Some past!laven hc because I'm in the trenches (they shouldn't have that much of a hold on my brain)
They're both occasional smokers. Lavi picked it up from Bookman and Allen was peer-pressured to take it up while in the army. Out of them both, Allen is the most likely to stress smoke.
The cape Allen is wearing in the second part of the flashback was given to him by Lavi, he never bought it. He likes the heaviness of it on his shoulders.
Lavi saw Allen smile for the first time months, if not years after the start of their journey. That's what truly got him.
Lavi smiles whether he's happy or sad. Allen learned to see through his expressions pretty fast, but he still would rather see Lavi be fully sad or angry than look at more fake smiles.
Allen is Lavi's best audience (canon), but it doesn't mean Allen is Lavi's only audience. Whenever they stop at a bar, he ends up telling stories and legends from across the world to drunken men and women, and sometimes to children on the street as well. They typically recieve a few coins for it. Lavi's a pretty good storyteller.
Past!Allen may not be as good a cheat as current!Allen is, but he fares pretty well on his end. Plus he actually has some luck. Lavi tries not to stay too close to Allen whenever he plays, just to be sure Allen doesn't fall victim to his bad luck.
Allen has his own stories to tell, but he doesn't talk about them much. Lavi only hears them sometimes, in the middle of the night, when sleep cannot find either of them and Allen is too tired to keep them in.
They spent so much time together Allen can tell the weather based on the state of Lavi's hair. High humidity means Lavi struggles to keep them in a ponytail, cold weather means he won't even try.
Allen cannot grow a beard. He tried, it won't. Lavi shaves though, both to not piss Allen off too much and because he likes the feeling of kissing Allen better that way.
Hanging out with them for less than 24 hours means being subjected to the most old-married-couple-and-happy-about-it energy. They talk to each other like best friends, they flirt with each other in code, they will be insufferably lovey-dovey in the strangest of ways. Oh to be gay travelling lovers in the 19th century and everything it implies.
One of the most dangerous triangles
Besides the Bermuda Triangle
gluttonous beast
They’re too evil! - Redemption has nothing to do with how good or evil you were to begin with.
They don’t deserve it! - Redemption is not something that can be “deserved.”
Their actions are unforgivable! - Redemption has nothing to do with forgiveness.
It’s too late for them to change! - It is only “too late” to choose redemption when a character is dead (unless the scope of the story includes an afterlife in which change is possible).
It doesn’t fit the themes of the story.
They’re not an important enough character for showing the process of a redemption arc to be worthwhile.
They’re more interesting as a character who isn’t doing the right thing.
It’s more satisfying to let them keep being evil.
It makes it more satisfying when they die.
There’s probably more, but you get the idea.
Remember, redemption is when someone realizes they are wrong, and takes steps to doing the right thing. That is not something that can be “deserved,” it is not something that hinges on forgiveness, and it is not something that it is ever too late for! …Unless the person is dead or something.
imagine being 17, participating in the soccer version of squid game and a 31 yo with twisted ideals trash talks your boyfriend who's just gotten eliminated, blames you for it and also makes sure your heartbreak gets livestreamed
A lot of fantasy goes with Tolkien explanation of fantasy racism being the result of ancestral grudge.
Then you got Dungeon Meshi which is like:
"Elves and Dwarves hate each other because their respective empires make up 2/3 of the imperial core and are stuck in a cold war as the planet runs out of uncolonized land to grab. Elves are able to live in pastoral paradise because they've horded most of the settings farm-able land and natural capital, displacing and mass murdering any natives in the process. Orcs and goblins are hostile to other races because there the primary targets of an ongoing slavery and genocide campaign. The dividing line between human and inhuman is arbitrarily assigned via a phrenological pseudo-science that quickly falls apart when questioned by anyone who wasn't indoctrinated into it since birth."
white people go like “is anyone going to redesign this nonhuman evil character as a poc?” and not wait for an answer
Send an email to your representatives demanding an immediate release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and other healthcare worker hostages illegally detained by Israel. Demand to end Israel's genocide Palestine and to uphold medical neutrality.
I scanned the new arts in the anniversary book so I thought I’d clean them up a little 💕
One day I’ll post the full thing with translations, if I manage to clean it all up