#will really is a prince

[luke-hughes43]

guys.

mack crowns will in the locker room.

[neo--queen--serenity]

Maomao, every time she looks at Jinshi:

[sennamaticart]

Blue Moon

[egophiliac]

(this one's been getting stolen a lot, so please be aware that if you see this anywhere else (even with credit), it's been reposted against my wishes! please do not use my art in your videos/reupload to pinterest/etc., thanks!)

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gargoyle Mal is everything I've ever dreamed of and more. his little raincoat! his umbrella! I hope he really does have big ol' stompy rainboots to splash around in puddles in. I hope they have little faces on them.

(Twst please give me Malleus having a rainy day adventure, this is everything I need right now)

[gabelew]

zora armor my beloved

[demaparbat-hp]

*pats Zuko's head* This bad boy can fit so many near-death experiences.

.

Read For the Spirits Chapter VIII here!

[frownyalfred]

the humorous upside to Jason really doubling down on being the kind of Red Hood who is at best morally grey and makes a habit of chopping off heads and shooting anyone he doesn’t agree with is that he is 100% Batman’s obscenely scary dog. the second he puts that bat symbol on his chest it’s over, even if it’s a mockery or a message or whatever. Gotham’s underbelly shits their pants when they see Red Hood. and therefore, Batman — brutal as he is, but so much less lawless, in a way — is suddenly the nice cop in his own city. the city where he routinely cracks skulls, stalks targets in the shadows, and throws people off buildings to get information. Jason makes him the “easy” option in Gotham, and while I’m sure the whole Jason thing keeps Bruce up at night for other reasons, that must be so frustrating? here you have a little shithead upstart elbowing into YOUR city and breaking the rules and suddenly goons are being nice to you? or they’re acting out because they’re more scared of the “other guy.” only a father could love that kind of prodigal son without strangling him.

[theerurishipper]

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First <- Part 18 <- Part 19 -> Part 20

Masterpost

[bluerosefox]

Little Marriage Demands

Just had a funny idea I wanna share.

Deaged!Dani/Ellie and Dan! Princess and Prince of the Infinite Realms! Ghost King/Mom Danny! Maybe Dead on Main?

Jason stared at the determined frown on the toddler that stood in front of him. Hands on her hips and if she was actually on the floor, because she was floating a few feet off, her stance in that 'I am standing my ground' way children did when they were demanding something in a huff.

She had long white hair in a pony tail that whisped upwards like gravity was a option and glowing, almost Lazarus green but more cleaner? Neon? Compared to the pits. She was dressed as a little royal princess, complete with a tiny crown made of twinkling stars and ice crystals that were floating in a tiny aurora boleros.

Next to her, in a baby roller was an equally similar looking baby, only male from the tiny royal outfit he wore, and who also had an floating crown above its head only even smaller than the girls. The baby also had a blanket that looked it had been plucked from the galaxies itself in his tiny hands. The baby was no doubt grumpy from the pout and glaring eyes it was giving him.

"Come again?" Jason asked, trying to make heads and tails of what he was just... demanded of?

The girl took in a deep breath, huffing, and looked so freaking annoyed that she had to repeat herself, as if Jason was the one making things difficult to begin with.

"We needs yous to marries Mama so the Eyeballs stops bullying Mama to 'gets a ghost consorty!' Mama keeps beatings theirs off but its annoyings cause Mama can't plays with us anymores nows!" the girl said, her young age showing strong from the way she spoke in the way toddlers did. The baby in the walker seemed to agree with her annoyance at not being able to play with their Mama cause he gave a grumpy noise in agreement "Clockpa saids if they keeps doings this they do something baddy bad to us to try to make Mama dos as they say and Mama is gonna gets really mads and do really bads to ummm the.... multi... multiver-vers-? To alls the worlds! everythings everywhere!"

Jason took a deep breath at that tad bit of information.

What the fuck!?

The girl kept going, not caring about Jason's mental freak out.

"Sooo Clockpa, Auntie Pan, Uncie Frosty, and Auntie Gothy alls gots together to talks and they'd talked abouts yous becoming Mama's futures constory causes yous well liked bys everyones for helpings somes moves on and stoppings bads people from doing bads anymore! ANDS you are good with kids! And and re-re...respectful to peoples with Mama problems!" The girl, who had when she first showed up in his safe house and said her name was Princess Ellie, future Fright Knight and Explorer of the Infinite Realms or tried to say with her toddler speak. "Theys says yous were at the tops of the list and to maybes push yous to meets buts its takes too longgggggggggggg..."

Ellie stretched the long word out, showing just how much patience children at her age had. The baby seemed to agree with that as well when he made baby gurgle sounds and threw its tiny fists in the air.

"So's me and Dan want-teds to make it goes fasters!" Ellie said as she moved her hands from her hips and crossed her arms and floated higher up as she stared at Jason's face with a smug look of 'I'm so smart with this idea' "We sneaked offs and founds you! Nows all yous gotta do is marries Mama and the Eyeballs wills stop bullying us and leaves us alone!!"

Yeah... Jason needed to go to the cave and make sure he wasn't doused with something... Cause this was insane.

[nuzipilled]

full company doodles i gave up on

[anbaisai]

Boop!

(Part 2)

[onlysomewhatsane]

Ok ok ok SO!

I think everyone has realized that Leola was autistic. It was heavily implied both through the flashback images and Aaravos' narration-

She lined up her toys, flapped her hands (it was also shown in the trial scene), seemed to be sensitive towards loud sounds (like the other startouch elves when they talked), and walked on her tiptoes. All of those are classic signs of autism.

But there's one thing I haven't seen anyone else bring up, and that's that her giving her human friends magic and breaking the "cosmic order" or whatever could also be because of her neurotype!

Autistic people tend to have very strict senses of morality and fairness, and will disregard rules if they don't fit their idea of right or wrong. Personal example here, I used to constantly do things I was told not to because I thought the rules in question were bogus.

It's not hard to guess that Leola would find the rules about humans not having magic to be unfair- after all, her and all the other elves, and even the animals around them are full of it! So in the mind of an autistic child, this would be incredibly unfair. And she had the power to "fix" the situation! So why wouldn't she?

Why wouldn't she try to help her friends? Because it would break the cosmic order? That's vague as hell and she was a KID!

And the startouch elves atomized her, for breaking a rule she probably only half understood and thought was stupid. Because she was autistic.

Had this thought and wanted to share, makes the whole thing even more tragic.

[timethehobo]

He’s such a disney princess but with spirits instead of animals. 🤭 I love it.

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[nonglukest]

The Next Prince ✸ 01.02

[demaparbat-hp]

Here I am, pushing the Jian Li (Akai Kotou! Zuko) = Jinshi (The Apothecary Diaries) agenda.