#always a delight to go on lyctoral tangents

[mercyisms]

I wasn't the og anon but for DVD commentary, anything of the following that you'd like to write more about - 3 q's: who was the monochrome stranger? what do R/S/V stand for? does cristabel love pearls and if so why? and would adore commentary for all of the "rummage" text , and/or the ending, "Darkness: Welcome back, baby ... It is not enough".

[necro elysium (yuck!!): the director’s cut]

the more the very merrier. thank you for reading and asking!! who was the monochrome stranger? that's miss cassiopeia the first. she makes one reference to nigella, which is your only and very subtle clue. i'm not sure why i was drawn to include cassy. i think i wanted to place bets on characterization for her, since it seems inevitable that she'll be part of alecto, so that's fun for me. the cassy sections were also written back in 2022, so maybe i thought she would... come back?? later in the fic?? unfortunately, augustine derailed on that, as one imagines augustine is wont to do. what do R/S/V stand for? honestly very extremely literal things. it entertained me to think mercymorn would divide up her life in a binder, and keep certain aspects of scientific research together with relationship trinkets and milestones. i think you can get close to R & S but V is for "valentines," something I decided the og lyctors, at least, would still have. does cristabel love pearls and if so why? i'm really not sure if this is based on anything beyond, idk, silas albino energy, but i just associate the eighth house with pearls. possibly because mercymorn wears them? i think? also because the eighth house has that stomae proximity and colum bursts into teeth. so the pearl is also enamel vibes. and the mother of pearl wardrobe is bc i further a 'mercymorn as an asian woman' headcanon & there are lots of lovely korean mother of pearl boxes & art that scream mercymorn to me personally. it's really more of a personal eighth house vibe. i think we mb only canonically know cristabel oct like macaroni art (but teethy!! that's teethy!!) but i don't think mercymorn could abide her house being made of pasta. rummage? i wasn't going to replicate every disco elysium feature (ie. different outfits to add skill points, thought cabinet) to keep this fic, y'know, possible in scope for me, someone with very little fic-writing stamina, but i did want to replicate the feature of a check or interaction you could come back to again and again. sort of like harry in the pawn shop? i think? i also wanted to paint the absurdity of a, i think, first house wardrobe: lab wear, fancy dress, formal house wear (the pearled armour one may imagine as a 'cultural' garment for the eighth house), and, of course, dumb t-shirts that john would love. it was also the easiest way to slip in something like a meme, as all tlt fics should. i am notorious for following those meme t-shirt accounts and sending them to all my beloved friends assigning them to fictional characters, so i rifled through all the dms i had and pulled the worst and most embarrassing shirt. it also doubles as a way for me to tell you i think mercy and cristabel were canonically fucking. the ending! i think the major ethos of the ending is hit pretty hard: the displacement of both mercymorn and cristabel into their new lyctoral form: the saint of joy, but with the seeds of what will eventually turn mercy against john. i did struggle, for awhile, about what the ending would look like & what that line would be. i thought the previous tlt had very strong dismounts and didn't want this one to fizzle! realizing death could close it out was a boon. it's intentionally the only "impossible" check in the fic (which is the hardest check in disco). and i would read it, perhaps, as a sort of giving into the logic and pain of lyctorhood, something that supersedes her allegiance to john. death is also characterized (as it is in tlt, i would, and many ppl smarter than i, have argue/d) as a hunger in the fic & you could maybe give me too much credit and read it as a deep hunger for joy, for justice, for these elements of cristabel that are no longer accessible through cristabel herself & cannot ever be satiated. that sort of stuff!!