do you see the bees on the horizon

uhh the doodle of him tripping and falling on his face is from this just. dogshit screenshot i took of the new trailer. Yeah

chuuya lohen is also specifically inspired by this tweet:

Just. Imagine lohen with corruption. I cant tell if itd be the funniest thing in the world or the most terrifying (probably the latter for his enemies atvl lmao)

hugo zzz lohen is because i really like his attack animations and they fit lohen pretty well. I am Objectively Right about this. (Also i like his legs he should show them off more) (cough who said that)

the weird patches on shirtless lohen are supposed to be ice burn scars? I imagine he probably has a lot of them from like, overusing his vision. The one over his chest specifically i like to imagine is because he got severely injured in that area and completely iced it over to keep fighting (like a gaping wound over his heart filled with ice)

ANYWAY. the lohmika demons got me. 1) i am in fact 100% convinced the book in lohen’s idle is mika’s surveying device, 2) theyre just CUTE. Outsider pov, you see the vice captain of the fifth company with a terrifying reputation become inexplicably soft around the knights’ Soft Boy TM

based on what we know abt lohen rn he Definitely has a deeply tragic backstory but it also feels like he definitely has a lot of love and kindness, he just doesn’t express it traditionally/typically. Sit with me. Lohen and mika. Lohen is definitely pretty intense, and i dont think it’d be toned down for a lover (like he’s pretty openly intense/chaotic in game; he can definitely put on a princely/noble facade (maybe not even a facade, just another facet of his personality but probably not his truest self?) but he doesnt do so just for the sake of fitting in/being more acceptable, it feels more like another tool in his kit to get him where he wants). Someone like mika, pretty shy and meek, being confronted with the full force of lohen’s affection and baggage, and still accepting all that he is with open arms. And then lohen in turn accommodating his shyness, not drawing attention to him/them, but also taking care to celebrate and lift him up in private (and also literally lift him up cough). Lohen being calmer/more relaxed around mika. Mika being more open about his interests and accomplishments around lohen

also really like the idea of lohen and mika going on surveying expeditions together. Lohen gradually gaining mika’s intricate understanding of every ridge and surface of mondstadt. And obviously mika is perfectly capable of fending for himself, but fighting with lohen is almost fun; he doesn’t need to worry (too much) about lohen, can support him from afar with his crossbow or fight together with him close-ranged with his polearm, heal him if he gets injured (forever disappointed that mika is pretty solidly a physical dmg support because atk spd is fun and their kits lowkey synergize pretty well besides the phys dmg)

also also lohen teasing mika by constantly stealing his shit (but maybe 👉👈 its also a quiet promise from lohen that he’ll come back because at the end of the day he always returns mika’s things) (also the angst potential. Lohen nabs mika’s surveying device and he’s like >:[ hmph but also “he’ll return it by the end of the day (like always)” but then. A day passes. A few more. Mika still doesnt have it back. (Pick your poison lohen is severely injured and mika only finds his surveying device when he goes to visit him or lohen is just Dead, and either the device is damaged OR its in perfect condition :)))))

in one of lohen’s idle animations he just. Straight up pulls out mika’s book. Like

tell me these aren’t the same thing (1 they look the same, 2 from mika’s character story it sounds like he’s basically the only person that uses it so like. That’s definitely mika’s book/surveying device right. Im not delusional right). Lohen why are you stealing his stuff stop being mean to him

anyway does anyone fw lohmika. I think theyre cute

lohen is extremely pretty and mika is giving me a frankly ridiculous amount of cuteness aggression (his in-game model scares me though his head is So Big it somehow looks a lot worse than the other older models with similar proportions)

random headcanon i like to think mika is actually pretty damn good with math and physics specifically, based on some of the flavor text abt his mapping device

ace attorney AU:

illuga is a novice defense attorney and flins is a coroner heart emoji

maybe the prosecution is lohen or something i think that'd be really funny and he'd fit right in with the prosecutors constantly attacking the defense

n e way imagine

rookie attorney illuga on his first murder case, he happens to run into flins who was the coroner who worked on the body

extremely unprofessionally, Flins is endeared by the fumbling attorney, and gives him just a small heads up on the state of the body (from what he’s heard about the case, it seems like the accused is innocent anyway) (and if they were guilty surely letting this bit of information slip wont be able to hurt the prosecution’s case right?)

(bro just give up)

(if you cant tell i dont know how a court of law works but we’re using ace attorney logic baby anything goes for drama)

illuga isnt getting “updated autopsy report”’d here no siree (also flins wouldnt be corrupt enough to do something like that)

eventually culminates in a case where flins gets accused of murder, it seems like an open-and-shut case because there was video footage of him walking into the room where the victim was at the time of the murder

no one is willing to take the case, but illuga finds it hard to believe that flins would commit murder despite the hard evidence (this could go two ways: either illuga just has faith in flins’ character, or they were like physically together at the time of the murder; not enough of an alibi to clear him since its just his word and he’s his attorney, but definitely enough to concern him)

Case is definitely chaotic as hell, and flins is probably hiding something from illuga (maybe he knows something? About the case? But doesnt want to tell illuga?) (lets gooo government conspiracy illuga you CAN indict the chief justice for conspiracy and murder)

its eventually revealed that someone was impersonating flins oooo spooky

hm dunno where to go from here but its a fun idea

wait also the idea of flins being Way Too Calm while illuga is questioning him what the hell happened and lowkey pissing him off

modern AU

veterinarian illuga and art conservator flins

mainly want to talk abt art conservator flins sorry illuga :(

i do really like vet illuga because i think a medical profession suits him well in a modern au

and his connection w kuuvhaki/aedon makes me lean more towards vet than doctor

(also i would Not want to subject him to being a doctor that job lowkey sounds like hell and he deserves a break)

love love love artist flins, and art conservator flins felt like a brain blast

like he definitely has the eye and careful hand required for art conservation, and i think he would love learning the history of every single piece he works on, of their creation, of every single bit of wear and damage, of any past conservation efforts

anyway meetcute idea, illuga is going to a museum with a friend (idk who) and he’s not super interested in art/art history beyond “it looks nice :)”

But then at the museum he meets a sort of mysterious, beautiful guy, who he learns actually worked on some of the pieces! So he asks a few questions (mainly ‘cause he just wants to talk to him), but then finds himself genuinely interested in art conservation and art history, the man just makes his work sound so interesting

they talk so long it starts nearing closing or something (lol), but they end up setting up a date so they can talk more

flins is very entranced by this pretty, curious stranger

anyway they go on a date and then another and then get married or smth idk

ALSO flins still being immortal in this au would be really funny because

imagine him trying to justify a choice hes making regarding repairing a piece, and hes silently struggling to not say “i think we should do it like this because I Was There/knew the artist/saw how it originally looked”

unfortunately “dude trust me” is not a valid defense of you conservation choices

so now he has to scrape through centuries-old manuals/reports/catalogs, etc, for any evidence supporting his ideas

hundred line AU???

lowkey i kind of just want to know what hemoanima weapons they'd have

ooo maybe illuga has wings or something bird-related like ima?

flins gets a flamethrower /j

/hj

might have to draw this tbh

i make no promises

(or maybe maybe commander flins? pitting them against each other would be very tragic and delicious,

put that boy in the time loop!!!

commander flins and timelooping illuga, and if illuga has wings or a bird-related weapon hell yeah phoenix imagery

and then the possibility of multiple routes exploring their relationship

sdu somehow manages to capture flins? The interactions w/ illuga and flins as a prisoner (flins would ragebait illuga so hard giggling), or flins being brainwashed and illuga having to cope with the guilt and mixed feelings; anything for their mission, but also brainwashing yknow

prisoner flins, aggravating and cryptic but still so full of fire and life, vs brainwashed flins whose eyes are completely empty and can barely even hold a conversation anymore

aughhhhh the guilt illuga would feel, regular flins pisses him off but brainwashed flins is just So Much Worse and makes him question the validity of their mission, and even if he turns against humanity/the mission it’s too late to undo the damage they’ve already done

routes where he learns the truth of the war and ends up siding with flins?

and then the possibility of routes where the sdu/illuga loses and flins takes him captive

Hhgkvkvlgpglggggggggggggggggggggg

let them be weird and freaky and tragic (as if they arent already lol)

and a little toxic

wait also maybe illuga’s ‘karua’ being flins somehow??? I literally have no idea how this would happen but it would be really funny/tragic (youre fighting someone in a war, ready to kill them, when they take off their mask and suddenly youre facing someone who looks just like your best friend???)

Ok that would probably work better in the version where flins is a lda (or probably 2lda) member, and not a commander but my point still stands

also i just have a really hard time imagining illuga/flins with anyone but each other

romance route. Flins is there again for some reason

multiple eitos route adjacent??? mmmmm illuga cannibalizing flins, and suddenly all he can see is flins flins flins. Everyone around him looks like flins. When he looks in the mirror, the person looking back isnt himself but flins

(his eyes start turning pale yellow)

he def wouldnt be like eito either; i think he’d be kinder about it

this is definitely commander flins version, but like… imagine

oh illuga, i’m sorry, there’s nothing you can do now that you've absorbed me. But at the very least, you’ll never be alone again ^v^

illuga killing himself over and over trying to get him out of his head and its not working, and now theyre fighting over control of his body because flins wants him to stop hurting himself which only makes things Worse

sorry

r ret

retsnom

um

oh darumi…

(I’ll admit i havent seen every single route yet)

but flins would absolutely take on retsnom for illuga after he tries to pull his self-sacrificial bullshit and host it in his own body

tbh that side of retsnom in general is really interesting to me. If it has your memories, behaves like you, looks like you, isnt it just you?

i honestly dont know what illuga would do in this scenario, though i’m leaning more towards him killing retsnom flins

too dangerous to for him to let it stay around, plus it’s still not flins anymore; the fact that the real flins was dead would haunt him for eternity

and he would absolutely blame himself for flins' death

also flins eating books

Flins owns an antique shop and is just living out his immortal life (he's still lantern fae-adjacent, has his lantern and his true form is a blue flame and stuff), and Illuga is out in the countryside just absolutely decimating the wild hunt. He's known to be a very formidable, if reclusive, wizard, though he doesn't quite have the same reputation as Howl; instead of being rumored to eat people's hearts, all of the gossip surrounding him says that he's rejected every heart that was offered to him (hmm.... I wonder why....)

So what a surprise it is for Flins when this famously elusive wizard appears before him while he's on a walk! It probably plays out similarly to the movie; he's being harrassed/badgered by some asshole guards, Illuga suddenly pops in and tells them to fuck off, then drags Flins away. Some weird shadowy figures are following them, so to escape them he pulls them both into the sky; queue the scene where they're walking through the air. Flins, however, notices something weird about Illuga's magic/aura (hmmm.......... I wonder why..........) and he's the one that pulls the jumping off the balcony and vanishing into the crowd bullshit (much to Illuga's chagrin)

anyway Flins gets cursed by rerir and wakes up the next day an old man, and also completely incapable of changing his form, so he decides to just Leave. In the wastes, he meets a mysterious, special-looking kuuhenki (aka luonnotar aka columbina who's been cursed), who guides him to Illuga's moving house. He's met by Aedon (who has a human form? and is also Illuga's familiar maybe), who Very Begrudgingly lets him in after spotting Luonnotar following him (Flins is still beholden by fae rules so unfortunately he can't just break in like Sophie does lmao)

Then Flins and Illuga meet (again) the next day! Illuga doesn't 100% know it's Flins, though he's Very Suspicious (and he Does notice Flins is cursed, but doesn't really bring it up beyond mentioning that he's aware of it). Flins offers to clean the place in return for letting him stay there, which Illuga accepts (his house isn't a mess per-say, but he's perhaps been a bit too focused on murdering the wild hunt). (He also still has howl's magical door). Also... the fireplace burns with a mysterious-but-familiar blue flame... (HMMMMM......)

the bathtub/howl's crashout scene is probably angstier in this au oops, I imagine Illuga comes back from fighting the wild hunt extremely injured and half bird-ed (he can transform into a bird monster like howl) and Flins forces him on bed rest for like a week.

Regarding the summons to the palace thing, i imagine it plays out something like: Illuga gets the summons but is still injured, so Flins offers to go pretending to be a relative/loved one in his stead. Illuga promises to look out for him, though, because the summons make him uneasy (Flins assumes this means he'll be watching him through Aedon or something, but Nope), and Illuga also gives Flins the magical ring like howl gives to sophie. At the palace he meets Sandrone who's like "you're not the one we're looking for" *side-eye*; the two ways i see this playing out are either they basically try to hold Flins hostage to lure out Illuga, or they try to hold Flins hostage for Flins himself because she realizes he's cursed and is like "if you help us (fight the wild hunt???) we can break that pesky curse on you" because one of their most powerful wizards mysteriously disappeared and now their firepower is starting to lag oh no! anyway the meeting gets interrupted by a wild hunt attack or something and Illuga breaks Flins out yahoo! (also potentially a funny scene where they're sneaking out of the palace and Sandrone happens to catch them right as they're about to make it out, but she spots Luonnotar with them and is like "???? anyway not my circus not my monkeys this whole wizard capturing thing wasn't even my idea, so get out")

(can you tell i don't know what to do with rerir)

anyway this all culminates when everything starts to get Supremely Fucked Up; everything is on fire, the wild hunt is everywhere and Illuga leaves to fight/protect them, but unfortunately he can't be in multiple places at once and his house still ends up getting destroyed :((((((

Flins gets chucked into a ravine and passes out... after he wakes up again The Door is calling to him (and also the ring he was given lights up and points to it). Curious, and somewhat wary, he and the Luonnotar follow it into the darkness...

and now for the Entire Reason I Made Up This AU, Flins ends up in Illuga's past. With the ring guiding him, he and Luonnotar find themselves in a burning village. Dead bodies are strewn across the ground; it's clear this place was the site of a wild hunt attack. While walking around trying to figure out where the ring is leading him, he hears the faintest noise of someone crying...

He finds a younger version of Illuga and finally realizes where he is. He goes to comfort Illuga, but quickly realizes he's extremely injured; Illuga seems to be the only survivor, but he won't be for long if Flins doesn't do something. So they make a deal: Flins gives Illuga a piece of his flame so that he can live, and in return Illuga promises to find him in the future.

(i imagine it plays out something like: as soon as Illuga swallows the flame, time starts pulling Flins back to the future/present. As he's being dragged into the darkness, he reaches out to Illuga and pleads for him to find him in the future)

This is why Illuga can use magic and also transform into a giant bird creature: he's using Flins' magic that was given to him, and fae magic just lets him do that i guess. Also explains why Flins thought Illuga Felt Weird when they first met (Illuga literally had a piece of his own soul in him), and why Illuga was trying to seek him out.

Him and Luonnotar eventually make their way out of the magical door space---back in the ravine, there's a new sight! A giant lump of bloodied feathers on the ground---Illuga is here, plus Aedon, who's been looking for them after the house collapsed.

On a slightly less positive note, Flins is lowkey struggling, considering he just gave up a fragment of his literal soul. On an even worse note, Aedon has to explain that Illuga is just straight up Dying; besides his injuries, using fae magic as a regular mortal unfortunately has significant drawbacks, beyond the cost of using magic in the first place, and the bird monster form has almost completely consumed him.

Flins very tenderly kisses him on the cheek, and it's enough for Illuga to stir. Blue fire flickers through his feathers, up his arms, and when he finally opens his eyes, one of them is now a burning, pupilless yellow, rather than its typical red and blue.

Flins has to very quickly explain the situation; he has a potential (and likely their only) solution, and Illuga is just barely lucid enough to understand, and agree. They make another deal: in return for taking back the flame, and thus the fae magic that has been consuming him, Illuga promises to live.

(or less dramatically: illuga gives back the flame and flins heals him)

Lo and behold, after the deal is sealed, the feathers start to recede, his eye turns back to normal, his injuries begin to close. Additionally, it seems like Flins' curse is gone as well, the power of their love strong enough to break it. Once Illuga is healed, they finally get to kiss <3

(and also columbina turns back into a human from the power of their love or something)

some more random thoughts:

there's definitely a moment like in the movie where Flins is sleeping---during this time the curse doesn't affect him so he has his regular human appearance, and Illuga sees this. He realizes he is the one he's been looking for, but now just doesn't seem like the right time to reach out and ask for questions. After all, despite looking the same, this doesn't seem like the same person who saved him in the past...

more timeloop shenanigans: i imagine their dream of an elysium is transfered to each other through this. Illuga passes it to Flins who passes it to past Illuga, who then carries it with him as he grows up until he meets Flins again.

also i think at the beginning Flins' hair is completely blue, when cursed it's silver, and after breaking the curse it looks more like his in-game hair, blue with silver tips

dottore might've been the one to curse columbina idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

their last deal may or may not have accidentally turned illuga immortal oops. HOWEVER it does inadvertently tie/bind them together, like, two fae deals and Illuga was holding a piece of him within himself for literal years, it'd be a miracle if they weren't lmao (i am delusional)

about nikita/piramida,,, i'm not really sure what to do with them. I think this could go two ways, either they're still around and one of the doors leads to piramida, or they're dead and illuga used his magic to transform the remains of piramida into his moving house.

the rumors abt illuga that i mentioned at the beginning... he's a very handsome and kind young man so of course people want to ask him out, but he turns down any and all advances towards him (he's saving himself for marriage flins huh what who said that)