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feanorianethicsdepartment · 3 years

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Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the fëanorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

#ask #my terrible headcanons #elros #elrond #maglor #elwing #earendil #feanorians #niphredilien #yellow feathered faerie #putting your old url in the tags for archival purposes #post nyanyannya askbox clearout #ironically it turned out almost as long as the songfic that clogged up my askbox in the first place #and it is DONE #fuck this took forever to write #stayed up late just to get it out the door so i don't have to think about it any more #this is a long ramble and i'm pretty sure the end is just me repeating myself ad nausem sorry #i'll admit to a certain pro-feanorian bias in my interpretation #but i also don't want elros and elrond to just. live in a neverending horrorshow for decades #the silm's cruel enough we don't need that #narratively i feel like elrond being All Of The Elves is a good mirror for elros being All Of The Humans #but it didn't really fit the angle i was going for #bleck #let's see how many followers i lose for this

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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 21, second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Flute Solo

For some reason Wei Wuxian has decided to take a walk outside of the fortress, or behind the fortress, or something? Can people just take a stroll outside during wartime? Seems unwise.

There are guards and these extra-bossy crows herding some Wen prisoners along, and Wei Wuxian stands up above and gets totally overwhelmed by resentful energy.

He falls to one knee while clutching his chest, in the spot where all cultivators seem to stow a bag of holding. I guess this is the Xuanwu sword? Or maybe it's his surgical incision; those things can take a while to finish healing. I think the golden core is further down in the abdomen, though; this is right over his heart.

Wen Qing, Granny, and Fourth Uncle are in the group, but Wen Qing has her hood up so Wei Wuxian can't see her, and he's unlikely to remember the other two, since he only saw them that one time at the shrine, and he doesn't remember people he's literally had dinner with.

The guards decide to be assholes and beat the shit out of a prisoner because he fell down, which inspires some extra aggressive crows to swoop in and attack the not-dead guy on the ground. That is...not how carrion-eaters behave, generally. They're pretty good about waiting for you to stop moving.

Wei Wuxian continues to struggle, obviously having an orgasm in a lot of pain, and starting to leak resentful energy.

(more after the cut)

He brings his flute up and starts playing it, which causes the wind to rise, rocks to fall from a nearby cliff, and the whole group of people on the ground under him to start having Yin Iron lines crawling up their faces.

Would Wen Qing be a beautiful fierce corpse? She would.

Eventually Wei Wuxian stops torturing everybody, having gotten it out of his system for a bit, and stands up. The group gets up, skin clearing up, and starts moving along again, a little shook. Wen Qing looks up and sees Wei Wuxian and hides her face in anguish.

She was there in the dungeon, listening to the same flute music, when he was resentfully slaughtering everyone around her in Yiling. Does she understand what she’s seeing, what he’s become?

Her hood is off and it seems that he sees her, or at least that he is trying to figure out what he's seeing. But Jiang Yanli arrives before he can do more than look puzzled and cast his eyes around.

Jiang Yanli asks him what just happened and he laughs and says it was the strong wind, in an extremely transparent lie that Yanli nearly chokes trying to swallow. She drags him back to the meeting while he continues to look troubled.

War Council

Meanwhile, the war council is meeting. This is mostly a boring rehash of stuff we already know, but someone has drawn a nice big map that's been installed in a custom frame. Because apparently the table with the mountains on it is not a good enough representation of "and then we will walk from our house to Wen Ruohan's house," which is basically their plan. The gist of this scene is that Wen Ruohan having the Yin Iron gives him an advantage, in case we needed to be reminded of that.

The doors fly open and Wei Wuxian and his fabulous ass literally blow into the room.

Everyone reacts in a comically extreme way.

He casts his eyes malevolently and/or sexily over to Lan Wangji, who is still grumpy with him, while Jiang Cheng comes up and stands almost as close to him as Lan Wangji used to.

He tells everybody that he might have something to counteract the yin iron.

Everybody: Really? Do tell!

Wei Wuxian: Happy to!

Wei Wuxian: *theatrical side-eye at judgy ex boyfriend*

Wei Wuxian: Actually, nope.

He says "we'll see in about a month" while fondling whatever is hidden next to his ribcage.

This behavior, while ridiculous, isn't quite as absurd as it seems from a corporate-meeting standpoint. Part of what cultivators do is invent and refine spiritual tools. So when Wei Wuxian makes this speech, the people in the meeting are going to infer that he is creating a spiritual tool to counter the Yin Iron.

Now it's Lan Xichen's turn to ask everybody’s favorite question. Lan Xichen wasn’t at the party when everyone else asked him, and we're apparently supposed to believe these gossips haven't been talking about the not-sword-carrying 24x7.

Wei Wuxian says he's just not in the mood, and we get to see Lan Xichen's impressive ability to hold his face completely still while he represses his desire to slap someone.

Jin Zixun complains about Wei Wuxian after he leaves, but for once his bitching is on point; he correctly surmises that the counter to yin iron is...yin iron.

Now, to be fair, the yin tiger amulet is different from the yin iron because it exists in the novel Wei Wuxian specially refines it to be more manageable than the sword it started from. And maybe it’s gel coated to be easier on the stomach. But it's basically the same shit.

Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue exchange intense gazes, just to prove that the young people aren’t the only ones who know how to eye fuck.

Lying Is Forbidden

Lan Xichen talks to Lan Wangji, and we discover that Lan Wangji is perfectly capable of lying. He manages to maintain a reputation for not lying but I think the trick is that he just avoids talking in general, so when, for example, people in later years say "who's your masked boyfriend" he just doesn't answer, which isn't really lying. (How many times did Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen ask “where did you get this kid?” and just not get an answer, I wonder.)

At other times he actually directly lies, as when he claims he is “just passing through” Yiling on a night hunt. The current conversation with Lan Xichen definitely involves actual lying.

Let's play multiple choice answers with the Lan brothers!

Q: Why is WWX so confident we can have Yin Iron against WRH in a month?

a.) Because he's been walking around with that Xuanwu sword for months, and it is obviously made of Yin iron b.) because he used a fucking ghost flute to flay Wen Chao more or less in front of me, so he is clearly down with some dark magics c.) I don’t know

Q: Was the death of people in the Yiling supervisory office really related to yin iron?

a.) obviously b.) maybe he was using some other source of overwhelming necromantic power c.) no, he’s not like that

Q. When you approached Yiling, was there anything unusual?

a.) yes, the talismans had been altered to draw in evil spirits b.) yes, everyone except his particular friend Wen Qing had killed themselves in horrifying, outlandish ways c.) are there rules already set for everything in the world?

Xichen, bless him, actually lets Lan Wangji change the subject like that and answers his question honestly.

Xichen: Actually, rules are pretty much shit Wangji: fucking hell, you're telling me this NOW? What have I been doing for the past 18 years then?

They both look just ridiculously beautiful in this conversation. Lan Wangji’s affect with his brother is so interesting. He’s trusting, emotionally open, willing to be seen...but only because he knows Lan Xichen won’t push past his barriers, won’t force him to speak the truth of what’s on his mind.

Awkwardness

The Yunmeng bros roll up, and awkwardness ensues.

Wangji is frowning hard. His frowns are of the micro variety just like his smiles, but boy they are consistent and Wei Wuxian and Xichen both know how to read them.

Wei Wuxian gives Lan Xichen a small, sunny smile--it seems genuine, not like the fake ones he's trotting out on demand for his family.

Then he gives Lan Wangji a pointed gaze of yearning and reproachfulness, which Lan Wangji returns, switching from frowning to a softer expression that seems about equal parts hurt, apology, and thirst.

Wei Wuxian reacts to that by bowing again and leaving, with Jiang Cheng quickly following, wondering what the fuck just happened.

Lans Xichen and Wangji pivot gracefully to watch them go, which Lan Wangji should know is not correct post-breakup behavior; you're supposed to act disinterested, my dude.

And then Lan Xichen asks Lan Wangji what the fuck is going on. Lan Wangji gets one more lie in, saying he's not worried about Wei Wuxian, before reapplying his frown and walking away from the conversation.

Macroexpression Brothers

OP was wrong about Wei Wuxian not hugging Jiang Cheng any more--here he is hanging on him just like the old days, and Jiang Cheng is shoving him off, just like the old days. However, it emerges that this is mostly an act that WWX is putting on to seem normal.

Jiang Cheng wants to know what's wrong between him and Lan Wangji, and asks why they broke up. Wei Wuxian points out that Jiang Cheng didn't like him dating Lan Wangji before, so why is he pushing him to get back together with him now, and Jiang Cheng says that now they're allies in a war, so Wei Wuxian needs to do his duty and help keep Lan Wangji in fighting trim, nudge nudge.

Then he starts lecturing Wei Wuxian about sword cultivation and generally good behavior, and Wei Wuxian theatrically nods and give him appraising looks, telling him he really seems like a clan leader now.

Jiang Cheng headshakes this away. Wei Wuxian actually giving Jiang Cheng a sincere compliment here, disguised as teasing, and he's not wrong. Jiang Cheng has matured and is becoming a strong leader. Not strong enough to ignore peer pressure, but that’s true of most clan leaders in this environment. They’re not supposed to ignore peer pressure.

Wei Wuxian is pointing it out for his own reasons - he doesn't want to be having this conversation - but it's nice to see him giving his clan leader his due.

Jiang Cheng walks away as Wei Wuxian smiles after him; as soon as he's out of sight the smile falls off of Wei Wuxian's face as fast as fast as gravity can take it. It's like someone snuffed a candle.

No one bites back as hard On their anger None of my pain and woe Can show through

But my dreams, they aren't as empty As my conscience seems to be I have hours, only lonely My love is vengeance that's never free

More Awkwardness

Lan Wangji and his ambivalence come looking for Wei Wuxian, standing outside his door and raising a hand to knock before changing his mind and fleeing.

Lan Wangji is on the back foot for the first time in his relationship with Wei Wuxian; this boy who pursued and pursued and PURSUED him is now a man who won't speak to him. This boy who hung on every one of his words, and saw through all of his minute facial expressions, has become a man who won't listen to him. Lan Wangji is in the position of pursuer, now, and it's not a role he's well equipped for.

Yanli stops him as he's bailing. He looks so relieved to see her, but he tries to escape immediately after greeting her. She stops him so she can ask what the fuck is going on.

Unfortunately, Wei Wuxian rolls up while Lan Wangji is in the middle of talking to her. He's telling her about the heterodox cultivation, and Wei Wuxian busts him. Wei Wuxian steps up and asks what he was telling her, and Lan Wangji says "Wei Ying," but doesn't get much further than that.

Nunya

Wei Wuxian reminds him that he told him to stay out of Jiang Clan business. Now, here I want to mention that "private" and "not your bidness" are culturally specific concepts. OP, for example, grew up in version of Irish-American culture so secretive that the problems of a person's life and (often) the cause of their death are things only discovered by whoever inherits their papers. [OP inherited 3 generations of letters a few years ago, and HOO BOY]

In the version of Chinese culture which we see in this drama, your choices, thoughts & troubles belong to the family and clan, not just to you. Wei Wuxian, in shutting his elder sister out of his struggles, is not family-ing correctly. Jiang Yanli is right to try to get around that by asking his friend. His friend is also right to give her--in sanitized form--the information she is asking for.

Wei Wuxian has zero trust in Lan Wangji at this point, unfortunately. He doesn’t know that Lan Wangji has been lying to cover for him; he just knows he’s being a grumpy aggressive holy roller. Now, when Lan Wangji has just been given permission to disregard all 3000 rules and look at a person’s heart, that person’s heart has been hardened against him.

Yanli is used to dealing with Wei Wuxian's moods at this point -- after all, a lifetime of Jiang Cheng has got her used to volatile little brothers, and Wei Wuxian is clearly a new, not-improved man since his return.

She tries to get him to chill out while Lan Wangji gives him a death glare -- not a return to the earlier generalized frown, more of a specific "I can't believe how full of shit you are" frown.

Wei Wuxian calls him Lan Er Gongzi, like a dick. Lan Wangji started this but at this point Wei Wuxian is kind of in the lead for who is being The Worst. Lan Wangji executes a beautiful 180 and walks away at top speed.

Wei Wuxian asks Yanli if he talked about Yiling and when she says he didn't, he realizes he fucked up.

He goes running after him and calls him Lan Zhan and says "listen to me" but Lan Wangji is no longer in a listening mood.

Eat A Dick Sword

Lan Wangji is so far in his feelings at this point that he just hauls out his sword and goes after Wei Wuxian, taking complete control of the interaction and forcing Wei Wuxian to concede the fight. Aww, he’s so angry! I love him.

This is a rough moment for Wei Wuxian. He really genuinely can't hold his own against Lan Wangji, unless he's going to directly use necromancy against him the way he does later in their final confrontation.

When they first met he was able to defend himself on the rooftop without drawing his sword, but he's weaker now; Chenqing is an adequate hand weapon against most cultivators and puppets, but it's not a match for Lan Wangji's full attack.

Wei Wuxian is not enjoying this fight, and can’t win in, so he just throws in the towel, exposing his throat and trusting Lan Wangji's control.

On the surface, this fight appears to re-establish their former rapport, but it puts them on such an uneven footing it might actually drive a larger wedge between them. I think that Lan Wangji has made a strategic error in doing this.

Lan Wangji seems to want to prove to Wei Wuxian that his new style of cultivation is inadequate, that he would do better with a sword. Swordplay was the beginning of their relationship; their matched power was the source of their mutual attraction. Lan Wangji can't accept that Wei Wuxian has given it up; he doesn't (yet) respect his agency enough to assume that he has a good reason.

This fight functions as yet another punishment that Lan Wangji doles out to Wei Wuxian; not a physical one, this time, but a psychological one, and their relationship pays the price.

By attacking Wei Wuxian and forcing him to concede, Lan Wangji is showing that they're unequal. By criticizing Wei Wuxian's lack of progress and asking him the same goddamn question everybody else is asking him -- where is your sword? -- Lan Wangji is humiliating him.

This encounter does not re-establish Wei Wuxian’s trust in him; it just forces him to accept Lan Wangji’s authority, for now. Which is not what either of them really wants.

Soundtrack: Behind Blue Eyes, by The Who

Writing Prompt: What would Wei Wuxian have said if Lan Wangji had listened to him instead of drawing his sword?

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #the untamed meta #cql #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #2810 word count

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katierosefun · 4 years

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well, even though literally no one asked, am i going to do a whole analysis on how the red album is also lowkey about tcw? sure. sh, let me indulge 12/13 year old me.

state of grace:

our wonderful opening track. the lyrics “just twin fire signs / four blue eyes”—from this line alone, i think a lot about anakin and ahsoka and obi-wan, just because what color are their eyes? blue. check and mate.

but on a more serious level: “and i never saw you coming / and i’ll never be the same” speaks to how each of these characters’ lives were interrupted by the presence of the other. obi-wan certainly didn’t expect anakin to come into his life, and i doubted anakin ever expected ahsoka to come into his life.

“love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right” and “these are the hands of fate / you’re my Achilles heel” speaks to how this whole theme of love and how both raw and burning and ruthless love can shine in this specific universe. specifically anakin’s kind of love. additionally, the idea of Achilles heel...i’ve already discussed the parallels between Achilles and anakin and don’t feel like rehashing, but it’s def. worth noting.

“this is the golden age of something good and right and real”...golden age. the war was messy and terrible and shouldn’t have ever happened, but also, i think for that brief moment, disaster lineage was at least together.

red

look me in the eye and lie to me about how this song doesn’t sum up the exhilarating rush that must have been being around someone like anakin skywalker.

“losing him was blue like i’ve ever known / missing him was dark grey all alone / forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met / but loving him was red”: this entire refrain is about that kind of ruthless, very fiery-seeing-red-everywhere kind of sensation that comes with love. (or, as the song alludes, a kind of dangerous love.)

and if we’re talking about dangerous kind of love—“fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there’s no right answer / regretting him was like wishing you never found out love could be that strong”...thinking thoughts about how there must have been all these times for the people around anakin to clash heads. bro. what even is that.

“remembering him comes in flashbacks, in echoes / told myself it’s time now, gotta let go”. ha ha. you ever think about the people who live after order 66 and wonder what the hell happened to the person they loved. ha.

treacherous

alright, time to put on the anidala hat. this song is supposed to be all about loving someone and constantly feeling like you’re sliding down a slippery slope. a treacherous path—a reckless path—and yet, and yet, “i like it”.

the whole concept of these two being put in a whirlwind romance matches perfectly with these lyrics: “i can’t decide if it’s a choice / getting swept away / i hear the sound of my own voice / asking you to stay”. this mess of a relationship that probably shouldn’t have happened, but it happened, and now the only choice for these two is to hold on...bro.

i knew you were trouble.

ohhhh god, do i need to explain how this is an anidala song or—

“i was in your sights / you got me alone / you found me”,,,the fact that anakin skywalker really looked at padmé amidala after ten years and automatically went “i love her”. a part of me will always sigh and want to pat anakin’s head that please, please, please control yourself, but what am i supposed to do anyways—

but also, the way this song also addresses all the dangerous things that come with a love that probably shouldn’t have started / shouldn’t have been born with so many secrets. the damning / basically self-loathing lyrics like “the joke is on me” and “shame on me now” is honestly kind of sad, and while i don’t think padmé ever regretted loving anakin (and i’ve covered this so many times, but i think anakin and padmé genuinely loved each other), there was def. a sense of constant danger and fear that one day, all the secrets will come tumbling out / something’s going to happen. and all that ultimately bubbles over in revenge of the sith, right when padmé looks at anakin and just doesn’t see him anymore.

all too well

tbh, this song deserves a whole long post on its own, but i’ll try to be concise. i genuinely think this could be about any of the tcw characters / tcw pairings, but because it’s my post and my obsession, i’ll discuss the disaster lineage. there’s something so quietly sad about the line “but you still got [my scarf] in your drawer, even now” and how that speaks to how obi-wan has anakin’s lightsaber / how anakin has ahsoka’s lightsaber both as himself and as ahsoka after ahsoka left the order / after order 66. the fact that you still have a piece of someone you love(d), long after they’re gone...

the fact that this song is so full of memories and longing and aching and grief over a loved relationship. thinking about the lyrics “you tell me about your past, thinking your future was me” is especially sad because while i don’t think anakin was ever completely open about his childhood / past, i like to think he must have told some stories to obi-wan and padmé and ahsoka about happier moments—and you have to wonder what kind of future anakin saw for himself with his loved ones.

“maybe this thing was a masterpiece until you tore it all up” speaks to how for a rare, rare moment, we see anakin skywalker as the hero we’re all supposed to like—and we see how it all crumbles apart so fast.

“but you keep my old scarf from that very first week / because it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me” hits especially hard when you think about how vader still has ahsoka’s lightsabers, or the fact that everything goes “back to when i loved you so / back before you lost the one real thing you’ve ever known”...thinking. a lot about anakin and how the love he felt / received from his friends were real, realer than anything that palpacreep could ever give him. it was all real, and now they’re all memories.

okay, this is just a fun song so i can’t really apply it anywhere, but i like to think there must have been a birthday somewhere along the line / some kind of happy event where there’s some chaotic tcw fam shenanigans. ditching the whole scene and “end[ing] up dreaming instead of sleeping”...i like to think they must have had some kind of happy moment like that.

i almost do

this song honestly reminds me the most of anakin and ahsoka. do you ever think that ahsoka might have wanted to reach out to anakin at some point? how “it takes everything in me not to call you”—how she might wish that she could talk to him again but every time she doesn’t, she almost does. (and ha. this makes their S7 reunion even more painful.)

the whole “i bet you think i either moved on or hate you” and “i bet it never ever occurred to you that i can’t say hello to you and risk another goodbye” speaks mostly to that very same reunion. the fact that ahsoka and anakin leave so many things unsaid—the fact that ahsoka restrains herself, cites that reason for the fact that they’ll just catch up another time...when that another time never happens.

we are never ever getting back together

hahaa, i can’t quite laugh about this but also i can because i kinda made a crack edit of disaster lineage + this song over the summer, and it really is just a joke but also...lol vader + ahsoka + obi-wan, but more specifically ahsoka and vader in their reunion in rebels lol. they’re never getting back together, geddit? they “used to think [they] were forever” and “[sigh] he calls me up again and is like i still love you and like,,,this is exhausting, you know?” yeah, me too sis. 🙄

stay stay stay

okay, okay, okay, maybe going a little bit into crack-y happy tcw feelings, but all i’m saying is that i love the image of these dorks staying for each other, you know? the whole “you took the time to memorize me” and “all those times that you didn’t leave / it’s been occurring to me i’d like to hang out with you for my whole life” and “no one else is gonna love me when i get mad” makes me kinda soft but also sad knowing that one of the tragedies of tcw fam is that no one really stays.

the last time

highkey the whole clovis arc in season 6. but anyways, especially the lines about “this is the last time i’m asking you this / put my name at the top of your list” speaks a lot to me about this hunger (yeah, this is @ anakin) to be someone’s first choice. it’s about the anger and jealousy and dull pain of knowing that everyone else’s priorities are elsewhere (and that’s not their fault, but you still feel like it is).

but if we’re thinking about the clovis arc especially, i think a whole lot about anakin + padmé, as well as anakin and obi-wan, esp. in these lyrics: “you wear your best apology / but i was there to watch you leave” and “all those times i let you in / just for you to go again”. we know anakin and padmé were...going through it in this arc, but specially anakin and obi-wan’s conversation—the one where obi-wan’s trying to reach anakin? we see obi-wan briefly open up (ie. about satine!) and anakin quickly shuts it down, and when obi-wan leaves, we see the pain on both of their faces because this wasn’t how the conversation was supposed to go.

but also, if we’re circling back to anakin and padmé’s relationship in this arc especially: the really, really painful lyrics about “this is the last time you tell me i’ve got it wrong” and “this is the last time i say it’s been you all along” and “this is the last time i let you in my door” and “this is the last time / i won’t hurt you anymore”...this arc truly explores just how deep the hurt can run when you have a secret relationship. how quickly love can blur into possession and jealousy and anger, and we see that in how anakin and padmé just...both crumble apart, especially in that one bit when padmé basically says she doesn’t want to see anakin for a little while. like. idk. it’s just sad, because this arc really showed just all the issues and problems within a relationship built on lies.

holy ground

oh god, what a fun song. but anyways, just to kick things off: “and darling, it was good / never looking down / and right there where we stood / was holy ground” speaks to a relationship that was good, even if it was wild and brief. which. disaster lineage.

the whole “i guess we fall apart in the usual way / and the story’s got dust on every page” and “i see your face in every crowd” vibe too—these idiots miss each other, and they probably see each other where they’re not supposed to. there was nothing unusual about their falling apart, of course, but something about this song compels me to think about how even in the grief and pain that ultimately drags ahsoka and obi-wan down especially, i think they still are fond of their happier memories with anakin.

also, “tonight i’m gonna dance for all we’ve been through” and “but i don’t wanna dance if i’m not dancing you” makes me a little sad because i think a lot about the fall of the empire and how the whole galaxy is out celebrating, but there’s a certain togruta woman who can’t completely celebrate because now she knows that. her whole family. really is gone.

sad beautiful tragic

this whole song is so tragic, but. anyways. more tragic disaster lineage vibes. the words “words, how little they mean / when you’re a little too late” makes me want to scream because i think a lot about how in rebels, ahsoka tells vader that she won’t leave him—not this time—and obi-wan crying that he loved anakin—the real tragedy here is that these were all words that anakin should have known deep down, but he didn’t, and they all felt late. their timing is terrible.

and “in dreams, i meet you in warm conversation” screams to me this one passage about how obi-wan dreams about anakin, although those dreams are anything but warm. but the idea of how obi-wan still dreams and how “time is taking its sweet time erasing you”—because in the kenobi novel especially, obi-wan explicitly struggles...a lot with anakin’s loss. he definitely gets...sad and tries to remember how the hell it all happened. he keeps pulling out anakin’s lightsaber and just. forcibly puts it away because he knows looking at it would cause just more grief and oh yikes.

the lucky one

ngl i forgot how fuckign good this song is,,,bro. anyways, i think this def. speaks to the og prequel trilogy trio especially, because i think they were all seriously going through with the whole...reputation thing. thinking mostly about how anakin, padmé, and obi-wan are all supposed to be these heroic / cool / beautiful figures who everyone’s supposed to look up to when in reality, they were all struggling with something. also lol the fact that obi-wan and anakin were both propped up as war propaganda figures in-universe because of palpacreep def. speaks to that whole “they’ll tell you now you’re the lucky one”.

and “they tell you that you’re lucky / but you’re so confused because you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used” and “you wonder if you’ll make it out alive” hurts the most, i think, just because how they apply to all those in prequel trilogy. anakin, obi-wan, and padmé—not to mention all the other jedi and the clones, oh god, the clones—were all fighting a war that ultimately didn’t matter, and they were all fighting a war that didn’t leave them as heroes. it just left them as pawns.

but i think if there’s any hope—any hope at all in this song, i think it’s in the last lyrics: “and they still tell the legend of how you disappeared / how you took the money and your dignity and got the hell out” reminds me the most of probably ahsoka and rex, or the people who survived the mess that was the clone wars. granted, rex didn’t exactly have the choice that ahsoka had, because she was the one who really made the big decision to look around herself and say “nope, i can’t be a part of this order”. she got the hell out.

everything has changed

hear me out, but i just think this makes for a cute anakin and ahsoka song, esp. their very cute beginnings. just like. as soon as they meet each other, both of them are ultimately changed. the fact that ahsoka has been noted to be the key to understanding who anakin is—the fact that it’s ahsoka’s relationship / interactions with anakin that ultimately makes him a better person because they’re siblings, your honor—yeah. very much the cute “all i know is we said hello”...the lyrics going on about “i just wanna know you better” and “your eyes look like coming home” makes me soft because. i think that while yes, they had their own rocky beginning, the difference between anakin and ahsoka’s relationship vs. anakin and obi-wan’s (rip i love anakin and obi-wan and i genuinely believe that obi-wan was the best teacher for anakin, and i think their bond is incredibly special, but.......boys please communicate better) is that i think anakin makes a really explicit effort to make sure ahsoka knows that like. he wants her around.

idk—i’m not saying obi-wan didn’t want anakin around! but i think one of the greatest tragedies of their relationship is that anakin always seemed to just. not click with obi-wan’s own demonstrations of love / i want you to be here messages. (the gambit duology goes a little more into this—only in those books, anakin and obi-wan actually talk a little about their feelings! which is nice!) but anyways, point being: anakin and ahsoka really looked at each other and were like “oh yeah. you’re my idiot now.” and i think that’s really cool of them.

starlight

oh god, this is kind of an anidala song but i also am tempted to say obitine song just because of that one line about “pretending to be a duchess and a prince” because,,,lol duchess geddit? and overall just think it’s really cute because. summer love!!!

but also, i do see this as an anidala song because “he was trying to skip rocks on the ocean, saying to me / don’t you dream impossible things?” because i see anakin as most certainly that dreamy-eyed boy who looks at padmé and is just. like that. (and we see a whole ton of that, esp. in aotc and how padmé initially is like “this is a terrible idea” and eventually winds up falling in love anyways, as one does.)

begin again

this song is odd because it doesn’t really give me overwhelming star wars feelings, but it does remind me a little bit of how ahsoka must have felt getting with the rebels crew. because i think ahsoka must have “watched it begin again” when she noted kanan and ezra’s interactions with each other, and i feel like when she’s with ezra, she sees a lot of the young padawan she used to be, and i think there must have been a point where she recognizes that “what’s past is past”. she’s watching everything begin again.

the moment i knew

this is another one of those songs that makes me sad about anidala because it seems like they’re always getting interrupted? the idea of being told that someone’s going to show but it might not happen because life (ie. war! there’s a war!),,,and still not being able to be really that sad about it in public makes me sad. just. i’m reminded of this one moment in tcw where anakin has to leave early because of something and just. the lyrics “what do you do when the one who means the most to you is the one who didn’t show”—like, of course, we see anakin sneaking off, but i def. think in that one tcw episode, we get a glimpse of. how lonely life might be if you’re just. waiting for someone to come home, only to realize that they might not show.

come back...be here

ha....hahahahaa weirdly both anakin and ahsoka and obitine feelings? give me a second.

okay, so as for anakin and ahsoka first: “i can’t help but wish you took me with you” hits hard just because of the time anakin tells ahsoka that he knows what it feels like to want to leave the order. just. oh god.

and then there’s this bit of “this is when the feeling sinks in / i don’t wanna miss you like this” hits hard, esp. considering the whole utapau arc where anakin accidentally slips in ahsoka’s name. he misses her, and i don’t think he really wanted to show that—but it sinks in so hard and fast for him, and it hurts so much oh god

also, the “right when i was just about to fall”: i know that in this context, fall is supposed to mean falling in love, but. the fact that anakin is literally about to fall like,,,a few days after his reunion with ahsoka. i cry now!

as for obitine: ahahahaha. pain, esp. considering how they probably separated after their year on the run? thinking about how that goodbye must have been like—mostly thinking about how there’s so much history between the two. how strange it is that they “didn’t know each other at all”, and how they might have had “the feeling they could know so much without knowing anything at all”, and now i think about how both of them could have “stumbled through the long goodbye”. i think a lot about those years of separation and how satine confesses how she had been in love with obi-wan for a long time—and how that in itself...wondering how or when satine knew for certain that she had fallen in love with the young jedi who came to her aid. thinking about how her “falling in love in the cruelest way” is how that whole falling in love—and realizing just how in love she was—is so cruel, because like. you know. when you’ve been in love / are loving someone for like...ten years....that’s kinda intense ngl

girl at home

lol this song doesn’t really fit with anything star wars related because i don’t think anyone in tcw would actually cheat on their loved ones? still 100000/10 a bop of a song though, and i still think it’s one of swift’s more mature songs, 10000/10 recommend.

#caroline talks #my essay #can you believe i spent 2.5 hours writing this

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amphtaminedreams · 4 years

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Farewell to Spooky Season, AHS Style: Lookbook no.12

Hi to anyone reading,

Happy belated Halloween!

I capitalise it because if I'm gonna recognise any day as sacred, it’s the spookiest one of the year! Halloween 2020 obviously hasn’t been as exciting as usual, parties and club nights being banned has meant there’s been far less opportunities to dress up, but I still managed to get out for the night before they announced the upcoming second lockdown and do a couple of spooky movie nights (and carve a pumpkin!)!

I originally intended for this lookbook to be last minute halloween costume inspo but I was lazy and didn’t manage to get it out on time-a lot of these looks minus the makeup and maybe an accessory or two could work on any day or night out so I thought I’d go ahead and post it now anyway. Celebrating the fashion moments of American Horror Story is something I’ve wanted to do for a while; it’s probably not the first show you’d think of for sartorial inspiration but Mr. Ryan Murphy has fucking fantastic taste in stylists and the first five seasons of AHS in particular, which I’ll be focussing on in this post, have given us SO many amazing looks. The man may be guilty of many things-subjecting us to the character of Will Schuester, trying to turn Richard Ramirez into a thirst trap, embarrassing everyone who raved about how good Scream Queens was when he wrote season 2-but costume related laziness is not one of them. We see more consistency in a Ryan Murphy character’s wardrobe than we do in their story arcs and I respect that because honestly, as much as I love joining in when it comes to ripping into his ability to cohesively bring an AHS season to a close when it airs, I’d probably be the same; if you put Lady Gaga in front of me and told me to write her lines I’d probably end up getting overly invested in what her character was going to be wearing in the scene too.

So! Enough Ryan Murphy bashing from me! I’ll get on with it! Starting with 3 season 1 inspired looks:

Murder House: Elizabeth Short, Tate Langdon and Violet Harmon

-striped jumper from caitlinlark on Depop, kick flare jeans from ellagray-

When it comes to reflecting on season 1 of American Horror Story, all I can say do is thank the internet overlords that Tumblr has moved on from the romanticising school shooters and wearing normal people scare me tops phase to instead collectively taking the piss out of the “GO AWAY, TATE!”, “YOU’RE ALL THAT I WANTTT! YOU’RE ALL THAT I HAVEEE!” exchange.

In terms of fashion *moments*, whilst season 1 doesn’t stand out as much as the seasons that come after, Violet and Tate’s wardrobes did give birth to a bit of a 90s grunge renaissance with their oversized knits and faded jeans and layering of textures. It did also give us good costumes in the form of Alexandra Breckenridge’s Moira O’Hara and Mena Suvari’s portrayal of the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short; unfortunately, I didn’t have a slutty maid costume lying around so I did the best I could at giving the outfit Elizabeth wears when she makes that fateful visit to the Murder House a modern, more party appropriate update.

In terms of season rankings, Murder House isn’t my favourite. It starts off really great but lulls a bit towards the end and I could never get behind Violet and Tate as a couple because you know, one of them is a school shooter who sexually assaults the other’s mum, and that’s a hurdle that I think most couples might struggle to get over irl. That being said, it was the season that started it all and showcased some of the most innovative writing and directing on TV, and it opened up a spot for horror on primetime television which as far as I know was kind of unheard of before then. Back when I first watched it, I had no idea what to expect not only because I’d never seen horror in a serial format but also because it seemed to be able to get away with the kind of storylines you’d expect network executives to fire people over. It introduced us to Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters and Denis O’Hare who would go on to make the show what it is today and more importantly, through Jessica’s glorious portrayal of Constance Langdon, provide us with an endlessly versatile meme format for this trying time.

Asylum: ‘60s Lana Winters, ‘70s Lana Winters, and Sister Mary Eunice McKee

-afghan coat from louisemarcella on Depop, red AA skater dress from julietramage, pink gingham co-ord from zshamim-

I think we can all agree: Asylum would’ve been a perfect series of television if it wasn’t for the completely unnecessary alien storyline. Like, I get that they fit in with the whole good vs. evil theme as a kind of non-biblical alternative to the idea of a higher, all-powerful being but there was already so much going on that it just wasn’t needed. Aside from that, I think the general consensus amongst watchers of the show is that Asylum has the best writing of any season and I think I’d tend to agree. It’s not my favourite because it’s too depressing to rewatch but if we’re talking the first time round, this is the series that had me hooked. Lana Winters?

Iconic.

Sister Mary Eunice? Iconic. The Name Game? Iconic. Remember when you couldn’t go a day on Facebook without seeing that one photo of Naomi Grossman as Pepper used as the go to “what I really look like” photo in one of those “expectation vs. reality” style posts on your newsfeed? Those were simpler times.

Because this season was mostly situated within the hospital, we didn’t get that many proper outfits but when we did, they were stunning; if I had to state my absolute favourite AHS character of the entire show I’d probably go with Lana Winters and the part her wardrobe played in her characterisation would 100% play a part in that. The late 60s/early 70s was such a wonderful period for fashion and through her character we get to see both of those explored a little. Of course there’s also *that* Sister Mary Eunice scene with the red slip dress and suspenders too which yes, could be a perfect halloween costume, but I also strongly believe should be a perfectly acceptable outfit for any day of the year.

Coven: Misty Day, Madison Montgomery, and Zoe Benson

-chiffon dress from rags_to_riches on Depop, pinstripe corset from hanpiercey, and tennis skirt from mollie_morton-

I hate to be a basic bitch but I have to say it: Coven is my favourite season of American Horror Story. Once you get over the complete waste of Evan Peters’ acting capabilities that resulted from the *choice* to have him play Kyle, the unnecessary rehash of the Evan/Taissa pairing from season 1 in what I can only assume was an attempt to capitalise on the popularity of the questionable Tate/Violet relationship, and the subsequent sacrifice of any interesting character arc we could’ve foreseen for Zoe Benson beyond her obsessing over a resurrected, non-verbal frat boy, it’s a perfect season. A supreme (heh) balance of horror, humour, and character drama, as well as the stunning aesthetics and forever quotable dialogue, make it my go-to season if I’m ever considering a rewatch. And if you disagree, let me jog your memory with the most mainstream (not to get all “normal people scare me” and suggest AHS is not a mainstream show, I literally just mean in the sense that even those who have never watched the show will have seen this) reaction GIF set any FX show has even spawned:

Buzzfeed employees had a field day, Emma Roberts enthusiasts (I mean me) finally saw her cemented as the pop culture icon Scream Queens has since showed us she deserves to be (because not enough people have seen Unfabulous, Nancy Drew or Scream 4) and the gays everywhere rejoiced at the year’s worth of meme fodder they’d been provided with. It was Madison Montgomery’s world and we were truly just living in it.

And the fashion! I mean, Stevie Nicks meets 21st century teenage witches! Come on!

Freakshow: Dandy Mott, Maggie Esmerelda and Elsa Mars

-olive green satin skirt from morganogle on Depop, headscarf from tonijordan, platform sandals from elliefewt, PVC skirt from bethpin_, corset top from sadieflinter, beret from house_of_erotique, flame detail platform boots from mad_rags_vintage-

When people talk about the declining quality of AHS, they usually point to Freakshow as the beginning of the end, but I have to completely disagree. I wasn’t a fan the first time round but on rewatch it’s probably the most emotional season of them all; no, there aren’t as many “horrifying” moments as in other seasons and Elsa is probably Jessica’s worst performance (which is still an incredible one by anybody else’s standards), however it makes up for it with the most sympathetic bunch of characters yet, and on the flip side, also one of the most amusingly depraved with Finn Wittrock’s Dandy Mott. Fans usually argue that the season went downhill once *SPOILER* Twisty the Clown was killed off but for me, he really primarily served as the catalyst for the far more interesting devolution of Dandy, who, imo, is the show’s strongest villain to date, rivalled only by Bloody Face. Then there was the episode Orphans too which made me cry buckets, the sole AHS episode to do so.

We got a lot of great fashion content in this season too: the theatrical opulence of Elsa Mars’ wardrobe, “Maggie”’s nomadic fortune teller costumes, and all those twee suits we saw Finn Wittrock in. Highly underrated if you ask me. It seems an odd choice for me to use Elsa’s Dominatrix look as an inspiration for one of my looks here when we have that Life on Mars performance outfit and all the extravagant robes Jessica got to waltz around in for reference buuuut I didn’t really have anything to do the vibrancy of either of those justice so I went with the black leather option which is much more me. Am I saying I moonlight as a dominatrix? Maybe. Lol, no. I wish. It’s not for lack of trying. WHERE ARE ALL THE GENUINE TWITTER PAYPIGS AT!? Your girl wants to insult creepy men and get some new clothes out of it xoxo

Hotel: Hypodermic Sally, Liz Taylor, and The Countess

-silk white bralet from xlibby_maix on Depop-

Hotel is another season that I liked a lottttt more upon rewatch, once I knew I was okay to tune out the (completely predictable and utterly nonsensical) Ten Commandments Killer storyline that so much of the season initially seems to hinge on. I love Chloë Sevigny but the fact that her and Wes Bentley’s wooden John and Alex Lowe are positioned as the protagonists at the expense of the far more interesting Liz Taylor, James March and Hypodermic Sally really does a disservice to what is an otherwise great season upon initial viewing.

The visuals this season are magnificent and I think if I had to pick one character’s wardrobe to steal from the entire cast of AHS characters, it would be The Countess (a toss up between her and Misty Day tbh, so I kinda just settle for low-key channelling both). No fucking idea where I'd wear any of her clothes to but I’d make it work. Liz Taylor and Hypodermic Sally have some amazing looks too-there’s just honestly so much to choose from; that being said, this post wouldn’t be complete without a specific ode to the vampire goddess Elizabeth Bathory, who is everything I want to be in life minus the murderous qualities:

Everything. EVER-Y-THING. LOOK AT HER!

Lady Gaga is really a fucking goddess isn’t she. And people were claiming before they’d even seen it that she couldn’t act? A patriarchal society doesn’t like women that can do it all. Just saying.

Anyways!

That’s it for now! I hope you enjoyed the post if you did read til the end! Sorry I couldn’t get this out before Halloween, I was typing and Picmonkey-ing madly from 2 in the afternoon on the 31st but I taking fucking forever to get ready and had to abandon all hope of getting it out on the day by 4PM. I’ve got so much content planned and it sucks because a couple of them are lookbooks which now feel completely redundant given we’re heading into a second lockdown, but maybe I should just do it anyway? The grunge inspired moodboard I just did seemed to get a good reception too so I’ve got some more of them planned.

As always, hope everyone is keeping well, and feel free to inbox me with any suggestions, queries or even just to say hi if you need someone to talk to! I check here quite a lot so I should see it. Lots of love to everyone in this time!

Lauren x

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sword-and-lance · 3 years

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((aight so now I’ve slept on Endwalker a bit and I’m just gonna ramble on about it as a whole, don’t mind me

okay so might as well split this up into sections lmao or this is gonna have even less structure than my rambles usually do

Early Game (up to the moon basically):

sure did good at setting up a bunch of mysteries in a compelling manner

Thavnair was pretty damn fun even if the distinct lack of Aetheryte access in the city was. annoying lol

Vrtra is Best Lizert and Matsya is my new buddy buddy :3

Sharlayan was alright in terms of story and whatnot, it is however a place that Dae would 100% be canonically driven fucking batshit by though

...the entire Garlemald section can fucking miss me though

“omg are we the baddies uwu” I’m sorry since when were we gleefully shoving people into concentration camps and wanking on about our racial superiority to literally everyone else on earth and running around conquering literally everyone because oh you’re just too STUPID to take care of yourselves and we know what’s good for you and--

okay okay you get the point, tl;dr no we’re not on that fucking level even with the “beast tribe” stuff go to hell

also not a fan in the slightest, on a philosophical level, of being made to try and force help on people who clearly do not want it, but that was fairly IC so can’t be too pissy about it I guess

was genuinely hilarious to see even Garleans like oh ffs don’t try to shock collar the WoL she’s probably into that by now

kinda annoying that we’re faced with like, what, not even a dozen guards when we’re routinely headwhacking double that number in one go but oh well plot gotta plot

also not too annoyed with how the Quintus thing sussed out, it sure was a way to point out just how up their own asses a whole number of the Garleans still fucking are

coulda used a TW there though even if it was pretty well-telegraphed as to uh what was about to happen

Good lord I wasn’t expecting that Anima thing to be Varis that was horrifying good job

Do wish they had touched on the imperial cult stuff though, woulda been cool to see FF’s interpretation of the IRL imperial cult of the Roman Empire, which all Garlemald is clearly based on

also that bodysnatching duty was severely annoying and didn’t so much set the mood as sorta wreck it for me, especially given that everyone IC just kinda. brushes past it all “oh okay it’s you again no worries” which was very strange

like are we not gonna be a BIT more concerned that Zenos knows how to bodyjack people now c’mon

ANYWAY

Mid Game (up to Elpis):

The moon is so goddamn pretty wtaf

Zodiark being not even a mid-game boss was. a bit odd. but I guess they had already hammered on Zodiark enough in ShB so it would’ve been mildly weird to rehash it too hard here--just feels odd doing this not back to back with ShB pacing-wise, given that I’m doing this on-release and not significantly post-release like I did with, say, HW

that trial was actually kinda fun too ngl, mildly difficult without being headbangingly hard for DF (Titania I’m looking at you)

Actually kinda a fan of killing Zodiark starting the Final Days--we’ve spent so damn long just cutting off the leadership of so many enemies and having that work that having that actually fucking backfire and hardcore was a nice change

the Loporrits were. alright. at first but I will say as time went on that definitely started to be a bit of a pace killer, though not as terrible as later on which I will definitely get to trust me

the Final Days plotlines were suitably fucking horrifying in Thavnair and I appreciate No Vowels Dragon having a good deal of character development there

The visit back to the First was fucking great omg I just wish it had lasted longer and had a little more...substance

also a minor gripe about the 85 dungeon, I do wish the team would make those indicators a bit brighter so I can like. see them. and also I should not have to put my camera practically on the ground to see a major mechanic omg

Late Mid Game (basically Elpis lol):

This entire section was A+ okay leave me alone

I just want to live here 5 ever basically

That was a nice mix of showing how damn great...but also how damn horrifying that the Ancients’ world no I’m not gonna try to spell that right now lol really was, in that they were oddly blithe about dying and weren’t really too appreciative of the whole living thing with only a few exceptions which yeah is kinda fucked up

also very pleased that Nemesis’ entire shtick of “maybe we should treat these living beings as living beings and not things” was kinda validated despite me not knowing thing one about this whole plot they were planning lol

as much as I bitch about Hermes being a shit scientist and an even more shit philosopher...I do kinda like the idea that their own bureaucracy came back to bite them, I mean the man was basically a “manager” and therefore got allowed to dick around a lot more than he should have despite not really doing the right things there

for real you gonna just make beings of pure emotion that have people-like thoughts and are basically small children and just. yeet them all into space. sir that was maybe a bad idea

someone like him being a manager is way too fuckin real though, way too fuckin real -cries in engineering-

that said that was probably the point was that Hermes wasn’t thinking his plans all the way through and maybe wasn’t as great at his job as people thought he was or even he thought he was

the execution of these ideas just kinda gaps out on actually mentioning any of this though so yeah I have some shit to fix in metaphorical post here

is kinda weird that your big memory erasure device doesn’t have a killswitch too lmao

yes yes I get it, time travel makes everything go bang if you don’t go with predestination theory and/or bootstrap theory, but yeah

I’ll get into Meteion being the Big Bad later tl;dr I like the idea just not the execution

also DRK has been right there you’d think this Dynamis stuff woulda come up before dammit, in fact that’s actually what my headcanon has been for literal years is that there’s aether that’s heavily affected by emotion (and I was at least mostly right on that one), that coulda been foreshadowed WAY better than just. suddenly sticking it in the last expac of the major story lol

that entire cutscene after you leave Elpis took me the fuck out by the way, I’m gonna be thinking about that for years

just holy shit man

Late Game:

okay here’s where the pacing screeches to a grinding halt more than once and I do not particularly appreciate that

I get why in a story logic sense but that was certainly. a choice. that someone made on the pacing there

and here’s where the Loporrits kinda start being grating rather than endearing like yes hi we’re currently attempting to stop the world from getting a-slaughtered maybe we can explain shit about it after we do that

especially when it feels very much like just busywork between plot beats which you...generally wanna disguise that at least a bit?

like no, getting hammered relentlessly over the head with EVERYTHING SUCKS BEAVIS LOL is bad for you too because it just gets exhausting at that point, but jesus christ they coulda found something a bit better to do there for a break than be the Literal Bridge Bunnies’ errandboy and encyclopedia

basically the Fae did this whole shtick a lot better IMO

that said: I do actually quite like that we get the ship running because we have a lot of relationships and friendships with people

some people might call that cheesy as hell but like, so is “one lone OP weirdo just overpowers everything to beat the big bad”

they got their strengths and weaknesses but frankly we don’t see enough of “you win because you work together” outside of literal kids’ media so I’ll take this

oh and backtracking a bit, Hydaelyn’s trial and stuff was just -chefkiss- and Soken continues to stick his music in my fucking skull with that final rendition of Answers and the story continues to stick me in my feelings sometimes, good job

the ship launch was also pretty neat to watch and I love the idea of proper godsummoning even if that has to raise a l o t of religious questions given the method they’re using to bring them up? I mean I may be agnostic but c’mon I’d have some questions if some long-dead civilization’s magic could literally make my god appear and that was just Tuesday for those guys. Also might object to literally using them as a battery but again maybe I’m just overthinking that bit

aaaaaand here’s where Meteion starts running into trouble too but let me get to that in the next section

tension in that scene leading up to UT was nice though aside from that, A+

End Game:

okay so Ultima Thule...’s skybox is gorgeous

but damn I wish the ground was a wee bit easier to see lmao me and my astigmatism don’t appreciate the sheer amount of dark there

also that was Certainly A Choice in names that someone uhhhh maybe shoulda googled first before using it, because Yikes bro maybe should not be using that considering how much N-zi shit is getting more and more popular

anyway

ngl some of the heavyhandedness with the despair and shit was maybe a bit much for my blood, but I’m also aware I’m not exactly neurotypical and have a multitude of Issues there so eh maybe that was why it was getting just exhausting at that point

certainly got the point across I can’t fault it there though

very nice to actually show us some aliens too aside from the dragons and the Omegabots (TM), even if I wished they’d stop plinking their heads off every five minutes lmaoooo

also wasn’t aware that one could somehow give a robot an existential crisis but damn if they didn’t manage to do it in a somewhat believable way!

also ffs I will repeat we’ve had DRK there this whole time I don’t think that dynamis/feelsaether/etc should be THIS much of a mystery to everyone but okay fine

and here’s where I have to talk about Meteion finally because just

look I absolutely adore this idea. that a collective being that is literally living empathy soars out into space, only to find that everything else is dead, every other civilization has ended itself or been ended

and I love that living empathy accumulating and reflecting the sheer despair of a billion billion souls, all dead from their own hubris or apathy or foolishness, screaming at you that this is all there is, the universe is a horrible uncaring place destined to just die and end and no one will even know life ever existed--

it’s very Lovecraftian of them actually I loved it a lot, especially since it’s kinda tragic for the Meteion we meet in Elpis because she had no choice in doing it either and was just the first victim to have her brain ripped out and replaced with something much, much worse

...in theory I loved it, anyway, in execution it basically made Meteion your typical supervillain which was. boring really and underwhelming

man they coulda made that whole concept truly horrifying but jinked away from actually doing that and that was disappointing because the idea is solid AF

also while Estinien sacrificing himself (seemingly, anyway) actually got me, the complete undercutting of the tension with the story like right after that actively pointing out HEY REMEMBER THE AZEM CRYSTAL? was kinda unneeded I think

I mean yeah I was thinking it but still

Hyth and Emet got me again in the end though even if I was quite disappointed to see them go (yeah I Get It but still)

and I already angerposted about that last dungeon and trial last night but you know what, I stand by those words, that single handful of mechanics actually ruined the experience enough that I couldn’t even really feel much at the end

I just kinda wanted to ‘go home’ at that point okay, I just spent like an hour and a half to two hours getting my ass kicked in deeply aggravating ways--and I do fucking EX trials, mind you, it’s not that it’s hard, hard I can handle, it was that it was unfair and unfair just ruins the experience wholesale

quite a nasty contrast to Amaurot, which was perfectly settled on that line of “hard” and “unfair” except for that single dumbass laser mechanic, so it enhanced the experience rather than detracted from it (though yeah Hades felt a bit undertuned at the time I will give people that)

so yeah those debuffs in the dungeon need to be tuned down a hair, make ‘em a nasty DoT or something not a fucking instakill and make that AoE timing and the indicators a bit less ?????? to fucking look at thanks?

and that damn planet mechanic in the trial just. needs a longer indicator OR a more obvious “it’s going over here” thing, because fuck sake I STILL cannot predict that one even watching videos of the damn fight

it’s so weird because Zodiark and Hydaelyn were pleasantly difficult without being assholish

anyway. yeah by the end I didn’t even really feel much for Meteion which is a bit of a shame given that the idea is so fucking solid, and the expansion’s overarching theme of nihilism’s “sure there’s no intrinsic goodness in the universe so life is what you make of it even in the face of despair” is amazing AF and actually pretty fucking relevant to a lot of shit a lot of us have been going through as of late

or maybe I’m just projecting hardcore but anyway

and yeah then there’s Zenos, just. poor bastard

he just felt so shoehorned in in the latter half of the expac, and I actually LOL’d when he showed up as Shinryu all HEY. WOL. YOU BUSY. ARE YOU BUSY. :( I WANNA FITE :(

and I am also 200% not a fan of how we just...gave him what he wants instead of going LOL BYE FELICIA and just leaving his ass there

that coulda been a real interesting plot thing to do, to have him constantly getting fightcockblocked and having to find something fucking else to do, but anyway that might just be a personal gripe

the little end credits thing with your WoL is a very lovely touch and made me a little wibbly I will say

So yeah overall I still stand by calling it a mixed bag, might put it at HW’s level on some things but definitely below it in others

And ShB still beats ‘em all

but all three, EW and HW and ShB, still beat fucking Stormblood hands down lmao

and are still more engaging than ARR

so y’know what I’m not mad, really, and that’s all I wanted out of the end of this major story was to not be pissed ;-; my standards are in the floor at this point

especially given the sheer amount of STUFF this expac gave me to play with on a writing level, I’m not mad at all about that, holy shit I’m real excited and I haven’t been that excited since I started dicking around in the 00 AU))

#; ooc thingamabobs #6.0 spoilers #spoilers

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murasaki-murasame · 4 years

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Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep24 [Final]

Technically this is the final episode of Gou, but we’re getting a sequel later this year, so what I said last week about pretending to be surprised about this not being the end of the whole story still applies, lol.

Thoughts under the cut.

Even though this is the season finale, there honestly isn’t a whole lot to talk about with this episode, and it doesn’t even necessarily feel like a conclusion to the current arc. I wonder if it’s like Re:Zero’s second season, which was originally planned to be two consecutive cours, but got made into a split-cour because of production delays, which lead to the end of ‘part one’ feeling anti-climactic because it was only meant to be the middle episode of the season.

But on the note of the sequel, we now know it’ll start airing in July, which is kinda interesting since several different TV stations had already leaked the existence of at least one more cour of episodes immediately after this one, so I get the feeling that it was originally meant to start in April, but got pushed very recently to July. Considering that Gou already got delayed a season because of production delays, it’d make sense if Sotsu was originally meant to air in April after a one season break, but now it’s getting delayed as a consequence of Gou also being delayed.

I wasn’t 100% convinced about the rumors and leaks related to Sotsu, but it’s been pretty obvious for a while now that we were getting some sort of sequel, so this isn’t really a surprise. I’m curious to see if Sotsu will be one cour or two cours long, though. Usually split cour anime have both ‘halves’ be the same length, but I’m not really sure if there’s another two cours worth of material left in the story, now that so much has been revealed. But this whole arc has been way slower than I thought it’d be, so for all I know they might spend two whole cours just on explaining how the question arcs worked, and wrapping things up.

On the one hand it’s almost funny to think that we might get multiple arcs in Sotsu dedicated to explaining the Gou question arcs before we even return to the cliffhanger from Nekodamashi, but on the other hand it’d be nice to get a lot of time dedicated to those arcs, if it at least means that characters like Rena, Mion, and Shion get more screen-time and development. The trailer that’s been posted for Sotsu already hints at more Rena content, so that’s exciting.

I’m not entirely sure what to expect from the answer arcs, though, since unlike with the original VN it kinda feels like we can already piece together exactly what happened in each arc just from what we’ve learned in this one. It seems like basically every arc just boils down to ‘Satoko steals a syringe of H-173 and sets up a new ‘culprit’ in each arc to make Rika feel like she’s trapped in her loop of tragedy again’. So I feel like there just isn’t a whole lot to explain about that, especially since all of the arcs should have basically the same ‘solution’.

I know that at this point this is just a full on sequel, but I kinda hope they go back over material from Tsumihoroboshi and Meakashi in order to do more with Rena and Shion, even if it wouldn’t be new info for people who’ve read the VN. Unless things go in some really wild and unexpected directions, I think that’d be the only real way to do a whole set of answer arcs.

Realistically, the thing that will probably add some spice to the answer arcs is the whole plot point being introduced recently of Satoko’s loops causing permanent character development in everyone around her. So on top of probably going over a lot of existing material from the VN answer arcs, there should be new stuff that goes into the effects of having characters like Rena, Mion, and Shion remember more and more about previous loops, and how that influenced their actions in the question arcs. I don’t really know how much that’d impact the actual mechanisms of how each arc played out and how the murders and stuff worked, but from a narrative standpoint it’d be fun to see how this whole thing plays out.

And to be honest, even though this is a sequel that doesn’t really work properly for new fans, I could totally see them spending a lot of time more or less rehashing stuff from the VN that we already know about. It kinda feels like from day one they’ve been making genuine attempts to include enough info from the VN to make this accessible for new fans, but it doesn’t really work out properly.

On the whole topic of the permanent character development thing, I think it’s actually a really neat plot point, although it does feel like it answers enough of the mysteries that there isn’t really anything left to explain about how the question arcs worked. But I think the whole concept of people’s development piling up and persisting across time like some kind of supernatural entropy is really interesting, and it’s already something that was established in the VN. Basically the whole reason Rika even managed to win originally was because everyone was slowly remembering old loops. Gou just took that idea and decided to take it to it’s logical extreme.

I also like how it plays into the whole idea that Rika and Satoko’s goals are completely incompatible with each other, and only one of them is going to be able to ‘win’. Satoko’s looping is causing the people creating Rika’s tragedy to change their minds and back off, which is exactly what Rika would want, but it’s not what Satoko wants. She wants to keep Rika stuck in this loop until she gives up on leaving the village, and having characters like Teppei and Takano grow up and abandon their evil deeds is a hindrance to her plans.

It also helps clarify that Satoko started taking a more active role in causing the tragedies in each loop because the other people who would otherwise trigger those things aren’t involved anymore, so she has to step in and do it herself. Which is kinda morbidly funny in a way, but it does help explain why she wasn’t just sitting back and letting the ‘original’ tragedy play out each time.

This episode also more or less explains why Takano apparently had a change of heart and abandoned her goals, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, but I think I like how they handled it. It’s probably something that would have worked better in a VN format that could dedicate more time to her thought process, but I liked how it was triggered by her reading her grandfather’s letter. The whole concept of the scrapbook and the letter kinda feels like something Ryukishi came up with when writing Gou to make things work, but the important part is just that the final straw to changing her mind was to do with her grandfather not wanting his research to become a burden for her. I was kinda worried that they’d just have Satoko give some kind of lecture to Takano that would somehow change her mind, but it makes a lot more sense that it didn’t even really have to do with Satoko. And ironically, Satoko probably didn’t even want her to change her mind, since now she has to do everything herself, lol.

I think they probably should have done a bit more to hammer in the idea that Takano was slowly pushed towards a place of uncertainty and doubt over the course of the loops, though. At least with Teppei we got a whole montage of him having memories of violently dying as a result of his own awfulness, but we only saw Takano have one memory of Matsuribayashi, which she didn’t even seem all that fazed by, and then she has one sentimental moment that totally changes her mind about her entire goal in life. That feels more like a pacing problem than a fundamental issue with the idea of Takano being able to change her mind about things, but there’s only so much they can do in the time-frame of an anime. I do kinda feel like this whole arc in particular could have been more efficiently paced, though. At least in hindsight, I think the whole St. Lucia’s section should have been shorter [but also more intensely depressing for Satoko, to really drive home how she felt after it all], and more time should have been spent on the second half of the arc.

Anyway, this episode also gives us even more increasingly blunt hints that Satoko is literally just Lambdadelta, so that’s fun. I know there’s a lot of debate about it, but at this point it feels like Ryukishi is going out of his way to make it happen, so I don’t really think it’s some kind of elaborate misdirection. I don’t really expect the connection to get much more explicit than it is right now, but who knows. Things might get really weird in Sotsu.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi gou

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mikumoduleoftheday · 4 years

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I also have... thoughts on the new Mirai game. Don’t get me wrong — I played it for 6 hrs straight w/o realizing bc it was so fun and I’ve been waiting for it to come out in English we since they made the announcement for the Japanese version. 💖 But Project Mirai DX’ on 3DS controls are waaaay more comfortable for me and seem more in sync With the right and left hand?? I don’t really know how to explain... What are your thoughts on it??

I will NEVER stop my promoing for Project Mirai DX. I want Project Diva to be MORE like Project Mirai. I genuinely wanted a new, amazing installment of Project Mirai on the Switch as opposed this Diva game. This is my unpopular take and I will not repent for it. Also, I hope you realize what a wall of text you unleashed by asking for my thoughts.

About Mirai vs Diva in general:

The use of the track that notes were placed on in Project Mirai was so good and I really miss it going into Diva. The random placement of upcoming notes in Diva, especially with busy background pvs or fast notes, leaves me scrambling sometimes. Not to mention the way the track would be incorporated as almost another level to the PV in some songs, like it tracing rabbit shapes in Lots of Laugh or making liberal use of the rainbow colored hold bonuses in Reverse Rainbow. It really felt like an extra level of care from the creators.

Also the timing is so much harder in Diva oh my god. Project Diva is so demanding. Janitor Mod enjoyed the few songs that had an Extreme Mode chart in Mirai, but is struggling with Hard Mode in Diva. (Edit: I found out recently that her issue is most likely caused by lag from the joy-cons while I had the Switch hooked up to the TV. There’s a way to calibrate your lag, although I wish the game would have told you up front about the option kinda like Taiko no Tatsujin does. It really seems either playing in handheld mode or with a wired procontroller is the most recommended.) As someone who objectively sucks at rhythm games, it’s been kicking my butt.

I loved the level of customization in the outfits. The outfit swaps were not limited by character, only by gender. I think this would be appreciated a lot be people who’s favorite character is less loved in the outfit department too, it really expands the outfit selection when Meiko can wear the other girls’ clothes and whatnot. Not to mention that some outfits have recolorable sections that allowed you to really tie more disparate designs together.

Minor and inconsequential note in the grand scheme of things, Mirai felt like a bigger game with all of the tiny random things you could do, like the mini games and music editor and the buddy system. It probably doesn’t matter to people more invested in core rhythm gameplay, but even when I wasn’t in the headspace for rhythm games (or in a physical space that would prevent uninterrupted timed play), I still had other options to be engaged with. I miss that in Megamix.

About Megamix specifically:

Most of the issues I have are minor. This is my first Project Diva game, and as such, it doesn’t bother me in particular that its basically a simple rehash of Future Tone. I never had any of the previous games to get bummed that this is the same thing. Obviously, your mileage may vary. From what I’ve heard from others: don’t bother if you already have Future Tone really.

I’m also kinda peeved that there’s no physical English release, not even a limited preorder run. I’m a huge proponent of physical media for a few reasons, but come on. Previous English Diva series got physical releases.

I really dislike the art direction of the actual characters. I prefered the look of the models from Diva F and Diva X more than these. I just like the less exaggerated anatomy.

And yeah, the shader sucks. I tried not to hate it, but it does just look like someone was abusing the saturation sliders in a bad photoshop. It’s too bright and washes away already subtle facial features, almost always leaving them noseless. Characters look especially out of place in any stage that isn’t entirely abstract lights or shapes, as the backgrounds seem to use a different shader? If they really wanted to use the toon shader for the whole game, I wish at least they would have used the Diva F models. I think the simpler style of those models would have fit better at least.

Also, why no new modules besides Catch the Wave?? I know that the ones that stick to 2D pvs are by choice of the producer, but what about the 3D pvs? Seriously why couldn’t they have added Magical Mirai 2016 in for 39 Music?? They already have the design for it. No new design for Alien Alien, nothing for Teo or Hibana. And Roki just reuses the modules that are for Kodoku no Hate.

I personally don’t find any of the the DLC packs as enticing enough to actually buy. None of them have more than one or two songs I want. This will obviously vary on your taste.

I can’t wait for touch play mode to be added to the English version, I really preferred tap mode in Mirai so I’m was really pleasantly surprised to hear it would be added to Megamix.

That said, the menus are clean and mostly user-friendly with the exception of a few confusing names. The game play is fun, the load times are quick, and the song choices are safe but fine. Very Miku heavy, but that’s what I like. The shader means Future Tone’s unholy lighting bloom issue is reeled in (even it just looks bad in a new and different way). I’m glad the hairstyles are interchangeable even if I miss Mirai’s outft swaps not being character locked. The important points of it, you know, being a rhythm game are good. I’m just forever, and probably annoyingly, bogged down in aesthetics.

Post Touch Play addition edit: The system for choosing Touch Play vs button mode, quite frankly I’m sorry, fucking sucks. Having it be buried under layers of menus instead of a separate category like Mix Mode is infuriating. Just have the option come up along with the other two in the selection page. If you didn’t know it was an option, you would never find Touch Play. You would never even know about this whole game mode. As for how the mode actually plays, it’s fine. It feels really crowded on the bottom of the screen, but I’m not sure how else I would have done it? I don’t actually know which I prefer, button or touch screen.

I hope that if you’ve never played a Project Diva game before due to not having a Playstation, that you can get Megamix, I certainly don’t regret the purchase.

#Anonymous #haha sorry for the long post but you asked and i love to talk #not a module #answers #mikumod

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ais-n · 4 years

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Why do Boyd/Hsin work? (anon ask)

I moved this ask over from a different place where the person sent a number of questions, as they were unable to get it to fit in tumblr’s space restrictions. In case they didn’t want their name known, I’m referring to them as an anon. But I thought they had good questions others may be curious about as well so I’ll be putting them (and the answers) over here.

ANON ASKED:

I think you mentioned somewhere that at some point during the writing process you guys thought that Boyd and Sin would fall for each other, and that’s how the idea was born. Why do you think, personally, that they fit so well as a couple, and what made you decide that they would fall for each other?

Yep, you remember correctly :) So basically we started ICoS just to fuck around, honestly, because we were bored. Because we didn’t figure it would become a thing, we thought that rather than wasting all our energy/motivation/excitement on character creation and some in depth setting on another world or something, we’d be best off doing something in our world, kind of our times, kind of dystopian, and then to pull in characters we had created for roleplaying games elsewhere that we didn’t get to play as fully as we wanted, or we thought would be fun to play more here.

Sin came from one game, Boyd from another. We knew Sin was going to be "Sonny’s” main character pretty early into it, if I recall correctly, but I didn’t know which of my characters I wanted to bring over. I initially threw out Boyd as an option because I thought the juxtaposition would be really funny, and because I liked him as a character but he barely got anywhere in the other rpg. (Lou came from that RPG too, btw, as did Vivienne and Cedrick of course)

The point at which we realized they would fall for each other was practically right away - we wrote like, I don’t even remember, 4 scenes or something? And already they were seeming like they had great chemistry and wanted to flirt and just somehow, bizarrely, felt like they would gravitate toward each other.

I don’t know how to explain how we knew without probably sounding like a lunatic, but to me characters are people - and most of the time, I kind of take my cues from them as to what they think, what they would do, how they feel, etc. I know they aren’t real, I know they don’t exist in our world, but maybe I just get interested in the psychology of characters and because I’m an empathetic person, maybe I just naturally start thinking of them in terms of what they want and how that affects what I had thought I had planned for the story.

It was just one of those things where we realized as soon as we had those two characters in the same room as each other, as soon as we tried writing a scene that we had intended to establish them as partners who didn’t get along and who didn’t trust each other and who would never be particularly close, we realized both of them kept somehow responding to the other character in a way that showed they had chemistry and they would like each other. Maybe even love each other, given the chance.

So we started writing the story over again, reworking it this time with the knowledge that they wanted to be a thing, so now it would be a story with a romance, instead of just a story. But being that they were both super messed up, of course that whole journey to love in any way that’s even remotely healthy was a process in and of itself.

(Sorry for rehashing all that since you remember that - but wanted to say all that for anyone who hadn’t seen the context on the previous posts where I talked about that)

As for why they fit so well, honestly I think it’s because of their base characteristics and their default tendencies, and a lot of it too is their backgrounds. It seems like their backgrounds were made to create characters that fit each other so well as a result but that was totally a coincidence that they each already had backgrounds we’d individually decided which ended in life experiences forming the characteristics that drew each other to them.

So, for example, Sin doesn’t trust almost anyone in the beginning of the series; he’s used to being used, he’s cynical, he kind of hates people, and he just doesn’t have much faith in humanity or humans because people have shown him time and time again that they will turn on him if given the chance, or they don’t really see him as a person, or they do but he can’t help feeling like they have an ulterior motive in it all. Then Boyd comes along, and he doesn’t have an ulterior motive whatsoever; he just genuinely does not have any preconceived judgment of Hsin, he doesn’t care either way about him at first, he doesn’t treat him like shit like so many other people have Hsin’s whole life. He just kind of treats him like a person, for good and for bad. Which means they have arguments and they have good moments. They find they have similarities in some things and are way different in other.

I think it’s the fact that Boyd was willing to judge Sin on Sin’s actual actions and actual words instead of basing things on fears, rumors, or the like, that over time made Sin realize Boyd was different. Similarly, how Boyd stood up for Sin even at his own personal detriment, when no one else had in quite the same way. The fact that Boyd cared so little for himself he was even perfectly comfortable sacrificing himself for Sin’s benefit even when they weren’t friends. I think that the fact that Boyd didn’t give a shit about anything, that he only was interested in seeing Sin for who Sin was and not what everyone thought him to be, was something that really spoke to Sin and helped him slowly come out of his shell. And made him feel comfortable starting to trust others on his own terms, and even fall in love, and feel safe doing so in the long run.

As for Boyd, he also was used to a certain treatment in his life, which was at times indifferent, at other times even cruel. He was used to people judging him by his looks, his family, all sorts of things. He was used to people hurting him. And he was used to losing the only people who had cared about him. He was, in short, used to suffering. He just wanted to die and be done with it all.

Similar to how Boyd didn’t judge Sin for what others judged him as, Sin didn’t seem to treat Boyd the way he was used to - or at least, not for the same reasons. Over time, it let him feel like it was okay to be himself; that he wasn’t inherently wrong for being born, or for how he was born, or for being alive until now. I think for Boyd the fact that Sin was so ridiculously strong and powerful was a relief; it made him feel, on some level, that he wouldn’t break and destroy and kill Sin just by being in his life, the way he felt he had for his dad and Lou.

In the end, I think they both just happened to be the right kind of person to make the other person feel like it was safe to slowly grow into who they were at the core of themselves without all the trauma of the past being the only thing that dictated their present. They each ended up being the right collection of characteristics to let the other person feel loved, and feel safe loving in return.

Of course, because of all that trauma and everything else contextually in their lives, the process of coming to that realization was a long one, and had a lot of ups and downs, and a lot of unhealthy behavior along the way. They aren’t always the healthiest for each other as they grow, but I do think they were what each other needed to, in the very long run, trust in the world to some extent, and through that learn to trust in themselves.

#ask ais #icos #icosbooks #in the company of shadows

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

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Up to 3x16 and maybe it's better to talk about this in season 4 but I just think season 3 sets up so much stuff about those season 4 arcs which are the direct emotional fallout... I don't really know what to quote except that the entire Road So Far montage summarises the important parts of season 3 and then we go to Sam and Dean having their last little conversation about this:

SAM Hey, Dean. Look, we're cutting it close, I know. But we're gonna get this done. I don't care what it takes, Dean. You're not gonna go to hell. I'm not gonna let you. I swear. Everything's gonna be okay.

DEAN Yeah, okay.

I suppose you can take this as I also didn't really comment on 3x15 after/during watching it but with all the hindsight of season 4 and knowing Dean gets rescued but not by Sam I can see a lot of character things being built here. Obviously everything after the writers' strike was written knowing Dean was going to Hell so there's a lot of irony in Sam's desperation to save Dean and how in 3x14, 15 and now here he reaffirms that he's going to save Dean and that he can do something about it.

I guess I just have a lot of sad Sam n Cas feelings that Cas is the one who saves Dean in the end and Sam feels more than worthless about that because he was making himself believe he could save Dean, and I find Sam's season 4 arc one of his best and most interesting and it's all built on not feeling strong enough, and wanting to be stronger, more useful, etc, and in season 3, which is a season I complain about a lot, one really good thing they do is give Sam such a firm basis for this whole thing because there's a build from basically the end of season 2 about how he feels about Dean's deal which morphs into this whole thing Ruby exploits etc etc.

Anyway weirdly (and I lost this thought for a couple of hours because it was so random I couldn't remember it at all from context for ages) I remembered in 8x09 how Sam betrayed a lot of thoughts about how Benny seemed to be compared to Ruby in his head (something I was pretty amused about in 12x02 that Toni brought up the 2 of them in comparison while spilling intel she has on Sam and Dean to them)... It was a pretty subtextual thing because he never really said it and Dean was the one who brought Ruby up at the end of season 8, but even though it's the Amy Pond fight they overtly seem to rehash a lot of Sam's comments about Benny and Dean seem to come from this place. I do think a lot about season 8 and Sam and how his insecurity about Dean manifested, and that one line back here in the end of season 3 where he's reassuring Dean and probably reassuring himself a lot more because it's too awful to bear thinking about, does make a very firm ground for Sam to feel betrayed and supplanted by anyone who can save Dean when he couldn't. Cas gets Dean out of Hell, Benny gets Dean out of Purgatory, both in times when Sam was helpless and in the second case when he was trying really hard not to repeat the mistakes of the past which got him into such a bad situation with Ruby in the first place.

(I think one of the purposes of Sam's line in 8x23 about Dean trusting another angel over him is the seed for the Gadreel thing, that they had at least an inkling they wanted to do this in season 9 at the time, but it does in context have no real explanation for what Sam is thinking of except making us wonder if he's jealous of Cas... I genuinely couldn't find much on my meta rewatch of season 8 just because Cas is kept at such ridiculous arms length all of season 8, but in 8x08 there's a low key competitive element between Sam and Cas at least with the shotgun riding thing, and I think the point there was to show Sam had some feelings about Cas supplanting his place rather than just joining the dynamic, although it was fairly muted, probably so as not to start more wars in the fandom than necessary as it could easily end up unfairly vilifying Cas, which is another thing I guess Benny did in the narrative.)

All that to say, right on the eve of Cas showing up I'm making one more post about him in the pre-Cas part of the show, to say that I think the irony about who will save Dean from Hell is deeply rooted in season 3 and is, I think, with Ruby latching onto Sam already, there's a hindsight feeling of the utter lack Dean has here of what Cas represents for him... What we see in the last few episodes in season 3 is the building blocks of the emotional arc that becomes in season 4 the Sam x Ruby, Dean x Cas parallel, doing some groundwork on Sam and leaving Dean in the lurch for not being paired off in this dynamic yet.

The fight later in the episode with Ruby where Ruby's trying to convince Sam to use his powers has the same feeling as her trying to convince him to sacrifice Nancy in 3x12, another fight Dean won with his alternative plan only for Lilith to be like, welp, better make it even harder to say no the next time, and probably was one of the most important chips in Sam's resolve minus Dean's actual death to make him listen to Ruby and start to use his powers/drink demon blood. In 4x04 that fight is very different because Dean has a "because Cas said so and therefore God thinks it's wrong" (Simpler times although God did tell Sam it was unsympathetic much later in the season because lol hindsight, but yeah, Dean working with what he knows at the time >.>) to fall back on while telling Sam why he doesn't approve of him using his powers.

Not that it helps at all, but it's this feeling that Dean has been paired off as well, while in the end of season 3 he just feels so helpless and for once in his life seems 90% resigned to dying even if he will always hold out hope for a plan to last minute magically find a way out that works, he is going along with his self-made fate for once, and his attitude to it is very different when it's someone else's destiny pushed on him.

... this is all very rambly. It's late, sorry :P

#3x16 #spn rewatches #weird rewatching #i was gonna come home and start watching but every time I did my dad came in the room and talked loudly with his gf #argh #I am hiding now but it's midnight #i'm never gonna make it to Cas :<

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cosmosogler · 7 years

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hello, today i slept in for 45 minutes because no matter how long i sleep i don’t seem to feel rested at all in the morning. so i got up at 9:45.

i should start practicing lucid dreaming again. might help me remember things a little better. or help me steer clear of exhausting nightmares. i guess the type of dream doesn’t matter. i could be sitting and exchanging terrible puns with a dream person all night and i’d wake up tired.

anyway i got out of bed and immediately returned to the thing i had been reading last night. i got up for lunch at around 12:30 and finished my hummus and made some soup. i only had a tiny bit of the soup though.

also the group therapist called. insurance hasn’t even looked at the appeal yet. so we’ll have to see what happens tomorrow. i asked her to call me after 9.

i made some backup plans in case the insurance really doesn’t come through. i should have worksheets to keep me busy between individual therapy sessions for the next two weeks either way. i feel bad, because the insurance guy said that they will “probably” cover more therapy sessions. but if i miss three in a row i’ll be discharged anyway, and also, “probably” doesn’t mean “definitely.” if i go to a session and then insurance decides NOT to cover it, my family will be down a thousand dollars, and right now with the busted car and the geriatric dogs and the various house repairs that will come with summer it just isn’t a good time to be spending money.

lisa did say that this is for my health, and i do need treatment, and i... agree. but a thousand dollars is more than i have in my bank account (full of mom’s money). i dunno. i’ll have to make a decision tomorrow. i guess i’ll sleep on it.

i mean, i’ve already made my decision depending on what feedback i get, but, we’ll see.

then i went straight back to reading and regretted it immensely for the whole evening. i finished around 4. after that i took a look at my closet and pulled everything out all over the floor. and i cleaned my dresser and threw out a bunch of old stuff i wasn’t using any more and had an approximately 0.1% chance of needing in the future. and if i DO for some reason need a 2008 model ipod, there’s always ebay.

i talked to asher for a little bit about the stuff i was finding. it was kind of emotionally difficult. not just the bad grades. while looking through my notebooks i found, like, sketches of craig, and other people’s characters from a long time ago when i still talked to them.

but i also found some genuinely funny doodles that i laughed at. good to know my sense of humor has remained flawless. i also found a bunch of old character designs, drafts, temporary names, aus i designed based around different fandoms... some of my characters haven’t changed significantly in appearance in basically 7 or 8 years. the only reason they look different is because my style changed over time, but their features and details are the same.

i’m... comfortable with that knowledge. i mean, there’s always room for improvement and change, and things i could streamline or flesh out, but having a solid idea of a character for so long is just, kind of nice? i don’t know if that can be classified as stagnation or not. it’s hard to look at something you made and be all “yeah, this is good enough to send out into the world.”

i guess... with characters it might be different. like i still haven’t FINISHED the story they are supposed to be in. and over the years i’ve written for them a lot. so the permanent state of being for the characters was the fact that they were a work in progress. and i got comfortable with the idea that i could make mistakes or hash out really dumb ideas with these guys and it would be fine. so improving until i got to a place i was happy with wasn’t as hard as publishing a picture online for the public to see, and then publishing pictures frequently for years. i still see major problems with my visual art. heck, i still see major problems with my prose.

i also found some yearbooks and a scrapbook i made where i cataloged that time i was on the today show with david hasselhoff in new york city. also my tooth braces game was pretty strong.

looking at myself in the pictures got me pretty distressed though. and i went looking through a box trying to see if there was room for all these letters and i found... stuff that made me really unhappy actually. like the diary my old friend angel composed and then left on my doorstep when i asked him not to come to my house. where he detailed all his feelings and stuff. about. like, i don’t know how to describe it. one page was a love confession that i didn’t address. mostly because i was dating nic at the time, but also, because i just didn’t know what to do at all.

i don’t know why i kept the book. i guess it seemed rude to throw away the only copy of something that someone else wrote.

i also found my old diary, which i kept during a family vacation about fifteen years ago. i remember the trip pretty vividly and it was odd to see how my account of it didn’t quite line up with my memories.

i did mention the panic attack i remember most about the trip though. i glossed over it really fast in the entry and was pretty vague about it. just said i didn’t feel good so i stopped playing my game. the diary picks up three years later when i mention that i was sad because my gramma’s best friend died. then my prose gets shot to hell the year after that because i had started posting on the internet and my ability to write like a normal person suffered drastically. the last entry is me talking about being really bummed that i had asked mom for a hug, and instead she yelled at me because i had forgotten something.

i know... i’ve always been depressed. but seeing a little kid give such a clinical description of their day through the depression lens was kind of rough. writing something down and immediately following it with “but i don’t like to think about it.”

however i got everything organized and put away. i hope... i can start doing all the projects i have on shelves around my room. while i was putting some things in the goodwill pile i was kind of wishing i could go back and add to my experiences these little projects that i’d hidden away and forgotten about. the puzzles, the wood construction kits. that giant rollercoaster that i built in my room and left for like a year before dismantling it and never touching the box again.

but, all i got is now. so i gotta toss the things i didn’t do, and probably won’t ever do, and see if i can devote some energy to working on the stuff i kept. i don’t know if i will and that bothers me.

it is kind of nice to condense all my belongings though. i’ve got a whole empty shelf to work with now. well, a shelf and a half. i need to figure out how i want to arrange the shelves that are not in the closet.

at least i got stuff to do if the group therapy falls through. so... either way i will win?

less for mom to find when she next decides to snoop around in my room.

i basically only did those two things today. my sister went and got manuel’s for dinner at around 8:30. i wasn’t really hungry... i ate less than half my food. i anticipated my nausea though and got something that’s easy to reheat. and also a quart of salsa? manuel’s makes the best salsa i’ve ever had so i required a large supply. for myself and no one else. my mom said i need to ask my aunt for her salsa recipe so i can make some for myself in florida.

i was considering going through my clothes and culling some articles i no longer wear as well, but then i remembered that everything fits a lot looser than it used to so nothing’s really... uncomfortable to wear. maybe i will take a look through my shirt collection so that i have fewer things i will be tempted to drag along to florida.

i found a ton of art supplies and some old sketchbooks that i hadn’t started using yet. perhaps i could pick up a project there too. i have a lot of options. almost too many options to be able to make a quick decision. i may have to begin utilizing the to-do jar again. the anxiety jar was kind of a bad time. i haven’t touched it.

ok, now is a good time to go to bed. i feel like there’s something else i wanted to talk about as usual but i didn’t actually do a lot of different activities today. just really long ones.

i had kind of a heavy conversation with asher but i don’t really feel like rehashing it for the blog. it was mostly a running commentary on things i was finding in the closet anyway. i don’t need to immortalize it.

the point is that i am still really uncomfortable with thinking about my childhood. or seeing myself as a child in pictures. i do not like the way my face looked. i do not like my writing voice. it’s pretty tryhard. i do not like the way i interacted with other people.

ha ha, as if i’m not a total tryhard now anyway.

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