#but IT is much more compelling to me

[windcarvedlyre]

The next IT rotation is pyro/electro/geo.

C13 Noelle, it is time. I've left you unbuilt for too long.

[crazymecjc]

once more, with feeling.

(fanart for @kristalliankka’s fantastic fic, an iterative approach! go check out the whole trilogy of works, they’re so incredibly good)

[xxplastic-cubexx]

🧙‍♀️🐈‍⬛

[tooturtly]

Daily reminder that Alecto didn’t have to be a woman*. John could have made any body to shove the soul of the earth into. He could have picked a man, or a child, or literally anything. But he chose a woman.

And not just any woman! He specifically chose a barbie doll. An object. An object with heavy sexual and white beauty connotations. A doll which holds so much cultural weight and meaning for so many different people.

He could have chosen his mother or grandmother!!!!He could have depicted her as an actor or other real living person. But he chose a doll which had been part of his childhood expression (in both the complicated gender, sexuality, and power hierarchy meanings of that).

Which is so fascinating! It says so much about John as a person that in a moment which he himself describes as a level of insanity, he chose Barbie.

And I think we can say multiple things about that: he was physically manifesting his own complex relationships to gender by turning part of himself into a female form; he was upholding traditional gender norms by making her a woman; he was upholding white beauty standards of womanhood by picking Barbie; he recreated aspects of Christian creationism; he was insane and returned to the things he had been taught most basically.

And all of those different interpretations can be simultaneous! What John thinks he was doing (what he tells himself), what others think he was doing (how Harrow interprets it), what the reader interprets him as doing (see above), and the potential experience on Alectos part can all be different and bring new perspectives to the scene without there existing an “objective truth”.

What Johns experience says about himself, the reader, and our world that we live in is so fascinating. (The fact that he chose a human figure at all says a lot about how we as a collective value humans above all else) And I find him such an interesting character to analyse.

*I’m sidestepping the issue of defining woman, pls don’t ask me. It’s so complicated I couldn’t even begin.

[rikkivoid]

a pawn twice over

[unionizedwizard]

so. many people have already pointed that koana is sort of like an ARR alphinaud remix and while it is not untrue, i think this analysis is only superficially correct. because the salient point of koana's character is that he feels shame and resentment towards his roots & origins and therefore overcompensates with sharlayan weabooism (well-intentioned, but still unsuitable). he comes off as really weird and stuck up, in the beginning especially, where it's like. "what the fuck is this guy's problem" in a way that's rather similar to the average player's reaction to ARR alphinaud.

BUT!

the thing with ARR alphinaud is that he was the Quintessential Sharlayan, both on account of his upbringing and family tree, and of his personal interests and achievements. he was (and still is) secure in his origins and cultural identity. koana's case is different, because he clearly loathes tradition and turali cultural practices in a way that comes across (and fundamentally is) really weird and destructive, which comes to bite him in the ass on many occasions during the rite of succession (and understandably so).

it all starts to make sense when you learn about his backstory though. while we know that wuk lamat doesn't remember anything of her own childhood, having been adopted by gulool ja ja as a toddler, koana was adopted at a much older age. he remembers his early years, and that's what fuels his entire vision for the future of tural. as he tells it, he was born to one of the most traditionalist hhetsarro tribes in tural, and abandoned (accidentally(?) left behind) during one of their yearly migrations, only surviving thanks to a pelupelu merchant who rescued and took him in before employing him in his tuliyollal shop. an obviously incredibly traumatic event that would shape everything about his future mindset: he's closed off and withdrawn to the extreme, highly analytical, values self-sufficiency and independence and technical innovations above all else, because that's how he survived to begin with. because his nomadic, highly traditional, presumably (from what we've seen of the one hhetsarro tribe we've met so far) tight-knit, spiritual and social tribe rejected and abandoned him. it would make sense that he'd rationalize this unfathomable violence by leaning hard into the opposite, and letting his own pain and resentment color his entire vision, turning his own feelings into a more general mindset of shame, resentful inadequacy, and complete rejection of anything "traditional"

i think sharlayan was a good choice for him because it's pretty much, indeed, the opposite atmosphere: in sharlayan culture, family ties are a lot less emphasized, while the kind of ties that colleagues, peers, teachers and students develop are considered as very important (see pretty much every sidequest and margrat's custom deliveries and all). all these relationships based on a common work and aspirations rather than origins would indeed agree with koana's character better, and his analytical skills, vision and intelligence are pretty much the most valued traits to them.

which is why it was actually such a stroke of genius to have thancred and urianger specifically support him. of course, both of them had a character development arc that echoed with koana's issues: learning how to express himself more openly and acknowledge his feelings, all that, meaning they were uniquely able to help him. but when you look more closely, they can also relate to him on a more personal level: thancred was "adopted" by louisoix as an orphaned lominsan street urchin, probably at a similar age as koana when he was adopted by gulool ja ja; and urianger's parents notably "abandoned" him to the point he was mostly tagging along at moenbryda's house and, later, at the leveilleur estate, as louisoix's disciple and honorary uncle to the twins (also worth noting that urianger and koana share the same flavor of autism).

so the rite of succession was a much-needed window into his own biases and (literal) coping mechanisms, and must have been quite difficult to deal with considering pretty much all the feats involved interacting with and strengthening tight-knit smaller communities with strong traditions and family ties. luckily, partly thanks to thancred and urianger (but not only! he did the work himself), he was clear-minded enough to realize his own failings, and well-intentioned enough to step down - because he did not want power for its own sake, unlike zoraal ja; he wanted to protect the turali people from a potential invasion by leaning hard into foreign technological advances, therefore mimicking his own personal journey and adapting his own tried-and-true methods of survival: anticipating the hardships, being as independent and self-sufficient as possible, and choosing isolationism.

and finally i want to point out that the new techniques and technologies he imported from sharlayan are all (safe, fast and reliable) modes of transportation: aetherytes, dirigibles (including the alpaca carriage adaptation), and trains. interesting choice, moreso considering that while aetherytes are the #1 sharlayan specialty, they have neither dirigibles nor trains; which takes on a whole new layer of meaning when you remember that his original tribe was nomadic and that he specifically was left behind, stranded in the desert, during one of their traditional migrations............

in this regard he truly IS green g'raha, considering that g'raha was, similarly, raised in a traditional seeker manner before being sent to sharlayan for his own (and the tribe's) safety; of course the difference is that g'raha embraced his heritage by locking himself in the crystal tower by the end of ARR, since the G tribe was tasked with guarding the remaining allagan ruins and weapons, to make sure their power would not be misused by yet another imperialist military force (he locked himself in the tower to reinforce its defenses and make sure the garlean empire would not access it to conquer eorzea)

thank you for your time 👍

[szfiction]

This parallel makes me insane actually (and there is something incredibly Lawlu about it to me)

[borgialucrezia]

i don't think I'll ever be as fascinated by a character as i am by this extremely gorgeous and morally ambiguous femme fatale with nerves of steel. she's incredibly intelligent and cunning even from a very young age (she's a borgia through and through after all lol). in one of her very first scenes she effortlessly deduces that the pigeon letters are being used to bribe cardinals into voting for her father to become the next pope. she demonstrates her manipulative prowess by seducing a stable boy and leading him to tamper with her abusive husband's saddle and causing him to fall and break his leg. she singlehandedly outplays the french king by charming him and saves her brother from a massacre. she orchestrates the public shaming of her husband to annul their marriage, she even goes so far as to manipulate two brothers for her own pleasure (and to spite her father, who always forces unwanted marriages on her) before disposing of both of them. she attempted fratricide more than once to avenge her doomed lover, she commits incest (and would gladly do it again), supports regicide to get her baby back, blackmails cardinals, and poisons an entire castle to make her escape, and successfully poisons her second husband to release him from his suffering, and the list goes on!! i could really go on explaining why i admire her character who's naturally supposed to take a dark and ambitious path like the rest of her family but chooses to control her own destiny and seek to reclaim her innocence back... honestly i can't even put into words how much i love her.

[ouroborosorder]

I think Arknights' Sami may be, outright, one of the coolest ideas I've ever seen in a piece of fiction. Most things would have said "The Collapsals are why Sami is like this!" But no, Arknights knows better. Sami is already a place where snow falls upwards, where you can see the ghosts of people who are not dead, where 4 story tall shadows pass by and block out the stars at night. Sami is strange, illogical, and hostile, but it is not Wrong. It's just a place where the natural order is different from anything else in the world, but you can come to comprehend it, come to an accord with Sami and the way it exists. But the Collapsals are Wrong. Their blood is poison, their bodies are corpses, their knowledge is a curse. You can't comprehend it. You can't come to an accord with it. You can only die. It is one form of strangeness, the comforting unsettling feeling of a different natural order, being intruded by one that is just outright Wrong, uncanny, broken, and evil.

[qoldenskies]

ive been thinkin about it today and ngl i am not personally interested in envy being a point of contention in leo and donnie's relationship unless it goes equally extreme on both sides, both of them yearning for the each other's particular confidence in their strengths while failing to understand completely that its just one big coping mechanism and not something that should be envied at all. not twins in the way that they complete each other and need the other to feel whole, but in the way that they always feel incomplete no matter what they do, always secretly undervaluing what they have already, and the other has everything they want to feel worthy as a person. i ESPECIALLY enjoy this dynamic if this is contrasted with them being extremely caring and supportive of each other even as they feel stuck in each other's shadows..... so much drama can be derived from the idea

[anxiousapplepie]

'loop will confess who they are to someone' so what im hearing is that every t! (or more) variant of the party will find out their identity in unconnected yet progressively more stupid looney tunes esque sequence of events.

YOU MAKE A COMPELLING OFFER. *holds head* Loop ending up snapping so badly they scream their deepest and darkest secret in pure frustration to T!Mira is perfect. I'm still personally attached to Loop meeting T!Odile first (and seeing Fighter!Siffrin standing in the background happily bonded and with all the love and affection they have ever wanted right out the gate) but this is valid and I adore this a very normal amount. Loop would hate it. T!Mira would be so confused and startled like someone just dropped the surprise twist in her favorite book series. "what do you mean you're Siffrin-" and cue Loop wanting to talk about anything else or pushing her out of the tree and refusing to engage with her for the rest of the loop XD

[kyouka-supremacy]

Always emotional about the fact that Atsushi never feels the need to force himself to be okay whenever he's around Akutagawa

YES!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!! EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look I already elaborated on this a bit in the tags here before but. The thing is that Atsushi doesn't even realize that he's so relieved to have found a guy that sucks so bad, who is his enemy and who he doesn't fear, he can finally drop the good guy facade he feels like he has to put up as a defense mechanism with everyone else. AND IT'S SO GOOD. And it's so good to see Atsushi's true colors, this snarky and even cocky I'd dare say side of him that he so rarely shows. And the fact that Akutagawa is the only one that can bring it to light!!! Just. AAAAAAAAHH.

[domokunrainbowkinz]

not arguing w a dude that has big brown eyes. whatever u say beautiful

(I’m only on ch 29 no spoilers pls!!!!) go wild with spoilers I am now done the book and am extremely mentally unwell

[oldbutchdanielcraig]

iwtv fanfic friday <3

happy weekend reading!

all human decisions by LuckyDiceKirby (@luckydicekirby) m, 19k

Daniel’s bastard maker had the advantage over him: he could travel by daylight. By the time Daniel woke at dusk, sprawled on the couch and actually literally tucked in, there was no sign of him. Well, fuck Armand. Daniel might be a newly minted best-selling conspiracy theorist whose sanity was being publicly debated on every existing social media platform, but he was still a journalist. He could track down one monstrous extremely divorced serial killer, easy.

(armand is sooooooo annoying in this. he's everything to me.)

colour me your colour, baby by hederabug m, 2.6k

“Daniel.” Daniel hears the soft, but insistent voice first as a distant call, as if she’s submerged in water. She breathes air when Armand’s hand grabs at her shoulder. “Wake up, lover.” Armand is on all fours, hands and knees on the bed above where Daniel’s still lying down, so they’re face to face. Armand’s brown eyes are glinting with some manic light, her face cast in shadow, striking chiaroscuro, lit only by the dull amber glow of the bedside table.

(rest assured i will be doing a dm yuri theme week soon and rest assured this will be on it. but it was too good not to include here. i need like 17 more fics in this series)

With His Heart Still Intact (They Didn't Do It Right) by CaravanOfCrows (@asthedeathoflight) t, 6k

A series of collisions; in which free will exists but fate isn't going down without a fight. (surely Armand and Daniel only have extremely normal feelings about freedom and agency and destiny)

(WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE DM SOULMATE AU AGAIN. CAN WE TALK ABOUT IT PLEASE)

marketplace heart-eater by eggalbumin m, 6k

Daniel picks up a blade from the stack of discarded tools in the kidney tray. It has blood on it. “I’m a little scared to ask,” he says, with the aura of someone who isn’t very scared of asking at all, “but who’s blood is this?” Mine. Yours. My master’s, twice-diluted. Why does it matter anymore? It’s poison either way. “The doctor was just showing me how to do incisions. It’s fascinating work.”

(really fucking awesome armand character study. the first time i ever found marius compelling due to the fact that he's written from the lens of armand's tangled knot of being. like i think he should be killed with hammers as much as the next guy but he makes for such a fascinating narrative concept)

did you believe in the glass city by tei @bloodripelives nr, 5.9k

"Yes," Armand breathes. "Yes. Is anything they did to me worse than what I have done to you?" Daniel wants to say yes, but shit, he's not even sure what Armand had done to him. And whatever it was, he is sure that he would have let him do worse.

(daniel tracks down marius for the sake of armand's tangled knot of being. it goes as well as you would expect. so fucking beautiful and soooo fucking compelling. made me cry at least twice. read it now)

[jessaerys]

sun visits the moon at spk headquarters and gets so so so sleepy

[mysteriouspersonrambles]

Dude todays TBHK chapter was really something

First off I feel so bad for Teru I know I haven’t really expressed it before but as an older sibling I can’t imagine the amount of pain he’s going through right now. And the fact that his mask is nearly fully broken in this chapter. The anger he shows isn’t masked behind pretty smiles anymore. He’s furious and he’s showing it. I think he’s also scared, like he’s been scared before but he doesn’t show it but now, now the worst has happened. He literally pushed Akane out of the way to protect him because he can’t lose anybody else. Dude

Also Amane smiling as he says that he “forgot” that he killed Kou… that was such a punch to the gut like I also wanted him dead

But on a brighter note AOI!!! Coming in clutch with the sword. I saw so happy for her. I hope she gets to kick some supernatural ass in the next chapters like she was killing it this chapter and I’m so happy for her.

Also the confirmation that Mitsuba was also in the well. Man at least they died together …. Maybe…. Does that make it any better…. Probably not. I’m also glad that there was only 1 shot of the well. Like I prefer that we don’t know the extent of what happened to Kou and the others. It really keeps the horror aspect because I’m sure I can imagine something far worse that what can be drawn. But also the well shot we did get was pretty bad like all those people down there… horrible

But yeah overall, good chapter way WAY better than last month. This time I felt a fleeting moment of serotonin instead of cold hard dread the whole time. But man this series really loves rippig hearts out.