#YOU KNOW WHO ELSE REJECTED GODHOOD FOR EACH OTHER

[potatosaresweet]

i wondered why i like the hualian underwater kiss in tgcf so much specifically because its happens underwater and then it hit me. it's because i used to be a huge percabeth shipper as a kid . my percy jackson era never truly left me it's just hybernating and the second i see something in a story that happened in pjo i worship it IMMEDIATELY. it was never a phase.

[sharoo]

Self-knowledge as a theme in STP messes me up so bad, bros.

This all starts with how little the Princess can tell you if you ask her about herself. How little you can say about yourself, more often than not. Most of the time Quiet doesn't even know what they look like!

The Narrator makes it a point to make the Princess' cluelessness, her lack of self-knowledge, into deception, but really, both the protagonists don't know themselves. How could they?

The concepts of bounds, of something that isn't you, the distinction of "self" and "other", "you" and "I", the concept of something being not like yourself... this is the first time this deity which is now two has ever experienced it.

The Shifting Mound and the Long Quiet did not exist until the Narrator tore a whole into parts.

Now, this deity in twain has to reorient. It has only begun existing, it's not yet known itself. A toddler has to develop a self-concept, and the concepts of others.

Now imagine, for the first time in your solitary existence, that there is something that you are not. Unknowable, foreign.

What are they like, you think? Are they a friend? Should I get to know them? Are they a foe? I do not know them, I cannot trust them... Or can I?

This brings to mind, of all things, Contrapoints' video on Twilight, where she speaks about the concepts of Union and Division in relation to love. And while she speaks of it in terms of eros, it can apply here just as easily, romantically and platonically.

Love is the union of two beings. We love because something outside of us allows us to be more than ourself. In others, many seek that which they lack. We seek out people so that we may develop through our similarities and contrasts with them, to change an be changed.

We seek out people because there can be no I without a You. To exist in a void is not a fulfilling experience.

We cannot discover ourself if he have nothing that allows us to compare ourself. The mirrors elude us throughout the game, always leading to the princess - she is the only way we may know ourselves, the mirrors tease as they disappear. And at the end of the route, only then, can you see yourself, now that you have a complete knowledge of yourself in a given scenario, with a given persona.

Was the princess someone you decided to trust? Or to betray? Was she a foe? A friend? A nightmare? A victim?

You both try to find out who you are through your relationship.

The princess assumes many faces and attitudes in response to you, you assume voices and attitudes in response to her. You're two batches of clay shaping each other at the same time. It's almost like knowing someone your entire life, seeing them go through different phases as they try to find out their identity in the world, their place. The 5 routes, whatever they be, are your "adolescence".

And growing means you will hurt each other, intentionally or not. There will be fights, disagreements, there will be heartache, and comfort and love.

And everything will pass.

Shifty, before she's complete, before she discovers her godhood, makes this point so clear.

How could she not be kind to you? You are the only thing in this place that is not her. What reason could she have to hate you? To make the only friend she could have into an enemy?

That's why, at the end of every route, all hurts are forgiven. All the heartache is acknowledged, understood, and then she moves on. So that you may continue being together, so that she may see what else you do.

Even godhood can become a phase. The Shifting Mound recognises what you both were, but it need not be you unless you accept it. Because self-knowledge is unending. You are always changing, and you can always change.

You can accept being a god, and that becomes you.

You can reject being a god, and that becomes you.

You are by that point an "adult". The figure trying to dictate who both of you are is gone, and you can decide for yourself.

I think this is partially why I love the Leave with Stranger ending the best of all the endings. You begin it by avoiding knowledge of yourself and of another. The self can only exist as far as it is not like the others.

And you meet the Stranger, this being who knows so little about herself, because she too has been deprived of another. The route is quick. It really cannot amount to much, because if you don't know yourself, it's so hard to build a relationship.

But at the end, they've matured. You gave each other time to become fuller beings. You met this person again and they seem so much happier with themself than they were in youth.

I love how they say "We're just a stranger.", and the voices point out how it needn't be sad that you don't know her, unless you make it out to be. You can get to know them, the real them, and they can do that with you.

The way the Stranger speaks if the position of a God only underlines how much the heart of the Shifting Mound can understand self-knowledge.

They speak of how they feel themself be pulled towards taking the position of godhood, of being everything, yet find it confining. Restricting.

"We want more. We want whatever might be on the other side of this door. Something new, that we'll experience together. With someone who exists outside of us. Someone who can see us in a way we can never see ourself."

Self-knowledge through relationships and reflection on how you impact other people.

[tenderwatches]

Ch. 19 of Lies We Tell Ourselves is up!

𐡸.:𐫱:.𐡷

chapter teaser

𐡸.:𐫱:.𐡷

chapter excerpt

Chapter 19: I, Heliotrope (in turning)

In contemplating death, Viktor wants to feel he’s greeting an old friend: someone who has watched him from on high, a grim guardian over the phases of his life. From his childhood in the Undercity to his young adulthood, trying desperately to assimilate to Piltover’s standards and society, to his years at Hextech, letting himself bleed everything he had into a project that was at once labour, love, and sacrifice.

Scientifically, there’s nothing to fear in death.

Your body returns to the elements whence evolution created it, the chemical reactions that powered your movements dissipating as heat on the winds. Your last breath travels against particles in the air, its velocity endlessly approaching zero. Lights in your brain, firing for all the years you’ve been alive, slowly begin to wink out. Life ceases.

Spiritually—well, Viktor has never been a spiritual person.

Gods are simply beings who have ascended from mortality. Their power knows no boundary; their age, no end. But nothing else likens them to godhood—they are neither benevolent nor evil. Their influence, relative to their power, has no more sway over the timeline of Runeterra than that of anyone else.

But there are other ways to raise one’s influence and power—he’s learnt that watching people manoeuvre through both the Lanes and the gilded streets of the Upper City. You can braid together wealth, connections, and lies, weaving a ladder upon which you climb until your will dominates those on the rungs below you.

Spirituality is yet another form of society’s moral caterwauling. And so, in spirituality also, death offers nothing to fear. It is only the inevitable return home.

Emotionally, however—therein lies his problem with death.

Humanity is so deeply tied to emotion—greed and corruption, love and empathy. One can trace all the forces acting upon life back to desire: an emotion that fuels fires of anger and passion alike. Desire—wanting, aching, yearning—each pitching their weight into one’s motivations, driving both action and reaction.

Viktor wants to live.

He realises this as he’s gazing up at the tall, fan-like leaves of a plant stretching towards the sunlight streaming in from greenhouse panes above. Deep fuchsia ribs colour its stalk and form veins stretching out to its serrated leaf edges. Even as some leaves wither away, tiny new ones break the surface of the soil, some beginning to unfurl from their tight curls as they mature.

After three relentless weeks in the lab, endless trials yielding nothing but mediocre results, Jayce had been adamant that a ‘change of scenery’ will do them good. Sky proposed relocating their free-form ideation session to Piltover’s expansive two-acre botanical collection; they’ve only explored the first few gardens on account of Viktor’s condition, but their discussions have grown lively.

“We were right about the way the plants are being affected.” Sky’s voice draws Viktor from his reverie as she bends down, pausing to add fresh observations to the weeks of data in her journal. She uses the end of her pen to indicate where the lower leaves are beginning to yellow as a natural sign of decay. “It’s not about rejection or toxicity; look here—this is normal senescence. The plant redirects nutrients from older leaves to support new growth—totally normal.” She jabs in the air with excitement and has to push her glasses back up the bridge of her nose from where they slide down. “It’s just happening too rapidly in our samples.”

From his seat on the nearest metal bench, Viktor nods. “It’s an excellent observation, Miss Young.”

They must have exhausted every merchant of plants between their lab and the furthest reaches of the Mid Town markets. They’ve been trialling plants in cycles of accelerated repair and various stages of growth, and though their initial attempts showed promise, most of the trials had collapsed into refuse in a matter of minutes. Only a few outlying cases in which a tweak to the runic patterns seemed to allow the subject to live for a few hours, but those, too, eventually died. The sharpness of hope trying to break ground inside of him is beginning to ache, despite his greatest attempts to push it down where it couldn’t see the light of day.

“So, the—you know—” Thomas whispers after glancing around to ensure none are too close to their conversation, “isn’t killing them directly?” He has grown less flighty in their time together; Viktor’s episode in the hospital has seemingly reminded him that Viktor is human, just another citizen of their divided city, like him.

“No,” Sky’s passion for biology overrides her usual hesitation. Viktor is pleased to see her confidence. “What we’re seeing indicates natural ageing. See how the deterioration starts from the bottom up? If it were rejection or toxicity, we’d see spotting, certain portions dying off, or localised discolouration. This natural process—” She traces the progression up the leafy stalks, “is what we’re seeing—just accelerated.”

Thomas nods along with matched enthusiasm, but frustration begins to shadow his expression. “That corroborates what we’ve seen with adjustments to the precision rune, but even when we tune up resolve to compensate, we still see cellular breakdown.”

Jayce paces in front of him on the walk, hand held up to his chin in thought. “Right,” he agrees, beginning now to tap one fist against the palm of his other hand as he thinks aloud. “Maybe the issue is we’re taking the process too far? We’re not able to stop it from executing the full life cycle.”

“What if we could store any excess beyond what we want?” Thomas questions from the ground. He’s sat on the edge of the flowerbed, now twirling an errant leaf between his fingers. “Like a capacitor? Something to store and release energy at a controlled rate.” He doesn’t even seem to mind—or maybe, notice—his coattails in the mulch. They have really begun to shirk all sense of decorum. He supposes that working on an illicit research project of potentially ground-shaking implications can do that to a group.

Sky shakes her head. “No, they’re burning up their resources too fast—it’s not just that the whole thing happens, the plants also don’t have enough nutrients to sustain the growth.”

Viktor watches the interplay of light and shadow across the leaves as clouds pass overhead. Jayce snaps his fingers several times in a row in the way he does that means ‘you might be on to something!’, and Viktor feels the corners of his lips drawn slightly upwards, just a breath away from a smile. His colleagues discuss with a lively brightness, which he appreciates all the more because they've undertaken this project on his behalf. Viktor has always been a figure of the periphery, forever watching, getting the chance to support, if he’s lucky. Even with Hextech, Viktor never felt comfortable taking up any of the spotlight no matter how many times Jayce called him a partner. It just never felt like his, something he could attribute to his name.

(Read the rest on AO3!) (Or start from the beginning!)

[semidecentpoet]

I keep thinking about Peter Sqloint (spoilers for JRWI Apotheosis)

(This is expanding a wee bit on this post I made a while ago lol)

Apotheosis: "the perfect form or example of something;" "elevation to divine status"

Rumi and Thanatos were destined for great things—or "destined," depending on how you look at things given that the whole thing was just Zuen and Exandroth deciding to Fuck Shit Up because Zuen was just fuckin bored. The whole shtick was a divine ploy from the very beginning. Zuen gave Rumi visions, setting them on the path to ascend to godhood. Exandroth helped to create Thanatos, forging his path to end godhood.

From the start, it's all divine intervention. Rumi is supposed to become a god. Thanatos is supposed to kill all the gods. This is how it's supposed to go.

Really, from the standpoint of Zuen, it's meant to be Rumi, Thanatos, and Exandroth, not Rumi, Thanatos, and Peter. Peter isn't supposed to be anything. He's just some loser nobody Exandroth found, a throwaway vessel. There are no divine plans for Peter except to be an archangel's meat puppet. Peter's purpose is to be a vessel for Exandroth's purpose. Peter is just some human.

But there's the kicker: Peter is human. Part of what makes Apotheosis such a beautiful campaign is this juxtaposition of godhood and humanity and the powers of both: the grand versus the humble, the mighty versus the meek. Zuen and Exandroth don't think twice about Peter because he's human and what could a human do? As far as they know, they have set Rumi and Thanatos' paths in stone.

They didn't account for the one stone that upset everything.

To be clear, all three of them helped to change each other. Another part of what makes Apotheosis a beautiful campaign is the character dynamics and the way they influence each other's development; they all change each other so intrinsically. But it's Peter in particular who changes everything.

Rumi is obsessed with their visions and their notion of perfection, their goal of becoming a god. But it's Peter, just by being Peter, who reminds them of what the gods' hubris has blinded them to, of what traits are truly powerful and most important.

Thanatos is tunnelvisioned on destroying all the gods, a bloodthirsty machine. But it's Peter, just by being Peter, who shows him how to live, who shows him there's more to life than his purpose; through Peter, Thanatos finds there's more to himself.

Rumi and Thanatos are naturally destined—or "destined"—to be at each other's throats with their conflicting goals, and we see them debate and even full-on argue multiple times throughout the campaign. But it's Peter who keeps them together. It's Peter who asks questions and who makes them question their own beliefs. It's Peter's humanity that irreversibly transforms them.

It starts as an apotheosis of godhood. It becomes an apotheosis of humanity.

Zuen's plan, by all means, should have been foolproof. He's got a killing machine and a person driven by vision-fueled vanity, plus an archangel to make sure things stay on track. But he failed to consider all the variables. He underestimated humanity.

Peter's humanity defied Zuen's divine intervention. Humanity defied the divine.

I just find it fascinating that in the middle of all the action and the speeches, the magic and the power, the mission and the visions, and the overall grandeur of godhood, the thing that changed everything—the catalyst of this transformation from what they were supposed to be to who they became—was what and who everyone least expected.

In the words of Rumi: "It is because you are just Peter Sqloint. That is what makes you more, and you need not be anything else."

What's more, the stone that the builders rejected ultimately becomes the cornerstone of a new and godless world. A world by and for humanity. A world that isn't perfect, but it is theirs.

I wanna hear others' thoughts on this bc I am just so fucking in love with this campaign, you have no idea ;PPPPPP

(Also, if you want to respond with moments from the campaign that have to do with this discussion, by all means do so bc I wrote this all from my not-exact recollection of the campaign and the perfectionist writer in me is a little irked by the lack of evidence to my claims lol)

[lokittystuckinatree]

The False God and the Devil They Know: Wishful Overthinking about Religious Overtones in Post-Timeless-Child-Arc Thoschei

Disclaimer: my knowledge on anything other than all 13 + seasons of New Who is limited, but not overly lacking, and I wasn’t raised religious but do have enough of an Italian Catholic background to notice good old fashioned Christian parallels

The Doctor

The Doctor as the unwitting “creator god” of the time lords

Abrahamic religions starting out polytheistic, the Doctor as a god amongst other more powerful gods

The Doctor as a wrathful God; God technically committed genocide against humanity, leaving Noah to make his arc with two of every species

Objectively a coincidence but guess which two idiots survived the time war

The Doctor as a god who chooses a life of service to mortals and “rejecting” godhood aka power. Very Jesus of them.

The real possibility that the timeless child is not a chosen one but a victim of circumstance, a typical example of their kind from the other universe

The Doctor is just like us. (If you are autistic and have ADHD and abandonment issues lol)

The Doctor and unconditional love and forgiveness at the cost of their moral stability, especially for the Master, their original sin and greatest exception

The Master

The Master as the fallen angel, golden child of god who desired power/attention for themself who turned to evil

Missy, the Lumiat, and returning to “the light”

Rogue child of god who didn’t fit the mold, questioned the authority of the one true god

Satan and the Master as a figure of lesser power and status rising in prominence to rival the influence of the God that created them

Power corrupting someone who just wanted to be important

A seductive figure that tricks and tempts the Good Guys and engages their dark side

The Master, Cyber Time Lords, and “Satan cannot create as God does, only warp their creations” (Tolkien has entered the chat)

Best Enemies, Worst Soulmates

We all know the Jesus/Judas thing, but what about Jesus/Antichrist, or God/Satan

The Antichrist as a foil for Jesus and Satan as a foil for God

The deal with Death and how the Doctor could have become the Master and vice verse, even should have been before he intervened in their fates

Theta’s first sins, murder and deception and betrayal, revolved around Koschei

Anti soulmate trope: Linked by fate, destined to battle forever, could have been happy together under different circumstances, soulmates are made not found

Regeneration and the inherent holiness of transformation and being trans (not relevant but trans rights!)

They are THE narrative foils and power couple above everyone else in the Whoniverse come onnnn

In a tragically ironic sense, they’re the only ones who can fully relate to and comprehend each other, even after how much their paths have diverged.

The Doctor humbles the Master, the Master keeps the Doctor grounded to their Gallifreyan roots.

Good Always Wins, love is redeeming. The Doctor helps the Master see beauty and love in the world through their unconditional love for them.

I hope, in the distant future, the show ends with a more morally gray Doctor and a domesticated Master happily in love, running away to the stars together, never to be seen again.

They’re totally endgame guys trust me (I’m delusional.)

Feel free to add! I’d love to hear what other parallels people find. And what glaringly obvious things I missed…

[mrslittletall]

I want to type down my thoughts about Mohg Lord of Blood and how I interpret his story and lore. Please be aware that these are solely my headcanons and nobody has to abide by them. Also, this text will have mentions of incest and non-con. You have been warned. See the text under the cut. 

What do we know about Mohg? Not much actually. As always, canon gives us very little. We only have a few stated things. 

- He is an omen and the twin brother of Morgott. Both of them were raised and shackled in the sewers. 

- He claimed a shard of the Elden Ring for himself, like each of Marika’s children. 

- He decided to take Miquella away from the Haligtree. It is heavily implied that it was an abduction. We can see him carrying away Miquella’s unconscious body in the intro sequence of the game. 

- He is living up to his accursed blood and has formed a whole magic system around it.

- He is involved with an outer god, the Formless Mother. 

- He wants to ascend the cursed Miquella to full godhood. 

- He created a dynasty that he wants to rule over. 

Where do we start with Mohg? Probably his childhood because it sucked. Omen are a sign of the Crucible and therefore the Golden Order is not happy about him, so Marika and Godfrey tossed their twins into the sewers. It can be argued that maybe Godfrey sometimes visited them or that they only got tossed into the sewers after some time passed, but ultimately, both Mohg and Morgott suffered from parental neglect and abandonment and both of them suffered quite some trauma from it. 

Here I have to say, Morgott and Mohg are two sides of the same coin. They suffered the same abuse, but both of them decided to cope very differently with it. Morgott coped by rejecting his omen blood, seeing it as the curse the Golden Order wants it to be and fully leaning into their beliefs. Even though Morgott had so much love to give for the Golden Order and the Erdtree, the Erdtree and the Golden Order never loved him back, trapping him in a cycle of self-hatred. 

Mohg, on the other hand, decided to fully embrace his accursed blood. We don’t know why exactly, but we know that he had his blood pots as a child already, so I like to think the Formless Mother contacted him at an early age, helping to put him on his path. Mohg never knew how it was to be loved by his parents and down the way he lost his brother to the Golden Order, so he got a very twisted and wrong idea of love. 

For Mohg, love is something that needs to be taken and given by force. He doesn’t really get the concept of consent, he is utterly convinced that if he loves someone, then that one will love him back. It doesn’t matter that they had to be kidnapped, they are part of the Mohgywn Dynasty now and the Mohgwyn Dynasty is all about love. Characters like Varre who have a fanatic devotion to Mohg only strengthen this point. 

What did Mohg do during the shattering? He surely claimed one of the shards of the Elden Ring for himself, because that is what the Great Runes are. But other than his siblings, he didn’t partake in the war. Because Mohg has no interest in the Elden Ring as a whole or to be the ruler of Leyndell. 

Mohg wants to have his own kingdom to rule, the Mohgwyn Dynasty, a kingdom of blood, a dynasty he can be the ruler and founder of. I think like Ranni, Mohg fucked off to do his own thing while all the sieges during the Shattering happened. He had no interest in fighting them and also, why should he claim someone else’s kingdom if it would not be his? Why should he risk his life fighting the undefeated Malenia or the Starscourge? 

No, instead, Mohg did his thing mostly in secret. He abducted the war surgeons, he experimented with the bloody fingers, he recruited several sanguine nobles, who either are omens like him or humans that altered their body once they got a taste of his blood. Mohg was patiently and silently building up his army. From the war surgeons, only Varre is active, because he is the only one who has mind intact, and his goal is to recruit more Tarnished into Bloody Fingers. The sanguine nobles are roaming the Land’s Between, probably searching for more recruits to be kidnapped, which doesn’t work with our Tarnished because they turn into grace upon dying. 

Yes, it might be argued why they also attack when you are a Bloody Finger, but that is just game play shenanigans and not really proof of the lore.

So where does Miquella come in all this? So first thing first, I am absolutely convinced that Mohg genuinely loves Miquella. He probably was at the Haligtree for some time and met him there. When it came to start his dynasty, Mohg needed someone to start the dynasty with, so it was Miquella he took. 

And also, MIquella is an empyrean. That was perfect for Mohg, because he isn’t an empyrean. Now the question is… why does Mohg need an empyrean?

These are only speculations, but looking at the other empyreans, pretty much all of them are associated with an outer god. 

Marika -> The Greater Will

Ranni -> The Dark Moon

Malenia -> The Scarlet Rot

We don’t know about Miquella, but I think it might also have been the Greater Will, because according to Ranni, the two fingers are assigning empyreans. Ranni cast her great rune and flesh away to escape her fate, but she stayed an empyrean and I guess the dark moon is the outer god that spoke to her and had similar plans to her goals. 

Malenia is downright cursed with her outer god. It was one of the things that Miquella tried to get rid of. He was creating an item that can delete the influence of an outer god. 

So, Mohg is also associated with an outer god. The Formless Mother. 

What is Mohg not? An empyrean. 

It could very well be that the Formless Mother asked for an empyrean, that she needs an empyrean present to be fully able to come into the world, to interact with it, to be able to be hit by Mohg’s trident. 

Yes, I know, we can also do the same thing when we use Mohg’s trident, but during that time Miquella and the Formless Mother are still around, it is simply Mohg that is missing. Besides, we are carrying around his great rune which might also have relevance to why it works. 

So, Mohg wants to start a dynasty. He cannot start a dynasty on his own, so he needed Miquella. The Formless Mother probably needed an empyrean. So Mohg could kill two birds with one stone. He could get his love and an empyrean at the same time. 

Is Miquella on board with this?

Honestly, I don’t think so. From the little lore we have of him, he seems to care mostly about his sister and the Haligtree. There is no reason for him to leave the Haligtree and let it fall to the rot and there is no reason for him to leave his sister behind to play around with Mohg. It might even be possible that he stayed asleep in his cocoon on purpose. “Mohg did not receive a response from the young empyrean”. 

I interpret it in a way that Miquella was in love with Malenia. More than the love of siblings. And maybe Malenia shared the sentiment, as her brother was one of the only ones not afraid of her rot. Either way, it probably was a very codependent relationship. Mohg pretty much took the opportunity when Malenia was exhausted or away to snatch MIquella away and she didn’t even notice that Miquella was gone, ever guarding a brother that was not there anymore. 

We could also get into Malenia, but the text is already long enough. 

So, Mohg is forcing Miquella to undergo transformation that he didn’t consent to and maybe even forced himself on his sleeping body. Oh who am I kidding, it is kinda canon that he is coursing around in blood form in Miquella’s veins. If that is sexual or not is up to your own interpretation, but there is a certain intimacy to literally flow in the veins of your beloved. 

Also, Mohg feels to me like… a very spiteful character. He was told his whole life that he is cursed and hated and should be locked away, so he totally embraced it. “You called me a monster, now I show you what kind of monster I can be.” But he also is surprisingly gentle, only that he has the problem that he doesn’t get or doesn’t want to take a no, forcing his love on anyone, if they want or not. And the worst thing is, Mohg is entirely genuine with his feelings. He doesn’t even think that he does something wrong, because that is how he understands love. As something that has to be taken by force and surely everyone else agrees to it. 

I am absolutely convinced that Mohg wants to rule over his dynasty. It is called Mohgwyn and he calls himself the Lord of Blood. He doesn’t call it Miquellawyn and he doesn’t call himself “Miquella’s consort”. If he would not want the power, he would not make it so clear that he is the lord, he would not dress himself in such fancy robes and he would not be interested in keeping Miquella “his and his alone.” 

Mohg feels very very obsessive to me. He cannot bear the thought that Miquella could be taken away. Taken, not that Miquella would leave him. Because Mohg is convinced that love has to be taken, not earned. When the Tarnished comes and doesn’t kneel in front of him, he doesn’t even consider they are there for his rune, he thinks they are there for Miquella. 

“Miquella is mine, and mine alone.” 

He repeated that over and over when I fought him, each time when I died. That does not sound like someone to me who is not interested in power or who managed to convince Miquella to come to him of his own free will. 

Mohg is possessive, spiteful, embraces his nature as an omen, deeply religious to the Formless Mother and he doesn’t want anyone to kick him around. That is what Mohgwyn is about. Mohgwyn is his and his alone. Just like Miquella is his and his alone. 

Mohg is coping with his trauma by forcing his love on others and creating a kingdom around the concept of love, a twisted and sick concept of love, but love nonetheless.

For the Moghwyn dynasty… with love! 

So, does Mohg have an ultimate goal? I guess after he has built up his Dynasty, he might try and seize the Land’s Between and try to get his order of blood out there, but his plan is still very early, so there was no way that he could create a mending rune for the Elden Ring that would create the “Order of Blood”. No Lord of Blood ending unfortunately… 

He is optional in game, but if he is killed, then his plan cannot come into fruition anyway. If not.. well, the DLC seems to be Miquella centric, so maybe we learn something more about the whole deal. We simply have to wait and see.

Like I said, in the beginning. These are simply my thoughts and headcanons about Mohg. Nobody has to agree with them. I simply looked at the lore and came to my own conclusion. I am not attacking anyone specific with this text, I just wanted to put down my own interpretation of Mohg’s character and lore with the little tidbits of information I have seen in canon. 

Mohg is a deeply fascinating character to me and I would like to write him with nuance. I hope that I will succeed in the future, when I am able to get back to my writing.  

[acetempesta]

After looking for sites that I could organize and get feedback on AUs (and finding nothing), I’ve come crawling back to tumblr. So if you’d like to read an alternate backstory for SBI that includes some drama, the arctic empire, jealousy, morality, and lots of c!kristen, please continue to read. (If you’d are a lore buff, you probably don’t want to read. I’ve forgotten most of the smaller details, and larger details.)

Now, I will be writing a fic about this, so just as a heads up this is probably spoilers (? Does it count as spoilers if the fic is still in development?)

This Backstory centers HEAVILY on c!wilbur. Like really heavily, he’s the main character.

We technically start at Wilbur’s birth, but there’s some stuff with Phil, Kristen, and techno that happens before this. Kristen is the Goddess of death, and Phil starts out as a very poor young adult farmer. One day, after the death of his father (or someone? Who it is doesn’t matter at all.), Kristen visits to take his soul. Phil somehow miraculously spots her, and instantly falls in love. Kristen doesn’t care, rejects him, and they both move on. Time skip ten years, someone else happens to die near Phil. Kristen comes, Phil tries his luck again, fails, and they move on. Ten more years (although in these years, Phil is somehow able to meet Kristen far more often, and they get to know each other. Idk cute banter.)

Phil tries his luck AGAIN, and shockingly, she agrees. Blah blah blah, wedding Bells. Phil starts an empire with the power of a goddess by his side, he has a VERY big head about it due to being relatively young, yadda yadda.

After a while, Phil is waging war on a smaller kingdom, and after the battle is over, he goes and explores the field. Then he spots young (very young, toddler age. There’s a very SPECIFIC way godhood works here, but I’m not gonna explain here) god of war techno, huddled behind a body. Phil gets attached instantly, and takes him home.

This is probably a controversial characterization, but Kristen is a very very neglectful mother to techno. To the point where despite still being around Phil very often, techno is solely raised by Phil. They DO make up, Kristen has reasons, techno forgives, but we’re here for Wilbur so I’m not going further.

Anyway, soon enough, Kristen gets very busy again (don’t ask what that means, I don’t know), and isn’t around as much. At the same time, techno is now an adult, and the empire is getting harder and harder to satiate. Phil is getting tired of being a king. So he gets a heir. A blood heir. Kristen is busy, so she’s just like “go crazy”. Boom, contract marriage, Wilbur is born, his bio mom dies.

Finally, we get to the meat of the Au. Wilbur’s massive insecurities that pop up because he is a child with no ability to communicate. A cocktail of being born from necessity, being a crown prince, knowing far too much about death and mortality from a young age,isolation, as well as being the only mortal in his family mixes in his brain, and gives him a very weird worldview.

It’s as follows: he’s scared of death because he doesn’t want to leave his family. He also desperately wants to die because he believes his family only tolerates him and doesn’t care for him. He wants to prove himself (this is were the legacy obsession comes in), however he’s also somewhat scared of being noticed, for fear that his family will hate him further.

Basically, he thinks his family tolerates them at best. However, it’s important to note that no ones actually DONE anything to prove this to be true. In fact, it’s been shown to be the opposite. Wilbur believes it solely from its own mind. Not to say techno and Phil and Kristen aren’t at fault, they definitely are for isolating Wilbur as much as they did. In fact, their isolation of him in his young years is what causes a mindset that would’ve been easily assured away to grow and fester. (Wilbur’s self isolation doesn’t help as he grows older though)

Then, Tommy is born. (Will is around idk 10)

He’s born from Kristen and Phil, and Wilbur grows very attached to him, mostly because Tommy is also a mortal. A regular human. Wilbur feels the need to “protect” Tommy from the pain he’s faced, even though it’s obvious the family adores Tommy. (This is actually a form of jealousy for Wilbur, as these are his self isolating years. He resents Tommy for being the perfect final piece in the family puzzle he’s not apart in.)

The end of the backstory comes exactly 6 years later. There’s an actual war that’s an actual threat to the empire, caused by Phil getting more and more tired and slipping up. Techno, at this point being head general, goes to the front lines. Wilbur grows tired of everything and decides later to take Tommy and run away at night. Kristen’s been long gone (busy,not dead.), and Phil sees Wilbur and Tommy are gone the next morning and crashes out, fleeing and leaving the empire to crash and burn in his wake.

(Techno returns to a run down castle. His family abandoned him the first chance they got.)

Ok, I hope this au makes sense, I wrote this very tired. Obviously, there’s more. This isn’t everything, nor is it a good explanation. Hope this was worth your time,yayy

(Also, if this already exists and is popular, uhhhhhh, my bad. I haven’t interacted with the SBI fandom like EVER, so this all came from my own head. I was somewhat inspired by passirine, although the inspiration goes as far as “mmm kingdom” and “mmm royal SBI”. So like, yeah, if this au already exists pls don’t jump me :(( ty)

[veliseraptor]

Top 5 fucked up siblings

worried that i always answer this one with the same five, because i'm p sure i've answered this before. but oh well here goes

1. Richard & Lymond (Lymond Chronicles). Somebody just posted an excerpt about them on my dash recently and got me thinking about them again. I love how pretty much every book has Lymond dragging Richard on a rollercoaster of emotion but The Game of Kings remains prime territory in that regard. Just Lymond inflicting emotional terrorism on his older brother. They're not quite as codependent as pretty much everyone else on this list (but that's a high bar); still fucked up. Lymond running away from Richard for a solid few years because a prophecy convinced him that their reuniting would kill Richard is another highlight.

2. Felix & Mildmay (Doctrine of Labyrinths). Speaking of codependent! I feel like the fact that I also put these two on the "fucked up but soft" list speaks for itself here, and also I feel like one could somewhat reasonably pitch Doctrine of Labyrinths as "fucked up siblings in secondary world fantasy: the series." it wouldn't be very informative but it would be accurate.

3. Jiang Cheng & Jiang Yanli & Wei Wuxian (MDZS/The Untamed). And I say again: speaking of codependent! I know Wei Wuxian is not actually "sibling" yes but the weird in-between role he takes is also part of what makes this dynamic so good. And what I love about these three is that you look at them together and you're like "awww they're so cute it's so tragic how they fall apart" and then you scratch a little and you're like "oh no. oh dear. you guys are a mess and your relationship dynamics are a disaster that ain't good" and then you scratch a little more and go "awww. they're so cute in their incredibly messed up codependence triangle" again. they're so tangled up in each other in this messy cobbled together structure, and none of them can walk away from each other, not really. not outside of death, certainly, and not really even then.

love that for them.

4. Ianthe & Coronabeth. Hope we get more of these two in Alecto. I support women's wrongs. Can't wait to see what happens here because I suspect it will be (a) not good and (b) fun to watch.

5. Shi Qingxuan & Shi Wudu. I wavered for a while on this one, thought about going for my old Thor and Loki standby, but decided since I feel like I've talked less about these two...I just find their relationship fascinating. Shi Wudu's overbearing paternalistic attitude toward Shi Qingxuan, particularly toward her favor of her female form but also just in general his...base assumption that he knows what's best for her and is just making sure she's taken care of. All the way down to stealing and swapping fates, which he specifically, deliberately, keeps Shi Qingxuan from knowing about. Which makes sense! because when Shi Qingxuan - fair-minded Shi Qingxuan who was so adamant about Pei Su getting a trial and not getting off lightly just because he's Pei Ming's protege - finds out what happened, she immediately rejects it. She's desperate to throw away her godhood, actively fighting her brother's attempts to "help." She's disgusted by the knowledge of how she ascended.

I figure Shi Wudu would've had some sense of how Shi Qingxuan would feel about it, but he needed to save his baby brother's life and he overturned the world to do so. Which would be sweet and touching in a world where it didn't come so horribly at the expense of someone else's life - but of course it had to.

And at the same time, for all Shi Qingxuan rolls her eyes and expresses exasperation and frustration with her brother and his behavior, she also doesn't hesitate to go to him when he's in need. Or, well, she does hesitate, but ultimately she can't stand back. For all her anger with him for what he's done, and in her name, she still loves him so much, and tries so, so hard to save him, to save them both.

And the fact, too, that Shi Wudu actively provokes He Xuan into ripping his head off rather than choose an option that will cause Shi Qingxuan inevitable suffering (though what he thought would happen afterward, I don't know)...yikes, dude, but also I'm kinda impressed.

I would not necessarily say that I like Shi Wudu most of the time. But I do find him, and the way he interacts with Shi Qingxuan in particular, very interesting. And I love thinking about how Shi Qingxuan wrestles with his death post-canon. (I wonder if Shi Qingxuan feels like she's responsible for both Scholar He's death and her brother's.)

[trainerdelaney]

Look, obviously every bit of writing has its flaws, but you know one in the Percy Jackson series that's always bothered me that no one seems to bring up? Or, if they do bring it up, I think they're on the wrong side. I say this because I saw a post earlier about how Calypso was SO right to curse Annabeth because she was mad at Percy for forgetting about her despite making a promise. And like... the Calypso storyline is one of the worst bits of writing Rick Riordan did??

First of all, she's thousands of years old and trying to get with teenage boys. Percy was, what, 14 or 15 at the time he met her? And she was trying to guilt him into staying on the island with her. Then at the end of the second series, she ends up with Leo, who was also a fucking teenager. Pretty sure none of the kids were above 18 by the end. And even if they were, they're still basically children?? Again, she's thousands of years old?? As I understand and remember it, her "curse" means that heroes will always somehow find their way to the island, but they never stay. The falling in love part was never enforced by godly powers, it just happened on her behalf.

And you're telling me that she hated Percy so much because he forgot to talk to the gods about her situation? I mean I know he brought it up to them, but it was literally one time. And then it was said that he never thought about her again, and never thought to check if the gods actually followed through on their deal. He was just like "Welp, I mentioned it. I've done all I can do. Time to move on." And it wasn't even some "magical Mist shit made him forget" situation. It was literally just "Oh he forgot. It slipped his mind." Percy "I dislike the gods and am going to spend so much of my time telling them to man the fuck up and own up to their mistakes and responsibilities" Jackson? Percy "at the climax of the story I am going to reject the offer of godhood in favor of forcing the gods to claim and take care of their forgotten and discarded children" Jackson? Perseus "his fatal flaw is his loyalty to friends and loved ones" Jackson? Perseus "cares more about others than himself to the point of physical and emotional self-sacrifice" Jackson??!? THAT Percy Jackson just FORGOT to call the gods out on something unjust they were doing to someone he supposedly cared about??

Oh, and Calypso took out her anger on someone else. She cursed Annabeth, who literally did nothing wrong, in order to hurt Percy. Yeah, the old "hurting your innocent loved ones is the best way to hurt you" trick. Totally something a good person would do. And then, at the end of it all, when she's in a relationship with a teenage boy and is free from her island, there's no closure. She never talks to Percy, Percy never brings her up to anyone, they never even see each other.

Nah. It's been years and I'm still fuming about this.

[rataltouille]

GEOMETRY OF THE HOLY MOON (1 AM): A SHORT STORY

GENRE: surrealism, literary fiction.

POV & TENSE: this little space is not enough for how wild the form is so i talk about this later!!

SETTING: a small desi village, 1924-25.

TONE: dreamy, unsettling, melancholic.

THEMES: faith vs reality, how people perceive others and how they perceive themselves, grief dealt the wrong way.

AESTHETICS: the splash of water on a quiet night, thick clouds obscuring the sky, rippling the moon’s reflection on the water. the intensity of a garden in spring, the emptiness of a dying town, the suffocation from being singled out. hands grazing lightly but never fully held. a lingering sadness behind your laugh. believing in things you shouldn't believe in. putting faith on a starless sky.

STAGE: completed first draft, 4085 words.

LOGLINE: a young boy, surrounded by loss, claims to talk to god. the story follows him and his conversations with this god, all while his village spies on him as he weaves his way around the two most crucial and lonely years of his life.

LITERAL LOGLINE: on today’s news let’s talk about a small backward town that hates sad little boys who worship god, even though the place is lowkey a cult!!

CHARACTERS:

THE SUMMER BOY: he’s around thirteen, and he’s very emotionally attached to his past. he lost his family at a young age to an unstable force, so he spends his time talking to himself. he’s a quiet, demure and sweet person, always willing to help others. he’s outwardly oblivious and sees only the good in people to a point where he doesn't understand when they’re trying to do him wrong. but! considering how the story [like a lot of my others] has themes of perception vs reality, it needs to be said that he isn't all that innocent. he’s rather impulsive and rash, never afraid of hurting himself [and thus accidentally harming others].

A GOD: is he real? do we even know if he’s an actual god? a very elusive figure despite having a lot of screentime. he’s a surprisingly humanised character and arguably the one with the most empathy. he has a soft spot for the boy and the two have a deep bond which is not common for a human and a god to have. you don’t get insight to what the other gods are like, but they’re implied to exist. this story has a very messy and hazy view towards religion and godhood and their nature towards humanity, and this vague figure, a dreamlike character, is proof enough of that.

THE VILLAGE: okay so in general these people suck. the village consists of, well, the village, but they’re very fluid in the way they appear in the story? as in for the most part they appear as a collective, a unit. one character, the summer boy’s “friend”, is somewhat separate considering he’s a pretty important character. it’s very hard describing this unit of a character but essentially they’re the main antagonistic force and they hate the protagonist for seemingly no reason.

WHAT GOES DOWN:

sometime around this time, the boy chances upon meeting his “god”, this being who lives up in the clouds and whom he talks with often, except you don't know if this god is real or not. that’s one of the recurring themes of this story: what’s real and what isn’t. it’s :) a fun time :) for sure :)

essentially Things Happen And It Only Gets Weirder. i cannot even try describing what happens because it’s all very spoilery but let’s just say that this is a very sad story but not even in a “this makes me cry” manner, but rather in a “this is so fucked up wtf why”. the prose of this is very, very hazy and thick, in a manner that’s both smooth and suffocating. there’s also a lot of moon and water imagery which we love. i love the atmosphere + the setting—colonial india— as it’s a subtle but key element to the plot.

FORM:

OKAY YES be prepared for the true colours of how unhinged i am. i apologize for the form brainrot.

POV: so in this story i really said “what if it had all three of the main povs... jk jk... unless 😳😳” and then proceeded to use all three povs. you’re probably wondering, how did i do that? WHY did i do that? and my answer to that is: 🙂

the first-person pov: the summer boy narrates in first person. his pov takes up about 40% of the story, and this is where we unlock family backstory + how he feels about the various forces playing into his life. he’s an extremely unreliable narrator and he knows it; his narration oscillates between very naive and very self-aware, and this effect is pretty disconcerting. the summer boy is kind of a walking contradiction and we love that conflict.

the second-person pov: a god narrates in second person. his pov takes around 20% of the story, and his scenes all involve his conversations with the boy. his pov is extremely detached, and suspends belief because he seems awfully made up. there’s an edge to the prose in his narration, where you know that something's off, but you can’t exactly pinpoint what.

the third-person pov: the villagers narrate, either as a collective, or as an individual figure, in third person. they take up the other 40% of the story, and there are so many different people and differing opinions with this, and every time we read a third person excerpt it’s a different person, and this is mostly used to add onto the different ways in which the boy is perceived. this is also where the structural part of the form gets really wacky.

STRUCTURE: if my story isn't told in vignettes is it my story though /j. gothm is told in vignettes, each one between 50 to 500 words. the first and second person bits are normal-ish vignettes, with straightforward narration. the third person vignettes, on the other hand, are super assorted. we have a lot of epistolaric sections— there’s a letter, a folk song [which was found around the summer boy], and most of the conversation is told as just plain dialogue without tags. there’s also a phone call transcript, and finally some normal chunks of prose. what am i doing wtf.

also to add onto this the story is told non-linearly. 😀 the only thing that keeps me from going insane is the fact that there are chronological tags before most vignettes [also the manner in which they're tagged differs from pov to pov. for example a few of the third person conversations are marked just as “sunday” or “thursday”, while the summer boy’s narration is marked with the full date and year]

in all this clownery i completely forgot to mention what the tense was [the way everything else was so complicated that i forgot tense was a thing lmao] and good news!! it’s the only sane thing about this story!! it’s told fully in present tense. thank everything.

AN EXCERPT:

okay i’m once again not sharing much because this will be submitted to litmags 🧞

[The boy is scrawny as always. He carries an air of diswant— even death had rejected him when the plague killed only his grandmother— but walks like he doesn’t notice. He smiles at them, jitters, and wipes his hand across his knees. Blood comes away in thin, translucent lines. He saves it on the kerchief he keeps tucked in his shirt, careful to dirty the cloth even more. The villagers scrunch their noses in disgust; who knew how old and rotten the kerchief was, or how long it had carried blood like the unwashed sword of a warrior?]

also by the way this excerpt is in square brackets because it is a third-person interjection in a vignette that is otherwise first-person [at this point...]

SPARE THOUGHTS:

this was inspired by a conversation i had with my grandfather, where he was telling me about how people used to sing songs to the skies, as a way of devotion to a specific god. he used the [loose translation of] the english word “yearning” to refer to the emotion the singers would invoke, and that sparked the concept of a disillusioned young boy who talks to the moon as a way to please the god he’s in love with. it’s a very softly disconcerting story and once again deals with the theme of “perception vs reality” which if you know me and my work, is the theme i’m forever obsessed with.

i really like how this turned out? the atmosphere is exactly how i wanted it to be, and there’s so much i have to add on as i edit and i’m really looking forward to that. this is also the only short story i’ve written where i knew which litmag i’d love for it to be published in? like i never write things with publishing in mind, but for some reason while writing this story it occurred to me that it would be a perfect fit for this specific magazine and i love that. anyway if you’ve made it through the post till here,,,, bless you and your braincells. and that’s all for today!!

[shadlad24]

The Lord of War

Continuing from where we left off:

You know what else is interesting? Draco and Ares take little-to-no notice of Gabrielle at first. Draco doesn’t see her even when she very obviously sneaks into the meeting hall right behind Xena, at whom Draco is staring; Ares largely writes Gabrielle off during the first two seasons of the show.

Then Draco falls for the bard thanks to Baby Bliss. Next episode, “The Furies”? Ares grabs Gabrielle and holds her to him—who responds to him much like she did to Draco—before verbally acknowledging the sway she has over Xena. (Yes, his comment is insulting, but Ares often deals with his deeper feelings by ridiculing them and their object.)

The next time Ares and Gabrielle come face-to-face with each other, he is very drawn to her, and their chemistry together just grows from there. His appreciation of Gabrielle’s body gets taken to an extreme by the end of the season; the instant he gets the opportunity to be with “her,” he takes it and greatly enjoys it. He is then protective and reassuring with Hope the same way he was with Gabrielle when they were alone.

Yes, because although I don’t think it was really him who appeared to Xena on that mountain during “The Bitter Suite,” I do think he was inception reverse-psychology’ing Gabrielle during “Forget Me Not” on multiple levels. The character is just too much like the real Ares for me, and his objectives generally clash rather than mesh with those professed by Gabrielle’s supposed guilt. Not to mention, he knows things that Gabrielle does not: the names of the Rivers, for instance. Which would mean that Ares went out of his way to not only secretly visit Gabrielle while Xena was away, he tried to tempt her choose the easier path, just as he often did to Xena. (At the same time, he also seemed to actually be trying to help her. I won’t go into it, but I think that Ares understood Gabrielle more than he did Xena and sometimes more than Xena understood Gabrielle.) 

His desire for the battling bard grew over the years such that he at least considered filling Xena’s place in his heart with her, making her his new warrior princess in both “Succession” and “Seeds of Faith.” Then he gave up his godhood to save Gabrielle’s life in “Motherhood.”

Seeing all their commonalities and how Ares and Draco were never appear in the same episode together, is it crazy to suggest that Draco wasn’t a real person? That he was just one of Ares’s alter egos—like Atrius in “Ties That Bind”—whom the god of war used to manipulate Xena back to his side, even going so far as spending lengths of time in those identities apart from her to build up histories for them? This further fits perfectly with my theory about the methods Ares used to appear to Xena before “The Reckoning.”

Finally, it makes sense that right after Xena began her journey toward redemption, Ares would be all over trying to win her back. But he’d need a disguise because of all he’d done to her on “HTLJ” through Darphus: stirring a mutiny against Xena, making her walk the gauntlet, looting in her name against her wishes, and then trying to feed her to his freaky dog.* So, Ares popping up as himself wasn’t an option. Who was? The fallback that he’d been using to get with Xena anyway; Draco. It’s the same with Gabrielle. Ares ruined things with her by slaying Eli before her eyes, then tried to get the bard to turn to him instead; he even let her feel his power as the ultimate temptation. She flat-out rejected him without Xena’s help (unlike in “Succession” when Xe sent Ares away on Gabrielle’s behalf). So, who came along straight away in “Lyre, Lyre”? Draco. Hmm…

.

*I don’t have access to Hercules episodes and so can’t screenshot them.

PS: No, I don’t actually think Draco was a fake, but it’s intriguing how well so many elements of the possibility fit together, isn’t it? Hm...

[mittensmorgul]

I've watched season 11 again, and I have a question if you're willing to answer. In season 5, Cas was very disappointed about learning God was basically a "dead beat dad," as Dean called it. But when Cas had an opportunity to talk to Chuck, he didn't seem all that interested in talking to him or even asking a question or two. Why do you think they never had Cas interact with Chuck as a son talking to his father when it was such a huge deal for Cas in season 5?

Hi there! I’m happy to talk about this, because honestly I was personally GLAD that Cas treated Chuck the way he did in s11.

(A/N: I was halfway through writing this when my power went out last night, so now that everything is back on I’m gonna see if I remember wtf I was even talking about... if this goes sideways halfway through, blame Potomac Edison)

Cas had already realized long before exactly who and what Chuck was. I mean, not that Chuck was actually God, but that God and “His Plan” was always a load of BS.

Chuck left the angels a lot of conflicting information, and not a lot in the Free Will and Critical Thinking arena. I was just thinking about season 6, and this sort of feeds into a lot of the same distinction between Cas and the rest of the angels. My personal line of thinking earlier this evening was this line in 6.20:

CASTIEL I'm doing this for you, Dean. I'm doing this because of you. DEAN Because of me. Yeah. You got to be kidding me. CASTIEL You're the one who taught me that freedom and free will -- DEAN You're a freakin' child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want!

Major Tangent Warning, because I gotta write out what I was thinking earlier in order to explain why I am So Pleased with Cas and his reaction to Chuck in s11, which I think of as abject disdain. This is key to everything Cas had learned, to all of his growth as a person up to that point.

What Dean tells Cas here is in direct contradiction to what Raphael’s self-stated motive in restarting the apocalypse was. Also from 6.20:

RAPHAEL You rebelled - against God, heaven, and me. Now you will atone. We'll start by freeing Lucifer and Michael from their cage. And then we'll get our show back on the road. CASTIEL Raphael...No. The Apocalypse doesn't have to be fought! RAPHAEL Of course it does. It's God's will. CASTIEL How can you say that?! RAPHAEL Because it's what I want. CASTIEL Well, the other angels won't let you. RAPHAEL Are you sure? You know better than anyone, Castiel. They're soldiers. They weren't built for freedom. They were built to follow.

Raphael is just doing “whatever he wants,” in the way Dean was trying to convince Cas NOT to. Because if Dean learns anything in s6, it is the cosmic cost of his own actions. Think 6.11, and the lessons he learns having to play Death for a day. As much as Dean tries to work around the Bigger Picture of the Universe, he does understand that there is a right and a wrong, and that some things are worth fighting or even dying for, but the cost might sometimes just be too great. And unleashing all the souls in purgatory on the planet seems like just a different sort of apocalyptic level of bad... like putting out a fire with a flamethrower.

Cas had to make a choice here. He’d chosen his path every step of the way, wrestled with each decision he’d had to make over the previous year leading up to that point, but he’d passed the point of no return, and his direct prayer to Chuck went unanswered, and he never got a sign whether he was doing the right thing or not.

I’ve argued in the past that he absolutely DID get a sign, in the form of Dean telling him to stop in 6.20. But Cas dismissed him, out of pride, out of hubris, out  of desperation to do the one thing he believed could give him the power to stop Apocalypse 2.0, save Heaven, and also save Dean in the process, since Dean would be back on the radar to be Michael’s vessel if Raphael succeeded in breaking him out of the Cage.

And here’s the really tangenty part of the tangent: it just made me think of all the nitwits who won’t wear a mask in public, or follow social distancing rules because MAH FREEDUMB, you’re impinging on MAH LIBERTY. BUT THE CONSTITUTION!

Because yes, we can do what we want, but we can’t do WHATEVER we want when our actions are harmful to others!

The framers of the Constitution could never have foreseen a pandemic like this. But any SOCIETY where people must coexist needs to put some constraints on liberty, and the framers absolutely DID understand this.

They also couldn’t have foreseen air travel, but we have established rules about this. They couldn’t have foreseen cars and traffic lights and interstate highways, and yet we have rules that govern our behavior there, as well. Air traffic controllers, stop signs, speed limits-- we don’t just have the right to drive 90 mph through a school zone and run through red lights. And yet nobody yells BUT MAH FREEDUMB! when they get a speeding ticket.

Polite society ALSO must include *MY* right not to be killed because someone else decided that traffic laws didn’t apply to them, see?

Basically, wear your mask and shut up about it, whiny pissbabies. This is what is required of you to live in a functioning society. You do NOT have the right to infect others with a potentially deadly illness. Full stop.

But back to Cas and the Leviathan infection he’s about to infest the entire planet with...

Dean was effectively giving him the “wear a mask, nitwit” speech, but on a cosmic level.

And Cas had to live with the consequences of his choice, with the GUILT and DEPRESSION that resulted. And he spent the next few seasons desperately trying to make up for what he’d done, to atone and do whatever he could to redeem himself-- to Dean. He’d tried to redeem himself to Heaven, but the more he eventually began to learn about Humanity, the less affinity he felt for his fellow angels, and for Chuck’s construct of Heaven.

Because back to another previous point, Chuck effectively left the angels two opposing sets of instructions: orders to watch over the earth and act as shepherds to humanity, and orders to bring on the apocalypse at any cost. Can’t do both, truly. Even Naomi will eventually say, right before Metatron stabs her in the head, that she (and the other angels) forgot that their true mission was to protect and defend humanity, and she didn’t know when or why that ever changed.

FINALLY back to the point! WHEEE!

Basically, Cas has, in the six years between s5 and s11, experienced “god-ness” from every angle, experienced his own guilt over what he now believes were misguided actions, that sometimes Humanity has a better answer, and there are some things that just aren’t worth it in the long run.

Mostly, he’s realized just HOW deadbeat Chuck has always been. And the revelation that Chuck had actually been God all along? Saw their pain and suffering at trying to STOP the apocalypse all those years before? KNEW FULL WELL that Sam, Dean and Cas were doing everything they could to try and save the world from basically the entirety of Heaven and Hell, who were plotting the destruction of humanity and most of creation with it. I mean... Cas spent s5 begging for God’s help, to save the world, to convince Michael and Lucifer that they did not have to destroy humanity, and Chuck... had done LESS than nothing. He’d sat there and ghoulishly watched the entire mess unfold like a bad tv show... oh wait... :’D

By s11, Lucifer had not reached that point that Cas had. Lucifer had many other issues, having been rejected and locked up for most of existence, and even HE had been the one in 5.22 to try and talk Michael out of enacting Chuck’s battle plan. Lucifer never had the experiences Cas did (and despite being given every opportunity to have them over the next few seasons after s11, he continues to reject those experienced at every turn anyway, only serving to highlight the difference between Cas and, honestly, most of the rest of the angels). Lucifer had a personal need for a direct apology from Chuck for everything he’d been put through-- starting with taking on the original Mark and ending with the cage.

Of course Lucifer didn’t get an honest apology, because in the end, it was all just a theoretical production to Chuck. He had never apologized, in any of his universes, to any of the beings he created. And he never would. And on some level, Cas-- via his experiences, what he himself had already come to understand about God and creation-- already understood this about Chuck.

Cas... didn’t care about him anymore. He cared about HUMANITY, about Chuck’s CREATION. The creator might be a worthless jerk, but what came out of his creation is a thing of ultimate beauty. Humanity, love, free will, and the beauty of the universe is what ends up saving the world in 11.23, so I’ve chosen to accept this read of Cas and his relationship and opinions of Chuck. Because it’s perfectly in line with the “moral” of season 11.

Plus it’s just so personally satisfying to me watching each individual character’s reactions to Chuck, and understanding how that aligns with all of their personal arcs.

Dean: brought the “how could your forsake your creation” of a broken-hearted son who has finally seen the truth. something he worked out YEARS ago between himself and his own father, so it didn’t come with that particular personal baggage and didn’t completely break him in the process (as it may have done with Cas had Chuck revealed himself, say, in 7.01...)

Sam: brought his life-long hope that God was real, his faith in God’s inherent “goodness,” did the Chuck Fanboy for a bit before seeing Chuck a lot more clearly. He was able to relinquish his idol worship of Chuck as the Savior of Humanity.

Cas: had brought his experience of Humanity and Godhood, the entire spectrum of Creation that he had experienced for himself and grown through. Cas, for all his mistakes, had never stopped TRYING to do the right thing, never stopped doing everything in his power to save humanity and creation from every cosmic threat, while Chuck himself had only hidden away and watched from the sidelines, when he’d ALWAYS had the power to make everything good and right and allow the Winchesters their peace. Honestly, what BETTER response than to treat Chuck like a bit of gum stuck to his shoe?

Metatron: who had basically spent s9 trying to turn himself into Chuck Lite, literally plagiarizing his Supernatural novels to create his own origin story as the new God, and failed miserably. What other angel could truly confront Chuck, writer to writer, and call him out for His Story? Even fallen as low as he could go, Metatron understood first-hand the responsibility of The Cosmic Author in ways even Cas couldn’t, because narrative symmetry. Metatron was always about the Word, as God’s Scribe. He was a bad copy of the original with the names scratched out. He basically wrote the worst self-insert fanfic of all time. And that gave him the narrative space to confront Chuck about everything that Cas no longer had. Cas had long since rejected that role, sided with Humanity, and smashed Chuck’s Word. The original tablet-breaker.

Crowley: carried on Crowley-ing. Doing the best he could with what he had, and somehow miraculously BS’ing his way through.

Rowena: recognized the Biggest Power in the room and ingratiated herself to it for comfort and protection, and hopefully for a bit of power and security.

Billie: gosh she just stepped in at the 11th hour to annoy Chuck. :’D

But yeah, I’ve always been incredibly pleased that Cas basically ignored Chuck in s11. Good for him.

[tenderwatches]

He’s spent so much of his time in Piltover, and even in the Undercity before, trying to allocate his precious few resources into being palatable. That sense of not too much, but just enough. Not a threat. Not a nuisance. Contorting himself into this near contradiction elicits a deep fatigue he’s not truly looked at. Now, it’s staring him in the face. Can you adapt to this? It seems to taunt him, dogging his every laboured step, until he twists away from it. “Shimmer,” he says quietly, and Jayce stops in his pacing to turn and look at him. “We need shimmer.”

Chapter 19: I, Heliotrope (In Turning)

In contemplating death, Viktor wants to feel he’s greeting an old friend: someone who has watched him from on high, a grim guardian over the phases of his life. From his childhood in the Undercity to his young adulthood, trying desperately to assimilate to Piltover’s standards and society, to his years at Hextech, letting himself bleed everything he had into a project that was at once labour, love, and sacrifice.

Scientifically, there’s nothing to fear in death.

Your body returns to the elements from whence evolution created it, the chemical reactions that powered your movements dissipating as heat on the winds. Your last breath travels against particles in the air, its velocity endlessly approaching zero. Lights in your brain, firing for all the years you’ve been alive, slowly begin to wink out. Life ceases.

Spiritually—well, Viktor has never been a spiritual person.

Gods are simply beings who have ascended from mortality. Their power knows no boundary; their age, no end. But nothing else likens them to godhood—they are neither benevolent nor evil. Their influence, relative to their power, has no more sway over the timeline of Runeterra than that of anyone else.

But there are other ways to raise one’s influence and power—he’s learnt that watching people manoeuvre through both the Lanes and the gilded streets of the Upper City. You can braid together wealth, connections, and lies, weaving a ladder upon which you climb until your will dominates those on the rungs below you.

Spirituality is yet another form of society’s moral caterwauling. And so, in spirituality also, death offers nothing to fear. It is only the inevitable return home.

Emotionally, however—therein lies his problem with death.

Humanity is so deeply tied to emotion—greed and corruption, love and empathy. One can trace all the forces acting upon life back to desire: an emotion that fuels fires of anger and passion alike. Desire—wanting, aching, yearning—each pitching their weight into one’s motivations, driving both action and reaction.

Viktor wants to live.

He realises this as he’s gazing up at the tall, fan-like leaves of a plant stretching towards the sunlight streaming in from greenhouse panes above. Deep fuchsia ribs colour its stalk and form veins stretching out to its serrated leaf edges. Even as some leaves wither away, tiny new ones break the surface of the soil, some beginning to unfurl from their tight curls as they mature.

After three relentless weeks in the lab, endless trials yielding nothing but mediocre results, Jayce had been adamant that a ‘change of scenery’ will do them good. Sky proposed relocating their free-form ideation session to Piltover’s expansive two-acre botanical collection; they’ve only explored the first few gardens on account of Viktor’s condition, but their discussions have grown lively.

“We were right about the way the plants are being affected.” Sky’s voice draws Viktor from his reverie as she bends down, pausing to add fresh observations to the weeks of data in her journal. She uses the end of her pen to indicate where the lower leaves are beginning to yellow as a natural sign of decay. “It’s not about rejection or toxicity; look here—this is normal senescence. The plant redirects nutrients from older leaves to support new growth—totally normal.” She jabs in the air with excitement and has to push her glasses back up the bridge of her nose from where they slide down. “It’s just happening too rapidly in our samples.”

From his seat on the nearest metal bench, Viktor nods. “It’s an excellent observation, Miss Young.”

They must have exhausted every merchant of plants between their lab and the furthest reaches of the Mid Town markets. They’ve been trialling plants in cycles of accelerated repair and various stages of growth, and though their initial attempts showed promise, most of the trials had collapsed into refuse in a matter of minutes. Only a few outlying cases in which a tweak to the runic patterns seemed to allow the subject to live for a few hours, but those, too, eventually died. The sharpness of hope trying to break ground inside of him is beginning to ache, despite his greatest attempts to push it down where it couldn’t see the light of day.

“So, the—you know—” Thomas whispers after glancing around to ensure none are too close to their conversation, “isn’t killing them directly?” He has grown less flighty in their time together; Viktor’s episode in the hospital has seemingly reminded him that Viktor is human, just another citizen of their divided city, like him.

“No,” Sky’s passion for biology overrides her usual hesitation. Viktor is pleased to see her confidence. “What we’re seeing indicates natural ageing. See how the deterioration starts from the bottom up? If it were rejection or toxicity, we’d see spotting, certain portions dying off, or localised discolouration. This natural process—” She traces the progression up the leafy stalks, “is what we’re seeing—just accelerated.”

Thomas nods along with matched enthusiasm, but frustration begins to shadow his expression. “That corroborates what we’ve seen with adjustments to the precision rune, but even when we tune up resolve to compensate, we still see cellular breakdown.”

Jayce paces in front of him on the walk, hand held up to his chin in thought. “Right,” he agrees, beginning now to tap one fist against the palm of his other hand as he thinks aloud. “Maybe the issue is we’re taking the process too far? We’re not able to stop it from executing the full life cycle.”

“What if we could store any excess beyond what we want?” Thomas questions from the ground. He’s sat on the edge of the flowerbed, now twirling an errant leaf between his fingers. “Like a capacitor? Something to store and release energy at a controlled rate.” He doesn’t even seem to mind—or maybe, notice—his coattails in the mulch. They have really begun to shirk all sense of decorum. He supposes that working on an illicit research project of potentially ground-shaking implications can do that to a group.

Sky shakes her head. “No, they’re burning up their resources too fast—it’s not just that the whole thing happens, the plants also don’t have enough nutrients to sustain the growth.”

Viktor watches the interplay of light and shadow across the leaves as clouds pass overhead. Jayce snaps his fingers several times in a row in the way he does that means ‘you might be on to something!’, and Viktor feels the corners of his lips drawn slightly upwards, just a breath away from a smile. His colleagues discuss with a lively brightness, which he appreciates all the more because they've undertaken this project on his behalf. Viktor has always been a figure of the periphery, forever watching, getting the chance to support, if he’s lucky. Even with Hextech, Viktor never felt comfortable taking up any of the spotlight no matter how many times Jayce called him a partner. It just never felt like his, something he could attribute to his name.

You always think you have to be worthy of these things. He hears this thought in Mel Medarda’s voice. It’s an old sentiment he’s always felt, now cast in new light from their conversation outside of the Academy doors.

Viktor has always been proud of his background—not necessarily that he came from the Undercity, but that he had undergone so much strife to get where he is now. He’s overcome obstacles most would shy away from, and he, despite all his disadvantages, always came out on top. But instead of feeling the scars he earned from those efforts as a testament to his willpower, he’s always felt they are signs of damage, indications of his weakness, proof that he was unsuited to the greatness of scientific minds and inventors.

Something about the way Sky describes the redistribution of resources makes him think of shimmer. Not the dangerous drug it has become, but its original purpose—helping bodies endure what should be possible. Slick lavender scales, glistening violet blossoms, heavy and velvet in his hands where he’s gathered them from rocky surfaces, surface in his mind along with the scent of minerals in heavy humidity. Shimmer, though he never knew what the man in that place had truly intended, had seemed a miraculous concept to him then. Something that allowed people to overcome, adapt, and survive.

He’s spent so much of his time in Piltover, and even in the Undercity before, trying to allocate his precious few resources into being palatable. That sense of not too much, but just enough. Not a threat. Not a nuisance. Contorting himself into this near contradiction elicits a deep fatigue he’s not truly looked at. Now, it’s staring him in the face. Can you adapt to this? It seems to taunt him, dogging his every laboured step, until he twists away from it.

“Shimmer,” he says quietly, and Jayce stops in his pacing to turn and look at him. “We need shimmer.” The silence is a dam holding back what he’s sure is a barrage of questions, but he holds a hand against their enquiries, clearing his throat with a cough. “Not to stop the acceleration,” he continues, his voice steady in spite of what he’s proposing. “To sustain it, as Miss Young said. Yes, we have tinkered with resolve,” he adds, because he can see Thomas on the edge of his seat, ready to remind Viktor that they have already run tests using the resolve rune to increase the durability. “But we have only been able to account for the arcane energy—we fortify our subjects against the initial shock, but—”

“They need to ride it out!” Jayce turns to him with such velocity that Sky has to lurch backward to avoid being whipped by his tie. He swears, hurriedly stuffing it back under his vest and muttering apologies.

Viktor hums in amusement, nodding. “Yes. ‘Ride it out’,” he repeats as if testing the term out. Jayce always introduces the most interesting colloquialisms to his vocabulary. “Instead of attempting to control the rate of change, we meet it.”

“That’s a lot of energy.” Thomas sounds wary, but there is a hint of excitement in his tone as he works through the implications. They’ve clearly corrupted the young Piltie. “We’d need an environment that can contain the process, or else we could have a pretty big overload on our hands.”

Jayce grasps the ends of his vest and gives them a sharp tug before smoothing his hands over his chest to ensure his garments are properly laying flat. Viktor watches him fiddle with his tie a final time before seeming satisfied that he’s no longer a danger to their lab assistants. “Alright, Thomas—sounds like you’re just the man for it. Can you get back to the lab and start working on some concepts? Sky—”

“We need new subjects,” she interjects as she holds out a hand to assist Thomas in getting up. Viktor notices their hands lingering a brief second before Sky stuffs her journal into her messenger bag.

“Got it,” Thomas confirms, already pulling out his own notes as Sky guides him towards the garden exit with a hand on his back. “We should probably also build in some emergency releases and something to monitor both the initial and residual outputs… ”

Their voices fade into the ambient sounds of the garden as they round the corner, disappearing behind a bulbous plant with nodding orange flowers. Viktor listens for a moment to the water trickling from ornate fountains and the rustle of leaves in the artificial breeze created by a complex overhead air circulation system. He’s grateful for their enthusiasm but already feels the strain of the day’s activities. His chest tightens with the effort of taking a proper breath, and he closes his eyes, making a ginger attempt at coaxing the air a bit deeper without triggering a painful flare.

“Shall we head back as well?” Jayce makes a valiant attempt at sounding innocuous, but his tone holds a familiar apprehension that hints he’s already noticed Viktor’s struggles. He moves a step closer, uncertain in his stance. His face wears the calculations of ‘how close is too close’—it’s a careful equilibrium they’ve been working on since Viktor’s release from the hospital, one in which their pitfalls have already sparked sharp words between them.

This has the potential to be one such moment, but Viktor holds himself back from deflecting. “A moment,” he requests, his concession quiet as he focuses on steadying his breathing. “It’s warmer in the greenhouse. The air is… soothing.”

Jayce settles beside him on the bench, resting a hand on Viktor’s shoulder. In other times, Viktor might have felt crowded by his proximity, but given the amount of time he has left (four to nine months), he can’t bring himself to get worked up over it now.

When Jayce made his complaint nearly two years ago, in all his foolish trust and painful ignorance, he broke something between them. It is not yet healed, but Viktor is learning to compromise. Trusting Jayce, whilst not easy after convincing himself at every turn that his partner had betrayed him, comes more naturally than detesting him. Viktor leans back into the juncture of the other man’s shoulder, feeling the way this shift causes Jayce’s muscles to tense from his chest down the full length of his arm. He regards Jayce out of the corner of his eyes, as if to say, ‘Problem?’, and when Jayce only blinks back at him, Viktor makes himself more comfortable.

A brass butterfly lands on the arm of the metal bench, breaking Jayce out of his dumbfounded state. “You know,” he starts, swallowing and clearing his throat, “for someone who insisted you’d actually be honest about your health, you’re still pretty stubborn about asking us to take breaks.”

Viktor makes a small noise of acknowledgement but still protests. “I was not hiding anything. I simply had not mentioned it yet.” At Jayce’s pointed look, he sighs, adjusting his position yet again. “I’m feeling… not unwell.” It’s true—perhaps they started off this morning a little strong, given how little time it has truly been since his stint in the Piltover hospital, but he felt quite well in the morning. A good night’s rest buoyed him then, enticing him to tackle the day with zeal. “I’m a… six, perhaps.”

“A six?”

“Out of ten, for wellness. Ten being the best day.” Viktor’s lips quirk at the exchange, pleased to use the system they worked out shortly after his discharge. Predictably, they had one too many arguments about Jayce pushing for more information and Viktor’s tendency to underestimate his limits.

Jayce makes a disgruntled sound, but the thumb rubbing back and forth at the peak of Viktor’s shoulder indicates his surrender. “I still think that’s a bad scale, given ‘best day’ means a lot of different things with you.”

“Best day of the last three months,” Viktor reminds him, digging his elbow gently into Jayce’s ribs. “You have been here for all of those.”

“Yes, but—” Jayce starts to argue but falters when he catches the coy look Viktor wears. “Fine, fine.” He gives Viktor’s shoulder a squeeze, letting them relax again into comfortable silence.

A warm breeze stirs the leaves above them. Viktor watches as refractions of light play across Jayce’s features. He perhaps watches a little too long, as he sees Jayce’s expression turn first to puzzlement, then mild uneasiness. He only smiles surreptitiously and lowers his gaze to watch the brass butterfly whir its delicate wings, take flight, and disappear amongst the foliage. He’s grateful for these peaceful moments. The upcoming work will be complicated, and his mind is already working through the variables they’ll need to account for. Taking this moment to catch his breath affords him an opportunity to appreciate how secure yielding his weight to Jayce like this makes him feel.

“You know,” Jayce starts, voice cautious, “what we’re proposing with the shimmer integration—if we can get it to work with the plants—”

“I’m aware of what our next steps are.” Viktor’s answer is firm and patient. Ordinarily, the natural progression from plants is to more complex life forms, but they don’t have the luxury of time or the usual sequencing. He watches a fallen leaf spiral down from the canopy above.

Jayce’s words are strained now, like he’s trying to use just the anchor of Viktor’s frame against his to hold back the torrent of his worries. “One miscalculation, or misalignment—”

“Would likely be fatal, yes.” He studies Jayce’s profile in his peripheral vision. His strong jaw is so tight that a muscle jumps at the corner where it meets his neck. Viktor closes his eyes and tips his head just slightly so the crown of it rests against that point of tension. “Are you having second thoughts?”

Without warning, Jayce pulls back, leaving Viktor feeling that support has just been snatched out from beneath him. His eyes snap open, but the alarm melts away when Jayce fixes him with the full intensity of his warm, honeyed gaze. “Not about saving your life,” he refutes, reaching his free hand to take Viktor’s own. “I know this is the best chance we’ve got. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t terrify me.”

“Something like this should be a bit scary.” He’s teasing Jayce a little, but there’s a deep sincerity to his words. His thumb traces small circles on Jayce’s palm. The touch grounds him as much as it might soothe the other man. “A healthy amount of fear ensures we are exacting. It will keep us honest about what these attempts are.” Viktor turns his eyes up to meet Jayce’s, indulging in the deep concern and unwavering attention there. “Jayce, I have spent too much of my life being afraid.” Jayce looks like he might protest, and though Viktor feels a surge of affection for him, he continues before his friend can cut in. “But I have never let it stop me.” Except in the case of wanting you. He processes how close they are, the intimacy of this moment, hidden from prying eyes by the verdure of a cultivated garden sharing in their secrecy. “I am now more resolved than ever. Fear will not rob me.”

Jayce’s face holds the careful stillness of attempting to maintain his composure. Those warm golden eyes betray him, though, speaking of an intensity and desperation as he tries to project strength and steadiness. It’s as if his heart breaks, even as he gives in to Viktor. “We need to calculate precise ratios for things we’re inventing units for—” The monumental task, the consequences of getting it wrong, bear down upon them, and Viktor watches Jayce attempt to shoulder the bulk of this burden. They have no guarantee that what they learn about the Hexcore from their work with the plants will translate to human physiology, or that the Hexcore won’t just react differently. “And we’d need to create a perfectly calibrated system—the margin for error would be microscopic, or we risk—”

“Accelerated cellular breakdown and tissue death, yes.” Viktor moves his hand from beneath Jayce’s to cover it instead, a tender but protective shell. “I am aware, Jayce,” he repeats, his tone gentling as he hooks his crutch into the crook of his elbow, freeing his hand to settle against Jayce’s chest. The tie Jayce rushed to fix earlier now lies a little flat, and his fingers give it a tug to return some volume before he smooths his fingertips over the hem of Jayce’s vest. “At least we have practice working with unstable elements.”

The dark humour brings a wry smile to his lips, but Jayce remains serious, something flickering behind his eyes that Viktor can’t quite read. He knows Jayce well enough to see it’s some indication of turmoil he’s not found the words for—may not yet even recognise. “Though I suppose that’s another problem we have stumbled into solving. I now do not need to create an adaptive rune matrix for the synthetic crystals from scratch, but—”

“We can’t build another one,” Jayce interrupts with such resolve that Viktor snaps his mouth shut and lets him speak. “Even if we had the resources—not after what it did with your blood. We still don’t fully understand how or why—if we built another one… ” He trails off, leaving the implications as heavy stones between them, threatening to drag them to the bottom of the Pilt.

“It could respond to anything living that comes near it.” Viktor gives a solemn nod, letting his fingers drop down the length of Jayce’s jacket buttons and come to a rest in his own lap. “It seems almost to be… conscious, in a way. Is that ridiculous?” He’s not sure if this is a question meant for Jayce to answer or if he’s voicing his questions to the late afternoon air and plant matter. “It seems to not just adapt, but… learn. Evolve. It speaks to a quality that is… unknowable. Something, perhaps, we are not able to produce.”

“And maybe shouldn’t,” Jayce adds, then immediately looks like he regrets the words. They both know how adamant Viktor can be about the pursuit of these cataclysmic changes, but Viktor just nods.

“A different approach would be more… manageable. We could control the way we introduce new elements.” Viktor pauses, considering, as brass firelights begin to wink to life. Soft, mechanical humming begins to harmonise as the whirring of mechanical wings mingles with the chorus of the garden’s automated systems preparing for the midday cycle. “Perhaps… something more… mechanical. Less autonomous.” His heart beats marginally faster, thoughts already racing ahead. These days, it seems he’s constantly doing battle with his mind to try and adhere to his priorities. Awareness of his numbered days has multiplied his resolve to accomplish something, but he knows the simultaneous pursuit of too many things will lead him to fail them all.

“You alright?”

The question is tentative, but Viktor acquiesces. “Yes. Thank you… but I am ready to return to the lab, now.” This weary admission doesn’t feel like he’s giving any additional ground, as he’s already forfeited some small vulnerability to Jayce this afternoon. “Help me up, if you please.”

Jayce rises with eager compliance to aid him, and Viktor allows himself to lean into his partner’s support as he stands. His muscles don’t quite protest, but there’s a minuscule tremor in them that signals he’s pushed himself far enough for one day.

“Are you sure? Six feels a little generous now,” Jayce teases with a bit of caution, but doesn’t press further when Viktor gives him a mildly reproachful look. There’s a faint amusement in his expression, rendering it caught somewhere between ‘I hear your concern’ and ‘given it’s unsolicited, I am choosing to be slightly difficult about it’.

Thankfully, Jayce accepts this without argument and matches his pace to Viktor’s as they make their way toward the garden exit, past the nodding orange flowers and through the last patches of warm, humid air. As they approach the tall doors framed in ornate metalwork, Viktor pauses, resting his weight against his crutch. “Jayce,” he intones, looking over to his companion.

“Hmm?”

Throughout their partnership, Jayce usually walked either a pace ahead of Viktor or right at his side. Now, if the other man isn’t in lockstep with him, he lags a bit behind, as if he expects that Viktor might fall at any moment and need to be caught. This should irritate him, but he only feels a pang of guilt. “I know the risk.” After giving his next action far more consideration than it warrants, Viktor places his hand on Jayce’s bicep, just below his shoulder. “And I know what I’m asking of you.”

They are going behind the backs of the Council, their patrons, and the Academy to conduct this research. This foray into uncharted waters is one they may not be able to return from, even in the unlikely scenario the academy permit them to. The powers above have already demonstrated disdain for work that shows even a passing curiosity in augmenting human physiology, despite the potential it has to save countless lives—not just in the Undercity, but topside, as well.

Shadows paint Jayce as a visage of growing solicitude, and Viktor imagines that he, too, is contemplating the weight of all they risk. Their present work, the legacy of their prior accomplishments—they stand to have the first destroyed, and the latter irrevocably tainted. “Well,” Jayce professes with a deep inhale, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he fixes Viktor with determination. “It’s worth the risk, Viktor. You’re worth it.”

Viktor has to turn his attention to the dirt at his feet as he works past the catch in his throat, finally managing to clear it with a cough. “Very well, then,” he agrees. Steam hisses as valves adjust, vents shift, and a whisper of mist patters against the broad leaves nearest them. After a brief hesitation, he lifts a hand to indicate he will take Jayce’s arm as they walk. The man offers it with an immediacy that implies he has been waiting for this moment all day, and Viktor lets his hand slide into the space between Jayce’s forearm and ribcage. It settles there as if this place, safely tucked against his partner’s body, is moulded especially for him.

The afternoon sun catches in the glass panels overhead, casting dappled shadows across their path. As they emerge from the massive building of glass and golden metalwork, Viktor spares a look to the meandering streets that lead southwards. The Undercity lies just off the path the sun tracks through the sky as it arcs towards sunset.

Going to the Undercity for shimmer means risking more than merely breaking the law. Enforcers hold no candle to Camille Ferros, and this will mean wandering through the canyons and valleys of her territory.

Progress, in all the ways they need it, demands its price—in blood, in danger, in confronting the truths of the roles they play in their cities’ plights for power. He allows Jayce to take his weight as they make their way towards Bluewind. They make no mention of how Viktor’s breathing grows slightly more laboured partway through their trip, or how his grip on Jayce’s arm tightens incrementally in turn. Jayce merely stands steadier, his support manifesting in body rather than word.

His rumination falls back to Sky and Thomas, framed by greenhouse foliage, to Jayce, pacing the vibrant flowerbeds. What payment will be demanded of them? There is no question Viktor will remunerate—he has already begun. Staving off the twilight of his time demands nothing less than religious dedication. They are grasping at miracles, and this feels worthy of any sacrifice.

But his compatriots? Perhaps they are already indebted, caught in the grind of progression and pursuit that masquerades as innovation; they, like him, have already tendered their first offering.

What have they given? Coming from the Undercity, contorting himself to fit Piltover’s confines of propriety, has inevitably meant that Viktor delivered some part of himself, a sacrifice of soul in the pursuit of greatness. This shame has always lingered on the edges of all his accomplishments. But them? These bright, young scientists with everything Viktor could ever want ahead of them? Worry wears at his joints, whittling away cartilage to make room for contrition and selfishness.

What will be worthy of that cost?

[first chapter | previous chapter | next chapter on AO3] AN: we're way ahead on AO3 !!! posting chapter uhh 37??? tomorrow??? dang

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 19

The Ties That Bind

The penultimate Fantasy High: Sophomore Year episode is upon us and not a moment too soon. Seems a little counter-intuitive to seek comfort from these objectively wild current events we’re experiencing from a fictional Nightmare Forest but we know what we’re about so let’s jump back in and start with the death of a beloved main character.

Yay.

Rewinding back to two episodes ago, last we saw Kristen, she got stabbed through by a skeletal unicorn and died. We pick back up there and, as she’s dying, she feels a sense of pain, betrayal, and anger--very similar emotions to what Brennan told her the goddess was feeling with her Nat 20 Religion Check. Kristen gets a vision of the goddess being destroyed in cracks of lightning by her own followers--the same vision Fig saw in the dream scrying pool when she scry-ed on Kristen last week--and then she wakes up on the chapel floor.

She’s not...dead exactly. But she’s not super alive either. She’s bleeding, but more oozing blood than the normal mechanical way of bleeding out because her heart isn’t beating. There’s a hole in her chest and, within it, her heart is crushed. Her skin is pale because the blood isn’t pumping through it properly anymore. Her breathing isn’t regular. And a piece of her finger tip (the piece taken by her friends for a possible Revivify) is missing.

She sees evidence of her friends having been in the room--footprints and the smashed wall--and to place this in the timeline, she can’t remember Fabian right now. When she checks her crystal, she sees it’s been 90 minutes since they walked into the forest. She does Cure Wounds on herself to stop the blood from dripping. Then she heads out towards the forest, passing the Oracular Pool Fig used in the last episode as she goes. She stops as she sees it and something in her heart glows with golden light. When she looks into the pool, she sees the sun reflected in the pool (and also Fig’s boot prints leading up to it). That’s weird because it is super not a Sol/Helio aligned Chapel/Area they’re in. She also sees the moon reflected and she feels like she’s being called in. It doesn’t necessarily feel safe but it feels like she might get some answers and also she already died today so how much worse can it get? She dives in and come up and when she does, she’s suddenly in the outer planes. Specifically, she’s in Elysium which is like the Neutral Good heaven. She hears a voice that she mistakes for her dad’s because of the major dad energy she’s getting from it: You can come home.

As she walks, she finds herself--as Kristen weirdly often does for some reason--in the presence of gods. Specifically, Sol (god of the Sun) and Galakaya (goddess of the Moon and his sister as we find out). Helio is also there, like the screw-up son of a CEO, hanging out in his office. Both of them are good gods but not neutral good so Kristen gets the sense that they brought her here to have a neutral place to talk to her. 

Kristen is hilariously nonplussed by being personally Uber-d to heaven by arguably the biggest gods in the pantheon and when she is asked to take a walk with Helio so she can get some important information, she’s like, “Nooooo, can literally anyone else do it?” Galakaya agrees to do it instead. 

They take a lap and she asks about Tracker. Galakaya says that Tracker isn’t dead but she’s in major danger. Then, she changes the subject. Has Kristen ever wondered where her spells have been coming from when she’s been between gods? Because, as Galakaya says, doubt is nothing. She reveals that even though Kristen rejected him, Helio has been providing Kristen spells this entire time. He sent the philosophers and the grad students to be her spirit guardians. Kristen rejected him but not the light. Galakaya likens it to a child running away from home to the front yard. Kristen isn’t too far gone. She can still come back to the fold. And, if she doesn’t want to be Helio’s champion, she can be hers instead and become a Moon Cleric, which would still be keeping it in the family. But that’s the problem Kristen has with it. Helio to Galakaya? It seems like more of the same--especially the way she’s been acting, like she would fit right in at a brunch table with Arianwyn and Anguin. Except, when Tracker comes up, Kristen notices she gets a little snarly, almost like a tic she’s trying to keep under control. 

Kristen asks for her pitch, and it’s basically the same deal she was getting with Helio but with different window dressing. The Moon, sisterhood, and unquestioning obedience. Galakaya can’t see into Sylvere to check on Tracker like Kristen asks but if she had a Champion, say Kristen, she could send her all kitted up with new powers. She says she wants the Nightmare King dead more than anyone seeing as the Nightmare King killed her baby sister (the Mystery Goddess). She calls her baby sister sweet and sometimes confused, seeing as she thought destroying her name would make her more powerful. But Kristen knows that’s not what happened. It was her followers who destroyed her name as she desperately warned them not to. Some chicanery is going on.

She says she will take the job as Galakaya’s champion and when she makes like she’s going to pray to her to seal the deal, she instead reaches out to the mystery goddess again. The golden light in her chest disappears and is replaced with cool shadow. She feels shock from the goddess, that Kristen would still choose to reach out to her after she died at her hand. The goddess says, emotionally, “I’m sorry, I’m just so scar--” But, before she can finish the word, Galakaya grabs Kristen by the shoulder and snaps her out of it, face snarling and wolfed out. After a second, she composes herself and seems almost embarrassed that Kristen saw that, which makes Kristen realize what’s going on with her. Tracker is a cleric of Galakaya, but knowing Tracker, she wouldn’t worship someone so reeking of high elven prim and proper-ness. And she also knows what the number one rule of godhood is: As above, so below. Galakaya has basically been claimed as a high elven goddess. Which means that the vast majority of her followers aren’t like Tracker. They’re snooty high elves. Which means so is she and her wolf part is still there, but it’s buried and distasteful to her now. 

Which, coincidentally, is how Kristen feels about this entire godly family. She “respectfully declines” both of their offers. And by “respectfully declines” I mean she socks Helio in the face and makes a run for it. Sol, full of rage, says, “I told you that kid was trash! Now get her!” The philosophers on Sol’s payroll look at each other and instead mob him (why is the literal sun god so easy to 1v1?) and help Kristen escape. As she does, Helio calls out after Kristen something she kind of already sensed upon arriving in Elysium. Most people are a soul in a body. But Kristen, at the moment, is a soul *as* a body. If she dies again, with no god to intercede for her, she’s dead-dead. No afterlife. But that’s not enough to make her stay. She keeps running and makes it to the pool. For the first time, she feels herself fully cut off from her spells. 

Back in the cave in Sylvere, Kristen chats with the Philosophers. They tell her they were working for Sol so they couldn’t tell her what the deal was but they were always rooting for her. One of the philosophers quotes her own words back to her: Doubt can’t be a belief but it can be a practice. And as she says this, she turns Kristen’s Shepherd's Crook cool and metallic and turns it into a question mark. She can’t hold doubt in her heart but she can hold it in her hand (stats for the Staff of Doubt below; also what a sick line from Brennan).

She knows that to get to the center of the forest where she needs to be, she has to follow her fear, so she goes in the direction she doesn’t expect to find Tracker. 

Shifting gears, we find Gorgug and Fabian at the mouth of the cave (and no longer high on duskmoss) in their floating rock island surrounded by the others. They see that there are other openings and decide to check them to see if they can find any of their friends. They spend a good two hours, tied together and climbing this rock face which is some extremely solid male bonding. When they reach the cave they were aiming for, they find Baxter, riddled with arrows they know to be Sandra-Lynn’s. He’s dying but not dead. I am outraged at Brennan until I learn a fact that I don’t think has come up until now: Artificers get spell slots. Which means that Gorgug has Cure Wounds. He only cures him for 3 points but that’s enough to stabilize him at least so we can all stop sharpening the pitchforks. However, Baxter is clearly dejected and confused. He has no idea why Sandra-Lynn would suddenly turn on him. So maybe the pitchforks are still called for.

They want to leave Baxter in the cave so he can rest up but, on a 1 Animal Handling, Baxter absolutely demands to follow them. It’s faster than climbing at least. They do so.

And we switch again, this time to the Abernants. 

Adaine is still trapped in a prison orb and barred from doing most of her spells. She can, however, do the Message cantrip and Aelwyn is still in the room along with Anguin. She Messages Aelwyn and asks, What’s going on? Why is she working with their parents still? Aelwyn replies that she doesn’t like her parents but she does love them. Doesn’t Adaine? “They don’t love me,” Adaine shoots back. Aelwyn parrots back ideology that she’s clearly learned from her parents: Love has to be earned. What value does something that hasn’t been earned have? Adaine, fresh off of therapy and with full knowledge of Aelwyn’s broken psyche, fully calls her out. She is so closed off to love, to everything that abjuration is her school of magic. Aelwyn tries to wave her off but Adaine, very seriously, says, “I don’t love our parents but despite the fact that you have not earned it, I do love you.” Aelwyn fully dissociates (and I’m not far behind). 

Adaine notices that Anguin is readying some kind of Sending spell and that he’s wearing a sword that he usually doesn’t have. He tells Aelwyn to ransack her sister’s brain for the info they need from her while he prepares her punishment. Aelwyn, clearly in a slight panic, tries to (not at all) casually persuade Anguin to just leave Adaine in the orb, unharmed, when they are done with her. She tries to do it in a, “This isn’t worth our time,” kind of way but betrays herself when she blurts out, “She’s a baby!” Anguin raises a hand at her and she flinches, apologetically casting Detect Thoughts on Adaine who has already (via Message) said she’d support her no matter what she did. 

Enter, Adaine’s Mindscape: A series of interconnected rooms--and her Aelwyn’s rooms--repeated over and over. Adaine has her surface thoughts be all of her memories of Aelwyn *almost* being nice to her and then pulling back at the last second for fear of her parents. Aelwyn doesn’t press deeper than these thoughts and says that if Adaine’s goal was to humiliate her then she’s done so. But that’s not what Adaine wants. She wants to rebuild their relationship. They’re gonna be sisters for the rest of their quasi-immortal lives. These memories suck but they can make new ones.

And then, through a window, Aelwyn sees another memory. The memory of herself in the hot-tub post Calethriel Tower rescue mission. She doesn’t remember this because of the events in the memory itself. Adaine went into her mind and, at her written instructions, reboot her memory and personality. They’re able to Inception themselves into Adaine’s memory of Aelwyn’s mind and they walk through it. Aelwyn is confronted with the knowledge that this is how she is and that Adaine knows this. Siobhan, from her sniper perch, gets the kill order from Brennan to take the shot directly into my chest.

“Would you be my big sister? I would really, really love to have you as a big sister.”

So now it’s both Kristen and me who have crushed hearts this episode. 

Aelwyn fully loses concentration on the spell and snaps out of it. When Anguin asks for the information, she, on full glassy-eyed autopilot, says she didn’t find it. Anguin decides to go for the nuclear option, readying a bolt of magic to throw at Adaine. “Prepare to be better, dear, sweet daughter.”

The magic races at her, ready to do something Stepford-ian to her mind I’m sure, but, suddenly, Aelwyn steps forward, still out of it but following her true, deeply buried but natural protective instincts. Protective magic covers Adaine and the spell is Counterspelled. 

Adaine quickly dispels her orb but then it’s Anguin’s turn and he goes for Aelwyn. Adaine attempts to return the favor she has just been given and Counterspells but Anguin Counterspells her Counterspell and Lightning Bolts Aelwyn. The second before she’s hit, Aelwyn looks at Adaine and says, “I’m sorry”. She goes down. 

Adaine’s turn.

And, if you recall, Adaine just received two boons: A bonus to her Strength score and a little spell called Adaine’s Furious Fists. 

And, my dude, if Adaine has ever been furious in her life, it’s now. 

5th Level. And it’s a strength saving throw but, just to be certain of her success, Adaine gives her undoubtedly weak father her 4 Portent roll. That’s 10d10 damage.

77 points of damage.

She charges forward at Anguin.

“Guess what bitch? I’m strong now.”     

And she full Dragon Ball Z energy punches her dad, dealing more than double his max HP. You know what that means? Ding Dong the bitch is FULLY DEAD. 

Deed done, she rushes to Aelwyn’s side and gives her her 11 portent roll for her first death save (super clutch use of a mediocre portent). Then, on an 18 Medicine check, stabilizes her without the need for any more checks. Aelwyn is immediately weepy about how she doesn’t deserve the kindness she’s being shown. Adaine, again, gently says that love isn’t about deserving or not deserving, though she definitely doesn’t deserve the crappy situation she’s in right now. And, maybe when this is over, she can exchange her bed for a bunk bed and Aelwyn can move in? If Aelwyn wasn’t crying before, she super is now, and spilling her guts. She’s the one who sank she ship the previous elven oracle was on, she worked for Kalvaxus and Kalina--things Adaine is willing to attribute to being under the thumb of evil, abusive people but that Aelwyn seems desperate to atone for. She gives Adaine an important piece of information for their mission: In the past, heroes going after the Nightmare King have failed because they failed to undo all five curses. They need to make sure they do that.

Adaine gives Aelwyn the tincture she has on her, freeing her from Kalina’s influence, and then Aelwyn gives her one more piece of information before she slips into unconsciousness. Before Aelwyn had the previous Oracle killed, she was sure that Adaine was going to be the next Oracle and she told Kalvaxus that. Why was she sure? Because the elf that becomes the next Oracle is always the most skilled Diviner alive at the time.

“I love you too,” Adaine replies.

Then she nicks the dope sword (and 30 gp) off her dad’s corpse, leaves Aelwyn there to rest, and goes to find her friends.

And, speaking of, let’s pop over to see how Riz and Fig are doing.   

In a word, bad.

They’re still tied up and cornered by the skeletal unicorn who says they’re captured and soon their friends will be too. Nightmare Fig shows up with Baby (who is shortly tied up as well) and reveals herself to actually be this many-armed, snake-woman demon. A whole army of demons show up, ready to start wrecking house as soon as they’re ordered to. 

Fig wants to try and use her lighter to set her bonds on fire and Riz wants to use his spy-watch to laser her bonds off. They both fail but Riz notices they’re not being stopped from trying. It’s like the demons want them to escape so they have an excuse to chase and kill them. He also notices a jiggling from his briefcase.

At the same time, Fig gets a Sending from Bill saying he just hawked all of Gorthalx’s stuff, including the six suits of magic armor. But, wait a minute. There were seven suits. On a Nat 1, she thinks Bill is screwing her over.

But then.

All of a sudden. 

Riz’s briefcase of holding springs open and out pops a figure in gleaming gold Pride Armor. The armored figure, holding a brilliantly gold halberd, cleaves through some demons and the raises his visor showing that it’s none other than the chosen one himself--GILEAR! You see, the Deadly Sin armor feeds on its respective sin in the user and consumes them, but, as Gilear puts it, he has no pride. 

He absolutely wrecks house, killing demon after demon. Riz records it on his tie-camera for posterity. Gorgug and Fabian on Baxter see the commotion and fly down, seeing the tail end of the fight. Gilear kills the last of the demons then gets spit out of the armor like it’s an Iron Man suit, fully dead. Again. He may have had no pride when he put the armor on but watching himself kick ass have him just enough to be fatal.

Fig gets free from her bindings and, on a 27 with Bardic from Fabian, beats the 25 DC she needs to make an illusory diamond (which turns into a real one) of high enough quality to cast Revivify. She does so, after a heartfelt statement about being proud to be like him and a sick lick on her bass.

Gilear comes back up and we learn that he’d been hiding in RIz’s briefcase with the armor since they sent him away because it was the only way he could think of to be useful to them and protect Fig. Fabian and Riz (along with the audience) also unfortunately learn that Gilear is hung like a horse when they fail their saves to look away quickly enough. 

Adaine rushes in with her new sword and the information that she killed her dad which everyone congratulates her for. She then ritual casts Identify on the sword. Aelwyn told her earlier that it’s the sword that belongs to whoever the current Oracle is and she also learns it’s called the Sword of Sight, it can be used as an arcane focus, and was made by Fabian’s Grandad (full stats below). 

Riz gets the footage from his tie onto his crystal and posts it on Fig’s account which has got to be the wildest social media account on Magic Facebook.

The Bad Kids are mainly reunited, but let’s get back to the final missing member. 

Kristen, alone in the woods, starts using her blood to draw a picture of the Mystery goddess. She hears a creepy voice say, “Be careful what you give a face,” and some other ominous stuff. But Kristen ignores it as she lies prostrate in front of her drawing because she understands something extremely important. 

As above, so below.

Galakaya is worshiped primarily by stuck up high elves, so she has become that.

If Kristen is now the only follower of the Mystery goddess and she says that she’s real and she’s good then as above, so below. The math checks out.

The bloody image changes to a beautiful woman’s face. The Mystery goddess. She says she only ever wanted to comfort her followers and tell them that the night itself was nothing to fear. Kristen sees flashes of the chained Court of Elders--the representatives of the five races who worshiped the Mystery Goddess and were convinced to destroy her name (ignoring her warnings not to). Among them are the unicorn and the decaying elf Adaine saw in her Scry. 

Fear of the NK breaks her out of the vision and she finds herself surrounded by Twilight (that she’s generating) with Tracker in front of her, fully wolfed out with a bloody muzzle. Tracker is going feral, all, “You’re so selfish, everything is always about you.” Something is going wrong with her. Now, good news/bad news:

Good News: Kristen is fully committed to this Mystery Goddess so she gets her spells back and she is now a Twilight Domain Cleric.

Bad News: She goes Invisible (eliciting a, “Why are you running? I knew you would leave me. Why won’t you accept me like I am?” from Tracker) and tries to cast Greater Restoration but all she needs is a 4 and she rolls a 3. Tragic. 

She finds that she is insubstantial still and is whisked away from a snarling and lamenting Tracker. As she is traveling, she sees the face of the Nightmare King who asks why she would follow a dead goddess whose path is just going to make her life harder. Kristen feels a pang of doubt and fear that she has just done exactly what her religious upbringing warned her against and put herself and her friends in grave danger for no reason by straying from the path, but then she has another classic Kristen-ism: Everyone is basic and wrong. She’d rather follow a goddess who is like, “Hey y’all, I also don’t have it all figured out but I will for sure do all I can to help you navigate it,” than a god who demands unquestioning faith and loyalty. And with that, she finds herself floating above her friends.

She feels the pull of her missing finger bone in Adaine’s pocket and she feels like it might be impossible for her to fully, properly, come back but on the other hand, she’s died like three times at this point. What does impossible even mean? She gets the sense that she can cast Raise Dead on herself and she does so. 

Welcome back to the Bad Kids, St. Kristen Applebees of [REDACTED], halo aglow, newly reattached finger shedding a bit of light.

(“That’s hot for being gay,” Ally says about Kristen’s new glow.)

Everyone hugs everyone and catches up everyone on everything. Kristen heals up Baxter for 20 HP and gets a +2 bump on her Intelligence mod for her ordeals in the forest. They all make a plan to get everyone in one place so Kristen can put some of her new AoE healing spells to use. Fig wants to go on Baxter to get Ayda. Adaine, bringing us full circle, invites Fabian on a rescue mission to get her sister. 

And we take a break. 

Deep breath y’all. 

Detention

Brennan for Cursing us With Knowledge About Gilear’s Penis

@allsevenmaidens put this very reasonable request in and I have to concur because what’s the alternative? Giving Anguin this spot AGAIN? Like, I don’t even want to give him the satisfaction of being the best of the worst. Adaine gave him the death penalty which is what he deserves and all he’s gonna get. 

So, Brennan gets this spot for forcing me to hear the words “Gilear” and “hung like a horse” in the same sentence.  

Honor Roll

Gilear for Kicking SERIOUS Ass

Listen, SO many Honor Roll-worthy moments happened this episode. Kristen’s Amazing As Above, So Below moment. Aelwyn finally stepping up to protect Adaine. Adaine absolutely obliterating Anguin in a single punch. 

But, at the end of the day, I have to give it to Gilear “Just a Guy” Faeth for cramming himself and a suit of cursed armor into a mostly airless briefcase out of desperate need to do whatever he could to help protect his daughter and her friends who are basically demigods. He truly is the Anti-Anguin and I’m so glad Riz got that on tape for posterity. Way to go man. 

Random Thoughts

I already wrote so many words and we have a five hour finale tomorrow so I’m going to try and keep this section brief. 

We’re staring down the barrel of the last episode (coming Friday at 8PM EST) and I want to say this now rather than later: thanks for reading these and leaving nice comments in the tags and stuff like that. I’m not always the most confident person and the support really means a lot.

We’re also staring down the barrel of a global crisis right now so, you know, be nice to yourself and escape through fiction when you need to, reach out to people, and eat a vegetable if you can. Read a 5000 word recap of an episode you presumably already watched. Whatever you need to do.

The Staff of Doubt has ten charges and can cast the following spells at the cost of the amount of charges listed: Detect Magic (1), Lesser Restoration (2), Dispel Magic (3), Banishment (4), Greater Restoration (5).

The Sword of Sight gives +1 to attack and damage rolls. It gives a base 12 AC which bumps Adaine’s to 15. It lets her cast Divination cantrips as bonus actions. She gets to take the Dodge action when she casts a Divination spell. And she gets no disadvantage on attacks on Invisible creatures (seems very useful against Kalina possibly).   

EDIT: I forgot to say! Gorgug saying very sincerely to Kristen, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” “there” being, “at her most recent death” broke me. 

Where in the World is Ragh Backrock? We have at least an approximate idea of where the rest of the hirelings are but nothing on Ragh. I’m concerned. His vision was asking Gorgug if he was his dad. Maybe it has something to do with that?

Very curious about what the mechanics of the final confrontation will be. What Aelwyn said seems like it could be setting up for some shenanigans. Plus, there are still all the hirelings to worry about.  

Another question, I feel like we still have almost no idea what’s going on with the NK. Half of me is almost expecting some kind of Te Fiti/Te Ka situation. On another day I might try to speculate and play detective but that’s not where I’m at today so I’m just gonna leave it at that.

I feel like Kristen is always negging deities to their faces. Like, girl. Her Axe/Dove metaphor was *chef’s kiss* though. Anyway, when (hopefully) Tracker is back to normal, I hope Kristen has a take that’s different than, “I met your goddess and she sucked.”

Kristen makes me feel bad for Helio. He’s just a surfer dude who likes corn, OK. He never did anything to her except give her magic! 

Didn’t have a good place to mention this earlier but Fig alerted Bill to their situation and location so if there’s a Bill Ex-Machina next ep, it’s not out of nowhere. 

(Also, just a small point of order, Gorgug did say he had a bone from Kristen last ep but so did Adaine. Doesn’t really matter but just wanted to explain the mismatch with my last recap). 

Making everyone roll a save to not see Gilear’s dick is so funny. As was Zac invoking danger sense to roll with advantage. 

“I cast Spare the Dying on Gilear’s Penis.”

“I am no man,” from LOTR but instead it’s Gilear saying, “I have no pride.”

“Drink deeply Gilear.”

Why is Kalina working for the NK? She’s supposed to be the Mystery Goddess’s familiar, right? Just another thing that doesn’t add up. Where’s that puzzle piece we’re missing?

The thought of Baxter being so confused and dejected and fatally injured, not understanding what he did so wrong to have his mistress riddle him with arrows makes me wanna throw down with Brennan IRL. Also, I’m Concerned about Sandra-Lynn.  

I need to say this on the record. Ally Beadsley does some bonkers things in D&D that I could not even begin to understand but that As Above So Below Gambit was Galaxy Brained. 

You knew this was coming. Abernant Time Bay-Bee (the abridged version because I need to get this out before Friday)!

First off, I am very happy to say that basically exactly what I predicted/hoped for in my last recap for this scene is what happened, with Anguin making Aelwyn cast Detect Thoughts on Adaine. And basically EVERYTHING I had on my Abernant Sisters Reconciliation checklist was checked. The Detect Thoughts. The pointing out that they’re gonna live for a long time and do they want to do it at each other's throats? Aelwyn finally stepping up to the plate and leaning into her Abjurative Instincts in a positive way and shielding Adaine from their father. And then the stuff that I wanted so bad but didn’t know it. The bunk beds moment? The “I love you too” moment. “She’s a baby!” I mean, “Will you be my big sister?” F off Siobhan. That was beautiful. 

A little concerned about Adaine having left Aelwyn unconscious so close to where their mom is but I am glad she remembered to cure her of Kalina. 

When Brennan said, “In Aelwyn’s last moment,” for a second I thought he meant she was about to be perma-dead and my heart legit stopped. 

I was up until about 2 AM last night, popping bottles with @camwritery (my Abernant Sisters confidant) about Brennan and Siobhan giving us everything we wanted and I’m going to get yelled at by her if I don’t mention something I said while we were talking. Last week, during the fireside chat, all of the players talked about what future lives/jobs they’d want for their characters. I posited the same question for Aelwyn and offered my answer--CPS Case Worker. Because, like, think about it. She is an extremely protective person. She wants to atone for what she did and failed to do for Adaine. When she gets all the therapy she needs, she’s going to be equipped with deep, personal knowledge of what abuse looks like/what it can do to a child and an extremely long lifespan. Can’t you see an adult Aelwyn, in the living room of a well appointed house, speaking cordially to some high class A-hole with his terrified kid sitting next to him, trying not to say anything or do anything that will get them punished and Aelwyn does a surface level Detect Thoughts at the same time so she can mentally kneel before the kid and tell them, “I’m on your side. You can be honest with me. I’m here to protect you. I promise. Don’t be scared.” This is all I want for her.   

This episode Fig rolled one Nat 1 and Gorgug rolled two but one was cancelled with advantage. No Nat 20s were rolled.    

[flightfoot]

Many of the side character’s stories and development in Trials of Apollo mirror and support Apollo’s own development

One of the things I love about ToA is how many of the other characters’ stories, their situations, their development, mirrors and compliments Apollo’s own development, reinforcing the story of how Apollo changes from being a selfish, arrogant, shallow, apathetic person, to one of the most selfless, humble, aware, and empathetic people in the Riordanverse.

Meg Mccaffrey

Obviously Meg’s story is the one that mirrors Apollo’s the most. I’ve already talked about this in past analyses however, and it’s so blatantly obvious I don’t want to waste time making a point that I’m sure all my readers already know. Maybe I’ll make another analysis focusing on Meg later, but I’ll skip over her for now.

Calypso

Fairly superficial similarities here. Calypso is also a former immortal who’s learning to deal with the loss of her powers (though not TOTAL loss) and being thrown into the demigod world headfirst. The emotional core of their experiences is different though, since Calypso’s whole thing was that she was trapped on an island (albeit a nice one) under house arrest for thousands of years. Apollo wasn’t really trapped like that. Even saying he was METAPHORICALLY trapped is a bit of a stretch, Zeus doesn’t seem to have been to involved in the day-to-day business of what Apollo got up to.

Lityerses

This one IS fairly similar actually. Lityerses is controlled and manipulated by his father, and it sounds like he’s okay with that - like he’s as bloodthirsty as his father is.

“Right.” He regarded Calypso. “I think I’ll keep you alive long enough to kill you in front of Valdez’s face. That’ll be fun. But this former god here...” Lit shrugged. “I’ll just have to tell the emperor that he resisted arrest.” (TDP 152)

But there are hints that maybe there’s more going on there. His muttering of “I hate that” when Midas casually mentions accidentally turning Lit to gold in The Lost Hero, him being glad that Apollo gave his father donkey ears, his casual mistreatment by Commodus - all of it gives the clues that maybe there’s a REASON for his attitude, for his behavior.

What it does NOT do, however, is hint that Lit could be a better person. None of any of the heroes’ encounters with Lit actually suggests that. That’s a leap of faith that Apollo makes, hoping that MAYBE, just maybe, Lit will be a better person if someone gives him a chance. If someone shows him kindness, helps him when they have no good reason too. He identifies with Lit. The hidden depths that Apollo’s shown as a mortal... they wouldn’t be apparent to a casual observer of him as a god. Heck, APOLLO didn’t know they were there! He’s constantly surprised at himself, at the kind of person he is now, at the sort of things he’ll do. Apollo gives Lit the chance he wants people to give himself, the sort of chance that he didn’t even really realize he needed. Showing him - showing Apollo - showing Lit - that level of kindness, mercy, and concern, when there’s no ulterior motive, showing it just because this is another person, and they haven’t really done anything to ‘earn’ compassion beyond that simple fact - that threw both of them for a loop.

In Apollo’s case, he really started appreciating others compassion in THO, when his children took him in, treated him as family, cared for him, said they’d protect him against anyone who gave him trouble.

“If anyone gives you trouble, Kayla will shoot them. Then I’ll curse them so bad they’ll be speaking rhyming couplets for weeks.”

My eyes watered. Not so long ago - like this morning, for instance - the idea of these young demigods being able to help me would have been ridiculous. Now their kindness moved me more than a hundred sacrificial bulls. I couldn’t recall the last time someone had cared about me enough to curse my enemies with rhyming couplets.

“Thank you.” I managed. I could not add “my children”. These demigods were my protectors and my family, but for the present I could not think of myself as their father. A father should do more - a father should give more to his children than he takes. I have to admit this was a novel idea for me. It made me feel even worse than before. (115)

It makes a difference here that his kids are helping him when he couldn’t offer anything back. If he’d still been a god, he wouldn’t have given their help much thought. He would’ve just thought that he was entitled to it, and that it’s not like he’d REALLY need them anyway. But this? This is different. They’re helping him just because they care - it’s not anything transactional. Apollo isn’t used to thinking about relationships this way - not for the most part anyway. His relationships with Artemis and Leto are solid, and he seems to have genuinely cared for Hyacinthus, genuinely loved him as a person, and cared for Asclepius quite a bit, but aside from that? Not so much. Certainly not caring about someone who’s practically a stranger.

This set an example for Apollo, one that he carries forwards to Lit. Lit also has never been shown this sort of kindness before, kindness when he’s at his most vulnerable, compassion without an expectation of a return, and most especially, compassion when he’s given Apollo and the Waystation residents every reason to reject him. And that compassion is enough to cause him to break down, to rethink his whole stance on life. Seemingly overnight, he changes from being the brutal, cruel killer who would murder Calypso in front of Leo just to hurt him that much more, to being a lost person just looking for something or someone to live for, to fight for. And having found it, he suddenly softens, becoming kinder, more balanced. 

But it’s not really an overnight change, is it? This other side has always existed, it’s just been hidden under layers of bravado and cruelty. That’s why both Lit and Apollo are able to change their mindsets so quickly - not all the aspects of what they’ve learned is truly “new”, they just haven’t applied them like this before, or not for a long time. Apollo’s experienced these sorts of caring relationships with Leto and Artemis at least, so they’re not totally a foreign concept. I’m betting in Lit’s case that he and his sister, at least at one point in time, did truly care about each other. The difference is seeing it applied more broadly to themselves by people who don’t already know them well, and then applying it to others that same way in turn.

Piper

Piper’s whole identity crisis has similarities to Apollo’s own. She was thrown into a situation where people expected certain things of her, and she just kinda... conformed to them. Which isn’t to say that she might not have chosen them herself on her own, but she didn’t really get that choice. Now that she has the time and has had a chance to think, she’s trying to find herself, figure out who she is. Her dad being financially ruined throws a wrench into it, but both of them returning to their roots, her father seemingly having more time to spend with her - those aspects are familiar. Apollo’s now figuring out who he is, now that he doesn’t have “being a god” to define him, along with everything else associated with that. His having his godhood stolen, and only now spending time really getting to know his kids and his demigod half-siblings, along with many, many others, is like how Piper’s dad now has time to spend with her, time he didn’t have before - a silver lining in this whole mess. 

Apollo’s advice to Piper seems to be talking about himself nearly as much as it’s talking about Piper.

“It’s been my observation,” I said, “that you humans are more than the sum of your history. You can choose how much of your ancestry to embrace. You can overcome the expectations of your family and your society. What you cannot do, and should never do, is try to be someone other than yourself - Piper McLean.” (265)

With how Apollo’s grown throughout the series and ESPECIALLY in TTT, this fits him as well. Apollo is more than the sum of his history, of what he has done, of what has been established by the older gods. He can choose how much of his past - and his family - to embrace, and overcome the expectations of his family, both godly and mortal, and of godly society. And he will do it by being himself, his WHOLE self, including the parts of his being that he’s been nurturing as a mortal, the compassionate, empathetic parts of himself.

Jason

Jason is a little different, because I don’t think his development, his situation parallels Apollo’s CURRENT situation, so much as Apollo’s future development. His willingness to sacrifice himself, to be the one who dies so that his friends can survive, wanting to keep secret about the prophecy so that Piper doesn’t try to stop him, so that hopefully he can keep her safe, even if it means merrily walking to his own death.... I’m expecting Apollo to get into a similar situation in TON. Though there are elements of that he’s already lived through, since he ALREADY chose Meg’s life over his own in TDP, and in TTT, he tried to conceal and downplay just how badly he was hurt to try to stop Meg from worrying as much.

Frank

Frank carries his mortality - the stick that’s attached to his life force - around with him. He’s decided that in order to lead the Legion effectively, he has to put one hundred percent of himself on the line. He can’t let fear hold him back. 

Apollo’s mortality is also on the line all the time. Originally he wanted to hide away, to cower behind others so as not to die (not that he actually tended to go THROUGH with it, either because he couldn’t or he wasn’t willing to abandon them) but now? Now he doesn’t even try. He wants to live, that’s true. But he values his companion’s lives more. He won’t hesitate to put himself on the line, to commit himself completely if he believes that it gives them a greater chance of survival.

The greater parallel however comes later, with Apollo’s hypothesis for how Frank survived his stick burning up. He believes that maybe since Frank took charge of his own destiny by willingly sacrificing himself, that he was freed from his old destiny and forged a new one:

“It’s just a guess,” I admitted. “Frank went into that tunnel knowing he might die. He willingly sacrificed himself for a noble cause. In doing so, he broke free of his fate. By burning his own tinder, he kind of… I don’t know, started a new fire with it. He’s in charge of his own destiny now. Well, as much as any of us are. The only other explanation I can think of is that Juno somehow released him from the Fates’ decree.” (393)

I don’t know how plausible this explanation is. Honestly, it kinda sounds like BS to me, especially since Jason did the same thing and HE died. But what’s important here is what APOLLO thinks happened. His explanation says as much about him as it does about what he thinks happened with Frank.

Breaking free of your fate by accepting, by EMBRACING your own mortality, putting everything on the line, sacrificing yourself completely in order to have a shot of stopping your friends from being hurt or killed... it’s similar to what happened with Jason, but with the added twist that Frank survived and started a new story, free of his previous destiny.

The destiny thing is really important. As a god, Apollo’s not ‘supposed’ to be able to change or mature. The gods seem to believe that their nature is more set in stone than mortals are. But Apollo has disproven that. He’s changed a lot, and has continued to change. He’s forging his own destiny, one different than he ever imagined it could be. And maybe, just maybe, one that Zeus won’t have control over. One that’s truly his own.

Don the Faun

Don has only a small role, but what Apollo says about him - what he thinks about him - says a lot.

“Hey, Apollo, you- you know the difference between a faun and a satyr…?”

[…]

A moment later, his body collapsed with a noise like a relieved sigh, crumbling into fresh loam. In the spot where his heart had been, a tiny sapling emerged from the soil. I immediately recognized the shape of those miniature leaves. Not a hemlock. A laurel - the tree I had created from poor Daphne, and whose leaves I had decided to make into wreaths. The laurel, the tree of victory.

One of the dryads glanced at me. “Did you do that…?”

I shook my head. I swallowed the bitter taste from my mouth.

“The only difference between a satyr and a faun,” I said, “is what we see in them. And what they see in themselves. Plant this tree somewhere special.: I looked up at the dryads. “Tend it and make it grow healthy and tall. This was Don the faun, a hero.” (398-399)

Here, Apollo’s noting that the difference between satyrs and fauns are purely societal. That there’s no inherent difference between them. Like the difference between gods and mortals, mentally, isn’t that different. Gods may be more powerful, but they’re still people, like mortals are. The differences between them, psychologically, have more to do with how society sees them, and how they see themselves. Having had his godhood stripped away, this is very apparent to Apollo. Because he’s still himself. A better version of himself, in fact, but that has nothing to do with him being mortal - not in and of itself. But with the things he’s learned as a mortal. He can be a hero, truly. Because he is just as capable of such things as any mortal.

Reyna

And lastly, there’s Reyna. She too, like Frank and Don previously, broke free from expectations to forge her own path. 

“My whole life, I’ve been living with other people’s expectations of what I’m supposed to be. Be this. Be that. You know?”

[…]

“But you showed me. When you proposed dating…” She took a deep breath, her body shaking with silent giggles. “Oh, gods. I saw how ridiculous I’d been. How ridiculous the whole situation was. That’s what healed my heart - being able to laugh at myself again, at my stupid ideas about destiny. That allowed me to break free - just like Frank broke free of his firewood. I don’t need another person to heal my heart. I don’t need a partner… at least, not until and unless I’m ready on my own terms. I don’t need to be force-shipped with anyone or wear anybody else’s label. For the first time in a long time, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. So thank you.” (405-406)

Reyna thought that she was supposed to find a partner. Everyone else thought she needed a partner - needed romantic healing. Until Lester asked her out. Until she saw how ridiculous it was to let others expectations - or curses, or whatever you’d call Venus’s little prophecy - control her life.

Apollo has a similar thing going on with letting expectations about what he’s supposed to do, about who he’s supposed to be, control what he does - or did, at least. I’ve gone over that already, so I’ll skip past that.

But the romantic angle? About thinking - or having others think - that she needs to be healed romantically? That also falls in line with Apollo’s development. Apollo’s had a LOT of romantic relationships, and a decent number of them have ended in disaster. He seems to be convincing himself that some romance will “fix” things, like with how he convinced himself that getting together with the Cumaean Sibyl would fix things:

But that wasn’t enough for me. I was smitten. I convinced myself it was love - the one true romance that would wash away all my past missteps. I wanted the Sibyl to be my partner throughout eternity. As the afternoon went on, I coaxed and pleaded. (131)

But he wasn’t in love with her, not truly, or his love wouldn’t have turned to hate so fast when she refused him. He just really WANTED it to be a shining romance, one that would finally fix things.

He actually does seem to be finding this sort of fulfillment now, but not with romantic relationships - with more platonic, familial relationships instead, such as with Meg.

I’d always wondered what it would be like to have a younger sibling. Sometimes I’d treated Artemis as my baby sister, since I’d been born a few minutes earlier, but that had been mostly to annoy her. With Meg, I felt as if it was actually true. I had someone who depended on me, who needed me around no matter how much we irritated each other. I thought about Hazel and Frank and the washing away of curses. I supposed that kind of love could come from many different types of relationships. (192)

I don’t think he’s realized it yet, but in a way, Meg seems to be “washing away” his curse of loneliness, of feeling empty. Taking care of her, connecting with her, bantering with her - this is what he needed. To be a protector. To be a friend. Romance is fine, but they’re not the only fulfilling sorts of relationships. 

Honestly with Reyna and Piper both taking a break from romance in order to find themselves, I think that Apollo may lay off the romance for a bit after ToA’s over, work on his more platonic relationships instead. I don’t think he’d swear it off, but maybe look for something more steady than he was before. And with the experiences he’s had as a mortal, I think he could better recognize truly serious love versus a temporary infatuation.

Final Thoughts

I really love how focused this series is on developing Apollo! A lot of aspects of this series seem geared to do that, from who the antagonists are and how they act, to the storylines of the side characters. It allows a level of development for Apollo that’s deeper and more nuanced than with any of Rick’s previous protagonists, even Percy. I look forward to seeing how Rick will conclude his development. If his writing for Apollo in TON is as solid as for previous entries, I’m sure it will be worth the wait.

[twatd]

Getting TWATD at the Wake, ii: The Eulogies

Every month, two writers returned to this blog. They did an essay each. For five years. And now it’s all over.

The Wicked + The Divine #45 came out a month ago, and we’re still at the metaphorical wake. In this part, we pick out two characters we haven’t written much about, consider the paths their lives ended up taking, and write their obituaries. It could get emotional.

Spoilers for... well, for the entirety of WicDiv, I guess, below the cut.

Tim: Endings are bittersweet things at the best of times, and for a series as preoccupied with death and heartbreak as The Wicked + The Divine, we were never going to reach a conclusion without shedding a few tears. Still, there are many ways in which #45 is a happy ending for several of the characters – and that’s truer for Aruna, the god formerly known as Tara, than possibly anyone else.

Looking across the span of the series as a whole, she is a character who has suffered abuse, indignity and manipulation. But here at the end, Aruna is free from many of the troubles that plagued her life both before and during her time as a god. I don’t know if the Aruna we see in 2055 is living her best life, but it seems infinitely better than we could have expected after #13, the issue which gave us a painful glimpse into a character who had remained a mystery up to that point.

Pre-Godhood, Aruna had been made to feel uncomfortable in her own body by sexism and misogyny. That feeling was amplified by her divine transformation and the increased celebrity that came with it, culminating in her begging Ananke for the mercy of death. But Ananke’s manipulation accidentally set up Aruna to transcend the cruelties inflicted upon her. As a miraculously preserved head, she was free from the burden of her body, and free to reinvent herself.

With the help of Jon, Aruna she was able to reject a new form when she wasn’t ready for one – and, once she was, to create one that existed beyond the constraints of traditional biology. Her story touches on themes of transhumanism, not an area that WicDiv has traditionally dabbled in, but one that has some interesting connections with the themes of people seeking immortality. As you might expect given the ideas of gender and bodily autonomy at play, it’s also easy to read through a queer lens.

I’m glad that, while it’s clear Jon and Aruna have developed a close partnership over the years, Gillen and McKelvie chose to leave the exact nature of their relationship open to interpretation.

Aruna’s previous discomfort with the spotlight, and Ananke’s subsequent exploitation of that fact, also ended up benefitting her in other ways. Her distance from the rest of the Pantheon meant she avoided jail time after the events of #44 (it probably helped that it’s hard to handcuff someone when they’re just a head).

You could also maybe draw a line between the sudden outpouring of appreciation following Tara’s death and the way she was able to successfully campaign for the Pantheon’s early release, performing benefit concerts and raising awareness. This goes some way to colouring the previously devastating ending of #13 in a new light, as the insincere chorus of Twitter observers become a platform Aruna is able to use for good.

There’s an important distinction, though – this time around, she was able to approach a musical career and fame on her own terms, as Aruna rather than Tara. Also, the fact that her ‘death’ wasn’t a permanent one doesn’t take away from the tragedy of it, or how the comic made us complicit in the culture that led to it.

Aruna’s story following her ‘death’ could be called WicDiv’s ultimate triumph. The old truism about suicide being a permanent solution to a temporary problem feels especially apt here. Ananke took someone who was miserable and vulnerable, and proceeded to place them in a situation that they couldn’t cope with. Ananke became Aruna’s sole source of ‘support’, isolating her from the other gods, amplifying her insecurities until Aruna felt the only solution was to take her own life.

Strip away some of the details, and the story starts to take on some truly dark parallels, but unlike so many real-life stories, there is a second act to Aruna’s tale.

Once the true nature of Ananke’s plans are revealed, Aruna is eventually able to escape her role in them, retake control of her life, and eventually thrive on her own terms. WicDiv may be a story that largely approaches death as a firm reality, but by giving Aruna a reprieve from her seeming demise, it allows us a glimpse of a real happy ending, in amongst the more complex feelings the final issue evokes.

Alex: Aruna’s story is a happy one because she escapes the cycles that life locked her into. But the god I want to talk about, I’m not sure they ever did. Which might not be a terrible thing – it was always a little different, with Dionysus.

We don’t get much time with Umar before he goes all Olympian, but the moments we do get suggest there’s less of a gap between his two identities than there is for most of the other gods. He’s the guy who drives his friends down to London so they can get wasted on the way, who asks sensitive questions of strangers.

When he becomes Dionysus, the difference is mainly a question of scale. The group of people he’s trying to do right by gets bigger and bigger, and that makes this behaviour unsustainable. That first time we meet him, in issue #8, we get pretty much the whole Dionysus story. Dude takes on everyone else’s troubles, exerts himself to make them feel better, and makes it look breezy – only occasionally cracking and showing the weight of it all.

I’m not sure that ever really changes for Umar. He keeps using his powers to make people happy for a night, even as it starts to take a toll. He waits in the darkness, lets The Morrigan attack him, just to be there for Baphomet. He has faith in the power of the crowd, even as they crush him. He just keeps giving and giving, and it lands him in a coma.

This is Dionysus’ hamartia – the fatal flaw built into every one of WicDiv’s gods, the thing that ensures their downfall. As these things go, it’s not a bad flaw to have.

It marks him apart from the other gods. Gillen has talked about the Pantheon all being aspects of himself, his own flaws built out into characters, people he’s trying not to be anymore. But Dionysus’ flaw actually makes him someone to aspire to.

A spare Gillen quote from my Polygon interview that didn’t make it into the final article: “Umar is someone I'd love to be now… But Umar's a fictional character. Therefore, it's easier for him to be Umar than for Kieron to not be a shithead.” Even in the comic, we see how Dio’s behaviour is unsustainable – but to try and live that way, all of the time, in real life? It’s impossible.

I say this with authority, because in many ways I spent my twenties trying to be a Dionsysus. I’m an Inanna by nature – a pleasure seeker who tries to be kind but can sometimes forget that having the best possible time can have consequences on the people around them. (And, sidenote, it’s a fascinating twist on the archetypes that the god with these traits isn’t the one who, y’know, gave us the word bacchanalian.)

But, to be uncharacteristically nice about myself for a second, my idea of having a good time does tend to include bringing as many people along with me as possible. The version of me I like is the one who always opens up the circle on the dancefloor to sweep up strangers and stragglers. Or spot someone who seems left out and work to change that. Or pour hours into a project that’ll be seen by just a handful of friends, or just one.

I kind of buried that person this year.

This wasn’t an active choice, or something I was even conscious of doing at the time, but looking back I can see the reasons behind it. Firstly, because it’s not always clear whether people actually want these things done for them, or if it’s an unwelcome overreach, and that thought makes me to want up curl into myself and just die. And second, because I’m not good at knowing how to apportion effort, meaning it can involve frankly life-damaging amounts of preparation for very little payoff.

It’s not a sustainable way to live. Dio might be the best possible version of the WicDiv god, but he’s still someone sacrificing his self to become an idea. It kills him, eventually, and #37 shows how he’s remembered for it by the public, the people he gave everything he had to: ‘that guy on drugs’.

But eventually he is repaid by one of the recipients of his kindness, as a little bit of that selflessness rubs off on Baphomet. And Umar joins the rest of the Pantheon as they step back from their defining flaw, allow themselves to become more than an archetype. “I thought it was my job to save everyone,” Dionysus says, and I cry my little eyes out.

Maybe that was the moment I started to realise I’d been stepping back from that version of myself. Or maybe it was talking with Tim (my other, non-fictional model for the sort of person I want to be) about issue #45, when he explained how he read the older Umar: someone in whom all that kindness turned a little bitter. Aged like vinegar, not wine.

My reading is more hopeful than that, I think. The final issue trades in hints and suggestions of lives, but with Umar more than most. And personally, I fill in that blank with a different story: someone who has tempered his need to always put others first, and become more judicious about when and how and to whom he gives himself. And that? That is someone I’d really like to be.