#something something both of them feeling so lonely throughout the first book

[briannaswords]

okay but why is

used to lie to your face twenty times in a day it was my little strange addiction but you still tried to stay while I'd self-isolate and I knew but I stayed hidden

lowkey zahra and jessica coded

[yuurei20]

Good morning/evening! Would you consider comparing the personalities of the twst guys in the novels to their personalities in the game at some point in the future? I’ve heard that the guys are depicted as crueler or more villainous with the extra space the novels give. Thank you!

Hello hello! Thank you for this question!

This answer is very long m(_ _)m (thank you for this opportunity to share novel 2 fan art 🦁)

Riddle (novel 1): I do not believe there were too many changes made to Riddle in the first novel? A lot of things may come down to personal feeling/subjective interpretation (re: Riddle’s desperation for his mother’s affection maybe put across more effectively in the novel? etc.).

Riddle (novel 2): Riddle’s admiration of Leona is new! And not requiring conjecture or reading between the lines, as Riddle outright says that he has always respected Leona. (Ref: Riddle on Leona: The Housewarden Meeting / Riddle’s Confession)

Riddle is also described as being envious of how Malleus is so adored by his dorm’s students, saying that he doesn’t think Malleus is a good Housewarden but there must be something he can learn from him, as he is so respected. (ref: Riddle on Malleus)

Trey/Cater (novel 1): Both Trey and Cater seem very similar to their game counterparts.

Trey (novel 2): Trey does not appear very much in novel 2, seeming very similar to his game counterpart.

Cater (novel 2): This may be a subjective interpretation, but it seemed a little as though Cater was more protective of Riddle in the 2nd novel than in Book 2 of the game, with his grudge against Leona possibly inspired more so against Leona’s insult of Riddle than his physical thrashing in the mock spelldrive match. (Ref: Spelldrive Practice Match (pt5) / Trusting Riddle )

There is also emphasis in narration of Cater’s loyalty to those around him (Ref: Cater and Yuuya).

Ace (novel 1): I wonder if maybe Ace is where the “crueler or more villainous” rumors are coming from? 👀 Ace is certainly rude to Yuuya in the first novel, calling him a bore and repeatedly yelling at him to say what is on his mind.

But unlike Game-Ace, he also apologies to Yuuya for being so aggressive (Ref: Ace Apologizes).

There is a lot more depth to Ace’s character overall, with his motivations and personality really shining! He is a great character in the game, of course, and maybe even greater in the novelization. (Ref: Yuuya and Ace / Yuuya Apologizes)

Ace (novel 2): Ace refuses outright to help Yuuya interview people about the injured students. He explains that he does not have anything else to do but he still will not be helping, and Yuuya goes to Pomefiore alone as a result.

Carried over from the first novel there is a theme of both Ace and Deuce not being able to trust Riddle and speaking disparagingly about him throughout the story.

This culminates at the end when Riddle cheers for them in the exhibition match, and it is hinted that, one day, Riddle may be accepted by the students of his dorm. (ref: Trusting Riddle)

Deuce (novels 1&2): We get to see more of Deuce’s efforts to be an honor student in the novel, such as when he sits with the lonely Yuuya at lunch (ref: Yuuya and Deuce).

He consistently tries to defend Riddle to Ace, not out of affection or respect so much as wanting to overcome his own past self. His resilience wanes as Ace’s belittling of Riddle continues throughout the two novels and he does not have much ground to stand on to defend him. (Ref: About Riddle (pt1))

Leona (novel 1): The rewriting of Leona’s introduction is maybe one of my favorite things about the first novel (ref: Meeting Leona). Rather than threatening to harm the prefect as in the game Leona goes to Yuuya’s rescue, saving both Yuuya and Deuce from the bullies that break the eggs they bought for the chestnut tart.

Leona (novel 2): There is much more to novel-Leona than was in the game, with Riddle reflecting on his dazzling confidence (ref: Riddle on Leona).

On the "more villainous" side, it is insinuated that he intentionally injures Cater during their mock spelldrive match (ref: Spelldrive Practice Match (pt3))

In the game Leona laughs in response to Lilia driving him to overblot but in the novel he loses all emotion, which Yuuya reflects on later as being far more terrifying than his rage. (Ref: The Transformation / Cheka (pt3)).

We also get much more detail about his unique magic: while we know from the game that he does not need to touch things to turn them to sand, in the novel he has the ability to kinetically manipulate the sand that he creates.

There is an amazing description of insects falling, dead, out of the sky, having been reduced to dried-out husks in mid-flight, combined with what is maybe the only description we ever receive of Leona looking afraid.

And what he is frightened of is not Riddle, Lilia or his enemies, but the adoring members of his own dorm, whom he is terrified of failing. (Ref: Leona’s Unique Magic (pt1) / Leona’s Unique Magic (pt2))

Leona’s relationship to his dormmates itself may have been rewritten for the novel, but nothing in the game seems to refute it, so it is not difficult to imagine the same situation playing out behind the scenes in the game as well.

Leona himself says in the game that he is fighting for the futures of his dorm mates, but he is always so sarcastic that it is easy to dismiss this as an excuse he is making to Jack, when he may have just been telling the truth.

Unlike in the game Leona interacts directly with the phantom that is born of his own despair and he is described as crying tears of blot. (Ref: The Overblot Battle)

I was a little more organized with the release of the second novel than the first, and have a small collection of fan art by others who illustrated the before-and-after-novel of their impressions of Leona!

(↑ How the situation at Savanaclaw appears to be vs. how it is from Leona’s point of view)

(↑ Cheka’s game scene vs. Cheka's novel scene)

Leona’s post-overblot flashback is also fleshed out very much in the novel, with added details about how hard working and isolated he had been until the birth of Cheka, which led him to giving up, and how much he hates himself. (Ref: Leona and Falena / The Flashback Monologue)

(↑ Leona’s phantom is described as nuzzling against him in the novel)

The monologue also explains a lot of his inner turmoil, how frightened he is and how he actually doesn’t have the strength to give up on his hopes and dreams, despite everyone around him talking as though he already has.

(↑ Artist’s rendition of game-Falena vs. novel-Falena)

We also receive more details about the Spelldrive match, showcasing Leona’s non-UM magical power and athleticism, and how the students of Savanaclaw still trust in him even after his mental break, in contrast to the students of Heartslabyul and Riddle. (Ref: The Exhibition Match (pt3))

Ruggie (novel 2): There is some wonderful detail added to Ruggie in the second novel, including an interesting new dimension to his relationship with Leona.

(↑ Artist’s interpretation of their impression of Ruggie and Leona’s dynamic before reading the novel vs. after reading the novel)

In the Botanical Garden scene Ruggie reflects in narration on how Leona would surely throw him away if he ever tried to stand up for himself, and how captivated he is by Leona’s ambitions (ref: The Botanical Garden Scene).

In the scene where Ruggie offers to “take care of” the troublesome Jack, we receive a look into how it is Ruggie is walking on eggshells around Leona, for his own safety. (Ref: Leona and Jack (pt3))

The scene of Ruggie running away in Book 2 also had added details, with Ruggie briefly losing his apathetic mask and revealing a hint of the trauma of his upbringing. (Ref: Ruggie Escape (pt5))

There is much more detail into Ruggie’s inner turmoil as well, and particularly in the scene where Leona confronts him for being nearly caught out by Riddle and the others. (Ref: Savanaclaw Dorm (pt2)). He reflects on Leona’s arrogance, his struggles back home, and the desperation of his situation. 

Their interaction during Leona’s overblot was also expanded upon, with an overblotting Leona threatening Ruggie with his life if he does not agree to give up on his dreams, and Ruggie refusing to do so (Ref: Leona and Ruggie, to overblot (pt2))

Jack (novel 2): We receive a little more detail in Jack’s admiration for Leona, and how Leona’s words actually do resonate with Jack, though he may try and pretend to be unfazed. (Ref:  Leona and Jack (pt1)) / Leona and Jack (pt2)) 

(↑Jack remembering how moved he was watching Leona lose to Malleus in his second year)

There is added detail to Jack’s relationships with Ace, Deuce and Yuuya, as he seeks them out intentionally before the spelldrive match. (Ref: Jack and Yuuya) 

Also unique to the novel Ruggie overtakes Jack’s body to take down Leona’s phantom, while Jack come close to refusing to participate in the spelldrive tournament and Yuuya steps in to reveal how much Jack respects Leona to Leona himself. (Ref: The Overblot Battle / Jack and Leona (pt4))

We also see Leona and Jack working together during the exhibition match, just as Jack had always dreamed. (Ref: The Exhibition Match (pt2))

(↑ Also there is Azul’s introduction to Yuuya, Ace, Deuce and Grim, added to Novel 2 while it did not happen in Game-Book 2. Ref: Meeting Azul (pt1) / Meeting Azul (pt2))

This went very much off-topic from the original question 💦 But while I do agree that there is increased villainousness in the novels, there is also an increase in depth, feeling and detail overall! ^^ Highly recommended!

[waywarrdsunshine]

things I've done that remind me of my respective favorite characters in the holy trinity of bird books

ok admittedly I haven't read trc yet so its just gonna be my favs from soc and aftg but ill add one for trc once I read it and pick a fav character. all of these are actual things i've done at various ages that I remember and make so much sense as to why these are the characters that stood out to me. I'll add more to the list as I remember things that just feel like something they'd do.

Wylan:

ngl most of this one is TraumaTM so not gonna go into extreme detail

once misspelled the word "touch" so badly my nickname in my family is now "totch"

I got so lonely and miserable while living at my dad's house that I used to imagine my favorite twitch streamer (at the time) would come through my window and save me

I once brought an adult coloring book to an adult brunch '

spent the first 15 minutes at the Eras tour stimming out of both excitement and overstimulation

when I lived in Florida there used to be these things called Lovebugs, they're these little insects that are attached to each other by the ass. while I used to find them on the playground in 3rd grade and forcibly pull them apart

I spent an entire call with my therapist info dumping the plot of Gravity Falls to her

people are shocked when I tell them how old I am, I always get told I look way younger

I like to eat peas frozen and I chew on ice

Andrew:

I played volleyball in middle school and I have no idea why because I hated it. At games, I would actively hope we'd lose so I could go home faster.

I had a piece of a baby tooth that didn't fully fall out that had to be removed, and the dentist tried to pin me down to try to remove it so I punched him

I hate physical touch, I remember there was this one person who sat at my lunch table sophomore year of high school who I had to keep reminding that I dont like to be touched and they kept ignoring that to the point other people at the table had to keep reminding them

I also dont like my things being touched/moved (things are there because I put them there and that's how I find them) im home from college rn and my mom cleaned my room while I was work a week ago and threw out half the shit I was still using. It threw me off emotionally ngl

I wore a stretchy black chocker from hot topic all throughout middle school and if I could wear some form of large black boots year round I would (I also wanted to be blonde as kid so badly, im now slowly lightening it to reach that eventually)

I used to throw tantrums at school so they'd let me go home and I could watch Blues Clues

I have RBF so notorious the summer I worked at a Chipotle a costumer came up to the counter and before even telling me what he wanted asked me if I was mad at him

got put on lexapro when I was 5, and am only now starting to tapper off it (im 24)

I eat my food by size. if I have mixed vegetables I eat all the biggest vegetables first then the smallest last. I also eat corn on the cob by individually picking each cornel off one by one. I've been told I eat it "like a squirrel"

[5five5five5five5five5five]

Bored take some Viktor five content:

* five and Viktor end up being roommates due to everyone else not having the strong tolerance to handle his ass. Viktor doesn't either but they wanted to go back to the start and rebuild a dynamic after all the chaos and drama.

* they end up getting really close. It's easier for Viktor to listen to five talk about his past now that they have experienced all sorts of weird shit and five is less bitter about viktor's new found independence and choices now that the world is saved.

* I hc that five has trouble using Viktor's preferred name and five HATES IT. It's not to be disrespectful or not understanding gender, he's all cool and very respectful. It's that when you have truama as deep rooted as his, calling out his siblings names on a daily basis in a lonely ruined world for 40 years. Carrying around viktor's book as a lifeline to stay close to him....it's just not something your brain can let go. he wants to let it go, he feels like a ass everytime he slips and apologizes like 3 times even when Viktor said it's ok. his truama CLINGs to viktor's dead name like his life depends on it. He does get better at it as they start live together and it was a 1/9 chance anyway so Viktor wasn't too bugged by it and understood that it's not meant to be disrespectful. Trauma's a bitch. They both get that.

* they take turns making lunch and dinners. Breakfast is always coffee and peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches.

* Five starts collecting vintage cook books because he's had food from other timelines that aren't as popular anymore and wishes to make them.

* Viktor LOVES Chappell Roan. Five is unimpressed but likes watching Viktor just jam out well doing chores or studying.

*Viktor would drag five to a lot of queer centric events and five would feel out of place at first like "I'm your 60 year old straight cisgendered brother that looks 15. I don't fit in and I don't think that drag show bouncer is going to be as lenient as that strip club in the 60's...long story." But over time, five actually starts to enjoy himself. And maybe learning his gender and sexuality along the way (I don't have strong opinions on that yet. All ik is he's such a fruit and has no idea /pos. When Viktor and Klaus are your favorite siblings....ask yourself whyyy)

* they host small dinners with a handful of siblings at a time. They can't host all of them at once due to their apartment size (it would be a disaster) but sometimes Diego, Lila and the kids come over. Or just Luther with fast food well he was walking home. I think the biggest group would be brother nights (sorry Allison....i feel so bad for her lmao I think her and Lila hang out on those nights. )

* five and Viktor realized that giving the other puppy eyes breaks the other easily. I think both have trouble saying no to the other due to feeling bad about how much they fought and were butting heads throughout Dallas and the hotel. Five doesn't want to let his bs behavior under "gotta save the world" distress linger between them. And Viktor doesn't either, he also misses his brother and just wants to see him happy and relaxed for once.

*that doesn't mean they don't fight. They bicker consistently about such basic things . From where the remote is to when the other will be home to the past. They don't don't do a good job at not throwing the past in each others face......but they useally settle down.

*Viktor LOVES to try and use therapy talk with five, who hates it at first. But overtime, I think after a very strong breakthrough in his issues and realizing how much not being under survival adrenaline is effecting him, he becomes more accepting of it. And it's helped their fighting and understanding each other a lot.

* I feel like they get rather touchy together over time. Fixing each others hair, leaning on the other well sitting on the sofa, etc

*five has to tie viktor's ties ALL THE TIME.

*(tw drugs) I feel like they have "rekindling our Lost teen years together" nights where they get high (they only take edibles bc neither like smoking) and watch all the cartoons five has missed. Wear comfy clothes. Talk about nothing. They try to make it a point to talk about anything BUT family and the past. Witch helps them grow closer.

*five wants bees. They have no room. Five is very sad. Viktor hopes they one day get a bigger place to have bees.

* five gets a emotional support animal with viktor's help. mr.pennycrumb! They do all the training and five loves that boy with his life. He really helps him with episodes and panics.

* Viktor ends up helping five with rather basic things. Again, no more survival adrenaline to make him speed learn everything all the time. He can afford to be confused and frustrated. "Egh How does the tv remote work again?" "The pepper grinder has stopped wo- oh the other direction..." Five starts to feel rather useless but Viktor likes helping. five bitterly jokes at Viktor being either his elderly care nurse or babysitter. Viktor reassures him it's not like that and they are just brothers and he needs help.

* Viktor gets into the habit of calling five "bud" as a loving brother pet name.

I've ran out of brain fuel. I could go on for hours about them though.

(PRO SHIPS DNI THIS IS ALL PLATONIC)

[snek-panini]

Binderary Book #3 is at last photographed and ready to share. This is Someone, a Good Omens human!au by Diminua, in which our favorite angel and demon are lonely and both turn to a matchmaking service to solve this problem. It sounds like a comedy but it isn't particularly, it starts off very lonely and a bit melancholy before they get a very quiet and beautiful happily-ever-after. As I told the author when I asked to bind it, it lives in my brain and radiates comfort.

I wanted to give it a binding that reflected the sort of classic romance that I feel is present in the story. I used a brown faux leather from Neenah Papers that's much darker and nicer than the faux leather I'd been using previously, though once it's on the book it looks a bit strongly like a bible cover. That's not so bad for a Good Omens fic though.

Have a look under the cut for detail shots; I feel like this one rewards a closer look.

For the title we have gold foil htv. The author's name was supposed to go under it, in slightly smaller text, but it proved too great a challenge for my Cricut with this swirly font and the machine ate it.

The floral strip is a piece of chiyogami that I got in one of Chibijay's scrap packs. It's cream with gold flowers printed on it, which just screams "wedding" to me. There's a vivid moment in the story where they go to a flower market to pick out what they want for their ceremony, and I thought this was a nice echo of that. I was torn on this bind by wanting to do an accent strip (the way I usually do them, with the end hidden under a different material that covers the spine) and wanting to do a full leather bind since it's been ages. I've done some full cloth recently but the last full leather was a year ago. The compromise I reached was to cut that little point in it and embed it into a cutout to protect it. It went well, though there's a bit where it wraps around the edge and the leather tore so I had to patch it. It's not noticeable unless you're looking for it, so I'm calling it a win. And I love it, it looks like no other book I've made and it's perfect.

Top view, with premade end band. I would have loved to make custom ones but the book's too skinny. The gray ties in well with the endpapers though. The endpapers are a printed lokta that I got at Blick a while back without knowing what I was going to do with them, They're printed in gold and silver ferns and while they don't match the strip on the front I think they coordinate with it nicely. The first time I cut them I made them too small because the paper wasn't square and they had to be redone. There's a wrinkle from the casing in but we are none of us perfect.

Title page and first page. The frame came from rawpixel, the little art deco widget came from vecteezy and I also used it as a scene break divider throughout the fic. The drop capital is from a dafont custom called Bolton Drop Caps and I love how they all coordinate with each other despite coming from such different sources. Something about legal quartos just begs me for drop caps. They're just the right thing to make the pages pop, and Bolton's a really nice font. Bold, but not frilly. The florals on the cover are very frilly and I like how the interior graphics balance them.

And that's it! This was a start-to-finish Binderary book; I had fully typeset it before the month began, but it hadn't been printed and all the physical work was done during February. I tend to pause between stages so this was practically a speed run for me and I couldn't be happier with it.

[mirai-e-jump]

Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger: Zenryoku Zenkai Book Kiita Komagine x Ryo Sekoguchi Cross Talk (translations below)

Publication: April 15, 2022

-From, "What's with this guy?" to sworn enemies-

"Although Kaito and Stacey were enemies, it was a relationship where a type of friendship gradually developed, but how did you both feel about your roles?"

Sekoguchi: In the beginning, when it comes to Kaito, you feel like, "What with this guy?" He's a completely different person from Stacey, so he couldn't accept him. That's why I felt that he wasn't good around Kaito, and the more he met him, the more he felt against Kaito. If they both weren't interested in each other, they wouldn't have gotten involved with each other. However, they fought each other many times, and there were times where Stacey cared about Kaito, so even though they had different ways of living, I felt that they were attracted towards each other because they had similar cores. I think of them as a comedic version of the relationship between Naruto and Sasuke in "Naruto" (laughs).

Komagine: As Kaito, it wasn't like, "Because it's Stacey" or something like that, he wanted to be friends with everyone, including people and Kikainoids, so I played the role while genuinely wanting to get along with him. Every time they met, Kaito was rejected, but that didn't mean he gave up, and for a year I kept thinking that someday their feelings would reach each other. I didn't waver in that part, and I played the role without abandoning his desire to become friends with Stacey.

"For Kaito, he treats Stacey the same way he treats Juran and the others."

Komagine: That's true. Kaito doesn't really care about appearances or where someone comes from, he just sees them as human…..which not all of them are (laughs), but, he wants to get along with a guy named Stacey, and that's the one thing that never changes.

"He really never got discouraged, huh?"

Sekoguchi: He's really strong mentally (laughs).

"As for Stacey, he's annoyed by the fact that Kaito keeps approaching him, but isn't it more accurate to say that he's someone you can't help but face?"

Sekoguchi: Stacey isn't interested in other people to begin with. However, the first time he met a type of person like Kaito, he stuck with him somewhere in his heart. I don't think even Stacey himself understands how to express the feelings that were created by him. So, I think the reason he has to defeat Kaito is because there's a part of him that's worrisome to Stacey. There's also Zox and the others, but he only thinks of them as troublesome or an annoyance. However, he has to face Kaito, so the way he looks at him is completely different from the way he looks at the other members.

Komagine: This is going to be abit more focused on Kaito, but throughout the year, Kaito seems to have everything, but he doesn't have his parents, and Juran and the other Kikainoids also have lonely pasts because their families are missing. Because of these pasts, Kaito's trying to do his best, so I wonder if he felt the same thing as the Kikainoids, and reached out to Juran and the others. At first, I played the role with straightforward feelings, but Kaito's old friends don't really make an appearance, and there was a side of him that tried to force himself to do his best, which I thought was normal for a boy his age. That might also be why he decided to reach out to Stacey, who was all alone.

"Even though the tone is usually lighthearted, for episodes involving Kaito's parents, the heavy parts are hidden and revealed at crucial moments."

Komagine: This show has the perfect balance of funny and serious.

Sekoguchi: If you don't pay attention, it'll suddenly creep up on you.

Komagine: It's a funny seriousness, or so to say. Like even when Kaito found out his father's true identity (No. 35 Kai!), everyone was saying, "Dia! Dia!" (laughs).

-We learned about each other's personalities through switching places-

"We'd like to ask about each of your performances, but when it comes to the comical aspects, we were impressed by Stacey rushing into the tennis match in No. 29 Kai!."

Sekoguchi: I think that was the first time Stacey acted for someone else. He tried his best to camouflage himself, but it was obvious who he was (laughs).

"When filming scenes like that, do you have to think about how far you want to deviate from your usual character?"

Sekoguchi: I felt that Stacey's character would change once his costume changed, so I played him without changing his inner self at all. It feels like he acted for Yatsude's sake. I think his seriousness is what makes him interesting (laughs).

"Did you enjoy filming it?"

Sekoguchi: I enjoyed it!

Komagine: Since we always do something like that, we're always like, "Here comes the next one!" But in this episode, Ryo-kun was dressed up as Stacey in the form of a tennis player, which was even more refreshing and interesting than usual. Another one, is that he also became a teacher at the school! (No. 33 Kai!).

Sekoguchi: It was because of that World's power (laughs). I was also on the side of the viewers the whole time, so I was able to enjoy it. I felt like I was getting caught up in that position. In No. 32 Kai!, I can't help but think that the two of them swapping places due to Inverted World's power was comical, but also an important episode in the sense that the two of them confirmed things about their respective positions.

Komagine: Since Ryo-kun and I were switching roles, we had alot of discussions with Director (Kyohei) Yamaguchi while reading the script, which we hadn't done since the beginning of filming. We always see each other on set and in the finished footage, so we know each other, but when it comes to acting, it's a different story. Only Ryo-kun understands the details of Stacey, and only I understand the details of Kaito. I felt that there were alot of things that I learned for the first time because we switched roles.

"Like what specifically?"

Komagine: When I'm Kaito, my emotions go from 0 to 100 all at once. It feels like I unknowingly do things as Kaito that I normally wouldn't do. It's done completely unconsciously, so when I looked at Ryo-kun's Kaito, I realized, "So this is how he looks, huh!" We also studied standing posture together, and we learned alot from looking at it objectively.

"What does Sekoguchi-san think?"

Sekoguchi: I felt that Kaito's much more sensitive to various things happening in front of his eyes than we see in the footage or on the set. He looks simple but is complex, looking like a perfectly straight tree with fine branches growing from it. It was a great discovery to find out that our main character has a sensitive side to him that requires constant attention.

Komagine: Speaking of which, I also thought that Stacey would've been fine if he just spoke in a smooth voice and without hesitation, but he's totally different from me in terms of looks, and even when he did the movements that Ryo-kun did, he doesn't look like me, so I wondered what would be the best way to go about it. Kaito faces his opponents head on, but Stacey turns his head the other way. However, if someone's talking to you, you reflexively turn in that person's direction. Ryo-kun doesn't do that…..but, sometimes I wanted to turn, so it was very difficult to get the hang of it (laughs).

Sekoguchi: Also, there were our voices. We each did the actual voicing during the dubbing, but on set, the voices and movements had to be linked. The performance of Kaito, who raises his "voltage" all at once, was the complete opposite of Stacey's, so we had to rewatch past episodes multiple times while working on it.

"Saying that, was the dubbing also difficult?"

Komagine: It was difficult! We had to match the movements of the other's mouth, and I think Ryo-kun felt this way too, but there were parts of him that I couldn't quite match. Still, the viewers who watched it were satisfied, so I'm really happy about that.

Sekoguchi: I wasn't really sure what to say, but somehow the results turned out alright! (laughs).

Komagine: We cleared it with passing marks (laughs).

"Were you aware of any of the characteristics that the other said they discovered?"

Sekoguchi: I feel like I'm already doing things unconsciously. I've been doing this from the beginning, so by the time it was completely ingrained in my body, I was behaving as if it were normal.

Komagine: Maybe we were thinking about it in the beginning, but at this time we were already very familiar with it, so we weren't really conscious of it at that point.

"Listening to you talk about it, it seems like while the swap was fun, it was also a very difficult challenge."

Komagine: It's not just limited to that episode, but even if you think, "It made the cut, so I did a good job," isn't that just a self evaluation? We're doing this so that everyone can see something good, so we can only feel at ease after hearing everyone's reviews. We have to constantly check with all the viewers feedback. Even if I think I did good, if there's a discrepancy in the viewers comments, it's just a difference in my own judgment, so I have to adjust and correct it. I'm definitely nervous until the broadcast date. Especially since I also played the role of Stacey being swapped.

-Stacey welcomes change with friends-

"The development of working with Hakaizer is a turning point for Stacey, and in No. 34 Kai!, the sight of Kaito looking happy saying, "You're working with Hakaizer, right?!" was also memorable."

Komagine: Kaito originally thought that Stacey was all alone, but when he switched places with him, he found out that he was being oppressed at Tojitendo, which convinced Kaito that Stacey was completely alone. When Stacey brought along a comrade for the first time, it made Kaito really happy.

Sekoguchi: At first, Stacey wasn't interested in friends or anything like that, and he was a character who didn't trust people to begin with. However, when switching places, he realized how important human connections are and the things that can come from them. Then, in No. 34 Kai!, when he was told by Kaito, "Isn't it much better to win a whole lot by working together with some friends?," up until then, he couldn't accept it, but he decided to give it a try…..I think that's how he felt.

"Later, in No. 38 Kai! in which Bon World's ability brings him face to face with his mother, Lise, when he's attacked, he's shocked and thinks, "Is the same thing happening to Hakaizer and Goshikida Kaito?……" and we wonder if that was the catalyst for the change."

Sekoguchi: I don't think he would've been able to realize it on his own, but as he interacted with more and more people, he came to learn alot of things, and it may have been because he was attacked by his mother that helped him look at his own actions objectively. At first, he started out wanting to beat and surpass his father, but he came to realize how pathetic he was for acting the same way.

"What did you think of Stacey's development at that time?"

Komagine: Kaito wanted him to be happy, that goes without saying, but he also cared about him and wanted to save him. That's why he went to help him with Hakaizer at that time. Of course, Kaito wanted to become friends even towards the end, but I thought, "What should I do to make Stacey the happiest?"

"While having to win the battle against Tojitendo, Kaito also has to worry about his parents and Stacey, so he's quite busy."

Komagine: I feel that way too. However, he's not the type to try to figure out things. He acts on instinct and intuition, so he just does whatever he wants to do. In No. 5 Kai!, when he says, "Instead of mom and dad, I should've focused on saving everyone by taking down Sushi World," at that moment, Juran intervenes with, "Of course it's important to take care of your own business." Because of that episode, if we don't keep his stance of, "Always ready to go all out for anything!" Kaito's character will be lost. I didn't over think that part, and just went with what was written in the script.

-The difficulties of playing God-

"Towards the very end, there was a twist in which Stacey was possessed by God. As the climax approached, you had to make a big change in performance."

Sekoguchi: It was challenging. Until I read the script, I had no idea what Gege's purpose was, so when I finally found out I was like, "Really?!" (laughs). I felt that I had to break down or forget about Stacey once the mysterious guy entered him, and his character was completely different from my usual way of speaking and facial expressions.

"When your body was being taken over, "(Sweetly)" was written in the dialogue part of the script."

Sekoguchi: I was like, "What do they mean by (sweetly)"?! (laughs). So, I started thinking about whether God has a gender in the first place. I didn't want God to have a gender, so I was conscious of the neutrality of the image, where it's hard to tell whether they're male or female. In addition to God's composure…..I thought that it had to come from within, but that part of the performance was difficult.

"How was it working with Stacey, who was in a different state?"

Komagine: Hmmm…..He’s clearly different. He made me think, "Even if it's not me, you'll notice!" (laughs). But, it was really cool to see Kaito go to God and say, "Is Stacey even fine with this?!" I was like, "That's it!" it's just like Kaito to make a point like that.

Sekoguchi: He says the most straightforward things at any moment (laughs).

"We were surprised to hear him say lines, "I'll become your friend" while he was being controlled."

Sekoguchi: I didn't say it in the original state of Stacey, so it was beyond my own image. I'm alittle sad about it (laughs).

"God leaves Stacey's body after No. 46 Kai! Then, a series of exchanges with Kaito saying, "I mean, Stacey, you're really nice," and Stacey replying, "Stop that!" was also memorable."

Komagine: For the first time, Stacey complained to Kaito with, "I'm tired…." so my feelings when acting were, "I have to do something about this!" Still, I thought the viewers would be nervous to see Stacey leave, and as Kaito, I felt that Stacey's state of mind was wavering between the Zenkaigers and the position he held up until now. There was a feeling of suspense about what was going to happen in the next few episodes. I'm sure that even when he's with everyone else, Kaito is thinking about Stacey, and Stacey is thinking about Kaito. But, the parts that didn't work well together kept coming up, and I kept thinking, "What's going to happen in the end?!"

Sekoguchi: It started with the scene where he looks sad as he watches the Zenkaigers take back Hakaizer. Not only is his only comrade gone, he now has no place to return at Tojitendo. He had to meet Kaito in such a situation where he's lost everything, so at that time, Stacey was in a very weak state of mind. He was already past his limits.

"It was quite a painful development to watch."

Sekoguchi: If I'm allowed to say it, he's simply not good at living…..(laughs). Of course there are many things that make me feel sorry for Stacey as well, but it's definitely due to his own actions up until now. It's no one's fault but his own, and if he doesn't change, nothing will change. In No. 46 Kai!, he's on the verge of understanding his interactions with Kaito. Up until then, I think there was always a part of him that was blaming his surroundings or the people around him.

Komagine: Kaito wanted to help his father, and he achieved that goal, but the fact that he took Stacey's comrade away has always remained with him. In regards to that, when his father told him in No. 41 Kai!, "If you don't want to leave Stacey alone, you need to do something Kaito," I felt that his resolve to save Stacey was strengthened once again.

"Speaking of, when it comes to the Goshikida family, Yatsude is obviously an essential part of Stacey's life, isn't she?"

Sekoguchi: She really saved him. The scene at Colorful where Stacey confides everything to Yatsude was really great.

Komagine: I'm really glad that Yacchan is played by (Sakakibara) Ikue-san. In the scene where Stacey confides in her, there was a part where she stood tall and firm, so as Kaito, I was proud of Ikue-san for taking it seriously. The way she carried herself on the set was wonderful, and I thought I should learn many things from the way Ikue-san makes everyone on the set smile.

Sekoguchi: Stacey 's grateful to the Goshikida family because they gave him so many things. He received love from Yatsude, the father taught him camaraderie and bonds, the mother gave him her blood, and in the end, Kaito taught him friendship. Stacey receives everything that's important to him from the Goshikida family.

Komagine: Since he has the mother's blood in him, he and Kaito might actually be brothers (laughs).

-The two who have finally became friends-

"We were moved by the sight of him finally rushing over to Kaito after his admission to Yatsude in No. 47 Kai!."

Komagine: Up until then, if I grabbed him by the shoulder, he'd shake me off, but this time I was happy because we were able to say things like, "Let's go back together to Colorful," and "That's the plan." I felt like this was the first time someone accepted me, so it was like I was both myself and Kaito! It's hard to imagine Zox and Stacey teaming up to fight together (laughs). That's part was cool too, and I could see the passion these two have, so from No. 47 Kai! to Final Kai! it's really interesting!

"What was it like playing the role of Stacey, who was finally forgiven?"

Sekoguchi: Stacey wasn't thinking about anything in particular at that time, but he was able to become more honest, or rather, he regained his sense of identity. I had the scene with Yatsude-san before that, and based on that scene, he felt embarrassed, but I'm glad he was able to be honest with himself…..I played the role with that kind of nuance. He felt relieved when he saw Kaito, and couldn't help but laugh when Vroon said, "I'm also a former Tojitendo," and it was a moment where I could see the happiness of everyone fighting together.

Komagine: Then there's the final episode, where Kaito has to fight alone in the spirit world, but he realizes that he's not fighting alone, which gives him confidence. I think this also embodies the best part of Super Sentai, where they fight as a team, and the fact that it ends with rock paper scissors is typical of Zenkaiger (laughs). Since the ending seems like a continuation, I can also imagine how each of us will go on our own journeys and become happy, so I'm glad things didn't end with Sushi World! (laughs).

Sekoguchi: The real thrill of Super Sentai was felt towards the end. Each of them had their own problems and were born in different environments, but Stacey, for example, could achieve his goal of defeating Barashitara not alone, but with his friends and comrades. It made me think once again that Zenkaiger is a show filled with such qualities.

-Reflections on the days of our strange friendship-

"At first, where did you think the relationship between the two of them would end up?"

Sekoguchi: I was thinking of all kinds of possibilities, but I stopped thinking about them halfway through and just hoped that the story would progress well. And then God appeared! Whether they're defeated or become friends, each has its own merits.

Komagine: I truly thought that Stacey was going to be defeated. He helped Kaito when they were fighting Barashitara, and at the end, he fought with everyone else as Stacaesar, but they ended up fighting each other. It made it seem like he'd say," I wish I had joined you sooner…..please give my regards to Yatsude….." *whoosh* (disappears).

Sekoguchi: I predicted something like a good ending would happen for "the villain" (laughs).

"It's understood that you all sometimes predicted what was going to happen next."

Komagine: We all did it. I had suggested to the staff that Final Kai World should appear and that it ends with a bang, but they rejected it. "Today is the final episode of Zenkaiger, Final Kai!" and then it would abruptly end…..

Sekoguchi: Who would be satisfied with that?! (everyone laughs). Well, it definitely fits with Zenkaiger (laughs).

Komagine: But, after filming the final episode I thought, "I'm glad it didn't happen!"

"Has your impressions of each other changed up to this point?"

Sekoguchi: They've changed. At first, I heard that he was shy, but now I don't find that to be the case at all.

Komagine: Ryo-kun's appearance is very cute, so I imagined him to have a selfish personality. I thought he was aesthetically pleasing and very beautiful….However, his personality is that of an old mans! (laughs).

Sekoguchi: That's for sure (said straightforwardly).

Komagine: He's so carefree, that he'll even take his clothes off when eating! In a good way, I felt that he wasn't high class or too distant. So I felt that we didn't have to worry about things, and in that way, I felt close to him. It's completely different from my first impression of him when we first met, that's why Ryo-kun feels younger than me even though he's older than me, and I can talk to him freely.

"During filming, there was no particular reason for you not to speak to each other just because your roles were that of enemies."

Komagine: There were none at all (laughs). When the cameras are rolling, I think Zenkaiger is a show where everyone does whatever they want to do in an interesting way, so I usually interacted with Ryo-kun without thinking of him as an enemy or an ally.

"Moving away from the main story, we saw the third part of the Unmasked Warrior series at G Rosso. We thought the part during the play where Kaito encourages Stacey's competitive nature and dances, as well as the teasing relationship between the two of them was adorable."

Komagine: You won't see that in the main story (laughs).

Sekoguchi: Stacey was acting alittle different than usual, so it was difficult!

Komagine: Well, it had a nice feel to it, even if it deviated abit from the regular TV version.

"Was it difficult to perform on stage?"

Komagine: When Stacey says, "Next time we meet, we'll be enemies, so be prepared," and tries to leave, Kaito says, "Why don't we go home dancing?" and Stacey was like, "Why should I…?" But in that scene, they start dancing, and the line shows that Stacey took what Kaito said seriously and as a challenge. I was honestly just trying to say that we should dance (laughs). So when Stacey said, "Oh no!" I was like, "Eh? Eh?"

Sekoguchi: It was difficult to get the timing down for "Oh no!" It's because the lines were different every time.

"The third part is also available on DVD, so we hope everyone will take this opportunity to watch it again (laughs). Could you tell us about some highlights of the fourth part?"

Komagine: We're more involved in it than in the third part, and there's action scenes, so I feel like it's more Zenkaiger like. Some highlights include seeing the transformations of the 5 Zenkaigers, as well as the secret transformation of Flint. Also, Gaon, played by Tsuta (Tsutamune Masato-san), will also appear.

"Wouldn't it be better if it was already played by the actors themselves?"

Komagine: That's true. The person who had been playing Gaon up until then saw Tsuta-san during rehearsal and said, "Ah, the real guy…" and even though he's the same Suit Actor, I thought it was different. It's very reassuring to have Tsuta-san in the fourth part, and it's very easy to work with him. We'll be performing for a while, so I hope you'll enjoy watching it.

Sekoguchi: The overall atmosphere of the fourth part is "cute" (laughs).

Komagine: The relationships in the stage play change before and after the final episode, so I hope you'll enjoy that as well!

"How do you feel looking back at the relationship between the two of you?"

Sekoguchi: Rather than the bond between Kaito and Stacey being formed in the traditional Super Sentai style, they gradually became more aware of each other from a distance, and I thought it was wonderful that in the end, although we didn't express it in words, our hearts were firmly connected. I was thinking about this myself while playing Stacey, but I like the atmosphere that seems to exist between the lines of the story, which isn't captured on film, as their hearts move through the process of becoming friends.

Komagine: Looking back on Zenkaiger, I had alot of fun, and it was so fulfilling that I thought, "There's no better place to be on set than this, huh?" Ryo-kun joined us later, so I wonder if I could've supported him better since I was there from the beginning. But, I was really impressed by the way he played Stacey, to the point where he became a popular character. I'm glad that the actors I was able to work with this time were Acchan (Mashiko Atsuki), Hina-chan (Mori Hinami), and of course Ryo-kun. The popularity of Zenkaiger is largely due to Stacey, so I'm grateful for that as well! (laughs).

Sekoguchi: No, no, don't be ridiculous! It's all thanks to everyone's power in Zenkaiger that it's as popular as it is now!

Komagine: (laughs).

[actual-changeling]

The hypocrisy of completely dismissing Crowley's trauma from the Fall, indeed denying that he was traumatized in the first place, and at the same time infantilizing Aziraphale claiming he’s suffering so much because he likes tragedies and sad books and even believing that it was “an act of kindness” to say I forgive you to Crowley

The actual tragedy here is that it's not even a unique point of view to hold. Ableism is ingrained so fucking deeply in society, and that extends to trauma survivors.

There is the idea of a "good" survivor, the one that is soft and over apologetic, the one that people pleases and is easy to see as a victim, the kind that allows you to feel better about yourself by pitying them or being their friend. That's what people want—and Aziraphale largely fits that bill.

They look at him and see someone who is fawning and anxious, someone who does not outright goes against their abusers but plays along, someone you can look at and go "oh, but the way he is behaving is not his fault, he has trauma :(". I'm not exaggerating, I have seen this exact line of thinking over and over again, whether people are consciously doing it or not,

Meanwhile you have Crowley—who doesn't fit into that ideal. He is the "bad" survivor. The one that got angry, harsh, and built spiky walls to keep himself save. The one that never stopped surviving and keeps disobeying, keeps pushing, keeps questioning and doing things that make others look at him and go "oh but he is 'provoking' it, so it is his fault".

Once again, something I see in this fandom way too fucking often.

Both takes are incredibly ableist, one is infantilizing and robs Aziraphale of autonomy, the other is mean-spirited and fucked up. Crowley isn't a palpable survivor. Trauma did not make him soft, it made him angry, and society hates that.

Society wants us to forgive and forget—which is EXACTLY why people think Aziraphale and his forgiveness shtick is him being "kind".

People in this fandom refuse to examine their own bias and it fucking shows.

Trauma made me angry, it made me rough, it made me lonely and protective of myself, it made me untrusting and unforgiving and unapologetic for how I am keeping myself alive and safe. I cannot count how many times throughout my life I was blamed for the abuse I was tortured with. How many times people told me to forgive because it was my "family". That forgiveness is good and every survivor must forgive or they're doing it wrong.

Fuck that and fuck every single person that treats Crowley the way too many of us are treated ourselves.

[brainwormcity]

Crowley's behaviour in S01xE02 is that of an extremely conflicted demon. He had been in love with Aziraphale for a very long time and though he had never outright expressed it, he tended to wear it pretty openly on his sleeve when it was just the two of them. Then bam, everything starts going to hell in a handbasket, literally:

So he immediately meets up with Aziraphale and makes a plan to stop it and as soon as they plan to work together, Crowley starts to feel optimistic:

Then they spend the next eleven years trying to stop the apocalypse and for a little way they may start to think that it's all going to be okay but then they realize.

So then it's time to switch gears. Things are becoming more dire and he's starting to lose hope so when he and Aziraphale head to Tadfield, he's already switching into his most cantankerous version of himself, knowing that every moment he wasn't uniquely focused on preventing the apocalypse could be catastrophic. He tries to build up an emotional wall between him and Aziraphale and he fails almost right away. At the first sign of Aziraphale's classically trained puppy dog eyes, his resolve cracks.

After he's reminded of Aziraphale's loyalties to heaven, i.e. 'weight to a moral argument,' he tries to double down by giving the humans real guns, yet he still can't bring himself to lie when Aziraphale asks him if they're killing each other. And when Aziraphale points out Crowley's privately good heart, the demon thinks, "This is my chance. Gotta really sell it." So, he does this little number.

He bares his teeth and snarls about how very not nice he is while uncharacteristically behaving in what would typically be seen in a violent manner.

And it doesn't work. Aziraphale sees him growling and hissing and all he's aware of is their contact. He still looks at Crowley like he's kind... He's still looking at him like he might just smile if Crowley ever had the nerve to tell him that he means, not just the world, but also the universe to him.

He tries throughout the rest of the episode to maintain his facade of angst and indifference but after this, it's half-hearted at best. There's a subtle nod to it all right before Anathema hits the Bentley.

It's been suggested that demons are incapable of detecting love as a palpable emotion but it's the specific wording that denotes something deeper.

Why wouldn't it feel out of the ordinary if you were surrounded by love suddenly? Well, maybe if that's something that you experienced all the time in certain company.

Then comes the biggest revelation of them all! His hot and cold attitude, the shoving, the vehement denial of his kindness towards both Aziraphale and humans. It's all for a reason. This is the one folks.

His love, in his eyes, is dangerous to the cause. There's too much at stake and he's so emotionally volatile at the idea of never being able to, uninterrupted, be with this creature he loves that he's terrified to give into it for even a moment, lest that moment be just what Heaven and Hell need to take it all away from him for good. To take Aziraphale from him.

It doesn't work, in the end. In fact, at the end of the episode, Aziraphale actually is the one who manages to hold him at arm's length, and in both the book and the series, it's made obvious that the whole 'tickety-boo' interaction leaves him feeling very lonely. In the next episode, he bares it all anyway when he asks Aziraphale to run away from it all with him, the first of many times. He tried to pretend and push his Angel away but the real Crowley couldn't help but shine through.

[ghostthewriter09]

dead boy detectives

Yesterday I started watching Dead Boy Detectives. Yesterday, I finished watching Dead Boy Detectives. I have thoughts

First,

Edwin:

Gay (canon)

autistic (head cannon)

Demiromantic (hc)

When he was alive, he’d pray and pray that his thoughts about liking boys would go away. So when he went to hell, he felt like deserved it. But upon meeting Charles, he realized that his feelings couldn’t be all bad. He hides his feelings a lot just because he had 73 years of hiding them

Charles:

Bi (canon in books i think)

would’ve been a damn good lawyer

He is a protector. He doesn’t care who he needs to protect but if someone on his side is in danger, he will fight. We see this throughout the series. He’d do anything for the people he loves.

Crystal:

Bi or straight (def likes men)

has a strong sense of morals

absolute legend (Lilith scene)

I honestly think she’s just going to live on as her new self when she gets back to London

Niko

lesbian or aro spec (or both)

she is hands down my favorite non dead person in this show (sorry Jenny)

Her friendship with Edwin is precious. (We don’t talk about episode 8)

Ok so I should probably explain why I think she’s a lesbian. Ok first, her first meeting with Crystal. I know it wasn’t pink for love but yknow it’s something. Second, her room is really pink. She isn’t afraid of what others think and that’s a trait a lot of gay people have to learn. She is completely supportive of the community. Her gay manga. Her friendship with Edwin is so wlw mlm solidarity.

Bonus:

Cat King:

No label , just vibes

I like him but he took advantage of Edwin at first. I understand he gave him a choice but it wasn’t right to do.

however, I do love him and feel that he is lonely and at this point would go for any attractive guy

he’s afraid of himself still. He puts on the mask of confidence but really, he’s scared. He’s lived a long life and has never really gotten to be himself. No one has wanted him for him

[thosewildcharms]

Sorry I just finished rewatching both seasons of iwtv and I know it’s a topic that probably got beaten to death but what was your take on Antoinette? Lestat’s motivations are genuinely a mystery to me so as I understood it a huge reason of why their marriage fell apart was because Lestat simply could not let his paramour go even though it was the only thing Louis had asked from him. At first I thought he was just using her to provoke Louis, then it seemed he had a genuine personal attachment particularly when he insisted how she would be a much more complimentary ’third’ in lieu of Claudia, but then in s2 he speaks of Louis being the ruler of his heart and his only love. It’s whiplash lol Just curious as to how you interpreted Antoinette’s role in L&L’s relationship and how Lestat felt about her? Thankssss

Hi! No need to be sorry, thanks for the ask! This got a little long (who am I) so I'm putting it under a read more:

You're right, there is a lot of discourse around Antoinette for sure, at least on iwtvtwt which is mostly where I lurk (idk what the tumblr discourse is like tbh). My personal favorite take regarding Lestat's motivations with Antoinette are from theoceanblooms on twitter, who wrote this great thread that connects Louis' refusal to drink human blood with his internalized homophobia, and how this caused him to not only reject vampirism by essentially developing an eating disorder but to, unintentionally, reject Lestat as well. There are a few other threads that I haven't been able to find (if anyone finds them and can give credit please do) that connect this with Antoinette but basically: Lestat goads Louis with Antoinette as a response to that rejection.* He was trying to get Louis angry and jealous enough to drain Antoinette himself, which in Lestat's mind would a) help him overcome his inadequate and unhealthy diet (embrace his vampirism) and b) stake a claim on Lestat as his companion (embrace his queer identity) all in one go. Obviously this was a terrible plan and was never going to work and Lestat absolutely deserved the 'I heard your hearts dancing' moment that came approximately two minutes later lol but what I'm trying to say is that idk if Lestat was really trying to have an open relationship, at least at first. Like many have pointed out, show!Loustat are really not suited for polyamory. They are both VERY possessive and jealous.

Which is why I'm not quite sure I fully believe that Lestat claim that he "likes a little variety." While this is true in the books, and I of course have to leave room for season 3 to prove me wrong, the only affair we really see him have in s1 is with Antoinette, so I think it's more likely he kept her around for when he was feeling particularly lonely and/or rejected by Louis. We see him cheating with her whenever Louis is particularly distant, such as when Louis fell into his depression when Claudia left home, and when Louis and Claudia start speaking to each other extensively with the mind gift in 1x06. As Sam Reid said, Lestat "requires a certain amount of attention" and when it wasn't getting it at home he went elsewhere. So idk, maybe he was fond of her insofar as he enjoyed her company enough to spend time with her throughout the years instead of with a harem of other people? He's certainly less fond of her than he was of her book counterpart, Antoine, but again I hesitate to make any declarative statements about show!Lestat until we've seen season 3.

As for Lestat saying Antoinette would be a better third than Claudia, I look at this in two ways:

Taking the scene at face value, I think we can read this as Lestat being insecure about Louis and Claudia's relationship and seeing something about it that isn't there, which, if you've read The Vampire Lestat, is informed by his relationship with his own mother. In 1x06 Lestat tells Louis that he is "here in front of [you] with all the necessary appendages" which seems to insinuate that he believes Louis would prefer Claudia as a companion to himself. Ofc Lestat would prefer Antoinette as a third - he knows Louis doesn't give a fuck about her and all of his attention would be back on Lestat with Claudia out of the way lol but I also have trouble believing Lestat ever actually wanted Claudia dead which brings me to:

This scene didn't actually happen this way, and Louis's memory is either faulty** or has been altered by Armand. Rolin Jones's comment in the post episode commentary segment seems to insinuate this, and Sam Reid has also implied that he was able to play some scenes in season 1 as very over the top because they were not real, and this could be one of them (another one, I think, could be the train scene with Claudia). But until this is actually proven by season 3, I'm going to assume it happened as is.

Lastly I don't disagree that Antoinette is part of why their marriage fell apart, but she was was a symptom, not a cause. Their problems stemmed from both of them carrying a shitload of trauma that neither of them know how to explain or deal with which caused massive miscommunication and in Lestat's case, horrific and violent abuse. Ultimately I don't think Louis gave much of a fuck about Antoinette - he straight up says he knows Lestat would kill her in a second if Louis just gave him what he wanted (acceptance, both of Lestat and himself). He just also knew he couldn't give up what little ground he had in their relationship because Lestat otherwise had all of the power.

*In no way do I mean to imply that Lestat's behavior is at all justified or that his feelings of rejection were Louis' fault, or that Louis deserved any of this from Lestat even if he did intentionally reject him. ** In no way am I trying to imply that Louis is lying about this scene. At no point do I ever think Louis is lying, just misremembering due to trauma, manipulation, or simply because this all happened a century ago.

[read-alert]

Woodworking by Emily St James

This is contemporary adult fiction following two trans women: Erica, a high school teacher who has only just admitted to herself that she is a woman after seeing a student live as her true self, and Abigail, the only trans student in her small, conservative school that she had to transfer to after her parents kicked her out. Abigail is the first person Erica comes out to while looking for advice, so the two form a friendship while also dealing with a myriad of personal problems and the fact that a student-teacher friendship isn't exactly appropriate and looks much worse than it is to everyone else.

I loved this. Erica and Abigail are both such strong, well rounded characters, and both so messy. Erica is so terrified of anyone finding out that she's trans that she makes a lot of really dumb decisions that hurt people close to her and most of all, herself. And Abigail is so full of rage at the hand she's been dealt in life and the fact that all the older trans people she knows keep telling her how lucky she is that she found herself so young when lucky is the last thing she feels. But both women are so deeply lonely because although Abigail shouts who she is to the rest of the world, very few people actually see her as anything other than whatever story they've built up to themselves about what trans girls are, and Erica has no one who sees her other than Abigail. But while the primary source of connection throughout the book is with other trans women, one of the main themes is coalition building with many types of women- finding the things they have in common and fighting to protect each other- so Erica and Abigail do thankfully eventually find others who see them.

Another major theme is what a deeply unfair burden it is on trans women to have to carry the weight of other people's imaginings of who and what they are. That's why the title is woodworking- a process of disappearing into the woodwork, blending in so well you become a part of the background and no one will ever know you're trans- something Abigail wants desperately so that she can escape that burden. The novel is set during the 2016 election and includes a heavy focus on a local election where the shoe-in is a man who tried to get a bathroom bill passed. Abigail's horrible parents never stop insisting that their perfect little boy who never really existed come back to them. Erica feels crushed under the weight of how much of her life will be taken away from her if she comes out. Abigail's boyfriend is at first ashamed of her and fears that being with her makes him gay, but then grows to see her as a prop in his own story- his muse and someone who's very existence is so brave, she must exist just to inspire him. And ultimately, Erica choosing Abigail as her trans mom is part of this. There's connection and solidarity and a real friendship in their relationship, but it's not okay for an adult to ask a seventeen year old to help her remake her life and become the only person she can depend on. Erica and Abigail love each other and their friendship is important and good, but it's also deeply unfair to Abigail, and becomes a question that they grapple with throughout the novel- is it more unfair to keep doing this to Abigail, or, now that they have formed their friendship and become important to each other, turn Erica into just another person who leaves Abigail when she needs a friend the most?

I also really love the narrative communicated through the narration. Abigail's chapters are told in first person because, despite all of her struggles, she is living as her real self. Erica's chapters are in third person, because she is living a life outside of herself. And very far into the book, we get a few chapters from a woman who has woodworked so completely that she has disappeared into herself, and her chapters are in second person, though still narrated by her. She is so deeply disconnected from herself that she can't even conceptualize her transness as a part of herself, rather a separate person that is narrating her life. The connection or disconnection to the self and to other women like you is such a fundamentally baked in theme that it's taken root in the structure of the novel itself.

I will note that in the audiobook, Erica's deadname is always represented with a burst of static, and in a chapter where she tries to give up on the idea of transitioning and just keep living her life as is, that static becomes completely overwhelming, making for a jarring and unpleasant listening experience. Which I recognize is the point, but nonetheless. Also the phrase "thank you for trusting me with you" becomes extremely repetitive. The author's note says this is something a loved one told her when she came out and that really stuck with her, but it feels really weird when so many different characters say the exact same uncommon phrase. This is however, a very minor complaint.

This is a fantastic novel in deep conversation with trans identity, transness, and identity. A wonderful and beautifully executed exploration of the self, connection, and coalition. I expect this book and these characters to stick with me a long time, and I can't wait to see what St James does next. 5⭐️

[astrolines]

CW:

Has Chloe changed the timeline of the canon in this book? The characters' birthdays are on different dates, and even the events don't correspond to the timeline of the first books...?

Note:

This is an addendum outside the book that I can't help but mention. The publicist — or Chloe's secretary (I really don't know what she is) — was feeding fanwars on Instagram during the launch week. Jesus, you're an adult and in a professional environment, I believe...

Lizzie: Poor girl.

I still haven't been able to write about her.

lizziegibsie:

It's so sad to read about how close they were and got on so well, and to see that being destroyed by Mark through manipulation!

The two of them really mirror each other.

I hope they soon forgive each other and rebuild the friendship they had as children.

— Thor

— Little Viper

☹️

Hughie:

I have mixed feelings about him. At the same time as I like him and he's a good boy, I just can't bring myself to like him completely — which genuinely makes me sad.

Also, I'll point out a few things that left me with conflicting thoughts.

Hughie, at the age of 12, knew better how to deal with Lizzie's bipolarity than his own therapists throughout his life. He had more maturity as a CHILD than all the adults around them.

Hugh practically moved into Lizzie's family home in his early teens and became the man of the house for the Young family at just 14/15 years old (that's actually a quote from the book, by the way). However, after the break-up, all that personality of being very mature for his age — an old soul who understands people so well — simply disappears.

Yes, I'm talking about the spoilers Chloe gave about T10 and excerpts from his Spotify playlists where, apparently, he says that Katie won't let him end the relationship, blaming her.

Like, you really want to make me believe that this Hugh from age 7 to 15 had more maturity than the adults and was open with his feelings, but after 16 this regresses and he becomes a guy who gets involved (because he wants to, by the way) with a girl knowing that he likes another, and in the end Katie is to blame for putting him in this situation?

But if I mention misogyny, we'll all be quiet, won't we?

This book kind of just proves that Chloe doesn't know how to develop characters who have no apparent trauma and just get over everything.

Hugh saves Lizzie from suicide and breaks his arm because of it — it's never mentioned again.

In fact, both Biggs brothers have only one function within their respective books: to be an undeveloped emotional support.

I'll say it: Hugh even manages a little more than Claire in this respect, but even so, he's always in the background.

Claire's life revolves around Gibsie, and Hugh's life revolves around Lizzie.

Their hobbies are left to one side, their traumas are barely touched on, and when they are, they revolve around Liz/Gibs; both fiercely defend their love interests.

In fact, we can't fail to mention how the Bot fandom only criticizes one of them for this reason, but the other is cheered on.

But if I mention misogyny, we'll all be quiet, won't we?

Hughie & Gibsie:

This book really gave me a basis for understanding the relationship between the two (something that doesn't appear in the other books). I think they're cute, and I like how Hughie loves Gerard like a brother and protects him.

In T7, we hardly see anything about this relationship — it's as if the two have grown apart, even if that doesn't seem to be the case in this book.

Gibsie always saw Hughie as a comforting person growing up, but that changed a lot after Hughie said he would stay with Lizzie.

I know he had to do it, and it was the right thing to do. Lizzie is lonely and needs someone by her side.

But I think this is the exact point where Gerard realizes that Hughie — as much as he loves him like a brother and says he'll be there for him — wouldn't be the same from then on.

In T7, Gerard hardly interacts with Hughie in any deep way, and when he needs comfort, unlike when he was a child, Gibs turns to Johnny! And I think this distancing is mainly due to Gerard constantly thinking that his friends are going to abandon him.

But he knows that would never happen with him and Johnny. Gibs has always been Johnny's number one friend from day one, and Johnny would go to war because of him.

In conclusion, about that bit between Hughie and Hughie/Gibsie, I can't get the events of T7 and Hughie's omission out of my head.

Honestly, that really got to me, and I hope the next book changes that, because I want to like Hughie.

Gibsie:

Ahh, I love him! He's definitely one of the best characters in this series. He's always been caring, funny, and protective of those he loves, and it's so nice to know that, even after growing up, none of those qualities have disappeared.

The best dancer in Ireland!!!

I have to say: it's sad that we get more character development here than in his own book.

Johnny & Gibsie:

They're everything! Every time they appeared, I was automatically happy. I love how their friendship always brings comfort and loyalty.

Johnny only caring about rugby and Gibsie? He's so real for that!

Claire:

We got more of the character here than in her own book — but it was great! It showed how she grew up surrounded by love and a lot of protection!

I think it's really cute how she doesn't let anyone walk all over her, and how, every chance she gets, she calls Mark disgusting, weird, ugly, annoying, weird, stinky.

And to think that if Hughie hadn't been there to protect her, she'd have been just another one of Mark's victims...

I love how she and Gerard have always taken each other in, comforted each other, and, above all, protected each other since they were babies!!!

Every time Mark is near Claire, Gibsie constantly checks that she's okay. In contrast, Claire is always by Gerard's side and keeps him safe. Too cute.

She's an airhead... but I love her!!!

Claire & Lizzie:Mario from my Luigi!!!

I think they're really cute, and as much as they've both failed each other at different times...

They love each other very much, despite their woes.

And yes — they both failed each other!

I know it's common in the BOT fandom to turn a blind eye to the views of other characters who aren't your favourites.

The animosity and the Jamie affair: it hurt Claire to the point where she vocalised that if Gibsie wasn't around, she was used as a punching bag.

And Claire's omission and outbursts of anger: they hurt Lizzie.

So yes, they failed each other in different ways — but they love each other, as they both make clear in their respective books and points of view.

Patrick Feely:

I loved every part he appeared in. I can't wait for his book!

In the other books, it's said that he had three sisters, but in this one, he actually has four older sisters (???).

Anyway, I really want to understand the root of his behaviour — apart from the problem with alcoholism, he appears to be hypersexual (?). It's mentioned that girls just come up and touch him, and he doesn't react, he just lets it happen.

Maybe that explains why he and Lizzie get so close after their second year at Tommen...

katiefeely:

Him blushing at the bus stop because of Katie, the new year in bcs and him in a bad mood in tommen — ahhh, give them to me soon!

Katie:

I've seen a lot of people taking the parts where she appears out of context, calling her a mean girl and desperate.

Reading the book, I didn't see any of that.

Katie is a very cute character, and her intentions with Hughie are incredible and very light-hearted. They would make great friends.

I really want to know more about her and her relationship with her father, who is clearly very distant.

Oh, and I loved that when her father didn't pay for her studies, she went and got a scholarship herself! This diva!

[humanitys-strongest-bamf]

"get me a damned matcha" | Chapter 25: June III

{{ Chapter 24: May II | Epilogue }} Chapter Directory

I for real feel like I'm grieving! This was my first published and completed fic in a VERY VERY long time and, as frustrating as it was sometimes, I'm so glad that y'all took this journey with me 😭

✧ pairing ➼ levi ackerman x fem!reader, college x coffee shop x roommates!au ✧ summary ➼ After you find yourself plagued with misfortune due to struggles in your personal and family life, you find yourself needing to move last minute. As a junior in undergrad with little money and little social support, you considered yourself lucky when you found a sublease that was close to campus and was relatively cheap. Unfortunately, it seemed that your roommate did not seem to be so excited regarding your presence. ✧ content/warnings ➼ fluff, alcohol, reader finally coming to terms with herself ✧ word count ➼ ~5.2k

School was over, but it didn’t mean you were entirely free of responsibilities.

Paradis University hosted a graduate banquet every year, specifically to feature students that excelled academically or contributed to the community. 

You didn’t originally want to go. Your grades weren’t the best and you didn’t feel like being surrounded by your classmates that would no doubt boast about their near perfect GPA’s. However, you did start the Honors Society and it had taken off within the past few months, so you felt the need to attend since you participated in an important extracurricular. Sure, you could have just dipped out on it, but it could have been a chance to network if you decided to go down that route.

You couldn’t see it happening in the meantime. You just wanted to focus on your book, but if the opportunity arose to network, you told yourself that you’d take it.

You were dragging Levi to the banquet with you, which was met with surprisingly little resistance. The idea of spending the night wearing a formal outfit and being surrounded by people didn’t sound great to either of you, so you were more than surprised when Levi simply responded with a “sure” when you half-heartedly asked him if he’d be your emotional support throughout the night. 

You were currently trying to focus on just the next hour or two to keep your mind off the banquet. The tickets were paid for and the outfits were bought. Even if you really wanted to skip out on it, you had already spent time and money preparing, so to have that go to waste would feel just as bad as forcing yourself to go for the night.

Sighing, you looked down into your bag, double checking that you had picked up both sandwiches that you had ordered. You were dropping off lunch for Levi before planning to hang out in the cafe for the rest of his shift before heading home to get ready for the banquet. 

Your head shot up as you saw something orange moving out of the corner of your eye. It was small and barely drew your attention, but you looked off into the distance and your eyes fell on a nearby dumpster. You saw something shuffling around near the corner before disappearing under it.

Any intention for you to shrug and move on disappeared as soon as you heard a meow. 

Your eyes widened as you immediately set your bag down on a nearby bench and headed directly towards the dumpster, doing your best to ignore the subtle foul smell coming from the opening. You got onto your hands and knees and knelt down to peek underneath the dumpster, a small gasp coming from your lips when you saw a lone kitten squatting in front of you. The kitten was thin, but didn’t look like it was starving. They were definitely dirty and you could already imagine Levi’s face if he was the one staring at the kitten. Some of its fur was matted and the dirt covered what you assumed would have otherwise been a vibrant orange coat.

It didn’t seem actively afraid of you, so you reached out your hand towards it without fully extending your arm, to offer that you were friendly but to not be too intrusive or scare them off. It made eye contact with you before gradually approaching you, tentatively watching you before deciding that you were a nice human and immediately crawled onto your lap.

Clearly more smitten with the kitten than you were disgusted by the amount of dirt and grime on its coat, you picked them up and brought them over to the bench, suddenly remembering your tuna sandwich. You carefully unwrapped the sandwich as the kitten watched you curiously, smelling the tuna as soon as you exposed the sandwich from its wrapping.

You scooped up some of the tuna with your pinky and extended your hand out to it again and it took all of your willpower to hold back the massive smile building on your face as you watched it happily lick at your finger. All that willpower was immediately thrown out the metaphorical window as soon as you heard it begin to purr.

You felt your heart ache as you stared at it, noticing that it wasn’t wearing a collar. You kept telling yourself that no matter what, you were not going to take it home with you, despite already being unable to part from it. You already knew that Levi was going to question why it took you so long to pick up the sandwiches, yet you couldn’t get yourself to get up and walk away.

You weren’t going to take the cat. You didn’t have the capacity to adopt it. You told yourself you wouldn’t do it.

~~~~~

You ended up taking the cat. 

Your hands were full with your bag and the sandwiches, so you settled for placing the kitten in the hood of your jacket. Although he seemed to shuffle around a bit, your hood was large and sturdy enough that there wasn’t a risk of him falling out, even if he was wiggling around.

Once you finally arrived at the cafe, you let out an internal sigh of relief once you saw that there weren’t a lot of people inside. You opened the door to the cafe with your foot since your hands were occupied, making eye contact with your grumpy barista-turned-roommate-turned-boyfriend. 

Levi was in the middle of making you your Matcha before looking up and seeing you slowly make your way inside, noticing that you seemed a bit more disheveled compared to usual. That, plus the fact that it took you as long as it did for you to pick up sandwiches from a deli shop two blocks away made him immediately suspect that something was up.

“You get lost again?”

It took you a second to respond and Levi could immediately tell that your attention was directed elsewhere.

“What?”

“Really took you 30 minutes to walk down the street?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yep,” you immediately responded, somewhat avoiding eye contact with him. You were stiff and moving slowly, as if you were afraid of knocking something over. 

The more he looked at you, the more suspicious Levi became over what the hell had happened on your little field trip to the deli shop. He watched as you reached into your bag and handed him a sandwich. 

He eyed you skeptically as he took the sandwich from you, immediately grimacing upon opening it and smelling the tuna coming from within the loose wrapping.

“I didn’t order tuna,” he commented with a disgusted expression.

“You’re so extra,” you sighed as you rolled your eyes at him, swapping out the sandwich you grabbed for yourself after realizing that you accidentally gave him yours.

Levi grabbed the correct sandwich but then looked up as soon as he began to unwrap it. He had heard a certain noise coming from the back of your hood. Raising an eyebrow, he gave you a skeptical look and noticed that you were purposefully avoiding eye contact with him. If he didn’t know you better, he would’ve assumed that you were just focusing on eating your sandwich, but he knew that was bullshit.

“Did I just hear meowing?”

He saw you pause for a split second, making it glaringly obvious that you were hiding something.

“I don’t know, did you?” you asked innocently while still avoiding eye contact.

You couldn’t see it, but you could essentially feel the glare that Levi was shooting in your direction.

A meow came from the back of your hood again. It must have been the tuna.

Levi’s unamused expression turned into a full frown as you continued to awkwardly look away.

“Show me your hood,” he demanded in a stern tone of voice.

“What?” you asked, looking up at him, trying your best to maintain a neutral expression. “Why?”

His gaze was unwavering, and his expression was unchanging. You could tell that he wasn’t going to back down from his request.

After a few seconds of desperately trying to maintain your mask, you sighed and pulled your hood to the side and grabbed the kitten from within, having it rest on one arm while you used your other hand to poke at your sandwich, offering more tuna to your new furry friend.

“Really?” Levi asked with an exasperated sigh.

“What?” you responded defensively. “I found him underneath the dumpster. I think he’s orphaned.”

You looked up towards Levi and saw an expected look of disgust appear on his face as soon as you mentioned the dumpster. His eyes fell from you down to the cat, noting that its fur looked a little matted, but otherwise didn’t look completely filthy. He watched as it happily licked the tuna off your finger, noticing that it was purring.

“Please don’t say you’re taking it home.”

“Where else am I supposed to put him? Back near the dumpster?” you responded nonchalantly, indicating that you had already made up your mind about adopting the dumpster kitty. “Look how much he loves the tuna.”

Levi had moved on from glaring incessantly at you to having an intense staring contest with the cat, adamant about not allowing it to come home with you. It got harder and harder to keep that frown on his face once he saw you smiling endearingly at the cat.

“Fine ,” he grumbled with a groan, rolling his eyes as he brought his attention back to making your Matcha, “but you’re feeding him something other than tuna from a cheap deli shop.”

You tried to hide the shit-eating grin that was beginning to appear on your face as you finally heard Levi give in to your somewhat impulsive decision to adopt a cat. Seeing that the cat was no longer sniffing at your sandwich, you scooped him up out of your arm and back into your hood.

“He’s going to get our clothes for the banquet all furry,” Levi mentioned as he looked back over at you.

“Well, I guess we’ll buy a lint roller on the way home,” you rationalized, earning a quiet grunt to come from Levi’s lips.

You rolled your eyes.

“Full of problems today, aren’t you?” you grumbled. “Just get me the damned Matcha.”

He looked back up at you with a frown as he hesitated in sliding your Matcha over to you.

You stuck your tongue out at him as you reached for the beverage, your eyes widening once he moved it away from you so you couldn’t reach.

“Only if you quit being a little shit.”

You glared at him and reached across the counter, dodging his efforts to shoo your hand away, smirking once you finally wrestled the cup away from him, although he wasn’t trying very hard to keep it out of your grasp in the first place.

“You’re so annoying,” he scolded.

“And you’re a dick,” you retorted.

“You’re distracting me.”

“And you’re choosing to get distracted.”

He rolled his eyes at your response, but you saw the slightest hint of the corner of his lips tugging up as well as the presence of an amused look in his eyes. He was enjoying your banter, despite his multiple claims regarding how annoying you were being to him at this moment.

Levi eventually walked away to tend to his station since he was still on a shift, but it was next to impossible for him to take his eyes off you for the rest of the shift. You were doing nothing other than sitting at your usual seat as you made your way through your sandwich, occasionally throwing a comment back to your new fur child when you heard him calling from behind you, musing over potential names for him.

“Mr. Whiskers? No? Don’t like that?” you proposed, gauging the cat’s reaction as you muttered off a list of potential names. “What about…Mashed Potato? I think you can look like a scoop of mashed potatoes. Don’t like that either? If you ask Levi, he’d probably just constantly call you a little shit, would you prefer that?”

Levi snorted to himself as he watched the ridiculousness that was the conversation you were having with the small furry creature that was meowing at you in response.

“Marmalade?” you asked, your eyes lighting up when you weren’t met with a meow of protest. “Nice to meet you, Marmalade.”

Levi watched closely as you introduced yourself, saying your name and some random facts about yourself, before pointing at Levi and introducing him as the one Marmalade will have to answer to if he leaves too much fur on the furniture. 

You looked up, making eye contact with Levi again, realizing that he was listening in on your conversation. 

“Levi might still refer to you as a little shit regardless, so I guess we’ll have that as your backup name.”

~~~~~

You were in a rush to the banquet. You had stopped at a pet store on the way home, buying a comfortable kennel, a litter box, a food and water bowl, and some kibble and canned food, although Levi was mumbling about being unsure if the kibble was good enough for Marmalade, clearly indicating that he was going to take this cat dad thing seriously. After taking Marmalade home, giving him a quick bath so that he wasn’t tracking dirt all over the apartment, and setting everything up for him, you were more than pressed for time.

“Told you he was going to get fur all over our clothes,” Levi grumbled from the driver’s seat as you picked off some stray strands of fur that the lint roller had failed to catch.

The drive to the banquet was relatively quiet, likely due to your nerves regarding having to be around that many people, but Levi’s brows furrowed together as he heard you incessantly squirming around in your seat. His eyes flashed over towards you and he saw that you were fumbling around with a waist-clincher that you were wearing underneath your dress. It looked more than uncomfortable and you kept on adjusting it in an attempt to make it more bearable to wear. 

“Tch, just take that damn thing off,” he scolded. “You look fine.”

You paused, holding still without further adjusting it or taking it off, hesitant to fully remove it. You haven’t ever worn a formal dress without it, although you knew that it was due to lingering traces of that facade you had spent the past few months trying to unravel.

Realizing that it wasn’t worth the discomfort, you unbuckled the back of the waist-clincher and tossed it into the backseat, immediately feeling better and like you could finally breathe after taking it off.

Levi was right. It was unnecessary and barely made a difference. Even if it did, you realized that you really didn’t care anymore.

The amount of students that showed up to the banquet wasn’t terrible, but given the fact that most of them brought someone with them, you began to feel cramped fast. Most of the students walked in with their parents, with some that were like you, bringing their significant other instead. 

The general expectation was to bring family and Levi was the closest person that you could realistically call family. You had cut your aunt off and had no intention of reconciling with her. You vaguely recalled a phone call two weeks ago from your aunt to chat about ‘future plans’. The question itself was innocent enough, but then she started going on about how writing isn’t an ‘actual job’ and you finally decided you had enough. You remembered snapping at her about how it was none of her business and then hung up. You haven’t responded to her since.

By the time you sat down at the table after finally locating your placecard, you were already beginning to feel overwhelmed from the amount of people cramped into a small conference room. 

“This was a mistake,” you grumbled.

“Was it?”

Levi took a seat next to you and adjusted the tie that he had neatly put together about an hour prior when you were in a rush to leave. You watched him closely, paying particular attention to how his dress shirt seemed to fit his shape perfectly, with the color of the tie further accentuating his eyes. His fingers neatly dug into the collar of his shirt to adjust his tie, and you found your mind immediately wandering elsewhere as you became fixated on the dexterity of his fingers.

Feeling your cheeks heat up, you immediately ripped your eyes off him and shook your head a bit, sipping on the glass of water in front of you to keep yourself from feeling a certain way that would have made getting through this night even more difficult than it was already going to be.

“Oh, you came.”

You looked up as you saw Petra’s somewhat skeptical expression. Her tone of voice indicated that she legitimately did not think you were going to show up despite the fact that you turned in your RSVP and had a table card.

“Did you expect me not to?” you asked with a frown.

She shrugged as she sat down, hanging her purse off the back of the seat as she got settled. 

“You just sounded pretty disinterested when we were chatting about it. That’s all.”

You took a second to recall that conversation that you vaguely remembered. It was a few weeks ago, roughly around the time that you had spent on figuring out how to move forward with properly grieving your parents’ death. This banquet was the last thing on your mind.

“Was distracted,” you eventually remarked. “Sorry.”

Your eyes shot up as you watched some other students sit down at the table with their family members. With everyone taking a seat, the crowd seemed a little less chaotic, so that was a plus, but you’d be expected to maintain one-on-one conversations now, which seemed just as draining.

“Honestly, I probably would have run it differently.”

“Hmm?” you said as you looked towards Petra, her comment pulling you out of your thoughts about how dreadful these next few hours were going to be. You knew she was referring to the Honors Society, since that’s what you were specifically invited to this banquet for. You already knew that she was going to say one of her comments that were genuine and did not come from a place of malignant intent, but always seemed to rub you off wrong.

She began giving examples of some things she would have done differently had she been the one that started it and you felt yourself getting increasingly irritated the more she spoke.

“Like any financial issues could’ve been mitigated through having member dues-”

“Should’ve run it yourself then,” you finally snapped as you scowled at Petra, whose eyes widened at your sudden remark.

You didn’t even notice the upturn of Levi’s lips that appeared as soon as you snapped, no doubt proud that you were finally standing up for yourself. You stood up, grumbling under your breath about how you were going to need a drink if you were going to have to deal with this type of thing all night, and headed straight for the bar.

It was the subpar university catering service, so you were less than impressed with their cocktail options, electing for the first fruity one that you saw. It tasted more like watered down juice than anything else.

You took a sip through the straw, looking over to the side as you saw Levi take a seat next to you.

“She send you to talk me down?” you asked dryly.

“No,” Levi said as he motioned for the bartender to get him a glass of whiskey. “Was too surprised to say much of anything.”

You kept your gaze fixated on your drink, watching the ice spin around as you stirred the liquid with your straw. You had known about how much your friendships were lacking for quite some time now, but you really did question why you kept all your friendships at surface-level. You legitimately couldn’t think of a reason as to why, other than maybe falling under the influence of your shitty ex-boyfriend.

Clenching your jaw, you let out a frustrated breath. You were going to resolve to do better and set boundaries when needed, instead of being the person that tedious tasks got thrown on to. You were going to be seen as a person and not as a means to an end.

You knew it was going to take a while. This part of you had been deeply engrained into you ever since high school. You’d have to fight back against any instincts you’ve developed since then, and then unweave all of the relationships that you had made based on this facade.

It was going to be hard and take a long time, but you knew that it was what you needed to do to continue moving forward. 

You had to find out who you really were and how that ultimately changed the relationships around you, taking apart each superficial thread one by one until people began seeing you for who you really were.

~~~~~

Even after you gathered yourself and conversed your way through the dinner and beginning speeches, you got quickly drained again and found yourself back at the bar. You were more than annoyed, with the crowd being a bit more scattered as people began to socialize amongst each other. 

You noted that Petra was chatting with the dean, likely doing some sort of elevator pitch to get into medical school, and that Oluo was chatting with Shadis, likely to ask about Shadis’ graduate program. This was essentially what all of the students present were doing: networking.

Now that you were here, you realized that you couldn’t really care for networking. You had no plans. You had no elevator pitch to give, and you were over pretending to be someone you weren’t.

You quietly groaned to yourself as you sipped on your cocktail, having ordered another one from the menu in hopes that it was better than the first one. It wasn’t. You grimaced upon tasting the liquid. It was too bitter and the ratio of alcohol to mixer was off. You’ve had better drinks at fraternity parties than whatever it was that the university catering service decided to deem as quality alcohol.

“Wanna get some air?” 

You looked over as you saw Levi approaching you again after he went off to converse with Erwin, who was there to recruit more potential students for his lab. The extra personnel was much needed. Your eyes immediately lit up once you heard the offer.

“Please ,” you responded, although it sounded almost like begging, indicating how desperate you were to get out of that stuffy and noisy room. 

Levi led you through the crowd and out one of the side doors that led to a balcony overlooking the downtown area. He shut the doors behind you to dampen some of the noise from within before leaning on the balcony railing next to you. It was much quieter outside. There were a few stragglers, but most of the guests had either gone home or were inside socializing. As far as you were concerned, it was only the two of you here, enjoying the cool night breeze and the beauty of the downtown lights below you, the street lamps illuminating up the street in a way that made you almost want to leave the building entirely just to walk underneath those lights.

You sipped on your drink again—likely just out of instinct since you still held the drink in your hand—and immediately grimaced again, being rudely reminded of how shitty it tasted.

Levi grabbed the glass by the rims and placed another drink in front of you. While yours was clear and flat with an orange slice inside it, the one he just handed you was bubbling from the carbonation and had a pretty mix of red and orange colors leading to the bottom of the glass. 

You took a sip, not being all that surprised when it tasted much better than the one you previously had. Whatever he ordered tasted more fruity than it did alcohol, while still providing that slight kick. Realizing that he likely customized the drink instead of directly ordering something from the menu, you eyed him as you sipped on the thin straw.

He knew your flavor profile. It wasn’t that surprising to you. After all, he had been making you your drinks for two years while also living with you. The drinks that he made were clearly very different from the ones served from behind a traditional bar, but he knew your likes and dislikes enough to craft you a cocktail you’d actually enjoy.

Levi sipped on your old drink, underestimating how bad it actually was, immediately scrunching up his nose in disgust upon tasting it.

“Really?” he questioned as he shot you a skeptical look.

“It’s what they had on the menu,” you said quietly, your cheeks slightly heating up in embarrassment.

“And by ‘they’, you mean the shitty university catering.”

It was the graduate department that was hosting the event, so their catering events included alcohol, but it was still university catering, which usually resulted in their menus being written from a more economic standpoint instead of one designed to provide the guests with satisfactory food and drinks.

You shrugged in acknowledgement, having accepted that you probably should have just tried to mix something up yourself. Still, the fact that Levi went out of his way to get you a drink you’d like brought a small smile to your face. 

You swirled the drink with the small straw for a while before sipping at it again, looking over towards Levi afterwards. He had turned around to set your old drink down onto the mini-table behind you, and was now headed back towards you. 

As he turned to face you, you couldn’t help but notice how his hair moved about in the wind, revealing his undercut, or how his dress shirt had the two top buttons undone, showing off his collarbones. He elected to also undo his tie and have it hang around his neck. His suit jacket was off due to how warm it was inside, and he had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Your eyes drifted down to his hands and you felt your mind wandering off towards your memories of how his hands felt on you, recalling some of the more intimate things he’s done with them to you.

You found yourself staring straight at him as your face rapidly heated up again as you desperately tried to pull your mind out of the gutter.

“What?” he asked, noticing the fact that you were just staring at him, ripping you out of your daze.

“Hmm?” you responded as you slightly shook your head to reorient yourself. “Nothing, just…”

You trailed off as you awkwardly shuffled from side to side, scratching at the back of your head.

“Just what?”

You took a moment to look directly into his eyes, noticing that they had softened in the past few minutes that he was standing outside with you. Part of you didn’t believe that this was the same person that pissed you off so much two years ago, but you were able to acknowledge that pretty soon after you moved in, he was there for you in a way that you desperately needed, but could never get prior to him.

“Just…thinking about how making me hate you was probably the best thing you could have done for me.”

That was not the answer that Levi was expecting, as evidenced in the way that he blinked at you as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“What?” he asked, bewildered at your response.

You looked down at your drink again as you tried to gather your thoughts into something that would make sense.

“...I remember how pissed I was those first few weeks of living with you,” you began, your voice gradually rising from a quiet whisper as you continued to speak. “Kept on questioning how I was going to survive even another week with you…but I think that it’s because I hated you so much that I was able to be myself around you.”

A gentle breeze blew through the both of you, as if it was trying to carry your words directly to him.

“...because I hated you so much, I was able to form something…real with you.”

His eyes softened again as he looked into your eyes, shifting his stance so that he was facing you more.

“Well, you were pretty easy to hate,” he mumbled nonchalantly, immediately earning himself a gentle shove from you in retaliation, the edges of his lips pulling up into a subtle smirk.

“I’m serious,” he continued after readjusting his positioning after you rudely forced him to move. “I remember dreading coming home because I knew your annoying ass was going to be waiting for me.”

“And I remember grimacing every time I heard the door open because I knew I had to see your cocky face again.”

He scoffed and flicked at your forehead in response to your comment and you swatted his hand away, rubbing at your forehead afterwards as you pouted at him.

You felt your face heating up again once you saw the affectionate look in his eyes as he watched you.

“...just strange…”

“What is?” he asked, slightly tilting his head, never taking his gaze off you.

“...that within the span of two years,” you spoke quietly, “I went from hating you…to loving you.”

You felt your breath get caught in your throat as you realized what exactly you had just said and admitted to—that you loved him. You felt your heart beating through your chest as your entire body heated up in embarrassment—but there was also truth to the sentiment. You really did love him. He had been there for you in ways that no one ever had been before. He pulled you out of the shitshow that you found yourself drowning in and helped push you forward, even if he was being a bit of a dick at times.

You thought back to how sneakily he had snuck up on you, and how devastated you were when you thought you had lost him. Even through all the fighting you had at the beginning and how difficult he was as you tried to sort through your feelings, you’d be willing to go through them every single time if the result was you standing here next to him in this moment.

“...love you too, brat,” he whispered, gently running his fingers down the side of your face, before pulling you into a gentle kiss.

You pressed your lips up against his, smiling into the kiss as you ran your fingers through his undercut, stepping closer to him.

Once you finally pulled away, you looked directly into his eyes, the two of you now being close enough that your lips were just inches apart.

Nothing else mattered to you right now except for him. Being able to hate him, meet him, and fall in love with him made going through undergrad worth it, even if it didn’t feel like it at first. You’d do it over and over again if it led to this conclusion.

You parted your lips to speak, your voice barely audible as you whispered to him.

“Thank you for being my found family.”

#: @levisbrat25 @gothgril69 @sckerman @berrijam @notgoodforlife @meowjaa @averysmolbear @roseofdarknessblog @bejewelledd @hhighkey @ayame236 @sad-darksoul @velouria17 @kamyru @l1zk4 @layenacreates @lamees004 @whoami-72 @highgoon69 @chaotic-on-main @levishotgf @nube55 @chosos-mascara @heichoucleanfreak @svftackerman @v4mp-wife @moonchild-angel @astri-ackerman @auriuswolve @noctemys @you-always-made-me-blush @raginginferno267 @sugurusdiscordmoderator @jennamelinda12 @noodlejitsu @nalu-trashytrash @creigh-h @gina239

[spacestationstorybook]

12 for the self ship prompts!

OHBOY. RUBS MY HANDS TOGETHER. i'll level with you i was wanting to write something with them in this vein already so i might touch this up and make it even goopier in the future but here's them doing some cutenesses.

💤 - falling asleep

From the way mortals talked about it, Faraday had always kind of assumed that to become a god was to become untouchable from all things mundane and boring. You’d spend a perfect, divine eternity pursuing only your truest passions, free from base physiological needs. 

Of course, that was before they met the gods, and learned that was far from true. Ascension didn’t even have the decency to fix all the things wrong with their brain, much less their body. While they needed less upkeep than mortals did, gods still got hungry. They still got sick.

And much to Faraday’s dismay, they still get tired.

They’ve been awake for days, long past any human’s capacity to function properly, but they’re beginning to feel themselves slowing down, and it irritates them--there’s still so much to do! There always is, but still. First they couldn’t sleep because they needed to answer requests from mortals on Earth--those within their capacity to grant, at least--then they had to deal with the new expansions to their tower library, and then they were struck with the idea that they should write an encyclopedia. A completely self-contained bastion of learning, for all who wanted it--they could even put some sort of blessing on it so it could turn to the exact page prospective readers needed at the time. It would be fantastic--once they planned out exactly what information to include and whether to create multiple volumes separated by letter or topic and how distribution would work, and…

then they got lost in some encyclopedias they pulled down from their shelves for inspiration and they’ve been reading those for the past few hours. Their eyes are getting progressively heavier, but if they take a break now they’ll have to pick everything up where they left off again and that feels like such a hassle so maybe they’ll just keep working for thirty more minutes--

“Fair-uh-day…”

The plaintive little sing-song snaps them out of their reading haze.‏‏‎ ‎Inspekta‏‏‎ ‎has been popping in periodically the past few days, so sometimes it takes them a minute to process when he’s arrived again, though it helps that he usually announces his presence.

“Did you need something?”

“How long’ve yew been up?” she asks, mildly accusatory, but not quite angry.

Faraday groans. “Four days? Five maximum, but it’s unimportant, irrelevant, trivial. I’ll go to sleep soon, I just need to find…whatever it was I was looking for in here.”

‏‏‎ ‎Inspekta‏‏‎ ‎sighs and coils around their shoulders, nuzzling against their cheek. “Nope. Yew said that last time n’ the time be-four that. I didn’t wanna do it, but yew’re gettin’ an offishal orda from the God of Leadership to go to sleep!”

Faraday grumbles. She’s playing dirty, using the fact that she’s soft and warm against them--and she knows the effect she’s having, as she wraps around them closer and takes one of their hands.

“I’m busy,” they protest weakly, but it’s futile at this point and they both know it.

“I can’t sleep right withowt yew,” he cajoles. “Yew’d really leave me to curl up all by myself all cold n’ lone-lee n’ fore-gotten? That’s just plane mean…”

“You’re the one being mean right now,” they mutter, but they close their book as a new wave of tiredness washes over them. “Alright, alright. Maybe I should rest for a bit. Since you’re so insistent, pushy…third thing.”

They’re tired, alright?

The book drops from their hands and they slide down, cradled by their partner’s long body. Their head rests on one of her outer coils, and they feel her gently shift as she cuddles closer to them, keeping them warm. A soft, rumbling purr starts up and they feel the vibrations throughout their body, lulling them to sleep.

In the human world, it sometimes took Faraday hours to fall asleep.

They’re out within minutes.

[tychodorian]

Character Introduction: Darius – The King Without a Crown in King of Dust

Here he is! Darius! The main character! A man burdened by the weight of duty, loss, and personal conflict, he sits at the heart of the story as a figure who both drives and resists the forces shaping his world. So, who is Darius?

At first glance, Darius seems like a character who has it all together. After all, he’s a respected leader, someone whose influence and tactical brilliance have made him indispensable in the war-torn world of Starkovia. He's even a powerful vampire! But scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find a man quietly crumbling under the weight of his responsibilities and the ghosts of his past.

Darius has spent two decades in a deeply committed relationship with Yra, his last boyfriend. But, as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that not all relationships are meant to last forever, even those that seem unbreakable. Before that, Darius suffered through three awful ex-wives, and before that... the love of his life fell to her death.

The 20-year relationship between Darius and Yra begins to fracture as the novel opens, and it’s not an easy breakup for either of them. They’ve shared an adult lifetime together, and their identities are intertwined in ways that make their separation feel like a tearing of flesh, a wound that may never fully heal. And yet, it’s this very breaking point that allows Darius to begin to question who he is and what he truly wants.

Enter Astrid. She's lost, lonely, and most of all nice. Where Yra was a partner who brought out the monster in him (in a good and bad way), Astrid becomes something else entirely—someone who sparks a sense of desire and vulnerability in Darius that he’s long kept buried. His growing feelings for her are complicated, messy, and far from straightforward. He struggles with guilt over the dissolution of his relationship with Yra, and now, these unbidden feelings for Astrid surface at the worst possible time.

It’s not just a love triangle. Darius’ arc is about more than the relationships he has with Yra and Astrid—it’s about his relationship with himself. He’s constantly wrestling with the man he wants to be and the man he is. He’s torn between duty and desire, between the mask he wears for the world and the person he feels he’s becoming beneath it all.

In many ways, Darius embodies the theme of identity that runs throughout King of Dust. He is a man who has been shaped by war, by duty, and by love, but he’s also a man struggling to reconcile all of those pieces into a cohesive whole. His decisions ripple throughout the story, affecting the fates of other characters and the world around him.

At the core of it all, Darius is a king without a crown—a man caught between the remnants of his past and the possibilities of his future, unsure if he’ll ever be whole again. And that, perhaps, is what makes him so compelling. Darius’ journey is not just about saving Starkovia—it’s about saving himself.

You can read all about him in my new book King of Dust! The preorder link is in my pinned post.

[hold-fast-to-hope]

There is one scene from the book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (henceforth JS&MN) which lives rent-free in my mind, absolutely devastated me, and singlehandedly reshaped my thoughts of what I want from life, and I have never heard anyone talk about it. Therefore, I am going to do so. (Major spoilers follow.)

Throughout the book, the human characters grapple with their relationship to the transcendent. At first, in a Napoleonic Wars setting where God is frequently mentioned and characters even debate heresies like whether magically resurrected persons belong to God or to the magicians who raise them, it seems as though God would be the natural place for such characters to look for the something-more they so evidently wish to find. But the God of JS&MN is emphatically a deist's God, not reachable by human concerns. This is best shown in a narrative aside where a Church of England character feels envy for a Catholic character who can call on the saints, as the CofE character can only say "Dear me!" and "Upon my word!" and "Lord bless me!" and this is not consoling her in any way. This simultaneously hurts both Protestants (portrayed as having no ability to pray sincerely) and Catholics (portrayed as having their consolations in saints somehow opposed to consolations in God). All this is meant for satire, it is true, but the content of the satire is telling, especially in a society where religion seems to have been turned primarily to advising public morals, providing garbled parts of spells, and engaging in scholarly debates. There is no relationship with God to be had here.

On the surface of it, our characters are left merely on the natural plane, on the scales between rationality without power (humans) and power without reason (fairies). But they are not content to be there. Both the Enlightenment skepticism of Mr Norrell and the Romantic self-centeredness of the gentleman with thistledown hair prove hollow. The longing for God will out, and in JS&MN, desire for the transcendent finds its home in the person of the Raven King.

The Raven King is a mysterious figure, somewhere between the human and the fairy, certainly not (on the face of it) a divine person; yet characters feel about him an almost religious fervor. Mr Norrell's frantic denial of the Raven King, rooted as it is in his own disappointment with the Raven King's failure to show up for him in the way he wanted, echoes many stories of people walking away from faith. Jonathan Strange's longing to be approved of by a person greater in his very being than himself is similarly reminiscent of many a spiritual seeker in this world. And John Childermass? He is the Raven King's declared servant and true believer. As he says in response to Lascelles's mockery of his faith in the Raven King,

"Nothing would please me better than that my King should come home. It is what I have wished for all my life."

This brings us to the scene of which I spoke. The Raven King has, in fact, returned. He appears to his servant, Childermass, on a lonely moor, where they are currently the only two people conscious (arguably, the only two alive). Childermass has been cast out of Mr Norrell's service and wounded in the process, and he is struggling with the dead body on which the Raven King's writing is preserved. The Raven King identifies Childermass as his servant, heals his wound, raises the body from apparent death, and gives Childermass a calling and a purpose in interpreting his writing. All throughout this, Childermass tries to prevent the Raven King from stealing the body; he finds the King familiar, but never sees him for what he is. Then the King vanishes.

From a certain perspective, Childermass now has everything he could want. His King has heaped every benefit on him — all except for the gift of knowing the Raven King. Childermass has his heart's desire; the King has returned — but he is never allowed to know it. I will be honest: I do not know if that scene is intended as the tragedy for which I took it. But I do know that when I reached the end of that scene, and Childermass failed to recognize the King for whom he had longed, and the King did not reveal himself, I felt as though something in me shattered. I carried the grief for days. How could the King treat Childermass "as a parent who cleans something from a child's face," and yet make no step toward letting himself be known?

As though to add insult to injury, the Raven King does appear to Strange and Norrell in such a way that they can consciously appreciate it (especially Strange, though Norrell is informed by Strange of what went on). He seems to do this precisely so that, having seen him, Strange and Norrell will decide not to pursue him further. Both these magicians are the sort who are abashed at realizing their own smallness; in the awe of something truly beyond them, they feel no corresponding draw toward it. I think Childermass (always a lower-to-the-ground person than the gentleman magicians) would not have been thus deterred; and it is perhaps for this reason that Childermass does not get to see. The Raven King does not want to risk the true pursuit of being known.

A friend of mine has pointed out that the King is not without mercy towards his subjects. He appears and gives good gifts, as he does to Childermass; he wants to receive their taxes and honor. But he does not give of himself. My friend thinks perhaps it is simply that the time is not yet come, that one day he will let himself be known. Perhaps so. Perhaps it is not an unresolvable tragedy; but it has a jagged edge, all the same.

In looking at Childermass's fate, I found my own desires suddenly clarified. I spend a lot of time praying for the sorts of things that Childermass receives — for healing, or a calling, or direction, or being physically provided for, or being respected. But what would any of these things be to me, if I received them without knowing my King and recognizing his face? Yes, he comes whether I do this or not, and it is of course of far more importance that he knows me than that I know him. And knowing him is terrifying, I do not deny — but I would rather be terrified and without all the benefits I usually ask for, while knowing that I see his face. I can see now that it is a tragedy to be content with all the blessings God gives, while failing to see him.