#glubabbles

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sylus in a shadow the hedgehog costume when

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xavier's very first days working at the bookshop and someone comes in asking for spicy recommendations and he gives them cookbooks

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raf & mc's dynamic is great bc if you had to boil it down in a tropey way it's strangers to childhood friends to strangers (onesidedly pining) to initially quietly-resentfully arranged marriage friends to lovers slow-fast burn to WIDOW and CORPSE and then strangers (one side pining knowingly, one side pining unknowingly) to lovers to [???!?!] to strangers (onesidedly wistful) to boss & bodyguard / colleagues / tactical allies (informal) to friends to mutual (initially begrudgingly on his part) piners to lovers even deeper than ever before because holy shit they finally have way more than ONE MONTH & [??] together and theyre so different overall—but through this ALL a certain mf is still destined to DIE—so then theyre strangers again then supposed to be on opposite sides again and too much else happens for there to quite be actual love but theres a bond that cannot be reduced to one term. theres a bond that cages and burns and paralyzes and grows and festers and thrives adamantly and cannot be killed even if he has to or tries (with care) in one way. theres a bond of heart n soul magic a leash as much as it's an anchor and a naturable part of themselves, begun willingly then beared through as if it were sadly lost but surprise they

they

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imagine rafayel sending a seagull to check in on mc but sylus is doing the same thing with mephisto and mc glances out the window just in time to catch them trying to peck each other to oblivion

(a bird friend of xavier's secretly watches from a lot farther with less thoughts in its head)

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im gobbling him whole imagine being reborn and your people keep looking at you with sm pity and hope and concern and like "do you ever think about your wedding" or w/e his aunt said exactly and he just has to claim "No." instead of going off abt how ofc he'd at least have heard a bit about that whole ancient mess whose importance transcends mere romance despite being technically inseparable from it,

but now he has to learn new things of the present on his own terms while the sea/fate/whatever is impatient for a fix that wouldnt even fix everything bc the circumstances have spiralled far past "if heart back, then lemuria 100% safe" and he must be partly uncertain abt how much of current mc's niceness is true since he knows abt the deceptive lover in Siren's Song (who he also then already killed but that didnt fix everything) (going off the assumption none of that history was distorted in retellings) so like yes fr

raf: this is such a dilemma

the sea: ok i'll spare you the choice 🥺 you clearly cant do this well enough without help anyway

raf: youre part of the dilemma too

mc: what the fuck are you two talking about.jpeg

raf: im trying to figure that out actually

mc: so can you tell me more on what this 'bonded' thing is about or

raf: dun worry about itttt :P

god I just love the idea that rafayel is conflicted by a love from the past that he may not even fully or properly understand and his modern pursuit to avenge lemuria

a duty to a past love that’s cursed him and a duty to protect his people and his home

and current rafayel, the rafayel living this life, may not have even been actually around to be a part of either of those but he is still bound to both at the same time in ways he can’t even comprehend

so juicy so juicy I’m licking his face rn

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thinking about rafayel and the process of loving mc

how in forgotten sea he only had a month (+ however long they may have known each other as kids) and her loving him was treated like a requirement but he had a resigned air to that part of it, how he wasnt supposed to love her as much as he ultimately did

how he loved sea witch mc bc she was the same mc but amnesiac but all the traits that remained and eventually returned. probably similar applied to siren's song's mc

so basically memories influence a lot of this, but he has kept an eye on linkon mc so long he ofc knows that how much even more she is different. but even then he'd know every similarity still fatefully there and memorize every new thing just as well, and even if hes way more wary about love now let alone the two-way kind he cant help craving what he was repeatedly robbed of before,

sure that surely there is an end to that cycle (and mc's cycle of being born into the most shitty situations too where ppl keep wanting to use her even after shes freed of the worst, and he does not want to be one of them as the sea demands bc it uses him doesnt care if she was manipulated into that betrayal or how he still felt (and the risks he takes are calculated) where they can at least remain alive n good company longer,

but ofc he falls all the way again bc shes so sweet and fun and strong blahblah and it's extremely better than ever but then god the world dies and more centuries pass and shes a recyclable fucking princess on philos and hes so so worn and yet-!!

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rafayel the kind of guy to prefer physical art over digital but give him ms paint and a few hours with either trackpad or separate mouse and he can be like one of those mfs managing to make the most blended intricate looking masterpiece

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imagine the first time rafayel sneezed

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girldad rafayel in the sense his daughter is a trans girl and he gives third degree burns to whoever is weird about her

boydad rafayel in the sense he raises his son with the same options and adoration and quality time he'd give a girl

girldad rafayel caring after who turns out to be an archetypical butch lesbian into things like wrestling n racecars or whatever and he doesnt understand every single hobby but he tries hard to the same way he tries mastering n supporting mc's hobbies and he handmakes her a carabiner shaped like a fish

genderfluiddad rafayel hes like "omg theyre just like me fr"

dad rafayel whos like "whats a girldad" and mc is like "well when it's a-" and hes like "ohh i know a cool new term for dads who are girls sometimes! like others have terms like tomboy i see. i guess i am a girldad:)"

hes super careful about which environments he puts his kids in so that they dont automatically absorb weird human-majority-typical mentalities. maybe even partly homeschools them if he has the time

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rafayel: i love her and i think she loves me

the sea: love is to die for someone and you do not need to earn her love. you may only love me, but a special eternal way

rafayel: that sounds wrong

the sea: guess i'll die then

rafayel: what the hell hold on

the sea: okay then kill the unnecessary bindings you made with her

rafayel: guess i'll die then

the sea: what the hell hold on

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this

is Rafayel & MC coded

i will not (i would) elaborate

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Rafayel is not queer coded because he has (supposedly) feminine aspects to his demeanor and personality and face, he's queer coded (to my burdeningly biggest bulging noggin) (and/or at least a good allegory for queer people or ig certain other minorities i don't know enough about to go on as much about) for having always been about breaking free (or trying) of rigid boundaries and passionately exploring the new even if it's forbidden (the sea's surface, land, the red of the blood of his beloved people mixed in the sea, MC)

one of few who's faced identity-centric pressures even higher than most already do (as a born god whose red strings of fate and love were meant to become puppet strings for a "follower" he once thought would simply be a bride)

and he's disliked the shallowness of humanity even when he's been forced to assimilate and after he's gone through such lengths to understand it in theory

and, you know, sea creatures have a higher tendency to be fluid (badumtss) about "gender", or even when some have binary-centric roles it can be in a way dissimilar to most humans', and queer people of all sorts have always been mistaken as inhuman and monstrous

and Lemuria is literally described as a place more centric on love and freedom

and he accepts change, but would never truly change only for others, as even with a few facades he is overall all about authenticity even with the sometimes smallest things (paint, loving MC not just because of the lost history but the present he does acknowledge as more important) even whenever it's more inconvenient or downright dangerous or makes others have trouble liking him.

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truly never a day goes by when im not seeing trans allegory potential in everything btw wym sylus was a relatively rare type of person who wanted to be a safe """normal""" person with a """normal""" body so he tried passing as one but was still found out and attacked and outcast for his automatically visible differences bc he didnt have enough time and maliciously lied about just like others of his kind anyway. and later there's a big deal about him & his partner being doomed due to what he is and what mc was and the human society being extremely pearl-clutchy or whatever. ofc the allegory doesnt extend as far as the violent urges n those implications and theres other ways to see oneself in him but ☝️🤓

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the way mc seems to be a focal point—accidental harbinger, even—of misfortune in all incarnations so far despite at most just trying to achieve/maintain freedom as much as anyone else, and incidental love along the way—and despite also being a personification of salvation but at the cost of mc's self, and of the wellbeing of each individual who grew to find mc to be a source of happiness above all others as a person instead of this inexplicable recyclable/replacable tool of fate

fucks really really hard as a concept, especially since it can also parallel rafayel's complicated relationship with godhood/leadership and zayne's curse & dynamic w/ astra and xavier's endeavors to break free of shit-rooted philos royalty and, idk, sylus from a literal prison and whatever he is? it's such a beautiful circle. like a roomba with a knife taped to it

"heres pretty guys" the game said. "heres situations where a choice has to be made between duty and some loved one(s) over and over and over again in every way in all directions until it feels dubious what's more ethical anymore, or how much any choice matters anymore" it also said.

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imagine being a vessel for something even grander and harder to define than yourself and you were literally born for this, and others need you to be this, but you also want to be yourself even though this means that grander thing and possibly others will resent you for it and resent the loved one(s) you chose over it (again and again, knowingly, needlessly, yearningly), as if it werent hard enough that there are other bastards (humans) making life hard for you and your people in a way that eventually forces you to assimilate, as an extra famous person to boot, all the more reason for you to have an even more slippery sense of individuality, and oh also sometimes that grander thing can possess you. and this is probably not the first time so all you can do is eventually warn your chosen love by asking "will you still like me no matter who i become?" not would but will because youre so sure, as you can feel the sea, the sea so sure it needs you like it's both your parasite and your family, death and your recycling lives, prison-feeling rules and chaotic freedom, your mutual guardian and mutual damner, especially because youre its last one. it needs your heart but she needs your heart too, and theres the possibility that even if you were to give it what is now hers, youd still have to keep sacrificing people. and also youve grown fonder of certain parts of the surface, and so have your people, so maybe the sea will eventually just get mad at all of you, all of you, and

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somethingsomething jinx from arcane and rafayel l&ds and them feeling theyre the core of what can doom most if not all their loved ones even if their loved ones viewed it not quite like that but "im glad to have known you / you made my life better while it lasted" and