#then we're given some reason to not trust her with this thing. like 'oh people use these hearts to make heart bombs' or some shit. since

[kirkwallguy]

vivienne's quest is literally worse than dorian's because at least with dorian you could say that having it be a bunch of cutscenes is for emotional depth, vivienne gives NOTHING until you make your final decision and even then. actually wait i've only gotten this far in dai once and assumed i gave her the wrong heart by accident because i got a bad outcome but i just googled it and no matter what you do the quest is always the same. wtf..

cole being used to further varric and solas' characterisation is kind of the most inquisition inquisition gets tbf, maybe a little mean but you can really tell trick phoned it in with cole (and bull to some extent) because they spent too much time on solas

it's kind of crazy that most the companions in dai barely have real quests... i know there were issues during development but what choices led to this

[theminecraftbee]

do you think dl pearl and sl lizzie would've gotten along?

OKAY SO I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS. and i think the answer depends on a lot of factors actually because like... okay lizzie and pearl have SIMILAR arcs but, crucially, they have different responses and attitudes about those arcs and also two hurt people who are lashing out at others. are not. in a headspace to easily make friends necessarily.

so we're gonna have to... i think it depends on whether you say "these are those guys in the MIDDLE of their arc" or "these are those guys AFTER their arc". most of the time i think people mean "if they're in the same series" so it would be during, and the answer is "i think dl pearl would be a LOT more willing to make friends than sl lizzie would be".

so like okay. let's unpack that. so let's start with dl pearl. while she's somewhat defined by being alone, lashing out at people, it's 5 am pearl she's doing questionable things and isolating herself in response to the fact everyone has shunned her, it's not that she doesn't want friends. she opens MOST of her interactions with being willing to open a hand of friendship, it's just that everyone rejects her as 'crazy' or 'dangerous', or she's just like, not really wanted as a friend for some reason or another. and then she lashes out, and tells herself she's fine alone anyway, but the key is she does want the friends.

also of note is that, while pearl is associated with being a red name because her COLOR scheme was red and she had her red name skin on basically the whole time, she... wasn't. she wasn't a red name. she was one of the last yellow names actually she only went red in basically the last episode. she was PLAYING UP being red. she was PLAYING IN to the narrative she was dangerous. but she... wasn't actually on red, and while she's often ATTRIBUTED revenge as a motive, it was less revenge and more a defensive "if you're going to treat me as evil i'll show you evil", if that makes sense.

so like, i could see pearl, in a similar scenario to when she allied with ren and martyn, trying to befriend lizzie. because she would see herself in lizzie! hell, arguably secret life pearl DOES do that! but even mid-arc, worst of herself double life pearl would go "oh you ALSO have a broken heart maybe we can be demons together?" to lizzie i think.

the problem is that i don't know if lizzie would buy it.

SO. secret life lizzie. so the thing is about secret life lizzie is that she is ALSO rejected by the people around her. the difference is, it's not for some perceived quality in her that makes her dangerous; she sort of starts isolating herself first, before she tries to reach out. this is because if i had to attribute a trait to life series lizzie it might be paranoid? ineffectually paranoid, she's not paranoid in a way that's useful, but like. she tends to perceive everyone around her as Weirdos who are Dangerous and Out to Get Her. she's the only sensible one around here in her mind. (note that this is not me assigning lizzie of all people as ACTUALLY the sensible one are you kidding me have you seen that lady. this is me saying this is how she tends to see the world.)

this, in turn, works against her. when she's first trying to get everyone to sleep and then everyone to go to the end--in other words, getting everyone to show up to her party--they don't. and it's not, typically, so much because they personally distrust her. (note the way people talked about lizzie was REALLY not the same way people talked about pearl at all!) it's because lizzie has given them no reason to trust her. she's not an ally, she's obviously trying to do a task, it's possibly a trap, the end is really dangerous, so... thanks but the last party in this series had explosives under it.

the END RESULT is still lizzie being isolated! the END RESULT is still her resentful and alone after no one but joel shows up to her slumber party! but the root causes are a little different. true, you could argue pearl is rejected in part because of her own actions, but it's not in the same way lizzie is. pearl was WILLING to trust, even afterwards, and gets rejected both because of a system that ended up stacked against her and because of one mistake she's not being allowed to make up for. she's persecuted and seen as evil. lizzie, meanwhile, is rejected indirectly, less a rejection of her as a person and more a result of the fact that lizzie doesn't play the social game well, doesn't trust anyone herself, and puts herself at risk as a result of that.

anyway this also adds up with. lizzie was turned red by a horrible careless accident by jimmy. pearl was turned red as part of the final hunt of all the red names on the server, an intentional act. lizzie died first. pearl died last. lizzie was resentful and wanted revenge as a red name, both because of her rejection and because that's who she is as a person. pearl wanted to win as a red name, and her actions as a red name more followed from her already existing actions. pearl was willing to trust and have loyalty, but no one was willing to return it. lizzie doesn't want to have to trust or be loyal in the first place.

the RESULT? i think double life pearl would offer to be friends with lizzie and lizzie would decide that pearl was a crazy person who was mocking her. and which way that ends up resolving to--a friendship, an enemyship, a mutual respect--would be a FASCINATING story to explore from there.

anyway there are people who are better lizzie and pearl experts than me who probably have more to add her and bits of my character interpretation to confirm or deny (lord knows i could have them very wrong i am not good at writing out meta that isn't in the form of a fic) but in conclusion: this too is yuri,

[fuckyeahisawthat]

thank you so much for that excellent chani post. i've seen some annoying takes on twitter about how not making her totally devoted and subservient to paul makes her 'unlikeable' and i'm like. buddy. i think that speaks more to how you see women. than anything about her. this chani is very dynamic and interesting to me.

i'll be honest and say i've not read the books. this is me speaking from what i've seen of summaries, but i think giving her a real cause to fight for yet also genuinely loving paul gives her an interesting struggle, and also plays into how the portrayal of the fremen (seems to me to be) more diverse and nuanced. as in, the fremen themselves seem to have more of a push-and-pull to them. the clarification of how different fremen believe differently (the south being more fundamentalist) is a very important thing to include in a movie where you can run into the danger of saying that all adherents to a foreign, islam-adjacent (in coding) religion are all fundamentalists. that can (in less nuanced hands) be a pretty irresponsible thing. so showing that there's also more secular/pragmatic/less dogmatic sectors of the culture seems a pretty good counterweight.

so yeah. this is how i processed it as a movie-goer. and having chani represent that aspect (believing in people over prophecy, action over religion) and having stilgar as the humanized face of the southern peoples (showing that yknow, regardless of being fundamenist beliefs, theyre still PEOPLE with the capacity for love, friendship, honor) makes total logical sense. you're not just "telling" us that there's different aspects to fremen culture, you're SHOWING us by showing different characters who represent those aspects, without demonizing either or turning either into a one-note stereotype.

Thank you! I'm not someone who was a long-term fan of the books before the movie came out (I tried reading Dune as a teenager when I was reading a lot of classic sci-fi but found it too boring) but I did read Dune and Dune Messiah after the first movie came out, both because I wanted to know what happened next and because I wanted to have an opinion on how the movies worked as adaptations.

(book and movie spoilers below and also I basically ended up writing a whole essay in response to this)

My single biggest frustration with the book is that after they arrive at Sietch Tabr and Jessica drinks the Water of Life and becomes Reverend Mother...the book up and skips two years of the story and when we next see Paul he's already got Fremen followers who are ready to die for him and he's in an established relationship with Chani. Oh I was SO MAD when I got to this part. I was like FRANK. FRANK!!!! Did you seriously just skip two years of the most interesting part of your own story???

The thing is, even though I know that Frank Herbert's intention was to write a critique of the idea that oppressed people need an enlightened external (white) savior to liberate them...if you don't provide an alternate explanation for what's happening then you end up falling into some Orientalist tropes anyway. And because, in the book, we don't see the process of how your average background fedaykin comes to trust Paul as a military and political leader, there is nothing in the text to counter the idea that the Fremen are a bunch of unquestioning religious fanatics easily swayed to do violence by belief in a prophecy.

My second biggest frustration with the book is that we're given no reason at all why Chani would fall in love with Paul. While she has some memorable scenes, she doesn't have a lot to do as a character in the book, and she's missing from a whole chunk of the end...because she's in the south...because she and Paul have a baby, Leto II, who's then killed off-page when the sardaukar attack the south. (I'm honestly really glad they cut this from the film, because it never seemed to be given the narrative weight it deserved in the book.)

So you can imagine how happy I was when the Villeneuve movies figured out how to address both these frustrations by tying them together. The fedaykin don't just blindly accept Paul because of some prophecy. They come to trust him because he proves himself as a fighter, and because he starts out from a place of genuine solidarity and humility--which it is possible for him to do because he has no structural power over them at that point. And Chani falls in love with him for the same reason, in that heady environment of fighting side by side for a political cause, and maybe for the first time in a while starting to believe that you can win.

I think the Villeneuve movies improve a lot on what's in the book in terms of how the Fremen are portrayed...when we're with the fedaykin and/or Chani and Stilgar. There we see political debates and discussion and the fact that not all the Fremen think the same way. And we also see little humanizing moments of folks just hanging out, celebrating after a victory in battle and just shooting the shit and being friends.

I do wish the movie had extended this to more parts of Fremen society. If there's one thing I could have added, it would be seeing more of daily life in Sietch Tabr. It makes sense that when we're seeing things from Jessica's POV, she is more distant from and suspicious of the Fremen, seeing them as a force to be manipulated, but I wish we had even one or two scenes of people just being people in the sietch. It felt kind of weirdly empty and not particularly lived-in as a place, and I think they could've easily countered this, with scenes from Chani, Stilgar or Paul's POV, and that would have made it hit even harder when the sietch is attacked.

If there were two things I could have added, I wanted more exploration of the people of the south. Why are they more fundamentalist than the Fremen who live in the north? (We get one line about how "nothing can survive [in the south] without faith" but I wanted more than that.) While I think the movie did a fantastic job of humanizing and differentiating the Fremen we see around Paul, when we get to the south it does backslide a little into "undifferentiated mass of fanatics." Surely the people of the south also have some diversity of political views.

I think there are some interesting threads they could have pulled on in terms of how proximity to direct colonial violence shapes people's ideology. Sietch Tabr is one of the closest Fremen communities to Arrakeen, the seat of colonial control. They have probably had to mount some kind of armed resistance for generations just to keep from being wiped out. I can see that producing skepticism of the prophecy ("well I can't sit around waiting for a messiah but I do have this rocket launcher") as well as resentment at the idea of someone swooping in and taking credit for a struggle that you've put your life on the line for, and probably a lot of people you know have died for. There seem to be some generational differences, too, where young people of Chani's generation put less stock in the prophecy, while the true believers are mostly older. I can see faith in the prophecy coming out of despair--when you've been fighting for decades with no change, maybe you draw the conclusion that only an outside power coming to your aid will make a difference. While the people of the south are still under colonial rule, maybe being generally outside the reach of direct Harkonnen violence (the Harkonnens don't even know they're there) makes the concepts of both oppression and liberation feel more abstract and more receptive to being filled in with Bene Gesserit mysticism. It seems absurd to want more from a movie that's nearly three hours long already...but I wanted more of this.

Still, I do think they managed to improve on a lot of things that frustrated me or are simply dated about the book, while keeping the political thriller/war drama/epic tragedy elements that I think are the heart of the story, and in some cases drawing them out more clearly and effectively than the book did. The best kind of book-to-film adaptation imo is one that has a strong point of view in terms of what the story is About, on a large-scale thematic level, and is not afraid to change individual elements of canon in service of telling that story the most effective way possible in a cinematic medium. While there are always things I want more of, I feel like Denis Villeneuve really, really understood the assignment in terms of the overarching themes of the the story and he delivered so fucking well.

[raxistaicho]

In which we discuss Edelgard's flaws (she has none)

Hey folks! Been a while since I did a longpost. There just hasn't been anything to stir my interest.

But fortunately I found something, so I suppose it's a good time to get away from Resident Evil 4 Remake S+ prep runs, cooking dinner, going to the gym, and writing my fanfic to indulge in my hobby of being terminally online.

So recently butwhatifidothis, who I will henceforth call Strikes, made a post in which she allegedly discussed how we Edelgard fans view Edelgard's flaws that she doesn't have any of but mostly just sounded off about how Edelgard was presented in a fanfic that consumes an inordinate amount of her mental focus. Let's see what she has to say!

I think the main thing that makes Edelstans' version of Edelgard so annoying is that she ultimately has every ounce of agency stripped out of her,

Don't get confused by her bringing up agency when I was talking about flaws so far, this is the typical Edelcrit strategy of saying that if we deny Edelgard did certain bad things then we're denying she did all the things.

by people who insist that they're "making her grow" into a character they already made her out to be from the start.

Well in a manner of speaking depending on how you handle her character arc it is possible to portray her properly growing into the role of a more focused revolutionary that we all view her as, so I suppose that's not too far off.

We get told that Edelgard has this amazing character arc,

She does.

and then are presented with a Mary Sue with no discernable flaws and/or who makes no substantial mistakes.

Strikes is confusing us denying that Edelgard's an awful racist imperialist with us saying she never did anything wrong. Shitposting in the title (and in the intro) aside, Edelgard obviously did some wrong things in the name of pragmatism. It's rather notable that she's often having to rapidly play catch-up helping to put out the fires Solon starts throughout White Clouds (chapters 6, 8, and 10 being the most notable examples), so she is a little more reactive rather than proactive in stopping some of their activities before they could begin.

Part of the issue is we're just never given an absolutely clear view of just how much Edelgard knew about what the Agarthans were up to and when she knew. One thing we do know is that she doesn't operate the way they do, her attacks are always targeted and have a specific purpose, she doesn't spread chaos like they do, so it's very unlikely she'd approve of most anything they do, especially considering how she often takes measures to fight back against them.

This Edelgard is perfect out the box, no discolorations or tears to be seen.

So Edelgard's biggest flaw early on is her trust issues. Because she struggles to trust she tries to go it alone, resulting in her taking more extreme measures than truly necessary. Of course this isn't entirely without reason, seeing as how on three out of four routes Byleth ultimately rejects her and plays a key role in halting her revolution, but it's only when she puts her trust in Byleth and appears before them without the mask of the Flame Emperor that Byleth has a chance to take her hand.

She even seems to realize she'll one day have to do this:

She just has a bit of dust, but the doll itself is flawless.

Don't like the idea of calling her a doll...

And that is, in the end, what ruins her. She’s not prideful and arrogant,

Oh no, she is 100% those things, roflmao. Sothis even calls her out on it:

Hell, Edelgard herself admits she can seem arrogant, so she's not wholly unaware of that flaw.

she’s not stubborn and narrow-minded,

Stubborn, yeah.

Narrow-minded? Multiple of her supports are about her coming around to the viewpoints of her interlocutors, most especially Manuela, Ferdinand, and Linhardt, so nice try.

she’s not manipulative and deceitful,

Now we're getting into scwary words!

Can't fight against the framework of the continent if you don't hold your cards close to your chest, Strikes.

she’s not violent and abrasive,

No, no, if you want violent you want Rhea or Dimitri.

Abrasive, yeah, that's another thing she grows out of. She's rather impatient with some of her goofier friends in the early supports, and grows to be much more patient and compassionate by the timeskip.

she’s not nationalistic and imperialistic,

She's neither of those things.

but nor is she fearless and confident,

...Where did Strikes see Edelgard fans calling her an uncertain little coward?

I mean I know where she thinks she saw that, but we'll get into that later.

she’s not ambitious and resolute

Ditto. Please show me these Edelgard fans who say she isn't ambitious, I'm dying to see the idiots masquerading as her fans.

- she has none of her character flaws or boons, because they make her too full of agency. They drive her to choose to do anything; they're not forces outside of her control that make her do things that she would just never, ever do were the WORLD not so broken and flawed.

Here we go, so Strikes has twisted the acknowledgement that some things were out of Edelgard's control (because they were) to some kind of admission that everything is out of her control.

There's a certain interesting meta analysis to be looked into on the subject of whether a revolutionary truly has a say in the matter when it comes to rebelling against a world that's gone so firmly wrong, as Fodlan had, but with Edelgard in particular I think the thing most of us love about her is that she's the only one willing to make the difficult choice of ripping the bandaid off. I'd certainly like her less if she just kinda bumbled her way into fixing the system the way Naruto does.

The few "flaws" Edelstans begrudgingly allow her are only meant to further endear her to the player. She’s childish, but only because she’s oh so traumatized and that should be accepted as who she is and not something to grow out of (nor something that is truly wrong of her to be even in her 20's).

Sadly I have no idea what Strikes means by Edelgard being childish. I guess her liking of cute things and sweets? Or maybe her abrassiveness that Strikes claims we think she isn't?

She’s self-unaware, but only because the world made her unsure of who she really is, which is a perfect little angel.

Yeah now we're just getting into Strikes blatantly sounding off about that whole fanfic thing I mentioned earlier. Most of her complaints are about a very specific incarnation of Edelgard, because Strikes and others like will her will never stop trying to pillory somebody for the crime of...

Hang on a sec.

(Flips through notes)

Ah. The crime of writing a fanfic.

The only "mistakes" she makes are because others failed her; Byleth and the Black Eagles fail Edelgard in the Holy Tomb, that wasn't her fault, they didn't ensure her that they could be trusted, for example.

At this point is there any reason in replying concretely to anything Strikes says? Not every Edelgard fan in the world interprets her the way The Emperor and the Goddess does, Strikes, and the point Captain Flash was trying to reach wasn't that the others were wrong, but rather that Edelgard's lack of trust was lamentable but a very really thing founded in the nature of the world she lived in.

Claude and Rhea have flaws - real flaws, that aren't "they just don't wove themselves enuff."

Yeah, Rhea's flaw is "she was a genocide victim, you have to be nice to her :(" according to these people.

Dimitri makes mistakes - real mistakes, that aren't "he twusted the wrong people and got hurt fwom them."

Actually he kinda did trust the wrong people and got hurt by them, roflmao. Thales is... about the worst person ever to trust.

She’s just a little flower

You know, that thing Byleth calls Edelgard in The Emperor and the Goddess!

Man, Strikes's so buttmad at that fic for the crime of existing and being popular.

plucked of all her thorns, safe and easy to pick up and admire, weak, meek and too innocent and pure for this dirty dirty world, coveted by all for her perfection and beauty. Which is just so... boring? And annoying?

Yeah, that would be pretty boring if Edelgard fans viewed her that way...

It's so clear that this Edelgard is one that is sanitized of any pesky little flaw that could make people dislike her or like her in the "wrong" way (because liking villains for being villains Is Wrong), and that is ironically the exact reason why she's so insufferable.

Frankly I'll never understand this flailing claim Edelcrits like to make, insisting we try to deny Edelgard is a villain because "liking villains for being villains is wrong."

I'm sorry, but what? People don't like villains, you say? People love villains! This, probably more than anything else they say, is sheer desperate idiocy.

Cornelia's one of my favorite characters in Three Houses purely because she's just an unrepentant vicious bitch to everyone, including Thales. She became an ascended extra in my fanfic because of it.

Like, it's almost kinda hard to explain why having a character choose to be an asshole is so much more engaging to watch than having a character be entirely reactive UNTIL they can get Good Noodle Stars because.... yeah? Of course? Because there's more meat to bite into whenever a character makes a choice - whether kind or spiteful, whether good or bad - over someone else forcing a character to do something.

Alarak my beloved <3

"Edelgard believes in imperialism because she has been raised in and agrees with a culture that believes itself to be the rightful 'owner' of the continent due to it being the progenitor country, and she genuinely believes Fodlan would be better if back under this 'glorious' reign of Adrestia, even despite her being around those outside of Adrestia for almost a year" says so much about her AND Adrestia.

...It would if she did? Except she doesn't? Says a lot about the nobles who do think that way.

Like the implied Duke Aegir, who Edelcrits try to mildly whitewash of his crimes, coincidentally enough.

"Edelgard DOESN'T believe in imperialism, it's just that everyone else is doing so badly that they FORCE her to kill them or otherwise get rid of them" says things about the ones DOING things badly, MAYBE, but all it says about Edelgard is that she Doesn't Like Bad Things.

That kind of is a way to describe her movement, though naturally Strikes phrased it in a way that strips her of agency because that's convenient for her argument.

I'd phrase it more as "Edelgard chooses war with the rest of Fodlan as a last resort, hating it but accepting the necessity as a means to bring about real and lasting change".

Or, oh so much deeper, it says she likes *gasp* Good Things! How brave, how stunning!

Someone's getting hangry.

Yeah, I have no actual argument for this, Strikes is just mad and saying things.

And before you can try to say "Well maybe Edelgard went to violence so quickly because she views fear and control to be the best way to force a society into being 'good' over trying to convince people peacefully,"

...No. When does Edelgard resort to the Tarkin Doctrine? Ever?

the Edelstan Edelgard is already packaged with "Edelgard went to war first because literally everyone MADE her go to war because THEY wouldn't let anything else work."

That's a rather obtuse way to say diplomacy wouldn't have worked.

"Edelgard tried to assassinate Dimitri and Claude at the very beginning of the game because she wanted to make her eventual war go way easier"

Heheheheheheh, you know where this is going.

turns into the infamous "Edelgard was just trying to scare THE TEACHER away to get JERITZA installed in their place, and CLAUDE ruined it by running away; she wasn't ACTUALLY trying to hurt anyone."

Infamous, and proven true. Edelcrits are still furious about that over two years later. Hopes was a bad time for them, I get it.

And also, if she was trying to kill Dimitri and Claude? So what? If killing them would have made the future war easier, I could understand why she'd make that choice. Their two lives don't weigh heavier on the scales than that of all Fodlan's people.

"Edelgard let Remire be massacred because - like she literally said she would - she was willing to sacrifice her people's lives in service of her higher cause" turns into one of "TWS forced her to be compliant" or "Edelgard definitely didn't know anything because she would have stopped it had she known."

So while it is implied Edelgard had some inkling of what happened,

But she clearly didn't expect Remire to be so terrible,

An interesting thing to note is that the cutscene where Seteth and Rhea talk about the situation in Remire happens on the 1st of the month, Byleth passes out on the 2nd after speaking with Manuela, and we get the scene with Hubert and Edelgard on the 4th. That's the earliest we know that she has some idea what's happening in Remire, and given how in the same scene Hubert openly asks Byleth how the investigation is going, it's likely Byleth had already told the class about the mission by then.

The Agarthans don't respect Edelgard, they don't need to ask her for permission for anything, and they don't need her help with anything. Solon has already vanished from the monastery to finish up the experiments, so by the time Edelgard even knows what's happening in Remire, it's already too late to do anything about it.

"Edelgard directly assisted in Flayn's kidnapping because TWS having more tools to work with means she gets more weapons to fight with" turns into "She was forced to do that."

I think she means, "Edelgard was forced to give up the Death Knight to Thales," when she says "she was forced to do that", because that's the closest I've ever seen it argued. Usually the take I've seen is that Edelgard didn't know Flayn would be kidnapped until she was, because, again, why would Solon bother to tell her about it? He's already had the Death Knight for over a month by then and he doesn't need any further help from Edelgard. If Edelgard wanted Flayn captive, why would she help in the search, why would she let Flayn go, and why wouldn't she take Flayn captive at the Holy Tomb?

"Edelgard helped hide Kronya among the student populace even as she kidnapped students and mutated them into Demonic Beasts because it will help in giving her Demonic Beasts to work with in the war" turns into, you guessed it, "Edelgard was forced to do that."

This time I have no idea what Edelgard was supposedly "forced" to do in the context of Edelgard fan apologia. Edelgard "hid" Kronya by not outing her.

And yeah, it ain't great that Edelgard didn't do that, but there's a lot of reasons she couldn't. By the time Solon reveals himself Kronya's already about to disappear from the monastery, revealing her would be too blatant a backstab against Thales, it wouldn't also reveal Edelgard herself, and there's no guarantee the church would do anything judging from how Rhea reacts to Edelgard outing Thales in Three Hopes.

"Edelgard sent her army and Demonic Beasts onto either her direct Black Eagle classmates or otherwise innocent students to stop them from stopping her from getting Crest Stones to use in her upcoming war"? Oh, a surprise! "She HAD to do that, because OTHER PEOPLE were going to take the Crest Stones if she didn't!"

The students can't be innocent if they're fighting for the church. You don't get to have it both ways: if they're innocent non-combatants then Rhea has no business recruiting them to fight on behalf of the Church of Seiros.

And yes, she endangers her classmates. Again that ain't great, but the future of Fodlan is more important than the lives of a few of her close friends.

She was forced to, she wasn't hurting/trying to hurt anyone, she didn't do anything wrong - if her actions lead to people getting hurt and/or killed, those are the exclusive reasons allowed as to why she did it.

No, they weren't exclusive, I threw several more. The issue here is Strikes wants to either make it:

A) Edelgard is an evil vicious imperialist racist.

B) Edelgard has no control over anything.

With zero nuance because that furthers her point. Edelgard's either EVIL or has no agency, with zero in-between.

These reasons being excuses to alleviate her of any accountability, not genuine explanations that still demand her to take accountability.

Who's she to take accountability to? Most of the people she fails are dead, is she supposed to apologize for starting a revolution to better Fodlan?

That's the difference between Rhea and Dimitri, who Strikes will mention onward: their mistakes they take accountability for are inherently selfish ones. If Edelgard was selfish she'd just hide in her room all day munching on sweets.

Meanwhile, Rhea distorted history to keep her and her family safe - which in verse is said to be something she was still wrong to do, and which in verse she ADMITS was wrong of her to do.

And her fans try to minimize what she did. "Rhea only briefly held back certain inventions, and only so that humanity wouldn't progress 'too fast'." "Rhea had no control over the Crest system, that was humans being bad!" "Rhea was just the midwife, she didn't do anything suspicious to Sitri and Byleth!" "Rhea thought Byleth was an amnesiac Sothis!"

Dimitri was absolutely willing to torture Randolph because he viewed the guy as less than human and felt him getting such inhumane treatment was justice

And his fans try to argue either that Randolph deserved it or because Byleth stopped him it wasn't all that bad.

Hell, Strikes herself is minimizing what Dimitri did here! He didn't just attempt to torture Randolph, he did torture Randolph. Even if you don't know that describing torture you're about to inflict upon a person is legally classified as torture in and of itself, just look at how Randolph is reacting to Dimitri's dressing-down: the dude is having a complete breakdown and Dimitri hasn't even laid a finger on him yet!

- which he directly takes accountability for to Randolph's remaining family.

Uhh what? Did I miss the alt scene where Dimitri stops Byleth from gutting Fleche, admits what he did to her brother, and kneels to her in penitence?

Claude weaseled up to Byleth because he felt he could use them for his own ambitions - which he owns up to and grows out of doing.

Yeah, this is the only thing I generally don't see people trying to minimize, probably because it's the least-obvious offense and doesn't really hurt anyone. Claude comes out of Three Houses with squeaky-clean hands, and I respect Three Hopes for dirtying them a bit.

And yeah, that's about it. As I explained in the opening, Strikes is mostly just mad that we Edelgard fans don't view her as an awful person the way Strikes herself does. She's upset we can actually explain her actions, so she's venting that we're stripping Edelgard of all agency, with a side helping of shitting on Emperor and the Goddess again because that's her life, I guess.

[period-of-nocturne]

I listened to Mizuki commissioned song again lately. All of them.

I actually had very little thought about most of it. Most of the song's meaning stays unchanged, but a few sentences now feel extremely foreshadowy to me (we're making up words today)

I'll use Amiaryllis' lyrics to talk about the song btw (go check her cover she cooked). It might lead me to see things that weren't intented in the original song's writing because well, lyrics translation. But some of the more literal translation of the songs can feel very cryptic + I'm obsessed with Amia's cover so idc bear with me.

And to clarify the color-coding. Mizuki, Ena, Mafuyu, Kanade. I'll color the lines to clarify who sings what, but I need to specify that as much as the line distribution is made to fit each character's situation, every line that isn't sung by the focus character (Mizuki here) bears a double meaning, as it can be read and interpreted entirely from their perspective. It's their commissioned song for a reason, after all.

That's a way too long introduction. Let's get into the topic!

Staring with IDSmile :

"I've given up- tried to keep my distance"

"I've found defeat here in hide and seek.

I've lost my way to melancholy"

"To feel this pain or fade away ?"

A few lines that took another dimension after Mizu5, I think.

If you lost in hide and seek, it means you've been found. You've been seen.

Giving up, setting a distance (1003), getting lost... Fading away. What can I say. I believe lyrics speaks for themselves.

Lower is something else entierely.

"Admiration fades to distaste"

"Quiet meeting dissolves into farewell"

Sounds like Mizuki's fear in general. Except it became near tangible now.

"I raise my hazy voice as it scorches my throat, forgetting everything I'd cherished the most,

My mind, it draws a blank, what was I supposed to utter ? "

And that is Ena's line. Ena, in shock, unable to process what she heard and answer accordingly. Ena, screaming Mizuki's name in the corridor.

"A quiet whispers echoes through the halls. Hear out the wishes, hear out the wishes shared by all."

It might be just me, but I can't help but think about the school's corridor. People whispering as you walk by. Typical school bullying.

To Mafuyu, the 'wishes shared by all' are the high expectations pushed on her. To Mizuki, though...

"I don't know where to start, don't even know what I've lost sight of now. I don't know the answer but I pray they come to me somehow."

Kanade's but makes me think of how Mizuki was afraid to speak to Ena and wished someone did it for her. Ha. Ha. Ahem. It's not the first Kanade line that gives me that impression.

The full thing makes me think of how Ena is probably confused and not sure how to proceed. And by the way we know Mizuki is gone from real world but has Niigo noticed yet ? Do Ena knows what she has lost sight of now ♪ ?

I'm focusing on Mizu5 foreshadowing but I'm still freshly out of reading Mafuyu Engeki event and

"I promise that we'll make our great escape, someday and somehow" line sang by Kanade and Mafuyu together. Although it's a line from a Mizuki commi, Mizuki who's the one who told Mafuyu to run away Aaaaaaaa- anyway back on tracks!

"Whispered secret once obscured by tinted glass" Past tense. No more tinted glass. Secret exposed for everyone to see. Ena why is this your line oh my god I need to scream--

"Wondering how much longer could this truly last ?"

Well. It's Mizuover now.

I'm glad the chorus exists, still.

"I know we'll be connected in the end, no matter the cost."

It might be hellish as of now, but there's no need to worry. It will end up being fine. Trust.

Give me Your Night.

I want to talk about that song but there's little to say in Mizu5 context because that song. Isn't about Niigo.

I wish I had the source, but I heard Hinata Satou (Mizuki's VA), thought of the song as Mizuki speaking to Rui as they were recording. And. I can't not scream about the song seen through that lense.

But the Mizurui brainrot is too strong so I'll make it into its own post. Just to avoid this one being way too long.

I'm less confident about Kitty.

If there's foreshadowing here, it's not in lines you pick up.

The song is telling Mafuyu to run away. But I also somehow see Mizuki who start to question things.

Mafuyu is being told to run by a girl who start considering facing things. In that exact moment, they both share the feelings of doubt about how to proceed. Not sure they should speak up. Apprehending changes. But the will to make the first step for that change is right here, starting to grow. Something like that.

Escape for our Survival was the last Mizuki focus event before the Thorns, so it makes sense the hints are less subtle. Listening to it now, I feel like the song is telling me "Hey. It's coming."

On a side note I can't help but notice the use of the world Telecaster. In a Mizuki song. Mmh.

Bonus Keitai Renwa ?

Bonus Keitai Renwa. It was a commissioned song after all. Using Ami's lyrics🌸 again where I can. Filling the rest with wiki EN translation.

"All the things I say, they only seem to lead us astray, so what now ?"🌸 Ena trying to get closer to Mizuki desperately only to--

"Even though I try, I've only found a time for goodbye"🌸 MIZUKIIIIIIIIIIIII. YOU COME BACK HERE.

"The sweet sensations of the past, why is it they weren't meant to last ?"🌸 *Dies in 'Mizuki is afraid of change.'*

"Your fabricated kindness makes my heart goes insane." Why. Oh why. Why the concept of made-up, fake, kindness. Why here. Why now.

"It makes it hurt so much." Okay. Fine. Sure. I'm fine. No problem.

"I got lost searching for you" Go Enanan, go. Technically that line fits mfyd too.

"The whispers that don't exist in the chat history, I don't need them at all" mention of whispers again.

I can't make sense of the sentence tho. For the funfact, that song was commissioned for an alternate universe, as the plot of Niigo changed after the song was made. So they asked for another song for the Untilted track. Namely, Kuyamu to Katie Mirai.

So yeah a lot of Keitai Renwa lines are a bit cryptic, because they're talking about another story entirely. Any sense of foreshadowing here is purely coincidental.

Back on tracks

"Love me if that's what you please, hate me if it gives you ease"🌸 Mizuki asking for hate rather than a made-up kindness.

"Screaming out my deepest fear : Please don't leave me yet !"🌸

To an extent, it could fit them both. But it went to Ena. Ena would had to look at Mizuki running away without having the chance to speak.

Wait- please, don't go.

"Even if this love's gone cold, like the tea I've left alone, I would not lose hope and throw it all away"🌸 Unfortunately you didn't exactly did that, huh...

"Searching through my heart to find what to say"🌸 why does so many lines brings me back to lower ?

/"I still want to hear you speak with words [...]"

I still want to hear it from you. I haven't waited all this time for naught.

"To just connect with you, so, please... Are you there ?"

They sing that like together, except the 'with you' part that is only Ena. But in our specific context, the line feels like Ena's.

And that's about it. I can't say much more.

Sure, I could go through every Niigo cover that includes Mizuki and pick up every line that feels suspicious to me. I'm down the rabbit hole enough to do that.

But that post is long enough. If I find something earth-shattering in the covers, maybe I'll share it. Maybe.

[thisisjustmefangirling]

Merlin rewatch : 2x09 "The lady of the lake"

Freya must have been so cold wearing these rags…

Gaius, your acceptance/resignation towards people being sold for a price if they have magic freaks me out.

As if Merlin was going to let a defenseless looking girl stay in that cage… Especially someone with magic. He feels empathy for them.

Is that the first time we're seeing the Rising sun tavern ?

Oh Merlin is using so many spells in a few minutes, I'm loving it…

"Here, I thought you might be cold."

"I just saw you and… It could have been me, in that cage".

WHY is Merlin not stealing from the kitchens instead of bringing Arthur a rotten apple and a stale piece of bread ? The NERVE ?! I wouldn't have given this to anyone, even less my BOSS, a PRINCE.

Arthur's indignation : "I am fighting fit!"

I think this is where we're getting started with the fatphobic jokes…

Arthur has scratches/scars on his chest ? Where did he get that ?

Merlin giving Arthur "Sire" because he knows he fucked up…

Oh Freya was a druid ?

Merlin !!!! How did you not realise that that bathwater was BOILING and could COOK ARTHUR TO DEATH ?

"You need to warn them, Sire. The girl is dangerous. My informer told me she was cursed."

"How so ?"

"He didn't know. But he said even the druids were frightened of her. They cast her out of their camp."

So Freya is an outcast. Just like Merlin, in some way. Merlin is so powerful it'd be easy to be afraid of him once he's mature enough. He's not part of the druids. Neither is Freya.

Add butter to that bread and cheese and you get un jambon-beurre haha.

"Believe me, it's fit for a prince" hahaha no shit Merlin !

"He knows but I'm not sure he understands". => Merlin about Gaius knowing about Merlin's magic.

"Magic is not a curse. It can be a gift!" Oh baby in 1x01 you feared you were a monster ?

Merlin is lying to Gaius' face and his very inquisitive eyes…

Merlin stealing Arthur's food is supposed to be a joke, okay, but I'm not sure I like it now. Arthur is being deprived of a good breakfast and lunch. He'll be cranky come evening. Give him food.

"Merlin is my servant, he has my absolute trust. If you have a problem with him, you come to me. Do you understand ?"

This line is doing things to my heart, oh la la…

The fact that Arthur doesn't question Merlin AT ALL about his strange behaviour, they just bicker about the stolen sausages and Arthur's weight and then Merlin just… leaves. And goes straight to see Freya.

"I scare most people away" Freya you deserve better…

"You can't always trust people."

"I know. That's why I left home."

Merlin :/ Babe <3

Let it be remembered that Merlin can make flowers appear, but not food.

"With you, I can just be who I am. We don't have to hide anything. I don't have to worry."

"Being different is nothing to be scared of".

AND THAT SINGLE TEAR ROLLING DOWN HIS CHEEK !

Awww Merlin behaving like a lovesick puppy <3

This is the first time Merlin even THINKS about leaving Camelot. He's known Freya for two days. He's just really desperate to be known for who he really is, and to be free…

Moths and woodworms : the "reasons" why Merlin is snooping into closets and bedside tables he should not be touching at all.

"Running an errand for Gaius" : excuse number 1 for weird shit and secret missions Merlin is doing.

Arthur not giving a fuck about Merlin possibly crossdressing for fun in his spare time : "As long as you do a decent day's work, Merlin, that's all I care about. […] What a man does in his spare time is completely up to him". And then the compliment : "colour suits you Merlin".

This is day three now.

"We can leave tonight, as soon as it gets dark, and we can be together".

Horses, blankets and food and they won't need more. A second kiss, and goodbye. Freya doesn't have the heart to tell him.

"There was a time when you thought twice about lying to me".

Yet Merlin said "Of course not!" which such an air of sincerity… Oh yeah, he's turning into a really good liar…

Mais Gaius t'es tellement une grosse balance, t'es là à lécher les pompes d'UTHER au lieu de régler le problème avec Merlin !

"You can never understand. Do you know how it feels to be a monster? To be afraid of who you are ?"

"Freya is very different from you. She's dangerous."

Oh I didn't remember Arthur saw her in her human form ! Lol he's just there blinking as she's turning into a bastet…

I can't freaking believe Arthur's guards and knights are running away while Arthur is trying to fight the bastet !

MERLIN ! You almost crushed Arthur to death !

He's petting her head ???

OH is Freya a rape survivor, forced to kill people by the mother of her rapist ? That's so fucked up…

"Please go."

"No. I'm not leaving you here".

The PARALLELS with Arthur's dying moments !

"One day, Merlin, I will repay you. I promise". Okay but do we actually see that happen in the next seasons ? I don't remember her.

What I do remember from years ago is directors saying that Colin held that level of intensity and sadness for hours in the rain for those lake scenes.

It's the first time he has to light a funeral pyre for a friend and it sadly won't be the last…

That last scene with Arthur always gets to me. Arthur might be oblivious to a lot of things but he pays attention to Merlin more than Merlin might think, I'd say.

"Something's been upsetting you, hasn't it ?"

Arthur has seen Merlin doing the weirdest things in the past four days or so : stealing his food, calling him fat, giving him stale food to eat, stealing a dress, being accused of hiding a druid… And he doesn't accuse Merlin of anything himself. He thinks "Oh, Merlin has been upset. I must find out why. Maybe it's because of me." and then he sort of apologises and when words fail him, he uses action to make Merlin smile again. Because seeing Merlin smile, as we'll learn in the next seasons ("I haven't seen you smile in the past three days") is important to Arthur. Because he cares. Another thing that gets to me is that when Merlin is sitting upset doing his chores, Arthur usually comes to sit next to him, at his eye level, or even UNDER his eye level sometimes. Yet, a Prince should never be sitting at a lower level than a servant or any lesser noble. He gives himself the look of a listener, and he's bad with words and feelings (because of his father's shitty education) but he TRIES.

Last episode was Arthur centric, with Arthur showing his most intimate thoughts and feelings to/in front of Merlin : his grief and guilt about his mother's death, his rage at the idea that his father was responsible for her death, that he was a hypocrite and a liar... This episode was Merlin centric. I wonder what next episode will be like.

This episode was really good at exploring Merlin's feelings about his magic, his identity as a warlock, his sense of loneliness at the heart of Camelot. Gaius cares about him but is still loyal to Uther, and Merlin is not sure Gaius really understands him and what it's like to be a warlock. Arthur... Merlin cares about Arthur and Arthur cares about him, but Merlin knows that he could end up in a cage just like Freya. And I think a part of him might resent Arthur for it. Or at least, at the end of the episode, he's tired of his chores... But no wonder. Your crush is killed by your soulmate, and you still have to show up at work the next day and shine his boots ?

[crossdressingdeath]

Care to elaborate on the dislike of "what they did with (Morrigan) in DA:I"?

Simple, snarky answer: I play Lavellan.

More complete answer: Morrigan in DAO could be kind of shitty, she didn't have a lot of respect for... anyone and seemed to make decisions solely based on whether or not they were evil (Morrigan bby please leaving everyone in Redcliffe to die isn't pragmatic when we still have to go through Redcliffe), but she was sheltered and still learning how the world worked so it was understandable, even sympathetic in places. Morrigan in DAI has been out in the world for ten years and has only gotten shittier. In general I'm not fond of the way that the recurring DAO characters apparently haven't grown as people in ten years (hardened King Alistair, a character specifically mentioned as being a good king, writing diplomatic letters to someone he met for at most five minutes like the recently-freed-from-heavy-indoctrination nineteen year old he hasn't been for a decade especially irritates me), it's clear that Bioware is more invested in cashing in on nostalgia than they are in developing these characters as characters, but Morrigan? Bioware, I know negative character development is still development but it maybe wasn't the best idea.

Let me put it this way. In Witch Hunt Morrigan steals a book from the Dalish so that she can learn about eluvians. This is kind of shitty behaviour, but it's Morrigan levels of shitty and she does leave the book outside the eluvian, so the Dalish as far as we see have reclaimed that book and the knowledge in it, and also they had it for years and so logically knew the things in that book already. Definitely they had access to it. And it's also important to keep in mind that that book is the only information we can confirm that Morrigan actually has on eluvians in canon; she's never mentioned as finding any other source. And then in DAI she basically calls the Dalish morons the whole way through and claims that she (a human woman with literally zero connection to the Dalish or elves in general beyond maybe having some friends who are elves and also stealing from the Dalish that one time, the Flemeth situation doesn't count because we're given no reason to believe Morrigan ever for a moment even suspected the Mythal thing or that Flemeth wasn't human or to believe that Flemeth passed on any knowledge about the elves, and certainly not anything the Dalish didn't know) has more right to take this ancient elven font of knowledge sacred to a Dalish god than a Dalish elf does. This despite the fact that if you have the arcane knowledge perk you understand the Well better than her literally just by looking at it (she doesn't know the Well will put the drinker under a geas despite all her research, while Quiz only has to look at it and hear the whispers coming from it to figure that out). I've seen it described as humansplaining and... yeah that kind of describes what Morrigan does. If you play Lavellan she's just constantly really shitty to you about you wanting to engage with your own damn culture and claims she knows better because she read one book that you quite possibly also read. It's not entirely to do with her as a character, some of it is DAI's shitty writing and without it her arrogance could've been just a character trait that she could've moved past (let Lavellan and Solas troll her by straight up lying about the inscriptions in the temple and her going along with it because she won't admit that she can't read as much of it as she claims she can, please), but the way it's allowed to stand unchallenged despite by all logic being horseshit really pisses me off. I don't trust Bioware not to double down on the "Oh this human woman understands this totally unrelated culture that she is in no way part of and has barely even studied way better than the people belonging to that culture do and deserves valuable ancient relics of their people more than them" thing, so I very much do not want to see her in any more DA games.

[moretheta]

ok holy shit holy shit. theories are about to go wild. holy shit. tangled thoughts and theories below the cut:

now we have to consider a few things : firstly, are we going to assume that the prince in question knows? i think judging by longhi's comment, beyond would at least have some level of contact with them- although they might not know about their parentage. second assumption i'm making is that beyond's kid is alive. not just for story purposes, but because, knowing beyond and his tactics he would have surely placed high protections on the child in question to ensure they won.

which leaves:

benjamin - implicitly ruled out by longhi herself. i give it 5% chance she's wrong (if we're assuming that there is, in fact, a bastard in the ranks)

camilla- doubtful considering like. everything we know about camilla and her unwillingness to work with other people. 8% chance

zhang lei - we've had a lot of his POV, and he's thusfar given us no indication that he has any hunter association connections. but he also gave me illegitimate child vibes (i thought his dad might be onior) so who knows. 30% chance

tserriedich. no way. that man is evil enough.2%

tubeppa- would be ironic, considering longhi works for her... although maybe she does have suspicions and is hoping to do some corporate espionage idk. 20%

tyson - this one gave me pause. tyson is one of the more mysterious princes so far, we don't know a lot about her inner world so it wouldn't surprise me if she was hiding something. 40%

luzurus- listen.we all know this man looks NOTHING like his other full(!) siblings. i had theorized that he was actually the child of the cha'r mob boss, brocco li (togashi... you're killing me togashi) due to the resemblance and benefactor relationship between the two. and being of the bloodline might be enough for the seed urn to work idk. but he doesn't look particularly like beyond either.... but who knows the guys mysterious and both he and tyson have kurapika's guys posted on them so presumably they have some level of plot importance. 45%

salé-salé- DEAD!!! HAHAHAAA .0001%

halkenburg - oh this would kill me. i can't imagine him compromising his ethics for a guy like beyond, but depending on how gullible he is... and we do know he trusts tserriednich for some reason... oh boy i hope not. but yk, dramatic irony's a bitch. 25%

kacho- :( .00001%

fugetsu - initially discounted her bc of the twin thing, but upon further consideration the sisters are clearly fraternal & look almost nothing alike. could fugetsu have been a changeling child raised as kacho's twin? idk, but it might offer some insight into her current Cursed condition. 15%

momoze more dead kids oh boy .000001%

maryam - initially i ruled him out, as i did with most of the younger kids because it makes more sense timeline wise... but now that i think about it it's indeed interesting that queen sevranti always (and very obviously) favored one of her children over the other. there are many ways to interpret her behavior, but this could be one of them. 48%

woble .....

ok listen. i could see a case being made- she's the only prince we haven't seen the nen beast of, and some where already theorizing her to be illegitimate. (this brings up the question of loopholes in the seed urn ceremony: is it enough to be the child of a queen? or do you need the kings direct bloodline. because if it's latter than would in fact rule out anyone with a nen beast- which is everyone but woble). however, oito's reaction seems to be one of genuine shock; not sure if the pendulum would swing if she's in the room and not being pointed at, so we can't be entirely certain she's not lying, but at the same time oito doesn't seem the type to be putting on an act at this point. and the other possibility is that she's telling the truth and was SA'd by a beyond pretending to be nasubi. pretty unpleasant to think about so for my sake i hope that's not the case. it would, however, make quite a moral conundrum for kurapika. but at the same time i also dont think longhi would reach out to make this contract in the first place if she suspected it was woble? idk insider information says to have doubts. but the nen beast.... hm. 22%

regardless, the confirmation of an bastard child amongst the "legitimate princes" would of course make the treatment of nasubi's other illegimate children all the more cruel oh my god does morena know-

oh my god?!? could it be morena???!???!!? like, she's not part of the succession war proper, so she technically can't win... unless beyond's plan isn't to win? maybe he has some other goal? but i can't imagine morena's goals of total chaos aligning with beyond's power-hungry schemes....

much to think about!

[theoldaeroplane]

I inbox you the following: I must know what compels you about Link. I trust that he is Good and Excellent, but I simply yearn for an essay on what little niche trait makes you wanna fandom the fuck out of this little guy. 5-10 paragraphs of hyper fixated ramblings preferred, but not required.

ohhh starkid you've given me A GIFT. a GIFT.

So some background first, I think. I've always liked the Zelda games, in the way you play a mainstream game and are like "yeah that was good!" I played Ocarina of Time and Windwaker as a kid. I played Breath of the Wild when it first came out and had a fun time with it. Yeah. Good games! Fun mechanics. Characters seem a little flat, but they aren't why I'm here. What was the story again? Oh, right---yeah, they gave Zelda an actual personality that doesn't start and end with "princess" in the new one! She's a scientist! How neat.

Then Tears of the Kingdom comes out. I've just gotten a Steam Deck for my birthday and wow, turns out you can emulate TOTK already?? I try it out immediately. It's janky, but I love messing with emulators, so I keep going. I certainly don't have the cash to buy TOTK properly.

And in TOTK, for me, it starts with Zelda. It starts with this young woman barely out of her teens being flung into a horrible, frightening situation, and being forced to make an absolutely terrifying choice. And it turns out if you start looking at her more closely, that choice only becomes more and more viscerally upsetting as you incorporate things about her from the previous game.

It got me invested, and I still adore Zelda. I could probably write just as long a deliberation about her. But we're talking about Link.

I read a little bit of BOTW fanfic back when it first came out. It was almost all Sidon/Link stuff, because I liked the ship for a number of reasons, and one evening after another night of mainlining TOTK I decide to go look and see if I can find some that I remembered being good. I did, and they were still mostly good! But there was one in particular, with one line in particular. "You're Always Almost There," by Polyhexian. (On mobile so no link, sorry!)

'One hundred years ago,’ Link signed, 'A Guardian shot me through the chest,’ he grimaced as if in pain from even mentioning it, 'I died with everyone else, and then someone else decided to bring me, and only me, back to life to fix everything, to save everyone. I have to stop the Calamity. I have to save Hyrule. I have to fix the world. I am not a real person. I am everyone’s unfinished business.’

I had read it before. When I read it this time I closed my browser, opened Typora, and started writing. It wasn't more than a random narrative sifting through half collected ideas, and I neither finished nor posted it, but it got me started. A few weeks later I started writing To Be Well, which among other things directly addresses the idea that Link does not think of himself as a "real person"---and that he isn't sure if he wants to.

As I've written him, I've found more and more about him and his setting that fascinates me. Part of this is certainly that Link is intentionally designed as a "placeholder" character (word of God is he was deliberately designed to be androgynous to make it easier for more people to project on him). At first I was really fascinated by his relationship with Zelda, and wanted to look at that through a queerplatonic lens. In doing that I found myself trying to work through some problems of my own, which it turns out is just how I write fanfiction I guess: projecting! Huzzah! I decided to lean into it, and wrote "You do not have to be good," which is a story that takes some liberties with the canon to explore the subject of toxic purity and the toll it takes. Also, the logistics of kissing someone with a beak.

What makes Link compelling to me is ... what do you do, when you aren't allowed to be a person? What do you do when you've been told all your life things are like this and this and this, and that you must behave thusly?  What if you learn it was never true? How do you go from "perfect" to "real"? What does it even mean, being a person? How do you start? Is it even worth it?

I feel like I'm only scratching the surface, haha. I also love Link for whatever the hell he's doing with gender, and I've been having an absolute blast writing him as predominantly communicating via sign language. I'm playing fast and loose with a lot of things that only get half-mentioned in canon, and having a good old time playing in the sandbox of Hyrule. They're huge games and there's a lot of space for me to set up shop!

[k1rameki]

i think i need to expand on my losergirl ayana agenda bc lord have i become hyperfixated (buckle up bc i have gone absolutely insane over this) (this might also end up becoming a hc dump uh oh) (also bear in mind thanks to all the recent art ive been seeing of her ive been on a real ayana kick when it comes to ships n shit so yeah some hcs with the other characters imma mention can be interpreted romantically too teehee) (and also!!! more general ayana hcs too :333 i have a cavity in mein cranium that can only be filled with soft ayana content)

also quick emoji keys for dialogue i may add for this ^_^

🎸 - aldryx

🩻 - tabi

🔻- ayana

🎧 - dalia

📼 - agoti

some of the many reasons i believe ayana is an absolute girlfailure is her complete and utter failure in her previous relationship/s (I SAY THIS BC SHE PROBABLY HAS BEEN IN A FEW THAT HAVENT WORKED OUT LONG BEFORE SHE MET BOYFRIEND,, also shes just awkward as hell but thats a story for anotha time)

NOT ONLY THAT BUT HELLO??? she appears so calm and collected whenever shes engaging in simple conversation but internally shes freaking out and she has no idea where anything is gonna end up going and often times she can and she WILL let stupid things slip out of her mouth and immediately she regrets it

and let me tell you this she gets more and more pathetic and losery around dalia,, this woman is in LOVE (hence that stupid doodle i made where aya's just freaking out over the slightest bit of affection given to her) (looks like she might have abandonment issues sorry what)

IN FACT. GIVING PHYSICAL AFFECTION TO EVERYONE. SHES ALL FOR THAT SHIT,, hugs, kisses, stroking hair, you name it, this girl is a massive cuddlebug you cant convince me otherwise

i mentioned my pastry chef ayana hc in passing but i'm gonna fully expand on that now: SO. also aya family hcs bc people should talk ab that but ayana's dad is a chef (no specific speciality, but he does make a lot of baked goods) and growing up she would often mirror what he does and that eventually led to her practicing and honing her skills! :D (she also studies culinary arts at college teehee) ALSO!!! she brings all sorts of baked goods she makes over for all her favourite people to enjoy constantly whether that be cookies, pastries, cakes, all of that yummy stuff

despite being an absolute loser girlfail idiot she can jam on the bass like its no tomorrow. IM TALKING ABOUT SLAP, FINGERPICKING, YOU NAME IT, SHE CAN DO IT ‼️‼️ here's an example of the bass playing style i had in mind for her, very energetic and fluid heuehehehehehe

SPEAKING OF (and this ties in a little with my band au) and whenever she drops an epic bassline everyone just stops and stares at her totally being in the zone

🔻: –casually having the time of her life playing a bassline like theres no tomorrow–

🎸: "yo holy crap aya where has this energy been this entire time"

🔻: "huh what do you mean"

HAIR EXTENSIONS!!! ive talked about this on discord before but ayana with naturally shorter hair so she wears hair extensions! (also bc gender euphoria but shhhh)

i also believe that aldryx and tabi had zero idea that she wore them and just believed her hair was naturally long. this is how their conversation went trust;

🔻: " hey guys ^_^"

🩻: ".....did you cut your hair?"

🔻: "no? my hair has always been short"

🎸: "IT HAS??!!??!!??! 😨 I THOUGHT YOUR HAIR WAS JUST REALLY LONG"

🩻: "ME TOO— jesus christ my life is a lie"

🔻: "theyre hair extensions not the holy grail calm down 😭😭😭"

AND NOW THAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT AYANA INTERACTING WITH THE OTHERS, LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO MY AGOTI/AYA DUO HC BC HELLO romantic or platonic these two are fucking adorable, the loserboy + losergirl pairing ever frfr (also bc i hc that theyre really close in age bc iirc ayana's birthday is january 28th so that would make her around 3-4 months younger than agoti to me at least teehee)

those two gossip about anything and everything and every single night they do each other's hair n spend time doing full fledged spa routines while talking shit about anyone and everyone bc theyre high maintenance as hell and take pride in their combined collection of bazillions of good smelling bodywashes and shampoos

🔻: "oh my god, goti i cant believe i forgot to tell you about some crazy interaction i had with someone earlier today i swear its driving me crazy"

📼: "BITCH AND YOU DIDNT TELL ME SOONER? YOU'D BETTER START FROM THE BEGINNING I NEED DETAILS IN FULL"

🔻: "OKOK SO WHAT HAPPENED WAS—"

also she works as a seamstress in her spare time when she's not doing music or baking ^_^ she often uses her expertise to create some outfits (with the help of sketches done by either tabi or agoti) and often has trouble finding someone to be her muse so she often gets dalia to help

she takes this VERY seriously by the way if she hears a singular complaint she will go insane

🎧: "how long is this gonna take 😔😔 my arms are getting sore babe i cant stand like this for much longer"

🔻: "dee i love you but i swear to god if you say that one more time i'm going to stab you with this needle until your arm is red and swollen BE PATIENT PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU 😭😭😭"

🎧: "😀😀😀😀😀 youre gonna WHAT"

also. shes got a BIG sweet tooth — she and tabi bond over sweets and trying all sorts of new things together, especially chocolatey things bc theyre both obsessed with chocolate anything

🩻: "aya i went to the store and i found this wafer cake thing and i thought you and i should try it"

🔻: "TABI THAT LOOKS DELICIOUS OMG go grab two spoons right now you and i are eating all of this right now"

🩻: "OKAY SURE :] i can already tell this is gonna taste good"

also sometimes she forgets to eat proper meals and will consistently only have sweets and snacks all day until someone calls her out on it, shes very forgetful, oopsies!

[discar]

HZD Terraforming Base-001 Text Communications Network

Chapter 21 | Prev chapter | Next chapter Chapter Index

HIMBO: HEY, ALVA. HOW MANY DIVINERS ARE THERE?

DIVINER: I'm sorry citizen, that is a state secret kept closely guarded for tactical and strategic reasons.

DIVINER: Sorry!!

DIVINER: They drum that into us before we even get our Focuses!! I really can't tell you, though!

FlameHairSavior: Where did this come from?

HIMBO: I WAS REMEMBERING HOW MANY PRIESTS AVAD HAS TO DEAL WITH EVERYTHING, AND WONDERING HOW THE QUEN HANDLE THINGS.

DIVINER: Oh!! I think I understand now!! But Diviners aren't the only priests and scholars. I think I mentioned we're mostly explorers, actually? We can do more administrative work, more easily, thanks to our Focuses, but we have plenty of people trained without them!

HIMBO: I GUESS THAT MAKES SENSE.

HIMBO: WHAT DO YOU DO, THEN? WITH ALL THE SLAG YOU LEARN, I MEAN.

DIVINER: Mostly, we teach! Most of the technology of the Ancestors is still beyond us, but there were enough hints that we were able to learn advanced metallurgy, agriculture, and of course military strategy.

DIVINER: I think most important of all, though, we teach our people the importance of the arts and sciences!

DIVINER: Some of the earliest tribes the Empire conquered were little better than hiding in caves because they refused to understand the importance of progress!

BoyNextDoor: There's value in tradition, though.

DIVINER: Well, yes, of course, but...

DIVINER: Oh, right, you're from a tribe like that.

BoyNextDoor: We're not that bad.

FlameHairSavior: All-Mother Mountain is literally a cave, Varl.

BoyNextDoor: And in the cave is the Cradle facility where you found all these Focuses. If the tribe hadn't been protecting it all this time, who knows what would have happened.

FlameHairSavior: [BenAffleckTiredSmoking.png]

DIVINER: No, he's right! Traditions are important, even if we don't always know why! Your people knew that cave was important, because they remembered they were born there and so stayed close!

DIVINER: My people aren't even sure where exactly we came from!

HIMBO: I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT YOU LOT WOULD KEEP CRAZY GOOD RECORDS. THE OSERAM DO, AND WE DON'T HAVE FANCY FOCUSES.

DIVINER: Yes, of course! But only AFTER we found the cache of Focuses in the Great Delta! We can't be entirely certain where we came from before that!

MARSHAL Kotallo: I am curious how broadly anyone spreads from any given Cradle. Are all of our tribes from different Cradles, or the same?

FlameHairSavior: I think the Carja come from the Nora Cradle. Can't be sure, though.

HIMBO: OH, YEAH, THEY CAME TO MERIDIAN FROM THE EAST. THEIR PRIESTS WILL TELL THAT STORY IF YOU MAKE THE MISTAKE OF SITTING STILL FOR FIVE MINUTES.

MARSHAL Kotallo: How many Cradles are there?

FlameHairSavior: At least nine, because the Nora one is ELEUTHIA-9. But I don't know how many were planned total.

FlameHairSavior: Or how many survived, for that matter. The Faro Plague caused construction and supply problems for Zero Dawn.

Zo: Yes, I read about some of the animal samples that were lost because of the Plague. I have to assume that at least some of the planned facilities failed.

BoyNextDoor: The Nora Cradle has a Metal Devil frozen in the process of trying to dig it out. I think the shutdown came in minutes before they would have breached.

FlameHairSavior: Ah yes. That.

DIVINER: I sense a story!

FlameHairSavior: The High Matriarchs confuse a sense of drama with wisdom.

DIVINER: ??

BoyNextDoor: If you try to get Aloy to explain it will take weeks.

BoyNextDoor: Trust me.

β: but you know dont you

BoyNextDoor: Yes, yes. Assuming Aloy doesn't mind.

FlameHairSavior: I don't care.

BoyNextDoor: Well, as a baby, Aloy was found right outside the Cradle door, where the robot left her. Also, right under the claw of the Metal Devil. High Matriarch Lansra thought this was a sign that she was the daughter of the Metal Devil.

DIVINER: ...and??

BoyNextDoor: And what? That's obviously a bad thing.

BoyNextDoor: It's not like there's any prophecies about children of the Metal Devil or anything, High Matriarch Lansra just jumped to a terrible confusion.

DIVINER: Oh. That story is a lot shorter than I was expecting.

β: a good typo though

FlameHairSavior: Well, it led to me being outcast from birth and I had to win the Proving just to be allowed into my own tribe.

BoyNextDoor: Technically you only had to COMPLETE the Proving. You're the one who insisted on going to extra mile.

HIMBO: OF COURSE SHE DID.

DIVINER: Erend, do your people have any history about where they came from?

HIMBO: NOTHING LIKE A SPECIFIC DIRECTION. WE MOSTLY FOCUS ON HOW WE DELVED INTO OLD ONES RUINS AND LEARNED WHAT WE COULD FROM THEIR MACHINES.

HIMBO: NO ONE WAS LUCKY TO FIND A WORKING FOCUS, THOUGH.

FlameHairSavior: Or maybe every one that was found was immediately broken.

HIMBO: HA HA. IT'S NOT MY FAULT THESE THINGS ARE DAINTY.

DIVINER: How did you find an intact Focus, Aloy? The Quen cache was protected and clearly labeled, and you mentioned the Cradle. Did you find it there?

FlameHairSavior: No, I just found it in a random ruin when I was a child. It was still attached to a skeleton.

β: ew

β: and you just put it right on your head

FlameHairSavior: I was a curious child and it made everything light up when I touched it. So, yes.

FlameHairSavior: These things are pretty much immune to environmental damage. Unless they're hit by something, they last basically forever.

HIMBO: NOW I'M WONDERING WHY THE QUEN NEVER FOUND NORMAL FOCUSES. THEY HAD TO HAVE BEEN LOOKING.

DIVINER: I don't have any answers there, I'm afraid!! Maybe we were just unlucky? It's a very damp region, prone to flooding!

β: or theres a conspiracy keeping all the good things away from the lower ranks because they know it would endanger their dogma

DIVINER: I really, really wish that theory wasn't entirely plausible.

FlameHairSavior: Beta, please stop making people question their entire worldview.

MARSHAL Kotallo: Why not? It appears to be a family tradition.

BoyNextDoor: Ha!

HIMBO: HE'S GOT YOU THERE!

Zo: They are right.

FlameHairSavior: I hate you all.

Chapter 21 | Prev chapter | Next chapter Chapter Index

[jedi-enthusiast]

If I may, for the Choose Violence Ask Game : 2, 6, 8 and 25 ?

Choose Violence Ask Game: Star Wars Edition

2 - What character did you begin to hate, not because of canon, but because of how fandom acts about them?

Ok, so I know I remind everyone that I don't like Anakin every chance I get, so I'll pick a different answer to keep things interesting...

Probably Jango Fett and mandalorians in general.

I think I could get behind Jango and the mandalorians if people, both in fandom and some of the Disney writers, didn't keep trying to use them to bash the Jedi. Like, they're not really my taste but they can be pretty cool, but almost every fic I've read that include mandalorians just end up using them to basically say- "oh look how bad/dogmatic the Jedi are!"

I can still remember that I was once reading an arranged marriage codywan fic and it was really good...all the way up until Cody started bashing the Jedi, Obi-Wan was thinking shit like "oh Jedi can't have emotions or feel love, I'm so conflicted," and the Council was made out to be a bunch of jackasses that pretty much abused Obi-Wan.

So yeah, the only reason I include mandalorians in my fics or go along with the mando!clones thing, is so that I can either-

1. show the mandalorians realizing- "oh wait, we're the problem aren't we?" -and changing for the better.

or 2. to show the clones' development from- "oh we can't trust the Jedi" -and leaning more into mando culture to- "we love/trust the Jedi" -and them choosing to lean more into Jedi culture.

6 - Opinion on canon and/or fanon use of the secret child trope? Discuss.

I'm gonna be honest, I can't stand it lmao

I know this question isn't specifically about it, but this comes up in fandom mainly as the "Korkie Kenobi" theory and I just...it's so stupid, honestly. Plus, it makes either Obi-Wan, Satine, or both look awful.

Option A - Satine kept the fact that she was pregnant a secret from Obi-Wan, therefore not giving him a choice on whether he wanted to be in the child's life. Satine is an asshole.

Option B - Satine told Obi-Wan that she was pregnant and Obi-Wan decided to fuck off and leave her to raise their kid alone. Obi-Wan is an asshole.

Option C - They both decided that Obi-Wan wouldn't be in the child's life and agreed to lie to Korkie and everyone else because...idk, they don't want to face any consequences for their actions. They're both assholes.

Plus, Satine and Obi-Wan would've been like 15/16 when their year on the run happened---so do people seriously want to romanticize the whole "teen pregnancy" thing? Really?

The secret child thing is just a trope that I can't get behind.

8 - There should be more of this type of fic/art...

Staunchly pro-Jedi fics and comics/art.

I just want more of them lol, they're like toast to me---I could eat a whole bag and still want more, I could read every pro-Jedi fic on Ao3 and then go back to the beginning and read them all over again.

25 - What's your opinion on modern AUs? What makes a good one?

I actually really like modern AUs! I think they can be a lot of fun, especially given all the different ways you can mix things up with them!

I think modern AUs are very versatile, so there isn't really anything that definitively makes one a "good" modern AU fic. I do have a couple things that are an immediate DNF for me for Modern AUs, other than the usual grammar/format things:

1. Jedi bashing, obviously.

2. Removing characters' disabilities.

3. When there's racism/homophobia/bigotry in general and the fic handles it shittily.

4. When the characters are changed so much that they're basically unrecognizable.

[princess-of-the-corner]

I always wonder how an ML civil war would go because I feel like most everyone would be inclined to side with Ladybug? They don't really have any particular connection to Chat Noir, aside from Felix who would do it both out of loyalty to Adrien and distrust of Maribug. Alya would pick Marinette, Nino hates Chat Noir. Kagami MIGHT go with Chat if she knew it was Adrien but given her whole "I love Marinette I trust Ladybug with my life and ALSO Felix's and Adrien's" thing idk; Luka and Alix are both toss-ups who'd try to stay out of it- Luka because he wants to look for a peaceful resolution and Alix because she probably literally can't intervene. Everyone else is kind of just there

Honestly I think that, given what's happening at the end of Season 5 with Ladybug keeping everything all secret, we could have a better reason for some of the team to go against her.

Because if all this comes out, if they find out how much she kept from them, how much she kept from Chat, how badly she handled certain situations like everything the day of Miracle Queen.... I could see it.

I could see it happening with that. Remember we mentioned the idea of Mari tells Alya and Alya tells Nino and Nino goes 'oh hell no' and tells Adrien? That could kick it off.

Nino finds out about the whole 'Adrien is a Sentimonster, Gabriel was Monarch, we're not telling Adrien' thing and, well, tells Adrien. Adrien has a breakdown about That™, spills the beans that he's Chat Noir because he's trying to say that Nino's lying because 'surely Ladybug wouldn't lie to Chat? Surely she'd tell me of all people?!' but whoops she didn't.

And he's hurt and pissed and confronts Ladybug on the whole thing because he can understand somewhat lying to 'Adrien' but lying to 'Chat'? (And telling Rena).

They have a big blowup fight which starts the fracturing of the whole thing.

Nino is on Adrien's side because the boy should've been told shit. Alya stays on Mari's because like. She gets why she hid that shit and how she was under so much stress and the full scope of the whole 'she thinks telling Chat will fuck things up because it has in other timelines'.

Toss in both Chloé and Zoé for Chat's side. Because maybe they have a blowup fight too at first when Chloé finds out that Zoé replaced her, but the fight turns into telling Zoé what happened during Miracle Queen in its entirety (the threats, the betrayal, etc.). Zoé realized that Maribug REALLY fumbled that whole situation and blamed Chloé for it in the aftermath after basically sabotaging her attempts in the first place(not to mention the double standard of Mari telling Chloé that she should do her best to imitate Audrey and earn her love while telling Zoé that she shouldn't have to appease Audrey to earn love)

So they both hop on over to Team Chat and switch off the Bee.

Kagami and Felix are leaning more Team Chat because they agree that Adrien should've been told about the fuckery of his existence and Felix in particular is kinda pissed about Gabriel being remembered as a Hero instead of a bastard. Kagami I think the tipping point would also be learning the full scope of the Miracle Queen incident because she learns how Maribug broke the 'if your identity is known you're benched' rule so that she could interrupt Kagami and Adrien's date(like yeah it didn't work out with Adrien but DICK MOVE GIRL)

Luka and Alix are probably the most sensible in the 'she made some bad calls, but for the most part she was trying to do the right thing. It's okay to be hurt by that anyway. But we're friends, we're a team, we need to work this out'.

The rest of the Team could go either way because like. No offense but they don't have the most fleshed out personalities. This could flesh them out more with how they react to hearing what all went down.

[an-aura-about-you]

oh I'm marathoning today because it's Handbook for Mortals Chapter 4:

when we last left our hero, Scheherazade had literally run into her other love interest Jackson Not-Rathbone (the book character's name is Milsap, but that's like. does it matter?) who is here to guide her on a tour of the theater that she's been here for a week and apparently still hasn't seen. we're not gonna see this tour, by the way. we're skipping immediately to something else.

on to Chapter 4: The Empress

-we start with Zade telling us that she's had some kind of premonition of the future. we don't know what the details of this premonition ARE, we're just gonna have to trust that she's had one.

-"I don't ask for them." I mean, yeah. that's how these kind of premonitions work. otherwise you would actively be practicing some kind of divination, right?

-she says she's getting this premonition only a few minutes before it happens, as if destiny only just changed paths due to someone's decision. but that doesn't make sense considering the decision isn't really made until after this point.

-she's also like, "I have no proof that this is how it works but I'm pretty sure it's correct." again, the choice that affects what happens hasn't been made yet, proving her wrong.

-the absolute ego it must take to be able to sincerely say, "my choices always seemed to be able to make a positive change to something that could have been tragic," as if Zade's choice to work for her daddy's show hasn't already made at least three people's lives (Mac, Zeb, and Sofia) more difficult for no reason.

-Mac either can't hear Zade or is choosing to ignore her. either is plausible but I'm leaning towards the latter.

-Mac's reaction when Zade finally gets him to turn around is, "Damn it, Zade! What?" so I stand by what I said. he could hear her and was trying to get away.

-after Mac says that everybody gets the occasional feeling that something is wrong but that people trust in that too much and forget facts, Zade says, "Well, I get them, and mine are never unfounded, okay?" because surely, surely that will convince him.

-Zade describes Mac as looking like he either wants to yell at Zade some more or push her in the pool. adding this to the tally of violent thoughts.

-we finally get some info on Zade's actual premonition: some piece of equipment is going to malfunction and someone is going to fall. it took 7 pages into the chapter to get this when it should have been in the first paragraph.

-so I know what's going to happen since I'm not going in blind, which is why I'm going to take a moment to set the scene for you guys. Zade tells us that she's climbed up to her spot and that Riley and Sofia are behind her on the catwalk. this is all we're given. we are not told exactly what spot Zade is on. we only know Riley and Sofia are behind her on the catwalk. this could mean either Zade is also on the catwalk and Riley and Sofia are behind her or there is a catwalk behind whatever spot Zade is standing on and Riley and Sofia are on that catwalk.

-Sofia and Riley are arguing about Sofia's safety harness, which Sofia complains is really uncomfortable. I feel like this is very unfair to Sofia since, y'know, people can complain about things and point out things are uncomfortable while still doing them. but also Zade has her safety harness on and is not complaining about it being uncomfortable. I know safety harnesses are designed for safety first, but this still feels weird to me. like, this can't be a recurring argument because Sofia would have been fired ages ago, claim on the boss's dick be damned. seems more likely to me they're not fitting her properly into her harness because while they care about doing their jobs they don't care about her comfort.

-ok it's specified that everyone's on the same platform, which means Riley and Sofia are behind Zade and on the same level. that's going to make this next bit baffling.

-the platform starts moving and Sofia falls off. but even though they started at the same level, Zade is apparently able to push Sofia as she falls past her in order to change Sofia's trajectory to the pool. which, if Zade was able to reach out and push Sofia, why didn't she try to grab her? she says she wouldn't be able to grab her but she was able to push her? and why push her when she could have done her magic sparkle thing to liquify the stage like in her high dive trick? you know, the high dive trick the entire theater company knows she can do?

and with how they're positioned, the only way I can picture Zade being able to push Sofia is if she had pushed Sofia off the platform herself Showgirls style. and you know what? I wouldn't be surprised if Sofia comes to that same conclusion in some version of this story where she's an actual fully realized character. to her this would mean Zade doesn't just want her job; she wants her dead.

-(this book would be so much better if it just went full Showgirls)

-so. Sofia falls about fifty feet, smacks into the pool, loses consciousness, stops breathing, Zade is successfully able to revive her with CPR, and when the paramedics look her over she DOESN'T have broken ribs from the CPR (something I'm surprised Sarem doesn't want to explain about since she felt the need to explain that Zade knows CPR because she was a lifeguard one summer,) there's no concern about her basically drowning or worry that there's still water in her lungs, and the sum total of her damage is a concussion, some injury that only requires a couple of stitches, a bruised tailbone, and a hurt ego.

if this book was actually well written, this would be the foreshadowing that Sofia is also a witch and just hasn't tapped into her powers yet because they are instead manifesting as rapid healing.

-literally nobody cares that Sofia nearly died. they don't even fill out an incident report. they're more concerned about Riley and telling him it's not his fault when I'd argue that yes it is actually partly his fault since he was the rigger staffed to make sure this didn't happen. but no, Sofia has to have ALL the blame. talk about adding insult to injury.

-even Zade is distracted from literally performing CPR on Sofia because she's paying attention to what's going on with Riley.

-"I'm sure she'll be fine," Mac says about Sofia as if Zade isn't STILL performing CPR on her. she doesn't regain consciousness until AFTER Mac says that.

-you remember back in Chapter 2 when Mac's defining characteristic and the reason he and Zade nearly came to blows is because he's responsible for the safety of everyone in the show? yeah. good times.

-Sofia comes to, Zade holds her and tells her everything's going to be okay, and then the paramedics come. I want you to keep this in mind. in fact, I'm going to write it down exactly as it is in the book on page 78:

Sofia began to cough and spit up water. I turned her over on her side. "Sofia, you're going to be okay. Just keep breathing." I held her as she coughed. I know when someone is close to death it helps them to feel comfort from another person--even someone they may not really like. I could already feel that everything was going to be okay. When the paramedics showed up with stretchers and took over, I was happy to be able to step out of the way.

-Zade is telling herself that she and Riley couldn't have done anything differently in that situation but yes they could have. Riley could have just put Sofia's safety harness on her argument be damned. Zade could have done her high dive trick so she wouldn't have to push Sofia. Zade could have grabbed Sofia even though she seems convinced she couldn't.

-thinking of that, even if Zade didn't want to use her high dive trick, she didn't have ANY other magic she could have used to save Sofia? Sofia possibly dying was worth it to keep the fact that you can do the magics a secret? a secret that you put on display for all 200 employees of the theater company?

-by the way, Sarem tried to defend this scene in the comments when Jenny Trout wrote about it on her blog. she straight up claimed that performers have died on stage but the Vegas attitude is The Show Must Go On. (performers have unfortunately died in some of these shows, but the usual response when this happens is to close the show for a period of time and do a thorough check of what went wrong to avoid future tragedy.) good to know Sarem is just as callous as her characters.

-we get another italics scene where we follow a conversation between Mac and Tad about what just happened and how Zade tried to tell Mac about her premonition before. it's basically the song and dance we've been getting throughout the book that I've been downplaying: all the guys except Mac really like Zade, Tad is now teasing Mac about liking Zade because he had caught him peeping on her before, that sort of thing. but what's jarring is that Zade inserts herself in this part. when the narrative talks about how Mac is dismissive about Zade's premonition, we get Zade in the first person saying, "I wondered if he was angry at me--or just angry that I had been right." girl, you're not in this scene! go away!

-oh yeah, Tad wants to make a mean joke to Sofia about how Zade the scene stealer saved her life. Mac tells him to wait until Sofia feels better so it has more impact. so, they're joking about taunting a person who nearly died to their face that the person they don't like saved their life.

-there's also this gross running joke established here where Tad's like, "If I Wasn't A Married Man," about Zade. a reminder that Tad is the proxy for real life actor Thomas Ian Nicholas.

-nice try Sarem but I'm not reading the lyrics in your songfic. if I wanted to listen to Aimee Mann I would just go do that.

-she also acts like Aimee Mann is super obscure? and like, I don't listen to her but I've at least heard of her before reading this book or watching any reviews about this book. come back to me about semi-obscure tastes when you get into the Mechanisms. or Jeff Wayne. or the Charlatans. or Prophunter. (ok that last one's cheating, that's my neighbor's grandson's band. see I can do it too, Sarem!)

-this is such a waste because the catwalk incident is the sort of thing that SHOULD be a turning point in Zade and Sofia's relationship but it's used as a turning point for Zade and Mac's relationship. and the fact that it's coming in the fifth chapter out of 22 (remembering Chapter 0 in our count) it's just too early for that with either relationship.

-Zade takes a moment to tell us she's noticed how good Mac is at his job of being technical director. right after we nearly saw someone die on his watch.

-Zade decides to bring up the argument about her trick and Mac basically accepts defeat but says the reason he had been fighting tooth and nail about it is because he doesn't want what happened to Sofia happening to her. so this is how we're using Sofia's near-death experience, huh? but at least it's enough to get it through Zade's dummy head that because of the magics Mac doesn't understand what it would look like if her trick was going wrong.

-let's add one to the tally of casually bigoted language. we had the g slur back in the foreword and now we have smoke signals.

-I'm. not sure how I feel about the characters referring to their motorcycles as crotch rockets.

-Zade gets all offended with Mac calling her Magi Girl. not because it's a weeb thing today but because it's apparently legit insulting in real magic user circles. again, you WANT the normies to do crap like this because then it's easier to keep your secret under wraps!

-this is the part of the book when Zade finally tells us that her name is short for Scheherazade as well as the framing device for the 1001 Nights for dummies. she leaves out the bit when the whole reason the Sultan has been taking a new bride every night is because he had been cuckolded and the whole reason he DOESN'T go through with the last part in his game of Wed Bed Behead with Scheherazade is because she captivated him with her stories long enough for him to realize hey, she HASN'T cheated on him in like three years! apparently Zade finds the story romantic, which gives you an idea of her (or Sarem's) reading comprehension.

-she also tells us her middle name is Esther, which tracks since there are certain common elements in the story of Scheherazade and the story of Esther. this seems like the perfect time to mention Zade is Jewish, but the book doesn't do that here. really? not even gonna namedrop Purim? even my dumb goy ass knows about Purim. eh, maybe I should be nice and count this as foreshadowing that she's Jewish? but that also kinda doesn't work because the book of Esther is in the Christian Bible.

-when Mac points out that's a lot of name to live up to, Zade's like, "I'm not trying to live up to anything." with how little has been going on in the story, we can tell. but also that's really clumsy for an author to do, naming their character with such a clear and obvious thread for the trajectory of that character's story and just. not doing it. it's the name equivalent of a Chekhov's Gun. it's like the opposite of the way the self-proclaimed terf queen named her characters.

-I actually find the fact that Mac's legal name is Clark Kent way more palatable than the mess that is Scheherazade Esther Holder.

-Jackson comes out to see Zade after Mac leaves and almost immediately makes a joke at Sofia's expense. the more this book tries to make me hate Sofia, the more I'm rooting for her. like seriously, the only person who gives even close to a shit about Sofia right now is Zade and she actually out loud tells Jackson that she's glad that Sofia's all right "for Riley's sake." to hell with all y'all.

-ok, go back and look up at what I wrote down for what immediately happened after Sofia regained consciousness. I want you to hold that in your head.

you got it?

are you sure?

okay, good.

here's what Zade is saying now on page 96 recounting what happened:

I started thinking about how Sofia had freaked out and pushed me away as I was saving her life--and her instant blame for it even being my fault.

BITCH.

WHERE?????

WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU CHANGING YOUR STORY ALL OF A SUDDEN?

also that was me. I'M the one saying it makes logical sense for it to be your fault. if Sofia was supposed to say that, you SHOULD have had her saying it ABOUT TWENTY PAGES AGO.

and this is basically where the chapter ends with just the last little flair of Jackson telling Zade she's really amazing. I know we toss the phrase mary sue around a lot but this IS some legit mary sue buttering up.

god, I'm gonna have to go watch Caleb Joseph's video where he writes a sequel for this. also I'd just recommend watching his stuff in general because he's a funny booktuber and his proposal for Handbook for Mortals 2 is legit funny AND clever.

[wordsandrobots]

Me: hey, how about we pick one idea into which to sink this unfocused need to write something new now Wishing on Space Hardware is completed.

My brain: Have you considered randomly fixating on Iron-Blooded Orphans' director referred to Agnika Kaieru as being 'like a shonen protagonist' and revisiting the concept for a gathering of the original Seven Stars, the one you dismissed because it would be just blatantly making stuff up about why Gjallarhorn turned out the way it did.

My brain: Also here's some random extra smut featuring Shino, Yamagi and Eugene.

Me: . . . you cannot behave for even five seconds, can you?

My brain: 8)

The smut has been added into the pile. I have now completed two E-rated fics, which I may post when I'm done with WoSH.

Beyond that, I am temporarily exorcising the Seven Stars fic idea as the following script in which I try to work out voices for each of them. I will not be working on this any further until after the Urdr Hunt animated feature comes out, because hopefully that will include details about the first Baklazan and I can de-assign him, her or them from Antarctica.

The Death of Agnika Kaieru

INT: Library inside Agnika Kaieru's mansion

Gargin Bauduin (who has an eyepatch): “Hello Kalf.”

Kalf Falk (who walks using cybernetic leg braces): “Oh. It's you two. Sorry. I didn't –”

Gargin: “Quite all right. We understand completely, don't we Angelica?”

Angelica Elion (who is in a wheelchair): “It's natural to be upset after seeing him like that.”

Kalf: “He's just… he was always so… vital. Now he's just lying there and… I keep wondering how that could have happened.”

Gargin: “Age, usually. That'd be the normal cause. Trust Agnika to get the same result three times fast.”

Angelica: “It's good to see you. We weren't sure you would make it, given how busy you've been.”

Kalf: “Yes, well. Someone has to care about the things none of the rest of you can be bothered with.”

Gargin: “Come on, don't be like that. We rely on your work getting the Ariadne back into shape. Don't know what we'd have done without you.”

Kalf: “I suppose you could've always thrown some of your pet cult at the problem.”

Angelica: “The Seven Star Corps is the reason we've been able to make any progress with the rebuilding. Whatever you think of it as a concept, it has been both necessary and successful.”

Gargin: “Not to mention the sacrifice its members have made. I would have thought you'd be the last person to sneer at those who've lost everything and yet still find it in themselves to work for the good of the future.”

Kalf: “I – yes. You're right. I apologise. That was… I'm just…”

Angelica: “Believe me, we all are. We understand.”

Kalf: “So, um, how's Deborah?”

Gargin: “Big as a house and cursing me daily for having the gall to conceive a child with her. Any protest I make over how I couldn't possibly have predicted triplets is being treated as an act of war. How's Marco?”

Kalf: “Fine. Or, well, he was last I had the chance to speak to him. And believe me, I see the irony of a communications expert not finding time to talk to his boyfriend.”

Angelica: “Perhaps once we're done here, you'll be able to go visit him.”

Kalf: “Perhaps.”

There follows a scene in which Arzona Issue arrives and gets into a heated argument with Kalf over Gjallarhorn's future, which leads to Kalf storming out.

Gargin: “That could have gone better.”

Arzona Issue, dropping into an armchair: “He's never forgiven me for what happened in Paris.”

Gargin: “Massacres do tend to cast shadows over a friendship, yes.”

Arzona: “I didn't want things to go that way. I tried to stop it! But in the end –”

Gargin: “I know, Arzona, old man. I know. Deep down, so does Kalf. He's a surly little brat at times but he's stuck with us this far.”

Arzona: “I'm just trying to be logical. Agnika held everything together by force of will. Without him…”

Angelica: Starting a family isn't something people generally do out of logic. Or at least, not out of spoken logic. Not all of us were born with the expectation that we existed to advance our parents' name, you know.”

Arzona: “I am aware, thank you. I… I shouldn't have brought it up. We can't discuss it properly yet anyway. But with so much to do… Agnika's not even left a will, can you believe that? The single most important man on the planet and he's going to die without his affairs in order.”

Gargin: “That seems somewhat out of character.”

Arzona: “I asked him about it once. Early on, when we were pulling all remaining military assets under our command. He'd defined the chain of command down to each individual soldier but as for his personal life – he told me he'd worry about it when the mission was complete.”

Angelica: “Now that's like him.”

Arzona: “He was asking for Valerie earlier. Came round for a while and then … Valerie, Alvin, even Petr. His old friends. I didn't know what to tell him. If he'd forgotten…”

Gargin: “Ah, come now, don't tear yourself up. This is one area where you're allowed not to be perfect, believe me.”

Arzona: “I wonder if it's going to be our fate too, eventually. Fading by degrees and then – oh. F-forgive me, Angelica. That probably sounded…”

Angelica: “It's an extremely sensible concern. None of us understand the long-term effects of the augmentation procedures, much less the toll the War took. I sometimes suspect it's easier for those of us who already lost the use of a limb or two. Saves waiting for the unexpected.”

Gargin: “Besides, Agnika always pushed himself more than the rest of us. My eye, Kalf and Angelica's legs, those were our extremes. Agnika's lay far beyond us.

Arzona: “Perhaps. I still can't shake the idea time is set against our efforts.”

Angelica: “That will always be true.”

------------------------

EXT: Garden

Maki Fareed (wine-glass in hand): “Dear me, dear me. Here's a man reeling from a regrettable encounter with our illustrious leader. Come sit with us, my child, and have a good long scream into the koi pond. It'll make you feel better.”

Kalf Falk: “Uh… sure. Fine. Yes. Arzona is being…”

Maki: “Arzona is being Arzona, as per usual. Did he give you the pitch for building a dynasty, too?”

Kalf: “Does he really expect us to become, what? A new hereditary elite? Did he forget how the War started?”

Maki: “What goes on inside his head is something I have long since ceased trying to fathom. All I know is, I became a pilot precisely to avoid being reduced to a brood mare and the irony tastes bitter. God, I envy Baklazan. Imagine being stuck a million miles from this dreary excuse for the wake. Lucky bastard.”

Embrilla Kujan: “Agnika isn't dead yet.”

Maki: “Neither is a vegetable before it's picked. I fail to see what is gained by splitting hairs.”

Embrilla: “Tactful as ever…”

Maki: “Do shut up, you dreadful old stick-in-the-mud. If Arzona's already planning the funeral and the next five hundred years, I don't see why I need to guard my tongue.”

Kalf: “Him and his damn plans – and of course Gargin and Angelica are going along with it.”

Maki: “But of course. The Greater-Good Gang sticks together.”

Embrilla: “I wonder what Agnika would have thought.”

Maki: “Not to speak ill of the soon to depart but I believe we all know this is coming out of Agnika leaving too much room for Arzona to do the thinking in certain matters. Oh, don't look at me like that. He was an inspiration, obviously, but he did have a regrettable tendency to make everything about himself. It's not sustainable.”

Kalf: “I always thought he had a good grasp on the long-term. Everything he said was always about what we owed humanity's future.”

Embrilla: “Maybe he assumed gathering together people who cared about it the way he did would be enough.”

Maki: “As I said. Now here we are. Speaking of which, who else are we expecting to come pay their respects? Nadira, I assume, and where he goes, Jizin will no doubt follow. Tasmoore?”

Kalf: “Yes, I saw him arriving when I was up at the house.”

Embrilla: “Medoz was on the mission with Baklazan, so she's out.”

Maki: “Pity. She'd liven things up no end. I suppose I'll just have to chip away at Agnika's remarkably well-stocked cellar until my mood has been sufficiently detached from the circumstances. Who did this place belong to before it became a convalescent home, anyway? I cannot believe these vintages were collected by someone even you two could drink under the table.”

Embrilla: “Have you ever tried taking anything seriously, Maki? You might enjoy the novelty.”

Maki: “Oh, I absolutely have. But you'll notice there are no mobile armours left to kill, my dismal darling, and past them, I have found very little to be worth the effort.”

Kalf: “It belonged to some kind of regional governor. They donated it to Agnika in honour of everything he'd done, when the War was finally declared over. I don't think he ever used it before.”

Embrilla: “That tracks.”

Maki: “Doesn't it just? Well, bottoms-up, dear-hearts. Here's to the man who saved the world.”

--------------

For the sake of clarity, I seem to be leaning towards treating Maki and Embrilla as inseparable friends whose love-language is hurling insults at one another. Maki, Arzona and Gargin are hold-outs from whatever aristocratic organisations existed pre-War to lead to the whole 'honour duel' thing. Kalf and Angelica are somewhat younger and somewhat lower class. My thoughts on Agnika place him as growing up more in a academic/scientific environment, which is why he's friends with a bunch of engineers and mathematicians pre-War (this is expanding from stuff I sketched in Eugene Sevenstark and the Hesperus Treasure).

The Seven Star Corps is a concept I came up with to explain where the surname 'Sevenstark' comes from, because it clearly requires some sort of history.

I'm not sure where this piece would be going if I wrote it in full, which is why I haven't written it already. However, I may be able to use it as set-up for the sequel-sequel fics that I have alluded to previously, for reasons I won't get into yet.

[smolandweirdwriter]

Serafina and the Black Cloak Reread Thoughts

I forgot that the book takes place in 1899 for some reason, but regardless I'm very eager to see how that's handled (since I read it when I was much younger, I doubt I would have picked up on that). but I mean that's just fascinating given the history of the civil war (Cornelius Vanderbilt was a union man--not in it himself, but donated a giant steamship worth about 1 million USD). Also fun fact: George Vanderbilt paid his staff New York wages, which were higher than Asheville wages-- up to the equivalent of $73-ish dollars for the highest working members.

sera and her pa are adorable! little serafina not wanting to eat her veggies is my favorite thing & in a modern au he would definitely be the kinda guy to mix spinach into her brownies to try and trick her into eating vegetables

also serafina first line: "Did." do with that what you will

can serafina get rabies? she says she's been bitten by rats before...

love the sprinkling of 1890s southern dialect lmao

SHE'S THE CRC!

I forgot how good the imagery in this book is!! the descriptions of sounds and nature are incredible!!

mr Vanderbilt has over 22 THOUSAND BOOKS that's the kinda life goal I aspire to

serafina made up stories after reading she's just like me for

au where serafina is a PI & part-time novelist perchance?? (Braeden is a vet ofc)

Sera's pa: if anybody ever asks you who you are or where you're from, you don't answer, got it?

Sera: got it

Sera, the second she meets Braeden: hi I'm serafina here's my social security number

OH BRAEDEN FIRST DESCRIPTION WHAT "... or she'd see their twelve-year-old nephew riding his horse across the grounds, with his sleek black dog running alongside." (p. 12)

"Sometimes she dreamed of wearing fancy dresses and ribbons in her hair and shiny shoes on her feet" props to Robert Beatty for not making her have internalized misogyny and hating "girlie" things. the main fight scene is done in a dress if I recall and I'm so ready to read it

she mentions Braeden a lot (calls him "the young master" or "the nephew" but still, good foreshadowing)

awww poor sera wants a real family but also loves her pa *sigh* EMOTIONAL CONFLICT

sera describing the basement as "hers"!!!

the butler's 11 year old assistant gobbling cookies in the middle of the night is so real im sorry. but also sera standing in the shadow watching him & pretending they're friends chatting is gonna make me cry

oooh the rats and bugs all fleeing from cracks in the walls when the man in the black cloak arrives!!!

mr Thorne first line: "Don't worry. We're going right in here..." creepy lil shit

"her legs felt like explosions of speed" idk why but that line made me laugh. the book is so well-written but for some reason that line just feels very, idk, childish? it kinda took me out of the experience but maybe that's just me

"friends had to help friends. she didn't know much about life, but she knew that." she doesn't even know the girl but considers them friends and wants to help her. serafina seems to think Braeden is kinder than she is, but honestly I don't think that's true. I think Braeden is more willing to trust people, but serafina is more willing to sympathize with them, & I think she has preconceptions of people in power being bad (mr v, mr Thorne-- though the latter turned out to be true--rowena, etc) which turns out false

"A tall man in a black cloak and hood, his hands stained with blood" we have our first Mr Thorne description folks!!

"Just stay still, and this will all be over," he said, pulling her toward him. Serafina suddenly realized she'd made a dreadful mistake. This was far more than she could handle." oh god the places my mind instantly went to? dark, awful places. this book is disturbing and I'm inly 19 pages in-- how did I read this so gleefully as a kid?

"...as if the man wasn't of his own mind but possessed by a demented, ravenous demon" I don't quite remember but isn't it true that the cloak can speak to the wearer? so did it take over mr Thorne at some point? did hearing that voice all the time affect him and further corrupt him? did he ever get confused when he took the cloak off, maybe in the beginning, and think perhaps he didn't want to put it back on again, but in the end the urge for power and youth was too great? oooh angsty fanfic ideas.....

"Death was so near that she could see its blackness and hear the screams of the children who had gone before." this book is so dark how is it for children???? it's incredible I love it

ik she's looking for a place to hide from a guy trying to pull our her soul but her thought process when searching for a hiding spot reminds me of playing hide n seek

"She was the CRC. No trap or weapon or evil man was going to catch her." hELL YEAH

ahhhh description of serafina. collar bones that don't connect to other bones --> cats have a detached collar bone. four toes not five--> cats again. (also as a kid who was tiny and short and having been thought practically dead at birth, serafina was always inspiring to me)

"Mice are timid and prone to panic-induced mistakes at key moments. Just stay still little mouse, [she thought]." oooh nice callback to this exact thought about mice when she's hunting rats earlier

Also did I mention how much I love the chapter titles being encircled in brambles that form the shape of her face or a panther?? that's just cool. if I can actually write something good enough to be published, I'd love to have something like that

Babe wake up new slang just dropped: “gnawin’ on leather” 

Her pa doesn’t like mr poe gives “my dad won’t let us watch horror movies so you have to sneak them over in a different dvd cover if we’re gonna watch a horror movie when you sleep over later tonight” omg rowena & serafina girltime au?? (Lol sorry)

Oooooh the dynamo’s busted I wonder what thaaat meeeaannnssss (hehehe)

Biltmore being one of the few homes to have electricity is a nice reminder of the time period

“she’d been trying to follow [her pa’s] rules at least some of the time” lol

“Spotting an upholstered chair she felt an overwhelming desire to run her fingernails over the plush fabric” REAL

Her being shocked at flower vases & the idea of flowers INSIDE the house is so funny

Awwww poor sera, looking for her momma and siblings everywhere…

Serafina is super smart. just putting that out there. She’s brilliant and I love her

Oop the first description of Edith Vanderbilt kinda gives chatgpt-generated ngl (obviously it wasn’t bc it predates chatgpt & shitty ai writing generators, & this book is SO MUCH BETTER than anything an AI could generate regardless) 

“A refined and attractive woman, Mrs. Vanderbilt had a pale complexion and a full head of dark hair, and she seemed at ease in her role of hostess as she moved through the room.” Idk what about this makes me think “AI generated” but it just DOES

“Serafina loved to climb the tapestries at night and run her fingernails down through the soft fabric” AGAIN SHES SO REAL FOR THIS

OHOHOHO MR THORNE NAMEDROP:

“I’m sure that most of you already know Mr. Montgomery Thorne,”… Mrs. Vanderbilt said with a gentle sweep of her arm toward a gentleman. “He has graciously offered to play [the violin] for us today.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Vanderbilt,” Mr. Thorne said with a smile as he stepped forward. ... To Serafina, who’d been listening to Biltmore’s visitors her entire life, he didn’t sound like he came from the mountains of North Carolina, or from New York like the Vanderbilts. He spoke with the accent of a southern gentleman, maybe from Georgia or South Carolina.”

Serafina having an eye for fashion was NOT what I was expecting from this reread lol (she describes mr t’s outfit then says “all of which she thought went nicely with his silvery-black hair and perfectly trimmed sideburns”)

Hmmm interesting she actually sympathizes with/likes mr Thorne at first?? I did nOT recall that

Lol serafina liking to watch mr Thorne’s fingers move as he plays and wanting to pounce on them is so Cat of her

OMG BRAEDEN BRAEDEN BRAEDEN BRAEDEN

Apparently he looks “sickly, a little frail even” which I do not recall, but hes also got “watchful, sensitive brown eyes” and “a rather fetching tussle of wavy brown hair”

“Are you lost?” WE GOT IT WE GOT THE LINE but more importantly we got the NEXT LINE which is “May I help you find your way?” And hes described as not timid or shy but also not overly confident which I LOVE (fun fact this line is very similar to one of the characters of my other favorite kid’s book series, Keefe Sencen’s “you must be lost” line)

Lol Braeden always sharing his food with Gideon annoys the chefs i LOVE him

OMG HE BOWS TO HER WHEN SHE GIVES HIM HIS NAME LIKE SHE’S A PROPER LADY!!!!! MEN!!!! TAKE NOTES!!!!!! THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE!!!

Name drop at last, missing girl’s name is Clara Brahms. Honestly I’m a little sad Clara isnt a recurring character later on. Braeden, Serafina, and Clara could’ve been a good trio 

OOOOHH “She had heard the servants in the kitchen joke that their master must have secretly found the Fountain of Youth” what a NICE SET UP for how the black cloak keeps people young & serafina’s suspicion of mr Vanderbilt

Mr Vanderbilt: *wears dress shoes to go riding*

serafina: criminal activity right there. Lock him up

Least accurate part of this book is the implication that serafina uses a hairbrush lmao

New slang: spit nails (means be really mad)

“I’m twelve years old. I’m grown up.” Mmmm not quite, but I agree with the spirit!

“Just tell me what’s wrong with me. I want to know. Why are you ashamed of me?” scuse me, I’ll just be over here… crying… in the corner

Ohhhh serafina back story… she could’ve had 3 siblings (AU where all of her siblings survive, but they’re humans too & her pa raises them all???)

The midwives wouldn’t even help a baby??? And the nuns were so mean for what? Like at least consolidate the man, he’s trying to keep a child alive, don’t just tell him “it’s going to die. You should kill it now” who DOES THAT??

It’s so funny to me that serafina didn’t realize she was the baby in the story until after it was over. i get that it’s a kids book but still!

Oooooh nature v nurture very nice very nice

Oh wow I forgot serafina was almost kidnapped when she was probably around 2-3ish (her pa says she was walking/wandering around, so I assume it’s around that time?)

“It’s plain to see that you’re not like other girls” WOW sera’s pa just went there lmao

Ok so when I was first reading this, I remember shipping Leandra and serafina’s pa SO HARD and wanting her to have a proper mother-daughter-father type family, yknow? 

The implication that bright/stereotypically “good” things can ensnare your soul too is so fascinating. That good things can be bad for you too… fascinating

“Her pa had told her to leave them to it, that it wasn’t any of her business, that they weren’t her kin, but who was he to say who was kin and who wasn’t? He stole babies out of the woods!” Help why is this so funny 😭 

Ooohhh she wants to find Braeden! And she keeps thinking of Clara as her friend. I’m so annoyed Clara wasn’t brought back now ugh

Awwww she’s wondering if she can think of Braeden as a friend

Awww poor serafina 

Serafina: *sees dress shoes* THE DEVIL’S APPAREL!!!

Huh apparently there’s a concealed door to the right of the fireplace in the billiard room? Wonder if that’s true

Oooh and it leads to the smoking room, with a similar one leading to the gun room. VERY curious if this was made up for the sake of the story or not

Haha serafina spitting on the back of her hand and using it to wipe her face and hair is so Cat

Serafina loves closets lol 

HES ARRIVED!!!!!!!! BRAEDEN!!!!!

Help why is this whole page so funny 😭

Serafina canonically climbing up a tree to get away from a dog and staying there until her pa got a ladder to get her down is so Cat I can’t

“[Shadows…] [which] reminded her of griffins, chimeras, and other twisted creatures of the night which were half one thing and half another.” OOOOH good foreshadowing!!!

I like this part

when he asks why he’s never seen her and she says “maybe you’ve seen me before and you’ve just forgotten” and he says “I WOULD HAVE REMEMBERED YOU”!!!!

hearinf him say her name has tremendous power over her!!!! I’m going to be sick 😍

smolandweirdwriter reblogged trialserrors Pinned Postsilversickles-deactivated202101 This blog is a safe space.Nazis, TERFs, pedophiles, bigots, Tr*mp supporters, Islamophobes, exclusionists, queerphobes, and anyone who can’t reblog this post, etc, do not interact. I will block you.emo-bunny-1317 FollowHell yeah!#safe space

smolandweirdwriter reblogged smolandweirdwriter Serafina and the Black Cloak Reread Thoughts: chapter Nine and TenMr Vanderbilt: you’ve got to be a man, BraedenSerafina, in the corner, under her breath: yOU’vE gOT tO bE A MaN, bRAeDeNMr Vanderbilt: *gives Braeden some well intentioned, albeit slightly sexist, advice* Serafina: MURDERERNice allusion to Mr thorne’s skill at everything being suspicious Chapter 10 was creepy af (I mean it does take place in a graveyard soo)Cloven Smith has a creepy gravestone, & google told me nothing about him, so I doubt he was realSerafina: *sees a grave to two women* oh these must be sisters me: WIVESAnyway now I wanna write an au about Mary and Margaret being witches or catamounts or something WE FOUND THE GLADEscarred-serafina-fan Djffjjfjvjgnng I'm gonna assume sisters since they were nine but that's freaking funny lolsmolandweirdwriter oh my god I didn’t even read the dates 😭 I’m so stupid

smolandweirdwriter Serafina and the Black Cloak Reread Thoughts: chapter Nine and TenMr Vanderbilt: you’ve got to be a man, BraedenSerafina, in the corner, under her breath: yOU’vE gOT tO bE A MaN, bRAeDeNMr Vanderbilt: *gives Braeden some well intentioned, albeit slightly sexist, advice* Serafina: MURDERERNice allusion to Mr thorne’s skill at everything being suspicious Chapter 10 was creepy af (I mean it does take place in a graveyard soo)Cloven Smith has a creepy gravestone, & google told me nothing about him, so I doubt he was realSerafina: *sees a grave to two women* oh these must be sisters me: WIVESAnyway now I wanna write an au about Mary and Margaret being witches or catamounts or something WE FOUND THE GLADE#serafina and the black cloak#serafina and the black cloak reread

smolandweirdwriter

Serafina and The Black Cloak Reread Thoughts: Chapter Seven and Eight

I got bored so my thoughts will be on two chapters at once now (so this goes faster)

Braeden is canonically a horse girl

lol serafina is scared of horses

mr crankshod is a lil sus (I say like I’ve never read the book before)

still. I don’t like him

me personally I would not walk into the forest at night but 🤷

no bc lowkey I hate bugs. I’d be thinking about them walking all over me the whole time (UNFORTUNATELY, I do love camping and nature. Just not the bugs. Which yes yes I know biodiversity they’re good for the environment et cetera et cetera. I wish I loved them— I never kill them in the house or anything, I take them outside, but I just don’t like them

Sera and Gidean trusting each other!!

oooh when Braeden freezes when he gets scared, nice allusion to how the rats/scared creatures freeze

They’re allies!!!

something I find very interesting is that to serafina EVERYONE can be separated into Friend or Foe. Clara and Nolan, whom she barely knows? Friends.

Braeden is such a horse girl

ooooh he’s helping her into the carriage like a GENTLEMAN

“I’m sorry there aren’t any blankets,” Braeden said. “Not even a good cloak to sleep under.”

”I’ll pass on the cloak, thank you,” Serafina said with a smile, and Braeden laughed.

they’re so 12 year old coded lol

Braeden backstory!! & emotions

Mr Vanderbilt: you’ve got to be a man, Braeden

Serafina, in the corner, under her breath: yOU’vE gOT tO bE A MaN, bRAeDeN

Mr Vanderbilt: *gives Braeden some well intentioned, albeit slightly sexist, advice* Serafina: MURDERER

Nice allusion to Mr thorne’s skill at everything being suspicious

Chapter 10 was creepy af (I mean it does take place in a graveyard soo)

Cloven Smith has a creepy gravestone, & google told me nothing about him, so I doubt he was real

Serafina: *sees a grave to two women* oh these must be sisters

me: WIVES

me, realizing they’re nine: … Childhood lovers who could never fall in love properly because they never grew up?

me, sighing: sisters

Anyway now I wanna write an au about Mary and Margaret being witches or catamounts or something

WE FOUND THE GLADE

WE MET SERAFINAS SIBLINGS!!!!

AND LEANDRA!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!

oooh is a creature of the night good or bad? Or is right/wrong/good/bad something we need to decide for ourselves?? Fascinating implications & queries for a kids book

”why do I deserve a present?” “Because we’re friends, right?” SO CUTE!!!!!!

braeden being loud af in the tunnels lol

braeden hanging 30 feet in the air lol

serafina wanting to knock the pieces of the chess set over to watch them fall is so Cat (yes that is what I dub the term)

lmaoooo Mr Thorne calling Mr Rostanov “daddy” aged SO WELL

serafina: let’s go through peoples stuff

braeden: let’s not

Braeden as they go through every room: I like this guy! He can’t be evil! I like this guy too! And this guy!

Serafina: you like too many people

Raphael Room, Van Dyck Room, Sheraton Room, Old English Room, Morland Room

Love knowing this is actually true!!

“The pumpkin pie, like all pumpkin pie, looked like something a dog would eat” UH! I beg your pardon?? Pumpkin pie is DELICIOUS

Serafina softening to Mr Vanderbilt and seeing how much he cares for his staff and guests!!

Ooooh Mr Thorne is getting sick!!!

Haha Braeden saving serafina from getting her eardrums ruptured

ohhhhh he’s playing the piano because clara is good with the piano

Braeden somehow knowing what kind of food serafina likes and bringing it to her is friend goals

GUYS Braeden says that Mr Thorne owned an estate “before the war between the states.” That’s the civil war, in 1861. It’s been almost 38 years since then. But Mr Thorne isn’t described as an old man at all. But he couldn’t be a fully grown adult and own property 38 years ago but still appear as if he’s in his 40s. Right??

but also Mr Thorne’s death is sooooo overdue. Child murdering evil plantation-owning racist piece of shit got what he deserved

UGH all the descriptions of the night and the stars and nature make me SO MAD I live in a giant polluted city

A good couple pages:

“The time for sneaking and hiding was over. She was going to make sure one man in particular saw her. And tonight was the night. The Chief Rat Catcher had a job to do.” (Ch 19, p225) YES SERAFINA!!!!!

“She… kept lacing her dress up her back with shaky fingers, but she was having a terrible go of it. Normal girls must have extremely long and bendy arms to do this every night, she thought. Help she’s so funny 😭

“She hated walking straight. And she hated walking slow.” REAL

“She was a China doll, and she was a wraith, in and out of shadows, a girl in between.” Very nice

oooohhhhhh she’s hoping the mountain Lion will show up to kill him. I didn’t realize that the first time i read this

“Come out, my dear child, before I become angry with you.” Thanks to @secretly-a-catamount for telling me Thorne was meant to be a warning to children about child predators because now I SEE IT even more clearly than I did earlier

”At that moment, all the power and ferocity of closed motherhood came ripping out of the woods.” YESSIR

GIDEAN TO THE RESCUE!!!

”she was mightily perturbed he hadn’t stayed dead” 💀 😭

yesyesyesyes die rat bastard!!!!! Mr Thorne is dead!!!!! Let’s go!!!!!

LEANDRA!!!!!

Braeden putting together a search party for serafina and sending gidean out ahead is so perfect and wonderful

Am I the only one somewhat perplexed that all Mrs&Mr Vanderbilt did was send down some beds? Like why not give them a proper room even in the servant’s floor or something? Idk

“There are few skills more important than picking good friends.” — Mr Vanderbilt, the man who befriended Mr Thorne 😂

ahhhh I loved this book. I can’t WAIT to reread the rest!