a study of The Accolade by Edmund Leighton ft. malevolent

ID in alt

I just imagine fem!Silver trying to chop her hair off Mulan style so she can attend NRC with Lilia and Malleus then cut to next scene where Lilia is giving her a proper haircut cuz the cut ended up too choppy and uneven.

[Referencing this post!]

OKAY, LET’S BE HONEST WITH OURSELVES HERE… Would Lilia giving anyone a haircut really make it look better than it was before 😭 (Lilia canonically cuts his own hair, Silver’s, AND sometimes Malleus’s, according to Malleus dialogue from Glorious Masquerade. And… well, look at how their hair looks… especially Lilia’s!!)

Fun fact, the cutting of one’s hair is actually not historically accurate! The west associates long hair with femininity and short hair with masculinity, but in the period of time in which Mulan takes place, both Chinese men and women wore their hair long. This is because there was a Confucian belief that one’s body was a gift from the parents and that gift should not be damaged. (TWST of course takes place in the modern era and in a non-China adjacent part of their world, so I doubt this logic would also apply.)

It doesn’t seem like people at NRC are bothered too much by long hair? At the very least, I don’t think having long hair would be any more conspicuous or female-presenting than a male student with long hair. (I mean, look at Leona, Jamil, Vil, Idia, and even Malleus himself www) Maybe fem!Silver could just waltz in with hair as long as the Dawn Knight and no one would be the wiser 😂

For a physically capable warrior… I imagine it’s more practically to have short hair?? So perhaps Silver could cut it? Or at least tie it up into a bun to minimize the chance of snagging. It’s still neat to imagine fem!Silver cutting her hair with a sword though… The imagery is just so cool!

I also think that it was Claudia that slit Lestat's throat, the presentation of it in Louis' recount is not only too tidy wrt the handling of the body afterwards (which ofc we know is false) but also with how the throat slitting also happened. We know Louis isn't that great at straight up lying but he IS someone who relies on redirection as well as obfuscation via the imagery he focuses on. And he's also big into literature. The whole slitting of lestat's throat paints a very poetic(?) return of what drew Lestat to him in the first place. His cane just happens to be in the right room. In Louis' recounting we don't actually hear the last words that Claudia records. And in the flash of the real event we don't see Louis deal the final blow either, we just see him sobbing and clutching Lestat's body and attacking Claudia. Idk like even Lestat's freshly throat slit body looks a bit too perfect you know?

Yes exactly its part of his neat narrative and its so dreamlike and beautifully staged like a pieta.... and i also don't think claudia would leave even the act of slitting his throat to louis who has been like . on a different planet the entire night. So then it's interesting like why does he want to think that he did it. So it will mean claudia was falsely accused by lestat and therefore it's lestat's fault for lying and not armand's fault for allowing/initiating the trial? bc it gives him agency? he is the knight not claudia? much to think about

Can you rate the Corviknight line if you haven’t already? One of my favorite SWSH mon.

You know, this is gonna be a Hot Take, but I actually think that Corviknight should've been a single-stager (with a g-max). First, the two-pre evos are bland and don't do much thematically. But secondly, they don't even match well in terms of aesthetics. Both of these two sport blue and black pallets while Corviknight is all purple; these two have the white eye patches while Corviknight drops them; and there's absolutely no armor. So really, what's the point of having them here? Corviknight is a wonderful design; it doesn't really need to be bogged down with pre-evos.

Anyway, Rookidee's eye drives me nuts. Yes, I know the red is the actual eye and the white is a marking, but I cannot unsee it as the pupil clipping through the eyelid. I think adding some zig-zag feather texture to the white might've helped a little to make it look less eye-like. Or adding an eyelid to the red eye, to make it read clearer.

With that said, Rookidee is... fine. It's a bird. The eyebrows are a little fun but that's about it. It's really a shame, because the names suggest rook > squire > knight, but the first two designs don't reflect their themes in the slightest. Could've we have gotten a bit more medieval imagery in these guys or something?

I feel like Corvisquire makes the eye issue even worse, because the red eye isn't even really the right shape or size relative to the head, which makes it even harder to unsee. Not much else to say beyond that, other than I'm glad the cream underbelly has been replaced with a blue one and the wing patterns look a little neat.

However, things become amazing once we finally reach Corviknight. The eye looks much better, and all of the blandness has been replaced with a slick monochrome design that reflects its knight theme. Normally I'm not much into the monochrome look, but it really helps reflect the raven-like nature and helps prevent the design from getting too complex. It also helps make the ominous red eye pop even more.

I also love the way the armor fits with the body. The way the metal over the wings bends out gives it a really nice shape, while the amour over the break and chest looks super natural and flows nicely. Really, I have no complaints here.

The g-max is fine; I like how the red's been expanded to the wings here, but otherwise it doesn't change all that much. I like the idea of the bird-feathers more than I like it in execution, mostly because they don't really connect back to the concept at all other than the fact that it's a ride/taxi Pokemon.

Overall, Corviknight is a great 'mon; I just wish it didn't have an otherwise mediocre line attached it.

The Green Knight’s Lady- 7

Sequel fic to “The Witch and the Green Knight” (on Ao3)

Warnings: undeserved redemption arc, graphic imagery and bad behavior. And once again, violence against an apparent minor. There’s a line to slap him, don’t be surprised.

Chapter 1: In which Rowan has Unexpected House Guests

Chapter 2: In Which They Try to Figure Out What the Hell is Going On

Chapter 3: In Which Remus and Rowan’s Stupidity Escalates to Treason (sort of)

Chapter 4: In Which Life is Difficult

Chapter 5: In Which Remus has an Argument with A Cat and Rowan makes some Charms

Chapter 6: In Which Love is Bullshit. >-<>-< ——————-<>——————- >-<>-< Chapter 7: in which Commitment and Love are Put to the Test >-<>-< ——————-<>——————- >-<>-<

It was properly summer now and Rowan was glad for it. The smell of hot grass, the long sunlit days, the profusion of plants everywhere. All of it made her feel content even as her guest grumbled about the heat in the attic loft and moved to spend his days in the library room instead. 

Remus was gone as often as he was there, working on his house to make it nice enough for DN. Personally Rowan doubted the little fae would ever be content in a wild fae's home, no matter how luxurious he made it.

Remus had visited for a few days, snatching raw meat from the barbecue tray, teasing Rowan's sister much more gently than he did Rowan and soaking in attention. He had to go back, he'd made a deal with a fae craftsman and needed to pick up something. 

“Here.” Rowan held out a music box and headphones. “I made you a couple of mixes so you can listen to them instead of your own head. It helps me sometimes.” 

Remus hooked his arm around her and squished her. 

“Aw, you like me.”

“Whatever gives you that impression. Must be all the affection.” her eyes rolled but she smiled, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "You'll need to come back and charge it every few days." 

"Oooooh music treat and reminder of the passage of time, you're a wicked one."

“Do you not want to borrow the camera?” she asked wiggling the small blue box in her other hand. “I thought you wanted to show me your house.” 

“Ooh ohh gimmie!” he made grabby hands at it. “It’s looking so good! The moss is in all the right places and the wood’s all polished on the inside.” 

"It sounds nice." She admitted. I can't wait to see."

"Sometime I'll bring you to see it.” He said in a way that sounded like a promise, fiddling with the camera. “I should get a phone.” 

“That’ll be fun.” Rowan snorted, picturing him walking into the wireless store. "Would it even work?"

"Oh yeah, probably. The spider and honey and cream use theirs underhill after all. Think no-thank-you daddy long legs is playing antenna."

Rowan considered that. 

"Well, it is just waves of energy, and magic can be described that way." 

"Neat." Reaching out he fluffed her bangs, and grinned at Danger Noodle who was catching a breeze with a glass of lemonade on the porch and certainly wasn't there to see Remus off. He had, after all,  made it clear he didn't care either way. “Should I bring you anything?”

“Properly made food would be good.” he said, sounding bored. “I’d ask for a change of clothes but I don’t trust your fashion choices.” 

“Just wait and see!” Remus said brightly, and bounded off into the woods like a hyperactive deer.

“... I’m glad to see him happy.” Rowan commented. 

“Hmf.”

“He was very sad when I met him.” she continued. “Not that it was easy to tell of course. On account of the batshit crazy.”

“He was like that when I met him.” 

“I’m sure.”

(Rowan’s Break up List for Passive Aggressive Witches) 

Three days later, Remus reappeared, singing ‘New Rules’ by Dua Lipa and carrying a bundle and a basket. He handed over both the camera and mp3 player to Rowan, kissed her mother on the cheek while getting a cookie, and moved into the library where Danger Noodle was reading in a window seat. He looked up as Remus entered. 

“Well that wasn’t any faster than usual.” 

“Would have been back yesterday, but I was getting something.” Remus said, plopping down on the floor next to the window seat. Rowan had followed him in, apparently she had also been reading, in an armchair instead, if the glass of sweet tea he brought in and the book she picked up were any clues. 

Remus handed the basket to D.N. Inside he found a veritable picnic of fairy food that could be eaten cold, and kept fairly well. Danger Noodle had mainly been joking, while the preparation was different, and some things were procured by magic, food was food. Though he could be absolutely sure that these hadn’t been touched by steel, let alone iron. He put a tiny meat pie in his mouth and let it dissolve a bit rather than chewing, savoring the flavors. 

“Also this.” He opened the bundle and produced some fabric, a jacket, a pair of pants, some fine stockings and gloves. They looked a little bit too big for D.N. “I remembered what you said, but these looked like things you’d worn before, so I thought it might be okay?”

“Not exactly suitable for my current situation.” He sniffed, looking at the soft embossed leather of the coat over. Despite that, he looked slightly pleased. “You really go out of the way to find things I’ve asked for.”

“Yep!” Remus grinned, looking happy. “I want you to be as happy as possible.” 

“Anything I ask?” 

“Pretty much.” He was pulling more clothing out of the bundle, grinning to himself. 

“And what if I asked you to kill her?”

The smile disappeared as Remus’s eyes went wide and his head came up like he’d been physically struck.

“Please don’t ask me that.”

“I need to know.” 

“Please.” his voice was a thin whine. 

“It’s okay.” Rowan said quietly, calling attention to herself. “Take my body somewhere it won’t be found.”

“What?” 

“He needs to know you love him more than me. So.” She opened her arms, as if inviting a blow or a hug. “Painless would be good too.” 

Remus looked back at D.N. who sighed theatrically.

“I’m not actually asking.” he said “She’s right, annoyingly. Also annoyingly more useful alive.”

“Careful.” She picked her book up again. “Someone might think you’re starting to like me.” 

“I don’t think that’s terribly likely.” 

Remus stood up, suddenly enough that they both turned to stare at him. 

“I’m going.” he said, and headed out the back door.  “I’ll be back.” the door slammed. 

“I think you upset him.” Rowan said quietly. 

“Oh, and your reaction had nothing to do with it.” he curled his lip. “Would you really have let him kill you?” 

“What about our interactions makes you think that I value my life?” Rowan retorted. 

“You aren’t dead yet. It’s not something I’d recommended, personally.” 

“Well the people I piss off generally can’t curse me.”

“You’re not too old to change.” 

“Again, with your odd brand of compliments.” she snorted and took a sip of her tea. “I could wish you hadn’t chased him away when he just got back.” 

“He’ll be fine. Thinking big thoughts takes him time.” He began sorting through the clothes in the bundle. 

“Giving him a philosophical dilemma about his emotions is just unkind.”

“So am I.” He held up a shirt in dove gray and frowned at it. “Do be quiet if you’re going to be in the same room with me. I’m not Remus, I don’t like your peculiar brand of humor and your key-dead voice.” 

Rowan huffed and picked up her book and glass. 

“Fine. I’m going to keep watch for him, in case he needs a hug when he gets back.”

“You do that.”

“And who knows. Maybe he’ll realize he deserves better.” 

“He hasn’t in a hundred years.” 

Rowan glanced back at him, not quite sure what he meant, not wanting to know what he meant.

(illustration, Danger Noodle and New Clothes)

The rest of the afternoon was fairly quiet, and the moon was just rising when Remus let himself back in. The rest of Rowan’s family had gone off to see a movie, and Rowan had stayed behind because she was waiting for Remus, and not really interested in the movie.  Remus looked like he’d been in a fight, and the winner was uncertain. His knuckle were bloodied and there were sticks and bits of leaves in his hair. Danger Noodle had taken over the table in the library- possibly his favorite room because once the fire tools had been moved out, there was no cast iron in it- and was prodding at the clothing, muttering to himself and drinking something that was the color of moonstone that had been in the basket. He looked up as Remus entered. The green knight shifted on his feet.

“I’ve decided.” Remus said slowly. “That the answer would be no.”  

“What?”

“I love you.” he said it simply, like an absolute truth. “And I always will. I will protect you. But I am not going to help you hurt me anymore.” this Remus said like it hurt.  D.N. just looked confused, but Rowan immediately hugged Remus, flinging her arms around his neck and pressing their cheeks together. 

“Don’t get too excited, little tree.” Remus mumbled, even as he supported her weight “It’s true now, but who knows how long it will be.”

“I’m still so proud of you.” she retorted. “That had to have been hard to decide.”  She kept holding onto him, so she wouldn't have to look at the baffled, terrified expression that haunted the edges of D.N.’s eyes. It was so much easier just to think of him as a one note villain. 

Even if she held onto the hope he could change, if only for Remus’s sake.

Thoughts on Osiris? (And Saint?)

Osiris huh? *starts vibrating* yeah i like him a normal amount. Putting this under a read more because im gonna be here a while.

Jokes aside, definitely one of my favorite characters. I'm very glad we've seen so much of him since his introduction. He's a fascinating character, carrying so much involvement in events that even when he's not in the foreground he's usually still present in some capacity. (obviously there are some instances in which he has no plot involvement but idk it's just cool to have him show up in so many places)

I also really like his design, like im glad they made him an old dude. It's just cool to have a character who doesn't look like they're 20, and i think it makes the implication of his experience more believable. (tbh it's kinda why i can't take the sovs all that seriously, there's nothing that communicates their experience so it's harder to keep in mind that they're actually thousands of years old.) Also, for all the issues i have with drawing it, I think his armor slaps. The entirely unsubtle bird imagery is great.

Also his relationship and interactions with sagira are awesome, and they play off eachother super well both in game and in lore. They both have a lot of personality and it's one of the major reasons CoO was good.

Personality wise he kinda reminds me of some of my friends, he's smart and isn't shy about making sure everyone else knows it. Sure he can be blunt, but he's usually right.

My feelings on Saint are bit more mixed (im a bughugger so you can imagine why)

He's pretty neat in his own right, and i like his space knight aesthetic. He's nice to hang around in the hangar, and im a bit sad he's just the trials announcer now. (I miss season of dawn)

Imo they did an excellent job bringing him into the game, and he feels very much like a character who would be widely loved by the people he protects.

I think that's probably one of the reasons most people forget about the other parts of his history, he has a lot of positive interactions with the player and he feels very kindly. It almost lulls you into the sense that no person that friendly could ever harm a soul.

Ofc that's massively inaccurate, he's terrifying if you end up on his bad side. I think this is best illustrated by the lore on the sekris set, in which we are shown one of his assaults on an eliksni encampment through the eyes of Sekris, Baron of Shanks. He does end up sparing them, but no other member of the encampment survives.

It's a fascinating duality for a character to have.

Bonus thoughts on O14 because im here already

Their dynamic really gets me, they both care deeply about eachother, but they’re subtle about it, making even small gestures mean a lot. I also really like the reunion aspect of it too. It's literally just, unbury your gays y'know?

The fact they've known eachother for ages is great too tbh, it makes their relationship feel weighty and believable. Destiny doesn't do a ton of romantic stuff in general but damn the lore does a solid job of making this stuff feel real.

I'm also really glad it was confirmed canon, it's nice to know you're not grasping at straws.

Ideas for Warforged (D&D)

Because magic robots/constructs are the best idea. I will admit that backstory/inspiration-wise, I’m fonder of things like Discworld’s golems or the Muses from Girl Genius. I like the feeling of ancient constructed things learning to be people.

(I also like the caster classes, which will possibly be really obvious in a minute)

Cleric

I love the Grave Domain for warforged. How does a constructed being conceptualise death? Especially if they get slapped in the face by it. Take the standard warforged background, the machine built for war, a constructed, immortal child created for violence. Have them watch their squishy biological comrades die. A lot. Do they have an epiphany? Do they become curious about the beliefs and fears around death? Do they want to give comfort to their friends? Do they start to think of mortal death as a reprieve from a life of endless service and violence? (Do they view undeath as a horrific corruption of their own constructed service and immortality, taking relief away from those who have earned it in death?) Imagine a warforged priest of a grave god. The serene, mechanical face. The slightly off, dispassionate gentility. The curiosity and care. I love it.

Druid

Circle of Spores! Sorry, but we are continuing the theme of decay and the undying here. But with spores there’s a lot of … I’m thinking post-apocalyptic fiction. Robots in the remnants. Wall-E, even. Your trash-heap, rusted, bucket-of-bolts survivor of a dead world or colony or underground kingdom. The curious innocent finding beauty in decay, or perhaps a wiser, more melancholy survivor. Or a darker one, cynical about the cycles of extinction and regrowth. Also, just the image. A strange, skeletal metal creature, crystal eyes glowing uranium green, strange mushrooms growing from their rusted plates and darkwood sinews, surrounded by an almost-sound, a subaudible buzzing that people feel in their teeth. Watching warily as new creatures wander through their ruins, or spurred by their own curiosity to venture up into some strange new world.

Bard

The Muses, here, so very much. 18thC automata. The music box song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. A construct built for beauty, grace, skill, to be the epitome of a craft, but also a construct that is very old. Built for kings, because who else could afford such breath-taking craftsmanship? Built to entertain or advise a ruler and their court, and so a lot wiser to the passions and vices underneath the pretty words than they seem. Students of history, who’ve seen it cycle through a few times. Maybe trying to escape, now. Find a simpler life. Or trying to affect things rather than just witness them, trying to be a hero or the villain or the spy instead of just the historian or the muse.

Paladin

Clockwork angels. Hubris and innocence all in one neat package. Constructs made in the image of celestials, complete with flightless bronze-and-silk wings, out of arrogance or hope or despair or for mysterious purposes that even they don’t know. Found in the laboratories of dead mages, or manufactured by warmongers for propaganda purposes. Innocent, still, hopeful, or else deeply, deeply cynical. Struggling to find or maintain a sense of their own identity, choosing oaths in honour or defiance of their image. Redemption, Crown, Conquest, Vengeance. Lots to have fun with.

Sorceror

We’re going more for the ‘touched by cosmic power’ angle than bloodlines, obviously, though there’s possibly some wiggle room if you go for weirder origins. Constructed with a little flesh and bone and blood from your creator, maybe? But I really like Shadow Sorceror here. A construct made in a dark ritual, touched by the fell energies of the Shadowfell. A strange, half-alive being, shadowed by darkness, who ‘woke’ in an empty ritual chamber with no idea of their nature or their purpose. Honestly, shadow sorceror is as good as warlock for the gothic, haunted end of origin stories, so might as well go full Frankenstein on the confused horror of a constructed being. Might lean a bit more on the ‘organic’ end of warforged construction here, darkwood, living stone, black metal. Just to match the aesthetic. Warforged are great for aesthetic.

Warlock

Speaking of. Just. I have already mentioned, but I love both warlocks and warforged, and they’re a lovely mix together. The Lurker Patron. A construct built to dredge a long-lost harbour, finding sentience and a strange ‘friendship’ while wandering the deeps. The Great Old One, a strange, mad being who cobbled you together from spare parts in an attempt to understand the life forms of this foreign plane. Fiend, the demon who was baffled and intrigued by the concept of an artificial soul, granting power just to see what temptation looks like in a heart made of crystal and stone (or the puppet master who stole the most beautiful and extraordinary puppet, to call back to the muses). The Archfey who built or stole themselves the perfect knight, a mobile statue or plaything that was never meant to win its own soul. There’s so many things to play with.

Rogue

To throw a bone to the non-caster classes. But. There is a lot of potential to the rogue, too. Assassin, particularly. One of the things that’s so cool with warforged is not only their own choices and motivations, but those of the ones who built them. Why train a perfect killing machine when you can build one? But then what happens when they become sentient? When they start to have feelings and opinions of their own? Rogue warforged have a lot of the same appeal as bard and paladin warforged for me. Beings built for the machinations of those around them, and struggling to free themselves and forge their own path. (Also I loved the Zeta Project cartoon as a kid and it rubbed off on me, and there’s something half-humorous and half-terrifying about a seven foot metal skeleton somehow built for stealth and infiltration).

Barbarian

My other favourite non-caster class, but there also some lovely things to work with here. Perhaps the flipside of the grave cleric above? The soldier warforged who grew to love battle instead, whose first emotions were the rage and terror and thrill of the battlefield. I like the Zealot barbarian here. The being literally made for the fight, who channelled it so perfectly that it drew the attentions of the gods of battle. But there’s also … the opposite of rage. When it’s a robot, a machine. There’s the image of the blank, emotionless killing frenzy. An anime I watched, Pumpkin Scissors, had a supersoldier as one of the main characters. A normally extremely sweet and gentle man, who could be brainwashed into a mindless killing state by a blue lantern. He was terrifying and tragic and unstoppable and broken. Imagine a warforged barbarian like that. A being terrified of the truly emotionless machine they become in battle, the remorseless frenzy they enter when injured or struck by the sight of blood, but believing they were built for nothing but war, knowing no way of living other than that.

… Um. In summary? Magic robots are great and, depending who built them and what for, can delve into tragic very quickly and easily. Heh. Though you can also easily go the benevolent creator route, the parent who taught them well, and take some much gentler angles on all of this. I’m just in a gothic mood tonight, apparently.

Also, there is just no beating the imagery you can build up around a living wood-and-metal being. And I’m not just saying that because I love a) robots, b) skeletons, and c) robot skeletons.

Honest, yer honour.

cinderella au meta notes

or: the plotline that never happened because i was so caught up in the euphoria of writing Fritz/Lucette Cinderella AU, i forgot that i had to have a plot

also: a bunch of bonus facts i guess !

this basically spoils the whole fic (that you can read here) which contains Fritz and Rumpel route spoilers, so read with caution ! under the cut bc it got Long :”))

this meta was initially written on a tumblr post bc it was meant to be a short ~2k thing (HAHAHA). then it got so long my computer started crashing and i had to move to google docs. 

i wrote this with disney live action remake osts AND six the musical in the background. it was a wildin’ experience listening to ‘dont lost ur head’ while writing Fritz be a chaotic mess in the beginning, then listening to ‘how does a moment last forever’ when writing the Fritz/Lucette garden scenes.

Karma and Fritz are childhood friends ! both boys who were more interested in being a knight than inheriting a kingdom, but learnt their responsibilities along the way.

on that note: none of the characters were exactly...planned to appear. the initial tweet thread idea only had Fritz, Lucette and Alcaster casted - the other characters just kinda wrote themselves in this meta. 

im pretty sure it started with Karma barging his way into the fic in act one, then i had to have someone balance him (Waltz), then i needed someone to play the music for their waltz (obvs that had to be Rod), and then i got sad thinking Rumpel would be left out, but Lucette’s broken glass slipper scene conveniently needed someone. the Widdensovs just kinda came into the picture by virtue of Lucette just needing someone to interact with when she wasnt at the ball LMAO 

everyone else just didnt make it in the natural progression of the fic, and i didnt want to shoehorn them in just for the sake of having them appear.

however: Parfait was initially going to make an appearance as a duchess who snuck Lucette out to her father when she came to the castle for help when her manor burnt down. here’s a lil snippet of her scene:

(no one had, the last time she came; the smell of smoke still clinging on her, her head slamming a cacophony - surviving only thanks to the bravery of a certain court lady now disappeared, who heralded her to a servant’s exit, gave her gold and directions to her father, told her, run, told her im sorry, and cried, tears dripping endlessly from her pale pink lashes.)

Parfait is well and alive in this AU btw ! she’s just ‘disappeared’ bc she’s living somewhere secret with her goth wife Delora.

(side note: i realise Rumpel seems a lot like Lucette’s fairy godmother in the act thirteen. not intended, but i liked the imagery enough to let it stand :”)) bippity boppoty chevalier ! )

Varg and Lilja are both Swedish words. ancient Angiellian is partially Swedish. there’s probably ikea in this AU. let that sink in.

the swan mask Lucette was wearing was meant to allude to Odette and Odile from Swan Lake (because Fritz and Varg, white and black, swans are pretty yadda yadda), and i was going to write some really neat symbolism about that but i forgot lol ! 

(also the idea just never worked for me bc Odette and Odile aren’t the same people like Fritz/Varg but i wanted to reference Barbie Swan Lake (2003) ok let me live)

pour one out for our man Fritz who got rejected on his birthday. f. 

Emelaigne is the MVP. older sisters, no matter how truly Head Empty they are, always pull through when you need them. 

“isn’t the moon beautiful tonight” is a direct reference to an anecdote (which may or may not be true) about Natsume Souseki, a famous japanese writer, who translated ‘i love you’ to that phrase in order to account for the indirect characteristics of japanese speech.

Rumpel is the royal doctor, and has been apprenticing in the castle since Fritz was a child, before taking over the position as an adult ! so yes, Rumpel definitely rubbed off on Fritz in terms of values and morals.

with regards to Fritz and Lucette’s curses: i never really gave it much thought, but the vague idea i had was Lucette being cursed by Hildyr for disobedience (manipulative parenting say eye), then Hildyr dies lol and Lucette breaks her curse eventually.

with Fritz, he was likely cursed out of political reasons/jealousy and Varg was the result. works bc either way the curse meant for Fritz to be 1) inconvenienced or 2) dead/taken out of consideration for succession so like...a pain in the ass replacement who behaves the exact opposite of a prince works too.

this was hinted at vaguely in the fic, but Fritz became very secluded and hid himself in the castle for the years it took him to come to terms with his curse and break it. even then, because there was no one around him to really affirm his identity or accept him, he remained very withdrawn and a shell of his former self. 

i reckon it took him about 5-6 years to break the curse. so that’s a lot of time alone. Fritz was basically a NEET.

all jokes aside: Lucette and Fritz each broke their curses with their own willpower and effort, but remain the mostly the same because there was no one around them to truly understand or accept them for who they were, or who they became.

(until they met each other, of course)

also, idk if it was hinted well enough but Lucette and Fritz actually were in an engagement once, when they were children/early teens ! i intended to allude to this more with Hildyr giving Fritz Lucette’s portrait, which results in him recognising her, but it just never fit in anywhere. so yeah ! that’s another reason how/why Fritz knew who Lucette was at first glance. 

i figured the previous engagement would also help ease the court into their eventual marriage despite the whole ~*disgraced noble*~ thing. idk. i know nothing about western history and how it worked except for ALEXANDER HAMILTON (america sings for yooouuu) and divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.

however, Alcaster broke the engagement, as stated in act thirteen. the reason was basically: Angielle in this AU works not by a hereditary monarchy, but rather the previous monarch getting to choose whomever the fuck the want to succeed them. Hildyr and Alcaster were both in line for the throne, and Hildyr wanted to ensure that even if she couldn’t get the throne now, she still had a chance in the future if her daughter married Alcaster’s (who would then be king) son. Alcaster was like lol fuck off because he wanted power all to his family and took things into his own hands to ensure that would never happen (which involved: inciting public hatred against witches/Hildyr, breaking Lucette and Fritz’s engagement, and generally being a dick.

that’s about as plot heavy as it gets yall. the rest is just dumb idiots falling in love !

...............except for the political usurp that happens later, with Fritz’s faction forcefully taking the throne away from Alcaster’s tyrannical rule, which leads to a dramatic sway of public favour to Fritz and Lucette.

and then they live happily ever, ever after. 

(carrie underwood. yes i am planning an Enchanted AU dont look at me.)

the end !

the ask fucked up the formatting so @ that raspcotton anon i got u covered

so you think cc’s a writer huh? :3 neat idea!!

————————————

“What?! Flowers...?! For me........?!”

“I’m only giving them to you because I have to pay you for what you’re doing for me...” Raspberry said. “You have fencing lessons today...”

“Oh, yeah...wait, what?!”

Cotton Candy put her pen down on her desk, holding the papers close to her chest. Raspberry followed suit, pulling the flowers to towards his chest, although he shook so hard the plastic rang in his ears.

“Don’t hurt the flowers, Raspberry...! Their petals are falling off...”

“Ah! What, no!

“Don’t drop them either! Oh, they’re...!”

The entire room went silent. Cotton Candy stared at the flowers on the flower and Raspberry stared at—

“...your manuscript, CC!”

Cotton Candy didn’t make a sound.

“CC...?”

Silence.

“CC...?” he said once again. Quiet, and ragged.

The papers on the floor were her manuscript. She had taken a break from writing her trademark love letters, the inspiration for so many of her gooey tooth-rotting romances. In fact, that was what inspired her to become a writer. So many lovers had fallen in love with the words her pen inked out, so much so she had seen marriage proposals made with them.

But...now...

“I should have never written anything...!” she wailed. “My story is garbage...! I can’t write a fencing scene, can’t write the way the sword pierces the fabric of the...the...rival?! Opposing dueler?! Oh wahhhhhhhhh...!!!!”

Raspberry jumped as Cotton Candy wailed. She fell to her knees, balling her manuscript in her hands. Tears fell from her eyes and she scraped her face trying to wipe them with the papers.

“CC no!” Raspberry screamed. “You’ll cut yourself! Don’t get paper cuts on your...pretty face...!”

“Why?! Why do you care...?!” she screamed at him. “I’m no good at writing! I suck! My story will be trash!! And not full of the love it’s supposed to be...!”

“No.........no...!” he said. His voice was soft, but he was straining slightly to not raise it. He was just as scared of failure as she was, but by the heavens was he going to let someone else suffer the same predicament as him.

“I told you I was going to give you a lesson, no? Look, we can still have the lesson. I promise. Maybe I can make some arrangements to have it sooner...? I have a lot of knightly duties to attend to, but I want to take care of you...as best as I can.”

He couldn’t believe he was saying that. A few months ago, he could hardly say he cared for anyone without feeling like his heart was going to explode. And like he was going to die, caring for anyone.

Living as a knight’s captain wasn’t the best occupation to show ‘softness’ in.

He rubbed Cotton Candy’s back.

“Here, look...! We can make it better...! Look, I read your story, if that helps you. I promise you it was great. I’m not a writer, but my mom was, and I read her manuscripts all the time. Your writing is impeccable...! Such a marvelous sense of flow and imagery...!”

Cotton Candy clutched the paper to her chest. She shook a little bit, her arms shaking, the paper ripping. Each rip swelled in the silence of the empty room.

But as Raspberry took her hand, they all ground to a halt.

“...CC, remember when you asked me what those flowers were for...? They..”

He put his forehead on hers. She looked up at his eyes, squeezed shut. His face was as hot as the sun, and he pushed the frazzled flowers towards her. What a lucky break to have dropped them within arm’s length...

“They were for you,” he said. “I love you, you know...?” he said softly. “I’ve loved you for a while, and I wanted this fencing lesson to...be an expression of it. Nothing is more passionate than the duel, especially for a lovely lady like yourself...”

Cotton Candy stared. The room became silent again, but she stroked his face and stared into his eyes as she pushed back against his forehead.

“Th...thank you...” she said, tearing up. Raspberry put a hand to her eye to wiper her tear and she kissed his palm, taking it in her own that smelled of roses and jasmine.

“Are you still up for that fencing lesson, baby...?”

“Oh absolutely,” she said.

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part One

A lot of these posts are going to be just my impressions, things I love, cool things to point out, I don’t know.  Rambles about how much I love this game and everything about it.

To start off I’ll talk about my OC a little bit, and how I got into Mass Effect. Then we dive into the prologue.

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

My OC

So we all have our Main OC Shepards. Mine is Annakie.

Annakie is a name from an MST3k episode that I have loved since the first time I saw it in the early 90′s.  I started using the name Annakie in IRC shortly thereafter, specifically in the SciFi channel’s IRC server, which used to be fairly active back in the day.  And by the day I literally mean circa 1995. They used to host some pretty cool, especially for 1995, events there, like authors and writers of their shows would come in and do Q&A’s, including Kevin, Mike and Bill from MST3k.  Kevin Murphy recognizing where my nick came from immediately was a moment of pride for me.

So I’ve basically always been Annakie online, even after knowing that it’s a real actual name some people have, I’ve still managed to snag it most places on the internet.  And most of the time when I play a new game, I start out playing Annakie, or one of two or three other names I regularly use sometimes.  But naming my first Shepard Annakie and having her look more or less like this every time I play is just... what I normally do.

Also I normally play goody two-shoes the first time I play through any game with moral decisions.  The first time I played through Mass Effect, though, she was an engineer.  I think the second time onward she’s always been a vanguard.  

She’s a Spacer, because I love having her mom alive and get to talk to her.  I like that she didn’t start from trauma.  But she’s a sole survivor, because I like how that shows how strong she became.  I also like that it gives her extra incentive to hate Cerberus later on.

Discovering Mass Effect

I’ve been gaming since I was seven in 1982 when my parents brought home our first Atari 2600.  When RPGs became a thing I liked JRPGs a lot on the family Nintendo and some action RPGish games like Super Metroid, but when Western-Style RPGs like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights came out, I found my true video game love.  

Before Mass Effect, my favorite game was Knights of the Old Republic.  And it’s still way up there in my list of favorite games of all time.  And I really loved Carth Onasi. Although I’d loved other video game love interests before him, Arin Gend, Valen Shadowbreath, Celes/Locke... Carth was my favorite.  That also inspired me to try my hand at fanfic for the first time.  That never saw the light of day and I’m pretty sure I lost it like 3 hard drive crashes ago.

So when I heard that the same company that made KotOR was making a new, non-Star Wars space game, I was excited.  Until I went and looked at some of the trailers, gameplay preview videos, etc, and saw no female protagonist option.  I must have looked somewhat early on because even on message boards I looked at the answer was “they haven’t said anything” or “I don’t think so”.  And I was *crushed*, then stopped paying attention to that video game. After it came out, I heard it was a pretty good game, but if you could only play a guy, I wasn’t that interested.  

It wasn’t until 2009 when I finally got an XBox 360 and realized I had no idea what games to play on it that I didn’t already have on PC.  I joined a game trading thread on a forum I was on, and bought a few titles, and someone was selling Mass Effect cheap, so I thought... what the hell, I’ll probably like it even if I have to play a dude.  

A few nights later I was curled up on my couch with controller in hand and... hmm this music is pretty good.  OK New Game... Create Profile... wait what?  Custom or default Female character?  You can play as a woman?!? WHAT??  Damn, I should have looked at this game more closely.  Okay.

So I made my Annakie Engineer... and honestly I don’t remember what origins I picked then... but the game started.

I recognized one of the first two voices I heard but couldn’t place it.  And then a third guy was talking over these space scenes and someone walking scenes and... hang on, is that Seth Green?!?!  Neat!  Real cool space imagery here, great music... and then the intro was over and another guy started talking.

That. Is. Carth. Onasi’s. Voice.  

I SCREAMED.

Then I stood up walked into my office, sat down at my PC, googled “Carth Onasi Voice Actor Mass Effect”, found the character’s name, then googled “Kaidan Alenko romance”.  Found the wiki page, saw the answer was yes, and screamed again.  Really, really mad at myself.  This game had been out for two years.  A space RPG where you can play as a lady and the same voice actor I already ADORED was in it playing another romanceable character.  I knew then, two minutes into the game, that I was going to fucking LOVE THIS GAME and I should have played it TWO YEARS AGO.

I went back, played all night, and for the next several nights until I beat the game.  And then joined forums and everything I could get my hands on to find fellow fans, then replayed the game, and played again, and again, and again until I had all the achievements.  Then I bought it on PC so I could get all the achievements on PC and be ready to import saves for when Mass Effect 2 came out.

The one good thing about waiting so long to play ME1 was, I only had a year to wait until ME2.  That year was basically all about Mass Effect for me.

The Prologue

Anyway, while we’re here, let’s talk about the prologue.

First off, who else, the first time you played, when in character creation you heard the “Profile Corrupted!” message thought you fucked something up or maybe your game disc was bad.  Anyone?  Not just me, right? I  may have restarted my Xbox.

The class descriptions I think are a little wonky.  I chose Engineer the first time through because I like utility classes and I like healing.  But the classes don’t really... play that way I guess.  Hitting F to heal (or whatever it’s mapped to on the controller) doesn’t really matter, and a couple of classes have access to First Aid.  Nobody is really a “healer”.  Hence switching to Vanguard later.

The prologue itself does a really great job, though, of setting up the game, and the world.  It starts with the great move of telling you a little bit about your own character, helping you to understand those choices that you made “Spacer” “Earthborn” “War Hero” “Sole Survivor”,  That was a good move.  It took me until my second playthrough to connect those two guys talking about me to being Anderson and Udina.  

Also, nice that they explained what Mass Effect actually *is* and placed you in a year, so you have an idea how far ahead this game is from our own time.

And then this...

Majestic.

But it’s great how they start with a shot of you, looking at Earth

 then you see Jupiter, with an establishing shot of the spaceship you’re in.  (OK I didn’t get a great screenshot of this, I’m using gifs that are going in a gifset posting tomorrow)

And then you fly by Neptune

Then... wait what the fuck is this thing?

Along with Seth Green talking to... someone?  And the movement through the ship, giving you glimpses of Jenkins, Pressley, crewmates doing their jobs, the camera constantly sweeping, something big is happening!  Something exciting!  You’re not sure what all of it is but... it sounds cool!

The camera swings around on the person you’ve been following, and you already kinda know it’s your character, but there you are, in a very cool sweeping reveal.

The music swells.  Then the big glowy weird scissors thing... eats the spaceship and spits it back out.

It’s all so effective.  It’s kind of breathtaking to watch even for what must be like my 30th time, not exaggerating.

And I can never wait to do it again.  What a great way to start this game.  

Thoughts On: Mortal Shell  Open Beta

I want to start this off by stating up front that I am not a fan of Dark Souls in any way, shape, or form. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Dark Souls is bad per se. I actually really like the world the games have built up. I watch videos on the lore, the environments, the bosses, and I find it all thoroughly fascinating, it's just that when I play video games I like to enjoy playing them, and playing Dark Souls is like bashing my head against a wall repeatedly because I'm using my forehead in lieu of a hammer and these goddamn nails just won't go in the wall. Oh, I've tried to get into it; I've put in two separate six-hour runs, along with diving into Bloodborne because I'd heard that game rewards players who are more aggressive vs the measured style of Souls, but no matter what, I just don't have the patience to be punished over and over again by a game that actively hates me. So imagine my surprise when I not only got into Mortal Shell, but actually persisted to play through the entire demo.

Mortal Shell, developed by Cold Symmetry, is a Souls clone and proud of it. Currently, the open beta is available to download via the Epic Game Store. Pre-purchase is up and running for $29.99. The first trailer was released on April 1st of this year, but make no mistake, the game is no joke. Far from it. For those coming in late to the party, Dark Souls's gameplay revolves around slow, methodical combat in which the player has to read enemy patterns in order to know when to strike, parry, dodge, etc. Any enemy in the game can potentially be a bad time, meaning that if the player gets a little too cocky and impatient, a solid run can so south pretty fucking quickly if they're not paying attention to timing. That's literally what the game is: a massive, calculated game of timing, fueled by trial and error. If you die – and you will, frequently – you're sent back to the last checkpoint you camped at or visited or lit up. You'll have one chance to forge your way back to the point where you died, and reclaim all the currency you worked so hard to accumulate, but if you die again before you do, all of it is lost. So essentially we're working with a complex risk and reward system, in which any fight could be your last, any moment could turn ugly, and your character is having the worst fucking day they could imagine.

Mortal Shell takes this formula and puts a bit of a spin on it. Sure, you've got the health bar, the stamina bar – which depletes any time you attack, dodge, or run – the quick items, and the ability to parry and commit heavy attacks if your timing is right. But what it does differently is the character system itself. Most Souls games involve the player creating a character and slowly leveling up as time goes by. You could become a super beast depending on what you choose to invest in. Shell puts you in charge of a Foundling, basically a nameless/faceless lost spirit, who can inhabit the bodies of fallen warriors it comes across. Each warrior – called a Shell – has different attributes which can be leveled up. Some Shells are faster, some are tougher, and each one has their pros and cons to fit your play style. In the beta, we get two, named Harros and Tiel. Harros is a well-rounded fighter, your basic bitch knight class, while Tiel is more of a rogue, which a much higher stamina bar but can be hurt a lot quicker. Regardless of which Shell you choose to inhabit, you're carrying around what has to be one of the most badass swords I've seen in a video game in quite some time. Called the Hallowed Sword, it's two handed and looks like it could ruin pretty much anything if you put your mind to it. It has a secondary attack where it turns into a goddamn spear for massive damage. There's another weapon in the beta, a hammer and chisel, but I somehow missed that in my playthrough. I'm eager to dive back in and find it, but for now we'll focus on the sword. Sweet Jesus, that sword. If a fantasy game had the equivalent of a double-barreled shotgun, it would be the Hallowed Sword.

There's also a catch to hitching a ride in the Shells: if you take too much damage, the Foundling will be knocked out of the Shell, vulnerable and weak. You'll have an opportunity to get back into the Shell, and if you do, it's an instant HP refill and you're back in the fight. Your Shell can die twice, but if you're knocked out of the Shell a second time, it's game over and back to the checkpoint. This is inventive because dying isn't immediately a punishment, and it's also neat because the Foundling can still carry the Hallowed Sword while trying to get back to the Shell. I have a feeling YouTube is going to be full of No Shell Runs in which players go hard as only the Foundling, chopping, parrying, dodging, somehow escaping damage. And make no mistake, the naked Foundling will die in one hit without a Shell. Having a safety net like this automatically makes gameplay more forgiving and also more intense. Say you fuck up and get knocked out of your Shell early on, leaving you with just one more chance to get through to the next checkpoint knowing if you get knocked down again, you're done. That's a rush unlike many I've played in video games. Also the frantic panic of running and dodging as the Foundling, surrounded by enemies, trying to get back to your Shell, desperate to stay alive, is shockingly effective.

However, there's another weapon in the Foundling's arsenal: the ability to Harden. Pressing the left trigger instantly turns the Foundling into a rock solid statue, unable to move, but also unable to take damage for one single hit. Once the hit lands, the Harden goes away and the Foundling starts moving again. What is absolutely wild about this are the potential combat tactics that can arise. Because if the Foundling is moving or attacking when the Harden goes into effect, they will immediately resume what they were doing when the Harden is gone. So say you're going in for a light strike, followed up by a heavy strike, and before you can land the heavy strike the enemy goes into attack animation. You hit the Harden, freezing mid-swing, and the enemy connects – and then your heavy strike animation resumes, smashing into the enemy, staggering them, freeing you up to either dodge away or get in another attack. Some enemies will be staggered just from hitting your Hardened form, so even if you're not mid-swing, you'll have a window of opportunity to get in and sucker punch. But Harden has a cooldown period, so if you use it at the wrong time, you'll have a wait a minute before you can use it again. And come out of it at the wrong time, you could be facing the business end of a bad day.

What initially drew me to Mortal Shell was definitely not the concept of a Souls game, but rather that Cold Symmetry cited old-school first person shooter Quake as one of their influences on the game. By and large this comes across in the aesthetics: browns, grays, armor textures, otherworldly pagan imagery, skulls and bones and dark caverns, it's all over the place, and it's lovely. Grimy industrial atmosphere permeates everything. Enemies range from brutish bandits with swords and pikes, to imp-like creatures that poison you when they strike. And the monster design is a visual chef's kiss, craggy and awful and menacing. My personal favorite is the Pincushion Warrior, which I've dubbed because it looks like a goddamn pincushion. Walking around with an eyeless helmet and multiple fucking swords sticking out of its torso like, well, a meaty pincushion, when it notices you from afar it will pull out one of the swords and throw it you. It'll keep doing so until you get into melee range, at which point it pulls out two swords, one for each hand, and come at you fast and hard. Do enough damage to it and it will attempt a kamikaze maneuver, in which it rips off its fucking head to throw at you and release a poison cloud which does massive damage over time. Seriously one of the most metal things I've seen, and I cursed the fuck out loud when I saw it the first time. But the showstopper, the truly most outstanding beast in the beta, is the Enslaved Grisha, a lumbering monstrosity that looks like a combination between Silent Hill's Pyramid Head and BioShock's Big Daddy. You fight it in an icy cave, and its attacks are so thunderous it will shake loose stalactites from the ceiling which can fall on top of you for damage. It's fast, brutal, mean, and intimidating, and beating it was such a terrific rush that it made me wonder why I've never gotten into this style of game before when it feels this rewarding to win against a tough enemy. Maybe it's because Soulsborne games are vicious and unrelenting in their assault on the player as they slowly attempt to crawl their way through the environment. Here, it seems like there's just enough stacked in the player's graces to save them that it's simultaneously more forgiving and more brutal. With the Harden ability and the different Shells as combat style options, the choices presented to the player are unique enough to offer a deep challenge, but one that players themselves can modify depending on how they want to play.

There's a couple other mechanics that I want to touch on briefly while I'm here: Resolve, and Familiarity. Resolve is essentially a limit break with multiple uses. When you're attacking enemies, you're building Resolve, and can keep track of how much you're gaining via the meter above your health. But while it builds through attacks, it slowly goes away unless you fill a whole bar, and each Shell will have a different number of bars to fill. For example, Harros has four bars, Tiel has only two. Once a bar is filled, you'll be able to use the Resolve in one of two ways. The first is parrying; you can attempt to parry if you don't have resolve, but in my experience it worked better when I had a bar built up. If you've got the Resolve when you parry, you'll do so with greater success, but it'll also open up a window for you to hit the attack button immediately after. Time it right, and you'll do a powerful strike which will regain a large portion of health, which is handy as fuck when you don't have healing items, but also uses up a lot of Resolve. This can hinder you a little bit if you want to use your special strike. Remember how I said the Hallowed Sword has a super strike where it turns into a spear and does a fuckload of damage? Yeah, you need to fill up at least one or two Resolve bars in order to use it. I'm not sure if you need one bar, two bars, or a full load, haven't done as much experimenting with that as I'd like. Some things in the game are still obtuse, relying on trial and error to discover, which brings us around to Familiarity: picking up items in the game world at first gives only a brief guess at what the items will actually do, so you have to use them to figure out what their effect is. This can be positive, or negative, but the more you use said items the more familiar the Foundling becomes with the effect. Each item has a different number of times you need to use it to become completely familiar with it, but once you do, it'll unlock bonus side effects. For example, the weltcap mushrooms restore 40 hit points over the course of 60 seconds (the regen shrooms I mentioned earlier). But use them often enough, and the Foundling will get a bonus effect of being able to dodge once without using any stamina to do so. Meanwhile, using the tarspore mushrooms – which infect poison damage – will eventually make the Foundling immune to poison damage for 120 seconds. For me this is one of the more revolutionary parts of the game, which requires the most amount of trial and error and experimentation. Of course you're not going to want to use the poison mushroom again after it killed you with poison, but if you take it enough, next thing you know you're immune to poison for two minutes? This is wild when confronted with Imps that deal poison damage with each strike they land, or the fucking Pincushion Warriors and their suicide poison bomb. But at the same time, this could be a bit frustrating when the player gets rare items that are hard to come by, which may have huge bonuses, or massively negative effects. I love it, but also kind of hate it, though where Harden and Resolve add complementary aspects to the combat, Familiarity throws in the gamble of figuring out whether a consumable will do you harm, or make your day.

Mortal Shell has already impressed the hell out of me simply by being a Soulsborne game that I can play and not feel vandalized by, but also through sheer innovation and attention to detail. The atmosphere is thick and luscious, the combat is deep and so are the RPG elements, and there's a genuinely terrifying obtuse story being played out. I did have a few issues with my playthrough, notably the two times the game crashed, one of which forced me to force restart my desktop. A few other ragdoll glitches notwithstanding, the beta is a resoundingly solid experience which is promising great things for the full game. Something which, to my unending surprise, I have already pre-purchased based on this demo. May wonders never cease.

Sea Lion + Archie omg please please please

list en . songs that fit characters even slightly make me go CRAZY

the sad reckless energy of sea lion…. the absent mother lyrics…... (look what i did, ma / look what i did to my hands, i broke ‘em / you gave me the stone, gave me the chisel / didn’t say how to hold ‘em) the imagery of hands and mental spiraling….. the themes of selflessness and giving and giving until you deplete yourself and trying even then at your own expense……. (didn’t say to give away every piece of the puzzle / till i was left with nothin’ / but i took it upon myself to crush it up / and distribute the dust)

the rampant recklessness of trying to prove yourself....... (i’ll take him out for some gasoline / trade this cow for some magic beans / gonna make mom proud of the deals that i made / ‘cause i’m just a modern day johnny appleseed) the few lines alluding to using sexual encounters as coping mechanisms…. (no, i know no one said it was gonna be easy / but sweet jesus who wants to sleep with me? too many moves to learn / not enough people to put ‘em on) there’s literally a line about ‘cryptic gang men’ imdkvs hello (brains and bloods and cryptic gang men/ tzars and warlords breaking bread) and a few musical references, one piano-leaning technically, but more actually singing-related…..

the end of the last verse tapering off to a tentative hope and resolve…. (but i sing a different song / of how the wheres and whys of now all prove i don’t belong / but i’m staying / i’ve planted seeds and plan to watch them grow) paralleling archie’s s4 arc with the community center and sudden dedication to riverdale as a town despite all the ways in which it’s hurt him, to honor his dad’s legacy……

(the rest under a cut bc it be like that sometimes)

i’m DEVASTATED. the song literally starts out with an audio clip that says ‘a healthy distrust’ which makes me go insane as a general theme because apparently(?) some sea lion mothers leave their young if they can’t get enough food for themselves or something, which isn’t that bizarre, but they’re also prone to being a bit sensitive to disturbances from their resting spots (psa not to bug seals if u see them on beaches), not coming back from feeding offshore and abandoning their pups if need be. and while i don’t think mary’s a bad person at ALL or that she’s even a bad mother, but you could say she’s not a bad mother because she hasn’t really been a mother at all. but due to her being a generally cool person, i forget that absent parental roles (whether it’s just one or both) can really fuck you up in your developmental years.

and from season 1 episode 1 to the present, we see adults time and time again take advantage of and / or manipulate archie, often twisting his goodness specifically to their gain at the expense of himself. and yet despite this, archie actually seems to continue to just blindly trust adults around him if they seem relatively harmless at first, or even just harmless to him or his loved ones?? he’s starting to be a little wary now that season 4′s rolled around with like frank or whatever, but he’s still very open and forgiving, even when he tries to put his foot down every now and again. but it’s super fascinating to me that this is the case, as you’d expect his trust in any adult figures to be virtually demolished at this point, whether it be by active harm to him / those around him, or passive non-action that leaves people hurt / him feeling like he’s the only one that will actually do anything to help anyone. yet he continues to trust, despite a little healthy distrust being pretty appropriate if not encouraged at this point in his life. 

the entire vibe of this song to me is fending for yourself. which is the definition of most of the kids on riverdale, but the combination of symbolism specifically (music/singing/broken hands/absent mother/dead father/the reckless selflessness that almost feels more like a desperate attempt to prove one’s self worthy of importance) feels more on brand for archie than any of the others to me. and that illustration of not really knowing what to do with yourself because you were never taught how, at least not pertaining to what life ended up throwing at you (sometimes literally just because the things you end up needing to learn could never have been anticipated by your parents, especially in archie’s case), so you’re just gonna try everything even if it kills you is so BEAUTIFULLY portrayed, so lyrically fluent and succinct, i’m just . going thru it . and the closing lines of resolving to work with what you have to help make the world a better place, even if it’s mostly guesswork that’s gotten you this far. how you’re gonna make the best of what’s happened, what you couldn’t control, and people are gonna do what they do and probably accidentally make things worse, but you and your life and your actions have a complicated elegance to them now that almost feels like only you can understand as a result, but you’re still moving at all and it doesn’t feel like you’re killing yourself to do it anymore and that’s what matters, even if only you can truly know how hard you’ve worked just to do that.

(i’ve decided i’ve been invited to my own resort / where knights can leave their armor neatly piled by the door / and every woman, child, and man will gather by the shore / and study how sea lions swim in cursive)

idk i just think it fits archie in all the right places and i think it’s rly neat.

Can you explain the color switch technique for theater more clearly? I'm going to audition for our high school play and I want a reliable way to act without having to relive my worst memories.

dunno when exactly you sent this anon, but i hope i havent responded too late.

SO. the colour switch technique. dunno if its an official name or whatever BUT its essentially used in theatre or really in any other scenario where you have to lie or assume an emotion that you’re not currently feeling. essentially, you have to play a role. but since you said youre auditioning for a play, we focusin on the theatre aspect of it.

the most common thing i see or hear people do when they need to play an emotion that they just aren’t feeling at that moment, is to think of a personal event in their lives that elicits that specific emotion. it WILL work, or at the very least, elicit a strong emotion that pushes you to make your scene more believable and more alive. now thats great if the memory or event is a happy one. thinking of the first time you ever held your baby sibling, or that time you had your first kiss, or that day your parents surprised you with a new car. genuine happiness, or the memory of genuine happiness can work wonders to make a scene look and feel organic.

but if the emotion is negative, its going to absolutely DECIMATE your mental health.

no matter how much you think that ‘its just for a scene’ or that it wont actually affect you when youre off the stage, using the “relive memory to recreate emotion” method can and will fuck your mental health sideways with a chainsaw. its BAD for you to constantly think of painful or sad memories. there’s rehearsals, the actual performance, and worse, memories of the play itself. associating the memory of a tragic accident or a bad fight to a scene of a play youre participating in IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU.

i did theatre back in highschool. my depression at that stage was also. uh. particularly bad. so the whole “relive traumatic memories to experience pain so you can act better” is TERRIBLE advise. dont listen to anyone who tells you to do it. it WILL negatively impact your mental health AND your memories of the play, and may even discourage you from participating in future plays yourself.

but you still need to find a way to channel those emotions.

in comes colour switch theory. or technique. whatever its called. my theatre directors were GODDESSES. they recommended this technique to EVERYONE and it WORKS.

the trick is to associate a particular colour with a particular emotion, or even facial expression. when you need to keep a stoic face, you picture the colour in your mind and chant it in your head over and over to not break character. when you need to be sad, just repeat the colour you chose for sadness over and over to get yourself in the mindset WITHOUT hurting your mental health. for me, some of the colours i chose were:

blue- sadness/loneliness

red- anger

black- nothingness

grey- fear

there are more, but lets focus on these four. blue is my favourite colour. but thinking of the colour blue it doesnt automatically make me sad, so i can still enjoy it when im off stage. to channel the emotion of sadness or loneliness that i tied with the colour blue, i think of sadness from inside out and her blue motif. i think of the blue colour commonly depicted for tears. i think of cold and i think of a single person all alone, curled up in a blue room, crying.

just talking about this made my body curl up when i was writing that paragraph. i am shaking, and i feel sad, but when i stopped thinking about that imagery, it stopped. because its not a painful or traumatic memory for me, i can just yeet the blue emotion imagery away from me when i dont want it. you cant do that with personal memories and thats what makes the colour switching strategy so good. you can act better but you dont have to hurt yourself to do it.

think of it as constructing a bubble in your head, or a room you go to when you need to feel something. for anger, i think of a red room. i think of that red emoji with the brows scrunched up and the teeth gnashed together. i think of being so angry you lose words. i think of being red-faced because you just cant control it. conveniently, anger from inside out is also red, so i can think of him too. i think of fire in my veins, hot and ready to explode with nowhere to go but loud, violent screaming. and as im writing this, i can picture myself on a stage just shouting at whoeever has done my character wrong.

same goes for black and grey. black is just when i need to keep a straight face. when i need to be stoic or unimpressed. and its just a black room. nothingness. i sometimes picture that black room in real life when i have to not laugh at something funny if the timing is inappropriate, or when i have to keep a strong facade when i want to cry. i picture that room of nothingness and my mind goes blank. and i can keep a stoic face. the grey room is fog and shadows just in the corner of my eye. its something closing in that i cant see because of all the grey swirling around me. i dont know if im alone. i dont know if i am safe because i can only see a foggy room.

all in all, mentally travelling to a room in your mind created for the express purpose of eliciting a specific emotion is better than just retraumatising yourself. and its really simple to create these rooms. you dont even have to use the same colours i did.

maybe you have more trouble with expressing lovey dovery emotions. you can make red your love room. think of red flowers on valentines day, the red heart decals you see on store windows, the red box of chocolate youd give to a lover. red is passion, red is life, and you can associate things like that with your red room if you want. its like a venn diagram. things you associate with red on the left, things you associate with the emotion on the right, and the things they have in common can be used to construct the imagery of the emotion colour switch room.

then you can just chant red red red in your mind and you think of the blush on the fair maidens cheek as her knight comes to rescue her. you can think of a scarlet dress dazzling everyone in the room, but the wearer only has eyes for one man. you can think of lipstick stain against a collar.

you can associate any emotion with any colour. my process was:

pick a colour

pick an emotion/facial expression

picture a small room in your mind

fill that room with things or imagery that match your emotion or expression

be as specific or as generic as you want

you can have a green room dedicated to irritation or envy or just the loose feeling that youre not completely happy. the reasoning can be just bc you thought of the phrase “green with envy” and thought itd be neat. green can be a mother experiencing the joy of holding her child for the first time because green=nature=nurturing=mother.

establish a connection with that colour. fill out your room and create the keyword to get in. im very unoriginal so my keyword was just chanting the colour name over and over in my head. if i say blue enough times i get sad, even if i dont picture the room bc my mind has formed a link to that state of being. and i can break away without much trouble bc the connection is just on the surface.

colour switch is hair chalk. reliving memories is hair dye. at the end of the day, both of them colour hair. but you can wipe off the hair chalk w relative ease but a thorough hair dye that produces vibrant colours cant easily be removed, even when you want to switch to a different colour, or maybe even lose the dye completely.

i would recommend picking an emotion or expression that youre not good at portraying, but dont struggle with as much for your first room. i am not good at expressing sadness, but im worst at expressing upset or anger. so when i first started my colour switch mindset room, i started with sadness. it helps me express an emotion that im not particularly good at expressing, while still being relatively easy for me to get the hang of. maybe try for the second or third worst emotion you express, build a room to channel that emotion, and establish your connection.

make it a well-tread path, essentially. first few times are gon be difficult, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. all i need now to fake-cry is picturing the blue room, saying blue a bunch of times, and making a face. then i cry. completely fake and not damaging to my health.

i hope this makes sense for you. if it doesnt, feel free to send in an ask with more detailed questions abt the parts youre confused about or anything else. same goes for anyone who happens to read this that has an interest in theatre. id rather answer a dozen asks of the same question than have any of yall do something so harmful to your mental health. if anything was at all confusing, please feel free to tell me and ill gladly clarify some more. stay safe and take care of yourselves. and to the anon who asked, i hope your play goes well

Hello! I don't want to seem like an anti because I'm not,if Kacxa happens then I'm happy for all you Kacxa shippers.But I saw a post about how it felt "out of the blue" And to a degree it did,I mean yes they saved their lives on multiple occasions,yet it was never fully developed.Like take a bullet, glare, repeat.They never speak or explain why they saved or never killed each other. Which I wish they would, it's just like Keitor but a few more panels and lines when you come to think of it.

Hi there, I appreciate that you actually want to discuss this, get ready for an long ass badly written essay you will probably hate. First things first I have 0 opinions on keitor because i stay in my lane having 0 problems with it, and I don’t know how it’s like it at all. If there was fanon interpretations for how that ship would go down I missed out on all of it. 

I’m not the greatest on writing meta so I’m going to point out something that I’ve realized for awhile but @kylotor-and-reylura was the first one I saw to write it out when i first searched the keith/acxa tag after s5: that their meetcute in s2ep9 The Belly Of The Weblum was chivalrous and romantic from conception, but in a voltron fashion it had an updated twist to it.

Voltron, like star wars and lots of space operas, is heavily based on mythical fantasies like arthurian tales. Arthurian tales consists of stories of knights and princesses and beasts and wizards and ladies of the lake and surprise family reveals and bastards coming back 14 years later to claim the throne and holy grails that will take good knights to heaven. Paladin is literally another word for knight and there’s even an arthurian story about a knight who has to face down a red knight and a green knight. 

Anyway so let’s talk about Knights and Damsels and how voltron plays it out. The show takes stuff from classic disney movies like snow white and sleeping beauty and plays it out…really about the same. When we first meet Princess Allura she has been trapped in an eternal slumber in a coffin shaped space-bed and is awaken after falling in the arms of newly found potential knights who instantly feels devoted to her cause in true courtly love fashion~~~ -except she doesn’t react to this situation like how we see those classic disney princesses react, and we love her for it. 

Other damsels in distress situations play out as each paladin rises to become a true heroic knight, some of them seen as romantic while others seen as a duty. We see Hunk rise to the cause for Shay + the balmerians, Lance with Plaxxum and the alien merfolk, Pidge with Ryner and the Olkaarians, and Shiro gallantly leading the team while honoring Allura’s wishes. In the same season, Keith has a damsel in distress episode but unlike the above it is INCREDIBLY different.

For starters, in season 2 we have only, purposefully, seen galra as male and aggressors, and the damsels are of innocent people. Also in season 2 we learn that Keith, to his fear, is galra. The galra up to this point are seen as monstrous beasts (and male) and for Keith to learn he is galra means that he will grow to no longer fear them, but to understand them as well. It a rite of passage that will shape his growth for the rest of the series. He learns that letting go of the pain from his past will reward him and from there he will truly have his own heroes journey. 

In the next episode his galra mother to him is still an unknown, so as a projection from Keith all galra damsels are unknown, and so when we are introduced to Acxa when he pulls her from the ship all he sees is the galra symbol but we, the audience, SUSPICIOUSLY believe we have a damsel!! Keith projects his own insecurities of being a galra and negative traits that he has, lumps them together and associates with them onto Acxa throughout the episode, saying “he doesn’t talk much. he’s galra” and “you’re just like the rest of them” 

This never read as an introduction to a family figure AT ALL because of his projection. From a psychological evaluation of a character standpoint, he’s suppose to know what to EXPECT re: galra women from what he KNOWS of his own galra mother. If he were to project what his own experiences were onto Unknown Galra Damsel who then is revealed to be his mother after he does, he wouldn’t grow, or it would put him backwards from being a hero because this would be a punishment from the gods in a story standpoint. It’s why its so great in the story when he does meet his mother, we see him grow and learn from her.

Also in this same episode we have imagery of this unknown(damsel) in a glass coffin- i mean, spaceship covered in red vines-i mean, red veins who has been there long enough that anyone looking inside this glass coffin covered in vines -I MEAN, spaceship covered in veins would think surely this person would be dead. As @kylotor-and-reylura pointed out, this is very heavy Snow White imagery, complete with Keith pulling her out of the broken ship and holding her hand~~~ except Keith suddenly reacts the way we expect him to once he sees the galra symbol on her sleeve and then Acxa continues to spend the rest of the episode behaving in a way that we haven’t seen the galra do. She fights alongside him like the damsels the other paladins have met. Because of this, he cautiously behaves chivalrously towards her, shielding her in the fight, allowing her to wander freely and doing nothing while she escapes with a bag of scaultrite he procured. 

It’s chivalrous. They both are chivalrous to each other. He’s just as soft and chivalrous to her for letting her go in this episode as she is for letting him go in s3ep6 and s6ep5 and saving his life in s5ep4, which afterward they held a heated gaze. This chivalorus action is called back when we see Krolia’s flashback where Keith’s Dad™ rescues Krolia from her own glass coffin and she returns the chivalrous favor by setting out to protect their home. 

Acxa is fascinating because as we learn more about her she is both a damsel AND a galra aggressor, and I thought she was a neat character to introduce in the second half of the show the same way Lotor and Haggar, aggressors with altean heritage, were. I wish we knew more about her, I still have a thousand yard stare when i think about the other generals being written off in the show, I wish she and keith had a chance to converse but I also think that it was always suppose to be something where unlike Lotor who talked about bringing peace then acted cruel and selfishly, her actions were always suppose to speak louder then any word she said to Keith.

tl;dr check out these tropes

Do you think that GRRM went to somewhat great lengths to avoid revealing "Florian and Jonquil" song? Both of them and the song itself are often mentioned, yet we never get to hear the actual song. When the Hound demands Sansa sing it during the BW battle she ends up singing Mother's hymn instead. I read some great metas paralleling Jon as the knight and the "northern fool" with Florian the fool, and Jonquil with Sansa as well, through the "princess in the tower" trope, flower imagery and even-

(2) -suggestions that jonquils are in fact blue roses. Do you think that GRRM is still waiting for the right moment to finally reveal the song, as they always have a meaning for characters in ASOIAF? And do you think it will be in relation to Jon and Sansa? If so, how? Or am I reaching and the song doesn’t matter? I’m 100% sure that, if it happens, it will be in Sansa’s POV, so maybe GRRM is just waiting for her Florian.             

Dear nonny,

I very much agree. I’m writing on a meta of parallels for Jon and Sansa and Beren and Luthien and Aragorn and Arwen in LotR and Silmarillion. I think that Jon and Sansa like Aragorn and Arwen who relived parts of the story of Beren and Luthien are destined to relive some of the legends and songs of their world. One very obvious is the story of Aemon the Dragonknight and Queen Naerys. Another one is Florian and Jonquil.

We only know tidbits about them. Florian was not noble, yet he was a fool and a knight. He saw Jonquil bathing in Maidenpool and from that moment onwards loved her.

In the ‘Hedge Knight’ the puppeteers perform the story and it seems to involve the slaying of a dragon. Aerion destroys the puppets for that:

The dragon puppet was scattered all about them, a broken wing here, its head there, its tail in three pieces. (The Hedge Knight)

[Just as an aside this might foreshadow that the three dragons we have now, are the last dragons (the tail in three pieces).]

And then there is of course the fact that Jonquils might be flowers and that Florian is a Latin Name that probably means blond, but that was connected to ‘florere’ = to flower and was usually understood in that way.

Of course, Jon’s arc is that of a fool, the Northern fool who ‘knows nothing’, and that fits with Florian. And the flower imagery with Sansa is abundant.

I think it is telling that Sansa does not sing ‘Florian and Jonquil’ to the Hound because singing the Mother’s hymn ties the Hound tightly to his arc of learning ‘mercy’ and foreshadows his status as Sansa’s knight sometime in the future (I do not see this as romantic foreshadowing.)

And I suspect that there is a reason why we know so little about the song in comparison to other songs like the Rains of Castamere where we know full verses.

I do think that when Sansa comes to the wall in the next book, we might see the Jonsa dynamic unfold with tidbits about Florian and Jonquil. It  depends on how much GRRM will want us to see from the hidden feelings of Jon and Sansa. I suspect that Sansa will be unaware of her feelings at first and fitting events into songs she knows, is something that would be very much in character and could give us hints in regard to her real feelings.

I think it would be neat, if we had Sansa’s PoV and more and more allusions to the story of Florian and Jonquil which will somehow match Jon’s and Sansa’s interactions.

So, I don’t think you are reaching. I think it is likely that Jon will be resurrected and will see Sansa as if she is new to him (like Florian saw the naked Jonquil), devoid of the clothing of society and bared because of her need for help. Naked Jonquil I suspect stands for innocence and purity. I don’t think that we should read this literally. Jon will have a fresh look on Sansa and she will motivate him to carry on, just like in the show.

As for jonqils being blue flowers, we’ll just have to see. Sadly there is no allusion in the books.

Thanks for the ask! This is a very intersting point and a further argument for similarities to Aragorn and Arwen!

Well shit, i had a long post written down about my thoughts on the Dark Tower movie, but appartently tumblr ate it?? damnit. Not really anything super spoilery to follow, mostly just me musing over what i felt was missing and what i would've liked to see! Anyway, i really wonder what it must be like to watch this thing without knowing anything about the universe. Because even though the movie does A LOT of info dumps, i think you could kinda guess that the whole setting is a lot more complex and rich than what you actually get to see? ototh, as someone who knows the books, you just recognize a lot of elements gleaned from all over the books and i mean, it's kinda neat but at the same time they don't do anything particularly interesting with it?? ....tbh, "they don't do anything particularly interesting with it" is, like, the entire problem with this movie. i was perfectly fine with them not following the book and doing a completely different loop, but man, they made this all so painfully average. Casting was just fine, and it's always a little harder to judge performances when you're watching a dub (which was alright for the most part, except when Jake cried. that was some Bad crying, yikes), but MAN, it seemed like they didn't know how to make Roland interesting. And, like, it shouldn't be hard?? Wish they'd played the asshole!Roland angle more, considering how ruthless he can be especially early in the series, but considering i wasn't expecting the movie to follow that angle, it would've been good to at least make him more... human, i guess? Make the guy interesting! He's a great charater, damnit, and they just made him boring :c The little funny bits when he and Jake were in New York were a really fun touch though, i liked those. The movie 100% needed more of that! The movie as a whole needed a bit more of a sense of humor tbh, because it was by far during those moments that Roland shone the best. Still think Elba could've been an absolutely amazing Roland, but for the most part he's given nothing to work with here. (how fucking wild it would've been to have Roland let Jake die mid-movie and suddenly get a main character switch; tbh i was hoping for it to happen even though i knew it wouldn't, eh. Didn't help that Jake ran into traffic, like, 3-4 times?? Figure i can't be the only one who kept expecting him to get run over or something....?) 2 other disappointments: - Not a single stunning visual. Like, there wasn't a single image in that movie to really capture my attention, and that's WILD considering the books are shock-full of striking imagery. The Tower didn't look particularly interesting (for what little we saw of it, because seriously), especially without Can'Ka No Rey around it to add that huge splash of color (SHOW ME THE GODDAMN ROSES YOU COWARDS) and a lot of the colors were washed out, so that sucked. i guess some people might like the shapes used for the portal between worlds, but those effects didn't really do anything for me, and the image they create isn't nearly as strong as, like, the doors from The Drawing of the Three or something. It's just not particularly interesting to look at. - THE MUSIC. man, they could've gone full Lord of the Rings with this shit and they didn't?? Give me long panning views of Roland and Jake running to the desert with a kickass memorable theme there that's gonna be stuck in my head for two days. Give me a strong, powerful theme with a huge fucking choir whenever you show me the Tower. Play up the western vibe whenever they're in Mid World, throw a whole bunch of strings in there. Give me a western-y cover of Hey Jude. Have Roland hum some old song from when he was a kid and give that thing a sort of medieval-like tone to play up the whole knight/Arthurian thing so that it doesn't seem as weirdly out of place when Walter mentions it later on?? There were so many cool things they could've done to make that soundtrack memorable, but it's just super bland.... tbh i'm so fucking pissed about the music, you guys. i kinda liked the final confrontation between Roland and Walter (man, i'm still not used to using that name. He's still Flagg for me, haha)? i mean, we saw a bunch of it in the trailer, but considering the books never really gave us that big badass final fight, seeing it here was... well, not perfect, but still kinda nice. i feel like i'm making it sound like.... much worse than it is?? Like, it's not... good..... but i've certainly seen much, much worse. It's just bland, and that's really a shame considering the source material. It could've been so much better. It deserved to be better. Here's hoping the TV series will happen one day and is going to fare better.