#other than this parallel these songs are completely different but both are SO good

[escapesdefinitions]

19th hour, griff // bsc, maisie peters

[giantmushyfriend]

Welcome back to the Ineffable lyric discussion (can I hear a wahoo)

In honor of the announcement of season 3 of our beloved Good Omens, I find it completely necessary for us to discuss one of the many songs on Aziraphale and Crowley's angelic playlist that made me scream my bloody head off. One of those songs is the one and only The Book of Love by Peter Gabriel. While I UNDERSTAND this song may have just been chosen to spell out SEASON THREE, I think it goes much deeper than that because of all of the parallels it draws to Aziraphale and Crowley. And ultimately, what I think is going to happen in terms of their relationship when they finally sort their shit out. So beware if you haven't watched season 2 of Good Omens because we're about to do a fucking DEEP DIVE into this.

First, the title of the Book of Love feels almost like a call to this looming threat to the Book of Life that was consistently used in series 2. The entire season, Crowley and Aziraphale have to work oh so carefully because with the Book of Life being confirmed, they know that either of them could get the other erased, and whether they want to admit it or not, losing the other is their biggest fear. We've seen this when Crowley believed Aziraphale to be dead in Series 1 when he couldn't feel Aziraphale's presence anymore since he got incorporated. When Aziraphale isn't there, Crowley is a mess. Likewise, we saw how both reacted during the ineffable divorce scene in series 2. Crowley is full-on begging Aziraphale to stay, and Aziraphale has finally admitted that he needs Crowley and full-on mouths for Crowley not to leave him. The Book of Life inherently, from how Neil set it up, feels threatening. The Book of Love, on the other hand, raises an entirely other reaction. Throughout the series, as corny as it sounds, love has been what grounds our protagonists. It is the love of Tadfeild and his friends that keeps Adam from kickstarting the end of the world; it's what keeps him from rejecting his father, the literal devil. It is the love of the earth, of humanity and all its strange creations, and for each other that keeps Aziraphale and Crowley attempting to prevent the end of the world when it could be so much easier to just accept the fate of it all. Love is the key theme that grounds our protagonists, that makes them tick. Love is safe; love is, at times, painful but overall kind. So when we see this title on their playlist, listed amongst heartwrenching tales of grieving a relationship, you could have had, and of loss, it brings a sense of salvation and safety. The Book of Love, unlike the Book of Life, is not a threat- it's a sanctuary for Aziraphale and Crowley.

Now, diving into the lyrics.

"The book of love is long and boring

No one can lift the damn thing

It's full of charts and facts, and figures, and instructions for dancing

But I

I love it when you read to me.

And you

You can read me anything"

The first couple of verses inherently feel like Aziraphale and Crowley's original view on this notion of love. As two supernatural entities who aren't bound by human emotion or logic, love may seem superficial and downright silly at times. The courting procedures that different societies have taken on throughout the centuries and the songs and dances that come along with it may all seem like a big waste. The book of love is a manifestation of love itself, and originally, it seems unappetizing to our protagonists. That is until they refind each other, and love goes from this thing that humans feel and jump through hoops for to this tidal wave of emotions. Love felt silly and unrealistic before, but with each other, they are willing and excited to explore it, even if it comes with things that feel inherently silly.

Also, these verses draw some cute parallels to headcanons and features of cannons. If you've been involved in the Good Omens fandom long enough, you've probably stumbled across the idea that Crowley asks Aziraphale to read to him for a multitude of different reasons. Some people say it's because his eyes aren't meant to read, one of the many punishments that came with him being cast down from grace, or maybe it's just because he finds Aziraphale's voice comforting. Additionally, the line about instructions for dancing is just so heartwarming when we look at the ball scene from this past season and Aziraphale's daydreams of a romance worthy of a Jane Austin novel.

"The book of love is long and boring

And written very long ago

It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes

Adn things we're all too young to know

but I

I love it when you give me things

and you

You ought to give me wedding rings"

I'm sure we've all heard this idea that you'll understand love when you get older, but even when you get older, it never seems to make sense. This idea that love is too old for any of us to truly understand, and that humbles us but in the best way possible. There is no point in trying to figure out what exactly love is because you could spend thousands of years feeling it and watching it happen all around you and still not know exactly what it is besides this all-encompassing feeling. And that is exactly the perspective of Aziraphale and Crowley. They have seen countless examples of love, true, unwavering love, and they have felt it for each other. And yet they themselves cannot begin to fathom what love, true unconditional love, is exactly. These two supernatural, ethereal/occult beings are humbled by the very concept of love like humans are- and that love is drawn from each other.

And then there is this notion of giving, which pairs so well with Crowley's primary love language, acts of service and gift giving. If the first chorus was Crowley talking about how he loves it when Aziraphale reads to him and takes care of him, then this is Aziraphale talking about how Crowley displays his love. And this final notion of asking for that final commitment, one of the key ways humans express their love for each other, is just amazing. Because in a way, Aziraphale moving to make this commitment, to fully be on their side in this way, is the resolution we have been wanting since the beginning. For Aziraphale to finally feel safe enough to let go and finally let himself settle to where he finally belongs, on his side with Crowley.

[malikselfindulgence]

TRAFFIC LIGHT TRIO X READER STUDY DATE HEADCANONS [seperate + all together!]

Content: reader is gender neutral, could be interpreted as either romantic or platonic

Headcanons under the cut!

RED SON:

☆ tries his best to keep you actually focused on the task at hand- doesn't let you goof off, but will allow consistent breaks

☆ but alas, once you've asked him a single question he'll derail the conversation twenty times over until he's completely off-topic and explaining something not even in your curriculum

☆ not that you mind- it's nice seeing him get passionate over topics he's into

☆ he tends to get absorbed into whatever he's working on, so study dates are a good way to get him to eat and drink water regularly alongside you

☆ I headcanon him as autistic, so parallel play is one of his favorite things! Enjoys being in your company while you each do your own seperate thing

☆ gets very easily frustrated if you're studying something not in his field of expertise [think molecular biology, literature, world geography] and you ask for his help only for him to not understand the question

☆ now it's your turn to try and keep him focused instead of going on a long-winded rant about how he's very smart and knowledgeable and this book is actually stupid and also he's-

MEI:

☆ you get a surprising amount of work done when you're with her!

☆ Mei's pretty good at balancing work and fun- she knows when to leave you be so you can focus on your studies, and when to strike up a conversation so you don't get too bored or stressed out

☆ she has a study date playlist specifically for the both of you that she updates frequently- she tries to keep her rock/metal songs out of it so it doesn't startle you and break your attention

☆ she's very horrible at explaining things- you ask her to help you with a question and although she understands the concept, she uses such convoluted metaphors and analogies that leave you more confused than before

☆ she likes holding your hand or sitting in your lap while you both work- just touching you in some way

☆ comes up with funny abbreviations for things you have to memorise

☆ gives you little pecks/kisses every once in a while, and near the end of your date when you're both burnt out, she'll give you a sleepy cuddle session while flipping through your flash cards

MK:

☆ oh boy

☆ where do I even start

☆ half of it is spent trying to wrangle MK into his desk, and the other half is spent trying to get him to open his books

☆ has a surprising amount of niche hyper-specific knowledge about various subjects, but if you ask him about the basics his mind'll blank

☆ tries his best to make the environment as comfortable for you as possible- utensils all set, cushions for your back, snacks and drinks on the table, reminders to stretch so your back doesn't hurt

☆ playing loud music tends to help him settle down and get some work done- you have to be holding his hand so he doesn't fidget around, though

☆ doodles on your notebooks/sticky-notes, usually small sketches of you or of himself giving you a thumbs up, flowers, hearts, little messages about how you're doing super well and you're super smart. It's really endearing and helps keep your morale up

☆ his attention span is very very low [I headcanon him as having ADHD], so he has to take multiple breaks in between. If you're still working while his mind is un-focused he'll braid your hair to keep his hands busy

RED SON + MEI + MK:

☆ yeah, you're not getting anything done today

☆ Mei and Mk together are a force to be reckoned with- and Red Son only adds fuel to the fire

☆ Mei and Mk'll make stupid jokes, Red Son'll tell them to shut up so he can focus, they'll make fun of him, he'll reply with a defensive and louder insult, and the cycle repeats

☆ if you ask a question, everyone'll be fighting to try and take a look at your book and help

☆ cue ensuing argument that lasts well into 20 minutes because all of them have a different answer

☆ upon googling it, you tell them that they're all wrong, actually

☆ even though you end up not doing anything, it's still a lot of fun- they're moreso just normal hangouts with the false advertisement of being productive

☆ the only time you get any work done with them is if it's the night before finals and you have to cram- the stress radiating off of you keeps their mouths shut

[Reminder that requests are open!]

[akirathedramaqueen]

Octavia's and Blitzø's potential relationship development

I believe that the show, despite Octavia openly hating Blitzø, gives us some hints that they have much more in common than it seems. I’ve noticed a couple of moments where Blitzø and Octavia are… pretty much in sync, if that makes sense.

Here are those moments I’ve noticed… maybe stretched in some places, but! Hear me out!

1. Here, they don’t hear each other, but both are repulsed by Stolas’s obnoxious language and express the same reaction. It’s funny that Stolas is the one calling them out.

[Blitzø]: WHAT [Octavia]: THE [Blitzø]: FUCK [Octavia]: DAD?! S1EP2, Loo Loo Land, 4:52

2. They also share a distaste for Stolas’s behavior throughout the episode, albeit in slightly different ways. In fact, this serves as a great demonstration of how deaf and blind Stolas is to obvious social cues at the beginning of the series—he doesn’t stop even when directly asked to do so on multiple occasions.

Blitzø is disgusted by Stolas’s awkward, overly sexual advances and demeaning language towards him and his work.

[Stolas]: You are so cute when you are serious! S1EP2, Loo Loo Land, 6:06

Octavia is taken aback by essentially the same. However, she blames both of them, understandably failing to recognize that Blitzø is just as uncomfortable as she is. From her perspective, Blitzø is a homewrecker who contributed to destroying her parents' marriage.

[Stolas]: You know, it's quite thrilling to see you on the job, Blitzy.[Blitzø]: Save it, bitch, I am working. [Octavia]: You both need to get a room. S1EP2, Loo Loo Land, 8:20

3. They share the hate for the same clown!

[Blitzø and Octavia]: I hate that fucking clown. S1EP2, Loo Loo Land, 8:50

4. They seem to have similar tastes in music! The song My World Is Burning Down Around Me, which Octavia plays to tune out Stella’s screaming, is also heard in Blitzø’s van when he comes to pick up Loona in the Queen Bee episode, although it’s only instrumental. Here, have a look. If, for some reason, the service with the timeframes isn’t working, I’ll also provide the timings in writing so you can check it yourself on YouTube.

Octavia turns on the song, and for a while, we can hear the lyrics before it fades into the background as the scene shifts to Stella yelling at Stolas and later to Stolas’s conversation with Octavia. S1EP2, Loo Loo Land, 2:52 - 3:50

The song’s instrumental version can be heard when Blitzø’s van arrives, and the background noise at Queen Bee’s club is different, so there’s no chance for misinterpretation. It is the music Blitzø’s was listening to. S1EP8, Queen Bee, 8:20 - 9:14

5. Haha, they freak out in the same way in the Seeing Stars episode! I know it’s probably just a stylistic choice to transition from Octavia’s initial experience with LA to Blitzø having to contact Stolas and explain what happened. However, I might be indulging in a bit of wishful thinking, suggesting that this similarity in their stress responses could have some deeper meaning.

S2EP2, Seeing Stars, 4:42

So-o... What am I trying to say with all these points I've made?

Like the kind of delulu who yells, "Ghostfuckers, save us!" (we know Viv, we know how trying to put our hopes up ends, haha), I draw a complete unhinged card and I am going to make a very bold claim:

I think that once Stolas and Blitzø finally get their shit and themselves back together, and Octavia realizes there’s much more to the story than, “Oh, it’s just horny dad cheated on my mum with a red lizard dickhead and my dad ruined my family,” Octavia could actually bond with Blitzø quite nicely, and he would make a good second dad to her! Well, don’t get me wrong. She might never want to take it to that level. Also, we don’t know how things will turn out, nor do we know her relationship with her mum, Stella.

But I do believe that their parallels were thrown in for a reason. Despite the circumstances, they can, and maybe will, be on much better terms than they currently are.

Go on, call me delusional and leave me be in my complete denial corner. <3 I admit I do tend to forget the current state of the Stolitz relationship in the series, as in my world, where I’m prioritizing my time working on that fic, they are finally together. I am bitter-sweetly excited that @tealvenetianmask and I are slowly but surely getting close to finishing it. :)

(Yes, yes, it was shameless self-promotion—sue me for the unlawful use of a speculatory-analytical post space to promote our version of Stolitz working hard to sort out their issues post Apology Tour and having some silly and horny fun along the way.)

[r44d]

song analysis for bashslash 💗 ( for @shesttyy )

~ all of the girls you loved before (taylor swift; single: a.o.t.g.y.l.b)

; this song is about Taylor saying she is better than all of the exes of her current partner ( lyrics : “every woman that you knew brought you here. I wanna teach you how forever feels”. “All of the girls you loved before. But I love you more” ). it's a love letter to them. A love letter to all of those who have shaped her lover to who they are now, and how they love her as a whole. ( lyrics : “Your past and mine are parallel lines. Stars all aligned and they intertwined. And taught you. The way you call me, “baby.” Treat me like a lady.” ). Unlike any of her other songs, she feels security in her relationship instead of jealousy. This relationship is secure, and all of her partner’s exes brought them together. ( lyrics : “Every dead-end street led you straight to me” ). This song was believed to be about Joe Alwyn, as at the time of release they were going strong (7 year anniversary).

: tying back in with the idea of Dean having a girlfriend in Chicago or many ex girlfriends, they definitely shaped his view on love. They chiseled away at him in ways that were both good and bad. Although he doesn’t know how because he’s never had a healthy view on love and romantic feelings. The relationships were never secure, nor were they showing him how forever feels. [ However Dean definitely has the mindset of calling his girls babe/baby. And it does carry on when he gets with Fulton. (“If I had a girlfriend, I’d call her babe… cause she’s a babe. But I have Fulton (a boyfriend) and that’s like the same thing right? It’s still a romantic attraction, just different genders so… I’m gonna call him babe”). He just likes seeing Fulton blush -_- ]. But with Fulton it’s completely different. It’s easy in a way that’s still challenging because easy is boring. He likes the challenge, he likes Fulton. He likes how easy it is with him when they are being all tender and soft, it doesn’t feel like a chore for him, but he also likes the challenge of their arguments. Don’t get him wrong he HATES arguing with Fulton [loves arguing though], but he kinda just likes the combativeness because he’s so quick to it. He thinks Fulton fighting back is pretty hot (because Fulton isn’t like that, not all the time. He’s gentle and sweet and kind, but he’d throw punches at anyone who lays a finger on his teammates. But it also takes him a lot of pushing to be thrown over the edge. He does try to work it out or calm everything down before resorting to pushing and fighting and yelling). Being with Fulton is like breathing, it's like charging head first into a brawl out on the ice, it’s like laying in warm sand on a sunny day at the beach. It shows him how forever feels.

: the lyric “your past and mine are parallel lines” really does fit with them in the sense of their trauma.

↳ Fulton has a traumatic familial relationship: he’s in and out of foster homes, his bio parents weren’t all that great, although somehow he will end up back in the care of his father. (His bio mom was an angel. He looks the most like her, he has her hair, her nose, her eyes. He has her love of reading, her love for animals, her love for gardening; well learning about flowers. His dad, on the other hand, is an alcoholic abusive deadbeat. He didn’t want a kid, he wastes away on the couch spending all his money on beer or out finding something to hit (it used to be Fulton, that’s how he got the scar on his cheek. He’s bigger than him now, and can fight back. The only thing Fulton got from his dad was his love for hockey, his broad shoulders and some of his anger). He’s been in the foster system, he’s been to institutions because people on the streets believed he had issues and that he might become a danger to those around him (for sticking up for kids on the streets, being quiet and having a mean slap shot). He believes he’s unloveable, and those thoughts were put into his head by his father figures. He hides who he is, he keeps to himself, he’s afraid to love, he’s afraid to feel. He’s afraid to get hurt again… by someone he loves. (He started smoking weed to distract himself).

{D3} Dean hurt him by leaving, The Ducks hurt him by choosing to stay at Eden Hall instead of fighting for their name, Charlie hurt him by saying he isn’t needed.

{D1, D2, D3} He was hurt by Bombay constantly leaving and him constantly giving the Ducks up for anything else, giving him up. He felt as though, like Charlie, Bombay was a fatherly figure to him. All of his father’s walked out on him, or hated him, it felt like he was walking away too.

↳ Dean’s familial relationship is much of the same. They don’t love him, and much like everyone else in his life, they only notice him when he fails, when he makes a complete fool out of himself. When he acts like a big jerk, a doofus, an idiot. They are highly religious people, who forced religion on him the moment he was born. They made him go to church, Sunday school, they forced him to read the Bible whenever he did something bad. They yelled at him for his mistakes and they yelled at him for his apologies. He grew up to be tough, he was raised tough, and he grew up to rebel. Against his parents, against school administrators, and teachers, against anyone who told him he was to stupid to make it anywhere in life. He’s a guilt ridden, traumatized, child behind the iron bars around his heart. He’s a lone wolf, with no familial support, no friends, teammates in Chicago he keeps around for convenience (well now they are ex teammates), not that they ever liked him. The Ducks are different, they are good people. They are close, they banter, they support each other. That’s what they do. They are their own little found family, and Dean really doesn’t want to even think about the fact they have got to him. That they wormed their way into his heart. They make him… soft, inside, and Dean doesn’t want to let them get away with it. Fulton, maybe, he’d let get away with turning him all mushy, but the rest of them. Hell no. (He lets it happen anyways because they are the only people who care about him, who support him. And in turn he’s got their backs, maybe that’s just cause he’s their enforcer, maybe it’s something else).

(When I think of Dean Portmman’s parents, I think of John Bender from ‘The Breakfast Club’. “John Bender : [Imitating his Father] Stupid, worthless, no good, goddamn, freeloading son of a bitch. Retarded, big mouth, know-it-all, asshole, jerk. [Imitating his Mother] John Bender : You forgot ugly, lazy and disrespectful. [Father's voice] John Bender : Shut up bitch! Go fix me a turkey pot pie. [His own voice] John Bender : No dad, what about you? [Father's voice] John Bender : Fuck you. [His own voice] John Bender : No dad, what about you? [Father's voice] John Bender : Fuck you. [His own voice] John Bender : Dad, what about you? [Father's voice] John Bender : Fuck you! [Pantomimes getting punched in the face]” ).

[polaroid-sorcery]

Hazbin Hotel and Tangled the series parallels

・Charlie / Rapunzel

Both Charlie and Rapunzel have a generally very positive attitude. They are friendly and always try to see the good in people. For Charlie, she’s all about second chances and redemption. For Rapunzel, she always tries to help everyone. Also, Charlie and Rapunzel aren’t one to back down from a fight. They are brave and go against injustice.

Personalities aside, both of them are princesses. Charlie is the daughter of Lucifer and the princess Hell. Rapunzel is the daughter of the King and Queen, which makes her the princess of Corona.

Beside their titles, we cannot deny the similarities in appearance. They both have long blonde hair and wear it in almost exactly the same way. Only Charlie’s hair isn’t as long as Rapunzel’s when it’s not put together in the braid-hairstyle-thingy.

・Vaggie / Cassandra

Personally, I think the biggest similarity between Vaggie and Cassandra is the secret-keeping part of their story.

Vaggie is revealed to be an angel who has fallen from grace.

Cassandra is revealed to be the daughter of Gothel.

Though their secrets have nothing in common, it’s not so much about the actual secret than it is about the way they handle the secret. Vaggie never told Charlie about the fact that she was an angel and part of the exterminations. Cassandra didn’t know she was Gothel’s daughter for the majority of her life and after she does find out she doesn’t tell Rapunzel. She keeps it a secret until the final moment when she takes charge of her own destiny.

So yes, the secrets are different, the reveal of the secrets is different too, but the fact they both keep a secret from their blonde (girl)friend stays the same.

・Lucifer / Varian

The most obvious similarity is, of course, the voice actor. Lucifer and Varian are both voiced by the talented Jeremy Jordan.

One of the easy to spot parallels is the character introduction. Both characters are introduced in a suspenseful way. Meant to intimidate the viewer, only for it to show the actual character a few seconds later, which turns out to be a dorky inventor.

When we are introduced to Lucifer, the music is a tad menacing and the whole shot tries to be dark and mysterious, like the all-powerful Lucifer, only to show him being proud of his rubber duckie, completely shattering expectations for this dark entity. Varian is introduced in a very similar way. He is presented as this threatening figure, only to reveal he’s just a 14-year-old who cares about science (alchemy, specifically)

On top of that, Lucifer and Varian are both inventors. Lucifer spends his time creating rubber duckies. Anyone who knows Varian, knows inventions aren’t his main thing. He’s all about the science of things, alchemy is his speciality. Still, Varian did recreate the automatons and made other machines across the series.

・Ready For This / Ready As I’ll Ever Be / Through It All

All three songs have the same core: a song to get ready for battle, but all three go about it differently. Ready For This and Through It All match the most. Both songs are upbeat songs meant to rally the troops. At this point in the story the characters are getting ready to face a threat and spreading motivation.

Charlie is actively gathering souls to fight with her against the Extermination, whereas Rapunzel is trying to lift everyone’s spirits before they leave to go to the castle.

Ready As I’ll Ever Be still matches in terms of its core: prepare for battle, but goes about it in a different way. Both Ready For This and Through It All are songs sung by the protagonist with a large ensemble to back them up as the song progresses. Ready As I’ll Ever Be is sung from different perspectives from different characters: Varian, Cassandra, Rapunzel, King Frederic. Only towards the end everyone harmonises because they all have one thing in common: they are ready as they’ll ever be to face whatever the opponent throws at them. But still, each character has a different motivation to fight. Honestly, I could go on and on about how great of a song this is, but then this post would get way too long.

・Destiny

A big part of the plot of Tangled the series revolves around destiny, especially in the second and third season it discusses Rapunzel’s destiny a lot. For most of season three the plot is all about destiny. Cassandra’s turn to the dark side, Zhan Tiri being brought back to life, the final battle. It’s all connected to the concept of destiny and how Rapunzel has to be the one to end it.

Hazbin Hotel doesn’t have the same focus on destiny like Tangled the series. Instead, it is only referenced in passing and not part of any discussion (if I remember correctly)

Here are some examples of talk about destiny in Hazbin Hotel songs:

Mentioned in Happy Day In Hell:

“Uh no thank you, I’m just gonna fulfill my destiny!”

Mentioned in Ready For This:

“I can come into my own, and I think I’ve always known my destiny could never be postponed”

[jessicas-pi]

DIRECTOR'S CUT ON COMMIT TO THE BIT but only like the first two chapters i am so far behind 😭

girl I wish I had been as productive as you think i've been 😭 there's only two chapters so far-

(But, hey, good news! Chapter three is verging ever closer to probably being done! And it's only taken me about... eight months... hahaha *dies on the inside*)

Anyway, i'll do what I did with the other ask and just go through it and talk about stuff!

Okay, so this fic was originally called "The Con" because it involved winning a lot more bets via subterfuge and holding hands. That changed and so I renamed it!

Oh yeah! And so, this fic was partly inspired by the song Summer Nights from Grease, where the guys and girls are enthusiastically listening to completely different stories of the same event. I flipped it around so they had completely different reactions to the same story and Sabine and Ezra were very UNenthusiastic and that was what the scenes with their friends were based on!

Aylan (the vostress kid) definitely heard some obitine stories from his dad and finds the parallels very amusing.

I know i've said it a few times before, but it always delights me to mention that the three Togruta sisters (Chisica, Am-lee, and Khenna) are based on me and my sisters.

OHHH fun fact! Originally the conversation where they split up the profits from the bet and the conversation where Sabine brought up fake-dating were two different conversations! The first one was as-is in the fic, but the other one happened like a week later when Sabine was hanging out in a tree coral with some of the girls and watching Ezra doing lightsaber forms and maybe drawing him shirtless a little bit and they hype her up to "ask him out again" and she goes over and interrupts him and they end up having the fake-dating idea conversation while he's not wearing a shirt and she's blatantly checking him out (and at one point actually half-reaches-out to touch his abs before she catches herself) and he's just "????" the whole time. It was funny, but I decided it was too early in the (fake) relationship for her to be so obvious about it, and I needed Fenn Rau to overhear the conversation and that was easier if they were on the Ghost, so I combined the scenes.

Oh also! Originally, both Vinn AND Tarik were gonna get kicked out of the friend group for being nasty but then I decided to make Tarik less nasty and give him a redemption arc.

ok, reading on, la de da...

The post-stargazing scene! So, I had to keep dialing things back because my shippy writer brain was moving their relationship ahead WAY faster than it was supposed to go. For example, in this scene, originally, they were going to share Sabine's bunk and definitely not cuddle or anything, it won't be weird at all, but again--just too soon. I made up for it with excessive cuddles in the end of the chapter & in chapter 2.

KATKA CAMEO!! Ok so for those who don't know---katka is an OC from my Teenage Rebellion AU. She's Gar Saxon's niece but she's utter sweetness (with a slight twist of crazy) and totally on board to stick it to the Empire. In the TRAU, she also has a massive raging crush on Ezra (albeit an Inquisitor iteration of him), so when I needed a random character to be envious of Sabine here, I figured I'd reuse her lol.

Oh yeah! Another condensed scene! Where she tells him about the Mandalorian ways of saying "I love you" and where she asks him to fake marry her used to be two different scenes! Like with the other one, I added the second one to the first. I went through a few versions of the fake-marriage-proposal, including one where Aylan came along with Ezra to Mandalore and was the one to suggest they tie the knot, apparently unaware it's all fake (but actually 100% aware it's all fake because his psychometry revealed it)

not to brag or anything but "Ezra did not regret fake-marrying into money" is one of my favorite lines i've ever written.

(btw, I still crack up when I remember that in your comment on chapter 1, you called Ezra a repressed victorian maiden for panicking over being able to see sabine's arms and legs. and I think everyone should know that You Are Right, Ezra Is A Repressed Victorian Maiden.)

OK ON TO CHAPTER 2!

i had so much fun with this chapter because they're both full to bursting with love for each other and neither of them will admit it until the last possible moment. I think that might actually be why Chapter 3 is taking so long--they're not hiding their feelings anymore so there's no more poetic internal monologues about how much they adore each other lol

Ah yeah on the topic of repressed feelings--the line "Kanan is fairly sure it’ll take at least five years and possibly a child for Sabine to admit that she’s actually in love with her husband" was supposed to actually be what happened. Sabine and Ezra were going to go on pretending the marriage was fake for years and finally one night when they were cuddled up, Sabine blurted out that she was in love with him and he was like "Yeah. I know." and she was like "wait what?? how did you know?? I was so subtle about my feelings!!" and he was like "Sabine, you kissed me good-night ten minutes ago. you're constantly calling me extremely romantic pet names in mando'a. we have two children and only one of them is adopted. your feelings are about as subtle as a paint bomb to the face." and she was just like "....oh." and then that was the end of the story! BUUUUT then I decided to do a love confession during the Lothal arc, and that led to the... surprise... at the end of chapter 2, which led to there needing to be a THIRD chapter!

OH HAHA OK MORE FUNNY STUFF. So the part with sabine's nightmare that leads to the "two besties chilling in a bathtub...?" scene was ALSO split up into two different events! I've been thinking about doing some edits of both chapters of CttB because I didn't really stop to edit either of them before posting (and a good chunk of chapter 2 was literally written the day before I posted it), which I mention because I was considering reverting the two scenes back to their original versions because the og tub scene was pretty funny. It's hard to describe in brief words, but basically... yeah it's too hard to describe, just take my word for it, it was pretty funny. (it involved Ezra singing along to We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together with a shampoo bottle for a microphone and Tristan playing a petty revenge prank that goes sideways.)

The cut between Ezra worrying about Sabine being upset about his feelings for her and thinking "what would she think if she knew??", and sabine's pov opening with "Sabine can't stop thinking about kissing his stupid face" never fails to make me snicker.

Oh hey I just got to the thrawn pov and that reminds me. at one point I was thinking about having a scene including Ezra and Thrawn's conversation aboard the Chimaera and thrawn REAAAALLLY pushes his buttons about Sabine, using the information that he figured out about their marriage. Actually, if I do that edit, I might write that scene.

Poor Hera--she keeps unintentionally being responsible for all of the sabezra relationship development lol.

OOH SOMETHING ELSE! So, originally, the love confession was WAY different. First of all, it wasn't in their room--it was in one of the caves. Sabine still went looking for Ezra, but she found him by following a Loth-wolf. And he actually confessed his feelings first! In this version, he was afraid he was going to die and impulsively blurted out that he loved her. Then he got nervous and started rambling a little and she shut him up with a kiss. But I changed it--I wanted her to be the one to take the leap and 'fess up, and if I set it in her room, I could have the funny Ketsu scene afterwards.

And then True Love's Kiss woke someone else up! (aka kanan got yoinked out of his comatose state by telepathic TMI)

oh yeah and to anyone wondering, that "another dawn breaks" line from the Kanera scene was ABSOLUTELY a reference to A New Dawn.

Oh and that Ketsu scene---that was actually a scene I saved and reused after cutting it from a different WIP of mine! There were two variations--the one I ended up using, and one where she accidentally interrupts the very first kiss and they're both like "OH COME ON!" because they've been waiting for this moment FOREVER and like ten seconds in, it gets interrupted, and Ezra decides that, darn it, he's been waiting for this for so long, he's not going to wait any longer! and he just pulls Sabine right back into the kiss and uses the Force to shut the door in Ketsu's face. I did this version so that I could include dialogue!

I'm just now realizing that I actually skipped over the entirety of Family Reunion and Farewell, I went straight from Jedi Night to Happy-Ever-After. But in my defense, plot-relevant episodes don't matter much when it comes to crack fix-it fics.

And... I think that's all my thoughts I have on this! Thank you for the ask!! :)

*roll end credits*

[sweetbottletops]

My Star / My Rock

Aya facing away to make Koga more comfortable and in turn lets herself become completely vulnerable. Peak trope. Right up there with aquarium dates. Perfect.

ch. 71

Koga not a top confirmed.

For real though, Koga wanting Aya to be up on the stage, on her level, vs down with the masses is a look into her view on their relationship.

Everything is reminding me of their refrigerator talk earlier. Aya taking the methodical route, consulting Kanna, counting the texts, spending the whole school year studying Koga... vs Koga making abrupt leaps along the way. Only this time she believed they were working parallel towards that big purchase. Aya let her know she had figured it her out with that note and was going to wait for her to leap.

Aya's botched formalness when nervous and Koga's self deprecation. Neither has it more together than the other in this.

This isn't their shoujo vision/glasses version of each other. They are both visibly nervous, Koga's usual eye bags have eye bags, Aya's hair is on the flat side...

There is no gap anymore.

They pinky held before they held hands. Now they're pressed flush against their backs to sing before they've hugged. Normal stuff.

It's a different relationship than the oshi, stars in her eyes, shoujo vision version Aya started out having. She's thought through the hard parts too. On level with Kanna. But she's made her own choices and she isn't going to wait without communication. Not the hands off adoration one would have towards their oshi.

(Thank goodness it was a note and not origami. I was questioning myself for a moment.)

Way back Koga thought she was so invisible she'd become a one hit wonder in Aya's memory at best, but now Aya's the reason she might have the courage to be onstage and visible to everyone doing the thing she's chosen. But most importantly this is the ultimate blending of their shared playlists. A song written for one person.

We are likely reaching the end of volume 2 very soon and this chapter was a rare direct continuation from the other one. I wonder if we'll continue with her playing the song, or jump to her a reveal of her performing it at a live house in front of everyone. I can't see this ending without a live show of some kind, but maybe that's just me and my infatuation with that early pre-manga image.

I'm not sure if Agu's planning a volume 3 or ending things, but it feels like a real build up either way.

[prototypelq]

vergil for the ask game?

Vergy!

thank you and @river-muse for asking about the series #1 Motivated Loser!)))

favourite thing about them

First place - his inner softness. Vergil is very much his momma's boy, he is emotional, touchy, and he loves with his whole heart, he loves so much that he is scared of the feeling consuming him whole. I thrive on seeing him simply be the older brother, father (and adopted uncle) figure that he wishes to be.

Honourable mention: just how Iconic he is. Vergil is THE anime katana wielder, he is THE Storm That Is Approaching, he is THE Rival Videogame Boss, he will kick your ass into Easy mode without breaking a sweat. Dante is an iconic protagonist for sure, but Vergil is one of THE Videogame Bosses Of All Time and that position is absolutely deserved. And, y'know. He is super fun to fight.

least favourite thing about them

V(ergil). I appreciate all the character development we got out of that time, but I also firmly believe it could have been achieved in other ways, plus V(ergil) just makes the story completely unrelatable. Dante faces human trauma and human struggles. Vergil faces those same problems, however, his path through them is an emotional mess human (and fans') experience cannot account for. For me, that dampens the emotional investment in the story, especially considering how much simpler, but no less impactful in Dante's in comparison to Vergil.

DisHonourable mention: 'Dreams of a black throne I keep on repeat' and 'Call me your majesty' lines from BTL and Fire Inside respectfully. None of those lines fit Vergil at all, and they only further the ginormous amount of misconceptions about him.

(I do adore the demonic pet therapy tho, it was adorable)

favourite line

'We've got plenty of time' (watch me bawl till final stage of dehydration to this)

brOTP

I mean, it's in the name. Sparda Loser Twins, my beloved. I also completely support every opinion that Vergil will get along with Trish, Lady, Nico and Patty just fine.

OTP

I admit, I am intrigued by Vergil/Lady, I think they can have something good together. They both seek challenge, and could provide it for each other (by challenge I also mean just generally new experiences, I don't mean they have to fistfight each arguement). I can see them together in some post-dmc3 AU scenario, but also. Surprisingly. Post-dmc5. Cause Lady very much needs to retire if she wants to live any longer than she has, and Vergil has known nothing but violence for his entire adult life (which is also not much). Post-dmc5 both need to learn how to handle peace times, and this parallel is what I can see driving them together in this setup. Again, I think they can have something nice, also probably much sweeter than in post-dmc3 version.

nOTP fucking incest

random headcanon

Vergil is a freakin romantic to the core. He likes reading, he would enjoy himself in an art gallery, I think he would also like visiting theater and/or musicals. This man forced himself to weaponise his nerdiness and I'd love to see him slowly, badly, but surely, letting go and just enjoying himself and different hobbies. Also, just a totally random thing - I think he'd enjoy pottery (after he breaks a few dozen mishapen figures first, of course)

unpopular opinion

I doubt I can come up with something more unpopular than my previous rant about V(ergil)

song i associate with them

I have a few actually! Vergil would love Bring Me To Life and I Am Right About This. I can also see him enjoying Break The Silence.

This track is an absolute BLAST, and I have a concrete vision that Vergil would like to learn and play it. This vision was extended by the brainrot into Dante hearing the track, loving it, then bringing himself and Nero along to play the song (just don't ask me how, I have counted at least four different instruments, and it either means Dante and Nero have to switch drums and base guitar mid-song, or that Vergil and Dante have to switch on the guitars). This song is just so beautiful, and I think the losers will have an amazing time playing it together.

Musical Spardas, one of my most critical of weaknesses.

also I wish there was a way to mod Kitsune Dance to be the M19 bossfight music. beautiful song, it has very distinct musical phases which would easily match the fight escalation, and it just sound much more fitting for Vergil than the in-game track.

favourite picture of them

this is one of those pics where the context of the original shot was painful, but the resulting image looks wholesome as hell and I love it. (pls share source if you know it)

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 26/03/2024

Chance's Return to Dreamland

Season 1 Featured on: GilvaSunner's Highest Quality Video Game Rips: Volume 3 & Knigra Also on: Kirby Rip Attack

Ripped by digboye

Requested by fezaki! (Request Form)

You wouldn't BELIEVE how happy I was to see this rip get requested man!! Chance's Return to Dreamland isn't part of the surprisingly many Season 1 rips to have exploded in popularity - think My Dr. Eggman Can't Be This Evil!, Dr. Soulja, Pikmin Park, you get the picture - but its a rip I've had sitting proudly in my playlists for years and a verified banger. And to see that I'm not the only one who knows it exists!!! That warmed my heart for some reason. Fuck yeah.

There's a lot of parallels you can draw between this rip and Door into a Hundred Summers, another one of my Season 1 favorites. Of course there's the obvious one - both are rap mashups utilizing rap music that isn't really commonly featured on the channel, with Chance's Return to Dreamland to date still being the only rip on the channel to use Chance the Rapper's Angels. But beyond that, they have a really similar, enchanting way of grabbing your attention - you click on the rip waiting for the mashup to start, only for the music to dramatically cut away before the song used in the mashup "introduces" it back, at a lower pitch. I'm certain this way of starting a mashup has been used in more than these two rips, yet its a huge part of what's kept them stuck in my mind for so long - it reminds me of Be Cool, Be Wild, and Be My Girl in how, even as early as Season 1 they were finding ways to subvert what you were expecting a SiIvaGunner rip to be by cutting the playback so abruptly rather than having the mashup or melody swap simply start playing more subtly.

But the real reason I associate the two rips with one another so closely, and perhaps the real reason they both employ the aforementioned technique of pausing the track used, is what they do with said track in the mashup - pitching it down to create a quite different experience. This is more exaggerated in Door into a Hundred Summers of course, which takes a tune otherwise radiating the energy of a crisp spring morning and gives it a far more reflective, slow, nostalgic feel. What's done in Chance's Return to Dreamland feels almost like the complete inverse - the tune of Kirby's Return to Dreamland's title screen theme is infectiously jolly, and the slight pitch-down is primarily just done to allow it to play harmoniously alongside Angels, a song already infectiously feel-good in its own right. The two thus compliment each other beautifully, sort of similarly to something like World Out There, where the two sources used in isolation already feel harmonious in emotional intent, yet elevate each other to new heights in the mashup.

It's just a damn good rip, yknow? Chance the Rapper is (perhaps unsurprisingly) not an artist I've listened to much at all, yet his and featured artist Saba's vocals in Angels are just filled with such sincerely feel-good whimsy, such sheer joy and happiness in being alive, a feel that Kirby has ALWAYS been top-tier at pushing - the experience of listening to Chance's Return to Dreamland feels like like frolicking in endlessly warm, sunny grassy fields with those you cherish. A pill of pure happiness of shocking quality and attention to detail for a rip made so early on in Season 1's life. And knowing that digboye is still around today, 8 years later, helping bring rips like the immaculate One-Winged DJ to life, just puts a big dumb smile on my face.

[paperstarwriters]

ive come kneeling at your doorstep to beg for that essay on murio and luciels parallels you mentioned 👀💦👉👈

i love loathing lucio so much so it would deal my lil hater ass so much psychic damage and i cannot wait to get rekt

(onlyifyouwanttothoofcoursetakeyourtime)(just making sure youre aware id print that shit n frame it above my bed were it to come to existence)

Hello @tetsuooooooooooo! I know you said I can take my time, ok I'm still really really sorry this took awhile, I've been kinda burnt out from classes lately, and writing a bunch of essays for that lol, but I've managed to make a somewhat coherent argument for my case here lol.

Now, to preface this:

I only really like Lucio as a character to thematically dissect and kick around occasionally for giggles. I am a far, far cry from a Lucio stan, I just find him interesting—like a bug. Honestly I don't think I'm gonna convince you he's in any way a good guy I just might make you loathe him more 😅

I haven't played Lucio's route. I'm too busy and I get too annoyed with some of his antics + the options of reactions that MC is allowed to make. I've only played the side stories and a lot of my understanding of his character is built from Muriel's route (and I know he's much more different in his own route than he is in the others') as well as hearsay from other people talking about Lucio

I know I said that I'd include Aurora's songs in my original statement but that got wayyyyyyy too messy so I'm just opting to exclude them lol. (not to mention youtube is doing a very irritatingly strange thing of deleting and then reuploading Aurora's songs??? so I don't wanna deal with the messy files :/)

With that out of the way here is my essay :)

Wordcount: 2,908

──────── ✎ ────────

Muriel and Lucio are both very, very caught up in how they are seen by others. While it's clearer when it comes to Lucio, it is also made clear in Muriel by the fact that Social anxiety is often caused by stress over how a person is perceived and their mental belief that they are helpless to change that perception. This causes of their self perception are also quite similar, due to their similar histories, but in the same way that there are some notable opposites between them with their struggle for their identity there is also some notable differences in their histories that arguably causes the slight difference in their struggle for their self image.

To begin with their history, Muriel and Lucio are noted to both come from the South. They come from two opposing tribes, and are both eventually chased out of their home and community by 1) a cruel person who arguably causes their struggle of identity and 2) the plague. Of course, the major difference here is that Lucio actively made decisions that would lead to him being chased out of his tribe, he was arguably aware that if it failed he'd have to leave, he just hadn't considered that it would actually fail.

Muriel on the other hand is chased out of his home at a much younger age, and he has no choice in his eviction from his home or his family. There is no action that Muriel could have done that would have allowed him to stay where he was, unlike Lucio who had a clear option that would have allowed him to stay.

Or at least would have allowed him to stay until he grew tired of his mother's attitude towards him.

I don't believe that Morga's cruel and dismissive attitude towards Lucio started when he tried to kill her, rather, I believe that she has been doing that for a long, long time. She often states that she had been "too soft" on Lucio, but I think her "softness" is the same kind we see in Muriel's route. She berates him, she threatens him, she tells him how awful and unskilled he is to everyone else and makes a show of his failures, but when she is completely and fully enraged and is about to hit Lucio, she hesitates.

Is that softness? To her perhaps. To the tribe, perhaps. But not to me, and not to Lucio.

So, despite all of the harsh words thrown his way, he decides to take action to prove her wrong. I'm willing to bet that a lot of Morga's criticisms were about how strong he was and how he was in fact not actually as strong as he could have been, not as strong as he should have been. That's why when he takes action to prove Morga wrong, he immediately snaps to killing her. There is, after all, no better way than showing your power than killing your opponent (we see this belief in Morga when she spars against Muriel and he beats her.) Of course, in hand-to-hand combat, and on fair terms, Lucio can't actually defeat his mother, so he takes to more under-handed methods in order to beat her.

When this fails, it is the first major wound on his self-image. He cannot defeat his mother. He is not strong enough to defeat his mother despite cheating.

So, he runs away.

Besides marking a wound on his self-image, this also marks Lucio's connection to others. Having been exiled from his tribe, he is disconnected from the friends who may have actually supported him somewhat, he is robbed of his connections and separated from anyone who may have actually loved and cared for him (platonically and/or romantically)

Similarly, Muriel's separation from his own family, and his eventual abandonment into the streets of Vesuvia separates him from any stable sense of love and affection as well. Because he was separated from loving parents as a child and was likely surrounded by a number of children who were abandoned because they were unwanted, or because their parents were unable to care for them, Muriel has no other answer than what the other kids give him it is the only answer he has. Further more I believe that Muriel was probably abandoned by that merchant because they were unable to keep feeding him, which he also attaches onto his real parents as to why he was abandoned in the first place.

And so Muriel believes himself to be unloved and unlovable after being separated from family, or any semblance of a family.

Returning to Lucio, he moves on from his tribe and eventually joins a military group(? I think? Idk. I'm sure there was a specific name for it but I can't remember sorry) Once again, this is an act of trying to prove to his mother and to his community that they were wrong, and when compared to the ordinary person outside of their tribe, he's actually a really good and capable fighter. Of course, however, this is inevitably cut short as he looses his arm, and is once again confronted with the fact that he is unskilled as a warrior and so he retreats from his perceived deficiency and takes a different route to getting the love and admiration he wants—politics.

Of course, as we see in Muriel and Asra's childhood tale, this inevitably puts him into direct conflict as, in order to climb the social ladder he offers to "clean up" the streets. While it's largely left up to interpretation as to whether or not the Threat of Asra's safety came first or Muriel's position as a gladiator came first, I can't help but believe that Muriel's position as a gladiator came first, as otherwise, he might've gone out and tried to check on Asra's safety. (though this is mostly a headcannon) I believe that Lucio offered Muriel a chance to have some say in who gets "cleaned up" from the streets, and for Muriel to be able to get rid of the "actually bad criminals". Regardless of whether or not this is true, the arena gives Muriel his first taste of admiration, as people cheer for and adore him, but it also tears that sense of admiration away as he eventually has to come to terms with what he is doing. Whether that sense of dread and awareness was always there or it occurred somewhere in the middle is also unknown but the outcome is the same regardless. Being known and being admired becomes tied to hurting and harming people—because it is the only trait he sees that other people admire, he sees it as his only lovable trait.

And so Lucio and Muriel begin to reflect each other—and I don't mean reflect as in they show the same image, I mean reflect as in we see a similar image, but the image is reversed (*wink wink nudge nudge*). Here Muriel sees himself as only capable of being loved for his ability to commit violence, and Lucio sees himself as being incapable of being loved because he cannot complete the amount of violence he needs to commit.

Now, I feel the need to emphasize here, despite having many people around him who Lucio may truly believe love and admire him, the people around him very likely don't actually care for him very much because they either do not know him well, or they see him as little more than a pawn in a plan, or at least someone who gives them benefits. And even if there are a number of people with genuine admiration for Lucio, it still wouldn't be enough. Admiration is never enough when you lack genuine emotional connections with others, and Lucio, clearly does.

Again, this parallels Muriel who also struggles with a lack of genuine emotional connections to others. Although he has Asra with him, it's clear that, Asra's tendency to be fickle with connections has extended to him as well, especially when Asra spends more time with MC than him, leaving Muriel feeling abandoned and alone. Considering that Asra is the only person we ever really see Muriel connect or talk to, it's no stretch to say that Asra is one of Muriel's only friends, if not their only friend period, and so with Asra disappearing on him as often as they do, Muriel is left feeling that he actually has no connections at all.

Of course once again reflecting each other, where Muriel clearly sees he lacks connections and pretends he does not, Lucio, makes unsteady transactional rather than emotional relationships and pretends that that is enough.

It is of course, not enough, because if it were, he wouldn't have treated Muriel like that, he likely wouldn't have plucked Muriel out at all. Although this is largely speculation, I believe that Lucio treated Muriel the way he did because he feels as if Muriel is the very child Morga would have wanted. He is big and strong, and although not technically skilled if Muriel were raised by Morga like Lucio was, he might've been. This is why his first reaction to seeing Muriel and Morga working together is that Muriel is Morga's replacement son. It's because that's how Lucio had been treating him. Muriel is Lucio's little avatar to live out the glory of being a fantastically skilled fighter who can beat up all of his opponents. This is also, why I believe that Lucio purposefully trained Muriel to be less skilled in fighting than he was. In Muriel's route, Lucio comments that he's always been able to beat Muriel, and while I do in fact believe that Lucio is actually a skilled fighter, despite how he is often presented and despite my arguments above—he's most often a skilled fighter in the technical sense. He knows all the movements, he knows all the strategies, he knows all the underhanded tricks. By not fighting Muriel too often, and refusing to teach him these tricks however much it may be able to help Muriel out in the arena, it allows Lucio to be able to defeat him whenever he wants to. It allows Lucio to make it seem to himself that he is better than the person his mother would have wanted as a son, which I believe to be both horrible but also sad, for both Lucio and Muriel.

With Lucio, it shows how desperate and inferior he feels with his fighting skills, constantly trying to compensate for it something we can also see that in the portrait of himself he has in his room.

For Muriel, it keeps him scared, and keeps him pinned in place despite having realized the consequences of his fighting. Something which only furthers his self-hatred when he realizes he actually could have easily left.

So yes, Muriel and Lucio are both very self conscious people, and while for Muriel his self consciousness stems from people seeing him as a monster, and him believing that he is one although he does not want to be one, Lucio is self-conscious in the fact that he is not seen as the brutal fighting warrior he was supposed to be.

These reflected aspects of each other, alongside of their self consciousness is the very thing they struggle through in their routes, the very thing that MC helps them to get through.

Lucio believes that through various paintings of himself that rearranges his past (paintings of himself as a triumphant fighter, while his mother is demure and elegant), various unfair/practically staged fights, and celebrations of himself on top of it all, he would be able to convince people that he is awesome and amazing and that he deserves to be loved. In doing all of this however, Lucio runs away from confronting the beliefs at his core and wondering if perhaps, what he understood as traits that make a person great may be incorrect—that his mother had not just been incorrect on the fact that he was a failure, but on the fact of what makes a person successful or powerful. By constantly covering up what he sees as deficits, Lucio skims over his own internal struggles entirely which makes him look foolish and annoying as he ignores what's so clearly there for others.

Meanwhile, for Muriel, he is aware of his deficits, and is unable to properly hide them without disappearing completely himself, he tries to figure out and fix all of his problems through introspection and isolation, but it is not something he can do on his own. Muriel of course, can't accept the fact that he may need help. He can't accept the fact that despite what he believes of himself, other people may actually care for him the same way he cares for them, and will actually offer help. And so, as he runs away from people and community, from friends, and possible friends alike, Muriel runs away from his own problems as well, even if he tortures himself with confronting them (I can't remember if he actually does this or if this is a fanfic trope 😅) Essentially, by constantly trying to deal with his struggles on his own, he neglects his connections to others who may help him, or at least offer support.

And then MC comes along, and because they both desperately needed that deep connection to someone else, regardless of whether it is something platonic or romantic. MC is able to leverage their relationship in order to further propel Muriel and Lucio's development into acknowledging the thing they refuse to acknowledge, and finally balance out their coping mechanisms, which, on their own isn't actually unhealthy (Lucio's really good at connecting with others; Muriel knows how to confront his inner turmoil) using that single method as their crutch for their traumas only ever hurts them more.

As Muriel progresses through his route, he grows more connected with his community and people. One meaningful moment that I don't think they give enough screen time in the game is the moment that Muriel is forced to confront people recognizing and seeing him again. He's forced to confront everyone's perception of him, their memory of him and he retreats into the mirror maze where he stares at all these reflections of himself, all reversed images of himself, but he believes them all to accurately represent himself—as if his superficial physical image is what represents himself mentally and emotionally. And then MC (and Morga 🙄) come through to him and pull him out of that panic attack (or interrupt and yank him away from properly addressing the problem in Morga's case 😤) And that's the first step to being loved. As they say, in order to let yourself be loved you have to let yourself be known, and in that first step, choosing to step forward and prioritize the lives of others over his own self image, Muriel begins to be admired by others. Genuinely admired, for traits that he likes in himself rather than traits that he hates.

Similarly for Lucio, (although I haven't played his route so this is largely based on hearsay) he's faced with problems that he Has to face on his own (or at least somewhat on his own) the main one being that he has to confront the consequences of his own actions, he has to acknowledge to himself that he isn't perfect and that he can't be perfect. It's why at the end of his route on the upright ending, he leaves Vesuvia, to take on a life of (semi)solitude to further take some time to improve his ability at introspection, while in the Reversed ending he's still talking with people, still trying to manipulate their perceptions of him (and the MC), and still trying to be a "good boy" (ie. perfect) for the MC.

Now, it may be argued that Julian can/should be included in this struggle of how others perceive him but I raise you this; that guy is the most dramatic ass dude in town and his biggest dramatic act was telling everyone about how horrible he is. He clearly has no issues with how other people see him, but he has problems with how he sees himself, which again, reflects Muriel a bit, but I'm sure most people are familiar with their (more blatant) similarities by now lol

So yea.

Muriel and Lucio are reflections of each other. At their core, they both struggle with the same problem of caring way too much about how they're seen by others, but they cope with (and thus worsen) the problem in opposite ways, so when they take steps to heal themself, they also go in opposite directions, with Lucio needing to take some time to himself to get into his own head, while Muriel needs some time away from himself to get out of his own head.

Essentially they're heading in opposite directions to reach the same conclusion: other people's opinions don't matter as much as your own opinion of yourself and the opinions of the people close to you.

Interesting parallels, no?

Of course, I believe this could've been better illustrated if Nyx Hydra didn't rush the last three routes, but alas, this is what fan fiction and fan-analysis is for lol

Anyways I don't tend to poke around the Lucio side of the fandom too much to begin with so if this has all been said and argued before forgive me for the repetition, and If I've gotten some points wrong, please feel free to correct me! I've mentioned before I haven't really played through Lucio's route so some things may be wrong.

[stillness138]

for the character ask game: Vernon Roche

i gotta think about this! thank you

first impression: i actually remember this pretty well because witcher 2 was my first exposure to the franchise. i think i felt pretty much what i was supposed to feel though; "this guy imprisoned me but seems more sensible than the goons he employs". i liked his matter-of-fact but clearly proud and protective attitude towards Ves and his putting the key on the table and walking away like 'surely Geralt will manage'.

impression now: i still like him! surprisingly, cdpr writes original characters with really commendable nuance. of course, if Iorveth is to be believed word for word, Roche is responsible for carrying out hate crimes (he doesn't deny the accusations Iorveth makes, so i think that's just fact), and yet he shows time and time again that he really is more sensible than most. compare him to Rayla - also a special forces leader - and see the difference. Roche lacks the outright bloodthirst or really even the prejudice; it seems to me that he does his job and obeys Foltest without objection because he sees it as doing something worthwhile with his life, considering how he grew up. he and Iorveth contrast and parallel each other in fascinating ways.

favorite thing about him: his relationship towards Ves, because he clearly values her as an employee and as a person. his relative level-headedness. and the unpacked daddy issues that are most definitely there even if he won't talk about it. that part of him is sadly the most relatable to me. i also enjoy his humor, whether intentional or not. "emhyr var emreis, spice merchant" bursting into the elven baths while Triss is trying her hardest to seduce Geralt, fucking comedy gold.

least favorite thing about him: apart from the hate crimes? i think most of my issues that relate to him are metatextual - because the entire political landscape and plotline of witcher 3 sucks ass. maybe he could've held back the cops that beat Geralt though ngl.

favorite line/scene: "And we did. For three days. Then they smashed us into splinters." again, as much as i dislike the politics in witcher 3, this bit stands out to me. maybe also because it's punctuated by a reprise of the second game's main theme, in 3's instrumentation and a much more somber mood. good scene. that and the funny bits. "Some professional you are..."

favorite interaction he has with another character: it should be mainly credited to Letho's absolutely hilarious one-liner, but their little reunion at Kaer Morhen always gets a chuckle out of me. the entire interrogation at the beginning of witcher 2 is up there too.

a character that i wish he would interact with more: in the second game, elves in general. he mostly proves he's not completely shit-headed in context, but it would've been interesting to see him have a conversation with someone like Cedric. third game should've had Iorveth, we all know that.

another character from another fandom that reminds me of him: i know 5 things, but if i had to make a comparison... general Tullius from Skyrim? both are very capable and dedicated servants of a government despite its obvious failures and both show a noticeable sensibility or even calm you perhaps wouldn't expect. both have a badass lady as their right-hand person, too.

a headcanon about him: he hates the smell of cheap alcohol. childhood reminder. i also think he has a notable appreciation for architecture. can't remember if he actually comments on Loc Muinne in any way but somehow it feels like a thing he'd do. and i think it's pretty much canon that his hair color is towards light brown? or have i been living with fanon for far too long. either way, yeah, dirty blonde or warm light brown, super short on the sides.

a song that reminds of him: Shadowplay by Joy Division, in a way. first verse about beginning to serve Foltest, second verse about Foltest's and Temeria's fall. "but i could only stare in disbelief as the crowds all left" versus "and we did, for three days, then they smashed us into splinters".

an unpopular opinion about him: i famously dislike shipping him with Iorveth and i'm actually yet to see a good Roche ship. but the real hot take is that he doesn't need one. did i just say aroace Vernon Roche? maybe.

favorite picture: i'm sorry, but it's gotta be this one. on a more serious note, i always liked this piece of fanart a lot too. he gets to be cool.

[pizzapasta23045]

Ok last. Ask before I like pass out for the night but what are your thoughts on how Mondstadt culture affects Kaeya's self perception bc I think about it a lot

ooooh, good one, good one.

well, I'd think it's very conflicting and all. Because, on the one hand, most people in mondstadt don't seem to hate Khaeri'ah and all that, they seem to just... Idk, have forgotten about it? not care?

The king of khaeri'ah's also mentioned positively by Jean, though it seems like a farytale more than anything. So i don't think he'd have experienced racism at the hands of the people, had he told people, nor would he have heard people insult his homeland in front of him, which can be even more painful than straight up racism.

So there's that.

But also... They really really like barbatos. And while we have no idea how complicit he was with the fall of it, Kaeya would know and that could skew things two completely different ways. I like to think Barbatos respects Khaeri'ah and doesn't blame them for going against celestia, a place he doesn't even seem to like.

As an archon, he's probably the safest to talk to if you're Khaeri'ahn (excluding the tsaritsa who's on one side of the conflict and so it could be dangerous for Kaeya's faction specifically, and Nahida, who wasn't even alive then). He's also the archon of freedom and revolution and Khaenri'ahns are fundamentally revolutionaries.

But, on the other hand, the church of Barbatos seems to be much more "conservative" than Barbatos himself and that could bother Kaeya deeply. Because the church believes in sin and Khaenri'ah are fundamentally seen as sinners and punished for no reason, which would create a lot of guiilt.

Also, he's a young child lying to his benafactors, who wouldn't feel like a sinner in his conditions? That could reenforce a lot of generational trauma he most definetely has.

I feel like, more than most from mondstadt, Kaeya would really understand the irony of an archon of freedom and revolution. Because, fundamentally, people in Teyvat can never be free, they are bound by fate, the heavenly principals and the only revolutions that seem to succeed are the ones celestia allows.

Because Barbatos wasn't free to be an archon, he didn't choose the life. In fact, he seemed to avoid the conflict for most of the archon war, untill his conscience won out and he helped the humans overthrow the tyrants.

I feel like Kaeya is such a beutiful parallel to Old modstadt moreso than new mondstadt and barbatos himself when he joined and won the archon war. Because they both have a choice, to be happy or to be "good", to make a moral choice.

Barbatos doesn't want to be archon but "[his] children deserve[s] the joy of songs and dance, and the rights to overthrow vile tyrants."

And what is celestia, if not vile tyrants?

Also, their conception of family is surpisingly wide, wider than in most countries today. We saw that with Weinlesafest, and it was definetely hearwarming... But...

As rosaria said, sometimes family can be a twisted thing and not as straight forward as it may seem.

It says a lot, just how loyal Kaeya is to his adoptive family vut I do fell that he considers that as a duty also, not just as a choice like most people claim. In Mondstadt, adoptive family is the same as biological, and it's cool that they don't even seem to disregard heritage since that's fundamentally razor's journey.

He's fine, he's got a lot of people who care for him and he still wants to figure how how his bio parents were, not because they're his "real" family but because he's curious and wants to know. And nobody faults him for that or tells him to be grateful of the family he has and not care about his origins.

And while I think that's very very nice and a good thing we should aspire to, socially, i think it made his confict worse. Because they are both his families, that's the culture in Mondstadt, and so there is no "easy way out", either way he's bretray his "real" family.

(i don't think either part of his family is "fake" or should be dismissed but there is no better language in our society)

[melit0n]

EUCLID ANALYSIS.

Part one -> Title and meaning

Part two -> Line by line analysis part one

Part three -> Line by line analysis part two

Part four -> Musical/instrumental notes

Part five -> The Night in Sleep Token

Part six -> You're already here!

So, after all this, we have to come to some sort of conclusion about our points. One main and obvious conclusion can be made about exactly what Euclid is about; change. Overall, Euclid holds a constant theme of change and acceptance, both pushed through callbacks to previous songs and through general lyricism.

As stated in the post previous to this one, TMBTE, as an album, is about the turmoil of accepting change, therefore making Euclid the cap of acceptance of the passing of time, that Vessel needs to change and has changed and that’s okay.

However, we still have a few theories to talk about.

Euclid can be perceived as being a form of symmetry; a parallel that Vessel lays his life on because it brings all of the produced albums, all of his stories, together. It is symmetric because it reflects Vessel’s past, rotates what once was into something new, translates Vessel’s pain and what Sleep has to say into something manageable and combines past songs to create something that isn’t as different as we believe it to be from said songs.

Even so, Euclid could also be Vessel, which I don’t feel the need to explain since I’ve already linked the post the idea comes from, but I’ll do it again here.

Furthermore, Euclid could also be the replacement for Vessel in the future. As I stated in the first of these series of posts, the album art literally depicts a copy of Vessel, the same but different, holding the severed head of his era two’s mask. Euclid is about change, so, who’s to say the change isn’t Sleep having a new mouthpiece?

All in all, Euclid is about the past, present and probably, the future, which is most likely why I’ve been drawn to it so much. I talk about myself much more on this blog than I do in real life, so, it’s probably known to my followers that my greatest fear is the passage of time and change, which is why I’ve been so interested in this song. It depicts the thing that I have been afraid of for most of my life as ethereal and good. Inevitable, but comforting.

I think that would be the best sum up for the topic of this song; inevitable, but comforting.

So, you may now be asking ‘Mel, what do you think Euclid is about? You’ve talked about these different theories, not given much reason why you think so but still, and what Euclid could be, so what do you think?’

With full honesty? I am completely unsure. I have listened to this song over and over again since when it came out in May, 8 full months, had it consume my waking and dreaming thoughts, sat down and wrote all this and I still don’t fully know. Euclid is, in my perception of it, all of these things. Euclid could be Vessel’s past name or the vessel that will replace him. Euclid could be symmetry itself! Euclid could be all three of these things and more that I haven’t been able to decipher.

However, what I can say, is that Euclid is most definitely a eulogy, a reprise and a thank you. I view it as a love letter of sorts to all of Sleep Token’s past music (the albums One and Two included). In @todaysemotionalsupportsong own words: it’s an open door, a new beginning. It feels like sunshine streaming through trees finally blooming and like everything will be okay.

The reason why I believe Euclid to be a thank you to us as a collective, other than what I have already said, is because of the general nature of Sleep Token. Vessel, in all his anonymity, can sing his tunes to the void and you, who are there in the gloom visiting the past or sat there believing you are alone, mistake the words for your own and mould them to your own experiences. That is the gift Vessel is giving us, that is why Euclid is a thank you.

I apologise if this is not the conclusion any of you reading came here for, because I physically cannot give you enough solid evidence to confirm nor deny any of these theories. When I write literature essays, I always have something to go on; context clues from the author’s life or something confirmed by someone far past my era to base my ideas on, but with this? I have my thoughts and the people on my Tumblr dash. I have no way to source potential context to support my statements because I don’t have a clue who Vessel is and, in the nicest way possible, I don’t care to know either. Outside of lore speculations, I can’t give you much other than stating and analysing the obvious, which is the whole point of Sleep Token. They are here to deliver a message, be mouthpieces for suffering and joy, nothing more, as derogatory as that sounds.

Despite this, I hope whoever has read through eight months of the inner workings of my mind trying to dissect this song has found entertainment, or perhaps clarity through it. Thank you, reader, for even sitting down and reading these posts.

Worship.

[nite-puff]

Anyway, on to more positive things/general observations. I love how the different renditions of "Punishment Time" have these different musical flairs based on who was getting executed (Leon's starts with the baseball charge and has an ragtime feel reminiscent of music from the same time as the golden age of the sport (tho really that's more Monokuma's classic theater influences than anything), Mondo's is very rock n' roll (plain rock at first but gets more vintage towards the end), Celestia's with the grand harpsichord, Alter Ego's having this beeping and booping that reminds me of a telegraph, and Junko's takes elements from all of them). Also, "Soundproof" should have been in the main body of the album along with "Flunkin' Thrice" and "Deep End" instead of being bonus tracks, they're all very good and I feel like they would help break up the breakneck pace a little bit. Also, can we talk about the bit in "You Don't Know" where Taka and Celeste harmonize when calling the people they end up closest to in the game stupid??? Like there's Some Kind of Parallel being drawn there but idk what, especially since they changed Hifumi to a girl in-text, so now both pairs also have homoerotic tension. Also, girl Hifumi! 👏👏👏👏

Yes!!! To all of this!!!

I love all of the “Punishment Time” renditions, and the idea that Junko’s is a mashup of all of the past musical flairs is a really good way to reflect how her execution is a mashup of all the previous ones. Good musical storytelling! And I at first didn’t catch what the music in Mondo’s was referencing (because Leon, Celeste, and Alter Ego’s are a little more obvious), but when I noticed it’s supposed to be classic rock, I just got really happy for some reason. Like yeah, classic 50-60’s American bikers are what Mondo’s subculture is inspired by, so that kind of music would be super fitting. That’s such a neat detail that I really appreciate!

And yes, “Soundproof”, “Flunkin’ Thrice”, and “Deep End” should’ve been in the actual story (though I guess “Deep End” sort of is, since the beginning is part of “My Sacrifice” and henceforth sort of becomes Aoi’s motif for the rest of the show). Because Hiro, Sayaka, and Leon don’t get a lot of music moments outside of those tracks. I was trying to think that maybe all of the bonus tracks could be part of the show, but “Happen” could probably slow down the pacing a little too much, and “Powermore,” while not completely out-of-line with the rest of the songs, is very similar to some other tracks. It’d just be more of the same type of “we need to have hope” songs, so I kind of get why they didn’t include it. And “Hifumi for Christmas”… is just “Hifumi for Christmas” and really deserves its placement as a bonus track. But the other three could really serve as breathers between everything else. (And isn’t it kinda effed up that Sayaka, the Ultimate Pop Sensation, and Leon, a wannabe music performer, don’t get their own song(s) featured in the main line-up??)

Also, Hifumi actually got genderswapped?? Like that’s canon to the musical??? I didn’t know that! Girl Hifumi for the win!!!!! So yeah “You Don’t Know” has a ton of homoerotic tension. And nice girlfriend moments with Aoi and Sakura asking Chihiro to join them for their workout.

[jahanmp4]

Another interesting parallel between 화월가 (Last Flower) and 바람의 노래 (Song of the Wind) is that both perceptions of being left alone are valid and beautiful in their own way.

For this post, I will take the liberty to assume LF is told from k!Louis' perspective (as it came out during HOK5 era) and SOTW from k!Mujin's.

바람의 노래 (Song of the Wind) is all about k!Mujin explaining his loved one that it's okay if they forget him, that it was bound to happen no matter how cruel his fate is. It's a continuation of him being trapped in the magical tree of the land in order to protect it and its people. He does not know what eternity feels like, but he chooses to reassure his beloved instead.

“Even if you don't miss me, it's really okay,

Don't bother waiting, you can forget me and carry on leaving.”

k!Mujin chose his fate. He willingly trapped himself into that tree because it was what needed to be done if he wanted to save a kingdom he did not even know before. There is a sense of beautiful bravery and selflessness about k!Mujin, who sacrificed himself for the common good. He suffers greatly for his decision, but remains at peace and longs for his beloved. Does he regret it ? Of course, but it was what needed to be done.

화월가 (Last Flower) on the other end is full of anger and resentment, and it makes complete sense if it's about k!Louis. Unlike k!Mujin, k!Louis did not get to chose his fate. He simply woke up every day for ages, never getting old, and immortality is a bitter experience for the king. He considers himself to be a child trapped in time and loneliness, after all, what's lonelier than immortality ? You are bound to see all your loved ones die one after the other, over and over again, and all you can to is watch. He is angry at his beloved for leaving him, and hoping to see them again in his next life.

Eventually I will do a fully fleshed out analysis of the Moonlight Flower Tryptic (Promise, Last Flower and Song of the Wind) because they all showcase very similar experiences with different outcomes.

Unlike k!Mujin, k!Louis was unable to protect his loved one, and their absence is unbearable. He also mentions seeing them in the next life, which, as figurative as it can be, could also mean quite literally that this person will reincarnate in the future, therefore k!Louis will be able to see them again. He's suffering from his immortality, if anything he wishes he could just die so the reincarnation process would go faster (spring being a very common imagery for rebirth).

“Will spring really come to me too ?”

He's longing for his beloved, he is also longing for his death : he wants to die. He sings that he cannot live on now that they're gone, that he'll die of grief in their absence.

There is also the unavoidable loss of memory that comes with reincarnation. He's begging his loved one to not forget him and hoping that they will remember as they look through the horizon.

Find the fragments of memories scattered across the horizon

Oh blue bird, please convey my word

Even if we're under the same sky,

It's a cruel destiny where we can't be together

k!Louis hasn't accepted his fate because he's simply suffering from it. He had no say in his life and only suffers a great deal of pain caused by loneliness.

One king willingly locked himself up and renounced the world around him, the other lives on freely but would rather die and find a new fate instead.