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zapreportsblog · 1 year

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Sukuna’s Godly Husband

➥ summary : Yumi (M/n) had originally been offered up to the King of Curses, Sukuna as a sacrificial bride for his people so that they may be spared. In other words he was a lamb waiting to be slaughtered but something unexpectedly happened the King of Curses Sukuna took the human in to his temple and under the engraved stone walls, Yumi (M/n) had been declared the bride of Sukuna, forced to bare his marking on his shoulder and stripped of his human name.

➥ chapter 5: The Blossoming Sanctuary

Within the confines of Sukuna's domain, an unlikely request stirred the stillness that permeated the air. Yael, the king of curses' male sacrificial bride, approached Sukuna with a timid yet hopeful expression, a desire brimming in his eyes.

"Sukuna," Yael began, his voice soft yet filled with determination. "I would like to have a garden."

Sukuna, the formidable king of curses, regarded Yael with a mixture of surprise and amusement. He had never expected such a request from his sacrificial bride, for gardens held no place within his realm of darkness and chaos. Yet, the earnestness in Yael's gaze compelled him to consider the plea.

"Why would you desire a garden, Yael?" Sukuna inquired, his tone tinged with both curiosity and skepticism. "Within these walls, you have everything you could possibly need. A garden seems unnecessary."

Yael's expression fell, a shadow of disappointment crossing his features. "I understand, Sukuna," he replied, his voice tinged with a hint of sadness. "But I wanted something that could tie me to my village, a reminder of the world I left behind. A garden could bring me a sense of peace, of connection to the earth."

Sukuna's servant, who had been observing the exchange, stepped forward, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. "Perhaps, my lord, it would be wise to grant Yael's request," he suggested. "Denying him may lead to unforeseen consequences. Remember, a happy bride is a content bride."

Sukuna regarded his servant for a moment, contemplating the implications of his words. While he held the power of life and death over Yael, he recognized the importance of maintaining the human's happiness. Relenting, he finally nodded in agreement.

"Very well, Yael," Sukuna conceded, his voice laced with a hint of amusement. "I shall grant you a garden. But remember, it shall be your responsibility to tend to it."

A spark of joy ignited within Yael's eyes as he bowed in gratitude. "Thank you, Sukuna," he exclaimed, his voice filled with genuine appreciation. "I promise to care for it with all my heart."

True to his word, Sukuna set his formidable power to work, shaping the very essence of his domain to accommodate Yael's desire. Within the confines of their shared space, a garden began to take shape—a sanctuary where nature's beauty could flourish. Sukuna spared no detail, weaving a tapestry of vibrant colors and fragrant blossoms that mirrored Yael's vision.

When the garden was complete, Sukuna presented it to Yael as a surprise, guiding him to the secluded corner of his domain. As Yael beheld the sight before him, his eyes widened with awe and wonder. Lush foliage, adorned with an array of flowers, spread out before him, each petal shimmering with life. It was a tapestry of nature's wonders—a testament to Sukuna's meticulous attention to detail.

Overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the garden, Yael turned to Sukuna, his voice filled with joy. "Sukuna, it's more beautiful than I could have ever imagined," he exclaimed, his words laden with heartfelt gratitude.

Sukuna observed Yael's reaction with a sense of pride, the corners of his lips curling into a rare smile. "I am glad it brings you joy, Yael," he replied, his voice softer than usual. "May it serve as a reminder of the world you left behind, and as a sanctuary where you can find solace amidst the chaos that surrounds us."

As Yael explored his newly bestowed garden, he marveled at Sukuna's detailed knowledge of the flora that flourished within. Sukuna surprised him with stories of each flower's significance and its connection to the human realm—a testament to his unspoken dedication to Yael's happiness. With each step, Yael felt an invisible thread connecting him to his village, bridging the gap between his past and present.

Overflowing with joy, Yael couldn't contain his gratitude any longer. He approached Sukuna, his arms reaching out for an embrace. Though the size difference between them was significant, Yael's emotions propelled him forward, wrapping his arms around Sukuna's waist in a heartfelt embrace.

Sukuna stood still for a moment, his usual stoic demeanor momentarily softened by Yael's gesture. He hesitated, his large hand gingerly resting on Yael's head, as if uncertain of how to reciprocate the embrace. But then, with a rare display of vulnerability, Sukuna's hand moved, gently caressing Yael's hair, a silent gesture of affection and acceptance.

In that moment, as Yael clung to Sukuna, a surge of warmth filled his being. It was a reminder that amidst the darkness and the trials they faced, there existed a fragile bond—a connection forged through unlikely circumstances. Together, they stood in the sanctuary of the garden, enveloped by the beauty that bloomed around them, their souls entwined in a delicate dance of understanding and acceptance.

As the days passed, Yael tended to the garden with unwavering dedication, his heart filled with a sense of purpose. With each touch of the earth, he found solace and connection to the world he had left behind. And as the flowers blossomed under his care, their vibrant hues mirrored the ever-growing bond between Yael and Sukuna—a testament to the enduring power of love and the transformative nature of acceptance.

In the depths of Sukuna's domain, amidst the shadows and the chaos, a garden had taken root—a testament to the union between the king of curses and his male sacrificial bride. It was a sanctuary that held the echoes of Yael's past and the promise of a shared future—a reminder that even in the darkest of places, beauty could thrive, and love could bloom against all odds.

#sukuna x reader #x reader #sukuna x male reader #x male reader #x reader series #sukuna godly husband #sukuna’s godly husband series #sukuna #Sukuna’s Godly Husband masterlist #jujutsu kaisen masterlist

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poemnic-tarot · 1 year

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What Types of Beauty Are You?

(Disclaimer : This is a general reading please only take what resonate. For entertainment purposes only)

Pile 1 -2

Pile 3 -4

⭐️ 🎐 🤍 🌙 You Are Loved 🌙 🎐 🤍 ⭐️

Pile 1🪐

Collage: Just to give you an idea of your beauty type energy

Characters : Erwin Smith (regardless of gender focusing more on the quality of the character)

Colour Palette : Carmine and Royal blue

Animal : Buck

Flower : Iris

Key words: Decisive, Leadership, Firm and Responsible

(your one is shorter than the rest I apologize for that, or your beauty just cannot be describes in words)

"Treat yourself like how you want your parent to treat you"

Pile 1, your Beauty is in your self preservation. How mentally strong you are. How focused and concentrated you are on your goals and what you want. You have an air of Authority, Serenity, no-nonsense type. Regal in your stance literally and metaphorically.

Your Beauty shine most when you make a decision. When you made a difficult decision, it was a difficult decision because the ones for the highest good of all usually are. The one where leaders need to make and it's delicate because there's so much at stake, because there are so much to lose if you made the wrong decision. But you do it anyway with confidence and stood by it, no matter the outcome. You are not afraid of accountability and that’s the most beautiful aspect about you.

You are beautiful in your work ethic, hard working personality and discerning quality. No one is as cut throat as you Pile 1. There will be no bullshit in your present. Not even from yourself. And that's scary to people but they can't helped but admired that.It’s really inspiring to be able to stand up for yourself and others.

You are a beauty that screamed Self-love and Protection. You will alway stand up for injustice, for yourself or others. Protect what's precious to you at all cost. No one shall cross the line at your presence, and the line is called boundary and respect. And they won't cross that line Pile 1, you will make sure of it. The affect you have on people is beauty it self. They would willingly bow down and let you give them your verdict. You treat other fairly, because you cultivated that within first.

You are beautiful when you wielded your mighty sword and declared that "no lies shall surpass". Your beauty has been witnessed in Kings/Queens, Rulers of kingdom, leaders of clans. And your beauty lies in how you exercise your personal power (authority) as a protective shield for those vulnerable, or a wise advice for those who are lost. Your mind is the most beautiful part of you. Your peace of mind is your most precious valuable. How you treat yourself/others, see the world, and accept reality for what they are. Seeking the truth at the cost of comfortability, strong enough to forgive and focused on the things that are more important. Your beauty itself, Pile 1, has rules multiple kingdoms and make it thrived.

Poems: Magician by @cant-find-my-name

You're golden, you're golden

Feather tethered of a phoenix wings

Glowing aura of rainbow light

Shining from within,

When death take charge

To meet new life begins

Where Angel are willing to commit the biggest

Sins

Your pomegranate cloak

Royal mantle

A flower crown

To the power title

You were born to lead

To herd the sheeps

With your natural wands

Where illusion reigns

You are what the Destiny in need

Song: Butterflies by Kacey Musgraves

Now you're liftin' me up, 'stead of holdin' me down Stealin' my heart, 'stead of stealin' my crown Untangled all the strings 'round my wings that were tied I didn't know him and I didn't know me Cloud nine was always out of reach Now I remember what it feels like to fly You give me butterflies

Kiss full of color, makes me wonder where you've always been I was hiding in doubt 'til you brought me out of my chrysalis

And I came out new All because of you

⭐️ 🎐 🤍 🌙 You Are Loved 🌙 🎐 🤍 ⭐️

Pile 2🍉

Collage: Just to give you an idea of your beauty type energy

Characters : Moana (regardless of gender focusing more on the quality of the character)

Colour Palette : Aztec Gold and Turquoise

Animal : Blue whale

Flower : Plumeria

Key words: Revolutionary, Unique, Brave, Bold

"I haven't met all of me yet"

Pile 2, your Beauty lies in your Acceptance. Your acceptance of your Root, your origin, people’s origin, where you came from and honouring your family lineage, instead of running from it. You accept this aspect of you and still seeking to changed some part for the better. Pile 2 you know that in order to changed anything, first we must accept it for what it is.

Your Beauty lies in how you ended your ancestry karma, specifically, in the feminine side. How you single handedly overcome generations after generation of pain, lost, oppressions and grief. It all ended with you. Your beauty lies in how you are convicted to see the end of this karmic cycles that ran amog your families lines for ages. ‘It been long enough’ you said, 'I will end this with me’ you declared. And it will end.

Pile 2, Your ancestors see your beauty, it's radiated from your soul and they want to thank you for your hard work. Your beauty shine in how you go against the grains, stood up against toxic traditions, toxic family dynamic patterns. You vowed, no more, and has changed and will continue to changed your family line for the better. Pile 2, Your don't know how beautiful and Brave that is, how beautiful and brave you are.

It wasn't without sacrificed and suffering on your part. Pile 2, you knew exactly what it has cost you to break generation of pain and you still went for it. It wasn't easy, in fact, it was the most difficult thing anyone can do in this lifetime. That is why it took you several lifetimes to accomplished your goals. It took you several lifetimes to do this, that how much you are dedicated to your loved ones, and that is beauty in it self.

That is how beautiful you are pile 2. You never give up, you stood your ground and stand up for what's important to you. Your values, your love, gentleness, UNCONDITIONAL love. You are grounded in what needed to be done, whereas a lot of people would ignored or even play into the toxic dynamics pattern, because they don't want to be outcasted. Pile 2, your beauty lies in your authenticity, true connection base on unconditional love, mutual respect and healthy boundaries and harmony. In a way, these are your deepest values and what you want to bring forth in all of your connections. Pile 2, you will never stand for conflict, resentment, and more pain. You will do anything within your power and take it upon yourself to clear that dense, negative energy from your life. You are the one who is brave enough to stand up to the toxic structures and question, why do we want to continue hurting others and ourselves?, what can we do to bring more harmony and peace into each other lives?.

Pile 2, you go on to do all those things in a gentle, loving manner with compassion and understanding. You don't come in like a wrecking ball and wreck it all down. Just because we want to build a new root/tower, doesn't mean we need to do it in the most destructive way. No, Pile 2 your beauty lies in your patient, how you would take down the tower piece by loving piece. Understand each brick and why it was there and does it align with your values?. If not, then, we removed it. Your beauty lies in how you alchemised pain into renewal. You would do it no matter how long it takes, no matter how many lifetimes. That's how beautiful your soul is pile 2.

You know what you are doing is important pile 2, and it is. Your love and dedication towards your family (alive ones and the ones before that) is the most beautiful things about you. How you honour them, understand them, and how you want to heal yourself (and indirectly heals them too, cause you understood generational karma)

The type of Beauty you are Pile 2 is witnessed in how your beautiful heart can changed your lineage line towards prosperity, abundance in every sense, towards true harmony and more love. You would alway rise above, like the Phoenix from the ashes, you would rise up again and again to finish what you started.

Poem: Guiding Light by @cant-find-my-name

Walk with me

Take my hand

I'll guide you to where I am

Passing hidden memories

The illusion that drown out the

Objectivity

I'll replay it back to you

And showed you the

Objective truth

So walk with me

It wasn't how it was

And still could be

What it could have been

Not to late to see

And opened up your heart

It's not too late to be vulnerable

It's the right time to start

Song: I'm still here by Jim Theme

And how can the world want me to change? They're the ones that stay the same They don't know me 'cause I'm not here

And you see the things they never see All you wanted I could be Now you know me and I'm not afraid And I wanna tell you who I am Can you help me be a man? They can't break me as long as I know who I am

(An animation called Treasure Planet I highly recommend you watch it Pile 2 and give this song a listen to as well)

⭐️ 🎐 🤍 🌙 You Are Loved 🌙 🎐 🤍 ⭐️

Pile 3🌺

Collage: Just to give you an idea of your beauty type energy

Characters : Mulan (regardless of gender focusing more on the quality of the character)

Colour Palette : Emerald and Chinese Ink

Animal : Dragon fly or a dragon

Flower : Purple lotus

Key words: Masculinity, Reliability, Stable, Protector

“It’s okay that you’re not who you thought you would be”

Pile 3, your beauty lies in your inner stability. It lies in how you know yourself, sure of who you are, what you stand for, your moral your values, your integrity. You are a steady pillar for people to relied on. When all is lost and no one know what's going on, Pile 3, you would step up and tell people what to focus on and why they need to keep going. Not in a domineering way but in an inspirational way. You are the guardian, the protector,the reliable father energy that most of us never have.

Your beauty can be seen in this metaphor scenes, An immense storm passed by and on it way it uprooted every trees, everything in it path got destroyed except for one. And that one tree is you pile 3. This tree stood tall and grounded, the root is too deep to be carry away with the wind, no matter how strong that wind is. That is your beauty Pile 3, you are an immovable force, a high wall that no one dare to breach.

Because behind that impenetrable wall is what you are protecting. Whatever that is, your dreams/goals, family, values, moral, inner child, the list goes on. Pile 3, you would protect it at all cost. Your beauty lies in how you know what to protect, you would stand guard at the front line with your fearlessness and your skills, no one shall defeat or shake you. Whether it is the outside circumstance beyond your control, the situation you find yourself in, the people who doesn't have your best interest. In fact, Pile 3, you often find you in a 'dangerous' situation'. Dangerous meaning situations, people, places that often would threatens what's important to you, whether it your moral, values, goals and dreams, telling you to settle, and tempting you to go against your value, your integrity. Trying to change who you are, trying to take what is yours. Tempting you to stray from your path or your goals. E.g. baiting you to drink alcohol when they know you don't drink. Not respecting your values. Something like this, the list goes on, people just want to try to break you pile 3, for what ever reason.

Your beauty lies in how you stand firm and stood your ground. Society, even your family? would point a finger at you to tell you ,’this is who you are’ but pile 3, you are so beautiful in how you don't just accept that, you would go, no, that is not who I am, that just the person you want me to be, which is not me. This is me and go on to show them who you are. People want to paint you as a fool but deep down Pile 3, you are a king/Queen and you know that.

You are beautiful in your healthy masculine energy (regardless of gender). You are a go getter, an achiever, you will find a way to get to where you want to go in life, no matter the weather. But one thing you will never do is compromising your moral/values/integrity. Because you know that those things make you who you are at the core. And pile 3, you know that if you lose those things, in a way, you have lost yourself. That is why it is very important to you not to compromise your core values. e.g. not cutting corners just to get ahead. A decision on something like this in a way, will changed who you are forever.

What is more beautiful about you is that Pile 3, you are not perfect by any means and you embraced that, nor are you so strict in life that it become dull. Your beauty lies in how you understand yourself more than most pile 3, and embrace your shortcoming. You accepted things or situations that you can't control, and let it be. Even though you have such a stable beauty/energy, it is not rigid by any means. Your beauty lies in when you know what you can compromise on and what you would never do. No one can stop you when you decided to do something Pile 3, and they shouldn't try either or else. They will find themselves unaware that suddenly, they had become one of your supporter and admirers. You just have that affect on people Pile,3 that is the type of beauty you are.

Poem: Strength @cant-find-my-name

They couldn't have been more wrong

They underestimated my strength

They thought I wasn't strong

But as hurricane came hurling in

And storm blown passed

Everything got destroyed

Everything crushed, in it path

However, when all was dark

And everyone was down

The only person remains was I

The one they thought won't last

I had stood my ground

Song: Radio by Lana Del Rey

Not even they can stop me now Boy, I'll be flying overhead Their heavy words can't bring me down Boy, I've been raised from the dead

No one even knows how hard life was I don't even think about it now because I finally found you Oh, sing it to me

⭐️ 🎐 🤍 🌙 You Are Loved 🌙 🎐 🤍 ⭐️

Pile 4🌈

Collage: Just to give you an idea of your beauty type energy

Characters : Aladdin (regardless of gender focusing more on the quality of the character)

Colour Palette : Aubergine and orange

Animal : Horse

Flower : Hibiscus

Key words: Free spirit, Generous, Self-focus, Expansive

"You deserve someone who is terrified to lose you"

Pile 4, your Beauty lies in how, there are no terrains you won't explore, there are no wisdom/knowledge you would not seek. And there are no topics you would not learn, there are no stone on this earth (or even outside of it) you would not upturn.

Your beauty lies in your hunger for life, for true freedom, freedom of mind and spirit, hunger for adventures and exploration, for knowledge. You should know Pile 4, that you bring so much to the table. Sometime or most times, it's not as obvious what you bring but the people with a higher perspective would be able to comprehend how much it is that you bring. It is a blessing alone Pile 4, just to be in your presence, your energy field. Your beauty lies in your energy, that is what you bring to the table Pile 4, and no one can compared. You have so much to offer to the world, the people around you, people who come into contact with you and get to know you, their life is changed forever.

You are so generous, so kind, so unconditional loving. You see every living being as an equal and accept people for what they are, but you don't limit them to who they can be. Just like how you see yourself, Pile 4, you can see so many possibilities, infinite possibilities. There are so many new things to discover, so many places to travel, so many people to meet and get to know, so many new culture to learn from and new scenery to see. You love these things Pile 4, different food, culture, languages. The world have much to offer you, in terms of who you can be and where you can go (infinite possibilities). And Pile 4, you cannot wait to explore them all. You are limitless and you know that pile 4, that is what make you so beautiful.

You don't settle for normality or the ordinary, the conventional, the stifling of routine. You don't look down on them or anything, it just not compatible with you. You crave excitement in your life and you took it upon yourself to create it.

Your beauty lies in how you listen to your intuition and instinct. You go where it tell you to go, where you are called. You don't question it, you listened, to your heart, your desires, your spirit teams, your soul. That's harder to do then people think because sometimes there so much resistance in the 3D that will go against your intuition. And we can perceived ourselves as stuck to one place, one life, one place forever. But Pile 4, you know better, your beauty lies in how you helped people feel unstuck in life.You helped them expand their world view, you somehow able to show them the world through your eyes, and the infinite possibilities you see. ( I'm getting A whole new world by which you are Aladdin and the people you met is Jasmine) You are brave enough to go into the unknown, explore the places where people are not even dare to step into(physically and metaphorically). They might be scare or think that they are not worthy to go where they want to be, but Pile 4, your beauty knows no bound. You are inherently worthy, as a living being, you go by this philosophy, that is why anywhere you go or any room you step into, you rest in the knowledge that you belonged. Pile 4, you see everyone as an equal no matter the status, hierarchy, or ranks. Because you see people as a soul, into their soul, we are all just a soul.

Your beauty lies in how you see the world as your playground to play in. The world is your oyster might be your catch phrase. Your spirit is free, even when the world is shit sometimes, you can count on yourself to rise above it. Your enthusiasm for life is so strong it's contagious. That how beautiful you are, never dimmed your light or your energy. Your energy alone can raise the frequency of a room. Remember that.

Poems: STARS by @cant-find-my-name

We all have dreams

Trying to reach the stars

But as we traveled

The ugly realisation

That the stars is too far

Not yet, I cannot see

The Divine plan for me

But I must believe

In myself

My own heart

My unwritten destiny

Songs : Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield

I am unwritten Can't read my mind I'm undefined I'm just beginning The pen's in my hand Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you Open up the dirty window Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance So close you can almost taste it Release your inhibitions Feel the rain on your skin No one else can feel it for you Only you can let it in No one else, no one else Can speak the words on your lips Drench yourself in words unspoken Live your life with arms wide open Today is where your book begins The rest is still unwritten

⭐️ 🎐 🤍 🌙 You Are Loved 🌙 🎐 🤍 ⭐️

Thank you for reading! I would love to know what you think. Thank you so much see you soon!!!🧿

🥐Check out @cant-find-my-name for more of my original poetry

🐚Check out my Tarot YouTube video : PoemNic-Tarot

🌈Donate Paypal: https://paypal.me/Poemnic

#pick a card #tarot messages #tarot reading #messages #poetry #channelling #spiritual knowledge #spirtuality

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duncanor · 1 year

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WAIT PLEASE CONTINUE TALKING ABOUT THE LEGATO BDSM AESTHETIC FROM THOSE TAGS IM SO DEEPLY INTERESTED (I care legato so much)

First off, I’m truly sorry for how long I took to answer ya. I often forget I even got an Ask-box ahah!

As to my opinion on why “The Leather/BDSM-like aesthetic is important to Legato’s character”...

I know my original post was a bit vague but it’s truly less about how “cool” he looks, and more about the symbolism of it. Legato outfit is outwardly menacing. It's a silent threat. Similar to those birds who evolve to have brighter colors to warn off predators.

And sure the metal skull looks sick, but it isn't as bone chilling (ah-ah). When he's first introduced, everything just Stop so you can take it in the Danger reeking from him. He’s bound by leather straps, got giant metal spikes coming out of his shoulder like some sort of fucked up pauldron, as well as bits of a real human skull directly sewn into the hard leather of his coat.

(Adding to that my UNPROVEN suspicions that the skull belongs to Legato’s abuser..)

And that’s just his outfit. He’s surrounded by similar things. His weapon is truly the less subtle example of this.

A mix of different truly lethal weapons in the form of an Iron-maiden/sex-toy/stress-Toy. The face of the weapon bound in leather with only one of her eyes being visible. (similar to how Legato usually only got one eye visible because of his hair).

It’s blatant and disturbing. It’s depraved Flesh and deadly Metal.

Then, he gets his spine broken by Knives. And where does that put him?

In a metal sarcophagus pretty similar to (once again) an Iron-maiden. He stays there for the most of the story. Bound to it, stuck, mangled. Yet he’s still as terrifying as ever if not more. Sometimes portrayed similarly to a butterfly cocoon, waiting to hatch and release something more powerful..

And finally, his resident-evil goons.

They aren’t really interesting nor are they developed as anything more than Legato’s barely human servants. They got no dialog, no personality, no free will.. Nothing but an imposing mass of flesh in hard leather binding them, blinding them. They look like they come straight from an Hellraiser movie.

Even Legato’s powers themselves are a manifestation of his trauma. They’re metal wire used to fully control bodies against the will of their owner. Making them slaves and most often than not leaving them as a mass of mangled flesh.

Even Legato’s name itself meaning “bound” in Italian. (Thanks to @jackalandhare for this information btw)

In conclusion,

Legato's whole aesthetic reeks of his trauma. It's suffocating, eerie, menacing and binding in seemingly debilitating ways at times, as well as kinda sexual in undertones. It’s Legato abuse and pain on display. And I think all of these details, this aesthetic is a big insight on Legato Bluesummers as a person and what he went and is going through.

HOWEVER, that is not to say Stampede approach will be uninteresting! The symbolism is still strong with Orange. They tend to channel it through a more solid World Building.

We know they planned to add lore on colored hair in link with sexual slavery. And the design of the metal skull as well as his arm, probably implies some sort of body modification more similar to the other Eye of Michael experiments.

I just think it’s a bit unlucky that the change in aesthetic made us lose this much symbolism wise..

#trigun #trimax #tristamp #legato bluesummers #trigun stampede #character analysis #dunkask #sorry again for how long it took to answer #I fought for my life with tumblr deleting that bad boy 4 times lmao #alright alright #shoutout to the legato enjoyers for the last screenshot #they were nice enough to send me one #legato trigun #Legato #legato #trigun maximum

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aspiringwriter1111 · 10 months

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Hallmark PSA

I know since it's coming on the holiday season, I'm going to start seeing a lot of Hallmark slander.

But here's a little known fact.

Hallmark is actually really really good.

WAIT WAIT DON'T LEAVE-

Let me explain!

The movies people usually associate Hallmark with are the "old" ones (2020 and back). I bet after seeing how cliche and unhealthy they were, you didn't see a reason to watch them again after that, am I right??

But you knew them well enough to know they weren't worth your time and sanity.

Girl in a high stress job goes to small town, learns the meaning of Christmas, and then cheats on her also stressed out boyfriend back in the city with a hot cocoa making stubbly kind of rude lumberjack man then quits her job and moves to Vermont or something.

Yeah, they don't do those anymore.

At all.

I'm serious.

A part of it is that there was a purge. A year or two ago, there was a new Christmas movie company in town. All the actors that didn't like the forward direction Hallmark wanted to go in, left and joined GAC.

(Great American Family, or as I like to call it GACK. The movies are exclusively awful old Hallmark style, but Republican, badly decorated, very white, and also much worse.)

GAC took all the problems away from Hallmark, and made movies out of them. Hallmark, now cleansed, is pumping out cinematic greats that I WILL be rewatching every Christmas.

The whole of Hallmark was Recast, save for the best of the best fan favorites (Like Lacey Chaubert-)

They have plus sized actors now and people of color, cast as main characters on a regular basis.

Half of the movies aren't even romance centric anymore, instead focused on life, and moving forward, but when they are, they're really well done, and actually healthy.

If you know me (which you don't), then you'll know I hate unhealthy relationships. Especially when they're treated like they're okay. I will pick apart ANYTHING over toxicity in a relationship, wherever that might come from.

I used to hate Hallmark movies, because they were predictable, unrealistic, flawed, and toxic.

But now the characters talk with each other, and they don't get in the others space without permission. If there's an accident and it does happen, it's not used as a plot device to move the relationship along. It's not treated in a "OMG hot guy is literally right in my face!!! I've only known him two minutes and I hate him, I'm in love!!"

It's more of an, "OMG I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that at all, im so sorry, I'm so sorry- *Immediately backs away*"

I can't even begin to explain how much better they are now.

To further prove my point, here are some gifs of Three Wise Men and a Baby, one of my favorite Christmas movies ever:

Just listen to this one.

It's about three brothers, one of which is a firefighter (this is important). A baby gets dropped off at the fire station, with a note. The firefighters name is on it, asking him to look after the baby until Christmas.

This is not his baby.

This IS a joke throughout the entire film.

They have no idea who dropped him off.

So they end up taking care of him for a week, and seriously bonding with him. The make his first Christmas ornament with clay, they do a holiday photo dressed to the nines.

They talk about how hard it is to actually take care of a baby, and how hard it must have been for their mom doing it alone.

Talking about how their own dad left, and finally processing that trauma together.

Their mom confesses that if she didn't have support, she may have done what the babies mother did. How she must be going through such a rough patch, and building empathy for her.

All three of the brothers go on complete cathartic emotional journeys about it, and all the other issues in their life.

I can't do it justice.

It's called Three Wise Men and A Baby. I'm begging you please go watch it, you will NOT regret it.

I CRIED SO MANY TIMES YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

I'm tearing up now just thinking about it oh my gOD-

The ending just sent it home for me, so I won't spoil anything.

Its amazing. I can't explain the whole thing, I seriously beg you please go watch it.

And, if you're more into comedy, I present to you Haul out The Holly:

A Christmas comedy starring your very own Gretchen Weiners!! Abso-fucking-lutley HILARIOUS.

It's about a woman, just broken up with her boyfriend, and coaxed into going home for the holidays. Here's where it gets interesting.

Her parents are the head of the Christmas neighborhood watch, something that has plagued her since childhood. Her childhood friend has now taken over the position, as her parent ditch her for retirement on a beach someplace, and she's left stuck, having to decorate against her will.

She wants a nap. The neighbors want her to carve ice sculptures. And her nutcracker apparently isn't up to code.

Includes: Girlboss and male wife power duo (madly in love), insane chainsaw man with way too much time on his hands, the ML an anxious wreck, and many, many, MANY MORE.

Another recent movie was built around a woman who is an astronaut (She's mixed) who was about to finally go to space (The goal shes been working on her entire life) She got into a car accident and her eyesight was impaired. She's currently grieving the loss of her dream (like, actually grieving, she took three months off-).

Her company asks her if she wants to do an exhibit in the planetarium for Christmas, that she doesn't have to, but she can if she wants to take her minds off of things. She says yes, and ends up working with the planetarium director on an exhibit about the sun and it's connection to Christmas through how people used to celebrate with the sun (I don't remember exactly, but it was explained thoroughly, and i think pagan???)

She and him don't constantly argue, or be angry at each other. They cooperate. They show genuine interest in each other. It's actually adorable, and it's also not just about them.

She meets his daughter, who is a wheelchair user. She asks why the Female lead isn't in space if she's an astronaut, and the FL tell her it's because of her eyes. The daughter tells her it's okay, because she'll never be able to go to space either, even if she wants to, but she can still enjoy it from Earth.

I'm not even doing it justice.

By the end of the movie, the FLs eye problem doesn't heal. Nothing is miraculously solved. But the ML and the FL are now dating (After the best, slow paced, healthy, communicative, collaborative bonding freaking ever-) ALL OF THE CHARACTERS HAVE FULL BLOWN EMOTIONAL JOURNEYS THAT ACTUALLY MATTER.

SHE GRIEVES.

HER BROTHER FINALLY FIGURES OUT ITS OKAY FOR HIM TO DO WHAT HE LOVES, AND THAT HE'S NOT A FAILURE FOR IT.

THE ML LET'S GO OF THINKING HES A BAD PARENT.

AND MORE.

There are soft bits, nothing is cliche, nothing is icky or gross.

It's healthy, it's cute, it's emotionally driven, I'm actually learning about things I didn't know before, and amazing.

And all the new ones are either like this or better than this. I could name over ten, but I can't even explain how good they are.

Some of the are still a little dark ages, but it's only every one out of six or seven.

Hallmark movies from 2022 and onwards are 5 star television, and you can't convince me otherwise.

#hallmark movies #hallmark channel #christmas movies #hallmark #christmas movie #Hallmark slander #PLEASE WATCH THREE WISE MEN AND A BABY I BEG OF YOU-#psa #this has been a psa #good movies #gay rights #people of color #body posititivity #change for the better

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presidenthades · 8 months

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Once again, I am doing a series of my behind-the-scenes thoughts for The Golds while I do light edits for formatting, typos, and continuity. Here’s Chapter 4!

For this chapter’s title, I picked the Crone’s lyrics from “The Song of the Seven” because Old Willow—who is a crone, as a wise older woman—is so important to this chapter.

Detective Aegon was one of the things I was most excited about as I wrote this fic. The idea was born when I read that TGC interview where he said Aegon is “intelligent and has a keen eye for the weak spots for others.” I extrapolated that as Aegon being observant about what makes people tick, which made me think about Sherlock, then I realized my version of Aegon would love being a detective. He gets to run around the city, meet interesting people, and feel a bunch of adrenaline/endorphins/dopamine.

I think Aegon is also very driven by the pursuit of dopamine. In canon, this manifests in his heavy dependency on wine and sex. In this verse, he gets tons of dopamine from his interactions with Jace. But since Jace is preoccupied with the pregnancy and governance and court, he’s deprived at the moment. So in this chapter, he explores his newfound detective hobby which makes him a bit less dependent on Jace for gratification—but not much. Still a simp for his wife 🥲.

Aegon is a night owl, Jace is an early bird. This isn’t an issue in the early days of their marriage because…well, they’re pretty much having sex whenever they’re in the bedroom, and sleep is optional 😂. But the honeymoon period tapers off right around when they discover the pregnancy, and it’s also when Jace’s LIWs are getting accustomed to their roles. The LIWs in particular are jarring for Aegon. LIWs are supposed to have lots of access to their mistress’ rooms, which isn’t a big deal in a traditional marriage where the husband and wife keep separate rooms, and the husband usually sends a message in advance if he wants to “visit” his wife at night. But Aegon has moved in with Jace, and whereas he views the LIWs as intruding on his private time with his wife, the LIWs view him as impeding their ability to do their job.

I decided that Arryk likes Aegon more than Erryk does (another reason the twins choose different sides in the Dance), and that’s why Aegon thinks Arryk is more fun. Erryk was more judgmental during Aegon’s debauchery days whereas Arryk was more chill. As a result, Aegon learned to tell the difference between them, because he wanted to be sure which twin he’s been saddled with. But Aegon likes to mess with people, so he deliberately gets Erryk’s name wrong because Erryk is annoying/inconveniencing him by dragging him to Viserys.

In the show, Aegon/TGC throws some truly hateful glares at Viserys, but at the same time his dialogue shows he longs for his father’s approval. Here, Aegon clings to that resentment (simmering not burning) but is much less interested in Viserys’s approval. He has plenty of approval and affection from Jace, so even though it stings that Viserys doesn’t care, Aegon can shrug it off more easily because he has something/someone better.

Viserys’s story in the show about the horses and coloring, and various comments about how he would’ve been happier as a simple country lord than as king, inspired me to give him amateur agricultural interests. He’s never done any actual farming, but he likes to read about it and daydream about his alternate universe life.

As I hope I made clear in the scene, Viserys is having this conversation for Jace’s benefit rather than Aegon’s. His favoritism for Rhaenyra’s line continues to abound in this universe, and he follows the old-fashioned school of thought that pregnant woman should refrain from having sex, ostensibly to protect the fetus.

In an early draft, Alicent was the one who had a similar conversation with Aegon to leave Jace alone. Alicent’s desire for this conversation was born from her own experience of being relieved not to have to continue having sex with her husband while pregnant. But I changed it because a) Alicent already has enough haters and I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire, and b) it was more thematically appropriate for Viserys to have this talk, since this is a story about Aegon’s journey to fatherhood and I always planned for him to have some kind of “confrontation” with Viserys near the end of the fic. So I needed another scene that highlights the friction between Aegon and Viserys…also I had a lot of fun with the agricultural metaphors 😂.

When Aegon wanders the city at the beginning of this chapter, he is content but aimless. Although he thinks this is exactly what he wants—freedom to do nothing of consequence and just run around—deep down he wants something more purposeful. He needs some kind of goal/target or he falls into a bored malaise, as he does later in the chapter. The detective adventures eventually fill this need, then later taking care of Jace after her kidnapping, then eventually assuming a role in the game to protect his family.

House Tyrell has no history of being kings, and they still seem like they’re finding their footing as lord paramount of the Reach at this point in time. House Hightower is a very old and revered house with a history of being kings, so I feel like Aegon and his siblings may have inherited an ancestral disdain of the Tyrells 😂.

Jace loves roses, but I imagine a Tyrell lady at the garden party getting snooty about how “roses are so very Tyrell.” Similar to Jace’s feelings about colors, she feels like sigils—especially something as common as a rose—shouldn’t belong to any one family.

I did a lot of research about pregnancy for this fic. I came across a few stories of pregnant people getting nauseated during sex because of the jostling movements. I thought that would be very unfortunate for Jace and Aegon…so I made it happen 🙈. And it adds to Aegon’s growing feeling that his presence is a burden during Jace’s pregnancy.

The LIWs are there to make Jace’s life easier, not Aegon’s. So Jace views them as very helpful while Aegon (who is actually a “private” person at heart re: how he wants to live his life) sees them as intruders. This change isn’t sudden but gradual, taking place over the span of several weeks, like the frog in boiling water metaphor. It doesn’t occur to Aegon to protest until it’s too late, and even then, he sees how the LIWs are helping her a lot and he doesn’t want to take that from her. So he doesn’t say anything to Jace.

The LIWs have a designated solar they could hang out in, but they’re eager to stay close to Jace while she’s ill and nauseated. I also think they’re following Rhaena’s example, and Rhaena is used to having free rein to Jace’s rooms. And I don’t want to throw even more shade on Elinor, but her crush on Aegon is compelling her to go to Jace’s rooms fairly early in the morning in the hopes of catching him shirtless 🤭.

Overall, the line “there was no room for Aegon in Jacaera’s chambers when her ladies occupied it” encapsulates a lot of his feelings of being squeezed out of Jace’s life while she’s dealing with so many other things.

I read in a fanfic somewhere (no idea which fic) the theory that dragons are assumed male until they show signs of gestation or lay eggs. I like this theory because it helps explain why so many dragons seem to be male, and F&B has a line quibbling about the rumor that Vermax laid eggs at Winterfell (I think it’s Eustace who lambastes the theory that dragons can change sex). If Vermax did lay eggs, the “assumed male until otherwise proven” theory jives with him being called male previously. Also, I don’t know how dragon anatomy works, but one can assume that it’s difficult to tell males and females apart as hatchlings, and by the time they develop reproductive parts, you don’t really want to be examining them too closely.

I also wanted to make Vermax female so she and Sunfyre could parallel Jace and Aegon. Jace’s first pregnancy coincides with Vermax’s first gestation, and there’s some foreshadowing with Vermax’s three eggs later 👀. Also, I make the dragons’ personalities reflective of their riders’. Vermax is very docile and calm, while Sunfyre is a horny daredevil.

In this chapter, Aegon is still struggling to come to terms with impending fatherhood. He can’t help but feel like the pregnancy has been coming in between him and Jace rather than bringing them closer together, he’s got a lot of his own daddy issues to work out, and he’s still in a “I do what a want, no responsibilities” mindset. But even now, he secretly wants to grow and mature out of this; he imagines placing a dragon egg in his child’s cradle, and it gives him some warm fuzzies.

I imagine there’s a lot of conflict between the maesters and Targaryens whether it’s safe for pregnant women to ride dragons. The maesters wouldn’t consider it safe to ride horses, and riding dragons seems even more dangerous. Meanwhile the Targs are confident in their dragon bonds protecting them. My headcanon is that Rhaenyra and other female dragonriders, unless they’re exceptionally bold/reckless, at least spend their first pregnancy on the ground to be safe. But if that pregnancy goes well, they’re a lot more confident about flying during later pregnancies. Jace is already a cautious person by nature, so she would abide by the maesters’ recommendations.

Jace honestly doesn’t need to/shouldn’t do so many Small Council things right now, but she’s an overachiever. In the modern world, she’s the kind of person who volunteers for all the extra projects at work so she can prove herself. Aegon calls himself a lazy person with a skewed sense of what is urgent, but in this case, he’s actually right about Jace doing too much. One of his weaknesses: he thinks Jace is so perfect that he hesitates to tell her when she’s in the wrong.

Ever since the witch shouted at Joff during the wedding parade, Joff has been thinking a lot about her. She’s been trying to research what the witch said but she’s reached a dead end, so now the only avenue is going straight to the source. I dropped hints in Chapter 2 of the Handbook that Aegon was Joff’s curse tablet dealer, so she goes to him for help. Aegon is a skeptic about witchcraft at this point in the story, but we know that changes later.

Joff has a talent for insulting Targ men where it hurts. Daemon bore the brunt of it in the Handbook, but now it’s Aegon’s turn with the “big baby” comments 😂.

I’ll probably come up with more backstory for Old Willow in Joff’s fic. I imagine her to have genuine powers of some sort (foresight/prophecy at the very least). She isn’t super powerful, but the people around her respect/fear her as the real deal. She makes her money mostly by doing non-magic witchy things, like brewing moon tea, which is in higher demand and more affordable than the occasional curse tablet.

Joff has a prickly personality, but she can and will fight people in defense of her sisters 🤺.

The puncture wounds on Old Willow’s body are from the longshoreman hook that the Tyroshi sometimes carries around. Her death is over-the-top because, as is established in later chapters, the Tyroshi is a sadist. He decides to kill her because she supplied the love/beauty charm to the whore Daisy, so he deems Old Willow guilty as an accomplice.

Because Joff has been thinking about Old Willow a lot, she’s also been thinking about the curse tablet she used several years ago. I’ve deliberately been ambiguous in the story text about what exactly Joff did with the tablet, but many readers have pieced together that Laenor’s death was involved somehow. So Joff has been thinking a lot about her father’s death, and the guilt she’s feeling seeps into her reaction to Old Willow’s death. Old Willow’s death does greatly inconvenience Joff’s little quest, but Joff is also feeling a lot of things about murder victims and the loved ones they leave behind.

Old Willow’s murder was very different in early drafts. Originally the Tyroshi wasn’t involved at all, and Daisy was the murderer because she blamed Old Willow for the love/beauty charm wearing off, and the random whore on the street played a bigger role in helping Aegon investigate. But as I reassessed how I wanted the second half of the fic to go, I reorganized the side characters’ roles and reduced the unnecessary minor characters so they didn’t distract too much from the main story.

Aegon sometimes makes questionable decisions (is it really a good idea to bring a 9-year-old princess to Flea Bottom without any guards at night?), but he has a few “eldest sibling” instincts that foretell what he’ll be like as a father. He tries to keep Joff out of actual trouble (don’t anger the locals, don’t open the bottle that might be poison), shows empathy to her (realizes this must be the first dead body she’s seen even though Joff acts dark and morbid), and gives Joff time to sort through her messy emotions about the witch’s death (lets her investigate the hut instead of immediately dragging her out—although he could also be criticized for letting a kid linger around a dead body). Basically, as a big brother/uncle/good-brother, he’s pretty indulgent and lets Joff explore her interests so to speak, but he intervenes if he suspects imminent danger. After Cheeseball is born, Aegon is understandably very protective of him. But when Cheeseball grows old enough, I see Aegon as being willing to let him run around and potentially fall and scrape his knees, because that’s just a natural part of life and relatively harmless—but Aegon would absolutely stop Cheeseball from running off the edge of a cliff.

I made Joff an early bird because I wanted to thwart the trope that dark witchy character = night owl 😄.

Bethany likes teasing Elinor about her crush on Aegon, hence the little exchange about Elinor making a good posset. But if Bethany suspected Elinor actually wanted to seduce Aegon (which she doesn’t), I think Bethany would draw the line and might even tattle on Elinor. We see in Chapter 5 that Bethany takes her duty to Jace seriously when it matters.

Aegon is right about Jace not enjoying gruesome murder stories, and telling her about his and Joff’s adventures right then would’ve kept her awake for a long time. But his quality time with Jace is limited so he doesn’t get a chance to tell her about it before the feast disaster. The miscommunication trope can be tricky because it’s so easy to make the people involve ridiculously stupid for plot reasons, so I was trying my best to lay the foundations for genuine reasons they wouldn’t have the opportunity to talk to each other. And the miscommunication doesn’t last for long. I think it’s a week at most between Aegon and Joff going to Flea Bottom and the feast.

Just like Vermax and Sunfyre parallel Jace and Aegon, I wanted Syrax and Caraxes to parallel their riders. Rhaenyra has plenty of thoughts about Aegon as Jace’s husband, but she views it as a good thing if a couple has a healthy sex life, hence Syrax’s lack of concern. Meanwhile Caraxes shares Daemon’s antipathy toward Aegon/Sunfyre 😂.

Gyles is jittery because the Tyroshi has been increasing his demands for payment, which Gyles can’t fulfill. A little foreshadowing for later in the chapter.

I priced a bottle of moon tea at three pennies because that’s the price of a fresh fruit tart during Robert’s reign. Ignoring things like inflation, I thought that was a good benchmark: affordable for the smallfolk, but for a whore who’s barely making it on the streets, she has to choose between the moon tea or eating that day. Aegon has selfish motivations when he gives her the entire crate in exchange for information, but it’s a huge windfall for her, especially if she can sell or trade the moon tea she isn’t using herself.

Old Willow warns her customers that magic always has a price (a recurring theme in ASOIAF). I’m sure she warned Joff when she first bought the curse tablet, and the consequences of that event led Joff to stop digging as much into magic the last few years. But Joff is tempted when she gets her hands on the glass candle, and she learns that lesson again later in this fic.

Aegon compares the whore to a courtier because he’s realizing that all people are fundamentally the same, they just wear different clothes and have more or less money. No matter what level of society, everyone loves gossip/scandal.

The rumors of Daisy’s death are not entirely true, but they’re not too far off the mark, and you can see how the rumors developed based on the true version (as told by the madam). Usually the rumors are worse than the truth, but in this case, parts of the truth are even worse than the rumors.

The description of the Garden’s building is intended to evoke a sense of lukewarm attempts to prettify something miserable at its core, like the girls who work there. I added the detail of the woman drinking on the roof because if she falls and breaks her neck, oh well, it’s not like her life was that great 😢.

Undercover!Aegon is the obvious next step in the evolution of Detective!Aegon. Other than his hair color, he doesn’t have as striking Valyrian features like Aemond and Daemon, and he’s mingled enough with the commoners that he can imitate their mannerisms. (Just imagine Aemond trying to pull off that disguise 💀.)

Even though Aemond is right there, Daeron chooses to run to Aegon for advice on girls/women instead. Aegon actually managed to marry the woman he wanted while Aemond is stuck in a flirty limbo, so Daeron concludes that Aegon is the more successful brother 😂. S2 might change my mind, but S1 Aemond is NOT a womanizer/smooth talker/expert on the fairer sex. The same applies in this AU, although Aemond is fairly well-versed in one particular woman…but even so, he still puts his foot in his mouth a lot.

Aegon is NOT shy about nudity lmao. He seems pretty content to loaf around in various states of undress in canon, and so is he here.

I love writing parallel scenes. In Chapter 3, we got Jace having sisterly bonding with Joff and Helaena, and now it’s Aegon’s turn to have brotherly bonding with Daeron and Aemond. And again, Aegon’s traits as a brother foretell what he might be like as a father. He caves underneath Daeron’s puppy face and indulges Daeron in a city outing so he can buy presents for Joff, but when they’re about to enter a sticky situation with the investigation, he tries to send Daeron home. Just imagine what Aegon will be like when Cheeseball gets his first crush 🥰.

Aegon’s statement “I never make Jace angry” was the universe setting him up to make her angry 💀. But Aegon was also kinda right about how groveling stops Jace being angry, because we see him talk his way out of the doghouse in Chapter 5.

I am convinced by the Episode 8 last supper scene that Aegon and Aemond have some brotherly telepathy going on, and that telepathy is even stronger in this verse where they’ve spent more time together in the Stepstones. Hence their ten-second silent exchange where they plan what to do about the mysterious noise in the hatch.

Notice that Aegon instinctively reassures Ronnel and cleans him up a bit. Big brother/dad instincts coming in 🥰. Aegon categorically refuses to help Ronnel with the bathroom (Ronnel wasn’t asking for help anyway, he was asking permission to go), but when it comes to his own kid? See Chapter 10 and how Aegon very studiously helps Cheeseball pass gas 😂.

Gyles and Ronnel know who Aegon is, but they call him “milord” because they aren’t used to interacting with highborns and they figure that address is suitable for anyone of noble birth. Aegon isn’t fussy about addresses and titles so he never corrected them.

Aemond has been doing his homework about dockworkers while at Driftmark. He wants to impress his future grandfather-in-law 😆.

Daeron and Ronnel are the same age, but Ronnel looks younger. Daeron has grown up on a rich diet and ample physical training. Ronnel has never gone hungry, but he doesn’t get as much variety in his diet as Daeron does, and the physical labor that Ronnel does (helping his father make pies) isn’t very conducive to body-building.

Daemon followed the Targbros because he’s nosy and curious about what would get all three of them out of the castle on an important day for Aegon. He got bored during the shopping trip and but became intrigued again when they discovered the abduction, and now he’s piecing together why Aegon has been acting so oddly the past week. Daemon is sticking around for the adventure so he can gather more information about Aegon’s doings, and because a kidnapping ring in the city is something that would interest most people. But also I think Daemon has been bored with domesticity and he wanted a bit of adventure 😂.

This is the point when Aegon forgets about the feast. His acquaintance/sort-of-friend has been violently kidnapped. That’s a big deal! And this is the kind of adrenaline rush that he enjoys. If he did remember the feast, I think Aegon would still embark on the rescue mission, but he would’ve at least sent a message back to the castle (or convinced Daeron to bring the message back).

I am sorry (not really), but I couldn’t resist making the pun “a stream of grizzled seamen trickled through” the brothel 🙈.

Yes, the madam got very excited by the prospect of three pretty Targaryen men. Can’t really blame her.

The madam mentions her “halfwit” guard. This is actually the brother she mentions in Chapter 6, whom the Tyroshi kidnaps to force her into helping him. I imagine the brother as a sweet and innocent guy, so I like to think he makes it out of the ordeal just fine and returns to the Garden. All the girls there like him, and he’s a large guy (I keep imagining someone like Hodor), so he can intimidate most customers who get too rowdy.

Currency fluctuates a lot in the ASOIAF universes, but at one point a gold dragon is the price of a horse. So that’s a lot of money Aegon is offering the madam, although of course as a prince, it isn’t much money to him. 100 gold dragons is apparently a reasonable ransom for a younger son of a noble family, so when the madam asks for 50 gold dragons for the building, she’s basically saying two of her building is equivalent to a ransom for Oscar Tully or Garmund Hightower.

Aegon claims not to care about royal titles or privileges, but he can still be a snob about things like carrying around a ridiculous amount of money (he’s got people for that). As Queen Clarisse Renaldi once said, “It’s not appropriate for royalty to jingle.”

“Help me, I’m drunk” was 100% inspired by “Get help” from Thor 3. I feel like all the distraction names are pretty self-explanatory. But in pretty much every variation, Aegon is the distraction because he’s a showboat, while Aemond ninja murders everybody.

One of the warehouse guards uses the phrase “pretty girl,” which is Aegon’s pet name for Jace, so that triggers him in addition to everything else.

The rescue is when Gyles becomes Aegon’s number one hype man. I had to delete some scenes with Gyles later in the fic because they didn’t flow well, but there’s a scene where Gyles says he wants to teach his son good values like loyalty, and he cites his loyalty to Aegon as an example.

The Garden’s girls stick around to watch the arrests. The night’s events improve their opinions of the Targs (Aegon in particular). There are other factors, like Aegon’s chill managerial style and him selling the brothel for almost-free to Liane, but this is part of the good karma that pays off later when Jace needs help.

Aegon does enjoy the gratitude he receives for the rescue, similarly to how in canon he laps up the crowd’s adoration during his coronation. So that dopamine hit adds to the appeal of continuing his detective work.

The Gyles & Ronnel reunion makes an impact on Aegon because it’s the first time he’s really seeing a loving father-son relationship and affection. It’s sort of a turning point that plants a seed in his mind of what sort of father he wants to be to his unborn child, because now he has evidence there’s an alternative to what he grew up with. Also, note how Aegon feels like a voyeur to this emotional intimacy, but he’s entirely unaffected by physical intimacy like what happens at the brothel.

Originally the chapter dragged on longer with a scene where the Targs help Gyles and Ronnel move their stuff into the Red Keep, because Aegon offers Gyles a job on the spot. There was a whole comedic bit where Gyles reveals the giant cheese wheel that got him into trouble with the Tyroshi. But I decided it would be better to end the chapter where it did, with Aegon realizing his mistake 🤭.

Chapter 5 commentary here

#my writing #meta #house of the dragon meta #hotd meta #fanfic meta #aegon ii targaryen #female jacaerys velaryon #the golds

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vacantgodling · 2 months

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#39: Duchess Arietta Lathsbury

You were brought to this city, wed to a perfect stranger. But they were kind and gentle and light. As you lived and ruled there, you began to discover that this city was just as all the stories said; the people were more kind and grateful, and your guidance only helped them flourish. Your only wish is that you could send this prosperity back home, yet, you could never bring yourself to return to it.

“arietta” means melody. “lathsbury”is a historical name, derived from the capital city of Lathsbury, and is one passed down through the royal family. it comes from the first guardian, Lath.

62, cis woman (she/her), romance: yes, sex: yes, preference: masculine

a shorter woman with a cherry-cheerful smile. she sports long, luxurious yellow-green locs that reach to the floor but she usually keeps them in a variety of complex updos and styles that show her prominence as nobility. despite this, she does prefer to dress plainly, as the extravagant gowns she grew up wearing as a member of the royal family can impede her work with the public and children. her hands are always adorned in rings and she’s just slightly beginning to show her age only slightly in the smile and forehead wrinkles she sports as well as a few wrinkles on her hands. she has a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose, and her skin is a ruddy tawny color. she’s quite shorter than her brothers, standing around 5’3”.

as the duchess of the city Wish of Palanthia; arietta oversees the wellbeing of its citizens, the social and economic framework (along with her husband who i unfortunately have yet to name lol), but most importantly to her, she oversees the ongoing self-ordained mission of the city which is to take in as many of the kingdom’s orphans as possible as well as fund the orphanages across the continent. this is a mission that is personally very important to arietta, especially after the kidnapping of her younger brother, grand duke aran’s, daughter at birth. part of her mission has been to scour as many orphanages as possible to try and find a trace of the missing daughter but has done so with little success. she does not give up hope that the girl will be found though, and has forgone children of her own in solidarity of her brother, even though he insists she doesn’t have to do that. as a pascifistic person, she does not fight nor wield any weapons of any sort.

arietta is a bright, cheerful woman and is always looking out for the best interest of other people. people praise her for her kindness and her charity and she tends to create peace and prosperity wherever she goes. she is wise, but can be a tad overly optimistic and has a hard time seeing the darkness in others because she wants to assume that everyone is capable of good.

when he was alive, she and king luther were very close and he encouraged all of her endeavors. after his passing, she took up the mantle of looking after their youngest brother grand duke aran, but she admits to herself and her husband that she’s not as adept at shielding him from the judgement from the court as well as their elder brother, duke sid. she adores her nephew kiba, and also is very kind to illiana and primrose, especially since the two of them are former constituents of her city.

#tcol character intro #s: tcol #sorry she doesn't have a picrew or fun facts #she's a bit of a minor character tm

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techtakesoff · 1 year

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Do you have any thoughts on denizens, e.g. how they are assigned to players? :o

I think about denizens uhhhh a completely normal amount I promise. do not look in my notes folder it's fine (/j)

But seriously, I find them really interesting. We see so little of them, but they're deeply important to Homestuck's story and the function of Sburb. Canon gives us a few hints about how they're assigned to players, but there aren't really any hard rules.

The piece of denizen lore that is stated most explicitly in the text is that Yaldabaoth is the deadliest denizen, appears very rarely, and is "usually designated for the most naturally gifted warriors." There is a ton of room for interpretation for who exactly Sburb considers its most naturally talented warriors -- we know it counts Dirk and Caliborn but not Vriska, and presumably none of the other trolls whose denizens were never revealed.

My personal reading is that Yaldabaoth is given to the players with the most set-in-stone morals (not necessarily good ones!) and high ambitions, and being a good warrior is just something that happens to be correlated with those traits; if you have a character who is a hardcore pacifist but rises immediately to any challenge and never backs down, they might end up with Yaldabaoth.

The second most direct piece of denizen lore is that Echidna is assigned to all Space players. Echidna is one of the more benevolent denizens, and appears to have a lot of stake in the players' victory.

She offers Choices that can get them out of dire circumstances, but the terms she asks for can seem impossible to fulfill. According to Jade, Echidna's Choices are usually about facing mortality, and her most powerful abilities may require the player(s) to directly sacrifice themselves (as was the case with Alt-Calliope and the Beforan trolls) in order to enact drastic change.

Players can just kill her, though, if they are unwilling or unable to make a successful bargain, and doing so doesn't seem to have any major consequences. Beyond that, everything we know about denizens is inferred or speculated.

Karkat claims that his denizen might've been the opposite of Yaldabaoth, one reserved for the weakest fighters. Fanon holds that this denizen was Abraxas, but this is unconfirmed (personally, I don't subscribe to that theory, but if it works for your story then go for it.)

We also see that Cetus is associated with Light players, but that leads me into my Hottest Take, which is that denizens probably aren't associated with aspects at all (possibly besides Echidna.) Denizens are much more closely tied to a player's *element* than their aspect.

Cetus, again, has only been seen with Light players, but the legendary monster it's named after has nothing to do with light -- it's a *sea monster.* Rose's associated element is water, and Scorpio is a water sign.

Likewise, Jade's associated element is earth, and Virgo is an earth sign, but Echidna's association to Space appears to override her association with earth when it comes to Calliope (the constellation the cherubim are based on, Ophiuchus, mostly overlaps with Sagittarius, which is a fire sign.)

Hephaestus is a fire god, and Dave and the Aries sign are both associated with fire. The alpha kids' elemental associations are not as clear-cut, but Jane's denizen Hemera has more to do with the sky and air than with Life.

Sometimes aspect ties in with element, as in the case of Egbert's Breath and air, but not always! The Nitrams are Breath players, but earth signs. If your character has a thematic association with something separate from their aspect -- one of the classical elements, a later element from alchemy or chemistry, or really any particular material or even color -- look there for denizen inspiration.

Design-wise, all the canon denizens have serpentine bodies with humanlike heads (or at least faces) and most of them are named after deities or creatures with a similar body shape.

You can always pick something with no existing snake associations and just draw it as a snake, of course, but Wikipedia has a whole category page for "Legendary serpents" from Apophis to JÃ¶rmungandr to Zhulong if you want to stay on theme.

The canon denizens have names drawn from Ancient Greek and Gnostic sources, but there's no reason I see to limit yourself in that regard. Denizens are an extremely powerful tool from a storytelling perspective.

They're very strong, very mysterious, and can serve as a convenient deus ex machina if needed (this is a good thing! Having a way to advance the plot swiftly and dramatically like this is *awesome.*)

Canonically, they have knowledge of all their alternate timeline iterations, which could allow a doomed future self to interact with the alpha timeline using the denizen as a proxy.

Denizens' power over the Incipisphere is, as far as we know, boundless and unparalleled. There is *so much* potential with denizens and I desperately want to see more of them in fanworks.

Consider what could happen if a denizen was prototyped into a sprite, or if a player had the ability to steal their denizen's power and use it for themself, or if two denizens had cause to fight each other directly... again, I think about this a completely normal amount. (/reverse hyperbole for humorous intent)

#homestuck analysis #homestuck #hom3stuck #sburb analysis #sburb denizens #homestuck denizens #mod squarewave #anonymous

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mdhwrites · 10 months

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The demon realm isn’t diverse despite the show saying all myths from the demon realm influenced Earth even back in the deadwardian era it very European inspired there are also POC witches but their skin color makes no difference and the demons in the show barely have any resemblance to demons from mythology or religion I feel like the Crew could not write different Cultures and sticked to the Fantasy European Model because it easier and because some people will take issue with the show depicting their monsters as demonic What do you think?

Punctuation. Is. Important. This post is... weird without it. BUT it does actually bring up an interesting point, in part because... Well, I'd be in a pretty similar boat unfortunately.

See, western/European fantasy may have a WIDE variety of options but it also has the easiest when it comes to having a good selection of easily available creatures, settings, etc. to take from. Everyone knows dragons, dwarves, elves, gnomes, etc. At least, here in the west. Unless you do deeper digging, a lot of people will have a pretty limited reach for what they can do monster wise and I think that is reflected in the show.

And I suffer from it myself. I've never done real deep dives into all the monsters out there so while I like them, my mind ends up freezing on only a handful of common ones to use in my writing or the like. It's something that I would like to get better about due to just the sorts of things I enjoy writing. But because a lot of fantasy sticks to these close knit groups of easily useful monsters and myths, you kind of get stuck in a loop.

The show did give itself an out though for worry about potentially insulting other cultures and that was that everything is BASED on something from the Isles. They didn't have to make one to one portrayals but could have taken inspiration. Theoretically, that is in fact what the show did since we don't actually get anything named after a regular monster. The closest are the fact that the witches and wizards actually use those terms and I guess giraffes. Otherwise, they're all purely made up. Which, you know, isn't a bad thing so long as they're interesting.

Unfortunately they're not for most of the like... five that show up in the series? Cool designs usually but little in the way of making them unique obstacles or having real personalities besides "Creature."

The other potential excuse is that the style of the Isles was specifically based on a Dutch/Netherlands artist named Hieronymus Bosch. While his art is weird, it still is steeped in his culture as his buildings and the like are still European in inspiration. Of course, then we get into the fact that they don't include any of the actually surrealist elements of his art which is part of why the Isles is so boring. Strip that part away and all you're left with is... Europe but it's a little weird.

However, the reuse of European history, even including people who look like Vikings, is much weirder to me. At that point, you're not basing this on artwork or fantasy... You're just copying history. Like you point out: Their architecture, style of dress, etc. like that actually mimics common, HUMAN clothing trends just as much four hundred years ago, before a human ever ruled them, as it does in the present day. That's a bizarre disconnect that adds to the feeling that this is just kind of a lazy fantasy setting.

And no, I don't expect every fantasy world to look like Hylics and be this unknowable, abstract landscape. I am fine if something just steals medieval fantasy for its style and creatures after all. The thing that makes most fantasy distinct are its cultures and the interplay of them, or how they diverge from our world despite being so close to it at the same time. Skyrim is not a bad or boring fantasy world because it is THE style you go for with generic fantasy. It's world is vibrant to many because it feels more alive and like there are conflicts that are motivated by things like magic, monsters, etc.

It doesn't even have to be something big. My favorite book series of all time is a medieval fantasy series with some magic for two books and then NEVER BRINGS IT BACK. The mythos around the Rangers of Ranger's Apprentice though, them genuinely engaging with the different countries they come across (even if many are just replacements for real world countries) and the exploration of those cultures, how they differ, their beliefs, their tactics, etc. helped make each place feel like a unique challenge and world in and of itself even though it was lifting so much from reality. It drips with what makes these countries interesting and fun to take from for a fantasy world.

TOH though? They wrote in explicitly an excuse to take literally EVERY fun part of every religion, story, myth, video game even, etc. that has EVER been told... And decided to snark at all of it instead and act like it was better than all of that. Which is potentially a reason to go with the generic, European-centric style BECAUSE it is the most generic. Because most people will know about it from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones. As such, it is the one that is the easiest to ridicule because they are actively choosing the elements that are the easiest to mock. It's like when people say that Madoka Magica is a deconstruction of the magical girl genre because they have literally only seen Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura.

And yes, there is an argument to be had about Dana potentially not feeling comfortable including other cultures' mythologies due to cultural appropriation and... I'm not going to try to deliberate that. I am the second to last person to get to behind the British. I also won't say it would be exactly a bad reason to avoid it even. Just that it is a thing and... *shrug*

A lot of this in fact kind of doesn't have a conclusion besides a shrug. After all, I like D&D. I like the Forgotten Realms. They are not, by default, that unique a fantasy world, in part by design. But, you know, a good DM makes that generic world into a playground. TOH never feels like it's willing to expand to even add a slide.

======+++++======

Btw, if you want a monthly-ish D&D show to watch, I HIGHLY recommend Dan Jones and Dragons. It has a more casual feel to it than I feel like a lot of D&D stuff I've watched tends to have while not devolving into jokes and gags. Everyone is taking it seriously but they're willing to diverge for thirty seconds about a good joke that happens. All of the characters, their personalities, the drama they go through and the care they have for each other is also just SO GOOD. Cannot recommend enough.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #the owl house #toh

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bleachbleachbleach · 7 months

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"This fight isn't over yet, Captain No-Hair."

I've gone on record about enjoying when the Viz translation goes off-book, and I maintain that "WHAT IN THE WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS" is one of the best lines in the whole series. I think it's a fun way of bringing in the roughness of the speech in Japanese that doesn't necessarily have a direct translation in English. But I actually wish that liberty hadn't been taken in Ichigo's line here:

[Bleach 087]

In the Viz, Ichigo's line is, "This fight isn't over yet, Captain No-Hair." I'm not really sure why Ichigo decided to be Colorful right at that moment? Especially since the reference to "captain" is a bit confusing, given that 1) this series really does have captains, and 2) Ichigo doesn't really give a damn that this series has captains. Anyway, in the JP, I would translate the line, "Don't talk like this is already over."

And I really love that line, because "talk" is a repeated motif across their whole fight, and I feel like that line is a big part of why Ikkaku ends up liking Ichigo. The point of the line is that it's not a cheap taunt. Let me back up:

Ikkaku does his Lucky Dance and sings his Lucky Song, which he says was supposed to give Ichigo and Ganju time to run away. But Ichigo doesn't run, even though Ikkaku notes reiatsu-wise he outranks Ichigo. But Ichigo figures, if Ikkaku's really that much more powerful, he'd just run Ichigo down, anyway. If they fight, then they'll see.

Ikkaku asks for Ichigo's name, just in case. And says that "Ichigo" is a good name because names that start with "I" are good--like his, Ikkaku. (So begins them calling each other by their given names.) This is no longer some anonymous street brawl with a ryoka--it's Ikkaku vs. Ichigo.

Ikkaku quickly figures out that despite the fact that Ichigo is most definitely not a soldier he moves well, and he's been trained by someone. Once Ikkaku learns that Urahara was the one who trained Ichigo, he releases Houzukimaru's shikai, so he can kill Ichigo the right way.

That's when Ichigo says, [1] "Don't talk like this is already over." And I feel like Ikkaku really responded do that, because Ichigo kind of calls him on the grandstanding. Like, hey! Don't act like the fight's over when there's still fighting left to do. Stay in the moment! Take this seriously. Respect what we're doing here! Which seems like something Ikkaku probably lacks for in most rights, and would find really refreshing and invigorating in Ichigo.

It also jibes with Ikkaku ultimately not wanting to end the battle unless it ends in death--that is, not acting like that fight is over until it's over over (even if Ichigo ultimately backs off that particular idea).

When Ikkaku says [2] "Aren't you a big talker," he parallels Ichigo's own grammatical construction; they both use an adjective/adjectival phrase to describe a 口--mouth/way of talking. And Ikkaku keeps it up later, when he cajoles Ichigo, [3] asking if it's just his mouth that was skilled:

もう終わったみたいな口きくなよ (Don't talk like this is already over.)

上等な口をきくじゃねえか (Aren't you a big talker.)

威勢のいいのは口だけか？ (Are you all talk?) [even more liberal translation than usual; I couldn't get this to not sound dumb]

I feel like this whole extended "talking" motif is important because it's playing in parallel to the Soul Society Yumichika is simultaneously describing to Ganju, with the gladiator pits (like Ganju needed more convincing that shinigami were bananas). I have received the message loud and clear that I am in the minority when it comes to my interest in the gladiator pits, but too bad!! we're going to talk about them more!! The Pits are so important! They serve as foil to this Ikkaku-Ichigo sequence. They present one characterization of the Seireitei and Ikkaku another, with his styptics and his personality and his name and his intelligence in sizing Ichigo up, and his willingness to tease out what Ichigo's about.

And Ichigo gives Ikkaku just as much--it's immediately clear to Ikkaku that Ichigo is no criminal mastermind (though he is in kahoots with one, re: Urahara), nor is he some bloodthirsty hoodlum. And, importantly, he's no soldier.

In contrast to the lurid spectacle of the Pits, Ikkaku and Ichigo recognize each other's personhood--their training, their wisdom, their names, their senses of battle honor/procedure. And even if Yoruichi thinks Ichigo is bull-in-china-shopping this (and he is! a little! they got here via CANNON), he's a pretty smart bull. And so is Ikkaku--he knows what Ichigo is and isn't.

(I don't think Ikkaku ends up sharing any of this intel--or at least, any of the juicy bits--even though it's info I feel like at least half the people in this arc would have really appreciated. Especially since what flys around instead is "the ryoka beat IKKAKU" which surely did not lend itself to an atmosphere of measured calm lololol. But hey, Ikkaku's here for the smiles per gallon, not the Sake of the Seireitei.)

#believe me i didn't have 'ikkaku and ichigo form a friendship based on rhetoric and grammatical parallelism' on my bingo card either #madarame ikkaku #kurosaki ichigo #bleach manga #bleach reread 2021 #bleach カラー #bleach language #no brain just bleach

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nights-at-crystarium · 2 years

Text

Fragments - episodes 12-14 author notes

Hi hello and welcome to yet another ramble about Fragments C: I’m doing these regularly because there’s so much I wanna say about my idiots, and I like looking back and appreciating the work I’ve done.

You can find similar breakdown posts on older episodes in my pinned!

I haven’t commented on any of the ShB episodes yet, so here we go. Chapter 2 is estimated to last for over a year real-time, it correlates to the msq events up to Amity. The name honestly I’m not too proud of, I didn’t wanna spend too much brain juice on it :’> But the cover.....

Obligatory ShB spoiler warning!

- Investigating each other. They’ve become completely new people since ARR.

- Despite what he thinks of himself, our lord and savior Crystal Exarch has the ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ grandeur ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆.

- Vivi’s self-image is similar, he doesn’t see himself as anything grand no it’s not a height joke but Exarch rapidly grows in his eyes as he learns about him.

- He sports an outfit I once doodled and found cute, I’m just being cheeky about his newfound obsession.

- He also appears fragile to Exarch, who’s literally seen a world where he died being this young. Exarch wants to protect him, to say the least.

- Vivi’s perceived helplessness and lack of agency in ShB, although it’s nothing he hasn’t already been through in his other WoL misadventures.

- The Light, of course the wicked white surrounding them.

Episode 12 I’m proud of writing-wise, but not art-wise. Turns out the Ocular is a bigger bitch to draw/paint than I’d anticipated, and, although I’ve mostly figured it out by now (having just released episode 16 for patrons), the colors and light in the episode 12 will forever stick out like a sore thumb to me, probably until I find the time to redraw it. Same goes for the Scions, learning to draw a whole bunch of new characters over a week (roughly, an episode takes 7~14 days to complete), well, I should’ve taken a bigger break and practiced some more.

I’d even apply the ugly word “crunch” to this episode. But ah, the best page wasn’t crunched, hell started breaking loose a bit later. Yeah I don’t work in order, usually I do the most important frames first.

A bit of a sidetrack: even though I sometimes find myself wanting for more time between episodes, I don’t think I can afford making the releases even more sparse, current 2-week cycle ensures that this story WILL reach its finale in some distant 2028 if not later, I’m not kidding, it might take even longer and I’ve only been working on the script for a year. The broad strokes are complete, but I indulge in adding more sweet nonsense here and there. Or sometimes a raw af dialogue pops up in my head and MUST be included in some chapter. In other words, help, this behemoth keeps growing.

Personally I’m loyal to my fandoms, and not in a rush to finish the comic, but my mmo experience bangs on that nothing lasts forever: I don’t know where the xiv community would be in 5+ years from now, and I need A LOT of people supporting me, allowing me to work on this full time. So I’d rather keep a steady pace while it’s still possible.

As I get more xp in painting backgrounds and learn all the ShB character designs, it should become easier for me. Currently I’m fumbling through a new field, so please bear with me :’D

Back to the main topic: I came up with and scrapped at least 2 ideas of the transition between ARR and ShB, the timeskip was always planned, but Vivi needed some more introduction still. Current iteration of Exarch “interviewing” the Scions seems the most fun and creative to me.

Also, tea parties with Urianger and Feo Ul :> They’re his only two friends in my hc, Urianger he purposely revealed himself to, and Feo Ul, merely being a soul in a sparkly shell, can see Exarch’s soul as well, hoods are useless. All while they’re somewhat reliable, truly the paragon of pixies who wouldn’t randomly spill his secrets (probably).

Vivi’s a mirror. Every single one of us is, to some degree. We react and adapt to the way the others treat us, and so does Vivi. Unintentionally, of course. It’s a natural “passive trait”. All the Scions except Urianger (for the same reason he managed to trick the pixies, he’s just a special smartass) see their reflections in Vivi, direct or warped.

Y’shtola is basically this:

Can’t promise equal amounts of screentime for all the Scions, but the twins and Thancred are the closest to Vivi, you’ll definitely see more of them.

He’s 26 now, which is still rather young by the elezen standards, and he’s way too tired (tm) probably like most WoLs at this point in time.

Maybe not of life itself, but he’s definitely sick of the Source and all its inhabitants. For all he cares, this place can go to hells.

His state just so happens to be perfect for the isekai love story that awaits him. How did he get there? I know, you’ll have to stick around until I deem it appropriate to drop some flashback episodes. I’m leery of loredumping too early on: firstly, you current readers will get more invested over time, therefore have more fun learning about him at a later point; secondly, I’m personally not a fan of tragic backstories right in yo face, before the main story gets a chance to breathe. And, mind you, Vivi’s past isn’t even THAT tragic, just, well.. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes \o/

In this episode I wanted to show his practical approach to things. He may possess an Echo, Blessing, soul stone and whatnot else, but gotta stick a good ol’ dagger in a boot just in case. He’s a doubter, just a tiny bit paranoid.

Also he has The Chair (tm) where he dumps clothes on. His room in the Rising Stones looks vague for now because we indeed don’t return there for years in real time, I don’t need to spend my energy on designing this room in detail just yet.

Most items don’t hold any special meaning, he simply prepares for a journey into the unknown. Well, there’s the journal he dumps his cringy thoughts in, and doodles sometimes. The trinket he holds here is a Princess Ai easter egg:

I talked about Vivi’s character influences and inspirations here if you haven’t seen yet C:

Exarch’s glorious meltdown does a good job averting eyes from Feo Ul being right there in the beginning of the episode 14, but yeah they’re present not for no reason :>

Mentally he’s still in the msq cutscene.

Gotta mention that there’s no amnesia, insanity, or other sad brain fuckery ever in this comic. Vivi’s head’s made of dense and sturdy stuff x’D

Just a meme I made because I had to :>

There isn’t much Deep Meaning in this episode, the visuals speak for themselves, and I’m DAMN PROUD of them.

We don’t see Exarch in this moment ingame, so I took my creative liberty to illustrate the range of emotions he goes through in like 5 minutes before finally rushing out to meet his hero in person, forgetting that he can teleport at will (yet another hc of mine) anywhere in the Tower’s vicinity, and doing so on foot.

That’s it for now, thank you for reading this and enjoying Fragments C:

#ffxiv #shb spoilers #ffxiv: fragments #fragment ii: new world old friend #fragments talk #*wheezes* that's a lotta tags #vivien rell #crystal exarch #g'raha tia #wol x g'raha tia #wolgraha #own: next lvl

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