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innerchorus · 10 months

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If it's not too much trouble for you, may I ask for some creator's commentary on some parts of your fic? 👀

These are gonna be out of order and very scattered, probably, oops—

“One day, in the glorious future that was rightfully his, he would sit on the throne as the Shah of Pars, and by his side would be a consort of a suitable bloodline to bear him strong children, a son to be his heir. He kept his thoughts on the matter deliberately indistinct, but he was realistic.”

I wonder if he was trying really hard not to think about Irina here, the girl he loved all those years ago.

“Jamshid himself was said to have had a male concubine, a man of ethereal beauty.”

This is so relevant to my interests.

“Two days ago, upon his return from answering Guiscard’s summons, Hilmes had viewed those same marks with barely-concealed irritation, and in his frustration had scarcely been able to prevent a trace of sarcasm from creeping into his tone. It had been unfair; Zandeh had tried his best.”

I wonder if Zandeh had caught it, because in the manga if I'm remembering correctly he was just really relieved and all teary as he thought how generous Hilmes was. He's good at information-gathering, and he's not dumb by any means, but he might've been a teensy-bit blinded to it— what was I gonna say? I swear I had a point.

You're damn right, Hilmes, it was unfair and Zandeh tried really hard.

“It was, Hilmes realised, the closest he had come to allowing someone to attend him as he dressed since before the fire. Back then, he had been a boy not even old enough to be thought capable of ruling the country in the wake of his father’s death. The future that was his by birthright had been taken from him and along with it, the life he should have led up until this point. He had come of age in hiding, the day passing by unmarked by ceremony.”

I didn't mention this in my actual comment but... man this made me feel for him. In hiding. Whereas if things hadn't gone to hell he would've been celebrating, and it would've marked the day he comes into his own power without the need for a regent. It would've been a big day. Fuck.

Absolutely! I'd be delighted to discuss it!

Yeah, you're on the mark with that section, he's 1. avoiding thinking of Irina because it's pointless and painful (he's certain he'll never see her again) and 2. he can't clearly imagine what his future partner will be like because Irina is the only one he ever wanted. It's pretty clear that his plan was to marry her; in her absence the specifics don't matter because it's no longer about love, it's about what's required of him.

Ah, I love that you honed in on that one line about Jamshid's lover, I was pretty pleased to sneak that in there. It's a little headcanon of mine and I like to think that there might have been one or two mentions of him in the surviving stories from that time! I'm being ~*mysterious*~ about it right now but I have a drabble to finish up and post soon that contains a hint.

Hilmes's frustration is actually a reference to a scene from the novels that wasn't adapted for the manga! It takes place before Arslan reaches the safety of Peshawar, when Hilmes reunites with Zandeh. You can read it here. In the manga, we see Hilmes heading back towards Peshawar in Chapter 35, and then confronting Narsus with Zandeh by his side later in that same chapter, so Arakawa skipped the scene of them meeting up again. (As can be seen from the scene in the novels, it's actually thanks to information provided by Zandeh that Hilmes knows Narsus's location, which does help to offset some of his irritation at how little progress has otherwise been made.)

I don't exactly think Zandeh is oblivious to the fact that Hilmes is frustrated, but the nature of his very earnest response (reassuring Hilmes that no hardship is too much if it's for his sake, rather than apologising for his failings) makes me wonder if he didn't feel the full bite of the sarcasm. I'm sure he did already apologise for not being in a better position upon Hilmes's return, but he's nothing if not determined to do his best, and he clearly knows that being able to deal with Narsus himself is exactly what Hilmes wants.

Yeah, I felt pretty bad for Hilmes when I wrote that last paragraph you quoted. I was also trying to tie his relative inexperience (in particular with intimacy) to the lasting effects the fire and betrayal had on him through his adolescence and into adulthood. He's missed out on a lot. Though I do think he'd always have been the type to dedicate his heart to one person.

#arslan senki #the heroic legend of arslan #hilmes #zandeh #shadow dance

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veliseraptor · 4 years

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You might've answered this already but what are some of your favorite Loki quotes? Also, you are wonderful and don't let anyone make you think otherwise

I really thought I’d written one for this! But if I did I can’t find it. (Just a favorite scenes post, which, there will be some overlap.)

But sure, I’ll go for this one. As usual, I wrote an essay! What else do you expect from me, a person who does this on a regular basis.

1. “Satisfaction is not in my nature.”

I have talked before (a lot!) about how this is, to me, one of the most character defining quotes for Loki - because it is so much of his issue. Loki is someone who is always wanting, always hungry, and sometimes he doesn’t even really know what he wants. He doesn’t know what will make him happy, just that he’s unhappy. And even in a positive way, he’s never fully satisfied - driven, ambitious, curious.

And also there’s the aspect of how even when he gets what he wants it’s very, very hard, if not impossible, to accept it, or believe in it. To trust that it’s real. Not to poke and prod and look for the holes and traps and deceptions in it. Never satisfied. Never settled.

Loki’s not someone who does stability very well, if at all. It’s all constant motion, constant change, constant seeking, never standing still.

2. “I never wanted the throne! I only wanted to be your equal.”

I wrote a little recently about how I think this line is not...untrue, but it’s qualified truth. And in this moment it’s very interesting - falling during the fight with Thor, where he is in a lot of ways trying to provoke Thor’s anger and force a fight. But here he is speaking something that on the face of it could be conciliatory - it’s explicitly saying ‘this isn’t about me usurping your rightful place, this isn’t about me wanting to be King, this is about me wanting to be your equal” - with the implication, never really addressed, that he isn’t.

That Loki’s understanding of his standing is fundamentally as less than. As inferior. And while I understand why not, it is a little sad that no one says something to the effect of ‘you are.’ (Which, while there’s objections to be made about how that’s expressed, at least opens a conversation about those objections rather than just breezing on by them as though there’s no merit to that emotional response or assumption that, well, he’s just right. But anyway. Communication! This family ain’t good at it.)

This is definitely a line that gets lost a lot, I think, in peoples’ understanding of Loki - that his desire for power is only secondarily for its own sake, and first and foremost for a goal of meeting a standard (Thor) that he’s set himself. (And also as a means to safety, but that’s another thing.)

But boy is it potent. And, like the satisfaction line, so central to an understanding of who Loki is, and why he does what he does.

3. “If I am for the axe, then for mercy’s sake, swing it. It’s not that I don’t love our little talks, it’s just…I don’t love them.”

I wrote some meta a while back about the opening scene between Loki and Odin in The Dark World that I found while looking for something else, here and also here, which doesn’t surprise me that I did that because I have a lot of feelings about that scene. Like, as many as I have about the Vault scene in the first movie, probably.

There’s just so much going on in the whole thing, but this line specifically has stuck with me, because it’s an instance of Loki being flippant while also…not being that at all.

I talk in the linked post about how Loki walks into this scene expecting this to be a death sentence. He’s pretty ready for that, and he’s just going to go out with a bang with the verbal equivalent of a backflip with two middle fingers in Odin’s direction.

So here he’s basically like “if you’re going to bore me like this you might as well just kill me, because you’re boring me to death, get it, because you’re going to execute me eventually so let’s just get there already” which is just…yeah, it makes me feel things.

4. “Are you mad?” “Possibly.”

I know I wrote about this at one point when I was talking about Loki’s relationship with his own sanity/instability, but I can’t find that post, so I’ll just have to talk about it again. Good thing I can do that.

Like, this is a flippant response to Thor, but on the other hand there’s an honesty to it (like his flippant response to Odin, above). Is he mad? Maybe. Hard to say, even for Loki - he thinks maybe he is, a lot of the time, and that’s something he’s just kind of rolling with right now. It also fits with Loki’s generally manic energy throughout the scene after Thor springs him from prison, which also gives me a lot of feelings - it’s like…oh, this is a terrible comparison, but it’s like when you have a dog with a lot of energy who has been inside all day and then you take them out and the reaction is like. Running in wild circles because oh finally finally finally.

And that’s…I mean, ouch, works with my headcanons about how putting Loki in a space where he can’t do much but think is one of the worst things for him.

I just generally have a weak spot, too, for Loki making jokes about things that really aren’t funny.

5. “You know, it all makes sense now, why you favored Thor all these years. Because no matter how much you claim to love me, you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the throne of Asgard!”

This whole scene is A Lot, and this whole exchange is A Lot, but I settled on this specific line, because woof there’s so much here. There’s the bit about favoring Thor, there’s ‘claim to love me’ (instantly, doubt of that love, it’s not real, none of this has ever been real, his entire identity is thrown into doubt and therefore everything else is too), there’s the feeling of ‘I’ve been set up to fail all along and you never meant me for anything else.’ And the implicit, in the idea of ‘could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the throne’ bit, affirmation of his worthlessness but also of his inferiority (monstrousness) on the basis solely of his origins.

I’ve talked before about how after this reveal Loki pins a lot of everything that’s gone wrong in his life, and everything that’s wrong with him, on his being a Frost Giant. That it becomes a focal point for all his self-hatred and self-doubt. (That’s here too - ‘it all makes sense now.’ This, this one truth about me, explains everything that’s bad about me and my life.’) That’s where the idea comes from that, well, if I can only wipe out this part of me, completely disown it, prove that it’s meaningless and I am a true son of Asgard...then everything will be fine.

(Even while he knows, I’m sure, that isn’t true. He needs it to be true, because or else...well, we see what happens when he loses that lifeline.)

This line is very much...everything comes down to this. It is the essence of Loki’s breaking point, of what breaks Loki, where the downhill slide that began with the Frost Giant grabbing his arm on Jotunheim completes and he tips over the edge. This line, right here. And when Odin drops without responding...there’s no going back, because Loki’s is the last word.

6. “You’re my brother and my friend. Sometimes I’m envious, but never doubt that I love you.”

I feel like sometimes people read this line with the knowledge that Loki is literally setting Thor up to fail as he speaks and therefore it’s not true, or is somehow disingenuous, but I genuinely don’t think that’s the case. I think Loki does mean it. That he does love Thor, more deeply and intensely than basically anyone else.

I mean, I have talked before about how there is no contradiction in loving and hating your sibling, not really - and definitely no contradiction in loving your sibling so much and at the same time feeling a deep, burning resentment of their place in life and in the family.

And to the question of Loki’s motivations - whether he does this initially because he genuinely believes Thor is going to be a disastrous ruler for Asgard or because he wants to ruin Thor’s coronation and take him down a few notches (though never, I think, intending to either a) actually reach Jotunheim or b) get Thor exiled), and I think my answer to that question, as with so many of Loki’s motivations, is ‘can’t it be both?’

But none of that negates how much Loki does care about Thor, in a desperate and often horrifyingly codependent way. And I think on some level Loki says this knowing he’s setting Thor up for a fall, because he’s doing that - because he wants Thor to know that, even when everything collapses around him (as it is going to do), Loki still cares about him.

And also affirming it and reminding himself of that, too, as I figure he does when the envy and resentment gets too strong: remember you love him. Remember he’s your brother. Remember that makes it worth it.

I read this as a very genuine moment, which also makes everything that comes after that much more painful.

7. “I didn’t do it for him.”

Mostly here it’s the contrast - at the end of Thor Loki’s last line is “I could have done it for you! For all of us,” spoken to Odin, before he attempts suicide. And here, before he (believes he) dies, he says this in answer to Thor’s saying he’ll tell Odin that Loki died with honor.

He could mean either Frigga, or Thor - I lean toward Thor, in this case, because it was Thor’s life he sacrificed himself saving - but regardless, he doesn’t mean Odin. It’s a shifting of his priorities, and whose approval and/or love he cares about most. Odin is no longer the priority.

And it just…hurts, too. This whole exchange does (I considered using ‘see you in Hel, monster’ because of what it says about Loki’s expectations about himself), but this line especially is…and also what a gut punch for Thor, too. Having this glimpse of the Loki he knew and loved only for him to be snatched away again.

8. “It hurts, doesn’t it? Being lied to. Being told you’re one thing and then learning it’s all a fiction.”

This is another line I’ve written about before because of the way it’s so double-edged and so very Loki. It is simultaneously pointed and mocking (”see how it feels now, huh? I did this years ago and you didn’t care then”) and also, tacitly (and especially as Loki goes on to offer Thor a way out), a kind of sympathy (”I know how this feels, I’ve been here”). And there’s a certain pleasure in being able to be that kind of magnanimous, and a certain pleasure in the spite as well.

It’s both, at the same time. The satisfaction and the compassion. And that’s what Loki is like, in a lot of ways: those contradictions, the push-pull of conflicting emotions and motivations, always in tension. Which is what makes him such a fascinating character, but is also part of what makes his life so hard.

#anonymous #conversating #long post for ts #loki trashblogging #loki's a goddamn mess

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