#and the relationships and what impact it's going to have and referred to the books.....

[mayullla]

Title: You didn't know what to do.

Character(s): Neuvillette (Genshin Impact)

Summary: Neuvillette asked you to go on a date with him on Valentine's day. Warnings/tags: Yandere, obsessive behavior, arranged marriage setting, one-sided love, unrequited love, unrequited pining, possessive behavior, angsty, 1.4k words

A continuation for: 1. There is no love here. 2. But he didn't want to let go.

It was something that was going to happen at one point as he walked through the streets and saw decorations with pink and red heart designs. With Valentine's just around the corner, there were advertisements for it everywhere. From delicious chocolates and fancy restaurants to lists of what you should get for your picky partner posters.

Neuvillette didn't care much about the event in the past, and you didn't care much for it either. The day was too busy most of the time to go out and actually have time for yourselves. It called for too much attention compared to if you were to go out together on other days. It wasn’t like there were any rumors that you and his relationship were having problems to fix. If anything, a lot of people use the two of you as a reference for a loving relationship.

Neuvillette changed after the day when he cried on your hand, begging you to love him. He became sensitive to everything humans and others do. He observed human closeness and open affection, wondering if he could have the same. Not necessarily in public, as he was not keen on kissing so violently in public, yet he envied the love between them, the affection openly held in their eyes as if in this world there was no one else but them. After all, he knew that the affection you held in your eyes was never the kind of love they had between themselves.

Yet he wanted that. He wanted it so much. He wanted you to look at him with those eyes, not only in front of others but also when you were alone in the house, just the two of you.

He wanted it so much that it was hard to concentrate on anything.

Are you free on February 14th?" Neuvillette asked as the two of you walked together in the park, your arm around his while he held your hand. People glanced at you and him, but most made sure not to stare too long, yet you could see that they were curious.

"Hmmm? I think so... I don't have any plans then. Why do you ask?"

"I reserved a table at the restaurant. I was hoping that you would join me." The fancy name of the restaurant made your eyes widen a little. While it was a restaurant you would sometimes go to, it wasn't really a place where you could just waltz in and hope to find a seat without a reservation. Most of the time, you need to book a month beforehand. On a day like Valentine's, though, it would be practically impossible, even if you did try to book six months before.

You were curious as to why he would go so far, yet when his hand held your tongue, his eyes with a smidge of panic, you just froze instead of nodding your head, telling him that you would go. You smiled at him, "Yes, I would love to go."

The next day, he gifted you an expensive dress and accessories, hoping that you would wear them that day. After that incident, he started to gift you more presents, material stuff that he picked himself while receiving the help of others. As you stared at the present that you were given by a Melusine, cheerfully telling you that it was from your husband, you didn't have the will to stop Neuvillette when so many times he looked at you so fearfully that you might decline his gifts.

It wasn't like in the past, back when you were newlyweds, when he wasn't sure how to care for a wife, and he bought everything that you touched. Yet at the same time, the gifts now felt more like a desperate plea not to leave him.

You had made sure to stay with him. After that day, Neuvillette moved your sleeping quarters to his. His tight hold around your waist as you moved your arms around his head and neck, whispering in his ear and combing through his hair. It seemed that he would become frightened if you didn’t, ridden with anxiety until you reassured him of your promise to never leave him.

You weren't sure what to do when your husband was so sensitive to anything related to you. You were startled by this change after hundreds of years of having a quiet and peaceful relationship. You could not help but wonder if this was the same person you first met a long time ago. You could not help but wonder if the person who sat in the middle of the courtroom was the same man who was obsessive and possessive in the privacy of your own home.

The Melusines didn't understand what was wrong. They commented that your relationship with Neuvillette was closer, while those who saw something dark in Neuvillette's heart chalked it up to him just having a bad day. Most were still learning about human emotions, and many wouldn't understand the mania inside the obsession. If anything, they thought he was stressed and needed to be with his wife when they saw the darkness inside fading just a little. They thought you were the key, if anything, to calm their father.

You looked at the collar brooch that you had commissioned: a blue teardrop with little orange and dark blue stones held by a gold frame. It was something that you were given by a Melusine on one of your walks. She told you that she found a beautiful rock and wanted to give it to you and Neuvillette. You had kept it for a long time along with the many gifts you were given by them in a box, finally taking it out when you found a way to make it into jewelry. Closing the case of the box, you took it with you, placing it in your bag to keep it hidden.

You are here… Are you ready?" Neuvillette asked, raising his arm to offer you his shoulder to hold onto. "Yes, I am," you told him, wearing the dress that he had given you. It was more expensive than what you usually wore. You weren't an extravagant spender, but you did have many clothes that a lot of people would dream of having. Heading to the restaurant, you kept your eyes in front of you, unable to look at him.

You knew he was looking at you…

“You look beautiful today…” Neuvillette whispered loud enough for you to hear. It was as if all the air left his lungs and he could barely say those words with what was left. “Thank you. You look handsome yourself.”

The question of why again circled in your mind as you wondered how this happened. Under his lovestruck eyes, you felt no more than a heavy burden.

You were confused... you didn't know how to handle the situation just yet when everything hit you all at once. You hesitated when you saw the hopefulness in his eyes whenever he looked at you or the envy and want as he looked at other couples. Yet the pain continued to hurt as he held onto you so tightly.

"I have a present for you," you told him in a soft voice. In the restaurant full of people, he chose a room for privacy. You pulled out a box from your bag and placed it on the table for him to reach. "Here, I hope you like it."

Thank you. May I open it now?" Taking the box, you saw the curiosity in his eyes, the hopeful look that you started to see so often now, but also a touch of affection. You let him, motioning that he was allowed to do so. You watched his eyes widen at the gift, slowly turning affectionate, and a slow smile spread across his lips.

The slight blush on his pale cheeks as he touched the stone with his hand made you think that it was okay, that he was actually fine and that this was going to be alright. His innocent expression as he looked at his gift in silence was something you were familiar with for a long time now, yet that was all taken away the moment he looked at you. The blush on his face darkened when he looked at you, and his eyes were dyed with love and obsession.

You couldn't move for a moment, unable to pull your eyes away from him. He looked happy. He looked for a moment content, yet at the same time, you realized that there was nothing more than this as the two of you would continue to spiral down to the depths of the ocean, drowning in want and love.

"Thank you."

#yandere neuvillette #genshin neuvillette #neuvillete x reader #yandere genshin #yandere genshin impact #yandere imagines #yandere scenario #genshin scenario #yandere genshin x reader #yandere neuvillette x reader #yandere x reader #genshin x reader #genshin writing #yandere writing #genshin oneshots #yandere oneshot #tw yandere #yanderecore #yancore #genshin fanfic

[carowleysposts]

What happened to Aziraphale and Crowley between 1941 and 1967?

It is well known by the fandom that Aziraphale realizes he’s in love with Crowley after Crowley saves him and his books from the n4zis in 1941. That moment marks the shift of their relationship, when Aziraphale sees that not only did Crowley know him well enough to save his books, but also was there for the sole purpose of rescuing him - because he cared. This moment led to their most romantic adventure yet, which involved the car “is there anything i can do for you in return?” scene, the magic trick performance, the “trust me” moment and a very intimate, private, candlelit dinner.

They had crossed a very visible line in their relationship, you could see it in the way they were looking at each other, being more open, talking and drinking together. They were acting romantically towards each other, even if they couldn’t admit it or talk about it.

But then, the next time we see them, it’s almost like they moved backwards in they’re relationship. Aziraphale is practically unable to look directly at Crowley when he first gets in the car. And then we get the iconic, yet heartbreaking and confusing “you go too fast for me, Crowley”. And you can see that Aziraphale looks almost mournful after saying that.

I saw a post on twitter comparing the two car scenes - the one where Aziraphale is practically throwing himself at Crowley and then the one where he’s hesitant towards him.

And it made me think. Like, whatever happened between those two car scenes has an impact that lasts for many years, as we can CLEARLY see that 2008 Aziraphale and Crowley were still a bit colder and more distant than their 1941 selves. Their relationship backtracked a lot from that candlelit dinner. And i don’t think that’s a plot hole, i truly think there’s something we don’t know yet.

Of course, after the events of season one, they’re back to being really close, their dynamic is pretty much restored and we can see them hold hand in the bus - which David Tennant has confirmed happened, and it is heavily implied that Aziraphale stays at Crowley’s that night, where they did the body swap for the trials.

BUT! In the first episode of Season 2, Aziraphale mentions that he had to do the “i’m sorry” dance in 1941. It definitely happened after that candlelit dinner, so could that event - which led to the apology dance - be connected to why they had a temporary falling out? What was it that happened after that dinner? Are we going to see more from 1941?

It has been the only time period that was shown in both seasons, and it was perhaps the most romantic and significant time they’ve spent together prior to the events of season two. Perhaps they went a little too far and weren’t prepared for that? Perhaps they’ve miscommunicated and had a big fight? I don’t know, i’m hoping our dearest @neil-gaiman has an answer for that.

Also, when Crowley says “no nightingales” before kissing Aziraphale, Aziraphale seems to understand perfectly what he’s referring to. He looks absolutely crushed after Crowley says that. So it led me to believe something in the past made them associate “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” to their relationship and perhaps talk about it. And i believe that, if i am correct and they have talked about the nightingales before, it was in 1941. But then, what do I know?

I would REALLY love to see your theories as to what happened between them after that dinner, if anything at all. Also, does anyone wanna be moots? My posts have been very successful but i’m not getting followers and i really want to meet more of you.

#aziracrow #aziraphale #crowley #good omens #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman #gomens #angel #gomens s2 #prime video #go3 #good omens season 2 #good omens spoilers #need this to happen #neil gaiman books #crowleys bentley #crowley x aziraphale #terry pratchett #a nightingale sang in berkeley square

[carmendeiact2whenplz]

Things we don’t know about Old Mondstadt (that Hoyoverse refuses to tell us)

Aka things that haunt me (and probably many other old mondstadt fans)

(keep in mind- not all of these may be entirely unanswerable as of now, some have partial/vague canon answers, while some may have completely canon yet relatively obscure answers)

(for the sake of making things easier to write, i will refer to venti’s dead friend/the nameless bard as “nb” and the red haired warrior as “rhw”, and specifically wisp venti as “wispti”, and i will be referring to the group of wispti, nb, rhw, gunnhildr, and amos (and maybe decarabian too if he’s relevant in that context) as the “old mond gang”)

Note- lots of paragraphs ahead

1- why is nb nameless? does he just… not have a name? does he have a name that he either intentionally or unintentionally kept secret? did he have a name that he used openly and oftenly, but it was forgotten by history as time went on? if anything, did he at least have some sort of nickname people used for him (so we can stop calling him “some nameless guy or smth idk”)?

2- While nb being, well, nameless, may be a bit more justified, what about rhw? did he also have some sort of name? would calling him “ragnvindr” (or similar) be entirely un-canon? did he at the very least have some sort of code name/nickname?

3- what is the timescale of the rebellion? did it take weeks, months, years? decades? how long ago did thoughts of revolution start in old mondstadt? were the people always unhappy, or did old mond use to be a better place?

4- what is nb’s role in the rebellion? did he start it? is he just a leader in general? or is he just there for the moral support? was he on the front lines or in the distance, playing his lyre to rally the troops? is he a strategist? has he ever directly fought anyone on the opposing side?

5- actually, how old is nb anyway? pretty sure most people agree that the rest of the old mond gang are adults (not wispti but like. i’ll touch more on that later), but i’ve seen stories/theories/headcanons about how old nb was (at the time of death) ranging from around 14 to 23 years old- that is not a small range by any means. (according to a poll i made a while ago, 16 was the most common answer on what people thought their age was (my headcanon too), but there was definitely a lot of range in the answers)

6- If Amos and Decarabian’s romantic relationship is so toxic (for lack of a better word), how any why did they get together in the first place? Did amos enter the relationship aware decarabian was against some of the things she wanted most in life? did she enter the relationship purely to try to “fix” him? was he abusive towards her, or was it just a lack of attention/affection/caring about other things more than her? or was it that he never loved her/was attracted to her romantically at all? were they still in a relationship even until the very end, or did they eventually split up when they both knew they would have to fight eachother and that things wouldn’t work out between them?

7- according to the “biography of gunnhildr” book (i think that’s the name), it says they worshipped the wind spirit barbatos and treated it like a deity, while other sources say wispti was nameless and was like. just kinda there. is one of them the truth, or both, or neither?

8- does wispti have arms and/or legs of any kind? can he talk/communicate with people? if so, how does he go about doing so?

9- it’s implied in “a drunkard’s tale” (an ingame book) that the wind spirit that transformed into a fox and helped create wine is the same wind spirit as well. wispti. if that means wispti can shapeshift, to what extent can he do it? can he even become a human/humanoid (not to the same detail and/or time extent that modern venti/barbatos can do so but still)? if so, how does that impact his relationship with nb and/or the rest of the old mond gang?

10- how long did the members of the old mond gang know eachother? did most of them meet in relation to the rebellion, or did some of them know eachother before they got to that point?

11- what is the order of events between amos dying, nb dying, decarabian dying, barbatos getting the gnosis, barbatos taking nb’s form, the end of the fighting, and rhw leaving/abandoning (for lack of better words) everyone? how much time took place between all those happening?

12- what exactly are the purposes of the tower? is it just a living space/government building for decarabian and amos, or is there more to it? did other people live in the tower too? if the circular ruins/symbols seen in the tower present-day were also there back then, why and how are they there? are the light actuators in the tower related to anything involving decarabian’s power/immortality and/or the storm wall?

13- how impenetrable is the storm wall, really? is everything restricted from going in or out, or are some people able to move freely? what is the immigration/emigration rate of the city? how often are things imported and exported? does the wall have any intended purpose other than for keeping the blizzard out?

14- how did amos get her bow? why is it so (hypothetically) powerful? where did she get it and how did it “retain its power” to this day?

15- how “old” is wispti? he could theoretically be any “age” between “manifesting into existence shortly before his first interaction with nb” and 14 billion years old/as old as time itself(and you thought nb’s theoretical age range was large.) how much did wispti truly know before getting involved with the rebellion? was he technically a toddler (in terms of knowledge/mentality), or does he actually have thousands of years of knowledge?

16- to what extent did the imunlaukr (i probably spelled that wrong) and lawrence clans participate in the old mondstadt rebellion? were they involved at all? should the old mond gang be eventually expanded to include more people? (lawrence, venerare, etc)

17- HOW DID DECARABIAN LOOK LIKE? HOYOVERSE PLEASE. IF YOU WONT GIVE US HIS FULLBODY DESIGN WITH MULTIPLE POSES AND FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AT LEAST GIVE US SOME CRUMBS ABOUT HIS APPEARANCE (how tall he was, hair color, outfit style, special accessories he wore, weapons he used, etc)

18- what is the relationship of the old mond game to eachother? were they friends? found family? or were things far more complicated than that? (and what was their reaction to knowing amos, one of their biggest allies, was also the lover/partner of their (the old mond gang’s) enemy?

19- did some of the genshin weapons with lore relations to old mondstadt actually get used during old mondstadt? (aka did nb get to use freedom-sworn as an actual combat weapon)

I probably left out a lot of things so i may go back later to edit, but there are just. SO many things hoyoverse keeps behind the lore basement. If anyone would like to add onto this list, or provide personal headcanons and/or canon answers to the things mentioned here, i highly reccomend doing so.

@honorary-fool @amarisrosalette @gierosajie @lanternlightss @arson-n-quwubilder @littleblueberryartist @lilyandthegenshinbrainrot @elysianheresy

@goyayato @lordofthetower @nellfe-the-feral-creature @thatonenerdinyourclassroom

@yume-shirokuro

(if anyone tagged would not like to be tagged, please let me know)

#old mondstadt #genshin impact #genshin theories #nameless bard #venti #wispti #wisp venti #redhaired warrior #amos #amos genshin impact #gunnhildr #decarabian #writing prompts

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Idk if you've already posted about this but opinions on Jamil's relationship with Kalim?

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about the Scarabia duo’s dynamic before, although not in this broad of a sense 🤔 I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try and condense my thoughts?

I think Kalim and Jamil’s relationship is one of the most complex among the core cast of 22. To simplify, it’s similar to “frenemies”, but it runs much deeper than that. There is a relationship on an individual level, but that in of itself also speaks to the expectations places on them in-universe , as well as real-world cultural differences.

I won't bore you with a summary of Jamil and Kalim's history I'm going to assume you did the required reading for that/j, but essentially their conflict is this: Jamil's family, the Vipers, have serviced Kalim's family, the Asims, for generations. Kalim sees Jamil as a childhood friend that has grown up alongside him, but Jamil sees Kalim as an ignorant and useless master. Jamil doesn't want to live this life of servitude, nor does he want to keep playing second fiddle to Kalim by downplaying his own abilities to maintain the illusion of Kalim being better than him. When this is revealed in book 4, Kalim tries to apologize to Jamil and even insists that they can still be friends or just start over as rivals. This offer is swiftly rejected by Jamil, who claims he wants nothing to do with Kalim anymore. Come book 5 though, Jamil informs us that he has decided to stay by Kalim's side for now, as it just isn't feasible for him to "break free" right away (Jamil wants to work on rebuilding his reputation, which has taken a plummet since book 4).

Now, before I move on with my thoughts, I want to point out a difference in how EN and JP presents Jamil and Kalim's relationship. JP is very clear in delineating that Jamil is a servant and Kalim is the master. Meanwhile, EN obfuscates the true nature of their relationship by labeling Jamil an "employee" and Kalim as the "employer", which come across as less of a power dynamic than that of servant and master and thus dampens the seriousness of his eventual emotional breakdown.

Another major difference which may impact how you see the duo is some book 4 dialogue changes. When asked by Grim why he doesn’t stand up to Kalim, Jamil very explicitly says in JP that Kalim’s father could make the Viper family suffer for it. In EN, this was changed to Jamil complaining that his parents would lecture him. In the original JP text, Jamil then continues and says that his whole family would be put out on the streets due to his own selfishness, and that’s something he won’t allow to happen. He also remarks that “this is the fate of those born a Viper”, referring to generational trauma. In EN, this doesn’t happen; Jamil just implies he doesn’t want to get scolded, which is admittedly a much… lesser consequence than what was stated in JP.

Please note that these differences between the original script and the localization may affect how some fans interpret Kalim and Jamil's relationship.

These are things I've mentioned in other discussions of "potential solutions" to this conflict, but I'll repeat them here before going into more detail since they are relevant. In book 4, Kalim offers Jamil whatever he wants (even the dorm seat and Kalim going home to his family). To this, Jamil refuses and states very clearly that "as long as Kalim exists", he can never be content. I feel that oftentimes this is interpreted very literally, as in "Jamil wants to kill Kalim because he hates Kalim and/or hates serving Kalim". But just because a character says one thing doesn't mean it's what they actually mean. If you think about it, what does killing Kalim do for Jamil? Aren't there countless other Asim siblings he could be sent to serve once Kalim is gone? What Jamil is literally saying does not make sense.

The other way to interpret his words is that Jamil is using Kalim as a scapegoat for all of his frustrations with larger problems that have no physical form or simple solution to them. Recall that their arrangement has been going on for several generations now—Jamil's parents, too, were given no choice in whether or not they wanted to devote their lives to the Asims, but it's all they've known and all they will enforce onto their own children to keep the cycle going. This is the root cause of Jamil's suffering—but he isn't exactly a time wizard, and there isn't a simple solution to something that has been brewing for hundreds of years. It's easier for him to cope with the unfavorable circumstances by directing his hatred towards someone convenient. And who could be more convenient to blame than the young master Jamil is forced to serve? He becomes the symbol, nay the face, of what Jamil detests about the system that put him here. This is a case of generational trauma and Jamil not knowing how to cope with it other than lashing out at someone who is unaware of his suffering.

On the other side of this equation, Kalim gets a lot of flack for not noticing Jamil's pain and not intervening to help him out despite claiming that he cares for Jamil. The is coming from an omnipotent perspective (as in, we have all the information so we feel entitled to cast judgment on the characters), rather than from Kalim's perspective. We, the audience, understand Jamil's inner turmoil due to how the game presents us with each OB boy's backstory. Kalim doesn't get to have that. He may be an empathetic individual, but he also isn't a mind reader. Jamil actively hides his true resentment from Kalim. And if you were in Kalim's shoes, given everything you want and praised endlessly, why would you suspect your childhood friend, who is always at your side, to hate of you or to hate working for you (especially when Kalim is the type of person to blindly trust others)? Of course he would be totally oblivious. The Asims are so obnoxiously wealthy and privileged that they can afford to shelter their children from the harsh realities of the world, and that includes the plight of those that toil for their family. Kalim is not used to people telling him he's wrong or he sucks or he can't have something; it's how he was raised and in part why he remains largely ignorant of the real world. He shouldn't be faulted for how he grew up and the limited worldview that resulted from it; that’s something he cannot control. What he can control is his own behavior, and that’s why we see post-book 4 as he takes steady strides to earn recognition rather than be handed it simply for existing.

On the topic of Kalim intervening (whether that is through speaking with his own father and/or speaking to Jamil's parents), well... Firstly, I don't think Kalim is someone who would intentionally keep another in a bad situation out of malice or out of selfishness/not wanting to lose Jamil (as some have suggested). Yes, he deeply values Jamil's company, but I don't think he would keep someone with him knowing that they would be completely miserable even if he would be happy. Kalim is someone who cares so much for the wellbeing of others, especially his friends. He will literally give you the world at the slightest inconvenience. I suspect that there is another reason why he hasn't spoken to an adult about what went down: and that's actually consideration for Jamil’s situation.

Let's imagine a scenario where Kalim does approach his dad or the Viper parents. What exactly would he say? I suppose Kalim doesn't necessarily need to tell them about the OB, but just telling them "Jamil is not happy doing this" may not be enough on of itself to invoke a change of mind. To the Asims, they get capable people they can trust and keep close to them. To the Vipers (the parents), they are compensated for their work (Jamil implies the Vipers are quite well-off, though not to the same extent as the Asims) and are provided job stability. I don’t think either side would be willing to end a long-standing arrangement like what their families have so quickly just because there is one open instance of discontent. It is practically tradition and mindset at this point. The groups are mutually benefitting (at the cost of individual freedoms). Letting go of that isn't as easy as deciding whether or not it would be pleasant to be punched; it isn't a binary of "freeing the genie" or "keeping the genie bound to the lamp", there will inevitably be a mess left in its wake to clean up after. Again, this is generational trauma which has been normalized for generations and generations. It cannot be solved with a single conversation, the same as all the other OB boys' traumas.

Let’s say that Kalim does spill the beans about Jamil’s OB in an effort to convince them then (assuming they’d need some extreme justification). Wouldn’t that just make everyone panic and further damage Jamil’s reputation? What would the Asims and the Vipers think of him? Maybe Jamil would be released from his duties out of concern for Kalim’s safety, but what would this do to the Viper family as a whole? Jamil mentioned they could be thrown out onto the streets if they were dismissed from the Asims or found out to have so much as spoken out against Kalim. That fear could become their reality.

Another variant of "Kalim could do something about it" is simply "Kalim can release Jamil on his own". In book 5, Jamil even says that he will continue to be Kalim's aid "until Kalim dismisses him". So why not give Jamil the freedom he wants? Kalim himself seems pretty receptive to the idea, or at least to what he views as a very simple solution. Well, 1) there's no way their families wouldn't find out and question it, they are teenagers and cannot just give the middle finger and proceed to do whatever they want, and 2) again, consideration for Jamil. (It could also be said that the current Kalim just isn’t mature enough or emotionally ready to let Jamil go, but we’ll save this point to discuss later.)

Jamil cannot leave of his own will because he worries about what that would mean for his family and their livelihood. (Again, this harkens back to the line he had in JP where he said the Vipers could be thrown out into the streets.) They could get jobs doing something else, sure—but their reputations may be forever stained by departing from the Asims (especially if Kalim basically fires him). They could be scorned, ostracized, maybe even blacklisted, no matter how amicable the departure is. Kalim being Kalim would offer to pull strings to smooth things over for Jamil—but the thing is, that’s probably not what Jamil wants. He wants to be able to live free from the Asim’s influence, and likely has too much pride to accept assistance from them.

I would argue that social shame is a very subtle yet looming threat for the Scarabia duo, and particularly Jamil (especially if you look at the original Japanese text). Social shame is something that is prominent in Japan, and this aspect of Kalim and Jamil's story may not translate well for western audiences. Japan is a collectivist culture. That means the status of the group (the Viper family in this case) is more valued than the status of the individual (ie Jamil). In western countries, this is reversed and the individual is seen as more important than the group (individualism). Because of this, western audiences may not fully understand why Jamil is putting his family's needs above his own, why he doesn't talk back to parents that actively keep him down, or why he doesn’t just… rebel on the spot.

Jamil would bring intense social shame upon his family if he chose to leave or got fired. His behavior would reflect poorly on his family, likely attracting criticism of his parents for how they raised such a rebellious child and perhaps even limit the opportunities they have in the future depending on how intense the shaming is. He would feel guilty about being the cause for their fall from grace. Jamil is immensely worried about what his parents, his dorm mates, and society at large will think of him breaking from tradition and betraying the family for what would be seen as selfish and self-serving reasons. (Ideas which are all reflected in Jamil’s JP dialogue, where he comments on his own selfishness and how it could impact his family.) These may not seem very serious to those from western countries, but social shame and intense filial piety has the capacity to put so much pressure on an individual and cause their mental state to deteriorate.

Remember, too, that Jamil is already facing social shame at school for what he did in book 4 and he specifically says he has chosen to stay with Kalim to regain the lost rep. This is why he cannot be freed from his shackles as easily as Aladdin made a wish to grant the Genie his freedom. Jamil constantly has to consider the consequences and social ramifications of his own actions on his family and their wellbeing. Isn't it plausible, then, that Kalim, who is now aware of Jamil's true feelings but is also aware of the long-standing circumstances between the Asims and the Vipers, to bite his tongue and wait for less precarious conditions before even pitching the idea? Additionally, he would also technically be supporting Jamil's current wishes by standing aside for now (Jamil is willingly staying to aid Kalim in an attempt to rebuild his reputation). Is that not in the spirit of mindfulness that Scarabia extols? Mindfulness is not just knowing when to act, but when to not act. I think Kalim’s just doing what he can within a preexisting system to support Jamil’s decisions and (limited) autonomy.

Something that I feel often isn’t brought up is the responsibility that Jamil’s parents play in all of this. A lot of the blame is put on the Asims for hiring the Vipers as servants, but the fact of the matter is that the Viper parents are the ones forcing Jamil to be subservient to Kalim. They are also guilty in perpetuating the problem by projecting onto their eldest child and urging him to follow in their footsteps. Jamil is their child, so there should be some responsibility on them for not giving him the freedom to choose his own career path and teaching Jamil that he should keep his head down and always be inferior to Kalim. The blame isn’t squarely on Papa Asim (who isn’t even guilty of starting this relationship, it has been happening for generations before him; he’s just perpetuating it), this is a shared issue.

Now, as to whether or not Kalim and Jamil could or should be friends despite the bad blood between them?? It’s really on Jamil if he will reciprocate or not since Kalim already offered the olive branch. As it’s currently going, I don’t think it will happen anytime soon. There’s no doubt that a relationship with Kalim would be a valuable asset (not just for negotiating Jamil leaving and doing his own thing, but in general for the future), but whether the benefits outweigh the mental anguish of associating Kalim with his generational trauma is worth it… well, there’s no doubt that Kalim wants to start over, make amends, and be equals with Jamil, but it’s not up to Kalim to decide to make friends or not. That’s Jamil’s choice, and ironically one of the few choices he does have 😔

I do think Jamil would be happier away from Kalim for some time, finally allowed to enjoy solitude and doing whatever he wants to. Kalim would be sad about this, but then again who wouldn’t be sad to lose someone you consider your friend since childhood? That ability to let go is also something he has to learn for himself, and I feel that’s going to be a component to Kalim’s future character development.

Kalim has been doing his part to keep a distance from Jamil and develop his own agency and sense of awareness (at least in the main story; the events and vignettes are kinda screwy timeline-wise). Jamil’s working on getting over his own ego and learning how to use his own traits as strengths rather than wallowing about what he doesn’t have or looking down on others. They’re trying to improve themselves independently of one another, and I think that’s beneficial for them both.

I would personally label the Scarabia duo’s dynamic as a toxic one, but it’s not “toxic” in the way we typically think of. Often when we see “toxic”, we think of someone who is malicious and intentionally so. In Kalim and Jamil’s case, Kalim isn’t purposefully mistreating Jamil, but their circumstances are such that Kalim existing hurts him and starves Jamil of freedom. This causes Jamil to lash out (which is more closely aligned with what most would perceive as “toxic”)—but, in a way, many can understand and sympathize with Jamil’s actions. It’s like a never-ending cycle of hate 😔

I do find their dynamic (Kalim being a big ol’ gullible ball of sunshine, Jamil hovering and nagging him for being silly) entertaining on a surface level. However, it’s really stressful for me to observe them for prolonged periods of time knowing the family history keeping them in these arbitrary roles 💦 It’s quite interesting to look at their conflict on a larger scale rather than an individual one; it’s a problem with society and systems they can’t necessarily fix on their own, but when the question arises as to whether they can work together to tear down those expectations, Jamil’s pride and negative feelings for Kalim pose a roadblock.

#Jamil Viper #Scarabia #Kalim Al-Asim #twst #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #notes from the writing raven #question #disney twst #twst en #twisted wonderland en #twst analysis #twisted wonderland analysis #twst character analysis #twisted wonderland character analysis

[liesmyth]

Anon with the friend who's reading tlt on the reverse order: Yes, he knows he's being a lab rat, he doesn't keep motes on the books because he's very much a casual reader (and thus perfect for the experiment) and so far we have only done Nona The Ninth and The Unwanted Guest, plus some chapters of HTN & Doctor Sex. There's the slight chance of osmosis corruption because I occasionally reblog modern au memes on my main blog, which I think is how he got Palamedes' whole deal.

There's not much he guessed, and even less he guessed correctly. He did call the fact Crown and Ianthe are related a pleasant plot twist, and he initially thought John was Varun.

The most interesting guess he had, which he arrived through flawed means, was Paul's existence, and the fact Pyrrha had some sort of connection to Gideon The Ninth — mostly because he guessed the average Lyctorhood to be Camilla and Palamedes', and with the reference of Gideon and G1deon as 1) permanently dead, in a setting where he's aware necromancy exists and he thought zombies to be actual resurrected people 2) connected to Pyrrha, and 3) the fact Pyrrha had "some weird vibes" (he refused to elaborate) led him to thinking Pyrrha was half Gideon, half someone else, and the reason Kiriona was vaguely off-putting to people was because she didn't have a full soul. Anyways he did think the same would happen to Palamedes and Camilla, which it did, and that Kiriona was pissed at Pyrrha because of an ambiguous degree of relationship

We have paused rn, as the labrat experiment is in return for me reading a webcomic per book

Oh yeah also im doing this because i either dreamt a post proposing it up or actually saw it, and honestly i wanted to see how much biases and previous narrative impacted the relationship of the reader with tlt characters, their relationships, and worldbuilding, as i absorbed tlt by osmosis as an agender aroace. so yeah giving a gay guy tlt without previous context in the reverse order to complete the trifecta (lesbian woman reading it in the correct order, aroace agender getting to know it by osmosis and figuring out the plot best I could before reading it, gay guy reading it in reverse)

ANON THANK YOU FOR COMING BACK! @mayasaura and everyone who wanted a follow-up to the first part.

"Thought John was Varun at first" is soooo big brained actually! I'm always thinking about John's more RB-like traits. I'm also very amused that he cast Pyrrha as the zombie puppeteer, I bet he's going to love tiny Harrow walking around her dead parent's bodies for a decade.

I also feel like the worldbuilding in NtN is veeery different from the general #vibe of the first two books — it feels like an "anime filler arc" kind of sidequest plot — and I'm very curious if going from NtN to HtN is going to make the settings vibe changes feel stronger or weaker than reading it normally would.

Anyway, I love that you decided to do this, and please let us know what he thinks about HtN! I hope you enjoy the webcomic :D

#Anonymous #ask #elle tlt posting

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

10 Jikook Fanfictions Part 1

I said I'd make a list before the end of the year and I kept my promise. Now, it's difficult to choose, especially when I have more than 300 bookmarks and unfortunately I also started doing that some year and a half ago. Safe to say, there's probably plenty of good fics I read that are now lost. Anyway, enough with the boring chit chat, here's 10 random jikook fics in no particular order and most likely, several other parts will follow, probably next year 😉

1. Dead in the Water

It's been a couple of years since I read this and honestly, I barely remember much, but what I do know it's that it had an impact on me. Usually fics that have death as a central theme end up resonating with me, but perhaps it's because I've always been attracted to more darker fiction. This one is gritty and there's a lot of pain and I must have cried a lot (those tend to stick in my head)

2. we're holding hands beneath the silver screen

I think this story is taking place in the 90s (you'll see that a lot of the fics I recommend are taking place in the past). I think I ended up reading everything ChimneyCricket wrote, but this one remained a favorite. Coming of age during a summer in Jeju in the 90s. Apart from the theme, it's the writing that made me stick with it.

I'm not the biggest fan of young adult stories. Or better yet, it's not something that I'd go to as a preference. When I do, it's more of an indulgence and thankfully, I found some writers (like this one) who can do a really good job with the genre.

3. Stockwell

Another writer that I've become a big fan of after reading one fic of theirs. And I think it might have been Stockwell that did it for me. I like that it's fanfiction with adult themes for an adult audience. And I also resonate with a lot of the cultural references and themes. I will also admit that this fic leaning into the enemies to lovers trope was a selling point because I'm a sucker for it. I can't help myself.

4. Burn for You

This is a complete self indulgence for me and I embrace it. Just like watching Bridgerton is a guilty pleasure for which I don't actually feel guilty (and the inspo for this fic). This story has everything and I must say the combination of lust, fear of revealing feelings, rumors, proper behavior and hidden romance is a lethal combination!

5. Light of a century

I might have recommended this story before, but it being inspired by Up on Poppy Hill is not just due to the plot, but the writing is able to evoke that studio Ghibli mood. This fic is to be read on a hot weekend afternoon.

6. Map of the Soul

This might be one of the most complex fanfictions I read due to the amount of research needed, but also in the depiction of political contexts and identity politics. Most of all, I like it because as much as relationships are a vital part of the story, there is an entire world surrounding the main characters. Events and other people that have also room to develop and not just remain props that advance the story.

7. Proceed with Caution

I don't know what snatchim did with this fic, but it's the only one I ever reread multiple times and I'll probably do it again in the future. I don't even reread books from my library, let alone fanfics. But Proceed with Caution did it for me. Perhaps it's because of the process of Jungkook inevitably falling for Jimin and even though it's a bad thing considering the context, it's so good. Maybe it's the image of Jimin with a bellybutton ring or maybe because the picture of hot Californian days in the 70s is so vivid, it feels like a nostalgic Paul Thomas Anderson movie.

8. Dishwater World They Said Was Lemonade

The description does not do this story justice because it's so much more than that. It's a canon compliant thriller with really complicated and complex characters and once again, a story meant for adults who understand that it's fiction. Unfortunately, judging by the comment section, a lot of people cannot distinguish betweem real people and characters. For those of you who might be fans of Korean thrillers, this story might be the one for you. It's also one of my favorite jikook fics as well.

9. souvlaki

Need I say more, considering the description? This is a self indulgence as well, but of a different kind. If I happily read tropey fics, I also like the ones that can sound like a uni course. Set during the 1997 FMI crisis in SK, any reader will get familiar with a socioeconomic and political perspective of that time through the eyes of the main characters. If you're only looking for romance, this one is not for you.

10. you wouldn't remember

I think littleflumes might be currently my favorite writer of canon compliant jikook. I think the author really captured their dynamic in its essence and the room left for fiction perfectly fills in the holes left in the last 2 years and up until the present. But what did it for me, not only with this story, but the others in the series as well, is that it's concentrated almost entirely on the two main characters, almost living in a bubble of their own in which their relationship can be explored.

#m thoughts #jikook #jikook fanfic #jikook fanfiction #jikook au #jikook canon compliant #fic rec #bts fanfic

[norieoncrack]

𝙎𝙖𝙪𝙙𝙖𝙙𝙚

(N): a nostalgic longing to be near again to something or someone that is distant, or that has been loved then lost; “the love that remains.

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: fluff (I think)

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬: Silver (vanrouge)

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞: On

𝐓𝐲𝐩𝐞: Oneshot.

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐬: They/them

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: It’s you and I, keeping our story under the wraps

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: None.

What else were you gonna say about your life? That you wish it didn’t have to be like this or that you’re bored out of your mind? You liar~ Nothing was boring with him around, wasn’t it?

Your prince, Silver was everything you wanted in a lover and more, opposite to most of the student at NRC he was a pure gentleman to you and a sweet lover even with his strange sleeping schedule. Despite being in a secret relationship, having it well kept between you and him only, you both can’t help but make a few people stare at you with the look of ‘something feels weird’

Maybe we should go back to the start of how you both came to be? It’s not a long story when you think about it, in fact he was the one who approached you, just after Leona’s overblot.

“Silver, thank you for helping us, Prefect…?” Silver hair and aurora eyes, he was breathing taking for a first meeting.

“(Y/n), (Y/n) (L/n). Glad to be of service to you and Diasomnia.” You quickly brushed it off though, back then you still hadn’t entirely gotten over the overblot situation and was still so scared.

“…Are you okay?” If he hadn’t asked that would he have made an impact on you? Would you still have remembered those lilac eyes? Maybe you would, but you also wouldn’t.

“Ah I’m good! Thank you for worrying.” You had no choice but to keep to yourself, a world you’re unfamiliar with, did Silver saw his younger self in you?

It was a strange meeting maybe but, just with those little words you kept hearing over and over again, your heart began to loosen up a bit. After that meeting, you both coincidentally kept meeting each other, what was it they often say?

Once was chance, you never thought you’d see him again after the spell drive tournament, neither did he, in all honesty you had already kind of liked him like how friends would.

“Oh it’s you prefect, what brings you to the library?” You happen to visit the library to review for the mid-terms, looks like you happen to meet him again.

“Mid-terms, I just needed something on the ‘New age of Lacuna’” since being a first year focused more on information and writing you had no choice but to read references for history class.

“I have it, you wanna read it together?” What’s the worse that could happen between sharing and reading a book? The spark to your relationship of course.

Twice is a coincidence, your relationship started to bloom as you both kept in touch for school problems, you began to talk to him more about your problems with unable to handle most of the work handed, he talked to you about his sleeping problems.

“Oh, I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” Poker face from start to end, every time you saw him you wonder what he would like liked if he started smiling.

“Haha I’m kind of just buying essentials but nice to see you to, Silver.” Sam came back and handed you a bag filled with hygiene things as well as a separate box for Tuna cans.

“You need help?” Despite protesting, Silver still carried the heavy box of tuna cans for you, at this point you were already somewhere on the verge of falling in love.

“ You really don’t have to help me.” All you had as an answer was his hunm in agreement.

“So? I wanted to help you.” Honestly it’s a miracle you haven’t started staring at him up and down, or maybe you did? Either way you were sure your heart was beating of your rib cage when you saw those lovely eyes.

Thrice was fate, the third time you met and afterwards all you could began to think was about him. You did consider the chances of being in a relationship with him, you really did but you were just so afraid of breaking your heart for so many reasons that you started distancing yourself from him.

“Prefect, what are you hiding here for?” That afternoon you were so overwhelmed you couldn’t even attend class, you just had to make a deal with Azul and was facing a huge chance of losing the Ramshackle dorm.

“…” you didn’t know what to do other than stare at the ground, as you sat on the grassy field all alone with your thoughts.

“I happened to hear about your situation… if you want you could stay with me.” His words surprised you, however it wasn’t the fact that you could have the potential of losing your dorm that made you so tired, it was the planning on breaking in a museum.

“I- really thank you, but I’m fine, I don’t want to bother you.” He looked bothered by your words, was it something you said?

“Idiot, you can’t keep going on like this, you’ll burn yourself out.” With that said though you thought he’d go away, but it surprisingly he stayed there, he stayed there for you.

Let’s just say after your fourth meeting, you and him just closer and closer than before, how were you so lucky as to meet him?

More and on about your relationship, you both felt like there was no reason to announce it and just left it just as it is, however when you both eventually started dating there was a big talk about how you both were gonna meet each other with your schedules being a bit different and busy.

In the end, you both just decided to go on dates at night, most of them were picnic dates, some times a walk in the woods, there were also study dates. Although his strange sleeping habit of falling asleep in the middle of nowhere gave you a heart attack, you found it quite cute, you avoided walks after his last falling asleep in the woods.

It would have been fun if you could have continued keeping your relationship just low-key, but it didn’t stay as a secret for long. Just somewhere around winter break, your lover wanted to bring you home with him however you couldn’t agree.

“Are you sure, darling? It’s rough staying at the school in breaks, I’m not forcing you but are you sure?” You felt his hands in your hair, untangling the knots and giving you a gentle head massage.

“Yes, I’m sure, I’ll be fine sweetie. Don’t worry too much about me.” You wished moments like these would last forever, they can last right?

“If you ever change your mind just give me a call alright?” You really wanted to go with him, but the crow really just had to make you babysit the school while he was away.

“Am I interrupting something?” Out of the dark and dimness of the lounge where you laid on your lover’s chest, Grim stood at the door annoyed and probably hungry.

That night you had to try and bribe grim from saying anything about your relationship, why you did that? You had no idea but just felt like it. Silver on the other hand didn’t really mind if news about your relationship got out, but since it looked like you didn’t enjoy it he just let you do as you pleased.

“Is there a reason why we should keep our relationship a secret?” Scribbling away you don’t seem to hear much of what he was saying, maybe it was something about his side of work?

“Not really, I’m not sure why… I’ve rarely been in a relationship before so I guess I was just worried?” When you managed to make out what he was saying you kind of just answered what you thought of first, should have payed attention to what he said.

“So you don’t mind if we made it public?”

“Well.. no, I really don’t mind”

“Hm”

Maybe if you were more conscious and thought careful about why he asked that, then maybe you could hold have been more mentally prepared. Because that was how you got into your current situation.

On the day of him going back home, you were also invited by some of your friends as well, mainly Deuce and Ace and just like with Silver you declined them, saying goodbye to your friends was like parents seeing their children off on a trip, ‘thank god they’re gone’.

“(Y/n), mind if I talked to you for a second?” He tapped on your shoulder, Ace and Deuce didn’t really noticed and just thought Silver needed something from you.

“Yeah su-“ All he needed from you was a goodbye kiss, and one that you didn’t even had the chance to react or explain to them, they all just stared at you as if you grew multiple heads.

What you technically didn’t expect was him giving you pda in public, that was one way of telling the world you both were dating but can’t he tell you beforehand? Now you’re as red as a tomato.

“SILVER, WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE BENEVOLENT THORN WITCH WAS THAT?!” Sebek gently asked in a not so gentle way, you just hid your face in Silver’s chest out of malfunctioning.

“A goodbye kiss, have Lilia and Malleus arrived?” He still hugged you, warm hands around your waist, you would have hit him but you loved him too much to do so.

You felt stares that seemed to burn into your skull, Ace and Deuce really wanted answers to what they just witnessed, they felt betrayed, how dare you keep your love life away from them?

“(Y/n)…”

“I can explain, hear me out.”

Despite saying that they still bombarded you with more questions you didn’t know how to answer, your lover just chuckled and had a rare smile on his face, oh no, you think you just fell harder in love with him.

“I’ll see you after break, remember, call me if you need anything” leaving you he began to walk away, perhaps you were feeling bold and didn’t notice Lilia right away.

“Hold on now, here’s one more goodbye kiss from me” kissing his cheek you chuckled as his face grew a bit red as well.

“You didn’t tell me you had a lover Silver, you wound this old bat” a smirk from Lilia, a grumble of embarrassment from your lover, he was definitely gonna get teased by Lilia later.

Thanks for reading! Please like and reblog it would help me out so much, thank you!

#twst #twst x reader #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #silver x reader #twst fluff #silver vanrouge x reader #silver twst

[cosmicjoke]

Lestat’s relationship with Nicki and how it impacts his relationship with Louis:

So I’ve been re-reading “The Vampire Lestat” recently, and one of the most amazing things, I think, is how well it ties in to “Interview with the Vampire” in terms of psychologically explaining why Lestat was the way he was with Louis, why Louis thought of Lestat as he did, but also, why Louis’ perception of Lestat was so wrong.  There’s countless examples of this throughout the book, psychological excavation of Lestat which sheds so much light on his behavior in Louis’ story.  But I wanted to focus here on one particular aspect of it, and that’s how Lestat’s general positivity as a character, and the ways in which it impacted those around him, how those around him reacted to it, especially Nicki and Armand, would later inform Lestat’s affected apathy and seeming detachment with Louis.

Lestat explains early on in TVL that, growing up, he was often treated as a burden by his family.  That his refusal to accept his lot in life, his persistent dreaming and hope, his persistent attempts to improve and even escape the dreary dead-end of his provincial life caused a great deal of consternation, disapproval and even anger and cruelty from his father and two brothers, even at times resulting in physical and verbal abuse at their hands.  So early on in life, Lestat was already taught by those closest to him that his enthusiasm and fighting spirit and positivity were bad things.  That to truly be himself, to be the free spirit that he was and to fight for what he really wanted, were things he couldn’t do without being a “bad person”.  He even has a conversation with Gabrielle specifically about this, about Lestat’s fears that to defy his father and brother’s is equal to him being bad, that he can’t be himself and do what he actually wants without giving up the ability to be good.  And anyone who knows anything about Lestat’s character should know that the true driving force behind basically every one of his actions is the desire to do and be good.

So already at this early stage of his life, Lestat is made to believe that who he is, his natural personality, is a thorn in the sides of most people he knows.  I know that in this fandom, it gets made fun of often, that Lestat is referred to as “a lot”, and people laugh about his overbearing personality.  But it’s actually incredibly sad, that here we have a person who, because of his innate optimism and hope, was made by his own family to feel like a disappointment and a burden.

Moving on, and looking at how this aspect of Lestat’s personality, this positivity, his refusal to quit and his undying belief in the “impossible”, effects his relationship with Nicki in particular, I think is vitally important in understanding Lestat’s relationship with Louis later on, and why it plays out the way it initially does.

The entire story between Lestat and Nicki is particularly heartbreaking, because of the deep and genuine love which existed between them, and how it eventually eroded and ended in genuine resentment and even hatred toward Lestat from Nicki, and specifically, because of how this ends up effecting Lestat and his perception of himself and the way he ends up conducting himself with the other great love of his life in Louis.

Nicki goes mad, slowly descending into an ever deepening depression and general negativity after he and Lestat move to Paris, and it’s later revealed that Nicki had hoped, by moving to Paris, that he and Lestat would “go down”, to use Nicki’s own words.  He wanted them to fail as a means of rebelling and disappointing his own father, as a way of making his father angry and upset.  The very basis of his reasoning for going to Paris was the opposite of Lestat’s.  Lestat wanted to go to Paris to do something good and positive with his life, to give meaning to his life.  Nicki went to Paris to destroy his life as a final “screw you” to his family, a reason driven by negative emotion, as opposed to the positive emotion driving Lestat.  He never told this to Lestat, of course.  He simply went along with him and pretended to share in his hope and enthusiasm for the future.  He tells Lestat later that he believed that once they’d gotten to Paris, Lestat would become disillusioned with the world and stop pursuing his dream of doing good with his life.  He’d hoped, secretly, that Lestat would give up, the way Nicki himself had long before given up in believing in anything better.  But one of Lestat’s defining traits as a person is his refusal to ever give up.  He’s a fighter through and through.  He’s an eternal optimist.  No matter how bad things get for him, he never loses his hope or belief in the impossible. 

When things really get bad between Lestat and Nicki is after Lestat reveals to him he’s been turned into a vampire, and Nicki uses Lestat’s own generosity and desire to help his loved ones against him, guilt-tripping him for sharing the “Dark Gift” with his mother, but not with Nicki himself, accusing Lestat of giving preferential treatment to his direct family because of their royal blood.  He essentially tells Lestat that giving money and gifts to him, to the actors they worked with and the theater they worked at, was an insult, a dismissal of the less important people in his life.  This is all wrong, of course.  It couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Lestat showers Nicki and everyone else with gifts and material wealth as a means of expressing his genuine love for all of them, given the abject poverty he himself grew up in.  He wants to take care of them, and provide for them, as he’d always done with his family.  But Nicki, suffering from his worsening mental illness, uses this against Lestat, badgering him with it until Lestat’s sense of guilt and driving wish to do good makes him act against his better judgement, and he gives Nicki what he wants, turning him into a vampire too. 

Lestat has a final, climactic confrontation with Nicki in the theater they worked at as mortals, in which Nicki reveals to him how Lestat’s positivity truly effected him.  In which he reveals to Lestat that “his light”, as Nicki refers to it, was a source of anguish and torment for him.  He tells Lestat that his refusal to give up, that his general positivity and ability to push through even the most dire and seemingly hopeless circumstances, that his ability to make the impossible happen and make a success of himself despite all odds being against him, was like a “piercing” to Nicki.  He explains that for every moment of exuberance and enthusiasm and passion in Lestat, it created a proportionate amount of darkness and despair in Nicki, a proportionate unhappiness and hopelessness.  He basically blames Lestat here for causing his own, deranged mental state simply through the power of his own, overwhelming positivity.  He reinforces in this moment what Lestat had already been taught over and over again by his own family.  That his very existence, his natural state of being, was causing harm to those he loved.  You see where I’m going with this?  Lestat is made to feel here, by Nicki, that just being himself is what caused Nicki to lose his mind completely.

“And when we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in Paris, that we would go down and down and down.  It was what I wanted, rather than what they wanted, that I, the favored son, should rise for them.  I thought we would go down!  We were supposed to go down... But you didn’t go down Lestat... The hunger, the cold- none of it stopped you.  You were a triumph!... You didn’t drink yourself to death in the gutter.  You turned everything upside down!  And for every aspect of our proposed damnation you found exuberance, and there was no end to your enthusiasms and the passion coming out of you- and the light, always the light.  And in exact proportion to the light coming out of you, there was the darkness in me!  Every exuberance piercing me and creating its exact proportion of darkness and despair!  And then, the magic, when you got the magic, irony of ironies, you protected me from it!  And what did you do with it but use your Satanic powers to simulate the actions of a good man!”

He tells Lestat that it’s some sort of irony that Lestat, who wishes to do good, should be given a power which can do only evil, while keeping it from Nicki himself, (Nicki, who wishes to do evil and will use the Dark Gift “properly”, unlike Lestat himself), in an effort to protect him. Lestat later imagines that what Nicki really meant, without saying it to him, was that Lestat wouldn’t allow Nicki to have what he could believe in.  The exact words that he imagines Nicki saying to him are “Let me have what I can believe in.  You would never do that.”  Lestat is blaming himself here for crushing Nicki’s own dreams through the sheer force of his personality.  He feels like Nicki’s downfall is his doing because he failed to understand just how depressed Nicki was, that he couldn’t understand how depressed he was because Lestat himself is such an innately positive person, and instead of supporting Nicki in his wish to self-destruct, he encouraged him and tried to inspire him and make him believe in himself as a force of good, as Lestat believed in himself.  Nicki reveals to Lestat that he wanted to fail, and Lestat had refused to let him do it, and that’s what Lestat ends up believing.  That in his efforts to help Nicki, he only ended up hurting him.

We can see then how this experience with Nicki, this sense of guilt and responsibility that Lestat takes on to himself for Nicki’s downfall, later impacts how he behaves with and treats Louis.  Louis is very much like Nicki.  He tends towards depression and melancholy.  He has a tendency to get trapped in his own head and self-obsess and think of himself as “evil”.  These are all traits which are eerily similar to Nicki, and to Nicki’s state of mind before he went truly mad.  Recognizing this, and remembering what Nicki said to Lestat about how his “light” made Nicki descend deeper into darkness, we then see how Lestat doubtless feared that history would repeat itself with Louis.  That the force of Lestat’s overwhelming positivity and enthusiasm would do to Louis what it had supposedly done to Nicki, that is, send him further into despair and self-destruction.

Louis recounts how, later on in their relationship, when he and Lestat would go out to a play or some sort of show, Lestat would afterward go dancing through the streets, reciting the play’s lines out loud with overexcited enthusiasm and passion, even frightening the people passing by with his energy and bursting joy.  This was Lestat’s true personality coming through.  This was who Lestat really was.  Seeing theater productions would remind Lestat of the happiest days of his life, when he was still mortal, living in squalor with Nicki in Paris, working as an actor in the theater, living out his dream and doing something he genuinely believed was good, and it caused, in the present with Louis, his true personality to come to the surface, rather than the biting, dismissive, apathetic personality he’d affected since then.  Louis recalls then how he would express to Lestat, in these moments, that he was actually enjoying his company, and upon doing so, Lestat would again retreat into himself, he would withdraw and once more become that detached, apathetic and dismissive person Louis believed him to be, dispassionate and caring about seemingly nothing.  It would be weeks and even months, then, before Lestat would again ask Louis to go out with him.  Why is that?  Well, in the context of Lestat’s relationship with Nicki, and what Nicki accused him of, of destroying him through the force of his overbearing positivity and enthusiasm, it makes perfect sense why Lestat acted like he did with Louis, why he, upon hearing Louis’ positive reaction to Lestat’s genuine nature coming out, would retreat back into himself and put on the act of someone who doesn’t care.  Because the last time Lestat was in a romantic relationship with someone, and he was himself, that person went insane, blamed Lestat for it, and ended up killing themselves later on.  Really think about that, and then think about how that must have effected Lestat’s relationship with Louis, seeing so many of the same traits in Louis that existed in Nicki, and remembering how Nicki blamed Lestat for his depression.  Louis himself had expressed numerous times his own wish to die.  In Lestat’s mind, mistaken though he was, he no doubt feared that being who he really was, showing his true personality, his true passion and love for life and for people, his true eternal optimism and hope, would drive Louis to self-destruct the way he believed it had driven Nicki. 

This fear in Lestat could only have been exacerbated too by his relationship with Armand, and how Armand, like Nicki, blamed Lestat’s positivity, his self-belief and powerful will on his own downfall, with the destruction of his coven and his way of life.  Just like Nicki, Armand accuses Lestat of coming in and wreaking havoc and destruction through the sheer force of his personality, his refusal to give up or give in.  He blames Lestat for causing the other vampires in his coven to lose belief in worshiping Satan simply because Lestat himself refused to submit to their will, and fought back when they tried to burn him and his mother and Nicki in a pyre for doing so.

From childhood on, Lestat is essentially taught and shown by everyone around him that his personality causes destruction.  That his self-belief and can-do attitude is a burden at best, and a force of chaos and evil at worst.  He’s taught to believe that being himself is somehow the worst thing he can be, because it drives everyone around him to despair and misfortune.  With that in mind, it becomes painfully clear just why Lestat adopted with Louis a personality that was, in reality, wholly opposite of who he truly was, and why Louis, in turn, formed such a tragically false conception and misunderstanding of who Lestat was. 

#The Vampire Lestat #the vampire chronicles #Lestat De Lioncourt #nicki de lenfent #louis de pointe du lac

[liamtheshark7]

My essay on my Fanny button might be autistic

Note: I have been thinking about this so much and now want to share it because I 1) seen others say the same thing 2) seen that the bbc ghosts fans won’t get mad over headcanons about autism and have a lot of them so that’s cool I will say now

Why Fanny button might be autistic 

In this essay I will tell you why I think Fanny button from ghosts is autistic and I think she’s a high masking autistic. It won't be a great essay but hopefully will get my point across. I researched high masking in women for this because that’s a specific thing and I really think it’s her I think it really explains a lot of her because Fanny can sometimes be misunderstood by other characters In the show and people who watch the show and there is a reason for this, fanny puts up such a character sort of like she acts so intense all the time and then it’s hard for people to really see past this but what I think happened to make her like this was that when she married George she started masking a lot more because we see in the Christmas special “he came” she was very different before she is very talented at math autistic people can be very talented in something and love it a lot a special interest perhaps* but she was told she can’t do this it’s for men now when I’m thinking about this I’m thinking a lot of this was impacted by the time she was in and being a woman in this time which is why I researched autism in women specifically masking is alot more common in AFAB people because of society alot so it can still apply here it’s just worth noteing the context and differences in society speaking of the time she was in an how society was then okay a common thing alot of autistic people say or feel is “its like everyone was given a book on how to be human at birth and mine was lost” that didn't attuly happen but that's just what if feels like and this is mainly referring to socialy but fanny did attuly get this book there where rules told to everyone then about how to act how to communicate and act around people how your ment to seem etc so when she married George and he did not love her she thought “I need to follow there rules better if I follow them completely he will love me” and she did she learnt these rules and followed them masking. What makes alot of people who may think Fanny is autistic think this is how hard she finds it to accept change now I have looked at the criteria for getting an autism diagnosis and she dose fit it the only thing is that traits had to have been there since you where a child and we can't know that because we never see her as a child for the sake of this we will assume she did so this here is the first part which is social.

A. Need to have persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, as manifested by the following, currently or by history

Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions

Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication.

Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships, ranging, for example, from difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts; to difficulties in sharing imaginative play or in making friends; to absence of interest in peers.

So to fit the first part of the autism criteria you need to have or have had persistent struggles I'm each of those areas as it says above so I will go through them now 

On this one I want to go back to thing thing about “it feels like everyone was giving a book at birth on how to be human and mine got lost” referring to social interactions but Fanny did literally have this book there where rules for social interactions and if you followed them then your doing good which is why I think she used these rules to mask but even if someone who is autistic is following all these rules sometimes and I dont actually know how i just heard that people who aren't autistic can still just tell that there is something different there is no way we can see this unfortunately because we only have bits of her life but we know she did have friends who she would mainly talk gossip with but moving on to her death which we have of course much more to go off she dose say very out of pocket things one example which I think alot of people think she was purposely trying to insult Alison but I think she was not really trying to do that she was saying amd making a point of how Alison seemed and that she was not lady like and following the rules whatever but i don't think Fanny saw an attualy problem with what she was saying and this is the “when you first arrived here I though you where a prostitute” she doesn’t really see how this could upset or offende someone she just speaking her mind with no filter she dose not have a filter even when following the rules she was given she still says things which she didn't realise she could not or would not be appropriate so I still think yes to this she dose communication in a strange way with the other characters she can be quite blunt and rude not knowing she is being because it fits within her rules that she knows. Another thing worth noting here is that fanny is closest with the captain who is also quite obviously autistic I think*2 and neurodivergent*3 people tend to become friends with eachother like that.

The main thing I can think of for this is In fanny's body language she always has the same pose same face on she dose notice others body language because she does give out to Alison from doing things not like a lady but again that is most likely learnt she learnt this is how a lady is meant to have her body language and she learnt exactly what to do and look out for when they did the panto for Alison she could not do a different character for fairy God mother and evil step mother the tone the body language was exactly the same despite them being obviously very different characters.

Fanny shows little interest in forming friendships with her fellow ghost, Martha Howe Douglas even says on the podcast that she doesn't like any of them I don't think this Is fully true but it is worth noting also note that many things said on that podcast where also not fully correct I think so it is to be taken with a grain of salt, Fanny definition of friends is “peers and intellectual equals” but a better definition is “a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection” so she dose not understand friendships fully, I also think she tends to misinterpret others relationships for example when you read the book you can see how obvious George's affair with the butler and gardner was she also panicked a lot when she was briefly attracted to Mike she made it alot more dramatic than it really was it took her a while to catch on to the fact that she was being just as bad as Betty in the final and she did not notice the captain being gay either most of the ghosts noticed this. She again dose not fully know when she's being rude I don't think she doesn’t know what is and isn't appropriate to say to Alison and the other ghosts, she also viewed Alison as her own daughter which I did notice that but some people did not it was not the most clear on account of how rude she was to Alison so alot of people did not notice she dose not know why this matters and maybe thinks she's being A lot more obvious as a mother then she really is. Said before but diffrent context when they where doing the panto she could not do a difference between he fairy God mother and evil step mother very different character.

As well as that you also need to have three of the four traits I will put next 

B. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history 

Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).

Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat same food every day).

Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).

Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment (e.g. apparent indifference to pain/temperature, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, visual fascination with lights or movement).

I will now go through if and when I think she shows these behaviors

So a lot of the ghosts do things like this more obvious ones would be the Captain, Mary and Robin I am being honest I don't notice these as much in Fanny but let's go through it, one of the main things people notice is in the captain and all the noises he makes mary pat and fanny do this also (+Robin echolalia) Mary more than Pat but Fanny does this also!! Listen to her there's a video somewhere on YouTube titled the sound of fanny or something she does the same sort of stimming noises that they do another thing this is a bit of overthinking perhaps but the way fanny stand her posture the way she holds herself if you look at it she does almost the same one all the time and it's like she holds her own hands and has then on front of her and she sort of moves around the hands now if you copy this posture and you hold your hands tight and you sort of move around the hands it's like hers so I think she's holding her hands tight she's trying to keep still but still moving around that suppressing stims??? Maybe I think so she also if you look close at her hands her thumb moves every so often and sort of very small strokes her hands this could be the stim that got out of her trying to suppress it if you look at her and if you look at the captain in that scene where havers gives him the letter about France surrendering and he runs to the window he is quite obviously If you watch it then you watch him as a ghost, suppressing stims the feel of that scene is very similar to the feel of fanny's scenes. Also when she was combing robins hair could also be a stim thing feeling textures can be a stim.

 This is why people usually if they do think Fanny is autistic think it, she can not handle change like at all it can not affect her ons bit and she can't deal with it she get really stressed and really annoyed about it she can not handle it, she does come around to change eventually for example the land being sold she gets very upset about it then she goes off she calms down she talks about it to Thomas and then she is okay she has a big reaction is very upset by it and then she regulates and eventually accepts it. I also think her insisting Alison follows all her rules to be a lady could be part of this. It is common in autism to care a lot about rules and get stressed if they are not followed but not everyone is like this. I definitely think that's part of this as well as other things. When mary got sucked off she panicked alot she first did not process it which delayed processing can also be a thing with autism I do think she shows this sometimes for example when Alison got pushed it took her a bit and then she got mad but that was also her thinking alot and being lost in thought, she doesn't really process it until Mary's moving on starts bringing up change in her life and now she realize something is missing this is going to be different and her friend is gone she has no idea what to do with herself after realizing this she just panics.

Fanny most definitely has fixations I think one of them was murder she wrote which she was very fixated on for a while so much that she brang it into her own life (death) if it weren't for that they would not have known about Lucy I do this also I try bring whatever I'm currently fixated on into every aspect of my life every project I do I learn new things because of it it really makes its way into your life, I also with Dante Dante the stuffed dog I'm not sure is that an object because it was a dog but now is it still a dog or an object dog or and object/dog? But yes, saying you love a stuffed dog more than anything In the world I think is an unusually strong attachment to a thing. Another note is that she is very good with animals. She had a lot and I think I heard that that is common with autistic people but I'm not sure.

Now this one is a bit harder because she is dead but I said before but combing robins hair sensory seeking feeling textures she very much did not like it when she had to go I'm the basement because she did not like the plague ghosts or the environment for sensory reasons could be both this one is more hard because they don't feel everything In death so I do not know.

So Fanny Button dose fit the autism criteria the best I can try prove that I am not a doctor I just really love ghosts and i think this explains a lot about her character 

In conclusion I believe fanny button is autistic I believe she fits the criteria for autism and I think she is specifically a high masking autistic I think without that detail it doesn't make sense but I love this theory because it makes her make sense and it helps you to think about her character better.

Goodbye 

Notes 2

*the maths thing was never mentioned after that though but you can have multiple special interests so I could be that and something else like maybe all her ladylike rules or her pets gossip don't know

*2 I also think mary is autistic specifically they all have traits lots of them and I'd say I could do this for most of them but it is worth noting, noting that's all we can completely ignore it after this but in TV shows the characters they are people but they are different then people so it's much easier to see autistic traits and traits of anything like for example personality disorders that maybe if they were a real person it would not be the same but that's it I love all the theory's regarding this and they all fit and make sense 

*3 yeah they are all neurodivergent probably also I think Fanny and the captain are very similar and show a lot of there autistic traits in the same way or similar 

hopefully all this information is correct thank you for reading if you have anything to add I would love to hear it

#bbc ghosts #fanny button #bbc ghosts fanny #lady button

[strkyoo]

PAIRING ; kaeya alberich x gn!reader

IN WHICH ; you didn’t return his ‘i love you’ like you always do.

NOTE ; FIRST POST YAYYY !!! you have no idea how much i love kaeya alberich from the hit game called genshin impact !!!!!! — wc ; 551 :3

// FLUFF — romcom (romance comedy)?, established relationship, pet names (darling), kaeya and reader lives together ig, reader is referred as “s/o”

“bye, darling. i’m off to work.” kaeya exclaimed as he walked toward your living room, leaned closer to the couch and intentionally pressed his body closer against yours, planting a light kiss on your forehead and your cheeks.

he’s always been this cheeky and flirty, not that you don’t like it though. but wouldn’t it be a perfect chance to pull a silly prank on him?

“mhm.” you hummed with a soft nod, still focusing on your book instead of him. at first kaeya just chuckled, finding your serious and focused expression cute.

he brushed it off quickly and took your book for a while, pressed his lips against your lips to get your attention. “i love you, and see you at five.” he murmured meekly, kissing your cheeks yet again.

you didn’t return the kiss and just nodded again, trying to get your book back from him. but he frowned and put your book nearby a table and straddled on top of your lap, his hand resting on your thigh.

“whoa, is there anything you want before leaving?” you asked with a fake confused tone, trying to get off his tight grasp. “not until you say it back to me.”

“say what back?” you continued to ask with raised eyebrows and a slightly tilted head, making kaeya groaned in irritation. “the words, s/o! the thing i just said earlier!”

“huh? … oohhh … okay,” you smirked at him as his eyes began to fill with hope. “... see you at five.”

kaeya deadpanned when you said that, without any shame nor cracked voice. “s/o, seriously,” he sighed with a frown again, oh how you love his desperate expression so much.

you know kaeya will never ever work in peace if you don’t mutter ‘i love you’ back to him, and you want to test him.

“hmph … i love you.”

“i know.”

“i love you.”

“...”

“i love you.”

“... don’t you say you need to work?”

“work can wait. i love you.”

“...”

“i love you.”

“mhm.”

“i love you.”

“are you not getting bored of this?”

“not until you say it back to me.”

“...”

“i love you.”

“i love you. so much.”

you sighed at his stubbornness, suddenly leaned closer to press a lazy kiss on his neck—causing him to flinch in surprise.

“fine. love you too.” you mumbled while looking at his lightened up face, grinning playfully. well, at least it was worth it to see his desperate side.

he hummed as he gave back your book, going off from your lap and grabbing his stuff quickly. you sighed loudly in relief because of how hard he pushes his body to yours, and now you can breathe steadily with no problem.

you turned back to kaeya, spotting him unlock the door and going out from your shared house. he gave you one last cheeky wink before closing the door.

that jerk … you have no idea how you could fell for him this hard.

likes, comments & reblogs are appreciated (with tags) ! ♡

— @strkyoo, 2023.

#—kyos writing #kaeya alberich #kaeya #kaeya x reader #kaeya x gn reader #kaeya x you #kaeya x male reader #kaeya x y/n #genshin headcanons #kaeya x gender neutral reader #genshin x gn reader #genshin fanfic #genshin imagines #genshin x reader #genshin impact #gn reader #gender neutral reader #male reader #x gn reader #x gender neutral reader #genshin x male reader #genshin impact x you #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x gender neutral reader #genshin impact x male reader #i love kaeya so much it hurts 🧎 #I LOVE KAEYA #aaahwhaiiajsksks #fluff #romcom

[tomatoland]

The TopMew scene that was cut was redundant. We already know top is remorseful and Mew is angry. So I’m not surprised it was cut. He should have kept in the other Top scene though where he turned down the hook up. That would have been more impactful for the character.

Oops, I totally did not see this until now. I doubt you are still around, anon, but I’m going to answer this because I finally organized my thoughts.

I wasn't referring to just the break room scene in that post. It's a cascading effect. There is Mew's softened dialogue in EP 6 confrontation, the two previous cut TopMew scenes, and the break room scene. The fact that Jojo said he wish he kept those earlier two TopMew scenes should not be the case. He should not be regretting anything. Everything he wants to show us, should all be on the table. It is HIS art vision. And if they were not editing the episode the same week as it aired, he would have been able to realize that he wanted to put those scenes back in and done so.

That's what I meant by pacing and confirming the storyline is progressing the way he wants. But what is happening is one cut in one episode is leading to another cut in a future episode because there is no basis for the action anymore. As a result, we are losing overall continuity. And who knows what else they'll have to cut because of the editing choices they've already made. Which is why I am worried, they won't have the scenes left to make this a satisfying TopMew reunion at the rate they are going.

I wish we didn't have the interview where Jojo said that because it's making me not trust him with TopMew anymore. If he realized earlier that those scenes didn't fit, they should have done re-shoots but instead we just have cascading cuts.

Removing all these scenes is removing depth from TopMew. It is making them into surface characters. And none of this deleted footage is canon so there is that too.

Yes, definitely, the scene were Top is trying to move on is incredibly important to learning about Top and how he feels about Mew. And they should have kept that regardless of what random people in the fandom think.

But even the deleted scene of Mew's revenge fantasy of wanting to physically hurt Top from episode 7 is important because it provides a basis for his violent thoughts and words in the break room scene. I wish they had shown it at least the TopMew portion as a flash like an intrusive thought while he was in the tub. Everyone has intrusive thoughts, right? No one could fault Mew for that.

So by not showing us that Mew has had violent thoughts, now Mew's anger in the break room scene seems to come out of nowhere so it no longer fit.

I don't agree about the break room scene being redundant. The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

So instead of knowing that Mew is still incredibly angry and therefore his actions are irrational, what we got was Mew saying "okay" to trying it again with Top here by the pool and then at the end of the episode, inviting Boeing to go wakeboarding with them and saying shit like this to him.

Oops. I meant to cut the collage below in half, but I’ve already hit 10 images, so read left column and right column separately.

Now, Mew just seems wishy-washy. I would rather have seen the depth of Mew's pain and rage then absolutely nothing at all, his indeterminable poker face however sweet it looks.

Mew being wishy-washy/indifferent or just deciding to get back at Top on any given random day means their relationship doesn't have a viable path forward right now. Because if they cannot communicate honestly and vulnerably about what happened with Boston, their relationship cannot ever heal and get healthy. They'll just always be stepping around the cracks. This is the albatross I was referring to in this post.

Mew has never broken down and cried. We've gotten the lone tear, here or there. And we know from this BTS that they have footage of Book crying his heart out. As the viewer, we haven't seen it because Jojo is not painting us a picture.

But removing the break room scene also removed depth from Top too and TopMew's relationship in general.

It shows us that Top is really sorry and willing to show with actions not just with his words that he wants Mew to move forward, so THEY can move forward. Him being unsure of how to handle a wrathful Mew, but still wanting to try. Him saying he already talked to Boeing, since Mew is deeply insecure about him. Him holding Mew's hand and trying to break down this fortress Mew has built around his heart piece by piece.

The song I posted of what I thought the scene could be saying if it had stayed in. Top's POV: "Love, I don't know how this shit works, but I know we could work things out if we just work together." And that's the key phrase "work together."

And this appeasement photo and answering a fan's tweet that we're going to see happy Mew soon. Jojo thinks we're so dumb.

All I want to do is scream back, "But are they ever going to TALK?!" TopMew cannot just solve this with sex. We need soul vulnerability. And I'm bloody annoyed because prior to episode 10 that is literally all they needed, but instead TopMew went backwards.

#topmew #ofts #only friends the series #tomat answers #asks #top tanin #mew witsarut

[sleepingdeath-light]

what kind of dad he’d be hcs ; zeke yeager

requested by ; anonymous (10/10/23)

fandom(s) ; attack on titan

fandom masterlist(s) ; here

character(s) ; zeke yeager

outline ; “Hello! Can I request a dad headcanons (as in reader is his kid) about Reiner or Zeke [you can do both of them if you feel like it] (AoT)? What kind of father would he be and how would he deal with being a single parent. Those dudes have some issues, so I'm curious how that would impact their parenting styles. Have a nice day or night!”

note ; very shaky characterisation as i haven’t written for reiner before — also this spans from pre-rumbling to just before his death

warning(s) ; canon typical references to violence and angst, but mostly fluff!

though he is a notably ruthless and cunning tactician on the battlefield, when it comes to his role as your father zeke does his best to be just about everything his own father wasn’t — sometimes this translates to his patience when helping you learn about the history of your world or another fundamental skill, and other times this means him greeting you with warmth and affection after a successful mission with his fellow soldiers (giving you all of the attention he was denied growing up… or, well, as much of it as he can afford to give due to how all consuming his role can be)

when he’s out on missions or training it’s his grandparents that take care of you, making sure that you’re well loved and supported as you learn and grow as a person — they’re also the ones that keep track of any milestones you reach in his absence so that he’s able to quickly get back up to speed whenever he comes home

every second that he has to spare is spent doting on you: playing games together, helping you with your homework, helping you read that new book he bought you, eating together as a family, and giving you every little gift he collected on his missions away — it’s hard to find something that’s not charred and broken after he’s attacked a town, but he somehow always manages because in zeke’s mind you only deserve the best

he deals with an immense amount of guilt for bringing you into a world where you’re seen as a threat for your heritage and while he does go through a period of deliberation just after your birth, in the end he still decides to go through with his plan of sterilising all eldians — he loves you, adores you even, but he’s well and truly set on doing what he perceives to be the right thing for all of humanity… even if it means negatively impacting you in the process

zeke is all too aware that his time on this earth has been massively shortened by his adoption of the beast titan form, and naturally he started putting in measures from your infancy to ensure that you’d be well taken care of after his inevitable death — he arranged for his grandparents to formally adopt you and take you in, starts writing letters to you in his free time for all of those milestones he’s going to miss, sera aside some clothing and other items of his for you to keep as reminders of him, and even goes and gets a formal family picture done when you’re old enough to remember it

he doesn’t talk to you much about your grandparents, diana and grisha, but you learn the basics from your great grandparents — who they were, what happened to them, and what their relationship with your father was like (of course zeke leaves you a letter with a full explanation about your heritage to read once you’re old enough, and he’s long dead, but for now all you need to know is the ‘who’ and that they died a long time before you were born)

of course he isn’t perfect and, as much as he tries to emulate the positive example set by his grandparents, there are times when he makes mistakes and lashes out at you for something you’ve done (usually interrupting him when he’s in a meeting or doing something dangerous without realising just how risky your behaviour was) — in those moments he’ll scream so harshly that you can’t help but be terrified, and the moment you start crying and he notices it you’ll see him freeze as he snaps out of his anger before he goes to comfort you and apologise

he refuses to be like grisha

he’s extremely protective and secretive about you and isn’t above threatening or killing people that try to leverage your existence against him — in fact he’s so keen on keeping your existence as his child as much of a secret as possible that there are only a small handful of people that know about you (namely your family — including eren when zeke was trying to get him to sympathise with his cause — and a few of his most trusted fellow warriors)

#sleepingdeath #gender neutral reader #child reader #platonic x reader #fluff #fluff hcs #aot x reader #platonic aot x reader #aot fluff #snk x reader #platonic snk x reader #snk fluff #attack on titan x reader #attack on titan fluff #platonic attack on titan x reader #zeke yeager x reader #platonic zeke yeager x reader #zeke yeager fluff

[therosefrontier]

TWST Family Lore: Heartslabyul Part 2

Continued from Heartslabyul part 1, because I forgot doing the whole dorm at once would make this huge... Again, spoiler warning for JP server content! But there isn't anything too story-specific for the events here.

Cater Diamond

And now, following our freshmen duo and their positive relationship with their families, we get to move on to Cater! Whose relationship with them is, uh, mixed at best? Anyways, we have mention of his father and mother, and he has two older sisters of unknown exact age, as well. His father is a banker for a large company, and we learn that because of his job, the family moved frequently, about once every two years, to branches all around the world (Halloween vignette). Cater's homeland is stated in his profile to be the Shaftlands, so that's probably where his family is from and it might be where they are living currently, but he seems to have lived in other countries, as well. This alone appears to have had a negative impact on Cater…with him moving so often, he felt that he was never able to make meaningful connections with anyone, so he stopped trying, instead going for quantity over quality. We also get a little story in Silver's Halloween vignette, when he remembers finally meeting a friend at school only to find out right afterwards that they were going to be moving in a month. He mentions in his birthday boy vignette as well that he "never knew" when they were going to move again, and given the one-month thing, it seems normal that it was on pretty short notice. He talks about this impact on him to his Pop Music clubmates in his Halloween vignette, saying that he met many people from around the world, but the common thread was that "I would always leave, and they would always stay."

(image credit: NightCrow)

Cater talks about his situation in a positive light, saying that it was better that he had all these connections through Magicam and could just socialize casually, on his own terms, but at the end of the vignette, the story goes a little different. Cater watches Lilia have a very family-like moment with the rest of the Diasomnia crew and feels a sense of isolation and maybe jealousy...earlier, Lilia told him he was wise for acting as he did, but Cater sees this and feels that Lilia cannot know the way he feels, because he does have these kinds of bonds, which Cater thinks he can never truly have.

But Cater's relationship with loneliness is, again, is a whole essay in itself! Back to Cater's family!

He talks some about his sisters in his birthday boy vignette, in which he describes how he felt pressed in between the two of them (seemed described a little differently in official vs. fan translations? As the official has him saying "give a guy some space" whereas the original may have been more along the lines of 'squished between them', to reference Mystery Shop), and also, how they'd give him a bunch of "cute" things as a birthday present which was more on lines of what they liked than what he liked. But, he does say that they're better about it now and will actually ask him what he wants. He also assures they didn't mean anything by it.

(translation by Otome Ayui!)

But of course, there's more! Multiple other mentions of his sisters seem to involve them asking him to do stuff...

Will do things like go shopping and leave him with the bags, or get a random craving for ice cream and ask him to go get it (birthday jacket vignette). Cater says they can be "pretty demanding," but he amends this story by saying that they will also treat him to stuff while they're out, like pocket money, food, or clothes.

Asked him for a Scalding Sands body scrub that had been "all over Magicam" since he was there for Fireworks Fest (Silk Adorned voicelines)

Cater would cook for them, making pancakes from a store-bought mix (although this might not have been a request; he could have just wanted to) (Apprentice Chef vignette)

At the start of book 4 (chapter 3), when everyone is going home for winter break, Cater says that "going home is kind of a drag for me, too," talking of how he knows his sisters will "run me ragged," so he makes a weak bid to go to Trey's house instead. When Trey lightheartedly counters that his family would put him to work too, Cater backs out of the idea.

Cater's not wanting to go home slides its way in a couple of other mentions, too... in his dorm uniform voicelines, he asks the MC if they're homesick and gets the question thrown back at him, to which he says that he isn't, citing his "annoying" older sisters as the cause. In slight contrast, in his New Year's voicelines, he says that it’s “not too bad to work during the holiday seasons once in a while” because “sure, it’s fun to go back home, but it eventually gets boring.” So this time, it's just 'boring' and not a family issue, but honestly, with Cater, the shifting story doesn't feel out of place. And definitely, it's up for interpretation...he doesn't seem to hate his sisters, but he doesn't really want to be with them, either.

Now, back to the birthday boy vignette! We get another little story, the reason why Cater doesn't like sweets so much: his mother and older sisters got really into making homemade sweets all the time, and they would feed them to him until he was sick of them. Even if he didn't want any, he felt like he had to eat it because they'd be sad if he didn't.

And then, there's his lab vignette... Cater describes the relationship his family as a whole has with "cute" things: “in the Diamond household, everything's judged by one simple question: ‘But is it cute?’ Day in and day out, no matter what I did, if it wasn't cute, it didn't cut the mustard! Drawings, handicrafts, store-bought sweets, you name it!” And thus, the instinct to make it cute was "burned" into Cater's brain.

So, you could say that "trendiness" runs in the family. But also, this does...raise some questions, I'd think? Again, it really is up for interpretation, but Cater specifically saying "no matter what I did" seems to suggest that he felt like the stuff he bought and things he did, including his own drawings and crafts, would be dismissed if they weren't "cute." Like the reason the instinct is burned into him is because that's what he had to do to earn attention. It also feels a little telling that this is the Cater-tries-to-hide-his-sadness vignette, in which one of the mandrakes he grows in the lab, which are supposed to reflect on the mage growing them, turns out gloomy, and he tries hard to deny that this means anything. But as for what all this says about his relationship to his family...I'd guess that perhaps, he feels a little invisible with them. It's not like he doesn't care about them, or that they don't care about him, necessarily (neglect but not on purpose?), but he doesn't seem to feel like his own wants are ever really seen, and the disconnect is to the point that home is not really a place he wants to be. Maybe, one day, he'll open up more about this, but with Cater, I don't think it'll come easy. But who knows...

TREY CLOVER

And now, Trey's family! He lives with his father and mother, and he has two younger siblings, a sister and brother. His sister is four years younger than him (platinum vignette), but we don't now how old his brother is. His parents run a patisserie bearing their name: Clover Patisserie. They are bakers, and likewise, Trey grew up learning how to cook from them, and in his apprentice chef vignette, he seems to imply that his siblings know their way around the kitchen, too. Also, we do have canon[?] designs for Trey's parents! We get art in the appendix of the last volume of the Heartslabyul manga:

(thanks to Honeyworks on Twitter for the image!)

The illustration is credited to Yana Toboso, whose notes, as run through Google Translate (I do not know Japanese...), describes Trey's mom as an "active woman with short cut, tall" and his dad as having "mild droopy eyes." In this appendix, we also get ages for Trey, Chenya, and Riddle at the time of the incident (that is, the big backstory as seen in book 1 of Trey inviting Riddle to try a tart at the patisserie but then they lose track of time and Riddle gets caught...that whole thing...). Trey is almost ten, Chenya is nine, and Riddle is eight, which seems to suggest that this happened in fall, in between Trey and Riddle's birthdays (Riddle on 8/24 and Trey on 10/25). Trey describes the event in more detail in his dorm vignette: he says that Riddle's mom "stormed" into his house and lectured his "whole entire family for five hours straight." (which is an insane amount of time...how did she come up with that many things to say!?) Also, to clarify, there seems to be a serious translation discrepancy with this? Because in the official English Trey says that it was his parents who lectured him for that time, but that doesn't even make sense in context... The quote I used is pulled from Mystery Shop's translation, and YuuRei has a good post on this, too. Anyways, the scene is also referenced in chapter 17 of the manga with Trey's flashback:

Which is...quite devastating, but anyways! As far as I can see, we don't really have much indication of what Trey's parents felt about all of this, but in the manga at least, they appear to be pretty stressed...maybe even cowed by Rosehearts's laying into them like that, and who can blame them?

But, moving aside to happier times! Continuing with Trey's parents, we get a little mention of what they were like as teachers through his apprentice chef vignette. Trey is doing the Culinary Crucible to better learn how to teach cooking to his dormmates, and he comes to a realization: his parents would watch him cook, but sometimes, they wouldn't correct him when he did something wrong until after he failed, because that way, through failure, he would remember, and he would learn. That was what Trey was not doing with his dormmates: he would always step in to fix things rather than let them have that experience.

Trey also talks of his really beginning cooking days in his platinum vignette: when he was four, he helped his parents bake a fairy cake after his sister was born, which they ate with family and neighbors, that being a Queendom of Roses tradition. Trey says that looking back at the pictures, the cake was pretty terrible, but he was excited about helping and thought the cake tasted great at the time, and all the adults complimented him on it, too. After that day, he would join his parents in the kitchen to help bake cakes, although he said he really just made a mess of flour and probably was a "huge bother" for his parents. That said, from the sounds of it, it seems implied that they were pretty patient with him, though?

Trey gives a different food-related story in his birthday boy vignette: his favorite food is candied violets, and he had one for the first time when he was "really young," before he started elementary school. He was amazed at the idea of flowers being edible, and his parents tell him that he "drove them nuts" via repeatedly trying to eat random flowers and weeds after that. Trey has no memory of this. But he does remember snacking on violets at home that were meant for cakes and his parents getting on his case about it. Eventually, they started setting some aside from him, and now, they send some to him at school in the occasional care package.

(image credit: NightCrow)

Trey also mentions his parents in one of his Silk Adorned card voicelines, saying that they love trying out new ingredients, and that perhaps, they should take a family trip to the Scalding Sands one day. Also, in both his birthday jacket vignette and his outdoor wear voicelines, he mentions that he's gone on camping trips with his family before, during summer vacation.

In Trey's Halloween vignette, we get a little story involving all of his family: he once tried half-rimmed glasses similar to the shape Azul wears, to mixed results. His mother and little sister said that they didn't like the glasses because they made him look "angry," and his dad and little brother said that he looked cool in them... because the glasses made him look like a "movie villain." Therefore, Trey rejected the glasses. He has also considered getting contacts, but similarly, his sister says he looks "sinister" without them.

(image credit: Songstress Studios)

Trey has several mentions of his siblings: they seem to have spent a lot of time together growing up, although also, it seems Trey did a lot of looking after them and taking care of them, too.

It was Trey's "job" to make sure his younger siblings brushed their teeth properly, as them being exposed to sweets so much via the patisserie made it a necessity (school uniform vignette)

Trey would make his siblings' costumes for Halloween. He says he's "not great" at it, but he can sew basic things (Halloween voicelines)

Trey would bake his siblings' cakes for their birthdays (birthday boy voicelines). He also mentions in Ace's school uniform vignette that his siblings would often "pester" him to bake for them, and he says in his birthday boy vignette that he would usually cook dinners for the family back at home, since his parents were busy with the patisserie. His brother and sister would ask for his hamburger steak all the time.

Trey helps his siblings with their homework when he's home (Winter Break Calendar 2023)

Trey and his siblings would often play with fireworks together (Silk Adorned vignette)

Once, Trey took his little brother to a Spelldrive game to fulfill his Starsending wish (Starsending voicelines)

In one of his labwear voicelines, Trey says "you all remind me of my younger siblings. They're always running around and giving me a hard time.” So, it does seem that they certainly tire him out. Again, going back to book 4, chapter 3, as mentioned in Cater's part, Trey responds to Cater's request by saying he's welcome to come to his house, but his family would run him "just as ragged." (but, if he was serious about that, that would suggest that Trey knew that his parents wouldn't mind Cater coming over!) It appears that, with the patisserie family business, it can be an 'all hands on deck' kind of affair, with Trey at least helping out with running things. There's also a little mention in Ace's school uniform vignette, in which Trey says that he's used to carrying heavy things because of shopping for ingredients for the patisserie.

Which is all rather interesting to me, really… both Trey and Cater describe their family as 'running them ragged' in some way and relying on them to do stuff, but with very different tones. For Trey, the 'older brother' instincts are so ingrained in him that he doesn't seem to think twice about it much of the time, such as we see in his school uniform vignette, in which he acts on those same instincts with his peers, Ace and Deuce, in insuring that their teeth are clean, and Deuce notes that he has that "kind older brother" vibe and has a "knack for looking after everyone." Which is interesting in that Trey doesn't really seem to be trying to volunteer for everything, and he certainly isn't trying to stand out, but he will take on everything in pursuit of keeping this ship running smoothly, all the same.

That said, he does seem to have a very positive relationship with his family! Although their busy lives might have led to a bit of a he-raised-his-siblings kind of dynamic. Trey seems to be usually very relaxed when talking about them, thinking back on the stories with a kind of fondness. We don't quite have too much to go on yet when it comes to actually deducing the personalities of his siblings as individuals, but from the general mentions, they do seem quite energetic, for sure! And perhaps, much like so much of the Heartslabyul dorm, will instinctively rely on Trey without a second thought...

RIDDLE ROSEHEARTS

And now, last on the Heartslabyul roster...Riddle. The ever-infamous family of Riddle. A lot of what we know comes from Book 1 of the main story: he's an only child, and both of his parents are medical mages—famous ones, too. Trey says that where they're from, everyone knew their names. Riddle's father is mentioned, but we hear little of his involvement in Riddle's life—the main player on this stage is his mother, who rigorously trained Riddle up to follow in her steps.

In chapter 18 of book 1, Trey first describes what it was like for Riddle: his mother mapped out his schedule to the minute, "from the moment Riddle woke up to when his head hit the pillow at the end of the night," and in the flashback sequence in chapter 25, Riddle describes it in much the same way: "my day was planned, down to the minute." Riddle's mom tailor-made an education program for him and appears to have implemented it herself, and Riddle, in an effort to please his parents, followed every rule they made. He became a prodigy, mastering his signature spell by age ten.

Riddle's mom was very strict with his diet, as well—she kept to very healthy foods, limited Riddle to under 600 calories per meal, and absconded sugar entirely. And thus comes the point of conflict...in the story, Riddle, who was eight at the time, was invited by Trey and Chenya to come outside to play during his one hour of independent study time (in which he was supposed to be studying alone in his room), and then, he started playing with them in secret every day, and it became his favorite part of his day. Then, one day, Trey invites Riddle to try a tart at the patisserie, and they lose track of time...and then, Riddle's mother finds him. She was furious, both at his skipping independent study time and his eating a "mountain of sugar." And then, as mentioned in Trey's section, she goes on to lecture Trey's family for five whole hours.

In this scene with Riddle and his mom, Riddle tries hard to apologize, but she cuts him off, telling him to be quiet, and then forbidding him with playing with Trey and Chenya ever again, and also taking away his independent study time in favor of keeping closer watch on him. In Trey's dorm uniform vignette, he describes Riddle's mom as being "impossible to deal with once she flew off the handle." And so, Riddle was left to just strive to follow the rules she set down, believing that she must be right, for "she was the most accomplished mother in the city, and therefore, the most correct," and he didn't want to lose anything, not again... He also quotes her in chapter 22, saying that "a man who cannot follow rules is a man who cannot achieve anything."

In book 4, chapter 3, we see that Riddle is feeling some dread over going back home for the winter break, but he also does resolve to try to talk to his mother, not that he's confident she will listen. We don't have any mention of how that talk actually went.

Interestingly enough, we don't seem to have that many mentions from Riddle about his family outside of the main story in his voicelines and vignettes, compared to some of the others. He does talk some about his upbringing in his birthday boy vignette: his parents both raised him to take up the mantle and be a medical mage like them one day, which he describes as being a "highly demanding profession." He said that they would tell him over and over "When you grow up, you'll be just like us, Riddle!" Before NRC, Riddle never questioned this path for him, but now, he says that he has developed some interest in law, so he may actually pursue that instead.

In one of his suitor suit voicelines, Riddle mentions that wearing this makes him think of the parties he used to attend with his parents. He also gives a mention in his halloween vignette that his mother taught him social dancing, so it seems like the three of them did go to formal social functions from time to time.

He also mentions his parents in another suitor suit voiceline, talking about how he reads that the Queen of Hearts had an amicable marriage, and he wishes he could share that secret to his parents, which would suggest that their marriage is not doing that great, actually.

Anyhow, social functions aside, it seems like Riddle probably has not had any "real" vacations with his family, or just fun gatherings/outings in general. In one of his Masquerade voicelines, he says "I'm not very accustomed to festivals...especially not ones in other countries. It's difficult to know how to participate and have fun.” And this comes up a lot, it seems, in the 'Lost in the Book' Stitch event, where Riddle is quite unfamiliar with the concept of a vacation at the beach. In one of his beachwear voicelines, he says “Having dinner with everyone while gazing at a sunset on the beach like this… This must be what it means to go on vacation. This is the first time I’ve experienced anything like this.” (Mystery Shop's translation)

In book 6, we get another brief mention of Riddle's mother: upon being invited by Ortho and Idia to play video games to pass the time, Riddle says that his mother told him that video games are "addictive and can hurt academic performance." They had neither a gaming console nor a TV at home. Riddle hasn't read much, if any, fiction aside from classic literature either, from the looks of it. It comes up in the second Halloween event, Spectral Soiree: Ruggie and Ortho, whom Riddle is traveling with, get excited over the prospect of this being like a treasure hunt, with so many tropes coming to life, and they quickly find out that Riddle is wholly unfamiliar with what they are talking about. He says that he has "no exposure" to comic books and video games like the rest of them.

He then goes on to say that he is missing out on absolutely nothing, has read many things, and was reading medical dictionaries by the time he was "Ortho's age." Whether that Ortho's real or perceived age is unclear, as literally, he might be about six? I think Idia finished building him when he was twelve? But Riddle may not know that—obviously, Ortho being what he is gives him a great kickstart in mental development, besides being given memories of the original Ortho, so as far as perceived age goes, he's akin to the freshmen. But saying all that to say! I also wouldn't be surprised if Riddle really was being handed a medical dictionary at age six, honestly.

So, in a general sense, you could conclude that Riddle has a great unfamiliarity with the concept of "fun," which gives a bit of a picture as to his parents and his mother specifically. It was as if everything had to have some sense of necessity; it wasn't enough for something to just be enjoyable. Riddle was put to a strict standard of performance, and in turn, he expects the same of others, in a way he seems to have to take some effort to unlearn. In his dorm vignette, for instance, we see him helping Cater, who was struggling in his practical magic class, with his studying. At first, he makes this insanely long study guide (300 pages), and he gets annoyed when Cater says that this is far too much for him to read, because this is exactly what he is used to doing, thinking that if you don't want to do something, you should just force yourself to (which I imagine is the philosophy his own childhood education took). But then, after a talk with Trey, he realizes that he can't expect everyone to learn like he does, so instead, he makes a plan to teach Cater through pictures and Magicam hashtags so that he could remember them, and it works! And then he goes right back to giving Cater a bunch of textbooks at the end, but hey, it's a start :)

That said, Riddle's development is easily a whole essay on its own! The takeaway here with his parents is that both of them put a lot of expectations on him and are probably very success-driven themselves. In a way, it 'worked' for them, because they are very successful and famous, but their general happiness may be another story. Again, we get little of Riddle's dad specifically except that his relationship with his mom is not great, but with his mom, we get the impression that she is just...very high-strung and obsessive? Her rigorous training of Riddle goes beyond just wanting him to have a good education—she obsesses over his progress in a way that seems to invoke that if anything goes in a way other than what she envisions, Riddle would be hopelessly failed. It's "care" in the worst kind of way... I think that she really does believe that everything she does is for him and his wellbeing, but doing things like that, it becomes a whole lot about herself too, I'd think. Riddle is an extension of her, and therefore, he must be perfect. We know little of what she is like outside of her relationship with Riddle, but it doesn't seem hard to believe that she would have some measure of that strictness and my-way-is-the-only-way attitude with everyone else in her life, although it may be comparatively muted, as it is with some people who will treat their children with a special kind of possessiveness, even if only subconsciously. I do wonder if anyone else ever got the equivalent of the five-hour tirade she gave to the Clover family, but of course, that's all speculation. The silver lining is that it didn't work for Riddle like she wanted it to...he's still his own person, and after he finally came to the point of admitting, at the end of book 1, that he was wrong, and that by extension, the things his mother did to him were wrong (although not so outright), he has become in a better position to grow and move on, although unfortunately, he still has to go back home at the end of the day, and his mom has not changed. It could be a difficult road for a long time yet... but still, I like to think that Riddle is on a better path now, and that, if he ever does become a parent one day, he'll be a better one than his own parents were.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst lore #twst family lore #cater diamond #trey clover #riddle rosehearts #and that concludes Heartslabyul! #again...so many thoughts #this turned into way more character analysis than I expected it to be #I'm just over here trying to figure out how to write the family members! #which of course for most of them will be a lot of extrapolation #to actually build a character #also special thanks to everyone out there making translations #that is SO valuable as a resource #and also everyone else info-gathering... #but anyhow my thoughts on Riddle are endless #I wish him happiness so hard #all of them actually #and don't get me started on Cater either #(says the person who already made the post haha)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I love your work and enjoy your theories, so I thought I'd pop up and ask a question, my question being; why do people like yuu so much? They don't really have a point in the story and stuff-this kinda sounds like I hate yuu but I don't I'm just curious on why they're liked in the EN Fandom so I apologize if I used the wrong choice of words or anything, also why is yuu called 'the therapist'?

Rather than saying “the EN fandom likes Yuu”, I think it’s more accurate to say “the EN fandom likes the idea of Yuu”. Yuu is not a character in of themselves, but is an easy proxy for anyone and everyone to self-insert (be it the player themselves or an OC of theirs) because they are so loosely defined. This makes it very easy to “project” (ie insert whatever traits you want) onto a blank slate on an individual level and to be more personally invested in the events related to Yuu.

In an ironic way, Yuu not having a major impact on the story encourages fans to create their own alternate tellings and scenarios (typically substituting their own interpretation of Yuu or an OC into their role) to change things. This, in turn, heightens the attachment to Yuu because of the time and effort being devoted to this insertion. Over time, the feelings can grow stronger with each repetition, and it forms a sort of bond and all the affection that may come with it.

This is in part why the self-insert and OC culture of TWST is so strong; Yuu is practically designed to be projected onto. Even the name may be a reference to this—Yuu as in, “you”. They’re meant to be “you”, so many people become attached yo Yuu because that is essentially a representation of “themselves” in the world of TWST (especially when you consider that one’s imagination amplifies this relationship).

Brief aside for a second, I want to emphasize that this is a phenomenon that is specific to the EN fandom. The JP side also has Yuusonas and OCs, but they are often not as fleshed-out as the ones you’ll see from the EN fandom. Most of the time, the Yuusonas/OCs from JP are more generalized (less individualized looks, far less details in backstories, etc.) so that any onlooker can still insert as the Yuu. Meanwhile, the Yuusonas and OCs from the EN side tend to go into a LOT of detail about their creations. I believe this reflects a fundamental cultural difference between JP and EN (more specifically America/Canada): collectivism vs individualism, conforming to a group vs standing out from the crowd. (I discuss other differences I’ve observed between JP and EN in this post.)

The “Yuu is NRC’s therapist” line is a joke from the earliest days in the fandom; this was way before most of the main story had come out and no one knew how little of a role Yuu would actually play in the overall narrative and changing the characters’ lives, nor the fact that the OB boys would get treatment from an actual therapist (a detail revealed in book 6, I believe). The therapist role was likely derived mainly from something Crowley says in the prologue about how Yuu can be the one that teaches the boys how to get along with one another. However, the more main story content released, the more it became apparent that what Crowley said was just flat-out untrue. (I go into more detail about that in this post.) Nowadays, I think that the term is used more ironically.

#twisted wonderland #twst #disney twisted wonderland #twst en #twisted wonderland en #Yuu #notes from the writing raven #question

[oathofkaslana]

klee warrior starter kit by meeee :3

ok to understand klee, you have to understand that her relationships are intrinsically linked to the way her character's written. i think a lot of the viewing of her as just a comedic relief character comes from the mistake of viewing her separately from where her character is intended to shine (in tandem w others!) yes, she is very obviously a comedic relief character, but that’s not all there is to her!

there's so so so much intention behind her:

her simplicity klee being simple both reinforces her youth and makes her an even better foil to the complex characters she interacts with because it makes her contrast with them! it also serves as a benchmark for what they were like/what they could have been before whatever situation shaped them. additionally, the way klee's story is right now feels like a set up for a grown up version of her that's more similar to the characters she foils!!! cant you see the version of klee where she does become her own main character where her brother's sacrifice and her mothers love and her guilt over constantly accidentally messing up/hurting others is used as something the expands her motivations for bringing others happiness?

her youth klee’s simple childhood naivety is the whole point of her character that’s why she’s a good foil. the point is that she’s at a point where all of her issues haven’t set in yet because she’s surrounded by so much love. i think it’s kinda obvious how alice not being constantly there is going to influence her. shes not introduced as someone important or someone w a potentially sad story. BUT SHE IS!!!!!!!!!!!! THATS THE PONIT!!!!!! her youth also completes the familial narratives she fulfills as someone representative of second chances (re: her being a foil, mhy's general tendency to treat the youth as a second chance)

her connections w fairy tales her being an elf, her weapon being a spell book, her events often having things to do with fictional stories or plays or books, etc etc. all of these tie back to the hexenzirkel and their literary allusions!! we could also argue her bunny theming fits in w alice as a potential reference to alice in wonderland! also note how the hexenzirkel have a history with venti who's a bard and also heavily associated w fairytales.

narrative:

ARAGGRRAG.. klee's character circles familial themes and love...

family the person she looks up to most is her mother, alice! all of her summer events have had something to do with alice!! she even references her mom w her skin! and in return, alice loves her back so so so fiercly!!!! but for the majority of the time, alice is not home!! this is so so important bc it sows the seeds for her as a foil for characters with familial issues (primarily albedo, kaeya, razor, jean). her youth comes into play here bc it's lets her fulfill this role as someone representative of each of these character's second chances, making it so so so impactful when these characters treat her w so much patience and kindness and love and even moreso when she returns all of those back! there's this one line from the secret summer paradise event where the group is watching as these three quarreling brothers were trying to make klee happy together and kaeya says, "Klee hasn't realized it yet, but her innocent, childlike nature is very powerful. It can inspire and even help heal others." (also note how the first GAA event brought together siblings in mond and how klee makes the KoF her family. re: her character stories) i could also add a whole section on her and albedo alone because oughhh... dear god. she is his little sister! in their first introduction alice, who literally asks albedo to call her mom, tells albedo "We'll be a family from now on, treat her like a real younger sister!" and klee acts as his primary link to mondstadt and humanity, literally drawing him away from his isolated lab and back into the main city because of her habit for making trouble (literally in his charactre stories btw). she thus becomes representative of humanity to him, something important because albedo has already decided that if he ever succumbs to durin's corruption, he would rather die than hurt mondstadt (also note how albedo's character is intertwined with an exploration of life and humanity and family). klee and alice's relationship also acts as a parallel of albedo and rhine's relationship. both alice and rhine being gone and yet so so so important to their children's lives to the point where both their outlooks and personal motivations are spurred by them! even alice's words mirroring albedo's musings on rhine!! ("My wish is simple: I want Klee to grow up with a curious yet kind heart. As long as she so desires, she can do anything and go anywhere." || ""I hope this isn't just wishful thinking, but… when parents speak to their children about 'the meaning of this world'… surely they just mean the pursuit of a happy life?" and In such a long life, parents are but a child's first connection. Even though we don't want to be separated, there will come the day when you must walk your own path." || "Reach the far side of philosophy, and create a new destiny for myself and your brothers…"). klee's relationship with albedo also works as a foil for albedo's relationship with durin! (both being sources of heat from the sheer cold, both being naive and reckless, klee being lucky and durin's remains being cursed, klee connecting albedo to alice while durin connects him to rhine, klee being the reason albedo comes back to mond and albedo's lab literally overlooking durin's remains..) extra section for her and razor :'') riirc this is when traveler first learns of klee. this is important because, again, razor's story heavily deals with family, whether it be his biological parents, his lupical, or his found family in mond. klee fits here because klee is the first person (not wolf!!) that razor calls his lupical (from his character stories).

mondstadti would honestly argue that klee's intangible from mondstadt and plays such a necessary role both bc of her being apart of the hexenzirkel's story through alice, and for the family narratives and how that ties in w venti and/or the traveler! (venti playing a parental role over mond and traveler going through a typical hero's journey where the story will end the same place it all started.) the familial themes in mondstadt are important since its the first nation, and w the hero's journey, the last nation the traveler visits. obv the traveler's story is also about family, making mondstadt's familial themes tying nicely w the traveler's as well.

symbolism! clovers and rabbits being associated w luck, her clovers being made out of four hearts as a reference to the fact that she's brought up on love <- note how theres also a heart on the back of her bag on her skin, her having a long life span fitting in w her birthday falling in summer where the days are longer, summer also being a season heavily associated with youth and playfulness, her celestial imagery (comparisons to the sun and stars) being indicative of her liveliness and capabilities of healing/growth (again, see the kaeya line from above and the sheer cold effect).

her compassion:

dear god she's literally the sweetest little girl in the world. i feel sick i forgot to say how caring klee is do you remember when she offered to give mona snacks in her backpack because she thought she was hungry? do you remember when she apologized to diona bc she thought she was mad at her and diona instantly deflated and told comforted her? do you remember when she busted out kaeya bc she thought he was grounded? do you remember when she got so excited at the thought of lisa making more board games but then reeled herself in because she was worried lisa would get tired? do you remember when she said goodbye to her mom and turned so that dodoco could say goodbye too? do you remember how she literally went home at night during the event because she promised she would :’)))) do you know how genuinely careful she tries to be with her bombs???? do you remember how in her story quest she literally goes straight to jean and tell on herself, even though she hates solitary confinement, because she felt so so guilty over hurting someone? (she literally goes ,"Mr. Fluffball was only a thief. He didn't deserve to blow up.") she left cat food outside under a sun umbrella when it started getting hotter because she was worried about the heat. when asked what she planned to do with her magic she says. actualluy lemme just copy and paste this whole quote:

"Klee... wants to make everyone really happy!" But with these words, the mage suddenly realized the problem with this desire— Those who are unhappy surely have their reasons for being sad. Would a smile forced upon their lips through magic be even more painful and ugly than tears? Fortunately, her little mind worked quickly, and she soon found her answer: Then I'll use my magic to get rid of everyone's troubles! "For example, magic could make everyone never get sick again, and never have to worry about Mora! Everyone could eat fish for every meal, and be healthy, and just happily play all day!" But that didn't seem like enough. Klee rested her cheek in her hand, and looked out over the azure sky and white clouds in the distance: "I want... I want to hear everyone's wishes, and save them, and then use the most amazing and powerful magic, to give everyone the happiness they want the very very most!"

she is so so so kind :''')

her sillyisms:

again she blows a raspberry at us in one of her voicelines, said she'd headbutt fungi, literally goes "what do you mean that's child labor???", thinks she exploded something any time she hears thunder, braids razor's hair, made the traveler a huge dodoco, keeps accidentally calling lisa auntie, she literally found primogems and gave them to us, her bombs are said to be impossibly above teyvat's standards they are literally other worldly, she's canonically solo'd the primo geovishap and gave us its drops, etc!!!!!

#klee #gi #i can provide more specific sources if you want me to #this is literally just a compilation of my general ramblings from a few days ago #but like. revised for coherency

[antlerjay]

it bothers me so much the way the trailers are matching "it's the things we love most that destroy us" to coryo and lucy gray's relationship.

in the first place, more than 60 years go by until he says that to katniss, so it could refer to literally any other event that takes place in his most impactful years. that's other thing i consider important: snow's life starts at the end on the book, when he goes to university and takes his first real steps towards the life he really wants, when he's finally protected by wealth and has an articulated ideology. at the end of the day, he's only a highschooler in the book and has done nothing compared to his adult self.

on the other hand, assuming that year and those relationships result in that quote, i think it's more likely he thinks about sejanus or tigris.

lucy gray never threatens snow in any way, maybe briefly when he thinks she can turn him to the authorities —which deep down snow knows she won't do, but tries to convince himself she isn't a lamb—. she never has any real power over him, in fact, it's him who's always in control, even at district 12, where everyone is suspicious of the covey and he's a peacekeeper. (i also think lucy gray doesn't love most coryo, she cares and loves and trusts most her family and herself)

yet, it's sejanus who deeply loves coryo. he considers him his closest friend and ignores every cue of coryo's disdain in his favour, sejanus always sees coryo in the best of lights. and snow is the death of him.

i think tigris could also fit the quote in two ways:

she loves coryo and he ruins her career (according to katniss in mockingjay), who knows what else he does.

or, it's coryo who loves her. i think coryo is too selfish to love, but he's close to loving tigris, maybe because she's a snow or maybe because they went through the war together, it doesn't matter if it could be considered real love, the thing is tigris is the one coryo cares about most. i think tigris had a very active role in their fallout, so she maybe had the power to destroy him—since she knows some of his secrets, she could expose him, or she could help someone kill him, being around him and having relatively easy access to the president

whatever it is, i don't think 84-year-old snow thinks so naively about his relationship with lucy gray and he knows he was in control the whole time —it would be a huge hit to his self-steem and self-image to think otherwise

i'm aware that the quote originates in the movies and that's where it's tied to coryo and lucy's relationship but the movies don't get coryo like i do i fear

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #coriolanus snow #coryo snow #lucy gray baird #tigris snow #sejanus plinth #tbosas #the hunger games