hunger is whatever shape the moonlight pulls your shadow into.
The cover and first two pages of a comic about Essek and touch, set just after episode 97 and the reveal of his treachery.
There are nine pages. I will post them in batches as I finish them, and each post will be updated with the links to the other pages. 💜
I've had this idea sketched out for several years (check out my user icon, which hasn't changed since I made this account 😉 ), and I am excited to finally sit down and finish it! Here's a close-up of the Rosohna and Xhorhaus panel on page 2.
An absence is also a presence, no?
Poetry source is ONE SIDE OF AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GHOST OF MARVIN GAYE by Hanif Abdurraqib.
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It's a little bit fucked up that Bhaal had Durge kill every connection they made with their own hands - foster family, and paladin Drge (and presumably other classes with their own equivalents to) slaughtering their paladin order, and whatever those repeat incidents where they broke their oath was - and forced them to become his vessel.
And then, on the non-Chosen path, Durge is torn away from their family and forced to kill everybody they knew and possibly cared about with their own hands.
Sure, objectively the latter is different: the first case was them being moulded into the puppet of a god, and the second leaves them with a blank slate and the ability to be a better person and determine their own path in life. We think. Yes, I'm glaring at you, Withers.
But does it feel that way for them?
And there's as much blood on their hands as that on the corpses they've left on the ground. Orin and Gortash's crimes were also their crimes. Orin is no different to Durge, she had no choice in her life, she just never got the chance to ever be different. Durge shouldn't be different, Jergal just decided to step in and "make it all better" - and where was this divine intervention decades ago, before a "little Urge" hadn't yet torn apart a family in their own home, or before they came anywhere close to inflicting the Absolute on the world? Why does it come when it's too fucking late.
The main plot was their plan! They are the main villain of this story, they just wandered onto the wrong side of the conflict! By accident! In this little narrative of heroes and villains, bar a single accident, Durge would be left rotting on the floor next to their little sister and the tyrant they admired. It's not like this is necessarily a redemption arc either! Durge can still be an absolute monster!
Also how the fuck do you even start to atone for all the horrors they committed? Does saving x amount of people really do anything to alleviate the harm they've already done? How much culpability do you assign to somebody who only has the pretence of autonomy?
There are other ways to interpret Durge and how they experience their redemption/"redemption" arc, of course, but if I were them I'd want to nap for a week after the final battle. Or a month. Maybe a few years...
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Thinking about "your weakness is how you always want to be the hero" and how the series returns to this at the end
Li Lianhua hated how he acted as Li Xiangyi and spent years trying to distance himself from it, but ultimately he still fell back into the similar patterns, for all his added experience
His main priority was always to "do the right thing" regardless of how that would impact on those around him. And it *did* impact those around him. From Qiao Wanmian and Shan Gudao as Li Xiangyi to Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng as Li Lianhua
Giving the Styx flower to the emperor so he could use it as leverage to guarantee Fang Duobing and his family's safety. Using the last of his power to save Yun Biqiu. Constantly putting others above himself whilst actively refusing to recognise that his self-sacrificial nature would hurt those he cared about most
And sure, he thinks he's going to die anyway. They're going to be hurt regardless and he can't do anything about that. His odds are low of the Styx flower even working. But ultimately, he refuses to even consider trying. Li Xiangyi has been dead a long time and Li Lianhua is just there to tide things over. What value is the life of a ghost
To the end, he lives and dies a hero. To the end, he refuses to live for himself.
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