#Idk if this post is too rambly or if it's coherent or what

[trashlie]

ILY FP 219 (or, The One That Went to the Top of My Favorites List)

Hehehe is that an enticing enough, non-spoiler preview for you? lol I want so badly to tell everyone WHY they should be sure to FP this episode, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. Not that I think knowing what’s in there will ruin it, but I think the impact of going into it without knowing is just SO MUCH MORE POWERFUL. It’s BEAUTIFUL okay? That’s why you should read it - it’s beautiful! 

Idk where to begin with this one!!!! Over 24 hours later, sorting out my emotions is still difficult because I just keep wanting to climb the walls and start shrieking lmao AAAAHHHHHHHH! 

Those of us who are patrons of quimchee’s got a little teaser for this episode - the first part was SUPPOSED to post with 218, and quimchee said that 213-219 are all supposed to be parts of one much, MUCH bigger episode, so you know, if you want to read them all together, there you go! But anyway, even getting a little teaser of it last week, this episode was still full of so much new, and even what we got to see still hit just as strong. UGH. LISTEN. 

When the music hit me and I realized what it was? As we kept scrolling and Shinae furtively snuck back in? I CRIED okay lmao I CRIED. How long has it been since Nol last celebrated his birthday? When was the last time someone made him feel special on this day? Because he sure hasn’t allowed himself to. He hasn’t spent a birthday with friends - I mean, hell, this is the first time he’s even HAD friends who mean anything - and after everything they’ve gone through, everything he put them through, to see them show up just meant SO MUCH to me. I had no doubts that Dieter and Soushi would come through for Nol, but I didn’t think we’d get to see it so soon, either. I was so concerned that there’d been no time for them to talk at the party, that Soushi’s first indication that Nol was even there at all was seeing him fall into a glass table! Finding him bleeding out in the snow. 

How harrowing it must have been for them - at least Shinae has gotten to talk to him a little, has a little more insight into who he is, why he did what he did. I’m sure, in time, Dieter and Soushi will come up to speed, whether through Shinae or Nol himself, but even now, even with them NOT knowing or understanding, I think it makes it even more special that they showed up. Nol has been there when they needed him, whether they wanted it or not. He always had their backs, had a way of making them feel like they were special, like they matter. And now they all got to do the same for him, to return that favor. As readers, we know that Nol began those relationships with no real intentions, never intending those friendships to become real, but they did, both ways. There was something about Soushi’s commentary that really did me in - about how he doesn’t have bullies coming around anymore and even if he did, he’s got a buddy whose got his back ;~; How he went from wanting to take help from no one to coming around to the weirdly insistent boy. 

I love, LOVE, LOVE how all of their gifts related to the beginnings of their relationships. Again, it’s something about how it began on false pretenses, but how it became real and came to mean something to all of them that just really gets to me! I don’t know how to articulate it, the feeling of these people who desperately needed someone, being able to be that to Nol, that even though he’s tried to push them away, to run away, even though they have no explanation for his behavior, they still are there for him when he desperately needs it. I kept waffling for a long time on whether I thought Nol was intending to ghost everyone after prison, going back and forth even as he and Shinae talked in Minhyuk’s room. “Is he telling her this because he doesn’t plan to stick around?” But especially after all of these hospital scenes, I feel pretty confident that’s not his plan. Just like Soushi and Shinae never really intended to accept Nol’s friendship and thought they were fine on their own, I think Nol may be having that moment for himself.

Or, rather, I think he’s at a crossroads and is at war with himself. On the one hand, he doesn’t believe he deserves any of this. The way he talks about his birthday is so SAD; Shinae is right, people don’t talk like that! Was it a difficult pregnancy that Nessa had with Nol? Did his birth cause her harm? Is it just the circumstances he feels guilty for? Maybe he believes she’d be okay if she’d never conceived him? Maybe it’s because of his relation to the Hiraharas? He talks about people stepping on the burger - that definitely feels like it’s about the Hirahraras, taking his existence and making him feel insignificant and wrong, like he shouldn’t exist. But it’s the way he talks about the mistreatment of the cow sent to the slaughterhouse. It sounds like that’s about his mom - which could be the most he’s ever said about her. If his birthday is the burger, then the cow that became the burger would be her, right? I still have so many questions, ngl. Nol clearly has a complicated relationship with the memory of his mother - we know his childhood, before they left home, were his happiest memories, but at the same time, he can’t speak of the happy memories, or really, her at all. I don’t think the guilt is simply that he exists, and there’s more to it, whether it’s misconstrued on his behalf or just more puzzle pieces we’re missing. 

At any rate, Nol carries a heavy weight of guilt and has denied himself any joy or happiness, has never allowed himself to ENJOY things, lest they go awry. Probably like with his mom, and like with Shinae, a connection with him seems to end in danger. Of course, that’s not true - people end up in danger because of their own choices, and the choices of those around them - but again, we are talking about the way Nol views himself and the world. I think this is a big thing, too, because I’ve been thinking a lot about identity and perception lately, but I’ll try to get to that in a moment. 

For so long, Nol has been content with his self-inflicted punishment, but then he accidentally made real friends along the way. His quest to help people went off track. And for a while, he tried to fix that. He pulled away, he stopped responding, he tried to completely and cleanly cut them off, he drew the line and let them know. But here they still stand after it all, and he can’t help but appreciate that. The way my stupid heart flipped when he hugged Dieter and Soushi and told him he loved him. That feels like the most genuine expression we’ve seen on him in a long time - and for him to be so forthright with them, to even use that word at all! This is what makes me feel certain he doesn’t intend to ghost them. Why would he tell them that if he planned to leave? Why would he accept and embrace their friendship if he didn’t want it? And that’s the thing, isn’t it? His internal war is his wants vs what he thinks he deserves. It’s the fear that he brings harm to people, but that DESPERATE LONGING for that closeness. 

Throughout ILY we’ve seen so many times Nol wanted to reach out and denied himself the opportunity, for whatever reason. Countless times he’s reached out to Shinae only to close his hand into a fist and restrain himself. All that loneliness is haunting. I think it’s around the time they went to the arcade that Nol knew these relationships were real, and it was the arrival of Yui that reminded him he can’t do this, he can’t let his guard down, he can’t indulge his desires like this. To have that taste for friendship, for what it feels like to just let go, to be around people who don’t spend all their time trying to tear you apart, to be around people who CHOOSE your company, who CHOOSE to be with you? And then to retreat? He tasted something so sweet but had to give it up.

And now, after everything he’s done, they still show up for him, they still sat by and watched over him, they still came to CELEBRATE him? How can he continue to deny himself this? How can he close his fist and walk away from it? 

But, and my god I realize this is a very verbose point lmao, the point I’m getting at is, in the same way that Soushi and Shinae refused his friendship, in the same way that they thought they were better off on their own, I think Nol is at that same crossroad - is he better off alone? How bad is it, if he indulges just a little? 

I hope he thinks long and hard about what Shinae said very early in the evening, too. Whether or not he believes he puts people in danger, it’s not his call to make. Friendship is a two-way road and they, also, deserve to make their choice, to choose him despite the danger. It wasn’t Nol that put Shinae in danger. Maybe in a convoluted way you could say so - she’d never have called on Kousuke for that favor he owed her for getting Nol to the hospital the night of the masquerade - but regardless, Yui acts on her own. I realize this is not easy for Nol to see, because of what a deep-seated belief this is, but I hope it’s something he’ll consider more and more. 

There’s so much I could write about the birthday party ALONE. How wonderful it was to see them all together again after all this time, the sweet callbacks to their beginnings demonstrating how far they’ve come, how much they mean to each other. Nol is SO loved, and I hope he learns to wear that love as a much needed suit of armor. What does it matter that his family is trash, when this, his found family, makes up for it in so many ways? What does it matter that some people chose to make him feel insignificant, when he has people who choose to celebrate him, and the fact that he’s in their lives? ;~; That little happy smile and blush he wears when Shinae pointedly tells him they want to spend this night making him feel special ;~; It fucks me up lmao like lakjfkjafkjaf I’M GETTING WEEPY WRITING THIS ALL OVER AGAIN LMAO 

NOL DESERVES TO BE CELEBRATED. HE DESERVES TO FEEL SPECIAL. He came into their lives and individually made them all better. There’s an argument to be made that it was Kousuke’s financing that made Soushi’s life better, but we know that HE chooses Nol. That his companionship with Nol makes his life better. If not for Nol, where would they even be? He deserves to be celebrated because he’s brought so much good into other lives! And he deserves a return of that, too. All the good he tried to put into the world to counter the guilt he wears, all the good he denied himself and thus brought to others. GOD. I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ;~; I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THIS GANG I hope in the future we get to see more of them, now that we know how close their bond is, how much they mean to each other ;~; 

DIETER’S ORIGAMI DUCKIES AND THE LITTLE BIRTHDAY MESSAGES! THE CALLBACK TO NOL AND THEIR MORNING RUNS AND THE STILLNESS OF THE WATER AND THE DUCKIES ;~; Apologizing that these aren’t the best presents, that there’s no cake, but aren’t they? Isn’t this the best? There’s something about people spending their time and energy to create something for you that REALLY gets to me. Every time a friend hand-makes something for me, I just cry and cry lmao. Maybe origami duckies and happy birtday on a cake isn’t a lot of effort - but the point is that they TRIED. That at the last minute, they came up with something to try to return the kind of friend he’s been to them. They ARE the perfect gifts. What else could he possibly need more than to know that he is important to them and means so much? 

AND THAT WAY HE LOOKS OVER AT SHINAE, THE WAY SHE QUICKLY LOOKS AWAY, THE FLUSTERING, THE LITTLE BUTTERFLIES WE FEEL ON HER BEHALF!!!!! AUGH. 

I find it so cute and funny that Shinae was too shy to give Nol her gift at the same time, feeling that it paled in comparison to Dieter’s duckies, but personally, I think it’s right on par. Just like their messages, Shinae’s gift harkens back to the earliest days of her friendship with Nol, the orange soda she spilled on him, the fear he’s allergic to oranges lol, what she drew on his face the day following at that deli lol “You don’t suck that much” All the way back in episode 4, she told him “You’re a human first. And humans suck.” WHAT A CALLBACK!!!!!!!! Idk like, to me here gift was so on par, but also, it’s something that conveys a sense of feelings and being who she is, I don’t blame her for feeling a little shy about it.

ESPECIALLY COS MY GOD THERE’S SO MUCH SHYNESS IN THIS EPISODE MY GOD!!!!!!!! 

It’s been long established that I am here for the soft shit, the tender shit, for little stolen moments laced with intimacy, stolen little moments of calm in an otherwise turbulent storm. IT’S MY EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!! Dieter and Soushi on the spare bed in the room, while Shinae lays her head again on Nol’s bed, the both of them refusing to sleep. Shinae probably fears that he’ll disappear if she sleeps, that he’ll slip through her fingers; Nol probably worries that when he wakes this will be over, the calm, the good feelings. There’s something so TENDER about them trying to delay the inevitable, to stretch the last remining time. And, again, with Dieter and Soushi sleeping (god I hope Dieter is sleeping), everything that follows just feels again like a little stolen moment, just like every other moment they share together. 

The shift in Nol and Shinae’s relationship dynamic is practically palpable. How many times has she gotten flustered over his gaze this night? How many times has she been unable to hold that gaze?! I’m a sucker for this! There’s likely a number of reasons that have brought this reaction out of it. It reminds me a lot of episodes 117 and 118 with the nugget crushing hand holding and the shared music moment - how Shinae marveled over her hands afterward, how she had to go lmao hold Minhyuk’s hand to feel it out. That, and the little flashback snippet of Nol doing her make up at the formal seem to be the times that Shinae has been most affected by Nol, and I think in a lot of ways they resonate with the version of him she knows now. But that’s the other thing. She knows more than Dieter and Soushi do and through that, she’s aware of that significance and I think it’s absolutely affected her. They’ve been so incredibly vulnerable with each other all evening - Shinae being so uncharacteristic and saying so many heartfelt, sentimental things in effort to reach Nol, sharing her story about middle school, the reveal about Alyssa, the little things he’s let slip about his family dynamic. Shinae is already seeing him in a new light, and so much of it is just raw and she’s yet to have a moment to really sit down and take in everything. But also, the GLANCES, his INTENSE expressions. 

I was talking to someone on reddit about this but the thing is - this isn’t Shinae’s first meeting with Nol like this. In so many of their shared moments, this is the person he’s been, letting down his goofy mask, talking seriously with her. The break in at her apartment, the phone call after his family dinner, the scene at the wac, the breakdown on the hospital terrace, the time he gave her his extra taco. Though not as raw as this Nol, the edges softened and blurred more than he is now, she’s come face to face with this iteration of him. It’s the intensity that is so new. And lmao that intensity is what makes him so alike Rand, who made Shinae quiver LMAOOOOOO it’s so funny that this is finally catching up to her, that their appearance is finally frazzling her. But I think it’s a culmination of all of this. There’s an awareness at the tip of her tongue that she’s yet to voice, yet to confront, but she’s certainly acting on it. The stolen glances, the flustered glances away, the way she is so WHOLLY affected. 

It’s only just earlier this week, as far as the timeline goes, that Shiane realized HOW important Nol is to her, HOW scared she is of losing him, how much he means to her. Dieter used the l-word! It’s not a casual friendship. And his significance to her seems to dance along the border between platonic and romance - you can be significant to someone without it being romantic, you can be a person someone doesn’t want to lose without it being romantic. But SHE has to find that significance, she has to figure that out. All this shyness and flustering - is it the newness of this side of Nol, of all this vulnerability shared between them, or is it something more in the ways they bring comfort to each other, the ways they seem to stabilize each others’ world. I don’t think we’ve seen it demonstrated as strongly as we have with Nol, how Shinae’s presence and can center Nol and root him in the present, but I think we’ve seen a few instances of Nol being the same for her. 

This is one of those things about love and romance and friendship that fascinates me. At what point IS it romance? At what point does that friendship turn into “I want more of this I need more of this”? You can receive comfort from so many people, so at what point does it become something romantic?

And I think that’s what Shinae and Nol are toeing. Nol, certainly, is becoming more aware of that affect she has on him, the way she roots him to the present, the way she brings him much needed peace. Does Shinae realize yet the way she seeks him out? Does she realize how much peace she’s also gotten from him? 

And it seems so mutual, the way Nol gives in and indulges in the peace, the way he initiates these little moments of physicality. And it could absolutely be nothing, it could absolutely be just a casual touch amongst friends, except it’s them, and she’s flustered and looking away, and the butterflies seem to dance off the page. It’s the way he looks from her gift, loaded with what began their friendship what brought them into each other’s lives, and looks over at her trying to drown out his reaction, too embarrassed (TOO SHY!!!!!!) to see, that eyeless frame (QUIMCHEE DOES THIS SO MUCH! SO OFTEN! WHEN SHIELDING NOL’S FEELINGS!!!!!!) when he reaches over with his fingers in her hair.

HE DIDN’T HAVE TO DO THAT. HE COULD JUST TAP HER SHOULDER. HE COULD JUST SCOOT NEARER. BUT HE DOESN’T. IT’S HIS FINGERS IN HER HAIR, NEAR THE SCAR THAT PUT HER INTO DEFENSE MODE except she’s not, and he’s there, and she can’t look directly at him and he moves in close and it’s so INTIMATE it’s so TENDER it’s like the earbuds sharing moment except somehow even MORE because now she’s aware, NOW the fluttering is there, the stolen glances, the close proximity, the way he relaxes when he’s close to her, the way he is being so much MORE than he’s been before. 

His tapping finger and that coy, flirty, finger dancing?! The way she glances away as her finger dances towards him, on some level aware of what it means what it is a little too shy too coy, he way he hesitantly joins in and it’s something so SILLY so GOOFY such a light, light moment and GOD it’s beautifully done? You can FEEL the flirtiness of it, you can FEEL the little butterflies, the shyness and hesitation. The way Nol’s smile fades and he becomes serious before his finger hooks around hers, the way she thinks he’s playing until she, too, realizes, he’s not UGH. /UGH/ I SCREAM!!!!!!! How is it that a single finger hooked around another makes me scale the walls like this?! It’s such a small thing, but it’s so BOLD, initiating a dance even though he must be in pain! His back?! His body?! He’s not even on morphine ;~; He’s just. ENDURING IT. 

And idk, I never know what’s going through his mind. The dance she offered him that they never got to share. Something more significant than fingers dancing, something that means MORE. 

And again, that’s the thing. I think he’s so at war with himself. He’s still calling her Yoo, but he’s touching and so close and initiating that dance and he can tell himself it doesn’t mean anything, but he already knows. He already figured that out last episode. Soon he’ll be gone and he’ll be away from the people he loves, all alone again, and he’s scared to go. He still can’t bring himself to use her name, he can’t be so familiar with her - and yet is this not a more familiar way of being? I feel like part of is is that feeling of how fleeting this moment is, wanting to capture as much of it as possible, finally acting on what he wants. All those times he’s reached out only to close his fist, and this time he isn’t hesitating, this time he isn’t denying himself. This is what he wants, so he goes for it. 

Will he regret it? I hope he’s far enough beyond his point of no return that he can’t. I hope he’s acting out of clarity that if this is the case, if this is how he feels, then why shouldn’t he allow himself this. Perhaps there’s fear that when he comes back it will all be different, that this will be a fleeting dream and everyone will move on without him. It feels like the cusp of a dream and reality, where you allow yourself to indulge because soon you return to the real world, to the waking nightmare of reality and this will be all you have left to carry with you. 

It feels even more likely when he crumbles when she mentions when he returns. Perhaps it could be that he DOES intend to never come back after he releases, but idk, I guess I’m just so hopeful that’s not the case? It could be a parallel to the hug in the rain, when she asked if any of it was real and he hugged her because it wasn’t until it was and he couldn’t bear to say so. But it also feels so much like he’s afraid. The way he buries his head in her shoulder, his face hidden so she can’t see his emotions, their hands still held at their side feels so much like he’s afraid and doesn’t want to say so, wants to put on a brave face but he can’t. “When he returns” because for a time he will be away and he just had the sweetest taste of calm and when he wakes up from this dream the waking nightmare resumes, he’ll again be all alone and it’s so much harder to go back to alone when you’ve had a taste for this, when you’ve indulged. How can he go back to before, how can he face this new stage alone? 

It’s such a sad little scene, the way they’re standing together, another dance interrupted, but at the same time, there’s something sweet. Very bittersweet, I guess. Maybe it’s just because he’s too weary and hasn’t had it in him to put up the walls again, but to see him, yet again, seeking that comfort in her, allowing himself something he once would have denied himself. Allowing himself to feel his feelings and to comfort himself. 

There’s just so much that is beautiful and painful about this episode. For this to be the first time he’s felt peaceful and calm and he nearly died in order to have this moment? The knowing that he will have to leave, that he’ll have to return to feeling small and insignificant, that he has to face a new fear when he goes to prison, when this little suspended moment in time is all over. While I personally think - or hope - we’ll get to see a positive transformation from Nol while he’s locked up, thanks to the counseling he’ll be going through, it’s still hard to watch him have to leave this. I don’t want to romanticize his sentence by any means lol but I do think being away from his family, away from the people who chip away at him and tear him down, can give him so peace to confront what he hasn’t been able to. I don’t think it will be a total transformation of any kind - just the necessary first steps. Nol needs to be away from the Hiraharas, and to learn to see the worth in himself. 

I mentioned this earlier in this post, but I’ve been thinking a LOT about perception of self, and how others see us. For instance, the version of me that I intimately know, that exists to me, doesn’t necessarily exist to others. Likewise, there are people who will see me in very different ways than I see myself, and it’s not that they don’t know me well, it’s just that we all are different people to everyone we know. We’re multifaceted and shaped by our experiences, but also by our actions and how we’ve affected the people with whom we interact. 

Nol sees himself as a villain, as a monster, as someone who needs to be punished. But that’s not the version of him that Shinae knows, or Dieter or Soushi, either. To them, he’s a hero, he’s someone who does good. Shinae described him as the sun and while I think that’s partly because of his bright smile and bubbly personality as Yeonggi, I think it’s also in the way that he can make things a little better for everyone. Nol has never been able to see himself the way others see him, though, because he’s so pre-occupied with the version of himself he knows, the one that’s been so heavily influenced by the Hiraharas. That he’s a mistake, that he shouldn’t exist, that everything would be better without him. And because he can’t see those versions of himself, he can’t see that it’s not true. Shinae certainly wouldn’t be better off without him, nor would Soushi or Dieter. BECAUSE he’s in their lives, they are better off. And that’s what he needs to learn to see, to reconcile with the version of him that exists. Because sure, that’s part of him. Maybe it’s not correct, but it’s a part of his identity. But so is the version of him that exists to his friends. So is the version of him that Nana loves. And obviously, it’s not so easy to wake up to those sides, because of how overwhelming this version of him is. But I hope that time away from the people who feed into that image, with some counseling might help him start to clear that away and better see himself for who he is, all the multitudes that he is. 

Because here’s the thing - people contain a range of good and bad, that’s what makes us human. Our choices ultimately define that, but so do our circumstances. This is why I can offer empathy towards characters like Kousuke and Alyssa who have made choices that we wouldn’t consider right, but make sense for their circumstances. Nol contains so much darkness, but he also contains so much light. Maybe he’s not as radiant as Yeonggi - but maybe it’s only because he hasn’t had the chance to be. Who could he be with a break from the people who tear him apart? Who could he be away from their influence? That’s what I’m keen to see, and that’s why I think he’s not intending to leave everyone after prison - or at least not GHOST people. Maybe he does need to get physically away, go to college abroad, but that doesn’t mean he’d be abandoning his friends this time. 

Nol’s real family sucks. But this family - his found family - they can bring him the joy and happiness he deserves, even before he thinks he deserves it. Again, maybe I’m just being really hopeful, but I just feel like this is a significant, defining moment for him, hopefully the beginning of him realizing he’s allowed to indulge, he’s allowed the same comfort he’s offered to others. 

Gosh what a tangent lol I know this post would be a mess. I JUST. I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS. I have sooooooo many disorganized feelings seeing Nol like this, how sad I feel how happy I feel how much my stupid heart pitter patters over his interactions with Shinae. The callback to the dance at the formal where she was so uncomfortable (BUT NOW! NOW! SHE’S NOT!!!!!!) the teasing about her dancing, and he WILL miss her. HE’LL MISS HER! UGH /GOD/ 

But boy do I hope Dieter is fast asleep lmao ;~; I don’t think Shinae or Nol are ready to face what is unfolding, but Dieter reads them so well, he’s aware of things before they are. He knows what he is, for lack of better word “competing” against, and I think maybe he even knows it’s a losing battle. He made his move and she turned him down and I think he’s accepted her friendship with grace and delight - getting to know her better, getting to grow closer to her than he ever thought. And god, isn’t it painful to watch her and know that she seems to be drawn somewhere else, that it’s nothing you can do anything about? Because Dieter loves Nol, too. He probably understands how someone would be drawn to him at all! And while I think Dieter is a character who would handle things with grace, it would still hurt. I don’t think Shinae and Nol are a thing that, if they ever happen, would do so any time soon, and by that time I like to think Dieter would be over Shinae in that way, that they’d be close friends still, that they’d be people who root for each other and want the best for each other. But for him to have that awareness NOW, ugh the pain. He’s already taken note of the way she is with Nol vs how she is with him, the way she was so overwrought when they found out about all the secrets and lies, when they found her crying in the rain. 

I DON’T WANT HIM TO GO THROUGH THAT DAMNIT ;A; 

But we are definitely at this point where it’s a little too obvious to deny, a little too obvious to look away from. Any attempt at earning Shinae’s affection feels like you’re competing with something else. Even if she’s not ready to face it and admit it yet, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Whether or not it’s romantic or not is for her to decide, but for us as readers, we know that it’s something significant, that they have a mutual effect on each other that’s undeniable. There is so much trust shared between them now - despite it all, she trusts him, and he knows now that he can trust and rely on her, too. And as an outsider, it’s just obvious that something is there, however that something is defined. It’s not a stretch to say that Nol takes a priority, that she will at this point push things aside for him. 

Even romance aside, I think this is a dynamic we’ll be seeing a lot of going forward, because Nol still is not fast to open up to people and to rely on them. Trusting Shinae like this, letting her in to this more vulnerable side, I think defines a lot of their relationship to come as they evolve. Maybe Nol will leave and go abroad and maybe Shinae will date other people in that time, but I think we’ll see that Nol maintains a special place in her heart, that will be difficult for a lot of people to compare to. How do you compare to someone who has these experiences with her, who has developed a bond through these trials and tribulations lol? 

GOD. 

I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS I JUST. WANNA!!!!!!!! SCREAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[adraughtofamortentia]

Tell us about your OCs!?? they're all super cute

asdjhflkdsh eeee opening the flood gates my friend, i will try to keep this to the point but im excited lmao <3

so the characters i listed here take place in like a supernatural historical cdrama au x au of jackson wang's mv 100 ways

rai shi is the main character (original post here) and is half fox demon

she and shi ten are orphaned cousins who are heirs/head disciples to their adoptive uncle's sect/villa. the sect's Special Field is like Investigation. when someone goes missing or something spooky happens who you gunna call? you're gunna write a scroll to the sect and a Detective will investigate and use their Special Sect Forms of Martial Arts to solve the problem

shi ten is older than rai shi and has very dry sarcasm. he knows lots about the law and is judging you. the cousins can often be found enjoying evenings together with seasonal fruit wine and getting into passionate debates

ji zhao and yon are also disciples in the villa

ji zhao is in charge of the kitchens and is besties with rai shi. she likes poetry and coming up with new recipes. Mom Friend TM

yon tends the gardens and writes books. he is always seen with a cup of tea at hand and even makes his own blends possible flirt

another character is rai shi's love interest N/A (name tbd lol i call him JW for now....)

basically rai shi and JW are reincarnated lovers whose past is the plot of the mv - the resurrection after dying in a war messed with their souls in the underworld and like dislodged them to be reborn again

due to Plot rai shi and JW meet and begin unlocking the memories of their past lives however!

their meeting is fraught with disguises and before true love can be found - and all her fox demon powers can be unlocked - rai shi has to find out who the Masked Man from the woods is, why girls are disappearing in the woods, and how long she'll have to put up with the annoying young man staying as a guest in the villa while his father and her uncle negotiate a (?)Treaty between the two sects

[subarashiihibi]

my thing about izaya is that he's so strange and weird and i love that so much. i didn't want to ramble too much in the notes of that poor person's post but i find the way he speaks and the words he chooses so interesting so let me ramble a little bit. this may or may not even be coherent so bear with me here im just going to speak my thoughts.

ok this got really fucking long and all over the 0place so im putting this under a read more sorry.

so i have volume 9 of the novel in both english and japanese. i only have two novels in japanese and that is this one and yuuyake wo. so i'm pretty crazy about this izaya speech analysis shit. anyways i was rereading thru the jp ver the other day just to compare it to the eng and i kinda realized that like.

a lot of people you can separate their speech in either formal and informal speech right? someone like shizuo speaks really informally and uses a lot of rough, dragged-out versions of words and stuff (しゃーねえ vs しょうがない) and then someone like shinra who speaks in a ton of yojijukugo and generally sounds like a nerd emoji gijinka.

izaya on the other hand rly... doesn't fit in either? i mean sure he sounds like another nerd emoji gijinka but it's kinda different. it's not so much the words he speaks but rather the intonation and his tone...

and he has his moments where he speaks pretty seriously and whatnot of course, but in general he just... doesn't sound very human when he speaks? i don't know if that's a conscious effort or not. is it his attempts at distancing himself from his own individual humanity? or is it just because he's a weird guy? i dunno. but it's interesting nonetheless.

one thing i will note though is that despite his somewhat inhuman speech patterns, it's also pretty...dramatic? to the extent where it's really exaggerated but also very cute and charming. (this part is important.)

i think a lot of what makes izaya's speech so weirdly inhuman is because he doesn't really use a lot of slang or similar lingo that people his age would typically use. i know mikado said in the novels that he doesn't really try to fit in with his age group's fashion sense either so it makes sense but still. he's like an old hag it's so funny. and it's because of that that when he says stuff like 'i don't get all hot and heavy over headless women' or whatever he said to celty it's really amusing to me because like... why is the strange man saying this?💀

another example i kinda giggled about on my twitter when i read it it's not even crazy and i sound corny and cheesy and stupid but theres this scene in vol 9 where izaya messages celty for business and hold on let me just put it as a quote.

he sounds so old saying 'video game' like 😭 idk it's just funny cause he barely even knows anything abt games like bro knows nothing im crying

in the jp hes like 「…ゲーム中なのかい？」 and then when celty tries to explain herself he says 「何を言ってるのか、良く解らないんだけど」 and im rly bad at tling parts of sentences and stuff but just know that the way he words it makes it sound like this gif to me

i love both versions i think the original jp makes him sound like hes so lost and confused (hence why pw gif cause lord that man always looks lost LMFAOOOO) and then eng tl just blunt ass "I don't know what you're talking about." makes him sound like full on hag 😭😭😭

OMFG WAIT I HAVE TO MENTION THIS FUCKING SCENE WITH SHINRA ITS SO FUNNY.

first i think it's funny the translation has izaya say fuck here cause he very rarely swears and i did read this one thing about how he only swears when his mask slips so to me this is like genuine bewilderment that he cant even hide LOL. second why is he so excited to hear about 'whatever sexual fetish' shinra has im crying he's so damn nosy . okay but this is not the funniest part let me add that now.

???

ehy the hell is izaya orihara talking about foot fetishes???😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 im crying bruh i was so flabbergasted when i read this i was like WHAT did he just say? he says it in the jp ver too which just makes it even funnier. this goes back to what i said earlier but i always get so amused when izaya has something to say about sex or whatever cause he's so fucking weird and unsettling why does he know that

(i mean i also get so hard i nearly pass out thinking about izaya tlaking about sex but thats probably just a thing with my heart condition and stuff)

oh also another scene i think is really cute and amusing and funny is back when shinra was first still trying to get izaya to form the bio club w him.

1. shinra is funny as fuck in this scene but also izaya's "Hmm. Can I punch you?" made me havbe a good laugh. in the jp he says 「んー。殴ってもいいのかな？」 which is pretty much the same thing just with the intonation of like 'hmmmmmmmmm should i hit u or not...' sorry like i said im just bad w explaining this stuff. but i felt the need to point it out not cause im one of those annoying ppl who praise the original jp ver and reject translations and localizations i just think it's important for izaya specifically cause i love him and i want to analyze his speech patterns as best as i can.

i was going thru the novel just now for other stuff i wanted to mention and i forgot abt this part but it's so funny.

'Let's not get hasty. Type calmly, please.' its not even funny or nothing i just find it so amusinf whenever he talks like that💀 i will say though the english translation kind of makes him sound more weird and inhuman than the original. that line in the original was basically just him telling her she needs to calm down enough to at least type properly LOL. idk if im just being nitpicky cause this is izaya tho so feel free to ignore that. fwiw i like the eng tl bc while it's a different intonation than the original japanese ver i think if he did speak english it would probably sound smth like that anyways.

this too made me laugh like ??? seriously he is really nosy when it comes to people's intimate affairs. in the jp ver he calls them an 'intimate couple' which just is like .. ok bro💀

does anyone else see my vision of izaya getting cucked by celty (does it count as cucking when celtys the one dating shinra) while he looks sad and pathetic and miserable that he never decided to shoot his shot w shinra back in the day

if i were commenting on the actual stuff going on in this scene rn this post would be a lot olonger and even more terribly all over the place so im just gonna focus on how i think it's funny izaya says 'easy, man...' this is like one of the only times his words are somewhat natural and sound like smth you would hear someone else say. in the jp ver it's 「おいおい…」 which is somewhat less out of left field in terms of coming from izaya but still it's pretty surprisingly normal. i have to wonder if in that moment he's too worried about shinra to care about keeping up appearances.

this is just random and me making fun of izaya as usual but why the hell does he weigh himself after his showers💀💀💀 it's cute and endearing and only adds to his strong gap moe but still... it's strange...

speaking of cute things this is from a volume i forget but he says this one phrase a couple of times and it is just both really cute and also kind of idk... saddening. one of the times i can remember he says it is when namie was making fun of him or something and he replies 'Don't tease me. I'm only human.' or something along those lines and it's like . hm. ok.

i think it's cute he says 'dont tease me' a few times cause eughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (trying to ward off severe brain damaged incoherent thoughts) but 'im only human' is like... are you really? even after you try so hard to escape your own humanity and individual self so much... im going to try and give my thoughts on it here but this is just based off my hc that izaya has bpd so yanno. im basing a lot oif this on my own experiences sorry. i do that a lot. (gestures over to all the posts i make abt fob/mychem fan izaya)

when it comes to just straight up acknowledging his humanity izaya has no problems with this because 'sure, i'm human. isn't that obvious?' is probably something along the lines of what he thinks. it's easy for him to just say that because it's just that. it's just words. it holds no real meaning and shows no true insight into how he actually perceives himself. but when it comes to actually having to come face to face with his own humanity and the fact that yes, he is only human, it's a lot more difficult because now it's out of his control. i wonder also if he has problems with perceiving his own self.

i say this a lot but i truly do believe izaya is so so so beautiful and i love him so much. also i just saw a funny post on twitter so i wanna say this here idk if yall know this but izayas actually a latina hes got chismosavirus❤ ok thats all i have to say sorry for rambling so much

[drunk-on-dk]

HI SKY <333333

Been thinking about riding junhui a lot more than usual lately......but like lazily i love lazy sex and he is giving body worship ehehehehehhe

JENNA <3333 I'm absolutely BUZZING FROM THIS the second I saw you send this in I WAS LIKE YESSSSSS I'M SORRY IT TOOK A BIT... but what a wonderful way to post my first jun work on here because I NEED this. ily thank you for sending this in because I'm obsessed (also with drowning by bobby coming out WHEW what a suitable song)

warnings: no plot just smut (minors i do bite so please DNI), unprotected sex (no protection is mentioned, but pls stay safe friends), fem-bodied reader but no specified pronouns, riding, body worship, marking, sub (?) jun (idk he'd do anything for the reader he's obsessed), pet names (good boy jun)

w/c: ~850 words

Junhui was in a daze, eyes half-lidded and hypnotized by the slow roll of your hips into his. If the grinding motion was enough to set his body on fire, then each pulse of your walls around his cock was enough to make him feel like he could actually combust. But he doesn't, he can't bear the thought of not having your skin on his, absolutely positive that he'd let you ride him like this all night.

At this rate, it may actually be all night, as neither of you can exactly remember how long ago it was since you climbed onto his lap claiming you wanted to "take care of him" tonight. After all, Jun has been such a good boy for you all week; he deserves a little TLC in the form of you pinning him down to the bed and riding him until you both see stars.

He's too entranced by the curves and dips of your body and the way your features twist into the most beautiful expressions of pleasure as you lazily rotate your hips in a figure-8 pattern.

The large hands that trace your body pull soft moans from you, his gentle touch only amplifying the immense amount of pleasure you feel from the stimulation of your clit rubbing against Jun's pelvis and how he fills you so perfectly. His palms run shamelessly over your torso, roaming aimlessly as if to remember every inch of your delicate skin until landing on your hips.

Jun has been mumbling rambles of praises all night, unable to form a coherent sentence due to the way his mind is clouded by you. He's absolutely consumed by the way you feel wrapped around him, loving that he can watch you lose yourself on his cock with each languid, self-guided roll of your hips.

"Can't believe you're mine," he babbles, hands still finding real estate on your hips and rubbing his thumb almost soothingly. "So perfect, so beautiful."

His words have you gasping, your own hands splayed out greedily on his broad chest that heaves as your walls tighten with each doting word.

"S-shit, Jun," you moan a bit louder when his hands spread to your ass, your body falling limp against his when he grips the muscle a little tighter to stop the motion of your hips.

"Please," he whimpers, nuzzling his nose deeper into your neck and breathing in your intoxicating scent, his mind absolutely fogged by thoughts of you and only you. "Don't want this to end, need you all night."

Jun's mouth traces your neck lovingly, teeth and lips suckling at your skin that you'd almost think he was teasing if you knew he wasn't love-drunk off you. You can't help but pick up the pace, resuming the motion of your hips as you continue to lazily fuck yourself on his cock.

The overwhelming feeling of you sinking onto him again has him sucking in air, his adam's apple bobbing as he gulps, coming up for air, and trying not to drown in the sensation of your warmth surrounding him.

"Let me take care of you, Jun," you breathe against his cheek, goosebumps running down your spine as his fingers trace up and down your torso. "You're so precious to me."

It's dizzying how his lips leave warm, wet spots from your collarbone up until he connects with your lips. He moans in delight, breaking away to pebble kisses all over your body as you lift yourself up just to sink down again.

Jun swears he won't ever get sick of how you wrap so perfectly around him, trying to voice his thoughts but only a raspy groan comes out against your throat when your fingers tangle themselves into his hair. He busies himself by gently nibbling on the thin, delicate skin of your neck, absolutely unaware of the love bites he leaves along the way.

He was all yours for the taking, you could feel the unconditional love he poured into you as you guide yourself to pleasure, ultimately leading to his own pleasure as well. You can feel every twitch of his length when you moan his name, making the fluttering feeling of your walls and the pulsing of your clit more evident.

The orgasm that you had been leisurely chasing was now near, unable to suppress the euphoric ebbing feeling that made your walls contract in delight.

"Junhui," you pant, the sluggish roll of your hips now becoming more desperate as your pleasure began to wash over you. "I'm close, be my good boy and finish with me."

It's all Jun needs to hear, understanding your body more than you'll ever know, and releasing inside of you when he feels the tell-tale sign of your walls fluttering around his length, filling you deeply with his hot seed. It almost feels as if all the oxygen has been sucked out of the air for Jun, the hazy fog that clouds his head only makes his mind whirl more as he watches you fall apart on top of him. So beautiful, so perfect, and all his. He will always take whatever you give him; you have him wrapped so tightly around your finger and he swears he'll always be your good boy if these are benefits.

taglist | @wonderfulshinee @yourfavoritefreakyhan @jonghour @wonuhour @dkakapizzaboy

please feel free to reach out if you'd like to be included in the tag list, I'm finally starting to add it to my works :)

[kindlespark]

this is gonna be SO long and rambly sorry anyway i saw a post abt how babel does queer characters and it got me thinking abt why the tropes it uses would usually turn me off other stories but didn’t here

MAJOR BABEL SPOILERS //

i feel like i’d be more mad abt how robinramy ended up in babel if it marketed itself as queer lit at all or if its fans were going “WOW AMAZING QUEER REP” abt it. but no one told me any of that, so finding out they were gay was just a fun little bonus surprise to me. i get why ppl are eh abt robinramy not getting together/technically still being subtext (which i dont think is really true btw like the book literally says “robin was falling in love” but idk i guess if you were stupid you might’ve assumed that it was falling in love with oxford given how romantic some of the other language is (WHICH IS ALSO THE POINT bc i think robin’s friendship with ramy blurring into romance is why he romanticised like all his friendships/experiences in oxford BUT IM GETTING OFF-TOPIC)). i just think robin’s repression abt being gay was intrinsically tied to his attitudes on imperialism (wrt refusing to acknowledge anything that complicated his life until it was too late) and i don’t consider it a cop out or queerbait. like i genuinely don’t think robinramy could ever have gotten together without drastic alterations being made in terms of plot and character. plus i think it’s clear that kuang didn’t want to write a story with any kind of focus on romance at all, because it’s not that kind of book. there’s no successful het romance either, so it grates a lot less. the only reason romance is included at all is to show the ways in which white entitlement manifests. so the tragic way robinramy played out just made sense to me.

and i speak as someone who accidentally spoiled myself on You Know What in the middle of reading and i was like ugghh boooo dreading it the whole time expecting to roll my eyes when it happened but then when it did i was like. wow im actually not that mad LMFAO 😭😭😭 actually thematically the book sets it up so well that i believed that this was unfortunately the only way it could’ve gone. babel is about the loss and tragedy and grief that colonised people experience. it’s about the lengths people will go to to uphold empire and the lengths ppl will go to to tear it down like idk 😭 i guess it is bury your gays but it didnt bother me this time because i thought it fit thematically ❤️ i enjoy tragedy as a genre a lot and i would’ve made it gay anyway you know. thanks rf kuang for doing it for me so i didnt have to.

WHICH IS ALL TO SAY that i guess if you’re going into babel for the queer rep without appreciating that the story is fundamentally a tragedy it would feel like it’s just reusing tired tropes….. but i think the choices kuang made were rly deliberate and not in a way that feels like trauma porn or shock value. the book is fundamentally about the struggles of poc so the layer of queerness that was introduced felt like a subtle extension of the experiences of characters of colour in the book, and i enjoyed and related to it as a queer chinese person who kind of realised they had to prioritise their fight for the liberation of poc over queerness mainly because the idea of western queer liberation cannot be dissociated from imperialism and many aspects of homophobia as we know it was an export of christian european empire into our colonised countries in the first place and FUCK THIS IS A WHOLE OTHER TANGENT ABOUT HOW I THINK RAMY AS A CHARACTER IS EMBLEMATIC OF THE TENSION AND STRUGGLE THAT QUEER POC DIASPORA HAVE BETWEEN OUR IDENTITIES GODDAMNIT OK FORGET IT POST CANCELLED i just rly think babel’s handling of queer characters is fine and makes sense and i like it personally and maybe i will make a coherent analysis about it one day but that day is not today byeeeeeee

[becauseplot]

*returns to yours* I HAVE THOUGHTS! NOT COHERENT ONES TOO SLEEPY AND NEED TO SAVE COHERENCY BUT THOUGHTS!!! MOSTLY ABOUT ISLAND TEAPARTIES AFTER THE KIDS ARE ASLEEP WHERE CELLBIT AND PHILZA DRINK TEA AND PHILZA TEACHES CELLBIT ABOUT STARS AND CELLBIT SLOWLY GETS BACK INTO HIS ENIGMAS AND THEY BOTH BITCH ABOUT TEA BUT DRINK IT ANYWAY BECAUSE IT HAS GOOD STATS

YEAAH!! YEAHHH!!! Okay okay okay so I meant to ramble more earlier when you initially responded to my ask and then I got sleepy and conked out and now it's super early for me, nailed it lmaooo. so anyway just like a couple things i noticed abt this scene *rolls out a scroll of notes, the bottom hits the floor and bounces out the door cartoon-style*

Chayanne gives Cellbit a rose!! Idk if Rose still has influence here (I'll have to sift through Phil's VOD to see if he says anything abt Rose, yesterday I mainly watched Cellbit's POV) but he's protected now!! That kinda folds him into Phil's "closer" circle of friends/family since it's primarily them who carries the roses for protection so!!!!! I'm!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE TEA!! Yes the tea the way the tea immediately broaches the topic of purgatory, and yeah the audible wince in Phil's voice after Cellbit says the tea triggers him and Phil agrees. Yeah it's so shit and they're both so sick of it but it's so OP. Phil survivalist (hardcore) :handshake: Cellbit survivalist (hunger games/"The War"), do and use what is necessary to keep yourself alive.

And AAA!! Yes, okay okay so like you remember that idea abt Phil and Cellbit having late-night convos at the Order pre-purgatory? This is basically that!! It's late at night, they're getting caught up with each other, they've both got the shitass tea and it's going cold and!! In my head this scene goes on for a full night and they just sit and talk and talk and talk, eventually conking out when it's late, just like old times EXCEPT THEY HAVE THEIR KIDS NOW WHICH IS ONE OF THE THINGS THAT BROUGHT THEM TOGETHER, THEIR DESIRE TO FIND THEIR KIDS, AND THEY FOUND THEM!!! (I should write a fic i NEED to write a fic, me vs the 754389 wips in my brain; in my head they still had late night convos in purgatory when their "play time" timers lined up, phil waking up early enough and cellbit staying up late enough for them to talk while the others slept)

The way Cellbit still minces his words abt what he and Bags did post-purg 1 "we had our fun...bolas...style..." is it because he thinks Phil will think less of him? because there's children present? because his SON is present? idk how much Richas knows abt what Cellbit did in purgatory, Richas *did* rescue him while he was fighting eye workers but does he know about Cellbit hunting fellow players for sport? what Cellbit did to his pai Pac? I NEED ANSWERS

Phil's "Dude! No! Oh my god... D:" to when Cellbit says Roier was better off without him. PHIL WAS AT THEIR WEDDING. HE TOOK THE GODDAMN PHOTOS OF THEM AT THEIR WEDDING. HE SAW HOW HAPPY THEY WERE, HOW HAPPY ROIER WAS, WHEN THEY WERE REUNITED IN PURGATORY. Phil isn't close enough to Roier nor speaks to him enough to really understand the full extent of Roier's grief after purgatory 1, but it's gotta be hard for Phil to imagine Roier happy with Cellbit gone. Whether he believes it when Cellbit says "yeah Roier told me he was better" (doied WHEN I GET YOU---) is up for debate but I think about this constantly.

Phil fucking laughing when Cellbit admits he ate some of the eye workers fhdjsk. I can't get over the combo of Cellbit POV (in character thinking: "I'm terrible I'm a cannibal I'm a monster") vs Philza POV (cc who laughs at everything that is even remotely cursed) honestly, taking this as in-character (bc ccPhil doesn't mute his mic to laugh and he...usually does that for ooc bits while in the middle of rp), it says a lot abt qPhil that he's able to just laugh abt an admission of eating corpses. ethics who? geneva convention who? qPhil doesn't know her. munch on those eye workers king they're dickheads. (fuck, DOES qPhil know that Cellbit is a cannibal, as in, he has eaten not just workers but other players?? hmmm...)

"I'm sorry I couldn't do much as bolas leader" "It's better that you didn't see us...I think you'll be disappointed" "oh I could never be disappointed what do you mean shut up *laughs*" GODDDDDDDD also Cellbit trying to say he got worse after purg 1 and Phil saying "nah bolas is already at ground level" (either not understanding or indirectly reiterating that he won't condemn Cellbit for his actions, I can't tell) and then Cellbit just,, going with it. because it's not worth it to argue and he's trying to move past all of that now anyway. (QCELLBIT PROCESS YOUR TRAUMA CHALLENGE LEVEL IMPOSSIBLE)

watching Phil's POV now and HFDJSK you can't hear it on Cellbit's stream but Phil catches Richas as they're both leaving and says quietly, "Take care of your dad, Richas, n' take care." I'M 💥💥💥💥 (<-banging table)

Anyway!! This is what happens when the two characters I'm obsessed with interact for the first time in months. Over-analyzing a 5 minute convo. Sorry, it will happen again :] Praying they stay as neighbors I'd love to see archivists have more interactions!! And yes yes yes yes the tea parties with the kids!! Phil routinely chatting with Cellbit and watching him slowly "regain his color" as he settles back into peaceful life post-purgatory, falls in love with enigmas again. They've always trusted each other when they don't trust themselves, and they're both a Stable Point for the other. I'll miss what we never got to have with the leaders-of-the-Order-having-meetings ideas (timezones, wails) but I'm so excited for new island mysteries!! :D

[skeletood]

PLEASE please please tell us all about your thoughts regarding davesprite. it does NOT HAVE TO BE COHERENT!!

FINALLY THE KIND OF ASKS I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR.

I mean, it's nothing insane or hasn't already been said before. but god damn the knight making the ultimate sacrafice thing and then it never going appreciated fucks me up. plus it's fucking dave so the dude already spent his life under appreciated so this kid cant catch a fucking break. somebody i was talking to the other day said something about the guardian angel going thankless ? yeah dude imagine doing that when ur 13 and just want yourself and your only friends to live. fucks me right up dude dave is such a good fucking person to his core.

SO FUCKING MAD HE DIDN'T GET LIKE. Idk man i felt like he was actually getting set up for a lot more. like yknow, the dude that had to give up everything for the alpha timeline to keep going? he just gets shit on by his best friend for three years, explodes sometimes and then idk fuckin turned into a cat girl? THAT'S how you one let one of the most important daves to go out?? man... ok i guess..... i guess it is something of a reminder of like. the futility and how little the dead players mean to the alpha timeline. like, you were important but you're still just some stepping stone and i cant even imagine how hard that is for the dude who already doubted he could he anything great or heroic. FUCKING DAVES NOT THINKING THEYRE HEROIC AND THEN SACRAFICING THEMSELVES HEROICALLY. I want you dead dave strider im coming to your fucking house to get you man. i love this stupid kid. like most of davesprites reactions are so fucking normal for a kid that's lashing out or throwing a tantrum. and dude deserves to oh my god. not saying that hes infallible but like! he's a person still! and he has big emotions! why cant anybody but jade see the big emotions in this boy :( i mean i get it they technically both share the commonality of being a sprite at some point, in jades case. ok if i keep going down this thought path im its going to turn into a me shaking john around for being the kind of dude he is. which is like. i love him. but holy shit man.

actually. yknow what im one of the johndave guys. this extends itself to johndavesprite. i gotta put the insane ramblings i had in here too. fuck you im taking it as an excuse to talk about john psychology too and you CAN'T STOP ME.

so yeah theres that. apolocheese for the itty bittiest fuckin text ever.

in conclusion, davesprite rules, and john drools because hes dumb. i love him! but hes so special and especially stupid. BUT YEAH DAVESPRITE HES SO COOL. and fuckin fun to draw too actually i have some art to post i'll do that here in a sec

BUT YEAH THANKS FOR THE ASKING OF MY THOUGHTS. glad i dont have to be coherent either, shockingly enough its not really my style lmao. hope any of this made any sense o7

[ganondoodle]

sorry about that last rambling post, i didnt mean to sound like its worse than it may be, but i got no ... lense to view it through but my own, and the main reason i wrote it out anyway was bc i needed to get it out (even if posting it might be not the greatest idea) .. and bc it kinda showcases, i think, how my stories kinda write themselves, involuntarily in a way? its not like im not putting in any effort- but its like .. i cant STOP it always keeps going and even the dumbest idea stays in some form, its very hard to get everything in place bc theres so much going on all the while i am very slow at making anything, writing or drawing anything, especially anythign coherent is very hard bc not only do i get constantly distracted, i get distracted by my own thoughts suddendly skipping to a certain scene and me having to go throguh imagining in detail NO MATTER how many times i have done it before for the same scene that i already decided on how it goes, when theres a new idea it can take over my entire day bc i cant let go of it-

not trying to sound either like im the only that has that sort of problem, but i think its a big part as of why i start tso many projects without being able to finish them, or even start them bc i constantly have to fight my own thoughts from derailing into another daydream session, thinking of too much too fast than i can ever draw or even write about and not knowing what is worthwhile and what isnt (im telling you i have no idea what is good and what isnt, idk why but for all i know all things i do could be trash, or they all could be bad, maybe the one i thinnk is decent is actually worse than the things i deem not good enough and once i start to think no this isnt good enough i stop having fun making or thinking it bc im trying to do better

honestly its kind of impressive that i can get anything out at all, not to pat myself on the back there but even if i hate how long it takes me, considering how much im having to work just to start working on something at all, the fact that i could post stuff coherent enough for some people to understand AND LIKE is something i should be a little more proud of

[astridthevalkyrie]

U want lds thoughts? I gotchu 🫡

I really like all 3 boys, but I'm leaning Zayne bc he's just so husband coded. He's the only one I could see a long-term relationship w. I love Xavier and Rafayel, but I just can't picture them as husbands or dads (at least w my MC/myself). I also desperately need them to interact in game and in the main story, there's just sm potential for chaos and funnies.

I honestly dk what will happen next. Obviously, MC is gonna want to investigate Onichynus and her heart, but idk how that story will unfold or how they'll tie in the stories w each li and their separate myths/reincarnation bit. (Also, the fact that the myths happen in the future doesn't make sense to me yet, so I hope they plan to really flesh that out and not give us questionable writing like most mobile otomes do). Idk how I feel abt Sylus (and possibly Caleb) becoming lis, ig I'll have to see what they're like and if they appeal to me at all, bc so far we haven't had enough Caleb content for me to actually get attached (I was also convinced he was MCs brother so idt I'll ever be able to see him romantically 😭).

I hope we'll get to see more of the side characters and what MCs life is like outside of just the three guys, but I honestly doubt it lmao (more for me to hc abt ig lol).

I have more but this is already rambly and idk how to be coherent rn. This game is giving me brainworms and I'm def thinking abt it too hard. Oh, well. I don't consume media, media consumes me.

i'm telling you it's xavier boyfriend zayne husband and rafayel sneaky link. that's exactly the look and vibe they give off.

i think as of right now zayne is the most popular, at least on ao3 him/mc is the most popular ship. which is just to be expected when you have a levi ackerman coded character LOL. like you said, he's a husband. he just is. he's a doctor and he's successful and he cares for the mc so deeply it just makes sense. i started the game for him because. i mean he looks like THAT. he acts like THAT. he has ice powers and you get to melt the ice in his heart and make him love you i adore that shit see my pinned post for the kind of romance i write you could make a zayne x reader set in the aot universe and it would be my fic. and dooooooon't get me started on dawnbreaker zayne. DON'T GET ME STARTED i gasped during the anecdote when the truth about the kid comes out. he dreams about his past life what the fuck bro what the fuck.

surprisingly, though, while i do love him, he's probably the one i've had the least amount of thoughts about (that's still clearly a lot of thoughts so that's not saying much). i think it's partly because my gacha favors xavier and rafayel a lot more and right now i pretty much am just heavily thinking about whichever guy i consumed the content for last.

xavier and rafayel have me obsessed. i thought xavier would be completely meh because zen from mysme was meh for me. but um. he was not meh. my levi hawks pattern has told me that i love a man who was forced into fighting because of the stupid goodness in his heart and manipulative outside forces. and even though that's not exactly what's going on with xav, he does have that vibe. his is the only myth i've watched in full and i'm just. they should have been able to go to uluru together. the scene where they're both lying on the ground i have watched it so many times. i love love love the royalty x captain of the guards trope so much. the fact that they both serve in both roles is insane. i've read the anecdote about her first life on philos too there's a fucking part in there that talks about how he shares his EARBUDS with you?????? end me.

and rafayel is beautiful. like he's actually beautiful. his english voice actor makes him sound so fucking bisexual + the bi wife energy whenever you're with him is just. UGH. the game is hilarious whenever he's on screen and obviously with the way the main story has ended for now he's the most intriguing. and while you can feel the pining energy from all three of them, his is just. lowkey the most pathetic. and i eat it up. bro started TEACHING AT HER COLLEGE just for the chance to see her. i like that he's not possessive per se but he is very whiny and attention seeking the sassy man syndrome is real. i need to unlock his myth but i'm not patient so i may very likely just watch it on youtube. i need to see hunter rafayel. i need to see him right now.

the main story is genuinely fascinating. i was a little bit bored up until the explosion happened and it really kicked in. bc suddenly it's not just 3 guys and you doing your best, but you actively investigating and them helping you. like i said i don't have raf's myth and i haven't finished zayne's yet (need more fucking upgrades to his card) so i don't have the full story but at least what i'm getting right now is okay. they're all from the past or future. they all remember?? xavier and rafayel definitely do. zayne knows something about grandma who seems kinda shady to me. i've seen the caleb=sylus or at least caleb lives theories. i saw someone say the man at the end isn't sylus though? and his english va is the same as caleb's but in other languages it's someone else. idk.

idk about the others but xavier's myth being in the future makes sense. i'm pretty sure the timeline goes: in our current timeline, earth is about to go bye-bye and become inhabitable bc of wanderers -> survivors go to philos -> xavier and a new mc are both born -> she dies bc of something in her heart and is reborn bc she's the only one who's truly immortal (everyone else on philos lives forever naturally but can still be killed i think??) -> new lightseeker mc and xavier are meant to become guard and prince respectively but philos is dying -> to save mc from being sacrificed again and again xavier decides to go back in time to find another way where he after at least like 200 years meets current timeline mc

i know what you mean about not being able to see caleb as a love interest. the first time i saw him i genuinely thought they had no need to make my brother this hot what the fuck. and then i realized he was just her childhood friend and i went

and then he blew up 😭

i neeeeeed to see the love interests interact. i mean mc barely thinks about the others whenever she's with one but i really hope in the next arc we actually see them meeting each other. beefing or working together or whatever, i need to know (i may also have already started a fic about what's gonna happen next bc i'm mentally ill). xavier has a tracker on her so he should be able to find her and zayne kinda disappeared off the face of the earth but i want them all back. i want interaction. i want it so bad.

[retrogeometry]

think about this too much and too often, i think, BUT!!! BEHOLD!

This, everyone, is the cloneduo venn diagram (is that spelt right?—) ANYWAY

this contains similarities i noticed/remember off the top of my head (so some may be missing), containing a couple irl similarities (but mostly character stuff, i think)

i definitely ran out of room, and genuinely could not think of much for phil's side, but it's okay 👍

the qsmp lore tho may be a bit skewed as i have no clue what's happening on there ever cause that's simply too many povs to watch and have a life at the same time; this is just my understanding from some clips and the philza vods (ty mercy)

oh and martyn's lore might be a bit skewed as well in this diagram, no justice to it at all, but IN MY DEFENSE... it is also too cool for my small braincell (singular)

WAIT I FORGOT ONE i don't feel like editing it:

they both have some correlation with space (phil being associated with the moon and stars and nighttime in general and martyn as mars and/or meteor)

(guys marstyn is so fun and the winners rhyme please—)

anyway, insane ramble maybe over lmao

hope this was mostly coherent. i tried keeping the diagram toned down on the swearing, some definitely still made it through tho haha

(side note: ngl, i didnt expect my first post here to be a venn diagram of cloneduo and reblogs... i'm sure i'll post, like, some art or smth; maybe some writing? idk, takes ages to find motivation)

if anyone has any tips for tagging, and just things in general on this site (and what may or may not count as insane behavior /hj) please let me know /gen

[fandomfluffandfuck]

looove the recent theme of these asks, like seb having a major crush on steve rogers? hashtag relatable, or else we all wouldn't still be here writing multiple paragraphs about them a whole decade later 😂 *throws my anon hat into the ring to contribute to the festivities*

(i can't find the actual post that inspired this ask, the one where chris reads off headlines/comments of praise for seb's amazing acting, and knowing how seb reacts to praise... 😏)

anyway, imagine chris roleplaying as a newly-minted winter soldier fan after seeing ca:tws (maybe in this scenario he won a meet-and-greet pass?) and can't seem to stop singing praises about how seb portrayed him 💗 chris just can't resist the cute blush spreading across seb's face as he gets more and more rambly while he enthusiastically shakes seb's hand, lol.

and as for seb? well, his acting skills are sure getting a good workout because surely he can't blurt out his room number to this really handsome guy with a warm handshake and his dog on his phone lockscreen as seb shakily takes their selfie together for the photo-op?? he really has to get himself together, like, right now or else he's gonna pass out (totally not for horny reasons, nope) 🥴

related to this

Actually, though. Steve Rogers? The man you crush on, the man you want to see other people kiss, or the man you admire. Or. All of the above. We all understand 💀💀

(Ohhh, yeah, what the fuck was that? That sounds so familiar! Like. I feel like not only did that happen but I also feel like I wrote something like that, maybe I saw someone else write something like that?? Or maybe I'm just a madman, idk, lmao)

Aw, that'd be so cute and, just, so full of tension.

I just know it wouldn't be long before Sebastian completely crumbles, blushing and unable to speak coherently--being praised like that and knowing that according to the roleplay set up, he's not supposed to be reacting like this, he's not supposed to touch Chris, he's not supposed to want Chris to touch him... and, god, it's making this worse. He just wants what he can't have so badly 🥴🥴

What a 🤌🏻good🤌🏻 concept. I love this!

There's also something so sweet and hot about these two hot shot actors, phenomenal in their craft, being completely unable to stay in their roles around each other. They're just too drawn to each other 😮‍💨

[yesterdayiwrote]

I really want the thesis on George mirroring people if you’re so inclined 👀

So I also got this anon and the two things are kind of tied together...

i would absolutely read your essay about how george doesn't know how to be himself because i also have so many thoughts about his personality that i'm too scared to voice for a fear of people saying that i'm making assumptions😶😶😶

I will try my best, but I am absolutely dreadful at putting my rambly observations/overanalysis/bug under a microscope theories into coherent prose sometime so apologies in advance this tails off or gets a bit muddled!

I think it's quite obvious that George it's a bit... socially awkward? He's confident in an oratory way, he seems quite chatty and social, he's not shy about his body and showing it off, and yet there's just an undeniable 'awkwardness' to him that it’s hard to put into words?

It’s always said by people that George is too ‘PR’ and I think he really does try hard? Possibly too hard sometimes because it seems so noticeable that he’s trying, but I don’t think it’s because of any nefarious reason, I feel like he’s just really kind of… self conscious?

I think there’s a tendency for people to view self consciousness through a lens of vanity and pre-occupation with perfection but actually a lot of the time it’s a confidence issue too and I’ve just always got a feeling that despite appearances, George isn’t always the most confident in himself and doesn’t know how (or perhaps want to) let down his walls completely and just be his full unguarded self in public.

I think we see flashes of it at times, and I think all of them are wary of being fully open in public, and yet George always feels the one to me who is perhaps most worried about being ‘silly’?

Which is where the mirroring thing comes in. Sometimes I feel that in his quest to present a ‘version’ of himself, he almost strays into emulating other people at times? (This is where it gets all deep and if you’re not into the bug under a microscope stuff you may want to jump off here)

I feel sometimes (and I may be way off here) that George still isn’t quite sure who he is yet or how he wants to be seen. No criticism because I think that’s totally normal. He’s still young, there’s more pressure to be a character of some kind of substance in the public eye, and I think plenty of people much older than him still don’t entirely know who they are, who they want to be or how they want the world to perceive them.

So, I think sometimes he kind of emulates people around him, which again isn’t unusual, I think we all do it. I think it’s part of how most of us find ourselves, and I’m totally willing to admit it may be me drawing parallels where they weren’t necessarily intended. It may be that he does these things completely subconsciously but idk I still just find it all fascinating?

He went through a brief streamer phase just after lockdown which felt like it was kind of leaning in to what Lando was doing. It gets picked up that Daniel bops along to the National Anthems and now George bops along to them too. Lewis posts a thirst trap… George posts a thirst trap. He hangs out with Jack Grealish once and within two months he’s got his hair style (sans chunky highlights which is an OVERSIGHT tbh)…. - okay that one may be a reach but I’m struggling to think of more examples off the off the top of my head 😂.

As I say, I don’t say it as anything bad and actually I think it is subconsciously part of human nature but it just makes me giggle because it feels like he has such… hero worship of people around him and idk… it’s cute?!

[sbc-moved]

I posted about this in a couple servers already but I was thinking about it again so I figured I would re-ramble and hopefully be a bit more coherent

This scene from the movie is really interesting to me for a couple different reasons

1. Like. Obviously Mario is upset, is this kind of like. A coping mechanism for him? Id like to think it is 2. Very funny that Nintendo is a company in their own movie I mean obviously they would be but idk it just makes me laugh 3. He is playing kid Icarus

4. The NES is a pretty old console, now I could be wrong and I could be thinking about this too much but at least from what I’ve seen most of the technology in the movie is pretty. Modern? Like take Luigi’s phone for example, I mean yeah it’s still got a home button, but it look’s nothing like what a cellphone in the 1980s would look like,,,

So that got me thinking. Either. Idk they’re poor, in the movie the NES *is* a modern console, OR, my personal favourite theory- Mario is just a bit. Old school <33

He’s also shown to have a boombox and a crate full of vinyl records in his room which kind of. Leans into that a bit. Maybe he’s just into retro stuff idk. I think it’s cool *twirls my hair*

ALSO ! The fact that he’s playing kid Icarus specifically!!! Idk I just think that’s a super fun detail and it makes me wonder like. Is this his favourite game or is it just. What he happened to play. Like I mentioned earlier the fact that he WAS upset and this is the game he CHOSE to play makes me think that maybe like. A favourite of his.

I like to think in some. In-universe version of smash bros this is who he’s maining 😭

I am probably thinking way to much about this I am. Sick in the head I have brain worms and I will shut up now

[abhorrenttheorizer]

I'm at a serious dilemma.

Trying to write fake AU lore for the elders is kind of cringe considering there's not a whole lot of info on them in the first place, but...

Let's talk about Teth, if only for a moment.

A lot of people portray Teth as overly serious, easily irritable, and one who takes exceptional pride in his craft.

Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that interpretation at all, but the more I watch Teth's cutscene the more another archetype of his character comes to mind, one that's significantly more cursed.

Gonna have to post most of his cutscene because I'm too autistic to describe anything coherently

The way he jumps down like a starving leopard the second he gets a whiff of the smoke from your skid's candlelight

The way he snatches away the flame to bash at it with a hammer as quickly as possible before haphazardly tossing it to the side

All while barely registering that your skid is even there

Doesn't look like it's out of malice or annoyance anymore, in my general opinion, more like a very intense, almost animalistic excitement

I've seen other serious, elegant looking spirits turn out to be dubious little creatures (like Crab Whisperer and their goofy ahh antics during Days of Bloom '22), so I'm curious if this might be the same scenario for Teth as well?

That he's not so rude so much as he's completely feral?

Better yet what if it's a sort of "Jekyll and Hyde" situation in which one moment Teth is doing Standard Elder Activities and the next he's scaling trees in fractions of a second and stalking around the forest on all fours at 2:45 AM?

Someone enters his temple for prayers, he forgets that he's supposed to be in Elder Mode and he just growls at the strange, trembling thing in his territory?

Idk. I'm rambling.

Anyway Happy New Year gamers, see you at some moment in time

[kingprinceleo]

Okay so, warning, this is gonna be super long cus I love your AUs and wanna understand them. They seem *very* complicated and I am *very* confused.

Okay first off, I saw that in 1000 Years Bound Sonic is dead young around like 40, but I see that he’s hundreds of years old all the time in posts tagged with the same AU? And Shadow was a king and Sonic was one too in both AUs? And for Tails, in both 1000 Years Bound and Happy Auau he seems to be a kitsune because he lives long and has four tails, but how old is he and at what year did he grow the two extra tails? Oh and, for the post where Sonic was like “yo ur like 500 years old why u still scared of thunder” how come Sonic is alive?? Did he only die in 1000 Years Bound (also does that mean he is also immortal?? If so, how?) or is Tails older than him? Where are the other characters? I see Silver in 1000 Years Bound, but where is he in Happy Auau and where is everyone else (i.e. Knuckles and Amy)? For the Happy Auau existence itself,, I notice it’s called “happy auau” and not just “happy au”. Is this because it in itself it is an AU of your AU, 1000 Years Bound? Is Shadow immortal in both AUs? Are both AUs the same universe but just take place at different timelines?? If so, I have SO many more questions that I don’t even know how to ask cus I’m so confused and things seem to contradict each other if they’re the same universe. What is the third eye on Shadow’s head? Was he born on the Ark and sent to Mobius with no memories and then gets them about him and Maria and stuff, or is he born into royalty? If he wasn’t born into it, I think it would be pretty funny that Shadow was like “uhhh I have a third eye and can kill you all and I’m your king now lol” but ik it’s most likely not that simple. I also saw a post where Sonic had a bond thingie or something (in idk what AU) with Shadow and had powers he used sometimes too, what’s up with that? For both AUs, are Sonic and Shadow’s history just like the games and is just set in the future, or different?

Honestly, I prolly have more questions that I just can’t think of rn, this is just a big braindump. I hope I’m not bothering you or seem like I’m hastily interrogating you or something, I’m just genuinely very confused. Please let me know if it’s okay to ask more questions in the future, haha. By the way, I think you are incredibly creative—you are one of my biggest art and story-making inspirations. You manage to invoke so much emotion in your work it’s,, wow. The 1000 Years Bound AU actually makes me really sad sometimes and affects my mood snsjsjdbs, BUT IN A GOOD WAY;; the fact that you can do that in the first place just shows how good u are at… story-ing. Anyway as u can probably tell I ramble a lot so uh, love ya keep on doing what ur doing :D 👍

oh god oh fuck /lh and tysm for the questions!!!! i love answering questions n rambling so im always open to them!!!! i would love more, it doesnt bother me in the slightest, also WAHHHHHH TYYYYYYYYY, sobbing and crying and rolling on the floor like a rotisserie chicken /pos i tried to break it down as coherently as i could!! v

if you have more questions im always excited to respond to them! ty for the ask!

[sadesluvr]

FNAF TRAILER THOUGHTS

Once again, this is for fun💀 Don’t come at me if you disagree, unless it’s done respectfully. This may be a long, rambly post but I’ll be as coherent as possible🤣

THE GOOD

1. In love with Mike now, IDK. The teaser didn’t give me much to work with, but he’s so cute and babyfaced yet rugged and dark😋 His relationship to Abby is giving me horny thoughts™️, like Ineedhimtobreedme… He seems to have dry humour which is totally how I imagine and write him to be!!

2. Why did Henry get jumped by Bonnie omg💀 Anyway, he’s looking like a total dad ™️ , love the long hair and mature look…Definitely how I imagine him to be!! He looks like a wrestler named Mick Foley (also a good guy) which I find funny lol

3. SO HAPPY CORYXKENSHIN GOT A CAMEO! I was going to be quite annoyed if he got left out over all the white FNAF youtubers, he’s just as deserving.

4. Pizzeria layout looks interesting!

THE BAD (loose term)

1. The animatronics and aesthetics look too clean…IDK

2. I also don’t know if this is going to be as dark as people hope? I didn’t get the vibe from the trailer, but it could always surprise me. Also, (genuine question, enlighten me) from what I know, Peacock is known for not liking unnecessarily violent content (ref: It hosts WWE and censors mature/violent content at times) so how comes its being released to the platform? Or is it because it’s a movie so it doesn’t matter?

THE INBETWEEN/ OTHER THOUGHTS

- Where Mike and Abby live is interesting to me, because it seems like a house? But he clearly lives away from their mom, as he surely would’ve left Abby with her if they were close? I guess they’re estranged or have a really loose relationship - She could even be dead and might just appear in flashbacks only💀

- STEVE! (Jokes aside, I feel like this is a Mike centric film)

- UMMM so towards the end of the trailer there’s a kid holding a toy gun being carried at the back of a car whilst Mike screams - I THINK THIS IS EVAN?? All the siblings have the same hair colour, and if he was one of the missing 5 he would’ve been in the circle in the forest? I even think the woman driving him is their Mom…

EDIT: Or it could be Michael too! I wonder why he’s running after him, and why he looks so sad though?

- I feel like the forest stuff is out of place, but now that I’ve thought about it I think it’s just dream sequences…Weird setting though

- So, Vanessa might not meet Mike at the mall after all - Still don’t know what to think about her but she’s obviously shady asf. On the subject of her, I’m holding onto the theory that they’re siblings (source: i made it up). Something could happen in the hospital where he has to sign for her, and he’ll see the ‘Afton’ name (If she’s still Vanessa A Ness). Once/If they show William’s hair colour I’m doing a genealogy tree😭

- William always in his damn office staring at the camera…Get ur fucking ass up and WORK!

Anyway, share your thoughts too! I wanna hear them :) You can DM me too 🙈 <3