#i create a horrific amalgamation but the important thing is i know how to read it

[pkmnirlevents]

How do you go about getting ideas for arcs? I’m struggling to figure out what I want to do with my character :(

Great question! This happens to be one of my absolute favorite parts of writing and pkmn irl itself. I've always been more of an ideas guy myself. I hope you don't mind but I decided to turn this into a bit of an overall tutorial for planning and writing arcs. Feel free to ask for any specifics because I could delve into my personal process for arc brainstorming, but I was admittedly writing this before getting ready for work and this post was getting kinda long haha

Knowing where to draw inspiration from can be a good place to start. It's wonderful to be inspired by music, a movie or tv show, a book, or even other people in the community and their writing. Ask yourself what elements of that thing draw you in. What do you like? What would you maybe do differently? I must mention though to be respectful of the work other blogs have put into their writing. Being inspired is a wonderful thing, lifting exact details or passages is not. If you're unsure, there's no harm is asking!

The most helpful thing I can tell you right off the bat is that you want to find out how to brainstorm. In schools they'll often try to teach you ways of brainstorming and outlining to structure your essay writing, if you're lucky they might even mention that there are multiple ways you can do this. The ones in school never worked for me personally, so for a long time I assumed brainstorming and outlining was a complete waste of my time and would launch straight into my writing drafts. But as I wanted to write more complex things and I wanted to indulge in more creative writing, I found myself getting stuck all the time. The truth is brainstorming is a helpful tool, but you have to know what type of brainstorming works best for you. Flowcharts, bullet points, stream of consciousness, word clouds, moodboards, drawings, whatever it is that gets your creative juices flowing. In my experience it works best to remember that not every one of these elements will make it into the final arc. You want to get your ideas down first and trim the excess later. I personally pay for a program (Milanote) that allows me to brainstorm in the methods that work best for me, but by no means do you have to pay for a program to do this. Pen and paper works just fine.

The next thing you wanna do is establish what you want your arc to do. Not every arc has to be a grand character development, but all arcs do something. No matter how small that something may be, something has to change as a result. Maybe your character meets a new person, obtains a new Pokemon, gets a new scar and a story to tell their friends, or maybe all they got was a t-shirt. If you already had a loose concept for your arc this can help you hone it. You can start asking yourself, "how does my character reach this point?" and work up to that. Map out what you think your character would do when dropped into a particular situation. This can also help you to establish the tone you want your arc to take. Is it silly and lighthearted or is it more serious and high stakes? Refer to the stakes tag post about proper tagging.

It can help to conceptualize your arc as a series of events rather than a single event. This allows you to understand how many posts you may need to split the arc up into, how much time the arc may take, or other hard to sort details.

These things ramp up when you start to incorporate more people into your arcs. Planning with your fellow writers is extremely important and that requires a lot of communication. Some writers prefer to do what we call pre-writing, which is typically you and the other writers get together and write out the posts in advance. This gives people the chance to look over each other's writing and make edits before the posts go live. Planning discords are useful for keeping things organized, but google docs or other collaborative writing programs can work just as well if those better suit your needs. Organize who is posting what and generally at what time, especially if the post involves other people's characters.

Remember all of this is for fun! These are not hard rules you need to follow. You should not force yourself to write things you do not like for the sake of others or for an imagined audience. Write what you want to write.

[froggyfeetsies]

“The dawn of the Golden Age began after Lunar Lamas and the Pookhan Brotherhood had made the most important scientific breakthrough known to sentient life; the ability to manufacture the heart of a planet. The heart, also called the Light, of a planet allowed the art of creation magics to be applied to a planet as if it had its own soul to shape. It made the will and belief of the planet’s inhabitants tangible enough to move mountains, dig seas and forest the barren plains. Terra formation was a science as well as an art, and became one of the most difficult walks of life a youngling might tread. It allowed for the infinite expansion of the Empire, allowed for the infinite creation of garden worlds to populate and flourish amongst the universe, evolving into behemoth constellations sprawling across the once empty skies. Such a breakthrough became a lifeline during the Shadow War, after it was adapted for battle against the Dream pirates and the fear geas. After intense modification it was ready to be infused into living beings, to give them both the strength and fortitude to match their own heart and will; the blend of both immense destruction and a gift for creation. Blending these two principles, the new Enlightened were as horrific as they were the ultimate salvation against the Dream Pirates and Nightmare men. While they turned the tide of the war from desperation to jubilation, and in turn ultimately leading to our beloved Golden Era of Dreams, the Enlightened came at a steep price. The Eternal Light of a planet was meant for no mortal to hold in their hearts, and although some went on to become Enlightened, others did not and were torn meat from soul, completely obliterated even from Time itself as if they had never existed, leaving them lost even to the Pookah and their mastery of the Timeways. The presence of Enlightened after the War and the subsequent imprisonment of the Nightmare men and Dream Pirates left only the bitter reminder that fanciful notions like love wasn’t always enough.”

in my mind they had to create things to beat the fearlings, who’s gonna go at a living shadow with a plain sword not fucking me lol, and in the end made space paladins like nightlight since his kind wouldn’t be the only kind right? like different kinds of light, white light and gold light? They obvs know that some kind of light works since they have a living lamp near mim and I mean the flash he gives off puts pitch and 10,000 fearlings into a coma and he’s a child right? Imagine that but an adult infused with star heart and metal, nearly immortal but at the price of maybe being completely destroyed from existence, that used their power to make weapons like sandy makes his stuff like the plane etc. kind of like how blood is full of iron? Maybe have them full of metal blood that reacts to the star heart. like an amalgamation of the different races to try and stem the tide in the war, pookah lightbulb magic llama belief magic and star weapons. Tied into the idea that belief isn’t just an earth thing but an engineered thing created in the other universe being repurposed for war. Like they don’t fight with light but fight as infused with light that they can create metal/light weapons at will like sandy can, like you need the light to make the metal work. Or like infused with molten star metal that glows with spoopi light, and people call it light since it’s less emotionally damaging than “we pump you full of molten star metal that should actually be inside a star so you glow now.” Basically I like the battle!sandy idea but horrific rather than a natural born star you feel me as in “we replaced your heart with starlight and your blood with starmetal and it’s only your belief that stops it all working sorry bud.” Not sure the details but metal/light is the foundation.

I’ve never read the books, only the wiki and then vague memories from like 10 years ago from fanfics about book stuff (still no idea why Katherine and nightlight exist but they’re always cute so) so I’m not actually sure what’s cannon (I’ve tried reading the wiki but it just confuses me more like apparently now jack can now change age at will?) but in my mind eldritch metal light horrors that use the heart of a star to power themselves sounds about desperate enough for a universe under threat of eternal nightmares tbh, although the wiki says they didn’t kill them I am going to ignore that 😂

like the pookah were meant to have transcended time itself right, and then the lunar llamas were like peak spiritual awakening, and then the stars were like the dreams right? All make a nice balance imo, and almost sound like a magical girl formula to me tbh. And the pookah are said to be caretakers of planets who time walk so it’s not much of a jump to say they might be able to create planets imo especially if they’re meant to have enough garden worlds for an empire. Iirc bunny brought an egg lamp to earth to start a new world?? So ����‍♀️

basically I am completely baffled about what’s going on and this is my explanation for it 😂 (like pitch is woken by a curious moonbeam??? Like literally or) maybe I’m wrong but to me the idea of a theoretically immortal last bastion of hope getting demolished and repurposed to head the enemy army as a husk filled with nightmares is 100000% believable as a reason why the empire could fall to a single man. I’m not sure how far into the body horror I want to go tbh, but. Like is he alive is he aware like who knows but I’m horrified

anyway it’s 2am goodnight xoxo

[possiblypeachy]

tea & schemes. (6)

―; summary: welcome distractions can be found in the library-- besides the books, of course.

―; pairing: jacob frye x ofc

―; word count: 4.5k

―; warnings: none(?).

―; A/N: i... love them... a lot. writing this is like playing with little dolls and making them hold hands n stuff except!! i’m a baby that has an awareness of the healthy progression of a relationship and so i keep them just out of reach of each other to intensify the pining!! how splendid and good of me!!!! :))

anyway, please do enjoy!! (also, i made a pinterest board for this so hmu if you want me to send you the link bc it’s practically an amalgamation of pictures that make me happy)

―; part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

― ❊ ―

“Freddy?”

Florence took the hat she had been wearing and placed it on the table beside the door, haste dictating each of her movements. From placing cutlery on the dining table, Lissie gave her a sidewards glance, an eyebrow quirking upwards, but said nothing yet; if there was to be a quarrel, they could get it all out first before registered pacifier, Felicity Marlowe, would step in.

“Freddy?” For a young woman raised from birth to be delicate and heavenly, Florence sure did have a set of lungs on her. If Frederick hadn’t heard her shouting from downstairs yet, he might as well have been deaf. Even Lissie flinched back at her volume.

Floorboards creaked above them. Lissie stifled a laugh when a loud sigh could be heard at the top of the stairs. When Freddy’s face finally emerged from behind the corner, practically dragging himself down the stairs, she had to leave the room, lest she further irritate the man.

“You’re doing an excellent job of annoying the neighbours, my dear sister.” He observed, trudging toward the dining table to take a seat. Florence did the same, taking a spot right in front of him. After flattening and smoothing her skirts down, she leant forward on the table, hands clasped together just before her bowl. Upon noticing the seriousness in her posture, a worry began to grow within him. He gave a quick glance down to her interlocked fingers and noticed a slip of white between the gaps. “What’s this about?”

The fingers of Florence’s right hand dipped behind those of the left and emerged with a piece of paper-- evidence of her escapades. She slid it across the table toward her brother. “I met a lovely man in the library today; he was all charm and smiles. He even quoted some of Dickens’ work to woo me.”

Brows pulled downwards, Freddy took the slip of paper though had yet to look at it. “And, you think this is a world-ending problem why? Should he have quoted Shakespeare instead?”

She rolled her eyes and thrusted her still interlocked hand toward the note. “Read the bloody note, Fredd--”

“Hey! Elbows off the table.” Lissie, who had adopted a particularly maternal tone, scolded as she waddled over with the steaming pot of stew. It landed with a jarring thump! down onto the table beside them both. A tea towel hit Florence’s arm and she yelped, eyes meeting the blue of Lissie’s. “You should know this, lovely.”

Florence gestured between herself and Freddy. “He and I have something important to discuss; I think I should be allowed to put my elbows wherever I please, mother.”

Lissie chortled at her immaturity. “Your elbows are your own until food appears on this table. As soon as that happens, I’m afraid that I--”

“Revenge?” Both women stopped in their bickering to look at Freddy, who’s gaze dragged from the paper to his sister. His expression contorted, lips parted and brows knitted together as if speechless. “What does that mean, Florrie? What’s the man’s name?”

Lissie let out a small sigh when Florence leant toward her brother, elbows on the table, but began to spoon out the stew anyway, leaving the siblings to speak without her pestering.

“Willard Molyneux-Herbert.” The name rolled off of her tongue like a thick poison. “Ring any bells?”

She could see Freddy visibly dragging himself through his memories, gaze focused over her shoulder and into the past. Florence began to idly stir the stew with a spoon when her brother, unconvinced of his own mind’s capability, pointed into nothing. “I recall a… Alan Molyneux-Herbert. I brought him in a few months ago after his horrific surgical practices were presented to my people.”

Despite the unfortunate predicament she was in, that fire flickered to life in Florence’s eyes. Freddy suppressed a sigh upon noticing it. “He could be his older brother.” She got up on her feet to lean further toward her brother, scanning over as much of the note as she could so she could point to the line that backed up her theory. “See? They must’ve been close-- or business partners of some kind.”

He gave a hum, rolling the corner of the paper as he pondered. Then, he placed it to one side, prompting Florence to sit back down, and picked up his spoon. “Did he say anything… strange to you?”

“Besides being far too forward?” One of her eyebrows quirked upwards and Freddy grimaced, taking to eating a spoonful of his meal rather than replying. “He asked that I meet him again in the library tomorrow.”

After a few moments of quiet, his lips drew into a tight line. “I think you should.”

Florence scoffed before spooning a chunk of beef into her mouth. She covered her lips with the back of her hand as she spoke. “No objections to me doing the dirty work this time, brother dearest?”

Knowing that she’d hit back with something like that, he groaned. “It’s a public library; he can’t try to do anything in there besides torment you with his flirting.” He wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin and gestured to her. “I’m certain, after your scuffle with Mister Fullmore, you can handle yourself around one man. If familial similarities tell me anything, I doubt this Willard is the largest bloke either.” Florence hummed, pointing her spoon at Freddy to confirm his point. “Besides, I can hardly take your place can I?”

She gave a small laugh. “I think I’d enjoy seeing you try.”

“I’m sure you would.” He replied with a smile-- the kind that was accompanied by a fond shake of the head.

They ate quietly for a while with only the grandfather clock on the other side of the room creating steady noise. Lissie pottered about between them as their bowls began to empty, cooing gently to Duncan who had hopped down the stairs to collect any scraps that fell onto the floor. When Freddy finally finished, he didn’t leave the table as usual and instead leant back in his chair, staring at his sister. She soon noticed this and dragged her gaze away from the remnants of stew in her bowl. Spoon still held close to her mouth, she prompted him with a raise of both brows.

He clasped his hands together and rested them against his stomach. “Mister Frye visited before you returned. He asked me to ‘apologise on his behalf for dashing off today’.” Freddy mirrored her raised brows, which hadn’t yet moved from their position. It was as though she was a rat caught in a larder.

Slowly, she raised herself up from her bowl, placing the spoon neatly onto the napkin at the side. “I was… on my way to the library and we ran into one another. He rushed away because--”

“I’ve known you since you came out of the womb, Florence; stop lying to me.” Frederick stopped her, rolling his eyes until they met hers again. She huffed but was given no time to defend herself. “It seemed like, from what he told me at the door, that he ran off without so much as a thought to you or your feelings--”

“He came to apologise--”

“-- and only had his sight on his… agenda for London. You shouldn’t want to spend all of your time with a man who doesn’t consider your emotions, Florrie.”

Florence widened her eyes and shook her head, like her brother was stupid and she was drawing attention to it. “I’m not heartbroken, Freddy; Mister Frye can do as he pleases. I’m not going to bloody marry the man.”

Frederick breathed out a laugh. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said in weeks.” Seemingly satiated with her answer, he stood from his chair and patted down his waistcoat and the lap of his trousers. He partly did this to avoid Florence’s scalding stare, her jaw clenched in an attempt to keep back a smile of disbelief. With that done, he turned and made his way to the stairs, presumably retiring for the evening before his sister could bite back with anything too venomous.

Florence sighed, slumping back in her chair so Lissie could collect her bowl and cutlery.

Well, at least tomorrow would be interesting.

---

Florence found Willard sat at the same table the next day. Now, she was somewhat late, though that was mostly due to the fact that she had been standing in the entryway wiping sweat from her hands for a good amount of time. Lying and acting to appease someone you know is one thing but it gets a lot scarier when you’re dealing with a man who, in a few scrawled words and a look or two, had made himself seem very… nasty.

For someone who had been sat, alone, in a library for goodness only knows how long, Willard didn’t seem to have all too great of an interest in any of the hundreds of books on offer. Instead, he played with his thumbs, strands of golden hair tumbling onto his forehead. It was stupid, Florence thought as she approached him, but she still couldn’t possibly bring herself to deny the fact that Willard was a terribly beautiful man.

When a chair scraped across the wooden floor in front of him, his head snapped upwards. For a moment, he looked almost innocent: green eyes wide and lips parted just enough for Florence’s eyes to linger on them. However, upon taking in her blush-coloured dress and the curls in her hair, that conniving twist appeared on his lips and she instinctively looked away.

“Dear lady,” he began, voice rumbling like the beginnings of a roar, “I thought it impossible that you look more beautiful than yesterday but it appears you have proven me wrong.”

Florence, in an effort to not be sucked into the whirling green of his eyes, rubbed her nose with a finger and acted like she was picking something from the skirt of her dress. “You flatter me, Mister Molyneux-Herbert.”

She sensed that he’d placed his upturned hand on the table in front of her and she finally dragged her gaze to him. His palm begged for her own. “Please, Miss Abberline, call me Willard.”

Florence smiled-- a courteous gesture though not at all genuine; it seemed to satisfy him enough. Her fingers relished in the cool wood of the table before taking their place in his hand. “If that’s the case, you may call me Florence.”

Like yesterday, he placed a lingering kiss on the back of her hand. She allowed her gaze to flicker away, seemingly flustered under the attention, her lips curling into a coy smile.

This was terrible. Horrendous. A nightmare. Florence delighted in her skill of manipulation but had never had to act so… submissive before. It seemed that Willard only held that sweet glint in his eyes when she shied away from him-- when she acted petite and enamoured by male attention. It made her want to tug her hand away and--

A cough sounded behind her and she jolted, pulling her hand away from Willard in the process. While not exactly how she had planned getting away from him, she was still grateful that it had worked. As Florence turned in her seat, ready to give the disturbance a small, thankful smile, she met a pair of hazel eyes.

Wait. She knew those eyes.

Her vision finally focused on the rest of the face.

Jacob.

Half of her said to turn around as to not make Willard suspicious of anything. The other half declared that if she simply spun around that it would look strange too. So, Florence faced halfway between them both, gaze able to dart between the pair. Though, with how peeved Willard looked, she didn’t particularly want to glance in his direction.

“Who are you? Can’t you tell that the lady and I are busy?”

So, he was an emotionally volatile man too. Great.

When Florence looked to Jacob, awaiting his response, he caught her eyes, brows twitching just enough for her to assume he was quite taken aback by Willard. “The name’s Jacob Frye, sir. I’m here to collect Miss Abberline; her brother says it’s urgent.”

A slight panic struck Florence.

What did Freddy need? Had something gone wrong? Was he hurt?

Wide eyes flickered over to Willard, her hands already arranging her skirts to make it easier for her to stand. There was a strange glint in his gaze. He was focused on Jacob; his sudden hostility had quietened. Much to her surprise, Willard didn’t open his mouth to speak again, instead leaving the conversation open to her.

“Why? What does he need?” Florence rose from her seat, eyes now trained onto Jacob. “He hadn’t said about something ‘urgent’ this morning.”

Jacob shrugged, giving an unknowing frown. “He didn’t tell me anything else-- only requested that you get back home as soon as you can.”

A hand to her forehead, she let out a heavy sigh. “Willard,” She began; Jacob seemed to be quite intent on listening in on the exchange, “I must cut our meeting short. I am beyond sorry but… Frederick never usually calls on me in such a manner so it must be important.”

“I can accompany you, dear lady. My carriage and driver should be nearby.” Willard tensed to stand but Jacob held out a hand. The blond slowly lowered himself once again. Florence could feel rage ebbing off of him-- likely thanks to being pushed about by a man of a lower class.

“Sergeant Abberline asked only for her. I can get her home safely, Will.” Willard visibly bristled and Florence could’ve sworn that she could see the beginnings of a smile playing at Jacob’s lips. “Now,” Jacob held out a hand, which Florence took, to help her out of the alcove, “if you don’t mind, the lady and I should be off.”

With that, he swept his arm in the direction of the exit-- a dramatic gesture that made Florence suppress a smile-- and the two of them left the building. She didn’t dare to even look back at Willard, lest he kill her with his burning stare alone.

When the thunder of carriages upon stone and the chatter of people returned to her senses, Florence turned to Jacob, who was still leading her along. A hand came to his arm, half to get his attention and half to give her the leverage to walk alongside him. “Right, Jacob, what’s the matter with Freddy? If he’s in the hospital for something, I swear--”

“Nothing’s the matter.”

“-- I will get my hands on-- wait. What?” Florence stopped on the pavement, expression crumpled with confusion. “What do you mean ‘nothing’s the matter’?”

Jacob, having realised that Florence had paused, reeled backwards to address her. There was a grin on his face that had an undertone of caution; he was unsure if he had made a mistake. What with the look of annoyed bewilderment painted across her features-- brows drawn together, lips parted, nose scrunched up-- it was expected for Jacob to have a genuine sense of worry settle in his stomach.

“I mean that you looked terribly uncomfortable in there and I thought, being the saint to society that I am--” Florence’s jaw shifted to one side slightly, her hands on her hips, in an attempt to keep a relenting smile from tugging at her lips. He was insufferable. “-- that I would be doing you a favour by stealing you away.” His eyes, having been thrown around dramatically while he was speaking, drifted hopefully back to her. One of his brows raised and his lips curled into an apologetic smile.

Florence said nothing.

Jacob stayed frozen in that position for a few moments more before slumping, sighing lightly. “I’m sorry for worrying you.” He held a hand out toward her, beckoning. “I’ll make it up to you with a surprise-- I promise.”

She looked between his hand and his face, then finally grinned. Jacob’s shoulders visibly relaxed and it only made her laugh, sweeping gleefully toward him. “Seems like I worried you there. Care about my feelings do we, dear Jacob? My brother was concerned that you didn’t.” Rather than taking his hand, she hooked her arm around his, leveraging herself to his side.

“You are a menace, Flor.” His smile said otherwise, however.

“Only to you.”

They locked eyes for a moment, smiles softening into something different altogether. Florence could suddenly feel her heart in her ears. There was that heaviness of breath in her chest-- a choking swell of her feelings.

No. No. Not again.

As though struck by lightning, her gaze darted away, blinking a few times like she was resetting herself. “Where might this surprise be then, Jacob?” Florence looked back to him, though she appeared to have steeled herself somewhat. When she noticed the light of concern in his eyes, a light squeeze came to his bicep alongside a smile.

Deciding against saying anything about the sudden change in her demeanour, he began to walk them both along the street. “Well, I recently met a bloke by the name of Robert Topping. Strange man, with an even stranger sense of fashion--”

“Yes, because you are the pinnacle of that area.” Her other arm moved around to tug at his untucked shirt and he batted her away, chuckling.

“You’ll see the man soon and you’ll be eating your own words, dear Flor.” Jacob shook his head, as if he were recalling Robert’s dress sense and shivering at it.

“Why? What does this Topping fellow have to do with where we’re going?”

“Will you let me speak without interrupting?”

Florence huffed out a laugh, gesturing in a forward motion with her hand. “Go ahead; I’ll try not to interject.”

Jacob nodded a ‘thank you’ as he tugged her down a backstreet, glancing from place to place to ensure he was going the right way. “Well, Topping is a bookie for a variety of events but my personal favourite are the fights. So, I thought I might bring you along to a fight club to watch a few matches-- get invigorated, you know?”

“Oh, I’ve heard of these fight clubs. Freddy often complains about them.” Florence mentioned. “I suppose he just doesn’t understand why people would fight against each other for fun.”

Jacob raised a brow. “You’ve heard of them before?”

“Why does that surprise you?” Florence glanced up at him, confused.

He paused for a moment, then shrugged. “I’m not sure, I just supposed there’d been a rule surrounding the secrecy of fight clubs or something.”

Now far too wound up in this string of their own thoughts, the pair walked in silence for a short time. Once again, Jacob seemed to have a knack for leading Florence down alleyways that she didn’t even know existed. He often gave a nod or a wave to people dressed in green-- his ‘rooks’, she remembered-- which she began to do as well, if only to seem more like a friend of Jacob’s than anything else; she supposed she didn’t want to get the reputation of ‘that bird that Jacob buys’. It appeared as though her upbringing-- filled with reminders to remain a respectable woman-- had stuck in some ways more than others.

Jacob turned to her for a brief moment, mouth opened, but no words came. One of her brows tugged downwards. “What is it?”

He looked away again and breathed out a sigh through his nose. “I don’t mean to… intrude on your personal business but--”

“Willard?” The light-heartedness in her tone relaxed Jacob and a relieved smile curved his lips.

“Yes. I didn’t realise you had a gentleman suitor, hm?”

Florence grimaced and made a noise akin to “blergh”. “No, I wouldn’t count Willard as that, despite his trying.” Jacob raised a brow, urging her to elaborate. “The first words he said to me were a quote from one of your dear old friend Dickens’ novels. Then, he introduced himself as the--” she mimicked a man’s voice, “--’third son to the Earl of Carnarvon’.” She sighed, throwing her hand into the air. “I mean, how pompous can one man be?”

Jacob had been grinning the whole time, quite amused with her ranting. “So, I take it you’re not interested then, despite his beautiful blond locks?” He acted like he was flipping hair over his shoulder and she laughed, shaking her head.

“I most certainly am not interested-- mostly because he supposedly has some kind of grudge against my brother and wants revenge by means of me.” He felt her grip on his arm tighten somewhat and realised that, although her tone sounded fairly unfazed by the idea, Florence was really quite angry. “I don’t understand why all men interested in me have some kind of criminal inclination.”

Jacob, an assassin and criminal by trade, gave a slight laugh, raising his eyebrows and averting his gaze by glancing down a nearby backstreet. “They certainly do.”

Quiet fell between them once again but only because he was considering. He took the few moments in which they descended a set of stairs to weigh up his options.

With a certain degree of courage mustered, Jacob asked: “Have you ever been with someone, Flor? Like... romantically?” as normally as he could.

She didn’t seem to pick up on the riot in his mind but still frowned somewhat. “Yes. Well, sort of. I tend not to enjoy thinking of it.”

He furrowed his brows. “Why not?” A cheeky laugh slipped passed his lips and an elbow nudged into her side. “Was he a disaster in bed?”

A harsh squeeze came to his arm and, through a chuckle, he yelped at the pinch it caused. When he looked to her, she was glaring at him but a light of amusement danced through the gold in her eyes. “No, Jacob, I’ve never even--” she paused, glancing to the side, defeated. He grinned, infuriating her further. She continued, if only to stop him from saying anything else. “Thomas Langhorne is the terrible man who I used to love but he broke my heart and is now married to my eldest sister, Harriett.”

Jacob blinked a few times at the speed in which she said this, having to rewind her words in his head. “What? He’s married to who? I feel like there’s more to this-- if you’re willing to tell, of course.”

Florence sighed quietly. It was a tender topic still and merely scraping the surface of it made her want to pummel Thomas. Though, the look in Jacob’s eyes was overbearingly patient and that little voice in the back of her head convinced her that perhaps sharing the memory might have a relieving effect.

“When I was fifteen, I fell in love with the mayor’s son, Thomas Langhorne. It was the kind of young love you read in books, you know? There were butterflies and nights stolen away and ugh!” She groaned, brows forced together. Honestly, it almost looked as if Florence could throw up at the thought. “He promised to have my hand in marriage and young me, being foolish, fell hopelessly in love with Thomas. I never understood why we had to keep everything a secret, however.” Ah, here was the problem, Jacob suspected. He could almost feel her nails piercing through his coat with how angrily she held his arm. “I figured out that little conundrum when I took a trip to our cellar and found him…” Florence grimaced and took a breath to brace herself, “... inside my sister.”

“Bloody Hell.” Jacob hissed through his teeth, looking down at her in disbelief. Her vision seemed to be glazed with fury and didn’t notice the concern for her in his eyes.

“It turns out they loved each other and Thomas had used me to get to Harriet. I was simply the idiot who thought I was in love.” Florence, feeling heavy-hearted but altogether like a weight had been loosened from her shoulders, gave a bitter little laugh. The grip on his arm lessened. “So, I have decided to stay away from all matters romance until I absolutely must marry someone, lest I have all of society frown upon me.”

Jacob felt a pang of hurt somewhere-- not at her declaration to steer clear of love but at the mere fact that such a man could take a treasure like Florence and stand on her like he did. It was terrible, he thought, that a young woman, during the years in which they all dream of falling in love, had barred herself from doing just that because of the selfish desires of this Thomas bloke.

“I don’t think you should give up on love so easily, Flor.” He mentioned to her, gesturing for her to let go of his arm and walk behind him down a tight alleyway. “Besides, this Langhorne fellow doesn’t seem like the ideal man.” There was a pause, then Jacob huffed out a laugh. “How big was he?”

When they emerged from the alleyway, getting closer to the distant sounds of a crowd cheering, the light that finally hit Florence revealed a mightily confused expression. She had an inkling of what he meant but wanted confirmation. Her eyes narrowed. “How do you mean?”

Jacob gave an impish grin. “You know: the downstairs.” He waggled his eyebrows and Florence snorted.

“I called the ordeal a ‘little conundrum’ for a reason, dear Jacob.” Amusement bled back into her eyes and the way she was smiling told him that she was keeping back laughter.

“Well then, you should forget little Thom being your first love. Let your sister have him, eh?” The pair came to a door and the roaring crowd was most certainly behind it. Jacob swept an arm forward to encourage her to go in front of him before he revealed the arena. “Find another first-- one who actually knows what’s right there in front of him.”

Perhaps Jacob was right; Thomas didn’t deserve to have such an impact on her life. He was a rat of a man and Harriett could keep him. Florence would find someone far better: someone who could make her laugh, who would calm her anxieties, who would adventure with her, despite what everyone says. Yes. Yes. She at least deserved that.

“Plus, I’m certain the next bloke you find will have a much bigger--”

Florence thrust the doors open and the two of them drowned in the roar of the crowd, bells ringing and bookies begging for bets. Despite the noise, she could sense that Jacob was chuckling behind her.

What a dastardly man, she thought with a smile.

[asiifisms]

so @duskisms is indulging me and asking me about Xig’s betrayal SO. I’m just gonna ramble for a bit, and you’re gonna have to deal with an essay.

(This is going to quickly devolve into a mixture of scene analysis and headcanons, so, this is strictly how my Xig’s handling things, but I do try to stick to canon. I apologise for the word vomit I’m unleashing.)

THIS GOT OUT OF HAND COUNT: 5798 words

TO SAVE TIME, read the ‘plans’ subsection of this ask, ‘cause I’m gonna be referring back to those same scenes a lot, and it’s easier on both of us if I don’t type all that out again.

Long story short, there’s not a ghost of a doubt in my mind that Braigbar’s going to betray ‘Nort. He’s also probably gonna die in the end, but he’s okay with that.

Here’s the thing: He’s not rebelling for himself. He doesn’t really care what happens to him (in fact, he’s planning to die, but, more on that, later). You’ll note that he gives the information that’s likely essential to Xehanort’s fall to Zexion, he said his plans were on track while he was still possessed, but the other apprentices were recompleted, and he keeps himself all but glued to Xehanort’s right hand. Now, I think that the latter is also important to the plan itself, but, again Braig/Xig isn’t rebelling for himself. He’s doing it for the other apprentices - for his friends, the family he never had. If they make it out okay, then, the plan worked.

But let me start at the beginning.

I’m gonna drop a big old bomb on you: Braig was not a bad guy to start off with. Was he kind of an ass? Ab-so-fucking-lutely. Was he a handful? So much so there are no hands in the multiverse big enough to contain him. I know what you’re all thinking: The first time we see him, he’s fighting Terra. Antagonising him, working with Xehanort, all the stops. But, let’s consider the dialogue of that scene. (I talked about it a lot, here, and included a link to the scene on youtube, so, feel free to scope that out)

Specifically, the lines

“I’m just lucky he didn’t steal my heart like Princess– Whatever-It-Was. Heh. That would’ve ruined my week, for sure.”

and 

“So wait- You mean… He’s not the one who stole her heart?”

Braig went into the confrontation(s) with Terra fully believing Terra was stealing peoples’ hearts. We can gather from the entire conversation with Xehanort that he [Braig] has a basic knowledge of what ‘hearts’, in this sense, are - not the literal blood-pumping organ, but, more like a soul, as far as I’ve imagined it. We can also assume he has some idea of what losing it does, since he knows it’s a very bad thing, and he has a basic knowledge of what ‘light’ and ‘dark’ are, in this sense, as well (given that Xehanort speaks as though he expects Braig to understand these concepts, and Braig is in fact able to follow along with the conversation). I’m not entirely sure how much the end of this lil ramble meant, since I can’t pin down how much Braig did or did not know about light, dark, and the nitty-gritty of hearts (in fact, I’d wager BBS is the one game so far he’s utterly clueless in), but, this is a fact that many people (including myself) often gloss over, or don’t realise the impact of.

Braig fought Terra, as I said, believing Terra was ripping peoples’ souls out of their chests. And not just any people, a princess.

Royalty.

So, it follows that Braig, a royal guard, might think, huh, there’s some guy going around with what I understand to be an all-powerful weapon and the ability to cross realities, and he is attacking royalty in a really fucked-up way. I should probably do something about it before he gets at my royalty. 

Whether he [thought he] was protecting King Ansem, or Kairi flexes angst muscles @ kai, or even just the other guards, who would also have had to fight this all-powerful warrior, I can imagine he did a brief calculation and figured someone was going to be a lot safer if he could ‘deal with the problem’ before it got out of hand. So, when the ‘wise old man’ he clearly trusted says ‘We can stop this without involving anyone else, everything will be fine, you’ll be okay’ (’You said I wouldn’t get hurt!’) and, as a bonus if Braig wins, he gets the super weapon and related magic powers, why would he say no? His response would be something along the lines of ‘I’m down. You point, I shoot, man, what’s the plan?’

Like all of the best tragedies, he went into that fight thinking he was the good guy. 

Yeah, he knew he was playing dirty (’not the most polite way to go about it’), but, that didn’t matter, he knew and openly admitted that he wouldn’t be able to beat Terra in a fair fight. He knew the guy was a beast, and that was probably another part of the reason he decided to go with this. From what we’ve seen, Aeleus and Dilan are on door duty at least once in a while. That means. if Terra were to attack RG, those two - Arguably, Braig’s favourite people in the known universe(s) - would be the first to be mowed down by a soul-stealing super soldier. Does Braig think the two of them are strong? ‘Course he does. Does he think they’re keyblade-master strong? He has no idea. For all the little tidbits of info Nort-Report seems to be feeding him, I don’t think Braig really has any idea what a keyblade is actually capable of. He doesn’t know if Aels and Dil would survive an encounter with a keyslinger, and he doesn’t want to run the risk. 

Now, I’m not saying he didn’t have a hand in the pot for his own, selfish reasons.

“All I’m asking is that you hold up your end of the bargain!”

... Definitely implies he thinks he’s getting something, personally, out of this, in my book, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t think he was gonna get a keyblade. (That’s a headcanon I’ve had for years, and I’m sure I’ve explained it over a few posts, but, it’s neither here nor there as to why I think that, right now). But, he absolutely thought he was on the moral end of the scale. He thought he was doing the right thing. After all, Terra was stealing hearts, right?

...

Right?

Now, let’s get into the visuals of the scene, since I think I’ve run the dialogue and such into the ground. (Or, the dialogue relevant to the betrayal point.)

Let’s take a look at visuals. 

I’m lazy as shit with this one, but, look at his face. This is right in the middle of his realisation that Terra wasn’t the one stealing hearts, and look at him. Does he look triumphant to you? Jovial, arrogant, the mildly unnerving Freeshooter we all know and love? No. 

No, to me, he looks angry. He looks visibly upset. That’s not a ‘hell yeah, we did it’ face (even though we could easily argue this is exactly the outcome Xehanort wanted), this is a ‘what the hell have you made me do’ face. And, of course, right before we fade to black, Xehanort grins and chuckles; Braig does not. As I said, I think Braig’s completely clueless for this one game. And he’s just realising that this isn’t what he wanted; This isn’t what he thought it was.

But, hey.

Even Lucifer was an angel before he fell, right? 

The next time we see Braig, he’s antagonising Ven and Aqua, and then fights Aqua, like a good henchman.

But wait, can we get a screen cap comparison?

Well, no, but we can compare icons!

Here’s Braig, right after the Terra fight:

(him so sad ;n;)

Now, let’s get a close-up on his eyes.

Those are his eyes. Big, beautiful, warm puppy-dog brown eyes. 

...

Eye.

Whoop.

But, now, let’s get a look at his face during the Aqua fight:

And, enhance...

Little more...

That’s right, he’s fucking possessed. Braig goes from fighting Terra because he thinks Terra’s the bad guy, to questioning and even openly defying Xehanort, only backing off when threatened with death, to going blithely along with his plans because Xehanort frickin’ body-snatched him.

No, I’m still not over this.

Yes, I’m taking this as further evidence that he’s not on board with Xehanort’s plans. (Yes, I know I’ve used it, before.)

I also wanna go on a brief sidebar here, and say that Braig got ‘Norted before he lost his heart. I believe, aside from Xemnas, he’s the only one we see this happen to. I also think this is why Xigbar and Braig look so different, since in the 2.5 secret ending (link to that clip in the Plans post I mentioned at the top, if you wanna give it a scope), he’s back to himself, mostly, in terms of looks, and then shortly after, he’s Nobody’d again, and back to having long hair, looking older, etc. When he’s recompleted, he’s going back to the form that was just ‘Braig’; Even if he has Xehanort’s heart shoved in his chest, that was his body first. But Xigbar? Xigbar’s form was created from removing the horrific amalgamation of both Braig and Xehanort’s hearts from the same person. When he says he’s ‘half Xehanort’, I don’t think he’s just talking about possession (though he absolutely is at least half Norted), but he means he, as Xigbar, is literally tempered from Braig’s heart and Xehanort’s heart - two halves to make a whole nobody. Like a Steven-Universe style fusion, but like seven times more ungodly than most of them. Or maybe like a more stable Malachite. (Another reason why I think Xig has the potential to be the singlemost terrifying person in the series, if he wanted.)

I’m getting off topic here.

Anyway, back to Braig’s revenge plans. It’s my personal headcanon that Braig’s not really... Lucid, in the beginning stages of the possession. We can see a few bits of this in canon - like, he makes such a big deal about not being collateral damage, then in the Aqua fight seems totally fine with throwing himself into battle with Aqua to buy Xehanort time?? I mean, like I said at the top, this is gonna devolve pretty quickly into headcanon material, and this is about the point where that happens, but, I dunno, he just seems really- Off, to me, from this point on. Way too happy to go along with things, too eager to just run off and isolate himself with Terra/Apprentinort, all that. 

You know when I think we see the ‘real’ Braig again? When he seems to break through the haze of darkness, goes back to the mouthy, but lovable, if not somewhat of a twat, guardsman, when he starts questioning Xehanort, noticing that things aren’t adding up, looking like he’s about to throw down the freaking guantlet and thunderdome it right there?

Right here, when he gets his heart stolen.

More specifically, right before that, when Even and Ienzo are fading. When the other Apprentices got hurt, that seems to snap Braig out from under Xehanort’s thumb enough to try confronting him again (Worth noting that himself getting hurt, ie the fight with Aqua, didn’t do it. It was the others getting drawin into the line of fire that woke him up). Didn’t work, but hell, boy put in a good effort. Another part of my headcanons that are pretty much gospel for this blog and my portrayal of this muse is that Braig loved the other Apprentices more than anything. Even, Aeleus, Dilan, and Ienzo were kind of all he had in the family department - and yeah, he low-key secretly thought of them as family. Did they get on each others’ nerves? Hell yes. Did he do the majority of nerve-trodding? Well, he thinks he did, at least, and he does have a talent for it. But, those four were still his people, and he adores them endlessly. And Xehanort took them from him. Xehanort hurt them (and, as it becomes more clear to him, as his brain adapts to the darkness, he realises, he hurt them, too. This is his fault.)

Also, can we stop here a second, again, so I can talk about something? This scene, right here, is further proof to me that Braig was not a bad person. 

We know what Darkness looks like, in the KH sense, when it’s manifested in its purest form.

It looks like this.

And this.

And also this.

(one of these things is not like the other)

For bonus comparison, I went and looked up what it looks like when someone with a Dark heart gets Keybladed - Maleficent, specifically, since we know she’s steeped in the stuff. (Darkness, I mean. Not Keyblades. ... Maybe Keyblades too. Depends on where in the story you are.)

(three cheers for awful cap quality amirite)

Meanwhile, look what’s happening with Braig when he loses his heart.

Look how bright that is.

Look how much light was in this poor boy’s heart.

Look at how pure and bright and warm and good Braig had the potential to be, how his heart literally shines with this white sort of halo-esque deal, even after being possessed by Xehanort for a good deal of time. I dunno how long, exactly, but I imagine it took a bit of time between Braig’s first intro as a ‘Nort, to Terranort becoming Apprentinort and one of Ansem’s Trusted, to this. 

Look at that, though. There was a beacon in this kid’s chest. He was like a maglight. (I love him so much someone hold him and tell him he’s worthwhile for once in his life)

Anyway. Again, that was a bit off-track, so, back to the facts. 

Braig loves the other Apprentices. Whether you wanna take it as romantic, or platonic (it’s usually platonic, here. Emphasis on usually, though [eyyy Jess B)]), he loves ‘em. And this bright-hearted young man, who, as I said, maybe kinda did want to get something out of it for himself but also wanted to keep his home safe, just realised that he’s destroyed everything he cared about. 

His home is destroyed.

His friends are worse than dead.

And, as far as he’s concerned?

It’s all his fault.

But damn if he’s gonna take this lying down. 

But, he’s learned that openly challenging Xehanort gets him nowhere. The first time he tried? Keyblade to the throat, then possessed. Second time? Keyblade to the chest, heart stolen, homeworld destroyed. Like, how’s your streak going, there, bud? Not good, it seems. And, you know what? He’s not putting those four at risk, again. 

He knows a bit about hearts, and he knows a bit about keyblades. Not a lot, I don’t think; But enough. Probably a bit more than he did to start with, thanks to Ansem and the Apprentices’ research on the subject. All the experiments, and stuff? He had moments of clarity, not enough to realise what was wrong, but, he’s a curious guy, he did some poking around. He also knows that Xehanort will tell him exactly enough to stay useful, and to help the Old Coot’s plans along in the most seamless way possible. As Xehanort’s right hand, he’ll learn as much as he can. As his henchman, his flunkie, his assassin, his loyal tool to use and discard as he sees fit, Xigbar will learn, and be trusted with access to, things he would never be able to get his hands on, otherwise. As a recon and stealth-ops specialist for the Organisation, the same is true. The worlds are his oyster, and damnit if he’s not diving for pearls. 

And, what do you know? He finds one.

A few of them, in fact. 

Most notably, a way that the others can be made whole, again. 

The reason he’s not too torn up about Castle Oblivion? He wanted it to happen. He wanted members 3 through 6 to bite it. That was the plan, that was how they’d go back to being ‘whole’ again. He knew enough to know being whacked around by a keyblade wasn’t too bad, and, he sure as hell couldn’t off them, himself - Too risky. Too many ways it could go wrong. But if they’re ‘gone’, they’re safe from Xehanort, and they’ll be ‘themselves’ again. ... He wouldn’t be too happy if he learned what Axel had done, though. Not happy at all. 

But, before I get side-tracked again, I do very much think he wanted the others to recomplete. Like I said, his revenge isn’t for himself. Why? Well, there are two reasons, and they kind of go hand-in-hand. 

First, let’s go back to the 2.5 secret ending (also linked in the Plans post, way up there). 

In this scene, all of the boys are recompleted, and I, personally, am so happy for them. With the exception of the littles (Ienzo, Lea, Isa) growing up, they all seem to look like themselves.

Well.

All of them except for Braig.

Because, when we see Braig in this scene, what does he look like?

(Skipping right to the point with a close-up on his eye)

That’s right, even right after recompletion, he’s still possessed. Maybe that’s cause he went and got Norted again, but, I don’t think so. I think it’s because, like I mentioned, earlier, Xigbar was made from Braig’s heart, tainted with Xehanort; So, when he ‘recompletes’, he recompletes as Braig, tainted by Xehanort. There’s no way out, for him. I mean, the good news is, he’s adapting. He’s used to it enough that he can think and act with some degree of freedom, but, he’s still possessed. There is no ‘out’ for him until Xehanort is gone; and Xehanort can’t be ‘gone’ until Braig is, as well. (He thinks so, anyways.) So, his revenge isn’t for himself because he doesn’t think it’s possible for him to escape. He’s doomed to carry a part of the Old Coot with him, potentially forever. 

The second reason his revenge isn’t for himself is because he wants Xehanort gone. He doesn’t care what it takes, he wants the Coot wiped from existence. And despite the fact that I’d argue Xig is one of the most powerful people, magically, in the series (physical reality is his playground, it’s amazing), he knows he doesn’t stand a chance. If he tried ti take the old guy out, he’d be dead. No, he’s come to put a lot of faith in prophecy, these days, one way or another; The Seven Lights have to fight the Thirteen Darknesses for the whole thing to come to an end. And there has to be thirteen of them. If Braig could get out of those ranks, he wouldn’t. Why? Because, as Xehanort’s right hand, not only is he learning things, like I mentioned above, but he’s manipulating things. He’s in the prime position to tug along the puppet strings and make it so the old man falls. If he’s one of the Seekers of Darkness, he can wreck things from the inside, and make sure Xehanort gets taken down - and himself with him, since, again, he carries traces of Xehanort inside his heart, no matter what he does. 

He knows he’s expendable.

It’s one of the only things Xehanort told him that stuck. 

He’s expendable. nobody would miss him if he was gone. They don’t need him, any more. 

That so, old man?

Fine, then. 

He’ll be expendable.

He’ll let himself be cast aside and thrown away, he’ll throw himself under the bus, but he’s dragging you down, with him. He’ll let himself be obliterated, and he’ll cling to that shred of you that leeches off of him, and make sure neither of you ever see the light of day, again. 

If he lets himself be one of the Darknesses, and lets himself be killed, then, Xehanort won’t be able to hurt anyone else, ever again. 

Let me quote two of my favourite musicals, to help sum up Braig’s attitude (because I find lyrics really helpful for getting this sort of thing across):

The entire end-section of ‘Twisted’, from the musical of the same name, by Team Starkid, actually sums Braig up really hecking well:

What remains of a man, when that man is dead and gone? Only memories and stories of his deeds will linger on But if a man's accomplishments aren't in the tale they tell Are the deeds that go unheralded his legacy as well? If a war breaks out tomorrow, we'll all have hell to pay Why protect my reputation? I'm a dead man either way How will they tell my story? How will they tell my tale? Will anybody even care? The question then is whether 'tis nobler in the mind To be well liked but ineffectual, or moral but maligned? I'll never be a hero! All the citizens adore But if I hide to save my life What has my life been for? What has my life been for? The road ahead may twist, but I will never swerve I'll give them all the unsung anti-hero they deserve I've nothing left to lose So the only path to choose is twisted Let them twist my words, let the people scorn me Who cares if no one will ever mourn me? Let them bury the side of the story they'll never learn Let the truth be twisted Let my life be twisted I'll be twisted It's my turn...

But, if you want a shorter one? The start of ‘Dead Girl Walking (Reprise)’ from Heathers also sums it up nicely:

I wanted someone strong who could protect me I let his anger fester and infect me His solution is a lie No one here deserves to die Except for me and the monster I created Yeah! Yeah! Heads up, J.D., I'm a dead girl walking! [ALL BUT VERONICA] Hey, yo, Westerberg! [VERONICA] Can't hide from me, I'm a dead girl walking! [ALL BUT VERONICA] Hey, yo, Westerberg! [VERONICA] And there's your final bell It's one more dance and then farewell Cheek to cheek in hell with a dead girl walkin'!

(The chorus’ lines stricken out ‘cause they’re not relevant)

I mean, the difference here is, Braig didn’t want Xehanort to protect him, he wanted strength himself. But, the rest of it (pronouns/gender/names/etc aside)? That’s Braig to a T as things spiral towards the war. The Darknesses dying is the only way to get rid of Xehanort, and he can only make sure that happens if he’s one of the Darknesses. 

So, sure, he’ll be expendable.

Making him that way was Xehanort’s biggest mistake. 

Because, let’s face it, he took everything from Braig, and I mean everything. He doesn’t have a home, any more - Even if RG is rebuilt, do you really think he could go back? He doesn’t. He doesn’t have anyone who’d want him there - After everything he put them through, how could his friends even look at him again? It was because he was too foolhardy, he didn’t look hard enough, he didn’t do this or that or some other thing that they went through over a decade of Hell, so, they obviously want him gone, right? And his dad? Well, they never got along, even before Xehanort, he’ll probably be happy Braig’s gone (Wrong, Eadric was devastated by his son’s death, but Braig has no way of knowing that). He doesn’t have his own heart, any more. He barely has his own name. And, even if he is recompleted, even if there’s a day he were to wake up with those same brown eyes that melted so many hearts back in the day, he’s never going to even have his own face again. Never. He’s never going to be able to look in a mirror and see anything other than a mistake. The marks of what Xehanort did to him - No, what he did, marks of his own failure, his own damnation, his own idiocy, for lack of a better word, will be forever scarred into his face. 

He will never see ‘Braig’ again. 

He will never be ‘Braig’ again.

And that, you see, was Xehanort’s downfall. 

And before I elaborate on that point any more, let me just say he’s grateful, in a sick, masochistic sense, that at least some of the other Apprentices seem to hate him. Ferret’s Lexaeus, especially, though Zexion, in the cutscene I highlighted in that first ask, seems irritated and eager to get away from him, too. And, again, he’s grateful. 

It’s easier to play the part, that way, to keep the isolation game going and keep them out of the loop, but, beyond that, it stops Xehanort from acting too suspicious. It stops them from looking like collateral. If it looks like he still cares about the others, they could be used against him. Maybe they still will. But it’s a lot less likely if they all look like they don’t... Necessarily want anything to do with each other. (He savoured any moment of companionship he could get out of them, though. It was nice to have someone.) It’s a lot less likely when he gestures to their fallen forms and seemingly offers them up - “Which poor soul will it be?” - Even if, and I’m convinced on this, everything, right down to the gesture itself, was planned to draw attention away from the four of them in the most subtle manner possible. It also makes it easier for him to come to terms with what he needs to do, because, again, they don’t want him back. It;s not like he’ll be disappointing anyone if he stays. 

Remember that post I made, a while back? 

This one, right here? 

At first glance, it seems pretty relatable, huh? I hate waking up, too, Braig, I gotcha. But, no, that’s not it. The problem isn’t ‘Braig’s not a morning person’ (He’s not, but, not the problem). The problem is, he’s not supposed to be able to wake up. He’s not supposed to be alive. 

Like I said above, he planned to die. He didn’t see any future for himself, and he’s basically Xehanort’s horcrux, so, waking up at the end of it all? It doesn’t make sense. He’s supposed to be dead. The plan was that he would be dead. He’s not lucid enough to figure out what’s so wrong about being awake, but, there’s something very bad about it, and when he wakes up fully, he’s gonna be a mess. He’s been sticking to the plans he’s made for over a decade, and now he’s awake, and things aren’t following those plans, and nothing makes sense any more and he’s not even sure who he is, and it’s awful. It’s a really bad time for him. (He’s also just. Not likely to stick around RG after that, at least for a while, but that’s a story for another post.)

This is another sidebar, because I’m bad at staying on one topic for any too long, but I gotta say, recompletion for Braig? It was probably one of the worst physical moments of his life. Would’ve been very difficult for him, since, he didn’t have his whole heart, even as a ‘somebody’. Xehanort took that from him. With Xehanort gone, the hold on his heart is gone, as well (Or, I like to believe so; Braig’s not convinced), so, he’s gotta re-grow the damaged bits, or however that works, before he’s gonna be back to himself. It’s an awful, awful process, and that’s not even considering the Nort Withdrawal, which Aaron and I discussed before, but. I don’t have the post for that, so, just lemme know if that’s a thing people want to hear about.

But!

Back to the plans. 

When I say Xehanort fucked up by taking everything from Braig, I mean it. Way back when, Braig had things keeping him moral. He had things he wanted to protect, and wanted to fight for, and wanted to go back to, but now? Everything is either means to an end, or the end goal. He literally cannot afford to stay ‘good’, either because it would compromise his plans, or because of Xehanort’s influence, or a mix of the two. Usually a mix. To quote one of my favourite The Adventure Zone characters (and I’m not saying which one or which arc, because Erika is reading and I’m not spoiling it for her):

“I don’t care. The world is ending, and I don’t give a shit.”

At this point, he’s given himself to Xehanort. He’s killed. He’s lied, cheated, manipulated, and who only knows what else. And he’s done it all with a smile. Not all of it is playing a part, either; The darkness, the wariness, everything’s been weighing down and crushing him. He’s too broken down to care.

No matter what he does, he doesn’t care. 

All that matters is that his home winds up safe, and his friends/brothers/family go back in one piece. 

It doesn’t matter to him if anyone else gets hurt. He’s taken the phrase ‘you can’t save everyone’ to heart. 

Would it be great if he could get everyone safe? YES. That’d be amazing. He’d love shoving it in the old man’s face. But, he’s making compromises and sacrifices for those four. That’s all that matters. (A nice contrast to Sora, I think, who seems willing to sacrifice himself, but only himself, to save everyone, but, I don’t write him, so feel free to correct me.)

He’s so tired.

He’ll keep going, keep fighting, keep doing his self-given duty, but, the longer it goes on? The more he just wants it all to end. I think, by the end of DDD (especially after the ‘my friends are my power’ scene, that took a tole on him), he’s kind of looking forward to the battle? Just so he can rest. He’s tired.

And, you know what else makes me think he’s planning his own downfall, on top of Xehanort’s?

His most explicit acts of defiance, post BBS, all involve him giving the power to somebody else. Which you could argue is a great show of character growth from the ‘ooh let me have the all-powerful weapon this is good’, but, it’s not the best, ‘cause he’s still stringing people along, playing them all like fiddles, making them do what he wants, etc etc. 

But, when he knows how to find Ventus and Aqua, does he use that knowledge, himself? No, he tells Zexion, so Ienzo can put that knowledge to use, later. He absolutely knew more than he was letting on with Namine’s escape, and he let her go, I’m convinced (and then redirected the attention to Saix, low-key calling him out on the fact that Isa’s probably still in there and/or Saix can’t be trusted). Namine was the key to waking Sora up. Sora, the main protag, the brightest light we know. Also, she was responsible for sending Roxas and Xion* back to Sora’s heart - Getting the two wild-card keyblades away from Xehanort, so they’re left without those very powerful weapons under their control. Kinda nasty way to go about it. IMO (’but what can ya’ do?). He really didn’t put a lot of effort into taking Xion out (I mean, granted, she kicked his ass hard, that wasn’t him playing around, that was actually ‘oh shit, where did she go, OH SHIT WHAT’), but, he never fired a single shot. Axel comments on it, too. 

A: “The old man needs to get his eye checked. She just got away.”

X: “I’ll give him that. Can’t toss the blame around.” 

(That scene is here, by the way.)

All of this is to guide other people into helping and creating the seven lights. Unless you’re Zexion/Ienzo, nine times outta ten, you have zero reason to think Xig’s anything other than a loyal Nort. He wants the lights to form up. He doesn’t want it explicit he’s helping them (unless he has no other choice, a la Chamber of Repose/Chamber of Waking with Zex). He’s guiding along the keyblade war, but he’s making it so the Seekers are going to fail. 

He’s expendable.

This is all his fault. 

And he thinks he knows how to make it right.

(*I will say that his motivation on this one can have a double-meaning, depending on verse/thread. Like if it’s with @lostinmemory‘s Xion? There’s definitely the added bonus of her being safe in Sora’s heart, so they can’t keep doing increasingly fucked up things to the poor girl in the Organisation. ... Not that he remembers, afterwards, but, hey. Thought that counts, right?)

Anyway, this is long enough, so! If there’s any points you want elaborated on more, just hmu. <3

[londonspirit]

Doctor Strange is definitely the most psychedelic entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s full of kaleidoscopic visuals as the famed surgeon (Benedict Cumberbatch) becomes able to open new dimensions thanks to some spiritual training he receives in Nepal after surviving a horrific car accident. The Doctor will be central to Marvel’s third phase of storytelling and also potentially receive another standalone film.

Cumberbatch himself was long sought for the role but scheduling provided to be very difficult and forced Marvel to exercise some patience. Well, Marvel got their man in the end and Cumberbatch is perfectly suited for the role. When we got the chance to sit down and talk with Cumberbatch in London to promote the Blu-ray release, Cumberbatch talked about his excitement to become further integrated into the world of the Avengers. You can read the full interview below

COLLIDER: So Phase 3 of the MCU is very big for Doctor Strange. Can you talk about joining this immense world?

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: I can, but with no plot spoilers for future things. But yeah, no, what else could I be expected to say except that I’m thrilled. I feel like I’ve said it all before. It’s very exciting, it was great to be in origin film that’s done this well and I really enjoyed playing him, and even with the reshoots we did, it was great fun to put that costume and persona back on again, so I’m very excited to carry him forward. That’s all I can really say today, you know. But I’m genuinely really, really excited. I’ve got a lot of fun to look forward with the Infinity Wars and I’m sure with his own standalone film again.

And I’m sure there’ll be many fun interactions as you join more.

CUMBERBATCH: Yeah, and you get a hint of that, obviously, with the tease during the credits sequence. That was great fun to do, and of the Avengers that I’ve met I’d love to work with all of them, I don’t really have any favorites but they’re terrific actors.

I was actually going to ask, who’s your favorite pre-existing character?

CUMBERBATCH: I’m rubbish on favorites as anyone knows who’s bored themselves by listening to my interviews before, but yeah. There’s a lot of potential fun to have with mixing him into the ingredients that are already there, so I can’t wait.

And Doctor Strange became an Oscar nominee yesterday.

CUMBERBATCH: Yeah! Well, he’s right here, but yeah. Very deserving, SFX Department.

I’m wondering, on set while you’re filming, what did Scott Derrickson do to kind of let you know how the green screens and everything would be filled with these kaleidoscopic views?

CUMBERBATCH: Well, he and Ceretti, Stephane Ceretti who’s been nominated, and I’m so thrilled for him and his team, they really were incredible. They had already done a huge amount of pre-visualization work, which is, it’s a very kind of basic form compared to what the finished product is, but you get an idea of what the environment is you’re working in or what happens to it or you in it, and it’s then about making sense of sometimes very particular, technically accurate camera moves or any kind of framing that goes on.

It’s all smoke and mirrors, all of it. Whether you’re doing something in front of an incredibly realistic backdrop that Charlie Woods might have designed—I mean, he’s another person who I wish would also have been nominated, because you always look at these films as the world that’s created in edits or some kind of post-production or post-the day of shoot environment, and yet on the day there was some sets we were on, like the Hong Kong streets at the end, that was a month’s worth of shooting on an incredible street that was an amalgamation of all sorts of pieces of Hong Kong. It was phenomenal, I mean, it was so realistic, I remember at one point there was a grip who went in to fix a piece of machinery in a machine shop that was just part of the set dressing. These places on set actually worked. I mean, they were extraordinary acting environments where not only you, but also the camera could just spin 360 degrees and you leave the environment you’re in. So that’s a huge help. That’s a huge, huge help. And obviously there were days where you were literally kind of going, I’ve got to step outside this studio because I’ve been looking at green now 360 degrees for twelve hours. But surprisingly, a small amount of that compared to what you see on screen in the end. And Scott, you know, verbally would talk through obviously what was going on with the character, but you know, we had this wonderful attunement as well.

And what was it like filming in Nepal, especially after the 2015 earthquake, which I’m sure made shooting a film such as this a very big deal for the area?

CUMBERBATCH: It was, and for us to be there, and I was kind of—I was very, very adamant that we should, after the earthquake happened that we should still, because by then I was sort of attached to the film, and I said, look, I know insurers will be scratching their heads, but we’ve got to do this. It’s going to give such an incredible authenticity to the opening of the film, but more importantly, it’s exactly the time we should be going to a country that’s been through what they’ve been through, and show the world that they can support the infrastructure of a film like ours, and that it’s a place that’s open for business, and it was incredible. It was so well looked after, it was an utterly inspiring environment to be for the kind of, not just the visual backdrop but the whole sort of spiritual backdrop of this film.

Some of the holiest sights on earth for Buddhists and Hindus and multiple faiths are all there, and to be in amongst that when your character on his last legs bumbling around looking for some answer to heal himself as you see in this film, and then finding something a little deeper was profoundly important and really inspiring, I think, for all the crew to sort of see, okay, this is a slightly different direction for Marvel, this is the kind of film we’re committing to. It was magical, absolute magic, and I can’t wait to go back there, just as a tourist.

Yeah, I would love to go myself.

CUMBERBATCH: Oh, you would love it. It’s amazing place. It’s very special.

In the first film we heard Pink Floyd and Beyonce, what else would be on Stephen Strange’s awesome mixtape?

CUMBERBATCH: It would be an awesome mixtape, I should get Scott on to that, definitely. Oh, I don’t know, I mean, there’s lots of stuff I listen to which he may, he may listen to. I think, you know, Radiohead would feature, Elbow. I’m just mentioning all my favorite bands. No, I mean, if he can go from Chuck Mangione to Pink Floyd, I think you’re covering a lot of bases. It would be a very, very interesting time as a DJ. And why not? Why not?

Give it to Star-Lord.

CUMBERBATCH: Yeah! We should exchange tapes! [laughs]

Give him some new tunes. He’s stuck in the 80s, after all. Get him up to date.

CUMBERBATCH: That is a great idea. That is a great idea. Both Star-Lord and Strange have quite a lot of music going on in their worlds.

Well, it’s a great origin film and I’m definitely looking forward to see what happens next.

CUMBERBATCH: Thank you. Yeah, you guys had such high expectations at Collider, I felt like there was no way it was going to reach Schnepp’s expectations and I was very pleased that he was happy with it. I mean I’m happy with how a lot of people received it, but I’m glad you guys liked it!

[thoroughlyskeptic]

Doctor Strange is definitely the most psychedelic entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s full of kaleidoscopic visuals as the famed surgeon (Benedict Cumberbatch) becomes able to open new dimensions thanks to some spiritual training he receives in Nepal after surviving a horrific car accident. The Doctor will be central to Marvel’s third phase of storytelling and also potentially receive another standalone film.

Cumberbatch himself was long sought for the role but scheduling provided to be very difficult and forced Marvel to exercise some patience. Well, Marvel got their man in the end and Cumberbatch is perfectly suited for the role. When we got the chance to sit down and talk with Cumberbatch in London to promote the Blu-ray release, Cumberbatch talked about his excitement to become further integrated into the world of the Avengers. You can read the full interview below.

COLLIDER: So Phase 3 of the MCU is very big for Doctor Strange. Can you talk about joining this immense world?

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: I can, but with no plot spoilers for future things. But yeah, no, what else could I be expected to say except that I’m thrilled. I feel like I’ve said it all before. It’s very exciting, it was great to be in origin film that’s done this well and I really enjoyed playing him, and even with the reshoots we did, it was great fun to put that costume and persona back on again, so I’m very excited to carry him forward. That’s all I can really say today, you know. But I’m genuinely really, really excited. I’ve got a lot of fun to look forward with the Infinity Wars and I’m sure with his own standalone film again.

And I’m sure there’ll be many fun interactions as you join more.

CUMBERBATCH: Yeah, and you get a hint of that, obviously, with the tease during the credits sequence. That was great fun to do, and of the Avengers that I’ve met I’d love to work with all of them, I don’t really have any favorites but they’re terrific actors.

I was actually going to ask, who’s your favorite pre-existing character?

CUMBERBATCH: I’m rubbish on favorites as anyone knows who’s bored themselves by listening to my interviews before, but yeah. There’s a lot of potential fun to have with mixing him into the ingredients that are already there, so I can’t wait.

And Doctor Strange became an Oscar nominee yesterday.

CUMBERBATCH: Yeah! Well, he’s right here, but yeah. Very deserving, SFX Department.

I’m wondering, on set while you’re filming, what did Scott Derrickson do to kind of let you know how the green screens and everything would be filled with these kaleidoscopic views?

CUMBERBATCH: Well, he and Ceretti, Stephane Ceretti who’s been nominated, and I’m so thrilled for him and his team, they really were incredible. They had already done a huge amount of pre-visualization work, which is, it’s a very kind of basic form compared to what the finished product is, but you get an idea of what the environment is you’re working in or what happens to it or you in it, and it’s then about making sense of sometimes very particular, technically accurate camera moves or any kind of framing that goes on.

It’s all smoke and mirrors, all of it. Whether you’re doing something in front of an incredibly realistic backdrop that Charlie Woods might have designed—I mean, he’s another person who I wish would also have been nominated, because you always look at these films as the world that’s created in edits or some kind of post-production or post-the day of shoot environment, and yet on the day there was some sets we were on, like the Hong Kong streets at the end, that was a month’s worth of shooting on an incredible street that was an amalgamation of all sorts of pieces of Hong Kong. It was phenomenal, I mean, it was so realistic, I remember at one point there was a grip who went in to fix a piece of machinery in a machine shop that was just part of the set dressing. These places on set actually worked. I mean, they were extraordinary acting environments where not only you, but also the camera could just spin 360 degrees and you leave the environment you’re in. So that’s a huge help. That’s a huge, huge help. And obviously there were days where you were literally kind of going, I’ve got to step outside this studio because I’ve been looking at green now 360 degrees for twelve hours. But surprisingly, a small amount of that compared to what you see on screen in the end. And Scott, you know, verbally would talk through obviously what was going on with the character, but you know, we had this wonderful attunement as well.

And what was it like filming in Nepal, especially after the 2015 earthquake, which I’m sure made shooting a film such as this a very big deal for the area?

CUMBERBATCH: It was, and for us to be there, and I was kind of—I was very, very adamant that we should, after the earthquake happened that we should still, because by then I was sort of attached to the film, and I said, look, I know insurers will be scratching their heads, but we’ve got to do this. It’s going to give such an incredible authenticity to the opening of the film, but more importantly, it’s exactly the time we should be going to a country that’s been through what they’ve been through, and show the world that they can support the infrastructure of a film like ours, and that it’s a place that’s open for business, and it was incredible. It was so well looked after, it was an utterly inspiring environment to be for the kind of, not just the visual backdrop but the whole sort of spiritual backdrop of this film.

Some of the holiest sights on earth for Buddhists and Hindus and multiple faiths are all there, and to be in amongst that when your character on his last legs bumbling around looking for some answer to heal himself as you see in this film, and then finding something a little deeper was profoundly important and really inspiring, I think, for all the crew to sort of see, okay, this is a slightly different direction for Marvel, this is the kind of film we’re committing to. It was magical, absolute magic, and I can’t wait to go back there, just as a tourist.

Yeah, I would love to go myself.

CUMBERBATCH: Oh, you would love it. It’s amazing place. It’s very special. In the first film we heard Pink Floyd and Beyonce, what else would be on Stephen Strange’s awesome mixtape?

CUMBERBATCH: It would be an awesome mixtape, I should get Scott on to that, definitely. Oh, I don’t know, I mean, there’s lots of stuff I listen to which he may, he may listen to. I think, you know, Radiohead would feature, Elbow. I’m just mentioning all my favorite bands. No, I mean, if he can go from Chuck Mangione to Pink Floyd, I think you’re covering a lot of bases. It would be a very, very interesting time as a DJ. And why not? Why not?

Give it to Star-Lord.

CUMBERBATCH: Yeah! We should exchange tapes! [laughs]

Give him some new tunes. He’s stuck in the 80s, after all. Get him up to date.

CUMBERBATCH: That is a great idea. That is a great idea. Both Star-Lord and Strange have quite a lot of music going on in their worlds.

Well, it’s a great origin film and I’m definitely looking forward to see what happens next.

CUMBERBATCH: Thank you. Yeah, you guys had such high expectations at Collider, I felt like there was no way it was going to reach Schnepp’s expectations and I was very pleased that he was happy with it. I mean I’m happy with how a lot of people received it, but I’m glad you guys liked it!

Doctor Strange will be available on Blu-ray on February 28. It’s currently available in digital HD.

Emphasis mine. I like this kind of interview. Bee-aaa—utiful PR!!! Also Ben reads reviews? That’s new…

[survivingart]

NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL SYMBOLS

Just as with sweeteners and coffee, you have natural and artificial options to spice up your art, too. Both sweeteners and symbols are created by moulding reality to our will, but unlike aspartame and the like, artificial symbols don’t have negative health side effects (unless we count war and propaganda, of course). 

It does though open up your work to the possibility of being misinterpreted, and in today’s blunder, we’re going to take a peek at how we can at least guide our audiences into the right direction as well as take a jab at the underlying question that many of you might be asking yourselves. Namely, if there even is a “right” direction with art — we might just as easily say that any perspective is a valid one and that there are no “wrong” ways to understand a work of art. 

Well, let’s find out!

First, let’s take the basic idea of a symbol and — using our tiny mental equivalents of surgical equipment (our thoughts) — try to see if we can’t find a good and workable definition of what a symbol actually is.

The problem isn’t that symbols are amorphous blobs that evade scrutiny every time we try to observe them closely — this isn’t quantum physics — the real issue comes forth because of the exact opposite: 

You can’t but see something in anything you observe attentively.

Symbols really are just neatly assembled and wrapped ideas that were made presentable and therefore intriguing enough to stand out from the crowd of everything else the world has to offer us as far as experiences go.

To be clear, we’re not going to talk exclusively about visual symbols, because the experience and inner workings of symbolic structures are more or less the same regardless if we look at them, hear them or smell them — albeit our focus will be visual arts, because, well, my numbers say most of you lovely souls reading or listening to this are visual artists just like me and evaluations of sheet music just don’t ring as true to us as a nice, juicy-red Barnett Newman painting. 

And, I also have to address all of you philosophy and linguistic aficionados: When I say semantics, symbolism (but I never use the term semiotics) — as far as I’m concerned — all three mean more or less the same. 

This isn’t due to ignorance, but because semiotics, being the study of symbols, and semantics, being the study of the meanings of words, in the end combine into one, big, splashy field of study. 

And that’s exactly where we’re all going today.

Symbolism is to words like water is to rivers; you could have a river of oil or ketchup, but when you read the word river, it’s just more likely that water is going to be involved. The same goes for symbolic structures. 

You have non-linguistic symbolism — we will talk about that — but the majority of symbols we encounter in our daily lives that actually do spark our interest (especially our intellectual interests) are all built on language and operate by its rules.

So, symbolism:

The human mind is a wonderful piece of meaty equipment, especially one part of it, residing somewhere in our prefrontal cortex, that not only makes us the apex predators on the planet (if we do not count the penis fish or Candiru of the Amazonian rainforest — that creature scares me to death), but also gives us the ability to be attentive.

And if you’ve been part of this channel for a while, you know how I love attention and the old myths regarding its importance.

Attention is the cornerstone of the human condition; it’s the starch or agar-agar that holds our fragile whipped cream-like amalgamation of anxiety, fear of death and other basic drivers at reasonable bay and in a homogenous enough shape so that we can (even though nihilism is just a thought away) still enjoy the finer things of life. Like ice cream, art and thinking about things.

Attention is also the basis of how symbolic structures and understandings are formed in our brains; without us being attentive enough, we could never learn the meaning of something and therefore would be forced to uncover meaning in things, people and other phenomena every time we’d encounter them — rather than how it actually works, where we have a basic concept saved somewhere in our meat noodle and use it to manoeuvre through the world.

Take a stop sign for example; it takes attention to be able to focus on a red piece of octagonally-sheet of metal, painted on with four white scribbles of lines, and see a prompt to stop. 

It takes even more attention to learn that said collection of red and scribbles is actually a universal prompt that can be found almost all around the world and that every time we encounter it, we have to stop.

Were we not to posses this ability to memorise certain collections of either words, images or even sounds and smells into systems (or to say differently symbols), we would have a panic attack every time we sat in our car, go to the supermarket and probably every time we turned on our tap at home to get a drink of water (especially if youe tap is actually a faucet and most likely doesn’t produce clean, drinking water).

Without our ability to think and experience life via symbolic structures, causality would be a cruel and completely foreign mistress indeed.

But, that’s (luckily) not the case. 

We do learn to manoeuvre through life via symbolic structures or ideologies, and my favourite example for how symbols work is Beethovens’s 9th symphony — I lied, there will be a bit of sheet music analysis after all — more commonly referred to as The Ode to Joy.

Since its creation, The Ode to Joy has been used by a myriad of different, even contradicting causes, to propagate their ideas. Used by both governments of Nazi Germany and Communist China, by the protesters in Chile, demonstrating against Pinochet and the then ruling class. 

It was played at the fall of the Berlin Wall, by christians, buddhists and all sorts of other religions — it was also the theme song of the USSR (old-school talk for communist Russia), picked by Stalin himself.

In short; everybody and their fascist grandma used to relate to that song while just over the border the same tune was played by diehard communists — and now it’s the unofficial hymn of the European Union. 

It’s a lot like if the song Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees was used by both sides of any conflict (the concert itself would probably be aired in some neutral country like Switzerland with the speakers faced into the direction of the fighting countries) and just blasted onto the battlefield with everybody, regardless of side, religion or mindset, relating to the same thing; the beauty and sheer amount of grace 3 pairs of airtight trousers can unleash in a society without autotune. 

If they only knew what was coming…

While my example is based on music, it works in visual art all the same. There’s a wonderful story someone told in a video somewhere on YouTube (might be Peterson, but it could also be Žižek or any other philosopher/sociologist fond of either lobsters or other people’s toilets, so I couldn’t say for sure):

He said that he owns a portrait of Stalin that he proudly hung on one of the walls in his home. But, being someone that despises the horrific deeds that man was capable of doing, that portrait doesn’t hang there as a token of reminiscence or a symbol of some old, partly-forgotten way. 

He keeps it there, because of the sheer fact that he can watch the ideology of the painting slowly crack and fade away. 

Meaning; now it might still be a portrait of Stalin, the horrible person, but over time — in 100 or 200 years, when nobody that actually remembers what happened firsthand is alive anymore — he’ll just be another “old important guy on a painting”. Just like the rest of them, probably exhibited in some museum and sorted on the merit of date or technique, not deeds.

He might even be hung next to some old Russian icon of Jesus — when ideology vanishes from people’s hearts and minds, it leaves its products empty and only the technical traits like size, colour, texture, motif and composition stay. 

So, ideologies or structures of symbols are empty of meaning when the context is removed form the equation. The only things that stay regardless if a painting is presented inside a religious, political or plain-old white cube context are natural symbols.

Natural symbols, unlike their counterparts — symbols of the artificial variety (sounds like a tittle for a Philip K. Dick novella) — are timeless and non-linguistic. As their name implies, they originate not from any man-made context (like language), but from a wider, much much older context of nature itself.

For example; nature is more than 4 billion years old. People one the other hand have only existed for about a couple of hundred thousands of years — even just a couple of thousands, if we only start counting from the first known formations of civilisations, when a lot of the artificial symbolic systems we all know and love (like the Bible, Koran, Talmud, and other religious texts, that shaped western society) were formed.

But I’m sure all of us that ever spent at least a few hours studying visual art theory (or went to any school, really) are more familiar with a different name, that our field has given to natural symbols: basic artistic elements — or design elements, if you studied design.

There are seven of them, to be exact: line, shape, space, value, form, texture, and colour. Other natural symbols include the second basic assortment of artistic tools, the principles of art or design: unity or harmony, balance, hierarchy, scale or proportion, dominance or emphasis, and similarity or contrast.

All of these basic features that anything in the world (especially in the world of art) has, are not manmade — they are the features around which our perception and interaction with the world evolved.

On the opposite side are artificial symbols; these are all manmade structures, like symbols for love or hate or appreciation. Think of how various differences between cultures (especially the east and west) create an incredibly disparate context around the same symbol, like the O.K. sign. 

A gesture where the thumb and index fingers are connected and the rest left to form a kind of mohawk, but with fingers, is more or less known to communicate agreement or content with something; like in Japan, where it means wealth and is therefore a good thing.

But in the Middle East, it usually represents an anus and is meant as an offensive gesture, pointing towards the recipient not only having an anus, but also being one. In Kuwait for example, the same gesture is understood as an evil eye, a course laid on the recipient.

And in places like France it gets even more convoluted, because of the cultural diversity of the country, it can mean both a good and a bad thing to different people. The point to take home is to have ones hands under control when traveling and that artificial symbols — unlike natural ones, that always mean the same thing — depend on their context to give them meaning or their semantic value as it is also called.

And you can also combine natural and artificial symbols together (that’s more or less the majority of all symbolism — an amalgamation of both).

While a line will always be a line and a dot will always be a dot, we can make an amalgamation by drawing two dots and writing “sesame seed” under one of them and “butt hole” under the other. The point is that understanding the difference between natural and artificial symbols is imperative if we wish to help guide our viewers through the labyrinth of experiencing our art. 

While of course even the most basic of shapes and colours can become imbued with subjective, extremely personal meanings for some people (winning 100 million Euro in a lottery while being dressed completely in baby blue clothes will leave an imprint on the mind for example), natural symbols usually have similar meanings and offer similar impulses to most people.

But it’s also not impossible to predict how certain groups of people will read a certain arteficial symbol either. 

Punks will usually see the symbol for anarchy when confronted with the letter A painted onto a wall, but it could just as well be a badly painted logo for a new Avengers movie and Marvel fans will most likely only see that meaning. And many won’t even notice it, because they have no deep relation to the symbol; that’s why some people see something in art, that others don’t. They are just projecting what they think is important to them onto the work they are experiencing. 

And that’s also why art is such a wonderful and powerful medium; when confronted with a good, layered and complex work of art, it will eventually show us — just like the mirror in Harry Potter — exactly what we are striving for, whether we like it or not.

Our job as artists therefore is not to produce blindly and unconnected with our environment, but to carefully craft our products in such a fashion that they become part of our zeitgeist — of the now. 

Only then can both artificial and natural symbols work in unison, forming a strong and easily legible communications channel with our audience and giving them not only the ability to see what is important to us as creators, but also what is most dear to them.

In the end, we merely facilitate the artistic experience by making art, the viewers are the true artists, creating the artistic experience by immersing themselves into our work and opening up enough to internalise it as part of themselves. 

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