#I'm quite sure he is though

[groenendaelfic]

While planning ALaWHEO I spent a lot of time thinking about how the Swedish royal family is celebrated and what that meant for Wilhelm growing up. Now with Erik Day I was reminded of this once again and thought to share some of my as always very lengthy and convoluted thoughts.

Irl Sweden celebrates the king's, the queen's and the crown princess' birthdays and name days as official flag flying days along with a number of events of varying magnitude. Military parades, awards, concerts, golf tournaments and the like. For special anniversaries those are even bigger and can span multiple days.

Irl the Swedish royal family is quite large. Growing up, the cp's younger siblings had both each other, as well as a slew of first cousins, most but not all of them quite a bit older, but still. There were always a lot of royals around. The current royal house has nine members, with only three being celebrated that way and the rest of the royal family being much larger.

I have little good to say about the monarchy as an institution and nothing which couldn't be just as well if not better done without it, but I am quite sure that the irl cp's second child is well loved and not made to feel like a spare, but being raised in the fold of the royal family in the knowledge that he is a member of the royal house just like his uncle and aunt, and not worth less than his older sister.

Young Royals' royal house is quite different. We don't know much about Wilhelm's grandfather and grandmother, but from what we see Kristina is well established in her role as queen so I dare guess that Wilhelm's grandfather died when Wilhelm was quite young and his grandmother probably as well if not sooner.

So at best the royal house had six members when Wilhelm was young, with no immediate other family members, but for the vast majority of his life, if not all of it, it was only four. The queen, her consort, the crown prince and Wilhelm.

So three people to be celebrated and a spare.

Maybe sometimes young Wilhelm was glad he didn't have to spend part of his birthday or name day watching military parades and doing walkabouts, and maybe he didn't want events and awards and places named after him, but Erik got all of that. And not just twice a year.

He also got all the attention (unless Wilhelm caused trouble), both the good and the bad kind, from the public and their parents, and the expectations of Erik were higher, but Wilhelm was always and forever reminded that he is less, that everyone in the family/house matters more than him, and it was only him, no other siblings or cousins or aunts and uncles. I'm honestly amazed Wilhelm didn't cause a lot more (and worse!) trouble than he did before he was sent to Hillerska.

August is a second cousin, he doesn't count in any of that. He knew it, too, hence his surprise when the royal court tells him he could be (trained as) a (potential) successor.

Kristina and Ludvig aren't the most warmhearted of parents. They probably neither explained or prepared Wilhelm for any of this properly, nor do I see them throwing Wilhelm a heartfelt private birthday party fit for a child or making sure to show him that he is just as loved and cherished as Erik is.

So Wilhelm spent most of his life watching his parents and brother be celebrated by (as far as he could tell) all of Sweden, while he was the spare who was an afterthought at best, only noticed when he broke the rules, with no one else sharing his position on the sidelines.

That would fuck anyone up, no matter how they might otherwise feel about the constant public attention, but especially a child.

Then Erik dies. We don't know when anyone's birthday is, but we do know their name days thanks to the official list from the Swedish Academy. (Kristina July 24, Ludvig Oct 2, Erik May 18) None of them fall in the s1 and 2 timeline (maaaaybe Ludvig at the very beginning?).

Wilhelm's is on April 6, I'm sure we would have heard had Wilhelm (or Simon!) had a birthday, so that will be the first time in Wilhelm's life when there will be official public celebrations of this kind for him. Or rather The Crown Prince who now happens to be Wilhelm. And it will be The Crown Prince and not Crown Prince Wilhelm more often than not. The Crown Prince who used to be Erik, because Erik had to die for Wilhelm to be of any use or worth officially celebrating.

Throughout YR Wilhelm has started coming into his own, but I doubt he doesn't still first think of Erik whenever he hears the words The Crown Prince, especially when he's not directly being addressed.

I'd guess (although that's all it is, a guess) that at least the Erik Award for Sportsperson of the Year will not be renamed. It probably would have been had Erik not died so young and tragically, but I'd like to think they'd keep the name in his honor and create a new one in Wilhelm's name.

Everything else though? Concert, tournaments, races, random smaller events all over the country? Name and date change. There might be memorial concerts etc for Erik, but those will be something different entirely, something new. Wilhelm is replacing Erik, in everything, and Kristina and the royal court are pragmatic if anything.

In Erik Day I made the specific choice for everyone to move on, almost immediately, at least outwardly so. I'm sure Kristina and Ludvig still grieve, but they do so in private. I might be wrong, but I don't see them making grand gestures or having many memorial events.

I'm sure people are sad Erik died and think it's tragic, sympathy for the royal family will have risen in the aftermath of his death, but Erik was no Diana, and I'm quite sure most people spared his death little thought post funeral. So there's a new cp, so what? It changes little for the average Swede, and certainly not years later. They will have forgotten the date of Erik's birthday or name day, and only remember if reminded. (especially in an AU where Wilmon only meet years later)

[sysig]

Recently had a silly Handplates dream where Papyrus was trying to snoop around Gaster and Alphys’ lab, but didn’t know who Alphys was and so was trying to pass it off as his own lab lol (Patreon)

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Chapter 105.5 Thoughts: Control, Manipulation and Partnership

Or, how Chuuya is actually the most qualified character to land a victory over Dostoevsky.

I just want to preface this with: I think Chuuya has woken from the brainwashing. We can't see his eyes, he's holding his hat again, and look at the progression of his face and expression from the last few chapters with him (these are in order btw from left to right).

I'm not completely sure how he did this, but I chalk a lot of it up to sheer stubborn determination on Chuuya's part, mostly because it's funny and he was clearly fighting back before Dazai's speech. However, I find it likely the speech did contain some kind of code - others have pointed out how "Goodbye!" might be a reference to the original author's last unfinished book and we know skk's codenames for things generally are based off their real counterparts' works so, maybe he'd already broken out of it, maybe there was something in there that gave him the final push - who knows at this point honestly? Either way, it means Chuuya had the capacity to break out of the vampire curse on his own and that's incredibly funny to me for many reasons but mostly:

Fyodor: "Bold of you to assume Chuuya's ability can't overcome flooding."

Dazai: "Bold of you to assume Chuuya's personality can't overcome brainwashing."

But really, this highlights something interesting here, both in what Chuuya's role is ultimately intended to be in this arc, and in the way Fyodor and Dazai manipulate and value others in very different ways.

I've said it before but it bears repeating: we already know that Fyodor is an excellent long-term planner, while Dazai is effectively able to counter him because Dazai shifts into thinking like his opponent. They're foil characters for a reason; they're both highly intelligent, manipulative, and willing to play the long game for the sake of winning against their opponent.

Thing is, I also stand by the idea that personality-wise, they're not similar at all - and that has serious implications for the people they are connected with. The build-up to the prison escape arc really highlights this. Some examples:

Chapter 46: Fyodor believes that all people are sinful and foolish and that his goal is to remove sin. Dazai believes that all people are sinful and foolish but asks what's so wrong with that.

Chapter 64: They decide to have a "super-happy chit-chat" about their problems. Dazai's solution to Fyodor's issue with his lazy subordinates is to get them to think lazing around is a bad thing so they will put in effort of their own. Fyodor's solution to Dazai being unable to woo the waitress is to isolate her from her job, house and family so that she can only rely on Dazai.

Chapter 77: Fyodor believes god is perfection and harmony, and thus that the people capable of change are the superior ones with most control. Dazai believes god is the accidental and illogical and believes it is the ordinary people who fight and live in that uncertainty who create the greatest change.

So, what's happening here? Fyodor's manipulation is shown to be very exacting and direct. He leaves no room for error and regards people on a hierarchy - God above all, himself as a servant of God's will, and the sinful and foolish humans he has little regard for. Dazai's manipulation involves manipulation of the situation, and is often indirect. It involves people coming to the conclusion he intends for them to on their own. And from his later dialogue with Sigma, we see he doesn't regard the world in that same kind of hierarchy.

Now, look at the way Fyodor picks an item and Dazai picks a person when starting the game. Look at the way Fyodor refers to Chuuya respectfully but brainwashes him entirely and mocks Dazai for not being worthy of "using" his ability. Look at the way Dazai is a complete ass to Chuuya but ultimately lets him make his own choices (begging people to take note of that moment in Stormbringer where Dazai cuts himself off to correct his referring to Corruption as Arahabaki's true power to Chuuya's true power).

So, the actual strength Dazai has over Dostoevsky then, is not really his strength at all, it's the strength of others and their choice and willpower to act in the way they believe is best. It's the only means of getting a leg up on Dostoevsky, otherwise they will continue to go around and around in circles forever.

And Chuuya is the best candidate for finally throwing Fyodor off his game.

Firstly, let's just establish something: no matter how mad he is at Dazai, he's not going to side with Fyodor, not willingly. Fyodor threatened the Mafia in the Cannibalism arc by attacking Mori, first of all. I doubt he's forgiven him for that. Secondly, Fyodor embodies everything Chuuya can't stand about Dazai, at the very least, younger Dazai - the manipulation, the lack of consideration and connection with others, the callousness and lack of regard for life.

Well, perhaps he's not quite as irritating. +1 point for Dostoevsky I guess?

But lastly, it is more advantageous for Chuuya at this point to help fight against Fyodor, especially since most of the Mafia has been vampirized by his organization. Helping the Agency stop the terrorist plot will help the Mafia by extension by undoing that. And we know from Stormbringer that no matter how much Chuuya is personally hurt, he considers taking out the threat to his people a higher priority. Always.

(You could make the argument that he was told whatever Teruko told Atsushi and decided to join, but not only do I find this wildly out of character, but if that was the case then there would've been no reason to brainwash him.)

That said, I don't think this was preemptive "Dazai's master plan #3057", and in fact, I stand by the idea that Dazai had no idea Chuuya was going to be in the prison. It is very, very important to me that for the rest of this arc, no matter what Chuuya does, that his actions are his own. Not Fyodor's, not Dazai's, but his. And not just because I hate that he's being controlled right now and that freedom of choice has always been important for Chuuya.

But because it makes narrative sense.

The vampires are a bit silly, yes, but they represent the way Fyodor and Fukuchi think - humanity will commit atrocities. They cannot be trusted to make their own decisions. They want to make a world that is free by... mind-controlling people so their plans work without a hitch. In short, they choose, on behalf of others, to sacrifice human autonomy for peace. So, if we are going to turn this arc around, we need to have characters breaking out of that control and thinking for themselves, in spite of the uncertainty of the outcome.

We already see this with Atsushi in the last chapter! He finally takes initiative and makes that choice to leave the room when he doesn't exactly know what the right thing to do is. And this is also why I don't think Teruko is wholly convinced by the DoA either - she lets him go. She gives him the freedom to choose what he does with that information.

Another one of the focus characters here is Sigma. Sigma is a guy who has no past, whose humanity is questioned, who keeps being used by organizations for his valuable ability, who has no home but desperately wants one... oh wait. Remind you of anyone's younger self? This could go one of two ways: Chuuya fails to assert his autonomy, leaving Sigma to learn from that failure, or, Chuuya succeeds in asserting his autonomy, leaving Sigma to learn from his success.

I think it, by necessity, has to be the latter. Sigma's at a tipping point right now, and I think seeing someone try to assert their freedom only to fail would damage him greatly. And I think it's a waste of Chuuya's character honestly.

Chuuya needs to assert his autonomy in this arc. Not just for thematic reasons but because I can think of no one else who can effectively break the "super-genius stalemate".

I keep hearing "Dazai knows Chuuya" in response to Fyodor calling their bond shallow, and that is absolutely true! But Chuuya also knows Dazai. Incredibly well. Odasaku knew Dazai's soul, but Chuuya knows Dazai's mind, knows his strategies and ways of thinking without even needing words. What's more, Chuuya has thrown off Dazai before and done what he didn't expect him to.

Which is nifty, because Dazai and Fyodor think a lot alike. Chuuya is in a unique position to thwart Dostoevsky because he may actually be able to predict him to a degree. Chuuya can absolutely land a victory against him, and it's excellent because it would be completely unexpected to Fyodor, who apparently thinks Chuuya's strength lies only in what his ability has to offer and not much else.

But listen. This also can't be skk's plan. I need Chuuya to sideline both of them. Both for the sweet, sweet catharsis of putting those two idiot geniuses in their places and also because I need Dazai to have screwed up. He wasn't wrong about people making their own choices in uncertainty. People need to assert their autonomy to create change. Dazai can't be wrong in this regard.

But with going ahead with the trap to drown Fyodor despite also having to drown Chuuya when he promised not to let him get killed... this needs to have been a mistake, otherwise the value of Dazai's emotional speech to him is diminished.

I want Dazai to try to laugh it off. I want him to say he always knew Chuuya would escape and then for Chuuya to deck him because "no, the fuck you didn't".

I really think Dazai hoped Chuuya would make it. Do remember that Chuuya was one of the first reasons young Dazai decided to try giving life a chance. The fact that he flashbacked to all his key memories with Chuuya says a lot. But his survival was no guarantee and it seemed very unlikely.

So, Chuuya is faced with the fact that Dazai nearly sacrificed him to kill Dostoevsky and save his new Agency friends.

And I hope he finally gets mad. I hope he finally expresses hurt on his own behalf for once. I hope they are forced to break their status quo that they have carefully maintained by not talking about anything ever. I hope they are pushed to uncomfortable places and that it is Chuuya who finally spurs this development.

Let Chuuya break the stalemate between Dazai and Dostoevsky. Let him shatter the status quo that him and Dazai have kept going for year after year.

Autonomous action in the face of uncertainty is necessary for change.

[batri-jopa]

Some tasty bits

[tradingjack]

trigun panel redraws from the first 5 chapters

[edwardwonghaupepelutivrusky4th]

wah i looove their designs and animation...

[skeletoninthemelonland]

Do you like all the Springtraps 🤨

Or Just springtrap :^

Ofc there are a few exceptions, but in general- Yes, I do like all the Springtraps!!! :O

[tswwwit]

Hey! You mentioned a while back that if the other dimension Dipper/Mabel/Ford might call the penthouse for advice in dealing with their Bill, and Familiar!Dipper might pick up the "call". I've been rereading the Bill v Bill series and can't get the scene out of my head. Any chance you'd be interested in writing it?

I'm certainly interested in writing it! I think there's a lot of opportunity for Shenanigans, and that's totally my jam.

The problem is: Actually Getting Around to writing it. But perhaps one day!

[kawarikisaki]

What if Hakuba has figured out why Kaito choses to be Kid and that’s why he’s more obviously supportive of him even if he wish he’d stop being a thief.

I think he probably has figured out part of it, but realistically, he's probably missing a lot of the details.

Like, he definitely knows Kaito isn’t doing it for the thrill as he probably suspected early on. All the evidence he needs to Know that Kaito’s motive is something personal is the fact that he has enemies that are actively gunning for him (whether we want to take the specials as canon or not), and the fact that Kid's heists are scheduled in such a way that they normally align with the full moon (we haven’t gotten to see Hakuba witnessing how he checks gems like Conan has, but its not too much of a stretch for him to have noticed the moon's involvement.)

It's even fairly safe to assume that he’s noticed that Kid's disappearance 8 years ago just so happens to coincide with when Kaito’s father died in a tragic stage accident. Which would definitely tell him why Kaito is Kid.

But that doesn’t really tell him what purpose Kid has.

So Hakuba is still left with Questions.

'His dad died, it was reported as an accident, but what if it was a murder?' 'Is Kaito after revenge?' 'What does the moon have to do with anything?' 'Kaito wouldn't kill someone, right?' 'Why is he primarily targeting gemstones?' 'Why does he return what he steals' 'it'd be more efficient to not send advance notices, is there a reason he needs to draw attention? Or is it just for style points?'

And maybe he has a few of those answers... but he doesn't have all of them, and Kaito won't confirm anything.

So if we take the Kaitou Kid specials as potential canon (cause they do change things, but there’s so little canon Hakuba that I'll take some dubious canon as a supplement) then Hakuba knows about Spider and has been specifically investigating him, so its not much of a stretch to think he could also be aware of Snake and have some degree of knowledge about the organization they work for. And if that's the case, maybe he's heard snippets about Pandora, maybe he's able to make some assumptions about the how and why of Toichi's death...

Maybe he wants to pull a 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' with Kaito, perhaps even try to get Kaito some kind of pardon for helping with the investigation. He may not have the power to grant that personally, but perhaps he could pull some strings or get his dad to pull some strings.

But even if we assume he has that much information on the situation, he still doesn't know for sure what Kaito intends to do.

He's almost certain that Kaito doesn't intend to kill anyone. But he can't be 100% sure, because Kaito won't talk to him about Kid, and even if he did Kaito has a skillset that's optimized for lying. Even so, Hakuba believes Kaito wouldn't do that, he believes that Kaito is simply trying bring his father's killers to justice.

And he wants to help.

He's trying to help. Doing all he can to offer short of outright saying it.

But he can't really do much unless Kaito lets him in.

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

"For a self-proclaimed researcher... I thought you'd know by now that Psychic-types are weak against Ghost." "Morty-ehehe! B-But I'm nohohot a type specialist!" "Maybe should've thought of that first before deciding to wake me up so early."

A spiritual successor to this lil doodle of mine 🫣💖💕

[elitadream]

Are there very simple things (like for example darkness,....) that your version of Mario is afraid of?

Oh, that's a very interesting question! 😮

I headcanon him as having stage fright and feeling very uneasy when having to address a large crowd, but I think what my Mario hates and fears the most would probably be small/enclosed spaces. Being stuck somewhere too narrow and cramped for him to break free or even move, feeling utterly powerless and slowly growing more and more agitated as time would pass. 😰 Despite usually being more composed and self-assured than Luigi, this would always make him panic very quickly. I imagine that most of the things capable of making him feel a deep genuine sense of fright would be situational, based in scenarios where he's unable to change his own predicament, and worse yet: inacapble of helping others. 😔

[sleepanonymous]

No lyrics, this is just a piano interpretation/cover Ves did. But I have something special for you below the cut 🖤

Edited out the commenters' last names for privacy, but could you fucking imagine??? Commenting on a video and Ves responding??? I guess I'm fangirling and these people had no idea, but still. Very jealous lmao 😅

[pushing500]

Jesse has recovered and decided to stay! Hooray, I'm glad we rescued him from that space battle. He's very cool despite the hot-pink halo he has going on.

Oh, and Hot Minute has recovered and decided to stay!

Oh, uh... Kelorul has... Recovered and decided to stay, too...

Grump, please, we don't have much room...

Gracie, I love the name, but please reconsider!!

Armstrong is the only person polite enough to excuse herself from the premises after she's all better. We may be a charitable colony, but there are only so many people I can provide for!

First | Next | Previous

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I've always felt that it'd be Killua who initiates the first hug we see between him and Gon

[essenceofarda]

Do you think true love even existed before Elrond and Celebrían found each other 🥺❤️

Speed paint of this under the read more :)

[normalbrothers]

the borgias being a very beautiful show sort of compensates for the questionable writing in the first few episodes or so, but it really gets better and better after this