Saion: She’s a ten but she has daddy issues, mommy issues, anger issues and anxiety.

Sera: You son of a-

Nyktos *with his hand over her mouth*: She's a fifteen.

!!SPOILERS FOR A LIGHT IN THE FLAME!!!

Now that you have been warned…Jennifer what the fuck? It is now November 16, 2022, 2:31 am and I’m and flabbergasted. I floundered. I am knocked sideways, nonplused even.

Five fucking stars to you because I physically couldn’t not put down this book. The emotions I fucking went through all for it to stop at that. You will be hearing from my therapist but oh my word.

First, RIP Ector, his death made this book so real, the way life can be sniffed out like it means nothing, so thankful Aios could be saved.

Ash and Sera. That’s it.

The tension, the passion, the emotions with these two ugggggggghhh. I was fucking drowning in them. I couldn’t get enough of these two and the way they built back that trust that was broken and became stronger. And don’t motherfucking tell me that primal ain’t in love…he said I love you sera in every fucking language and action stopping short of running around the house of haides with sera’s face on a sign screaming “I love you I love you I love you!!!”

Also I love the relationship Sera has with his guards, mostly Rhain. They’re the ones in that friend no one expected to be close but are because they understand the deep shit and struggles of life. Also love Saion with her as well.

Nektas is one of the realest and I wanna ride that draken’s dick because of it. This beast was instigating left right and centre, saying not but the realest and most obvious shit when they didn’t want to admit it and for that he’ll for ever be meyaah draken. Idk who that Aurelia bitch is but she better take care of him. Also with Sera’s confession, which I talked about in a different post, go there for details.

Sera, Jadis and Reaver. I love, love love the relationship we see between these three. Partly because of the embers but they way they Jade and Reaver felt safe around her to shift? UNTOUCHED. The way she held Jade so close when they slept? PRECIOUS MOMENTS. And when Nek said that she probably reminded Jade of her mom, that’s why I decided that the relationship will be so much more. The bond between someone who took up the flame to be a mother figure and a daughter is unmatched and I need to see more.

Attes…I’ll talk about him in another post because this it too long and I want there to be an open discussion to it.

Veses should be left to the shades, nymphs, dakkais. That bitch deserves a slowly and torturous death, especially after kicking Reaver.

Thankful for my girl Bele who came, got laid (Aios😏😉) served and slayed.

Thank god for my girl Tori (Sotoria) who lives in Sera and bout to fuck up Kolis whole days for months and saving our Queen consort. A soul chased for hundreds of years is a nasty one and I can’t wait for her and Sera to bring that shit gold palace down.

Thank you and good night 😽

That scene where Sera holds a dagger at Nyktos' throat in front of his guards while they were training?

Gagged him a bit ngl.

SPOILERS FOR A LIGHT IN THE FLAME (ALITF)!!!

Please look away now if you haven't already read it and don't want spoilers.

My very real (and dramatized) reactions to certain scenes from the first three chapters of ALITF:

As he should, Sera. As he should.

This line has no business making me laugh as hard as it did.

WHAT WAS SHE GOING TO SAY?

(Seriously, do any of you know what she was going to say? Because I can't piece this puzzle together and I have no idea if it's relevant to anything.)

I love them and their banter so much. I missed this.

Yes, Daddy. 🥵

Oh, I'd bet on it but not for the reasons you think. 😏

Eight heavens and hells, I missed her. 😂

Oh...shit.

Oh shit.

OH SH-

(Why do y'all think the Revenants and Craven described so differently in F&F than B&A?)

What does it say about me that I love this? They respect Nyktos so much. I hope we see more specific why's in November.

I know we've only just met her but I already love her so much. She's perfect. I've got another crush and it's ✨unhealthy✨.

Oooo~

Yee uwu

"জানতে ইচ্ছে হয় বড় জানতে ইচ্ছে হয়"

- সায়ন হোসেন

তারপর বলো যে তোমাকে পেলো সে তোমাকে কতটা ভালোবাসে?? আমার জানতে ইচ্ছে হয়, খুব জানতে ইচ্ছে হয়- সে তোমায় কতটা ভালোবাসে। তাকে পাওয়ার আগে,তার হবার আগে তুমি ভালোবাসতে অন্য কাউকে, স্বপ্ন দেখতে অন্য কাউকে নিয়ে, সেই স্বপ্নে তোমার সাজানো টোনাটুনির মত সংসার ছিল,সেই স্বপ্নের সংসারে আজ অন্য কারোর আনাগোনা। এইরকম একটা তীব্র সত্য লুকাতে তোমার কেমন লাগে??

আচ্ছা যার সাথে এখন আছো তাকেও কি ভালোবাসি ভালোবাসি বলে তার মাথা খেয়ে ফেলো ?? তাকে ভালোবাসি বলতে গিয়ে কণ্ঠস্বর জড়িয়ে আসে না তোমার?? তোমার কাছে ভালোবাসি কথাটা কি এতই নিছক- যখন তখন যাকে তাকে বলে দেওয়া যায়?আচ্ছা তার সাথে আছো বলে তাকে ভালোবাসো নাকি তাকে ভালোবাসো বলে তার সাথে আছো??

তাকে তুমি ভালোবাসো তো? নাকি মিথ্যে সুখের স্বপ্নে বিভোর হয়ে ভালোবাসি কথাটার জানান দাও?

আচ্ছা সে কি তোমার মন খারাপের দিনগুলো বোঝে? তোমার জন্য ফুল এনে তোমার কানে গুঁজে??

সন্ধা হলে তারার গতিতে সেকি বাড়ি ফিরে আসে?

সে কি তোমায় অনেক ভালোবাসে??

জানতে ইচ্ছে হয় বড় জানতে ইচ্ছে হয়।

সেকি তোমায় ভালো রাখে??তোমায় আদর মাখিয়ে কাছে ডাকে নাকি কতৃত্ব দেখিয়ে তোমার ছেলেমানুষীকে টুকরো টুকরো করে হাজারো অংশে??

সেই টুকরো করা হাজারো অংশগুলি জোড়া লাগিয়ে কি তুমি আবারো তাকে ভালোবাসো?? নাকি ছুড়ে ফেলো, ঠিক যেমনি ছুঁড়ে ফেলেছিলে আমায়..................

Saion the Vaylantz Archer

“Pendulum Effect: During your Main Phase: You can Special Summon this card to your Main Monster Zone in its same column, also you cannot Special Summon non-‘Vaylantz’ monsters for the rest of this turn, except from the Extra Deck. You can only use this effect of ‘Saion the Vaylantz Archer’ once per turn.

Monster Effect: If you control this Special Summoned card: You can target 1 Effect Monster on the field; toss a coin and if the result is heads, negate its effects, or if the result is tails, halve its ATK. If this card in the Monster Zone moves to another Monster Zone: You can target 1 card on the field; toss a coin and if the result is heads, destroy it, or if the results is tails, return it to the hand. You can only use each effect of ‘Saion the Vaylantz Archer’ once per turn.”

...

Ok je vais jamais aux galeries parce que c'est juste fucking trop grand pis y a trop de monde, bref j'ai pas d'affaire dans ce mall-là ew

fait que 1. je comprends même pas pourquoi y m'envoient des emails

2. avec des typos ???

3. à propos de quelque chose dont je me contre-calice 🤔

genre congrats, tu viens de vraiment t'assurer que je mettes jamais plus ever les pieds aux galeries de la capitale 👍🏻

It’s once again Enju’s (From Moe! Ninja Girls) birthday today :3

ok so. miki’s sunlit garden is the literal sunlit garden where he and kozue played piano together as children. it’s the defining version of this narrative device, and in a way, it’s the most straightforward. miki is leaving the garden and entering the world of teenagers. he is scared of growing up, and he misses the effortless, uncomplicated bond he shared with his sister when they were children, before being inculcated into a world of sexual power and abuse, before his parents divorced and his beautiful nuclear family was rent asunder by real-world complications. i genuinely think every 13-ish year old goes through this grief and a desire to hold onto the past, to remain in this perfect nostalgic bubble through which you view your childhood. it’s probably the most universal and identifiable instance of the motif of the sunlit garden.

then it gets more complicated. nanami’s sunlit garden is her memories of short-haired touga, of her big brother showing her his affection, making her feel special, worthy, and loved. but unlike miki, she doesn’t miss being a part of the ideal nuclear family. for one thing, both she and touga are adopted. of course, she doesn’t actually know that, but it nonetheless problematizes the bioessentialist logic upon which the nuclear family [abuse factory] structure is predicated. secondly, it’s clear that she was always the scapegoat to touga’s golden child. which is why it’s not that she loves her sibling as an extension of her childhood nostalgia, but that her entire value system fundamentally revolves around touga, because he was the only person in her formative years who ever showed her the slightest sliver of affection. and in all her memories of him, he has short hair (like dios, like miki), because subconsciously she doesn’t even want him to be her Prince, her patriarchal savior, she wanted him to be someone who loved her because she inherently deserves love. she does treat him like her prince in the present, but that’s only because it’s how her love for him must take form in ohtori. deep down, she doesn’t want a prince, a lover, or even a brother; she wants a friend who will love her for nothing. but she has no way of expressing that, not in a world that claims true friendship is for fools. so instead she values him for their biological ties, for his status as a kiryuu, for his patriarchal role as the eldest son in their perfect nuclear family. and she refuses to acknowledge how she demeans herself in the process of worshipping him, how she’ll drown herself and cook herself and cage herself, debase herself and dehumanize herself for his illusory love. and that is what the sunlit garden means to nanami.

as for saionji, the sunlit garden also constitutes his memories with touga, of a “before” that is much more definable in the sense that there is clearly a moment where it becomes “after.” one day they are riding their bike through the rain after kendo practice, and they decide to take shelter in a church. and saionji sees touga become someone he fears and also envies. someone who wields the power to project something eternal, to inspire, to save. and he exerts his power in a subtly violent way, by transgressing invisible boundaries. saionji cannot harness that power, so he attempts to exert it clumsily, through immediate, obvious, physical forms of violence. it never quite packs the same punch as touga’s manipulation, no matter how hard he tries. but what saionji really longs for is not to possess touga’s power, but to go back to the way things were before touga decided he wanted power. touga thinks true friendship is for fools, but like nanami, all saionji wants is to be touga’s true friend. and isn’t that just tragic?

of course, that’s not all saionji wants. but his desire is complicated by the fact that he clearly also resents the sexual acts he is being put through by touga, even if in other circumstances, it could be what he wanted. juri’s situation, her sunlit garden, is similar to saionji’s in this respect. all she wants is shiori, but she doesn’t want the shiori she is being presented with. she wants the shiori from an illusory idealized past in which they were true friends, before shiori betrayed her and revealed her ugly feelings in the process. like miki with kozue, nanami and saionji with touga, utena and anthy with dios, mikage with mamiya, juri is idealizing a version of the object of her affection who never really existed. shiori’s ugly feelings were always latent. unlike miki’s sunlit garden, nanami’s flashback to touga’s party and sea of photographs, or saionji’s memories of touga tenderly wrapping his hand, juri does not even have memories of shiori that are not defined by her betrayal. yes she has shiori reaching out, holding a rose, saying “believe in miracles and they will know your heart,” but it’s an obvious fiction. juri doesn’t know shiori at all, and the shiori juri knows is not the shiori she loves. the sunlit garden is always a garden of illusion.

utena’s sunlit garden, which opens many episodes, is perhaps the most obvious example of this fact. she completely rewrote her own formative memory to better suit the dominant patriarchal narratives she was forced to adopt all her life. and you can say that akio actively tampered with her memories, but functionally speaking, that’s the same thing. even more so than the others, her sunlit garden is a palimpsest; she idealizes a past and a prince that never actually existed. sure akio and anthy exist, but her “prince” is not either of them. the locus of her will to live, that eternal thing, is a fiction. but her desire to help others in need is genuine. and that is what differentiates utena’s sunlit garden first and foremost. it is not founded on a selfish desire to cling to a perfect past of illusion, but on the selfless desire to keep moving forward in hopes of a better future. they all want to hold onto something eternal, including utena in her desire to keep her parents with her, and all of those desires are perfectly understandable and eminently sympathetic, but utena is different because that day that akio showed her anthy’s suffering, utena’s desire shifted from a memory to a telos.

mikage’s sunlit garden thus becomes a cautionary tale to all the members of the student council who wish to live in a memory, perfectly suspended, pinned in place like a butterfly on display. just as a caterpillar must become a butterfly, a child must enter the world of adults. mamiya is beautiful because he has the luxury of dying young, of being immortalized on a carousel, of never losing his innocence. mikage is what happens to people who idealize eternity through escaping into nostalgia. the world keeps moving on without them, and they become ghosts, trapped in a past that no one can recall.

so what of akio? he uses people’s sunlit gardens against them, he manipulates time and memory, feeds off nostalgia and the grief of lost childhood. he cultivates his garden to resemble golden days, and as he invites you through his gates, ensnares you. so what does that mean, when his goal, too, is to achieve eternity? above all he wants to forge a sword that will break through the closed gates and reinstate his former glory. of anyone in ohtori, he is the one most deeply entrenched in his oh so cozy coffin. for all that he knows his promises to be illusory, he also clings to that logic, he also mourns dios. he longs for his golden days despite knowing that they’re untenable, despite being well aware of the toll it took on anthy. and even fully aware of the extent of his exploitation, of the fundamental illusion of eternity, he still attempts to attain it, he still instantiates himself in a cycle on the carousel, condemned to ghosthood, a butterfly pinned in place.

finally, we must look to the absent figure, the outlier. what, or rather who, is touga’s sunlit garden? the movie tells us it is utena, that he embodied the princely role in the truest sense and that this is his deepest aspiration. but i don’t know if that’s necessarily how i read him. anthy and touga are foils, two sides of the same coin. anthy doesn’t have a “sunlit garden” per se, because she has long given up on the idea of returning to a time when she loved dios, before the swords of hatred pierced her heart. but she has a literal sunlit garden, and her role is to tend the flowers in it and never leave. she has a literal coffin, guarded carefully in the chambers of her heart. anthy knows better than to cling to an idealized past, but still, she cannot find a way to move forward. so she gets stuck in a circular present, where both past and future are illusory concepts. it is not enough to simply know that the past is gone, one must also strive for a better future. it is why utena and anthy’s promise to drink tea and laugh together in ten years is just so powerful within ohtori’s timeless walls. i’d bet anything that touga also doesn’t have an idealized past. if, again, we use the movie to inform our understanding of him, he was always aware of the abuse that pervaded his world, he was never an innocent. but instead of desiring reform, like utena, of wanting to save those suffering, he wants to be the one inflicting that suffering as much as possible. to cope, he accepts his abuse as a necessary consequence of existence, and assumes that anyone capable of abusing him is simply more powerful, and thus deserves to exert their power over him, just as he deserves to exert his power over those less powerful than he is. so like anthy, he doesn’t have a sunlit garden, but he has a coffin, and a garden, and a carousel. and like anthy, he must choose for himself whether he wishes to remain a complicit victim, or to leave his cozy coffin and find a way to move forward. and that, only time can tell.

Me rereading A Crown of Gilded Bones and A War of Two Queens after reading Sera’s books..

Aios?! Rhain?! Saions Cove?! (Yes I read them out of order without realising)

Saion: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Jadis: Slightly terrifying.

Saion:

Jadis: Or a veterinarian.

Theon, the God of Accord and War.

Lailah, the Goddess of Peace and Vengeance.

Rhahar, the Eternal God.

Rhain, God of Common Men and Endings.

Aios, Goddess of Love, Fertility and Beauty.

Bele, Goddess of the Hunt.

Saion, God of the Sky and Soil - Earth, Wind and Water.

Sera and Ash really just put all their friends in charge.

Nyktos: "I don't think its wise to do that"

Poppy: "Good thing I didn't ask"

Saion, to Sera: "Holy shit, there's two of you"

To whom it may concern...

!ALITF CHAPTER 3 SPOILERS!

"Anyone who poses a threat." Orphine smiled tightly, and there was nothing warm about that smile. “To you. Not him, which is unfortunate.” Saion Smirked.

Bitch, you did not-