#I love discussing chapters
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j0kers-light · 10 months ago
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I need to vent Chaos! I have this theory and blink twice if I’m right! Harley is her original character as a psychiatrist but I’m getting iffy vibes from her! The offhand comments to Y/n, the gun alarm, her thick accent. I’m scared Chaos. Is Harley and Joker working together? Are they gonna hurt my baby? Y/n has been through so much I literally cannot if Joker turns out to betray her. He loves her too much but he’s still The Joker!! He’s manipulative and unpredictable! Then we still have that mole in his gang and Morgana said J “keeps his friends close and his enemies closer”I’m scared 😭 This screams double crossing to me and maybe that’s why he refuses to go to our therapy sessions! All the clues lead to Harley and Joker teaming up but it doesn’t explain how Joker turned himself in. Maybe he had a change of heart or Harley framed him? I dunno. That’s my theory and I’m standing by it. If it’s true I’m gonna cry will reading it because your work is so good! I’m obsessed no matter what happens! Love you!
Hiiiiiii anon vent away my love! I love it!🖤✨
But how will you see me if I blink twice? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 anyhoo this theory beloved…… 👀 Let’s talk about it.
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I see where you got this idea from, and I encourage radical thinking like this! I love brainstorming and discussing my chapters with others because it can change the narrative and give me ideas for later chapters.
But alas. Not this time. All I can say is,
Do be wary of Harley. Do question who this mysterious mole is. Joker is manipulative and unpredictable and you should be worried (but not scared love). Joker stands by his words and he does in fact keep his enemies close and for good reason.
I have Joker shown as this loving simp doing anything and everything for his Light. Don’t forget who he is anon. 🫣
I’m happy that you’re noticing the strings being pulled behind the scenes and I hope you catch the clues I’ve left behind to prepare you for what’s to come. 😉
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starmocha · 6 months ago
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Love and Deepspace + Tumblr Text Post ↳ Sylus: No Defense Zone
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rimatsu · 19 days ago
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setting pessimism aside to daydream about my ideal bucktommy makeup scenario and i just... keep oscillating between buck extending an olive branch and tommy reaching out first. there's merit in both. yes i'd love for buck to discard passivity and fight for this salvageable relationship — for buck to look tommy straight in the eyes and tell him that his sharp edges and his vulnerable insides don't make him any less deserving of love. that he's not blinded by the excitement of novelty or misguided admiration — even without the full picture, buck has seen enough pieces of the puzzle that makes up tommy's whole to know that he loves the entirety of him, unspoken faults and past sins included. that buck can't guarantee forever but he sure as hell can try to build the sturdy foundation of a shared life based on the hope for more. that sometimes you just luck out on the first draw and there's nothing wrong with good fortune.
but it would also be extremely healing if tommy knocked on buck's door to chase after his own second chance. to say "i want you more than i'm scared of hurting" when buck asks him what's changed in 4 months — because tommy would rather live with scars than be haunted by regrets and what-ifs. because buck is worth the risk of never recovering from having loved him
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ruporas · 2 years ago
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i’ll find you again in every universe. let us be a little more honest, let us have a little more time.
#vashwood#vash the stampede#nicholas d wolfwood#trigun#despite it all though badlands rumble is like. the only universe where we get wolfwood thinking vash died first... and i think that means a#lot to their relationship and how it may bloom if there was more to badlands rumble considering vash literally saw wolfwood carrying a piece#of vash after his supposed death. u know! despite the short time they were together vash still meant so much to wolfwood that he couldn't#just move on or forget him in anyway. needed to keep a piece of him for himself and the rest of his days. but ofc vash lives and wolfwood#was like ill beat ur fucking ass into tomorrow. there's just so much honesty in vash being able to see that gesture bc he wouldnt know#otherwise just how much he might mean to him. ANYWAY. trimax with with the eternal pining featuring the two chapters where imo#where the both of them really fell for each other... i wrote my thoughts about this on another comic i did before#but vash solidifying his feelings during the hospital arc -- ww solidifies his when he realizes his allegiances are permanently with vash#98 my lovelies but also to me they are so one-sided bc ww pined like no tomorrow and vash only realizes after ep 23?24? his heart did tickle#whenever ww complimented his smile though#and tristamp vw my beloveds. it really just feels like they get the  chance to be closer and closer and more honest with each other#with every version that comes about. in trimax they knew how little time they had but struggled so desperately to get closer. in 98 ww felt#more willing to forsake for vash. in badlands rumble theyre Angry but as mentioned earlier ^ more blatant truth... due to circumstances#mainly but has the chance to lead to discussions and tristamp literally. first day of knowing each other ww saves vash - 2 days later vash#saves ww like. Man. AND NOW THEY MAY POTENTIALLY GET EVEN CLOSER!!!! with s2....#ruporas art
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noheteroexplanation · 2 months ago
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– New still of Alicent Hightower and Gwayne Hightower in episode 2x03 "The Burning Mill" from the House or the Dragon Season 2 Companion Book
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wundrousarts · 4 days ago
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Something I’ve noticed for awhile is that I often get comments from people about how they are surprised how I always come up with theories and try to guess what might happen and they “could never do that” themselves. I want to say: yes you can! There’s honestly a shortage of Nevermoor theories and ideas and speculation and etc and I want to see MORE!!!
Want to talk about how Morrigan’s mom is actually secretly alive? How the Scholar Mistresses are a Wundrous Act? Do you think the Tempus Divinity looks like an owl, or do you think Weaving and Ruination would be met together? Or have you ever thought about how this one line, from Chapter 19 of Nevermoor, about Betram Crow actually means he was a Cursed Child? Whatever it is you want to talk about: GO FOR IT!!!
I personally find it very fun to go sort of “English class mode” and look at the text in front of me and think about what different things might mean and analyze it and even overthink it to an unnecessary (but fun!) amount. But that’s just me and how I like to approach things! You don’t need to make long posts and quote specific lines if that isn’t your style. The big thing to remember is that so much can happen in the next six books, so throw any idea out there! You never know what twists and turns will be thrown at us. I think it’s fun to share these ideas and discuss with other people— sure, maybe there’s just something you missed when reading, but perhaps some new ideas spawn might from it. Some speculation could even serve as inspiration for fics!
There are some theories and thoughts that I’ve posted that have been “debunked” when I reread a book, or when someone pointed out something, or even just when something had a real-world basis that I as an American didn’t catch. But it was still fun to think about it all, and there’s some bits and pieces that I see as notable and worth considering. I think most of the Silverborn Masterpost is going to be “wrong”, but if just 1% of it is “correct”, even indirectly, I will take that as a win. I know it feels like during the hiatus everyone’s talked about everything, but I hope that the incoming communal reread (fingers crossed) and obviously Silverborn brings some speculation back to the fandom because I want to discusssssss!
#nevermoor#pleaseeeeeee I like discussions and bouncing off of other people and other ideas#I just wrote some of the top theories I could think of that I've seen around#I have a post in my drafts about the Bertram one lol#I have many half written theories in reblogs added onto other people’s posts that I decided to save ‘until Silverborn or beyond’#and then it got delayed….. and delayed……….#writing this post is also reminding me how I was going to look at chapter 9 in each of the books and then possibly multiples (18 27 etc)#also asks. either I answer asks right away or it will take months or years (like a time-specific art request that I promise I’ll get to lol)#and maybe even chapters that just end in 9 but idk that’s something to tackle in the future lol#there’s also that idea I had ages ago about a ‘9 masterpost’ which was every single instance of 9 and whether it ranged from#‘this is just Jess’s favorite number’ to ‘wait actually this connects to that and that connects to this and maybe it means—‘#anyways tl;dr: please share more theories and ideas and stuff I want to discuss I love discussions I love thinking about things in new ways#also don’t even worry about being coherent!! all my posts are rambles lmao <3 just throwing my thoughts out into the world#I love rambling it’s only fit that a post about my rambling theories is also a big ramble#I am guilty of usually throwing stuff around on discord and only posting on here when I can organize it into a coherent post or list so.#must get better at that.#again: see the fact that I have many a theory that I just never end up writing bc I feel like I need more info or smthn 😭#it doesn’t help that I still haven’t gotten to my eternal hollowpox reread (RIP my old notes) and at this point I’m saving it for the reread#I am unfortunately in love with canon so if I can’t tie something back to text at allllll it’s like. this theory is getting postponed!#but it’s also fun to think about ‘crack theories’ in relation to the text (see: bertram crow as a cursed child)#anyways. ramble 2.0 over. I ❤️ talking in tumblr tags. I’m always on my phone. sorry for saying ‘text’ about a middle grade book so much. 🙆
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adanaac · 2 months ago
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HEY GUYS CHAPTER DAY hey anyway did u know about the shen. shinkirou. mirage clam dragon creature. this is one of those things i assumed everyone knew about bc im so in love with it and i think about it all the time
it's so many concepts that appeal to me. a little unassuming creature. the idea of mirages being the dreams of a creature at the bottom of the sea. the nebulousness of the concept of a "dragon". mirages and illusions in general
anyway this is all preamble to show u my son Mirage
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(cowboy because he was for a wild west themed minecraft rp server lmao. but also have u considered: cowboy dragon hot?)
im not a writer so i dont have a lot of plot or lore for him or anything but he IS entirely based off the concept of "deserts have mirages. oceans have mirages. the desert conjures up a mirage of the ocean"
anyway yeah i really love this clam thing. one of my favorite creatures ever
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itspileofgoodthings · 2 months ago
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I am legitimately so proud of all I have done in teaching this week.
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ahli-stuff · 3 months ago
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WHATEVER YOU SAY BEAUTIFUL!!!
Bsd 120 raws
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Fyodor’s little stretch…!
My thoughts? Honestly, it’s a bit of a nothing chapter (I say as I don’t know what any of the dialogue is but I know it’s just going to be Fyodor explaining more space-dimensional bullshit manga logic). It is exciting to have Fukuzawa face off against Fyodor, but Asagiri pulls this SO often man, where it’s like “A new challenger enters the ring” every chapter and multiple times per fight.
And this fight really should’ve been Akutagawa’s time to shine. I know he’s going to get back up, but man.
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psychomusic · 4 months ago
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so. I've been reading some posts on the jedi order tag AND i won't talk about my opinion on "are jedi good or bad discourse" BUT i wanna point out some lore to everyone who's complaining about the jedi taking kids into their order: (in the EU) it wasn't always like this.
if you take swtor era (more than 3000 years before the prequels) there were many jedi who joined at an older age. like, for example there was a guy who broke his engagement to become one. most jedi remember their families because they were old enough when they decided to go.
THEN in darth bane's book trilogy (circa 1000 yesrs before the prequels) there is a passage where two sith lords are talking about taking bane, already an adult, to study at korriban. one doubted him because he was too old, ans the other told him he sounded like a jedi, and that ONE DAY jedi will have to accept only kids into their ranks if they really want to find "pure" people that can learn their lessons quicker.
one day!! so it wasn't always like that!! the ongoing wars with the sith, who corrupted and killed many of them, had pressured them into taking always younger people into their ranks.
also, consider a thing that this video explains super well: training to become a jedi is not like exercising, because there is a transformative lesson at the end of the training that changes everything. you can't just do as much as you can, but not finish.
the transformative lesson, as the video explains, is that through the force, everything is the same - from rocks and ships to life and death. at the end of the training you have to understand this fundamental truth.
yoda says "you have to unlearn what you have learned". during times where they were constantly killed off or corrupted by the dark side (and if you haven't learned this lesson you are more susceptible to this corrupting), younger people were taken in to actually finish their training (a training that was ultimately about being a good person AND that you could leave at any point if you weren't sold on that, too)
(remember that for the sith failure = death. like. that was the alternative for force sensitive kids. it's not like sith had any moral problem with taking kids away without consent. sith don't have moral problems: they believe that them being stronger in the force means they can do whatever they want as long as their strong enough to go and do it. there are MANY passages in many different star wars stories, even in different mediums, that say this out loud)
AND (this is more of a critical thought than just stating the lore) the fact that they started doing it out of necessity doesn't mean it's 100% good BUT you know. the whole set up of the prequels is that we're starting off the story in a period of crisis and decadence all around. most of the systems of the times were about to fall. OF COURSE they had problems. if they didn't, we wouldn't have the story to begin with.
that doesn't automatically mean jedi = bad and sith are better, tho. you wouldn't take the last, chaotic and decadent period to jugde something, would you? it's like deciding that the athenian democracy sucked because people at the times of Demosthenes failed at recognizing the new schemes in which the world was evolving into, and still believed that their city would be important as it had been in the previous century. They just didn't fucking expect the Macedons would conquer half the world known and more, and have the subsequent political power. Still, their experiences in the 5th century with democracy were very good, even better than ours on many fronts, if you contextualize a little. the jedi had flaws, and most importantly, they didn't fucking know the future and everything that ever happened, ever, so they made mistakes. that doesn't automatically make the system ill, or bad, or not-working. systems can have setbacks when the world changes. (just like athenian democracy had one when they lost the empire that was funding the democracy. they even had a tyranny for a while and then fixed the problems. that doesn't diminish retrospectively their democracy)
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lunarharp · 1 year ago
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Very important conferences.
#witch hat tag#orufrey#some real serious discussions goin on in this atelier today. dont u doubt it.#agott is the only one who has ever thought about this because she is a 12 year old lesbian and UMM..FRIEND? LIKE FRIEND? IS THAT..LEGAL???#this is all i drew today because silly things like this take hours lol. at least it's practice for poses -_-#i got the pattern of the girls' dresses wrong but i couldn't be bothered to change halfway through.#don't worry if you're like what is the naakiwan downs. is that name even mentioned in the main manga#ANYWAY i KEEP thinking about what if it's actually banned for professors and watchful eyes to date like that would make a lot of sense.#like maybe it should be banned. SO??? are they just low-key Aware of what the deal is and they're just Putting their feelings aside#until graduation??? take my tassel as an unspoken reminder of how i feel?? living together trial period?? this feels like it's truly it#When we're free to be together........ Sensei loves homophobia parallels without there actually being homophobia#Let's invent reasons why men cant be together. Ummm well whatever. i'm screaming in my head but it's fine.#this will probably form the theme of my orufrey for a while. i've thought of this before but for some reason today it's big for me.#i guess the tassels might not specifically be a part of that since they exchanged them before tower of books#and qifrey made his mysterious decision to be a teacher after that and..well whatever. I need more of backstory and just..everything?#But i also don't mind when vinanna interrupts my wishes with just a chapter of just being really dreamy? I love witch hat?
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fictionadventurer · 7 months ago
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"If the structure of your world ever evaporates, I will still be here."
I think The Q might contain one of the greatest declarations of friendship/love ever.
#books#the q#beth brower#this seems clunkier out of context but trust me in context it's very moving#they're discussing how quincy's entire world is wrapped up in work#so even if she likes the people there if the business somehow disappeared she probably wouldn't see them again#because they all have other family/friends to go to and she doesn't really have any#leading to this promise#and let me tell you it's just about enough to make me believe in found family#because this works as a romantic or platonic declaration#it's a promise#a commitment to provide safety and stability when there's nowhere else to go#and i love it#this book is so odd because i liked it quite a bit last year#then rereading i was at first like 'why did i like this at all?'#there's no scene-setting or character description it's just kind of stuff there#but then the relationship starts to develop and i am SO invested#under normal rules it shouldn't take 100 pages for the story to get good but in this case it's worth it#it's such an odd structure#each chapter is almost like its own little short story#or a character sketch#almost like the character have stopped to discuss their own character worksheet#but in context it somehow works#and it drives home how much traditional publishing and writing rules stifle creativity#because your average editor would look at this and try to smooth it over#make it all into one flowing narrative#and it would lose so much of what makes it unique and compelling#following the rules of 'good writing' robs you of all the stories that don't follow those rules#there is so much scope outside of the one 'best practice' that is currently in fashion#and those stories need to get told too!
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angy-grrr · 6 months ago
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Not to sound pessimistic, but the so-called ''cliffhanger'' seems to be about building up for a love confession rather than secretly trying to add a subversion of a (shounen) trope.
We literally have only 2 chapters left. What can he even do to change this atp? And that interview doesn't sound that great. It reminded me of my AoT fan days back in the day and how disappointed we were by the author's interviews abt that show.
sorry idk what interview you are referring to/gen
you can interpret it as a build up for a confession -I’m not the author, I have no authority over the work, and my perspective is as valid in terms of canon as yours. But I want to make you another question:
what part of this chapter made you think that?
when reading it all together, the feelings she is hiding during the whole chapter are revealed at the end -she is sad over Himiko’s sacrifice and can’t pretend to be happy with this ending even if everyone else is smiling. And Izuku gets worried about her, noticing there’s something wrong along Tsuyu -they are both her closest friends and perceptive; in the dorms, she tells others Ochako said she’s coming home but doesn’t even read her messages (implying this is weird for her), and when looking for her, using OFA probably to get faster, he sees her holding her stomach and crying on a cliff.
You can see all of this however you want, even if you don’t like what you interpret in the end, but personally I completely understand why Deku would do that for her -I too have gone out of my way for a friend in possible danger- and I can’t see how Hori could make any of them confess and focus the conversation around each other when she’s grieving heavily. “What can he even do to change this at this point” change what? if you mean to twist this cliffhanger, I think it can easily be done -for example, instead of focusing on a romance talk between them for some reason, keep talking about the villains and heroes. Because there’s no footage of their fight Izuku probably doesn’t even know Toga sacrificed herself for Uraraka, so there’s a potential interesting conversation that brings back the whole “I’m kinda weird” theme while confirming they are characters with their own ideals and feelings that can be different while still similar. Also, they just need to have a talk no matter what -whether Horikoshi decides to bring it up to make them a couple or not, a call back to the conversation before the final war is good, they need it. It would be harder to go for a love confession between them in my opinion -how do you even go from feeling devastated and missing what looks like a dead person, to focus on loving another one and wanting to pursue a relationship? Even some shippers who are reading the leaks feel it’s wrong, not even bittersweet, just an insult to the ship and the characters. How do you make Izuku and Ochako a couple in two chapters when the last thing we have is her crying over someone else? It was as simple as also mentioning her feelings for him in this chapter -then we would understand she needs to express those too or she will break. But this just tells me she has to talk about Toga and what she felt about their fight, reconciliation and sacrifice.
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kyouka-supremacy · 1 month ago
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DELACROIX SPOTTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#That's my favourite painting ever I'm so giddy right now :D :D :D#Delacroix aside... Nice chapter! I love political discussion! I'll have to think over it for a while!#I'm SO happy someone finally said that Fukuchi's thesis is antihistorical!! That's what I've been saying since forever!!!!!!#Thank you Dostoyevsky for voicing my thoughts ilu#Peace obtained through total war... I'll have to think about it for a bit... It doesn't make any sense... I need to reread the chapter 🤔#Anyways I love when they get into political theory <333#On the ss/kk front. Not much but we got a couple of nice matching panels so I won't complain :')#It's especially funny because I'm sure they're not understanding a thing about what Dostoyevsky and Fukuzawa are talking about.#I saw that panel of theirs and had the thought#“that's the ss/kk from my room posters looking down at me as I ramble about politics for 364982 time” ajhsbashjdbsadb#Other than that the cover is sooooooo pretty!!!!! Aaaaahhh!!!!!! I love it so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank God for Harukawa!!!!#May they be happy forever!!!!!! I love the even more Medieval vibes... Especially the quasi gothic details.#And Akutagawa in it looks A LOT like the early chapters art style and hhhhhhhhhh it has me so !!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's so#Adesljhfbsledfbgsleifugdb he just looks great okay 😂😂#BEYOND THOSE BLACK EYES............................. ← The most important part of the chapter if you ask me.#OH I JUST REALIZED. Canon black eyes Akutagawa 😂😂#The super cool skull-looking headgear too!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whaa I love the illustration so much. Wish I could do something with it 🤔#Oh and Fukuzawa died I guess 😔 Called it. Just the two of us Everyone else is gone etc. etc.#I'm lowkey glad like... Tbh he was already dead inside. Let him rest at last‚ he was in so much pain 😔#That's all! Excited for what comes next!!!! (That is to say excited for the ss/kk moments that will definitely FINALLY come after this :D )#random rambles#bsd spoilers
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velvetjune · 10 months ago
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the chapter songs in Alan Wake 2,, flawless
#they deserve more love and discussion#saying this while also not knowing what to say other than they’re so fucking good#alan wake 2#i think it’s partially because poets of the fall’s tracks are iconic so of course they’re in the spotlight (as deserved)#but also the CHAPTER SONGS. them being made for a given chatacter(s) with the help of Sam lakes poetry#the changes with ‘this road’ by Poe with every Alan chapter. becoming more distorted and revealing lyrics and the spiral#the scratch song being 1) hilarious and 2) similar to Zane’s poetry in the aw1 arg#the emotion in superhero when saga feels lost at the story making it so Logan was gone#the lines of her feeling like a ghost in this story forming around her.. how she feels guilty and absent for both what the story’s doing#and being away from Logan because of her job. ashdhhhhjhh my heart#AND. follow you into the dark HAS to be alice. which kills me because at for at I thought of Alan#but no. Alice jumped in the dark place after him. it’s so !!!!!!!!!!!#the rabbit hole line. Alice spiraling deeper and deeper into a dream—into wonderland#the Lost at Sea one is also good. intrigues me. the Bowie and Lynch references are blatantly aw2 Zane#but it’s so similar to diver Zane and the ‘originals’ death. being lost in the dark place with illusions of escape#and losing any sense of identity. whether he’s real at all or the monster of this sea or just a lost soul.#the soft and calm vocals / instrumental really makes the whole thing#NEED to stop typing more tags because this is a Lot. however.#‘no one left to love’ is also a phenomenal song and one of my favorites from the album. GORGEOUS vocals and how it all flows together.#such a powerful and beautiful way to end a chapter#anyway that’s all I had to say :)#god. I’ve started to watch a few playthroughs of the game and 90% of people have skipped the chapter songs and every time im#that’s fair but my brain and soul might implode if I don’t see anyone else talking about how good these songs are
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queenlucythevaliant · 10 months ago
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Northern Lights
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I heard a voice that cried, “Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead!” 
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Who knows what to call the lonely exhilaration of gazing out into a bright Northern sky? Who can name it? 
Jill could.
It was the same feeling that came to her at the teetering edge of a cliff at the end of the world. The same feeling as when she said her goodbyes to Puddleglum and Scrubb before they freed the prince. It was the same feeling that engulfed her now, sitting in the professor’s library with a volume of poetry before her. 
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The wild northern wastes were well named: utterly wild, perfectly desolate, and terribly Northern. 
It was lonely there and often cold, but the sky was an endless whorl of gales and gray clouds. The stones were indigo under the pale winter sunlight, and at sunset they glowed a soft gold, as though lit from within. The gorges and moors lay before her, and Jill loved them for their vastness and their distance. Little grew in that country, but that which did was full of vigor. The grass was short and coarse. Every tree was victorious. 
On a still, deep breathing winter night, Jill lay on her back beneath a covering sky. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it until her tears began to blind her. Yet even then, she still couldn’t look away.
She felt bigger here in the wastes, like the landscape. Stronger, wider. The further she walked, the more she felt herself stretch out. One of these days, maybe, she would catch hold of herself at the edge and tug, and Jill Pole would open up clear as the Northern sky. 
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And through the misty air passed the mournful cry of sunward sailing cranes.
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The thing that surprised Jill most about the battle with the serpent was this: there wasn’t any yelling. Always, it seemed, whenever she read stories about people fighting with swords, the combatants would let loose some guttural yell before their blows fell. They would scream and writhe in pain as they died. They would shout instructions to their fellows, “Look out!” or “Hit him there!” But the whole affair with the serpent passed with very little noise. 
The poison-green coil constricted around the prince; he raised his arms and got clear, struck the serpent hard, and then Scrubb and Puddleglum dispatched the creature with heavy, hacking blows. The monster died writhing, but not screaming. And then it was over. 
The thing that surprised Jill most about the moments before battle was, of course, the noise. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. She couldn’t stop listening to her own breathing. Every footstep rang out like a gong, and any words exchanged rang with a kind of finality that made them sound louder than anything. 
“You are of high courage,” Rilian told her when it was over. 
Yet the thing in Jill’s chest just then didn’t feel like courage. It was a deep breath, a plunge, and a release. It was loud and quiet all at once, till she was standing, blinking in the night air as snowballs whizzed round her, and maybe that was something like courage after all. 
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And now, there was a stirring in her chest as she reread the words on the page. Sing no more / O ye bards of the North / Of Vikings and of Jarls! / Of the days of the Eld / preserve the freedom only / nor the deeds of blood! 
She thought of grief. Of freedom. 
The lonely ache in her belly grew stronger. She felt herself uplifted into the huge regions of sky that were just beyond those cliffs, weightless as the breath beneath her buoyed her up, further, further…
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When she saw Caspian up close, Jill thought that he looked like the sort of person who was meant to live in a castle. A silly thought, perhaps, since she knew he was a king– only she wasn’t thinking of Cair Paravel. No, Jill was picturing the ruins of an old British castle she’d visited once on holiday. She still remembered how the stonework had loomed over her, all towering arches and crumbling walls. That was where Caspian seemed to belong. He had an air of ancient tragedy about him. 
When Rilian disappeared, all things had wept but one. The serpent coiled beneath the earth and flicked its forked tongue, spewing poison. 
Now, the king half rose to bless his son. He whispered a few words as he caressed Rilian’s cheek, words meant only for those beloved ears. Jill saw Caspian’s lips move and wondered what a man like that could possibly say, when time ran so short. 
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They laid him in his ship, with horse and harness, as on a funeral pyre. Odin placed a ring upon his finger, and whispered in his ear.
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Jill furtively took Myths of the Northmen and held it up to the professor with a question in her eyes. She was still shy around him and Miss Plummer, though she wished she wasn’t. 
“Would you like to take that with you?”
“...Please.”
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It takes a certain kind of person to be exhilarated by the heights. You’ve got to love vastness more than you fear falling. 
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They walked to the train station with an autumn wind blowing hard, and though Jill couldn’t fathom why, she turned and saw Lucy grinning, fierce and joyful– grinning and reaching a hand out towards her friend.
Jill reached back and grabbed it. “What will you do, once we’re back in Narnia?” she asked. 
The wind blew harder. The feeling of anticipation grew and grew, until it felt so big that she couldn’t dream of containing it. And there was Lucy, holding Jill’s hand and laughing like it was easy.
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Preserve the freedom only, not the deeds of blood!
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The second time Jill went to Narnia, she found herself not at its edge, but at its end. 
The thing about the Norse apocalypse is: it feels believable. It doesn’t reach beyond earth’s horizon to pull down hope beyond hope. It’s only the kind of courage that hopeless humans have: you are going to die, so you might as well die bravely. 
They found the last king of Narnia bound to a tree. His eyes were faintly red from crying, and his wrists and ankles red from the coarseness of his fetters. 
In the Norse myths, Loki broke free of his fetters at the end of the world. He escaped to the helm of a ship made from the fingernails of the dead.
The last king of Narnia fell forward onto the ground when Eustace cut his bonds. Jill crouched down beside him and watched as he rubbed feeling back into his legs. He wasn’t so much older than her, she thought. Jill was sixteen years old; the last king of Narnia could not be older than twenty-two. 
In the myths, the gods were ancient, hewn from the bodies of giants old as the earth. 
Jill put out a hand and helped the last king of Narnia to his feet. Not for the last time, she shivered. Something deep inside her (deeper than her chest, than her heart, than the marrow of her bones, deep as her soul, deeper) was singing an elegy and she didn’t know why, or how, or where it had come from. The king clutching her hand, who could have been her older brother, would have no heir.
Yet when he asked, “Will you come with me?” Jill could only smile. 
“Of course,” she said. “It’s you we’ve come to help.”
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And the voice forever cried, "Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead!"
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“This really is Narnia at last,” murmured Jill. The springtime wood had little in common with the wintry lands she had traveled the last time she was here– but it awakened the same feelings of Northernness in her chest. 
Their party may as well have been the only people in the world, for how isolated their little wooden path seemed. Yet it wasn’t lonely, really, cocooned in all that green with the wind in the leaves and the primroses nodding and blue of the sky peeking through above. 
Jewel told stories about what ordinary life was like when there was peace here. As he spoke, Jill could almost hear the trees' voices speaking out of the living past, whispering, stay, stay. She was caught up to a great height, looking down across a rich, lovely plain full of woods and waters and cornfields, which spread away and away till it got thin and misty from distance. 
“Oh Jewel–” Jill said with a dreamy sigh, “wouldn’t it be lovely if Narnia just went on and on– like what you say it has been?”
She needn’t be a queen, as Susan and Lucy had been, but Jill would’ve liked to stay. She would've liked it all to stay, if it could. She might have been a woodmaid in a place like this: with the turn of the seasons, the swaying trees, swords into plowshares. Oh, if only she could stay!
Ahead, the last king of Narnia was softly singing a marching song. Jill tilted her head back and let warm shafts of sun caress her face. 
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I saw the pallid corpse of the dead sun borne through the Northern sky.
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“So,” said the last king of Narnia, “Narnia is no more.”
He tried to send them back. Jill shook her head. It was very loud and very quiet. “No, no, no, we won’t. I don’t care what you say. We’re going to stick by you whatever happens, aren’t we Eustace?”
They couldn’t go back anyway. Neither would they flee, not south across the mountains nor North into the great wide wastes. No, they would stay. They slept in a holly grove on the edge of ruin, waiting for the bonfires to light.
Jill slept fitfully, but in between she dreamed. She was high up in the air, buffeted by clouds and pierced by shafts of silver sunlight. 
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They all died, in the myths. Jill knew that. It seemed beautiful and brave when she read it in her book, tucked away safe in the Professor’s library. It was terrifying now– and yet it was beautiful and brave still.
The dogs came bounding up, every one of them, running up to the king and his men with their tails wagging. One of them leapt at Jill and licked her face, tongue roughly lapping up the sweat and tears that had dried on her cheeks. 
“Show us how to help, show us how, how, how!” the dogs were barking, almost ebullient in their enthusiasm. Jill bit back a sob. How lovely, she thought. How terribly beautiful. How dreadfully brave. 
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So perish the old Gods!
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The white rock gleamed like a moon in the darkness when Jill finally reached it. She ran back to it alone, her hands shaking, while her friends stayed forward with their gleaming swords and Jewel’s indigo horn.
The while rock gleamed like the moon. Jill’s first shot flew wide and landed in the soft grass. But she had another arrow on her string the next instant. It was speed that mattered, not aim. Speed, and turning aside when she cried, so as not to drip tears on her bowstring.
The white rock gleamed. In the myths, a wolf devoured the moon. Peter’s wolf, slain many thousand years ago in this world, opened his jaw wide and darkness fell over everything.
Her next arrow found its mark. After that, she lost track. She pulled, and she prayed that her hands kept still another minute. 
The unique thing–maybe the appealing thing–about the Norse myths, was that they told men to serve gods who were admittedly fighting with their backs to the wall and would certainly be defeated in the end. Jill let loose another arrow, felt the white rock at her back, and she knew that the clawing fear–beauty–bravery deep in her gut was the same feeling that she felt on the heights. The same feeling, but a different face. You’ve got to love vastness more than you fear falling. 
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“I feel in my bones,” said Poggin, “that we shall all, one by one, pass through that dark door before morning. I can think of a hundred deaths that I would rather have died.”
“It is indeed a grim door,” said Tirian. “It is more like a mouth.” 
“Oh, can’t we do anything to stop it,” said Jill. Better to be dashed to the ground than it was to be devoured. 
“Nay, fair friend,” said Jewel. “It may be for us the door to Aslan’s country and we sup at his table tonight.”
A hand tangled itself in her hair and started to pull. Jill braced herself hard, for a moment, until her strength gave out. She was standing on the edge of a high, Northern cliff. She took another step, and fell.
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Perhaps when the moment comes, our bite will prove better than our howls. If not, we shall have to confess that two millennia of Christianity have not yet brought us to the level of the Stoics and Vikings. For the worst (according to the flesh) that a Christian need face is to die in Christ and rise in Christ; some were content to die, and not to rise, with Father Odin.
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The world inside the stable was beautiful. It made Jill’s chest ache in all the loveliest ways. 
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Build it again, O ye bards, fairer than before!
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