#that was the one thing i was thinking about when they alluded that they would end up together lol

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hiii I know you’ve talked about Lilia and Silver’s relationship before but how about Lilia and Malleus’s? He’s one of Lilia’s “sons” too, the first! I’d like to hear how you see their father-son relationship.

cbjsbsjwjskdn So strange!! I feel like I haven’t really talked much about Lilia and Malleus’s father-son relationship even though I’m such a sucker for family-related drama… Well, now is as good of a time as any!

***Please note: there are spoilers for 7-68+ in the main story; if you are comfortable with late book 7 spoilers, then please proceed with reading below the cut!***

Book 7 has made it pretty evident that Malleus thinks the world of Lilia and is willing to go to great lengths to protect him. Their bond is something that has been alluded to many times over prior to this point though!

Malleus has mentioned that Lilia trained him when he was younger. He did have formal tutors, but it was Lilia who instilled survival skills in him and taught him lessons unable to be learned through just a textbook. We get to observe one such scene via a flashback, which shows the aftermath of one of Malleus’s fits. The castle and various staff members were encased in ice, and along comes Lilia to fix things. He offers Malleus a bowl of shaved ice and invites him to eat with everyone (as the cause for his anger in the first place had been that his grandmother was busy with her duties and could no longer make time to each with him as promised). Lilia reminds Malleus that someone like him has great powers, so he has to wield it responsibly—otherwise he could have lost many of the people he is now sharing this snack with. (This is a very valid lesson since Malleus was capable of magic—and thus harming others—right out of the eggshell; he once singed Lilia’s hair with his flames.)

Malleus reports that Lilia has cut his hair for him (despite Malleus probably being able to go to a formal expert or the court’s hairdresser). Lilia has also sung to him at night and even taught Malleus how to play instruments.

It’s not clear to what extent Lilia was involved in his liege’s life, because even though he is established as a caretaker to Malleus, it was also revealed that Lilia was apparently banished from the capital city so they’d have to arrange to meet elsewhere. It’s known that Malleus would sometimes visit Lilia and baby Silver in their forest cottage, but again the frequency of these visits is unknown (Did he, like his headstrong mother, sneak out against the wishes of the senators?) I’d imagine that Malleus is kept fairly busy with studies to prepare him to ascend to the throne, but from the way Lilia describes raising Malleus, it sounds like he was with him quite frequently: “I always know exactly where he is. After all, I have been watching him since he was brushing eggshell off of his head.”

To this day, Lilia serves a similar guiding role, often acting as the facilitator between Malleus and his peers, as well as continuing to be a mentor to him. Malleus maintains his standoffish and difficult to approach aura at NRC, so it is Lilia who encourages him to engage with his peers. He delivers a holiday card to Malleus’s new friend who has taken up residence in Ramshackle. He invites Malleus as his plus one to Silk City in A Firelit Sky, wishing for him to see more of the world—even when disaster strikes and Lilia cannot accompany him. He extols the virtues of understanding and bonding with other races both in the main story (book 6) and in vignettes (Malleus’s Dorm Uniform). He gives Malleus a formal invitation to his farewell party (like, envelope and all!), because he knows just how much that would mean to him. Lilia has seen how a country looks when it has been ravaged by war and hate. He knows how a heart can grow bitter and resentful if left to fester in isolation. So he works his ass off to try and ensure that Malleus, the future of his country, can lead it to an era of peace and love that Lilia only got to experience with the passage of time. It could also be said that Lilia places a big emphasis on Malleus as their “future” since Lilia already suffered the loss of two close friends, Malleus’s parents.

Lilia seems to think of Malleus as a capable leader and one of great character, though perhaps marked with inexperience and a lack of worldly knowledge (which is why he pushes for Malleus to go out of his comfort zone). Most notably, he tells Leona in book 2: “[… ] with that sensitive ego of yours? That so quickly directs all your petty anger at your retainers... Well, the idea of you ever contending with a REAL king like our Malleus—is absolutely laughable. Even if you COULD defeat Malleus, so long as that's how you choose to conduct yourself? You would never be fit to rule!”

At times, Lilia has the habit of treating Malleus like a child. Something he does a lot is reassure his prince that it is okay to feel a certain way (usually frustrated or angry) and that Malleus is not capable of hiding the truth from his keen eyes. Lilia usually encourages Malleus to be more honest with his emotions and to take the chance to act like the child he is and enjoy his school life. Malleus tends to not take to the former very well, reminding Lilia that he is not a child and that he understands the circumstances. Despite these claims, he to hold Lilia in high regard and trusts him a great deal. Lilia currently occupies his vice dorm leader seat, which is implied to be handpicked by the dorm leader. Furthermore, Malleus trusts Lilia to fulfill the dorm leader duties that he is not capable of or able to, as we see Lilia attending dorm leader meetings and leading the Diasomnia freshmen during orientation.

Lilia is a more lax than Sebek and Silver when it comes to monitoring Malleus. He is of the belief that their prince needs his own independence and to experience life without people constantly breathing down his neck. Malleus, as we know, enjoys solitude like his midnight strolls throughout campus. In Leona’s Union Jacket vignettes, he also discusses the freedom of going out in public without an encourage accompanying him. Lilia is able to easily read and understand Malleus’s feelings in this regard (though he is good at reading all of the Diasomnia boys).

Malleus still cherishes the virtual pet that Lilia gifted him years ago. He takes care of it diligently, even though he is constantly faced with the cycle of Gao-Gao Dragon-kun/Roaring Draco growing up and leaving the nest. According to Malleus’s Labwear vignettes, he considers the virtual pet one of his most important treasures.

The two are able to pal around with each other despite holding the other in such high regard. When Malleus and Lilia are placed on opposite teams for Beans Day, they find fun in roughhousing and relish in the challenge (not really paying attention to the fact that their sheer power and speed is on a whole different level than that of the other students). They also served as co-conspirators in Endless Halloween Night, something which upset the other students and they both apologized for. Mischief isn’t entirely off the plate for this duo!

Malleus grew up without his parents (and his grandmother often kept away by her royal duties), so it’s possible that he latched onto Lilia as a parental figure. He is shown to be protective of Lilia both in vignettes and in the main story. For example, in Lilia’s PE Uniform vignette, Rook is chatting with Lilia and indicates that he is interested in Lilia as his hunting quarry—but Malleus throws the ball meant for long throwing at Rook, just narrowly missing his nose. “Perhaps he suspected that you were picking on little old me,” Lilia suggests. However, the example I’m sure we’re all familiar with of Malleus being protective of Lilia is book 7… when he decides it would be better you force everyone to have happy dreams instead of accepting a reality that changes and forces you to say good-bye to your loved ones. Malleus explicitly states that he is taking these actions so he “doesn’t lose [Lilia]”. Indeed, it is Lilia deciding to drop out of NRC and retire to the Land of Crimson Long that was the impetus for Malleus’s blot to kick into overdrive. When Lilia “wakes” from the dream, Malleus is eager to keep him in it. He offers to come up with a new dream, desperate and intent on keeping Lilia trapped there.

Malleus holds a lot of weight for Lilia too. When Lilia is pulled into a dream world fastened by Malleus’s magic to guarantee a “happy ending”, Lilia dreams of… an era of war? At first, Silver and co. find this to be strange because war isn’t something you tend to associate with happiness. It’s not until far later that Silver realizes what the real “happiest moment in [his father’s] life” is: the moment of Malleus finally hatching from his egg. Previously, Malleus had been very picky and rejecting the magic offered to him by others, even his own grandmother. This led to a dire situation where he was at risk of dying in his shell, as a dragon’s egg needs infusions of love and magic in order to be viable. In offering up much of himself—including a chunk of his own lifespan—Lilia helped Malleus hatch. To Lilia, this was his happiest—not because he “loves” Malleus more than Silver, but because Malleus hatching as a result of Lilia’s magic is affirming to Lilia that he is capable of parental love. This was a concern he communicated to Meleanor before she parted from this world, that he wasn’t sure he could look after Malleus in her stead because he’s an orphan and has never experienced what it is like to be loved… so he can’t have the capacity to love either. Meleanor reassures him though! If Lilia can love her and Raverne, then surely he can also bring himself to love their child. All these years, Lilia has never thought himself capable of “true love”—not even when he finds an infant Silver later, abandoned in a briar covered castle. But in that moment, when Malleus hatched, a miracle happened, and that miracle was the result of Lilia’s love.

This brings me to one final point about Lilia and Malleus’s relationship: how self-sacrificial Lilia is. Lilia hides a LOT of information from his loved ones, including Silver and Sebek, and instead chooses to accept the emotional burden of knowing himself. He does it with good intention, not wanting his children to be hurt by the scars of the past, but in a way that closes the boys off from fully understanding where they come from and Lilia’s own emotions. This is behavior that continues into present day, including Lilia being in a rush to leave to spare his boys the pain of a prolonged farewell. (I talk more about this aspect of Lilia’s character here, so I would advise reading that if you are interested in this topic.)

To conclude, Malleus and Lilia both highly respect and care for one another. Their bond is a strong one, and that’s perhaps why Malleus is so determined to cling to it—Lilia is one of the few intimate and meaningful connections he has.

[uravitypng]

yandere denki ?? i just KNOW that denki love bombs the people he likes (if he was a yandere) , cw : dark ?

it started with one smile, just one.

you've known kaminari for a long time now and have always liked him. you thought he was charming in his own way, funny. you were closer to his other friends like kirishima than you were to him but that never stopped you from smiling at him, never stopped you complimenting him.

whenever you'd walk past him or you'd catch his eye you'd smile warmly and he loved how your smiles made him feel. you're just so sweet and kind.

you compliment him once and after that you compliment him more often after realising that he appreciates them when you saw his face light up and you swear you saw him blush. you believe everyone should be given praise and love, everyone should be told how much they matter to someone. you compliment everyone in your life, denki is no different. "you look handsome today kaminari." "did you do your hair differently? wait, it's pinned back, right? it looks good." "you were amazing today kami, who knows what would of happened if you weren't there."

you didn't realise what would happen after those smiles, after those compliments, you didn't realise the impact it would cause about denki's feelings towards you. all those unhealthy feelings- it makes him obsessed with you. he's never met anyone like you. you're so pretty, so sweet and soft towards him, no one has ever been so kind to him, not even his ex girlfriends. who can blame him for falling in love with you? he wants to keep you all to himself. so he love bombs you.

he gives you things and compliments you just as much as you compliment him. new books you wanted? brought. lipgloss your eyes lingered at while shopping? brought. clothes that he knows that you'll like (and he also wants to see you in)? brought. you don't know how denki keeps paying for all these things and every time you tell him you don't need him to buy you things and ask him why he keeps paying for things he replies and says things like, "i just like making you happy. if buying you new skirts or make up makes you happy then i want to do that. money is no issue. i like treating you. you're my friend after all." the way he says friend makes you shiver, every kind gesture makes your face hot and butterflies flutter in your stomach.

he takes extra shifts for more pay and delegates the rest of his time to spend with you. he knows he sees less of his other friends but it's worth it to see you more.

he constantly reminds you how beautiful you are, how talented you are. he alludes that you're better than other people for example, he doesn't outright tell you, 'you're so much prettier than jirou, i can't believe i liked her once, she's so boring compared to you.' he'll say things like, "you're so interesting, other people i use to know seem dull now." he hides his honesty with a chuckle.

denki will love bomb you until you like him back. manipulate you into falling in love with him.

you spent all last night cooking chocolates. it isn't anywhere near valentine's day but recently the man who stole your affection was talking about how a gesture of that kind makes his heart race. it's his birthday and even if he doesn't return your fondness you have towards him you hope they still make him happy. in the end you ended up having to buy chocolates to give to him after burning your homemade ones over and over again. disappointed at yourself and annoyed that you couldn't make it work you consider lying and saying you made them yourself. you don't think you'll tell him how you feel, burning all those chocolates must be a sign.

however when you knock on his door and give him chocolates he knows for sure his plan worked. you're all his now and you don't even know it. he's already got you wrapped around his finger. under his thumb.

turning up to dates late and smelling like some other women's perfume, coming home late when you're supposed to be spending the night together, secret texts and late replies, dismissing your feelings, less compliments with each passing day. he can play with you as much as he wants to, do whatever he wants with you- you're not leaving.

after a month or so he'll return to his previous self. it makes you want to please him more than you did, you don't want a repeat. you become needy for his attention and he doesn't mind one bit, this is what he wanted all along, your complete devotion to him.

is it possible that his obsession with you grows after he watches you become more docile and loyal towards him? you fill up his thoughts every second of ever day. he misses you and your smile when he's not with you. his obsession grows.

[memorymessage]

Now doing DLC again and being more attentive, while also properly finishing up NPC questlines, and I'm just getting more disappointed with Miquella's story and the way it was handled in DLC.

With all the verbiage going on in the base game of how powerful Miquella's allure was, and how he had the ability to command loyalty through the guise of kindness, you would think it would be like dealing with brainwashing, to some degree. Miquella is charming people into thinking he is more altruistic than he actually is.

I'm really let down that it just ended up being "actually he's just kinda shady, I guess. You should kill him", with no real substance.

The St. Trina dialogue was super cheesy and blatantly lacking reason. Begging us to kill Miquella, and I'm just sitting here thinking "why?"

All the legacy Miquella had built up around himself, including cut content, like St. Trina charitably helping the merchant nomads with their trauma and insomnia. Growing the Haligtree with his blood, welcoming every living being to his to his town without prejudice, and spreading an overall message of peace.

Throughout all this, you're telling me it chalked up to "don't let him be a god :( It would be bad for him, I guess! Also...he's doing weird things with his step bro! And some other shady stuff, I guess!"

I was expecting something along the lines of what we see with Marika, and her fallacies in the Golden Order. Miquella is truly extremely wise, he does command loyalty, and he does desire for peace. But you cannot obtain true peace by placing people under a brainwash of loyalty. And when that illusion is shattered, that alone is what causes people to question him.

But in the DLC, some people are following Miquella for their own purposes, and for the ones that are trying to be loyal to him, it doesn't even take all that much to make them stop following him. That doesn't lend anything to the narrative that Miquella inspired loyalty.

A realization that Miquella is using mind control would have been a far more interesting plot than whatever was haphazardly put together in the DLC. This DLC felt like a reduction of Miquella's character, not an exploration of it. Everything about Miquella that was alluded to in the base game was just... abandoned in place of this new characterization.

All of this, on top of the weird Radahn storyline that came out of nowhere (which I already ranted about), and also knowing that one of the most interesting plots in the game—Godwyn—will never be addressed... it all just leaves me disappointed.

This is genuinely the first time a FromSoft game or DLC has made me want to say to Miyazaki "actually, I think you're wrong here." The DLC in terms of level area, boss, and enemy designs? Immaculate. But with all the hype around Miquella, you would think the writing would have also had a shine as well. I just don't know if it did...

[severus-snaps]

Snape's Memories

back again with some Thoughts. so i was either on reddit or quora (shudder at some of the responses there, but some are fun) and this is probably old news but

"Snape's Worst Memory" probably isn't/has potential not to be his actual worst memory

like he lost lily's friendship (but that happened 'officially' later in the day), got roundly humiliated and (depending on how far james went), a lot more than just humiliated, which was probably terrible - but then later on, Lily died, and he had a hand in it - we even see the conversation where he finds out, which I think is a stronger contender, and i expect he witnessed/participated in a lot of terrible things whilst a DE, but especially as a double agent

but it's not called that by snape himself or the characters, it's just the chapter title, unless i'm mistaken. like "the sacking of severus snape", he wasn't actually 'sacked' in the literal sense

and "snape's worst memory" (as one of the comments i read said, and really amused me) sounds a lot better than "snape's third or fourth worst memory"

also new tangent, the occlumency lessons and harry diving into the Pensieve was such a golden opportunity to shed some more light on what his time as a DE was like, even a glimpse

a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner... A greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies… A girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick

these memories are not in snape's life order, presumably; snape is a small boy (child), a "teenager", and then when he "tried to mount a bucking broomstick" likely would be in his first year (age 11), when Harry & Co. had their first flying lessons, as they're described as "girl" and "boy" again, not much older than children, and not teenagers

i present as options for nothing other than my own amusement:

a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner... A greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies… a masked Death Eater slashed his wand, the man at his feet collapsing in a pool of blood... A girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick

or:

a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner... A greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies… Voldemort's cold laughter echoed, Snape twisted in agony at his feet... A girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick

like these are off the top of my head, but Harry and Snape also talk about Snape being a Death Eater, Snape seems proud of his useful role, bragging about it to Sirius whenever he can and to Harry in that particular conversation... and then we mostly just get the Charity Burbage scene and the scene with Bellatrix (which isn't even the usual DE setting, whatever that is, and if 'usual' is a word that can even be applied), and Snape accidentally cutting off George's ear.

So, here would've been a fun little opportunity to delve into either some early DE snape, and my personal preferences include

getting the Dark Mark, with some light context clues for when this occurred

alluding to when he handed over the prophecy, or when Voldemort decided it was Lily - but without mentioning as much

snape actively joining in on some terrible rite/group torture, or

snape passively standing at the edges of some terrible rite/group torture

(my personal favourite) Snape watching as his dad dies - was it "natural"/self-inflicted (e.g. he was ill, or from drinking too much) or poison (snape's doing)

(my other personal favourite) "Muggle torture" like at the World Cup, only somehow dated to when Snape was a young DE Some background to this one to make my case: parallels are drawn between the Muggle torture by DEs at the World Cup and the Levicorpus spell and SWM - Draco threatens Hermione with the same ("D’you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around… they’re moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh.") and then Ron/Harry describes the spell as "just a laugh", etc, and we see SWM ("this'll liven you up, Padfoot" / "Many people in the small crowd cheered; Sirius, James and Wormtail roared with laughter" / "'Who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?'")

So, Muggle torture; do we see Snape as an active participant, revelling in being the aggressor for a change, drunk on power and a sense of 'fitting in' - or as an already doubtful, unenthusiastic but in-too-deep Death Eater, not naturally inclined to violence, for whom the threat to Lily is the final catalyst for change?

it need only be a line "a masked Death Eater hung a screaming woman by the ankle above a jeering crowd, her skirt obscuring her face" "a masked Death Eater turned from a screaming woman, suspended above a jeering crowd with her skirt obscuring her face"

and then how does that impact harry's view of snape? how does it impact harry's view of SWM/his dad? in either case, Harry would continue to assume that Snape was a cowardly death eater, a traitor, and a bad person and swiftly resume thinking so even after SWM, but it would offer him and the reader even more insight about the sort of DE snape was before he turned spy

anyway. i just want MORE SNAPE SNIPPETS DAMMIT

[jirou-writes]

Artwork Analysis time!

I went though the P5R design works book and uhhh I already thought there was a lot to analyze about the cover art, and after seeing the scrapped design it made me want to analyze it again^^

P5R spoilers ahead:

Joker

• Him being the only one sitting in both versions kinda feels like he’s comfortable with where he’s at in life, a good balance between Akechi and Maruki’s views, but closer to Akechi.

• Joker’s actual shadow being hidden (probably there because that’s how light works but I wouldn’t know cause I’m terrible at knowing where shadows go-) made me think of P4 and that he’s come to terms with repressed parts of himself basically.

• One hand reaching up to his glasses and the other in his pocket in comparison to the scrapped version where both hands are out, tells me 2 things-

That the one in his pocket parallels with Maruki who also has his hand in his pocket, probably about how the two of them have a past that isn’t shared with others (for Joker it was shared with Sojiro, Sae, and the PT by his own choice, the rest of it being shared with all of Shujin outside his control), and that they’d rather keep it to themselves. For Joker, it’s not like it’s kept to himself out of shame or guilt, but more so that his past didn’t really need to control his life and thus doesn’t need to constantly be brought up to anyone.

And secondly, the hand reaching up alludes to the ending where Joker takes off his glasses (and mask in the reflection of the bullet train window). It also keeps Joker looking confident while also adding a deeper meaning compared to the original design of his pose for the cover art.

Akechi

• In the scrapped version he appears more sinister (mostly thanks to the shading choice and tilt of his head), though the decision to have him look confident but in a calm(?) sort of way could indicate the more nuanced Akechi seen in Royal as opposed to the more antagonistic force seen in Vanilla.

• His shadow is most likely behind him and thus can’t be scene, and it’s also due to the fact that his face has the most focus while the rest of him is less seen compared to everyone else. I’d like to think it’s because you only need to see his face and positioning on the stairs to understand that he’s made his decision to be in control of his life and not making any exceptions, so there’s no insight into potential uncertainty in his pose or hands since they aren’t in frame.

• It’s also very fitting that he’s the furthest away from Maruki, seeing as he wholeheartedly rejected the Maruki’s ideals.

Sumire

• She’s the only one actively walking on the stairs, signifying both her deliberation over the decision she has to make in third semester and perhaps a false sense of moving forward. It could be that when she made the decision to ask Maruki for her to become Kasumi, as well as when she actually thought she was Kasumi, that she believed she was moving forward in life, getting better. But going up the steps would lead her to where Maruki is, actually running away instead.

• The difference in Sumi’s literal shadow in the 2 versions is drastic and tells a bigger story in the final version imao. The shadow can be seen as her repressed self again, or as the actual Kasumi, reaching out to either catch up with Sumi or to try and keep her back where she was near Joker. Where Sumi is looking tells that she would only be able to see it in her peripheral at most, also connecting to the fact that part of her was aware what she was running away but she didn’t want to admit it.

• I take her staring in the same direction as Akechi and Joker to just mean that she’s unintentionally fooling the audience, unintentional because she thinks of herself as Kasumi most of the game, and fooling because she’s giving the impression of like “yeah this is me!” sort of thing.

Maruki

• He’s both the furthest away and the only one whose eye’s aren’t visible, his head turned to face elsewhere too- all of which signify the emotional distance he keeps from everyone.

• In the scrapped art, his pose is almost similar but is a lot more carefree and slightly more open with the hand behind his head. In the finalized one, he keeps up the unbothered pose while subtly keeping to himself with not just distance but with his ankle crossing over the other, still having a hand in the pocket, and drinking apple juice with the arm closer to him instead of up-

• Which leads me to the apple juice, immediately thinking of the fact that he likes the drink but also that it could illustrate drowning out sorrows like one can choose to do with alcohol (he’s done it before). It’s just an apple juice here because uhh apple juice and also because it signifies the pure bond he had with Rumi seen with his talk about sweet and salty snacks with her from his past- just 2 lovebirds ^^

• Not only does him being at the top of the stairs provide him with distance, but it also parallels to the fact that Joker and the PT have to climb a staircase to get to Maruki to fight him. This also connects back to Sumi going up the stairs and how Joker had to fight her and save her.

• As for his shadow, it’s not too far away from him but just enough to indicate that while he’s steadfast in his ideals, he hasn’t come to terms with his inner self and past yet due to never taking a proper moment to settle with himself and stop running from the past.

In conclusion? Probably overanalyzed all this tbh-

Ya’ll can ask me what to analyze next…I love focusing on all the little details!

[backsideattackkkk]

do you think Eric could’ve actually raped someone?

I want to say "lol no he's too weak for that" and I would not be wrong. but like also, though I know he wrote that he essentially wanted to in his journal, I mean it's already quite established that his journal is a sort of exaggeration.

note: I yapped. I dunno why, I just did, whoops

not in the sense that everything he wrote is a lie, but moreso that the journal was a way to exploit his existing anger so he could use it as a driving force. my stance of his writing is that:

at least for me, for eric's writings I see people often say that he didn't mean a single word and it's all fake, I take it as: eric wrote his journal entries when he was in a mood of rage, his journal, at least in my opinion was a way to channel that, write it down and store it and when he goes back to another entry is in the ‘fuel’ of his previous entries thus festering his rage. though, he slips at times, like when he whines about not being to get laid, calls himself a loser, and wishes he had bonded with his dad when he had bought the guns. summed up: I think a lot of what eric wrote was heat of the moment tbh. get rejected by a girl, write about how much women suck. someone made you feel like a worthless piece of shit, write about nazis and how cool and powerful they were. I mean he wasn't writing EVERY single day, sometimes his journal entries had like a 10 day gap

so in this instance, in that ONE journal entry he had started off by saying he hated people, and he rambles about a few things, nazism, how some people deserve what's coming, talking about having to put on "one helluva mask here to fool you all some more" to hold off till the shooting, so he's frustrated. hence then the transition to "maybe I just need to get laid" ramble. he mentions mostly girls from his gym class (which to be honest considering what happened to him in gym, I just feel second hand embarrassment), point is. he's kinda just exaggerating, or at least that's what I think.

I mean there's only one instance that I read someone say he acted like a pervert to a girl irl which was:

I mean other than that most girls described him as sweet or what not (at least in the 11k), or guys described him as being awkward around girls.

do I think he tried to get laid before the shooting? yeah. he did, when you read susan dewitt's testimony of her date with eric she mentions that:

"made no effort to get up or to encourage her to leave"

"he mentioned to her that she could warm up her car and come back until it was warm".

plus then (I believe was the after party of prom) was when this happened:

so I dunno. maybe he tried to at least allude to attempt to get laid, but when she said she had to get home he just backed off immediately cause. I dunno afraid of confrontation or blatant rejection.

I mean at least in the case with most teen frustrated school shooters, when it comes to girls, they seem moreso to seek sex as a sorta validation. pretty sure elliot mentioned this in his writing:

so like. if it was JUST about sex, then yeah. hence the "well why didn't elliot (or in this case, eric) just rape someone?" well because they essentially just wanted a willing girl, who would actually want them and validate them, seeing as how they feel pretty lowly of themselves.

[crystalkitty1220]

Man I wonder where the leader of the fear realm could've gone, it's alMOST LIKE NEVIN HAS AN

[lansangprincess]

I think it would be interesting if Conrad's season 3 storyline was similar to Paxton's storyline in Never Have I Ever where his storyline is primarily on maturing and he ends up with an older girlfriend but still remains friends with and has sweet moments with Devi. The one in the finale where she tells him he was a good boyfriend but an even better friend is an example of it. They do share one kiss in the final season but there's no cheating and it serves the purpose of closure. I personally preferred Paxton over Ben and had some issues with Ben, but didn't mind Benvi being together at the end as much as Bonrad because they had more in common and more chemistry. In this case it would be more painful for her to end up with Conrad because she chose his brother. Also Paxton's narrator episodes were really interesting, so I hope Conrad's isn't stagnant and boring in season 3.

NO BECAUSE U GET ITTTTTTTT. THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN MEANING TO SAYYYY

I personally dont care anymore if Conrad falls off the face of the earth (🥰) BUT I know that a lot of people genuinely love his character and for that, I am all up for a redemption arc (especially if DONE WELL, it would be a really powerful message of self-love and self-care in young men).

The storyline has to be a Paxton-esque one 😫. Both Paxton and Devi acknowledged how important their relationship was to their growth but knew they weren't right for each other in the end. It doesn't mean that their time together was a waste of time, quite the opposite actually and for that to have been acknowledged was a really great thing to witness for me personally.

[itsahotsecondafter]

hdhdhdjd sorry if its feels like im being annoying or condescending. im not!! the "eclipse liking the cello" part was a reference to that one piece you did of solar playing the cello!! not surebif that was clear enough if so my bad sjhddj,,, but that solar piece lives in my head rent free for some reason idk why but i think about it!!! a lot!! no cluebwhy but yippeee!!!!

OH! NO SORRY THAT MAKES SENSE-I WAS THINKING ABOUT THAT POST WHEN I READ IT (my brain caught the tone of the thing but I kept thinking it was in reference to a specific piece and not the instrument for some reason-) BUT I DIDN'T WANT TO ASSUME IT WAS ABOUT THAT CUZ YOU MENTIONED ECLIPSE (and I don't wanna assume stuff about people's aus cuz that doesn't usually end well...) BUT THANK YOU FOR THE REFERENCE! AND THE EXPLANATION (i'm chronically stupid sorry)

i kinda wanna redraw that one actually cuz it doesn't look the way i wanted it to-but-uh- thanks! for mentioning me! and for clarifying!

[galacticlamps]

actually ascension needs its own post since that's the one with the most details to speculate over and im starved for soho talk so i will talk to myself if need be

First the cover again, because I kinda can't get over it:

my only thing is that I had been hoping we might get Lizbeth on a cover again since she's never been on one of the boxsets before, despite being the 2nd person credited on all 4 of them (even if that's just alphabetical, still, she's the only one of the four main characters who never makes the cover)

But letting that go...

I know we already kinda knew the brief for this one but damn I didn't expect it to go quite this hard. Maybe that's just because the Parasite & Ashenden covers were (comparatively) similarish to each other and I was so pleased with Unbegotten's, and then got so used to it as the placeholder for Ascension while they kept postponing it, I wasn't expecting anything this colorful or detailed or with what I can't help but register as Fun New Outfits even though these are still like, pretty damn basic as far as costumes go. Still, it's a different vibe from everyone in suits and trenchcoats on every cover, technically. (Oh the woes of being an audio fan such that two characters owning sweaters actually does qualify as new information)

On top of just being visually delightful though, I know we knew religion was gonna be a fairly big part of this one, but I didn't actually expect to get quite this much of it - though I'm glad of it for a number of reasons. The BF twitter already made the ineffable joke so I don't have to, but also yeah I did very much spend all of season 2 episode 4 of good omens half convinced Samuel Barnett & Dervla Kirwan were about to pop up around any given corner (if you will go around being gay supernatural and horrible at your messy bureaucratic jobs in midcentury soho then I'm sorry, this is where my brain's gonna go) - so, fuel to that fire. But in terms of actual important things, at least one of my Soho wishes looks to be being granted because we have a Rev Edward Folgate on the cast list, which must mean we're finally meeting Norton's father, even if his mother & brother don't appear (which they could, technically, I've definitely seen BF not list all the doublings on their cast tabs before). Religion, domesticity, and the nuclear family are all things that absolutely fascinate me when it comes to Norton's character, so getting any amount of story involving his father & his church is something I've been actively hoping for for a long time now.

(I will say I'm a tiny bit bummed Saffron Coomber isn't on the cast list to play Mia again, but I kinda figured she wasn't going to be since Greg Austin's Armitage, who's making his first recurring appearance after originating in Unbegotten, was listed ever since the boxset was announced - presumably if she was also returning, that would've been handled in the same way. But since Unbegotten ended with Lizbeth and Mia going on a date, I still held out hope. Who knows though, maybe things did go well for them and Lizbeth just has a better work/life balance than Norton so she can date someone without them getting dragged into every scifi plot. I know that's not a very common accomplishment for any Torchwood agent, but a gal can hope)

At this point I know I'm completely in the realm of speculation & even wishful thinking, but I'm really really hoping we get some more clues as to Norton's overall timeline in this one, and I have a feeling that even if there's nothing as direct as dates given, the events of a plot like this one are going to heavily influence my personal interpretation of it.

To say that life & death are major themes for the soho crew feels wildly reductive, but even by Torchwood's standards and taking into account its origins as a piece of media with Jack Harkness & his newfound immortality at the heart of it, the living/dead status of this bunch has always been fantastically up in the air to me. Obviously Ghost Mission introduced Norton as kind of a ghost before revealing more obvious ghostly characters later on to which the title might have been referring, but his being from the past did beg the question of his survival into Torchwood's present era all the same, which Outbreak later alludes to much more directly, and his habit of showing up via hologram in multiple stories only further obfuscates any certainty we might have about where & when he definitely can be said to be alive and well. Then you've got Lizbeth and Gideon both being effectively 'brought back to life' via paradoxes that prevented them ever having died in the first place. Again, they are very very far from being the only Torcwhood characters this happens to (for a sprawling EU, it's really rather impressive how often & in how many different ways Torchwood as a whole manages to circle back to being about like. chaotic undead queers at the end of every day. though I suppose that consistency is part of why I keep falling in love with its different iterations again and again). That's without even getting into the question of Norton's dubious fate in God Among Us - and I say dubious because I know some people take that to be his ultimate death, but I personally think that reading something as vague as that as having any kind of finality rather goes against the spirit of this whole world/series, not just because I want him to live. (There are obviously other ways to make him survive/reappear, but I don't see this as a River Song scenario where we can safely assume one of his earlier-released adventures had to happen at the end of his personal timeline). But wherever God Among Us falls for him, he does very much meet God in it - or at least, a god, since the sentinel in Unbegotten is also described as a god of sorts, and even if he doesn't ultimately have the status of the god Jacqueline King is playing there, Unbegotten is still full to bursting with ghosts/undead/came back wrong/echo characters to continue underscoring that life/afterlife theme.

So all things considered, even allowing for the fact that we know Norton's twin hobbies are lying about himself and abusing time travel to suit his own ends/ever-shifting alliances, I find it difficult to believe we could get through a whole 6-part boxset about religion & death without something providing some kind of compelling evidence about where this adventure fits in among his other run-ins with apocalypses and gods and ghosts and dead-but-still-here characters/creatures, so I'm very much looking forward to any further exploration on that front.

And lastly, and least intellectually, I really want to know what the hell 20th-century Torchwood's obsession with Reginalds is. Reading through the cast list, I had to do two separate doubletakes over the character 'Sir Reginald Peebles' - firstly, because I had Reginald Rigsby on the brain, this being Soho (and the other Troughton brother being so active on BF's releases for this same month) - and secondly, because reading this in conjunction with the announcement for the July monthly adventure in which the new main Torchwood guy of the 20s is apparently called Sir Reginald Dellafield, there was a brief moment where I took that monthly release to be a tie-in with Ascension. I don't expect it to be, but damn. was it really so popular a name?

anyways, catch me thinking about those stained glass windows for the next couple months I guess (and knowing Torchwood Soho, for a long long time after it comes out as well lol)

[hassiegfrieddoneanythingwrong]

Sure. I was more angry that the writers are conflict-avoidant when it comes to Kriemhild and passed over not one, but two large, potential character arcs that Siegfried could play a minor part in rather than the only, major part. Only one I easily understood because Byrnhildr is from Sigurd's legend, so she's not the Queen of Iceland and it would be silly to linger on Kriemhild's conflict with her.

Mind you, I'd still like to see an interlude on it, much as I'd like to go over Gudrun and Sigurd, but let's not kid ourselves here. The FGO writers nowadays don't seem like they ever want to bring it up given Sigurd's line on it.

Remember when I said I wanted a Enkidu-like interlude for Kriemhild? In that interlude, Enkidu spared nothing for Ishtar and went straight into catty dialogue with her. There was no delicately dancing around their hostile relationship nor any retcons regarding what was already said before in FGO regarding Ishtar and Enkidu.

Kriemhild, on the other hand, gets two lame excuses that cut off parts of the Nibelungelied she could possibly grow from: Brynhild's conflict with her and the long time she spent with Attila and the Huns.

I wasn't talking about the event entirely as it was a breath of fresh air from the last two events where she spent time with Siegfried. That's expected. No. I was talking about the small part between her and Altera where she said that she couldn't remember her time with Altera and the Huns - which contradicts Byrnhildr saying she smells Siegfried's scent on Altera. Which hints at Altera having spent time with Kriemhild. That little aside soured the rest of the event as it not only confirmed the writers don't want to dedicate time to fleshing out Kriemhild beyond her Fate-only conflict with Siegfried (thanks Higa), but that they're content in using any out to avoid going over Altera's time as Etzel/Attila. Want to know what I wanted when saving a pity for Kriemhild? Character expansions for both Siegfried and Altera on top of Kriemhild herself. Guess I wished on a monkey's paw. I'm now sure her kids with Altera are also retconned out of existence. Not too sure about Gunther II, though.

Oh yeah, want to know the best part? In the same cop-out dialogue, the writer of this event said there's another version of Kriemhild that remembers her time with Altera instead of casting away the memories as not important (even though Kriemhild's tactics in Traum say otherwise). I remember another servant version promised by the writers that never came out: rider Caesar. Yeah, it's been years and he still hasn't shown up. Sorry Cleo. Odds are, that version of Kriemhild won't show up either. And it's been nearly a year since the last batch of interludes too.

So yeah, that's what I meant about her being Siegfried's shipping attachment. It seems the writers only want to focus on their romance part of the Nibelungelied and not go over Kriemhild's personal development as a character herself. One issue I do have when it comes to couples in this game, regardless of who's being shipped.

But I suppose this comes with the territory of loving the character from the source material first before getting their Fate version. You start getting disappointed when the writing doesn't meet what you expect.

Anyways, I hope this explains it. And thanks for not immediately assuming I hate Kriemhild herself just because I have issues with how she's written.

OOOOOOOOOOHHHH, yeah that makes more sense now. As much as I would also love to see more focus on both Kriemhild and Siegfried (especially on the former), as well as possibly for Altera, the sad fact is that it will possibly never happen.

Kriemhild forgetting why she politically married Altera is like as if Artoria forgot why she abandoned her humanity to be a good king, or Gilgamesh seeking out the herb of immortality, or why Yu Mei-ren/Akuta Hinako initially wanting to summon her beloved Xiang Yu. It makes no sense on any level for her to forget it. Perhaps this'll be ignored and actual focus on them if Kriemhild gets an interlude, but I sadly don't have high hopes (or even a medium level of hope).

And for Altera, none of the writers seem to be interested in fleshing her out in FGO. All of them seem content enough that everything interesting about her is just locked behind another game. Like, her second interlude is the only one that's actually about anything while her first and third interludes are more vague memories before and after she became the leader of the Huns. There's a small (and I mean small) possibility that there probably could be an Extella collab at some point in the future, with a guest writer who is really damn passionate about the character(s) similar to what happened with Samurai Remnant, but again I wouldn't hope for it.

TLDR the only way to deal with the giant, tangled, unfocused mess that is the situation between Siegfried, Kriemhild, Altera and potentially anyone else is to Cope™️.

Or write fix-it fics, either way.

[caruliaa]

btw being annoying abt this thing that happened almost a week ago at this point bc had no tumblr then but i remember at one point when we were with our cousins and kinda just chatting and hanging out nd stuff my sibling just like. was repeatedly like being mean and insulting me for the most minor things and like it was rude but didnt rly hurt that much it was j whatever yk but they kept doing this but i was mostly like whatever even though they were being pretty mean nd at some point they were like "go walk of a cliff" and i was jokingly like "ill tell mum you said that" and then they were like "well you can tell that to her but i can tell her things too yk" basically threatening to out me or like. tell our parents about me having online friends and shit which is a pretty fucked thing to say and like. a completely inordinate reaction to me making a joke but we were around other ppl nd my i wasnt out to one of the cousins so i cldnt be like "hey what the fuck is wrong with you for threatening to out me over a joke" so i was just like "you kept insulting me and our cousins thats rude!" and then they got so sulky and was like "oh im not allowed to insult people but people are allowed to insult me?" even though that like. i never said that ?? and none of us were insulting them ??? and when i was like "i never said that its wrong for people to insult you too" they started talking about how im allowed to be annoying though and thats not fair when they cant insult me or whatever. hi.

[yarrowleef-babbles]

(it case it needs 2 be said, when i make speculative live-blog thought posts like this, i Do Not want anyone to confirm or deny or give me hints about what happens later, unless i specifically ask plz and ty)

ANYWAY jumping off that last post, one of the things I consistently saw in fanart before i knew anything was a queer pairing involving...SOMEONE, couldnt say who since my memory is being filtered through a me that couldn't keep any of the names straight. I ALSO could not for the life of me tell if it was *actually canon* or if it was one of those instances of a fan pairing getting really popular and taking over fanworks, even though its just ""subtext"" in canon (which often translates to 'the characters hang out a lot'.....i'm not *mad*, i have simply been mislead and then disappointed by canon when it comes to fandom habits like this more than once)

but it felt so consistent that i THINK it may have actually been based on canon. so i have spent this reading wondering who and how it was going to manifest

like is Ronan having vaguley homoerotic nightmares about Adam but twisted up and colored through the Catholic Guilt(tm) filter or am i reading it wrong lmao

[kindacreepy-kindaugly]

idk if I'm more scared that he's gonna get tired of this game (will happen) or that he's.....not faking (not likely).

[brimstoneandtreacle]

i'm constantly trying to convince myself that he doesn't feel anything towards me (even Friendship feelings) but then i remember things that make me go "there is No fucking way he doesn't feel Something." and then i start trying to convince myself he doesn't again

[rivilu]

Been away from the puter too long there's so much angst in my notes app