#it's such an in-character little moment for everyone :3

[cosmerelists]

Cosmere Characters at a Greasy Spoon Diner

As requested by @jabber-wock :)

If Cosmere characters wandered into a greasy spoon diner from our world, what would that be like for them?

1. Szeth & Nightblood

They just want the restaurant to live up to its promises.

Szeth: [staring intently at his spoon] Szeth: Hmmm...they say that this is a "greasy spoon" restaurant, and yet, this spoon seems remarkably clean. Nightblood: Gasp! That sounds evil! Szeth: We must not jump to conclusions, Sword-Nimi. Nightblood: You're right! Maybe it's a mistake! Nightblood: Waiter! More grease!

2. Siri & Susebron

They decide to order a little bit of everything. This is a mistake.

Siri: T-This "appetizer plate" is the size of my head! Siri: What could the regular portions possibly be like?? Susebron [gripping her hand tightly]: Siri...I'm scared... Siri: I'm scared too...

3. Sazed & Vin

Let's just say that Sazed picked the wrong restaurant for etiquette lessons.

Sazed: And remember, Vin, when you are eating in public or at an event, you must assume that someone could be looking at you at any time. Sazed: At every moment, you must be the picture of poise and grace. Vin: [Looking up from her giant hamburger, face covered in ketchup] Sazed: ... Sazed: Never mind.

4. Elend & his friends

Let's just say that Elend picked the wrong restaurant to discuss philosophy at.

Elend: ...Anyway, that's what I've been thinking about the treatise. What about you all? Jastes: Well, personally, I think the "greatest good" is this mac 'n' cheese! Telden: Ha ha, yeah!! Elend: ... Elend: Never mind.

5. Lift & Wyndle

Orders a stack of pancakes that is taller than she is.

Lift: [eyes glistening with tears] Wyndle: A-Are you all right, mistress? Lift (in a whisper): It's the stormin' promised land.

6. Kaladin, Shallan, & Adolin

You know how greasy spoon waitresses notoriously call everyone "hon"?

Waitress: Careful--plate's hot, hon. Kaladin: [small smile] Shallan: Oh? What's with that look, Kal? Kaladin: I-It's just kinda sweet. Kaladin: "Hon." Adolin (too intensely): You like pet names??

7. Ham & Dockson

You know, Ham. He can find philosophy in anything.

Ham: "All-day breakfast." Ham: But if it's served all day, can it really be called "breakfast"? Dockson: ...Just eat your scrambled eggs.

8. Dalinar & Sadeas

I cannot improve on what @isdalinarhot already wrote for a similar scenario here.

9. Wayne

Immediately settles in.

Wayne: [wearing a trucker hat, eating a huge slice of apple pie and sipping his coffee] Wax: It's been three hours, Wayne. You've eaten enough food for an army! Wayne: Listen, place like this is an island of light in the endless darkness... Wayne: Gotta fuel up my truck, and gotta fuel up myself. Wayne: This endless coffee's the only thing separatin' man from the possums, ya know. Wax: ... Wax: What

10. Bridge Four

I just really think they'd like it there.

Rock: Ha! This plate is bigger than even MY head! Sigzil: Kinda bland, for an omelet, but at least there's a bottle of hot sauce. Huio: [covertly adding his own spices to the chili] Moash [eye twitching]: I know I need to stop saying yes to the coffee refills, but they keep offering them! Lopen: ...And then I said, "chili? It's actually quite hot!" Lyn: Was the waitress amused? Lopen: ...No. Skar (whispering): I can't believe a chicken fried this steak...

[nebula-chao-agere]

Regressuary 2025: Day 3

(This is specifically about the movie franchise, there will not be any shipping of any kind as they're basically children in the movies and I see them all more like siblings,,)

Like Brother

Shadow was walking nervously to Tom and Maddie's room, his baby blankie trailing behind him, the corner in his hand. The small blanket was a gift from Doctor Stone, being something he'd recovered from the lab after Gerald and Ivo's death. He didn't have a use for it, but it was in that room that Shadow had been a little too attached to while there. Surely the gift wouldn't hurt. Well, not only did it NOT HURT but it actively helped Shadow when he regressed, the little hedgehog and blankie being inseparable.

He toddled down the stairs and into their currently empty room. Maddie was with Tails and Knuckles in the kitchen working on a lunch of finger foods. Tom was in the bathroom with a fussing blue blur who was very insistent on not taking a bath. While everyone was distracted, Shadow found himself poking around in the shared closet of the parents of the house. He hesitantly flipped through Tom's shirts and jackets, a small pang of jealousy. Sonic, Tails, and even Knuckles had some clothes of their own. Shadow didn't really understand the concept of clothes, not anything other than gloves and shoes anyways. But when it came to bedtime or when one of his siblings were sick, "pajamas" seemed to bring alot of comfort to them. Even just t-shirts or the soft "pants" or "shorts" appeared to have some sort of comfort and gave the wearer some ability to relax.

Sonic had grown quite the collection of t-shirts now, mostly consisting of his favorite superheroes or cartoon characters, and even a few hand-me-downs from Tom. Shadow couldn't quite place why, but he wanted a shirt of his own. He was filled with almost 100% certainty that Sonic would share his, but it just wasn't the same to him. Shadow wanted his own. He wanted to feel... human? That's not the word he was looking for. Something that made him feel a bit more "down to Earth", in a literal sense; similar to how his blankie made him feel. He shook his head, holding his blankie closer to his chest before glancing behind him. Making sure the coast was clear; he hesitantly took a plain t-shirt off of one of the hangers. He'd made sure it wasn't one he saw Tom wear often, and made sure it wasn't one of the fancier ones that he saved for special occasions. And of course, he steered very clear of his work attire. They looked uncomfortable anyway.

The shirt he'd picked would probably be huge on him, but that didn't seem to be a problem for him in the slightest. It had some cartoon mascot on it that he didn't recognize, seeming to be a yellow bear in a red shirt of his own. Shadow hesitantly checked the doorway again before he slipped it over his own head after setting his blankie down, gently, on the bed. He struggled getting his quills through at first, but eventually popped his head through. Something didn't feel quite right though... He looked down at himself, arms tucked underneath the shirt, the little guy not quite understanding how the sleeves were supposed to work.

At that very moment, Sonic sped past the bathroom, somehow already dried off, Tom calling down the hall for him to slow down. "Sonic, you know we're not supposed to run in the house!" he playfully scolded, a small laugh escaping him as he now stood at his own bedroom door. Shadow froze, not even needing to turn around as he realized the predicament he was in. He was frozen in place, his flight or fight at a standstill as he instead froze. "...Shadow?" Tom asked hesitantly, gently, after a moment. Shadow flinched, standing there with flushed cheeks as he didn't know what to do, or how to explain what he was trying to do before he was walked in on.

Not saying another word, not wanting to scare the kid, he closed the door softly, making his way over to Shadow. He crouched down next to him, taking it slow and gently, not wanting to make him flinch or jump again. Tom couldn't help the smile that had now formed on his lips as he saw his shirt hanging down to Shadow's knees. "Let me help ya bud... Is it okay to touch?" He asked before even attempting to put a handout. Once given the slightest of nods after nearly ten seconds of silence, he took a hold of one of the short sleeves, trying to guide Shadow's hand. "You gotta put your arm through here, okay?"

Shadow hesitantly did as he was told but couldn't take his eyes off of Tom. How was he being so calm about this, acting like it was normal? It was a stark contrast from how he looked at him when they had first met, and it was surreal to Shadow. The gentle touch of a father's hand was foreign but not unwelcome. He found himself strangely not pulling away as Tom took his hand and guided it through the sleeve, then doing the same with his other hand. Tom knew it was better to leave all of his questions unanswered. One wrong step, and he wouldn't hear from Shadow for weeks, the prideful hedgehog taking even the smallest of questionings harshly. Either way, he already had a bit of a guess of what he was seeing.

"You like it?" He asked with a tender smile once he'd gotten the shirt straightened out and on correctly. Shadow hid his face in his blankie, feeling ashamed of how much he enjoyed something that seemed so small and simple to everyone else in the house.

Before Tom could coax an answer out of him, Maddie called for the kiddos, trying to round them up in the living room for lunch. Tom held his arms open, offering to carry Shadow. It was always hit or miss if Shadow would let anyone pick him up... bud today... he let himself walk into Tom's arms, nuzzling his face in the fabric of his blankie that he held onto, sat atop his father's shoulder. "Let's go get some food in your tummy, yeah?"

As Tom carried him into the living room, the other three kiddos weren't even really paying attention, Tails and Sonic competeing to see who can stack the tallest "cracker sandwich" while Knuckles was filling up on the grapes while they watched the movie Maddie had turned on. Maddie however, couldn't help but raise a brow at the hedgehog in Tom's arms, strangely docile and clingy. Not that it was a bad thing, just something she wasn't expecting. Tom sat Shadow down next to the other boys... or tried to. Shadow was oddly very attached to Tom all of a sudden, almost as if he'd regressed into an even smaller headspace than before. Not wanting to draw any extra attention by asking about it, Tom sat down instead, holding Shadow in his lap. Shadow made no move to take any of the food, but watched the other three, trying to gauge what he should do here.

Being the literal Ultimate Lifeform, Shadow didn't need to eat or drink, nor was he accustomed to doing so. But when Maddie offered him a sippy cup similar to the ones the other three had, Shadow accepted it with hesitance, but almost instantly began to sip from it when he saw Sonic take a sip from his. He laid his head against Tom's chest, watching the movie, blankie in one hand, sippy in the other.

This family life really wasn't so bad... Nobody judged or expected anything of him... Nothing hurt and he was... safe? Safe. Yeah, that's the word he was looking for.

[sideblogdotjpeg]

Extremely small spoilers for the c3 ending warning

But I think a really fun bit of Sol's character that I kinda didn't notice until the final episode is that ever since Irondeep (or maybe even before?), Sol has just been learning how to sew and crochet. And I have extreme respect for Murph letting Sol use that knowledge in the final episode to redistribute the magic of his displacement cloak amongst the party. I just really love those kinds of small character details in fantasy - the hobby they pick up randomly that slowly becomes more and more of a skill as the story progresses.

YES ! sols background knitting/crochet hobby (theyre used kind of interchangeably) is one of my favourite little quirks of his to think about... and if you keep track of its offhanded mentions, it actually weaves (hehe) a really sweet mini-story about sols character !

(teeny tiny mini essay under the cut, because i. have. thoughts)

so! a minor um actually is that sols knitwork is actually brought up pretty much at the VERY start of his character intro;

"...I'm wearing a homemade sweater that is in the same pattern as the standard issue synth knight sweater, but that one didn't fit me, so ive crafted my own as a replica - the sleeves are a little long, i'm still working on it, i like to knit in my spare time to quell my thoughts a bit..." (ep 1)

so we establish 1) he likes to knit, 2) knitting is an almost meditative practice, a very physical-based method of dealing with his thoughts, 3) he wants to fit in with his cohort of synth knights, even though their 'standard' has excluded and rejected him 4) he takes on this rejection without any bitterness, and instead with an optimism that his own personal inadequacies can be overcome by trying his darn best, 5) he's a cute frog in an oversized sweater

it's a pretty small & overall NOT important line that doesn't mean anything, but you COULD interpret it as the introductory, basic threads of meditative practice, community, belonging and identity that return as pretty major elements in sol as a character!

other, pretty major encounters with the knitting/sewing motif:

ep 7: Callie "we're sort of entwined now, right? i mean, our fates are somewhat braided at this point" + sol "if you're saying that we're friends then yes!" (this isn't a sol knitting moment, but good GOD 'our fates are braided' + them later discovering they're peregrine + sol sewing peregrine patches - we LOVE unintentional foreshadowing)

ep 27: Before the king durretar fight, sol gives everyone a peice of black yarn to wrap around their arms, a symbol of the living will they made to each other. Later in the ep, he holds up the band just before he goes down

ep 39: Right before he leaves to return to irondeep, sol gives swag "a little bracelet of yarn, just so we can feel connected" (literally FUCKING RUINOUS when you think about this being THE LAST TIME THEY SEE EACH OTHER FACE TO FACE and all the other moments sol gives his loved ones threads/bracelets. god. actually ruinous)

ep 53 (short rest!): This requires maybe a bit of context... but essentially, its caldwell describing sol's conflict of wanting to save the people he loves VS the growing reality of his inability to do so as, "no matter how big and thick and fluffy a sweater he knits, it always unravels itself"

ep 57: sol plants a piece of thread on the two ice swags (red and purple) as a way to tell them apart

ep 61: sol takes the black band from the king durretar fight and weaves it into a design that he made of the peregrine symbol/callie's sigil so that they can all wear it as a team (and one for a squire too, of course!)

ep 72: sol shreds his displacer scarf & patches up everyone's track jackets with it, to share the protection magic (this does end up saving calder's life i think.... THAT'S THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP BABY.)

finally, also in ep 72: galactic swag returns the night sky to the faewild, and sol comments "now that's knitting..."

I think. All in all. It's like. sol is this guy who, perhaps more than anything else, longs for family, home & community. He found this in launchpad and mothership, and their promise that if he could just work hard enough to prove that he meets their standards, then he CAN fit in and be worthy, and belong, and be part of something big. And over the course of campaign 3, he finds this with duck team.

All these desires for connection are expressed through the small things he knits for the people he loves. It keeps coming up over and over again, sol trying to stitch pieces of himself into his friends. Have this yarn, and this thread, and this bracelet, so you can remember you have someone to fight for and someone fighting for you (i have THOUGHT about this being kind of like a Lady's favor to a knight.... i've THOUGHT about this...) In ep 39, he gives swag a mushroom with the stated purpose that it might let sol know if swag dies. In ep 41, he tells hardwon that "there haven't been many people that I've met that have stuck around and meant something to me". I think you could interpret.... sol's habit of giving little knit gifts to his friends as maybe kind of a manifestation of that worry. that people are going to leave him, and he's going to end up alone again. so the thread of the living will comes back over and over again... no matter where you are, dead or alive, we'll be connected somehow.

You can also interpret all of this in the context of his childhood! in the waterpark ! A place where he was cold, and in danger all the time, and alone, and nobody made any 'big and thick and fluffy' sweaters for him. That the way he responds to this is... by making sure the people that he loves never ever have to feel like that. Here's something to keep you warm, and to remind you that i Know you, I Think of you, and i Love you. Sol just wants to protect all his friends by knitting them up in a big comfy sweater (and by the finale, in a way, he does!)

anyway ! those are my um. my. very minor thoughts about sol & knitting. i think about it a normal amount i promise. it is really REALLY a very fun bit about his character and it is. wonderful to see it evolve over the campaign.

Also since I accidentally went whole hog and wrote a full essay. Um. more sol knitting mentions that I personally find very delightful, although less relevant to this specific analysis:

Ezry arc: "i haven't had a chance to knit in a while, that really mellows me out" < sol's explanation for nearly punching a salamander to death because he kind of reminded him of a completely different salamander guy who had the audacity to go to the movies with albin, once. Really cute because awww he knits to mellow out. and also. god sol is fucking Insane. frog who is for sure possessive a normal and healthy amount

Living Woods arc: the living woods arc has sooo many cute lil sol knitgifts. sol gives calder a reversible beanie that has the initials CK (for calder kilde) and KC (for kalder cilde)... he says he was making it for calders birthday! (i didn't check this particular moment for accuracy, but i DO rmb calder saying smthn to the effect of "this is the nicest thing anyone's ever got for me") ..... this also has the famous callie crochet bra + i THINK sol's knit boots for calder

Irondeep arc: sol makes the infamous knit hammer cover with pompoms for kenna. (he later also makes i think.. a cloth for kenna to clean her hammer? he's trying guys....)

Tsunare arc: callie asks sol to make a gunk bindle

Ice knife arc: EVERYBODY IS REALLY MEAN TO SOLS KNITTING. SOMEBODY DEFEND HIM HE DOESNT DESERVE THIS....

Faewild arc: after calder gives himself a crop top , "i will Happily be your tailor"

Conclusion? this frog loves his friends!!!!!

[inarmes]

do you really think having disclosed that you are also mentally disabled makes you able to slip under the radar when it comes to ableism? yes, i get what your experiences may be regarding but not only are we analysing 3-5 lines and then IMMEDIATELY going with the idea that sid could be developmentally behind, but you seem pretty proud of that idea, which might be a place of relatability for you, but in a fandom where ableism is viciously rampant, this does not give people a proper scope on intellectual disabilities and how to spot them. it will likely make people misinformed, because not everyone who's been shielded from information at a young age (from what it seems like to me,) would then have something neurologically wrong.

vick was also put into a place of responsibility next to rory and gale. he understands because he's seen what they've had to do. the whole family has to chip in to survive. from a couple lines, we can infer that frankly, sid seems exempt from contribution at the moment, minus being haymitch's rooster.

i assume sid *does* know about the reaping, but of course his older brother is going to tell him to be quiet and look nice because number one, district 12 has historically been a place of conflict for the capitol, dating back to the tbosas era. of course he's going to avoid his brother acting out in any possible forms of rebellion to protect him. and what makes you assume that the conversation set to have won't be a little while before the reaping? again, seperate your predictions and headcanons from what we've just been given. it can be presumed that sid is so 'unaware' as you might think because ma abernathy and haymitch have both 1) worked hard enough collectively that it doesn't call for further help and 2) are likely trying to protect him up until the time calls for his own “first” reaping.

it is not “another thing entirely” for haymitch to try and coach his brother to look nice and keep quiet for the reaping, it's manners and discipline, just like what effie “claims” twelve doesn't have. any kid who's never gone to such a monumental event would likely have to be told certain rules and guidelines.

but let me circle back. giving us an anecdote of your experiences doesn't take away from the fact you used DEGRADING terms such as simple to describe a 10-year-old child who has not been hinted to be anything neurodiverse or anything mentally disabled. those distinctions are something SC makes, even if she does them poorly. i go back to the point of this fandom is rife with enough ableism. and sometimes it's not just allistics or abled-bodied people, it is also disabled people, such as yourself applying the wrong ideas to something as small as this, and then creating a chain of people mindlessly following what you're saying without thinking about it. it's a headcanon, you've got it, no one can take that from you. but don't imply something like that as canon with no solid evidence from 2 seperate exerpts that don't even explore who sid is in detail, and are at most, childish characteristics.

what's more, is that your desire for him to *have* something wrong with him is strange and not anything in which i understand. he's a new character. he's one of the first younger characters minus posy and vick that we meet. until SC says out right, don't try and impose a headcanon which is based off of your personal experience, as something that is therefore canon. trying to call a kid for having kid traits likely developmentally behind, as i've said - is plain gross, justified in your opinion or not.

y’all i really think sid abernathy is intellectually and/or developmentally disabled. idk if this is a common belief or not, but after the audio excerpt i’m more convinced than ever. here’s why:

1. sid’s dialogue and behavior

“you said be your rooster. you said you wanted to get to the woods at daylight.”

“haymitch!” wails sid. “the sun’s coming up!”

sid’s language and cadence suggest a young child. which makes sense; he’s 10, which is a young child. so it’s consistent that haymitch would tell sid to be his “rooster,” which is, of course, a callback to “tuck your tail in, little duck.” however, while katniss’ pet name for prim is humorous and light-hearted, her intention in using it is to make prim feel better facing the imminent reaping.

sid’s joy on reaping day, especially the reaping day of the second quarter quell, suggests sid is at best aware but unconcerned about the day’s proceedings, but realistically, that he doesn’t know or understand whatsoever what will occur. as far as he’s concerned, the most important event of the day is haymitch’s birthday.

granted, sid is 10, and prim, at 12, is reaping age. but there’s no way he can avoid the truth about the games or reaping day at school. and haymitch “resistance is not an option” abernathy would not indulge such wanton disregard for the dangers of the day. acting like the reaping isn’t happening is insolence in and of itself. unless, of course, sid’s behavior is not disregard, but true ignorance. and the only way he’d be ignorant of the reaping is if he is, at least in the eyes of haymitch and his mother, incapable of understanding it.

2. sid needing an explanation about the reaping

“i wonder whether it'll be me or ma who sits him down beforehand and explains about his role in the reaping, how he had to look nice and keep his mouth shut and not cause any trouble. even if the unthinkable happens and his name gets drawn, he's got to suck it up, put on the bravest face he can muster and climb onto that stage, because resistance is not an option.”

as implied by sid’s happy attitude in the excerpt, and now confirmed by the audio clip, sid will need to have the reaping explained to him when he turns 12. but in his worry about sid’s first reaping, haymitch is concerned with telling sid step-by-step what to do. and it’s not just about where to stand or the proceedings themselves. he will have to explain to sid that he needs to be quiet and docile.

no kid in district 12 would need it explained to them how to act on reaping day by age 12. that is, unless the normal district 12 peacekeepers would otherwise know that the kid means no harm in stepping out of line. on reaping day, with peacekeeper reinforcements and cameras, the same lenience would not apply. an intellectual disability would explain not only that, but why haymitch and their mother intend to keep sid in his happy ignorance as long as they can.

3. sid’s death within two weeks of haymitch’s defiance

the most common question about snow’s punishment of haymitch is why he didn’t have sid or lenore dove reaped. on lenore dove, it would be too obvious to reap haymitch’s girl just a year or two after haymitch’s games. that’s especially true if haymitch’s insolence is so egregious as to warrant a punishment as severe as the death of all his loved ones. after a year or two lenore dove would be aged out. to create some plausible deniability for the capitol citizens, the only realistic option for snow to reap would be sid.

with sid, he would have nine years to choose exactly the right moment to punish haymitch in this way. if sid is anything like prim, he’d be beloved in the capitol during haymitch’s games, largely for his youth and innocence. but katniss herself considers prim to be reaped. that’s a particularly strong possibility once prim was older, and thus less angelic and harmless in the eyes of the capitol. even still, rue is evidence that age is not reason enough for the capitol to grow sour at the idea of any tribute’s reaping.

so why wouldn’t snow wait it out for sid? i’m sure we’ll get plenty of reasons in the book, but the best explanation is that it would create blowback for snow if sid was reaped, regardless of his age or how beloved he is in the capitol. the most realistic scenario why that would be true is if sid is too naive and “simple” to be a threat, even as an older teen in a strong, adult-like body.

that’s not to say the capitol is “above” reaping a disabled child (see: the boy from 10 in the 75th and wovey in the 10th). but a beloved younger brother of a quarter quell victor who is ALSO developmentally disabled? the optics would be terrible for snow. that’s especially true if the capitol’s attitude toward people with mental disabilities is anything as patronizing as that of the people of district 12 (see: the people at the hob treating greasy sae’s granddaughter like a pet out of ignorance rather than malice).

4. it’s great device to explain the games to the audience without too much info-dumping

we’re going to spend much of the games in haymitch’s head. even in the midst of a battle royale, that can get boring really fast. that issue was avoided in tbosas by snow’s narration, since the boring bits of lucy’s gray’s time in the games were easily supplemented by snow’s life in the capitol.

with katniss, the quiet parts of the games were broken up with flashbacks. the flashbacks served double duty of keeping things interesting AND creating character development/worldbuilding. we saw katniss’ father’s death, her interaction with peeta, her friendship with gale, and her life at home with her mother and prim. her father’s death explained her character, the bread incident her feelings about peeta, her friendship with gale her worldview, and prim/her mother the inter-12 seam/town tensions as well as katniss’ motivations.

unlike with katniss, though, we know a lot about who haymitch is and what happened to him. we don’t need as much basic worldbuilding (and i doubt he’d have much more information than katniss does at this point, anyway), so the only things left are his family and district 12. for haymitch’s family, which is 100% seam in a way katniss’ is not, we’re going to need a new lens through which to view 12. it can’t *just* be typical single-mother seam life; we got most of that through katniss and gale. haymitch’s story has to provide a new angle.

i think that additional layer *has* to be sid. haymitch, unlike katniss, was himself reaped—what is motivating his survival? what makes him different than all the others in the seam, who are reaped to an inevitable death? a clear explanation could be that sid is incapable of surviving if haymitch dies. even with their mother working, everyone has to contribute. and if haymitch doesn’t have a gale, sid’s protection is even less guaranteed.

sure, haymitch might just have the same maternal instinct katniss has for prim, but that’s one of the key distinctions between them in the trilogy. haymitch loves peeta and katniss like they’re his own, and yet he lies to and betrays them in a way that katniss considers unconscionable. and, imo, if it’s as simple as haymitch wanting to protect sid’s innocence like katniss wants to protect prim’s, the similarities between them become less parallels and more replicas. what’s the point of sid’s death if katniss and haymitch are so similar that the loss of their siblings conveys the same message?

[starglow-xx]

𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘺 ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

(𝘯.) 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵

the nakajima atsushi collection of “the love of an older brother” series

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ synopsis: he’s had a terrible childhood, and is in no condition to take care of himself much less a newborn, but he’ll do everything it takes to make sure you’ll have the childhood he’s never had

having a baby sister pt. 3 !!

(platonic!) older brother! nakajima atsushi x baby sister! reader

characters: tanizaki junichiro, tanizaki naomi, miyazawa kenji, izumi kyouka | type of work: head canons | pt. 1 | pt. 2 |

a/n : i have risen from the dead! hope u enjoy!

mini guardians time ✧˖*°࿐

when the agency adults can’t watch you and neither can atsushi, it’s lucky that there’s still some people who can! let’s see how things work out…

tanizaki junichiro ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

he's already a big brother so what could go wrong?

many, many things

he’s genuinely a good caretaker but smth always happens idk

nothing bad or like dangerous but like clumsy and or inconvenient little mishaps yk?

but the thing is, it’s never his fault

things just happen ™

“u-um tanizaki-san why are u and my sister covered in formula?...”

“please don’t ask atsushi-kun”

It’s like in those cliche movies where there’s like a character that just has really bad luck

once he was feeding u and the nipple of the bottle just popped off somehow

so like the responsible young adult he is, he cleans up the mess and goes to change you, but right after he changes you, like 5 minutes later you end up needing a diaper change, so he undresses you again to change your diaper only to have to change your clothes again after you spit up some milk 10 minutes later

it only really seems to happen to him and boy is tired

his favorite times are probably when he’s on baby duty and ur sleeping

1) because he doesn’t have to deal with those poor mishaps and 

2) no one bothers him when ur sleeping

yeah sure u have a baby car seat thingy but he also uses the carrier thing that get strapped onto you

kunikida makes sure dazai isn’t near him so that u can sleep which means he doesn’t get dragged into what poor atsushi-kun got dragged into by his mentor

not his circus not his monkeys or whatever the saying is

another plus ranpo-san can’t send him on any errands bc the president (god bless him) forbade him 

and yosano-sensei can’t try to bring him into her office when he gets a papercut or some shit

he’s terrified even when he knows she’s joking

anyways, all in all a pretty solid 8 or 9/10

tanizaki naomi ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

usually the one taking care of u when everyone else is pretty busy

she and haruno-san love to buy u cute little outfits to dress u up in

maybe goes a little overboard…

“n-naomi-san isn’t that a little too much..? and my arms are getting tired…”

“nonsense atsushi-kun! she looks darling in everything!”

started to play peek-a-boo with u and lowkey regrets it a little bc u want to play for what seems like forever

just mindlessly yaps to u while she works and u just sit there in your little carrier car seat thing with a rattle

atsushi fears when he and tanizaki come back from some sort of errand or mission bc well…yk naomi

“jokes” abt how ur like her child and him coming back from the mission is like him coming back to take care of his family…

…yeah atsushi snatches u right out of that situation very, very quickly

but despite those…uncomfortable moments, atsushi genuinely trusts her with u

he’s glad that you’ll have a somewhat more normal female figure to look up to (sis/bro con thing aside)

your other options are yosano and kyouka and well, while he trusts them with his life and care abt them sm…

…scary sadistic doctor lady and innocent yet impassive and scary little assassin does he need to say more

…or actually now that atsushi thinks about it, maybe haruno-san should look after u more…

anyways

a solid 8/10 on atsushi trust scale

miyazawa kenji ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

teehee finds u cute

all the kids loved to play with him back in his village bc he was so strong but he’s never looked after someone this young before

he gets along with old people pretty well, but yeah hasn’t hung around babies much

when he goes around town to just help out the old folks, he brings u along since he knows that they like to see u too hehe

everyone literally needs sunglasses to look at you both

it’s too bright

likes reading children’s book to u

especially when it’s abt farmers or smth on a farm since he can share his own stories too

Is very fond of singing the old mcdonald had a farm

introduced u to his cow and kunikida nearly had a heart attack seeing it in the office

“(y/n)-chan this is a cow! just like the one old mcdonald had! remember cows go moo!”

“kenji, i can take over watching (y/n)--WHY IS THERE A COW IN THE AGENCY?!?!”

got scolded by kunikida but got saved bc dazai was giggling so kunikida went to strangle him instead

besides ranpo and dazai, tbh kenji is the one that give kunikida the most heart attacks bc unlike the other two where kunikida knows they’re joking (he hopes), kenji genuinely doesn’t know any better (for the most part)

“kenji have you seen–WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

“oh! hello kunikida-san!”

“kenji why are you throwing (y/n) up in the air like that?!”

“oh! I heard it’s a thing people do”

“NOT WHEN THEY’RE NEWBORNS”

“but she’s still all bundled up! and look she’s smiling!”

“....”

a solid 7 on the atsushi trust scale

izumi kyouka ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

means well, but like kunikida…

is just a little stiff

“k-kyouka-chan you can breathe…”

“...”

anyways

like dazai, is curious about u and just watches u do ur thing (which isn’t much but yk, it’s the thought that counts?)

but sometimes she stares…just a bit too intently

“ne ne atsushi-kun…is kyouka-chan okay?”

“...i…i’m not too sure dazai-san…she…she’s starting to scare me a little…”

yk how when she gets excited or amazed, her eyes sparkle amd stuff, that’s what she’s like when u start to giggle, babble, or coo

buys u a little bunny plush that matches hers!

now ur both bunny buddies ⸜( *ˊᵕˋ* )⸝

while getting the hang of watching over the baby, she does over time, begin to relax a little, but there was this one incident where you, her, and atsushi were walking through the city, you in atsushi’s arms when someone accidentally bumped into him and in like .2847309 seconds kyouka had her blade out

atsushi profusely apologized, bowing again and again for 5 minutes while kyouka stood behind him with an impassive look on her face as she held you

protective mama bear instincts 1927402/10

can even give kunikida a run for his money

(not that he has much given how often dazai steals his wallet…)

speaking of money

is lowkey excited for when you can start eating solids and have other things besides formula bc she can have tofu with u at tachibana

atsushi will mourn that day bc of his poor wallet

overall, just adores being with u

and bc of the fact that she and atsushi dorm together, she gets to spend more time with u!

although, in her eagerness to do everything…

sometimes it leave atsushi with nothing to do (・_・;)

nonetheless, thinks it’s endearing the way she cares for u

no matter how intense she can be (￣ ￣|||)

another solid 7/10

and as always, reblogs and shares are appreciated! i hope you all stay safe! and just in case nobody told you they loved you today, i love you! you are enough! <3

writing belongs to me! please do not plagiarize, repost, or translate on here or any other sites!

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[welcometoteyvat]

finally typing up my late lantern rite thoughts (very long). overall 100/10 quest I love hu tao

The amount of Xingqiu's brother mentions were insane. Surely we'll see him either as an NPC soon, right? Right? /j Honestly here he sounded pretty competent, nothing like "a simpleton" like Xingqiu's troubles voiceline suggests hmm...

The little model animations were SOOOOOOOOOO GOOD. contributed a lot to the experience and made it feel so much more alive. hu tao's expressions especially, but also yun jin's expressions, and Xiangling's "come back, get over here and eat!!!!!1!1!!!" was also really fucking funny. they've been adding these small animations for a while but this event specifically had so many of them and the effort paid off <3

in a similar vein I'm impressed how smooth the animation/model actions were when Xiao put the sigil on us

hu tao lan yan and qiqi fill in the gap fic please

timaeus is kind of silly, also very funny he and ying'er still going strong 2 years later. he's literally learning liyue language for ying'er? genuinely his dedication is impressive. they should make events replayable because how will everyone who missed 3.5 windblume know why timaeus simps for someone a whole country over

we finally know what the fake chinese characters in all those liyue signs represent (kinda ig). I need to look over this part again

if hu tao&/xiangling or hu tao &/yun jin stocks on ao3 don't increase after this I will start biting. MY GIRLS T_T T_TT_T_T_T_T_T_T. bro the farewell section was so tender I enjoyed it greatly. Their relationships with each other got developed on screen.. yun jin and hu tao's banter especially was really cute and really shows us their relationship aside from the hints in their VOs

YUN JIN OPERATIC HILITUNE ON SCREEN. the fanvid of it from bilibili can finally rest, thanks for your service, canon got here 4 years later.

Yun Jin, having practiced the tao dou opera, MUST have known something correct?? or else she wouldn't have asked hu tao so many times to promise to come back, right? She trusts Hu Tao so much :'''' . if Hu Tao says she can handle it, Yun Jin knows there's no stopping her, and she will find a way, but it doesn't stop her from worrying nonetheless :''').

hu tao's death flags during part 2......

my agenda is speaking, but I wish Xingqiu and Hu Tao directly talked during the farewells section. something something chivalry and sacrifice. Hu Tao makes her peace with giving up everything to resolve the Tao Dou issue, but is Xingqiu at peace with losing a friend even tho its selfish of him to want her to stay? he has personal stakes in this please just let them talk a little

I'm really really glad they went through with the death, they showed Hu Tao's emotions, they showed her father and grandfather waving her off. I broke, she looked so tired but satisfied (thinking about her vision story, where she waited so long for her grandfather to never appear vs him visiting her for just a brief moment here)

my other favorite shot is when traveler pulls her out and she looks at them in muted surprise. she just looked so sad and fragile and in need of a hug :(((

the Themes (waves hands wildly). hu tao's father's lingering regrets were his fatal flaw, and so Hu Tao settles her affairs properly and steels herself before going to die. she leaves behind the plum blossom branch just like her grandfather left his hat.. genuinely what the hell. the parallels between her cutscene goodbye and her saying "happy lantern rite" kills me

the epilogue last year with the fontaine tourists was pretty fanservicey, and tbh the epilogue the year before was also somewhat fanservice to me, (liyue gang dinner and zhongli venti teasing) though I liked it better. However I think this epilogue was actually really good— the hanging out and the fluff felt natural, it fit with everything else and wasn't super sudden. Maybe this was because of all the setup that happened (Yun Jin and Xiangling's promises to Hu Tao, Xiao and Yelan's dynamic built up in Perilous Trails and their earlier exchange), so the payoff is good instead of forced. After the trials and danger they got put through, everyone gets a chance to relax, and I appreciate the slice of life after the main plot. also Yun Jin's opera was crazy good considering it was not a cutscene, the animation and camera angles really sold it

I thought the special guest was xiao again, like how LR 3.4 had him dragged to the harbor by Hu Tao.... xiaolan banter was also v good though.

THE ADEPTI. they're still watching over Liyue in their own way :') the affectionate bickering about hu tao's name :''''''''

I barely mentioned lan yan in this... her part was pretty minor ngl, her habit of learning everything about a person to the point of sounding a bit creepy is kind of fun though.

alright. fantastic quest absolutely no notes I got almost everything I ever wanted and I am so glad Hu Tao had such an incredible 2nd story quest. chongyun and shenhe exorcist lantern rite next year?

[tuliptiger]

Bro I hate Silco so much. Bro. And don't get it twisted right. He's a good character, he's well written or in THE VERY LEAST incredibly interesting and compelling. To me I guess. I still can't stand him, I hate him and I think he embodies every human flaw a person can have. And every bad decision we make at our lowest points.

And for that I can't stand him in the purest way and I think that's kind of awesome. Get him out of my face though lol fuck that guy. Great presentation of what I feel a lot of people in the world are like or have the potential to be like rn.

For what he was meant to be, having just found out the original plan for him which I really shouldn't consider. Or maybe I should in favor of him, as a little grace for him. I guess Jinx and him were supposed to be like romantic. If that's your thing go for it I guess but I'm not going to talk nicely about it and it disgusts me as a heads up. Fair warning.

I'm forever grateful they didn't pull a Joker/Harley Quinn but because jesus christ I think I actually would've hated Arcane for that. For all you people complaining about Arcane, sure that's your right and it's all personal tastes anyway but it could've been actually, sincerely awful. It would've ruined Jinx as a character and undercut all of her nuance, her autonomy as a real, deeply thought out character. Her struggles, her mental health, her trauma, it would've fucking sucked.

I hate Silco for even the possibility of that and unfortunately i think it explains a little bit about some things. But anyway, back to hating Silco.

1.) He betrayed every single thing he's ever cared about in his life. He betrayed Felicia by trying to and knowingly kill her children. He betrayed the promise he made to not JUST Vander but to Felicia and himself.

Because what? Vander betrayed him first? Because he tried to kill him? Because he probably does feel genuine regret about maybe enacting the event that got Felicia killed? We never get the story but I think it's implied. Either that or Vander really was just deep in grief and rage and put that on Silco. I think they both fucked up for the record but Vander didn't CONTINUE that for the rest of his life.

What did any of that have to do with Vi and Powder/Jinx though? He's the reason everything bad happened, maybe you could blame Viktor since he went back to give Jayce the rune but every bad moment after that is almost exclusively Silco.

2.) He bribed Marcus contributing to the corruption in Piltover and Zaun. He fed drugs to Zaun for the point of nothing in my opinion. Because he couldn't come to terms with his grief, he couldn't make Piltover pay the way he wanted them too? He justified his own terrible actions for some idea of an independent Zaun for what? For who? Piltover may have taken from him but he actively chose to burn whatever he had left by trying to kill Powder and Vi.

3.) He's the reason Vi and her crew lost their loot, and their lives NOT Powder. He's the reason or at least the means for Singed to create more fucked up abominations and shimmer.

4.) He IS A HUGE SOFTIE he's soft as fuck. He loves and he loves deeply but he could never get over himself to do better. And this is possibly the main reason I hate him, he sincerely loved Vander and Jinx and Felicia and Zaun. People get hurt all the time, and it isn't the same as the trauma he faced but I DON'T think a reasonable series of decisions is to betray everything you are and have worked for to fuck over literally everyone around you. He is the scorched earth method, he wanted to hurt everyone and everything for what he felt and experienced. He's so incredibly selfish I cannot stand him.

5. A close contender, maybe even tied because I love Jinx so much. I hate that he is directly related to all of the hurt Vi and Jinx have experienced. I hate, I loath, I detest what he did to Powder and to Jinx. I feel so fed with season 2 episode 7, we DIRECTLY see what happens when Silco doesn't decide every day to hurt the world around him and hurt everyone in it. What happens to Powder without his fucked up influence.

I never thought anyone made Jinx specifically, like there isn't someone to blame because it felt diminishing to Jinx herself. But I'm rethinking it, I would say with certainty Jinx wouldn't have existed without Silco. I don't give him full credit, not in the creation of her and not her herself but the REASON she was reborn into a different person. Powder and Jinx created Jinx, but she created her because she had to, because Silco brought her into a fucked up world where she had to be different to survive.

Silco didn't support her, he enabled her, made her fear the world, fed her insecurities and projected himself into her. And because he does love, he really really did love her I think, that was what she felt she needed as a TWELVE year old girl. She needed a guardian who had her best interest at heart and not just love. Whatever support she had before, he ripped it from her and shredded it, and from that pile of rubble and ash Jinx had to find herself and emerge. But she picked herself up and chiseled herself into who she is in the series not Silco.

She's smart as a whip, she's so incredibly clever. She knew to some extent the reality of what was happening. But reality didn't have any real gravity anymore for her without something to hold her to it. Silco, at any time, could have stopped what he was doing. He could've seen her hurting and said, this isn't it. This isn't worth it. But he didn't, and she didn't need a reason to change because she had someone who fed her love when she had no one. When she thought it was all her fault and where Silco tried to convince her Vander and Vi weren't good people and that they didn't love her, won't love her.

I could go on, I fucking hate Silco. Once again, I think he's the weakest character emotionally and mentally but certainly not writing wise. He's spineless, he can kill sure, but in the main universe he couldn't get over his own feelings of guilt and hurt to do better. Nobody is satisfied with the slow progression of equity, of freedoms and peace. Silco wanted to take it all violently, take it all and take everything around it down with him.

In another universe, he's better. He makes better decisions because a different set of events led to reconciliation between Vander and him. Because Piltover made the first move of peace after Vi had to be sacrificed. Because Marcus saw a dead Zaun child in the arms of her younger sister. Because a lot of things, Silco is a better man and I think he's stronger for it.

The main universe Silco was wrong about everything he did, he made every possible bad decision on purpose over and over and over again.

The fact that I just wrote what feels like an essay on this bastard should at least show how I hate him, in the way I don't like hate hate him. I hate him in the way good art makes you hate it in just the right way. I think he's interesting enough to think about. I don't hate the alt universe Silco, I just hate the main one. He's multifaceted, he's a villain, he just kind of sucks, he moved the story in permanent ways. He forever changed the world by facilitating the events that led to Jinx as a person in Runeterra.

Anyway Yeah I really really hate Silco. Thanks for reading lol If you have some good points or different interpretations of events with Silco I would genuinely love to read them especially if they are different. I'm the first to admit I don't fully understand all the subtleties in Arcane and I love it for that, but I miss things. Changing my view on what actually happened in scenes is one of my favorite things to do right now. I crave the richer and fuller offering of a closely inspected Arcane provides tbh.

[blackjackkent]

A final moment for Minsc's arrival in Rakha's camp!

Some time ago, when I first started speculating on how Rakha and Minsc would get along, @rhysintherain surprised me with a lovely gift - he wrote something about Rakha! (This is the first time anyone else has ever written something about one of my characters, and to say I was very excited would be an understatement.)

Specifically, he wrote something about one of Minsc and Rakha's early conversations about her Bhaalspawn heritage, and it was honestly so perfect that I asked him if I could just include it as part of the liveblog canon because I love it so much. :D And he said yes, so here it is!

-----

Of Gods and Hamsters by @rhysintherain

“There is a beast that speaks to me. It tries to control my actions.” There was no hesitation, no searching for the right words. This explanation was nearly tradition by now, a conversation that Rakha has with every new member who joins their group.

“Ah, I understand, my friend. I also have a beast who seeks to direct me. Is your beast also of the furry, pocket-sized variety?” Minsc replied casually.

Rakha hesitated. She had faced many reactions to this declaration, but none had prepared her for this one.

“Mine is the voice of Bhaal, god of murder. His will speaks in my mind and tells me to commit unspeakable violence,” in the face of Minsc’s confusing response, Rakha fell back to familiar facts, no matter how unpleasant. It was best the large, bald ranger know exactly what he was signing up for.

“Well, that is not precisely the same as Boo. More like a nasty, evil little rat living in your skull alongside the worm… is it not getting crowded up there? Your head has so many occupants it's a wonder you have any room for the facts you love so much!”

“You have no idea,” Rakha muttered tiredly under her breath.

“You know, you are not the first I have known to share a skull with Bhaal,” Minsc continued, unfazed.

Rakha had heard of the other Bhaalspawn he spoke of. Caden. Jaheira had mentioned him more than once.

“Imoen!” Minsc declared, clapping his hands together excitedly.

Alright, maybe she hadn't heard of who he meant.

“Like you, dear Imoen was a child of most foul Bhaal! Like you, his evil blood called to her. But sweet Imoen was not tempted, and did not embrace the legacy of murder!”

Another child of Bhaal who had resisted their urges? Rakha’s mood lifted, just a little. One Bhaalspawn who overcame their nature could be chance. But if another had done it, there must be a pattern, a strategy she could follow. 

“How?” She asked, working to keep a hint of desperation from her voice.

“Why, the same way the best of us stay on the righteous path of buttkicking for goodness! A good hamster can inspire even the most shadowed hearts to step into the light!”

“A good… hamster?”

“Of course! One simply needs a guiding voice on the outside to drown out the voice on the inside. A small, squeaky voice, ideally. Imoen’s small squeaky voice answered to the name Sniffs, and he liked to travel in the hood of her coat.”

Rakha considered his logic for a minute. On one hand, it seemed very unlikely that the solution to the beast in her head was an opinionated rodent. On the other, Minsc had known two Bhaalspawn who resisted the beast, and she had known none. Jaheira often seemed skeptical about Boo’s efficacy, but Rakha had to admit the little creature always seemed to speak up when Minsc was on the verge of a bad decision, and Minsc often reconsidered those decisions at Boo’s urging.

“... Do you think that would work?” She asked.

-----

“The solution to the beast couldn't actually be a hamster. Could it?” Wyll asked in bewilderment, overhearing the conversation from where he sat at the campfire.

Jaheira snorted. “Believe me when I say the only problem Minsc has solved with a hamster is Minsc.”

He sighed. “I suppose it's too much to hope that the Lord of Murder’s secret weakness was cute little furballs all along.”

“Before you put too much stock in that theory, keep in mind that Imoen denounced Bhaal long before Sniffs came into the picture. We never understood quite why that resistance came so easily for her, but I doubt it was rodent related.”

“Well, it can never be that easy, can it?” Wyll replied with a laugh.

“Take heart, Wyll. We will find a way for Rakha to escape her father's legacy. And I have faith that when we do, that solution will not require her to pack around an sassy rodent who refuses to keep his feet out of our breakfast.”

[blueskittlesart]

[egophiliac]

swipes everything else off of the table to yell about diasomnia flower bookmarks

(I gave Silver one too :D)

[crescentfool]

having the hc that minato is ace is incredibly funny sometimes when you think about how ryoji is oh so very bi because it's like. "ah. death stole my ability to be attracted to people," in the same way that ryoji stole minato's eye color and energy level. like wow, thanks ryoji, you just keep finding things to steal from minato!

[deus-ex-mona]

when the slowburn makes the ship extra cute~~~

[thescreaminghat]

There’s so much to talk about Arcane S1 and S2, and what I want to focus on for this ramble is the issue I take with Singed being Corin Reveck. I’ve said this before, but this was one of the choices that I was worried that the writers would make back when s1 was airing. I actively dislike the idea of making Corin and Singed the same person, and not just because I think it unnecessarily humanizes the awful, awful person that Singed is both in League lore and Arcane while taking away what is a tender and mournful story revolving around two relatively unimportant characters in the broader world and stakes of Runeterra (namely, Corin and his only daughter, Orianna).

My two main gripes with this writing choice are as follows:

It makes the world so much smaller and less interesting than before. In the most recent iteration of Orianna’s game lore, Corin was a famed artificer known for building prosthetics in Piltover (this could be seen as a "doing good work for the people" kind of job, even if he is running a business). This background in itself wouldn’t be too surprising even if directly transposed to Arcane Piltover and Zaun, as even prior to Hextech improvements, we see that body augmentations/modifications are accessible to members of the council (though I much rather prefer League’s idea of Piltover and Zaun as having all sorts of inventors and academics exist in both cities, with Zaun having its own Academy of Techmaturgy, rather than having a handful of named characters be responsible for much of the city’s technological development as we see in Arcane). However, to me, what makes Corin and Orianna’s story so compelling is how easily it can be overlooked amidst all of the grander narratives in League P&Z, the in-fighting between chembarons and the class hierarchy enforced by Camille, Jinx being Jinx, etc. Corin has importance as an inventor, but there are so many of his type—perhaps not specializing in prosthetics, but another field of study—that he really feels like another “ordinary citizen” of Piltover. There is no world-ending stake involved in his and his daughter’s story, but that is precisely why their narrative is so compelling to me—when Orianna rushes to the site of an explosion in Zaun, in secret, to apply the skills she learned as her father’s apprentice in order to save others, and returns home with irreversible lung damage, I feel as though I am witnessing a ”day in the life” of someone stuck within the conflict between P&Z. Corin and Orianna are still privileged, and their situation is vastly better than the actual Zaunites who Orianna made it her mission to save, but Orianna’s biography suggests that despite Corin’s renown, he and Orianna were left largely to their own struggle following Orianna’s illness. I.e. they did not have the kinds of resources and help presumably available to the houses with even greater authority in Piltover.

When Corin devotes himself tirelessly to saving his daughter with his own skills, and Orianna is watching herself lose bits and pieces of her own body, I feel as though we are meant to understand this as a small blip in the overall circumstances of the world, that there are far greater events demanding the attention of the many, and a father’s grief over his child, and a child’s horror at how her body no longer looks the way that she remembers it, is relegated to a quiet, personal tragedy to be shouldered by the pair alone (even though it shouldn't be).

When Corin and Orianna relocate to Zaun, after Corin spends everything he had in order to save his daughter, I can imagine the kind of small relief that father and daughter perhaps felt, realizing that as long as they had each other and their passion for their craft, then that was enough for them, regardless of what happens in the complicated landscape of P&Z. When Corin subsequently falls ill due to the toll that his stress has taken on his own body, and Orianna is forced to make a deal with a chembaron to obtain a hextech crystal in an effort to save her father, we are left wondering how many Zaunites and Pilovians alike may have fallen into similar circumstances, how many secret meetings have taken place between desperate people and good-for-nothings in positions of power in P&Z. And when Orianna ultimately saves her father by giving him her last, healthy organ, the physical embodiment of her emotional core—her heart—and decides to leave her home as a machine powered by hextech, there is no fanfare, but we do get the sense that a tragedy has occurred, that even if there was no “fatal flaw” or twist villain, that something unjust has taken place in these sister cities. And that is how it was meant to be, I think, in Orianna’s story. These are characters, who, by interacting with the world of P&Z as we know it, give us insight into how this world works for its citizens. Their stories don’t need to lead to a grander narrative or tie into timeline-changing events; they are meaningful because they allow us to see how a character could live and thrive and struggle within the backdrop of the world. And that allows us to imagine other stories that could organically come from the politics of P&Z, and other ways its citizens could envision change (e.g. what if working-class Zaunites were given better protections, and Zaunite industry designed to be safer for its workers, so that explosions like the one that was slowly killing Orianna didn’t occur? What if Piltover had better medical support systems so that Corin wouldn’t have to destroy his own health in order to keep his daughter alive? Did Corin’s initial attitudes towards Zaunites change? After all, Piltover effectively failed to assist them, and he and Orianna were forced to move to Zaun in order to continue their business, something that could be regarded by more elitist Piltovians as a “decline” in one’s respectability, regardless of the quality of work produced by Corin and Orianna for their clients. Etc. Etc.)

By making Corin the same person as Singed, the possibilities that Orianna’s narrative opens up for an exploration of other people’s lives in P&Z are removed. Because Singed is so closely tied with shimmer, with Warwick/Vander, with Viktor, with the trajectory of the arcane, with the surgical “creation” of “Jinx”, there is little room to let a backstory of a father and daughter breathe, let alone introduce an audience to the non-plot-related interactions that this duo could have with the richness of the world. It also, in my view, makes the world so much smaller/more extreme (e.g. we can only have a scientist who engages with grandiose, unethical experimentation for the sake of his child, because that is what we would commonly think of when we are presented with a scientist father; we cannot have a father who also happens to be a scientist, where the focus is on his introspective, personal mourning on how his field of study and his community of peers have, in many ways, failed him, but despite that resentment, he continues with what he has, representing one path in a set of circumstances that could drive a different person down another path). And I get that Arcane s2 in particular literally opens up the idea of the multiverse and “other paths,” but that felt somewhat hackneyed, and I much prefer the idea that the multitude of paths that an audience can explore is right here, in the world we currently see, as different people live through their different circumstances.

2) Singed being Corin Reveck removes so much of what made Orianna’s dilemma—whether she is a “machine” or a “human”—so interesting. Orianna, by having her limbs and organs slowly replaced with artificial ones (I emphasize this because the nature of Orianna’s transformation becomes a “ship of Theseus” question), also loses her sense of what it means to be human (e.g. the unbridled creativity that is suggested to have previously animated her craft seems to be gone, and she instead produces “masterfully tuned mechanisms,” rather than “works of art”). She becomes “disconnected” from herself, presumably both from her internal sense of self as well as her physical body, even as her care and love for her father lead her to literally give up her own heart to keep him alive.

One can see the parallels between League Orianna and League Viktor, and how they potentially contrast (or complement!) the other. Viktor claims to have replaced his flesh with metal in order to rid himself of the weaknesses inherent to having an organic, decomposable body, while Orianna is forced to replace her limbs and lungs because she is experiencing, real-time, what the limits of that organic body are, even though she obviously does not want to experience something like this. Viktor claims that it is humanity’s emotions that leads them to make errors in judgment and hinder efficiency and progress, but Orianna’s love for her father leads her to perform a successful operation and save his life (and Corin’s love for his daughter leads him to “create” the kind of mechanical being that Viktor would praise, as part of his ideology). Viktor’s actions suggest that he believes it is necessary to move beyond “limiting” emotions like fear (e.g. his injection of that experimental serum into Naph) while Orianna’s whole struggle is trying to replicate, once more, those feelings, trying to indulge in sentimentality and romance (e.g. When she tells the automaton, Fieram: “I like to ride the Rising Howl at dusk to catch the last of the day’s golden rays,” . . . “From the very top you can see the harbor beyond the sea-gates, and the endless glistening ocean. From up there, you can imagine the smell of faraway lands.” – are these the thoughts and language of a machine, or of a human? And when she desperately destroys the casing around the automaton, believing herself to be freeing a boy like her, are those the actions of an “efficient” consciousness, or of a child encased in steel?). I can imagine, in the world of League P&Z, scientific and philosophical debates regarding the nature of Orianna’s existence (what makes her more human than machine? More machine than human? Is it her lingering connections to memory? To emotions? Or something else entirely?).

All of this to say, that there are some interesting questions to be explored through the way in which “Orianna”, whether she is an identity, a physical being, or something else entirely, emerged through Corin's gradual and necessary removal of her physical body. Making Singed and Corin Reveck the same person strips away these complexities.

Both League and Arcane Singed are awful people. That is undeniable. Regardless of his reasoning or emotions, Singed did unspeakable things to Vander, and was a catalyst for much of the violence, or its escalation, in Arcane, particularly with his production of shimmer in line with Silco’s aim of weaponizing and distributing the substance in the undercity. The circumstances of Orianna’s creation, with Singed noting that everything he had been doing was for his love of Orianna, are thus tinged with a layer of ethical wrongdoing so thick that not even Jesus Viktor could remove it. Similarly, Orianna was not replaced slowly, with the mechanical equivalents of her limbs and organs. She appears to have been yeeted back into existence with the magic shenanigans in S2 Act 3. Any interesting questions about Orianna’s identity, in my opinion, are overshadowed by the starting premises that, yes, Orianna should not have lived or been brought back to life in Arcane, if it meant that the horrible things that Singed, whether directly or indirectly, had done to the people of P&Z could have been avoided, and yes, Orianna in her current form may literally not be herself because we have seen the hexcore/multiverse/ascended hivemind Viktor shenanigans play out already. And this doesn’t even touch on the lack of agency that Orianna has in Arcane, as an unconscious thing for Singed to show the audience for sympathy points, versus the Orianna we get from League lore, who consciously made the choice to disobey her father to help Zaunites and was conscious and present throughout the entire process of her body modification/replacement.

The League lore also sets up an interesting exploration of how patriarchal power is used and its relationship to the mechanical female body—Corin comes off as not only overprotective of his only daughter, something that could also stem from class considerations towards Zaun, but as a sort of “Prospero” figure, guiding and warning his daughter to never venture outside of their neighbourhood in Piltover (like Prospero’s warnings to Miranda), while only permitting her to indulge in fantasies that he approves as “appropriate” for her (e.g. theatre performances). Even when he builds Orianna her artificial lungs, Corin keeps the key to these lungs in a safe, to prevent Orianna from leaving his sphere of authority.

When they do move to Zaun, Orianna not only takes on the traditional role of the breadwinner due to her father’s ailing health, but is in some ways able to gain more agency in her interactions with other elements of the world, such as the chembaron. When Orianna decides to make the choice to save her father, she takes with her the last object that he can use to maintain some form of control over her. While his control is not framed as intentionally abusive, it does lead to questions about how Orianna’s feelings of “detachment” from her sense of self may also be tied to the control that her father exercises concerning her physical agency.

None of this was explored in Arcane, and I never expected the show to focus so much on these kinds of issues for minor secondary characters, but that’s exactly the problem. By introducing us to Singed as “Corin Reveck,” and effectively tying him with Orianna and the intriguing possibilities available through the existing lore, Arcane, which has now ended in terms of its story, ends up failing to deliver any sort of exploration of these issues. Orianna and Corin could have been left as a side story in an Arcane spinoff, or as a cinematic like the Annie origins cinematic, etc. but because the Arcane writers seem to want to make everything “interconnected,” it just feels like we missed so much potential, and even if we did get something on these issues, it feels, from the path that the showrunners have gone so far, that they would narrow these possibilities to whatever can fit the ”interconnected stories” narrative.

Not everything needs to be tied to something else to be good, it can just be good—tying Singed of all people to Orianna’s story was the strangest of these kinds of choices made in Arcane S2, especially when we could have just explored Singed as Singed (i.e. exploring ethics in science from a broader perspective), and hopefully I’ve been able to explain why.

*Note: the above is just my opinion, so please ignore if you feel so inclined.

[seithr]

powerful sorcerer with magical storm blood who can still magic and rend minds and transform people btw

[zeb-z]

Bad has so many reasons to be cautious, even paranoid, as anyone else on the island. From Federation nonsense to Dapper being kidnapped to the whole purgatory nonsense to whatever fuckass suit of armor “old friend” was setting up cameras in his house. But it compounds on his regular overly aware paranoid self to this state of hyper-paranoia. And as a demon who can and usually will lie, cheat, steal, and use sneaky underhanded tactics, he expects the craziest extent because he thinks of it, realizes it’s possible, and would use it himself. We saw this very obviously in purgatory - when he thought greens desperate last ditch effort to balance the scale was a super planned out tactic to tip the scale, so he did it first, all the hardcore base hunting, the spawn killing, there’s a reason every other tactic he used usually followed a main channel qsmp post with updated rules - all usually things he was surprised no one else thought of. But then this also piles onto the fact that he has to have things go his way, all the time, and that he’s argumentative as all get out, which led to the debate between him and Bagi yknow. Especially because he’s not just doing it for the sake of being right, he doesn’t think he’s paranoid, but that he’s exercising the right amount of caution.

So like. Listen dude. Yeah he’s got reasons to be paranoid. But his thought process around building vaults for separate cookie caches like they locked up the risus pills, only to scrap it because it’s not perfectly impenetrable, is extreme. His character has hardly been a leading example in someone who has reasonable reactions to things. And even when there isn’t his own children’s livelihoods potentially on the line, he has a need for control, and the most control he has is if he keeps the cookies in his inventory at all times. If he makes himself the sole point in which the others can get ones in a case of emergency, then he can control the variables. The problem is he’s unreliable about himself when he’s at his most rational and healthiest, and he’s far worse with the current memory and health issues he’s been mostly unaware of.

I dunno it’s like. There is never going to be a purely impenetrable base. And it’s not just a case of “Bagi just hasn’t lived through __ yet!”. Bad’s own logic about keeping the cookies on him at all times is flawed under his own logic, because Bagi is right - if someone has enough drive to break into separate secured cookie caches purely for the downfall of eggs, they more than certainly have enough drive to find a way to kill Bad and just take them from his inventory, or to just kill the eggs themselves. All it truly does is give Bad a sense of control, and soothe his paranoia.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Sunforge

sequel to The Dawnhounds

fantasy/scifi with bio- cyber- & god-punk elements

follows a crew of revolutionary pirates who become stranded in a city in ruins, overrun by a hostile militia, who must find a way to the people who can help them disable the technology that’s stopping them from escaping

and find themselves pulled deeper into the conflicts and history between the strange gods who give them their powers, and the complex history of their world

mainly centres Kiada, told between flashbacks of her past in the city, and the present

arc from the author! out August 6