#he's so complex and cool and interesting and his dynamic with hjyj is amazing

[crynburne]

stw is a tibetan mastiff and in this essay i will share my 13 reasons why (cus this guy's been plaguing my mind lately) (and also cus hyj is canonically a black cat, shj is for some reason a snow leopard (i get it but like how did the community unilaterally agree on this?? it never fails to fascinate me) and stw is? maybe a bear? or a dog? no one decided yet)

anyway some stuff about tibetan mastiffs that fit my agenda perfectly first:

they are huge and look intimidating. i mean look at them.

they were initially bred to protect livestock from wolves, bears and snow leopards (!), not hunt (also it looks like even despite it's large build, a TM is weaker than a snow leopard, and usually just tries to scare or hold them off in an encounter)

they are loyal yet independent, and will not usually look for guidance from their owner

they are surprisingly agile for their huge size

they don't bark much, but their voices are very deep and impressive

they're children friendly (if you teach them properly, that is. but still!)

now onto novel reasons:

shj refers to stw as a shepherd god, mainly in the earlier chapters

stw's whole 'i must protect the weak sheep' thing he got going on

stw and shj are often pit against each other or look something like rivals (like TMs and snow leopards, basically each other's natural enemies). there is also another reason in the novel that I won't spoil, but if you finished it you know.

also yes a TM is weaker than a snow leopard. and stw is weaker than shj (that's also because shj is shj and there aren't many people stronger than him, but you get my point! suspend your disbelief and let me brainwash you!)

stw considers himself a monster, and both he and TMs look intimidating and scary. but both TMs and stw are ultimately like this to protect what's important to them and they don't go out of their way to pick fights or measure strengths.

TMs don't usually attack people out of nowhere, but since they're really territorial they will attack if they consider you an enemy. and s classes had a whole thing about hyj trying to appear as weak and needing protection in stw's eyes so he won't be seen as a threat to stw's little herd that is korea

anyway that's just about it. i kinda just saw a casual geographic vid about dog breeds that could put you to eternal rest and when he was talking about TMs beef with snow leopards i was like. wow hi stw. so now i consider this whole thing canon. uh thank you for coming to my ted talk i have no life!