#that being said her being chronologically four years old is mentioned way too many times for me to take it in passing

[emp-t-man]

am i too new to tumblr to push my “eiffel sees the daughter he never and will never have in hera and will always be her familial figure to me” agenda or are we ready for that conversation

[bluerosesburnblue]

I hope you don't mind this ask, but... Any theories / speculations about the most recent story update for KHUX?

Oh, I don’t mind at all! I’m glad you asked, actually, because I’ve had some thoughts, though not many new theories of my own, unfortunately. That being said, I can definitely go over how some of my old theories and some of the fandom’s hold up and my thoughts on a few of the new theories I’ve seen floating around

One thing that I’m consistently proud of is how my old guesses about Darkness’s true nature just keep ending up almost right barring some slight details. I made the claim back when Re:Mind first came out that Darkness could be a hive mind of entities that plant bits of themselves in others, and then refined that back in July of 2020 by likening it to a parasite that worms its way into people’s hearts and incorporates itself into them to control them. This past update confirmed that the Darkness we’re fighting is one part of the hive mind that wormed its way into Ven to force him to act out, and that by doing so it detached itself from that hive mind and became incorporated into Ven’s being (which Ven can then shape). So I gotta say I’m pretty pleased about that part

All that’s left to be seen from the July post is if Darkness has a connection to Verum Rex/Quadratum, but I doubt that that will be touched on by the KHUx finale. Though I will say that it’s pretty interesting that the Master of Masters tells Darkness about “a world [he] can’t even conceive,” which seems like it could easily be referring to Quadratum, which also means that Darkness knows about it

That’s pretty much all I have to say on the Ventus/Darkness/Vanitas connection, but there’s still more to cover in this update

One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out is who the cloaked figure right at the start of the update is, Luxu or the MoM. Measuring the sizes and my old guess based on the KH3 Secret Reports both say Luxu, but this brings into question “when,” exactly, the True Dandelion scene takes place as it doesn’t have the dark haze around the edges that they give flashbacks, but is clearly the real-world set of pods as they’re not destroyed AND it’s missing the pod that Maleficent already used. The True Dandelion scene has a lot to unpack, but this scene at the start does make me wonder if Luxu and/or the Master have a way in and out of the datascape that doesn’t involve the pods, otherwise the numbers don’t add up

Also related to the post of mine I just linked is the idea that the Black Box is the datascape. I believe that this might still hold true. It’s interesting to note that they show the scene from Back Cover where Luxu is given the box in the first place just prior to the reveal that using the lifeboats to escape starts the process to seal it off and have the real Daybreak Town fall to darkness, and the Master’s “hint” to Luxu involves this very process. Why would Luxu be forbidden to open the box? Quite possibly because it contains the infected datascape meant to seal off the vast majority of the Darkness hive mind. And several Dandelions. It is both the “hope” mentioned in KH3 through those Dandelions, as well as a trap to keep Darkness out of being able to interfere for quite a long time

Now, the questions that I’m sure are on everyone’s minds are “who is the True Dandelion,” and “who are the ones who use the lifeboats?” Let’s start with the True Dandelion, as there’s far less moving pieces involved in that one

I won’t take credit for coming up with any of these options, I’m just going to discuss the logistics of them. So the candidates for the True Dandelion in, what is in my opinion, the least likely option to the most likely option, are:

Kairi: I’ve seen this one floating around and... honestly don’t believe it at all due to the sheer amount of logical contortions that you have to do to make it work. To wit:

Where the hell would she even come from if it was Kairi? As can be clearly seen with Ven, is stated to be true with Subject X, and is implied to be true of Lauriam/Elrena, those who travel to the future using the pods will regenerate their bodies at the age they were when they used the pods. Which would make Kairi at the oldest a four-year-old. Four years prior to KHUx was when Brain was told that he was a Union Leader. So she either would have been just born immediately prior to the war and was just... stolen or something? And we never saw? Or just after the war, where she would probably have to be the child of a Dandelion that got teen pregnant because they’re supposed to be both kids and the only survivors? Or Luxu and Ava’s kid somehow? Like, what? The timeline is just insane with that

If she was born before the war... you would assume that the True Dandelion would be, you know, a Dandelion. Which would mean that Ava handed a Keyblade to and recruited a literal toddler. This would also retcon Aqua being the one to accidentally pass the ability to wield a Keyblade down to Kairi and I refuse to make theories predicated on “the author will retcon this.” You just open up a huge can of worms doing that

The body wrapped in white looked a hell of a lot bigger than a four-year-old to me

I am sick to death of “this character was secretly from the Age of Fairytales~” being employed by the narrative. It’s happened at least three times already (four if you count Luxu). Enough already

Ventus: Ven has some hints, though some notable contradictions to it being him

On the one had, the sheet that the True Dandelion is wrapped in is extremely similar to the one that Xehanort wrapped him in when planning to leave him on Destiny Islands in BBS and there’s a possibility that Xehanort may have found him in that very sheet if he regenerated wearing it

On the other hand: Ventus might not have even been a Dandelion in the first place (he definitely wasn’t a Union Leader, but I don’t know if it was ever said whether he was selected as a regular Dandelion or not), and there’s the timing of the scene that I mentioned above. It’s definitely after Maleficent used her lifeboat but before anyone else used theirs (when you would expect Ven to remain with his friends) and, since the scene doesn’t have the flashback effect, it’s implied to be happening concurrently with everything else, so Ven should still be fighting Darkness in the datascape while it’s happening and eliminating him from being this particular person

Strelitzia: Oh, boy, have we got some nice old hints to Strelitzia, but still a few logical contortions, just like Ven

The white sheet is coming back up again. Namely, the fact that we still have an unexplained scene where Strelitzia appears to Lauriam in a dream wrapped in a white cloak, though it’s of a different style than the one that the True Dandelion is in. That scene also featured flower petals being blown into the wind, much like a dandelion seed (though, notably, the petals that are blown aren’t Dandelion seeds)

The question is, yet again, one of timing. How would Luxu get her body? While she was only introduced in KHUx, her scenes are all flashbacks to before the war, so we know that she was struck down in the real world, not the datascape. We see her body dissolve into light and her heart be released. Now, technically you only need a heart to time travel (actually, a heart is the only thing that can time travel), but Luxu is clearly seen putting a body into the machine. A machine that only allows for time travel because it destroys the body. If he had her heart, he wouldn’t need to use the lifeboat because she’s already in a state to time-travel on her own and this eliminates the possibility of him putting her Nobody into the machine, because without a heart it would just evaporate her body leaving... absolutely no heart to go to the future with

Now, Luxu theoretically could have grabbed her heart. We know that he was hanging around Daybreak Town at the time while observing thanks to his fight with Ava, but Strelitzia is struck down just after the fight with Ava starts so it’s very likely that Luxu was too preoccupied to retrieve her heart before it was gone. Speaking of Luxu’s fight with Ava...

Ava is my current top pick for the True Dandelion candidate due to the sheer number of questions it answers and how few it raises

Ever since KH3 came out, the question of “where the heck is Ava?” has been buzzing around as a major mystery. Her last chronological point of appearance is the same as the other Foretellers: the Keyblade War itself, where she’s shown leading her Union to battle. Notably, she seems resigned to her part in this, and this is the first and only time we see her after her battle with Luxu where he reveals to her the Master’s true plans. Melody of Memory seems to imply that the other Foretellers managed to skip to the future by going to another world, Quadratum (or at least this is the most likely explanation as there’s not enough pods to send all four of the other Foretellers AND the characters that we know end up in the future to their destination). However, Ava isn’t with them and Luxu knows what happened to her

It would be easy to write this off as them trying to drop Ava from the narrative or her not being important, but her chess piece is included in the “Eraqus and Xehanort foreshadow the next saga” chess game on the far right of the board and Nomura confirms that they represent the Master’s six apprentices, i.e. the five Foretellers + Luxu. So, Ava is necessary in the upcoming saga and yet, she didn’t get to the future the same way as any of the Master’s other apprentices leaving her open to get there via a lifeboat

Ava is the very founder of the Dandelions, who all of the others look up to and defer to and was spoken of heavily in the scene just prior to the True Dandelion reveal. That’s grounds for being called the True Dandelion if I’ve ever seen one

Luxu would very easily be able to ensure that Ava would be able to make it to the future. Just like with the Master of Masters, he already has the memories necessary for her to use to regenerate a body, and either her Keyblade or her mask would make for effective mediums that wouldn’t be too difficult for Luxu to take. If he put her in the white cloth, he probably took her mask off already

Ava hasn’t been around for the events of KHUx, so there’s no timeline discrepancies if it’s her

So, now that we have an idea of who the True Dandelion could be, let’s talk about the rest of the lifeboats and how they might fit together. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that the True Dandelion can’t be one of the Union Leaders and that their battle with Darkness is taking place at the same time as Luxu is sending off the True Dandelion. I’ll be referencing an old theory of mine, while making additions now that it’s clear that there’s two sets of lifeboats: the Data Set and the Real Set

Right now, there’s an equal number of Real Pods and Data Pods: 5 each. For the Data Pods, of the seven that we started with, one was used by Maleficent and one was damaged in the battle between Maleficent and Lauriam. As for the Real Pods, one has been used by Maleficent, and one has been used by the True Dandelion. This leaves us with five each.

We can narrow this down further by eliminating people that we know end up in the future. These are:

Ventus

Subject X, who is most likely Skuld based on her description

Lauriam

Elrena* (of note with Elrena is that we actually have no idea where the hell she is at the moment or how she’s going to get into the pods. Furthermore, while every other lifeboat user sans Maleficent has been shown to have amnesia upon waking and Lauriam/Marluxia directly indicates as such applies to him, too, in KH3, Elrena/Larxene’s KH3 scene and character file short story both indicate that she recalls Lauriam and possibly Strelitzia, though she also seems surprised at the idea that she’s part of an ancient Keyblade legacy. I won’t deny that there’s a possibility that she doesn’t use a lifeboat and ends up in the future by other means based on the discrepancies)

So with three confirmed cases, we’re left with one ambiguous case in Elrena and three more possible candidates: Ephemer, Brain, and Player. Four people, and two pods

I want to make it clear that despite what I brought up against Elrena, I do think that she’ll be using one of the lifeboats if only so that KHUx has narrative consistency. They introduced Elrena, they made her part of the investigation on Strelitzia’s whereabouts, so it only makes sense that they need to show us where she ended up for a satisfying conclusion. So let’s slot Elrena in for one of the lifeboats. That leaves one between Player, Ephemer, and Brain

My best guess is that Player won’t be using a lifeboat at all. Not only are they a create-a-character that would be a HUGE pain to try and incorporate into future entries in the series without making a “canon” version and thus ruining their appeal as an avatar, but we haven’t seen or heard mention of them at all in the games set in the present-day. There’s zero indication that they made it, which makes them the most easily eliminated as a lifeboat user

That leaves Ephemer and Brain, and I still believe that Ephemer will be the final lifeboat user, and for the same reasons as stated in the theory I linked at the start of this section. Not only does Brain have the same facial sprite as Eraqus, but he wields the Master’s Defender which will be later passed down to Eraqus and I believe that this eliminates him as a time traveler, despite the fandom’s popular opinion that it confirms it

Because I don’t believe that Brain is Eraqus’s grandfather, but rather his distant ancestor who inherited the No Name and passed down both Keyblades through the ages

So let’s resolve some plot threads taking everything I’ve stated and linked to above into account

My Big Guess for the KHUx Finale

Ventus will use the fact that Darkness is tied to his heart now to give it a physical, but still mostly amorphous form that he, the Union Leaders, and Player can finally take down. Darkness will be sealed inside Ven’s heart, where it will lie dormant until he reaches the future. Eventually, Xehanort will extract it in the form of Vanitas and it will follow Vanitas’s life cycle, ending in him being reabsorbed into Ven at the end of BBS. Darkness, now back in Ven’s heart, will make brief contact with Sora during the events of Re:Mind

Lauriam, upon learning that the world will be sealed with the use of the lifeboats, will attempt to rescue his partner, Elrena. Both will take lifeboats out of the datascape and into the future, whereupon they will be recruited into Organization XIII by Luxu’s current incarnation, Xigbar, likely to keep an eye on them. I believe there might be a squabble among Ephemer, Skuld, Brain, and Player among who will use the final lifeboats (each person nominating others besides themselves), but ultimately they will settle on Ephemer and Skuld

Skuld will wind up amnesiac in the future Radiant Garden and is discovered by Ansem the Wise and his apprentices and dubbed Subject X. She becomes Xehanort’s favorite test subject due to the similarities in their amnesia and possibly some lingering memories that he has that don’t quite belong to him (KHDR Xehanort certainly seems to want to meet his “old friends” very badly)

Ephemer’s heart will wind up in the Keyblade Graveyard as I mentioned in an old theory, unable to manifest a body due to the lack of a medium present. Through this state of being just a heart (and possibly related to those old talks about him being “unchained”), he will be able to enact the Light of the Past moment from KH3, and may very well be revived for future events in the series

This leaves Brain and Player behind in the datascape. However, you may remember one detail that I brought up, but neglected to fully expand on until now. There is a difference between the Data Pods and the Real Pods. While all of the Real Pods have been used up at the time of my proposed sequence of events, the Data Pods have not been. One was never used, only damaged. This leaves open the possibility that it can also be repaired (Also, I’m just gonna say it. Player’s met someone recently who has a magic hammer that can repair anything... might not come back but also totally could). Brain and Player could then repair the final pod and, in a callback to when Player was sent to Game Central Station, have them both agree once again that Player is the more expendable person in the scenario. Brain will take the repaired pod, leaving no way out of the datascape for anyone else, while Player stays behind to be sealed away for the time being (this could also be a callback to the original KHx, where Player also stayed behind to take part in the war instead of fleeing with the Dandelions, as they refused to leave their party behind)

When Brain escapes, however, he will be met with a Daybreak Town with no Real Pods left, as Luxu used one on the True Dandelion. Now that the seven pods have all been used up and the real Daybreak Town is falling to darkness, Luxu will take a corridor out as the Master instructed, but bring the newly appeared Brain along with him (either that or Brain emerges after Daybreak Town falls, either is possible) and bequeaths the No Name onto him. Brain, stranded in the past while all of his friends have been sent to the future, will be Luxu’s new apprentice and rebuild the fallen Daybreak Town as Scala ad Caelum, then pass down both of his Keyblades: Master’s Defender to his biological descendants, and No Name to his apprentices

As for the Master of Masters? I think he’s already taken an eighth lifeboat (you’ll note that there’s space right in the center of the cluster where one more could theoretically fit) and had done so before the start of the original KHx. He’ll be revived at some point in Xehanort’s young adult life to goad him into his insane plans as seen in Re:Mind, then duck into Quadratum to hang out until the next arc in the franchise, as hinted at with his appearance in the KH3 Secret Movie

(He is most definitely not Sora. He’s clearly bound to the same rules of time travel as everyone else which means that Sora couldn’t go back in time to become him as that would be long before the point in time where Sora was born and that breaks KH time travel rules. Not to mention that the Master talks about Quadratum in this update like he’s never seen it before until it came up in the No Name’s range of vision. Sora is literally in Quadratum right now, he’d definitely know what it was already if he was the Master)

And I do believe that should cover everyone’s whereabouts by the end of the game and into the next arc of Kingdom Hearts with minimal plot holes

This is just my best guess, putting together details that I’ve been accumulating for the past year and a half or so into what sounds like a coherent sequence of events that bridge the gap between KHUx and KH3 and beyond. There may be some details I get wrong, obviously. Nomura has been known to be... unpredictable. But I think, based on the evidence we have at hand, that this is the most logical series of events to end the game on and I’m really interested to see how close this gets to the actual finale we see

[tontonico]

The Meaning of Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey’s memoir opens with the great line: “I refuse to acknowledge time, famously so.” As if to establish the rules of the book, then add, with a toss of hair, but you knew that.

Most readers of The Meaning of Mariah Carey, which the record-smashing songstress wrote with Michaela Angela Davis, probably already did know that (and are happy to stick to Mariah’s anti-schedule), but there’s plenty in the 337-page volume that will surprise even the most devoted Lambs. Most surprising of all, though, is perhaps how elusive the chanteuse remains even when she makes herself so vulnerable.

She may not keep time, but it’s well known that Carey can keep rhythm, and that’s a more accurate measure of how she tells the story of her life. While the memoir’s four acts are chronological, the short chapters within them aren’t necessarily, and her storytelling is most effective in these distinct, vivid anecdotes rather than thoroughly contextualized narrative. Isn’t that the way we remember things, anyway?

The book’s first and best section, “Wayward Child,” relies the most on these well-chosen vignettes, each as piercing and specific as a song, altogether giving an impressionistic rendering of her fraught childhood. (She punctuates her memories, too, with her lyrics that were inspired by them, and the Audible version of the book, read by Carey, contains musical interludes.) The daughter of a Black father and Irish mother, Carey grew up with a brother and sister who were older and darker (in their energies even more than their complexions, she observes) than her, in a home — actually many homes, adding to the instability — where she never knew safety. The earliest childhood memory she shares is of cops breaking up a brutal fight between her father and brother when she was 3 years old; among the last is Mariah’s 20-year-old sister allegedly trying to pimp her out at age 12.

Her childhood is filled with danger, trauma, violence, fear — and music. A mostly informal education from her opera-singer mother and her friends comes so organically to the life of a little girl who had so little else, it reads like destiny that she and music found each other amid such turmoil. And it’s what takes her, of course, to the next phase in her life, in a sharp switch from want to abundance, neglect to suffocating control.

Carey’s account of her marriage to Tommy Mottola — who, for example, once screamed at a dinner party that Thanksgiving was canceled because Carey had expressed admiration for an artist in whom Mottola was uninterested — and their life in the mansion she called “Sing Sing” is harrowing. Mercifully, it overlaps with her emergence as an artist, and her writing about her life in music, while less shocking than many of the personal details, offers great insight and behind-the-scenes tidbits as well as displaying her sincere devotion to the art form (and to her fans, whom she shouts out repeatedly).

Carey’s voice is as distinctive to read as it is to hear: She addresses her reader as “dahling” or “baby” here and there, and her constant, flexible use of the word “festive” reveals it to be a deeply held personal ideal rather than just a vaguely pleasant adjective. Even in describing her lowest lows (and there are some bad ones), the writing is never austere; like her narrative structure, Carey’s prose has rhythm and high drama, savoring moments and details with melismatic indulgence.

The singer explains elements of her larger-than-life image — including some of her famous “diva” behaviors — by explicitly linking them to pain; for one, she often has photo shoots with voluminously blowing hair because she so desperately longed for the flowing waves she saw in shampoo commercials as a child, while her own textured tresses were constantly tangled, forsaken by the adults around her who didn’t know how to care for it.

That untamed hair is emblematic not only of the extreme neglect of her childhood, but the racial otherness that she has felt throughout her life — and that she expresses in some of the memoir’s most perceptive, affecting passages. As a child, her awareness of racism develops in cruel waves (there are three different, and differently devastating, stories of people she knows finding out her father is Black); as an adult, she has constantly had to assert her own racial identity in an industry (and with a first husband) that tried to erase her Blackness. She reacts to the word “urban” every time she brings it up.

The last three decades become somewhat muddled in the telling as her career becomes richer and her adult life more complicated, making it harder to prioritize — not to mention that, once she’s famous, there are publicly known pieces to correct or gaps to fill in. She can’t disregard time in these later sections, where everything needs more context, and The Meaning loses some clarity for it. (In an error that speaks to this confusion, one paragraph appears twice, 40 pages apart; it somehow feels appropriate, however, that the passage is a reflection upon the delayed triumph of Glitter.)

So, too, does it become more conspicuous when she leaves things out, like the bipolar diagnosis she revealed two years ago (“because I don’t feel like there’s a mental-illness discussion to be had,” she told Vulture last month). She is also better at starting stories than finishing them (a habit one could attribute to her being an Aries, which she mentions repeatedly). This applies to the memoir as a whole but was most disappointing in the case of her romance with Derek Jeter, the beginning of which makes for some of the book’s dreamiest, most hopeful moments.

It’s hard to begrudge her these omissions, though, when she’s recalled such great suffering and even greater survival. She’s already explained how pieces of her persona are armor, and in which moments she forged them; let her keep some stories. They belong to her.

In an early anecdote, the police are called to little Mariah’s home after a violent scene. “One of the cops, looking down at me but speaking to another cop beside him, said, ‘If this kid makes it, it’ll be a miracle,’” Carey recalls. “And that night, I became less of a kid and more of a miracle.” By the end of the compelling if imperfect Meaning of Mariah Carey, you believe it. She’s a miracle, a memoirist, a singer, a songwriter — the girl’s got range. Famously so. 

[finalfantasyandnerdiness]

da capo al fine

For eternal beings, the ebbs and flows of time mean very little. Whatever happens, the world will keep moving forward, and so will they. No end. No beginning. For a human, though? Every second counts.

Every word.

Every decision.

A mortal with the power to turn back time is a fearsome creature, because a mortal cares – and if they decide that they’re going to find a timeline where everyone they love survives, they will do whatever it takes to make it happen. Even if it means abusing a power that was never meant to be theirs.

A Fire Emblem Three Houses retelling where everybody lives, basically. Also: Dimileth. 

Read on Ao3

For eternal beings, the ebbs and flows of time mean very little. Whatever happens, the world will keep moving forward, and so will they. No end. No beginning. For a human, though? Every second counts.

Every word.

Every decision.

A mortal with the power to turn back time is a fearsome creature, because a mortal cares – and if they decide that they’re going to find a timeline where everyone they love survives, they will do whatever it takes to make it happen. Even if it means abusing a power that was never meant to be theirs.

*

“You. How long do you intend to sleep?”

Byleth opens her eyes. A young girl she vaguely recognizes stares down at her from a throne of stone. Her eyes, as eerily green as her hair, are expectant and clearly annoyed.

Where am I? Byleth shakes her head in an attempt to clear the cobwebs clouding her mind. Who am I?

“Get on your feet. Right now!” the girl snaps. “You are just like a child, always needing me to hold your hand…” She sighs. “This is the last time, you hear me? No more restarts. This is it.”

Byleth has no idea what any of it means, but she still nods.

The girl’s face softens. “Make it count.”

*

The first seconds are always the worst. Byleth never gets used to those terrifying moments where her entire being is a blank slate. She knows she’s supposed to recognize the bearded man in front of her, but he could just as well have been a complete stranger. Then, it clicks. Everything falls into place. He’s her father. She’s a mercenary. And, most importantly, she’s been here before.

*

Even though most of Byleth’s memories are blurry, the ones about the three heirs are always crystal clear. One look is all it takes to remember their tragic fates. Blue eyes, full of barely restrained hatred. Green eyes, sharp as a blade. Violet eyes, burning with determination. Three young rulers, destined to tear each other apart.

Not this time. Byleth looks at them, one by one, treasuring the innocence they will all inevitably lose. She’s lived through this chain of events more times than she can remember, getting closer and closer to her goal just to see a seemingly insignificant detail turn her dream to dust. Not this time, though. Sothis has given her one last chance, and she won’t let it go to waste.

This time, they will all live.  

*

To the boys’ obvious disappointment, Byleth chooses to join the house of the Black Eagles. The three heirs are all suspicious by nature, but Edelgard easily takes the crown. Edelgard trusts no one but herself, which isn’t that surprising considering her only experience with friendship comes from a man who can’t get through a single sentence without mentioning blood. She’s hidden her heart away behind walls as impenetrable as her armor, doing her best to smother the fear and loneliness that lures within her. To bring the true Edelgard out of her shell takes time. Lots, and lots of time. So Byleth picks the Black Eagles, and tries not to notice the flash of darkness in Dimtri’s eyes.

*

Dimitri is young. So very young. He’s yet to grow into the inhuman strength he’ll one day wield with ease, still grinning awkwardly every time he accidentally breaks another training sword. He’s a prince, charming and polite, the definition of picture perfect. No one has any idea what hides behind that flawless smile.

Yet.

Byleth sees the way he looks at her, how his gaze lingers when she swings her blade on the training grounds. Their eyes meet. Her body instinctively reacts, but she forces herself to ignore it. Chronologically, he’s only three years younger than her, but he’s still a kid. Her conflicted heart, however, still remembers the king.

Her life would have been so much easier if she hadn’t fallen in love with him all those lifetimes ago. He forgets. She doesn’t.

*

Before Garreg Mach, Byleth used to think of herself as a fairly unemotional person. People called her the Ashen Demon for a reason. She didn’t really get people, and people didn’t really get her either. Then, she met her students, and everything changed. Now, she cares a lot, and it’s more tiring than she ever could have imagined.

“There we go again,” she mutters to herself as she watches Raphael and Caspar race through the courtyard, up to goddess knows what. She loves them both with all her heart, but critical thinking is not one of their virtues. To be frank, neither is thinking, period. She sighs and hurries after them. She has no idea what they’re going to break this time—a plate, a nose, a window—but they’re definitely breaking something.

*

Byleth has just left her private quarters to head to class when she nearly crashes into Seteth.

“Professor. There’s an… issue, we need to talk about.”

Of course there is. She sighs internally. Sometimes, she wishes she could just skip past certain conversations. She’s gone through this particular one so many times by now that she practically knows every line by heart.

Seteth clears his throat. “Due to your unexpectedly extraordinary tutoring skills, nearly all of this year’s students have requested to transfer to your class. While the feat in itself is admirable, it has led to some unfortunate consequences. Hanneman and Manuela now only share four students between them, and I’ve heard that your classroom is running out of desks. It’s not a very efficient way to run a school.”

“I agree.”

Seteth blinks in surprise. “You do?”

She nods. “I’ve given it some thought, and I think the best solution would be to separate the professors from their assigned houses.”

“That’s a preposterous—”

“The houses themselves would remain, of course,” she quickly adds. “I only propose that we rethink the way we hold our classes. The three of us have different areas of expertise, and we could use that to our advantage if we split up the classes by subject instead of houses.”

“I see.” Seteth hesitates, furrowing his brow. “It’s an unorthodox idea, but… I do see the benefits of your proposal. It could be… efficient. I will get back to you once I have discussed this with Rhea.”

Byleth nods again. Rhea will, albeit reluctantly, say yes, because when Seteth finds something that can be described as efficient, he will make it happen. The classes will be split up between the three professors, and Byleth will get the chance to tutor all the students – including those stubborn last four.

She’s not losing them again.

*

At the night of the ball, Byleth makes sure that it’s the students of the Blue Lions house who make the promise to reunite in five years. Their carefree laughter makes her stomach turn. They have no idea what fate she’s just bound them to.

Dimitri’s smile hurts the most, but she goes through with it anyway. She needs him to be there when she wakes up.

*

Even though Byleth knows it’s hopeless, she still always tries to save Jeralt.

Losing him never stops hurting.

*

“Thanks for letting me borrow your old man’s diary, Teach,” Claude says.

Byleth snatches the notebook out of his hands. “You would have stolen it anyway if I’d said no.”

“Me? Stealing?” He grins, placing a hand on his chest. “Your lack of faith in my moral compass wounds me.”

Byleth raises her eyebrows.

Claude sighs, his façade flickering. “All joking aside, I have to admit that some of the stuff in there is pretty hard to swallow – especially the parts about you. I’ve got so many questions, and I doubt you’ll ever answer a single one of them.” His eyes twinkle. “You sure know how to drive a guy crazy, Teach.”

Byleth shrugs. His obvious frustration doesn’t bother her – not anymore. He’ll eventually figure everything out anyway, with or without her answers. He just doesn’t know it yet.

*

She loves all her students. She really does. But sometimes, she can’t help but think that if Ferdinand yells out his name one more time, she’s going to strangle him.

*

“It’s not my place to question your way of tutoring, but I do feel the need ask you about the attendance record of one of your students,” Seteth says. “Linhardt von Hevring has been absent from nearly half of your classes this month, and I’ve noticed a lack of disciplinary actions. I would recommend stable duty or—”

“He’s doing important research,” Byleth interrupts. “As long as he keeps passing his tests, I don’t see any reason not to encourage it.”

“Well… I suppose I will have to trust your judgment, Professor.” Judging by his frown, he’s clearly not trusting it at all.  

Byleth nods. She doesn’t blame Seteth for being skeptical. She would probably have doubted Linhardt too if she hadn’t known just how important that research would be to give some of her students a chance to grow old.

*

While the inferno of hatred that sometimes flares up in Dimitri’s eyes is undeniably terrifying, it doesn’t scare Byleth nearly as much as the cold apathy in Rhea’s.

*

A high-pitched shriek echoes over the monastery. People start looking for its source with obvious concern, but Byleth just smiles a little to herself. The boys of the Black Eagles house always figure out sooner or later that the only way to get Bernie out of her comfort zone is to literally carry her out of it.

*

Every now and then, Byleth slips. She tries to keep everything in the right order, to remember what she’s supposed to know and what’s yet to be revealed, but her memory is far from infallible. Most of the time, no one mentions her little accidents. She’s a strategist, after all. Predicting things is a part of her job description. Some slips, though, are too obvious to go unnoticed.

“Professor… Did you just call me El?”

Byleth groans internally. Yes, she most certainly did. It’s late, she’s tired, and she just casually used a nickname the heiress would never, ever, share with a professor she barely knows.    

“No one has called me that since I was a kid. Those who once did are long gone.” Edelgard’s eyes narrow. “How did you know?”

“My apologies,” Byleth says. “I just thought it suited you. I won’t use it again.”

“No… I quite like it.” While the suspicion still lingers in Edelgard’s gaze, a small smile graces her lips. “Please, keep calling me El. I’m not sure why, but I enjoyed hearing you say it.”

Byleth nods. “If that’s the case, I will.”

“Good.” A hint of shyness sweeps over the future emperor’s face. “Thank you, my teacher. It may not seem like much, but it means a lot to me.”

The next time Byleth uses that name, it’s not by accident.

*

Felix’ digs at Dimitri are as sharp as his blade, and so is the resentment in eyes. Dimitri takes the insults without blinking. Their friendship is laced with a burning hatred they both believe is justified. It’s painful to watch, especially considering how easily the swordsman would give his life to protect his childhood friend. He never hesitates. Not even once.

*

“You fool! What were you thinking, charging right into an enemy’s trap? Again?” Sothis’ sharp voice echoes against the stone walls. “Are you just a boulder rolling down whatever hill it’s on? No, even a boulder has more sense!”

Byleth lowers her eyes. Her least favorite part of the cycles may be the first awakening, but this is the one Sothis dreads the most. Not surprising, considering that this is where the goddess has to disappear. It’s inevitable, though, even if she doesn’t run head first into Solon’s spell. Sooner or later they always end up here, facing the same decision over and over again. Sothis always makes the same choice.

“Thank you,” Byleth whispers. “For everything.”

Byleth reaches out her hand, and the power of the goddess seeps into her soul.  

*

Callused hands gently stroke her bangs out of her face. Her consciousness is fading, but she doesn’t need to see to know whose hand it is. She would recognize that touch anywhere.

“Sorry, Professor,” Dimitri says. “I have no choice but to carry you back.”

*

Byleth raises her eyebrows as Sylvain limps into the training grounds. “Ingrid?”

“Yes.” He awkwardly scratches the back of his head.

“Did you deserve it?”

After a moment of hesitation, he sighs. “Yes.”

*

The sight of Edelgard’s coronation is as breathtaking as it is terrifying. The ceremony marks the beginning of a nationwide bloodbath, but Byleth still can’t look away from the blinding beauty that is Emperor Edelgard with a golden crown on her head.

*

A cacophony of rattling armor and frantic prayers fills the monastery. The moment Byleth hoped to avoid is once again taking place before her eyes. She leans against the railing of the third floor balcony. In the distance she sees Edelgard’s army gathering, preparing for the first battle of the war that will tear Fódlan apart.  

It can’t be stopped now. It’s too late. Byleth’s time ran out the moment Edelgard’s betrayal set Dimitri’s dormant fury aflame. The war is happening. Her only option now is damage control.

“Hey, Teach.”

Byleth flinches. Even after countless cycles of nearly identical events, she’s still caught off guard every now and then – especially when Claude is involved. He’s turned unpredictability into an artform.  

Claude moves to her side. His calculating eyes roam over the area below. His expression and posture radiate confidence, but his desperate grip on the railing has already turned his knuckles white.

“It can’t be stopped now,” he says, echoing Byleth’s thoughts. “Neither of those two will ever allow the other to live. There’s going to be a war, and it’s not going to be pretty.”

“So much death.” Byleth’s voice cracks. She’s seen it happen before, and now she’s going to have to see it again. She knew, but she still couldn’t stop it.

“You don’t have to go down with them, you know.” Claude sends her a quick glance before turning back to the soon-to-be battlefield. “This is their feud, not yours. I mean, just consider it. Someone’s got to protect the people in this mess, and that someone could definitely use that strategic brain of yours.”

“And in this scenario, that ‘someone’ is you?”

“If the shoe fits.” Claude shrugs. “I don’t care about who wins this war. I have a vision, and that vision would be pretty useless if there was no one left in Fódlan to see it. What do you say? Have I won you over yet?” A grin tugs at his lips. “You’d make a good Deer.”

She would.

She has.

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” He tilts his head to the side. “Too fond of the kinglinesses, eh?”

She hesitates for a moment before deciding to, for once, tell the truth. “You’ll survive this war, with or without my guidance. You don’t need me. Not like they do.”

“Careful there, Teach. You’re starting to sound like you can predict the future.” His gaze sharpens. “Did you know that the Battle of the Eagle and Lion still keeps me up at night? I go over every move I made, every detail of my strategy, and how you managed to see through it all. It’s been driving me crazy – crazy enough to consider the possibility of you being some kind of mind reader. But that’s not it, is it?” He gives her a dangerous grin that almost reaches his eyes. “Come on, Teach, give a curious guy some peace of mind. I don’t kiss and tell.”

“If I told you, you’d never let me go.”

Her words clearly catch Claude off guard, which is a sight very few ever get to witness. For a moment he looks like he’s going to jokingly deny her claim, but in the end he just sighs. “I’d use you.”

She nodded. “And you’d end up hating yourself for it.”

“Fair enough.”

Claude studies her face, the cogs of his brilliant mind turning. His charming trickster façade flickers, revealing a taste of the unstoppable man he will one day become. “Let’s say you’re right, Teach. Maybe I don’t need you by my side to make my vision come true. Doesn’t mean I don’t want you there.”

Memories of wild wyvern rides, uncontrollable laughter, and pearls of sweat on copper skin flashes before her eyes. Heat rushes to her cheeks. He blinks.

“Oh, I get it.” The lighthearted tone in his voice clashes wildly against the intensity in his eyes. “There’s a version of this, whatever this is, where you choose me, isn’t there? One where you and I…?”

“Maybe.” She gives him a melancholic smile. “Just… not this one.”

*

Byleth knows she has to fall. She has to take that final blow that sends her down into the abyss. It’s the only way to make things turn out the way she wants to. She knows that, but she’s still just as terrified when the darkness claims her.

*

“You… how long do you intend to sleep? Get on your feet. Right now!”

*

The stairs leading up to the ruins of the old monastery are littered with butchered corpses. Carefully minding her steps, Byleth continues forward, heading towards the place where she knows she’ll find the wretched shell of the boy she abandoned when he needed her the most.

He’s on the floor, leaning heavily on his lance to stay upright. His pale skin is stained with blood. The dark circle surrounding his one remaining eye has the color of a bruise. Sweat, mud, wounds, scars – his handsome face is covered in layers upon layers of suffering. The guilt hits her in the stomach like a sledgehammer. Even though she always knows what awaits her at the end of her five-year slumber, she’s never prepared for that first sight of the haunted creature that used to be Dimitri.

Her dream comes with many sacrifices, and this is the one where Dimitri pays the price. The king that Fódlan so desperately needs can only rise from the ruins of a broken prince.

The prince in front of her is about as broken as a man can be.  

Byleth knows he won’t accept her hand, but she still reaches out for him. She always does. And it always breaks her heart when he turns away.

“I should have known that one day you would be haunting me as well.”

*

The abandoned monastery springs back to life as its former teachers and students return. One by one they enter Garregh Mach, all of them bringing a shard of joy and a small shimmer of hope. Byleth smiles as she watches a highly frustrated Lysithea try to put a book back on a shelf she clearly can’t reach. Her smile widens even more when Raphael enters the library. She knows exactly where the situation is heading, and she never grows tired of watching her former students get into ridiculous fights over absolute nonsense.

Her happiness is genuine, but it’s also bittersweet. This is where the tricky part begins.  

*

“Leave it to me,” Byleth yells as she crosses the battlefield, heading towards the trembling silver-haired foe. It’s not a very strategic decision, but no one questions her. Maybe they’re all relieved they won’t have to be the one dealing the final blow against the sweetest boy to ever grace the Officers Academy.  

*

When Dorothea dances, she enthralls everyone around her. No one, friend nor foe, can look away. They see a rose in bloom: beautiful, delicate, and full of life. She doesn’t. No matter how many times Byleth tries to convince her otherwise, the songstress still only sees herself as petals slowly falling to the ground, leaving nothing but thorns.

*

Byleth is well aware of the location where Rhea is kept prisoner, but she still pretends to be just as concerned as the rest of the archbishop’s loyal supporters. She holds on to her worried façade with an iron grip, because keeping Rhea locked up is the only way to prevent her from crushing Byleth’s plan before it’s even started.

Though they’d never admit it themselves, Dimitri, Edelgard and Claude share a fairly similar vision. The three of them fight for a unified Fódlan, where the strong will no longer prey on the weak. In a world like that, there’s no place for a power-hungry demigoddess. Byleth knows it, and so does Rhea.

*

A part of Byleth hates Dimitri with her entire being during his feral phase. Another part still loves him just as intensely. Her exasperated frustration is, however, always present, because spending hours upon hours on building a strategy around a murder machine with zero sense of self-perseverance makes her want throw the prince off a damn roof.

She finds him in the cathedral as always, muttering morbid nonsense about ghosts and heads being ripped off their shoulders. While she doesn’t usually agree with Felix when he calls the prince a wild boar, she has to admit that approaching Dimitri when he’s like this feels a bit like cornering a wounded animal – an animal with a very bad temper and very sharp claws.

“Dimitri,” she says softly. “We need to talk.”

Dimitri slowly turns around. Despite everything that’s happened to him, he still moves with the proud confidence of a ruler. He stands tall before her, his broad shoulders blocking the evening’s last rays of sunlight trickling in from the windows. The resentment in his single eye is merciless.

“Leave.”

“No.” She raises her chin. “Your army expects me to guide them through this war, and I can’t do that if you continue to disregard my orders. The stunt you pulled today with those bandits… You’re going to get yourself killed, and you’re taking everyone down with you. I can’t allow that.”

“You can’t allow that?” His cold chuckle sends a shiver down her spine. “Who do you think you are, giving orders to the walking corpse of your prince?”

He takes a step forward, and despite her feigned confidence, she takes a step back. A grave mistake. He continues forward, and she continues to back away. The wounded animal has caught the scent of blood.

Her back hits the wall. He places a hand next to her head and leans forward, caging her in. She’s fast and clever, but he’s got more raw strength than a mere human should ever possess. She would never defeat him in hand-to-hand combat, and they both know it.

“If you do not approve of what I have become, then kill me”, he says. “If you insist that you cannot… then I will continue to use you and your friends until the flesh falls from your bones.”

She swallows hard, but refuses to look away. Her courage might be wavering, but her resolve is not. “I’m not afraid of you, Dimitri.”

“You should be.” His gloved hand slowly traces her arm, her shoulder, her collarbone, until finally coming to a rest on her neck. His thumb caresses the vulnerable skin of her throat before giving it a light squeeze. “Don’t you dare pity me, Professor. We’re the same, you and I. After all is said and done, we are both murderers. Both stained. Both monsters.”

“Yes,” she whispers. “We are.”

His pauses. For the first time since their reunion, he truly looks at her. His trembling exhalation tells her he’s finally noticed it – her longing, her yearning, her need – and he snaps. His lips crash into hers. She melts into his ruthless touch, returning the kiss with a desperation matching his.

She’s back.

She’s home.

He pulls back, his eye roaming her face with childlike wonder. To her, this is just one of the countless kisses they’ve already shared, but to him, it’s their first – and, as far as he knows, possibly their last. A moan escapes her lips as he grabs the back of her thighs and hoists her up. His grip tightens to the point where it will most certainly leave bruises. He clings to her like a man on the verge of drowning.

“I won’t leave you again, Dimitri,” she says, entangling her fingers in his hair as his lips wander down her throat. “I swear it.”

“Good.” He bites down hard on the spot where her neck meets her shoulder, a place where neither her hair nor her clothes would hide the mark. She can’t see his face, but she feels his feral grin against her skin. “I do not intend to let you go.”

*

Manuela and Hanneman have been bickering for nearly half an hour when Sylvain walks by their table in the dining hall. He pauses mid-step and leans down.

“You’re aware that everyone knows you’re sleeping with each other, right?”

Hanneman gasps. Manuela screams. Ingrid kicks Sylvain in the shin.

*

Some sacrifices are uglier than others. Rodrigue’s death, as necessary as it is, might be the ugliest one of them all.

*

“Your hands are so warm… Have they always been?”

The last remains of the broken prince is washed away by the pouring rain. The king rises.

*

One day, Mercedes drags a reluctant Death Knight into the monastery. She smiles proudly, reminding Byleth of a child that’s about to ask her parents if she can keep the stray cat she just found in the gutter. Byleth can’t deny the value of Jeritza’s skills, so he stays. On the battlefield, she appreciates his presence. Everywhere else, she’s ambiguous at best. She tries to believe Mercedes when she claims that her brother is just a little bit misunderstood, but he’s not making it easy. Not even once during her countless lifetimes has she managed to get share a cup of tea with the knight without receiving a poetic confession of how badly he wants to stab her in the chest.

*

Byleth is never as calm as when she’s lying in Dimitri’s arms, listening to the soft thuds of his beating heart. She can’t help but wonder what it’s like to have a ticking little machine in your chest that keeps you alive. According to Dimitri, people usually don’t even think about it. It’s just there. She wonders if she would get used to it too, if her heart ever were to start beating.

She highly doubts it.

*

Sylvain pauses mid-step as he passes Dimitri and Byleth in the dining hall. He smirks.

“You’re aware that everyone knows you’re—”

Ingrid clocks him in the head with a plate.

*

Byleth hates Gronder Field.

*

“If you’re going to lead Fódlan, then the Alliance lords will follow you.” Claude hands Dimitri his bow. The former leader of the Alliance is limping a little, but overall, he seems to have gotten through the battle more or less unharmed. He always does. It’s like his plans have so many backup plans that not even death itself can keep track of what’s going on.  

“I’ve played my part now,” he continues. “Right, Teach?”

“You have,” Byleth says. “Thank you for trusting us.” Wordlessly, she adds, Thank you for trusting me.

“I knew you’d come. You’re a bunch of soft-hearted suckers after all.” Claude winks, and wordlessly replies, Always.

“Go to Almyra. Make your vision come true, Kha—” She bites her tongue, but the slip is already out. “Claude. Make your vision come true, Claude.”

“Your wish is my command.” He gives her a sarcastic little bow, keeping eye contact through the entire movement. His grin has a knowing edge. “Too bad I’ll never get to experience that other version, eh? I bet it was a fun one.”

Byleth smiles. “It was.”  

*

Hilda manages to break an impressive amount of hearts – and furniture – during the few days she stays at the monastery before jumping back up on her wyvern to follow Claude to Almyra.

*

This is it.

Byleth clenches her trembling fists as Edelgard walks up to Dimitri. For the first time in many, many years, the two of them speak in earnest. Their conversation is calm and sensible, dancing around the unavoidable for as long as they can. Eventually, they reach the point of no return. They share the same vision, but they both conclude that their methods are too disparate to coexist.  

In every other timeline, this is where Byleth loses. Dimitri and Edelgard go their separate ways, and one of them winds up dead. She takes a deep breath. Not this time.

“Neither of you will see your dream come true unless we defeat Those Who Slither in the Dark.” She looks at a highly skeptical Edelgard, and then turn her gaze to a very confused Dimitri. This is the moment she’s been preparing for since she first laid eyes on the three heirs. This is why she spent so much effort on returning lost items, organizing choir practices, and saving money for expensive tea. This is it.

“Do you trust me?”

*

The temporary truce between the Holy Kingdom and the Empire is anything but pretty. The wounds each side have caused the other are too deep to heal with a simple common goal. What they all share, though, is their loyalty to their respective leader – and their leaders have decided to put their faith in their old professor.

Together, they prepare for their march to Shambhala.

*

An unavoidable side effect of the truce is the liberation of Rhea.

If Rhea knows Byleth’s true feelings, she doesn’t show it. The demigoddess keeps giving Byleth that serene smile, treating her like a companion, a mother, and a daughter all at once. Byleth plays along, because she knows all too well how Rhea reacts when someone questions her authority. It always ends with fire. Lots, and lots of fire.

Byleth keeps up her dangerous act, because Rhea can’t show her true face yet. Those Who Slither in the Dark must be defeated before the world burns.

*

“You never told me about Those Who Slither in the Dark,” Dimitri murmurs, softly stroking Byleth’s hair. “Why would you hide such a thing from me?”

“If I’d told you, you would have gone after them yourself.” She presses a kiss to his jaw before settling back down on his chest. Her body relaxes to the sound of his heartbeats. “We wouldn’t have made it on our own.”

A lie, of course, but it’s a white one.

He sighs. “Even now, after all this time, you are still a mystery to me. My beloved, will you ever entrust me with your secrets?”

“When all of this is over, I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

Truth.

*

Edelgard grabs Byleth’s arm and pulls her to the side. “For as long as the Church of Seiros controls Fódlan, this war will never end,” she says in a low voice. “I will continue down this path until the people of this land are free to decide their own fates. I have devoted my life to destroying the blood-stained cycle the church so desperately wishes to uphold. Defeating Those Who Slither in the Dark will not lead me astray.”

“I know.”

They stand in silence for a while, watching the army close in on the underground city.

“Will you go back to them, once this battle is over? To him?” Edelgard lowers her eyes. “You were once like family to me. I do not regret my decision to start this war, but I cannot help but wonder how things would have been if I’d walked down this path with you by my side.”

Better, yet so much worse.  

After making sure no one’s listening, Byleth leans closer. “I want the cycle to end, too, El. So does Dimitri.”

“A highborn person like him will never understand the struggles of the poor and weak.” Edelgard scoffs. “He believes they cannot survive without their faith, that it’s their useless prayers to a goddess who will never answer that keep them alive. He claims to speak on the behalf of the people, yet he still refuses to let go of the system that is causing this injustice. Do you truly believe that he will change his mind, my teacher? That a man like him can ever see the truth?”

“I hope so. Just like I hope that you, once this is over, will see that you both share the same vision.”

“That’s a dangerous gamble, even for a strategist like you.” She snorts, her eyes glittering with amusement. “But then again, I do remember the days when you used to make plans based entirely on lucky hits.”

*

Byleth has never seen anything as terrifying or as beautiful as Dimitri and Edelgard fighting side by side. Power, grace, speed, skill – together, the two rulers are unstoppable. Edelgard gives Dimitri a short nod when Areadbhar blocks an enemy blade moments before it slashes her side. Dimitri’s lips twitch when she returns the favor, her shield blocking an arrow aimed at his chest.

In perfect synchronization, they both fall back as they reach their final foe. With the Emperor and the King guarding her back, Byleth raises the Sword of the Creator.

Thales falls.

*

“So, uh, are we still at war or what?” Caspar asks, casting nervous glances left and right as the army leaves the ruins of Shambhala.

Linhardt yawns. “I have no idea.”

In all honesty, neither did Byleth.

*

Back at Garreg Mach, Rhea, still affected by her years of imprisonment, once again tries to entrust Byleth with the leadership of the Church of Seiros. The demigoddess eyes turn cold when Byleth declines.

“The world is changing, Seiros,” Byleth says. “Humanity is rising up. Fódlan belongs to its people, and It’s time for the children of Sothis to let go.”

Rhea reacts just like Byleth knew she would. A guttural roar pierces the tense silence of the monastery.

The world burns.  

*

The crest stones within the soldiers and monks of the Church of Seiros react to the Immaculate One’s calls, and soon, the monastery is crawling with mindless beasts. The two armies are once again forced to work together, and so is Dimitri and Edelgard. Putting their grudge back on pause, the two of them raise their weapons against the feral creature that used to be Rhea.

Out of all of Byleth’s battles against the Immaculate One, this should have been the easiest one. With two armies instead of one, she was certain the odds were in their favor – but, as always, it turns out there’s a detail she’s overlooked.  

With Dimitri’s and Edelgard’s strength combined, Those Who Slither in the Dark went down much faster than Byleth predicted. Thales never managed to summon his javelins of light. Rhea never took that almost lethal hit to save them all.

This version of the Immaculate One, worn-out but mostly unharmed, is the strongest one Byleth has ever faced.

Over and over, Byleth sends the coiled blade of the Sword of the Creator through the air, but every time an enemy falls another one takes its place. All around her, soldiers of the Kingdom and the Empire alike fall victim to the Immaculate One’s merciless fire. True terror fills Byleth’s chest. She miscalculated, and this time, she won’t be able to go back and make things right. This is her last shot, and she’s failing. Again.

“What’s the plan?” Sylvain yells from his steed, blood trickling down his face from a wound on his forehead.

Byleth slashes down another white beast as she tries to come up with an answer. Not even Ashe and Lysithea have managed to get close enough to Rhea to attack. Dedue, who can usually withstand pretty much anything, was nearly killed in one single hit. There is no plan. There hasn’t been for quite some time.

Somewhere to her right, Edelgard gasps. “Look!”

Byleth turns around. Her eyes narrow as she stares at the horizon. A strange cloud is approaching from the east, and it’s moving fast.

“What is that?” Dimitri punches a church soldier in the face before piercing another one with his lance in one single movement. “More beasts?”

Byleth’s brain goes blank. They wouldn’t survive another wave of reinforcements. Her battalion withdrew ages ago. Mercedes is running out of healing spells. Felix, the one-man army, is surrounded, and he’s already tricked death more times than should have been statistically possible. Byleth has officially run out of strategies.

She squints at the horizon. Her heart skips a beat. She catches the glimpse of a banner, and it carries the colors of yellow and black.

“No,” she says, smiling. “It’s the King of Almyra.”

*

The master of unpredictability swoops in with an army of wyvern riders, and just like that, the tides turn. Eventually, Byleth stands before Rhea with the three young rulers by her side.

“You ungrateful piece of trash.” The Immaculate One’s eyes burn with manic hatred. “I gave you everything. You stole my mother from me. I will take her back!”

She lunges for Byleth, but her blow is blocked by a crimson shield.

“Your reign has ended, Rhea,” Edelgard says, her voice unwavering. “This battle marks the birth of a new world – a world where the strong will no longer prey on the weak.”

Dimitri rearranges his grip on Areadbhar, preparing to strike. “A world where people are allowed to choose their own beliefs.”

“A world where everyone, regardless of their heritage, can be free.” Claude draws his bow.

Edelgard gives the two kings an appreciative nod before turning back to Rhea. “A world,” she says as she raises Aymr, “where there’s no need for gods.”

*

The Immaculate One falls. One by one, the crest-bearing beasts drop to the ground as Seiros’ power leaves their bodies. Something cracks in Byleth’s chest. The Sword of the Creator slips from her hands, and then she’s falling too.

She knows what’s happening. She’s known from the beginning how her journey would end.

It was worth it, she thinks, and then the darkness claims her.

*

Byleth blinks. Her mind is blank. She tries to remember where she is, but her brain gives her nothing. She then tries to remember who she is, but she doesn’t seem to know that either.

“Professor.”

“Teach.”

“Teacher.”

The three names are called out all at once, and somehow, she knows they all belong to her. She blinks again and tries to focus on the three faces hovering above her. Blue eyes, green eyes, violet eyes, all staring down at her, sharing the same obvious relief. Her mind clicks. Everything falls back into place.

“I did it,” she whispers. “I finally did it.”

Dimitri scoops her up and hugs her to his chest with a desperation that makes her fear for the safety of her ribs.  

Edelgard smiles, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Voice trembling, Claude says, “I like the new hair.”

*

Once the Emperor has made sure that the governing of Fódlan will no longer be decided by bloodlines but by the will of the people, she hands over the crown to the unified nation’s first elected king. The former Prince of Faerghus becomes the King of Fódlan, and with the support of the King of Almyra, he opens up the continent’s borders to the rest of the world.

The power of turning back time is lost forever. The human who once wielded it feels no remorse.  

*

Byleth never stops cherishing the soft thuds of her beating heart.

[dailyaudiobiblechronological]

4/28/21 DAB Chronological Transcription

Psalm 81, Psalm 88, Psalm 92-93

Welcome to Daily Audio Bible Chronological, I am Mimi for the third time, actually, I'm Jill. It's so crazy and wonderful to be here with you. Crazy because it has been one of the most exhilarating, exhausting and gratifying start of my week and my entire life, so as Brian mentioned yesterday, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible Chronological, by the way, if I haven't said that. It is the twenty eighth day of April and it is also our granddaughter's first day of life. It's just the the most rewarding thing to say ever. So I'm completely sleep deprived. I am completely emotionally overwhelmed and completely in awe once again of God. But we are not here to talk about all of those things. I will talk a little bit about the baby at the end of the podcast today, simply because we have been through chronological we have talked about the importance of the Old Testament and the history and the commands and the commandments of God. And we have talked countless times about remembering and savoring even. And while this podcast is completely about the Bible, I would like to give honor to the person who started the Chronological Daily Audio Bible. And that is my incredibly brave daughter, China, and her incredibly strong baby girl, Reagan, the brave. So today we're reading in the Old Testament and we're in Psalm eighty one, Psalm eighty eight, Psalm ninety two and ninety three. And we're still reading the Good News Translation this week, Psalm eighty one.

So I mentioned, l want tell you just a little bit about China and Reagan and how they got here. And listen, I'm not trying to take away from the Bible or the reading in in any way. It's highly probable, possible that some of you are just not interested in hearing about this, you're like, "come on, we got to sit through this", and that's totally fine. China has faithfully read the Bible since she was a young girl. I'm talking 11 years old. She's now twenty four. And if you do anything outside of those conscientious things that we do, like breathing, eating, sleeping, and you do them because there is a formed discipline, you know, the sacrifice that it takes, you know, the commitment, the stamina, the fortitude. You know what it takes to do something on days that you do not want to do and on days that you do not have it in you. So to honor my daughter, who has created this space from kid to a teenager to Chronological and taken people on this journey with her and then gracefully stepped away to do the next right move for her family in life. I just I want to honor that for just a second. And I don't want to tell you China's birth story necessarily. This is her story to tell. But I do have just a little glimpse, no I have a huge glimpse into being present with her during the laboring and during the birthing process. And to be quite honest, it's it's so sacred and holy and personal to me what I had the absolute privilege and honor of witnessing, that I think it just feels a little too special to share with the world, especially right now.

So China went into labor at home. I had China at home with a midwife and it was something she decided that she wanted to do. Now, if any of you have experienced natural childbirth, you know that we're a special kind of crazy.

I mean, I've had women say to you, so you just like pain? Well, that's not necessarily the case. But there are those of us that honor our bodies and the process of natural child labor. Now, not everybody can do it. Not everyone can handle it. I started with Ezekial and my body was in distress. I had to go to the hospital and have an emergency C-section. Many of you know that story. But this is something China decided that she wanted to do. So she she did start laboring at home. And then I was invited into

the process when it got pretty active for her.

And, you know, as a mom watching your daughter rock in pain, the sway of her body to the pain of her body preparing to give birth, it was really difficult to walk into that and to be strong.

China didn't need to see my tears and my worry and my concern. She needed my yes, my my head shakes. And this is good. You're doing this to encourage her. But those I have to tell you the moans that she honored in her own body. At one point felt so holy. And I. I thought about all of you. I thought about all of us. I thought about all of the women that I hear their stories. And I heard the Groan.

The the cries the underbelly of the pain, the emotional, physical, the pain, and at one point I could do is bury my head in her bed as she finished following through a contraction and praying for my daughter, fighting back tears, praying to honor her process and listen for my daughter's flag of surrender and honoring as her mom honoring her surrender of I. I gave it my best. And listening to the voice of wisdom that knows when to push her a little bit further, because you have to tell your mind first what your body can do before your body will do it.

And knowing the voice of wisdom that says she's endured enough, she's endured well, but she does not have to endure any longer. And in that place of rest of my face, in the bed, listening to the groans of the now woman that was once a baby inside my own body, to which I groaned a song of my own pain to bring her into this world. They heard the very voice of God. Tell me that those groans. That song of your own pain.

From the depths of your being. Does not go unnoticed. At times, the only thing I could do was groan with her. So that she knew she was not alone in that moment. Holy moments of painful cries. I knew. I knew, I know, but God groaned with us. I knew that God was in it with us. And staying with China and hearing those moans and you just you hear the difference in a moan of your laboring through your pushing through your sort of verbally breathing through it, and you can hear the change in distress.

And it was just getting very obvious that it was her body was tired. She was beyond fatigued, and the pain was to a level that not many can withstand. And so she called it and her husband, Ben, supported her.

And so we made a plan of transitioning to the hospital. And so we did. And she she got there within a couple of hours and then she got very comfortable with an epidural and she just was able to relax, calm down. And then we were able to sort of talk back what happened, her midwife was present Ben was present.

And I know China has shared her own struggles of perfection, I know that she shared that some here and on her journey, and I really wanted her to know that it was important. But that she didn't fail. Her body did not fail she did not fail the process to which that she had planned for or started, because the

voice of shame for a perfectionist especially is so condemning. It's so beyond don't even know the right word.

It's like once you go there, there isn't another option. There's not an option of shame. Could possibly not be an option. And I was thinking about it in terms of failure. I know I've had several things that we've started in ministry come to an end and people have asked me along the way, are you sad that it failed? And my response was we didn't fail. Our season ended. Failure would have been God said, let's do this.

And we said, no, we're not going to do that. And what I'm so exceptionally proud of my girl for is honoring the process that she got to experience both the pain, the suffering of labor, of natural childbirth, of how her body leans into pain, how her body responds to pain, how her body then copes with pain, and that she actually was brave enough to choose to say yes. And what I am equally so proud of my girl for is honoring her surrender of I wave the flag, I'm done.

This is where I lay it down. And she did. And she did that with with grace and dignity and beauty. Because if you've ever experienced natural childbirth, you know that your dignity goes out the window with the water in the blow up pool. But I never once saw her as undignified. And so then, as you know, the process we got to the hospital, she got the epidural, things slowed down and was just really to take note of the events that I had just taken place and talk through it and just share in that beauty together with with Ben, her husband, with her midwife that was present and the whole actual birth experience.

You know, that's what's China's to share. But what I can tell you is my granddaughter's heart rate. I don't think I ever dipped a single time. I can't say that for sure. But I kept my eyes on that monitor. I grew to the rhythm of the heartbeat in the room when she was settled.

I watched as China labored her and pushed her down her body and she was pulled out and she was placed on her mother's chest, that my granddaughter knew exactly who and where her mother was. Never wavered once. She was completely alert, her eyes completely matched to her mother's and her distress was going and we're talking about two people that have spent time together but had never officially met. That is the thing that struck me the most is trying to say she just couldn't wait to meet her and to get to know her.

But once I realized where Reagan's gaze was with China, and it undoubtedly showed me that they never didn't know each other, Reagan knew who her mom was in that room.

Her voice guided her eyes to share in an internal locking of soul to soul, spirit to spirit, mother to daughter. And I watched my granddaughter, literally minutes old, just lift her head, lift her head and turn her head to meet her mommy, and the thing that was just so mind blowing about it is. I remember when my daughter did the same thing on my chest and I just thought that was normal. I just thought every newborn that was minutes old could lift their head to find their mom gaze and to hear their mother's voice.

And so I have already seen the strength and the determination and watched the endurance of not only my granddaughter, Reagan, the brave, but of my daughter China Brianna. Brianna, a variation of Brian, which means strong.

And honorable and I won't bore you with any other details, some of you might really be interested in this and some of you like what or whatever, but I'm just so very proud of my daughter and her husband, Ben, who was just solid ground. He's just unwavering in shifting sand into now our our newest, littlest, most amazing, strongest princess. Reagan, brave Brown for you, mom, was that care about this? She was. Ounces, literally ounces from being China's exact birth weight, and she is just the sweetest.

She looks so much like China, we're not. The verdict still out on whether there's any red in the hair. It's it's a little bit darker. And and she is just peppered with some of her daddy's little features.

[bubonickitten]

TMA fic: Night Terrors

Summary: At first, Jon assumes his nightmares are just that: bad dreams. But it's only a matter of time before he is forced to acknowledge what it means to be the Archivist.

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

[Spoilers up to MAG 132. CW for canon-typical horror, unsettling dream/nightmare imagery (think MAG 120), some passive suicidal ideation, and some spider mentions here and there.]

Jonathan Sims has had the same nightmare since he was eight years old, with only slight variations.

Sometimes he is the fly in children’s overalls being offered up as a meal. He can feel the anxious buzz of the delicate wings on his back, a foreign and sickening vibration humming its way across his exoskeleton. Four feet rub together nervously in front of him in an uncanny, insectoid pantomime of hand-wringing. The looming form of Mr. Spider is made all the more horrifying by his hundredfold vision and his inability to blink.

Sometimes he is the larger fly, offering up a victim as sacrifice. He can feel his face contorting, features molded into the horror-stricken face of Mr. Horse that still haunts him on sleepless nights. He is forced to watch his offering devoured, slow and excruciating. After, the monster turns its eyes on him.

Most often, though, he is the spider. Or, rather, he watches from the spider’s perspective, a prisoner trapped behind the creature’s many hungry, glinting eyes, as helpless as a fly caught in a web. The dream sequence unravels in slow motion and he is forced to witness the weeping faces of his intended prey for what feels like hours. Enormous block letters bear down on him, announcing the spider’s insatiable hunger, its demand for more, more, more.

Finally, blessedly, he is allowed to close his eyes, but the relief is always fleeting, for when he opens them seconds later, he sees the aftermath of a massacre: smears of reddish-brown blood coating the walls, the floor, the wilting flowers in their vase.

Then, he hears a knock on the door. He sees many – too many – hairy black limbs reach out to open it. He catches a glimpse of a terrified, familiar, but still nameless face through the crack. He always awakens just as the victim opens his mouth and begins to scream.

Jon may have managed to wrench himself away from Mr. Spider, but the fear and the guilt still cling to him years later, like the wispy strands of a broken web. It’s only right that they follow him into his dreams.

~~~

Jon isn’t sleeping well lately.

Well, that isn’t new. But he’s sleeping even worse than usual.

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, Jon tells himself. The new job is stressful.

The Archive is a monument to entropy. A tornado could have swept through and blown things into a more sensible order than the previous Head Archivist left them. The Archives contain nearly two centuries’ worth of case files, and they're scattered about with no discernible system of organization. Material isn’t sorted by format: cassette tapes are thrown haphazardly into the same boxes as loose leaf paper. It isn’t sorted chronologically: case material from the mid-1800s can be found mixed in with recent statements from the 2000s. As far as Jon can tell, it isn’t even sorted thematically; on a cursory perusal, the statements boxed together seem to vary wildly in content, comprehensiveness, and verifiability.

In fact, the conspiratorial part of Jon’s brain can’t shake the feeling that there’s an eerie sense of curation to the disorganization. The more rational part of him knows that Gertrude Robinson was simply elderly, set in her ways, and secure in a position that she had held for decades. Elias isn’t one for hands-on management in the best of cases; there was little to no risk of him actually making his way into the Institute’s basement to observe the way Gertrude ran her Archives, let alone to actually discipline her for lax work ethic.

Either way, though, the result is the same. 

The first thing Jon had noticed when he walked into his new office a week previous was a stack of unmarked boxes against the back wall behind the desk. They were partially covering what at first glance appeared to be fingernail scratches on the floorboards, but he told himself that he didn’t have time to dwell on that and deliberately pushed it to the back of his mind. He could deal with it later – or, with any luck, not at all. 

The first box he opened contained a handful of unlabeled cassette tapes, a stack of blank index cards in a plastic sandwich bag, an empty manila folder, a nonfunctioning USB thumb drive, and a mess of loose papers with no coherent theme: some fragments of personal correspondence (unsigned and handwritten on yellowed paper in nearly illegible cursive), the scattered typewritten pages of a statement (pages 2 and 7 of 10 missing, presumed lost), and a hand-drawn map of what looked like a labyrinth. The second and third boxes contained more of the same: scattered documents and a yawning void of context. The fourth box was completely empty. The fifth contained only a single matchbook with a faded spider printed on its surface, rattling around the bottom of an otherwise vacant box. 

Unmarked boxes, improperly-preserved documents, no rhyme or reason, a layer of dust, and an ignition source. It wasn’t a good start – and, unfortunately, it seemed representative of what the job was going to look like, at least for the first few months. 

But beyond that, Elias had been insistent that Jon begin creating audio recordings of statements as soon as possible. Jon had initially chosen to interpret “as soon as possible” to mean “as soon as everything is organized,” and after seeing how big of a task that was, he was careful not to promise a time frame. After the third email from Elias inquiring about Jon’s progress with digitizing the old statements, though, Jon was honest: every day, he found himself adjusting the project timeline as they found more and more statements misfiled or missing.

“I believe it would be best for you to begin recording the statements as you go along,” Elias said. It was obviously an order, but he masked it as a friendly suggestion. Jon hates when he does that; it feels manipulative and condescending, like a parent (or grandparent, in Jon’s case) presenting the illusion of choice to a child and daring them to call it out for what it is.

Jon never was good at keeping his mouth shut, though.

“My first priority is to ensure that everything is cataloged and stored properly. Digitization will go more smoothly if everything is in order before -”

“You have three perfectly competent assistants,” Elias interrupts. Jon bites his tongue before he can make a snide remark about competence. “I’m certain they can handle a bit of filing without your close supervision.”

“But we -”

“I want you to begin making audio recordings, Jon,” Elias interrupted, finally adopting a tone that brooked no argument. “It all has to be done eventually, and it doesn’t matter what order you go in, so you may as well pick a place and start.”

“Some of the documents are incomplete.” Jon couldn’t quite manage to keep his annoyance out of his tone. “I found pages of the same statement scattered across three different rooms -”

“Start with the statements that seem complete, then. If you find more related case material elsewhere later on, you can simply make supplemental recordings.”

And with that, Elias had walked away before Jon could protest further.

So, yes. He’s stressed. The Archives are an unmitigated disaster, Jon only has three assistants to help him put them back into some semblance of order, and Elias wants him to embark on a massive digitization project when they still haven’t even inventoried the contents of most of the unlabeled boxes piled around the place. It’s like standing in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake and being told to start construction on a new building before the damages are assessed or the rubble is cleared. Oh, and he isn’t given any blueprints for direction.

Sleep troubles are to be expected.

~~~

These nightmares are new.

It isn’t that all of Jon’s nightmares involve spiders. He does occasionally have standalone nightmares that are perfectly spider-free: finding himself back in uni and failing a class he’s never attended and doesn’t remember signing up for; being chased by something sinister and tripping over nothing, only to wake up just as its teeth puncture his throat; waking in an unfamiliar place surrounded by things just to the left of human, hiding behind names he knows well and faces he does not recognize.

But this is the first recurring dream he’s ever had where spiders do not feature prominently.

At first, all he can see is the fog, pressing in on all sides. If the dream lent itself more to cartoon logic, it’s the type of fog that could be molded like putty. He doesn’t make the conscious decision to move; the dream simply puppets him forward and he lets it take him. He doesn’t even notice the open grave until one foot is suspended over it, and when the dream loosens its grip on him, he throws his weight backward, swaying off-kilter and nearly stumbling into another pit that has appeared just behind him.

The fog recedes just enough for him to make out the dozens of empty graves now surrounding him.

Then it starts to move back in, tendrils reaching out to him like the myriad limbs of a living, breathing creature, coating his skin and filling his lungs, and all at once he is pummeled with the overwhelming revelation that he is alone. It’s not just that there isn’t anyone around for miles. It’s not even just that he will never again see another living person. No. It’s that he is, for all intents and purposes, an island. No one knows him. No one ever has, and no one ever will. And he has never known anyone else, either, only carefully constructed personas meant to mask the self – if there even is such a thing as the self.

He will die here, and nothing will remain of him, and no one will notice that he disappeared. And that’s… that’s okay. It’s right. It’s exactly as it should be.

Someone is screaming. Actually, he realizes belatedly, someone has been screaming for a while now, but only now does it manage to reach him through the haze.

Once again, the dream forces him to move. It maneuvers him around the vacant graves, drawing him ever closer to the voice. When he is finally brought to a stop, he is wrenched forward and his gaze is forced downward to behold a shivering figure sprawled six feet beneath him in the earth and mud. She looks familiar, but it takes a few moments before he can place her.

Naomi Herne.

She nearly weeps in relief when she sees him, another living, breathing person after so long lost in the mist. She reaches up to him, begs him to help her, but when he tries to kneel and extend a hand, he finds that he cannot move. He cannot speak. He cannot blink.

He can only watch, and so he does.

The seconds stretch into minutes stretch into hours, and the whole time she pleads with him to say something, to say anything. He watches as her fingers dig deep furrows into the walls of her prison and eventually her pleas dissolve into hopeless whimpers.

He wakes up in a cold sweat, feeling as if he never slept at all.

Untangling himself from the sheets, he stumbles into the bathroom, turns on the faucet, and splashes cold water on his face. As he stands and stares at his reflection in the mirror, he notices how pronounced the dark circles under his eyes have become. Naomi Herne’s statement had been unsettling, certainly, but apparently it’s affected him more deeply than he had initially thought.

It’s not all that surprising, he supposes. There have been a lot of changes in his life recently. The content of the statements he reads is… upsetting. He’s stressed. It would be strange if he didn’t have trouble sleeping.

It’s fine. It’s normal. He’s fine.

  ~~~

 The next night, he dreams of Naomi Herne again.

And the night after that. And the night after that.

Every time, she begs him to say something, to take her hand. She needs to hear another human voice; she needs to feel a human touch; she needs an anchor, anything to chase away the isolation.

At some point, though, she begins to curse him. He is her jailor, her tormenter. She would rather be completely alone, to be left to suffer in dignified privacy, than to have her loneliness amplified by that unwavering stare. Why is he doing this to her? Why won’t he just say something?

As usual, he cannot make a sound, and he cannot look away.

~~~

Jonathan Sims and Melanie King rubbed each other the wrong way from the moment they met eyes, and she is no more pleased to see the Archivist in her dream that night.

They both watch as Sarah Baldwin pleads with an unseen, unforgiving assailant. They look on in revulsion as she staples her skin back together. The scene plays over and over and over again, and eventually Melanie wrenches her gaze away from Sarah and hones in on the Archivist. All of her fear transmutes into anger and she unleashes a torrent of accusations, railing against him for his arrogance, his callousness, his foolish conviction that he knows better than everyone else, that he understands anything at all.

He can’t open his mouth to argue with her, but even if he could, he’s not sure that he could counter her allegations.

Melanie is still shouting at him when he is pulled from the hospital and finds himself in the graveyard again. Naomi Herne is huddled in the corner of her grave tonight, knees hugged tight to her chest. She is utterly silent. He wishes he could look away, but the dream has his head locked in place and his eyes plastered open and he watches her for the rest of the night.

Jon wakes up all too aware of his skin and what lies beneath it.

~~~

The tables in the dissection lab are piled high with pulsating hearts, quivering lungs, and writhing bones.

Hand trembling, scalpel in hand, Dr. Lionel Elliott slices into an apple as if demonstrating how to dissect a human heart. The Archivist catches the glimmer of tooth enamel, the glint of a silver crown on one of the molars, and a shared wave of nausea crashes over both of them. The professor begs the Archivist to take the apple from him, but as always, the Archivist is immobilized. He can feel every ounce of the Elliott’s helpless fear as if it is his own.

The Archivist knows what Elliott is thinking. He wants to run. He wants to curse. He wants to beg. He wants to bury the scalpel in the Archivist’s unblinking eyes. Instead, his blood curdles and his limbs contort and his joints dislocate and he writhes like a live butterfly pinned to a board in front of an uncaring, ceaseless watcher.

The Archivist feels all of it along with him, and neither of them can scream.

It’s only a dream, of course, but Elliott feels so alive that Jon wakes up with a sense of pity all the same.

~~~

 The Archivist wants to tell Helen Richardson not to open the door, but his jaw is wired shut with invisible thread.

The Archivist has lost count of how many times he has been forced to watch as the Distortion’s maze devours her, the scene playing recursively in its mirrored hallways.

Of course he dreams of her. She disappeared right in front of him and he could do nothing to stop it. In quiet moments, the scar that the Distortion gave him still twinges, and brings with it the deep ache of guilt. It’s to be expected that it would bleed over into his dreams.

  ~~~

 Letter by letter, Tessa Winters consumes the keyboard. An eerie, cold glow highlights every detail of her pained expression. Although the Archivist’s mouth will not open, he feels one of his molars crack under the crunch of plastic, and as Tessa moves on to the monitor, a shard of glass slices into the roof of his mouth. The blood pools on both of their tongues, trickles down their throats, and they both wish they could gag.

The Archivist's thoughts unravel into acute angles and sharp edges, shredding his consciousness to ribbons. He is a collection of garbled text and rogue characters, of noisy pixels and castoff artifacts, of corrupted extensions and crossed wires.

It’s cold, and it hurts.

       IT%’s/ côLd &&;t <<hurts>>.

                 I̴t̸'̴s̴ ̵c̸o̸l̶d̵, ̵a̵n̶d̴ ̸i̴t̴ ̸h̶u̸r̵t̸s̶.̸

                                                                                                                                                             Ï̵̡̻ͅț̴͘'̴̰̙͒̌͠ͅs̶̻̿̎ ̴̞c̵̮̒̾ơ̴̞͕̕͝ļ̴̱̅d̶̥̣͎̈ ̵̨͕̀̿̊a̵̗̪̽̆n̶͕̩̞͆d̵̦̮̳͐̏͗ ̵̢̻̑ȉ̷̪t̸͓̉͒ ̶̮͉̹̇͠h̵̳̻̞͝u̴̢̬̣̒ř̴̠́t̵͍̟͛ṡ̷̨̤͓͒̾.̸̦̭̓

                                                                                                                                                                          I̶̢͚͓̤̗̹̱̠̱͚̤̾t̶̛̳̏̑͐͗́̍̈̿̄͒͗́̔̈́̈́̈́̚̕͠'̵̡̧̦̖͚͓͙͙͕̜̻̣̙̲͓̑͂͋̾̊̄͌̀̑͒̚ͅͅs̶̀̂͌͌̈̈́̃��̛̣̻͚͓̫̜̏̐̔̌ ̵̗̫̓̊̾̇͆c̷̨̑̀̈́̇̊̇̑͊́̂̊̇͘̚͘̚̚̚͝ǫ̵̈́̎̿͑̔̔̑͛̀͋̉̋̓̾l̷̙̯͙͍͇̟̭̳͉̹̳̖͎͇̲͖̝̖͈̺̍d̴̡̫̼̗̮̹̎̌̽̏̂̐̑̈̏̀̃͆͗͂̓̚͝ ̴̧̛͈̭̼̭̰͔̥͓̟̲́̒̊̍̉̌͆̇̆̑͗̑̿̉̅̑͒̽̈̿a̵̳̰̽̌͆͂̏͒̌̓̔̈͐̆̿̕͝n̸̨̢̧̧̲̺͙̗̪̻͎̥͉̥͔͇̠͙̫͒̌̅̃͒́̌̈́͐̀̈͘̚͘̕͝͝ͅḋ̵̢̡̧̜͇̜̤̠̺̜̦̲̳͓̼̩̣̼̭̱͐̿̿̍̿̀͌͊̃̿͊̕͠ ̶̭̩̥̲͈͚̟͇̱̹̼̩̪̙̱͒́͑̌͒͐̕͜ỉ̸̲͇̬͓̫̪̞̜̱̪̻̲̎̿́̃̽̕͘͠͝ţ̸̗͙͍͍̫̞͚̞͓̙̼̝͚͕̮̋͋̏̌͂͗̈ ̵̨̟̗͉̯̘̙̫̱̹̱̲̘̪͖̤̱̟̦̘̹̟̎̐̌͗̾̋̿̄͜͠h̴̢̡̨̢̛̫͓̠̤͉̠̩̮͙̞̪̏̇͊̈͂̿̅͋͌͘̚͠ư̵̰͙̯͖̈́̄̊͌͐̾͐̃̈̈͒̑͠ͅr̷̨̛̗͈̣̰̘̲̩̦̙̅̃̽͛͒̈͜͠ͅṯ̶̮͕̺͖̹̺̺̦͈̰̮͚͇̳̘̺̤̹̭͐͊̏̓̅̊̏͌́̒́̚̕͘͘͜͝͝͠͝s̶̺̻͔̹̙̟̭̜̏̆͗͂̔̄̔͋́͆̀̋̈́͌͂̚͝.̶̘͚͚͓͕̝͖̪͔̼̙̲̞͎͉̩̳͍̙̩̋̆̅͒̇̅͌̆͗̉̋͊͒͐̔̅̏̕͜͝͝ͅ

    ~~~

When Jon finally bolts upright into wakefulness, he knows.

These are not his nightmares.

They are shared dreamscapes.

No, not shared. Invaded.

Just recently he had noted how long it had been since last he was the spider in his nightmare, but maybe that was premature.

At least the others showed up at the Institute to give their statements on their own. Tessa Winters, though, was his fault. He wrote the forum post that drew her to him. She wouldn’t be in his dreams if he hadn’t cast that net. He spun a web and waited for the prey to wander in, all because he needed to know and was willing to lure someone in under false pretenses just to get the answers he craved. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t intend this – the consequences are the same.

And Tessa Winters knows it. She meets his gaze, equally unblinking, baleful and accusing. He is a thing with too many eyes, gorging himself on her suffering, devoid of empathy or humanity. When she looks into his eyes, she sees a ravenous, pitiless voyeur, and even if the Archivist was allowed to speak, he would not dispute her claim. After all, the Beholding is the feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer, just so it can watch, and the Archivist is its pawn and its representative and its instrument. Tessa's eyes pin him in place just as effectively as the ever-present Eye in the sky.

He is becoming – has become? – that which he fears, and he cannot look away.

It really isn’t all that different from the spider dreams after all, except this time there are witnesses to his sins.

  ~~~

 The words on the paper are blurry and his head feels full of cobwebs. His eyes itch and sting in equal measure, making it ever more difficult to keep his heavy eyelids from drifting shut. He keeps nodding off, leaning forward and jerking upright as soon as the sensation of falling grips him.

“-n? Jon!”

“Wha-” Jon startles as Martin’s voice finally reaches him through the fog. “I – what?”

Martin has a concerned look on his face. That seems to be his default state these days, Jon thinks distantly.  

“I kept saying your name but you were just… you weren’t answering.”

“Oh.”

Martin worries his bottom lip between his teeth. Jon can tell that he wants to say something, but he just stands there waffling, and –

“What?” Jon snaps, and then he and Martin wince at the same time. “I’m… I’m sorry, Martin. I – I’m just tired.” He rubs his eyes furiously, trying to chase away the haze. “I’m sorry. Did you need something?” 

“I… Jon, when’s the last time you slept?”

Silence.

“Maybe you should have a lie down? I made up the cot in the storage room, and –”

“I’m fine,” Jon replies through gritted teeth.

“You’re falling asleep at your desk. Actually, um,” – a small, cautious grin crosses Martin’s face – “I don’t know what paperwork you used as a pillow, but you have ink on your face.”

Jon groans and scrubs at his face with both hands.

“You really do need to sleep, though,” Martin ventures again, gentle but firm.

“I… I don’t want to,” Jon says stiffly. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he curses himself for the honesty – Martin is going to want to talk about that now, and –

“Why?”

Jon is silent, steadfastly refusing to look Martin in the eye.

“Fine,” Martin sighs, exasperated. “But you can’t go forever without sleep, I don’t care how stubborn you are.”

He’s right, Jon knows.

Jon did manage a full 70 hours awake before he started nodding off in spite of himself. For the past few days, he’s been allowing himself short naps, setting his phone alarm at hour intervals to wake him long before he can enter REM sleep.

It isn���t sustainable, but the alternative is haunting people’s nightmares, looking into their eyes and Beholding what they see when they look at him: Cold, calculating predator. Unblinking voyeur. Too many hungry, prying eyes, feeding on their terror, stripping them of their dignity, soaking in their trauma with cruel fascination –

“Jon.”

“Fine,” Jon grumbles. “Sixty minutes.”

  ~~~

 Whenever he slips into the dreamscape, Daisy promises to hunt him down. Finish what she started. Bury him in a shallow grave and leave him to become yet another mystery.

The Archivist wonders if being killed in the dream would wake him up, spare the other dreamers from his scrutiny for just one night.

He wonders how Daisy would react if he was able to tell her that he resents the absence of her knife at his throat just as much as she does.

  ~~~

 Six months.

For six months, he wanders, an uninvited, hated guest in those familiar dreamscapes.

The Archivist wants nothing more than to throw himself into an empty grave, to turn the damp earth into a prison with six-foot-high walls, to break his legs in the fall so that even when his resolve crumbles and he tries to clamber out of the hole, he will be unable to do so. The other dreamers would be safe from him, then. There would be nothing for him to watch but unyielding soil and the chill, impenetrable fog above.

He Knows that the Eye is still there behind the veil of fog; he can feel its unceasing gaze, but at least in the lonely cemetery, he cannot see it.

There is an open grave in front of him, its waiting maw calling him forward, promising to shackle him, to hobble him with blindness and paralysis. He stands at the edge, knees locked and eyes peeled, staring down into a plot that he desperately wishes belonged to him, and him alone. The dream keeps him there for what seems like hours, taunting him, holding relief just out of reach.

Then, the dream turns him around and pulls him inexorably toward his true objective. Once again he is forced to watch as Naomi’s freezing, bloodied fingers scrabble uselessly on the walls of her prison. Her tears have left trails in the mud on her face, and when she looks up at him, she asks the same question she does every single time: Why are you doing this to me?

Eventually – after far too long standing statue-still, eyes locked on Naomi’s pained, desperate face – the Archivist is yanked onward toward the waiting carnage of the dissection lab, the mournful singing of the coffin, the undulating mass of ants.

When Jane Prentiss shambles toward him, he can feel the worms burrow into his skin all over again. He wants to scream, to scratch, to grab a corkscrew and start digging – Dig, comes the intrusive thought, blinking in his mind like a marquee: Dig. Dig. Dig. – but his mouth and his hands are not his own, and his eyes – so many eyes, so reminiscent of the spider – are fixed on Jane. Her otherworldly screams pierce the night as she burns, and the Archivist desperately wishes he could clamp his hands over his ears to block out her death knell.

Being brought before Georgie Barker is almost worse than confronting Jane Prentiss. If she could still feel fear, the Archivist is certain she would wear the same expression as the others. Instead, there is only a mix of pity and resignation. Over and over again, Jonathan Sims has walked into burning buildings for even the slightest chance of having a question answered. She wishes she was more surprised to see what he has become, but she is so intimately familiar with his pattern of self-destruction and stubborn curiosity, and she has long since recognized it for what it is: a fatal flaw, coaxing him toward tragedy like a moth to the flame.

The exterminator makes no distinction between the Archivist and the Flesh Hive, and Georgie Barker likely wouldn’t, either. As always, the Archivist cannot find it in himself to argue.

When at last he finally awakens, he is not surprised that she leaves with such finality, her parting words condemning him as a lost cause. He pushed on past the point of no return, just like she always feared he would, and she has no desire to watch him burn.

  ~~~

 Jon may not have been allowed to toss himself into a lonely grave, but the coffin welcomes him with an eager appetite, and imprisons him in much the same way. He may be unable to move, but at least his body is his own, unlike in his dreams; he may not be able to escape, but at least he can speak.

“After the mission. I was planning to kill you,” Daisy tells him, matter-of-fact. He knows why the moment she starts talking about her dreams. “Realized you weren’t human. Needed to die, as soon as it was safe. Never mind Elias and his… insurance.”

“And now?”

“Don’t know. I – I miss dreaming. You don’t sleep, down here.”

Jon finds the prospect of eternal wakefulness in this place downright horrifying – the endless boredom alone sounds like torture – but... no sleep means no nightmares. 

“Daisy, you should know, I – I’m… if I wasn’t human before, I’m, uh – I’m even less now.”

The distant rumbling of the shifting earth picks up in volume until he can feel it in his teeth.

“Yeah.” Daisy doesn’t sound surprised. “Well, at the moment, I don’t care.”

“And if we get out?”

“But we can’t get out.”

“No.”

The noise grows in volume, drowning out his voice.

I really should have known better, he thinks to himself. Of course his rib wasn’t a strong enough anchor. He’s so alienated from his own body at this point, so far from human that he couldn’t even die properly. How many times has he found himself thinking, What’s another scar? In a way, he feels just as detached from his body when he’s awake as he does in his nightmares. The idea that a part of his body would call to him from outside the coffin… it’s just as ridiculous as his rushed, irresponsible deductions about the NotThem’s table.

“I’m s – I’m sorry,” Daisy stammers, snapping Jon out of his reverie. “I’m sorry, Jon.”

“So am I,” Jon replies. For everything, he does not say.

The rumbling fades, and silence descends on them in a rush.

“You know,” Jon begins after a minute, choosing his words carefully, “I… I didn’t know, at first. That the nightmares were real.”

Daisy says nothing, and Jon interprets it as permission to go on.

“I – I thought that they were just my nightmares. That the first statements I took hit me harder than I’d expected. I was so dismissive to the first few people who came in to give their statements in person, and I assumed that my – my guilt over how I treated them was manifesting as nightmares, since I refused to process it in real life. That I was just…” He lets out a bitter laugh. “That I was just stressed about the new job.”

“When did you figure it out?” Daisy asks levelly.

“I… I think I suspected after a few months? But I just – I told myself that I was being ridiculous. I went through a bit of a – a paranoid phase, and I thought that I was just… overthinking things. I tend to do that, to just – obsess, and let my imagination run wild –”

Daisy snorts. “Yeah, I gathered that.”

“I – I've had a lot of practice with denial, I suppose,” Jon says, sheepish. “Or feigning denial, at least. Playing the skeptic was… safer. Admitting out loud that I believed in – in monsters felt like it would… draw unwanted attention, I suppose. That it would somehow provoke the thing watching me to strike. I convinced myself that pretending to be ignorant would keep the monsters at bay.”

“That’s…”

“Stupid, I know.”

Daisy gives a dry chuckle.

“I had to give up the act after – after Prentiss attacked the Archives,” Jon continues. “Even after that, though, I still wanted to believe that the nightmares weren’t real. But then one day I woke up and – and I just knew –”

The dirt around them begins to press in again, forcing the air from his lungs. Jon feels Daisy’s fingers brush his wrist and he takes her hand. Not alone. Not alone. Not alone.

Then the pressure lets up all at once and they are both left gasping in its wake. 

“Keep talking?” Daisy’s voice has that desperate, pleading edge to it again. It’s so at odds with the Hunter that Jon knows, more like prey than predator. “I – I need – I don’t want to be alone.”

“Not alone,” Jon murmurs, as much for himself as for Daisy. “The dream that made me realize – her name was Tessa Winters. I took her statement, and that night she was in my dreams. The way she looked at me, I just… I knew. She was really there. Her eyes were so – so accusing, like she knew that it was my fault that she was there. And – and it was. The other statement givers came to me on their own, but she likely would have never come to the Institute if it wasn’t for me.”

“Oh?”

“I – I posted on a message board, soliciting supernatural experiences related to technology.”

“You can use a computer, then,” Daisy teases, a smirk in her voice.

Jon smiles too, and for the briefest moment he forgets where they are. “I just turned 30 this year, Daisy,” he says, rolling his eyes, and she snorts.

“Still, I can’t picture you making forum posts.”

“I had an ulterior motive,” he admits, his smile fading as the old guilt bubbles up. “I had found Gertrude’s laptop, and I needed help breaking into it, so I – I figured maybe I could lure in someone who knew computers, take their statement, find a way to casually ask them to have a look at the laptop for me. It worked, but then she appeared in my nightmares, and – if I hadn’t drawn her to me, she wouldn’t be there.”

Daisy makes a noncommittal sound. Jon shuts his eyes tight and takes a deep, faltering breath.

“And then – after the Unknowing, I – I should have died. I was dead, technically. My brain was still firing – dreaming,” he says with distaste, “but I had no pulse, no respiration, no… no other signs of life.” He feels the pressure of tears in his eyes and he fights to keep his voice steady. “You should have seen the way the doctors and nurses looked at me as they were explaining it. A – a medical mystery – a marvel, really – the sort of thing that most professionals would kill for a chance to study – but they couldn’t wait to get away from me, to hurry me out the door.” He pauses to take a deep breath, but between the crushing earth and his own grief, he can’t fill his lungs. His exhale comes out shallow and shaky. “And – and Georgie, and Basira, and Melanie, and –”

Daisy tightens her grip on his hand. It’s so surreal that Jon almost laughs. This is Daisy. Daisy, who seized him by the throat, who tried to kill him, who enjoyed seeing him terrified and begging for his life, who took such pride in the scar she left him with – and now she’s comforting him. He isn’t sure how to process that turnaround, so instead gives her hand a squeeze in return, clears his throat, and continues.

“So – so for six months, I was in a coma. If you can call it that. But the whole time, I was dreaming. For six months, I walked through the same nightmares, over and over and over again. There was no waking up to escape it, and – and it meant that the other dreamers couldn’t escape me, either. Up until then, if I was awake while they were asleep, they could get away from me, but – but I was in the dream every hour of every day, so I was there every night they slept. And the way they look at me – like I’m a monster – it just… they’re not wrong, but I just wish – I wish I could tell them that I’m sorry, that I don’t want this either, that I don’t want to watch. The Eye doesn’t let me speak, though – or move, or – or blink. I am an observer, and an observer does not interfere.” He laughs then, a little hysterically. “It – honestly, it felt like longer than six months. I lived through the same scenes so many times that I started to feel so numb to it all.”

“What about my part of the dream?” Daisy asks quietly.  

“I – ever since the Unknowing, whenever I get to your segment, there's nothing but the coffin. I always enter it, but it never brings me to you. Until now, I suppose,” he says with a humorless chuckle. “Oddly enough, though, I always found myself wishing you were there.”

“Really.”

“Yes, I – it’s hard to explain.” He hesitates for a moment before settling on honesty. “You always looked at me like I was prey, instead of predator. Or – or maybe like I was a predator, but a – a weaker predator, something that could be killed. A monster that could be vanquished. I… I wanted you to catch me. I suppose I thought that maybe – maybe if I died in the dream, it would end the cycle, and release the other dreamers from the Eye.”

“Might have killed you in real life, though,” Daisy points out. “If the dreaming was the only part of you that was alive.” 

“It may have,” Jon agrees.

Daisy lets that linger for a minute, heavy and revealing.

“I… I don’t think I want to die,” Jon eventually continues, “but I can't stop thinking that maybe it would be… better, if I did? All that would happen is that the world would lose another monster, and – and that would be fine. It would be right. But I still…” He chokes on his words, something between a laugh and a sob. “God, when did not wanting to die start to feel selfish of me?” 

The dirt around them shifts, sibilant and imposing. They hold their breath, as if speaking might provoke it. Daisy waits for the rustling to settle again before she speaks.

“Why did you come here, Jon?”

“To – to find you, to get you out –”

“Yeah, but why? I nearly killed you. Would have tried again. Would have liked it.” She huffs. “I know you didn’t come here out of any loyalty to me. So, why?”

“I…”

“To get yourself killed?”

“No, I – I really did want to get you out of here.”

“Why did you come for me, then? Out of guilt? To justify not dying?”

“I…” Jon sighs heavily. “Yes, I – I suppose. And - and Tim was dead. Sasha is dead, and Martin is... gone, and when we found out you were still alive, I just - I didn't want to lose anyone else. I couldn't just leave you here, not if there was a chance I could bring you back.”

Daisy is silent. Jon knows that she wants him to say more, and he takes a deep breath.

“The others don’t trust me – not that I blame them, I don’t trust me, either. Martin is… he has his own plans. Georgie wants nothing to do with me. Melanie hates me for not having the decency to die, blames me for everything that’s happened. Doesn’t even think I’m me anymore, just – just some monster wearing a familiar skin, and – well,” he laughs uncomfortably, “I have a hard time arguing with her assessment.” He takes a deep breath. “And – and Basira, she… she doesn’t put much stock in my humanity, either. Sometimes she sees me as an asset to be used, but…”

He trails off, feeling faintly guilty for his mixed feelings on Basira. She encourages him to use his powers when it will help further their goals. She doesn’t go so far as to claim that the ends justify the means, but she does frequently remind him that they need to be pragmatic, like Gertrude. The rest of the time, though… she looks at Jon like he’s a dangerous animal, unpredictable and poised to strike. He knows that she’s fully prepared to put him down if it starts looking like he’s too dangerous to be allowed to live, and although that hurts, he’s also glad that there’s someone who he can trust to put an end to him if he loses himself.

Nonetheless, it’s frustrating to be hated and feared for what he can do – to hate and fear himself so thoroughly – while still being expected to embrace those powers whenever it’s deemed useful. He’s more of an instrument than a person now, a tool to be used and then locked safely away once he’s fulfilled his purpose. At the same time, though, it at least offers him some semblance of control. He may be a vehicle for the Eye’s machinations, but perhaps he can balance it by giving their side an advantage in whatever way he can, principles be damned.

And he did give Basira explicit permission to use him.

Sometimes he wishes he had Gertrude’s certainty, or Basira’s resolve, or any sort of confidence in his own convictions. Most of the time, though, he fears what he could become if he was more decisive. He doesn’t trust himself to live without doubt.

He doesn’t know how to explain all of that to Daisy, though.

“I don’t – I don’t expect them to trust me,” he says instead. “Or like me. It seems dangerous to be near me at all, and I’m not exactly” – he huffs out a short, bitter laugh – “I’m not good enough company to risk it. It hurts, and it’s lonely, but I – I do understand. But I can at least make myself useful –”

Without warning, the Buried constricts itself around them in a rush, strangling his words and stealing the air from his lungs. This time, it feels like hours pass before it finally relaxes its chokehold. The only conversation that passes between them for a long time is synchronized, frenzied gasping for what little chill, stagnant air the Buried deigns to permit them.

“We’re the same, you know,” Daisy says eventually, forcing the words out even as she struggles to catch her breath. “I'm afraid of what I am, or - or was, or could be again. I needed the Hunt. Liked it, even – I enjoyed the thrill of the chase, the kill. But now I – I look back and I’m disgusted. I hurt people who didn’t deserve it. Even the actual monsters were… I wasn’t killing them because I cared about justice, or protecting others, not really. I was feeding on the fear of the prey. It made me feel alive –”

An abrupt coughing fit interrupts her then, and several minutes pass before she’s able to continue speaking through the grit coating her tongue.

“All I’ve felt since I came down here is fear and pain and guilt. I accept that – I should feel guilty, and I – I probably deserve more punishment than this. But still, I… I want to see the sun again, to breathe fresh air, to –” Her breath hitches. “I – I want to see Basira again.”

Jon can just barely hear her sniffling, but knows better than to draw attention to it.

“But – but if I leave here, I – I know I’ll hear the blood again. I don’t know who I am without the Hunt, but I – I still don’t want to go back to it. I deserve to be here – but I also want to leave – and that feels selfish. But I suppose it really doesn’t matter, does it?” When she laughs, it almost sounds like a bark, hollow and brittle. “There’s no way out.”

“No way out,” Jon repeats. “But maybe… maybe the world is safer without me in it – without… without either of us, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” Daisy chokes out, her voice hovering between a laugh and a sob. “That’s – that’s pretty messed up, isn’t it?”

Jon lets out his own tearful chuckle. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” He pauses. “You said that – that you don’t sleep down here, that you don’t dream?”

“Yeah.”

“That's probably for the best,” he sighs. “At least this way, the Eye can’t reach the dreamers anymore.”

“And at least we’re – we’re not alone?”

“No. Not alone.”

“I’m glad that you’re here, Jon,” Daisy blurts out in a rush. “I know that’s horrible of me, but – but it’s the truth.” She takes a shaky breath. “I don’t want to be alone. I’m… I’m glad I’m not alone.”

“I’m… I think I’m glad, too,” Jon admits.

He wasted so much time pushing people away, refusing to trust, rebuffing any offer of help. Georgie told him that he needed human connection to help him stay human, and she was right, but when he finally admitted that – by the time he finally resolved to trust the others, regardless of his doubts – it was too late. When he woke up in the hospital, there was no one left to offer their hand when he reached out for help. Even worse, he can’t exactly deny that it’s his own fault.

But now, trapped here in the cold and the damp and the cramped, suffocating dark, Daisy holds his hand. The firm pressure of her grip is comforting, despite the clamminess of their skin. He can’t remember the last time he was touched with anything less than malice.  

“I’ve been alone since I woke up,” he continues, “and – and afraid of what I’m becoming. It’s nice to have someone who – who understands what it’s like. I think this is the most companionship I’ve had in… in a long while. It’s nice to be the one seen for once – by something other than a monster.”

Daisy tightens her grip further, and Jon marvels at how such a simple gesture is so much louder than words.

A silence falls on them then – a bizarrely companionable one, so incongruous with their current predicament. They clutch each other in the dark, focusing on one another’s breathing to coax them through the irregular ebb and flow of the earth pressing down on them, peppering the gloom with quiet conversation whenever the Buried gives them an inch to breathe.

Daisy talks about her childhood dog, and The Archers, and how people are always surprised to learn that she has a sweet tooth. She tells Jon about the first time she and Basira went camping: They had stretched out beneath the night sky and Basira taught Daisy the constellations, the origins of their names and the legends they represented. Affection welled up in her as she listened to Basira muse about how even though the constellations vary across time and culture, humans have always shared this collective impulse to look up at the sky and make meaning out of randomness.

For the first time in a long time, Daisy had been truly present in the moment; for once, she wasn’t gnashing her teeth, impatiently anticipating the next hunt. Basira’s voice anchored her in the present, and the call of the blood was drowned out by a flood of warmth and devotion.  

Jon talks about the Admiral, and his brief foray into AmDram at uni, and how he's always hated poetry, but then he read some of Martin's, and, well... some of them were quite good, actually. Jon confesses that he too has an unexpected sweet tooth. Martin somehow guessed; whenever Jon was having a particularly rough day, Martin would make his tea sweeter than usual. Martin never drew attention to it, and Jon never commented on it, but it was... touching, if he's honest with himself. He wishes that he had told Martin then that he noticed, that he appreciated the gesture - that it made him feel seen in a good way for once.

Jon misses Martin desperately, worries for him fiercely. Worse, he knows with a certainty that Martin will never know just how much he is missed. He spent far too long underestimating Martin, taking him for granted. Sure, Martin had stumbled a lot in the early days, but when Jon learned that Martin had lied on his CV, he was actually impressed. It's remarkable how competent Martin managed to be with no prior experience or qualifications to speak of. Daisy listens as Jon rambles on about how Martin is so much braver and cleverer than Jon or anyone else ever gave him credit for, and how much he wishes he could tell him that now.  

They go back and forth like that, confiding in each other about their regrets, and the apologies they will never get to make, and all the things they miss. They talk about fears, and monsters, and what it means to be human. They talk about choices.

Jon does not dream. Daisy does not hear the blood. Together, they listen to the quiet.

[wherever-the-chaos-is]

HanGuang-Jun’s Heroism

From a young age, Lan WangJi has always helped people wherever he goes. No matter how threatening or how much prestige he can gain, he will help. For this, he earns the title HanGuang-Jun during the Sunshot Campaign and gains a reputation for being wherever the chaos is through the years. While he is famous for this, he never boasts about what he has done nor does he seek to be credited for it; hence, some of his deeds are not as known.

In this series of posts, we try to catalog all of Lan WangJi’s heroic deeds that are mentioned in the novel in chronological order, both the ones that he is famous for and ones that go generally unnoticed. Because of the length of each quote from the novel, this has been sectioned into 4 parts.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

This post (Part 1) shows Lan WangJi saving Wei Wuxian and Su She from falling into the abyss, helping the old woman and the farmers on his way to the lotus pond despite the long journey and being in a haste to get there, holding up the Wens from the Library Pavilion to help Lan Xichen run away with the books, causing them to attack him and break his leg in the process. Despite his broken leg and his poor emotional state due to his home being burned down, his father dying and his brother going missing, Lan WangJi still manages to protect MianMian from being used as human sacrifice, save Wei Wuxian from the Xuanwu of Slaughter, help everyone find a way to escape the cave, and kill the Xuanwu of Slaughter.

Saving Wei WuXian and Su She

The sucking force of the lake became stronger and stronger. Wei WuXian’s sword was superior in terms of agility, but inferior in terms of strength. He was almost weighed down to the point of hovering right above the surface of the lake. He steadied himself while using both hands to haul Su She, and shouted, “Can somebody come here to help?! If I still can’t pull him up, I’m gonna let go!”

Suddenly, Wei WuXian felt his collar tighten, and he was lifted into the air. He turned around to see Lan WangJi holding the back of his collar with one hand. Although Lan WangJi merely looked into another direction with an indifferent look, he and his sword carried the weight of three people, and fought with the mysterious force of the lake at the same time. Moreover, their position was still rising at a steady pace. Jiang Cheng was rather shocked, ‘If I went down to pull Wei WuXian before him, using Sandu, I probably couldn’t have ascended so quickly and steadily. Lan WangJi is only around my age…’ (Chapter 17)

Helping people along the way

The old lady said, “Young master, that lotus pond doesn’t let people in at night. If you want to go there, you have to do it while it’s still light out, you need to hurry.”

Lan WangJi said again, “Many thanks.”

He was about to leave, but then he saw the old lady holding a long bamboo pole, trying and failing to clean some dried twigs stuck on the roof. He shifted his finger, sent his sword’s glare to strike the dried twigs off the roof, and turned to leave.

Eight to nine li wasn’t too far for him. Following the direction pointed by the old lady, Lan WangJi continued his journey.

(…)

Lan WangJi walked up to them and found a farmer lying on the ground, crying out in pain.

After listening quietly for a moment, Lan WangJi figured out what had happened. While this farmer was working, he was headbutted by another farmer’s bull. It was unclear whether his back was hurt or whether his leg had been broken, but he couldn’t get up. The bull had done a bad thing and was driven off to a far end of the farm, head lowered and tail swishing, too scared to approach. The bull’s owner had gone to find a physician. The rest of the farmers didn’t dare to move the injured person carelessly, afraid that they might cause further damage, so they could only watch over him like this. But the heavens were uncooperative and it started to rain so suddenly. It was just a light drizzle at first, easy to ignore, but within moments, heavy rain started pelting down on them in buckets.

Seeing the worsening rain, one of the farmers ran home to fetch some umbrellas, but his house was quite far away so he wouldn’t be able to return quickly. The rest of them put their hands together, trying to shield the injured farmer the best they could. But it wouldn’t do for them to keep this up. Even if they had umbrellas, there wouldn’t be enough for all of them. They couldn’t let just a few people be shielded from the rain while the others were drenched, could they?

(…)

Before he even came close, Lan WangJi had figured out the problem. He walked to the wooden shed, lowered his body, supported one corner of the shed’s roof with one hand and lifted it.

The farmers were stunned.

Four farmers couldn’t lift the shed’s roof, but this young man lifted it with a single hand!

After staring for a moment, one of the farmers spoke to the others in a low voice. Without much hesitation, they carried the injured farmer over. When they entered the shed, they peered at Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi spared them no glance.

After putting the injured person down, two of the men came to him. “Young… Young Master, you can put it down, leave it to us.”

Lan WangJi shook his head. The two farmers insisted, “You’re still very young, you won’t be able to hold it.”

As they spoke, they raised their hands to help him support the roof. Lan WangJi looked at them wordlessly. He only reduced some of his strength and the two farmers’ faces changed instantly.

Lan WangJi retracted his gaze and returned to fully supporting the shed. The two farmers went back awkwardly.

The wooden shed was so much heavier than their expectation, that the moment this young man withdrew, they couldn’t handle the weight.

One of them shivered. “Strange, why does it feel colder inside.”

They were unaware that right then, a figure dressed in ragged clothes was hanged at the center of the shed, its long withered tongue stretched out.

Heavy rain fell outside the shed. This figure swayed under the roof, bringing with it an air of malice.

It was this spirit that had caused the wooden shed to be so abnormally heavy, preventing common people from lifting it.

Lan WangJi hadn’t brought any tool to perform an exorcism [6] with him. Since this spirit didn’t seem to hold any intention of harming others, he couldn’t indiscriminately attack it. It seemed that he couldn’t persuade the spirit to lower its own corpse right now, so he would have to support the shed for the time being. He would report this after returning and send people to take care of things here.

The spirit hovered behind Lan WangJi’s back for some time. The wind blew so hard its figure kept swaying, unable to stay upright. It complained, “So cold…”

“…”

It looked around and went to approach one of the farmers, seemingly intending to warm itself. Goosebumps rose on the farmer’s skin. Lan WangJi tilted his head slightly and gave the spirit a chilling glance.

The spirit also felt goosebumps crawling up its back and returned with a bullied face. But it still complained with its tongue stretched out, “Such heavy, such heavy rain, leaving the place open like this… It’s really cold…”

“…”

Until the physician arrived, none of the farmers dared to speak to Lan WangJi. After the rain had stopped and the injured person had been carried out of the shed, Lan WangJi lowered the roof to the ground and left without a word. (Lotus Seed Pod Extra)

Holding Wen Sect back, so Lan XiChen could run away with the books of the Library Pavillion

Wei WuXian, “Is Lan Zhan’s leg related to this?”

The disciple, “Of course. The first place that Wen Xu ordered them to burn down was the Library Pavilion. He declared that he’ll teach anyone who wasn’t willing to do it a lesson. Lan WangJi refused. He was attacked by Wen Xu’s people and they broke one of his legs. It hadn’t even been healed yet, and he was dragged out here again. Who knows what they’re trying to do?!” (Chapter 52)

The two sat down on the wooden fence again. Wei WuXian, “Then what’s going on with Lan XiChen?”

Jiang Cheng, “The Wen Sect was going to burn down their Library Pavillion, wasn’t it? Tens of thousands of ancient books and music scores. The Lan Sect’s people saved some. They probably gave them to Lan XiChen and told him to run away with them. They protected whatever they could, or else everything’d be gone. This is what everyone is guessing.” (Chapter 57)

Protecting MianMian from Wen Chao and Wang LingJiao

MianMian knew that if she was hung up, she probably wouldn’t be able to come back down alive. She tried to run away, but wherever she fled, the people dispersed around her. Just as Wei WuXian twitched, Jiang Cheng held him firmly down. MianMian suddenly noticed that two people remained still. She hid behind their backs at once, shivering.

The two were Jin ZiXuan and Lan WangJi.

As the Wen Sect’s servants that were about to tie MianMian up saw that the two didn’t intend on moving, they shouted, “Move to the side!”

Lan WangJi was silent with indifference.

(…)

Wen Chao pointed at them, “Are you rebelling against me? Let me warn you, I’ve been tolerating you for a very long time. Right now, hang the brat up with your own hands! Or else none of the people from your sects can expect to return!”

Jin ZiXuan sneered and refused to budge. Lan WangJi also looked as though he had heard nothing, so motionless that he seemed to be meditating.

However, one of the GusuLan Sect’s disciples on the side had been trembling as he listened to Wen Chao’s threatening words. He finally couldn’t hold it any longer as he rushed over, grabbing MianMian, and prepared to tie her up. Lan WangJi’s brows stiffened. He immediately struck the disciple to the side.

Although he didn’t say anything, the way he looked at the disciple was more than imposing. What such a look meant was clear to everyone—it truly is a shame that the GusuLan Sect has taught a disciple like you!

(…)

Wen Chao was enraged, shouting, “How dare you! Kill them!”

A few of the Wen Sect’s disciples unsheathed their swords, rushing toward Lan WangJi and Jin ZiXuan. The ‘Core-melting Hand’, Wen ZhuLiu, stood behind Wen Chao with his hands folded behind him. He never attacked, as though he thought that he didn’t need to do so. He was right, seeing that the two boys were at a loss in terms of both weaponry and sheer numbers. Even more, after the past days of being constantly on the move, they were in quite a bad state, not to mention that Lan WangJi had been injured. They definitely wouldn’t be able to last long. (Chapter 52)

Helping in finding a way out of the cave

Lan WangJi’s gaze returned as he turned around to leave.

Jiang Cheng, “Young Master Lan, where are you going? The beast is still waiting in the pool.”

Lan WangJi, “Return to the pool. There is a way to leave.”

After the boys had heard that there was a way to leave, even the crying stopped. Wei WuXian, “What is it?”

Lan WangJi, “There are leaves within the pool.”

Although the sentence sounded rather strange, Wei WuXian understood at once.

Atop the dark pool that the beast dwelled in, there were indeed a few leaves. But, inside of the cave, there were neither maple trees nor the trace of any human activity and, near the entrance, there was only a banyan tree. The maple leaves, however, were as red as fire, flaunting how fresh they were. When they came up the mountain, they had also seen the sight of leaves drifting along water in a creek.

Jiang Cheng had realized as well, “At the bottom of the pool, it’s likely that there’s a hole connected with water from the outside. That would’ve brought in the maple leaves in the forest creek. (Chapter 53)

Saving Wei WuXian from the XuanWu of Slaughter

Jiang Cheng still had three disciples who couldn’t swim beside him. This could be considered the last batch. He knew that they weren’t able to wait and had to dive into the water without Wei WuXian. Wei WuXian only realized after he had pulled the arrow out of his arm, Oh no!

The scent of blood had provoked the beast. Its neck suddenly grew in length faster than ever and its fangs had opened wide!

Before Wei WuXian could think of what to do next, his body tilted as somebody shoved him to the side.

Lan WangJi had pushed him out of the way.

With this opportunity, the jaws of the beast had closed, biting down on his leg.

Wei WuXian’s right leg hurt from simply watching the scene. Lan WangJi’s face was still expressionless. He had only frowned slightly. Afterward, he was immediately dragged away!

Judging from the size and the bite strength of the beast, it could easily be able to sever a person from the waist into two pieces. Fortunately, it seemed that it didn’t like to eat broken ones. After it had bitten someone, it would shrink into its shell, no matter if the person was dead or alive, so that it could savor it slowly. Or else, if its jaw had just used some strength, Lan WangJi’s leg would’ve been broken already. Its shell was extremely hard, impenetrable by any blade. If it dragged Lan WangJi inside, then he’d most likely never come out again!

(…)

Lan WangJi didn’t expect that he (Wei WuXian) could catch up even under such circumstances. He was utterly shocked. (Chapter 53)

Killing the XuanWu of Slaughter

Lan WangJi picked up a bow with his left hand, attentively examining the material. His right hand strummed across the bowstring. It somehow managed to create the sonorous clang of metal.

This was a weapon used by the cultivational world to hunt down beasts and demons. The material used for the bows and arrows were nothing of the norm. Lan WangJi broke off all of the bowstrings from the bows and tied them from top to bottom into a long chord. With both hands he stretched the chords taut and immediately flicked his wrists. The chord shot out as though it was lightning. A flash of white light flared across and a rock ten feet away was smashed into pieces.

Lan WangJi retrieved the chord. The bowstring broke with a sharp cry through the air.

Wei WuXian, “Chord Assassination?”

Chord Assassination was one of the techniques unique to the GusuLan Sect. It was created by and passed down from the granddaughter of the sect’s founder, Lan An—the third sect leader, Lan Yi. Lan Yi was also the only female sect leader of the Lan Sect, cultivating with the guqin. Her guqin had seven strings that could be joined and dismantled within moments. The seven strings were arranged from the most slender to the thickest. One moment she’d be playing noble melodies over them with her soft, fair fingers, and one moment later they’d be able to cut through flesh and bone as though cutting through mud, transformed into lethal weapons within her hands.

Lan Yi created Chord Assassination originally to assassinate dissidents, which was why she was often criticized. The GusuLan Sect was also quite ambivalent on its comments of such a sect leader. Undeniably, though, Chord Assassination was one of the most powerful, most versatile fighting techniques of the GusuLan Sect.

Lan WangJi, “Breach through within.”

The turtle shell was as solid as a fortress. Its surface was extremely hard, seemingly impossible to penetrate. But the more that this was true, the weaker the parts that it hid within its shell could turn out to be. Wei WuXian had also thought of this throughout the past few days. He knew what Lan WangJi meant.

(…) And Lan WangJi had already positioned the chord before the hole of its head. He had been waiting since long ago. As soon as the Xuanwu rushed outside, he pulled the chord tight and strummed across it. The bowstring vibrated and cut into its flesh!

The beast could neither go in or come out, suppressed by the two’s attacks. It was a deformed beast and not truly divine. It never had much intelligence to begin with. Under the pain, it had gone completely insane, waving its head and its tail as it rampaged within the dark water. It tumbled inside a large whirlpool, stirring up crashing waves. But, no matter what it did, one of the two stuck firmly to its mouth so that it couldn’t eat anything while the other used a chord to strangle its thin vital region, cutting into it inch by inch. As the cut deepened, its bleeding also worsened!

Lan WangJi pulled tightly on the chord, refusing to loosen up for even a split second. He held for six hours.

Six hours later was when the Xuanwu of Slaughter finally ceased to move.(Chapter 55)

Part 2

[witcherheadcanonswithdrkrzy]

Witcher Character Ages Pt. 1

The Preface

Since I have decided to make head canons for “the witcher” I have come forward to bring order into the chaos. So here we are. With me once again writing something I’ve already written in a discord. Buckle up people, this is gonna be a lot. Also Spoilers, duh

To make things very clear: many things I’ll write in this posts are not my work. In fact it’s mostly taken from the following posts

http://www.sapkowski.su/modules.php?name=Articles&pa=showarticle&artid=112#21

https://dtf.ru/flood/30575-vozrast-glavnyh-personazhey-vselennoy-vedmaka

https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline

Now the keen eyed reader might notice that two of these links lead to sites that are written in Russian, to which I would say: “You are right. They totally are.”

Now moving on quickly, I will present you with some reference points for the general timeline:

The book-saga: Geralt’s story ends in June 1268, the Assault on Stygga Castle most likely happens in March

The Witcher: May - September 1270

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings: April - November 1271

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: May - ? 1272

The Witcher: Of Flesh and Flame: 1273 but it’s a comic so I’ll promptly ignore it

Blood and Wine DLC: 1275

Furthermore and it might not even be relevant but I think it is so I’m including it, there is an interesting document one can find in Wither 3 in Kaer Morhen about the Trial of Grasses. This document suggests the age range for this trial (8-10 years) and considering. Both Russian sites I have linked have made the connection that The Witcher mostly resembles the real world High Middle Ages, which in order suggests the age of maturity being 21 (it’s not mentioned in the English wiki tho, that’s why there is the German link).

So. Now that we got the out of the way let’s get to our first subject:

Vesemir

We have ... literally no idea, BUTT! the timeline I included states he was active during 1112, so he has to be very much older. Apparently he has been around for the construction of Kaer Morhen as well.

The first witchers were put on recorded in the 960s, though the wiki timeline states the 950s (probably a typo). They were created by the two mages Cosimo Malaspina and Alzur (who probaly did most of the work). Kaer Morhen was constructed at the end of the X century, so perhaps Pappy Vesemir was one of the first witchers. Which would mean he would have to been born 939 (earliest). Which would in make him 333 years old during the events of the Wild Hunt.

Ciri and Timelines

Okay let’s get this out of the way now. Most of the short story timelines have been (as far as I can see) calculated with Ciri’s age.

As explained in the first link, in the last book Emhyr and Geralt meet for a second time, the first being during the feast in Cintra (A Question of Price). Here Emhyr states the have seen each other 16 years ago (I am paraphrasing). Ergo: “A Question of Price” happened in 1252.

Ciri was born during Belleteyn, which is celebrated April 30th to May 1st, so it is safe to assume she was born in 1253.

Ciri was brought to Kaer Morhen in autum of 1263 and it’s safe to assume he brought her to the keep as soon as he found her in “Something More”. That means the first war with Niflgaard happened in either 1262 or 1263. The fall of Cintra happened then as well. Not too long before that Geralt met Ciri for the first time in “Sword of Destiny”. 1262.

Also I need to mention one other thing: the game does state Ciri’s year as both 1251 and 1253, but I’m sure we can all agree CDPR made a mistake. Ciri is 19 in W3.

Geralt (and Eskel)

Since Geralt and Eskel are said to be the same age Imma just throw them together, which means figuring out Geralt’s age is key here.

Though the games state him to be almost a century old, it’s rather unlikely in my humble opinion. CDPR might have just assumed that because of Yennefers age (which I’ll get to eventually). However, the books mention another character we can use as reference for Geralt’s age: Nenneke.

In the books Nenneke is described as T H I C C and smol, but never really as old. She’s also rather graceful and quick. Nenneke mentions she raised Geralt, from a young age and mentions his height being around her waist back then. Perhaps Geralt was around 5 years old. The short story in which we can read so much about Nenneke (”The voice of Reason”) apparently happens not too long after Geralt invoked the “Law of Surprise” in Cintra, so maybe around 1253. If we assume Nenneke is in her 50s in that story, and she is probably at least 15 years older than Geralt - that way she would have been 20 when she began to raise him - Geralt’s year of birth can be ranged between 1210 and 1220, to which the article just said “Meh, let’s meet in the middle”. Geralt was born in 1215, which makes him 57 years old. Which means Eskel is 57 years old as well.

From that we can also date the short story “A Grain of Truth”, which is probably one of his first adventures judging by how unprofessional he behaves at times; he talks to Roach (which is a thing that never really happens in the books outside of that story), takes ages to figure out that he’s dealing with a Bruxa, oh and he fucking yells at her. Probably 1235ish.

“The Lesser Evil” also probably happened quite early in his career, so maybe around 1240ish.

Dandelion

Or Jaskier, whichever you like better. His birth year was actually given as 1229, which makes him 43 during the events of the Wild Hunt. Also the second article I linked in the beginning mentions he started singing in 1248, aged 18-19. “The Last Wish” is estimated to have happened in 1250. By that time Dandelion and Geralt have already been friends. “The Edge of the World” chronologically happens before that, so maybe in either 1248 or 1249.

And Yennefer

Yennefer actually states her age in “Tower of Swallow” (1267). She’s 94 in that book, so she’s 99 years old in the third game. She was born during Belleteyn in 1173. In 1250, during the Last Wish she and Geralt were 77 and 35 respectively. Shortly afterwards they broke up, meeting each other four years later in “Bounds of Reason” and probably broke up once again during the events of “A Shard of Ice”. Both of these stories happen in 1254.

On that note, both “The eternal Flame” or how a Witcher befriended a Doppler and “A Little Sacrifice” or relationships suck without compromises also happen in 1254.

**********

Well that’s it for today, Kids. I don’t know when I’ll do Pt. 2, but it’ll probably include Geralt’s Hanse, Lambert, Triss and maybe Emhyr too.

Also, this is literally me rn

Also, I swear Part 2 is going to be less of a mess

[ancientbrit]

Natter #3 24th June 2020

So, on  Saturday morning, I took part of my breakfast (yogurt) from our backup  fridge in the garage, but when I put the first spoonful in my mouth I noticed that it was warm. Strange that. So I checked the fridge and found that everything in it was warm. The freezer contents - weren't.This was a disaster as I had been to QFC a couple of days previously buying frozen and fresh foods including four half gallons of milk. Jean had been out the day after for the first time in 12 weeks and part of her haul was more milk and ice cream.I imagine that the excitement of being out again at last and back to her old stamping grounds overcame memory. So here we were rushing around trying to save what we could by rearranging everything in the kitchen fridge and then trying to close the door.The old fridge was possibly down on refrigerant and I was a bit annoyed for a brief moment until I remembered when we bought it. It was when we lived at the 'old house' way back in 1970 and it was already a year old when we got it! My word - 50 years old. I should have remembered as it's color is 'Harvest Gold' which hasn't been seen on store shelves in donkeys ages. I tend not to date things by color though, as modern colors mean little to me - 'Taupe' for instance means less than nothing. My lexicon runs in terms of the spectrum. But forgetting it's date made me think back to those 'Old House days' and what we were about then. Those days and other old days that preceded that time.  My memory of 'then' is perfectly clear  - it seems just like it was yesterday even though I know how long ago it actually was. So many friends and relatives who are no longer around to share those times with, One of the things that have remained constant is our phone number. Of course, then we had an exchange name -  Adams 2, which has now been transmuted to numbers - 232, and I think doing this has lost the feeling of romance that it seemed to have for me. When I was a kid many of our dairy and grocery items were delivered to the door by horse-drawn carts - very few people or businesses had a sufficiently high priority during the war to have a petrol ration. Mum had joined the "Co-op" for convenience and of course, there was the benefit of a bonus payout at year's end. I loved these horses and would meet them outside and feed them apples, carrots and whatever else I had to hand. Still firmly in my mind is the Co-op number I had to recite to the driver when we had milk or groceries delivered - 157376.Being horses they would leave proof of their passage along the road and my Dad would pay me a shilling per bucket full of 'Golden Apples' as my Dad referred to this natural function It seemed like it was too demeaning a job for a full-grown adult  and using his term was sort of distancing himself from the unpleasantness.It used to embarrass me a bit too, but you couldn't argue with the reward. it was all grist to the mill, and it did do the roses a power of good. In 1956, I had been out of the RAF for a year and had also just recently returned home from a  very long sojourn in hospital, and my Dad was persuaded, against his will, to have a phone installed. Phones were not then usual to find in most houses and my Dad's reluctance was based on the very real belief that his company could too easily find him at inconvenient times. I told him that it was an absolute necessity in that day and age and so at last it was installed. Our phone number was Fairlands 4725 and as I said, I remember the old exchanges with affection. Others in our neighborhood were Derwent and Vigilant and my favorite Aunt had the best I always felt - Silverthorn - lovely. The Fairlands exchange was essential to me as when I was discharged from the hospital I had left behind a lovely German nurse with whom I had developed special feelings.When I had become sufficiently fit to allow me to leave the hospital and walk around the grounds, I used to collect any outgoing mail from other patients who were still confined to bed and take it some distance up the road, through the snow to a mailbox. Just to make sure I would be okay, Irmgard, for such was her name, would accompany me and we would find a need to indulge in long hugs and exchange lip locks - just to keep the cold at bay you understand? Shared bodily warmth is a great way to defeat the weather! Later, returning to the hospital, which had been a big old private house standing in its own grounds, we would split up at the circular drive with a last goodnight kiss. Irmgard would go round to the kitchen door and I would go the other way to the front door. Knowing that our companion runs were our secret, I was surprised to find the youngish Matron just inside the door. With a twinkle in her eye, she asked if it was cold out and I acknowledged that it was. She told me that I should be careful that I didn't get chapped lips, but then added that lipstick was a sovereign remedy - and departed with a grin. So much for secrecy! Irmgard's phone exchange name at the hospital was Coombe Wood - not exactly what might be termed 'romantic' but association made it so. Our association was quite intense and a forthcoming proposal, whilst welcomed, was at that time impossible for Irmgard to accept. Her sister was soon to marry, another Englishman and they would be returning to England to live after their honeymoon. She would not leave her parents alone just like that. She had been sent to England for a couple of years to improve her English and was soon to return home to Bad Canstatt, just outside Stuttgart. As I was about to return to my studies we were parted and unlikely to meet again any time soon. So our contacts were limited to letters and very rare and expensive phone calls and so the Canstatt exchange also lives brightly in my memory. Unfortunately, long-distance relations tend to strain circumstances and over time our contacts became less and less,     Sometime later I reached a point where I was able to take a trip to the Continent. I wrote to Irmgard to tell her that at last I was able to come over to see her, not being really sure of my reception as I hadn't written for ages.Within days I had a reply and although she was totally delighted that I was coming she told me that she had become engaged. I couldn't really blame her as I had been very lax, but she wanted me to come and meet her family when I arrived. She was really very good and took me all over the city and ended at her parents' home in the evening to a party for her sister and new husband, just returned from their honeymoon on Lake Constance. It was a really nice evening and I got on very well with her parents, but of course, I didn't like her fiance at all! After all this, although I had been given her brother-in-law's name and address back home I was never able to contact him. I would love to have kept up to know how her life proceeded. I still have her framed portrait photograph she sent me when she had first returned home, inscribed "Zur stehten Erinnerung" Deine Irmgard. I have been occupying some of my evenings on the computer lately sorting and printing out the Natters that Jo & Tom and Janet have been good enough to get to me. As they all seem to have been listed well out of order I am busy trying to see what I have and what might yet still be missing. The job has been compounded by the difficulty I have experienced in opening the Flash Drive. Sometimes it allows me to zip along, opening files, but then will stop and nothing will work. Next day I try again and I am off to the races again. But I am getting there slowly and tonight (Monday) I completed taking off hardcopies, Now I can sort through, putting them in chronological order and see what I shall see. Much more later, but there seems to be nothing before 2012 so I guess that was when I started. As I mentioned last Natter I have been attacking Lily of the Valley and I am almost finished - at least with what was visible. Along the way, I have also removed Sword ferns, Cedar seedlings five feet high and Jasmine. The Jasmine was an insignificant rooted cutting, from where I have no recollection. It had been placed in a pot on the ground and had been overgrown by all sorts of stuff and over the last year had gone nuts. It was to be used at the Plant Sale and now there are five separate plants threatening to strangle you on the approach to the greenhouse so of course, they have to go. The final gap in my deer-proof fencing was completed a week ago but I forgot to mention it to the deer and my hostas have now been browsed off on three separate occasions. As soon as it looks like there might be leaves on Empress Wu that might be reaching terminal size, they disappear and I am beginning to think that I will have to curtail totally growing the items they obviously consider their personal snack bar. 'Doesn't really leave much selection but at least, so far, my cardiocrinums don't feature on their menu. 'Have to be grateful for small mercies I suppose. One good thing has come out of this. My neighbor (ex MG Jill) who has allowed me to use three raised beds to grow veg, has been getting worried that I might fall from the area where the raised beds live - on a raised part of the garden with a six-foot-high rock wall as it's western boundary. She sees me stepping back to admire my work and then bailing out over the edge. So she is having a large bed prepared at the bottom of the wall, which will be enclosed by a deer-proof cage. It will also benefit from the heat held by the rock wall - all sorts of interesting possibilities there. She is a good friend. So next year we might actually be able to eat something we have grown. 'Haven't been able to do that for the last four years now, except for Onions and Garlic! Got started on removing existing plants today and I think it was the hardest day's work I have done for ages.I had to have a nap in the afternoon, but I couldn't tell whether that was because I had two early start days or the sheer grind of lifting heavy plants.You have likely realised that I am just stumbling along here so I will finish and get to bed.

Your fearless and weary leader.Gordon

[dramallamadingdang]

I was going to do this with "in-line" replies, but it just got unwieldy and doing the mentions in a multi-reply reply is a PITA. So we do it this way. A really long (sorry!) post of replies for @taylors-simblr, @niamh-sims, @hugelunatic, @mustluvcatz-reloaded, @simaddicted-sue, @dunne-ias, @pensblr, @mdpthatsme, and @yuichen about kids and stuff...

taylors-simblr replied to your post “OMG, I'M GLAD THAT'S OVER!”

I am very happy that Christmas is over, we went to my mums. I had decided it would be lovely, and it was to an extent, but we were there for 5 days and there were too many people and kids and by day 3, I was peopled out and just wanted to get home. Daughter had her 3rd birthday on Friday too and was a horrible mess of over excitement ��, but that’s all over and things are getting back to normal. Except for the piles of toys people bought us, that I have no where to put...

I always feel bad for kids with Xmas-time birthdays. Their special day gets lost in the madness. That’s part of the reason why I always made more fuss over birthdays than Xmas, since my son’s birthday is December 17. Mini-Taylor is young enough not to be resentful, but I hope she'll be OK as she gets older. :)

But yeah, for me, the main problem is that everyone was at my house and stayed here because lodging in this area is scarce and the affordable options have to be booked months or sometimes even years in advance. My son is in the Army and he’s only just home after a long deployment, and the timing of his going home was always in question. When they knew (more or less) for sure when they’d be coming, all of the lodging in the area had long been booked. (This is why we have frequent (adult) houseguests, which I'm perfectly fine with.) The original plan was for my son and his family to stay with his wife's family, which is literally next door because my son married the literal girl next door. That would have been better. Theirs is an enormous family -- 14 kids, 3 bio ones and the rest fosters that were taken in and adopted, most of them still teens and younger -- so they have a huge house and they're well used to little-kid chaos and sort of revel in it. But right before people were scheduled to arrive, their house came down with some severe plumbing problems, and stuffing it with 30+ people was just a no-go. So, they ended up here, at more or less the last minute.

The kids are 4, just past 2, and 7 months old, all in the age range that I can't tolerate. I'm OK with tiny, non-mobile babies, but after they're mobile, I do not want until they're about 8-to-10 or so. So, since they were here, if I wanted peace, I was the one who had to leave my own house. Which isn't terrible or anything in the grand scheme of things, but it is annoying. Plus, the 7-month-old had an ear infection, and flying cross-country didn't help it. They almost cancelled coming out because of it, but the 4-year-old had been promised learning how to snowboard and would have been totally crushed. So then daughter-in-law was going to stay back with 7-month-old, but that seemed unfair to DIL to be deprived of her family, and I and the other grandparents hadn't even seen the younger two kids in person. So, they drugged 7-month-old up to his eyeballs, and did the thing. So 7-month-old was just crabby and awful and had trouble nursing the whole time, which only added to the crabby awfulness, which in turn made 2-year-old awful. (Four-year-old was actually pretty OK the whole time, did learn to snowboard, and sort of fell in love with my husband. Which, you know, I understand. *laugh* They both cried when she left. :) ) I understood that the baby didn’t feel well and the 2-year-old was upset by it, of course, but that doesn't make it any less annoying when they're both screaming more or less 24/7. Gave me terrible flashbacks to my daughter's preemie-baby/toddlerhood. *sigh*

But yeah, I survived to rant about it. :) 

niamh-sims replied to your post “OMG, I'M GLAD THAT'S OVER!”

I am a woman who doesn't want my own children (much to the chagrin of many people I speak with), and I struggle with other people's kids. In saying that though, I absolutely adore my 5 year old nephew, he is a dude, and my 9 year old step-son is an old soul and extremely mature with a wicked sense of humour. They're all I need!

I hate the presents aspect of it! 

See, 9-year-olds I'm (usually) fine with. My window of intolerance is from about 6 months through the little-kid years. It seems like when a kid hits 8 or 10 or so that a switch flips in them and their behavior changes from little-kid to big-kid. Sometimes that happens earlier, often with girls; I've known 5-or-6-year-old girls (and a few boys, too) that I've been just fine with. I’ll probably be fine with my son’s eldest when she’s 5 or 6 because she was pretty OK even at 4 under trying circumstances. But mostly it seems to happen in the 8-to-10 window. It's the start of "tweenhood," I guess. I'm fine with "big kids" even if their chronological age is a little younger than normal to be a "big kid." I'm also perfectly fine with teens, even when they're really surly. I'll take a super-surly 14-year-old over a "cute," bouncy, loud 2-year-old, even if well-behaved, any day. Which is weird, I guess, but there it is. Someone has to deal with the teens. :)

And yeah, the presents thing. In my own, nuclear family, starting when it was just me and my little kids, we don't do presents other than small hand-made gifts if someone feels like making them. We just did stockings on the morning of Xmas Eve. They were filled with little things, small toys and candy and as they got older some more practical things, like makeup/nail polish or small bits of sports equipment and stuff. When they hit tweenhood, we'd each fill each other's stockings, not just me filling theirs. We developed a tradition of exchanging goofy toothbrushes that way, of all things. :) It wasn't that we couldn't afford to do big gifts; I just didn't want to instill that kind of mindset in them. Our tradition from the time my youngest was about 8 was to spend Xmas Day at the local shelter/kitchen for homeless/transient people, which did both Xmas breakfast and dinner. We'd be there, kids included, from pre-dawn until after midnight, prepping, cooking, serving, eating with the people the kitchen served, and cleaning up. It was actually really fun (the kids even looked forward to it) and really fulfilling and, to me, that's what Xmas ought to be about. Not the consumer frenzy. I have no interest in feeding and perpetuating that frenzy and while it caused some problems as the kids grew up when they found that their peers got showered with extravagant gifts, they also realized that they’d get gift-showered for their birthdays, and they've both said that they prefer the more low-key way we did Xmas as a family as well as the more service-oriented mindset, which they both have continued. Aside from this Xmas just past, which we did more "traditionally," but still without extravagant gifts.

hugelunatic replied to your post “OMG, I'M GLAD THAT'S OVER!”

I love my granddaughter to pieces! But I can only stand being around her without her parents around. LoL

And hello my fellow Grinch! *loves*

They are definitely better without their parents! :) We took 4-year-old to the slopes on the day after Xmas without her parents, and it was a ton of fun. Spent the whole morning teaching her how to snowboard, had lunch in town, boarded bunny slopes/courses with her, would have done dinner out, too, but she was crashing by that point, etc., and it was all great. None of us, including the 4-year-old, wanted to go home to the screaming baby and toddler. *laugh* 

I will be fine when the kids are older. I'm fine with my other set of three grandkids -- the kids of my firstborn, whom I don't call "my son" because he was adopted at birth, so I don't feel that I am his parent for all that he's my bio-son -- the youngest of whom is 8 and the eldest almost 15 (and a Simmer, along with his next-younger sibling :) ). They live in Botswana, but they come over to the states fairly often and will be here this coming fall for a month and will stay with us, and I'm perfectly fine with that. The problem is, my son and his wife want a large family -- She comes from one, they're conservative Christians, etc. -- so by the time they're done having/adopting them, it'll be a long time -- probably longer than I'll live -- that they'll all be older. So then I'm put in the position of wanting to be around some of them but not all of them, which is not fair to them, but...yeah. In some ways, it's good that they live far away. I'm good with visiting with all of them via Skype. :) But they might not always be far. When my son retires from the Army after he puts in his 20 years, they plan to move back out here. But I might not be alive by then or at least I might no longer be able to live at altitude, so there's that. :)

And...GRINCHES UNITE! *high five*

mustluvcatz-reloaded replied to your post “OMG, I'M GLAD THAT'S OVER!”

And there I was.. Happy as hell to see my grands and sad to see them leave. But I rarely see them so.. *back to being a Scroogy Grinch*

I think most people are happy to see their grands and sad to see them leave. I'm an outlier, I know. I've never actually liked little kids, despite raising two of my own. In truth, my husband and I were pressured into it, he more so than me, but I was trying to be a "good, obedient Christian wife." It's not surprising that I struggled and that it all contributed to the end of that marriage. I did not enjoy my kids when they were little. I gave up my career because I felt that I had to (Husband didn’t want me to, actually, but I couldn’t imagine living the life we lived dragging a kid around, which was another nail in the marriage’s coffin), and there’s a part of me that will always regret that. And I resented that my husband didn’t have to give up his career, that of course it fell to me to do so. I mean, I loved my kids, of course, but that's a different thing from wanting to be around them all the time and always enjoying their company. It was a huge struggle for me, and I'm glad it’s over. Teen/adult kids are great, though, and I'm thankful they both turned out well. Because, yeah, I’m a mom who doesn’t like kids, and worse I was a single mom who didn’t like kids, which could’ve been utterly disastrous, but I muddled through, living for the day when they’d be grown-ups.

And more for the Grinch Club, woo! :) (Also, I am only just now reading about what you're going through. I am so, so sorry. :( )

simaddicted-sue replied to your post “OMG, I'M GLAD THAT'S OVER!”

I feel your pain and raise you 14 grandkids I love them dearly especially when they are not here lol

*sigh* Should I live long enough, I'll have at least 14 grandkids. My firstborn and his wife are done. They only wanted two, especially because there were problems with the second pregnancy. The third was an IUD fail, and then both got surgically sterilized in the aftermath, just to be safe. But my son and his wife....They want 8, minimum. They're planning on 4 bio kids (and will gladly accept more if they happen), and then they want to adopt, just as her family did. And then there's my daughter and her partner. They will marry in a few years and they're both anti-kid right now...but they're also only in their early 20s and when their mutual female biological clocks kick in, who knows what might happen? They might be like me and remain uninterested in kids for life or they might not. In any case, my health is not the best and will only get worse as time goes on, so I will have that as an excuse not to have littles around much, at least. There are silver linings to chronic conditions! :)

dunne-ias replied to your post “OMG, I'M GLAD THAT'S OVER!”

meh, stay healthy and you'll live to have a relationship you might even enjoy when they're older. Not everyone has to like kids, even it they're related to you. I had my nephews visiting for a few days, which meant 4 days of almost non-stop Zelda-playing, but they're in just the right age for a visit, as in mature enough to handle their basic needs on their own.

Yeah, older kids can be a lot of fun, and I have no -- or at least a lot fewer -- problems with them. My firstborn's two eldest kids play Sims (The eldest plays TS4, but the 13-year-old prefers TS3. :) ), so sometimes we'll be on Skype together, all playing our games and yakking at each other about it, for hours, and we have a lot of fun that way. The TS3-playing kid and I are playing Dragon Valley concurrently, cycling through the premade households and doing different things with them, which is fun. And my son's four-year-old sat on my lap while I played TS2 a bit to chill out this past week, and she was fascinated and “helped” me a little, so now I plan to "groom" her as best I can going forward. ;) Video games are a good way to bond with kids. :) And when the firstborn's family is here, I'm sure we'll be doing plenty of that, as a group, since all of us love video games of various types. The Mortal Kombat tournament will be vicious and I will undoubtedly lose, but I will have fun while I am repeatedly, violently killed. :) 

We'll just have to see what happens with my son and his planned never-ending parade of children who aren't allowed a lot of screen time and "educational" video games are only allowed in very limited doses. *sigh* I have to come up with a sales pitch that makes TS2 “educational.” Well, it did make my daughter interested in the Middle Ages, since she played a medieval game, and she is now working on a graduate degree in Medieval Studies and has a talent for writing well-researched historical fiction as well as interesting narrative non-fiction, so....

pensblr replied to your post “OMG, I'M GLAD THAT'S OVER!”

My husband and I really chuckle quite a bit (as we continue to happily enjoy our child-free lives) when we are judged for not doing the whole kid thing by people who always seem stressed-out trying to juggle everything. I'm like 'I don't judge you for wanting children. So don't judge me for not wanting them.'  Recently had a male colleague tell me that God put men and women here to have children, and if we didn't "What's the whole purpose of life then?"

Yeah, child-free is a great way to live! Especially if you're double income/no kids, I'd imagine. IF you can deal with the constant judgment and the pressure from people who want grandkids or nieces/nephews and the accusations of being selfish and pressures from one's religion, if that's a factor, and all that crap, of course. :\ 

Since my husband is almost 20 years younger than me, has no children, and I'm past menopause, I get a lot of side-eyes not just for our age difference (though with my gray hair dyed and a general lack of wrinkles because I’ve never been able to expose myself to much sunlight, I look (and act) younger than I am, so at least that helps with that) but also for our inability to procreate. I get a lot of "But what about when he wants kids? It's not fair to him to be married to someone who can't have kids!" (Which is a lovely argument to lob at anyone! I mean, I guess involuntarily infertile young people shouldn't marry fertile people then? *eyeroll* ) But he doesn't want kids. His own father died suddenly at 39 of a massive coronary, and when it happened his mom checked out for a bit, leaving him to deal with his grief and mostly raise his three younger siblings -- the youngest of whom was only 2 -- until she got her shit together, which took her years to do because she got addicted to the tranquilizers the dumbass doctors prescribed and had to do rehab, etc.. He did his time parenting starting when he was 14 until he was about 22. He has zero interest in having his own kids and can’t imagine that changing, though he loves being around other people's kids that he can give back to their parents. He absolutely loves being a step-grandparent of 6 at the age of 37, in addition to being an uncle to his siblings' kids. :) Even if he does eventually want his own kids, it'll probably be after I'm gone and then he'll be free to find someone to procreate with, if he and that partner want to spawn. So, I tell those people to just fuck right off.

And ugh, that "God put men and women on Earth to be fruitful and multiply and if you don't do it you're just selfish -- and having “sinful” sex -- and going against God's will and there's no point to your life" thing. That's why I had kids. That's NOT the right reason to have kids, but I was so brainwashed at the time that I didn't think that way. Or at all, really, at least not about that subject. Ugh. Ugh ugh UGH! I wish I'd responded with a polite-but-mighty "fuck off," too...but I DO like my kids and am thankful that they exist, so...yeah. 

Rant! Sorry! :)

mdpthatsme replied to your post “OMG, I'M GLAD THAT'S OVER!”

28 years old, don't like children, don't want to have children because I know this about myself and I'm ok with it. People tell me it's a phase and I'll want children soon enough. I'm like, uh, no. Family and friends get aggravated with me when I don't hold their babies or don't want to watch their children. Like has the point not come across yet?

Yeah, everyone tells under-30 women who don't want kids that they'll change their mind. So many women want to be sterilized but doctors won't do it because "they might change their mind." Some have the nerve to get them to get permission from their husband, if they're married. My daughter suffers from terrible endometriosis is in almost constant pain from it. Over the years she's gone through all the treatments short of hysterectomy and nothing has worked, at least not permanently. She badly wants that hysterectomy but to date has found no doctor -- at least here in the States; I’m thinking she might have better luck in Europe -- who will do one because she's only 22 and unmarried. They think she'll marry a man (which she won't do; she's pretty firmly declared herself a femme lesbian) and then magically want kids. They even have the balls to tell her that if she goes ahead and births a kid, that might cure her condition because GOD FORBID they just do the relatively easy procedure that will likely cure her. Instead, they'd rather saddle her with a kid or at best make her go through a pregnancy and then have the kid adopted. At which point the endo might just come back again. 

I really can't believe how misogynistic gynecologists can be, even the female ones. Maybe their brains are warped by the women who desperately want kids but can't have them. I have enormous sympathy for those women, truly I do, but their plight should not prevent women who don't want kids from taking more drastic steps to not have them and certainly shouldn't force women to suffer through medical conditions that would be cured or at least made better by being completely sterile.

And yeah, the family constantly pushing babies at you and wanting you to babysit, just because you happen to have a pair of boobs. Nope. I'm thankful that my gay brother and his husband are not interested in kids and wouldn’t have cared if I didn’t have any, and that my mother is indifferent to the concept of grandchildren, but I DO have a lot of kid-crazy cousins that I did my best to avoid like the plague but when I couldn't were constantly trying to "convert" me by shoving their "adorable" babies in my face. They don't do it anymore with our advanced age and all, but when they were actively popping them out before I had any, as an older teen/young adult saying I had no interest in kids, it was like they were on a freakin' crusade, complete with forced conversion. *eye roll* Even though at that point I HAD birthed a kid not at all by choice and had given him up for adoption. Nope, not good enough. I had to have one that I wanted, I guess. And when I did have kids, they were all smug and, “See, we knew you’d change your mind!” Even though I really hadn’t. It's sick. Not every woman loves babies/kids.

MOAR RANT! More sorry. :)

yuichen

replied to your post

“OMG, I'M GLAD THAT'S OVER!”

36, no kids. I like my brother's but probably because they're older and I missed most of their early lives. My cousins' kids, however? Fuck no. I avoid the whole massive family gathering because they weren't taught to have respect for people's things, or how to not act like little psychos. I'm talking jumping on the furniture and running around screaming while their parents do absolutely nothing. In a small house. Fuck. That.

Oh yeah. In my experience, the most adamant baby-pushers were the ones who had the worst-behaved kids. They "loved" them so much that they never established/enforced boundaries and thought that any kind of discipline would damage them somehow. *eye roll* One of my cousins never made her kids sit down to eat. They just wandered around the table grabbing food (with their hands!) from serving dishes or, worse, from other people's plates. They let them do that in restaurants, even. It was disgusting. Or, the most adamant baby-pushers were the ones who were also complaining about how stressful their life/marriage was and who could be heard pining for the pre-kid years of their relationships. And I'd just give them a meaningful look. But if you point out that you just don't want to complicate your relationship/life by adding spawn to it, well then you're just “selfish.” 

Yup. I was at some point, at least in that regard. Being a more fundamentalist-type Christian in my 20s/30s warped my brain on the subject, but down in my heart-of-hearts...I would've been perfectly happy being that kind of "selfish." No, I wouldn’t give up my kids now, but if I’d never had them, I would’ve been perfectly OK, too.

[bluekayanite]

(SU:F Theory) Was “Volleyball” REALLY hurt by Pink?

So I guess that the premiere was not one big, long ep as I expected, but rather four little ones in succession. XD;

Still, there's a good chunk of theory material.  I decided to start with the one that was most important to me.  It took longer than I expected to write (I'm sort of amazed at how much I can find in a 10-minute ep XD), though it’s actually a lot shorter than a lot of my posts (which... is only saying so much). XD;  (It may also be a bit messier than usual because I've been tired and lacking the energy to edit much. -.-; )

EDIT: Added another section at the end - also, some clarifications and stuff have been made. EDIT2: Added another detail that seems important. =3 EDIT2a: And another. XD

Quick note in case you don't know: my basic theory is that Rose was not Pink Diamond, and that the whole thing was crafted by White, through her mind-control powers.  This is not only a list of what looks like general contradictions, but a list of stuff that seems to support this idea. =3

More timeline inconsistencies

Pearl's story is loaded with things that don't make sense, in terms of chronology.  And this ep just introduced another:

"I was given to Pink Diamond just a few thousand years before she was given the Earth." - Pearl, Now We're Only Falling Apart

A few thousand years - as in, probably 3,000-4,000.  It's been established that Pink first got the Earth 6,000 years ago.  This would mean that Pink got Pearl 9,000-10,000 years ago.

...this doesn't match with Pink Pearl's (AKA "Volleyball's") timeframe.  (I hope you don't mind if I still call her Pink Pearl. XD; ) I mean, I guess it's possible that there's a lot of rounding involved, but it seems unlikely - it seems like Gems have a tendency to round to centuries and quarter-millenia.

"[Amethyst's] exit marks look about 500 years newer than every other hole." - Peridot, Too Far "The Earth, 5750 years ago[...] was a promising site of a new Gem colony." - Garnet, The Answer "It's been about 5,300 years [since we last saw you, Bismuth]. - Pearl, Bismuth

If Pearl were given to Pink a couple thousand years before the Earth thing happened, I think she would've said "a couple thousand years," and if were longer than a couple thou, I'd think that Pink Pearl would say so - at the very least, I'd think she'd say 8,500 years, or so.  As it is, though, it seems like a stretch at best, though a contradiction seems more likely.

I'd also like to note that the original name for "So Many Birthdays" was "10,000 birthdays" - I think this is probably how old Pearl is, and it fits within her timeline for when she was (supposedly) given to Pink.  I think the idea is supposed to be that she was given to Pink as soon as she was made - or at least, she remembers it that way. It seems likely that Pearl belonged to White at some point (it seems like everybody and their dogs have that theory XD; ), but it couldn't be the case if Pearl was given to Pink as soon as she was made.

Though even if she was rejuvenated and counting from that point... it still seems like a stretch to me.

I will note that Pink P.'s timeline was mentioned away from Pearl, who could've "corrected" her if she was nearby.  This kind of strikes me as a setup to a reveal that their memories aren't right - something that would be more obvious, later. XD

EDIT2: Also, the fact that Pink Pearl specifies Pink having destructive powers suggests that she knows that Pink had non-destructive powers - ones which, from the sound of it, she supposedly didn’t use until after losing Pink Pearl. ~_^

I know that a lot of people are in a "Pearl belonged to White once" camp right now - though personally, I never really left the "Pearl never belonged to Pink Diamond" camp. XD  I think this is one of the clues to support my "side" on this.

Pink Pearl's Still-Lasting Injury

First thing I want to note is: Change Your Mind, Pink Pearl seemed confused about her injury, as if she wasn't sure how she got it - the way she touched her broken eye highlights this.

And now, not only does she claim to know where it came from, but she's awfully nonchalant about it, even to the point of waving it off.

It's also implied that Pink Pearl was damaged before... possibly more than once.

Pearl: Well, when a Pearl was damaged, they were usually brought to the Reef. Pink Pearl: Yes!  That’s exactly what Pink would do.

And yet, the ONLY sign of a lasting, psychological trauma, is with her eye.  If getting hurt was a repeated occurrence for her, and it was that impactful for her, then why is there only the one major, lasting injury?

If Pink Pearl getting hurt by her Diamond, in of itself, was enough to cause emotional trauma, I'd think that she'd be covered in cracks that Pink couldn't repair.  The crack even shows on her hair, so I don't think any clothes on her form would cover them. Also, Shell implies that she only has one of this type of injury.

"This" injury - not "these" injuries (which would be a giveaway, if she had others).

That said, there must be something different about this injury.

Given Pink Pearl's story about going to White for a colony, it seems like the narrative would be that the same outburst that caused the injury was the same outburst that was the last straw for White, leading to the punishment that Blue talked about.

So in that case, it seems like it could've been trauma from being separated from Pink... though I have my doubts.  For one, Shell implied that it was the injury itself that was impactful - not the aftermath. So it sounds to me that what caused the injury is more likely to be the source of the trauma.

I think that the assumption that Steven and Pearl made - that White had something to do with it - is a lot more likely.  I don't think that White necessarily had to have caused the injury directly, though. Personally, I've always imaged that the injury happened because Pink Pearl, tried to resist the mind-control (possibly with help from an order of Pink's), and the pressure between the two became so great that something had to give... and it ended up being her eye.  (I also imagine that the immense pain involved would've given White a chance to take over.)

At any rate, White did manage to use her mind-control powers on Pink Pearl, so it's possible that whatever defenses White had to fight against are gone now (or at least, incredibly weakened).  And if White could take over a Gem completely, then altering memories seems well within her capabilities. I pretty much believe that White's been trying to cover up anything that might incriminate her, and an injury like that would certainly count.  And it's been years since Pink Pearl was released from White's control, so White's had plenty of opportunity to work her magic.

Another reason why I don't think that being taken away was the source of trauma is... basically what the entire next section's about (especially later in). XD;

Pink's Relationship with Pink Pearl

I think that Pink Pearl is a little too nonchalant about things besides her broken eye.  It's hard to forget how hard it was for Pearl to move on.

And Blue was torn to pieces over the loss.

"You cannot fathom how much I've mourned... what thousands of years of grief has done to me!” - Blue Diamond, Reunited

Even Yellow showed pain that she was trying to avoid.

So why isn't Pink Pearl more torn up about the thought of Pink?  She outright says that they were close...

And it's pretty obvious that she still thinks fondly of her.

So why isn't she grieving?  It's only been a couple years - maybe three - and she can talk about Pink without a hint of grief.

Also: she was told more about Steven than just his healing powers, right?  So she has to be thinking about Steven being "Pink's son"... right?  Because I'd really think that just being around Steven would be hard for her.

And yet... it doesn't seem to be an issue for her.

This just doesn't seem natural to me.  2-3 years is a really short time for a Gem, and many humans have trouble moving on in that timespan.  She cries freely later...

So it seems to me that the likely reason why she's not crying - or otherwise mourning - over Pink is because she's being prevented from doing so.  Once again, mind-affecting magic seems like a probable explanation.

On the flipside, it looks like Pearl is being prevented from remembering other details; she certainly seems jealous about the ribbon wand... which Pink Pearl explicitly says was a GIFT from Pink; not just an accessory.

This suggests that Pink saw Pearls - and I would guess Gems in general - as more than just objects.  It would certainly suggest that she saw HER Pearl as more than just an object, and reinforces the idea that they did have a good relationship (and I don't think I've mentioned, but it's been a headcanon of mine for a long time, so I'm happy there =3).  I don't think that Pearl would be jealous of such of gift unless she didn't have one - which doesn't seem like it would make sense, since Pearl clearly remembers that Pink did try to bond with her.

Even if Pink desperately wanted to change, I think it's unlikely that she would change in a way that would make her less kind, even if it was hard for her to really "click" with Pearl.  The wand is physical (magical?) evidence that Pink was the kind to really try to get along with her Pearl, so I'm going to say that this is a place where Pearl's memories are likely the (more-)altered ones.

Also, we have evidence that Pink would entertain Pink Pearl - and they had fun together.

And that she was even kind to Pebbles - judging by the way they "recognized" Steven.

So... yeah.  I think that Pink was kind to her Pearl in... basically EVERY way.  (Including Pearl, if that were applicable.)

I think that this would apply to injuries too.  If Pink really had brought Pink Pearl to the Reef multiple times, I think it would actually be an indication of how much she cared - sure, she may have messed up a lot, but she always made sure to try and take care of Pink Pearl when it happened.  This especially seems likely, given all the stuff that's said about how close they were, and all the evidence to support it.

And there is evidence that Pink Pearl had probably been exposed to Pink's sonic scream... most likely more than once.

So running under the assumption that she had been impacted by it, there are three ways (that I can think of) that it could have impacted her:

1) General emotional trauma related to the subject.  Would probably make the subject hard to talk about... possibly detail surrounding it, too (e.g. because the trauma would've come from Pink, Pink herself would've become a trauma-triggering topic).  (Doesn't fit with the story.) 2) Physical trauma becomes normalized.  Would be able to talk about it in stride, though might still be emotionally impacted by it if it happens, or if reminded of it.  (Seems to be the narrative being used.) 3) Care is given after physical trauma, so much that any emotional trauma is largely, or entirely negated, or even strongly outweighed by the care given.  Might be able to take physical trauma in stride because of a positive after-result, and/or may still react because it's still scary, even if things are better after. (Also plausible.)

As I've kind of talked about already, I'm thinking that number 3 is the most likely, even if it seems like number 2 is being said.

I'll also note that with number 3, it's possible that the scream could be upsetting not because it's associated with physical or emotional trauma on the part of Pink Pearl, but because it's associated with Pink being upset - something that Pink Pearl probably wouldn't want in any situation, especially considering that it has the potential to damage things, and make things go wrong (as had happened in the Reef).

Still, if number 3 was done, then physical injuries could actually result in a strengthening of the relationship, rather than a weakening.  I've even heard a story where a kid hurt his hand at a daycare, and the nurses treated him so well that other kids started hurting their hands on purpose - not as a simple "way of getting attention," but because the love that was shown was so moving and appealing that they were willing to put up with the pain in order to get it.

It could be that the reason why Pink Pearl is so okay with the Reef is because she associates it with her relationship with Pink - and it could be that Pearl doesn't like it because of a lack of that association.

I'd also like to go back to my mention of how I think that the eye-injury was probably not caused by Pink (or the relationship with her), but by trying not to be taken away from Pink.  Even so, I think it's possible that, since she now thinks that it was made by Pink's screaming, then a similar scream could still have been made into a trigger for the emotional trauma that DID make the injury, even if it was unrelated.

So... that said, I think it's still possible that the scream triggers trauma of being taken away from Pink, even if the injury was a result of being taken away, instead of maybe a cause of it. XD;

Still, if it was a result of her fighting to stay with Pink, then the broken would be a symbol of the STRENGTH of their relationship - not of problems with it.  Even then, the cracks getting worse could be a sign of underlying, hidden stressed... except suppressed subconsciously, as a result of White's magic. If this is the case, then I think there's a good chance that P. Pearl will opt to keep the injury, rather than remove it.

(Heck... even if the injury was caused by P. Pearl being taken away and Pink screaming because of it... a lot of the above paragraph could work, even if it's not as inspiring. XD; )

EDIT2a: I think it’s also important to consider how this fits (including timeline-wise) with what Spinel remembers: Pearl’s story suggests that Pink was working hard to be less hurtful, and she was already pretty kind to the Amethysts.

Pink Pearl’s story suggests that Pink already saw Gems as more than just objects to be tossed away once she got bored with them, and if she ever DID hurt them, then it wouldn’t be on purpose, and she would do her best to try and make things up, afterward.

(My personal theory is that Pink was trying to protect Spinel from the war that Pink was planning, and that was the only way she could do it.)

In general, it seems to me that Pink was always kind toward Gems.  Not cruel to them.

Pink and Secret-Keeping

Pink Pearl says that Pink "couldn't keep a secret to save her gem."  And yet, Steven had a dream where he (as Pink) and Pink Pearl would put on a "formal" act for Yellow, to hide the fact that they were having fun a moment ago... and it WORKS.

It really seems like there’s an element of truth to this, so I'd say that Pink was able to keep a secret just fine while Pink Pearl was still there - heck, it looks to me like they would keep secrets together.

There's more than that, though: there's also the fact that all the Pebbles would hide as soon as someone besides Pink was around.  (Even Pearl!)

This behavior seem to suggest that the Pebbles could've been in trouble - probably even in danger - if they were found out about.  Which means that Pink would've had to keep them secret; a secret that she apparently kept well, considering that the Pebbles are still there.

She even had a hidden room that was activated by a panel on the inside of the wall.

So... yeah.  I'd say that she kept a number of secrets just fine.  And Pink Pearl should know that.

Certainly seems like a sign of memory-alteration to me.

Other little notes

The idea of Pink having destructive powers would fit well with my theory that White was afraid of what Pink might do to her.  I was already thinking that Pink could probably do a lot with levitation and rapid plant-growth. If she really had sonic screams and such, it would certainly give White more reason to fear her... And the intro does imply that they're going to have to fight White again. =3

Speaking of Pink having destructive powers... the Pearl Fusion talks about Pink desperately wanting to change.  The thing is, if Pearl didn't even know about those powers, then she would've had to have already made an effort to stop using those powers... which probably would've taken her a LOT of time and practice.

So basically, if Pearl really DID belong to Pink, then Pink would've had to have had a time BETWEEN her two Pearls when she worked REALLY HARD on controlling herself... sometime between the time 8,000 years ago when she would've lost her first Pearl, and the 9,000-10,000 years ago when she would've got her second one.  (Her time-control power must be AMAZING if she could get this stuff done in negative 1,000 years or less. XDDD)

I couldn't help but notice that Pink's features are blanked out when Pink Pearl is thinking about her.  Even the outline for her hair is largely obscured.

I've pointed out a number of times (I'm going to go with my SU Movie post for reference) that Pink's appearance varies in a LOT of subtle ways... her hair is one of the more-noticeable ones, especially when you consider Jungle Moon (which I suspect shows what she REALLY looks like).

At any rate I can imagine that, if Crewniverse were prepping for another reveal on who Pink Diamond was and what she looked like, they'd want to keep Pink Pearl's memory of her appearance secret until after it happened. =3

And yeah, I noticed that both Pearls were the same height in this one.  It was kind of hard to miss.

(If anything, Pink Pearl might be a little taller than average...)

It does seem a little odd considering how much this shot from Legs From Here to Homeworld fits in with Crewniverse's style of leaving hints.

Seriously, if they were already the same height, then Crewniverse wouldn't have had to pull out all those optical illusions (or whatever the term for that sort of visual-trickery would be).  It has been two or three years... I'm not ruling out the possibility that White may have adjusted the height of Pink Pearl since the last time we saw her, along with her memories. (She does still act a lot like a kid.)

Pink Pearl's Intelligence (add-in)

I'm putting this at the bottom both to make it easier to find, and for context.  I've already mentioned that Pink Pearl is fairly childlike.  I didn't mention that it felt like, despite her fairly simple, childlike behavior, she wasn't unintelligent.

I think I've figured out why... or at least part of why.  One reason is because she doesn't stick to simple, childlike language and will actually use somewhat-more-advanced terms.

For some reason, XFinity is showing the wrong video today, so I can't grab more screenshots. -.-;  Still, I remember that other examples include "refurbishment," and when she says "Pardon?" instead of something like "Huh?" or "What?"

And it's not just her vocabulary: she's pretty good at picking up on subtler things.  She recognized when Steven misunderstood what she meant by her eye being "from before.  She was easily (casually!) able to figure out that she's older than Pearl (well... at least in theory XD; ).  She was also able to recognize when Steven thought she didn't understand what a nickname is, and correct him before he even started to explain.

Now, I've noticed that Gems share traits with their Diamonds.  This could be because of the Diamonds programming their own biases into their Gems (intentionally or otherwise), or because those traits are literally inherited from the Diamond who made them.  (I lean toward inheritance, with maybe a few exceptions.)  I think that the intelligence of Pink Pearl could be a hint of Pink Diamond being intelligent, rather than the... well frankly, blundering idiot that Pink is often portrayed as, especially in Pearl's memories.

...and that Rose must've still been, since Greg remembers her that way.

(She was actually smarter in Pearl's memories... at least in some parts.)

Still, this is actually something I noticed way-back-when and (sort of?) referenced in one of my big-old-and-outdated theory posts; it seemed to me like there were several hints that a number of parts of the war were well-planned-out, and Rose did not exactly stike me as the type who was capable of such planning - even for the parts which she had already been said to have done long before she was "revealed" to be Pink. ^_^;

However, if Pink P. really did get her intelligence from Pink D., then it could explain how a LOT of the war could've been done... and even where Rose got many of her ideas.  Heck, I've even long imagined that Pink and her Pearl had planned things together, and it would be hard for them to do that if either of them were lacking on that front. X3

I'm even kind of excited that this seems to be hinted at in a similar way that I did, back in my old "Predictions" fic (which... I never finished XD; ).  The idea was that Pink herself generally preferred to use simpler language, but would pull out a more-advanced term if it better described what she wanted to describe.  I also tried to show her picking up on a lot more of the subtler details (at least usually XD; ).  I think it's really neat to see the same kind of thing going on with her Pearl. ='3

-

And yeah... I still keep waiting for when someone mentions (or finds) something that obviously contradicts an established story.  (And I'll admit, I keep hoping that it's in the next episode... or group thereof. XD; ) It feels like the two Pearls almost got to doing that before Steven interrupted. ^_^;  *sigh* At any rate, it feels to me like we're probably close to another reveal. I mean, they've been piling on the idea that "Rose/Pink did a lot of bad things," even though Rose was shown to be compassionate in earlier episodes.  Seems like a pretty good build-up to a reveal that Rose/Pink being THAT bad was actually NOT the case. XD

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Editing Advice Part 1: Continuity

Although I said I wouldn't be giving writing advice on this blog, I never said anything about editing advice. Plenty of people give (unhelpful, short-sighted, or far too niche) writing advice, but few focus on the crucial final part of the writing process, and yet, editing is what gives a lot of writers the most trouble. I personally love editing far more than the initial writing stage and so am here to offer my advice in not one, not two, not even three, but four—yes four!—blog posts!

First, let's look at continuity, in three categories: Time, Place, and People. Technically, you ought to keep continuity in mind throughout the writing process, but it's still easy to forget one or two things. Thus, when you finally decide "I'm going to edit this WIP!", you need to double check that everything is consistent, not just from a plot standpoint, but from a spacial, chronological, and personal standpoint as well.

Time

This includes character ages (especially in flashbacks and exposition), the beginning and endings of school years, the seasons and their weather patterns, moon phases (especially when writing about werewolves), times of day, how long it takes for events to happen (a wound to heal, DNA to come back from the lab, traveling from point A to point B), historical matters (phraseology, having characters use things that hadn't been invented yet, people in the middle ages eating potatoes, etc.) and so on.

One time, I was reading a WIP where their main character's (or MC's) sister, who was twelve, was being discussed. The MC said that her sister had been dating someone at the same time the MC was first learning to use her magic powers. Fine, except that later it was stated that she first learned to use those powers five years ago. Which would make the sister seven at the time. Ain't no seven-year-old datin' nobody. The author of the WIP had just forgotten that all the characters ages would change, not just the main character's.

In my own writing, I had to be very careful in Outcast Shadows, because two groups of characters were in two locations doing two things: Group A was traveling across a continent, while Group B were hanging out in a single building in a single city. But they had to meet up at the end of the book, under specific circumstances, so I had to make sure that both storylines took the same amount of time. In the first draft, Group A took far longer than Group B, which was disastrous! I had to go back and, first, measure exactly how long it would take Group A to do all their traveling and find things for Group B to do that made sense for the story to fill up that specific amount of time.

As careful as I was in Outcast Shadows, though, I completely forgot that Misha left a certain location a day earlier than everyone else in Recast Light—and this was after four rewrites. I had to account for what he was doing for an entire day, which meant rewriting several scenes. It ended up working out in the end, but is a cautionary tale I won't soon forget.

Place

This includes anything spacial, such as the layouts of rooms, buildings, cities, and continents; the blocking of character movements; light sources; the configuration of the the solar system; and so on.

For example, if your character was flat on his back a few sentences ago, but now he's standing, were we ever told that he got up? Did your characters, while touring the lower rooms of a castle, ever climb something in order to get to that second story room where they end up (mine didn't, in the first draft of Miscast Spells!). If your scene takes place in a dark and dingy torch-lit tavern, how can your characters notice tiny details, or are you picturing the scene as brightly lit as it would be with electric lighting?

Obviously, some of this can be fudged a bit—I don't think anyone but me cares about how scenes are lit—but some of it can't. And readers will notice. There was the famous case of Larry Niven's Ringworld, in which a character is teleporting east in order to extend his birthday, but of course the earth rotates east, meaning he would actually be moving later into the day, or even into the next, rather than earlier. So many readers noticed that Niven actually corrected it in later editions. Then there is Stephanie Meyer's Breaking Dawn, in which the Cullens have a house on an island off the west coast of Rio de Janeiro which, you know, doesn't have a west coast. These authors had professional editors who didn't catch these mistakes, so you can't rely on other people to notice continuity errors for you. Do your own research and know the layout of your own setting, especially if it's the setting we all live in.

People

This category includes what your characters have, what they know, and who they are.

For what they have, consider clothing and accessories, weapons, and useful items. If they don't have an umbrella, but it's raining in your scene, do they just stand there in the rain? Do they like it? Aren't they cold? If your character has some huge rucksack full of gear, they should always have that rucksack full of gear unless we can assume they left it in a safe place; if they're traveling from one end of the continent to the other, mention how heavy that rucksack is from time to time, and consider where it is during a fight or action scene (Are they still carrying it? Do they drop it? Do they pick it back up when they flee?).

Another thing that characters can have is injuries, which, unless magically healed, have lasting effects. If your character got punched in the face yesterday, they should have a bruise show up in a day or two, and last for about a week (she writes, realizing that she has had a character bruise far too fast in her own published book!). If your character has lost a lot of blood, or broken a bone, or received a concussion, all of that needs to be taken into account in the coming chapters. Again, this can usually be solved by a quick mention that such and such still hurt, but injuries will also impact how much traveling and fighting your character can do, so keep that in mind, too.

Be mindful, also, of what people in your story know, including POV and non-POV characters. A pet peeve of mine is when authors in multi-viewpoint narratives slip up and have the viewpoint character be privy to what other characters are thinking when there is no reason for them to know that. Then there is the opposite problem, typically in first person present tense stories, where, in order to have exposition, the MC will randomly be thinking about information that everyone in the setting already knows. It would be like reading a novel set in our world and having the first person narrator think "243 years ago, America declared independence from Britain, which it had formerly been a colony of. This was followed by what is known as the Revolutionary War, where the Patriots, on the American side, fought the Red Coats, the British soldiers". No one thinks that way, because they personally already know it; who are they explaining it to, themselves? Find a more natural way for this information across to the audience. Maybe the character is arguing about it with an friend or is helping a younger sibling with their homework.  For this sort of thing, dialogue is definitely your friend, but still, double check to make sure this seems natural.

Finally, think about who your characters are, as opposed to who you wanted them to be. Characters change and grow over the course of writing, and what you might have considered in-character when you were outlining the novel might be out-of-character now. Consider your character's emotional reactions, moral choices, word choice, and so on. Never let an intended message be a reason to railroad a character into some preconceived destiny. Take the time to look at your character, not as a writer, but as a reader.

This last bit of advice holds true for all parts of editing. Think about how you would view your story as a reader. While beta readers and editors are helpful, you can't put everything on them (especially considering that there are published stories with continuity errors). Think about what a reader might nitpick, and what they might not care about. I suggest caring about it anyway, because it's your story, and it should be the best you can make it. Polishing your story into its bright and shiny best self is what editing is all about, and we've only just begun!

[pricechecktranslations]

So like, this is something that a lot of my EC friends and I keep circling around and getting into arguments over, but what do you think is the best order for someone to go through Evillious in, especially if they're a complete newbie? A lot of the arguing tends to boil down to release VS chronological order, and while I tend to prefer release order for newbies, I'm wondering what your thoughts on the matter are.

Typically, I favor release order most strongly, however I am willing to admit that it’s a complicated issue–primarily in that, while I think release order is the best for keeping confusion levels low, mothy has written and created the series with the expectation that some people are coming in halfway, or may not have access to other materials.

I…had a lot to say and I may have rambled so it’s all under the cut.

The basic argument for release order that I stand by is simple. You lose out on a LOT when you go out of order, particularly in terms of emotional impact for twists, payoff on foreshadowing, understanding of callbacks, etc. Certain things are supposed to be a mystery for a while and some tidbits are a wink and a nudge towards earlier story installments. It’s also easier to really get the themes of the overall story if you go in order as well–Like I’ve said in the past, the themes of the Daughter of Evil series in particular are reflected in the broad scale of everything mothy does with Evillious.

I also think it’s easier to connect with the characters if you go in release order too–Elluka, for example, is much harder to sympathize with in the Venomania and Conchita novels, as she does very little and is very callous and lazy about it (overall she tends to be a bit of a Failure Hero out of her own lack of initiative). But if you’re already familiar with the more heroic person she is in the DoE series, then her appearances later on in these two novels is more a fun callback and an interesting comparison to who she was before she developed any close friendships. Initial impressions are important, and they stick with fans (or at least, people like me) for a very long time in media consumption. This also stands for subversions of a character, such as with Gallerian–if you put all of his content together, then you miss out on all the slow development that establishes “this is a pretty evil scummy guy”, which gets upended when you read the novel later on, which focuses more on his heroic youth.

And then, there’s the little thing I was talking about a while back, where a lot of content is set up to ease you into the more complex “lore” of the series without giving you information overload. Daughter of Evil primes you for the Vessels of Deadly Sin while still keeping a plot of political intrigue as its focus, SCaP introduces the endgame premise of the world being destroyed before the Deadly Sins of Evil series gets to it in Muzzle of Nemesis, etc. Skipping around a lot can be jarring and sudden, especially chronological order with OSS considering all of the red herrings, reveals, and mystery that still surrounds it.

As a note, I’m sure my bias is showing–I haven’t listened to a lot of the songs in a long time, but I dearly love the novels. So a lot of my opinions are sharply colored by that. Hence why I’m using the novels as examples a lot. I really dislike the mindset that the novels are more like “bonus content”, unnecessary, or are somehow a separate and independent series from the songs. And some songs are better if you consume them at a certain point between the novels (ex, DOG is better after the Conchita novel, Handbeat is better after Praeludium as a teaser to Praefacio).

I also don’t like the concept of “arcs”, incidentally. I myself have used it as a way to neatly group together certain events and characters, but I feel like it provides an expectation that Evillious can be easily cut into distinct, equal parts, and it can’t. Daughter of Evil (the “Pride Arc”) is four novels while each other “sin arc” excepting Sloth is one (leading to a lot of accusations that DoE is overbloated despite having initially been an independent novel series that came before anything else). Only some of the novels have a demon contractor as their protagonist. It also gives the idea that all the parts of the songs and albums are going to inevitably be made into novel form, and that’s not necessarily the case. The “Theater Arc”, as many fans call it, is only briefly touched on in the novels (leading to a lot of disappointment that it wasn’t explored more in depth in Master of the Heavenly Yard despite for all intents and purposes only existing as a framing device for the albums and songs).

But, again, those are very subjective opinions, and mothy is still making content even now so my views might change as he continues to develop on the story.

To get back on track, another strong argument in favor of release order is a practical one–mothy has changed his story over the years. He’s made retcons, changed some ideas, tweaked a few things, etc. This is just fact. I think he’s often very good at smoothing things over, but there are definitely points early on that don’t fit now. It’s, to be brief, very confusing for a fan to read recent content with what’s currently canon and then after that read older content coming from a different conception of the series. So, to reduce that kind of thing, it’s best to read the older content first.

All that being said, mothy clearly didn’t make the entire series with a roadmap of where every single installment fits. He explores content based on what he’s interested in making, with certain ideas falling by the wayside or others being brought up later on. Sometimes he releases something to establish backstory that he maybe should have brought up sooner (like Trinity and the thing about Arth being a mud golem). Sometimes he takes an old song and revises it or adds things to it in subsequent releases. So, it’s not like you’re breaking some authorial code if you listen to a few songs out of order, especially considering that most of them are consumable by the nonlinear, confused mess that is the internet.

Not to mention, as I said up front, mothy writes Evillious with the expectation that some people will miss certain installments or come in halfway–I was one such person, I only started to get invested after the release of the Gift novel. Most of his work maintains twists for other series (such as, for example, SCaP going to great pains to keep most of the Deadly Sins of Evil series’ twists secret, like Margarita being Eve and Venomania being Cherubim). Most of his novels will exposit key information in case the reader didn’t have access to anywhere else that it’s explained, most notably Gift and Pierrot going over OSS album backstory as it ties so directly into the plot twists therein. …Etc.

In conclusion: Release order is best. But, it’s a large and complicated series and it’s been worked on for over a decade, so it’s not unexpected or out of the question that sometimes you get your hands on certain things out of release order. And a lot of people like different parts of it, so maybe they might not be interested in some content but hone in on others. That’s their prerogative.

It is, also, impossible to consume the series the way it was made. A new fan isn’t waiting for releases like the rest of us. And most untranslated content is inaccessible to English fans (a problem I’m working to solve albeit).

Just. Please, please don’t go in chronological order, I’m begging you. Evillious is NOT the kind of series where that works. Mothy is still actively making the story as we speak with the chronological end already finished, so really it’s impossible to do.

[rational-mastermind]

I’ve been meaning to make a review about Breath of the Wild for a while, but at least wanted to wait until after I finished the shrines.

SCREW. THAT.

I’m gonna just say it up front; it’s not one of my favorite Zelda games. I mean, yeah, I have a personal history with Majora’s Mask, but that’s not the only thing. I’ll start at the beginning, under the cut. Cause this is gonna be long-winded.

I’m not gonna make a lot of complaints about how it sucks in comparison to Ocarina of Time or make too many mentions about the timeline issue, cause we all know that it was bullshit since the moment they said anything. But there are just...so many things that bother me.

I will say that Breath of the Wild has a lot of great thing going for it and it’s easy to be impressed when you first sit down to play it. The graphics are gorgeous and the voice acting was done very well. There are so many wonderful little bits of lore, call-backs, and even general mechanics of the game that just made everything amazing. (I was so fucking excited to jump without running off a ledge.)

However...there was a lot of the story itself that bothered me. Not to mention a few other things. One of which, was the music. Or....serious lack thereof.

One of the things I loved the most about Zelda, was the music in nearly every game. Background music is very essential in making up the environment of any level. From your typical fire temple, to underwater, to creepy ghost town. And for Zelda, it wasn’t even just that, but that song itself had a large to-do with a lot of the lore and story. Song tells others you have something to do with the Royal Family. It changes the universe around you. It soothes the dead. Not just in Ocarina of Time either. So it was really weird to...not have any of that in Breath of the Wild.

Yeah, we have some soundtrack but..it felt so..threadbare. When you go into a shrine/town/battle, I barely register the music. Walking through the open field...nothing. When I’m galloping on the Lord of the Mountain, the fast-paced piano feels more high-tech than race-horse and makes me feel uneasy about a guardian lurking nearby. Then when you DO face a guardian, or any mini-boss of a monster, it gets so fucking intense, so damn fast, I was worried about challenging a Hinox for the longest damn time. (Geez, I felt stupid for that after I realized how easy they were to beat.) Everything just felt...off. And it was weird that you didn’t have to repeat any song 10 fucking times. I mean, yeah, I was really sick of Elegy of Emptiness after going through the Stone Tower in Majora’s Mask, but I’ll listen to the 50th remix of Song of Storms. It was like...one of the few things that kept the whole timeline thing connected. It was that there was always a harp, there was always a song, there was just...something that connected us to the higher powers. And it’s kinda cool for a game to give something like music, so much power.

But I’ll stop bitching about that and get to my real problem. The story.

Now the basic crux of it, I’m fine with. They attempted to beat Ganon, failed, and had to pay the price 100 years later. Cool. That’s interesting. A nice premise. But gosh DAMN if the details don’t fucking trip me up! Let’s run through this chronologically.

Okay so Zelda, being the nerdy princess that she is in this life, discovers that yeah, they reincarnate every several hundred years and beat an evil known as Ganon. There’s supposed to be her, the physical embodiment of the goddess Hylia, and Link, a young knight sworn to protect her. Hooray, self-awareness.

Apparently, she also discovers that, what was it? 1,000 years ago, the Sheikah... the shadow people who are skilled ninjas that protect the family...built 120 shrines, robots, and massive weapons of terrible destruction...just to help beat this one guy that two kids and a magic sword handles on a regular basis. Actually no, I shouldn’t just say it’s two kids and a magic sword.

It’s a knight with a magic sword, three pendants, six sages, and the final seventh sage (aka the fucking goddess-child) that defeat the Evil.

It’s already upsetting enough that the Sheikah are stupidly advanced in technology (cause ancient magic tech from the gods is always the way to go...), and that the 1,000 year span makes the whole timeline thing confusing as FUCK (even if it is in the broken world timeline), but that they just...do that. They just fucking dissed the fucking premise for like, so many of the games. You find three pendants/orbs/stones/things, the master sword, six sages, and then help Zelda. Thanks for reducing everything else to nothing. Thanks for making 6 sages fucking nobodies. And yeah, I’m gonna harp on that.

One of the things that was nice about Ocarina of Time is that the 6 Sages became one from each race. In Link to the Past, it was the descendants of 6 powerful wizards. In Wind Waker, it was at least the last 2 other species left alive after the whole flooding incident (cause those three gorons are gonna fucking die and I wanna cry thinking about it). It just...it made sense.

So why. The fuck. ARE WE RELYING ON ONLY THESE FOUR????

We still have the Sheikah and the Koroks. What, just cause Impa’s old now? Cause the Korok’s are tiny as fuck? That never stopped anything before. We could’ve had Purah, or Paya take up the mantle. If size was an issue, how about Hetsu? Koroks can choose their shapes and try to put on brave faces. Saria was willing to help with the fight. Makar was willing to go through a whole temple to help. I don’t see what makes this generation a bunch of pussies! What the great and all-knowing fucking Sheikah just..FORGOT about the other sages???

Like, don’t get me wrong. Again, there’s a lot of good. I wouldn’t say gorons would be my favorite race but dammit I love Daruk and I love his grandson. They’re just sweet and adorable as fuck. (and I have a weakness for soft-hearted big-guys. ^//^) I’m glad they fixed the Rito’s appearance (though I hate Rivali’s fucking attitude). I liked their stories and their powers. But you could’ve at least rounded it out to be EVERYBODY. And further more, as great as it was to see their spirits put to rest, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for ghosts to pilot giant robots. It could’ve made a bit more sense for maybe the later generations to take up the mantle and help out. (Since that’s what a lot of them seem to imply.) It would’ve been kinda cool to go through the Divine Beasts with the Next Gen and let them help us fight the blights and let them take control.

Also on a fashion note: WHY THE FUCK IS EVERYTHING BLUE?? Thanks for dissing Farore. I guess she wasn’t a very important Goddess! Certainly not the one that LINK correlates to. Yeah, I get it, he’s supposed to get his signature outfit later, but I’m gonna get back to that problem in a bit. You could’ve at least kept the design and made it fucking GREEN.

Cause yeah, I get it, it was supposed to signify their unity and shit and that’s great and all, but BLUE had a purpose and that was WISDOM. Link isn’t WISDOM. He’s COURAGE. That was the whole rite of passage thing in Wind Waker!

Also, Zelda. Zelda, babe. Hon.

Zelda... What the FUCK ARE YOU WEARING???

Like, DAMN girl’s got hips for DAYS but do we really need the thicc shown in fucking leggings?? I mean, okay, her normal princess outfit is fine. Would’ve liked it to be a liiiiitle more traditional, but whatever. You look the part. And her normal adventure outfit is...okay?? It doesn’t look very practical nor comfortable for travels so it seems a little weird?? It just looks really uncomfortably tight and really draws attention to the thighs. But see, it’s the fucking Goddess getup that I have the most problems with.

Like, I’m just gonna start with saying that she looks fucking pregnant.

The empire waist wasn’t a good choice, especially cause she’s already just so damn thicc. And then you mix it with a sleeveless top and you have these fucking layers that just exaggerate the hips in the most unflattering way possible. I’m not saying she needs to look sexy but for a goddess, she could’ve looked more elegant? I’m sure with some kinda alterations, this would’ve looked great, or maybe on a different body, but like! I don’t like the dress for Skyward Sword either but at least she looks more goddess-like than this! (and that was a VERY boring dress...) She looks like Ariel putting on that sail cloth when she turned human. I mean, she could’ve had like, three-quarter sleeves with a v-neck or sweetheart neckline and then let the skirt flare out with the Hylian buckle around the waist. But this looks.. it just looks uncomfortable. I wouldn’t wanna practice goddess magic in this either.

So aside from forgetting about important races and a lack in fashion design, then you move on with the story. So since Zelda’s such a nerd and cause she lost her mother when she was younger, I guess that means I should feel sorry for her long-ass struggle with her goddess powers but um... I’m not. I don’t feel sorry for this woman. I just feel annoyed. I feel very annoyed every time I run all over Hyrule, trying to find these fucking memories, only to get five minutes of her bitching at US for her own failure.

Link is a soldier. And on top of that, he’s burdened with the heavy duty of carrying the Master Sword. HE is the one who has to fight Ganon. And instead he just runs around escorting Princess Twilight Sparkle while she geeks out over learning and frogs and then insults him, yells at him, and pushes him away from doing HIS FUCKING JOB. Unlike her, LINK IS DOING HIS JOB. I don’t blame him for shutting the hell up while she bitches and cries. I’m gonna side with Zelda’s father on this one, she found out about the prophecy, but SHE NEEDS TO DO HER JOB. Not for the sake of reputation (which seemed unusually dickish for him to say....) but because that’s her damn job. Everyone else knew what it meant to be a soldier. They knew when to dig in their heels and get ready to fight. WHY. DIDN’T. SHE?? Or at least why didn’t we see her trying like she kept talking about?? Yeah we saw her pray to ONE FUCKING FOUNTAIN. And it wasn’t even supposed to be her damn goddess! The whole mess wouldn’t have happened if she had just SHUT THE HELL UP and thought about someone else besides her own problems.

Also, if you were gonna show the tender moment where she finally does unleash her powers, maybe you SHOULDN’T make that a “secret ending” after you run around and try to guess where the rest of the memories were based on poor-quality pictures. And yeah, Zelda. you took a lot of shoddy pictures with that damn tablet. HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DIFFERENTIATE ONE FOREST FROM A THOUSAND OTHERS??

Maybe I would’ve felt more sorry if I didn’t have to climb through a fucking castle full of guardians, avoid tripping the cut scene, and THEN read in a long-ass diary about her mother dying, but you know, that just didn’t happen. I don’t feel sorry for her. I don’t feel excited for her to unleash her powers. Actually, I’m rather sad that despite the games being called “Legend of Zelda”, I REALLY didn’t wanna focus on THIS incarnation of her. The idea of it would’ve been fucking fantastic, but did Nintendo really have to make her such a whiny bitch?

Okay okay okay. Now before you send me hate mail, I will point out some things I like about her. She had a nice voice. She was cute (in a good outfit). And she wasn’t a total bitch. It was a good idea for Nintendo to try to focus on the titular character for once. I just don’t see this excusing all the other problems though.

Moving on, I mentioned earlier how I hated Rivali. That was the understatement. I am so glad he fucking died at the hands of one of the easiest damn bosses. I know some people may have liked him but I can’t stand ego. It’s an immediate turn-off and the sad part is that he had a sexy design and voice. He could’ve been redeemable if he showed some kinda humility after being dead for 100 years, but no. They just...didn’t give him that. Not willingly at least. Again, this is where I would’ve LOVED the next generation to take up the mantle instead, but... Yeah. No. We didn’t get that. (And I swear he was jealous that Link had Mipha and Zelda’s affections. Especially Zelda’s.)

Urbosa was good, but I felt like we didn’t get to know her personality too much? And the same goes for her grandchild. Also even though the Gerudo are known for hating men, they HAVE accepted men into their clans before. What happens if these women marry?? They have to leave town? Link was genuinely accepted as one of the Gerudo in OoT and was free to walk around! And that was just for debunking their strongest warriors. BotW!Link saved the whole fucking town, saved one from dehydration and another’s husband, and is a renowned champion! You think that would give him a get-out-of-jail free card!

I already talked about how I liked Daruk cause he’s definitely a strong leader and a gentle-soul. I do like the Goron City but it feels a little weird how....corporate they became. I mean, it makes sense. They can make a good profit from the gems they harvest but it’s still a little weird considering how tribal and relaxed the gorons were before. Still, they were a cute bunch and I really liked going to Goron City again.

And Mipha was sweet and I really loved her one-sided relationship with Link. I felt really sad thinking about Sidon growing up without his sister and I see why everyone shipped him with Link. Sidon himself was pretty good but....personal preference dictates that a super excited, extroverted, supportive type...doesn’t suite me. Don’t get me wrong. He’s very sweet and cute and I can see why a lot of fangirls were into him. It’s just the over-exuberant extrovertedness that gets to me. Also I was really surprised that this game made the ZORAS racist, out of all of them. I mean like, fucking damn... I know your princess died but fuck! Finally, last note, I...really didn’t care for their designs. I know the Zoras have been through a hell of a lot of redesigns over the years and they’ve certainly improved, but I think Ocarina of Time’s era was just enough of Fish and Human to make it a good hybrid? Rather than making...a shark..humanoid...with another shark...on his head?? And somehow related to a whale??? With a...manta ray...for an advisor.. I mean, I get it, he was suppose to look old, but it’s literally just a stingray on his head.

I liked Hetsu too, though collecting korok seeds is kinda annoying. I hate it when games make you have to gather more for just one thing, it’s just..not a fun mechanic to have? And the koroks themselves are still cute, though it’s taken me a while to accept that they replaced my beloved Kokiri and Dekus. (I only had OoT/MM growing up, so when I finally played Wind Waker as an adult, yeah I was pretty upset about the change in the species.) I still wish they had a bigger role to play in all of this.

Lastly, Ganon had a pretty great design, though it was a little weird he was like...semi-solid for this game. Like.. What? What was with all the...”malice”? (Which is an actual word, guys. You could’ve called it something besides that...) I really liked how he merged himself with the technology and it was interesting that he was controlling the guardians, but honestly when she said “Given up incarnation” I was a little disappointed he still went by Ganon cause you know... His original form wasn’t called Ganon. It was called Demise. Also for having a giant smoke-pig with a huge gaping mouth hovering around the castle, it would’ve been a little more interesting for him to...still retain that when you walked in? But design aside, fighting Ganon wasn’t actually all that hard after you freed the Divine Beasts and it’s...a little disappointing. I mean, I’m running around, fighting lynels and dragons and guardians and really, I had more trouble with THOSE than I did with HIM. And that’s REALLY disappointing when Ganon is the long-standing Ultimate Bad Guy (tm) and I was REALLY looking forward to feeling more accomplished beating him than I did when I beat a silver-maned lynel.

Finally some last complaints:

I wish the Sheikahs didn’t have their hands in everything. Who said that THEY should determine who Goddess Hylia’s chosen hero should be? Why were THEY the advanced race when you have one that harvests iron on a regular basis? And I hate that they don’t have any actual temples cause one of the things I liked about the whole thing is that there was a running religion and the Sages and Temples actually had some significance? Even though it’s pointless, I like history and archeological search in a game, even if I’m the only one doing it for my own amusement, cause it just helps me to connect more to the world that I’m playing in but I don’t get that when I walk into a weird-ass abyssal room with small puzzles or fights.

Also there are seriously WAY too many fucking shrines. None of them make any sort of callback to old games. The spirit orb system is confusing cause if that’s a callback to Skyward Sword, then at least say it was by Link’s own doing and not these dead monks that have been preserved in suspended animation for 100 years. Why didn’t Link do the shrines to start with 100 years ago? Also I HATE that you have to collect 4 spirit orbs for hearts or stamina. I mean, we all know stamina sucks, but this just making it REALLY obvious? And seriously it was so fucking easy to die early on into the game, especially if you ran out of stamina or were still fumbling with the new controls.

Why didn’t he ask more questions in this game? If you have voice acting, why didn’t you actually give Link any dialogue? I think that would’ve made a stronger impact for Zelda to get her powers or something.

Seriously the three dragons bug the shit out of me. I know they were supposed to represent the goddesses and it was really cool to first come across them and shit but 1) it’s really hard to keep up with any of them. 2) they don’t really add anything to the plot. 3) was Zelda supposed to pray to a dragon?? 4) Did the dragons from Skyward Sword just like...de-evolve? (devolve?) Cause they spoke and wore clothes??? Why didn’t these??? 5) (and this goes to Skyward Sword too) why is the one who represents the fucking forests, you know, FARORE, have lightning powers? I think Pokemon already took the cake with mythical creatures representing Fire, Ice, and Lightning. This would’ve been better with Fire, Water, and Grass, y’know?

I fucking cringe looking at the map cause it feels like so much it just out of place... Like, how do you move a whole Forest from the south to the north? Why is the volcano moved like, way far to the back? The WHOLE Lake Hylia was moved like, so far from the original spot. Really the only things that stayed in place was Hyrule Castle and Gerudo Desert.

Also don’t give us giant skeletons and then NOT ACTUALLY EXPLAIN WHAT THEY REALLY ARE. Leviathan is not just a blanket term for Giant-Ass-Monster. Was that the Dodongo King at the volcano? The Sky Dragon from Skyward Sword?? What the fuck froze to death? Why was that and the one in the desert more similar the one at the fucking volcano??

Seriously your mini bosses shouldn’t be harder than the Ultimate Bad Guy. The blights were harder and I especially had trouble with the lynels and guardians. And seriously WHY was there a fucking guardian on the fucking Plateau?? I was fucking terrified of these killer robots and it’s seriously unfair that I barely ever get any proper armor or shields to deal with them! Also seriously, why did there have to be a whole graveyard of them right underneath a stupidly challenging maze??

Also I don’t mind teleporting everywhere in a game, but when there’s literally secrets over every last inch of this game (from shrines to korok seeds to weapons, food, and needed pictures) it gets REALLY boring to travel on foot. Especially when climbing mountains in freezing conditions. I mean, I love that it’s so open-world and I love that we get to go exploring whatever we want, but there are a few problems with that. The other being that it’s hard to follow the plot of a game when you hardly have any reason to go do it or to follow any intended order. I did Rivali last, not because I wanted to, but because I didn’t bother to explore that side of the map until it was all that was left. I WISHED SOMEONE SAID SOMETHING EARLIER IN THE GAME CAUSE THE GALE WOULD’VE HELPED TREMENDOUSLY.

Finally I swear someone on the staff has a giant fetish, and not that there’s a problem with that? But can we have ONE game where the Great Fairies aren’t horrifying to look at?? Like, if some people like it, fine, I guess? But gosh damn these bitches just look so GAUDY. There’s too much glittering, there’s too much...just too much everything. Also you should be able to up all your armor, not just a few things? It would’ve been awesome to walk around as Shadow Link and have it upped to be at least decently protective.

Okay.. I think I’m done complaining. Now I’ll stop my own bitching and actually give the game its proper praise.

The game does have some amazingly gorgeous graphics and it blows me away every fucking time. When it does want to intimidate you, it does so very well. And so many things were designed so well. Despite earlier complaints, I love how the dragons were designed to vary from one to another. I love how all the baddies were designed. I love the large array of wardrobe that you get for Link and it’s so much fun to change his looks and dye them different colors. (though, again, you should be able to dye the Champions tunic to GREEN.)

Some of the characters were fun and had some great personalities. I liked the bits of lore this game generated. I also loved whatever small callbacks it did make (like mentioning Naboru, and Makar’s island). I liked that you could catch and ride so many things and it’s fun that there’s a motorcycle (I haven’t unlocked that yet, but I’m sure it’ll be fun ^^). It was fun exploring different worlds within this game and just really see some of these beloved races expand and grow and see how the world is affected by such an apocalypse.

I like hunting for your food and surviving that way rather than random hearts coming out of the grass. The whole sense of survival is pretty awesome and thrilling. It’s fun to discover things in this world and it’s fun to just go around, explore, and make up your own adventure. (I just wish there was a bit  more guiding for the story...)

Some of the reactions in this game are so much fun. Like walking up to people naked, or riding the Lord of the Mountain to any stable. Actually that entire story about the Lord of the Mountain is really sweet and heartwarming. But the actually dialogue that’s written into this game is really fun and pretty spot-on.

I really liked the side mission of buying your own(old?) house and creating an entire village from the ground up. It was such a sweet side-story to the whole thing and was a lot of fun to to. The other side mission of helping the korok through the woods was super cute. ^^ It was little moments like these that really did make me enjoy the game. And I did like being able to stumble into Zelda’s room or study and read about her life in the past, seeing her figure out Link and such.

And the challenges of conquering the Divine Beast was actually fun, but again, would’ve liked a bit more direction. Actually getting through this game was kinda fun, but it was easy for the magic to get sapped out of everything with stupid shit.

Overall, I wouldn’t say this was the worst Zelda game. Heaven know Skyward Sword did much worse. It could’ve been better though and that’s what really makes me sad. I was really looking forward to playing something new and amazing, especially having just finished Wind Waker for the first time before it and was honestly, disappointed after the magic of the new features wore off. It wasn’t the best. But it wasn’t the worst. It just really needed some work on in a few areas. Over all I would rate it 7/10.

[afishlearningpoetry]

Looking Closer at How The Abominable Bride Foreshadowed and Can Be Used to Chronologically Decode Series 4:

In the opening of TAB, Sherlock imagines John narrating how as Sherlock’s biographer he picks and chooses which of his cases to present to the public, alluding to the nature of John as an unreliable narrator in the canon.

In the opening of TST, John writes Lady Smallwood and co. talking about modifying the footage of Sherlock shooting Magnussen and that their story will become the official one, setting up the nature of John as an unreliable narrator in series 4.

[Continue below the cut for more ➤]

See also: 10 Revealing Things From The Six Thatchers That Haunt You Late At Night, 10 Revealing Things From The Lying Detective That Haunt You Late At Night, and 10 Revealing Things From The Final Problem That Haunt You Late At Night. (#tw suicide)

Bonus: They’re not there:

On John’s blog, he wears his heart on his sleeve. He adores Sherlock and clearly loves him even when he tries to downplay their relationship or play up his relationship with Mary. In his post about meeting Sherlock, he calls him “strangely likeable”, and talks like there’s life in for the first time in ages after multiple blog posts about how nothing happens to him.

This includes how John thinks that Sherlock not only doesn’t love him back, but that he’s “spectacularly ignorant” about some things, including the way that he feels about Sherlock. How does the world’s only genius consulting detective not notice that? John is pretty forward about this is in one of his early blogs and first one about Sherlock’s cases.

He also says for the first time that he has to omit certain things in order to publish the story at all, echoing the nature of the original stories.

But Watson doesn’t say this in the opening of A Study In Scarlet; he straight-forwardly talks about his return from overseas and his meeting Sherlock Holmes, followed by the case that changes his life. It’s really in the other stories that Watson talks more about altering details, which is what the debate around his authorship revolves around.

It does provide an interesting comparison, though, the way that Sherlock hasn’t yet become the emotionless machine that the myth surrounding Sherlock Holmes is so obsessed with. He laughs, he dances, he expresses emotion alongside his deductions. The last line about Sherlock actually says, “Didn’t I tell you so when we started?” cried Sherlock Holmes with a laugh. “That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a testimonial!”

That changes with The Sign of Four. The opening of the second novel, following the success of the first, is about Holmes and Watson talking about the publication of their first case together.

Holmes: “Yes, indeed,” said I, cordially. “I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of ‘A Study in Scarlet.’ ”He shook his head sadly. “I glanced over it,” said he.

Holmes: “Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemo- tional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.”

Watson: “But the romance was there,” I remonstrated. “I could not tamper with the facts.”

Holmes: “Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it.”

Watson: I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion’s quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had a Jezail bullet through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at every change of the weather.

As Sherlock Holmes becomes more of a text, the more Watson mentions about how he to change names, dates, details, or wait until certain people are dead until his stories are published, to protect international secrets and the lives of its characters. But it all started with Holmes and Watson in a flat, talking about how the romance should be suppressed.

In one of John’s early blogs he mentions a fortune cookie at the end, pulling a quote from The Valley of Fear:

“Everything comes in circles—even Professor Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals, to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a fifteen per cent. commission. The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again. I'll tell you one or two things about Moriarty which may interest you.”

Except John says he think it’s going to be different this time. This version is going to do something different before. It’s going to admit that the romance was there. It’s not going to suppress it anymore by the end. But before it gets there, the story is also about how much, and what therein, the story is being altered in the first place. Enter series 4.

An important blog entry to understanding the mindset of Sherlock and John after series 3 is the last blog entry. To date, the blog is still suspended because if it continued the true nature and mystery of series 4, the answer would be spoiled.

It reads as follows:

Sherlock is openly disinterested and angry at the wedding to anyone who’s paying attention. And not without reason.

The ending of TSOT is one of the most devastating moments in the show. John and Sherlock both realize that neither of them wanted this marriage to happen, that they could have been together and in this passing look they know it’s moments too late after Sherlock realizes Mary is pregnant.

It happens and disappears in a moment.

Sherlock leaves the wedding early. A month and one honeymoon later, John will be bursting to get out of his trainwreck of a marriage at every waking moment. He’ll bike to work. He’ll keep his bags packed. When he rejoins Sherlock in the flat he’s practically giddy, and then when he meets Janine and Sherlock explains that he used her later, he’s right back at wondering if Sherlock is capable of loving anyone or not.

And none of this is remotely mentioned in the blog entry. Sherlock takes over for John, foreshadowing that the next act of the show is about to retell The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, which includes two stories entirely narrated by Holmes. HLV is one of the most devastating episodes of the show and it’s not on the blog at all. The public doesn’t know anything about what happened to them.

The next time we see John’s blog it’s going to say this. Absolutely nothing about their time gone, what Sherlock did or what John is going through. Of course, nothing about Mary either. He isn’t even typing anything like normal; he just fidgets his two fingers on the same two keys, and his blog isn’t on the screen. It’s a screenshot. Because what we’re watching is the blog itself.

So the parallel starts thus:

After setting up his dream world and arriving at 221B Baker St., and a conversation with Mrs. Hudson about the way that John modifies people to be characters in his story, Sherlock imagines John giving the following narration

Watson: Over the many years it has been my privilege to record the exploits of my remarkable friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes

The beginning is about putting up the front of John’s purpose and their relationship, calling Holmes his remarkable friend. In the next episode, John as the author takes liberties of his own in order to protect the people in it. He protects himself and Sherlock by covering up the true events of Mary’s death.

In TST, the opening scene is about doctoring the footage of Sherlock shooting Magnussen. With a bright projector light behind Sherlock’s head, the footage cuts out Sherlock putting the trigger as someone walks past the camera. This is being displayed as top-secret information as all of them sit inside a glass window room anyone could sit through.

Sherlock and Mycroft describe how it’s different:

I see. Who is supposed to have shot him, then?

Some over-eager squaddie with an itchy trigger finger - that's who.

The over-eager shooter in this story has already conveniently been placed in the room. She has her own pen and paper, but isn’t writing anything down, which is her job as a secretary. It’s because a copy of that text, this conversation should exist, but it doesn’t, because Norbury doesn’t exist. Mycroft tells her not to write it down and put down it down, because once they’re beyond these walls, they must “never speak of it.” There’s also the meaning of Mark Gatiss being a stand in for the show’s writers, similar to the meaning of when John finds the dog’s bones, a correlation to Emelia Ricoletti’s grave being a switch.

It also creates a connection between John the author and Norbury. She’s the one with the pen and she’s going to take the fall, but John is the one who really shot Mary.

Back in TAB, John continues about how he picks and chooses cases to tell:

Watson: it has sometimes been difficult to choose which of his many cases to set before my readers.

That includes, as far as we know right now, the entirety of HLV. He leaves out Magnussen, Mary shooting Sherlock, Mary’s past, and Sherlock shooting Magnussen at once. It’s not just about the cases though, it’s about other things that John leaves out of his story.

In Sherlock’s mind: it’s not just smaller things that John says, like Sherlock being “spectacularly ignorant” about certain things and wounding his ego or embarrassing him, it’s that John never picks up on how much Sherlock loves him. John is hiding the true nature of their relationship from the world because he doesn’t see all the deductions of how much Sherlock loves him back.

Immediately after the credits in TAB John is praised by for the success of the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by a man selling Sherlock Holmes branded content in The Strand Magazine, asking if “there’s going to be a proper murder next time.” He inquires if Sherlock is in the carriage at sight of his profile, the same one printed on the paper he’s carrying, and John dismisses him at Sherlock’s behest. That particular story is from the first short story collection, after A Study In Scarlet and The Sign of Four, and before Sherlock’s presumed death in The Final Problem.

“Remarkable. How did you do it?”

“We have some very talented people working here. If James Moriarty can hack every TV screen in the land, rest assured we have the tech to doctor a bit of security footage.”

John isn’t just talking about how easy it is to doctor footage, but that it’s even easier for him to do as a writer with words. He doesn’t need any government technology to alter the story. All he needs to do is the essence of this scene – lie and invent. Like when John invents the story about Eurus in order to lie about what happened to him where he has a pen and paper.

Watson admits the reason he has to do this back in TAB:

“Some are still too sensitive to recount, whilst others are too recent in the minds of the public.”

At the end of the story, Sherlock will ask to make sure that Watson modified the story, to “put it down as one of my rare failures, of course?” The story was progressing like a normal adventure until Sir Eustace’s murder, and then the entire second half of the story was omitted. Sherlock helped Lady Carmichael get away with murdering her husband. He broke his vow, it’s one of his “rare failures”. Sherlock is imagining their marriage in order to try to predict what would happen in the near future and what danger John would be in.

Mary is the case and she becomes the case the next episode. It’s at this point in TAB that we see a shot of the knife in the mantle – connecting to TLD when Mary’s case, the message tied to the dagger, or the case on how to save John, is the one Sherlock still hasn’t solved. The knife is still there in the fake ending of TFP. John thinks he still hasn’t solved it and that’s why he was shot at the end of TLD.

Mary is Sir Eustace with the dark past coming back to haunt her. Mary is the post-humous revenge Sherlock alluded to, the vengeful bride who faked her death to kill her husband, the figure of Death in the Samarra story, and half the ultimate villain – but some cases are still too sensitive to properly recount. Moriarty isn’t back. No, no, no. He’s definitely dead. He planned his revenge on Sherlock five years ago by filming a bunch of reaction gifs and jiving against the glass with Eurus like a snake.

The next episode, Mary’s past comes back to haunt her, and Sherlock breaks his vow. One of his “rare failures”. The over-eager shooter is hauled away as the projector lights the back of her head.

Mary’s death isn’t the only case that John covers up, however. He manages to do that relatively consistently. Even with how on the nose it is, the audience was convinced. The most convincing case is the one that John doesn’t show at all; the cover-up of his own death.

In TST, it’s clear this is about getting away with murder:

That is now the official version, the version anyone we want to will see.

No need to go to the trouble of getting some sort of official pardon.

Lady Carmichael doesn’t have to bother with a pardon and neither does John. His cover-up story, The Final Problem, is an entirely invented entry in the great Sherlock saga, using the name of a real one as a red herring, ending their story and establishing normalcy so no one will know what happened to him next. Series 4 is what happened, officially. But it’s not the truth. John has modified the truth. The romance has been suppressed.

John can’t tell that story because he has to make it convincing enough to draw Mary into the open; he doesn’t want to go to the trouble of getting a pardon when he has to face her again. This has to be the version everyone believes so that when it’s revealed that John committed suicide, everyone believes that too.

John has let his insecurities, self-hatred, and suicidal ideation leak into the subtext of series 4, so that when the news gets out about what really happened, and that the last story in particular was a total fabrication, people believe the secret story hidden beneath the true one. Suddenly the decline of hi stories becomes the tragic tale of a man losing his way and taking his lie. The story ends on a low note. “It’s gone a bit downhill, hasn’t it?” And it is emotionally true, but it’s all part of John’s bigger plan to fake his death.

When Eurus as Faith gives Sherlock the note about Culverton Smith she writes one story on the surface, the one that Sherlock deduces, but hides another message underneath that he doesn’t see until it’s too late. This is the case he didn’t solve.

This is what John’s story is: one text subsumed by another bubbling just beneath its surface. When John’s original story falls through because of what happened at the end of TLD, darkness completely overwhelms his story in TFP. Sherlock is drowning in it until he ties a nice bow on the ending. One coverup hiding another coverup. That’s how you sell a big lie; you wrap it in the truth to make it more palatable.

One of John’s blog entries has a picture of the knife stabbed into a clue board. Sherlock figured out that the victim faked his own death.

TAB foreshadows the lengths John goes to:

But in all our many adventures together, no case pushed my friend to such mental and physical extremes as that of The Abominable Bride!"

Sherlock is pushed all the way to the predestined end of the story, clinging to life at the Reichenbach Falls with Moriarty punching him down. It’s only when he decides to let John in emotionally that he appears, foiling him easily, kicking over the falls like he isn’t a threat at all. Because he isn’t when they’re together and they openly love each other.

John doesn’t have the same confidence. John thinks that he can’t avoid Samarra – that even if he fakes his death, that happy ending he invents at the ending of TFP is the closest to happiness that he’s ever going to get. Sherlock has more confidence in John and what they can accomplish together. “I’m a storyteller. I know when I’m in one.” The real John knows it too, but he can’t see the same ending Sherlock does if he still doesn’t know Sherlock loves him back. John’s ending is a dark mirror and denial of Sherlock’s hopeful vision.

Nothing has pushed John to such mental and physical extremes as that of the abominable bride. Mary faking her death, returning to manipulate and gaslight him, and trying to get him to commit suicide to burn Sherlock’s heart out of him forever is the worst thing that John’s ever been through. The most trying case in his career working with Sherlock. Faking his death, however, isn’t the end. Because the whole point in all of this is to outsmart Mary and Moriarty, drawing them into the open so John can make his move.

Smallwood: “You're off the hook, Mr Holmes. You're home and dry.”

Sherlock: “OK, cheers.”

Smallwood: “Obviously, there's unfinished business. Moriarty?”

For Sherlock, his unfinished business is Moriarty. For John, it’s Mary. They’re going to have to work together to finally defeat them once and for all – and they can only do that once they both know the truth. Nothing can stop them. Then the spoke will turn, and the world will have something new.

But for now, the truth has to be modified. The romance has to be suppressed. Until the world is convinced John is dead and he’s in the clear.

“That’s not what happened at all.”

“It is now.”

[suredahlia-arc]

hello hello ! i’m daisy ( 19 // est // she/her ) and my mind has been tricked by florence into thinking it’s 7am when it’s actually,, 4:30pm. i’m in the mountains so we shouldn’t be having it as hard as other places, but everyone is still worried abt falling trees and such ! all my suitemates decided to go be storm-chasers ( every single one of them ? ), so i could be living my best life rn, but i’d rather be writing up an intro for a character i have tried to play over four times then the rp died after,, like,, a day. bless. more below !!

♪ { MARINA DIAMANDIS. FEMALE. MARINA (AND THE DIAMONDS). }Oh shit. Is that BUY THE STARS by DAHLIA ANGELIS on the radio right now?! I stan, omg. SHE’S that INDIE-POP solo artist who’s TWENTY-SEVEN years old. They’ve been in the game for EIGHT YEARS and have THREE ALBUMS out right now. I think they’re very VERSATILE and INTUITIVE, but for some reason they come off as OBSESSIVE and CYNICAL in the tabloids. You mind if I turn this up? daisy. 19. est. she/her.

first, i feel inclined to say why i put “and the diamonds” in parentheses bc without context i either look super uninformed or like a total douchebag?? basically she’s going by just “marina” now but i didn’t know how wide-spread that knowledge was yet and technically all of her work still has “and the diamonds” so i was like “hm. parentheses.” and there’s ur explanation ! onto the intro:

BACKSTORY

TRIGGERS: extreme misogyny, brief mention of gaslighting/emotional abuse, briefly implied physical abuse

so i have been waiting to play a bitch inspired by the stepford wives for forever. if i ever actually finished books that weren’t assigned, wbk i’d read that bitch. but we settle for the 1975 movie. there’s ur preface.

i often get way too caught up in the story of the parents and wind up making just intros like,,, a novella, so i’m gonna do my best to skim over them and go more in-depth when i write the bio later on!!

so dahlia’s mom is inspired by neely “i’m a BIG STAR!” o’hara from ‘the valley of the dolls’ and her dad is, ofc, inspired by walter “no fun quotes or super extra™ monologues” everhart from, you guessed it, ‘the stepford wives (1975)’

just as a very brief explanation as to why “i’m a BIG STAR” wound up in the neighborhood she would, typical fall from glory, first manager whisked her away, “fell in love”, moved to a neighborhood where 95% of the women only found joy in cooking and cleaning

maybe if you HAD a fucking business...

i’ve made this joke so many times i’ve memorized this entire scene.

only one person irl has ever genuinely laughed.

it was my mom.

through a series of gaslighting, emotional manipulation, and groupthink, dahlia’s father gradually got her mother to buy into all of it and have strong opinions on the best laundry detergent.

so this was a strange place to raise a child, amirite ? i mean, you got women discussing tide vs. bounty while baking cake, you got men being treated like kings – we over here in the stereotypical 1950s. 

they stanned super small neighborhoods in wales, but should they have ?

so she had a very skewed idea of what was acceptable and what wasn’t. the boys were treated extremely “boys will be boys!” like – like... more than they are when we talk abt the problem with that sentence – and the girls were all wives in training.

it was acceptable for boys and men alike to do whatever they wanted without asking the other. it was acceptable for boys and men alike to complain over anything they wanted. it was acceptable for boys and men to do all of these things that, if we heard about them today, we’d be like “jail??” or, at the very least “leave.”

it was all good and well though!! but one of the four (4) duties dahlia’s mother had was taking care of the child (the other three were cooking, cleaning, and pleasing)

you see, she was used to dahlia’s father blowing things out of proportion when it came to herself – it was normal and healthy!! but she was not used to him blowing things out of proportion on their child, aka dahlia (you see, this is what happens when i start talking about the parents too much)

the first time just warranted a brief “hey, maybe don’t.” the second time warranted a conversation that ended poorly. third warranted an empty threat of leaving that ended poorly. fourth warranted an actual threat that ended poorly. fifth and a bitch was like “ok where r we and how do we get out!!”

after finding her way out, she settled with dahlia in a rly crummy motel, but what else are u gonna do when u only have the few dollars u managed to steal from ur guy??

y’all see i’m already talking in perspective of the parents i hate myself

so dahlia’s mom phoned so many old friends and relatives. unfortunately, as a previous neely “the whole WORLD loves me!!” o’hara who just seemed to drop off the face of the earth, almost everyone was like “bitch tf no you ain’t stayin here”

the last person she phoned was her mom, aka dahlia’s grandmother, down in athens. reluctantly, a bitch was like “fine.”

so dahlia was ~13 by now. her mom found work as a maid bc she was rly good at cleaning and also had no clue how she would ever get a good acting career back (although, mind you, you know a bitch went out for some community theater plays). her grandmother was able to live off the inheritance her late husband, dahlia’s grandfather, left behind – however, she also had a work ethic that drove her to just... do whatever she deemed the right thing to do at the time. 

an old woman doing some odd jobs?? you know it!!

dahlia learned how to speak greek which is great bc you know what?? i duolingo’d that bitch and that owl is a jerk who wouldn’t let me get past “ο άντρας” even tho i spelled it!! right!! i had so many ppl compare what i spelled and what the answer was and i’m still bitter!! 

anyway.

so like,, wbk a bitch has some unresolved problems. when you grow up in the equivalent of stepford (copyright 1972, ira levin), you gonna have some things to work thru!!

but she was also basically trained by that community to keep everything inward??

this is a musician rp so you know what she did??

SHE TAUGHT HERSELF TO PLAY PIANO AND WROTE SONGS!!

was a myspace queen tbh. technically speaking, she has more work out there than the three listed albums (i mean, we got mermaid v. sailor, the crown jewels, etc., etc., bUT)

decided “bitch i’m gonna make smth of this” and,,, did. so when she was 19 ‘the family jewels’ was released and,, like,, she decided “wow time to go be an american!!! i love bald eagles!!!”

so i figure the rest is kind of history?? i think i’ll be going in chronological order with the albums (in that a few years after that ‘electra heart’ was released, then ‘froot’, then a hiatus which we do NOT stan, then coming back with a leak ksksksks. BUT i may switch up electra and froot i’m not quite sure yet??)

ya! 

PERSONALITY

VERSATILE: ok so she never really does things quite the same ? alexa, play ‘can’t pin me down’ by marina (and the diamonds) dahlia angelis. musically speaking, she really loves experimenting with different sounds. overall, she is still considered indie-pop, but we had some good new-wave pop in ‘the family jewels’, we had some good electropop in ‘electra heart’, we had some good general versatility in ‘froot’ (compare the song ‘froot’ to ‘immortal’ like we were boppin then we were havin an existential crisis). does not like keeping things the same in her music. does not like being compared to other artists bc?? everyone!! is different!! generally speaking, she’s just a very?? open person?? not as in emotionally open, open book – all that, as in willing to try pretty much anything?? as long as it’s not her actual routine, if a wrench is thrown in her plans, a bitch don’t care as long as the wrench ain’t smth dumb. here for a good time, not a long time.

INTUITIVE: ok so she got really into trying to read people and tbh psychoanalyze them ( alexa, play ‘savages’ by marina (and the diamonds) dahlia angelis ) after leaving that. town. with a name she doesn’t even recall?? wbk a bitch would speak up abt it if she could so that all of the women could be fckin saved but she j doesn’t remember anything abt it!! other than the environment in general!! what’s the name?? besides somewhere in wales, what’s the location?? she doesn’t know!! mainly bc i don’t!! and also for the sake of her not actually saying anything abt it willingly!! anyway!! she really does her best to read people and situations in order to analyze like?? the safety aspect, the other person’s stance, etc. doesn’t always work, but she tries. is pretty good at it, but no pro.

OBSESSIVE: ok so y’all see up there me talking abt routines?? there are two (2) ways in which girly is obsessive. first, a literal manner. routines that need to be done so the world doesn’t fall apart. i mean, we stan obscured brain chemistry, but we also stan horrible environments that just exacerbate it, even into adulthood, in the end ( alexa, play ‘obsessions’ by marina (and the diamonds) dahlia angelis. ) (also, i feel i should clear the possible iffy-ness this would have by saying that i’ve got ocd and will, therefore, be portraying it in a manner similar to mine so that it doesn’t come across as offensive to anyone else who may have a different form?? but most of the ‘routines’ won’t be very prominent in interactions). second, music!! when she gets started on a new project, -the mask vc- try ta’ stop [her]! -end vc- . will live in the studio until everything is complete and perfect. will spend her free time writing lyrics she knows she’ll never use bc?? why not?? gotta get that practice in!! can also apply to any other project types, but ofc the main ones would be music related so??

CYNICAL: ok. who’s gonna have a positive worldview after growing up where she did?? ( alexa, play ‘hermit the frog’ by marina (and the diamonds) dahlia angelis ) who’s gonna stan that?? that said, there is not a single genuinely good person in this world ( alexa, play ‘savages’ by marina (and the diamonds) dahlia angelis again ) if u ask her like?? not only did she already have that view after coming to her senses but?? now she knows about terrorists, about people from the usa who are SUPPOSED to be the good guys killing innocent ppl from ‘enemy territories’ for fun, ppl assaulting and killing minorities just bc they’re not like them, etc., etc., etc. convinced no one is inherently good. rly has a love/hate relationship with life ksksksks

HEADCANONS

a lot of these kind of tie into personality tbh?? 

literally knows everything about every cleaning product ever. ask her about the pros and cons of any and she will tell you. she’ll also tell you when it was manufactured, the ceo of the company that created it at the time, what went in it to make it, etc., etc., etc. knows so much.

kind of going off of that, actually really good at cooking and baking?? she rarely does it willingly, but will make a hell of a chocolate soufflé.

TRIGGER: IMPLIED SEXUAL ASSAULT -  i don’t want to go too far into this bc it’s very triggering content to many ppl (and even to ppl who it isn’t, it’s j?? not good.), but.... i mean.... the boys in her formative environment were literally encouraged to do whatever they wanted and they didn’t need permission?? END TRIGGER.

i have a whole-ass routine already figured out. there are a lot of facets obviously, so i’ll just mention a few?? but count them all as one headcanon to be fair. 

sets an alarm to get into bed at 1:11am bc it’s a good number but 11:11 is usually too early. sets an alarm for 11:11am to wake her up. will chill in bed if she’s awake before then but it has yet to go off. only exceptions are when she’s working on something she deems urgent.

that said, good numbers are 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 21, etc. no rhythm to it, but i wasn’t gonna go?? up until?? infinity??

if there are two doors that are both available to be opened and closed (aka not one of those “enter through this one, exit through this one”), will always enter through the right and exit through the left. 

we don’t stan sidewalk cracks!!

a lot of superstition plays into these. but?? loves black cats. they’re chill.

i have a stats page coming that has more so!!

during the eh era, be it the last one or the one before that, decided to method act while she was still writing the songs ksksksks. that’s going to go into some of her more specific connections.

a bitch will both fight and not fight. got ‘the family jewels’ attitude back and we stan!!

was obviously able to write the ‘housewife’ archetype songs from her own personal experience ksksksks. didn’t rly have to dive into the stereotype. j knew it already.

more?? later??

CONNECTION IDEAS

so i have a few specific ones that are attached to a different blog (u kno one of the ones that died) that i’ll be moving over here, but here are some of the ones that stuck out more than others – also, all are open to any gender!:

UPDATE: wc page is here!

during the eh era while she was ‘method acting’ (we hate.), she knew this muse was in a relationship but was still like?? “hey let’s go have a meaningless ons” bc we stan "homewrecker”! (can have a number of muses!!)

a relationship that really didn’t work out in the end. the other kept trying to make things better so they would stay together. inspired by “buy the stars” (one muse)

the first celebrity whose discography or filmography she got really into before moving to america. would’ve had to have been around for longer than eight years. slightly inspired by “hollywood” (one muse)

ok this one. makes me laugh. literally just someone who always gets her mistaken for someone else – it doesn’t even have to look like her. 100% inspired by “hollywood” ( oh my god! you look just like shakira! no, no – you’re catherine zeta! ) (open to two muses)

she’s not known for a good reputation, but she’s also not known for a bad one. this muse wants to turn her to the dark side and make her become everything she never wanted to be?? so very similar to ‘the bad influence’ connection, j w/ a slightly different connotation on dahlia’s end. inspired by “oh no!” (open to two muses)

these bitches were either friends or love interests once, but things fell apart (either mutually or on the other’s side like?? i don’t want to godmod but for the song’s sake). dahlia is,, bad abt forgiveness,, but there have been enough apologies. inspired by “forget” (open to one muse)

dahlia has a very keen interest in this person. whether it’s infatuation or literally just interest, god only knows! obviously goes deeper than that but i’m horrible at explanations. suffice it to say, inspired by “immortal”

ok!! so now j some general ones!!

best friend

ride or die

drinking buddy

fwb

ons

exes

enemies for whatever reason

frenemies

collab partner

muse for any of her songs?

etc., etc., etc. !

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u can also find me on discord @ john donne’s whore #5590