the picture because he is laying crumbs for the fans. I think the picture is of him and NC. If you look at her picture with a fan after she returned from Malta, her face is tanned looking like she was on a sunny vacation. I know Malta is sunny but she was there for work and I heard most of that work was in a studio. She did go on a boat tour with JD (rumored) but they were in a covered area of the boat. Is there a possibility that she joined L in Spain for a few days after she completed filming MFT? I also believe the trip was recent and I do not put too much thought into his hair length because they may be changing the style for S4 and it does not need to be as long.

The other theory I have is regarding A’s post on her insta story the day before to make it look she was with him. I think there was some manipulation on the picture to make it look she was there hence the flashing to distract. She may have known about this promotional deal with the hotel from earlier but she was not there. What if L with the aid of N set a trap for her and she fell for it by telling her when he was going to post? He let her have her moment to try to deceive the fandom and then he came in with his post debunking that she was there. Most of his postings seem NC or Bton coded and was set up to make it appear he was there by himself. I believe he was there by himself at some parts but a certain blonde may have joined him for a part of the stay. She guided him on what pictures he should take including that white t-shirt which to me is reminder of the Shameless t-shirt she was wearing.

In closing I think L is learning how to play this SM game from L and I believe they are strategizing on getting him through this rough patch. We probably will not see a confirmation of their relationship until later this year. We possibly could get a hard launch at the Wicked premiere in November which puts some distance between them the chaotic summer.

One more thing regarding L’s like on A’s post and him still following her. I do not believe they are still together and him liking her pictures is probably some sort of deal they have which allows him to gradually distance from her without additional chaos. She has demonstrated that she is as cunning as a fox and is messy. I have noticed a pattern on likes from members of his family on the last 3 post to her grid. The last upload his mother liked the photos but then it was unliked after a few days. His aunt and his friend Carla have also liked the bobble head pose post but then they unliked it. I believe L probably brought them up to speed. She is also vigorously looking for modeling and dance gigs based on who she follows and unfollows.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Hi Anon, I'm intrigued by your theories. I'll respond with a bullet point to each paragraph:

I don't think the couple is of him and N personally. The woman seems wayyyy too tall to be N 😅 Lukey Newts is great at a lot of things, SM and pics are not one of them LOL I think it's just a random couple tbh. N did have a little bit of a sunburn in Malta, so idk if the fan pics really prove she was in Spain with him.

HOWEVER, I flip flop between if either A or N were actually on this trip with him, but I will say this. 1) L was quick to clear up the rumors that were circulating about his post in his stories (which is new behavior for him). He said look, N and I are good. Also, look at all this stuff for one person. NO, A WAS NOT WITH ME. I think whatever SM agreement he and A have includes him letting her know when he is going to post something on his grid or stories. So I think he knew she was going to do her normal SM games, and he wanted to be the one to have the last word. 2) The pics of him in his post-- HE IS LOOKING GOOD. So I do think someone took some of those photos of him (and we know who takes great photos of him 😉). This (and the fact that he just looked glowy and happy) is the only thing that makes me think maybeeeee N did join him for a little bit on the trip. But I do agree that it seems like his post and stories had a lot of nods to N and/or Bridgerton Season 3, and I think he was getting pointers from N regardless if she was there or not. Hmmm, I wonder why that might be? 🤔😂

"I think L is learning how to play this SM game from N and I believe they are strategizing on getting him through this rough patch." I 100% agree with this! I think IF L/N are currently together, we are going to get a confirmation before the Wicked premiere. Mainly because of the fact that the paps are so far up their butts, and the wilding that is happening in some parts of the fandom. I think they would rather control the narrative and squash the wild speculation atp. HOWEVER, who knows?? I really don't have a great prediction on WHEN they will go public. I personally think it will be sooner than later, but I think it's kind of just a wait and see game atp.

I agree with everything in the last paragraph. No notes!

[genericpuff]

All That Glitters is Not Feminism - An Analysis of LO's Brand of "Feminism" and What Remains of its Fanbase (A Prologue)

So I referenced a certain article in a recent reblog/ask response and I just need to talk about it because what the actual fuck-

This has to have been written by either a bot or a hater who's reached peak god tier level at playing the long con sarcasm game because NOTHING about this feels sincere or even factual. Much of it almost has to be read in a mocking tone for it to make any real sense.

It says "Lore Olympus" (literally in quotations) in just about every single paragraph over and over again and every single talking point revolves EXCLUSIVELY around Persephone, which I suppose comes as no surprise considering that seems to be all the comic - and its fanbase - cares about at this point.

I really love (/s) how Persephone's "evolution" is being naive and then 'blossoming' into an independent woman who relies entirely on the rich man who groomed her to solve all her problems.

Also all she's done since becoming Queen of the Underworld is abuse lower class people. That's the stuff feminist dreams are made of <3

While we're talking about the main leads, "poster child" is definitely a word for Hades, I think a more appropriate term would be "literal child". And boy howdy, 'god of consent' sure is a title to give the guy who ripped out a lower class satyr's eyeball and beat him half to death.

This man owns slaves, btw. And both he and his "powerful wife" are equally horrible to lower class people, especially women.

This is hands-down the funniest section of the article and we're only three bullet points in.

Thetis and Persephone have never even so much as spoken one word to each other outside of the courtroom that Thetis technically put her in after plotting against her for an entire season.

Eros is a man. Nothing wrong with that but it comes with the unintentional icky hilarity of implying that because Eros is the gay best friend, that means he's a woman.

They literally don't read this fucking comic-

Everyone always relies on this weird talking point of Demeter not being able to "let Persephone go"... y'all, she just didn't want Persephone to outright move to Olympus, she wanted her to commute. That was it! That was literally the only problem! She wasn't preventing Persephone from pursuing a higher education or telling her she wasn't allowed to work, she literally fucking encouraged it! And with the added later context of Persephone killing a bunch of mortals - and, ironically, the fact that Persephone was assaulted/put in harm's way by TWO SEPARATE MEN in the first two days of her time in Olympus - yeah, I don't blame Demeter for not wanting her daughter to move cold turkey actually LOL

Also hilarious that they claim Rachel has turned "tradition" into "innovation" when the only thing she's managed to do is set back modern feminism in her young adult readers by 80 years and re-establish misogynist brainwashing in her adult ones. Rachel, your fanbase was literally shipping a victim of abuse with her abuser just a few days ago.

oh boy this is uh

this is some cult shit ngl

and the "rewriting the script of Greek mythology" part is VERY concerning knowing what we know about Lore Olympus and who it was written by. This is literally cultural appropriation, full stop, and it exists because Lore Olympus - and works like it, made by people like Rachel - exists.

I can't even commit to the original theory that this was written by a bot because it all feels very pointed and intenetional. This is being written by someone who, at the very least, REALLY sucks at media analysis and writing, because the entire article is just "Lore Olympus, buzzword, Lore Olympus, buzzword, buzzword, Lore Olympus", it's like a white knight incantation for guilty virtue signallers who have zero clue what they're talking about. And at worst, yes, it's appropriation from someone who doesn't mind taking a culture's stories and myths and promoting their erasure by people outside of the culture like Rachel.

And that's it, that's literally the article lmao

*EDIT: There was a section here before addressing the writer of the article from a very opinionated POV that, while isn't unusual for what I do here, did feel necessary to remove after I was contacted by the article writer who addressed the flaws in their original article and is now seeking to correct them with revisions/an article rewrite. So I felt it only fair as a compromise to at least remove that section as it really doesn't have a whole lot to do with this post as a whole and can be removed without entirely ruining the flow of this analysis. If/when that article is rewritten, I'll be revisiting this post and my overall analysis !

And honestly, it's all really telling, because this does accurately reflect the state of the LO fanbase.

Not only do many of the people who defend this comic like it's their job not pick up on the blatant misogynist tones that are going on in its narrative (I can't even call them "undertones" anymore, they're no longer that subtle) but whether or not they even read the comic at all is up for debate with how much stuff they tend to get wrong in their own arguments and justifications. And this is something that's VERY regularly seen in the fanbase discussions, readers will constantly be unaware of things that happened because they skimmed through it at lightning speed just to see if Hades and Persephone kiss and so they can get the top comment on Webtoons so they can be "ahead of the fanbase". It's no wonder that Rachel has gotten used to getting away with retconning things because her fanbase didn't even read what she established the first time.

Rachel's fanbase was literally defending the romance ship of an abuser and his victim on the newest FP episode preview. When that FP episode came out two nights ago and Hera said, point blank, that he didn't love her but abused her, I could only think of that portion of the fanbase who was very audibly simping over Kronos in the IG comment section. Are they actually having their moment of shameful clarity now? Or are they just gonna move the goalposts and pretend that didn't happen?

I don't want to say anything bad about Shelby here because she really seems like she's fighting for her life on this site that she's trying to get off the ground, but a lot of her other articles also come across as very one-note while being peppered with buzzwords that make it seem like what she's talking about is "progressive" when it really isn't. Case in point, Lessons in Chemistry has been commonly criticized for not actually appealing to the demographic that its Mary Sue-ish main character is supposed to represent - women in STEM career fields.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Lore Olympus is not 'feminism', it's white feminism that is designed to appeal to predominantly heterocis white women who think the solution to misogyny is to willingly submit to it and accept the status quo - that it's "empowering" if the woman is smiling and having all her needs paid for by a man. Sure, I can accept that different women will be looking for different relationship dynamics, some women genuinely are happy being in a relationship where they support their husbands first and foremost. But can that truly be called feminism? Or is the real feminism the choices we make along the way that we should be given the freedom to make?

It says a lot about the folks who tend to regularly prop up LO on a pedestal like this as some "revolution in feminism" despite the contrary after spending more than just 30 seconds skimming the attention-grabbing art, and Shelby is just one of many. She's not the worst of the bunch, though.

That goes to someone else who I want to give proper light to in their own essay. Someone who definitely earned a good stern talking-to this past week and has, thankfully, had consequences dished out to her for her horrible actions towards queer POC writers.

If you know, you know. If you don't, buckle up.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

book 7 part 4 thoughts!!

***THIS POST CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BOOK 7, PART 4 OF THE MAIN STORY!!***

Usually I would put this in bullet points, but I have so many thoughts that I have to format it as paragraphs. (If you’d like to watch a rough part-by-part summarized translation, please check out this archived stream!)

Please note: this is NOT meant to be a summary or a translation; these are only my initial thoughts on the events that unfold. There may be details overlooked or misunderstood in this post, so PLEASE do not use this as a translation.

LILIA'S SO DIFFERENT 🤡 His voice is deeper, and he speaks more gruffly. He definitely comes off as more combative and having disdain for humans. HE'S POPPING OFF ABOUT HOW BAD SILVER/SEBEK/GRIM ARE AT MAGIC??? Damn, what happened in the following years to make him change????

The contrast between current Lilia telling Silver "there's nothing left for me to teach you" and past Lilia being like, "there's nothing for me to teach you, are you trying to make fun of me?"

The human faction they're fighting at the moment are the Silver Owls!! There are also people who dress in iron (a metal which harms fae in irl mythology), I'm not sure if they are synonymous with the Silver Owls or not.

IHBFIOASBFIAADSI LORD, THE FAE SOLDIERS ARE ALL MIDDLE SCHOOL NEKO GIRLS HISSING AT US

AYO, SEBEK GRANDPA REVEAL????? ??? ? ? ????? BAL/BAAL/BAUL REAL, I CAN SEE WHERE SEBEK GETS HIS LOOKS AND HIS PERSONALITY FROM

Silver's asking to team up with Lilia and his group (Lilia was about to just leave them there because he's concerned with the Silver Owls setting up camp at the base of the mountain)? Bruh, book 1 we're calming down an angry classmate and book 7 is like, HEY KIDS LET'S TAKE A FIELD TRIP INTO AN ACTIVE WAR ZONE.

Silver's hoping to shock him awake via a fight, here comes a Sebek and Silver tag team battle!! RIP Lilia beats them up a little :v (Sebek. Don't fanboy over his strength, WE ARE FIGHTING FOR OUR LIVES HERE)

Oop, they disorient him with light and Lilia's mask off!! It's treated like a big reveal????? Sorry, but how does Yuu not notice this is Lilia automatically 😅

Lilia voice) you are not my son (and here you can hear Silver's heart breaking/j)

Oh boy, we get to be prisoners of war/j

NOT LILIA ASKING SILVER AND SEBEK HOW THEY KNOW HOW TO FIGHT SO WELL WHEN IT WAS LILIA WHO TRAINED THEM TO BEGIN WITH

"Fae don't go back on their word" AH SO THEY LIKE TO KEEP PROMISES EH

"May the night bless you" seems to be some kind of salute for nocturnal fae?

LOL Lilia's against being called a father OTL THE IRONY HERE IS SO STRONG

Not Sebek's grandpa telling them off for not showing Lilia respect and saying how great he is... Fanboy genes run in the family/j

DOES YUU STILL THINK THIS IS A PERIOD DRAMA OR SOMETHING

BAAL IS CALLING SEBEK A HUMAN KEK

BAL/BAAL/BAUL REAL DROPS THE CROC MASK???? ?? ?? ?? ? He's got SCALES instead of facial hair???? ???? ? ? Oh man, he reminds me so much of Seteth FE3H OTL The scales are a signature trait of the Zigvolt line! Sebek says his mom has the same scales.

NO NOT SEBEK HAVING TO CONFESS THAT HIS DAD BEING HUMAN, IS THIS THE START OF HIS CHARACTER ARC

LILIA TOLD BAAL TO BABYSIT US...

AW Sebek's so excited about seeing his grandpa in his prime... I'm happy seeing Sebek happy OTL

Lilia's dreaming about the past... I wonder if it's because he was thinking about his life and what he has achieved before leaving his loved ones with his legacy...

Lilia first got the invite to NRC 500 years ago??? So NRC has been around much longer than we expected.

Ahhhh, crap 🤡 The return of book 6 limited battles but now with a battle map. There is a new mechanic where HP carries over from each battle; if a card's HP gets knocked to 0, you cannot use them. (5 cards be restored at random if you get to a heart space on the battle map.)

SEBEK'S ACTING AS OUR OLD FAE SPEECH TRANSLATOR (He's throwing his own angry commentary in, which is hilarious)

The humans arrived on a boat ~100 years ago. Now they have a settlement in the east and are mining around Briar Valley + taking the fae's natural resources. (I think this is why Mystium, that shape-shifting magic green ore that Lilia's weapon is made of, is no longer as plentiful; it was likely mined into obscurity.)

Magical creatures are now coming down from the mountain and causing trouble in Briar villages; the fairies cannot handle all of this. Damn, this is just the plot to the first Shrek movie 😂 They're invading Shrek's swamp--

Oh, interesting! So there are different kinds of fae language (depending on the type of fae they are; think of the diurnal fae from Fairy Gala speaking in bell tinkles), but they infuse their voices with magic so they can understand one another. In modern Briar Valley, there is a common tongue. Omg, Sebek speaks it with his mom and grandma! BILINGUAL KING, HE'S SO PROUD OF HIMSELF... Silver tried to learn from Lilia, but he struggled with it; Sebek's dad had the same issue so the problem must be that human ears cannot pick up on the same range of sounds as fae ears can. This is true of real life as well; different creatures have different auditory thresholds and auditory detection ranges.

Bruh, not Lilia sending out literal children to fight for him on the battlefield...

Eh, new character named??? Some human soldiers are talking about Henrich?? Henrik??? Henric??? He's a commander of the Silver Owls who is conceited and dumps his work onto his subordinates. Errrr he apparently also has a little sister named Leia? Lea??? Leah???? Who is rumored to be in a relationship with someone called the Dawn Knight.

More interesting lore????? Kind of???? Some pixies (small fae) come and warn Lilia about something up ahead, then heal them too. This is notable since in Fairy Gala: What If, we learn that diurnal fae (which I believe pixies are) and nocturnal fae (which Lilia and Sebek appear to be) do not like each other. It seems they got along well enough in the past to confront a common enemy?

They reach a Silver Owl camp!! ... Aaand Lilia tells his soldiers to boot them out so they can take over the camp. I mean, it IS technically the fae's land to begin with, so. Uhhhh, yeah I think I'm with Lilia on this one 💦

I don't think iron affects fae negatively in Twisted Wonderland?? Lilia and co. are having no trouble fighting them even when the humans are clad in iron armor.

HMMMM they've named dropped a formidable person on the human side called the Dawn Knight (Lilia mentions them once, then the human soldiers do). The Dawn Knight is the captain of the Silver Owls and even Lilia considers them a strong opponent. Methinks they'll become a key player later...

OH NOOOO 😭 Sebek’s like, “let’s change this fate!!” but since it’s just a dream, reality won’t be altered at all… Then Sebek suggests just. Staying in the dream???? Which makes darkness spawn… The light from Silver’s ring thing (the trinket he got from Lilia as a sign that he is now a full fledged adult) protects them???

Silver fears the dream will tempt him to stay too 😭 He asks Yuu to snap him “awake” if it ever comes to that… Silver, sweet boy… OTL

NOT SILVER AND SEBEK JUMPING IN TO STOP LILIA FROM COOKING FOR THEM (Come to think of it, how have Lilia's soldiers survive this far with him cooking for them???? ?? ??? ?? ?? )

LILIA THINKING THEY'RE GOING TO POISON THEM, THAT'S SO JAMIL ENERGY

Omg... They're acknowledging their Master Chef training (this is the only time they've referenced events in the main story, if I recall correctly)... Silver even prepares a risotto for them all~ (His own favorite food is mushroom risotto, so I like to think of it as he's sharing a piece of himself with the fae.)

asldiuhaodasidba Lilia complaining about the tiny portions in fine dining...

SEBEK PREPARING A ROAST CHICKEN FOR THEM, they're going all out for this one meal??? ? ? ??? ? ?? Poor Sebek though 😭Baal refuses to eat anything Sebek made, he'd rather starve or eat rations than a human's cooking...

AW BAAL BOUGHT SEBEK BOOKS????? And encouraged his love for reading... 😭

Grim taking Baal's portion of food... (Of course... Did we really have any doubts about that?) Sebek really did get his attitude from Baal... Now Baal's going, "Gimme my food back!" after Grim started digging into it... And then Baal has three entire helpings of risotto... THEY HAVE THE SAME INTIMIDATING-YET-ALSO-PATHETIC VIBES

AYO SILHOUETTE FOR MALLEUS'S MOM????? Her name is (Princess) Mallenoa, the only daughter of Maleficia (Malleus's grandma). She lives at a separate palace and commands the military. Lilia also describes her as being extremely powerful, fickle, stubborn, selfish, and easy to anger. He's just tossing out allllllll the adjectives ahdbayodqdq

Ah, so it sounds like humans greatly outnumber the fae??? So they're at a disadvantage. Normally a royal would handle diplomatic stuff like this but for some reason Lilia is being sent? They're traveling on foot to deliver a message to the human encampment to the east; the last messenger (that travelled there via magic?) did not return. Ominous...

Fae nobility are repulsed by the smell of iron? I'm confused, are fae in TWST impacted by iron or not????

Aww, Silver... He's asking his dad to come to school not to learn, but to make special memories there 🥺 Back to "our Night Raven College"...

NOOO NOW THEY'RE FLASHING THROUGH ALL THE DORMS... while Silver and Sebek monologue about how everyone at NRC is very different, but despite how weird they all are, there is a lot that can be learned from their differences. Silver's spreading what he learned from his dad... and the fact that even Sebek pitched in... 😭

Lilia voice) let's make these high school students our pack mules and unpaid chefs and if they fuck up we leave them for dead in these woods where there are monsters lurking about

Man, he's so ruthless????? Lilia will use anyone he can to succeed in his mission... But then the next second he lays into his princess with a smile www

Lilia knew the princess since they were kids ~300 years ago, which puts the current conflict at ~400 years ago from modern day (since present Lilia is ~700 years old).

asdjbasbldbasdi Gotta love the lowkey jabs at classic fairy tales... Lilia says that human princesses may need protecting but not theirs???? (Yet Mallenoa still stays in her castle all day like she's waiting for a prince.)

THE PRINCESS HAS AN EGG... MALLEUS????? IS THAT YOU???? ???? ????? ? ?? ? ? (LOL at Sebek calling it Tamago-sama asghdyqovywqdwp9qbpacpasb) JAHAJAAH BAAL SUS OF THEM BEING INTERESTED IN THE EGG????

Oooh, so dragon eggs only hatch after receiving enough love and magic from the parents??? (Otherwise the egg will not mature and hatch.) The "power of love" is real, you guys 🥺

ANOTHER new character name drop?????? Levan/Revan??? It's a fae that went missing (probably the messenger from earlier??) I-Is that. Is that Malleus's dad???????? (Lilia says that both the princess and Levan/Revan have been pushing their tasks onto him; he has known them both for a long ass time.)

Baal voice) I still don't trust you

Fandom, back at Baal: Sorry (grand)daddy. Sorry. (Grand)daddy? Sorry. (Grand)daddy? Sorry.

Malleus is 178 years old in current day even though his egg existed 400 years ago, so it seems there was a few hundred years of delay before he actually hatched (normally the egg would hatch in 2-3 years). That means Lilia was ~522 when Malleus hatched and ~683 when he found Silver as a newborn (Malleus was ~161). Silver and Sebek think it’s weird that the timeline does not add up; it means Malleus was dormant for quite a while?? Or is the dream world wonky to accommodate for a “happy ending”? Or maybe the history they know is not correct (since earlier in book 7 Lilia mentions how true history can be distorted over time.)

Very sus, apparently there is not a lot known about Briar Valley's history??? Lilia never talked about the past around Silver, and Baal did the same with Sebek. None of the books Sebek read really goes into that history either. In current day, the palace where Malleus's mom resided isn't even there anymore, it's just land. It suddenly became a mystery...

MAN, I've been wondering this whole time why Lilia's happy ending is wartime but maybe. This is the period where Malleus's parents both died???? Maybe his happy ending is saving them??? Instead of them dying and him having to live with the guilt of not being there to protect his friends and his future prince's parents???? (I previously thought it was during war that Malleus hatched and/or Lilia found Silver, but I guess the timeline doesn't make sense there.)

According to Silver, they cannot stray too far from dreamers or else the darkness will return and try to drag them into a deeper sleep.

asdhbasdobasdbas Sebek is SUPER hype to see baby Tamago-sama Malleus...

Sebek points out that Silver is not nodding off (good catch, I actually did not notice this because I was too busy screaming about the lore); sooo when Silver is dream walking, he's consistently alert. It looks like Silver's narcolepsy is an important detail??? (Lilia took him to lots of doctors that didn't know how to help him, Silver does whatever he can to sleep well and to have a sleep schedule.)

OH MY GOD, I DIDN'T REALIZE THAT YUU AND GRIM STILL DIDN'T KNOW LILIA IS SILVER'S DAD. They thought it was a friendly nickname this entire time??? Kind of late to get to that, but alright 😅 We have acquired the Forbidden Knowledge... (SEBEK'S MOM IS WAY OLDER THAN HIS DAD BUT LOOKS WAY YOUNGER?? I mean, I kind of expected that but to have it confirmed just hits different.)

One of the soldiers tells the kids to stfu so they can sleep and so Sebek yells at everyone to stop disturbing them (you know, in his LOUD AS HECK voice).

Water in the Briar Country is cold because it is located up north (it snows a lot!). The lake water usually comes from melted snow. Checks out, I guess?

They're packing up to leave the camp... Reminds me of Mulan!

[Insert boring trek to the Silver Owls' base. Interesting tidbit: some soldiers we run into comment that Silver resembles the Dawn Knight/they didn't know the Dawn Knight had a lover?????? So... that's obviously gotta be an ancestor of Silver's, right??? Also??? The Dawn Knight apparently never removes their helmet, even around subordinates... VERY SUS, SIR

NAYUUURx NOT SeBEK CAViNG TO THE DATKNESS 😭 I feel like??? This is a really big character development moment for him?? He’s always been pretty blindly loyal to Malleus and hateful of humans, but this marks the first time he willingly does something against Malleus’s will and he calls Yuu and Grim by name… Sebek, sweetie… 😭 (Side note: Silver’s been so strong-willed through all of this, but I’m glad that TWST showed he isn’t perfect and infallible; he, too, was tempted to stay in the dream when Sebek started to consider it too.)

bchsheoxndle Something else I enjoy is Baul being so… tsun?? He complains about the kids but keeps an eye out for them anyway (and Sebek in particular)… The paternal vibes are too immaculate to completely squash 😎]

They made it!! Finally!!

UHHHHH THEY'RE FIGHTING A BIG MACHINE AND. LILIA INSTINCTIVELY BLOCKS SILVER?? (He’ll be fine, he’s in his prime 😌)

Oop, Heinrich and the Dawn Knight were supposed to be in the eastern base but they aren't??? Oh no, it looks like. It was a diversion?????? While Lilia and co. are busy at the base, Heinrich launched an attack on the palace where Malleus's mom is???????

AND OF CORUSE THAT'S WHERE WE CUT OFF?????????? BRUH.

OKAY, so this entire update was focused just on Lilia's dream. We have no clue what's happening in Idia's dream or the real world with Ortho??? Which I'm totally fine with; I feel like we learned SO much about Briar Valley's history and important figures in it. That's a very fair trade-off. I loved getting to learn about the conflict between humans and fae, fae culture, and about how Briar Valley (or Country) works. I'm surprised that the characters themselves know so little about the history, but that just makes me worried that that's because it's a dark part of history that was purposefully censored from the textbooks...

There were a lot of new characters introduced in this part, most of them just mentioned by name or silhouette. It really feels like we walked right into the most dire part of a history textbook... So much tragedy has been set up, so many key players put into place... But being that this is Lilia's promised happy ending, surely he must reverse fate and save the day in the end????? Right? Right??? ?????? ?? ??? ? ? ? ? ? ?????? I have my eyes glued to the Draconia family lore and history, I'm READY to absorb it!

Something else I found really fascinating was learning more about Sebek this update! He still has a very arrogant attitude about him (that much hasn't changed), but I loved seeing how he acts different around his grandfather and how excited he gets over little things like seeing Malleus's egg. I think this part also marks the start to his character arc; he is constantly put down time and time again by his grandpa, someone whom he really loves. Sebek is used to his grandpa accepting him for who he is, but now his grandpa is shouting hateful rhetoric and discriminating against him for being half human. It's the same ugly behavior that Sebek slings to other people, but now the shoe's on the other foot and HE'S the victim in these situations. It must no doubt be extremely uncomfortable for Sebek, but it's also forcing him into a situation where he has to look at his own bigotry head-on, and it gives him a chance to reevaluate himself. It's similar to how Vil had to challenge Epel's outdated gender views even when Epel kicked up a fuss every time Vil did. asdhbsaisdbabdil I'm just really invested in Sebek's character arc!!

I think there's a high probability we'll see all of the silhouetted figures in full in a future update, it's clear that we'll eventually be rushing back to check on Malleus's mom at some point. I'm super interested in seeing how Malleus's parents, the Dawn Knight, Lilia, Baal, and Henrik tie together. (And, of course, we NEED to check in with the Shrouds as well.)

I have heard people say that Henrik may be a reference to King Henry from the live action Maleficent? Then that means that the Dawn Knight may be TWST's equivalent to Stefan/Stephan (Aurora's dad) and Henrik/Henric's little sister is Leah/Leia (Aurora's mom)??? Then I've heard other theories that since Malleus's dad vanished, we have no corpse to confirm he is for real dead and maybe he's actually Crowley who went off to buy some milk and never came back???? (Because “Levan” sounds like “raven” and you know who else is a black bird? CROWLEY. Is he. Is he really going to be the Ultimate Absentee Dad by pulling off his mask in front of Malleus and go, “Luke, I am your father” at him????) And then there's those of us who are drooling over new character designs and screaming about how hot Sebek's grandpappy is. Point is, there are so many wild parallels, theories, ideas, and thirst posts flying around right now. I love how this wild update reinvigorated the whole fandom into a new period of theory crafting and other creative works. asdhabsdasdbasdi Every new book 7 update gets more and more hype... I just hope we get part 5 in July!!! Super intrigued by the history of the Briar Valley~

[xmoonlitxdreamx]

OW2 Junkrat & Roadhog Relationship (part 3)

Part 1: [click] Part 2: [click] Part 4: [click] Part 5: [click]

Hello!! Here's part 3 of this series where I look closely at Junkrat & Roadhog's characterization in OW2 content. This post will be looking at the 2024 short story A Friendly Rivalry. This post is really long compared to my other ones, and I apologize for that...!!!! There's just a bit more to say here since this is a short story and not just voice lines.

This short story is available to read for free here. The page numbers I’ll be referencing are from the PDF on that page. I talked a lot about this short story in these posts here and here, so some of this stuff may be the same as what I’ve said there. I may also interpret the narration to partially be from Junkrat’s point of view, so keep that in mind for when I make commentary using quotes from the narration. Anyway, enjoy (?) and thanks for reading!

A several-paragraph summary can be found at the end if you don't feel like reading all my bullet points lol

Page 1

“…Roadhog, [Junkrat’s] much larger, much more heavily shackled partner…”

The narration recognizes Roadhog as Junkrat’s partner

If the narration is biased toward Junkrat’s perspective, this also suggests Junkrat thinks of Roadhog as his partner

“Junkrat wasn’t listening. He had a strong suspicion his best mate was nervous. ‘Relax!’ he said. ‘I’ll do all the talking.’”

Junkrat thinks of Roadhog as his best mate

Junkrat tries to understand Roadhog’s emotions

Junkrat feels inclined to calm Roadhog’s nerves if he thinks Roadhog is nervous

“Roadhog said nothing. / ‘Come on,’ Junkrat said…”

The two of them have “conversations” where Roadhog says nothing and Junkrat responds as if Roadhog is participating in the conversation

This can be interpreted as:

Roadhog doesn’t want to talk to Junkrat and frequently ignores him, but Junkrat isn’t aware of this or doesn’t care and decides to carry on conversation anyway

Junkrat is particularly good at reading Roadhog to the point that he can “understand” Roadhog without him saying anything

Some mix of these two interpretations

(Junkrat speaking) “’[The queen and I] are tight as marbles! Not like you and me,’ he added hastily.”

Junkrat considers himself and Roadhog to be “tight as marbles”

This isn’t a real idiom, but it’s probably a good thing meaning “close friends”

Junkrat suspects that Roadhog would be jealous if he was closer to someone else than he is of Roadhog (hence why he quickly added “Not like you and me” to the end of his statement)

It’s unclear if Roadhog actually thinks this way, and it’s likely that this is just an imagined impression that Junkrat has of Roadhog (based on lines on the next page)

“Roadhog gumbled. Junkrat took this as a positive sign.”

Junkrat tries to interpret Roadhog’s non-verbal cues (unclear how successfully he is at this)

Page 2

(Junkrat) “’Maybe we’ll spend a few days in the clink. […] Is that what you’re worried about?’” / “Junkrat snapped his fingers. ‘You think we should escape now! You’re right.’” / (Junkrat) “’What is it, then? What are you waiting for?” / “For the first time in a long while, Junkrat was speechless. Roadhog sighed. ‘Finally.’”

Here, Junkrat cycles through a few different attempts at reading Roadhog’s silence. All of his attempts at understanding why Roadhog is quiet are incorrect, suggesting that he’s not actually good at reading Roadhog even though he acts like he understands him.

When Junkrat and Roadhog are having these sort of one-sided conversations, it’s likely that Roadhog is usually just quiet because he’s waiting for Junkrat to shut up.

Junkrat does earnestly seem worried about Roadhog here.

it also seems like Junkrat uses these “conversations” with Roadhog as a way to organize/understand his own thoughts and feelings by verbalizing them.

(Junkrat) “’Let’s do this thing!’ / Roadhog did not leap to his feet and rip the chains from the wall. Junkrat was losing patience with him.”

Junkrat commands Roadhog to do things and visualizes Roadhog following his orders when he comes up with these commands; he possibly takes it as a given that he would have some sort of authority to tell Roadhog what to do

Junkrat gets annoyed when Roadhog doesn’t go along with his plans

Roadhog doesn’t always go along with Junkrat’s plans

“Roadhog tapped [Junkrat] on the shoulder.”

This is just me being delusional but I interpret this as Roadhog sometimes using a delicate touch to get Junkrat’s attention lol

(idk I think I was just surprised it wasn’t like “Roadhog grabbed Junkrat’s shoulder and yanked him toward the blahblah” or something LMAO idk it’s kind of uncharacteristic of him so it stood out to me)

Could also be an indication that Roadhog keeps Junkrat focused/etc in situations where Junkrat gets distracted

Page 3

“This is outrageous!” gasped Junkrat. “Roadhog and I are loyal subjects.”

Junkrat sometimes speaks on behalf of Roadhog

Roadhog doesn’t stop him from doing this, so even if what Junkrat says isn’t necessarily reflective of Roadhog’s actual thoughts, it’s possible he’s fine with Junkrat speaking for him

JQ lists off a bunch of “allegations” that Junkrat and Roadhog did together (demolition of Junkertown’s main gate, blasting Outback Bill’s Premium Sausage Stand to chunks, the Biscuit incident)

The two of them cause trouble in Junkertown together, presumably for fun

Judging from the “explosive” theme of the allegations it was probably Junkrat who came up with the idea for these schemes, but the fact that they’re both being tried together by JQ suggests Roadhog also participated (probably willingly)

Kind of an aside but I sometimes see the comment that “Roadhog only hangs out with Junkrat for the money/for his treasure”; considering these schemes that they got up to don’t really seem to have a monetary goal in mind (Junkrat probably just felt like blowing stuff up), it seems more likely to me that Roadhog also just likes causing trouble (even if he doesn’t act like he’s as into it as Junkrat) and hangs out with Junkrat because he wants to be a menace too sometimes (?)

“’We—’ Junkrat paused and glanced at Roadhog, who nodded. “Right, we did do that one. Sorry, mate!”

Junkrat goes to Roadhog when he’s unsure about something (unclear if this is a faulty memory thing or not); Junkrat trusts Roadhog to be his back up on things he’s unsure about.

“…Roadhog wound his chain hook around his meaty forearm.”

If we take the narration to be somewhat from Junkrat’s perspective, Junkrat thinks of Roadhog’s forearm as meaty. (this is such a stretch LMAO whatever this is my post) (I won’t be making more comments like this unless it’s more obvious that it’s from Junkrat’s POV and not specifically the narration’s POV)

“’You die,’ Roadhog said. ‘I’m living.’”

Roadhog is not particularly tied to his partnership with Junkrat; verbally expresses that he’s more concerned with his own safety than Junkrat’s

Roadhog is blunt and snarky (?) when talking to Junkrat

Page 4

“…a huge ball-shaped mech swung into the air. Roadhog grabbed Junkrat by the bandolier and hurled him out of the way.”

Despite expressing like .02 seconds ago that he doesn’t care if Junkrat dies, he pulls Junkrat out of danger

Suggests that the things Roadhog says verbally are not necessarily indicative of his actual feelings (eg: says “whatever man you can die” but doesn’t actually want Junkrat to die); suggest his internal self is maybe not as harsh or indifferent as his external self

Roadhog is physically willing to save Junkrat from dangerous situations (even if he verbally says otherwise)

“’Keep moving, idiot,’ Roadhog said.

Another indication of Roadhog’s words being harsh (calling Junkrat an idiot) but having good underlying intentions (wants Junkrat to keep moving so he doesn’t get hurt)

“Junkrat raised a finger to retort, but Roadhog was already hurtling toward the far wall at unconscionable speed, wrapped around the bulk of the champ”

Suggests the two of them bicker so often that Junkrat instinctively wants to argue even when they’re in the middle of battle

Roadhog got hit by Wrecking Ball while Junkrat was preoccupied with arguing with him; could suggest that Junkrat is not as good at looking out for Roadhog as Roadhog is at looking out for Junkrat

Possible that Roadhog sacrificed his own focus on the battle to tell Junkrat to stay safe, and then got injured as a result; could suggest that Roadhog actually does prioritize Junkrat’s safety over his own (despite saying otherwise previously). (honestly this isn’t strongly indicated in the writing so I don’t exactly think this was necessarily the intended reading.)

“’Roadhog!’ [Junkrat] shrieked as he shot toward the ground. ‘Catch me!’ / Roadhog did not catch him. Roadhog lay at the far end of the arena, unmoving.“

It’s possible that Junkrat relies on Roadhog to get him out of sticky situations so often that he just instinctively calls out to Roadhog to help him when he’s in trouble. (It’s unclear from this line if Roadhog would have actually helped him since he’s currently passed out)

Page 5

“Junkrat and Roadhog dove apart as bullets screamed past.”

They were standing next to each other. :)

“’It’s all right, Roadhog!’ Junkrat panted, ripping another grenade off his bandolier. “All we’ve gotta do… keep our distance…”

Junkrat tries to comfort Roadhog if he thinks Roadhog is worried

This is also another instance of Junkrat using Roadhog as a way to verbalize his own personal concerns (He’s personally worried, but he instead expresses that/comforts himself by saying “It’s all right, Roadhog”)

Junkrat attempts to be the tactical authority between them (unclear if successful)

Page 6-7

“’Junkrat,’ [Roadhog] said. / ’Junkrat, you’re a genius?’ Junkrat said hopefully. / ’Knife,’ Roadhog said. / ‘Oh, what a relief. I thought you were gonna say idiot.’ / ‘Knife,’ Roadhog said, because one of the Wreckers had thrown one.”

Junkrat is worried that Roadhog was gonna be mad at him for revealing his treasure/getting the town to turn on him

Junkrat is more concerned about Roadhog’s opinion of him than the increasing danger around him (aka the knife coming toward him)

Roadhog feels inclined to warn Junkrat of danger

Roadhog uses concise language when talking to Junkrat (though tbh he just does this with everyone)

“’Mako,’ [Junker Queen] said, ‘is he lying [about his treasure]?’ / ‘Don’t know,’ Roadhog said.”

Junkrat never told Roadhog what his treasure is (it’s more or less revealed later in the story that Roadhog’s “don’t know” is truthful)

This could contribute to the notion that Roadhog just sticks around with Junkrat because he feels like it and not because he has particular investment in Junkrat’s treasure

Could be interpreted as indication that Roadhog doesn’t know now to read Junkrat (or doesn’t care to learn to read him) in that he can’t tell if Junkrat is lying or not

“’I was really looking forward to watching you die,’ [Junker Queen] said. / ‘Me too,’ Roadhog said.”

Roadhog expresses verbally that he’s tired of sticking around Junkrat and wants him dead

Contrasts with the couple times he tried to stop Junkrat from dying in the previous pages, so likely more intended as a way to express his annoyance than to be taken literally

“Firing a grapple through the crowd, Wrecking Ball surged forward. Roadhog charged after, laying about with his hook to keep the path clear. Junkrat followed…with the Queen’s knife at his back.”

Roadhog immediately starts following Wrecking Ball (aka presumably doing what Junker Queen wants him to do), suggesting he doesn’t have strong affiliations and will just go along with whatever, or that he possibly is more willing to take orders from Junker Queen than Junkrat.

For me this comes out of nowhere; JQ doesn’t even command them to start doing stuff or explain what she wants them to do other than saying “Champ! Lay out the red carpet!” (which I don’t think would be something Roadhog understands)… so for me idk if this is really indicative of anything about Roadhog so much as it is strange writing lmao;; but that’s my personal take, obv the above reading is still possible.

Being totally honest I also have no idea how to visualize the way they’re walking here. I guess they’re following like… single file? Behind Wrecking ball? Anyway.

Page 8

“’Roadhog,’ he whispered. / ‘No,’ Roadhog said. / ‘What do you mean, no?’ / ‘No more plans.’

Roadhog actually is good at reading Junkrat, as he predicts what Junkrat is going to say here. Either that or Junkrat is just predictable (in that he’s always scheming).

Junkrat tries to work together with Roadhog when things go bad for them

Roadhog is uncooperative with Junkrat and doesn’t listen to him

“Junkrat almost exploded. But he decided, rather cunningly he thought, to save his temper for later.”

Junkrat and Roadhog likely argue over things, potentially because Junkrat loses his temper easily

(Junkrat) “’Once Queenie gets the treasure, we’re expendable. Right?’ / Roadhog said nothing.”

Possible that Roadhog doesn’t respond to Junkrat when he’s annoyed with him.

(Junkrat) “’So, once we get through the door, wait for my signal. All right?’”

Junkrat again taking on a leader sort of role between the two of them and asserting a situation where he makes the decisions while Roadhog waits for commands

Unclear of what Roadhog thinks of this (the narration doesn’t comment on Roadhog much here)

Page 9

“On [Junkrat’s] left, someone was making the funny bubbling sound people made when Roadhog got angry in their vicinity.”

“funny bubbling sound” = presumably the sound of someone choking/being strangled or sth

Kind of playful language used for violence, I think this primarily signals that Junkrat thinks of violence as something fun; but since this sort of language was specifically used in reference to Roadhog causing violence, this could suggest that he’s particularly entertained when Roadhog gets into fights.

Page 10

(Junkrat) “Roadhog! Catch m—”

Junkrat tries to command Roadhog again, has a habit of relying on Roadhog

Roadhog doesn’t catch him/doesn’t listen to his orders

“’Get him up,’ said the Queen. / Roadhog lifted Junkrat into the air and dangled him there.”

Roadhog is more inclined to follow orders from Junker Queen than Junkrat

Emphasizes that he doesn’t think of Junkrat as someone with authority over him

(Junkrat) “’Roadhog! Now!’ / Roadhog stared at him blankly. / ‘I’m giving the signal!’ Junkrat added desperately. / Roadhog scratched his elbow”

Driving home that Roadhog has no interest in taking orders from Junkrat, despite Junkrat’s constant attempts at telling him what to do

“’Forget to tell him the plan, didya?’ said the Junker Queen […] / ‘I suppose I did,’ [Junkrat] said sadly.”

This is actually weird to me, there wasn’t really any indication that he had a specific plan in mind or that he forgot to say something to Roadhog; it was more like JQ interrupted them during their discussion before Junkrat told Roadhog anything.

Kind of suggests that rather than Roadhog deliberately not following Junkrat’s orders, it’s just that Junkrat forgot to tell him what to do. (I think this suggestion is strange because throughout the rest of the story we’ve been given suggestions that Roadhog dislikes taking orders from Junkrat, so that would be his main reason for not following Junkrat here)

Anyway imo this dialogue between JQ and Junkrat is more just a weird writing inconsistency than suggestive of anything between how willing Roadhog would be to take orders from Junkrat

Page 11

“Roadhog peered around them, his mask failing to hide his awe.”

Confirmation that Roadhog didn’t know what Junkrat’s treasure was (either never asked him or Junkrat never told him)

Summary (?):

1) Junkrat thinks of Roadhog as his partner in crime and his friend. He tries to read Roadhog's non-verbal cues and worries about Roadhog if he believes Roadhog is worried. However, he's not actually skilled at reading Roadhog's emotions or understanding Roadhog's intentions. He believes that Roadhog considers him a friend and that Roadhog would be jealous if he was closer to someone else. It's unlikely that Roadhog actually thinks this way. That said, Junkrat sometimes speaks on behalf of Roadhog in conversations with other people; Roadhog doesn't stop him from doing this. Roadhog also seems to have some skill in understanding Junkrat's intentions and emotions, suggesting he does pay attention to Junkrat to some degree.

2) The two of them have one-sided conversations frequently, where Junkrat talks to Roadhog and Roadhog says nothing in response. It's likely that Junkrat uses these "conversations" with Roadhog primarily as a means to verbalize his own thoughts and come up with solutions to problems he's personally experiencing. Roadhog is usually silent during these conversations because he thinks Junkrat is being noisy/annoying and he's waiting for Junkrat to shut up.

3) Junkrat tries to act as the leader between the two of them and frequently commands Roadhog to do things. His commands are primarily directed at Roadhog with the intent to save him from sticky situations. This could suggest that he either trusts Roadhog's abilities, that he likes having authority over someone, or that he relies on Roadhog to be responsible while he behaves recklessly. Roadhog is never shown to follow Junkrat's orders in this short story, and is instead shown to follow Junker Queen's orders. This suggests that Roadhog doesn't think of Junkrat as an authority figure over him, but he is willing to take orders from people he actually respects. Junkrat gets annoyed by Roadhog's "insubordination," but he continues to command Roadhog to do things regardless of whether Roadhog ever follows through.

4) Roadhog is shown to be gentle (?) with Junkrat in one instance. This is also an instance where he was redirecting Junkrat's attention away from distractions, so it may be the case that Roadhog sometimes takes on the responsibility of keeping Junkrat focused in situations where he's not paying attention. Junkrat has also been shown to look to Roadhog for confirmation when he's unsure of something (memory, etc).

5) Junkrat and Roadhog have caused a lot of trouble together in Junkertown (New Junk City? idk) in the form of blowing things up. These schemes are likely orchestrated by Junkrat, though Roadhog is indicated to have participated as well. It is possible to interpret from this that Junkrat's treasure is not the only motivator for why Roadhog hangs out with Junkrat (as these schemes did not involve money or treasure), and that Roadhog hangs out with Junkrat because he likes to cause trouble with Junkrat for fun. It is also revealed that Roadhog doesn't know what Junkrat's treasure is, meaning he either never asked Junkrat or Junkrat never told him. This could further support the notion that Roadhog is more motivated to hang out with Junkrat to cause mayhem than to take his treasure.

6) Roadhog is shown on multiple instances to speak harshly toward Junkrat, and also expresses verbally that he doesn't care if Junkrat dies. This is contrasted with his actions, where he saves Junkrat from getting hit by Wrecking Ball and tries to warn Junkrat of oncoming danger. This suggests that Roadhog's external demeanor and words are not always indicative of his internal feelings, and that he doesn't earnestly want Junkrat to get hurt or die. He is also somewhat suggested to put himself in danger for Junkrat's sake and prioritize Junkrat's safety over his own. Junkrat is not shown to be good at looking out for Roadhog, and sometimes prioritizes bickering with Roadhog over both his and Roadhog's safety.

7) Despite his posturing, Junkrat is shown to care about what Roadhog thinks of him, and he doesn't want Roadhog to think of him as an idiot when his plans go awry. He at times may care more about Roadhog’s opinion of him than of any danger that may be happening around him. He is also shown to find it entertaining when Roadhog commits acts of violence as his ally.

---

ANYWAY!!!!!! thanks for reading if you did lol I know it's like way too long... I'll prob do one more post after this, looking at things like their character profiles on the OW2 website, promos from twitter/etc, details in ow2 skins, and event-specific voice lines. If anyone has any leads (?) or points that they want me to include or talk about, feel free to message me or send me an ask! I'm just going off of stuff that I'm aware of, so I'm sure I'll miss some stuff haha;;

Thanks again for reading!

Part 1: [click] Part 2: [click] Part 4: [click] Part 5: [click]

[frodo-with-glasses]

More Reading Thoughts: A Long-Expected Party

There’s something so incredibly endearing about the slow, meandering beginning of LotR.

Even today—in a day and age when every author tries to grab you by the eyeballs in the first five words—Tolkien’s writing still has that gentle, irresistible draw that takes you by the hand and leads you slowly but surely into adventure. Something about a “birthday party of special magnificence” just appeals to all our inner children, I think; and the tiny mysteries, and the joy of a world of fantastical creatures living in peace and comfort, just adds to that. You want to go to Middle Earth, and you want to get lost in it. It’s like a lazy river at a water park; you wade in, get settled, and relax, and the next thing you know you’re far away from where you started.

All of that to say, Tolkien’s writing is goals and I aspire to be even a fraction of what this man was someday.

Anyway. To the bullet points!

Isn’t it hilarious how quick people are to begrudge one another their good fortune?? If Bilbo had been poor and died in a timely manner his neighbors would probably have liked him just fine, but he gets a lot of wealth and lives a long time and all the hobbits go >:-(

They’re not wrong to be suspicious, of course, but it’s still a biting social commentary. And very funny!

“As Mr. Baggins was generous with his money, most people were willing to forgive him his oddities and his good fortune.” 🤣

“You should come live with me so we can celebrate our birthday parties more comfortably together” belongs in the same category as C. S. Lewis’ “and they got so used to arguing that they married each other to keep doing it more conveniently”

“And suddenly, all the old people found that everyone actually WANTED to hear their rambling stories!”

GAFFER GAMGEE MY BELOVED

Hobbits are all so terribly prejudiced. What endearing morons.

Ooh, confirmation that Bilbo and Frodo look similar!

“There never was much to tell of him! … Till he was drownded.” “DROWNDED??”

I love that the only things we know about Drogo Baggins are that he was unremarkable and fat and married a strange woman

The Gaffer: “Thank goodness Mr. Bilbo saved young Mr. Frodo from those strange, dastardly Bucklanders…”

Meanwhile, Merry feels his eye Twitch and doesn’t know why 🤣

The spelling of jewels as “jools” is adorable for reasons I can’t describe

Tiny Gaffer Gamgee saw Bilbo come home from his Adventure!!

The Gaffer’s words are strangely prophetic. Sam did indeed land in trouble that was bigger than him—and thank goodness he did.

The Gaffer basically says here “if generosity is being strange, we could do with a lot more strangeness!” and honestly that’s a motto I want to live by

I love that Sam is most likely the one who started the rumor about the fireworks X-D

I wish we’d gotten to see the Dwarves visiting Bag End in the movies. It’s a shame they were cut. Imagine what cool costumes they could have had!

“G for grand!” and Gandalf’s smile. Ugh, my heart 🥹

Pity that September 22nd fell on a Friday this year. We were so close to it being a Thursday, like in the book! Oh well. Try again another year, I guess X-D

Are small business owners grumbling about your purchases from foreign parts?? Here’s an easy solution! Just BUY OUT THE STOCK OF EVERYONE FOR MILES AROUND IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS

Also the fact that the post offices are absolutely flooded 🤣 Bilbo, you madlad

“Old Gaffer Gamgee stopped even pretending to work on his garden” LOL

The brief paragraph of NOOO BAD WEATHER THE DAY BEFORE THE PARTY is honestly spectacular. It’s so nerve-wracking for just a second there—which is hilarious in light of the war and death and GIANT SPIDERS we’re going to read about. I think it has a flavor of Tolkien’s beliefs on eucatastrophe hidden in there—it’s not out of Bilbo’s own effort that the weather cleared up just in time for his party, it was just happy providence—but I’m too tired to write an essay about it right now.

“Half the Shire’s been invited…and the rest of them are turning up anyway!”

The hobbits who came through the gate again to get a second present 🤣🤣🤣

“The hobbit-children were so excited that for a while they almost forgot about eating.” That’s impressive!!

I love that some of the toys are dwarven-made. That’s such a cool detail that makes the world seem both fantastical (because dwarves!) and real (because you can Amazon order toys from them!) at the same time.

The names of the fireworks!! Especially the ones that are onomatopoeia, like “backarappers”! It just makes brain go ✨✨✨

Pfffft, yellow rain

There’s the express train reference!

Notable difference here: in the movies, the big dragon firework was set off ahead of schedule by Merry and Pippin, and all the hobbits freak out. In the book, the big dragon firework is set off right on time to signal supper, and all the hobbits freak out (but are immediately pacified by food).

Small detail I’d like to see in more fanfics: “Bilbo had been specializing in food for many years, and his table had a high reputation.” Yes, the idea of Bilbo and Frodo eating like the bachelors they are is hilarious, BUT! We have textual evidence to the contrary! I don’t know if this line means that Bilbo was a magnificent cook himself or simply hired magnificent cooks, but either way, it’s canon that the Bag End bachelors ate like kings!

“The feast was so incredible that everyone was incredibly full and took home leftovers and no one bought any new groceries for weeks. The good news is that Bilbo had bought out all the grocery stores anyway, so it was fine.”

Why is the detail about the golden buttons on Bilbo’s waistcoat so enchanting to me?? I really think this chapter just activates the Inner Child Mode in my brain, and suddenly even something as simple as shiny buttons becomes beautiful and magical. Also it’s just a lovely way to paint a vivid picture in my mind.

I’m so glad they kept so many of the jokes in Bilbo’s speech for the movies 🤣 “PROUDFEET!!”

And now here we see Tolkien, author of the fantasy epic that has defined the genre for a century and counting, unironically using caps lock. Folks, you can’t make this crap up.

The sneaky way Tolkien says Bilbo vanished before he mentions the flash of light is Very Good and hints at the fact that there’s something else at work here

Rory Brandybuck is the G.O.A.T.

“But at the same time he felt deeply troubled: he realized suddenly that he loved the old hobbit dearly.” Aww, Frodo…

Incredible that the debate between Bilbo and Gandalf over the Ring takes up almost four pages, but it doesn’t feel like it. Excellent suspense.

I wonder where Gandalf is going “to bed”. It doesn’t look like he’s staying in Bag End, so did he get a room at an inn somewhere? Is he sleeping in his cart??

Also it’s implied later in the book that Gandalf the White doesn’t sleep. Inconsistency?? A slight untruth?? Secret powerup to Gandalf the White that we’ve overlooked??

“The sun rose. The hobbits rose rather later.” Pffft

The SHADE in all the presents oh my WORD

Except for the ones for the poorer hobbits. Bilbo’s gift for the Gaffer is so simple in its contents, and yet so generous and thoughtful 🥹

MERRY MY LAD

MY FAVORITE HOBBIT (don’t tell the others)

How old would Merry have been here?? Like nineteen?? Incredible that he was already such a logistics guy that Frodo trusted him to keep an eye on the house while all the chaos is happening.

“Do you hear that, Merry? That was an insult, if you like.” “It was a compliment, and so, of course, not true.” HAHAHAHA DRAG HIM MERRY

“IF YOU DON’T LET ME IN, FRODO, I SHALL BLOW YOUR DOOR RIGHT DOWN YOUR HOLE AND OUT THROUGH THE HILL” 🤣🤣🤣

Frodo: “I’m so sorry, I thought you were Lobelia!” Gandalf: “Understandable, have a nice day”

“I would give them Bag End and everything else, if I could get Bilbo back and go off tramping in the country with him.” N’aww, Frodoooo 😭

“Look out for me, especially at unlikely times!” Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.…

“Frodo did not see him again for a long time.” Ooh, ominous.

[yakkety-yak-art]

Some sketches for my half thought out takes on the Moon Knight system because I’m obsessed w Egyptology and also Moon Knight sooo. The info in the images are just bullet points for me to remember but I have Many Thoughts mostly related to Khonsu and his aspects (I use Khonsu to refer to the deity, and Khonshu to refer to the character) and how they relate to the system. Ramble paragraph below about appearances and Khonsu stuff lol.

it’s hard to tell because they’re sketches and I’m bad at making faces look the same, but Jake and Marc look more similar on purpose. I wanted to find a bit of a middle ground between all of the system having their “internal appearance” match the body like in the show and comics, and each of them looking completely different, as from what I understand that can vary from system to system. So Steven and Aviva are completely different in appearance, but if you were somehow able to show Jake and Marc’s appearances to someone they would assume the two are related somehow. Steven’s appearance is based off of his/Marc/Jake’s appearance in the comics, and Aviva looks essentially like her comic appearance, where she is unnamed and only referred to as “Inner Child”. She has red hair. Part of the reason I wanted to have varying appearance was also for Khonsu related reasons; I wanted to have a young alter, two middle ones, and an older one to help represent Khonsu’s changing age. He was often portrayed as a youth, or portrayed as aging throughout the year to his death and being born at the start of the new year. Steven isn’t much younger than Marc and Jake isn’t much older than Marc, but I wanted to try and make it clear that there’s a spectrum of ages in the system to reference Khonsu’s associations with time. Also, Khonsu in general has way more associations with children, birth, fertility, etc than is usually explored in Moon Knight media (usually he’s shown as having a soft spot/being particularly concerned with the safety of kids and young adults, which is good and in theme) and I wanted to have that be more present since the comics do already draw parallels between Khonshu’s (the character) aspects and the system. So here all of Khonsu’s aspects are represented by one or more of the system members, with Khonshu himself representing older portrayals/aspects of Khonsu as violent and more malevolent

Also to clarify about appearances: to outside observers, they all look the same as they are all parts of one mind in one body. (I don’t have DID, but I did seek out and read perspectives written by systems as well as general info about it, because just knowing the technical symptoms cannot inform you of the spectrum of real experiences with DID; I’m not an expert obviously and these people’s experiences are only representative of specific points on a spectrum, but I do wanna be respectful towards people with DID and so my wording here is based on my understanding of their own perspectives and preferred terms while also keeping in mind the deliberate parallels to Khonsu’s mythology that’s baked into Moon Knight. If anything in this post is worded poorly or offensively, please let me know and I will be happy to change it.)

[neonfretra]

oughhhh oumblr post machine broke... i have made a post so long and dense that i can no longer even BREATHE her way without getting errors for inability to process post... i can edit other posts fine. i can post posts fine. i asked someone else, different account and device, to try it and its BROKEEEEE. epic highs and lows of text transcriptions of a 15 slide long portion of an essay <3 BTW the full slideshow is 52 mb . of 8 slideshows total. my madness <3

villain monologue below the cut <3

if you ever want to HATE a text editor try managing, editing, writing long form text in it <3 never a more infuriating experience in my LIFE i SWEAR!

a minor infatuation of mine is how tumblr rich text editor will handle different elements (ex. paragraph/regular, header 1, bulleted lists) where if you switch between them in a post frequently you might notice it is incredibly weird (compared to other rich text editors i use)!

when you create a new text block (excluding regular text) and then hit enter, it creates another line of text in the style of the previous text block (excluding headers). but when you hit backspace, instead of reverting to regular text, it deletes the entire line of text. if you want to revert to regular text you actually need to hit enter AGAIN. which i mean is fine but my muscle memory has ISSUE with it LOL

not to mention the fact that you cant layer multiple elements (ex. you cant have a bulleted list embedded into indented text). exception of fonts maybe, i dont use fonts at all, i have them disabled, i cant read them LMAO. i have not used ummm quotes as well

AND it breaks copy+pasting. tumblr disagrees with copy+pasting any text in any formatting besides regular LOL. if you use lists or indented text, you cannot paste anything from the block ANYWHERE within the post. you also cant drag and drop text on desktop and i dont like doing posts on mobile devices so yall on your own in that world. (did yall know the google applications i use dont let you right click -> copy/cut/paste? i dont. i dont know what they broke but they broke it)

AND this isnt even mentioning the fact that sometimes the tumblr text post editor just. lies. LOL? call her HTML the way white space (ex. spaces, blank paragraphs) does NOT matter. i put spaces between bullet points and they are gone. there are inconsistent spacings between text blocks because i copy+paste them and use the different text elements . and then they are gone. i somehow have indented bullet lists??? that i cannot recreate??? and also dont even show up in the public facing post???

AND this is also not even mentionin the fact that its very prone to breaking. like i cannot type into certain lines of text under fairly recreatable situations (IIRC, indented text block, press enter at the start of the text block to make a new block above the existing one, type a character and then delete it to make the new block blank. cant type into it again unless i click off and on again!) or the fact that i straight up cannot edit a post anymore. or the fact that its really common for me to run into errors where it refuses to save at all? or maybe im just stress testin it, im not actually sure how much im puttin into this poor thing? TBF this isnt a 30 image long monstrosity THIS time (which is the image limit on desktop, its 10 on mobile) so it breaks a lot less ^_^ for a copy and paste project. we living it up scrapbook style.

maybe neonfretra is hollerin about nothin. that post is absolutely broke as hell though. ^o^

[midnight-mourning]

Good morning, mourning! is it possible for you to show us how you make an outline for writing a chapter sometime in the future? like what does your first rough rough draft look like?🤔

also whats your favorite vine/meme at the moment?🫣

Hi pip!!

I can actually show you RIGHT NOW as I keep all my outlines (for the most part) saved in their respective chapters

*added a read more post-answering bc this got LONG lol*

So, it's sometimes a bit dependent on the fic, what I'm writing at the time, and where I'm at in the process. I usually have two different methods I stick to and typically combine in some manner:

bulleted list of important scenes/ideas to expand out upon from there (typically how I start out ideas for oneshots)

big blurb paragraph of a flow of ideas from start to finish (typically how I start out chapter-based fics, and what I do for Confused Spirit)

From there, I'll then combine the two methods in some way if it's a oneshot, and if I'm struggling to get the words flowing for a chapter-based fic, I'll use the list to expand out upon things I wrote originally. For example, this was ch. 34's outline (spoilers for those who haven't read it yet):

and then the list I added once I got started properly, which I crosssed out as I went along. Fun fact, you can see where I hit a moment of greatness in that last bullet and the chapter came together as a whole from there:

the blacked out is things I've pushed back for later (or just general spoiler stuff), so you can see that inital plans and even those I make WHILE writing the chapter are still subject to change as I go into actually writing it. Another good example would be from ch. 32:

in this case, I went back and added to the original outline (I think you can tell where lmao) and didn't utilize a list

I'd love to find chekov's gun, bc that one was REALLY good if I'm remembering correctly but I think it's buried somewhere in the Dialogue Dump unfortunately 😔

Adding on to that, I write a lot of scene ideas/mainly dialogue for things that happen in the future as the ideas don't typically come to me in chronological order. the party from 33? like a month into writing the story. the team meeting Michael? mid-arc 2. Chekov's gun? the start to midway point in the first couple days of writing and then basically finished within by the middle of august (started in July for those that don't know)

My point being that there's a lot of things that I have saved for certain arcs/plot points that I then insert into their proper place in the story once I find where that is. For arc 3 in particular I took the approach of gathering all the dialogue i KNOW was going to be in the arc, wrote my lil blurbs for all the chapters, and then started placing them accordingly. stuff has (and probably will continue to) gotten shuffled around, but for the most part has stayed in their original places.

a rough rough draft beyond that is basically adding to those base scene ideas (sometimes in order, sometimes not) typically writing dialogue and then filling in the blanks from there! sometimes if I'm lucky I can write a chapter from (mostly) start to finish in a span of four hours or so but that's only when i'm REALLY cookin'

Sorry for the super long winded response, didn't realize how much I wrote until I did it 😅

TL;DR, blurb of ideas, organize those ideas/add to them or adjust, full send it from there (with the potential help of some dialogue along the way)

As for my fav vine/meme currently? Probably the lump fish guy, everytime someone says 'very mindful, very demure' (I am not on tiktok so I do NOT understand this one) I instantly think 'very beautiful, very powerful'

thanks so much for the lovely ask!!! <3 <3 <3

[vixendoesstuff]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

ALRIGHT, SO-

World Tour, where (please excuse my language) shit hits the fan, for real. My notes on this saga is hectic and convoluted, so I'll try to make some sense of it for this post. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the askbox or my DM's, whichever you prefer.

I wanted to do bullet points for this, but maybe most Tumblr users prefer to read long paragraphs than bullet points, since my posts not having bullet points do better? IDK, I've only been on Tumblr for like, a year at best so forgive this soul for her cluelessness lol.

And also, depending on how much I've typed, I might have to split this saga into three parts, 'cause I know y'all don't actually want to read a really long post that took up three scrolls wide lol.

Anyway--let's start this crazy train.

So, the story begins the same way as it is in the movie--opening shot with Cloud Guy giving a quick recap about the first movie, and then the next shot panning towards the Techno Trolls (ay, Branch's tribe, let's go!). Unfortunately, the amount of screentime (or appearance in this case) they got here minimal, since we're focusing on Branch and co.

But anyway, same thing happened, King Trollex hosting the rave, Barb barges in demanding his string and destroyed Techno Reef to get him to comply, same old. Poor guy, honestly, he just wanted to vibe.

Next shot pans to Pop Village, same thing there. Everyone is smiling and singing and dancing (with Techno!Branch joining in, look at that! Since he can't extend his hair like everyone else, he relies on acrobatics and just generally hang onto someone ((mostly Poppy)) whenever they swing on the trees with their hair). Branch tries to confess his love to Poppy, but got friendzoned unintentionally by her (ouch). Then Barb's bat pet thing comes in, and King Peppy's history lesson.

They're not the only ones here in this world. There are other trolls out there; Pop, Hard Rock, Classical, Country, Funk, and Techno.

This is where it gets interesting. At this point in time, Branch has all but accepted that he's possibly the only Troll in the village that looks the way he does. That he's the only one that ever existed in the world. It's why he and Cooper has a sort of closer bond with eachother in this AU : different Troll (tribe, but not that they knew this yet) solidarity. Sure, he was curious once, like how come is egg was in the Troll Tree, why does he look different, ect. But now he's more than content with his current predicament. He has friends now, something to look foward to; he was happy, after so long.

But now with the news that there are other Trolls out there, different from the rest, his past yearning came back to life. And while King Peppy hadn't said it outright, his lack of words all but confirmed Branch's suspicions. That he's not the only one out there. And from what he saw in the scrapbook, he can pinpoint which one of the tribes he supposedly belongs to; Techno.

Then we cut to when Poppy packs up to leave and got caught by Branch. The same argument happens, with the addition of Poppy saying that because there are different Trolls out there, then shouldn't Branch be curious about them? Who knows, maybe there's a tribe that looks exactly like him! Branch refuted by saying that, even if there was a tribe just for him, how would he connect to them? He's been living as a "Pop Troll" his whole life, what connection can he form with these hypothetical Trolls (identity issues go brrr)? What if they found out that he's gone Grey for almost all his life? If the Pop Trolls, who has known him since he was born, didn't react well to his whole Grey-ness; what are the chances his own kind would react badly to the news? Or worse, reject him outright.

Before he could go on, boom! Cooper appears from the shadows and said something like, "That's not how you really think, ain't it Branch?". They were surprised he's there, and then they exchange some more dialouge sort of expressing Branch's concern about not fitting in with his hypothetical tribe out there, and shed some light on Coopers concern as well about wanting to find you who you really, and even if you don't fit in atleast you know the truth now, that sort of stuff. IDK, I'm not great at writing angst, lol.

Anyway, after some convincing from Poppy, Branch relented and decides to accompany her (even if he denies it, he wants to know if his people is out there). Cooper also wants to come along, and while Branch refuses for his own safety, Poppy allows it in the condition that he sticks with them at all times. So, the three sets of to explore the entire Troll Kingdom, to "reunite" all the tribes and make one big party at Queen Barb's World Tour.

Little did they know just what kinds of trouble they'll encounter on their journey.

Woah, plot twist, Cooper actually comes along instead of going on a solo journey this time around! He replaces Biggie in this! What a shocker! Shocked emoji!

Admitedly, while it's funny the first time, Cooper's solo adventure is... I don't wanna be too rude about it, but it's sort of unnecessary in the big run? I mean, not entirely unnecessary, but like, if you remove that and just have him go along with Poppy and co., nothing major would change. He'd still be reunited with his family in Vibe City, except this time he'll have a first time reaction to the history of the Strings and see the truth of it, y'know what I mean?

But anyway, Poppy, Branch and Cooper's gonna explore the world of other genres. I don't think much will change with his inclusion, but the reactions will be far more varied, me thinks. Stay tuned for the next part, 'cause wow did not expect this part of the series to be so convoluted lol.

Also I had wanted to include some scene redraws from the movie with new implemented elements for this AU, but artblock is gripping me tight and college is starting soon, so I won't have much time to draw than I do write. So, yeah, hope y'all don't mind lol. I'll definitely do some artwork for this AU in the future though, believe it!

Until next time!

[corvus-ace]

Okumura Haru, aka Noir: an analysis

so, my friend Keeper wanted me to help them get a sense of Haru's character because they missed her introduction and a fair amount of her confidant, and the result was this analysis. fast forward like a month and I realized "hey, this would be fun to post online actually" and here I am lol. fair warning, it's long and also in bullet point paragraphs cause I was trying to write quickly at the time and have since fleshed a few of them out a bit more (I have a lot of feelings about Haru lmao)

without further ado, here we go!

Haru's past

-first and foremost, Haru is the heir to a fuck off huge corporation. her father basically owns the equivalent of mcdonalds. though she doesn't always act like it, she is fundamentally a rich kid

-now in my original analysis, it had been a while since I'd actually gone through Haru's confidant, and I had mistakenly believed that Haru had at least to some extent been raised to take over the business. pretty sure I thought that cause I can't tell the difference between actual canon and stuff I've read in fics lol. but after playing through her confidant again and realizing she actually had zero business experience whatsoever actually makes her even more impressive in my eyes, because she more or less had to teach herself how to run an entire corporation, and by the end of her confidant she has a pretty solid handle on things already (doubly impressive because her confidant starts so late game, so depending on how fast you play through it... she's learning all this in like, two months max if you're getting through it before 3rd sem)

-in addition to that: rather than her father retiring and placing her in charge, she is literally thrust into it by her father's death. so she's learning all this business management, getting used to phantom thievery, and grieving her father all at the same time???? I could never

-presumably Haru inherited everything after her father's death, putting her in full control of his wealth? (I don't really know how businesses and shareholders work.) Haru's mother doesn't appear to have been in the picture, although to be fair that could mean she's either dead, has left, or is just never shown on-screen. I don't remember any distinct mentions of her

-her father's view of her: the conspiracy has obviously been in action for at least around two years (based on the timeline of the mental shutdowns and psychotic breaks inflicted by Akechi after he joined the conspiracy). Okumura Kunikazu's view of his daughter would presumably have become distorted during this time; obviously we don't necessarily know the timeline of any Palace formations except Futaba's and Sae's, since one was shown on-screen and the other discussed more than once. by the time we begin Okumura's Palace, he views Haru as nothing more than a tool for him to use in his financial and political ambitions ("subservient puppet" and her cognitive form's appearance as an obedient and extremely weak robot). he also is ignorant of her wants and needs, evident by him arranging to marry her off to Sugimura for his own political gain

-now, because Okumura becomes so distant from Haru as his Palace develops, whether intentionally or not, Haru is kept fairly far away from her father's unethical business practices. obviously she has her own suspicions as indicated in game, but seeing as her father doesn't really tell her anything, she presumably still had at least a decent opinion of him up until his Palace

Haru's character/personality

-Haru is very kind by nature. her childhood initially encouraged this (the cafe her grandfather used to run) but because of her father's distortion and changed parenting style she has mostly retreated into becoming a "seen but not heard" people pleaser. this results in a very reserved persona, but she isn't exactly shy - she is willing to reach out to help people, is generally friendly when approached (if you go up to her in the Shujin hallways before you even start the Palace, she's very polite, even if not explicitly cheerful), and as proved not long after we formally meet her:

-if a core belief of hers is challenged, she will stand up for it. one of our first interactions with her in game, she isn't afraid to tell us that after listening to our flimsy explanation of our motives as the Thieves, she cannot work with us. she calls us out immediately on not helping our own teammate, and tells us she cannot work with people who aren't certain of their motives/goals (I don't remember her exact wording but I remember it was definitely something along those lines). in short, she cannot trust us to truly want to help her father

-first proper meeting: other than the seconds immediately after her entrance alongside Morgana in her father's palace, she is very flustered and constantly getting things confused. based on my understanding of her as a person, I believe this is because although she already considers Morgana a friend, he's clearly established a role for her to play as well (replacing the Phantom Thieves with her, taking the spotlight for future changes of heart, etc) and she knows, deep down, that she is still being used, even if Morgana does have good intentions and wants to teach her to help people. deep down she knows this isn't the real her either. her full Persona awakening showcases this pretty clearly with all the fucking guns and rocket launchers hidden in Milady's skirt that are finally revealed (aka Haru's full, true strength simmering for a long time, hidden beneath the surface, because who in her life would have ever wanted her to be anything but obedient and weak?)

-she's also the one to push Morgana to be honest both with himself and the other Thieves, to admit he doesn't really want to leave and that he feels like this is the only place he belongs. she's struggled with being honest with herself in the past, accepting her true self and especially displaying it, and the Thieves helped her finally do that; given her kind nature I'm not surprised she wanted to be able to return the favor

-as we get to know her, we learn Haru is still very naturally kind and genuinely friendly. the thing is, she doesn't have a lot of friends. we don't see her interact with anyone (other than her father and fiance) beyond basic pleasantries until her formal introduction, including at Shujin. I'm fairly reasonably certain this is because almost everyone she's ever met has only seen her as "Okumura's daughter" rather than just Haru, her own person

Noir

-Haru is one of the strongest physical damage dealers, alongside Ryuji and Yusuke (both in terms of normal melee attacks and her powerful gun-type skills). she's also the only Thief other than Akechi who has gun-type skills on her Persona - and it's important to note that Akechi can only use gun-type skills in the third semester, with Loki and eventually Hereward, so Haru having gun-type skills significantly earlier in game than Akechi (especially with high crit chances) is quite useful. also her weapons are a grenade launcher and a large battle axe so that says a lot about her

-her Persona uses psy magic and ailment skills in addition to the gun-type skills. psy is particularly important since it triggers many kinds of technical hits, extra useful if you have a wide variety of ailments you can inflict via Joker's Personas. this also makes sense given the identity of her first tier Persona, Milady de Winter, the uncommonly beautiful and extraordinarily cunning female spy featured in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. Milady is also described as ruthless, which I feel is a good representation of how Haru acts as a Phantom Thief. now in addition to the other skills, she does have the ability to cure certain ailments and also recover more quickly from ailments, and can use heat riser to give significant buffs to a party member and makarakarn/tetrakarn to protect a party member from a magic or physical attack respectively. obviously the specific skills she has available to her depends on how you choose to build her in game (I personally tend to lean towards emphasizing her gun-type and support skills over her ailment usage/curing, since I have no shortage of ailments in Joker's Persona stock and prefer to use Haru as a damage dealer, but that's not really relevant lmao)

-also, Haru is a sadist who loves killing/destroying Shadows. probably all that repressed anger and unresolved trauma. as rich as her father is, I seriously doubt he paid for a therapist for her. rich and emotionally distant fathers are just like that

The Empress

-I have some issues with her confidant that I think are about to become very evident

-Haru is the Empress Arcana (number III) and it shows. she is a girl in a position of power (head of a corporation) and as mentioned before, she is very kind by nature, and quite nurturing as shown by her love and skill for taking care of plants. the people in charge of assigning cards did a particularly good job with her

-her confidant is less based on personal relationships like Ryuji's or Makoto's; instead it focuses on professional development and relationships with subordinates and corporate associates and shareholders. she spends a lot of time throughout her confidant events figuring out who to trust and how to shift Okumura Foods into something she can truly be proud of, with a strong focus on undoing all the unethical practices her father put in place. though she of course wasn't expecting to be put in charge so soon, she does a very good job managing the sudden responsibilities. we also have no reason to believe her grades were slipping during this time, so she appears to be able to manage her schoolwork (from a prestigious high school, no less) right alongside her new responsibilities

Miscellaneous

-Haru has no qualms about spending large amounts of money on her friends - we literally went to the equivalent of fucking disneyland after her father's Palace and she thought it was no big deal, although to be fair to her, that was technically a special situation as the park had already been rented out by her father for a company event that ended up being cancelled due to his change of heart, so she really just took over the reservation. it's worth noting that this point is heavily represented in fanfics (based on what I've seen across ao3), as fanon Haru is, for example, often willing to give Yusuke in particular plenty of money for food, train fares, etc. I have seen at least two fics (though I don't remember the authors or the titles) where she happily spends lots of money on the other Thieves

-out of the Thieves, Haru is one of the most vocal about her hatred and mistrust of the police. this is very, very evident in Strikers, and remains consistent throughout that story (and, side note, it's fucking hilarious seeing how offput Zenkichi is about it every single time)

-she also later embraces her brief stint as the "Beauty Thief" and it's something of an inside joke amongst the Thieves (not sure that's the right term but idk how else to describe it). there aren't any hard feelings; the Thieves are already pretty chill about it the moment she joins the group anyways. the other Thieves affectionately call her the Beauty Thief in Strikers, particularly Futaba and Morgana, and Haru is happy to really lean into it sometimes (Zenkichi does not understand this either and I think she enjoys that)

Final notes - based on my impressions of her; not really analysis

-Haru is one of the most willing to fight god, and one of the most likely to win

-mixture of cottagecore lesbian and warrior princess

-her association with purple is partially rooted in her psy abilities, of course, but it's also a color associated with royalty and elegance, particularly fitting for the Empress Arcana

-Haru is not allowed to drive and should never be allowed behind a steering wheel (Keeper, if you're reading this, you'll understand this much later)

-kinda already mentioned this but she's very good at gardening (can grow hp and sp restoratives for the Metaverse)

-she took ballet for years and was good at it, which makes sense since she's quite flexible, as well as having natural grace

Conclusion

well, if you made it this far, I hope you liked this self-indulgent analysis! I relate to Haru a lot, so I like to think I have a good sense of her, and hopefully I've done a good job of representing her in this post. there are a few other Thieves I have enough thoughts on to write analyses similar to this one, so I'll probably be making those pretty soon. and again, although this is very personally motivated, I do still hope someone out there will like reading them!

(and Keeper - I know you already read the first version of this and still wanted to read this version too, so a big thanks for enabling my brainrot lmao)

[morning-sun-brah]

Do you have any tips for writing stories? I wanna write a fanfic and I know what it’s about too, but I have no idea what to do.

I'm so so sorry that it's taken me so long to respond to this! I'm either on here once a day, or I'm gone for a month, and there is no in-between. 😭😅

As for writing tips! I have some of the lamest advice and I apologize in advance lol.

Firstly, and I know this is so generic so forgive me, just write! I know there can be a lot of pressure trying to figure out how to begin a story, but I just open a doc and start typing. I'll make a little outline (nothing crazy, just bullet points in chronological order- but I know ppl who keep spreadsheets), and then I start typing. If the way it starts feels clunky, later, I'll go back and add a paragraph or re-word it, but getting started is the more important part. That way, you have something to build on.

Also, read! I know this is more generic advice, but so much inspiration can happen when reading someone else's works. It can help with flow and provide good examples on how to begin a new fic.

Some advice I have a hard time following is also to take your time. Write the chapter, and then sit on it. Run it through Grammarly. Have a beta look at it. Give it a couple days or even weeks to marinate. Start the next chapter. You sometimes think of other things to add, that help with foreshadowing. Or little mistakes you'll catch that you might not have noticed at first. Or even whole scenes you want to add that you thought of while you were in the shower lol.

Other than that, I can only tell you some of the things I do. I keep a notes app full of words and phrases I like, to remember later. I have lots of resources I use (thesaurus.com, writers' blogs, that kind of thing), and I try and think about how I would like something to sound/what I want to say before I start typing. The car is a great place to just be alone and think about things. If FBI has me wire tapped they hear me having the most unhinged conversations with myself.

But literally starting a fic can be such a hurdle and it's hard to do sometimes. But just typing, from any point, can be a good start, and then going back later to add an intro. Either a scene setting, or setting up the tone of the story, or lore, are all good ways to start.

I hope this is helpful in some small way, and I also wish you all sorts of luck!! Let me know if you do end up posting a fic- I'd love to read it!

Also!! Here are some links that might be helpful!

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Hi Lofty!

Fellow Healthcare worker here, I think I remember you saying you work nights? I'm a dayshifter that will be transitioning to overnights in a month, and am both excited and scared since this will be something new not just for me but for my whole department.

I was curious, did you specifically choose nights, and how do you like it compared to days? I would think nights would be quieter, but I also know to expect the unexpected, and things can go from dead to hectic in an instant.

Also, do you have any advice for going to an overnight schedule? I'm sure my sleep and eating habits will be messed up for the first few weeks until I get into a routine, are there any other challenges you think I should expect?

Sorry to talk work, I know you probably come here to get away from that, but I don't really have anyone else to talk to and felt you are a safe person to talk to.

Anyway, have a good day/night/whenever you happen to be awake! (I am well aware our schedules can be very wacky)

Hello! :D

I did in fact specifically choose nights. On my unit you have the option to do just nights or to rotate, and you can request to go on a waiting list to work only day shift. I prefer nights, but it’s a mixed bag to be perfectly honest. (This got long so I’m putting everything under the cut)

What I like about nights is that there are fewer people (there aren’t eight thousand teams rounding through the room who never introduce themselves to me and come and go without telling me a darn thing, or they ask me a million questions), visitor restrictions apply (I love family coming to see the patient… just don’t love having to entertain them or be interrogated by them while I’m trying to do stuff lol), the coworkers are much chiller it’s a very different vibe between day workers and night workers, and no management.

What I don’t like about nights is essentially not work related - it freaking kills your life outside of work. Let’s say you work three nights in a row. When you get off it’s the morning of the next day, and you can either make yourself stay up and be a zombie but awake to enjoy that day off, or you sleep the entire day, which wastes a day off, and then you’re still nocturnal for your remaining time off, which makes doing normal people things difficult. It can strain your mental health, especially with lack of sunlight, so you just have to find a way to handle it that works best for you.

I will say, there is one more thing that I don’t like about nights: many providers feel like nights are just “status quo time,” in other words, don’t do any interventions to rock the boat. I’ve fought and argued with doctors multiple times for patients who are showing warning signs of decompensating only to be ignored because they don’t want to do anything drastic on night shift. Had it happen pretty recently and just about wanted to punch an intensivist (I had told the resident that we needed to temporize the patient’s K because it was 5.5, and given his AKI and low UO we should consider options like diuresing or even CRRT and since the resident was brand new she listened, but the intensivist later was like “eh you didn’t need to do that” and wouldn’t do anything about the pt’s nonexistent urine output and ATJEIWOAJFDKSALJFEIWO I do not like that man)

Advice for going to night shift! I’ll make it bullet points so I stop having these giant paragraphs:

When possible, try to cluster shifts together. That way you’re not constantly jumping back and forth with your sleep cycle

The day before you work, there are multiple ways to make yourself nocturnal in preparation. I usually push myself to stay up as late as possible, and go to bed between 4-7am. Others will take a nap in the afternoon before their shift.

Black out curtains are your beloved. They make sleeping during the day so much easier. If you can’t afford those at the moment, an eye mask is a cheaper and effective alternative.

Many of us need some kind of noise to help settle our minds after work since many go to bed directly after work. A fan, a white noise machine, anything like that. I personally like ambience videos off YouTube, rain and thunderstorms or crickets and stuff.

If you’re trying to fall asleep after a shift and it just ain’t happening, there are a few things you can try. If benadryl makes you sleepy, you can try using that, though I don’t necessarily recommend making it a habit so much as a backup plan. Some people say magnesium makes them sleepy. I’ve used alcohol before to help me sleep but it doesn’t promise the best sleep. Another option is carbs! I’ll eat just a couple slices of bread or something and then you get a nice little food coma feeling.

Try not to kill yourself with your caffeine intake lol. And note when to stop caffeinating so you can fall asleep! I usually have to stop by 4am or I won’t be able to sleep right after work. (Though lately I’ve given up on falling asleep right after work, it usually takes my mind a couple hours to settle down so I fall asleep closer to 10/11am or so)

Note that working nights is probably gonna take a toll on your mental and physical health. Take vitamin D supplements to compensate for the lack of daylight, it’ll help boost your mood too. A lot of us have light lamp therapy stuff too, especially for winter. Try to find a good balance of letting yourself rest at home to wind down and being with some kind of support system.

Have fun! Night shift crew is almost always awesome, we’re wacky and fun and laid back! :)