#birds snippets

[oh-no-its-bird]

Sensei's appartment was as cozy as ever. It was also as easy to break into as ever. Kakashi could take the door, like a normal boy. But doors were for losers and he was Konoha's most talented chunnin, which made him above such things. Besides, it was more fun this way. "Sensei." Minato let out a high pitched shriek, simultaneously flinging himself away from his student and throwing the frying pan he'd been in the middle of taking out of the cubord at his head. There was a flash, and suddenly Minato was behind Kakashi, holding the pan and poised to strike, before wilting as he seemed to register it was just his student. Again. "Kakashi I told you to stop doing that!" "Did you put a hiraishin on your frying pan?" Kakashi asked in disbelief, completely ignoring his sensei's reprimand.

"You do realize that if you keep giving him such a show every time he 'sneaks up on you,' he'll never stop doing it." Kushina pointed out, and Minato laughed sheepishly. "It seems to make him happy though, doesn't it?" "You big softie," Kushina pinched his cheek just shy of hard enough to hurt, but he was too busy grinning to mind much. "C'mere and kiss me, pretty boy."

Minato chapter of Chasing Shadows is finally in progress, let's go !!!

[staticymaticyyourlifeisatravesty]

THOUGHT

What if the entire reason why Sanguinius usually speaks in such a formal way is straight up because he's speaking Gothic and thus a second language from his native tongue. Depending on how his native baalite (or however it is called) is, it could mean that Gothic isn't the easiest language for him to speak so he ends up just coming off as super formal. Meanwhile in his native tongue, he sounds a lot less formal and might even seem crass or vulgar when speaking. Mind you, he can still be formal sounding in his native language, but I imagine it's a hell of a lot easier for him to speak in a more relaxed manner.

As much as Sanguinius probably does know less formal ways of speaking in Gothic, but he's not exactly good at speaking in an informal way of talking because he often needs the formal way far more often then the informal. And if he does need to speak informally, it's usually with his sons and thus it's just simpler to speak in his native tongue.

I imagine with his brothers, he may attempt to be somewhat less formal with them, such as Horus, but his accent tends to get in the way at times, or he forgets the word he wants to use entirely despite the fact he has an eidetic memory.

[presidentbungus]

“What are you looking at so intently?” says Engie like any good Texan boy would, all fluttering eyelashes and blushy grins despite the fact his eyes are behind half a centimeter of tinted glass. Medic puffs out his lips into a little pucker, then smooths back out, and Engie glints with satisfaction at just the lightest dusting of pink that rises to his cheeks.

He makes sure to be just a little extra slow and sultry when he leans over and plucks a beer from the case by his recliner-chair. “See somethin’ ya like?” By which he means: you're staring for a good reason, please, god, aren't you? But he’s too respectful and upstanding to say that, though he considers himself certainly talented at this whole implications thing, and the deep mauve Medic turns when he tosses just a slightly inflected look in his direction indicates he must get the general idea.

“Well—hoo, well.” He spends two seconds frankly adorably stumbling through his words and then that gloved hand darts out and there’s rubber around Engie’s wrist, two long, thick fingers barely touching thumb-to-pointer in a little ring. “I was—er…”

He rescinds the hand, temples his fingers under his chin, caught between sitting and standing and settling in a weird in-between as Engie watches, fascinated. “I was just… thinking… about your heart. And your lungs.” He tilts his head. “And, in a small measure, your brain, I suppose. Er, imagining your breathing, and your circulation, and the oxygen flowing in and out of your limbs, and… so on. Drawing your veins in my mind and, and such.”

… Huh. Maybe he misread the situation.

And he keeps just stumbling through, pushing up his glasses every few seconds, still perched on his heels with his arms wrapped around his knees. “You’re a—private man. I have not seen much of you besides what I have been able to—have the company require,” and his voice pushes up a few notes on the last word, and well he’ll be damned if it’s not the cutest thing he’s ever seen, “but I… think about you.”

He lowers his voice just a little for this one, reclining down onto his back. “Oh, you do.”

“You have a very impressive set of lungs. Even for all the, er, damage." Engie frowns and Medic puts his hands up. "That's a compliment."

"Uh-huh."

"And your heart is a perfect specimen. Strong, and healthy… pulsing with vitality," and his eyes bug out just a little on the last line. "I was almost upset to have to cut it out of you… until, well…"

Ain't that interesting. "Until?"

He smiles sheepishly, wringing his hands together with a frankly disgusting sound of rubber against rubber. “… I may or may not have kept your original heart in a jar. With my other personal possessions.”

He mentally re-catalogues everything of interest in the lab, mentally travels to Medic’s big mahogany former-bookshelf, stacked top-to-bottom with preserved organs in jars, and sees a lot of hearts. A lot of hearts. But, then again, his mind is drawn back to a smallish mason jar near the front, suspiciously unlabeled, amidst rows and rows of perfectly organized bits and pieces.

Yeah, sure.

He's sure Medic is approaching this more from scientific curiosity than any particular angle he'd prefer, but heat's rising to his face before he knows it and frankly he doesn't really feel like putting in the effort to quell it.

And just to press the envelope that tiny bit further, he ventures: "Well I'll be darned if that's not the most romantic thing I've ever heard."

Medic turns the color of his tie. Engineer's sure he follows suit.

[jackdaniel69nice]

Tokoyami: *scrolling through the channels on the tv when he suddenly comes across a bird documentary. They are doing a mating dance*

Dark Shadow: Oh! I like that!

Tokoyami: *chuckles and moves on*

Sero: I thought you said the bird jokes were “distasteful”

Toko: It’s funny when we do it

DS: Who said I’m joking~~

[lettersnorth]

“Maybe I’m too much of a distraction.” "Aislinn, darling. You are the most welcome distraction that a man could ever ask for."

[prince-liest]

I needed a break from radiostatic, so instead I bring you: a different flavor of trainwreck waiting to happen!

[m1d-45]

GASP I had another idea. What if, since Xiao now knows who the real Creator is, he prays the them and not the faker on the throne? And when he next visits the creator as a bird, they are excitedly showing him a new bit of power they suddenly got, not knowing that it was his own faith that restored a bit of their glory??? -sibling anon, who is just vibing with this idea like it's a rubix cube

combined this ask w your other one, and sorry this is kinda late/reads weird. been busy and i am tired 👍

word count: 723

xiao knows the one on the throne isn’t his god, and his curiosity about you has turned into conviction.

you’re his creator. you have to be.

you’re soft where they’re harsh, you gently pet his feathers where they snap out orders. he knows he’s only one against many, he knows he doesn’t stand a chance and giving you the worship and praise you deserve, but… he tries.

he’s forfeited all but basic politeness to the fraud, limiting his interactions with them and instead spending his time with you. he spends more time in his bird form than human, at this point, curled into your side as you wander liyue. he takes patrols where you are to keep the others away from you, always ‘just missing’ wherever you are. sometimes he brings you things in return for your eternal kindness, hiding things as a human to lead you to them as a bird.

your bird. your little songbird, perched on your finger as you flip over the coin of mora he brought you with a smile. perhaps he should be ashamed, that an adeptus such as him is reduced to eating from another’s palm, but he’s not. not when it’s you. not when he finds your image the one in his mind when he’s in danger, not when he finds himself defending liyue in your name, not when he makes offerings to you instead of the fraud.

your little bird, your xiao. he knows he can’t do enough on his own, he knows that his small acts of protection aren’t nearly what you deserve, but…

as he flies across liyue, a coin of mora clutched in his claws, he hopes that it will help you in places he can’t.

he lets out a call when he spots you walking between the trees, tucking into a dive. you turn, the same smile on your face as every time that you see him, and he lands in your hand, the coolness of the coin contrasting with the warmth from your hand.

“little friend! welcome back, pretty bird.”

he chirps back at you, settling in the curve of your hand as you pick up the coin he brought you. however, instead of telling him about your day, or continuing on your walk, you reached for the branch of a nearby berry bush—thankfully, one that was edible, though you didn’t go for the fully grown ones instead, you pulled off a small part of a branch with a flowering bud on it.

“look, i learned how to do something new today!”

he chirped, moving closer to your wrist to watch your actions. you held the branch between two of your fingers and carefully brushed over the flower, something green sparking under the pad of your thumb. as he watched, the small bud bloomed, a bright red berry sprouting at impossible speeds.

something like a yelp left him in surprise, his wings puffing up as he tried to make sense of it, and your attention quickly shifted from the branch.

you moved him up and cooed nothing at him, unaware of how far xiao’s mind was from the situation.

you had made the plant bloom. dendro had answered your call, when he knew for certain that nothing had bent to your will when he’d first found you.

he knew being near you was calming—it was why you were constantly surrounded by birds and butterflies, it was how he was clued in to your divinity, at first. the way his karma seemed to settle and fade- even now, his shock washing away under your touch over his wings.

something featherlight pressed to the top of his head and he blinked himself from his thoughts, looking up to see you pulling away.

you don’t say a word, carefully plucking the berry from its stem with one hand. in your other, xiao is frozen again, this time for an entirely different reason. his forehead is alight, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, the problem of your blossoming godhood pushed aside and buried.

you put the fresh berry in your other hand, in front of xiao, and he dipped his head to nip at it.

blessed is he who partakes in the divine.

[thisnameisnotspokenfor]

It was midnight when they’d finished. Quickly bidding the forest animals a quick farewell they’d returned home to help her birds settle in for the night. To Cepheus’s credit, he’d spared no expense in lacing the old shed with several ‘extra security measures.’

“How does it work?” Asha asked, looking at the now invisible runes etched onto the shed exterior.

“It’s simple! If something thinks about eating them, then it won’t get a chance to have a second thought!”

“That sounds…gruesome.”

“Gruesomely effective? I know,” he beamed as her birds chirped their approval. 

[tracle0]

Snippet Sunday X

babes we reached 10 of them!!!! Here is a snippet to celebrate wahoo!

Wow,” he said. “That’s incredible. Why didn’t we notice anything was weird?”

“We did. We found the gods. But statistic wise… well, when did people realise you were a prophet?”

His steadily growing grin faltered. It was a hard question to answer - there was no one moment when anyone had known, least of all him. When he had been very young, both him and Cain had boldly assumed that some dreams would simply come true, which had resulted in a joint terror of coming home to find their parents replaced by overly zealous frilled lizards after Cain had had a nightmare about it. Perhaps his parents had begun to suspect when he had asked them about grand historical events or for clarity on complex, upcoming social issues he had no right to know about as a six year old. Or perhaps it had been when he had been seven, and had been able to repeat, word for word, the story his grandmother would tell at her upcoming birthday. It had been finally, quietly accepted when he was eight, after he pinpointed the exact grief his father had experienced when his uncle had died, and discussed obscure details of the time his mother had been bed-bound for two months with an aggressive strand of the flu with her, and when the cancer he had predicted three years prior had finally struck their cousin. 

“After every option has been exhausted,” he said instead. He was acutely aware of his hands. Why did they feel so present, so awkward? What did he usually do with them? Try the pockets. Hide them away. 

[rrat-king]

psst, hey hey hey, snippet of its Christmas (and no one can fix it)? pretty please???

of course of course (sorry this is a little late)

snippet from my vague happiest season au:

Kristen Applebees was not the biggest fan of Christmas. Life, however, ignored that fact in giving her a partner that had more holiday spirit than she otherwise thought possible. Holiday spirit that somehow led her to be freezing her ass off as the two of them walked down the salted sidewalks of one of the richer neighborhoods in town. Tracker, for all that it was worth, seemed to be having the time of her life, which was good enough for Kristen. Her partner took a special sort of joy in looking at the elaborate displays, the too tall, too old houses and their ancient trees covered in lights that probably cost more to keep on than the electricity for their apartment. Which was not a very festive thought, but it’s all Kristen could think about looking at them, so she found herself just looking at Tracker instead, tracing the way the light reflected off of her nose, her brow, the bow of her lips… “You’re not looking at any of the lights.” “Hmm?”

wip snippet ask game here !!!

[crab-crab]

Scoop

I wrote sad now I present Happy. This is 100% based off the cutscene from Star Wars where Han just picks up Leia and sets her down while walking

The argument brewing between Time and Twilight had been days in the making. 

They had stopped in a town in Legend’s Hyrule, everyone happy to finally be off their feet when everything went downhill. There was shouting from down the hall and Warriors had left to go make sure everything was alright. 

Everything was evidently not alright Sky thought as he heard a door slam open and then closed, heavy steps pounding down the hallway followed by the door opening again with a strained Twilight!

Ever the peacekeeper, Sky stood and hurried away from the rest of the chain. He had just rounded the corner and caught sight of the Rancher storming towards him when he was scooped up under the arms.

Sky barely got out a muffed squeak before he was set back down to the side, out of Twilight’s way, and was greeted by the sight of the Rancher’s retreating figure.

“He moved you like a sack of feed” Wild hummed as he reached Sky’s side and watched along with the Chosen as Twilight finally disappeared outside of the inn. Legend appeared on the other side of Sky with a slow whistle and a glance back at where the Rancher had come from

“Best not get in his way anymore, he’ll just move you.”

—---------

Sky was getting very tired of being moved.

The argument between Twilight and Time had been one thing, Twilight was one of -if not- the strongest among them so it made sense that he could easily lift the smaller members.

Warriors, however, looked like a stiff breeze on Skyloft could blow him over some days.

Sky had tried to stop the Captain from storming out of the academy, saying that he could instead go to one of the other areas where it was safer but no!

Just as Sky had stepped forward to try to placate the Captain he had been scooped up under the arms again and set aside while the older man had disappeared around the corner. 

It was suspiciously quiet behind him

“Oh Golden Goddesses even the Captain can move you”

Sky turned to see Legend looking as if he’d seen the Master sword suddenly talk. Eyebrows hidden in his hair, eyes wide, and mouth dropped open. The other Links were in similar states of surprise.

“Sky come here I wanna see if I can lift you too!” Wild shot up and started heading for the Chosen.

“No!” Sky screeched when Wild dove for him and he jumped back, keeping away from the Champion’s hands.

Legend was wheezing, head planted on the table, and fist banging on the wood as he cackled. Wind had joined in on chasing Sky around and Four seemed to be looking between Sky and Legend with an intense expression, eyes flashing violet.

Another screech made Sky stop long enough to see Legend held up by Four, the Smithy grinning.

“Looks like your lightness runs in the family” He hummed as Legend thrashed about and spit curses.

Sky had enough time to laugh before being scooped up again and glaring down at a smiling Champion.

“You’re so scoopable!” He cackled and Sky heaved a sigh as the realisation settled on his shoulders.

This would not be the last time that he would be bodily moved out of the way.

[oh-no-its-bird]

On one hand: I know it isn't too smart to advertise exactly what I'm writing when I am, bc it means if/when I inevitably fail to produce it, I'll feel extra bad about it bc people knew I was doing it / might have been expecting to see the final product

On the other hand, I really love the feedback and it does give me more motivation to actually keep going

Anyways.

Anyways uhh. Then off screen, MBJ fights a god and demands to be reincarnated w SQH, which is why we see him as Jun later on.

[corviiids]

For the director's cut fanfic thing: ⭐⭐⭐ (these are THREE stars valid for whatever. I'm giving you blank checks)

thank you again <3

blank check 2/3 goes back to as you like it again! but this time i want to talk about my shadow designs for the akechi bossfights we've encountered in the preceding chapters >:3 there are five - the Puppet, the Singer, the Bard, the Dancer, and the Magician.

but this got really ABSURDLY long this time so ill stick to mostly the Puppet, and just do a brief ("brief") overview of the others for now.......

(for context: this is my palace au and akechi's keywords are akechi goro, the world, theatre.)

the Puppet (photos of giant puppets below if that freaks you out!)

the first Wing the thieves encounter is the puppet show, and the boss shadow is a giant marionette:

For one thing, it’s huge—maybe three or four times the size of a human being. It’s also gleaming, carefully polished and buffed, reflecting light more viciously in the areas where it seems the wood might be chipped or worn. The polish throws the lines of joints and pieces into sharp relief, giving the puppet the general impression of something whole that had been cut up and pieced slowly together with hinges and nails. Behind it, mostly concealed by its limp bulk, is a door. As they might have gleaned from the chatter of the audience, the show does not yet seem to have begun. As such, the puppet on stage is limp on its strings. Most disturbingly, it’s draped backward, not forward, snapped unnaturally at the spine and giving it the extremely uncanny look of a corpse on uneven ceiling hooks. They can just make out the side of the thing’s eyes from where they’re standing. Gravity has not been kind to them: the puppet’s eyelids are dropped open, bulging eyes left wide and staring up as far back as the build will let them. They haven’t rolled all the way into the wooden skull, presumably because they can’t. Instead, the unseeing yellow eyes remain fixed on the back corner of the stage. The puppet is entirely still. “I think I’m going to be sick,” Makoto says faintly.

i think the Puppet is my favourite of the five because he's so disturbing. i imagine he looks a bit like the giant marionettes by the french street theatre show royal de luxe:

but i really love these guys, so i think it's uncharitable to say akechi's shadow looks exactly like them. i know giant puppets are always a little freaky but i genuinely love the royal de luxe puppets and i think the workmanship on these does genuinely do a ton of work to dispel that uncanny vibe.

puppet akechi on the other hand is absolutely drenched in uncanny valley, so i guess imagine these puppets but much scarier. the main thing is those places where different pieces of wood are joined, in the joints / on the limbs / etc, because that's very key to puppet akechi's look in my mind, hence "something whole that had been cut up and pieced slowly together with hinges and nails". the Puppet is a marionette, but the way he's been constructed and set up on stage almost calls to mind the imagery of a corpse that's been reconstructed to perform. the way he moves is really unnatural:

Ren is beginning to think they might be able to get past and slip through that door without a fight when the whole creature rears up, back strings going taut, and lashes wildly out at him with a horrible clack of its arms—he leaps back and crashes directly into Haru, who catches and dips him like a princess before twirling him frantically into Ryuji and the puppet gouges a deep gash in the stage floor.    As they watch it screeches, howls an unnatural shriek, eyes suddenly wide and bulging larger. They ‘blink’ a few times, eyelids flipping, then the puppet Akechi goes limp on its strings again, though decidedly more upright than before, like whoever’s pulling the strings is now on guard. Its eyes stay open this time, bright gold and piercing.

very much not like something exercising its own agency, but like a body on strings being operated by someone who did not care to practice in the artistry of operating a puppet to make it look like a live thing - the puppet is literally just a tool to be flailed about.

this also shows in the way the puppet sits when it's at rest. guys do you know how god damn hard it is to find normal pictures of puppets? when you google marionette it just comes up with a bunch of fnaf shit. anyway check this guy out

at rest, they usually just kind of dangle innocently, or might slouch forward if given too much slack, right? it was important to me that puppet akechi look very wrong at rest, as if he's not "at rest" so much as he's just been left to hang. hence: "it’s draped backward, not forward, snapped unnaturally at the spine and giving it the extremely uncanny look of a corpse on uneven ceiling hooks." i'm basically imagining meat hooks, like, in a slaughterhouse or something you know? like he's just dangling from those.

that imagery was inspired by persona 5 dancing, actually - akechi's finishing pose in his dance is this:

this is just such an unnatural pose. when i saw it for the first time, i just couldn't get the image out of my head of a string puppet who'd been hung up and left to dangle without any regard for how it might look or feel (lol). not to mention that blank look in his eyes. i think a lot of the Puppet was born from this dance because the dance itself is so dynamic and silly but then the lead-up to the end suddenly gets very jerky and puppet-like. i really like his dance!

the Puppet's battle mechanic is that the applause will continue as long as the Puppet is either acting or getting hurt (kind of like the mettaton fight in undertale actually?). if the applause stops, then the Puppet will be inflicted with Despair - in p5 the Despair effect means you lose SP for each turn and then instantly die on the third turn. makoto ends up healing the Puppet and yusuke mercy-kills it before it can commit suicide:

Fox silently raises his gun. The Thieves collectively flinch as the Puppet dissipates. The applause starts back up. “If we’d left things silent,” Yusuke says, “it would have only happened again.”

because this is the first shadow bossfight the thieves encounter in the Theatre, i needed it to have some broader implications (vs some of the later shadows who have more specific interactions). so obviously the analogue for akechi is that the performance needs to continue and he needs to continue receiving acknowledgement from the public / from shido / etc because if he's not useful and entertaining and noticeable and such, then he's nothing - his life doesn't mean anything. obviously, if he doesnt perform for shido (perform in the sense of working, but also in the sense of showmanship) he'll probably be killed. but also, akechi really externalises his sense of self to an insane degree. the conceit of the palace is essentially that his entire internal world is the show, it's just this shallow performance, the backstage is empty. if he stops existing in the cognition of the masses, he essentially "stops existing".

i think a lot about third semester akechi in royal and how completely he's faded from public awareness. he doesn't care because he's a dead man walking and has locked into nihilism at that point. but if you look at what akechi says in the engine room:

his voice when he says this says a lot to me. akechi's envisioning the world as it will look when he has to return and face the consequences of the world discovering what's behind the curtain and realising his credibility was all a show. to be honest, i think this also plays a role in his decision to sacrifice himself in this scene. i don't think he wanted to die, but i think he did realise that the post-thieves, post-truth world wasn't a place that held anything for him anymore, and his desire to return to that reality was dramatically weakened, so it was an easier decision for him to choose to make that sacrifice than it otherwise might have been.

um, i had a point. okay, so, i was saying that once the applause stops, the Puppet begins to despair. the Puppet also is the most direct representation of akechi as someone who is being used. all the shadow bosses correlate to some aspect of akechi's need to perform and to the varying reasons why they all have that sense of desperation:

“Kinda feels like they’re just defendin’ themselves, you know,” [Ryuji] says. “Or somethin’. Look too much like him. It’s weird they can’t talk, cos it’s like fighting a dumb animal. Don’t they all seem real scared to you?” None of Akechi’s Shadows have delivered grand speeches about conquering the world. Even Futaba’s Shadow had given them a fairly strong indication of what was going on with her, that overwhelming guilt which had given birth to a resolve to lock herself up in her mind and die. Akechi’s Shadows have lashed out, tried to destroy them, sure. But it feels different in a way that’s growing more and more impossible to ignore. Desperate to fend them off, more than anything, like each one is the final bastion standing for a world that could crumble at any moment.

that's why once you figure out how to stop each shadow's "show" from going on, they instantly die:

ripping the Singer's mask off causes him to cease to exist (see below)

silencing the Bard, who relies on the power of his words to manipulate others, removes his power and reveals that he's pretty easy to take down

the Dancer's feet are always bleeding because he can't stop moving. he's hard to catch, but the moment he stops dancing, he's revealed to have extremely low defence and can be taken out very easily

but the Puppet is literally being manipulated by a puppetmaster. because he no longer has any use when the applause stops, he no longer has a reason to exist. i also just thought this would be a fun effect to start on because it's so drastic as an introduction to akc's psyche and really gives the thieves a sense of what they're working with by throwing them directly into the deep end.

ok let's leave the puppet behind for now. im gonna be more brief with the others i promise (maybe)

the Singer

LET'S TALK about. beneath the mask. a song about ren. but it's also a song about goro.

I'm a shape-shifter at Poe's masquerade Hiding both face and mind All free for you to draw

the fic goes over some of my meta about this:

[Yusuke] I have done some research. [Makoto] Oh? [Yusuke] I believe when the Opera Shadow sang of “Poe’s Masquerade”, he was referring to a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, entitled “The Masque of the Red Death”.

eternally grateful for the scene during the pyramid arc where yusuke loredumps about egyptian mythology so i have precedent to do this

yusuke summarises the story in this chapter (chapter 4), but basically: the story is about rich people abandoning the common folk to a plague, until a personification of the plague wearing a red mask enters the castle. when his mask is removed, it's revealed there is nothing underneath. everyone in the castle then succumbs to the plague.

the superficial connections to akechi are pretty obvious - red mask, plague doctor. etc. but this song is really, really telling for both ren and goro. i briefly went over this in my last dvd commentary post about the palace fic, but this relates to my meta around both of them as mask wearers. the line "all free for you to draw" is a big one - ren is "all free for you," the player, "to draw" - he becomes who you need him to be, and because you need to max out your confidants, he becomes (via you) who his friends need him to be.

goro is similar on a different scale because he moulds his personality to what the public expects him to be. he takes it one step further, because it's less utility for him and more foundational - as i said, to an extent the performance is the substance of his personality, which is the core of the distortion. so both ren and goro are wearing the mask, malleable in character, their actual personality being somewhat questionable, but that emptiness is only true for goro. ren's definitely got something underneath it, but goro feels like he doesn't.

brief cw for suicidal ideation, but i also generally take it as a given that goro doesn't really expect to live past 18 after defeating shido. not that he's actively suicidal, but i think literally or figuratively he knows after shido's downfall, his own life will pretty much be over, and that's part of what drives the emptiness. the show really only needs to go on until that point, and after that there's no need to build a real thing underneath to return to. he's very much living for that goal.

anyway: so the Singer starts out singing the Phantom of the Opera - the Shadow is very much modelled after the phantom - but swaps to beneath the mask and begins to connect with ren. the Singer wears a red mask. i really like this mask! i envision it as looking like someone pouring blood over his face and then the blood freezing in place, so it just looks very molten and liquid but fixed over half his face.

ren defeats the Singer by ripping his mask off:

[Ren] Please don’t take off my mask, revealing dark [Ann] OMG!! [Ann] THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE TOOK OFF HIS MASK!! [Ann] HE REVEALED DARK!!!! [Ann] HE DISAPPEARED!!!!!!!!!!

(i love the thieves because i dont have to be subtle about my symbolism i can just make them say it)

anyway, just like the figure in the Masque of the Red Death, ripping off the Singer's mask reveals "dark" underneath - he ceases to exist.

Just a cage of bones There's nothing inside

the Bard and the Dancer

when i was first plotting this fic, i was actually designing the palace not as a written environment but as though it would be a playable place. so a lot of it is informed by me picturing what this palace would be like to play through and explore, building it out as a video game environment in my mind's eye and then trying to describe it from that point. i took the same approach to the bossfights, so they're all designed around central gameplay mechanics which are largely based on status effects and how the player would strategise around them. (to that end, a lot of the design stuff in my doc never made it into the fic...)

the conceit of the bard was a shadow who can manifest abstract concepts into being by manipulating reality with his words. so the status effects he uses are brainwash and sleep, mostly. his monologues are modified versions of shakespeare's works.

part of the reason why i started writing this fic was specifically to challenge myself in aras of writing im not very confident in: so longform planning, progression of plot, environment description, and action scenes being major ones. writing all the boss fights was and continues to be a real challenge. the chapter that the bard shows up in (chapter 5) ended up taking ages and ages in part because i kept putting off writing this fight. now that it's done, though, the bard fight is actually maybe my favourite fight scene i've written lol. it always turns out that way!!! the reason i like it is because i realised the physical action wasn't the fun part of writing a fight like this. since it was focused on status effects, it meant i got to crawl into ren's headspace when he got brainwashed, which i really really enjoyed doing because i got to drag out some trauma that joker has lovingly repressed.

   to set my fellows, phantoms in the wings    in deadly hate the one against the other…    This isn’t the Casino. This is somewhere else entirely. The Casino, and everything that came with it, that was months ago. How did he forget? The cottonwool that had crept so slowly into his blood dissipates in a mad rush that leaves him dizzy with disbelief. His hands, now that he can feel them again, are trembling. The knife between his fingers, trembling. The cool floor beneath him, the air in his lungs. How close had he come to never feeling that again?    Had he really just been feeling safe about that plan? Had he really felt everything was going to be okay? If anything had gone wrong—anything at all—he’d have been gone. He’d have been dead. How had they made it so he felt okay with that?    A trick? A ruse?    How blasé they’d all been, when it was his life they were gambling with like a worthless set of poker chips! And they’re here—all around him. Safe? He’s never been in more danger.    “Joker!”    Surrounded. He’s surrounded by the ones who left him for dead.

the Dancer doesn't get as much attention in text because i didn't want to slow down the pacing of the story every few minutes to do another huge scene tgat doesn't really serve a purpose, just like the exploration of the Globe Wing didn't. all that mattered was that he was shown to be adaptable, agile, and resilient - the Dancer needs to be in top condition at all times and ready to dodge any threat. the imagery that came through to me the strongest was the idea that his feet are always bleeding, so he leaves bloodstains all over the floor.

the Magician

this was another scene i adored writing. i think environment-wise, the House of Cards is my favourite Wing in the palace because it's the most unique structure. it's not a styled theatre like the others, it's more on-theme to the Magician, like he's set up his own performance environment. so it's just a huge house of cards made of crumbling playing cards which is really difficult to navigate and which joker kind of blends into.

the premise for the Magician was someone who needs to perform miracles and present impossible illusions as reality with a flair for drama. the Magician fools the Thieves over and over and over again, because they are good-hearted people who want to save him.

did you ever see that unused mementos request in royal where akechi tells the thieves about a target to save someone, and doesn't tell them that the someone in question is dodgy themself, and watches to see how quickly the Thieves immediately trust them?

i don't think i based this fight off this request because im pretty sure i had it planned out before i ever saw this, but i was really pleased to see it because it's very much the same idea. even in the engine room, akechi calls the thieves idiots for inviting him back into the team. of course, this isn't a good or healthy worldview lol and it's something he has to unlearn because he literally trusts no one and that's not an extreme anyone should be endorsing, but he also has a point in that the thieves are willing to throw their faith into things way too easily and don't look critically at people or situations. so the magician fools them, victimises them, tricks them into considering him a victim, fools them again, traumatises them, but they all continue to feel empathy for him and try to save him when he's in trouble. akc's cynicism vs the thieves' faith is a big theme of this one i think and the question is like, when to doubt vs when to trust even when you have evidence to the opposition. i think the right position is somewhere between thesis and antithesis (which iirc is not actually the wording hegel used when describing dialectics? lol... i might be wrong. i never studied hegel so my knowledge is pretty superficial. but i think this was a translation thing anyway because allegedly goro doesnt refer directly to hegel in jp? someone can confirm or deny idk)

anyway those are the bossfights we've had so far!!! just the VIP Box to go now......................... :3

[apopcornkernel]

Barbara touches her own earrings for the night, little Oracles of bronze. They won’t be able to speak freely once they leave this car. “Give me the plan again,” she says.

Dinah obliges, leaning her head against the window. She doesn’t seem to care about how it smushes the curled locks of her hair against the glass. “We enter, socialize, establish an alibi for ourselves. And then around the time the guests start getting drunk and/or busy, we slip out of sight for”—and here Dinah’s smile is a thing of mischief—“all the things expected of a young and happy couple. AKA, breaking and entering. How’s that for a first date?”

Barbara’s face scrunches, and her glasses slip down her nose. Dinah leans over and slides them back up, still grinning.

Wryly, Barbara says: “Seems you’ve got that part down pat, at least.”

Dinah shrugs, retreating to her side of the car. “It’s not so different from what we usually do. Just a little more fun. I love playing into assumptions.”

fake dating dinahbabs bop early days.......... yeah 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 they............

[renabe4life]

Okay, okay I found a safe enough snippet to share >w>

[presidentbungus]

Engie: Hey, Doc. What are you reading?

Medic: “A Visual History of Pus-Filled Sores Over The Course of Historical Medicine”. It has pictures. What about you?

Engie: “An Unabridged Guide to the Application of Resistive Capacitative Circuits in Electrical Engineering and ‘The Dating Scene’.”

Medic: …

Engie: There’s two-thousand pages. It’s the extended version.

Medic: That sounds concise.

Engie: Save the page numbers and show me the grossest pictures you found whenever you’re done, please.

Medic: I thought you’d never ask!