#even if it may have made little sense <3 basically... they're VERY important to one another

[tenebriism]

Do you have any headcanons or thoughts about Aymeric's relationship with Estinien?

// I do, yes. Aymeric and Estinien's bond took some time to become a favorite of mine, I'll admit, and that's likely because it took me a while to understand and warm up to Estinien himself. How close they really, TRULY are didn't hit me until the scene where Aymeric is sitting at Estinien's bedside, and then I went 'oh. OH,' and proceeded to cling to the idea of them from then on.

They're so different from each other. They share the same values and wants, but it's like the golden retriever puppydog with the stoic, clad in shadow wolf.

Aymeric is the guiding light, the leader, the one who steps forward and does not hesitate to be the face of hope and strength for his people and his friends, while Estinien fights for the very same thing, but from the shadows. He's often posted off to the side, in the corner or against the wall, just listening. Observing. But, best believe if you need him? He's also there, just like Aymeric. They are so ALIKE but so different at the same time, and I absolutely eat UP that sort of dynamic.

There are also a lot of complexities, too. Estinien is Aymeric's best friend and most cherished confidant, besides maybe Lucia, and even then, his bond with HER is largely professional. He longs for and greatly enjoys Estinien's company, even despite knowing his best friend isn't one for idle chitchat or opening up; Estinien LISTENS, though, and listens well, and Aymeric is comfortable being vulnerable in front of Estinien, where he can't be vulnerable in front of anyone else (and for someone who's leading a nation that's still recovering and rebuilding, the need and opportunity to be vulnerable are CRUCIAL, lest Aymeric crumble beneath the weight of it all).

Their bond, understandably, is very tense in Heavensward, but when it all comes to a close and that new, hopeful chapter begins, paving the road to eventual happiness and prosperity in Ishgard, I think that sense of longing that Aymeric has (and does well to hide) almost hurts him, to some tragic and sad extent. He's proud of his friend and is eager to watch him grow stronger, to travel, to be more ESTINIEN than he is the AZURE DRAGOON, but... then he remembers how strained everything has been. How he almost lost Estinien MULTIPLE times (and Estinien almost lost him once, with the assassination attempt.) How he wonders how Estinien feels about him, if Estinien is proud of him, if Estinien would ever come to call Ishgard HOME just like Aymeric does. He thinks about Estinien quite often in both good and bad ways, and I'd say it almost consumes him.

fklwalkflkwa ahhh I'm RAMBLING, but I just... I feel so strongly about them both. ;_; It makes me want to play through Heavensward again so I can approach the expansion with this new mindset, and maybe even catch things that I didn't the first go-round. The fact that both of them still mention each other in the expansions that follow, even being regions upon regions apart, it just... UGGGGH, they're so important to one another and I'm CRYING.

[lollipopsub]

Hey!! I was wondering if you knew the timeline of season 2 of my beautiful man? I'm kind of confused. Is it supposed to be that hira and kiyoi have been together all through college? Or am I wrong about the timeline of the first season, because I thought that the finale of season 1 was during hira's first year of college. I'm just surprised that they seem still so unsure of their relationship if they've been a couple for years? Hopefully I'm making sense 😅 thank you so much if you take the time to read this 💖

Hi! Thanks for the ask. So compared to the timeline of the book, they're jumbling things up a little. The story with the party and the model hitting on Hira happens at the end of book 1 as a little sidestory, so canon they're still very young and just started dating.

In the series, supposing they get together at the end of Hira's year 1, and now he's halfway through year 4, they've been dating for close to 3 years I guess? Though I do reckon the decision to skip to this point in time (both novel and show) was made because of the life decisions they're going to have to make at this point in their lives, so maybe not too much thought have been put into the fact that it means they've been dating for so long.

If we expect this relationship to develop the way most relationships do, we're probably not gonna like what we'll be getting. These two emotionally constipated babes both have way too complicated perceptions of human relationships for this to have ever been an option. It's like asking a spoon to be a fork, it just ain't happening.

My point is, I don't think they are unsure of the relationship; they each know that they only have eyes for one another, but the balance in the relationship is just so completely off still. And this is basically what this season is gonna revolve around :)

!!!! POSSIBLE SPOILER !!!!!!

aka my interpretation of what the story might possibly revolve around based on the book 2 synopsis and 1st novel

I think it's hard to say much yet, but the synopsis for the show revolves around how their ways of loving each other is clashing terribly.

Hira lives in a world that is very hierarchy based and very black/white. He is at the bottom of the pyramid and Kiyoi is at the top. Their worlds are different and they can never truly co-exist on an even level; this world that Hira lives in is almost completely static, and he has no desire to move further up the social pyramid, which in his mind would be the only way for him to deserve Kiyoi.

He does not even see the possibility that Kiyoi chooses to go against this pyramid system Hira's made up. This reality does not occur to him because it simply is not an option. He never thought of it as one, so it genuinely is unfathomable to him. If you went back in time and met someone from the 60s, you wouldn't expect them to be able to explain the internet to you because it doesn't exist in their world and their reality. It's the same idea. It's not that he doesn't want to; he genuinely can't and he also is not aware that he is "lacking" something.

I feel like he still believes Kiyoi is with him as a sort of act of pity or sheer boredom. Hira's purpose is to worship Kiyoi and to be this close to him, even being intimate with him, is making Hira into a sinner committing a mortal, unforgivable sin. He should not be doing what he is doing; he does not deserve it qua his position in the hierarchy of the world. He would need to change everything about himself in order to be a deserving mate for Kiyoi; which I think is what he means when he says he needs to do better. He needs to be better; being himself the way he is now will never be someone who could ever deserve anything good.

ON THE OTHER HAND... Kiyoi may also not have a healthy relationship with love and commitment, but he truly, innerly and deeply wants to be loved. He wants to be the most important one to someone, he wants to be wanted more than anything and anyone else. He initially yearned for the kind of blind fiery, almost violent love that fans give to their idols, because he just wanted to be seen by anyone at all. He grew up feeling like an after-thought and a second choice; his mom was too busy with work, then his younger siblings came around and they were more important than him, so no one paid any mind to him and he was important to no one. Now, with time passing, he knows to himself that he doesn't want just anyone, he wants Hira and Hira only. He tries to navigate the world that Hira lives in, but Kiyoi's person and his free will does not exist in it; how is one supposed to exist in a world where you are not even perceived as a human with feelings and flaws and wants and desires?

I think this show is going to challenge even more how unreliable a narrator Hira has been for the viewer: I personally think that the sole reason some view this show as toxic is because they do not realize that Hira is a terrible narrator. We are not by any means given the whole picture and the whole truth, which is what is shown in the last two episodes of season 1, and I believe it will be shown even more in this show because of a less narrow POV.

Anyways, I might very well be wrong - haven't read the second novel yet, so I'm just based it all off of ~vibes~ and a synopsis.

[inoppositionflorien]

There is no useful way to categorize generative AI as stealing that doesn't also categorize essentially every creative work ever made as stealing.

Further, there is no way to develop generative AI which does practical things, like translation and protein folding, without developing generative AI which does literally anything else, because protein folding, translation, and making a creative work are functionally the same process from a programming perspective, and programmers tend to like open source things.

These things are pretty well established, but also seem to routinely be ignored. So why? Well, I have some speculation about why people might be wrong on the internet. A number of these things may be true in any individual of course.

They just don't know these things to be true, despite them being true, because they haven't heard them yet.

They have heard them but don't believe them, because it would be convenient if these things were not true (because they also have one of the later reasons too)

It's part of an ideological package deal they picked up somewhere, picking up some components of the ideology means they must pick up the others, and part of the highly online progressive ideological package is "anything made by a programmer that attracts media attention must necessarily be bad"

Everyone wants to be an artist, but they see potential competition. Thus, the competition must be defamed. It is also socially acceptable to lie, exaggerate, or generally wildly speculate about machines, so absurd easily disprovable claims get repeated.

People remember how much fun it was to bully cryptocurrency people, because they were a relatively small community that clearly signposted themselves, skewed ideologically right-libertarian (an extremely rare ideology in the real world and thus a desirable target), and defined themselves around a product that made very little financial sense and was impractical for basically everything (and was made by and for goldbugs but that's beside the point). They then assume, partially because of option 3, that anything that programmers make must necessarily make little financial sense and be impractical for basically everything, even when this is not true, and then assume therefore bullying Generative AI people might also be fun, because "they're basically the same thing"

Having enemies is fun in general, and a decently insulated mid-sized community has decided AI people are an ideologically acceptable enemy to have, so if you're going to have an enemy, why not have them as the enemy?

Valorization of certain forms of labor over others. (why is the corporate artist more important to defend than the auto worker who got automated out of a job earlier?)

Desperation for there to be something humans are better at than a sufficiently well-programmed computer, they already dominate board games and repetitive industrial tasks, and now they're coming for slightly less repetitive tasks, and if we don't have slightly less repetitive tasks, what do we have?

Fear of SEO spam and people using AI to lie on the internet (this is a particularly weird one because we already have SEO spam and it's comically easy to trick people on the internet, and it's doubtful generative AI would make either of these problems worse. I've seen people reblog the most obviously fake things like they're real! Using AI to lie on the internet would be like trying to kill an ant with a nuclear bomb, it might work, but also you could just lie about someone pretty directly or create a fake post that you claim is from an opponent and then mock them for it, and basically no one is going to check it. This particular moral panic is actually recycled from when photoshop was new)

Maybe they just genuinely do want more restrictive copyright law that allows companies to maintain very close control over their IP? I have seen this take in the wild but not so much in my tumblr circles, generally it's something about "fanworks butcher the source material and parodies are often lazy or shallow, therefore IP should be more restrictive to prevent those things from happening."

They don't like generative AI for some other reason (they're an educator and got handed a generated essay and had to grade it, they blame it for contributing to the continued decline in quality of search engines, they dislike how companies keep trying to make A Virtual Assistant Like From The Movies a thing and don't fully remember that this "we're going to make virtual assistants a thing" has been going on since at least Clippy and probably way longer) and then generalize their dislike to every aspect, because one aspect annoys them but they don't feel that's justification enough to be angry about it.

Anyway that's my speculation. Maybe there's other reasons why people keep making incorrect statements too, but I can't think of any that wouldn't be covered by these points right now.

[necroangelz]

HIA YOU SEEM SO NICE JAJAAHDHEJWV- I remember following you from one of my Tumblr accounts (I have like 4 and have forgotten about the passwords of most of them)- So you may know me from there ig!!

Actually I came back here because I wanted to ask something- What is "Needy Streamer Overload" about?? I keep finding the game pretty intriguing and since you had it on your layout I thought I could ask you- (I also felt that it was a perfect opportunity to try to socialize a bit and meet more people on Tumblr-) Sorry if I'm bothering you! ^^

@.mistysaur

AWWW THANKIEEE 🥹🥹 and yeah I'm pretty sure i know uu from there!!

oh boy. let me see if i can explain NSO without dropping 19 paragraphs LOL

also, don't worry, uur not bothering me at all!! i love when ppl send me asks bc i have a hard time talking to ppl first, so this is also a good time for me to socialize!

ramble under the cut >:3

anyway, at its core, NSO is a game about managing the streamer career of a very mentally ill girl. the player is p-chan, the manager of their ' girlfriend ' Ame or k-angel/omgkawaiiangel, and they basically tell Ame what to do throughout the day. they can hang out, spend time together, play games, go on the internet, go outside etc. doing certain actions gives Ame ideas fur streams. there are many types of streams uu can do, each streaming category has level 1 up to level 5 streams, streaming is what gets uu followers. certain streams can get uu more followers but they would also increase ame's stress...

the player also has to manager her stats, her affection, stress, follower count and mental darkness. there's not much story because the whole game is centered around the players actions if ya get what i mean. the endings center around the effects of ame's stats if that makes sense.

NSO is a very fun game (i guess it's obvious that i love it lmao) the gameplay could get a little repetitive bc it's all the same but the graphics and music are so so cool. the interface is like this little computer and stuff and uu see Ame through the webcam screen and uu select her daily activities through app icons. the music is so catchy and perfectly fits the vibe of the game.

NSO is also a good portrayal of the toxic side of the internet—during some of the worst endings, ame spirals in front of the camera during a stream, and instead of having sympathy for her, her fans are quick to turn on her and dogpile on her instead. laughing at her misery as if she wasn't a person at all. they spread rumors, talk about how they always hated her from the start, doxx her, and then move on to the next entertaining internet personality with no loyalty to ame at all. it shows how people online can become cruel to each other because, well, it's all online, so they believe nothing is important or significant. NSO also depicts parasocial relationships, internet addiction, and wanting to get attention, love, and gratification from the internet. in general i love how NSO portrays the internet because everything feels so... real. the stream chats, the comments under ame's tweets, even Ame's texts to the player, they all feel so natural. like they're all actually said by people who spend way too much time on the internet and hence use slang and ways of speech that are common online. i always felt really bothered that mainstream media, especially those made by adults, SUCKED at portraying the internet. NSO isn't like that

so ya that's nso :3 if one thinks that NSO is something one is interested in, and one is sure they won't be triggered by it (bc yeah this game is super heavy) please by all means check it out!! i don't have any playthroughs to recommend since i don't watch playthroughs, but there's def some fun ones on yt! or buy it!

[poognthebrainbois]

🍄 🍐 and or 💬?

(All 3, let's go!)

🍄 - How did you get your system name?

Okay so technically a friend of ours thought of it.

But:

We've since extrapolated meaning from it that I will now share with you all.

For a little context: we grew up with musical theatre. We were majoring in it at university. And singing has always been important in our life. So in a general sense, we knew it had to be something surrounding that. Anyway,

I can't find it but we wrote a whole thing once about how

the concept of a songbook is a collection of a performer's go-to songs for auditions and such, and how some they may know much better than others, but they're all meaningful in some way to the performer, and each song helps showcase a different aspect of that person's abilities, and shows what they value and the versatility of the person. A performer will often take out old songs that no longer fit or serve them, and add new songs that they've only recently learned, but every song was once a part of the book. And I feel the same way about our system. We're all songs in the Songbook, and some of us are very new, and some of us have seen our worst and best moments. But we're all part of the same book, and we're all important for our own reasons.

That, and we've actually met and/or gotten to know a lot of headmates through singing.

While we were at school, we used to lock ourself in a practice room in the music building and do karaoke by ourself.

Specific songs had meaning/hit hard for some headmates, who would either have picked the song for that purpose, or have come to front during the song without even realizing. It's such a surreal experience.

🍐 - Are there any nonhuman headmates (in the system)?

Yes! Several! That number actually used to be much higher.

We've got a couple vampires, a couple werewolves, a couple introjects of dnd/LARP characters that are very unique (mostly elves but also some more obscure races). Uuummm... We have various magic users? Not sure if that counts... Some fae-adjacent people. A couple pure animals (A cat, a wolf, and a bird), a demon, a couple Time Lords, aaaaand whatever the hell Yakko Warner is.

💬 - Free space! Talk about anything!

OKAY SO

A number of us/our headmates have personal Spotify playlists and/or Pinterest boards. And I would absolutely love to link them for you if you want.

Also! We made a Google Slide Presentation about each of the headmates our friends were likely to meet!

Each headmate has 4 slides.

An Introductory Slide, containing basic information like name/pronouns as well as a little blurb about who they are/what they're like, and other info like system role, indicators when fronting, and likes and dislikes (sometimes containing positive/negative triggers).

A "faceclaim" Slide (we don't usually use the word faceclaim), which is covered in mostly Picrews or personal art of the headmate, to get a sense of what they look like.

An Aesthetics Slide, compiling a lot of stuff from their Pinterest board if they have one. Outfits and aesthetics indicative of their color pallete, Pinterest quotes, things of that nature.

Aaand a Miscellaneous Slide! Most of these are just a bunch of tumblr posts that "fit the vibe". Also other various memes, or pics dreamed "not sophisticated enough" for the Aesthetics Slide.

Another key feature of these slides is that everyone's slides are their favorite color, and the Introductory Slide is typed out in a font that either matches their vibes or is similar to their handwriting.

An example (that's probably outdated) can be seen in this post (cw aro discourse).

As always, feel free to ask whatever questions you want!!! Fill that inbox!!!

Thanks for asking/reading! :)

[krash-and-co]

May we hear your theories?

*really big stupid grin* okay okay feel free to ask me to expand on specific stuff lol, this is going to basically be Way Too Much Information and You Literally Couldn't Be More Vague. no in-between

okay here goes

1: Jessica and Kipps knew each other. I love this one. oh this is going to be so long I apologize in advance. I actually just reblogged a post like this earlier today, but yeah I think they knew each other and were quite close before she died. I have a lot of ideas on this that are mostly rooted in canon but a bit of a stretch, but only because they weren't expanded on and you'd think something that important would be lol. also it's headcanon based too but whatever. basically the highlights are

a) yeah they were friends. the ages make sense, and the implication kipps made that he knows about lockwood's life does too.

b) (really headcanon-y be warned, but like it does come from teeny details from canon soooo) kipps didn't like lockwood even before the fight, mainly because he thought the little guy put too much stress on Jessica to grow up and take care of him. Jessica had, as we know, clung to youth, and lockwood was one of the many things keeping her from it. NOT HIS FAULT, HE WAS A LITTLE KID, but still. in kipps' mind, Anthony was keeping Jessica from being as happy as she could be and that was enough for him to be annoyed. so once she died the swordfight they had was the icing on the cake. ohh this is becoming dangerously close to a VERY detailed headcanon/kipps analysis/Jessica analysis oh no

2) lockwood is neurodivergent :)))) I made a post about this too. uh somewhere

3) hey guess what. they're all neurodivergent. no it does absolutely nothing for the plot (unless you're Lucy or Lockwood) but I think so and it makes me happy

4) uhh okay that's it for theories that are actually important everything else is a headcanon based on Tiny Little Things that I saw. or me overanalyzing things because that's my favorite hobby

example of these pointless headcanons would be flo was actually big-sisterly to lockwood before the, uh, Incident, kipps and Holly are now close friends, lockwood loves cats, etc random nonsense that I entertain myself with

[vergess]

About the 3 letter word reading problem- I hope reading disability is being considered, too. The teacher has a selection of children who are behind and struggling, the chance of undiagnosed reading disabilities is high. Dyslexia, for example. It's important teachers recognize when a child is struggling for so long a disability could be involved - help for such things is often more available to children than adults in the US, & the poor are least able to access help, especially as adults.

Yes, these types of disability are being considered. However, many of these disabilities require testing for the extremely basic skills that are no longer being taught in schools.

For example, testing for both visual disabilities and dyslexia involves identifying if the child is able to visually process the shapes and arrangements of letters.

So! What happens if children are not being taught what those letters are in the first place? Children whose primary difficulty in reading is a lack of learned skill will also fail those tests! But treatment for the dyslexia or visual disability, even where it does exist, will only partially resolve the actual problem.

The gap in basic skill is still there.

In fact, many English speaking Americans will only begin learning to read when they begin learning another language, because only then are they taught to relate letters to sounds.

Except, very few will learn another language in school.

And many at home learning apps assume you have certain basic literacy skills already.

So that isn't exactly a real solution.

Worse: this creates confounding difficulties for English as a Second Language (ESL) learners. Many of them, both children and adults, are very literate in other languages. But, not English. The knowledge of "how" to read in another language can help or hinder their reading skill in English. This is especially impacted by their spoken fluency in English outside the classroom.

These are just a few of the factors that make English literacy difficult to test with multilingual children. And, by adulthood, literacy rates tend to change very little. In many cases, this is because people age out of the school system and lose most opportunity to develop reading or research skills. Those who already learned these skills have them forever. Those who didn't learn them easily could, but the chances to be taught in a supportive way are gone.

Anyway! Back to disability.

Because people are being, often correctly, diagnosed with disabilities but previously completely effective treatments are no longer fully solving their literacy issues, we even create a false impression that disabilities are being "over diagnosed."

After all, if specialized glasses solve dyslexia's visual difficulties, but the kid still can't read then the glasses weren't the real issue. The child may very well be dyslexic, and the disability aid very necessary. But they still aren't being taught to read.

Worse still, we're actually under diagnosing. In spite of the illusion to the contrary!

These disabilities are often missed in people who perform specific testing tasks well.

For example: my own dyscalculia, which was undiagnosed in spite of my college level statistics training. It was easy to miss. I tested well. Spreadsheet formulas made more sense to me than basic arithmetic. So I got really good at them. I can operate graphing calculators like a freak.

I can't count past 13.

But I can count 12 zeroes. I know that if I'm multiplying absolutes, there will be the same total number of digits as there are both the numbers being multiplied. So I count them, not knowing what any of the digits are.

125x348 and ###x### look exactly the same to me. They're both going to make an answer that looks like ###,### or ##,###. If I focus, I can tell that these are smaller ones, so probably ##,###.

On a test, I can look for the multiple choice answer that has 5 digits. It will be the right one.

And I will have no idea what any of those numbers were. I had to tediously count ##,### to make sure it was 5 long, because I want to call it 2,3 and I can't remember that 2+3=5 because the numbers are already too fucking hard to look at.

But on anything more specific than a multiple choice, I need a calculator. In this case, the calculator says 43500. And that's 5 digits. Close enough to pass a test.

If anything we're still under diagnosing disabilities. However, we're also under treating them. Or, more correctly, we are not treating a confounding factor.

We have to teach kids to read to be able to treat reading disabilities.

And again, this is not a condemnation of teachers. Teachers often try to teach these skills, but are themselves prevented. Lawmakers and especially funding administration are to blame. No child should have a pass/fail test before age 10, only placement exams to determine their skill level for each subject they are being taught. If we want all children to have certain basic skills, then all of those skills need to be taught to the children based on their own demonstrated ability.

Not based on some arbitrary testing schedule that says kids by age 7 should be able to pass a test, or else their school is punished and the child forced into an even worse environment.

Mandatory testing is bad enough. Testing that adjusts funding based on a pass/fail rate is unspeakable. It's immoral. It actively punishes any school with a disabled student.

[isagisyoichi]

PINKY STAR (RUN) :｡･:*:･ﾟ’★,｡･:*:･ﾟ’☆

SYNOPSIS: isagi as your boyfriend

CHARACTERS INCLUDED: isagi yoichi my boyfriend of many several years

WARNINGS: swearing? i think idk i forget also yah pretend they all go to the same school and stuff. also horribly self indulgent if u couldn't already tell

A/N: if you remember my old one delete it from your memory it was literally so bad help anyways the re-up because my boyfriend deserves better. also i really like this one and i feel like it’s more in character for him :P lol i've had this in my drafts for like, ever <3 but also my last post for a while because i have ap exams and my sat soon :P

FOR: the anon that asked me where my original isagi bf hcs went :’)

after the initial awkwardness of being in a new relationship fades and you two become comfortable with each other, a relationship with isagi would be like dating your slightly awkward best friend who you make out with sometimes.

like, i don’t really see isagi being high maintenance, so i feel like a relationship with him would definitely be on the relaxed side, but still romantic, you know?

isagi’s inner monologue is so funny and he definitely lets his thoughts out to you. it makes you laugh to see your usually friendly-to-all boyfriend have his moments, too.

you guys are one of those couples that give each other a look when someone’s doing something weird in public #telepathicconnection <3

but, isagi’s really such a sweetie with you. i know user isagisyoichi may be slightly biased when they say this, but believe me when i say that isagi’s 100% boyfriend material.

walks you to class whenever he can. always either holding your hand as he listens attentively to you complaining about school.

writes down things he feels are important about you in a digital note entitled “y/n 💗,” so he can remember them in the future.

isagi's used to talking to all kinds of people, so even if you're not the most talkative, he can adjust with no problem.

and he’ll always entertain you about whatever stupid conversation you wanna have.

kinda basic with pet names. babe, baby, dork (he would, i don’t wanna hear it), are his usual rotation.

randomly compliments you/says these really romantic things out of nowhere because he can’t control himself and often blurts things out.

“yeah, of course, when we get married, i’ll-”

“when we get married?” you inquire as you cut isagi off. you two have never discussed marriage, just but the thought of isagi wanting to spend the rest of his life with you is enough to make your head spin.

isagi’s eyes go wide when he realizes what he’s said. damn his mouth that moves faster than his mind.

swallowing hard and taking a breath, isagi says, “y-yeah, when we get married,” further affirming his statement with a nod, albeit a bit of a nervous one.

now both of you guys are flustered LOL.

likes to sit his head in your lap and have you play with his hair, while you two talk or just sit in silence.

such a good listener, perfect person to rant about anything with. he’s very understanding, he’ll hold you if you need him to, wipe your tears if you’re crying, give you advice if you need it, just overall so sweet.

also always knows when you're sad because of his intuition. isagi encourages you to open up to him, but ultimately doesn’t force you, just lets you know that he’s always there for you <3

(that's kind of lie because isagi does pry a little LOL, but he means well)

takes care of you! nags you a little, tries his best to make sure you're not doing anything stupid, and if you are, that someone responsible (him) is watching you, looks after you when you’re sick, etc.

gives you his jacket when you’re cold (he’s been waiting to do that his whole life bro LMAOO), carries your things, always texts you good morning and good night, just overall sooo good to you.

but as soft as he is for you, isagi does have this tendency to get these random spouts of confidence, so sometimes he’ll say or do something really bold out of nowhere.

like, he’ll suddenly grab your waist and pull you closer to him, or he’ll kiss you out of the blue. the flustered expression that rests on your face for a change always makes him smirk *heart eyes*

in general, though, isagi's still kind of awkward sometimes regardless and does say or do things that make you go "???" and make him be like "why did i do that" LOL he's so cute though <333

he’s pretty basic with dates, usually opts for things like restaurants, walks in the parks, movie nights, or stuff like that, but they’re still really fun!

but, if you ever want to do something out of the norm, he wouldn't be opposed to it, either. but, you do have to tell him ‘cause he's not a mind reader lol.

(okay but, one time, isagi tried to watch a scary movie with you because he wanted to do that thing where he wraps his arm around you during the scary parts, but HE ended up being scared instead 😭)

isagi’s the type to put your name with a heart emoji or the date you guys started dating in his instagram bio LOL

y/n 💓 IHS Forward #10 ⚽️ *insert some soccer quote about grinding*

it’s a bit middle school, but you let it slide because you know he just wants to show you off <3

study sessions are normal between you two but, you guys always get bored or distracted halfway through and start watching youtube or something LOL.

it’s canon he’s a thigh man lol, so if he ever sees you wearing an oversized shirt, especially one of his, with shorts, isagi will literally short circuit in real life.

he keeps his hand on your thigh when you guys cuddle that day, tracing patterns on your skin, or just squeezing it every now and then.

in general, though, isagi likes poking at and playing with them whenever they're out <3

once, isagi wanted you to do that trend on tiktok where he sits between your thighs and stuff, but he had no idea how to bring it up LOL

so, isagi just watched tiktoks of it in front of you and hoped eventually you would get the hint 🙄

and you did, thanks to his incredible lack of subtly. he doesn’t even care when you giggle and tell him how bad he is at being slick, isagi got your thighs around him, he won!!!!!!

takes a picture (or two or three) to savor the moment.

(even though he could literally just ask you to do it again in the future, but whatever, i guess)

when you’re dating isagi, the team comes with him too LOL

they’re always snapchatting you pictures of isagi when they’re hanging out without you, with stupid captions like, “look how sad your boyfriend is without you 😞”

isagi’s not even sad in the picture, he’s just confused as to why they’re shoving a camera in his face 😭

isagi one hundred percent attempts to get you to run the mile with him during gym if you don’t already.

“babe, just try!” isagi pants, as he catches up to you and your friends, as you guys are still on your second lap.

admittedly, the effort is cute, but beloved, i hate to break it to you- i will not be doing anything of the sort.

he will sit down or walk around with you after you finish the mile, though. if he’s not already playing soccer lollll.

when he does choose to go with you, expect exclamations from the team about how isagi “abandoned us for his little relationship” 👎

isagi’s receiving love language is words of affirmation (also basically canon LOL) so, he really values the compliments you give him with his whole heart.

you could tell him how his hair looks nice in the morning, and isagi will think about it all day.

whether it be about how cute he is, or how talented of a player he is, isagi really is happiest when you praise him <3

speaking of soccer, isagi has this tendency to get lost in the moment and talk your head off about some soccer related tangent that probably makes no sense to you.

his eyes light up and his voice is just oozing with passion for what he does as he goes into detail about how he made this crazy goal at practice while you stare at him with the biggest heart eyes ever, adoring his dedication.

and of course when isagi realizes he was rambling, he apologizes profusely for “boring” you, like the gentleman he is.

but when you reassure him that he could never bore you and that you want nothing more than for him to go on, isagi begins to feels lightheaded due to his adoration for you <3

if you're the type to go all out when it supporting isagi at soccer- like make one of those corny signs, yell from the crowd, wear his spare jersey to games, isagi will physically have to withhold his heart from jumping out his chest.

he's a little embarrassed that you're doing all that for him, but the effort means soooo much to him.

and speaking of soccer, it would mean a lot to isagi if you not only supported him at games and stuff, but expressed an interest in learning more about soccer as a whole, too.

you know, learn a little more about the game on your own accord, ask him to teach you how to properly play, or even challenge him to a one on one, do stuff like that, and he’ll literally be head over heels for you. well, more than he already is.

(he always goes easy on you on your guys 1v1's and he thinks your efforts are adorable, no matter how much you may or may not suck)

he'd repay the effort and try to get interested in whatever your hobbies are!

also, you can get him to do almost anything if you pout and beg hard enough, you’re literally so hard to say no to in isagi’s eyes <3

isagi’s the type to not realize when other people are flirting with him LOL

he just thinks they’re being nice (unless they’re being straight up) and i don’t think he would really process it because he’s so focused on you romantically, if that makes sense.

once he realizes you’re jealous, isagi apologizes earnestly, reassuring you over and over again that you're everything he could ask for and that he would never intentionally try to hurt you and all that jazz.

although, i will admit, sometimes isagi’s kinda smug when you're jealous, especially when it’s over a dumb reason 👎

however, when he’s jealous i feel like it could go one of two ways-

on normal days, isagi would just stand there to “intimidate” the other person, maybe cough a little for emphasis until they go away lol.

but on days where he’s already mad/filled with adrenaline/or someone’s really not taking a hint and you’re visibly uncomfortable- oh boy, it’s like a switch flips in him.

has those same fiery eyes he has during the climax of a game. the energy he’s exuding is dead serious, and that alone is enough for the person bothering you to go away. not bad for a man that’s only 5’8 🥰

adding on, isagi doesn’t take any shit about you, ever. even if it’s from his friends. usually isagi’s very neutral and doesn’t actively try to start conflict, but there are some things he’ll always defend and you’re one of them.

isagi always listens/watches/reads/etc whatever you recommend him (on that note, please recommend him good anime because isagi’s out here willingly telling people his favorite anime is darling in the franxx), even if he doesn’t necessarily like it LOL

you could show isagi objectively, the worst song ever and he would be like “yeah, it was good babe!” (it was not)

also does the same thing when you bring him shopping with you, like he's absolutely NO HELP 😭

you could try on the ugliest sweater known to man and he’d like “you look nice 🙂” pls be honest isagi, you can say it’s hideous!!!!!!

but isagi’s also being somewhat truthful in his statement because he does genuinely think you look nice in everything <3

also loves when you wear his clothes- always feels a mixture between pride and slight shyness?

kinda lol idk but overall, isagi really is sooo happy you wanna show him off that much, especially when you're wearing something of his around his friends :')

he says “i love you” first, no doubt.

he’s a bit nervous when he does because he doesn’t know if you’ll reciprocate, but he really does love you and he feels like he physically can’t hold it in anymore.

“i promise you don’t have to say it back!” isagi reassures anxiously. “i know it’s a really big commitment, and if it’s too early for you right now-”

“i love you, too.”

[wildsunscorpion]

How Bum Geon Woo communicates through his body language (Plus how he's actually giving the special treatment Eui Joon's been yearning for)

I reread DCS for, like, the tenth time now. Yes, I'm obsessed ohmygod! I'm liking how these two characters are written so far. I originally wanted to break down just Chapters 20-24 of DCS because the first time I read it I got just a little annoyed with how Geon Woo (a.k.a. Ahjussi) was, let's say, just kind of pushing Euijoon's limits. But I ended up doing more than just Chapters 20-24. Dios mio.

I was just a little tired of seeing the same trend with guys in manhwa. They always seem to be domineering, especially if their partner is the "sweet and naive" archetype. (Eui Joon, I think, does not really fit into this mold.) Of course, that's usually because they're dealing with their own issues, and I don't really blame them.

But I like DCS because it justified that kind of behavior in Geon Woo when he was having sex with Eui Joon (in Chapters 20-24, particularly). Lol I'm probably the only one who realized this later than I should have ehehe. I'm still posting this tho.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD‼️‼️

His antics speak volumes. It's amazing how I missed all those details just because the sex scenes were. Steamy. As. Fuck. Good lordy! Geon Woo is definitely a man of few words (He once said Eui Joon makes him talk like he would for a whole year, haha!), so it would make sense to communicate whatever's going through his mind in a situation through body language.

I also want to add the times that he makes the effort to hold a conversation with Eui Joon. Geon Woo doesn't really talk when he doesn't need to, so it's important to pay attention to his actions.

☙ ☙ ☙ ☙ ☙

Chapters 0-12

The first time we get a glimpse of Geon Woo's side of the story was when Eui Joon finally confesses to the person who's been his crush for 3 effing years, Hyeon Woo. Eui Joon is inexplicably happy when Hyeon Woo says he'll consider and comes to the convenience store in good spirits. Geon Woo, keen as always, notices, and when Eui Joon tells him what happened this is what we get:

It's the way it was framed. How we see his reaction from behind rather than from the front. He turns away, seeming to go inward and brood once again.

Afterwards, another gangster comes. The guy challenges Geon Woo for taking too long at the front of the line. Geon Woo asks Eui Joon if he smokes, and when he replies that he doesn't, Geon Woo "borrows" the lighter on the countertop and uses that to throw a stronger punch to the man behind him, who temporarily falls unconscious. Geon Woo turns back to Eui Joon, seeming to have something else to say. But he sees the frightened look on Eui Joon's face and decides to keep it to himself before leaving through the door.

"And..." He pauses, turning to Eui Joon. "... Never mind. Good work."

JUST WHAT WAS HE ABOUT TO SAY?!?!?!

In the succeeding panel, Eui Joon is nonplussed. He wonders out loud, "What is happening?" Couldn't have said it better, girl. Geon Woo was just taking out his frustration and he had the perfect opportunity at the moment.

The second time was when Geon Woo invites Eui Joon to drink after the incident with Hyeon Woo (who basically asks Eui Joon to cheat with him and inebriates him—probably with the intention to take advantage of him). From the side stories, we learn that Geon Woo has taken an interest in Eui Joon after seeing him for the second time, and when he comes by through the hallway—finally discovering they were neighbors—and witnesses the two, he sees it as a chance with Eui Joon.

He invites Eui Joon out to drink, after Eui Joon's suggestion for a dinner at 2 in the morning fails to entice him. Eui Joon rambles his questions away, wanting to get to know him better, but Geon Woo doesn't immediately answer and catches him off guard when he "casually" inquires after his sexuality. Not the smoothest move there, lol, but in the side stories we see that wasn't really his intention.

"Damn it, why did I ask that question? It just slipped out..."

He answers Eui Joon's questions afterwards, surprising Eui Joon with the fact that he's actually been listening to what he's been saying for the past minute. We're starting to see just what kind of a person he is (Listening skills are always a plus in my book).

A little later, we see them on their way back to the apartment. Eui Joon asks Geon Woo to tell him anything interesting because he's been the one talking all night. Geon Woo acquiesces, asking a question that may have been part in consideration of Eui Joon's vulnerable state, and perhaps also part due to the possibility that he worried about him.

"Come to think of it... School has already started. Isn't it tiring to work 'til dawn? Aren't you working too much?"

Geon Woo's face is a little hard to read. So every subtle change in his expression says something. If you read the manhwa, you'll see the slightest bit of concern in his eyes. It's hard to catch until you've read the side stories (at least for me, haha).

One more thing I like about Geon Woo is that he doesn't meddle when it's not his business. He knows the state of Eui Joon's family—their inability to afford his college tuition, his hospitalized brother—and he knows he can help. I mean, I don't know how wealthy and powerful he is as a gangster but he probably has the means to. But he rarely opens the topic to Eui Joon.

Aaaand onto Chapter 8! Just before the first sex scene in the entire series. Eui Joon is crying because he had a shitty day both at school and at work, poor thing—all because of Hyeon Woo. He cries even more when he notices that Geon Woo, who came to the store every day, didn't come to the store that day. When he encounters him outside, he breaks down, catching Geon Woo off guard.

Geon Woo tells his lackey to leave and asks Eui Joon to stay. Eui Joon tells him he was fine and proceeds to go back to his room, but Geon Woo frightens him when he says he was already being nice. And then we get this:

"Ah, I don't mean it that way... Just a while."

That gentle tug is honestly so uncharacteristic of the usual ruffian behavior we often see from Geon Woo. It's a nice sweet detail that proves what he says in Chapter 26 (when he finally confesses) that he treats Eui Joon differently from others.

Eui Joon cries his heart out to Geon Woo, and Geon Woo just lets him. Afterwards, Eui Joon resolves to forget about Hyeon Woo. By finding someone, hmm, more physically endowed.

"I must find someone more good-looking than him. With a nicer body... And a bigger dick!"

Clueless guy basically described the man beside him.

To that, Geon Woo says:

"How long have you known me? You really dare to say anything like that in front of me?"

Which comes off as slightly hostile at first. The next panel shows a dark aura surrounding Geon Woo, which Eui Joon interprets as distress from his implications of doing it with him—whose sexual preference so far remains ambiguous (In the side stories, we learn that Geon Woo himself struggles with figuring this out.). But then, he surprises Eui Joon when he slowly leans in to kiss him.

CUE SEX SCENE! I pitied Eui Joon a little because he wasn't really in the best state when Geon Woo offered this. In Geon Woo's defense, though, from the moment he found out that Eui Joon was gay he saw doors opening. When Eui Joon said something like that, I think his attraction to Eui Joon finally caught up to him and he couldn't resist the opportunity. He definitely wasn’t distressed by the implication of Eui Joon’s words; he was distressed by the decision he had to make—to go through that door or not. Because he knew he wanted it, even though he was constantly denying it from the start.

“This dirty thought wasn’t something that I have planned from the beginning.”

The day after, Eui Joon is a little rattled. He doesn’t know how to treat Geon Woo after that—not when he realized that sex could be that hot and satisfying (uwu). Geon Woo appears to be unaffected while Eui Jon’s brain is in knots about everything. But the questions Geon Woo asks tell us that he’s beginning to show Eui Joon a little emotion. He asks to see Eui Joon’s face to inspect the healing bruise he got yesterday (the one that Geon Woo covered with a bandaid—which was so sweet, huhu). And then, he asks if he was tired after school.

“Let me see your face.”

“School classes. Are you tired after taking them?”

From my perspective, he wasn’t just asking for the sake of being nice to the person he slept with. The story still hasn’t covered much of Geon Woo’s history to know whether he had been like this with his previous partners. Although there was a moment in Chapter 27 during one of their conversations when he gave us a little glimpse:

Geon Woo: It's normal to cry over pathetic things at your age. Eui Joon: Have you cried like that before too? Geon Woo: No. Eui Joon: Then how do you know that? Geon Woo: I just... know. Because there was a guy like that around.

From the time Geon Woo invited him out to drink, I think Geon Woo was genuinely concerned when he asked how Eui Joon was doing.

☙ ☙ ☙ ☙ ☙

Chapters 13-26

Geon Woo's love language, I think, is his actions. He fights off the gangsters that bully Eui Joon into giving them discounts or even paying for them from his own pockets so they won't have to. He gives Eui Joon food and medicine when he finds out he was sick (the morning after having sex with him in the car for hours, lol). He likes taking care of the person he likes. So in Chapter 26, when he "confesses" to Eui Joon, that was Geon Woo pointing out that he's been doing the same thing all along.

"I mean, look at me just once... What kind of person I am. How I treat you. Take a good look at it. If you think that I'm good, then pick me. If not, you can throw me aside." "But. Before you do, you should understand this. Until then, I don't intend to let you get away."

This "non-confession" (he actually tells Eui Joon it wasn't a confession) actually says a lot about Geon Woo. His attitude towards their relationship is very blunt and straightforward. Once he's made a decision, he stops listening to his doubts and stands by it. I don't really know when Geon Woo decided that he liked Eui Joon. It was more slow-growing. In the side stories though, we see him considering this big-time when this thought crosses his mind:

"There's the common phrase of having the opportunity to meet your fateful love. If there's a sign for it, would it be possible to stay vigilant?"

AHJUSSI YOU SOFT-HEARTED ROMANTIC I CAN'T T^T He becomes more bold with Eui Joon afterwards, but he's still a little prickly. He's constantly weighing his options, trying to figure out in what way will doing the things he does for Eui Joon benefit him, if at all. In Chapter 13, when a customer comes inside the store and forces Eui Joon to pay for what he bought, he's on the scales. But then the memory of that morning flashes through his mind, and he remembers how the simple act of Eui Joon giving him his number had made him smile like an idiot. He beats the customer for him, taking the money he owed, and gives it back to Eui Joon. He even manages to casually ask him out on a date. The guy can be smooth as fuck.

Eui Joon: Are you saying... we should eat together? Geon Woo: Sure. I guess I've done something worth compensating. Will you give me my reward?

Take notes, people! At this point, Eui Joon has gotten him wrapped around his finger, and he didn't even know it! Of course, Eui Joon still thinks their relationship is only purely sexual, but then Geon Woo begins doing these uncharacteristically tender gestures that Eui Joon initially interprets as Geon Woo giving him special treatment.

"Let me see your face." "School classes. Are you tired after them" "I'm thinking that... You'll look good in short hair, too."

And Geon Woo even tries to initiate a conversation with Eui Joon when he feels like Eui Joon couldn't take the awkwardness. A good example was when Geon Woo treats him dinner at the restaurant.

"...." "Is this your first time coming to this kind of place?"

Somehow, these things he does still feel kind of forced, like he was genuinely annoyed at Eui Joon and everything he did. Even when he asks to do it with him again and Eui Joon refuses because he was still sore, there was a moment of frustration that shone through.

It was a sign that Geon Woo was still confused about the things he was feeling towards Eui Joon. He knew he wanted him physically, but then he doesn't take up the woman's offer that evening after Eui Joon refuses him. It wasn't actually written on paper, but knowing Geon Woo's character he might have felt uneasy about going through with it. Not particularly on Eui Joon's behalf, but it may have been unconscious because of his budding feelings.

His feelings were something that rattled him, and he was usually undeterred in any kind of situation. What rattled him more was that Eui Joon didn't know anything about what he was going through.

"Being naturally attracted to you, and going through unfamiliar emotions. This feeling should only be felt at an adolescent age."

We're seeing him from behind again. The use of this perspective in manhwas / mangas / comics usually makes you feel like can't tell what the character's thinking about, but most importantly that they're most likely about to go do or SAY SOMETHING DAMN IMPORTANT. Like, maybe, telling their feelings to the person they like!?!?!

"Eui Joon-Ah. I like you."

ASDFGHJKL DID ANYONE SEE THAT COMING?!?!?!

That actually surprised me hella lot. I'd originally thought Geon Woo was the tsundere type, but he was more honest with his feelings than I believed. However, he hadn't been completely convinced by these feelings until Eui Joon had offered to break it off. Suddenly there was an exit to his situation, but he didn't really feel happy about it. He was frustrated at not being able to properly understand what his words made him feel. Because the truth was he didn't want to break things off. He just wouldn't admit to himself at the time that the reason was he actually wanted Eui Joon.

We could see him debating it himself, poor thing:

"I didn't expect myself to be in a situation where I couldn't even understand my own feelings. I should've figured it out the moment I couldn't understand my sexual preference. I'm not that young anymore... What is this?" "No... It could also be a spur of the moment... It doesn't seem to be like that. It might also be due to pride, but I feel it's not necessary for these kinds of feelings to affect my pride... But even when it's like this, I still want to..."

Geon Woo decides to "have a little fun" before conceding to Eui Joon's request to "end their entanglement". But I've noticed that whenever something bothers Geon Woo too much, he takes a smoke. When Eui Joon makes the suggestion, Geon Woo does just that.

The slightly rough way in which Geon Woo treats him afterwards shows his frustration. He grabs his arm roughly and pulls him towards the car, but he doesn't realize he was hurting Eui Joon's wrist with his own watch until Eui Joon whines in pain—at which point Geon Woo just laces his hand through his instead. Which I thought was so sweet T^T

When Eui Joon freaks out about doing it at the school where he studies and asks Geon Woo to consider it for him, Geon Woo says, "Do I have to consider that for you too?" And when Eui Joon asks for him to do that, Geon Woo replies, "I guess I've been too nice to you." THE MAN WAS FREAKING FRUSTRATED!!! Geon Woo even challenges him to stay quiet, telling him no one will hear them if he does. Throughout the whole thing, Geon Woo wanted to dominate him, daring him to take what pleasure he could give him, but with an aggression that bespeaks the storm in his heart and mind. Reading it back, I realized just how damn hot that scene was. I mean, goddamn. After Geon Woo admits his feelings, there's a serenity about him afterwards. He no longer has to second-guess taking care of Eui Joon or expressing what he felt towards him. He gives him food and medicine the next day since he caught a fever. He "invites himself" to watch a movie with him since they both had nothing to do for the rest of the day. The guy was basically courting Eui Joon, haha. Not a confession, my ass XD

And then, when Eui Joon opens up about how he rejected Hyeon Woo, Geon Woo tells him he'll also wait for him for around three years T^T

MY HEART I CAN'T T ^ T ☙ ☙ ☙ ☙ ☙ So that's kiiind of a long breakdown. I included as little pictures as possible. Copyright and all that. I just really like this series so far. I want to be able to read the original someday. Hopefully I'd be able to learn Korean T^T. If you like this as much as I do, chat me up =D would love to hear other thoughts.

[the-ghost-king]

Schizophrenic Nico, here's why I think it's possible:

I want to start off by saying these are just my thoughts, there is no one way to be schizophrenic or to have schizophrenia. It's also important to note that many of the schizophrenic symptoms overlap with other mental illnesses/nuerodivergences like ADHD, Autism, Depression, and OCD which I know many people who head canon Nico as having. I'm not arguing schizophrenic Nico is more correct, more canon, or more right, but to explain some thoughts on why I think it's possible/very likely he does so I can use this for future reference in various thing.

I am using the term schizophrenia as a catchall for all "types" of schizophrenia, but not for schizoaffective disorder which I would say Nico probably doesn't have.

Children born in the winter/those who were "sickly" as babies are more likely to develop schizophrenia. It may also be possible if your mother was sick while pregnant with you, or having a father who was significantly older when he had you.

A stressful life, especially trauma, are more likely to develop schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. It likely has something to do with excessive dopamine production, but it may also have something to do with the same genes that control the sleep-wake cycle. Schizophrenia is more common with other mental illnesses or with other nuerodivergences or developmental delays.

Common symptoms include:

Hallucinations

Delusions

Disorganized thinking

lack of motivation

slow movement

change in sleep patterns

poor grooming or hygiene

changes in body language and emotions

less interest in social activities

Now what does this mean for Nico, and why do I think it's likely he has Schizophrenia?

Let's start with Nico's childhood, "children born in the winter/those who were "sickly" as babies are more likely to develop schizophrenia". Although Rick proposed two birthdays for Nico, the fandom generally accepted the January date more fully. We also know that Nico is described as small when he was younger, smallness is common in children who grow up sickly, but it is also common in children who's mother was ill while pregnant with them. We obviously don't know if Nico was sick as a kid, or if Maria was sick while pregnant with him, but again being born in the winter makes these things more likely, as well as consideration for the time period Nico grew up in and the larger variety of illnesses going around at the time. (He is vaccinated against some things though).

Trauma and Nico... do I really have to go into super detail on this one? He spent his childhood growing up in a fascist country that was extremely racist/anti-Semitic/homophobic/etc, his mom died when he was a child- in front of him, his father intentionally gave him amnesia, his sister died when he was a child, he then proceeded to become homeless living/spending lots of time with Minos who verbally (and possibly physically) abused him, becoming aware of his past memories, becoming aware of the fact that many people hated him because of his father and because they thought he was joining the other side (therefore, he was "bad"), he fought in many battles as a child, fought monsters alone, was often faced with life or death situations, went to Tartarus alone (where the goddess of misery told him he was "perfect"), was trapped in a hostage situation with little/no air for a long time while people debated whether or not to save him, was outed against his will, was freed only to travel again fighting monsters and then win a battle, was eventually made to quest with Apollo despite still having lots of healing to do in ToN. So stressful life? Fuck yeah, that doesn't being to cover it.

Genetic factors, obviously nothing here is confirmed so I'm speculating a little bit again, but the common idea in regards to Hades children through the series is that they are "bad". Mental illnesses have been stigmatized for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and often mentally ill people were made out to be weird/bad/etc. It's more than possible there is some sort of genetic factor taking place, also "having a father who was significantly older when he had you". Although I doubt godly genes work the same as mortal ones (trust me I have lots of thoughts on how god genetics/DNA work, but that's not the point right now), I think Hades being the oldest out of all his brothers and having a reputation for having "questionable" children says something... We have no information on Maria's family history at all.

As for schizophrenia often occurring with other mental illnesses and/or neurodivergences: Nico canonically is implied to have either ADHD and/or Autism, and is canonically stated to have PTSD. I think most people would agree that saying Nico has or has had depression isn't a stretch in the slightest.

So canonically we can all agree Nico has severe trauma and coinciding mental health issues/neurodivergences, so out of 4 possible issues I’ve first presented we guaranteeably have two. If I wanted to stretch this a little I would give myself a half point for him being born in the winter and a half point for the aspect of Hades genetics but I won’t do that.

On top of that schizophrenia usually appears during teenage and young adult years in people who receive diagnosis; most people live with mental illness for a few months or a few years in some cases before they're able to receive a diagnosis. Nico being 15 (16 by the end of ToN/shortly following the end of ToN) is about the age that schizophrenia would start to make an appearance. It's also more likely to be found in men, with men also noticing the appearance of schizophrenia appearing early in their lives, and experiencing more negative symptoms in comparison to the higher commonality of affective symptoms in women. That's a really complicated explanation to basically say there's 3 more things that would make Nico having schizophrenia make more sense.

Alright, let’s go back to the list of symptoms I provided:

Hallucinations

Delusions

Disorganized thinking

lack of motivation

slow movement

change in sleep patterns

poor grooming or hygiene

changes in body language and emotions/behavior

less interest in social activities

Once again, some of these are not solely related to schizophrenia and can be the result of other mental health issues, I’m just going to go down the list and add in some moments from the books in which Nico shows some of these traits/behaviors.

Delusions/Hallucinations (more later)

Our best chances for understanding Nico's thought process is in Blood of Olympus where he has a P.O.V... Sometimes Nico's thoughts do derail, or sometimes they get a little confusing, but not always, and when talking to others he is consistent and aware of what he's saying, as well as blunt. Anything "off" about his thought patterns to me just seems like ADHD..

Dietary changes (whether or not you think he has an eating disorder) are behavioral changes (I personally think Nico has AFRID)

Within House of Hades Nico's poor sleep patterns are constantly referenced, and I'll give him a pass on poor hygiene because he's in the middle of a quest but still..

I have extremely complicated feelings on what Will says here, it's possible Nico is an extremely unreliable narrator (unlikely, it seems many people are bothered by him and only maybe a handful aren't), I've also thought at many points this was Rick trying to backtrack some stuff with Nico because he realized he'd made his story a little too harsh for a kids book, it could also be Will's trauma kicking in and that happening... I'm not counting it as full proof about Nico disliking social interactions, but Nico does try to leave even after this conversation and isn't convinced to stay until the last chapter, so maybe there's something to be said about people's dislike of him for being a Hades kid- but I think it's fair to say Nico also dislikes people at least some because he doesn't have interest in trying to befriend anyone either, and is quick to assume all people dislike him (paranoia/low self esteem/and some other possible stuff). There's lots of discussions to be had about this quote and other similar ones, and I don't think a broad brush approach of "Nico good everyone else bad" is accurate it's more, "Nico is good but he fails to try and you have to work on your own mental health everyone won just go to you, and also people dislike Nico for silly reasons and need to get over themselves and make an effort too". (I'm extremely oversimplifying my thoughts and feelings to keep it brief.)

More on delusions and hallucinations:

Now I want to state that lots of schizophrenia symptoms share a lot of commonalities with ADHD and with depression, so although I might include some moments you think are just ADHD/depression I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with you but they could also be schizophrenia or coexisting mental health issues/divergences. I also went through the DSM-5 for schizophrenia (the DSM-5 is just this big book with lists and it’s how doctors diagnose any mental health issue/divergence), I also looked through the DSM-IV (an older book from before DSM-5 which is no longer really used) and the differences between the diagnosis was fairly minimal but they quit categorizing types of schizophrenia and instead rely more on a couple of word descriptions that seem more in line with a spectrum rather than a checkable box.

In order to receive a schizophrenia diagnosis, two (or more) of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a 1-month period (or less if successfully treated), and at least one of these symptoms must be (1), (2), or (3):

Delusions

Hallucinations

Disorganized speech (frequent derailment or incoherence)

Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior

Negative symptoms (i.e., diminished emotional expression or avolition).

It’s important to note that only one of these need to be checked off/true if the patient has voices which narrate their actions/behaviors/thoughts or if the person has more than one voice conversing with each other.

Nico deals with auditory hallucinations (2), he believes the voice belongs to Bob, his titan friend he left in Tartarus:

However this isn’t and immediate diagnosis because Bob’s voice doesn’t talk to another voice(s) in Nico’s head, and we don’t know if Nico has voices running commentary on his behaviors/thoughts.

The reason I state we are unaware if Nico has commentary isn’t because Nico hasn’t said anything, but because many people with schizophrenia before their diagnosis believe the narrative voices are just their thoughts and are a normal internal monologue- usually patients don’t realize anything is wrong until the voices start providing commentary on their actions so instead of “washing the dishes now” the voice(s) might say “wash the dishes now, you’re so lazy you can’t do anything, idiot” during a period of psychosis which may help them acknowledge that the voice(s) isn’t the way most people experience internal voice(s). It is very possible Nico is unaware he is experiencing narrative thoughts and simply assumes that his experience is something most people have, but I won’t use this to argue my point because it’s not confirmation of anything.

Returning now to Bob, Nico knows he is hearing Bob’s voice but he believes Bob is calling to him from Tartarus. Now, Nico says the voices are calling to him from Tartarus but there’s no confirmation of this anywhere… What I think is happening is Nico has a guilty conscience. He feels bad for “using” Bob to get out of Tartarus and various other things, so he feels bad that he is still down there. However, we don’t really know if Bob is calling to him or if Bob is able to do that- what I personally think is happening here is Nico’s brain is convincing Nico that Bob needs him because Nico is upset with himself for not helping Bob more, but also because Nico has never “sat still” before without a quest. Nico has also always felt the want to be needed/important...

It very well could be a delusion.

Schizophrenic patients often experience delusions which make them think they are destined for greatness, or that they have some divine/high force calling out to them for help that only they can provide. It’s an extremely common thing in individuals who experience delusions, and is in fact one of the most common delusions experienced. So although Bob could really be calling out to Nico, I don’t think he is, it doesn’t entirely make sense and there’s lots of little things which point to it being not entirely real- like the fact that nobody else knows about it? Or how absolutely sure Nico is that he need to return to Tartarus? It seems like a mixture of PTSD, delusions, and trauma response (returning to the trauma), working against him. I’ll say delusion is very likely (1).

Using these two factors alone there’s sufficient evidence for diagnosis, but let’s keep going just to see.

For disorganized speech (3) this isn’t something Nico seems to struggle with, and even if he did “derailing” could be ADHD or Autism, so I don’t think this symptom pertains to him.

Changes in behavior (4), seem to all be explainable via depression and/or PTSD- he has begun to express emotion again in Tower of Nero upon learning of Jason’s death he is said to be upset by Will and he walks off to be alone, seems like depression to me. Emotional/Behavior changes from schizophrenia tend to relate more to bipolar disorder rather than a depressive disorder, so I would say if Nico has schizophrenia he probably doesn’t have emotional or behavioral changes from it. If he did he might have some catatonic behavior, but this seems to be clearing up some in Tower of Nero so I’m not super sure on that, maybe during bad periods of psychosis behavioral changes occur, but I would lean more towards this isn’t a symptom Nico personally deals with. Negative symptoms (5) tie into this same idea, it’s possible it’s schizophrenia, but it’s more likely PTSD or depression at work.

So why do I care so much about the possibility of Nico being schizophrenic?

I feel like canonically/fanonically making Nico schizophrenic does a few things, firstly schizophrenic rep in media is extremely extremely awful- can you think off the top of your head of a schizophrenic character who isn't from a horror film/a murder/a villain in their own story? Maybe, but personally I can only think of one which is Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower- and even then? That's not canon, it's only implied- and it might not even be true

Schizophrenic media representation always paints schizophrenic people as bad, scary, and evil, and although the horror genre is extremely well known for being super ableist, transphobic, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic (just the final cherry on top) having one of the first- if not the first openly confirmed schizophrenic characters in children's media not only be someone who has lots of character development, and isn't a stereotype, but also be someone people have grown up with, cared for, and sympathized with- would be extremely monumental.

People with schizophrenia and other related disorders aren't something to be scared of or to think of as bad, and often times they're more bothered by whatever they're experiencing than you are.

I don't have schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder or anything like that, but I have various undiagnosed mental health issues which often lead to me questioning reality, or having to set aside time to convince myself that no there isn't a man living in my wall... Having a character have to question those things, work through those feelings, and learn to trust themselves and care for themselves even with those difficulties would be really great to see in media, not just for people with schizophrenia but also for people with similar/related disorders who might share symptoms see parts of their own struggles in a good, educative way.

I have to finish this in two parts because tumblr keeps breaking because there's too many words in my post lmao (2nd part here)

[acaiis]

The Existence of Capitalism in Skyword Sword and How it Makes No Sense Contextually

First off, before I begin, I would like to make it clear that this is not meant to be a a post to bring politics into Zelda; it is my analysis of the information we are given about Skyloft and subsequent questioning of a lot of different canonical aspects. This also won't contain any major spoilers for Skyward Sword, as this is viewed almost entirely from a world-building perspective. Continued beneath the cut (because this is a monstrous post)

The Canon Economy In game, the citizens of Skyloft rely on a monetary system of trade, i.e. using money to purchase goods. This in and of itself works fine for the game, but I'll get into later why it's not very well founded later on. We see that the Skyloftians have to pay for necessities such as food in game. Seeing as this isn't something that carries much weight story-wise, it's hard to find lots of information, but it can be asssumed that Skyloft operates on a typical "use money to purchase goods" system. Furthermore, the only large source of food we see in game (pumpkin island), appears to be owned privately. Patrons must pay to consume pumpkin soup. This indicates that other islands with the means for producing food may also be owned privately, though these theoretical islands do not exist canonically. Most of this will become relevant as this post goes on; for now it offers contextual knowledge. The Money Problem

Across the Zelda franchise, Rupees act as the main currency. It is not stated anywhere how or where Rupees are created, so there's a few potential routes.

1.) Rupees are mined from the earth.

In the very first installation of the franchise, rupees are referred to as Rubies by the game manual. Rubies being used to refer to them implies that they may share similar properties -- so from here we can assume that rupees are some sort of gemstone that are mined from the earth and made into money. If you're thinking, "but money is made out of paper, why would they use gemstones?", then I will direct you to the historical use of silver and gold as currency. 2.) Rupees are created magically.

In game, rupees can be obtained in an eclectic variety of methods. Killing monsters, cutting grass, and so on and so forth. This could imply that they are generated by some outside force at seemingly random. This particular theory is the weakest of the three.

3.) Rupees are formed via living organisms.

Hear me out. Seeing as a potential drop of enemies is rupees, the creation of rupees is not explicitly stated, and they're not so common that they're essentially worthless, one could assume that, similar to pearls, rupees are created by living organisms. This would explain why they are dropped sometimes by enemies, and even why you find them in the grass (outside of the minish) -- if a monster dies, the rupee(s) could be left behind in the grass and so forth. When taken in the context of Skyloft, the theoretical origin of rupees that makes the most sense at a first glance is the second one -- there are few monsters on Skyloft, which rules out no. 3, and seeing as they have very limited ground to work with, mining is out of the question. However, when we look at the option of magical origins, it starts to break down -- they can't exactly disperse any excess money, as they are extremely limited in who they can trade with, and if money just keeps showing up out of nowhere the economy will inevitably undergo inflation, which wouldn't be good for anyone. So, this leaves us with a limited supply of rupees on Skyloft, following either theory 1 or 3.

The problem here is that they live on a floating island, and frequently travel between multiple of these islands. If, say, one was to drop something off the edge, we know that it would be as good as lost canonically -- they cannot reach the surface, and therefore have no method of retrieving any objects lost in this manner.

In my initial ramble about this, the example I used was this: Young children clearly exist on Skyloft, and typically children enjoy playing with things and imitating their parents. I'm sure most people have had an experience in which a young child has either destroyed or lost money. If there's one toddler that has the idea to start chucking money over the edge, they could potentially even wreck the economy depending on the current finite amount of rupees available on Skyloft and the amount of which is being thrown off. Basically, the economy of Skyloft could be wrecked by a child.

They could potentially use something other than rupees as money, but options here are pretty much nonexistent -- what would they use? The amount of resources they'd have to use to produce money simply wouldn't make sense, seeing as they have limited resources -- which brings us to our next section.

Limited Resources

To add to the dubious monetary system of Skyloft, we have the very clearly limited resources. They live on floating islands. In the sky. With no access to the greater world below. They have very limited room for production. Even with the small canonical population of Skyloft (we're strongly going to assume that the npcs present in SkSw are not the extent of the sky's population, however, because otherwise they'd be competing with the lines of the european royalty), managing food would be a large and very important undertaking. In order to keep myself going a rant worthy of its own post, I won't be going too into depth on how they would make use of the land for survival. All that is needed to know is that food is very much limited and also, obviously, essential for survival.

When looking at an isolated community like this, food would likely be the most important part of life on Skyloft. If food isn't available, you die. Given that it is so important to have food in this situation, it would be a reasonable assumption to have a community in which everyone works to ensure the production of food. With these circumstances, the private ownership (for profit) of gardens is both unrealistic and extremely unethical. Farmers could charge a premium for food, making themselves extremely wealthy, and everyone else would be forced to pay these rates in order to survive.

Summary of Canonical Issues

Basically, we have this community in which resources are vastly limited, obtaining replacements for lost money is more-or-less out of the question, and the community would likely be all working together for the collective benefit of said community. In this context, having both money and capitalism make very little sense, and capitalism on its own is horribly unethical.

Potential Solutions

The full scope of world-building solutions to the "look at it wrong and it crumbles" situation of Skyloft gets into far more than the economy, and this post particularly was spawned from a conversation about Skyloftian food production. This will be pretty much a summary, but if I get around to making a separate post for the food and resources of Skyloft, I'll link it here and reblog this with a link as well. Anyways.

The conclusion I eventually came to falls into socialism. There's not really a central government on Skyloft, so production would be in the hands of the community at large. They would all be working for the benefit of one another and continued survival of their civilization, and seeing how essential food is, wages wouldn't really be a factor either -- you garden, or you die. This eliminates the need for money, as essential goods can be obtained via working for them and contributing to the community. Outside of essentials, any luxury items could be obtained through the trade of items or skill, which would make sense. Someone who is, for example, a woodcarver, could want silk from a weaver. Instead of paying in money, which wouldn't serve any purpose outside of luxury items, they could instead carve something for the weaver. This continues to promote the learning and use of specialized skillsets while avoiding the money conundrum. Plus, seeing as Skyloft would likely be tightly knit as a community, it fits far nicer than charging your neighbor ridiculous prices.

Also, as a bonus thought, Rupees would probably just be seen as gemstones on Skyloft. They could be used by craftsman or as decoration. I'm at a loss as to how to end this post, because I pretty much summed up the bulk of everything I could without going on wild tangents, so I leave you with this:

[goth-albino-angel]

Yugiri's smile is everything. She has so many of them and they all mean different things. When she's relaxed, when she's excited, when she's confused, when she has no clue what's going on but everyone else is happy so she's happy, when she's relieved, when she's proud... She has so many different smiles and if Tumblr didn't have the 10 image rules, I would absolutely gush about every single one of them in detail. Unfortunately, if I do that, all of those posts will probably be eaten out of the tag, so instead, here are my top 10 favorite Yugiri smiles so far, images included. (Pre-Revenge episode 9)

10. Season One, Episode 2: The First Smile/ 9. Season One, Episode 10: The Sentimental Smile

Episode 2 is the first time we ever see Yugiri smile. Before this, she seemed relatively nonplussed or generally disinterested in pretty much everything going on. Even though she was in a different time period with complete strangers and a madman demanding her to be something she has no knowledge of, she was fairly calm. Then the first time we see her smile, it's when she sees something completely familiar. Her own face. Not only that, but she directs that smile toward the character that is going to become basically her little sister. The first one means so much and it's so important.

Within the same vein, her smile to Kotaro in episode 10 is one during an emotionally heavy moment. It's the first time he's hit an actual snag in his plans. Sakura's singular focus on the Arpino show rather than on the bigger picture of the group as a whole would have been a massive roadblock had she not realized her mistake.

Yugiri is the only one who properly realizes the reason they were sent into the mountains in the first place. Instead of simply sitting on the information, she's proactive about it and actually goes to discuss the problem with Kotaro. She wants to understand his reasoning so that she might be able to help him. And when she turns toward him, she also gives him the observations she's witnessed throughout her new life. This smile may be low on my list of favorites, but it's still unbelievably important.

...Also, when they released the preview image of this smile, my brain short-circuited for ten minutes, so it had to make it onto the list regardless.

8. Season Two, Episode One: The Professional Smile

This smile isn't much out of the ordinary for what we've come to expect of Yugiri, but it's on here because this was our first look at Yugiri after basically two years of very little. None of us knew how the group would come back, how the writing team had incorporated the unexpected pandemic, how things would play out, or what would be happening. The Promo showed Tae's hand flying off to knock off Sakura's head, but as 2018 displayed, the promos can't always be trusted. This showed that, even in this new world where she's only been awake for a year, she's putting her skills to use and working just as hard as the others. Thanks to the conversation from Episode 10 of the first season, we know she was trained as a geisha which would make service work much easier than it would be for the other girls.

I don't have too much to say on this one, to be honest. I do like that she's in softer lighting, as opposed to the others who were all surrounded by harsh lighting on their season two introductions. The softer lighting lends itself well to the lack of pigment and coloration in the girls' makeup, allowing Yugiri to look like she has some color, even if she still looks somewhat pale and tired. It doesn't give her quite the same sickly look the others have at their jobs. The red dress? 100/10. Perfect decision.

7. Season One, Episode Five: The Proud Smile

SHE. DOES. GYMNASTICS. She has every right to this smile! I did the math for this specific part of the episode and Yugiri got third place. The judges liked her rope aerobics so much, they shot her all the way to third place even though her distance was zero meters. It wouldn't have gotten her interviewed, but it would have at least put Franchouchou at the forefront. I still applaud Tae snagging first place, but Yugiri deserves some praise. She really did go face first into the mud on a bike and said, "Never again." She's so proud of herself. I'll be gushing about the actual gymnastics part in a different post a little later, too, but she definitely deserves to be proud of herself. I'm really gay...

6. Season One, Episode Four: The Cute Smile

Originally, this was just going to be me doing some keysmash version of a squeal or something, but there's something I'd like to draw attention to. I'm pretty sure that, by this point, Franchouchou only knows two songs. Yomigaere, which was supposed to be performed in episode 2, and Mezame Returner, which is what's being performed here. Of these two, Yugiri has more experience with this one, but from what the audience had been shown, it wasn't good experience.

Memorizing the lyrics would have been the easy part for her. It's that a good portion of the dance practice was also spent helping Lily get the steps down and potentially calming her frustrations. Then the performance itself would have been a complete disaster if Junko and Ai hadn't gotten over themselves at the last minute to finally help.

This is the first successful performance of Mezame Returner we're witnessing and it's clear the group's had more practice since then. You can see how excited and happy Yugiri is here because this one is actually going well. They had a bit more time to prepare, the two lead roles were actually involved this time, and the audience also was clearly enjoying the performance. She's so happy and it's just so heart-warming to see. Yes, even with the CGI. Don't @ me, she looks adorable.

5. Season One, Episode Seven: The Sassy Smile

This one also was just going to be a squealing keysmash thing, but again, I have something to point out. Look how much more confident she is now that Junko and Ai have, once again, gotten over themselves. Yugiri sees the effect that Junko stepping in had on the others and just like the rest of the group, her movements are more relaxed and free.

It's more obvious, actually, if you look at the way the other girls are moving directly after Junko helps Ai up in comparison to how Yugiri is moving. She did a spin while waiting for Sakura and Lily to finish their segment, and she could be cheeky during her own. She sensed that the tension had mostly dissolved and because of that, she allowed herself to relax and could properly throw herself into the performance. When she throws out this smile and wink, it's not actually directed at the audience. It's Yugiri telling the others that they've got this without breaking the performance.

4. Season Two, Episode Four: The Gentle Smiles

I put both of these here because Yugiri's just... so... caring? So much of what she does is passive that you don't realize just how much work she puts into relieving the stress from the other girls until long after the problem has been resolved.

In the first, she's speaking to Sakura. No doubt, Yugiri probably noticed how worried Sakura was about Junko. Even though Sakura was trying not to let the others catch on just how anxious she really was, Yugiri still knew that something was bothering Sakura as well as Junko. Yugiri knew that the key to easing Junko's mind lay in placating Sakura first. She's seen what happens to them all when they fall apart and she wants to avoid that at all costs. So, Yugiri lifts Sakura's spirits and gives her back the fire and determination to make a great performance.

In the second, Yugiri is watching Junko eat. Unlike the others, it's clear Yugiri knows that Junko is in much higher spirits than when last they saw her. Junko would likely have still been a stuttering, quivering mess otherwise, but she wasn't stuttering and her actions were purposeful and self-assured. Yugiri is very observant. She would have caught on that something had happened to make Junko feel better. What makes this smile even better is that she's not the least bit disappointed. The reason she made dinner was to help Junko, but she doesn't view the meal as a waste of time. She's so focused on other people, that she's happy Junko is feeling better at all and even offers her different platters to help keep her mood up.

These are high on the list for two reasons. One, they're a show of just how much Yugiri does for her girls. Two, YUGIRI COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS HEADCANON CONFIRMED BITCHEEEESSS!!! I GOT ONE RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!!

3. Season Two, Episode Six: The Affectionate Smile

I will be completely honest, I have no idea why this one is as high as it is. I admit, I did spend three hours replaying this single thirty second scene because it's really sweet and Yugiri and Tae don't interact very often, so seeing Yugiri not only be worried for Tae, but also be immediately reassured that Tae would be fine was just something my heart didn't know it needed until it had it. The sheer level of affection Yugiri shows toward Tae is too adorable. Especially since Yugiri usually only has moments like those with Sakura and, to a lesser extent, Lily. This smile's really cute, it's in the middle of a wholesome scene, and it made me love both Yugiri and Tae that much more.

2. Season One, Episode Three: The Excited Smile

Once again, an entry that was going to be a simple squealing keysmash until I realized there was something to point out here as well. This is the first smile we ever see from Yugiri that's genuinely enthusiastic. She has plenty of them, especially during her performances, but this is our first time seeing her fully incorporate herself into the group as an actual member and actually look excited to do something with the others. This was an omen of adorable things to come and damn did it deliver.

Honorable Mentions.

I'm only going to touch on each of these briefly because to be honest, there are a LOT of smiles I could've picked.

The first one is from episode 6 when the group is talking about their very first meet-and-greet. Lily asks Yugiri if she's keeping up okay, and Yugiri remarks that she's taking things as they come. This was a small look into the kind of character she is. As I mentioned before, she's very passive in the way she operates, but that's to the benefit of those she cares for. This is her admitting that she doesn't want to be a problem and it's just sweet that even though Lily is worried about her, Yugiri's still highkey thinking about everyone else.

To the right is a shot of Yugiri during Electric Returner. This one is just the squealing keysmash because she looks so genuinely ecstatic, it's contagious. She's NO DAMN CLUE what happened or why they sound so different, but she is absolutely living her best second life.

The next shot comes from the beginning of Yomigaere and is somewhat of a repeat of the above. She's excited to perform for such a big crowd, she's glad Sakura finally agreed to actually participate, and she's living her best second life. Whoever animates Yugiri's CG model? I love you. I want to send you a gift basket. She's always so happy during performances.

Then comes her smile after the group finds out Sakura's memories are back. She's just glad Sakura, her Sakura, has come back to them, that she accepts her crap luck and is still willing to stay. For Yugiri, this goes under the list of Best Possible Outcomes. Her family is whole again and she's so relieved.

Last in the top row is the first full frontal shot we get of Yugiri in the Saga Jihen music video. She's so unbelievably adorable here. I wish I could've gotten her first expression, but the curtain was still rising and without photoshop, I'm not editing an image to the degree needed to get her whole face lightened. Point is, she's cute and everyone deserves to see her adorable face on the first song she got to be center for.

First on the bottom row is Yugiri looking apologetic from episode 8 of Revenge. She's so cute. It was an honest mistake and she had no way of knowing the paper belonged to Kiichi. No doubt, that was probably why she offered to help him rewrite them later.

Next is how cute she looks in big sister mode. She's wiping the mud from Kiichi's cheeks and is taking such care with him. Throughout the entire episode, she treats him like a little kid and it's likely because her role was big sister for so long that she doesn't know how not to treat him that way. It really does shed light on just how kind she is to everyone, though, that she doesn't even think about her dirty kimono and focuses on cleaning him up a little first.

Then we have her smiling at Kiichi as she remarks on how beautiful his dream of reviving Saga is. She even says she hopes it comes true. His dream means something to her. She can't even fully see it, he can't even fully see it, but they don't need to. What Itou didn't understand this whole time is something Yugiri understood immediately just from listening to Kiichi talk. They don't need to see it in their minds, all they need is to feel it in their hearts, and that's something Yugiri knows.

And lastly on the honorable mentions, because this post is already super long, Yugiri smiling while she's cooking for her guests. It was a tossup between this or the pinwheel because it's just really nice that Yugiri can simply enjoy mundane things. I chose this one because it's a direct contrast to how she was at the beginning. Before, she ate with a disinterested expression, but now, she's cooking for guests rather than just for herself. The lift in her mood is obvious, and it's something so small but so heartwarming, I couldn't resist.

I would've put the pinwheel moment anyway, but unfortunately, as a com major, formatting and design are everything and an extra picture on the top or bottom without a balancer would've thrown the whole thing off. Maybe next time.

NOW FOR NUMBER ONE

1. Season Two, Episode Eight: The Softest Smile

This should have been expected. There's something genuinely touching about the fact that Yugiri really does give her everything, even to complete strangers. These girls barely know her, everyone in town barely knows her, but because her dance students suggested Yugiri go out and actually experience, Yugiri gives it actual thought. She doesn't dismiss them, she doesn't deride them, she doesn't make them feel foolish or anything like that. She treats their suggestion the same way she would if it had come from a close friend. And she does actually take them up on it.

Later, we see her come into contact with Kiichi to demonstrate that even full-on strangers aren't exempt from her kind heart, but this means more. All we know is that these girls take Yugiri's dance class, and from the way they speak when we first meet them, it's clear Yugiri has a professional wall between herself and those she instructs. But she still treats them as she would the girls back in Shimabara. It's proof that, even in the past, Yugiri really was just as kind-hearted as in the present. It's a show don't tell kind of thing that just speaks so deeply to the writer in me. I love this smile. It's everything. Her smiles are everything. She's everything.

[yourcreepyneighborhoodelftwink]

Ask for the Mod. What does Ben and Toby see in each other that made them fell for the other? What is it that the two of them love about each other the most?

(I may have misunderstood the previous prompt a bit. 😅)

(you're fine, hun, I'll save that ask for later~ <3)

Okay, I'm gonna split this up into 2 things, actually, and talk about what ATTRACTED them to each other, what caught each other's INTEREST, and what they love now that they're together.

What made BEN start to see Toby as someone other than a person willing to listen to LOZ infodumps is that he's a more submissive personality. He's very obedient to BEN from the get-go, BEN says "jump", Toby says "how high?". BEN's a very domineering person. He ALWAYS needs to be the smartest person in the room, he needs to ALWAYS be in charge. Previously, he had achieved that through manipulation, but here comes basically a human golden retriever that is just a little dumb and eager to please. BEN likes a man that can take orders, and not even just in a kinky sense. He may not wear pants, but he still wears the pants in that relationship.

However, what he likes most NOW is Toby's unfaltering positivity. No matter what hell he's put through, no matter how cruelly the world treats him, Toby always knows the sun will come up tomorrow on a chance to make it better than today, and always treats people with kindness (save for some chaotic pranks, of course~) and BEN admires that optimism RELIGIOUSLY.

Conversely, what attracted Toby at first was BEN's wit. Especially at first, when he was still fresh to the whole "people" thing, he was resourceful and always had a plan to get what he wanted, and it was hard to not admire what he could come up with to try and bend everyone to his will, like breaking the oven and being like "whelp, looks like I'm the only one who can fix it~ I'll consider it... IF you do X, Y, and Z~".

But what Toby likes most NOW is the gentleness and kindness he's finally learned isn't a weakness to show. Now he's the first to tell someone that something wasn't their fault, willing to admit when he was wrong and apologize, willing to reassure people they deserve better, and even when things are going well, just admit openly that he's happy spending time with people and, for once, he's just happy seeing them happy. He wears his heart more openly on his sleeve, and worked hard to soften it towards the people important to him, and Toby just admires how far BEN's come

[berryblu-arts]

Basic guide to my OC's stories

(yes i know i have a lot, help-)

august 9, 2021: added glow stage and diamond

February 23, 2022: added seedling

LONG info dump below the cut (no srsly, i´m warning you)

🍓🍋Strawberries and lemonade

Drama/ Slice of life with a hint of fantasy

Set in the main world in the early 2000s

Story about a girl who can see heartstrings and her various adventures in life, enphasis on personal relationships (not necessarilly romantic)

Aesthetic: lots of pinks and whites, soft and bright colors, 80s sailor moon backgrounds

Inspo: me being rlly mad at romantic love being taken as the only type of love, its also a twist on the red string of fate

🌼👻⛈Spectrum

Drama/ supernatural i guess?? (Can be categorized as urban fantasy i think)

Set in the main world, close to present day

Protagonist is a girl who can see "specters" (basically the counterparts of random animals except they're made of light or shadow), the story deals with themes of loss and lonelyness sometimes :( , but is also very centered around friendships (and i might sprinkle in some found family in there UwU💕)

"That shadow you saw at the corner of your eye the other day is real, but dont worry, its friendly :)!"

Aesthetic: rainy days, liminal spaces, small towns, fall, foggy days, childhood memories, abandoned buildings.

Inspo: ghibli movies, lil bit of kyoukai no kanata, and that one time i got food poisoning and couldnt see about 1/4 of my vision (not cool btw, but at least i made up some p cool shadow lore from it :D)

🧭🌌Twilight compass

Drama/fantasy (high fantasy)

Set 2 or 3 years before present day (in universe)

A bunch of kids (teenagers ig) get throw into an unfamiliar alternate world and try to get back to their own, but in the process uncover some important information that could finally end the tensions between that world's main kingdoms and so they get dragged into the mess, but maybe they were meant to be there from the very start (?)

Aesthetic: The world is half frozen and half on fire, its a todoroki world hehe-, lots of fantasy nature for yall's enjoyment ^^, huge animals that are mostly friendly, small animals with magic powers, magic circles and items, etc...

Inspo: loz breath of the wild, black clover, and a hint of star vs , among other things...

🤍⏳💛Time's end

Drama/ fantasy (high fantasy)

Set about 2 years before present day in the main timeline, but also 100+ years in the past... if that makes sense? (Theyre messing w time ok-)

Main character is a boy who suddenly finds himself in a magic world with a really bad political climate that's leading up to it's destruction, he gets dragged into that mess and soon discovers that world may be more that just a strange fantasy his brain made up.

Aesthetic: copper, stone, silver and gold, medievalcore but also rlly darn close to what the dragon prince was doing :>

Inspo: uhh i came up with this because i was trying to force myself to study history 😅😅, the very root of the idea for this can be traced to my obsession to winx club tho (which i will elaborate on if anyone asks)

💧🕰🔥Unwind

Drama/ fantasy (urban fantasy)

Set a little over a year before present day in the main timeline (unofficial time btw, still figuring it out)

Continuation/spinoff of time's end ft. One of my favourite side characters ^^ (im not spoiling this one lmao)

Aesthetic: a not so big beach town, bright and colorful houses and people, abandoned buildings few people know about, not so far from the outskirts of a little forest. (Really really vaguely based off where i live hehe)

Inspo: a dream i had where a comet fell from the sky, a combination of magical girls and superheroes

Fun fact: this is actually the story i started with, and even if it's mainly urban fantasy, it has elements like alternate worlds, cryptids and aliens thrown into it, fun stuff!

🏖🚃West coast

set in present day

Sort of a continuation of unwind, but centers around characters that were previously introduced as background ones now in the spotlight.

The story is split in 2 perspectives, the new guardians (an all girl element based squad i should talk about more) ,and what i'm calling the chaos squad (zac, roy, blaire, sara, viv and liam), these last ones are actually the most varied squad in therms of power category (i should probably explain that too in the future)

it´s the last story in the chronology.

Aesthetic and inspo: almost exactly same as unwind, as it's set in the same city

🌙💛Moonlight 

set in an alternate timeline, close to present day (high fantasy/ post apocalyptic)

Mini story and its honestly a sob fest, why was i even allowed to come up w this one ??😭😭

Sort of a prequel to time's end, it gives a bit of context to a couple character motivations but at what cost-

Aesthetic: lots of purples blacks and blues, contrasted with gold, post apocalyptic society...sort of?, society sucks but at least it's aesthetic😌✨, also looks like a story book UwU

✨👽✨Stardust outcome

Drama/sci fi

Set in the 90s

Prequel that isnt really it's own thing?? It's the story of the alien squad and 2 other characters from time's end, pretty sure if i ever make it it won't have a usual comic format but instead it'll be a bunch of mini stories, hopefully in chronological order...

Aesthetic: space and stuff, it looks a lil like voltron actually haha😅, but also on earth theres a clan of people w knives and cool masks that monitor all the shenanighans, and theres a secret society n stuffs.

Inspo: listen- i made a character that was supposed to introduce aliens into the main story, then went overboard w his backstory to the point that this one is literally how his parents met lmaoo

🤍👁💜Under the eye

Drama/fantasy

Side plot of spectrum that i feel deserves it's own story but i dont have time for it ToT

it's about 2 security guards in a hidden magic town, an old quiet dude w a grumpy face who lost his family a long time ago, and a newbie w a bright personality that has actually been having a sucky time.

They're both living pretty lonely lives and end up having a pseudo father-son relationship after the old dude finds out this kid was kicked out of his house. then after a couple more shenanighans a little alien girl is thrown into the mix, at which point the old dude *looks* like he´s not having it, but internally he´s like ´´welp, guess i have *two* kids now´´

overall rlly wholesome stuff with a dash of angst and found family :3

it´s called under the eye, because even if they´re working as security guards, the clan i mentioned in stardust is the one really in charge of monitoring stuff around there, so they have limited freedom on that front, and also they keep trying to go against them, that clan´s symbol is an iris ensata (flower) with an eye in the middle, hence the title.

aesthetic: same as spectrum, except if this was harry potter they´d be in that one magic town hehe (i hate making that comparison but it´s the closest i can get)

📖🎮⏳checkpiont

drama/ fantasy (urban fantasy w a dash of sci fi i guess??)

short story, set in present day

tecnically a spinoff of time´s end , but the tones are literally so different??

there start to be random zones in a city where pixelated videogame monsters appear, and kat (the main character) is appearently the chosen one to stop all that nonsense?, no one knows what´s going on but they better figure it out before reality alters inself badly enough to be unfixable. 

pretty lighthearted story overall, but it´s important cause it reintroduces some key characters into the mix :).

Inspo:i may or may not have actually made this just to justify a cheesy videogame themed story hehe, rlly feels like glitch techs tho :O (netflix series)

aesthetic: the city is pretty standard, the videogame area is all neon and pixel-y, kind of futuristic outfits for the characters, and lots of orange/ blue lighting UwU

👽🏙Unnamed ´´stardust outcome´´ sequel:

drama/ sci fi

a bunch of the characters are the kids of the original stardust, some are completely new ones, it´s basically kiddos interacting and doing shenanighans with superpowers at a school, but w an actual important subplot behind the scenes, the end of this one leads directly into the end of west coast and is the second to last story in the chronology (not counting what i have planned for next gen, those are only gonna be fluffy one shots)

🕸👑💚Glow Stage

*Not connected to the main story at all, but it exists there in the form of a show*

Drama/fantasy (rlly slice of life-y sometimes tho)

typical magical girl story but the main character is the redeemed villain type, trying to do good but with a slightly messed up moral compass. Also the mc befriends the magical girl in her civilian form without knowing its her because ✨free dramaaa✨

Inspo: i needed a fake show for spectrum then accidentally created a whole new story, whoops!

Aesthetic: everything is pretty standard and almost generic on purpose, the villains are edgy, good side is all sparkly and stuff, im aiming for something like what precure's got going on^^

something a lil creesy w lots of potential for both angst and fluff never hurt anyone :3

Seedling 🌱 🌼

Drama/fantasy (very slice of life leaning)

Story about a socially awkward kid learning to get along with his new step mom and sister, surviving through school, and of course, being a shapeshifter and perhaps the key to a conspiracy to take over the earth from the inside out. Fun times!

Fun fact- the main trio is composed of: ex villain mc who is -s t r u g g l i n g- , chosen one- magical girl-hero of prophecy who *does not* wanna be here, and the stable normal friend :)) (except no, he is holding the information and conciousness of several souls inside him, like the avatar thing... but theyre more an annoyance than actual help lmao)

Inspo: late 2000s action cartoons, the myth of changelings, and the sheer need to watch characters go from cold and indifferent with each other to "we are family now, I would die for you" :')

Aesthetic: idk man, will update this one later lol

Fun fact: I'm not sure if this one's Canon in the main universe hehe 😅

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Honorable story mentions:

Unnamed robot stiory: completely disconnected from the rest, put bluntly it´s about robots that think they´re people (came up w the concept w @/ashrayus a couple years back), it´s sorta just sitting there but i refuse to let go of it UnU

STARDUST: precuel to stardust outcome, it´s about a solari (star person) that falls in love with a rlly nice and humble avian farmer guy she met (this isnt set in earth), and they were both lonely, so they swear to be together till death do them apart, and they even have a kid, but solari have all these rules about forming attatchments with mortals and whatnot, so of course the fricken space police come knocking and stuff gets nasty and the guy dies- (it´s all just rlly tragic ok, i´m sad,,), so these stories are named stardust after the star girl cause she dies as well, passing all of her energy to her kid to keep him safe :(.

Diamond: Tells the origin of the world, powers, sub dimentions, etc... i won't have a story designated for it cause itll be like reading a mythology/history book, and idk how to make that entertaining hehe 😅😅

[aros001]

Going in blind: Watching season 4 for the first time. Random thoughts.

I never said anything about it before but I love Shadow Weaver's DCAU Batman eyes. They're so expressive.

Episode 1: Okay...I wasn't expecting Catra to do that. I mean, it makes sense. If she has leverage over Hordak then she's basically in charge of the Horde and that's what she's wanted (or at least believes she wants) since episode 1. It's an aspect that made her a good antagonist, that she's not blind to the evil of the Horde, she just doesn't care as long as she herself is secure. Which naturally begs the question, when the rebellion and the princesses are crushed, when the Horde is on top, when Adora is dead, when Catra finally has everything she's ever wanted...will she actually finally be happy? Somehow, I have my doubts.

I definitely feel for Glimmer in this. When you go through as big a loss as she did you need to be able to feel and vent if you're ever going to get through it. It doesn't have to be right away but everyone doing everything in their power to avoid the topic entirely can make you feel like you're going crazy. It'a especially bad for her since it unintentionally makes it feel like everyone is acting like it doesn't matter that Angela is gone when it clearly means everything to Glimmer.

Episode 2: I actually had a potted cactus plant once. Accidentally forgot about it and left it outside for an entire winter. Once the snow was gone the cactus looked like it had melted.

I kind of want to see what an interaction between Double Trouble and Clayface from the Harley Quinn animated series would look like. I'm guess Catra was just testing how good Double Trouble was as a doppelganger because it doesn't seem like she did anything while Adora was being distracted, though I suppose that could be a reveal in a later episode.

Not much to say except that I love how buff Huntara is while still clearly being a woman. Like, women can have a variety of different body types, as this series and Steven Universe show, and Huntara's build isn't just, like, Bow's body with lipstick and ponytail and the animators calling it a day. No, she looks like a freakin' jacked adult woman.

Episode 3: I didn't figure out the Flutterina = Double Trouble twist until a minute before it was revealed, so good job there. Before that I was wondering if Flutterina was some fan's original character where they won some contest where their OC got to be in the show for an episode. She was giving off some weird self-insert vibes. That twist made it all work though. It's honestly not a bad plan. Shapeshifters haven't really been a thing in the series before now so there's no reason to suspect it. Even if they did they'd probably be expecting it by way of magic or technology, while Double Trouble's seems to be a natural ability.

I like that even though Bow is definitely the goofier one of the trio he is still consistently shown as competent. That's never in question. He was very heroic and reassuring to the villagers this episode. I get why those kids idolize him so much.

Catra's having guilt over what she did with the portal and to Entrapta and her response is basically to just double-down. She doesn't know any other way to be. Not going to lie, I am kind of hoping we get another moment in the show where Adora just completely overwhelms Catra with the sheer power of She-Ra. I'm not saying like brutalize her or anything but just something where Catra is made to realize just how powerful Adora is and that she could just destroy Catra if she had a mind to do so.

Episode 4: Well, I was saying I wanted Adora to do it but I guess I don't mind Glimmer being the one to get some good shots in on Catra. Like I predicted, Shadow Weaver's moving in to become her teacher like she was with her father. Honestly I like that that was more Adora's problem than Glimmer using her as bait, which she seemed to get over pretty quick. Yeah, it was kind of a heartless thing to do but it was an understandable tactic and she clearly outright told Adora that she did it and why afterwards, which at least means she's still being honest.

It occurs to me that Glimmer and Catra may be the ones running parallel right now. Both are basically leading their respective sides of the war. They both have lost someone very important to them. And both are trusting someone they probably shouldn't. Both even have outfits that've been updated in the intro. The difference is Glimmer's just trying to deal with a bad situation while Catra's is entirely self-inflicted.

Minor thing but I like Glimmer's new outfit this season. I'm sure this is the intention but it makes her look older and more mature. A little more muscular in some shots too.

Episode 5: Heart of Etheria project. No idea what that is but assumedly whoever's a part of it doesn't like Light Hope and Mara being friends. Sounds like it's very much interested in She-Ra being just a warrior, and perhaps a tool, for the greater good. It does make me wonder though how much Light Hope remember from when she was rebooting. Even if she deleted the Mara memory she could potentially still have the memory of her and Adora watching the Mara memory, as well as Adora asking to be her friend.

Episode 6: Yep. Scorpia; definitely favorite supporting character. There is something kind of funny about her whole "Scorpions are loyal" line when you remember the story about the Frog and the Scorpion, where it stings the frog despite it meaning death for itself as well simply because that is its nature. But finally we're having someone go save Entrapta, and I can only assume at some point Scorpia's going to access the power of the Black Garnet.

The parallels between Catra and Hordak are definitely at their max here with that speech of hers to him. She's basically trying to convince herself that she doesn't need anyone, the timing of which is appropriate since she just drove away Scorpia and now truly doesn't have anyone. Not that I blame Scorpia, obviously. Like Adora before her, however good you believe someone can be and that you can help them, at some point you just have to cut the toxic people out of your life. You have the right to be happy too.

And man, Bow is just the best. He saw something was wrong between Adora and Glimmer and defused the situation like (snap) that, pushing them to talk like any sane person would.

Episode 7: I'm sure it is just because I've seen way too many TV shows and movies (both animated and live action) that don't do it but it is just such a relief to have a show where the characters just TALK and LISTEN to each other. It doesn't solve all their issues but they're at least not being stupid and freakin' petty. It helps the drama feel a lot less forced and contrived.

Episode 8: A little bit of amusement in Bow thinking at first that Glimmer and Adora didn't even notice he was gone despite them coming to his rescue very shortly afterwards, given Catra is only now realizing Scorpia has left and assumedly she did so a while ago. Bow and Sea Hawk hadn't been gone for that long so it's not unreasonable Glimmer and Adora wouldn't be worried about their absence (Bow was literally talking about "me time" when they last saw him), while Catra is only noticing Scorpia's absence now and it was because she wanted something. Like Scorpia said, she's a bad friend.

Kind of ironic given that a lot of Catra's issues are the direct result of Shadow Weaver giving her very little love growing up but it does seem this tough love is probably what'll get through to Catra the best. She might finally stop making bad decisions and lashing out if she's forced to live with the consequences of them, like Adora told her last season.

Glimmer gets a bit of slack from me since she suffered through a huge loss, that being her mother, and then was immediately thrown into being queen right after. It'd be hard for anyone to be 100% on their game and well-adjusted in a situation like that, and I buy that she was on some level resentful of Adora for coming back instead of her mother, even if unintentionally so. What definitely helps is that Glimmer very clearly and immediately regretted what she said to Adora. Like Catra she's lashing out but unlike Catra Glimmer recognizes some of the damage she's doing and knows, at least in this case, that she went too far.

Episode 9: Now that I can see the design in color I definitely prefer Mara's She-Ra with pants to Adora's She-Ra with shorts. Honestly, while the differences are pretty minor, I do think Mara's She-Ra design is overall a lot better than Adora's. Sharper shoulder guards. Bigger cape (especially the cape, I love capes). I don't know, there's just a lot that clicks with it and I wouldn't mind Adora getting a similar outfit later.

Madam Razz definitely had a Yoda feel this episode. I was very much expecting her to start wacking Mara with a stick over the sugar like Yoda did with R2. Though while that was Yoda acting crazy, for Razz it's because she experiences time out of order, and I don't think I've ever seen that concept taken to this extent, or at least done this way before. There are characters like River Song from Doctor Who, Professor Paradox from Ben 10, or even the Reverse-Flash who interact with other characters in time out of order but those characters are still on a linear path from their own perspective, even when travelling through time. Razz is just bouncing around her own timeline, seemingly not even any real reason or cause to it like Subaru from Re:Zero. Clearly she's not just remembering things oddly because her talk about things of the present are heard by people in the past and have an effect. I wonder if maybe the reason why is because Razz was at ground zero of Mara's actions and this is a side-effect of pulling Etheria away from the rest of the universe.

Bringing more Star Wars into this, it basically sounds like the Heart of Etheria project has turned Etheria into a magic Starkiller Base; storing power that'll be unleashed to destroy whole planets. And jeez, I think this was the first time I really felt creeped out by Light Hope when she was talking to Mara.

I'm looking forward to seeing what it means that the First Ones only made the sword and that Etheria made She-Ra. If that's the case, why is only the sword able to bring out the She-Ra form? Is it like MCU Thor's hammer and the weapon was just meant to help him control the power he already had? Or is what we think is She-Ra not actually She-Ra and that form that Adora and Mara take is just a stand-in for the real thing?

Episode 10: It didn't even occur to me until now but Double Trouble's capture is another blow to Catra's circle of "friends" too. They were at least able to make her laugh. One less person for her to talk to and just...really just distract her from her thoughts.

It's a good dilemma this episode presents about what to do with the Heart of Etheria. The safest and probably best option is to just dismantle it, like Adora and Bow want, since it could easily lead to the destruction of the entire planet if it goes off. Not the mention there's so little they know about it and what it was intended for and the one person who can potentially tell them, Light Hope, they were warned not to trust. But it's not hard to understand where Glimmer is coming from in wanting to use that power to fight the Horde. They're already losing the war and now she knows Hordak Prime and his FAR more powerful forces are on the way. Tapping into the Heart is a huge risk but she's not seeing any other paths for the rebels to win. It's a really good dilemma, with good arguments presented from both sides, and I buy this widening the schism between Adora and Glimmer.

Episode 11: I have mixed feelings on King Micah still being alive. On the one hand there's a lot of good potential interactions we can now have with him, primarily between Glimmer and Shadow Weaver, and he is a fun character. But on the other I can't help but wonder if this kind of lessens the impact of what Angela gave up to overcome the false reality. Part of what made it so emotional was that she had to accept the person she loved was dead and not coming back...except now we see that he wasn't dead and now he is coming back. Yeah, their family lost out on years together and that does still carry some emotional weight but I was already also half-expecting Angela to come back later in the series because she's stuck between dimensions, meaning there's a chance she could still be alive. If both Glimmer's parents come back then that really feels like it takes a lot of weight out of her story. But I guess we'll see what happens.

Also, why did the Horde exile him to Beast Island? Why not just kill him?!

Episode 12: So the Horde exiles Micah to Beast Island instead of killing him. The First Ones protect their secrets by sending their bad tech to Beast Island. Does no one know how to just destroy things in this world?

Ohhh, I am so looking forward to next episode. While it's debatable whether Glimmer should be going through with her plan she is at least being smart with how she's going about it. Double Trouble was being paid by Catra to work for the Horde, not out of any sense of loyalty. Glimmer has the resources of Bright Moon at her disposal so it's reasonable she could pay them more to switch sides. Double Trouble was very good at sabotaging even a group as tight-nit as the heroes, so Hordak and Catra are probably easy pickings with all their issues.

Episode 13: ....WELL THAT AIN'T GOOD!

I'll admit, I had a little bit of an unintended laugh. After all we've heard about Horde Prime, like this shadowy all-powerful monster, I wasn't expecting the fabulous flowing dreadlocks and smoothness. Credit where it's due, man has charisma and charm, which goes a long way in helping your big evil world conqueror not be a very flat character, because it's doubtful he's going to have the same kind of sympathetic motivation as Hordak or complexity as Catra to keep him elevated.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Double Trouble kicking at Catra while she's down. Adora and Scorpia were honest but they never wanted to hurt Catra. Not so much with Double Trouble and they just shove reality into her face. Everyone leaves Catra because of Catra. She's the common factor. It's her fault and no one else's. Again, I don't know for certain if Adora and Catra get together at the end (Catra would have a LOT to make amends for regardless) but Double Trouble was definitely implying Catra had feelings for her with the way they put Catra's hand on "Adora's" cheek while talking about how she left her.

I like that we see Glimmer's plan actually working at first. The princesses get a massive power boost and decimate the Horde forces. But the minute it starts going wrong she immediately admits Adora was right and she tries to stop the energy flow. I imagine having her there with Catra was intentional by the writers. Despite some parallels, Glimmer can actually accept her failures and work to try and fix things. Unlike Catra, she didn't blame Adora for things going wrong.

So the sword allows the First Ones to control She-Ra and the energy she'd be absorbing from the planet. Assumedly that means there are at least some parts to She-Ra that have nothing to do with the First Ones and thus maybe Adora can still use some of those powers without the sword.

Season 4 verdict: Yeah, the show keeps getting better, though I will admit last season's finale had me more emotional, but that's a bit of an unfair comparison given everything that happened in that finale vs. this one. This is definitely the series hitting its darkest hour, where it feels like EVERYONE lost. Not just the rebels but the Horde as well. The sword and Light Hope are gone and She-Ra (for now) along with them. Glimmer and Catra are basically prisoners. Hordak's probably going to have his personality stripped away. The Fright Zone is in ruins. The only one who's gained anything is Prime.

Really looking forward to what the final season has in store, especially since there seems to be the implication that Catra just saved Glimmer's life.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/o1j5gk/going_in_blind_watching_season_4_for_the_first/

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

Hi, I might be off base but I really like your fics and you give straight up answers to people, so I would like your take: What is the role of mediocre non-rarepair/non-Z.utara writers in ATLA fandom? (Not saying you are! I am, and I would like some clarity). I write sukka, kataang, and sometimes maiko. None of my stories really have impact. People read them i guess because they're there. I don't get on rec list. People don't do art of my stories. People don't beg me to update. (1/3)

firstly, im glad you like my fics! 💛

and now into the more serious parts of your ask.

my thoughts on the role of non-z.utara/non-rarepair writers (or pro-canon writers i guess we might call them?) are pretty simple: they are of the utmost importance. the richness of fandom is most apparent in its diversity, when you have a million different types of fics and authors and so much more that people can jump into and out of whatever, whenever they want. fandom needs all of its writers, regardless of what pairing (or lack thereof!) they're writing about. the atla fandom would be nowhere without it's canon and fanon lovers, plain and simple.

i understand your frustration. i have been on a rec list once for an mcu fic and nothing more. i've had fanart for one of my fics - one of my least popular ones, ironically - and i've only had one or two (but very lovely!) anons asking me about my wips (without me having sparked the discussion myself). it can absolutely be frustrating when you put your heart and soul into your work and sometimes it just doesn't get as much notice. your feelings are completely valid, and i think it's good you're addressing them (for me, personally, it is near-impossible to write when im holding a lot of frustration close to my chest; this may or may not be true for you, too, but either way it's always good to process emotions). sometimes you just gotta keep your chin up. simple, yes, but much easier said than done. and yet we persevere. i promise you, people don't just read your fics solely because they're there. people read them because they are interested in the stories you have to tell.

that person was definitely... callous. now, i don't think they would read your fic just because of a regular updating schedule (i've opened some fics that update regularly and realize it's not my cup of tea, so i leave and definitely don't go back even if they are updating weekly). the fact that they are coming back every week is a sign they're enjoying what you're putting out there! again, i think they did a pretty piss-poor job of wording it and your reaction is completely understandable (and i do not at all fault you for it), but i really do think the fact that they're continuing to read your fic is a good sign. they can claim it's your update schedule, but they must have a deeper emotional investment to your fic to keep coming back.

also, having a regular updating schedule is incredible. i know i sure as hell don't have one (except with one fic and that's bc it's already written lmao). so you should be proud of that, anon!

yes, i know, fandom tastes can be frustrating. it's true that beggars can't be choosers a lot of the time when it comes to rarepairs, and the absurd amount of attention that... well, basic z.utara fics often get compared to painstakingly researched moderately-popular pairings/relationships also drives me up the wall ("make out over a ham sandwich" is a hilarious example, btw, thank you for sharing it). sometimes you just gotta take a step back and think - hey. i cannot control fandom tastes. i cannot control what fandom likes and dislikes. all i can do is produce content i enjoy, and there are people like me who will eventually find my content and enjoy it, too.

anon, you're not a placeholder. and even if you were, aren't we all? aren't we all digging our own niche, holding our own place in a massive fandom? some people get luckier than others. that's how it works. people get lucky because they ship a juggernaut ship and they write a popular trope and boom - the fic may be a phenomenal piece of work or it may not be - 10k hits, 3000 kudos, 200 comments. it's luck! it really is.

my main advice is this: fanfiction is for you. it's for you to share. for you to connect with. for you to give to people who enjoy the same dynamics as you do. it should be fun! this isn't to say it won't get frustrating, especially because human instinct is to compare ourselves to others, but at the end of the day you should be writing fic (primarily) because you love doing it. and i promise you, anon, they are people who adore your fics and sit on the edge of their seat waiting for you to update. i promise. there are. i got a comment on chapter 20-something of one of my fics where they said they'd been reading since the beginning and absolutely loved my story but had been too nervous to comment. i have no doubt you have readers like that, too. and find your people, anon! i've enjoyed atla from the beginning, but recently i've made so many new friends who enjoy the same things i do (e.g. certain canon pairings) and we're able to gush over it with each other even when our comment sections are a little lackluster. fandom becomes much more enjoyable once you have a few people to freak out with.

in a more general sense, it's always okay to take a break from fic and writing if you need it, and im pretty sure you can turn off viewing story kudos and stuff on ao3 as well if you need a visual disconnect from that side of fandom.

i wish i had more advice or a perfect solution, but all i can tell you is to keep going. your work matters - it matters to you, it matters to your readers, and it matters to fandom as a whole. we are all wooden jenga blocks in a very, very precarious pile, and if even one person leaves, fandom collapses. we need every author, every artist, every consumer. and that includes you, anon. i hope that whatever you do, you continue to create in the manner that best fits you 💛