#this is intended to take place post-canon so like. its implied i guess?

[haunted-xander]

If you skip a meal Senshi will materialize next to you w/ food at the ready

[mastermindmp3]

Guilty as Sin? addresses the idea of emotional cheating, about longing for someone outside their current relationship. The speaker describes being in bored in her relationship, and fantasizing about a guy that she is texting* while her lover likely does the same**.

*In my romantic pirate heart, they're pen pals paramours as opposed to texting troublemakers. He "sent" her Downtown Lights, which could easily be read as being sent a streaming link, but I want to believe he sent her a burned tape. **As I've previously said, The Tortured Poets Department is an album in conversation with itself. The mutual emotional infidelity is only really implied by the speaker's questioning her right to be upset within Guilty as Sin? but is made clearer in other places throughout the album. Whether you allow other songs to affect your reading of the song is wholly up to you..

Diversion aside, I think the song touches on this theme very well, and I trust my fellow Department members will provide insights on the song's preferred reading in today's meeting.

In the reception theory of reader responses, a preferred reading is the audience understanding and agreeing with the author's (or producer, or lyricist, etc. ) intended vision for their media. Reception theory also says that readers can take oppositional and negotiated readings. Oppositional readings reject the author's stance entirely, while a negotiated reading may agree in part or whole, but still have their own "take" on the media.

Guilty as Sin? is intended to be about emotional infidelity. For the past few days, I have been analyzing the songs through their preferred reading. Today, I would like to destroy all of that, and present to you my Oppositional Reading of Guilty as Sin?

I know, very well, that the reading I am about to present is not Swift's intent, and indeed, I may be a koi swimming against the river's current. This post is not meant to be me saying that the song is my reading. I am within opposition to the text.

(I guess that technically makes this a negotiated reading? semantics—)

I am about to commit the cardinal sin of reading queer themes into a straight author's work. Crucify me if you please, but do so with the context that I acknowledged that this reading is not "canonical," to continue being biblical about it.

To reiterate, because this is the "how dare you say we piss on the poor" website. I do not believe that my reading is the intended reading of Guilty as Sin?

So:

When reading queer themes into straight work, I feel it is impossible to not draw from personal experience. This post is about Guilty as Sin? but it is also about me. It is about what growing up queer in the rural American southeast is like. It's hard to detangle those things.

I present to the department: A case for Guilty as Sin? as a song of queer longing. Half analysis, half personal essay.

On the surface, I feel this reading can be very simple. When the whole refrain is how can I be guilty as sin? and hegemonic Christian society deems queer love, queer living as sinful, the connection doesn't feel like that hard of a jump. The song travels through its religious theming, through the shame, through hushing yourself with the idea that thoughts don't count. The speaker works through those pains and repressions, so that she can come to the revelation:

What if the way you hold me is actually what's holy?

What initially got me thinking about this song in a gay way was one of the opening lyrics. ( Well, no, what initially got me thinking this was listening to it as I was writing fiction, but hush. )

This cage was once just fine.

As a bisexual woman, there was once a time where I really, truly, thought to myself that I would never come out. It was fine, to be honest. I still like men, so I just had to pray that my one big love was a man. That way, I could protect myself from my family’s imagined negative reactions. I don't think this is a unique experience, either. Particularly in the south, we hold ourselves in for the comfort of others, and our own safety.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I feel like that fear of rejection is common amongst the people I know. It leads to caging our feelings; locking bits of ourselves away from those who once knew us so closely, in order to preserve their original vision of us. As perfect, straight sons and daughters, as kids who would grow into the molds set forth. And for a while, we can hold together like this, the cage is fine. 

But parrots pluck their feathers when kept under lock and key, and so too do we. 

I dream of cracking locks, throwing my life to the wolves or the ocean rocks.

Doesn't it feel like that? The first time you consider telling a parent, or any loved one, that you're not what they imagined. Like you could be dashing your chances at life. The image brings to mind that of suicide, of a “I can no longer live like this.” People thrown to the rocks do not survive impact, and often are disfigured, beyond recognition. It's such a visceral image for a song filled with longing. 

This song is textually about emotional infidelity, obviously, but I think it can also be about the longing we hold for the "unallowed." How we can both feel such beautiful love and hideous shame about the same thoughts. Repression is a funny thing, to smother the want can only make it come back harder, stronger.

What if I roll the stone away? They're gonna crucify me anyways.

I said that the Christian imagery is part of what made me think of the song as queer, and I stand by it. A lot of queer art deals with the trauma of religion; the idea of being guilty for the way you simply are, for the way you feel, naturally, drives one to consider the opposite. What if our way of being is holy. I'm particularly brought to mind Fipsi Seilern’s Portrait of Virgin Xtravaganzah (and the portraiture's subject - Virgin X - by extension.)

The connection is not hard to make; masturbation, the song’s main premise, is seen as sinful, as is infidelity. And so, too, is being gay. They are shamed the same way in conservative Christian society, as if they are of the same level.

In a way, it's very Christian of me to take a religiously charged song about emotional infidelity and make it about same gender attraction. On the level of infractions to the Christian hegemony, same gender attraction may be worse, truly, than infidelity. That to touch another man or another woman is worse of a crime, than to betray the trust of your opposite gendered partner.

Y'know, as a kid, I used to get nosebleeds every time I entered my family's church. It was high in the mountains of Tennessee, and I was prone to them anyways. It was my first experience with the hemming and hawing of Christian southern women, tsk'ing at me. I think we stopped going when I was like, ten, partially because of it.

And I look back now, and think about all these things I have learned since then. The pain that Christian dogmatism, that bigotry has caused, to me and the communities I love so dearly. Still causes, in the name of saving our souls, or more likely, extermination.

And think about bleeding every time I crossed the threshold into holy ground.

Does that make us all guilty as sin?

Nah. Any guilt we feel is only a consequence of the spoon fed hatred, and certainly no fault of our own.

( It is interesting, that this reading absolves the narrator of the song, where the original text is more ambiguous as to the level of infraction that the Speaker has committed. The answer to "How can I be guilty as sin?" here is more clear, especially to this specific audience. Swift's modern demographics trend towards young, leftist, and AFAB. Additionally, there's probably a whole essay in that idea itself, how queer people are treated with the same ostracism as adulterers. Going further, why are these "sins," a state of being and a social infraction, grouped with far greater transgressions in the Christian consciousness. Were I not a Biology student, that idea alone would be an excellent thesis topic. )

A defense of the idea of Queering Straight Songs:

When my family drove up the mountain to church, I listened to my Fearless disc on a pink Sony brand CD player in the back seat. How often are our first imaginings of queer love to straight media? Through characters or through idealized versions of us or through the music we're allowed, we find ways to feel queer love like sidewalk dandelions. Some call them weeds, but we all know they're flowers, beautiful and beloved, capable of coming back year after year.

We live in an age where queer stories and queer art are so visible, where we can look at Queering the Map and see all the places we are. And will continue to be. And have always been.

I think, in a way, claiming this song about straight infidelity as queer longing is almost a full circle moment, for me. In a time where queer liberties are at risk, we are still so loud and visible. It's nice, in a way, that I don't have to do this.

There are so many wonderful songs about this same longing, about locking your feelings up and bottling them away, by queer artists, even in this same genre. I don't have to stretch to see myself in these songs. They're radio play, they're opening Coachella.

( Also, protect small queer art. Protect bad queer art, too, while we're at it. We are so lucky that so much of queer lives are available at our fingertips, but without archival and protection, it can also be lost. )

I wouldn't say queer people are braver than we've ever been - that's a disservice to the people before us. We have ages of proof that this music, this art, has existed, and repressing it cannot stop it. We aren't any braver than our ancestors, just more widely seen, and more widely heard. Queer music, thanks to the internet, and thanks to wide, social pressure, is louder than ever.

But that doesn't mean we still can't queer the straight music we love too. This entire post (essay, can I call it an essay?) is about reception theory and seeing yourself in the other's work. It's a time honored tradition to make a song about yourself, to make it gay - I played Lover on violin at a lesbian couple's wedding, and my uncles danced at their wedding to Endless Love by Diana Ross.

I leave you with a final story, based on my favorite lyric.

What if he's written 'mine' on my upper thigh, only in my mind?

This line, in particular, made me feel many things, a rush of nostalgia and warmth. I've claimed many celebrities to be my bi awakening, but the first time I remember being attracted to a girl was at the Speak Now tour. She was a bit older than me, maybe 14, and sat across the aisle. Mid-show, she helped me write my favorite lyrics on my arm in the pitch black of Bridgestone Arena. I had seen the lyrics on Taylor's arm and got so excited about the idea, but my mother didn't have a sharpie. She did. In sort of loopy handwriting, she put, "You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter" down my right arm.

With purple glitter glinting off tanned, grinning cheeks, with her Speak Now glowstick hovering over my arm, I don't remember her name, or even if I asked for it. But she was so kind, crinkling eyes black as obsidian, twinkling the stage lights in their reflection, and made me realize exactly why that lyric resonated with me so deeply. How it was what I wanted to be in the future.

And I could see my future with her, or him, or them. And it is impossible to untangle Swift's music from that.

It's all empathy, all the way down. The kind of empathy that, I am not sorry to be corny and say it, Taylor Swift's music begs you to have. To take these songs that are very much written from her perspective, and see our own experiences mirrored through them, that's what her music asks. To see that we are not all that different, and to connect. How rare and mundane human connection, how we rip out our souls to achieve it. Swift's talked about it extensively, the catharsis of spilling ink, putting pen to paper and voice to recording all in effort to be seen.

I think that's the big motif: I feel seen by Guilty as Sin?, I felt seen back then listening to these CDs. That's the sorcery of storytelling. As an adult, who is so comfortable in her bisexuality that I flaunt it, I still like to do these oppositional readings, to see myself in songs not made about me.

And that's why Guilty as Sin? is, to me, a queer longing kind of song. Even if it isn't.

[beatcroc]

Do u think u could elaborate a lil about btb and pizza tower lore?? Thank u

oh god i'm not the most well-read on either BUT uh. spoilers for both medias i guess.....i need to stress that these should NOT be seen as like dramatic edgy series because of what's going on under the hood though, that's not the point of them or what they focus on, and it'd be a huge disservice to think of them as 'taking themselves too seriously' type things for this, haha.

EDIT: it's been a bit since i made this post and in looking around since then i've discovered i might've gotten the wrong impression about some of the pizza tower stuff. i intended to only mention what was fact/hard canon here, but some might be extrapolated anyway, so take it with a pinch of salt.

---

bigtop burger is, for all intents and purposes, a chill and lighthearted series of animated shorts about a bunch of college kids who work at a clown-themed food truck. their clown boss is more than a little strange and suspicious but they're content to let it slide because he's generally friendly and well-meaning; and again, the series is only really About the kids and their day to day lives, and the wacky cartoon antics that may occasionally come with that. such as, say, watching their boss slice a truck in two with a katana. it's a little weird for sure but we don't question it.

they have a rival burger truck, zomburger, which is zombie themed, and led by a guy who is defintiely totally not actually undead. the kids this guy employs are pretty into the whole gimmick [because theyre theater majors and "get paid like thousands of dollars per hour" <-presented as the most bizzare thing that's happened], and so have no issue doing things like firing cannons at our clown-thmed protags during a highway chase. their boss has some kind of serious beef with the clown boss, but that's their problem. the kids are chill with eachother.

what they're Not telling you is that the clowns and undead have some kind of ancient feud [possibly even a war???] going on, and zombie guy was apparently[?] only using the food truck thing as a ruse to get at clown guy. both types of guys are insanely powerful and it's heavily implied that neither of them should be mingling with normal humans in the first place, which is why the food trucks and the other employees have their respective gimmicks as cover. also magic of some kind seems to be real, with illusory and portal-type stuff seen so far.

there is a possible implication that clowns are Actually Dangerous and the zombie guy's hunting them is like warranted, but given this unrelated short by the creator apparently set in the same universe, i'd like to more confidently say that it's just zombie guy being an asshole assassin type and they're both high-ranking freaks duking it out in public which is like the worst place possible given their general disinterest in hurting anyone else.

aside: bigtop's lore is a lot more plainly-presented and actually meaningful to the series and the character dynamics, but as it is currently it's nothing more than a backdrop for The Hijinx to play off of so they still never really say anything too direct about it or have characters respond to it. [that said, the most recent episode could easily be considered a turning point so we'll see how things go from here]

----

pizza tower is, for all intents and purposes, just a funny 2d platformer game where lots of silly things happen to its really excitable protagonist and you get tons of endlessly amusing expressions and animation out of it. it feels somewhat like a playable 90's cartoon, and this is its primary charm. again, you aren't supposed to really question the framing of everything. that'd be like asking why bowser is a fire-breathing turtle. because he is. that's just how it works who gives a shit. pizza tower has you kill a big pillar guy halfway through a given level and then you have to get the hell out on a timer before it all collapses, and there's a funny little janitor guy you can get as a bonus pickup to help you out in each level. each floor of the tower has a different Theme for its set of levels. traditional game stuff. you get to the top of the pizza tower and beat up the jackass pizza guy that threatened to blow up your own pizzeria. [there's more to the gameplay than that but this is just what's lore-relevant]

what the game slides under the radar with its completely-dialogue-less style is that the big pillar guy more or less IS the tower, pillar and janitor were the original residents of the tower before it got turned into the pizza tower [yeah.], and the little janitor guy, who is pillar's brother, is generally fine with helping you destroy the place because for the past [amount of time] he's been fighting a losing battle of helping keep his bro intact in the wake of it being taken over by the jackass pizza guy, who has pretty much defiled it beyond repair for his own amusement since finding it. pizza guy cloned pillar guy a bunch of times and split his consciousness between the duplicates and made them all keep all the portals to the pocket dimensions in the tower [the levels] open. pillar guy's original body has since become derelict and horribly overgrown with.,....pizza..., and it's the last one you destroy to bring the whole thing down. he gives you a tired-looking thumbs up as you blast him off the screen.

none of this has anything to do with the protagonist, who doesn't know about any of it and is Exclusively there to beat pizza guy's ass for threatening his business. and if he has to bring down pizza guy's whole tacky-ass establishment to do that then SO BE IT.

you might notice in the larger background screenshot that the protag guy is Also being cloned in that facility. you do fight a clone of him as the 4th boss and encounter more of them in the level that background is for, but there seems to be very little concrete canon for what exactly pizza guy's intention with protag and his clones was.

aside: this isn't even touching on the other side to this, which is the weird amount of actual character depth that mr. funny cartoon protag man himself seems to have. i am not going to get into that on this post because it will make me really abnormal but oh my god dude.

[erenaeoth]

Oh please do write an essay on devil within! I'd love to read your take on it!

Devil Within Mini Essay

Thank you for the opportunity, anon! I will put it under the cut in case people don't want it on their dash. And sorry for taking a million years to reply. I always meant to write this and then got distracted. Devil Within came up in conversation today so I thought I'd finally write this.

I guess there are three main things I like to talk about with Devil Within. One, is its status as possibly canon, and where it fits within Tekken 5. Two, is about the implications of these very specific ready-made facilities beneath G Corporation for their primary test subject, Kazuya. And three, is about thinking of the game as an extension of Jin's lapse toward his devil self, his unreliable narration, and the blend between reality and psychology in the story of the game itself. Some of this can already be found on the Devil Within trivia section on the wiki, but I'll expand on what I meant here. Credit for this post also goes to White Tiger, as we originally analysed the game together and went back and forth with lots of ideas about it before settling on most of this.

For those who don't know, Devil Within is a mini-game that came with Tekken 5, in which the player plays as Jin (and can unlock Devil Jin) and fights through levels of a G Corporation medical facility. Jin has heard rumours that his mother may be alive and in a G Corp lab, and has gone looking for her.

Devil Within and Canonicity

Officially, only the main-line Tekken games are canon, but there are several indicators that mean that Devil Within could also be canon, or at the very least, easily slots into canon.

Jin's Tekken 5 profile states that he sets out on a journey with destiny as his only guide to end the evil that was plaguing him. It is possible that before or during the 5th Iron Fist tournament, Jin snuck into a G Corp facility and the events of Devil Within transpired. The official Tekken website states that Devil Within is set within Tekken 5, and implies that it takes places during the events of Tekken 5's story. According to Devil Within itself, it is set straight after the 4th tournament, as Jin searches for a way to rid himself of devil.

The rumour that Jun is in a G Corp laboratory could easily match up with Kazuya's motivations to 'get everything back' and try to restore Jun to life. The G Corp facility is built on top of Ogre's ruins, with its lower levels still sealed, presumably by Michelle, so Jun's body may even have been found at this location. The technology to revive Jun exists, if a similar process is used as was applied to Kazuya. If Kazuya's Devil Gene helped with the regeneration process, it would also explain why G Corp was investing in projects like GENOCELL which at a surface level were intended to only be about forest rejuvenation. They too might have been interested in using GENOCELL for experiments similar to the Devil-Human Integration Program that the Mishima Zaibatsu was running. We see human experiments throughout the Devil Within game, and some alien-like-devil creatures which either inhabit the sealed level of Ogre's ruins, or may be the result of G Corp's experimentations. (As a note, all of these experimentations have taken place before Kazuya has taken over as head of G Corp. Whilst he is complicit at some point in his own experimentation, it is unclear what, if any, power he ever had over G Corp's experiments in this particular facility).

Kazuya and G Corp Experimentation

The G Corp facility has been built over Ogre's ancient ruins that trigger aspects of the Devil Gene (attesting to the likely alien origin of Devil, though this has many attestations in the mainline games too) (we also see many aliens and Ogre-like creatures that bear a strong resemblance to Kazuya's devil in the game). This makes it highly likely that the facility was originally built for creating and running tests on Kazuya, who has been an experiment of G Corp's since his remains were taken from a volcano circa 1997/8.

Devil-like aliens in Devil Within

Further confirmation of this is the existence of a medical facility painted like a child's nursery in which clones of Heihachi are fought. The implication is that some of the tests run on Kazuya were psychological and involved evoking childhood trauma by making him fight Heihachi in a nursery in order to test the limits and triggers of his devil transformation.

The nursery is clearly a medical facility but features painted stars and clouds and fluffy sheep on the floor. Clones of Heihachi are fought here.

Also as an aside, in this game we get almost all our info about Medicern, a wing of G Corp. The canonicity of the corporate wing is confirmed by adverts for it in a Tekken 6 stage (City After Dark).

Jin and the Dark Descent

Devil Within seems to toy with reality, and it is possible that part of the story may exist entirely in Jin's head, or that we are getting an unreliable narration from Jin. As implied by the title 'Devil Within' and attested to by the text in the game's story, Jin gradually loses his control over his devil side the further he goes into this facility. This is an important theme in his story in Tekken 5 main game too, with his lapse of control after losing to Hwoarang, and Devil hospitalising Hwoarang, as well as Jin's power-hungry smirk in his Tekken 5 ending, taking us into Tekken 6 where Jin has become almost unrecognisable in his warped motivations. Devil Within fills in some holes in Jin's descent into loss of control (I discussed some of this over here). It is also noteworthy that completing Devil Within is one of the ways that the player can unlock Devil Jin as a playable character, since Jin has descended into devil form.

The game stages become progressively more bizarre, with Jin having to defeat the (canonically dead) Ogre who killed his mother, twice more in this game, and also featuring clones of Heihachi who betrayed him, and alien abductions. It is possible that the player sees the game through the eyes of Jin who is an unreliable narrator due to his loss of control over his devil side as he searches desperately for his mother. The game narrative itself follows Jin's past traumas, being a search for his mother, before having to refight his old enemies in order - Heihachi and then Ogre, all the while fighting for control over himself and his devil.

If the game does not devolve purely into Jin's imagination, then it is likely that the Ogre in this game is another alien, the same species as the one Jin killed. This premise is supported by the presence of alien abductions and the final levels occurring on alien spaceships. Alternatively, it may be that the Ogre we see in Devil Within is a resurrected version of the one Jin killed and does in fact exist in some form. The opening text of Devil Within details a G Corp raid on Zaibatsu labs occurring at the same time as the JACK raid on Hon-Maru (against Heihachi and Kazuya). The implication of the text is that G Corp have stolen Ogre's remains and have created a clone of Ogre, or resurrected it. This experiment seems to have gotten out of hand, and Ogre is running rampant through the lower levels of the facility, its ruins also being some kind of transportation pad to its alien mothership.

The end of the game features an overwhelmed Jin losing himself to devil, but brought back at the last moment by a white light, a running theme for Jin and his devil in many endings. This may be Jin's goodness managing to fight back against his devil, the spirit of his mother lingering with him as it did in Tekken 4, or possibly even be Jun nearby, if it is true that she is alive somewhere in the facility.

As a whole, Devil Within resembles a descent into an ever-more bizarre dreamscape, where reality and fiction become heavily entwined and Jin struggles to keep a hold of himself. Whilst there are explanations for what maybe be happening in the facility, it also seems that Jin himself is struggling to keep a grip on reality, making it hard to know which events are truly happening to him. I adore this game for its bizarre ambiguities and the hints of lore it gives us surrounding the Devil Gene, Jin's psyche, and Kazuya's past. It feels like the meta-ambiguity of the game’s story is tied to Jin’s confusions, and we almost get a window into poor Jin’s decaying sanity by playing the game. The game’s runthroughs are a drag to watch but I love it all the same and now you can too!

[likehandlingroses]

“Realistic” Tom/Thomas Relationship Timeline

The S3/S4 Tom/Thomas affair is a theory that has been making its way around lately, and it is centered around the contrast in the interactions between Thomas and Tom during the Season 3 Christmas Special and their interactions in the Season 4 Christmas Special. 

This means that usually the start of the relationship is viewed as coinciding with the immediate aftermath of Matthew’s death, which occurs in the Christmas Special of Season 3 (September 1921). Due to the interactions between Tom and Thomas in the Christmas Special of Season 4, the relationship can almost certainly be considered over by that time (May-ish of 1923). But what happened in between, and how long were they actually together? There’s one view that the affair occurs in between Seasons 3 and 4, which means that at the very longest they lasted just under six months (generally I think this view cuts it even shorter than that)...but this leaves some unanswered questions and some peculiarities, so I took another look at the canon to determine when, in fact, Thomas and Tom broke up.

(Note: I definitely know that Julian Fellowes did not intend for them to be having an affair, but also Julian if I’m right just DM me)

Let’s start with what we know about September 1921 and May 1923—the definite before and after points—for reference:

Christmas Special Season 3—September, 1921

In this Christmas special, we see Tom left behind while the rest of the family goes to Duneagle, and we see Thomas still dealing with the Jimmy situation a year after its apparent resolution. On its face, this episode features Tom being challenged in his new role in the house—and being encouraged to step up and face that role—and Thomas finding a way to resolve things with Jimmy.

Except there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on in the periphery of those stories: Tom knows that Jimmy is bothering Thomas and appears to want to intervene at the fair, but he is stopped by Edna, who at one point uses Thomas’s injuries as an excuse to visit Tom and assure him that Thomas is “feeling much better.” And—of course—there’s the fact that Tom and Thomas hug at the fair (and lest you think this was a RJC/Allen Leech moment not caught by editing, it was in multiple takes! Someone—multiple someones actually—included it on purpose). They are friendly, aware of each other, and to be honest it isn’t impossible to argue that maybe the relationship predates Matthew’s death! I’m going to argue otherwise, however, based on how Tom breaks down when Edna kisses him—I think Edna is the first time he’s even really thought of himself in romantic terms for a long time! But Thomas is right there in the wings, and he just finally made some progress on the emotional problem that’s been plaguing him for over a year!

It’s a big difference from what we see in the next Christmas special, big enough to start the theory of the affair in the first place...

Season 4 Christmas Special—Summer 1923

Once again, Tom is left alone at Downton while the rest of the family goes to London...and the difference in how Thomas responds is striking. He’s furious at having to wait on Tom, for reasons both we and the characters cannot quite understand. The excuses don’t add up—at this point, Tom has been living at Downton for three YEARS, and this has never been a problem before. Now all of a sudden Thomas is slamming trays and clenching his fists and provoking Tom into admitting that he sees himself as Above sitting next to him...what?

Then there’s Sarah Bunting, a Miss Sarah Bunting...whose presence infuriates Thomas while also making him eager to use her as a way to embarrass Tom. And Tom knows it, immediately. He’s embarrassed, he’s uncomfortable, but still he’s quick to pull rank with Thomas when challenged. Something has fundamentally altered the way they interact with and perceive each other while sharing the same space.

All of this speaks to a breakup, and a messy one at that...so with the knowledge we have, WHAT exactly happened between September of 1921 and May of 1923? Let’s look at what Season 4 has to say:

4.1/4.2–February, 1922

“That’s right: it’s Valentine’s Day.” 

This is an important piece of the puzzle, because Thomas—Nanny West drama aside—is in a pretty good mood for the Valentine’s Day episode! He engages with Daisy and Jimmy’s Valentine’s card drama with good humor and even some genuine interest...something I do not believe he’d do if he’d only recently been broken up with, and by someone who lived in the house! The big one here, though, is the dialogue Thomas has with Nanny West in which she calls him “Thomas” and he says, “that’s Mr. Barrow to you...”

Now, where did Nanny West hear him referred to as Thomas? The episode makes a point of the fact that nannies do not as a rule spend much time with the downstairs staff—and even if they did, not many of the downstairs crew call Thomas “Thomas” on a regular basis. Nor do the upstairs folks...with one notable exception. Tom, who has to be reminded by Thomas in 4.3 to address him as “Barrow” (more on that later), routinely messes up names and titles.

To me, this suggests that Tom and Thomas are still talking, and it’s pretty clear from Thomas’s attentions to Sybbie in the episode that it would have been easy for Nanny West to overhear it in that context. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re still seeing each romantically, but the “Mr. Barrow TO YOU” element implies that the correction was NOT made to whoever Nanny West heard using the name (we presume it’s Tom)...and the distinction is that Nanny West does not *get* to call him that! It definitely seems like whoever she grabbed the name from has been granted permission to do that, and she Has Not. And if it’s Tom...well.

So does that mean that Thomas and Tom were done by 4.3, when Thomas DOES correct Tom on his title? Not exactly...

4.3/4.4–The House Party (pre July 1922)

(tw on this section for discussions involving sexual assault)

The party features Edna’s schemes and assault on Tom in order to extract a promise of marriage from him. It also features a Tom who is incredibly vulnerable and entirely out of his element with the introduction of the Crawley’s friends. This is somewhat of a contrast from the Tom of the first two episodes, who stands up to Robert several times to intervene on Mary’s behalf, and even ropes Carson into the mission. It feels, for a moment, that despite Matthew’s death Tom has taken up the challenge presented to him at the end of Season 3 and begun seeing himself as a valuable, contributing member of the household and family.

But here, Tom speaks of himself as a fool, as walking a tightrope, and of not being understood. He relies on alcohol to get through the event, which Edna takes advantage of—and which gives us a Tom/Thomas interaction that speaks to, in my opinion, a continuing relationship (although perhaps an altering one):

Now, if I had to guess, I would say that Tom might be less *keen* than usual, given his overall demeanor and the new scrutiny placed on him by Edna coming back to the house (not to mention the house party itself). It’s very possible there’s been a lull between the two of them as of late. I do not believe, however, that there is evidence of a clear break between Tom and Thomas as of the house party.

For one, Tom doesn’t just say the wrong thing when addressing Thomas in the drawing room—he says, “Thomas, would you get me a drink for God’s sake?” That is Not how he talks to him in the Christmas Special, where he is stilted and uncomfortable and concerned about how the words will be taken. He isn’t worried about any of that, and while Thomas corrects him, he doesn’t seem all that bothered by it. Tom’s look of irritation at the correction isn’t overdone either.

“It’s Barrow now,” also has flexible meanings. Of course it literally is what Tom is supposed to call him now...but “now” seems like a weird word to use when it’s been what Thomas is meant to be called for several years. It could be a post-breakup smackdown, but we’ve seen what those look like in the Christmas Special, and this doesn’t feel like that! I believe, rather, that Thomas is making reference to the fact that it is incorrect at that moment, something Tom should know and has been discussed!!!

The house party has both of them overworked and tense (this is also the time where Thomas has to fill in for Jimmy because Jimmy hurt his hand...which is SO ridiculous if you think about it for more than two seconds), but Edna’s transgression still draws Thomas’s attention

And that’s important! Thomas had been friends with Edna until this point, largely for convenience it seems—she is a new lady’s maid, and she can feed him information. Thomas even worked with her to mess with Anna, who had earlier made a comment to Edna about his intentions in befriending her. There’s a bond forming there, and while I don’t believe Thomas would genuinely support the literal details of Edna’s plot, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that he would be Opposed to Edna taking advantage of what she would frame as an indiscretion on Tom’s part. Not if he disliked Tom or was predisposed to believe Tom was at fault (ie: someone who expects to be “waited on Hand and Foot while he decides what Might Please Him Next”).

But right away, Thomas is suspicious the morning after. We see Thomas spying on Edna as she corners Tom, and he specifically brings it up to her later to catch her out. Already his tone is soured where she’s concerned. He’s sensed she’s up to something and he can probably guess the vague idea if not the particulars...and it turns him against her almost instinctively.

So what’s that about? Could it just be jealousy? The thing is, we know what Thomas would do if he believed that Edna and Tom were simply having an affair—we see what happens in the S4 Christmas Special with Sarah Bunting. This isn’t like that at all. 

Thomas immediately blames Edna for what’s happened, calling her a manipulative little witch and declaring that he’s delighted her plans didn’t work. There’s no question of Thomas’s loyalties, even though Edna assumes he’ll want to “keep in with” her. Not for one second does he appear to consider this, and that seems to distinguish this incident from later ones.

4.5/4.6–What Are These Episodes (pre-July 1922)

There isn’t a lot to remember about these episodes for Tom or Thomas, and so what people may not remember is that these are the episodes Tom starts floating the idea of leaving for America—a full season before he tries starting that conversation again, and over two years before he actually DOES temporarily move to Boston. Now, that kind of decision takes time, but it’s kind of...strange that he begins making it here in the spring of 1922 and will not seriously consider it again until well into 1924!

Whether this has anything at all to do with Thomas can’t be determined, but I do enjoy hearing Tom say it will be impossible for him to marry anyone at Downton because an upper class woman won’t have him, and would an “nice Irish working class girl” make everyone “comfy?”...and Thomas is standing Right There! What does it mean...

Thomas is also getting more paranoid, he’s got Baxter in the house feeding him information...and he’s generally giving off a different vibe than he has all season. 

Here is where I think the connection is starting to see some serious cracks—Tom is realizing he doesn’t belong and is making moves to change that. Meanwhile, Thomas is making moves to ensure Nothing Ever changes without him knowing about it ahead of time! Tension abounds, though we don’t see any evidence of it being directed at each other just yet...

4.7/4.8–Interesting and Modern (July 1922)

Thomas goes to America and Tom meets Miss Bunting...weird how that just happened like that!

Thomas is excited to go to New York, and it seems...pretty clear he fucked while he was there. I think if you’re gay and you go to New York in the 1920s and you come back and all you can tell your coworkers is that it was “interesting and modern” you definitely were not doing anything you can actually talk about

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he and Tom are Done (they may not have ever been exclusive on paper), but the overall feeling from Tom is a dejected man in limbo...he can’t even say he’s a Socialist anymore. It’s not going well. So my inclination is to say that Tom hit pause (maybe not for the first time), and Thomas is dealing with it by getting some in New York (great!) and bullying his coworkers (bad!) So why do I think they weren’t totally done at that time? Because these episodes happen in the summer of 1922...the Christmas Special for S4 takes place in May of 1923. That’s a long time to have passed! A long time for Tom to keep Miss Bunting at arm’s length, a long time for Thomas to be fuming over something...I believe that in the Christmas Special what we are seeing is the last stand of two people who are grappling with finally cutting a fraying thread.

Another Look At The S4 Christmas Special

These scenes are truly some of the most incomprehensible things Downton Abbey ever presented to us with virtually no explanation.  So let’s take another look at what’s happening here.  

First of all, we have the scene with Tom and Thomas entering the house after sending Edith off and leaving Tom offically on his own--they don’t appear openly hostile, though there’s some tense looking when the other person isn’t and looking back down again when they are energy...but nothing egregious. 

Not until we see Thomas slam down a tray, that is. In fact, this whole thing seems to be coming from Thomas’s anger, while Tom appears eager to just smooth it over by not causing trouble and following the rules set forth by the household norms. This seems in line with Tom’s general dispositon--with both Edna and Miss Bunting he tries to ease out rather than break things off. 

 But Thomas interprets this as dismissive, and while he says to Ivy it’s about their positions in the house...as discussed above this really doesn’t logically check out. I do think it irritates him that Tom is essentially avoiding Thomas because it’s what “pleases him,” but it runs deeper than “he used to be the chauffeur.” Because that was always the case. 

And then Tom brings Miss Bunting back without telling anyone, and he takes her upstairs. And this makes Thomas INSANE, and Tom knows IMMEDIATELY that it will! And Tom is eager to assure “Mr. Barrow” that nothing happened (actually, what he’s really eager to do is have Thomas not stand there while he eats, but Thomas is not budging). 

Thomas is furious. He’s said to Ivy that he is SICK of this man, he’s tired of dealing with him...and then he tries to get Tom to sit next to him the car? 

Thomas stole a dog one time, and I still think this might be his wildest attempt at controlling a situation we see on the show. What is going on? If Tom HAD let him sit in the back, would Thomas have still gone to Lord Grantham about Miss Bunting? If Thomas hadn’t been such a jerk about Miss Bunting, would Tom have LET him? What is poor Ivy even processing this as? Am I the only one hearing Taylor Swift’s Better Than Revenge playing? 

Thomas acts immediately on coming to London, dropping the line of “Mr. Branson is stil a young man, and he can’t be expected to stay single forever”...he’s Angry Angry!! If they were on a break before, I don’t think it had fully set in for Thomas that it might be Permanent until now. And I think Tom’s newly avoidant personality we see in other scenarios gave him the wrong impression in this respect.

In Summary

I think that the relationship was relatively “on” from the period of September 1921 through whenever the house party took place. The house party caused some huge issues, mostly for Tom (understandably)—he may have unfairly blamed himself for what happened and drew wrongful parallels to what’s happening with Thomas. I think that after that it was very “off,” but I believe that neither Thomas nor Tom really committed to ending it either...and when we see them in 1923 they are in the peak stages of finally facing the end of things.

So what caused the final shift? Perhaps Thomas came back from New York with expectations, expectations Tom found himself intimidated by. Perhaps Thomas’s increasing paranoia and Tom’s growing agnosticism towards his own beliefs and identity are related and fed off of each other until they both just did not like the person they were seeing! Maybe it’s just that Downton Abbey is a really bad place for both of them, and even though they started off trying to protect each other from that, they got sucked in and turned on each other!

In any case, by Season 5 the romantic relationship appears over for good, though there is some evidence in later episodes that Tom and Thomas settled down a bit over time (Thomas defending Tom in S5 at Brancaster, and Tom saying he hates goodbyes in reference to Thomas). 

We will just have to see what happens when they realize they both are dating someone new, and they work together too :) 

[bedlamsbard]

Putting aside aesthetics and characterization (inasmuch as I can), I have been trying to logic out why Mando Ahsoka feels so different from Rebels Ahsoka (to me, personally; I know many other people feel fine about it), especially in terms of having a character who’s known in Rebels for her “I am no Jedi” line going to a character who is specifically introduced as “The Jedi” in The Mandalorian.  (And who is identified as “Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Knight” on merch -- merch is merch, it’s essentially meaningless, but it’s still a choice that was made somewhere along the line.)

“Shroud of Darkness,” Rebels 2.17

“Twilight of the Apprentice,” Rebels 2.21

This is strictly Doylist and not Watsonian; I don’t care what went on in the character’s life in between Rebels and Mando; I’m trying to guess what was happening in the writers room.

I was noodling through this on Twitter, in case it looks familiar.

My first thought was Dave taking a cut scene from Rebels as canon going into Mando, something he shared on Twitter back in the lead-up to S4.  Looking at this again I’m not sure this was a cut scene or a scene that he wrote that never made it into the actual script. (Certainly I can’t see how it would have fit into the episode.)

Here Bendu specifically identifies Ahsoka as “former Jedi Knight.”  This is also obviously not canon, because Twitter posts aren’t canon, Dave.  (Though that doesn’t mean that he might have taken it as part of his working backstory for the character anyway.)

I was then thinking about TCW and the unused TCW arcs as they existed in 2016 when this aired (with the rough guess that Rebels S2 was probably written in 2014).  There are three Ahsoka arcs that were written and existed in 2016 in some form (”scripts and some artwork” is what Pablo Hidalgo says, and some pre-viz and recordings from the original Walkabout arc that were shown at a couple Celebrations), but which hadn’t made it into S6 (which came out in 2014): Ahsoka’s Walkabout (in its original form with Nix Okami instead of the Martez sisters), the Siege of Mandalore, and an arc which would have taken place between those two, “Return to the Jedi.”  We know about these because of a panel from Star Wars Celebration Europe in 2016 called Ahsoka’s Untold Tales -- I was actually at this panel, but I haven’t thought about it in a while.  Here’s the SW.com liveblog of it; here’s the video.

I remember hearing somewhere that the TCW team had nine seasons or so written, but can’t find the source for that number now.  When S7 was made, there were obviously a lot of compromises made that we’ll never really know about, minus a tell-all memoir or documentary, which probably isn’t coming any time soon.  Knowing that this Return to the Jedi arc existed, I wondered if at one point Dave had tried to get all three Ahsoka arcs into S7 before having to give one up for the Bad Batch arc (especially as we now know there’s going to be a Bad Batch TV show); it’s also entirely possible that at one point in the production process there was the possibility of a full 22 episode season floated, which would have made three Ahsoka arcs in one season less unbalanced.

I went to go look up what the Return to the Jedi arc actually was, since 2016 was a long time ago and I haven’t really thought about this panel since.  My guess is that it had been intended for one Ahsoka arc per remaining season (7, 8, 9).  Pablo Hidalgo says that after the Walkabout arc, Ahsoka would have stayed on Coruscant as “an under-city vigilante of some degree, helping people who can’t help themselves,” and Dave points out that he talked about this with George Lucas, as well.  The Return of the Jedi arc would have involved Ahsoka finding out about a nefarious plot targeting Yoda and working with the Jedi to figure out what’s what with that -- this revealed that below the Jedi Temple was an ancient Sith shrine. (Some details of this were revealed at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in 2015.)

Ahsoka would have been protecting the holocron vault from Darth Sidious, putting her lightsaber blade through the door while Palps shoots Force lightning up the blade.

“The whole purpose of that particular arc would have been to bring Ahsoka back. She’s not a Jedi, she doesn’t change her decision, but she gets involved in Jedi business again.”

The next Ahsoka arc and the final arc of the series would have been the Siege of Mandalore arc, which “reunites Ahsoka with the clone troopers, with Anakin.”  My guess is that the end of the Return to the Jedi arc would have involved Ahsoka making the decision to go to Mandalore because the Jedi themselves couldn’t get involved in that conflict at the time (especially the emphasis in the panel that Pablo and Dave put on Ahsoka as being “a responsible person” who couldn’t ignore that the war was still going on, and because Ahsoka knew Satine).  (It would be interesting to know when if this arc would have fallen before or after the Darth Maul - Son of Dathomir comics, which are based off another unmade TCW arc.)  This would probably have put as much as a season between this arc and the final arc -- given TCW’s funky timeline that doesn’t mean much, but in terms of audience expectation it helps.

(also, damn, the context of the beginning of Siege of Mandalore in the original concept vs. how it actually happens in S7 is very different -- like, on the surface identical but the emotions involved are totally different.)

Before going into the next part of the panel (post-war), Pablo Hidalgo adds “We consider it to have happened and that’s how we inform the writing in Rebels, because that’s the history that these characters carry in their heads.”

So going into Rebels, the writing team was working with the background that Ahsoka had not only left the Jedi Order once, in “The Wrong Jedi,” but had reinforced her decision not to go back to the Jedi by not returning to the Order during the Return to the Jedi arc.  That explains why in Rebels she’s so adamant about not being a Jedi or being in the Order; it’s a decision that she has made not once, but twice.

Fast forward four years to 2020, where we have the Siege of Mandalore arc in S7.

It’s heavily implied that Ahsoka was planning to go back to the Order after the end of the war, and in fact Yoda treats her as such.

Now, there’s no way to know if this exchange was in the original Siege of Mandalore scripts short of those being released at some point (which is possible but seems unlikely when the character is still in play), but because of the way S7 plays out there is no way to put the Return to the Jedi arc back into the story, which means all the emotional context and Ahsoka doubling down on not returning to the Order is thrown out of the window.  That’s a fair chunk of backstory to take into the Rebels writers room.

(It should also be noted that presumably E.K. Johnston wrote the Ahsoka novel with the assumption that that arc was still part of Ahsoka’s working canon, though she may not have seen scripts for it; I feel like I read somewhere that she had seen scripts for the original version of the Siege of Mandalore, which changed quite a lot between original concept and the eventual 2020 version, as is evident from the novel vs the show.)

Going into The Mandalorian, then, Dave Filoni is not only working without a writers room (as Mando has only had two writers, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau), but working with an entirely different continuity than what the Rebels writers room was working with.

Trying to backtrack when various scripts were written is an exercise in futility to some extent; I usually guess anywhere from a year to two years out from when the shows air.  (I seem to remember that around this time in 2016 it came out that Katee Sackhoff was doing something for Disney, which ended up being the recording for Bo-Katan in Rebels S4, which wouldn’t air for another year, but don’t quote me on these dates.)  Dave ends the panel by saying that “After the season 2 finale for Rebels I was very adamant that that was it for Ahsoka...in Rebels...but after this reaction it might just be possible...it might be possible to see her again. She might have something to do. Maybe.”  (For those trying to run dates in their heads: the con was in July 2016, the season 2 finale aired in March 2016, WBW aired in February 2018.)  My guess is that they hadn’t recorded for that part of S4 yet (and S4 is so weirdly paced that I have questions about how it was made), but that the initial scripts for S4 had already been written at this point.

Looking back at the Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019 TCW panel where Ashley Eckstein talks about getting the news about TCW S7 from Dee Bradley Baker (rather than from Dave Filoni, and hoo boy is this uncomfortable to watch knowing that the script for “The Jedi” had almost certainly been written and Dave may have already made the decision not to talk to Ashley about it), there’s still not like...a clear way to tell when that happened.  Except that Dee talks about “wine tasting with the Rebels,” which likely puts it back when Rebels S4 was either still actively airing (2017-2018) or before it had wrapped filming (2017).  (I actually vaguely remember seeing pictures from this wine tasting but I can’t remember whose twitter it was on and going to look feels creepy.)  Probably the scripts weren’t fully revised at that point but they may have been -- still, this was certainly after S2 and could potentially be before S4 had been fully finalized.  We got the TCW renewal announcement in 2019, but the animation wasn’t fully completed yet so didn’t get more than that teaser trailer.  This is only important insofar as it involves which set of backstory was being used for WBW Ahsoka, an episode that Dave Filoni wrote and co-directed.  (Honestly? I think Mando Ahsoka matches okay with WBW Ahsoka but is a little off Rebels S2 Ahsoka, but that’s off my memory of WBW, an episode I refuse to rewatch.)  Certainly with the epilogue he knew he was setting up for something else.

ETA: I FORGOT AN IMPORTANT PART OF THIS TIMELINE AND THAT’S THE RISE OF SKYWALKER because I try not to think about TROS, frankly, but as we may remember Ahsoka is included in the “be with me” scene in the final confrontation.  This always struck me as weird given the “I am no Jedi” thing from Rebels, but she’s the most well-known female Force-user so I had just mentally written it off as easy shorthand and JJ Abrams being lazy about it. HOWEVER, presumably JJ talked to Dave about which prequel era Jedi to include (there’s a note in one of the previous SWC liveblogs about Rian Johnson being in the Rebels writers room at some point).  TROS came out in December 2019, I can’t recall exactly when they did the voiceovers for that scene (if anyone has ever mentioned it), but it was probably fairly late in the process since I believe that there were still edits being made up until fairly soon before the premiere.  (I have a completely different theory that the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special from this year was written off an earlier version of TROS.)  If Dave had already moved towards making Ahsoka more inclined towards the Jedi, with a full-on return to calling herself one regardless of the existence of the Order (as Mando implies), then her inclusion here makes a LOT more sense than it did a year ago.

Anyway this is all very conspiracy theorist, but it does explain something that was puzzling me: Rebels S2 Ahsoka and Mando Ahsoka (as well as TCW S7 Ahsoka and potentially Rebels S4 Ahsoka) were written off slightly different backstories which differed in one very key thing: how committed Ahsoka was to no longer being a Jedi.

Now, this sort of thing happens all the time in anything with an ongoing continuity; obviously TCW makes major changes to how viewers might read or write Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader in RotS or the OT.  I was just trying to narrow it down in this particular case because until I started thinking about it I had assumed that it was all being written off the same assumed backstory. And many people read Ahsoka differently in Mando than I did or found her perfectly in character, this was for me to track references down about something that was bothering me in hopes of an explanation that would satisfy me.

[thelegendofstella]

Sephiroth’s true eye color (among other things)

Ever since I got into FF7 stuff I’ve wondered about Sephiroth’s rather inconsistent eye color over the media he’s appeared in (which is a lot), and I think I finally have an answer for it, as well as answers for other slightly unexplained phenomena. Warning you now, this will be fairly long and full of spoilers for multiple games in the series, yet hopefully informative.

Sephiroth is best known for his green, cat-pupiled eyes, among other things, and that’s generally the accepted eye color for him in fan works and such. But his eyes are actually light blue, and not just mainly in spinoffs. There will be a TL;DR in about the middle of the post for one interesting point, and another at the end for the whole post in general.

Disclaimer: This isn't intended to be a "this is the right way to portray Sephiroth's eye color" gatekeeping thing, this is just an analysis of an element of character design that went way too deep and is breaking Tumblr as we speak hfsdgyfudgfsd

Evidence, theories and such under cut-- all 63 images (yes, you heard me, be warned) either come from various wikis as official art/screenshots/etc. or are my own screenshots:

In Final Fantasy 7, where this mess all started, his iconic official art has green eyes:

But in all other art, models, etc. for the game, even the Ultimania scan, his eyes are light blue (or some sort of blue in general):

Of course, you could argue that Sephiroth’s official art also has blue eyes if you stare at it hard enough, but at first glance it’s more green than blue, and with the amount of green-eyed art I’ve seen, I’m sure many people have just accepted that his eyes are green and nothing more.

Several other games in the main series also portray Sephiroth’s eyes as light blue, sometimes borderline colorless depending on the lighting:

I particularly curse Advent Children for it’s washed-out aesthetic because in the darker scenes it completely masks Sephiroth’s real eye color. Thank the gods for HD screenshots.

However, there is a very interesting phenomenon that only seems to happen in Last Order, the 25-minute animated retelling of the Nibelheim Incident and Zack and Cloud’s escape 5 years after. No one seems to have noticed this yet, to my knowledge, so I’ll go through this as clearly as I can.

When Zack confronts Sephiroth in the reactor, the latter’s eyes are light blue:

It isn’t very obvious due to the mako glow tint and his face being in shadow, but I’d think green eyes would look different here, so they are light blue. They stay light blue for a while after this, until Zack begins to fight him and parries him onto the ceiling (anime physics...), resulting in this peculiar scene:

Light blue into green. Literally, you can see it happening in the actual video. This happens a second time when Sephiroth has Cloud skewed on Masamune, just more subtly:

Again, light blue into green(er). Definitely something funky going on here. It goes back to light blue when Cloud tosses him away, though:

And speaking of Cloud... he, too, shows very obvious eye color change directly after this scene, as seen below:

In the video they are visibly, animatedly glowing, it’s not just me discerning between two different flat shades of color. Keep in mind this is before he gets mako poisoned and Jenova-celled and whatnot, so this isn’t due to SOLDIER enhancements. What gives?

Here’s my take: it’s the Lifestream. People are made of Lifestream like everything else in in the FF7 universe, and it’s common knowledge that Lifestream/mako can do some pretty weird shenanigans. SOLDIERs are literally pumped full of the stuff and have seemingly superhuman abilities, and that’s just the lower-ranking ones. But the series has also placed a lot of emphasis on willpower, which Cloud post-experimentation struggles with due to the J-cells and stuff. A lot of people with particularly bright or “glowing” eyes have expressed an incredible amount of willpower, some of which include Cloud, Sephiroth (unsurprising), and Aerith:

Aerith’s eyes have always been incredibly bright in the series, regardless of which game you reference. Remake especially makes this obvious, as it seems like every close-up shot of her makes her eyes the centerpiece regardless of lighting, setting, etc.:

Like, seriously, they almost seem to glow they’re so bright. But here’s the kicker: Aerith is a Cetra, and the Cetra, obviously, communicate with the Planet... or, in other words, have an incredibly strong willpower that influences things. It’s been stated before by various people and media that Sephiroth and Aerith are two sides of the same coin, but not quite like this, I think. Cloud shows a similar phenomenon in his close-up shots as well, though the artificial SOLDIER glow is most likely contributing to most of it:

Compare these to younger Cloud in the Nibelheim flashback, when he was more innocent and had no need for incredible willpower, artificial or not:

Going back to Cloud in Last Order, the point we can make about him in particular is that when he was stabbed, literally at death’s door, he drew on his inner Lifestream for the strength to toss Sephiroth away. People have wondered for years about how this moment was even possible besides Protagonist Syndrome, and this may be the answer.

If this is the case, then this could apply to anyone: Aerith, Sephiroth, Zack, hell even Tifa seems to have slightly glowing eyes in the Remake sometimes-- and sure, it may be just the game engine making sure we can actually see their eyes in key cutscenes... but it ties into canon lore and actually makes sense, so I’m sticking with that. It’s also not a coincidence that Aerith specifically has green eyes, too, since the Lifestream in general is green-colored and whatnot.

Midpoint TL;DR: people with lots of inner willpower can call on their own Lifestream to give them strength, resulting in “glowing” or even color-changing eyes depending on how much Lifestream/mako they have in them. SOLDIERs, for example, would fall in the latter category... the most extreme being Sephiroth.

Now that's we're back at Sephiroth, another interesting point is that his eye color in Remake is consistently light blue, or some blue variation depending on the lighting, with green centers, as seen below:

Cloud obviously shares the same eye color pattern by this point because it's implied that he has the same if not slightly more mako in him than Sephiroth, which very conveniently also equates to him having the same if not slightly more willpower than Sephiroth.

An honorable mention goes to the Remnants, since they, too, follow the light blue with green centers pattern, appearing to fluctuate between the two colors at certain times:

With all of that said and done, I’ll wrap this up by going through Sephiroth’s appearances in side games and other franchises as quickly as I can:

1) The Dissidia series (Dissidia, 012/Duodecim, NT, Opera Omnia) almost always portrays Sephiroth with light blue eyes in art, renders, and models, occasionally with a hint of green in them:

A very interesting exception is NT Sephiroth's Safer Sephiroth costume, which has completely white eyes in all three of its alts. Yes, it's basically just a cosmetic costume, but it's still worthy to note for comprehensive purposes:

2) World of Final Fantasy’s Sephiroth has light blue eyes:

3) Record Keeper Sephiroth’s sprites are very obviously based on the original FF7 official art where he has green eyes (yes, I checked the colors by hand, they're all in the greener sections of the color wheel):

4) The Kingdom Hearts series is particularly unique because it features a blue-eyed Sephiroth but with an explicit reason for it. Kingdom Hearts 1 simply says that Sephiroth is part of Cloud’s past, but Kingdom Hearts 2 literally has Cloud saying “I'll get him. This time we settle it. Me, and the one who embodies all the darkness in me.”, and then explicitly clarifying that it’s Sephiroth he’s talking about. Sephiroth even shares Cloud’s facial shape, which is particularly obvious in KH2 renders:

All other Sephiroth appearances in the KH series also feature him with blue eyes, except for any usage of material from other media.

5) Itadaki Street games feature Sephiroth with green eyes:

6) Puzzles and Dragons features a rare teal-eyed Sephiroth:

And finally 7) All other Sephiroth appearances in spinoffs and other media feature him with light blue, blue, or rare teal eyes, except for sprites, which are (most likely) reused from Record Keeper:

And that’s FINALLY a wrap. All my evidence for Sephiroth’s actual eye color in one place, and even a theory on why it can potentially fluctuate between that and the iconic green.

Actual TL;DR: Sephiroth’s eyes are actually light blue in 90% of his appearances, and the remaining 10% either comes from temporary green-ness or partial green-ness thanks to mako/Lifestream stuff, or spinoffs.

There is one small point I’d like to make at the end of this, and that is the remaining mystery of why Sephiroth’s pupils are even slitted and cat-like in the first place. That... is far more ambiguous in terms of evidence than the eye color. Some series, particularly the Kingdom Hearts series, have them as regular round pupils, while others sometimes if not most of the time give him the cat-like ones. I may make another in-depth analysis post trying to figure it all out, but for now I’ll say that it may just simply be a result of the Jenova cells he has or something along those lines.

If you made it this far down and didn’t just instantly scroll past my massive log of images and sundry, thank you so much for reading all of this! If you did just instantly scroll past, I don't blame you. I guess I'm in proper Sephiroth hell now, lol.

I hope you have a great day and that things turn out well for you fhjksdgfyhughuhyudfs

[vespertineflora]

3zun Combo Fics

XiYao

we're alone in the dark E, During Canon, Classroom Sex, 4.6k It's the first time Jin Guangyao has had the chance to use the jade token Lan Xichen had given him for free passage in and out of the Cloud Recesses, and it's during this first late evening visit that Jin Guangyao discovers that Lan Xichen has been having fantasies about him for far longer than he ever could have guessed--and that Lan Xichen is very eager to act on one such fantasy.

your love is all i can think about E, During Canon/AU, Love Letters/Sneaking Around, 10.4k After Lan Xichen finally goes all the way with Jin Guangyao in the aftermath of the Sunshot Campaign, responsibility forces the two apart for far longer than either of them care for. When they finally get to see each other again after three long months, having to sit through hours of a discussion conference when the love of his life is just across the room is more than the poor, sexually pent up Lan Xichen can bear, especially as Jin Guangyao seems to realize he likes the effect he's having on him.

in your warmth i forget how cold it can be E, During Canon, Cold Weather Coziness, 3.3k After a long day of traveling in unexpectedly heavy snowfall, Jin Guangyao arrives in the Cloud Recesses and needs Lan Xichen to warm him up.

rest with me a while E, During Canon, Fluff/Smut, 3.8k The day of the Phoenix Mountain Hunt is a stressful one for Jin Guangyao; Lan Xichen can see how tense he is from just a glance. His offer to help Jin Guangyao with his preparations has been turned down more than once, so Lan Xichen isn't sure what he can possibly do to help him... until he realizes there might be one way he might be able to add a bright spot to Jin Guangyao's day. no angels could beckon me back M, During Canon, Post-Coital Cuddling/Confessions, 1.6k What he had with Lan Xichen should have been enough; Jin Guangyao hadn't intended to confess his feelings, and he certainly hadn't meant for them to be confessed like this.

bare your heart to me E, During Canon, Smut and Hurt/Comfort, 9.5k It's impossible for Lan Xichen to say when he first takes notice of it, but a strange exchange one night makes him realize something rather concerning: he hasn't seen Jin Guangyao's naked body in nearly a year. The realization leads to Lan Xichen chasing after the answer to this mystery, ultimately uncovering a painful truth about the daily horrors of Jin Guangyao's life in Carp Tower.

Daylight Can Be So Violent (series) (in progress, but all pieces are functional one shots) if i told you what i’ve become E, During Canon, Confessions/First Times, 13.7k (pt 1) It's Lan Xichen's first visit to Lanling since Jin Guangyao's ascent to the position of Chief Cultivator the previous month, and with everything he's been through recently, he's perhaps tenser than he otherwise would be, spending a peaceful evening with his dearest friend. Luckily, Jin Guangyao has some ideas about the best ways to relieve stress.

heaven help me (i need to make this right) E, During Canon, Light Bondage, 8k (pt 2) The last few months have been... more than Lan Xichen could have ever hoped for. The reconstruction of the Cloud Recesses is complete, which means his uncle is in a good mood. His brother is healed, moving around and spending time with A-Yuan. And his relationship with Jin Guangyao... well, to put it simply, Lan Xichen couldn't be much happier--though Jin Guangyao has no shortage of ideas for them. It's during one of his regular visits to Lanling that Jin Guangyao suggests they... try doing things a different way.

and i'd do anything E, During Canon, Candle Wax/Praise Kink, 4.7k (pt 3) "Do you trust me?" It was that question, and Lan Xichen's resounding yes, that had landed him here, his wrists tied to the bed posts above his head, silk scarf wrapped lovingly around his eyes, his chest heaving with every hard breath, his cock dripping precum in a sticky pool against his stomach, and drips of wax in various stages of hardness scattered all across his skin.

if there was nowhere to land (i wouldn’t be scared at all) T, During Canon, 5+1fic/angst, 10.7k Meng Yao hasn't lead an easy life. He's been pushed around, beaten, and taken advantage of for nearly as long as he can remember... Falling down stairs is one of the worst things he's been through, and he's fallen more times than anyone should have to. OR Five times someone makes Meng Yao fall down a staircase, and one time someone saves him from falling.

they call me underneath M, Post-Canon, Grief/Mourning, 4.2k Lan Xichen never intended to visit the cemetery where his sworn brothers were interred together, but now that he's here, he can't make himself leave without at least trying.

a fine time to regret T, During Canon, Grief/Comfort, 2.3k As it turned out, even knowing Jin Rusong was going to die didn't give Jin Guangyao the chance to prepare himself for it.

NieYao

hold on to what we are T, During Canon, Fluff, 1.9k Meng Yao is dedicated to working harder than ever as the Sunshot Campaign is ramping up, but Nie Mingjue wants him to come to bed.

if you need it, then i need it (and only we'll know) E, During Canon, Sex Pollen, 13.1k Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue are on what they assume to be a normal scouting mission into Wen territory--but the day is turned on its head when they get a bit too close to some strange looking plants that release a thick cloud of pollen as they approach. By the time they make it back to camp, they're both already feeling the effects, and the camp's doctor has some mixed news to share. The bad news? The pollen will lead to a deadly qi deviation if left untreated. The good news? They know how to treat it! Now it's just up to Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue to act on it (and on the feelings they've been secretly harboring for one another for months).

when it comes time to rest my head E, Canon Divergent, Hurt/Comfort, 20.8k When Nie Mingjue spots the freshly bloodied handkerchief Jin Guangyao accidentally drops, his first sickening conclusion is that he's just caught him in the middle of some nefarious deed--but Nie Mingjue investigates further, and instead uncovers a series of injuries across Jin Guangyao's body that tell a much more heart-wrenching tale than the one Nie Mingjue first suspected. Can Nie Mingjue earn back enough of Jin Guangyao's trust to get him to accept the help he so clearly needs? Can he convince Jin Guangyao... to come back to Qinghe with him? i need your broken promises E, Canon Divergent, Werecat!JGY, 11.7k The night Meng Yao is promoted to be Nie Mingjue's deputy, he makes two requests: to be left alone on the night of the full moon, and to not be asked why he needs to be left alone. Nie Mingjue is extremely curious about this odd appeal, but he honors it regardless. Years later, when Nie Mingjue proposes, Meng Yao repeats his requests as the only stipulations for their marriage, and Nie Mingjue once again promises to let Meng Yao keep his secret... until he realizes that perhaps the secret isn't as well kept as he once thought, and he confronts Meng Yao to learn the truth.

the day bleeds into nightfall T, During Canon, Angst and Romance, 2.5k When Wen Chao attacks the Unclean Realm, Meng Yao rushes to release Xue Yang, and Nie Mingjue catches him stabbing his general. Nie Mingjue might have thought he was doing Meng Yao a mercy when he banished him... but Meng Yao isn't sure he agrees.

love me hard oh, love me right E, Modern AU, Rule 63 PWP, 2k Sometimes Meng Yao just needs to be gently dommed by her girlfriend until she cries, and you know what? That's valid.

the love held in her hands E, Modern Fantasy AU, Rule 63/Fairy!MY, 3k When Nie Mingjue's tiny fairy girlfriend asks to be fingered, Nie Mingjue immediately considers it to be a bad idea... but when her search for something more appropriately-sized drags on too long, she decides to give in to Meng Yao's impatient demands.

NieLan

the common tongue of your loving me E, Modern AU, 69ing, 3.7k Lan Huan and Nie Mingjue have been dating for almost two years now, but Nie Mingjue is always coming up with ways for him and his beau to have some new sort of fun in the bedroom. (Submission for NieLan Month 2020, Day 22 Desperation/Beauty/Awe. This is also the 69th fic I've uploaded to my AO3 account haha)

3zun

home is where my love waits E, Modern AU, Sexted Pics & DP, 5.1k Meng Yao is out of town on business for the weekend and Lan Huan and Nie Mingjue have the brilliant idea to send their absent boyfriend some spicy material to keep him warm while he's away (and definitely not because teasing him is very fun). When Meng Yao gets back to his hotel room at night to discover the proverbial feast, he's both very turned on and very frustrated to be so far away--but luckily for Meng Yao, they have more than adequate plans to make up for their teasing once he gets home.

i’ve had no love like your love E, Modern AU, happy birthday jgy!3some, 9.2k It's Meng Yao's birthday, and after working all day, he travels to Nie Mingjue's place in a swiftly escalating winter storm, where a night of warm wine and even warmer company awaits... Nie Mingjue and a tipsy Lan Huan have a delightful plan in place on just how they can warm him up.

how could i ask for more E, Modern Genderbend AU, CNC Roleplay, 14.3k When Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue ask Lan Huan what she wants for her birthday, they strongly imply it can be a sexual favor. Lan Huan asks for so little in the bedroom; she always seems content to just join in whatever activities her girlfriends partake in and never makes specific requests for herself. Of course, when Lan Huan actually indulges their suggestion, the last thing they expect from her is a detailed, written fantasy that she hands to them with an entirely red face... But if such a thing is what Lan Huan wants, Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue will make sure to give her exactly what she's asking for. Written for Whumptober 2020, Theme No 6. PLEASE… (“Get it Out” | No More | “Stop, please”).

there’s a hole in my soul (can you fill it?) E, Modern AU, Hurt/Comfort & Panic Attacks, 6.2k Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue were exes... until Lan Xichen fell in love with both of them and they decided to set aside their differences for his sake. When they're all together, life is bliss--but Meng Yao's relationship with Nie Mingjue is strained at best, and he notices early on in this reconciliation that the only time Nie Mingjue seems willing to hold him or be affectionate with him is after they have sex. Meng Yao has learned that, on the rare nights and weekends when Lan Xichen is away and he needs affection, that having sex with Nie Mingjue is the quickest and easiest way to get it. Lan Xichen just so happens to be out of town after Meng Yao has a particularly bad day at work. He needs the comfort more than ever, but when he tries to get it from Nie Mingjue the only way he knows how, it doesn't go the way he plans.

in my arms you’re safe and sound T, Vampire AU, Hurt/Comfort & Feeding, 2.9k Jin Guangyao is a dhampir who is fully turned when his father accepts him into the family--but Jin Guangshan treats him terribly, and when Nie Mingjue begins to realize how far this mistreatment goes, he drags Jin Guangyao off for a conversation which quickly escalates into an emotional shouting match that results in Nie Mingjue deciding that Jin Guangyao needs to be removed from Carp Tower immediately. Lan Xichen finds them just in time for the three sworn brothers to head together back to Qinghe, where Lan Xichen personally discovers one of the many awful things Jin Guangshan has done to hurt Jin Guangyao.

how were we to know E, Canon Divergent, MAJOR HURT/comfort, 12.9k (check AO3 for warnings on this one!) After the Sunshot Campaign, Meng Yao took Lan Xichen's offer to come live with him in the Cloud Recesses, sparking the beginning of their romantic relationship--which in turn uncovered their individual romantic histories with Nie Mingjue, and led to a shared romantic present with him. In the years since, the three have been in love and quite happy with their shared arrangement. However, eventual grief lingered at the back of their thoughts; they all knew the effect the saber spirit was gradually having on Nie Mingjue's mind and on his temperament, causing more frequent and more violent outbursts... Though none of them could have guessed the particular sort of violence it would lead Nie Mingjue to commit one night alone with Meng Yao.

when you are lost and i am gone M, Canon Divergent, Character Death, 2k When Lan Xichen had received the letter from Meng Yao, he'd left the camp at once to meet him in the forest outside of Nightless City, but even still, he arrives a second too late to do anything but watch as one of his friends cuts down the other. a light on the other side M, Modern AU, JGY-centric, 2.6k As a child, Meng Yao had only ever met his father in passing, as he had a family of his own and wanted little to do with the child that resulted from his affair with Meng Yao's mother. But when Meng Shi passed away tragically, 13 year old Meng Yao was sent to live with his father, spending the rest of his teen years in a living hell until he was able to escape... A few years later, another affair and another tragedy brought infant Mo Xuanyu into the Jin household and Meng Yao returned to keep him safe from the fate he'd suffered himself. Life there is awful, though not nearly as bad as it was before, as Meng Yao spends most of his time alone caring for Mo Xuanyu. However, a few months into his return, Meng Yao is presented with a unique opportunity when, late one night, he finds Jin Guangshan collapsed on the floor of his office.

[revasnaslan]

I'll be honest about Annilis, I love him and his sympathetic background AS well as his awful approach to keeping Hec-tor safe, because he's probably in some legitimate danger but he took it too far. I love HP, but I also wanna beat his ass too. Just grab him by the ears and yell, "What are you doing you idiot sandwich?!" I just wanna ask him "Are you even happy? And no getting pegged by a Shade isn't happiness." Don't want him to die though, only because it's a cop-out for actual punishment.1/2

2/2 That's what kinda bummed me on HP in-show, he did so much horrible shit, was an arrogant living "God", and he was just killed? That easy? HP's hubris was grotesque and he deserved a worse punishment than just a lightshow to the face. HP was also a non character in the end and whatever characterization he did have was lost quickly, gonna admit. But, an arrogant jerk dying that quickly is too easy a punishment, he has to suffer the consequences of his actions and experience his loss in detail.

sorry I'm sending you so many asks about HP. But dear God did the show drop the ball on Horde "supposedly endgame villain who was woefully underutilized until the last minute and even then was handed the villain ball to make sure what credibility he did have was lost" Prime. Could have been great, his story was there, but Crew-ra wasted time on frivolous characters(star siblings might have been cool but s5 needed to work on its existing characters, not introduce new ones)and wasted plot points.

I actually have done a ton of analysis on why prime just doesn’t work as a villain for pretty much six months now. Like I started doing this pretty much the day that the finale dropped cause I never liked S5 at all. There’s just much wrong with it, strictly from a narrative prospective than I cannot get over it, which I why I’ve kind of retreated into doing Fuck Canon aus. And I don’t think the major problems plaguing prime is that he’s a bad person or a cult leader or whatever, that would be fine. This is a matter of set up and pay off. This is a matter of narrative structure. Those are my major problems with everything about this.

Anyway, I guess we’ll try a flaccid attempt at positivity, just to make it clear that I am not coming strictly from a point of view of hate… the one thing I remember liking about prime is that creepy dinner scene. Loved that scene, I was so giddy when they dropped it as a teaser clip, and I got to enjoy it in peace for like a day and a half before my love for the show went crumbling. Prime is absolutely on his game in that scene, I can very clearly see his mind working, because my interpretation of the scene is that he’s trying to bait glimmer into giving him information. Did he actually intend to harm adora? Who knows! Does it matter? Not really, considering he got the information he wanted, which was what was needed to work the heart. I can feel the tension in that scene, that is how he should have been for the rest of the season.

So what the fuck happened? *cracks knuckles* well let’s see shall we.

Foreshadowing It’s Fun Cause It’s A Thing I’ve Heard Of

So I think we all remember just how shocking it was when prime actually showed up, and he wasn’t anything like we’d all come to assume he’d be based on what had been said about him up until that point. What we had been fed was essentially that he was cold, calculating, and didn’t look upon “defects” well. He saw the clones as disposable. And they set up that aspect of his character just fine, and I don’t have a problem with how that was set up.

What they utterly failed to properly set up (and even contradicted themselves on) was the cult thing, and how prime is essentially this messiah figure to the clones. I highly suspect this occurred because they were writing the show as they went along, and hadn’t fully fleshed out prime’s whole deal until he actually appeared at the end of S4, but that’s just my own speculation given some of the things that had been said in interviews regarding other aspects of the writing (namely that micah was apparently not supposed to be alive in the first place and that happened because of a miscommunication between noelle and one of the other writers).

Regardless, there are a number of things that should probably have been done differently in order to properly foreshadow prime’s cult leader status, that actually would have heightened hordak’s characterization as well. For one thing, there’s a reason we all assumed that the galactic horde was merely a military program and it’s because of how hordak acts throughout the first four seasons. We can talk in circles about headcanons until we’re blue in the face (i.e., he might have memory problems), but the fact of the matter is that those are headcanons and that hordak’s entire narrative changes from one of an ableist family to one of a religious trauma seemingly on a dime come the very end of S4 when prime shows up.

imagine how satisfying the foreshadowing would have been if hordak had actually been spouting dogma the entire show (i.e., “cast out the shadows” and “all beings must suffer to become pure”) only for it peter off once he’s befriended entrapta, if he had been calling those who he respected brother/sister instead of force captains (which is a far more militarized word to use, and judging by the galactic horde isn’t even a term they use), if he had still been dressed in his uniform and only actually started dressing differently after entrapta had helped him? Hell, he never even so much as implies that entrapta is leading him astray before he’s back with prime, he doesn’t even seem particularly distressed about being around her most of the time, and the only reason he even gets persnickety with her is because of his medical condition.

One point I’m going to expand on for a moment is the whole “brother” thing, because that is actually a very good way of explaining what I mean. Now, hordak doesn’t actually mention any other clones at all from what I remember. This is contrary to all of the clones in S5 referring to each other as “brother” pretty openly and it being seen as a term of respect. However, the only person that hordak actually calls “brother” up until S5 is prime, and this inadvertently ended up making the word seem far more neutral than it should have been considering the context of S5. The word “brother” is actually a control tool, and if they had wanted to establish that sooner, hordak should have been calling anybody he respected that.

So, either the writers hadn’t actually thought of that part of the narrative yet, or they’re just that bad at foreshadowing.

There are also three instances of the narrative contradicting itself with regards to prime, one in S3, one in S4, and one in S5. The first is that hordak wanted to make a new body for himself. While one could argue that this was meant to be foreshadowing that prime takes new bodies whenever his old one failed (which is fine, that works as foreshadowing), the act of hordak admitting that he was intending to do that is what actually creates the snag. With the context of S5, we learn that becoming a vessel is meant to be a place of honor, but this comes with the caveat that it seems like only prime is allowed to take new bodies. So why the ever living fuck would someone as “pious” and “unworthy” as hordak think that was something he could ever be allowed to do, much less that prime would welcome him back with open arms if he did it. But there’s zero hesitation on hordak’s part, he doesn’t even mention that this is something usually only reserved for prime.

The second is that prime literally looked at the heart of etheria and said it was “unlike anything [he had] ever seen” despite canonically fighting the first ones, so he’d presumably have recognized the energy signature that first one’s tech gives off and be like Oh Shit. This one in particular drives me absolutely nuts because if I was writing a villain who had lived long enough to fight the people this mystical weapon was created by I would never write them saying that what the actual fuck. My gripe here is not that prime is ancient, that’s fine, I could’ve vibed with that. But the fact that he not only fought the first ones but also recognized mara is really egregious in a way that borders on parody for me. Like what a flimsy excuse for him to be connected to adora (and we’ll get to that!)

The third and final one is that hordak was allegedly thrown out for his defects. That’s what we were told, that’s what a major facet of hordak’s trauma is centered around. However, at the same times, prime seems like… oddly fixated on hordak in a way that usually implies something deeper is going on here. That was why I was so convinced that hordak wasn’t remembering something clearly, because why would prime spare him instead of killing him immediately after returning if he was defective enough to warrant being thrown out? Come S5, prime seems to have forgotten about the pesky little plot detail that is hordak’s defects, since they never come up again! Nope! Hordak is not only completely healed of his ailments (which Can I Get A Yikes?) but he’s also been welcomed back to his original position as prime’s right hand by the mid-point of the season, and he stays there until the finale unless the plot demands he be elsewhere to interact with entrapta cause hordak was added in post. You can’t even argue that he was keeping hordak alive because eThErIaN kNoWlEdGe because he has those fucking mind chips. Literally every single person he’s chipped is connected to the hivemind because of that. He’d have every single bit of knowledge that he could possibly want right there at his fingertips. He doesn’t need hordak alive at all.

Which brings us to…

It’s Almost Like He Wasn’t A Villain To The Proper People

The thing about villains is that, in order for them to not feel out of place, in order for their defeat to actually give a true feeling of satisfaction, you kind of have to put them up against the right people. The reason that prime ultimately fails in this respect is that he is not adora and catra’s villain, despite the narrative pushing him as that…

I actually once joked on twitter that if the rise of skywalker had come out when S5 was being written, then prime would have likely ended up being revealed as adora’s long lost grandfather in some attempt to make his fixation on her seem warranted. That’s the level we’re at in terms of how connected the two of them appear to be for the villain and hero thing. They just are not connected, and prime has absolutely no reason to be this fixated on her. They tried to explain it with she ra and prime being old enemies, but that’s equally as confusing because a) mara hadn’t mentioned him up until that point, b) this inclusion actually makes the first ones creating a superweapon look justified since prime is such a huge threat, and c) she ra is explicitly stated to have been on etheria long before the first ones even colonized it, so why the fuck is she just gallivanting around the cosmos fighting cult leaders?

And to be clear, if this whole prime versus she ra had actually been hinted at, I would not be taking so much issue with this. But as there was absolutely zero mention of him, it just comes off as egregious and very, very sloppy on their parts.

Prime also should not be as fixated on catra as he is, that doesn’t make sense at all. I know why this happened in particular, though, and it’s because the writing team was so in love with her that they just had to give her this arc. That just makes its inclusion all the worse to be honest. Why does he go to such great lengths to use catra to torture adora, why does he go into a total breakdown after catra escapes? He isn’t connected to either of them…

… because he is hordak and entrapta’s villain.

that prime didn’t immediately want entrapta dead continues to confuse me to this day, nearly seven months after the fact. Like you mean to tell me that this cult leader, who is presumably used to complete obedience from his followers, finds one of the wayward members of his proverbial flock lost on some backwater, who didn’t want to be found, and he knows exactly who is responsible for sewing those seeds of discord in this poor lamb’s head. And he doesn’t immediately want entrapta dead?

Not only does prime never mention her, despite it being very easy to push a plotline about how it’s necessary because she’s perceived as a danger to the rest, and especially to the poor lost soul who was ultimately returned to him. Instead, prime just doesn’t seem to realize entrapta exists. He doesn’t know who she is despite literally reading hordak’s mind. He doesn’t even seem to interpret her as threat considering he wasn’t worried about putting her and hordak right next to each other in the finale. He should have been using hordak to torture entrapta, and he should have had his break because hordak escaped him. That whole scene where catra is under mind control and adora was trying to snap her out of it was textbook entrapdak. Hordak should have been the one to delve into the hivemind to help adora. It was his story and it was taken from him when he was sacrificed on catra’s narrative arc altar.

And this is ultimately completely fixable. Because they had a villain they could have been using for adora and catra the whole time. Shadow Weaver. Y’know, their mutual abuser who was the main cause of strife between the two of them, and the person who kind of set the plot in motion since she’s the reason catra is the way that she is?

He Blew It. Super Hard. Complete Buffoonery.

Ultimately one of the biggest writing fumbles with prime is that he is just really fucking dumb as the plot demands, and it doesn’t make any kind of narrative sense for him to be that way, it is literally just him being at the mercy of the writers who need him to do something stupid so they can push the plot forward since they made him too overpowered for it to happen any other way.

There’s numerous instances of this across the season, including him bringing entrapta aboard the velvet glove when the very person he would have had very good reason to not let her near is standing right there, and him deciding to give catra pretty much free reign of the velvet glove and seeming to decide to trust her despite him knowing damn well that she’s likely to betray him the second he does something she doesn’t like, and the time he literally left adora to be beaten by catra instead of just killing her outright when she couldn’t even activate she ra. And in all these cases he had the fucking nerve to seem surprised when it happened?

However, there is one plot point that I feel illustrates how goddamn stupid he is to move the plot forward, and it’s the mind chips.

I mean one of the reasons I dislike it is going back to how little foreshadowing the writers actually seem capable of committing to. There is nothing to indicate in the narrative that prime actually employs mind control on anybody besides the clones, and this becomes especially egregious when we later meet the star siblings, and we find out that there are large swathes of the universe that are seemingly not chipped? It just screams like they needed some type of angst plot point for catra, so they had to find a way to make it work.

But the very inclusion of the mind chips as a plot point makes prime look so ridiculously dumb, because we are told those chips connect people to the hivemind, we are explicitly shown this for catra angst. So a) why does he need hordak around at all, because the excuse he needs to know about etheria doesn’t work since he literally chips like half of the etherian population later on anyway, b) if he needed information on the heart of etheria, why didn’t he just chip glimmer outright, it would have saved him a lot of time and hassle, and c) if he knew damn well that catra had betrayed hordak numerous times and was likely to do the same to him, why didn’t he just immediately chip her so he could mitigate two problems. If he had chipped catra immediately, he wouldn’t have lost glimmer, and it would have been next to impossible for adora and bow to storm the velvet glove through the means that they did.

When your main villain is that fucking stupid, the tension is completely sapped out of your narrative, and prime doesn’t have enough character unto himself to continue holding up his own arc. He is a sexy lamp cardboard cutout that just happens to be brought onto the scene when they were in need of someone to throw the idiot ball at. Prime is supposed to be this thousand year old body hopper who has the wisdom of the ages, and yet he was defeat by a group of teenagers driving a clown card held together by nothing but duct tape and prayers.

Anyway!

Guess Who Just Got Murdered!

Anon, I completely agree that the way prime got taken out was just… hm. Well, it was a choice, given how they had written the rest of the season.

I’ve said this before, but I really wish I could actually enjoy hordak yeeting him, but I just don’t feel anything. That scene is a culmination of an arc that never happened because hordak was barely on screen for S5. It feels like we’re missing this whole season-long arc about how hordak managed to break free of prime and was actively working against him, and that scene is the lowest point, right before the greater scope villain is ultimately defeated by the protagonist. Which just furthers my point that prime is really hordak’s villain, because hordak reads more like a protagonist than I think the writers actually intended for him to.

Since you mentioned anillis, I feel the need to comment on him as well, because I do know exactly what happens to him at the end of my au, because I actually planned for his ending from the beginning and built his arc towards that point. The very bare bones spoilers is that he isn’t going to die, because a) he needs to live with the consequences of his actions and b) him dying would affect hec-tor horribly, especially since if anybody had to deal the killing blow it would be hec-tor. And hec-tor doesn’t deserve to be forced to do that. He wants freedom, he doesn’t want his brother dead by his own hand.

So, I completely agree that just killing prime off feels a little… like a cop out? I’m not going to get into a discussion of how he was defeated by the power of (romantic) love because my issue there is not with the trope itself, but ultimately how it was handled, and that also has to do more with my grievances with how catradora was ultimately handled than my grievances with prime. However, him being like… exorcised…

Well it sure does clean up some loose ends that we don’t want to discuss huh?

[chrisemrysfics]

WIPs&Projects List

Hello!

I had two separate posts for that before, but I decide to make a whole new post and combine in one post, so that everything is in one place!

Do note that my inspiration did shift toward MDZS a bit more, however I still plan to actively progress on writing for my DGM fics.

Read more as it is a long post, will adjust when anything needs adjusting and reblog when I do!

Main focus for WIP

My top priority, so the ones I will most often look to write for.

Shadows Symphonies, No one else but you, I expect an equal level of inspiration for both. Note: right now, No one else but you only has its one-short version posted, what I mean is that the multi chapter version is one I am actively working on right now, and will be a main focus once posted!

Meet me Halfway to the End is also a main focus, it might not get updated as often as the MDZS ones, still I want to actively continue this one the most (out of DGM fics).

Secondary focus for WIP

Less priority than my main focus, yet I still intend to work on them whenever I can, and are likely easier to get inspired for (but less likely than my main focus).

Assassin’s Light, I can’t say it’s as main focus as before, so it’s more so a secondary focus now, still I want to continue it.

Rise of the Walker, there’s a good chance it’ll be slower to update than Assassin’s Light and main focus WIPs, however I want to write more for it, as it is Allen’s backstory for all canonverse fics.

Mid focus for WIP

Honestly I call mid focus because the following two fics are less priority than secondary focus, but easier to get inspired for than all other WIPs after, so mid focus felt about right for them.

Bring me to Life

Make it Right

Low focus for WIP

Here come the fics that have a low focus from me, however note it’s more precise to say it is a fickle focus. I could get super inspired one day, which can be in one week, one month, two months, etc. I could get super inspired for the next chapter, or super inspired for multiple chapters. I could get renewed inspiration in the form of regular updates for a short term period. I could get inspiration to finish if I know a fic to be getting close enough to final chapters.

In short, these place low as priority, not out of lack of inspiration, but out of utter randomness of it.

The future we choose, Freedom to love, Secret of Dark Red, The Joy of Time Travel, The Divine Battle, Out Past, Shadows of Rebirth, Tales of Black Wings.

Semi-hiatus WIP

The difference for these ones is that, while it is also fickle when I get inspired for them, it is also much harder for me to feel inspired, and so they are more of actual low level of inspiration, rather than just fickle.

Hellish Chronicles, Different Yet Alike, Fated Chain, Broken Chain.

Main Projects

Those are the non-WIP stuff I am actively working on as side things to my WIPs!

Story to come Bonus “chapter” for all my WIPs except the main focus ones, they are meant to be for anyone who wish to get an idea of what the story is going to be, whether it is to make it easier to wait or to know and close the figurative book for good, a choice for every readers I have and might have in the future, and more freedom for myself as it will be easier to write if I’m not feeling guilty people are waiting to know what happens next (either they wait willingly, or wait knowing what they are waiting for, a choice they didn’t have before).

MDZSxDGM crossover in the form of Noah!Wei Wuxian, for now I am not sure what form it will take, however my best guess is a series where each fic is a collection of scenes based in the same settings. Either I’ll write as much as I can (so it’ll be pretty much “complete” when I first start posting it) before posting, or I’ll start posting at one point I feel comfortable doing so and it becomes a main or secondary focus.

ABO settings, which are going to be general (rather than fandom based) and meant as more so of a fun project, replying to the question how would I write ABO settings.

A second part to The Path we took, I want to expand on the k/ink s/ex aspect more, as there are more stuff I didn’t really put or that I fully worded later, and I want to have Wangxian word it themselves.

Side Projects

Those are the non-WIP stuff I intend to work on, however I’m not actively doing so right now.

A sequel to Long Lost Reunion, meant to be multi-chapter.

Expansion to Window of the Heart, as I have left-over scenes in my idea notes.

Venerated Triad might get expanded one day, and/or get a proper multi-chapter fic, as I can feel there’s a story I can make out of it, I just have too much on my plate right now to give time to it for now.

Field Adventure, Deity’s Royal and Protectors in Everytime, Everywhere might get expanded (all one-shots of this fic might, but these three are more likely), however for now it is just a project idea.

Requiem aeternam is a very tiny maybe about a possible expansion.

There were also some ideas I noted down about a Neallen two shot that would be lime if not lemon, Tykillen one-shots of the lime/lemony type, and a Joyd/Allen multi-chapter fic (not meant to be long, will move to secondary or mid focus if it goes get longer than expected).

Note that there are two fics I intend to write that goes with Meet me Halfway, one will be the origin of war and the other the life of Mana, Nea and Allen before everything went wrong (and how things went wrong). When I’ll work on them, is left to be decided based on my progress in Meet me Halfway.

Notes of projects for longer stories

I do have quite a few ideas noted down for multi-chapter fics, in various fandoms. This is a little overview, of all these things I hope to one day write.

White Devil is the nickname for another big canon au I once planned for, I’m likely to eventually work on it secondary to whichever WIPs I have when I finally work on White Devil, but also it won’t happen until I have less WIPs on my hands (though it is possible I work on it slowly here and there).

A DAIxDGM crossover is likely to be worked on one day, it was first born as a rp idea, to have my Lavellan character end up in DGM world and grow up there, what I really want to write is the DAI storyline when there’s this Lavellan who grew up with the Noah Clan, Allen as brother, and who already had a canon au background (half spirit). One of the scenes I really, really want to write and almost is the sole push behind everything is Allen’s arrival in DAI world and then Allen being a constant present that wlll f*ck you up if you mess with his little brother.

There is also a DAI&SKyrim crossover series I’ve once world build and wrote down notes about, it has in Skyrim a Thief Guild OC with secrets, my first Dovahkin, and my first Inquisitor with my second Inquisitor as Companion (and lover, meant to be a vee or triad with Dorian eventually). Yes, this first inquisitor is the same Lavellan as for the DGM crossover, in the way the backstory is the same up until what changes in the DGM crossover (but there is no crossover with Skyrim in the DAIxDGM crossover).

I’ve had another multi chapter fic planned for Natsume Yuujinchou, canon au with Ayakashi Natsume and Matoba/Natsume. I also have multiple Pokemon fics planned. The same goes to BBC Merlin, there were quite a few fics I had ideas for and noted down. All these fandoms however are where I intend to only have one WIP per fandom, so new fics won’t come until existing WIP in their fandom are finished or are close to finished.

And of course, there are the existing series that I have, who imply multiple fics and so fics to write in the future.

[7joonie]

fics I’ve read ♡

i’m making this post so i can keep all my favorite fics in one place!! lots of different ships, and the stories range from fluffy to smutty to both and everywhere in between, but i loved them all omg, they’re not really organized in any particular way, but here take them. also, i formatted this on desktop, so i’m sorry if it looks weird on mobile ♡

.　 . • ☆    . ° .•      ✮      °:.   *₊     .   ☆  ° .     *₊    ☆     ✮       ° .    ☆     *₊   ☆.　 . • ☆    . ° .•      ✮      °:.   *₊     .   ☆  ° .     *₊    ☆     ✮       ° .    ☆     *₊   ☆.　 . • ☆    . ° .•      ✮      °:.   *₊     .   ☆  ° .     *₊    ☆     ✮       ° .    ☆     *₊   ☆

wonder by wordcouture (jikook, rated teen & up, 7604 words)

["I wanted to surprise you."

Jungkook feels tears prickling at the edges of his eyes again as he digs a small, thin book from the large pocket in his new pants. The Little Prince. "Me too."]

au: apocalypse / space opera

the superior jikook fic!!

will absolutely make you ugly cry

up we go by oh_hey_tae (taegimin, rated teen & up, 100331 words)

[Warmth. The memory of it. Sun-drenched earth beneath his feet. A piano song, shivering in the morning air. Wet handprints on his shirt, his waist. Laughter. The scent of orange blossoms and cypress.

“We,” Taehyung starts, grasping at his chest where his heart has begun to hum. “We… Have we…?”]

au: modern with magic / witchcraft

tw: implied/referenced character death, references to depression and suicide/suicidal thoughts, anxiety

this might be my favorite fic i’ve read, it’s so beautifully written 

it broke my heart into a billion pieces and then put it back together (mostly...i feel bittersweet okay)

i just really love poly fics

lots of fluff, romance, hurt/comfort

slow burn

happy ending

i cried a lot, just read this fic okay??

canvas by daebon (yoonseok, rated E, 94922 words)

[When Hoseok had told the elder that he wanted to make love to him, he hadn't lied. Of all the things to fall from his lips in the last few months, this was the only truth. That first messy time in this very place had felt like heaven, like a sweet dream coaxed from him during a lazy afternoon nap, but this feels heady and consuming, like a strange rite of passage. He knows he'll never be the same after this, but neither will Yoongi.]

au: non-famous/normal life

tw: implied/referenced sexual assault, some internalized homophobia

the amount of angst in this fic almost killed me

there’s softness too 

smut of the artsy variety!!

hoseok is an artist and yoongi is his muse

stripper jungkook & jimin

angst with a happy ending

lovely bloodflow by aetoms (taekook, rated M, 5246 words)

[“If we’re never able to marry here, promise me we’ll go somewhere else, that we’ll fly to some place pretty and far away from here…?” It came out as a question at the time, the hesitation present in his voice. Jeongguk didn’t know what he had to be hesitant about.

“Oh, darling,” he had said on a sigh, ruffling his fingers through the choppy fringe that stuck to Taehyung’s forehead. “That’s a promise I intend to keep.”]

au: non-famous/normal life

tw: major character death

this fic is written so beautifully, it’s so descriptive and i could really feel the characters emotions

just know that this fic broke my heart made me sob for 20 minutes so read at your own risk!!

the castle on the hill by bellamees (yoonkook, rated M, 33098 words)

[i'm in love, jungkook thinks briefly, watching the sky change colors above them as nighttime starts its conquering. he's in love with all of them, the lost boys and their mismatched clothes, their boyish chaos, their accent, their smell of fresh paint and the blueberry lollipops stuck between their teeth.]

au: hyyh (hyyh yoonkook is superior)

yoongi is bad at feelings

angst and softness

red string of fate aka bangtan are soulmates and we been knew

bangtan are lost boys

hurt & comfort

some drunk fun times / drunken kissing

the ending of this fic had me sobbing into my pillow at 3am, seriously i just re-read the last few sentences and teared up again oh my god

read it!!

taste of your lips on me, i can't forget by locks (taekook, rated E, 2420 words)

[It started off something hot and dangerous, and the fire has yet to burn out. Jeongguk hopes it never fucking burns out. He's not just in it for the rebellion, that actually doesn't have a lot to do with this, and a lot to do with the beautiful boy that never strays far from Jeongguk's mind.]

au: church

literally this is just pure filthy smut with lots of beautiful dirty talk

church sex, porn without plot

enjoy

everything is waiting for you by 777335 (taegikook, rated teen & up, 12110 words)

[It’s both of them in his daydreams, when it aches so much that he lets himself daydream like it will ease up the pressure inside his heart.  It never works, never eases up.  He lets himself do it anyway, sometimes.  And when he does, when he daydreams, in the little house he has built for them in his head, it’s the three of them and their dogs and their bed is big so they can curl up and look at the rain out the window and talk and talk and talk, Taehyung’s voice like riptides and Jeongguk’s voice like tide pools, and both of them rogue waves and—

them.]

au: non-famous/normal life

soft soft soft, omg so soft, pure fluff

this fic left me feeling so happy and warm, i just really love poly taegikook

so much love, just read this, it’ll make you happy i promise

to live again by mindheist (taekook, rated E, 29984 words)

[“I love you more than anybody.”

“You can’t.”

“I can, and I do,” Taehyung says. His voice is tired, but stubborn, the dreamy haze of his orgasm dissolving in the wake of his insistence.

“I love you too.” It sounds like a dirty secret, the way Jeongguk whispers it for only Taehyung to hear, but Taehyung cups them in his hands like newborn black-and-scarlet koi. “First I love you, too.”]

au: historical

tw: some light violence

forbidden love!!

smut

this fic is so original!! omg i love it

pov of namjoon reading the historical book of taekook’s story

this fic made me cry, it’s so beautiful and bittersweet and it really broke my heart

please read it

love, i have wounds by sharleena (taekook, rated E, 79451 words)

[There's a pause then a small laugh “I like you so fucking much.”

Jungkook smiles “I know you do.” he says, when in reality he wants to tell him that he's in love. So in love.]

au: college/university

angsty but also fluffy

lots of smut, some rough some soft

themes of loneliness and depression

friends with benefits turned lovers

artist tae, photographer kook

they are so in love it’s SICK and twisted

light themes of abuse so be aware

this fic feels so real!! please read it

bad boy by xiajin (yoonkook, rated M, 26427 words)

[“you scared?” yoongi murmurs against the kiss marks on his neck, pasting over the ugliness left there underneath. jungkook scoffs, pushing at his shirt, begging closer. “i don’t scare easily.”

“how did i get so lucky to meet you?” yoongi asks, marvels, voice heavy with the weight of his breath.]

au: college/university

tw: themes of possessiveness/stalking/unhealthy relationship dynamics so be aware

angsty and soft

this fic scared me, but in a good way

angsty yoongi

they’re both whipped af omg so in love

kinda slow burn

some violence/sexual assault (not between main characters)

they’re both subtle / not so subtle sociopaths what can i say

it’s also written in all lowercase which for some reason i love

this fic shocked me and it’s written so well, it’s so DARK DARK DARK and the writer really draws you in, i just really love it okay?

strawberries & cigarettes by notyoongs (yoonkook, rated E, 129328 words)

[“you are so special, jeongguk,” says yoongi. “did you know that? i feel very, very lucky to know you. i feel very lucky that you choose to show me parts of your heart like that.”

“i trust you with it,” whispers jeongguk. “my heart, i mean.”

“i’ll keep it safe, then,” says yoongi. “i promise.”]

au: non-famous/normal life

mutual pining

CUTE CUTE CUTE i was blushing reading this fic

slow slow slow burn omg so slow

SOFT, shy jungkook, soft bad boy yoongi

so much great fluff, very light angst

some smut

so freaking cute, so much love, omg read this now

384.400 km by bellamees (yoonkook, rated GA, 6457 words)

[“i met someone like you once,” yoongi huffs. “he was in love with the sky, too.”

“i’m not— in love,” jungkook sniffs, shifting on his weight. “you can’t love something like that.”

“ah.” and something of the likes of bittersweetness stains yoongi’s face. “yeah, i guess not.”]

au: magical realism

i’m tearing up right now as i type this

this fic is so beautiful and bittersweet

i cried a lot

please read this fic it’s going to hurt you so much but it’s so beautiful

logical thinking by only_a_fangirl (namgiseok, rated E, 135153 words)

[“Let go,” Namjoon says, locking eyes with Hoseok. “We’re all close. You can come, let go.”]

canon compliant

this is literally pure filth i’m SO SORRY

rap line threesomes what more can i say

if you love me, won’t you say something by 777335 (yoonkook, rated E, 102213 words)

[“It lives in the center of my soul,” Yoongi whispers finally, opening his eyes, “how I feel about you, Jeon Jeongguk.]

au: college/university

the superior yoonkook fic!!!! omg it’s my favorite

mutual pining

they are both oblivious and WHIPPED

sloooowwww burn

tons of domesticity and time jumps *chef’s kiss*

some smut

soft af!!

bangtan friend group!!

some drunk fun times

light angst

i know i already said this but it’s the superior yoonkook fic

[theorynexus]

50.

Before returning to liveblogging, I’d just like to say that the organization I used for the Aspects (3 sets of 4, with Freedom, Fate, and Mixed categories) in my last post is one of many different possible ways of categorizing the Aspects.  Their nature is complex, and they individually preside over such broad aspects of reality that any one system of dividing among them is not necessarily going to capture all the nuances and connections to be found between them. The one way that is known canon to organize among these would be the Aspect Pair system, which, as one can see due to the way I described the four categories, is not mutually exclusive with the schema which I utilized in the post. To clarify: I mostly chose this particular way of organizing the Aspects for my counter to Dirk’s train of inquiry for the sake of showing that while many of the Aspects lend themselves to a Fate reading, Free Will is just as well supported. ...

***snickers***    Well, that’s certainly one way to describe the blurring resulting from the intermingling of numerous shards of her soul which is now occurring. On a side note:  It is very interesting that his control is ongoing in pseudo-real time, for his frame of reference, and that his ego is so narrowed/focused at the moment (possibly as a result of the difficulty in maintaining narrative control?) that he can possibly have such slips as a result of distraction on his part. I wonder if Rose not speaking is more a result of the general narrative pause that he is implying might happen if he is not focusing (unlikely, considering all indications are time flow continues) or his manipulation/entanglement of Rose.

How benevolent of him. That said:  Yes, indeed, what he is saying does make quite a bit of sense, especially with the tense “could have been,” suggesting that this is a matter of present and past intermingling, such that the future selves that split off from at least her current main node of being (from her perspective) are not integrated preemptively, for that would probably skew their creation, mess with possibility, et cetera.        Moreover, what he is saying with regards to the psyche needing to be at a certain level of strength very much makes sense, as well. His own is only capable of this because of his Unbreakable Soul personal trait, most likely. He cracks, splinters, bends, but doesn’t fully break~ (And no, I don’t think that Dave being able to cut his Unbreakable Sword suggests that this is no longer the case; rather, it is most likely a sign that he achieved greater mastery of his soul and was able to divest its connection with the sword temporarily, showing an increased degree of flexibility on his part.)

I don’t entirely trust this, insofar as I am not entirely sure Rose is ready to open them, but if Dirk is being truthful as far as his intentions go, at the very least this suggests that his agenda of “becoming a single god” might be more benevolent insofar as it might be more local (meaning specific to him).   If that is so, it could explain the discrepancy that seemed to crop up with Rose being able to actually talk/think in presumably her own (that is to say, deviant from Dirk’s) manner / persona, and might suggest he at least intends for this measure to be temporary.

Hmmm. Well, this all makes it seem somewhat sinister again, insofar as “what I want her to see” could be interpreted as being “only” what he wants for her to see, and the antagonistic “martyr” comment a moment before makes that vibe a bit stronger; however, I DO think that she at least eventually needs/needed to have opened her eyes for the sake of her cohesion and development, so I am quite conflicted on this matter, and in my opinions of it. (Note: I think she needs this because she’s presently quite restricted and narrowed in her field of vision, for her expanded Vision as a Seer of Light is being constantly resisted by her, and thus she is essentially putting blinders on to the burning rays of the sun.)

This could be interpreted both as dangerous, psychically subsuming, insinuating behavior on his part, or as the natural result of her Seer status making things happening seem like noise in her wider-opened consciousness.

Well, that’s a very interesting act of metaphorical/-physical manipulation. So very subtle and questionable and interesting~

LET’S TAKE A FIELD TRIP TO CANDYLAND!!!

That is a weird and silly way of viewing things.  Of course there can be regret. Humans agonize over things they can’t help/change all the time, dummy. :P

Yes, indeed, I do appreciate that spoiler protection, Narrator. Though perhaps a hint might have been more interesting. Perhaps a hint might still be yet to come. Indeed, though: it is likely that no change would happen while I was gone, if I randomly flipped to the equivalent page, Candy 25, and looked back.   I will not do so, regardless of the temptation.

***chorus of Cherubic laughter***     Negatives and positives. Very interesting, indeed.  For some reason, I am suddenly struck with a desire to know whether and/or how these epilogues might intermingle in Homestuck^2, should it be a direct sequel to them.

Now... that is a particularly interesting manner of describing things. I wonder: does this describe the uncertainty/opacity that was naturally supposed to emerge from the narrative End of Homestuck gap in the works that allowed for the escape out of canon in the first place? The “blend ingredients responsibly” comment probably refers to the fact that Lord English presented the primary force that insisted on there being a single Alpha Timeline that, regardless of the retcons, Scratches, and narrative loop-de-loops required to reach its conclusion, ensured his ascension and the natural progression of his being, within Canon.    Presumably, outside of Canon, reentry might be both possible and required in order to maintain the balance of that narrative shell that protects the rest of meta-textual reality from LE’s ire-filled gaze, and thus there are multiple “pathways of promise” that have equivalent legitimacy, and which can simultaneously take place, so long as one of them actually leads to LE’s most important battles’ proper conclusions.     A similar situation to this actually happened in Homestuck’s canon, with the splitting of Vriska, though I’m sure you knew that already.   Of course, only one timeline in this scenario actually successfully left to the exit of canon, along with the kids’ victory state, and presumably the situation is now majorly different. Anyway: I do again wonder how these two main branches shall combine and/or split off in the future-- what sort of interactions they might have~

I am very curious what actual mechanics might have led to this particular sweet and rancorous set of circumstances being forced into being. Is it just random chance that leads to this “irresponsible” outcome?   Is it a necessary sacrifice for the narrative “oomph” to oppose Lord English, in order for the measure of wills to be balanced?   Very curious, generally.

Wow, indeed that sounds incredible. Also ominous. Particularly the use of “bleed,” and the contrast of majesty+disheveled, light and shadow.

Somewhat creepy, but okay.  (I guess the fact that Doc Scratch was a creepy uncle figure always meant that Dirk was intended to be creepy like this, to some extent.)   That said:  Indeed, I agree that this is probably very reflective of her true/Ultimate self.

Again, somewhat creepy.  Additionally: Interesting that he seems uncertain-- unable to truly penetrate her mind, just then --and that this comes across almost as him reassuring himself.

I do truly appreciate this semi-blind, selfish desire of his.   Truly, that is one of the greatest needs of the thinking being: acknowledgement. 

That is a very complex thought. It certainly will be her, but it will be more. Regardless, as will have been elaborated upon by the later passages: she absolutely needs to let go if she is to survive. Her physical form is dying, and the only choice is to either perish, or to allow herself to naturally develop as her godly self is naturally designed to.  While there is technically a choice, as is the case with The Choice that the Denizens present, there is really not much of one to begin with. She will know what is right in her heart, when the choice is made, and her own character will not have permitted her to turn another way.  The only question is if there’s a third option. I would just like to say that Dirk’s statement of “better” is somewhat untrue, likely. There are likely positives and negatives of the choice-- things Rose will have to sacrifice in order to make it work.  Thus, while her Greater Self will be better in some ways, she may well be deficient in others.

Her earlier statement, as I laid out earlier, was in fact incorrect. That said, it is indeed necessary to have abandoned humanity at the point.  Whether or not it was additionally necessary to break down quite all those barriers is another matter. I would suspect that this is in fact not the case.   I do wonder: shall individuality between the two of them actually buckle with the entanglement of their being on a psychic level?     For some reason, I suspect that their cores shall in fact remain somewhat unfused. However, this is mostly intuition, based on the fact that he is/intends to struggle to maintain her physical body for at least a while, yet.   We shall see how things truly turn out, either way.

***lip curls into a snarl***     What disgusting, wretched nonsense.   That kind of verbiage directly contradicts your desire for an understanding equal, Narrator.   Why does your intelligence have to outstrip your wisdom to such a degree?    ***sighs***

Yes. Yes, it does.  Whilst it is not such a linear or meta-stable structure as might otherwise be thought, anyone knowing the nature of Narrative should be aware of the key time-based interactions which allow it to function. I am beginning to absolutely loathe Dirk’s arrogance. ~~~ Post Script Note:  It is very interesting to see the “You” at the end, there, for it could represent Rose, rather than the Reader, at this moment, and the aforementioned blurring of their consciousnesses which I suggested some time ago. 

[homestucky]

i rlly like this post going around about what a bad liar dave is bcaus a) its very funny but b) it reminds me of the fact that a lot of the time hes not even TRYING to cover up the truth. like its an instance where he knows hes probably SUPPOSED to keep something to himself so he acts like hes trying to. but what he ends up saying literally always ends up clearly implying the truth, and whats more, the way he does it is very pointed and intentional. every single time he lies hes basically telling the truth as clearly as possible without being explicit. in fact i dont recall ever seeing him lie with the sincere motivation of covering up the truth. and while he may play a role as some emotionally constipated guy who cant talk about his feelings, he is actually pretty self aware about it, hangs a lampshade on it. in being like ‘haha puppets dont scare me ever not even a little nope never in fact i love them so much’ (as an example) its so clearly insincere and so obvious that hes telling a joke. the joke is that its obvious to the person hes talking to that hes lying, and its obvious to dave that its obvious to the person that hes talking to that hes lying. thats like.. the whole joke. in fact a lot of his humour ends up with him or his feelings being the butt of the joke, bcaus its like ‘watch me semi-on purposely stumble over all my words, admitting 17 embarrassing truths about myself and then pretending like i just didnt even though we both know i did’

the way this contributes to the general theme of sincerity with dave is so interesting to me bcaus its like... bro gave dave certain social tools and told him he must use them in order to be a Strider, to be a man, and to be cool. you have to employ ironic humour, and you have to belittle others or act like youre above them. thats a huge part of bro’s (and i hate to say it but sometimes dirk’s) sense of humour. its what irony MEANS to him, and such sentiments are what dave parrots at the beginning. if you use irony, then acting like something is cool instantly means you actually think its embarrassing, and people who sincerely like it are stupid. if someone claims they understand your irony, then you can claim that you were in fact PARODYING the level of irony they claim to ‘get’ and so youre STILL on a deeper, smarter level than them. its about being superior, untouchable, and belittling people. see how bro ‘ironically’ puts disturbing things like saw references around the house for dave to see, as if to say ‘this stuff is dumb so im making fun of it. if it scares you then youre taking it seriously, so you dont get the joke, and you arent good enough’. while this sort of behaviour is framed as humourous by young dave bcaus its irreverent, its actually very maliciously intentioned, and doesnt come from a place of wanting to amuse people at all. bro strider is using ironic humour to belittle others. this is the strider template he tries to pass on to dave.

dave uses ‘ironic humour’. and he has been known to talk arrogantly and belittle others. but we know dave is inherently very open, doesnt hold himself in high regard, and is actually pretty affectionate. he likes people, he likes his friends, he likes seeing them happy and safe. he doesnt think hes better than anyone, not really. so he takes this strider template and he warps it so that his arrogance and superiority IS the joke. its ironic that hes acting so cool and untouchable, bcaus hes actually not either of those things, like, at all. the boy just wants to be open and make people laugh, and the tools bro gave him were not gonna help him with that if he used them as intended. so he blurts out honest feelings under the guise of irony, but the REAL irony is that the things hes saying is true. its a game for two people, not just one, where every joke lets the other person know just a little more about daves true thoughts and feelings. he could never say a word of truth but still so clearly be reaching out and leaving himself vulnerable to others. 

i think ive mentioned this before but another point i find significant about how the striders use irony is that, as above stated, bro uses it to put others down bcaus they ‘dont get it’. dave however.... ok. daves magnum opus is sweet bro and hella jeff. and its ‘ironic’ (by daves definition of the term, i guess) bcaus its purposefully bad, and parodies stupid dudebros who are obsessed with weed, video games, and sex. sbahj as an .. entity, pretends like it thinks its cool and good (as its mentioned in canon that some sbahj fans believe it is sincere), but its just stupid trash. and dave knows this. and thats the point. so its ‘ironic’, i guess. but honestly... most of the humour is just derived from how dumb it is. there are poop jokes and dick jokes and typos and jokes where the punchline is someone falling on their comically large backside. humour like that doesnt exclude people for not ‘getting it’. its not complex. its not ingenious. its just. silly. and so his small group of friends, 3 12-13 year old nerds, who he probably should be dunking on for their sincerity if he followed by bro’s laws, love it. they reference it and laugh about it. and he doesnt tell them they dont get it, he just enjoys it. its fun, and its funny, and it brings them together. 

tldr: daves near constant insincerity is a loophole he found in bro’s authority where he can express his sincere feelings and act like a kid. its not hard to decode or see his vulnerabilities, but this is by design. its a survival instinct which allows him to obey bro, without completely stifling his true personality. 

[ducklettwrites]

31 Days of Fanfic: Day 3 “Not By Blood”

Day 3 prompt: Family

Title: Not By Blood

Now available on ao3

Fandom: Fire Emblem: Three Houses

In which Sylvain wants a big brother. 

Rating: Teen and Up. Warning: scenes describing and implying child abuse (both physically and verbally)

Characters: Glenn Fraldarius (fire emblem), Sylvain Jose Gautier (fire emblem)

Pairings: n/a

Author’s Notes: This one is late, and long. Probably the longest one I’ll write for this challenge. I’ve had this planned for a bit, and I greatly underestimated how difficult it would be to translate into words. Now just to say, this fic does deal heavily in themes of child abuse (both verbally and physically). Please be warned. Also, this fic is not ship. Glenn is approximately 15, and Sylvain is approximately 9 (the fact that at this point, Glenn was canonically engaged to a 7 year old greatly disturbs me wtf IS??).

They are Felix’s friends, and you need to treat them with respect.

A fact that his father was quick to remind him of whenever other noble houses were around. Truthfully Glenn had nothing against them, they were only children of course. That didn’t mean they weren’t annoying or tiresome. He was glad that Felix could keep them away from him, occupied with some game they played or whatever. Still, it didn’t hurt to be safe and keep yourself in a position away from their antics.

The training grounds were precisely where Glenn could be to get away. Surely any sensible child knew that running in the same area as arrows flying or swords swinging was not to be attempted. The only company he had to worry about was the mature adults. Though thinking a talk from Count Galatea about his future marriage did little to put him at ease on that front. Nor did the sudden feeling that he was being watched.

Attempting to ignore the feeling, he pushed through more forms, pausing between swings to bury his discomfort. Finding it becoming harder to breathe, he whipped around to face the person so keen on interrupting him. He intended on telling them off, giving them a piece of his mind, or something.

Looking at him with a sense of childlike innocence was the red-haired lanky Gautier child. Glenn found himself tongue tied. Despite his frustration, he knew the verbal lashing that came with yelling at a child, particularly the child of a neighboring house. Racking his brain to find what to say, he chose his words carefully.

“You really shouldn’t be out here.” He said slowly. “You could get hurt.” He hoped that by phrasing it as if he cared would soften whatever yelling came from correcting another man’s child.

Gautier’s child seemed unphased by his words, and simply stared back with an expression mixed of confusion and amusement. This, greatly unsettled Glenn, who was only getting more unnerved by the child’s continued presence. Luckily, he didn’t have to put up with him for long.

“Sylvain? Sylvain come on!” His brother’s voice called for the lost child from the group. Sylvain Gautier did not hesitate in rushing off to rejoin the others, only stealing one last glance in Glenn’s direction before disappearing from the grounds.

Glenn was alone once again, but that did little to calm his nerves. He told himself it didn’t mean anything. Gautier's child was just a foolish little one who wandered too far from the group. Surely nothing would come of this, surely.

-

Border meetings were hell. Several hours of listening to his father speak with the leader of their closest neighboring territory, and Margrave Gautier loved hear himself talk. He hoped no one would be offended that he excused himself to stretch his legs. He especially hoped no one had seen he had already fallen asleep at this meeting, dozing off some time ago only to awake and find the Margrave still talking.

He yawned and stretched, he knew this was all part of the game of nobles. With a sigh, he tried to keep his mind clear, moving through the halls of the family home. He knew he’d have to return to the meeting eventually, but he wanted to try and force himself awake first.

Passing several murals and paintings on the walls, he tried to remember what each had represented, who the portraits were of, anything to stay awake. Slowly he becomes aware of something, someone else watching him. Small footsteps moved quickly to keep up with Glenn’s increasing strides. Finding it impossible to outmaneuver his small stalker, he turned around to face them.

Sylvain Gautier was panting slightly, out of breath. Messy red hair hung over his eyes as he gripped the wall, taking small deep breaths.

This time Glenn found it difficult to hold his tongue. “What do you want?” he said in a regrettably snappish tone.

He thought he saw the child flinch, but tried to ignore it. “Was… wondering… what you were… doing.” Sylvain said between shallow breaths. “Thought… you were… suppose to still be in with… my father.”

Shit. Right. Everything he said would get back to Margrave Gautier, and that’s exactly the drama that his family needed right now was for the kid to squeal. For the sake of not pissing off their neighboring house, Glenn pushed down his annoyance.

“Apologies. And I am.” He adopted a softer, calmer voice through gritted teeth. “I just thought I’d take a quick walk.”

“Are the meetings… you know… boring?” Sylvain was getting better control over his breath now.

Glenn nearly snorted. “Come again?”

“Father says I’ll have to start going soon.” Sylvain explained “He says I need to start taking responsibility as a leader, but they sound boring. I don’t want to sit and watch grown ups talk.”

Neither do I kid. Glenn tried to keep himself from smiling. Another thing he didn’t need was to be blamed as a bad influence. “They’re important.” he forced himself to say eventually.

Sylvain sighed dramatically. “But why though? Can’t they just agree to work together and get it over with?”

It was getting harder to hide his amusement. “It’s not just agreeing that they need to do. It’s tactics and plans to make sure there isn’t an invasion.”

“I guess you’re right.” Sylvain said stretching his arms over his head. “When I take over my house, I’m going to make the meetings fun.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I look forward to it.” Glenn managed to give a bemused smile.

Sylvain was practically beaming in response. It unsettled Glenn slightly but he did his best to hide it, at the very least he would hopefully be out of trouble.

“Sylvain?” His brother’s voice shook him out of the trance he found himself slipping into.

Sylvain turned toward where Felix was calling, but hesitated. Switching glances between Glenn and his companion, clearing waiting for something.

“Go on, Sylvain.” Glenn gently shooed his brother’s friend toward his general location.

Sylvain still hesitated.

“We can continue talking later.” He could kick himself for his words.

Finally satisfied, Sylvain ran off. “Coming Felix!” Glenn heard him yell as he dashed away.

He sighed, and began walking back to the tactics room. At least the kid had no reason to squeal, and worst case scenario, he could avoid a child for a few days.

-

He yelled as the training dummy lost another limb. He was breathing heavier than he cared to admit. He wiped off his sword, preparing for the next strike. Training was a natural way to handle frustration, and boy was it relieving pretending the dummies were any number of stressful people. His father and future father-in-law were the bane of his existence. How the hell was he suppose to think about marriage right now? He would be moving out with his posting soon to patrol along the border. And hell, she was only seven. How the hell was he suppose to love her when she didn’t even know what love was?

Another swing and the dummy lost its head. Glenn stood breathing over the lifeless replica. How soon would he be seeing the real thing? A knot turned in his stomach and he pushed the thought aside. Combat was not to be feared, it was a natural part of being a knight. Glenn reminded himself of how much he wanted it, how much he worked for it, and the feeling subsided. With a sigh, he collected the training dummy and walked back to the edge of the grounds. He would get yelled at to be more careful with them from the maid, but he didn’t care.

Dropping the pieces off near the exit he noticed one of the training swords had been taken. He didn’t have to look far to find its procurer. On the other end of the training grounds, against the light of the setting sun, Sylvain was moving back and forth with the trainer in hand. Every so often, landing an imaginary jab against his imaginary assailant and laughing.

Glenn sighed, and began to move to retrieve the wooden sword to place among the others.

Sylvain had not noticed Glenn until he was nearly upon him. Strangely, the child’s face turned white when he spotted Glenn and he froze. They exchanged looks for a few moments, Sylvain looking like a deer about to be shot between the eyes, before Glenn once again pushed closer. Except each step Glenn made forward, Sylvain moved back.

Not in the mood for games, Glenn dove to grab the wooden sword. Sylvain, however, was small and quick, and backed out of his reach before he could retrieve it. He wasn’t however, well balanced, as he landed in the dirt. Glenn made another move to get the sword, and Sylvain crawled once again out of reach.

Running out of patience, he went for a third grab of the sword. Sylvain dodged him again, but just barely, and dodging did cost him. Glenn was now standing over him and he had no way to slip out.

“I’m sorry.” Sylvain whimpered. He had dropped the sword and adopted a defensive stance, raising his arms over his face and cowering. “I’m sorry sorry sorry.” he was practically chanting the words over and over.

Glenn stood over him, confused. It was as if he was expecting to be hurt. Looking closer at the child’s arms, he could see portions exposed from rolled up sleeves and his heart sank. Cuts, bruises, partially healed, and definitely intentional lined the child’s forearm up to his wrist. He had suspected Margrave Gautier to not be one to spare the rod, but surely a nobleman knew not to damage a part so exposed lest it draw attention.

He pushed his distaste for the Margrave aside, extending his hand out to the cowering Gautier child. It took Sylvain several seconds to realize there was no immediate attack and to lower his arms. It took him longer to realize the outstretched hand was in fact, for him, and was not meant as a threat. He faltered when taking the hand and cautiously pushed himself to his feet. With Sylvain on his feet, Glenn bent down to pick up the training sword.

“I apologize for scaring you.” he said catching Sylvain’s gaze as he stood back up, the child had been crying.

“I should have just said I needed the training sword instead of trying to chase it from you.” Glenn continued.

Sylvain rubbed his eyes with his sleeve, and remained silent.

“If it would make it up to you, I can show you how to properly do that move you were working on. It took me awhile to get good at it too.”

“You’d do that?” Sylvain’s voice was weak, and on the verge of breaking.

“It’s the least I can do to make up for it.” Glenn handed the trainer back to Sylvain and drew his own sword. “Now, when you step forward, you move your arm like this.”

He continued practicing with the Gautier child until dark, and he had to admit the child was a fast learner. Though the injuries still bothered him. He would need to discuss it with his father at a later time.

-

He had been gone for several weeks. The mission lasting much longer than originally anticipated. He never knew how great it would feel to step into his own home again. The relief of being home was brought short as all his other responsibilities caught back up to him. Marriage, politics, training. It was the combat on the homefront.

Glenn wandered through the halls and stopped near the exit leading to the training grounds. It was getting late, but he could not go to sleep now. One or two forms wouldn’t hurt he told himself, pushing out to the open range. The moonlight illuminated shadows of the field. The blackness of night was eerily calming as he drew his sword.

Movement caught his eye from the edge of the ground. Clearly late night practice had not been an idea for him alone. He didn't need to take more than one guess who had come for late night practice.

Sylvain was moving back and forth, trainer in hand, still practicing the form Glenn had shown him all that time ago. He silently admitted the kid had basically mastered it, a high achievement considering Felix was still working on the basics. Though as Glenn watched, he felt something in him tighten. Not every time, but on occasion, when the form called for the arm to extend, Sylvain would wince ever so slightly. It wasn't until he actually dropped the training weapon that Glenn felt the knot in his stomach again.

He had implored his father to look into the matter before he left, on why Felix's friend always seemed reluctant to leave and why he shied away from certain contact or grew nervous when you raised your voice at him. Rodrigue had sighed and promised he could approach the subject, but not promise results. Sylvain was not his child, afterall, and it was not his business how the Margrave handled his child.

It seemed nearly three months later, progress still had not been made. Glenn had to push down his anger, he would talk to his father later. Until then, he would get to the bottom of it as best he could.

"Impressive. You're doing quite well." He did his best to keep from immediately scaring the child as he strode toward him.

Sylvain turned around to face him, surprised. "Thank you!" He called back, practically glowing from the unexpected praise.

"Have you been practicing that one move the entire time?" Glenn was now standing over him, trying to keep his tone even and not arouse suspicion.

"Father says I should be practicing with lances, but I really like the sword." Sylvain jabbed forward with the weapon, striking his imaginary opponent in the ribs. "So I've been splitting it up, lances with father, and swords here."

So he's keeping secrets from him. "Is there any reason your father doesn't want you to learn swords?"

"They're unnecessary." Sylvain made another strike. "I'll be using the family relic, there's no reason to waste time learning the sword." The words were clearly not his own, but one of a prideful parental figure. "But I try to ignore him, I need to learn as much as possib-ah-"

Sylvain had extended his arm only to recoil in pain. Pulling back quickly to cradle the injury, Glenn could hear the child silently cursing to himself.

"Are... you hurt?" Again, Glenn tried to keep his voice even and concerned.

"It's nothing." His voice was barely audible. "It should've healed by now."

Glenn was starting to feel his anger rising. "Can I see it?"

"It's really nothing."

Don't raise your voice, stay calm. "I just want to see, I did learn some healing magic from the knights."

Sylvain hesitated, but eventually pulled up the sleeve with a shaky hand. Glenn's heart dropped. It was quite obvious the arm had been broken, and the bruised outline of a handprint made it clear this was no accident. He tried to breathe, let the white magic flow through his fingertips like he was taught as he ran them down the forearm.

"Who did this to you?" It was getting harder for Glenn to mask his anger.

"It's not important." Sylvain began to shake beneath Glenn's touch.

"If someone is hurting you, it is important." He stopped the flow of magic, but did not fully release Sylvain's arm. "This wasn't an accident, Sylvain. Someone did this to you on purpose and wanted to hurt you. So, who did this to you?"

He watched the fear rise in the child's eyes. "It's really not important." He repeated.

"Sylvain, it is important." He could feel himself getting frustrated. "Who did this to you?"

"It's not important."

"Who did this to you?"

"It's not important!" Sylvain nearly shouted the response before attempting to pull his arm away.

Glenn's grip tightened. "Who did this to you?" He shouted back, keeping Sylvain close.

Fuck. The effect was immediate. Sylvain let out a panicked screech before successfully pulling away from Glenn. He wasted no time sprinting as far as he could. Glenn debated on chasing him, but ultimately decided against it. He had terrified the kid enough for one night.

-

His father had rebuked him for scaring Felix’s friends but nothing more. No mention of the injury, not one word on the child’s treatment. When Glenn brought it up, he was dismissed. It was not his child, he could not interfere. It was terrible, but it could not be changed.

What’s worse is that the kid didn’t even come near him anymore. In fact, Sylvain seemed to give the entire Fradarius clan a wide berth. During border meetings, he was actively avoiding seeing, speaking, or otherwise interacting with anyone. As troubled as Glenn was of the situation, he could not deny that his brother had taken it worse. Felix had, more than once, made him aware that he was the one to ruin his friendship with the Gautier child. Glenn didn’t even bother to argue or defend himself. It would be useless trying to explain what was happening to an eight year old.

To add more shit to the fire, seeing the Gautier clan enter the Fraldarius estate, Sylvain looked the worst he’d ever been. Jumpy, ragged, worn, and so so tired. This kid was suffering, and no one was bothering to cover it up. Someone was getting away with this, and no one, not especially the child’s father, seemed to care.

Glenn hated to admit defeat, it was criminal that this was allowed to continue as it did, but he did admit to a feeling of hopelessness. He had not been able to get the child to admit to wrongdoing on anyone’s part, and now it seemed he had ruined the chance for the subject to be brought up again.

He sighed, pulling himself out of a drowsy haze that was sitting through another lecture by Margrave Gautier on border security. He would wake himself with training, then go to bed, then rise for another long discussion tomorrow. Such is the life of a noble. He pushed out the door to the setting sun.

To his surprise, and horror, he was not alone in the training grounds. Despite how shit Sylvain looked, and honestly must have felt he was doing his best to push through a rigorous practice routine. It was a lance, not a sword, that he had in his hands and was forcing through the same motion over and over again.

He didn’t need to step out far for the child to notice him. Right away, he stopped practicing and was beginning to gather up equipment to leave, all while not looking at Glenn directly. It would be a lie to say it didn’t hurt, even if just a little.

“Before you go” Glenn began to speak, “I’d like to apologize for… for what happened. I really don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry. You don’t have to forgive me, but if you could not let what happened affect your opinion on Felix. He does miss you…”

Sylvain’s back was turned to Glenn, so he couldn’t see the child’s face. It was sudden as he fell to the ground and pulled himself into a ball. He broke into sobs and didn’t even try to run away when Glenn moved closer to him and sat down at his side.

Thankfully, one too many situations like this with Felix had prepared Glenn for how to act. He extended his arm, and pulled Sylvain closer, rubbing soothing circles on his back as he gently shushed him. Though not immediate, the rhythmic patterns began to take effect and Sylvain began to calm down, taking deep breaths between sobs.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Glenn asked, this time determined to sound and stay sounding gentle.

He could feel Sylvain shake his head against his chest.

“Talking does sometimes help, if you can.”

“I’m scared, I don’t want to die.” the child’s words were sobering to say the least.

“You’re afraid… of dying?”

A nod.

Goddess. This kid wasn’t even ten. “Can I ask? About what we were talking about last time, are you afraid of someone hurting you? Someone like your father perhaps?”

Sylvain pulled back from his grasp to look at him in the eyes. “Father? No, he would never hurt me.”

“If he doesn’t, then who does?” Glenn was genuinely confused now.

The child buried his face back in his chest, and muttered something inaudible.

“What was that?”

“I said Mik.” Sylvain repeated, loud enough to hear this time.

“Who’s-?”

“Mik is my older brother.”

Now he was really confused. The Margrave didn’t talk about any other child. The only child besides Sylvain had, to his memory, died right before...oh.

“He’s the worst, and I hate him.”

“He’s the one who hurts you? Doesn’t your father stop him?”

“Well, yeah. Father never lets Mik go unpunished.” Sylvain had now situated himself away from Glenn’s chest and was looking down. “But Mik says that whatever Father does, he’ll do twice that to me, and he means it. I try not to get Father involved if I don’t have to.”

“And this has been going on for how long?”

“Forever. Mik has never liked me.” Sylvain sighed. “I don’t know what I did. It’s not my fault I have a crest and he doesn’t. I tell him that and he doesn’t believe me. I tell him I’m not scared of him, and he laughs at me.” He was getting worked up now. “And it’s not my fault that when I take over, the best thing he could do is be another soldier in my army and die.”

Fuck. No way was this a simple case of sibling rivalry and no way were these words entirely Sylvain’s.

“And that…” His voice dropped low. “That’s why I wanted to spend time with you.”

“Me?” Glenn asked, shocked. “Why me?”

“Because Felix says you’re the best brother ever.”

“Felix must be mistaken. I’m a terrible brother.”

“No you’re not.” Sylvain turned to him and now wore a very serious expression. “You’re a great brother. You don’t get mad when I watch you train, you let me ask questions, and you apologize.” He was getting excited again. “And not only that, but you show me how to do forms and you don’t say mean things when I practice.”

That was just me showing basic decency.

“And you’ve never called me dumb or weak or lazy.” Sylvain continued. “Or told me to die, or threw me down the stairs, or pinned me to a wall.”

The fact the kid continued to pull examples was making Glenn feel sick.

“...Or threw me in a well. Or put a knife to my throat and tell me how I should just do everyone a favor and kill myself.” He stopped, letting go of the energy and sighing. “And I thought… I thought you could be my brother too.”

“You want me to be your brother?” He tried to hide his surprise.

“Yeah.” Sylvain was speaking so soft now. “Felix told me how great it was to have a brother like you, I thought you could be my brother too.”

He could only guess that having a brother like that would make him look like the greatest brother in the world. The fact that he was only treating him with basic respect and decency didn’t matter to this kid, it was kindness he was unaccustomed to from the one who was suppose to fill a role similar to Glenn. He wondered how much praise Felix really needed to give for this kid to come to the conclusion of how he ranked compared to other brothers in the world. Still that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

“Sure.” Glenn finally said. “I’ll be your brother.”

Sylvain’s face lit up, and he pulled Glenn in for an immediate hug. Glenn sighed, pulling the child closer. He knew he wouldn’t be able to protect him from his own brother, but maybe. Just maybe he could soften the blow of having the worst brother in the world by acting like the best.

[flyswhumpcenter]

Keepsakes [Whumptober 2019 - Day 15: Scars]

Summary: Serena asks questions about Shun's scars, bringing them on the path of memories.

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V (post-canon, implied alternate ending) Ship: Established Serena/Shun

Wordcount: 1.171 words

Content Warnings: Brief mentions of surgeries. Some references to a near-death experience. Consensual love.

Notes: It's whump if I mention how the scars happened, right? Because otherwise this is all fluff lol Nano and I got the same idea when I mentioned to her the next Whumptober prompts on my list being, back then, "Tear-Stained" and "Scars" : Peregrine stuff. We need more of it. I'll provide, I don't care how or when, I'll provide. I didn't intend this oneshot to have such a sensual tone, but I'm not against it, I've barely written any intimacy lately. The most sensual thing I've written aside from that was, like, a hug in BWI maybe? (spoils spoils) This is meant to be post-canon where the dimensions have fused together, but the Bracelet Girls and Yu Boys are free and not stuck in one mind because that was bogus/20. Bracelet Girls rights. (this story isn't the right place to complain about Arc-V disappointing us). And of course these two are a little older than they are in canon, they're young people who know what they're doing and can consent. I absolutely self-indulgently slipped a reference to a former work of mine, "Birds of a Feather, Fall Together". I've also included a modified reference to an older Arc-V fic I absolutely love, "placeholders" by harezora (who's most likely never gonna read these notes, but in case they do: I love this story so much it was great and better than canon holy shit). 

Event hosted by @whumptober2019

AO3 version available here.

------

The stare she was giving his chest was a bit too intense to his liking, as if her eyes were deciphering some ancient writing on a wall, scrolling from top to bottom, gliding from the left to the right. For a first night sharing a bed in peaceful condition with so little clothing on either of them (it had taken ages for him to even get comfortable with the idea, let alone putting it into place), it was a weird thing for her to do.

Not like he was any better, considering his own eyes couldn’t seem to unglue themselves from the bits of exposed skin left alone by her pyjamas, trailing from her slender shoulders to her hands, focusing on the few imperfections left on her skin by time and experiences, the easily seen and the barely visible, the memories’ physical form laid before him.

 “What are you staring at like that?” he still asked, right as he himself didn’t look quite exactly into her gaze.

“Your scars”, she bluntly replied.

He found himself puffing.

“They’re terrible, right?”

“They’re scars, really,” she continued, crossing her legs on the bed. “You’ve got a lot of them, but they’re a part of yourself. We wouldn’t be the exact same without them.”

That was a bit too deep for his late-night brain, truth be told.

“I suppose so.”

She must have been right, he silently figured, considering the number of scars he could see on her body.

 Serena’s eyes didn’t deter. In fact, her gaze only grew in strength as it continued deciphering the foreign inscriptions in front of her eyes. Her hand twitched on her tight, fingers in a dire want to move, as if she was preventing them from taking off somewhere else.

“I see that you too have a lot of-”

“Can I ask you about them?”

The question surprised him beyond his mind.

“…Come again?”

“Can I ask you about your scars?”

His eyes were furiously blinking.

“Sure, I guess…?”

 What was so interesting about these? They were just ugly, abhorrent traces left behind by wounds of all sorts. And yet, and yet, he found himself with her fingers dancing around his chest, her touch almost sending shivers down his spine (it was closer to a fluttering feel he wasn’t very familiar with, at least not yet), her eyes shining with the light of the bedside lamp.

He didn’t mind, frankly. It had a weird sense of comfort to have her explore him like this, curiosity filling her every move. It made it far less awkward for him to do the same, his own hands brushing against her shoulders, questions coming to his mind. How had she gotten herself these blemishes on her shoulder blades, as light as they were, near a crescent-shaped birthmark right over her breast? Where did the little scars on her arms came from?

Serena was right: they wouldn’t be the same without their scars. This much he could only realize, now that he was actually discovering someone else’s body for the first time in his life.

 Her fingertip stopped on the freshest scar on his skin, laying right under his ribcage.

“This one is from what I think, right?”

“Our first meeting,” he commented. “Well, the aftermath of it, at least.”

“I remember you trying to escape the hospital right before your surgery. Reiji had to send Tsukikage to stun you before you did because Yuya didn’t want to hurt you.”

Her laugh made it worth the embarrassment.

“Sorry, I just… remember your reaction to it. It wasn’t funny at the time, but now that I think about it… It’s kind of funny.”

 Her eyebrows then slightly frowned, making her smile bittersweet.

“…we didn’t start on the best first impressions, did we? You know, being on the opposite sides of a war, my people wanting to slaughter yours and the opposite way around, the Lancers…”

“I wouldn’t have said that. You were the best first impression I had in that dimension.”

“Was it because I looked like Ruri?”

“Maybe.”

 She smiled as her finger left its spot.

“I’m just glad we’re at peace now.”

“Same here.”

 Silence fell between them, albeit only for a short-lived moment, as her finger was still dancing around, eyes following it, before it found itself another spot to ask about.

“And this one?”

Her touch landed on his abdomen, on an old scar he had almost forgotten about from how used he was to seeing it every morning, every evening, every day, every night. Her eyes were sharp, to notice such a faded-out line.

“An old surgery from when I was a kid. I tried ignoring it, but it wasn’t an option. The best thing I remember about it was Ruri sitting by the bed asking me if it hurt.”

“And, did it hurt?”

“It was just sore, really.”

“What surgery was it?”

“Appendicitis, I think.”

“Ah… Never got it myself. Sounds rough.”

“Don’t,” he laughed, looking back at his younger self lying frustrated in a hospital bed. “It was a terrible time to be alive.”

It wasn’t funny, but she giggled back anyway.

“I’m sure it was.”

 Her irises continued their dance, accompanied by her lips shaped in a soft smile. This was a face he could have never resisted, the one who had won him over when he was refusing to show more skin than his arms to her. She’d be the death of him, now that the people trying to kill his entire kind were gone and on the path of redemption – but what a desirable demise she’d be.

“Oh, and this one?”

Her finger gently pressed against a deeper, much more visible scar on his left flank. That one displeased him much more than he’d have wished to admit.

“I got stabbed by an Obelisk Force jackass back in Xyz, before Yuto and I came to Standard, right in front of Ruri too. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have bled out there.”

“That’s horrible…”

“Wasn’t a cosy time to be alive either. Just shows you how strong my sister actually is. Heh, I was blind back there.”

Serena was quiet, her five fingers now flat on his abdomen.

“Hey, don’t make this face. I’m still here, alive and kicking, and so are you. That’s what matters.”

This managed to bring a small smirk back to her lips.

“You’re right.”

 She eventually sighed, cupping his face with her hands, her slender fingers brushing through his hair.

“I’ll have to tell you about mine someday. I don’t have as many, or with as much history, but…”

“That’s wrong. I’m sure they have more meaning that you’re trying to imply.”

“You think?”

“Try me.”

They exchanged mischievous looks, smiles and gazes swapped.

“For another day, then. We got to make the fun last.”

Peace meant they finally had time before them to enjoy life and all the things it brought with it, good and bad.

“Of course,” he said, before they closed the space between their lips.

[glassmenagerieofmusesarc]

Book vs. Movie

Oh well some people want me to explain my IT muses canon. I guess I will go most to least book canon. This is likely to get long so there will be a cut also this is in no way intended to make people who haven’t read feel lesser, it’s just how I personally balance the various versions in my own writing:

Bill: Bill is pretty exclusively book canon for me. I don’t really like what the movie did with Georgie just being missing--it really changes the dynamic with him and his friends. They also seem to be pushing for him to be more of an artist than a writer and I’m not a fan of that... I also don’t like that in the movie the group turns against him. I get that it was meant to be thematic like “Pennywise is getting to them” but it goes against one of the most fundamental themes in the book--the Losers LOVE each other! In the book they all trust Bill implicitly all the time and he’s de facto leader not because he lost his brother and is the one who is obsessed with IT but because he brings everyone together and watches out for all the others. It is literally canon that all of the Losers had a crush on him at some point... When I write him with people who follow movie canon, I will accept if they want their characters to be mad because I can’t control them but Bill’s brother was dead. There was a body with no arm and a funeral and his parents just forgot he existed. All of that is so important to making him a sympathetic character. I won’t accept anything besides that tbh.

Stan: Stan is largely book canon as well. I don’t care about the painting scene even though it is a good/interesting representation of his inner fears. I prefer the Stand Pipe for reasons that would need to be its own post/rant/novel. With that said... Wyatt does an excellent job with his body language and behaviors in the film. I think he does the closest job to portraying the novel’s version of the character. The small things like him leaving his bike stand up or cleaning the window at Bev’s in a perfect pattern ugh... he’s so good. I do wish they had brought up his birds but I recognize that when you cut the most important scene in the book (bitter much here) you also lose the significance of prioritizing that hobby. Although I do have Stan more aware of being Jewish and what it means than the book often implies, we’re just gonna ignore this idea he’s the most Jewish boy in school with a Rabbi for a dad because--no. Don’t. I have the strongest feelings about this mix of book/film canon because Stan is honestly the most important to me (and yet who hasn’t written him in weeks????)

Mike Hanlon: I mostly changed things from book canon for Mike based on historical specificity. I like the updated timeline aspect and am more comfortable writing in an 80s-00s social climate so I’ve adopted some of the film changes like him being home schooled. I think it’s important to explain his personality as the more timid and withdrawn in a social climate that is less aggressively racist (not that the 80s was perfect or that much better but segregation was over in most places). With that said, you can drag Will Hanlon from my cold dead hands. His family is so good in the book, especially his dad. Whatever they were attempting in the movie was a half-baked failure. Additionally, his experience in the Kitchener Iron Works is super important to both the plot and him personally so that stays. I also will not downplay the amount of research he did... everything Ben so easily pulled out of the library out of boredom took him FOUR YEARS to collect as a set of Oral Histories from all across Derry. I think it’s horrible the movie took that away from him... He is amazing and dedicated and THE researcher, thanks.

Richie Tozier: Richie is the character closest to the film canon for me for a few good reasons and a few not so good reasons. We’ll start with the not so good reasons. One, I’m not good at writing younger Richie in book canon at all. It took reading through adult Richie for me to connect with him as a character and I still prefer to write adult Richie generally. I get him, I can imitate him. I am less good at knowing the amount of intensity for younger Richie at any given moment. Two, the jokes he makes in the movies are easier to write so I fall back on some of the cheaper laughs (dick and fart type stuff) sometimes because I am not a comedian and I am lazy and not clever. 

So ... those are the bad reasons... I do have good reasons that partially balance out my laziness. One, book Richie’s comedy is SOOO painfully outdated. I have my Richie do voices sometimes but I try to steer clear of those that are culturally insensitive (which is more than half of them) and I tend towards more pop culture reference voices much like it seems they will in Chapter 2 based on the Jade of the Orient scene. Even his cheesier one-off jokes are just groan worthy now-a-days so I see little wrong with tending towards more crude modern takes. Two, one of my BIG problems with the movie’s portrayal of Richie’s sense of humor is how cruel it is. He puts other people down and that’s just... not what he would ever do. SO he is also more self-deprecating in my canon to balance that out. Richie is annoying for sure but not an asshole. Eddie is the only person I would ever have him personally pick at that way and only because of his crush. 

The other big difference for me from film “canon” (although it’s just from interviews and shit?!?!) is the idea that Richie’s family is neglectful or abusive in some way. I like his family SOOOO much in the book. It’s like a fucking episode of Leave it to Beaver there. I think his parents are great and that that stability is also why he’s the one most immune to believing in the strangeness for quite a while (This is also a big difference from the film--he is not afraid of clowns, really nothing in particular and also steadfastly believes that none of what happened is real). So my Richie will always be confused if someone is like but you’re afraid of clowns... no more than anything else really. He’s a loyal, brashly brave child and I love him for that. My favorite book scene is when he is the only one who stays after Bill gets emotional about Georgie and he does his best in his own haphazard way to comfort him. That’s the core of the character right there.