#Haha - it's a bit funny actually since there's no one-to-one translation but there is a kind of asymmetrical equivalence going on here

[sysig]

Let’s put it all on the line, see who’s victorious (Patreon)

[yumeka-sxf]

In addition to Yor's epiphany scene, this scene was the other one I was most looking forward to in season 2 - a scene that, in my opinion, is one of the most Twiyor-ish scenes in the series so far 💖

Why is it so significant? Because there was no reason for Twilight to put on any Loid Forger acting in that moment. He wasn't conversing with nor being scrutinized by anyone. So why would he give that soft smile followed by such affectionate, comforting words as "お疲れ様/otsukaresama"? (this can be translated in many ways, but generally it's something you say to thank someone for their hard work).

The answer is because it's something he truly felt...he understood the sacrifice Yor made for Anya's happiness and genuinely appreciated it (if only he knew the sacrifice she made on the larger scale, lol). While he's a bit perturbed at first since some onlookers were snickering at him, it didn't take long for him to soften and then graciously carry his queen and princess the girls back to the ship 😭

But Twilight overall was really soft in this episode and I loved it~ From his blush upon seeing Yor to the several times he gave that same soft smile when talking with/looking at her...I think Anya was right when she called him out on the ship about missing his wife 😅

I liked how the anime conveyed his shock when noticing her bruised face...what must have been his thought at that moment? 👀

The scenes of the family activities translated better in animated form in my opinion. While they were each only a single panel in the manga, they lasted a few seconds each in the anime, plus the addition of the insert song helped the with the comfy, wholesome vibe~ Also the part where Yor inadvertently chucks Anya across the ocean is still hilarious.

Loid's dorky skip at the beginning of the episode translated very well in animated form too 😅

The ending of this chapter in the manga always felt a bit rushed to me...it quickly jumps from the aforementioned scene of them returning to the ship, to suddenly being home, reuniting with Bond and Franky, having a meal together, then Twilight meeting Sylvia, all within a few panels. Even though I wish the anime added more than just some additional scenes of the ship leaving the island, I felt it flowed much better in the anime since, just like the family activities, each scene in the ending lasted a second or two instead of being a single illustration.

But I love how this chapter/episode ends, with Yor, Anya, and Bond napping while Anya draws about her family vacation. This seems to take place the next day or maybe later the same day they got home, so makes sense they'd still be tired from the trip!

By the way, the manga has this additional scene showing that Olka and company are safe. Weird that the anime didn't stick it in at some point.

Also, the anime team didn't have to go so hard with this episode's key visual but they did...and I love it 😍 Might actually be my favorite of the key visuals so far!

I was very happy to see the "surrounded by liars" panel finally animated! This is such a funny scene and a great way to fully wrap up the cruise arc.

I also burst out laughing at Yuri's locker 🤣

Damian is surprisingly laid back in this episode. I think the reason is because Anya's antics aren't directly involving him. He tends to go total tsundere only when she's actually talking to him, lol.

The new scene of Yor getting the keychains for her coworkers was a nice addition! Guess it's canon that Yor and Anya didn't sleep for the entire trip back, lol. Glad they got to spend family time on the ship too! (though I wish we could have seen Yor's reaction waking up in Loid's bottom bunk bed, haha. He must have brought her to his room since he wouldn't know where her room is. Unless she woke up before he even put her in a bed, in which case she would have been super embarrassed knowing he was carrying her around in public 😆)

Looks like next week the anime will be changing the order of things a bit and giving us the Becky home-wrecking and Fiona chapters (the latter of which seems to have some anime original content?) The Becky chapter is one of my favorite stand-alone chapters...I'm already dying of laugher thinking about it 😂

[slavghoul]

Interview from Sweden Rock Magazine 10/2023

Hi, hi. There is an interview with Tobias in SRM’s newest issue, but it’s in the subscribers only section, so I thought I’d translate/share since I guess not many people will be able to get their hands on it. It is about Prequelle and it’s part of SRM’s „200 best Swedish hard rock albums of all time” series. Prequelle placed #68. The other albums may have scored higher, but for now we don’t know the whole list. Either way, enjoy. Very insightful. 

„Do you think that "Prequelle" is Ghost's worst album?” Now that’s an unusual opening question. Especially when the interview is about an album that Sweden Rock Magazine's writers and qualified Swedish hard rock musicians (including Tobias Forge) have voted as one of the 200 best Swedish hard rock albums of all time. The question wasn’t planned, but comes spontaneously, as a reaction to the first thing Tobias Forge says when we sit down on opposite sofas in the record company office. I'm here for a two-part interview, partly about the EP "Phantomime" (published in #6 2023), partly about "Prequelle". Neither record companies, artists, voters, nor even our writers who conduct interviews for this series of articles have any idea what placement an album has received. Interviews are often done well in advance and we simply don't want placements to leak and become public long before publication.

No Ghost album has ever been on the list before. The idea is actually to end the day with the "Prequelle" talk, but when Tobias Forge suddenly starts with a funny little comment that this album is probably the one that those who have voted think is Ghost's worst or least popular album, I just have to take the opportunity to ask the question: Do you think that "Prequelle" is Ghost's worst album?

No, absolutely not, he says and laughs. If I'm going to be completely pragmatic, I'd say: "How many songs do we actually play from that record?" There are songs that work damn well live and sit where they should. So it's a pretty strong album.

But is this what you are basing it on? "Prequelle" was released after Ghost had become really big so it can't be compared to "Opus Eponymous" and "Infestissumam" which you don't play many songs from. I mean, no matter what kind of record you had released when "Prequelle" came out, you would still have played many songs from it and they would have worked precisely because Ghost's songs nowadays are moulded more to the arena format.

I don't know how to answer that, it's difficult. If the album had been different, it would have been. If I'm going to talk somehow both artistically and practically, I know that for every record we have become exponentially bigger. "Prequelle" was definitely no exception, but it also took us a big step forward and upwards and we became bigger and broader. To the extent that when we introduce old songs in the live set, you notice that there are elements on albums one and two that make some songs more difficult to play. Not technically, we can play the songs, but they don't work in quite the same way as the later songs, which means that there is a slight favouritism.

I asked the original question about whether you think it's Ghost's worst album only because you directly said that this means it's the least popular one.

I'm just so full of myself I assumed all the other albums are also in the top 200, which may actually be incorrect. This might be the best album and the others aren't even there, haha.

It wasn't long after "Prequelle" was released that you were self-critical of the album in interviews, saying that it was too ballad-heavy and a bit too soft. I haven't noticed that before, you being so self-critical shortly after the release.

Yes, but I still feel that way. If, as an artist, I am only going to look at the work with the criticism that one can feel towards one's own work, I think that if things had been different or if I had more time, I might have wished that I had managed to get maybe two more hard songs. Maybe one more hard song would have fit on the album and another harder song might have phased out one of the ballads. Now five years after the album came out, I know that the two ballads ("Pro Memoria" and "Life Eternal"), which I may not think are bad, are one too many. But I know that many of the people who like the band like both of them, so it's kind of a useless argument.

Who sets the length of an album? Have you set a limit, that it can't be longer than this and have no more songs than that?

No, but it must fit on an LP disc and there is a physical limit. I think the absolute pain threshold is 46 minutes and that's 23 minutes on each side. Now maybe Mikkey Dee (co-owner of Spinroad Vinyl Factory) will raise his hand here: "But I can make it longer!" And it's maybe 48 minutes, I don't know, but I do know that when a disc starts getting so full that you start getting close to the sticker, it starts to sound bad. Especially nowadays, because recordings today are so very maximalist in scope. It's one thing if you record 60s music with drums, a guitar and bass where the sound is cleaner and finer or if you play acoustic stuff with just vocals. Bob Dylan records could have eight songs on each side and it worked all the way through. But this kind of fairly compact music doesn't work well. Not only am I a militant vinyl advocate, I think we should respect the fact that most artists don't manage to create more than 45 minutes of good music on a regular basis. A lot of famous double records are not that good. I don't think the Rolling Stones "Exile On Main St" is very good. It might as well have been on one disc. And if I'm actually going to turn it into something completely mundane, I'd say that I think it's irresponsible to sit and make records with twelve songs if it results in the record being 63 minutes long and you automatically have to make a double record. It's pretty wasteful.

When you said that it's irresponsible, I thought you were going to say that it's irresponsible to print a double vinyl because of the environmental destruction that it entails.

Of course, if we're going to be completely straightforward and not do anything that harms nature, we shouldn't even release any records, so I say this with reservation. But with that in mind and for the sake of art, I think more people should embrace the actual given format that has been the most prevalent in rock history. There is a reason why a film is usually one hour and 30 minutes. You can’t take any more. There's a certain dramaturgical structure and there’s a certain comfort in it. Then the CDs came along they screwed that up, and suddenly there weren't two sides anymore but it started one way and ended another. Now that the CD is no longer important and we've gone back to vinyl, creators should follow suit and start embracing the physical rules.

Are there songs that have been rounded off just because you thought „I have to round off here, because if I continue, it won't fit on the vinyl disc"?

We actually had that problem on the last album. „Watcher In The Sky” ended the A-side and the outro is much longer on the CD and digitally. Two minutes longer I think. Much, much, much longer. It's long, noisy and has all these dives. It's a very chaotic soundscape. You get the feeling that it goes on and on, and on the vinyl it's just the beginning of an outro and then it drops almost immediately. I think that was a huge mistake.

So the overall sound quality was more important than vinyl buyers getting everything? Because you could have pressed the vinyl and it would have fit, but you would have had to compromise the sound quality.

Yes, exactly. You can get the song to just keep going until the vinyl simply runs out. Then it just starts spinning in the middle, depending on what kind of record player you have. But the problem then, if you want to anticipate events at a creative stage, is that people today buy and listen to vinyl records and are sensitive. It's quite common for people to complain that the record is broken. I don't just mean our records, but people complain a lot about the presses. If you make ten songs, it's therefore stupid to have a too thick soundscape towards the end of song number five and song number ten. If you want to be really good and old school, that's where you put a piano ballad because it's an easier sound to handle so far into the record. This is what I think about when I make records. But clearly sometimes I miscalculate.

This must cut right through the record collector Tobias Forge's whole body and soul, that "Watcher In The Sky” is shortened by two minutes on the vinyl of all versions.

Well... I don't toss and turn and wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it anymore. But when it happened, I was livid. Luckily it was just an outro. It would have been worse if it had continued with some kind of narrative into the next song. Now I can't remember in my head how long "Prequelle" is, but if I'd had to go back in time and just re-construct it, the re-construction wouldn't have had much to do with the existing material, I would have just wanted to add a scene. And it's not a scene that's missing, it's just for the sake of balance. It became asymmetrical in a way that bothers me a bit.

You've talked about this before, but it was before "Prequelle" that you really started to talk a lot about how you were thinking about what kind of new songs might suit the live show. Can you get stuck in that mindset, thinking more about what songs are needed live right now rather than creating an album that will last 30 years?

Hmm... (long pause)... The reason I'm sitting here thinking is because I'm trying to come up with examples of other bands that I think might have gone through something similar. I’m looking for examples to the answer I'm about to formulate and that is that: yes, I think there comes a point in the career when most bands make a record because they simply feel they need to… Because what we're talking about is that when you go from playing in small smoky clubs in front of an already inveterate audience that already understands the perhaps a little more chewy expression, that experience can change if you start playing in front of a larger and especially a different type of audience. When a different type of audience comes and you play in a different format, you discover that this song doesn't work very well, it doesn't sound very good and it's difficult to get the sound right. Then there's usually a record or two or three during your career when this transition happens where you start filling in with songs that work better live. Look at Piece of mind", "Powerslave" and "Somewhere in time". There's a reason why Iron Maiden didn't play a lot of the first two albums there and then, because it was easier to play the new songs. You get to that point somewhere in your career and it's very difficult to say when it is - there's no given rule and there are artists who continue to release relevant records and have an amazing ability to release new records and just play the whole new record. Well, now Iron Maiden does that and tests their audience a little bit in that way, but then they will always compensate by doing like a "best of" set the following year so everything is forgiven. Now we're in the middle of the "Impera" period here and have a very strong set, but I'm starting to feel that now that I'm about to start writing a new album, it feels like it's not really on my agenda to write three more albums that will change the live setlist ten years ahead. I think we already have the blueprint for what is Ghost's setlist, especially if you include the entire catalogue. After a while, each new record you make becomes a little less important. It's really hard to know when that point comes, but the truth is that new records don't matter in the same way. Slayer didn't have to release "Divine Intervention”. They definitely didn't have to release "Diabolus In Musica". I didn't care about it and I just wanted to hear the old stuff. If they had just come up and played "Reign In Blood" I would have been soooo happy. And that's the way it is with most bands. Nobody would be sad if the Rolling Stones came up and didn't play anything from "Emotional Rescue". And that's just the way it is. In the future, I can see a scenario where there is probably a basis to possibly build up an alternative setlist. There are so many songs that we do not play and that I have nothing against - I love them too! But it would almost be easier to build up a completely alternative setlist and run a show with only the odd songs. There are so many songs now. There's no reason not to build on that. But when I want to make a new record, it's irresponsible for me not to consider that there might have to be some songs that are a bit more direct. But it doesn't hurt me if we have more songs that we don't play live. I don't know if this answers your question...

I would actually like to ask exactly the same question again, because I wonder if you yourself feel that you get stuck during the making of the record. You said that you would have liked to include another hard song because "Prequelle" doesn't have the balance that you would have liked to have in retrospect.

Exactly, but the explanation for that has more to do with my mental capacity there and then. I simply couldn't cope. I felt that I had probably maxed out… It was probably about as much as I could do that year. That's the simple explanation. To get another song that would have fit and that would have fulfilled this requirement that I now in retrospect would have wished I had, it would have required something that I did not have there and then. The only thing that could have made it easier is if I had more time. It is difficult to reason about it, you see.

I was in the studio for a few days during the recording and it's one of the few times in all these years that I've done interviews where someone has started crying during an interview. It was quite obvious that everything that had happened with the split of the band affected you.

Yes. Of course. It did.

Is "Prequelle" a difficult album to listen to for you? Can you sit and listen to it all the way through? 

Well, at the moment I have to do that from time to time, and listen to all the records, because we're just about to start rehearsing again and then I sometimes have to go back and just listen to the record to go: "Fuck, is that really how I sing?" Especially when we start rehearsing, I can be a bit like: "Damn, who changed this bit?” Then I usually sit down and it hits me: "Oh, it's me who has changed my song!" You simply do that over the years, you start singing it in a slightly different way. So sometimes I have to go back and listen, but it’s more practical. I don't think it's fun to listen them. I do it until they are finished. I listen over and over and over again and really try to listen with all the imaginary ears and all the imaginary perspectives you can have. "How would I have listened to this if I had heard it from this perspective?" Just to get as "objective" a perspective as I can until I'm satisfied, but then it's like „No, I don't want to hear this anymore". But I have to say that I think "Prequelle" is a very tolerable disc despite everything that interfered with the process. Therapeutically, it works quite well considering that we are still playing at least half of the album. For every artist there are songs that you want to play, and there are songs that you don’t want to play because they feel too personal. I don't feel that way about this one, it's more like: "Ah hell, they're part of the setlist and people like it and it sounds good. So that's what we're doing."

On a personal level, was Tom Dalgety the perfect producer for you, the way you were feeling at the time? Tom feels like the kindest, sweetest producer you can meet. He wasn't the kind of producer who pushed you very much, it was more of a nice atmosphere between you.

Yes, really, and it would have been different if Klas Åhlund, who is more confrontational, had been in the room. Now Klas and I are great mates, so it would certainly have been very therapeutic also, but it would have been a different process. If an artist comes in who is in such bad shape that they can't make a record, or a band where the main songwriter has just left them, then a Bob Ezrin goes in and says: "If you don't make the record, I'll make the record myself.” And he goes and makes Kiss "Destroyer" or Alice Cooper records. I'm not saying they didn't make them, just that you hear that Bob Ezrin made "Beth". It's a type of producer that's very different from a lot of other producers who maybe act a little bit more like buddies and cheerleaders and make the atmosphere good. Bob Ezrin doesn't care so much about the atmosphere in the room. Klas is somewhere in between, I would say. Given the condition I was in during "Prequelle", the result could probably have been different if Klas had come in. Ironically, there was actually talk of him doing it, but he didn't have the time and we'll never know how it would have turned out. I only know that it would have been different, but right there and then Tom was fantastic. I know that a lot of bands like to work with him because he is technically brilliant. He's really good at those typical sounds that people like: cool drums, guitar, bass, tone and clarity. He is also very "happy go lucky", a nice guy who sits and jokes all the time. Even if he has a bad day, it doesn't affect anyone else, which is convenient.

Let me compare it to when a writer contacts me after an interview and says "that was such a nice interview". For me, "nice" is not something positive in such a work situation and the result is often better when there is a little friction.

Mmm, and that is more Klas. There is more friction and more confrontation. And I was much better equipped for that at "Meliora" and later at "Impera". I felt better and was simply stronger. There wasn't the same survival instinct as on "Prequelle". If I think back, not about how the album turned out and how I have to live with it, but if I think back to the situation I was in, I was very anxious all the time. Even though I'm happy with the result, I wouldn't want to go through the recording again, even though Tom was great. Because it's hard to work when you're under attack. I realised that now when I made "Impera", when it was no longer like that. You are much more comfortable, it doesn't feel the same, you are more mature, you make better decisions, you are more controlled or dare to be uncontrolled. When things are this serious, you can end up in a freeze mode. Maybe that's also why there wasn't another song. The song that I miss doesn't exist because I simply squeezed out everything I had. If I had been in a different emotional state, I might have been more comfortable working out something at the last second from bits and pieces. But I felt that I really just wanted to get it done, deliver it, get back out on tour and start over again.

When you described being more mature during "Impera" you sounded like a 70-year-old, kind of like all the Aerosmith-like bands that have been fighting all their lives and now that they're in their 70s they say "we're soooo mature,” haha.

I think with all artists, especially when they're required to work in a group, there are many recordings that have been a collision with a wall because you're expected to function in a context all the time, whatever and whenever. But you do change and from one year to a few years down the line there can be a huge difference in a person's drive, hunger and priorities in life. Whether you have the same band structure as I do or whether you play in Metallica, people come in one state and they may end up in another, because you have different priorities at different times. It's unfortunately against the whole rock myth. I think that's the biggest problem for bands and businesses, that you always have this idea that if you just get to a certain stage - not just monetarily or career-wise, but you get to a certain stage of fun - then we've reached the status quo. But that is never the case! Never! There’s always something. Even in the best moments when everything is working, the band is awesome, everyone is working well, the crew is awesome, everyone is laughing, it's just a party all the time mentally, you have the world's best tour manager, everything is flowing and the tickets are selling, there will always be someone who doesn't like it and then has to break away and want to do their thing because it's no longer fun. It's usually somewhere in the lead-up to a stage where it's interesting and then once you've achieved it, it all becomes a bit boring. Just like in a relationship some people may eventually think, "well, that's a bit boring, I have to go out and do something else".

Since I was in the studio when you were laying down guitars on "Witch Image", my heart beats a little extra for that song and I thought it would be a great live song, but you've barely played it (at the time of writing it's Ghost's forty-fourth most played song live).

We did it during the "Prequelle" tour, or "A Pale Tour Named Death" as it was called. Then we did quite a few "an evening with" concerts, for better or worse. The advantage was that if you were a big fan of the band we actually played a lot of songs and actually a lot of the first albums, like "Idolatrine" - or "Witch Image". We did a set, a break and then a whole other set. That was a bit of a taste of what I was talking about earlier: doing a slightly larger set and then a slightly smaller one. You just shouldn't do it on the same night because it gets a bit stale. We played for two hours and 30 minutes or something and that wasn’t a good idea, haha. At least we did "Witch Image", but it has fallen behind a bit and it doesn't mean that we will never play it again, just that we don't do it right now. What I've been happy about is that there has been a feeling for the records that we've made recently, "Prequelle" and "Impera", that people still want to hear the new stuff. We haven't gotten to that stage that I talked about earlier when it doesn't matter anymore. Then it's very fun to try to find a new way to perform the songs, not technically, but suddenly a song like "Witch Image" might fulfill a very nice purpose between a completely new song and another song.

Let me speculate: in 30 years, I think "Rats" will be considered the great hard rock song, "Dance Macabre" the great hit and "Life Eternal" the great ballad. What do you think? Will this in the future be seen as the three big songs of the album?

Yes, that makes sense, I think. I understand that an instrumental song automatically ends up in the wake of a "best of" collection, in the sense that you do one in 30 years. I realise it's not a hit but the instrumental "Miasma" is a big part of our live show. It's strong and feels like such a keeper. Now we don't play "Life Eternal" very often actually, but it was very well received. For some reason people like to get married to it, I don’t know why, hehe. It's nice but it's also a bit like U2’s „I still haven't found what I'm looking for" and you don't use that one at a wedding. But people like it and I guess interpret it differently to me. It’s also a song that I don't think is fun to play live.

And why not?

Because I find it hard to play ballads. Physically, they don't feel the same as rock songs. I miss the "dunka dunka". Now everyone who plays music today knows what I mean - sorry, readers who don't play music - and it's that there's a small problem with having in-ear monitors. This means that you have to reach a certain frequency of beats in order to feel the music, unlike when you played at clubs with only a guitar amp behind you. You felt every single note you made and it just went through your body. Nowadays, I think it's sometimes hard when you play slow songs, because you have to trust that it sounds good, whereas when you play a rock song, you feel that it sounds good.

Does it also apply to "He Is” which is such a huge ballad, not least live?

Well, just the intro and then it gets going quite quickly and suddenly becomes a hard and rather fast-paced song. The classic ballad concept has always been that you play so-called edge beats to make it sound soft, while "He Is” is actually a rather hard-played song considering that it is a ballad. Once the drums come in – boom, boom – it's got AC/DC bite to it. It has a rock feel to it that "Life Eternal" doesn't really have. As I said, I don't think that "Life Eternal" is a lot of fun to perform, but that doesn't mean that it isn't quite good to listen to. It’s just that when I play "Dance Macabre" or "Mummy Dust" I feel that I can express myself physically more in line with what the text says and what it means.

[prince-kallisto]

Crowley is Neige’s Father Theory (+ actual Neige backstory speculation)

You know, I was planning to make this an April Fools theory. I remember finding this headcanon about a year ago, and I’ve always thought it was a funny and cute headcanon to think about.

BUT THEN my hubby @snakevsnis utterly insulted my dignity and pride (kindly said the theory was my most outlandish yet) and I’ve decided to take this seriously. Not playing games anymore, I will collect every bit of flimsy evidence for this ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ

This all started out when I saw a closeup of Neige’s eyes to be honest haha 🤣🤣🤣 Why do they look like that?! What’s with that odd glow? All the characters eyes, especially in card art, are quite striking. But I’ve noticed that Fae eyes in particular have a tendency for a stronger glow or just overall more detailed eyes.

But anyway: dark hair, pale skin (this can apply to half the cast but SHH let me be annoying ahxhdbs) If you want to consider Disney’s Snow White, she has “lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow”, which we can keep in mind in terms of similarities🤪

People have always mentioned Crowley’s strange connections to Pomefiore and the Evil Queen- perhaps suggesting that he is twisted from the Evil Queen’s crow. Perhaps this, OR THIS IS ALL ACTUALLY A CONNECTION TO NEIGE.

The courtyard apple trees, the mirrors, the wishing well. Aside from the mirrors, all of these feel very reminiscent of Snow White, NOT the Evil Queen. The wishing well was indeed part of the Evil Queen’s castle, but it is Snow White who sings to it to make her wish. Crowley is very protective of the apple trees as well, and seems to honor them greatly. Neige’s first introduction through the commercial LITERALLY has the apple trees in the background as well!!

We also cannot forget his stupid vacation outfit (affectionate), which depicts a crow resting on an apple, and the background is riddled with flowers that look suspiciously like the ones from Snow White’s grave. And now with this uniquely yellow fit that no one expected Crowley to wear, Crowley technically shares the same exact color scheme that Neige (and this Snow White) does: yellow, blue, and red. In his vacation outfit, Crowley even ditches black as his main color and wears white instead.

Because what’s interesting about the Evil Queen’s crow is that the crow does not play a prominent role like Maleficent’s Diablo does. In fact, the crow almost seems afraid of the Evil Queen’s plans, shying away from the apple and afraid of her wicked transformations. In Twisted Wonderland terms, couldn’t that partially make Crowley more sympathetic towards Neige?

I also think it’s funny that Neige probably has the closest reference to a Disney character name, because “Neige” means Snow, and “Blanche” means White in French.His name literally translates to Snow White, and OF COURSE Crowley would name a child so directly after one of these historical figures 😭😭😭

And here’s where my theory gets even more crackish AJDNHDE, but when Crowley transforms into a ghost in the prologue, he notable has the cape of the ghosts in the Dwarfs Mine. The Dwarfs Mine we visited in the prologue is NOT the actual one used in Snow White- instead being a very convincing replica in honor to the Fairest Queen. But even so, there is a cottage that’s exactly the same as the dwarves cottage in Snow White. The ghosts from the prologue say that Ace, Deuce, and Yuu are the first visitors in “ten years.”

Ten years? Neige is around 17 or 18 years old, and his vague backstory heavily implies he’s been abandoned from his birth parents since a young age. So what if- hear me out- Neige for some reason was left behind in the Dwarfs Mine area when he was around 6 or 7 years old, entrusted to the ghosts before he met with his RSA dwarves?!

But let’s also take an actually serious look in Neige’s backstory. Neige’s backstory is shockingly vague, despite being the rival for Vil in Book 5. Book 6 seems to imply that Rook and Vil know more about what Neige went through, but it’s strangely cut off.

Neige has apparently been living with the dwarves and taking care of themselves on their own since a young age. We don’t know yet how dwarves age in Twisted Wonderland- Yuu remarks that they resemble Fae because of their pointed ears, and they may indeed be a type of a Fae. But even if they had the lifespan of Fae like Lilia, the dwarves are also school-age kids. And considering the lack of knowledge regarding Fae in TWST society in general, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were discriminatory laws preventing the dwarves being considered actual adults even if they were far older. The VDC competition shows how all the human audiences consider the dwarves to be cute children- likely even elementary-aged children.

I feel like this further validates the idea that Neige and the dwarves actually lived in the abandoned cottage in the Dwarves Mine- since it was a completely abandoned area, they were able to take the space without worrying over their young ages. The cottage looked abandoned in both Vargas Camp and the prologue because Neige and the dwarves are currently living at RSA. Additionally, in the Book 5 trailer, there were interesting shots of Neige and the dwarves at a bridge, a bench, and a forest. It felt overall very reminiscent of the cottage we see at the Dwarves Mine, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Neige and his friends actually occupied this space before

But with this in mind, how DID Neige secure a filming job or even attend the same middle school as Neige if he had no parental guardians or adult assistance in the first place? Again, I highly doubt that humans would ever seriously consider the dwarves to be Neige’s guardian on the small chance they’re older than Neige, for the same discriminatory implications that I mentioned above.

If Crowley was Neige’s father, I’m sure he managed to pull some strings in the background even if Neige was left behind for some unknown reason. Much like Diaval in the live-action Maleficent, Neige was essentially the Aurora that Crowley was taking care of from afar. Going back to Crowley’s vacation outfit, the crow resting on the apple reminds me a lot of Diaval in his bird form looking over Aurora in her cradle. I’m sure Neige has strong magic power of his own, but I find it interesting that he ended up at RSA despite most of his focus growing up was between his job and chores at home. Perhaps Crowley couldn’t get him into NRC, but did put in a good word for him with Ambrose and eased the application process for Neige

I also feel like Neige would indeed have stronger magic BECAUSE he’d be half-Fae like Sebek. His glowing eyes is the only physical indicator of his Fae heritage, but he also has the magic to boost.

And the most unserious note to wrap up this crack theory, they even have a similar taste in shoes because what is this 😭😭😭

This is all to say that I um. May or may not have been working on a chaptered fic for a long while now based on this premise of Crowley being Neige’s father so 😭😭😭 yeah. Um. Look forward to or dread that 🤣🤣🤣

(I will steal your kitchen sink if anyone says this is more convincing from my also crack Malleus and Crowley theories PLEASE 🤣🤣🤣 /j)

[melonteee]

hi. i just understood something about recent op chapter and came straight to you because youre an avid fan and you are surely the one that can rant about it and either . confirm or deny it

anyway 1110 chapter spoilers ahead tab out if you had yet to read

so. i got pointed out that sanjis behaviour in the chapter is strangely out of character . i hadnt caught it on my first read but going back to the manga i have to actually agree with that observation bcz of his choice of words and face

i also noticed that the panel ?? is??? weirdly focused on sanjis expression like REALLY focused (subtle action lines and all) and that the expression in question is genuine anger. like full stop annoyance. like maybe stress is getting to him or something but its not a funny angry face but instead full seriousness and full offense and full 'i mean my every word' way. it just feels . not like sanji all of the sudden

its also feels strange that zoro hadnt reacted to that remark. he kinda just.... notes it down (he twitches which clues us that he heard that) but says nothing further. which is Weird because thats an Insult and from sanji no less so absolute zero on it ???? not right

idk maybe me and my dash is being delusional. i hope its some sort of false alarm but everyone keeps pointing out that sanji feels more like he tries to cosplay himself instead of Being himself and im getting kinda worried ngl,,,,

Interesting you say this because, fun fact! Japanese fans have noticed Sanji's speech has indeed changed lately, and it's a bit lost in translation since it's kind of hard to copy speech patterns from an original language over into English. Either way, Japanese fans have noticed Sanji is starting to speak like...Boa?!

Ie, Sanji is speaking more royally, more obnoxiously, and more arrogantly. Now, Sanji's always been a firecracker with a sharp tongue, but not in the way that he looks down on and demands things from people? During Egghead, he told Shaka to release them from their shoe locks - but a Japanese fan said a better translation of that would probably have been Sanji calling Shaka an 'insolent man', or a 'foolish man', in the same way Boa speaks to people.

There's clearly something going on here, and I thought the same thing! But...people kept saying I was looking too much into it, so I stopped saying anything HAHA! Either way, the second I talked to my Japanese friends and saw tweets from the Japanese side of twitter discussing Sanji's change in speech, I thought...I knew it! There's definitely a difference here! I have no idea what's going to happen, but I cannot wait to see it!

[bonefall]

Hi Bones!! Thank you for you hard work on this project and for sharing it with us!

I've seen your posts about weird representation of society (regarding the "natural order of things") in xenofiction, especially in lion king, so I wanted to ask:

could you recommend any xenofiction media that has all (or most of the) animal species sapient? Or is the only solution to make just one or two species sapient while the others (especially prey) are plain animals?

Really sorry if you've seen this ask from me before - my account had a weird laggy period when I couldn't send or receive messages and asks, so I don't know if you got the previous one! I just know that now it's fixed so I double all the asks sent haha

Honestly I'm not totally sure! If any 3rd person has some good recommendations for "every being is alive" xenofiction types, feel free to weigh in.

If you want to jump in with me though, I am following the webcomic Africa. It updates every Wednesday. Africa is about a mother Leopard on the verge of a great ecological disaster, the relationship between her children and the animals around her, and the strength of both instinct and choice as the characters face an uncertain future.

Since it's ongoing, I still don't know how it's going to end and can't judge it as a full work! But it's absolutely fascinating and I think the author is doing a fantastic job so far. Bonus points for the way it portrays humans, btw.

No more spoilers though, if you're interested, it's on Webtoons.

(I'm also planning to read Oren's Forge soon. Ask me about it again in a few months over on Bonebabbles and I'll give you my thoughts)

As an aside though, funny you mention it because like... ever since I was a kid I've had a story I want to tell with the premise. It's a scintilla I've kept close to me for well over a decade but haven't done anything official with. So this is actually a theme I've thought about a lot.

It's rare to see it done well though because like... its very premise butts heads with reality. The "natural order" that an animal follows is not something it moralizes. A tiger doesn't have the capacity to think about how fucked up it is to kill to stay alive, the deer doesn't know that if its population isn't controlled it will destroy the forest.

They're animals. They don't HAVE that agency. Your dog does not care about being sterilized. A snake doesn't differentiate between a pinky and an adult mouse except in terms of if it will fit in its mouth. But the minute you put human morality in there... they have the ability to reason, create and agree on the rules of a society, make choices about MORALITY.

If nothing is going to change about their world, you just end up putting human arguments about "natural order" in their mouths and, well... start telling a parable justifying this "natural order."

(Genuine) Does what I'm saying make sense? Animals DON'T rationalize or negotiate. HUMANS do.

So the minute you're approaching a world with that logic, like it or not, you are invoking those "arguments from nature." And you're putting them in a being that is not fully an animal or a human, but an anthropomorphic mix which CAN rationalize but WON'T make an effort to change their world.

(Which is why tbh the best examples i know of are works with a theme of "change.")

OH WAIT I also remember another that's interesting!! Leafy: Hen into the Wild actually has a fascinating take on it. It's not interested in "moralizing" or really being about an animal society. It's a very emotional sort of movie, and it's about joys in adversity, the freedom that choice gives you, how bad things are going to happen and you can never completely prevent them.

INTENSE movie emotionally, the ending will wreck you (especially in the English translation which leaves out a really important theme making it feel abrupt x_x) but it's really good. Check that one out.

OH and also You Are Umasou. That one has more pitfalls imo (it does try to moralize a bit) but it's super unique as a movie. And is about dinosaurs.

[punch-aholic]

I love your art style, I was wondering what your inspirations were/your process for getting your art style to where it is now

Oh my gosh what an amazing question!! Thank you so much, I really appreciate this :) I'd love to talk about my style and how I've kind of honed in my style over the years. This will be a bit of a long one so I'll put in a cut!

I've been drawing DC art for a long, long time. Since I was really young back when I was playing Lego Batman lol. Before I was doing digital art I was really focused on designing my own versions of characters. I sort of learned how to draw one thing at a time. I learned how to draw hair, then eyes, then noses etc.

I wasn't very good lol. I think these are from like 2016? I took a lot of inspiration from DC Comics actually! I always describe my style as almost-realistic though, because I actually grew up as a life-drawing artist. I can't stress enough how important it is to take the time to really study the human body if you want to draw people. I went to college for Life Drawing and Anatomy studies and it really helped me figure out posing, how certain parts of the body move and stuff like that

I use myself as a reference a lot too. You're your own model! It leads to some pretty funny pics too haha (I ended up changing the pose a bit, but you get the vibe)

These are older and my handwriting is unintelligible but you get the picture. Learning how to translate emotions and character into a pose is really helpful and then of course figuring out how to draw clothes is helpful too. Before I was doing Superheroes I did a lot of fantasy art which helped me kind of perfect armor, cloth and those textures.

When I moved to digital drawing it really helped me learn how to render, which was kind of the final piece of the puzzle. Shading is so fucking difficult and I'm not perfect at it by any means (these drawings are two or three years old now and they still have a lot of issues). I mean, to show you how much my style has changed, this is the same character in 2016, 2020 and 2023

SO yeah! I get a lot of inspiration from older Disney, I really liked She-Ra's art style, and mimicked that a lot when it came out, and now I've kind of grown it into something all my own to the point where I can do full character scenes with my own designs. Anatomy, color theory and character design are big passions of mine and I try to show that in every drawing I do on here.

Thank you for asking by the way, I hope this is what you were looking for! Sorry for rambling lol

[mtkay13]

Wenzhou's first appearances and first time meeting!

I think those were my first serious attempts at illustrating TYK scenes? I do feel an itch to redraw the WKX one, to be honest, because his design and my way of drawing him changed a little. I also have another expression in mind -although this one isn't bad. I recently reread both passages -his first introduction/description and their first time meeting- and I love how expressionless and almost inhuman WKX is described. Although I think I managed some of that in my illustrations, I still hope I'll get a chance to try again later. Also! His nails are so short on the first meeting one, compared to how long I draw them now! That's funny.

ZZS hasn't changed much, though. Ever since I started obsessing with his book description, his design and face shape have been pretty solid in my mind. I have an interesting story about his mouth shape, though. I tend to prefer drawing plush, sexy lips. When I read the description of his "thin lips" in the books (both Qi Ye and TYK), I was quite dissappointed at first. I remember messaging at least 3 mandarin-speaking friends to confirm with them that the words used in mandarin (薄 in Qi Ye and 轻薄 in TYK) really weren't just a metaphor for something and had to be understood as "thin". That investigation sent me into a small rabbit hole: In QY, the description doesn't leave much room for interpretation. 薄means "thin", and that's it. Interestingly enough though, in the case of TYK, the fan translations all had a different interpretation for the whole sentence describing ZZS' mouth :

嘴唇却轻薄得很，叫那俊美的脸凭空添了一种薄情寡义的味道。

The word highlighted, 轻薄, has been translated as : "scornful", "contemptuous" and "very thin". According to the dictionary, it can mean "light", "frivolous", "a philanderer", "disrespectful", "to scorn". Pretty open to interpretation, then. But the interesting bit is in the following idiom, also highlighted : 薄情寡义. According to Lianzi, and later my own research, it is used to described someone who has no feelings nor attachment, or as a person who plays with hearts but never gets attached (a bunch of articles would use that expression to describe the type of men women should never date, lol). The sentence can then be turned into two widely different directions, right? Disrespectful can fit well with "someone who has no feelings". In my opinion, though, I like the idea of "frivolous" (or insouciant, as Lianzi translated it) being paired with it. A slight smile, almost charming, but devoid of any actual feelings. I think it suits the persona of someone who has had to deal with nobles and court people for the past 10 years, but who is also, now, empty inside and just can't wait for his freedom, wich is now within a few hours' reach. On top of that, ZZS tends, within the novel, to smile and laugh quite often, and he's quite the agreeable person, save for with ZCL and sometimes WKX. Clearly, when he lets his emotions and true self speak more, he does tend to be more prone to emotional outbursts, anger and grumpiness, but a semi-permanent light smile on his lips does feel very fitting, to me. Anway, that's it for the bigger-than-expected meta chunk on ZZS' mouth haha. I wish there was a lot to say about WKX's appearance too, but we don't have much to work with aside from ZZS just gawking at how beautiful and statuesque he is. No precise features to analyse and adapt, unfortunately. Anyway, thanks for reading!

[adorecline]

Omg I just read your Getting Older imagine and I absolutely loved it. Maybe you could do another one sometime soon where it's another ryan and blake x daughter reader but she's been an actress since she was very young acting in a bunch of TV shows and movies, and recently her new movie that has become a series just came out and they are all proud of her. Or even one where she is an actress as well but she meets Walker Scobell but she is older than him but he like has a cute little crush on her and she is like one of his idols.

i love this idea! i hope you like it! <3

The Crush {Ryan Reynolds x daughter!reader}

summary: y/n attends the premiere of The Adam Project with her mom and dad, and meets her dad's costar who also happens to be a big fan of her (and has a huge crush on her)

I do not give anyone permission to copy or repost my work on here or any other websites. no translations either. likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated.

Liked by maya_hawke, and 879,828 others

yourusername: who's ready for #theadamproject ??

comments

user01: you look so pretty y/n 🥺

user02: it's giving very much blake

| yourusername: she did raise me after all :)

user03: so excited for this movie

vancityreynolds: i have to admit i am quite ready for this movie :)

| yourusername: haha dad...you're so funny!

| vancityreynolds: why thank you, daughter ☺️

user04: you and your mom always have the best dresses i swear 😍

maya_hawke: you look gorgeous y/n!

| yourusername: thank you, maya! ily!!

y/n posed for the photographers on the red carpet. She stood up straight and looked in everyone direction hoping she was somewhat giving all the cameras a smile. She was close to the end of the carpet and she could go meet her parents inside the theater.

y/n waved to the photographers letting them know she would be walking off. She stopped by the railing that held back screaming fans to take some pictures and sign autographs.

When she was done, she started to make her way into the theater, but was stopped by a boy with blonde hair who she recognized as Walker Scobell, her dad's costar of the movie.

"Hi y/n." Walker smiled a bit shyly.

"Hey Walker. It's so nice to meet you finally." y/n smiled back happily.

"It's nice to meet you, too." Walker said. y/n noticed him fidgeting with his fingers a bit. "I'm a big fan of you and your work. You are an amazing actress." He complimented her.

"Thank you so much." y/n beamed at his sweetness. "That means a lot."

"It's true. I've seen like all of your movies." Walker admitted. "You're one of my idols actually. You're just such an amazing actress. You're so talented and you're really pretty, too." His cheeks flushed after he finished.

"Woah there, Kid!" Ryan said walking up to them. "I like you, but slow your roll with my daughter." He joked making Walker's cheek grow even more red.

"Oh my god." Walker mumbled covering his face with his hands to hide his cheeks.

"I'm just messing with you, Walk." Ryan laughed patting his back.

"I was gonna ask for a picture, but now I'm too embarrassed." Walker shook his head smiling nervously.

"No! It's okay. Let's take a picture." y/n reassured him. "Dad, stop making him nervous."

"Okay, I'm sorry." Ryan jokingly raised his hands in defense. "Here, I'll take the picture for you." Ryan held his hand out and Walker gave him his phone.

y/n wrapped her arm over Walker's shoulder as he wrapped his arm around her back. y/n crouched down and leaned closer to him. Both y/n and Walker smiled towards the camera while Ryan sang in a high voice "Cheese!" He snapped a couple pictures before giving Walker his phone back.

"Thank you, y/n." Walker said to her. "It was really nice meeting you."

"You too! I cant wait to see your movie," y/n replied. "My dad has told me great things about."

"Oh, thank you." Walker eyes lit up. "I should probably go find my dad now." He said pointing to the doors behind them.

"We'll see you later, Walker." Ryan said as he left. He waited until Walker was gone then turned back to y/n. "I knew he had a crush on you."

"You're so mean." y/n laughed shaking her head. "Come on, mom is probably wondering where we are."

"Actually, she's probably thankful for the break from us." Ryan said.

tags: @thollandgf

[calekinnieplus]

This looks like a fun idea, so here goes! :

What do you think of this guy🙃?

Oh wow! Good character you chose there ahahaha! Roselle Gustav aka Huang Tao!

First impression

Honestly, I was floating in confusion at the start a bit, considering it was my first Chinese webnovel, so I had a period of readjustment to the writing style (or the translation ig?), so I didn't immediately connect the dots that Roselle was a transmigrator or that he's... kinda "dead" lol

Buuuut, once the dots connected, I did find him quite amusing! Bro's self-confidence gave me second-hand embarrassment, but not That bad. But also, Klein was bashing on him so hard, it was kinda hilarious.

I don't fully remember what impression I had of him, since I was reading pretty slow in the beginning and some ideas were lost, but overall, fun guy lmao

Impression now

Hilarious guy, a meme, a legend.

Yet...

Quite unfortunate that his end was just endless suffering (which will hopefully not be endless haha...). Bro made small mistakes in the beginning when he didn't know Anything, when he was transported to a world he didn't know anything about, forced to adapt and live a new life. I don't know, I find him tragic, just like Klein.

At least he had some good times along the road (especially with a demoness heh). The funny stories were nice to read.

Favorite moment

Basic, but his first talk with Klein. I mean, him meeting a fellow transmigrater and quickly having faith in him was sweet. I really wish to see more of them :>

If we're talking about the diary entries, I'd probably choose when... uhhh the corruption thing. Roselle going to the moon. And when he gazed into the Abyss. I remember how the diary entry abruptly cut off after dumping a lot of info and both Klein and I were Flabbergasted. What did it MEAN-!!

(I have a feeling I'm mixing up the moments, but the feelings remain. The confusion, the anticipation and the wonder from some diary entries were Amazing)

OH, and the last diary entry of course. It was so chill-inducing! It was one of those moments that answered a lot of questions while also bringing even MORE questions. It was just- the atmosphere full of fear and uncertainty, putting into question what that fellow transmigrator went through, wowie~

Idea for a story

Well, let me shuffle in the corner of my brain...

I've always been a fan of Time Travel AUs. So the idea of Klein (at a higher sequence but not Saint Level, maybe? Idk, a lot of possibilities here) travelling to Roselle’s time period and the two of them becoming best buddies (Roselle’s words, not Klein's. Klein's facepalming in the background at Roselle’s shenanigans).

Maybe! It could be a young god Mr Fool using his domain over Space and Time and having a misplaced adventure during Roselle’s time.

(We're pretending the Outer Gods and CW isn't as dauting of a problem as they are in canon, aye?)

Anyway, doesn't matter which version of Klein or during what time he's visiting, it's mandatory that he facepalms at least once :))

Unpopular opinion

Well, I don't know the popular opinions, so I'll guess I'll just go with an opinion.

I mean, he totally could've treated his wife better. I can understand feeling a disconnect with this world and humanity in general, but at least don't bring shame to her name by being a known womanizer, mm? At least divorce or smth, man. You overthrew the government, you could definitely do that.

Unless he actually did divorce her and we just don't know. But otherwise, yeah. Kinda dick move there, Emperor.

Favorite relationship

(Platonic, right?)

Again, basic but. Roselle and Bernadette.

The fact that Bernadette spent so much time searching for a father she was on dubious terms with and how much faith she had that he persevered against all odds.

The fact that Roselle’s one and only tie with this new world was his daughter, his beloved child that he loved with all his might. A child he shared a piece of his old world with. A child he remodeled this entire world's structure for. Absolutely heart-warming.

Favorite headcannon

Hmm let's see...

Huang Tao, as a young individual who surfs the internet, would know a lot of memes or jokes. After becoming Roselle Gustav, those memes aren't easily forgotten.

I mean, is it canon, actually? Maybe he made several Chinese meme references and I missed them lmao. That would be funny

Bonus: imagine Huang Tao and Zhou Mingrui bumped into each other one day, unaware that the next time they'll meet each other, it will be after more than 10 000 years, give or take. ...what's the timeline here?

[sketching-shark]

Me ghink theres lot of hate towards tang sanzang some of which IS UNDERSTANDABLE

But alot of it goes too far and say the most rancid shit ever all bc hes book character. Mind ya hes based on actual person and is being use his likeness. Like some lmk fans be saying the worse thing ever towards this guy(for example wanting him get the d*ath penalty n amongst others).

We forgetting that yes some of his treatment towards swk IS horrible but we tends to forget swk had done some atrocious things that sanzang was witness to in full view. No human would journey like that without being completely scar and traumatized. Some of my friends while looking through the book had found that sanzang be using the circlet all in one go and then never used it in years.

His character development does happen yall in where he do trust his companion more and then *insert traumatizing moment* happen. I do think wukong didnt deserves the maltreatment tho(i want to say this bc later i get ppl saying that i support ab*se bc i defend sanzang for a bit, not knowing that i also disagreed w some his actions)

Most ppl forget that the first arc that the gang actually face as a group was the gingseng tree arc, not white bone spirit.that u have him defending wukong and countless other times where he do trust swk judgement in some cases. (i just wanted to get it out there since not many ppl realize it n im fully blaming osp for this bc they are skipping arcs. N they don’t really tell what arcs they’re skipping)

This just me rambling but dam all these ppl need therapy.

THEY'RE SAYING WHAT NOW ANON AAAAAAAAAAA but haha wow on a lighter note that is kind of funny that the fandom which routinely portrays the Six-Eared "I am going to try to murder-replace you for completely selfish reasons / repeatedly try to kill a young mortal that you love" Macaque as a monkey who never did anything wrong ever would then go out its way to demonize Tang "I do lash out & often don't trust my senior disciple but have also been threatened with death for fourteen years" Sanzang. Like geez I've seen many another fandom where the assumption is that for one character to be good/be "redeemed" you need to make another character horrible (tbh I'm starting to suspect that that's what's happening with the lego show version of Sun Wukong & the Six-Eared Macaque), but wild if true that some lmk fans would go THAT far in the attempt to paint the monk as a guy so awful that he literally deserves the death penalty.

Now to be fair it does need to be noted that even in Wu Cheng'en's classic (or at least from what I've seen in the Anthony C. Yu translation), Tang Sanzang was in many ways intentionally written as a caricature of a fussy Confucian scholar who may have memorized many doctrines but who doesn't really understand them, and who is often made a figure of fun for falling off his horse, and who does use the headband against Sun Wukong is some very explicitly painful and unjust scenes. In at least the book he's also a much more static character than the Monkey King in that we don't see any real changes in his thoughts or behavior over the course of the journey, which I can see as a something that would sour many against him. THAT SAID, you are very correct anon in noting that besides one traumatizing event after another happening to him, from his mother's suicide to constantly being threatened with death and/or rape at the hands of many yaoguai, this monk does have a number of reasons for why he's constantly crying and acting with hatred and suspicion towards the Monkey King. And let's not forget that one of the things SWK told Tang Sanzang early on in the journey was that he had literally killed so many he couldn't remember them all, and that was right before he tried to kill the monk himself! Point being that yes both Tang Sanzang and Sun Wukong are extremely flawed individuals who often clashed with each other in some pretty upsetting ways, but there's also many understandable reasons for why they act the way they do. It's a real disservice to their characters and the underlying implications of the journey (or its retellings tbh) to forget or ignore that! *

*(and on THAT note this is another reason why it's kind of frustrating that the Overly Sarcastic Production & Monkie Kid retellings of Xiyouji seem to be the primary ways that western audiences are understanding the journey. Liking explicitly cartoony retellings is one thing. But then basing all your knowledge of the work on these retellings and/or even outright refusing to understand the classic in any other context makes for some really simplified and even really insulting beliefs about a culturally important work as a whole)

[kingfisherprince]

the history of rafole, part one

or: every story starts somewhere.

by popular demand (read: three-ish people and my own insufferable brain) we are now Doing This. so without much further ado, i present to you the very first rafole history post.

and of course where better to start than where it all started? their first match against each other, the french open quarterfinal in 2006.

(continued under the cut.)

some context: rafa was, for the first time ever, the defending french open champion, and the world #2 behind roger. novak was world #63 and all of 19 years old. rafa had just turned 20 a few days prior.

(internal monologue: oh my god they were kids)

this was the year we got rafa's little roland garros blog-diary-thing, and in it he says this about the upcoming match:

and this is what novak said in his pre-match press conference:

(spoiler alert: he doesn't. but we'll get to that.)

thanks to a lovely anon who pointed me to the @rafolearchive account, i found out that novak wrote 'vamos nole' on his shoes for that match, to mimic the 'vamos rafa' on the back of rafa's.

with his history of impersonations, it's probably quite a tongue-in-cheek thing from novak, but i find it hopelessly endearing. maybe that says something about me, i don't know.

anyway, we might as well get onto the actual match.

(warning, the highlights are in 2006 video quality. so, awful.)

some cinematic shots:

this was during the start of rafa's era of utter dominance on clay, and also during the start of the era of constant match retirements from nole. so although it was a pretty good match, seeing the scoreline end up like this ―

― with rafa winning the first two sets to continue his 58 match clay winning streak, and novak retiring citing a lower back injury, shouldn't be much of a surprise.

(that flag, by the way, is of serbia and montenegro, a union which disintegrated the very month this match was played. but this is rafole history, not balkan history, so i'll just note that at the time, novak was still considering switching to british nationality, and move on.)

what is a surprise, and honestly more than a bit ridiculous, is what novak said in the post-match press conference.

i definitely suggest watching that video, just for the nuance of rafa's reaction ― he found it just as funny as i do. here's the most important part:

yeah, of course he isn't. it would only take, oh, 6 years for novak to beat him on clay and 9 for it to be at roland garros. delusional much today, nole?

rafa literally had to ask for a spanish translation to make sure he was hearing that right haha. he takes it with humour, though, and i'll close this section out by saying that their net hug was really sweet, as always during the early years.

this was their only match that year. since then they've played each other at least once every year, with 59 matches in total and a whole lot of history in between for us to cover.

that history starts here.

love-all, begin.

[end part one.]

part two

[wifiwuxians]

20 questions writer meme.

tagged by @heyholmesletsgo THANK YOUUU

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

not counting things i'd rather remained anonymous, 21!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

513,621 lol

3. What fandoms do you write for?

mdzs, vaguely tgcf, hotline miami (though mostly past tense) and we'll see about the future

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Wei Wuxian's Super Special Super Secret Book Club still reigns supreme with 1229 kudos, and will most likely be my legacy despite it being the second fic i ever wrote for the fandom (i think?)

If You're Reading This, It's Too Late with 513, one would think i'd still be messing around with this AU but i'm happy to leave it where it is and just keep messing around with the crackship

Dawn Chorus, my most precious baby, at 251 by some miracle despite being oc/canon. you guys spoiled me with the love for this one tbh. none of my other xue yang centric works got anywhere near this close and i'm at peace with that because he's bonking my oc in this one and they have a kid.

The Book Club Extras at 232, which is hilarious when compared to the original but at least new readers will see there's more and maybe in the year 2055 i will publish them for fun

Frozen Pond with 156 at the end of the list, written for my friend @petitjams and taking place in a silly AU we made together (wen chao stays winning on here which is very funny)

i'm attributing the popularity of the first two to mostly being centered around super popular characters, because my later stuff is naturally better yet struggling haha

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

always unless they're like just emoji, because i like conversation! though i may also reply with a little heart hehe

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i wouldn't call it angstiest ending, it's bittersweet, but the threads that bind us is my top pick. and it also needs more readers so go read it. your hands and mine has a bit of an 'angsty' ending but only for song lan. xue yang had it coming :p 💖

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

excluding the two above, so far they all have a happy ending, or at least neutral??? i'd say Book Club, though, because that's the massive 'everybody lives!!' silly fixit fic

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope. i hope i didn't just jinx it. i get hate on art and through anon though! woo! (not anymore on here tho thank god)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i do and i feel like it sucks so i almost always end up fading to black LMAO my actual explicit stuff remains private... it's like too embarrassing for me. i got judged for it as an 18 year old and 10 years later haven't gotten over it. i like bondage and bdsm though and that seems to crop up in private 😏

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i do on occasion! i love roleplaying them, but the only one i have out there is The Way To His Heart Is Through His Stomach (Oh God Please Don't Eat Me), which mixes mdzs and tgcf characters in a unique setting :3

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge, but i've had art stolen plenty so i wouldn't even be surprised

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, a few have been translated into russian!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

NOT YET BUT IT'S IN THE CARDS

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

all time? jeez. somebody tell me why i always freeze up and go blank when asked these simple questions? it's like i forget who the fuck i am. i feel like i should also say songxiao? but they're relatively new so it doesn't seem correct. fuck it. my all time favorite ship is [DATA MISSING OR CORRUPTED-- PLEASE PROCEED TO NEXT QUESTION]

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

haha... (looks at my abandoned hlm fic with the seventh chapter halfway written) haha...

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'd definitely say dialog. it makes sense, since the stuff i'm most used to doing is drawing silly comics. i also like to ping-pong emotions around and feel like i'm pretty good at that too

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

using the same words over and over and feeling like i never write Enough, like everything is always light and never in depth. i don't like making scenes too heavy with padding but i also feel like i need to find a balance

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i'll do it only if it's a language i speak!!! this doesn't apply to peppering words like gege and stuff just for funsies. i think the best way to go about it is to just tell the audience what language they're speaking in that moment

19. First fandom you wrote for?

we're gonna have to go back to when i was 10 years old here lol... i think it was tokyo mew mew in terms of stuff i put online (oh god)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

it's hard to pick favorites, but i once again must say the threads that bind us in terms of work i'm most proud of.

i tag whoever sees it, plus @sugarapplebaby because ily

[pippastrelle]

I'm not sure how applicable this is but, for all the writers doing NaNoWrMo, have you considered being Possessed by the Pokemon Ghost?

See, when I was 14, I wrote my very first full-scale fanfiction called "Pokemon Rust", based on the 'apokelypse' pun.

I frigging wrote 55k in less than I month. Sure, it very much shows both the age and speed in quality but, dang it, I'm still fond of it. I haven't written that quickly since, either.

Since, I improved as a writer through plenty of fanfiction until I ended up writing a full-length original novel. I did three drafts of it, each taking me about a year.

While uni work got in the way of pursuing publishing, my sister went, "Haha isn't it funny how Shark Tale could translate into a gang thriller?"

A year later, I'd written a full-length novel based on frigging Shark Tale!

But then I had an accident and injured my wrists and even with Word Dictation, writing was physically too laborious to flow. That and having to spend so much time catching up on uni work then job applications, I spent years languishing in creative stagnation, unable to write and ultimately unable to even plan a new story.

Then, this year, three things happened. First, I thought to myself, "Pokemon Sword and Shield" have so much potential but they are so painful to read. I should rewrite it!"

But I couldn't write. So, I thought, "I'll redub it!". I took screenshots from every bit of cutscene dialogue in Pokemon SwSh and rewrote every line in my notebook, sticking to every character and every animation. And it was so much fun.

Then, my parents gifted me some actual dictation software! And it felt better than I could have hoped. Not perfect, but things flowed again.

So, while I spent an October in-between jobs, I went ahead and novelised my version of SwSh.

I wrote 72.5k words in 1 month.

I've felt joy writing again after 3-4 years. I'd almost forgotten what it was like.

I'm currently writing this at 5:30am after having finished the novelisation but I guess that goes to show what inspiration is like!

If you're thinking to yourself, "This is a really dumb idea", maybe that's the key to making yourself not second-guess yourself! To want to be the one person to do the dumb thing others won't!

So, everyone, Get Possesed by the Pokemon Ghost!

And best of luck to all your writing endeavours!

(I'm now going to think about how much I'd need to change to make Pokemon Sword into an original novel that I could show friends and family :P)

[misqnon]

sanji and pudding are cute together as completely platonic friends.. like he is a good FRIEND for her. i think she just needs someone in her life who isnt going to ridicule her for her eye and . like. fully accepts her. and that is who sanji is.

i wouldn't have an issue if it was just like. a one sided crush either. which it kind of is but i don't trust oda to have those intentions. i know its realistic to have kids crush on older people,, and i think its interesting to portray that as long as the adult isnt being creepy and weird. like u can have an adult that is accepting of the kid who's crushing on them. and the adult is also like "this is never going to happen. u should find someone your own age, that would be healthier". it is inherently pretty uncomfortable to have a kid crush on you i would assume, but they could still have a healthy relationship

i also want all the straw hats there!! i dont think i'll be satisfied if they arent all there..

THATS OK IT WAS STILL INTERESTING!!

this is so funny, i actually watched that video a while ago (passively. as in i was actually trying to sleep and also listen at the same time). but YEAH i think he is so right... the charm .. the something that zoro has. is not there. thank GOD i didnt miss the fuck...

NOT THE MAD WORLD REFERENCE

oh for sure the like 3 layers of translating is probably a big reason for the awkwardness. i (personally) think he has autistic energy outside of that one interview (i think i was kinda unclear which is why i am . bringing it back up) but . ofc. i am not going to diagnose a man I dont know anything about LOL

no shame in this household!!!! there is already plenty to go around

VERY ASEXUAL FRIENDS SEEING UR HORNY POSTING.... SOUNDS LIKE A NIGHTMARE. my very asexual friend does not use social media thank god. i .. i could never let her see me like this ... for her own sake..

u also forgor ur gender for a bit thats so funny..

im very thankful there are at least a FEW nsfw questions about men in the sbs... equality!! but we must strive for equity.. sexualize the men 3x more /hj

i have a friend who knows a bit of japanese but i always feel so bad relying on ppl who know other languages LOL. like.. im sorry ... our friendship means so much more to me than ur job as my translator sometimes... but i think the foreign fans use a translator app, bc im pretty sure oda has said the wording is wonky because of the translator

ive seen a bit of trixie and katya!! im at least familiar with who they are. at my highschool (that i went to for only the last two years i was in school) we had some drag queens come to school for a show.. it was interesting. i had never seen drag in person. and then we also had a drag show with students which wasnt as involved

"for legal reasons (haha get it)" LOL

perfect representation of a sanji courtroom. since u are sanji magistrate ur word is law. literally.

oda can have credit .. as a treat.

it IS compelling tbh but it's. as u kinda said. its mostly just mentioned briefly and then not brought back up. i do NOT want to see it come to fruition.... if they killed each other.... me next

"I WOULD LIKE CROSS GUILD AS A POLY SHIP MORE IF IT DIDNT FEEL MEAN WITH HOW OFTEN THEY BEAT UP ON BUGGY AND ALSO BC I THINK BUGGY BELONGS WITH MR. RED HAIR." YEAH EXACTLY!!!!! i too love a one sided ship. shuggy angst is literally so good.. wait til u catch up theres a . theres a moment. theres a shuggy moment that is SO angsty. they have so many problems they should just kiss and that would solve everything!

"OH NO BRO….HANNYAGELLAN…ITS HAPPENING…"

i also heard abt the falling down the stairs meaning suicide thing, but i only heard abt it super recently. ur right she wouldnt have done that!! she was finally feeling like. things were looking up . because of zoro!! he helped her feel better!! n then she died. i agree that he probably sees a promise as an ironclad thing. he would literally die for a promise he made. he definitely isnt stupid either, and is generally pretty untrusting of new people

SHARING FANFIC U WROTE???? :D

"Dreams. Ambitions. Drive. Do what that day stole from Kuina. Defeat Dracule Mihawk. Become the world’s greatest swordsman- for both of them." i love this part

"This isn’t a good sign for his current navigational endeavors." HE GOT LOST..... that made me laugh

"Kuina. He doesn’t think of her as often as some might think. He doesn’t dwell on the past, only reflects on it." accurate for zoro!!!!

i feel sad for him :( he sounds a bit. regretful? is that a word.. thnk u for sharing i lov .. i love .. when ppl share their art with me.. thank u..

"but do i ever actually make those things….no. i do not" psh... typical..... /lh

oh boy im so excited to take ibuprofen with u!!!!

"its just. SO COOL!!!! TO SEE PEOPLE ACT WITH SUCH PASSION AND PORTRAY EPIC STORIES..RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!! LIVE!!" YOU GET IT!!!! YOU GET IT!!!!! NO ONE EVER GETS IT ... U GET IT!!!

yes u got me i like sanji now 😔😔😔😔😔 congrats on converting me😮‍💨 /lh. ill send u another 4kids sanji video to get back at u for this *shakes my fist in rage*

i love seonghwa!!! (obviously!!! since im ot8 !!!)

THE LAW PUN... I DINDT NOTICE AT FIRST .... im so glad u have the hawaiian shirt comic saved. i have multiple pictures of him saved and i refuse to delete them despite my phone storage being rly low.. and im not doing anything with them. im just attached.

look at how much i talk about him... im normal . its only been a month and a half since i restarted one piece and i hadnt talked abt him at all before that.. im normal.

ok my law thought s are.. well the most recent thought . was actually. uh.

yeah this was a normal thought. for sure.

this was the thought that led to that .

i just think u could have a lotta fun with his powers. outside of making abstract art. i want to know what its like to be law . in body. he is tall. and like. i would be able to teleport himself and other things.. which is a big thing when u can't get enough energy to get out of bed. and i have food allergies so i could eat whatever i want.. and i wouldnt have periods... i would automatically be stronger bc he has muscles. yeah.. i wish i could experience all that.

and that is all for now bc i think those r ...intense.. thoughts... to have... or maybe they arent, i dont really have an understanding of what is normal

"i wonder if it relates to his backstory and the possible trans-ness of it?" i was kinda thinking this too.. or like maybe it had something to do with his childhood or something. idk. croc backstory when!!

"he’s after freedom and what use is it if u destory the freedom of others while searching for it for yourself?" YEAH!!! U WORDED IT WELL,,

"HIS 4DUB VOICE PAINS ME PHYSICALLY" *sends another video* (i am actually going to do this but i was planning to anyways so dont feel pressured to watch it or respond LOL)

"i have a playlist where i put my fav one piece shits."

D:!!

crying, sobbing at the fact u know abt nika

ok honestly if it was just a bug collection... that would be so cute ... the one piece was the bugs we met along the way

"so i think it might be related to…joyboy/nika/ the SUN…i think maybe its like a. a hat maybe. thats my guess. sun hat. from the original joy boy. its not a good guess but its all i HAVe"

take this how u will

bartolomeo... maybe he is called the cannibal bc he has big teeth... or maybe its his name from when he was beating ppl up all the time as a .. gang leader? or whatever he was? maybe he "cannibalized" other groups??

end of the e-letter is for memes now

very very true. when she was sobbing after i left i actually felt so so bad for her ;-; like someone PLEASE get her out of there!! god SAME FOR REIJU. sanji got to escape but reiju and pudding are both stuck with their respective shit abusive families…it sucks. i hope we get to see both of them doing better by the end of the series!!

“i wouldn't have an issue if it was just like. a one sided crush either. which it kind of is but i don't trust oda to have those intentions.” YEA I MADE A POST ABOUT THIS (i think i accidentally queued it) BUT. YEA I DOUBT HE DOES 🙃 looks at shirahoshi. looks at rebecca

ITS A MAAAAAD WOROORORRLDLDL

also nodding my head no problem i got what u meant about inaki

UR RIGHT NO SHAME….PUTS MY YAOI PROUDLY ON THE FRIDGE

i still need to finish the opla video. i watch it while i eat lmao

OKAY HE HASNT MENTIONED IT SO I HOPE HE JUST DIDNT SEE IT OR. WILL NEVER BRING IT UP. its funny u say that tho bc my OTHER ace friend very supportively read this vampire zosan fic i wrote and they’re in their own words like violently ace and also sex repulsed and i WARNED THEM that there was a sex scene in that chapter i WROTE A CHAPTER NOTE AT THE BEGINNING WARNING SO and they STILL accidentally read it and texted me SO CONFUSED AND THEN EMBARASSED THEY WERE LIKE “its hot in the room?? wait i dont get it?? 🤨 - WAIT. OH NO-” funniest shit ive ever seen in my life. literally “hey. be careful dont look at that.” “huh? [staring blindly at sun]

actually every nsfw sbs question asked about the men was me. it was all me. next i will be asking the size of katakur- [gunshots]

KJSBDKJ I HAVE TWO FRIENDS THAT SPEAK FRENCH (ONE A NATIVE SPEAKER AND ONE WHO MAJORED IN IT AND NOW LIVES IN FRANCE. WITH THE OTHER FRENCH FRIEND) and when writing scenes where sanji spoke french i was too embarrassed to ask either of them for help but they bullied me into letting them help 😭😭😭 so i feel u so hard 😭😭😭

and ur right, i actually just read a chapter where someone did that from vietnam i believe (they used a machine translator)

i love drag sm!! u made me remember how much i liked it and i watched some more drag clips yesterday lmao. 

okay in terms of the death pact thing i feel like oda drops those things and always comes back to them…i DONT WANT THEM TO FIGHT EITHER BUT ALSO I SOOOO DO. kinda like how reading whole cake island ws painful for me but also i loved it. but i will need to wait a bit before reading it again. i dont think theyre gonna kill each other tho. i think itll be a moment that brings them to a better understanding of each other/their relationship. i dont mean that in a zosan way just literally in canon as crewmates. and i think it will be JUICY bc those bitches have been bickering for over 20 years…and then finally theres a big ultimate final zoro vs sanji battle like dudebros always clamor about. i want to see a setup where they’re forced to face the fact that they dont get along but still care for each other but also what to do when faced with a choice like that against someone you hate but also care for. and what zoro will do. bc i genuinely have a feeling zoro will fight him to the fucking end but not kill him when it comes down to it. even though zoro keeps promises like they’re oaths…so. i think it may be an outside element that stops the Murder from occuring. zoro may or may not actually attempt it KDSNC. its so fun to think about to me. im so ready 

shuggy moment? 👁️i know oda would not make any gay ship canon (probably most ships tbh) but why does shuggy feel like one of the most likely to me. in a weird way. KADJNFVDK. you know how in the og visual novel for clannad the “bad end” was a gay ending with your male best friend. that is canon shuggy to me. oda doing it kinda halfheartedly in a roundabout way for laughs but the fandom is popping bottles (we popping the BIGGEST bottles when shuggy happens tomorrow-)

on zoro and promises and etc etc…do u think zoro will get more development of him as a character by the end of the story? zoro is a character that’s beautiful in his simplicity but sometimes i want to know him more you know?? he’s kinda mysterious in a closed off way even tho we know what he’s about and. i wanna know more abt him. put him in more fucked up situations. i wanna see zoro suffer in a way that isnt just a tough battle.

im glad u liked it !! :D thank u!!

HAHAHAHA SANJI CONVERT !!! LET’S SEXUALIZE THAT BLONDE MAN ‼️(priorities 🫡) (the 4kids sanji video will get back at me. it will. i will suffer but i will do it.)

i have so many random op images saved in my phone…not to mention my laptop’s screenshot folder…WAIT THAT REMINDS ME JFDBVSJD i have an internship at an art gallery and i need a laptop for the job so i use my own but its my personal laptop.. and once i had to test a powerpoint but i dont have word so i had to use my personal google slides account and WHILE CONNECTED to a GIANT PROJECTOR…THIS briefly flashed on the screen before i frantically clicked away. no one saw but i. i did. (for reference this was for pwp night. and i have still nbot finished it)

i dont talk about sanji in my friend discord server bc None Of Them Watch One Piece but in my dms with my other op friend…let’s look.

on god

this is from both of us together. BUT STILL

(nodding) no go on what animal parts

law’s powers are SO fun. i wish he switched ppls bodies more often!! its such a fun trope its such a guilty pleasure for me!! also room is just. such a cool ability. i love teleportation characters (thinks about nightcrawler from xmen…my blue king). also THAT LAW COMIC I MENTIONED U IN THE TAGS. JHFVBDKAS THE FOURTH PANEL WHERE ITS JSUT THE SEA CREATURES AND HIS DEAD FACE DOING THE ROOM POSE GETS ME EVERY DAMN TIME

is law tall?? i guess he just seems short in comparison to like. doffy. (looks it up) DAMN THIS BITCH IS 6’3??? 

also funny law story i just remembered. sometimes i sell my art at gay art markets. and one time. at a halloween themed one. there was . this random law cosplayer. which yea its halloween thats a costume but for future reference i want to be clear this was like the only anime cosplay. everyone else was like cartoons or monsters or fairies or cats or some shit. well the law cosplayer is set up right across from me and i had JUST started my one piece hyperfixation so i was Extra Crazy abt it and i was literally flipping out so nervous but excited so i dragged myself over and was like “omg…hi…i love ur law cosplay….i just got into op and i havent met him yet but i see him everywhere…” and they were super nice!! but then. later. i go visit my friend’s booth. and . the ONLY other anime cosplay at the entire event…WAS A SECOND TRAFALGAR LAW. STANDING AT MY FRIEND’S BOOTH. I WAS LIKE ??? anyway i pointed them towards each other after fangirling for a hot moment and they took a pic together. it was very fun

ur thoughts are not intense or strange…well maybe they are strange to others but i am also insane. i promise. i love ur insane thoughts pls continue to share. i will do the same someday when i am less shy and ashamed of my unhinged fandom thoughts (such as making zoro amvs to abba in my head on the way to therapy. <- things that should be in the dsm-5 as a criteria. ps. thats a line my therapist actually said in response to something i did once. lmao)

did u notice that in the opla…they have all the characters who were at rogers execution there as their younger selves (mihawk, shanks,etc) AND THERE’S A AFAB PERSON WHO’S DRESSED SUSPIOCIOUSLY LIKE CROCODILE…I WAS LIKE OH SHIT)

i am going to watch the next 4kidd dub video. i will do it for you. (losing years off my life each time)

WOOPS THE PLAYLIST WAS PRIVATE try it now. if you watch any one video from that list. and this one is short. please make it this one. I LOSE MY SHIT EVERY TIME

OH ALSO. APPARENTLY AT COACHELLA. THAT MIKU PERFORMANCE WAS *ALSO* A TV SCREEN. ISNT THAT SAD. PATHETIC!!

lmao. i was talking to my caught up friend about op spoilers today and he wouldnt confirm or deny so many things i said. lmao. rofl, even

“take this how u will” IM SCARED

end of the e letter IS for memes now you’re so correct

p.s…i know discord is a Le PooPooHead esp recently BUT if you want to add me my username is the same as it is here!! feel free but no pressure

[timegears-moved]

happy birthday from totk rant anon!

fun revali fact of the day: while his localized mid-battle voice lines in aoc are mostly fine (i.e. not as bad as it gets sometimes in the cutscenes), some of his original dialogue is really funny to me. this includes:

-his dialogue when you switch to him while playing as link. he's like "oh, could it be that you're going to let ME handle it, link?" (paraphrased) in the most sarcastic tone of voice. it's great.

-his dialogue for being taken down to low health: "haha... i got a bit careless". very much "[chuckles] i'm in danger" energy. he sounds as if he's trying really hard to seem unbothered about being on death's door and just barely managing. the specific wording is also the same as what he says about being killed by windblight in botw so... yeah. this one isn't actually that funny if you think about it too much but it is if you don't.

-technically not mid-battle dialogue but his response to meals was done a bit dirty in the english localization. what he originally says is "this is delicious, isn't it!" in an excited tone of voice if alone (which was tragically localized as an uninterested-sounding "...acceptable." in english), and "ah... not bad." in a more awkward tone if someone else is in the party.

thank you so much anon!!! :D

JSJEJE it's been a few days since i've played but iirc in the english translation when someone other than link calls to him he'll say "on it" but when link calls to him it sounds to me like he says "fine 🙄", though i do find it hard to hear and i'll need a second opinion on that. i just think that it's very funny that he needs to pull this petty passive aggressive shit with link constantly no matter the situation.

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!! i am not okay with that. i love it but that's not okay. and god between his fake bravado ("i was just winging it", "just a scratch", other than the line you provided i can't really recall what he says in japanese) and his sos signal coming in much later than everyone else it's just. so much. he makes me feel so much.

yeah it was a crime that they made him a lot more disinterested in english, though i do like the idea of him being awkward with expressing himself around others to be nice. he just comes across as socially awkward but not in a stereotypical sense to me.

GEOSHEJDJS HELP??????? i mean this is the same guy that interrupted her mid-speech just to show off and complains about how pompous hylian ceremonies are so i just think that while he cares somewhat for zelda as an individual he gives no shits about the royal family as a beacon of authority. based of him tbh.