#references a line from MOBY

[flyinghome-againstthewind]

Wednesday 100: A Logical Mind

“Ye’ll spoil yer supper, Jem.”

His grandson looked up sharply from the pie Mrs. Bug had set out to cool, his little brows furrowing together — a look Jamie knew well, but it still struck him to see it on Jem’s face, and he treasured it for the echo of Claire found in their grandchildren.

“One bite won’t, Grandda.”

“Suppose not.”

“Two bites, even,” Jem reasoned. Jamie fought a smile and went to get a knife for the pie before Jem convinced him he could eat two slices.

“Ye’ve a logical mind,” Jamie told him. “Ye get it from yer Grannie.”

[optiwashere]

Weird day of reading today:

Stared at Locked Tomb for a few minutes as I thought about rereads, but at this point I'm just gonna wait for Alecto to go through the series again. I don't think I'm emotionally strong enough atm to endure the memes again anyways.

Reread an old manuscript for a novel that I never finished. 48k and it's just immensely harrowing with a really brutal ending per the outline that I don't think would ever make it past editing lmao. Looking at when I wrote it, that makes a lot of sense. One of the only first-person POV things I've ever written, and it was surprisingly all right. I'd probably rewrite this as third-person close if I were to revisit it. Cool world that I didn't really utilize as well.

Picked through some highlights of Gormenghast and buried myself in indulgent, decadent prose for a while. There's singular clauses with more creativity than entire stories I've written. Just means there's more to aspire to, I suppose!

Wanted to reread some passages from a few Robin Hobb books, but I cannot remember which book is which within a series because all of her novels have just the worst titles. Just meant that I waded through beautiful moment after beautiful moment in search of what I was after. Then wound up reading the ending of Elderlings all over again, much to my heart's deep sorrow.

[magicalgirlsirin]

hi rly enjoyed ur post on elysian realm! ik ur a new fan (i am too) but i heard that before retcon, elysia was a lot more morally gray. would you happen to know how exactly?? im rly curious bc i think it would be a severe improvement obviously. we deserve complex women who do wrongs

So when I say retcon in relation to the elyrealm arc it's less so "things they changed because of the story evolving and wanting to expand previously established events" and more "things they straight up forgot about in service of making Elysia a herrscher". It's not like hi3 is a stranger to retcons though?

For example, Durandal being the "original" Kiana is a retcon. The fact that our Kiana was a clone remained the same, but it's clear from older story stuff (iirc it's Everlasting Memory/Theresa's chronicle set?; second eruption manga doesn't focus on the Kiana part) that Durandal wasn't originally there. Otto refers to Kiana as K-423, and that Theresa needs to retrieve her, which implies that Theresa knows it's not Siegfried and Cecilia's kid, but her distress remains the same. The later game retcon by Thus Spoke Apocalypse is that OG!Kiana and Siegfried were going to go retrieve K-423, but OG!Kiana ended up injured and so Siegfried only left with K-423. And if you're confused then so am I because the details don't really super line up with the presentation, but it's like, fine, because at the end of the day the current writing intention and trajectory is for Durandal and Kiana to be sisters, and to both be Siegfried's daughters.

Anyways, for Elysia, a lot of her retcons occur in a very rapid pace from the first realm chapter set to Elysium Everlasting. Like I mentioned in my last post, the herrscher reveal is nonsense just going off of basic information like the fact she received MANTIS surgery like all the other Flame Chasers. However, there are other plot threads that are completely dropped for the sake of making Elysia a very special good girl who you should love because she's so nice and never did anything bad.

[About Betrayal 1 - Chapter 2]

[About Betrayal 2 - Chapter 2]

Elysia the traitor plot is something I was, well not hopeful for (a friend had already warned me that the game wouldn't do anything interesting with it] but I still ended up mulling it over a lot because it was such an interesting hinge piece for her initial presentation.

What stands out to me is the phrasing. Kevin says she never endangered humanity even if she was a traitor. Kevin says that Elysia made a decision. This implies agency, like Elysia was actively choosing to do something dangerous for the sake of the Flame Chasers. However, if Elysia was a herrscher from the beginning, then none of this makes sense. She doesn't choose to be a herrscher if she was one from the beginning, so why even make it seem like her betrayal was her choice at all?

[Traitor - Chapter 1]

It doesn't stop there though. Mobius' active disdain implies that whatever choice Elysia made, it was enough to make Mobius of all people consider her a lost cause. Mobius, who body mods and injects honkai energy into anyone with a pulse (hyperbole) to try and make humanity last just the slightest bit longer.

[Traitor - Chapter 1]

Mobius wants us to doubt Elysia's intentions. If you go through all their shared information, you'll find that the worst Elysia really does is just... coerce Mobi to wear pink dresses, and while that is obnoxious, it wouldn't warrant utter contempt for Elysia as a person.

There's actually a lot of stray text that implies there's something wrong about Elysia's existence, which I guess in generous terms could be interpreted as setup for the herrscher reveal? But it just feels like it's just there to add to the mystery that won't go anywhere.

[The Blind Spot - Recollection]

This right here nags at me. Deeply so. Elysia isn't so much a character as much as she is just a concept, the idea of a story that could be told. Not even in the canon-compliant weird endgame hook meta-textual breakout in Transcending Finality about the power of stories... Although, there's a way to introduce it here and tie it to Elysia to give some semblance of connectivity.

I went this long without actually giving my thoughts on how to make Elysia's writing good though. Disclaimer for clarity sake I know not everyone will agree with the changes I want to make and I'm also not claiming to be a more skilled writer than anyone in the hi3 team, they're all people with enough talent to be employed by the company.

That out of the way.

This isn't so much about making Elysia morally grey as much as it is about giving her an emotional core, because right now she's pretty hollow. Rather than a pristine girl who never did anything wrong, I'd rather cast her as a romantic, tragic heroine who would move heaven and fate just to seem noble.

Elysia was born human. Maybe she loved stories, and how they transported her to far off places, far far far away from the tiny town she was growing up in. When she was old enough, she traveled the world. Honkai descends. Because she was a globe trotter she ended up connected to many people, and was given the chance to join the MOTH organization. She gets MANTIS surgery. As the number of soon-to-be Flame Chasers grow, discussion begins about if the strength of the soldiers is enough.

'Maybe, if I had power comparable to a herrscher, we could fight with less casualties.'

She doesn't say this out loud, of course. It's a dangerous thought, a line that shouldn't be crossed. But she's curious. She breaks into Mobius' lab [Miss Pink Spy - Pristine Memory] to find the information she wants. Mobius figures out her intentions and warns Elysia off. It's not even in consideration, so keep whatever plan you have in mind off the table before you do something irreversible.

Mobius thought that Elysia gave up on the plan after the seventh erruption. The haunted look behind Kevin's eyes, the sadness creasing Elysia's face, all of it makes it seem like a simple consideration forgotten by the sands of time.

Elysia doesn't have a discipline. She told Dr. Mei it wasn't needed since her combat performance was well above standard margins anyways. (She is on par with Kevin in strength, after all.) At least, we all thought she didn't. A deal is made with Aponia.

Aponia, Aponia, apostle of fate, I offer you my 'humanity' to become a 'story'.

Elysia cannot receive any more disciplines. The target has to be "human". Elysia as a story, unchanging, pristine, capable of remaining as she is without blemish, can reach out and become a herrscher while remaining herself. She's desperate. She wants to help. She reaches into the deep, the start of the universe, and gathers the power. She names it Origin, since it's something she found at the source.

She's a herrscher.

Herrschers are an enemy of humanity.

Kevin runs her through with Shamash.

Elysia is still herself though, talking like she would as usual.

-Oh Kevin, I wanted to know if your tears would freeze, but I was hoping it wouldn't be like this. They're so warm, though. Thank you for crying for me.

-I see no herrscher here, just... the flame chaser, bearing the signet of ego.

The Elysian Realm keeps a secret. Aponia keeps it, the fact that Elysia gave up her humanity. The final banquet? A polite way to refer to Elysia's own demise.

It's sad, isn't it? That strength she wanted to give fell right through her fingers. Her own undoing, the desperate plan of a foolish girl who wanted to be a hero, but only ending up as a villain to oppose. It's so much more meaningful, then, that Elysia's gift, the power of sapience, is kept on to the next cycle of humanity. Held again, the power of ego, of humans, to someone with a kind heart to move beyond the past she's trapped in. Thank you, Raiden Mei, for carrying on the ideals of the thirteen trailblazers, the moths who chase the flame.

so anyways yeah i think elysia couldve been interesting whos to say

[mmmmalo]

I'd gathered way back that Typheus's lair was surrounded by pipes because they're a Dad symbol, making John on some level fight Dad again. But I learned a moment ago that the disease 'typhus' derives its name from a Greek word for smoke, so it appears the same logic might apply to the denizen itself... 'typhus' is also a relative of 'typhoon', which others have linked to John's wind powers, but that's not really my focus here.

Cetus then represents Mom, based both on the use of whale as a sexist epithet (Blubber, huge bitch) and the mass slaughter of the fish in the sea which reflects/asserts Mom's infertility. Rose also alludes to massacres at the hands of 'whales' in the excerpt of CotL we see: the fat wizard Smarny (whose name suggests a kind of pancake) looks guiltily upon the dessert-textured corpse pile, and the final line is a Moby Dick reference via Jaws. These would seem to be the abstracted continuations of Rose spelling out 'shrew' on the refrigerator

Hephaestus then, must represent Bro...? His status as blacksmith connects to the Striders' fixation on swords obviously, but it would become a contradiction that Hephaestus repairs what Bro breaks? There's also some sort of racial angle I think, there's tidbits here and there that associate Hephaestus's charred black skin with his "lameness"... Dave says Mr. T's lameness is what makes him ironically cool -- which via Hephaestus becomes an implicit indictment of Bro? Dave says he's training to be a "lame gothy supervillain" when goth-as-black has been racialized by Oglagoth ("black ogle") -- which contains a note of bitterness about his emulation of Bro and the lame shades that darken his leer? There are numerous references to sunglasses (or other dark screens) as "lame" throughout the story that feel loaded now... and sexually loaded at that, since the racialized appearance of blindness (shades) is itself an unbreakable katana, and apparent lack (a disability or lameness) that signals comprehensive sight (total potency, ninja sword as BBC)... or something like that. The Mr. T rant seems to encompass some of the ambivalence around regard for blackness, and Bro's been chained to that line of thought like a Chuck Norris puppet

This all implicates Grandpa as Echidna, but I'm unsure how to connect the two. The Dr. Moreau epithet would mark him as a mother of monsters? Some accounts locate Echidna's cave Arima on a volcanic island? The matter of calling Grandpa "she-viper" (feminine phallus?) might align with how depictions of Grandpa as a sexual threat have a certain homophobic tint... I don't know. Unlike Hephaestus, I don't have a convenient word to latch onto to search for repeated motifs, though Joey's hatred of serpents would seem to retroactively encourage the she-viper angle

Hm... the lack of insult in Typheus-as-smoke feels off too, in the wake of the other three. Maybe it will all click later

[fisherman-fight]

ROUND THREE

GOKU from DRAGON BALL vs ISHMAEL from MOBY DICK

PROPAGANDA

GOKU - “he used to fish with his tail when he still had it and also he caught some big fucking fish”

ISHMAEL - “As you may know, Moby Dick starts with the line "call me Ishmael”. Then, Ishmael immediately proceeds to tell us that he is depressed and yearns for the sea (I am paraphrasing as it is very long and detailed). He is probably gay (oh no wait I forgot to say this in my Queequeg submission but they get married! In canon! In something written in 1851! This is more clear than whatever is happening in the Epic of Gilgamesh and that was canon homosexuality!) About half the book is taken up by Ishmael’s lectures to the reader about whale anatomy and within those lectures, whales are constantly referred to as fish therefore this does indeed count as fishing. Also, he is the only one to survive the wreckage of the Pequod and that is because of Queequeg.“

[hold-him-down]

Leo Tells a Story

TW: references to whipping, references to institutionalized slavery

Notes: somewhere around the 2 year mark

✥ ✥ ✥ 

“I don’t think I’m getting out of here before midnight,” Luke grumbles from the other end of the line. Rob Bennett can practically hear the frown lines deepening as he pictures his guilt-laden younger brother considering all the possible ways to excuse himself from the late session on the senate floor.

There’s unrest, though. Last week, a new bill had been introduced allowing for broader use of corporal punishment on the private level, and when the public got ahold of it, protests immediately began. Luke had been held in emergency sessions almost every day since, but seldom had they taken him past sunset. 

“Can you do me a favor?” Luke asks now. Rob nods, although Luke won’t see it.

“You want me to stop by your place?” he asks, pizza in one hand and a stuffed animal in the other. He lobs it into Eliza’s bedroom, empty now for the next week. “You know he’s probably up to his ears in Moby Dick or something equally enthralling.” 

And he thinks it’s probably true, but still, lately his visits to Luke’s house have been a good opportunity to build something good in the shit storm that is brewing.

✥ ✥ ✥ 

Rob’s first thought when he walks into his brother’s townhouse and finds Leo laying on the floor, an obscenely fat book resting open on his chest, his eyes closed but his fingers fisted: Leo is drunk?

Rob’s second thought, immediately after: That doesn’t sound like the Leo he has come to know and love.

“Hi,” Leo says (mumbles?) then, but he doesn’t move. And then, he adds, “I don’t feel good,” and a few pieces fall into place.

With a smile of equal parts fondness and sympathy, Rob drops to a kneel beside him, plucking the book off his chest and dog-earing the page before setting it to the side. Leo squints up at him, his eyes just slightly unfocused, and rolls over with a groan. He pushes himself up onto the sofa, Rob kind-of-sort-of shadowing the movements while trying not to be too obvious.

“Did you at least take the good drugs?” Rob says, hand hovering just over Leo’s shoulder blades. He can never quite pinpoint what the right move here is, but he’s pretty sure at this point that hovering is exactly what his brother would do, so he rolls with it.

Leo folds himself in half, his head between his knees, the curve of his spine visible through his shirt. Rob nudges him, offering a sympathetic smile as Leo’s eyes meet his. “Leo?”

“I don’t know,” Leo says. “Aspirin?” he continues. His arm curls under his knees and he draws his body in tighter. And then, as if on cue, he adds, “Luke said I could. I thought it would help.”

Rob picks the discarded bill bottle from the coffee table, rotating it in his hands. “Aspirin fucks with you?” 

Leo nods, a miserable sound coming from him, but he rights himself then, staring at the bottle in Rob’s hand. “Only when I chase it with tequila.”

For a moment, Rob freezes, gauging the likelihood that Leo is fucking with him. Uncertainty colors his generally pretty casual demeanor. Would he be shocked if Leo finally said fuck it and tapped into his probably-moronic twenty-five-year-old instincts to dull the ache of what he suspected was near constant discomfort? Yes, he decides. He would be. Still–

“Leo,” Rob says, uncapping Leo’s bottle of water and tilting it toward him. He pauses. “I don’t say this to freak you out, but are you fucking with me right now?”

Leo laughs out a breath but nods into his knees, then stretches his back and rights himself, planting his feet on the floor. He takes the water and clears his throat, wincing as he does. “Sorry,” Leo says. And then, he adds, “Yes. Most drugs mess with me.”

“That doesn’t make a lot of medical sense,” Rob says as he sits, setting the bottle back down. “Was it always that way?”

Leo shakes his head. “It got worse after the… – training– started. I don’t know, they made me take a lot. Sometimes I think they were trying to make me sick. Sometimes they would bet on how sick I would get.” He sucks in a deep breath and Rob nods, trying to keep the open fury from registering on his face. “I think it started then. Some Pavlovian thing.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” he replies distantly. They’re silent as the news begins a broadcast of the Senate meeting. There’s no sound, but Luke’s speaking… emphatically, with a banner of updates running beneath him.

“Luke said your back’s been giving you trouble?” Rob asks minutes later, eying the way Leo holds himself now.

“My neck,” Leo corrects. “Usually it’s okay, I don’t… I must have just slept wrong.”

“You’re too young to have neck pains from sleeping wrong. Luke making you sleep on the floor again?” he asks with a smile. Leo’s eyes are still on the TV, his expression devoid of any real emotion, but there’s something there. Rob gives him a moment before he says, gentler now, “Can I take a look?”

Leo, for his part, mostly looks tired. “It just hurts sometimes,” he says, bowing his head. He puts his hands over his ears, locking his fingers around his head, and Rob recognizes the gesture for what it is: bracing himself, holding himself still, doing what he needs to do.

Rob is light in his touch, asking Leo to move when he needs to, pinpointing the pressure points. Leo’s jumpy, because Leo’s always jumpy, but there’s also an alarming amount of tension along the muscles.

Maybe he did sleep wrong. Maybe he pulled something. Maybe he carries a lot of tension generally, and it wears him down.

But for Leo Evans to willfully open that pill bottle–

“How often does it hurt?” Rob asks, guiding Leo’s chin up and gently pressing along his spine.

Leo swallows. “Not often,” he replies. “Not usually.”

As Rob releases him, Leo adds, “It’s not a big deal,” and then, he amends: “I don’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

“Okay,” Rob says lightly. “It can be a small ticket item. But–” he takes a breath “–if I only have half the story, I will feel… very sad.”

Leo lifts his head, raising his eyebrows. “You’ll feel... sad?” Leo repeats, with just a hint of, maybe teasing, behind his tone? 

“Very,” Rob says, holding his eye contact for a second longer than he needed to. Sometimes, in these moments, Rob is reminded that Leo can hold his own. That he’s not this broken person everyone thinks he is. That he doesn’t need to be handled with kid gloves the way his parents handle him, that he doesn’t need the protection Luke constantly seeks to provide. 

And then his mouth works ahead of his brain and he says, “Will you tell me why your neck hurts, as seldom as it may?” And if he planned out his words, he might phrase it as less of a demand, but it’s there, and it lingers. “I promise it’ll stay between us, if that’s what you want.”

Leo whistles out a sharp breath, and his eyes meet Rob’s, and his expression shifts. He glances at the TV, where Luke continues to absolutely dominate the senate floor, and turns it off.

“I don’t think I’m really supposed to talk about it,” he says, after a prolonged pause. 

Rob goes to the bar and pours himself a glass of scotch, offering one to Leo. Unsurprisingly, he shakes his head.

When Rob returns, he takes a slow drink, then sets it to the side. 

Every muscle in Leo’s body is tense, his fight or flight response laid out in front of them, and just as Rob considers the exact words he needs to speak to let him off the hook, Leo’s hands ball into fists at his side and he takes a deep breath. 

Leo tells Rob the story then, unexpected in its own right, about the day– one of the days, maybe– that he was tortured just for the sake of being tortured. Complete with a fucking… presentation, and doctors, and video cameras. He recounts it with a detached precision that rattles Rob, the feeling of the whip slicing into his muscles, the feeling of fingers pressing into wounds, the sleepless nights that followed and the uncertainty of when it would happen again. 

When he finishes, Rob’s holding his cup so tightly his fingers are white. He takes a breath, forcibly loosening his muscles, and swallows. He waits until he’s sure he can speak calmly to speak at all, so keenly aware that Leo’s waiting, and that Leo doesn’t do well with Big Feelings, although nothing in his immediate expression or posture gives it away. 

Leo shrugs then, not for the first time that evening. 

“So that’s why it hurts sometimes,” he says softly, his eyes glued to Rob’s fingers, his grip on that glass a preview of what will one day be his grip on the neck of whoever was in charge of that fucking site. 

He takes a breath, the new knowledge settling into him, working its way through his nervous system and penetrating the core of who he is. He thinks of all the ways he’ll get the site shut down, of all the ways he’ll get the whole fucking system shut down; he thinks of what Luke will say when he tells him, and in almost the same instant that he remembers, Leo says-

“You can’t tell him.” 

And Rob swallows, setting his empty glass on a magazine on the table. Leo’s waiting for him to speak, but he doesn’t know where to begin. The medical concerns with an experimental torture device slicing into Leo’s neck and causing what is probably irreparable damage. The mental scars that he’s always known run so deep in this boy, but maybe he still doesn’t fucking get how deep. The absolute blind rage that he can’t contain enough to even push out the simplest of words.

“It’s illegal,” is all Rob can come up with, what could be full minutes later. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Leo replies. “It doesn’t matter if it’s legal or not; I don’t think anyone cares about the legality of anything happening in those sites.” Leo’s expression is almost completely devoid of emotion, a perfect mask trained into him by some asshole in some white room somewhere, but Rob knows there’s turmoil behind them. 

“It matters, Leo. It all fucking matters. You matter. Your suffering matters. Your personhood fucking–” He doesn’t clock the aggression in his own tone, the volume of his voice, the fury behind his eyes, until he looks at Leo. He swallows back his anger. He’ll find the video. He’ll find the video, or Luke will, and things will change. They have to.

He can hear the key turning in the lock, he sees Leo’s eye land on the door behind him, and he swallows back whatever pieces of the rage that he can in time for his brother to step into the living room. 

taglist: @whump-cravings, @afabulousmrtake, @crystalquartzwhump, @maracujatangerine, @pumpkin-spice-whump, @distinctlywhumpthing, @thecyrulik, @highwaywhump, @batfacedliar-yetagain, @finder-of-rings, @dont-touch-my-soup, @skyhawkwolf, @suspicious-whumping-egg, @also-finder-of-rings, @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump, @prodigal-zoe, @peachy-panic, @melancholy-in-the-morning, @urban-dark, @nicolepascaline, @quietly-by-myself, @pigeonwhumps, @whump-blog,  @seasaltandcopper, @angstyaches, @i-msonotcreative, @mylifeisonthebookshelf, @anonintrovert, @whump-world, @squishablesunbeam, @considerablecolors, @whumpcereal, @whumperfully, 

[head-empty-just-sigma]

What is the point?

seriously, what is it?

hah, gottem

basically i want to discuss how Atsushi’s image of Dazai and other influential characters in his life have changed over the course of the story. including his own ability, the White Tiger itself

also, i plan on doing a copium-driven theory of how zenki soukoku may mirror soukoku’s reuniting from chapter 31 in a future chapter, which should be posted before chapter 106 hopefully

also also, i want to decipher Dazai’s mental gymnastics a bit as his dialogue in ch105 is making my analyst brain cells tingle but this might take a while to write, so it might be posted next month? idk

🔺spoilers for chapter 105 (the most recent chapter as of writing this), chapters 24, 28-29, 35, 39, 51-53, 63-64, 84-87, 102, and 103.5, and Dead Apple🔻

i won’t lie, this ended up being pretty long. skip to the end of the post for a pseudo-TLDR of my main points for chapter 105 specifically if you don’t feel like reading it all

First, we have the man who stole the show from Atsushi; Dazai

We start, not at the very beginning, but the first event that sparked Atsushi's development of Dazai's image beyond just seeing him as his superior in the ADA.

I’m sure we all can recognize this panel, from back in chapter 24 when Atsushi began to fall to the inner turmoil over his ability all over again. Dazai would have none of it, doing the only thing he knows how to do as a ‘mentor’. He physically slaps Atsushi to shock him out of his train of thought, and then proceeds to say some of the most meaningful lines to ever come out of his mouth; he tells Atsushi that he can’t wallow in self-pity, because all it would do is trap him in an endless nightmare. This is really the first time Dazai has given straight-up advice to Atsushi in a way that’s clear and forward, instead of saying it in some weird riddle for Atsushi to figure out on his own.

I think this is important because it’s only after this point that Atsushi begins to turn to Dazai in his mind when he needs to come up with plans on his own.

In situations where Atsushi isn’t sure what to do or needs to come up with a plan on his own, he uses Dazai as a point of reference. ‘What would Dazai do?’ He also firmly believes that Dazai will be there to support him, as we see in chapter 28 and 29 where he jumps out of the Moby Dick and does all he can to deliver Kyuusaku’s Dogra Magra doll to Dazai, which is a plan he made all on his own just with the firm belief that Dazai would be there to nullify the doll. This is reinforced by Dazai telling him that he was indeed waiting for Atsushi to land with the doll.

A little less important for Dazai’s development is chapter 39. In 39, Atsushi asks Dazai of all people for advice on how to express how he feels after finding out the Orphanage Director died, despite the fact that Dazai 1. never had a father figure either besides Mori, and 2. is one of the most emotionally constipated characters in the entire series. This just proves that Atsushi believes he can rely on Dazai for more than just things relating to the ADA, which I think stemmed from Dazai’s lines in chapter 24. There’s also the few times where Atsushi begins to notice and understand Dazai’s facial expressions, and generally understands his mental gymnastics a little bit better.

Nothing else of note happens between Atsushi and Dazai until chapter 63, where Atsushi ‘hallucinates’ Dazai for the first time. Atsushi is essentially on his own at this point, and he knows this, which makes him begin to doubt himself. This moment of self doubt sparks the hallucination of Dazai asking Atsushi if he was going to give up that easily, which gives Atsushi the little push he needed to ask himself ‘What would Dazai do?’ in this situation. From there, he’s able to confidently come up with a detailed plan based on the information available to him. Just like Dazai would do.

After that, the focus of the story becomes pretty scattered honestly. We rarely see the same characters month to month, including Atsushi. The only two points after chapter 63 are in chapter 102, where Dazai tells Atsushi (in his mind) that he needs to wake up because he’s running out of time, and in chapter 105, where Dazai appears at the end of the cast of characters Atsushi sees. Dazai is the last character to appear, to point him (quite literally) in the right direction, to tell him he needs to keep going, as the last bit of encouragement Atsushi needed in order to move forward with what he thinks is the best course of action.

Atsushi, in the beginning, saw Dazai as his superior in the ADA, his coworker, not much different than the other members. As the story progressed and Dazai gave Atsushi advice and continued to point him towards the end goal again and again, no matter how hopeless it seemed, Atsushi now sees Dazai as someone he can look at for inspiration when the situation looks dire, and when all other options are exhausted. Dazai will be there, metaphorically or literally, because Atsushi believes he will be.

Next, let’s talk about the Orphanage Director (aka, the Headmaster)

Besides being single-handedly the worst character in the entire story, the Headmaster serves as one of the major influences over how Atsushi views his ability and his capabilities. His self doubt comes from the abuse at the hands of the Headmaster, who convinced Atsushi he essentially had no worth as a human being.

The first time we see Atsushi hallucinate the Headmaster outside of the typically flashbacks in the beginning is in chapter 28, while Atsushi is trapped on the Moby Dick. Just as he starts to think of what he can do in his situation, the Headmaster appears to spew his doubt of Atsushi’s capabilities. The distraction is momentary, as Atsushi is able to physically swipe away the hallucination after telling the Headmaster to shut up. This is one of the rare times he’s able to confidently defy the words of the Headmaster, which is important considering this occurs after Atsushi’s accident under the influence of Dogra Magra.

Directly after that comes the depressing chapter 29, where we actually see some of the things the Headmaster did to Atsushi. In the span of this one chapter, however, we also learn that besides being a gross example of unrestricted child abuse, the Headmaster had his reasons (albeit twisted, morally wrong, and just plain messed up ones) for his actions. The most obvious reason is Atsushi’s uncontrollable ability. From the flashback in Dead Apple, it’s probably safe to assume that Atsushi’s ability turned him into a fully-grown or mostly fully-grown tiger from the very beginning. The Headmaster kept Atsushi locked up in a cell by himself to minimize the damage done by the tiger. Another reason for his actions was because that’s how he was treated as a child, as he was coincidentally also raised in an abusive orphanage, and humans grow up heavily influenced by those who raised them and the environment surrounding that. To the Headmaster, being abusive was probably the only way he knew how to raise children. Finally, the Headmaster specifically wanted Atsushi to hate him because he was a horrible person. He wanted Atsushi to see his evilness and be repulsed by it, so that when Atsushi saw worse evils outside of the orphanage, he’d naturally hate them, too. The Headmaster also drilled the thought into Atsushi’s head that saving people would give him self worth, so he should do his utmost to save as many people as he could.

Of course, absolutely none of those reasons can excuse the Headmaster’s actions and abuse of Atsushi and the other children in the orphanage. He was truly, and justifiably the worst character in Atsushi’s life. If anything, in the end, he deserved to die.

Dazai’s words to Atsushi in chapter 29 also help him realize that while, yes, he went through absolute hell at the orphanage, that hell raised him to be the person he is now.

The Headmaster appears as a hallucination of sorts in chapter 52 towards the end of shin soukoku’s fight with Ivan. He doesn’t say anything, but Atsushi acknowledges his presence anyway, telling Aku that the Headmaster, despite being dead, still lives in Atsushi’s mind. But, Atsushi understands that as long as he follows a righteous path and saving people, he can rid himself of the Headmaster eventually.

It’s also notable that he does not appear in chapter 105, meaning he doesn’t hold as much influence over Atsushi as he used to compared to the characters who do show up.

In the end, Atsushi has come to terms with the fact that while the Headmaster made his childhood miserable, and caused him a lot of mental anguish, the misery did it’s job of teaching Atsushi to be a good person. Although in a twisted, unhealthy way.

Let’s move on to Akutagawa

Aku doesn’t hold as much influence over Atsushi compared to the previous two characters, but Atsushi’s image and opinion of Aku has definitely changed over time

At the beginning, Atsushi had plenty of reasons to see Aku as just a dangerous mafioso who kills others in a gross display of strength. This view never really changes much in the beginning of their forced partnership, and Aku also continuously tries to pick fights with Atsushi on missions, so he’s not helping his case much.

The first time this begins to change is chapter 35, during the fight between shin soukoku and Fitzgerald. Atsushi decides to ask Aku if he’s foolish for wanting to escape the past (his childhood trauma) by fighting to save others. Aku answers yes, he is foolish. Because the pain of the past has nothing to do with who Atsushi is now. Atsushi commits this to the back of his mind, and in return, offers Aku the fact that Dazai probably already acknowledged him a long time ago. This trade of confirmation marks the true beginning of development in how Atsushi sees Akutagawa.

The next time they’re forced to work together is chapter 51-53, where it seems like Atsushi’s views haven’t changed much, but that’s not necessarily the case. Atsushi reuses the point that he sees Aku as someone who jumps to murder before thinking about the mission, which is true considering Aku wanted to fight Atsushi instead of focus on their mission. However, after Atsushi insults Aku, instead of trying to kill him, Aku kind of just accepts it. And whatever expression he made, Atsushi certainly saw it and understood it. After this, Aku and Atsushi have their first real conversation about their individual motives for fighting. This gives them a better understanding of each other, and serves as the catalyst for Aku’s follow up question near the end of their fight with Ivan. Atsushi reveals that the Headmaster still haunts him, so he must continue to save others to rid himself of his past, which Aku accepts as a good enough answer to make the biggest development in their partnership: the Black Tiger Claws singularity. Not to mention, some of their lines from these chapters revealed that the two of them understand each other better because they tried to kill each other so much. Atsushi also seems to be putting more trust in Aku, which probably comes from understanding his motivations and seeing Aku’s attitude changing slowly since chapter 35. Chapter 53 is also when Atsushi made Aku promise to not kill anyone for 6 months.

Then, of course, we have chapters 84-87. Atsushi is at the end of his rope, facing Fukuchi in an impossible 1 vs 1. He’s desperate, wishing he wasn’t alone to face such an evil force. In that moment of despair, Akutagawa appears to offer assistance. Atsushi is surprised, but he realizes that he is no longer alone, because Akutagawa is there. Atsushi has developed his view of Aku from an unreliable and unpredictable murder-hungry mafioso, to a mostly reliable but undeniably strong ally, so much so that he believes the two of them together can beat Fukuchi. Aku also reveals that he’s kept his promise to not kill anyone, which allows Atsushi to further develop his trust in Aku as an ally and partner. Plus, in their strategizing, they both show that they use soukoku as a point of reference for coming up with the best plan based on what they would do.

The biggest show of development is when Atsushi places his full trust in Aku at the end of their fight, as they charge towards each other. Atsushi, now that he’s seen how Aku has grown as a person to become Atsushi’s strongest partner and ally, is able to believe in Aku to know the silent plan between them like their predecessors in soukoku.

“I can’t afford to disappoint Dazai-san”

Akutagawa was there to assist Atsushi on Dazai’s orders. And Atsushi knows this.

Atsushi even acknowledges the trust that has built up between the two of them that got them to this point, as the powerful new generation of soukoku. From enemy to ally, Atsushi has accepted Aku as his partner. Now if only Aku hadn’t died and got vampire-d…

Akutagawa appears as a hallucination in chapter 105, not to insult Atsushi, but to offer a push in the right direction. Look outside, look at what’s ahead, look at the goal you need to reach. Look outside his mind and his past to see what’s waiting for him in the future.

Atsushi’s ability and his acceptance of the Tiger

Atsushi’s ability is pretty unique within the bsd world, considering he can sort of interact and talk to it as a separate entity from himself. The only other person we see do something even remotely close to this is Dostoy when he’s separated from his ability in Dead Apple, and he has a back-and-forth villain monologue with it. Mori can also interact with his own ability, but that’s because his ability is a manifestation, not something in his mind, so he doesn’t count.

In chapter 29, Atsushi is falling out of the sky after jumping from the Moby Dick and being hit by Twain. He’s unconscious, and is doubting his plans to save the city. The Tiger appears in his mind, and proceeds to lunge Atsushi, who allows himself to be attacked. Atsushi merely tells the Tiger to eat, as he hates himself the most, and embraces the Tiger’s head while thanking it for everything it’s done up until then. The Tiger, after hearing Atsushi thank it, suddenly takes over his body and fully transforms mid-air. The Tiger lands on the ground on its feet, as all cats do, despite breaking its own legs in the process. Atsushi’s body is completely unharmed, though. This is the first time the Tiger has acted on its own to save Atsushi (not counting his first battle with Aku).

In chapter 35, we see Atsushi outright ask for the Tiger’s help during the battle with Fitzgerald. This shows he’s beginning to see the Tiger as more than just a dangerous beast that lives inside him, but more as a force he can call upon in times of need for strength. He has no reason to believe the Tiger will listen, but he believes in it anyway, knowing it’s powerful enough to defeat the enemy in front of him.

The Tiger itself doesn’t appear in the manga again after this, but this is probably due to the events of Dead Apple. Dead Apple occurs sometime between the Guild Arc the Cannibalism Arc, and it’s the last time we see the Tiger appear in Atsushi’s mind. After defeating the Tiger in the real world, Atsushi can’t use his ability. In his mind, there’s a large door physically preventing him from using his ability, and only after it’s opened and he accepts what he did in the past that was forgotten, is he able to see the Tiger again. He commands the Tiger to return to him, calling it “Byakko”, meaning ‘White Tiger’ in Japanese. After this, they become one, and Atsushi is able to use an even stronger version of his ability during his fight with Shibusawa.

Calling the Tiger ‘Byakko’ is interesting because Byakko is a celestial creature in Japanese folklore that takes the form of a white tiger, and lives in the western sky. It is one of the four beast gods, represents the virtue of righteousness, and is strongly rooted in Taoism.

What’s important here is that after the events of Dead Apple, it seems like Atsushi has finally accepted the Tiger as part of himself.

Lastly, let’s mention the organizations themselves

The ADA

Of course, the Detective Agency offered Atsushi a home and a found family. At the beginning of the story, he felt bad for involving the people there in his battles, feeling guilty for getting others hurt because they had to save him. However, with enough reinforcement from the members, Atsushi developed confidence in himself and his ability to save and protect others. He also developed a level of trust for each of the members, believing they’re all strong in their own right, and together they can beat even the DOA. In chapter 105, Ranpo, Kunikida, and Kyouka appear in Atsushi’s mind and say things that are difficult to hear, but it’s things they would definitely say to Atsushi in a situation like that. Ranpo’s ‘What about this can’t you understand?’, Atsushi is conflicted about what he needs to do, but he does understand that he needs to do something. Kunikida’s ‘Failure is unacceptable.’, Atsushi knows that he can’t afford to fail, but he also knows that he alone can’t win the fights to come. Kyouka’s ‘You don’t have to do anything.’, Atsushi knows this is technically true if he believes he shouldn’t stop the DOA’s plans, but that’s not for him to decide. He chooses to leave the final decision to Fukuzawa, believing he’d know what to do in this situation.

The Port Mafia

This organization is the original enemy, and Atsushi knows this. The only member he truly trusts is Akutagawa. However, from the events in chapter 29 where he sees the PM doing everything in their power to preserve the city, he believes they could be an ally for the ADA in upcoming battles. He might not totally trust them or rely on the PM to be proper allies, but he does know that they’re a powerful organization that cares about the city and is willing to do just about anything to protect it.

The Guild, but mainly Fitzgerald

The Guild was never an option to work with, they presented themselves as an enemy and were defeated in the end. Atsushi would never be willing to work with The Guild as it was during its arc, but Fitzgerald by himself is another story. He has a powerful weapon, the camera network Eyes of God, at his disposal. Atsushi knows that, and given Fitzgerald also has no allies similar to the ADA during the Hunting Dogs arc, Atsushi believes he might be able to convince Fitzgerald to work with him in chapter 63 and 64. He also knows that Fukuzawa would probably scold him for making a deal with Fitzgerald, but he does it anyway after seeing Mitchell in desperate need of help. Fitzgerald appears in chapter 105 to cast doubt upon Atsushi, saying that nobody expects anything from him, but Atsushi knows that that’s not true anymore. The ADA and his friends believe in him, so he must keep moving.

The end.

Those are all the points I had, after rereading the majority of the series to see the development in real time now that I have so much of the story available to read all at once. Atsushi has accepted his ability as a part of himself, not as a dangerous burden for him to carry. Chapter 105 shows that Atsushi’s views of the people in his life have certainly changed and developed over time, but at the same time, it shows how Atsushi sees their influence over him as well. The 3 ADA members are pretty general, saying something you’d expect them to say. Fitzgerald doubts Atsushi by himself, only working with him because he thinks the ADA has the best chance to win. Akutagawa reminds Atsushi that he’s not bound by the past, that he needs to look outside towards the future and towards the end goal. Dazai doesn’t have anything to say, because he doesn’t need to, he merely needs to point Atsushi in the right direction.

[ghost-of-kreacher]

Some things that I thought about while looking at EGOs.

A lot of them are symbolic for something in the Sinner's life. I might possibly be late to the party. So, we'll be looking at 3 examples for now, because these 3 are the one's I've been thinking about the most.

I. Meursault

"Sun's out, guns out"

I've seen someone here say that this EGO metaphorically represents how Meursault is chained by what other people expect from him. So it follows that Meursault's other EGOs are what people expect him to be/see him as.

Screwloose Wallop/Do You Want To Get Beat? Hurtily? represents how other people might see Meursault as mindless muscle. Considering that Meursault won't do anything until Dante says so, this is probably where that comes from.

Pursuance/Heavenly Executor's Scribe represents how some people might see Meursault as this tireless, perfect, yet unnatural being. I say unnatural cuz biblically accurate angels? horrifying.

Lastly for Meursault, Capote/Brazen Bull. But being brazen isn't exactly what you'd think of Meursault. I think that Meursault has this EGO because he's repping the matador attire instead of the bull. Meursault is usually very calm, much like how a matador would be despite a very angry bull charging right at them. This EGO likely represents how people expect Meursault to be cool and collected, even in dire situations.

Next up is...

II. Ishmael

"i can and will teach you how to tie a knot"

These two are put together for an obvious reason. Ishmael wants to catch up to someone for, judging from her trailer and from her inspiration from Moby Dick, reasons of vengeance. So it stands to reason that both Roseate Desire and Snagharpoon are all about getting someone closer to her, or stopping them entirely in Roseate Desire's Corrosion.

(Helping with the vengeance bit is that both EGOs require Wrath. I'm assuming that Snagharpoon represents Ishmael being sad about her crew dying, since that requires Gloom, and being angry about it, while Roseate is the actual obsession with whoever she's (was?)* trying to find, since it costs Lust.) <--- this was added when I searched up the Sin costs in case that was relevant.

What's weird to me though is that Roseate's animation is just Snagharpoon's but reimagined. I mean, seriously both have Ishmael tossing something, bringing it back, and smacking the opponent. Roseate's associated Sin is Lust, but I'm guessing that Lust in this game represents obssession rather than actual horniness.

"If that bastard is really dead, I might have nothing to chase after."

Following with the obsession, she also has Capote. However, compared to Meursault's Capote, Ishmael actually represents the Brazen Bull this time. This EGO probably represents as long as she sees even a hint of 'red', she'll keep chasing after the 'bastard'.

This EGO costs 2 Wrath, 2 Lust, and 1 Sloth. I think that the Sloth represents how she isn't really working towards any other goal other than the revenge mission she was(?)* on, which is, I guess, a sort of laziness?

Ishmael's last EGO, Ardor Blossom Star/Ardor Blossom Moth. This is the one I'm most iffy on. The art displays what seems to be burnt corpses beneath her, which makes me think of her likely dead crew. Her line during regular EGO seems to bring them in mind too, though I might be reaching on this.

"Though I cannot guide you... I can offer a warm embrace."

This makes the most sense when referring to her crew. She doesn't know how to properly mourn them, and is instead 'offering a warm embrace' by doggedly trying to kill whoever she's (was?)* trying to kill.

The EGO costs for this one also have Wrath and Lust like the rest of her EGOs, but the one thing that throws me off is the Envy. Why would she be jealous of her own crew? I'm sure that there is another interpretation of the Envy sin that I'm missing, someone tell me please.

*I say was, because the contract might have stopped her from trying to find the 'bastard' mentioned in her trailer.

Up last is...

III. Sinclair

"So you mean to tell me that this Clair has committed sins?"

Sinclair's EGOs are probably the ones I had to stretch REALLY far for, so forgive me. Feel free to tell what you think though.

The Branch of Knowledge represents his Mark of Cain, which represents his bravery to stand up to Kromer. Honestly, I think this EGO is best explained by that one tumblr post about N Corp Sinclair.

Essentially, N Corp Sinclair has one chance to defy The One Who Grips, and it's this EGO. Faust's EGO has a Fatal weakness to Gluttony, which is N Corp Sinclair's one chance at rebellion. However, he isn't entirely safe, since Branch has a Fatal weakness to Pride. If N Corp Sinclair screws it up, The One Who Grips' Execution and Representation Emitter means the end of him. So that's why I think that Branch symbolizes the Mark of Cain.

Anyway, moving on to the next EGOs. I'll keep it short since this is already way too long.

Doomsday Calendar/Impending Day probably represents his final meeting with Kromer? This one I'm not entirely sure of. The only reason I'm associating this with Kromer is the fact the Sinclair had one last coin from Kromer on him, and the fact that the calendar itself is very fleshy too, which mirrors Kromer's obsession with human 'purity'.

At this point I've reached the limit for photo on tumblr it seems, but regardless.

Sinclair's last EGO, Lifetime Stew/Basilisoup, probably represents dinner with his family, and subsequently how he still loved them. Sinclair liked dinners with his family, and you can even see in the window of his jail cell in Branch that he thinks that if he had taken the prosthetic, he'd still be having dinner with his family.

I might be missing more, but its 4 am here, and I'm about to get knocked out. I might do more with the other Sinners once they get more EGO's that are unique to them cuz

Sunshower just means that they had a wife (Yi Sang, Outis, Heathcliff)

Alleyway Wolf means that they lost someone (Don Quixote - Sancho, Faust - Gretchen/a baby, thanks to the people who noticed the baby-adjacent things in Faust's EGOs, Heathcliff - Catherine) since the wolf carries a body on its back. 'Probably' in Don's case, I don't know the full details of the original Don Quixote.

yeah night

[pocketsizedquasar]

fedallah my best friend my babygirl he did nothing wrong ever and he deserved so much better than the absolutely horrendously racist way he was treated by the narrative and i’m fistfighting melville in a wendy’s parking lot about it. btw.

(read my mobydick webcomic btw i prommy i’m not as racist as melville)

(drew this a few weeks ago so i could solidify his colors n add him to my lineup)

[ID: A digitally drawn character reference for Fedallah from Moby Dick. He is a thin, middle aged Persian man with light brown skin and dark curly hair and beard. His hair is mostly covered beneath a white skull cap. He wears a white button down tunic, purple ish-gray pants, and a knee brace on his right knee. One full body drawing of him shows him holding a harpoon. There is also a lined drawing of just his face, and one of a closeup on his knee brace from the side, showing its construction and buckles. His name is handwritten in both English and Farsi.]

(ft some sketchbook sketches below the cut, which have been available to patrons to see for weeks along w lots more sketches so if early/extra art is ur jam… check me out there hehe)

[hollygl125]

On the adventure endgame, and why I support Sara leaving the lab:

From an inside-the-show perspective, I 110% support Sara’s decision to leave the lab to go off on an epic eco-adventure with Grissom, just as he once decided to leave the lab to go off on an epic eco-adventure with her.  I would totally make that choice in her circumstances.  From an outside-the-show perspective, I also support the narrative choice to have Sara and Grissom go off on an adventure together rather than stay together in Vegas.

While GSR-fic writing, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why I support this ending, so I’ve outlined some of the (terribly rambling) reasons below the cut.

I honestly—though, yes, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit it—love (the GSR of) “Immortality” (16): it’s its own little self-contained Sara Sidle and Gil Grissom love story of angst, yearning, wistful glances, and happy endings, and I have spent more time rewatching that last dock scene than I should willingly admit to anyone.  (And JF and WP are so beautiful together—so beautiful!)

I honestly—though, yes, I am somewhat embarrassed to admit it—love (the GSR of) “Immortality” (16): it’s its own little self-contained Sara Sidle and Gil Grissom love story of angst, yearning, wistful glances, and happy endings, and I have spent more time rewatching that last dock scene than I should willingly admit to anyone.  (And JF and WP are so beautiful together—so beautiful!)

But this also highlights how bizarre the whole later-season GSR storyline was.  These people were crazy for each other!  They had no conception of personal space!  They wanted nothing more than to stand on top of each other!  They wanted nothing more than to breathe each other’s air!

Of course, as an episode of CSI, “Immortality” (16) is also pretty ridiculous.  Whenever I get to the “you turned her heart” line I almost always have to pause the show for a minute just to digest the ridiculousness (or sometimes to do a little rant to myself or whoever’s near).

But (returning to the positive vibes here)….  According to Zuiker’s DVD commentary (if I’m remembering it correctly), the team had very little time or resources to put together the finale, plus all the sets had already been taken down.  (Is that right?)  Yet they gave us bomb tests and butterflies and bees and a boat (completely with a Moby Dick reference) and a happy ending to what was basically, in the end, the GSR story.  Zuiker also (again according to my memory of his DVD commentary) insisted on filming a scene I consider crucial to the ending and on editing out a scene that would have distracted from it.  So, overall, I’m very grateful.

Anyway, here’s why I like the adventure endgame:

*Speaking personally, for my own life, if I could use my background and skills to go off on an eco-adventure with the love of my life, I would 100% make that choice.  I will admit that bias.  (Maybe that’s the whole ballgame?  I’m not sure.)

*If I were Sara Sidle, and I could use my background and skills to go off on an eco-adventure with the love of my life, I again would 100% make that choice.  Making that choice is consistent with Sara’s characterization.

*Jorja Fox said long ago that she thought Sara would choose love over work: “Sara, by virtue of being a realist, is also very much a romantic. So I think if she really was in love with someone, and it came down to a choice between work and love, I think she’d go in the direction of love” (TV Guide, 2006).  (I definitely think WP was being coy in his answer to the same question.)

*In this case at least, love > job.  Specifically for Sara, as someone on Tumblr pointed out (I can’t find the reference right now), because of who she is, she is more likely to find another good, interesting, intellectually challenging job than she is to find another love, let alone another love of her life.  Man she’s loved quite madly for seventeen years is a pretty irreplaceable role.  It’s not like she’s choosing between some guy she met online a few weeks ago and a job for which she’s been working her whole life.

*Sara doesn’t have to choose between love and the job, though.  Grissom clearly wants to talk to her throughout “Immortality” (16) but doesn’t think he deserves to ask to be in her life again.  He would totally return to Vegas for her, but she wants to join him on the adventure.

(If he told her the only way for them to be together was for her to give up the job and follow him, that would be a completely different story, but that would also be totally inconsistent with his characterization and what “Immortality” (16) shows us.)

Moreover, once the two of them are back together, (1) he would not be good with either one of them getting anywhere near any bombs, and (2) they would be total partners in whatever adventure they undertook.

*Sara would want and enjoy an (eco-)adventure; she would not enjoy being lab director.

*Sara has proven herself, at a minimum, amenable to change.  She has previously picked up and moved her life on basically a moment’s notice.  Sara either picks up her whole life and leaves or threatens to do so on several occasions throughout the course of the show, so Sara either likes or is open to change (at least change she initiates—i.e., she is the agent of change, rather than change is imposed upon her).

*Sara is the most progressive of the CSIs.  She had (extremely dysfunctional, yes) hippie parents and spent most of her first three decades near or in San Francisco.  She cares about animals and wildlife, she’s a vegetarian, she likes vegetation, and she cares about the environment.  (In 2007, as shown in “Living Doll” (07x24), she drives a 2006 Toyota Prius II; at the time, the Prius, a hybrid, was among the cleanest vehicles sold in the United States on the basis of smog-forming emissions.)

*Sara has previously wanted an adventure (e.g., the Sea Shepherd, the Galapagos) and has acted accordingly (going off on a marine research vessel then doing research in the Costa Rican rainforest).

*Sara’s happy (work) place is doing fun science and investigations with Grissom, not doing administrative work while Grissom does something else in Vegas (even though Sara working as a CSI while Grissom does something else in Vegas would have been far preferable to what happened in the later seasons).  They like working together (and they’ve already wasted enough time they should have spent together).

*Sara would not enjoy being lab director, and I’m quite certain she knows it.  She doesn’t exactly look thrilled to be completing her application for the position.

Although later seasons of CSI made Russell both lab director and night shift supervisor, that’s not realistic for the top crime lab in the U.S. outside Quantico.  Lab director would be an administrative/managerial job.  Season 5 is more realistic.  As soon as Ecklie gets promoted to assistant lab director, he stops doing lab or field work (to the extent of refusing to cross the crime scene tape because then he would have to testify) and starts doing administrative and managerial tasks, as he explains at least a couple times throughout that season.

In “Nesting Dolls” (05x13), Sara tells Ecklie, “You couldn't hack it in the field, so you fail your way up”; similarly, in “Secrets & Flies” (06x06), in response to McKeen querying whether he might be interested in more responsibility or a promotion, Grissom says, “You know, Oscar Wilde once said, ‘Ambition is the last refuge of failure.’  I'm fine.  Thanks.”  Both Sara and Grissom like science and fieldwork and hate (and, honestly, probably have a fair bit of contempt for) the kind of work being lab director would entail.

I can’t see either Sara or Grissom wanting to rise above the position of shift supervisor.  I can see Sara enjoying a promotion that would give her more responsibility and autonomy in her role as a criminalist (which is how I understood the season 4 promotion for which she and Nick apply) but not one that takes her away from that work.  Hence it’s not all that surprising that in seasons 5-15 she never appears to try to rise up the ranks at all.

I also think Sara would have to contort and to suppress a lot of her personality, her instincts, and just generally herself for that kind of administrative/managerial role, and (though she could have succeeded if it were what she really wanted) it would ultimately have made her pretty miserable.

*Sara, if we’re being honest, does not at all have the experience necessary to be director of the top non-federal crime lab in the U.S.  (I love Sara!  But this is still true!)  Sara is a great criminalist!  Sara has no administrative or managerial experience!  Probably even Nick becoming a lab director in San Diego with only a couple years as assistant shift supervisor (a role from which he was demoted) under his belt is unrealistic.  But Sara, a known non-people person, with no relevant administrative or managerial experience, getting the job as director of the country’s top non-federal lab is beyond unrealistic.

Maybe going from CSI to lab director could make sense for someone who is clearly a gifted future administrator and manager (I honestly don’t know!), but that is not Sara.  That is maybe the opposite of Sara.  Sara is a shit-disturber.  Sara is awkward.  Sara’s brilliant manipulation of Nora Cross in CSIV, for example, is quite beyond what CSI Sara could pull off.  (Sure, she can persuade Grissom, but that’s because he never doesn’t want to sleep with her, and even then it took her years.)

Ecklie would have other internal options (the other shifts’ supervisors and assistant supervisors), he could look at external candidates, and he could appoint an interim director if he needed more time.  I’m not saying Sara could never become lab director (I think she could if she really wanted the position and seriously pursued it on a longer-term basis), but at the time of “Immortality” (16) she doesn’t have the necessary experience or even a demonstrated interest in that kind of role.

(Like, seriously, when Grissom says she deserves the promotion, that can only be because he sees little gold stars floating everywhere and hears symphonies playing every time he looks at her.)

*Sara being appointed lab director is so clearly an unrealistic contrivance for the sake of the finale plot that I can’t really care in the slightest that she gives up the job.  First, of course, there’s the two points above (she wouldn’t want or be qualified for the position).  Then there’s the timeline in “Immortality” (16).

Sara is completing her application at what I presume is the start of her shift (at the beginning of the finale).  That’s the same shift when the bomb goes off in the casino.  Russell gives her the case because she’s applying for the position.  He suggests it will help her application, even though, again, her competency as a criminalist really says nothing about her readiness to take on a high-level administrative/managerial role.

Based on their clothes (mostly, Sara’s striped t-shirt), they work on the case all night, all day, and through to the next night.  Then the next day (I presume it’s the next day based on Heather still wearing the same clothes from the day before), immediately after the case is solved, Sara gets the promotion.  This also coincidentally happens to be Russell’s last day, from the look of things (him packing up his to-go box).

Russell has clearly given prior notice of his departure, but Sara submits her application only maybe 36 hours before he is leaving, and, within those same 36 hours (while a crazy bombing plot is going on in the city and making international news), Ecklie hires her.

Being lab director is clearly an important role.  (In season 5, Ecklie gets a huge black-tie dinner with speeches just for being named assistant lab director).  The hiring of a lab director would absolutely be a more significant endeavour than this.

So, Sara applying for the job at the beginning of the episode and getting it at the end provides a nice framing for the episode.  Sara getting the promotion leads into a nice Sara/Grissom scene near the end.  Sara getting the promotion adds more suspense to the ultimate will they/won’t they question.  But, logistically speaking, it doesn’t work.

(As an aside, in terms of logistics, I think the story could have made more sense if they’d already chosen a new lab director and Ecklie was still just deciding who would step in as night-shift supervisor.  Sara’s running of the case would then have some significance, she’d maybe actually want that job, and she would presumably be sufficiently qualified to get that job.  They could still have found an excuse for the final photo-op—her having been the lead on the bombing case and then getting the promotion would make for a nice story.  It would also be an even clearer parallel with whatever promotion Grissom got (I think—this show is so muddled in places) at the beginning of the series.)

*Finales are often a time of transition.  Sara’s found family has largely moved on (or is moving on), and it makes sense for Sara to be doing the same.  I love workplace found families (The West Wing, Sports Night, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Superstore, etc.), but finales often involve transitions (usually symbolizing personal growth) for the characters in those found families (The West Wing, Parks and Recreation, New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Superstore, etc.).  (Occasionally characters realize they shouldn’t be moving on—à la Russell Sam Malone in Cheers—but that’s less common).

Most of Sara’s crime lab found family has moved on or is moving on.  Warrick died.  Grissom left the lab.  Wendy left.  Catherine left (although she seems to be coming back).  Brass retired.  Nick left.  Finlay died.  Russell is leaving.  To my mind, Greg and Morgan are moving on together (meaning Sara’s importance in Greg’s life will inevitably ultimately diminish), though they may be staying at the lab for the time-being.  (Morgan is wearing a huge sparkly ring on her left ring finger in her final scene, in which she embraces Greg after they defuse the bombs in the parking garage.  I’ve always taken this to mean they finally got together.)  Nick has moved to California, and there’s probably a decent chance of Greg and Morgan ultimately moving back to California, since they are both from the L.A. area.  (Unless we learn otherwise, I’m assuming that’s where they are now.)  (Many thanks to the second season of CSI: Vegas for ruining my Greg/Morgan headcanons, but the above was true at the time.)

Sara has already left the lab once, and it makes sense for her to be doing the same again.  Plus, in 2015, it’s not exactly hard to stay in touch with people long-distance, and Sara has practice.  (Long-distance friendships are presumably a lot easier to maintain than a long-distance marriage, though I’ve never tried the latter.)

*For me, the two biggest ongoing narrative arcs (journeys) of the first nine seasons are Sara and Grissom’s romance and the (related) personal growth of Grissom, the show’s protagonist.  Both those stories culminate with Grissom finding Sara in the rainforest, which gives us one of my favourite scenes of the entire series.  It’s a great ending for both.  (In my opinion, the whole show could have ended right then and there; its narrative arc was complete.)  But Jorja Fox’s return, and TPTB’s handling of it, sort of threw a wrench in things, and then ultimately we got season 13, and I don’t think I need to say any more about that.  To my mind, Sara and Grissom going off on an adventure together best restores the happily-ever-after ending they originally received—and deserved.

*Whatever she later claims, Sara in “Goodbye and Good Luck” (08x07) clearly intends a permanent departure from the lab, and in season 9 she wants an adventure (e.g., the Sea Shepherd, the Galapagos).  She goes off on some sort of research vessel then goes to do research in the rainforest in Costa Rica.  She wants an adventure (preferably with Grissom).

After he and Sara divorce, Grissom picks a path that coincides with what Sara had wanted (a Sea Shepherd-like organization) and names his boat after one of their favourite books.  I don’t think he ever expects her to join him, yet he chooses a cause she would like.  He subconsciously selects something that might best entice her to join him (if she had any clue he wanted her around).  (Even when she’s not around, everything he does, he does for her, or with her in mind; he’s always thinking of her.)

*I don’t blame anyone but TPTB for the divorce.  (Sometimes things are so out of character that I cannot blame the characters; I have to blame the TPTB.)  But the precipitating event really is Sara’s return to Vegas.  After that, as far as I am concerned, they are like boiling frogs (i.e., their marriage disintegrates so slowly that they don’t even notice until it’s too late, and then Grissom thinks he is doing the right thing by setting Sara free).  So, to undo that mess, it makes sense that they would again leave Vegas and continue their intended adventure together.

*From a narrative standpoint, Sara leaving the lab to go after Grissom parallels Grissom leaving the lab to go after Sara.  It’s balanced.  It’s symmetrical.

Although Sara originally comes to Vegas for Grissom, those are different circumstances.  That (Sara moving to Vegas post-“Cool Change” (01x02)) is guy she’s secretly kind of in love with offering her a great job opportunity and her accepting.  That is not “you are the love of my life and I will give up everything I hold dear for you,” which is what “One to Go” (09x10) and “Immortality” (16) both are.

Additionally, in both “One to Go” (09x10) and “Immortality” (16), Grissom and Sara (respectively) each go after the other only after the other has tried to set them free, reinforcing the parallel.

Moreover, while Sara gives up a lot in leaving the lab for Grissom, Grissom would have had more difficulty reaching a point where he could give up everything in his well-structured life for Sara.  Sara has proven herself more amenable to change.  In contrast to the actual ending, having Grissom follow Sara away from Vegas (“One to Go,” 09x10) only to end up following her back to Vegas (“Immortality,” 16) would feel very one-sided.

*Finally, the symbolism of the adventure is good.

While deserts can be extremely biodiverse places with their own ecosystems and life (on which I am very much not an expert), in this story the desert is associated with death; it’s the setting of this particular show about death; it’s where Sara is taken to die; and, in the eighth season, Sara literally has to leave Las Vegas and the desert to say goodbye to her ghosts.

Sara has a lot of ghosts.  Sara and Grissom have both spent their lives with death.  Their fathers die when they are young, which strongly influences their upbringings.  They graduate early, which means they begin their jobs early, with both starting out in the coroner’s office in their respective cities and then moving on to different crime labs.  Both are obsessed with their jobs, jobs that revolve around death.

Before they meet each other, neither Sara nor Grissom is fully living; before they meet each other, neither is fully invested in the human experience.  But they meet, and they fall in love, and ultimately they choose life.  (They lift their heads up out of their microscopes, although Sara has always been more prepared to do this than Grissom.)

In “One to Go” (09x10), Sara and Grissom reunite in the tropical rainforest in Costa Rica, an incredibly green, lush, biodiverse place, and honestly I cannot think of a better metaphor for life; I couldn’t find any great stats, but one website I visited stated that the Costa Rican rainforest ranks first in the world in biodiversity per area unit.  The rainforest is also the place Grissom wanted to visit before he died, as stated in “Way to Go” (06x24), where it is thus initially contrasted with death.

Then, in “Immortality” (16), they once again leave the desert, but this time for the ocean.  Again, contrasted with the desert, for our purposes the ocean symbolizes life.  They’ll be working on the conservation of marine life.  They choose life.   They choose the adventure.  Together.

Sara and Grissom reunite in the coastal state where they first met (and where they were both born and raised); they have come full circle.  They sail off into the sunset.  The end (but not actually the end of the story I’m currently telling).

And, lucky for us, we then get an epilogue that shows us just how perfectly magical they are when they are finally allowed to become old(ish) and married together!

Those are my (very rough) thoughts; obviously your perspective may differ! 💛

[bracketsoffear]

I actually have a bunch of ideas for fake crossover statements I've been collecting. Here's my favorites:

“Make A Lot Of Noise”: statement of Sid Phillips regarding his childhood toys. (Toy Story, Stranger); "Make a Lot of Noise" is the song from the Toy Story Musical (yes, that's an official thing) about the toys getting revenge on Sid.

“The Serpent in the Garden”: statement of Warlock Dowling regarding his atypical upbringing. (Good Omens, Stranger/Spiral?); the title here refers to Crowley's origins as the Snake in the Garden of Eden and how he (serpent) and Aziraphale (gardener) raised Warlock, but I'm not sure what Entity "I was raised by two uncanny not-humans who turned out to have thought I was the Antichrist" falls under.

“Ill Met By Moonlight”: statement of Alissa Denton regarding the last performance of Misty Moore. (Dimension 20: The Unsleeping City, Stranger); this would be about "Broadway Brawl," where Misty kills the real Titania while playing her during her rejuvenation ritual and then uses the glamour from the performance to be reborn as Rowan Berry.

“Skulk”: Statement of Steve Bergensten regarding the creature he encountered during a caving expedition. (Minecraft, Dark); Bergensten is Jeb's surname, and skulk is the stuff that summons The Warden.

“The White Whale”: Statement of “The Mariner” regarding how he murdered his stepfather. (The Mariner’s Revenge Song, Hunt/Buried); title is a Moby Dick reference, of course.

“The Entire Circus”: Statement of Gog-Agog regarding why you should be Gog-Agog too! (KSBD, Corruption); title is a reference to the meme "You are not a clown, you are the entire circus," because Gog-Agog is clown-themed.

“Treasure Hunt”: Statement of Stanley Yelnats regarding his imprisonment in a correctionary boot camp. (Holes, Buried)

“Shadow Puppet”: Statement of Lena Sabrewing regarding her troubled relationship with her aunt. (Ducktales 2017, Web); title refers to Lena being a living shadow who was emotionally, then later physically puppeted by her aunt in shadow form, and ultimately possessed.

“Fly Me To The Moon”: Statement of Donald Duck regarding his sister’s disappearance in space. (Ducktales 2017, Vast); title references Della's ill-fated joyride that ended with her being stranded on the moon, and Vast seemed appropriate given how her need for adventure led her to go higher and higher until she vanished into the huge void of space.

“Worldbreaker”: Statement of Gyro Gearloose regarding a recurring problem with his creations. (Ducktales 2017, Extinction); Worldbreaker is the name of the program Akita used to force BOYD to be evil, and one could theorize that Gyro's persistent belief that all of his creations turned evil (because of what happened with BOYD) is what caused him to keep making evil robots in a self-fulfilling prophecy spiral.

“To Have And To Hold”: Statement of Twilight Sparkle regarding her brother’s marriage. (MLP:FIM, Stranger/Corruption); title is from the traditional marriage vow, with this specific line summing up Chrysalis' intentions for Shining Armor.

“Urban Legend”: Statement of Emma-May Dixon regarding the local tourist trap in Gravity Falls. (Gravity Falls, Stranger); title is a play on the cryptids and folklore Stanley uses in the Mystery Shack, and Emma-May Dixon is McGucket's ex-wife.

“See No Evil”: Statement of Tate McGucket regarding his fear of memory loss. (Gravity Falls, Spiral); title refers to the Society of the Blind Eye's goals, and I figured someone who saw his dad progressively lose his memories and sanity without knowing why would develop some hangups about that, especially with an amnesia-inducing cult (that his dad created) running around.

“War Games”: Statement of Jack Merridew, regarding his time stranded on an island as a child. (Lord of the Flies, Slaughter)

“Dollhouse”: Statement of Coraline Jones regarding what was behind a door in her new apartment. (Coraline, Stranger/Web)

“God Save The Queen”: Statement of Julie Jenkins, regarding the murders at her high school prom. (The Ballad of Sara Berry, Slaughter); Julie Jenkins is the girl who was beating Sara out for Prom Queen because people were pity voting for her, and the only target of Sara's rampage to survive.

“Silent Assassin”: Statement of Pam Kingsley, regarding a string of inexplicable assassinations she reported on. (Hitman, Hunt); Silent Assassin is a recurring challenge in Hitman and the subtitle of the second game, and Pam Kingsley is a recurring news anchor character.

“God, That’s Good”: Statement of Tobias Ragg regarding his employment in a meat pie shop. (Sweeney Todd, Flesh); "God, That's Good" is the song Toby sings advertising Ms. Lovett's cannibal pies.

“Future Imperfect”: Statement of Arven Violet regarding the results of his father’s research. (Pokemon Violet, Extinction)

“This Be The Verse”: Statement of Beatrice Baudelaire Jr. regarding her a series of unfortunate events her guardians experienced. (ASOUE, Desolation); "This be the verse" is the poem Count Olaf recites as he dies: "Man hands on misery to man / It deepens like a coastal shelf. / Get out as early as you can / and don't have any kids yourself.

“Mayhem”: Statement of Marla Singer regarding her boyfriend’s involvement in terrorism. (Fight Club, Desolation); title refers to "Project Mayhem."

all of these sound like absolute banger fics!

[randomfoggytiger]

The Scully Family In-Depth (Part I): Childhood and the Pilot

It's time to break down the All-American Scullys with their strong sense of family, tightly held religious beliefs, and psychic leanings that were hinted at but never fully explored in canon.

**Note**: All of the Scullys have had their personalities assessed and Typed (Scully, Maggie, Melissa, and the Bill Scullys and Charlie?); so feel free if you want to see how they operate in their own minds (and with each other, explored in the Bill Scullys post.)

Childhood

Bill proposed to Maggie when he stepped off his ship after the Cuban Blockade; and they played "Beyond the Sea"-- the song that heralded his arrival-- at their wedding (and later at his funeral.) The dates are a bit snarly, as canonically Bill and Melissa were conceived out of wedlock to a very Catholic family, but that's due to the show's writing team not having had a show bible to refer back to (but also makes perfect sense for Maggie's freedom-seeking, "don't tie me down" character... so make of that what you will.) He and his wife were in love and happy, with her gently teasing him in Beyond the Sea about his fastidious ways ("As if he's an authority on having a good time")

and he good-naturedly taking it on the chin.

As a father, Bill Scully gave his children clear instructions on what not to do while they played, but gave them space to make their own decisions.

He also made model WWII planes with his sons (which Scully remembered the names of years later in Piper Maru); and read Moby Dick to his daughter over and over as a bedtime story, bonding over their own nicknames of Ahab and Starbuck (ones Scully honored when naming her subsequent pets.)

Scully's childhood was spent moving from one Naval Base to another (with a cut out line in Kitsunegari stating they'd been stationed in Japan once) but kept afloat with a heavy dose of tradition. Each Christmas, her father would always put the star or angel on top of the tree (mentioned in A Christmas Carol)

and would always take the decorations down the day after Christmas. One of those Christmases Maggie gifted her daughters their crosses

...which Scully also claims was a birthday present. Of her two daughters, Melissa doesn't seem too enthusiastic to receive a cross

while Scully feels honored to be given a symbol of her family's beliefs. Both girls drift from the faith before the events of S1; but Scully gravitates back to as an anchor amidst the turbulence of her repeated life traumas.

An important note: When did Scully receive her necklace? Canon says on her birthday, but shows Maggie handing it to her on Christmas Is this a show bible problem, or can it be explained? Yes, indeedy, it can! Pick which explanation you like best (or all of them!)--

#1. It's both: the original chain was longer than the chain Scully wears in the series, meaning that Maggie gifted her another, smaller chain on an ensuing birthday.

#2. The necklace Scully wears now is her sister's necklace, possibly gifted to her by Melissa on her birthday. Melissa's necklace had a shorter, more delicate chain

compared to her sister's (who was a rough-and-tumble tomboy);

and it could be an heirloom Scully cherished from her sister and gave to Emily, believing her to have been Melissa's daughter.

#3. Regardless, Mulder would have had to rifle through Scully's apartment to have found the longer chain; meaning the one he wore to California (3) was probably found in late night wanderings to her place, revisiting the scene of the crime perhaps for clues but really for penance. (Or he bought a new chain so he could wear her cross? Unlikely considering his habits and cheapskate second-nature.)

Little Scully and her brothers were close-- so much so that their fight over a rabbit Scully rescued (Bill threatened to stew it and Dana shoved and yelled at him, standing her ground)

was resolved without hanging resentment; and the duo later gallivanted in the woods with Charlie to shoot. Charlie was active participant in their childhood activities; and he and Bill bought their sister a BB gun for one of her birthdays-- though likely it was bought with the lion's share of Bill's pocket money, which would be in-line with his character (see Type post here)--

even though her birthday was in February and they didn't shoot the gun until autumn (there's that show bible problem again.)

Death plays a key part in Scully's early memories: when Bill was bullying her about the rabbit, she accidentally smothered it to death while trying to protect it.

And when shooting with her brothers, she'd wounded a snake in her fervor, grasping it in sorrow and crying in remorse.

Maggie noted: "Through tears she was saying that: 'Something was missing from the snake.' She'd taken something that was not hers to take. And although deathly afraid of snakes, Dana held the animal as if sheer human will could keep it alive."

These experiences are pivotal for Scully's character:

She realized has an unreasonable hope against reality, denying what she cannot understand.

It's why she gravitated to science: it helped her explain and quantify life's tragedies and morbid mysteries, giving her answers to make peace with the ups and downs she encounters. It also stripped her of her denial and excuses, holding her steadfastly honest character accountable. Her main defense is (and was) denial; but her honesty checkmates that impulse, accepting the truth even if it's unpleasant.

Scully also developed a profound fear of death--

avoiding all discussion of it later after her abduction and during her cancer arc-- fear which drew her to medicine, then pathology, then self-protection and harm prevention in law enforcement. Likely, this fear drew her to a career in death, a way to understand and overcome it. While a part of her is resigned to the cycle of life and death, she never truly makes peace with loss, feeling it keenly in all areas of her life. She is later baffled that Alfred Fellig could have "too much life"; and it's not until her experience in Tithonus that she is shaken with the realization that there is a fate worse than death.

Melissa Scully, meanwhile, never feared death: she respected it, viewing it as a release for a soul from being trapped. Her childhood seems to have been spent observing and nurturing her sister-- playing hopscotch and celebrating her sister's successful jump;

complicitly sneaking down to open presents early;

and encouraging her to follow her heart and join the FBI when both of their parents were upset that Scully had left medicine. Scully's subconscious even dreams her into the rabbit memory, blending Melissa and Emily as a silent, watchful observer on the stairs.

As a teenager, Scully sneaked out late with her mother's cigarettes, quietly smoking on the porch and hoping she wouldn't get caught because her father would "kill her." She seemed to have quit the habit by the time she dropped out of medical school and joined the FBI, which finally earned her father's anger.

At Christmas, she was torn between doing what she felt was right and walking away from Quantico so she would no longer disappoint her Captain Scully and Maggie.

Melissa is the one who encouraged her to "follow her heart", stabling Scully's insecurity with a steady faith that "There is no right or wrong. Life's just a path."

Melissa and Captain Scully seem to have had the greatest impacts on Scully's mentality-- Melissa encouraged and pushed her sister out of her comfort zone while always standing beside her in support (which Scully needs because of her Ni Demon, post here); and Ahab cherished his Starbuck, teaching her constellations while they boated and proudly supporting her in everything she did... except the FBI. Scully clung to them both: she took after her father's stoicism and needed his strength; but she needed Melissa's carefree backup even though they could never see eye-to-eye and often got into meaningless bickerings once they became adults.

As for the rest of the family, Maggie was Scully's steady, unwavering rock of support: she was just as angry as her husband about her daughter's career change, but by the time S1 unfolds, she has set aside those frustrations and is wholeheartedly supporting her baby girl, even "encouraging" her husband (with imperious eyebrows) to get over the awkward tension he and his little girl had built up. Bill seems to be on good terms with Scully whenever they show up in each other's lives even when he's being a pain (which will be explored in future); and Scully seems more actively involved in Charlie's life up until late S4 (again, will be discussed in future parts.) But as a whole, the Scullys seem to be tightly bonded, with their disagreements becoming water under the bridge rather than dealbreakers... for now.

Pilot

Scully begins her career with the FBI, ready to distinguish herself.

"I was recruited out of medical school," she recounts, tamping down her proud smile as best she can.

The only comment she makes about her family is that: "My parents still think it as an act of rebellion,

but uh..."-- she trails off with a Cheshire Cat grin.

Her parents weren't wrong, as evidenced by her deeply satisfied smirk

(exactly like the one she had in Never Again while "rebelling" against her life and getting the tattoo "that she deserves.)

and her own teen rebellion-- afraid of but hoping to get caught.

While small in mention, it is large in consequence: Scully is pursuing the FBI because it feels right; but she is also deriving a little satisfaction at pushing at boundaries and making a name for herself through her own endeavors. We shall see how that unfolds.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

**Disclaimers**: There are probably typos; but I've given up on the nit-picky grammar life. I'll come back and sneak edit later~.

[cadmusfly]

Ask game: man-of-war

Send me a word, if it’s in my wip document I’ll answer your ask with the sentence that it appears in.

Surprisingly doesn't show up in the hiatused novel manuscript SbS - because the ghost captain always refers to his ship by name! Interesting - there's more jokes about calling the ghost ship a boat and then the captain getting offended. Weirdly, there's no "frigate" or "fourth-rate" / "fifth-rate" either - but the story as written is less about exploring the ghost ship and more about exploring the magical world.

If/when I do another pass on SbS, I'll probably try to put "man-of-war" and "frigate" in more often. "Man-of-war" does appear in the story planning/worldbuilding notes for SbS - in the quotes I gathered from various places like the Aubreyad, Moby Dick and A Sailor Of King George. But I didn't write those so it doesn't count.

Also interestingly neither does it appear in the short story about the purser and the surgeon of the ghost ship. I'm thinking of posting that short story to AO3 or something - I considered submitting it to magazines but I ended up not doing that, and it's weird and full of consensual vivisection and surreal horror. And bad puns.

Definitely doesn't appear in the marshal fanfic NiTM which is more franch and only has one throwaway line about boats.

Thank you for the ask!

[bad-wolf-circe]

hello!!! i've just deleted my twitter. life is good and free and i am finally at peace :)

if you're a mutual from twitter: HELLO!!! welcome to tumblr! (or not, i know some of you guys have visited hell before). this is my blog where i sometimes post my thoughts -- but mostly reblog the thoughts of others. for the newcomers: reblogging is fun, and you should do it right now with this post by clicking the two arrows sign! it's easy and free and you can always unsubscribe later (sorry for that reference...). once you've reblogged something, the two arrows sign will turn green.

tumblr is not driven by likes the way twitter is, so liking a post really won't do anything. instead, it's what you reblog that makes the real difference. so if you like a post on here, your tumblr mutuals will not be able to see it on their dash! they'll only get it on their dash if you reblog it.

for added effect, you can use the tags option at the bottom of a post! (it'll say something along the lines of: 'add tags to help people find your post'). you can add popular tumblr hashtags here so that more people can see your post... OR you can adopt some of the local tumblr etiquette of rambling and spilling your thoughts there too! (1)

BY THE WAY: you can format text differently on tumblr! so you can italicize, bold, underline, etc. on here. And there's a huge character limit! (according to the tumblr help center, you can fit one third of Moby Dick in one tumblr post! pretty nifty!)

be sure to use tumblr etiquette! the phrase 'tumblr etiquette' might sound gatekeepy, but rest assured! tumblr etiquette is used by many bloggers here to help make the blogging experience as "pleasant" as possible. (i put pleasant in quotes because sometimes people say things on here that deal you irreversible emotional damage. truly, you don't get this anywhere else). the general rule of thumb here is: IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T INTERACT!!! Block and move on. you'll find that tumblr drama really isn't a thing here because of this principle. live by it, die by it, blog by it!

for me personally, I'm trying to keep this blog as impersonal as possible for privacy reasons (since this is a public blog), so if you want to chat, say hi, or talk about life i suggest you use the messages feature! i'm always down to chat over messages! :)

other than that, nothing else comes to mind. have fun on this atrocious hellsite and happy blogging! love you guys <3

[mmmmalo]

The last line we see of Complacency of the Learned, "We're going to need more wands (to capture the killer)" is probably a reference to Jaws' "You're gonna need a bigger boat (to get this huge ass shark)" which makes it Moby Dick reference by proxy. It's consistent with Rose's denizen being Cetus -- and the bit about the fat wizard Smarny looking around guiltily affirms that the image of the whale is being deployed as a pejorative. If you regard the mass of wands as phallic (You'll need A LOT of dicks to [blank] this whale) you can sort of infer continuity with other feminized usages... I suppose the mass grave discovered in CotL becomes analogous to Mom's laboratory? Accessed through Jaspers' grave, likely the resting place of many a mutant cat, host to a duplicate of Death's tea set from Problem Sleuth... all of which is linked to Mom's implicit history of miscarriage. So... that solves that, maybe

Given the "wail like a cat and blow bubbles" line from Roxy's intro (which alludes to child death) I suppose seeing Rose's MEOW code just before the wizard fic might position the repetition as the wailing of the mass grave...MEOW was Jaspers' last words, after all. But symmetry would require Jake's BARK code to represent the outcry a dead dog? and I don't know if Grandma English counts since she wasn't a dog girl in that timeline... like, Hiveswap has its Laika motifs but hints of all that in Homestuck proper have been pretty scant. Something to think about I guess...

[fisherman-fight]

ROUND TWO

ISHMAEL from MOBY DICK vs KOKARI and UME from OKAMI

PROPAGANDA:

ISHMAEL - "As you may know, Moby Dick starts with the line "call me Ishmael". Then, Ishmael immediately proceeds to tell us that he is depressed and yearns for the sea (I am paraphrasing as it is very long and detailed). He is probably gay (oh no wait I forgot to say this in my Queequeg submission but they get married! In canon! In something written in 1851! This is more clear than whatever is happening in the Epic of Gilgamesh and that was canon homosexuality!) About half the book is taken up by Ishmael's lectures to the reader about whale anatomy and within those lectures, whales are constantly referred to as fish therefore this does indeed count as fishing. Also, he is the only one to survive the wreckage of the Pequod and that is because of Queequeg."

KOKARI AND UME - "[Kokari] has a dog that also fishes with him (ume)!!!!!" "please do not separate kokari and ume. They are fishing besties"