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tarajenkins · 4 years ago

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Please no more Square, I am at my (character) limit lmao

"The Light will not be denied!"

I really do still wonder how anyone who played through ShB could reach the conclusion that a child with no Blessing Of Light ever stood a chance against the will of a Lightwarden. And not just any child--a child the Ascians intended to use as a doorstop to prevent the First from being destroyed before the Rejoining could happen, a child whose own trusted parental figure was willing to gaslight and manipulate them for the sake of their own power. A child whose behavior would absolutely need to fit a certain mold to achieve their ends.

The Light corruption of a Sin Eater is confirmed by Halric's arc to be a lot like Tempering. Repeatedly Tempering someone, like Loonh Gah's mother in the Amalj'aa questchain, destroys their sanity. Emet-Selch's own dialogue up there confirms that the Warden essences in the WoL would not only drive them to madness, but violence. Vauthry had the essence of a Lightwarden forced into him before he was even born, and he had no higher power to protect him.

Selch puts it plainly: the corruption of a Lightwarden is absolute in time, even for the WoL. I have yet to hear a good reason why Vauthry’s corruption would have been the sole exception to this rule. The “half Sin Eater” bit is brought up sometimes, but that is just buying into the lies his father told. Vauthry was already an entirely Hume infant. He was never “half” anything. He was already complete. He was corrupted. Tempered, according to Halric’s arc--blaming him for not fighting it is like blaming Thancred for the Waking Sands. It’s not a thing anyone can fight.

There’s also Yoshi-P asking players to ask themselves if Vauthry was really a friend of the Sin Eaters, or was he being controlled by someone.

(On a side note, I could have sworn it was stated the Ascians can't handle Light well, or at all? How did Emet-Selch even do that in the first place? Bad Writing(tm) \o/)

Silence Is Golden:

In a world where everyone rightfully fears Sin Eaters, a world where Eulmorans had fought them and died to them for decades, where those corrupted by fallen Sin Eaters have to be put to death before turning themselves--how would the mayor of Eulmore even explain his son's "gift"? Explain his son having a second, Sin Eater face in his chest? Explain that he allowed his child to be corrupted by a rando in a cloak, with no input from his wife? How did he keep her silent? Besides Square not bothering to give her dialogue, of course.

(Also, there was at least one other Minifilia in Vauthry's lifetime. The Minis all fought for Eulmore, as per Moren's book. How did they miss the Lightwarden now residing in Mr. Mayor's child? Did Hydaelyn know?)

It's such poor writing on Square's part to have left the disturbing Echo of how Emet-Selch “made” Vauthry as a footnote, and even moreso to have Wrenden claim in the hilariously contradictory patch 5.1 that Vauthry's father was the "good old days" of Eulmore. A man that would agree to let that be done to his own wife and child, a man who vocalized such disregard for his own peoples' lives, that was the good old days, really? The mayor who had "unrest" and detractors "stirring up the citizenry"? THAT mayor?

This is how far the writers were willing to go to dehumanize a fat man who had absolutely no consent or control in his “destiny”. And, speaking of dehumanizing--

--Square couldn't be arsed to treat Vauthry's mother like a character and not a convenient and silent womb, so we have no idea what happened to her. (My money is still on the Obscenity theory.) But since Vauthry only mentioned "Father", it sounds like the mayor raised him alone.

What did Former Mayor do when his son had challenging questions about his father’s plans for him, or when the child balked at the answers given? How did he explain whatever happened to his wife? Just how much did "Father" have to manipulate that child's world to maintain the lies?

It’s strongly implied Former Mayor kept his son in a state of isolation where neither his word nor the Ascians' will could be questioned until the child was thoroughly brainwashed to believe, and there would be no questions then. Whether intended by Square or not, Vauthry does display many signs of an adult who suffered extreme isolation as a child.

An entire childhood, with his likely only trusted source of knowledge and solace being someone who was grooming him for a power grab--and all the while, he can’t escape the presence of a creature inside him that drives mortals mad.

One of “Father’s” directives stands out in particular between the lines during ShB, though we don’t know how it came about originally:

Don’t tell anyone what you really are.

Even though Vauthry was given a good reason “why he was born as man and sin eater both", it still leaves the impression he was born because Sin Eaters are bad, and Vauthry needed to stop them from doing bad things--plus hush, don’t tell, people would find his existence bad if they knew the truth of it. Kids ask questions. Kids wonder. Feeling like an outsider hurts, let alone an outsider made of the same stuff that everyone fears. If Sin Eaters are monsters, then what was he?

The fact Vauthry asked his father why was he born that way in the first place indicates the child instinctively felt there was something wrong.

The in-game dialogues appear to back this up. Although Vauthry's "heritage" was supposed to be this amazing thing, the true nature of it was instead lied about and kept hidden his entire life. Seems unusual for a guy supposedly convinced that he is “perfection”, doesn’t it? The fact that Eulmorans never once referred to Vauthry as "half Sin Eater" or a "God" during twenty years of his rule, the fact he only mentioned it himself before the Warden was about to claim him entirely; all well and good his father obviously invented some lie to placate the masses (“born with miraculous and convenient power” was all it took), but how did maintaining that lie, hiding who he really was, read to Vauthry all those years?

During ShB, he still seemed to keep to the isolation he likely always knew. He never left that room. The citizens came to him when they wanted something, but it was never implied or shown he sought social contact on his own. Nothing was scaled to him, utensils, glasses, plates, etc.--as though he refused to single himself out as different from everyone else.

He called the Lightwarden’s awakening a “trial” to be embraced during Crown Of The Immaculate. Odd that someone supposedly convinced of his godhood would ever think he needed testing--but it makes perfect sense in the context of someone who always felt they needed to prove that they were worthwhile.

He was proud of his power to protect his people, and proud of the paradise he built for them, but he didn’t want Alphinaud to paint a picture of him, he wanted a painting of the city. There were zero paintings or other monuments to himself in Eulmore. Lot of people in the fanbase speak of him being vain, yet he seemed to not want to be seen unless he had to be--almost as though, even toward the end, even through all the bluster, he still read being “half Sin Eater” as wrong.

With that in mind, there didn’t seem to be much evidence to even tell Vauthry he was born because he was wanted. He was born because his ability was needed. If not for his father’s ambition, however sweetly that may have been disguised, then to defend Eulmore against the monsters he was a part of. His ability was needed, not even him specifically--and the Eulmorans, with all their wishes and dreams to be fulfilled, could easily enforce the belief on the child that who he was didn’t matter, what he may want did not matter, only what he could do for others mattered. And what he did for them wouldn’t matter if they knew the truth of him. What a terrible, conditional ”love”. It could explain why he was so cynical about human nature. (Even though his predictions about human nature in the face of a dying world 110% came to pass in the Black Rose timeline. 6_9 gg G’raha)

Yet despite all this, Vauthry needed to be convinced he was doing good for the shattered world. He needed to be convinced what he was doing was right, despite having power enough to not care. If Amaurot was Utopia, then Eulmore reminded me very much of Ursula K. LeGuin’s Omelas--a paradise, at the cost of one child’s eternal suffering.

Food For Thought (and Bad Writing(tm)):

A lot of people have a boner for the cannibalism implications of meol despite the bad math behind it, but fucking meol, how does it work?

Sin eating historically was to cleanse one who has passed on of their earthly sins that they may find peace in the afterlife--this was done in different ways by different people, but one of the best known methods was ritualistically baking the sins of the dead into bread or cakes and consuming it. Yoshi-P has even said he thought of meol as a sweet bread. Quest text from the Unfulfilled Forager in Gate Town further backs up that meol is not meat-based:

(By the way, nothing was keeping this man from hunting a shit-ton of meat that was literally within walking distance.)

It suggests Vauthry could have been taught that by eating the sins of the world, a.k.a. Sin Eaters, a.k.a. meol (which in the Japanese version, was something he was apparently afraid of doing?) --he was saving someone’s soul.

“And for thy peace I pawn my own soul. Amen.”

In reality, there would be a point Mr. Mayor would not know how to feed the Warden forced on his child. Humes don't have a natural method of feeding on "living aether", yet the Warden would not reach its full potency without it. Making meol could either involve an instinctive act on the Warden’s part, or it was taught--and that seems very much beyond his father’s area of expertise, OR Vauthry himself, so I’d almost wonder if the Ascians had a part in it. But like mixing medicine in a favorite food, theoretically, the aether provided by meol would slowly build up. And as the Warden grew in power, it would need more, and more. It would explain that final “powerup” before Mt. Gulg.

Provided Sin Eaters have any living aether left. They never explained that bit. Sin Eaters have no bones, no blood, no meat, nothing but Light. We saw enough of them dissipate into the air, including in cutscenes. Even Tesleen, very recently turned, faded. There is nothing else to them but Light...and there should be nothing left but that “blank perfection”, the Eater would have ate the rest? So where is the “living aether” they require to survive?

Fresh-sliced sneater wing, empty as the plotholes of this arc.

I could buy him turning people into Eaters directly, but then what was the point of the bread?

That’s right folks, meol still doesn't make sense, surprise! Also: so many people in one city allegedly being "disappeared" over twenty years, from a stagnant population, to “feed” everyone every day--yet no panic, not so much as a hushed whisper about it? Eulmore is supposed to be the safest place anywhere -- no idea how it could gain that reputation with that theory. Square wrote Eulmore like it existed in a vacuum, no one knowing no one. The lack of depth is still jarring, three playthroughs later. Only one unreliable narrator of an NPC (Thoarich) even hinted this theory, to boot.

Side note I thought was strange: you never see any of the normal food in Vauthry’s chamber actually eaten, it’s all untouched. I wonder if the Warden somehow eventually affected his ability to tolerate the food a Hume would normally eat.

That said, his “mind control” of the populace was laughably ineffective, so I wonder what even was the point of feeding them meol. Perhaps it was again the Lightwarden instinct to create more of its own kind. Nothing else seems to fit. “Oh no, this Eulmoran is staggering randomly around, muttering about Vauthry! How can we survive this onslaught?” Yyyyeah no, lol. Alphinaud confirmed the Eulmorans were acting of their own free will until that final showdown, so the mind control seemed to be a panic move--I wonder if it was even took conscious effort at that point, or just another instinctive SOS from the Warden. Given his father’s trouble with the smallfolk, I have to wonder if it was Former Mayor’s idea, if there was a real reason behind it. Not a reason that would make good sense, but nothing in this arc does make good sense, so.

The thing is, meol was an optional dish. No one was forced to eat it. So Vauthry must not have been relying on controlling or turning anyone.

But despite the fact meol defies their own game logic, Square really did seem to relish hinting at the dehumanizing, Austin Powers “haha fat guy eats people” trope anyway, and seriously. They could do better than that--I hoped they’d BE better than that. But here we are, the company that is supposed to go so hard against harassment takes an easy target and encourages a very specific negative response to it. This is the reason I believe Eulmore was such an inconsistent arc--they almost entirely depended on Vauthry’s appearance to carry the weak narrative, explaining very lttle of his actual motivations because that would ruin their weak-ass “gotcha” that he was the Lightwarden of Kholusia. Of course he’d be evil, just look at him! Right guys? Look! He’s fat!

Just as they used nothing but thicc’qotes in the trailer to try establishing the evils in Eulmore. Thicc’qotes eating fresh fruit whilst having pleasant conversation is the root of it all in Square’s eye; not a noblewoman who tried to have her maidservant murdered, not the nobleman who pushed his bodyguard over the rails, or even that asshole on the balcony laughing about splitting someone’s head like a melon. No, fatness is the real wickedness. Square was full of shit for this one and it shows when looked at with even a little critical thought. I don’t know what I expected of someone who requested a human “Jabba The Hutt” to be the last-minute midboss, someone who looked at a heavier Lakshmi and said “that’s not cute”, or a jackass who told a cosplayer they needed to lose weight onstage at FanFest 2014.

Even more disappointing? All these questions here, all these inconsistencies? For the majority of the playerbase, “he’s fat” was good enough. The Ascians get a million thoughtful theories. One of their victims? The playerbase thinks he manifested from the womb as you see him in game. They don’t stop to think of what it implied, to be born corrupted and groomed as a tool not only for Ascians, but his own father. They avoid the fact the fandom darling directly violated a woman and child’s bodily autonomy even as they insist on Vauthry taking absolute 100% responsibility for everything he was made specifically to do. And there’s just one difference between him and literally every other villain in this game, aside from the fact he had no choice. Yeah. As much as some players hate to hear it, if Vauthry had swapped models with the fandom darling, we wouldn’t be hearing justifications for mass murder/dictatorships/skeevy noncon. We would definitely be hearing how Vauthry was used, though--and how tragic his story is.

Some players bring up Dulia-Chai as though she somehow counters all the bodyshaming bullshit elsewhere. It doesn’t. She was still in place along with all the other thicc’qotes as Square’s fucked-up shorthand for excess and indolence. I had to learn she kept books for the Stoneworks in optional dialogue. Maybe if she didn’t talk about cakes and such so much, but I mean, that’s what fat people do, right?

So if you’re laughing at fat men, we fat women know you’re actually laughing at us, too. Git gud or stop embarrassing yourselves.

“Tyranny”, aka you keep using that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means:

Whatever the Ascians did to make sure Vauthry’s "Ascension" was a time-release event, the "madness and fury" clearly had taken him when we met him in Shadowbringers. Punishments for those having broken the laws of the city changed from exile into vicious death sentences. Suddenly the God talk, where not even Alphinaud had heard that. It really makes a case that Vauthry was slowly declining into madness the longer he was exposed to the Warden--in fact, Thancred sort of confirms it, during the trailer: “This town certainly has changed, but not at all for the better.” He was only on The First for five years.

Vauthry likely had no introspective dialogues because much of who he actually had been was already gone, and the player is left with his remaining drive to do “good” and “justify your existence” wrapped around the instincts of a Lightwarden.

Yet a lot of things remain that really contradict the "bones of the poor" narrative the writers were trying to push about the city, and many times I felt a real disconnect between what our party was saying and what Eulmore was actually doing. A lot of it implies that, despite the Warden utterly subverting Vauthry as per the hard rules of Tempering, there was benevolence at work, once. The Minstreling Wanderer said that he could not say whether Vauthry was wicked in his youth, and I take this as a sign he was not.

First off, let’s just get this out of the way: The Crystarium also expected you to work for the city in some form if you were expecting to stay there.

”Layabouts”: a people who were the main line of defense against the Sin Eaters for all The First for eighty years, until the futility of it, and all the loss, broke their spirits entirely. Just another sample of how Square intended Eulmore be shown as fat=lazy, despite their own lore--until Square was lazy themselves and didn’t finish the thicc’qote models so Eulmore would be exclusively fat bodies as shown in the trailer.

The narrative often fudged with writer omnipotence regarding the protagonists, pressing to cast Eulmore in a negative light because they’d given up hope, even though loss is so important in excusing the Ascians’ actions. Our party had the WoL, whom they knew not only had a good chance of defeating Lightwardens, but G’raha seemed to know the WoL could contain them. Your average native inhabitant of the First would not be far off the mark feeling hopeless about the world, though, because they didn’t know about these extraordinary circumstances. Most of their oceans were lost in the Flood, and that in itself, realistically, is a death sentence. It’s all well and good G’raha was so perky and hopeful, and all well and good the game contrived a convenient deus ex machina to fix the issue (they never really addressed the issue anyway), but none of the locals could know any of this. I can see why Eulmore would think the Scions were full of shit, because for 80 years after the Flood, Eulmore tried to stop the Sin Eaters and could not. Honestly, I expected more sympathy for the Eulmorans, because they had been the front line for so long and lost so much. But lol fatties amirite?

Now, Square tried to dabble in many other Enlightened Social Commentaries with Eulmore, but immediately contradicted themselves so many times I was constantly asking myself why Alphinaud was being so goddamn extra dramatic. Gate Town/The Derelicts:

Not at Eulmore’s hand, Alphinaud honey, you can’t solo farms or communities. The people who remained behind were borked over by the ones who left. What are you even trying to say here, Square, help me out. Generosity--”largesse”-- is bad? Abandoning what you have, all others be damned, for something you were never given a promise of receiving....good? Sympathetic? Seriously, what is your point here, Square? How does this equal Eulmore being malicious? How does this not make the bulk of Gate Town hopefuls a bunch of dipshits? Wright is in sight from Gate Town, but no one ever thought going there might be better?

If Square meant for Eulmore to seem a prison for the “poor”, they did a shitty job of that, considering: 1) A big point about Gate Town was that the people staying there left viable homes, farms, and communities for a chance at getting in, a chance that was never guaranteed by anyone, and they refused any alternatives Alphinaud offered them, plus

2) No one was keeping anyone from leaving if they wanted to. No guards, no masked vigilantes, no rando singing Hotel California in your ear.

So ruthless a prison, there were not only invisible guards holding you against your will, there was an Amarokeep waiting in the Derelicts to whisk you away for 70 gil so you can pretend to make a daring escape, straight to the freebie Amaro that will take you to The Crystarium. Tell your friends! Tell Alphinaud! He will literally buy anything this expac.

- “Young Kai-Shirr” getting into Eulmore was never a “matter of life or death”, and I can’t tell if that was Alphinaud being pretentious again or the writing was just that bad. Kai-Shirr was offered work at the Crystarium and he refused it, “it has to be Eulmore”. How is that on anyone but him? (Plus why does no one ever question Kai-Shirr’s complete lack of caring for why Alphinaud wanted in, if that was true? Was Kai-Shirr then not dooming Alph to “death” instead when he robbed him? That’s not very cash money of him.)

This isn’t “life or death” either.

Neither is this.

Nnnno.

Considering Stilltide reported they have fish for all, and Wright’s trouble was not enough people, this is not only not “life or death”, but fucking creepy. Hopefully this better illustrates my confusion of what we were being told vs. what we were being shown in Gate Town/The Derelicts. d( ᐖ )

- The citizens In Gate Town/The Derelicts were not at the mercy of a "contest" to be let in. It was shown to be literally a help wanted board with jesters, and the “contest” was “do you have this certain skill someone is looking to hire”. I guess the Crystarium will hire a fishmonger to do the work of a chirurgeon or something?

The jongleurs were otherwise just "rule of cool", I guess--although the significant look the Red gave us, followed soon after by Emet-Selch’s lurking outside the Offer, made me wonder if they were not acting as monitors on Vauthry for the Ascians.

- There was at least one person in the Derelicts from the Crystarium, looking to make a quick gil on the extravagant “refuse” of the city, and several locals were doing the same. I guess those “layabouts” inside the city had their uses after all, Katliss.

- Meol was not the only food given to those outside the city. Produce and such that was not “pretty” enough for the fussy free citizenry was distributed to those camping the outskirts.

I’d have expected a “tyrant” to let that produce rot. Catty in Stilltide confirmed there was enough fish for everyone living there, and Zia-Bostt above seems to back that up. Game in the field was also aplenty even in terms of map mechanics--this was not some form of forced famine to hold the smallfolk in a state of dependence. Eulmore was still paying the villages for produce.

So much for the exploitation of big, bad Eulmore!

Again, Alphinaud himself bemoaned how the people were there of their own choice, and how they refused any and all alternatives he presented them with. The people in Gate Town wanted to wait for Eulmore, they left their own homes and farms freely for Eulmore, screwing over their neighbors in the process--and that is not Vauthry’s fault, that is on them?

Hurricane Florence left my husband and I homeless a while. You do not fucking pass up sure shelter and work and food to wait instead for a nebulous chance at Hollywood or Las Vegas--and if you do, that’s all your own tomfoolery, that’s not “injustice”, no BONES OF THE POOR required. It’s common sense, Square, goddamn lol

The Free Citizenry:

- The rich would not be permitted into the city if they did not give up their wealth for the benefit of all living there. This was a condition for the rich only. There is zero indication those funds were being put into Vauthry's pocket; it ran the city, and both free and bonded enjoyed the results (there seemed far more bonded residents in Eulmore than free, to boot.). There's a policy that would never fly in at least two allied citystates, lol.

It raises the question, if Wrenden and Former Mayor were so damn equitable, how were there even rich to begin with? There’s an old noble in Vauthry’s Eulmore who apparently does not know how to tie his shoes without a servant--a.k.a., the idle rich existed before Vauthry even came into power. The dialogue of Vauthry’s father also made it seem that these were systems in place long before he his son was even born -- except Vauthry’s system did not allow their hoarding of wealth, and distributed it instead to the benefit of everyone in the city. It was also a system that was so satisfactory, both free and bonded citizens became loudly dissatisfied after he was gone.

- The rich were the only ones guaranteed “Ascension”, and if you want to call that a perk I’m going to assume it’s because the entire system relied on their dosh--technically, they already did their “work” for the city. (”Buying a stairway to Heaven”, as it were.) So much for those "bones of the poor", Alph. Statistically, if bones built Eulmore, it was the bones of the rich.

Until Gaia, Ascension was only mentioned twice, but again, no real context was given. (jfc Square, we shouldn't have to buy an overpriced lorebook for this.) First time was the Weeping Warbler chain. Going by the quest dialogue, it sounded very much like something offered as mercy to terminal illness or otherwise impending death, as the Warbler's creepy patron lamented how he almost wished he could hasten his own to join her (btw, the right answer to that poor girl's fear that she'd be a burden more than a treasure was "YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR VOICE”, asshole. >:| ). Players at the time were legit “oh that poor old man, she’s like his daughter :CCCCC” Ahahaha oh my sweet summer children

Either way, "Ascension” was definitely implied to be entirely voluntary. It was implied there were even rules and conditions to be granted it. And Vauthry did not seem to push anyone towards the idea, it was just there. (If it was for terminal illness, though, consider the following: Thoarich seemed confident the Warbler would live, but may lose her voice. If you have to be terminal to be Ascended, ironically Vauthry may have refused her patron's request.) The second mention was from Vauthry himself, for his “trial” when the Lightwarden awakened--so he certainly, tragically, believed what he claimed it was. The Bonded Residents:

- Even at his worst, there is no indication that the free citizens were encouraged by Vauthry to abuse their workers; in fact, the Amiable Maiden and her Ardent Attendant implied heavily that appreciation and respect for one's bonded was the ideal that was pushed by Eulmore, that "love for one's fellow man".

At no time were the bonded residents “slaves” (a new accusation from Twitter). They were “bonded” to the patrons who hired them by a work contract, and they sought those jobs willingly. No one kept them from leaving Gate Town, only kept them from getting in without a work arrangement--again, a prerequisite the Crystarium also had according to Katliss. The bonded residents were paid, and apparently paid well.

As the WoL, we were also bonded to the Chais, and were able to come and go later. It was like the writers knew they needed to sit the fence so the free citizens would be redeemable enough to help with the immersion-breaking giant Talos plot later, and so never pushed Eulmore to the evils they talked about but never showed--leaving behind the most disconnected, self-sabotaging arc I’ve ever seen from this MMO.

An evil slaveowner at work.

Alphinaud rewarded for being an agreeable yet melodramatic young boy.

- The bonded we met who fled Eulmore had fled their patrons, not Vauthry himself--even the Warbler thought Vauthry a “great man”. No one in Eulmore feared him.

- Tristol’s “grave sin” to be patronless and penniless was contradicted by Fathana, whose patron had died some time ago, and yet she remained in the city without one to help new workers--because her patron had been so kind to her. The clerk whom you first speak to upon entering Eulmore even says that if you are “fired” or otherwise lose your patronage, you can try to find another patron to remain in the city or work as a general laborer like Fathana until, presumably, you do find another patron. Or maybe you don’t even need a patron, and you are allowed to stay as your own boss at that point, she certainly was.

Since the Chais helped us leave the city, I’m not at all sure why they didn’t do the same for Tristol, especially if Vauthry’s violence was a well-known thing. It’s almost like violence from Vauthry wasn’t expected, and they’d never think that would happen. I mean, some recent time ago, Vauthry only exiled thieves from Eulmore.

(Hell, Square may have even fudged Tristol’s punishment, implying Vauthry had ordered him tossed off the balustrade of The Offer. Vauthry’s balcony appears to be the one directly above The Path To Glory, right above the gates into Eulmore. There doesn’t seem to be ocean nearby at any realistic distance or angle from that balcony. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

- Laws that we saw in effect were for the benefit of patrons and bonded citizens alike. There was nothing to suggest those laws were unreasonable, either. The punishment became fuck no unreasonable (though as I pointed out earlier, the punishments seemed to ramp up in violence the longer the warden was part of him, from exile to a literal pound of flesh, much like Titania went from a benevolent ruler to Jumpscare Prime). But fraud being a crime is sort of expected anywhere, and creeps at the Beehive should not touch dancers unless dancers consent, lest they get the bouncer. ( another strangely thoughtful law for a “tyrant”. )

- The bonded residents inside seemed much happier with their lot than Alphinaud’s dramatic assessment, which was also confusing as hell.

- Entire families were allowed to enter if one member was hired. Alphinaud was able to drag us along with a minimum of fuss as his “assistant”. Vauthry’s definition of how one “gives” to Eulmore was not based solely on traditional work.

- Bonded residents were not afraid at all to speak of bending rules for perfect strangers when offering drinks to us, so Vauthry wasn't out prowling for blood 24/7 like an Inquisitor trying to fill their heretic quota. Not only was Dulia-Chai not afraid to go calm him down at the height of his rage, Chai-Nuzz didn't freak out at the idea she'd do it. Nuzz. Wasn’t nervous. Yeah, let that one sink in 9_6

The only time Vauthry acted seemed to be when an issue was brought forward directly to him. Otherwise, it seemed like standard Lightwarden behavior: stasis, until presented with a real and immediate threat to itself, which in Vauthry’s case was a threat to the order of his city, or the ones killing Lightwardens.

For allegedly being aggressive against Kholusia's neighbors, Vauthry seemed to have taken the Crystarium's refusal of his offer to lead them back in the day really well, as in, he did jack shit in retaliation and accepted it. In fact, he was so warlike, Emet-Selch was surprised Vauthry would move that army, even for a very clear threat against fulfilling the false destiny Emet-Selch forced on him.

While on the subject of aggression, the people in Amity have dialogue indicating they feared Vauthry would send the army after them--which he obviously never did, in all 20 years of his reign.

- “No one leaves” except hey whoa there hi, Lue-Reeq, who comes and goes as he pleases. Plus that bonded resident who came to Wright looking for ale. Plus us, also bonded residents, because Dulia-Chai once again had nothing to fear from Vauthry.

Also anyone who was exiled previously. For supposedly wanting to keep people inside Eulmore, Vauthry sure was terrible at doing it lmao

GCBTW: I'd really love to see Square and Alphinaud be similarly vocal and insistent with the actual horrors our own Allied city-states commit without the corruption of a Lightwarden in play. The selective outrage/pearl-clutching is really immersion-breaking.

Ishgard: “Highborn” genuinely exploiting the “lowborn” every other sidequest to this day. Genocide of the Au Ra. At least two FATEs, one job quest, one lorebook entry, and one dungeon indicate Ishgard has fucking disgusting levels of rape carried out by figures of authority. Rent is being charged for people from the Brume--the homeless, destitute people in the Brume--to live in the Firmament, but they can arrange payment plans! And this was all talked about while one of them was shivering in the cold nearby. What, can't the highborn be arsed to share what they have? Eulmore is the height of wickedness because they couldn't cram an island full of people into one tower, but Ishgard's our pal even though they can't manage to make space in their mansions for one small area of one city. My God, Vauthry had FOOD in his chamber, shame!--but that's okay, Aymeric, you rock that extravagant dinner spread in the dating sim cutscene. Maybe the Brume can fight over the Ishgardian Muffin crumbs.

(Yes, I know, Vauthry had more food than that in his chamber. He’s also approaching fifteen-plus feet tall. Proportionally, the food in his chamber would be the equivalent of you or me living on cocktail peanuts and thimbles of water. Once more, Square was so fixated on fatphobia they didn’t do the fucking math.)

Doma: “Hey yeah look guys I know child trafficking is bad but let’s just smile and nod at this guy who did it to Yotsuyu and give him a different post, okay? Okay. Remember to be polite. We will never speak of this again.”

“Let me laugh about your beliefs and call them bullshit while I angle you into a war that isn’t even yours, Xaela tribes.” Gridania: Lets people straight up die if the “elements” tell them it’s okay. Exiling a child for stealing a bag of flower seeds is normal and totally not at all fucked up. Open and accepted racism against the Duskwights with no sign of Kan-E-Senna saying fucking stop that shit.

Ul’dah: Human trafficking. Child trafficking. Human lab rats. Using prisoners for blood sports. The Syndicate living it up in finery, giving exactly nothing to people living in the streets. Notoriously corrupt Brass Blades. More implications of fucking disgusting levels of rape. Turning away the Doman refugees when they literally had nowhere else to go and nothing left. We smiled and nodded when Godbert said people mustn’t be given charity, they must work for their own good.

Limsa Lominsa: Fucks over the “beast tribes” at every opportunity, then complains they summon Primals.

But remember, folks, it was Vauthry’s Eulmore that was the real evil we had to desperately move against. Not the newer, capitalist Eulmore that didn’t feed two guys from Wright because they couldn’t afford it, shoosh those “bones of the poor” don’t count. The writers tried to retcon a lot in 5.1, it seemed--suddenly, it was implied people were forced to leave villages, conscripted, etc. Except the people were still there to tell us otherwise in 5.0, and there was still no sign of any Eulmoran forces keeping them in Gate Town. We went from Alphinaud demanding the free citizens take responsibility for what they’d done in Eulmore to posthumously blaming Vauthry’s “bad influence” for everything up to and including a noblewoman’s attempted murder of her maidservant, because the noblewoman’s husband was creeping on the girl.

Which leads us to another of my biggest peeves--all the while, despite “the truth” being so important when it came to Emet-Selch, the sins of Vauthry’s father and the suffering his wife and child endured because of Emet-Selch’s direct hand are left unspoken. We smile and nod silently to Eulmorans and then offer them up Vauthry and his “bad influence” as an excuse for their own misdeeds. I’ve never felt less a “hero” in this game as I did then. Yet Emet-Selch, who committed this atrocity on a child, was called a HERO because fandom darling, while the child is vilified and thoroughly dehumanized.

It’s really telling how much blind condemnation the fanbase dealt to Vauthry for reasons that were completely inaccurate, while the fandom darling of this expansion was 100% the founder of not one, but two civilizations based on domination, the most recent being a nation whose canon creed is "No lands must remain beyond our grasp. Go forth. Conquer. Rule.", a nation whose people have a habit of calling all the “lesser races” they conscript “savages”. Fandom Darling was also hype af for Black Rose and called it worthy of his bloodline! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

It’s really telling that the fanbase will randomly accuse Vauthry of being a sexual predator with Sin Eaters based on exactly zero evidence (but a lot of projection on their part), while the fandom darling 100% canonly used the actual Solus zos Galvus’ enthralled body to sire a child with Galvus’ unwitting wife, and going by the dialogue--

--he’s done that before. No wonder consent was no big deal when he made that offer to Former Mayor. But this was played for sympathy because fandom darling and what do you know, the fandom bought it.

Square “both sided” actual authoritarian characters--actual colonizers, actual mass murderers of entire worlds, actual skeevy-ass characters who don’t care about consent because “not really alive”--called it “heroic”, even (the latter was called “moral relativism”, and it’s genuinely unnerving how many players pushed that as absolution or relatable)--but throughout the course of the main expansion and two subsequent patches,Square went all-in that the fat guy who had his agency and sanity stolen from him in utero to be used as a tool of destruction was the real tyrant. We the player were encouraged to buddy up with E-S while we were never once given the option to wonder if something was terribly amiss with Vauthry, if he may need help. They didn’t even spare us a “jfc that poor man, the Eaters got to him” when he blindly twisted his neck 180 to neither see nor hear us. He was still “evil” because reasons, a.k.a., he was fat.

TL;DR, the playerbase:

I remain unconvinced the Ancients were not clever enough to suspect summoning the “Will Of The Star” may have an effect on their own wills, as their wishes for Zodiark carried an unspoken need for the Elder Primal to be granted control to achieve its end. Emet-Selch stated that Tempering was to be “expected”, even “natural”, though his appearance towards the end of 5.3 seems to contradict Tempering: has there ever been another instance that a Tempered being was able to act directly against the best interests of the primal that holds them in thrall? Elidibus sure couldn’t.

Disclaimer: I actually have no issue with liking the Ascians, be it shipping, writing, art, porn mods, whatever. But if you come into my yard with nothing but shit talk for Vauthry on reblogs of my art, yet have all the praise for the one who made him, you’re going to hear in my personal space about why you’re a hypocrite. Often. With receipts.

The End.

First off, it’s popular in the fandom to say the Lightwarden was Vauthry’s real body because it’s just so damn inconvenient to the dating sim mentality that the fat guy was the default. Thing is:

That is Innocence’s head and its wings inside Vauthry’s split-open back during the pre-phase two “transformation”. Between that and the second face that appeared to cave in most of Vauthry’s chest (on the heart side, interestingly enough), the face whose eyes opened and glowed upon the Warden’s “awakening”:

It doesn’t look at all like it was a “transformation”. It looks like the Lightwarden emerged and absorbed what was left of its host’s physical form while still retaining Vauthry’s broken mind. (Notice the nose, much longer than Vauthry’s actual nose, eye spacing, the bit of smile. That second face was the Warden.)

Before his death, Vauthry did not say "well dang, the Ascians promised I would be all-powerful so I could be evil! Curse them for cheating me!"

He said "Father told me...that I am hope. That I am righteousness. That I am...a god... That is why I was born...as man and sin eater both...I kept the people safe!"

Those lines make no sense if Vauthry interpreted Father’s manipulations as "haha I'm a spoiled evil brat I can do what I want". A spoiled evil brat wouldn't need to be convinced what they were doing was GOOD, would they? Why would that even have been a thing, wouldn't they just not care? He had the power to not give a shit. Instead, he would see his peoples’ “dreams fulfilled, their wishes granted.” EDIT - Canon as of 5.3 appears to support this analysis! \o/

Spoken at the end by G’raha Tia on the subject of enduring hope, and additionally supported by the Minstreling Wander, who told us in the Immaculate EX unlock he could not say if Vauthry was wicked in his youth. ”Vindicate his existence”. Vauthry was never in this for the evil selfish lulz. He believed he needed to prove the “half Sin Eater” heritage forced on him did not make him a monster, that it was good, that he was good, and he did it by doing everything he was gaslighted to believe was good by his father--until the Warden finally broke him entirely. To the people who debated so strongly he was just evil because reasons, or refused to hold other characters to the same standards of damnation they set for him because reasons, hope your shoe tastes good. Your reasons were always really clear, btw.

This remains the story of a child who needed a hero that never came, and players choose to discard it, like the free citizens snub produce, because Vauthry isn’t pretty enough for them. A fat character’s stolen life simply isn’t worth the effort of contemplation because the one who made him makes players horny on main.

What happened to this character, with just the little information the game gave us, was straight-up abuse. Yet too many in the fanbase thought no further than juvenile fat jokes (so cool) or unquestioning contempt for a character who was clearly in a state of mental breakdown (unless it was the fandom darling, he’s allowed, even if it destroys worlds) --while Square readily had their characters ace detective enough to detect his weight, but not his unnatural height, his pointed ears, his fogged over eyes, his bendy-straw neck, his second freaking face. Oh, and he can control Sin Eaters. Wait, you mean the Lightwarden was in him the whole time!? Seems legit gais, what an unexpected turn of events!

ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ

#FFXIV #long post #Vauthry #character analysis #Lord Vauthry #Eulmore #Shadowbringers

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elfnerdherder · 7 years ago

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Where the Wicked Walk: Ch.5

You can read Chapter 5 on Ao3 Here

Check out my Patreon Here for early chapter releases, insight to the characters, chances to vote~ on certain outcomes, and more! :)

Chapter 5: The Black Cat

Will Graham was allowed outside in the early morning.

He’d grabbed a change of clothes from his pack, having ignored the now obvious hints that the other clothes within the room had been provided for him. He stood out in the fog, and he inhaled the humid air, cool only because of the early morning. It was going to be a warm day, much like it often was in a place like that.

Will may have had a bag put over his head, but he could recognize the good old, country south when he saw it.

The trees were hardwoods beyond the lush, well-maintained yard: maples, oaks, river birches, hickory, and beeches. The dense thickness of them was apparent even from where he stood, off to the west side of the house, standing among the dew and the grass. He wasn’t allowed to walk in the forest, Francis said, but he could walk around the yard. A kind sort of exercise, all things considered.

There was a pond in the back that he stood beside for a long time, staring down in it. It was a large pond, devoid of too much algae and grime. It was difficult for him to wrap his mind around the idea that Lecter hadn’t paid anyone to put so much effort into the space around them. It was difficult because of the implications, because of the idea that adoration for him was so utterly strong that they’d break their backs to give him a lovely mansion of sorts to lounge about in as he attempted to force his old patient’s eyes to change color.

Thankfully, they hadn’t changed color. He woke with two very, very blue eyes.

“Judging by the interstate we were on last before Molly had a bag put over my head, I’d say we were in Georgia,” Will said casually, glancing back to Francis. Francis stood a respectable distance, standing at a stiff ‘parade march’.

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Francis said.

“You don’t have to,” Will assured him. “It’s not quite wet enough for Florida, and we drove farther than South Carolina. I’m guessing Georgia.”

Francis said nothing to that, a stoic expression on a carefully constructed face of calm.

“Marine Corps?” Will guessed, studying his stance. “Yeah…Marine Corps. My dad was in the marines, long before I was born. When he thought he was stuck waiting for something a long time, he’d stand like that, too.”

“Mr. Graham-”

“Did Dr. Lecter tell you to call me that, or have you decided that’s just how you’ll speak to me?” Will asked. “Because if he told you to call me Mr. Graham, that’s a load of horse shit.”

“I respect your position in this house,” Dolarhyde said, and he stumbled over his ‘S’ once more. It made his shoulders tense, and he ducked his head. “Please…just enjoy your walk.”

Will sighed, tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, and enjoyed his walk.

It wasn’t right for him to needle at Dolarhyde, but he’d woken with an honest anger, now that the shock was abating. Dr. Lecter was going to try and induce a full connection because he couldn’t handle the idea of his psyche reaching for something that didn’t reach back? He was going to try and force Will to connect to him so that he could justify something in this world changing him the way he oftentimes changed other people?

God, if he were a saner person, the thought alone would have crippled him.

He wasn’t a saner person, though. That’s why Hannibal Lecter honestly thought that he could change him.

“Will?”

Will glanced to the side as he meandered along a gravel path. Beverly stood closeby, her steps silent in the grass.

“Go away, Beverly,” he said pleasantly.

“I just want to talk.”

“Do you honestly think that you can salvage this mess out of the maw of madness?” he wondered. He realized instantly that he’d picked up on Lecter’s tone and words, and he gritted his teeth. He hated when he did that. “Better put, why do you think that I want to talk to you?”

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“I don’t,” he agreed, and he kept walking. “And I honestly don’t want to.”

“If you’d just listen-”

“You know, I’m getting that a lot from you people. If you’d just listen, if you’d just trust me, if you’d just get in the fucking car, if you’d just look into my eyes…everyone here, despite claiming to care about my well being, seems royally hellbent on giving me a laundry list of to-do’s, even as you all say, ‘if you’d just.” He paused to savor the sound of his voice coming out dry, sardonic, and perfectly in control. “I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised at your lying, though.”

“Look, Will, we’re friends, and I honestly care about you,” Beverly replied.

Will barked out a harsh laugh, hands curling into fists in his pockets. “No, we’re…we’re not friends. The, uhm, the light of friendship wouldn’t reach us, Beverly, not for a thousand years. Not after this.”

“Will-”

“You pretended to give a shit about me! For the better part of four years, you slowly gained my trust, got to know me, became the person you thought would appeal to me so that you could sidle in close and spy on me for Dr. Hannibal Lecter.” When his voice grew, he paused to take a deep, slow inhale. “What…could possibly make you think that now that I’m well aware of just the kind of person you are, I would ever want to consider you a friend, let alone think fondly of you?”

“I do care about you, Will!” she snapped. “That is real! That is honest!”

“Whatever shred of real honesty you claimed to have shriveled up and died the moment you watched Molly point a gun at me and did nothing,” Will replied.

That made her hesitate. An odd shadow passed over her face, and if Will had been closer, he could have seen the emotion shifting in the corners of her eyes, bleak somehow as her lips twisted down.

The moment passed, and the expression was gone.

“Dr. Lecter…is a good person,” she said after a long, pained silence. “He sees things that no one else does. He views the world in an entirely different light, like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because he views human beings as animals,” said Will dryly. “Beverly…you may think this is somehow right or somehow…justifiably good, but you are putting your faith and trust in the hands of a very bad man.”

“You simply need to see him from a different perspective,” Beverly replied easily.

“Under his orders, I was kidnapped. Under his orders, Francis Dolarhyde murdered at least five FBI agents, and four others aided in the escape of a criminal, not before murdering at least two innocent people at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. That was after another person under his command walked into a police station and murdered a police officer. Can you say that it’s worth it? What you’re giving up for someone like that?”

“…I don’t know that yet,” she said honestly, “but I’m willing to find out.”

“You know that sooner or later you’re going to have to pay the piper, don’t you? Are you going to be willing to pay that price?”

Beverly held his intense, probing stare, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed.

“I guess we’ll see,” she said, and she raked fingers through her hair before adjusting her stance.

“I guess we’ll see,” Will agreed.

“Mr. Graham, it’s time for breakfast,” Francis Dolarhyde said from behind them. Will turned to him, no longer standing at parade rest, then looked back to Beverly, brows raised.

“We have a specific breakfast time,” he said informatively.

The three of them ventured across the lawn back to the house, their passage marked by the dark shapes of their feet cutting through the dew.

“Dr. Lecter said that you’ve likely puked up anything of substance last night,” Beverly said when they reached the door. “You didn’t consume anything with protein, so he requested a remedy for that.”

Will didn’t want to admit that she was right –alone in his room, thoughts gave way to a discontented nausea that brought everything up, the wine burning in his throat hours after.

“…I wasn’t sure quite how the meat was sourced,” he said after a beat, darkly.

“We’re not all cannibals,” Beverly retorted.

“You just blindly follow one, I know.”

She looked like she had a quick rebuttal for that, but when they walked down the hall towards the dining room he’d just visited the night before, she let the matter drop. Which was just as well; at the swell of voices carrying down the hall, Will’s muscles tensed, and the ease in which he condemned Beverly was gone, replaced instead with the sensation of hands reaching out, grasping for him. He was painfully, completely aware of Francis following behind him, just a step-and-a-half away, and he wondered if he’d be so quick to keep them off of him, should they try to touch him again.

The curtains had been opened in the dining room, bathing the rich mahogany walls with natural light. The flowers from before remained, although they’d been moved to a small table against a wall off to the side. That gave room for the twenty or so people that crowded along the chairs, eagerly discussing the morning events, punctuated with yawns, sniffles, and the sort of dry cough one can only give when they’ve just woken up.

As Will walked in, such chatter stumbled to a stop. Will was painfully aware of far too many eyes on him, their mouths in various shapes of surprise or intrigue, mouths half-full of what looked to be semi-chewed eggs and sausage.

“Come on,” Beverly coaxed, and she blessedly led him through a door to the side that opened up to the kitchen and away from so many prying eyes.

“Good morning,” Lecter greeted from an island counter. Standing poised beside him, Molly sipped a cup of coffee and observed him over the rim of it.

“…Good morning,” he managed after a beat. When Molly met his gaze, his lip curled, and he had to look away before something nasty fell out of his mouth.

“I’ve made omelets. It’s been some time, but I do believe I remembered the recipe after all these years,” he said. Molly and Beverly laughed appreciatively, and Will managed a grimace.

An uncomfortable pause followed, one bred from the memory of what a butter knife felt like pressed to his pulse just the night before. Being blatantly rude to Beverly was one thing, but when he’d exhibited too much emotion in front of Lecter, things hadn’t gone so well.

“Thank you,” he said, much too late for it to be considered polite, much less in conjunction with what Dr. Lecter had first said.

Thankfully, Lecter didn’t seem to mind. He set a plate down to the side of the island where stools had been pulled out, and Will sat down, accepting a fork with a dip of his head.

“The tomatoes are coming in only a little late in the season, but they taste wonderful,” he assured Will. “Ladies, if you’ll give Will the privacy of eating in here, there should be more than enough room at the table.”

Molly and Beverly left, although the look Beverly shot him as he began picking bits of sausage out of the omelet clearly said behave.

“It’s a protein-packed meal in order to replenish anything you lost within the last few days,” Hannibal said conversationally, washing his hands at the sink. As he dried his hands, Francis set a plate in front of the stool beside Will, adjusting the fork just-so. Will wondered if Lecter had ever had the chance to stab someone with a fork before.

Maybe that’d be the weapon of the day, if he didn’t keep careful control of his mouth.

Dr. Lecter hung his apron up on a hook by the pantry, and he sat down on the stool beside Will, his back straight and his presence far closer than Will would have liked. Beside his own hunched, curved posture, Lecter’s was impeccable and professional.

“The spinach is to replenish electrolytes,” he said, motioning to Will’s plate.

“I don’t even have the ability to puke in private,” Will muttered, savagely setting another bit of sausage to the side. He stopped, turning the fork around in his hand. “…Thank you for breakfast,” he added hastily.

“It was an educated guess that I made based off of what I know of your personality, actually,” Lecter said. “No doubt if you did manage to sleep, the images of fallen agents whose faces you’ll now forever remember haunted you at your most vulnerable.”

He was right about both of those things, although Will didn’t want to admit that. He picked another piece of sausage out of the omelet and set it to the side by the steadily growing pile. He tried very hard to pretend that he didn’t notice Hannibal watching his every move, taking notes. Before, when he’d been nothing more than his therapist, Will had always felt under a microscope, each inch of his person noticed and noted. While at the time it had been unsettling but ultimately helpful since he was trying to get better, now it was a grating sensation, the notion that each move he made gave away some sort of aspect to his character that he didn’t want to share.

“Do you suppose that I am feeding you something other than pork?” Lecter wondered after Will dug out a particularly large chunk of meat.

Will gripped the fork tightly and focused on the task at hand. “After the first year of therapy with you, Dr. Lecter, you wished to congratulate me on my progress by inviting me to dinner,” he said, staring at his food. “You told me that you’d made rabbit with braised potatoes and fresh herbs, and I ate everything on the plate that night. It was probably the best food I’d ever had.”

He spared Hannibal a glance as he unearthed another piece of sausage. “About two years later,” he continued savagely, “during one of your court cases, the prosecuting attorney listed dates in which the Chesapeake Ripper had murdered his victims. One of the victims you’d killed, Marissa Schurr, had died just one day before that dinner. She was missing several vital organs, as well as the meat just along her spine.”

“You believe that I fed you Marissa Schurr.”

“No, I know you fed me Marissa Schurr. When Agent Crawford was secretly investigating you, you invited him to your home and fed him Nicholas Boyle, brother to Cassie Boyle.”

“He vomited the dinner and ran tests on the meat,” Hannibal said dismally. “An ingenious plan, all things considered.”

“Yeah, so I’m not entirely convinced that it’s not your plan to do the same now. Half of your amusement, I think, was keeping us ignorant of your general machinations.”

“How is Agent Crawford?” he asked.

“You saw him less than a day before your escape. How was he then?” With all of the sausage successfully removed from the eggs, Will allowed himself to eat, chewing over the cooked spinach with a curl to his lip. He hated spinach.

“I asked if he ever woke with stomach pains. He informed me that the only pain he suffered was the fact that I was still alive.” He didn’t sound upset by the statement. Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw his lip twist into a small, delighted smile. “I’m sure he is enduring stomach pains now.”

Will had nothing to say to that. Instead, he focused on his meal, and Lecter followed suit, the sounds of forks clacking against china the only noise in the otherwise silent kitchen.

After breakfast, he was led back through the dining room where the numbers had dwindled down to about ten, Hannibal walking just ahead of him. Will didn’t so much as watch him as he watched the others in the room, noting the way adoration and –horrifically enough –hope lit up their eyes, mouths curling into soft, pleased smiles. He’d seen similar expression on the faces of those in churches, eyes turned towards statues of Gods and saints. Hope. Blind faith.

“Who are all of these people?” he asked Dr. Lecter as they walked down the hall.

“Attempting to glean information, Will?” Hannibal wondered.

“…Trying to understand what I’m seeing.” Among other things. He hadn’t seen a single cellular device or telephone yet, but he reasoned that he hadn’t seen all of the rooms just yet. Once he could locate a phone, he could find a way to get ahold of Jack.

“These are dear friends that have come together to help me in my time of need.” He didn’t sound the way one sounded when referring to a dear friend; if anything, there was a distinct turn of his mouth as he spoke, and Will wondered what sort of person suit he’d put on to convince them that he was their savior. He thought of the hands touching him before and cringed.

“Are they all…?” His voice trailed off.

“Killers?”

“Yes.”

“Some.” A young woman walked by them and stopped just long enough to bob her head respectfully. “Some are disparate youths seeking shelter from a society that has rejected them. Others simply found a place where they can be accepted, regardless of their differences.”

“So you’ve made a summer getaway camp for psychopaths,” Will said, though he immediately chastised himself. He couldn’t call it ‘surviving’ if he kept running his mouth and made Hannibal angry enough to make him dinner.

Rather than chastise him, Lecter surprised Will when he instead laughed, pausing in the main hall to really, truly look at Will, as though he were seeing him for the first time.

Will tried very, very hard to not look at his mismatched eyes.

“I have missed our conversations,” he said fondly.

That time, Will was smart enough not to say anything in return.

Jack sat across from a pretty, young woman with mismatched eyes and wondered where all her love had gone. If blood hadn’t stained the front of her shirt in a sloppy, haphazard manner, her appearance would have suggested a trip to a mall, not an attempted murder. She was dressed to blend with a ponytail tucked into a baseball cap, a white t-shirt, and medium wash denim pants. Jack wasn’t the sort of person have a damn clue about differences between medium wash from a light wash, but Zeller had noticed right away. This was a woman meant to blend into a crowd.

Thankfully, even while being stabbed, Bowman was quick on the uptake.

“We ran your prints, and they don’t match your identification, ‘Alyss Conners’,” Jack said at last. He’d let the silence sit suspended around them for quite some time, simmering in an underlying rage that was contained with only the slightest control. She hadn’t seemed to mind it, in truth; one brown eye and one hazel eye blinked at him lazily, casually. Her thin lips parted, and she let out a soft huff of breath.

“That’s odd,” she said. She had a distinctly high-pitched tone, the sort of voice that would normally get her whatever she liked.

“They did match the prints found at the scene of a crime in Kansas City from nine years ago, though,” he continued like she hadn’t spoken. “Suspect Kelly Brown, wanted in conjunction with the murder of four family members: Jason, Steven, Linda, and Bryce Brown.”

“My name is Alyss, not Kelly.”

“We know you’re working for Lecter. We’ve been pulling visitor records, and you’d started going to see Hannibal for at least 3 years under various misnomers. Thankfully, face recognition was able to pull you up and save us time.”

“I’m currently unemployed, actually,” she informed him lightly. “I hope to fix that, though. I want to work with soulmate counseling.”

Graham was attempting to finish his residency with soulmate grief counseling. Jack leaned in at that small jab, his mouth rippling with a silent snarl.

“Where’s Will Graham?”

“It must hurt to see your fellow agent die, Agent Crawford,” she commented. “In a TattleCrime news article, Freddie Lounds once said that you ‘walked with death’. Everywhere you go, death follows. How does that feel?”

“Agent Bowman isn’t dead, Kelly,” Jack replied with a gritty smile.

That took her aback. Her expression of sweet calm faltered, a twinge of panic lurking around her eyes before she struggled to compose herself, teeth bared.

“You’re lying,” she decided.

“He’s in surgery right now, but things are looking good. Whatever mission Lecter gave you, you failed.” He relished in her unease at his completely serious tone, a spasm near her mouth. It was a balm against the burn of her words. “You were supposed to kill Agent Lloyd Bowman and get away, right? A shadow of death that could strike wherever. Except you failed on both counts, Kelly.”

“You won’t find Dr. Lecter,” she hissed, and she bared her teeth. Her canines were sharper than normal, peeking out over lips the color of pink rose petals. “I may have failed him, but you won’t find him. You who walks with death and brings it in your wake, you will only hurt those around you in your quest to save Will Graham.”

“Where’s Will Graham?” Jack demanded. His tone darkened in response to hers.

“You’ll never find him,” Kelly hissed.

“Tell me, and we can maybe think of a deal, Kelly.” It was a lie, but it was a good one. Even if he took care of her attempted murder of a federal agent, she was wanted elsewhere for other murders. Things didn’t look good for Kelly Brown.

“Over my dead body,” she snarled.

“That can be arranged. The death penalty is still legal in Missouri.”

He stood up and gathered the papers into a file, heading from the room with a straight, confidant step. Just outside, Zeller straightened from his slouch, and he fell in step beside Jack as they headed down the hall.

“He’s still in surgery,” he said, and Jack grunted. Bowman was still alive, even if only just. It was good news. Good news was hard to come by whenever Lecter was in the mix.

“Also, I did checks on everyone. Molly Foster, single mother with a son by the name of Wally. Twenty-seven, widowed, but the death of her husband is from cancer, not murder. No soulmate, and no word on where her son is. Her face was pulled from the cameras at the BSHCI five different times, although she signed in to see Lecter under a different name each time.”

“I want to see where, when, and how she first came to find this guy. Do we have letters of correspondence?” Jack wondered.

“Beverly Katz, a student in the GWU graduate program for criminology. She was being scoped out by the FBI, but… this essentially ruins her application. She has a soulmate, Saul Yancy, who visited Dr. Lecter five years ago and used his real name. Beverly Katz visited Dr. Lecter only once, although she used a pseudo name.”

Jack nodded and walked into the autopsy room where Price was busy peering through a microscope. He tossed the folder down, loosened his tie, and tried to roll her words off of his back.

Everywhere you go, death follows.

“Agent Francis Dolarhyde.” At that, Zeller paused, a frown creasing the space between his brows. “We pretty much know his professional career. Before that, though, he was bounced from foster house to foster house, abandoned by his mother, cared for by his grandmother for a short while before she died, then taken in by his mother once more before he was back in the foster system until he graduated high school and joined the marines a month later.”

“How many times did he visit Dr. Lecter in his spare time?”

Zeller glanced up from his folder and frowned, uncomfortable. Jack didn’t care, though; while Dolarhyde may have been an agent, he certainly wasn’t one any longer. Jack had placed his trust in him to keep Will Graham safe, and Francis Dolarhyde had spit on it.

How does that feel?

“Quite a few times, actually, each time under a false name with a different guard working,” Zeller said reluctantly. “We’re going through as much information as we can, and Dr. Chilton is giving us his full cooperation.”

When Jack didn’t speak right away, Price lifted his head and cleared his throat.

“While he was looking at that, I looked through a few things, too,” he said. Jack turned to him expectantly. “Namely, the backpack of your Saul Yancy, soulmate to Beverly Katz. It seems that in the rush, he left a few things behind, namely a Nalgene bottle with very stale, very warm water in it.”

“Okay,” Jack said blankly.

“Well, I decided to study the diatoms in it, on a hunch,” he continued.

“You studied the diatoms on a hunch,” Zeller repeatedly bluntly.

“People have hunches,” Price replied defensively. At Jack’s aggravated sigh, he continued, “Diatoms are unique and can house specific ‘fingerprints’, so to speak, like people can. You study the diatoms, compare them to other diatoms, and you can find a general water source. Where this was water from a tap rather than bottled water…”

“We can try and hunt down just where Saul was before he made his way to Graham’s apartment,” Jack finished for him. His gut tensed, and he idly rubbed the scar. It did that often enough when he was stressed, a reminder of just how close one walked the line between life and death in situations like this. If Bowman lived, they’d have to compare scars.

“Sounds like a long shot,” Zeller murmured. Despite the misgivings in his tone, his eyes lightened perceptively.

“That’s what I thought, but I decided to give it a shot while you were doing your background sleuthing and face recognition project.” Price paused to savor the moment. “Looks like our guy Saul came from a place in Georgia before he made his way to Graham’s apartment that fateful night. Specifically either the Piedmont region, or the Upper Coastal Plain.”

“That guy really needs to drink more water,” Zeller said triumphantly.

“I’m pretty damn glad that he didn’t,” Jack replied. He felt the beginnings of excitement unfurling just under the place where Lecter gave him his crooked smile. “Get me on the phone with the Atlanta HQ,” he said, grabbing his phone. “I want my ass in the air in under an hour.”

A special thanks to my patrons, @hanfangrahamk @sylarana @matildaparacosm @starlit-catastrophe Duhaunt6 and Superlurk! Y’all are the best!

#LiaS scribbles #where the wicked walk #hannibal fic #hannibal au #hannibal soulmate au #hannigram #slowburn hannigram #i mean it it's a slowburn yall #someone help will graham #will graham x hannibal #team sassy science #minus once since she is in a cult as of right now #jack crawford #needs all the help he can get

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