#Don’t read it if it doesn’t interest you it’s pure speculation

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

anyone want my 1600 unstructured rant about morality and fate in the first age? Here, it’s yours.

Absolute morality concerning doom and fate in Tolkien’s Silmarillion

The justification and persecution of the first age and its participants are heavily discussed, heavily disputed topics. In this we will explore the relevance of the first age to Eru’s plan, the extent of its events as products of fate, and the eventual moral judgement of participants in light of actions and given circumstances. Lore used follows the published Silmarillion (Ainulindalë, Valaquenta, Noldolantë) and the End of Days prophecy most recently given by Tolkien. We aim to draw accurate moral judgments and either demonstrate reasoning for or create hypotheses of characters’ fates by examining textual evidence of Eru and the Valar’s moral standings and involvement.

Of Eru Iluvatar, little is given. Here, we assume he is motivated by love for creation, and he would pass this to the three races of his children as their purpose of existence. Therefore the End of Days ushers in a peace free of evil that is devoted entirely to creative progress. However, the action of the first ages is concerned with the destruction of evil (being wilful and unprovoked immorality) due to Melkor’s rebellion. Let is infer that Eru has foreseen Melkor is incurably evil, and thus sees he must be wholly destroyed or absolutely captured; we infer also the existence of a law of conservation of power as a tenant of Eru’s plan (which men alone can withstand). Given this, the hand of men is needed to overcome Melkor’s power. Eru, who has power to create souls tied to the life of Arda, possessive of greater power— elves, and souls dissevered from it, possessive of lesser— men, contrives to mix them and breed a new race.

This new race is that of the Dúnedain. They have strength enough to face Melkor and can subvert the law of conservation of power, evidenced by the prophesied role of Ar-Pharazon’s fleet in the End of Days (wherein they will be unburied and their alliance decide the winning side). Before the siege of Utumno the quendi were taken to Valinor, and must return to meet men and breed the numenorean race. To the end Eru applies himself.

After Melkor’s first capture, he is offered mercy. This is a principled act: though Melkor had no remorse or feasible excuse, it is overhasty to punish a first-time offender. Melkor is instead given three ages of waiting and a chance to beg for release. This is similar to the fate of slain elves in Mandos. It is reasonable to assume that Eru was aware Melkor was incurable but knew also the initial forgiveness was necessary. In anticipation of his betrayal, and the darkness to come, Eru brought to life Fëanáro, greatest of elves, and put it into his mind to create the Silmarils. Fëanáro and his bloodline are designed as the vassals of the Noldor, responsible for leading them to Beleriand and protecting them from Melkor (evidenced by the march of Maedhros) while the first peredhil are born. Finwë’s second, marriage, too, was of Eru’s devising: he perceived Fëanáro and his kin were too volatile, thus the line of Fingolfin sired the numenorean race.

Nargothrond and Gondolin, devised at Ulmo’s will by Turgon and Finrod, were both indispensable in the creation of the peredhil lines. Of Nargothrond, King Finrod Felagund’s loyalty saved Beren Erchamion; of Gondolin, Tudor and Idril there met. They are therefore necessary to Eru’s plan. Of the meeting of Elwing and Earendil, it may be said that the respective falls of Doriath and Gondolin were necessary, though the manner in which this occurred (the turning of kin against kin) may not have been.

Now we examine the independent actions of Noldoli relevant to the designs of fate above described. First and foremost is the oath, which can be named rather rash than evil (though there may be evil in Fëanáro’s forcing of its swearing upon his children, the acts committed in its name are independent). Fëanáro’s following of Melkor to Beleriand to avenge his father and reclaim his property is not suspect, but the first kinslaying is. It was later proven that the Helcaraxë was not an impossible path, therefore making the weighing of Fëanáro’s need against the Teleri’s sentimentality obsolete. It can be claimed that the Teleri ought to have joined in Fëanáro’s cause or given the boats willingly, but it cannot be claimed that battle was an appropriate solution. Of the burning of the boats, we say Fëanáro’s actions were wilful, but not unprovoked: the early death of his mother, remarriage of his father, and the latter’s recent murder suggest significant grief and trauma, such that Fëanáro’s actions, while morally wrong, were not evil.

Fëanáro is the first elf we can properly describe as victimised, as his parents’ situation was outside of his control. Eru likely arranged it such so that Fëanáro would grow hale and steely, and thus be capable of leading his people to exile, and it is a similar thing that is done to Maedhros. His captivity in Angband taught him the internal strength needed to hold the east against Melkor, and thus allow the births of the peredhil and creation of the numenorean strain. These situations (and many similar) complicate the judging of acts based on immediate morality alone, for the undeserved emotional suffering occasionally accounts (as in the case of Dior withholding the Silmaril). Of Celegorm and Curufin in Nargothrond, much of their actions can be ascribed to the power of the oath: explaining but not justifying their part in Finrod’s death. This was their treachery not wilful and not evil. Their withholding of Luthien may be pronounced evil, though softened as it did no lasting damage— except, perhaps, politically between Doriath and the sons of Fëanáro, excusing Thingol and Dior’s withholding of the Silmaril.

Of Beren and Luthien, their actions were sound though directly contributed to the provocation of the oath and subsequent kinslayings (explaining but not justifying them). Whether the retrieval of one Silmaril was necessary to Eru’s plan or not is questionable: what would have happened if Thingol had not demanded such a price? Their quest is the crux around which the first age falls, and though it inadvertently caused great tragedy, it is likely alone responsible for the meeting of Earendil and Elwing, and their sailing to and convincing of the valar (a last resort). Thus is the second kinslaying in a sense completely justified: as a necessity of fate.

Unless one holds the Silmaril itself responsible for the safe passage of Earendil to Valinor (thereby necessitating the third kinslaying) then for Sirion can no excuse be made. The action of the oath alone and the psychological torment of the remaining brothers is sufficient to turn hate into pity; though one may not go far as to say they had no choice, one is compelled to offer forgiveness. Integral to the viciousness of this act are both the relatively defenceless state of Sirion and the importance of the Silmaril to its people: in this case, the benefit it brings outweighs the natural claim Fëanáro’s sons have for it. Elwing would have been morally right to suggest surrendering the Silmaril on the condition the brothers keep it in Sirion, but her suspicion of them due to their ransacking of her home prove this is not unprovoked, though still unjustified.

Here the nature of the oath is discussed. Foremost in discourse is its universal nature, such that even Fëanáro and his kin themselves are subject to it, and the supernatural power it has upon the foresworn. It is unclear whether the oath refers only to current perpetrators, or to those past including. If the latter is true then doomed are all foresworn, if only the former then the oath’s end shall come at the End of Days, when the Silmarils are broken (this particular act unspecified in their oath) and the oath becomes void.

Of Elu Thingol can we be most judgemental. If we hold the necessity of Beren’s quest in creating the numenorean line as unproven, then his hubris may be condemned as rash (similar to the swearing of the oath). Indeed, these two acts work against each other in the kinslayings. Thingol’s initial coldness towards the noldor is explained by their slaying of his brother’s kin, and his refusal to surrender the Silmaril by his hatred for their capture of his daughter. The latter especially is morally incorrect, though the Silmaril’s growing hold on him (which would lead to the fall of Doriath) again would turn our hate to pity. Thingol’s actions may be judged as no better nor no worse than those of Fëanáro’s sons.

Thus is no individual in the first age wholly evil, though the kinslayings and Thingol’s bride price may be held as morally wrong (as are Thingol and Dior’s withholding of the Silmaril). Of punishment, the suffering of the perpetrators would beg mercy, and, indeed, the fates of Maedhros and Maglor may be called apt. The torment of Maedhros as necessary in his role as Lord of Himring in particular may absolve this, and the peculiars of his mental state regarding the Nirnaeth Arnoediad as relative to its inspiration by Beren’s quest further complicate the matter of Thingol’s innocence, and further insinuate that Maedhros’ actions were not entirely wilful.

Inconsistencies between the silmarillion and our understanding of Eru’s plan may be understood through the intervention of men. Beren being the most prominent: his and Luthien’s love, provoking the bride price and then the quest, was doubtless unexpected. The Silmaril’s retrieval being half Luthien’s doing, it is possible that Eru foresaw her completing a similarly great deed (simply the overthrow of Sauron’s tower, perhaps) which he would hold to provoke the Nirnaeth Arnoediad: in his eyes, perhaps, a winning battle. It is, though, Ulfang’s betrayal that ultimately ruins the plan. Thought this text concerns itself only with the fates of elves, of Ulfang it can be said his deed may only be repented should the numenorean fleet side with the Valar in the Dagor Dagorath. Indeed, the End of Days alone brings full forgiveness for many actions of the first age, the fate of the Silmarils being with both entwined.

[sunshine-zenith]

This is kinda a part two to this post here, about Ballister’s scar. Specifically I wanted to speculate a bit on Ballister’s relationship with Queen Valerin when you consider the fact that he was a mistreated and vulnerable child when he met her

Like. Look at this moment here

She’s reassuring him. She genuinely believes in him, and it’s clear from the knighting ceremony, when she specifically lowers her voice to tell him how much she’s been looking forward to this moment that her intentions around him a pure. She wants to change things, she wants to give this kid a chance, and she’s killing two birds with one stone by making him a knight

But like Nimona herself says, question everything

Look a little bit closer at this image — the queen is well dressed and already had a statement prepared. Ballister is dressed in rags and looks like he hasn’t even been given the chance to wash his hair. He looks surprised and a little scared when the media erupts with questions. And I don’t think this was the Queen’s doing, necessarily — odds are the Director was the one who was supposed to prepare Ballister, and chose not to, because she probably knew that while the Queen wouldn’t judge him for looking like the homeless kid he was, the media would. Still, it shows that while the Queen has overall say on Ballister’s future, she doesn’t have a lot to do about his present

Ballister says he loves the Queen, but it’s hard to tell if he meant he loves her like you’d love a family member, or if he “loves” her like someone who has been raised to not question authority “loves” said authority. He took a deep breath and looked to Ambrosius during the knighting ceremony, not to her. She realistically probably wasn’t super involved, even if she wanted to be — she had an entire kingdom to run, other knights to knight, and likely spent her days making progressive decisions that were controversial with the conservatives in her kingdom. Plus, if she had been super involved, it could’ve increased bias against him, like she was favoring him above everyone else — Ambrosius seemed overall not sure popular among the knights, and while they respected his authority when he was put it charge, there was definitely a vibe that they resented him for being the “Golden Boy” descendant of Gloreth.

Let’s compare Bal and Queen Valerin to Comic!Ballister Blackheart and one of the Queen’s inspirations, Dr. Blitzmeyer (the other was the king, who was a basically prop that was referenced heavily in relation to Ballister as someone he should kill before dying off screen).

Blackheart and Blitzmeyer end the comic opening a lab together, working as co-scientists. Blackheart clearly thinks of her as a friend, but she thinks of him as a fond colleague for most of the comic — she’s happy to offer help in the form of exposition, and she helps him save the day by giving him a McGuffin That You Just Gotta Read The Comic To Understand, but part of her is worried he’s a rival scientist that wants to steal her ideas. She still welcomes him in her home and offers him team. When he’s at the end of his rope and needs a comfort hug, she awkwardly indulges him

She’s surprised when he puts her down as his emergency contact

Dr. Blitzmeyer is a quirky scientist that hangs out on conspiracy forums and probably practices witchcraft for the sake of scientific study. Queen Valerin is a warm and progressive monarch who makes controversial decisions. And they make big decisions regarding helping Ballister

Remember the reluctant McGuffin handover?

She’s weighing the odds of him lying to her and stealing/tampering with/destroying it, hesitating before trusting him. If she had said no, a lot more people would’ve died in the comic, but she had no way of knowing that. She was barely interested in looking out her window and just worried the thing she spent years on would be wrecked

Now, the Queen — we don’t see her weigh the pros and cons of letting Bal become a knight, but she had to. And consider what she was presented with: a homeless kid with either no family or an abusive one judging from his scars and bruises. He had no adults in his life to protect him. No one to tell her no, making him essentially a child soldier might not be in his best interest. And he jumped a fence into the middle of a knight training session declaring he wanted to be a knight, basically coming to her — essentially the perfect candidate for her semi-social experiment

I can totally see her in another world letting this kid into her home and giving him tea and comfort, but I don’t think she could here. While she meant good, she took in a kid with nothing to lose and gave him everything to lose (a home, education, likely his first friend, safety), while also putting him under unavoidable social pressure. And she did it while the only adult figure other than her in his life, the one who would actually be involved in his upbringing — the Director — openly and defiantly failed him from the get go, and protested letting him join the knights to her face

Y’all I adore Queen Valerin, even if we only got her for like five minutes. Even if it’s in a speculative sense I like that she’s a good person while morally gray actions. She very much improved Ballister’s circumstances by giving him a home and the opportunity to pursue his interests. She clearly cared about him. She’s also a politician who, even if unavoidably, lowkey set him up to be a scapegoat without a backup plan and no outside support

Like. Y’all.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Reading the S2 reviews (so beware spoilers ahead!). Wanted to get your take (and others’ if people have thoughts!), citing The Wrap’s review:

“Daniel might be the most radically different character from book to screen. He’s older, more pessimistic and utterly allergic to the allure of vampire life. Only now he is able to confront the deep-seated scars left behind after his night with Louis (although book fans might be disappointed to know that the show doesn’t tease out more of the romance he has with Armand in the books. Theirs is strictly an adversarial relationship in the series.)”

Other reviews confirm that S02E05/the episode about Daniel’s past is not romantic at all, rather a horror episode. Which I’m sure will be good (some describe it as the best episode), but I can’t help being a bit disappointed that they don’t seem to be doing DM - or at least not in this season at all. I think the reviews only cover episodes 1-6, but this reviewer seems so very sure… (also they seem to know the books so I’m guessing the episode won’t be too similar to the book either. Meaning it won’t end with “the chase” or will it?). So is there a real risk that no DM will play out?. The greatest hint of DM in my view was Zaman’s podcast appearance where he stated that Armand is curious about Daniel and that there is a history there. But this could just be referring to their horror-filled encounter in episode five. So I don’t know, I’m a little sad - was pretty excited for some f*cked up memory stuff (there is just something so compelling with the idea of discovering that there is a whole side of your life that you’ve lost - that this person you don’t know is someone you loved etc.). I wanted to see what it would do to Daniel and Armand respectively, and I wanted their dynamic to be as interesting as possible. Remember reading speculation that Daniel will remember more in the finale - maybe a romantic aspect but I think it was just pure speculation, no hints or comments from the cast/writers backing this up.

What do you think? Grateful to hear your thoughts! Also, I’m still psyched about this season of course, looking forward to the Armand/Louis romance, the Theatre! Hayles performance is supposedly going to be amazing, and I’m looking forward to more of Daniel’s snark obviously! It feels unreal that the season is around the corner!

It is!!! And I am also sooooo hyped, it's unreal *laughs*

Okay, so... first of all, it's always a thing of perspective with reviews. For example, there's this as well, after episode 1:

Now... that is no review, granted.

But it's perception. I... do not think that all of the "Devil's Minion" will be spelled out in the first episodes (nor do I think we will get all of it this season!). In fact, I think the horror that "he loved this monster" is part of the horror of it all, this realization. And that will very likely be in the last episodes, in whichever way.

So. With that in mind - btw, which review did confirm it's ep5? (I only saw that focused comment I think?) - I did not expect Devil's Minion to be "happy". In fact, I think it might have stalking, cages, attacks, and the beginning of the chase - and that chase does NOT start out as cute.

Daniel just gets used to it, over time. And then Armand falls in love.

Season 2 is going to be significantly darker. I bet it's also going to be a lot campier, if the comments to this hold true, with dark humor. But they're leaning fully into the horror aspects of this vampire world now, and the beginning of the Devil's Minion is exactly that - horrific.

The above review matches with what Jacob said about Louis and Daniel forming alliances... and I bet that alliance is indeed needed to drag the whole story out.

And when that whole story is out - that will lead to repercussions.

THAT in turn goes for Louis just as much as it goes for Daniel... because this second interview has just as much to do with him.

So... I would wait until you can see it with your own eyes?! :)

I mean... AMC's promotion(and pairing of the actors) speaks a very loud language? And Assad said he had chemistry read with "Daniel"... for reasons.

But it won't all be revealed in the screeners. I bet the last two episodes will pack a punch.

Maybe even literally. 😜

[wataksampingan]

This was supposed to be some form of Therdeo Dane Lapileon Defense Thesis but my brain cannot pull off all the necessary research to do it justice.

So I guess let’s just brain dump all my thoughts and feelings?? About this manhwa?? (Spoilers for the story up to episode 63 on Webtoons and 66 on Naver Webtoons)

...this also gets FAR too long so cut is here for sanity’s sake. Tl;dr Theo Lapileon is a wounded puppy and I want him to be happy gdi

I need to preface the Theo content by saying that I adore Pereshati. I think she’s one of the more realistic heroines that I’ve read, in the sense that she’s plucky and determined but she damn well knows how the game is played. Every move she makes is plagued with doubt and uncertainty coz she’s only a minor noble, and one with an unbelievable story at that. (Resurrecting after being fed poisonous blood and getting thrown back in time is a stretch for anyone). But whenever she does decide to do something, she handles herself with the kind of poise you’d expect from a grown woman who knows how polite society works. It’s the kind of elegance and maturity that the novel’s Perry doesn’t have.

I wonder very much how seungu would have thrown Perry into Theo’s way if they had had full control of the adaptation because the first... 10? episodes or so reads very much like a typical isekai manhwa: she’s murdered, she awakes, and then immediately besieges Theo with a proposal, simply because he needs to marry someone to get the emperor/princess off his back. The Perry we see currently in the latest chapters would likely have done something smarter/more socially acceptable/conventional simply because imperial pressure or no, why the fuck would the grand duke entertain a minor noble they’ve never met before?

Granted, this is quite in line with Theo’s character in the first few episodes as well (which is lampshaded in a later chapter AND I LOVED IT) whose excuse for entertaining her absurd request/proposal is just “I got curious about the woman who kept bombarding us with messages”. The Theo we see later, who just burns letters from the Fourth Princess Dodolea without even thinking about it, would have hardly buckled under that kind of insistence.

This is all pure speculation of course because the artist, seungu, has no social media I could trace. The original novel’s writer, Han Yoonseol, has Twitter and various socmed that show an active writing career and interest in the MILAOWM webtoon. But the artist? Nothing, apart from their work. They’ve completed a previous series (Google translated to “New Year’s Taste”) but that also seems like an adaptation. I have no access to their thought process, rationale or any inkling of why certain decisions were made. 

Whatever the case though, those decisions so far have me hooked. They’re making changes that reflect something more... realistic, with higher stakes and actual consequences for the actions of the characters. E.g. you can’t humiliate, much less threaten, members of the nobility at a public function in front of a crowd without some sort of retaliation. Theo in the novel actually threatens to kill a nobleman in cold blood in front of a gathered audience whereas Theo in the manhwa does this in private.

Well, I say threaten. In the manhwa, he has just a fraction of the dialogue Novel!Theo says. Just one or two lines before he snaps and is about to decapitate a mofo before being restrained by his guards. The bullying incident that precipitates this is also dealt with realistic actions and importantly, contains a reflection on Perry’s part about the power and privilege the Lapileons have in this universe. I don’t know if this foreshadows anything but my mind has gone as far as the dissolution of the empire/defection to an enemy kingdom (and the loss of their noble titles) by the end of the whole manhwa. Far-fetched? Maybe, but I have so much faith in seungu by now and so little idea of what they’re planning that I won’t be surprised.

Manhwa!Therdeo Lapileon is also extremely taciturn and poker-faced, to all the natural disadvantages this sort of personality entails. Everything we know about him is told in silent images, or expressions we explicitly don’t see. This is a man who believes in actions over words, who has no idea that open communication is a Thing and that doing stuff behind a person’s back without telling them can backfire at times (”I’m gonna have someone follow my wife’s ex-fiance around without telling her, and that got her kidnapped. SHIT.”) And all the backstory that’s been hinted at so far gives us very sad explanations how he turned out this way.

One could very justifiably argue that actually, the entire Lapileon family is a collection of sad iron woobies. Saoirse lost her husband and only son because of her own blood, Phineas is doing his level best to save his family but keeps seeing them die despite his medical expertise, Gloria probably had a HELL of a marriage to survive this long, and the poor children have had their own bouts of suffering and daddy issues. And of course there’s also Pereshati who’s been murdered about 3-4 times at this point, and lost a most beloved father to a stepmother she loved to the moon and back.

BUT. Theo.

If the housekeeper’s flashback in Episode 47 is anything to go by, and if I’m guessing right, Theo and Saoirse’s father (maybe grandfather? Unclear at this point but let’s go with father for now) was a nightmare of a man. Slaughtering servants for infractions was probably a regular threat in the Lapileon home, and judging from that flashback during the episodes when they first find Islette, so was torturing and testing his younger son’s limits. His survival in the family was due to his “usefulness”.

One can suspect that of the three siblings, Theo was the one with the softest heart. We have no idea what his older brother (Celphi’s dad) was like yet and Saoirse is a Lapileon to the core: toughened enough to do what is needed, hardened even further by tragedy. She’s also a mom, which is why harming Islette earned Gen a rightful and vicious stiletto-heels-to-the-face-ass kicking. It also gets Theo a reprimand: get his shit together or step down from the headship of the family.

(And I’m just. Saoirse, honey, I love and respect you immensely and to be stepped on by your footwear of choice would be my honour. But that’s your younger brother we’re talking about. And he’s been emotionally sucker punched in just about every aspect. He’s trying, okay?)

I’m just saying that when you’re a child, and abused to that degree, sympathy from the devil is still sympathy. Of course it echoes to the present day even as a full-grown, supposedly rational adult. Of course it’s going to fuck you up.

You were also probably raised to put family above all (witness Theo not trusting Perry with the full truth of Celphi’s condition until circumstances force his hand, Saoirse only fully warming up to her once it’s clear she loves Celphi without any ulterior motive, Gloria immediately expecting her to be wrong about the family blood being sold, only to be confounded by the awful truth that this stranger to the family was right). You’ve been operating on the full expectation that any Lapileon would follow that creed. How could they not? Their curse is too great a responsibility.

Then you’re forced to confront the devil who once gave you rare comfort as a child, and that devil bears your family name and blood. Not only does he spout the most heinous things you’ve never imagined, he also manages to hit you where it hurts: you have used your blood. You have used it for your own benefit. Are you truly no better than he is? Who are you to judge him?

(Never mind that the devil is a liar and is trying to save his own ass which is why Saoirse, who has a better understanding of her own identity and self-worth, doesn’t give him enough time to say anything - she just kicks the shit out of him)

Is it any wonder Theo hesitates to do anything harsher?

Everything he does implies a reluctance to inflict lethal force if it can be helped. Perry remarks on it when he first removes Schiff without killing him the day they got married. He doesn’t even draw his sword on the assassin at the parade, merely KICKING HIM INTO ORBIT subduing him long enough to be taken in by the guards. The only times he has killed someone in the story is Perry’s ex-fiance who had kidnapped and blackmailed her, and... well, Perry herself.

(Which again goes back to that weird early episode installment - how do you reconcile him feeding her his blood in such a cavalier manner with the gravity of his responsibility as head of the family to ensure their blood isn’t used exactly like that?

You give him a HUGEASS dose of remorse and guilt later on when Gen accuses him of also using the blood to his own advantage, and then have him offer a sincere apology to the woman he experimented on.)

He also very nearly murdered the father of the child who bullied his ward. But even that was prevented by Raymon, the guard. This is more speculation on my part but his personal guards - who are all loyal to him beyond a doubt - may have been instructed (by him?) to restrain Theo, maybe to make sure he doesn’t repeat the sins of his father who just murdered people as and when it suited him. I don’t know if seungu would even bring this up at some point but I’ll be thrilled if that is the case.

This abusive childhood is compounded by the trauma of war. Theo specifically is credited with just swooping in out of the blue and ending the conflict between the Castor Empire and the kingdom of Schwartz. His reaction to being hailed a hero is to show up covered in blood to report to the emperor, and then disappear back to the country without attending any ceremonies. It earns him the notorious reputation of being “the bloodthirsty war fiend”.

Judging from Episode 13, what he really earned was a lifelong diagnosis of PTSD and various other neuroses. “Fuck this noise, I’m going home” was a reasonable reaction from a man who has no care or time for polite society. I'd go a bit further to suggest he also didn’t want to hear his actions being lauded as heroic when all he experienced was violence and death (re: that line about him being glad his statue was destroyed, that it’d been a stain on his honour). Whatever he did was to satisfy the emperor who has some form of hold over him, and absolutely no respect for the Lapileons (every single reaction from any imperial family member, even creepy Dodolea, has been sneering condescension or reluctant compliments). So from that perspective, why the hell would he have stayed to schmooze at the castle?

There are no therapists in Castor clearly coz Theo does what most soft-hearted introverts do and represses the shit out of his trauma. Just... stuff it WAY down into the depths of his subconscious and never address it because what the fuck else would you expect him to do? Talk about his ~*~feelings~*~ in the Lapileon house where weakness is a death sentence? No, he bundles it all behind his iron mask and resigns himself to literal nightmares for the rest of his existence.

The timeline has yet to be properly established, but I'm guessing that he comes back from war only to find that his brother has died and sister-in-law has just upped and left. Which means baby Celphi is left in his care. I’m not sure why Saoirse wasn’t the one to adopt him, but I’m guessing since he’s the next in line to the grand dukedom, it ‘makes sense’ that Grand Duke Therdeo has to be in charge of him. (Saoirse not being able to become head of the family just because she’s a woman is another sticking point that I suspect will be key to resolving this entire mess) (how/when exactly he becomes Theo’s ward is subject to many theories since the timeline of the story hasn’t been actually clearly explained; a guess that a friend and I have settled on is perhaps at the time, securing Celphi’s place as a ‘spare heir’ after Saoirse, Saoirse’s son and Theo in the line of succession would have been a practical decision. Either that or, more plausibly, Theo saw Celphi in himself and just decided to adopt the boy. Which makes this next part even more tragic)

The image of Theo in a soldier’s uniform looking helplessly into the cradle, with baby Celphi reaching up to him, broke me when I first saw it. It explains every mistake Theo made in trying to raise him.

He was a soldier. What the hell would he know about raising children (even if the theory that he chose to adopt this boy is correct)? He loves this tiny child with every breath, and he’d do anything for Celphi - but most of what he knows is how to fight and die. How the fuck does that help?? Not only that, his only experience of fatherhood is the shadow of a man who abused him so severely. What is that supposed to teach a man about parenting?

Clearly not much, considering his very shocked reaction when Celphi ends up demanding what he was supposed to think when his guardian/uncle kept ignoring him all the time while he was growing up.

And the boy is correct. Theo has no answer. He fucked up (again), and he didn’t know he was fucking up so hard.

But my god, he keeps trying to make up for it. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, but Theo shows up every day to pick him up from school with Perry; he’s even glad Celphi yells at him about killing Perry because that means he’s not turning out to be Therdeo 2.0. Celphi is expressing feelings and opinions and even if they turn the boy against him, so be it - at least it’s coming out. It may be too late for Theo to learn how to express emotions but at least his ward won’t make the same mistakes.

Which is why IT HURTS SO MUCH IN EPISODE 63 TO SEE HIM SO CRESTFALLEN. After suggesting to Perry she stay away from the Lapileon house for a while, she says she will and the dialogue translates to:

“Thank you for your kind consideration.”

THERE ARE THREE - T H R E E - PANELS where his face/expression isn’t shown at all but you can ABSOLUTELY TELL HE’S 360 DEGREES OF ANGUISHED.

This woman - this beacon of hope that he’s come to have feelings for (all the subtle blushing and unseen pining looks have been sprinkled very well throughout the chapters so far) - has just had to go through the ordeal of a trial (along with months of preparation before that) where she had to send her stepmother to 35 years of hard labour, among other things, for the murder of her father. She's just had to reconcile the mother she knew with the killer sitting in the dock, and the cries of a stepsister she once loved. And all this with the knowledge that it's the Lapileons’ blood that ultimately killed her father. There’s a stray thought that poisonous blood or no, her stepmother would have found some way to kill her dad.

But it doesn’t change how it was their blood - his blood - that killed Count Zahardt. It is Lapileon blood that has tortured Perry, the woman responsible for bringing out the best in his adopted son, discovering little Islette and bringing warmth back to this frozen wasteland of a household (to paraphrase Daniel Molton who is a treat of a character, I love him so much).

Yes, he's essentially thrown his immense resources into legal recourse, released her from their obligatory contract, and offered her help in being independent and free from them. He's done many, many things to try and make her current situation comfortable.

Yet the fact remains that she basically rescued so many parts of his life, and he inadvertently destroyed hers. Nothing he does will bring her father back.

Yet she won’t curse him or his family, won’t demand any form of recompense, won’t even give him the cold shoulder, despite everything in her that says she should. Her line “leave me be so I can resent you” is so good and so sad and my HEART disintegrated.

The most ironic thing is that Theo would’ve probably understood that reaction better. The justified reaction would have been to storm and rage at him. He knows what to do with anger.

Instead, she said thank you for your kind consideration.

And he can’t say anything to that as she walks away.

HIS LIFE HAS BEEN AND IS FUCKING SAD. AND IT’S GOING TO GET WORSE.

Episode 64 is already up on Naver and Dodolea is about to do a NUMBER on his ALREADY VERY FRAGILE PSYCHE. What she calls love - and what some of us may have suspected as straightforward obsession for his attentions - is seeming more and more like a love of torturing him, and watching him squirm.

He has to sit for a portrait in the palace (emperor’s orders probably because he just wants to jerk Theo’s chain around), and cannot escape when she comes into the room to sit and watch. There’s no good reason for him to leave, so he just has to grit his teeth and bear it.

And she laughs at his discomfort. She laughs and calls it “cute”.

The rage and fear in his face when she does so is alarming from someone whose poker face is usually immaculate. It sucks so much strength/spirit from him that it alarms Daniel who greets him at the house. I have a feeling that he’s about to just shatter into pieces since Episode 66′s thumbnail has him turned away, lying on a pillow. And then I will shatter, coz this dude CANNOT catch a break.

At some point, I came to the conclusion that Theo was soft-hearted and I cannot tell you when exactly that was. It's testament to how seungu weaves in his quiet charm throughout the chapters so we can see why Perry might possibly fall for him apart from his handsome face (even if at this point, that is the FURTHEST thing from her mind). There are huge things of course like rescuing her from her kidnapping and financing her legal battles.

But the little warm things speak volumes: learning how to dance so he could accompany her to a ball, saying yes immediately when she suggests maybe he could just reply to people, telling the servants to make her special tea when he found out she also had trouble sleeping, bringing a hot water pack(?) to ease her cramps, rushing back for her auction, squeezing her hand as he helps her into the carriage because that’s all he can do after the trial. (seungu did you also watch Pride and Prejudice (2005)? Did you see the hand flex scene and immediately decide to use this? Inquiring minds must know. Also inquiring minds screamed when they first saw that scene becausE HAND TOUCHES ARE GOLD BULLION IN SLOW BURNS) And just his face (?? back of his head?? seungu never gives us any idea what he looks like when he’s in ‘oops fell in love AGAIN’ mode)

BUT SOMEHOW YOU CAN JUST TELL:

They all tell the story of a broken man who has made so many mistakes, but he can be kind and attentive, and tries hard to do what’s right (even if it takes him awhile to figure out what’s right, coz again: he’s Fucked Up). He’s also a socially awkward dork who ignores people at parties coz he doesn't know how to behave as expected. And resembles a really sad puppy when he disappoints Perry.

I could speculate a lot more on what/who the fuck Dodolea actually is and how she’s related to the Lapileon’s curse, but I also know this manhwa has steered some distance away from the webnovel. So I cannot really tell if the plot lines will be similar.  

I’ll probably be back after the plot progresses further so I can scream some more. I’ve been shrieking on Twitter but that site is subject to a hungry ghost’s whims and I can’t hide spoilers/rambling behind cuts there. So here it will have to be.

Hang in there, your grace.

[jmflowers]

Pls talk abt the diffs between st19 and GA. Would love to read your TV production nerd language!

Well, only took me 10 days to finally find time to get to this… my apologies, anon! I hope you're still interested.

I took notes during episodes 20x02 and 7x02 of Grey's Anatomy and Station 19 respectively to formulate my answer to this, but I should disclose that I have not been an avid watcher of Grey's Anatomy in about a decade. Despite my education in technical film and television production, anything stated here is my own opinion. Art is subjective and I absolutely do not have all the answers.

Let's start with Grey's…

So, from when Grey's first premiered in 2005 until the 10th season, the show was shot on film. That fact lends a lot to the stylistic formula of the show, which is not something you ever really want to change. (Fans arrive for a certain feel, thus a production bible is created that is adhered to for - hopefully - the entirety of a piece of work.)

I think it's most obvious in the coverage of scenes; shots are long and flowing, often moving around subjects as they converse with each other. By shooting this way, they would've protected themselves from needing to reset as frequently and it makes the editing process a lot more seamless. Also, in my experience, it just makes it easier to translate a director’s vision from set into the editing room.

(In film school, a lot of people will take a million different angles of a scene, all in little snippets, because it guarantees you'll have what you need for an interesting edit. However, if you work a bunch of continuous shots of the scene, actors get the opportunity to really immerse themselves in it - resulting in better performance - and the final edit has fewer possible iterations of what it could look like. Why don't students do this? Firstly, it's harder - more risk of having something in the background that will screw things up, more challenging to cut together if you have to remove a singular moment, harder to keep steady if you're not comfortable with stabilizing equipment or don't have any. Secondly, professors don't often encourage it because a lot of people are really terrible at camera operation if they're not trained properly.)

Anyways, all that to stay is Grey’s has this really fluid style to how they shoot. Nearly every shot is moving in some way, whether it’s a dolly, a pan, a tilt, etc. Let it be said that they are really, really good at this formula.

Another component of this is wider angle shots so that the characters can be continuously moving – think of those classic hallway walking scenes as a prime example. Allowing the actors to really move in a space helps to build tension without needing a bunch of little cuts and camera angles. This means there are some scenes in the show that only have one camera angle present before it moves onto the next scene, which isn’t super common in my experience.

Not to say that they don’t utilize closeups – Grey’s is a drama so it’d be kind of weird to not make use of closeup shots for the showing of emotion. However, the closeups seem to predominantly occur in the OR. My guess as to why that is would be in helping the audience differentiate who is who (as well as what they’re feeling), since part of their faces have to be covered during operations, but that’s pure speculation on my part.

And beyond all of that, Grey’s is visually still a drama. A lot of moments occur at night. Scenes are often darker, with more focus on backlighting than clear illumination of character faces. I find their blacks a lot stronger, which is probably something to do with their colouring.

There’s also just fewer action-packed moments, since the story often takes place with people just talking, so there doesn’t appear to be as much of an editing technique called “cutting on the action”. Which, honestly, makes sense if they’re filming longer takes. (Shoutout to my prof who constantly gave triple-take homework and made me completely ridiculous about cutting. on. action. You broke me, my dude.)

Conversely, Station 19 has a very different formula…

As an action drama, that was never shot on film, S19 adheres to a completely different bible. One that they rewrote after season 2 (I think? When did the voiceover intros stop?), you’ll probably notice, when they decided to veer a little further away from their identity as a Grey’s Anatomy spinoff.

The first thing I always notice is that a lot more of S19 scenes happen during the day, since the unspoken law of most episodes is that they begin as the team is coming onto their shift first thing in the morning and then stretches through their 24-hour. Scenes are just brighter and more illuminated – more of the sunlight streaming in windows and less of the visible nighttime cityscape you’ll notice in Grey’s. I also really love that they usually begin this time period with the characters at home, whereas Grey’s seems to have episodes finish with that.

Light is also obvious in how things are coloured on S19. Their blacks don’t seem as dark in the final colouring, which may have something to do with the navy blue of their uniforms. It also just feels like there’s more white present on their sets? But that can’t possibly be true because Grey’s literally takes place in a hospital.

Anyways, S19 fully subscribes to the shooting and editing style of an action production. Scenes have lots of coverage (they utilize over-the-shoulder shots which don’t happen as often in Grey’s), there are lots of quick cuts in the edit, and their shots are overall steadier or static with less of the flowy movement that Grey’s has. They also use a lot more closeup and tighter framing, focusing on cowboy and up – unlike the Grey’s formula of a full-body shot. (A cowboy shot covers from the middle of the thigh to the top of the head, ie. you would be able to see the cowboy’s gun in its holster… anything above that is a tighter framing.)

And S19 loves a montage. I can’t say for certain whether Grey’s still uses those, or if they ever really did, but S19 leans into a zero-dialogue montage edit for storytelling. Which I don’t find super common, as I think some people believe it’s a little too artsy or stylistic, but I think is a really effective way to get a plot point across sometimes. Do we really need to know exactly what they said or is it enough to see that they were smiling when it happened? Film and television are visual medias and fanfic writers everywhere are grateful for the gaps in the story that they get to fill in with their own headcanons. (I said what I said.)

I’m sure there’s lots more things I could probably point out on why Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19 complement each other while looking like they could be from completely different universes, but that’s all I wrote down while watching them both live. Hopefully my film theory professor and my screenwriting professor are proud of me for this analysis.

Thanks for the question, anon! Always here to answer and talk nerdy if anyone ever has any more.

[armchairaleck]

Twin Peaks/Dragon Prince thoughts

Okay so I was never going to write a post that combined two of my sorta diametric interests - namely The Dragon Prince cartoon and Twin Peaks, even tho I've low key considered it.. but then they literally put out a fricken dream scene with Viren, Kpp’Ar, Sparklepuff and Opeli explicitly mirroring Twin Peaks.. so now I guess I will ramble on for a long time about this despite not really having anything sensible to say…

First up – massive spoilers are ahead for both Twin Peaks and TDP Season 5… Twin Peaks is in my view one of the most weird and interesting television shows ever made - like it's very David Lynch, so I guess you'd have to like that vibe - BUT if you haven’t seen it and are at all interested in watching it, and don’t want very essential plot elements spoilt please don’t read below this cut.. IT WILL SPOIL STUFF!

Not sure anyone will be left at this point, but a very condensed speed run of the twin peaks plot for the sake of drawing out some parallels later:

Laura Palmer is found murdered in her small home town where a veritable list of ner do well characters who are possible suspects also reside. Call in special agent Dale Cooper to solve the crime, so far, so police procedural…

This is when the plot starts to go a little left field - as well as the drug smuggling, illegal casino, insurance swindles, arson, doubling crossing, false murders, real murders, faked deaths, real deaths that are just part of everyday life in this quaint little rural US town, a portal exists to a place called the red room or the waiting room and to the white and black lodges which by and large represent forces of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and hold within them certain denizens who might help or hinder, or just be completely bizarre and unintelligible depending on their inclinations...

One of the evil denizens is Bob - Bob is pretty much the representation of pure evil, he possesses people and encourages them to fill his own base desires.

After a certain amount of investigation the original crime is solved, the presence of Bob and the lodges is revealed and the show gets a whole lot weirder as it moves through the rest of the second series and the third (set 25 years later)

At the end of season 2 the good Dale Cooper goes into the red room and gets stuck in there while an identical version of Cooper emerges but this one not so wholesome and possessed by Bob.

There’s a lot more to it, but I’ll get into the relevant points and possible, tho probably very tentative TDP parallels as they come up.

Anyway to break it down.. in the short scene we see we have Kpp’Ar - here I believe framed mirroring the role of the one armed man, Mike, he could also be framed as the giant theoretically but given the arm/bandage motif I’m going to say he’s the one armed man..

The one armed man used to run with Bob until he saw the light and changed his ways, and he cut off his arm to do this a little drastic perhaps? because he had a tattoo on the arm that linked him to Bob. So a possible parallel here to Kpp’Ar having also realised his dark magic/blood tie with an ancient evil entity and trying to rid himself of it through cutting it out of his arm, go, go my guy. The one armed man acts as one of several pretty obtuse guides for good Cooper in the show.

Will Kpp’Ar come back and do this for Viren? Eh probably not, I can’t even speculate on that sort of thing, so let’s leave that parallel there.

Right, Sir Sparklepuff also gets a little cameo as the the arm/the man from another place.. a cryptic clue giver who speaks unintelligibly and also has some natty dance moves..

So the arm is a fairly ambiguous character, he hangs with the evil denizens, he hangs in the waiting room, he helps, or he doesn’t, it’s pretty vague.. he is the part that was cut out to remove the evil influence, but I’m not sure where that could go if anywhere… Onto Viren, who is framed taking the role of FBI agent Dale Cooper, Cooper goes into the red room for good reasons, he wants to save his girlfriend Annie… unfortunately he doesn’t and instead he gets stuck in there while his doppelganger possessed by Bob escapes and goes on to run merry havoc for the next 25 years…

Bad Cooper is a corrupted figure who can give corpse face Viren a run for his money annnd… he also has black eyes… nice…

This is just how your eyes go when you're evil.. so err.. stay good kids

On the other hand it does look like you have a lot more fun going feral

Meanwhile the good version of Cooper has to escape from the waiting room, and trust me, it takes a long time…

Then we have Opeli as the log lady.. now the log lady, also called Margaret Lanterman, we are given to believe was once abducted as a child by aliens (there’s a pretty strong interest in conspiracy type stuff in twin peaks without it ever completely leaning in and going there, well I guess it does, let’s just say there are a lot of things beneath the surface) Margaret grows up just fine though, but on the eve of her wedding night to a fireman there is a fire in the woods, and hubby to be goes and gets himself killed fighting the flames. Margaret takes a log from the scene and caries it round with her ever after with it being heavily implied that the spirit/soul of her almost husband is in there and passes her messages with regards to some of the goings on in the town.

Hey Opeli guess what? Rayla's breaking into Viren's study... ahem..

Like anyway why did Opeli get this role? I have no idea, she's the only available female character?? Anyway Opeli says backwards the line - the jelly tart you like is going to come back in style.. the log lady does not say this in the show, but there is a pivotal scene where all the murder suspects in the Laura Palmer case are gathered together and the guilty party is approached by a white lodge denizen and told that gum you like is going to come back in style.. that's how they find out whodunnit.

So the premise of Twin Peaks is that the guilty party is also shown to be possessed by evil entity Bob and it raises some interesting questions within the fandom regarding an individual’s culpability for their crimes or whether the possession was the root cause of them and I feel like I can’t really dance around it anymore so I will say again if this show sounds interesting and you want to watch it unspoiled with regards to the murder STOP READING HERE.. also I will be going onto the darker themes of the show and you are warned they are kinda dark…

...

Right okay it was her father, Laura’s father, Leyland, possessed by Bob raped and abused her for several years and then murdered her and others when it became clear she knew it was him.

Now every time Laura was abused in the show she sees the face of Bob not her father. There is debate whether this is trauma projection, whether it is in fact evil entity Bob controlling the father’s actions… I mean there’s a lot of interesting stuff to go into, but I won’t, because I only want to look at the possession angle here.

Okay, onto the topic of possession and free will, specifically with regards to Viren and also dark mages in general.. so we have seen Aaravos possess Callum explicitly, based on one use of dark magic, whether he was able to do this due to Callum’s proximity to the mirror... not sure? He also possesses Viren very obviously on a couple of occasions, but they also have the blood tie... so it's likely that dark magic allows Aaravos to exert his influence on those who practise it as has been explored by others.

Anyway there is another factor I have kinda been low key wondering about - whether the staff of Ziard has certain possession/persuasion potential.. now I’m not going to come out and say the staff holds sway over Viren and tells him what to do because this puts a certain absolution on Viren’s actions that I don’t think is justified by the narrative BUT I do also think it would be kinda cool if Aaravos with his links to the stars and future predictions had a way of seeing what might happen and engineering his own deliverance through the push/pull of the staff.

Not betting any hard cash on this theory...

We don’t know when Viren first gets the staff, I have to re-watch that dream sequence and possibly wait for puzzle house because I have at least some thoughts it might be what Claudia finds in there.. but he doesn’t have it in the Puzzle House pages I’ve seen and he does before Magma Titan because he takes it with him..

So... I don’t know if there is a slim possibility that while the staff might not possess a mage it might subtly lead them towards an end goal - slaying an archdragon say, who holds the mirror window into Aaravos’s prison, and thereby allowing the dark mage to come into possession of said mirror and thereby setting the whole train of freeing Aaravos in motion..

Now fine, this is a bit of a stretch, could easily be Viren is simply fuelled by his desire to kill a dragon out of revenge/hubris a desire to rekindle his relationship with Harrow (ahem) but I kinda like the idea that there is a very subtle pull leading him in that direction through the staff, and Aaravos does at least seem pleased to notice that staff in his possession, while Viren visibly shies from it throughout much of s4…

This could mirror a little with the possession/influence themes of Twin Peaks - there is a ‘good’ Cooper and a ‘bad’ Cooper, but they are really the same Cooper and it is the flaws in the good that allow for the evil influence of the bad to take hold - Cooper has a weakness for trying to save women in peril, it gets him in trouble… Viren seems to have a weakness for power and doing anything for his family, however dangerous, however vile - personally I don’t really like to read stuff purely in terms of a good/bad white/black dichotomy.. but I do like character flaws leading to the wrong path and imperilling your soul.

This all inclines me towards the Aaravos is pure evil and the Prometheus and even Lucifer stuff was just a bit of a tease. In Twin Peaks the unleashing or at least the amplification of evil in the world is linked very explicitly in one episode to the dropping of the atomic bomb, this is framed as a cataclysmic event during which mankind press the button on their own potential annihilation...

s3 episode 8 - I don't think will ever be surpassed for am I hallucinating or is there something very weird on my tv at 4am vibes

I know there have been some links between dark magic and nuclear power parallels made by other people but I can’t remember the details and it has always been something I’ve kinda chewed around a bit without having any specific thoughts or beliefs on, other than ouch corruption looks a lot like radiation burns… but I can see an analogy for something that is created to both serve humanity giving us a fairly unlimited power source, while also giving us the ability to pretty much obliterate ourselves and the planet which - tbh best not to think about how close that has already been...

Dark magic is clearly a force that can be used to benefit humanity, healing, feeding 100,000 people etc, etc.. but it is also being lined up as something that holds its own peril, that probably isn’t a power to be wielded by inconsistent, unreliable and sleep deprived humans, and it’s been given to them by Aaravos? Like I think that has not yet been explicitly stated in cannon but the signs are all there.. so hmmm..

Anyway all told this has led me down quite a few lines of thinking that I don’t really have any definitive conclusions for because they are by definition not issues that can be neatly tied up with a bow... at least not by me.

Then Viren is pretty much comatose for the rest of the season much like Coop/Dougie is season 3 of Twin Peaks.. rip my guy...

Viren having the standard reaction of anyone trying to work out wtf is going on in Twin Peaks

Anyway I have never seen any fellow Twin Peaks fans out in the Dragon Prince wilds, but if you’re out there please come and rip this to shreds if you want.. I have a sieve like memory and I’m usually pretty wrong about most stuff, plus I wrote this after 4 hours sleep due to the drop time, sooo please excuse any mistakes...

[yukidragon]

Can you do a theory of how S.D.J got stuck in a tape? (Ik there isn’t much clues but I just wanted to ask) :)) Btw LOVE YOUR THEORYS!!! :D

Awww, thanks! I’m really happy to hear that you like my theories. 💖

Unfortunately, there is very little evidence at this time to create a solid theory about why Jack was trapped in the tape to begin with. I can, however, talk about what we do know about the tape so far and what my headcanons are.

I will be using some screencaps of the demo as well as images that were posted publicly on Sauce/Jambeebot’s public twitter before it was closed down, as well as links to the official Sunny Day Jack twitter. Gentle reminder to everyone - please don’t repost any of the private images posted on the Snaccpop Studios Patreon. The crew relies on those kind donations in order to make the game at all. Consider joining it instead, donating to the Something’s Wrong with Sunny Day Jack kickstarter, or just spreading word about this engaging game.

With that said, let’s start off with the tape itself.

An ordinary but old and cracked VHS tape with a sticker on it bearing the words “84′ Incident” written in smudged red marker. It’s pretty well universally theorized that the video tape captured Jack’s death, which appeared to take place during filming of the SunnyTime Crew Show. We get a shot of the incident itself here on the twitter page. (Pun not intended.) There was also apparently children on set as well who witnessed the incident, according to the actor who played Cloudy-Belle Sue.

We get a glimpse of this incident as well in the style of a children’s drawing on the title screen of the demo, along with a closeup of the tape.

After that, Jack was trapped in the tape for (presumably) almost 40 years. To him it was a place where he couldn’t dream, where he felt cold, and where he buried his old self as Joseph to fully embrace the role of Jack.

Then MC gets a hold of the tape, pops it in a VCR, and is introduced to a rather confused but relieved Jack... only they don’t remember that. They just woke up the next day and Jack was just... there. Now the tape won’t play again, so there’s no telling exactly what is on it.

Seems pretty standard with ghosts possessing something involved with their murder and haunting whoever interacts with it right, right? What I find interesting is Jack is always called a ghost(?) The fact that this is in question at all suggests to me that there’s something more going on with him than the typical ghost can’t move on from their horrific murder story.

I think the fact that this is in question plays a part in how Jack was trapped in and is still connected to the tape. There’s too few clues to be sure of how that happened, so it’s just left to pure speculation on our parts. All we can be relatively sure of is that it’s related to Jack’s death and the incident itself.

You know, let’s take a moment to examine Jack and what he can do now. Maybe it’ll give more ideas about how he got into his situation.

Jack is quite an interesting sort of ghost(?). While it’s tempting to look at another game involving ghosts made by SnaccPop Studios, the Groom of Gallagher Mansion, as a point of reference for how other ghosts are depicted, I’m going to stick with strictly SDJ-related sources.

Jack is solid to MC (unless they don’t want him there), and can be perceived by all their senses, but no one else. He doesn’t show up in mirrors or recordings. According to a line from the Patreon-exclusive virtual body pillow, Sleepy Time Jack, he has a heartbeat. He has bodily fluids such as spit, sweat, and semen, as shown in the demo. He feels warm to the touch, not dead at all.

Well, maybe not all the time.

Jack has the power to influence other peoples’ thoughts and feelings. It’s most obvious with MC, where we have seen instances where he seems able to outright read their thoughts/narration, but he was able to influence Nick’s mind to the point of nightmares, insanity, and self-harm. For the most part he can’t interact with others, but it seems there’s a way he can force it?

Or maybe Jack could be perceived by others... but he has a reason to choose not to exert that much influence on reality.

Maybe it’s because he’s not strong enough yet at the start of the game?

MC’s love seems to make Jack stronger. There’s a “piece” of him in a place others could never reach, and that piece of him grows bigger and stronger. The stronger it gets, the closer he gets to being “one” with MC forever.

I think that “piece” of him is inside of MC and is vital to keep him solid and real. I suspect that Jack might have a “piece” of MC inside him as well... one he can make even bigger by taking more from them and giving more of himself in return, as suggested by a quote from the “no” route.

I want him to re-write me in this moment. I want him to do what he wants to help me forget anything that isn’t him.

He’s taking some part of me...

Infecting me with some kind of fever... Some need...

And I don’t want to admit it...

But I want to surrender and let him fill it.

Although MC is under supernatural influence that makes them addicted to the feelings Jack gives them, it seems as though their wants and desires towards Jack play a key part in everything.

In the game, if MC keeps their distance from Jack emotionally, he gets “colder” to them, and it could get to the point that they can’t touch him anymore. I imagine, if they turned their back on him completely, they could make him disappear altogether.

The influence Jack has on MC is subtle most of the time, just really good feelings mostly. I theorize this is a supernaturally-enhanced sort of empathy due to MC having a piece of him inside of them (and likely vice-versa). I believe that’s how Jack can detect MC’s emotions in return and catch some of their thoughts. It seems this works both ways, as suggested by the “yes” route, where MC can sense things about Jack but is too caught up in the pleasure they’re sharing to really think about it much.

He was close.

He didn’t even need to tell me.

I suspect if MC knew how to use this power, they might be able to have more of an influence on Jack.

After all, it seems as though if MC is going through something like, say, the pain of a period or being drunk, Jack experiences these things too. At least according to a couple posts from the Jambeebot twitter.

(Again, keep in mind posts and art from Sauce’s twitter need to be taken with a pinch of salt when it comes to canon, as things can (and have) changed before the final product of the game.)

Jack himself says that MC makes him feel love, and he’s so happy to be with them. What if that’s why whenever MC spends time with him alone, they feel so happy? What if MC is literally feeling Jack’s love and happiness, which is why being around him feels so addicting? After all, isn’t it addicting to feel loved by someone so unconditionally?

It can be resisted as well, though even when they do in the “no” route, it’s a very weak resistance. MC is addicted to the warm and fuzzy feelings Jack gives to them, which Jack can intensify and doesn’t want to give that up.

I was suffocating in his embrace.

Something about the air was thick and sticky.

Like I was breathing cotton candy…

Like I was under a spell.

Jack even keeps asking in the “no” route if they can feel how much he cares about them, how good he can make them feel.

MC themselves admits earlier that they feel for Jack. He likely can sense that, which could be why he said they make him feel love.

There’s a strong emphasis here on consent and feelings, as well as pieces of both MC and Jack.

Also, before we move on, I want to quickly add that Jack might have the ability to manifest items as well. We know how confused MC was about blueberries appearing out of nowhere, but Jack could’ve snatched them from a grocery store or even snuck them into MC’s cart/basket when they weren’t paying attention so they eat healthier. However, what is harder to explain away is a full change in wardrobe that is distinctly themed around Sunny Day Jack and fits him perfectly. Somehow I don’t think MC bought that for him at the store.

As I’ve mentioned before in past theories when it comes to my own personal telling of the story, Sunshine in Hell, I think Jack has a piece of MC’s soul and MC has a piece of his soul in exchange. I think that whatever happened when MC watched the tape, it created a sort of contract between them and Jack, one that requires consent on both their parts. It requires that continual consent and for their bond to be strengthened in order to give Jack more strength.

It sounds almost like a ritual was performed, wasn’t it? Maybe Jack’s costume as a demonic incubus isn’t too far off the mark from what he is now.

Who knows... it might even be why MC is so tired lately.

(Though they could just be exhausted from being overworked by an uncaring boss.)

Which leads me back to the 84′ Incident. What if Jack didn’t simply randomly possess the recording of what happened because he couldn’t move on? What if his soul was trapped in that tape all this time? After all, he seemed so confused at the start of the game about what’s going on and what happened to him, which suggests he didn’t willingly go to, as he put it, hell.

The entertainment industry is a truly frightening place. Money, power, connections... they can bury so many secrets, even people and memories. There are rumors of unsavory things like crime rings and cults. The studio behind the SunnyTime Crew Show seems to have a dark side as well considering it buried the memory of the show and the murder of Jack under the threat of NDAs.

So now, let’s talk about LambsWork Productions. As I previously touched upon before when analyzing the teaser picture of an undead Jack looking in a mirror, the name of the studio is very interesting. A lamb’s “work” is to be sheered for its fleece, or butchered for its meat... sometimes both.

I think that LambsWork Productions was connected to a cult, maybe even built by a cult outright. I believe what happened to Jack to trap him in the tape may have been part of a ritual.

Jack was a teenage runaway who changed his name from Joseph, hiding his real identity. We don’t know how he was discovered by the studio, but he would be someone with no connections, and no family, maybe even no friends.

Who would look for him if he went missing?

This seems counter-intuitive doesn’t it? Jack was a famous actor with many eyes on him. So many people, kids and adults, loved him.

What the people loved was a character he played. Even when being interviewed, Jack had to stay in character. He couldn’t be “Mr. Haberdae” even when talking with a reporter who wanted to learn more about him.

The studio made a creation that was loved... and what if that was part of the ritual? What if Jack’s murder was planned all along? It would explain how they could so quickly and thoroughly bury all evidence that the show ever even happened if they were prepared to do it ahead of time.

Being loved and being willing plays a part in Jack’s powers. What if that ties into the murder? What if Jack, this fictional entity the studio made up, needed to have the love of countless people, and the distress and pain they felt from seeing him die, along with his death?

For what purpose? It’s hard to say, but Jack’s powers are nothing to sneeze at. For all we know, whatever MC underwent to be bonded to Jack by watching the video wasn’t actually meant for them... it was just the first time it actually worked.

After all... consent plays a part. If Jack didn’t consent to, say, his murderer getting a piece of his soul and control over him...?

Now we’re really going deep into headcanon territory here, and it ties into the tragedy of [Redacted] and the lover who used him. I will stress that my headcanons will likely change as more evidence comes out or as I work on it more before writing it into Sunshine in Hell, but I figure it might be entertaining to tell it anyway.

It goes like this: someone with a lot of pull and connection to LambsWork Productions, maybe even the owner in charge of it all, wanted supernatural powers. They were connected to the occult and learned of a ritual that would require the absolute obedience and enslavement of a soul, as well as love and innocence of children to create a servant that would do whatever they wanted.

What it required was a person who is utterly devoted and willing to submit to the caster. The easiest way to do that? Why, love and desperation of course. Find a person who has nothing and offer them a life they always dreamed of... they just need to be obedient, sacrifice more and more.

This person is pushed slowly to do more, give more of himself. He is pushed to act a certain way all the time, painted up as this new persona to further signify that he is no longer [Redacted] but the always helpful Jack. He needed to want to be this character they created... who they were going to make real with the ritual using his willing soul.

When the target is primed to be obedient and utterly addicted to needing the caster and everything they have to offer in every way imaginable, and is loved by many innocent children... that innocence is destroyed as part of the ritual by having them witness his death.

The ritual results in this creation that will do anything for their master... provided it is consenting on both ends. The victim doesn’t even need to know it was all a setup. In fact, it’s better he doesn’t know in order to ensure he’ll remain desperate in his new inhuman state.

The recording is the medium to create the connection to the new supernatural entity. There was just one teeny, tiny hiccup.

Consent.

The person who performed the ritual and wanted those powers wanted to make that connection, but Jack? Ho... they might have twisted [Redacted]’s heart to be desperate for their love and everything they provided, but Jack is far from stupid. Whether he started to suspect before his death and hid it, or he realized what was going on when murdered, who’s to say? Either way, he did not consent to his former lover taking a piece of his soul when the tape was played, and thus the ritual failed, no matter how many times they replayed his tragic death.

The tape was kept as a reminder, a snuff film for entertainment purposes until it gets lost or discarded in some other way. The culprit would have to figure out what went wrong, how to perform the ritual correctly next time... Or another member of the cult who learned of the ritual decides to try again, believing they know what went wrong.

Maybe the problem was relying on romantic love. What if the “lamb” to be sacrificed was someone who would have a stronger bond to the caster, maybe even more desperate for love and approval than a lover. Say, perhaps... a blood relative?

Actors sometimes join cults. If, say, Jean joined and found out about the ritual and wanted it to work out for himself, well... he does have a child from one of his sugar babies who wants to be an actor, doesn’t he?

What stronger love is there than a parent and child, especially a child who might have spent a lifetime wishing for his absent father’s love?

Well, Jack might argue his love for his sunshine is stronger. After all, unlike those monsters who damned him to the hell of the VHS tape for selfish purposes, they didn’t need him like Alice(/MC) does. They didn’t long for love as desperately as he did... and he was certainly so very desperate for even a speck of warmth after 40 long sleepless years trapped in a cold empty hell...

Soooooo... yeah. That’s the headcanon I currently have for what Jack is and why he was trapped in the tape. With how few clues there are, I’m not banking on this headcanon on being anywhere close to accurate to what’s going to happen in the game. Chances are very good that this headcanon will change and evolve as I get more ideas and more hints are dropped. Still, I find the idea to be fairly entertaining, and I hope you did too.

What does this mean for Jack, Alice, and their connection of souls via the ritual? I’m going to have to think about that a bit more, but whatever it was, it was something worth a hell of a lot of trouble for the studio to go through...

After all, Jack has a pretty impressive array of powers already, and they’re only going to get more powerful, maybe even manifest other unexpected ways we haven’t seen yet, as his love for Alice and hers for him grows ever stronger...

Of course, with an MC resistant to that love? Well... that might explain the glitches we see here.

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic

[thyandrawrites]

hellooo i hope u dont mind me asking you to explain this but. in the manga, touya says to shouto “its great that you were raised with love.” and i’m confused as to what he meant by that, because he acknowledges endeavors abuse towards shouto. there’s also the other translation of that line which is “its great that you grew up to be so kind” which is just a whole different sentence with a whole different sentiment? i am confused!! touya says interesting things

Hi! Sure, I don’t mind attempting to answer this. Please take what follows with a grain of salt though, as it is purely speculation and guesswork. 

So. The short answer is, “because Japanese is a very context-reliant language, and as such it can be very confusing to translate from.” 

The line in question in jp reads like this: 「優しく育って嬉しいよ」

What I think caused the sharply different interpretations is the fact that the verb Dabi uses,「育つ」, can mean both “to be raised” and “to grow up”. That, paired with the adverb 「優しく」 (which is derived from the adjective “kind, gentle, amiable”) ended up giving way to two opposite translations. 

The Viz translator took it to mean “to be raised”, and thus interpreted the adverb as referring to the quality of Enji’s parenting; as a result, he rendered it as “you were raised with love.”

The english fan scans, however, interpreted the verb as “to grow up”, and thus read the adverb as a descriptor of Shouto, of the kind of person Shouto grew up into. Hence “you’ve grown up to be so considerate”

For shit and giggles, I tried to compare this to other translations to see if that cleared up any of the confusion. The official Italian release interprets it like the latter, while fan scans in french and spanish maintain the divide between the two versions. At this point I wanna ask anyone who has access to any non-english official release to tell me how they dealt with this line. I kind of want to see if pro translators were similarly tripped up by this line or if it’s a matter of fluency/experience and maybe personal bias :’D   

Anyway. All of this was to say, if you take the line by itself, both versions can be “correct” translations. But japanese relies a lot on context clues to get the intended meanings across, because this is a language that is steeped into indirectness, into implying things more than saying them outright when they’re deductible from context. 

So. To go back to Dabi and Shouto, I think it’s important to take into account the whole conversation, to really get a feel of what Dabi meant. 

Since the line in question comes right after Shouto’s remark “but… you’re burning up, too!” it is reasonable to think Dabi’s responding to the topic at hand. Which would be Shouto’s worry, not Enji’s parenting. While it’s true that at times Dabi’s known to shift the focus back to Enji to avoid self-inspection (see the “but that would make Enji suffer”), I think this was one occurrence where he wasn’t trying to change the subject. 

If you translate 「育つ」 as “grow up”, then the conversation actually flows linearly. In simpler terms, it’s Shouto pointing out → “you’re hurting yourself as well”, and Dabi answering, “It’s nice of you to worry, but I’m fine.”

If you read it as “be raised”, though, you lose the inner coherency of the exchange, and the response sounds like a non-sequitur. Shouto says → “you’re hurting yourself as well”, and Dabi…. is taken by a random feat of unprompted jealousy and answers, “I’m glad that daddy loved you, but I’m fine.”

So imho the latter response doesn’t fit the context. It makes it sound like Dabi’s shifting the subject to something else, only for the follow up line to be back about the present topic of Shouto’s worry (which Dabi brushes off with an ��I’m fine”). For that reason, I consider it less accurate. 

I hope that makes sense! 

[jessiesparkes]

OMG YOU WROTE TWINNING WITH A TWIST!!!

as someone who adores Ella and fully believes Sammy should have been a main character I love love love twintwist (does it have an abbreviation? like how slippery slopes is slipslop? the acronym is TWAT so i don’t wanna call it that lmao ANYWAY)

legit, probably one of my favourite fics. ever? I’ve reread it approximately 50 times I love it so much

it’s honestly a breath of fresh air reading, im going to be honest, most total drama fics in general because. wow what a change, the person who wrote this Actually Cares about the characters. wild. and twintwist is legit just That

the direction you took Ella and how she developed was so unexpected but made so much sense, i love how you took little details from the og season and expanded on them, like the thin apartment walls and her constantly wearing gloves (OOF) (also her Home Situation. did hit me a little personally)

and SAMMY!! omg this is what I mean when I say she should’ve been a main character!! i was cheering her and Ella on literally the whole way

Amy my beloved beloathed. kudos to you for actually giving her depth beyond “she is a bitch because reasons” and her redemption arc actually worked so well I loved it

I love how you wrote the other characters too!! did not realise a Beardo and Sammy friendship was something I desperately needed in my life but now I can never go back, Jashawn were somehow even more adorable and 100x less frustrating, Dave was. honestly a lot less unbearable

Scarlett and Sammy’s conversation in the treehouse is so many layers of fascinating. it lives rent free in my head. like yeah Scarlett was trying to manipulate a situation but like you question how much she genuinely meant the things she said. this is fully just me speculating but the line “romance doesn’t interest me personally” (or words to that effect) really makes me think. because like. that implies she could be romance-repulsed and/or aromantic, right? so when she’s talking to Sammy about how no, a lot of people will not understand Sammy and actively despise her, and it won’t be easy, but they don’t matter, you wonder how much Scarlett’s just BSing and how much she’s drawing from personal experience. she’s definitely not a good person (I processed that when she tried to kill everyone via island explosion) but there’s a LOT more to her than she lets on even post-reveal

speaking of Scarlett, when Sammy arrived on the PDL and found out apparently Scarlett was like in her early 20s masquerading as a teenager and this wasn’t her first run-in with the RCMP

i will confess

my first thought was “wait was she Izzy in disguise?!”

listen I have fully breached the “this is not what god (you) intended this is purely me reaching” zone, but… yeah lmao

ANYWAY I think I have bothered you enough with my ramblings, I’m CrystalHavoc on ao3, so you’ve probably seen all the rest of my Thoughts on ur fic. but i somehow just now found your tumblr so. i guess this is me putting one big notice of appreciation directly in your askbox. as a tdpi enjoyer and Ella-and-Sammy lover i super super love twintwist!!!

and idk how to end this so. yeah thank you!!! for writing it!!! ok bye

Hi there!! Gosh thank you so much for the kind message, I still can't believe I'm getting such high praise for Twinning (what I refer to it as rather than its abbreviation XD) after all this time! And for you to have reread it so many times?? I never realized how much of an effect it had on people :D

To be perfectly honest there are some parts of the fic that I kind of wish I'd done differently, but I'm sure that's what every creator thinks about their work. To this day I am still incredibly proud and humbled that it has struck a chord with so many people, and messages like these help to remind me that I'm able to make a positive change in this lifetime :)

When I originally wrote the Sammy and Scarlett scene, I had been writing Scarlett from an aromantic/asexual point of view, though I've since learned that classifying a villain as being incapable of falling in love is kinda ehhhhh not a great light to put them under. So now it's partially because of her being aromantic, and also because she's far too busy creating evil schemes engrossing herself in her work that she just simply doesn't care. And while Scarlett's ultimate goal was to make Sammy suffer by encouraging her to get together with Ella and then eliminating one or the other swiftly after, she more than likely did have some history with the topic of not letting others judge you for who you are. So yeah, she's a socially conscious greedy little nutcase :D (also yeah no she's not izzy, she just managed to fake her way into the game lol, though her being an adult is based off an izzy interpretation from another fic series)

Thanks so much again for all the support!! It genuinely means so much to me to see you and so many other people still loving the story to this day. Hopefully I can work up the ability to write more in the future, though unfortunately that's becoming increasingly harder to do :'( Anyways thanks again and I hope you have a wonderful day!! <3

[idontknowijuststartedsomething]

Against most odds I’m still excited for Hazbin, but I gotta say the marketing strategy so far has been absolutely awful, including the new trailer. (Not Vivs fault, as marketing is usually a completely different entity that is mostly or entirely out of viv and the crews control)

I’m trying to look at as if I were someone who’d never heard or seen anything about the show before seeing this trailer. Never heard of vivziepop, helluva, or hazbin. Just some random guy scrolling thru Twitter. I feel like it’s doing a poor job selling or informing people who are not in the know about the show. Like someone seeing this trailer with no prior knowledge would probably not guess they’re supposed to be in hell until maybe the pentagram on the season 2 banner.

Most of the marketing up until this point feels like it’s only to sell the show more to people who are already gonna watch it. Which is fine, except there has been next to nothing trying to market it to general audiences who haven’t heard of the show. And you kind of want more people to know about and be interested in watching if you want a successful show.(again, this is not directed at viv but the people making the marketing decisions). By successful I don’t mean good quality, lots of great shows or shows I love have or had like four people watching when they aired. I mean a show that brings in views and ad revenue and ratings for the platform or network so that it doesn’t get axed for not performing well enough.

All the marketing before this trailer, in case I missed something, has been gifs on the shows Twitter account, which is likely seen primarily by people who follow the account and already know about/are excited about the show. Its probably not reaching a ton more people then those who are already gonna watch.

And the trailer. Agains someone who doesn’t know who these characters are or clues to what the shows “about”(Charlie trying to redeem people) probably still wouldn’t just from this trailer. It still just looks like random clips. It’ll probably draw some people in who see the trailer, are interested and then look it up, but I still think the trailer could do a better job of selling the show or at least letting you (the viewer who has never heard of this before) know kinda the “gist” or some of the conflict that’s gonna be in the show.

All or most of the marketing feels like it assumes you already know what the show is about and who these characters are and are familiar with the setting, and a lot of general audiences or prime video users probably don’t. A lot of it, especially the gifs, feel like they’re just to hype up the show to people already hyped for it. I don’t see a whole lot being done to market this show with general audiences, to sell the show to people who have never heard of it and have no prior knowledge of Hazbin Hotel. Which, if you wanna market just to the fans, that cool. But don’t except to get many new viewers on board.

And, going into pure speculation and red strings territory now, if and big if they are doing that with the line of thinking of “it’s not for everyone”, I don’t think that tracks. Invincible (the ANIMATED show on PRIME)probably isn’t for everyone, and is based on something where there was probably already a dedicated fan base. I’ve never read invincible or watched it(although just thru memes and pop culture osmosis I kinda know what happens in the show) but the first trailer does give me a good idea of who these characters are on a basic level and some of the gist of the show or conflicts. The main takeaways from that trailer is that Mark feels tremendous pressure trying to live up to his dad’s legacy, it’s a violent show about superheroes, and that marks dad has something else darker going on. Even if you’d never heard of invincible, it gives you enough to be like, oh I see, maybe I’ll check it out. It does enough to hook the show to someone who has never heard of it.

Maybe we’ll get a longer trailer later with actually voices that sells the show or the idea of the show more, but for now, I just feel like all of Hazbins marketing has been more for fans, not to actually market the show outside of the fandom to general audiences.

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Aleksander Season 2 Interview Theories/Analysis

(Book Spoilers, including Demon in the Woods) 

I want to talk about a recent interview I read and some of the things Ben said in it about the darkling and darklina because honestly after reading it I was feeling pretty conflicted but I think there are some really intriguing bits of info in there and some interesting topics that are brought up.

A couple of things he said that did make me happy clap and get excited over was this: 

The Darkling can be the villain, but that doesn’t make him less compelling a character. And for Barnes, that starts with the books – but it’s also reflected in the stylistic choices the show makes. For example, the kefta the Darkling is wearing in Season 2, “has the little gold thread sewn through what was all black before.” That’s intentional, and Ben sees it as Kirigan and Alina “leaving a piece of each other” in one another. Not only that, he added that for his character, “that’s a very difficult thing to shake.”

“She was representative of something hopeful to him, something he really did put stock in — her power and who she was — and really felt that they started something which might have made a difference to what he was hoping to achieve.” But at the end of the day, as Barnes put it “with this kind of villainy, he believes in his agenda and is willing to suffer the consequences of chasing it.”

What I loved about this part of the interview is that its things that the darklina fandom have picked up on and had discussions around themselves. We’ve talked about how we thought the gold thread symbolised how there was a piece of the other in each of them and we’ve talked about how Alina represented hope to Aleks and how he really did think they could change the world for the better together. It’s always a bit of a thrill when you see an actor or someone involved in the show confirming what you as a fan and fandom have speculated about, so I was really excited to see him talking about this.  

There was something else that Ben said though that I think raises a topic I don’t think is talked about enough in the grishaverse fandom. 

For both Alina and Genya, the “big bad” is the Darkling, but Barnes shared that the Darkling doesn’t see himself as the villain. “Like all really kind of toxic villains he believes himself to be the victim,” he told us. And he finds someone else to blame for his actions, or for the decisions he’s made. “And then when it comes to Alina, he feels their connection and sees something of himself in her, but I think he discovers that if he’s not going to be able to kind of dig out an old version of himself who is capable of love, then it’s going to be hate and anger instead, and he’s going to lead with that.”

So the part I want to focus on first is the line ‘he believes himself to be the victim.’ (And just as a side note here I am in no way criticising Ben here its more an observation about the narrative and fandom as a whole then what Ben has said individually.) Here’s what bothers me a little about this statement and that is that Aleksander is a victim. He was the victim in Demon in the Woods when Annika and Lev tried to kill him and wear his bones, he was a victim when the Old King Anastas and his men hunted him down, he was a victim when those King’s men shot him full of arrows, he was a victim when they killed Luda purely because they knew that was someone he loved and it would hurt him to see her die. So my first reaction upon seeing that statement was well of course he sees himself as the victim, he’s been victimised pretty much his entire life. Not only has he had to face people trying to kill him from as young as 13 he also has spent his whole life with people hating and fearing him purely because he is a shadow summoner, by otkazat'sya and grisha alike, he’s been branded with names like heretic and (in the show) darkling and likely never felt welcome anywhere. Despite all that, at the age of 13 he took on his own personal mission of making sure the grisha would one day have a safe place and he never stopped trying to reach that goal. 

I know that the Darkling does some villainous things, I’m not disputing that, but just because he has gone down a darker path himself, due to the trauma he’s faced from others, doesn’t erase that he himself has been the victim, which is something it seems like the narrative and parts of the fandom have forgotten or dismissed. Which brings me to the part about how he (the darkling) always finds someone else to blame for his actions. Again this made me think of another behaviour within the fandom. Two things I have seen antis say quite a bit is that the darkling always plays the victim and that he blames everyone else. But this does show some hypocrisy within the narrative and the fandom. If you go and watch the pilot of season 1 on netflix right now you’ll find that they have added a new animated intro where Aleksander is explaining the creation of the fold. There is one moment where the narration says that the grisha are still hated because of the sins of the black heretic aka the darkling. In the clip from season 2 between Nikolai, Alina and Mal, Nikolai says that the first army has turned on grisha thanks to what the darkling did in the fold. These are arguments we see alot within the fandom too, I’ve seen so many posts saying well if the darkling hadn’t created the fold the grisha wouldn’t be hated now, or if the darkling hadn’t expanded the fold into Novokribirsk then the first army wouldn’t have turned on the grisha. So I find it kind of funny when people make the argument that the darkling is always blaming others for his actions when both the narrative and the fandom do the same thing but to Aleksander. Instead of blaming the first army for attacking the grisha they place more blame on Aleks, instead of blaming Anastas for hunting down grisha they blame Aleks, if a branch falls off a tree in Ravka then it must be Aleks’ fault. The problem with this is they put more blame and spew more hatred towards Aleks for the part he played in it than they do to the actual perpetrator of the crime. Another example of this is the whole thing with him, Genya and the King. Now I am not going to get into the whole debate of whether Aleks knew before he gave Genya to the Queen what the King was like, pretty sure I have another post somewhere on my blog covering it, but one thing that always boggled my mind was how much hate and anger was directed at the darkling for his involvement in it but how little was directed at the King, or at the Queen who also not only turned a blind eye but also made Genya’s life 1000% times worse by switching from doting on her to treating her with disdain and hatred for something that was not her fault. Blaming the darkling for these things diminishes the responsibility of the ones who actually commit the crimes and so people like the King, The Queen, The Apparat, Vasily, The First Army, the Fjerdan’s, The Shu Han, The Grisha slave owners, Anastas etc all have their crimes overlooked, they are ignored by both narrative and fandom alike in favour of instead piling more hatred and blame onto the darkling as if somehow his crimes are worse than all those others commit. So you can maybe make the argument that the darkling blames others for his actions, and sure maybe to some extent that’s true, but the truth is the darkling gets blamed more for others actions than he himself does the blaming.   

Another statement that had me half a little worried and half intrigued is this one: 

In season 2, however, there are no masks. There is no pretending. General Kirigan, aka The Darkling, is going full villain, something Barnes was really excited about. “Those masks have all dropped. And we’re looking at the way he’s sort of being poisoned from within by his literal shadow demons.” But it’s not just the shadow monsters, it’s that the position he finds himself in “affords him the opportunity to tell the truth how he sees it, and sort of really let rip and kind of go full dark on everything because he’s got nothing left to lose.”

So here its talking about how in season 2 the darkling is going to go full villain. One of my biggest complaints about the books was how in the first book the darkling was this really complex and intriguing character who then in subsequent books becomes very 2d villain and my biggest fear about the show adapting the later books was that they would do the same, so the full villain comment did make me a bit concerned. Whilst I think it could be really entertaining to see the darkling drop the mask and stop holding back, I am still hoping they will keep his complexity. From the ‘nothing to lose’ comment it does look like the darkling is going to be a force to be reckoned with and much more dangerous than he was in season 1, which again could be interesting to see. What I do find particularly interesting is the comment about how he is sort of being poisoned from within by his shadow demons. This could be a really interesting concept to explore. In a previous section where it was talking about seeing himself as a victim it also says this:

“And then when it comes to Alina, he feels their connection and sees something of himself in her, but I think he discovers that if he’s not going to be able to kind of dig out an old version of himself who is capable of love, then it’s going to be hate and anger instead, and he’s going to lead with that.”

What’s interesting about this is the part about, if he can’t dig out an old version of himself that is capable of love, its interesting because it suggests that Aleksander does try to get back to that older version of himself and that he tries to do this because of Alina and the connection he feels between them and honestly this kind of makes me want to cry. But it does make me wonder if it ties in with the aforementioned poisoning from his shadows. Maybe part of the reason why he is struggling to get back there is because of the effect the merzost from the shadow demons is having on him, and that is pulling him further from the person he used to be and more towards the hateful, angry side that is fuelling him. From the way Ben is talking here, it sounds like in some ways the anger and hate is a defence mechanism and way of keeping himself isolated so that he doesn’t get too attached to someone he may lose. 

Ben talks more about darklina’s connection in this section:

Season 2 gives them a connection, though, one that Barnes “wanted to sort of ground it in something that felt mindful and kind of meditative. And when he realizes this kind of new power that’s fuelling him,” it doesn’t take long before “they both start to sort of abuse that connection in their own ways, for their own agendas, and both end up basically trying to kill each other.”

“It’s a very unhappy marriage,” he joked.

 I do find it funny that he describes it as a ‘unhappy marriage’ just because of all the marriage, husband/wife, symbolism that was throughout all of season 1. But when he talks about the ‘new power that’s fuelling him’ I do think this is in reference not just to the mind palace but the fact that they are able to use each other’s powers, Alina can summon shadows and Aleks can summon light, even though its not as strong as their own powers. I do think it could be interesting to see Alina and Aleks using this connection for their own agendas and kind of playing this game with each other, a kind of push and pull and dancing around each other, the whole thing could be deliciously complicated. Not sure how I feel about the whole trying to kill each other part but who knows maybe it’ll be a bit like the film Mr & Mrs Smith where they are supposed to kill each other because they are on opposite sides but ultimately because of their feelings for each other they can’t fully commit to actually going through with it. 

Ok last part I want to talk about, I know this is getting a bit long, but this part really piqued my interest: 

Barnes, however, also teased that the Darkling would, later in the season, start to ask “more difficult questions of himself, as he sort of wrestles with his own humanity and mortality.”

I definitely think it could be interesting to see Aleksander start to ask these difficult questions of himself but does anyone else think this sounds like this might hint at a bit of a redemption arc for Aleksander? That he might find himself in this kind of moral conundrum and in the end chooses the good side? I can’t help but wonder/worry that this season will end with Aleksander maybe having a come to the light moment and sacrificing himself for the ‘good guys’. Especially as it talks about wrestling with his own mortality. I mean if I am being honest, personally, I don’t want him to die this season because I really enjoy the character, to me he is the most interesting character on the show and I just don’t think I would enjoy the show as much without him in it. Not to mention what on earth would I do with this blog like 90% of it is me overanalysing Aleksander’s character? I wouldn’t mind actually seeing a situation where Aleks gets a sort of redemption at the end of this season and then next season they add a new villain where Alina’s crew have to work with Aleks’ in order to defeat them. It could create this really interesting, uneasy alliance where they have to struggle with their differences and their past wrongs for the sake of the greater good. Can you imagine, Nikolai, Alina and their guys working alongside Aleks and his grisha as well as having to work alongside the crows, come on you know there could so many interesting interactions between so many different characters.  

Anyway that’s all I got for now, I am getting a bit more excited for the season as we get nearer, only three more days to go. 

[morepopcornplease]

The other republican candidates seem rather reluctant to attack Trump. I read something at 538 speculating that they are waiting for his legal issues to force him from the race. Yet, from where I stand, it seems unlikely anything short of jail time will prove a significant impediment to his campaign, something I can’t but feel is highly improbable.

Do the other republican candidates know something I don’t?

No, it’s just basic populism.

it goes like this:

Trump still widely beloved by the GOP core voter base. he’s far and away the top candidate in the Republicans polls.

if you criticize Trump, even in his legal challenges, you will turn a large core population of the voter base against you. Even if Trump does go to jail, that legally doesn’t stop him from campaigning for President. it’s a lose-lose scenario for your candidate.

If you hold off, maybe at most point out how Trump lost you 3 major election cycles (2018, 2020, 2022 were all losses, in whole or in part, for the GOP), you don’t risk alienating them quite as much.

if Trump does get convicted, you can listen to the populace and give a fiery speech on how the evil Dem govt is COMING FOR YOU, and you’ll fight on behalf of Trump (I would not at ALL be surprised if somebody makes a campaign pledge to pardon Trump if it pans out this way. even if he is convicted in GA, and thus you cannot legally pardon him, doesn’t matter—the promise was there, and what is follow-through to an elected official?)

If you think this sounds like pure cynical populism in order to tiptoe around your voter base, it is!

there are folks who are more willing to criticize Trump now; former NJ governor Chris Christie stands out to me, and I recently worked on a TV piece where GOP folks trotting around the Iowa state fair were interested in what Mike Pence had to say about Jan 6.

it’s also not impossible to be re-elected, at least locally, if you stand up to Trump. Georgia governor Brian Kemp—who rebuffed Trumps attempts to overturn the 2020 election—beat both his GOP primary challenger (another election denier, hand-picked by Trump, Perdue) and Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams to win the GA gov seat again in 2022. In fact the 2022 election outcomes largely demonstrated that when it comes down to voting time, “election deniers” lost.

Im hopeful that more candidates will be willing to take on trump and his rhetoric and his conduct and his campaign.

But alas, I am world-weary of this party.

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Hi! I read a lot of your posts on AI and I’m just curious about your take on the impact of AI on people and culture? I don’t use twitter so I don’t know what is being argued with AI, but my personal qualm is that it could obscure human experience. I’m not really concerned about the ownership of publicly available media, but I am worried about how AI can be used on a large scale by corporations to control human narratives. We already live in a world controlled by media monopolies, almost everything is owned by Disney, and their stuff is absolutely formulaic enough to be written by AI. While humans are borrowing just as much cultural information, one is still an original thought about how art should be created and presented. A corporation’s use of the technology will prime whatever is released for pure profit. It doesn’t need to be thoughtful at all. Again, this is already happening, but AI is just another way to streamline it. That’s part of why the writers strikes are happening right now. That kind of automation technology can shoehorn us into the necessary ends that corporations find most profitable. After reading your posts I realized that I was clumping in the technology with the ill intent of corporations. I wasn’t really considering all of its applications in its current form and I was kind of focusing on fear. You’ve changed my mind about some things. But human learning is dictated by modeling. We are sponges constantly absorbing the media shown to us. What if what’s available to us is always something easily automated by a company with its own interest? Avoiding that media completely would just result in personal isolation. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as someone who understands the technology!

I think the key point here is one you've already made; corporations are already churning out mass media pulp optimized for profit, and have been doing so for years. At present, that pulp is probably more profitable when produced by humans, at least in terms of the overall story design of our media, so incorporating AI probably won't change much about its quality except for noticeable shortcuts that are deemed acceptable. But this is already true in digital productions. Corporations will probably still try to compete with a baseline of quality to make big budget releases acceptable to markets. You can't cut all the corners with cheap tech, which is why we are not seeing those shitty knock-off animated movies in cinemas. Things need to be a least competent even if they are schlock.

In the long term, if AI really is able to produce entire movies or similar that are comparable to human-made mass blockbusters, then the implication of that kind of depends on who is in control of the AI. It might lower the barrier to creating good looking movies, it might just let Disney make more animated princess flicks faster. I don't think either of those outcomes is essentially bad. There's good and bad ways it could manifest.

Specific failings of the technology could result in things like subtle bias, or feedback syndrome where the AI has little new content to work on as all new artworks are themselves AI generated. These are both technology issues that can be addressed, though, and are far enough off at the moment that it's hard to speculate about any real harms.

Honestly, the biggest negative impact currently threatened by AI is the obvious one that the writers are striking over; capitalism isn't set up to provide for human livelihoods under increased automation. The only solutions to this problem are strict regulation on how corporations can employ automation, or, perhaps more simply, watering down or abolishing capitalism. UBI is most realistic avenue for this at present, I think, even if it's not totally ideal (I'd like those corporations to not exist in a form that creates a profit motive, thanks).

Cultural concerns aren't nearly as scary a prospect on the horizon for me. Yeah, AI can be used to produce cheap schlock, but humans can already do that, can even automate it with free software somewhat with no machine learning required. As long as humans are ultimately deciding how and when the cheap schlock is made, as they are now, I doubt much will change about the essential character of popular art. This is all just my personal opinion, though. It's hard to predict exactly how things will shake out.

Thanks for asking!

[romanoffsbish]

This is a whole ass man & I’m pulling bets on the fact their mad because they literally have nothing interesting about them that would attract anybody in their right mind.

Not a single thing this person says is truth or makes any sense. Their poor mother probably wishes she actually swallowed that night, it’s okay love, we all make mistakes. I feel bad she’s had to look at them for the past 10+ years.

I’m sorry this anon is pure trash, don’t listen to anything they say 💜 you’re an amazing person, a wonderful write and out of this world beautiful! Fuck them, keep smiling love 💜

Well, I think there’s truth to some things they say, there’s just no reason for it is all. Like, discussing ones identity or size as if that’s a negative piece of them or even representative of a full person. Because like, I am fat, but I’m not made of whale blubber, nor am I this way because I’m just some ravenous glutton lmao. On top of that, it doesn’t make me undeserving to live / breathe. I’m not less than anyone else.

I’m honestly torn between their identity. Part of me imagines a man, likely on our accounts b/c he wants to get off to wlw fanfiction, which is why when he sees intersex characters he loses his shit because he’s stepping into a space that was never meant for him, and is wondering why the pieces don’t accommodate to his needs. As if the world doesn’t placate to his every whim.

I see people headcannoning the anon as a basement dweller, but I don’t. I actually think (if it is a guy) that he has his own place. Probably has a job in tech, or a similar scope, that gets him a comfortable salary — he has it all. Except he doesn’t because he has the personality of a toothpick, and probably makes any women to ever exist uncomfortable so all he has is a hand. So he finds himself infiltrating wlw spaces, then insinuating that we are gay because we were unwanted by his kind, when the truth is, even if we were straight / bi, we wouldn’t want him and that unbearable truth keeps him up at night.

Then, I wonder if it’s a woman who used to be a writer on here, and got shunned for being a terf. Either are likely, but the reason I lean towards this is simply because they are attacking writers who don’t even write or read(never reblogs) intersex pieces. They attacked the person who was blamed(unfairly) for her departure, and they seem vengeful in a way that gives off “has been scorned” vibes. A reason she didn’t go after me from the jump (I presume) is b/c before she left she’d had me blocked (no clue why, but like — thank fuck, right? 😮‍💨)

If so, then to her I say find a different fandom, maybe Harry Potter, it’s obvi more up your alley. Because the majority of the MCU - LGBTQIA+ fandom is not interested in their radicalized (abhorrent) rhetoric. Not everyone on here reads or writes intersex, but from what I can see (and it makes me happy) is that majority rally behind and support the Trans community.

But at the end of the day this is all speculation because whoever it is, they are a faceless coward who gets off on making others upset. Which, btw, isn’t going to work on me because I promise you I don’t care what they think of me. People who actively harass the marginalized don’t garner my respect, and therefore whatever they think / say is nullified to me.

Thank you for reaching out though, I had a good giggle over your meme, and I genuinely appreciate your kind words. I do take them to heart because I actually respect you, ❤️

[aokuro-san]

The impereshable Metropolis, by Thea von Harbou

I had been wanting to read more science fiction for a long time. It is a genre that I have always liked to see on screen, but the truth is that I did not know where to start. And then there was this Twitter thread (#DEPTwitter, by the way. You'll see me around here more from now on) that every once in a while says that women don't write as much about gender as men; including comments from said "mens" confirming that science fiction (or speculative fiction, in general) written by women is boring for them. So I said to myself... YOU WILL START WITH A WOMAN'S BOOK. And since I recently commented on the METROPOLIS anime movie and found out that there was a book that was written alongside the original version, I no longer had any doubts about which one to choose: METROPOLIS, by Thea von Harbou. AND GO IF I DID WELL, because, although it was not instantly, I have had a connection with him that is not even half normal. And that, broadly speaking, is not one hundred percent science fiction either. The genre is used as a means to tell a story that has already been told and could continue to be told until the end of time (if a miracle doesn't happen, as expected in the novel). Which is not a bad thing, but could be a problem for some...

In fact, in many ways METROPOLIS is clearly imperfect. Beautifully imperfect, in my opinion. It is a story that is sometimes confusing, sometimes frantic, at first difficult to get into, which mixes the futuristic environment with religion (all kinds of religion!, although the one that stands out the most is Christianity) in a UNIQUE way, in which machines are replaceable gods served by the most impoverished classes, who await a revolution, a miracle, as I said above, that will finally change their fate underground.

And from that premise we have some fantasy, pure gothic horror, the theme of power and what it can do to us told through a dramatic and sensitive prose that more than exasperates, absorbs me in its interesting world and characters... And broadly speaking, ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I HAVE HAD THE PLEASURE OF READING THIS YEAR.

5/5, AND MORE! 🌟

[bouwrites]

Those Warm and Halcyon Days: Chapter 29

Dividing the World

Ao3.

First, Previous, Next.

Story under read-more.

“Your Crest gives you enhanced strength, Veery, does it not?”

Veery gives Professor Hanneman a flat look but doesn’t allow his gaze to linger. Watching Marianne is much more interesting. “I don’t know anything about Crests,” Veery says. “That’s your thing.”

Professor Hanneman chuckles good-naturedly. “True enough. Still, though you do not exhibit the kind of strength that one would see from someone with the Crest of Blaiddyd, nor do your attacks bear the force that might be granted by the Crest of Fraldarius, you are quite strong for someone of your size.”

Veery shrugs. “I mean… I guess? I’m stronger when I’m shifted, but I doubt a normal human could beat a regular lion my size in a match of strength, either. And like this I’m not that much stronger than anyone else.”

“Hm.” Professor Hanneman strokes his beard thoughtfully. “Then perhaps Maruice’s Crest achieves that strength through a similar means as your shifting.”

“Directly altering the muscles?” Veery asks. “Sort of a… partial shifting to give her more muscle? Maybe strengthening the bone, too?”

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible,” Professor Hanneman says. “We will, of course, need data. As we are this is purely speculation.”

Veery frowns. “I wouldn’t be sure it has anything to do with my Crest. All the other Crests seem to have effects for you humans that I’ve never seen in any agell. I don’t see why Marianne’s would work like mine does, even partially.”

Professor Hanneman nods. “Ordinarily, I would agree with you. But Marianne told me about the taguel, and your theory that she may be a descendant of one.”

“Technically, she’d be taguel herself,” Veery says, crossing his arms. “Though I guess it’s probably so far that if she wanted to call herself human then she can get away with it. It depends on if she can shift, really. No denying it after that, one way or another.”

“If she is indeed capable of shifting as you do, she would need Maurice’s Relic, Blutgang. The Crest Stone matching her Crest is likely a requirement. That said, given the rumors of Maruice’s Crest turning its bearers into beasts even without the Relic, it’s possible that the Crest Stone is less a requirement than a stabilizer, making the transformation safe and at will as yours is.” Professor Hanneman hums. “Either way, if the transformation is possible at all, it would imply that her Crest functions in a similar way as yours – by physically transforming the body.”

Veery purses his lips, watching as Marianne slashes once again at a training dummy with her sword. “I can’t argue with that. I don’t have the faintest idea what would happen if I tried shifting without my heart.” He sighs. “…I mean, I’d be dead without my heart, so that’s a moot point, but you get what I mean.”

“Indeed.”

As Veery and Professor Hanneman fall quiet, simply observing, Professor Byleth corrects Marianne’s form. Marianne blushes, and furrows her brow, but quickly makes the adjustments and tries again.

Veery naturally knows next to nothing about swordplay, but even so Leonie’s words to him way back when he first arrives in Garreg Mach still hold water. There are principles that carry over no matter how one fights, and though Veery can’t comment on Marianne’s grip or use of the blade, he can watch her balance, posture, and stance, among other things. (Not for the first time, he wonders how humans keep their balance without tails – though to those who grow up without them in the first place, perhaps adding a tail would throw them more off-balance.)

It shouldn’t be surprising that Marianne isn’t really that bad with a sword. Though primarily a healer, it’s not as if she doesn’t see combat fairly regularly, and she is still trained by Professor Byleth, so that her fundamentals are all solid is expected.

Of course, with her ability to heal from a distance, something Veery definitely lacks, and her affinity with animals, Professor Byleth is considering putting her on a horse, so though Veery doesn’t usually observe even the Golden Deer’s practice when he’s not participating himself (and thus doesn’t often see the shyer students like Marianne working on weapon skills) he imagines she has at least some experience with lances. Maybe even swords as well.

Actually, Veery has no idea how far Professor Byleth and Marianne are with that horse plan. That might already be in motion. Though, at this point in the year, Marianne likely won’t be on the level of the likes of Leonie or Lorenz before graduation.

“My, is that Hilda?” Professor Hanneman says suddenly, drawing Veery’s attention to the girl approaching Professor Byleth and Marianne. “Coming willingly to the training grounds? If we’ve not already had a divine intervention, I’d suspect a miracle.”

Veery snorts. “Isn’t that kind of rude to say about a student?”

“Oh perhaps,” Professor Hanneman chuckles. “But I do sincerely doubt Hilda herself would disagree.”

“…Yeah, probably.”

Veery’s ear twitches as he focuses on the conversation. Something about Fódlan’s Throat and the Almyrans beyond it. That already catches Veery’s attention. Are they going to Fódlan’s Throat? Can they see Almyra from there? Ordinarily, Veery will happily sit out of these little excursion missions – like when the class went out to Gloucester territory to do the duke’s job for him (though, that was when Veery was injured, so no one actually asked him to come anyway), but the opportunity to get a glimpse of Almyra is certainly tempting.

Then Cyril, who is cleaning some training weapons nearby, actually puts his work down to insert himself into the conversation. Veery still doesn’t know Cyril that well, but that’s more of a miracle than Hilda coming to the training ground in the first place in his mind.

“…I got captured in a battle at the Locket, and that's how I ended up here. So, I’m kind of worried that other kids who lose their folks might not be so lucky.”

Veery hears this and immediately starts making his way closer to the conversation. Eavesdropping is fine and all, but Cyril wants to go to the Throat to look out for orphaned children? Because House Goneril apparently takes them as servants and don’t treat them well?

This is the first Veery hears about such practices. Cyril uses the word servant, but Veery has a hard time believing that the children of the Goneril’s defeated enemies are anything but slaves. He doesn’t suspect it, because Hilda is overall a nice – if manipulative and occasionally frightening – girl who, for all her faults, definitely values everyone equally (there is a reason Claude likes her so much, and it’s not just for the banter), but even so…

There’s not much that Veery won’t accept humans to be capable of. Frankly, he thinks some agell are capable of forcing humans into slavery; it’s even easier to imagine the opposite.

“Can I come, too?” Veery asks, looking to Hilda.

Hilda actually raises her brow, looking at him with the same incredulity of someone looking at her offering to work. “You actually want to?” Hilda asks. “You always complain about being dragged into our missions.”

Veery shrugs. It’s the orphaned children being forced into slavery that really gives him the incentive, but Veery thinks it’s probably wise to keep that to himself directly in front of Hilda – at least until he actually sees the situation for himself. “Honestly, I’ve pretty much accepted that I’m a Deer at this point. And I want to see the Throat. Can you see Almyra from there?”

“It’s a mountain range,” Cyril says bluntly. “If you get on the other side of the mountain, then sure you can.”

“Neat.” Veery grins. “I want to see Almyra.” Despite his primary motivation, he isn’t lying. Going willingly into a battle isn’t his style, but this is a rare opportunity to see the Almyrans. Aside from Cyril and the occasional straggler in Abyss, Veery doesn’t know any Almyrans, and he knows next to nothing about them, so he’s naturally curious.

“Well that’s a relief!” Hilda coos. “The more strong allies that come with us, the safer we’ll all be.”

Fódlan’s Throat is… beautiful. Veery can’t contain his grin as he takes in the mountains.

It’s rocky – rockier than Garreg Mach, which is almost entirely lush except around Zanado – in that kind of craggy, precipitous drop kind of way, but there is still a lot of greenery growing on the spires and plateaus of rock. The terrain itself, rocky and precipitous, is like home to Veery, though he admittedly does tend to spend most of his time in Albinea on the shallower base of the mountains where the forest and food is, but the environment beyond that is like something out of a storybook.

It’s warmer this far east, though in the middle of winter it isn’t hot even for Veery, and the gnarled trees growing straight out of vertical rock are strange and alien to Veery. It’s magical how things seem to defy gravity here.

Fódlan’s Locket is almost as awesome as Garreg Mach, a proud, towering wall stretching across the mountains, and when Veery is led up to the top of the Locket, he can look out over the parapets directly into Almyra.

Which is… well, mostly brown. But no less impressive for it! Veery feels like he can see forever with how far the land stretches out before him. Mottled brown, tan, and patches of dull green make up the flatland on the other side of the mountains, the colors all blending together from the distance into a story that tells just a fraction of how vast Almyra is.

“Enjoying the view?”

Veery grins back at Claude, who approaches him on the wall. “Yes!” he exclaims eagerly. “Oh, how fun it would be to run out there…” He turns his gaze back to Almyra, enjoying the wind at his back and imagining simply sprinting through those Almyran plains.

No reason, no destination, just running off into the plains. Veery closes his eyes and feels a faint, hazy memory of flying, soaring endlessly simply because he can. It’s hard to remember, but he knows it’s the dream, the memory, that Sothis gives him after the Sealed Forest. Veery can’t fly and can’t pretend he particularly wants to (he’s used to unsteady terrain, being mountain-born, but he still likes the feeling of solid ground beneath his feet), but the feeling of freedom, of his own power bringing him wherever he pleases, is a hard one to forget, even if he knows it only from a dream.

It’s not so different, Veery suspects, with such a vast expanse of flat, welcoming land in front of him, to run those plains as it is to soar through the sky.

Claude chuckles. “Almyra is certainly different, isn’t it? And this is just a fraction of it. I wish you could see the cities.”

Veery shakes his head. “I’ll take the plains, thanks. You just really want to drag me into civilization, don’t you?”

“What can I say?” Claude says, smiling but doing his best to pout. “I’ll miss you if you’re all alone in the middle of nowhere.”

Veery giggles and nudges Claude affectionately. “I’ll miss you, too. That doesn’t mean I can put up with somewhere like Garreg Mach forever. Maybe you should just join me out in the wilds.”

Claude snorts. “Part of me wishes I could.” He sighs, shaking his head. “But I’ve got responsibilities, and a dream to fulfil.”

“Responsibilities.” Veery rolls his eyes. “All the more reason to live alone. I don’t have any of those.”

“Ha! You’re just a hermit version of Hilda, then?”

“At least we’re honest about being lazy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Claude gasps in mock offense. “I’ll have you know that I am utterly irresponsible.”

“Then run away with me into Almyra,” Veery teases.

Claude smiles, but it quickly turns strained. Veery frowns, wondering what’s wrong, but Claude just fixes his expression into a more relaxed smile – even now, if Veery doesn’t witness his expression change like that, he might mistake it for an honest smile. “Hey, I haven’t told you, yet, but…” Claude starts.

Veery’s ear twitches, picking up on another sound that quickly distracts him from whatever Claude is concerned about. “Sorry, wait,” Veery says quickly silencing Claude, who immediately falls into duty-mode to handle whatever this is as seriously as his position demands. Veery listens. There it is again. “Wyverns,” Veery says.

Claude curses. “The attack is expected to come today,” he mutters. “Let’s go find Hilda and Holst.”

Holst is sick, apparently. Veery doesn’t get the chance to see him, but if he’s bedridden, then no matter what ails him, curing it now won’t have him up and in fighting shape for the battle. Which is now. That means that Hilda, being the only Goneril remaining in any state to fight, is the de facto general.

Hilda.

She is, admittedly, good at telling people what to do, but Veery wouldn’t necessarily peg her as the general type all the same. That being said, she quickly convenes with Claude and Professor Byleth and comes up with a plan which makes Veery feel a little better about Hilda being in charge here.

Of course, Fódlan’s Locket is an impressive fortress, so their side has an advantage anyway. Still, Cyril, Veery, Claude, and Marianne take a hidden path through the mountains to flank the Almyrans as they approach the Locket just to be sure.

Part of Veery is very much not happy that he’s in the thick of the fighting again – though he has to admit that this time, he quite literally asks for it – but another part is actually relieved that he gets to just be a brawler.

Fighting as a healer, or a hybrid, as he typically does, is technically safer – at least now that he can cast while shifted, anyway – but it’ll never be his comfort zone. He’s a cat. Ripping and tearing with his claws is just the way he’s supposed to fight. Magic helps but standing around on a battlefield healing just makes him feel like a sitting duck.

Besides, Veery doesn’t think it’ll be this satisfying to take down a wyvern with just his claws and teeth. There are no wyverns in Albinea, and until now Veery doesn’t face them in battle. Which is a good thing, because wyverns are undoubtedly terrifying predators. All the same, that just means that when it comes down to it and Veery leaps up, digs his claws into a wyvern’s belly, catches its throat in his jaws and manages to get a kick off that shreds part of its wing, and then somehow manages to land with just a tumble and some scratches as he brings the beast down to the earth really scratches at Veery’s pride.

Who’s the top predator now, you overgrown chicken?

As stupid as it is to engage something so large and deadly, Veery is lying massively if he pretends that he doesn’t always get a kick out of surpassing the challenge. Like when he takes down a moose.

In hindsight, Veery is quite sure that he would not be able to take down a war wyvern on his own before Professor Byleth and Leonie and the others start dragging him into training all those months ago. He wouldn’t even consider pulling a stunt like he does here, because he would know that there is no world in which he succeeds, but he supposes that even he improves his martial skills in his time at Garreg Mach.

Marianne chides him for being reckless, which is frankly hilarious, and would baffle the Veery from six months ago, but he really does have the situation under control. Marianne knows him well enough by now to know that while he’s a lot of things, reckless is most certainly not one of those.

Although, with how efficiently Claude and Cyril ground wyverns, Veery does admit that he’s probably better off focusing on the enemies they find on solid ground. In his defense, that wyvern swoops at him, so it kind of deserves it.

Regardless, most of their fight is Claude and Cyril working scarily efficiently to fend off the vast majority of the Almyrans they come across, Veery sniffing out enemies and eliminating anyone who gets too close, and Marianne either healing or shooting fur-raising Thoron spells with the levin sword that Professor Byleth gives her.

It’s nothing any of them aren’t familiar with, frankly. Still, it’s only after the battle is over, when he rejoins everyone else at the Locket, and the chaos of the fight starts to settle that Veery realizes that this isn’t a very impressive invasion force.

Sure, there are quite a few wyverns and the Almyrans are definitely fierce fighters, but this is more of a skirmish than a border war. Veery doesn’t think there’s many more people than Miklan had in Conand Tower, and that was a single bandit gang. He’s not an expert on war or anything, but he’s pretty sure that taking a fortress like the Locket calls for a much more significant showing.

“They aren’t really trying to cross Fódlan’s Throat. I'm not saying they’re not serious, but fights like this one aren’t really invasions.” Cyril says to Professor Byleth.

That explains this battle, then. Cyril explains more, about how it’s just to show off how tough they are and have an excuse to feast, and Veery can’t help but agree that it’s a stupid reason to fight and get people killed.

Veery has his pride. He even has pride as a warrior. Or… hunter, at least. Even just in this battle, the satisfaction of taking down a wyvern with his own strength is something that’ll stick with him and stroke his ego for a while. Even so, pride is no reason to lead people to their deaths, nor to seek out one’s own.

That said, Albineans aren’t much better in that regard. They’re always fighting. They don’t necessarily kill each other, but Veery highly suspects that that’s mostly just because Albinea itself does enough killing. He does hear that Albineans further to the west don’t get along with the ones in the east, though, so maybe there’s even fighting there, but Veery himself usually is too far north to hear about human squabbles, so that’s just rumor.

The brawls he does see, though… It almost makes him want to laugh. Back then, he can only think about how violent these humans are but looking back now… he thinks it’s mostly just posturing and fun. Just like how Leonie and Felix love sparring so much, those Albineans love a good brawl.

So, he tries not to judge the Almyrans for liking to fight. He disapproves of throwing themselves at Fódlan’s Locket, killing Almyrans and Fódlanders alike just for the sake of their fighting culture, but he doesn’t judge them for liking to fight.

He hopes that wyvern will be okay. Veery tries his best not to kill, even though he isn’t under orders not to, and for the most part in the battle the Almyrans seem content to admit loss when they are clearly bested, so he doesn’t like the idea of that wyvern actually dying from this skirmish.

Wyverns are cool. It’d be a shame to die here for such a stupid reason.

“I’m going to drop by my family’s estate and complain to my brother a bit,” Hilda says. “It’s up to you if we spend the night here at the fortress or not, Professor, but I, for one, vote to have comfortable beds.”

Professor Byleth frowns. “Lady Rhea isn’t happy that Veery and I left the monastery at all. We should probably get back as soon as we can.”

“Or we can have baths and beds tonight,” Claude says, smiling teasingly.

Professor Byleth closes her eyes, nodding seriously. “Good point. We’ll stay the night. You’ve all earned the rest, and we’ll be back in time for the revelation either way.”

“That’s the spirit, Teach!”

Veery scoots a little closer to Hilda, who is already preparing to leave the Locket behind her. There are a couple things on his mind, and both lie at the Goneril estate, so it won’t do for him to sit here at the Locket while Hilda goes off alone. “Uh… hey.”

“Hm? Oh, Veery! How can I help you?” Hilda coos sweetly.

“Your brother isn’t here because he’s sick, right?” Veery asks, sticking to the safer of the two things he’s concerned about. “Should… I go see him?”

“Aw.” Hilda grins. “That’s a great idea! Thank you so much for thinking of him. I’d really appreciate it if you could take a look at him. I’m sure it’s nothing serious, but I really can’t risk losing my brother. Without him, guarding this fortress would be my job!”

“And that would be a travesty,” Veery chuckles, only half-joking. Hilda will step up to the plate if she has to, Veery knows, but… serious border general is no more Hilda’s cup of tea than it is Sylvain’s. Then again, if Hilda pulls a Sylvian and tries to negotiate peace with Almyra, then maybe this should be her job. “Well, just take me to him and I’ll do what I can. If he’s willing to let me, anyway.”

Hilda screws up her face. “Don’t worry about that. Holst isn’t… well, you won’t have any problems with him. Except, maybe you might have to fend off his offers to fight you…”

“I’ll just aim him at Professor Byleth,” Veery says. “She’ll fight him.”

“Hah! Oh, I’d love to see that. We might have to be careful that Holst doesn’t fall in love, though. A beautiful woman who can kick his ass? Geez, maybe I shouldn’t have offered to let you guys stay the night so close.”

Veery snickers. “Don’t worry. If he’s bedridden right now, then even if I can do something to help him, he’s not going to be fighting by tomorrow morning. Doctor’s orders.”

“I wish that would work.” Hilda sighs. “My brother is brilliant, but…”

“Yeah, I really don’t understand that thing you humans do where you don’t listen to the people trying to keep you alive.” Veery giggles. “But apparently it’s so common that Professor Manuela has to lead several seminars specifically on that alone.”

“I wish I could say otherwise, but… Holst is enough of an idiot that you might have to worry about that. I’m sorry in advance for any trouble he causes.”

Veery just shrugs. “Hey, it’s not my health.”

Hilda giggles. “Anyway, come on! I’ll take you to him right away.” She eagerly grabs Veery’s arm and starts dragging him along, calling back to the professor in the meanwhile, “I’m taking Veery with me! We’ll be back soon, maybe! Definitely in the morning!”

“By dinner!” Professor Byleth calls.

“Probably!”

“Hey!” Claude exclaims, hurrying to catch up to them as Hilda drags Veeery out of the room. “Veery’s mine! You can’t just kidnap him!”

“Veery’s going to take a look at Holst, dummy.” Hilda rolls her eyes. “I’m not taking your boyfriend.”

Even hurrying through the halls as they are, Claude does his absolute best to look like he’s pouting. “But I wanted to talk to him.”

“You can talk after dinner,” Hilda says, sticking her tongue out. “But you’re more than welcome to come along, if you want to deal with my sick brother…”

Claude makes a face, deliberates, and then stops following them. “Alright, you win. I’ll see you both at dinner!”

“Bye-bye, Claude!”

Veery just chuckles at the two and waves to Claude himself. The next thing he knows, Hilda and he are on their way to the nearby Goneril estate.

Veery doesn’t know exactly what he expects from the estate. Frankly, he’s never been in anything that can be called an “estate” in his life, so he doesn’t have any frame of reference for it, much less one in the far east edge of Fódlan.

It’s… basically a miniature Garreg Mach, really. There’s no obvious chapel, but beyond that, there are stables, a training ground, several buildings with one in the end being obviously grander, all walled off. Put it on top of a mountain – which it is – and the only major difference is the Goneril Crest and Leicester Flag emblazoned everywhere rather than Seiros’.

Actually, Veery thinks he likes the atmosphere here more than Garreg Mach. It’s smaller, but less crowded – most of the troops, he figures, are at the Locket rather than the estate. It’s humbler, but that just means he doesn’t need a month of living there to figure out where anything is. Plus, despite it being warmer, it’s so pretty here!

The warmer clime means that plants flourish. Though the forests around Garreg Mach are evergreen (which admittedly still astounds Veery – the trees in Albinea are “evergreen” too, but they’re usually so covered in snow at this time of year that there isn’t much green to see) and Goneril is notably more rocky and objectively less green overall, it plays to the land’s benefit. What grows here, in this rocky, dry mountain, stands out much more than what grows in Garreg Mach, and even now it’s warm enough that there are outdoor gardens full of colorful flowers.

Veery isn’t sure he’s ever seen some of those colors before.

Gods, it’s like his first day at Garreg Mach all over again, just gawking and marveling at every little thing, except he’s with a friend and not quite so scared. Hilda giggles good-naturedly and encourages him, though, telling him patiently about everything that catches his eye, so it’s not entirely his own fault.

And the people… he gets some questioning looks but being led by the arm by Hilda silences any concern. He overhears chatter, people talking about who that is with Lady Hilda. The words “cat saint” are thrown around a few times, which Veery tries very hard not to cringe at, but overall people just kind of accept that Hilda’s in charge of him and don’t pay him much mind.

Well, one person prays that Veery isn’t some suitor Hilda picks up in her time away, and frankly that’s a fair enough lament that Veery can’t find it in himself to feel insulted. He likes Hilda well enough, but even if the idea of marriage didn’t still confuse Veery massively… him and Hilda? Nothing would ever be done. Both of them are far too lazy, and he’ll openly admit that he would definitely enable her.

Veery is more than willing to do things if he’s asked (politely), but he’s sort of like Linhardt in that if it’s not something that interests him, he’s not going to just get up and do it. He just… doesn’t have that kind of sense of duty.

Not to mention that he is vastly underqualified to have any sort of power over anyone. That, and he doesn’t want power, because power means people relying on him and people relying on him means people, and he really just wants to live alone in the mountains without people constantly nagging him.

Anyway, he’s being led through the hallways of the main house – Hilda’s home, apparently – listening to her chatter and keeping an eye on any servants he can see when he realizes that he has absolutely no idea how to identify an Almyran.

So, the plan of looking into the Almyran slave thing subtly goes out the window if he doesn’t even know what an Almyran looks like. He knows what Cyril looks like, and he sees a few faces during the battle earlier, but… well, to Veery, they just look human. Cyril doesn’t look that much different from Claude, and aside from colors and tones, Claude doesn’t look that much different from Hilda.

Obviously each one looks unique, with their own features, like them, but Veery honestly has no idea what to look for that will set apart an Almyran from a Fódlander. How is he supposed to tell what an Almyran looks like when Fódlanders look like everything from Hilda to Raphael? He can’t even begin to guess at features that mark Fódlanders, and he’s been living here surrounded by them for months.

Well, that’s a lack of foresight. He’s at Holst’s door, though, so he figures it’s a concern to get back to when he no longer has a patient on his hands.

“Holst! I’m back!” Hilda cheers loudly, prompting a groan from within the room. “And I brought a friend!”

The responding voice is clearly weak, which makes Veery frown, but Holst still does everything he can to greet his sister enthusiastically.

Veery follows Hilda into the room, slipping in and closing the door behind him, carefully eyeing his prospective patient. Honestly, Flayn and Marianne are better healers than him, so yes, he offers, but he really thinks one of them should be here considering this is a noble, but he can only sigh and take the situation as it is.

Holst, though large and muscular (much like Raphael, or any Albinean), is pale and haggard. There’s a sheen over his brow, and some of his pink hair is damp and plastered to his skin. Clearly ailing, and in pain, Holst tries to sit up, eagerly grinning through whatever he’s feeling to welcome his beloved sister.

“Oh, lay down, Holst. You’re sick!” Hilda chides him. “My friend here is a healer, who generously offered to come take a look at you.”

Holst laughs good-naturedly, forcing himself into a sitting position regardless of Hilda’s words, and glancing over to Veery. “My Hilda writes about you all the time. It’s a pleasure to finally meet the famous cat saint.”

Veery doesn’t bother to stop himself from cringing this time. With only Hilda and Holst, and him not eavesdropping to hear the words, he doesn’t see the need to. “I’m a cat,” he sighs, “but I’m not a saint.”

Holst laughs, quickly wincing and clutching his stomach when he does so. “Well, it’s an honor all the same,” he says. With a stroke of his beard, he adds, “If the rumors are true, the goddess herself gave you her power.”

“Loaned,” Veery says. “Or, rather, allowed me to use. I’m no more powerful now than I was before she intervened.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, as great as it is to meet Hilda’s famous brother, you’re sick. Do you mind if I look you over? See what I can do for you?”

“Not at all! That’d be appreciated.” Holst chuckles, still smiling the day away despite clearly being in a lot of pain. “Though, we do have our own healers. But rumor is you can heal anything.”

Veery makes a face. “Far from it. Honestly, I’m the most inexperienced of the three in the Deer.” Hilda makes a squealing sound, prompting Veery to correct himself. “If you count me as a Deer, which I’m technically not.”

“You admitted it!” Hilda cheers.

“I admitted it before we left.”

“Yeah, grudgingly,” Hilda huffs. “It’s about time you just called yourself one of us.”

“Has my sister been giving you a hard time?” Holst asks, eyes dancing with humor.

Veery shrugs, moving to examine Holst with his magic. “Not any harder than she gives everyone. Do you know how you got sick? Something you ate? Or just a random illness?”

“Ah.” Holst blushes, rubbing his neck awkwardly. “I… might have eaten a weird mushroom. I think that’s what caused it.”

“You what?” Hilda shrieks. Veery just closes his eyes. “You just found a weird mushroom and decided to eat it? Right before a battle?”

Holst visibly deflates, finally letting the illness make him look anything but chipper. “Hilda! I didn’t think it would-”

“Don’t eat weird plants you can’t identify is, like, the first thing Teach taught us in class!”

“Sounds like a smart lady.”

“Holst, you complete idiot!” Hilda groans.

Veery awkwardly clears his throat. “Um… what did the mushroom look like?”

Holst brightens again without Hilda criticizing him. “Oh, well, it was about… this big, and had a really pretty pink top. Pink! That’s why I picked it up.”

“Pink…” Veery mutters. “Sweating, stomach pain… muscle pain?” Holst nods. “Right.” Veery is pretty sure Claude poisons himself with that last month. “I should be able to get the toxin out of your system, but you’re still going to have to rest for a while as your body realizes there’s no more threat. Hold still.”

Veery purses his lips, tail swaying as he concentrates on using his Restore spell. Restore is… complicated. Veery only learns it because of the incident at Remire, and the resulting lessons on poisons and dark magic ailments, and then Veery’s subsequent discovery of how Claude likes to test his experimental poisons.

Honestly, thanks to Claude, this might be the one aspect of healing that Veery is actually better at than Marianne. Still, it requires focus and patience to fully clear someone of toxins. A quick-fix to ward off symptoms in the middle of combat, applied right after (or before) the poisoning, is easy enough, but that’s very different from meticulously purging toxins from someone’s whole body.

Holst whistles. “Woah, you really can just cure me, huh? I guess I shouldn’t have doubted. Seems like the rumors are more right about you than you give yourself credit for.”

“No,” Veery says patiently. “They’re really not.”

“They are, though!” Hilda says, traitorously. “You should have seen him on the battlefield, Holst. He took down a whole wyvern! Just jumped on it as it was diving at him and brought it to the ground.”

“Ha! That’s gutsy. I like it! You transform into a big cat to fight, right? We should spar sometime!”

Veery glares at Hilda. She makes no attempt to pretend she doesn’t do that on purpose. “I don’t like fighting,” Veery says. “And we’ll be gone by the time you’re in any shape to fight, anyway.”

“Aw.” Holst pouts. “Then you’ll just have to come back to visit sometime! And bring your professor next time, too. From Hilda’s letters, I can’t wait to spar with her.”

Veery glances to Hilda. “It sounds like she writes a lot about us.”

“Oh, yeah! She really likes you guys. I really wish I could have come out and fought along with you and thank you all personally for taking care of my sister.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Veery says, narrowing his eyes at Hilda, who quickly realizes what’s happening and subtly gestures for him to shut up. “You won’t be able to fight, but if you rest today and sleep it off, you should be able to come out to the Locket in the morning to see everyone off if you want. Professor Byleth especially is so proud of Hilda, I’m sure she’d love to talk to you about her progress this year.”

Hilda audibly gasps. “You didn’t…”

“That’s a great idea!” Holst exclaims. “I can’t wait to finally meet this fabled professor! But Hilda never mentions much about her own progress at the academy. Still, it’s no surprise that her professor sees just how wonderful and talented my brilliant little sister is.”

“Veery,” Hilda growls into his ear. “You’ll pay for this.”

Veery raises his brow at her. “Oh, definitely,” he says, pointedly, to Holst. “In fact, she told me just earlier how proud she was of Hilda for taking charge at the Locket today. She led your troops to victory in today’s attack, you know. Our professor’s role there was as just another soldier.”

“Should I blame Sylvain, Claude, or myself?” Hilda sighs. “Who taught you to do this?”

Holst practically jumps out of his seat, forcing Veery to chastise him and hold him still even as he rambles praises that has Veery grinning and Hilda blushing under her brother’s unrestrained affection. “It’s all three of you that taught me.” Veery mutters just for her. “But I’m glad to see you’re taking responsibility, at least.”

“You’re the worst.”

“You’re blushing.”

“Shut up!”

Veery has to admit, he’s kind of smug when he sits down to dinner with Hilda and Claude and the others. Every time Hilda gives him the stink-eye, Veery can’t help but grin back.

Claude watches this exchange through the evening, staying quiet but obviously amused, though Hilda quickly gives up on pouting in favor of enjoying the meal with her classmates. It’s only when Claude grabs Veery’s arm after dinner and drags him and Hilda into a quiet, isolated place that Veery remembers there is something Claude wants to tell him. Something he almost says up on the top of the Locket, just before the Almyrans arrived.

“What happened between you two?” Claude asks, breaking the quiet that falls between them.

“Cruel and unusual punishment,” Hilda says.

“Payback,” Veery answers.

Claude raises his brow.

“I blame you, Claude. Veery’s too good at manipulating people now.”

Veery snorts loudly. “No, your brother is just easy.”

Hilda groaned, sounding almost pained. “I wish I could argue with that…”

Claude shakes his head. “What happened, exactly?”

“I might’ve praised Veery in front of my brother,” Hilda says. “But only because he was being so darn modest! And then he decides to get back at me by praising me, knowing full well that my brother won’t shut up with the praises when I’m involved. Holst is even going to meet us tomorrow before we leave to…” She gags dramatically on her words. “Talk to Teach about my progress. He’s going to be insufferable for years after this!”

“You made him want to fight me!” Veery complains. “You knew what you were doing, too!”

“Graduation is so soon! You might not ever even come back to Goneril, but I’m going to have to live with him!”

“He’s your brother!”

Claude bursts out laughing, swiftly bringing Veery and Hilda’s complaining to an end. “Well, it’s good to see you two getting along. For a while there I was worried you weren’t friends.”

Hilda protests. “What? Of course, Veery is my friend!”

Veery, however, just makes a strained groaning sound. “It’s not that I don’t like her…” he says. “She’s just hard to keep up with most of the time.”

“Excuse me?”

“Claude slows down for me. You just go and go and I have trouble following, sometimes. Today wasn’t bad, but… sometimes I have no idea what you’re talking about. You talk fast and don’t leave time for me to think and process and I get left behind a bit.”

Hilda’s eyes go wide. “Oh! Oh, I should have realized. That was so stupid of me. I’m so sorry. I never meant to overwhelm you like that.”

Veery chuckles. “I know. I know you just get excited. But Claude thinking we weren’t friends might’ve come from me avoiding you from time to time. I’m still not great with people, and you’re… a little more to deal with than most people.”

Hilda makes a show of pouting, but still sighs. “I understand. Don’t be afraid of just telling me I’m being too much, alright? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Hah. Right. I’ll remember that. I might do that now, but before…” He shrugs. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. Point being, we’re definitely friends now, right?”

“Of course!” Hilda coos. “Does this mean I get to pet you?”

“Not a chance.”

“Aw, boo.”

Claude chuckles. “I could watch you two all day, but I did want to talk to you about something.”

Oh. Right. It’s too easy to get carried away with Hilda, honestly, now that Veery is a little more capable of keeping up with her. On good days, anyway, when he’s feeling more sociable. Hilda and he both turn their attention obediently back to Claude. “What is it that we need to sneak off to talk about?” Hilda asks.

Claude bites his lip, a rare show of uncertainty. “Hilda… first, I wanted to ask you about what Cyril says about Almyran children being mistreated by the Gonerils.”

Oh. It looks like Veery doesn’t have to ask about that after all. Good. That makes things easier.

Hilda’s expression immediately darkens. “It’s true that we take in orphaned kids if we find them.” Hilda sighs heavily. “I know for a fact that my brother has never mistreated anyone, but… I can’t say for certain that it’s entirely stopped. To be honest, Claude, I’ve been writing to my brother about that for a while now. He’s doing what he can for them, but… prejudices are hard to overcome, and my brother is just one person. He doesn’t always know when cousins or heads of staff or anyone else like that decides to take out their frustrations on the Almyrans in the estate. And my father is… more traditional than my brother, too. Not beyond reasoning with, but… progress comes slower with him.”

Claude blinks. “You’ve… already been writing to your family about that?”

“Of course!” Hilda frowns. “Before I came to the academy, I admit I had some pretty terrible opinions of the Almyrans myself. I didn’t think twice about the mistreatment, or even the servitude in the first place, because that’s just how I was raised.” She looks over to Veery. “But then I met you, and Veery, and Cyril, Dedue, Petra, and I… well, it took a while, but I started thinking, and looking back at life here, and realized there are some things that need to be changed. I don’t like to work, but my brother listens to me, and I can at least talk with him about it through letters for a while.”

Hilda sighs again, looking affectionately at the both of them. “You two both want a world where there aren’t any walls like that between people, right? Where people are free to be different and still respected. Me, I just want to live freely, with nothing tying me down. I want to do things my way, and no one else’s, so… I really respect your dream, you know? I think I can live my way in the world you two create, so that’s enough reason for me to support you.”

Claude, openly dumbstruck, smiles. “Hilda…”

Hilda flashes a cheeky grin. “And my way of life doesn’t involve stupid prejudices. So, I’ll be relying on you to help me keep fixing my own, okay? And in return, I’ll do my part to help you make your dream a reality. Starting right here in Goneril with the Almyrans. I’ve even been talking to Sylvain recently about how he’s planning on making peace with Sreng. I’m hoping my brother can pull off something similar here, too, and I won’t have to worry about inheriting a guard post anymore.”

“Ha.” Claude shakes his head. “Wow. You really knew exactly what I was going to say, didn’t you?”

“That’s my job, silly!” Hilda giggles. “I’m your second-in-command, aren’t I? What kind of deputy would I be if I couldn’t even figure out my leader’s intentions?”

“You really are amazing, Hilda,” Claude says. “Thank you. Your support means a lot to me.”

“Don’t look so surprised, dummy. You’re my friend and house leader. Besides that, your dream is worth following.”

Claude grabs her and pulls her, yelping, into a tight hug. Veery smiles watching them. “No, seriously,” Claude mutters. “Thank you.” He releases her, the surprise finally wearing off to allow the insecurity return to his features. “I’m… not used to having support, honestly. I didn’t really trust that I’d get any allies from my time at Garreg Mach, but somehow I got you two.”

He looks down, away, and then sighs. “I want to trust you both. Hilda… I think you might have already figured it out, but I know Veery hasn’t. I… It’s hard to trust anyone like this…”

“I know,” Veery says gently. “Trust is… hard.” Whatever it is that Claude is hiding, Veery definitely knows the feeling he’s describing. Wanting to trust someone, hoping that your faith isn’t misplaced, stepping forward into doubt, even certain failure and betrayal, on the mere chance that his fears will prove unfounded and everything will be okay. It’s the story of Veery’s entire time in Fódlan.

Claude smiles. “I know you do. You… really, really do. Gods…” He shakes his head. “Anyway, my big secret… I’m Almyran. Half, obviously. The Crest comes from my mom.”

Claude is Almyran? Veery blinks. “…Okay?” He tilts his head, wondering just what exactly the big deal is.

Hilda sighs. “Yeah, I guessed as much. I’m sorry, Claude, I said some really stupid things around you. I’m surprised you trust me at all, considering that.”

“I didn’t, for a while,” Claude admits. “But I noticed your attitude change. You stopped talking about other groups of people thoughtlessly. I did what I could to encourage that change – honestly seeing it for myself is probably why I trust you as much as I do.”

Veery bites his lip. “I think something got lost here,” he says. “What’s the big deal about being Almyran?”

Claude raises his brow. “Oh, right. You wouldn’t care. It’s just the same old story. In Almyra, everyone hates me because I’m half Fódlander. In Fódlan, everyone hates me because I’m half Almyran. I’m surprised you didn’t notice. I call it my secret, but the truth is it’s kind of an open one. I mean, look at me.”

“That’s how I figured it out.” Hilda nods.

“Right,” Claude says. “I honestly thought you’d see me with Cyril and put the pieces together.”

Veery just fixes them both with a flat look. “Really? The agell from Albinea is definitely going to accurately guess that a human is lying about their ethnicity because the single Almyran he knows looks sort of vaguely like him?”

“Ha! Good point. Sorry, Veery. I really should have told you sooner.”

“Why?” Veery asks. “Does it matter at all?”

Claude snickers. “Well, not to you, probably. But Hilda… me being Almyran isn’t all there is to it.”

“Oh?” Hilda leans in, sensing gossip. “What else is there?”

Claude clears his throat, insecurity revealing itself once more, but he quickly pushes it back and says, “I’m Prince Khalid.”

“That… also means nothing to me,” Veery admits. So, Claude is a prince, too? Okay. All Veery takes from that is that Claude is important in both Fódlan and Almyra, which should help him, right? Oh, except people hate him because he’s not a true anything, so that is a difficult situation.

Hilda opens her mouth, shuts it, then repeats that process a few more times before finally settling on. “Oh. Well, that is complicated. You’re still my friend and leader, though, so don’t ever forget that.”

That’s Claude’s cue to let out the breath he’s holding and dive back into a hug, this time with both of them.

Veery can’t begin to guess at Claude’s experiences. The memories that make him who he is, the sneaky, scheming, poison-crafting, silver-tongued, future duke, are out of Veery’s reach. Veery doubts he’ll ever understand fully where Claude comes from, but it’s apparent enough that he’s hurt by prejudice, by the thing that their dream brings an end to, and that he’s trusting even though he doesn’t trust, doing even though he doesn’t believe, and Veery understands that more than anything.

Trust is hard, very hard, for Veery. Still, Claude doesn’t let him down yet. Veery has no intention of letting Claude down, either.