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lacryem · 7 months ago

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— A surprisingly long and in depth look about symbolism in the recent G-Fantasy cover by Yana Toboso ✦

Including references, flower language, how to decode the meaning of flowers, and a little too much brainrot. As well my personal interpretation drawn from all the sources I looked at. And of course what all of means (and maybe hints at?) for Sebastian and Ciel… and maybe even Sebaciel?

Originally posted as a twitter thread, but threads suck and I forgot a couple things. so here now.

Disclaimer :

I don’t know FOR SURE that all these things were directly referenced by Yana when creating this art. But being a fan of her work for over a decade I've become familiar with her use of symbolism and reference, and believe myself to have a good eye for it at this point! I'm also pretty familiar with the use of flower language, including different languages, due to having been involved in a project about it and having to read wayyy too much about this.

Some of it also includes my own personal interpretation, but the meanings and info I based myself off of ARE factual. I think I made it pretty clear when referencing my personal interpretation. You're welcome to reach your own interpretation based off of the stuff provided!

And lastly, I'm not a sebaciel shipper. I'm not an anti (the complete opposite, actually) and have nothing against the ship, I like the narrative around them and how they're written but I don’t actively ship them romantically or sexually. So I'd say this is actually a pretty unbiased interpretation. Personal taste is one thing, but I don’t deny the author's intention and whats written in front of me! That is what this post is about.

Kuroshitsuji takes place in the Victorian period (1837~1901) in 1889.

The following are both important Victorian books on the language of flowers that I will be basing myself off of.

Language of Flowers by Greenaway Kate (1884), and The Language of flowers: An Alphabet of Floral Emblems (1857).

(Also, I’m treating Ciel’s rose as a deep red rose. Which is a bit different than red roses. But I am adding some relevant information about roses in general, anyway.

Now, on what they say about these flowers.

Deep rose, meaning "bashful shame". White lily, meaning "Purity and sweetness."

— The White Lily

Most people assume that the lily refers to Ciel's purity, and that’s a fair assumption. But I disagree.

Firstly, the one holding the lily is Sebastian. Holding it on his right hand, tilted towards the right. However what's relevant here is the VIEWER. From the viewer's POV he's holding it to the left. Note he also holds the scissors on his left hand, where he bears HIS contract seal.

How you hold a flower, what position you give it to someone in, changes the meaning of the flower. These context clues are very important. It tells us that 'purity and sweetness' doesn’t refer to Ciel, but actually refers to Sebastian (…sorta).

This may be a little confusing. Purity and sweetness, Sebastian?! I know, I know. bear with me.

These books provide poems to help us understand how you may interpret the intended meaning. The lily poem is about enduring trials out of love because of the purity and sweetness he sees in his lover's eyes and soul. I believe Yana directly references the poems I will include in this post in her new artwork.

— My Interpretation

the meaning of Sebastian's lily is:

"I do all out of love for the sweetness and purity within you."

Him holding it to the contact seal and cutting the flower could stand for him destroying this sentiment (affection within himself) that has arisen in him as a result of their contract by destroying the sweetness and purity—the source of it—within Ciel (consuming his soul).

Note: This is debatable, as 'reversed' almost always means upside down. But if you consider the lily facing away from the viewer as reversed then it could mean "impurity and bitterness" which fits pretty well with Ciel, and it being held against the contract seal which is a physical representation of his impurity, brought on by his bitterness.

— The Deep Red Rose

There something I find very interesting. The rose is in a teacup, standing in for tea (I think there's even tea alongside it in the cup.) From Yana herself we know that Sebastian's eyes are a reference to the reddish brown colour of tea.

Like I said, I believe this rose to be a deep red rose, which is a bit more specific than the meaning given to red roses. However I think the poem included for roses in general very much applies here.

I was going to add my thoughts but I found this interpretation that sums it up pretty well if you replace the carpe diem theme with a more "running out of time" or "impending death" theme, which seems to be a more accurate reading for this artwork.

Looking at the rose itself, it has no thorns or leaves.

It is not a youthful rose as its already fully open and losing petals. "No hope, and no fear" fits with the poem, the rose is basically an hourglass referring to Ciel. His fate is unavoidable, but this isn't a deterrent. He's dancing on the ledge.

The deep red rose means 'bashful shame'.

When you compare it to the lily, which is a direct proclamation, the deep red rose is a quiet confession one cannot verbalize.

Debatable, to be fair but given the tie in to Sebastian's eye colour and the fact that he is always the one pouring tea for Ciel, I believe the Sebastian to be the speaker here too, but this time speaking on Ciel's feelings (Hence why he's the one holding it) rather than Sebastian's own.

— My Interpretation

The meaning of the deep red rose Ciel holds, speaking about Ciel's feelings of guardedness, and in response saying:

"Abandon your bashful shame, and let yourself be admired without expectations (hope) or fear"

Sebastian speaks about Ciel's feelings, the deep red rose acknowledges his feelings but they remain unspoken.

The Waller poem is a plead for his beloved to seize the day, for time is short, and allow herself to be loved completely.

Her beauty is one to be appreciated, she is not meant to be a rose unacknowledged (unloved) in the desert.

Regarding 'expectations', I think this is more about rigid ideas of how 'appreciation' or 'admiration, might be shown or received. Sebastian and Ciel's relationship defies normality or 'expectations'. So this, too, would defy expectations a young boy like Ciel, or a traumatised boy like Ciel, may have.

From Yana herself, we know Sebastian's dedication and how highly he holds 'beauty', specifically Ciel's beauty.

The author of the poem proclaims that beauty not appreciated is not beautiful indeeed, and so he calls his beloved to come to him and be appreciated wholly during the invaluable, limited time they have.

We see the deep red rose's petals fall away, in my opinion not only symbolising the withering away of time, but also the crumbling away of this "bashful shame" that Sebastian ascribes to Ciel.

How Sebastian wishes to "appreciate" this beauty is debatable. How he wants to "admire" and "desire" (per the poem) Ciel is rather open ended. Wether it be in a romantic way, a sexual way or by consuming his soul.

However, I don’t think these are mutually exclusive. And consuming Ciel can easily be a metaphor for the former two.

— The Lily and The Rose

The Greeneaway book has this poem which im sure was directly referenced. This poem speaks about the lily and the rose in a direct power struggle and fight for dominance, until they eventually unite and reign as one.

Now when speaking about this "union", you could say it refers to their contract, but I don’t think so.

The contract ties them to each other, but it doesn’t necessarily unite them. So I believe 'unity' to be about the appreciation Sebastian speaks of Ciel opening up to.

"The Lily" and "The Rose" might be interpreted as directly representing Sebastian and Ciel, and the unity that would come from them joining and becoming a truly complimentary pair. I think a power struggle and fight for being the one in control is very accurate way to describe their current dynamic in canon.

It may also be interpreted as "The Lily" and "The Rose" as being representations of their feelings and ideals previously. And then it would represent these two conflicting expressions—a loud unrelenting and destructive devotion, and a guarded, bashful, unspoken reluctance— coming together and turning from conflicting to complimentary.

Or as it tends to be with these things, both!

Either way all of this is expressed under the sense of impending doom created by their circumstances and the contract. So there's a sense of urgency permeating all of it.

Also clear to me is a sense of internal conflictedness coming from Sebastian's message that is usually only hinted at like this, and some people end up overlooking.

Sebastian desires Ciel deeply, but having him would also mean not being able to have him anymore.

Sebastian is torn and that’s why he attempts to cut the root of his wavering feelings represented by the lily.

All of this makes me wonder about what's next, and if we will see these things said more blatantly. Foreshadowing with flower language and references like this, isn't exactly rare for Yana. I wonder if we will see this 'unity' come to be, and what necessary development Sebastian and Ciel will need to undergo to make it possible. As well as what shape it will take.

I also wonder very much about Ciel's perspective in all of this, as this was almost entirely from Sebastian's POV, but I think that's intentional. Ciel has his own goals and a lot on his mind. Sebastian's goal IS Ciel. So I assume he spends a lot more time thinking about Ciel and this kind of thing.

Thank you if you read the whole way through. Like I said before, even though the sources defending it are, my interpretation is not law and you're welcome to reach your own with the things presented.

Links for sources, including free public domain PDFs of the books mentioned are found at the end of my twitter thread.

— Thanks for reading! —

#sebaciel shipper friendly post #kuroshitsuji #black butler #sebastian michaelis #ciel phantomhive #sebastian black butler #ciel black butler #sebaciel #please refrain from ship discourse on my post. I don't care if fictional characters upset you. I'm looking at the source material here.

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penguwastaken · 8 months ago

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About Brainwashing in Danganronpa

Hello to all 3 of the people who see this account. A few months ago, I made a thread on hit website Twitter dot com about brainwashing in the Danganronpa Series. I discussed where it came from, how it works, and how the brainwashing of class 77-B was never a retcon. The thread got a lot of attention there, even getting a "debunk" on other hit website Reddit dot com (lmao). Due to that, there's been a lot of responses and questions. Since I can't really update a Twitter thread, I decided that I'd make the Ultimate™ Brainwashing thread and hopefully dispel any information on the subject while making my original points more clear and covering things I failed to cover. So here it is: Brainwashing in Danganronpa, how it works, where it came from, and how it was intended from the start. (a 🧵 except not really) *Massive spoilers for Danganronpa Zero, Danganronpa 2, Danganronpa Another Episode, Danganronpa Togami, and Danganronpa 3, as well as the series as a whole*

Danganronpa Zero: First Sighting

Brainwashing has its roots all the way back in the second official entry produced in the series, Danganronpa Zero. During the story's events, Ryoko comes across a secret cult made up of students from the reserve course. They're seen staring at a strange video, seemingly turning them and turn them into mindless zombies.

The video depicts members of the student council killing each other. Ryoko is stunned while watching it. She can barely look away, but eventually through force of will she does. This same video is later used to convince the reserve course to rebel.

The way it's described to work is that it uses their “pent-up emotions,” implying that their emotions played a role in its effectiveness. It's also worth noting that the novel itself refers to what is happening as brainwashing, making this objectively the first depiction of brainwashing in the series right from the second entry.

Danganronpa 2: Now it Gets Dubious

Our next instance of brainwashing comes from Danganronpa 2. The concept is brought up multiple times, such as when Makoto states that the Ultimate Despairs were brainwashed or how the Neo World Program is good at treating brainwashing, though the details of what brainwashing actually means in this context are kept vague.

It's also worth noting that Danganronpa 2 was being written around the same time as Danganronpa Zero and Kodaka wanted concepts from the novel to appear in Danganronpa 2, likely so readers would feel validated. This is why things like Izuru Kamukura and the reserve course play huge roles in Danganronpa 2, it's not too much of a stretch to say that the same applies with brainwashing. One detail we’re given about the brainwashing is from Monokuma, who states the Ultimate Despairs were brainwashed by Junko taking advantage of their feelings. Specifically love, hate, grudges, and "anything really". If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s exactly how the brainwashing video from Danganronpa Zero was described to function, using their pent-up emotions.

I should mention that Monokuma and Junko are known for being unreliable narrators who often stretch the truth, exaggerate things, and use hyperbole to manipulate people into believing their narrative. Monokuma describes the Ultimate Despairs as “nothing more than Junko’s limbs”, which contradicts the existence of characters like Nagito. Who, while in his despair state, did not work with Junko nor did he look up to her (at least in the normal sense like the other Ultimate Despairs). In fact, it would have been impossible for them to really obey any of Junko's orders as Ultimate Despairs because Junko was trapped inside of Hope's Peak with minimal connection to the outside world. This isn't a definitive "Monokuma is lying" statement, but just note that his word isn't 100% reliable. Meanwhile, someone like Makoto who outright mentions brainwashing, is a much more reliable source.

Danganronpa Another Episode: More Brainwashing! (kinda irrelevant tho...)

The next time brainwashing is used is in the next entry, Danganronpa Another Episode. Though its purpose in this discussion isn’t the most useful, as the brainwashing is caused by Monokuma helmets, which don’t have their functionality explained. I figured it was worth mentioning and describing at least, as its another example of brainwashing at least.

I did figure it was worth adding how the brainwashed children act. They obey the Warriors of Hope’s every command, as if they have zero control over their actions. This is different from how the Ultimate Despairs act, who still some free had free will after presumably being brainwashed judging by the actions of Nagito, who is also in this game.

Danganronpa Togami: I Hate My Life

Okay. As mixed as my opinions are on this novel trilogy, it does feature brainwashing. In fact, it might feature one of the most detailed and important descriptions of brainwashing in the series, and even outright CONFIRMS that class 77-B were brainwashed (sorta).

"Hey um... Tumblr/Twitter user Pengu... what do you mean by 'sorta'?" Well my uninformed reader who I guarantee has probably never read this book, there's a twist. I regret to inform you that the canonicity of Danganronpa Togami is rather questionable, as it depicts an extremely unreliable narrator’s warped viewing of events due to this thing called the K2K system, which means not everything in the novel is meant to be taken literally or at face value.

This doesn't mean that everything should be discarded or immediately dismissed however. This just means that we have to use our brains a little and decipher what the hell Yuya Sato was cooking when he wrote this novel trilogy. In the novel, we discover the existence of the elusive despair novel. When read, the novel will turn the reader to despair and inflict them with the despair disease. This novel is what's used to plummet the world into despair, as well as being what caused the class 77-B to become the Ultimate Despairs. There's no known ways to avoid it, once you read it, it's joever. 😔

As I said earlier, the events of Danganronpa Togami can’t be taken literally. Due to this and prior context, we can safely assume that the despair novel is most likely the K2K's warped idea of the despair video from Danganronpa Zero. Instead of being a book being read that brainwashed people, it was a video being watched. What makes me so sure? Well let's look over the similarities. The way the despair novel works is that it uses cruel words to overload the reader with negative emotions, causing them to snap and turn to despair. That sounds almost exactly like the despair video, overloading the viewer by manipulating their emotions until they turn to despair.

However, a major difference comes from the fact that Danganronpa Togami confirms towards the end that the despair novel doesn't literally brainwash people, acting as a placebo and an excuse for people with despair to use.

However I don't believe this suddenly breaks the connection to the despair video in Danganronpa Zero. All it shows is that the novel doesn't create despair, which is something we already established with the brainwashing video. It doesn't make despair, it makes it stronger. Whether it be via the disturbing imagery on the screen or the words on a page giving you an excuse, all it does is amplify despair. Basically it doesn't make despair come out of nowhere, it incites it. This connection's a little bit of a stretch but I'll bring it up anyways. The technology used in the despair novels was originally to bring hope. (Take notes, it will probably be important assuming you buy this connection.)

Essentially, the despair novel works in a similar same way as the despair video, but instead it’s a book and you read it instead of watching it. This means that class 77-B and the rest of the world were most likely brainwashed via the despair video, and that is what caused the class to become Ultimate Despairs.

Danganronpa 3: The One People Really Don't Like

And all of this brings us to the most detailed yet controversial usage of brainwashing: Danganronpa 3. Many assume that the anime’s usage of brainwashing is a retcon, contradicting the words of our holy savior Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair High School. However, I’d like to debate that. In fact, I'd like to finally put a nail in the coffin of this really stupid debate and finally show you that Danganronpa 3's depiction of brainwashing is exactly how it has always been described.

In Danganronpa 3, we are introduced to Ryota Mitarai and his anime. Using the power of subliminal messaging, it heightens the viewer's emotions and makes them more powerful. What was once a slightly emotional scene is now a complete tearjerker fully capable of tearing at the viewers heart strings! While he acknowledges that there are unethical things that can be done with this technology and it's technically brainwashing, his goal is to use this technology to make the world a better place, even if it can be dangerous. If that sounds familiar, that's because it's what Hope's Peak tried doing with the despair novel in Danganronpa Togami. Though I'll admit, this single point is a little bit of a stretch as there are differences. I just figured it was worth at least a mention.

Using her analytical prowess, Junko gets a rough understanding of how the technology works, so she develops the despair video, featuring the student council killing each other overlayed with subliminal messaging technology to make the despair felt while viewing the video stronger.

The video works on Mikan, however Junko fears that the video may not be powerful enough to fully go through with her plans due to not understanding the technology nearly as well as Ryota does. Because of this, she forces Ryota to create a better, more powerful despair video. A despair video v2 if you will. Junko’s fears weren’t unfounded, as we discover that Chisa had the mental fortitude to resist the despair video, similarly to how Ryoko was able to resist the same video in Danganronpa Zero. This is exactly why Junko needs a more powerful video, one that she knows can’t be resisted.

"Ermmmm, Tumblr/Twitter user Pengu, how come Ryoko and Chisa are able to resist the despair video but Mikan and nobody in the reserve course could?" Good question, the answer is pretty simple. As mentioned before, the video takes advantage of the emotions of the viewer. Mikan is already pretty weak minded, so there wasn't much issue in controlling her. The reserve course already hated Hope's Peak and would take any reason to hate them more, so a video that shows them the sins of Hope's Peak would affect them as well. Ryoko and Chisa have no connection to the reserve course however, and neither are particularly very weak emotionally. Ryoko has the analytical prowess of Junko and Chisa is just a very strong willed person in general, and paired with Junko's lack of knowledge about subliminal messaging when creating the video, it's pretty obvious it wouldn't be that effective on them. All the more reason for Junko to force Ryota to make a better despair video.

The despair video v2 that Ryota is forced to make comes in the form of Chiaki’s execution video, where the stronger subliminal messages paired with witnessing the representation of the happiest moments in their miserable lives and their closest friend suffer makes class 77-B unable to resist. Ultimately this causes them to finally snap, being overloaded with despair, and now they turn into the Ultimate Despairs. (side note this is so freaking cool idc what anyone else says)

This resembles Monokuma’s explanation from Danganronpa 2. Junko used class 77-B’s emotions and years of getting closer against them to turn them to them to despair. Now featuring the added context of her using the video designed to manipulate people’s emotions. Also as @jelimore pointed out, Junko leading the class to Chiaki's execution itself was manipulating them. This depiction of brainwashing fits perfectly with the information provided throughout the series, even down to the little details. It’s so close in fact that I can say without a doubt that Danganronpa 3 did not retcon anything. “But Tumblr/Twitter user Pengu, that isn’t how the video is shown to work during Hope Arc. Therefore it actually contradicts previous entries and is inconsistent!" To that I say, you’re correct! ...at least about the hope video functioning differently, but that doesn’t make it inconsistent. The hope video behaves pretty differently. Instead of overloading the viewer with negative feelings, it simply just shows them a repeating video loop that turns them into a mindless zombie, likely caused by even stronger subliminal messaging. The people affected can also snap out of this state with some time, as seen with Aoi.

The reasoning for this is actually pretty simple, it’s just different technology entirely. It’s stated that the hope video was developed later on after the despair video. If anything, it behaves very similar to the Monokuma masks from Danganronpa Another Episode, which we also already established uses different technology. The hope video doesn’t contradict the despair video at all because they both use completely different tech. This can also be seen with how the despair video uses subliminal messaging, meanwhile the messaging in the hope video couldn’t be further from subliminal. There is no inconsistency, just two different things.

The reason the hope video needed to be broadcasted everywhere was so that since it would be airing everywhere, nobody would have time for the effects to wear off or resist it. This would turn the world into mindless zombies who obey every command, similarly to the Monokuma kids. It's just that now they don't have to force bulky helmets onto everyone.

Debunking Common Arguments

With the hope video out of the way, I think it’s very safe to assume that not only is the despair video’s functionality very accurate to previous descriptions, it’s also always been the reason for the brainwashing of Class 77-B, long before Danganronpa 3. Even if you disagree and think the cause of brainwashing was never explicitly mentioned in Danganronpa 2, there's still the fact that Danganronpa 2 outright says it was brainwashing. So even if a video wasn't the direct cause of it, them being brainwashed was still always intended (though given the context and the fact the video was introduced in a tie in novel for the game, I'm certain that it was always the culprit). Many point to this line where Kazuichi asks why they became the Ultimate Despairs and Makoto says he never got an answer to debunk this. But... this doesn't change anything. He asks why they became Ultimate Despairs, not how. And this is completely ignoring the fact that Makoto clearly has done his own digging into the situation, he discovered the Remnants of Despair were hiding among Future Foundation after all. The Future Foundation had access to brainwashing videos, they found them, so of course Makoto is going to know about the brainwashing. What Makoto is saying here is that he doesn't know every little detail, all he knows is that they were brainwashed. I wrote a bit more about it here, but there's nothing contradictory in this scene.

Many also point to Mikan stating that it was her many human relationships that led her to being the way she is. Once again, this changes literally nothing. Mikan was the only one of the remnants who actually knew Junko, she was the only one who spent time with her because she was the first subject. This is why she gets more attached to her, and even why she'd believe what Junko would tell her when they spent time together. Monokuma also says that Junko used "hopeless methods overflowing with charisma and humor" to control the masses. I don't even know why I have to address this, but this statement is so vague you can interpret it as a million things. Like for example, this is how she got Ryota to work for her. While pretending to be Makoto to manipulate the people in the trial, Junko tells them that they all became Ultimate Despairs while coming into contact with her at Hope's Peak and they were subjected by her terrifying influence. Again, ignoring how vague "terrifying influence" is, this is literally Junko trying to LIE AND MANIPULATE them. This is quite possibly the worst example you could have used because we know for a fact that she is lying to them while pretending to be Makoto. There's other examples of Junko trying to manipulate them, like mentioning how everyone hated them and their all Ultimate Despairs at the end of the day. But that's just what this is, manipulation. You would think that the "Junko manipulated class 77-B" crowd would understand that saying "everyone hates you but I saw your potential" is literally manipulation 101. She even states that Izuru killed the entirety of a student council, which we know for certain is a lie because Danganronpa Zero (which came out before) says otherwise. Some say that the brainwashing turned them into mindless zombies and eliminates all blame from their actions. While I would agree that it does make them less at fault, they still have the ability to make choices and still have free will. Their original personalities haven't been overwritten, their brains were just rewired to crave despair. They're still each their individual person with their own ways of feeling despair, and characters like Chisa and Nagito show that they regain their free will to an extent. I also wrote more about that here, LOL.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

This whole debate stems from people misunderstanding Monokuma’s words and going along with the popular interpretation, which turned out to be wrong. Whether you like the use of brainwashing or not, it objectively isn’t a retcon as it's been developed ever since Danganronpa Zero. Personally, I love the use of brainwashing. I think the way it's developed throughout the series and its usage in Danganronpa 3 is super interesting. If you disagree, that's fine! Heck, if you choose to headcanon that Junko manipulated 15 individual teenagers into all becoming despair hungry terrorists capable but ending the world and fighting off every military in the world in less than a year, that's cool too! But the truth is, Danganronpa 3's brainwashing is canon and it's also not a retcon nor does it contradict anything. Contrary to popular belief, Kodaka was involved with the writing of the anime. He provided a large draft and outline of the plot and oversaw its development. He produced the anime, he did his homework, the team even played the games to prepare for writing the anime. He knew what he was doing. I'm sure if Kodaka intended for them to all be manipulated one by one, that's what he would have went with. All information implying that it was manipulation is very few and far between and questionable at best, not to mention outweighed by everything implying it was brainwashing. Mind manipulation stuff is not new in this series, its been around since the first game and brainwashing was established in literally the second entry ever produced. Whether you love it or hate it, think it's the best thing since sliced bread or the death of the series, brainwashing was the answer the whole time. Some people just never noticed it, and instead of acknowledging that they were wrong, they stuck with a headcanon that they believed so much and jumped to the conclusion of "retcon". I hope this mega post managed to inform some people, maybe change some minds too. If you still don't buy it, then I guess there's nothing I can do. Thanks for reading all of this though, I tend to yap a lot about this franchise lmao.

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99pansy · 6 days ago

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ss/mayo blogspot lore + frerard theory

hi I'm about to drop some insane lore that I don't think a lot of mcr fans/frerard theorists know about. this isn't discussed often so I figured I should write about it here before all the evidence is lost to time.

this is probably gonna be a long one so buckle in! i have gathered as much evidence here as possible but there's no way to be certain about anything. i'm trying to maintain as much journalistic integrity as i can throughout this post (also trying super hard not to insert my opinion too much) because i think a lot of this speaks for itself.

so i have a pretty significant frerard theory but i have to give a lot of backstory and documentation for it to fully make sense. this will not be in chronological order (to best suit the narrative) but i hope it makes sense

many people know about frank's F.T. Willz endeavors which have been proven as him in recent years. however, "ss" or "shitsubou shita" was another blog he had before this which is not widely known

around 2007, there was a major theory in the fandom that gerard and frank were running secret blogspot accounts where they'd post journals, poetry, etc. frank's account was iamthemodernprometheus.blogspot.com and gerard's supposed account was its-mayonaise.blogspot.com. both accounts are still up, though i'm not sure if any posts have since been deleted. this probably sounds crazy so i'll explain everything!

evidence for frank as SS/shitsubou-shita/iamthemodernprometheus

i strongly believe this was frank's personal blog, but you can come to your own conclusions based on this info

frank's supposed original blogspot handle was "shitsubou-shita." once fans realized this was his account, he deleted it pretty much immediately. you can read some fan discussion about the fall out from this in a comment thread here. this comment thread will be linked a few times in this post because most of the screenshots on this post originate from there.

apparently *frank* was posting some very personal thoughts/feelings on this blog that he did not want to be discovered. i'll go over some of the deleted posts in a minute, but first i need to give more a little more context.

at the same time the blog is found, someone comments "your fired" on a recent post. apparently some fans thought the comment looked strangely out of place, and it was one of the last comments left before the account's deletion, on one of the final posts made.

this will be relevant later on, and we'll get into the account's posts soon.

my theory is that someone on the "inside" could have found his personal blog and tried spooking him, which could have been the final straw for him. or, the account being deleted could be completely unrelated to the weird comment. all of this can be found here (same link i posted previously)

months after deleting their blog, shitsubou shita begins posting under a new url "iamthemodernprometheus" (but still under the pen name "shitsubou shita" or "ss" as fans called him)

in his new blog, and similarly to F.T. Willz years later, he still leaves plenty of crumbs for fans to figure out it's him. screenshot sources are below

latin heading: his page had a latin heading that when translated, reads "keep the faith"

bio on blogspot: "industry - chemicals", and "you dont stop playing cos you get old…you get old cos you stop playing" both sound suspiciously personal to frank

his url choice: "the modern prometheus" is the full title of mary shelley's frankenstein. frankenstein is a character that frank has always deeply resonated with due to his namesake, love of horror, and being born on halloween

spelling of wierd: SS and frank both spell "weird" as "wierd"

i think he enjoyed the mystery of having a secret online persona, which eventually led to the creation of F.T. Willz in 2008. it seems like wanted to leave just enough evidence for people to suspect it was him, but not enough to prove it.

here are some snippets of 2007 era discourse about the identity of "ss" and their deleted blog. you can find all of these comments and more context here. this was around the time gerard got married and fans felt like the dynamic on stage was different, and they were concerned about the future of the band. it's a LOT to go over so i would advise reading the comments if you want more perspective

on the next page, an anonymous comment is posted which fans immediately begin to speculate is SS (frank). again, if you click the link you can get way more context than i'm able to provide here.

this insinuates that SS frequented the comments on mayo's blog, which i don't think he would have done without believing/knowing mayo is gerard

there was a lot discussed in this thread including pretty solid evidence that frank/ss wrote the ancient and historic "eliza post"

if you are not aware of the eliza cuts drama, that's a totally different and equally as insane rabbit hole you'll have to research on your own

tldr; she is gerard's mentally unstable ex-fiance who he was engaged to very shortly before lindsey

gerard and eliza got engaged on may 22, 2007 (the last show of the black parade tour) according to this reddit comment.

the "eliza post" went up on june 4, 2007. here is the post in its entirety:

"Hi I felt I had to write to you guys to allay some of your fears regarding the rumours and speculation surrounding Gerard and Eliza and the future of the band. This is the only time I will ever post. I will not be able to respond to your comments or enter into discussion or debate on what I'm about to say. We are aware that this is one of the most popular message boards for MCR fans and we know you guys are the most dedicated and loyal fans in the world. It saddens me to see such division amongst the fans over one woman. If it's any consolation, you guys are not the only ones affected. She is merely tolerated by both band and crew. Believe me, nothing anyone can say will change his mind. She's been the cause of numerous conflicts and while we dont have to like it, we have to accept it, at least for the forseeable future. From day one this woman has had a hidden agenda - her manipulation knows no bounds. Some of you may find this difficult to believe but I assure you I have personally witnessed the two sides of this woman. Her so-called 'good deeds' are nothing more than PR exercises for his benefit. But he does not see what goes on behind closed doors. We have tried to draw his attention to her blatant self-promotion and diva demands. This is a prime example of love being blind. His feelings for her do run very deep. Her feelings for him, however, are questionable at best. Many people believe, including myself, that he is being used as nothing more than a stepping stone. It's disheartening to see someone you care about and have worked with for a very long time change as a person, becoming more detached and causing the group dynamic to change as a result. There have been conflicts and differences of opinions and compromises have had to be made She does not accompany the band on the European legs of the tour. Since being on this current European leg, he seems much happier which suggest she doesnt make him as happy as he thinks. Despite being asked more than once to remain discreet, she blatantly disregards his wish to keep his personal life private by continually fuelling the internet hype. The band has always been about the music and the fans. This will not change. MCR have never endorsed any type of clique as it encourages and promotes the kind of high school mentality that MCR have always fought against. Your continued support is appreciated and rest assured this woman will have no adverse affect on the band and the music. For obvious reasons I am remaining anonymous. Eliza, we know you trawl these message boards and you probably know who I am - but I'd like to see you try and prove it!!!"

it's clear that whoever wrote this had a very strong distaste for eliza and was deeply troubled by the idea of gerard marrying her. based on the language used and style of writing, i strongly believe frank wrote this post. i'll be circling back to this in a minute, because i have a little more to go over.

for more evidence that SS is frank, we can reference this reddit comment made just 9 months ago by someone heavily involved in the blogspot community at the time, kapunua. their username on this post is "ReallyKapu."

if you read through the comment links I provided earlier, you may see their name pop up. they are also mentioned by name on the "iamthemodernprometheus" blog. if you also search "kapunua mcr" on google, you can verify their involvement in the blogspot community at the time.

kapunua is also mentioned in its-mayonaise's post here (no screenshot provided for this one, its just a small mention)

there's also a screenshot of a different comment kapunua made about 9 years ago with similar information. i found the screenshot here.

evidence that "mayo" is gerard

as mentioned in the post above, mayo often used british english syntax in his posts. he also posted about some pretty juicy stuff including a blowjob poem (you can seek that out yourself)

using british english isn't out of the ordinary for gerard. he often used an accent on stage during this time. moreover, he is a writer who has written multiple characters with this type of accent, showing he has a certain appeciation for it. i think his persona for the "mayo" account could been a sort of character he put on to disguise his idenity.

if you decide to view mayo's blog, you'll see each post has nothing but comments from mcr fans exclusively. i find it very interesting that the writer of its-mayonaise never bothered to make a post saying "hey, btw, i'm not gerard" in the 4 years this blog was run for

we have somewhat less definitive evidence that gerard is mayo. however, it is clear that at the very least, they had to have been someone involved with MCR or their crew at the time.

mayo makes a post alluding to their identity here, which you can find in the first screenshot below. this section sounds a lot like something gerard would write:

"I have been asked to reveal myself to you. You all know me. I am whoever you want me to be, I am an artist, a poet, a singer, a motherfucker, and a contradiction, a mouthpiece, a friend, and an enemy, a brother, an informant, a whipping boy, a basket case, a queen, and a criminal...(credit to John Hughes.)"

there are THOUSANDS of comments, many of which speculate the identity of mayo on each of his blogspot posts. you should definitely do your own detective work and see what you think, because there is far too much info to go through here.

a frerard theory

as i previously mentioned, frank had deleted his original blog for shitsubou-shita in late september. however, prior to this, he made and then deleted some particularly turbulent and questionable posts

for context, the frerard fight happened on august 22, 2007, and gerard and lindsey got married on september 3, 2007 (just four months after gerard was engaged to eliza)

gerard and lindsey are married on the last night of the projekt revolution tour.

mcr takes a break for one month after this, where we can probably safely assume that freshly-married gerard and frank did not plan on seeing one another.

i think this was very troubling for frank for many different reasons. gerard had just freed himself of the eliza situation and here he was making the same mistake again. he was on the verge of losing his dearest friend yet again, and i believe that despite his best efforts, he could not get through to gerard.

obviously, gerard and lindsey are still married to this day. however, many fans might be aware of what happened between her and mikey. there's also a lot of other questionable information about lindsey circling the web, but that's a different story for another time.

weeks later, similarly to the eliza situation, shitsubou-shita makes and deletes the following posts on his original blog (this was prior to the creation of iamthemodernprometheus):

Friday, September 21, 2007 Abandon hope, all who enter here... What the fuck happened? Why didn't I see this coming? I made a point to keep out of it this time, but at what cost? I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place, it's a lose/lose situation. I've always been honest with you, shouldn't that work both ways? What's with the double standards? People are starting to notice. I'm not talking about kids, I'm talking about people in their mid 20's and 30's. People with life experience who can see the cracks starting to show. What am I supposed to say? I just dont have the answers. How can I reassure them when I need reassurance myself?

he says "i made a point to keep out of it this time" which seems like a reference to the situation with eliza i mentioned previously. he alludes to the idea that fans are beginning to notice the band's dynamic is not the same anymore. this was specifically around the time when "frerard" moments came to a pretty abrupt end.

he says "i've always been honest with you, shouldn't that work both ways?" which can be interpreted in a few different ways. he may feel deceived due to his best friend's sudden marriage. however, the intensity of the language used in this post shows he probably had some very intense feelings toward the situation.

it seems like the writer was having a considerably difficult time coping with these feelings. a day later, this post is made:

Saturday, September 22, 2007 Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Bullshit. I've always been a smart ass, even as a child, although my mom would prefer to use the term precocious. I've always had trouble keeping my mouth shut, I'm an open book, completely ingenuous - secrecy and circumvention are not my style. But then I've never experienced extreme paranoia. So I'm writing this blog. I know you will never read it, I wouldn't want you to. Not everything is about you. This blog is for ME, a perverse catharsis, I need this right now to preserve the small amount of sanity I have left. A blog fuelled by disappointment, frustration, confusion and dejection. I am not laying the blame at your door. The burden of blame is mine. I didn't speak up soon enough. I didn't want to rock the boat, I've been there before. I didn't want to fight or endure days of being given the silent treatment. Its not fair on the others. Why do you always make everyone feel like they have to take sides? If I had been a better friend, I would have stepped in regardless of the consequences. I acted selfishly because I didn't want to lose you, but ironically, I may have lost you anyway. I meant every word I said at the diner and although I didnt show it, your smirk and glib response hurt me more than you will ever know. I don't know who you are anymore. I cant seem to find the right words. Nothing I say seems to reach you. You are wrong. I DO care. I love you. I refuse to give up on you and I refuse to let you push me away. I am going to fight for our friendship, you aren't the only one with a stubborn streak. We are in this together, for the long haul, I promise. I want my friend back. I miss him.

it seems like whatever the writer is feeling toward the subject of this post goes beyond the boundaries of a typical friendship. the final paragraph says everything we need to know.

we can assume that based on this post's mention of meeting a diner, that frank and gerard likely met up during their month-long break to talk about the way things went down

lastly, i know there's at least one interview floating or blog post around where frank says he was a difficult teen and a pain in the ass as a kid, but i can't find it right now. if anyone has the link to that i would love to add it here, because i remember it sounding pretty similar to that first paragraph.

Sunday, September 23, 2007 Is the pen really mightier than the sword? And so you continue to blog, as do I. The difference is, I am not hurting anyone. I'm just trying to gain some perspective while you are publicly making a fool of yourself. Your words are hungrily devoured and dissected by the masses, you seem to revel in the chaos and controversy. At the moment your identity is pure speculation, but have you thought about the consequences if anyone was able to prove your identity? Not just for you, but for all of us? Have you lost your mind? How can you be so selfish? You have become a self obsessed megalomaniac. I know what I get out of writing my blogs - but what do you get out of writing yours? Do you even bother to read the comments? Some of those comments break my heart. These aren't just nameless, faceless strangers, these are real people with real lives and real feelings. These are the people that allowed us to bring our music into their lives. These are the people that we see on tour, the people that wait outside for hours in the cold and rain just to meet us, the people that write us letters and make us scrapbooks, the people who care enough to bake us cookies and brownies, the people that send us birthday cards and bizarre, crazy ass gifts, the people that have given us their love and support, the people that cheer us on, the people that made us. Why are you so hellbent on destroying not only yourself, but everyone who loves you? You wanna see how far down I can sink? Your mom called last night - and I lied to her. After everything she has done for us, I lied to her. How do you think that made me feel? Do you even care?

this last post, for me, solidifies the identities behind each blog. it is so clear through the details in this post. to me, it seems like frank was hurting so bad, and in such a vulnerable place, that he completely let his guard down and made this post.

the mcr lyric included "You wanna see how far down I can sink?" is undoubtedly mind-boggling and speaks volumes to how carelessly obvious frank was (maybe intentionally?) willing to be

there's so much to unpack in this post and i honestly can't even begin to wrap my head around it. i would love to hear anyone's opinion!

later in the post, it seems clear that he is referencing the iam-mayonaise blog and gerard's seemingly wreckless posting. but mostly, i think he was lashing out due to pain of betrayal after losing the closest person to him and someone he deeply loves not once, but twice.

again, it's hard to believe how obvious he was being here, but i really think it was a result of the pain/suffering he felt

if you scroll back up to the first screenshot of this post, you can circle back around to when he removed his entire profile after making this final post, eventually rebranding to "iamthemodernprometheus"

the its-mayonaise account makes this post on september 30, seemingly as a response. the title could apply to frank, who as we all know, was gerard's best friend and right-hand man. the rest of this post can be interpreted in many different ways, so you can make whatever you want out of it:

however, the last paragraph does give me pause... i would love to see/create a full analysis of this post, but i'm trying to stick to facts here so you can form your own judgement

after gerard's wedding and mcr's month long break, they play two shows in mexico (oct 4 & 7, 2007) and then the hoboken show takes place, where frank yells "lie to me" during i'm not okay and seems very low energy and unlike himself

i believe things gradually improved between them after this point, but i'm not sure if their connection was ever completely the same.

conclusion/my opinion

coupled with all of the other available evidence about gerard/frank's tumultuous friendship/relationship/situationship, i think this information strongly alludes to the idea that at the very least, frank had some very intense feelings for gerard that were not fully reciprocated. i would love to hear what anyone else's opinion is on this topic, because it definitely isn't discussed often

i think it's completely heartbreaking (especially with everything else we know) but i do think their incredible connection is a massive contributing factor to mcr's legacy

if you notice any inconsistencies in this post or have any questions, please send me a message! i want to keep this as consistent, comprehensible, and well-sourced as i can!

lastly please follow me if you liked this! i spent months researching and compiling sources for this post and i would so appreciate it <3

#frerard #my chemical romance #mcr #gerard way #frank iero #frerard theory #ss/mayo #ss mayo #shitsubou-shita #its-mayonaise #mcr history

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felassan · 3 months ago

Text

Snippets. 🐺💜

Nathan: "This team has done some amazing work 😍" [source]

devs Mack Carruthers and Greg Towner worked on Morrigan's transformation in the new trailer [source]

Violet: "🥰 can't wait to share more with you guys 👀" [source]

Violet: "Happy to finally have my first authored blog (with help from my AMAZING TEAM of course!) to share with you guys!!! Check it out and pre-order DATV now! 🥰🥰🥰" [source] [bloglink]

In this thread, Derek highlights a compilation of shots from the trailer that he made, worked on in-tandem with others, or polished

Derek: "And that’s all the stuff from me in the trailer! I feel so incredibly lucky that so much of my work made it into this AMAZING trailer. Can’t wait for you guys to see more. 🧡 I wanna add: it takes an army to make these scenes. While I did character layout, camera animations, animation polish, bug fixing and technical stuff, there’s still a plethora of folks who touched these scenes. Matter of fact, our work still isn’t done. So I gotta thank: writing, level art, VFX, lighting, sound, character art, performance capture, actors, production, and my fellow Cine folks who I worked on these scenes in tandem with. It all came together into one incredible package. 🧡 For anyone who’s curious, here’s a breakdown of what I do: - mocap assembly - scene layout (characters, props, cameras, mocap) - camera work (animations, framing, polish, etc.) - scene polish (character and camera animation polish, bug fixes) - integration - bug fixing" [source, two, three, four] Derek added: "PS: I count these as Cine folks, but to clarify - also huge thank you our incredible Creature and Character animators. They did some really insanely mind blowing shit. Dunno how they do it." [source]

User: "Okay, but is it on purpose that the drink/flask thingie is positioned almost like the stomach in Manfred It's like kinda in the correct area too if I'm not mistaken [image of Manfred]" / Derek: "Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what character art was going for here 😂" [source]

Dev Tony: "Been hard at work bringing these scenes to life with an amazing team of cinematic artists and designers. Enjoy a small teaser of our work." [source]

Derek: "I worked on a few of [Lucanis'] best scenes. HE OWES ME." [source] / User: "Very much looking forward to seeing where his story goes. I have a feeling it'll be spicy." / Derek: "Oh it’s a doozy." [source]

Derek: "The hair in our game is ASTOUNDING." [source]

Derek: "Our lighting team are absolute MASTERS at this, every bit of work they did was incredible!!" [source]

Derek: "I can absolutely tell you that there are a PLETHORA of dialogue options, major choices, and a huge amount of variability. Trust me - it’s been challenging to work with all the variability LOL" [source]

Carly: "game dev is so collaborative, a lot of stuff in the trailer i've helped out on! most of the work id say i "own" isn't gonna be in flashy trailers, but hope we get to see some of it over the next two months ! :)" [source]

Crystal: "Some really beautiful cinematics shown off in this one. So proud of our team!" [source]

Carly: "ive worked on at least one romance scene for each follower and i still squeak when they flirt with me im With y'all" [source]

Dev Matthew: "👀 This is so hype! Might be a tad of my work in there as well. 😉" [source]

Siggi: "It's so exciting to see the some of the shots I worked on and worked along-side come to life! I was afraid that my work would never see the life of day. I can't wait for October!" [source]

Siggi: "My biggest contribution was the assan work I think. I got to do a lot of look and movement development on him. I even animated his whole intro scene." [source]

Siggi: "Look at my babies! LOOK AT THEM! They're smiling!" [context: Assan and the dragon that rises from the water, and having worked on them] [source]

Carly: "forever grateful to siggi for helping me onboard but okkkk their animation work is sooooo killer, set an amazing standard for the cines !!!!! 🙏🙏🙏 so excited for y'all to see" [source]

Dev Zara: "October 31st!! So excited for folks to enjoy it. And to finally be able to publicly share my animation work." [source]

Camille: "Time for you to meet some of them dragons ! And I don’t think you’ll be able to slay them so easily hehe" [source]

Varric's Bianca: "That’s us!! That’s our game!! 😭❤️ never in my wildest dreams would I have predicted that I’d end up where I am, working on my dream project. I’m so immensely grateful to this amazing team!" [source]

ikhandle: "Congratulations team! This has been an honour to work on! Amazing job all around." [source]

Michael: "the team really, really cares about PC." [source] / User: "The trailer was awesome! How soon do you think we'll hear about PC specific features? 👀" / Michael: "pretty soon! i know its in the works." [source]

For a while there was an error on the Steam listing of the game's PC specs. it said the recommended PC spec is the same as the minspec. the recommended PC spec is PC spec is i9-9900K. it looks like this has now been fixed [source]

ikhandle: "One of my dragon shots just made the trailer! 🐉🐉 Huge shoutout to the Cinematic team for absolutely crushing it—these are some of the best cinematics I've seen in years. Truly an honor to have the privilege to work on Dragon Age. Congrats to the whole team on their outstanding work!" [source] (context: dragon shot at the end of the trailer when the red one pulls a pike out its body)

ikhandle: "Had a lot of fun animating this big boi. Y’all not ready for him 🦴☠️🪓" [source] (context: the giant skeleton) / User: "Does he have a name? 👀" / ikhandle: "I’ll ask 😂. I’ve named him SeñorBones for now." [source]

The cinematics in the trailer are running REAL time in engine [source]

ikhandle: "Everyone has done such an amazing job… a lot of hard work to get these out. Shout out to the whole team!!’" [source]

Jess: "😎 I'm uncontrollably hype and I work on this….." [source]

Dev Yanni: "Dragons go roar! *internal screaming in excitement*" [source]

Nick: "Nuts to see how far this has come. Way to go to the BioWare team." [source]

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #morrigan #queen of my heart #hype hypeeeee

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onesidedradiostatic · 8 months ago

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TRAGIC NEWS???!!!!! Wasn’t there a “bonus info” graphic (like the Nifty is Straight one) that said Valentino was good at art? We do not see it we do not perceive it the Lucifers Commissions crack thread lives ON

At least in that scenario Vox would be equally pathetic, bugging Val to draw him Alastor pictures or Val drawing pictures for Vox because he knows it will get a reaction

Alternatively, Vox leaning over Val’s shoulder like [sfw edition] “and and and make his tail fluffier. More.” and Velvette looks over “put him in the 2017 winter collection.” vox: “yeah he is a winter. Now give him real messy hair! More! More!!” “Di-she-velled!”

“Chefs fucking kiss Val”

Valentino is likely way too busy to paint a detailed full body alastor though. So Vox would have to outsource

(just. just go to this entire saga for context)

HELP I actually remember hearing that before but I never actually watched the whole video (I literally just click citations on the wiki).

tbf it would also be funny if val himself drew sexy alastor art to placate vox in an argument. he's done it so much he doesn't need to use references anymore. but dw this only applies to VAL so specifically val wouldn't need to commission lucifer after an argument with vox. but it's not like val would ALWAYS be willing to do a fully rendered artwork of alastor. you're right. vox would have to outsource. this is how lucifer's commissions still come into play.

alternatively, like a fool, vox tries his very best to pretend he is actually normal about alastor so he commissions outside sources in secret without consulting the other vees as if they don't already know because it's so obvious. this is where val gets to be the responsible one for once and step in at the monetary loss and just offer to draw for him sexy alastors himself (lucifer already got a lot of money from vox's commissions though)

#ask #osrs.txt #radiostatic #staticradio #hazbin vox #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel valentino #hazbin valentino #valentino #lucifer morningstar #hazbin lucifer #you know I genuinely have no fucking clue how this became a whole thing I WAS JUST PUTTING OUT A RANDOM FUNNY IDEA I HAD #lucifer's commissions saga

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kawaiijohn · 2 months ago

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Good morning. Where do I even start today- trying to keep up with disaster relief is tough since a lot of my normal sources are without power or incredibly focused on doing the actual recovery.

I guess I'll start with one of the sources I get a lot of breaking news from and what he said yesterday:

Ryan Hall is a YouTube weatherman with an incredible team that delivers free weather broadcasting through his YouTube lives during major events. He's from east Kentucky and is very invested in Appalachia weather recovery and awareness. The man's a local and he's part of the reason I'm even aware of the risks heavy rains can bring in this region of the states.

And this post from the national weather service office in Greenville - Spartanburg SC, that serves a wide area around it;

"this is one (forecast) we wanted to get wrong. this is the worst event in our office's history."

This thread concludes: media was sent to Florida and so a lot of people don't quite know what's going on in appalachia- if you can I suggest reading this person's entire thread, which is too long for me to type or try to post on here and keep it readable, so try the second link under here for an unrolled thread that'll be easier for screen readers;

Minor update from yesterday's post: the governor of Tennessee finally fucking declared a state of emergency after his shitty day of prayer and fasting announcement. It took him like six hours to get off his ass and do it.

The power is still majorly out as of this morning in a vast area of the states. As you can see, a majority is in Appalachia, central Georgia, and the Florida big bend. Florida, I know for a fact, has tons of electrical technicians working to restore power and cell service.

This map really highlights the state divide from eastern Tennessee/Kentucky and the Carolinas too.

Despite the doom and gloom, a few things are starting to get better.

Quite a few dams managed to hold, and some roads in west NC are more passable, but there are so many people reporting that it was taking them upwards of seven hours to get out of Asheville, which is a major city.

Below has a few pics and statements about the state of roads late last night/early today.

The end of this tweet says "this is an absolute mega disaster for Western NC on the order of hurricane Katrina."

With how long the recovery might actually take, I'm certainly hoping it's handled better. One of the responses on this thread mentions no military presence/help as of 20 hours ago, but this has since changed with the national guard finally deploying in some areas.

Overall, fooding hit historical levels in a lot of states, with Atlanta GA even declaring a flash flood emergency at one point, which is the highest risk level of a flash flood warning - it means "get out and get up high NOW"

Rescue and recovery operations are on the way.

Local groups, storm chasers, and organizations are on the way. The national guard is deploying and helicopters are coming from volunteers and the military alike in the most affected areas.

Chris Hall, a storm chaser who works with a lot of organizations, has been driving around doing things like setting up starlink access in Asheville and helping serve hot food with a Florida based disaster recovery group since Friday.

Hell he even posted this, which if you know the waffle house index, is a little neat to see- for context, fema will look at waffle house closures in areas hit by natural disasters to gage preliminarily relief need.

Waffle houses are infamous for never closing. So for a limited menu to be served, it means this spot in GA was still hit pretty hard.

If you want to and can, here is one place with local donation resources for west NC

And different organizations and weather community types to help that are boots on the ground type volunteers with a bit more of a national focus;

If you are good at adding alt text or doing text description for screen readers, please help me with these posts. It is incredibly hard to do those sorts of things on mobile due to my own limitations.

Please be safe.

#weather stuff #irl stuff #hurricane #hurricane helene #disaster stuff #dantes vibe corner #long post

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sanctus-ingenium · 10 months ago

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I’m really inspired by your world building and the creatures you use. I’m trying to kickstart my own world using Celtic, Norse and Scottish myths (it also involves werewolves because they’re cool)

But I’m stumped and a bit overwhelmed. How’d you start your project and what were huge sources of inspiration for you as you worked on The Black Horse?

hi there!!! this will probably get wordy i have a lot of thoughts on this but here's how i built up my inver setting

i had the characters first, and the werewolf establishment was basically the first thing invented about the world. I wrote a decent amount about the characters in the pre-1st draft slush pile just getting a handle on their voices, their history together, etc. the first slush draft was in painstaking chronological order telling of their lives from birth to like age 40 - it wasn't pretty to read but it meant I knew what big moments formed their worldview, their relationships with others, things like that. and then i got to pick and choose which ones would feature in the actual 1st draft, and which i would leave unsaid, in flashback form, or only in the form of vague allusions. the plot and world events changed significantly as i wrote the actual 1st draft so this ended up only being useful for backstory stuff and not book plots, but it was still good to have.

There was an important moment of a character being kidnapped into a faery realm, which is what started me off thinking about fairies in general. they weren't originally a part of this world - it was an undefined space before just for the characters to exist in, because i was (and still am) more interested in the characters than the worldbuilding. but i still like for there to be SOMETHING there in the background, and it gives a lot of opportunities to inform characterisation, so i started to make my setting. I picked the Púca as a pivotal being & major inspiration source to include because of its relatively large presence in the fringes of my childhood in stories told by my older relatives and i like the unusual aspects about it as well, how it has been both heroic and malevolent in different stories. you have to remember i grew up in this culture too, i knew a lot already, and that's what got me thinking of alternate Earth history - as in, the setting of Inver as alternate history, not wholly original fantasy set in a fantasy land.

So then I had to think about the implications of that, and here is where I think a lot of authors adapting extant mythology fall short. A world where faeries/mythological monsters/gods based in real cultures exist and people interact with them is indistinguishable from our own. We already live in a world where people interact with faeries in their own way; I've heard many older relatives recount stories of being trapped in their fields by faeries, how you can only escape by taking off your jumper and putting it back on inside out. There was no question as to whether they believed this was a concrete, meaningful interaction with a supernatural being. We have a motorway that was diverted while it was being built because the builders didn't want to risk cutting down a hawthorn tree. There is a deep stigma against harming hawthorns. Now, tell me how things would be any different if faeries were real irl? ftr I do not believe in the supernatural whatsoever, not even a little bit, but it is impossible to deny that I live in a world deeply shaped by it - I need only look out the window at the stands of whitethorn around my house to know that. because the main expression of that supernatural element is in how the people of that culture react.

you cannot, you cannot pick and choose only the monsters from a legend and leave behind the people who made & propagated that legend. you're only taking a single thread from a rich tapestry. I'm not arguing that other cultures should be untouchable, far from it, I'm just saying that to truly appreciate it, you need context for everything you adapt. you gotta know what you're writing about

in that sense, the people are more important to building Inver than the faeries. a citizen of Inver not immediately affected by the main plotline would likely never see or interact with magic in their lifetime, but their society is still shaped by it. so is mine (though that's more on the catholic church than anything else)

So now that I'd had that realisation, I decided to dump a lot of the traditional fantasy tropes I'd been working with. Think basic fantasy setting stuff, pop culture "The Fae" tropes, even the terminology of 'Fae' at all - that is not something I've ever heard the older generation in my life call them. It's just 'fairies' to them (although I did shift the spelling to match the Yeats poem because I could not handle writing characters making accusations of being A Fairy and have it not come across as a unintentionally homophobic accusation lmao). I did some research; mostly on JSTOR, using my institutional access, because my own university is mostly science and didn't have a big library of anthropological texts. I read An Táin Bó Culainge which is honestly one of the greatest stories of all time PLEASE READ IT if you are at all interested in Irish myth. It is a fantastic story and extremely comedic as well (a canon mmmf foursome lol). In terms of academic sources specific to the Púca, I have a drive folder of pdfs I will share with anyone if they ask.

I decided I was not going to include anything from what people actually think of as pre-christian Irish mythology - no fianna [rangers notwithstanding], no Ulster cycle, no Tuatha Dé, no Irish gods. All the things I include are post-colonial aside from the notion of the Otherworld in general. This decision wasn't necessarily accurate to what might have happened in this alternate history (given that christianity still has no real foothold in Inver) but it is a colonised society after all. It's why I got slightly steamed once when someone filed my Púca art into their irish deities/irish polytheism tag (I have my own issues with iripols/gaelpols for the same reason I dislike people taking myths out cultural context and in this case contemporary cultural context), because the Púca is in fact a postcolonial being - it comes from the UK, and likely the mainland as well

One of the last things I did before starting on my 2nd draft, which is what turned into Said the Black Horse, was decide to always capitalise the word 'Púca'. Because what really clicked from doing my research and remembering what I'd heard as a child was that the Púca is a specific character. Not a species, not a class of monster. A character, one guy. And you'll find this everywhere - the obvious example is the Minotaur being one specific guy, the son of Minos, not just 'a minotaur'. One very funny consequence of speciesifying mythological characters is dnd ppl saying their character is A Firbolg (fir bolg is plural!!). Fantasy bestiary books like Dragonology or Spiderwick Chronicles have done some amount of damage to how people relate to myths and legendary creatures, and I am not immune as someone who loves speculative biology, but in Inver I decided to cut all of that out.

Next once I got that out of the way I had to think about tone, atmosphere, and intended results. I didn't achieve my holy grail of a very atmospheric, undefined, and uncertain story that provides no answers, due to limitations in my own abilities, but I tried. I have given less than 1 second of thought to how magic or faery biology in Inver works because that is not conducive to the atmosphere of a fairytale. Many of these source myths and legends are really about the fear of the unknown. They are rationalisations to explain away something unknown, some mystery of life, and you cannot explain the unexplainable and expect it to carry the same punch as the original myths that you are drawn to adapt. That's also why I try to never actually give facts about fairies, but instead I talk about what people think of them. The word 'considered' does some insanely heavy lifting in that linked post lmao. Is any of what I wrote true with regards to the Red King?? It is for the people who believe it.

I'm saying all of this because these are all points I had to think about before writing that 2nd draft, but also because I think they're worth considering for your own story as well. I'll admit I invented my werewolves from scratch, they have no mythological basis, because they pre-date the faery stuff and also I wanted them to fill a very specific role and appear a little more concrete than the other supernatural elements. It is what it is; I wanted a werewolf element that didn't match myths and legends (and honestly was partially inspired by me rolling my eyes about those posts going around moaning and whining about 'the doggification of werewolves missing the point of werewolf stories'. I thought, well, there's more than one story you can tell with a werewolf - it isn't always 'i fear the beast within', sometimes it's something else! sometimes it's daddy issues! it's okay to make something new)

ok i think that's all i have to say.. modern Inver is a bit different, that worldbuilding is largely the same but with a big dose of actual ecology because the main characters are rangers and in Inver in 2017, rangers mostly do environmental monitoring. and that's a whole different sort of worldbuilding lol

good luck with your story!!

#me about to write literally anything: this will probably get wordy #mvf #setting: inver

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cosmichorrorlesbians · 20 days ago

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what's your dissertation about? you mentioned it in the siltcord and i'm really interested

oh my god hey I'm so happy you're interested! broad strokes because I've only been working on it for a few weeks but: the current theme is 'resistant landscapes' (both man-made and natural) in the later writing of Shirley Jackson!

Essentially, my main thread is that Jackson had two parallel strands to her work, which as far as I can tell began kind of interrelated but then diverged quite significantly? She's probably best known now for The Haunting of Hill House and to a lesser extent We Have Always Lived In The Castle, which are these. weird surreal psychological horror novels, engaging explicitly or implicitly with the supernatural, and centred around introspective, strange and sometimes deeply misanthropic female characters from isolated social units with dysfunctional, possessive relationships to each other.

Aaaaand then on the other hand she was known for being a 'happy housewife' who wrote these whimsical, quasi-autobiographical stories about all her children and how hopeless her husband was. These were popular too. Betty Friedan called her out in landmark 1963 feminist manifesto The Feminine Mystique for essentially spreading patriarchal propaganda.

The interrelation between the two is really jarring, because in one family is a source of horror and tragedy and in the other it's a source of, like... laundry. And Jackson's home life wasn't everything those stories made it out to be-- her marriage was unfaithful, her mother could probably be fairly called emotionally abusive, and as I talked about on the siltcord, she developed severe agoraphobia which often left her housebound.

So, yeah. My plan is to explore the depiction of families as constructed social units in dialogue with the environments they are constructed in in that work. Obviously a lot of that is relation of house to family, in the context of which Hill House is especially rewarding to consider, but I also want to look at relationships with nature and urban environments (especially in the context of settler colonialism and how that has had an enduring legacy in Jackson's particular part of New England), xenophobia (largely in regard to class, though racism and anti-Semitism are presences in her writing), domesticity and the idea of the housewife, and how horror relates to All Of This. The ideal of making a home within a hostile environment and of that environment turning on you, essentially.

I don't yet have particular areas of focus within that broad umbrella, but I might update with bits and pieces about it as I work? I don't really talk about academic stuff on here but I am very much Critical Literary Analysis Guy and I do also post relentlessly about haunted houses as a concept so if people would be interested in it maybe I will

anyway if you've read this far I recommend Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition (2024) by Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing which is a book about how horror movie tropes can be mirrored in built environments! I'm reading it right now and it's conceptually fascinating plus fairlyyy comprehensible by academic standards (if a little dense) if you, like me, are a Fool who knows nothing of architecture. very good also for getting to look at pictures of some of the most Fucked Up Buildings (affectionate) you've ever seen.

#thank youuuu for asking this!! <3 #I didn't want to hijack siltcord bookclub to talk about my academic work #at least in part because I think it's fun to read thohh blind #but it's my blog & I'll infodump if I want to #also holy shit morgan I think you just tricked me into writing up a more thorough plan for my dissertation than I did for my supervisor #so thank you??? this has been bizarrely helpful #fun fact I very very nearly ditched this idea to write about family/amatonormativity/happiness in the silt verses as my actual dissertation #but decided not to because I like my supervisor and didn't want to switch #and also there is essentially no secondary literature for tsv.#well. there is some genuinely excellent secondary literature #but it is all written by the same twenty or thirty very unwell people on tumblr dot com #and that's not usable because I can't cite it and refuse to use it without citing it #I'll still write that tsv paper some day tho. just for funsies.#dissertation posting #shirley jackson #the haunting of hill house #✨️

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olderthannetfic · 5 months ago

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No.

As always, you should be more cautious when making mainstream art (if you get to be a Hollywood director, for example) than when making niche stuff.

As for which fiction inspires people to do what, the evidence is pretty murky. I'm sure FINR's Dreamwidth will have some links somewhere that someone who is not me can find. Let's not waste our time on freaking out about Japan. There are some well-publicized problems, but it's also a favorite subject of melodramatic reporting in English.

Also...

When someone does cite sources, that doesn't automatically mean the sources say what they claim or that the sources are any good. I waded through the twitter thread you sent, and the first source cited is:

Sluzhevsky, Megan, "The Costs of Lolicon: Japan’s Pedophilia Trade" (2022). Senior Theses. 96.

This is an undergrad thesis, so basically worthless. Sorry, not sorry. (I wrote an undergrad thesis myself. It was also worthless.)

The abstract is:

This thesis investigates Japan’s normalization of pedophilia via the proliferation of popular culture and media. This analysis will begin by looking at historical examples of pedophilia, specifically focusing on chigo in Medieval Japanese Buddhism, wakashu in Edo Period pleasure quarters, and the spread of soft power diplomacy after World War II. This phenomenon will also be viewed in the modern context by discussing lolicon in Japanese media and advertising, idol culture in the Japanese music industry, the JK business, and “real” child pornography. The ways that Japan benefits from this culture economically and politically will also be investigated. Finally, this thesis will take into consideration the opinions of those who do not see these media forms as morally reprehensible, and consider the ways this phenomenon may or may not endanger children in real life.

Chigo?! Wakashu? Fucking really?!

It might be a good paper. You can read it if you really want to. But the abstract is not inspiring a lot of confidence. Wakashu, for example, were often young, but it's a social category that has no modern equivalent, and it's not strictly bound by age. To roll this role for young men into hand-wringing about modern lolicon, not even shotacon? What?

The second citation is by a law student. It's a 2011/2012 article. It doesn't seem like it was peer reviewed, but I'm not sure.

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bugsbenefit · 4 months ago

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fascinated by how willingly literally any "leak" is accepted as most likely true right now. the process looks more like immediately buying it and then you have to prove it's not real instead of the other way around

idk if people just aren't aware of how questionable even the most 'reliable' leaks are. and i mean reliable as in, say you yourself personally know someone who works on the show (not even mentioning anything that goes through a second person on twitter here you're already dealing with at least two people in the chain of relaying that information to you with personal agendas and biases). it'd still be questionable what they tell you

a single production member or extra etc already won't have access to the whole season scriptwise but even that aside you're essentially playing a giant game of telephone (? is that what it's called in english) where you're not only relying on people hearing info right but also a) caring enough about all details equally so they don't just forget half of the info that's not interesting to them but could change the entire context and b) that their personal biases aren't influencing how they rely it to you, like downplaying something they're not enthused about or hyping something up that has is a blink and you miss it in the show, potentially even subconsciously, everyone will have more to say about something that piques their interests, be it characters, plot threads, ships, etc

and all that still ignores that this is about Netflix's #1 show, productions of that size and public interest don't solely bank on Extra89 sticking to their NDA and not talking to someone. for example even back for s4 we already saw the actors have unique scripts with their names plastered over the pages, these are not things anyone on set is catching quick glances of.

and that is STILL excluding the fact that the chance of there being "planted" leaks this seasons is SO high imo. with it being the final season i wouldn't be surprised if they weren't taking chances and intentionally spreading wrong ideas among paparazzi and people coming to set (they could easily even tell extras/crew members contradictory info about context or things that don't concern their specific work)

and on top of all that... people also just like to lie for attention too. everyone and their mom has "credible sources"

#can't believe the current leak vetting process is 'oh word? okay' and then you have to try and reason why it's not plausible #instead of questioning it Before incorporating it into your belief system #st s5 #byler

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itsgameofthronesimagines · 2 years ago

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Strong Dragons (Part One)

(Gif not mine)

Fandom: House of the Dragon

Masterlist Here

Pairing: Daemon x Fem!Reader x Rhaenyra

Warnings: NSFW! 18+ only! Smut, mature themes and language, P in V, arranged marriages, unprotected rough/raw sex (wrap it before you tap it), virginity loss, incest, daemon growls (enough said), angst, mentions of period blood, infertility struggles, threesomes, etc. (I’m so sorry if I miss anything I’m just writing the warnings down as I remember them)

Word Count: 4,032

Summary: Lady Y/n is chosen by Princess Rhaenyra for some would say a dangerous, maybe even an impossible task... and it requires marrying her uncle.

Request by: @ivy-targaryen

Author’s Note: I just so happened to be writing a Daemon x Reader x Rhaenyra fic when this request came in so thank you so much for the added inspiration! For context, Fem!Reader will be a Strong for later obvious reasons, Rhaenyra is still married to Laenor, Daemon stays in King’s Landing and never marries Laena, so their daughters are never born (I’m sorry). This is a VERY long one (that is most definitely getting a second and third part cause this originally had over 10,000 words) so strap in and I hope you enjoy it!

(I do not consent my works to be reposted/copied)

"What troubles you?"

Lady Y/n, daughter of House Strong, looks up from her embroidery to locate the source of her brother's voice. Looking around the gardens, she found him walking towards her, stepping into the gazebo she had hidden in. She tilts his head up at him, "Do I look troubled?"

Ser Harwin Breakbones lets out a snort full of snark, "I hardly see a sour look like that on your face, sweet sister."

Upon mention, Y/n feels the furrow of her brow lighten, straightening her posture when she realized she had been slouching. Blinking rapidly to try and veil her brooding expression, she clears her throat and nods towards the nearest seat for her brother. When he takes up the invitation to join her, only then did she voice her worries, "... If you were given an impossible task, would you do it?"

Harwin's eyebrows furrow, an expression fairly similar to Y/n's. By all accounts, apart from their genders, they were twins, and Y/n is reminded of this as she watched her brother similarly shift in his seat before replying, "Awfully vague question. If you truly want advice from your brother, wouldn't you want to be a bit more specific?"

"If I wanted advice, I'd go to Larys," the quick remark forces out a snort from Harwin. Y/n faintly smiles before urging him on with a stiff nod, "Just answer the question."

Silence lingers as he ponders on said question. Harwin listens to the wind brushing through the vines that have climbed the pillars of the gazebo. He answers boldly, like the strong soldier he was, "Nothing is impossible. Not for me. Not for us. House Strong knows no task that is too impossible to accomplish."

Y/n looked back down at her embroidery to hide her disappointment. She was afraid he would say that, furiously pulling the needle and threading through the fabric. Despite hiding her emotions, Harwin took her silent response as a recoil, worrying him further as he leans closer to her, talking quietly in case the question was for a more personal matter, "Can I ask who gave you this burden?"

The needle paused in Y/n's hand, her eyes still examining her threaded pattern as she mumbled, "The princess."

Harwin's worry eases some, shoulders visibly relaxing under his armor. He smiles warmly with encouragement, "Princess Rhaenyra would not have asked... whatever-it-is from you if she did not believe you could do it. She's also smart. I don't believe anything's impossible for her either," when his sister remained unconvinced, Harwin reaches out to still her hand from stabbing her embroidery with the needle, "She is to be our queen someday, Y/n... Whatever she wants from you, as long as you are not to be harmed, I believe you should do it."

Y/n's shoulders rise and fall as she sighs through her nose, watching Harwin's hand before finally looking up at him, "She wants me to go with her if and when she leaves for Dragonstone."

Not a complete lie, but one nonetheless, and it only added to the weight already heavy on her burdened shoulders. Harwin's eyebrows furrow again, but more so in confusion, "And why is that such an impossible task?"

"... Convincing Father of it is one, and being unwed is another. I doubt Father would let me go if he intends on finding me a husband."

Ser Breakbones scoffs, "Father cannot deny the princess, Y/n. He'll have to agree if she asks you to go with her."

"But the King--"

"Princess Rhaenyra has the King wrapped around her finger. She will get her father to agree to this arrangement, and then our father will really have no choice."

He stands suddenly, remembering that he had the City Watch to attend to and he had only meant to bid his sister a good day. Before he leaves, however, he smiles down and pats Y/n's shoulder, "It's an honor to have the heir to the throne request your service. Politically, the relationship between our houses would strengthen if you choose to accept the princess' proposal. Give it some thought, sister. I know in the end, whatever you choose, I'll believe it to be the right choice."

~~~~~~~~~

Her brother wasn't at all helpful in her struggles, but Y/n had appreciated his words, nevertheless. She knew she wouldn't get his full support if he had known the full truth, but he had answered as she knew he would with what she had given him. That night, as instructed, she slipped into the secret passageways of the Red Keep. Following the drawings that were quickly scrawled onto a piece of parchment, Y/n wandered cautiously down the tunnels, avoiding any source of light she caught sight of. Eventually, she makes it to a small stairwell and climbs up, finding the outline of a door on the top of the stairs. Ignoring the dust and cobwebs, Y/n places her hands on the door and gives it an experimental push. When it didn't budge, she pushed harder, quickly catching herself when the door gave in.

She nearly stumbled into the chambers revealed on the other side. Looking around, her eyes widen in amazement to find herself in Princess Rhaenyra's chambers, the very same Targaryen who was watching Y/n expectedly from her seat next to the hearth on the far side of the room. When Y/n's gaze caught hers, the Strong woman straightened her posture, quickly brushing the dust off her skirt and bowing respectively, parchment paper still clutched in hand.

Rhaenyra smiled, amusement shining in her eyes unless Y/n had mistaken it for the fireplace reflecting off her violet orbs. The princess rose from her chair and slowly crossed the room to the other woman, hands clasped in front of her, "Find your way here well enough?"

"Yes, Princess," Y/n curtly answered. She was nearly startled out of her manners, however, when a large hand reached around her and snatched the parchment from her hands. Dark hair falling over her shoulder as she spun her head, Y/n nearly lost her bravery when Daemon Targaryen stood beside her, seamlessly emerging from the shadows of the room. The prince barely acknowledged her presence, staring down at the small map he had drawn for Y/n as it crinkled in his hands.

Finally, he looked up once Rhaenyra had joined his side, the two Targaryens both staring at Y/n with their matching eyes, looming over her with a fierceness so similar to a dragon. Daemon allows a small smirk to grace his lips, "Incredible architecture, wouldn't you agree?"

Y/n quickly nodded when she guessed that he was referring to the secret tunnels, now slightly shaking, "Yes, my prince."

"Maegor the Cruel had the secret tunnels and passageways built throughout the Red Keep back when he was King. They say after construction was finished, he threw a grand feast for the hands and minds behind the building process," Daemon took the parchment and held it over a lit candlestick stationed on a pillar beside him, watching the remnants of his maps slowly disappear into flames before freeing his hand off it and fixing his gaze back on Y/n. The young woman tried her best not to cower in fear as he took one step closer to her again, "And after three days, he had them all killed so no one but him would know how to navigate the tunnels and trapdoors."

A hidden threat, veiled by his intention. Y/n forced her hands to stay still by folding them in front of her body, unable to meet the prince's eyes when he stepped far too close to her, close enough to feel his breath on her face as she whispered, "I will not breathe of word of this to anyone."

Daemon tilts his head, smirking as though he was playing with his food, "And what made you think I would suggest such a thing?"

"Daemon," both his and Y/n's eyes remember Rhaenyra and look to face her. The princess appeared patient, encouraging her uncle with a brief nod, "I trust her."

Once her uncle had stepped away and dutifully stood at her side, Rhaenyra turned back to Y/n, thinly smiling, "Have you made a decision?"

"I have, Princess..." Y/n nods again, trying to catch her breath after Daemon has stolen hers. She basked in her personal space, able to think straight without the two dragons lingering ever so close to her. Taking a deep breath and regaining her courage, Y/n lifts her chin and turns to Daemon, "I will marry you. I will wed you and bed you. I will give you the children you and Princess Rhaenyra so desire and pass them off as hers with Ser Laenor."

Rhaenyra's eyes were the only thing to give away her relief and veiled excitement. Daemon, however, remained impassive, unwilling to share whatever emotions he was feeling with the stranger in the room he did not yet trust. He keeps his gaze hard, staring deeply into Y/n's as if trying to fish out a lie, "You understand that while you will be the one to bear them, you will not be the one to raise them. When they are born, you promise to not hold motherhood over them and entrust this to the Princess Rhaenyra."

It was not a question or a request, more so a demand. Despite Daemon's bluntness, Y/n nods obediently, "If that is the princess' wish, yes."

Rhaenyra glides over to the woman, gingerly taking her hands in her own. Y/n couldn't find herself able to stare directly into the princess' gaze and so glanced down at their conjoined hands. Rhaenyra's skin was fair and much paler than hers in comparison. Y/n had a few small scars littered over her hands from various stories of her childhood, while Rhaenyra's was visibly flawless, apart from the feel of her palms. They were rough, as Y/n observed, most likely from the use of dragon-riding.

Y/n forces herself to look up, only to be rewarded with a grateful nod from Rhaenyra and a kind smile, "Thank you, my lady. You have no idea how much this means to me."

~~~~~~~~~

The next day, Daemon approached the King and asked for Lady Y/n's hand in marriage. Viserys was delighted that his brother had found a new wife so soon after Lady Royce's death and after the scandal with Rhaenyra and immediately confided in Lyonel Strong for his approval. His Hand, of course, agreed to this proposal between his daughter and Prince Daemon and so a ceremony was quickly planned to take place within a fortnight.

Preparations were made and everyone appeared to be excited about the event, bustling about and whispering with joy amongst themselves. Many of the ladies of the court giggled and gossiped with each other, fawning over Prince Daemon and commenting on how Lady Y/n was incredibly lucky.

If Harwin had a suspicion, he never showed it. Instead, he congratulated his sister on her proposal and promised to be her ally against her future husband should she ever need it. On the day the ceremony was set to take place, Y/n found herself surrounded by maids and other ladies of the court as they helped her prepare for her wedding. Just as they had fully dressed her in a white dress filled with embroidered dragons in red thread, the doors of Y/n's chambers opened to reveal the princess and Ser Harwin. The ladies and servants all bow and made a quick escape when Rhaenyra asked them to leave. Once they were alone, Rhaenyra nodded to Harwin and fondly watched as Ser Breakbones crossed the room to gather his sister up in a tight embrace.

"You look beautiful," he compliments, petting down her hair while looking her in the eyes, "The princess wishes to do your hair, but I will be just outside if you need anything."

Y/n nods and briefly smiles in answer. Before she could even say a word, Harwin had left the room and closed the doors behind him. Rhaenyra waits a moment before joining Y/n at her vanity mirror, instructing the bride-to-be to sit down while she took a brush to her dark hair. The two women were silent for the moment as Rhaenyra ran the brush through Y/n's hair, time and time again until it felt like silk running through her fingers. Then, the princess moved on to braiding certain locks and forming a halo on top of the bride's head, similar to something a Targaryen would wear.

"I understand what we are asking of you is a heavy burden," the princess spoke gently, "And I understand it will be difficult, but I want you to know that I owe you my life for this. You have my gratitude and I will never forget this. You're a true friend to the crown. Daemon may say whatever he likes, but as for me, I still want you to be a part of the children's lives. To them, you will be a distant cousin and an aunt, but to me, you will be every bit of a mother to them as I."

Y/n doesn't nod in an attempt not to ruin Rhaenyra's work on her hair. The curiosity got the best of her as she opened her mouth, "How will we hide any pregnancy? Will we have a maester we can trust?"

"We have a plan," Rhaenyra doesn't elaborate beyond that, "And we will act on it once we are sure you are with child."

"Will Ser Laenor be in the know of it?"

She nods, "He knows."

"And he approves?"

"He does," Rhaenyra finishes the braids, her hands finding rest on Y/n's shoulders. The two women stare into each other's reflection in the mirror, a small shadow taking over the princess' eyes as she spoke, "We did try, you know. Many times, in fact. But nothing came of it. When I turned to Daemon for help... still, nothing happened. As the future queen, it is vital that I have heirs of my own someday. If I am truly barren, well..." she squeezes Y/n's shoulders, "At least this way, the children will still have Targaryen blood running through their veins."

Y/n bites her lip, not voicing what she truly thought to the princess. Daemon never hid his disgust for his first wife, Rhea Royce. Everyone heard him spit terrible things about her, darkly stating his wife to be 'his bronze bitch' among other profanities. With one look at her own reflection, Y/n wanted to flinch away at her Strong features. It didn't take a fool to know that Prince Daemon had a taste for women with silver hair, but not just any woman. Some speculated that Daemon had only ever loved one woman, and could never have her. All the lords and ladies in court looked no further than Rhaenyra herself, knowing that she could ask Daemon to take over the world for her, and her uncle would do so without question. Y/n had once speculated these rumors, and now her arrangement with the uncle and niece only confirmed it.

Finally, Y/n turned away from the mirror to look up at the princess with as much honesty as she could muster, "I cannot guarantee the children will have silver hair."

Rhaenyra faintly smiles, her hand hovering over Y/n's hair as if wanting to run her fingers through it, but wisely decided against it, "We will cross that bridge when we come to it."

~~~~~~~~~

The wedding went by quickly, Y/n could scarcely remember it whenever she looked back. The ceremony played out like a rehearsal, vows full of monotone and kisses exchanged in practice. The celebration afterward was one so grand that Y/n had a moment to forget her sorrows. The feast was large and not only was wine being served but also ale and mead as well. Y/n had her father to thank for providing her favorite drink, her cups mostly filled with a honey mead sent from Dorne. She danced her troubles away with anyone and everyone, but not her new husband. Daemon barely paid a mind to her, instead seating himself beside the King as they joked and laughed as if they were boys again. Y/n wasn't too bothered by this as practically everyone danced with her. Her father and Harwin were the first to do so, her younger brother, Larys, was unable to take part in the dancing. Members of the King's small council danced with her, and their sons. The Sea Snake himself, Lord Vaemond, and Ser Laenor all danced with her. With knowing eyes, Laenor passed the bride off to his wife once a new song began, and Y/n was too stunned to remember her manners as Princess Rhaenyra took her hands and led her into a lovely, slow dance.

"I suppose this makes me your aunt now, Princess," Y/n finds herself speaking her mind more than usual, her mead finally dulling her restless mind.

Rhaenyra huffed out a laugh, linking her arm through Y/n's opposite as they spun around each other in a circle, "It does, my lady. Although from this moment forward, I would like to call you a friend as well."

"Whatever you wish for, Princess."

The bedding ceremony was not as enjoyable as the feast, but suppose that is why Y/n drank many cups of mead before that. She was horrified at the idea of everyone in court watching her, including her brothers and father, but was relieved to learn that Daemon had forbidden the court to watch. Y/n will later hear that Daemon himself spoke to the King about this, stating that he had every intention of consummating his marriage with his second bride, seeing as she was the one he chose, unlike Lady Royce, and that there was no need for his brother to watch and make sure. The lords still brought the bride to bed and the ladies brought the groom, but there was no undressing or an audience during the consummation.

Well, all but one audience.

Later, after the lords and ladies had gone, Rhaenyra slipped into Y/n's chambers, undetected by anyone outside. She sat near the bed, watching with interest as Daemon stripped himself and his new bride down to their night clothes. Her face red with embarrassment, Y/n doesn't comment and instead turns her head away to observe the far wall of her room, nearly jumping out of her skin when Daemon pulled her nightgown up, exposing her naked form to the cool air.

Y/n's eyes screw shut and her entire body stiffens when she felt the tip of Daemon's erection run over her folds, barely giving enough time to prep her before he completely sheaths himself inside of her. It's tight and it burns, causing Y/n to throw her hand over her mouth to stifle the cry of pain forced out of her. Daemon lets out a small growl and doesn't give her time to adjust, moving back out of her only to slide back in. His hips meet hers once she's able to take him fully without much resistance, and yet all Y/n can do was either shut her eyes or watch the wall, wanting to hide her body and shame into the very mattress Daemon began to fuck her into.

"Relax, Lady Y/n," Rhaenyra softly soothed the woman, her voice closer than what Y/n remembered. Turning her head, Y/n found her now sitting on the edge of the bed, hovering over the newlyweds' writhing forms. Rhaenyra's eyes appeared curious, intrigued by whatever she finds when Y/n's gaze meets her. The princess leans forward and finds Y/n's hand, sliding her own fingers in between Lady Strong's, "If you relax your body, it will hurt less."

Y/n tries to listen and obey, taking a few shaking breaths to calm herself, despite Daemon's hips snapping harshly into hers, forcing her breasts to bounce. The slight friction of Y/n's skewed nightgown brushing over her nipples sends a chill down her spine, and for a moment she forgets the pain, shivering as her hand tightly holds Rhaenyra's, briefly forgetting her embarrassment. Daemon grunts at the feel of her walls tightening around him, ever so slightly, slick sounds now filling the air instead of raw, dry claps. For the most part, he had been focused more on thrusting instead of acknowledging his wife, keeping his eyes lowered as he watches his cock disappear into her wet cunt with each snap of his hips. He refused to watch Y/n as he beds her, more focused on his goal than on pleasure.

However, after a long stretch of time, the prince found it harder and harder to peak, desperate for release as he starts thrusting harder and faster. Y/n bites the inside of her cheek so as not to scream, forcing her eyes closed again to stop the unshed tears from falling. Daemon's grunts were less pleasurable and were more out of frustration, still avoiding his wife's face and body out of a stubborn will.

Rhaenyra can see the exhaustion on her uncle's face and so she takes matters into her own hands. Still hanging onto Y/n, the princess uses her free hand to cup Daemon's face, forcing him to look up at her. Daemon's eyes meet hers and she could see the lust for her pooling in his hard gaze. She could see his desire but also his frustration. Rhaenyra leans in and kisses Daemon, moaning straight into his mouth.

He had spilled inside of Y/n soon after that, the Lady Strong relieved for it to finally be over.

~~~~~~~~~

However, she quickly realized that it would be far from over. She had promised to bring forth a child for Rhaenyra and Daemon Laenor, and until she did so, she would have to let Daemon back into her bed. It's not as though Rhaenyra wanted Laenor to share Y/n's bed, although Y/n was sure that she was far from Laenor's fancy anyway, but Daemon was now her lawful husband, and a child from him would be perfect for Rhaenyra. Besides, Y/n was positive that Rhaenyra would prefer to have a child from Daemon over her own husband.

For several nights after her wedding, Y/n would be accompanied by her husband and her newly appointed niece. And for several nights, after Daemon was finished, both he and Rhaenyra would leave her chambers, alone and sore in her bed. The nights weren't so bad after a fashion, and perhaps that was because Rhaenyra made it bearable for Y/n. Every morning after, Y/n was visited by the princess, and a tray of food and drink would come with her. Y/n was surprised but also inwardly delighted by Rhaenyra's kindness. Both of the women broke their fasts together so much that it became a tradition every single day. It even came to a point where even if Daemon didn't bed Y/n, Rhaenyra would still visit with her aunt the morning after.

A month had gone by and Rhaenyra sat in her normal seat at Y/n's table, sipping on her morning tea while staring out the balcony. The peaceful silence that usually followed this routine visit was oddly charged and heavy. The princess sensed this, glancing over to Y/n only to find the other woman staring down at her lap as if in shame.

"What is it?" She found herself asking, although her stomach turned with the suspicion that she already knew.

Y/n looked up, sighing in exhaustion, "My flower came this morning."

Disappointed, Rhaenyra only blinks, nodding while setting her cup down, "I can't say I'm surprised. It was foolish to get my hopes up that everything would happen right away."

Y/n nods as well, although the lines on her forehead didn't go away. Rhaenyra wanted to reach out with her thumb and soothe it over but had to pinch herself in order to refrain from doing so. She watched Y/n's face continue to fall into despair, the Strong woman gulping down the soreness in her throat when she felt her eyes begin to water, "Am I doing something wrong, Princess?"

The weakness in her voice nearly shattered Rhaenyra's heart, for once unable to reply with all the things she was supposed to say. Instead, a fire raged within her belly, and with it revealed the dragon within her. Y/n didn't notice, but Rhaenyra felt a cloud in her mind as she reached over to take Y/n's hand.

"No, it's not you, Lady Y/n. It's not you."

She had an idea of who was really to blame for her aunt's distress.

~~~~~~~~~

A/N: So, uh... I'm DEFINITELY making a Part 2, whether ya'll like it or not. Hope you enjoyed!

Go to the Masterlist to see what chapters are posted!

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