#it's more dynamic... but I will always mourn that I lost quite a bit of the softness.

[orengejoshi]

Paperhatober Day 5: Redraw

old version Nov 2022:

[midnightinwales]

@grapesnolives thank you for the link, I'll check it out during the weekend. I agree that their experimentation is always beautiful and fascinating to hear. They had singular sensitivity to the emotion – sound axis. And you can never be bored with it.

I've moved us to a new post, since our conversation is veering off the topic of the original post and I think we've hijacked enough of that already ;)

Unfortunately, I don't have the source for that quote about Robert, as I have been consuming a lot (and I mean A LOT) about LZ in the past few months, but in quite a chaotic manner and I haven't been taking notes. But If I come across it again, I'll send it to you. I was also surprised by it, but I guess it makes sense, since it was originally Jimmy's band and I believe that as time went by and Jimmy was losing his grip on reality more and more, Robert might have felt constricted a bit or started to develop a need for more independence. Nothing unusual in that, it happens in pretty much any band. He might have also been genuinely annoyed at the endless solos, quite like Bonzo, and JPJ probably too. I mean, to make a six and a half minutes long song into 45 minutes is both amazing and unnecessary lol. And Robert did have a bit of an imposter syndrome, still has, actually. He often spoke about them as 'three musicians and me'. 'I'm just a wedding singer who sang with musicians', and how his elaborate singing style developed as a method to stay in the song, cause the long musical intervals made him feel irrelevant. He definitely wanted to impress Jimmy and there was a lot of reverence for him as the worldly, knowledgeable, experienced musician who created his own band. But that began to disappear when Jimmy got heavily into heroin imo and definitely lost after 1977. Robert's priorities changed. His view of life changed. The love was still there, but Jimmy was no longer someone that Robert had to live up to, so to speak. Now he was someone to protect (and, in a way, someone to mourn). But the initial experiences formed Robert as a singer, set his standards and informed his view of musical expression.

I've also noticed that he makes fun of Bonzo (the diarrhea jokes will live with me forever, thanks Bob :/ ) and JPJ (and himself, occasionally), but not of Jimmy. IMO that's because he and Bonzo were 'bros', mates, and that's typical friendly behaviour in this kind of relation. JPJ was also a guy in the band and concert is entertainment, so it's only fair to make people laugh. It created a sense of dynamics, each band member had his quirks and image to play with. But with Jimmy he is only ever sweet and attentive. Not least because Jimmy Page can't take a joke imo. He's quite fragile and Robert knew it very, very well. But this doesn't read to me as reverential, but rather as caring. He knew not to make Jimmy the centre of attention that he might not see as entirely friendly. And his mysterious image had to be uphold too. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but whenever Robert speaks to Jimmy his tone of voice slightly changes. It becomes softer and warmer. ‘is it alright, love?’ kind of thing. He definitely wanted to be in Jimmy’s good books and for more than one reason.

I’m not surprised you thought they were a duet, seeing the photos. I recall seeing photos of LZ throughout my life and they’ve always been focused on J and R. I didn’t know what the other band members looked like before I started listening to the band. I knew Bonzo’s name because of his tragic death, like I do many other musicians’ who met their ends way too early, and knew that he is recognised as one of the, if not the greatest rock drummer of all times. But that was about it. IMO, he is the greatest of them all and he’s the only one whose drumming makes me genuinely tear up. There is as much emotion in Bonzo’s drumming as there is in Robert’s singing. Astonishing.

If you’re asking how I got into the story of J and R, it was quite simple really. I remembered the photos I’ve mentioned (mostly the WLL mic in the hair singing) which have always looked very suggestive to me and had heard before that part of the magic of LZ was the interplay between the two, and so when I finally got into their music I started doing my research to see if my initial impression was correct. And found plenty of evidence to confirm it, some of it much more straightforward then expected. But if you’re asking how I got into LZ then I’d say it was time for them to come into my life. One night on YT they appeared on my list and the journey began. I knew some of their songs before (STH, WLL, Dazed, a couple of others) and I had quite an emotional experience listening to Stairway as a young teenager, but that was the extent of it. I firmly believe that music comes to us at the right time and there’s no point in forcing it. It will find you if it’s meant to. And it will be a journey you’ll never forget.

Have you always been interested in drumming or is it the first time when it has captured your attention so much? Have you been into LZ for a long time?

[roomeight]

Graham Coxon's Foreword to Narcissus & Goldmund

At seventeen I was wide-eyed and thirsty. I was a student studying General Art and Design. I was a sponge determined to absorb everything I could. All new experiences rang with significance - the pictures, the films, the books, the music, the photographs, they all filled my world with a sense-heightening mess of magic, I humbly held artists of any kind in very high esteem, marvelled at their work. I would walk the streets of Colchester dressed in overalls and tweed, smelling of turpentine and oil paint, much to the despair of my mother. I was a proud student, an honoured aesthete.

At this time, one teacher made a particular impression on me and the rest of my group, although to many it was a bad one. This teacher appeared from nowhere and seduced us into defining ourselves and, in doing so, unwittingly split our group into factions - or at least accelerated the process. What she did was simple and playful but left me feeling as though I had undergone an important personal and creative development. She stacked tables and chairs to the ceiling, climbed up and hung up a roll of tape with string. She then encouraged us to draw it as it swung around the room. The precious graphic design types rolled their eyes, silently mouthed curses, felt for their fine-nibbed pens and bemoaned the prospect of another two hours with a teacher that was so obviously a weirdo; but to others, those of a looser nature, myself included, this eccentrically dressed, enthusiastic, beaming woman immediately became a heroine, and we slashed at our huge sheets of paper with our sticks of charcoal. The already cynical graphic artists thought her teaching pointless and undignified, but the fine artists loved her and admired the unashamed energy and enthusiasm she displayed so unselfconsciously. You were for her or against her. She neither patronized us nor intellectualized, and so created an environment in which we began to the making of marks on paper as a highly personal, sensual, spiritual act.

Late one morning I was sitting drinking coffee and smoking one of those very, very first cigarettes, when she smiled over at me and came to join me at the table. "There's a book you should read, Graham, if you haven't already. I think you would love it. It's called Narcissus and Goldmund. The title alone made me imagine it might be heavy-going, so I found myself avoiding the book for quite a while. I don't know why I didn't at least give it a go. Maybe I wanted to preserve the feeling of excitement of knowing that something beautiful and hugely important was just around the corner but felt it so intimidating that I was loath to quit the comfort of loitering in an adjacent alley. Maybe I felt flattered that a woman I greatly admired thought me mature enough or intelligent enough to contemplate recommending such a book. I am sure she recognized that I was more an empty vessel than a full one and wanted to contribute a little to filling me up, so maybe I was afraid that I would leave the book unfinished or find it boring and in so doing fail my new teacher. Maybe, maybe, maybe...

In any case, time went by, and I left the college and moved on to take a degree in Fine Art at Goldsmiths' College, part of the University of London. The book had been itching away at me for around three years by the time I finally bought it, turned to the first page and, breathing in deeply, took the plunge. I need not have worried. I didn't find the book at all difficult to read, and I was quickly immersed in it totally.

Although I now find myself in the privileged position of writing a foreword to this deeply moving and powerful book, I don't feel in the least bit qualified to do so. I never studied philosophy and I don't consider myself a 'thinker' as such, but I am an asker, an asker of big questions, and always felt there was more to learn and more to  experience right from the beginnings of my impressionable adolescence right up to now and my impressionable late youth.

The clean simplicity of Hesse's writing offers a vast space in which to push your weightless mind, and, although you can see the universe between the lines, he never forces you to venture too deeply but, rather, leaves it entirely up to you as to how far in you might like to travel. This is not just a story. This book is a gentle arm around the shoulder. It gets us off the hook, treasures us that there is still time, that surrender is possible even it is a surrender to ourselves, that no matter how recklessly we bolt out into the unknown the journey home is a brief one. It lets us know that even when we become lost in the crazed volatility of what we think of as freedom, reaching the very edge of our own flat world, gazing petrified over the edge at the black expanse of our own demise, we are but a change of hardened heart away from the innocence of our beginnings, from peace.

We see that outward journeys are easy - essential if somewhat desperate assertions of our will and independence. After all, we have first to be filled with something for an inward journey to be possible. This book made me wonder just how far down the dangerous roads of our early adult lives does the pull of a simpler  life begin to tug at our sleeves. When does the overbearing din of hollow seduction suddenly fall on deaf ears? Does the balance need to be addressed? If so, then when, finally, does an existence free of clutter prove more desirable than one of chaos?

I think we can all see ourselves in Goldmund. His experiences can relate sharply to our own, they melt and shape themselves into the mould of our own lives. Life and the material world was designed to seduce, and we ourselves are designed to be seduced by it. We career, uncompromisingly, through our early lives, proud of our strength and youth but never treasuring it. Maybe that's how it should be, that we squander it if only to mourn it later when we don't feel so invincible and have to savour each day of our late adulthood. Perhaps this may be why as we get older, we like more what we see when we close our eyes. Could this be God's way of making the transition into the next life a smoother, less traumatic one?

This book has proven itself to be a template to me. It has a perfect and gentle tension and familiar dynamic shape. It's a book where you can plot your own progress and plan your own happy ending. It has been a source of great inspiration to me throughout the sixteen years its words have been rooted in my head. It is a book that you can never grow out of because you grow into it, and it softens around you like a good old pair of shoes. It is not without its tragedy and its blood and its guts but shows this aspect of life to be as much a valid part of the journey as happiness.

Narcissus and Goldmund is a well from which we can draw limitless emotional strength, and I am not ashamed to say that I am extremely jealous that you might just be reading it for the first time.

- Graham Coxon, musician

2006

[phoenixyfriend]

Re; Ahsoka and Quinlan being the same age, now I'm picturing Ahsoka, Quinlan, and Rex eventually ending up in a weird sorta thruple where Quinlan comes in and out of the relationship but the door is kinda always open for him? And Rex spends a lot of mornings eyeing the tangle of orange and brown skin on the other side of the bed like he has no idea how he ended up here but he's (mostly) okay with that tbh

Context: Commander Buir in chronological order

YES okay so this is wild to me that people are invested in this but like half the time-travel fics with Ahsoka in the same age-group as Quinlan have me wondering if I should ship them. Let me just. Ho shit.

So, okay, I've explored a lot of possible dynamics but there's something really engaging about how Quinlan, trained as a Shadow before the Sith came back, could react to a War Padawan. Ahsoka isn't really infiltration material yet, she's very much a frontline fighter, but she's got a lot more experience with a kind of consistent dark atmosphere that most Jedi don't. They get exposed to plenty of dark stuff, sure, but not the kind of all-encompassing "this is my life for the last two years" thing that is usually reserved for the long-term field agents like Shadows and Watchmen.

The War Padawans, for all that they were supposed to be just normal Jedi Padawans, were living in the kind of consistently negative environment that's normally experienced by those Knighted Sentinels.

So Ahsoka, while still generally pretty young in these AUs, is a very odd kind of person to be around, because she's spunky and vivacious and snippy and affectionate and snarky and knows how to break every bone in your body from harrowing experience as the only thing standing between death and thousands of brothers.

And Quinlan, I imagine, really likes that about her. She gets it, and she's still an energetic and loving and trying to do her best to be a good person despite everything. He gravitates towards her and she... well, she's not blind. She can tell he's interested. And she's not upset about that.

ANYWAY, ONTO REX

So, Rex is... technically twelve. He hasn't exactly got a whole lot of experience with romance. He is also, up until the point of time-travel, legal property of the Senate and the Jedi Order, which means that Ahsoka, or at least her community, owns him. He was indoctrinated to serve her and that community. She also outranks him, for all that she usually lets him take the lead in the field due to experience. He's older than her physically and maturity-wise, but she's also had a grow-up-faster-than-you-should adolescence, and she has superpowers.

What I'm saying is, the power dynamic is fucked up.

(Unironically I spent hours last night realizing that it balances out a lot more than C*dywan does, which I'm censoring because by god do I not want discourse on this post. I like both ships, and don't want to argue about what's the most problematic. It's Star Wars. The only unproblematic ships are Bail/Breha and Owen/Beru.)

Here's the thing, though, because the main thing people seem to argue here is the age/maturity difference as a problem area:

The age difference in actual time is four years, which is smaller than the two main ships of the franchise (Han/Leia and Padme/Anakin, to be clear). The age difference in maturity is ??? We'll say that the clones started aging normally after they hit twenty, so the age difference in maturity is six years... which is still normal for SW ships.

(This is why I don't have any issues with the ship in a post-O66 context, once they've had a few years to move past the traumas and whatnot. The age stuff all evens out with time, they're a good team, and neither was grooming the other. It's not objectively any more problematic than most SW ships at that point, and I'm okay with that. They deserve to be happy if they want.)

But they get yanked away from all that structure of who owns what, who reports where, who has which rank, who's legally a person in the eyes of the Republic when they end up on Dagobah. Once they've registered when they are, the only remaining complications are:

He grew up in a cultlike environment and was indoctrinated to serve her (but has been replacing that indoctrination with genuine respect and affection for her as a person because they've worked together for two years).

She has superpowers (contextually not a big problem: we see several Force-Sensitive/Non-Sensitive ships that don't consider those powers a complicating element)

He's several years younger than her (canonically less of an issue than it could be: Cut got married and has kids) and has next to no experience with what a normal romance looks like except for hanging out on the edges of whatever the fuck his General has going on with the Senator

She's several years less mature than he is (...something of an issue)

So a lot of this is mostly okay. She feels weird about the fact that she's got more knowledge of romance and all that it entails. He feels weird about the fact that, despite her being older, he looks at her and sees someone that's still a little young, not quite a shiny. Except she is older than him, and he's seen her behead four people in a single move, and they've saved each other's lives more times than either of them can count anymore. He respects her, and the fact that she's babyfaced doesn't change the fact that, in terms of who they are as people and warriors, they're on a level playing field.

She still looks at him and mourns his lost childhood, and he still looks at her and takes a moment to see past the too-big eyes and adolescent proportions.

But they really, really care about each other, and maybe part of them is starting to recognize that there's a bit of a crush before they time-travel, but neither one wants to make a move. There's a lot of baggage on both sides, a lot of "but they're a child" and "but they're (literally vs functionally) below me in the chain of command, I can't take advantage of that" and all that fun stuff. It's the kind of situation where two people circle each other for ages without making a move, because actually making that move is terrifying on account of not knowing whether the other party knows they can say no, on top of the usual "what if it ruins our friendship?" thing.

What happens on Dagobah, though... is very tropey. They're sort of stranded until Ahsoka can fix the ship, and that takes time. The area is also very heavy with the Force, dense and heady with the energy it carries, and it's... actually really not great for Ahsoka. She keeps feeling like she's back on Mortis, and has nightmares from the trigger there, but also keeps hallucinating because she wasn't ready for the thickness of the energy (like Yoda) or still new enough to the Force that she couldn't feel how dense it all was (like Luke). She can't work on the engines as constantly as she'd like to get them out of there, and while Rex is a competent mechanic, he's not as skilled with it as the girl who jumped headfirst into lessons with Anakin.

Rex spends a lot of time holding Ahsoka and wiping her brow with a wet cloth while she's feverish and out of it. Yes we're going full Florence Nightingale romance here, let me have my fun.

They get the communications relay working earlier than the engine, find out the year is wrong, panic a bit. All is well. (It's not, but they're holding it together for now.)

Ahsoka keeps working on the engine when she's lucid. Rex keeps hunting up game and edible plants for them while she does. They cuddle at night, because it's not cold but it is empty of the people they care about, and they kind of want that reassurance of someone they trust and love at their back.

(Morai visits.)

(Daughter shows up in the nightmares, tells Ahsoka that age will not come for her beloved until the time is natural for it. The phrasing is dumb but she does manage to convey that the accelerated aging is no longer an issue, if it even was after they hit adulthood. Ahsoka is relieved.)

And, you know, emotions happen. She takes his hand while they're leaning up against each other. He kisses her forehead while she's having a bad spell. They cook together and tell jokes to keep sane and spar. They hug each other through nightmares and panic attacks. There is much blushing. There is much cuddling.

Once, they kiss.

They break apart, flushing and stammering and being very awkward about the whole thing, and make excuses to leave and panic about the fact that they!! Kissed!!!!!

A couple hours later they find each other again, and have a long and complicated discussion about why they like each other (war makes bedfellows, there's trust and affection and all that fun stuff) and why they're hesitant (age stuff, maturity stuff, prior indoctrination), and make the decision to take it slow. They cuddle, and kiss, and blush a lot because both of them are basically just dumb teens having their first real relationship.

They eventually leave the planet, make it to Coruscant, etc. It takes a bit for anyone except Obi-Wan to realize that something's changed between them. Most people didn't know them before, and Anakin's observation skills are currently at a very low ebb. But they sit together and hold hands, and flirt when they spar, and once or twice people find them kissing (both standard and Keldabe) in a corner while holding hands and then just smiling at each other like loons.

They end up rooming together because nobody has the heart to separate them after hearing about all the war stuff. Like yes attachment's bad, but these two do seem to understand loss of loved ones and recognize that they could lose each other at any time and death is natural and they won't lose their entire shit about it, and if even General Kenobi is anxious as hell about being separated from the people he fought side-by-side with for two years, then maybe it's just... really normal for those two to want each other's company, and everyone can just turn a blind eye to the romance happening.

They share a bed, but they only ever sleep in it. Like, there's some goodnight kisses and cuddles, but everything is very G-rated until they've had time to settle into being true equals instead of just the "well, I guess the power dynamics balance out? Maybe?" of before.

And just... yeah. Rex does not believe that he's in this good of a position whenever he has the time to think about it. He's got a girlfriend! A really pretty, smart, strong, skilled one! Who thinks he's a cool dude! How the fuck did a clone like him manage that? He wasn't even legally a person a year ago, how did he end up in bed with one of the most amazing people he's ever met? He spends multiple nights just staring at her while he tries to fall asleep, asking himself how he got here and just like... marveling at her. She's worth marveling at. He's in love and she's amazing and he has no idea how to handle it at all.

...yeah no I have a lot of feelings now.

[xivu-arath]

Wanted to hear your thoughts on the possibility of Mara's literary or narrative parallel actually being Xivu instead of Savathun. It's kind of a half formed idea from stuff I've been catching up on but Xivu and Mara seem similar when it comes to...I guess intent than Savathun to Mara. Possibly, Mara being close to what Xivu would act like if she was the eldest of her siblings.

yeah I've thought this was an interesting shift in perspective now that we have savathun and mara actually in the same place! (and apologies in advance, this is going to be a bit of a ramble about everyone involved before I get to the meat of your actual inquiry). also it should go without saying, but this post is not the place to get into mara's morality or what she did wrong or right or Who Is Worse - we're here to talk about character comparisons in how they think and act!

you'd think they'd lean on those parallels (and one of the seasonal lore entries certainly does, in a very weaponized way) but savathun also brings it up of her own volition, which was certainly... a Choice

I think this is because she's certainly aware of those parallels herself, and wants to draw attention away from them. right now she's the target of so much well-deserved hate and anger, and it's to her benefit to seem vulnerable and ambiguously benevolent. if she can also undermine mara's authority or (already somewhat muddied) character to us by comparing her to her ferocious and clearly threatening sister, then... well, that's a clever blow to strike, isn't it? especially to people who are likely to care about crow and might be resentful already

but I think it goes deeper than that. I've spoken in my analysis of xivu that I believe the hive gods make up for their deliberately flattened and streamlined emotions by drawing comparisons to their experiences and memories, as well as important bonds, because otherwise their frame of reference for much of the universe is so horrifically skewed that savathun wouldn't be able to get anywhere with her manipulations. her ideas of how people are motivated just wouldn't work. sure, she's definitely dissing mara and likely trying to ensure the guardian doesn't see her in a fond light - but there's likely a grain of truth in it regardless

mara acts like savathun does, and does prize the same things she does - secrets, encryptions, security. but in season of the lost we're seeing her in a much more personal context in-game for the first time, and there... yes, they do seem to act similarly forcefully when it comes to pursuing people who are trying to keep their distance. another astral alignment dialogue notes that xivu arath's relentless attacks seem obsessive and extremely personal, and mara's interest in crow as well as her reflections on uldren are... singleminded. most notably, savathun is entirely correct that neither of them can let go of the past right now

however, I think there's a few key differences here. xivu has always been quite close to her siblings, and makes the active choice to part ways with oryx and savathun to grow her strength on her own. mara and uldren's relationship was always defined by distance, which she mourns in rare moments when she knows she's going to die and leave him in one of her lorebooks, but her control of him is extremely hands-off until he's no longer in her orbit. then she suddenly needs to regain his attention and devotion, which is a very common unbalanced family dynamic. the hive siblings are, of course, also extremely unhealthy in their Everything, but to me, xivu's intent to reach savathun is more to get an explanation and demand a return to the way things were or be back on equal ground than to wrest back control specifically. it'll still be an extremely destructive meeting, which is why savathun wants to make sure it happens after her worm is out and Things Get Real

(I'm also tagging in @synnthamonsugar, who has made posts about her own thoughts on savathun's plan here and its echoes of trying to escape an unhealthy family dynamic, which sort of attaches on to this whole topic)

I feel as a whole their motivations and goals are too different to really work as complete narrative foils. but if it continues this way for family alone (at least until we have confirmed lore for how either savathun or xivu feel about their family! bungie! please!!!) then that works out quite well

I could see an older xivu, or even if she'd been from an earlier brood entirely and was used to being the protector of the other two, would be more focused on controlling and herding them, and be more inclined to be a more... forceful variation of mara, forbidding and stifling by shutting off choices or going first

I hope this covers everything you were interested in, anon!

[irritatedandroid]

The Fire Burns Bright

A Personal Essay From an Alolan Marowak -Jasper (@irritatedandroid, @irritatedDroid)

Summary: Below the cut, this is a personal essay written by Jasper on his experiences with being an Alolan Marowak fictherian and fictionkind. Personal experience, discussion of awakening, shifts, instincts, animality, culture and spirituality are elaborated on alongside a critical view on community narratives and boundaries.

CWs: In-depth look on death, personal experiences with death

   I find there isn’t enough discussion on the fact that nonhumanity can be approached from multiple different angles and axis, instead treated like a hard binary of animality vs humanity - or if you’re lucky, a two-way spectrum. I’m someone who is nonhuman through and through, but the way in which I can experience being “other” from humanity can shift wildly. A strong sense of animality is brought on when shifted towards my Alolan Marowak fictotype - enough that I tend to strongly identify with the word fictherian. Though that sense of animality is its own thing, and is a wholly separate scale from the nonhumanity I experience when shifted towards my android kintype. But the experiences drawn from being an android could fill an essay of their own. We’re here to discuss the Marowak.

   Both very not human, both very “other”, but a wholly different view upon what it means to be human and not human respectively. And I suspect the scale my Marowak self experiences may be different as well from the scale any given earthen animal may experience. Similar enough to where therianthrope discussion rings loud mental bells of familiarity and understanding, but still something else worth acknowledging. After all, how many earthen animal therianthropes feel the raw instinct of fire breath? Were-dragons however may understand that one well. And yet that animality is not something to be ignored or to set aside entirely even if the axis runs at a slightly off angle in comparison.

   My name is Jasper, and some of you might know me, I’ve been around the community for a couple of years. Some folks even remember the internal grapple with identity and understanding that I had when I started being unable to deny I am an Alolan Marowak. The moment when the Alolan Marowak design was teased, and I had pointed out the familiarity as well as the typing before it was actually shown. There was a moment then when experiences and vague, blurry memories I’d held onto quietly for years without the priority of digging in deeper - as I was already busy with questioning and understanding my android kintype - became an absolute priority of mine to understand further.

   I often half-joke about how my “awakening” as discussed in nonhuman communities was completely rocky, as it was. It was less a solid awakening, and more multiple years of slowly accepting and embracing aspects of my life that had always been present, which I had denied either to ease my own responsibility to myself or to appease others. Folks in the community may recall seeing me step into denial, and to substitute in any possible reptilian, fire-based creature I could in order to try and understand the experiences. Because how could I be a Pokemon? I’d been critical of fictionkin while diving into the community, something which when looking back was likely a compensation for already having been something odd and to be met with criticism - the android. I ran through a number of species when questioning: everything from earthen lizards, to draconic entities, to the elemental spirits of salamanders.

   There were multiple aspects absolutely vital to communicating what I was experiencing, those being a) instinct-driven and wild, reptilian, and b) inherently connected to the elements of fire and spirit. My thoughts could be as unflattering as a scavenger’s instinct, growing frustrated at any leftover food or uncleaned-up animal remains (which sure made living in a populated city interesting, with abandoned scraps of food everywhere and the leftovers of unfortunate urban creatures who tried their luck at crossing Yonge Street), or curious to try and make a meal for myself out of the live insects I keep to feed to my own little old leopard gecko, Saleen. Yes, she was named after a car. No, that is not important. Having her around does however provide an up close frame of reference to draw out my own lizard drives. In terms of food instincts, raw eggs are absolutely another tempter of mine, as my carnivorous scavenger self would have been ecstatic to see a nest of unattended eggs to make a meal of. As I’ve learned due to that raw eggs absolutely suck, please cook them. It’s much better that way. But embarrassing nonhumanity stories will always be embarrassing.

   Some of us Marowak - especially the males like myself - could become quite territorial. And that territorial feeling is something I’ve had to settle in my mind over life. Nowadays it’s decently well integrated, but it does now and then try my patience especially when it comes to setting out what is for me and what belongs strictly to me. Renting a small apartment in a populated city, once again, does definitely force you to keep the “this land is mine and it belongs to me, so screw off before you chase off my dinner” thoughts in check. A bit of human humbling for an animal’s self thought. I’ve of course needed to remind myself a number of times that the tourists in the train station on my way to work, while annoying, won’t manage to chase off the Tim Hortons I’ll be eating on my break.

   But in the wild frontier of the Pokemon world, predator and prey dynamics were absolutely important to know and understand - and those dynamics reach beyond game mechanics such as elemental types and abilities. Even as a carnivore, scavenger and troublesome predator that I was when I reached the age of a full-grown Marowak, I still was in a dangerous spot on the food chain. The worst predators I’ve had to deal with while working to survive in my ecosystems were other Fire types, intriguingly. Even as a small Ground type Cubone. The fact that Cubones wear the skull of their lost mothers was something I am familiar with, my own having been taken down by a Charizard. This natural order of predation is both a major part of my animalistic experiences as a Marowak, but also did tie into my more sophisticated or spiritually-focused aspects that stemmed from my Pokemon identity and lifetime.

   All of this lead to an animality-focused time in figuring out what I was, to the point where when I was in denial of the possibility of being a Pokemon, I identified myself as a theriomythic, fire-oriented reptile. And the animality definitely tends to lead the discussion upon how I live and experience being an Alolan Marowak. I sometimes joke that you could strip that side of my life down to the bare essentials and I’d be a lizard hanging out by a campfire. Though it certainly isn’t every aspect of me, as the Marowak.

   At times I think on the term theriomythic, and how it could be extremely valuable in describing more than just “animal but from myth”, but to also communicate experiencing the self on a spectrum of animality and mythicality. In my case this spectrum is very much there, and the aspects of experience that make up me as the Marowak are scattered along it. All aspects are important to me and how I live as myself, as well as how I understand my own fictional animality and nonhumanity.

   The Marowak, despite being a wild animal in how I recall and experience my species, do have a displayed aspect of culture and even spirituality. Setting aside the fictional wildness of being able to summon up fire at will to defend one’s turf, we’re shown to be able to interact comfortably with each other when it comes time for rituals, such as fire dancing at the sun rise and to mourn the lost. Mourning the lost is a large part of how one can experience being the Marowak as well, as it’s a pretty integral part of the species’ canon lore, starting from when we’re little baby Cubones. For those unfamiliar with Pokemon lore, a Cubone wears the skull of its dead mother Marowak. Adorning bones in a sort of ritual to mourn is something that I can’t say I’ve seen an earthen animal do. If you have then please do let me know, because it interests me a lot. But all I can say about it in my own drives and thoughts is that it’s just what we do, it’s cultural. To cite the Pokedex, “MAROWAK is the evolved form of a CUBONE that has overcome its sadness at the loss of its mother and grown tough. This POKéMON’s tempered and hardened spirit is not easily broken” (Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, 2002).

   The donning and weaponizing of bones is both symbolic and an act of mourning, but also an example of tool using similar to some of our world’s apes. The Pokedex talks of this vaguely, stating “It has been seen pounding boulders with the bone it carries in order to tap out messages to others” (Pokemon Gold, 1999). The various Pokedex entries theorize on where the bone clubs come from, some entries mentioning a graveyard specifically for Marowak existing in the world, where Cubone and Marowak get their bones. Some entries state this like fact, such as Pokemon Crystal, meanwhile others bring up this as a rumour, such as Pokemon Silver. In my experience, it’s a rumour. I’ve not seen a Marowak graveyard, my bone club first came from my mother. But the main referenced use of the bone club is as a weapon, and also as a method of overcoming grief and turning to viciousness. “It is small and was originally very weak. Its temperament turned ferocious when it began using bones.” (Pokemon X, 2013). In my case, the symbolic use of them is as a tool of war, transforming grief into a vicious will to fight on and survive. Due to this, I hold bones and particularly skulls as a sacred object and have my small collection of skulls I keep as comfort objects. With time, having a large femur bone similar in shape is a life goal.

   Though it does then get taken a step further, when peering in through the eyes of an Alolan variant Marowak. A spirituality that incorporates the dead and lost is brought in and becomes an extra step of important, crediting the Ghost type aspect alongside the Fire. Newer Pokedex entries focused on specifically this variant states “The bones it possesses were once its mother’s. Its mother’s regrets have become like a vengeful spirit protecting this Pokémon” (Pokemon Sun, 2016) and “It has transformed the spirit of its dear departed mother into flames, and tonight it will once again dance in mourning of others of its kind” (Pokemon Let’s Go, 2018). Spiritual awareness is very much accepted to be something that the Alolan Marowak possess and engage with openly, even building monuments to the lost as stated in the Generation 7 Pokedex entry: “Its custom is to mourn its lost companions. Mounds of dirt by the side of the road mark the graves of the Marowak” (Pokemon Moon, 2016).

   Culturally there is a lot to the Marowak’s experience, comparing and including both Alolan and Kantonian variants of the species. The species as I remember are mostly solitary but I do recall clan dynamics and groups especially among the Alolan variant. These groups were less for survival and more for the purpose of those ritual gatherings, mentioned above. At times I was very foreign to these clans, being a Kanto-born Cubone evolved in Alola (a fact supported in canon and proven in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon via the ability to evolve a Kanto Marowak in Ultra Space). Behaviorally and culturally there are differences between Kanto and Alolan Marowak, brought on by how each looks at their situation differently. While an Alolan Marowak processes mourning in a more spiritual way, a Kanto Marowak becomes hardened by anger. “A MAROWAK is the evolved form of a CUBONE that has grown tough by overcoming the grief of losing its mother. Its tempered and hardened spirit is not easily broken,” (Pokemon Emerald, 2004). Because of this there was a separation between myself and the local Marowak that reinforced my solitary nature, and also influenced my introverted and almost outright nomadic nature in my current life and self. The fire dance under the sunrise was one known in canon. These rituals and dances are a custom humans in canon have taken notice to, and can even speculate the reasoning for. “This Pokémon sets the bone it holds on fire and dances through the night as a way to mourn its fallen allies” (Pokemon Sword, 2019). The fact that that cultural dynamic prevailed even through the difficulty of communicating is something that may be surprising, but a number of nonhumans know well that body language and tone of animal vocalizations can go a long way in communicating

   Ignoring these experiences would be a step towards cutting down and denying important experiences that affect me as a fictherian and as a Marowak. There’s important parts of how I experience being this Pokemon that are heavily grounded in a context of a mystical world where visibly potent acts of fantasy are possible unlike the world we are living in here. Some of these aspects can be emulated in more subtle ways through exploration of spirituality, religion and the occult. To dive deeper into that, I used to identify as Pagan, however now I practice what is called chaos magic. Chaos magic is a magical practice that developed in England in the 1960’s, working off of Austin Osman Spare’s occult practice and ideas. Chaos magic gave me an approach and freedom to incorporate what I know and remember as an Alolan Marowak into my every-day spirituality. Tailoring my spiritual beliefs and practices to focus on working with the element of fire, with spirits and the energy of death, bones, and to the very fabric of fiction crossing over into reality was extremely important as an avenue for me to explore the way my fictotype affects me in the modern day, and in the human body. This practice also gave me a bit of freedom to accept working with an entity from my source - Giratina - as a patron deity in pagan circles, which ultimately proved to be extremely valuable in exploring my own Pokemon identity. Practices like energy work, meditation, spirit work and visualization hit close to satisfying that need to be delved into the magical world we see in animation. And yet, even in these more sophisticated and fantastical experiences lie links back to the animality and to an inherent disconnect to humanity.

   One thing I always enjoy in therianthrope and non-humanoid otherkin discussions is an openness to discuss the instincts that are ugly, disturbing or outside of what one’s human morals would ever agree with in this life and time. And in a lot of cases these instincts and memories can become a lot more “ugly” than a scavenger’s drive to eat carcasses or the awareness and cynical eye needed to survive in a completely wild world. At times, a wild creature can have defense mechanisms or behaviors that to our human minds would seem outright malicious. And Pokemon, even in the whimsical canon, are no exception to that. Once again I’ll drag up a few Pokedex entries - as honestly the Pokedex is a wonderful thing for exploring the deeper aspects of a wild Pokemon - to illustrate my point. “When it beats opponents with its bone, the cursed flames spread to them. No amount of water will stop those flames from burning,” (Pokemon Ultra Moon, 2017) and “The cursed flames that light up the bone carried by this Pokémon are said to cause both mental and physical pain that will never fade” (Pokemon Shield, 2019).

   Yes, even the fun and magical world of Pokemon is no stranger to wild animals who inflict effects upon others that seem absolutely awful, and in some cases cruel. But, that’s survival in the animal kingdom, or in this case the Pokemon kingdom. It can be surprising to some that a person who’s fictotype hails from the fun and upbeat franchise that defined a number of childhoods may be hardened to the need to survive in a natural world. The things I know I had done to creatures who my childhood Pokemon fan self would have only wanted to hug, at least at a baseline mental state. In a shift, that’s a different story after all.

   But ultimately, this blend of experiences causes an interesting time in exploring myself within the general nonhuman community as it can be quite split up. Certain narratives of individual communities I can’t find myself fitting into, or find myself sitting in between. I settle into spaces focused on everything from therianthropy, to mythical otherkinity, and to fictionkinity, though there’s narratives and cultural aspects in every separated community that either are foreign to me or that I might confront as they expect clear-cut boxes between them which individuals can fit into. In therianthrope communities I’ve been one to criticize the expectation of a solid line between human and animal experiences, or in general animal vs non-animal with regards to forcing a further divide from the otherkin community. I’ve also been involved in discussion criticizing therian community narratives such as a shifting focus and the model of integration. The model of integration is interesting to me, as I experienced it in a way that I was unaware of at the time, particularly with my android kintype. My android kintype is almost fully integrated into me - I barely shift at all at least mentally. However my Marowak fictotype provides less integration, and my mental shifting will be a lot more noticeable against my baseline self. At times it can be as stark as appearing like a different person, or more accurately like a wild animal. But ultimately the differences in the closeness of each kintype draws up issues for me with the integration model, as well as having found it normalized a severe mental health issue I had with my traumagenic plurality at the time of “least integration”.

   The therianthrope community is far from the only community with narratives that put a barrier between me and relating, especially as members of each community push for further separation between individual branches of nonhuman experience and identity. I have trouble relating to humanoids when heavily shifted towards my Marowak self, and that puts a bit of a barrier between myself and the otherkin community’s more humanoid side - such as elven, fae, divine, angelic, etc. - as well as the fictionkin community’s focus on humanoid or completely story-driven fictionkind. I have no use for prioritized experiences within the fictionkin community such as finding canon-mates and creating aesthetics. Even in some Pokemon fictionkin specific communities I find I cannot relate often. My experience with my “Pokemanity” is heavily wild and animal-based as I was never caught, socialized with a human, or trained. In no way shape or form is my Pokemanity adjusted to interaction with humans, nor is it something that is settled down or subdued for human consumption unlike what my source was created for.

   In both otherkin, therian and even fictionkin communities there is a push towards prioritizing the narrative of a solid awakening. That’s one more focus in the communities that I struggle with, as like I said before, mine was a process of accepting bits of myself which spanned multiple years. Every part of me that is nonhuman has always been present within my life, though for almost two decades muted heavily.

   To draw back into my spiritual practice here, consider a practice known as shadow work. Shadow work is a practice that hybridizes spirituality and psychology, and describes the process of becoming aware of one’s shadow (the id, shadow archetype, or shadow aspect drawn from Carl Jung’s psychology) and working to integrate it into oneself by accepting the repressed parts of oneself that are pushed back and merged into the shadow. The shadow can be known as the unknown dark side of the personality, and I theorize that more nonhumans have undesirable aspects of their nonhumanity pushed onto their shadow than they might think they do, like I had done to my own Pokemanity for a number of years. In my case, I was slightly forced to tear into and meet my shadow aspects of my nonhumanity due to the fact that even upon immediately breaking into nonhuman communities, the specifics of what I was were already viewed with hostility and disbelief. In a way, it strengthened me. But with my shadow opened wide and not much held back, I can be a bit of a fire-starter in spaces where I speak my mind whether others want to hear it or not. And part of that is directly confronting the forced separation of animal vs non-animal, or the arbitrary ideas of what is a human experience and what is not.

   I can only best put forward my experience as a Pokemon through in-depth discussion, which I find tends to come across better in spaces where the experience of being by-and-large a feral animal is allowed without restraint. Ultimately a space I will thrive in most and be most open about my experiences and life as someone who is spiritually and psychologically an Alolan Marowak is one where I can discuss both my animality, my experience with fiction, my spiritual practice and the combination of these things that seem to be pushed into separate boxes. The Marowak serves a lot to my sense of self and to my life, and has psychological affects on me as well. It’s been a part of me that has fought through and survived when my life hit a rocky start early on, witnessing the death of my brother in childhood, and having loss and grief be present all around as I grew. The Marowak is both an inherent part and vital context in my life, as well as a symbol of my own endurance.

   Through it all, the fire burns bright.

Citations

Marowak POKÉDEX: Stats, MOVES, evolution & locations. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2021, from https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/marowak

Chryssides, George D. (2012). Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (2 ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-8108-6194-7.

Jung, C.G. 1938. "Psychology and Religion." In Psychology and Religion: West and East, Collected Works of C.G. Jung 11. p. 131

Roberts, Gwilym Wyn, and Andrew Machon. 2015. Appreciative Healthcare Practice: A guide to compassionate, person-centred care. M&K. ISBN 1907830936. p. 71.

[galacticlamps]

One more (accidentally long) post about The Highlanders for tonight, bc there were lots of little things I wanted to mention but some of them tie together anyway & I got interrupted while trying to watch it, too:

I really like how the story starts out with the perspective of the McLaren clan remnants fleeing the battlefield. It sucks a bit in reconstruction because they hardly have any dialogue, but they even get into a censor-cut-clip of Alexander killing a redcoat chasing them, all before we even see the Tardis team. I think it was a good choice just because it’s such a strange idea for an episode in some ways - it’s really a pretty comical historical, as things go, and it takes place directly after the battle of Culloden, with the narrative focused on sympathizing with the defeated Highlanders, and those aren’t two things I would’ve thought could be brought together very well, even in a time travel show that also once had a comedic episode about Nero burning down Rome.

Granted, I’m writing this as someone who knows that the next installments feature scenes like beating lawyers over the head and locking them in cupboards, the Doctor playing dress-up, and Houdini tricks saving people’s lives, but even in the course of the first episode, the flow from an atmosphere of seriousness to one of comedy is already underway, and for the most part I think the two are merged pretty cleverly (as soon as they’re in danger of being hanged, the Dr von Wer stuff starts up, for example)

But mostly, I was thinking about that juxtaposition today in relation to Kirsty, who I kinda don’t think I’ve ever paid enough attention to before, honestly, and I think that’s why this post turned out so long. A couple of lines that’ve always stuck out to me are when she & Polly see the troops getting ready to hang their friends, and Kirsty says “we can but mourn” causing Polly to go “well crying’s no good” before she suggests they try leading the troops off - and they stuck out to me not because they’re particularly representative of each of their characters, even, but because I think that might be the simplest example of where The Highlanders gets its drive from, as a story.

Like, Kirsty’s sensible - she’s the one who notices they captured a doctor, and begs Alexander to let him treat their father, she’s even willing to bargain that they can kill him and his friends later, if it’s any help. After that, she’s reluctant to leave him, but when the Doctor points out they need water and says he’ll send Polly with her to even out the numbers, she agrees. It’s framed as a cliffhanger right now, but at the end of the episode she decided that this weird, oddly-dressed, and woefully ignorant woman (who’s just insulted her) is going to get lost and injured in the dark so she warns her against it, and then tries to help her when that fails. She’s really quite capable of being level-headed. She also isn’t squeamish, or cowardly, and when Polly balks at her way of doing things - in this episode, the cattle raids specifically, she isn’t - well, cowed, if I’m allowed the pun - she (quite correctly) looks at Polly as the one who’s strange and out-of-place here. Polly’s supposed to be written as a ‘modern woman’ who can inspire action in a historical ‘traditional’ one, but Kirsty’s too busy being a highlander in the wake of culloden to be all impressed by that, so we’re spared any of those “aw gee you’re awfully outspoken for a woman, I wish I could be brave like you” -type moments you get in some other cases where the show uses that dynamic, even to a good end - like when Sarah Jane tells the queen of Peladon about women’s lib, for instance.

And yet Polly’s ideas do help, but it’s not because she’s so much more progressive than Kirsty - she just happens to be exactly what Kirsty needs right now, and what the whole setting needs from the Tardis crew, if they’re gonna pull off the story they’re attempting to tell.

The Battle of Culloden isn’t exactly known for being a great, clean, easy fight, and while it might be famously on the short side (which is even referenced within this same episode) it was far from being one sudden horrible event that came out of the blue - historically, the lead-up over the last 24 hours would’ve been a pretty grueling and exhausting ordeal for those involved on the Jacobite side, and while I don’t recall The Highlanders ever making explicit reference to those particulars, it does convey an atmosphere of hopelessness and defeat pretty thoroughly. In this episode Colin has lines about ‘all the men’ of their clan lying dead in the mud, how he should be with them, and later on in the story he’ll talk about being content to die on the Anabel if only he could see his daughter one last time. When Alexander snaps at Jamie for making noise with his chanter, Jamie tells him the redcoats’ll be there soon enough to matter what they do, and on the scaffold he’s ready to be hanged with his Laird unless Grey agrees to take both of them. Even Alexander, who seems the most spirited of the highlanders we meet in this episode, doesn’t seem capable of setting his goals any higher than going down fighting, rather than being hanged, and since that’s exactly what kills him it doesn’t read as a particularly wise or noble hope to hold. None of them have given up, mind, but they’re in an incredibly defeated mindset, and in comparison Kirsty’s attempts to help her father really make her the more practical and proactive of the bunch. She’s well aware that “crying’s no good,” but at the point when Polly says that to her, she’s well past believing there’s any good left that she can accomplish.

In reality,  it’s Polly’s optimism that’s irrational - and while the Doctor’s not there to call her naive, he’s just done it with Ben (’you’ll have every english soldier within miles’ - ‘well what’s wrong with that?’ - ‘whats- you should’ve paid more attention to your history books ben’), and Polly’s similar faith in the English soldiers (would everyone in 1966 be so confident that the Hanoverian army wasn’t allowed to hang prisoners without the officer present? I’ve always wondered about that line, to me it makes her seem both oddly well-informed and at the same time more foolish) directly parallels Ben’s stance, and we know how quickly that comes back to bite him, since the soldiers proceed to go ahead and try hanging him too.

As a tv show, that’s where the Dr von Wer stuff needs to come in, to lighten the mood with a silly voice and some snappy one-liners, but in-universe, that’s also the reason that Kirsty needs somebody like Polly -  someone who doesn’t belong, and whose actions don’t really make sense. Someone who’s just been dropped here without the baggage and defeat of everything that came before, someone to whom this is a sudden bad turn of events and not the end of a long hard struggle (to say nothing of someone awake and alert) to whom giving up now would feel like not trying at all, rather than already having given it everything they’ve got. If Polly were actually in Kirsty’s position, she might not’ve been able to do much more than mourn either, but Polly standing next to Kirsty with a totally different (and frankly, flawed) perspective on things is able to make the suggestions that are past care or belief at that point, which is a character dynamic worth watching, and probably why having the Tardis team being comedic despite their dismal circumstances is the only way to coax action out of them that can drive a narrative forward.

It doesn’t land Polly in a particularly good light - a character nicknamed ‘the Dutchess’ yelling “you’re just a stupid peasant” at the woman who just brought her shelter and offered her food (which she scoffed at) and then marching out into the night claiming she’ll save the day only to immediately need rescuing from that same woman herself never will look all that good - but it does do a lot to show how out-of-her-element Polly is, and how it’s not a case of her Being From The Future making her better than Kirsty, but rather a case of her just being Something Different allowing her to suggest certain things that Kirsty can’t imagine doing right now, but is plenty capable of helping her with once they have made the plan.

I don’t even think I have any grand point I’m trying to arrive at here, I just kept noticing how the tragedy is used to set the scene in this episode but the action has to pushed on more by comedy, whether it takes the form of actual jokes or the inherent ‘hilarity’ of putting things together that just don’t belong - probably because setting the episode in the wake of the battle, it’s such a defeated, inevitable brand of tragedy, too - Alexander dies and the show barely stops to acknowledge it because of course he did, what else could’ve happened, and now everyone else is about to die too. The attitude is almost that the characters might as well try some ridiculous ways out of their situations because all the normal things are hopeless, and once you’ve accepted that what else have you got to lose? I think it does a good job of picking out the differences between its characters rather than their similarities, and since the Doctor’s behavior in the later episodes gets described as morally gray a lot, I think it’s kind of important how in this episode, neither Polly or Kirsty’s approaches are painted as being totally right, they’re just different, but that’s also a good thing, because neither of them is gonna get anywhere on their own.

[aithuzah]

What is your opinion on the knights (Lancelot, Gwaine, Elyan, Leon and Percival)?

Overall, I think they're a lot of fun! But I wish they'd had more screentime as individuals with character development and growth that contributed a bit more to the story as a whole. That's a problem with every side character in the show, though--they're almost never used to their full potential.

Percival gets the worst of this because he has like....no lines lmfao. one time i counted and he said literally 12 words before Arthur knighted him. He's sweet and funny, I love his teasing relationship with Gwaine and the whole quiet gentle giant thing he has going on, and when I was first watching the show with my friend we just called him Sir Muscles because we could never remember his name and the silly sleeveless chainmail is great.

But we know the least about his history and beliefs out of anyone, and it seems like Arthur knighted him more out of desperation and trust in Lancelot's judgement than a genuine assessment of his character. It would have been cool to get to know him better and to see his relationship with Arthur in particular develop more, considering he's supposed to be one of the trusted ~Knights of the Round Table~ and all, to reaffirm his worthiness of that trust after the crisis was over.

Leon.....I'm sorry Leon but his character has never really interested me personally haha. I can appreciate him in an objective way, like how he stood up to Morgana or his comedy in the assassin episode ("oh you're going to kill Arthur? that's hilarious, take a crossbow"), but he's always been pretty forgettable to me. The jokes about "Immortal Leon" and such in the fandom made more of an impression on me than the character himself.

It's mentioned once or twice that he grew up with Gwen and Elyan, and I would have liked to see that "childhood friend" dynamic explored more, especially once Arthur started courting Gwen. ORRR, what if we saw Leon struggle to reconcile his conventional, law-abiding nature with his loyalty to Arthur and his unconventional, rule-breaking ideals? I think that would have made him feel more well-rounded and human than the Generic Loyal Knight character.

Speaking of knights' relationships with Gwen, Elyan is a really fun character! I think their sibling relationship is super sweet. But a lot of my memories of him are really vague, both because it's been a long time since I've actually watched the show, and because he was never all that heavily discussed in fandom. He's overlooked even more than Leon, and was sometimes actively hated, so I feel like his role and personality weren't as consistently reinforced in my mind and my impressions are a little muddy now as a result. I'm still SO sad that he died trying to save his sister, only for her to be enchanted during his death AND (iirc) the whole mourning process. I do think he suffered Merlin Side Character Syndrome (I wish we knew more about his life outside Camelot, his past with Gwen and Elyan, etc), but I remember he had a lot of fun scenes with the rest of the knights and I think there could have been a lot more to say if people (including myself) paid more attention to him.

Compared to everyone else, we know a LOT more about Gwaine and Lancelot--their histories, their beliefs, their goals, their values, all that good stuff. (Even though Lancelot was only in a handful of episodes, all of them centered on him in one way or another.) So I love them both and could say a lot more about them, but I'll try to keep it brief heheh. I've already talked about both of them quite a bit in other posts.

I think their personalities are a wonderful contrast; Lancelot is outwardly noble but subtly playful, whereas Gwaine is outwardly playful but subtly noble. It is a Criminal Crime that they barely interacted in canon (did they even ever say lines directly to each other?? I don't remember), because I think they would have gotten along alarmingly well.

It really pains me that Gwaine became the idiot comic relief in season 5, because he showed a lot of depth and strength of character before he became a regular and they stopped doing episodes that highlighted him as an individual. And with Lancelot dead and Gwen either enchanted or relegated to doing her queen thing, it felt like Merlin lost all his friends in s5, even the ones that were still technically there.

Lancelot is 100% my favorite knight just because he was so casual about Merlin's magic. I think that's something Merlin desperately needed in his life, and I'll always be sad he (and we as viewers) didn't get more of them being partners-in-literal-punishable-by-death-crime and just having FUN with Merlin's abilities.

The Lance/Gwen/Arthur love triangle was handled really badly in multiple ways though. First of all, Lancelot did the dumb "I don't want to make her choose between us....so I'm going to make her decision for her by removing myself as an option" thing that I hate. And then he dies in the SECOND EPISODE of the season where he would have been living in Camelot full time!! And the whole enchanted Gwen/undead Lancelot thing? ughhhh.

I don't really hold any of that against him as a character, I just hate that they're plot points that removed him from the story when the story only ever benefited from having him in it--or were just a big dumb waste of time, in the case of the zombie love triangle. That screentime could have been spent on Merlin/Lancelot/Gwaine shenanigans!! We were DEPRIVED, I tell you.

[lifeistooshorttowasteyourtime]

Weasley Love: Part 8 - And in the end...

Chapter summary: the aftermath of a war is always hard. For all the Weasleys, the loss of Fred was too painful, but for George was much worse. But he wasn't alone and, even though he would never be the same, the wound scars bit by bit thanks to his family and (Y / N), the woman who he once protected from a bludger and she protected his heart from then, helping to build a path for them both filled with love.

> previous chapter   //   SERIES MASTERLIST

*****

(Y/N) took out the bottles from the box with care and put them on the shelf with the rest of them with a small smile. With a sigh, she looked around to the just cleaned shop that George and her were filling up again with the products. George hadn’t decided when to open the shop again, but in the last week, he wanted to make a start.

The last year hadn’t been easy on any of the family, but they all knew they had to keep going on, honoring Fred’s memory by keep living. George also knew that, but his process of mourning and accepting the sad reality, took a lot of time, tears and nightmares that the redhead suffered in the arms of the young woman who let him have his space and have his grieving without pressing him to move on. She knew he had to go through that process, as long as it would take.

George appeared from the back room of the shop carrying a box with him that he left on the counter. He wanted to do it all without magic, letting him enjoyed as he could that moment. (Y/N) observed him and approached slowly.

“What do you have there?” she asked softly sitting on the counter next to the box and peering inside.

The young man sighed and took one of the products with a sad smile “I think it was one of the last inventions of Fred…” she looked up at him surprised he hadn’t stuttered saying his name “I read the other night about it in his notebook. Although I don’t know if he ended it…”.

(Y/N) bit her lip and looked away trying to contain her emotions, as she had done a lot of times in front of George. He realized and took a step to the side, standing between her knees “hey…” he took her face and kissed her forehead “you don’t have to hide your tears for me, you also have to…” he cleared his throat “mourn him. I think you haven’t done it properly”.

She sighed and wrapped her arms around his neck, pushing him to her so their torsos were touching and he wrapped his arms around her waist. Thanks to his height, she leaned her forehead on his with closed eyes “don’t worry”.

“But I do because you’ve been so attentive and caring of me, this broken man…”.

“Don’t you dare say you are broken” she interrupted him abruptly, pulling away her forehead with a frown “I’m not going to let you say and believe that. What you’ve lost, I can’t even begin to imagine what it is like, but you are not broken, George”.

He pressed his lips into a thin line and (Y/N) caressed his cheeks, kissing his forehead and nose. George sighed and squeezed her waist “but I’m afraid you’ve lost yourself a bit, so focused on me and my wellbeing. You’ve put your life on stop for me”.

“George, darling….”

“I love you” he interrupted her with a small smile “and I don’t think this emptiness will never completely go away” she smiled softly “but we both need to keep going on. I… I need to learn to get up and breath without hurting, smile and laugh without feeling bad about it or make love to you and truly enjoy it…”.

She sighed remembering the deep talk they had a few months back about their intimacy and how he confessed that he used it as a way to cope with the reality, a conversation that hurt but that it was necessary for them to keep their relationship healthy. The young woman nodded and leaned in to kiss him softly. He sighed against her lips and put one of his hands on the back of her neck to deepen the kiss. (Y/N) kissed back in kind, smiling slightly against his lips before pulling away.

“I’ve been looking for a job in the ministry, the teacher of the course before the war has helped me” he looked up at her “I have an interview in three days. I haven’t told you anything in case it didn’t work. So don’t keep worrying, okay?”.

“That’s great!” he smiled, truly, happy for her “I’m sure you will get the job”.

“Don’t get your hopes up and let’s see how it goes” she said caressing his cheek.

“We should celebrate it, maybe you could send an owl to your grandma and ask her if her invitation for dinner is still up? I know she’s been asking for two weeks”.

“Are you sure?”.

He nodded with a smile “I want to have dinner with your dad and grandma, it’s been a while since we have last seen them. And your family needs you too, you know?”.

The young woman looked at him with sweetness, caressing his cheek softly while whispering “I love you so much”.

He chuckled softly and took her hand, kissing the palm of her hand with tender.

*****

“Hey, Ron”.

The named redhead turned to see (Y/N) stepping into the already closed shop “hi, (Y/N)!”.

The young woman smiled at him and approached to kiss his cheek briefly “is everything okay? It’s early to have the shop closed, isn’t it?”.

“Well…” he laughed nervously and looking away “the reason is not bad, you should go up home. George is waiting for you there”.

She frowned looking suspicious at him, making him laugh. Ron and (Y/N) had gotten close since the youngest brother had started working in the shop with George a few months later after the reopening. He was enthusiastic and had good ideas for new products, but which she appreciates the most was his caring nature. His dynamic with Ron helped George to start his teasing and even pranks, although much softer on Ron than the ones he used to do.

“Come on, go up. I’m almost finish here and I’m going to pick up Hermione from work, she will be surprised”.

“And delighted” the young woman added with a small smile “thank you Ron, really” he shrugged and she chuckled giving him a small hug “see you tomorrow then”.

(Y/N) smiled once more and went to the stairs that directed to her home with George, missing the small whisper of Ron “see you in a week”.

When she stepped into the house, she found George smiling at her with two big trunks next to him. She smiled confused but approached him, receiving a sweet kiss on the cheek.

“And… I guess this is the reason why the shop has closed earlier than it usually does…”.

“Exactly. You and I are going to that little village in Italy your father and grandma have told us about so much”.

“Really?” she asked while her eyes widened with joy.

George nodded and wrapped his arms around her waist “Ron has accepted to take over the shop these days for us. I might give him holidays after it though” the young woman laughed and he smiled “so, I’ve prepared the luggage for the both of us and we have to take a portkey in an hour and a half”.

“I’m sure this have required a lot of planning, how you’ve done it? You’ve been really busy with the expansion of the shop…”.

The redhead shrugged “these last months have been… Good to be honest” he smiled “our jobs are doing amazing, we are doing really great and I’m feeling quite alright. It was just a matter of organization. I’ve already talked to your boss, by the way, so don’t worry”.

(Y/N) nodded appreciatively and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing his lips softly “so… An hour and a half, I have time to take a shower and make sure you’ve taken all we need”.

He laughed and let her go to the bathroom with the brightest smile, excitedly for their trip.

Almost three hours later, the both of them were leaving their things in the wardrobe of the cosy and wonderful room they were going to stay in.

“This is so beautiful” she said sitting on the bed and looking around “and the owner was so nice! Can’t wait to explore tomorrow”.

George smiled at her and kneeled in front of her, taking her hands and kissing her fingers “are you happy?”.

She shook her head and pulled away her hands to take his face “I’m always happy when I’m with you. It doesn’t matter where. Or how. I just need you, as cheesy as it sounds”.

He licked his lips and leaned up to kiss her, pushing her softly until she was laying on the mattress with him above her body. When he pulled away, he cupped her jaw looking at her ardently “same here, love” (Y/N) took him back to kiss him again.

That night they made love slowly, softly, intimately, passionately. Their touches, their kisses, their whispers, their moans… They felt every little thing with intensity.

They stayed awake looking through the window to the beautiful town under them illuminated by the stars above. George hugged her from behind, their naked bodies covered by the sheet from the unmade bed. He sighed breathing deeply into her hair “love…” she made a sound of recognition before he turned her around to be face to face and kissed her nose softly “marry me”.

“I will” she answered in a blink of an eye. George smiled brightly and she chuckled kissing his cheek before looking right at his eyes “yes, I will marry you, George Weasley”.

The young man laughed and let the sheet to fall around them, taking her into his arms and kissing her, pushing her against the cold window that made her gasp into his lips. They both laughed softly and kissed slowly, looking at each other with goofy smiles, feeling their lives were taking a turn they were eager to explore together.

*****

“I’m home!” George yelled once he went through the main door.

But when he didn’t receive a response and, in its place, he heard sniffing, he ran towards the living toom where there was light. There he found his wife crying softly while going through an album of pictures.

The redhead sighed softly and leaned on the doorframe of the door, looking at the woman sobbing to herself. It wasn’t a strange situation for them lately, the pregnancy was doing weird things to her mood and the mood swings could go from crying to laugh to fell asleep in matter of minutes.

He analysed her with a smirk, her hair was into a dishevelled pony tail, one of his biggest t-shirts as a dress and her naked legs revealed her swollen ankles. And he couldn’t find her more beautiful. George left his suitcase on the coffee table and took her legs softly to sit on the sofa, putting them on her lap and massaging softly his aching feet.

“What are you looking at?” he asked softly.

(Y/N) looked above the album at him with red eyes “our wedding pictures”.

George chuckled “love, you get emotional even without being pregnant going through that album, why are you doing that to yourself?”.

“Because I found the bracelet your mom gave me for the day and I wanted to remember how happy and beautiful I was that day”.

“You are beautiful all days, darling”.

She rolled her eyes and covered her face with the album again “you say that because you have to, I’m your wife, but I’m a whale right now and I’m so bloated…”.

“Hey…” George left her legs and he leaned down to rest his head gently on her baby bump “you really are beautiful all days, I’m being honest here, and you have such a glow in the last months. Love, you are gorgeous”.

(Y/N) put away the album and left it on the coffee table with a small pout “why are you so incredible adorable?”.

The man chuckled and moved himself to lay next to her on the sofa, taking her in his arms before kissing her temple, her nose and lastly her lips. She sighed comfortably and snuggled to his side.

“How’s been your day?”.

“Great, Ron is going to come tomorrow for breakfast, he’s had an idea for a new product”.

“Oh! We might invite Hermione, I miss female company since I’m here because of the doctor orders”.

“You know is the best for the baby and yourself but don’t worry, I will write an owl to the couple about it”.

“Thank you” she mumbled kissing his jaw.

George looked at the album laying opened on the coffee table and chuckled, making her to look up at him with a questioning frown. He shook his head and caressed her cheek “I was remembering my mom, I think she cried during all the ceremony”.

(Y/N) laughed too and nodded “poor Molly, I don’t think she was ready for such an intimate ceremony”.

“If it had been her way, we would have had hundreds of guests. Good thing my father managed to convince her to let us do a small ceremony. Just with our closest families and friends, nothing to invite out of commitment” he rambled caressing her bump, receiving an answer from his son in the form of a small kick.

They smiled at each other and she put her hands over his, pressing it softly against her skin.

“Yeah, it was perfect” she whispered and kissed his lips slowly.

When they pulled away, George looked ahead of her with a melancholic look and she knew right away that Fred was present in his mind. She caressed his cheek taking him back to the reality and he smiled “he would have laughed at me so much that day, I couldn’t keep my eyes or hands off of you”.

The woman nodded with a small smile “he would have made fun of how smitten you were”.

“And still are, love” he kissed her forehead “and I can’t even imagine how this little one will have me wrapped around his finger”.

“Fred Jr. will be so lucky to have you as a father” she reassured with a bright smile.

In the moment they knew the baby was a boy, they didn’t need to discuss about names. It would be Fred, no question about it.

George sighed and hugged her to him, both kissing softly while feeling the baby kick against them, reclaiming attention even from the womb.

*****

George and (Y/N) were walking hand in hand through the streets of London after a meeting they both had just had with some investors from America who were interested in some Weasley products.

“What we should buy for Ginny?” the woman asked with a small frown.

“We sent her a bouquet of flowers as a congratulations”.

“I know, but you don’t win the Quidditch championship every day. I think we should buy a gift”.

“Well, we have all afternoon to think, Harry and her doesn’t arrived until tomorrow night”.

She nodded and sighed leaning her head on his shoulder. George looked down at her, knowing what she was thinking about. Since their two children were in Hogwarts, they had all their free time from work for themselves and the both of them felt quite strange by not having the kids running around, laughing with George’s laughed that filled the house with warmth.

The redhead smiled and kissed her temple, making her to look up and smiled back “I miss them”.

“Me too, love. But we know they are both doing great back at Hogwarts. Think how great our years were, theirs are going to be even better”.

I’m not sure if their years in school are going to be better than ours” George frowned and she stopped walking, taking his hands in hers with a bright smile “I found the love of my life. They might fall in love too but, nothing can compare what we two created there”.

“Aren’t you a romantic?” he chuckled wrapping one of his arms around her waist, his other hand going to her cheek.

Small wrinkles peeked out at the sides of the woman's eyes, a sign of all that she had smiled and laughed at despite their bad years. George smiled and kissed those wrinkles making her laugh, he used to do it often.

“Well, I have to be the romantic one from time to time, you can't take all the credit for that in this relationship”.

George laughed, his head tilting back slightly, and she couldn't help but smile at the sight of him. There was a time in the past when she was worried that he would never laugh like that again. They both knew that the wound of losing Fred would never heal, it was something she could not heal, but George had been able to find happiness again. Next to her. Along with their children.

“I love you so much” she whispered once he calmed down.

The man leaned in and kissed her lips before answering back “I love you too, so much, and to celebrate how romantic we are in our marriage, why don’t we eat out? We don’t have to open the shop for two another hours”.

(Y/N) giggled and nodded, the both of them walking again. They went back home to take some things before going to eat together. When they were in the street again, a couple of young men, likely recently graduated from Hogwarts, approached George to profess their admiration for his work. She observed a few steps aside, basking in the moment while George seemed delighted about that kind of attention.

“I’m so proud of you, George Weasley” she said once he went by her side again. He blushed with a small chuckle and she took his face between her hands, her fingers brushing slightly the place where his ear once was “you are an exceptional man”.

He kissed the inside of her wrist and caressed her hand over his cheek, both looking at each other with a kind of love that never faltered.

Life hadn’t been easy but they had each other, through everything. And they knew that what they had was special. A Gryffindor boy and a Hufflepuff girl who would never let go of the other’s hand.

Tag list: @the-romanian-is-bae​ @allaboutsml​ @girl22334​ @nikkipea​ 

Notes: Well, this is it. Again, sorry for the delay in this last chapter, but I really hope you all like the end of this story written with so much love. Thank you to all that had spent their time in reading it. Much love! xx

[invisibleinorange]

Chapters: 9/? Fandom: Bridgerton Rating: T Warnings: Presumed Character Death Relationships: Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington,  Eloise Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington(besties),  Bridgerton Family Dynamics, Simon Hastings/Daphne Bridgerton Characters: Colin Bridgerton,  Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton, Anthony Featherington,  Benedict Bridgerton,  Portia Featherington, Violet Bridgerton, Genevieve Delacroix Additional Tags:  Bridgerton, Polin Summary:  Unexpected bad news arrives for the Bridgerton Family (and friends) regarding Colin's travels. This will be a series that is set after "The Duke and I" or season one of the show. It is a companion piece to "Goodbyes".

There were fleeting moments of consciousness here and there; bits and pieces of conversation overheard mostly in French which his mind tried to translate but only could manage the bare minimum.  Most of the time, he lingered half-asleep, half-awake dreaming of a home that he was beginning to wonder if he’d ever see again.  At first it had been a combination of sheer exhaustion and whatever the physician forced in his mouth that led him to sleep but several days in he became feverish.  He had overheard voices outside where he was kept suggesting that if they didn’t make it to land, they weren’t sure he would survive.

The world infection was universal and he knew what it meant.  From the pain in his left leg, he had little question to where the infection lied. Bed sores from not properly moving had festered and now they had no choice but to treat it. He wasn’t quite of clear enough mind to ask questions or to fight whatever treatment was provided to him.  When they cut into his skin to blood let, he screamed until his lungs felt as if they could scream no more and when they let him be his cried himself to sleep. The cycle repeated itself several times a day and eventually he lost track of time.

He was barely holding on by the time they docked and he carried to a waiting carriage, escorted by the physician to what he later learned was the home of another physician.

 This physician was younger and clearly English. He lived with a wife and the wife would often come and hand feed him bread or tea to ensure he kept up his strength. 

Most importantly to him, she had curly red hair that reminded him so very much of Penelope though there was no comparison.  There mere thought of Penelope Featherington at this point made his heartache. The first time he’d seen her in a haze, he’d thought she was Penelope.

“Pen,” he murmured, mustering strength, trying to reach for her.

Concern was always clear on the woman’s face and she was always kind.  She didn’t hesitate to take his hand, try and calm him down. 

“You need your rest,” she would say. “The fevers will come back if you don’t.”

“I must tell you something-“

“Then you must say it,” she would say, squeezing his hand. Her husband was never far, always just across the room working on his notes or crushing some concoction in a mortar. 

They’d all but decided that the infection might still take him and if he were to die, they’d let him go in peace.  The only way to do that was to give him the freedom to say whatever needed to be said.

“I’m in love with you,” Colin declared, hardly caring that he could barely keep his eyes open or that it was impossible that Penelope be there now. In his mind, she was. “I should have never have left.”

The husband and wife exchanged glances as if trying to determine what the best course of action would be.  Ultimately, they decided that it best to carry on until their guest could properly be lured back to sleep.  The husband moved to set what appeared like an innocent tea beside her so that she might get their patient to drink.

“Then you must drink and get better for me,” the wife told him, rising the cup to Colin’s lips. That was all it took him to fall back into a hazy sleep.

Once he was asleep the wife patted his hand, rose back to her feet and moved toward her husband at the foot of the bed.  She looked somberly back toward the patient.

“I hope that he does,” she confessed. 

--

He did manage to pull himself from near death though, his mind becoming clearer and more certain with every passing day. Everything that he had of value had disappeared along with his ill-fated boat. He was honestly just grateful to have landed in the home of two people who had no desire to see him on the streets.

He told them about everything.

His family, his failed engagement, his travels plans and even Penelope. 

The way he spoke of her clearly endeared him to the wife even further, to the point that they offered to pay his passage when they returned to England to visit their family in a few short weeks. 

With limited options, he accepted.

He could not just sit idly back as a houseguest though. Even though he was still recovering from his experience, he had immaculate handwriting and became an asset for the physician/helping him organize his notes and performing small errands that wouldn’t exert him.

He dared not ask for more than a little food and a bed to sleep in after all the generosity that had been displayed to him but they did give him a little money to find clothing to keep him until he could be back with his wardrobes at home.

--

It was a trip to a tailor that made him feel more like himself and less like someone in borrowed clothes that never fit quite right.  He didn’t get much, just enough to help him exist until he returned.  It was a dress shop next to the tailor that caught his eye instead.

He had been to the Modiste back home with his mother and sisters more times than he cared to acknowledge.  This was no Modiste but the dresses on display were immaculate. He could easily imagine his sisters fighting over a few of them. 

There was a dress that stood out against the rest. 

It was a net dress that was embroidered with silver lame, which he could only imagine matched the petticoat. The neck and the sleeves of the gown were trimmed with Brussels lace and a matching train.  It looked as if it cost a fortune, which he might have been able to negotiate in London but he was living on the kindness of strangers here.  

His hand reached to touch the lace that adorned it, his chest hurting as he imagined it on pale skin, pinked with embarrassment.  All it took was his mind thinking of her face and he knew he would do anything in his power to get it to her.

“Mister Bridgerton,” a voice said behind him. He was so unfamiliar with his own name and existence at this point that it caused him to jump, his body turning slightly in shock.  From the way she looked at him, she hadn’t expected to see him but she also didn’t seem to think him dead which was a positive.

“Madame Delacroix,” he stammered, actually stunned by this turn of fate.  “I thought Benedict said you were in Paris.”

“Well he told me that you were going to be traveling to Greece.”

“It’s a long story,” he managed. “But perhaps, I can have you vouch for me.  I must have this dress.”

“It would have to be taken in considerably for one of your sisters… or out if it’s for yourself,” she said eyeing him and then the dress.  She nodded after a long minute though.  “Your family has always paid their debts and as a matter of keeping their business when I return to London, I suppose something could be arranged.”

For the first time in weeks, he felt as if he could do anything. He came very close to hugging the woman. He didn’t know if she knew how much it meant to him.

“It’s for Penelope Featherington,” he said after a long moment. “If you could have it sent to her, I’d be much obliged and if you could put a note with it.”

The Modiste tilted her head in surprise but then nodded.  “And what will this note say?”

“For when you decide to put away the mourning black,” he told her.

[bigskydreaming]

I’m still laughing my ass off over that one post that was going around a week ago with the fanon depictions of the Batboys vs more canon-accurate depictions, and the various ‘defenses’ people leaped to for why fanon is so much better, and its just like....yawn.

See, its not like fanon can’t be better, and isn’t better with some characters, its not that it can’t ADD nuance.

None of that’s the problem.

The problem is when people ONLY use it to DETRACT nuance and then are like ‘wow, whats the problem, whats the issue.’

Let’s take for instance the infamous matter of Dick’s alleged asshole behavior to Jason back when the latter was Robin, because of Dick’s issues with Bruce at the time.

Here’s the thing - even though that’s not what happened, it IS a fairly plausible examination of what could have happened, so its not like there’s no reasoning or justification whatsoever in exploring it. Its that....its not ever explored. Its just used to one-side a situation and render Dick unsympathetic while Jason’s propped up as having been victimized by him and Bruce is largely kept off-stage entirely.

But because quite frankly we just didn’t see much of their interactions back then, period, theoretically, adding more conflict in this vein still COULD have fleshed out that time period and added nuance every bit as much as my preferred additions of more positive interactions between them.

But people don’t add in these conflicts simply to add nuance, they add them in just to add BLAME.

The fanon isn’t the problem there. What you do with the fanon and why is the problem.

Its like my issues with the Jason-Kori-Roy friendship. It’d be one thing if Roy and Kori’s presence in Jason’s life was used to PUSH BACK against Jason’s belief that Dick hated him or didn’t mourn him or even just to provide more understanding or context about Dick’s position or side of things at the time to Jason when he gripes about him, so he’s a little more inclined to be understanding of what that was like for his brother thanks to the viewpoints of people whose POV he values and who in turn have always valued Dick’s POV and position in things. 

But instead everything about the years of sympathy and understanding and insight Roy and Kori have always had for and in regards to Dick are flushed down the drain in order to have them join in with Jason when it comes to bashing and griping about that asshole Dick Grayson. Once again....perfect opportunity to add more nuance and complexity to a situation and a character dynamic, with it almost universally being pounced on to provide the reverse...to TAKE AWAY even MORE nuance and complexity from a situation by erasing anything and everything Roy and Kori might actually feel about what’s being said or believed of this other person they have a history of valuing a great deal.

Or like I was just saying earlier today about how its almost completely forgotten or erased that Dick was shot in the head upon Bruce’s return from the timestream, and was in an eminently sympathetic/hurt position for Bruce and Tim and others to come together around and put aside their own invididual resentments at least for the time being, in order to support Dick throughout an extremely dangerous and debilitating wound and recovery period. The issue with erasing, ignoring or invalidating Dick’s many traumas isn’t that ‘oh we just don’t like all the characters angsting 24/7, sometimes its too much, we like fanon happy-go-lucky Dick because he’s different,’ its like.....lol no, because if you’re still capable of and looking to rip into that depiction of Dick for....get this....not being able to get/grasp/empathize with the kinds of and degrees of trauma you still uphold for all the others, you’re really just looking to make him look unsympathetic in comparison, and shift focus away from their LACK of support and understanding for him when he really justifiably needs it in order to keep that focus instead on their contempt or bitterness for him no matter what else SHOULD have been taking place for him at the same time.

For example....going back to the Dick and Jason’s early years scenario.....I talk all the time about the Brother Blood situation, but guess what else that situation has? A time frame that’s pretty directly applicable to this Dick and Jason enmity scenario so many of you posit, given that the first two times the Church of Blood had Dick captive and were literally said to have released him back into the world secretly under their control....he was still Robin! And the third time, when he finally broke free thanks to the others (and Jason) rescuing him, it was only then that he was Nightwing. Meaning all of that is PERFECTLY positioned to be a fantastic and compelling additional underlying cause of Dick’s alleged early issuers/grievances with Jason.....the same mental turmoil that led to him lashing out against the other Titans like Donna in that infamous fight, could just as easily be said to have contributed or even been entirely behind any shitty interactions with Jason you want to posit happening back in the day. 

And look at how tragically dysfunctional that makes all of that instead then....Jason resents Dick for something that ultimately, isn’t actually his fault since he was never lashing out while in sound mind but as an unknowing reaction to a mental battle against conditioning he didn’t even know was there at the time.....and this being a surprise revelation to Jason years later making him mentally reframe all their history, because Dick never said anything about this earlier because due to his guilt complex he felt it would have just been him making excuses or trying to let himself off the hook instead of a valid and understandable added layer of context. 

That’s SO much more compelling and interesting than just a one-sided ‘one brother is an ass to the other for no real reason whatsoever, at leat not one we’re willing to acknowledge as being anymore relevant than a random footnote’.....but the problem isn’t that people go off fanon vs canon, the problem is REGARDLESS of whether people are using fanon or canon, people just don’t WANT Dick’s position in any of these times to be sympathetic or understandable, they want him JUDGED for it, condemned. They’re not TRYING to craft interesting, compelling dynamics or situations, they’re trying to make him the bad guy, always the bad guy, and the other person just unilaterally his unfortunate victim.

Just like with Tim and Red Robin, for all that even when people are like ‘nobody was really at fault/its not like Dick had another option with Damian, etc’ in PRACTICE there’s literally no distinguishing between this take and ones where Dick is just wholly irredeemable for his unforgivable choice, because despite even lip service paid to the idea that Dick had his reasons for what he did, there’s no actual PAY-OUT ever given to the idea that he’s anything less than terrible a brother to Tim for it...like, fanon is never the issue here, its just straight up canon....being willfully picked apart and reframed to make the issue entirely one-sided. 

People pile on all the additional reasons Dick’s terrible for not taking into account Tim’s headspace at the time, like all the other people he’s lost in the last couple years comic book time, but again, at most there’s lip service about how Dick was going through a lot to, but its never added in to any degree that MATTERS or lessens the characters’ or readers’ vilification of him....while at the same time, there’s a willful disregard of and refusal to engage with all the other things and people Dick had lost in the same time frame, comic book time, like oh.....every single thing that happened in Bludhaven with Blockbuster, Tarantula and Deathstroke, given that the former was literally concurrent with Stephanie’s death and the latter right after Jack Drake’s death. 

There’s never allowed any resentment from Dick towards Tim for not giving a single shit about what he was going through at the time, or for assuming he had no idea how to relate to the depth of Tim’s grief as though Dick hadn’t literally gotten a front row seat to his entire city being nuked by Chemo in that exact same time frame, with it still being touted that Dick just didn’t have any understanding or empathy for Tim’s many losses of the time. There’s never any frustration allowed from Dick about how much Tim resents him for making him give up Robin when at the same time, it was Tim and mostly Tim alone who pushed Dick to give up being Nightwing and assume the Batman mantle when even Bruce’s will had expressed to Dick that this was not what he wanted for him. 

Again, never even time or focus given to Dick being shot in the head on Bruce’s return before using that to call in Bruce as reinforcements for Tim yelling ‘how could you do this to me,’ let alone any acknowledgment of the fact that Dr. Hurt, the very same villain that shot Dick in the head there, is the very same villain who had Dick locked up, straitjacketed, drugged up and on the verge of a lobotomy in Arkham for a week just BEFORE Bruce’s assumed death.....because lolol, it’d make people look pretty silly for taking Dick’s one comment about asking if Tim maybe needed to take a break and look after his mental health in Arkham to the extremes they did, if forced to acknowledge that at the time, Arkham was a TOTALLY different proposition due to how extensively Dick was invested in its rebuilding and overseeing its running thanks entirely TO that time, just before Arkham blew up and needed rebuilding from the ground up in Battle for the Cowl....because of the fact that Dick himself had just spent a week locked up and straitjacketed and drugged to the gills and on the verge of a lobotomy thanks to the oh so tender mercies of Dr. Hurt’s accomplices having the run of the place.

Because end of the day, the problem with this fandom and Dick Grayson is not fanon, and its not canon, its fandom. Its the willful DESIRE to not have any minimizing or mitigating context on display ever, so as to only keep the worst possible interpretation of Dick’s actions - either drawn from canon or fanon, whichever is most handy for a particular scenario - front and center. 

So yeah, the idea that fanon adds nuance or context to Dick’s dynamics with any of his family is hilarious, not because it CAN’T, but because too many people are just entirely too unwilling and uninterested in allowing it to, just as they’re uninterested in any interpretation of actual canon that provides Dick with a smidgen of empathy or understanding for his positions or choices.

Like, that’s the POINT of most of your fanon for him. To strip AWAY nuance. So how are you going to be out here acting like you’re really contributing something to his character that canon doesn’t provide, when really, its all the same to you across the board: Dick Grayson is never justified let alone sympathetic ever? 

[c0rpsedemon]

i am curious, as someone who’s only exposure to arthurania was reading jane yolen’s young merlin as a child, would you mind saying why hnoc is a bad adaptation? i’m super curious but no worries if not <3

this has been sitting in my inbox for months bc i kept telling myself i needed to write a full essay with proof from medieval lit to make myself feel smarter.  however, since i’ve recently lost all credibility bc i can’t articulate points to save my life, and since i’ve realized that i could answer this in a just a couple paragraphs, now seems like the right time to answer this ask. sorry for the wait.

under a cut bc length

also warnings for mentions of racism bc this is hnoc we're talking abt and sexual assault bc this is med lit we're also talking abt

the basic problems are pendragon polycule itself, the story beats of the album, the fridging and lack of characterization of morgan le fay, the clear influence of pop culture arthuriana, and whatever the fuck happened with gawain/e.

pendragon polycule is... just not a good take.  there’s a bit in the lancelot-grail abt arthur viewing lancelot like a son (and lancelot not giving a shit abt him).  also arthur knew his parents for years before lancelot was even born.  plus lancelot just Doesn’t care abt him and i can’t stress this part enough.  arthur repeatedly tries to have guinnevere killed, mostly in the lancelot-grail, and guinn didn’t really have any say in marrying him bc she was a teenager.  lancelot and guinnevere is a lot better but that’s not saying much.  guinn doesn’t exactly treat lancelot too well... like at all, BUT it’s not intrinsic to their relationship and is completely caused by medieval misogyny and i’m all in favor of modern retellings saying fuck that.  but also lancelot has multiple pseudo-canon boyfriends (this is med lit after all), and one pseudo-canon husband so like... there were better options.  (also lancelot’s husband is basically in a lavender marriage with guinnevere’s maybe girlfriend who most authors just eventually forget abt as the story progresses).

this next one is a problem with a lot of modern arthurian works bc the inclusion of elayne of astolat is too much to ask apparently.  the grail quest isn’t tied to the fall of camelot, it just happens to be one of the last grand adventures the knights of the round table have.  the event that traditionally sets off the fall is the death of the maiden of astolat/the lady of shalott/elayne of escolat/she has a lot of names, her story has a few variations but usually she either is cursed to stay in a tower and weave and only be able to see the outside world through a mirror positioned across from her window, until lancelot rides by and she rushes to see him out of the actual window and her mirror shatters, setting off her death, or she lives with her father and brothers and takes care of lancelot bc he was injured for a time and she gets to go on adventures to find him and she’s friends with gawaine and she dies bc lancelot rejects her and this version’s a lot more fun but also more happens which makes it harder to explain.  the way her story ends however, is that she dies after she makes arrangements for a glorious boat to drift from astolat to camelot carrying nothing but her dead body and a letter explaining that she died of love for lancelot du lac and the court mourns the death of such a beautiful and young maiden (her age varies a lot but i’ve always read her as a young teenager at most).  but the important thing is, camelot is doomed from the moment she washes up on its shore bc she’s an omen of the end and has symbolic meaning and all that, the maiden of astolat washes up on camelot’s shores, the court mourns the loss of a maiden in her prime and she marks the end of camelot’s prime as well, morgan le fay reappears after being presumed dead and warns arthur of guinnevere and lancelot’s affair, aggravaine and modred conspire to bring lancelot and guinnevere’s affair to light, they succeed but lancelot escapes, guinnevere is to be burnt at the stake and lancelot rescues her, killing aggravaine, gaheris and gareth (gawaine’s brothers) in the process, gawaine drags his uncle and camelot to war bc he was driven mad due to the loss of his brothers, lancelot accidentally kills gawaine, his best friend and maybe boyfriend (i have RECEIPTS), and gawaine forgives him on his detahbed while lancelot and guinn rejoin arthur, meanwhile modred, who practically had the throne handed to him, usurps and invites the saxons in, camlann happens, and camelot is destroyed.  no where in there is the grail quest.

morgan le fay is honestly the most questionable part of the album bc there’s not a single text where she dies.  like....  at least with eurydice in udad she died in the original... there’s no basis for morgan dying.  also she is NOT modred’s mother and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, she interacts with him once in the vulgate bc she had three of her nephews over and that’s IT.  it’s a horrible take which originated in the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley who is an honest to god monster for reasons i don’t want to trigger tag this post for.  also she’s one of the most dynamic and thought-out characters in the entire canon and they just made her a watered down morgause (modred’s actual mother, morgan’s sister, canonical milf)... there was no reason for it to be her apart from the fact that she’s more well known......

pop culture arthuriana is,,, one of my least favorite things.  no, morgan wasn’t modred’s mother, no, morgause wasn’t abusive but her husband sure was implied to be, no, aggravaine didn’t kill his mother, that was gaheris, he loved his mother, you’re only saying that bc he has a reputation as the “evil” orkney, no, the once and future king is not a good descriptor for arthur, stop making me read it, no, morgause wasn’t the one to initiate the thing with arthur resulting in modred, no, lancelot and arthur weren’t friends, no, tristan wasn’t a self-centered asshole, tennyson is a fucking liar, no, galahad didn’t have sex or want to, he’s one of the first ever explicitly asexual characters out there, no, galahad’s conception was NOT consensual, lancelot was tricked, and no, elayne of astolat wasn’t galahad’s mother, she’s implied to be younger than him.  those are just the big glaring ones, but i swear it’s bc of arthuriana’s reputation as a mythology and the connotations belonging to that word (no one true canon (which is true but there are still things that just AREN’T canon, not completely written down, passed by oral tradition) that causes ppl to see mediocre modern texts and go “oh. well this is abt as close to the original as i’m going to get” and don’t bother to look into so much as malory (who i only name bc he’s one of the most well known medieval authors with the most commonly used storylines, don’t read malory kids, he’s a mediocre-at-best writer even by medieval standards).  the big perpetrators of modern arthurian tropes are the books the once and future king by th wh*te, who is a shitty person and lets it bleed into his writing (which isn’t like... nice to read or anything, seriously why do ppl love this book so much it doesn’t have redeeming qualities), and the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley (it’s poorly written, the story is a mess, and mzb is honestly a monster and one google search will tell you that), and unfortunately the writings of tennyson, which are mostly good but he clearly didn’t read the povest (a later text that’s also my favorite, known for significantly improving ppl’s opinions on tristan, isolde and co.) before deciding he hated both tristan and isolde and he has HORRIBLE takes on them.  high noon over camelot is SEEPED in pop culture arthuriana and i think it would have been so much better if the band had read so much as a SUMMARY of the events of le morte.  it’s evident in the song “the once and future king” bc it’s,,,, literally named after one of the worst books in existence.  it’s shown in the morgan le fay thing, and it’s shown in the pendragon polycule thing.  and hell, i think you can even explain away the lack of elayne of astolat with pop culture arthuriana, bc ppl have had bad takes on her ever since th wh*te combined her character with that of ela*ne of corbenic, and the band probably went “huh, let’s write lancelot’s abuser out of this” and they would’ve been right to do so if that’s who elayne of astolat was.

the final big issue is gawaine, the closest thing the genre has to a protagonist, he’s pretty much canon bi and, in some texts, arospec, he’s a dashing knight of great reknown and he derails every romance to steal hearts, commit murder, and make out with every knight and lady mentioned.  and in hnoc he’s... racist.  that’s it.  it’s,,, almost completely unfounded by the arthurian canon and shows a major misunderstanding of his motivations (like i said earlier, he wants to avenge his brothers bc there’s a reoccuring motif of how much the orkneys value family).  i say almost bc in one text it’s his motivations for killing palomydes but i’ve never heard it mentioned by name bc that’s just what it’s known for.  most arthuriana fans just look away from it except when critiquing hnoc but that one text is an outlier, shouldn’t be counted, and i highly doubt the mechs made hnoc gawain how he is bc they found this text.  it’s just a bad text.

hnoc has,,, quite a few more minor issues, such as villainized ladies of the lake (their ONLY crimes were sealing away merlin bc he tried to assault teenage nimue/ninniane (proto-nimue/vivianne from the vulgate), and that one time vivviane/ninniane kidnapped adopted baby lancelot), assigning brain to merlin (y’know,,, the predator who helped arrange the [redacted] of arthur’s mother and tried to assault a teenager,,,) although merlin is portrayed in a positive light throughout modern arthuriana so i don’t think they knew, giving a song to pellinore, who my perception of has been forever altered bc i was introduced to him through malory and the explanation of torre’s conception, which you can just look up “sir torre arthurian” to find out abt if you can’t just Guess, if they wanted a song abt the questing beast palomydes was Right There AND has been associated with the questing beast for longer, but once again i don’t think they knew.

also namedropping a bunch of knights in the fiction is... it Suggests a bigger world full of all these other stories but they just don’t work bc the world of hnoc wasn’t designed in a way where the appearance of half these characters would make sense.  like,, tristan is referenced as dying in the grail quest in the same sentence as bedevere (one of the characters who is known for almost always surviving), but tristan Isn’t one of the knights who dies on the grail quest, his possible deaths (ignoring the potentially happy ending of the povest for a second) are either being murdered by his uncle, king mark (bc mark married tristan’s gf to try and get tristan killed and also to spite him), bc he was driven into a fury bc of tristan and isolde’s affair, or he’s injured and only isolde (the best healer in the world) can save him so he sends for her and if the ship he sent for her is supposed to fly white sails if she’s there, or black sails if she’s not, and the ship flies white sails but his wife (also named isolde) says it’s black sails (the why depends but usually comes down to jealousy), and so he gives up bc he thinks all hope is lost and usually succumbs to his injuries, either way isolde dies of a broken heart over his body.  there’s no way for the tristan and isolde story to play out like it’s supposed to in the world of hnoc, just as there’s no way for any story with gawaine (and Oh Boy are there a lot of stories with gawaine) or pretty much anyone else, without severely altering the canon.

of course, there are still parts of hnoc i like a lot, most of the music i adore and i just like the idea of space cowboys and the secret good hnoc that lives in my head.  and it has one of my favorite characterizations of galahad, even though galahad hnoc is nothing like galahad arthuriana.  it’s not GOOD but i like it and it’s fun to turn my brain off too, and i’ll always value it as my introduction to arthuriana.

also there are modern arthurian tropes i do like such as characters being genre-savvy/knowing they’re fictional/knowing they’ve done this before (which hnoc does wonderfully!) and bedevere-as-the-storyteller (everyone say thank you lord tennyson).

WOW that was longer than expected, i feel very passionately abt this, when i was planning to write a fully sourced essay i meant to include a bit at the bottom with recommendations to get into better arthuriana and i think i’ll keep that in this post.

if you like hnoc for the arthurian music i’d like to suggest heather dale’s arthurian music to you, she does occasionally fall into the trap of modern arthuriana (some parts of lancelot and arthur being close, morgan as modred’s mother), sometimes she’s just wrong (galahad at lancelot’s trial, a lot of tristan and isolde), and her stuff is kinda straightwashed sometimes (sir gawain and the green knight, for example) but i’d be lying if it wasn’t catchy, and it’s not quite as bad as hnoc adaptation-wise.  culwch and olwen is pretty accurate (albeit abridged bc culwch and olwen has SO many tangents), as is lily maid (it’s abt elayne of astolat!).

if you liked hnoc for king arthur... in space! then may i recommend to you my own fanfic? it's not posted yet but the second i finish writing the first chapter i'm going to make a Big Deal out of it that'll be impossible to miss!

if you want to learn abt arthuriana through tumblr-osmosis like i did at first, i’d like to recommend the love of my life @acegalahads, first and foremost (it’s me on a sideblog i’m just obsessed with myself), and i can’t recommend my arthuriana mutuals over there, @/gringolet, @/merlinenthusiast, @/jcbookworm, @/elayneofshalott, and @/elaineofascolat (the elayne urls have been popular recently), also i know for a fact that my mutual-in-law, @/itonje makes great arthuriana posts that i look forwards to whenever i open the tag.

here are a few good reference posts, a quick guide to the characters, a guide to characters of color, and a much more comprehensive intro to arthuriana post with even more texts linked to it.

if you want to ease into med lit, i’d like to introduce you to pre-raphaelite poetry, alfred lord tennyson and william morris are my favorites, although tennyson can’t be trusted with tristan and isolde.  the poem the lady of shalott is basically a rite of passage for arthuriana fans, although when it comes to tennyson’s writings abt elayne of astolat, i prefer lancelot and elaine, which is part of his much larger story, idylls of the king.  for morris, don’t trust what he says abt aggravaine killing his mother, but my favorites of his are sir galahad, a christmas mystery, which sounds like a shitty disney sequel, and palomyde’s quest, which i blame for my love of palomydes (that and the one bit of the povest where he asks tristan to be his greatest enemy and that he wants nothing more, gay ppl,,,,).

if you want to read abt lancelot and his husband, there’s the lancelot-grail cycle, which i believe was taken off of archive dot org and i think i found it on @/tobeisexhausting’s blog but don’t quote me on that.

the povest, which was a religious experience for me and i can’t reccomend enough if you want to like tristan and isolde, is here, i don’t know who scanned it but i think i found it on @/lanzelet’s blog

the dutch texts are just good in general, here’s a link to their section of a(n unfinished) site for hosting various texts by my former mutual @/reynier (who’s no longer on tumblr).  i’d like to recommend lancelot and the white hart specifically bc it’s mainly just just gawaine being gay for lancelot.

if you want older works, here’s my scan of the history of the kings of britain, and here’s culwch and olwen and pa gur.

oh wow this is even longer than i thought it would be so i’m going to wrap this up by saying that i always love to talk abt arthuriana more than anything if you have any questions or just are curious!

[oumakokichi]

fave dr ships and why?? :0

Hmm, that’s a pretty fun question! There are so many fun character interactions in each game that there’s a lot of ships I really like, so I’ll try to briefly just touch on some of my favorites in each game!

There aren’t really any spoilers in my reply, but I’m going to include a read-more anyway because even trying to keep it brief, there were a lot of ships to cover, so it still got pretty long.

In dr1, I honestly really love naegiri. Naegi gets a lot of flack for “not being interesting enough” or “not bringing anything to the table,” but I think he worked really well as the protagonist for the first installment of the series, and I absolutely think he and Kirigiri have a lot of great chemistry. Kirigiri and Naegi’s relationship is all about finding a balance between doubt and belief, and both of them really help each other grow as people. I think their dynamic is at its best in the first game, since Kirigiri gets so much time to shine and really feels more like the deuteragonist of the series than anyone else. Plus watching Naegi try to learn how to read her stoic façade when she’s really quite emotional under the  surface is so much fun.

I’m also a huge fan of aoisakura. I love everything about their interaction, and chapter 4 of dr1 is still one of the best in the whole series in my opinion. Both of them care so much about each other even from early on, and Aoi’s anger at how the others treat Sakura or talk about her like she’s hardly even a person comes across as so legitimate. It’s such a great and largely underrated ship, so I always love to see it.

I also have to say that I like kirizono quite a lot! They don’t have much in the way of interaction in canon, considering how early Maizono dies, but it’s one of those ships where I’m much more interested in the overall potential. Kirigiri seems to have a very good grasp of what Maizono was actually like as a person and what she might have been thinking in her final moments. While she uncovers the truth of the events of chapter 1, she doesn’t see Maizono as irredeemable for tricking Naegi, but merely as someone who was scared and who ultimately couldn’t go through with her own plan. She knew that Maizono was trying to help Naegi in her own way by leaving him a dying message, and I would have loved to see a detective-and-assistant duo with Kirigiri and Maizono in some alternate universe.

Other ships from dr1 that I enjoy even if I’m not super invested in them from an analysis standpoint are celesgiri (how could I not ship the original liar and detective), naekusaba (DR IF really sold me on this one), ishimondo (all around a solid, great ship), and naegami (honestly I just think the idea of Kirigiri and Togami both dating Naegi but barely tolerating each other as friends is really funny).

Sdr2 is probably the game where I wound up the least invested in shipping, but there are still a few that I like!

Hinanami isn’t quite as appealing to me as naegiri, mostly due to Nanami being used twice for Hinata’s character development, but they have some really cute moments that I do enjoy a lot, and I really love any interaction between the two of them as gamer friends. Nanami is so much more mischievous than most people give her credit for; I still can’t help remembering when I replayed sdr2 a year or two ago and got to the part with her threatening to poke Hinata’s eyes out during an investigation, and I nearly lost my shit because I didn’t remember it at all from previous playthroughs.

I’m not quite as invested in komahina as I thought I would be when I first got into DR, but I definitely don’t mind it either! I think Komaeda’s feelings for Hinata are pretty textual and undeniable; lines like “I’m in love with the hope that’s sleeping inside you” are impossible, in my opinion, to handwave as “just a friend thing,” and Megumi Ogata has all but stated outright that her character song for Komaeda is specifically about Hinata.

Of course, I definitely think Komaeda would need to work on a lot of his internalized ideas about talent and self-worth, and that he and Hinata would have to start as friends first before carrying their relationship into anything romantic, but if their really cute interation in ndrv3’s talent development plan is anything to go off of, I think Hinata definitely does want to help Komaeda value himself more and wants to be friends with him.

As for other ships that I enjoy more casually, I like twobuki (if that’s even what people are still calling Twogami/Impostor and Ibuki as a ship), sondam (all of Sonia’s nerding out about Gundam’s chuunibyou interests is honestly super adorable), nanamiki (I feel like Nanami and Mikan could honestly have a cute dynamic if Mikan weren’t under Junko’s influence), and… I actually have no idea for this ship name, but Impostor/Hinata is really sweet. This is more related to dr3, but one of the few things I did come out feeling positively about was Impostor/Mitarai, despite everything else about how the story turned out.

Finally, there’s ndrv3! There’s quite a lot of ships I really love here, so it’s actually a little hard to narrow it down.

I hardly think I need to mention saiouma at this point, since it’s the ship I talk about the most on this blog, but it’s still my favorite ship from pretty much anything ever. I love their dynamic so much: the way they both embody the themes of “truth” and “lies” within the game respectively, the way they constantly want to know more about each other while being afraid to open up or trust each other completely, and the fact that they so perfectly manage to capture the chase of the “phantom thief vs. detective” trope to the point that it was even lampshaded in Ouma’s love hotel... all of these things just make it so much fun.

It’s another ship where I just love thinking about the potential, whether in an AU where Ouma might have lived or else where the killing game never took place at all. I honestly really love ships that deal with a lot of slow-burn and both characters thinking their affections are unrequited when it turns out they’re actually both just idiots with a bad case of pining. I also really love the fact that, in my opinion, it’s a ship where Saihara would have to really take the initiative in the end—otherwise, Ouma is just going to keep trying to run away every time he drops an “I love you,” or “you’re my favorite.”

I also really, really love himiten. It’s a ship that gets a lot more flack than it deserves, in my opinion, and it’s sad to see that it’s a little underappreciated these days. There are flaws and problems within the ship, of course, but these are things that are actually addressed within the game itself. Himiko’s apathy and disregard towards Tenko’s feelings is called out pretty bluntly in the later parts of chapter 3, and she winds up mourning Tenko’s death and taking her last advice to heart more than anyone else.

Meanwhile, while Tenko certainly meant well and always had Himiko’s best interests at heart, it’s true that she came across as somewhat condescending sometimes (albeit unintentionally) by treating Himiko like a cute animal instead of a person.  I think that she understood Himiko’s feelings a lot better by chapter 3, which is why she prioritized trying to let Himiko talk to Angie one more time despite her own misgivings about Angie. Tenko grew a lot more as a character than a lot of people give her credit for, and I would have loved to see any post-game scenario where Himiko and Tenko could’ve finally started a relationship on equal footing outside of the game.

I actually have two entire ships for Miu that I am equally fond of. Both kiiruma and irumatsu are really great in my opinion, in totally different ways. The sheer chaotic potential of kiiruma gets overlooked a lot of times, I think, but both of them are complete disasters. They have so much fun together and it really shows, both in canon and in the talent development plan as well. Kiibo is so wonderful and I love him so much, because you’d think he’d be the voice of reason as a “cold, logical robot”—but honestly, he’s just as messed-up and over the top as Miu. I mean, he did photograph her poop on what turned out to be a live audience national broadcast and he didn’t see anything wrong with this.

Kiibo is one of the few characters who vocally talks about missing Miu after her death in chapter 4, and he repeatedly tells her how much he appreciates her maintenance work on him both in canon and in one of their talent development scenes. In one such scene, he even mentions wanting to continue their ongoing relationship after they graduate, which I think is surprisingly sweet and adorable for the two of them. Honestly, Miu is about as wild as a DR character ever gets, and I love the idea of her and Kiibo just having fun with each other.

Meanwhile, Kaede and Miu’s dynamic is a lot more back-and-forth. Kaede spends a good part of her FTEs absolutely frustrated and fed up with Miu, but also decidedly worried for her well-being and wondering how she might get her to be more of a team player. She’s not afraid to put her foot down when Miu crosses the line, but she’s also one of the few people who’s ever been willing to stand by Miu and encourage her or actually be her friend in spite of how awful Miu is at interacting with others.

Even in the talent development plan, Kaede’s often seen together with Miu a lot, which I think is super cute and confirms that even at Hope’s Peak, she’d still be trying to make sure Miu had a friend around. And she was able to tell that, despite what a disaster Miu’s idea with the Christmas lights was, it was Miu’s own way of trying to add to the festivities and do something nice for other people. All in all, it’s one of my favorite wlw DR ships, and I really love when fanworks capture just how shy or flustered Miu got around Kaede sometimes.

Of course, I like momoharu a lot as well! It’s one of the ships that has grown on me quite a bit in my absence, mostly just because despite all of Momota’s flaws, he really does want Maki to love herself first and foremost. Maki’s own feelings for Momota are so important to her character growth and really represent her feeling as though she’s finally made a choice for the first time in her life, and it’s really heartwarming to see. Also, any ship where the girl could lift a guy up with one arm without breaking a sweat is a pretty good ship in my opinion.

As for other ndrv3 ships that I enjoy a lot, there’s saihoshi (Hoshi is extremely underrated as a character, and I adore how sweet his FTEs and salmon mode with Saihara were; it’s also another ship where I feel Saihara would have to really take the initiative to make Hoshi fully open up, which I like), amamatsu (Kaede and Amami had a lot of really funny, great interaction in chapter 1 and some fun banter in their FTEs, so I would’ve loved to see more of it), and harumatsu/kaemaki (again, they have a lot of potential and it would have been extremely interesting to see them interact more).

I also like saiibo, not so much in the way that most people ship it (their love hotel is cute, don’t get me wrong!), but mostly because Kiibo’s FTEs are the funniest set of FTEs in the whole game in my opinion, and the twist where they were both looking down on each other without the other one knowing just made my jaw drop before I started laughing my ass off. They’re almost as much of a disaster together as Kiibo and Miu are, and I think the humor in their dynamic sometimes gets overlooked.

There are even more ships that I like, and I could keep going on and on, but I should probably leave things off here. Character interactions are so much fun in DR, both because of the genuine growth and character development from a lot of the cast, but also because so many of them are so whacky and borderline cartoonish that it’s just really fun imagining further interactions between them. Thank you for the fun ask, anon!

[katieskarlette]

LiLi  

19 Nov 2019 to 8 Feb 2021

Vinnie

13 March 2019 to 18 January 2021

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My heart is broken.  Between these two recent losses and the betta who succumbed to old age earlier in January, I’ve lost half my beloved fish so far this year.

Vinnie was never as robust as his tankmate, Sally (who was purchased the same day from the same tank at the store).  She was half again his size.  He began to have trouble staying upright, lying sideways on the bottom, and a couple days later he stopped eating.  I used clove oil to end his suffering.  It was terribly sad but I had seen it coming for months since he was lagging behind Sally.  Sometimes goldfish (especially ones with pet store genetics) just fail to thrive, and when they reach around the two year mark something goes haywire and that’s it.  I’ve seen it before, so I knew the signs, but Vinnie was a really sweet little fish and I would loved to have him around longer.

LiLi’s passing was an utter shock, however.  She had been absolutely normal--eating, swimming, napping, being friendly--until suddenly she went sideways/upside down and appeared to be partly paralyzed while having twitching fits.  About an hour later she was gone.  Boom, just like that.  No warning signs at all.  She had always been an active fish who really seemed to enjoy life, and she had been growing a lot.  She had a great relationship with her tankmate, Maui, and was always friendly to people, too.  She loved swimming through the bubble curtain and perching herself on top of plants to nap.  She ate lunch enthusiastically that day, had her usual afternoon snooze with Maui in their favorite spots, then was up, bopping around, acting like her usual perky self, and then...something catastrophic happened inside her, and she was gone.

I wasn’t having a great few weeks anyway, as far as mental health goes, but I had been plodding along.  This absolutely devastated me.  I actually called into work today because I just wasn’t up to it.  I’m slowly getting myself together now, but I’m still in a state of shock.

I’ve had a few other goldfish in the past 19 years who have keeled over this fast, but it’s very rare, and I’ve never watched the whole thing happen in front of my eyes.  Other times I saw them being totally normal, then an hour or two later looked and found them dead.  This time I saw it all, helpless to do a damn thing about it.  I keep reliving it in my mind.

My fish are like my babies.  I’ve cried so much in the last 48 hours my eyes are a wreck and my head feels like I’ve been conked with a baseball bat.

So now I have a 55-gallon tank and a 37-gallon tank, each with a single goldfish in it.  The next step seems obvious, right?  Take Sally out of the 37-gallon and have her join Maui in the 55-gallon.  Except I tried to introduce her to LiLi and Maui shortly after Vinnie died, and she was a holy terror.  

Backing up, I had long suspected I guessed the sexes of both Sally and Vinnie wrong.  Sally would occasionally get into a mood where she would chase Vinnie relentlessly.  She actually had been doing that just before his final decline, which I’m sure didn’t help him any, but as I said he had been showing signs of not thriving long before that incident.

LiLi was a bit more than twice Sally’s size, and Maui is half again LiLi’s size, so I didn’t figure Sally’s aggression would go anywhere.  For the first few hours they were together, they seemed to get along great!  They swam together, smelling and inspecting each other, with her following them around the tank in a “let me give you the grand tour” kind of way, but there were no signs of aggression.  They ate supper together with no more jostling than usual for goldfish.  Then, a few hours into the evening, Sally just went nuts.  She started chasing the other two, driving hard into them, pushing them over, just being a huge pain in the peduncle.  She took after Maui more than LiLi, but she’d break off from harassing him to chase her around a bit, too.  At first I thought they were just working out a pecking order and let them sort it out, but it continued for a half hour without a lull, and I could tell Maui and LiLi were getting really stressed.  Sally got a stern talking-to and a trip back into the 37-gallon tank.

Sally’s been quite content by herself in the weeks since then.  I expected her to get lonely and mopey, but so far she really hasn’t.  She’s been active, her appetite is good, and she seems to get her social needs met by me spending the vast majority of my leisure time in the computer chair an arm’s length away from her.

Goldfish almost always need another member of their species around to bond with and socialize with.  I’ve had goldfish who have deeply mourned their tank mates and been lethargic and bored by themselves.  I’ve only had one who preferred to be alone.  I’m hoping Sally isn’t the second.

Maybe the dynamic will be different with only one other fish to get to know instead of two.  Maybe because she’s been by herself for much longer now she’ll be happier to see another of her own kind.  I don’t know, but I have to try.  If Sally and Maui can share the bigger tank, I can get another pair of tiny ones to grow up in the 37-gallon.  If they can’t cohabitate then I’m left trying to find a new tankmate for Maui, who definitely needs one.

I don’t know why it’s so damn hard to find fantail goldfish online.  I’ve had both ryukins and orandas in the past (the latter only because I bought what I thought were fantails who ended up growing wens) but I vastly prefer the more normal body types of fantails and veiltails.  No headgrowth that can interfere with their sight or breathing.  No buggy eyes.  No deformed humps.  Just...a fish with long fins.  I know the egg-shaped body of a fantail isn’t exactly natural, either, but it’s much closer to that of their wild carp ancestors, and less likely to lead to health problems.

I have searched extensively online through the years for a source of quality fantails or veiltails, and found one place that is no longer in business (where Maui and the late Aolani came from), and another that stopped carrying non-pond varieties a couple months after I got LiLi from them.

The local brick-and-mortar pet stores really only have larger fantails when someone surrenders one due to it being too big for their tank.  There isn’t enough demand to carry them normally.  Last time I was in the market I asked the locally-owned pet store to call me if anyone brought in a large fantail.  I never heard back from them, which I understand if there was nothing to report, but I don’t know how long they kept my note on file.  Probably not indefinitely.

It’s so frustrating.  And a big part of my healing process after I’ve lost a fish is to welcome a new one home.  When I can’t do that I have nothing to distract me from the loss, and I just feel bad every time I see the “widowed” fish being alone.

So yeah.  2021 is not the year of the fish.

[rashenditrash]

Had a not great day today, so here's some sad Kadolin which I wrote to help me feel stuff.

So I've done something like this before when I wrote "An Expert in Just About Everything" - that is reworking a scene from the books with different characters.  ROW SPOILERS AHEAD.

This time around, as soon as I read Chapter 12 of of Rhythm of War, I knew I wanted to do a rewrite of the scene with the roles reversed.  While I love Kadolin's dynamic, I'm personally not a huge fan of writing Shallan off because I also love her individually, and her and Adolin's relationship.  With that in mind, the premise of the following scene is that Shallan is deep undercover, and Adolin believes (incorrectly) that she is dead.  I think this could make for some very interesting conversations down the road.  In my mind, it would be less about the typical drama, and more about "okay, how do we make this work".  Maybe if writing this inspires me I'll continue the narrative.

For maximum effect, I'd recommend reading Chapter 12 of Rhythm of War first (and maybe Chapter 21), and hopefully you can pick up on the parallels.  

Anyways, here it goes ROW SPOILERS AHEAD:

She's gone.  Adolin felt dim, unreal, like he was hovering between realms.  Is this how you feel? he wondered to Maya.  Unfortunately, Maya could not answer for him, and Adolin just felt lost.  Adolin stiffly moved towards his rooms, the rooms he used to share with his wife, and turned and closed the door with a firm push.  

Only then did he break.  He didn't make it to the chair or the bed.  He sank down with his back to the wall beside the door.  He tried to unbutton his well tailored jacket - storms why did he always need clothing that fit so snug?  His fingers fumbled at the ornate buttons, but found no purchase.  He tried to gasp, his chest and abdomen straining against his suddenly restrictive clothing.  His entire body seemed to tremble as agonyspren twisted in an out, twisted faces carved from stone, mocking him in his loneliness.  

Come on.  You've known loss before.  You got through losing your mother.  You can do this.  Adolin sobbed, and grabbed a scarf to muffle the sound.  Why couldn't he pull himself together, like he had back then?  The answer was obvious.  When his mother had died, and his father had abandoned them for drink.  There was no choice but to keep things together for Renarin's sake.  He had been the only one looking out for his brilliant little brother.  Now, Renarin was well and living his own life, and Adolin was just . . .

Alone.

He'd always hated that word.  All his life Adolin strove to surround himself in people - it didn't matter of they were common soldiers, lordly courtiers, or girlfriends, so long as they were there, with him, taking up space beside him.  But to seek the comfort of company now felt wrong, like a betrayal to the person whose absence he wanted to fill more than anything.   

A knock came at his door.  Adolin bit down hard on his scarf.  Please just go away.  The knock became more insistent.  Adolin tried to catch his breath, and glanced at a nearby mirror.  Come on, he told himself, Present yourself.  He sniffed three times and fanned his face, banishing the tears from his eyes.  He ran his hand through his hair a couple of times, until it settled into its familiar pattern of calculated dishevelment.  As he stood, he straightened his shirt and jacket, each motion of tidying his appearance soothing him a little more.  You can get through this.

The knocking continued.  "Coming," Adolin said, unable to keep his unsteadiness from his voice.  

Kaladin pushed his way in, Syl at his shoulder.  He wore civilian's garb, plain and unassuming, which only made his hardened bearing and physique stand out more.  Kaladin was like a constant, and unmovable anchor in the chaos of a high storm.    

They stood in silence, for a moment, taking each other in.  Adolin flashed a hesitant smile.  You know this is going to be hard for him too.  You can't let your dark moments undo his progress.  

"Maya... I wasn't quite sure what she wanted, but she seemed to want us to come here... um..." Syl appeared uncharacteristically bashful, and Adolin got the impression she'd be blushing if she wasn't monochromatic.  "And we're here now... so... bye!  I'll let you two talk"

As Syl departed, Kaladin cocked his head to the side.  "I... I heard.  I'm sorry Adolin."

"I'll... I'll be all right Bridgeboy.  Really.  I just need some time.  No need to fret."

Kaladin nodded, solemn.  "Right."  He closed the door behind him, and slid down to the floor.  Patting the ground beside him, he motioned for Adolin to sit down.  "No reason for you to take your time alone though right?"

"I..."

"If you need to be alone that's fine, just tell me.  It's not a big deal.  But for now I'll just sit here okay?  Until you tell me otherwise."  

Storms, when had Kaladin of all people become emotionally intelligent?   Adolin hesitated, then loosened his jacket and sunk down to the ground beside Kaladin.  As he leaned back, his arm brushed up against Kaladin's.  He felt he could almost absorb some strength from the man's frame, like a Radiant consuming Stormlight.  

He was in mourning - he should be taking time alone to work through his emotions.  To pay respects to... to her...  But of course, alone was the last thing Adolin wanted to be.  

Adolin grimaced as he caught sight of himself in the mirror again.  Granted, he was at a terrible angle, but he hadn't done nearly as good a job of clearing the redness from his eyes as he thought he had.  "Storms, I look awful.  What a mess."  

Kaladin grunted, making his disagreement immediately evident in a way only he could.  "As an expert in the subject,  I can confirm looking awful isn't half has bad as it's made out to be, not that you would know."

"Come now, you know you're a catch.  You have that whole aloof, stoic, hero thing going for you."

  "You're the expert."  Kaladin's eyes darted up and down Adolin's figure with a surgeon's precision.  "Here, let's get you changed into something more comfortable.  You need to be able to breath easy, and that ridiculous outfit isn't helping you at the moment.  I'll get you some water."  Kaladin stood slowly, and helped Adolin up.  "Don't worry about how it looks, just throw on whatever will make you feel the best.

Adolin extracted his hand from Kaladin's grip, and moved over to his armoire behind the dressing screen and started shifting out of his formal attire.  Normally, Adolin was able to quickly choose an outfit by instinct, but this time he found himself hesitating.  Eventually, he settled on a pair of comfortable training trousers, meant to facilitate movement, and one of the men's shirts that Veil used to wear.  The garment, tailored to Shallan's proportions, wouldn't quite close properly, so Adolin just pulled it around himself, smelling the shirt, and imagining his wife was wrapping her arms around him again.  

He let out a sob as he sank to the ground.  Kaladin was there in an instant, placing a hand against Adolin's chest, then his neck, and leaning in to support him as they sat down.  After the sobs died down a bit, Kaladin held up a glass of water, forcing Adolin to drink.  Adolin drank, and breathed in the smell of Kaladin.  He smelt... clean, but practical?  Like freshly laundered kitchen linens.  Slowly, the sobs subsided as Adolin took comfort in the strong frame of his friend.  

"I'm sorry," he whispered.  "I shouldn't put this on you.  How are you doing, Kaladin?  Storms, she was your friend too, I..."

"Sush, stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Trying to 'help' me to avoid thinking about how you are doing.  You can't be a light to everyone if your own sphere is going dim, Adolin.  It's okay to lean on me.  My father always said, in an emergency a surgeon has to look after himself first - its only after your own person is secure that you can ensure you are capable of competently helping others.  We'll have plenty of time to talk about me later.  For now, what do you need Adolin?"

I need you.  The thought, unbidden, seemed to escape from a locked chest in Adolin's mind.  Stop it, you are just scared of being alone.  Yes, he found Kaladin's presence comforting, and he certainly needed support in the moment.  That was all he was responding too, nothing more.  What kind of man would be thinking of someone else, like that, so soon after losing the person he was supposed to turn to?  He wanted to tell himself it was just a thing of a moment, a figment of his loneliness and need for comfort.  

You know that's not true.  This isn't new, and you know it.  Listen to who you are ignoring, even when its yourself.

"It's okay, just breathe.  Drink some water and breathe okay.  We don't have to talk."  Kaladin's hand traced along Adolin's spine, brushing each vertebrae.  Adolin focused on the rhythm of Kaladin's touch, and on his breathing.  Up and down, in and out.  He felt himself slipping into the trance-like state of mind Zahel had taught him to utilize when preparing for combat.  Slowly he began to feel the emotions start to subside.  They didn't leave, but the wave passed.  He entered a calm in the storm.

"You're one hell of a surgeon, Bridgeboy."

Kaladin's hand stopped.  "I do what I can," he said carefully, "But Adolin, you're the one who heals people.  I'm just returning a favor, long overdue."

Adolin smiled, feeling a moment of genuine warmth in his chest.  "Thank-you."

[dustedmagazine]

Amenra — De Doorn (Relapse)

De Doorn by AMENRA

Belgium’s Amenra have for years been writing long-form essays in bleakness. Usually presented as a “mass,” their works have generally traded in the sort of dynamism that’s more commonly associated with “post-rock” than with much metal. But, shaped by the arty impulses of longstanding bands from Neurosis to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the band has carved out a fascinating voice shaped by their willingness to immerse themselves in sheer abjection. That makes for music that is unusually introspective as much as it is ferocious, both tendencies very much amplified on their debut for Relapse.

It’s refreshing when bands so inclined have the patience to allow slow builds to happen. From the opening minutes of “Ogentroost,” there’s a cavernous dimension to the sound. They’ve developed increasing range in their use of electronic texture and ambience, likely a byproduct of how many installations and art shows they’ve done over the year. Once the track gets going, you’re reminded that the band’s ace has always been singer Colin Van Eeckhout’s vocal range, from pure tones to sheer howl. The slow build, the mournful arpeggiating, it’s all sonically immersive, right down to the hushed, Flemish spoken-word passages throughout.

 But perhaps the most significant factor in the increased richness in Amenra’s sound is the addition of two members of fellow Belgians Oathbreaker, especially the marvelously expressive vocalist Caro Tanghe (though guitarist Lennart Bossu is no slouch). In general, the band is playing simpler and more pared down music, with less reliance on pure power than in the past. With confidence in repetition and emotion, there’s actually quite a lot of vulnerability that comes through, and Tanghe is right at the heart of this. On the back end of “Ogentroost,” for example, she contributes to an almost hymnal-like mass of voices behind the riff, ghostly and compelling. 

Even further marking the band’s commitment to expressive range, De Doorn features several tracks (like “De Doo den Bloei”) comprised entirely of spoken word recitations set against what could be Fennesz contributions. More often, Amenra simply incorporates the recitations into spacious, lengthy pieces whose dynamic arc has almost the feel of ritual. “De Evenmens,” for example, opens full throttle but only for a minute or so, easing back into an almost liturgical feel created by the chiming guitars and mournful speech. “Het Gloren” has the same kind of slow-as-molasses ache that you hear on some of Rwake’s more glacial epics. But the emotional rawness recalls the deep despair on, say, an Usnea record, with Van Eeckhout’s pained howls ringing out against a lonely nothingness. What’s more effective is that the band have become more skilled at writing for chord changes rather than just riffs. They don’t exactly back down from the effect of the latter when they go there, but the attention to harmony gives the whole much more heft than it otherwise might have. 

The heft is certainly in the physicality the music achieves in its peak moments. But it’s also in the fractured beauty of this music, its emotional catharsis, the beauty of something lost perhaps. This comes across quite vividly in the closing “Voor Immer,” building through desolation to a glorious performance from Tanghe. I found there to be quite a bit of strange uplift from this bleak music. Think of these pieces as heavy survival hymns.

Jason Bivins