Litten456 - Untitled

“But no gown can compare/ with the dress that my mother wore”

This is an unused song from the 1950’s animated Cinderella. This movie means a great deal to me, and I hope I could portray that through Malleus ☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

Spoilers + Rambles for my own animatic below lolol

When I watch the movie Cinderella, I feel a mixture of sorrow and hope- Cinderella is a really strong person and I really look up to her. And in retrospect, a lot of her kindness despite the burdens she’s forced to bear, reminds me of Malleus. The way he loves and accepts humans despite Briar Valley’s history, the way his presence has imparted so many good memories onto Silver and Sebek. He bears an incredible loneliness, and it makes me feel a lot ^^;

I was aiming for a dreamy look with the blue frames ahxhdbs. In my head the green represents “reality,” both the good and bad. In the end, both OB!Malleus’ dreams and reality are now corrupted, memories of his mother tainted, and neither bringing him comfort the way it used to.

But if you received a different interpretation, I’m interested in it too! ☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆ I hope the story could be portrayed relatively clearly

I’m really happy to publish this…it’s nothing unique or special, but to have completed an animatic has been a long wish of mine 💕💕💕🐦‍⬛ thank you all for aiding me in making this dream come true \(//∇//)\ 💕💕💕💕💕💕🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛

I think a lot about how Vil’s face is just…covered in Floyd drippings. how is this a real thing that happens in canon.

anyway, some assorted twst sketches/doodles/miscellany from the past couple months. :U just a bunch of stuff that I liked but will never be finished and/or doesn’t really fit into anything else!

I love the scarlet Pimpernel series, because every book it’s like a game of where’s Wally.

A dirty peasant with a hacking cough? Tall yet hunched? A wonder that a man with such a powerful frame should live in such depths of squaller?

Me (in my head): It’s him!! It’s him!!! IT IS SO HIM!!!!!!!

My Mum: why are you grinning at your book?

loving a character so much will unlock such vulnerable and cringe parts of you that you try to suppress so bad but you can't like it's so humbling

Dr. Jekyll whenever Mr. Utterson tries to visit:

some thoughts on how lilia views love

I’ve been watching through the Stitch event and there’s a bit of dialogue Lilia says that unfortunately made me Think, so I wanted to gather my babblings here.

This post contains spoilers for: Book 7, Tsumsted Wonderland 2, Lost in the Book with Stitch, Spectral Soiree/Endless Halloween, and Tamashina Mina

After spending the day fighting off Gantu’s robots, scavenging for food, and exploring the island, the boys rest for a bit in an old cottage they found. Lilia wants to take the opportunity to spruce up the cottage and make it more resort-like while they’re enjoying this “vacation”, and Riddle and Jack are both surprised and a bit peeved to hear him say this.

Riddle: Don’t you want to find a way off this island as soon as possible, Lilia Senpai? Malleus Senpai, Silver, and Sebek… Everyone at Diasomnia must be worried sick about you right now. I should think you’d want to assuage their concerns a tad bit faster!

Lilia: …Thing is, I trust them.

Riddle: You trust them?

Lilia: Mm-hmm. Knowing them, no doubt they understand I’m safe and sound and having a good time right now. Malleus and the others know I’m not the type of guy who’d get in a pickle over something as trivial as this. And that’s because they know me very, very well – just like family!

(snipped)

Lilia: It’s truly wonderful having people in your life who trust you and wish the best for you - and for whom you do the same in return - no matter how far apart you may be.

When you take this dialogue and look at in isolation of this event, then it’s a wonderful thing to hear Lilia say. He trusts his boys and they trust him - because they’re family, and that’s what families do. It’s always great to hear the characters themselves acknowledge their strong bonds with each other, and I thought it was really cute how Stitch got so happy to hear Lilia talking about his Ohana.

But when you take what he said and consider the broader story of Twisted Wonderland (vignettes and events, included), and you consider other things he’s said and done in the past… This dialogue just hurts.

There’s been small moments here and there that made me think Lilia has kind of an unhealthy(?) or warped(?) view of love. I’m not sure what the best word for it is, but I’ve noticed that he doesn’t like people worrying over him, he doesn’t like emotional farewells/sappiness, and he really doesn’t like letting others see him when he’s weak.  Additionally, he seems to value himself very little – he doesn’t think people would be worried about him if he were in danger, or that people would be happy getting pictures of him, or that his departure in Book 7 would hurt those around him so much. I’ll go ahead and put examples for each point so you all can understand better what I’m trying to say.

He doesn’t like people worrying about him

We can see this partly from the quote this whole post is based on, as well as from Book 7.

Based on his conversation with Riddle, Lilia’s way of thinking appears to be:

If someone trusts me -> that means they wouldn’t worry about me

As well as:

If someone worries about me -> that means they don’t trust me

But we do worry about the people we love and care about, don’t we? We worry about our spouses getting home safely from a business trip, and our kids making friends at school, and our friends acing the interview they’ve been practicing for because we love them, don’t we? And because we want the best for them. But it doesn’t seem like Lilia thinks the same way.

And to add onto this point, it’s very clear the boys do worry about Lilia a lot, contrary to what Lilia claims. Due to Lilia’s departure, Malleus brought a snowstorm to the island in his sadness, Silver considered dropping out of school and leaving with his father, only to end up breaking down and crying in front of their crown prince of all people, and Sebek used his one wish to make Lilia be healthy and have him stay with Silver forever. They were all worried terribly about him in their own ways, but it doesn’t seem like Lilia ever noticed (or maybe he did, and just didn’t want to bring it up for some reason. Who knows.)

At any rate, he also gets mad (well, more like tsundere lol) at Silver when the boy was on the verge of tears after Lilia took a nasty hit for him. (I know this exchange occurred with General Vanrouge, and he was quite the asshole back then, but he’s still retained that dislike for people worrying over him.)

Lilia: Oh, would you quit it with the sniveling. I drank the potion, didn’t I? I just to rest for a little bit, and then I’ll be good as new.

He doesn’t like emotional farewells/sappiness

He exhibits his distaste of sappiness in Book 7 and the Welcome to Tsumsted Wonderland 2 event. In the latter, when everyone is saying goodbye to their tsums, he mentions he doesn’t like the gloomy atmosphere. He wants goodbyes to be happy (and most likely, free of any emotional weight). The same can be said in Book 7, when he wholeheartedly agrees to the going away party the students wanted to put on for him, as well as when Silver mentions his father had wanted them all to send him off with a smile. I’m not sure if Lilia just doesn’t enjoy people getting serious with their emotions towards him, or if he doesn’t like seeing it in general. It gives me Macho Man (tm) vibes, kind of? Like, “don’t let people see you cry and feel sad because then you look weak” kind of thing but idk.

Lilia: Farewells are certainly sorrowful, but I hate leaving things on such a gloomy note. Let’s keep our chins up until the end. Tsum, your ability to surprise others was exceptional, and you made today so much fun. So long!

He really doesn’t like letting others see him when he’s weak

There’s still a lot of loose ends to be resolved in Book 7, one of them being the full extent of Lilia’s motives for wanting to leave so suddenly. It does seem to be he’s telling the truth that his magic ran out early, since he couldn’t muster up enough strength to fight back against Malleus when he was about to Overblot, but we don’t know if the real reason for that is just because he “went a little to wild” in his youth, like he claimed, or if something else caused his magic to deplete so prematurely. But we did hear him reveal a little bit of his motives when he was talking to Floyd at the party.

Floyd was dismayed he never got a chance to fight Lilia, and he wished he could’ve seen Lilia go all out at least once. When he asks Lilia why he’s dropping out, Lilia says under his breathe that he didn’t want “them” to see him so weak.

Lilia (whispering to himself): …It’s because I didn’t want them to see me so feeble.

Regardless of why his magic ran out and why he wants to go the Land of Red Dragons of all places, we know part of the reason for his departure is because he doesn’t want Malleus and the others to see how far he’d fallen from his former military glory. (sidebar: I have a feeling he thought he’d be a burden on Silver and co. with him losing his magic, and he was trying to leave so quickly to escape his shame towards his rapid loss of strength and independence (I imagine since he’s a magical being who comes from a country that runs on magic, him losing his powers must feel very isolating and limiting, like he’s lost a lot of the control he used to have over his own life).)

He doesn’t think people would be worried about him if he were in danger

In Endless Halloween/Spectral Soiree, Lilia was surprised by how much Silver and the others had been worrying about him and Malleus when they disappeared. Interestingly, even though Lilia is the one that Silver was the most relieved to see (it’s hard to tell with the live 2d models, but it looked like he went up to hug? Lilia and Lilia slapped his hand away), Lilia later says “I didn’t think you’d be so worried about us.” (referring to himself and the others involved with the party shenanigans).

(I am aware they changed this line to “I didn’t think you’d be so worried about me” In TWST EN, but I’m just focusing on the JP version).

I just found it weird that even though Silver was very clearly worried about Lilia the most, Lilia kind of redirected Silver’s concern over from “Lilia” to “Lilia and everyone else”. Did it make him uncomfortable to hear Silver was that worried about him? I’m not sure, but it just stood out to me as being a little strange how he responded, and how surprised he was that his own son would get worried about him suddenly disappearing.

He didn’t think people would be happy getting pictures of him

At the end of Lilia’s Tamashina Mina vignette, Yuu stops by Diasomnia to give him some photos he’d taken of Lilia on their trip, and Sebek, Silver, and Malleus are delighted to see them, since it’s not often they get to see photos of Lilia. Lilia is surprised at how happy they are to receive those pictures of himself. But why wouldn’t they be happy? They love him and treasure him dearly, of course they’d be overjoyed to have pictures of him to remember him by. It’s like he thought they wouldn’t care about him that much, which is really bizarre, considering the whole “even if we’re not related by blood we’re still family” thing he told Malleus before.

Lilia: To think, you’d all be so delighted just to see some pictures of me. I never would’ve imagined you’d all react like this.

He didn’t think his departure in Book 7 would hurt those around him so much

This relates back to what I mentioned in the first point, but there’s one scene that demonstrates this perfectly.

After Silver breaks down in front of Malleus, Malleus teleports both of them to Lilia’s going away party. All eyes should have been on Malleus with how strangely he was acting, but the first thing Lilia honed in on was that Silver had been crying. And not only that, but Lilia looked surprised that Silver had been crying. And why wouldn’t he cry? The one person who formed Silver’s entire world and sun and stars was about to leave him and go die all by himself on the other side of the planet. There is no reason Lilia should’ve been surprised at Silver’s tears, yet he was. And I gather that’s because he never thought the boy could ever possibly want to choose to stay by his side, to choose him over all the hopes and dreams he’d burdened on the poor child from the moment he could walk, to choose him over his real friends and his real family members.

I hope when Lilia “wakes up” from his dream, the first he does is ask Silver what he’d been crying about back at the party. And I pray to god they will actually talk things out and Lilia will finally apologize for how much of a complete idiot he’s been acting.

My headache’s coming back so to wrap this up quickly, my current understanding of Lilia Vanrouge is that he either doesn’t realize just how loved and cherished he is by his family members, or that he does realize it and just pretends not to. If it’s the latter, which is what I personally lean towards, I think he does this as a means to protect himself.

He’s already lost so many of his loved ones, and he very well may be putting up these walls around his heart and pushing away the people who love him just so he doesn’t have to get hurt again. We don’t know how he became an orphan, but his birth family either gave him up or passed away and left him behind. Even when Queen Maleficia took him in, he was always made the scapegoat for the princess’s schemes, and it sounded like he was brought up more as Levan and Mallenoa’s inferior than their equal. And then war struck their nation. And then his one best friend went missing and the other one probably gave up her life trying to protect the very child who'd go on to shatter the ice surrounding his wounded heart.

Perhaps with Malleus and Silver and Sebek now, he thought his best option would be to exit their lives before they had a chance to do the same to him, because he knew they would do the same to him. Everyone does.

As a final note, I still keep going to back to what he said in Cater’s Halloween vignette. I think this one line sums up his views of love better than I ever could:

“But the more precious a bond is, the more pain it can inflict.”

(source)

I wanted to design a cute outfit for Lilia and use it as an excuse to present my headcannon to you.

Yes Silvers narcolepsy comes from a curse, BUT he was also accidentally conditioned to sleep through everything, since his father is physically unable to keep quiet.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my understanding of things...

David Tennant: wears a shirt and publicly says trans kids have the right to exist. Otherwise continues to just do his thing as a beloved British actor with no social media.

The UK Right: has an absolute fit, tries to call him a pedo, but it backfires and gets one of their own fired

David Tennant: wears pride pins in public venues and is supportive of his kid. Otherwise continues to do his thing and has a massive year as a beloved British actor with no social media.

LGBT Britain: give him an ally award for... Not stopping being a good dad and wearing pins while on TV.

David Tennant: accepts award with grace and humility and understanding that the bar for allyship is in the floor, and says he wishes a right wing politician would shut up (presumably about trans people).

Rishi Sunak and the Tories: tries to go after DT for impinging on freedom of speech.

When the Tories go down in flames, can we credit DT? Just a little bit? For lolz?

Occasionally forget people genuinely think capitalism is thousands of years old

Rook is so full of love, I think we should all strive to be a little more like Rook honestly | book 5 animatic 👸🏹❤️🍎🐍☀️|

(This animatic doesn't have a very amazing structure, so just enjoy the pretty pictures and the RookVil teasing/ book 5 content!)

I think we can all learn something from Rook, because I think no one truly understands just how much he loves almost everything- especially Vil. He saw the beauty in Vil's overblot while also acknowledging that it wasn't Vil at his most beautiful. He loves him so much and genuinely wants the best for him; he sees Vil’s beauty! Remember, even when Vil was at his ugliest, he still saw beauty.

He sees the beauty in pimples, in fat, in tears, in color, in wrinkles, in smile lines, in every single "flaw" a human body can have. He sees beauty in something as simple as a flower or a well-crafted chair, and also in something as complex or horrible as trauma or anger and hatred. He sees beauty in everything that today's beauty standard would call "not beautiful", but Rook knows better. He knows that beauty standards are doodoo! He believes that the most beautiful person is a person that loves themself. Ironically a stark contrast to how Vil sees it, since he relies more on external ways validation to measure beauty. Rook truly believes that a person is only ugly if they're very ugly on the inside.

Rook is optimistic, curious, kind and positive. Yeah the guy may be a little very weird, but at the end of the day he's definitely not a bad dude! He wants to seek and protect beauty and spread it to the world :)

I know we're all mad that he voted for Neige, but it was the right thing to do. If he voted for NRC, he wouldn't have been honest, the main trait vil likes in Rook. He wasn't biased, he simply knew that their performance wasn't as beautiful as it could've been. This doesn't mean that their performance wasn't beautiful of course!

Also the fact that what Rook tells Vil after the competition is so important to his character development! Vil shouldn't need an audience to tell him that he's amazing and beautiful, that’s what Rook means.

If NRC had won it would've ruined the entire point of Vil's character arc in my opinion (though of course I would've loved for us to win). In conclusion, Rook is a neat dude who we should learn from (minus the stalking part cough cough)

Remember, this is just my interpretation of Rook! *drops mic, all your ears explode*