#this one’s long read under the cut

[rwrbmovie]

BTS of #RWRBMovie: V&A

Via Amazon:

NG: I think their time together at the Victoria and Albert Museum really sticks out to me as a defining moment of their relationship. My character, Henry, really shares the last frontier of his vulnerabilities and really opens Pandora's box in a way saying plainly to Alex, ‘This is my life. I'm terrified, but I'm willing to take this risk.’

From EW:

For Galitzine, who grew up going to the museum, it was a surreal experience. "I was born and raised in London and the V&A is an iconic place to visit — the galleries, the displays, exhibitions that have been on there. To be able to witness it in such a quiet state was really bizarre. Night shoots are disorienting at the best of times. It's 5:00 in the morning, you're trying to act and be emotional, and you're in this truly beautiful, picturesque setting. It was really cool to be able to explore it. It felt a bit like Night in the Museum. It was a weird, surreal but extremely enjoyable experience."

Director Matthew López didn't know for much of the pre-production process whether the V&A would even allow them to film there. "They were very, very protective as you could imagine," he tells EW. " Especially when we told them where we wanted to shoot, which is a lot of things we could break, and I really didn't want to be the guy who ended up breaking a priceless piece of statuary. But we ended up getting permission, and that was amazing." In McQuiston's novel, this key scene takes place in the Renaissance Gallery, which López and cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt visited while scouting in London. But while we still see Henry and Alex run through that gallery, they decided to choose another due to the V&A's filming parameters. "It's not the most photogenic gallery," explains López. "It's kind of dark and it's very, very big, so there's a lot of blank space between the statues. The chances that you're going to get just a white wall behind you are good. And it's very hard to shoot in there because the rule that the V&A had for us was that we couldn't bring in any exterior lighting. We could not bring it in our own lights." But Goldblatt had an idea to work around that limitation. "He led me to this area of the museum where we did end up filming it," the director continues. "That long, beautiful corridor with all those gorgeous statues filled with very homoerotic art, as well as that narrow alleyway of busts. We came back another night after closing, and he had them turn off everything, all the lights except for the spotlights that were there, illuminating the artwork. But turning off the floodlights that lit the gallery for people to walk around in. What you had in an instant was darkness everywhere and light shining on the art." Goldblatt manipulated the light further with a dimmer switch, creating an almost sacred environment in which Henry and Alex could express their love for each other. "We did not bring in any of our own lighting," emphasizes López. "That scene is shot with the lighting that's available to us at the V&A. We decided that the scene would be the boys for the most part in shadow and the statues illuminated. It was a beautiful use of a problem to create a better solution that you could not have come up with on your own if you had no problem."

From Glamour:

“My absolutely favorite scene to film was the night we shot inside the Victoria and Albert Museum,” says López of the scene depicted here. “We arrived at 10 p.m. and filmed until sunrise. To have access to that museum at night without any other people around made you feel what Henry and Alex must have been feeling the night they go there together. What made it so special is that, for one of the first times in the shoot, it was just me, Taylor, and Nick working. No other actors, no background players. It’s a magical scene in the book, and it was a magical night for all of us.” 

From HELLO:

In the film, as in the book, the pair dance together here as they vow to make their relationship work, come what may. This scene is also Matthew's favorite scene, "because it's the only scene in the film that is actually filmed at the location that it's set".  "That night was very beautiful and I think it's reflected in what you see on screen; there's a magic to that place at night and I like to think we captured it," he adds.

From NYT:

The two men under the dimmed lights were the actors Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine, and they swayed until the director, Matthew López, called “Cut!” around 2 a.m. for a lunch break. “It was just the three of us and our crew,” said López, who’s also the film’s co-writer. “It made for an incredibly intimate, really special night.”

From W Magazine:

There’s a sweet moment in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Why did you shoot in that sculptural exhibition? That’s not the gallery from the book. I went there with Stephen Goldblatt, my director of photography, and it wasn’t very cinematic. Stephen took me to another part of the museum, where we shot, with lower ceilings a more contained space with beautiful statues: David and Goliath, three women, the corridor of busts and torsos—very cinematic.

#rwrb movie #red white and royal blue #rwrb #rwrbsource #Nicholas galitzine #Matthew Lopez #stephen goldblatt #this one’s long read under the cut #ng #bts #rwrbbts #* #my gifs

[vargaslovinghours]

Fandom: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (But really Vargas lol) Rating: Teen and up Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

What, exactly, did Scriabin take from Edgar when they separated?

My first multichapter fic for Vargas! :D Yay!

(Pls read Ch. 1 first - Ch. 2 is also recommended, but as long as you're caught up on the first, you're good to go!)

-----

Side B

What the fuck.

"It's, it's possible that if, maybe whatever happened earlier, whatever caused all that blood and for us to be knocked unconscious-"

What the fuck.

"-and if I suffered a head injury, then maybe-"

No. That's enough.

Scriabin pushed away from the closet door he'd defensively pressed himself up against and put his hands on Edgar's shoulders, which quieted him. He looked at him expectantly, with eyes that Scriabin somehow only just now realized were casually guarded, curious, uncertain in a way that denoted inexperience. That was so messed up, that was completely wrong. Edgar should've been on guard, absolutely, but only because he knew exactly what Scriabin was capable of. He really didn't want to look at him right now if this was what he was going to be seeing instead.

He spun him quickly and pushed him out the door before he could protest. He got one last look at those wide, confused eyes before he slammed the door behind him, bracing it shut with both hands for good measure.

What. The fuck. His head came forward, making a dull thud as his forehead connected with the door. He doesn't remember me? His fingers curled on the door. What does he mean he doesn't remember me?! How could he not know me?! One hand pushed through his hair; his scalp tingled and that was so weird, he felt it and it was so weird- We literally just- He literally just-! As if pulling him screaming into life wasn't bad enough, now he had decided to play some sick prank!

This can't be true. It's just like him to try and make jokes at the worst possible time, he has no tact.

There was a timid knock on the other side of the door. Scriabin jumped as it resonated through his skull, his elbow, pressed to the door with his hand buried in his hair, set his jaw. Then silence.

If he was really trying to get back in, clear things up, say he was only kidding, he'd actually try.

Nothing.

Scriabin's blood was ice as he went over it again. The way he'd said his name. The vacant look in his eyes as he said it, like his mouth knew its shape but none of the meaning. No fear, no realization, nothing that really felt like Edgar, just sound, just noise.

Maybe he really had-

Oh god. His knees gave out, and his arms had no practice at holding him upright, not yet. His hand slid down the door, his other hand guarding his head as his hair fluffed against the grain.

How could he do this

This is all his fault

Stupid, idiotic

He can't do this to me

I can't believe him

I can't believe this

How dare he leave me alone like this

Thoughts spiralling, and all he could do was hold himself down, press his fingers into the back of his neck, force his chest to his knees and maybe he wouldn't immolate under it all. He was shaking, from tension or fear he couldn't tell, his mind too hazardous and loud to cut through it all. He was shaking, dizzy, and if he moved, letting go would surely kill him.

He can't do this to me.

He breathed. And breathed. And swallowed. Eyes closed, heart pounding, sure. Confusion and dismay, whatever. Pain. Fine. So be it.

This isn't like me. A hand untethered from his vice grip in his hair, and he stayed attached to the floor. It connected with the carpet below him and became a new lifeline. He pushed up and away into a limp sit, arms already burning slightly from holding himself up after all that. He shook his head mildly. This isn't who I'm going to be in life. His body, this fear response be damned, he was in control now.

Regroup. Let's- a mental pause, barely a quarter of a second long as he turned the word in his head. Let's pretend it's all true- what does that mean?

He flopped over, leaned upright with his back against the door, heels of his fists pushed down into the carpet to scootch closer. Moving was so awkward still, very unfitting.

He was acting normal. Well, Edgar's baseline for "normal" had changed considerably, so maybe put an asterisk on that. Not that he was ever normal to begin with, but normal-for-Edgar, -ish. That means he has to have some memory.

Scriabin held out a hand, arm slung over his knee, one finger held out. He had recognized his glasses. One. The apartment. Two. Which key to use. Three. He had said Todd's name. Four.

His stuff can be discounted, he's had all that for a while. Back down to one. The kid is a new fixture. Which means he remembers the last couple months at least. He shook his head and brought his hand up to comb through his hair. Well...it's fuzzy for me, so it probably is for him, too. Scriabin remembered everything in as much clarity as the last couple months allowed, there was no way Edgar would know more even if he had all his memories.

Speaking of which, Scriabin could remember everything. He flipped through; the last two months and bringing Todd in, Edgar's parting words to Johnny, his and Devi's conversation - he grit his teeth - and further back, everything along the way, all the way back. False dreams, shared childhoods, everything that was once Edgar's alone, he still remembered it. Nothing was out of place which made it all the more strange!

This is so fucking weird, if I remember everything, then why would he-

He stopped short. His purported purpose had been to replace Edgar. Take him over completely. If he bought into the conceit for a moment, just to play in the space... He was alive now. That was not as intended; it shouldn't even have been possible.

Did he...give me his memories? Like, all the way? Not just to borrow, to shape him, give him legitimacy - he was alive now. His own person. Separate, embodied, and whole. Was this the price of life?

That's stupid. But possible, he couldn't discount. If this - he brought his hands up and looked down at them, watched himself touch his own chest and felt it beneath his coat, shirt, the nerves firing as his slid his fingers up himself - if this was possible, then...

He continued for a moment, curious and reverant, all of him new and privately exciting, to exist and to touch, to feel, smell, see, all of it clear and fresh and penetrated deeply into his mind, as if a layer of film had been lifted from his senses. The moment passed as the memories, unbidden but important, cluttered in around him again.

There were still a lot of questions, and most of them couldn't be answered without Edgar, ugh. If getting anything out of him before had been like pulling teeth, he was very sobered to think about how it might be now. Depending on how much Edgar remembered, maybe he could start piecing things together.

Did he do it on purpose? Did he know this would happen? There's no way he would have been willing to if he had- But he couldn't ask him things like that. Even if he did remember, admitting something like that...

He was just spinning his wheels at this point. Better to gather what he could from the man himself. He looked up, preparing to stand.

Ah-

The room was still in something of a state.

Edgar would be annoying, or at least distracted by trying to pick up the clothes and uncarefully unpacked items strewn about the floor from Scriabin's very successful excavation of his old glasses. The clutter would have to go if he wanted his full attention.

He grumbled as he pushed off the door to pick up the first few things. First day of life and I'm already his maid. Figures. He's always needed me to clean up after him.

Silence.

Somehow it only just hit him. Thinking alone in the late hours, planning things behind Edgar's back, it was nothing new. But a barb unsunk into his mental flesh was left out in the wide emptiness, poised to stab whoever happened upon it next, and he was the only one here.

He felt very small all of a sudden, and he didn't like it at all.

His eyes blankly scanned the room, looking for nothing, until they settled on the toy at Edgar's bedside. His toy.

He dropped the items he'd bundled into his arms and made his way over. He picked up the small simulacrum, turned it over in his hands once, and stared at it.

He wouldn't know this. Not really. He brushed a thumb up and over the little mouth, the contours of its small face. Retroactively, I've never been this at all.

I'm no one to him.

Does this mean we can start over? The thought struck him like lightning, freezing his heart in his chest. He was fixed solid, staring down at the small figure in his hands.

Before he could even think, he'd already thrown it through the open closet door, landing noisily in the box he'd dug through with a clatter. He grabbed up the fallen clothes and items and stuffed them back in the box, burying the toy in mundane detritus, then closed the cardboard flaps and slammed the door of the closet for good measure.

His breath was laboured and he glared, like wishing it gone would make the closet itself disappear.

Answers. He needed answers, more than anything.

He ripped the door open, and there was Edgar who looked up, staring dumbly back at him and carrying the clothes he'd shed earlier over his arm. Something in his mind clicked over, and he didn't think about it.

"Alright," he caught his breath for half a second, "what do you remember?"

Edgar just kept on staring, mouth open, eyes unconfident behind weak glasses. Scriabin huffed irritably, I don't have time for this, and moved towards him, arm outstretched.

"Come on." Edgar gave a small startled sound behind him as he grabbed his collar and dragged him through the doorway. He threw him across the room, not bothering to watch his arc as he closed the door behind him. The bed was that way, he'd be fine.

When he turned back, Edgar had managed to catch himself, though already halfway on the bed. Scriabin stood with his back to the door, feet planted and he crossed his arms. No more speculating around impossibilities, tangible and present as they might be, it was time for a proper interrogation. It was at least preferable to-

Edgar made a face at him and scooted back, offering a seat next to him on the bed. Equal footing briefly flashed through his mind and while he wouldn't consider it ideal, nothing today was really going his way. He sighed, then made his way over and sat across from Edgar, who was eyeing him with a certain degree of caution. At least the feeling was mutual.

"Spill." He re-crossed his arms and leaned towards Edgar. "What do you know?"

Edgar hesitated, apparently thinking, his hands laced and fingers agitatedly if quietly rubbing the backs of his hands.

"I want to verify some things first."

Scriabin snorted dismissively. Where had Edgar's overly-trusting nature gone? A serial killer, well he's an honoured guest, but Scriabin? He didn't even distrust him for the right reasons.

He gestured with an open hand, Go ahead, then tucked his arm back in.

"Todd's last name?"

Pfsh. At least it was proof enough that anything Edgar knew, Scriabin did as well. As expected.

"Casil. His stupid bear's called Shmee in case you forgot that too." Edgar shook his head. No he hadn't? If only he could just check!

"Do you know our phone number?" Obviously he did, so he rattled it off quickly, Edgar nodding in turn. He flipped his hair in time with the last digit, careful to keep his eyes covered. It was a bit of a timid attempt, being the first in this body, which was a minor blessing he supposed.

Edgar mulled over what he'd given him for a moment, then a moment longer, then a moment even longer. His eyes searched absently, gazing down into his own hand, his other on his chin, lightly thumbing his goatee. He was focused on names and numbers, but those were child's play compared to everything, everything Scriabin still wanted to know. It was frustrating on a visceral level, watching him struggle with such simple innocuous nothings while the most important person in his life was sitting right in front of him.

He was supposed to be the most important.

It was frustrating.

"You really don't remember anything, do you?" He didn't hide the sneer as it shaped his voice - odd the way his body just did that now, did things without him actively thinking them into being. Even things like the little waver that made its way in that he pushed back down and under. He was frustrated, angry, tired - any emotionality could be attributed to those, nothing else.

Edgar didn't answer, just kept his gaze locked to his face. That was almost worse. Watching him fumble through things, it wasn't fun, but at least he wasn't trying to pry. He could see him try to look past his bangs, and the fact that he didn't know better...

Scriabin looked away for a moment, then thought better of it. Best defense is a good offense.

He reached for Edgar's face, for those damn scars, ever-present reminders. Edgar shied away, not wanting to be touched suddenly by someone he didn't know. As if Scriabin had ever cared about that.

Well, things were different now. Maybe he didn't really want to touch him anyway. Not yet.

"Do you remember these...?" Instead he framed his face with his hands less than an inch from his skin, and even there he could feel the heat coming off him. Edgar reached for his face, looking away from Scriabin as he touched the angry red marks. He winced minutely, then glanced back at Scriabin, searching him, his expression guarded again. Scriabin could hear his own pulse in his ears.

"...Johnny?"

"Fuck." Fuck! "Of course you'd remember him but not me." God damn it! It wasn't right, it wasn't fair, just because Johnny came first by a hair's breadth, just because he wasn't in Edgar's head, with Edgar's fucked up little obsession with the murderous stick figure- It limited what he could get away with too, if he remembered that far back. Absolutely nothing was going in his favour.

"I'm sorry..." He sounded genuinely remorseful, and it stuck in his throat. Disgusting. "So you know Johnny, too."

"Unfortunately." Scriabin tucked his chin to his chest, arms crossed again in close proximity. This sucks. Edgar just kept rambling, unaware as ever. His excuses held this time at least, one point in his favour, no points for bringing his annoying habits with him despite everything.

"I don't think I've seen him for a couple months now? Everything's awfully..." He gave a vague gesture and Scriabin uncurled slightly. He was giving him room to contribute. He shook his head.

"You haven't."

"Have you?"

He returned to his tight coil of sulking. Not like he was keen to meet up and chat, but he couldn't explain why he hadn't had the opportunity to either.

"I remember he called, too."

"Ugh," barely above breath. Enough about Johnny! Again, Edgar continued obliviously.

"Although I don't really recall what we talked about, not for a while..."

Of course not. I took over for half of those.

He perked a bit, and Edgar focused more on him, patiently setting his hands in his lap.

"You know."

He could play this to his advantage. Give Johnny some well-deserved karmic justice for fucking him over so many times. It was almost better that Edgar didn't know - Scriabin had been trying to get him away from Johnny all this time, and if he really had forgotten everything, not just the moments when Scriabin took over but every moment they had shared, then that meant it coincided almost perfectly with his first meeting with Johnny. Blank spot after blank spot after blank spot, all lined up immediately after getting his face slashed.

He could work with that.

"It's probably trauma." Edgar startled and his hand shot to his temple, lightly touching his hair.

"Like, head trauma?" Scriabing almost laughed. Yeah, probably that too. But that wouldn't help his case.

"No." He leaned in, taking a more intimate, secretive tone. "Think about it. When did things start getting fuzzy?" If he was right on this - which of course he was, but not being able to verify, not being able to see that he was right, it was disconcerting - but if he was, Edgar's memories of Scriabin should start with that first fateful encounter, give or take. A bit of reframing here, a touch of implication there... It probably wasn't even an outright lie; if Edgar's memory were perfect after experiencing everything Johnny had put them through, that would be some kind of twisted miracle.

His only real concern was their "childhood" - how much had Scriabin pulled with him? Would that throw off his story? But that was so far back, there was no way Scriabin or Johnny could be implicated in that. As long as Edgar didn't bring it up before he thought his way around it...

Edgar stayed quiet for a long while. His eyes raced behind closed eyelids, searching, scanning, retracing - Scriabin could almost see the moments where he hesitated, stopped and went back, then starting recollecting again. He wished he could see it for real, watch him unfold himself, touch those memories again, hold up his own in contrast. Even just hear Edgar's thoughts as they went by, feel the emotions he felt. But he couldn't, so he just stared as unblinkingly as this new body would allow, just watched as Edgar went over everything on his own.

He finally opened his eyes, staring back into Scriabin's though he was sure they were still hidden. He felt naked and awkward and Edgar still hadn't said anything. If he could just see like he was supposed to, or if Edgar would just tell him, he wouldn't have to ask. I have to do everything around here.

"It was after you met him, wasn't it?"

"You think it's...mental trauma?" An unspoken 'yes.' Relief flooded him, and he pushed ahead.

"Edgar. He stabbed you." Edgar gripped his shoulder, his eyes closing again and he looked to be in pain. That was a very effective reminder at least. "Do you even know why?" He shook his head and spoke throught half-grit teeth.

"I must have made him mad, but I don't remember-" Of course not, I did that.

"Your mind is trying to protect you." Not. But one of us has to with your inexhaustable deathwish. Scriabin reached out to touch him properly, but Edgar pulled away. He didn't follow, still not yet. Play up the pity. "He messed you up so bad," with a curl in his tone, an I told you so that barely made it to words even privately; how long had he been holding that in? "Surely you must've felt like you wanted, you needed to get away from him, that he wasn't good for you, that you-" He'd told him so many times, some it must have stuck, some of it had to have-

"Then-!" Edgar's eyes shot open, wide and desperate with an edge of disbelief. A strangled gasp escaped him, half-choking him as he tried to speak. "Then why can't I remember you?!"

He almost began rolling off the cuff, but really, he still didn't know for sure. And it definitely wasn't like he could tell the truth even if he wanted to; who, who hadn't lived it, would believe him? Edgar certainly wouldn't, not with his lack of imagination. He had to dress this up, weave a narrative that was plausible, had the perfect mix of truth and falsehood to stand up to scrutiny.

Huh. Ironic.

"I..." No. Some of this was Edgar's fault too. "We...argued."

"Argued?"

"I... Mng." He wanted to aim for some kind of levity, but his throat had tightened on him. He just wanted to tell this stupid inside joke and not have it affect him, not have it mean anything, and here he was getting emotional? He'd say it and fucking mean it. "It's not like I'm in your head, so-" spat out in a rush, there, he'd said it. Haha, isn't that so funny. He swallowed harshly, pushing down everything he felt into his stomach acid. He was in control. He was fine. This didn't shake him. "I can't know for sure," another humourless laugh inside, "but I was against your relationship with Johnny. Maybe you shut me out so you could keep seeing him with no pushback."

It certainly wasn't outside the realm of possibilities of what Edgar would do to avoid taking Scriabin's extremely basic advice about fraternizing with serial killers. How many times had he been ignored up to this point, only to culminate in the ultimate 'I don't know what you're talking about.' Pfeh. I bet he wishes he'd thought of this sooner. It did nothing for his painfully stuttered pulse.

"You know, I've been trying to convince you to stop going back to him for a while, but, well..." He waved his hand at Edgar's hand still death gripped into his shoulder, and Edgar averted his eyes guiltily. At least he showed some remorse. Better than his nigh constant apologia.

He stayed quiet a moment longer, and just before Scriabin made to fill the silence again, Edgar struck him with an intense look.

"What are you to me?" Ugh. Of course. There was not a single good answer for that. Even if he told him everything- no, especially if he told him everything, there was no way Edgar would believe him. But coming up with a convincing lie on the spot, when they were so clearly something to each other - even he needed time to come up with something workable. How could he have ever prepared for a situation like this? It was never meant to happen, so many things were never meant to happen!

He continued at Scriabin's silence. "You know Nny," Ugh! Even his awful nickname. "And Todd. And...me." He couldn't refute it, so he nodded tightly. "Do you live here?"

Technically he had, and technically he hadn't. Still, going forward, it would be easier to let Edgar assume that he did. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to go at the moment anyway.

"Yes."

"Are we..." He searched him, looked him over as much as he could and he wasn't subtle about it. If only Scriabin had his proper glasses, he'd let him look as much he wanted, behold his spectacle! As it was, he just felt self-conscious and it was very unbefitting. "...family?"

The baggage on that. He did not feel like opening that particular can of worms in either of their current states. He turned his head and flipped through any number of halfway decent ways to phrase it until he hit on something Edgar would remember. Better not to contradict for now.

"You told Johnny you have no family when you met."

"That's true..." Edgar blinked, processing. "Wait, did I tell you that?" Scriabin startled. Even after he'd accounted for his memory! Of course he had to pick his story apart now, he never knew when to leave well enough alone.

"When you-" No, he had to be involved. "When we bandaged your face."

Edgar mulled on that for a few seconds, taking on a thoughtful pose. "I only remember being alone."

"You don't remember me at all. What do you want from me?" He huffed.

"No, sorry, you're right."

"Thank you." He was right!

Where had Edgar expected him to be? There was something weird about how he'd said it. He filed the thought away for later.

"So, if you've been living here, where..." Edgar looked around the room, then back to Scriabin. "Where have you been sleeping? Todd's already on the couch..."

Scriabin couldn't help as a smile sprung to his face. If he was going to present him with such a perfect opportunity, well, he'd better take it. He even had the decency to look nervous in response! This was too good.

"Would you believe me if I said right here, in bed?" He again tucked his chin, playfully this time, his hair falling further in his eyes. Even through the dark tangles he could make out Edgar's face immediately bristling with heat.

Ooh. That's such a fetching shade on you, my dear.

"But-! I, I haven't been sleeping on the floor!" He was visibly sweating!

"Correct." His smile grew. This was too easy, and he needed an easy win right about now.

"W-" He leaned forward on his legs, though refused to get any closer. When he spoke it was a harsh whisper. "Why...?"

Scriabin shrugged easily, not bothering to reign in his smile in the least. "I mean, where else, right?" He leaned in since Edgar refused to, and oh. He was blushing all the way up to his scalp. Hilarious. "You certainly didn't seem to mind." He couldn't hold back the slightly musical tone or his eyebrows inclination to move on their own. His body knew what he was getting at, and he could see it only increased Edgar's fluster. All the better.

"Well I do now!" Edgar darted up and away, stumbling in his hasty retreat. "If you'll excuse me!" though he was already practically in the hallway by the time he said it. What a display, and Scriabin's laugh was loud and natural.

Finally, something positive. He'd managed to fumble his way through, not his best work in lying or manipulation, but he'd set some important groundwork. He'd gotten some answers, and he could start to shape some more believable stories around them.

The biggest hurdles were Johnny and Devi. As long as Edgar didn't meet with them too soon - or well, at all would be preferable, but he doubted he could just keep him locked up, as much as the idea appealed to him. There were so many things that were possible now, things that he had the ability to do, given the right circumstances... All of that in due time. For now he had a yarn to spin.

He listened as Edgar fumbled in the hall, the sheer sound of cloth being pulled and folded over an arm barely perceptable. Was he really going to try to sleep on what little was left over? Maybe he'd give up once he realized the pickings were thin and beg Scriabin to let him sleep with him. Hah.

While he was out, Scriabin made his way over to the pajamas drawer. They were all old and soft, even just to his hand. They'd do for now, until he could get his own. It wasn't like he hadn't worn all this before anyway.

By the time he'd finished dressing, his clothes discarded on the opposite side of the bed to where Edgar had set up his little nest, Edgar had finally gotten himself a set of pajamas. He wondered for a moment if he'd dress with Scriabin in the room again, though maybe his intense stare drove him off. Who could say. He patted the bed with a wide grin when he returned and was dutifully ignored. He settled down to the side, and Scriabin laid on his arms to look down at him.

"Ugh, lame."

"I don't-"

"Yeah, whatever." He'd heard it all before. At least he could literally look down on him like this. He folded his hands and leaned just a bit further, looking him over. A desire he hadn't realized he had surfaced in the dark and quiet. "Give me your hand."

"Sorry?" Scriabin held out his hand expectantly.

"I used to hear your heart beat every day." Edgar looked at him incredulously, but Scriabin was unperturbed. "Let me hear it again."

He hesitated but eventually slowly offered his arm. "...Okay."

He pulled his arm up and placed his thumb against his wrist. He felt a strange mismatch - where he'd been expecting one heartbeat, there were two. He covered his surprise, near shock at the realization that of course he had his own body now, by pulling harder on Edgar's arm, directing him up to his ear.

"Wh-"

"Shh." Quietly. He had wanted this, wanted this body, this separation, this freedom for so long, and now... He spoke quietly, his voice betraying nothing. "I'm listening."

Edgar's pulse was erratic, but he hardly paid attention to it. His own fingers on Edgar's skin, warm and pliant, and Edgar's fingers twitching in his hair, he could feel it, he was trying not to touch him- This hesitation was killing him, every jerky movement away not from fear of what Scriabin could do to him, just uncertainty, like he was still a stranger- He pressed him harder to his head, and he could feel goosebumps under his fingers. He wanted to just hold him there until all the memories they'd shared poured back through him, into his blood, into his breath.

Where are you?

But he replied in that same uncertain, guarded tone that indicated he didn't know, not really.

"C...can I have my arm back now?"

He pushed him away. "Fine." Edgar curled his hand protectively against his chest, and he noticed he rubbed it slightly, he probably hadn't even realized.

He mumbled out a harried "Good night," and it was almost enough to make Scriabin smile. Almost. He could still affect him but this wasn't enough, it wasn't right.

He laid his head on the pillow, not bothering to pull his arm up over the side of the bed. If he twitched in the night and touched Edgar, well, that could mean anything. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he did it on purpose. Plausible deniability was one of his greatest assets.

As it was, he was just tired. Maybe he didn't pull it back because he hated the thought of sleeping alone, pushed out and forgotten, and hated it more that he was even thinking something like that. How pathetic. He didn't need anyone, especially not Edgar.

But he was tired. Not in his right mind.

Does this mean we can start over...?

The thought echoed and died, and he slept.

#💟 #Fanfiction #Blank Slate AU #Edgar #Scriabin #Todd #Shmee #He's technically in there but once again no speaking lines :P Yet anyway lol #It's fanfic time again! I fell into yet another writing fugue and finished Chapters 1 and 2 in like four days lol #If you'll notice tho ♪ Neither of those chapters are featured under the cut :3c Pls do read Ch. 1 at least to get caught up before diving in #This one took a bit longer but that'd be because it's Almost as big as both previous chapters combined lol #I'll update it to the chapter list in a few days! Y'all get a preview here :D It'll be the same there with slightly different formatting #Decided to try something new since tumblr doesn't normally allow underlines but it's very important to Scriabin's syntax #I promise they're all just links to the first chapter lol - you're welcome to check but I promise I didn't put a sneaky link anywhere lol #My one gripe is that it doesn't look as good on-blog :/ Fine on the dash! But I'm not willing to sacrifice the dark colouration on the links #Italics were chosen as the only light feature for a reason ♪ #I mean at least it's not Bolded lol I'll take it #These were a lot of fun to write so far ahhh <3 I've been wanting to dig a little deeper for a long while now! #I mentioned this idea offhandedly in the tags of Incoming Outgoing but ahhh it's very rewarding to put to words :D #Fun Fun Fun

[basket-of-radiants]

Proposal for Re-working the Kholins’ Character Arcs - a semi-coherent “essay” by me (feat. @akpaley​, thank you for your contributions and for your attempts at editing.)

Hey guys. Different kind of post this time around, compared to my usual brand. It’s time for some fix-it fanfiction masquerading as literary critique. I won’t be using a readmore, I dunno, probably to punish anyone still following this blog or something. So! In this post I’m going to solve the all the issues of racial theming associated with the Kholin family.

I’m often very harsh on the Kholins for benefitting so much from exploitative power structures while doing little to help those below them. But then I’ve also criticized them for actually addressing these very problems in-universe. How can I be upset at them for their inaction and then also be annoyed when Jasnah ends slavery? The short answer to all of this is just that the ways these topics are addressed all feel very inauthentic. For example, in real life history it took over a century of protests, slave revolts, political campaigning, and civil wars to legally end slavery in Europe and America, and abolitionists were met with fierce opposition at every turn. A fictional world need not follow our same historical trajectory, but it still seems a little disingenuous for a monarch to just decide to end it within her first year of power because it doesn’t mesh with her philosophical framework. It’s more like trying to wrap up a subplot than actually address the topic.

Ultimately however, there’s only so far this line of criticism can ever take me because the Kholins are the protagonists and you can’t get rid of them without turning the whole story into something else entirely. And Sanderson shouldn’t have to, these are characters that he created and he’s allowed to tell a story about them. And I actually like a lot of their personalities and arcs and outlooks quite a lot. I do think it’s...unfortunate...to have used slavery and racism as disposable props in a story that ultimately turned out to be about a bunch of royals learning to be better people and saving the world along the way. So I guess what I’m interested in is if there’s a way to keep the premise, keep the characters, keep the general story beats, keep the themes of honor and personal growth, keep the basic structure of everything, and still handle those themes with grace. You know, could this be a compassionate story about addressing racism told from the point of view of nobility? Is such a thing possible?

Well, I’m going to try my best. And I’m going to be imperfect about it, obviously, so if you actually care enough to read all this shit, I welcome discussion and disagreement. 

Jasnah is the most obvious example to point to as being indicative of the problem, but I also think she has the easiest character fixes. She’s already been established as an outspoken dissident on many of her society’s deeply ingrained values. Just add to her atheism and feminism that she’s also always been an outspoken abolitionist. Give her ties to an ongoing reformist movement. Have her lecture Shallan about it in Way of Kings. Make that a reason she’s butted heads with her family so much. I do think it’s poor writing to have a ruler end slavery on a whim, but I won’t deny that having the right person in power can make a huge difference. It’s not as cathartic as having Kaladin lead a slave revolt (or as having Moash destroy society <3) but that doesn’t make it inherently bad so long as the topic itself is still treated with weight. Have her moralistic ideology be firmly pre-established so that when she has to explain why she’s abolishing slavery, her reasoning can be purely pragmatic. The reason she’s moving so fast is because this is a historical point of heightened change, and so her reforms are more likely to work, but if she waits too long and things settle back into a new status quo, she may have missed her window. Not to mention, when her nephew comes of age, her own legitimacy as a ruler might be challenged, so she needs to do as much as she can in what may be end up being a short reign. As a character, Jasnah has always been able to girlboss her way past political realities through sheer force of personality, and that’s great and all, but I think it heightens her character’s competence if she does have to deal with real backlash, not just to her but to her policies as well. The narrative doesn’t even need to linger on her opposition, but acknowledging it and acknowledging that she’s simply a member of a preexisting and ongoing movement would have done wonders to portray slavery as a real and prescient issue. Then again, this is a topic which people have fought and continue to fight wars over, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to have receive major backlash either; perhaps when the Kholins hear in Words of Radiance that she was assassinated, the news could come as tragic but not entirely unexpected so as to imply that her opposition has attempted such in the past. All this is to say, I don’t think it’s at all wrong for Jasnah to do what she did. I also don’t think her entire stance on abolitionism should have come down to a comment where she tells her uncle she’s trying to rule according to ethically consistent values. The fact that slavery was insultingly easy to end not only delegitimizes is as a topic worthy of discussion, but also is a really scathing indictment of literally everyone else in the ruling class who didn’t even think to try.

Jasnah done, easy, Dalinar next.

Dalinar is probably the most complicated character for me to discuss and form coherent statements on. He’s just so rife with contradictions down to his core. That’s probably why I continue to like him so much, why he’s still my favorite, even though I still consider him to be a Bad Person over all. I think deep down I’ll always lean a bit too pacifistic ideologically to ever consider a warlord/general to be a good person, no matter how honorable he may be or how much growth he may undergo. Don’t get me wrong, I still do love his growth. Dalinar is characterized by his constant change and forward momentum, even moreso than the rest of the cast. So for discussing him, at what point can I point to him and say “this is Dalinar, this is who he is, this is what he believes and what he cares about”? Of course, during any point in his arc, you’re going to have to grapple with the fact that all of his lofty rhetoric about honor and striving for personal betterment is ultimately going to be pretty useless to all the people whose lives he’s meaninglessly thrown away across his military career. For me personally, when I talk about his character I like to take the end-of-oathbringer approach, where I acknowledge everything he did in the past as Blackthorn, I agree that it was pretty fucked up, and I forgive him and grant him a clean slate. All this to say that even if I’m judging him purely by his behavior as the current Dalinar within the present day continuity of the books, he’s still a massive hypocrite with horrific amounts of blood on his hands which he’s never even bothered to consider. I dunno, when I first read Way of Kings and I first got to meet this general who’s leading an army in a literal genocide campaign, I sort of figured he’d get some kind of “wait am I the bad guy” moment at some point in the future. And he did get a moment in Oathbringer where he has to fully confront his guilt over past actions, it was great, I really really loved it! But it was also all about actions he took before the series even started, so I guess wiping out the listeners wasn’t a sin he thought needed any atonement. I’m not going to get into the narrative’s treatment of singers and listeners on this post (for no other reason than because I have waaaaaaay too much to say there) but the point I’m getting at is that however good Dalinar’s growth is and whatever direction it takes, it’s always going to have poisonous roots to me. And his treatment of class/racial issues is no different. 

Fixing Dalinar is going to take a lot of what Dalinar does best: introspection. In Way of Kings, Dalinar dislikes how Sadeas treats his bridgemen because he believes it to be dishonorable, because he believes Sadeas is forcing others into a situation that he himself would never put himself into. He also has various sympathetic reflections here and there about how sad it is when soldiers die, and about how without the benefit of the Thrill, violence is actually kind of bad. You know how it goes. But I don’t think he ever put himself at risk to actually help or protect any of the people who are dying. Whether he wants to end the war or not, he still continues to participate in it. And he’s still willing to set aside the lives of literally everyone beneath him so he can pursue his dream of unity. The book ends with Kaladin and the rest of bridge four saving him and Adolin, and in gratitude, he purchases their freedom and gives them honored positions in his household. You know, because he’s so honorable. Everyone loves this scene, so I’m going to make it the catalyst for Dalinar’s new and improved character development. The problem with saying Kaladin helped Dalinar so Dalinar helped Kaladin is that when I’m being reductive and uncharitable (like I’m being right now), I can argue that their relationship basically started as a quid pro quo. This scene is meant to prove that Dalinar really is the most honorable person in Alethkar, just as Syl thought, only it doesn’t actually do that. See I don’t actually want Dalinar to start treating Kaladin as an equal. I want Dalinar to, in that moment, realize that Kaladin is better than him. That for all of his pontificating about honor, he would have never even considered risking his own life and the lives of his own family to rescue a bunch of bridgemen. I want him to see Kaladin’s honor, and rather than be validated in his beliefs, I want him to be thoroughly humbled. Let him spend all next book reflecting on all the lives of darkeyes he’s destroyed. Let it shame him, as Evi’s death shamed him. He already flirts with these lines of thought, and he already has an arc about confronting his past actions. Let the racial injustices he’s participated in be a part of that. Let him abandon his books and traditions instead look to Kaladin to learn what honor truly means. I don’t know how any of this would translate to his actions, because if we’re being honest his ideals are already quite incongruous with his actions, but the fact that he manages to have such strong theming regardless makes me think maybe that’s okay. I guess ultimately it would be enough for me if his character, as someone who symbolizes the ideals of a nation, was able to look at a darkeyes publicly be a follower rather than always trying to lead by his own personal example.

That’s Dalinar. Elhokar next?

I actually don’t think there’s too much wrong with Elhokar’s writing, especially in the first two books where a much greater emphasis on these themes were placed. He’s not a protagonist and we the audience aren’t supposed to endorse his actions. Most of what I’d change about his story is more about Kaladin and Moash than it is about him. I definitely don’t love that he can throw away the lives of his own people by the thousands in the genocide campaign that was the vengeance war, and then have the narrative just ignore all that in favor of him being sad about his own incompetence. If Elhokar is meant to be a sympathetic character, then when he calls himself a bad king, that’s what he should be thinking about, the number of lives he’s wasted over these years. I actually like him a lot more as a less sympathetic character, and I think I would have preferred if in oathbringer the narrative and the other characters would have stopped making so many excuses for him. Back to Kaladin and Moash, those are the two characters defined by their experiences as members of the downtrodden caste, so I personally sort of judge the problematic-ness of the whole story by how they get treated. Everyone loves to talk about how those two are foils. So. In order to strengthen Kaladin and Moash’s characters, either Elhokar needs to be as much of a monster as Amaram, or Amaram needs to be just as sympathetic and conflicted and having-of-a-toddler as Elhokar. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely love the trope of finding at the end of a revenge quest that the person you hated has changed and grown. But I hate how this means that Moash’s hatred is wrong and unjustified, whereas Kaladin’s is validated at every turn. I don’t actually dislike Elhokar. I mean I think he’s a bad person, but I like a lot of characters who are bad people. I just think that if this story really wants to grapple with class and race (because it sure brings them up a lot for a story that doesn't want to talk about them), then Moash is a much more important character than him, with a lot more to add to that kind of discussion, which is why I think Elhokar’s characterization would have to come second to Moash’s development. (Obviously if this series were being reworked to be better on this topic, Moash would have to be written with a lot more compassion in general, but this post isn’t about him.)

Intermission time. Gavilar.

Gavilar is already perfect, 10/10, great character all around, what a guy, no notes, no wonder he’s so universally beloved among all of the fans, social justice icon.

Okay onto Navani.

I may not be the best person to talk about Navani. She has never been a favorite character of mine, and so compared to the others I haven’t thought as much about her values or the way she thinks or the narrative impacts of her actions. Someone who has more love for her would probably write better criticisms of her. (I’m going to reject any premise that falls along the lines of “Navani isn’t racist because she feels X,” but I’m not wholly confident in my analysis here, and I welcome any good faith critiques both of my own thinking and of her character when come at from other angles.) It’s hard to say where she should have grown from how she starts out viewing darkeyes because I don’t actually know how she starts out viewing darkeyes. I know I’m probably meant to assume she just treats everyone equally because she’s a Good Person on Team Good Guys, but it’s hard to just accept that she had all around good values when she married a warlord and was in love with his more violent brother. I dunno, was her “good guy” status meant to have always been an element of her character, or did she get it secondhand from her association with the new and improved Dalinar? With someone like Adolin, we got to see what shitty values he held at the start of Way of Kings (I’m talking about the Alethi warmongering, not his interest in fashion) but we also got to see how his father gradually won him over throughout the course of the book, and then later on we get to see him develop further on his own. For someone like Navani, I find it strange how she’s always so proactively supportive of Dalinar in everything, even when his own goals and values are in flux. I assume her character is just meant to be super ride or die when it comes to her family, and I do like that in a character, but that also means that she’s been wholly willing to support or at the very least excuse her family’s oppression and exploitation of darkeyes without comment. (See, Lirin is a much better parent than Navani, he would never have let his son start a whole genocidal vengeance war for fun and profit (I say this as if I’m joking but I’m kinda not.)) Some people have reminded me that she was pretty much shut out of the political process by Gavilar and Elhokar, and I agree with that, but I don’t really have any evidence that she would have cared much about darkeyes even if she had been more involved. In general it just seems like the whole topic doesn’t matter much to her. So what I would wish for the narrative would be to lean further into this. Draw attention to her cognitive dissonance and try and make the readers feel conflicted about her as a person. Highlight the fact that she’s willing to overlook the suffering that befalls other families if it means success for her own. I think one of my issues with her is that to me, this is a major (and interesting!) character flaw, but the books never seem to treat it as such. Honestly I think if this were intentional, I’d probably find her character really interesting, but from my reading of the text, I feel that I’m supposed to think of Navani as a generally decent person who’s by and large on the right side of things. The thing is, with the caste system playing such an integral role in their culture, I think she needs to have some sort of feelings about it, or else the fact that she doesn’t should be an issue to overcome. Otherwise she becomes another factor delegitimizing racial oppression as a real and important problem. If she’s a good guy and she doesn’t care about racism, then that’s saying you don’t have to be antiracist to be a good person in this world. 

Probably could have done that one better. I dunno. Leave me angry and hateful comments if I’m totally misrepresenting your favorite character. Moving on.

Adolin already has some great character development across the books. And he already has kind of engaged with this stuff in his story. Unfortunately, that’s less used in the “this person was racist but is becoming better sense” and more used in the sense of “Kaladin learns that #NotAllLighteyes are bad” which is pretty unfortunate for a number of reasons. Especially since, if he actually was going to prove he’s different from other lighteyes, out of all the Kholins I think Adolin is the best candidate for being a full on class traitor. I’m serious, looking back over the events of his plotlines, it would suit him shockingly well while disturbing the overall narrative shockingly little.

Adolin’s current plot is loosely as follows: in Way of Kings he likes all the things someone of his station is supposed to like, clothes, violence, dueling, warfare, swords, hangtime with the guys, all the good stuff. At the beginning of the book he doesn’t understand why old, stuck-up Dalinar can’t just let loose and be a relelntless war-monger like everyone else, but by the end of the book he’s come to understand a certain value to honor and thus has begun to become a better person himself. Words of Radiance has him lose his popularity, fall out of favor with all of his friends, grow disillusioned with his society, perform a prison sit-in in solidarity with Kaladin, and murder Sadeas. Most of this is done again, because of his father, and how Adolin now wants to help and support him and his ideals. In Oathbringer he mostly isn’t involved in courtly politics, being away on a mission for much of it, but he does make a pretty big move by rejecting the throne. In Rhythm of War we see the schism that’s formed between him and his father until he leaves on another long-distance mission. Summary over. In general I reject the idea that making the Kholins be individually less racist makes for a better, or more nuanced and compassionate discussion of the topic, but if anyone is primed for a “lighteyes learns racism is wrong” character arc, I think it’s Adolin. Imagine him following a bit less in Dalinar’s footsteps and a bit more in Jasnah’s. You almost don’t even have to change any story beats: in getting to know Kaladin, something clicks in Adolin where he realizes that if he wants to treat Kaladin as his equal, he has to treat all darkeyes as equals, and so he realizes to his horror that he and his entire caste of friends and family are all monsters for treating them the way they do. (Actually, there is one plotline in WoR I’d probably scrap, and that’s his slowburn bromance with Kaladin. I mean I get what Sanderson was going for with the ribbing and then eventual friendship, but Kaladin was an absolute stranger who risked his own life to save Adolin and his father from certain death, and so I feel there should probably have been a bit more overt respect upfront there.) In pushing for his newfound belief in equality, he ends up burning through all of his intracaste goodwill and political capital, causing all of his friends to drop him. When he kills Sadeas, it doesn’t have to be about protecting Dalinar or about personal revenge, it could also be that he’s gotten to know Bridge 4 and learned firsthand about the atrocities they’d gone through, and so there’s no way he’d allow such a pioneer of human rights violations to stay in power. In the following books, maybe he’s become so politically toxic due to challenging the very foundations of his own power, his own family has to send him away on missions so he can’t rock the boat too much at home. Maybe refusing the throne was more of a political statement than a personal one, because he’s come to understand that being a ruler means oppressing thousands of others. Maybe this is another form of hypocrisy he criticizes Dalinar for, how Dalinar might claim to value darkeyes but how he still retains power bought with thousands of their corpses. None of this has to modify actual events very much, it just affects the reasons for them. And it would also meaningfully show why he gets to be a “good lighteyes” if he actually engaged with his status and rejected it, knowing it comes at the expense of others.

Okay, enough about that. Renarin maybe?

I won’t say too much about Renarin here, because I’d probably just end up repeating a lot of the same criticisms of how he’s used as a “good lighteyes.” From a narrative standpoint, all those criticisms hold for him as well. You know, he wants to join Bridge Four, and future-villain Moash doesn’t like the idea because he doesn’t trust lighteyes, but Kaladin reassures him that Renarin is a good boy, so don’t worry about it, and everything works out fine in the end, proving that lighteyes are good people just like you and me. This isn’t a problem with him as a person or character, it’s just more of that general theme of “the caste system is fine so long as nice people are at the top” which I clearly think should be interrogated. Thus far, in contrast to the rest of his family, Renarin is very young and has had much less of a political presence, not to mention fewer POV chapters anyway, so I think delving too much deeper here will feel a bit hollow to me.

Does Shallan count as a Kholin? I’d like to talk about her super briefly.

Unpopular opinion, but I actually think Shallan is one of the better characters on the topic of race insofar as how she’s written, especially compared to the other Kholins. But wait, I hear you say, what about all of her dozens of instances of casual racism? Yes, that’s what I’m referring to. I like how Shallan demonstrates how ingrained these harmful ideologies are in their society. I like how every time she has a distasteful thought, we the audience are reminded that racism still exists and even good people will continue to promote it if they don’t view it critically. I like that Shallan is problematic, because their society has problems! At least with her it doesn’t feel like the story’s trying to sweep the fact under the rug. There are plenty of issues with her writing, plenty of jabs at Kaladin that probably shouldn’t have been treated as cute. She’s actually the main character whose racism and classism I see criticized the most. And I think that’s a good thing! My issue with the Kholins isn’t that I think they should all be less racist, my issue is that their positions are inherently oppressive, and it seems as though the narrative doesn’t think that matters so long as deep down they’re good people. When people critique Shallan in specific instances, I tend to see a fair amount of consensus and agreement there, but when I critique the Kholins people will argue with me by pointing out that Dalinar/Adolin/Navani/whoever actually treats darkeyes as equals, so my arguments are invalid. Purely my own anecdotal experience of course, but it tends to make me think that there’s something in Shallan’s writing that’s working right, something that isn’t working for the other lighteyed characters.

Now obviously with all of this, I’m not saying I want these books to have more racism in them. What I’m arguing is that if the books are going to explore the topic (which they do) then they should treat the topic with an appropriate amount of gravity rather than acting as if it can be solved by having aristocrats become nicer people.

If you’re still here with me, thank you for reading, I love you, I hope you enjoyed yourself through my descent further and further into rambly nonsense. If you just scrolled to the bottom, that’s fair enough, there won't be a tl;dr but you’re welcome for filling your dash with massive text blocks.

#i'm going to be super nice and not put this post in any of the respective character tags #you're so welcome #i don't even know what to tag this as no one actually blocks ''long post'' #i could tag it as discourse but my discourse tag is usually reserved for moash posting #also i genuinely am happy to read discussion about any of these points #i can't guarantee i'll reply to all of it but i welcome good faith disagreements (or agreements i suppose.) #except for my points about gavilar #try to argue with me there and i will make fun of you sorry #i should fully reactivate this blog but JUST for gavilar posting #preemptive faq response - q: why is this so long please put this under a cut. a: it's literally your fault for following me.

[sincerelyandyourstruly]

#boyyuri

on xiaoven & yearning

—

so as we all know, "yuri is when there’s themes and motifs and yaoi is when there’s two blokes who do fuck all. if you reblog this you love trans people." (tumblr user dyggot, 2023.); that "yaoi is about entanglement and yuri is about yearning." (tags by tumblr user thyminesquared, 2023, screenshot and archived on this post.)

as should be clear from these definitions, this essay is not going to concern itself with whether a pairing counts as "yaoi" or "yuri" on the sole basis of the genders of the characters involved. although i understand the deeply gendered connotations of both of these terms, to ME, yuri is about the distance between one’s self and others around them (maybe people, maybe dreams and ideals), and the deeply-rooted desires that grow in that gap as a result.

as a post made to tumblr, put in the xiaoven tag, everyone reading this knows the basic lore surrounding their characters and world: that venti is the anemo archon, god of wind and freedom; that xiao is the last yaksha, who wields the power of anemo in battle to protect his homeland of liyue; that Visions are considered to be representations of a person's dearest wish, crystallized into physical form. but let's run over the basics again real fast, just to keep this piece from having external dependencies to understand, yeah?

venti is a wind sprite from mondstadt who ascended to godhood at the end of a rebellion against the at-the-time god of storms keeping his people in a cage made of windstorm thousands of years ago, and he chose his ideal of freedom to honor the bard who led said rebellion and died at the end of the final battle, but whether the nameless bard even got to see the clear skies he fought so hard to live under is currently up to interpretation. either way, venti took on the nameless bard's appearance so that his nation's people would never forget the true hero who won their freedom, but because thousands of years have passed the people have kind of forgotten by now anyway, and venti probably has a lot of identity issues about it!

also he's a bard who plays music in exchange for wine because singing to pass on the memories of heroes past and then drinking to numb the grief of people's forgetting is how he Copes™.

AND ALSO he will occasionally sleep for hundreds of years at a time.

Meanwhile, xiao is an immortal/"illuminated beast" from liyue whose true form is technically that of a bird, but he goes around in the form of a hot emo boy, ostensibly because he needs hands to don his mask, hold his spear, and do his dance to conquer the remnants of evil gods, the act of which literally taints his soul with their sins— his karmic debts.

anyway he was enslaved by an evil god in his youth because said evil god (probably) knew his True Name and because we're going by fairy rules this means he was forced to commit atrocities (namely eating people's dreams) against his will until the god of contracts geo archon zhongli killed his previous master, gave him a new name, and contractually tasked him with the job of subduing the demonic remnants of other defeated gods, which he has since proceeded to unflinchingly, unwaveringly, and unquestioningly obey for the last few thousand years. however, despite his unfathomable obedience and devotion to his duty, his Vision (his life's greatest desire) is that of anemo (of freedom).

also a few hundred years ago when he was about to succumb to the weight of his karmic debts, xiao's life was saved by the sound of someone (venti) playing the flute in the marsh where he'd been working, and so now his dream, the deepest wish he holds closest to his heart, is to someday "wear the mask and dance — not to conquer demons, but to the tune of that flute amid a sea of flowers." (xiao's character card, genshin impact, 2021)

…can you guys believe that the dihua flute moment was like all we xv shippers had to hold onto for like two years?! that, and xiao's extremely yearnful voiceline abt venti that's just like, "venti? is that what he goes by these days? his tunes are… nevermind." but the point of this recap i hope has become clear by this point: that the relationship btwn xiao and venti seen through these few snippets alone is just rife with potent yuri energy.

like, to elaborate on the opening of thie essay, yuri is specifically about the uncross­able distance between two people who are already sitting right next to each other, so close that only a single thread of wind could even hope to weave its way between them— although, as evidenced by the fact that such a thread of wind could weave its way between them, they are still shy of truly touching— and the painful yearnings of being unable to close that gap… even though you both exist so close to one another, so similar in both place and time, you are the only thing stopping yourself from reaching across that seemingly infinite distance.

as a result, i think that unlike yaoi, yuri— thematically speaking— tends to have a greater mutuality to it: whereas i understand being in a yaoi to be more about acting on one's impulses towards one another and passing along cycles of power, i believe that an important aspect of being in a yuri is the constant fear and anxiety of violating an unspoken boundary because you're afraid that you aren't actually on the same page about those.

deep down inside, you know that you're not supposed to want all the things you've built for yourself in all those private daydreams and self-indulgent fantasies you've created about yourself with the other person, because you know you're not supposed to have drawn your boundaries the way you have, such that the other person would be let in on the most intimate parts of your identity (if they were willing to see all that is ugly sleeping under­neath your skin.)

as mentioned in the paragraph summarizing his lore, xiao's youth was marked by the fact that his very autonomy was continuously violated in service of forcing him to violate others' boundaries, crushing their hopes and devouring their very dreams. his deep cultural ties to liyue as the land of contracts means that he carries within him a keen sense of obligation as inseverable as the need to breathe; thus, saddled with guilt and believing himself to be incapable of gentility, he has come to view himself as nothing more than a weapon for others to use.

in signing his contract with the geo archon, xiao went from a situation where his agency was continuously denied and his boundaries intimately violated to one where he relinquished his agency and had his boundaries delineated for him by his new lord.

he has no desires of his own; immortals aren't so worldly. (if that were true, he wouldn't have a Vision.) he is not an active subject in his own life; anything he does is the effect of someone else's will. (if that were true, he would have stopped protecting liyue the moment that he learned his lord abdicated his rule.) he does not let anyone near him; it is inevitable that his karmic debts will force his hand against them. (if that were true, he wouldn't have been saved by the sound of venti's flute playing nearby.)

don't you see? he places himself in a subservient role to everyone around him, rigidly obeys every ritual of propriety, because he is afraid that by asserting agency over a situation, he will end up violating other people's boundaries again. except that this time, the responsibility for doing so would fall squarely on his own shoulders.

during the main quest arc for liyue, zhongli literally fakes his own death as an archon so that he can finally retire and be free from his own contractual obligation to the nation. this gives us reason to believe that xiao's contract with the geo archon has thus been rendered void, meaning he no longer has any obligation to continue his endless suffering for the sake of liyue— yet he does so anyway.

i think a lot of fans tend to view this as xiao needlessly chaining himself down to his duty, something that's often framed in fanworks as something rather tragic in venti's eyes. however, as the god of freedom, venti feels very strongly about giving other the freedom to make their own decisions, even if he himself may disagree with them or wish they had chosen differently. others' autonomy is deeply important to venti, perhaps even so far as to call it sacred: to order anything from anyone would be a violation for the boundaries venti has set for himself as an archon.

and because we're all familiar with genshin impact lore, what i have to say next should go without saying, we are all so familiar with it: the element of a person's Vision will be directly related to the kind of ideal they strive to meet and uphold, and as such, can generally tell you a lot about a person's desires.

xiao wields an anemo Vision— the only known anemo wielder in liyue until the arrival of xianyun, presumably because that is how deeply ingrained the binding sense of obligation is in its culture— and wears it visibly on his person at all times. it would be ridiculous not to believe that venti knows, and intimately so, just how xiao desires.

and i think that a lot of fans can fail to consider the idea that to xiao, his duty of protection is a choice he made of his own volition when he was first set free, and is, in all likelihood, one he continues to make in canon. yes, this choice comes with a great many obligations restraining him in various ways— but do our choices truly mean anything if they are not bound by obligation? this is something venti would obviously understand and respect as lines drawn in the sand by xiao himself, and he would never dare even suggest they be crossed.

it's clear from the various scraps of in-game lore that xiao craves proximity to and knowledge about his savior in the marsh. yet, he refuses to go out of his way to attain these things and will even deny ownership of these desires altogether because in a sense, they are blasphemy: venti, although not his archon, is still a god.

might seeking venti out over zhongli not be considered a sign of detracting, or perhaps even failing faith in the unwavering sureity of the geo archon? or even if it turns out that's not so— who is xiao to ask anything of venti? the god of freedom must surely be a flighty little thing, following his every capricious whim. to ask him to stay would be akin to tying him down, no?

clearly, there is no need for xiao to call out for him. if venti wants to be with him, he will simply be there.

(and if he doesn't, then he won't.)

((after all, it is the duty of the servant to wait on the master's call.))

it's easy to imagine that these two immortals might end up in a sort of song and dance of propriety for a while, that at fight might be genuine, but eventually just becomes habit and custom. they both want, in some way, for xiao to lay down his duty, to be free of the strict hierarchy of master & servant or god & disciple. but for venti to say it so plainly would feel like he's trying to convert xiao to his ideals— a discomfort that would more than likely only be compounded by how seriously xiao takes the word of god(s), and how expressly venti hates being treated like anything but an equal— and so he would hesitate on his feelings; whereas for xiao to speak of his desires so plainly, it would feel like a betrayal of his duty— that which he chose to shoulder as his first act of free will.

you see it, right? the gap between these two characters, whose lives will otherwise touch and cross over and over through their long, immortal lives, and the mutual desires they can both plainly and painfully read in one another, yet never individually act upon due to their already-established senses of propriety, tradition, and boundaries?

these are the basic yuriisms of xiaoven genshinimpact.

#xiaoven #long post #only reason i put part of this post under a cut is bc it's 2111 words so in the interest of being polite i put 1356 of them under the cut #anyway happy birthday to xiao my son my melancholy yearnful boy c': #adapting this essay to the context of tumblr was more work than i anticipated #but i think it pairs nicely w/my xv moon/moon essay from a while back c: #i've actually been sitting on this one for a few months now; this entire chunk got cut from my submission to yaoizine vol 3 (yurizine) #and if you haven't had your brain chemistry altered by the yaoizines published by tshirt. what are you doing. go read them

[thejasontoddarchives]

Nightwing (1996-) #119

Batman (1940-) #410

“Now kiss”

#it’s really all about the joy on his face #jason todd #robin jason #dc #brothers in blood #now the reason the caption box was edited was because it’s the same spiel about how out of hand Jason’s behavior is #and I don’t think it’s presence is really necessary in this specific post #but I included it under the cut anyway #ppl really read this line applied to Jason one time and they’re still to this day using it to describe a long-time non-lethal Jason #I mean ‘judge jury and executioner’ #but the placement of that line in this panel is funny too because this is a move that bruceman performs all the time too #literally everyone does this it is possibly one of the least lethal moves in comics

[beyondthegame]

you got me SOOO obsessed with e 😭 can i please ask for some music facts about them? thank you <3

Ooo, yes!

E discovered their writing talent before their singing talent, so they originally thought ‘okay, I’ll be a songwriter’.

^ All until one day they were at their friend’s birthday party. The live music booked for it got sick and didn’t turn up so E stepped in — and boom, found their singing talent.

They have multiple notebooks full of songs written, they even have the first shitty one they started working in.

E also dates when they start working on songs.

Genre: pop, RnB, a bit of dance. They’re a very emotive artist so they’d love to sing a ballad at some point… their label isn’t keen on that last idea.

Has a bass guitar named Rebel and an acoustic guitar named Rae. Also named their grand piano Forte <- (yes, E is a softie)

They like adding Spanish lyrics to some of their songs.

E realllyyy wants one of their tracks to be on a movie soundtrack.

When they’re on tour, their team: dancers, backing singers, technicians, catering, band etc. always have the best stuff to say about how lovely, caring and inclusive E is… but of course the media love painting them out as a diva.

Anndd of courseee, they want the pinnacle, E wants a Grammy. They’ll take a Brit Award but… y’know, GRAMMY!

under the cut for my Maxine Taylor x E brainrot, because I am down BAD uggh

Pre-Beyond the Game:

I totally headcanon that E approached Second Coming and thought ‘I like them… I like HER!’ and was like super respectful about the approach, slid in the dms, met face to face a few times, became acquaintances and was completely honest from the beginning about wanting to work with Maxine.

Maxine & E got each other’s numbers, they started texting and whatever and picked a date to go to the studio. Maxine strolls in, freshly dyed red hair and says ‘go on, what are your thoughts? tell me what you want’ *insert innuendo from E here*

E eventually gets serious & says that the media has been on their ass and they’re pretty much sick of it, especially since they’re usually depicted as only a model with no talent.

And I feel like Max loosely relates in a sense where she knows that the media is always going to have an opinion on you, and I think she handles this aspect of fame better than E but y'know... it's gonna sting sometimes.

Thus, the two of them talking about their dislike for certain aspects of their careers and the media — this then caused the creation and birth of Heartless.

I feel like Heartless had a good idea behind, obviously two talented artists ready to work on it, and it ended up taking some long ass months to finish and get perfect.

Month 5: I just imagine the two of them in the studio, a little tired, well past midnight, something isn't quite going right with the song, they've ordered takeout to relax and they're talking about stuff that they wouldn't usually tell anyone... if feelings are getting caught, it's right hereee.

^ Like they're looking at each other with hooded eyes and they just knoww that, not that it's necessarily a bad idea for them to kiss/catch feelings, but they both have 'thoughts' about relationships as a whole, and their partnership was one they walked into without even thinking about anything other than music... definitely leaving whether they kissed/did anything more up to you nikka

Fast-forward: Heartless is out into the world, gets nominated for an award and the single holds such a special place in E's heart. Definitely solidified Max and E's friendship, like E adores her.

I feel like they regularly keep in contact too — calls, texts, FaceTimes, chatting shit about the media as usual. E will always want to know how Second Coming's doing. E definitely invites them to tour with them.

Alsooo, headcanon that E has literally written a song about Max: just how grateful they are for their friendship with her, how you can find a person who is such a diamond in this industry etc... but that song is never seeing daylight asdfghjkl (shy E! for once)

Beyond The Game:

E texts Maxine like 'hey, got hospitality tickets to this football game... wanna come with??'

Hospitality seats at football stadiums are soo nice, like you're inside and you can watch through a window or watch on tv and you have the best food, alcohol, and you're rubbing shoulders with other celebs that are there.

Soo, Max and E would get pictured together and they'd probably laugh about it.

Whilst they're watching the game, Max would probably say 'oh, she's cute/hot' and she's talking about Miko. Miko then scores a goal. Maxine: 'very hot'.

^ This would then get E smiling a little...

#ask #e acevedo #didn't think under the cut would be so long asdfghjkl #hope it's enjoyable to read though #nikka 🫶🏼 #for anyone who isn't nikka who reads this miko is nikka's oc for this if the one romancing e <3

[starswallowingsea]

Putting the Event summary for each one under the cut for people who don't play Enstars to get an idea of what each one is.

Requiem * Sword of Oaths and the Repayment Festival, released February 28th, 2019. 46 episodes. "Tsukasa does not approve of how leadership is being passed on. Leo, who saw this, declares that he will hold the third duel, 'Requiem'!"

Sacrifice◆Resurrection Sunday of the Undying, released March 31st, 2018. 20 episodes. "The DDD is over, and the hustle and bustle of the school has settled down. Kaoru, who goes to the band club's club room on a whim, is told by Rei he wants Kaoru to 'let him drink blood'..."

Moment * The Repayment Festival of Moving Towards the Future, released February 28th, 2018. 26 episodes. "The Repayment Festival is the 3rd years' last stage. With all kinds of thoughts, they move along in their preparations, but Kuro comes to Ra*bits looking for Mika, who has gone missing..."

Reminiscence * End of the Marionette's Strings, released March 15th, 2016. 21 episodes. "Nazuna starts thinking about the reason for Valkyrie's departure—and fine. The story of the Five Eccentrics' past begins..."

Reminiscence * The Crossroads of Each One, released July 31st, 2017. 27 episodes. "Keito makes an effort to reform the school… Starting with a live at an underground live house that he visited with Rei, Keito's surroundings start to change."

#shay speaks #poll #stuff under the cut is in order btw i used the event names not the colloquial names #but the event names are. too long for poll answers mafopdisja #at least nice looking ones #i had some scout stories too but those are all ike 8 chapters and i'll read those eventually #maybe i'll do one of those tonight #requiem is so so long though goddamn #meteor impact and checkmate were pretty long too #meteor impact has 51 episodes........... #anyway

[everysongineverykey]

narrator and toriel exchanging tips on how to care for humans, especially stubborn and mischievous ones

it's ten at night and they're sitting (well, toriel is; the narrator can't "sit" anywhere perse) in toriel's new, sparse living room in her house on the surface as the crickets chirp outside and frisk sleeps soundly in the other room and it feels like the world's just sighed deeply, and everything's relaxing, and there are joke books and books on shrimp and snails lying around scattered on the table open to random pages and toriel chuckles and says, "my, your friend stanley sounds like quite the handful! although i find his dedication to the bucket admirable. it is good to have someone you can always rely on, no matter what others may do."

and the narrator scoffs and manages to pull off a very impressive verbal eye-roll, and says, "well, that'd be fine if anyone was actually trying to hurt him, but no one is! he's in no danger! he has absolutely no need to rely on a bucket!"

toriel frowns slightly. "did you not say, just a moment ago, that he was being... mind-controlled?"

"well- i mean- well, yes, in the past he was, before the story starts, but every single run starts him off at his desk, after the controls have been neutralized! he just has to walk down to the facility and turn them off for good! it's so unfathomably easy, and yet- and yet, he still manages to find ways to muck it up!"

halfway through, he remembers there's a child sleeping in the other room, and checks his tone, still adjusting to having to be conscious of the volume of his voice. it's a strange thing, being heard by real, feeling, speaking people.

fortunately, toriel doesn't seem to notice. unfortunately, her next question isn't easy to answer.

"has anything... undesirable ever happened to stanley under your watch?"

the narrator pauses, searching her unreadable face, thinking of something to say that won't totally ruin the atmosphere.

"oh, i do not mean to be rude!" toriel clarifies quickly, the perfect picture of motherly anxiety. "i only ask because... well... i have often found it... difficult raising humans in the past. i feel sometimes as if i will never... truly understand them."

this is a feeling the narrator knows all too well. "oh, i know exactly what you mean," he reassures her. "one time, stanley told me with a straight face that he genuinely believed a tractor was a bucket! and that nothing was a bucket! i swear, that obsession of his is getting the best of him!"

toriel is unable to contain her laughter, and the narrator congratulates himself on another Real Conversation Done Right. "why," he continues, "what've your humans gotten up to that's worried you?"

just like that, the mirth disappears from her face, and her features, though not having aged at all since her son died, suddenly look very worn.

it seems a long while before she replies, "every human child i have tried to raise leaves me and dies for it."

chirp, chirp, chirp. the cricket noise outside seems to grow louder in the oppressive silence that follows.

it's as if her sentence was scripted, edited for minimum length and maximum clarity, so if anyone asked she wouldn't have to explain it too deeply. if only the narrator had an instructional video on socializing he could watch to know what to say...

at a loss, he tries, "frisk's still here... aren't they?"

toriel smiles, and while the narrator isn't he best judge of monster facial expressions, he doesn't think they're usually supposed to look this sad.

"yes. frisk is still here. despite everything..."

she gives the child's bedroom door a long look, a look that carries too many emotions for the narrator to stuff into booths.

"despite everything," she continues, "frisk is still here. even after i fought them... even after i tried to trap them in the ruins forever... they chose to stay with me. but those seven children... they are not like your stanley. they cannot restart with the push of a button. they left. and they-"

she inhales suddenly and sharply, bringing a paw up to her face, and the narrator realizes she's about to cry.

the narrator is about to see someone cry in real life, for the first time ever. the thought shakes him, and he feels a sense of unease that he is sure fills the whole room.

(that's the problem with being everywhere at once- your emotions feel as omnipresent as your voice. it's not so bad, he thinks, when your only companion can't feel it, or speak to tell you it annoys him.)

she gives up on finishing the sentence, covering her eyes with her paw. she doesn't need to say any more. the rest is obvious: and they are never coming back.

to the narrator's surprise, she doesn't cry. not loudly, anyway. not in the sloppy, sob-ridden, theatrical way the narrator has only seen on television. no, she's just sitting there, paws rubbing her face, and from a distance you'd wonder if she was even crying.

suddenly, abruptly, she uncovers her eyes, which are now red and shiny and as glassy as stanley's, but they're shedding no tears. incredible, the narrator thinks. she can turn it off whenever she thinks it's her duty to be strong.

i wish i could feel as subtly as that, he thinks briefly before pushing the thought away.

"are you-" he starts tentatively.

"i am fine," she sniffs. "please, do not worry. i just... do not talk about this often. it is hard to-" she looks down, thumbing a page of one of the joke books. "-keep it all inside every day."

"but... you do?"

again that sad smile. what he wouldn't give for a happy one, like he's always dreamed of seeing. "yes. i do. i have no other choice. it is not something i can talk about with my friends, after all."

"i couldn't do that," the narrator says as softly as possible. "keep everything locked up like that. even if i did, my world would be affected if i felt too deeply about anything. the last time i started thinking in circles, the rooms started running in circles. if i kept something like that in all day..."

he trails off, deciding not to even imagine the effect one of his hypothetical breakdowns could possibly have on the game- and on stanley.

"fortunately," toriel murmurs, "nothing like that will happen if i spare my friends the burden of hearing a silly old woman cry over her past mistakes."

time passes. she's looking at the words in the joke book, but the narrator really doubts she's actually reading anything. based on his limited understanding of sapient beings other than himself, this is not right.

"if you'd like to talk about it," he offers, "i can do with something besides puns for a little bit."

she gives him a small smile in response, still not looking up. somehow, the narrator can tell it still isn't what a smile is supposed to look like- it doesn't quite reach her glassy eyes. he steels himself. alright. time to try a new maneuver.

"or, of course, we can keep reading from that book there. the one you're reading. i mean, i just felt, since you're so captivated by it..."

he recalls the comedy advice she's given him over the past hour, namely, please don't do anything you learned in that instructional video, and pushes on.

"...that you could use a tu-toriel!"

for a moment, her expression does not change- the narrator wonders briefly if all comedians' jokes are followed by a moment of silence to consider the quality of the joke- and then she does something that confuses him even further.

toriel scrunches up her face, covers her snout with her paws, and begins... crying? laughing? ...hyperventilating? he can't tell.

"i-i'm sorry," he stammers, "are- is that a laugh? are you crying? i'm truly sorry, i- i quite honestly can't tell."

at that, she doubles over, slapping her left paw on the table once very hard, and finally uncovers her mouth.

"oh, mister narrator!" she wheezes, "you truly have learned so much!"

...and, thank god, the narrator can see now that yes, she is laughing, and laughing hard at that- she crosses her arms over her stomach, giggling like it's the funniest thing she's heard in years.

and there's a smile on her face, a real smile. so this is what it's like to make someone smile, or laugh, the narrator thinks... he's always wondered. it feels nice, being the reason someone laughs. he can feel something bright rising up inside him... as if his very soul is glowing... it's almost as good as a perfect steam review.

(okay, maybe a little better.)

"yes," she sighs, calming down, "i have faith in you. your damaged sense of humour is, indeed... re-parable!"

the glowing something in the narrator grows two sizes, and whatever's been rising in him forces itself out... in the shape of an identical laugh. the sound's so ridiculous, it makes him laugh even more... if he had a body, he would make sure to slap his knee like they do in old human movies. that's always looked fun, he thinks.

her grin appears to grow at his reaction. it is nice, he thinks, to have some jokes besides your own to laugh at.

it takes them both a minute to calm down, but when they do, the silence is noticeably less heavy.

"i suppose," smiles toriel, "that stanley is not the humorous type?"

"no," the narrator replies, rather out of breath. "i told him bucket jokes for over an hour once. he didn't even flinch."

"do you think it is perhaps because you followed the rules of those instructional videos you mentioned?"

he sighs, but she can hear the smile in his voice. "oh, can you really blame me? they were the only point of reference i had. anyway, the jokes were funny! they were! i swear, i'll never understand him."

at that, toriel looks thoughtful. "they are confusing... are they not?"

the narrator's about to agree profusely, but then he recalls her question from earlier, the one that started them on this curious path in the first place...

he clears his non-throat, trying to adopt a more serious, yet not quite grave tone. god, he thinks, this is turning out to be harder than he ever expected.

"i..."

nothing comes to him. what could he possibly say?

i've lost stanley so many times, in so many ways, it's not funny? he never listens to me either, and he dies for it too? if you think YOU'VE failed as a guide, just wait until you hear about this incident with the staircase-

but some other part of him, the part that just saw a woman fall apart in seconds thinking of her regrets, rises up above these awful memories and steadies him, and for once, his worry doesn't expand to fill the whole space like a big balloon.

"yes?" toriel asks, searching the room for something to focus on in the absence of a real face and body.

"i think," he says, hoping it's obvious that he's not serious, "that humans are just about the weirdest damned creatures i've ever met. don't you?"

she stares into space for a moment, then fixes her eyes on the fireplace with a grin.

"you must admit, though, that they never cease to impress."

he laughs. "ha! 'impress' is one word for it. stanley once sword-fought an eldritch beast born from a bucket and WON!"

toriel giggles, clapping her paws. "i would love to meet this stanley of yours! he sounds like quite the character."

he's the MAIN character, the narrator thinks, and the best one i could ask for. he doesn't voice this thought.

suddenly, toriel's eyes light up. "in fact, i am certain he and frisk would get along splendidly! frisk would love their very own reassurance bucket!"

the thought makes the narrator chuckle and shudder in dread at the same time. "i'm sure they would. and that's why i don't know if that's such a good idea. didn't you say frisk fought the entire underground and won every time? i wouldn't want stanley getting strange ideas about rebellion or things like that-"

at that moment, the door to frisk's bedroom brushes open just a crack, making the narrator jump in his own metaphysical way.

the child still looks half asleep in their blue-and-pink striped jumper, one eye still squeezed shut and with a terrific case of bedhead as they lean on the doorway, and as they look around dazedly, the narrator reconciles their image with every stock photo of human children he's ever seen, and thinks: yeah, that checks out.

"mom?" frisk signs, their hands taking a minute to orient themselves, presumably out of tiredness. the narrator feels a tinge of guilt for waking them up. "i thought i heard you talking to someone..."

toriel blinks, seeming a little surprised, then moves quickly over to her sleepy child. "oh! oh, my, i am very sorry, my child... did we wake you?" she kneels down, smoothing their ruffled hair. "we will be quieter."

frisk looks past her, confused. "but... who are you talking to? i don't see anyone."

the awkwardness of having to interact with a child is just now hitting the narrator, he discovers as toriel attempts to explain the faceless, incorporeal, omnipotent, extradimensional being in their home.

"oh, no, my child, some things cannot be seen... mister narrator, would you say hello?"

oh. saying hello to a child. all right. this is fine. the narrator clears his head and says, "well, hello there, sport-o! smashing jumper you've got there! i hear you can cheat death. that affect your grades at all?"

toriel just stares. frisk fixates on one specific point on the floor, eyes wider than dinner plates at the sudden voice seemingly coming from nowhere.

really, thinks the narrator, he should be awarded for having no body and yet still somehow managing to very skillfully put his foot in his mouth.

(frisk's seen too much to be fazed, though. as far as they're concerned, a new person is a chance at friendship and some pie- both of which they receive in the hours after the narrator apologizes profusely.)

#undertale #the stanley parable #this got REALLY long whoof so i'm putting it under a cut lol #but do please read! it's very much a one-draft but i had maybe a bit too much fun with it #sorry lmao a full mini fic probably isn't what you were expecting but i saw this ask and got inspired💙

[dashiellqvverty]

this got away from me so it’s going under a cut but lately i’ve been thinking about how i wish black sails like. discussed colonial violence (and the hypocrisy surrounding it) in a more specific way.

because idk everytime flint and everyone talks about “england paints us as monsters etc etc” especially in the first seasons i find myself thinking... yes his points hold about like society needing someone to vilify, how he and other pirates were not allowed to exist in society due to perceived transgressions long before they became pirates, how what was done to thomas was violence in its own right... but also i feel like it sometimes carries the connotation of like “theyve turned us into monsters for nothing” even though we are SHOWN the brutality committed by many of the pirates. we see what they do to max, we see what characters like ned low do.

but of course the root of the hypocrisy and cruelty of england’s crusade against them is that england has done all of that and worse in the name of the crown. and for all they dance around this, with white pirates talking about how civilization is a prison and colonial rule keeps them in chains and blah blah blah but no one ever talks about colonial violence and the hypocrisy of it. bc without context, without it being characters we know and sympathize with, there is something dissonant about the pirates saying it is unjust to punish them for the things that they do. and it would be so, so easy to just say “look at england, doing the same things and acting like their hands are clean” but no one quite takes it to the finish line. sure miranda says that what ashe did to her, james, and thomas is crueler than anything they have done, and maybe thats true, but they only ever want to talk about the quiet violence that exists within polite society.

all the while we see a world that runs on slave labor, we eventually see storylines from the perspectives of enslaved characters to a certain degree, but never once do any of the pirates treat the violence of slavery and colonization as part of the case against england, or compare (or i guess contrast) it to their own actions in a way that i feel should be so, so obvious. i think the closest we get is max’s monolgoue about being a child and looking into the plantation house and ugliness being necessary for the beautiful parts of society to exist, or madi’s speech to rogers about how nothing could convince her to give up her war because of what colonial powers have done to her people but i just. feel like ultimately there is a larger connection missing (and of course it’s only the black characters who generally make these points at all). and maybe i look like the idiot here and actually its obvious and the whole point is that we’re supposed to make that connection in our minds. but i think that considering the amount of intense, profound, in-depth, and specific conversations that happen on the show, it feels very odd that this particular connection is never directly drawn.

#black sails #this has been in my drafts for a minute bc i wanted to make sure i got what i meant across #sorry its so long and rambling i wrote it down the other night bc i was like if i do not type all this up now ill forget what i want to say #anyway i was listening to a cool people who did cool stuff episode about pirates #and they made exactly this point about real life pirates and i was like oh yeah i have to post #r.txt #whenever i put things under a cut im like what if no one reads it :( #but this is like 500 words and looking at it i'm like i dont want this filling up my dash

[camellias-stray]

So I got violently ill again last Saturday night but I got rid of it immediately so I’m all fine again 🥴 sort of... But here’s the other half of Camellia Stray’s evolution? Character growth?? This is a long one so hope you’re ready for some reading!

Intro:

The notorious overseer of the Benten Inn and Camellia Grove, Stray took over when Sera got promoted to Clan Captain. Since he wouldn’t be present to help focus on the revitalization project, he assigned them as the main point person despite electing Kunieda as its second president. This is because the clan wouldn’t accept a foreigner to hold a high position, but it’s a given Stray still ran the show behind the scenes. Having managed the Benten Inn with fierceness and sharp judgement, they easily garnered respect (and fear) from Nikkyo members and workers in the area. After marrying Sera, they were also dubbed “Mother Superior” by residents of the inn and known as its only standing Grand Matriarch despite the Tojo Clan disbanding.

Fighting Style:

Stray has always been the opposite of Sera, whose style is more calculated and slow. They also use an array weapons, if not their own sharpened nails, for battles as well. However, they’re not so keen on using guns. Because of their stature, they focus more on speed and can be pretty brutal as they don’t have restraint. To them, survival is key when they fight, so unlike Kiryu or Majima, they won’t hesitate to actually kill their opponent if it means they get to go home and sleep in peace. Because of this, Kashiwagi (mentor) warned both Kazama and Sera to keep Stray from ever fighting unless absolutely necessary. They can also go berserk, but the triggers for this can vary. Despite the difference, both Sera and Stray’s move sets focus on counter attacks. When fighting together, they carry out the heat move seen in Y0 but as a pair.

Relationships: Tojo Clan Kazuma Kiryu - ally, subordinate; knows him from Kazama. Joji Kazama - ally, friend; met him even before the events of Y3. Yoshitaka Mine - subordinate; they have a weird connection and understanding as they both enjoy collecting antiques. He views Stray as an Aunt figure. Taiga Saejima - ally, subordinate; both are sparring partners as he can take the damage they dish out. Nikkyo Consortium Masashi Kunieda - second president of the Consortium, co-worker; he’s mostly the front face of the organization, but still follows Strays advice and guidance. Irie - third president, ally; by this time Stray has already broken off from the Tojo Clan to run things separately in the Inn. Still respects Stray as Grand Matriarch and will ask for guidance and advice.  Daimu Akutsu - subordinate, ally; became one of Stray’s favorites because of his brute strength. Also spars with him and trains him. Kazuki Soma - subordinate, former ally; personally trained by Stray, hence the ice pick and knife combo. Also one of Stray’s favorites because of his efficiency when carrying out assignments, however this changed when he betrayed RK and murdered Akutsu.

#yakuza #yakuza games #lost judgement #yakuza OC #Camellia's Stray #well some parts are mentioned #it's a long read under the cut #hope you're all up for OC lore that no one asked for #also again with everything is an outfit I have #the center one is what I'm strangely known for and I actually wore with a large hat #I really said villain era

[dish-licker]

Glamgreg (Freddy/Gregory) stuff (and some SB Ruin spoilers) under the cut:

I know the possibility of evil Gregory is a bummer for my fellow Glamgreg fans, but consider this variety of GGY!Gregory headcanons:

Despite Freddy's innate goodness, he's so devoted to Gregory that he will do anything for him, even to the extent of killing innocent people because Gregory tells him to.

Gregory thinking of Freddy as a toy, tool and bodyguard all in one, a loyal automaton for him to command...but eventually falling in love with Freddy. Gregory reversing the changes he's made to Freddy's code, because he wants to know of Freddy really does love him back, or if it's only because of the altered code. (Fluff route...Freddy really does love him, even with his code reverted. Which is kind of evidenced in SB? Safe mode Freddy didn't remember Gregory, but he still protected him.) (Or angst route...with the hack reverted, Freddy is horrified to learn that he's been under Gregory's control and appalled by all the things Gregory has done. Backing away from Gregory. 'You...You are a monster'.)

Freddy who isn't hacked at all, so Gregory has to keep pretending to be an ordinary kid around him, hiding the dark aspects of himself. He's terrified that Freddy will find out and he'll lose him, so he does more and more awful things to try to cover up his past and tie up loose ends.

Freddy, an 8 foot tall, incredibly powerful animatronic, who has a good and gentle heart. And Gregory, a smaller than average 12 year old boy, who is secretly a ruthless, sociopathic genius. Opposites in every way, but they love each other and would do anything to protect each other.

Rich kid Gregory who is so privileged and brilliant, but he's so fucking alone. His friends don't understand him and his parents don't have time for him. He has this fixation on Freddy, a weird childhood crush, so he hacks Freddy to love him back. Even to do things that defy his original directives...to service Gregory in whatever way he asks...and Gregory knows it's pathetic, that he's just a lonely boy who needed to program a lover for himself, but still he goes back to Freddy night after night.

That same Gregory, and everything he's done in SB and Ruin was to keep Freddy. The hidden therapist tapes: The counselors he lured to their death in the Pizzaplex were too close to finding out what Gregory was doing, they were going to tell someone and stop him from visiting Freddy. Security Breach: breaking Freddy out of the Pizzaplex so he could keep him always. Ruin: The Mimic was going to follow Cassie back to Gregory, destroying the happiness he's managed to obtain now that Freddy is with him. He couldn't let that happen. His love for Freddy is fanatical, fierce, selfish, toxic, all consuming.

Gregory, in love with Freddy and visiting the Pizzaplex everyday to see him, notices how close Freddy and Bonnie are. Their chemistry on stage together. But Freddy is HIS. So he reprograms Monty to lure Bonnie to the golf course after the Pizzaplex closes and tear him apart. When Pizzaplex employees discover the wreckage of Bonnie, Gregory forges an email from upper management, ordering that Bonnie shouldn't be rebuilt. He should be scrapped and replaced instead. And Freddy is sad, but Gregory knows he'll get over it. After all...Freddy has him, and that's the important thing, right?

Bonus: fucked up version of Freddy who has been desperately trying to suppress his attraction to children, which is clearly a malfunction in his code. When he finds out that Gregory isn't the innocent young boy he pretends to be, Freddy is like...You are broken, too. He gives into his corrupted desires. He follows Gregory's commands, killing anyone Gregory asks him to, and Gregory repays Freddy by letting him do whatever he'd like with his body. There's something fun about a transactional relationship, a disinterested Gregory allowing a lust-addled Freddy to touch him, maybe while he's playing games on his phone and barely paying attention.

#Glamgreg #Freddy/Gregory #Antis please DNI #I put it under a cut so you wouldn't have to read #I didn't know this was going to be so long #If there are any shippers still out there who need fic inspiration #Feel free to use whatever you want from these #I might write one or two myself eventually

[milkbreadtoast]

I WATCHED NIMONA!!! As someone who read the original nimona webcomic when it was updating (roughly a decade ago??) and was rly impacted by it, I was so excited to watch the film and... they did a really good job!!! it was so beautiful i cried omg... it's def worth a watch!! (long ramble under the cut BWAHA spoiler warning)

...and it was rly completely diff from the original comic but im not complaining?? like its a v loose movie adaptation and the plot/setup was v diff but still v well done... like the comic and movie r both good in their own right... & i laughed and cried a lot... i was surprised at the extent of some of the changes but the emotional parts hit hard(my eyes r swollen from crying) and it was written v well... and visually it's just gorgeous... my jaw kept dropping at the beautiful lighting, and they brought the futuristic medieval setting to life so well i could cry😭

it's funny bc one of the main things i was afraid of was them changing nimona's backstory from the comic, bc even after a decade that's one of the things that stuck w me the most... i love nimona as a chara sm... I was so worried abt them changing it and... they ended up changing it completely... but it was actually really good?! like i cried so hard, it was well done... so I'm glad I didn't have to worry after all jdjfjd🥺 like they Did change it but both ver r good in their own right...

I understand that they had to rewrite the plot completely to fit within the time length of a single movie while still being a contained story, as is always the case w movie adaptations of books, graphic novels, etc which r much longer... Series have a chance to follow the source more closely but that just isnt the case w movies... and as far as movie adaptations go they did an amazing job!! I can rly appreciate both the comic and the movie as their own thing... and I rly liked some parts that were added to the movie, like ballister(blackheart)'s backstory in the beginning, and the addition of gloreth (and her relationship w nimona) was surprisingly compelling... And I really really love that they made Ballister and Goldenloin canon POC 😭😭😭 like that made me so happy!!!❤️‍🔥 When i first saw the casting of riz ahmed and eugene lee i was sooo happy, i was like YAYY IDC IF THEY LOOK WHITE IM GONNA HC THEM AS POC🥰 but the fact that i dont even have to hc bc its canon now... 🥹 SOUTH ASIAN/EAST ASIAN KINGS🛐... and they also didn't hold back with showing them openly as a gay couple... Even tho their dynamic changed a lot from the comic I rly appreciate that...

And there were things that I did miss from the webcomic, like the original setup with goldenloin and blackheart as staged nemesis, them being exes (and some time having passed since their graduation, so they're older, unlike in the movie when it just happened), etc. but the whole setup and plot and everything I completely understand why they had to change it to make it work/fit as a movie, so I get it... so not complaining there tbh bc they did what they had to do... But tbh... TBH... my one(1) complaint(/lh) w the movie... IS I REALLY MISS GOLDENLOIN'S BEAUTIFUL LONG HAIR😭😭😭💔 He would've looked so pretty with long golden locks in the movie artstyle, esp w the gorgeous lighting... glowing gold and flowing in the wind... And I think it would've fit perfectly well with the movie ver of his chara/lore too?? like the new lore of him being a descendant of Gloreth... I could imagine him growing out his hair and bleaching it blonde to fit the image/pressure of being a descendant of gloreth, and to look more flashy and heroic to the public (They did tone down his vanity a lot but im sure he still retains some of it... like he still has that pretty popular celebrity image)... And him having long hair doesnt contradict with him being asian too or the modern setting... modern asian men can and do have pretty long hair😭 Like he couldve still been Asian, just w long blonde hair... It doesn't contradict w his new personality either... And I wish they kept the golden color bc the white/silver makes him look less like a "goldenloin"... (i also love black/gold color combos personally lol)... And i just aldjskd can u imagine movie Ballister stroking Ambrosious's long hair affectionately... pls🥲 WE COULD'VE HAD IT ALL... canon asian madeleine cookie qkjdksdj... I also do miss his original stupid vain arrogant himbo personality from the comic, but I understand why they changed it (for one, charas like that might start out obnoxious but then slowly develop and gain depth over the course of the story, but in a movie's short length, there's less time to slowly grow on ppl so it'd be easier to make them more likeable from the start... so like i get it.) but I think it would've been perfect if they just kept his long hair even w his new personality😭😭 LIKE IT WOULDVE BEEN 100000% PERFECT THEN!!! So that's literally my one lighthearted complaint/dissatisfaction w the movie LMFAO... I'd be happy if ppl draw fanart of movie ambrosious w long hair... TTwTT i miss it sm DKDJZ /end rant OVERALL I HAD A GOOD time ^^ LMFAO

#i dont wanna tag this bc i dont want it to show up in the tag orz #and the spoilers r under the cut so dont read it if u havent watched it #(not that anyone will read this anyway... i just wanted to rant LOL #nimona spoilers #i might do a more detailed ramble abt the contents of the movie later if i have energy #i love nimona herself as a chara sm tho... both the comic and movie ver #i adore herrrr shes so funny too like i think the jokes in the movie were actually better skjfd #i dont rmbr the specifics of the comic's jokes but the ones in the movie were def original (ie not in the comic) and funny hehe #shit i ranted more abt goldenloin than i thought. I SWEAR ITS NOT A BIG DEAL IM /LH #I do want to reread the comic now... I wonder if bookstores have it... #I can appreciate the movie as its own thing but its been over a decade so i want to read the comic again too #bc theyre both good in their own right!! #also its been so long that i prob forgot a lot of it

[volfoss]

hi sorry im like. so so mad about media so im putting this silly rant abt the witcher under the cut <3 spoilers for ummm the books or smth but i dont think my mutuals are into this so 👍

So i just hit Blood of Elves (the 3rd book) and met Triss. so not only did she literally SA/take advantage of geralt (as is the fucking pattern in these books w women towards him and the author and the plot treating any time geralt gets in this position as haha funny so many hot women want him :/) but she is um. absolutely fucking horrible. it is so confusing to me how so many fans love her (because even if you've only played the 3rd game, she LITERALLY point blank jokes with him about how people will no longer take advantage of him since he no longer has memory issues, and when he asks who was taking advantage of him, she was just like me :3. like its never elaborated on its just a fucking joke because we <3 feminism in this series!!) but if you've read the books it just becomes more clear how shes treating him. its a really disgusting pattern of behavior where most of his lovers either treat him like a freak and a mutant (which is sure soooo funny when hes treated like that by normal citizens) or just like a sexual object for them to use, with no regards to his consent. and by god triss has embodied both of those so so badly, where shes just nonstop either lusting after him (when he shows literally NO interest in her at this point lmao) or just treating him like shit. shes constantly guilt tripping him about ciri which is so fucking frustrating bc all the stuff shes bringing up under the guise of haha epic feminism moment is handled SO badly. she basically forces femininity on ciri who is like. barely 12 or 13 by this point (if my math is right) and who literally asks if triss will turn her into a boy and who is more than happy with dressing in male clothes. but triss finds this an absolute travesty that ciri literally has a diy haircut (or one of the men did it for her bc its mega crooked) and takes it into her own hands to turn her into a super pretty polished girl like. adjacent to beauty pageants but fantasy medieval. it is um. incredibly frustrating to see all of this and how triss consistently tells geralt his parenting sucks and that ciri shouldnt be with him (despite the fact ciri only feels safe around him and he does a rly good job parenting in his own way. like its not traditional bc he IS a cringefail adoptive single dad but its also like it doesnt need to be and he cares about her safety so much but wtv) and that he just overall sucks as a person. but we r supposed to root for the two of them to get together as in most of the games, she's the primary/most fleshed out romance option. and its like i do NOT expect ppl just playing the games or watching the netflix series to read the books but its also like she is genuinely really bad to him a lot, just talking down to him and it is actually um. very interesting bc geralt as a character is very emotionless a lot of the time (some of this is due to him being a witcher but some of it is just his personality or the trauma hes endured) but the increase of him just being upset or silent and resigned has increased tenfold in just the first 100 pages of this book. its so so frustrating to see esp after seeing how bad yennefer was treated, i really hoped triss would be better. but in every single way she's been worse.

#twist rambles #hi. sorry the mental illness is exploding im literally having to pause reading so much bc it is making me so angry. #i love seeing at the point where i gave up on being coherent w capitalization like. no one is going to read thru this but consider i need #to get the frustration out basically so <3 #guy thats like haha i would never just rant abt this on main <3 and then does so hours later bc the frustration is just so bad. like it + #could be such an amazing series but the way women r handled. bad. #ask to tag #sorry im just ough. i needed to get this out so i could keep trucking through reading. but its literally just like?? the feminist thing for #triss to do is obviously just make sure ciri knows the female beauty standards and its so :/ #the stuff w geralt isnt even like. everything im putting in this silly rant bc i legit do not remember all of it bc the horrors r just + #stacking and multiplying nonstop lmao. its just been really frustrating bc im mainly reading this for ciri and geralt but the romance + #subplots have been fucking HELL. anyways sorry for the long post under the cut etc :)

[juuxzi]

⚠️ Csm part 1 spoilers

#look away if you havent read the manga this is a filler line so it doesnt appear aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa is that long enough ok #just read the interview of fujimoto that it was either angel devil or kobeni who was going to get redacted and im losing my mind #like you mean to tell me he could have survived . but also the thought like thats somehow worse if he did #like thinking if everything would have happened the same way but he somehow survives he would basically have a repeat of what happened #to the village and watched people he cared abt die again in front of him again and aki would actually haunt his dreams fr #also unlike kobeni he would still be under the jurisdiction of the public safety department cause he’s a devil and cant quit…………… #but if they also cut off his arms he’s practically useless…. and aki was the one who asked them not to put him down but he is also gone . #i would die DIE #rambles

[genderfluid-druid]

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#ok we're gonna try to finish this story in under 30 tags ok let's go #SO. 'hahaha yeah wow that's crazy that you know him! we did date yeah. (does not elaborate)' #but. okay confession time. i know this was a questionable choice. it was selfish. it fed the brain gremlin that craves validation #but i never blocked M on snapchat #so even though we never talked. i could see when he viewed my stories. and i won't lie. there is a smug part of me that enjoyed #letting him see me go on about my life. #i am a flawed bitch. so sue me. it was a manageable amount of contact that didn't send me into spirals #and he DID keep viewing them. #he even messaged me once! i don't know maybe a year ago. it was totally out of the blue. 'saw this book and thought of you' on a picture of #a nice edition of The Hobbit. i didn't respond. i had to have a petty moment for all the times during the Bad Era when i tried to message #him and he took too long (in my shitty estimation) to message back. so i left him on read. for like a year #okay you can see where this is going so I'll cut to the chase #'i ran into a friend of yours' is a perfectly reasonable conversation starter. it can be the whole conversation if it needs to be. #well. it wasn't #idk. my world state for the last six years has been 'M doesn't care for me and there is no world in which we ever have a civil chat again.' #well. that doesn't track with 'it's past my bedtime but i don't mind staying up to chat' and 'i would love to get an earful about podcasts' #and 'let's chat again' and 'it was really great to hear from you' #idk. i don't know what emotion i should feel. anger is gonna be the first one that makes it to the surface i think #got a good healthy dose of anger happening #grief. i do think there's some grief. mmhmm yep there it is #there are probably some positive emotions but those are the most strenuously repressed and i don't think I'm ready to let the collar off #i have made a lot of choices in the last six years to protect my mental health specifically because of how that relationship ended #so even just talking to him is. well for one thing it's playing a bit fast and loose with the health i have managed to build up #i feel good. my life has been good lately. my therapist moved me from monthly to once every three months. my social life is the most #thriving it's ever been #i am possibly in a place to unbox some things that were thrown in the attic as an emergency measure #i should talk to my therapist

[pangolen]

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#cw i'm being mean about a stranger's fanfiction because i've been reading it for weeks or months now #and it's consuming me but i need to finish it at this point #ok one of the problems w this fic is really just. how much the author fucking hates y qy #what'd this dude ever do to you #his death was so much more brutal than was really called for #and yet!!! not nearly detailed enough #cut off his arm without any fanfare #ripped out his whole stomach within a sequence of 'and then's #unnecessary AND uninteresting #like the author was already grossed out or something and didn't want to touch it further #also maybe im desensitized to fictional Bad Things Happening #or maybe this fic is just so fucking long some of it's faded into the bg of my mind #but i don't really think his Crimes warranted all that #cut off his cultivation and let him rot or whatever. eye for an eye and force a truth serum down his throat in front of an audience #idk i just think setting up a whole arena and cutting off his limbs was a little excessive #telling him his beloved friend & the person he promised to protect has been dead under his nose for like 10 years or whatever is also #A Bit Much #like yeah he did a lot of fucked up stuff #but it's only getting punished so hard because the fucked up suff was done to the protagonist #m bj killed a bunch of kids and would've had no problem killing more if s qq hadn't intervened #well. teens and young adults but still #but that's not worthy of punishment i guess because we like m bj? #'it was for revenge' oh that's fine then #& anyway on top of all that. it just felt like the author was setting him up to Do Bad just for the ability to punish him later #if that makes sense #like not to move the plot forward or anything. or for character depth. #just to make sure we know y qy sucks and he has it coming to him #so tldr my notes are: 1) make it make sense; 2) lean into the violence a little more damn #also i know it's a fic someone worked hard on and posted for free and it's silly to criticize it like this #but god i'm almost 300k words in im invested and it's for the worst