#how do they not see that this will be their downfall into oblivion

[famewolf]

constantly seeing these headlines about how states are relaxing their g*n permit requirements or explicitly banning any lgbtq+ things in school and it's just ......... so insane to think that these people genuinely believe it's good for the future ??? how do they not see they're on the wrong side of it all and are creating active harm and literally destroying the country lmao

[harmonysanreads]

Thinking about Yandere!Sumeru Boys and the sweet, lovely bartender who's become the talk of Sumeru recently.

After receiving the news of the Sage's downfall and Lesser Lord Kusanali's rescue, you, who'd been out venturing Teyvat to learn about its global gastronomy and arts, decide to return to your homeland and help your father's busy Tavern. The knowledge you've gained from your travels prove to be fruitful as Lambad's Tavern reaches a new peak of popularity. Though, not everyone's point of interest is the menu — no no, in fact, many have become frequent patrons simply to get a glimpse of the new face behind the counter.

You and Kaveh click almost immediately. Your shared views on arts and beauty is one thing checked off, but the way your actually understand him? Unlike most people when they hear his story, you're not quick to put a lable on him ; instead, you make him feel heard and normal for the very first time. Listen patiently and don't throw factual advice on how to fix his life. No wonder he poured out his entire life story to you, all on his first conversation. He's left wondering where you've been all his life as you share a portion of your own struggles, views on life and snippets of your adventures. To this day, Kaveh recalls the conversation along with your benign smile and feels his heart thump as if he's become a teenager again.

Every ensuing visit to the Tavern has his belief strengthen as well : you two must be soulmates. He's even started (half) jokingly calling you one as well, which never seems to move you the way he wants though as, all you do is adorably giggle and ask him to pay for his order. Oh well, he supposes that's an indication that you do not pity him solely because of his financial status. Kaveh's life had gotten a lot better with your presence ; he no longer drinks himself to oblivion, sleeps better than before and doesn't even pay heed to his roommate's sharp comments that'd otherwise end in a massive argument, thoughts preoccupied with what kind of trinket he could bring to impress you. For a brief period, Kaveh had felt like he'd finally found his light, his reason to keep living. He'd only wish he hadn't introduced his friends to you.

You first ‘officially’ met the dusty-rock-of-a-roommate of Kaveh (his words) when you took the responsibility of dropping him to his place of residence after the architect had passed out from taking a sip of the Sneznayan Fire-Water. You weren't sure what you were expecting from Alhaitham, but a talk over books that spiralled a little too late into the night and ended with him walking you back home certainly wasn't it. You can see where Kaveh came from, The Acting Grand Sage did not have the countenance that invited friendships. You'll have to thank your profound interest in all genres of books and an equal ease to share your opinions to not be at the recipient of that attitude. It takes you a little too much time to notice that since that night, the Scribe has found himself a second home in your radar. You see him at Puspa Cafe, the Grand Bazar, the streets and after a little while, even at your father's Tavern almost frequently. So much so, that calling him something of a friend might not be as far-fetched now.

In Alhaitham's defense, he's simply intrigued, it's not everyday he meets someone who can keep up with him. It took him only a glance at you to realize you're the person who has Kaveh blushing and giggling like a madman at random times. The architect's creepy behavior aside, at least, it seemed as though some of your sense of responsibility had rubbed off on him so, less headache for Alhaitham. You're easy to talk to ; granted, you don't always have agreements but that doesn't pose as an impediment from keeping the conversation flowing. In fact, you treat him no different ; neither his status nor his prolonged disappearances that'd no doubt affect anyone else can change your easygoing persona as he approaches you, the coffee and dishes you make are rather good too and— ah. Alhaitham understands now why Kaveh is so smitten with you.

Lambad's Tavern is a prominent destination for fans of Genius Invocation TCG, you like the game, too. But because of your duty, you can only resign yourself to watching from the counter as some rejoiced in victory and others had their heads in their hands from loss. It's entertaining to a degree, frustrating to another as you have to remain silent while the players make dumb choices. You digress, whatever they do is none of your business. But if you had to pick one group that produced the most entertaining show out of this game ; it'd be the friends Kaveh brought along with him. Most of the times, they'd just be reduced to Kaveh's ranting pillows and really, only one of them—and by that you mean the General Mahamatra who seemed to truly care for the game. You're curious about him, actually. He seemed so different from the rumours that were floating around. And thanks to Kaveh's impulsive announcement that you'd be dueling Cyno one night, you had the opportunity to satiate that curiousity — and flex a win against the master of TCG altogether.

To say Cyno was flabbergasted would be the understatement of the century. He'd repeatedly demanded for a second match that time (all the while Kaveh looked like he could die of pride) but you'd shut it off with the (not really) threat of charging extra for your lost time. Since then, he'd been hot on your tail, too. Trying to coax you into a second match with every strategy he can think of : bribing, bargaining, cracking awful jokes to befriend you — his hard work paid off, but the sight of a win against you still seemed to be far. At one point, those concerns were lost as you both simply found fun in each other's presence. Cyno, in the meantime, had noticed that your amiable personality was both a blessing and a curse. Do you not see the corrupt glints in their eyes? The wanton touches and disgusting saccharine lacing their words? No can do, they do not deserve your courtesy. Do not blame him for taking matters into his own accounts or show any semblance of concern after the personnel mysteriously disappear the next day ; its just a little favor for his TCG buddy.

Out of all of them, Tighnari took you the longest to get to know properly. Given his usually passive personality in the presence of others, no wonder he'd strayed a little from your attention. The forest ranger wasn't behind in knowing you, though. In fact, it seemed as though he had been picking up on clues his other friends were missing. Tighnari had been the first to take notice of your ennui, which he had surmised to be a result of all the people you have to deal with everyday. Turns out even you have your moments. One evening as Kaveh, Cyno and Alhaitham were preoccupied with debating over who-knows-what, Tighnari took the opportunity to approach you about it. He couldn't ignore the darkening circles under your eyes or the brightness in your optics dimming any longer — he's glad he did ; in truth, your life had gotten crazier than it was back when you were traveling, you'd confessed. You no longer felt truly...alone, even in moments that you're sure is securely private. Tighnari listened intently, for once the roles being switched. He sent hand-made remedies to help with your stress, frequently wrote to you to check your well being when he couldn't visit personally, anything within his power.

He felt sympathy for your state, such a precious person like you doesn't deserve this, you should be treated better, he could treat you better — now if only you're at arms reach to the forest ranger. Alas, for now he'd have to be content with this development. Tighnari has an inkling about who is, or are, responsible for your building misery. Does he intent to do anything with that knowledge though? Yes, coaxing you to his side, preferably.

The innocent, nameless wandering boy you'd taken with you on your return to Sumeru, suddenly returned home with a glowing anemo vision in the span of a few hours one fine afternoon. Nothing really seemed out of the ordinary though, he was still as glued to your person (though nowadays he seemed to venture out more than usual), he was still the harmless boy you'd grown accustomed to. So then, why did it feel like something was amiss? Was it how often he'd find himself at the brink of an angry customer's fist? Or was it because that only occurs when you leave the counter to get something and that same customer just so happened to have been pushing you for a date beforehand? Your suspicions always end up fleeting though, you can never even raise an eyebrow at the boy, not when he looks at you with those glossy puppy eyes. In the end, it's always the other man that's handed over to the guards, it's always the others, in general at the face of your displeasure — not Wanderer, never Wanderer. If only you could see the same grin he directs at the retreating men behind your unassuming back.

You never did regret letting him trail behind your person (except maybe the bombarding allegations from your family of him being your significant other, it took one whole week to convince them otherwise, after all.) ; he was sweet and so.. clueless, as if he were but a newborn child. Your heart couldn't resist the poor thing and that's what brought you to this situation. Wanderer revels in the others' jealousy at the sight of you two's closeness (who could guess this same man had tried to take over Sumeru). He can do many of the things your other admirers can only dream of ; lean on your shoulder, fall asleep on your lap, play with your hair as you prepare a drink, whisper things in your ear with a purposefully lowered voice and get away with anything. All is well with the lost boy you'd picked up from the last turn of your travels, it's just that, you can't quite shake off the feeling of a strange familiarity everytime you look at his otherwordly eyes.

what do you call this? a love hexagon? 🤔

[ au masterlist ]

[nyxshadowhawk]

A Retrospective on Harry Potter

Why did I like it in the first place? What about it worked? Where do I go from here?

I have decided to give up Harry Potter.

J.K. Rowling’s reputation now stinks to high heaven. At this point, she is quite indefensible. And even if that weren’t the case, she is not someone that I would want to associate with anyway. Meanwhile, the internet has not only turned against her, but against Harry Potter itself. An innocent question on Reddit, about which Hogwarts Houses the ATLA characters would be in, got downvoted to oblivion. Innumerable Tumblr threads insist that fantasy fans should get into literally anything else (suggestions include Discworld, Earthsea, The Wheel of Time, and Percy Jackson). And now that Harry Potter is no longer a sacred cow, there has been a recent slew of video essays that rip it to shreds, attacking it for its poor worldbuilding, unoriginality, and the problematic ideas baked into the original books (like the whole SPEW thing), etc. Those criticisms always existed, but now they’re getting thrown into the limelight.

It pains me to see such an ignoble downfall of Harry Potter’s reputation. If Rowling had just kept her damn mouth shut, Harry Potter would have aged gracefully, becoming a beloved children’s classic. I'd still plan to introduce it to my own kids one day (after Rowling dies and the dust settles). It’s not surprising that not all aspects of it have aged well, since it’s been more than twenty years since its original publishing date, and everything starts to show its age after that long. I acknowledge that most of the criticisms of the series that I’ve seen lately are valid, and I’ve read plenty of better books. And yet, when I return to the books themselves, even with the knowledge of who JKR really is inside my head, I still really enjoy reading them! There’s still a lot about them that I think works!

None of the other things I’ve read have had as collossal of an impact upon my identity, my values, and my own writing as Harry Potter. It’s hard to move on from it, not just because it’s something I enjoy, but because I have to literally extract my identity from it. I don’t know who I’d be without Harry Potter. I don’t know what my work would look like without Harry Potter. I don’t know how to carry it with me as just another piece of media that I like, as opposed to a filter for who I am as a person. So, with all that in mind, I have to ask myself why I liked Harry Potter so much in the first place. If I’m going to move on from it, then I have to be able to define and isolate the things about it that I want to keep with me. Something about it obviously worked, on a massive scale. So what was it?

It’s not the worldbuilding. The worldbuilding is objectively quite terrible, especially in comparison to that of other fantasy writers who knew what they were doing. At best, it’s inconsistent and poorly thought-out, and at worst it’s insensitive or even racist. Is it the characters? The characters are, in my opinion, one of the stronger parts of the story. But I felt very called-out by one of the many online commentators, who said that anyone who identifies with Harry is too cowardly to write self-insert fic. (I do not remember who said it or even which site it was on, but I distinctly remember the phrase, “Reject Harry Potter, embrace Y/N.”) The reason why people get so invested in Harry Potter’s characters is because they’re easy to project upon, and it’s possible that my love of Harry comes more from over a decade’s worth of projection than anything else. The incessant arguments over characters like Snape, Dumbledore, and James Potter ultimately stem from the fact that these characters do not always come across the way Rowling wanted them to. As for the writing itself, it’s decent, but not spectacular. Harry Potter is something of a sandbox world, with less substance than it appears to have and a crapton of missed opportunities, making it ripe for fanfic. For more than ten years, I’ve been doing precisely that — using Harry Potter as a jumping-off point to fill in the gaps and develop my own ideas, some of which became my original projects.

So what does Harry Potter actually have that sets it apart? Why are people so desperate to be part of Harry Potter’s world if the worldbuilding is bad? What, specifically, is so compelling about it? I think that there’s one answer, one thing that is at the center of Potter-mania, and that has been the underlying drive of my love of it for the past decade and a half: the vibe.

Harry Potter’s vibe is immaculate.

You know what I mean, right? It’s not actually a product of any specific trope, but rather a series of aesthetic elements: The wizarding school in a grand castle, with its pointed windows and torches and suits of armor, ghosts and talking portraits and moving staircases, its Great Hall with floating candles and a ceiling that looks like the night sky, its hundreds of magically-concealed secret doorways. Dumbledore’s Office, behind the gryphon statue, with armillary spheres in every single shot. Deliberate archaisms that evoke the Middle Ages without going as far as a Ren Faire: characters wearing heavy robes, writing with quills and ink on parchment instead of paper, drinking from goblets, decorating with tapestries. Owls, cats, toads. Cauldrons simmering in a dungeon laboratory. Shelves piled with dusty tomes, scrolls, glass vials, crystal balls, hourglasses. Magical candy shaped like insects and amphibians. A library with a restricted section. A forbidden forest full of unicorns and werewolves. That is the Vibe.

There are five armillary spheres just in this shot. They are unequivocally the most Wizard of tabletop decor.

There’s more to it than just the aesthetic, though. The vibe is present in something that writers call soft worldbuilding.

There’s a phrase that writers use to describe magic systems, coined by Brandon Sanderson: hard magic and soft magic. Sanderson’s first law of magic is, “An author’s ability to solve problems with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.” A hard magic system has clearly-defined rules — you know where magic comes from, how it works and under which conditions, how the characters can use it, and what its limitations are. Examples of really good hard magic systems include Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fullmetal Alchemist. If the audience doesn’t understand the conditions under which magic can work, then using magic to get out of any kind of scrape risks feeling like the writer pulled something out of their ass. It begs the question, “Well, if they could do that, then why didn’t they do that before?”

You may come away from that thinking that having clearly-defined rules is always better worldbuilding than not having them, but this isn’t the case. Soft magic isn’t fully explained to the audience, but that doesn’t matter, because it isn’t trying to solve problems — its purpose is to be evocative. Soft magic enhances the atmosphere of a world by creating a sense of wonder. If your everyman protagonist is constantly running into cool magical shit that they don’t understand, then the world feels like it teems with magic, magic that is greater and more powerful than they know, leaving lots of secrets to uncover. Harry Potter, at least in the early books, excels at this. The soft magic in Harry Potter is what got me hooked, and I think it’s what a lot of other people liked about it, too.

The essence of soft magic is best summed up by this scene in the fourth film, in which Harry enters the Weasleys’ tiny tent at the Quidditch World Cup, only to find that it’s much bigger on the inside. His reaction is to smile and say, “I love magic.”

That’s it. That’s the essence of it. You don’t need to know the exact spell that makes the tent bigger on the inside. You don’t need to know how Dumbledore can make the food appear on the table with a flick of a wand, or how he can make a bunch of poofy sleeping bags appear with another flick. You don’t need to know how and why the portraits or wizard cards move. You don’t need to know how wizards can appear and disappear on a whim, or what the Deluminator is, or where the Sword of Gryffindor came from. You don’t need to know how the Room of Requirement works. Knowing these things defeats the purpose. It kills the vibe, that vibe being that there is a large and wondrous magical world around you that will always have more to discover.

One of the best “soft magic” moments in the books comes early in Philosopher’s Stone, when Harry is trying to navigate Hogwarts for the first time:

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk. —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 8

Many of these details don’t come back later in the series, which is a shame, because this one paragraph is super evocative! It establishes Hogwarts as an inherently magical place, in which the very architecture doesn’t conform to normal rules. Hogwarts seems like it would be exciting to explore (assuming you weren’t late for class), and it gets even better when you learn about all the secret rooms and passages. The games capitalized on this by building all the secret rooms behind bookcases, mirrors, illusory walls, etc. into the game world, and rewarding you for finding them. The utter fascination that produces is hard to overstate.

Another one of the most evocative moments in the first book is when Harry sees Diagon Alley for the first time, after passing through the magically sealed brick wall (the mechanics of which, again, are never explained). This is your first proper glimpse at the wizarding world and what it has to offer:

Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, “Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad....” A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium — Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand — fastest ever —" There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon.... —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 5

What works so well here is the magical weirdness of wizardishness juxtaposed against normalcy. Eeylops Owl Emporium is just a pet shop to wizards. A woman makes a very mundane complaint about the price of goods, but the goods happen to be dragon liver. Broomsticks are treated like cars. All of these small moments contribute to the feeling of the wizarding world being alive, inhabited, and also magical. It gets you to ask the question of what your life would be like if you were a wizard. What do wizards wear? What do they eat? What do they haggle over and complain about? What do they do for fun?

In Book 3, Harry enjoys Diagon Alley for a few weeks when he suddenly has free time, and we get to experience the wizarding world in a state of “normalcy,” when he isn’t trying to save the world. He gets free ice creams from Florean Fortescue, gazes longingly at the Firebolt, and engages with delightfully weird people. He’s a wizard, living a (briefly) normal wizard life among other wizards in wizard-land. And that is fun. It’s so fun, that people want that experience for themselves, enough for there to be several theme parks and other immersive experiences dedicated to recreating the world of Harry Potter.

One of the greatest things about Universal was its phenomenal attention to detail. You can hear Moaning Myrtle’s voice in the women’s bathroom, and only the women’s bathroom. The walls of the Three Broomsticks have shadows of a broom sweeping by itself and an owl flying projected against the wall, so convincingly that you’ll do a double take when you see it. Knockturn Alley is down a little secret tunnel off of the main street, and that’s where you have to go to buy Dark Arts-themed stuff. It’s really well done.

Another thing that contributes to the vibe, in my opinion, is that the wizarding world is slightly macabre. They eat candy shaped like frogs, flies, mice, and so forth, and they have gross-tasting jellybeans. In the film’s version of the Diagon Alley sequence above, there’s a random shot of a pet bat available for purchase. In the third film, when Harry is practicing the Patronus Charm with Lupin, the candles are shaped like human spines. In the first book, this is Petunia’s description of Lily’s behavior after she became a witch:

Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that-that school, and came home every holiday with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was — a freak! —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 4

I remember reading this for the first time, and it just kind of made intuitive sense to me. I suppose it fits into the “eye of newt and toe of frog” association between magical people and gross things, but somehow it works. Unfortunately, this is retconned later with the knowledge that wizards can’t use magic outside school, but before that limitation gets imposed, the idea of Lily amusing herself by turning teacups into rats seems like an inherently witchy thing to do.

That association between magic and the macabre shows up elsewhere, as well. In The Owl House, Luz’s interest in gross things is one of the things that marks her as a “weirdo” in the real world. When she goes to the magical world of the Boiling Isles, weird and gross stuff is absolutely everywhere. That world’s vibe leans more towards the macabre than the whimsical, but it works because you sort of expect the gross stuff to exist alongside the concept of witches, and that they would be an intrinsic part of the world they inhabit. You don’t question it, because it’s part of the vibe.

(The Owl House is one of the few things I’ve encountered that has a similar vibe to Harry Potter, but it’s still not the same vibe. In fact, The Owl House outright mocks the expectation that magical worlds be whimsical, and directly mocks Harry Potter more than once. The overall vibe is much closer to Gravity Falls.)

The Harry Potter films utilize a lot of similar soft worldbuilding with the background details, especially in the early films that were still brightly-colored and whimsical. For example, the scene in Flourish and Blotts in the second film has impossibly-stacked piles of books and old-timey looking signs describing their subjects, which include things like “Celestial Studies” and “Unicorns.” When Harry arrives in the Burrow in the same film, one of the first things he sees is dishes washing themselves and knitting needles working by themselves, taking completely mundane things and instantly establishing them as magical. In that Patronus scene with Harry and Lupin, the spine-candles and a bunch of random orbs (and the obligatory giant armillary sphere) float around in the background. One small detail that I personally appreciate is the designs on the walls above the teacher’s table in the Great Hall, which are from an alchemical manuscript called the Ripley Scroll:

It’s all these little things that add up to produce The Vibe.

Obviously, much of the vibe is expressed very well in John Williams’ score for the first three Harry Potter films. The mystical minor key of the main theme, the tinkly glockenspiel, the strings, the rising and falling notes that mimic the fluttering of an owl, the flight of a broomstick, or the waving of a wand. That initial shot of the castle across the lake as the orchestra swells, as the children arrive at their wizarding school:

If you grew up with Harry Potter, just looking at this image gives you The Vibe. The nostalgia hit is definitely part of it, but The Vibe was already there, back when you were a child and you didn’t have nostalgia yet.

In my opinion, only Williams’ score captures this vibe — the later films, though their scores are very good, do not. But the soundtrack of the first two video games, by Jeremy Soule (the same person who did Skyrim) absolutely nails it. This, right here, is Harry Potter’s vibe, condensed and distilled:

This is why I feel invalidated by the common advice “just read another book.” I have read other books. I’ve read plenty of other books, many of which are wonderfully written and have left an impact on me. But there’s still only one Harry Potter. To date, there’s only other book that has filled me with a similarly intense longing for a fictional place, and that is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. That book deliberately prioritized atmosphere over everything else in the story, and actually lampshades this in-universe. The Night Circus has a plot and it has characters, but it’s not about its plot or characters. It’s about the setting and its atmosphere. It swallows you up and transports you to a fictional place that is so evocative and so magical that you just have to be part of it or you’ll die. And even then, The Night Circus has a different kind of vibe from Harry Potter. In this particular capacity, there’s nothing else like Harry Potter.

The thing is, I don’t think Rowling was being as deliberate as Erin Morgenstern. (In fact, given many of Rowling’s recent statements, I question how many of her creative choices were deliberated at all.) She was throwing random magical stuff into the background without thinking too hard about it, which works when you’re writing a kids’ story, but stops working when you try to age it up. Actually, scratch that — soft worldbuilding is definitely not just for kids! The Lord of the Rings has a soft magic system, for crying out loud, and Tolkien is the original archmage of worldbuilding. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that prioritizing atmosphere over meticulousness is bad worldbuilding. That is a valid way to worldbuild! Not everything needs to be clearly explained, not everything needs to make sense. The problem is that Harry Potter doesn’t balance it well. Certain things do have to be explained in order for the magic to play an active role in the story (and the setting of a magic school lends itself to that kind of explanation), but no rules are ever established for the kinds of magic that need rules. When you begin thinking about the rules, you’re no longer just enjoying the magic for what it is. At worst, you begin running up against the Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

It wasn’t actually the “aging up” of the story that did it in, per se, but rather, the introduction of realism. The early books were heavily stylized, and the later books were less so. A heavily stylized story can more easily maintain the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. That’s why, for example, you don’t ask why the characters are singing in a musical — you just sort of accept the story’s outlandish internal logic, and the inherent melodrama of it doesn’t take you out of the story. Stylized stories are more concerned with being emotionally consistent over being logically consistent. The later Harry Potter books changed their emotional tone, but without changing the worldbuilding style to compensate.

In addition to the more mature themes and darker tone, Harry Potter introduced more realism as it went, but Rowling did not have the worldbuilding chops to pull this off. There’s the basic magic system stuff: When you begin thinking about it too hard, something like a Time-Turner stops being a fun magical device, and starts threatening to break the entire story. Then there’s the characters: Dumbledore leaving Harry on the Dursleys’ doorstep in the first book is an age-old fairy tale trope that goes unquestioned, but with the introduction of realism in the later books, it suddenly becomes abandonment of a child to an abusive family. The exaggerated stereotypes of characters like the Dursleys become tone-deaf. The fun school rivalry of the House system is suddenly lacking in nuance. And then there’s the shift in tone: The wizarding world that we were introduced to as a marvellous place is revealed to be dystopian. You start thinking about how impractical things like owl messengers are, you start wondering if Slytherin is being unjustly punished, the bad history appears glaringly obvious, the quaint archaisms become dangerously regressive. Oh, and the grand feasts are made through slave labor! The wizarding world suddenly feels small and backward instead of grand and marvellous. J.K. Rowling’s bigotry throws it all into an even harsher light.

This is why I’ve always preferred the early books and films to the later ones. There’s a lot of things I like about the later ones, but they’re not as stylized — they don’t have The Vibe. Thinking about things too hard is just a necessary condition of adulthood, but it’s still possible to tell a dark, mature story that is highly stylized. I really think JKR could have better pulled off that shift if she was a more competent worldbuilder. But it is painfully obvious that she did not think things through, and probably didn’t understand why she had to. In her defense, she did not know that her story would end up being one of the most scrutinized of all time. As it stands, her strength in worldbuilding was in the softer, smaller, deliberately unexplained moments of magic that were there just to provide atmosphere. And there were less and less of those as the books went along.

Pretty much all the Harry Potter-related content released since the last film — including Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts, Hogwarts Mystery, Hogwarts Legacy, Magic Awakened, and that short-lived Pokemon Go thing — have been unsuccessful attempts at recreating The Vibe. In fact, the only piece of supplemental Potter content that I think had that Vibe down pat was the original Pottermore, back when it was more of an interactive game. And of course that got axed. That was right around the time things started going downhill.

Some of the art from Pottermore’s original Sorting quiz.

So what now? Well, that’s the question.

I think I can safely say that The Vibe was the reason I liked Harry Potter. It’s the thing I still like the most about it. I’ve spent years chasing it, like an elusive Patronus through a dark wood. If I can capture and distill that Vibe, and use drops of it in my own work, then perhaps I won’t need Harry Potter anymore.

I'm gonna write the story that I wish Harry Potter was, and when I'm a famous author, I won't become a bigot. I'll see you on the other side.

[utilitycaster]

You who are wise in the way of Exandria (helps run the readable wiki), maybe you could tell me or point me in the right direction. There's been several statements that the Pantheon gets their power from their followers, that feed on their faith/worship/prayers. One of the Vanguard says something to this effect, and Deanna seems to subscribe to this belief as well, and I think I sort of thought this as well pre-Downfall. But is there any actual evidence for this?

Hey anon, thank you!

The short answer: it's really unclear even from the text precisely what's going on, likely because this is foundational lore of Exandria that's existed since pre-stream and it's changed over time as different players and GMs have brought in new perspectives. The most I would say is that the gods of the pantheon do not require worship as a condition of their existence.

The longer answer:

The gods appear to be independently powerful, which would make sense, since they are effectively extra-terrestrial or extra-planar entities of possibility solidified into specific embodiments of concepts, ie, when in physical form on the material plane they are just creatures with their own power. We see that the Everlight's power during Downfall, for example, does not seem diminished even though nearly all of her worshipers were killed by Asmodeus.

However, we also see that when in mortal form, the avatars do gain power from worship and specifically from being in places where they are worshiped. We also know that while he's not of the pantheon, the reason Artagan has the ability to grant divine power as though he were a god is because he is worshiped as one by Jester.

My personal interpretation, and I want to stress this paragraph is very much only an interpretation and not canon, is that while the gods are in mortal form, they need worship to access those truly divine abilities, but while in full godly form they do not - ie, the pantheon doesn't seem to need to be worshiped to have the powers of a god, since that is simply what they are as beings, but should they limit their forms or should an entity who is not of that same classification of being (ie, Tengarian, mortal who has used the Rites of Ascension, or whatever the fuck the Chained Oblivion is) wish to have the powers of a god, they do need worship.

Now: the above relates to entities who are on the material plane. This isn't the case with the divine gate. Because the gods of the pantheon now must act through mortals, it is functionally true that unless they have worshipers within the world, their ability to influence anything in the world is greatly limited if they don't have worshipers. The wiki source on The Everlight's influence being weakened/diminished is a Reddit post from Matt 8 years ago and again, that's influence, not raw ability. When we encounter her in Campaign 1, The Everlight is still able to do everything any other god can do; she just isn't as well-known within Exandria.

The Vanguard member who says mortals are food for the gods is Tuldus in episode 44 and he does not explain how this is. Obviously he's not going to be an objective source here, as a cult member under interrogation with valid resentment towards whatever religious institution under which he was brought up, but we have not seen evidence of the gods needing mortal prayer or worship other than again, to act within the Prime Material Plane from the other side of the Divine Gate. FRIDA says that they believe their worship "charges" the gods (episode 52) but also doesn't provide evidence; it's just their belief.

So this is a long way to say that the gods do ask things of their followers, particularly those followers who gain powers from them, but that seems to be strictly for the purposes of acting within the world from behind the Divine Gate. Any feeding off of mortal worship when in full god form and not a mortal avatar form is purely speculative, and such worship of their mortal forms as we saw in Downfall was freely, if in SILAHA's case unknowingly given, and did not seem to drain his followers in any way nor even require them to know it was worship. In terms of having power as present physical entities either pre-Divergence or in their realms post-Divergence, we don't know if they require anything. At minimum they can go a very, very long time without major worship with no loss of power.

[shorthaltsjester]

downfall has me thinking about the prime deities far more than is best for my mental health and so i’ve been rewatching c1 just because so many of the pcs have relationships with the gods — even percy and keyleth who hold lower opinions of the gods still have relationships with them — and good grief . you ever think about whitestone as this bastion of love that the gods still have for one another and the love that a party of idiots have for one another. that the centrepiece of the town is a tree from the dawnfather, one used for the builders of castle whitestone to take shelter from the tumultuous lands of the alabaster sierras. a mountain range that came about out of the conflict between the dawn father and the chained oblivion.

the fact that the family that whitestone’s lost son found and brought back with him amounted to two temples being erected, and how fitting that after defeating the briarwoods, the two gods that are given new houses of worship in whitestone are the gods of death and redemption, fate and compassion. do you ever think about how many of vox machina are champions but how much the ones who are not are still held in good faith by the gods, whether or not that is returned? do you ever think about the raven queen telling percy he is broken and reminding him that does not mean he is alone, that means he is mortal, as are all those whom he loves. do you ever think about percy’s death letter, read by vox machina in a tavern as he tells them that the raven queen calling him broken finally opened his eyes to the fact that he has chosen his life (and thus, he might choose better), writing “one the lie [that vengeance would bring my family back] was shattered, I scrambled to find a solution, to make a deal, to undo my mistakes and balance the scales. I now understand that there are no scales. There is no redemption, and no ledger that judges me good or evil. I am free to simply be myself and live with the terrible mistakes I’ve made. Tomorrow, I start upon a path beyond the gods and demons who have tormented me, and it’s your friendship that makes this possible. […] I will try and do my best for you all.” and signing it Percival, of Vox Machina - the family he found and chose, not the one he lost and buried himself in vengeance to avoid. and fucking, vex having just heard percy forgive ripley also hearing those words and having carved the word forgive on the weapon she carries who has a conversation with him to remind him (and herself) that committing to forgiveness over grudges and vengeance means also forgiving the person he’s been that prioritized vengeance. the fact that one of the main things they bond over is that they have similar dispositions to justice and a similar unwillingness to forgive but they both see that in themselves as something they wish to improve at, and that when they eventually marry, each time is by someone devoted to a god neither of them necessarily worship but each of which oversees a domain particularly relevant to that connection - keeper yennen is a worshipper of erathis, and thus the justice that both percy and vex care to honour; pike is a worshipper of raei, and thus the redemption that both vex and percy seek (and see in one another). do you get it.

and god the entirety of the final arc of vox machina is truly some of the most interesting cr content for me just because you get the silliness and depth of vox machina in the face of these Beings On High and they all gaze at these idiots trying to save the world with fondness and the realization with downfall that in many ways those gods were just as much idiots trying to save the world makes that so, so interesting. and i wonder what might’ve happened if one of the gods they’d gone to see had been the lawbearer or the wildmother, what might have been made of percy and keyleth. i wonder if the lawbearer might have taken an interest in a calculating and curious man who loves to strike a deal and stick to it, even if manipulating the contents of the deal made to better suit his ends - especially given that percy was rejected by ioun for his propensity not to share his knowledge, and especially given that whitestone has a historical precedent for worship of the lawbearer. and i wonder what the wildmother would make of an angry girl who is fated to watch the people and places she loves be irrevocably changed and die, who wields her vestige, and who favours the world and it’s people over the gods and their rules — something i’m willing to bet melora would find some common ground with.

there’s also some beautiful symmetry between the relationships of the gods to which vox machina become champions and their own relationships with one another. and i’ve made my post about vax and vex vs. the matron of ravens and the dawn father, but i also think quite a lot about vex and scanlan vs. pelor and ioun. vex and scanlan who can be quite antagonistic to one another but also understand each other as few others do; scanlan who tells the dawn father that vex is not perfect but she is the most perfect among them, vex who hears the knowing mistress tell scanlan that his stories give vox machina strength and genuinely tells him it’s true and that he is very powerful, even when he tries to joke about it. ioun and pelor were the ones to take on tharizdun, ioun nearly perishing and having to hide away to recover. when vox machina asks pelor for her location he doesn’t know it. and fuckin. dalen’s closet. should be a silly little wedding oneshot ends with fuckin. vex glowing with the light of the dawnfather as her and percy, the living son of whitestone, are married by pike who is a cleric and is also the champion of the god of redemption, where the champion of ioun turns into a. dinosaur to walk his friend down the aisle and then grants a wish so that she can see her brother again and the champion of the matron of ravens comes to visit - something that is explicitly stated to be allowed by the matron of ravens. where a twin glowing like the dawn and a twin darkened by raven feather embrace. do you get it . do you see it. the fact that the first story we all heard in exandria was one of a family threatened by fate who could not beat it but did their best with it and that now downfall, the newest story but with parts of the oldest story in exandria’s timeline, is the same. a family who is doing the best with what they have, and what they have isn’t always great.

[butterflydm]

cr104 - orym & the relics of the red solstice

Just had the thought that Orym's experience with the Wildmother probably -- from her perspective -- further confirmed something that the gods said over and over in Downfall. That mortals aren't able to fully understand the context of the gods and their actions.

Attempting to show that context to Orym genuinely hurt him, though that was not the Wildmother's intention. It's clear that the gods don't feel like this is something that can be explained by words, only by experiencing it (whether they are correct or not is debatable) yet attempting to have their followers experience that context is a risk to those followers' mental health.

I do wonder which parts of the vision Orym will share with the group and which parts he might never mention (I hope he mentions the 'oblivion hunger' at some point. though maybe he feels like the group has decided to commit enough to the cause of stopping Ludinus not to need to hear it).

I am pretty excited by Seedling's upgrade (to artifact status?) and am intrigued to see if any of the other members of Bells Hells are able to make genuine connections with any of the other gods. Imogen could potentially link up with the Stormlord next episode, maybe, which could be very interesting. Vex becoming the champion of Pelor and getting his blessing is one of the moments of cr1 that I remember really loving. And I also really enjoyed the journey that led to Scanlan being blessed by Ioun.

Ashton expressed interest in the Archheart which is... not who I would have guessed from them tbh. But the Archheart was very neat in DF so I would be interested in seeing that conversation.

I do wonder if Pike still has the tuning fork that they used to get to Elysium back in cr1 or if it loses its connection as time passes. Because right now, it really does feel like BH wants something from the gods that they have a difficult time being able to get through the Divine Gate -- frank two-sided conversations. BH really really hate getting messages through signs and visions, no matter how evocative and well-described.

[mindovermuses]

Something has been tickling the back of my brain ever since we were given a glimpse of the gods in Downfall that I think is starting to come together into some sort of coherent thought process. But I'll we'll see how coherent it is once I've brain dumped it here onto the page I guess...

Most of the gods we've met are children.

Barely filtered ramblings ahead. You've been warned.

Go back and re-watch the opening of Downfall with them on Tengar. See how they run around and play like young children, naive to the world around them. How an elder of their race thought it such a fun thing to take Aru and any of their friends out to the orchard to witness a new tree coming into being. Is that an activity one would do with an adult or a curious child?

How, when Edun disappeared and the world started to disappear as well, other NPCs appeared at their sides, taking charge and telling them not to worry, they'll bring Edun back... before vanishing themselves. The gods/children had no understanding of anything that was happening but other, more mature-sounding characters seemed less lost in the moment.

The former god of death, Nahal, had probably just reached adulthood and that's why they could feel the dread the other adults seemed to sense and why they weren't running and playing. It's probably also part of why the Matron of Ravens was able to ascend to their godly position. Reaching full adulthood and understanding, maybe he chose to seek out oblivion and leave her as his chosen heir.

Given their timeless natures and how they were made into real, immortal beings... who knows how long it would take for them to emotionally mature, especially with no healthy adults of their kind there to guide them.

Can't you just look at some of their decisions and actions in the past and see the subtle nods to a toddler or young child playing make believe or not getting what they want and throwing a tantrum? It wouldn't be a one-for-one match to a child as we know them, but similar none-the-less.

Forsaking their godly abilities and living as humans for a while probably helped them to "grow up" more than anything else as well as finally accepting the Matron of Ravens as more of an equal. They learned first-hand how their actions and in-actions have consequences and that they had been speaking for and making decisions for life on Exandria without considering that they should have a say in things as well. Their puppet playthings are just as real as they are and are driven by the same emotions that they, as the gods, are.

I don't think the gods have fully reached adulthood for their kind just yet- some may be closer than others though. They're still, for the most part, those same scared little children in the orchard of possibilities watching everything they've ever known and loved be taken from them. Watching the only place they've ever known as home be swallowed up by something they didn't understand.

What happened may have been a completely normal thing for Tengar but not something they would have told young children about because they didn't believe they would understand yet. In a panic, the oldest of the children did their best to collect their siblings and escape what they saw as certain doom... but what if it wasn't? What if it was? No one can know for certain (except Matthew Mercer, that is...).

Maybe Predathos was the result of the adults of their world's hubris coming back to destroy them and THEY were the airship of children from Avalir or young Hallis from Aeor who were able to escape and survive the calamity their peoples brought down upon themselves. (Wonder if young Hallis grew up and studied necromancy while building himself a happy little spherical domain? Nah...)

Then again, maybe Predathos doesn't kill the gods it absorbs. Maybe it was a security system to protect Tengar and it sends them to be with the rest of their people and their lost home. Of course, if this is the case, there's always the possibility that perhaps, by choosing to become real to escape along with other later actions, they can no longer travel in those dimensions.

I mean... it's kind of like if fifth dimensional beings took form and became fourth dimensional beings. Gods amongst the peoples they presided over. For a short time, they constrained their potential further and became three-dimensional mortals, but their mortal forms couldn't hold their greater power indefinitely and they re-emerged as their fourth-dimensional selves. But, once you've shaved off enough of yourself to become mortal... how can you possibly ascend back to your former fifth dimensional forms to go home again?

TL;DR: The gods are literally children and potentially unreliable narrators of their own histories because of it.

[vashtijoy]

on akechi's four-hour swan dive to oblivion

So yesterday I was looking at this post by @lokiarsene about Akechi's line in his "undesirable child" monologue:

I find the bolded bit above to be a bit perplexing. Who does he mean? The people he was assigned to give Loki’d breakdowns to weren’t in his way at all. Indeed, the only person he has an actual personal grudge against is Shido--Akechi’s targets were in Shido’s way.

I might be overthinking that, though. It’s distinctly possible that this is just one of Goro’s heavily myopic rationalized lines to himself.

Let's take a look at this monologue and the events that surround it, leading up to the engine room shitshow.

the timing

Akechi's entire downfall happens on the same day.

the "unwanted child" TV segment happens directly after you get the letter from the TV executive. When this happens, he has three to four hours to live.

the phone call from Shido happens directly after you get the letter from the IT executive.

(incidentally, note the sad sprite there. His opinion of Shido is weirdly high, despite everything, and anxiety does not mesh well with it.)

Lastly, the Akechi fight itself happens directly after the fight with the cleaner. This leads to Akechi's death, of course. or does it

It's really easy to overlook how quickly all of this occurs. Akechi has gone from sitting in the TV studio soaking up the adoration of the crowd, ruminating on the interrogation room and telling himself it was all worthwhile, to that unsettling confrontation on the phone with Shido, to his actual death, and it's all happened within "After School" on the same day!

Akechi realises in the studio that Joker is alive (when the phone rings); he realises on the phone to Shido that Joker and the Phantom Thieves are active in Shido's palace (from Shido's behaviour); and he runs straight there to confront them and finish the job. Note that—he doesn't hesitate. He may have spent the last days consoling himself with attention from others, and reassuring himself that it was all necessary, but when Joker returns from the grave, Akechi is straight back there to kill him. He runs back there with the same speed he used to kill the SIU Director. And then ... yeah.

See, Akechi has the privilege of looking back on Joker with a bit of regret, perhaps—once he's murdered him. You can contrast the way the Phantom Thieves talk about Akechi—after he's safely dead. "We still have to carry out our end of the deal we made with Akechi", Morgana says. Ann and Yusuke speak up for him before Shadow Shido. Haru repeatedly states that Akechi "entrusted [them] with an important task". Yet what happens when he's back in the third semester? Everyone's embarrassed, and Akechi is both dangerous and unpleasant to have around, and it becomes "We did it for Joker, not you".

The whole thing plays out in the time it takes you to gather those five letters—yeah, you can leave and come back the next day when you play through it, but in-character IMO this is a very tight sequence that they would almost certainly do in one day.

shido's acknowledgement

While I'm talking about this sequence, there's another little detail I want to point up, that sends Akechi off to the engine room. This is an example of Shido manipulating Akechi with praise:

... does that sound familiar to you? It should.

Let's look at the original. Here's Akechi's declaration of what he wants:

Akechi アイツが権力の頂点を極め、俺を必要な右腕だと認めたその時に、耳元でささやいてやるんだよ⋯ aitsu ga kenryoku no chouten o kiwame, ore o hitsuyouna migiude da to mitometa sono toki ni, mimimoto de sasayaite yaru n da yo... Once he reaches the apex of his power and acknowledges me, I'm going to whisper in his ear... Once that piece of shit has climbed to the top, once he admits he couldn't have done it without me, that's the moment I'll whisper in his ear...

"acknowledges me"? Y'all, come on! Acknowledges me? Akechi literally says, ore o hitsuyouna migiude da to mitometa. What does that mean? "once he acknowledges me as his indispensable right hand". He wants Shido to admit he couldn't have done it without him!

You can see why the line has been cut down—look at that overflowing textbox. But still, what a thing to omit. And just before Akechi runs pell-mell to the engine room, what has Shido told him on the phone, and what was Akechi's response?

Shido ここまで来られたのも、お前のお陰だよ。まさに二人三脚だったな。 koko made kurareta no mo, omae no okage da yo. masa ni nininsankyaku datta na. We've only made it this far thanks to you. We've only made it this far thanks to you. You and I have worked hand in glove all the way.

Akechi ⋯光栄です。 ... kouei desu. I'm honored to hear that. ... I'm honored to hear that.

(Before anything else, note the little pause on Akechi's acknowledgement: the Japanese text has an ellipsis. These pop up at the start of a number of Akechi's lines ("total waste of my time" in the third semester is another), and they're usually stripped in the localisation—which is a bit of a pain, since the pause indicates that we should be thinking about that line—that it's important.)

The second half of Shido's line is also cut—masa ni nininsankyaku datta na, literally "you and I have truly been like a three-legged race". In translation "we've worked as one, we've worked in tandem, we've worked hand in glove".

This is high praise. This is what Akechi has been living for. This is what he wants. This is his confirmation that, when he installs Shido as prime minister, the rest of his plan will follow like night after day.

So what's going on in his head? He knows Joker is alive. The rest of the phone call confirms Shido is under attack from the Phantom Thieves. He gets a sharp confirmation that he's at the threshold of his triumph. And he runs to remove the threat to it as fast as ever he can.

Also, of course, Joker being alive is a personal threat—Akechi has failed to kill him, Akechi has failed to come out on top in their epic rivalry, Akechi has been tricked. Did he have regrets? Did he feel remorse? Is he haunted by the interrogation room, or was he just going over and over it, trying to see what he knows he missed? Either way, Shido's line of praise there confirms Akechi in his intent to make sure Joker stays dead—assuming he was wavering at all, which is a big assumption.

so what's that line of akechi's

So to address the question, finally:

First of all—note that he's using the sad sprite for that entire little monologue. He even has a headshake just before this line. Why is he sad? He's not performing sadness here, he's talking to himself. Why are you sad about this, Akechi?? It's not even the only sprite he can use here—he switches to his ordinary straight-to-camera sprite for "All that remains is to tell him".

What about what he's done over the past two-and-a-half years, or indeed the past two-and-a-half weeks, might make Akechi sad? It's not necessarily a nice sadness—it seems self-pitying, if anything. "Oh, poor me, never mind all the people I've maimed and murdered"—though that lack of concern for his victims is highly on-brand for Akechi, the most self-centred boy who ever walked.

Let's leave this one as an exercise for the reader. Does he feel sad about any of his victims?—Joker would qualify, and Wakaba. Is he feeling guilt, or remorse? I think he can, and does, but IMO there are other scenes that sell that better. Or maybe not.

can we look at the speech yet

So this isn't actually one textbox—it's essentially a single line that stretches over three textboxes. Let's take them one by one.

Akechi そして、神の意思で授けられたような、ナビとペルソナのお陰で⋯ soshite, kami no ishi de sazukerareta you na, nabi to perusona no okage de... And thanks to the Nav app and the Persona bestowed upon me by the gods... And thanks to the Nav app and the Personas, granted to me as if by divine will...

Slight modifications here—Akechi, of course, has two personas rather than one, though it's perhaps not out of the question that he thinks of himself as having only one, most of the time? I do think that you na ("seems like") is important. He's not saying "the gods gave me my power", he's saying receiving his power was miraculous.

Of course, he has that line later about "maybe a god, maybe a demon"—but that comes when he's properly off his head. It may be something he comes and goes on, and of course it's safe to say that in the engine room, he finally lets his freak flag fly. Note that Shido certainly thinks he's been chosen by the gods, and his shadow, at least, makes no secret of it at all. And Akechi does tend to follow where Shido leads.

Akechi 邪魔者たちを、この手で片付けられた。 jamamono-tachi o, kono te de katazukerareta. I managed to dispose of any who got in my way. I took out all those who stood in the way with my own hands.

Here's the key line. First, note that this is another place where, as with Cognitive Akechi's "you wanted him to love you", there is no pronoun given—Akechi never says "those who stood in my way"—but the translator has inserted a likely pronoun. The original does not state outright who Akechi's victims were in the way of.

Of course, Shido's targets are all also in the way of Akechi's revenge. That makes them his targets. So this line is intentionally ambiguous, both in the way Akechi puts it and in the way he thinks, which makes turning it into "in my way" or "in his way" both a bit inappropriate IMO.

katazukerareta is the past-tense passive of katazuku. You might recognise this one because it means "tidying up"! But of course, you can tidy up people, not just objects, and so katazuku is also a slang term meaning "to kill"....

kono te de is often lost in translation—it can mean "using this method" or "in this way", and be redundant. But in a context like this, it can often mean something like "with my bare hands" or "with my own hands", so I've retained it. Could it be that the method, the "hand" he's using is the persona he mentioned? Possibly. But then Akechi doesn't use his persona for many of his victims—he shoots them.

The interesting one, and the one this whole post is to highlight, is jamamono-tachi. This is used a few times in the script. Sometimes it's innocuous, but most of the time it's talking about a person in the way—Futaba's relatives treat her as a jamamono. ALC provide us with the delightful translation "a spare prick at a wedding"!

And this word pervades the conspiracy's scenes. Here's Shadow Shido:

Shadow Shido 邪魔者は消す⋯今まで通りな! jamamono wa kesu... ima made toori na! I'll erase any who gets in my way... just as I've always done! I'll eliminate anyone who stands in my way... just as I've always done!

So there's a high likelihood here that Akechi, looking back on what he's done (with the sad sprite, don't forget), is referring only to the people he's eliminated for Shido. I thought for a while that this line meant he must have made significant use of Call of Chaos on his own behalf, to advance himself, and I still think he must do at least a little of that, just to know what his powers are? He can't possibly show up on Shido's doorstep, newly awakened, without a fair weight of wrongdoing already behind him..?

... or maybe he really does. Planning is not his strength, it turns out, certainly not as a furious fifteen-year-old boy. Maybe he really does get his personas, see his chance that hell and heaven have given him, and go to Shido saying "hello, I have these powers, and I'd like to use them on your behalf".

And that makes it all so, so much worse. An Akechi who shows up not even knowing what his powers can do, innocent of anything so far but being corrupted by his circumstances and family background, open to whatever Shido wants him to do with them, is so much more awful—and so much less culpable, which kind of annoys me.

Anyway, here's Wonderwall the last textbox:

Akechi それも、ようやく⋯ sore mo, youyaku... Though it took me some time to finally do so... And now, at long last....

youyaku typically means something like "at long last" or "finally". I don't ... see anything here that's talking about time? It may be to do with how you complete the sentence. Because a pretty common way to complete that sentence would be this:

それもようやく終わる sore mo youyaku owaru And that's finally coming to an end.

So does he really want it to be over? I'm not sure that he does—I'm not sure this is how he's felt all along, or all the time; we can speculate, of course.

I wonder what recently happened that might have made him decide he's ready for it to be over, though—until he's reminded to change his mind. It seems like he always has these little moments of self-pity, these moments of introspection—that, in the end, never matter to him, or make a difference, and can't save him. The only thing that saves him is understanding that others care about him, at the end, and that comes far, far, far too late.

[umbracirrus]

WIP Wednesday 💛

Wednesday again, and I'm on time this week!!!

More drawings of my Elder Scrolls OCs, because I haven't done any writing this week. Ivetta, Maewynne, and Aevra, who I believe are my last few Dragonborn on my list of characters to draw! I've just got a handful of OCs left to go in terms of sketches before I move on to neatening them up and adding colour....

As with previous times, more details about them under the read more!

Also been tagged by the lovely @thequeenofthewinter and @throughtrialbyfire since I posted 💛

Ivetta

A member of the Nightingales and Guild Master of the Thieves Guild, Ivetta thrives in the shadows. Even her identity as Dragonborn is shrouded in mystery, with only a select few in Skyrim knowing purely down to coincidence or necessity. A stark difference to her upbringing in the high society of Solitude.

The entire reason that she no longer finds herself in those circles is purely because she hated what was demanded of her. Sure, she knew how to maintain a business ledger and had sat in on a handful of deals and witnessed agreements being made during her youth, but she was always more interested in seeing what happened behind the scenes. Seeing who greased the palms of who, watching as septims were exchanged behind the scenes, and witnessed the employees who had a bone to pick selling goods under the table at their employer's expense. It always intrigued her. It irritated her parents to no end, in particular when it involved business dealings to do with her family... even more so when it involved her uncovering their plans to try and marry her off so that she was out of the way, out of Solitude.

Ivetta decided to take herself out of the way without any strings attached, but not after setting things in motion to make her family's business crumble beneath their feet - finances in ruin, ledgers which didn't add up, and alerting guards to some very illegal practices. She ensured that she couldn't be implicated by relocating over the border before it could come to fruition, into Cyrodiil, and only returning to Skyrim when she caught wind of her family's business collapsing.

Of course, when she returned, she got caught up in that Imperial ambush...

With time, she found herself in Riften, following her encounter with Brynjolf when seeking Esbern, and enjoying the thrill of carrying out his little scheme. She then joined the Thieves Guild, and gradually found herself the Guild Master and Nightingale after unveiling Mercer Frey's treachery.

Unfortunately, she finds herself in the line of sight of the Black-Briar family... Hemming Black-Briar, in particular. And he knows exactly who she was and is.

Maewynne

Maewynne is the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood and the Dragonborn... though to the population of Skyrim, the Dragonborn is an imposing Nord warrior who wants to live in solitude (not the city) thanks to little whispers which she left in the right ears - not a Bosmer with personal space issues brought on through her clashes with the Penitus Oculatus following her attempts on the Emperor's life.

At one point, after the Dark Brotherhood have properly re-established themselves in Dawnstar after their near-eradication, she finds herself... bored. Far too many contracts over petty squabbles, and hardly anything interesting. So when she gets approached by somebody with a proposal not to kill, but to set a chain of events into motion to bring about the downfall of somebody who had been a thorn in her side and a threat to one of the Brotherhood's closest associates, the Thieves Guild... who was she to say no?

Aevra

For most of her life, Aevra had been loyal. Loyal to her Empire, loyal to Skyrim, loyal to her duties as a soldier. She never gave anything less than her best, even when she was tired, bruised, and bloody. Her family had served since the Oblivion Crisis, and it made her proud to fight for the Empire. She fought through the Great War, and continued to serve the Empire ever since. She never found herself in the highest of ranks though, instead preferring being active and on the ground.

But one day, that changed. She participated in the ambush to capture Ulfric Stormcloak - a man she still vividly remembered fighting alongside back in the past, knowing full well that he would not remember her for she was little more than one of many new soldiers at the time. During the night, after having stopped on their way to the border, she was responsible for getting some more firewood... and as she did so, she caught sight of somebody in the trees. An elf - specifically an Altmer. Before she could call for them to come out of hiding... she found herself seeing little more than red.

When the redness faded away, she was horrified to find herself being apprehended by her fellow soldiers. Blood coated her hands, bodies were scattered around, and the axe she had been using to chop wood was discarded on the ground some distance away, clearly having been used as a weapon. She knew that she had been under the influence of a spell, but her allies saw only one thing - she was attacking them. A traitor. There were even whispers that she was a Stormcloak in disguise, even as she protested and tried to explain herself as she was arrested and taken to join the other prisoners set for the executioner's block.

Being saved from death by Alduin was something that she didn't know whether to consider a blessing or a curse, but she knew that she needed to prove her innocence when she caught sight of Hadvar, one of her fellow soldiers, about to return to Solitude after their escape from Helgen.

Even as she found herself in the spotlight after learning that she was the Dragonborn, no matter what she said or did, she was unable to persuade the Empire that she was innocent of murdering several fellow soldiers, and that it had no doubt been part of a Thalmor machination. She feared being arrested that much, she had to get Lydia to carry out tasks in Imperial-held lands in Skyrim on her behalf (unless it was a dragon attack, in which case she would try to get herself out of there as soon as it was handled).

There were those who heard her out though, who believed in her innocence, thanks to somebody who did remember her from the Great War. But when those people were Stormcloaks, people she had seen as the enemy... she finds herself in a dilemma.

[limeyjellybean]

Downfall episode 1 watching, with thoughts and spoilers below

~ ~ ~

- Weird effect over the names, but I like it. Makes sense if humans can't comprehend what their names are *supposed* to be

- Descriptions of the characters are pretty cool, again with trying to describe something that's beyond comprehension

- It feels kind of like what I imagine the Big Bang to be like

- Ah, another Brennan opening but not just centred on one person this time (hard cut)

- Wait, the colours/shapes weren't characters? Jesus

- Awh shit, there's kids

- And families, shit

- Is Laura's mentor/guardian Purvan?? (Totally is)

- Interesting character for Taliesin - the 'interesting' monk he teased? Talking in other people's heads??

- Aeormaton character is also pretty cool as well

- And again so far my favourite is Taliesin's character. How does he do this??

- Nick's character seems the definition of good but there has to be a catch, surely

- "Should be a day or two". No. No it won't

- Purvan. Knew it

- Captain Marcus is a prick on a power trip

- Need to protect The Emissary at all costs

- Wait. They're still the light/colour/shape constructs but in human form??

- Welp, man overboard

- Human wild shape? If that was any other player, that wouldn't make any sense

- Do I hope they go to Cognoza? ... A little bit

- Noshir, you are close to taking my favourite character spot with this 'apple crate'

- Wait. What if these 6 are the reason for that crater The Mighty Nein encountered in Aeor?

- ...Are they consecuted? Like, Kryn consecuted? Is that how it started?

- Taliesin falls in and out of the sad, sallow character so quickly, it looks like an actual physical change in him

- Had a feeling as soon as Brennan said chains that the Chained Oblivion would be mentioned

- This dual-esque character thing is kinda cool

- Are they the Prime Deities and Betrayer Gods??

- These have to be the reason behind the crater... They *have* to...

- Even families of Gods fight like normal families, that's nice

- The Emissary really is 'no thoughts, head empty'

- Curious to find out which God everyone actually is when it gets to it

- Genesis Ward, I know that one

- Laura is the Matron of Ravens???

- Yeah, cause all healers in one party has never gone wrong before

- Somehow forgot how abruptly Brennan ends episodes but excited to see where this goes and how quickly plans could go wrong

[attheendoftheline]

Hadestown is the show for callbacks and mirroring, probably the best example is the Groundhog Day esc ending in road to hell reprise. Though one of my favorites has to be Orpheus and Eurydice when compared to Hades and Persephone. I often see the comparisons being drawn Hades and Orpheus/Persephone and Eurydice but honestly I’m here to argue the opposite is really true. The only time these comparisons are really viable is when they’re personally being made (Epic III ‘was like me a man in love with a woman’ it really stops their comparison wise, and Persephone’s cut chant II verse directly to Eurydice ‘when I was a young girl like you’.)

If I raise my voice-

Persephone and Orpheus are a lot alike. This added to the fact that they are canonically some level of friends, he would have seen her since he was a kid and she general likes him etc. They both are the emotional , sensitive party in their relationship. Heart out on the sleeve— “I’ll sing from the rooftops of my love and I don’t care who here’s it I’m in love!” Types. Now Persephone has been working hard to…well repress herself. She drinks and drugs herself into oblivion trying to put up a persona of not caring just being fun and indifferent. She wants to give up but can’t! She’s doing all this because her heart aches, because hades became someone else entirely - and doesn’t accept she’s still the same. We see her wild and free in the mortal realm and her sort of speakeasy.

They both raise their voice. Orpheus has been beaten, cast aside, lost and confused and he still speaks out and raises a crowd, he still Carries some level of belief in that better world, in taking her home. Persephone has been beaten in another way and mostly by herself with her drinking— but the moment things get serious she stops. She yells at hades! This woman screams at the most powerful man around— she appeals to his emotion first just as Orpheus.

Now emotion isn’t weakness don’t even try to get that argument from this but both are very… heightened. Highs are highs , lows are low. Being a very gifted demigod and a goddess— yeah it’s gonna be larger then life. It effects others- Orpheus more literally with his voice being magic and Persephone as her moods are just infectious (if mamas happy everybody’s happy). Their first instinct is to fight and yell and protest when things aren’t right, call it out! God they’re so optimistic …even if persephone tries to make you believe she’s not, she’s a rebel. She runs a speakeasy as I said as well as actually seeing views out of the wall (confirmed in working on a song).. she wants the downfall, she wants a change, she wants spring just as anyone.

Keep your head low-

Hades and Eurydice aren’t any less emotional, they just bottle things up. They’re terrified to let anyone see the real them, see them vulnerable! That’s when the strike to kill happens… that’s when they get to you, whoever “they” may be. Eurydice hides herself behind her coat and by never staying long to begin with— stirred on by fate itself. Hades hides himself in his work, in his factories and walls- his iron fist is one so he may never show the flower within. They’ve been slighted one to many times. If they’re honest people will laugh, people will hurt them— the world is cruel! They are the pessimist to their lovers optimist. Seeing the worst of the world instead of the best.

I’m not saying Eurydice has the potential to turn into a fat cat industrialist, but I’m saying it’s interesting how much she aligns with hades and it humanizes him. Eurydice always had a greater potential to change and perhaps it’s because she’s younger- slighted but not scorned. She found the right person at the right time who broke so many rules of the world for her that it’s impossible not to become optimistic. She stands of what Hades could be/could have been. As even as Orpheus is close to making him completely change his mind and as his relationship heels he still! Falls back on order and his work. It’s a crutch, just like how running away is Eurydices.

I like when the characters themselves make a direct comparison- mainly In love to the gendered party but I don’t think it’s the one everyone should be making/setting as the standard. I just… hghhhh show has a lot going on and I’ll die for it. (Also look out for more bullet points I have a lot of stuff that can’t be full posts)

[so-i-grudgingly-joined-this-site]

Part 6: “I reject your reality, and substitute my own”: Maybe There is Hope After All

Note: this is a part of my essay "The Awkward Meta-Tragedy of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman", see [here] for the masterpost of all links, reading order, and content warnings.

Well, despite everything the author might have possibly intended, I still do care about Morpheus and his fate.  To paraphrase Ludo’s 2008 album title, “He’s awful, I love him.”

                And that’s part of why the most common interpretation of his ending—as both a fully planned suicide and a tragedy—disturbed me so much.  At best I could metaphorically “scoot” it around to interpret it as a traditional tragedy where his fatal flaw was his inability to seek help/treatment or cope with his issues, and thus the warning to the audience is a positive one to seek help if you’re struggling.  Once again, though, given the way depression sometimes works, that still feels vaguely close to victim-blaming.

                Another way to get around the unfortunate implications would be if his death was not, in fact, a carefully planned suicide.  Maybe he just fucked up enough that eventually the various things he fucked up all stacked properly to be his downfall without any intent involved?  But, that does raise the huge question of who got Loki to kidnap Daniel, provoking Lyta and thus causing the rest of the dominoes to topple.  In the suicide interpretation it’s implied to be Morpheus himself who intentionally set the situation in place; without that explanation that’s an odd open thread left.  But still, an accidental buildup of issues rather than intentional suicide would make things a lot less uncomfortable.  Somehow, “you can do everything you can to change and still have negative and destructive consequences come your way” or “you can try your best and still fail” feels more reassuring than the alternative of “he did change, but he still decided to die—in the end, it didn’t even matter.”

Totally replacing a dead loved one still feels weird, regardless of their manner of death; I don’t think there’s any way around that.   But, at least if it was not a suicide, then it doesn’t validate the “my family would be better off without me” sentiments that might be present in suicidal ideation.

And then, there’s the theories about how Morpheus might not be dead—at least not completely—and that he might have found peace and happiness outside of oblivion after all.

One major factor is the fact that Hob dreams about seeing Morpheus and Destruction together after the events of The Wake.  While Hob himself dismisses it as “just a dream,” there’s the fact that both Morpheus in-universe and Neil Gaiman out-of-universe both insist that dreams in this series are never “just a dream.”  Combine that with what I pointed out about “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and how the story is meant to let the fae live on despite leaving Earth, and it paints an interesting possible picture.

Maybe Morpheus did find a way to leave his job after all.  To live on as something else, as Morpheus rather than Dream of the Endless, as a dream or a story or a memory or a friendship, but no matter what, separate from the responsibilities that so stressed him—and with a responsible and eager successor to take up the reins in his place.  Maybe Hob’s example of living through everything even showed him that changing with the times is possible.  Just walking away like Destruction did wasn’t an option for him, and not just because Morpheus felt he couldn’t abandon his realm without leaving someone to be responsible.  He also couldn’t just walk away because, probably, it wouldn’t be dramatic enough!

Come on, Morpheus is a (possibly literal) Drama King; of course he’s not going to quit quietly.  Plus, he knows from Destruction’s example that just leaving also leaves open an eternity of the other universal powers trying to nag you into going back.  What’s more dramatic, and conveniently going to prevent anyone from coming after you, than making sure everyone thinks you’re dead?

Or, well, actually dying.  Sort of.  I have no doubt that some aspect of Morpheus died.  Perhaps the aspect that was Dream of the Endless, died, but, as I mentioned, left Morpheus to live on separately in some other form.  “You cannot kill an idea” can go both ways; it can mean that we’re not supposed to care that Morpheus is dead, or it can mean that Morpheus lives on.  He, as an independent identity, with a specific name he has chosen, is also an idea.  If the question is “change or die,” it obscures the fact that this is also a universe where people can change by death.

Heck, there’s even an example in this series of people deciding to finally live upon finding themselves post-life.  Chapter 4 of Season of Mists introduces the Dead Boy Detectives.  At first, much like “Façade,” this chapter seems to have little to do with the overarching story; besides showing how bad it is to have the formerly hell-bound dead returning to Earth and featuring a cameo by Death, there’s little to connect it to the primary narrative.  The majority of it is just about two random boys dealing with supernatural bullies, and both ending up having been murdered by the bullies at the end.  But, the story ends on the fact that they choose to “make the most of their afterlives.”  They leave behind the crappy situation assigned to them by their circumstances by living on in a new form (in the boys’ case, ghosts).  If two random kids can do it, why can’t Morpheus do the same?

Actually, there’s a whole lot of events in Season of Mists that I’ve seen propped up as evidence that Morpheus was settling his circumstances to prepare for his suicide, but I believe can just as easily be interpreted otherwise.  It could either be him setting up backup plans in case of his accidental imprisonment or death, or even intentional preparations for a successor to take over for him when he dramatically retires rather than straight-up dies.  I could fill an entire other essay with that evidence; I planned to include it here but my page count is already far exceeding what I intended, so I’ll save that for a possible later time.  If anyone reading made it this far, let me know if you’d like to read that!

So, do I believe in these more optimistic interpretations of the ending?  In terms of authorial intent, I’m not sure.  I think there’s certainly a reason everything seemed so shockingly pessimistic at first read, and possibly that was the intent.  The books were written at a different time, when the author was at a different place in his life.  But stories are also about belief.  And when the author straight up says that it’s open to interpretation, well… I’d rather choose to believe that this grand, sweeping, thought-provoking narrative isn’t about an irredeemable depressed asshole being rewarded for suicide, with the reader being scolded for caring. 

Perhaps asking whether or not that’s “true” is missing the point.

[naturallyteal]

Oscar Wilde - Poems in Prose (2)

[part 1 is here]

About the history of the prose poem (source: Wikipedia):

According to The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, the defining traits of the prose poem are "unity even in brevity and poetic quality even without the line breaks of free verse: high patterning, rhythmic and figural repetition, sustained intensity, and compactness". Invented in the nineteenth century, the modern prose poem form is largely indebted to Charles Baudelaire's experiments in the genre, notably in his Petits poèmes en prose (1869), which created the subsequent interest in France exemplified by later writers such as Stéphane Mallarmé and Arthur Rimbaud. In English literature, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Kingsley were progenitors of the form.

Detail from: Jesus cleansing a leper, Jean-Marie Melchior Doze, 1864

Detail from: Christ and the Adulteress, Lucas Cranach the Younger, 1515-?

The raising of Lazarus, Rembrandt, 1630-32

What do you think about this text? How does it make you feel? How does it compare to this quote from Book!GoodOmens (Aziraphale to Crowley):

"You see, evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction," said the angel. "It is ultimately negative, and therefore encompasses its downfall even at its moments of apparent triumph. No matter how grandiose, how well-planned, how apparently foolproof an evil plan, the inherent sinfulness will by definition rebound upon its instigators. No matter how apparently successful it may seem upon the way, at the end it will wreck itself. It will founder upon the rocks of iniquity and sink headfirst to vanish without trace into the seas of oblivion."

The Doer Of Good

It was night-time and He was alone.

And He saw afar-off the walls of a round city and went towards the city.

And when He came near He heard within the city the tread of the feet of joy, and the laughter of the mouth of gladness and the loud noise of many lutes. And He knocked at the gate and certain of the gatekeepers opened to Him.

And He beheld a house that was of marble and had fair pillars of marble before it. The pillars were hung with garlands, and within and without there were torches of cedar. And He entered the house.

And when He had passed through the hall of chalcedony and the hall of jasper, and reached the long hall of feasting, He saw lying on a couch of sea-purple one whose hair was crowned with red roses and whose lips were red with wine.

And He went behind him and touched him on the shoulder and said to him, ‘Why do you live like this?’

And the young man turned round and recognised Him, and made answer and said, ‘But I was a leper once, and you healed me. How else should I live?’

And He passed out of the house and went again into the street.

And after a little while He saw one whose face and raiment were painted and whose feet were shod with pearls. And behind her came, slowly as a hunter, a young man who wore a cloak of two colours. Now the face of the woman was as the fair face of an idol, and the eyes of the young man were bright with lust.

And He followed swiftly and touched the hand of the young man and said to him, ‘Why do you look at this woman and in such wise?’

And the young man turned round and recognised Him and said, ‘But I was blind once, and you gave me sight. At what else should I look?’

And He ran forward and touched the painted raiment of the woman and said to her, ‘Is there no other way in which to walk save the way of sin?’

And the woman turned round and recognised Him, and laughed and said, ‘But you forgave me my sins, and the way is a pleasant way.

And He passed out of the city.

And when He had passed out of the city He saw seated by the roadside a young man who was weeping.

And He went towards him and touched the long locks of his hair and said to him, ‘Why are you weeping?’

And the young man looked up and recognised Him and made answer, ‘But I was dead once and you raised me from the dead. What else should I do but weep?’

[inukag-archive]

Hello! I'm looking for a fic that's kind of like Mulan? I read it forever ago, and I wanted to reread before it's gone forever since it's on fanfiction.net

Thank you!

Hey Nonnie, Mod Pixie here;

Speaking to you as someone who definitely overpaid on a 1T thumbdrive at Target while mass reblogging "please save your fic" posts in a shared concern at FFNs immediate demise...

(^this was me for like, a week)

Let me say how relieved I am that the FFN (@ FictionPress) Twitter feed is alive again and the fire alarms have stopped ringing.

But I see you and your concern over story loss.

FicHub is an INCREDIBLE resource to allow you to save a private copy (as an EPub, MOBI, PDF, or Zipped HTML) of your favorite fics off of FFN. This is also great for any of our followers who use e-readers or like to read offline.

So fear not dear friend, your FFN story will still be there for a hot minute.

OBLIVION by @meggz0rz (M: Ancient Japan. A war to the death between youkai and humankind. Kagome, rebellious daughter of a noble family, takes her grandfather's place against the enemy, dressed as a boy and ready to fight to survive. But in love and war things are rarely as they seem, and there is a spy in the ranks who just might be her downfall...)

A quick caveat.

DO NOT UPLOAD FIC FILES TO OTHER SITES TO "SAVE" THEM. IF THE AUTHOR WANTS TO MOVE OR CROSS-POST THEM, THEY WILL. DO NOT REPOST, RE-UPLOAD, OR OTHERWISE PUBLICLY DISTRIBUTE FILES THAT ARE NOT YOUR OWN. This actively violates many site's TOS and will be taken down -plus your account will be sanctioned. We are only encouraging folks save private, local copies for their own use.

We know you mean well, but its a solid no-no.

Sincerely,

A Very Panicky Pixie

[electricbluebutterflies]

Marisa/Asriel + “I am not yours.”

Affair-era, vaguely nsfw, also on ao3.

They’re getting too close to the edge.

Marisa has known for months now that all of this is a terrible idea. One must be established in one’s public marriage before taking outside lovers, and two years as a trinket isn’t quite enough to grant her safety but here she is anyways, doing what she had expected would happen much later. A natural set of decisions – she did not marry out of love, no one believes that, merely in the way of ambitious young women who need access to worlds they are not supposed to inhabit – but too soon and too fast and-

They will burn each other to ashes, she is sure of it every time she tells herself they shouldn’t see each other again. Somehow that inevitability isn’t enough to stop her.

What ought to have been a single moment of weakness has turned into a consistent habit, and she can already see how their caution has begun to slip. How natural it has become to interact when in the same social setting, how her lover doesn’t hide the way he looks at her like he thinks he does. He’s not the only one looking, at least – Marisa knows how to play these games, how to make sure too many eyes are on her and at least one or two jealous wives will pick fights with their husbands later – but there is something different in it, the territorial behavior of someone who knows what her dress covers, and she-

She wants it, in the deepest part of her heart. She wants to know she is wanted, and this is why she allowed this connection, because it gives her what her pathetic outline of a marriage does not. She also knows that any public behavior takes away what time they might have.

It is all quiet, at least, no vulgar comments or at least none that she hears. They drift in and out of each other’s orbits as the evening progresses – it is safe that they are acquainted, she is allowed to pursue her intellectual interests vicariously – and she knows where this ends, there is communication without words and she at least is determined not to be their downfall. When she slips away, she knows she will be followed, just enough time between departures for plausible deniability, just enough to give her the thrill of it all and-

“Don’t,” she says in the moments of approach, the heartbeats she has to change the scenario before she gets too distracted.

“Don’t what, exactly?” Her lover stops, at least, she reminds herself that they do hold to each other’s boundaries despite all that they are and-

“Don’t look at me like that when other people can see,” she hisses. “It’s improper.”

As if the fact that she’s about to let him ravish her in a secluded but still technically public space isn’t. As if anything they have done wouldn’t be ruination if the wrong people found out. She’ll find every loophole she can and turn them into a noose at this rate, she’ll-

“You pick now to fake oblivion,” he counters, and there’s something amused in his voice and she remembers why this seemed like such a fun idea a few months ago, the strange fascination of someone who saw through her and wanted her anyway. “As if you didn’t pick that dress knowing damn well-“

“I am not yours,” she hisses. “I will never be. Don’t forget that. No matter what happens.”

She intends to provoke and she gets what she wants in the form of a deep kiss, perfect escalation and desire. They will burn, she reminds herself as she lets her body take lead and her mind rest. They have burned from the moment they met.

“Not mine,” he repeats with his hands on the hem of her skirt and oh someday she’d like to actually do this on a mattress somewhere they have time. “Is that what you want?”

“You’re not doing useful things with your mouth.”

“We don’t have that kind of time.”

She can’t argue with that, can’t find complaints with the minimal preparations before she’s pinned to the wall behind her and undone. Just enough skin exposed for collision means hands are on clothed areas and the marks will be that much lighter, and it is safer like this, the way they take what they can when they can and it’s all so small and not enough and-

“You could run away with me,” her lover breathes, and his eyes are closed and hers aren’t and she will never let another man fall in love with her the way this one has. “Stop hiding.”

“Nowhere is far enough,” she replies, taking a kiss. “And you will never be able to give me everything I want.”

A few more shifts of their hips and then a sudden stop, the things they have to do for their version of safety, her own hand between her thighs as her lover ruins a handkerchief, it is enough it is never enough they are not-

“Tell me that meant nothing to you,” he murmurs as he straightens her skirt. “Say it like you mean it.”

“I can’t.”

“Then think about it, Marisa.”

“I can’t do that either.”

Ashes, she thinks as he walks away, as she waits and counts seconds until she can do the same without suspicion. They will become ashes one way or another. The only question left is how much she will actually regret it.

[starlitscripts]

by the window

I shouldn't be thinking of you, but it's impossible not to— not when these floors have your footsteps permanently engraved on its tiled history and these hallowed halls seem to let your voice go from one corner to another. And it does not help that you have got your presence sealed in the words that slip past innocent lips and in the spark that adorns promising eyes and in smiles that seem to come out at the speed of light even by just the slightest thought of you. The unseen does not equal oblivion, and goodbyes do not necessarily erase the memories and hard as I try to deem you just a remnant of the past, this stubborn heart keeps beating to the sound of your name, reminding me of all the fleeting moments that we once had shared and convincing me that there is still hope, and that we can still have some more time. It's quite a struggle to chase after tomorrow when yesterday desires so badly to pull me back into its arms and despite all attempts to get away from its embrace, I still end up finding myself unable to move forward perhaps because I'm scared or I'm just too sentimental or perhaps because I know that somewhere in all these reruns, you are lingering, and deep down inside, I know I could never forget you— and I'm afraid that until I get some kind of assurance that I will see you someday soon, I will continue immersing myself in all these daydreams and possibilities even in the face of uncertainty and excruciating pain and the thought that I may be the only one yearning and choosing to hold on to all these come the farewell of the day. And surprisingly, that is just fine with me. For no matter how much this heart beats, and how many miles may come in between us and how many times I may feel that this could be something more, I won't ever go beyond looking at you from the sidelines and I won't push myself to the point of holding your hand because I only need you to know that someone cares and that you need not brave your storms on your own. I only want you to have someone; a soul whom you can seek refuge in, and you could tell them all your stories in one go and they won't think twice about putting everything else aside just so they could keep you company in your solitary hours. And I want you to know that as much as I want that person to be me, it does not have to be— because I would rather endure a time indefinite without you by my side than let you wallow in loneliness for the rest of your life. So I will stay here, with my hands clasped together fervently, hoping and praying that somewhere out there, you are standing tall with courage firmly holding your feet on the ground and faith giving you the power to hold your head up high. And every time I cast my gaze upwards to admire the stars at night, I pray for your eyes to look at them with the same delightful twinkle; for the corners of your mouth to get tugged by the persistence of a genuine smile because that way, I will know that despite experiencing countless downfalls and witnessing the tragedies of life dull the colors of the dreams that you have worked so hard to paint, you still have the heart to watch another sunrise not out of mere obligation but out of the sheer desire to keep going. And whether or not I will see you grace this room with your presence once again, I will continue praying for you to come home— not to the literal place where you're supposed to be, but to the joy to which you truly belong. // S.H.