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[primathontechnology]

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[burst-of-iridescent]

kat.aang fails as a friends to lovers dynamic for multiple reasons, but one of the most egregious is that katara’s friendship alone is never once valued by either the narrative or aang.

a good friends to lovers romance bases the will-they-won’t-they on the potential consequences of rejection. what if confessing ruins your friendship? what if by trying to be something different you lose what you already have? not only is this a relatable and interesting conflict that maintains romantic tension without making it seem contrived, it also does something more important: it denotes the importance and meaning of the characters’ existing bond, thus making it a worthwhile, believable framework upon which to build a romance.

but this is never the case in kat.aang. not once does aang worry about what confessing his feelings might do to his friendship with katara, or even entertain the possibility that their relationship could be strained or ruined as a result. rather, the romantic tension in kat.aang is driven by the fear of rejection itself: the worst outcome of this situation is not the loss of aang’s supposedly close friendship with katara, but the dreaded confirmation that friendship is all that will ever exist between them.

katara and aang don’t work as a friends to lovers ship because their platonic/familial relationship is framed as an obstacle to their romance, not a stepping stone. this is made most evident in the ember island players, when actress katara’s re-affirmation of her sisterly feelings for aang (coupled with her interest in zuko) is the catalyst for aang’s confrontation and subsequent violation of katara. katara’s platonic love here is a source of frustration to aang, not comfort; a reminder of what he does not yet have instead of what he stands to lose.

aang wanting “more” than friendship is not inherently bad, and his desire for a romance with katara does not, on its own, invalidate their relationship. but you cannot predicate a romance on friendship all while disparaging the continuation of said friendship in its current state as the worst thing that could happen to the dynamic of these two characters! doing so not only cheapens kat.aang’s platonic bond, it also reinforces the idea that the only type of relationship worth having with women is a romantic one; that friendship is nothing more than a poor consolation prize for the romance women rightfully owe their male friends. it’s a leaf taken right out of the good old Nice Guy misogyny and amatonormativity playbook.

and if even the narrative can’t be bothered to respect or buy into kat.aang’s friendship as the foundation of their romance, why exactly should i or anyone else be expected to do so?

[ecoterrorist-katara]

Why I feel like Ka/taang is one-sided, despite textual evidence 

ATLA does try to convince us that Katara has romantic feelings for Aang. For example: she seems thoughtful when she realizes that Aang is a powerful bender; she’s offended that he didn’t want to kiss her in the Cave of Two Lovers; she gets jealous when Sokka says On Ji and Aang look good together.

So…what’s wrong with anti-Kataangers? Do we just lack media comprehension? 

To be clear, on their own, these gestures can indicate romantic interest. But at the same time, we have stuff like “Aang is a sweet little guy, like Momo.” We have her ambivalent facial expression after he kisses her before the eclipse, and her hedging during Ember Island Players, and her anger when he kisses her anyway. In the context of these conflicting cues, Katara’s possibly romantic reactions can absolutely be interpreted in a different way, because: 

Acknowledging a friend as a potential romantic interest is not the same as actually being romantically interested in them. (Imo this is something young women struggle with, due to a combination of romance-centrism and heteronormativity that make women feel like they should be in romantic relationships, and that boys and girls who share intimate and deep feelings for one another must be romantically into each other) 

Wanting someone to find you desirable is not the same as desiring that person. (Which is something a lot of women, especially young women, struggle with. Remember all the discourse around Cat Person back in 2017?) 

Being jealous when someone flirts with your friend is not the same as wanting to be with your friend. (Especially when you see your friends as family, or if you’re accustomed to a specific type of devotion from that friend. It is jealousy, and it is possessiveness, but it doesn’t always arise from romantic feelings) 

Growing up in a patriarchal society means that your desires are always filtered through what men want from you, sometimes in an abstract male gaze-y way, and sometimes in a very visceral and interpersonal way when a boy wants you specifically. And Katara’s reactions are just that — reactions. Reactions to what other people — including Aunt Wu, Sokka, Aang himself — have insinuated about her and Aang. She’s not really proactive in her interest in Aang: we don’t really see Aang, romantically, from Katara’s POV. Under the framework of “Katara is reacting to a romantic prospect she’s kind of uncertain about,” it is completely plausible — and indeed likely — that she would sometimes act in ways that indicate romantic interest, in addition to moments where she indicates the opposite. 

Ka/taang shippers often bring up other evidence, like Katara’s despair when Azula hits Aang with lightning, or how protective she is of him when Zuko joins the Gaang. The thing is, these pieces of evidence aren’t necessarily indicative of romantic love. The fact that Katara genuinely loves Aang makes the whole thing more complicated, not less, because — especially at that age, especially when Aang is twelve years old and grew up in a sex-segregated society of monks — it is really difficult to tell the difference between platonic love and romantic love. Their mutual devotion is layered and complex yet straightforward in its sincerity. What was not straightforward, until the last five minutes of the show, is whether this devotion on Katara’s end is romantic. The romantic arc for Katara and Aang is not really an arc, as Sneezy discusses in this classic ZK video. Katara actually becomes more conflicted over time and we never see an event that clarifies her feelings. She seems more interested in him in The Headband than on the Day of the Black Sun, and she has never been more hostile to his romantic overtures than in the penultimate episode. 

And in light of this, it’s pretty easy for fans to fill in the blanks with a different interpretation: maybe Katara’s weird expression after their kiss at the invasion means she didn’t enjoy it; maybe the kiss made her realize that she doesn’t actually feel that way about Aang; maybe against her will and her better judgement, she’s developing feelings for another person, a person who hurt her and whom she fervently tried to hate until he pulled off what is in my opinion the greatest grovel of all time in the form of a life-changing field trip. Maybe. Am I saying that Zutara has more romantic interactions than Ka/taang? Of course not. But ironically, the lack of romantic interactions means that it’s not inherently one-sided, the way Ka/taang became in the latter half of season 3.

I’m not arguing that Katara’s unequivocally not into Aang. Obviously the text declares that she is, because they get married and have kids. But I am saying that there’s a very good reason that so many people, especially women, see Katara’s interest in Aang as ambiguous. It’s not because we can’t pick up “subtle” hints of growing affection. It’s because we know not all affection is romantic, and it’s really easy for someone else’s insistent romantic intentions to muddle what you want.

P.S. I first started thinking about these topics (platonic vs romantic love, desiring someone vs wanting to be desired, etc) in the context of compulsory heterosexuality, a term describing how queer women contort themselves into relationships with men even if they’re not really into men. I saw a post a few days ago joking about why so many queer women seem to be into Zutara. I wonder if part of the reason is because as queer women, we are very sensitive to the ways in which we can talk ourselves into wanting things we don’t actually want, and Katara’s romantic interest in Aang can be easily seen that way. 

[steviewashere]

Tell Me, What Is My Life Without Your Love? (Chap. 1/?)

Rating: Teen and Up CW: Blood Mentions, Premature Grief/Mourning, Talks of Death Tags: Post-Canon, Hanahaki Disease, Childhood Friends AU, Childhood Friends to Enemies to Friends to Strangers to Friends to Lovers, (This is a Doozy), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Endgame Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson Other additional tags to be added! If you'd like to be tagged for chapter updates, please let me know, I'd love to add you! Title from "What Is Life" by George Harrison Also available to read on AO3

🥀————————🥀 When the first petal falls, it's after he's smiled at.

Steve doesn't know why it happens this time. The petals. Why, after countless failed dates and relationships, his body chooses now to remind him so cruelly the reason he doesn't go for things like this anymore. He falls in love fast, or at least that's the observation thrown at him. That he falls in love fast, headfirst, and deep. He did that with Nancy—failed—and Robin—rejected—and now...

Eddie Munson doesn't like jocks. Or douchebags. Or people who've been douchebags. He's made that loud and clear since their first day together in high school; climbing onto tables with his gangly limbs and crowing voice, yelling on and on about conformity and popularity and parties. About rich kids with their silver spoons and their parents with money-loaded pockets. Throwing bills at the problems and if that didn't fix it all, words at the problems. There had been a particular day, during one of the early lunch rushes, where Eddie had made direct and purposeful eye contact with Steve—"Conformity is the mind killer. I bet some of you were the sweetest of the bunch. Well, before your parents had anything to say about it."

They haven't talked about that. The...conformity of it all.

It's fuzzy to Steve, the happenstance in all this—where Eddie existed in his life previously, the way they got along like a house on fire, and then somewhere died out. The embers flew. Ash spread. And the framework of the house disintegrated.

There had been something there, though, something Eddie wanted to make obvious. What it was, Steve couldn't say. Like a mumbled lyric on a cassette that was giving out, the tape spooled, and the lubricant dried. He could hear the bass, but not the melody—and though Eddie was mocking the wrongs Steve did, he's not quite sure what exactly they were. Why Eddie hated him so much, in the before. He knew of them before high school—childhood friends—and during high school—distant rivals—and after high school, the reluctant teammates. Steve figured it all watered down to pointless high school cliques; wherein they ignored each other just because. No real reason, just a jumble of things. Class differences and the one year age gap and the way Eddie had been held back, the way Steve stumbled through school, yet made it out on top just because his parents were respected people—unlike Eddie's own.

They aren't friends before the Upside Down. Not exactly, yet not rivals either.

Steve didn't know what to call them. Acquaintances? Even then, the word felt too hollow in comparison to whatever Eddie was holding onto. To whatever Steve cherished at one point.

Saving the world together aided their whole friendship.

At least, the scraps of their friendship. Mending them together to make some ambiguous quilt.

They get along fine. Joking with one another, teasing each other, can hang out one on one. Eddie likes to come into Family Video and bother the hell out of Steve. And Steve will come in through one of the trailer's windows to give a drop-in visit. There's nothing wrong with their friendship, in fact everything seems to be going very right.

But then he got his heart involved.

Truly involved.

Hence why, during a hang out last night, when Eddie smiled at him—one of those big, genuine, soft ones—Steve started to feel a little tickle in his throat. It felt as if somebody took their fingers to the back of his throat, fluttering their fingertips along his windpipe. He drank some water, the feeling didn't go away, so he excused himself back home.

Now, what is the next morning, he's looking down at a palmful of dark purple, moist, crumpled up rose petals. The kind that fall off the bouquet, to the floor, walked all over by people's disgustingly muddy shoes. They're soft when he strokes them. Fragile and flimsy if he digs his fingernails in a little too roughly.

He's not sure what to make of them. What to do with them. Steve sets them on his bedside table and hopes that maybe he's just...just seeing things. He has to be. Has to.

Because otherwise—

Hanahaki. The flower illness. Sprouting petals, then buds, then fully bloomed prizes of an affection deemed undesirable. The patient desires, believes their enamored feelings to be reject-able, deniable, and begins to sprout. Unrequited love. Believed to be unrequited.

It's not supposed to be that serious, what he feels for Eddie. Just one of those wishful thinking things, he tells himself, I've got a measly crush on the guy, it'll pass. Like Sandy and Danny's fling in Grease; summer loving, gone at the end, something to look back on every once in a while and reflect upon. But, well...they end up together in the end, don't they?

Shit, Steve thinks, this is happening.

He coughs, wetly, and spits another two petals into his right hand. Sticky with his spit. Moistened with Eddie's half-resentment. Crumpled under the weight of Steve's wants and desires, left to be unfulfilled; he may have been bought materialistically by his parents, but the love he's craved is just that—a craving.

These petals are the by-product of an empty home. Of friendships created from what he had, not what he could offer. And shallow hookups where he sought out heat and touch like a wild animal ready to curl into its death, into the soft bed of the universe.

Steve squishes the petals. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand. And he continues on with his day.

Goes to work. Hides evidence in toilet paper wads. Eats a candy bar from the rack to cover up the floral scent on his tongue. Cowers in the backroom when Eddie parks his van, tries to come in and talk to him. And then he goes home—unfulfilled.

By the time he's back in bed, there are enough petals to create a full rose.

He wonders how long he has before he could create a bouquet.

No way in hell is he talking to Eddie about all this. They may be friends, but it may just be out of reluctance. They may be friends, but it may just be on Steve's end. They may be friends, but Eddie still has his grudges. And Steve?

Steve is one of those grudges.

He sleeps on his side that night, just to make sure he can breathe. When he wakes up half way through, a stark image of Eddie's pale face in the blue Upside Down, brown eyes bigger than the world, and blood smeared on his cheek, Steve rolls over the side of his bed and hurls another handful of petals—he's dying from this, because that's what Hanahaki does.

It's a beautiful sort of death, he supposes. A stupid one, too. An unnecessary one, he knows that. He can't change it, though. If this is it, then so be it.

Eddie probably hates his guts.

And Steve refuses to let him feel guilty. Chrissy and Patrick had been enough. No reason to add to that. He may not be different than the douchebag in high school, but Eddie had said good and so he'll take that; if this is the last good act he does, he'll just stomach it. He'll just power through like he does. Not the first time he's been nearing death's doorstep. There'll be blood eventually, probably, but for now there isn't.

For now, he's choking.

He loves Eddie and is choking over it.

————— The coughing makes him ache.

Water doesn't help his sore throat. Hot baths prove to be fruitless when trying to soothe himself. And the odd tickle effect intensifies if he even spends a moment, a single second, to spot a thought over Eddie.

When he faced the great evils of the Upside Down, he was afraid, but willing. If it had to be him that was mauled, beaten, drained, then he took it. He was the brute in a lot of ways. A hero's sacrifice, that's what he deemed it. Though, in retrospect, would anybody call him a hero for the way he acted—was it just stupidity rearing its ugly head, was it just the after thought of an after thought, the last call to arms when the other plans dwindled down to shadows and bones? He took the swings and he cried out in pain and he whittled himself to the sluggish pour of blood; but was it him being the good guy, or simply the okay guy that sought out forgiveness from his surroundings?

He's apologized time and time and time again. It started with Nancy. Then, the camera he bought for Jonathan. The snippy comments turned into apologetic pouts when Dustin didn't laugh, or Max didn't smile, or Hopper began to cast this look of 'I know what you've done before.' If he laughed a little too hard at one of Robin's laments, he squished up his face and choked on his breath and shout out a sorry before the anger could paint her freckles red.

Steve's looked Eddie dead in the eyes and said, "I'm sorry for who I was before," but it didn't seem to be enough. There's this gaze that Eddie calls upon. Something stuck between regret and rage; an offense when his lips won't form the words, when his fists won't throw the punches, when he doesn't want to leave the room with a huff. Like he's contemplating something tumultuous and mad.

He would've died for Eddie.

Not like this, though. He doesn't want to die like this.

He doesn't want to die at all.

Robin's laughter echoes light in the shadows of his house. And Dustin's theories run him ragged, yet satisfied—like a run around a track would, breathless and tired. Nancy finally looks at him sweetly. And Max is just beginning to smile with all her teeth again.

None of this, he doesn't want to miss any of this yet. He needs a better job. To share an apartment with Robin even though it would drive him crazy. Needs to make pancakes only to eat them in his bed and spill syrup on his pillows and throw a tiny fit of rage. Read upside down, hanging sideways from the arm of his couch, the words swimming in a way that will never make sense, all with the flicker of candlelight thrown over his slow to redden face. To adopt a dog that gets impatient when needing to pee before being fully trained, a dog that'll wiggle when waiting for dinner, a dog that'll bend around his body and star-sprawl across his mattress—leaving him to the floor or the couch or nothing at all.

There's always something that he wants and can't quite have.

He thinks of them between petals.

Cough. To attend Erica's graduation. Cough. To watch Robin fall in love. Cough. To officiate Dustin's wedding. Cough. To drink ice cold weak lemonade just because Jonathan made it when stoned. Cough. To see Eddie happy. Coughcoughcoughcoughcoughcough—

A thorn spills out and splits his lip.

There's blood coating the damned thing. Blood on his palms. On his chin. Between his teeth.

Is loving Eddie worth dying over?

If he answers himself with no, would that make him a worse person?

If Eddie found out the answer, would Steve crumple at the reaction?

Is loving Eddie worth dying over? He thinks he'll die no matter what.

There's a thorn on his love line. Metallic under his tongue. When he finds the strength to dial Robin and she answers, all he does is sob.

————— "Steve," she whispers, horrified, at his hands.

When Robin talks low, her voice crackles around the edges. Like a dying wick in a candle. She smells like one, of wet earth and freshly tumbled linen. And her eyes do this odd thing, sparkling as if they're shaken up and ready to burst. Her gaze finds his and her own hands float over his petal-full palms.

She won't touch him.

It makes him wheeze.

"How long?" Robin then asks.

"Two weeks," Steve answers quieter than she had spoken—like a tepid kettle inside during a thunderstorm. "After...after I came home from Hellfire's meeting at the Wheeler's."

Her fingers wrap hesitantly around his wrists. That's odd, he notes, she's usually colder. Doesn't know what to do with that.

But she seems to. Asking all the right questions. "Nancy?"

He shakes his head.

"Is it...was it Jonathan?"

Steve scrunches his nose, shakes his head, whimpers around his next breath because—

"It's Eddie," Robin concludes, "you're doing this over Eddie."

When he coughs and can't spit into his palms, they watch the petals and thorns spray from his mouth, as if they're shrapnel in an explosion. He's not sure what that makes him. His heart the grenade? Or his body the casing? There's a fresh glob of his pink blood-mixed spit across her cheek, she reaches up and wipes it away gently. Savoring it almost. Rubs it between her right thumb and index finger. And then she sighs.

"What do I do, Robs?" he manages to croak.

She swallows hard as if she's digesting his soon-to-be-buds. "I don't know," Robin admits. "It's either you confess or"—

"Won't I die if he rejects me?"

"It's possible." Which, in Robin talk, when she's trying to not ignite the whole room in panic, means yes.

He doesn't like it when she lies to him. Makes him squirm, sour inside. If there's anything he's learned from his parents, or at least because of his parents, it's that lying is on the basis of distrust. And if he's made her not trust him, then maybe he hasn't changed at all.

Which means that he's going to—

"I don't want to die," he murmurs—the words are knives against his lips, each invisible straight line cutting against his flesh. His fingers scrunch around the petals still in his palms, brittle they are, yet stained with him. There's heat in his face, a sharp stabbing betrayal between his eyes, and the first tear rolls before he can do anything about it. "Robs," he squeaks, "I'm not ready. It's not...it's not fair, I'm not ready."

When she cups his head, presses it against her stomach, and simply brushes his hair without words, it only makes him weep harder.

The thing about his friendship with Robin, is that they're able to figure pretty much anything. They'll bicker over movies until one concedes. At times, when her words are faster than her brain, he always finds a way to bring her back from the clouds, put the world as it is out for her. A rude customer means an even ruder comment. And that's just the foundations. Since Scoops, that's what they've been. Best friends that have each other's backs.

Robin's incredibly intelligent. She doesn't believe him when he says that, but it's true. In his personal opinion, her intelligence is a fact of life. The sky is blue, grass is green, and she is fucking smart. She'll put the logistics into Nancy's whirlwind action-packed plans. She knows how to bring a bully down to protect those around her. She just gets it.

This can't be solved between them.

"Let's make you a doctor's appointment, okay?" she finally suggests. "They'll know what to do. Where to go from here. Okay, Stevie? Maybe they can calm the symptoms, prolong your time. Give you the time to charm Eddie's socks right off. He'll have no choice but to"—

"I'm not gonna trap him," Steve says, "but I'll see a doctor. Get a couple more weeks."

She strokes her hands through his hair. Her fingernails are freshly cut, dull against his scalp. "You shouldn't have to leave me yet."

He sniffles. "I shouldn't have fallen in love with somebody who clearly doesn't want me."

Her fingertips press firmly into his soft skin. "You don't know that, Steve."

"No," he sighs, "I guess I don't."

She says nothing to that. He’s unsure whether it’s in agreement or some new wave of disapproval. Whatever it is makes her hold him tighter. As if, maybe, she could squeeze the oncoming roses right out of him—make him look like the dilapidated home of a weeping widow, his insides spattered as brittle, solemn condolences from a memorial only strangers came to; as if he’s an overstuffed teddy bear, practically spilling at the seams with love.

He is, so it’s not a metaphor, but why won’t anybody take what’s extra?

Would the rose petals be pressed and turned into keepsakes?

Oh, Steve? Yeah, I wish he were here. He is, I guess, wrapped around my neck. Like a beating heart on a string, he thinks Robin would say something poetic like that in a passing conversation. He’d be one of those stale conversation starters. A small talk that people flip over for days after, cursing themselves for commenting about his hair rather than his eyes, or for his laugh instead of his words, or the thin gap between his front teeth over a complete regime of his exact style memorialized.

If they all gather in his honor, who puts together his obituary? Who’d be included in it? Steve Harrington, survived by his parents—they aren't cruel friends—Steve Harrington, survived by his friends—obituaries don't write home about friends, only lovers and estranged second cousins and spiteful parents who have curled lips and furrowed brows. Obituaries are for bragging. Steve Harrington, once shot a three pointer from half-court during a non-championship game. Obituaries are for lying to the world to make a person look better. Steve Harrington, loved by all.

The flowers—is it distasteful to blossom flowers at a Hanahaki victim's funeral? Would his casket be open? His face, would it be discolored purple from the petals, would he be marbled green like the dead, would the mortuary paint him pale as if caught in the moonlight? The clothes picked, a starchy suit he wore consistently to funerals, is it in bad taste to use mourner's clothes that had already absorbed the mourning?

Would his parents go cold and numb over his death? Would they flame with rage? Would they fight and fight and fight and demand and demand and demand for a cure to be found? Would the cure be invasive? Would the cure be slow simmering? Who else dies from this? Are they just like him? The petals now mirrors?

Is he overthinking this?

Would they just cremate him? Where would they spread him?

Would Robin go crazy with grief, eat him like dry cereal out of his urn? Would Dustin cradle him and weep? Would somebody finally speak up, "Good riddance," would they be so cruel?

Is he overthinking this?

I'm being realistic, he thinks, death is a permanent state.

Will they remember me, he asks, am I loved enough for that?

I don't feel like it, I don't feel like it, I don't feel like it, I don't want to feel like this, I don't want this, I don't want this, I don't want to—

"You're not going to die," he distantly hears Robin say, firmly, too, "I'll make sure."

"You can't," Steve chokes out, warbling and wet, sobbing, "you can't know"—

"I've seen Hell," she husks, "there has to be a way out of this. There just has to."

Denial, he questions, isn't that just the first stage of grief?

🥀————————🥀 Taglist is Open!

[aequrion]

The lines twist as though memory itself grew into the fabric. Threads spiraling in a language only the hands know. Leaves, ghostly, interlace— remnants of thoughts once wild, now stilled in blue and ivory. In this framework of silence, I find some embered thrums of my own being perhaps the pulse of a brewing aspiration or the sedated hum of stillness, each vine reaching toward something anomalous. Patterns repeat, but never the same, as if every repetition is an unuttered riddle answers to which are hire to the interlude of confirmation.

[byemambo]

Casting ATEEZ in a BL: A Deep Dive

Came across @thirstkanaphan and their Casting ATEEZ in a BL post, I'd love to share my own interpretations but keep the ones that I agree with! I haven't watched everything rip to Bad Buddy like baby, I promise I'll get to you one day! but these are the ones that immediately come to mind hehe.

Seonghwa - Top Form

Seonghwa to be over the years has always stuck out as a performer from their stages, but I've also been able to see him share his vulnerabilities throughout the years of being an ATINY. Known as an idol whose beauty is unmatched and beyond gorgeous, I always seem to relate to his solace and personal growth when uprooting obsolete frameworks of mind, which for a good amount of his youth had prevented him from progressing into a more self loved and confidently accepting person he is towards himself that we see today. Although the Thai adaptation of Top Form is my only frame of reference to the source material, there is something so beautiful yet rooted in devastation that I feel towards Akin. His impact in an entertainment industry that operates on "out the old and in the new," an industry that praises the ethereal with no regard for the person behind such presence, a commodity and an experience, the sun that shines brightly but will burn you once you get close enough to touch it. But rather than being viewed as the sun, he's more like a flame, easily diminished from a strong breeze that results in burning embers. But once he comes across one that knows how to kindle the flame, he is bright, passionate, and his warmth comforting those willing to occupy his space.

Honorable Mention: Moonlight Chicken

I'd love to see him take on a character like Jim, the breadwinner and glue that holds the family together. Although he's more playful with the members (I believe due to being the baby of his own immediate family), I can imagine that his serious side aligns with how Jim conducts himself and his justifications for laying low, resisting the idea of entertaining a lifestyle where he doesn't have to sacrifice his own happiness and personal fulfillment. Sometimes when we experience hardships that result in traumas and crippling mental health, resilience is born, but it easily spirals into restriction and resistance to novelty, and more likely than not, sustainable ownership of life issues over short term solution. We see this when Wen comes into the picture, someone who craved novelty of his own that leads him to peace and comfort, someone that does their best to make a house a home, even if the home is barely held together. Jim's character to me feels similar to how I used to operate in my youth, fixated on surviving without making room to simply live. Feeling as though there's no possibility in making room for more, mistaken our deficit for excess or even straight up denial and worthlessness. When someone lives life with their head barely above water, they don't even realize they've been paddling to keep themselves from drowning in shallow waters. But all it takes is for one person to show them recognition of their own worthiness and consideration, that all it takes sometimes is to stand up on their own two feet and claim what has always been theirs: their value.

Hongjoong - I Told Sunset About You

I'd love to see Hongjoong play in a coming of age series, especially one with a character like Teh that spends the last moments of his youth understanding his interpretation of love along with the unpredictability of the future. Hongjoong has always been experimental and innately explorative, so I can only imagine what his youth consisted of when it came to youthful love and self actualization. Figuring out his passions and dreams, sharing such vulnerabilities with a trusted person you found companionship in despite being pitted together within the competitive nature of university admissions. The unstable pursuit of dreams and roads less taken, and yet coming out the other end a more experienced and braver person that you weren't before. Hongjoong to me is a risk taker, is a expressionist, is a natural born leader that is unafraid of earning more battle scars. Because with any person who takes ownership in paving their own path in this life, no one ever comes out unscathed.

Honorable Mention: Love in the Big City

Because of his being the captain of the team, we obviously have many instances of his leadership and presence within the team: I'd love to see more moments of play and pure silliness with a kind and big heart. Gyuho is one of my favorite BL characters of all time, someone who exhibited both innocence and maturity but still staying true to his emotions when being met with walls and opposition. Hongjoong to me strikes a great balance between his child like nature which truly comes out when he's creating, but still maintaining a level headed composure that earns respect in any room he occupies. It takes a special kind of person who becomes someone's rock without letting distance and traumatic emotional responses send him right out the door to never return again. Gyuho is loyal, Gyuho is optimistic, Gyuho is love in all its beauty and flaws.

Yunho - Living with Him

The series that inspired this post because I'm currently introducing it to my best friend @jupitersdirection so we can both sob over these angels. Although Yunho has played the second lead who unfortunately deals with a one sided love finally now it's my time, at least in Kazuhito's case, he ends up winning over his crush's heart. Yunho to me is someone who's reserved in love that requires loads of patience, but I feel like he would be the type of person that merely being in proximity to the person he loves with admiration and affirmation would be enough to sustain himself for the rest of his days. Kazuhito is someone who remains loyal to his love, even reserving such experiences and intimacy for the day they potentially return their feelings even if it's not guaranteed. I believe someone like Yunho takes union and romantic partnership seriously, which enhances the moments where domesticity and pure intentional love take center stage.

Honorable Mention: Secret Relationships

On the flip side after seeing many clips and moments of Yunho's temper or upset attitude (we see this most with competitions and games), many ATINYs hope that we'll be able to see Yunho portray an antagonist in a story, which is why I believe he would do wonder taking on the complex nature of Jaemin. Despite all his efforts that caused great harm to those around Daon, Jaemin craves Daon's eternal love and adoration through unjust means and without consent. If anything, Daon's distress and fear potentially excited Jaemin, having hopes that one day he will have ownership over Daon. After all, he believes that no one else can be by his side, therefore, I'd love to see Yunho take on such a role one day.

Yeosang - A Man Who Defies the World of BL

Rewriting my paragraphs because tumblr didn't autosave my draft you mother—Mob is easily one of my favorite BL characters because I rewatch A Man Who Defies the World of BL religiously. I know we tend to see Yeosang as this ethereal beauty or someone who defies the odds of reality, but Yeosang to me is one of the funniest and wholesome members once you really take in his personality and composure. I feel like even if he tries not to due to his wallflower and observant tendencies, he draws you in, which is also Mob's dilemma until he has to come to terms with his bigger than life presence in the grand scheme of things. Although he spends so much time avoiding the spotlight and desire to lay low, he finally comes to terms with how significant his role is in the lives of others, and I find that beautiful (even if the series itself is unserious in nature haha).

Honorable Mention: Gelboys

However, if we steer in the direction of letting Yeosang's unique qualities take on the center, I'd love him to play as Bua. While writing this up, I was debating between Baabin and Bua, but what I love about Bua is that we don't notice how hard he's trying to earn love and devotion from the person that matters most until we see the lengths he's willing to go in diminishing his authentic self to be loved. I feel like so many idols and those who desire a life of influence and fame all crave validation and attention, which isn't innately bad until you reevaluate the reasons for seeking such means. When your own cup feels empty, you crave the contents from others to ease fulfillment in your life, through love, money, fame, etc. Until you have someone come along to show you that the lack of content isn't the problem, but the cup itself: switch cups. Rather than altering the person you are, practice the courage you must have in living as the person you are in its entirety, because you will one day come across someone who will love you for your uniqueness, your flaws, and your beauty that had always existed for yourself and yourself alone.

San - See Your Love

Jin Yun did such an amazing job portraying Shaopeng, and his story is so lovely and remarkable. When I think of San, I think of resilience. Coming from a small town into the big city chasing after a dream that for many, feels so silly and out of reach, San displays character that I believe many influential people should possess: the ability to adapt to your own circumstances and to never give up your goals and aspirations. Shaopeng is someone who realizes his circumstances that the world treats as a setback or a flaw, but once he's met with someone like Zixiang that doesn't treat his circumstances as a flaw, but as another layer of beauty that creates the picture that is Shaopeng, we truly witness the phrase "to be loved is to be seen" in its essence.

Honorable Mention: Never Let Me Go

I haven't watched Never Let Me Go in forever, but Palm has always held a soft spot in my heart. Imagine not being able to see your father that spends most of his years present and employed to another family, while eventually having to sacrifice your own safety and livelihood for a bratty son from a prestigious family at the beginning at least. I'd love to see San in a character that we see in HALAZIA and Ice on My Teeth, someone that is self sacrificing and resourceful, someone who adapts to the circumstances and will do anything to protect the people he loves.

Mingi - My Stand In

I completely agreed with Mingi as Ming lol from My Stand In. We know that Mingi is someone who has his "on" and "off" personas, but imagining his charisma and attitude portrayed in Ming would be so interesting and almost frightening. I can see Mingi in a position where his desire and craving leads him to a possessive love, especially with Joe pushing back despite knowing that deep down, he still loves Ming even if he knows he shouldn't. I think the character we've seen Mingi portray in Don't Stop iykyk would be perfect to fulfill the angst and obsession Ming displays in My Stand In.

Honorable Mention: The Sign

On the flip side, if we cater to Mingi's emotional vulnerabilities, I'd love to see him play as Phaya. Despite being one of the most capable and excelling of the teammates, his own nightmares (literally and figurative cause if I had a Dr. Chalothon in my life haunting me, I'd be pissed off, too) backs into a corner and prevent him from chasing after what he desires most: his soulmate. I also still think about Mingi's acting in BOUNCY with the gun, phenomenal work and we need more in the next comebacks!

Wooyoung - KinnPorsche

When I saw Wooyoung being assigned to Porsche, I immediately knew I needed to write my own post because I 100% agree. Wooyoung's playful and witty nature would fit perfectly with Porsche, someone who speaks his mind no matter who he's addressing. I also appreciate that Porsche is territorial over the people he cares about, and willing to challenge those who approach with ill intent and harm. With the whole Vata situation blowing up again, we can see that ATEEZ as a whole takes no prisoners, but Wooyoung especially demonstrating where people stand in his life is something that I always find so admirable in him as a person.

Honorable Mention: The Heart Killers

Bison to me would be Wooyoung portraying Porsche if they leaned more into the babygirlism, which I'm all for. I feel like Bison and Porsche sit at the same table but at different points of maturity. Both characters are still playful and protective, but Bison's emotions being unregulated would land him in unfavorable situations if he doesn't tighten up. Since Bison is the younger brother while Porsche is the older brother, and Wooyoung perfectly sandwiched in between his two brothers, I feel like he has an advantage leaning into one dynamic and the other.

Jongho - Love for Love's Sake

I would love to see Jongho as a Myungha without a doubt as you can see, I'm very passionate about this topic. Because we primarily see Jongho as the "baby" that he can't seem to escape because we saw him as Hyuk in Imitation, people tend to forget that Jongho is the oldest son in his own family. This side comes out of him more when he's around idols his age or when he's able to take on the older person role in a dynamic. I've always noticed his assertive nature ever since predebut as he's someone who takes care of others despite being surrounded by members who are constantly taking care of him, I'd love for us to witness Jongho operating in that dynamic that he's used to predebut. Myungha is a character dear to me as someone who relates to his struggles, someone who stands up for what he believes in but hesitates to stand up for himself.

Honorable Mention: FC Soldout

This series was literally too funny because I'm a big believer if you're always consuming media with this mindset that it has to be "ground breaking" or "high quality," you miss out on being able to laugh with the content you consume and interact with by relying on comparison. Jiwoo is such a funny and cute character, I love his closeted fanboy energy alongside his charisma towards his sport and for his dreams. I also appreciate how dynamic Jiwoo is, from being someone who enables himself to be wholesome and honest about his admiration for his idol, but also standing up for what he believes in even if that means stepping on people's toes and making space for himself. I'd love to see Jongho take on such a duality because he's definitely capable of both.

Now the real question: if ATEEZ starred in the same BL, which one would it be?

For me: Perfect 10 Liners or Only Friends :)

[emmg]

The Ember Season

*tosses this Hadestown Emmrook AU like yesterday's trash* I did it. I started the thing.

The Veil is cracking. Emmrich built a city to hold it together; a city of ghosts, memory, and ritual. He says it’s failing. He says Rook is the only one who can see why. She shouldn't have come back. But she always does. Above, Bellara builds a machine that might find Neve. If she’s still herself. If she wants to be found. Love is the rhythm. Memory is the trap.

Read below or on Ao3 (sike it’s actually not there anymore cuz i deleted it by accident lol)

Chapter One: The Dead Bloom Slowly

Excerpt from Emmrich’s Research Notes (Unfiled Addendum)

"The Veil is deteriorating at several key fault lines. Surface-level efforts remain inconsistent. Solas and I are in agreement: stabilization must occur from both sides. He holds the Fade. I hold the world. He tends the dreaming. I manage the dead. The Grand Necropolis must serve as a stabilizing anchor, its necromantic field designed to resist volatile Fade incursions at structurally compromised points. The city is not merely a sanctuary for the dead, but a mechanism of containment. Lichdom is not corruption, but crystallization. Ritual intention remains pure. Undeath becomes the framework through which purpose endures. Mortality introduces entropy; emotion distorts the weave. I am, by nature, too human. The living cannot bear this burden forever. The dead do not fray under repetition. She will not understand. Rook fears what does not grow. She believes stillness is stagnation. But stillness is the only reason the walls still hold."

The train to the Grand Necropolis has no windows. It unsettles her every time. She always hesitates, Rook notices. Always. One foot extended, the other still grounded, she teeters at the threshold, suspended between the platform, the train, and the void that lies between.  

But inevitably, as always, she boards. Time snaps back into motion. The whistle shrills, the wheels begin to turn. She almost loses her balance, lurches forward, arms flailing, takes three quick steps to steady herself. Behind her, the doors slide shut.  

It’s always the same: hesitate, glance down, step in, stumble, recover.  

Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk. She hears the great machine; or maybe she feels it. It travels through her bones as much as through her ears, a pulse in the metal spine of the train as she walks the corridor toward her private cabin.

The one that needs a key.  

The key she wears on a chain around her neck. The key that rests cold between her breasts, always cold, no matter how long it lies pressed to her skin—and that is always. It never warms. It only leeches.  

She stops. Fumbles at the chain, trying to free it. It snags, scratches her collarbone. She tugs. Harder. The chain catches on the top button of her blouse and, with one sharp pull, it snaps. The key flies.  

“Motherfucker,” she mutters, dropping to one knee just as the train jolts beneath her. The key skitters away.  

A foot steps out from one of the cabins; a pointed boot catches it before it vanishes. Then the other foot follows, this one curved, elegant, and false: a gilded, dwarven-forged prosthetic that ends just below the knee. Its owner leans down, humming as she picks up the key, rolling it along her knuckles like a two-penny magician with a coin. A cheap trick. Still, impressive.  

“Thank you,” Rook says, brushing off her knees as the woman holds it out to her.  

“Think nothing of it,” the woman replies.  

Her smile is small. Kind. A touch reserved.  

As soon as Rook takes the key, the woman tilts her head and says, “It must be very important to you.”  

"Why do you say that?" 

“For starters, you wear it tucked beneath your clothes, not over. You check for it with your fingers without even realizing it. Twice since you stepped on board. You flinched when it hit the ground. You swore when the chain broke, not because of the chain itself, but because the key was loose. You didn’t run after it; you dropped. Dropped fast. Knees first.”  

She spins the snapped bit of chain once around her finger before handing it over as well. “Also… you didn’t say ‘thank you’ right away. You looked at it first. Made sure it was intact. Still yours. Still there.”  

“Ah,” Rook says, folding the key into her palm. She closes her fingers around it, then covers it with her other hand. It probably looks ridiculous. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t want to lose it again. “Well, then.”  

“Take care, now.”  

The woman offers a small nod, then turns and walks back into her cabin, the one she shares with three others. None of them acknowledge her return. Each stares at something else entirely: the wall, the floor, the ceiling. Anywhere but her.  

She picks up a bound stack of papers, set aside, apparently, to catch her flying key. She licks her fingers, tugs the ribbon loose, and resumes reading. As her head dips, a loose strand of hair slips forward, veiling her face.  

“Just as important as those are to you,” Rook says, nodding toward the papers.  

She doesn’t know why she says it. The woman had clearly meant to end their encounter then and there. Rook should let it go. She doesn’t know why her mouth keeps moving.  

A pause.  

A soft, half-exasperated, half-fond huff. Then, “Yes... though it’d be better if someone hadn’t filled the margins with half-baked schematics.” She lifts a page and gives it a little shake—lines and diagrams scrawled at odd angles, layered between blocks of cramped handwriting. “They’re everywhere,” the woman mutters, more to herself now. “As if her thoughts were leaking sideways.”  

She never looks up. Never looks back.  

No one goes to the Grand Necropolis for fun.  

Rook stands in the hallway, fully aware she’s staring but unable to stop. She wonders who she forgot. Or what.   

The Veil has been faltering for a year now. Sizzling at the edges, breaking apart, only to re-knit itself moments later, as if nothing ever happened. Nothing, then everything. Collapse and recovery, over and over.  

Some whisper it’s better to be almost-dead, half-dead, very-nearly-dead, anything but truly dead. So they board the train. They go underground. They enter the Grand Necropolis.

No one is truly alive there, Rook thinks.  

Not even Emmrich.  

Eventually, she moves. Drifts. Leaves the hallway behind and slips into her cabin.  

The key turns in the lock without resistance, smooth as butter, as always.  

Inside, she presses her back to the door and inhales deeply.  

It never changes. Not really. The same every time. Familiar to the point of wrongness. So strange. So perfect.  

Rivaini spices from the box of loose teas on the table. The warm musk of amber clinging to the upholstery. A new bracelet—gold, always gold. Never silver, never steel. Only gold. The eternal metal. The one that still shines beneath the earth, even without the sun.  

For Gold and Glory, she thinks, or half-remembers. The words come hazy, distant. She’s fairly certain she once shouted them, leaping into a cave to plunder its depths.

She wonders which meaning they were meant to hold. The glory or the sun?  

Both belong to the past.  

One is hers. The other… isn’t. 

It is a ritual.  

She sits. Gives the small kettle two taps and waits, silent and patient, for the magic to do its work. Boiling water with no flame, no sound but the faint hiss as heat blooms. Cinnamon, ginger, clove; all ground fine and mixed. Good for headaches. For steadying the nerves. For softening the edges of thought.  

She pours a cup, then reaches for the letter that brought her here. Again.  

Written in her own hand.  

A sigh escapes. A smile follows. And then the impulse, half-dramatic, half-genuine, to cover her face with her hands. As if the gesture might shield her from the absurd sweetness of it all. Something theatrical. Something borrowed. Something Emmrich, certainly.  

Not his voice, but hers, written out in a looping, slanted script. A ghost version of herself, leaving messages in the dark: come home, come home, come back down—look what you’ve made me do. I’ve written it in the mirror for you, the words seem to say, so you’ll catch it next time you look at your reflection.

Yes. That is the trick. Not a summons, this letter—a call, soft and strange. That is how Emmrich writes to her. 

He constructs a tableau, precise in its staging, uncanny in its intimacy. He does not sign his name. He does not need to. The handwriting is hers flawlessly imitated, down to the curl of the descenders, the pressure points in each curlicue, but the voice beneath it is unmistakably his. 

It reads as if she is speaking to herself. 

Or rather, as if he is speaking through her. 

Or perhaps—as it once was—as if they are speaking together, inside the same sentence. 

All she ever has to do is arrive.  

You once said you would return when the world cracked open. It is cracking, Rook. The Grand Necropolis hums still, but the rhythm falters. They say it moves souls like clockwork. I believe it only winds them tighter. They do not understand, of course. They were not here when it was soft, when it bloomed. I have missed you. In all the ways you expect, and in those you would not. In silences that shape themselves like your name. If you can come—come now.

And then, a ring. 

It arrives precisely as she finishes reading the letter for the umpteenth time, as if summoned by the final line. It does not fall so much as appear, condensing from the air. Another gift. Another gesture. Emmrich’s handwriting in mineral form. 

Because beneath the earth, it is always cold. And in the cold, there is pressure. There is rock. There are veins that glitter. Jewels curled like thoughts in the dark. There is gold. 

She catches it mid-air, instinctively. 

An emerald. Deep, green, and quiet. 

It matches the bracelet. 

It fits as though it had always been hers. 

Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk.

It is the Caretaker that greets her. 

Something has shifted; she feels it before she sees it. Perhaps it’s the robes: still ceremonial, still immaculate in their own way, but frayed now at the hems, worn thin at the sleeves, as if even the cloth is growing tired. 

It stands at the edge of the platform, hands folded in front of it with that patient, impassive stillness it wears like another layer. Waiting, as always. 

No one waits for arrivals at the Grand Necropolis. There are no greetings, no reunions, no signs held aloft with names scrawled in haste. No one expects anyone to come. 

But she is never unaccompanied. She always has an escort. 

She steps off the train and hesitates, her gaze drifting into the press of bodies. Searching. The woman with the reserved smile. The endless scribbled notes. The portfolio tied with that faded ribbon. There, just beyond the platform's edge, being slowly carried off by the tide. Her turquoise cloak already losing its color, leached into the air. She looks smaller now. Washed out.

Rook opens her mouth, but the words tangle in her throat. 

Wait. Stay close. I’m not like the others. Be near me. Be my friend. When I’m done, when it’s over, we’ll leave together, I promise. We’ll find our way back.

But the woman does not turn. 

And then she’s gone, gently erased by the crowd. 

“Onward, dweller,” says the Caretaker, extending one long hand, inviting her to step into the boat. 

She’s never grown accustomed to it, the water beneath the earth. 

Here, puddles become rivers, thin as threads or wide as streets, cutting through the Necropolis in quiet, meandering veins. There is no source. No mouth. No spring or fall. The water simply is.

It does not flow. It waits. 

She glances down as she steps closer. The surface is still, dark as lacquered metal. 

So very black, she thinks. 

Black like oil. Machinery oil. The kind used to clean rust from old hinges. The kind that smells faintly of iron and something else. Something burnt and ancient, like time under pressure. 

It laps against the stone pier, soundless. 

It is strange, this path of water, so near to the train tracks. One ends where the other begins, a seamless handoff: iron rails tapering into liquid, steel yielding to shadow. The tracks do not stop so much as dissolve, their last lengths swallowed by the black water, vanishing into it like a thought unfinished. 

She boards. 

The Caretaker follows. Silently, of course. 

It lifts an oar, long, narrow, etched with delicate filigree, the kind of ornamentation meant for ceremony rather than function. Still, it serves. It waits. Extends a hand, palm up. She smiles faintly and places a coin in the middle. It nods once, closes its fingers around the offering, and begins to push them forward. 

She leans back, letting the boat rock beneath her, watching as the city reveals itself around them. 

It has changed. 

Not dramatically. Not loudly. But she remembers it brighter. Warmer. Once it had felt like a shrine. Now it resembles a cathedral made for machines. There is more stone, somehow, though the Grand Necropolis has never been anything but stone. Yet the surfaces seem heavier. Closer. The shadows fall differently now.

She watches the figures moving along the walkways above and beside them. 

The reanimated guards, ever silent, march in steady formation, their sockets aglow with veilfire, helmets polished to a gleam that reflects nothing. The mages move in clusters, robed in ash-grey, murmuring to one another in hushed whispers. Their sigils form in spiral-code, complex and recursive, leaving a faint ringing in her ears long after the sounds fade. 

The laborers walk with their heads down, shoulders bowed not from the weight of their tools, but the toll of repetition. The burden of ritual etched into muscle and marrow. Their tunics are soot-streaked, threadbare. Many wear gold at the collar, not for rank, but for permanence. An emblem of those who never leave. 

There is more metal now. 

Bronze tubing coils along the walls, curving like roots. It feeds into crystal-laced hubs set at regular intervals; breathing points, perhaps, or control nodes.  

Gold, always gold, runs in fine filaments across the doors, the ceilings, the circular insets in the floors. It catches the low magical light and holds it, like a memory trapped beneath glass. Not veins, but circuits. Not lifeblood, but design. 

She sees the fusion everywhere. Dwarven engineering, heavy and modular, wrapped like armor around skeletal statues. Elven spell-forms, graceful, recursive, near-organic, woven through the structure like latticework grown instead of cast. 

The city breathes, if not with life, then with intention. 

There is something else. 

She feels it before anything registers. Before shape, before sound. Though seeing isn’t quite the right word. She doesn’t see it at all, not directly. It arrives as a pressure behind the eyes, a kind of wrongness at the edges of perception. 

Her temples throb. She shuts her eyes and rubs them with thumb and knuckle, slow and useless. 

When she opens them again, something lingers. 

Not sight. Not exactly. But something. 

It’s only later—once they’ve disembarked, passed beneath the stone arch of the Vault of the Beloved, just shy of Emmrich’s sanctuary—that she recognizes the shape of it. 

Or rather, feels it with more clarity. 

She slows. Ceases following the Caretaker. The corridor curves, and embedded in the inner wall is a wide window, its frame seamless with the stone, as though it were grown rather than built. 

Beyond it, the rock glows. 

Threaded through the stone—beneath the city, within it—are luminous veins, green streaked with gold, winding like marble but too uniform. They shimmer faintly, in motion beneath the surface. 

Not light. Not merely magic. 

They pulse. 

A heartbeat. 

She feels it now in her jaw, in her teeth, in the backs of her eyes. 

“What is that?” she asks. 

The Caretaker does not pause. 

“That is the Work.” 

And says nothing more.  

Deeper, and deeper still they go. Until the city narrows, then opens again, into the place that belongs to Emmrich alone. 

No one enters here but him. No one but her, that is. 

He is not there. 

She finds her room easily, muscle memory guiding her more than thought. It is just as she left it, and not at all. 

The bed is covered in flowers. 

Lilies. Shroud’s Kiss. Other blooms without names, pale and fragrant and impossible to trace. She breathes them in one by one, appraising yet reverent. Kisses a few petals absently. Presses her face into the pillows. 

A teacup rests on the nightstand, still steaming, as if placed only moments before. Beside it, a note. Folded once.  

Emmrich's handwriting.

Do you remember the courtyard? Third chime. I will wait.

She does remember the courtyard.  

But her gaze travels past the porcelain vessel, past the paper, and settles on the bed. More precisely, on the frame where a dark, ring-shaped scorch mark mars the wood.  

That, she remembers more clearly than anything else.  

Because once, here, in this bed, she had fucked Emmrich, and her magic had flared at the height of it. Her hand gripped the frame as everything surged through her, and when it was over, the mark remained. A memory burned into the room itself.  

It comes back all at once.  

The weight of him between her thighs. The heat of skin against skin, slick with sweat. Her legs wrapped tight around his hips, heels digging into his back. His mouth at her throat, then her breast, then open against hers. The rhythm of it, fast and frantic, the headboard knocking against stone. Her breath catching on every thrust.  

Fingers tangled in sheets. Hands gripping anything solid.  

The jolt. The stutter. His whole body seizing against hers—too soon. The sudden heat of his release inside her. The tremble in his voice: I’m sorry, I love you, I’m sorry. Her lips pressed to his temple. A kiss. Reassurance.

Then laughter. So much laughter. She’d always laughed easily, absurdly, for any reason at all. Even then. Especially then. It had felt like joy, raw and overflowing. Like more than being alive. Like being extra alive. Like a cat with nine lives stumbling into a tenth and not knowing what to do with it but laugh.

She blinks, hard, and forces herself to look away.  

And decides to sleep. The third chime comes only in the morning. She has time. 

The Grand Necropolis does that to people, she thinks, somewhere between breath and oblivion. 

It drains you. 

She arrives a few minutes early. 

The space is exactly as she remembers it: a wide circle of black stone steps, ringed with pale lilacs. She can’t tell if they’re alive or merely performing the idea of life, held in some gentle stasis. Their petals never fall. Not a single one. 

At the center, the broken sundial. There is no sun. No sky. But still, the sundial remains. 

It was one of the first things they built together. 

The stone is still warm. 

She had asked him for more than one garden, something beyond the Memorial Gardens. Quieter. Without graves.  

She is not from Nevarra. The presence of the dead, the weight of mourning woven into architecture, never sat easily with her. Not the way it did with him. 

He agreed at once. No persuasion needed. 

They planned it together, sketching from memory and impulse. Water lilies floating on still pools. Beds of moss that drank up the damp. Plants that thrived half-submerged, always carrying the scent of salt. 

Hari. Flowering ginger. Lemon verbena. 

Little pieces of Rivain, scattered in the dark. 

"Darling!"

She turns, and the wave of déjà vu hits her so hard it makes her stomach twist. 

Emmrich descends the short staircase that leads to the dais, sideways, half-turned, almost exactly as he had the first time they met. That same loose elegance. Arms slightly spread, posture open. So welcoming it hurts to look at him. So excruciatingly sincere. 

He sees her and, immediately, snaps his fingers. 

The glamour spills over him in a shimmer, skin lapping over bone, brown eyes blooming where empty sockets once were. Not truly empty, of course. The veilfire never leaves. It flickers underneath, soft and hungry, like a secret that never dies. His hair regains its grey. The half-crown remains, though. Still there, embedded in the bone she can now no longer see, crusted with dark stones and old memory. A relic of what he is, of what he’s become. 

Part of her wants to stop him. To say, don’t bother. To tell him it doesn’t matter. That it never did. Like she used to say in the early days, when his face startled her in the dark; those first strange, tender months. 

That frantic, stumbling reassurance: It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, I love you like that, and how you were, and like this, and—

And fuck, I liked how your smile used to go higher on one side but, oh, it still does that, doesn’t it? You can still smile, I think?

She had meant every word. Meant them desperately. 

But she’s a liar. Has always been one. Will always be one. She will never be entirely at ease with the sight of bone. Not his. 

Not when she remembers how soft his skin used to be. The warmth of it, the faint sting of aftershave that clung to his jaw, the trace of pomade in his hair, coifed and perfumed. His hands—she remembers those best. The oils he used to rub into them, working it into the creases of his dominant hand, the one that held the staff for hours at a time. She would smell it on him even in sleep. 

She’s a liar. A liar. Nothing but a fucking liar. 

And she knows it. So does Emmrich. 

He’s never chastised her for it. Never called her out. Only smiled, gently, indulgently, whenever she flinched at the truth of him. At the exposed bone, the skinless hands, the echo of a smile he weaves into place with magic. 

She hates that she still startles. Hates more that she still loves him. 

It clings to her like old perfume, that feeling, faint, persistent, made stronger in still air. 

She wishes she didn’t miss him. Wishes her heart didn’t twist in his presence. 

Ha.

Ha, she thinks again, dry-mouthed and furious with herself.

Here she is, aching for someone who never left. 

"Hello," she says a little sheepishly.

"Darling," he repeats and takes her hands, kissing the knuckles. Two kisses to the left hand, three to the right. “You came. That means something still holds.”

He bows his head, ever obliging. She wants, almost violently, to cross the space between them. To fall into him. To let his arms close around her and be held there, still and forgetting. 

But she remembers the Veil. The way it wavers with a kind of irritation, like a curtain in a draft. The way it tears. What slips through when it does.  

And how it steadies. Not because of her. Because Emmrich is here. Because he is distant, restrained, holding everything in place, including himself. Because he is not with her.

He offers her his arm, and she takes it instinctively, though something in her chest knots tight as she threads her hand through the crook of his elbow. He begins to walk, and she follows, through this strange little garden of theirs. 

But then the path turns. The lilacs thin. The moss fades. And she realizes, with a quiet pang, that he’s leading her out. 

Out of their private corner and into the Memorial Gardens. 

The silence stretches, shaped by old familiarity. 

“You never said why,” she says at last. “Why you wanted me to return. Just that the world was cracking. That the Necropolis was stuttering.” 

“Because it is, dear.” 

“And?” 

He releases her hand, not fully, just enough to gesture outward, to the city sprawled beyond the courtyard. The faint hum in the stone is audible even here, as if the earth itself were murmuring beneath its breath. 

They pause near a pillar, taller than the others, its expanse threaded with thick vines that spiral upward in perfect coils. The stems are smooth, almost waxy, their green too vivid, too saturated. Tiny leaves sprout along the lengths, trembling ever so slightly, though there’s no wind here. They look alive. Unsettlingly so. As if they aren’t simply clinging to the stone, but feeding from it. Or feeding into it. Too green for this place. Too alive for anywhere underground. 

Emmrich beckons her closer. 

“Go on,” he says. “Touch it.” 

She places her palm flat against the surface. 

Thud. Thud. Thud.

She jerks back, startled, then leans in again, this time with her ear pressed to the stone. 

THUD. THUD. THUD.

“There is something beneath this place,” Emmrich says, and she feels his fingers in her hair. A ghost of a touch. The kind of touch designed to pass unnoticed, light enough to escape her defenses. As if he cannot help himself, cannot resist the need to reach for her, but fears she’ll bolt the moment she feels him trying to close in. 

“Not a machine. Not a spell. Something far more complicated and beautiful. A system of memory. Of ritual. I call it the Heartline.” 

The Heartline. 

She repeats the words under her breath, her fingers digging slightly into the pillar. Stone, yes, it’s stone, but something in her recoils at the certainty. It doesn’t feel like stone. It feels warmed. Like bark. Like flesh. Like something that remembers being alive.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

“The people here,” Emmrich continues, “both the living and the dead, sustain it. Even in ignorance, they do their part. They walk familiar paths, speak inherited phrases, hold steady to shared thoughts. It requires rhythm. It requires pattern.” 

Yes, she thinks, dazed. That’s what she’s hearing. What she’s feeling.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

“Lately, however,” he says, tone dropping, “there have been deviations.” 

The sound—that sound—pushes too far into her. She tears herself away from the pillar, staggered by dizziness.

Her knees buckle. 

Emmrich catches her, one arm firm around her waist. 

“Darling,” he murmurs, sorrow plain in his voice. “My dearest one. You were never able to remain long in the Necropolis. But it does not have to be so.” 

No. 

No, no, no. 

They cannot talk about this. Not again. Not ever again. 

Because one day, she knows, if they do, she will say yes. And if she says yes, she will stay. And if she stays, she will become like the rest of them. A husk, not lifeless, but close enough. Even if he swears she won’t. Even if he swore it back then, when he shed skin for bone and she couldn’t bear the cold that followed. 

That was why she left, wasn’t it? 

Because she loved him. Loved him even as he changed, even as he became something other. 

But the Necropolis always took something from her, each time she returned. 

And though she loves him still, each visit leaves her a little more dulled. Each time, she feels a little less alive. 

She looks out at the garden as he holds her steady, her weight resting against him before she’s even aware of it. The contact is incidental, but not unwelcome. Familiar. 

The garden is no longer theirs. 

He has kept the one they made together near his sanctuary, tucked into the folds of the city like a secret too valuable to expose. But here, in the heart of the Memorial Gardens, everything feels altered. Extended. Translated. 

There are no lilies. No ginger flowers. 

The ground no longer yields. What was once damp earth is now bedrock, rigid and unwelcoming, marked with pale seams of lyrium. The trees have absorbed metal. Their bark gleams in places, like wet iron. Flowers still grow, but their hearts have been replaced, amber cores nestled where soft stamens once were. 

Tall arches rise in intervals, carved from obsidian and shaped in the old Nevarran style, ornate, theatrical, too large to be anything but declarations. Bone motifs are everywhere: the ribcages of long-dead beasts replicated in stone, suspended as if mid-roar. 

The entire space has become a hybrid, grafted, fused, unwilling to choose between the living and the made. 

Wisps, however, still float between the structures, aimless and light. They drift like dandelion seeds caught in a breeze, circling one another, brushing the air with idle joy. Happy puppies, chasing their many tails. Those, she loves. Always has. They are simple, singular, and kind. She is relieved to see them remain. 

But the rest— 

The rest feels like a place pretending to remember what a garden is. 

And something about that pretense makes her hands shake. 

She wants to touch Emmrich's face. 

So she does, absentmindedly. A little hum escapes her, a buffer for the intimacy, a soft disguise.  

After a time, she says, “So. You brought me here because the ghosts are walking out of step?” 

He stiffens. 

“They are not ghosts,” he replies, defensive, gaze fleeing from hers. 

She resists the urge to scoff, to say, really, really, are you sure about that? Have you seen them? The grey skin? The hollow eyes like burnt-out lanterns?

“I summoned you because something is interfering with the Work,” he elaborates. “Its cadence is no longer sound. I cannot locate the source. You are the only one who has ever questioned the rhythm without succumbing to it.” 

“No,” she protests. “I left before it could take me. That’s not the same.” 

He inclines his head, looking like a dog kicked.

“Perhaps. Nevertheless, you understand entropy. You understand the weight of memory, and its cost. And you have always been—” he pauses to deliberate “—remarkably difficult to anticipate. That quality is more essential than you may realize.” 

She presses her teeth lightly to her lower lip, thinking. 

“So you want me to find the fault line.” 

“I want you to perceive what I no longer can. To recall what I have erased in repetition. To move against the grain.” 

“And if I want to leave?” 

He turns to her, meeting her gaze fully now. Not blinking. She wishes he would. Wishes the corners of his eyes would crease, just a little. 

“No one is held here against their will, Rook. That has never changed.” 

“Mm-hm,” she says. And because touching his face feels too much, too close, she takes his hand instead. 

It’s neither cold nor warm. Just lukewarm, if absence can be said to carry temperature. 

Emmrich draws a slow circle on the inside of her wrist with his thumb. 

“However,” he says, his voice softening, “I would advise you to remain until the rhythm settles. To leave before it does would be... unwise.” 

They come to the garden’s edge. He reaches toward a shroud's kiss bloom and brushes his fingers along the petals. It does not stir. 

“I preserved this for you,” he whispers. “So that something here might remind you of its beauty.” 

“You preserved it,” she echoes. “But did it change?” Things are supposed to change. That’s what makes them beautiful. Otherwise, they turn strange. Uncanny. Real, but not real enough. Held in place. Fixed. 

“Some things are not meant to.” 

There’s a pause, and it stretches just a little too long. She feels it envelop her, the quiet heaviness he always brings with him. 

So she tries, clumsily, to puncture it. 

“Well,” she says, with a shrug and a crooked smile, “it’s still standing upright. That’s impressive, considering how most things shrivel up without intensive stimulation.” 

A beat of silence. 

“I mean, plants,” she adds. “Obviously.” 

His brow lifts, however slightly, but it’s enough to satisfy her. Maybe even liches, even Emmrich, aren’t immune to a terrible joke about erections. 

She looks away before he can smile. Shakes her head like she regrets saying it, though she doesn’t. 

From the edge of her vision, she sees his hand rise, fingers hovering just above her hair, not quite making contact. 

“Stay,” he says. “See for yourself. I will not keep you from knowing.” 

“The water grows deeper.” 

“Does it?” 

“It tastes of dreams. They drink. And then they drift.” 

“They should not,” Emmrich murmurs. 

The movement of his hands is not required. He knows that. He could summon the spell with a thought, with a breath. But still, his fingers move. Old habits are hard to break. 

Rook has left him. Not for the surface, but further below, deeper into the Necropolis. 

As he asked. 

To observe. To understand. 

Her hair is longer now, he notes with a trace of fondness. He smiles. 

Light and color coil together around a Shroud’s Kiss bloom. It dims, then flares back to life. He cradles it in his palm and offers it to the Caretaker, who accepts it with a nod. 

The spell anchors itself in the flower. The memory takes shape, soft, refracted, caught in an endless loop. 

The first time he gave it to her. 

Her fingers brushing his as she took the flower. The quicksilver grin. The Fade erupting around her in sparks like wildfire. 

Then another echo. Her voice, cool and clear. 

“Don’t make a monument out of me.” 

He looks into the shimmer where her image once was, fading back into nothing. 

“I have not,” he says quietly. “I made a sanctuary.” 

The next day, Rook begins to explore. 

Notebook in hand, fountain pen tucked neatly into the breast pocket. She’s dressed in the standard scrubs worn by those who work near the Veil, deep greens threaded with violet, the fabric thick enough to withstand errant magic, and bracers strapped to her forearms, heavy and well-worn. She doubts she’ll be mining lyrium. But the city has changed so much, she’s no longer certain what she’ll be called to do. 

The Caretaker shadows her. It does not leave. It never does. Always there: guide and sentinel, loyal to Emmrich, deferential to her. She once loved its paradox, its unwavering patience, the way it obeyed her with something like devotion. 

Now she dreams of unmaking it. 

They pass through a long corridor filled with rows of seated figures, some living, others half-faded, and a few already reanimated. Each sits before a wall of stone, reciting lines in sync with soft, chiming tones. 

As they speak, the words rise before them, lines of light etched mid-air, briefly glowing, then vanishing. 

Some are familiar: containment spells, fragments of history, names she recognizes from graves or old letters. Others are incomprehensible, fractured language or sound dressed as language. 

“They’re reciting records,” Rook says, watching one scribe mouth the name of a long-dead city. 

“No,” the Caretaker replies. “They are reinforcing them. Events decay. Thought slips. Memory fills the cracks.” 

At the end of the corridor, she ducks into an alcove, flicks open her notebook, and starts scribbling before the headache forming behind her eyes can settle in. The handwriting’s rushed, crooked. No one's going to read it but her. Hopefully. 

Entry 1 Repetition Halls. Rows and rows of people (dead, dying, or just really into silent suffering) chanting to a wall like it owes them something. Spoken words light up in the air for half a second, then poof. Gone. Apparently this isn’t recording, it’s reinforcing. Like memory is a wobbly chair and they’re all here to sit on it until it stabilizes. Caretaker says it’s about keeping the rhythm. That if they stop, the cracks get wider. Which is reassuring. Nothing says “functioning system” like needing undead librarians to whisper the same three phrases forever just so the Veil doesn’t unravel. Is this the problem Emmrich meant? No idea. But it stinks of desperation and ritual with no off switch. Note to self: if I ever start mumbling spell fragments to a glowing wall for eight hours a day, go ahead and set me on fire. Gently.

Farther along, another chamber opens on her left: a gallery of mirrors, hundreds of them, suspended, tilted, arranged like instruments in a vast observatory. 

She pauses. Freezes. Just for a moment. 

In the nearest pane, she sees herself. And behind her— 

A shape. Rigid posture. A cloak she almost recognizes. 

She turns on instinct.

Nothing.

Just the Caretaker. Just stone.

“Did someone just pass us?” she asks.

“Only you,” it replies.

She looks back at the glass. Only one reflection now.  

She rubs her eyes. Forces her gaze to widen, to take in the room. 

Each mirror reflects a single figure. Each figure stands motionless. But their eyes move, tracking the reflections as if reading them. Occasionally, one blinks. Another twitches a finger. 

Etched in gold above the entrance: 

THE SELF, REMEMBERED, HOLDS THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD

A chill moves across her skin. She turns away. Walks until the mirrors are out of view. Until the hum behind her spine lessens and her skin stops crawling like it’s trying to peel itself off. 

Entry 2 Mirror gallery. Don’t love it. They were watching themselves, or something that looked like them. Eyes moving, hands twitching. They track. They read. One blinked at me. I blinked back. What gets me isn’t the setup. It’s the intent. Not metaphor. Not poetry. Literal. Emmrich built this thing on the idea that identity isn't just personal, it’s structural. If they forget who they are, something breaks. Something bigger. Which means the Veil is balancing on people being consistent versions of themselves. Over and over. Like performance, but deeper. Reenactment. Fixing a person in place like a gear so the machine doesn’t seize. But the Veil holds demons, doesn't it? It holds dreams. Why mirrors? They’re not choosing to be still. They’re afraid to change. (Insert hilarious joke here about how I also fear change, especially when it involves mirrors that blink back. Or don't.) But it’s not funny, actually. It’s awful. If the Veil is stabilized by repetition, what happens when you try to heal? When you shift? When you grow past what the mirror expects? Maybe the mirror doesn’t blink anymore. Maybe it corrects you.

She climbs two, three, four flights of stairs. Finds a narrow hall lined with seven doors. She enters the fourth. 

Inside, more scholars. Seated at nodes. Whispering. Marking. Watching. 

At the far edge, a young man walks a perfect circle, his steps unwavering. With every footfall, a stone beneath him lights up with glyphs that fade behind him. He repeats a phrase under his breath, again and again, without inflection. 

“What is he doing?” 

“Remembering the boundary,” the Caretaker answers. “If he stops, it frays.” 

She snickers. 

“Emmrich has built a city that runs on people walking in circles, saying the same thing forever.” 

The Caretaker tilts its head. “It is not so different from surface governance.” 

The chill deepens. 

She feels exposed. There is no folding inward here, no space to vanish into herself, no corners to hide in. 

She is watched. Every turn she takes, every hallway—eyes follow. But not with suspicion. With reverence. As if she were myth returning. As if she had always belonged here. 

Entry 3 The glyphs respond not to the words themselves but to cadence, meaning the Veil is likely mapping rhythm rather than content. Boundary reinforcement suggests a magical perimeter tied to localized memory loops—personalized, maybe? Not universal. Not stable. Node scholars aren't observing—they’re anchoring. Observers as fixpoints. Veil theory? Neuro-magical resonance? City runs on recursion. Entropy postponed by repetition. Preservation through paralysis. What is Emmrich doing.

She flips her notebook closed, still chewing on a question she hasn’t written down. As she turns to leave the chamber, her eye catches something. 

Near the wall where she’d been standing to write. Just above the floor, tucked into the shadow of a broken molding: a glyph. Almost invisible. Not drawn with the bold confidence of the sanctioned runes, but something subtler. 

Half-formed. Half-erased. 

A scrying mark. 

She steps closer. The curve of the rune flickers faintly in the ambient light, like a burn mark trying to hide. Someone had been watching this room. Watching them. Then tried to scrub it clean. But not well enough. The echo of magic still clings to it. 

The Caretaker does not stop her. It watches but says nothing. 

“Leave,” she says, without looking at it. 

“To other shores,” it replies. Then it dissolves, as if stepping out of the world. 

She presses her fingers against the bricks. The residue hums faintly. Recently used. Directional. 

Downward.

She descends the stairs, two at a time. Through the corridors and back into the arterial depths of the Necropolis, where the walls sweat heat and the lights grow orange from furnace-glow. 

Here, in the mouth of the city, the air thickens. Smoke pours from vents and chimneys stitched into the stone like scar tissue. 

The lyrium refineries are louder here. 

She can hear the clank and hiss of molten ore pouring into molds, the wheeze of coolant fog, the hiss of breath. Here, the furnaces hum like low, furious throats. Smoke pours from bronze vents in the walls, from towers stitched with piping and valves. Lyrium melts in crucibles somewhere below, its heat pushed upward in shimmering waves. 

Cerulean dust clings to everything. The railings. The doors. The river below. It looks like a dream, misty and blue and gently falling like ash. 

Beautiful. 

Until it settles into the lungs. Into skin. Into thought. She’s seen what it makes people become. The twitching, the muttering. The way templars look just before they forget what silence sounds like. 

She rounds a corner behind one of the brass-and-bronze processing buildings, following the last thread of that glyph’s pull— 

And there she is. 

The woman from the train. 

Leaning against a pipe-warmed wall, cigarette glowing between her fingers, eyes squinting in the haze. 

At her feet, a body. 

Face-down. Barely dressed. Covered in pale, branching lyrium tendrils that run like frostbite across the exposed skin, white-blue and raw-looking.  

The woman sighs. Whether from exhaustion or irritation, it’s hard to tell. 

She holds a wand, not a staff. Small, efficient, carved with sigils worn smooth from use. Frost curls off the tip, cold hanging in the air around her. 

Her eyes narrow when she sees Rook. Recognition clicks into place, but she doesn’t smile. 

“You,” she says flatly. “From the train. The Lich’s… wife, is it? Partner?” She waves the wand vaguely in Rook’s direction. “I wasn’t sure, back then. But the alleyways are whispering about you now,” she adds. “Didn’t think you’d actually come all the way down here.” 

She taps ash from her cigarette, glancing at the corpse like it’s merely taking a nap rather than decomposing. 

Rook nods toward the body. “Friend of yours?” 

“Hardly,” the woman says. “More like... a question someone tried to bury.” 

She holds out the cigarette pack. “Want one?” 

Rook hesitates. Then shakes her head. 

“Suit yourself,” she says, rolling a shoulder. “This place has a lot of those.” 

“Questions?” 

“Corpses.” 

ARCHIVAL ENTRY — AUDIO RECORDING — UNTIMESTAMPED SPEAKER: Bellara Lutare

[TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS] click Um, this is Bellara. Lutare. Bellara Lutare. I think I’m supposed to say that at the beginning of these? For the archives? Even though it’s just me talking to myself and the wall, basically. But. Um. Official protocol and all that. Right.  So I’m making this recording because Neve’s not here, and I know she didn’t say she’d be here, but also she didn’t say she wouldn’t, and she usually leaves notes. Or at least little squiggles on the corner of my reports.  But she hasn’t been back in a while.  So. This is not a rescue mission. Not yet. It’s a look-around mission. A check-in mission. A… casual concern mission.  Anyway. If I find her, I’ll bring her home.  Well, I'll ask if she wants to go home. Because maybe she left on purpose and just didn’t tell me, instead of, you know, leaving by accident or getting stuck or caught or veiled into non-existence or... No. Not that.  I’ll say sorry. I’ll tell her I’ll do better. I’ll ask if maybe I can help her with her cases. If she has a new one. Like a murder. Or a theft. Or a mysterious baron with a monocle and a secret past.  I’ll say sorry again. I won’t hide in the lab so much. I’ll come to dinner when she says “come to dinner.” Yeah. I’ll do that.  It’s just that she’s been gone so long.  pause All right. That’s the update. Ending the—wait, do I hit this one or—  click [TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

Hammer, hammer. Measure. Cut. Fit. 

Melt. Insert. 

The table is cluttered. Coiled wires, gears scattered like brass seeds, tiny springs leaping away when she breathes too hard. 

The thing she’s building is small. Very dainty. Elegant in the way complicated things are. A tracer, technically. She’s seen diagrams in seven different books, all of them conflicting. She’s combining the best parts, or at least the ones she understands. 

It’s meant to follow a signature. Not just magical debris, but personhood. A trace of being. A sliver of identity wrapped around habit and heartbeat and worn-in objects. 

The core mechanism rests at the center like a heart: a shiny copper ring, spinning slowly, suspended by hair-fine wires. Spiraled filaments wind around it, feeding into an amplifier no larger than her thumbnail. 

It will need something personal. Something of Neve. 

She rifles through a drawer without looking and pulls out a fork. Slightly bent at the middle tine. 

Yes, perfect. Neve’s favorite. The one she always used to stab fried fish.

Bellara grins. Wipes it down. Carefully slides it into the intake slot. 

The machine hums. Low. Curious. 

Then it buzzes, stutters, and promptly explodes in a sharp burst of heat and light, sending up a puff of smoke and singeing her eyebrows clean off. 

"Fudge."

"I CANNOT SAY."

"Shut up."

She glares at the archival spirit hovering smugly in midair, its translucent hands primly folded. 

She rescued it.

Dug it out of rubble. Braved Venatori fanatics, relic hunters, and one extremely territorial nug. Nearly dislocated a wrist and a knee wrestling it out of a half-collapsed ruin. She rebuilt its core matrix from scorched memory-stone and optimism, rewired half its logic lattice using copper salvaged from a broken kettle, gave it back a voice and full operational function. 

And now? 

Now it plays twenty questions every time she so much as breathes near it. 

She sneezes once and it says, “What is the purpose of your query?” 

She asks for assistance and it sniffs, “Have you filed a priority request form in triplicate?” 

She pleads with it to help reconstruct unstable blueprints before they collapse again and it comments, “Anaris would have considered your jewelry a structural liability and a visual affront to the principles of symmetry." 

A spirit of bullshit, Neve had called it once. Bellara hadn’t agreed then. She does now. Enthusiastically. 

"Neve said there’s opportunity, down there," Bellara mutters, rubbing her wrists, then her face, smearing soot across her cheek in a streak she doesn’t notice. “But I don’t think she’d actually go, I mean, I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. How do I get… down there? You know. The Grand Necropolis. I heard there's a train.”

The Nadas Dirthalen floats silently for a moment. 

Then:

“The Veil thickens and thins. The Veil is restructured. Recalibrated. Replaced. Pressure modulation: inconsistent. Containment protocols: unstable." 

It begins to stutter. Words stack out of order. Phrases loop without reason. 

“The Veil thickens and thins. Thickens. Thins. Thickensandthinsthickensandthinsthickens—” 

The voice distorts, warping into a higher register, then dropping abruptly, as if dragged underwater. 

“—Ingress denied. Egress denied. Boundary error. Memory conflict. Origin: scrubbed. Origin: scrubbed. Origin–” 

A static pop. A low whine, pitched just barely beneath hearing. 

“Anaris cannot step out. Anaris cannot step out. Anaris cannot–Anaris cannot–Anaris—” 

The spirit jerks in midair, its glow flaring too bright for an instant, then pulsing erratically. 

It repeats the same three syllables in a loop: 

“—Not-out. Not-out. Not-outnotoutnotoutnot—” 

Until the voice collapses into a soft whimper. Then silence. 

Bellara’s Workshop Log—Personal Tinkering Notes (Filed: Messily, Unsorted)

"Prototype #227b failed. Resonance sync fractured mid-loop. Neve would say it’s because I didn’t test it long enough. I’d say she’s probably right. Again. She said I don’t finish anything. That I leap to the next idea before the first one even settles. I told her I can’t sit still, that I don’t want to. She didn’t laugh. The truth is, I was building something for her. I just never got to the part where it worked. She left before I could name it. Maybe that’s fair. Maybe I would have left me, too."

[a-shadow-thinker]

I think there was a misunderstanding on some point.

First of all, the fact that the Mind Flayer is ultimately the big bad of ST doesn't in any way take away the human dimension of the story, on the contrary it strengthens it and brings a more original dimension.

It reinforces it in the sense that if you look at things with more finesse in a second reading plan, the Mind Flayer embodies through its actions on the human characters, a personified projection of the fears, of the psychological suffering which lies dormant in our unconscious.

He's the pivot point which will bring the human characters who are impacted by his actions, to express this human aspect, this human aspect laid bare which will face its trials by showing all its beauty just like all its horror.

He's a spotlight that will highlight humans, show their abilities to demonstrate bravery, strength, to grow, to show compassion from our heroes.

There is nothing problematic for the Mind Flayer about being the big bad in a human story, it's through the emotions of your human characters, their story, how you appeal to the public through them you will tell this human story.

It doesn't pass through its antagonism, but through its characters who live this adventure, with whom the audience identifies and feels this humanity in them which echoes theirs.

You tell a human story through the emotions that your human characters make you feel, through their trials and how they will react and come out of these trials, how it will impact them and finaly you, the public, what you feel inside in echo of your own humanity.

For Henry, yes he can be completely forced to do these things by the Mind Flayer.

As you can see in ST VR, the Mind Flayer distorts Henry's psychic reality.

Others have previously carried out relevant analyzes on this subject.

Which leads to something very insidious, a distortion of reality for Henry, in what he feels and experiences, what he wants, leading him to think he is in control

(to be able to better control him, what a perfect puppet is the one who is unaware that she is being controlled, no risk of resistance and rebellion),

making him believe that what he is doing is right, leading him into dead ends where he has no choice.

I use this example often, but it’s the one that sticks so well.

See Kylo Ren, Palpatine whispers, torments him since he was in his mother's womb ! All his life he has had dark thoughts, that he is a horrible person, that he hurts others, that no one likes him, etc...

At the beginning the character rejects his ideas, refuses to believe in them and attaches himself to the light.

But events caused by Palpatine will force him to believe his dark ideas, events which will isolate him and lead him to think that he can only be a bad person and that his place is in darkness.

You have a very similar pattern with Henry, his dark thoughts were perhaps already latent, but the Mind Flayer blew on him, blew on the embers intentionally to force him to do what he wants, to make him vulnerable too to his manipulations and make him think these horrible things.

The Mind Flayer clearly exhibits predatory behavior.

I am convinced that season 5 will show us since we will explore Henry's memories in the 80s, Henry's suffering for the loss, his sister in particular (someone pointed out that Holly's kidnapping was due to fact that he has not mourned, that he is in this delirium of taking her for his sister), that he never wanted that and that all of this is the work of the Mind Flayer who used this instability/weakness to manipulate him as he pleases.

In the scene where Henry scares his mother with the spiders you clearly see young Alice's foresight about this "you're not Henry".

that too, from a human point of view, is strong and resonates with many people.

Depression, autism, loneliness, abusive grooming, the dark side of the human spirit, etc...

It's in exaggerated form in the fictional framework of the show, but we clearly have these human aspects highlighted.

This goes back to what i was saying above, don't just see the Mind Flayer as "a monster/supernatural creature" but as a metaphor for the dark iceberg of the human psyche.

And that’s understandable.

It honestly has a lot more personality than a basic human, especially in a fantasy series !

I also think we have 2 plots to distinguish :

You actually have the human with all the political/military intrigue with the Russians in particular, but you also have the "magic" intrigue, the quest of the hero from the famous initiatory tale on El's side (with Will probably also in the S5 in view of what is teased about the character)

And with the DnD inspiration and many things relating to adventure in the show, to fantasy, you clearly have the hero's initiatory journey in addition to the human dimension.

But both complement each other anyway...

After all, isn't a hero defined by his human values ?

[sapphire-weapon]

I think Eagleone is canon because in the game something really happens between them and it’s very noticeable, but I’m wondering why you consider them canon?

Because the romantic nature of their relationship is baked into the thematic framework of the narrative. In order for RE4make to achieve what it's trying to do with its storytelling, Leon and Ashley's relationship has to be read as romantic.

Resident Evil 4 Remake is Resident Evil 4 re-imagined as a fairy tale. Survival Horror is the genre of the gameplay of RE4make, but Horror Fantasy is the genre of its story.

RE4make contains fantastical elements that were not present in OG, including but not limited to:

Leon and Ada's plaga hallucinations (Ada's especially looks like it has a magical effect)

The magical blue fire that keeps the Armadura at bay

The cursed black water in the castle (irrespective of whether it's tied to the mold in RE7; it's still attributed to turning men mad and is treated like a magical reagent during the ritual)

Ashley getting possessed -- not Saddler using her plaga to manipulate her body (which he also does in OG) but actually physically possessing her and speaking through her mouth and seeing through her eyes

New enemies that invoke the imagery of Minotaurs

On top of that, one of the major themes of this story is: folklore, story books, and fairy tales. We see it show up not just in the characters but also in the lore of the world itself. Just to name a few examples off the top of my head, we have:

Luis's parallels with and direct verbal references to Don Quixote

The folklore of "madness" spread around the villagers that Mendez tried to quell panic of

Historic folklore from when the people of Valdelobos thought of Las Plagas as demons

Salazar's invocation of Pulgarcito (which is a Spanish fairy tale)

Literal storybooks that you find throughout the game, like the one in Mendez's house and the holy scripture (complete with a colored illustration like a child's picture book) in the castle

And, most of all -- and, most importantly for our purposes -- "The Knight and the Princess Fair" allegory that gets repeated over and over throughout the game centering entirely on Leon and Ashley.

And it's not just Salazar being a crazy asshole, either. Luis also refers to Leon as "Prince Charming," beckons him to the ballroom, and tells him not to be late for the dance.

The story itself also has an element of "true love conquers all" in it, as both Leon and Ashley literally pull off the impossible. Leon manages to fight off Saddler's influence (something that we've seen no other character manage to do -- and Leon's plaga is very advanced at this point) while he's holding Ashley in his arms. And tiny little 120lb Ashley manages to heft all 200+lbs of Leon and his gear up onto Luis's surgical chair all by herself in order to remove his plaga. They saved each other for each other and only got through this ordeal because the other person was there with and for them.

This narrative is then reinforced by overtly romantic imagery, like Leon appearing to Ashley bathed in moonlight, and Ashley wistfully looking to him off towards the horizon, hands clasped to her chest, as embers float around her like fireflies.

It also invokes the imagery of classic romance stories and fairy tales, including:

Several literal princess carries

Prince Phillip about to break the spell on Sleeping Beauty with true love's first kiss

The Prince approaching Snow White's altar

Leon kneeling before Ashley like a knight does his queen

Romeo and Juliet's very famous balcony scene

Leon extending a hand to Ashley as though he's asking her to dance, not once but twice

And in case all of that wasn't enough -- if you somehow still didn't catch it, Capcom included a set of matching alternate costumes for Leon and Ashley literally called "Romantic."

I don't know how much more explicit they could've been about this, short of having a big, sweeping kiss scene -- especially when you consider that absolutely none of the above was present in OG. None of those scenes happen in OG at all.

And this isn't even taking into account that the devs restructured the plot of OG to follow the story outline of a romance novel beat-for-beat -- nor the overt sexual imagery associated with specific lines of dialogue between Leon and Ashley. And even if you ignore the fairy tale aspect all together, Leon and Ashley's relationship is intrinsically tied to the theme of teamwork, and there's a romantic element about how that is portrayed, too.

So, sure. You could look at RE4make as a story about a man who's just doing his job and saves the president's daughter because idk he's a badass and that's just what he does. And he overcomes his trauma about Raccoon City because he actually saved a person's life finally, and it wouldn't have mattered who it was; it just happened to be Ashley.

Sure.

You could.

But you miss the fucking point of what the storyteller(s) were trying to do.

You miss the intention of the developers paying homage to RE4OG being such a huge part of so many people's childhoods by turning the story into a fairy tale.

You miss the parallels of Leon becoming a broken husk of a person because of failing re: Ada, and Leon finding his smile and his kindness again through Ashley.

It leaves you with a shallow story where shit just kind of happens and Leon's a cool dude who overcomes the odds all on his own because he's so cool and strong.

And you'll never be able to convince me that that's how the devs wanted their story to be read. Not with the deliberate layering of themes and imagery and allegory that they've folded into the narrative.

And you'll never convince me that all of this was just a coincidence, either.

Eagleone is canon -- just not canon in the way that most people tend to think of it.

Because the one thing missing from RE4make's fairy tale is that Leon and Ashley don't live happily ever after. They don't end this game a couple, and they'll never be together in the future.

Because while RE4make was a fairy tale, it was the nightmare horror version of one.

And horror stories don't get to have happy endings. That was true for Ethan and Mia in the literal storybook that was RE:Village, and it's true here for Leon and Ashley.

But that doesn't make the romance between these two characters any less real.

[ladyiristheenchantress]

The Other Elements

This is the fifth part of my elemental series! Today we will explore other elemental systems, possible other elements within the system, and other cultural explorations into elemental systems!

So, we have looked at the basic elements, earth, air, fire, and water, but what about the rest? What about all the other magical systems out there?

Why are there sometimes other elements?

Often times when we are researching the elements, a lot of spaces will have other elements that are important to their culture or religious framework. The most basic outline we can see across multiple cultures is the veneration of 'earth, air, fire, and water' but most cultures also venerate elements outside of that, whether its the concept of a spirit or another element that plays a role in life like snow, they will be venerated differently.

As science progressed, and as esoterica were working on an elemental system, they started grouping together things. An example is with snow, WE know that snow comes from water, so it has become an aspect of water in western systems, however to an ancient culture that may not have known that, it became its own element with distinct lore and features. This can stem from multiple reasons, like if its a cold climate so half of the year is covered in snow spawning a cultures need to venerate it differently. Additionally societies each had their own needs and philosophical beliefs which called for the addition of multiple other elements. We will explore more about the nuances of this later.

Another aspect that is worth exploring is that some systems do away with the 4 main elements all together, take Feng Shui or Wu Xing a 5 element system that composes earth of wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Now, this system came from need and philosophy, it is a reflection of the culture it came from (9th century China) with strong emphasis on harmony and figuring out a place in the world.

Now that we have looked into what I am talking about, lets look into some nuance.

What are aspects and names? Why are they not elements themselves?

As we previously explored in an example, lets look at snow. Snow is now an aspect of water in western elemental systems because we know that snow directly comes from water, why isn't it an element itself anymore? Snow has become an aspect, or a form of the element of water with its own distinct name, associations, and lessons outside of the whole of water. What gives?

Similar to how gods have epithets (aspects of their character) and archetypes told in stories, the elements have the same thing, instead its observable traits that come from the whole. For example, fire is also ember, charcoal, and wands because fire is associated with all of those things, they are extensions of the whole that offer a unique perspective. It is an aspect you can work with, like picking an epithet to work with in deity work.

With this in mind, it explains how we get 'darker elements' or pieces of elements. Now some things cannot be classified in this way, so they become elements all on their own. For example, some groups will include elements like 'nature' to describe the living things and use earth to describe the unliving things, it is spiritually distinct from earth, and has its own associations. While in the west people lump that in with earth, it isn't true for every system and often times there is spiritual and religious significance to the distinction.

Because of all of this, personal elemental systems are extremely unique to someone's region and beliefs, Its why for some groups snow is still its own distinct element, or even sometimes considered a distinct byproduct of an element of a god, like a child, making it a distinct element. There is not right or wrong answer when it comes to the elements or elemental expression, what's important is that you find a system that resonated with you, the land you are standing on, and the lands that came before you.

Something important to recognize is that elements are very naturalistic and are intrinsically linked to human activity, things like climate change, terrain change, and more can influence how an elemental system evolves. It is why it matters that you research both the land you are standing on, and the land your ancestors walked on, so you get a more rounded view of how the elements have adapted and you start learning more about what resonates and connects with you personally.

What are some examples?

Keep in mind, these are just some examples and don't reflect every culture out there! I wanted to list a couple examples to get get you thinking about where these systems came from and why. As a reminder; people are not a monolith, lets not treat them as such, these are just a couple examples from around the globe, research is key when looking into personal associations. These are just some bite-sized beliefs Greek Classical Elements Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Aether Philosophy: Empedocles (5th century BCE): Proposed the four elements as eternal substances forming all matter. Aristotle (4th century BCE): Added Aether (divine, unchanging substance of the heavens). Celtic Traditions Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit/Otherworld Symbolized life’s cyclical nature and the connection between the physical and spiritual realms.

Hindu Panchabhutas Earth (Prithvi), Water (Apas), Fire (Agni), Air (Vayu), Space/Ether (Akasha) Foundational for Ayurveda and many spiritual traditions, they are the building blocks to life.

Hawaiian Elements Earth (ʻĀina), Water (Wai), Fire (Ahi), Air (Makani), Spirit (Mana) Reflects the balance of nature and spiritual energy (Mana) vital to Hawaiian culture. Native American Traditions Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Sacred Directions or Spirit (varies by tribe) Can be tied to the Medicine Wheel but not always, with an emphasis on balance and harmony.

Other System Ideas When in the process of researching, its possibly you will find other systems and beliefs, for example some sources online will say "The Norse believe in 12 classical elements" when in actuality it could be mistranslations, adaptations from medieval times, and so much more. Its important to consult with historical sources and people living within these cultures to make sure you are getting a full and accurate picture into their elemental systems! There are many, many others around the globe, with their own beliefs and systems, it is absolutely worth doing a deep dive to see what systems exist and why.

What is the western elemental system?

The western elemental system is a generalized system of elements (usually 4-5) that stems from ancient Greece, but was later expanded on by alchemistic and esoteric traditions! During the Hellenistic period, the Greek elemental system merged with Hermeticism and Alchemy in an attempt to build more with scientific practices, to which the western elemental system was finalized and integrated into western occult traditions during the medieval period! The things that made this system so unique is that it did not rely on any major mythology, but rather was used to explain concepts of the natural world. Because of the secular use, as well as a spiritual one, people began using this system to label tarot suits, herbs, astrology signs, and its where a lot of the 'elemental labels' come from today! A vast majority of sources you see use the western elemental system, which has its own pro's and con's especially when you cant pin point the origins to a belief, so remember to use researching skills when looking at these systems.

While we do have this system, we also began to see the spring of "cardinal witches", witches that use the cardinal directions to associate their practice to a certain element. The western system does attribute the elements to specific cardinal directions, so a west witch would mean a witch who delves into matters of water, the past, divination, and the psyche, because those are all associations with the western idea of 'west' These labels come from pop culture, folklore, and occult practices alike that have greatly shaped the way we view the western elemental system.

Final Notes

While no elemental system is perfect, we are exposed to it constantly on our spiritual and magical journeys. It can be a wonderful tool when learning about magic and how we interact with it on a worldly basis! I hope you found this informational piece as interesting as I did! Do you feel like you subscribe to an elemental system? where does it come from? Let me know in the comments below :) Fair Winds

Sources and Notes

Tip Jar

[retroactivebakeries]

inordinately pleased with my most recent glitch pc so I am inflicting her on you all

Anthrinas Kimmeros, Dying of Destiny

“I name myself an ember’s child; a ling’ring troth, a fading flame; when I am named, no longer say: salvation, to the world.”

Once, there was a little girl who was destined to save the world. A magical animal found her, and it offered her duty and power, and it made her into a magical girl. And not just any magical girl, but the savior, a destined hero who would bring an end to all suffering, like Usagi or Madoka.

Only—that wasn’t a destiny that she was supposed to have. That wasn’t a destiny that was supposed to exist at all. There’s no such thing as a savior who can put an end to suffering, and the science is still out on magical girls.

She didn’t realize any of this until after the first of her destined deaths. As her life guttered, she glimpsed the countless invisible strings of fate connecting everyone and everything. And she saw the pulsing, crimson snarl of her own destiny, a cascade error coursing through the fate of everyone whose life she’d ever touched—

And she understood, then, that the world was wrong.

Destiny soon decreed her rebirth, but she’d seen the Glitch now. She couldn’t be a proper magical girl, a proper messiah. She arose instead in Ninuan, her hopes dead and her magical girl uniform monochrome. So she wasn’t a savior, not anymore, but fate still had its hooks in her. If she wasn’t there to save the world, then she would bear witness to the destined apocalypse. She would rule over the ruin left behind, reigning from a castle that doesn’t exist.

It was pretty easy to be a living weapon in service to a higher purpose when you’ve spent basically most of your life doing just that. She murdered the Angel that was Grief-That-Inspires, Orgone Energy, and Beith, and she wrought a twisted mockery of a god from its corpse. She beefed with basically every Noble who has a magical girl schtick. She actually did end the world, once, although she ended up having to eat a timeline reset on that one.

Statistically, most magical girls burn out before they reach their late twenties, and the numbers only got worse if you're corrupted into a dark magical girl. She pushed herself as hard as she could, she fought the good fight against reality, and she spent more than she had to give doing it.

For a couple years, she just…stopped. Events still happened, sure; people talked to her, on days she’d gotten out of bed and dressed; she might’ve killed a god somewhere in there—but she wasn’t really there for those parts of her life. She wasn’t anything, really.

She gave up on the war, eventually. It’d been a few years since she’d actually fought in it, but like, formally deciding that she was done. Because...she was so tired. And she started trying to fill the void—did some moonlighting as a magical girl; got a cat, and then another cat, and then some more; let a bunch of those magical girl-themed Powers she’d beefed with throw a pretty half-assed intervention for her. [And then a bridge into the campaign concept.]

Sanctum: The Castle That Doesn’t Exist. A sprawling gothic castle that has yet to be built, for the destined apocalypse has yet to come—but once it has, it is from here that Anthrinas will reign, crowned with no crown and enthroned on no throne. It is eerily empty, though at times it seems not to be. 

Technique: Dark Magical Girl. We’ve all watched enough anime here to know what this does.

Sphere: Anthrinas typically uses λ-versions of her former companions—their Ninuanni selves, set free from the cage of existence alongside Anthrinas when she was reborn. Other arcana include appropriately-themed mystical treasures, supernatural companions, and minions.

Phazia: Anthrinas’ magical animal companion. A winged cat so black as to seem a void cut from reality. Knowledgeable in the whole metaphysical framework underlying how magical girls work, but most likely going to be used mainly for being-a-flying-cat reasons.

Rhimrida: A light-hearted illusion magic specialist. She’s the magical girl of self-deception, of “nothing is wrong,” of “don’t think about that.” She’d be a good cast for Mara if they made a movie about the Buddha.

Lithwin: A hot-blooded gun witch whose standard attacks involve a lot of magical gatling guns and missile barrages that explode into flower petals. She’s the magical girl of transience, of “nothing good lasts,” of “there’s always an ending.”

Alasenta: A prim and proper miko, skilled in rituals for binding, sealing, and warding, though used more offensively than you’d expect. She’s the magical girl of futility, of “it can’t be helped,” of  “no—not even you.” 

Tainram: An inveterate cynic and a living jinx who brings bad luck to others. She’s the magical girl of chaos, of “you’re not in control,” of “things fall apart.” She’d be a good cast for Eris if they made a movie out of the Principa Discordia.

[primathontechnology]

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[psalmsofpsychosis]

My notes app VS Darthfett

Vader and Boba's Story is about hunger, hunger so bottomless and alive and consuming, it's pure hunger born out of two people being kept sated and sedated by force.

–

both of them are so hungry, so hungry, they're hunters by essence, on different scales. their story is: what happens when two people let each other eat through the other?

–

There are fewer things more enticing than the sight of Boba's blood on Vader's gloves— when the hunter hound recognises the true blood of another.

–

Boba and Vader's relationship really is about the way only a hunting hound can stop the momentum of another hound's sprint by viciously biting and tugging at his collar. Like, Boba leashes Vader in so fucking easily, and so does Vader.

–

Darthfett fics do play with the sentiment of "if you love someone let them go" as Vader's central mentality, as the core state he truly comes to learn only by the virtue of his love for Boba Fett.

–

Boba is very inviting, he wants to be taken, to be killed, he loves a good challenge; he loves the power it takes to kill him and he loves seeing someone who has that. It's alluring to the ones who do hold the power too, the ones he lets close enough, his submission is so eager and true.

–

The idea of Boba being protective of Vader, of shielding him— it's such a heady thing. you get this ultimate embodiment of power, and a much less powerful but ferocious person being so possessive of them. it's meaningless in the framework of power, but it's not about that; it's about love.

–

The thing about darthfett is, both these people are very much contained to their suit of armour and what it entails. The suit/armour makes their history and their personhood, the very specific and often subconsciously claustrophobic way in which they exist in the world. Their suit/armour is less an item of clothing and more a narrative defining their psychological, emotional and physical threshold.

so naturally most often darthfett fanfics are about the idea of unbearable physical intimacy and the pure gravity between Vader and Fett's bodies alone, the boundaries they have to cross (and the possibility of crossing it) just to exist with each other bared.

–

Speaking of which, i adore how Vader's existence feels so contained in every sense of the world, burning viciously while the flames keep curling in. He is neverending ember long after the fires ceased.

[emberoops]

Now is a good time to plug Ember's vent blog again.

@fadingember

He's got a lot he's holding back but thanks to @/subjectivemortality I think he's finally on a good course, and you can see the subtle shifts that happen when a river starts to change its course happening with his life and mind over there.

Also, a general warning: I don't know how this is going to play out. If the possibility of Ember becoming a world-breaker is not something you want to have the chance to watch - well, no hard feelings, but I can't promise he won't for a bit.

Anyways, I have to set some introspective goals for him. Now that he has a framework for what to do.

ETA: the blog is ic password protected, but that's no reason anons can't find him, and there's no reason a muse with the appropriate abilities would not be able to hack in. Just talk with me before the latter.

[hellslittleprince]

@n0chanxes | you did not ask for one but you know you gon get one sooooo....

Hell's halls were as stifling as always. Ash floated in the air, embers glided through the haze towards the ceiling, seeking an escape none would find. Souls' cries echoed here, not quite deep enough through the depths to escape the relentless wailing, but Flynn didn't mind much. Silence was often his worst enemy - perhaps second worst, after his own mind. The wailing kept him distracted, kept thoughts from wandering to the darker corners, where it resided.

tick tock tick tock days since kill, days. must.

Eyes closed for a moment and he inhaled, exhaled. Inhaled, exhaled. Maybe he needed to stop by Dae at some point for a refill of blood. Tongue brushing over dry lips and the metal framework that hooked over his bottom one, he inhaled once more, exhaled, and then continued on his move. The voice fell silent again. And then he saw him. Eyes, ruby red. They'd been so angry, so threatening, so ready to tear him apart. He'd known only fight. Only survive. Only kill.

Threat. Must kill. Threat. Threat.

Flynn practically hissed as the fight begun in his head. Heavy was the darkness, creeping in around his somewhat shaky control. The cuffs on his wrists burned as they threatened to grow. The metal on his jaw started to creep up, a silent threat. He remembered this man. He remembered being caught, being hurt. He remembered... blood? But also kind words and-

Yes, blood. Tasty. Good. Kill. Kill. Kill.

A growl tore through his throat as his head pounded, feeling like his skull was being split in two. The growl alone was heavy and loud and echoing off the walls. The sharp thwip of metal followed it, the mask closing around his nose and mouth, the cuffs wrapping around his fingers. He knew this man. He knew blood, and pain, and kind words, and gone. The fight was being lost, the darkness tightening its grip, suffocating his thoguhts, his control, as he ducked to the shadow, stalking closer to Ian. To the threat.

Good. Stalk. KILL.

[quaranmine]

Hello, it's me the anon who write about their thoughts, intepretation and message about your fic. I'm glad you like my thoughts and such. I deeply appreciated it. Say i have a few questions, i was browsing your blog see. And i saw that you or someone you possibly reblog linked two other fics that connected to 'The incandescene of a dying light' universe. And i wanna ask is this canon to the first fic? Because if so, that's cool that the others are being inspired to write and attempt to connect their fics to your universe fic. Also i know this is probably irrelevant but i got ask. How are Scar and Grian doing to the year 2020 on the fic? Is scar still working to shoshone national park to this year i mention or he retired a long time ago? Is there an age limit for the employees working for the national forest like at this age you be immediately or forcedly retired with small benefits package just for your safety? Also i wonder what Grian and Scar reactions to the invention of the internet and smartphones during the 1990-2010's because i just take a little research about international calls during the 1980-1990's and ugh... that's a hefty price to pay for such calls. No wonder people avoid staying too long on international calls. Because the phones bills man, it's gonna burn your wallet. Anyway that's all of my questions. I hope i didn't bother or anythin' about my questions. Have a good time, writer.

Hello, nice to see you again in my inbox!!

Yes, my story has inspired several recursive works (which is the term for a fanfic of a fanfic) and I'd like to give them a shout-out!

I Waved Goodbye to the End of Beginning by @crazypercheron is a fantastic multi-chaptered work set the year after the main fic took place. It's about Cub visiting Scar's lookout and trying to offer him comfort as he realizes Something happened last year. It has a slower pace than the main story and really expands on a lot of details about Scar's life as a lookout.

The Evergreens Enfold the Shrine by @darkaviarymc is an amazing little story that asks the question of how Mumbo's story will be perceived later, through some college students (Gem, Etho, Beef) in 1995 telling a ghost story about Mumbo.

From Embers by @honeylashofficial is a great oneshot set in the same universe (but not directly referencing the main fic) about what happens when Impulse and Skizz go hiking in the forest and get injured.

The Phosphorescence of a Glimmer in Extrimis by TotallyNotAPlant is a little crack AU in which Mumbo is just. A cryptid in the forest.

Of these, TotallyNotAPlant's story is definitely not canon since it's a crack story, but the other three are sort of....dubious canon? Half-canon? They're not fully canon because they were not written by me, and I might have made different choices. (This does not mean I dislike the choices anyone has made, it just simply means we all have our own unique styles as writers. I am thrilled that other people are finding their own meaning in my work and I don't want to dissuade them from doing so by demanding they fit my exact mental framework.) Since they are recursive works, I cannot guarantee I won't ever end up causing continuity errors if I upload something new because I do have a few other works in this AU that might get uploaded. However, I'm incredibly pleased with the work that all these lovely writers have done, and I am willing to work around what they're doing if I can!

Scar and Grian are doing great in present day! I think they'd benefit from being able to communicate more easily now. Scar may or may not be retired by now--without taking exact birthdays into account, he'd be about 64 in 2020 since he was 33 in the main fic (and 68 today.) Grian would be approx. 59 in 2020 and 63 in 2024 (but i am not incorporating exact birthdays into this.)

As far as I know there isn't an age requirement for fire lookouts, just the physical requirements like being able to hike/haul water/chop wood etc. I have seen videos/read about older lookouts. The only Forest Service age requirements I know of is that wildland firefighters must be under 37, and law enforcement officers must be under 37 when appointed. Otherwise there is not an age where you are forced out of typical federal service, just an age you're eligible to retire like all jobs.

Based on federal hiring, Scar would either be a temporary appointment (<6 months, can be rehired on a yearly basis but not guaranteed. Most common for fire lookouts) or seasonal permanent (must work minimum 6 months, guaranteed rehire with benefits and retirement.) I'd prefer him to be seasonal permanent just for his, like, quality of life but his fire lookout appointment is only 5 months so he doesn't immediately qualify. Maybe they keep him on at the office for an additional month after fire season ends. It might be most likely that he was hired as a recurring temporary employee for the first few years and then offered a seasonal permanent position. OPM has information about how this worked in the 80s but it's a bit too in the weeds for me to bother with LOL.

The real question isn't his retirement or age though--it's if the lookout is even still in service. I personally do not think it would be. There are VERY few lookouts left in the 2020s. I found an article from 2016 that said there were only 3 left in operation in Wyoming, and I don't even know if that's still true 8 years later. There's plenty of out-of-service ones remaining, and you can easily rent them for a night to sleep in on recreation.gov. But very few remain staffed. By the time the story is set, most lookouts are already out of service. I think it's likely his lookout would go out of service somewhere in the 90s. I think he'd work there til it went out of service, but I don't think this is a job he can keep the rest of his career. He might be offered a career transitional job in the Forest Service after that but I don't know if he'd take it or not. He could be an interpreter or some other seasonal job. To me the loss of a fire lookout job isn't a sad ending for him though--it's just how life and careers change :) I don't really have a clear idea of what he'd do instead. He has a lot of random skills picked up from the work he does in the off season and I think he'd pretty easily find something else to pick up.

Reactions to internet: well, Grian's going to have to learn computer stuff to do his job! Remember how Mumbo was learning computer aided design but Grian didn't know much about computers? Yeah, buddy, AutoCAD is about to become an industry staple for architects in the 90s so you need to keep up. Poor Grian with all his hand-drafting skills.

In @darkaviarymc's fic there's a bit about Scar being active on those mid-90s message boards that I LOVE. I think he totally would do that and have all this knowledge about the outdoors but also weirdly specific extra knowledge. And tons of misspellings of course.

Grian and Scar would keep in touch. The growing accessibility of the internet would only help. The phone bills...yeah there's no great way around that in the early years. I also like to think Scar goes to visit Grian in England since he's never been at the time of the main story :)