#i think it should be under 'midnight analysis'?

[apollos-boyfriend]

im writing an au that is supposed to include everyone in the dsmp. but i am a humble enjoyer and dont know about lots of characters, purpled included. can i get a guidebook to writing cpurpled? any tropes to avoid, motivations you see people getting wrong, etc?

okay so. purpled is Interesting bc there's a lot of depth to his character in the sense that he himself is not self-aware of his own actions/wants, making for there being three purpleds: the purpled that he shows to others, the purpled he feels he is, and the true purpled he himself isn't even fully aware of. and depending on how deep you wanna explore into his character, that third one likely won't even come into play, because that is more of an instance of a character study/purpled-centric piece, but i'll go over it anyways, just in case! splitting this into parts below the cut to make categorizing things a bit easier :]

first, the basics:

purpled has a very. unique way of talking. in serious moments, he's calm, collected, and intimidating, and will act like you'd expect a broody teenaged mercenary to. most of the time, though, his speech pattern is the world's most ungodly mixture of teenage boy and starving victorian orphan.

in fight or flight, he chooses fight 100% of the time, even if that fight is not immediate.

purpled only cares about a handful of things: self-preservation, his image, and money. this doesn't necessarily mean he won't do "good" things, just that his motives are less about saving people and more about advancing his own agenda. during the red banquet, for example, he only saved the attendants because he was paid to. eret called him a hero for it, but it was nothing more than a matter of who paid more. his morals are extremely skewed,

but he's not inherently malicious. he's indifferent. his actions are logical, not emotional, so despite harming others for his own gain, he typically holds no ill-will towards them. for example, the wiki cites that he and bad have a negative relationship for betraying the eggpire during the banquet, but in reality, purpled really doesn't see bad in anything but a neutral way. there are very few people he holds either positive or negative emotions towards, as his default state is indifferent, but willing to go along with the other person's emotions if they pay enough.

the only people he does feel a semblance of strong emotions towards are: hannah, boomer, ponk, tubbo, jack, and quackity. he has positive personal relationships with hannah, boomer, ponk, and tubbo, seeing them as genuine friends. additionally, ponk, tubbo, and jack are fellow businessmen, which he very much admires. quackity, of course, is the one person on the list he has overtly negative feelings towards, something that possibly extended towards slime after the ln finale, as well. he has an Odd relationship with tommy in the sense that they're somewhat rivals, but not in the usual fandom sense where "oh they secretly care about each other because they're sworn rivals". purpled would sell tommy to satan for a single cornchip and not even blink. there's also dogchamp, his dog, which is i think the one True attachment he's ever had on the server.

business is very important to him! purpled only really cares to talk to people who he sees on a similar intellectual level as him, and business is the closest way to his heart, as seen with his relationship with ponk.

anyone he doesn't see on his level is "lesser". this is specifically highlighted with his viewpoint on slime, as he sees slime as nothing but a child who can't fend for himself and has to rely on quackity for everything. this viewpoint is, obviously, extremely untrue, because purpled is an unreliable narrator in every sense of the word.

he's very smart and extremely capable. if he sets his mind to something, he Will accomplish it through any means necessary, even at the cost of others.

he is also. just sillie. at least around those he trusts or is pretending to allow to get close to him (like fundy in ln). he pulls stupid pranks for stupid prizes. he's just a boy that really loves his dog. he's the server's strongest warrior yet he runs screaming from boomer because they threatened to child-leash him. do not be afraid to make him a freak (because trust me he Is one)

some deeper stuff! all of these things are unspoken, and things he himself is not aware of. a dive into his subconscious thoughts, if you will. if you're writing something deeper with him, these are things i recommend alluding towards/highlighting, but in a sense that only the audience is aware of. they're not things that should be Explicitly Stated, at least not by him/his pov. purpled has little to no true self-awareness, and when he does have moments of introspection, he Still manages to fuck that up, which i'll be getting into

purpled does not really feel any negative emotions other than rage and spite. or, more accurately, he doesn't let himself feel anything other than rage or spite. when lamenting about his loneliness on the server, he immediately spins it into a revenge plot, believing it'll be solved as soon as he gets his just desserts. he does feel and process positive emotions, it's just negative ones he pushes aside for the sake of anger.

this is because, inherently, purpled does not believe he is in the wrong. ever. everything is always the fault of others, which is why he results to anger, because that's what happens when he pushes blame onto other people. he doesn't ever accept that his actions can be detrimental to himself, and that his issues are always the fault of others. for example, he believes that the reason his legacy on the server was "ruined" was because of quackity's intervention. while quackity's destruction of his ufo certainly didn't help, purpled's core issue was himself. his own self-isolation is what started the downfall of his legacy, and his continued isolation is what sealed its fate.

his inability to process his true emotions/wants makes him very prone to self-sabotage, although he believes the path he chooses is the right one. due to quackity's intervention, he believes that he wants a legacy to have power and to be remembered. when he laid out his issues, however, his biggest hang-up was that "if he asked people on the server to name three things about him, none of them could". deep down, what he wanted was a sense of connection, of building a legacy through the bonds formed with others, but he was unable to realize that.

he's so fucking stupid. all of this is me trying to say he's a fucking idiot. he has the emotional capacity of a pet rock with angry eyebrows drawn onto it. he's hypocritical and not even aware of it. i don't think he has the emotional ability to know what hypocrisy is.

the most important thing, though, is to not woobify him into the "manipulated minors" trope. purpled was not manipulated, and although his age plays into the tragedy of his character on a meta-level, it has no true importance to his actions/story. and although i gush about him a lot, and there are reasons to why he acts the way he does, he is not a good person. i can explain why he does what he does all i want, but at his core he is flawed and antagonistic. that's what makes him so good!! he is not a good person, he knows he's not a good person, and unless he's purposefully playing that role in order to deceive someone, he doesn't pretend to be one, and is up-front with others about that fact.

[zevranunderstander]

i love watching youtube analyses of movies and shows and i love when the person explaining something is totally wrong about the thing theyre talking about

[wikitpowers]

analysis of kit’s unsent letter bc i feel like crying and i wanna let it out <3

Ty, Ty, Ty.

the constant repetition of ty’s name means that kit thinks about him all. the. time. it’s like his name is just tumbling around in his mind and it can’t stop.

Your name looks strange written out like that.

and he doesn’t only think about ty, he also hyperfixates on everything related to him, like how his name looks like on paper. and this part shows that kit has written out ty’s name multiple times, meaning he’s written him multiple letters (which i’m praying we’ll get to read at some point in the series).

But Tiberius would be so formal.

kit analyses ty’s name like it’s the only thing that matters. bc doesn’t want to be formal with the boy he loves, he wants to call him “ty” as everybody close to him calls him by that nickname. and there is nothing kit wants more than to be close to ty again.

side note: i predict we will get a parallel to this in tlkof when kit tries to be cold to ty and calls him “tiberius”

I never think of you that way.

this is screaming “i think of you a lot, but never as tiberius. to me you will always be ty. my friend ty.”

Or, I suppose I should say, I never thought of you that way. Tenses matter in these situations, I guess.

kit is trying to stop thinking about ty, but he can’t. he simply can’t stop thinking about him in the present tense as if they’re still together, he can’t stop daydreaming about him and writing him letters, bc it’s like ty is under his skin and it hurts kit so badly bc he wishes things were different. he wishes that ty loved him back and that they were still talking :(

It’s late, past midnight, and I’m sitting on the windowsill in my bedroom at Cirenworth....

not only is kit always reminiscing about ty in the daytime, but also late at night when his thoughts are all over the place and all he can focus on is the heartbreak of the past and the love he still has for ty. in the darkness is when all his feelings can no longer stay hidden, they all come to the surface whether kit wants them to or not. he can’t deny his feelings any longer when he’s sat in his room and still wanting ty. so he writes him a letter every time it happens.

[narrans]

Stellar Allies | Part Three

GT July | Stellar Allies | Part Three

They looked down, and he looked back. Jax and Cliff both felt their eyes widen as they looked down at the little alien’s face for the first time. To their surprise, there were more humanistic elements to their strange house guest’s features than they anticipated, but there were others that were unfamiliar and fascinating.

For one, the alien’s eyes were completely black. There was flickering in his eyes, indicating some kind of iris within it. He had two little pointed ears, like that of an elf or pixie, that stuck out from a mess of what looked like midnight blue hair that looked like elements of it were under water or being blown by a wind machine by the way the ends moved even while the alien was motionless. There were also what looked like two antennae or possibly horns on the top of his head erupting out of that mess of dark hair.

A nose and mouth were set in between two slightly sunken cheeks, like that of a human face, but the alien’s skin was a misty blue color which shifted to a darker blue by his cheeks and blended with what almost looked like a metallic teal color on his neck, which looked like it was ridged and scaled all the way down into his black flight suit.

What the boys thought was a covering for the alien’s tail was simply the tail itself. Shiney, spiked, and ridged all the rest of the way down, the alien’s tail ended in a jagged point and was about the length of his body. It also seemed like it functioned like a cat’s tail, being an extension of the alien’s spine because of where it connected to him and by the fact that it was twitching back and forth as the alien stood and watched them right back.

His little eyes flicked back and forth between Jax and Cliff, as if taking a measure of the boys, before raising his hands slightly in a surrendering motion, his four fingered hands splaying cautiously while his eyes evaluated them. As he did so, Cliff and Jax noticed that the blue complexion of the alien’s features shifted to shades of black and gray.

“Woah,” breathed Jax. “This… is… freakin’… awesome. Did you see that?”

“Yeah,” Cliff breathed right back. As each boy muttered, the alien’s eyes flicked to the boy who was speaking. “Do you think it’s camouflage for his surroundings?”

“Maybe,” hypothesized Jax. “It might also be a reaction to the light. He was mostly in darkness before.”

“True,” agreed Cliff.

Here it goes. Ol’oih took a breath and concentrated on each and every word, attempting to make it as clear and concise as possible. He understood their language, and now he was going to attempt to use it.

“Hello, my name is Ensign Ol’oih Namniels. I am on an informational expedition to learn more about humanity, specifically language analysis. I… assume you found me and my ship, and I have to say thank y-”

“Okay, so we should think about communication basics. Do you think he understands body language? I mean, his hands are raised like that, but is that out of instinct or intent?” asked Cliff.

“I’m inclined to think intent, but I have no basis for it,” remarked Jax.

Wait… what? Ol’oih wondered silently. They’re talking about communication. Is that not what I’m doing? He decided to try again.

“I do understand some of your language, at least what you are saying now. My hands are raised as a sign of ‘good faith’ as you humans may say. I do not want to fight and want to establish peaceful tal-”

“Are we going to have to establish basic linguistics and physical signs to communicate? Like how you would with a little kid? Or maybe like a sign language thing?” wondered Cliff. “If so, we might need to have a quick aside to look up some basics that we can both use.”

“Woah, look! There’s a shock of yellow with the grays and blacks,” said Jax as he pointed at the little alien. Cliff had just noticed too, and his mind started working through what all of these new colors could mean.

At the same time, Ol’oih’s mind was working through their interactions.

Why can’t they hear me? I’m speaking their language. I can understand them. That much I’m sure of. I don’t think they’re ignoring me. They’ve expressed desire to communicate. I don’t understand! There’s nothing that should impede my pathing to them unless…

The realization hit Ol’oih all at once, hollowing his insides and making him feel sick. It wasn’t confirmed until now, but there were dozens of theories on his home world about whether or not earthers could path – speak directly to one another without the use of vocal cords in the throat.

Now he knew for certain which was making him panic.

They can’t hear me. They can’t path! What am I going to do?

“Did you see that?” asked Cliff as he looked over at Jax. “His eyes widened.”

“Yeah, I did. Is he trying to figure out what we’re saying?” asked Jax.

“No! I’m not! I can hear you. It’s you who can’t hear me!” Ol’oih tried pathing to them again, concentrating as hard as he could on the connection and getting his words to them. Sadly, the boys continued their conversation with one another.

“Are we scaring him? I mean, we’re kind of looming,” pointed out Jax. “Plus, there’s two of us and we have him in a hard plastic container that he probably can’t get out of. Putting myself in his shoes, he’s taking this well.”

I don’t know whether to be offended or flattered. No! Focus! This is bad! If they leave, I don’t have a way to contact them. They can’t path. Does this mean they’re like the Mel’ol?

Ol’oih recalled the information from his various courses and remembered that the Mel’ol, another interstellar species, couldn’t hear thoughts projected into the air. After many attempts, both species realized that communication required a physical connection directly to the Mel’ol nervous system.

He suddenly realized what he needed to do, and it was risky. More than that. It was dangerous. These boys didn’t seem like “proper scientists” unless their survey teams were completely wrong about the human race, in which case they horribly overestimated human intelligence.

This is not what Ol’oih was going to go with. Based on his observations, these kids seemed logical, cautious, and curious. They hadn’t hurt him and obviously wanted to communicate.

Ol’oih knew he had one chance, and he was terrified. His entire body thrumming nervously, he recalled his lessons in body language and communication and began backing away, hands still raised in submission.

“Oh, shoot. Cliff, look. He’s backing up.” Jax glanced nervously over at Cliff, unsure of what to do.

“Yeah, I see that, but I don’t kn-” Cliff quieted when he saw the little alien looking directly at him and make a gesturing motion with his hand directly in front of him. It almost looked like the alien was miming lowing his hand into the container before raising his hand back into an open palm surrendering gesture. His eyes flicked over to Jax as he repeated the motion, even crouching a little to emphasize the hand lowering to the ground.

I hope they understand. I don’t have much else I can do to get them closer. They won’t understand, but it’s the only way.

Ol’oih felt the thrumming in his body intensifying. This was going to be tricky, and he knew it. These two human boys were just going to have to trust him, something which he knew was going to be next to impossible if they decided to err on the side of caution and shut him away in the container once more.

If that were to happen, he feared his energy might run too low to make a second attempt.

One shot. I’ve got to make it count.

“Do… you think he wants us to put our hands in the container closer to him?” asked Jax, leaning over to direct his question quietly to his friend. Cliff’s heart was pounding hard and fast, but he nodded without breaking eye-contact with the alien.

“I think so,” he muttered. “The real question is why.”

“Who knows,” mumbled Jax. “Do you… think it’s a trick? Like he’s going to scurry up our arms or try to splice off our fingers?”

What? No! I mean, it’s going to be a little painful, but nothing permanent. I can fix that. It’s no trick. I can explain everything. Please! Trust me! Ol’oih’s silent plea was only for him, and he could only hope these two would take a chance.

“Only one way to find out,” Cliff muttered. Jax’s eyes went wide as he watched Cliff slowly raise his left hand in the same kind of surrendering motion that the alien was making before slowly turning it and lowering it into the container until the tips of his fingers were nearly touching the bottom.

Thank Ove! Now… I just have to not mess this up. Just bear with me.

Keeping eye-contact with the human boy, Ol’oih carefully took one slow step forward. His entire body was thrumming, threatening to make him shake. Ol’oih knew his emotions weren’t in check, but his priorities were elsewhere. He took another step, and then another.

Cliff watched, body shaking, as the alien slowly took several steps toward him. The human teen took controlled, shallow breaths as his excitement and nerves spun like tops in his mind. A thousand possibilities were running through his head and waiting in anticipation was killing him.

Another step.

Then another.

The alien was only a few inches from him when Cliff watched the alien’s tail slowly curve around his body and carefully press against his skin along his thenar, which was the fleshy mound at the base of his thumb. It was cold, thick, and sharp like a freshly sharpened number two pencil. It was also the color of graphite, which brought the imagery full circle in Cliff’s mind.

This is it. Nice and slow. I’m already here, and he’s letting me touch him. Ol’oih thought as he lowered his right hand and rested it onto the base of his tail. Here it goes.

In one quick motion, Ol’oih pierced the tip of his tail into the boy’s hand along the fleshy part below his thumb, following the ridges along his tail and twisting as he did so. Before Ol’oih could even begin to attempt to establish a connection, there was an ear piercing shriek.

For a moment, just a moment, Cliff was absolutely entranced by possibly being the first human making physical contact with an alien when, all of a sudden, the alien jabbed and twisted the end of his tail into the base of his thumb. Pain shocked him out of the moment, and he cried out purely by instinct.

“OW! AH! It latched on! It latched on!” Cliff jerked his hand and, to his alarm, the alien jerked along with him. Panic began to take over as he grabbed at his wrist and began constricting it. If this thing was trying to poison him like a scorpion, he didn’t want the venom to infiltrate his entire circulatory system.

Meanwhile, the base of Ol’oih’s addon tugged him harshly to the point he was actually lifted off of the ground as the human boy lifted his hand. Ol’oih was slammed back onto the ground as he listened to the boy he was attached to shout about “latching on.”

On the bright side, his hypothesis was correct. Humans were like Mel’ol, requiring a physical connection to the nervous system to communicate. Already, he was feeling the boy’s panic, fear, and, oddly enough, betrayal.

He had only a moment to try and get the situation under control, and he had to make the most of it. He concentrated hard and said the first thing that came to mind.

“It is not latching, it is pathing. And please do not jerk around like that. You might fracture my addon and hurt yourself!”

Immediately, Cliff felt his heart stop as he heard a male voice in the back of his head. He knew he didn’t imagine it. It was too distinct – too direct – for it to be a mistake. The teen looked down at the alien and saw him staring back, desperation and intelligence in those dark orbs for eyes.

“Hang on!” Jax, before Cliff could utter a word, boldly reached into the container and grabbed the alien, his fingers pinning the alien’s arms to his sides. Jax lifted the alien off of the ground as he began thrashing against the grip, grabbed the base of the tail that was imbedded into Cliff’s hand, and tugged.

Cliff winced and cried out in pain as the tip of the tail tugged at his flesh, and then the voice returned.

“Ow! Wait! Please! I just want to talk! I am Ensign…”

Cliff’s hand seized as Jax tugged again. To his horror, the tail pulled free from his flesh, taking a chunk of skin with it. Blood spattered onto the base of the container. Cliff could feel his pulse in his hand as he instinctually retracted it from the container, clutching it tight to his chest while continuing to try and keep pressure around his wrist.

Jax gave the alien a little toss back onto the ground and quickly locked the lid back on, missing how the six inch tall alien had turned and reached out toward the narrow beam of light as the lid encased him once again in darkness. Jax immediately grabbed the first thing he could find, which was a t-shirt from Cliff’s laundry pile, and pressed it against the oozing wound.

“Come on!” Jax urged as he tugged his friend away from his room and to the bathroom. He cranked on the warm water and shoved Cliff’s hand under the faucet as he darted around to the supply closet, filling his arms up with every medical bag he could find.

As he worked on his friend’s hand by splashing alcohol into the open wound and snagging gauze to wrap it, he continuously muttered under his breath various curses to the miniscule alien in the other room.

“That little twerp! I knew we couldn’t trust it. It’s no better than a creepy face hugger. Hopefully that thing isn’t poisonous. That turned bad fast! Holy smokes!”

Cliff, on the other hand, finally came back to his senses. His mind had been reeling with the experience as he replayed the incident over and over in his mind. Of all the sensations rolling around in his mind, Cliff finally pinpointed the emotion that he believed the alien was experiencing.

Genuineness.

There was nothing malicious in the jab. Everything leading up to that moment indicated that the alien was peaceful. His body posture, if it indicated anything at all, showed surrender and caution. There were also all of those colors shifting in the alien’s skin. Did that really mean something?

At the same time, Jax continued to ramble on.

“I can’t believe this. I shouldn’t have let you do it. How could I be so stupid?! Both of us! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I mean, did you see what it did?”

“Did you hear what he said?” Cliff’s question made Jax’s blood run cold. He turned to his friend, gauze comically dropping out of his hand and hitting the ground, as his mouth hung agape.

“What… did… you… just… say?” Jax asked.

Cliff pulled his hand out from under the water now that the wound wasn’t bleeding as much and, while applying pressure, looked at his friend in awe and repeated, “Did you hear what he said?”

Jax went from crouching by the medical packs that were strewn all around him like a girl prepping for a two week vacation overseas to standing, backing away a couple of steps toward the door while eying his friend suspiciously.

“You’re joking, right? It didn’t talk,” Jax stated firmly.

“No… he did,” Cliff said just as firmly to match his friend’s tone. “He said a few things actually. I… can’t explain it, but I know I heard him.”

Jax looked genuinely torn. It was like he was straddling the barrier between adrenaline fueled excitement and gut-wrenching worry for his friend.

“W-what… did he say to you, Cliff?” asked Jax. It was clear he was being cautiously optimistic based on his tone alone. Cliff reached over and put down the toilet seat and sat down on top as he gathered his thoughts.

“Well, first he said that it wasn’t latching, it was pathing. I guess that’s referring to this,” stated Cliff as he lifted his injured left hand while keeping pressure on it. “He also asked for me not to jerk around because I might fracture his addon and hurt myself. I guess the ‘addon’ thing is his tail; and, obviously, jerking around earned me this gash.”

“You actually heard him? The alien? But… how? Was this just a feeling? Or did you hear actual words?” probed Jax. “Well, first and foremost, are you okay? Do you feel weird or anything? Do you still hear the alien?”

“I feel fine. A bit shaken, but I still feel like me. No burning sensation in my hand and no streaks. If he was going to poison me or something like that, I would probably feel the effects now. We’d see evidence. If science taught me anything, it’s that stuff like this takes affect pretty quick,” replied Cliff. “And no, I don’t hear him anymore.”

“Weird,” mumbled Jax. He still looked uncertainly at his friend and then back to the gauze he dropped. “Well, I guess if you’re infected I probably am too.”

“I doubt it, b-”

“Shush! Otherwise I won’t help you. Gotta be in this together or not at all, dude. Always how it’s worked. Now, I’m bandaging up your hand and you’re telling me anything else the alien said,” stated Jax. He was obviously unnerved, but he took a few deep breaths and approached his friend, snagging the gauze from the ground and cutting off the segment that touched the ground before applying the ointment onto it.

“Not much else. Just that he was in pain and that he just wanted to talk. He started saying something about ensign, but I couldn’t tell if that was his name or, like, the position. You know? Like how they have ensigns on naval ships and stuff like that?” said Cliff while Jax wrapped his hand.

“So, we were right? That thing he was on was just a pod and there’s a bigger ship; or, rather, was a bigger ship?” Jax asked as he fastened the bandage tightly.

“I think so,” mumbled Cliff, thumb absently rubbing the injured part of his hand as if it were some kind of fidget spinner. “And there’s something else too. His coloration. It was changing. Did you notice?”

“Hard not to notice,” stated Jax as he sat down in front of his friend and began packing away the rest of the medical equipment. “You think it means something? Like, he was trying to communicate with it like a mood ring?”

“Maybe. It’s just an idea, but maybe that’s what he was feeling. I mean, blacks and grays are stress, tension, and anxiety. Then there was that flash of yellow, which could be nervousness,” rattled of Cliff. Jax rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Of course you’d know something like that,” he teased.

“Hey! I have an older sister who’s into that spiritual stuff. Her tarot card set is still in her room with all of those crystals and stuff too. She was always talking about these weird things. Hopefully college will straighten her out,” Cliff grinned, knowing this was one of his main teasing points for his older sister.

Jax’s eyes widened as he asked, “Oh, shoot! Will she be home soon? It’s summer. I totally forgot.”

“No. She’s got an internship that helps with her college tuition stuff, so she has to plan her visits. We’ve got the place to ourselves until eight tonight.” Cliff’s news eased the tension in the air between the two boys.

Their pulses were finally easing and their minds were now kicking into high gear to solve their communication problems with the alien in the other room. It took close to twenty minutes for either boy to say anything, but what Cliff had to say made Jax’s pulse spike once again.

“We need to try it again.”

“Excuse me, what?” Jax demanded.

“We need to try it again. We need to start from square one and try the Ensign’s method again,” stated Cliff. “It’s only logical.”

“No! Nu-uh! No way. I’m not getting a plug taken out of my hand because of him, and neither are you. We’re already going to have a hard enough time explaining the wound on your hand to your parents because you promised no science experiments. There’s got to be another way,” argued Jax.

“It’s the only way I can think of. We don’t have any kind of tech for him to use as a speaker to just plug into, if that’s what his tail is for. Also, did you see that look of surprise. Taking a leap in logic and assuming our expressions for certain emotions are the same between his species and ours, he looked confused and then shocked right before he made that whole gesturing motion, leading to my hand injury,” explained Cliff as he held up his hand.

“So, you want to put your hand back next to the alien, have the same thing happen, but this time possibly talk to him?” asked Jax disbelievingly. His friend gave a half-hearted shrug as he nodded.

“Something like that. He responded with the whole ‘latching’ comment by correcting us, and when you went to pull him off he asked us to wait since he wanted to talk.” Jax listened to Cliff’s words and contemplated them for a solid two minutes before nodding, a look of resignation on his brow.

“Okay, then I have something I want to add. If we’re going to try again, he might not want to. I did yank him off of you pretty hard, and honestly I’ve been worried here for a minute that I really hurt him,” stated Jax. “I propose we have some kind of peace offering. I mean, he probably needs food and water and it seems like he understands what we’re saying, so his ears work. We give him some supplies, offer an apology, and then see if he still wants to talk.”

Cliff nodded in agreement. “My sentiments exactly. Now, I don’t know what he can eat so let’s get a bit of a spread with some water and give it all a try.”

It took another minute for the boys to push themselves to their feet before walking past Cliff’s room toward the kitchen to begin preparing a meal for their alien guest.

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Continue

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Beginning

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@gianttol #gtjuly #gtjuly2024

[fulcrum-art-fox]

“Hello? Is anybody there? Can you hear me?”

Jedi over comms: “Identify yourself.”

“My name is -”

Might be an inconsequential thing to get hung up on, but I am curious: what name was she going to give?

First impulse, probably Osha’s. Would make the most sense, that’s the identity she’s assuming, that what she’s been trying to sell all episode, it’s the thing the Jedi are more likely to expect, definitely the safest thing to say. Except the scene that immediately preceded it and what happens to break her off mid sentence makes me wonder

As @midnight-melancholiaaa pointed out, the scene that immediately precedes this is the one in which it is likely that Sol figured out that she was Mae, and not Osha (the analysis is great and you should totally go read it). So if we’re to assume that, then for the rest of the conversation Sol knows he’s talking to Mae, but Mae doesn’t realise that the game is up, and so keeps pushing, under the guise of the questions being Osha’s, and she asks “Have you told me everything that happened on Brendok?” a very carefully phrased question. Sol’s answer, “You were very young,” is noncommittal and negative. Mae presses for an answer, and there’s a moment in which he steps toward her, like he’s about to speak, like he’s about to tell her. And then the power comes back on, and the moment passes. He isn’t going to tell her. And Mae sneers and storms away, angrily. She storms right up to the bridge, where she immediately calls the Jedi, of her own initiative and volition, and begins a dialogue. And before she can introduce herself, Sol stuns her, cuts off the transmission and jumps the ship away

Now this is a very long winded way of saying that I totally think there’s the distinct possibility she was gonna introduce herself as Mae, but I totally think there’s the distinct possibility she was gonna introduce herself as Mae

As to why Mae might want to call the Jedi as herself, I have no clear idea, Mae’s actions have been continually unexpected, but given that she did very seriously entertain the idea of handing herself over to the Jedi in order to achieve something a few episodes ago, she might have been intending to rat Sol out to the other Jedi. The revenge vs justice thing has already been raised, and so far Mae has been very firmly on the revenge end, but in this case, the event that immediately preceding the call was Sol disappointing her, reaffirming her attitude towards him. He says he intends to fess up to the council but I don’t imagine for a second Mae believes he will. It doesn’t appear, to her in this moment, that he’ll even tell her what happened (honey you’ve got a rough storm coming), why should she believe he’ll tell his superiors, after sixteen years of keeping the secret? So she might well out herself and take him down with her, what does she have left, really? Try and force him to face up to justice. But who knows. There’s always been a certain amount of mental gymnastics required to keep up with what Mae considers good decision making. As for Sol, by this point, as many have pointed out, he wants to go after Osha, and he doesn’t want the Jedi telling him to wait for anything, and “oh Mae Aniseya, the Jedi killer, is onboard the ship” is absolutely the kind of information that, if reported, would have the Jedi telling him not to go anywhere under any circumstances. If he was worried she was going to introduce herself under her real name, bog him down in official Jedi procedure rather than get to Osha as fast as possible, that would be further reason for him to stun her, not just that he’s identified her as a dangerous imposter, but to prevent that information getting out

Anyway, sorry for the long post, just thought it was an interesting little detail

[lipslikethegardensofbabylon]

#ttpd analysis day one - Fortnight

at first glance Fortnight is an interesting choice as it feels like the most fictional track, but thematically it really does capture the intensity of the album. i love the opening line(s) and how they directly pull from Midnights -

I was supposed to be sent away, but they forgot to come and get me // Is it okay? Is it you? Or have they come to take me away?

I was a functioning alcoholic till nobody noticed my new aesthetic // I prefer hiding in plain sight, my fourth drink in my hand

the chorus referencing becoming neighbors to me echoes this theme/fear throughought her discography, which is essentially please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere. so basically it’s like, we had this really passionate, manic affair, I know you intimately, and now i’m just supposed to play friendly with you like a good neighbor?

the lyric run into you sometimes, comment on my sweater as much as it pains me to say it, reminds me of when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone's bed you put me on and said I was your favorite. so to me this lyric is basically saying he’s still giving these little hints/hope that they can still be together, because for a fortnight they really were good, and were forever. the main character is then in this dilemma of can it actually work? because it did at some point, i think my husband is standing between us and i don’t love him anymore anyway, maybe i should kill him.

the outro references running away to Florida (coincidentally another track) but that there won’t be closure until they touch each, kind of leaving the door ajar for further tracks to explore the what ifs, and what actually happened

[phxntomhives]

The new magazine cover aaaah

It's so pretty, I love it!

And I want to "analyze" it because the song analysis is driving me to madness.

It's nothing special but here is my two cents under the cut

SPOILER FOR THE END OF S4/MANGA CONTENT

I think the scene is trying to evocate the Midnight Tea Party, without too many spoilers for the anime onlys.

If I am not wrong, usually the character related to Lily is Undertaker. We can see Sebastian trying to cut it, so I do believe this could be foreshadow the soon-to-happen fight between them at the Midnight Tea Party.

Then we have lily's petals scattered on the table. They are 8 so maybe they are to indicate the 8 Bizzare dolls Undertaker created (7 students + Agares).

A rose in the teacup with some petals falling out: I do feel it should mean something but honestly I have no clue. Redmond and Lizzie are the first two I connect to roses. Redmond would make more sense since we are in the Weston arc but why is he in the teapot? Because he got the idea of calling the Aurora society and therefore "calling" Undertaker and cause the creation of the Bizarre Dolls? Idk, feel free to drop your ideas

Also idk if it's just me but... is the plate of the teapot falling? The prospective is confusing me.

[diospore]

MHA 430, no real spoilers to the ending but I'm also discussing my au ideas under the break too so that's why I tagged spoilers and added the bar, because there's a variety of spoilers.

That was fine I guess, could've been worse... Sad no dfo but I kinda gave up on that being good 10 chapters ago. Insert Thanos I'll do it myself gif.

5.5-6/10.

I'm gonna start my analysis + reread on Saturday I think?

Here's thoughts I already have:

- Reduce amount of students in 1-A. I realized that I can't handle 20+ main characters lol. My original idea was 5, but I've got it down to 10 by fusing characters. Izuku, Aoyama, Uraraka, Shoto, and Bakugo remain the same. I'm going to review the fusions and draw them later...

Fusions:

Sero/Kaminari/Kirishima (Reason: I get them mixed up a lot.)

Iida/Momo/Ojiro (Rich kid + I like Ojiro)

Jiro/Tokoyami/Shoji (Characters with a "dark vibe" ((emo lol)))

Mina/Tsu (I'd feel bad having one and not the other)

Koda/Sato (Honestly they're here because they're the ones I think of when I think "they got shoved aside" as well as Ojiro but I like him more.) ((... Also combine their names and you get Soda....))

Most likely to be cut: Ojiro, Sato, Koda, Sero

Cut: Mineta (Obvious reasons), Hagakure (I couldn't think of anything)

I swear there's logic here but I'm unable to explain it better lol. I'm eepy.

- Bakugo will be expelled from UA in the first arc, perhaps that'll be the conclusion of it. Possibly return in a later arc, I'm thinking the vigilante arc? Minor character. Basically a starter antagonist before the stakes ramp up.

(Results in the same amount of students as OFA users! Which I think is a nice parallel.)

- First arc will be about the class bonding since I really wanted more 1-A bonding scenes. Mainly about them helping each other. (I. E. Izuku opening up about being bullied, the class helping Shoto with the Endeavor situation, etc.) Bakugo's role will be getting in the way of this. Minor antagonist.

- LOV shouldn't be introduced until after a bond is established. Sorry Shiggy my beloved, you must wait.

- All for One dies in Kamino equivalent. (Unsure of how to set this up w/o Bakugo, maybe Midoriya's the one kidnapped?) Sorry AFO I love you so so much, but I'm killing you off. You're op as hell and the kill should be All Might's. You can come back and possess people later if you're good.

- DFO will be there as well as reducing the role AFO played in Shigaraki's backstory. Increase the role in Midoriya's life (negative).

- Aizawa will have a bit of a tweak, he'll be less physically violent with the students. (Less scarf grabby, only in extreme circumstances) Also I think having a lasting injury from the Oboro incident would be a nice touch. Give him a House MD vibe with a cane??? God I fucking loved House. Gay and homophobic, what an icon.

- Eventually I want Endeavor to go to prison or face some form of consequence. Maybe death. I was also thinking about him being tricked into helping AFO out of desperation for that number one spot. Bakugo takes his place for redemption arc?

- I don't really want to kill Midnight off... Or Twice... Or like. Any of the LOV. Need to think about that... But I know Twice's death was very important, so I might have to get over it somehow.

Not saying there won't be death, it just has to make more sense to me.

-

Wrote most of this at 2 am lol so this is probably incoherent. It's not a critique of the series, it's just my idea for the au. Like I get that classes have like 20 people in them. And that characters die. That villains die even if they're children.

I think if I plan this in arcs, I'll have the best chance of finishing it.

[synonymroll648]

no hummingbirds, no butterflies (just soft whirrs & peaceful daylight)

pairings/relationships: queerplatonic keefex, minor mentions of dex’s dynamics with his parents, + referenced dadwin (keefe & elwin as a parent-son duo of sorts)

tws: minor (autistic) overstimulation, anxiety, touch starvation, swearing, implied sexual humor (keefe’s here, what’d you expect), and i think that’s it - but please let me know if there’s more that should be added! 

summary: “I—okay, fine. You’re not patient with gadgets or alchemy or anything that’s a project,” Keefe laughs, and then his voice goes…gentle. Like midnight rain. “But you’re patient with people. You’re patient with me.”

You’re patient with me, Keefe says, and Dex thinks, What an interesting way to say ‘I love you’. 

-

OR: An exploration of what Keefe and Dex’s dynamic could’ve been if Keefe hadn’t run off to the forbidden cities.

additional notes: happy final day of @keefex-week 2023, even if this is for the day 1 prompt queerplatonic! i started this fic back in feburary as an ayyam-i-ha gift for the one and only wonderful @bookwyrminspiration​, but didn’t finish in time, and then i tried finishing it in time for its tumblr bday, and didn’t finish in time for that either. but at least i finished in time for this! i hope you enjoy the third draft of keefex being queerplatonic and neurodivergent (i wrote this with autistic!dex in the front of my mind. also, this entire fic was inspired by this keefex shitpost i made [and the really gay eckodon scene in book 4].) comments and constructive criticism are appreciated!

word count: 6.4k

ao3 link (recommended)

taglist: @gay-otlc @purplesoup-lad-le @when-wax-wings-melt @asexual-juliet @cowboypossume @xanadaus 

fic under the cut :)

Out of all the things that can surprise Dex Dizznee at 12:21am, getting hailed by Keefe Sencen isn’t one of them. 

The buzzing of his imparter laying on his bed cuts through the quiet ambiance of the noisemakers carefully placed in his room. The gadget Dex has mindlessly fidgeted with for minutes on end gets set down on his desk, and he carefully steps through the mess on his floor to pick up the hail. 

(After turning the volume down, because Keefe has accidentally woken up Dex’s parents from laughing too loud on more than one night like this.)

“Heeeey, Dexy,” Keefe deliriously croons across the line. 

Deliriously is the correct description, Dex knows, because Keefe only ever uses that tone when his guard is down—and after Loamnore, lowered guards only ever occur after a mental breakdown or from serious sleep deprivation. 

Or both.

“Hello to you too, at this totally reasonable hour for the two of us to be awake,” Dex sits down on the edge of his bed, tucking his feet up onto the mattress. 

A snicker. “Tooooootally.” 

Dex does a brief internal analysis of his face—he doesn’t have enough time to be thorough without being awkward, but no mental notes at all is bound to leave him floundering later on in the conversation. 

Dark circles → Keefe is probably at least halfway out of his mind.

Bedhead → Keefe is definitely at least halfway out of his mind.

Lots of blankets and pillows → Keefe is either content or in the middle of an existential crisis. 

Slightly more prominent freckles across the bridge of his nose than usual →  Congratulate Keefe on getting some sunshine. 

Keefe starts talking again, and Dex is glad that he doesn’t have to be the one to resume conversation. “What’d I interrupt?” 

“Me trying to get work done for the Black Swan or school but being too tired to think properly.” 

“I’m guessing you’re also too awake to go to sleep.” 

“Bingo,” Dull exasperation on Dex’s end. 

“Relatable.” Fatigue softens the ‘t’ so much that it’s only implied at best. Relatable is surrender wearing a humorous mask; Keefe’s favorite shield.

You need to say something. It’s the start to an all-too familiar chain reaction. He almost lists out all the ways You need to say something evolves into something much more panic-inducing, since lists usually help, but this is one of those few exceptions where listing it all out will screw him over. 

So Dex starts on the steps to prevent that, with an inhale quiet enough that Keefe hopefully doesn’t think he’s sighing. Next is grasping for something to contribute. Something silly, preferably. 

Dex is a second slower to reply than he’d like, but he finds something that works. His headspace relaxes once he asks, “Is the bingo card or the bingo pieces or the bingo itself relatable?” 

“Hmmmmm, good question…” Keefe tilts his gaze up to the ceiling of his starry bedroom at Splendor Plains. 

Dex takes his thoughtful pause as an opportunity to study Keefe further. He notes gulon pajamas, and eyelashes that are long and dark and confusingly nice to look at—which makes him think of the eckodon ride to Alluveterre, the first time he’d really noticed them—which makes heat begin to fester under his skin, because that was a lot of physical contact and—

—Keefe starts talking again, and it’s enough to get his brain to shut up. “Bingo pieces, probably. Sometimes I get put in situations where things work out, and sometimes I get put in situations where they don’t. Comes down to everyone else’s luck.” 

The Keefe is either content or in the middle of an existential crisis part of Dex’s mental notes from earlier resurfaces at the front of his mind, and he leans a little more towards preparing for helping Keefe through an existential crisis. 

Then Dex leans a few degrees back into the or part of the note, once Keefe cracks, “Kinda like all the backstories we came up with for Keebler elves.” 

Laughter, fast and loose and loud, threatens to explode out of Dex’s chest. He quickly covers his mouth, unable to help looking away and throwing his head back while he tries to not disturb the sleepy nighttime air that blankets Rimeshire. 

When Dex looks back down at Keefe, there’s a proud grin crinkling the corners of his eyes, smushed up against the cozy mess of his bedding. Keefe wrestles a hand out from under the blankets it was trapped under, and points directly at his imparter camera. “You thought it was funny, don’t deny it,” 

“I won’t,” Dex relents. A wistful sigh almost turns into snickers, since he’s apparently spent way too many nights talking with Keefe over the past few months. “That was probably the funnest reason for pulling an all-nighter.” 

A giggle. More than one giggle, actually. A whole stream of them, like a human song kids would get hooked on. (Giggles. Keefe is undoubtedly delirious, guaranteed to be more than halfway out of his mind. There’s no other explanation for him being so light and sunny at 12:26 in the morning.) “Best all-nighter eeee-ver! No school, just the silly.” 

Dex arcs an eyebrow like the sunrise that’s hours away. “The silly?” 

“The silly!” Beaming a childish grin, Keefe’s fist punches out of his heap of blankets and up into the air, almost as if he’s cheering for something. 

The force of it sends Keefe’s imparter—wherever it’s propped up on—toppling over. The view on Dex’s imparter shifts to close-up constellations behind glass. He hasn’t done well enough in his Universe class to be able to identify anything before Keefe cries, “Dex! Mrs. Stinkbottom! My dearest companions! Noooooooo!” 

This time, Dex has to gently bite down on his knuckles to keep himself from laughing too loud. 

(Dex has to stop himself from wondering too much about the depth behind My dearest companions too. Because he’s gone down far too many rabbit holes about whether or not he’s romantically attracted to Keefe and been left with a confusing answer of no, but also not being satisfied with the label platonic either. He just focuses on the joy of someone finding him valuable outside of his tech and alchemy skillsets.) 

There’s a smile on Dex’s face so wide it makes him feel dumb as he watches Keefe lean over his bed to try and grab at his imparter. Awkwardly angled footage goes a little fuzzy as Mrs. Stinkbottom gets pulled up before Dex. Well, not Dex, the imparter, since Dex is leaned back against his pillow and headboard and not collapsed on Keefe’s bedroom floor, but no one cares about technicalities like that other than Dex. 

Finally, Keefe’s hand presumably wraps around his imparter, and Dex’s screen is a blur as Keefe hauls ‘him’ up. “I got a little too silly for the world to handle,” he pouts. 

“The world? I don’t think me and Mrs. Stinkbottom count as the world. Pretty sure there’s a lot more to the world than that.” 

“Well, that’s the only part of the world I care about right now.” 

Don’t read into it, don’t read into it, don’t read into it— 

Dex doesn’t read into it. Because he’s a master at this seemingly mythical thing called self-restraint, if his friends are anything to go by. “I dunno, I’m pretty sure you care about your blankets and pillows right now,” 

Keefe’s lips thin into a disconcerted line. “...Yeah, I do. Caught me red-handed,” he mumbles, relaxing further into the comfortable disaster he’s wrapped himself in. “But that’s it.” 

You sure about that? he wants to ask, but takes the few seconds of silence to consider his options and turn the conversation towards something else instead. “How much have you slept?” 

Things That Would Replicate Keefe’s Hysterical Laughter at That Question When Mixed Together Properly:

Tea kettles when their contents are boiling. 

Monkeys screeching. 

Gasps from someone who almost drowned. Or ran a long distance at a high speed and finally got to stop. Or something like that. 

A recording of someone’s sobbing or laughing that could pass as both to unaware listeners.

It’s a little startling—startling enough that he jumps at the unexpected change in sound. Frantically, he turns down his imparter volume. And then Dex tries to climb under his covers as quietly as he can and curls up on his side, so he can fake being asleep if his mom pops in to check on him. (She’s a light sleeper, which she’s jokingly coined as her proof that she married into the Dizznee family instead of being born into it.) 

Keefe wipes at his eyes. “You gotta specify a time frame, Dex. Tonight? The last twenty four hours? The last week? Etcetera,” 

It takes a blip of time to remember what they’re talking about. “Last twenty four hours.” 

“I took a nap after lunch. Ro woke me up for dinner. After that, I painted until I spilled my water jar on accident. Cleaning up made me realize how tired I was, so I tried to sleep. Buuuuut…” Something about the way Keefe’s facial expression just barely shifts makes Dex suspect that he’s either gonna cough up a hard truth or lie to cover it up. “my brain wouldn’t shut off. And now we’re here.” 

Dex takes a shot in the dark—literally. The only thing lighting up his room is his open curtains. Moonlight washes the room in pale silvers and a whole scale of blues. “Was it that you couldn’t stop thinking period, or you couldn’t stop thinking about the wrong things?” 

The steady, easy rise and fall of Keefe’s form stills. It resumes when Keefe sighs and says, “Does anything get past you?” 

I’ve spent my whole life analyzing everything to the best of my ability, because I’ve spent my whole life out of the loop and fighting to get in it. It’s late at night, and your guard’s down. Of course nothing you do gets past me. Too serious, too blunt. Killjoy of a response. Dex condenses it into something lighter, but still truthful. “When it comes to you, no, not that I know of.” 

“I feel like that’s a sign that I’ve overshared on one too many nightly hails over the past few months,” Keefe tries to laugh it off, but Dex can sense the nervous undertone. 

“I mean, if it makes you uncomfortable, I can stop you next time you try to open up,” Dex offers. He hopes Keefe doesn’t take him up on it. 

Dread begins to stir in his stomach as Keefe pauses to consider. It dissipates when Keefe says, “Nahhh, I trust you to not take advantage of me being stupid. Also, like—actually, you know what? Can I ramble about something? The only way my brain can make points is through stories right now. But if you want me to shut up, that’s fine.” 

“Ramble away,” Dex says. It’s nice being your number one person to talk to, even if I’m sure it won’t last forever. 

“Okay, so, earlier today—well, technically yesterday now, but no one cares—anyways. Anyways.” Keefe clears his throat, fist in front of his mouth. Eyebrows downturn in a way that’s either ironically or unironically serious; Dex can’t tell. 

Dex poorly suppresses a smile. Turns up the volume again to hear him better, and resolves to just remind Keefe, No sudden noises please, if he gets too loud again. 

“So basically, after Ro woke me up, Elwin knocked on my doorway today and told me dinner was ready if I was hungry. It was in the usual spot he leaves it for me since being in the same room as people is hard and he’s cool about me eating alone, y’know? I feel like I told you about that already, but whatever.” (Keefe has indeed told Dex about this routine. On multiple occasions.) “I hear his footsteps walking away, and I open the door and I say ‘Elwin?’”

“Out loud, or using signs?”

“Out loud,” Keefe confirms.

It’s been a month or two since Keefe managed to start saying short phrases to people aloud again, but it’s still difficult enough—especially without preparation beforehand—that it’s always a surprise to hear him mention talking out loud face-to-face recently. Dex’s eyebrows nearly touch his hairline. He holds back the Wow, Keefe, incredible job—genuinely, ready to jump off the cliff’s edge of his tongue. Lets Keefe keep talking. 

“So he turns around and he tilts his head in this way that’s like, hey, keep going. My nerves started acting up, but I managed to ask if we could eat at the table together. I had to clear my throat and clarify—well, I was really just rambling, but whatever—that sitting, like, right next to him would be too much. And I’d probably have to sit on the opposite end of the table, but he told me that was totally fine. No disappointment or anything. And we—we actually had a conversation. Not just a few sentences. I could keep up with talking back and forth for longer than a few minutes. And there was this point where he said…” Keefe stops. “He said, um. Hang on.” 

Keefe flops his face into his pillow. Dex suppresses an instinctual smile at the unintelligible noises that come out of Keefe’s throat, because he doesn’t know if they’re positive or negative. Yet. 

So he asks. “Is this good or bad?” 

Keefe nods. Confusion forms in a crease between Dex’s eyebrows. Some absurd part of Dex suspects Keefe can sense it through the screen, because he turns his face towards his imparter and clarifies, “Good. I think. I’ve just forgotten how to handle affection in general. And I’ve never known how to handle it from parental figures.” 

Parental figures has delighted surprise lighting up Dex’s face for a split second before he smooths his expression out into something neutral again. Elwin’s always been a lot better than Cassius. Keefe maybe, just maybe, finding someone else to call ‘dad’ or something like it would be good for him. 

Dex hopes they get there. Eventually. 

Dex also doesn’t know if it’s too early to tell Keefe that, so he errs on the side of caution. “From what I’ve heard you tell me, I don’t think Elwin minds that you don’t really know what you’re doing. But what did Elwin say to you? You cut yourself off.”

Keefe blinks, a bit slow to respond. “Sorry, I was processing that first sentence. Uh. He said that he was really proud of me. For,” —Keefe’s laugh in between words is bittersweet— “being so brave about all of this. And I thought he was playing up how he felt to make me feel better, so I told him that he didn’t have to lie to me. Then he told me that he was being dead serious, and he was sorry he didn’t say it more often. And he tried complimenting me more, but, um, I—I told him to stop because I didn’t want to start crying, y’know? Especially since I couldn’t—can’t hug him. Or anything like that,” 

Dex doesn’t really know how this relates to whatever point(s?) Keefe was trying to make earlier about trusting Dex, but he’ll roll with the punches. “I’m not a professional on emotions or anything, but I think it’s okay to get overwhelmed by someone being nice to you when you’re used to literally nothing at best.” 

“That’s…” Keefe goes quiet. Dex wonders if he said the right or wrong thing. Hopefully it was right. It feels right, at least. “That’s good to hear. Thanks.” 

“No problem,” Dex says, and gives him a tired smile. Not because he’s tired of Keefe, but because it’s who knows what hour in the morning now and Dex has been on a losing streak with his sleep schedule for roughly a week now. 

Keefe sighs. “I wish I could hug you,” he whines. “You’re always so nice about putting up with my bullshit, and you’re cute when you’re tired, and I call you all the time but I still miss you because it’s not the same as when I could wrap my arm around you and say I’ve got you, Dexy, without physical consequences.” 

There are many, many things that Dex could think in response to that. There are many, many things that Dex does think in response to that. But the first thing that comes to mind is if this conversation had been a string of imparter texts, Keefe would have written something along the lines of “:(((“ at least once just now. 

Keefe bulldozes on. “Like, you’re so…patient,” 

And then Dex cuts him off with a snort. “You are the first person I have ever heard call me patient. Ever.” 

“I—okay, fine. You’re not patient with gadgets or alchemy or anything that’s a project,” Keefe laughs, and then his voice goes…gentle. Like midnight rain. “But you’re patient with people. You’re patient with me.”

You’re patient with me, Keefe says, and Dex thinks, What an interesting way to say ‘I love you’. 

It’s an observation. Not a revelation, because Dex has known for months now that his dynamic with Keefe is defined by oddities. They are misfits on the outskirts of everything they know. They are two boys that don’t fit neatly into any boxes—one with a genetically modified ability that’s drastically altered his life in ways no one knows how to fix, and the other the son of a bad match that’s become a regent at 15 and a Black Swan technopath even younger. They are more than that, too, and they see all of that more in each other. They see all the mundane more and the wild more and all the more in between that doesn’t fit into any box society likes. They’ve been seeing more of all the more in one another over these past few months, and scrapping their discoveries together like spare parts into something that’s probably confusing and worthless to the rest of the world, but it works for them.

Progressing without refining, coloring outside the lines—it’s not what mechanics or artists are supposed to do, but for this piece, for their style, for their invention, it works for them.

This weird version of love that they have, that seems to permanently float either between or outside platonic and romantic binaries (Dex is too sleepy to tell): it works for them.

It works for them.

“You make being patient worth it, Keefe. You always do, in the long run.”

Half-lidded eyes shoot wide, and Dex can’t tell if the glaze over icy irises is due to tears or lighting until Keefe’s turning away and whining, “Dex, what the fuck did I say about not wanting to cry?” 

Dex is glad that his words touched Keefe, since his hands can’t. Appreciation presents itself through amused exhales at the smile on Keefe’s face that won’t go away. “I thought you liked honesty, though?” he teases. 

Keefe rolls back over in his twist of bedding to glare at his imparter, but it looks more like a pout. “Yeah, but I also like not having a crisis over whether or not—I’m pretending I live in an ideal world that doesn’t hate me, by the way—I want to draw you a bajillion times or paint you a bajillion times or tickle fight you until you’re in hysterics because I like the way your laugh sounds or hug you for an eon normally or hug you for an eon the way we did on the eckodon or if I want to kiss you. And I know that last part’s probably overreacting, but also, I can’t tell if it’s wanting to, like, kiss you on the cheek? Or more than that? Or less? Which makes things harder and way more confusing,” 

Dex’s eyebrows aren’t practically touching his hairline, they are touching his hairline. (In spirit. Because eyebrow muscles don’t work like that in the real world. He thinks.) Dex adds You want a REPEAT of the eckodon ride? onto his mental list of conversation topics, then asks the slightly more pressing question he got from Keefe’s rambling: “You want to kiss me?” 

Because Keefe Sencen? Renowned heartthrob that had half the girls at Foxfire wrapped around his finger without even trying that hard? Wanting to kiss him? Him? Dex Dizznee? The sheer notion was fucking absurd. Bonkers. Ridiculous.

“I mean—like—listen—okay, just, just let me explain before your brain runs wild, I know how you are,” Keefe splutters.

Dex suppresses a grin at Keefe being the flustered one for once. “Oh, I’m definitely listening.” 

“Okay, so, first off, kissing was a brief idea that popped into my head when I thought, How do I show Dex how much I care about him? Kind of like an afterthought. And the original afterthought was, like, impulsively kissing your cheek. In a goofy way. Not full-on making out with you or anything.” Keefe pauses, and two things shift in the meantime: Keefe’s facial expression tipping off of panic into thoughtfulness, and Dex’s facial color gradually sliding from its pale base color to a blush that only gets more vivid as Keefe talks. “Though I probably wouldn’t complain if we made out, but it’s not something I’m yearning for every second of every day or anything. The possibility only just hit me, after all. I want it if you want it, I mean. But if you don’t, I’m all good. We’re all good.” 

Dex blinks. Throws all caution to the wind, and thinks about it. Thinks about whether or not he’d like that kind of kissing from Keefe. Keefe would most likely start slow, because that feels like a Keefe thing to do, so Dex imagines that. Imagines how he might feel if they were whispering to directly into each other’s ears instead of each other’s imparters, if Keefe pulled him in for a kiss instead of keeping his distance without compromising himself—

—and almost immediately thinks No thanks. Which is a little odd, since he likes the way Keefe looks and acts, but his stomach hollows out at the idea of another mouth moving over his, no matter how kind the intention. Mashing two mouths together is an overrated display of affection hyped up too much by mom’s romcoms and other romance enthusiasts is the explanation for it that pops up into Dex’s head. The lack of spark or pull that Dex feels towards kissing in general plus the weirdness of textures and germs interacting through mouth to mouth contact probably factors into his opinion too.

Overriding that kind of mind and body instinct feels wrong, so Dex offers up more honesty to Keefe. “I think I’ll pass on the kissing. Making-out kissing, at least. Kissing anyone makes me feel weird—a bad kind of weird, if you get what I mean.” 

“Sir yes sir!” Keefe barks out, giving him a cheesy salute, and Dex giggles. “Thank you for making it easier to make my brain shut up about kissing you. The identity crisis prevention is appreciated.” 

“Of course, of course,” Dex jests. “But for the record, I don’t think you potentially wanting to kiss boys in general is a bad thing. As long as they’re good for you, y’know?” 

Quiet overlays Keefe’s demeanor, and Dex can practically hear the gears in his brain turning. Processing. Then Keefe gives a small smile and says, “Thanks, Dex. I’ll keep it in mind. Buuuuuut,” Keefe claps his hands suddenly, and Dex nearly jumps out of his skin. “I’m not in the mood for heavy introspection right now! Soooo…maybe you could tell me about the things I said that you’d be okay and not okay with instead? For the sake of, like, boundaries and stuff.” 

“Ah, yes. Discussing boundaries when we’re both sleep deprived and not thinking straight. Incredibly intelligent move.” 

Dex apparently didn’t put enough lightheartedness into his deadpan, because Keefe scrambles to backtrack. “I mean, yeah, you have a point, we can do that sometime later in daylight, or later, or never. Whatever you feel like. No worries.” 

“I was joking. We can and probably should talk about it now, even if we’re not 100% functioning,” Dex reassures. 

“Okay. Um. Where do you want to start?” 

Dex references his mental conversation prep list, and plucks out a relevant item he hasn’t used yet. (He will use the sunshine comment before the end of this hail, or so help him.) “Can we talk about the whole ‘basically wanting a repeat of the eckodon ride’ thing? Because in the moment you seemed pretty eager to end that, and I’m simultaneously confused and curious at your…change of heart, so to speak.” 

A hypothesis Dex will never be able to test the accuracy of: If Keefe weren’t under the weak starlight of his bedroom walls and somewhere brighter in this moment, Dex would be able to see a flush crawling over Keefe’s ears. Perhaps even over his cheeks, too. The musing is based on evidence—the hand running through Keefe’s bedhead, the loaded exhale, the averted gaze, the upper teeth worrying his lower lip. 

Anxiously, Keefe chants strings of swears under his breath before composing himself a little. “First things first, just to know how much of my dignity I’m losing here at whatever time of night it is right now, can you tell me how often you think about the eckodon ride? And what you think of it, if you do think of it at all?” 

Oh god. Dex had not prepped for actually talking about that. At all. 

So much for not floundering later on in the conversation, he curses his past self. 

“Do you want me to start right now and then just pause and backtrack when I word things wrong, or do you want me to try and get things sorted out before I talk?” Clarification and a counterattack, a delay of the inevitable. 

“Take your time,” Keefe murmurs. 

Dex does. While Keefe breathes in a purposeful pattern he messes up every now and then, Dex rearranges the scramble of thoughts in his head until every piece is in the right place. And then he double checks to make sure it’s right. And when he thinks Maybe I should triple check, he forces the words out into a freefall and hopes that when they collide into the connection between him and Keefe, it won’t hurt. “Before I get into emotional vulnerability, I would like to say that I still stand by my opinion that your breath stunk. You need to invest in having carry-on breath mints at all times, dude.” 

Keefe bursts out laughing, and it’s everything from playful ocean waves curling and splashing at his lower legs on a shoreline walk to distant melodies whispered in the wind. “I’ll do that, next time I go out,” Keefe promises, and for now, only Dex will ever know how big it is to hear Keefe make plans for a more social future he said he’d given up on at the beginning of these nighttime hails. “But only if you do too. Because I swear, your breath rivaled gulon farts, my guy.” 

But only if you do too. My guy. It softens Dex like the glow of the stars outside his window. His smile is a crescent in the dark. “Fine, fine, I will. Maybe I’ll make my own and hail you so you can watch alchemy antics.” 

“Please do. But finish talking first.” 

Dex takes a deep breath. “Okay. Uh. Where was I?” 

“Emotional vulnerability, I think?” 

Exhale, trace back to which thought he left off on, and go. Hurtle out of comfort and into the brilliantly terrifying unknown. Speak before the end of the fall. “Right, emotional vulnerability time. I don’t think of the eckodon ride every second of every day or anything. But it pops up from time to time. More often when I’m talking to you, of course, but it’s not like I can hear whale songs or see Z-shaped objects without at least briefly thinking about it. As for what I think of the eckodon ride, I think…” Dex falters. Stumbles. His carefully constructed thoughts flutter just out of reach. 

What was I thinking earlier? What have I thought about it before? “I think it was nice. Confusingly nice, but nice. I felt—it felt—it was different. A lot more physical contact than I was used to. And I guess I liked looking at you close up more than I was willing to admit before. Noticing little details was interesting—like how long your eyelashes are, since I didn’t really have anywhere to look but your eyes and I usually try to look close to people’s eyes but not quite since I get distracted by their eyes when they talk if I make eye contact, but we weren’t talking, and I just got to look, and—ugh, I’m rambling. That sounds weird. My words aren’t, I dunno what the word is—wording? Right? That’s wrong, but whatever. My words aren’t wording. You get what I mean.” 

Dex drags his hands down his face, and grimaces at the light layer of sweat that’s built up there in such a small amount of time. Has the freefall ended yet? Will his stomach please stop hollowing out? 

The freefall crashes to an end, and Dex slips out of the wind into into safe waters when Keefe asks, “So you didn’t mind how close we were the whole time?” 

With only the moon as a witness, the timidness in Keefe’s voice is clear. With only the moon as a witness, all the air empties out of Dex’s lungs when he says “I didn’t really mind, but I thought you did,” into what feels like six feet underneath the sky. 

Thuds pulse loudly in his veins and ears in the real silence. Every gentle slide of fabric moving with the crests and troughs of Dex’s breathing feels like the edge of too much, but Dex doesn’t know which side of the edge it falls onto. Staring at his imparter is too much now, too, so he turns his face into his pillow and swipes his thumb back and forth across his sheets as a nearly futile distraction from his frazzled senses. 

Keefe reels him out of it, out of the increasingly weird stimulation levels and the imaginary water. “I didn’t really mind either, and I didn’t know what to do with that, so I shoved you away and jumped to something that I understood. And then I tried not to think about it. Which worked for a while, but then Loamnore happened, and now it’s really hard to not think about how much I miss being close to people, which makes it extra hard to not think about the eckodon ride when I’m around you, and now we’re here.”

A hum vibrates in Dex’s throat; it resonates with all the gadgets scattered around his room on sleep mode. “So originally, you didn’t want to fully process the eckodon ride, but now that you have, you miss that kind of proximity?” 

“Yes,” Keefe breathes out a syllable and longing. 

“That makes sense,” Dex nods to himself. 

Contemplation lulls talking from either end of the line to sleep for a little while, but not Dex. Yet. At some point, Dex’s imparter slipped so that he couldn’t see Keefe and Keefe couldn’t see him. Not focusing on the changes in his expressions and environment, when it’s so late and quiet and Dex woke up at 2am yesterday and hasn’t slept since, makes it a little difficult to stay awake. 

“So if I end up being able to handle touching people at some point in the future,” Keefe starts, and Dex starts at the sudden verbalism and the hope in his voice that they both thought he’d lost, “kissing you is a no, but hugs are a yes?” 

“Hugs are a yes,” Dex agrees. 

“What about, um—” Keefe stops short. 

Laziness compels Dex to flick his imparter upright with telekinesis instead of just reaching over and grabbing it. He raises an eyebrow at Keefe. “What about what?” 

Dex is the furthest thing the elvin world knows to an empath, and yet. And yet. He can feel Keefe’s embarrassment through the countless miles separating Rimeshire and Splendor Plains. Keefe’s almost completely buried beneath blankets, pressed deep enough into his pillow that only some messy blond tufts are visible. 

“This is so stupid,” Keefe grumbles into fabric. 

“I think this is rather funny, actually. Hilarious, even,” Keefe can’t see Dex’s shit-eating grin. “Share with the class, Keefe. How were you gonna finish that sentence? Be honest,” 

(Dex turns down his imparter volume to the lowest setting. Just in case a certain froster is wandering around the halls with those silent mom feet of hers and walks in at the worst time possible.) 

Dex thinks he hears Keefe mumble holding hands, but that seems far too innocent to be correct, so he asks, “What?” 

Keefe pops up out of his cocoon. He looks like he wants to shrivel up and disappear to somewhere that’s anywhere but near his imparter. “Holding hands. That’s how I was going to end the sentence.” 

Suspicion narrows Dex’s eyes. “Considering the kind of jokes you like to make, I feel like it takes more than the idea of holding hands to get you flustered,” 

“Not anymore,” 

Dex can’t tell if Keefe is whining or scraping the surface of loneliness that he’s shoved aside for tonight, and decides it’s a good idea to pull him away from that. He can lament his losses when the sun’s there to smatter more freckles along the bridge of his nose. “Getting back to the point—you wanted to know how I felt about you wanting to hold my hand?” 

Slowly, Keefe nods. 

“I don’t see why it’d be anything to get flustered about. We used to hold hands for light leaping all the time. Extending that doesn’t seem like a huge deal, in this hypothetical.” 

“How the fuck are you so chill about this but I’m not,” Keefe says, and yeah, he’s definitely whining now. 

Dex laughs. “My serious answer is because 1) I’m not touch starved and 2) we’re talking theoreticals, and my emotions kind of take a backseat during conversations like these so my critical thinking skills can take the wheel, since it feels like there’s no stakes since it’s all, as I said, theoretical. My joking answer, on the other hand, is because I’m cooler than you.” 

Keefe cracks a smile. “True, true,” 

“Anything else you wanted to talk about?” 

“Is there anything else I said earlier that you’re not cool with?” Keefe returns. 

“List it off again?” 

“Uhhhh…” What some humans would call Keefe’s ‘Adam’s apple’ bobs as he tips his head back and thinks. He raises one hand and flips up a finger for each item he rattles off. “Stuff we haven’t talked about yet: Me wanting to draw you a bajillion times, me wanting to paint you a bajillion times, me wanting to get into a tickle fight with you just because I like how your laugh sounds, and teeeechnically cuddling?” 

This is the kind of thing that Dex should probably have to mull over for a while, but answers come to him oddly easily. “All of those are fine, but I will warn you that I might kick you on instinct if you tickle me too much. Which isn’t that hard. My dad makes fun of me all the time for still being ticklish. He said that Dizznees usually have built up immunity to tickles by my age.” 

Keefe blinks. Numerous times. Exaggeratedly. “Normally I’d be losing my mind at you being cool with me using you as a pillow for no reason, but I’m way too stuck on tickle immunity being a thing you can build up.” 

Dex forgets to be quiet with his wheezing. “Dude, I have so many whack stories about things me and my family have done that have to do with tickling. Like, my dad said that when he was a level two he’d make elixirs specifically to give him vampire fangs so he could bite his siblings harder when they tried to tickle him,” 

The tea kettle monkey screeching hysterical laughter from before comes back with a vengeance, and Dex is very glad his imparter is as quiet as it can be without deafening Keefe out entirely. “I need the full story now,” he gasps out. 

“You’re in for a ride,” Dex says, settling into a more comfortable position on his bed. But then he remembers one thing he swore he’d say before this hail ended, and makes sure to look the camera head on when he comments, “Oh, by the way, before I don’t shut up for another three hours, good job getting some sunshine. The freckles look nice on you.” 

Horror rounds Keefe’s eyes comically. He frantically runs his fingers along his cheeks as if his aforementioned freckles were braille spelling out some awful message on his face. “You can see them?” 

“How else would I know they look nice on you?” 

Keefe groans and curls up like the roly poly bugs Dex loved to pick up as a kid. Keefe’s imparter falls forward, and the imparter screen thumps into fuzzy blackness. “I chase Bullhorn around the property so Elwin can have a break for a day one time, and this is how the world rewards me,” 

“As I basically told you already: I think it’s a great reward. Anyway. Wanna hear about just how petty my family gets or not?” 

“I’m 100% down, Dexy. Hit me with good old storytime.” 

Storytelling hasn’t ever really been Dex’s thing, but Keefe doesn’t seem to have high standards, which is nice. (The other explanation is that Dex is better at storytelling than he thinks, which he refuses to believe because he hates being wrong about anything ever.) He laughs more than Dex expected, and insists on getting his sketchbook at one point to draw out certain parts, and then they both giggle so hard they can’t breathe. They gesture and talk and talk and talk until Keefe says his throat and ribs hurt, and Dex agrees on that last part. 

Dex’s last thought before his breathing slows and evens out is some hazy musing of how nice it is that he can be Keefe’s person without having to feel hummingbirds or butterflies to get there. 

Both of their imparters are on when they fall asleep to soft whirrs and wake up to peaceful daylight.

[trashmammal69]

Signalis fans how we feelin about The Cremation of Sam McGee (cover by Seth Boyer). Give it a listen, it's one of my favorites!

Lyrics and light analysis under the cut! (Spoiler warning!)

"There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;"

I feel it's very easy to relate this to the mines at Sierpinski, digging deeper than they should for things best left buried.

"Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he'd often say in his homely way that 'he'd sooner live in hell.'"

Ariane, despite the life she had, is drawn to the scouting project. The claustrophobic vessel she copilots liberates her. It will be the end of her. Still, she remains.

"He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, 'I'll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, well I ask that you won't refuse my last request."

I don't think I need to elaborate here.

"Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:

'It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains.'

The fear of a worse fate if action is not taken. The fear of rotting in a hell of your own creation.

"A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee."

Her agonizing deterioration. Radiation leaking from busted engines long past their expiration date. Memories of the beach.

"And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: 'Please close that door.

It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm.'"

Bliss from a promise kept.

[biblicalhorror]

Zaylor Midnights, Part I

Okay time to actually start typing things out for my beloved Zaylor/Toë Nation

First things first, please complete your essential reading on the subject.

Second, some disclaimers:

-This is just for fun. Some of it is playfully reaching for sure. You don't have to buy into it, but please keep an open mind and come along for the ride! We'd love to have you!

-I refuse to assign a specific sexuality to any of these people due to the fact that I don't know any of them personally. All I know is I just get ✨️more than friends✨️ vibes from these two. You don't have to agree with me, but please don't waste my time by being rude about it.

-My personal fan relationship to celebrities includes freely criticizing them for things they do that I don't agree with. It's fine if that's not your style, but please don't be surprised when I call someone a spineless capitalist or nepotism baby. If the shoe fits...

-Somewhat related to the above point: I'm also an Astrology Gay. That means that I may occasionally mention astrological compatibility and things of that nature. Again, if that's not your cup of tea, that's fine! You don't have to believe in it. But my personal philosophy is to weigh all of the evidence available, and I happen to know a lot about astrology, which means some of my "evidence" may come from there. So I will likely be talking about their signs a bit. If not in this post, then in future ones.

-The main goal of this post (and other Zaylor posting I may do in the future) is to diversify the perspectives in the Gaylor community. I have nothing against Karlie Kloss or Dianna Agron, but I am bored of nearly every Gaylor analysis being linked back to one of those two. I think it's time for a Zaylor Era.

That being said, let's get into it song by song, shall we?

1. Lavender Haze

Not that this is definitely true, but there has been some speculation among Gaylors for some time that Zoë is the muse for many of the love songs on Reputation and onwards. There's not much hard evidence of this, but it's worth noting that Zoë and Taylor were first seen in public together in October of 2016 (6 years + 1 week before Midnights would be released)

Taylor says this song specifically is about ignoring all the "weird" (pregnancy/engagement) rumors and just focusing on her partner of 6 years. This "partner" could be Joe. I'm not saying it's definitely not. But what if it's been Zoë this whole time?

"Staring at the ceiling with you" Zoë Kravitz, known stoner, and her boyfriend/girlfriend, baby stoner Taylor Swift:

Lavender Haze is a popular Indica strain of weed known to be very relaxing/calming but also boost creativity in regular marijuana users. Zoë is one of the officially listed writers (and backup singers) on this song. The thought of them writing a song together about being in love and also high on their favorite weed strain makes me giggle.

"I've been under scrutiny... You handle it beautifully... all this shit is new to me" >>> Zoë is a nepotism baby, very much used to fame and growing up in the music industry specifically, very much Above It All (we'll come back to this later)

Taylor was just quoted in this article talking about Zoë's strong "sense of self" and "honest inner compass" idk about you, but that certainly lends itself to theories that this above-it-all muse who doesn't seem to care at all what people think could be someone who was right under our noses this whole time.

Also note: this is for GQ's "Men of the Year" series. That + this fruity ass outfit should be noted...

"No deal... the 1950s shit they want from me/ I just wanna stay in that lavender haze"

Could easily be interpreted in a queer context, since the 1950s are famous for anti-gay propaganda such as the Lavender Scare, the prevalence of the Hays Code, etc.

Essentially, this could recontextualize this song as an act of rebellion against social norms of gender and sexuality through private, personal expressions of queer love. Given that the song doesn't explicitly say any of those things out loud, it's kind of a toothless act of rebellion, but I digress. Both of these women are exorbitantly rich, extremely famous, bad at taking criticism/admitting fault, and prone to escapism. Classic Sagittarius behavior tbh (/j)

Oh, I'm sure.

Another note from the end of that GQ article: Zoë says this about her new relationship with Channing Tatum (rumored to be PR as they are costars in an upcoming movie):

Interesting wording here.

This song is about being a Sag 4 Sag lesbian stoner couple. Moving on.

2. Maroon

This song is likely about Lily or Karlie, could have some ties to Dianna, but probably not about Zoë so all I will say is:

She for sure burns incense/owns a vinyl shelf. Look at her.

3. Anti-Hero

Not a romantic song per se, but lends to the Lover coming out theory:

"Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism" w the visual of covering up a lavender glitter bleeding heart with a political pin... cmon

Also, Catwoman (recently played by Zoë) is an extremely famous example of an antihero. Taylor uses a lot of Batman/Catwoman callouts in this album, in the song titles specifically.

4. Snow on the Beach

"I saw flecks of what could've been but it might just have been you passing by unbeknownst to me"

Again, Toë hung out in public for the first time at the Bowery in 2016 in a big group of friends. This song describes the feeling of having a crush on someone you thought couldn't possibly be reciprocated but it turns out huh!! They like you too!! Beyond how gay that situation is already, Verified Cool Girl Zoë Kravitz absolutely could have come across particularly aloof in their first few meetings. Her name (and reputation/public image) is all about being a Cool Girl. This song could be about Taylor being shocked that someone as cool as Zoë could actually like her back.

"My flight was awful, thanks for asking, I'm unglued thanks to you" parallels with the Gold Rush line "Falling feels like flying till the bone crush". It's happened. Taylor fell for her, and feels like a mess because of the feelings this has brought up.

A note from the gospel power point:

"I searched aurora borealis green, I've never seen someone lit from within, blurring out my periphery" as in. She searched for the green light. The go-ahead. In the eyes of her crush, she's desperately searching for validation that what she feels is reciprocated. She seems to find what shes looking for, and describes her love interest as glowing from within. My girl loves a Great Gatsby reference. (As an aside: this is one of my favorite lines on the whole album. It's so vivid. Gives me chills every time.)

The six-year muse is often referred to with star/shooting star motifs ("Starry eyes sparkin' up my darkest night," "Eyes full of stars," "Stars in your eyes shined brighter in Tupelo," "Do I really have to chart the constellations in his eyes," etc.) Zoë has at least 6 star tattoos in various placements on her body (not to mention at least 3 different snakes, one of which is coiled around a heart)

"Stars by the pocketful" could be a reference to the star tattoos on Zoë's hands being in Taylor's pockets as they cuddle for warmth in the snow. (I'm aware the snow in this song is likely metaphorical, but how cute is that mental image?)

5. You're On Your Own, Kid

Again, not a romantic song. Also not (particularly) gay, so we'll skip this one for now.

6. Midnight Rain

A song that could very well be about comphet and mourning for the easy life that you could have as a heterosexual. But lots of people have talked about this already and it is not particularly relevant to Toë/Zaylor, so I won't waste too much time on it.

7. Question...?

Gay. Probably not about Zoë though. This song seems very retrospective, like she lost the person she's describing. These two seem like they're still very close, so it's unlikely this song has anything to do with Zoë.

-----

That's all Tumblr mobile will let me fit into one post, so we're gonna have to take an intermission there!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (Coming Soon)

[agp]

hey if youre on turtle island or still tuesday and feel like trying a quick silly browser game you should check out tradle. (i think it updates at midnight based on time zones?) todays is real fun i prommy.

you get five guesses to figure out a country from its export data, and after each guess they tell you how far away you are and what direction the county youre looking for is. i know it sounds like a ridiculous challenge but this one has a bunch of easy hints and giveaways that are accessible to your average westerner

if its wednesday by now or you want to see the data presented differently check out this silly economy under the cut (bolded 'spoilers' ig)

total export value: 371b (usd)

gold: 86.7b (23%}

packaged meds: 48.5b (13%)

vaccines, blood, cultures, etc: 40.3b (11%)

base metal watches: 15.2b (4%)

nitrogen heterocyclic compounds: 14.2b (4%)

jewlery: 9.35b (2.5%)

precious metal watches: 8.97b (2.5%)

orthopedic appliances: 7.02b (2%)

hormones: 3.38b

coffee: 3.36b

electricity: 3.19b

medical instruments: 3.09b

machinery w indv functions: 3.04b

platinum: 2.54b

chemical analysis instruments: 2.27b

nucleic acids: 2.17b

valves: 2.17b

silver: 2.01b

electric motors: 1.78b

scented mixtures: 1.72b

sulfonamides: 1.71b

diamonds: 1.64b

planes, helicopters, and spacecraft: 1.63b

beauty products: 1.58b

other heating machinery: 1.43b

flavored water: 1.43b

gas turbines: 1.38b

low voltage protection eq: 1.34b

gas and liquid flow measuring inst: 1.3b

carboxyamide compounds: 1.26b

other measuring instruments: 1.24b

air pumps: 1.16b

motor vehicles, parts, and acc: 1.14b

petroleum gas: 1.12b

electrical transformers: 1.11b

aluminum plating: 1.07b

other plastic products: 1.01b

metal working machine parts: 988m

vitamins: 965m

polyamides: 963m

washing and bottling machines: 925m

chocolate: 887m

oxygen amino compounds: 885m

integrated circuits: 884m

iron fasteners: 881m

paintings: 873m

transmissions: 855m

special pharmaceuticals: 837m

insulated wire: 828m

electrical power accessories: 826m

plastic lids: 818m

cheese: 800m

antibiotics: 797m

liquid pumps: 797m

cars: 789m

ink: 752m

non mechanical removal machinery: 737m

trunks and cases: 734m

centrifuges: 730m

interchangeable tool parts: 728m

high voltage protection eq: 705m

hand saws: 693m

other edible preparations: 680m

electric heaters: 679m

electrical control boards: 672m

polyacetals: 664m

plastic pipes: 636m

electric soldering equipment: 616m

precious metal compounds: 608m

industrial fatty acids, oils, and alcohols: 608m

hot rolled iron bars: 590m

self propelled rail transport: 582m

refined petroleum: 577m

hydrazine or hydroxylamine derivatives: 565m

precious stones: 563m

rubber working machinery: 561m

unpackaged meds: 557m

other iron products: 553m

precious metal scraps 550m

computers: 545m

surveying equipment: 523m

other plastic sheetings: 519m

metal finishing machines: 516m

scrap copper: 514m

semiconductor devices: 511m

raw plastic sheeting: 494m

documents or title and stamps: 490m

rolled tobacco: 487m

malt extract: 469m

other electrical machinery: 467m

other paper machinery: 450m

oxygen heterocyclic compounds: 441m

non knit mens suits: 441m

synthetic coloring matter: 436m

locomotive parts: 432m

non knit womens suits: 428m

iron structures: 424m

leather footwear: 421m

industrial printers: 415m

lifting machinery: 415m

scrap iron: 412m

therapeutic appliances: 410m

office machine parts: 410m

other clocks and watches: 405m

metal molds: 403m

other furniture: 403m

glaziers putty: 377m

liquid dispersing machines: 376m

knitting machine accessories: 370m

other small iron pipes: 369m

broadcasting equipment: 367m

aircraft parts: 363m

industrial food prep machinery: 362m

glues: 357m

pesticides: 349m

oscilloscopes: 344m

raw aluminum: 344m

knit sweaters: 339m

optical fibers and bundles: 334m

excavation machinery: 332m

non iron/steel slag ash and residue: 319m

carboxylic acids: 315m

xray equipment: 315m

electric motor parts: 315m

watch straps: 313m

tanks and armoured vehicles: 310m

forging machines: 309m

cleaning products: 306m

metalworking transfer machines: 298m

animal food: 294m

combustion engines: 282m

engine parts: 271m

electric generating sets: 254m

scrap aluminum: 249m

laboratory reagents: 249m

perfumes: 244m

other rubber products: 241m

photo lab equipment: 240m

wheat: 236m

lubricating products: 234m

printed circuit boards: 233m

aluminum bars: 230m

explosive ammunition: 230m

brooms: 224m

lcds: 223m

refrigerators: 223m

motorcycles and cycles: 221m

large construction vehicles: 221m

coal briquettes: 221m

corn: 220m

aluminum cans: 219m

textile footwear: 217m

thermostats: 207m

coffee and tea extracts: 206m

other aluminum products: 204m

ball bearings: 203m

knives: 199m

machines for additive mnf: 195m

raw iron bars: 187m

delivery trucks: 185m

milling stones: 176m

aluminum foil: 170m

collectors items: 169m

soybean oil: 169m

wood fiberboard: 166m

other stainless steel bars: 164m

sculptures: 160m

cutting blades: 159m

baked goods: 150m

navigation equipment: 146m

hydrometers: 137m

watch cases and parts: 134m

laboratory ceramic wear: 134m

wood carpentry: 124m

mirrors and lenses: 117m

[boxmorelover232]

Batman: TB&TB Infection AU Characters

So, I had a lot of fun writing out this AU. And I'm the type who can't put something down even though I probably should. If I ever get around to sketching out art of these guys in this AU, I'm definitely gonna add them here!

So, here are some of the characters who'd play a role in this AU!

Music Meister (Dennis Prowell)

(Yeah, big shock, but let me cook)

So, Dennis managed to escape being captured and lived under the radar in the old Gotham Opera House.

When the Vampiric Outbreak hit, Dennis was in the Opera House trying to devise a new crime to commit (with songs). Curious about what could be causing so much noise, he checked outside, realizing it was midnight. It was replaced with fear when a Vampire caught sight of him and ran after him. Thankfully, Dennis shut the door on it, locking and barricading it for good measure. He quickly did the same for every entrance and exit in the Opera House.

About a week after barricading himself inside and listening to the radio Dennis had a grasp on the situation: Vampires had taken over Gotham and were trying to make their way to other cities. Garlic was ineffective, and the only confirmed way to kill them was via direct sunlight. The Dark Knight was nowhere to be found. People were encouraged to stay inside at night and only come out during daylight. (And be wary of shadows and shaded places).

Dennis ran low on food and had no choice but to go out, and hope he wouldn't encounter one of those Vampires. He put on all his best gear and largest sachel and went out with his Conductor's Baton and Beam Note Scooter.

When he entered an abandoned grocery store, Dennis encountered a Vampire. It was a terrifying experience; the Vampire wasn't slowed down at all with attacks (physical and energy-based), it was too fast to outrun, his gear barely held up against those thing's claws, and Dennis somehow found himself cornered. Fear was thrumming in his veins, his heartbeat in his ears as he watched the Vampire slowly creep toward him. He didn't know what to do, he was going to die at this rate. Dennis didn't want to die, he didn't want to die, he didn't want to die!!!!!!!

What happened next was a blur, the most Dennis remembers is opening his mouth to scream and this. Loud, unrestrained sonic BLAST erupted. Dennis's ears rang and he opened his eyes on instinct to see what made that sound (Part of him hoped it was Black Canary, coming to save him), but the sight of part of the grocery store caved in along with a dead Vampire (confirmed after some poking and holding his breath) made him think otherwise.

Dennis grabbed whatever he could and rode back to the Opera House, not wanting to encounter another Vamp and needing time to gather his thoughts. Dennis may have leaned toward electrical engineering, but he knew a little about science and biology (mostly centered around his voice and how his power worked). After digging out his old analysis equipment and getting it working again, Dennis discovered something shocking! His ability to hypnotize people through a special pitch he could hit had mutated; he could hit a pitch higher than that to create a sonic blast that could stun or kill his enemies. Dennis felt conflicted about this development. On one hand, he now had something to protect himself from Vampire attacks. However, despite this sudden mutation occurring at the worst possible time, Dennis could see all the applications possible for committing crimes if the world were to return to how it was before. First, though, Dennis would need to practice his newfound ability and master control over it.

So, Dennis began practicing his Sonic Blast (he's still workshopping the name) every chance he got. He was still cautious, walking around outside during the day and wore armor with him (after raiding a few places specializing in thick fabrics and armor), but every time he encountered a Vampire, he did his best to use his new ability and it works about 50% of the time now! The times where it doesn't, well. He found that beheading and a stab through the heart do work on these Vamps).

Clock King (William Tockman)

William Tockman was a simple man. He liked waking up at 6 am sharp, working at the Clock shop he's been at for the last decade, and becoming Clock King to blow off steam. That, however, was all turned on its head thanks to those damn Vampires.

William had heard on the news and from his co-workers that Vampires had taken over Gotham a few days ago but thought nothing of it until Batman's disappearance was brought up. It wasn't completely unheard of for the Dark Knight to leave his city if all the times he's teamed up with other heroes was anything to go by, but he'd always have someone looking after the place in his stead. No Batman or substitute in his place was not a good sign.

Despite his better judgment, William contacted the one person whom he knew could (hopefully) shed some light on this and ease his worries the only way he knew how. By breaking into the Star City Bank. When Green Arrow arrived, looking a little worse for wear, Clock King had told him he wasn't here to fight; he just wanted some answers. Initially skeptical, Clock King informed the archer he had heard that Gotham was under siege with no Batman or heroes substituting in his stead by Vampires. When asked why he wanted to talk to Green Arrow, Clock King admitted that despite their long history as enemies, he personally saw themselves are friends. Or at least, friendly.

There was a thick tension in the air before Green Arrow put down his bow and told Clock King everything he knew. Batman had been bitten by Dala and turned into a Vampire, and had turned most of the JSI into Vamps before Martian Manhunter and Etrigan put a stop to them. Hearing the news of Batman's death along with the other heroes' was...hard. But then, Clock King thought of something. If Batman was a Vampire and died, how did Gotham fall victim to them? Green Arrow doesn't know but suspected Batman turned at least one Gothamite into a Vamp before he went after the JSI. Green Arrow vented a little about Batman's death, and Will's heart broke for the man he's always seen as a frienemy. He wanted to do something, not just to stop the Vampires, but also to help this desperate man in his time of need. So, he made a decision.

William revealed himself to Green Arrow, proposing a team-up to keep Star City safe and to kill the Vampires plaguing Gotham. It was a risky move, but Will knew that whoever was in charge of those Vampires was probably hungry (for power, blood, or whatever else) and wouldn't stop until there wasn't a soul left human on this planet. Possibly space if a Green Lantern or space-based hero was turned. With the world's most capable and highly-regarded hero gone, someone would need to take up the mantle and find a way to stop this madness. Green Arrow obviously had connections and William had some of his own he could employ; pooling their resources together wouldn't be a bad idea either, especially since it's likely those Vamps would attack Star City or a neighboring place. He could tell Green Arrow was hesitant, the exhaustion on his face apparent as he asked why William was doing this.

"Why?" Will repeated, mulling over the answer himself. "Because I like what we have, and I don't want those Fotze Vampires to ruin it." Will could tell Green Arrow didn't believe him, he wouldn't be Green Arrow if he weren't hesitant about trusting his archnemesis, but Arrow agreed to the arrangement nonetheless.

And that's how their partnership started. Green Arrow called up everyone he knew to form a barricade around Gotham City, and Will pulled as many strings as he could to get the proper materials needed to build it. Safety measures were implemented for the workers and the design (courtesy of one Mr. David Hyde), with heroes from all over coming to construct this barricade and monitor the Vampire situation from a safe distance. They finished it just a few hours before the first wave of Vampires hit them. It was somewhat amusing to see the army of Vampires, so confident in themselves as they stacked upon one another, flee from the barrier once they stored sun rays began blasting at them.

Since then, Gotham has been put on lockdown, with 24-hour surveillance for any approaching figure, Vampire or not. If a Vamp got too close, they were incinerated with the stored sunlight rays instantly. If any non-Vamp survivors were approaching the wall, they were to be held in containment until they were deemed clean. The barricade was upgraded to have special sensors that could detect if someone was a Vamp or not after the initial wave of Vamps provided a large data pool. (Another fabulous and ingenious design thanks to Mr. Hyde). Guards were unreliable, if Will's experience was anything to go by, and insisted on vetting them himself to ensure the best of the best were selected and could endure the harsh monotony of watching screens and checking the systems were working. Very few made it to the position, but all who did make it proved reliable. Thanks to Will's and Arrow's connections, the barrier's been running smoothly and Star City's crime rates have lowered with the new duo roaming the town: The Green Arrow and The Clock King. (Will let Arrow have top billing because he was nice like that.

Ever since their collaboration, Will has found his life busier and better. While he doesn't appreciate all the late nights he pulls with crimefighting (how the helle does Green Arrow get any sleep???), he is enjoying the positive attention he's been receiving since he went public one of the people responsible for saving Star City and getting a handle under the Vamp problem. The Clock shop has also been doing well and despite his boss and co-workers' insistence on focusing on his work on the barricade, he still works there since he loves this place with all his heart. Turns out being regarded as a savior has its perks, if the bonuses are anything to go by.

Will doesn't know who Green Arrow is, and the one time the hero tried to tell him, Will vehemently wouldn't hear it. He likes that they're getting along so well, but it feels weird to have his long-time rival and friend's identity known to him. Green Arrow will always be Green Arrow to him, and he doesn't care who's under the mask. He just doesn't want to know. Although he has been seeing billionaire Oliver Queen entering his shop recently. According to his co-workers, Mr. Queen is interested in learning about William. Rolls his eyes whenever Mr. Queen comes in, thinking he's interested in the man behind the running of the barricade, and gently lets down Mr. Queen whenever he asks for a chance to get to know him outside of his work. Will thinks it might be time to find a boyfriend so he can get the guy off his back.

Next: [N/A]

Prev: [<]

[torturedbitchesdepartment]

i also find it interesting that taylor calling herself a child at 19 in WCS is perceived uncritically (rightfully so)#and yet “i’m only 17 i don’t know anything” is perceived as a way of james shirking responsibility rather than a genuine statement#very inch resting

sorry just saw this tag and it's something that's really interesting to me so i wanted to chat about it lol. for me, i always interpreted him saying he's 17 and doesn't know anything to be a contrast from cardigan, where betty's age is used to undermine her and invalidate her perspective. i'm much more eloquent about this in my teenage love triangle analysis (it's very long but if you do want to read it it's under the folklore tag on my blog, you don't have to tho bc like i said, long) in a section called "the gender of it all" but gender plays a huge role in the way she tells this story that i find really interesting

and i don't disagree! i think that the idea of youth for boys being used as a get-out-of-jail-free card (ie peter) while it's used to discredit women is something that's very present in a lot of her work.

when folklore came out, i remember i was on instagram (which was my first mistake bc we all know how instagram swifties are) and someone (who i'm assuming was very young) said something like "i can't believe james would say he's only 17 when he's almost an adult." and i was a little taken aback because 1) "almost" is the operative word" 2) i think most people can attest to the fact that growing up isn't a thing where at 11:59 PM on the eve of your 18th birthday, you have the brain of a child, and then the clock strikes midnight and suddenly you have an adult brain and adult decision making skills.

i am also very guilty of being the ones who "assume you know nothing" when you're young! when i was 16 i was in a very bizarre feud with a girl who was in college who like, came back from college so she could go to a party i was at and humiliate me? and like, her dislike of me was very valid because i'd said some annoying and dumb things, but my takeaway from that was "that is such a weird thing that she did, teenagers should be able to say and do dumb stuff without worrying about being crucified" and going forward, i was a lot more lenient when underclassmen would say and do dumb stuff (although i do acknowledge that "being dumb and annoying" is in a very different league than "cheating on your girlfriend", although i do really like @maryoliveoil 's interpretation that they weren't really dating and were actually just in a "will they won't they" situation. it's actually led to me being a little TOO accommodating of youth stupidity (i always joke that i'd make a terrible juvenile court judge because i'd be like "oh, you burnt a building down? that's understandable, tenth grade sucks." and just let them go.)

sorry for the tangent but my ultimate conclusion is that i tend to be tolerant towards teenagers, sometimes to a fault, so i've never capital h Hated james as much as others seem to.

[the-firebird69]

There's a couple other things we understand our side is under duress massive amounts of it and he needs relief we need to come here and protect him and we need it now.

-I'm sending for people to come in here and come on duty and right away I'm also saving people in tomorrow to this area to wreck an order and see why so many people are such assholes I need their faces what they're saying I'm trying to figure out where it's coming from you in the store and the people right there with them were doing it the warlock and a clone they're saying stuff by doing what they're doing it's annoying as hell and he was pissed he should be they did analysis and so we did we and we found tons of stuff, both groups are doing to him and our son and I think they found the coup de gras and it's really not that great but just saying all this stuff like they can do this and that and this and they're looking around saying why doesn't anyone believe us and then they said because they have their own group and we're not trying to fit in we're just trying to muscle them they combine muscle and it's horrible this is your fighting the clones and the clones of muscle you you f****** dimwits. My son said that to him in space back to their dumb meeting and they said what are you talking about. They went on your yimmering and find their clones with them and they got them out.. it's annoying as hell so they seem to kind of weak

-there's a giant number of people who are helping themselves here and not doing a damn thing for anyone we need these people out of here they're crazy they're insane what they say all the time is stupid I'm putting orders together now

-we have a lot of things to talk about it's going to be a huge meeting they're doing a lot of work too

-there's huge huge battle groups getting ready to do war on the upper Midwest against each other and it's a nice and white satin Army versus mostly warlock. Any moment now it could break into a huge conflict. The upper Midwest is evacuating and the Midwest and rapidly. They're moving huge numbers of people right now there's an exodus coming out to Saint Laurent that nobody ever thought possible it's so big everyone's leaving that area and they're leaving the whole upper Midwest and Midwest and a very quick rate it's faster than people thought. Midnight no probably like two a.m. tonight or the morning they will have 50% of the whole areas cleared and they are trying to get more trucks and to get more people out of there every vehicle they have is on the road every shift that moves this movie they're trying now

-a few more days of this stupid s*** and a lot of these animals can be out of here

-we have a number of things that happened today in Charlotte county that were disparaging for the molark. Mac Daddy's saw how weak they were and they're falling for really gross plans that the clones have fed them really gross okay and they're still falling for it and we can't have it so Charlotte county Max declare the state of emergency hey that's what happening

-they got fired from private jobs they were down to like 15% I got 5% more and people going nuts about it and not wanting to help anyways maybe the other side.

Thor Freya

Zues Hera more shortly

Olympus

[kaymarie-bell]

Chapter 6 theories: Is Actually Diasomnia Brainrot edition

So I made a brief summary of a couple of the newest chapters, including the scene with Malleus and Lilia having a chat under the stars [here]. This is my own translation so there’s bound to be mistakes, but that combo gave me a lot to think about so this is going to be an analysis based on my own interpretation (so canon might prove me wrong afterwards and y’all can bring me the clown shoes then.)

TLDR; I wrote an essay on Silver’s lifespan and Lilia’s cryptic words, and how they might lead to Malleus’ overblot in chapter 7. Also pulled some stuff from the Magical Archives. It’s midnight and I should have been working on actual academic stuff so this might not even make sense, read at your own discretion.

There has been many discussions about the angst potential the Diasomnia boys have, but when we’re talking about lifespans in specific the topic almost always focuses on Silver in specific. We can infer that since he is the only human in his family, he is the most likely to grow old and die first. This line of thought leads to the angsty fic ideas about Lilia and Malleus (plus Sebek) saying goodbye to Silver; however that conversation made me (and many others I’m sure) start thinking that: what if instead of having Lilia say goodbye and move on with his life he has already decided that when Silver goes he goes with him?

Lilia has lived for a long time, he always makes sure to remind the players that, and when he thinks about humans he seems to navigate towards their short lifespans almost every time. During that conversation Malleus voices both his loneliness (he basically feels a sense of companionship with ruins since they are also “left behind in history” along with fae) and his discomfort at not having MC around, and Lilia’s immediate reaction is to remind him how fae have extremely long lifespans unlike humans so he must cherish the memories he makes. This could feel like Lilia trying to stop Malleus from getting too attached to MC as they are human, but Lilia himself has familial ties with another human so it’s possible that this is a reflection of something he has been thinking about for a while now…

Lilia is aware of the differences between humans and fae, so he is undoubtedly aware of Silver’s most likely future. His comment about how this might be the last time he wishes on the aligned stars came out of nowhere, and even Malleus was confused. The amount of years between this date and the last time the stars aligned might be important, the 18 years was a direct reference to Hercules so that is not worrying, but then he says it could’ve been either 100 or 300 years ago…So let’s say that this only happens once every one hundred years at the very least, that many years seem to be nothing for a fae- but it happens to be right around the life expectancy of a human. So unless Lilia has been suffering from some illness or curse that even Malleus is unaware of that makes him think he is running out of time, then it could be tied with how long Silver has left to live.

On the topic of curses, what if Silver’s tendency to fall sleep anytime is a curse and Lilia is aware of that? Silver seems to represent the sword used to slain Maleficent, yet the sleeping (plus being raised by fairies) is closer to Princess Aurora. Which is interesting because if the things Silver’s character is meant to represent are the direct enemy of what Malleus represents, then what’s going to happen between them during Chapter 7? The other characters who also have the hero-aligned/villain thing going on did follow their counterparts’ story (Jamil controlling Kalim like Jafar and the Sultan, Rook and Vil and the Huntsman’s betrayal) causing the overblot, but I doubt that Silver would willingly turn against Malleus as their relationship seems closer to the live-action movie “Maleficent” than the animated “Sleeping Beauty.”

I wrote all of that to establish the background as to how I think Malleus will overblot: something will happen to Silver (or maybe is already happening) and Lilia will either be affected as well or he will straight up sacrifice himself in exchange for Silver. This was reinforced to me by Idia’s musings about the causes of OBs, how is not only based on overuse of magic plus the state of emotional distress at the time but also on the individual’s entire past. He says that rather than a single moment, is more like a chain of events plus a trigger, and the trigger is difficult to identify or control because it depends on each individual’s heart (plus there’s also his comment of someone possibly causing OBs on purpose...might be a red herring, might be foreshadowing.) Malleus is too OP to possibly OB by overusing magic, so the emotional distress influenced by his past seems more likely. And it just so happens that every single thing we learn about Malleus’ past is about how lonely he has been growing up. Overblot cause? Malleus’ loneliness and despair at being faced with losing the people he cares about the most.

I think that this is how Silver would fulfill his part as the hero-aligned character that leads to the overblot, and how Lilia’s influence would not be able to stop it. What about Sebek you say? He’s going to be our newest addition to the “save the day” squad.

-Something I’d like to use for this argument is the Magical Archives (art book/ guide for the game.) The Archives have character profiles and the way they are arranged seems deliberate. First they go by dorms which is to be expected, but then the characters from each dorm are placed by what it seems relevancy to their respective chapters.

Each section starts with the Dorm Leaders, the ones overblotting (Kalim being the exception, but as we know Jamil was supposed to be the dorm leader so I’m counting it)

Then the dorms with more than two characters have the Dorm Leader being followed by the character that influences them the most: Riddle —> Ace / Leona —> Jack / Azul —> Jade / Vil —> Epel. And Diasomnia? Malleus is followed by Silver.

I considered reasons why they would be arranged like this and concluded that:

1. Is not Leader —> Vice-leader as this only works with Octavinelle and two-character dorms

2. Is not Leader —> 1st year, 2nd years, 3rd years because while it could be argued that other the dorms follow this pattern, Diasomnia goes Malleus (Leader) Silver (2nd) Sebek (1st) and Lilia (3rd)

The Archives were released around the same time as Scarabia chapter, so main story info ends there. However, Pomefiore followed the pattern of Dorm Leader —> Most Relevant Character, so I think it’s safe to say that it is the same case for Diasomnia.