#this is the character foil to that other post

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

Okay. I gotta talk about it.

Warning for major spoilers for season 2 of Hazbin Hotel and discussion of leaks—I will NOT be posting any links to the leaks or posting pics/screenshots from them here. Just going to be talking about a particular character.

Okay, last chance if you don’t want to know anything about the spoilers/leaks!!!

Im serious!!! Last warning!!!!!

Lute is now unironically the most compelling character in the entire fucking show and I am not kidding.

Whoever wrote the little bit of her character that’s been leaked did a really good job. She is incredibly interesting to me now because we get to see her when her entire way of life and ideology is challenged.

Lute is a very flawed and cruel person, but she has always been extremely sure of herself and that she is unambiguously CORRECT in her way of life. And now she’s being faced with the fact that she and everything she lived for is WRONG and they just CANT accept it. So much so that it appears that she’s now hallucinating Adam to cope.

Lute cannot accept redemption is possible and her viewpoint is SO black and white that it’s likely going to end up killing her or at the very least will drive her to madness. She would rather burn the whole world than accept change. There’s a tragic element as well that comes with every character that lives in the extremes—she fully believes she’s in the right. So much so that she can’t understand why EVERYONE else in Heaven seems to be horrified by the exterminations. She thinks she is doing the best thing for everyone, and is now resisting the reality that is front of her.

What would be really amazing, and what I’m hoping for is that Adam really did fall and became a ���Demon” in Hell. Because then she would have to deal with the person she looks up to and admires the MOST becoming what she’s sworn to annihilate. I don’t know if she could handle that.

The question of whether or not she could reconcile Adam, someone she saw as being heavenly and perfect, could fall and become what she hates the most, a demon, is really interesting. She’d be forced again to question her ideals and beliefs about what is right and wrong. That is the sort of deep character exploration I had been hoping to see from season 1 of Hazbin and didn’t really get.

This small glimpse into her character reminds me of other characters that are so lawful or black and white that they can’t accept change or realities that conflict with their worldviews. Rorschach from Watchmen and Javert from Les Miserables come to mind.

It would be really cool to show her in direct contrast to V (not calling her that sexist ass name at least I can pretend “Lute” is named after the fucking instrument) and have Lute be the foil to V’s continuing character arc from season 1.

Please please please don’t let this characters complexity be reduced to “evil bad villain is bad and evil” for the rest of the story please please please. (Gotta say tho, given Hazbin and Helluva’a track record with writing women villains….and tbh just. Women in general. I am going to be VERY VERY cautiously optimistic)

(Also I don’t care if her song is cringe I think it fucking SLAPS)

[nbmudkip]

“how could you have forgotten that” i forget Everything. unless i remember

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Parallel Lines and Brothers.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[tsutsumi-kurose]

I find it interesting that Tsukasa reached for Nene without hesitation. It was probably because he needs her to fulfill his goals but I wanna be delusional and say he has a heart and cares for her / people

lol it is very hard to tell with tsukasa!! but he definitely does have a heart it’s just….selective lol.

and i think the fact that it's so hard to tell how tsukasa feels about people makes him and nene such good complements to each other!! nene is so expressive and open, and tsukasa is such a mystery to the audience and especially to amane, the person closest to him. these differences play off of each other beautifully. it's nene's openness and persistence and open-book optimism that gets us so many glimpses into tsukasa's feelings and past and world view and the different attitudes he's capable of embodying and expressing. and i personally think this moment is an example of that!

i think tsukasa catching nene was a very instinctive action he took!! i don't think he gave it any thought:

i loveeee this moment and these two pages like... he makes the decision so quickly that the panel of nene falling doesn't even have time to complete!! tsukasa physically breaks into the panel of nene falling, that's how fast and split second his decision is!! it's such a beautiful use of the space on the page. and tsukasa looks surprised by himself on the next page!! tsukasa is a very calucated person who usually has the upper hand, and in this moment he realizes he has truly given that upper hand and that foresight and that planning up, that he needs to resort to the last resort of calling amane for help. he resorts to what he sees as the impossible!! so i really don't think catching her was just part of the plan. there was definitely an emotional element involved there!!

i also think nene really has a knack for bringing out new sides of tsukasa. she's the reason he revealed that he's called for hanako before with no response!! she challenges him in ways he hasn't been challenged before!! she constantly surprises him and makes things interesting for him. i think she is definitely a very unique relationship in his life, and given all the reactions she gets out of him, i would say he definitely has at least some level of emotional investment in her as a person.

you are right though, that this doesn't necessarily mean he cares about her... but i don't think it's delusional for us to hope that it means something along those lines!! after all, they've spent a lot of time together leading up to this moment, and thanks to time travel, who knows how many interactions they've had that only tsukasa has experienced at this point? there's so much we don't know about tsukasa, constantly!! and i think the way he feels about nene is one of the more confounding mysteries about him.

i think it's very possible he has a soft spot for nene at this point! or at least is developing one. I’d believe it!! after all, if nene falls to her death who will listen to tsukasa talk about amane for four hours straight??

also look at them here:

serious analysis on pause they're best friends here. they are consulting they are looking to each other they are silently communicating!!! where do we go from here!!! nene said :0!!!!! tsukasa said O_O!!!!!

okay back to more text based analysis lol: from a different angle, you could also argue tsukasa's end goal with all of this is extending nene's life, as he's working to grant amane's wish, which, to his knowledge from the conversation in ch91, would be to extend nene's lifespan. so indirectly, but still supposedly his goal in a way!! which is a way to interpret his motivations in this moment as well.

and on the topic of tsukasa's goals, i think they show his heart!! yes, he's got an agenda, but overall his agenda has really just been to grant amane's wish. and it's an agenda he does his best to fulfill, which is a way of showing heart!! he thinks this is how amane can get whatever he wants. so in a way, even if this moment was just about needing nene as a means to an end, the end and the means of getting there are all motivated by his heart!!

but yeah in summary i definitely think there's a lot of depth to this relationship and to this interaction in particular. it haunts me constantly!! i love tsukasa i love nene i love the ways they play off of each other so much!! yes i'm biased because i would steal the moon from the sky for tsukasa and nene, but i really do think she makes him feel a lot!! whether that results in affection for her i think is beautifully complicated and unclear, and i can't wait to see their relationship progress throughout the rest of the manga!!

so i am with you in your delusions anon!! keep the faith!! i certainly will!! <3

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

It’s important that the first revelation of Nissa Nissa is accompanied by some level of skepticism from Salladhor Saan and aversion on Davos’ part. It doesn’t sound right that Azor Ahai chose to sacrifice his wife for a magic sword. It shouldn’t sound right.

“A hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third blade, and as it glowed white-hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife. ‘Nissa Nissa,’ he said to her, for that was her name, ‘bare your breast, and know that I love you best of all that is in this world.’ She did this thing, why I cannot say, and Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel. Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.

“Now do you see my meaning? Be glad that it is just a burnt sword that His Grace pulled from that fire. Too much light can hurt the eyes, my friend, and fire burns.” Salladhor Saan finished the last grape and smacked his lips. “When do you think the king will bid us sail, good ser?”

[…] A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost … When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, a good-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile, the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay.

Not only does it not make sense that Nissa Nissa would agree to her husband’s request, it’s also telling how Salladhor Saan expresses relief in knowing that King Stannis didn’t actually forge Lightbringer. Because forging Lightbringer means human sacrifice. And why should one be deprived of their life, even if it’s for a magic sword? Davos is very right to be creeped out by it.

The theme of sacrifice shows up quite a bit in ASOIAF and Davos I isn’t the first or last time. The very first chapter in the series, Bran I, tackles this idea with Jon and the direwolves.

“Lord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. Bran looked at him with desperate hope. “There are five pups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”

“What of it, Jon?”

“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”

Bran saw his father’s face change, saw the other men exchange glances. He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment. Even at seven, Bran understood what his brother had done. The count had come right only because Jon had omitted himself. He had included the girls, included even Rickon, the baby, but not the bastard who bore the surname Snow, the name that custom decreed be given to all those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name of their own.

Their father understood as well. “You want no pup for yourself, Jon?” he asked softly.

“The direwolf graces the banners of House Stark,” Jon pointed out. “I am no Stark, Father.”

Jon, though he may desperately desire to have his own piece of magic, would not sacrifice his siblings for it. He wouldn’t dare to deprave the girls, Arya and Sansa, of their own magic even when it might be very easy to do so. This is a pretty stark contrast (pun intended) to Azor Ahai and his Nissa Nissa. Azor Ahai’s first line of thought was to sacrifice his wife whereas Jon’s was to sacrifice himself. Sure Azor Ahai got his magic sword, but Jon’s self-sacrifice is not in vain either because he later earns his own wolf, who turns out to be even more special than the rest in the pack.

Bran IV kind of alludes to the idea of self sacrifice through Old Nan’s retelling of the last hero:

So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—”

Though the one we know is called the “last hero”, notice that it’s not a title but a mere descriptor; there were many heroes before him who died and he was the last one standing. There is a human toll in this legend, but it’s implied to be self sacrifice. It’s also interesting that though there is mention of a blade, it is the children of the forest’s magic that is key. This does kind of bleed into what we know about the Night’s Watch and its relation to the long night. The Night’s Watch victory was a group effort, rather than the actions of any one man.

We have several legends surrounding the long night that work, but only one involves the cost of sacrificing someone else (that we know of). This might be where GRRM is headed with Stannis and his creation of Lightbringer. Sure Azor Ahai did get his magic sword, but it doesn’t negate the steep human cost. GRRM has lowkey confirmed that Stannis is sure to burn Shireen. And rather than this sacrifice not working, I think it’s more likely that it does work. Stannis does indeed create the flaming sword. But this will be directly weighed by other (self) sacrifices made for the same purpose. Stannis’ sacrifice of his daughter won’t work any better than other characters who choose to sacrifice themselves even when knowing that they are not going to go down as individual legends; I think Jon Snow will once again be the prime example of this, as he has already resigned himself to being a shadow in history despite initially wanting the opposite. Maester Aemon was right in saying that

[…] all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The sword is wrong, she has to know that … light without heat … an empty glamor … the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam

The sword is wrong. Azor Ahai is NOT one to be emulated. Rather, he should be a cautionary tale. He is not any more special for his sacrifice than what the last hero or the men of the Night’s Watch did, even though we know his name but don’t know theirs. GRRM answered the question regarding sacrifice before he even posed it. To make someone else pay the price is flat out wrong. The only true and worthy sacrifice is really that of the self.

[sweetie-peaches]

I’ll get off my soulfire posting in a minute but how different do you think it would be if they didn’t hold back, if tubbo loosened his hold on bads leash, if they weren’t afraid.

Speaking of that actually, I wonder how much tubbos duel with etolies in the beginning changed things. Idk how to describe it but I think loosing that fight made a big shift in his character (it was also such a cool moment, a fight in a desert. No one else around, honorable and equal) like it changed his perspective on things

[shaylogic]

Poor Crystal literally getting yanked around by these guys. . .

[hazellvsq]

frank and piper are interesting counterpoint narratives to me. both of them have relatively mundane problems compared to the rest of the cast yet their parent's domains represent the heights of human passion as defined by the series, despite piper and frank both being (outwardly) dispassionate and (inwardly) mopey. the good end of these domains is love and protection (selfless), the bad end is heartbreak and bloodlust (selfish), which both of them try to resist. they both get claimed last out of their trios and had beforehand assumed that they were the children of someone else. both also experience perceived rejection from their mortal family directly before the series begins - both express anger and hurt at being "sent away". their rejection and unexpected claiming, back-to-back, results in discombobulation for them both, and feelings of humiliation brought on by both sets of parents.

they also both go through forced physical transformations by their parents to fit an ideal they don't want. all of the characters experience issues of identity and self-esteem but i think its the most pronounced with these two in the series. neither of them really knows who they are, and are pessimistic about their own capabilities. they are also counterpoints in that they feel disconnected from their own looks - both are very self-conscious people, but, based on how they're described by other characters, piper is probably the most beautiful member of the 7 and frank is probably the least. piper is frequently harassed and objectified, whereas frank is teased constantly about his looks. he neither feels as childish as his face is nor as grown as his body is, and he doesn't understand how to move through the world. both of which are common experiences throughout puberty - suddenly being treated differently on the basis of a body that's changing faster than you want or understand.

(discourse alert) i don't have a lot to add to the piper transformation discourse except that i do think its interesting that her blessing was temporary within the book and her love interest actually self-reflected on his reaction to it and realized that he should not have told her that she looked hot in that instance. rick did reverse frank's transformation five years later and i'm curious about his thought process about both writing it in the first place and in reversing it, and what feedback he received, if any. piper's transformation was a makeover whereas frank's was a puberty, which later rick walked back with "actually frank is still going through puberty". piper's was cheesy, sure, but frank's falls so flat bc that's just not how it works. its too much of a stretch. i don't even think it was in rick's og plan for frank, maybe he just watched captain america and was like "hell yeah i should do that" and flipped a coin between frank and leo, bc again frank was already initially described as physically grown in his debut book. and i can't even talk about hazel's reaction to to it bc its not real to me and i can't read suddenly. idk frank's plotline in general was too rushed in that book and he should have gotten another pov chapter set at least bc rick was trying to do too much too fast and relied on idiocy like the transformation to support it in the place of real character work when it wasn't even necessary for anything he accomplished in the book. he could've just walked around with better posture and achieved the same effect.

[shitpostingkats]

YOU think Apollo and Klavier are in love and should date about it. I think Apollo and Klavier are in love but will never be the most important people in eachothers' lives and should have a tragic situationship about it where they try and fail at least three times to make it work between them. We are not the same.

[creativitwin]

no you don’t have to get rid of remus’ ‘idgaf attitude’ for remus angst you have to fucking dissect it!!!

[slitheringghost]

A narrative thread I find interesting is Family As Teachers and how characters influence and mirror each others’ abilities in familial dynamics - particularly in sibling/"twin" dynamics - which is fitting in a society where children’s magical education seems entirely controlled by their families until age 11 when they start Hogwarts and intermittently afterward. This theme is reflected in Ollivander’s words in DH while discussing the mystery of the twin cores and general wandlore with Harry:

"The best results [...] always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand"

You even have the three Peverell brothers inventing the three Hallows together to conquer death

Fred and George - as the actual siblings/twins, the most in tune - drop out and invent Weasley's Wheezes together, shared sense of humor via a literal Joke Shop. They find the Marauders' Map ("This little beauty’s taught us more than all the teachers in this school"). This twin duo sometimes turns into a trio - see post about Hermione’s contributions to their inventions in my meta Hermione As Teacher and Connections to Lily (who eventually joins the Weasley family, so like a sister to them); and additionally the twins’ best friend Lee Jordan helping them:

Fred and George Weasley with their friend Lee Jordan, all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko’s merchandise Fred and George appeared finally to have perfected one type of Skiving Snackbox, which they were taking turns to demonstrate to a cheering and whooping crowd […] Lee Jordan, who was assisting the demonstration, was lazily vanishing the vomit at regular intervals with the same Vanishing Spell Snape kept using on Harry’s potions. (OoTP)

George then mentions utilizing Vanishing into their fireworks: (“Oh, I hope she tries Vanishing them next…They multiply by ten every time you try”). Snape’s skill at Vanishing ties to dynamic with Mcgonagall as she’s shown teaching 5th years Vanishing Spells in OoTP, and later in the book LV’s emphasized as weaker in Conjuration with his conjured shield, unsurprising given Dumbledore was his Transfiguration teacher.

THE MARAUDERS - James and Sirius collaborate on the Marauders' Map (with Remus; shared sense of humor built into it via insulting Snape), two-way mirrors called "twin" mirrors in DH; James's wand is "excellent for Transfiguration", he's a confirmed prodigy and Sirius is equal to him - both Animagi, McGonagall's favorites ("Both very bright, of course—exceptionally bright"), Sirius goes "I don’t need to look at that rubbish, I know it all" re: Transfiguration textbook; looking to create a new identity from his family's Dark magic, Sirius's interest in Transfiguration likely stemmed from James. Equal in DADA (finish the OWL early, "I’ll be surprised if I don’t get Outstanding on it at least" "Me too"), hex people together.

Remus - Dark Creatures interest from his father (Lyall was "a world-renowned authority on Non-Human Spiritous Apparitions" such as "poltergeists, Boggarts and other strange creatures") shown in Remus with Peeves and the Boggart lesson. A possible hint of Remus and Tonks friendship affecting her interests - Tonks helping with a "murderous old ghoul lurking in a toilet" in 12GP.

THE BLACK FAMILY - the Blacks are all brilliant. Sirius and Bellatrix are mirrored in battle implying Bella taught him and/or they dueled together - a connection transferred to Sirius mirroring James and Remus in combat ("Then, with identical fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets" in the prequel; "Then, with one movement, they lowered their wands" in PoA). Same weapons: Knives - Sirius slashes the Fat Lady and tries to stab rat!Peter, gifts a penknife that opens any lock to Harry; Bellatrix tortures Hermione and murders Dobby with a knife (potentially they keep them handy for blood magic - "rusty daggers" in 12GP nearby the crystal bottle of blood).

Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Regulus can all occlude LV and Bella trains Draco. Sirius knows a lot about Dark Arts and Harry's curse scar from the horcrux, Regulus identifies LV's horcrux, Bella is LV's Dark Arts student and given a horcrux.

Sirius and Orion - Orion warded Grimmauld Place, adding "every security measure known to Wizardkind", made it "Unplottable, so Muggles could never come and call"; Sirius maybe used his family's magic on the Map (a tool in part to make Hogwarts safe from teen DEs, and I HC Sirius worked on it most, as Hogwarts was also a home and escape from 12GP to him), role as Secret Keeper, offers GP as safehouse to the Order, undoes its enchantments to let halfblood Harry inherit. Sirius and Walburga both use the Permanent Sticking Charm - Walburga to terrorize and scream bigotry, Sirius to flaunt his differing politics with Muggle stuff.

I HC Bellatrix invented some Dark artifacts in 12GP - the "unpleasant-looking silver instrument, like a many-legged pair of tweezers, which scuttled up Harry’s arm like a spider when he picked it up and attempted to puncture his skin" which Sirius smashes with Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy (fits Harry and Sirius's interaction with Bella later in OoTP) and the "musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling tune when wound”, making them all "curiously weak and sleepy" until Ginny shuts the lid - placed right next to Merope's locket (esp. as Sirius’s words after this passage parallel Bellatrix in DH). Raised as the heir, Bellatrix likely had similar training and skill in wards as Sirius.

Bellatrix and Voldemort - paralleled in combat ("Bellatrix was still fighting too, fifty yards away from Voldemort, and like her master she dueled three at once"), both Legilimens. Her speech about the Dark Arts and learning "spells of such power" while teaching him the Unforgivable curses - she's likely as skilled as LV in inventing curses.

Dumbledore and Grindelwald - "just as precociously brilliant", "even after they’d spent all day in discussion — both such brilliant young boys, they got on like a cauldron on fire", "at last, my brother had an equal to talk to, someone just as bright and talented as he was". Twin imagery with Grindelwald as hilariously described like Fawkes.

Next-door neighbors, knew each other only for a few months, yet Grindelwald’s ideas "caught and inflamed him", Dumbledore’s "ideas helped Grindelwald rise to power". Collaborate on the fascism and Deathly Hallows quest, but not Dark Arts (vs. Snape and Lily share the Dark Arts experimentation but not the fascism). Both on the same level in dueling, can conceal themselves without a Cloak.

Bathilda Bagshot - Dumbledore's Mother Figure/teacher, "impressed by his paper on trans-species transformation in Transfiguration Today" which Dumbledore's shown reading, so she presumably mentored him in Transfiguration, clearly a favorite field (While Dumbledore had few close friends, McGonagall's maybe the closest equivalent to a female friend; echoes Snape with Eileen and Lily).

Elphias Doge - met at 11 on their first day at Hogwarts, "Our mutual attraction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be outsiders". They "intended to take the then-traditional tour of the world together, visiting and observing foreign wizards, before pursuing our separate careers".

While the pair are said to not be intellectually on par, Dumbledore's interests clearly influenced Doge, also implied in Doge writing “his friends benefited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with which he was always generous. He confessed to me in later life that he knew even then that his greatest pleasure lay in teaching.”

Doge on his travels mentions "experiments of Egyptian alchemists" and "escapes from chimaeras in Greece" (fire-breathing lion, goat, serpent hybrid) - echoing Dumbledore as a "Gold Medal-Winner for Ground-Breaking Contribution to the International Alchemical Conference in Cairo" and interest in certain magical creatures and associations with fire (Fawkes, dragon's blood uses, "trans-species transformation" research, bewitches a branch of Gubraithian "everlasting" fire which is Charms related, the Deluminator as a cigarette lighter).

Nicolas Flamel - Dumbledore's Chocolate Card notes his "work on alchemy with his partner Flamel" inventor of the Philosophers' Stone (colored “blood-red”) who taught teen Dumbledore; Dumbledore later enchants the Stone and links it to the Mirror of Erised (only one who wanted to find but not use it could get it, or they’d be shown making gold or drinking Elixir of Life). Albus also means "white", after an alchemy principle.

Marchbanks who examined him in Transfiguration and Charms N.E.W.T.s says he "did things with a wand I’d never seen before", won the "Exceptional Spell-Casting award"; published papers in Transfiguration, Charms, and Potions journals - linked more with wand magic fields.

Snape and Voldemort - From his words in HBP (disdain at Mundungus for not being a real Inferius), Snape likely learned necromancy with LV and enchanted Inferi during the First War (fitting to his vampire vibes).

Potions - LV uses "old piece of Dark Magic" rebirth potion; creates the Rudimentary Body Potion of snake venom, unicorn blood, spells of his own invention. Snape's Potions speech in PS - "the power of liquids that creep through human veins" (reference to potions with human blood?).

LV invents the Drink of Despair, Snape modifies the Elixir to Induce Euphoria (and assigns a dementor essay). Snape’s knowledge of poisons (logic puzzle, undetectable poisons essay, etc) and the bezoar trick as antidote, Tom poisons Hepzibah with a "lethal and little known" poison that passes for sugar to frame a house-elf who can’t carry a wand. Riddle petrifies students with the basilisk, Snape brews Mandrake Restorative Draught for basilisk victims (mandrakes heal transfigured or cursed victims, "an essential part of most antidotes").

LV curses the Gaunt ring, Snape heals that curse (golden potion and countercurse, collaborating with Dumbledore). LV turns the locket into a horcrux, Snape heals Katie Bell from the cursed necklace. LV curses the DADA job and the curse on his name, Snape invents Sectumsempra. LV the most accomplished Legilimens; Snape the most skilled Occlumens (and a skilled Legilimens). LV adds a concealed entrance on the Locket Cave/symbolic Gaunt shack, Snape renovates Spinner's End with two hidden doors (both in locations related to their Muggle childhoods).

Snape and Lily - to a large extent it makes sense that their magical abilities and interests align even more closely than any other duo save the Weasley twins, because they played the role of "family training" for each other for 2+ years. Both outsiders and ambitious with magic as their way out, Lily's joy at magic and Snape views it as an escape from home, closest to siblings living in the same town. Snape's keen on sharing everything (esp. if raised with an idea of how training works in magical families), Lily on knowing everything (and seems to be following Snape's lead on the magical world in a lot of ways).

Eileen clearly taught Snape a lot about wizarding society and I assume some magic, has all her school textbooks and likely some Prince family books/knowledge, with Dark Arts and Potions specialties, which Snape passed onto Lily. But Eileen either wasn't as gifted or intellectual as her son (we only know she's Captain of Gobstones) and/or just too neglectful for the connection to go far.

Snape tells Lily "you’d better be in Slytherin" in the scene he tells James "if you’d rather be brawny than brainy" re: Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, so he thinks Lily falls under "brainy".

Magical power - unsupported flight, Snape's a Legilimens and there's circumstantial evidence of Lily as one in the early memories.

As with J/S, Lily's wand predicts her mutual interest with her best friend/like-a-sibling (of course their main field as Potions which doesn't require much wandwork) - "Swishy, nice wand for charm work", the Prince invents Charms. They "swish and flick" in Charms (levitating feathers), associated with flight. If taking extracanon, willow's an uncommon wand wood with healing power, enables advanced nonverbal magic (Snape heals Dark magic/etc, invents nonverbal spells).

James and Sirius are wary of Lily's wand means she's a skilled duelist and has gotten into fights; Snape invents hexes. Given the theme of duel between brothers, dueling's traditional in magical families, so Snape and Lily likely practice dueled together too with similar methods (Legilimency in combat); though in application, unlike the Marauders at Hogwarts, they'd be fighting on opposite sides.

Slughorn describing the Prince's work as exactly like Lily's at every turn indicates it as collaborative as the above examples of duo inventions - "You’ve got nerve, boy", "That’s the individual spirit a real potion-maker needs", "Unorthodox, but what a stroke of inspiration", "I really don’t know where you get these brain waves", "intuitive", "instinctive" "a natural" - aka she's creative, inventive, unafraid to take risks with and push the boundaries of magic.

The Prince's disdainful "just shove a bezoar down their throats"; Slughorn laughs at the bezoar, says it's exactly like Lily, gives house points "for sheer cheek" - implies Snape and Lily shared sense of humor often consisted of making fun of how purebloods view magic and incorporating their Muggle background into their methods (matches "as there is little foolish wand-waving here, you will hardly believe this is magic"). Snape's interest in poisons led to the bezoar trick which is Dark Arts related, so Lily knowing the same also implies her Dark Arts interest (of course Potions masters, Aurors, Healers, etc all study poisons, but I assume going deeper into it leads to more effective healing, as with Dark curses and cursebreaking skill on the Gaunt ring/etc).

Like Fred and George, Snape and Lily experiment and invent together constantly over summers - Petunia says Lily "came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats" (Potions, Transfiguration) and the Dursleys don't know Harry can't do magic over summers in CoS, an easy lie for Lily to keep up when doing magic often at Snape's house.

Snape evidently came prepared to impress Slytherins - per Sirius, he was always fascinated by Dark Arts, famous for it, knew more curses when he arrived than half the 7th years (likely showing off his knowledge vs. immediately cursing others). Snape's very aware of Muggleborn prejudice (hesitates before saying it makes no difference), yet was set on Lily being in Slytherin for 2.5 years pre-Hogwarts and groans when she's Sorted elsewhere, so sharing his Dark Arts interest with her fits that, expecting she'd need to "get in with the purebloods" along with him, which means making sure she knows as much as he does (see this post).

Snape at nine thinks Lily's the odd one for being fascinated by dementors:

"Tell me about the dementors again." "What d’you want to know about them for?" "If I use magic outside school —" "They wouldn’t give you to the dementors for that! Dementors are for people who do really bad stuff. They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban." (DH)

Cue Snape's monologue about the Dark Arts years later:

“The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal [...]" Harry stared at Snape. It was surely one thing to respect the Dark Arts as a dangerous enemy, another to speak of them, as Snape was doing, with a loving caress in his voice? “Your defenses must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo. These pictures [...] give a fair representation of what happens to those who suffer, for instance, the Cruciatus Curse” — he waved a hand toward a witch who was clearly shrieking in agony — “feel the Dementor’s Kiss” — a wizard lying huddled and blank-eyed, slumped against a wall — “or provoke the aggression of the Inferius” — a bloody mass upon the ground. (HBP)

They absolutely mutually encouraged each other's interests in forbidden and Dark magic. Snape and Lily learn magic together, their magic individually and together parallels LV's the most, and they directly undo LV's own magic, Snape's instances even utilizing Potions.

Dumbledore expects Snape to immediately know Lily's work vanquished LV ("You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily’s son"), implying he knows Snape and Lily learned similar magic together and expects Snape to ~recognize Lily's style~. Converse to how he speaks to McGonagall the same (?) day:

"After all he’s done... all the people he’s killed... he couldn’t kill a little boy? It’s just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?" "We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know." (PS)

Lily and Sirius - Sirius is also knowledgeable about curses - knows the countercurse for the biting snuffbox (Wartcap Powder) and examines his hand "with interest"; suggests the Conjunctivitis Curse "as a dragon’s eyes are its weakest point" which Krum who was taught Dark Arts; often the one consulted regarding Harry's curse scar, recognizes Priori Incantatem, Harry writing to Sirius when he wants someone like a parent "who had experience with Dark Magic".

Sirius breaks Black family tradition in undoing wards/protections on 12GP (maybe manipulating a form of blood magic?) to let his halfblood not blood-related godson inherit and block DE Bellatrix out; and Lily creates blood wards that'd traditionally protect a pureblood family house to protect her Muggle family and eventually protects Harry. Mirroring Snape and Lily weaving their Muggle background in their magic, Sirius enchants Muggle objects like the motorbike (and creates an alternate method of flight).

When Harry says "You never heard her, did you? My mum... trying to stop Voldemort killing me... and you did that... you did it" Sirius goes quiet, which may hint at specific knowledge that Lily vanquished LV (also a possible reason for Sirius rereading Lily’s letter in OoTP, when the Order’s trying to figure out what’s up with the prophecy and the Harry-Voldemort connection).

Harry and Ron - "In the end, he chose the same new subjects as Ron, feeling that if he was lousy at them, at least he’d have someone friendly to help him", write up absurd stories for Divination and make fun of Trelawney together. Harry and Hermione elaborated here.

Parvati and Lavender - Divination, both close with Trelawney (vs. Padma in a different house than her twin)

Moody and Tonks (who was "close to Mad-Eye" "his favorite and his protégée at the Ministry"), Bellatrix and Barty (if you accept he was her apprentice), Snape and Draco (“Draco’s favorite teacher”), Xenophilius and Luna - her family training consisting of... conspiracy theories, Luna first shown reading The Quibbler (Most likely Pandora Lovegood was a conspiracy theorist like her husband - "intellectual equals" - and died due to something like believing an explosive Erumpent horn was a Crumple-Horned Snorkack horn)

[qprstobin]

Everyone loves the 'eddie has been crushing on Steve off and on since sophomore year' trope but honestly love me an Eddie who is like "yeah Harrington is hot, I've got eyes, but prep isnt my type" and honestly just doesn't think about Steve that much! Outside of, like, school gossip, especially during/after Steve's fall from grace. Really kind of love the idea of Eddie not giving the time of day to Steve up until his little sheep come to him every day weaving wild tales about the shit Steve has done, and even then it isn't really until he sees Steve go teeth first at a demobat that he starts reevaluating Steve and seeing him in a new light.

Because Eddie honestly kind of gives the impression that he's just as much caught up in his own world view as Steve was pre upside down/even pre S2. And like I know that we love Steve but Steve hasn't really done anything to give most of like his classmates any reason to love him aside from the generic jock stuff lbr. Especially for someone like eddie who is extremely anticomformist to the point of monologuing on the lunch tables.

And it's not so much a 'love at first bite' (heh) situation either but just all the things during and after s4 and the friendship they develop that makes Eddie reevaluate not only Steve but his world view and what he wants from the world! It makes him think. Fighting interdimensional monsters has a way of bringing out the best and the worst in people. And Eddie finds he likes what he's seeing. I'm not necessarily saying I want a slow burn either, but having them both have time to be like "huh maybe this person isn't what I thought i would want but he is want i want, isn't he?"

[dye-it-rouge-et-noir]

"For particularly important things, it's always more reassuring to write them down like this." - Zhang Beihai

[ID in alt text]

[silentoathprincess]

ooooh man i had such a great idea for an au where sei joins all the polyamorous dmmd bfs and it like goes through his relationship with each of them and all the similarities in their stories and i am FIGHTING myself not to write it right now

[alinedreams]

Uryu and Chad are gay married by the end of the manga. In this essay i will

[that-spider-fan-over-there]

Read a Twitter thread a few days ago how Katsuki, Izuku and Tomura are meant to be the pillars of hope and change for hero society (by Kikibats, go check her out, the thread is her pinned tweet), and that got me thinking about Tomura's birth name, so I looked up the kanji for his name (志村 転弧, for those curious), and I wanted to share.

(someone probably already did make this connection and worded it better but screw it we bail let's go-)

Kikibats' thread has mentioned what "Shimura" could have originally meant In-Universe, especially "Mura", so it's about a paragraph short, because I'm writing what it could mean in the story as it is (again, In-Universe):

So from the name Shimura Tenko, we have:

Shi (志):

"Determination, ambition, intent", which Tenko does have, arguably even more than Izuku has (I mean, running around barely sleeping while facing Gigantomachia for three months? spending four months in a tube and resurrecting by sheer anger?), but ambitious is after realizing his convictions and intends to carry on the League's. It can also refer to “will” as in willpower, the one trait AFO doesn't have, and the reason he was selected as his vessel.

Mura (村):

Mentioned in her thread, but "Village", could be an ironic spin on “it takes a village to raise a child”, since after his family's death no one was willing to take him in, and the one who did only did so to groom him into a monster. It could also refer to a heroic trait he has (yes, even as he was annoyed at Toya and Himiko when he first met them): taking people in when he thinks they're lonely, have been rejected, wronged by society and wanting to carry on their convictions, which leads to:

Ten (転):

a verb; "to shift", and sure enough, he's the one who created the Vanguard Action Squad with the purpose of kidnapping Katsuki, setting off the Kamino Incident and shifting the status quo of society. You could argue he has been since the USJ but no one really feared him until Stain came along. Tomura is also one of the characters whose goals and motivations develop the most through the story.

It can also mean "to turn", from changed from the sweet kid who wanted to play heroes with his friends, to a symbol of fear. And physically, he's the willing participant in Dr. Garaki's body experimentation and his body is constantly shapeshifted depending on his (and AFO's) mental state.

Finally, “Ko” (弧):

The kanji for “arc”, which is admittedly very vague and it could mean nothing, but.

It could refer to the arc he goes through.

From a kid playing with those others ignored who wanted to be a hero, to being groomed into the Symbol of Evil('s puppet), which eventually unravels once he becomes powerful enough to fight Izuku, resulting in the reveal that in spite of all what he’s been through, he’s still that kid willing to extend his hand (well, in a metaphorical way) for those who want/need someone to rely on. Someone who wants to be the LoV's hero.

Not quite a full circle, but still not too far off from his beginning.

A bonus point, since we (readers and watchers who like to read the raws/watch subbed anime) use "Ko" we usually think of "子" as in komodo, the kanji for "kid", this one abandoned by a complacent village. And remember since Izuku wants to offer him a hand, a crying lonely child in need of a hero. With AFO taking control of him, while Izuku (and most of Class 1-A) trying to save him, wouldn't it be neat to see Tomura choosing to take Izuku's hand, especially someone whose identity was forcefully defined by a touch of death?

Not quite the same innocent kid, but still the kid who wanted to be a hero for those left behind.

Would be fitting for this arc to come full circle, wouldn't it?