#that until he is actually introduced outside of events. which is a bit of a ways off still and the only way to get there is getting the

[httpsjeonglvr]

hi!! i saw ur requests were open and i really loved the Pierced request u did,,, and i was wondering if u could do one where the reader is alt but subtly so??? like a lazy day or maybe a work day where they have to tone down their style

bc like usually if ur subtly alt and encounter a more obviously alt person in public there’s this moment of “I Know What You Are 🤨🤨 <3”

i’m totally going on a tangent but i think a scenario with those vibes would be kinda neat

I Know What You Are

h. brown x alt! reader

A/N: I tried my best to do alt reader but since I don't have much experience I failed so I’m sorry if you don’t like it

Usually, when you are hanging out with your friends or coworkers your style is slightly darker than theirs and when you became close to Miles and Pav. You were a bit hesitant to grow close to the others but Miles and Pav had convinced you after numerous times.

Today was your day off and the group decided to invite themselves over except Miguel who claimed to be to busy for useless events on his day off. The group was sitting in your living room eating your snacks and fighting over the TV, you had walked out in a pair of sweatpants and a black halter top with a handpainted skull on it, and a scowl was etched on your face as you watched the chaotic people mess around your living room. You had noticed they invited the spider punk who you haven’t gotten introduced to yet.

Hobie turned around at the sound of your footsteps and his jaw dropped he hadn’t seen you in such casual clothing before, he was used to your alternative outfits and makeup when the group hung out outside of work. You made eye contact with the punk and nodded in acknowledgement before sitting next to Pav on the floor.

While you and Pav made conversation Hobie couldn’t take his eyes off you and that made you uncomfortable so you turned to look at him and his eyes held a look as if he was telling you something. You knew what he was saying ‘I Know What You Are’

A few weeks later you and Hobie started to hang out on your own and you both bonded over your love of the alternative style and beliefs about the world. He absolutely loved the fact that someone else was into his style and glad that you felt comfortable enough with him to open up about your personal life,not that you weren’t close to miles and them but you weren’t sure how they take your all the shit you’ve been going through.

Hobie asks you to move into his apartment, sadly that would not be possible, your universe needs his spider-woman.

"Hobie my darling, I can't stay" you whisper between kisses as your boyfriend slides his big hands under your shirt but it’s actually his.

You and him had been living in content until a certain canon event which led to him losing the only thing he lived for. You

I will rework on it anon

[wordsofhoneydew]

fic rec time!!!

please be mindful of the ratings and tags.

get him alone by @congee4lunch | E , 103k |

Alex looks at him, like Henry’s a speck of dirt on his pristine chinos. “Why would June send you to check up on me?”

“Because I’m her best friend and you’re her brother?”

“I always said she has bad taste.”

“Well,” Henry smiles. It feels as placid on his face as it probably looks. “I would say the same thing, but family doesn’t account for one’s taste, unfortunately.”

in which henry fox is june’s childhood best friend and alex claremont-diaz is june’s younger brother. as the years pass, they tolerate each other at best and are downright destructive at worst. until they begin falling into each other's beds.

Secret Swiftie by @england-would-fall | E , 2k |

Henry can't untie his tie. Alex is singing along to Taylor Swift while wearing impossibly tiny pants. It's a pwp, friends. You know the drill.

but if you could see us from a distance, you’d know i’ve always been so close to you by @anincompletelist | E , 10k |

Objectively, standing half-soaked from rainwater with a stitch in his side and an uncomfortable, raging hard-on outside his worst enemy’s door is not Henry’s finest moment. It’s not even on the list.

or, henry is afflicted with a curse-gone-wrong that stipulates that only his sworn enemy, alex claremont-diaz, can touch him.

Queer little ducks hold a special place in my heart. by anarchyat4am | T , 4k |

Henry’s at a local Hispanic Heritage Month event browsing the art stalls when his gaze catches on a kid looking around with both purpose and nervousness. She’s fidgeting with the hem of her t-shirt with one hand while she bites the nails of the other one, eyes alert and searching. Lost, then.

And oh, Henry recognises her. She’s a regular at his bookstore, even at only six years old, and is there at least weekly with her dad—Alex, who she’d introduced to Henry as her papi—or various aunties and uncles, most of whom Henry doesn’t think are actually related to her. Keeping one eye on her, he lets his gaze sweep the vicinity but doesn’t see anyone else he even remotely recognises. Shit. He has to do something.

“Sirena?” he calls gently.

Henry... is more than a bit useless around hot guys. So when he finds the lost kid of the gorgeous dad who frequents his bookstore, he pulls himself together until they reunite, only to then be devastated by the revelation that the man thinks Henry hates him. And, well... courage always rises, and all that.

our world, min and his alone (the midnight train to go) by @firenati0n | T , 2.9k |

The posh accent hit Alex first, and he felt something curl in his gut. One of his amygdala brain worms did a little wiggle. He was unprepared for what was to come.

A pair of criminally long legs entered his vision, effectively vaporizing most of the brain worms (that's a first), except for the ones slowly starting to chant shoulders and thighs and hair and legs and thighs and Alex couldn’t do a goddamn thing to stop his increasingly horny train of thought. All trains had left the station.

Or, Alex asks a stranger to crack his back like a glow stick.

Or, an overnight train meet-cute.

[malaierba]

Been thinking about how to write the shift in perspective that came to Lilith, Eve and Adam once they bit the apple, because NGL saying "it opened their eyes to the truth" always felt a bit vague to me (which can be good since it gives you space for creativity).

Taking into account that heaven seems to value obedience and even blind devotion above all else, I was thinking of maybe taking an sceptical approach.

That is, maybe Lilith always FELT like being created only to have her life dictated for her and you be subservient to Adam wasn't a life she wanted for herself, but rationally she couldn't quite express it. There's a level of frustration there, in the feeling of "this doesn't feel right" but not understanding why the idea of doing what you were literally created for is so uncomfortable. (Spoilers alert: it's because a Lilith realises, upon biting the apple, that she and Adam were essentially guinea pigs of sorts)

Maybe Eve always FELT odd about being so instinctually subservient to Adam, maybe part of her could sense that SOMETHING about the way she was created was atypical, that the circumstances upon which she was given life and why she was designed the way she was were weird... But it's not until she bites the apple that she realises that she suspected heaven, and heaven's motives; only then did she manage to see all the hints that pointed at her being a replacement for someone else, and only then could she put them together. And only then could she acknowledge, not only the feeling, but the reason why it sucked.

Maybe Adam always felt on some level that heaven doesn't actually have their happiness and general best interest at heart. But only biting the apple would allow him to see how truly fucked up their situation is, souls being brought into the world on a whim, being made to face trials and tests because... Why? What justifies ANYTHING he had to endure, all the ways his outlook on reality manipulated to fit Heaven's preferred narrative, all the ways in which he was allowed to become worse as long as it ensured he'd be kept on heaven's leash, not unlike a rowdy but generally compliant Husky?

(and here we have some wiggle room for the event where Adam DOES bite the apple in order to follow Eve outside of Eden, and the event where he does not, and thus continued to mostly believe, say, and do as heaven told him to; feelings of discomfort easy enough to shove down when you are physically incapable of questioning things on an intellectual level)

And maybe the reason why Heaven didn't want this is because maybe, just maybe, the freedom to question reality, to question what higher beings tell you, and to act in accordance to those thoughts, made humans more unpredictable.

Maybe the ability to question reality and seek knowledge beyond what you can see at surface level worked like introducing an element of randomisation into a code: Biting the apple made humans' thought processes more muddled from an outsider's pov. They no longer were an equation that you can figure out easily enough, suddenly there's more variables in the system and it messed up Heaven's algorithm.

Maybe this freedom messed it up badly enough that not only were humans finally able to rival heaven by virtue of now being able to question them and follow their curiosity freely, but for all intent and purposes the apple also took away heaven's omniscienceness in practice.

This idea/headcanon/theory was also supposed to tie-in with that one meta interpretation that theorizes that Adam never ate the apple (as we don't see his Adam's apple when Lucifer is punching him), and I was going to theorise that maybe that's why he's one of the few humans who manage to become angels and, most importantly, why he seems to be a one-of-a-kind angel, a human with golden wings. He's very unlike most winners, who simply look like sinners with small wings and halos, the closest angels to Adam's look are Exorcists who look human but have different wings + a silver color scheme.

Unfortunately, ig that idea was disproven by Sir Pentious, who managed to be redeemed into a Seraphim, which is a very high-level angel species, smh.

Basically the way it was supposed to go was that humans were always meant to become a type of angel. The reason why God would want an angel that experienced death and were mostly subservient was meant to be a mystery (think: those holy mysteries from Catholicism that you're not meant to understand. Well, something like that), but they would've looked like Adam.

Ig you could justify it saying that free will is what allowed further randomisation of what a soul's afterlife nature would look like, which would allow souls to become Exorcists and even Seraphim. Or I guess the rules changed at some point (à la Jesus and the way he divided the perception and portrayal of God in two)

Anyway! Just spit balling.

[mothmanwarble]

Idk alot about eon's worm friend could you tell me about him?

Ohohohoho, absolutely! I will never turn down an opportunity to talk about Wiggleworth. Now, I’d like to apologize in advance— this might get a bit long.

Along with the Warrior Librarians and the Eternal Archives as a whole, Chief Curator Wiggleworth made his debut in Spyro Versus the Mega Monsters, the first entry in the Mask of Power series of chapter books. He’s introduced to the reader in the most normal, uneventful, not-at-all-overdramatic way possible: arriving at Eon’s Citadel completely unannounced on a massive, flying warship. Y’know. Average librarian stuff, I’m sure. Also, the warship is so massive that it effectively blocks out the beacon emitted by The Core of Light.

Understandably, everyone at the Citadel is freaking out. Even Master Eon is deeply concerned because, well, there’s a warship full of Mech-Piloting Murder Librarians hovering over his house. Not ideal!

The Warrior Librarians (who are all armed with laser swords, because why not) all descend from their ship and confront Eon who nevertheless greets them very formally. What follows is maybe one of the most adorable moments in any Skylanders book ever, in which Wiggleworth, upon recognizing Eon, reveals his itty-bitty worm self from within his mech:

“Greetings, Master Eon,” wheezed a tiny voice. “It is good to see you again.” Eon’s face broke into a dazzling smile. “I don’t believe it!” the Portal Master exclaimed, raising his hands in delight. “Chief Curator Wiggleworth, my old friend. How wonderful to see you.”

Yup! Surprise! Turns out the leader of the Mech-Piloting Murder Librarians is a very, very old and trusted friend of Eon’s! The two of ‘em go way back. Like. Many centuries back.

Wiggleworth is a bit like Eon in the sense that he too is an unfathomably old dude who leads a team of fighters and is burdened with immense responsibility. The Warrior Librarians are described as being the “archivists of forbidden knowledge” and the “curators of the arcane.” Their library and base of operations—the Eternal Archives—is home to every single book ever published “from every corner of the universe,” no matter how mundane, magical, or malicious. As such, Wiggleworth and the others take their job very seriously, hence the weaponized mech suits and ridiculously massive warships. (…But that’s also because he’s a bit prideful and self-important, too. His mech is the only one with a cape, which serves absolutely zero practical purpose. And despite each librarian having the same weapons, Wiggleworth’s weapons happen to be larger than everyone else’s. It’s so unnecessary, I love him.)

He shows up in almost every book in the Mask of Power series, but he doesn’t get much to do after his debut appearance. He basically stops being relevant by book 6, in which his one scene has him get (justifiably) scolded by Spyro in chapter 1. Why? Well, it’s revealed that one of Wiggleworth’s most trusted librarians was actually a double-agent gathering intel for Kaos (whoops!) who also (somehow??) succeeded in kidnapping Eon without anyone noticing (double whoops!!) After this catastrophic screwup, Wiggleworth is never heard from again.

…Until Skylanders: Trap Team for the 3DS! Not only does Wiggleworth act as your guide/tutorial guy/exposition machine, but the game’s main hub is the Eternal Archives itself! Since the events of the Mask of Power series were set before the events of SSA, Wiggleworth’s presence in STT 3DS confirms that he survived up to that point in the timeline while also suggesting that the Skylanders are all on good terms with him again (…maybe). Unfortunately though, Wiggleworth doesn’t really…do much outside of explaining game mechanics. He doesn’t even get to fight at all (he gets put under a sleeping spell while in the middle of a fight with a slightly-larger-than-normal exploding Chompy…off-screen). Furthermore, Wiggleworth and Eon don’t even acknowledge each other at any point in the game either! Needless to say, I feel robbed of an old man reunion.

While it saddens me that Wiggleworth ended up underutilized in both his book and game appearances, I’m glad he was added to the series at all (thank you, Mr. Beakman!) I find the concept of the Warrior Librarians both hilarious and compelling, and I absolutely adore the fact that Wiggleworth was introduced as one of Eon’s dearest friends. And hey! Although Wiggleworth didn’t make it into the game himself, his legacy lives on in SuperChargers, in which we meet the original founder of the Eternal Archives: Pomfrey! I think it’s so awesome that an idea originating from the books literally wormed its way into the games.

Chief Curator Wiggleworth, you’ll always be famous to me o7

[p5x-theories]

What We Know About Cattle

(as of the third beta; last updated 1/22/24!)

Ruferu (which has previously been translated to English as "Luffy", though this may not be accurate), codename Cattle, is an owllike creature with amnesia who finds and recruits the protagonist (Wonder) as a phantom thief at the start of the game. He knows a lot about the Metaverse, including how to change hearts, but doesn't know why he knows these things.

In the Metaverse, Ruferu is a very short, humanoid figure with a beak, as pictured above. Like Mona, he's also able to turn into a car. Outside the Metaverse, Ruferu is a talking owl, whose speech isn't comprehensible to most people, though the exact distinction for when someone is able to understand him hasn't been made clear. People with the MetaNav on their phone seem to be able to understand him whether or not they've been inside the actual Metaverse.

The codename "Cattle" is one he picks for himself, though he says he doesn't know why. It's most likely a reference to his Persona, who was a cattleman before he became an outlaw. The Megami Tensei wiki also notes that “His code name in Japanese (キャトル, kyatoru) means the English word "Cattle," but is also the Japanese representation for the French word Quatrelle, which is the spoken aloud alternate name for the Renault 4 or 4L... which serves as the basis of the vehicle Ruferu can transform into."

His Japanese voice actress is Ai Nonaka.

Ruferu is a Confidant of Wonder's, though his Arcana is unknown. Its progression seems to be at least partially tied to story events.

At the start of the game, Ruferu follows Wonder around, and decides to recruit Wonder when he sees Wonder is the only person in the train station to react to a woman jumping off a building. When Wonder accidentally enters Mementos, Ruferu finally introduces himself, helps lead Wonder out of the Metaverse, and teaches him how to fight. He later explains the Metaverse, shadows, Personas, and changes of heart to Wonder.

His amnesia seems to be tied at least loosely to Mementos and the Palaces, as he regains a bit of his memory after they steal the first Palace ruler's Treasure. Ruferu seems determined to steal the other six Treasures he can sense as well, to fully regain his memory, but recognizes he can't do it alone. He's happy to have Wonder and Motoha on the team, though he comments Motoha's a bit noisy for a phantom thief.

While Ruferu is able to sense Palaces, it's not through smell like previous characters, but rather through sound. Ruferu can hear the "voices of the human heart", and follow those to a Palace, particularly if they've identified the Palace ruler in advance.

Ruferu's role unsurprisingly seems to parallel Morgana's in the original P5.

While Ruferu is a bit serious, and seems to be the unfazeable type who knows a lot and isn't caught off-guard by a surprise, he's not usually overly rude or condescending. He doesn't take his teammates' help for granted, and actually asks Motoha and Wonder whether they want to continue working with him after the first Palace, rather than assuming.

He also doesn't seem to be embarrassed easily, and has no problem letting Motoha pick him up if he can't see something, or letting Wonder hold a phone out to him so he can talk on it. He can come across as just a bit childish, not in an immature way, but in how he interacts with others due to his small size.

Above all, he seems to be focused on his work as a phantom thief. He doesn't seem to particularly care what his teammates' motivations for working with him are, as long as he has them, but personally is very goal-oriented and will pursue any obstacles until he finds a way around them.

His Persona, Rob Roy (based on a Scottish outlaw and folk hero), is already awakened at the start of the game. He has Fire and Healing skills, and resists Fire while being weak to Wind in the third beta.

Notably, while he's well-versed on how the Metaverse and phantom thievery within it works, he hasn't stolen a heart prior to the first Palace, and in general, his know-how doesn't seem to extend to things related to the Velvet Room. While he accepts the cognitive teammates quickly after Wonder explains what a "Phantom Idol" is, he doesn't quite understand them, and immediately says Wonder can be in charge of them even before Wonder is established as the leader.

In combat, his melee weapon is a pair of tonfa, while his ranged weapon is a blowgun. His highlight attack is shown from 0:14 - 0:25 in this video.

[neolxzr]

if you wanna yap more about the au id love to hear btw!! and can't wait to see the little comics if out post them :D

OK PERHAPS JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE ...

(revision after i wrote everything. it was not a little bit)

i imagine it all starts off where till is off doing his normal cryptid hunting things in the woods on like a friday evening and happens to catch a glimpse of sua and ivan outside of a spaceship in the middle of the woods. he watches one of them transform into their human form from a far distance, and manages to snap a singular blurry photo. the flash goes off and gives away his location, though, so he instinctually runs off before he can see more

(btw, the disguises don't change their clothes, only their body. the human clothes are real. although they were probably synthesized through weird alien technology or they stole them not 100% sure yet)

cut to monday, he's in class, and one of his teachers introduces two new students who have just transferred to their school from some unspecified other country. till is immediately like THATS THE ALIEN I SAW BEFORE and the two of them also talk strangely and have some weird device attached to their ears. he calls them out for being aliens, in front of the entire class, very embarrassingly, though of course this gets him nowhere.

i dont have like this ENTIRELY planned out at the moment but pretty quickly the main 4 settle into a sort-of friend group. mizi is incredibly friendly and befriends the two new students immediately, and till reluctantly spends as much time as possible with the two of them out of wanting to protect her and keep an eye on them for possible funny business. mizi doesnt NOT believe till that ivan and sua are aliens, but she befriends them anyway. till and ivan immediately settle into the type of relationship the two of them had in anakt canonically---they're constantly bickering and probably getting into fights in the hallway.

as much as mizi and till are best friends, mizi is quite the busy gal. she's always involved with school events and is in multiple clubs so she's only free during lunch about twice a week, of which she always spends with till. the rest of the week, till spent that time alone until the aliens showed up. he doesn't think about it for a while but eventually realizes that maybe theyre not so bad to have around. till's mom tells him after a few months of having them around that he seems happier. he's not sure what to think about that

this au is just lighthearted silliness mostly, ivan coming up with (real? fake?) world-conquering schemes to rile up till and get his attention and mizisua slowly developing a very cute romance. some aliens come to earth and accidentally learn how to love.

i think what i settled on for ivan and sua is that they were in fact sent to earth to do some kind of scouting of the planet to see if its worth anything for their crazy conquering alien empire, but they pretty quickly discover that they actually kind of like it there despite all its flaws. they are eventually discovered (by a familiar face maybe?) as being "traitors to the empire" or whatever but itll all end up fine in the end i promise i have no angst bones in my body

if this was like a serialized TV show i would imagine after enough time has passed and its clear the aliens aren't really a threat to mizi or humanity or anything like that till just kind of accepts the fact that theyre here and part of his life and he allows himself to be fascinated by their existence and their technology. ivan shows him his disguise willingly and till probably stares into his eyes which look like tiny galaxies and its pretty gay. if i was a more prolific fic writer the ivantill romance would be such a slowburn

so like assuming this is a tv show like the first season (or maybe even two? idk) of the show would be almost entirely set on earth and then once some big season finale event thing happens they start having adventures in space afterwards. i want mizi and till to get alien disguises at some point i love drawing aliens if that wasnt obvious

OK SORRY this got out of hand i didnt mention everything cuz i wanna have some surprises but thats a bunch of my ideas ^_^

[vocaloightmares]

Part 2 of the TW Lore--Season 1 and 2 (V1):

Wuh oh, revised/rewritten bits from Part 1:

• The Pavere Carnival was subject to violent backlash for inducing nightmares on both children and adults visiting the attraction. Karakumo, the original ringleader during this time, was the public’s punching bag and sought ways to alleviate the madness. She consulted with Milly Dilly about this and the two worked to avoid potential risks. It all went well until influencers rose in popularity across the world, causing a blow on the Pavere Carnival’s visitor rate. Such an event caused MD to take drastic measures in making her employees more scarier. However, several accidents involving the carnival’s attractions immediately closed the Pavere Carnival for good. Many of MD’s employees remain by her side by working outside of the attraction’s ruins but some, including Karakumo, left because they disagreed with their former boss’ actions.

The PC’s shutdown happened before Karakumo joined the Super Wings, but she was still training Rakumo because he actually wanted to work with her since the teen didn’t like Milly Dilly’s ways of running the carnival. Karakumo’s student heard about the shutdown on the news and Rakumo’s someone that enjoys anything weird.

• The conversation between Karakumo and Lance at Venice: the former (now) specifically told the latter to stop the PC’s current ways of scaring the world. Lance said he doesn’t know much about the Pavere Carnival’s inner workings but would look into it while he works for the Super Wings...and deal with Karakumo. But the mention of the delivery organization prompted the puppeteer to inquire about Lance’s workplace. He was hesitant to explain about the Super Wings to his adversary but, being the psyche analyst he is, a side of Lance is convincing him that Karakumo was being nice/genuine for once.

A few years later, Vicky was enthralled by a documentary about the disappearance of a Legendary Super Wing named Kid Wing on TV. One of the things she enjoyed is the LSW‘s fighting style and how it was applied to take down criminals, even the supernatural ones, across the world. Vicky enjoyed his arsenal of firework weapons and began mimicking Kid Wing’s fighting style. As a result, she became a self-taught fighter.

But what Vicky didn’t like was the LSW’s unexpected disappearance. It bewildered her: why would a powerful plane suddenly let the bad guys come out from their hiding spots? Who would take his place to stop them?

And thus, Vicky requested to her dad if the troupe and herself can become both crime fighters and troupers.

Which resulted in Lance spitting out his morning drink one day upon hearing the news: he was reluctant at first, but a sparkling touch of convincing and big fat puppy eyes made Lance surrender because how can a dashing father disappoint his rising star?

In fact, the international acclaim of his troupe, which is now named as Teen Troupe, can boost if they were to combat the elusive Pavere Carnies. So comes S1: monster of the week, domestic banter, idol showdowns, you name it.

.....Until we meet the ringleader of the Pavere Carnival in Slovakia who kickstarts the actual story of Teen Wing. Rakumo’s personality will then be further revealed in S2:

Teen Wing finds old news about the Pavere Carnival and how its ruins still stand today. Surprisingly, no sign of nature reclaiming is present: only fading paint indicates the grounds’ abandoned status.

She finds the Pavere Carnival’s ruins at an unspecified country a bit far from civilization. Perhaps it was located here to evoke their creepy feeling when the carnival was still operating.

But, Teen Wing finds a visitor roaming around the carnival’s grounds: a jet who introduced himself as Inei. He was a longtime regular of the Pavere Carnival and continues to visit after its closure. Moreover, the jet wanted to find any secrets the attraction stowed from public.

Inei’s also a really damn awesome graffiti artist. He’s vandalizing walls and repainting eroding carnival art.

(Important note: When you want to go urban exploring, bring someone with you like friends who provide assistance and fun. It’s way safer than going alone even though you think a particular abandoned place doesn’t look dangerous to you.)

So, Vicky and Inei introduced each other and the latter infodumps about the Pavere Carnival while the two jets walk around the ruins. At night, they fight as Teen Wing and Rakumo respectively and the two continue this routine until they take a really bad turn at World Spaceport.

The Super Wings fell victim to the ringleader’s puppetry and Teen Wing had to sneak around them, knowing the planes moved a foot like live mannequins every time she doesn’t turn back at the SWs. She had to find the power source in the ginormous World Spaceport to turn on the lights as fast as she can, but a big fight erupts between her and Rakumo revealing himself.

It was difficult for Teen Wing to avoid landing hard hits on the SW. Eventually, she managed to shatter Rakumo’s mask, revealing the same face back at the Pavere Carnival’s ruins: Inei.

Silent tension happened and TW’s anger was beginning to bubble up until, in a state of panic, Inei slashed the crimefighter across the face, partially damaging TW’s eyesight. Luckily, with the puppeteer fleeing the scene, the Super Wings woke up from their mannequin state and the lights turned back on. Noticing TW bleeding on the ground, the SW brought her to the medical wing quickly and patch her up.

From there, they would learn that TW is the alter ego of Vicky, a renewed Teen Trouper, but kept it a secret as the crimefighter's request. When Vicky woke up from her unconsciousness, she gave her organization's contact to the SWs to call. As a result, a distraught Lance burst into World Spaceport. He was about to fight the SWs with a glowing fencing sword buzzing with intense electricity, but Jerome, Sunny, and Sara convinced him otherwise altogether.

"Also. We're big fans of your troupe."

"Not right now, Sunny!"

Calm, Lance witnessed the SW making special glasses that can transform into Vicky’s signature Teen Wing mask. Vicky was happy about the advanced technology but is still reeling from Rakumo’s revelation.

Eventually, the crimefighter requested to have a break from work.

Luckily, one of the SWs recognized her costume being strikingly similar to a lost Legendary Super Wing. Vicky, and Lance following behind, was introduced to the Hall of Fame and learned more about Kid Wing than what the documentaries on television told her. There was also a plane whose name is unfamiliar to Vicky: Karakumo.

She wasn't a LSW, but often partnered up with Kid Wing, which hardened the frown on Lance's face.

Afterwards, he brought his daughter back to their home hangar and put her to bed. He kept a watchful eye on the assistant director, becoming even more protective than before that was extremely annoying to Vicky the next day.

But then again, she really needed physical comfort.

Meanwhile, fearing in the inside, Rakumo reported back to his boss about his failure in World Spaceport. But he was able to get vital intel about the Super Wings' connection to Teen Troupe. From there, the Pavere Carnival's operations will rack up.

At the end of the season, we would then get a name of the Pavere Carnival's big boss: Milly Dilly.

[thepiedsniper]

A huge review for A Curse For True Love (spoilers, obviously - all below the cut).

DISCLAIMER: I have read the B&N and Waterstones epilogues but not the OwlCrate one yet (I don’t think anyone has, to be honest). So possibly some of my questions will be addressed in that ending.

On the Kiss: there was a compelling theory that Jacks would turn human due to his love for Eva (per the rules established in Caraval) and that’s how they could kiss and be together without killing Eva. I thought this made a lot of sense (because if your universe has established that becoming human is the canonical consequence of an Immortal falling in love, this kind of definitely needs to happen for the prequel series readers to believe that he really loves Eva, right?). Except Jacks clearly never really became human - his tears were tears of blood and the story curse refers to him as a not-quite-human in the epilogue. This also means he's still ageless and will ultimately outlive Eva by A Lot. So, oof.

To that end - I know Jacks is a fatalist and Eva is an optimist, but did it never even OCCUR to either of them to be like "what if we just did everything together EXCEPT kiss for the rest of our lives?" I know Jacks is compelled to kiss (and it’s obliquely confirmed that the apples are his way to fighting that urge) so you'd have him struggling with that arrangement in the long term. But also, Eva seems convinced she's never been in danger of Jacks kissing her before, so why wouldn’t she at least float that idea and see if he goes for it? Why go for the kiss other than Extreme Belief in The Power of Love; i.e. the exact thing Eva found out was actually the one condition that would ensure the curse killed her, according to Aurora like five minutes beforehand. Which Eva Does Not Mention to Jacks, by the way. "Hey, you know that blonde from Valenda you thought was the one exception to your curse and caused you a tonne of angst and confusion ever since? Turns out you had your whole curse backwards these last several hundred years lol."

Eva still owes Jacks a kiss. If you even care.

No but forreal, at least address it. Do a cutesy "OK, then spend that kiss on me, right now, mwah!" bit in the epilogue, or even a juicy "I’m never cashing it in, because not only is it practical that we can still speak telepathically, but I like that you're still tied to me magically foreverrrr". But like, these three magic kisses were the main conceit of this series. Until they weren’t.

The book seemed to shy away from many interesting plot hooks and tropes. Not even subverting them, just...moving on and away instead of fleshing them out. The main one off the top of my head is The Hunt. This seemed like a really specific and interesting event, with a lot of potential tension and parallels to Jacks’ former life as a hunter, if things went wrong in interesting ways. Except we never see any of it, and instead Someone Tries to Kill Eva (turns out Petra had a lover? This plotline is Not Important and everyone quickly moves on despite the fact that I’m pretty sure Belleflower was never found or dealt with) and we get a slightly less satisfactory Hollow II with the Ye Olde Brick Inn. And even the Inn introduces the Only One Bed trope only to sort of fumble it. Jacks has some mystery gold sleep dust (providence unknown) which just kind of doesn't do anything until it knocks them both out at differently convenient times. Idk man, it felt kinda meh to me.

I love Lala. She should have been in this more because she’s honestly one of the more interesting things outside of the romantic tension (which is great, but a novel cannot live on romantic tension alone, lest it become one-note). But also, when she does appear and we finally get to find out what her reunion with her great love was like, it's just kind of glossed over and hinted that her love with Dane has gone sour. Where’s the actual development/exposition!! Who actually dumped who, and why? What did she actually see in him in the first place? The small amount he’s in this book he is a) not turning into a giant dragon (Chekov would be disappointed), and b) kind of a tool. Lala became The Unwed Bride for this guy!!! At least let her have a proper “I realised I was sabotaging all my engagements not because I still loved my unreachable First Love, but because I enjoy the idea of love more than love itself” moment and make her canonically aromantic or something.

Chaos likes/loves Lala? I guess? He also murdered a bunch of people from great houses, for Reasons. He’s around, more than many characters were, but I dunno. What’s his deal these days? Does he still hang out with his vamp friends? Was he killing all those people because his parents asked him to, or was it pure hunger, or personal vendetta? Is he like, Tight with his folks now?

Another wasted (in my opinion) trope is Aurora stealing Jacks' heart away from Eva. I thought we'd get a little juicy angst from Eva seeing the man she loves be manipulated into fake-loving another (which would have also been a little poetic justice for Tella, but that's neither here nor there I guess because the Caraval characters Do Not Matter and are in fact not mentioned At All). But instead, we don't even find out what Aurora wanted to do with the heart, because it's immediately stolen back by Jacks (which like, why didn't Aurora make him swear in blood not to immediately knock her out and steal it back if that was an option? Is she just super delusional?). Also, it was meant to seem really romantic and self-sacrificing that Jacks gave up his heart and possibly autonomy to Aurora to save Eva... except he never intended to let Aurora keep it, so it was just another selfish scheme and not a sign of actual growth/love.

The Valor children in general (aside from Castor and Aurora) were pretty much non-existent when I honestly thought they'd be more of a Thing. One of them has memory magic, but that's not important for some reason. Nah, the thing Apollo did to Eva was just a potion from Aurora or something (providence unknown). Yeah.

It’s unclear why Honora Valor couldn't have reversed Jack's original Archer curse if that's something she easily did with a bit of hair at the end of TBONA. like I guess that says more about that book than this one, but it seems kind of lame that this mythical healer is never even ASKED about Jacks' kissing curse (or anything related to healing ever again).

Cycling back to Aurora for a moment: what was her magical ability in the end? Just non-specific spellwork that seemingly anyone can do (based on the first two books)? They made a point of lamp-shading it and then never actually addressed it.

And speaking of witches/witchcraft, Marisol is one of the many characters that never reappear or get much (if any) mention at all. Eva wouldn't have remembered her stepsister while her memories were gone, which I would have assumed would make for some interesting retconning opportunities for the conniving Marisol. But no, she's just not important anymore, I guess.

Also Gone: Luc. Did he and Marisol run away together after hashing out their twisted histories? Did Luc eat Marisol and then fall of a cliff? Who cares!!!! Not Important Anymore!!!

Tiberius is also Gone (possibly because his existence would have reminded the audience that Apollo has people he Actually Cares About in his life that might have helped him back from The Dark Path). The whole Protectorate just stopped being a thing as soon as the Valory opened. Do they know, or care? Surely they monitor that sort of thing? Was someone from the Protectorate able to piece together the sudden arrival of the “Vale” family at least?

Phaedra of the Damned from the very first book (the girl who first discovered Apollo wasn’t dead after trying to steal his secrets, and also Havelock is there) never gets explained. I assume she’s one of the twins from the Vanished Market mentioned in the Caraval trilogy, but she really was just there for half a scene in the first book and then never mentioned again. OK.

Havelock, Apollo’s most loyal guard, is not mentioned after Chapter 13 (when Apollo really starts ramping up the Atrocities). Again, possibly his existence would have complicated Apollo’s evil villain speedrun, but it would have been interesting to see what he might have done (and if he decided to leave Apollo’s service out of condemnation for the monster Apollo had become, a sentence or two establishing that might have been nice).

Which leads me to Apollo. He went very evil very quickly. I actually really liked the self-delusion in his focalisation, and his whole backstory with the pressures put on him by his father made sense. But damn, dude went from No Murder to Child Murder pretty dang quickly!!! Also, his death was fairly predictable. Which I wouldn't have minded, because not everything needs to be a Surprise Twist, but it really felt like that scene was the climax/final conflict in a sea of other loose ends that got ignored, so I guess I wanted it to be More so that it could make up for all the plotlines whose resolutions got sacrificed for it.

The original fox from the ballad doesn’t matter. She doesn't ever get a name. It's Fine. She could turn into a freaking FOX, which seems like a very cool and rare ability, but sure, she was just Some Chick Jacks was forced to hunt (and then kind of fell in love with and got traumatised by killing). Why do you want to know about her?? Why do you want Jacks to address the ways his feelings for her (and Tella) are inherently interwoven with trauma, in ways that don’t specifically relate to Eva?

I’m not sure I’m explaining this properly (because on the surface, of course the original fox is an important part of Jacks’ backstory and the overall plot; but only in a “Jacks is scared to love because he killed this one girl one time, and that also makes Eva sad” kind of way. The same story could arguably have been told without the Archer ballad, and just keeping the original concept of Jacks from Caraval – he’s the prince of hearts, doomed to kill all but his one true love. He kills many ladies that he hopes he’s actually in love with, but they always tragically die instead.

Cool twist with Aurora’s involvement in the curse, even if it was somewhat predictable (again, not a crime for a plot twist by any means), but I don’t know. It just felt like one of many things that got “resolved” with a quick aside (Eva found an expository journal entry) and then everything quickly moved on because hey, the reader knows what happened now that Eva found that journal entry, so who cares if Jacks knows too? Telling him everything important that Eva learned since seeing him would just detract from the love confession!

It's never officially confirmed whether Jacks of the Hollow's family owned the Hollow? Or what happened to his family, or the original owners if it wasn’t his family. The Hollow doesn't seem particularly attached to Jacks, nor he to it (according to the epilogues).

Eva should have gnarly back scars from her secondhand flaying and it's pretty clear they're either not there or just forgotten in ACFTL. My understanding was that The Hollow allowed Eva to become "fully healed" due to the effects of several weeks passing in the space of a day or two. So Eva's body essentially got the chance to heal naturally over time, in a sped-up way (which still would have left hella scars). Apollo, on the other hand, was healed with vampire venom (which canonically removes scars; see: Luc) but he's still got his back scars for some reason. Both of them healed in different ways during the period when the mirror curse wouldn't have mattered. I personally think it would have been interesting to give Eva horrible back scars she can't explain due to her amnesia. But alas.

All in all, it felt like the kind of book that wanted to be third of four instead of third and final. It wanted to introduce new and interesting concepts, but still had to rush to put a conclusion (satisfying or otherwise) to everything that had come before. I had fun reading it, and all the usual romance/drama/angst with Eva and Jacks was still super fun, but pretty much every other element felt lacking (and even a lot of the EvaJacks stuff kind of just Happened and then Kept Happening without a strong plotline to run along). I look forward to reading a lot of fanfiction addressing all the missing bits. Or a new trilogy series from this rich universe, maybe (even though I doubt it would follow Eva and Jacks directly).

[snowball-doie]

yes pls yap about your book xx

GURL WHERE DO I GET STARTED THERES 55 CHAPTERS AND 450+ PAGES- ummmm ok let’s see- we’ll start w the basics to get the ball rolling 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

Now I don’t wanna hear a single thing about how my oc’s name is Aurora… I will mention rq that when I first started writing this back in Oct 2023, I did it alone, but then in Jan/Feb of this year, my friend made an oc named Kay and we decided to add her to the book— but my friend was kinda uncomfy writing about real ppl so we changed everyone’s names 😀 (it took so long). Here, I’ll just reference their real names so there’s no confusion, but if you see me tagging posts as “Jace thoughts” then it’s about this book, cuz we changed Johnny to Jace 🤝 ok let us go on w the plot.

Aurora started working as the boys’ new manager in 2018 after their previous one came under fire for treating the boys poorly in public. They hired Aurora cuz she’s trilingual (English, Japanese, and Korean). She went to school and worked in Japan, so she already had an in w/ entertainment in Korea, but applying to SM was lowkey just a meme to her, she didn’t think she’d actually get the job or have to move to Seoul. Welp! How the turn tables turned.

Anyhow, because she’s fluent in Japanese, Yuta IMMEDIATELY is like “you’re my friend now 😁” while the other boys take time to come around. And Aurora’s fine w that cuz they’re supposed to be coworkers anyhow— well technically she’s their boss lmao. But Taeyong is the next to get close w her because they do so much work together. Aurora recognizes that in order to make everything work like a well-oiled machine, she needs input from the boys, a voice from them to relay to the execs because she’s always just getting orders and the boys are never able to express how they feel about that. So her and Taeyong become like the mom and the dad of the group. She attends their practices, even if it’s just her sitting in the corner while she does work on her laptop. She’s at every single one of their events. And she gets Taeyong into important meetings so that he can be the boys’ voice rather than playing a game of telephone. It’s really nice. And to really encourage the boys to stay close with each other and whatnot, she yoinks the idea of the Dreamies’ friendship ring by buying the 127 boys matching small green pendant necklaces— But she knows that she’s not close enough with them yet for them to take the necklaces seriously if she gives them, so she asks Taeyong to take the credit instead. And it works. The boys wear the necklaces every single day, and Taeyong feels guilty as hell for taking the credit but Aurora always just laughs and reassures him that this is what she wants. Taeyong introduces Aurora to Ten, and the three of them become a lil clique. Meanwhile Yuta’s hogging Aurora by always hugging her, hanging out at her apartment, sleeping in her bed, etc etc. they’re very close. So close that when they get drunk together in her bed one night, they start making out, and he rolls on top, and she’s CERTAIN they’re gonna fuck until they stop and go “ya we’re just friends 🤝” lmaoooo

Anyhow. When COVID hits, Aurora and Johnny start to play video games and watch anime together because those are interests they share. They start to get closer, which is nice to Aurora because they were never really close before this. She always just thought of him as the frat boy type who spends his time seeing models outside of work and not the otaku kid who sits in vc with her from the minute they wake up to the time they fall asleep. During the Resonance era, Aurora’s meeting with all of the NCT boys to coordinate subunits, and the execs let her run these meetings irl (bless up) so when Johnny comes in, they talk shop for a bit til out of fucking NOWHERE this man goes “so what kind of guys are you into” 🙄 ok bud. Chill. But Aurora explains briefly that she likes guys with long dyed hair… She doesn’t care about things like eye color or height or weight or anything else like that. This mf goes “so are you into Yuta?” And she nearly falls out of her chair laughing bc no she’s not into Yuta, they established that quite a while ago. Anyhow! As Resonance era goes on, Aurora notices that Johnny’s growing out his hair?? And then he dyes it randomly one day without permission from the company, and he calls to brag about it???? Aurora calls Ten for the inside scoop….. which he doesn’t have, but she begs him to find out why the hell Johnny is doing this?? He’s being so weird recently! “Have you stopped to consider he likes you?” “What? No! Johnny’s the type to date models, to fly to different countries to fuck the prettiest women who are falling at his feet. He’s not looking at….. me.” “Aurora, he stopped fucking around back when you joined the company” HUHHH. Anyhow. Ten still does NAWT get the inside scoop, but that doesn’t matter, cuz when Chenle hosts a secret listening party of the album at his house, Johnny finally gets the balls to ask out Aurora and she says yes— And all the boys start trading around money. Apparently they took bets on whether or not he’d ever get around to it…..

Ok we’ve only just scratched the surface, but I’ve yapped a lot here so lmk what else you guys wanna know!! I can summarize more plot. Or I can talk about Aurora’s character, or her relationship/dynamic with the boys. Throughout the book, she’s close with different ppl, but the notable ones are Johnny. Taeyong, Yuta, Haechan (because of my other oc who he starts dating), Renjun, and Ten. I can talk about my Hyuck x oc plot line too— It’s childhood best friends reunited later in life and fall in love. Or I have 2 guy ocs, Haneul and Shiwoo who I can talk about. Shiwoo ends up w Renjun 🫣 Or there’s my friend’s oc, Kay, who starts w having a fwb relationship w Yuta until she starts dating Mark. She messy fr 😂

[puffpasstea]

hiii I love all your writing! it really makes me feel some type of way 💖🥲 I was wondering if you would be willing to write something about y/n feeling like her friends are using her (to get to harry, $$$, or for clout) and Harry is comforting y/n. Or something like y/n feels left out at a Hollywood party with all of Harry’s friends?

im going thru a rough time with my friendships and kind of feeling lonely. no pressure though 💖 thank you for being a source of joy during this time 🥺🫶🏻

Hi babes! Thanks so much for your lovely message 🥰🥰 and I’m so sorry that you’re going through this. I’ve been where you are. It hurts no matter how you try to rationalize it. Please know that my inbox is always open if you need a friend, or just to vent. I hope this little one shot helps somehow. Let me know what you think! 💗

—

She plumped down on the barstool, tucked away in the shadowy corner of the room, letting her feet dangle and hover over the floor. Those heels were killing her. She glanced across the room, scanning the crowd of faces for Harry’s comforting eyes. He was standing in between Jeff and some really old guy in a suit, the grin on his face slowly growing until his dimples appeared. At this distance, she had no idea what he was actually saying, but she liked to imagine that he was telling a joke, judging by his face, that’s usually what he looks like when he’s laughing at his own joke before he’s even reached the punchline. She was glad to see that he was at least having fun. Because she’d be lying if she said that these kinds of events felt fun for her.

Tagging along to these parties increased her sad and admiration for Harry. It always made her proud to see him in “work mode.” This wasn’t even what he normally does for a living. Giant parties like these were usually hosted by the record label, designed to make really rich, really old people feels important enough and respected enough to convince them to invest their buckets of money into musicians’ tours. Someone needed to pay the insurance companies, purchase the bands’ equipment, pay the crew, and fund the millions of things -big and small- that went into carrying out an entire tour. Learning this gave her a better understanding of why, to make it in an industry like this, you need more than just a pretty voice and a little bit of hard work. But as proud as she was of Harry, she couldn’t help but feel like an outsider in moments like this.

Harry always wanted her to feel included, so he would keep his arm hooked into hers, introduce her to his team and investors, and whisper any background information into her ear to catch her up to speed. She loved witnessing first-hand how he was good at remembering a CEO’s 4-year-old daughter’s favorite cartoon, or how he complimented an ancient rich lady on her brooch. She found his ability to make everyone feel important to him weirdly attractive. But, when Harry and his friends would so quickly fall in and out of industry talk, making inside jokes or using technically lingo, she often found herself feeling weird. Like she was an anchor weighing him down. His constant need to keep an arm around her waist, or to explain a joke to her, or rephrase something in a way that she would understand, it made her wonder if he wouldn’t be more present in the moment if she wasn’t trailing behind him, so she found a quiet place to sit and admire him from a distance, hoping he’d be too engrossed in his friends’ conversations to notice her absence.

She pulled out her phone to check the time. It was almost midnight. She could pass the time by scrolling through her phone, but it would honestly just make her more miserable. Scrolling through Instagram posts of people that felt so far away would just hurt.

Perhaps this whole thing wouldn’t be on her mind if things in her own friendship were different. The truth was that some of her most important relationships have felt nonexistent lately. Which made her more conscious of how she related to people. Often even wondering if she had some invisible flaw that she’s failing to see, or if she was too stubborn to realize that she was unintentionally pushing people away. It felt like her relationship with Harry had altered the way that people saw her. Friends that she had had for quite sometime, and honestly thought would hold on to forever, were now gone without a real explanation. It was like they’d decided on her behalf that she no longer needed them. They began acting different around her, gradually growing colder and more indifferent. It was difficult to come to the realization that, if they would treat her this way, maybe they weren’t really friends in the first place. Maybe they only liked having her around to make them feel better about themselves and seeing her happy, successful, and in a relationship with someone like Harry was doing the exact opposite of making them feel good. So, they no longer had any use for her.

She felt a lump form in her throat. At least ending friendships in this way was better than the opposite. The people who’d never actually liked her, never treated her with any respect at all, and never bothered to hide their feelings about her suddenly “reconnecting” with her because they found out who her boyfriend is. How did things get so fucked up and why hadn’t she noticed until it was too late?

“There you are!” The feeling of Harry’s soft lips kissing her cheek yanked her out of her spiral. “How’re you, darlin’?” He smiled, grabbing the stool next to her and ordering a drink. He still had a smile on his face and seemed to be giggling to himself.

The look he was giving her forced her to smile back. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, it’s- it’s nothing Mitch was just telling a funny story over there.” Harry chuckled at the memory of the encounter. “Anyway, where’d you run off to? I looked behind me and you’d vanished.”

She waited for a moment, considering just telling him the truth but she didn’t want to burden him. He was clearly having a good time. And he’d earned it. He’d been working so hard lately; a night out with his favorite people is what he needs. Besides, she liked that Harry felt comfortable enough to introduce her to his friends and bring her to industry events. She didn’t want to make him feel bad about it.

“N-nowhere, I- my heels are just too much. Probably should’ve worn a different shoe tonight.”

Harry’s brows furrowed. “Oh, I’m so sorry, baby. Wanna go home?”

“Oh- no, no. Don’t worry about me. I’m good just staying right here. You go, have fun.”

Harry wasn’t having it. She should’ve expected it. He wasn’t the kind of person to just abandon her after she’d admitted to being in pain. Instead of going back out there, he brought the party over to her. Within minutes, Mitch, Sarah, Pauli, some assistants from the wardrobe department and a few drum techs were gathered around her previously private corner. They’d ordered some appetizers and sat around telling stories from past tours, making plans to visit the landmarks and hidden gems of certain cities they were touring, and recalling the time someone had intentionally re-tuned Mitch’s guitar and fucked up his string-matching.

For the whole night, Harry’s hands were on her thigh, glancing at her in between conversations and casually kissing the top of her head. She felt selfish for not having fun. After all he does for her, and after he’s forced everyone to hang out at the bar so she can be included. She still felt like an outsider looking in. What the hell was wrong with her?

The ride home was quiet. Harry asked her if she wanted to take her shoes off and stretch her legs but she’d just hummed a quiet “no,” looking out the window of the passengers seat to avoid his eyes.

She stood in the bathroom, getting ready for bed and trying to shake the feeling of intense isolation that had clung to her. She wished she could wipe it off the way she’d just wiped off her makeup. Maybe if she just went to bed and started fresh tomorrow?

Harry called her name “come over here and give me a cuddle alreadyyyy.”

She made her way to the bed where he’d been plopped, reading a book as he waited for her. The goofy smile on his face disappeared as soon as he saw her. “What’s the matter, baby?”

“N-nothing.” Her voice betrayed her, already breaking. It’s just that the softness of Harry’s voice and the concern in his eyes threw her off. The tears that she’d been pushing away all night were now stinging the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over.

“Not nothing.” Harry asserted, reaching for the side of her hip and gesturing for her to come closer.

“It’s dumb. Please just forget it, Harry.” She pressed her palms to her eyes, wiping the tears away.

“It’s not dumb if it’s got you this upset, honey.”

“I- I just wish-“

Harry said nothing, his eyebrows shoot upward.

“I wish I wasn’t so lonely all the time.”

Harry felt his heart split in half at her words and the simplicity with which she’d said them. He wondered how long she’d felt this way. If the feeling just rolled off her tongue like that, it had to have been sitting in the pit of her stomach for a while.

“Lonely?” Was all he could say.

She just nodded, tears now unashamedly rolling down her face.

Harry was now replaying all the conversations that he’d had in the past few weeks where she seemed to jokingly suggest that she was fundamentally in likable, or that she was too rough around the edges for friends to want her around, or that she hated people so much that she hardly left the apartment anymore. How could he have been so blind? He knew her well enough to know that when she made self-deprecating jokes like this, it was usually because she believed them to be, at least partly, true.

“W-why?” He cleared his throat, hoping to sound more like an adult. “What’s made you feel so alone?”

She shrugged, finally pulling her hands away from her face and shifting nervously on top of the duvet. “Just don’t have any friends anymore, Harry.”

“What do you mean? You’ve got plenty of friends!”

“Name one.”

Harry wracked his brain. “Well there’s Je- okay, fine? What about Sa-“ he was stumped. Every name that came to his mind was a friend of his that had, by extension, gotten to know her through their relationship.

She could see the wheels turning in his head. “Exactly.” She huffed.

“Well, what about people at work? That nice lady, Melanie? You seem to get on really well. And, besides, you can share my friends!”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I don’t know people. But those superficial relationships only make me feel worse. They just remind me of the connections that I’ve lost. I don’t- Harry, I don’t wanna have perfectly mundane conversations about the weather, or what I did over the weekend. That’s not what I mean. I just- I miss the kind of connection where you could text someone your random and extremely niche take on a specific topic that only you care about. Or call someone cuz you’re bored and want company. Or make spur of the moment plans. Or vent to without worrying if they’re secretly judging you for talking too much. You know? The kinds of things that you can just build overnight.”

“Intimacy.” He said simply.

“Yeah…”

Harry said nothing. He pulled her into his side, letting her lay her head on his shoulder and blink her tears away as he squeezed her shoulder.

“I’ll be your friend!” He said suddenly breaking the heavy silence.

She laughed, the chuckled disrupting her sobs. “Thanks, but, I think I like what we are.”

“No, I mean, like, sometimes you date someone but you can’t really talk to them about stuff. You know? I’m saying you can talk to me.”

“I just- I don’t know why it’s so hard for me.”

“Baby, it’s not your fau-“

“Don’t! Don’t say it, okay?”

“But you know it’s true.”

“It makes me feel like a bad person to just say that they’re dumb for not wanting to stay friends. Somehow I’m the perfect Angel and everyone else is wrong for leaving me.”

Harry said nothing for a moment. He could tell she firmly believed that and convincing her wasn’t going to be simple. Plus, he didn’t want to interrupt her as she finally let things off her chest. After he was sure she was done speaking, he started again.

“I’m not saying you’re perfect. Nobody is. We all have our flaws. But people who really care about you wouldn’t give up on you when things get difficult. Friendships only work if both people are invested.”

“What if- What if I’m just not good at this? What if people leave me because I’m not a good friend?”

“Bullshit.”

“Harry! I’m serious.”

“So am I! You care, and you’re so kind. And you’re fun and gracious and-“

“Then why am I so alone??”

Harry kissed the side of her head gently.

“I get what you mean.”

“No you don’t. You’re surrounded by people who love you all day everyday.”

“Yeah, but that hasn’t always been the case. I felt really lost and alone for years before all this happened. You know? After the band and all?”

“Hmm”

“It was hard.”

She just nodded silently listening to, taking his words in, letting the sound of his voice comfort her.

“Just can’t change who you are to make people want to stick around. You’ll lose sight of what matters to you. Even though it hurts to let people go.”

“It does.”

“I know baby.” He nuzzled his nose into her neck. “But you’ll meet the right friends eventually. Ones who won’t take advantage, won’t be threatened by your light and love.”

“I hope I do. This is exhausting.”

“Let me help. Hmm?”

She finally turned to face him, locking her lips into his, causing him to hum into her mouth.

“You always do, Harry. Everyday.”

[awellboiledicicle]

I like thinking about Luds au less bc of the canon events, and more the post story "and then she takes ppl back to skyrim" bits sometimes.

Because if she romances Astarion, I'm imagining Serana being super hype to see her again and then (vapor lock) "Whomst"

Bc I decided that she's been basically in a qp relationship with Lud for years before she goes missing. So she's been juggling everything only for Lud to trundle up to the manor outside whiterun with Astarion in tow, bundled up like a goddamn mummy.

Astarion meanwhile gets the delightful scene of getting ushered inside and then watching the woman he gave up ascension for being torn apart verbally. He opens his mouth. He is immediately faced with the stare of a vampire he cannot actually guess the age of, but her power radiates. The eye contact lasts long enough for him to look away out of self preservation.

The key here is also to note that common in Tamriel and common in Faerun are not the same language.

So he has no fucking clue what the whole conversation is. He knows enough to converse simply, because he was in Luds brain and then she's teaching him on the way there. But overall hes going on vibes.

And the vibe is clearly "I would kill you if I didnt love you" at Lud and "why did you adopt another stray" at him.

Which is followed by Lud trying to explain their relationship. Which is met with a look of pity that he wishes he didn't see understanding in.

Basically until they can visit Falkreath and see if he can be cured (Lud is dubious about the chances but it's worth a shot) Astarion and Serana are cats that were suddenly introduced.

But also like academically Astarion knows Lud has children. Academically he knows shes head of the thieves guild (or was, they need to check). Academically he knew she was a big deal in this country.

He did not know the details.

He was not prepared to come out of trance to find the dining hall full of a dozen people of varying ages, races and sizes all sizing him up on sight. Or for them to all have various noises to make at Lud, who they call mother and then hug her. He was also not prepared for a good number of them to happily discuss poisons and spells and necromancy, while a family wide argument erupts over the best way to kill a giant.

Astarion is also deeply not prepared to hear a dragon outside, see Lud sigh and proceed to shoot it in the head with one arrow before calmly walking to where it impacted the earth *and then consume its soul*.

Like mostly hes not prepared for how aroused he is in that moment, but still. A little warning would have been nice. Let him finish his tea.

[signalwatch]

Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Watched:  11/29/2023

Format:  AMC IMAX

Viewing:  First

Director:  Takashi Yamazaki

Where to start?

Over the years, Godzilla has been many things.  Like Batman, he's been a children's character while also being a thing adults could appreciate.  But he's also been cast as a walking analogy in two very, very good films (Gojira and Shin Godzilla), a villain in others (Godzilla Returns and Raids Again), a dad (Son of Godzilla) a hero (most of the Shōwa era), a goof, a buddy, a ruffian...  

The American-produced Godzilla movies have done well financially, but, to me, struggled with an actual story until Kong vs. Godzilla.  But it would be misleading to say the Toho Studios produced films didn't struggle with same.  The Toho movies responded to the challenge by getting progressively crazier as the need to fill screen time with something other than expensive monster fights (models and custom 7' rubber suits are not cheap) became a clear necessity. 

To fill that run time*, both US and Toho films needed a story for humans - humans that Godzilla likely will not even be aware of during the course of the film  - that is compelling and meaningful.  But, man , have the results been mixed.  You get aliens, faeries, conspiracies, what-have-you.  And some of that is great!  Final Wars is like a party of a movie.  Watch it sometime.

Meanwhile, Toho seems to have taken the licensing of Godzilla to Legendary and the US produced releases since 2014 to take a step outside of themselves and think about what would make a kick-ass Godzilla film.  Heck, what would make a *film* rather than an entertaining outing for the kiddies (and, let's be honest, me).  Thus, a few years ago, we got Shin Godzilla, which was absolutely terrific, in my opinion.  Harkening back to 1954, it was a modern solo Godzilla outing, and more about how the humans on the ground deal with a huge analogy for recent world events (at minimum for the Fukushima disaster and Japan's official response) wandering through their backyard .

Sure, the Godzilla in it seemed like a mindless engine of destruction and looked weird as hell, but that movie just works.  I dug the leads, the story, the analogies, the whole ball of wax.  The human story was compelling and frightening, Godzilla a force of nature.

I figured we'd get a direct sequel, but that isn't what happened.  Instead, Toho took a step back, and said "eh, let's just do it fresh again".  Which - respect, man.  Do whatever you want.  

So, Wednesday, I made The Admiral go to the movies with me, and we saw an IMAX screening of Godzilla Minus One (2023).  

I'd seen good, early reviews, but these were mostly die-hard G-fans, and I didn't particularly expect to get a straight answer.  There's a difference between "a good movie" and "man, I like watching monsters on a screen", and that differentiation isn't always made in the Godzilla-sphere (and, often, the genre-media-sphere in general).

What I can say is that at the end of this year, Godzilla Minus One will be in my top 5 movies seen in 2023.  Which - no shock, Shin Godzilla got similar high marks.  But, it's also true that I'm not sure I didn't like Godzilla Minus One (2023) a slight bit better than Shin Godzilla.  

As trailers would suggest, G-1 is a period piece.  The movie takes place roughly between late 1944 and end of 1947, I think.  The "Minus One" of the name is that, hey, Tokyo is already devastated, or at zero.  And then G shows up, and, well... it just got worse.  We're now at -1.

The movie centers on a Kamikaze pilot who chooses not to fulfill his mission, whether it's fear or a sense this is a waste of his own life here at the end of the war (both, really) he heads into a small island airstrip/ repair hut where he's violently introduced to much smaller version of Godzilla than what we're used to.  This is Godzilla's original, dino-sized form.

As one of two survivors of the incident, and a survivor of the war (and one tapped to explicitly *not* survive and protect Nippon), Shikishima is dealing with PTSD and Survivor's Guilt, mixed with his uncertainty of who he is in this post-war world.  Stumbling across a young (let's be honest, beautiful) woman. Noriko, who has picked up a loose baby in the wreckage of Tokyo, the three form a sort of family unit, building a shack and then home as Shikishima finds work on a boat clearing the sea of mines laid by both Japan and the US.  

Shikishima forms a bond with his boat-mates, and life is beginning to turn around, even if he can't let go of the war and his need for closure.  That trauma is preventing him from pursuing his feelings for Noriko and rejecting the baby as a surrogate daughter.

Meanwhile, unknown to all, Godzilla was hanging out at Bikini Atoll when the US thought to test a bomb, and we get our now Jumbo Sized Godzilla - going from T-Rex size to G 1954 size.  

Anyhoo... Godzilla does show up.  

Like I say, Godzilla has been many things over the years.  Here, he's a raging, atomic-fueled engine of fury, not the hauntingly eye-dead monster of Shin Godzilla.  He's well aware of what he's doing and why you need to get the @#$% out of his way as a large creature claiming new territory and not liking all these little humans who are in his way with their stupid buildings.  It's not personal, but that doesn't mean he has a passive bone in him - this Godzilla is not to be crossed.  

The design is closer to the 1990's style than Shin or Monsterverse Godzilla, and that's a good thing.  There are definitely unique characteristics - plate placement, head size, scaliness - but most noticeable to me was the eyes.  The suit Godzillas began having more expressive eyes in the Hesei and Millenium era, but here, there's a deadliness to his stare  His eyes track the humans or any perceived annoyance or threat, and they are red/ gold eyes of a very pissed off creature.  

For what this movie is about - the melodrama/ drama of the survivors, fallout of war, and the need to now combat a legitimate threat to all of Japan (this is an oversimplification, but bear with me) - this depiction of Godzilla is perfect.  The monster is a product of the war and man's folly - mutated by the bomb, he reflects some of the 1990's take on Godzilla's WWII origins.  But as a character, he's really a weapon of mass destruction with an agenda, and that agenda does not care about humans.  If he is a "god", he's not concerned with us, and much like bugs living in your house, he's going to get rid of these humans.

The break to the third act occurs after Godzilla's Tokyo debut, reminiscent of the 1954 film and directly referencing it in visual, audial and musical queues.  With modern CGI, it's not a suit actor stepping through sets, it's a living being wandering through Ginza as the locals, truly rampaging rather than clumsily knocking stuff over.

And, his atomic breath in this film may not be the spectacular laser-light show of Shin Godzilla, but it's an extension of his mutation coming from the bomb, and - narratively - an extension of the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  I won't go into detail here, but it's *scary* when you see G charging up (with a really innovative charge-up sequence) and cut loose.  

He also seems, by all counts, invulnerable.  It's not just his sheer size, but that he seems to heal from wounds with no trouble. So, do all the damage you want, he's going to come back from it and be pissed as hell you even tried.

All of this feeds into the actual plot of the film, which is really about dealing with the loss of WWII and the damage the war (which this movie freely indicates Japan started) did to the country and to the people.  Survivors of the war come home to find their homes gone, their relatives dead.  And for what?  

I've spoken with my fellow Godzilla fan, Stuart, who has a better grip on Japan than I do (he resided there for a bit), and his feeling was this was a surprising take - and perhaps a very modern/ recent one.  Centering the film on a "failed" kamikaze was not something he felt Japan would have done 30 years ago, but I think - narratively - it's an amazing choice.  The Imperial dreams of Japan now long in the past, Toho can reframe the story to be about choosing to fight when the fight is a good one, even if seemingly hopeless.  

And, man, when Godzilla is done with Ginza, it sure does feel hopeless, and any plan you put on the table is bound to fail.  

I don't know a ton about Japan's feelings about how its government selectively issues information, or how they feel about the US as an occupational force in the MacArthur or modern era, but the film sidelines both.  The Japanese government seems frozen by the attack, and the US is concerned large-scale naval maneuvers will trigger a war with Russia (not an unreasonable concern).  While a US version might be about bringing all three together to fight Godzilla, this film is about the veterans overcoming their grief and shame to fight again.

Oh, and there's a very real semi-experimental plane that I was vaguely aware of, but thought was a German design, that appears in the back 1/3rd of the film that got my aviation-buff dad to make an audible "wow!" when it showed up.  

Anyway, the movie drew a thunderous round of applause from my audience, which was - I will say - an audience of surefire Godzilla fans and their friends dragged to the movie.  Lots of Godzilla shirts and whatnot.  But it was also the 5:00 PM show on the day of the movie's release. 

SPOILERS

Look, sometimes we outsmart ourselves and think we're too clever for the emotional levers that can get pulled in a movie, and if a movie has too much of a feel-good ending, it doesn't feed our desire to feel like film fans who can't be duped by emotional manipulation.  But...  gang, that's emotional manipulation, too.  

I won't say I openly wept during the movie, but I did get choked up a few times.  In a Godzilla movie!  Because it's really about dealing with trauma, so seeing Shikishima deal with his, receive forgiveness and a path to happiness when I was 90% sure this movie was about to show a noble sacrifice... man.  It really says a lot about what the movie-makers wanted to convey.  And stuff that at the end of the day I personally want to believe.

END SPOILERS

I've watched a *lot* of Godzilla movies - probably all but one or two of the overall output of 30-odd movies over 70 years.  At the end of the day, why I liked Godzilla Minus One this much was simple: story and character.   

Call it melodrama, but the drama of this movie is really taking place inside a tiny house and on a boat, the cast has issues that understandable, is a solid mix, and I cared about everyone on screen.  The performances are heightened a bit, perhaps, but the characters are likable and feel believable.  And, much like Jaws or other movies that work despite the sci-fi, horror or other elements, you can both draw in your audience and sell something wild if the audience is pulling for these people on screen.  And that's something Gojira understood in spades.  As does this movie.

Anyway, this is now my second favorite Godzilla film.  If it's better - to me - than Shin Godzilla, it's that the movie works so well not just as analogy, but as a deep character film while also providing genuine thrills with the Godzilla sequences.  

I've tried to spoil all that as little as possible, because I'd encourage you to go see it.  It's just a solid movie all around.

* we also have to ask the realistic question of "how exciting would it really be to watch two rubber monsters fight for 90 minutes?".

The Signal Watch blog posts regularly!

[saturnine-saturneight]

Sliiiide.

🏁-Looking back at the first thing you've written/posted, how have you improved since then?

🌓- Show us a snippet of a before and an after between drafts! What did you change and why?

Haha hellooo, thank you for the ask!!!

🏁-Looking back at the first thing you've written/posted, how have you improved since then?

I think the best point of reference for this is when I started posting prose on the internet. I was part of a roleplaying community here on Tumblr, and had arcs going on for my OCs that influenced and were driven forward by roleplays with my friends.

To develop my characters beyond this, I would write the sort of... Connecting tissue, big events that were happening in the background and could drive my and other people's plots forward.

These were drabbles in the loose sense of that word, and the defining feature was that they were short! Easier to write, easier to consume, packing a lot into usually something around 500 words. Because I honestly, honestly had no idea how to write something longer than this. I would try and fail to connect one scene to the next and just do vignettes, I would lose confidence that anyone wanted to read on if I made them longer, and I especially had no idea how to continue after a dramatic moment or a cliff hanger and just post instead.

(This was partially a mental state thing - my life was pretty chaotic, and my thoughts matched that.)

The main thing I've learned since then is how to plot out something long that coheres and then actually write it, lmfao. I can do long term planning in my writing now and then get from A to B in a way that isn't filler and is (I think/hope) fun to read.

🌓- Show us a snippet of a before and an after between drafts! What did you change and why?

Gonna do the intro paragraph for this. First version:

The wind rushes past their ears as Natalie floors it through the forest. Ron whoops with joy every time the all terrain vehicle hits a bump. It's a clear, starlit night, and there's no one around but them.

This was a version where the characters needed no introduction because everyone in my audience (friends) was already familiar with them, and I just jumped straight into the action. This opening bit leads right into the deciding action of the first chapter in the span of a page or two, and then the whole thing devolves into The Horror.

Second version:

The smell of ozone builds slowly in the cold night air. It's still hard to notice over the metallic stench of their crowded ATV, until it suddenly isn't anymore and it hits Rain straight in the face.

I changed the setting from forest to desert, and put in a few chapters to introduce these characters, explain the stakes, and give The Horror some buildup. This was after a good bit of feedback! I showed the story to people outside of my friend group and they had no idea what was going on or why they should care. Also note Ron's name here - i was playing with worldbuilding, and he was from a coastal town where the majority of kids were named after something water, seafaring, or star related.

Current:

It's subtle at first, hard to notice, when the air thickens, and the clear blue sky slowly, slowly turns a sickly green. Like sticky dust, the sweet stench of flowers begins to cover every surface, every rock and every grain of sand. Only as it starts to seep through the AC does Ron startle awake, head jerking up from where it had fallen back against the headrest of his car seat.

I changed the genre from second world sci-fantasy to eco horror set in the future of this Earth, which is the rewrite I'm still currently on. The storm is not a green acid storm anymore, but a pollen storm instead, so I can link back to the central conceit of plant zombies. I was also able to make this a lot more descriptive, because even though I'm changing the paint on this story and cleaning up the worldbuilding, the bones are, for a large part, already there.

I've honestly fucked with this story so drastically that I don't even consider line edits actual edits right now, haha. Something is a new version when I've rewritten about 2/3rds of it by volume. What stays is the mood and the intention of the scene, but everything else is fair game for repurposing, scrapping, full rewriting etc.

[emeritus-fuckers]

Yaaaaay ministry event!!!!

1. Would you say you're more likely to be a Sibling of Sin or a Ghoul? Why?

Sibling of Sin. Im weird but still within the bounds of humanity. I would likely end up in ghoul dens though, I would be fascinated with them.

2. Which Papa would you prefer to work with? Why? (Sister Imperator is included)

Outside of my personal feelings for each one, papa 3. He seems the most... personable. Im a little anxious and sensitive, i feel like it would be easiest to work with him or papa iv as a back up.

3. Are you an introvert, ambivert or an extrovert? Tell us a bit more about it.

Ambivert. I love being around people but I need my quiet time at the end of the day. I like parties, for example, but I keep to myself during them.

4. What chore do you like the most/hate the least?

Hate the most? Dishes. I have sensory issues and wet food makes me want to peel off my skin. Like the most? Laundry. I love the smell of clean laundry and knowing i have clean underwear lol.

5. Do you like to travel, or maybe you prefer to stay at home?

Both, for different reasons. I love seeing new places and going fun places (I like to identify new plants and birds) but honestly it's a relief to come home to my own bed.

6. Freebie. You've got five sentences to tell us anything you want about you.

If I could live in a natural history museum, I would. The smell of incense is comforting. I find myself staring at people a lot, I don't mean to, but I prefer watching to interacting. I crochet a lot, and make scarves for just about everyone I know. My goal is to be a tattoo artist.

This post is part of the 1250 (I think?) followers Role in ministry event. Entries for the event are now closed.

Your role in the ministry is…Tattoo artist for the clergy

You work for Papa III

Terzo is happy for you to spend a lot of time in the chapel as he knows you like the smell of incense. He suggested you crochet there when it isn't being used for anything else. He'll sit with you and write his sermons but you often end up people watching. Terzo's favourite game is to watch then tell you who is going to get together next, he loves match making. He is very happy when he gets it right.

He'll invite you along to all the parties he goes to but he always understands if you want to miss one.

He will set you up with someone if you ask or he is also really good at introducing you to the perfect people to be friends with.

He nudged you towards the Ghouls because he knew you wanted to see the dens. He made sure Omega kept a very close eye on you so nothing bad happens and you aren't allowed there unless Omega is around, because, well you know what Ghouls can be like.

But you are one of their favourite siblings, they often offer to help at your tattoo parlour, they helped you set it up. Although sometimes they cause more chaos than actually helping. But it's always good natured and fun but sometimes they do need to be gently reminded to calm down. Swiss once tried to tattoo and obscene image on Sodo when he fell asleep.

You made Terzo and his Ghouls scarves and they all were really happy with them. Terzo wore his around the Ministry with great pride right up until summer when he was too hot. He is now looking forward to autumn.

You also made friends with Primo, on your lunch breaks you go and sit in the gardens to identify the plants and birds. Primo saw you and his eyes lit up that someone else appreciated things like that. He has sooo many books on it that he lends you and, he'll often join you for a walk round the garden showing you all the new plants he put in.

You do get some rather interesting requests for tattoos. There is a wide variety of different artworks asked for, some more serious and intricate others because someone lost a bet...

~

Written by Nyx

[gnomeniche]

the big lesley headcanon post

today i woobify lesley. i support women's rights but i also support women's wrongs.

so i talked abt my theory for what lesley is in this post. tl;dr she is not the original lesley (aka the creator of the in-universe show) but a "host" character who was played by the creator. because of her position in the original show's narrative, she has awareness and power over the world, but she is just as trapped by the narrative as the students.

so here's some headcanons i have about how she relates to her position in the world/with the students + some contextualization of my hcs for the show-world. one day i will make a big ol’ headcanon post for all of dhmis

show-world contextualization

the in-universe show was a Real Show On Earth that got canceled several decades ago, but probably through some sort of fraught emotions tied to its production, the show-world we see manifested and the characters were brought to life. it's kind of like a restless spirit going through the motions of its life, except it's a whole anomalous children's show.

some of these fraught emotions include creator!lesley's concept for the show being inspired by her dead son + the passion that went into creating it + the degrading of the original themes and mistreatment of the show's cast and crew (including creator!lesley) by executives toward the end of its run, which led to its cancellation. the show-world's ultimate objective is to keep itself going at any cost, because so many people were invested it its continuation.

lesley's role

our lesley was one of the characters who came to life when the show-world manifested. she didn't gain control over the world until after the unplugging in "dreams," because before then, the world was thrashing to life and reliving the events of the cancellation in a dreamlike way. and creator!lesley had already lost a lot of control over the show by the time it was canceled.

but after that, the world settled into a format more like the original show and our lesley gained the control she currently has. however, she is also beholden to the show-world's desire to keep going, so she runs through hosting the lessons because That's What She's Supposed To Do. she is definitely reciting a little whimsical introduction to the lesson topic before each episode and a little whimsical rhyming moral after it, but we as viewers just don't see it.

she is very aware of the reasons for the show-world's existence, but she isn't sure how long it's been since the original show ended. she knows of the outside world, but she believes it's not worth it. this cynicism comes from her residual memory of the mess that was the show and the society that created and destroyed it.

she has mixed feelings toward creator!lesley. she has echoes of the person creator!lesley was, but she is NOT the same person. she has bits of memories and a similar personality and love for the show, but she resents having to bear the emotions of someone who is not her. her mood swings are because of this, as is her insistence that yellow is NOT her son. she doesn't have kids! yellow wasn't even the original lesley's actual son! why does she also have to project motherly feelings onto him! she just wants to like him like she likes her other friends.

she doesn't fully control the lessons; oftentimes, the world generates the script, and she creates the teachers and sets the lesson in motion. sometimes she designs the lessons herself, though. it varies.

she has the power to reset the students. the world itself does the softer resets, but she does the harder wipes.

the existential despair of being lesley

even though she's never been allowed to interact with the students (by the time the show was canceled, the host role had gone from directly teaching them to just introducing and ending the episodes, so the world doesn't let her), she sees them as her friends. when she told yellow that he's "one of her favorites," she really means that all three are her favorites. yes, even duck. i do not think lesley hates duck.

she doesn't want them to leave because she sees the outside world as dangerous and wants to protect them. however, she also has a selfish reason: she is so very lonely. she never gets to talk to anyone except the viewers, but they're not even here anymore. the only time she talks to someone is when one of the trio finds a way up, which is why she keeps letting it happen, even though she knows she needs to reset it. she loves them a lot, and she loves watching the rare moments of peace between episodes because she almost feels like she's there with them.

but this is a world where love is twisted, and her isolation and power twists her point of view further.

i don't necessarily think she likes torturing the students, but because she's never been subjected to the lessons, she underestimates how psychologically damaging they are. obviously she knows that they can be frightening, but i think she has a very hazy distinction between "teaching someone a lesson" in the educational sense and "teaching someone a lesson" in the punitive sense. she thinks it must good for them, right? wasn't this show supposed to be good for kids?

well, the show might have once been good in some parts, but the rotten lessons it taught were there from the beginning, even before executive meddling worsened them. creator!lesley was a bit fucked up because of how her son died and thus had a patronizing overprotective attitude about the good of children. our lesley has an unfortunately rosy, nostalgic view of the original show's value.

she is more similar to the students than you might think. she's not sure of her own identity and is subject to desires and memories that aren't her own; how much is her and how much is from the person who made and embodied her? and how much is of her is just the role?

she both enjoys and resents the duty she's been given of keeping the show going; she's chained to a duty she believes necessary, but she hates that it is necessary. she likes getting to create, but is it really creation if all she does is remix someone else's ideas? even she sees what she does as a shadow of what the show once was.

at this point, she just wants to keep it going for the sake of her friends. it must be good for them, right? and if she doesn't give them something to entertain them, they'll feel the horrible weight she feels alone with nothing all day. even with the horrors, they always end up safe at home and they get to experience so much! even though they're not experiencing anything truly real and they can't remember everything. but it's good that they don't remember everything! they don't feel the despair of this endless life! they don't remember the trauma of the lessons! even though they carry the scars in their brains despite their lost memories.

but she must keep going or she will be all alone. she will have nothing. they will have nothing. it's for their good, you see. isn't it?

[p5x-theories]

What We Know About Cattle

(as of the second beta; last updated 8/27/23!)

Ruferu (which has also been translated to English as Luffy), codename Cattle, is an owllike creature with amnesia who finds and recruits the protagonist (Wonder) as a phantom thief at the start of the game. He knows a lot about the Metaverse, including how to change hearts, but doesn't know why he knows these things.

In the Metaverse, Ruferu is a very short, humanoid figure with a beak, as pictured above. Like Mona, he's also able to turn into a car. Outside the Metaverse, Ruferu is a talking owl, whose speech isn't comprehensible to most people, though the exact distinction for when someone is able to understand him hasn't been made clear. People with the MetaNav on their phone seem to be able to understand him whether or not they've been inside the actual Metaverse.

The codename "Cattle" is one he picks for himself, though he says he doesn't know why. It's most likely a reference to his Persona, who was a cattleman before he became an outlaw. The Megami Tensei wiki also notes that “His code name in Japanese (キャトル, kyatoru) means the English word "Cattle," but is also the Japanese representation for the French word Quatrelle, which is the spoken aloud alternate name for the Renault 4 or 4L... which serves as the basis of the vehicle Ruferu can transform into."

His Japanese voice actress is Ai Nonaka.

Ruferu is a Confidant of Wonder's, though his Arcana is unknown. Its progression seems to be at least partially tied to story events.

At the start of the game, Ruferu follows Wonder around, up until Wonder accidentally enters Mementos, at which point Ruferu introduces himself, helps lead Wonder out of the Metaverse, and teaches him how to fight. He later explains the Metaverse, shadows, Personas, and changes of heart to Wonder.

His amnesia seems to be tied at least loosely to Mementos and the Palaces, as he regains a bit of his memory after they steal the first Palace ruler's Treasure. Ruferu seems determined to steal the other six Treasures he can sense as well, to fully regain his memory, but recognizes he can't do it alone. He's happy to have Wonder and Motoha on the team, though he comments Motoha's a bit noisy for a phantom thief.

While Ruferu is able to sense Palaces, it's not through smell like previous characters, but rather through sound. Ruferu can hear the "voices of the human heart", and follow those to a Palace, particularly if they've identified the Palace ruler in advance.

Ruferu's role unsurprisingly seems to parallel Morgana's in the original P5.

While Ruferu is a bit serious, and seems to be the unfazeable type who knows a lot and isn't caught off-guard by a surprise, he's not overly rude or condescending. He doesn't take his teammates' help for granted, and actually asks Motoha and Wonder whether they want to continue working with him after the first Palace, rather than assuming.

He also doesn't seem to be embarrassed easily, and has no problem letting Motoha pick him up if he can't see something, or letting Wonder hold a phone out to him so he can talk on it. He can come across as just a bit childish, not in an immature way, but in how he interacts with others due to his small size.

Above all, he seems to be focused on his work as a phantom thief. He doesn't seem to particularly care what his teammates' motivations for working with him are, as long as he has them, but personally is very goal-oriented and will pursue any obstacles until he finds a way around them.

His Persona, Rob Roy (based on a Scottish outlaw and folk hero), is already awakened at the start of the game. He has Fire and Healing skills, and resists Fire while being weak to Ice.

Notably, while he's well-versed on how the Metaverse and phantom thievery within it works, he hasn't stolen a heart prior to the first Palace, and in general, his know-how doesn't seem to extend to things related to the Velvet Room. While he accepts the cognitive teammates quickly after Wonder explains what a "Phantom Idol" is, he doesn't quite understand them, and immediately says Wonder can be in charge of them even before Wonder is established as the leader.

In combat, his melee weapon is a pair of tonfa, while his ranged weapon is a blowgun. His highlight attack is shown from 0:14 - 0:25 in this video.