#and then my second thought was when i realized since it was dantes inferno themed album it was probably in reference to ->

[fishsticksart]

Francesca - Hozier

If someone asked me at the end, I'll tell them put me back in it

[Francesca, Hozier // The Ghosts of Paolo and Francesca Appear to Dante and Virgil, Ary Scheffer // Francesca, Hozier // Canto V, Inferno, Dante Alighieri // Francesca (Official Video), Hozier // Francesca, Hozier // Ship on Stormy Seas, Ivan Aivazovsky // Francesca, Hozier // Canto V, Inferno, Dante Alighieri // Paolo and Francesca, Mosè Bianchi // Francesca, Hozier // Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, Gustave Doré // Before Romeo and Juliet, Paolo and Francesca Were Literature’s Star-Crossed Lovers, John-Paul Heil // Paolo and Francesca, Frank Dicksee // Francesca i Paolo, Ludwik Wiesiołowski // Before Romeo and Juliet, Paolo and Francesca Were Literature’s Star-Crossed Lovers, John-Paul Heil // Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, Dante Gabriel Rossetti // Francesca, Hozier // Francesca (Later with Jools Holland), Hozier on BBC Music // Canto V, Inferno, Dante Alighieri // tumblr user @handgf // The Kiss, Auguste Rodin // Paolo e Francesca, or Morte di Paolo e Francesca, Gaetano Previati // Hozier // Hozier // Hozier]

[sometimesrosy]

Anonymous said:Will never get how people as for your opinions when your theories are always dead wrong 🤣

a’ight. let’s look at what I got wrong.

Wrong

i was wrong about the timing of a bellarke kiss. i make no apologies. i have claimed myself to be the captain of #teamfuckingkissalready and if you missed that bias, then that’s your own fault. HOWEVER, the theories that have inspired my certainty that bellarke is romantic are not wrong and have been confirmed every freaking season. I’m impatient. I didn’t see the need to wait. Then. I see it now. I mean I still want them to kiss.

Cannibalism. I never said it couldn’t happen. I did say I didn’t like it. And that’s mostly because I didn’t like the way the fandom was going after it and some of the bad theories made me want to ignore the good ones. I basically just wanted to stay out of it and people wouldn’t let me. They tried to force me to support it and so I had to explain my reasons for not liking it. I wouldn’t be considered wrong about it if people had left me alone to not address it.

That’s about it I think. Timing of bellarke kiss and cannibalism. If I think of anything more I’ll come back and add it. If i had theories that haven’t happened yet, they haven’t been proven wrong. If I had theories that I adjusted to fit as I got new information I’m not counting that as wrong I”m counting that as developing. Since the narrative is in progress. If I took some time to think about someone’s theory and changed from disagreeing to agreeing, I’m not counting that as wrong I’m counting that as being convinced, like with timejump (which was a SPOILER not a theory) and jordan being marper’s kid which I didn’t like but had to admit was probably true. I didn’t want them to die. 

All right. So you’re right. I’ve been wrong. My bad. Or whatever. I’m allowed. If you put yourself out there you’re going to miss a few shots. It’s part of life.

Now let’s move on to the things I’ve gotten right, which is harder to remember, because a lot of the time I see something before others and then after I explain it, they start agreeing and then it’s considered “obvious.” Despite me getting harassed for being audacious enough to predict it in the first place. I’ve only been making theories since s3 started, so that’s when my spec began. If I had a theory then, and it is still possible to interpret that theory through the story now, I’m going to call that theory correct. Interpretations are subjective, but to be accurate, they should be able to have canon support. So if I didn’t get Jossed by the canon, then they are counted in the right category, even if you don’t agree. So. 

Right

Dante’s Inferno. I said it would be the structure of s3. It was. It continued to show Purgatorio and looks like it’s heading to Paradiso. This theory has expanded to where I’m now predicting that the show will move away from tragedy and towards classic comedy, not ha ha comedy, but victory and marriage comedy.

Bellarke is endgame. I made this prediction after 3.05 when I realized they were symbolic of yin/yang, head/heart, knight/queen and must be together for anything to succeed. Not only was it true for s3 when people thought CL was endgame, but it has been true EVERY season and at the end of book 1. This prediction remains true and no matter who else has said they were dead or live, I’ve always maintained it. 

Bellarke is the backbone of the story. I used those exact words and JR then used them in the same way about one year later. 

Bellarke are soulmates. Someone said CL were soulmates, I said no, then thought about it and, due to the above endgame theories, realized that Bellarke were the soulmates of this story. This was confirmed one year later by JR

Bellarke visual story of Hands. I said that was the symbol of their relationship. S5 had them barely touching and no hand close ups, this shows how they weren’t really together. However, Bellamy was always fidgeting with his hands, as if they needed to hold something. Look for this in s6.

I said that Arkadia was the story of Bellamy facing his darkness, his soul at risk, but that he had to struggle there so that he could become a hero. When everyone else said that Bellamy was the villain, I said, no, this is enabling him to be the hero. And s5 proves that without a doubt.

I said that Polis was NOT the story of Lxa as hero and Clarke as love interest, but it was Clarke’s dark psychological story as she faced her own darkness and made peace with her shadow. I maintained Clarke was the hero. This theory was confirmed by the writers this hiatus. 

I said that Arkadia were not colonialists, they were refugees. Listen people, look up the definition. They were refugees.

Near the end of s3 I speculated that the twist for the COL would be that everyone lived. And everyone lived. Except Pike. Who wasn’t in the COL.

Before s4. I had a crazy crack theory that they would use Cryo chambers to escape Praimfaya. There was no evidence for this. And yet. I was right. It took an extra year, and another apocalypse, but I was right.

S4, I said they would use multiple solutions to survive praimfaya. They did. Nightblood, space, AND a bunker. 

I said that Octavia was portrayed as a hero, but had the potential to be abusive, but was not a villain yet in s4.

I said that the bunker was doomed with all those grounders in there who just wanted to fight. I mean. Obvious. But I told you so. 

I said that they would use B/E as a romantic obstacle and that meant that we would get CANON romantic bellarke as a LOVE TRIANGLE and we did. We didn’t get kiss/confess/sex but we got CANON romantic emotions on both sides and CANON comparisons between B/e and Bellarke which is a CANON LOVE TRIANGLE which is a CANON ROMANCE even though it is not resolved yet. They stopped in the middle of the story that I predicted so I did NOT get that wrong. It’s still happening and I expect to see the rest of it in s6. They’ve set it up. It’s happening.

I said that either Clarke or Octavia would become a mother. I actually got hate for this. People told me I was evil to wish single motherhood on them. (I am a single mother so that’s nice.) I speculated that one would get pregnant, but in the end it was Clarke finding Madi. I was correct. Motherhood is a theme for post apocalyptic fic and I nailed it. Clarke is mama bear.

Oh while we’re at it. I said Clarke and Bellamy played the role of mother and father leaders. Which while not “romantic” in a romance story way, is NOT a platonic relationship. A marriage is non-platonic love. And Clarke was named, in canon, Mama Bear and Bellamy was shown as space dad or whatever. CAPTAIN DADDY. Nomon and nontu, paired leaders, mother and father. That is actively developing. 

I said that Octavia would have redemption story that allowed her to be martyred and her death was likely. This was a story they actually played with heavily, and had her down on her knees ready to be martyred when they yoinked her honorable death from her. Which I loved, because it was the cheap way out and now she has to be responsible for her own actions instead of blaming Bellamy. Which is ALSO something I said she needed to do, way back in s3.

I said that Kane would die and I suspected it would be Vinson. He didn’t REALLY die but he almost did and it was Vinson. I usually said Kane or Abby but Kane was way higher on my list. I thought Octavia and Kane were it. I was wrong, but I was also right, because they both almost did. This is tricky, but it happened for both the way I said and they were saved at the last second so I’m counting both.

Exodus theory. I said Bellarke would take their people and leave Eden. I said they would lose the war for Eden and win the war for their souls. Over the course of the season it became clear that they would be taking the space ship and their exodus would be into space.

I actually predicted that the last shot would be Clarke and Bellamy looking out at the two suns planet, together. Or if I didn’t predict that outright, it was in my head and I wrote a bellarke fic with that. It was way bellarkey so like much more romance, but the final image was there.

Oh someone told me that the Happy Ever After end I predicted for Bellarke was actually the ending for Marper. I think that’s when I said that if they got a happy ending they would go off alone and live their lives in obscurity and have a family and just stay out of it. And that it turned out to be Marper instead means that I was right in the themes and story. AND because Marper is paralleled with Bellarke, and they then gave Bellarke their son... it STILL applies symbolically to the story of Bellarke. They cannot, though, have a happy ending unless their story is OVER. So that means Bellarke is still the story, but they HEA ending of Marper is there as a guide for Bellarke, which probably means that their time to be together is coming very soon. Which I’m super excited about. Monty said, be happy like we were. That means... together.... in love. 

I mean there’s probably lots more because I get small things right too. And things that people start to agree with me and it seems obvious so I forget that it was my theory or spec. Or enough evidence happens before it happens so it seems obvious. When it comes down to it, I listen to what the story is saying and I try to put the pieces together to see the broader picture. I’m not coming up with theories based on my shipping or opinions. And when it also comes down to it, i can say whatever the hell i want it’s my own damn blog. And I don’t make people come to me. But they still do, even when I’m mad at them. And they still ask me questions. Because they like my answers. And i’m not running a popularity contest. I do not answer questions to please my audience (sorry audience) I answer questions to figure out the show or share my thoughts. And you can NOT say that no one asked me for my opinion because almost all of my posts are answers to questions this fandom has asked me. Even this one. You sent the ask. You solicited my opinion.

So sit back bitch and learn something. btw you’re blocked from my inbox. 

[avelera]

⭐star⭐ The Only Way Out Is Down :D

The original meme was: Reblog this if you want readers to come into your ask box and ask for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story, or set of lines. Or, send in a ⭐star⭐  to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!

Sorry it took a second to get to this! I kept mulling over what I wanted to talk about that I haven’t gone into detail on already. Usually I sorta default to the Drift section in the chapter “The Handwriting of God” because it was a late addition to the story that I’m very proud of, but I’ve talked about that before.

Soooo, I think instead I’ll go into detail about how the “twist” in the chapter “Treachery” was constructed, because I feel like I learned a lot as an author by doing it and it’s probably the single thing in the story I put the most effort into. Warning, this is very self-indulgent ;P

This is gonna by default have a lot of spoilers for The Only Way Out is Down so please don’t read below the cut unless you’ve finished the story unless you want to be spoiled!

The “twist” in question is the revelation that Hermann’s own traumas with regards to Newt’s possession are writing the “sins” that they’re visiting in each Circle, and that they’re Hermann’s sins in particular, not Newt’s. Furthermore, he’s been identifying himself as the guide, Virgil in the original “Inferno” by default, having convinced himself he’s the hero of the tale here to rescue Newt and not require any saving of his own, when in fact the role he fulfills is that of Dante, the man in need of rescuing from sin. This comes to light in ch. 12, Treachery, after Newt and Hermann have consistently failed to figure out the central logic for why the Circles are styled as they are, or why they break when they do in order to free them to move on to the next and hopefully to free Newt once all 9 are completed. 

This twist may not have been planned since ch. 1, as such, because I started the fic as an Inferno-based character study of Newt with the question of, “How do I do a Newt Recovery Arc story where Newt is actually present from the very first chapter?” I’d been reading quite a few Newt Recovery stories at that point, and noticed that somewhat by necessity they all began where Uprising left off: with Newt bound to the chair and the Precursors speaking through him. Then the inciting incident would begin that would allow Newt to finally break through, but usually that was several chapters in.

So I realized 2 things from the outset: 1) I didn’t want the Precursors still around. They just create too much plot to solve and questions to cloud the narrative like “When is this Newt? How good are they at faking him?” and what to do with them after Newt’s freed. Are they all killed? Does the war happen? It sets up a whole huge conflict that also asks the question of how Newt is involved with a theoretical Pacific Rim 3. So I decided this was going to be a Pacific Rim 4, the Precursors are already dead but for some reason Newt STILL won’t wake up, allowing the narrative to stay focused on his recovery with no dangling questions after. 2) Obviously, in order for Newt to be there from the beginning, we need to start inside his head. This made it even more a mindscape journey. His POV gives us reasonable assurance that this is really him and he’s not corrupted. He remained psychologically separate from the Precursors, which is the story’s world state that I deliberately set up so I also didn’t have to answer questions of “how guilty is Newt for what the Precursors did?” He’s not guilty and he actually knows it, because that separation remained distinct in this particular interpretation. 

Originally, Newt was absolutely supposed to be Dante, the man at the center of his life who is lost with no way forward and must go on a spiritual journey to regain himself, which may be a bit unfair and confusing for readers to solve the twist because he sees himself as Dante in his opening monologue. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to set up that expectation and then flip it for one simple reason.

 I didn’t want this to be a “Hermann saves the day” story.

The narrative structure of a lot of Newt Recovery Arcs by default place a lot of pressure on Hermann’s character to be the rescuer and the Knight in Shining Armor. That can lend itself too to a character who has all the strength while the other has all–or most of–the weakness besides maybe the occasional moment of doubt. I didn’t want to do that. In fact, I wanted to deliberately subvert that. I’d already done a story with Prayers to Broken Stone where one half of the ship is in crisis and the other half rescues them, and I always thought that story was a bit flawed because it made one side out to be this angel who never tires of their constant rescuing of the other, and the other out to be desperate and broken and crying all the time. I wanted to do a more balanced rescue story,  with mutual rescue, which is one of my favorite tropes for romance.

I started realizing even from ch. 2 in Hermann’s POV that Hermann was Not OK. That the years separated and the revelation of Newt’s possession had shattered him, but he had duct taped himself back together and fiercely refused to acknowledge he was anything but the hero designated to rescue Newt from his coma. Even the fact he’s spent a year Drifting with Newt to try to revive him was meant to be the reader’s first warning sign. Hermann isn’t just being a good partner, he’s not just a hero doggedly refusing to give up. He’s broken. He’s repeating the same attempt every day, shattering his own physical and mental health in order to dash himself to pieces against the problem of Newt’s recovery. This should be the first warning bell for the reader, and for Newt once he’s regained enough of himself to start paying attention to Hermann’s mental health.

I conceived of a crossover style narrative, where Newt would begin the story outwardly broken and in need of healing and begins to transition as he healed into the stronger party of the two. He starts breaking Circles all by himself as early as Circle 5, the midway point, technically he did so with help all the way back in Circle 2 but was too in his own head and convinced of his own weakness to notice. The point of Newt’s arc would be that with each Circle, he gets a bit of himself back. He faces his old traumas and re-writes them to become victories. The reality remains unchanged, sure, but new memories help to ease the old ones. 

By the end, Newt’s only remaining trial is to face the memory of the Precursors and realize he was a hero the whole time, that he was targeted because of his strength, that they attacked his self confidence deliberately because they knew he was strong enough to defeat them, and that he doesn’t need to be prey to their manipulation anymore. Then, he’s able to step free of his own traumas in order to save Hermann. That was the big subversion I had built in from Ch. 2 onward. I wanted Newt to be the hero of his own recovery, not without help, but the help was to pull him out of the depths of despair so he could be his own hero. 

Hermann’s assurance that he’s the hero of Newt’s story is in fact hubris, and that hubris is why it takes him so long to figure out what is in fact the embarrassingly simple reality that they are in the Drift, so these Circles are constructed from both their memories and the traumas being addressed belong to both of them. His blindspot is himself, as it is with many people. Newt doesn’t recognize this in part because Hermann is so tight-lipped and secretive about the trauma of those 10+ years. So Newt is buying that Hermann is fine because Hermann says he’s fine. That is, until the evidence becomes overwhelming that he isn’t. Each Circle has in fact, brought Hermann face to face with his failures, and it’s reopening the wound until the point where he shatters from the self-imposed guilt.

Hermann’s arc in the story is also a recovery arc, but he needs to actually finish falling before he can pick himself up again. “The only way out is down” is the title and the theme of the story. In order for recovery to begin, they have to push deeper into the things that hurt them, rather than running away, before they can come out on the other side. Newt had to regain his strength because he’d already hit rock bottom and was honest with himself about this fact. Hermann’s journey is first and foremost to stop lying to himself. He can’t begin to recover until he’s acknowledged that losing Newt, learning Newt was possessed and he did nothing to prevent it, the vengeance he took on the Precursors by destroying their planet, and the devastation of that not being enough to wake up Newt immediately actually broke him and he is not ok as a result. It may seem outwardly that the narrative is therefore punishing Hermann, saying he needs to be pushed down while Newt is raised up, but I always envisioned it more that the wound has festered. It needs to be reopened and cleaned so it can heal properly, even if on the surface that looks like he’s being wounded all over again, it’s actually a step in the healing process.

So knowing this was going to be the parallel arcs of the characters back in Ch. 2 I actually went ahead and said it in the dialogue:

“…The journey into Hell was instructive, not punitive.” Hermann frowned. “But you are not Dante, and I am not Virgil who can keep whatever is down there from harming us….”

In addition, many times Hermann notes Newt’s parallels to Virgil without connecting the dots, for example when he notes in the same chapter that Newt’s catchphrase, “Fortune favors the brave,” is actually a Virgil quote. Hermann assigns himself the role of Virgil/Savior, and Newt goes along with it because he doesn’t know Hermann needs saving too, but it’s Hermann hubris and part of that too is that Hermann did not do a close enough read of the text until it’s too late. 

Hermann is the one going on a journey into a strange place, which is Newt’s mind, where he is in fact an outsider. Newt is a native of this Hell, just like Virgil. Newt has seen all these memories before. While Hermann has a surface level knowledge of Inferno and the order of the Circles of Hell, that doesn’t mean he’s an expert on what’s actually in them the way Newt is. In fact, as early as Limbo, it’s Hermann asking Newt to explain what’s happening in the Circles/memories, in dialogue that is deliberately cribbed in its formatting from The Inferno. 

“"Tell me, my master, tell me, lord,“ [Dante] thenbegan because [he] wanted to be certainof that belief which vanquishes all errors,"did any ever go – by his own meritor others’ – from this place toward blessedness?”

Parallels with:

“Newton, stay with me, what are we looking at here?”

“I’m trying, Herms, but.. ugh, I think I’m feeling kind of seasick? I’m here but I’m also…also there? I don’t…”

“Why would it be showing you this? This level corresponds to Limbo. Think!”

Even the opening quote from Inferno in the chapter summary is taken from when Dante and Virgil go into Limbo and is meant to be one of the first clues of what’s really going on:

The poet, white of face, began: ‘Now, let us descend into the blind world below: I will go first, and you go second.’ And I, who saw his altered color, said: ‘How can I go on, if you are afraid, who are my comfort when I hesitate?’ And he to me: ‘The anguish of the people, here below, brings that look of pity to my face, that you mistake for fear. Let us go, for the length of our journey demands it.’

The poet is Virgil, who is in distress when he thinks about the horrors encapsulated in the Circles, which mirrors Newt’s fear of going into them. Similarly, the next chapter’s quote is: 

I learnt that the carnal sinners are condemned to these torments, they who subject their reason to their lust.

But Newt didn’t choose, in TOWOID at least, to be subjected to Drifting with Alice. Newt is not the one who subjected his reason to his lust. Hermann did, by his own admission, when he admits he was too jealous of Alice taking Newt to visit Newt in his new home when he was invited, where he might have begun to learn that something was wrong. 

There’s a thread of anti victim-blaming in this story that actually gives away the answer to the riddle very early on, when you realize none of the sins could apply to Newt because Newt was under duress in every memory, while Hermann had free will, which is the only way one can properly have guilt, which is what the Circles are actually addressing: Hermann’s sins, Hermann’s guilt, what Hermann believes he should have done differently to save Newt sooner, meanwhile these memories are constructed too so that Newt can gain strength from seeing himself freed over and over, from that demonstration that someone did are about him. 

This goes back to ch. 1 when Newt gives his furious rant at Hermann for never noticing or caring. It’s not that Newt is actually mad at Hermann, by his own admission, he just wanted to see that someone cared enough to try to rescue him, and that’s what the Circles are accomplishing for him. Thus, the Circles are constructed from both of their needs, but Hermann’s is opening his eyes to how terribly he’s been beating himself up for not doing something sooner, to the point where he finally cracks and admits it to himself as well as Newt.

This is why I needed to do two drafts. Because like the characters, I actually went into the Circles not really knowing myself what made them break or not. I resolved to write out all the best thematic “memories” to match the 9 Circles and then find the internal link between them after. That required me to re-write Wrath, actually, in order to make sure it was clearer that Hermann was th eone who got angry, not Newt, and to throw up enough smoke around Newt’s body killing Hannibal Chau to make it seem like he was the one who acted with the traditional definition of “Wrath”. 

Actually, each Circle is very carefully constructed so that Newt’s actions are the surface level definition of the sin discussed, but Hermann is the one who actually committed the sin. Newt is physically suspended in Limbo, but it’s by the Precursors. He’s trying to reach out, but he can’t. Hermann is the one with full autonomy who refuses to reach out once he perceives himself as rejected. Lust has Newt in the throes of physical pleasure, but it’s not a pleasure he chose and Lust itself is not a sin. It’s the act of Lust being used to harm others, Hermann’s sexual jealousy of Alice leads him to the sin of abandoning (unknowingly, he’s actually pretty hard on himself) Newt to these torments. And so on. 

A lot of effort was put with the second draft to make a casual reader see the sins as Newt’s and the careful reader to see the sins as Hermann’s. By knowing this from ch. 2 on I was able to interweave into the story these two layers so that a careful reader could sense something subtly off about the characters’ interpretation of events, e.g they’re Newt’s sins, until the final revelation in the chapter Treachery, which I hoped would be a gut punch when everything fell into place, which in a way is the “passage” I’m responding to with this ehehehehe….

[clairen45]

Visions of Hell...

This second part to my Visions of Paradise Essay was unfortunately a LONG time coming. I hope it will not disappoint.

HELL IS A PLACE ON EARTH... sorry, on a galaxy far far away

So let’s go to Hell in Star Wars and see where it takes us. You can, at first, think of the obvious depictions of Hell, and, oftentimes, Star Wars plays by the rules by delivering your graphic vision of Hell: ie, in the collective mind, and as represented for centuries, as a place, filled with fire, brimstone, lava, suffering, dismembering, torture, with an emphasis on black and red colors. In paintings, this is how it translates:

So, with this visual in mind, this is what you immediately relate to Hell, as a space, in Star Wars:

In the PT, Geonosis (ep 2) and Mustafar (ep 3). You have the fire, the dismemberment (assembly line, C3P0; Anakin loses an arm; Anakin loses both arms and legs and gets burned to a crisp), the psychological and physical suffering, the heavy coded color palette... Visually, Mustafar has been  conspicuously designed to look like an archetypal Inferno. It is, after all,  supposed to be the lowest point of the saga, the Fall, echoing Dante’s first part of his journey.

In the OT, with Bespin  (ep 5) and Jabba’s Palace (ep 6), the visual imagery is more subtle, with some surprising twists and subversions.

Bespin is very interesting because it starts visually as a celestial place, normally coded as Heaven. But this is the place of treachery, and entrapment, which is already suggested by the color coding of the place as the MF lands on Cloud City:

It is a place of betrayal for Han and Leia, sold by Lando to the Empire; where C3P0 is, once again, in the same installment as Trilogy 1, dismembered; where Han is tortured and frozen in carbonite; where Luke is cornered by Vader, loses a hand, and gets the big reveal; a place of psychological and physical pain. Note that there are very few table/dinner scenes in the saga, so this one becomes the Star Wars equivalent of the Last Supper with Lando as Judas, and Han turning into a sacrificial victim.

Jabba’s Palace, is, in my mind, the most interesting Hellish place of the saga. Visually, it does not look like the glorious operatic Hellfest of Mustafar, but it is  actually a quite exhaustive take on sin and Hell as depicted by Dante. First, you have, quite as in the poem, two characters (C3PO and R2D2/ Dante and Virgil) entering a dark place to journey into the world of sins and punishment, and who are reminded, at the beginning to “abandon all hope”. This is C3P0 realizing that their master has “offered” them to Jabba as a gift. And what a wonderful and brilliant embodiment of the 7 deadly sins Jabba is!

Sloth and Gluttony

Pride

Greed

Lust

Anger

And envy, since when he sees Leia with Han he “covets” her.

Jabba’s Palace is quite the Pleasure Palace of all sins, between the boozing, singing, dancing, lusting, and killing people for entertainment. You can add to that the torture that he inflicts to the droids (again, dismemberment), the Rancor that is the equivalent of Cerberus as a Dog from Hell (his tamer’s reaction to its death is like that to the loss of a beloved pet), and the pit of the Sarlacc, which promises “ a new definition of pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over a thousand years”, so exactly like the promise of Hell to the sinners who are tortured forever... Jabba, and his palatial Hell, are very interesting because, for once, they are unrelated to the Empire and the schemes of the Emperor. This reminds us as the audience that Evil can take many forms and can often be found quite close to home, which sounds even truer in Luke’s case since Jabba’s Palace is on Tatooine, his home planet, and incidentally, that of Anakin/Vader’s as well. Jabba’s Palace was a bold interpretation of Hell. It is also very telling that all the characters (including Lando, in a rehabilitative process) are living the experience of Hell in Jabba’s Palace collectively, all facing the trials and overcoming them together. So it was not a one on one archetypal duel, the hero facing the villain.

In the ST, there is still of course ep 9 to reckon with, but in the meantime, we get mostly the Jakku opening scene, Starkiller base (ep 7) and the Supremacy and Crait (ep.8)...

We seem, at first glance, to return to a more litteral interpretation of Hell, more in the line of the PT than the OT, with flames, fire, smoke, the red and black color palette. But Hell, here, takes a "carry-on” form. It is less associated with a place than with a moment. Moments of Hell are created on different places, and are usually associated with the presence of Kylo. Hell is a place created by the characters. Like a bat out of Hell (his very distinctively shaped shuttle), Kylo brings Hell along with him, meaning that we have moved from a scenery, a background, to a more psychological interpretation of Hell. The inner turmoil that is tearing Kylo’s apart, his own inner Inferno, is released out on different places: the Jedi Temple, Jakku, Takodana, Starkiller, Crait...

The only place that exists as Hell in itself is possibly the throne Room on the Supremacy, and again, as mentioned before, this is movable Hell, since it is built on a ship...   

Another character who seems closely associated with Hell and its representations is Finn, which puts him again in close relationship with Kylo (check the links between the two characters here). The experience of Hell on Jakku in the opening scene is lived through the eyes of Finn. On the Supremacy, in parallel with Kylo and Rey’s hellish experience in the throne room, Finn is here again also facing the Inferno, which takes a very litteral form as Phasma is sent to a fiery chasm (and “hopefully” this time around her death).

There is thus an interesting progression in the saga. From Hell as something very  operatic that reflects the characters’ inner turmoils in the PT, but also exists visually on its own ;  Hell as a place of trial for the characters, sort of to test their mettle in the OT; Hell as a place that comes from deep inside the characters’ pain and conflict in the ST and can appear at virtually any place.

There is also a recurring theme about Hell and what it brings to the characters in terms of love and romance in specifically each 2nd installment of the trilogies. In every trilogy, the characters find love or admit love at the gates of Hell: Anakin and Padmé on Geonosis as they are about to be sentenced to death; Han and Leia on Bespin before Han is frozen in carbonite; in the throne room scene through the duel and Kylo’s botched proposal, and on Crait when Rose admits her love to Finn. Love at the gates of Hell has quite an Orphean, poetic quality, admittedly... Twice, as for Orpheus, it is about love found and lost: for Han and Leia, and for Kylo and Rey... It can also echo the idea that, as Dante put it, “the path to Paradise begins in Hell”.  Love has to be found in Hell of all places in order to lead the way to Paradise.

Not always in obvious places... “Hoth” as Hell

Hoth is a peculiar case. I do believe that it can qualify as a possible Hellish place... for one particular reason... In Dante’s Inferno, the very bottom of Hell, the place where Satan resides, is not a fiery pit, but rather a lake of Ice.

The first depictions of the Devil were not that of a red demon, but rather a blue angel, which for some time associated the devil with cold and ice, as depicted in this 6th century mosaic from a basilica in Ravenna (Italy):

So, taking a page from the history of the devil, ESB starts on a planet that is barely a haven (pun intended) for the Rebels. The middle chapter of the OT is really the “Hellish” chapter, from the opening on Hoth all the way to the Bespin finale. And I particularly appreciate the way they designed places that are supposed to symbolize Dante’s Inferno without once playing on the usual clichés: the “Hoth” (the word always struck me as odd) planet of Ice, and the celestial Bespin. Like Satan is trapped in ice in Dante’s poem, the Rebels are effectively trapped, paralyzed on their icy planet (and I am not hinting that the Rebels are evil, but rather that they fnd themselves caught up in a form of Hell). And they also end in a trap on Bespin, with Han this time literally frozen. Vader, the representation of evil here, is thus not sending Han (and possibly Luke) to a fiery pit of lava, but to a place that freezes them. Back on Hoth, this is a place where the rebels are hardly sheltered and live under constant threats of death due to the terrible climatic conditions or hostile hungry creatures. Note that when Han goes to get Luke, this is what he says:

This is rare enough as an occurence to be highlighted. To my knowledge (feel free to pitch in), there are only two other instances where Hell is mentioned in the saga: by Uncle Owen in ep 3 ( “Well, if he doesn't have those condensers on the south ridge fixed by midday, there'll be hell to pay” ), and in episode 7, when Finn utters the infamous:

Finally Hoth can work as Hell notably because of the wampa figure, which rightly features among the potential satanic or hellish creatures in the very long list of bizarre Star Wars creatures.

Minions of the Devil, Evil Eye, and Satanic Creatures

Just like Hell as a space, some creatures are right in your face Satanic, or meant to embody evil. In the OT, ep 1, this is Darth Maul’s sole raison d’être.

In this interview with Bill Moyers, this is what Lucas has to say about him:

BILL MOYERS: When I saw him, I thought of Satan and Lucifer in “Paradise Lost.” I thought of the devil in “Dante’s Inferno.” I mean, you’ve really — have brought from — it seems to me — from way down in our unconsciousness this image of — of — of evil, of the other.

GEORGE LUCAS: Well, yeah. We were trying to find somebody who could compete with Darth Vader, who’s one of the most, you know, famous evil characters now. And so we went back into representations of evil. Not only, the Christian, but also Hindu and Greek mythology and other religious icons and, obviously, then designed our own — our own character out of that. (...) A lot of — a lot of evil characters have horns. It’s very interesting. I mean, you’re trying to build a icon of evil, and you sort of wonder why the same images evoke the same emotions.

Ok, so basically, as avowed here, they just wanted a very visual embodiment of evil, something that could rival Vader in ep 4. Except that, as iconic and mesmerizing his look was, he didn’t say much, didn’t do much except jump about (indeed beautifully), and we know nothing about him, his motives, his purpose. Looking evil does not make for a great villain. And we knew this was not the big bad guy, just a henchman...So, not Satan, but a minion of the devil. And there are plenty of other aliens that dress the part just as well. Take for instance that cute as Hell guy from episode 4, found in Mos Eisley cantina:

He sure looks the part, complete with horns. He is just a cameo, though, to add to the list of nightmarish creatures from the cantina. To Luke and to the audence they were meant to be scary, shady, and strange. Were they truly evil? Obi-Wan had warned Luke: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”. So, I guess, yes? But this is also where they found Han and Chewbacca, and despite shooting Greedo first, Han turned out to be “nice men”. So maybe Satan horny guy would have been chummy on second thought?

Another interesting creature with horns is that one:

This is not a minion of the Devil, he could almost past as a furry fuzzy yeti. But the wampa, from planet Hoth can work as a hellish creature. It’s got the horns, it captures Luke, and threatens to eat him. Interestingly each first installment of the saga presents a scene where the heroes have to face creatures that seem to come straight from Hell and threaten to devour/eat the heroes: the aquatic monsters from the core of Naboo (note that Anakin IS NOT there), the creature from the trash compactor that attacks Luke, and the Rathtars that run loose on Han’s vessel and almost get to Finn... A reminder that Hell can take many different forms. And, if you think about classical representations of Hell, the Devil is often seen as devouring his victims:

Of course, you can also interpret these creatures, devouring exclusively men, as a representation of the threatening female mother/genitalia (vagina dentata) or you can think about the belly of the whale in Jonah’s story and take it as a rebirth... Talk about rebirth to Bobba Fett or those Kanjiklub dudes...

Other specimens that threaten to devour the heroes, and could be viewed as possible Hellish creatures:

The nexu and the acklay in AOTC

The space slug in ESB

The Rancor  and Sarlaac in ROTJ

Not to mention the most dangerous of them all:

Yup, without the help of powerful magic (or snacks), this carnivorous savage furball will hunt you down and feast on your flesh!!! Need any proof besides Han tied up to get BBQed? They even did a Forces of Destiny episode where Leia was saving the lives of innocent stormtroopers about to become dinner:

Joke aside (for you Ewok lovers), meeting wild animals (possibly in a forest, I see you, damned Ewoks!) is also part of Dante’s journey to Hell. At the very beginning of the poem, before starting his descent, Dante is attacked by three wild animals: a leopard, a she-wolf, and a lion. With just a bit of a stretch, you can find this idea in the arena of Geonosis with the three alien beasts set upon Padmé, Obi-Wan, and Anakin.

The first two trilogies seem to play with the devouring beast trick more consistently than the ST which just offered the rathtar. Devouring beasts were conspicuously absent from TLJ. Even though there was the shadow of a threat through the gigantic sea creature that roamed the seas around Ahch-To, the animal remained distant. On the contrary, animals were feasted upon: the porg, the fish, the milk from the Thala siren, which was a strong departure from the usual trope. It will be interesting to see what episode IX offers in that scope, but if the devouring beast remains absent, I think it will go along the line that I already suggested about Hell. The devouring creature is no longer an OUTSIDE/OUTER threat to the heroes. Rather, the devouring creature, the one that can consume you inside and out, is WITHIN yourself, in your heart and soul. Moreover, the devouring beast in TLJ was also the role taken by Snoke on a symbolic level, as an echo to Palpatine who preys and feeds on people’s suffering and weaknesses.

I would like to come back to the Dianoga from episode 4 though, because, on the screen, it does not appear as a toothy fearsome creature, but as an eye. The concept of the “evil eye”, that is to say the idea that a mere glance could curse you and bring you harm, can be found in many cultures throughout the world. It is probably a corollary of the idea of the omnipotent everseeing eye of God. The evil eye is not necessarily associated with the Devil himself, it usually comes from a person who is envious. Nevertheless, in The Lord of the Rings, Sauron, who is Evil incarnate, is materialized as an Eye, red, fiery, reptilian shaped. Equivalent “evil eyes” can be found in Star Wars. It can take the form of just one eye, as with the Dianoga, the gatekeeper’s device in Jabba’s Palace, and more interestingly, Starkiller base, which, with its cannon, looks, especially on the posters, like a one-eyed monster and brings new massive meaning to the notion of “if looks could kill”...But it can also be materialized in the evil Sith eyes of Maul, Anakin, or Palpatine. But note that Anakin’s evil eyes come and go, and that not all the villainous characters get the evil eye treatment: it never shows up in Count Dooku, Snoke doesn’t have them, and Kylo never has them either...

Who’s boss? Satan, Lucifer, and their Legions

As we have seen, there are many possible Hellish creatures in Star Wars, but, like Sauron’s ring, is there one to rule and bind them all? There is an important divide to mark here, a dual personality in Evil, that echoes the very way the figures of Lucifer or Satan have been evolving and developed. Most people now tend to fuse the two, but they can be viewed as two rather different entities. As this article sums up:

1.Lucifer is the highly favored angel created by God whereas Satan is his name when he was thrown away from heaven. 2.Lucifer is an angel of God whereas Satan is the name of the devil. 3.Lucifer is not the exact opposite of God whereas Satan is a name that pertains more to opposition. 4.Lucifer has a physical form whereas Satan does not have any.

Lucifer’s name comes from “the carrier of light”, an essential idea in the scope of Star Wars, and in this respect, Lucifer’s embodiments can be found in Anakin and Kylo. Anakin, like Lucifer, is a creature that comes straight from the highest power (God/the Force), and is the chosen one, the favorite, the most beautiful of all the angels. In his casting of actors for young Anakin, George Lucas picked a blond blue-eyed boy with cherubic potential (who incidentally is the only one of the saga talking about angels), and a hot up-and-coming young actor. Anakin is designed to be attractive. Like Lucifer, his tragic flaw is also his pride and hubris, and his desire to play God, which shows right at the beginning when he boasts himself of being the best pilot (he has never won or been in a podrace before) and the fact that he has designed, on his own, a sentient character (C3P0). Anakin rebels to the Jedi Council the same way Lucifer rebels to God: like angels he can’t marry or father children, he is not allowed the rank of master and must keep on bowing down to others while being better than them (Lucifer and the mortals). Anakin is clearly portrayed as a fallen angel, who, like Lucifer is punished and sent to the visual fiery Hell of Mustafar, and encased forever in his own personal Hell, the loss of the woman he loved, and probably endless physical suffering in the persona and armor of Darth  Vader. But does Lucifer become Satan? Even though Vader was a striking embodiment of evil and a mesmerizing villain, he was immediately presented in ANH as a henchman and not the main boss. Even Leia was not afraid to tell it as it was:

And he appeared very subservient in front of the Emperor, which disqualifies him, in my view, as Evil incarnate. Vader is NOT the boss. This is the greatest irony about Vader: as a little boy, enslaved, he dreamed of living a free life, and he ended up bound up forever to his master, as well as to the apparatus that maintains him alive. You can call that survival, but this is truly a pathetic life. Though Milton chose the name Satan for his poem, his character is actually closer to Lucifer, the Fallen Angel, a tragic figure with undeniable seductive appeal through his intelligence, his infectious and passionate speeches, his sadness and torment, which make him, arguably, the perfect “anti-hero”,a romantic figure. Milton’s Satan claimed that it was “better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven”. Maybe that was Anakin’s idea, but he never got to reign, even though the thought apparently stuck with him all these years, from his initial offer to Padmé to his offer to Luke to “rule the galaxy” together.

Enters Kylo, who presents striking similarities with Grandpa Vader. Like him, as a child he gets to struggle with a tremendous burden: Anakin is set out as the “chosen one”, Kylo as “the legacy child”, both with “raw, untamed power” that is unknown to any other Force sensitive, which makes them the beloved of the Force. Like Anakin, Kylo’s character is designed to be seductive, wavy hair and shirtless scene included. Like Anakin, he is a fallen angel, and his patricide aligns him with Lucifer’s attempt at defeating God (aka the Father). Kylo is not immune to pride or hubris either, but just like Anakin, he also finds himself ironically in a subservient position. Seductive in their youth, they both don the costume of evil and its outer signs (black, fiery red saber, satanic crossguard for Kylo, dehumanized mask), but the main difference is that evil has consumed physically Anakin. Vader is the ONLY persona he has left to survive, whereas Kylo merely plays the part. He is still very much human, and very much Ben Solo, as Snoke keeps reminding him.

Both men have been manipulated since childhood by an older man/humanoid who has twisted their minds and hearts and finally gets them to contract a Faustian pact that -as all pacts with the Devil- never delivers. In both cases they do not become more powerful than they were before, and the price must be paid with the blood of their families/loved ones.

If we look at the distinction between Lucifer and Satan, Vader and Kylo can appear as the physical manifestation of Evil, ie Lucifer, the fallen angel, whereas Palpatine and Snoke, who incidentally most of the time appear under a holo form, are more like Satan, the ghost of Evil who needs to borrow/possess other physical forms to engineer his evil deeds. As French poet Charles Baudelaire penned in the 19th century (and quoted from in Th Usual Suspects): “ the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist”. So both Snoke and Palpatine rely on holo forms, traveling, remaining away, hiding in the shadows or under a cloak. Even though the audience (who is familiar with the OT) know from PM that Palpatine is the elusive Darth Sidious, the Jedi Council is unable to identify him through 3 full length movies (!!!!). Like the Devil, he is the one whose very existence is constantly doubted, hiding behind different forms such as the Federation ViceRoys, Darth Maul, Count Dooku, General Grievous, finally Anakin/Vader, a form of demonic possession if ou will. Even Padmé and JarJar become hosts to Palpatine’s infectious powers, as they innocently do his bidding and become his puppets in the Senate. In the OT, the Emperor was conspicuously absent in ANH, and appears for the first time solely as a hologram in ESB. Disincarnated, the Emperor is the best embodiment of the spirit of Evil, nowhere to be found, and thus potentially everywhere, in his henchmen, but above all in the very satanic notion of his “legions”, aka the stormtroopers. Indeed, in Mark 5:1-20, Jesus exorcizes a man possessed by a demon and when asking the demon his name gets this all-too famous answer: “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many”. Whereas the Emperor and Snoke in TFA remain hidden, the galaxy -and the screen- is filled with their legions, droid army, army of clones, stormtroopers, disposable, replacable...

And indeed, when the Empire collapses, the First Order rises right away, evil ready to take another form, moving effortlessly from Palpatine to Snoke... When the figures of Palpatine and Snoke are revaled though, it is with all the usual Satanic codes and paraphernalia. In the PT, Palpatine gets the creepy treatment, with the maniacal laughter, the hooded robes, the evil eyes, the blue devil with horns at his side, the red room, AND the very not subtle art flair in the background that looks like a depiction of Hell:

In the OT, he gets the red guards by his side, and the spider web motif of the Death Star in the background.

As for Snoke, he gets Satanic garrishness through red and gold, in the throne room scene.

Yet, both these satanic figures get defeated eventually, and, according to some critiques, rather quite easily. So what’s the point? Well, the point is how and by whom they get defeated in the first place! Every time it is by the Lucifer figure, ie Anakin and Kylo, the ones that were seduced and corrupted, highlighting once again the dual nature of evil, and meaning that evil is not something that is supposed to be found OUTSIDE of our nature, but WITHIN. Every time, the fight with Evil is first and foremost a fight with ourselves, our very nature. So it comes down to each and everyone to defeat the source of evil, no hero can come and do it for us. It is very important and revealing that neither Rey nor Luke were the ones actively killing Snoke/the Emperor. The “villains” have to become the agents of their own redemption. Even if this redemption is made possible through the love they feel for the heroes ready to die for their rescue.

It is even better that Snoke died earlier in the story of the ST than many had expected before. Because it forces us to question the nature of evil. It is easier and more comforting to lay the blame and point fingers at the very obvious figure of evil, the Satanic paraphernalia, the scarecrow, the snoke and mirrors if you will, as in The Wizard of Evil. As the obvious villains, Palpatine and Snoke serve a function: they are the gold villainous standard to which we are asked to compare our resident other villains, Vader and Kylo. And, of course, the very fact that Snoke and Palpatine are indubitably irredeemable means that, logically, the other two are indubitably redeemable.

The position that Kylo finds himself in at the end of IX is a first, though. Vader did not survive his master, but again, he was too far gone for us to imagine him with a full redemption arc. He could die, but he could not be reborn. With Kylo, the potential is still very much in the open. What Kylo finds himself facing after defeating his inner demon (aka Snoke) is actually what remains after the fall of the scarecrow : the mundanity of evil (as Hanna Arendt called it). I would not necessarily call Hux mundane, but, just like the officers from the Death Star in ANH, they are not supposed to be the big “in your face” Fairy Talish villain. They are the legions, the brainwashed masses, the military honchos, the war profiteers, the obedient soldiers... Once the curtain is pulled (or burned down in the throne room scene), this is the harsh reality of evil that remains: the Huxes, the Tarkins... Yet, even there, hope remains. In introducing the character of Finn, the ST shows that, from within the very masses that represent the legions of evil, change can also come. The ST gives to the mundanity of evil a potential redemption. I was actually stunned when reading the Junior novelization of TFA by the importance given in chapter 1 to Finn as FN-2187 and his interactions with his comrades, who are given nicknames, voices, and an identity. We know that a scene was deleted in TLJ with more of these interactions. I wonder if episode IX is not going to be more straightforward about that and show how Finn was not, as Phasma called it, a mere “bug in the system”, but a foresign of deep structural changes...Fighting Hell and Evil is not just the stuff for mythical heroes facing dragons and monsters, it is, even in Star Wars, an individual quest (Anakin, Kylo), and something even a stormtrooper, or a nobody, can fight and possibly win.

If we go back to Dante’s Divine Comedy as a literary influence, we must remember that the progression is that of a descent followed by an ascension: first into the deepest pit of Hell, then up through Purgatory, to finally ascend into Heaven. Obviously, the purpose is supposed to be uplifting. It celebrates Redemption through the power of Love, and  Faith in God. As much as a physical journey, it is also, of course, a spiritual journey. Something that resonates deeply in the star Wars saga. If each trilogy contains elements here and there, places of Paradise, places of Purgatory, and places of Hell, in order to make sense with the different mythical and religious themes embedded so far, the saga as a whole needs to follow the same path. So the PT is about the trip to Hell (Anakin’s fall), the OT can work as Purgatory as it is very much about expiation, cleansing, and purifying, and yes, normally, the ST is supposed to be about a spiritual ascension, and the redeeming power of love. In Dante’s final vision, women (through the Virgin Mary and Beatrice) and their compassion play an important part. It seems like women are taking a bigger part in the ST. And the last lines of Dante’s poem are really noteworthy in the scope of the saga as a whole :

But by now my desire and will were turned,            

Like a balanced wheel rotated evenly,          

By the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.        

We could argue that the PT is very much about desire (Anakin), and the OT very much about will (Luke). And, in a way, the ST is very much about what happens when will and desire have to co-exist and balance each other out. Rey and Kylo are undeniably a mix of both. And, it is my personal belief, like so many other fellow bloggers, that the point of the saga is to be, like the final line of Dante’s poem, about balance. And I am quite partial about this idea that love will move the sun and the stars... like the Force. Moreover, when reading the quotation from The Journal of the Whills in the novelization of TFA,  something really struck me:  the “refined Jedi sight”. In Dante’s final vision, an emphasis is definitely put on eyesight, and the way eyes become “crystal clear”. Between Rogue One and TLJ, crystals seem to take more and more importance in the conclusion of the saga...

Remember, the path to Paradise is through Hell, and, guys, ascension is on the way . Buckle up!

[anxiousprincedad]

Move-in Day (pt 2)- Detached

Second part of my Home series, also found on Ao3 here. College Roommate Au, LAMP/CALM, slowburn, etc etc. I just liked the idea so much I wanted to write a bunch of one-shots and stuff for it, just a ton of scenarios, so here’s their first meeting (from Logan’s POV)

pt 1: (x)

Logan wasn’t usually one for mistakes. Especially when it came to his education. The one time he did, he ended up being put on a whole separate campus than the one he was meant to go. It wasn’t the biggest deal, but it was still a slight nuisance of having to take the bus every morning to get to his classes.

“Logan, are you alright?”

Logan blinked out of his reverie, tearing his gaze out of the window to look at his mother, who was looking back at him.

“Yes,” he adjusted his glasses, clearing his throat. “I was just thinking about what I would unpack first.”

That was the end of the conversation. She turned back to driving and Logan turned back to watching the buildings pass. The dorm he’d ended up in was across the city from the main campus, and this campus was hardly an actual campus. There were a few buildings around the small town designated for the university, entered only through an issued keycard, but they were nearly indistinguishable from the restaurants and shops around them. Everything was old brick and stone, buildings that had been standing there for many, many years. Logan hadn’t gotten around to researching about them, having focused on the main campus.

As he watched people walk around town, college students mixing with joggers and families, he supposed it was cozy and charming in its own way. He saw the sign on one of the buildings, “Columbus State University Student Housing”. He waited to feel some sort of excitement as the car parked in front of his new dorm. He didn’t feel much of anything.

They checked in and he got his keycard, room key, and a T-shirt that he would never wear. He and his mother began carrying boxes up to the third floor, finding Logan’s room. 328. They’d put signs on the door with all of their names in some sort of Disney themed design that matched the paper cutouts of characters all along the wall. It was the arts campus, after all. Seemed like he’d been put in with three other boys named Virgil, Roman, and Patton.

He unlocked the front door to find an empty apartment. Unsurprising, as they were some of the first to arrive at the check-in downstairs. A few more trips later, and all of his boxes were in the living room.

“Alright, well I’m going to head home now. Should get back around four. Have fun, Logan, try to make friends and make good grades. I’ll call you later,” his mother said after the last box was set down.

Logan simply nodded at her, only glancing back once the front door shut. He wondered if he should feel bad about not even giving her a proper goodbye. It didn’t last long as he got to work, trying to get ahead of unpacking before anyone got there.

Busying himself with moving his personal belongings into his bedroom, he almost didn’t hear the door open slowly. He paused, looking up at the new arrival. It was a tall, skinny boy with purple bangs, dark eyeshadow, and a hand stitched patched jacket. Logan noticed all he had was a bookbag and a duffel bag as the boy closed the door behind him. Logan stood up straight, outstretching his hand to him.

“Hello, I assume that you are one of my new roommates?” he questioned.

Virgil shook it awkwardly. “Uh, yeah, I guess. I’m Virgil.”

Logan was a little surprised by the literary name, but perhaps his parents were simply fans of the arts. Either way, Logan decided not to comment on it.

“Logan, nice to meet you.”

Unsure of what else to say, he turned back to his boxes and began moving one into his room, while Virgil went into the other room. After a few moments, he could hear Virgil moving furniture around, but he decided to ignore it while he set a couple of small cacti on the windowsill. He was admiring the way the sunlight shone on them when he heard the door open behind him.

A small, young-looking boy came in, cheering excitedly before spotting Logan and running over.

Logan, on instinct, held out his hand for the boy to shake. The boy took his hand and shook it with a lot of… vigor, startling Logan a little.

“Hi, I’m Patton, you must be my new roommate! Can I take this room?” he said in a rush, pointing to the room Logan had been moving into.

“Uh, I’m Logan, and I suppose, it’s just me in there curren-”

“Yay!” Patton leaped up, bouncing out the door only to come back in holding a box and being followed by two women, who were also carrying boxes.

Logan went to the kitchen, where he started putting away dishes. Patton came back out to the living room after dropping the box in his room, spotting Virgil.

Virgil looked like he was about to duck back into his room, but Patton caught him before he could.

“Hi, I’m Patton!”

“Virgil,” Virgil said simply, looking sheepish.

Patton’s face split into a grin, “Ooo, that’s a cool name!”

“It’s like the guide in Dante’s Inferno,” Logan added, surprising himself. He hadn’t meant to join the conversation. He cleared his throat. “It’s a good read.”

Virgil smirked at him, leaning against the doorframe. “Yeah, never heard that one before. English sucked ass those couple of weeks, the teacher kept trying to make me read it aloud since I shared the name.”

Logan flushed a little at Virgil’s expression, a little unsure why he was feeling… almost tingly all of a sudden. Before he could think about it too much, one of the women with Patton came out of their room and asked Patton a question, while Logan adjusted his glasses and took a deep breath while no one was paying attention to him.

Patton answered whatever she had asked before turning back to Virgil. “I hope we become the best of friends!”

Virgil blinked in surprise as Patton bounced away, looking at Logan with a confused look. Logan shrugged at him, raising his brows at him.

“Let’s just hope that our last member isn’t so… ecstatic,” Logan mumbled, half to himself.

Logan finished putting away the dishes and shut the cabinet, breaking down the box and setting it beside the trash bin before going to his room. Patton looked up from where he was putting a few plushies on the bookshelf. Patton grinned at him, and Logan gave him a small, awkward smile in return, with a short nod. He began putting his books away.

A couple minutes later, the door opened again with a boy singing loudly, and Logan looked up as Patton jumped up and bounced to the door to meet him. He heard him introduce himself as Roman Prince. He listened in for another moment before returning to flipping through “And One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”. He didn’t really see the need to join the conversation, although that wasn’t a new feeling. He was used to being alone.

Waking up at 7 am was a nice change from his usual 5 am wake-up. As he was tying his usual blue tie, Patton sat up sleepily.

“Good morning!” he said cheerily before yawning and stretching.

“Good morning,” Logan responded absentmindedly as he straightened his tie and adjusted his glasses in the mirror Patton had hung on the door.

Patton got up and followed him out to the kitchen, his hoodie too big and falling over his hands. Logan wasn’t sure if Patton was wearing shorts underneath, but thought it would be rude to stare or to ask. So he simply opened the door and started to leave.

“Where are you going?” Patton asked, sounding almost disappointed.

“Oh, uh, I was simply going down to the mart downstairs to get breakfast,” Logan said, looking back at Patton’s pout.

“But I was gonna make breakfast for everyone to celebrate our first day together,” Patton said sadly.

Logan pointed out the obvious flaw in that plan, “We only have three leftover slices of pizza from last night in here.”

“Oh…” Patton pursed his lips as he looked around as if suddenly food would jump out at him. Then he lit up, “Then we can go down to the mart together and get ingredients!”

Logan nodded, “That sounds adequate.”

Patton cheered, albeit quietly as to not wake the other room. He went towards the door, and Logan stopped him.

“Patton, you can’t possibly be planning to go outside wearing just a hoodie…” he berated.

“I have shorts on under it,” Patton said, pulling the hoodie up to his stomach to demonstrate.

Logan flushed, quickly looking away before he could get more than a glimpse of Patton’s short shorts and bare stomach.

“Still, you must get properly dressed if we are to go out in public,” Logan said in exasperation.

Patton huffed dramatically, but went back to their shared room to change. Logan, giving him his privacy, took a seat by the bar counter and looked at his email. A couple of welcome messages from the school to his university email, and a newsletter from an astronomy website he follows. He looked through it to see what constellations and planets could be expected in the night sky in the coming week.

“Ready!” Patton said cheerily, a little loud before he covered his own mouth while looking at the other bedroom.

Upon being sure he hadn’t accidentally woken the other two, he looked back at Logan expectantly. Logan stood and put his phone in his pocket, following Patton out the door. He locked it behind him as Patton waited, bouncing on his feet.

They took the stairs, and Patton bounded down them, jumping down the last three steps at every turn of them.

“You are going to hurt yourself doing that,” Logan pointed out as Patton landed with a loud thud on his feet.

“No I won’t, I always do that!” Patton giggled back, looking up at him as he waited for Logan to reach the bottom.

Going out the front door of the lobby, they went inside the little store next door. It was just like any gas station mart, only without the gas or the probably inedible hot food. Plus, it was catered more to college students, Logan noted as he realized that this shelf had ramen noodles, notebooks, and condoms all in the same place. He quickly turned his gaze to Patton, who had run to the next aisle and was holding up a box of pancake mix and a bottle of syrup triumphantly.

“We’re gonna make pancakes for breakfast!” he said determinedly as Logan walked to him.

‘Well, he’s just adorable,’ Logan thought as Patton skipped across the store to the fridges to get milk, eggs, and butter.

Patton came back, shoving everything into Logan’s arms. Logan was startled, nearly dropping the milk jug as Patton went over to the boxes of cereal with a huge grin. He grabbed Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms, much to Logan’s displeasure.

“Patton, those can hardly be counted as a healthy breakfast,” he scolded.

Patton shrugged, “But they are tasty!”

Logan rolled his eyes, but it was Patton’s own choice, so he didn’t stop him from taking them up to the tired looking girl working the register.

“I think that should be enough for now, and we can go to the grocery store later to stock up everything else when Roman and Virgil wake up,” Patton said happily.

He paid and they decided to take the elevator up to their floor. Logan had never really been good at conversation, so he was a little glad that Patton was distracting himself by humming a song. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Patton was wearing something under his shirt, like a plain white tank top, but with a different fabric than Logan had ever seen on one. It looked somewhat like Spandex, and Logan couldn’t help but wonder why Patton was wearing it. The elevator stopped before he could think to ask it aloud, however, and they went back to their dorm.

As Patton began getting the ingredients out, Logan put the cereal boxes in the pantry. They looked very desolate amongst the rest of the empty shelves. He shut the door and turned back to Patton, who was getting a couple of pans from the lower cabinets as quietly as he could. Logan stood there, unsure of what he should do. He supposed that Patton expected him to help, and it would potentially be rude to not help. Patton looked up and seemed to sense his uncertainty.

“Can you get a mixing bowl down? You put them on the top shelf, so you’ll be able to reach them better,” Patton asked as he grabbed the pancake mix and began reading the instructions.

Logan nodded in affirmation as he opened the cabinet and reached up to get said mixing bowl, grabbing the largest and putting the other two smaller ones back on the shelf. As he closed the cabinet and set the bowl on the counter, Patton handed him the open bag of batter mix.

“Two cups of that will make 14 pancakes, but we’ll double it, and we might have some left over.” Patton said happily. “Depends on how hungry everyone is, I guess.”

Logan stared at the bag for a moment, unsure of what to do.

“So add four cups to the bowl?” he asked.

“Yup! Then four eggs and two cups of milk, and then you’ll whisk it until it turns into batter!” Patton affirmed as he found the right measuring cup and the rainbow colored whisk he’d brought.

Logan set about measuring everything out as he was told, and Patton showed him how to crack an egg after he messed up and got eggshells in the mix. After getting said eggshells out, of course.

“Don’t want crunchy pancakes, silly! Well, actually, I guess you could if you were making a special recipe with like… bacon. Or Pop Rocks. Ooh, that would be fun!” Patton said as he cleanly cracked the third egg in.

Logan was too focused on Patton’s technique to respond with anything more than a strange look at that.

Patton started heating up the pan with butter as Logan whisked, and Patton cheered him on, reminding him to make sure to get the bottom. Logan couldn’t help but smile at the other boy, who met it with an even bigger grin. Something felt a little funny in Logan’s stomach, he dismissed it quickly as he went back to whisking.

Once Patton had approved the consistency of the mixture, he took the bowl from Logan, setting it beside the stove. He quickly swiped his finger along the side to taste the batter, his face lighting up.

“You shouldn’t do that, you could get sick from the raw eggs,” Logan said.

Patton waved it off, “I always taste the batter! It’s yummy and you gotta know how you did.” He shot a quick smile at Logan before ladling a portion of the batter into the heated pan.

Out of a job, Logan stood against the counter and observed. He realized his heart was beating faster than normal as he watched Patton sway to a nonexistent song. He looked away for a moment, trying to steady himself. He wasn’t used to this… elation. Most of his joy came from reading a good book, not this kind of… almost domestic event with a near stranger. It was so different. And it was only the first day; then what would the rest of the semester be like?

His mind beginning to race, Logan looked around the room for something to talk about. Finding nothing of interest, his eyes fell back onto Patton, and the fabric hidden beneath his shirt. Curiosity got the best of him.

“What’s that you’re wearing under your shirt?”

Patton nearly jumped, although Logan was unsure why; he hadn’t spoken loudly enough to startle him, surely.

“Oh, uh, well…”

Logan stood up straighter as Patton began to fumble with the pan, looking nervous.

“It’s a… binder,” Patton said, looking at Logan, seemingly to gauge a reaction.

Logan, however, was just confused.

“Like… a school binder? I don’t understand,” Logan said, furrowing his brows.

“Oh…” Patton looked back at the pan, flipping it over before he spoke again. “Well, do you know what transgender means?”

Logan thought for a moment. “Well, “trans” comes from Latin, meaning “across, over, or beyond”, and gender is obviously the sex of a person, so I would assume it means something like… Across gender? Possibly?”

Patton let out a snort, “Well, I guess. Transgender means that someone identifies as a gender that they weren’t born as.”

Logan pondered this for a moment before nodding in understanding.

“I’m transgender… I’m AFAB, or Assigned Female at Birth. But I realized that I was a boy in high school, and started transitioning. The binder is to give me a flat chest so that I pass in public,” Patton explained, not looking at Logan until the very end, to see what his reaction was.

Logan found that this only raised more questions for him, but he didn’t want to accidentally offend Patton.

“I suppose that might explain why you look so young…” Logan said, immediately hoping that that wasn’t hurtful.

Patton smiled sheepishly, “Yeah, I’ve always been shorter than most people, and I haven’t been able to go on T yet.”

“T?” Logan asked.

“Testosterone. You can get it from a doctor, but I still haven’t been approved for it yet. Hopefully soon though, then my voice will drop and I’ll look more like any other guy.” Patton said, his voice filled with hope and longing.

Logan was unsure of what to say. They fell into a silence, and Logan could still tell that Patton was nervous.

“So… What classes are you taking this semester?”

Patton seemed relieved at the topic change, and happily went into detail about his schedule and his excitement to start learning. Logan listened with earnest, going into his own schedule as Patton kept the pancake stack rising.

By noon, the other two had woken up and they’d eaten their pancakes at the little coffee table in the living room. Patton had suggested they all go shopping, and Roman offered to drive them to Target. Virgil decided he had nothing better to do, and Logan decided he would stay behind. The morning had already worn him out, he wasn’t sure if he could handle another trip with the rest of them at that point.

So while they all took off, Logan went back into his room, sitting at his desk and opening his laptop. Going to Google, he started his search for “transgender”, finding dozens of news articles on the first page. None of them looked good, however, and he skipped over them. Scrolling down, he found some articles about reference guides and explanations of the terms used, so he opened those in new tabs and began to read.

Somewhere between articles, he wondered why he was so determined to learn this. Was it simply not to offend? Was it because it was simply a new term he’d never encountered before? Or was it because he wanted to understand Patton better?

He shook the thought off. It was simply an interesting topic to educate himself about, a new fact about the world he had been ignorant of. Nothing more.

Nothing more.