#this is a long post. just. just fyi. like a Long post. longer than you'd think.

[thegreatyin]

so.

st erzulie's candle, huh?

caeru enters the nadir hot on the heels of mangling his destiny into that of a most tormentous end, with most of his loved ones at this point either discarded or outright abandoned in favor of his patron. he has nothing left to do. nothing left to live for. nothing left to stave off his fate.

it's... an odd sensation, plunging into irrigo depths, and not just because of the color's nature.

he just. well.

he thought he'd be more excited to end it all. right now all he feels is emptiness and regret.

no matter. he's far too deep to turn back now.

fittingly, i drew the QUEEN OF INKS card on my very first try. no surprise, given it's ubiquitous frequency.

st erzulie is a special candle. it doesn't require much. SMEN 42 and st destin's, sure, but beyond that? you can reach it pretty easily. unlocking the nadir in normal gameplay is arguably harder than this...

...for the most part. everyone who's so much as browsed the SMEN walkthrough on the wiki knows there's a very important, very special catch.

lilac (or what remains of her) says it best. you've given up your past and your present, and now? now it's time to give up your future. mr eaten doesn't do sacrifices by halves, after all.

it starts out innocent enough. give up your tattoo- special extra 1-2 points of BDR that you can (ironically) only obtain during the current festival. it's a small thing. a negligible thing. sure, losing out on free stuff sucks, but it's not like it's anything too irreplaceable.

except after that it gets worse.

sacrifice your profession- weekly payouts, professional activities, tools of the trade, all of that down the drain. an objective and irrecoverable loss.

sacrifice your notability- no more unsigned messages, no more t3 lodgings, no more PoSI upgrades, no more railway, period. everyone who's ever had to deal with the horrors of fallen london's midgame making waves grind knows just how much this is both a blessing and a curse. mostly the latter. especially the latter.

sacrifice your ambition- this is a central part of most FLPCs! arguably the "main story questline" for the entire game! textually, it's the reason your character came to the neath to begin with! and it's all gone! forever!!!!

all of it is gone. forever.

the only negligible things are the enigma and destiny sacrifices- enigma is an obscure developer commentary easter egg that isn't really worth playing or keeping to begin with, and while losing your destiny sucks- especially if you had an advanced destiny from irem- it's nothing that isn't already faced by the player when choosing to take the torment destiny required for st destin's candle. or there's the slowcake route, i guess, if you really want to take vengeance on the guy.

from both a gameplay and story perspective, i adore this. it's an excellent way to look the player in the eye and ask them if they really want to commit to this road. it's practically an embodiment of SMEN's themes and role as a journey of purposeful self-annihilation- it hurts! obscurity fucking hurts! if you've built up an endgame account across months and months of dedicated time and energy, it hurts to throw that all away just for one measly item that doesn't even have a purpose beyond accelerating your character's demise!

except, there's, uh,

there's one very important thing about st erzulie i've purposefully neglected to mention so far. one very important, very crucial detail that flips the entire tone and context of this choice on its head.

you don't actually need to do any of that.

the game presents you with one option- the horrible bane that is obscurity- and then simultaneously hands you a get-out-of-jail-free card that does exactly what it says on the tin. you can get this candle for free. there is no debilitating cost. all you need to do is click the button and throw your dignity away.

i've had a good bit of time to think about this, and even now, i'm still really mixed about this choice. on one hand, this undermines the entire point of the candle and what it represents. on the other hand, it's a legitimately good deal, and i love the concept of a game option where the only consequence is having to live with and know your own sins. it's like if undertale let you do the entire no mercy route, but implemented a skip button that lets you ignore having to fight sans. do you really value convenience over your own conscience? is ending the game still an achievement to be valued if you didn't actually work for it? if you play something with cheat codes on, is that any more or less legitimate than actually playing the game for real?

i suppose it all ties back into the nature of post-rework SMEN- the version that currently exists in fallen london and is freely available as we speak- compared to pre-rework SMEN, the version that is forever lost to the sands of time. i've heard it said that if pre-rework SMEN gleefully stabs you with a dirty knife and leaves you to rot, its post-rework incarnation simply hands you the knife and politely invites you to stab yourself with it. it's the difference between being a straight-up masochist and having to decide whether or not you're a straight-up coward. both have their virtues and their vices, but one is very much different than the other.

and as for what i picked, ahahaha, well,

i'm afraid i'm a coward. i have my own reasons for taking the easy way out, but i'm a coward nonetheless. i'm a coward any and every day of the week.

i think, ultimately, i would prefer if this choice didn't exist, even if i took it and i respect the intention behind it. forcing the player to willingly embrace obscurity and all its horrors is a lot more closely-aligned with SMEN's overall themes and narrative than this free bypass key that suddenly gets meta about the sins crawling down your back. is it really hypocritical to think that whilst gleefully hammering this skip button with my grubby little paws? yes. do i think it anyway? also yes.

(that's not to say it doesn't have its worth, of course, or that everyone else who took it is wrong for doing so- or even that they're wrong for liking it!! it's just my own preference. i just want post-rework SMEN to be meaner. and maybe slightly less prone to making me ramble for several dozen paragraphs about its features.)

melodramatic ramblings about the nature of SMEN's game design aside, the text here is beautiful and absolutely iconic. huge ffxiv dark knight questline vibes. that, for the record, is a compliment.

"i love you. you imagined me. what else could i do but love you?"

i just. aughhh. it's so good. it's so lovely. i don't have any more rambling in me, nor am i really confident in my ability to dissect how and why this line makes me run in circles like a rabid dog, i'm just foaming at the mouth and desperately in need of a gun to the head about it.

and with all of that exhaustively said, only two candles remain before the end of my seeking journey!!!!!!! by the time this post goes live, caeru will have already set out to the chapel of lights in search of the 6th candle, st fortigan- you'll all probably see that post come sometime later this week.

after that, naturally, awaits st gawain. and after that awaits nothing at all.

he doesn't want to doubt. he can't afford to doubt. he can't let himself doubt. if he doubts, if he turns back- what's even the point? what even waits for him if he comes home after all this time?

and yet. and yet.

it goes without saying at this point, but since this post is so long and so rambley- at the risk of sounding like an old-timey kids show broadcast channel- i'd just like to take the time to thank all y'all for reading and (even tangentially) following my FL adventures. they've come to mean a lot to me over the year (singular), and i earnestly hope they mean something to y'all too.

i can't wait to cut off my sad twink's head (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+

[roll-da-credits]

SC: Hug Tackling Tokyo 1st Years

Characters: Yuuji, Nobara, Megumi

A/n: More JJK yay!!!! Fyi I probably will do a part 2 to this but with other sorcerers like Gojo, Mei Mei, or even Maki 👀👀👀. But later on ahahahaha, I'm still working on a Reiner one shot I'm supposed to post this week. Anyways, as always, I hope you guys enjoy it. (also for some reason Yuji gives me Denki vibes when I wrote this??)

🖤❤️🖤

Itadori Yuji

Yuji was someone who gets dragged to training or to random missions a lot, being Sukuna's vessel means he always needs the extra training and field experience just in case things can go wrong. You knew this when you decided to date the lovable dork. But sometimes, his missions are longer than both of you had expected.

So when he wasn't around for more than a week you grew rather touch starved. Obviously, you can hug other people, Nobara hugged you A LOT, yet it just didn't feel the same. You were sulking in the corner when Megumi came and awkwardly told you Yuji was back.

You immediately ran to where Megumi said he was and when you saw the back of a familiar pink hair, all reasoning was thrown out the window. You tackled him in a hug from behind.

"Woah!" He staggered slightly but after realizing it was you, balanced himself back up. "I missed you too!!!" He laughed and tried to shake you off his back to envelop you in a more comfortable hug.

Once you had gotten off, you were greeted with your smiling boyfriend. Who quickly wrapped you in his arms, peppering your face with kisses. "I - love - you," you said in cutting off in between each word from his kisses. Yuji giggled, "I know! I love you too."

Kugisaki Nobara

Nobara would frequently show PDA, so tackle hugs weren't rare for either of you both. They don't usually give the effect both of you were wishing for either. Because the two of you did it so often to each other, it didn't hold the shock factor anymore, it's more of a norm now.

Nobara and you actually realized this around the same time, and like birds of a feather, the both of you came to the same conclusion without telling the other first. You thought not to initiate a hug at all to her, thinking the next time you do initiate a hug it'll be that more surprising. Unfortunately, Nobara thought the same exact thing.

So now the both of you are avoiding hugs from each other. Resulting in both of you being a tad bit touch-starved. After it went for quite a while, it became a sort of unspoken game. Whoever would hug the other person first, and succumb to their need for affection first, would lose.

The longer things went on, the more you realized that Nobara's strong enough to win this unspoken game. One night, you gave up. You ached for her touch so much. Hence when she sat alone reading a book at a bench, you snuck up behind her and tackled her to the ground. Arms tightly wrapped around her in a hug, before snuggling your head on the crook of her neck.

A burst of laughter left her lips as she curled her arms to hug you in return, "You lose." You grumbled against her skin in discontent, "I lose for wanting to love my girlfriend?" you teased, to which she simply rolled her eyes and scoffed.

Fushiguro Megumi

Megumi wasn't one for affection, whether it was in public or in private, he just gets too flustered when it's anything more than quick pecks or hugs. You'd have to catch him before he sleeps to snuggle up with him, or when he's too tired to care or to be embarrassed,

Although you knew this, today you just felt extra lonely. Maybe it was because of the fact that you had to leave for a mission without Megumi that day. Or maybe it was because the day before you didn't get to snuggle him to sleep because he was on a late-night mission. Long story short, you were lonely.

You knew not to bother him whenever he was training so you waited till he was alone. But somehow, some fucking how, luck decided to be against you today, since he was somehow never alone. When he wasn't training, Yuji or Nobara would suddenly come at the exact time he stopped and decided to chat with him.

PDA made him uncomfortable so you didn't want to initiate anything whenever there's anyone around. But after the 3rd time Yuji interrupted your prep to run up to Megumi and hug him, you decided enough was enough.

You ran up to Megumi and jumped up at him with arms wide open. He of course dropped whatever he was holding to catch you, but the sheer shock and embarrassment made him fall backward with you, thankfully on the grass. You laughed when you looked up and saw his red face.

"You embarrassed Gumi?" He covered his cheeks with one of his hands when Yuji started laughing and awwing at the both of you, "Shut up." Yet he didn't make any attempts of pushing you off, instead, he wrapped his arms tighter around you.

"Sorry I was lonely." You hid your face on the crook of his neck, hoping he wasn't mad. "It's fine, I'm sorry for neglecting you." He whispered, before giving a small peck to your cheek. Resulting in you, this time, being the one flustered from an act of affection.