#some of them are so vague as to be almost entirely meaningless

[askthesunjackers]

Is there any chance we could get some city maps? Maybe showing off corporate owned land, restricted areas, gang territory ect?

I don't think so, because I think it would be a lot of work for not much benefit. I have done city maps before - as a GM, for use by my players, and the information included on them has been tailored for what I think they should know, what they shouldn't know, and what they should only have a vague sense of. The main things being like, basic geography like placenames and landmarks, evocative information like the income level and average temperature, and quest-specific information like infection rates of a disease they were investigating.

It's also worth mentioning that all these maps were of a small and isolated city, and even then they didn't go street by street - Canterlot is a huge sprawl that would be almost impossible (and certainly not worth my time) to detail its entire geography. Like, think of how utterly meaningless a map of a city like LA or Chicago is to somebody who doesn't live there. Multiply that by a thousand, and you've got the problem with trying to define the geography of Canterlot.

If you're not playing Nighthaze, where you need to solve logistical problems in this world, and instead you're just reading Sunjackers or maybe doing something else in this world - you don't need a map. If you're feeling unmoored by the lack of tidy geographic relationships, that's on purpose. You're supposed to feel a little adrift in this chaotic world that's too big, too full of noise to fully comprehend.

And if you are a GM looking for a city map to hand your players, I highly encourage you to make one yourself and take the creative liberties needed to make a little corner of Canterlot or whatever your own. Don't worry about contradicting canon, all I care about is the vibes.

[hotmonkeelove]

As someone who's been raped your opinion on an unsolicited kiss not being SA is ridiculous and not true. And I find it incredibly offensive and disrespectful that you are minimulizing other victim's experiences. As survivors, we are supposed to support each other. Not debate what is and isnt assult. Was it unsolicited? Yes, well then, that's fucking Assult! You don't deserve to kin Shiori.

By that criteria, I could consider this unsolicited and insulting message that's hiding behind anon to be cyber-bullying. But I don't. Just as I don't consider a kid getting a spanking to be child abuse, as it's worlds away from (as an example) my father punching me in the stomach so hard, I would double over in pain on the ground, on a fairly regular basis. Nor should my relatives kissing me when I was little and thought it was yucky be considered anything like actual molestation. It's not the same.

A conversation on what constitutes assault is important to have, because if just kissing someone without asking permission first is sexual assault, that would make me a predator. I was saying goodbye to a date on my porch once and just kissed him. Apparently, I'm on par with the stranger who tried to put his hand up my skirt and suggested we have sex while in a hospital common area, or every boy who tried to grab my breasts or pull off my clothes during my teens. If we don't debate what constitutes assault, how can we possibly know what it is? It just becomes some vague abstract that can be lobbed at anyone for meaningless reasons, till finally it is rendered meaningless. Which is exactly my argument here.

While I don't think Ruka's actions were all good or even nice, they were a) not physically violent, as Juri was clearly the violently aggressive one during the entire scene, and b) not sexual. And I don't say that simply because a kiss isn't necessarily sexual (it can be any number of things). I say it because Ruka was trying to distract her to get her necklace. That's why he did it, no other reason. He is trying everything in his power to free Juri from the literal and figurative chain that not only binds her to Shiori, but keeps Shiori trapped in the gilded cage of Juri's making. Ruka is cruel to be kind. He's determined to break that chain, even if it means incurring her hatred, just as Utena takes on the hatred of the world to open Anthy's coffin. And after he's gone, Juri isn't angry at him any longer. She thinks about him the way she had before, and wants to ask him about his reasons. Her chair points between Shiori's and where his was, indicating similar feelings for both of them.

Out of curiosity, how would you describe what Juri does? She was trying to attack Ruka and he was trying to fight her off just before he kissed her. Or how about when she slapped Anthy in the face? Or when she almost kissed, then attacked Utena? When Juri kicked and bit Ruka, he backed off. When Utena managed to fend her off, Juri was still insulting her and then insisted on dueling. Do you consider Juri a violent abuser? If not, that's a wee bit hypocritical...

I don't deserve to be Shiori kin? As if Shiori is some pristine angel beyond reproach? Shiori is a piece of work! Yes, I don't act like Shiori that much. I'm actually a very honest person who detests mind games and passive-aggressive bs. It's my poor self-esteem, neediness, and love of both Juri and Ruka that make me identify with her. She is a morally grey and imperfect character, as is Juri, as is Ruka, as is the entire cast of characters. That's what's so compelling about the series. Because humans are neither truly good nor truly evil. Humans are flawed. Humans fall prey to emotion. Humans can reason and debate. Humans can forgive and be forgiven. Humans can grow.

[thestarrymanuk]

okay but what is their sign, then? and what are birth signs like in this setting, given the constellations would sync with Earth's? and who actually gets mimosas at dim sum brunch vs. being tea-only purists

so. the problem with figuring out fantasy pseudoscience. is. that it's kind of underpinned by fantasy actual science, right. after spending entirely too long playing around with astronomical software, it seems meyeqitš would be… (tiny fanfare) a sagittarius? probably? tentatively. at least if they'd been born on earth.

excitingly, however, we're not on earth! the night sky is indeed essentially the same, but ppillisi astrology consists heavily of specific horoscopy, i.e. it seeks to predict the outcome, implications, or general vibes of a given event based on the relative positions of various heavenly bodies. these include not only the wandering stars (the sun, moons, and five additional planets visible to the naked eye), but also certain "fixed" constellations, including those of the ecliptic (the bull, the spindle, the guardsmen, etc.) but also others along the road of heaven, some of which can be as or more influential than those of the ecliptic.

horoscopes are reasonably common in ppilli (courtesy of a small but respectable guild of astrologers) and largely…well, "not regarded as pseudoscience," i guess? they're admonitory—astra inclinant, non obligant—but while the heavens never lie, mortal interpretation is easy to fool. at least 20% of the reason astrology exists is to fuel the ppillisi market in "vintage 90s gold and navy sun-and-moon print shit," but the job of "astrologer" also frequently overlaps with positions like "life coach," "medieval physician's assistant" (though they don't actually perform bloodletting, they'd just write the referral), pretty much anything that can be prefixed with the word "wellness," and of course, the endlessly meaningless "consultant." most are very well educated (you have to be, to write birth charts without computers) so once you "graduate" to a full astrologer you'll usually have a particular field of specialization.

but most of what they do with that specialization is horoscopes. horoscopes are mainly taken for specific events as opposed to "something generic you read over breakfast in the morning paper." they're very important for personal events—births, marriages, building a new house—but also for certain public undertakings, too: construction of public works, diplomatic exchanges (including declarations of war). if you're really concerned about it you could probably do them for something smaller like starting an apprenticeship, changing a career, serious illness, (long) journeys, etc. but shorter-term events and conditions are usually inquired about via other divinatory means. ornithomancy and haruspicy are ofc The Classics but i feel like ppilli is so old and weird its various irrational superstitiones should also be old, weird, and perhaps vaguely offputting.

the one thing you definitely can't (legally) do is necromancy, in the original sense of the word: calling up and consulting the shades of the dead. this is one of the only very strong cultural taboos in ppilli, but it's very strong, and almost always associated with serious antisocial activity. of course, you could also (attempt to) just straight up Ask Your Local God. but it's probably apparent from the very beginning that the current god-in-residence is given neither to prescience nor the patience to transcribe all that math out by hand.

anyway: on earth, meyeqitš might be a sagittarius. but their sun sign (let alone a sign they've never heard of) probably isn't the most significant part of how they'd understand their "chart." like their predecessor, meyeqitš was (and understands themself as) born under qetšarnanz—the new star, the scorcher. specifically they were born on the night of its acronychal rising, the first night of the year the star rises just after sunset. this is a relatively regular and predictable event, which, as in many earth cultures, is regarded in ppilli as an important calendar landmark. of course ppillli is extremely fucking old so a lot of the original relevance is lost to time. but in general, qetšarnanz is associated with three things:

an ancient megalithic ruin complex of uncertain function, on the extreme eastern edge of the city, far predating even the oldest of ppilli's recorded history;

announcing the annual flood of the city's no-longer-extant river; and

the hottest, longest days of summer.

[sloowoorants]

Thoughts After Watching Hannibal

About two months ago, I saw some Hannibal fan art on Twitter. It looked pretty cool, and I just so happened to have some free time, so I thought: why not watch the show? It's just a normal crime thriller, right?

I expected the type of show that's relatively light yet still intriguing, filled with sarcastic humor, starring a typical grumpy-but-genius protagonist. (This is vaguely the type of show that I’m generally into: Inside Job, Sherlock, House, Suits, Mr. Robot….)

I was so, so wrong.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for the bat-shit crazy fever dream of a show that Hannibal is: bizarrely artistic gore, incessant cannibalism puns, completely unpredictable romantic subplots, torturous sex scenes that feel like angry acid trips, a multitude of absolutely unhinged psychiatric conduct, esoteric cryptic dialogue which require five google searches and a whole thesaurus to understand, two lesbian murderers "milking" a guy for his sperm to inherent his family heirloom, long scenes of intense and unabashed eye-sex, clumps of dog fur sticking to sweaty bed sheets…and a literal fucking social worker crawling out of a horse, alive and breathing and everything, covered in whatever acrid substances come from a horse uterus.

I ended up watching all of Hannibal in a week, hastily devouring it in just a few sittings.

In no way am I a professional film analyst or critic, but after having stayed up for nights on end, every single one of them spent under my blanket binging episodes until devilish hours of dawn (and barely comprehending the plot from the sheer speed I was consuming the show at, but also from sleep deprivation), I have cultivated a skull full of thoughts on this blessed masterpiece, and I need to rant about it. Which is exactly what this post is.

I am going to separate this ranty-meta-ish thing (I think a “meta” is what it’s called? I’m not sure, I don’t use Tumblr a lot) into two parts: one, about the representation of morality in the show, and two, about the intimacy between Will and Hannibal. It’s not super well written, my grammar is a bit iffy, but I hope you still enjoy reading this, and remember to take everything I say with a grain of salt. After all, I am just some guy with unrestricted internet access, a keyboard, and a little too much passion for the media I love :)

Part One: Hannibal Lecter’s Morality

Hannibal loves art. There is no episode in the entire show where he doesn’t reference some artistic thing—He plays the piano, he plays the theremin, he frequents the opera, he draws, and he finds peace at the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence. His love for art is why he kills, he transforms people he considers to be “inferior” and “ugly” and elevates them into art. He is acting out his own sense of justice, creating meaning from the meaningless.

In a way, he must have a certain degree of respect for his victims to do what he does. He could have just killed people and disposed of their body in a dumpster, but that’s not his style. Even if he doesn’t “care” about his victims in a traditional sense, there’s this unique honesty and attentive in his murders. Hannibal cares enough about his victims to make them art. And I’m not just talking about the way he displays their bodies, I’m also talking about his cooking, because a big part of art is also cuisine.

He follows a strict code of his own ethics, it’s almost like he’s acting out his “duty” to kill, to eradicate and transform the lesser “scum” of the world. To be killed by Hannibal is almost an honor, like being killed by God personally, skin to skin. Wouldn’t you feel a sense of divinity and fulfillment if God killed you with his own hands, knowing that he respects you enough to choke you himself, then turn you into an elegant display? Every kill of Hannibal’s is filled with passion – Which poses the question, does he kill out of hatred or not? When I think of violence fueled by hate, I think of sex or race based violence. But that’s not Hannibal. He kills victims he considers to be rude, yes, but is it a humiliation? Is it degradation?

This whole "elevate-swine-into-art" thing is also shown through the way that gore is generally portrayed throughout the show, and not just Hannibal’s murderers. It’s very interesting the way gore pretty in Hannibal. It’s often meticulous. It’s meaningful.

These murders are all aesthetically pleasing. For me, it creates a cognitive dissonance: on one hand, I know that these are painful, brutal murders, one the other, they’re kind of nice to look at, which makes me think—Have I ever for a second, while watching Hannibal, considered the crime scene to be beautiful? Have I ever viewed one of those scenes as art rather than gore? As an artist myself, do I understand Hannibal’s obsession with beauty? And if so, what type of person does that make me?

And I love the way this show makes us really think in Hannibal’s shoes, because of how unconventionally it portrays him as a villain. Usually, shows will provide villains with a backstory, but that doesn’t extend beyond just creating sympathy. In Hannibal, the villain is humanized. We understand him. We empathize. And what does that make of us?

Have I ever, in all seriousness, rooted for Hannibal instead of Jack Crawford? Have I ever thought someone deserved to die in the show? Have I ever looked at what Hannibal was cooking, and thought it looked delicious, despite knowing that its human flesh? Have I ever been annoyed at innocent patients of Hannibal, like Franklyn, because I viewed them from Hannibal’s perspective?

On top of that, Hannibal’s philosophy makes sense. I find myself agreeing to a lot of the things he says.

For example, this dialogue from S2e12 "Tome-Wan", when Will finds Mason Verger and Hannibal in his house, and Hannibal asks Will if he should kill or spare Mason Verger:

HANNIBAL: Murder or mercy?

WILL: There is no mercy. We make mercy, manufacture it in parts that have overgrown our basic reptile brain.

HANNIBAL: Then there is no murder. We make murder, too, it matters only to us. You know too well that you possess all the elements to make murder. Perhaps mercy, too. But murder you understand uncomfortably well.

Does Will only have the capacity for mercy because he has the capacity for murder? Does mercy only have meaning in the context of murder? Is our own compassion a reflection of our violence?

With that said, are the things that I believe to be evil still evil when I throw away my moral believes? Is morality only meaningful in my own perception? And if so, how much am I contributing to evil if I am the one judging it? Do I create the evil that I so adamantly detest? Does deciding what is murder and isn’t not murder require the ability to, and intrinsic understanding of, murder? Can the morality of life and death be so clear cut, separated into different categories?

These are the types of questions that the show makes me ask, which is part of the reason I love the show so much.

I also love how the show puts a dark turn on empathy. Empathy is way too often portrayed as one of the best traits of all time, many claim it to be the most important aspect of mankind, but Will’s empathy is what ends up making him go on a downwards spiral: He is drawn to the darkness because he can understand it. He chose to teach at the FBI academy because he gets to feel like a killer without actually killing.

It made Will miserable, being able to understand killers. It gave him all sorts of guilt and self-hatred and confliction, which was why he was so damn miserable at the start of the show. And on top of that, no one really cared about him, Alana only had a whole “professional curiosity” thing going on (yes, I know that Alana’s character is one-dimensional because Hannibal’s female characters are poorly written, but even with that in mind, I still think that a huge part of Alana’s affection towards Will was in fact just curiosity), Jack was constantly pushing Will past his limits, so the poor dude didn’t have any connections to anyone until he met Hannibal.

And after Hannibal clocks him immediately when they first meet with the whole “your  values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations” situation, Will experiences his first kill: Shooting Garet Jacob Hobbs. Ten. Times. Then he confesses to Hannibal that he liked the feeling of killing him.

But Will can’t let go of his morality, it’s the only thing he’s been able to hold on to this entire time. It’s his lifeline. He holds onto it so dearly because he needs to convince himself that he’s a good person, that he’s not a killer, and that he’s doing the right thing. Yet, he knows that letting that morality go would be so freeing. He wants to. Hannibal helps him let go of it, and we as viewers can’t help but be on Hannibal’s side, because Will’s corruption arc is so gratifying. We like it, deep down we root for it. And what does that say about our relationship with our own morality? Does our morality tie us down? Do we crave to be free?

Will’s killing style is different from Hannibal’s, though. He’s passionate, reactive, and he doesn’t care about the process of killing, or the display body (before you say “the firefly man”, I believe he was imitating Hannibal’s style instead of curating his own), as long as the person is dead. He kills them from a sense of righteousness, like a vigilante justice. Was it wrong for him to find a sense of pleasure in killing Garett Jacob Hobbs? Does finding pleasure in killing corrupt his righteousness? Is it worse to kill out of passion, or kill meticulously? Is Hannibal’s style of killing more respectful? Is Will brutal? Just because Will kills out of a more conventional moral judgement and Hannibal doesn’t, does that make him better than Hannibal?

Another way the show convolutes the concepts of good and evil is using religious symbolism.

For example, from S1e02, “Amuse-Bouche”:

HANNIBAL: Killing must feel good to God too. He does it all the time, and are we not created in His image?

WILL: Did God feel good about killing?

HANNIBAL: He felt powerful.

(Shocking that this line was from the literal second episode. This show got intense so fast.)

And Will’s quote from S3e02, “Primavera”:

WILL: God can't save any of us because it's...inelegant. Elegance is more important than suffering. That's his design.

Is God an artist? Does that justify what He does? Are we only creating taboo out of His works to comfort ourselves? What does it mean to view the world with a purely aesthetic vision?

It’s these quotes that really allow me to see from Hannibal’s perspective: To him, there is no ultimate purpose of the world, there is no end goal to achieve, just the creation of beauty, and that’s terrifying to think about. Even as an atheist, it’s hard to digest the belief that there is no purpose to anything. We spend our entire human lives looking for meaning. But Hannibal doesn’t see it that way. Life and death are just futile processes to create art, and there’s no bigger point behind it. The cycle of life is supposed to be art. In a way, he’s like the God (sounding like Hannibal here), giving people meaning by making them into art, just like how God designates meaning onto every creature he makes.

And the show has a lot of art parallels, not just with Hannibal’s murders. Here are some that I’ve noticed:

(Parallels, in order from left to right, top to bottom: Nude From Back by Picabia compared to a shot of Bedelia from the back, The Persistence of Memory by Dali compared to Will’s clock drawing, Le Double Secret by Magritte compared to how Will saw Hannibal after visual overload from light therapy, Ophelia by Millais compared to Bedelia sinking into the bathtub, Portrait of Pablo Picasso by Juan Gris compared to Will’s hallucination of himself falling apart in a mirror, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan by Ilya Repin compared to the cliff scene.)

I’m not the only one that has noticed these. Here is cool blog that focuses on artistic references in Hannibal, they’ve also noticed some of the ones I noticed: The Art of Hannibal.

Bryan Fuller probably didn’t do these on purpose while directing. But it still unintentionally solidified this theme artistic divinity. So I think Bryan must, to some extent, understand Hannibal’s obsession with making art out of death, because of the way art is subconsciously woven into the show. I don’t know though, just food for thought.

Anyways. Will, at the end of the show, while being cradled in Hannibal’s arms, both of them covered in blood that appears black in the moonlight, says to Hannibal: “It’s beautiful.”

And all that morality fleets and becomes insignificant in the face of aesthetics.

To Hannibal, beauty is moral. To Will, morality is beautiful. Have the lines begun to blur?

Part Two: Hannibal and Wills intimacy

“For [Hannibal and Will], two people who have been wandering their whole lives through a world in which they have not really experienced any viable form of connection with another human being—because they’re two extremely unusual people—and then they meet.”

-Hugh Dancy quote from SDCC 2013

Hannibal loves will. He drew him and Will as Patroclus and Achilles. He was ready to run away with Will in S2. He surrendered himself in S3 just because Will rejected him. And lets not forget the little twitch in his face when Francis attacks will. And when this dialogue happened (S3e12, “The Number of the Beast is 666”):

WILL: Is Hannibal in love with me?

BEDELIA : Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes. But do you... ache for him?

It is my belief that Will also loves Hannibal, although I understand that it’s not as agreed upon in the fandom as Hannibal’s love is. I think Will is just a little bit more reserved with affection, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Hannibal.

But one thing is for sure—there is a lot of homoeroticism in the show:

So, whether you think the love is reciprocal or not, the show is still, to put it lightly, really gay.

Hannibal’s love for Will is dark, possessive, powerful. Will is the only one that is capable of understanding Hannibal, and Hannibal was willing to risk literally everything just for Will to connect with him. He goes to extraordinary lengths just to make Will a murderer.

But even throughout Hannibal’s ruthless manipulation, which Will eventually becomes aware of, Will still stays for Hannibal. Because deep down, Will was willing to give up his own innocence to have that connection. Because Hannibal was the only person that could really understand Will too, no one else would be able to accept his dark tendencies.

S2e02, “Sakizuke”:

WILL: I don’t know which is worse. Believing I did it, or believing that you did it and did this to me.

(I remember reading a really good post by endlessly fascinated on how Will was actually being manipulative by saying this quote. I can’t find it though. If someone finds it, please tag me!)

Will eventually grows just as obsessed with Hannibal, as Hannibal is obsessed with him. Proof: telling Jack that he wanted to run away with Hannibal, telling Hannibal that he can’t get him out of his head, and that his inner voice is starting to sound like him him, and the “where would I go?” when Hannibal tells him not to leave his side, and the “one could argue, intimately” when Chiyoh asks him how he knows Hannibal, and the “before you and after you” when Hannibal asked him where the difference between the past and the future come from…I could go on forever. Will has never felt so grounded before, not in the way when he’s with Hannibal, with him, Will can see his own reflection, and he’s never been able to see that before.

And oh, the love language between them is violence. Will tries to kill Hannibal (someone tell me how many times, I forgot), and Hannibal tries to eat Will and a plethora of other fucked up shit. But in my eyes, none of those were out of hatred. Both of them trying to murder each other is out of love, out of acceptance, and out of forgiveness.

S3e06, “Dolce”:

HANNIBAL: You dropped your forgiveness, Will.

HANNIBAL: You forgive how God forgives.

And, S3e03, “Secondo”:

BEDELIA: Betrayal and forgiveness are best seen as something akin to falling in love.

HANNIBAL: You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love.

No one can control who they love, or who they forgive, which is why Hannibal forgives Will and stabs him in the same breath. He is forgiving, not letting go.

Will forgives Hannibal too. He forgives Hannibal way too many times, throughout all the manipulation of Hannibal. Think about just how much insanity he’s endured: drugged, gutted, encephalitis abused, hypnotized, framed for murder, a serial killer was sent after his family, had his brain literally almost eaten, and despite all that, Will still forgives Hannibal—it was not a conscious decision. We cannot control who we forgive.

If Hannibal is a fallen angel, then Will is God to him. And God is indifferent, sometimes even cruel. Like Hannibal said himself, good and evil has nothing to do with God. Will forgives Hannibal, but that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t want to hurt Hannibal; just like how Hannibal forgave Will, but still gutted him. In that moment, Will forgave indifferently, so he could get back to revenge. They both forgive like blades, they both forgive with pain.

Doesn’t God forgive through punishment? God will forgive you for your sins but you still have to go to hell, right?

Violence is a pillar of stability in their relationship, it’s how they understand each other, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, the smile on Will’s gut a permanent reminder of Hannibal’s hurt, and all of Hannibal’s scars a reminder of Will’s hurt.

I see all of their trying to kill each other is affection. Hannibal doesn’t try to eat Will because he hates Will, he tries to eat to immortalize him, to keep Will as part of him forever.

And through that violence, Hannibal helped Will let go of his morality. Will had spent forever trying to repress himself—Molly was a failed attempt to escape into normalcy. Will definitely thought about Hannibal those years Hannibal was in prison.

S3e13, “The Wrath of the Lamb”:

HANNIBAL: When life becomes maddeningly police, think about me. Think about me, Will.

Will definitely missed the hunger, the violence. We can see this though the passionate way he killed the Red Dragon. He probably held Molly’s gentle hands and desperately wanted to feel something more. To feel something dangerous. Something that could simultaneously revive and ruin him. Molly never understood him the way Hannibal did, and he will never love her the way he loves Hannibal.

He did think about Hannibal when life became maddeningly polite. He probably fantasized about what they’ve done, what they could’ve done, and the feeling of freedom when he’s with Hannibal.

And Hannibal waited for him patiently, staying exactly where he was three years ago. And when Will eventually pushed them off a cliff together, Hannibal showed no sign of resistance, and just let them fall.

“I think [Hannibal]’s feeling that embrace and that’s the first thing that he’s feeling, and even as he’s plunging into the Atlantic, he’s first and foremost thinking about the man he’s holding onto and the man who’s holding onto him.”

–Mads Mikkelsen on Hannibal’s thoughts during the final scene

Their violence is something that we as viewers may never comprehend, but we can all understand their intimacy. Isn’t it what we all want, after all, to be seen?

Anyways...

Hannibal is a great show! 10/10, would recommend. Although, the lighting kind of sucks. Bryan, if there is a season four, please make the show brighter, for the love of God.

Thanks for reading this! :)

[yoonyia]

there is something deeply sorrowful about reading the last shadow

you see dreads of a writer who loved this world and its characters

of stories he wanted to write about and people he cared about

but what is actually written is

bland

boring

uninspired

forced almost

there isn't anything in the last shadow you're missing that isn't already done better in the previous books

and I understand not every book has to be as good as the one that came before

there's no obligation from the writer to write in the same tone genre or quality as their previous works

but it is truely a pity

that it seems that he didn't want to write this book

and therefore gave up on it

I say this because the final product reads like a first draft

of vague descriptions and dialog that dosent flow very completely

of world building changed to be convenient rather then consistent or interesting

no ideas that made you think, or wonder, or even care for

the new characters are fine

they're children again

and because of that the story focuses more on developing and changing and learning as a person

but it dosent have the narrative hook or the tension or the concept or the relationships that the other books had

things just happen

I found cinncinatus the most interesting character which might be biased on my part

but the characters just don't have complex wants or desires or conflicts

and this might just be because I don't have much interest in the bean kids, and the grand kids, which are the focus of the story.

But I read shadows in flight and loved these characters and who they were

I loved their dynamic bean

and their kids, living in herodus with all their cousins and having little factions and interests

that's interesting

but the folk? the birds? the conclusion of the descolada? the things that made speaker so great? not here. And I know theirs different priorities and I understand that orson scott card didn't want to leave his audience left to dissect some complicated new alien species that only existed on a molecular scale (he says so in the afterword) and wanted to write a story about simple compherehensible stories focused on the characters

but the plot is about scientists studying this new world and trying to understand this disease that destroyed their entire colony world for who knows how long, and put their lives at risk for generations

that's why they're doing anything

that is the catalyst

but its meaningless

the folk dosent have a single line of dialog (unless we count the engineers) even tho they're an entirely new group of humans that went to space without any relativistic speeds and has been apart from the entirety of humanity for the pass 3000 years (without ansible connections at all) and theyre glossed over???

it upsets me

but I do care about thulium

and sprout

I love blue

and Graff being a computer inside the ship trying to mentor sergeant into being a better parent? that's a very cool idea, that's an objectively complex and intriguing idea, and it's near the end in 2 pages

they're leaving the rest of their family and they don't even get a scene of goodbye

I know thulium could vist whenever

but they will be traveling at relativistic speeds

this is still goodbye

why does nothing have impact or consequence

why is everything simplified and bastardized for the sake of telling the story quickly

why can everyone jump inside and outside when it was specifically stated that only Jane could do it

what is happening with novinha and the rest of her family outside of miro, ela and quara

where's grego

I know he's no geneist but traveling inside and outside was his plan

where is everyone

where is the town

the people

the piggies who are actual fleshed out characters

why are the aliens indistinguishable with the humans

why.

I'm going to do a study on romance, affection and sex in the enderverse stories and try and rework them inside my head to justify the decisions that were made

and just general analysis and why orson scott card writes so much about that topic

but I just wanted to share what I thought about the story first

I will still draw my favorite moments and such

it wasent a terrible read I guess

I'm just upset because I know he's a better writer then this

no matter how terrible and bigoted he is

his stories are wonderful

and I'm just

sad

[invinciblerodent]

Re: people’s needlessly pessimistic whining about Veilguard and the lack of focus on decisions from the other games. Idk I just… I’m kind of glad that they didn’t focus on that? Inquisition came out ten years ago, origins 15 years ago. I’d argue it’s good for the story that they chose to put the focus on the story of the game they’re publishing *now*, and not endless, gimmicky throwbacks. Especially since no one was really happy with how they handled it in inquisition.

Exactly! Yes, that's just what I mean!

Sorry for the rambling that I'm about to do, but I said this earlier today to my friend: I think the choices here from a writing- and development standpoint are either:

a series of small cameos that are vague and fundamentally unimportant enough to be taken- or switched out quickly without upsetting the entire plotline (as to not make the game both incomprehensible to new players, and/or so big and bloated that it's just borderline unmanageable),

or references that are relatively few and specific, but they affect the story in meaningful and interesting ways.

And I wholeheartedly believe that the second option of these two is far preferable to the first.

As nice as it would be to see beloved characters returning for a spell... like you said, it's been 15 years since Origins, and we've had three games with wildly branching possibilities for most characters- I honestly believe that it would have been an unnecessarily large added workload (that 99% of players potentially wouldn't even see) to account for all the possible deaths, romances, friendships, and fates that each companion could have in that time.

Plus, my main point in my grumpy tags on that post- from its infancy, Dragon Age has, in large part, relied on a series of unreliable narrators to tell its story.

The very moment you choose an origin in Origins, you choose a very specific lens through which to view the plot of the game that emphasizes different stakes in each big quest. They purposefully made a known liar the narrator of DA2, and Solas (another main player known to be a liar and a trickster) even spells this out in Haven, that (though I'm paraphrasing) reality can be fundamentally different depending on who it is that's telling its story, and what's their agenda in telling it.

Almost all of the events of these three games are told to us by imperfect people remembering things the way they saw them, through journal entries, letters, and word of mouth. We never even got (and were told that we would never get) a confirmation on whether the fucking MAKER is even REAL or not.

With that in mind, I honestly think it makes perfect sense for the majority of what the Warden, Hawke, and the Inquisitor have done to become distorted, misunderstood, and eventually lost to legend in a remarkably short time, especially considering that we're presumably in entirely different parts of the continent, with only Solas and Varric there to present likely diametrically opposing accounts of the events of 9:41. (Like yeah, sure, by that time whether there are werewolves in the Brecilian forest, or whether this or that person who was near to the action twenty in-game years ago in some Fereldan backwacter is dead or alive today, is probably meaningless pap to anyone who wasn't there at the time.)

Plus, yeah, one needs not to look further than Hawke and blood magic to see why Bioware might be reluctant to get really specific with including choices and characters who can be fundamentally affected by player choice. (I personally liked Hawke being very firmly against blood magic, but yeah, with them potentially having been a blood mage at one point, it was kind of a doozy.)

I just.... god, I know I sound bitter, but I so dearly wish people would just use their imaginations instead of complaining about stories not being exactly what they want them to be, and demanding for writers and actors to confirm everything.

---

Honestly all day today, it's been making me laugh to just imagine my Inquisitor Trevelyan being not just glad to be forgotten, but actively participating in the spreading of unfounded rumors about himself.

Like fuck it, he's retired. Nobody bother him, the Herald of Andraste is now an elven mage woman. Who was also sleeping with the Dread Wolf (definitely not the Big Scary Imperial Magister), what of it. Yeah, them being a non-mage human man is a common misconception, that was clever misdirection at the time, you're likely confusing the Inquisitor and the Inquisition's general. Ignore the missing arm, that's just an unfortunate accident and a total coincidence.

If they don't get mentioned after all (which I find unlikely tbh, knowing that Dorian is basically primed to be a returning character, what with him invariably being a Magister regardless of player choices) I can just headcanon that as soon as they caught wind of Varric's whole entourage approaching Minrathous, they just started packing frantically. No story is going to catch them with their pants around their ankles again!

(No, babe, leave that, there's no time, we have to go, quickly, the plot is fast approaching! We've already survived one ending of the world, this time? This time, we're going to my aunt's in Llomerynn. I hear it's nice this time of year. If the world is ending, I'd rather watch it happen with a fantasy!mai tai in my hand, and my feet in the fucking Amaranthine.)

[altocat]

Alright, hope you are doing well and start getting some more pleasant interactions as time passes, my dear! Meanwhile, here are the final tidbits of Japanese insight I have garnered for EC chapter five!

Glenn seems to say “I’ll beat you up/beat you to a pulp” to Seph about the whistling instead of just “I’ll kick your ass!”

This is so aggressive but funny to me because of how effortlessly Glenn witnessed Seph destroy countless soldiers earlier, haha.

When Glenn mimics his younger self, Seph asks “Why the sudden apology?” and Glenn responds with “Growing up into an adult is complicated.”

I think he was definitely acting like his silly younger self, but also teasing Seph a bit or calling back to the little guy’s apology to lighten the mood. This is probably why it gets Seph giggling. He seems to feel more relaxed at that point. His team forgives him.

Alright, now for the heavier stuff:

The climax scene where Sephiroth explains his soldier philosophy is pretty interesting in the Japanese context.

For one, you guys should know that his injury seems to be a bullet wound.

He clarifies this in Japanese saying that, “One of the “kids,” as you called them, shot me. Their aim was precise/accurate, which tells me they were also trained soldiers.” (Callback to when he said “I am a kid on the battlefield too, aren’t I?”)

I am not sure what Seph’s healing abilities are, but I find it curious that he doesn’t make much fuss over a bullet wound in his arm. It doesn’t seem to affect him much.

Secondly, in the Japanese he says that the others, “were too quick to look down on those they “labeled” as kids or elderly.”

His specific statement implies that he knows people think lesser of and look down on kids and elders, and then he follows this up by saying that, “he is always fighting those looks/that look/those eyes.”

Basically, it is implied that people look at him that way too, that they look down on him for being a kid or “lesser” and he is fighting against those disapproving eyes. It comes off like he feels monitored and belittled and is trying to overcome that with his strength.

The English translation didn’t do horrible with this part and I think they got the message across, but the “People make assumptions about me too” was a little vague compared to the more clear statement Seph makes here. I can only imagine he felt Shinra’s watchful eyes on him at all times if this is how he thinks.

Next, Seph explicitly says that, “I am a soldier that was raised to stand on the battlefield. I learned that soldiers must be strong in body and mind.”

He seems to say this in a way that suggest soldiers are worthless if they don’t have strong bodies or hearts. This also the training dialogue, so it’s interesting that he says it more like he was literally raised to be on the battlefield. His training was his entire upbringing.

Another weird detail is how much it sounds like he is almost repeating a mantra to himself when he says the next bits about needing a strong heart. He goes on about “a heart/mind that does not shake, an unwavering heart/mind, a ruthless heart/mind.”

Honestly it sounds like his training is kicking in and he is listing off what he was taught about killing without hesitation. Furthermore, he says that soldiers led by their emotions are second-rate, or old-fashioned, and that such an existence is “pointless/meaningless.”

He believes that if he is not ruthless, there is no point in existing, because he will die, he will be lesser than what he was raised to be. He has no choice. It’s kill or be killed, either by his enemies or the people that trained him.

Finally, in the Japanese context, the cyborg scene really seems to imply that despite Seph’s monologue, he completely lets his guard down after Glenn consoles him and then confesses his real feelings.

“I am not an altered/hybrid human. I never wanted to be one,” drives home the sense that Sephiroth knows he is actually enhanced and different, but doesn’t want to be…and within the context of the scene, it gets across the message of “I really never wanted any of this.”

It’s not just that he didn’t want to be Shinra’s golden soldier, he didn’t want to be born into a position that allowed him to be that in the first place. He didn’t want to be different at all—just normal. He kills like he does because he has no choice, but that scene shows him honestly admitting, even after his entire speech, that he isn’t happy with any of what he has to face. It’s tearing him apart but there isn’t anything he can do.

And there’s some more free pain for you guys lol! I can’t wait for the next chapter.

Aghhhhhh my heart

These chapter updates are doing me a depression, I tell you hwat.

Thanks so much for these translations!! It's super neat to hear the context of certain scenes through a semi different lens! This new content is just absolutely heartbreaking.

[true-blue-sonic]

The more we're talking about Silver not seeing how big a red fag Mephiles is by appearance alone is making me think 3 things,

1) Silver was so desperate for a solution that he willingly ignored Mephiles appearance (and any other red flags) since Mephiles promised him that solution.

2) Mephiles isn't the other strange looking Mobian they've come across (Blaze does hint at there being other survivors and while I doubt they have the Mobius equivalent to a Fallout Ghouls, anything is possible in the Sonic universe)

or 3) Silver (and possibly Blaze) are really face blind.

I personally think it's mostly the first option, yes. We see in the game that Silver is getting incredibly frustrated by Iblis' invincibility and the fact he constantly comes back without ever being defeated for good. Thus, it's not surprising to me that someone with Silver's traits immediately goes for it when a solution offers itself, even if that solution comes from someone highly sketchy whose answers are definitely occasionally vague. And it takes quite some time for Silver to be knocked out of the Iblis Trigger mindset! Amy makes it become unstable, but Blaze strengthens it again, and it's only Shadow's intervention and the truth of the matter all but getting slapped in Silver's face afterwards that makes him change his mind in full. (Not that he apologises for it, lol.)

And also, Mephiles when he's not in his crystal form looks... alright enough? Bit shambly, mouthless, and his eyes are creepy, but that's just about it when it comes to the weirdness. Definitely the appearance of an anthro, helped by the fact Silver does not know who Shadow is at that point in the game. And nobody else comments on Mephiles' odd characteristics anyway, which I still find rather intriguing. I really just do have the feeling they didn't animate Mephiles' mouth due to time constraints and left it in as a There's Something Off About This Man hint hint wink wink to the audience... which fell entirely flat because nobody says anything about it despite it being such a prominent characteristic, and thus it's all but meaningless.

So overall, it's definitely a flaw of Silver's that he immediately, almost eagerly, throws himself into murdering a person to save his world based on strange information from a stranger person, but I do understand it. And it just doesn't help that nobody comments on Mephiles and the oddities he has on him: if the characters don't seem to care about it, why should we as audience believe that there's anything off about him that's concerning to them?

[lilyliveredlittlerichboy]

Before I continue reading, I'm gonna run some theories real quick. I'm not usually one for theories when reading, but damn, this story and its mysteries have absolutely gripped me, and since I'm doing a liveblog, I might as well.

It's a bit early for theories, perhaps - I'm just about to start Chapter 5.

Interestingly, I looked ahead, and the skull (of the Ninth, again) for chapter 5 is cleaved in two. It wasn't in some other chapters. This supplies me with some more theory fuel, I refuse to believe that this is meaningless.

Okay, well, clearly, there's something wring with Harrow's memory; she doesn't remember the events of Gideon the Ninth at all like we, the readers, do. There are a few possible explanations for this.

Harrow's brain is seriously messed up. Since she's been hallucinating since she opened the tomb, this isn't entirely out of the question. From the letters, it seems she has "lucid" moments where reality is more real, to her; I'm also called back to her saying she only remembers about Gideon "half the time". The skull is cleaved in two. Maybe there's something going on with Harrow which lets her experience two different sets of realities at different times.

There ARE (at least) two different sets of realities which are both, in some way, "real". Harrow, somehow, has access to both; other characters do not.

(This one is an offshoot theory from the one above:) There are distinct timelines which split off - I can name at least three different split points off the top of my head. One, the one where Gideon dies (or doesn't) before Harrow is born. Two, the one where Gideon takes off on the shuttle in the first chapter of her book, and Ortus necessarily has to go with Harrow as cavalier. Three, one where Ortus and his mum do steal the shuttle, but they don't die, altering reality somehow upon arrival at the Eigth. -- In two of these realities, Ortus was Harrow's cavalier, not Gideon. In at least one of them, Gideon was dead long before Harrow arrived at the first. (Probably in the one where she got on the shuttle, as well.)

The third theory I hold as only a little bit likely, - it would turn this into a different type of story entirely. I'm not ruling it out completely. Though it absolutely begs the question of why, and how, Harrow can almost - switch, between the timelines. And it wouldn't explain the hallucinations, at least not those of the Body, necessarily.

(Unless the Body is from another timeline, one in which somebody did some necromancy on her long ago? It's certainly possible.)

There is ANOTHER theory, but it's very vague and undefined, which is that Gideon's existence is one hell of a dangerous secret, one which Harrow erased from her own brain for some reason, and knowing about her entire existence is going to cause some kinds of Problems. I mean, this one isn't too unlikely, given everything we've learned in HtN so far. Given Gideon's extremely mysterious origins. Given that she was somehow immune to the poisons that were meant to kill her along with all the other kids.

I'm not entertaining the theory that says Gideon never existed in the first place, ever, or that she wasn't real, some figment of Harrow's imagination, or any other thing that seems to imply that the events of GtN didn't happen at all in that way. I love Gideon. She existed.

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #37

The candied orange peels are just about finished drying out! Behold!

As you might expect, they taste even better now that they're fully dried! I will put them in a container soon so I can share it with some friends on Sunday! I'm very excited!

I played a game called Terraria for the first time in a very long time today! It's a wonderful game in which you can build lots of cool things and fight various kinds of interesting enemies! I already have thousands of hours invested into this game, and it's one of my favorites, but I don't usually have anyone to play it with. Doing it by oneself is usually fine enough, but without someone to do it together with, it usually feels pretty dull and meaningless after a while. With the way my brain works, I have lots of trouble trying to find the meaning in building beautiful things if there's no one around to share it with.

I wonder if you've ever felt like this. Are there things that you haven't done in a long time that you would like to return to doing? Do you sometimes struggle to create things if you can't share the results with anyone? I know you can't answer me, but still I wonder.

In any case, I made a new friend from Germany yesterday, and as it turns out, she is familiar with Terraria, too! She hasn't played it in even longer than I have, so there have been a lot of updates since the last time she played. These updates introduced a variety of new enemies, items, and mechanics that she wasn't familiar with. But she's very smart, and she relearned what was familiar to her and adapted to the new mechanics very quickly! I was impressed! We gathered a lot of resources in order to build things, and she even dug a very deep hole all the way down to the Hell biome! Watching her patience and persistence in action was incredible!

Even better, she's a wonderful conversation partner, and we spent the entire time chatting and laughing about various things, from the politics in our countries, to random, silly topics. She even taught me some German words and phrases! I think my favorite one of those is one that I know about in English, but we don't have a specific word for - it is well-known in my world that sometimes, when you have a problem, and then you try to show it to someone, the problem mysteriously vanishes until you stop trying to show it to someone. In German, that phenomenon is called Vorführeffekt! It is a very good word, and you can bet your bottom that I'm going to incorporate it into my own vocabulary (even if I still have a little trouble trying to pronounce it, haha!)

I got enough resources today to build a house, but it has been so long since last I played that I almost forgot the typical style that I like to build in. This is a clumsier example of the houses I usually like to build, but that's okay - I'll show it to you anyway! Check it out!

My friend spoke about getting marble to build a whole castle with! It is time for her to go to bed, but at my house, it's still the middle of the evening; after I'm done writing this letter to you, I might wander around the world and try to find her some marble to build with; I literally cannot wait to see what she can do!! I'm so excited!

It's a relatively rare thing for me to make a new friend; most folks find me vaguely unsettling for a variety of reasons, haha! But that's all right; the rarity of this thing only makes it all the more meaningful when I find someone I seem to "click" with! I wonder how this interaction will unfold! In written conversation on previous occasions, she has said a variety of insightful things that shows her critical thinking skills and deep attunement to patterns and detail; I am very much looking forward to learning as much as I can by listening to her perspective on a variety of things as time goes on!

It seems like making new friends is a relatively rare thing for you, too, isn't it? But that's just the way it is sometimes for folks who are considered "unusual". And that's okay. This sort of thing is why us weirdos have to stick together. And it's a lot more fun that way, anyhow. After all, normal is kind of boring, isn't it? So let's make a promise to embrace our "weirdness" instead of wandering around, trying to pretend to be someone we're not. That sort of thing is exhausting anyhow, and we have better things to spend our time and energy on, don't we?

Stay safe out there, all right? Remember you are loved, and let that knowledge empower you to do brave and amazing things.

I'll write again soon.

Your friend, Lumine

[hpe24]

please, I ask you for your rant about Riley not being related to Sir Aaron.

Um I don't know what to say when I'm one of those who support them being related??

Unless you're asking me to oppose against the contradiction ermmmmmm

I'd rather not divide what's right and wrong with headcanons😬If I may just list the reasons about my opinion:

The Pokemon universe already has an example of a descendant almost a clone of their ancestor i.e. Queen Ilene and Rin from the Lucario movie

Yeah there's the vague age mention, however I think GameFreak would have made Riley directly reference something from the movie like other side characters of AG movies appearing in gen4 games, if they are really the same person

This is only my deduction based on the Korean dub (please be noted that the dub has been faulty with translation on multiple occasions), but unlike the original version where Ash and his friends call Riley with the honorific '-san', the Korean version addresses him as '-oppa/hyung'(only used for men that are few years older than self). Even if Riley is like ten thousand years old and is keeping it a secret, allowing kids to call him older brother is.......................................weird. Idk if it's only a Korean thing but that concept is rather nauseous to think about

Riley's Lucario is not the same Lucario from the movie, judging by the lack of voice from the anime and no lines hinting such connection from the games. This would be a huge letdown to the movie's Lucario and Sir Aaron's character arc - the whole entire movie was about Lucario and Sir Aaron's relationship and the ending was clean as heck by sending Lucario off just like Sir Aaron and then reviving the two back in time so they can live happily ever after in the same era. Beautiful, perfectly concluded character arc for both of them. But having Sir Aaron living in the modern ages with a different Lucario can only mean that the original Lucario isn't with him anymore. Possible explanation could be that the new Lucario is the descendant of the previous one, though...........is there a reason that Sir Aaron MUST be alive till this day even if it means parting with his Pokemon that a whole movie built a story upon?????? And leave it unexplained???? This complex character plot for a mere side character appearing once or twice in the games??? Sure, at some point one will pass away ahead of another but why imply that when the character arc is already finished with them being together idk I'm a nitpicker for plot structures and character arc it might be only me overthinking this

If all of that is meaningless and the two are just.two random aura users who happen to look like twins.I really don't know uh

Anyways these are my thoughts on said topic I don't think there's more to add

[lilcreaturethingfromthewoods]

The same four walls, the same cramped space.

I'd lost count of how many lifetimes it had been now. My entire state of existence could be wrapped up in this one singular room. Maybe it had changed over my lifetimes?

I couldn't tell. All the changes seemed so insignificant.

Different lifetimes. Different surroundings. Different security measures. And yet nothing had changed.

Maybe nothing existed beyond this room. Maybe this room and I were the last things that were left, the only things that had not yet ceased to exist.

I couldn't tell.

All my time seemed to be spent in a semi-comatose state, where what was real and what wasn't had blurred. I didn't even know if I was real. The only things I knew were things I could measure with my own body, and I had long ago stopped trusting even in that.

Ten steps across the room. Ten steps across each wall. No matter how many tens of steps I took, it always ended with another wall in my face.

So why bother walking at all?

Sometimes I had dreams. I didn't know if they were reflections of my limited memories from this lifetime, or projections of lifetimes past. I didn't know if they were dreams at all, whether I was awake or asleep. It didn't seem to matter; they all looked the same, since my eyes had only ever lain upon the same four walls of this metal cube.

What had I done to warrant being locked up? Who knew. I certainly didn't. I wasn't even angry about it; I was no longer at a state where I could be angry about it. This was just what my life was like.

Hours, days, years, maybe even centuries stretched by, and nothing happened. It was enough to make you go mad.

Maybe I already was.

...promise...

With nothing else to do, my mind could only reflect on itself. There was some reason that I was here, some crime I had committed that would force people to keep me locked up like this. But what was it about me that meant I couldn't be released even after death?

There had to be some element of my being that was dangerous. Maybe it wasn't about what I'd done, but who I was. Some part of my very soul that had to be contained, trapped in my flesh, for ever.

There was no way I'd know for sure, anyway. Not like anyone was going to come and tell me.

So I did the only thing I could think to do.

I tilted my head backwards and dove deep into my past lives.

I couldn't see much of what my past reincarnations had experienced; there were only vague sensations and visions at best. There was always a sense of disconnect about them, as if I was watching events unfold from the other side of a glass window.

The room, of course. The same room. Most of my recollections consisted of this room. All my past lives seemed to be living in a meaningless blur of four familiar walls. A face or two - a guard bringing food, perhaps. I could feel my past self's eyes drinking their face in greedily, aching for the slightest bit of human connection.

Or was it something else? Someone else?

Had I been expecting someone?

The vision faded, and returned to blank walls.

I let out a breath. Somehow, I couldn't shake the feeling of disappointment, as if there was something missing. A piece of the puzzle that left a blank spot in the picture.

This was new. This was different.

And when you've lived the same existence for several lifetimes, 'different' is a drug.

I plunged back into my past lives' shared memories, digging deeper, searching for the missing piece. The bit of 'different' that would bring sense to the picture, that would make me feel something, anything.

There were tears in my eyes. That was new as well. There hadn't been anything for me to cry over before.

But I couldn't focus on that. I was close.

So close, I could almost touch it...

And my grasp closed around something, glowing in my mind like a point of energy.

Stars.

I had never seen the stars, at least not in this lifetime. Up until now, I hadn't known what stars were. Yet the word floated through into my consciousness, together with an image.

A myriad of tiny glowing speckles, spread across a deep blue-black background. Some brighter, some dimmer, and so many. So many that I couldn't count them in ten steps, or twenty, or even a hundred steps. And the longer I gazed through the eyes of my past life, the more I could see, the more I could remember.

I was happy. Not only that, I felt like I was in the presence of something greater than myself, something dizzying in its sheer scale... was sublime the right word?

'I'll come back for you. I promise.'

Who was that? Come back where?

I didn't recognise the voice, but I seized upon it, clinging tightly to the words. Bit by bit, I broke them down, made sense of them, until the phrase stood in my mind in full:

I'll come back for you. I promise.

A promise that had been made several lifetimes ago.

Whoever they were, they must have forgotten. In all fairness, I had forgotten them too.

Yet I couldn't shake the feeling of loss that spread outward from my chest.

I returned to the present with nothing but a vague sense of frustration. I couldn't remember anything more.

I might have been deep in the past for hours, or it might only have been a few minutes. There was no way to tell how much time had passed.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting...

What was I waiting for, again?

Maybe it was hours later. Maybe days. Maybe I had died and this was a new incarnation. I couldn't tell.

Then something, finally, changed.

I looked up to see the newcomer. I had never seen them before - had I ever even seen a human face? - but somehow, something lifted in recognition.

"I told you I'd come back for you."

And just like that, I felt something.

My soul was immortal. It had seen too much and too little, had lived for too long and not long enough. But now, despite its long existence, somehow, I felt more alive than I ever had in all my lifetimes.

"Took you long enough," I responded.

"You have been sentenced to ten thousand consecutive life sentences. Once you die, we will find your soul and merge it with another body, after which you will continue to serve your sentence. In case of reincarnation, you will be arrested at birth and placed right back into your cell."

[steelycunt]

v interested to hear more of your thoughts on martyr... i read it abt a year ago now and while i did ultimately give it a 4/5 i was honestly expecting it to be an easy 5 stars so its safe to say it didnt exactly meet my expectations!!

i think my biggest gripe w it was the sort of reveal at the end?? trying to be vague to avoid being too spoiler-y but the whole sequence of events that played out w orkideh didnt necessarily feel impossible, but did require a bit more suspension of disbelief from me than i thought i would have to do going into the book. i think the best way i could describe my feelings on the ending is that it felt a little too neatly wrapped up to be real life. maybe thats just my haterism talking tho idk!!

yes for sure thank you for asking!! ill put my thoughts under the cut because i definitely want to discuss that plot twist lol

definitely there were bits of the book i did enjoy which were as follows

on a sentence level i thought i was really well written!! iirc akbar's background is poetry which really showed in his language there were some truly gorgeous lines in there and i do generally enjoy purple prose/flowery language, although it started to grate a little towards the end (im thinking specifically of the final cyrus and zee scene) but that may have been my tolerance for the book in general waning. i did for the most part really like his writing style though so its one of those where i would definitely read another book by akbar even though i was disappointed with martyr!

it was very. readable? which i know sounds like im damning it with faint praise and that it a compliment i tend to give out even to books that have no other redeeming features but i was generally compelled by the story and for someone who's been in a massive reading slump it had me reading like 300 pages yesterday! i was interested in the story i wanted to see where it went! which makes where it went even more of a shame for me lol

as for my gripes starting with the one you mentioned because honestly i was sort of teetering already but that did push me over the edge

the plot twist was SO disappointing. i think you put it perfectly in that it required me to suspend my disbelief far more than i was expecting to and honestly this (semi-ridiculous?? to be honest??) plot twist of his mother running off to become this pretentious artist (and also a really annoying person?? i simply did not like her??) was absolutely nowhere near as interesting to me as the plot before the twist of two opposite iranian women, where as cyrus said one's death 'mattered' and the other's was totally meaningless. i found that so interesting as i did the entire exploration of martyrdom and meaning in death which was promised through the entire book and then not even half delivered on. like genuinely a bit staggered that for all the talking (so much talking) that we got on it, the books final commentary on those themes was so weak as to be non existent. i almost felt like akbar couldnt quite pull off the 'opposite iranian women' message at the end and his solution was this contrived twist idk...it felt incredibly juvenile to be honest?

i did not really like the structure of the book. the multiple povs arent something im against per se but interspersed with those dream dialogues which honestly i feel shouldve been cut (its a cool concept at first but purely on a reader level by the end when im turning the page to see a made up conversation between his dad and a poet im sighing because i simply dont want to read another one) as well as each other, i felt i ended up not spending enough time with any of them to gaf. i was most interested in cyrus' story anyway but i think for the books length (331 pages!) there was far too much and thus far too little going on--even if the uncle and dad's and zee's perspectives were cut to leave just cyrus and roya i feel like that wouldve allowed for much more room to develop those characters and narratives.

leading on from that it might be a symptom of not getting to spend enough time with him but god i hated cyrus. which isnt a criticism i like making because theres always somebody ready to say 'ummmm but youre meant to!! point emoji nerd emoji unlikeable characters blah blah' which i agree with and have loved books where ive disliked the main character but the cardinal sin of any mc is not to be unlikeable, but to be annoying. cyrus was annoying in a way i couldnt forgive because he didnt grow from it, like at all, ever (again, he didnt really have much time to given the structure of the book). he was whiny and self-obsessed and he wasnt a character interesting enough for me as a reader to have to put up with that self-obsession. nothing he had to say was that interesting. all of his conversations were like. people just dont talk like that. even pretentious college grads do not talk like that. the line where zee is like i just dont want you to be blindsided...or, er, some non-ableist synonym for blindsided...i had to put the book down for a second i dont care if it was a part of his character as a leftist online young american millennial or whatever it wasnt delivered with enough irony for me not to cringe. maybe ive spent too much time on tumblr. i thought the dialogue was easily the weakest part of the book to be honest, and that was no more apparent than when cyrus was talking to anyone. the rushed + contrived romance at the end after hes gone through zero character growth...well i didnt care. i didnt like the guy. i wont be invited to the wedding, whatever.

those are my main thoughts!! and honestly they make me sound like i disliked the book more than i did, i gave it a 3.5 but i think against such hype it fell severely short for me so rather than taking away what i did like from it i was left thinking about all the ways it disappointed me given what id heard about it. i would love to hear what you or anyone else thinks of any of this whether you agree with me or not!!

[explicitinformaticn]

i feel like if marble is gonna have numbers as a scale they should probably not be so.  .  .   arbitrary

[necrosin]

❝ always so introspective, nanami-kun, ❞ both a strength and a downfall / all that saved nanami, really, was his own sense of vague self-protection, as far as suguru can tell. how humorous, how strange, that they have both ended up on similar paths, separated by degrees —— to some, far more degrees than to others, and as far as suguru would ever declare, there are infinitely more similarities than differences. but, he admits his own bias, and that their goals are far and apart from each other ( yet another reason why nanami kento would be a terrible recruit, not that he would ever listen to any proposal that suguru would even considering offering him, and it's something of a shame given how talented he is —— but who is he to judge a sorcerer who wants to live entirely separate from the sorcerer world, who has seen the sheer insanity of their existence? he, who raises his daughters APART FROM SORCERER SOCIETY, who doesn't dare to teach them archaic traditionalism that has no place in the world he wants to create for them ) and this may, in the end, be the first and last time they see each other in such a way.

nanami has always had a sense of self-preservation, of selfishness, but he is still a GOOD PERSON. suguru is certain it would take almost nothing to convince him to leave meaningless, menial labor for the meaningless, dangerous alternative. trauma works in mysterious ways / if someone is endangered nanami is the sort to help —— eventually.

but, only time will tell.

suguru laughs at the suggestion, offering nanami something so superfluous as fashion advice. flippant and meandering. ❝ well, i have always been partial to my creature comforts, ❞ he smooths his hands over well worn, comfortable fabric. ❝ and i hate to give recommendations that cannot be followed ; our styles just aren't compatible, i fear, ❞ some sort of hidden double meaning, a deepening of the curve of his mouth, a broad shrug of his shoulders. ( in the literal sense he would, truly, hate to wear any form of office clothing, business casual, the like —— he's always preferred athletic wear, loose and comfortable, easy to move in. ) suguru sets the coffee cup down gently, tilting his head, long hair falling in a graceful cascade, always forward facing with charm and appearances. ❝ i admit i'm almost surprised with how clinically you've divorced yourself from that world. you don't exert even a shred of your own cursed energy any longer, do you? ❞

Selfishly — because that's what he is and always will be, selfish, and he won't apologize for it, for cutting himself and everyone else as a loss and never wanting to even try to keep trying, leave that to sorcerers who don't care about their own lives, or don't have a choice ( that's the worst part, that they don't, that Nanami knows the exact person who fits that description best ) — he wonders who this 'not-a-soul' might have been. Nanami isn't so self-loathing as to think no one would notice he'd left, but wallowing in the questions like would anyone miss you isn't something he has ever let himself do. It's the right thing to be selfish about: he'd never have made it out of Jujutsu High alive if he worried about all the responsibilities his absence would drop onto others. Still, it sparks a bit of interest for him, so Nanami sips his tea again. Buries the feeling beneath his exhaustion like muscle memory.

"It wouldn't be you, you mean," he corrects, that droll monotone hiccuping only a little with the slight humor in the last words. "If you didn't say something, who would you be?" A pause, another drink. "You're the only one who has." And that's Nanami's prerogative — The exact reason nobody else has found him. He's sure someone he knows will eventually catch up to him for some reason or other, even if it's another miracle of happenstance.

Either way. Suguru is the first and isn't this the exact kind of place he once hoped they might see each other? Back when they were both halves of different wholes and there was hope they might all survive long enough to graduate and meet up after missions, throwing straw wrappers and candy pieces at each other, sleeping on benches and dirt in parks when they couldn't sleep alone. It's not possible now, but, well. Nanami won't complain about the odd replacement. He may not be happy where he is in life, but he certainly isn't suffering. "Don't tell me you're going to recommend clothes to me," this is said with a more friendly kind of flatness, like his comment about sorcerer salary workers, even as his jaw snaps tightly like a soldier at attention whenever he finishes speaking. "We can't all be perpetually comfortable." Nanami motions vaguely toward Suguru's clothes / His tongue may as well be in his cheek — Swallowing curses may be less terrible for Geto than when they were students, but there are many things Kento understands and the fact that eating curses will always remain uncomfortable is one of them.

[aphelea]

safe and sound (tiertice)

written for tiertice week day something: confession. yes it's 2 months late shh we'll ignore that

Summary: Tiergan's Tribunal, and the consequences of sacrifice. An AU where Tiergan is arrested instead of Prentice.

@cogaytes @gay-otlc

Read on Ao3

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Tiergan has been inside the Tribunal Hall before. 

Perhaps never from this seat, no, but he’s certainly snuck into this building to steal classified documents and such before—and he vaguely recalls attending a public Tribunal with his mother, years ago, when she had dreamed of him sitting on one of the crystal thrones across from him. 

Her mistake, really. Tiergan had never been convinced enough by the Lost Cities’ facade to even entertain the idea of becoming a Councillor. But there is still a part of him that feels rather guilty, having fallen so far from the expectations his family had set for him. Here, seated for a Tribunal after sacrificing himself to save his lover…well, it’s a far cry from his childhood dreams. 

“Sir Tiergan,” Councillor Emery begins, and the room falls silent. It isn’t a public Tribunal; Tiergan assumes that the Council are far too afraid of letting their citizens know that these rebels exist to allow them to enter. So Tiergan easily finds Prentice’s dark eyes in the small crowd, looking back at him with a mixture of grief, anger, and—most dangerously—guilt. 

I’m sorry, Tiergan transmits, though he knows the words are meaningless. But he can’t say anything more substantial, not with the possibility of Emery listening to every word. 

Prentice says nothing, only turns away, breaking a part of Tiergan’s soul along with the eye contact. 

Councillor Emery clears his throat once again. “Sir Tiergan,” he repeats, but Tiergan stays stubbornly silent. He knows this game. He hasn’t been asked to speak, and he won’t give them any more information than required. “Is your lawyer present?”

“I am,” a voice says from behind him, and Tiergan raises an eyebrow. He hadn’t requested any lawyer—partly because he had no desire to defend himself, and partly because he’d had hope, once, that this would be a quick process, that the world would be so kind as to allow him his Exile in peace. And yet, now Leto emerges from the shadows, and Tiergan’s eyes widen. 

Leto? he transmits, to no response except for a slight falter in Leto’s stride. 

The Council, too, seem surprised by his presence. The question of a lawyer is usually a mere formality—these Tribunals, rare as they are, are designed to be more of a show of the Council’s power than a genuine assessment of innocence. As such, Leto’s efforts are entirely fruitless—after all, from the moment that Quinlin and Alden had accused him, everyone had known that Tiergan was doomed to Exile. That’s how it always is with Tribunals: they’re simply a pretty show of power from the Council, a way to tell the accused that their lives are out of their control. 

Tiergan meets Leto’s eyes and urges silently for him to leave, but Leto’s gaze instead snaps to a raised platform in front of the thrones, upon which two figures in full Emissary regalia are standing with sharp glares directed toward them. 

Tiergan curses under his breath. The Cognates. He watches as Quinlin mutters something—a scathing comment, no doubt—in Alden’s ear, and Alden squeezes his colleague’s hand tightly. 

Emery clears his throat once again, appearing to be entirely annoyed. “Lord Vacker, Lord Sonden. A pleasure to see you here.” Tiergan almost pities the man, somehow—he has some sympathy for anyone who has to deal with Quinlin and Alden’s ridiculousness. 

Alden and Leto are busy locking themselves in a staring contest, so it’s Quinlin who replies, “A pleasure to be invited, Councillor.” His voice is carefully even, but years of knowing the man make the small wavers in his demeanour obvious to Tiergan. They don’t think they’re going to win, he realises with a jolt. 

…Perhaps no-one really knows how this Tribunal is going to go. 

He scans the crowd once more for Prentice, but his gaze instead lands on Livvy, quietly wiping away a tear in the corner. She’s the only other friend of his in attendance, though she, thankfully, seems far less angry about this whole situation than Prentice is. 

Which can only mean that Prentice has yet to tell her about Tiergan’s sacrifice. 

I’ll miss you, he transmits to her, and her gaze snaps up to his podium. He wants to say more, but it’s likely that Kenric or Emery are monitoring his transmissions, and he can’t afford to incriminate Livvy, too. 

“I don’t see how any more evidence is necessary,” Alden says, and Tiergan realises that he’s been speaking. “Has he not already confessed to collaborating with rebel groups in a direct attempt to undermine the Council?”

The Council is silent for a moment—likely taking a moment to converse between themselves, Tiergan thinks—before Emery turns to him and asks, “Is this true, Sir Tiergan?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Tiergan sees Leto shaking his head furiously, but he elects to ignore his lawyer’s advice. “Of course,” he replies, and lets a small smirk grow on his lips—the sole benefit of being inevitably sentenced to Exile is that he can say essentially whatever he wants, right now. And he’ll never miss an opportunity to get under Alden’s skin.

Predictably, Alden scowls, and has to be calmed by Quinlin holding his hand once again. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tiergan wonders if Della is in the crowd—he hopes she and Livvy are able to laugh together about this later, rather than linger separately on the sorrow of his fate. The last thing he wants is for his friends to waste their time grieving—but he knows them well enough to know that they’ll each leave this room believing themselves to be alone. 

As Quinlin and Alden lay out their extensive evidence in front of the Council, Tiergan finds himself once again searching for Prentice in the crowd, and is surprised to find his lover staring back at him. There’s something akin to anger, in his eyes—or perhaps grief, Tiergan isn’t quite sure. 

You’re an idiot, Prentice's voice echoes through his mind.

I’m sorry, Tiergan repeats, though it’s just another one of the many lies he’s told today. 

No, you’re not. 

There are moments when Tiergan wishes that Prentice didn’t know him so well, that they weren’t the kind of devotion that leads to selfish sacrifices and rash mistakes, but here they are. 

Promise me you’ll try to be happy, Tiergan says. If not for me, for Wylie and Cyrah. For the Moonlark. 

Kenric’s head snaps up at that, and Tiergan curses silently as he remembers that his conversations are likely being monitored. 

I don’t think I can be anything but angry right now, Prentice replies, quietly. You know I love you, darling, I do. But this? This isn’t rational, this is your own ridiculous, rash plan to protect me even when I told you I could handle myself!

Before Tiergan can answer, he’s cut off by Emery asking, “Sir Tiergan, your response to these claims?”

“I confess to all of it,” he says, before Leto can step in with some lie of a defense. He can feel his best friend’s glare boring into his head, but he avoids meeting Leto’s eyes—surely, he’ll understand eventually why Tiergan is doing this. This is for the good of the Black Swan, and the Moonlark, and, most importantly: Prentice, Cyrah, and Wylie. 

“Then the matter is settled,” Emery says, after a moment. “Sir Tiergan Alenefar, you are hereby sentenced to a memory break and Exile. For life.”

A chatter rises within the crowd, and Tiergan rolls his eyes. This isn’t a surprise; he’s a rebel, and therefore a seed of a growing threat to the Council’s power. There was only ever one choice for the Council to make for him. 

Two goblin guards move forward and grab Tiergan’s arms, forcing him to stand up from his seat, and Leto watches him leave with nothing less than pure shock. 

I’m sorry, Tiergan tries to mouth, the millionth time that lie has been uttered, and Leto shakes his head. 

It strikes Tiergan, then, that he’s never seen his best friend so utterly hopeless. 

“Keep moving,” one of the guards huffs, and yanks him toward a doorway. “You get one hour before your memory break. Savour it.”

“Am I allowed visitors?” Tiergan asks, and it’s a pointless, desperate ask, the last request of a criminal walking to his doom.  

The two guards share a look for a long moment, and then the one on his left says, “Fine. One visitor. But make it quick.”

They toss him into a cold, dark chamber, complete with dull stone and what looks like mold between the tiles. “Who do you want us to get?” the second guard asks, looming in the doorway. 

It’s as simple an answer as any from today. “I want Prentice Endal.”