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theusurpersdog · 3 years

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A Bird in a Cage

Sansa’s arc in A Clash of Kings is all about boxing her in. Not only is she a hostage in King’s Landing, she’s also expected to pretend she’s not; she has to attend Court with a smile on her face, playing the role of Joffrey’s betrothed every day. Showing any honest emotion is punished by verbal and physical beatings. Her entire life becomes a performance she must put on to keep the monsters at bay. Everything about her world is meant to be stifling; from the physical restrictions to the emotional ones, it all makes her retreat deeper and deeper within herself.

But the real magic of this book is the moments where she finds a way to push back or escape her bounds . . .

Captive

In more ways than one, Sansa is a captive in King’s Landing.

The first kind of abuse she’s subjected to is physical. Beatings are a part of her everyday life. Because Robb was crowned king, or because she was happy Janos Slynt was sent to the Wall, or because Joffrey decided to be especially cruel one day. Sometimes for no reason at all.

She has to take care to dress carefully to hide the bruises:

The gown had long sleeves to hide the bruises on her arms. Those were Joffrey’s gifts as well.

This should go without saying, but domestic abuse is not rational; nothing Sansa does could stop Joffrey from abusing her – no clever words or tricks she could do to keep him happy. Half the time he has her beaten, it’s because of something Robb did.

Because she could be beaten at any moment, Sansa always keeps one eye on Joffrey, terrified that his mood could turn:

So the king had decided to play the gallant today. Sansa was relieved.

. . .

The king was growing bored. It made Sansa anxious. She lowered her eyes and resolved to keep quiet, no matter what. When Joffrey Baratheon’s mood darkened, any chance word might set off one of his rages.

Not only is she afraid of being hit, she’s genuinely afraid he could kill her:

When she doubled over, the knight grabbed her hair and drew his sword, and for one hideous instant she was certain he meant to open her throat.

Sansa knows her life balances on an incredibly delicate string. Jaime being Robb’s prisoner gives the Lannisters a reason to keep her alive, but Joffrey had reasons to keep Ned alive, too. If anything were to set him off, he would kill Sansa without hesitation. That’s why Sansa feels safer with Cersei around to watch her son, because she’s the only thing that remains to keep Joffrey in check. And Sansa knows that if Robb were to do anything to Jaime, her life would be over:

Gods be good, don’t let it be the Kingslayer. If Robb had harmed Jaime Lannister, it would mean her life. She thought of Ser Ilyn, and how those terrible pale eyes staring pitilessly out of that gaunt pockmarked face.

The beating she endures after Robb wins the battle at Oxcross is so bad that she can barely walk afterward; and as I already mention above, she has to be careful to wear dresses to hide her bruises.

And not only does she have to endure the abuse, she also has to carry on the farce for the rest of the court. Everyone knows she’s a prisoner, and everyone knows that Joffrey is having the Kingsguard beat her, but she’s not allowed to show it; all of her pain has to be kept hidden, pushed deep down inside herself.

Which leads me to the other kind of abuse Sansa experiences in King’s Landing. Everything about her time there is meant to emotionally destroy her. Joffrey intentionally tries to taunt her with threats to murder her family:

“It’s almost as good as if some wolf killed your traitor brother. Maybe I’ll feed him to wolves after I’ve caught him.

. . .

“I’d sooner have Robb Stark’s head,” Joff said with a sly glance toward Sansa.

. . .

“I’ll deal with your brother after I’m done with my traitor uncle. I’ll gut him with Hearteater, you’ll see.”

He loves to play mind games with her, like when he promised to show Ned mercy and then cut off his head and said that was mercy. The constant way that he twists reality around messes with her head and leaves her understandably paranoid:

What if it was some cruel jape of Joffrey’s, like the day he had taken her up to the battlements to show her Father’s head? Or perhaps it was some subtle snare to prove she was not loyal. If she went to the godswood, would she find Ser Ilyn Payne waiting for her, sitting silent under the heart tree with Ice in his hand, his pale eyes watching to see if she’d come?

The constant cruelty she suffers, and Joffrey and Cersei’s profound betrayal at the end of A Game of Thrones, make it hard for her to trust anyone, even when they show kindness:

He speaks more gently than Joffrey, she thought, but the queen spoke to me gently too. He’s still a Lannister, her brother and Joff’s uncle, and no friend. Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father’s head. Sansa would never make that mistake again.

How is she supposed to trust anyone, when everything around her is false? When everything is a carefully constructed jape at her expense? Especially because she’s surrounded by enemies; anyone making their home in Joffrey’s court is sworn to kill Sansa’s family.

And Cersei intentionally makes her isolation worse, rotating her bedmaids:

Sansa did not know her. The queen had her servants changed every fortnight, to make certain none of them befriended her.

Sansa truly has no one to talk to, not even friendly servants to keep her company. Her loneliness is so profound that she enjoys being watched over by Arys Oakheart because he’s the only person who will actually talk to her.

She realizes that no one in King’s Landing cares if she lives or dies:

She [Cersei] spared Sansa not so much as a glance. She’s forgotten me. Ser Ilyn will kill me and she won’t even think about it.

And before the Battle of the Blackwater started, Tyrion told her this:

“I ought to have sent you off with Tommen now that I think on it.”

Unlike Joffrey and Cersei, Tyrion doesn’t wish Sansa any harm; he orders Joffrey’s men to stop hitting her, tries to comfort her afterward, and doesn’t want her to be married to Joffrey. But she is not one of his priorities. It didn’t even occur to him to try and get her safely out of the city.

This is dehumanizing. Sansa has no friends or even anyone to talk to, and the people around her treat her life as an afterthought.

Sansa also suffers from the emotional fallout of Joffrey’s abuse. She blames herself when he has men hit her:

She must learn to hide her feelings better, so as not to anger Joffrey.

The fear of being hit by Joffrey is nearly all-consuming for Sansa. It affects everything down to the smallest details of her life, like how she dresses and does her hair:

I have to look pretty, Joff likes me to look pretty, he’s always liked me in this gown, this color.

Instead of getting to live as her own person, doing things to make herself happy, Sansa has to live for Joffrey’s satisfaction. Even when she’s being physically beaten, she thinks of him instead of herself:

Laugh, Joffrey, she prayed as the juice ran down her face and the front of her blue silk gown. Laugh and be satisfied.

Everything about her life is a performance for other people. She wears the gowns and jewels Joffrey likes, dressing to hide the bruises his men leave all over, and says the words they tell her to say:

“My father was a traitor,” Sansa said at once. “And my brother and lady mother are traitors as well.” That reflex she had learned quickly. “I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey.”

Sansa repeats that phrase over and over throughout the book, always at once. Almost like a reflex. An actor on stage repeating their lines, rehearsed and performed a thousand times.

The worst part of the act is that everyone knows it’s exactly that: an act. Sansa is required, every day, to declare that her family are traitors who deserve to die, and for no reason at all. The way Joffrey abuses her is an open secret:

“He’s never been able to forget that day on the Trident when you saw her shame him, so he shames you in turn. You’re stronger than you seem, though. I expect you’ll survive a bit of humiliation.”

There is no way anyone could ever believe Sansa actually loves the boy who killed her father and intentionally humiliates her in front of his court. No matter how well Sansa tells the lie, it will always be see-through; especially because everyone knows that she’s a prisoner, being held until Jaime is freed. Sansa has to repeat the lie of believing her family to be traitors to try and please the Lannisters – if she said anything different she would be beaten or killed – but there’s no way they will ever be happy, because even when Sansa says the lies as convincingly as humanly possible, they know they’re lies because there’s no way they could be anything else. Sansa cannot win.

That’s never clearer than during her conversation with Cersei inside Maegar’s Holdfast, while the Battle of the Blackwater rages on:

“I pray for Joffrey,” she insisted nervously.

“Why, because he treats you so sweetly?” The queen took a flagon of sweet plum wine from a passing serving girl and filled Sansa’s cup. “Drink,” she commanded coldly. “Perhaps it will give you the courage to deal with truth for a change.”

If Sansa told Cersei the truth in this moment, she would be severely punished. And Cersei knows that, because she would be the one doing the punishing. Yet she verbally berates Sansa anyway.

The same dynamic plays out between Sansa and the Hound. At the end of A Game of Thrones, he gives her this bit of advice:

“Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants.”

And as one of Joffrey’s Kingsguard, he knows first hand of the abuse Sansa suffers if she says anything that could even be construed as out of line. Yet when Sansa tries to follow the advice he gave her, he throws it back in her face:

“ah, you're still a stupid little bird, aren't you? Singing all the songs they taught you”

Everyone in King’s Landing is always threatening to kill Sansa if she tells them the truth, and then calling her stupid when she repeats back the lies they want to hear. They’re forcefully dehumanizing her, demanding she remove all of her own thoughts and emotions and replace them with hollow lines they’ve given her, and then getting mad when her words are empty.

This plays on one of Sansa’s greatest insecurities about herself, which is her intelligence. Because of her low self-esteem, she already thinks of herself as being less-than. That’s very clear whenever she does an act of kindness – she steadfastly refuses to give herself credit for anything:

Sansa could not believe she had spoken. Was she mad? To tell him no in front of half the court?

. . .

Lancel was one of them, yet somehow she still could not bring herself to wish him dead. I am soft and weak and stupid, just as Joffrey says. I should be killing him, not helping him.

She never thinks to herself You are doing this because you are a good person. She always punishes herself internally, calling herself stupid and childish for believing in good things. Joffrey and Cersei have destroyed her so much that she can only see herself through their eyes, cruel and mocking.

The fear that she’s stupid is one of her greatest anxieties:

“My Jonquil’s a clever girl, isn’t she?”

“Joffrey and his mother say I’m stupid.”

And she doesn’t like to be watched by Ser Preston Greenfield because he treated her like a lackwit child.

Everyone around her is comfortable calling her stupid and emotionally abusing her, and it’s easy for Sansa to start internalizing those messages. Joffrey and Cersei’s betrayal at the end of A Game of Thrones forever changed Sansa; the fear that she could ever be so wrong again, and the fear that she was stupid to believe in them, haunts her. Throughout her time in King’s Landing, her self-worth plummets, and she really starts to believe all the things that Joffrey, Cersei, and everyone is always telling her about herself.

Because she has to endure so much abuse and cruelty every day, it starts to become normal to Sansa. Compared to the way Joffrey treats her, anything would be an improvement; she has a soft spot for Arys Oakheart because he hesitated to hit her once:

Arys Oakheart was courteous, and would talk to her cordially. Once he even objected when Joffrey commanded him to hit her. He did hit her in the end, but not hard as Ser Meryn or Ser Boros might have, and at least he had argued.

At least he had argued is one of the saddest lines in a series of books that has a lot of sad lines. Sansa expects so little of the people around her, and is subjected to so much cruelty, that the mere act of hesitating before hitting a defenseless child is enough to stand out in her memory as an act of kindness.

And Sansa thinks this when Tyrion asks her if she’s flowered yet:

Sansa blushed. It was a rude question, but the shame of being stripped before half the castle made it seem like nothing.

This is a perfect moment to show the small ways in which Joffrey is breaking her down emotionally. Tyrion’s question is embarrassing and impolite, but Sansa doesn’t even care because it is so much less embarrassing than the humiliations Joffrey makes her suffer. Joffrey has set the bar for cruelty so high that Sansa is willing to ignore others mistreating her because it isn’t as bad as Joffrey.

The secret friendship she has with Dontos makes this even worse:

“And if I should seem cruel or mocking or indifferent when men are watching, forgive me, child. I have a role to play, and you must do the same. One misstep and our heads will adorn the walls as did your father’s.”

Dontos is not wrong, but it doesn’t make it any less toxic a message for Sansa to hear: I’m cruel and hit you for your own protection. That’s on display when Joffrey is beating Sansa for Robb’s victory at Oxcross:

“Let me beat her!” Ser Dontos shoved forward, tin armor clattering. He was armed with a “Morningstar” whose head was a melon. My Florian. She could have kissed him, blotchy skin and broken veins and all.

Sansa is happy that Dontos is the one hitting her, because at least it’s better than Meryn Trant and Boros Blount. Dontos volunteering to hit her is an act of kindness for Sansa; which further reinforces the idea that someone hitting her is okay.

All of this works to lower Sansa’s standards and warp her perception of what is and isn’t okay; and in the case of Dontos, it is outright grooming on the part of Littlefinger. He intentionally paid an older man to win Sansa’s trust and get her used to the dynamic of secrecy and pushing boundaries, all so he can swoop in during A Storm of Swords. Sansa’s stuck in an endless cycle of her abuse conditioning her to accept more abuse.

All of the abuse and isolation Sansa suffers also leaves her incredibly depressed throughout A Clash of Kings. When she gets the note telling her to go to the Godswood, she thinks she will kill herself before she’s caught:

If it is some trap, better that I die than let them hurt me more, she told herself.

After the bread riot, Sansa has panic attacks; so much so that she feels suffocated in small rooms:

Sansa could go where she would so long as she did not try to leave the castle, but there was nowhere she wanted to go. She crossed over the dry moat with its cruel iron spikes and made her way up the narrow turnpike stair, but when she reached the door of her bedchamber she could not bear to enter. The very walls of the room made her feel trapped; even with the window opened wide it felt as though there was no air to breathe.

She likes to go up to the roof of the tower so she can see the entire city laid before her; it’s the only place where she doesn’t feel so claustrophobic and trapped.

That passage is also so fantastically written to show just how depressed Sansa is. Sansa could go where she would so long as she did not try to leave the castle, but there was nowhere she wanted to go. She's too depressed to go riding around the courtyard; she doesn’t see the point in going around in circles. We know from A Game of Thrones that Sansa has plenty of hobbies: playing the high harp, needlepoint, reading, and sharing gossip with her best friend. In A Clash of Kings, she’s too isolated to have anyone to talk to, but we never see her doing any of her other hobbies either. Nothing brings Sansa happiness in this book.

Especially because she’s constantly surrounded by reminders of her trauma. The way Sansa copes with her grief is by pushing it out of her mind and pretending like it doesn’t exist:

Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again. She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimes the memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears.

Sansa actively tries to forget about the people who mean the most to her because it hurts too much to think of them.

But she can’t forget about Ned when she’s surrounded by reminders of his death. Joffrey and Cersei intentionally throw it in her face, and she has to walk through the same halls his men died in:

Sansa moved as if in a dream. She thought the Imp’s men would take her back to her bedchamber in Maegor’s Holdfast, but instead they conducted her to the Tower of the Hand. She had not set foot inside that place since the day her father fell from grace, and it made her feel faint to climb those steps again.

The reminder that hurts the most is the presence of Ilyn Payne, a recurring figure in all of Sansa’s nightmares. Just his presence makes Sansa’s skin crawl:

She was climbing the dais when she saw the man standing in the shadows by the back wall. He wore a long hauberk of oiled black mail, and held his sword before him: her father's greatsword, Ice, near as tall as he was. Its point rested on the floor, and his hard bony fingers curled around the crossguard on either side of the grip. Sansa's breath caught in her throat.

. . .

She looked for Ser Ilyn, but the King's Justice was not to be seen. I can feel him, though. He's close

When Sansa’s afraid she’s going to die, it’s always his blade she fears:

I'll not escape him, he'll have my head.

. . .

Ser Ilyn will kill me and she won't even think about it.

. . .

If she went to the godswood, would she find Ser Ilyn Payne waiting for her, sitting silent under the heart tree with Ice in his hand, his pale eyes watching to see if she'd come?

. . .

If Robb had harmed Jaime Lannister, it would mean her life. She thought of Ser Ilyn, and how those terrible pale eyes staring pitilessly out of that gaunt pockmarked face.

Watching Ilyn Payne kill her father is the worst thing that ever happened to Sansa, and she lives in constant fear that the same thing could happen to her.

The only thing that keeps her going is the thought of her family. Sansa is insecure in herself enough to start believing the abuse that Joffrey and Cersei inflict on her; but she loves her family too much to ever believe the lies about them. Even though she’s forced to declare them traitors every single day, her internal monologue is always fighting against it:

Rob will kill you all, she thought, exulting

. . .

I pray for Robb’s victory and Joffrey’s death . . . and for home. For Winterfell.

She even finds a way to make Joffrey’s words work in her favor:

“Did I tell you, I intend to challenge him to single combat?"

"I should like to see that, Your Grace." More than you know. Sansa kept her tone cool and polite, yet even so Joffrey's eyes narrowed as he tried to decide whether she was mocking him.

One of the only moments where Sansa is even remotely happy in this book comes when she’s talking to Tommen, because he reminds her of Bran:

Princess Myrcella nodded a shy greeting at the sound of Sansa’s name, but plump little Prince Tommen jumped up eagerly. “Sansa, did you hear? I’m to ride in the tourney today. Mother said I could.” Tommen was all of eight. He reminded her of her own little brother, Bran. They were of an age. Bran was back at Winterfell, a cripple, yet safe.

Sansa would have given anything to be with him. “I fear for the life of your foeman,” she told Tommen solemnly.

That’s a short passage, but it so beautifully captures a small piece of what Sansa is truly like, outside of the abuse and the fearing for her life and the never being able to express her emotions. She loves her family so much and wants nothing more than to be with Bran again. And while Joffrey mocks Tommen for his knightly dreams, Sansa is so nice to him, building up his confidence before he competes. She’s old enough to have grown passed the childishness of Tommen facing the quintain, but because she knows how important it is to Tommen, she gladly plays along with him. We never got to see any scenes in A Game of Thrones of Sansa interacting with Bran and getting to act like a big sister, but this scene does such a good job of showing us that Sansa was a great sister to him.

Sansa also feels a much stronger connection to the Godswood, the ancestral home of her father’s gods:

The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. There was something wild about a godswood, even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes.

And even though Lady’s long dead, Sansa still has a strong connection to her wolf. When she believes she’s going to die during the Blackwater, Lady is the first thing she thinks of:

“Lady,” she whimpered softly, wondering if she would meet her wolf again when she was dead.

The more abuse Sansa suffers and the more pressure is put on her to denounce her family as traitors and give up on ever going home, the more Sansa falls back on her family. That’s the only form of comfort she has in King’s Landing; the memory of Winterfell, and the belief that Robb is coming to save her.

The Lannisters have Sansa held captive physically and emotionally in King’s Landing; she has to suffer through beatings and repeat their words to stay alive. But as long as Sansa has her family - has Winterfell - to hold onto, there is a part of her that the Lannisters can never have. Even if it’s only within the walls of her own mind, Sansa has fought herself a small piece of freedom.

Courtesy is a Lady’s Armor

Trapped within the political machinations of King’s Landing, Sansa starts to learn how to play the game in earnest.

Even before she consciously starts to do it, though, Sansa is already in many ways an adept political actor. There’s a reason that all highborn children are taught from a young age how to conduct themselves; Westeros is a society built on the cornerstone of tradition, and knowing how to perform courtly behavior is important. Because Sansa took all of Septa Mordane’s training seriously, she already knows how to walk the dangerous tightrope of courtly speak:

Sansa felt that she ought to say something. What was it that Septa Mordane used to tell her? A lady’s armor is courtesy, that was it. She donned her armor and said, “I’m sorry my lady mother took you captive, my lord.”

This is the same skill we saw in her second chapter of A Game of Thrones, when she was proud of herself for telling the Hound that no one could withstand Gregor during the tourney – she managed to say something courteous without telling a lie. Just as she did then, Sansa manages to say an apology to Tyrion that’s true.

It also shows just how good Sansa is at keeping a level head, because just moments before she was thinking this:

Tyrion turned to Sansa. "My lady, I am sorry for your losses. Truly, the gods are cruel."

Sansa could not think of a word to say to him. How could he be sorry for her losses? Was he mocking her? It wasn’t the gods who’d been cruel, it was Joffrey.

Faced with the men responsible for killing her father, she manages to think on her feet and fulfill the role of a Lady.

She also learns how to use that same skill to benefit herself. Whereas at first she was just trying to perform the functions of a Lady, she starts to use her courtesy to talk the people around her into helping her in such a way that they don’t even realize it’s happening:

“I would sooner return to my own bed.” A lie came to her suddenly, but it seemed so right that she blurted it out at once. “This tower was where my father’s men were slain Their ghosts would give me terrible dreams, and I would see their blood wherever I looked.”

Tyrion Lannister studied her face. “I am no stranger to nightmares, Sansa. Perhaps you are wiser than I knew. Permit me at least to escort you safely back to your own chambers.”

Part of why Sansa’s so naturally gifted at this kind of political double speak is because she understands people so well; she’s an empathetic and emotional character, and is extremely aware of the emotions of everyone around her. To affectively influence others, you need to understand what they want and be able to give it to them. Because Sansa is so aware of the people around her, she intuitively knows what they want; and all she wants to do is give it to them, because she doesn’t want to be hurt again.

The whole conversation she has with Tyrion in the Tower of the Hand does an excellent job showing how intelligent she is:

“I . . .” Sansa did not know what to say. Is it a trick? Will he punish me if I tell the truth? She stared at the dwarf’s brutal bulging brow, the hard black eye and the shrewd green one, the crooked teeth and wiry beard. “I only want to be loyal.”

“Loyal,” the dwarf mused, “and far from any Lannisters. I can scarce blame you for that. When I was your age, I wanted the same thing.” He smiled. “They tell me you visit the godswood every day. What do you pray for, Sansa?”

I pray for Robb’s victory and Joffrey’s death . . . and for home. For Winterfell. “I pray for an end to the fighting.”

Again, she shows an unparalleled ability to lie without actually lying. And she’s clever enough to tell Tyrion what he wants to hear without saying anything that’s actually false, that way it can’t come back to bite her later. She learned her lesson in A Game of Thrones not to trust someone just because they’re kind, and is careful not to show her cards to Tyrion. But in case he’s being honest in trying to help her, Sansa does not reaffirm her love for Joffrey. That’s why her answer of I only want to be loyal is so smart; whether Tyrion is playing her false or no, Sansa has given him the answer he wants to hear. She’s kept all of her doors open without creating additional risk for herself.

Having to survive Joffrey every day also teaches Sansa how to get what she wants without actually having to say it. When she saves Dontos’ life, she plays to Joffrey’s ego:

Unhappy, Joffrey shifted in his seat and flicked his fingers at Ser Dontos. "Take him away. I'll have him killed on the morrow, the fool."

"He is," Sansa said. "A fool. You're so clever, to see it. He's better fitted to be a fool than a knight, isn't he? You ought to dress him in motley and make him clown for you. He doesn't deserve the mercy of a quick death."

All Sansa wants is to save Dontos’ life, and in the moment she comes up with a spectacular lie. Of course Joffrey would think it humiliating to make Dontos into a fool, so Sansa convinces him that would be an even greater punishment than death. She manipulates Joffrey into doing what she wants him to, and he doesn’t even know it’s happened.

Learning how to slyly insult Joffrey is one of the few ways Sansa can actually express herself as a prisoner, and she gets incredibly good at it. She starts by passive-aggressively getting one over on him:

“Did I tell you, I intend to challenge him to single combat?"

"I should like to see that, Your Grace." More than you know. Sansa kept her tone cool and polite, yet even so Joffrey's eyes narrowed as he tried to decide whether she was mocking him.

But as she gets better at politics she goes even further, actively tempting Joffrey into getting himself killed:

“They say my brother Robb always goes where the fighting is thickest,” she said recklessly. “Though he’s older than Your Grace, to be sure. A man grown.”

Joffrey’s biggest insecurity is that he can’t rule in his own right; Cersei won’t let him do certain things, and Tyrion is in charge of him as the Hand of the King because he hasn’t come of age yet. While Joffrey’s anger is normally aimed destructively at Sansa, here she figures out a way to make it work for her; using his own emotions against him to do something reckless.

As well as learning the art of political double-speak, Sansa starts to understand the broader political machinations at work. Because she was a diligent student of Catelyn and Septa Mordane, she has almost every sigil in Westeros memorized; at Joffrey’s name-day tourney, she recognizes every competitor by their House. This may seem unimportant at first glance, but it’s actually very important; twice in Arya’s chapters in A Clash of Kings she wishes she knew Houses and Sigils as well as Sansa, because than she would know who she was dealing with.

Since Sansa knows who everyone is, she has head start in understanding where everyone’s loyalties lie. On top of that, she’s also incredibly observant; she’s constantly taking in everything around her, stopping to pay attention to every little detail and interaction between people. Even though Cersei and Joffrey are trying to keep it hidden, Sansa notices that Joffrey’s tourney is held inside the Keep because he would be mobbed if they went out into the city. And she knows the Redwyne twins are hostages just as much as she is:

The Redwyne twins were the queen’s unwilling guests, even as Sansa was. She wondered whose notion it had been for them to ride in Joffrey’s tourney. Not their own, she thought.

That’s not something anyone would have told Sansa. For one, no one is even allowed to talk to her per Cersei’s orders. For two, Cersei doesn’t let anyone acknowledge that she has hostages – in the same way Sansa has to pretend she is a guest of Joffrey’s court, the Redwynes have to pretend they’re willing guests. That means that Sansa, with no help from anyone, has of her own accord put all the pieces together and realized the Redwynes are political pawns just like her. Very impressive for a twelve-year-old.

Sansa’s attention to detail is clear when she meets Shae, and immediately notices something is not right with her:

Lollys clutched at her maid, a slender, pretty girl with short dark hair who looked as though she wanted nothing so much as to show her mistress into the dry moat, onto those iron spikes.

And when she’s entering Maegar’s Holdfast at the start of the Blackwater, and notices the guards:

The two guards at the door wore the lin-crested helms and crimson cloaks of House Lannister, but Sansa knew they were only dressed-up sellswords. Another sat at the foot of the stair – a real guard would have been standing, not sitting on a step with his halberd across his knees – but he rose when he saw them and opened the door to usher them inside.

Her encyclopedic knowledge of Westerosi Houses and her attention to detail combine to give her a really good head for political machinations. She sees how the Lannisters use empty titles to flatter their lesser servants while saving the best prizes for their family:

Hallyne the Pyromancer and the masters of the Alchemists’ was raised to the style of lord, though Sansa noted that neither lands nor castle accompanied the title, which made the alchemist no more a true lord than Varys was. A more significant lordship by far was granted to Ser Lancel Lannister.

She manages to keep pace with Littlefinger and Tywin’s games:

She did not understand why that should make him so happy; the honors were as empty as the title granted to Hallyne the Pyromancer. Harrenhal was cursed, everyone knew that, and the Lannisters did not even hold it at present. Besides, the lords of the Trident were sworn to Riverrun and House Tully, and to the King in the North; they would never accept Littlefinger as their liege. Unless they are made to. Unless my brother and my uncle and my grandfather are all cast down and killed. The thought made Sansa anxious, but she told herself she was being silly. Robb has beaten them every time. He’ll beat Lord Baelish too, if he must.

I cannot emphasize enough that Sansa, following the tiny thread of Littlefinger looks happy to be Lord of Harrenhal, manages to predict the Red Wedding a whole book before it happens. That’s pretty incredible. Right now, Sansa has no power to start pulling meaningful strings of her own, but it’s clear that she fundamentally understands the complexity of geopolitics and would be well-prepared to make decisions of her own when the time comes.

Another way Sansa continues to learn about the realities of ruling is through people around her trying to teach her lessons. Because Sansa’s a hostage and isn’t allowed to say anything she feels, she basically becomes a blank slate for people to project whatever they want onto. Cersei, Dontos, and the Hound all try to “teach” her something as they project all of their own fears, insecurities, and trauma onto her.

Dontos tells her to play the fool:

“Joffrey and his mother say I’m stupid.”

“Let them. You’re safer that way, sweetling. Queen Cersei and the Imp and Lord Varys and their like, they all watch each other keen as hawks, and pay this one and that one to spy out what the others are doing, but no one ever troubles themselves about Lady Tanda’s daughter, do they?”

Of course, Sansa already knows this. All the way back in her second chapter of A Game of Thrones, Sansa thinks to herself that Moon Boy is smarter than he looks and is only pretending to be a fool so he can go wherever he likes; and Dontos confirms her suspicions when he reveals Moon Boy is a spy for Lord Varys.

It’s a consistent pattern that everyone around Sansa is constantly underestimating her; partly because of their own biases, and partly because Sansa is an almost entirely internal character, rarely letting people hear her honest thoughts. People assume she’s as hollow as the words they force her to say, but in reality she’s an introvert and a hostage.

The Hound also feels the need to impart some “lessons” onto Sansa:

Sandor Clegane snorted. “Pretty thing, and such a bad liar. A dog can smell a lie, you know. Look around you, and take a good whiff. They’re all liars here . . . and every one better than you.”

Again, he’s assuming Sansa’s much dumber than she actually is. Sansa already knows that everyone in King’s Landing is a liar, and has sworn to herself never to trust them again.

The most valuable lessons Sansa gets are from Cersei during the Battle of the Blackwater:

“Certain things are expected of a queen. They will be expected of you should you ever wed Joffrey. Best learn.” The queen studied the wives, daughters, and mothers who filled the benches. “Of themselves the hens are nothing, but their cocks are important for one reason or another, and some may survive this battle. So it behooves me to give their women my protection. If my wretched dwarf of a brother should somehow manage to prevail, they will return to their husbands and fathers full of tales about how brave I was, how my courage inspired them and lifted their spirits, how I never doubted our victory even for a moment.”

In this moment, even though she’s not doing a particularly good job actually doing it, Cersei articulates what’s really important about politics: optics. Her true motives for protecting the Ladies don’t matter as long as the Ladies believe that Cersei is doing it for the right reasons. That’s what monarchies are built upon. They’re a fragile house of cards constructed out of people’s belief.

That’s a lesson Sansa learns again when Joffrey sets her aside and takes Margaery as his bride. Sansa knows it’s going to happen, and is coached by Cersei how to react:

I must not smile, she reminded herself. The queen had warned her, no matter what she felt inside, the face she showed the world must look distraught. “I will not have my son humiliated,” Cersei said. “Do you hear me?”

But in front of the court, Joffrey carries on the charade, pretending Garlan’s offer of his sister’s hand is brand new information. Sansa watches from the sidelines and sees how people react; chanting and cheering to the theatre of it all. She gets to learn in real time how important it is to be performing your duties for the people. Other characters – most notably Jon Snow and Daenerys – can never quite figure that part of ruling out, and it has grave consequences.

I don’t mean performing in the negative sense. Of course, it can be used like that, like when the Tyrell’s intentionally starve King’s Landing so they can swoop in and make a big show of providing food. But it can also be used for good; it is an absolutely necessary aspect of ruling to let your people know what you’re doing for them. Jon in particular gets in trouble at the Wall because he doesn’t explain why he does things; he just does them and hopes people will trust him. Part of the courtly aspect of ruling is doing the work of showing your people how you’re helping them. That way you build trust with them, and they know you care for them. That’s what Sansa’s learning how to do.

Sansa’s also very good at the literal courtly aspect of politics; the time actually spent in court, sitting for hours and hours as the tedious day-to-day of ruling takes place. After the Battle of the Blackwater is over, Sansa has to sit in court for an entire day as soldiers are given their reward. She manages to stay focused the whole time, giving incredibly detailed accounts of each prize that’s awarded and each act of valor that caused it. She handles herself better than the grown men in the hall:

By the time all the new knights had been given their sers the hall was growing restive, and none more so than Joffrey. Some of those in the gallery had begun to slip quietly away, but the notables on the floor were trapped, unable to depart without the king’s leave.

Actual adults can’t even tolerate it, but Sansa manages just fine. This talent of hers is taken for granted by readers, but really stands out when you compare it to other characters. Sansa has the benefit of being raised to be a Lady, unlike a character like Daenerys who never had to sit through the training. Dany can’t make it through one day holding court in Meereen, and calls a lid early because she’s so bored – then stops holding court all together. Actually being a Queen is horribly bureaucratic, and that’s a skill that takes some practice to be able to perform.

Sansa’s ability to hold her own as a leader also really shines during the Battle of the Blackwater, when all hope seems lost and Cersei abandons the women in Maegar’s Holdfast:

“Oh, gods,” an old woman wailed. “We’re lost, the battle’s lost, she’s running.” Several children were crying. They can smell the fear. Sansa found herself alone on the dais. Should she stay here, or run after the queen and plead for her life?

She never knew why she got to her feet, but she did. “Don’t be afraid,” she told them loudly. “The queen has raised the drawbridge. This is the safest place in the city. There’s thick walls, the moat, the spikes . . .”

“What’s happened?” demanded a woman she knew slightly, the wife of a lesser lordling. “What did Osney tell her? Is the king hurt, has the city fallen?”

“Tell us,” someone else shouted. One woman asked about her father, another her son.

Sansa raised her hands for quiet. “Joffrey’s come back to the castle. He’s not hurt. They’re still fighting, that’s all I know, they’re fighting bravely. The queen will be back soon.” The last was a lie, but she had to soothe them. She noticed the fools standing under the galley. “Moon Boy, make us laugh.”

Sansa has no reason to do this. Cersei has given Ser Ilyn orders to kill her if the castle falls, and all the women in the holdfast are older than she is. She’s the last person who should be capable of standing up to take charge, considering her age and her impending death by execution.

She knows she’s faced with a choice: try and save her own life, or stay and comfort the women in the holdfast. And she decides to stay.

True Knights

This book sees Sansa’s worldview start to deepen. She’s only a child when the series starts, and like most kids has a very simple understanding of the world; there’s good and bad people, and good and bad things that happen. Songs were the way Sansa gave that worldview structure. They taught her that the good things happened to the good people, and the bad things happened to the bad people. Westeros is fair, and only the good people could be put in charge to do good things. Kings, queens, and knights were all avatars of the inherent goodness of the world; people put in place specifically to protect others.

This worldview became unsustainable for Sansa after Ned’s death. Every single rule the songs taught her was violated by her father’s execution. In her last chapter of A Game of Thrones, we see Sansa turn to nihilism as a result; her father is dead, her prince is a monster, and the knights sworn to protect her are the ones beating her. She doesn’t believe in anything anymore, so much so that she just wants to die.

In A Clash of Kings, Sansa starts to grapple with the overwhelming cognitive dissonance. Ned’s death and Joffrey’s cruelty taught her how evil people can be; but she also knows how good they can be, because she grew up in Winterfell. For all of their shortcomings, Ned and Catelyn were loving parents who tried their best to do good, and raised their kids the same.

Sansa still believes in goodness, but sees that everyone around her fails to live up to it:

Knights are sworn to defend the weak, protect women, and fight for the right, but none of them did a thing. Only Ser Dontos had tried to help, and he was no longer a knight, no more than the Imp was, nor the Hound . . . the Hound hated knights . . . I hate them too, Sansa thought. They are no true knights, not one of them.

Notice how she thinks They are no true knights. Sansa is surrounded by unimaginable cruelty, but she holds on to an undying sense of optimism. She knows that real knights don’t fight for the right, but that doesn’t stop her from continuing to believe in those ideals. Unlike in A Game of Thrones, when her belief in good was attached to specific people like Joffrey and Cersei, Sansa’s new worldview isn’t dependent on people to live up to. She believes in doing the right thing no matter what, even if the people around her let her down.

Sansa’s conception of beauty is the same way; in the first book, she assumed that beautiful people must also be good. But in A Clash of Kings, she reverses that order; people become either beautiful or ugly to her based on how good or bad they are. We view Joffrey through many POVs, and it is clear that by any standard that he is objectively attractive; yet Sansa now finds him ugly:

His plump pink lips always made him look pouty. Sansa had liked that once, but now it made her sick.

And she thinks this of the Hound:

The scars are not the worst part, not even the way his mouth twitches. It’s his eyes. She had never seen eyes so full of anger.

It’s not his physical appearance that scares her, it’s the anger in his eyes. That’s the part of him that’s ugly to her.

This evolution in Sansa’s understanding is never clearer than in her interactions with Dontos. The parts of his appearance that Sansa finds unattractive are his blotchy skin and broken veins, which are both symptoms of his constant drinking. It’s his drinking that bothers her:

“I prayed and prayed. Why would they send me a drunken old fool?”

. . .

This is madness, to trust myself to this drunkard

But Sansa manages to look beyond that as soon as Dontos invokes Florian the Fool. As much as Sansa understands that the songs aren’t true, the idea still appeal to her. When Dontos says he wants to make amends and become a true knight, in spirit if not name, Sansa treats him as if he actually were a knight:

“Rise, ser.”

. . .

Sansa took a step . . . then spun back, nervous, and softly laid a kiss on his cheek, her eyes closed. “My Florian,” she whispered. “The gods heard my prayer.”

Sansa’s growing understanding of the world around her also changes the way she thinks of class. To some extent in A Song of Ice and Fire, every single character is classist because they’re all rich people in an extremely hierarchical society. The entire structure of kings, lord paramounts, lords, knights, and peasants requires you to be classist; if you believe everyone in Westeros is equal, the entire structure of the society crumbles. While some of the POV characters like Jon and Davos make great strides in understanding how bankrupt the Westerosi class structure is, they’re still generally classist; it’s almost impossible not to be when you grow up in the culture they did. Davos grew up poor, but the indoctrination of classism has given him an almost religious fervor to follow Stannis as the “true” king.

Sansa especially had a very rigid understanding of class in A Game of Thrones; Arya making friends with the butcher’s boy was anathema to her. But the more that Sansa sees the people in power as the monsters they really are, the more sympathy she has for the people below her. In the sept praying before the Battle of the Blackwater, she holds hands with a washerwoman:

The old woman’s hand was bony and hard with callus, the boy’s small and soft, but it was good to have someone to hold on to

The more Cersei and Joffrey try to isolate Sansa, the more they try to snuff out any feeling of goodness or loyalty she had, the more Sansa reaches out to connect with people. Everything bad that happens to her makes her feel more connected to the people of King’s Landing. She’s too young and privileged (class-wise) to have a fully functioning understanding of the true evils of hierarchy, but she fundamentally understands something most of the aristocracy do not: that the common people are people and should be treated with respect.

She knows the common people will suffer the most if Stannis breaches the city walls, and prays for theme:

She sang along with grizzled old serving men and anxious young wives, with serving girls and soldiers, cooks and falconers, knights and knaves, squires and spit boys and nursing mothers. She sang with those inside the castle walls and those without, sang with all the city. She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike

Sansa gladly positions herself alongside the working people, not offended to be among them the way the Lannisters certainly are.

Sansa’s deepening worldview also gives her an incredibly complex relationship to the songs and stories she used to love. As I’ve already mentioned, she doesn’t disown them entirely; the high ideals of the songs are still very important to Sansa. The concept of a true knight, who would actually defend the defenseless, is the cornerstone of Sansa’s belief system, and she doesn’t need that person to actually be a knight – as long as they fulfill the moral obligation of being good. (Little does she know that very person is later tasked to find her.)

But now she knows that the stories lie. She understands their role as propaganda; when Arys Oakheart tries to say the peasants believe the comet heralds Joffrey’s reign, she doesn’t believe him:

“Glory to your betrothed,” Ser Arys answered at once. “See how it flames across the sky today on His Grace’s name day, as if the gods themselves had raised a banner in his honor. The smallfolk have named it King Joffrey’s Comet.”

Doubtless that was what they told Joffrey; Sansa was not so sure.

And she can’t even finish a sentence defending knights without realizing it isn’t true:

“Do you have any notion what happens when a city is sacked, Sansa? No, you wouldn’t, would you? All you know of life you learned from singers, and there’s such a dearth of good sacking songs.”

“True knights would never harm women and children.” The words rang hollow in her ears even as she said them.

The words ring hollow in her ears because Sansa does know what happens when a city is sacked; earlier in a previous chapter, she thinks this:

The whole city was afraid. Sansa could see it from the castle walls. The smallfolk were hiding themselves behind closed shutters and barred doors as if that would keep them safe. The last time King’s Landing had fallen, the Lannisters looted and raped as they pleased and put hundreds to the sword, even though the city had opened its gates. This time the Imp meant to fight, and a city that fought could expect no mercy at all.

Cersei underestimates Sansa, assuming everything she knows is from a song, but here we see that Sansa knows that the songs don’t tell the whole story. Unlike in A Game of Thrones, she no longer holds them in complete reverence. The Sept used to represent everything beautiful about the songs to her:

Sansa had favored her mother’s gods over her father’s. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli.

It was the song’s come to life. But after Ned’s death, she hates it:

When Sansa had first beheld the Great Sept with its marble walls and seven crystal towers, she’d thought it was the most beautiful building in the world, but that had been before Joffrey beheaded her father on its steps. “I want it burned.”

She literally wants to set fire to the things that used to represent the songs.

But songs and stories are the foundation of Sansa’s world; even though she doesn’t believe in them the way she used to, they still shape her perception. She doesn’t want to let them go:

There are gods, she told herself, and there are true knights too. All the stories can’t be lies.

She still uses the template of songs and stories to interact with the world, but now with the understanding that the world is so much more complicated. Whereas before, the songs represented a sanitized version of war, Sansa begins to understand it in its entirety:

Away off, she could hear the sounds of battle. The singing almost drowned them out, but the sounds were there if you had the ears to hear: the deep moan of warhorns, the creak and thud of catapults flinging stones, the splashes and splinterings, the crackle of burning pitch and thrum of scorpions loosing their yard-long iron-headed shafts . . . and beneath it all, the cries of dying men.

It was another sort of song, a terrible song.

Thinking about something through the lens of a song no longer represents a childish fantasy for Sansa. Her conception of them is no longer permanent; her view of the songs has changed to fit with her new reality, but it’s still a comforting way for her to make sense of the world around her.

She even incorporates her love of the songs into her political manipulations:

"You're lying," Joffrey said. "I ought to drown you with him, if you care for him so much."

"I don't care for him, Your Grace." The words tumbled out desperately. "Drown him or have his head off, only . . . kill him on the morrow, if you like, but please . . . not today, not on your name day. I couldn't bear for you to have ill luck . . . terrible luck, even for kings, the singers all say so . . ."

Her use of the songs nearly saves her life here. Joffrey doesn’t know enough to be sure that she’s lying, so once the Hound corroborates her story, he has to believe it’s true.

Sansa’s attachment to the stories is integral to her character, and GRRM does a tremendous job of making it important to the arc she starts in this book, which is her continued journey from pawn to player in the Game of Thrones. Sansa’s perspective as a political actor is entirely unique from anyone else for many reasons, and one of those is her connection to the ideal version of Westeros that lives in the songs. Even as Sansa realizes the songs are lies and that the world is so much darker than she thought, she never gives up on the hope that it could be good. Her unwavering optimism for the world, in the face of so much trauma, means that she will never stop trying to make the world better.

Flowering

Throughout her time in King’s Landing, Sansa’s experiences with sexuality are inextricably linked to violence. The way Joffrey physically abuses her comes with a nasty undercurrent of sexual violence. The total control he exerts over her means she has to let him do what he wants:

The king settled back in his seat and took Sansa's hand. His touch filled her with revulsion now, but she knew better than to show it. She made herself sit very still.

The subtext of that scene is drawn to the forefront when Joffrey has Sansa beaten after Robb’s victory at Oxcross:

“Leave her face,” Joffrey commanded. “I like her pretty.”

. . .

“Boros, make her naked.”

Boros shoved a meaty hand down the front of Sansa’s bodice and gave a hard yank. The silk came tearing away, baring her to the waist. Sansa covered her breasts with her hands. She could hear sniggers, far off and cruel.

This is one of Sansa’s first experiences with sexuality, and it is nonconsensual and done specifically to humiliate her.

The relationship between sex and violence is never clearer than at the start of the Blackwater:

"Bless my steel with a kiss." He extended the blade down to her. "Go on, kiss it."

He had never sounded more like a stupid little boy. Sansa touched her lips to the metal, thinking that she would kiss any number of swords sooner than Joffrey

Joffrey is asking Sansa to kiss his sword; the metaphor here is not exactly subtle. To Joffrey, sex and violence are one in the same; having power over someone, hurting someone, turns him on as much as physical attraction. And as his betrothed, Sansa is on the receiving end of his sexually charged violence.

Unlike Joffrey, Sansa’s not turned on by violence, seeing it and sexuality as two separates things. And she would rather suffer through the violence, thinking to herself she would rather kiss the sword than kiss Joffrey. Her experiences with being found attractive to someone have all been so traumatic that actual violence scares her less.

Arguably the most traumatic experience she has is during the bread riot:

Sansa dug her nails into her hand. She could feel the fear in her tummy, twisting and pinching, worse every day. Nightmares of the day Princess Myrcella had sailed still troubled her sleep; dark suffocating dreams that woke her in the black of night, struggling for breath. She could hear the people screaming at her, screaming without words, like animals. They had hemmed her in and thrown filth at her and tried to pull her off her horse, and would have done worse if the Hound had not cut his way to her side. They had torn the High Septon to pieces and smashed in Ser Aron's head with a rock. Try not to be afraid! he said.

In the nightmares she has of that day, she dreams of being murdered; a knife cutting through her stomach until she’s left in bloody ribbons. It’s not hard to see the violent sexual imagery in that description. Sansa knows what those men planned on doing to her, and the memory haunts her. It’s no coincidence that she wakes from those nightmares to her first period:

“No, please,” Sansa whimpered, “please, no.” She didn’t want this happening to her, not now, not here, not now, not now, not now, not now.

The way GRRM writes her reaction is so visceral. As tears streams down her cheeks, she tries to wash herself, cuts apart her sheets, burns them, and tries to drag her entire bed into the flames as well. And the whole time she does this, she keeps thinking They’ll know or What will I tell them? or I have to burn them. She’s so completely and utterly terrified that anyone could ever know, she’s hardly even thinking. It’s just sheer, overwhelming panic.

This line in particular stands out:

The bedclothes were burnt, but by the time they carried her off her thighs were bloody again. It was as if her own body had betrayed her to Joffrey, unfurling a banner of Lannister crimson for all the world to see.

Down to jewelry she wears and the way she styles her hair, Sansa’s body belongs to Joffrey. Her job in King’s Landing is to look pretty for him in the hopes that it will save her from his wrath. Her body exists solely to please him. She’s literally stripped of her own agency and control.

Flowering is the last straw for Sansa because it means she can be tied forever to Joffrey through marriage, and he’ll be free to rape her and force her to have his children. And there’s nothing Sansa can do to stop it. Her own body has betrayed her by merely existing.

Sansa’s period is again equated to physical violence during the Battle of the Blackwater:

“You look pale, Sansa,” Cersei observed. “Is your red flower still blooming?”

“Yes.”

“How apt. The men will bleed out there, and you in here.”

Then a second time, Cersei compares sex to violence:

“You little fool. Tears are not a woman’s only weapon. You’ve got another one between your legs, and you’d best learn to use it.”

Through Cersei’s eyes, we get the clearest summary of the point GRRM is trying to make. Existing as a woman in Westeros is inherently oppressive to the point of smothering the life out of her. Where the men are given swords, women are given marriage and childbirth; but the latter is no less violent than the former. In Cersei’s words:

“We were so much alike, I could never understand why they treated us so differently. Jaime learned to fight with sword and lance and mace, while I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, while I was to be sold to some stranger like a horse, to be ridden whenever my new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a younger filly. Jaime’s lot was to be glory and power, while mine was birth and moonblood.”

“But you were queen of all the Seven Kingdoms,” Sansa said.

“When it comes to swords, a queen is only a woman after all.”

In many ways, Sansa’s arc in A Clash of Kings is centered around this idea; the violence of femininity in Westeros. Being a child isn’t enough to spare Sansa the horrors. The whole reason she’s trapped in King’s Landing to begin with is because of her body; the Lannisters want to use her like property – a broodmare to sire them sons to inherit Winterfell.

It’s no surprise the climax of Sansa’s chapters in A Clash of Kings pushes this concept to its furthest bounds . . .

Ser Dontos and The Hound

Throughout Sansa’s chapters in King’s Landing, GRRM is deconstructing the trope of the Princess in the Tower. Sansa more than any other character is aware that her life takes place within a story, and she prays to the gods to send her a hero to save from the Red Keep. GRRM had already subverted the idea of a charming Prince with Joffrey in the first book, so A Clash of Kings subverts the trope of a knight coming to save her. That’s why her two protectors in King’s Landing are Dontos and Sandor Clegane – two men who aren’t quite knights.

For most of the book, the narrative treats Dontos and Sandor as foils. The story of why either one is not a knight puts them on two opposite ends of a spectrum. Dontos has his knighthood taken away from him because he’s too soft. He would rather drink and let people laugh at him than fight with a sword, which is why Joffrey makes him a fool. On the other hand, the Hound likes killing too much to be a knight:

“Let them have their lands and their gods and their gold. Let them have their sers.” Sandor Clegane spat at her feet to show what he thought of that. “So long as I have this,” he said, lifting the sword from her throat, “there’s no man on earth I need fear.”

This dichotomy between them is made clearer in the way Sansa has to escape their advances. Around Dontos, she’s dodging kisses:

"Give your Florian a little kiss now. A kiss for luck." He swayed toward her.

Sansa dodged the wet groping lips, kissed him lightly on an unshaven cheek, and bid him good night. It took all her strength not to weep.

But it’s a steel kiss she has to dodge from the Hound:

He laid the edge of his longsword against her neck, just under her ear. Sansa could feel the sharpness of the steel.

The idea of Dontos and Sandor as opposites is driven home further by their different approaches to Sansa’s love of stories; Dontos uses it to win Sansa’s trust:

“I think I may find it in me to be a knight again, sweet lady. And all because of you . . . your grace, your courage. You saved me, not only from Joffrey, but from myself." His voice dropped. "The singers say there was another fool once who was the greatest knight of all . . ."

"Florian," Sansa whispered. A shiver went through her.

"Sweet lady, I would be your Florian," Dontos said humbly, falling to his knees before her.

The Hound uses it to berate and belittle her:

“There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can’t protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don’t ever believe any different.”

Sansa backed away from him. “You’re awful.”

“I’m honest. It’s the world that’s awful. Now fly away, little bird, I’m sick of you peeping at me.”

But underneath the superficial differences, Dontos and the Hound have the exact same relationship to Sansa. When Joffrey is having her beat after Robb’s victory at Oxcross, both make efforts to help her – Dontos volunteering to hit her with a melon instead of a sword, and the Hound telling Joffrey “enough” – but stop short of doing anything that would put themselves in danger. They both make advances on Sansa against her will – Dontos with kisses and the Hound with knives, but the overt sexual nature of both cannot be denied. They both position themselves to Sansa as a sort of mentor figure, telling her how to act and what to believe, with the implicit (and often explicit) message that she’s not smart enough to think for herself and it would really be in her best interest if she just trusted them instead. Both men position themselves as Sansa’s “protector”, but they never protect her from much of anything; in the few moments they’re actually given the opportunity, like during the Battle of the Blackwater, they both panic and leave her to fend for herself.

What really connects the two men is how they use Sansa. To them, she’s the paragon of youth and innocence; the way she believes in the stories reminds them both of what they used to be like before the world beat them down. Sandor was a boy who played with toy knights before Gregor burned his face, and Dontos was saved as a child by the knight of knights Barristan Selmy. While they’ve both grown jaded, Sansa brings out the parts of them that still believe in the stories. That’s clear from the way Dontos reacts to the Lannisters winning the Battle of the Blackwater:

“Oh! the banners, darling Sansa! Oh! to be a knight!”

And even though the Hound claims to hate the stories, it’s a song he wants from Sansa:

“Go on. Sing to me. Some song about knights and fair maids.”

Sansa as the princess in a tower appeals to the fantasy of both men to be her hero.

But this is a subversion of that trope, not a straight retelling. Particularly in regards to Sandor, GRRM really deconstructs the destructive nature of this male fantasy. Before Sandor asks Sansa to sing him a song, he comments on her body:

“You look almost a woman . . . face, teats, and you’re taller too, almost . . .”

Sandor wanting to play the knight with Sansa is always tied to his sexual attraction to her; in every single instance, GRRM always ties them together. There is never one without the other. It should go without saying that this is not good; Sansa is barely twelve, and hasn’t even had her first period when Sandor’s sexual advances start. She is a child. In Maegar’s Holdfast, she’s shocked that men would view her sexually:

“Enough drink will make blind washerwomen and reeking pig girls seem as comely as you, sweetling.”

“Me?”

“Try not to sound so like a mouse, Sansa. You’re a woman now, remember?”

This passage also very clearly draws the connection between Sandor’s relationship to Sansa and violence. Cersei explains to Sansa the way battle makes men into monsters around women, and then the next chapter Sandor appears in Sansa’s bedroom with a knife. This is not meant to be a romantic scene, or else GRRM would not have framed it with threats of rape and violence.

This is further re-enforced by the song Sansa sings to Sandor. When he holds the knife to her neck, he demands she sing the song of Florian and Jonquil:

He gave her arm a hard wrench, pulling her around and shoving her down onto the bed. “I’ll have that song, Florian and Jonquil, you said.” His dagger was poised at her throat. “Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life.”

But Sansa can’t remember the words, and instead sings the Mother’s Mercy hymn:

Gentle Mother, font of mercy, save our sons from war, we pray, stay the swords and stay the arrows, let them know a better day.

Gentle Mother, strength of women, help our daughters through this fray, sooth the wrath and tame the fury, teach us all a kinder way.

It is incredibly symbolic that the Hound demands Sansa sing him a song of romance, but she physically can’t; the only song she can remember the words to is one of forgiveness.

So much of Sansa’s narrative in A Clash of Kings is people demanding things that she can’t give them. Joffrey wants her loyalty, Cersei wants her words, Tyrion wants her trust, and Dontos and Sandor want her love. Everyone is pulling her in different directions, and her entire personality starts to crumble under the pressure; there’s no way she can give all of these people everything they want. Something has to give.

And when Sansa can no longer play her role, when the fear of dying is too visceral for her to wear her courtesy like an armor, the one thing Sansa can still give Sandor is her mercy. . .

Radical Empathy

The running thread that connects all of the themes in Sansa’s chapters is her being trapped. Physically through Joffrey’s abuse, emotionally through Joffrey, Cersei, Dontos, and Sandor, and even by herself mentally as she begins to internalize the abuse. Everything about the Red Keep is meant to turn Sansa cruel and self-interested, just like everybody else; even if they aren’t intentionally cruel like Joffrey, they’re okay with Sansa being hurt because that’s just how life is, like Cersei. Or Dontos and the Hound, who don’t intend to hurt Sansa but do because they’re too caught up in their own narrative to acknowledge her humanity. Even Arys Oakheart, who really doesn’t want to hurt her, but is too afraid to say no and defy the class structure of Westeros.

That makes Sansa’s defiance through empathy stand out in such radical contrast. The kindness Sansa shows everyone, even those who hurt her, is how GRRM brings the songs to life. Sansa doesn’t love those stories because she’s silly and naïve; she loves them because they justify her belief in the inherent goodness of being kind.

Empathy and kindness are Sansa’s defining character traits, and that’s why her arc in A Clash of Kings opens with her saving Dontos’ life:

Sansa heard herself gasp. “No, you can’t.”

Joffrey turned his head. “What did you say?”

Sansa could not believe she had spoken. Was she mad? To tell him no in front of half the court? She hadn’t meant to say anything, only . . . Ser Dontos was drunk and silly and useless, but he meant no harm.

Even though just moments earlier she had noted Joffrey’s mood was turning dark:

The way Sansa stands up for Dontos is particularly notable because he had the chance to do the same for her in A Game of Thrones, but chose not to:

Sickly Lord Gyles covered his face at her approach and feigned a fit of coughing, and when funny drunken Ser Dontos started to hail her, Ser Balon Swann whispered in his ear and he turned away.

- Sansa V

Dontos wouldn’t even risk treating Sansa with basic courtesy, yet she risked her live to save his.

And that’s not the only time Sansa stands up to Joffrey to save someone:

Halfway along the route, a wailing woman forced her way between two watchmen and ran out into the street in front of the king and his companions, holding the corpse of her dead baby above her head. It was blue and swollen, grotesque, but the real horror was the mother's eyes. Joffrey looked for a moment as if he meant to ride her down, but Sansa Stark leaned over and said something to him. The king fumbled in his purse, and flung the woman a silver stag.

- Tyrion IX

The only other character we ever see move to actually stand up to Joffrey is Tyrion, who is also the only person in court who doesn’t have to be afraid of Joffrey’s retaliation. Everyone else sits by day after day and watches as Joffrey abuses Sansa and says nothing; or worse, they actively participate. But whenever Sansa sees Joffrey hurting someone, she risks herself to make him stop.

Sansa also uses her kindness to give herself courage:

Sansa found herself possessed of a queer giddy courage. “You should go with her,” she told the king. “Your brother might be hurt.”

Joffrey shrugged. “What if he is?”

“You should help him up and tell him how well he rode.” Sansa could not seem to stop herself.

She’s too afraid to speak back at Joffrey when he’s abusing her, but as soon as she sees him mistreat Tommen, she finds the courage to stand up for others.

Kindness is almost an involuntary reflex for Sansa:

Lancel was one of them, yet somehow she still could not bring herself to wish him dead. I am soft and weak and stupid, just as Joffrey says. I should be killing him, not helping him.

Lancel Lannister, who stood by and egged the crowd on as Sansa was stripped and beaten after the Battle at Oxcross. She has every reason not to help him; she knows if she stays in that room, with the battle all but lost, Ser Ilyn is going to kill her solely because of the Lannisters’ spite. She has no reason to stay and help Lancel. But she can��t stop herself.

The moment where Sansa’s kindness stands out the most, though, is when the Hound comes to her room during Blackwater:

Some instinct made her lift her hand and cup his cheek with her fingers. The room was too dark for her to see him, but she could feel the stickiness of the blood, and a wetness that was not blood. “Little bird,” he said once more, his voice raw and harsh as steel on stone. Then he rose from the bed. Sansa heard cloth ripping, followed by the softer sound of retreating footsteps.

I think reading this passage out of context is what allows certain fans to paint this scene in a romantic light. The softness of Sansa reaching out to touch Sandor is an indelible moment. But it does the moment a disservice to read it that way. This scene is so well written because of what comes before it:

“I could keep you safe,” he rasped. “They’re all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I’d kill them.” He yanked her closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. He was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes, wanting it to be over, but nothing happened. “Still can’t bear to look, can you?” he heard him say. He gave her arm a hard wrench, pulling her around and shoving her down onto the bed. “I’ll have that song, Florian and Jonquil, you said.” His dagger was poised at her throat. “Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life.”

Afraid for her life, Sansa closes her eyes. But Sandor is too bitter, jaded, and wrapped up in his own self to realize that’s why she closes her eyes; he thinks it’s because she still can’t look at the burned ruin of his face. He came to her room with kindness the furthest thing from his mind; the flames dancing on the Blackwater Rush made him scared like a wild animal, and he’s come here to get something from Sansa – whether she wants to give it or no.

(And while certain people are interested in carrying a lot of water to redeem this character, GRRM has really left no ambiguity in Sandor’s intentions. The passage He gave her arm a hard wrench, pulling her around and shoving her down onto the bed, taken in tandem with his confession to Arya, I took the bloody song, she never gave it. I meant to take her too. I should have. I should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out before leaving her for that dwarf, make it very clear that Sandor intended to rape Sansa. That is not up for debate.)

Sansa singing the Mother’s Mercy hymn is the last thing Sandor expected. The idea that in this moment, as Sandor becomes all of the worst things he’s ever believed about himself, about to do one of the most monstrous acts a person can do – that in that moment, Sansa could still show him mercy, is enough to stop him. He can no longer pretend that all the songs are lies and that everyone is only pretending to be good, because in this moment Sansa is still somehow capable of showing him kindness.

Sansa’s ability to have empathy for seemingly irredeemable characters is not limited to Sandor (though certain shippers would like to pretend that’s some unique characteristic of their relationship, it most certainly is not). The dynamic between Sansa and Cersei is so rich because of Sansa’s inability to hate her, even though Cersei is responsible for pretty much every bad thing in Sansa’s life.

The Sansa and Cersei dynamic is one of the narrative’s most dynamic and complex, as Cersei represents a dark mirror of Sansa. Both were in love with the idea of becoming Queen as children, but arrived in King’s Landing to find their Prince is not who they thought he would be – Cersei both literally and figuratively, as she realizes she’s not to marry Rhaegar Targaryen but instead Robert Baratheon. They’re both subjected to emotional and physical abuse by the King for things that aren’t their fault – Robert hates Cersei because she isn’t Lyanna, and Joffrey hates Sansa because of his fight with Arya on the Trident.

But Cersei’s Lannister upbringing and life have made her cruel in all the ways Sansa is kind. She can see the parallels between herself and Sansa, but instead of reacting with empathy, she uses it to justify her cruelty:

“You’re stronger than you seem, though. I expect you’ll survive a bit of humiliation. I did.”

Being afraid of the men in her life has taught Cersei that’s the correct way to wield power:

“Another lesson you should learn, if you hope to sit beside my son. Be gentle on a night like this and you’ll have treasons popping up all about you like mushrooms after a hard rain. The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy.”

But Sansa reacts the opposite way:

“I will remember, Your Grace,” said Sansa, though she had always heard that love was a surer route to the people’s loyalty than fear. If I am ever a queen, I’ll make them love me.

This line has become the definitive statement of Sansa’s character because it so wholly embodies her ethos. Cruelty is not in her nature, and her instinct is always to show kindness. It also ties a direct connection to her own personal experiences shaping how she wants to be as Queen:

“Fear is better than love, Mother says.” Joffrey pointed at Sansa. “She fears me.”

Sansa knows what it feels like to be afraid, and she never wants anyone else to ever feel like that. Where the cruelty Cersei suffered taught her it was normal and good to rule that way, Sansa learns what it feels like to be at someone else’s mercy. If she ever has control over someone, which she will in books to come, she’s learned to always be kind because she knows what it feels like when someone isn’t.

All of her chapters in A Clash of Kings are full of moments that show how much Sansa values kindness. While I’ve already highlighted the life or death examples, she also shines in the small moments, like when she encourages Tommen before he faces the quintain at Joffrey’s name day tourney. And she comforts him when Myrcella leaves for Dorne:

Prince Tommen sobbed. "You mew like a suckling babe," his brother hissed at him. "Princes aren't supposed to cry."

"Prince Aemon the Dragonknight cried the day Princess Naerys wed his brother Aegon," Sansa Stark said, "and the twins Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk died with tears on their cheeks after each had given the other a mortal wound."

- Tyrion IX

She tries to comfort Lollys Stokeworth across the bridge to Maegar’s Holdfast:

She greeted them courteously. “May I be of help?”

Lady Tanda flushed with shame. “No, my lady, but we thank you kindly. You must forgive my daughter, she has not been well.”

“I don’t want to.” Lollys clutched at her maid, a slender, pretty girl with short dark hair who looked as though she wanted nothing so much as to shove her mistress into the dry moat, onto those iron spikes. “Please, please, I don’t want to.”

Sansa spoke to her gently. “We’ll all be thrice protected inside, and there’s to be food and drink and song as well.”

Her prayer in the Sept before the battle starts shows just how much she cares for everyone:

She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike, for Bran and Rickon and Robb, for her sister Arya and her bastard brother Jon Snow, away off on the Wall. She sang for her mother and her father, for her grandfather Lord Hoster and her uncle Edmure Tully, for her friend Jeyne Poole, for old drunken King Robert, for Septa Mordane and Ser Dontos and Jory Cassel and Maester Luwin, for all the brave knights and soldiers who would die today, and for the children and the wives who would mourn them, and finally, toward the end, she even sang for Tyrion the Imp and for the Hound. He is no true knight but he saved me all the same, she told the Mother. Save him if you can, and gentle the rage inside him.

There’s only one person in the whole of Westeros Sansa won’t extend her empathy to:

But when the septon climbed on high and called upon the gods to protect and defend their true and noble king, Sansa got to her feet. The aisles were jammed with people. She had to shoulder through while the septon called upon the Smith to lend strength to Joffrey’s sword and shield, the Warrior to give him courage, the Father to defend him in his need. Let his sword break and his shield shatter, Sansa thought coldly as she shoved out through the doors, let his courage fail him and every man desert him.

This line feels especially important. A lesson that’s drilled into Sansa time and time again by Cersei and Sandor is that her kindness makes her weak. It was used against her in A Game of Thrones, where her trust in Cersei and Joffrey left her completely vulnerable to Ned’s death. But this passage shows that it is not weakness that makes Sansa kind - it’s strength. For a character as kind as she is, and subjected to so much abuse, it would be easy to see her narrative as someone repeatedly letting herself be run over. By including this line, showing that Sansa’s empathy is a choice she makes – and making it clear that she chooses not to have it for Joffrey – it shows that Sansa still has control over herself, and will set boundaries.

Instead of using her experiences in a negative way like Cersei, Sansa learns to carefully apply the lessons of her life; she won’t let abuse stop her from being kind, but she knows when to stop herself from trusting someone again.

Because Sansa’s kindness and optimism are the most important aspects of her character, her arc in A Clash of Kings ends there. Joffrey setting her aside in favor of Margaery is an emotional rollercoaster for Sansa:

Dontos waited in the leafy moonlight. “Why so sadface?” Sansa asked him gaily. “You were there, you heard. Joff put me aside, he’s done with me, he’s . . .”

He took her hand. “Oh, Jonquil, my poor Jonquil, you do not understand. Done with you? They’ve scarcely begun.”

Her heart sank. “What do you mean?”

“The queen will never let you go, never. You are too valuable a hostage. And Joffrey . . . sweetling, he is still king. If he wants you in his bed, he will have you, only now it will be bastards he plants in your womb instead of trueborn sons.”

Throughout A Song of Ice and Fire, the narrative is constantly testing Sansa’s commitment to her ideals. Everything she knows is constantly turned on its head, going from a dream to a nightmare. The momentary joy she feels knowing she doesn’t have to marry Joffrey is only allowed for a second, until it collides with Dontos’ harsh reality.

But instead of ending there, the narrative takes a page out of Sansa’s book and leaves on a vision of hope for the future:

It was a hair net of fine spun silver, the strands so thin and delicate the net seemed to weigh no more than a breath of air when Sansa took it in her fingers. Small gems were set wherever two strands crossed, so dark they drank the moonlight. “What stones are these?”

“Black amethysts from Asshai. The rarest kind, a deep true purple by daylight.”

“It’s very lovely,” Sansa said, thinking, It is a ship I need, not a net for my hair.

“Lovelier than you know, sweet child. It’s magic, you see. It’s justice you hold. It’s vengeance for your father.” Dontos leaned close and kissed her again. “It’s home.”

#Sansa Stark #game of thrones #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #just over 15000 words #which is a new personal record #sansa meta

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alittlebitofinsanitea · 3 years

Text

Head-Cannons for Jealous Kageyama, Suga, Iwaizumi, & Bokuto

request: hi! May I request hc's of iwazumi, bokuto, mattsun, suga, and kageyama on how they act when they're jealous? I couldn't find a character limit in your rules so feel free to do however many you like :) Have a good one lovely human <3

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Hi honey! So I didn’t write it but I'm going to be doing four per head-cannon! thank you for requesting! <3 These are gender neutral/no pronouns so I hope that’s ok, hope you enjoy! Also to everyone, requests are open!

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~Kageyama~

✰ you’ve been in class all day and finally the bell rings and its lunch

✰ you and a friend are sitting, talking about homework, eating, as one does during lunch. You normally sit with him because kags always plays volleyball during break, surprised? no.

✰ all sweet Kags wanted to do this lunch was to sit with his baby!!!

✰ he sees you sitting real close to this other guy, and what does his awkward ass do? FUCKING STARES AT YOU, clown to clown communication going on right here

✰ anyone coming into the cafeteria just sees him blocking the path with the smoke whirling around his head

✰ you finally turn around after feeling two burning holes in the back of your head and see him glancing between you and your friend

✰ dummy realizes you noticed him and turns bright red in embarrassment after noticing he has been staring at you for at least half the lunch period and he sprints

✰ this man ZOOOOOMS out of that room

✰ you, being the caring s/o you are, run after him to the best of your abilities, all the way to the vending machine

✰ by the time you get there, he’s already sipping on two milks, pouting, and bright red, poor thing

✰ you make eye contact with him as you sit down, him turning away to face a wall instead

✰ you poke his stomach and sides to get his attention, fully aware of how ticklish he is there

✰ “Y/N PLEASE!” he grits out in between fits of laughter

✰ “Why did you run out then?” you say as you cease your attack, snaking your arms around his waist

✰ his body relaxes into yours and returns the hug, he buries his face into the top of your head as he mumbles

✰ “I know you know I can't hear you,”

✰ he grunts back in response and mumbles again, just loud enough that you can hear that one, specific, word

✰ “YOU WERE JEALOUS!!!!!!” you scream so loud he jumps back a little

✰ he burrows his head into your neck in an attempt to hide from you, not the best play he could have made, but there was an attempt, he tried

✰ you move one hand to pat his head and the other stays on his back, “Kags, I don’t know why you would be jealous, I’m just friends with (Friends/N), I don’t like him like that, ok?”

✰ he straightens up and looks at you dead in the eyes, to anyone else he looks normal, but there's a little smile on his face that looks a little less creepier than usual

✰ he grabs you tight and you can hear the bell in the background, but you both ignore it and stay like that for a little longer

~Suga~

✰ everyone pretends that this man is the chillest, sweetest, calmest character in this show

✰ hell no

✰ he has as much crackhead energy radiating through his body as is possible without being a crackhead

✰ the two of you are at one of karasuno's practice matches against nekoma, and they have been trying that play with nishinoya as setter, and a few other ideas the coach came up with

✰ during a break between on of the games (which to your displeasure, have gone on forever, but you love seeing Suga play so you don't really mind) you decide to pull out your chemistry homework

✰ “why, and who made chemistry,” you say to yourself “I just want to have a little talk.”

✰ “Well I wouldn’t say a specific person invented it, but Robert Boyle is considered the first modern chemist,” you look to your left and see a tall nekoma player with bed hair

✰ you arch a brow, and get back to ‘working’, if you could call it that

✰ he sits next to you and offers a smirk and says, “Im Kuroo Tetsuro, if you want I can help with your homework if you want,”

✰ your nose scrunches up and you turn away from him

✰ “Don’t be sodium chloride,” he says as he scoots a little closer, but as he does that, you can feel the other side of you warm a little

✰ in the corner of your eye before you look to see what sat next to you, you see Suga, his eyes glaring straight at the rooster boy

✰ he drapes his arms on your shoulders and sets his head on yours and looks directly as kuroo, cold as ice, he tells him “She is fine, I can help her,”

✰ the smile on his face does nothing to hide the fact that he’s not messing around

✰ you pull him off of you to face him, giving him a little shove before telling him off,

✰ “I had it covered, it’s not like I was going to say yes, even though I probably need the help…”

✰ he raises his eyebrows at you, “I can help you, no problem!” he says sweetly, as if you both aren’t getting the same grades

✰ the next game is starting, signaled by the freak already on the court in their positions and the whistle blowing you give Suga a kiss on the cheek and tell him to go

✰ he smirks at you, and from then on in the match, whenever he spiked a ball, set a good toss, or dug anything, he looked to kuroo and directly pointed to where you sat

~Hajime Iwaizumi, (27), Athletic trainer~

✰ I don't even know what to do for this dude, no wait haha jk

✰ Iwaizumi, Oikawa, and you have been best friends for forever

✰ you guys are so close, sleepovers since you were little, you even made them an entire meal and movie night on the day they lost, lots of wet tissues and tear soaked blankets

✰ when you and Iwaizumi finally got together after year of pining after each other, nobody was more excited than Oikawa, nobody

✰ now, you three are having a sleepover to celebrate being done with midterms and you made a big pillow fort to watch your favorite movie in, with popcorn and chocolate and all of that

✰ it's dark except for the light from computer screen, you can barely make out the faces to your right and left, and it's so late, you forgot who was on which side

✰ it's hard for you to fall asleep without Iwa anymore, so you grab the arm to your left and lift it up and snuggle into the warmth of who you thought was your boyfriend

✰ because you all are so close, Oikawa didn’t think twice about wrapping his arms around you, forgetting that Iwa was even there

✰ your boyfriend started to get red in the face, “Oikawa,” he warned, trying to make his best friend back off without making a scene

✰ Oikawa looks to him confused, “Chill out Iwa-chan! I know it's not godzilla but it's not that bad”

✰ Iwaizumi would have left it at that, but when you turned around and hooked your leg onto your current human pillow? Ohohoho, its over

✰ he grabs your waist and throws you over his shoulder, wrecking the little tent you made and leaving the third wheel of the trio in the rubble

✰ you cry out in protest, upset that your hours of work are now suffocating your other best friend

✰ you feel every step and he takes as he walks you both towards your room the air is tense, and you don’t know what to do

✰ you enter your bedroom, still being carried by him, and he drops you on the bed, and falls on top of you, letting out a noise of comfort as you squirm

✰ “Hajime please get of you’re squishing meee!” you wheeze out the last part

✰ he doesn’t verbally acknowledge you but he adjusts himself so you both are comfortable

✰ “Is this ok?” he asks quietly

✰ “yeah,” you reply, “It is.”

✰ Neither of you seem to notice oikawa taking photos, and the next day, oikawa shows iwa, but not without a volleyball to the head

✰ neither you nor oikawa know that's his screen on his phone

~Bokuto~

✰ When does this boy not get jealous, not because of you no! He trusts you with anything and everything, and he loves showing you off

✰ that is until all the attention goes to you and he thinks everyone is going to take you away, especially when he goes emo mode, he’s about ready to give you up to anyone :( but you never go obviously

✰ akaashi managed to convince you to become manager, he said that it would come in handy when he started to become self destructive

✰ and it worked! You were able to save a lot of games and akaashi’s mental health, for a while that is

✰ today was the first day of spring high finals, teams everywhere, balls flying, and Bokuto was anxious, and it was showing

✰ as the team walks to the court, you grab Bokuto's hand and you grab it tight letting him know you are there for him

✰ he began to feel less tense and calmed down once again

✰ the game started and it was going smoothly, the other team wasn't able to shut down any Fukurōdani’s attacks

✰ that is until, the other team's captain started flirting with you

✰ whenever he makes a point, he would say some gross ass pick up line, or wink at you, and even worse, he would make sure to meet eyes with Bokuto, every, single, time

✰ Bokuto’s shots have gotten worse, he's hitting into the blockers, the net, and even missing the ball completely

✰ it physically hurts you when this happens to your boyfriend, and at this point you are sick of it, and have started to grow annoyed at the creepily corny capitan

✰ you whisper to the coach to call Bokuto in who is currently hanging onto akaashi, asking him not to set to him anymore

✰ the coach calls a time out, and signals the rest of the team to stay on the court, Bokuto doesn’t even notice the rest of his teammates standing still around him

✰ when he reaches the bench you grab him by the shoulders and look him in the eyes and say “Baby, kick his ass.”

✰ you move your head to face the other captain and smile, then you grab Bokuto's face and kiss him, hard

✰ the time out ends and your team is flushed with embarrassment, but Bokuto was hyped up jumping all over the court, and ready to destroy the other team

✰ (they won the rest of the set no points lost)

#bokuto x reader #bokuto hcs #kageyama x reader #kageyama hcs #iwaizumi hcs #iwaizumi x reader #suga x reader #suga hcs #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #sugawara kōshi #sugawara x you #sugawara x reader

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undead-merman · 3 years

Note

Yo this is the person who asked about Monster Dia and Barb, I just want a monster that suits them best.

Alright, I’ve got Barbatos as a Naga and Diavolo as a Dragon

Obey Me Headcanons (Monster Edition) 🐲Diavolo🐲 and 🐍Barbatos🐍 as Yanderes GN - Reader SFW

Diavolo

Appearance

Diavolo is a proud dragon. He stands much taller than most in the Devildom. His large human figure stands at ten feet tall.

His skin is covered in dark maroon and gold scales, most of them centered around his face, chest, and legs. His legs resemble a dragon’s more than a human’s with three wide toes and long black talons.

He has a long prehensile tail as well tipped with a tuff of black fur and lined with large black plates sticking up dangerously.

His horns and teeth are long and fearsome, his fangs always manage to hang out of his mouth and his smile can be just as lovely as they are terrifying. His horns are always adored with gold accessories, usually in the shape of: golden skulls, torn wings, and blood red rubies.

In his True Form he stands taller then any building in the Devildom and with a wingspan capable of casting a whole city in darkness.

Diavolo’s build is much bulkier in this form, mostly seen around the jaw, and wings. His wings contain rougher and sharper scales and contain some of the black plates his tail has.

His Hoard and His Breath

Diavolo’s bed chamber also doubles as the Royal Treasury. Since his draconic nature craves hoarding wealth he has a need to sleep amongst the treasure.

Every morning he spends his first hour of awakening, sitting amongst the hoard, fiddling with gems and Grimm in his clawed hands, immersing himself in the candle lit room of wealth. Afterwards, he gets up to drink tea with breakfast while reading the R.A.D Newspaper.

He gets anxious and grumpy if he can’t be near his hoard for too long. Barbatos has to help make time in Diavolo’s schedule for Hoard Breaks.

Whenever he pleases, he’s able to breath massive plumes of black hot fire and streams of red lighting. Everything in its wide path is reduced to ash. It gets wider the angrier he gets, and it’s believed that if he truly was ever to get enraged, he could destroy the entire Devildom.

Spending Time with You

Diavolo is captivated with you to the point of obsession, needing you by his side at all times, though knows you need some freedom. Despite his instinctual anxiety of you having autonomy, he knows he could easily dispose of anything should it ever threaten his position with you. Anyone who makes you doubt him, or try to lure you to their side, he would make sure there is no trace of them left.

You are often given gifts, his form of courting you even if you’ve already tied the knot. Gifting you outfits and jewelry made from the finest gold and purest gems. He does this because he now considers you the center of his hoard, the paragon of his wealth, treasure and triumph. He wants to coat you in beautiful fine things.

He enjoys you touching the scaly parts of his body. It feels nice to have your soft warm skin on his cool scales. If you're not against it he’d enjoy you grooming him, it's relaxing.

He loves to have paintings of you made in different beautiful outfits in graceful poses amongst fantastical locations. He likes to sit with you as you pose for the artist and just talk. He adores this special time with you.

You’re the one in existence that has the right to join him in his hoard, and he thoroughly enjoys the time he spends with you in his hoard, which feels more complete with you amongst the jewels. If he had it his way, he would forget about everything except you and his treasures.

His Dark Tendencies

He has such a deep infatuation with you that he would do anything to have you. Though he doesn’t want to force the feeling onto you, instead he does it in secret, keeping up the perfect prince image for you as much as possible.

If he sees someone he deems a threat, he’d make sure they’re taken quietly and dealt with far away from you so there's no possibility you could ever see it.

Sometimes if they’ve made him angry, he’ll take the perpetrator to a private hunting ground so he can hunt them down and eat them himself, making sure not even the bones are left.

He had a wing built onto the castle just to house the thousand portraits he had made. He’s slowly overtime made it into a museum dedicated in all of your splendor. Glass encased objects of random things you had given to him, ranging from birthday presents to random cans of vending machine black tea.

He has stolen a few of your clothes, a uniform jacket or tie. He likes to fall asleep with your scent in his nose.

Diavolo doesn’t punish you at all, you can do no wrong in his eyes, only others can mislead you. He wants you yourself to fall in love with him, you have to learn by yourself how much of a perfect match you are.

Misc. Stuff

Despite being a Dragon with such fierce fire, Diavolo loves to fish in a sized down version of true form.

When he gets too excited his tail wags like a dog’s. He’s been known to have knocked over a few things with his tail when you or Lucifer came to a party or ball of his.

His eyes turn reptilian like in his humanoid form when he gets upset, or when he wakes up in the morning and is processing everything. It takes him a few moments of just staring at the ceiling to figure out he’s awake.

He has given the brothers a ride on his back as a dragon a few times, but sometimes he had flown a bit too fast making them fly off.

Barbatos

Appearance

His body is long and slender, reaching forty feet long. His scales are flat and smooth, black with a teal iridescence to them. If you look at them closely you can see a triangular pattern on his back in different shades of gray and black.

His tail however splits at the end perfectly in two symmetrical pieces.

His tongue is forked and long but he hides it well, however he does have teal coloration on the tip. Barbatos also has a few scale patches on his cheeks and just along his spine to his back hairline.

Barbatos has long perfectly trimmed claws that are sharp as a razor and grown out just far enough to start curving.

Being Cold Blood

Barbatos has to deal with the annoyance of being cold blooded, if he doesn’t heat himself in a nice warm place often enough he becomes lethargic; however no one has ever seen him resting let alone warming himself, people wonder how he always manages to be ten steps ahead of everyone while being cold blooded.

His secret is Diavolo, as he exudes a warm presence simply being near him provides enough heat to keep active for an entire day; and a pot of warm herbal tea to help jump-start his day.

He’s a type of Naga to use constriction against his prey, he has fangs but no actual venom. When he gets angry at the Little Ds you can find him constricting them and giving them a cold smile while scolding them.

Spending time with You

Barbatos just finds you so captivating and pure, he wants you in his arms. He wants to protect something so soft and warm, compared to him.

He loves to wrap his tail around you, around your waist, around your shoulders, he likes it even better if he can wrap it arounds your body completely just feeling the warmth of you on his skin.

He has a habit of spoiling you by bringing you everything you ask for. He always has breakfast in bed for you, he likes to bring you your clothes and always gets the chair or door for you.

He enjoys spending time in the garden with you, sharing a cup of tea and light pastries. Light rainy days are always his favorite just the sight of you in the green glow of the garden, the plump droplets catching the starlight above.

He likes to see you relaxed and happy, it makes his heart feel light and makes him proud to see how content you are. Sometimes he likes to lay with you and place fresh flowers around you and just admire you. He just loves looking at you.

His Dark Tendencies

He gets jealous fairly easily but he tries to not let it show in front of you. Just you smiling in front of someone else is enough to make his scales rise in anger.

He makes sure to find them and threaten them to stay away from you and says it while constricting them so much that they begin turning blue. All of his bottled up anger from everything that has happened, even events that don’t involve the victim, are being let out on them. Harshly and slowly.

He’ll very rarely punish you, if you go out of your way to escape from him he’ll make sure to chain you up and make you beg for him to take care of you, if you don’t you’ll be left alone without food or water.

He has a slightly sadistic want to make you cry. It looks so cute and beautiful to him, like the rain from the garden is dripping from your lovely eyes.

Misc Stuff

Most Nagas aren’t afraid to hunt pests, meat is meat, but Barbatos has a delicate palate and the thought of eating rats makes him ill. He also has a sensitive stomach so he can’t eat too much or anything too hot.

He loves to relax in hot baths but he never has time anymore helping with Diavolo and the Seven Demon Lords.

He likes to wake up early in the morning, put on an apron and start making pastries fresh that morning. Every morning is something new and always delicious.

I take NSFW and SFW check out my pinned post for my rules on requests Take Care - Stay Spooky

#obey me #obey me monster boys #obey me monster headcanons #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos

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haworthiaace · 4 years

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Magic Misfits AU

Ok so basically we made an au based off of the fact that Scar kept calling his village the village for magical misfits. Scar finds out that he somehow ended up on a server for magical misfits, and now he’s created a sort of safe haven within the server, so naturally they flock to it. Some hermits don’t surprise him, the ones that don’t really bother making an effort to hide their magic, or the ones who can’t hide it. But some hermits deeply confuse him. Chaos ensues.

TLDR Scar becomes a magical therapist for the hermits

Scar is a wizard, he doesn’t really specialize in anything besides his crystals, which is why he’s able to help with a variety of magical issues. He ends up becoming the one entrusted with everyone’s secrets and problems, which makes him Stressed, but he enjoys helping his friends.

Both Xisuma and Evil Xisuma are shapeshifters, with the ability to change their appearance, but not their size. X keeps his appearance hidden from the hermits, which of course inspires wild theories ranging from eldritch abomination to biblical angels, but X won’t reveal if any theories are true. The only ones that know are Hypno (explained later) and Scar. Scar found out when Xisuma showed up hurt at his doorstep, without enough energy to keep another form. Scar was sworn to secrecy afterwards, and he deeply enjoys listening to other hermits pester him for answers. X actually just looks startlingly average, to the point that he’s unwilling to reveal himself solely because people expect him to be something a little more intimidating, and especially now with the ridiculous rumours the hermits have started.

EX doesn’t hide his true form (which is identical to X’s), but of course the hermits don’t believe him, thinking that it’s just another disguise, and EX won’t confirm or deny because he thinks it makes them more afraid of him. (It doesn’t) He’ll also frequently try to impersonate hermits to destroy the server from the inside out, but he is a terrible actor (so is X) and rarely gets far in his plans.

Mumbo and Grian are fairies, but they’re originally from different communities (courts? I really don’t know much about fairies) so they don’t know the other is a fairy until Grian’s hermit challenges initiation. They can shrink into a smaller form that has wings, but it takes quite a bit of effort to switch between forms. (also fun fact: if mumbo is a fairy that means hermit challenges is a magically binding contract)

Iskall is just. Completely human. His prosthetic eye is powered by magic, (and maintained by Scar!) but other than that he’s just a dude. However, he has very strange things happen to him all the time because he’s befriended not one, but two fairies, and he hasn’t noticed either one. He finds that he often has abnormally good luck, and his lost objects will mysteriously turn up as soon as he complains to his best friends about it. He asks Scar if he knows anything, but Scar, not wanting to break Mumbo or Grian’s trust, has to play dumb while also helping Iskall with his ‘problem’.

Now this might come as a shock but. Ren is a werewolf. It may not be unique but it is fitting. One full moon near the beginning of season 7, Ren showed up at the village around sunset, and frantically insisted that Scar let him stay the night in an unoccupied house. So Scar let him stay, and the next morning Ren explained his Situation. So now Scar helps Ren be as comfortable as possible on the night of his transformation and the day after they just chill together.

Stress has her potion brewery, and she’s the first one on the list to fall into the category of Not Having Frequent Magical Emergencies; she just goes to the village to hang out because hey why not? It’s cozy, plus Scar helps her brainstorm potion recipes over cookies and hot chocolate. Scar comes to her often needing a potion (usually of the healing variety) because someone Fucked Up.

Tango is also human, but at some point he was cursed, and his vision started to literally turn red until it was all he could see. The curse was halted thanks to Zed and Impulse, but the red eyes still remain. (Though thankfully his vision returned) They aren’t sure what the curse would have done if it wasn’t stopped, and they’d be happy to never find out.

Zed is an elf, and while he does have a little bit of magic, it wasn’t enough to stop whatever was afflicting Tango, so he turned to more demonic methods. When Tango’s sight got really bad, he summoned a demon (Impulse) and offered his soul in exchange for a cure to the curse. Impulse did the best he could, restoring Tango’s vision but leaving the red eyes, and then left with his price. Zed’s health slowly started declining: he had basically no energy or life due to the separation from his soul. So Tango summoned Impulse back and asked for Zed’s soul back, but it couldn’t be returned without reversing the deal, and Zed wasn’t willing to do that. So Tango ‘asked’ Impulse to stay with them for a while so Tango could convince Zed to back out of the deal. It turns out that being near his soul (kept by Impulse) returned Zed’s energy, and Impulse decided he liked these two so they became a trio, and joined hermitcraft soon after.

Quite often 2 members of team ZIT will wake up Scar in the middle of the night because they accidentally did something to the missing member (banished Impulse, sent Tango to the shadow realm, etc.) and they don’t know what to do. Scar has a ZIT protocol. It’s used far too often. They also constantly try to figure out what the more human looking hermits are. They do not often succeed.

At night, Bdubs turns into a sleep paralysis demon looking creature, and he (unwillingly) curses people to sleep for a completely random amount of time. After an Incident with Wels in season 6, (that’s the reason for his ‘nap’) he makes sure to sleep as early as possible every night. He thankfully isn’t affected by this while in the End or Nether.

Alright lads here’s the angsty one. Beef has the midas touch, meaning everything he touches turns to gold. It works much slower on living creatures than on inanimate objects, but it still works on living things so that’s Not Good. He makes sure to wear special enchanted gloves that block his curse while wearing them. At some point he goes to Scar in a panic because he accidentally touched Etho with his bare hands, (Etho handles this surprisingly well) and Scar helps him fix Etho. (It’s minecraft rules. They just cut his arm off and it comes back.) After that they put a curse of binding enchantment on Beef’s gloves.

Cleo is still a zombie, and she sometimes gets Scar to help her with Zombie Problems when Joe isn’t available. The first time she showed up outside Larry with her (severed) arm held in one hand Scar nearly jumped out of his robes, but he’s pretty used to it by now and will just go inside to grab a needle and thread.

Joe certainly is something! Nobody is quite sure, even Scar. All Scar knows is that Joe knows way too much about everything, and yet he keeps asking Scar to help him translate Galactic. (Joe is secretly trying to teach Scar the language because he feels that it’s important for magic users to know, especially ones so versatile like Scar) Joe is some kind of oracle who receives visions of the past, present, and future, which is why he knows so much, and he’s also at least dabbled in almost every kind of magic there is. He’s a bit of a cryptid.

The local mad scientist is Cub, who does all sorts of weird experiments, and makes inventions that combine magic and technology in disturbing yet wonderful ways. He also got cursed by his pyramid, so now he has comically bad luck. It doesn’t usually cause any serious harm, just shenanigans. He of course embraces this and finds it funny as hell.

On top of Doc’s regular strangeness, (creeper hybrid, cyborg, goat whisperer?) he also for some reason attracts a frankly unreasonable amount of kitsunes. Nobody knows why, but he can be seen in the shopping district being trailed by no less than two foxes with varying amounts of tails. It’s really very cute, and the mystery of it infuriates the more investigative hermits. (Cub and team ZIT mostly)

Etho is a demigod, although nobody knows what god he’s descended from. (including Etho) He has the fun ability to grant others’ wishes, but because of his personality he chooses to twist these wishes and turn them into fun little pranks that technically give the person what they want, but not without annoying them first. He also doesn’t reveal this ability to the others, leaving them even more confused whenever he uses it, which isn’t often because it does drain him quite a bit.

False, being the badass she is, is a valkyrie. She towers over most of the hermits, and between her height, wings, and blazing sword she’s quite intimidating. Despite this, she’s still very sweet, and would never seriously hurt her friends on purpose, but enemies are a whole different story.

Hypno at first seems totally human, but he actually comes from a world full of magic, each person having their own individual ability. Hypno’s ability is to absorb/ cancel out magic, which means that no magic can affect him, and he can also choose to stop any magic by touching the target of the magic. This got him exiled from his world, but he found a new family in the hermits. Because he isn’t affected by magic, he can see through Xisuma’s disguise, but he just assumes that he sees the same thing as everyone else. He hangs out with Beef when he needs comfort because he knows Beef can’t accidentally hurt him.

Jevin is,, slime. Not a minecraft slime, he’s just a pile of sentient slime held together by magic. (Necromancy? probably) Hypno likes to mess with him by touching small parts of him and disrupting the magic so a chunk of his arm falls off. Scar then has to fix it, but it’s still funny.

Keralis has the power of hypnotizing people by looking into his eyes. (Nothing but his eyes) He of course uses this power for mischief, although nothing actually bad. Usually uses it to ‘convince’ people to buy a book or seven. He also sometimes does it on accident, in which case he drops them off at Scar’s until they snap out of it. Team ZIT keeps asking him to hypnotize X so he’ll reveal his true form, but Keralis doesn’t want to force him to reveal that, plus he finds their attempts at figuring it out entertaining.

XB is an unfortunately forgetful selkie, and most of his visits to Scar are because he lost his coat in one of his shulker boxes again. On one memorable occasion he arrived in a panic after losing his coat again, and Scar had to spend about 5 minutes trying to suppress his laughter enough to tell XB that it was on him.

TFC doesn’t have magical crises, much to Scar’s relief. He’s just a humble earthbender living in the mines, occasionally coming out to the village to ask Scar for a crystal to help his back pain, or to give the poor man an afternoon of peace. In fact, Scar turns the tables by asking TFC for magical help with terraforming, which he’s glad to offer in exchange for all that Scar does for everyone.

Wels is a bard, which makes his sea shanties even more powerful than they already are. When Hermitgang came out, a hole was blown in the G team base, much to the surprise of everyone inside at that moment. Hels is also a bard, but he prefers rock music over sea shanties. Diabolical was an actual magical duel, and it probably looked sick as hell.

Bonus: Jellie is secretly a powerful eldritch being, and is the only one with magic that can affect Hypno. It’s a good thing she’s interested in getting pets and treats rather than destroying the server, because she probably could. She casually hops between worlds whenever Scar isn’t around, going on delightful little adventures. Scar takes quite a while to figure this out, and loses his shit when he does. When she got struck by lightning, she just turned up totally fine the next day and Scar didn’t question it too much.

I’d like to thank the discord for helping with ideas, ya’ll are so creative and i appreciate you all <3 ( @skywillsometimeswrite @bigbadantianti @justletmeplayminecraft @badtimeswithscar @aceacebaby12345 @litabattoir @icewolfstar @burntmagicc @dicerxll @dioritegang @cut-the-string @anntonka @shadeswift99

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 3 years

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Comte AU Event

Aight because I have Comte brainworms (is this a surprise to anybody I sure hope not), there’s something I’ve just been thinking about a lot ever since completing one of the story events a month ago:

The cover art being very sexy aside, I naturally did Comte’s story event and I have yet to move on. Namely because of one specific line. (Disclaimer: Keep in mind I don’t mean to say I’m an expert, I just translate for fun--I don’t have the same prowess as an official linguist. That being said starts the circus music let the show go on)

"...it amazed me. You never stopped trying, never stopped helping others or gave up on them--even while every day was a living hell for you."

This is the line I want to dive into, but before I can really talk about it, we need proper context.

Event spoilers below:

This event is a little different since it’s an AU, so the mansion and its residents don’t exist. (Comte lives in the mansion on his own, but it’s not the same one we know.) Instead Comte, Leo, and Arthur are stand alone suitors who have turned MC into a vampire. Because MC has no clear memory of how and/or why it happened, MC is seeking vengeance against her paired hottie--and fully intends to end their life one way or another.

Aside from how sexy revenge is and how much I love the enemies to lovers trope, Comte’s entire storyline gave me more life than I can humanly convey. Here goes nothing!

So it begins with MC knocking on his door and Comte answers it and literally just stares at her silently like some kind of Furby. MC starts out by saying she’s been trying to narrow down the bastard that ruined her life and her search has finally brought her to his doorstep. She basically demands the truth from him and he just keeps. Staring owlishly (lmao). He eventually relents and tells her that a conversation is much better held inside, and invites her into his home to talk.

She's sus as hell but enters the house, and he asks if she's had blood. This stops her in her tracks, shook, and her monologue drifts to explain a few things. When she woke up years ago, a new vampire, she had instructions to approach the Rouge/Blanc dispensary for what she needed. The staff there told her that everything was paid for, and she continued to receive support from an unnamed benefactor. She asked them for the identity of this person, but they were beholden to customer confidentiality. As such, she's been searching for information to narrow down her target for years until she finally found him tonight.

Despite the years it doesn't mean she's any more comfortable with her new existence. She notes that she still tends to stick to drinking Blanc--only drinking Rouge (in other words, blood) when she has no other choice. When Comte puts the Rouge on the table, she becomes notably unsettled. She's thirsty, but she won't concede to his request that she drink it; she refuses.

(I feel like he can probably tell because he's her sire/because of his experience with vampires). Comte--naturally--refuses to let her go hungry, so he knocks it back and kisses her to get her to drink it. He lets go as soon as she's swallowed it, and doesn't resist when she shoves him off. She rails at him about how awful he is for doing that, he agrees. She asks if he was the one that killed her parents, he confirms with blasé indifference. She's fuming quietly, but she notes that he doesn't really look happy or triumphant about it. What he's saying isn't reaching his eyes; his gaze is distant and sad. And it's confusing her. Isn't he supposed to be the enemy?

She's lost in her thoughts and unresponsive until there's a loud cry from outside the house, the shriek of a nearby owl. She snaps out of her daze to see that she still has his hand in a vice grip from when she shoved him off, and his skin is blanched--she cut off his circulation from the pressure. She releases him, startled, but he says nothing.

She's trying to sort out what's going on, and doesn't have enough information to really piece anything together. She wants to hate him but things aren't making sense. Why did her parents have to die in the first place? Why does he bother keeping her alive at his own expense? Even just now, what he did felt more like an attempt to get her to eat than anything else. Why isn’t he more malicious? This MC is desperate for answers, and she says as much: "What are you hiding…?"

Comte doesn't answer her, just averts his gaze and remains silent. MC decides she won't do anything until she learns the full extent of what happened the night she was turned. Furthermore, she's well aware of Comte’s status being a problem. If she goes too far without proper motive, the aristocracy could come back to bite her in the ass. (The implication here is that she's more concerned about being wrong and living with that regret, rather than any necessity to protect herself. The state of his gaze--the melancholy there--keeps eating at her. Until she knows why, she won't move forward.)

Comte is shocked that she demands to live alongside him in the mansion, but he doesn't take any issue with it. He says the mansion is pointlessly huge for one person anyway--she's welcome to stay. Either way she wins with this arrangement: either she gets the truth or she finds an effective way to destroy him by the end. And so their little cohabitation begins!

After a timeskip, MC recounts how she's been spending her days in the mansion. She's been tidying around the house, both in the hopes of finding evidence and/or in the hopes of repaying all the years of living on his assistance. He doesn't stop her, letting her do as she pleases and keeping his distance.

One day, she's about to step out into town to grab some groceries. Comte approaches at the front door, cautioning her to be safe--there have been many reports of scuffles/dangerous encounters. MC brushes him off, unsurprised he knows what's going on in town. He's very well connected to the aristocracy, and she notes that he's often at dinner gatherings and parties when he's not home. She insists she can't let her guard down, that he can't be trusted; no matter how kind he is to her face.

Another day, he asks her to attend a ball later in the week. He tells her she's under no obligation to stay with him while they're there, just that he wants her to take some time and relax--to have fun. She tries to insist that going to something like that would be more stressful than fun but he won’t hear of any protest, walking away before she can fully reject the outing. (Comte, an idiot, speed-walking out of the room: and that is what we call finessed). She sighs, thinking she'll be nothing but a burden to him given her lack of knowledge about events like that. She doesn't really know the proper etiquette or how to dance, it’s completely out of her depth.

Surprising no one at all Comte buys MC a dress and accessories to match regardless, and when she comes down the staircase leading to the front door he's awestruck. He tells her she's beautiful and she's miffed by the raw sincerity, trying to remind herself that he is eeeeevil. He knows how to talk to women given his status, he's just smooth talking... (She's trying to convince herself, essentially.)

And so they go, and she's a bit of a wallflower. He leaves her alone--doesn't want to bother her--while she sticks close to one wall. Several men ask her to dance, but she politely declines. Her monologue explains that, given what she is and the fact that she’s only living for revenge, she sees no merit in trying to court human men. She sees it as irresponsible and inevitably disastrous, and…

[Given the nature of what I am I just can't. I can't fall in love with a human man. Besides, the only person I really want to dance with is...as much as I hate it, my line of sight keeps drifting to Comte. Suddenly he looks up and meets my gaze, but I hurriedly look away--my heart pounding in my chest. Why. In a room full to the brim with people, why do my eyes keep looking for him. Whatever, time to go cool off for a bit.]

She leaves the ballroom--mortified at herself--to get some fresh air. Not five minutes into trying to figure out whatever the hell is going on with her shitshow of a life, a man appears asking what she’s doing alone. And da da da d a Zelda treasure chest sound effect he whips out a knife covered in blood and tries to stab MC. Naturally, because I’m an idiot, my first thought was:

TW: knife attack

TW: homicides by serial killer

But it turns out our local serial killer remains nameless in this event, so I can point no fingers. MC is panicking about needing to run and frozen in place from the shock, but Comte appears to pull her out of range--knife sinking into his back. He doesn’t react much to the violence as the attacker runs away, yanking out the knife and focused on checking her for any wounds. She’s still reeling from how quickly he reacted, and he reassures her (probably at the sight of her bewildered/worried look) that law enforcement is on alert in the area. They’ll find him, they’ll arrest him.

She tries to ask him why. Why would he protect her like that? His first instinct was to take the hit and ensure her safety first, and it doesn’t make sense. Comte reassures her again, joking that purebloods are sturdy. See? The wound’s already healed c:

[Even though I've been spending all this time trying to get my revenge on him, my heart stopped when he was attacked. As if to reassure me, frozen and speechless, Comte smiles gently. This person.......I can't do it. I can't kill him without meaning, without being sure of the truth.]

"...Comte, I can tell you're a good person. What happened that night, so many years ago?" Because even now, he's still protecting me. "Please...tell me the truth. I want to know."

[I know this isn't the time or place, but if I don't know I can't worry about him with a clear head.]

TW: human trafficking and drugging unconscious

Comte concedes and goes into what happened that night so many years ago. Apparently he was acquainted with her parents long before the incident, and they fell into debt as a result of gambling. He approached their home in the hopes of paying them a visit, checking up on them, only to encounter tragedy. They intended to sell their daughter off and the man they ended up making a deal with more or less slaughtered them all in cold blood. The reason MC doesn’t remember any of this was because her parents drugged her the night it happened. No consciousness, no resistance.

"In that room suffused in the odor of blood and despair, I found you, MC." Her pained, struggling cry is what led him into that room--and seeing how desperately she was fighting to survive, he turned her against all his better judgement. Feeling certain she would hate him forever for the choice he made compounded by her terrible circumstance, he bailed, leaving her instructions and resources to survive on her own.

"Sold off by your own parents, attacked by a serial killer, seconds from death. I thought....I thought telling you about it would only bring you pain, that it would leave you numb from the shock and despair. That's why I kept it from you.”

"...After turning you, I was consumed by regret. I felt certain you would hate me for the choice I made. So I left." [When I don't know what to say, he keeps talking.] "But I was worried about you even so. I tailed you quietly, making sure you were getting along okay. I was fully aware you wanted to kill me for what I'd done. Even so, I wanted to check on you."

And that is where the line comes in.

"...it amazed me. You never stopped trying, never stopped helping others or gave up on them--even while every day was a living hell for you."

He admits that he fell in love with her after a point. And she’s baffled, considering she’s been looking for every reason to tear him apart--assuming he was the perpetrator when he actually saved her life. She protests immediately, asking how he could possibly feel that way after the level of vitriol and judgement she’s levied against him when he was only trying to help.

"That's not true at all. At heart, you're a very kind young lady. You haven't raised a hand against me all this time. And even when you considered me to be a repulsive presence, you were worried about me."

At this MC is conflicted--because his words are a further extension of his equanimity. He’s well aware that he brought about all the confusion by not being honest, but it’s also clear there was no ill intent involved in that decision. He was concerned; hitting her with that level of misfortune and senseless terror all at once could have been incredibly destructive to her health. (This isn’t to say he made the ‘right’ decision; I don’t think there is any right decision in the face of such a complex situation. Given he takes full responsibility for what happened and does his best to help her, I think that’s a fair response.)

This is essentially where the common rt ends. But because I’m feral for Comte and enjoy talking about him, I’ll finish up the summary and then go on to do my analysis.

After that riveting assault, MC is feeling very lost about how to move forward. Her fury at Comte’s injustice has all but evaporated, which means a complete re-evaluation of how she’s going to move forward from now on. Does she continue with her revenge anyway, still angry for the dishonesty? Or does she try something new?

If you do the premium end that means choosing to forgive Comte and climb him (as he deserves). Therefore I, being an intellectual, chose to ride him into the sunset.

The premium end begins with Comte taking her to another ball because the first one kind of went to shit and he feels bad about it (retraumatization was not in the plan...). And so MC basically does the same thing as the first time, just vibin and taking in the scenery, thinking things over. Comte’s concerned about her not having fun, so he approaches her to ask if she’s feeling okay. He makes it clear that he really doesn’t mind if she dances with someone else--even if he admitted his feelings for her. She doesn’t owe him anything, and he has no intention of imposing on her future.

"Whatever it is you choose to do, I don't mind. I just want you to be happy"

[This person is so, so gentle...His words penetrate deep and settle with warmth over my heart, my chest light.] "Comte I.......I don't want to dance with anyone but you." [I still don't know what to do about the future, but for now I think following what my heart is telling me is the best move]

"!!!....well then, if you insist..."

Comte’s just:

He’s beyond shocked, but accepts her invitation when she confirms it’s what she wants to do. Leading her in all his infinite grace, MC marvels at his ability to dance so elegantly--even with a partner who’s deadweight, like her. She also finds it astounding how easily he makes her forget what they are, how easily she just enjoys the moment; no turmoil, no lingering in the worst of her miseries. She’s just...having fun? For the first time in so very long.

[Comte murmurs in the short distance, clear remorse on his face--as though he can't help it.]

"MC, it's kind of you, honestly. That you'd give me the time of day, that you'd agree to dance with me. But I...I'm the one that turned you. There's no denying or escaping that fact. If it's you, I'm ready to accept any consequence. If you want me gone, you're free to attack me. If you just want to be as far away from me as possible--to live your life in peace and solitude--I will do everything in my power to help you."

[He said it as if he was trying to convince himself. Like he was trying to remember why he couldn't assume more of this single dance together, why he couldn't let hope emerge from this single shared moment.]

[.....I'm not that kind, Comte. I asked because it's you.....Feeling his warmth beneath my hands, I come to a decision.]

There’s a timeskip, and then MC--being the badass that she is--knocks on Comte’s door the night of the crescent moon. He lets her inside more than ready to accept her judgement, whatever it may be. MC asks about his feelings, seeks to confirm that he still loves her before she confesses herself.

"Comte. Comte you said--that you loved me right?"

"Yes that's correct...no matter how much you might hate me, these feelings won't change. I love you."

[Hearing those words again sets my chest on fire. And I decide to tell him my honest feelings.]

"I love you too. But......I've held a misguided grudge against you for so long, is it okay for me to love you now?"

[Can that misunderstanding really be forgiven? Am I allowed to love you? Comte's eyes widen, and the breathtaking gold of his eyes shimmer/waver.]

"...shouldn't that be my line? I mean even despite the circumstances, I still made the choice to turn you :o Can you really forgive me?"

"...If I'm honest, I still have a hard time drinking blood and I'm a little scared of an immortal life. But......I think if I could spend that eternity at your side, I could find the means to smile again. And....the thing is....I also want to see you smile, to make sure you remember how to smile."

".................." [Le Comte stared at me, before extending his hand. And he hugged me so, so tightly.] "MC......."

[In that single word all the raw emotion of ten years can be heard. It was an indescribable sound--one that spoke of an unimaginable, impossible love. This person loves me so very dearly.]

The event ends with them biting each other as proof of their bond, essentially a vow to stay together moving forward. It felt very much like the shared act of biting was a promise of love, how vampires might get married or commit to each other romantically. The summary essentially ends here.

Here’s where the semi-meta comes in, because I literally just can’t stop thinking about the implications of this event.

"...it amazed me. You never stopped trying, never stopped helping others or gave up on them--even while every day was a living hell for you."

I just...I just don’t even know where to begin with how hard this line hits. Comte’s MS conveys this sentiment powerfully too, but there’s just something about them choosing to emphasize it yet again. The reason Comte falls in love every time has to do with his MC’s strength, her ability to surmount remarkable obstacles with so much poise. She’s deeply in tune with her reality, but no less relentlessly positive. She won’t burden others with her problems, and she’ll do everything in her power to move forward in constructive ways.

Even when every day was a living hell. Both Comte and Leonardo perceive eternity to be something of a curse; an endless sentence. Whether it means suffering boredom, reliving tragedy, or going nigh numb from the loneliness--being an immortal creature isn’t always sunshine and rainbows.

And that’s exactly why I think he fell in love with this MC? I don’t think his feelings would have run half as deep if it was just anyone. He doesn’t strike me as the type to get attached easily. Because if he’s going to have a life partner, he needs someone who's going to be able to roll with whatever life throws their way for conceivable lifetimes. Somebody that loses heart quickly or is easily prone to delusion would suffer eternally, and the last thing he wants is to subject a person to that. MC gives him hope certainly, but she’s also emblematic of a kind of fortitude he both needs on a personal level and she would need to be beside him. It’s interesting because it’s a responsible choice on his part, but also just very befitting of his nature. He’s somebody that staunchly believes in the ability of good to prevail, but he’s also realistic about it. He knows doing the right thing isn’t necessarily easy; he does it because he could never live with himself if he did otherwise.

(Think about Comte’s approach with Jeanne. It meant years of being on the receiving end of hatred he didn’t deserve, but he didn’t mind if it meant Jeanne could find a way to heal. It’s not the most practical or immediate solution, but it is the most restorative option. Comte doesn’t care that he spends years living alongside Jeanne’s outspoken displeasure and even violent outbursts. Why? Because it’s all a means to a greater, better end. If he has to suffer a little discomfort, he’s willing to make that sacrifice. That’s the thing with Comte; intentionality is everything. Comte’s intention is to help. Whether that’s a short or long process, a smooth or rough process, he’s going to do what he can within his means.)

That dynamic is reflected in his respect for this MC who is filled with fury on behalf of all the life that she lost unfairly, her relentless pursuit for the truth of what happened to her. Notice, she’s more interested in truth than retaliation. She refuses to lay an intentionally violent hand on Comte until she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was worthy of being on the receiving end of that retribution. Who does that sound like? If you guessed Comte himself, then you see where I’m going with this. What MC and Comte have in common is that they have a sharp emotional fortitude that they keep under tight, rational control. They will react with sizable passion or hurt or warmth--but their externalized reaction will vary depending on the situation. If it’s a minor annoyance, they have the patience to diffuse and try to alleviate the problem. If it’s on a larger scale or it’s an egregious violation of their personhood, then they up the ante accordingly.

Think about it. MC appears on Comte’s doorstep full of righteous rage and even when he confirms what he’s “done,” she hesitates. Her emotional intelligence is telling her something isn’t aligning properly; something isn’t quite right. She forgoes immediate revenge for proper answers instead. MC and Comte have this kind of balance, where they are more than happy to hear people out--but there is a limit to that propensity. Push them too far? They’ll bust your head. I guess I’m particularly interested in the way Comte seems to yearn for that kind of identification with a partner. Somebody who has similar values: not merciless, but also won’t bend when a situation requires confrontation.

All that being said, there was one more aspect of the story that I was endlessly interested in. I’m going to link the post here, in that it’s tangentially related to this meta; it really made me better able to articulate what I mean to say.

“Never let generosity hold hostages; courtesy is an essential tool, but a cruel master.”

I’m gonna let that sink in for a moment.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, because it’s very rare that I read something once and I’m forced to read it several more times before I begin to understand it. My interpretation of that line is to say that benevolence can showcase your good will to others; it can be a reliable proof of good character, and a way to help someone. But the problem comes when people do conventionally/perceived generous things with the explicit intent of repayment by some measure. While it is only responsible to care for others as they care for you, you shouldn’t make impossible sacrifices with the expectation that the other person is indebted to you--especially if the other party had no ability to consent to that sacrifice.

How does this apply to Comte in this event story? Er, in almost every way humanly (vampirely?) possible, in my view. Comte turns MC into a vampire after seeing her plight, largely because he gets the impression that she was fighting for her life--had impossibly survived against all odds. The situation is complicated though. MC wasn’t fully conscious when it happened, so she doesn’t have a proper understanding of how everything went down. So what does Comte do? If he can’t bear to face her or reveal the truth of how horribly she died, he at least gives her every means to survive and makes sure she’s doing okay since she’s technically an orphan now. He doesn’t interfere with her life, or demand recognition for the life he gave her. He fully understands that she wasn’t able to properly consent to his decision in that split second moment, and even if she had he doesn’t see it as a debt she owes him now. He was able to help save her life for at least a little while longer, and so he did. It was as simple as that. He had the ability, she had the need. That’s the end.

But Comte’s emotional acuity doesn’t just end here. Even when she comes after him to kill him, he doesn’t respond with anger because he knows full well he hasn’t explained. Sure he’s sacrificing their relationship (the ability to get along on half-decent terms) but if it means she can find a reason to live, then so be it. He doesn’t lord that sacrifice over her head by any extension; he’s just sad about it because he thinks she’s a wonderful person, and he doesn’t want to be estranged from her. But in his view, her needs supercede his wants.

He doesn’t force her to do chores around the house during her stay, she does it to keep herself busy and search for the truth about his intentions. He even asks her to take breaks and look after herself first, more concerned with her well-being than the state of the mansion. At the ball, he doesn’t force her to linger around him or dance with him despite inviting her there and giving her the dress/jewelry to attend. He leaves her alone as she wishes, only glancing at her to make sure she’s doing okay. When he takes the hit from the violent stranger--a knife straight to the back--he jokes about being s t r o n k, never once blaming her for the wound he sustains no matter how brief.

He explains that he didn’t tell her the truth because it was incredibly traumatic, and it’s only in the safety of the moment--after years of having conceived of her own selfhood beyond the event--that she’s able to take the weight of what happened without falling apart. The premium end just keeps hammering this shit home. He openly tells her she doesn’t have to dance with him at all, that she doesn’t owe him anything just because he likes her. He’s aware it’s unrequited (he thinks) and he doesn’t go on and on about all the sacrifices he made for her with the expectation she’ll reciprocate. He just did what he wanted to do, nothing more. If she feels the same way by some miracle, that’s amazing! If she doesn’t, as it would be valid if not, that’s fair too; no hard feelings.

She has to be the one to invite him to dance and insist. She’s the one that smiles fondly when he’s telling her that she can choose whatever outcome she pleases, even if it means wanting to live as far as possible from him. There is no guilt trip, no expectation, and no pressure. She has the freedom to leave or stay. It is entirely dependent on her own will. For the first time in a lifetime of loss, her agency is restored to her. That’s huge.

She even admits that she feels bad about being so angry when he really was just trying to help, now that she can understand what he’s doing. And he’s openly shocked to hear it. He had no intention of expecting or asking for an apology. He understands it was his own imposition, both biting her and obscuring the truth, that led to her setting her mind on vengeance.

I’ve probably hit it home harder than necessary, but Comte just feels like the epitome of good will in the best way possible. One can argue he’s a little selfish for keeping the truth from her for so long, but honestly? Given the horrific trauma of her situation--and his personal fear of making her miserable for an eternity when all he wanted was to give her a second chance away from all that hurt--I feel like his reaction was closer to considerate and reasonable. Comte doesn’t sacrifice anything he isn’t unwilling to give, or anything that would cripple him to give. Furthermore, he doesn’t make love out to be a kind of 1:1. He recognizes that while he might know her well, she doesn’t know squat about him. And, as such, he doesn’t expect her to trust his intentions or reciprocate his feelings in any capacity. It’s just a delightful surprise when she does. When he tells her that he loves her that first time, it’s an explanation. Not a guilt trip. He knows she won’t be satisfied years of protecting her simply because “he wanted to” and he promised her the truth, so he tells her. Not only that, in the aftermath he repeatedly reminds her she isn’t bound to him. She commits to him before he relies on any kind of active bond between both of them.

I don’t know, maybe I think too hard about it, but I feel like the older I get the more I see a shortage of this kind of fine-tuned caring about the other person in a relationship. I guess I just enjoy seeing a man give a woman her health and agency without treating her wellness/happiness like it’s a burden to his life? First and foremost Comte really is concerned with her self-actualization before his feelings can have any place in their relationship. And even when he does confess his love, it isn’t a way to force her to feel indebted to him; it’s an attempt to erase any false pretenses. MC loves him, not because she has nowhere else to go, but because he’s proven himself time and again a worthy companion. Always putting her first, always worried about her feelings, paying such close attention that he sees her to the core of who she is despite her iron front--kind, beneath all that hurt. They spend so much of this event really listening to each other despite such difficult circumstances, and it leads to a deep and abiding love against all odds. And I find that incredibly moving...

Oh and, before I forget? Let me circle back for a moment:

"...it amazed me. You never stopped trying, never stopped helping others or gave up on them--even while every day was a living hell for you."

The best part about this event is that--while Comte says this about MC--this is also precisely the reason MC falls in love with Comte too, even if it’s never stated outright. Because despite how lonely and tired he may be of eternity, no matter how many troubles he’s facing himself, he never stops trying to help and support others (namely MC) in any way he can.

Drops mic

#ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp comte #ikevamp saint germain #ikevamp jpn spoilers #ikevamp meta #ikevamp au event #comte propaganda #fangdad propaganda #i love him so very dearly #this event just made the feelings come rushing back #can't have five minutes without comte giving me heart palpitations huh #i feel so personally attacked #anywho i hope yall enjoy this wild ride as much as i did #minnie finna peace out and sleep for 70 hrs #**dives into bed beside comte**#rambles #not incorrect quotes

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deceitful-darlings · 3 years

Note

More Narnia Au ideas? Perhaps for other classical works? 🥺

I have one single braincell, and I think it has been on holiday for a very long time. So let’s go with a small bit of lore building maybe? Because creativity is not strong with me.

With Jade being the ruler it begs the question, where’s Floyd in all of this? Honestly deciding to rule over a different area doesn’t seem like something Jade would do unless given good reason...so maybe this version isn’t as innocent as Narnia of the story.

The twins were originally ocean dwellers in their eel forms, it’s where they grew up and the world they knew and navigated. But the people who lived on land weren’t quite as accepting of their kind as they tried to pretend. Two separate societies that often targeted each other, sailors, and merfolk who ventured too close to the surface often disappeared from their respective society. Just like all children are, the twins were warned not to get too close, but Floyd was never one to listen. He was snatched from the ocean as a young teen by fishermen, and Jade decides that he’s going to go on land when he becomes strong enough and to try and find his brother again.

Once he’s grown he follows through on his promise, taking on human form and going on land. He researches about the treatment of captured merfolk and finds out the majority of the time they’re simply killed because they’re dangerous, but that they’re sometimes sold off because of their rarity on land. More than anything what annoys him is the humans flagrant manner of talking about his kind as if they’re superior, so he hides himself as a human among their royal court, he wants to destroy them from the inside out. He wants to see their paranoia and anger and distrust towards one another, he wants to see them tear each other apart until the country is falling apart and they’re completely hopeless. He wants to see the light leave their eyes as they realise that the person they trusted despite his oddities was one of the creatures they treated in such a way, but for it to be too late for them to take any action. His magic has been growing with time, and now he’ll drag them down even further, they must have a way to fight against him after all, aren’t they such intelligent humans?

Plunging everything into winter is an easy feat for him, the royals are dead either by each others’ or his own hand, there’s no-one to stop him now, so he destroys the castle and forms an exact replica made of ice to remind anyone that gets too close that he’s in charge now. He gets a sadistic joy from seeing the people struggle and suffer for their arrogance, and the power that comes with it, it’s delightful to see them come to him begging for help no matter the cost, the desperation is a sight to behold.

Many of the inhabitants weren’t able to survive the harsh winter, dying from the cold and lack of food. But to their dismay, even as the spring months came the snow and ice never melted, living became a fight against the land they were trying to survive in. A lot hold hope in the prophecy of the two sons of Adam and the two daughters of Eve defeating him, but when they show up he is able to turn the children against the residents after killing the second to come into his world and depositing his body in an area the beasts reside, two of the children turn not only against the residents for his death, but also each other, splitting them further when the youngest defends them. Taking care of them from that point was easy, and seeing the dwindling hope of the residents as each one was killed was entertaining.

Years pass, the residents continue to struggle clinging to the hope that more humans will enter the world, and Jade becomes bored over time, your arrival is the most interesting thing to happen in a long time, so he didn’t kill you immediately. You were something different to enjoy.

In terms of other characters, there’s the survivor group, possibly even survivor(s) from Jade’s original killing of the original family, other humans that come in through the wardrobe shortly after you, palace staff. There’s plenty of places they can take!

#yandere #narnia au #yandere male #sfw #yandere twst #disney twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland #anon asks

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chunhua-s · 3 years

Note

im gonna CRY, this is like the 3rd time im sending this: OKAY-- ushijima <33 and a royalty au maybe? whether he's the loyal knight or loving king, i will take anything <33 ily davi ur so cool and btw ur handwriting is SEXC

i’m putting the note at the end because really? they clog a lot of space 🧍🏽‍♀️

YOURS ➽ WAKATOSHI USHIJIMA X READER

genre: angst

au: royalty, time travel

warnings: uh nothing went as i planned for in this oneshot and i’ve hurt myself with it enough to the point of a headache :D

when you open your eyes, you’re greeted by the night sky, though there’s something about it that gives you pause. the stars above you aren’t the same ones from your city — the ones that could only hope to shine against thousands of bright lights. the stars above you are brilliant in their light, loud with a declaration of glory and untold miracles that flow across the darkest purples and blues of midnight in rivers of silver. they’re radiant, telling you stories of worlds far beyond what you could ever dream of, and they draw your breath on frost and smoke as it falls from your lips. and should you have asked yourself — where does venus hide among this canvas of light, where does her red outshine the bursts of silver, the trails of gold that glow brighter than the sun, you’d never find your answer.

“(y/n)?”

it’s hard for you, but you manage to pull your eyes away from the night sky, and when you allow them to return themselves to the earth, your breath escapes you once more.

he’s standing amidst an old garden, his face familiar while being like that of a stranger. under the moonlight, you wonder if he’s an apparition, merely a figment of your imagination that approaches you with slow, almost cautious steps. he calls your name again and his voice carries to you on a chilling wind, it ghosts across your skin and fills up your lungs with the oxygen you’d forgotten to take. olive eyes glisten like deep ponds when he finally stands before you, and as you seek out your voice to respond to him, you find that it’s lost its strength.

“ushi-... ushijima?”

and truly, the face that you see before you is that of wakatoshi ushijima. his hair, the shape of his face, and even his lips that now twist into something of a helpless smile. here is the man who you’ve worked with for so long as the dietitian of japan’s national volleyball team; the man who you watched grow through high school, whose transformation reminded you of a cosmos flower in autumn; the man whose smiles told of secrets shared on late phone calls and a voice as calm as the ocean waves at night.

and yet, there’s nothing here of that man you know.

the wakatoshi ushijima you see carries the same regality that he always does, the same grace and silent power that flows from him just as the maroon cotton flutters around his body like waves. he’s always been the perfect picture of royalty, you consider, but here, with assured steps and a certain hush to the normally domineering force he exudes on the court, he really does appear to you like an emperor.

he chuckles lightly, a deep sound that rumbles in his chest and travels through your entire being as his eyes search your expression. there’s something that glistens on starlight, a certain warmth that you’ve yearned for on your loneliest nights, when his gentle words would pull you into deep slumber. does he see the way your brows furrow, the way your lips part with questions you don’t even know the beginnings to? “i thought i told you to call me wakatoshi, didn’t i?” he whispers, his tone soft and gentle, careful just as the hand that reaches up to cup your cheek. your heart stutters under the brushes of his thumb, and you’re sure that he can feel the heat spreading across your skin. “what are you doing out so late? and barefoot, nonetheless.”

he’s right. your feet sink beneath blades of grass as if they would be embraced by them, drops of dew clinging to your skin and causing a chill to travel up your spine. looking into ushijima’s eyes, you have no answer — neither for his question, nor for this strange situation you’ve found yourself in.

with concern melting into his warm gaze, he studies you for a while longer, the thumb that had been rubbing circles into your cheek coming to a stop as he ever so slightly tilts your head back to meet his gaze. at the same time, he’s leaning his head forward ever so slightly, as if to meet you half way. “(y/n)?”

“i—” your words fall short, disappearing under the night air when you try and speak. your eyes fall from his patient gaze, and all your attention is given to the green grass that, beneath the starlight, gives itself to a colour you can’t find the name for. this, you’ve decided, isn’t your world. it can’t be — the stars don’t shine as brightly as they do here, and neither does the air encompass you as if it yearned to kiss your skin. and in your world, wakatoshi ushijima has never held you so gently, and his eyes don’t sing to you poems of a feeling lost on your wildest fantasies. you force air into your lungs when you meet olive hues and try your best to speak with a wavering voice. “ushijima, what’s going on?? i don’t— where are we?”

you see confusion etch lines around his lips and between his brows as he frowns. “what do you mean? we’re in the palace garden, of course.” he says it so assuredly, confident, yet his words are hushed in a secret shared by the both of you. and the way he looks at you, you feel terrible for not knowing that secret. it feels as if somehow, you’d betrayed something sacred by taking the face and name of someone he might hold dear — maybe in this world, in this time, there’s a you who knows ushijima’s love.

“i’m sorry...” you mutter out, guilt and shame unwarranted yet potent behind your words as your eyes lock with his. “i think there’s been some sort of mistake. i’m—” you force yourself to swallow, to breathe; you find that the task comes difficult and your body betrays you terribly. “i don’t think i’m the person who you think i am.”

ushijima’s gaze falters, the hand that had so lovingly warmed your face falls to your shoulder and his fingers grab on to you tightly. “what do you mean...?” there’s a bit of a broken laugh that bubbles from his lips, and to you, it’s as foreign as the night sky above you, because there has never been a time when you’d ever seen him so vulnerable, open, pained. it’s new, and it scares you. it makes you want to wrap him into your arms and to take back everything you’ve said, to selfishly become the person he sees in you — the you whom he loves and cherishes so dearly. “you’re you, aren’t you? you’re (y/n)... my (y/n).”

you shake your head weakly, tears lining your eyes as feelings you’d long since fought against begin to spill from your aching heart like rain. every i love you that you’ve ever whispered to your starless sky burns your skin and sets an unbearable fire alight inside your chest, and the smoke clouds your brain and makes you forget your reality. my (y/n), he’d said — he’d called you his, his (y/n), with all the certainty and confidence in the world, as if those words should stand as true as the moon should shine at night, and oh, how desperately you wished they were true. you wished with all your heart that you really were his. but to look into his eyes, so hopeful, so loving and so, so beautiful in the starlight, you can’t find it within yourself to lie. not to him, and not to yourself. and so you steel your heart and abandon those feelings, and you lift your hand to pull his away from your shoulder, ignoring the pain that could blind you from its intensity. “i’m sorry...” you whisper, and this time, the hushed words bring no secrets, no sweet affections or longings told when the night showers your bodies in silver. it tears you apart and leaves your wounds to fester. “i’m really sorry, but— but i’m not them...”

“i’m not your (y/n).”

chile im so sorry this took so long!! and uh.... see i originally started this oneshot with a cute idea in mind??? but 🤡 somehow it turned into angst and uh.... but anyways!! i had these two requests and i thought “hey, why not combine them!” and it was the perfect opportunity to push my emperor! ushijima agenda 🤩 well.... that was the original intent? but somehow i got sidetracked.... again.... and didn’t really focus on that 😗 in summary? nothing went as i planned for this oneshot and somehow i ended up with a short angst oneshot that could work for an entire plot. like deadass?? i have the whole thing planned out in my head already and i was tempted to go off on it but it would become too long and i wouldn’t have a resolution for it all... or at least not one that didn’t involve pain. so, basically, reader in emperor! ushi’s world would have been like a palace worker who grew up with toshi, and they’d have fallen in love, but it’s ✨forbidden✨ because toshi would have already had his s/o chosen for him. on the flip side, modern world reader is team japan’s nutritionist and they, similarly grew up with toshi, but they have feelings for him that they don’t ever let show because they’re worried that they would destroy what they have with him already. if i went on with the plot, it would have shown reader going about palace life and their interactions with toshi, along with a handful of challenges that they’d have to face. this idea was highly inspired by one of my favourite k-dramas, scarlet heart ryou (a really good watch i def recommend it) but yeah! that’s the end of my rant! (it’s not. i’m stopping myself because if i don’t i’ll never shut up about it.) but anyways!! i really hope you guys enjoyed this oneshot! it feels good to write something after a while — if any of you guys have any thoughts or anything i’d love to hear them!!

taglist: @aiiishiiiteru @tsumue @bootylikepeachy @waitforitillwritemywayout @mixxfi @shnnn @janellion

send an ask to be added or removed!!

#ushijima wakatoshi x reader #ushijima x reader #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu x reader angst #ushijima x reader angst #haikyuu angst #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! au event 💫

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spaceshipkat · 3 years

Text

part 4 of my ac0sf recap will cover chapters 61 - 80 (the end)

part 1 covering the intro - chapter 20 can be found here

part 2 covering chapters 21 - 40 can be found here

part 3 covering chapters 41 - 60 can be found here

chapter 61: one test remains, one Nesta gave herself, so she runs down the 10,000 steps. Nesta and Cassian are either fucking or “lovemaking” and they alternate bedrooms. she gets down to the bottom step and opens the door, but she feels herself drawn back into the house, not into the city. a Starfall party is gonna happen in the house that night. Cassian is waiting for her at the top of the stairs dressed in his “courtly finery” and they kiss. he tells her the party already started but is “nearing its peak”. Nesta watches the stars fall and cries from the beauty of it. Viviane is pregnant. Nesta laughs and Amren says it’s not a sound she ever expected to hear from her. Nesta falls to one knee, bows her head, and tells Amren she’s sorry and Amren is surprised. Nesta says more and finishes with “losing your friendship is a loss I can’t endure” and Amren smiles, and tells Nesta that Nesta made the house sing with happiness, and it turns out Nesta Made the house. here’s the caption and ending of the chapter.

chapter 62: spring arrives. they’ve gone months without an attack from Briallyn, but Cassian warns that most armies don’t attack in winter. a “rare red star” (that we know is alien from k0a) shoots across the sky and riceman seems “unusually contemplative” in the aftermath. faerug is two months from giving birth. Cassian and Azriel continue to train Nesta and co as a unit, and she wonders if she’ll ever actually face combat. the Blood Rite is only a few days away. Eris sends a letter to Cassian and Nesta that they need to meet. they find him in a forest clearing in the Middle, though Nesta is distracted by the mountain aka the UtM mountain. Eris asks if she’s ever seen it and she says no. they talk about the three mountains (Ramiel, the UtM mountain, and the one that holds the Prison) and Eris says why no one ever wondered if there was something carved beneath Ramiel the way there is the other two mountains. no one knows who carved the palace/court that Amarantha lived in UtM, but it wasn’t Amarantha. Eris says this:

“My father went to the continent again last week. He came back seeming normal, without the glassy-eyed aloofness my soldiers displayed. He did not invite me to accompany him, or explain what he discussed with Briallyn. I can only assume the fallout is approaching, though, and wanted to warn you. It was not something I could risk putting in writing. But for now…for now, it seems as if the world is holding its breath.”

chapter 62 continued: the world is evidently waiting for Nesta to find the Harp. Nesta blinks in surprise, realizes too late that they haven’t told Eris they have the Harp, but he sees that and guesses correctly. Cassian asks if it matters and Eris says yes bc the Night Court now possesses two items from the Trove. Eris asks if this is what the delays have all been about, the NC biding their time to learn the Trove’s secrets and use them for their own gain. Nesta asks what they possibly have to gain, and Eris counters with what did Hybern have to gain by getting the Cauldron. Cassian says they have no interest in conquest and they aren’t going to use the Trove, to which Eris laughs and says he’s not comfortable with the NC having 2/3 of the Trove and other Made items, to which Nesta stiffens but Cassian says that riceman has his own plans and Eris can’t possibly think that he’d tell Eris all of them but assures him they don’t involve using the Trove. Nesta gets horny over Cassian’s smooth courtier’s voice. Eris says he assumes they’re going after the Crown now and Cassian says they’ll tell him what he needs to know and try not to forget to do so this time. Eris carries the Made dagger on his belt and says that they’d be stupid to go after Briallyn directly. Eris asks what they’ll do when they have all three Trove items and points out they can’t destroy them and hiding them probably wouldn’t work. Cassian asks what he’s going to do to stop them. Eris says that if they fail to get the Crown, they risk Briallyn using it against them, that she could make them expose everything, and repeats that they should not go after the Crown. Cassian says we’ll see and implies the Made items can protect them against the Crown. they kind of undo everything they did at the ball but don’t seem concerned by it. Cassian and Nesta fly away and Nesta says he did well and Cassian says he pretended he was Nesta. they fly for hours and then land on a bridge over the Sidra and Cassian says he thought they would walk a while, holding hands. Nesta asks what Cassian thinks Eris will do, and he says sulk and then think of a new way to insult Cassian. she says that Cassian playing courtier gave her some ideas, and he says it did the same to him. he kisses her and she says people are looking and he says he doesn’t care, he wants them to know they share a bed. Nesta asks if it undermines her rep as a warrior to be seen with him, and he counters with does it do the same for faerug when she’s with riceman, and Nesta says it’s different for them bc they’re mates. Nesta seems to know what Cassian is gonna say and isn’t surprised when he implies they’re mates, and he says that she doesn’t want to be, and she says that the word doesn’t really hold any meaning with her. he asks why she’s frightened, and she says she isn’t, and he asked if being seen with him spooked her, and she doesn’t answer. here’s the excerpt. Emerie is at her kitchen table when Nesta arrives, Mor having winnowed Nesta there. Nesta makes it two steps into Emerie’s shop before she starts to cry, and Emerie helps her into a chair and listens as Nesta tells her everything that happened. a knock sounds on the door an hour later and Gwyn comes in to hug Nesta, brought by Mor, who nods at Nesta and winnows away. Emerie says she’s surprised Gwyn left the library and Gwyn says that some things are more important than fear. Nesta spends the night at Emerie’s house and decides she’ll talk to Cassian tomorrow and explain everything. Nesta wakes to “a male scent” in her room that isn’t Cassian, Azriel, or riceman. down the hall, Gwyn screams and goes silent. she tries to reach for her power, but they knock her out.

chapter 63: as per the bargain, Cassian waits until the next day to look for Nesta (and doesn’t seem upset by the bargain at all), asking riceman to winnow him up to Emerie’s shop. before they even enter it, though, riceman knows they’re not here, and the magic that was there is too strong to belong to an Illyrian except on one night when Illyrians possess an “ancient, wild power”. there are signs of a struggle. riceman says that Devlon just confirmed that the Blood Rite began at midnight. Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie were kidnapped to participate in it.

chapter 64: Nesta wakes up and feels a lot of pain. she looks around and finds male Illyrians around her with wings bound (as per the Blood Rite requirements). she realizes she woke before the others bc she’s Made and therefore different. her magic isn’t there bc of the Blood Rite’s spells. she knows she’s in a lot of danger bc she’s a woman in just a nightgown. she knows she needs to find Emerie and Gwyn. a male Illyrian wakes up and looks like he wants to rape her and then notices a knife embedded in a nearby tree. Nesta runs. Cassian asks to be winnowed to them so he can save them, but his family is against it and riceman tells Cassian to explain to faerug why: anyone who takes someone from the Blood Rite will be executed, as will the person taken from the Rite. Azriel says that his spies informed him Eris has been captured by Briallyn. Cassian and Azriel have to go after him bc riceman can’t risk it and explains the suicide pact. Cassian says they should let him die and faerug says they can’t bc he could reveal everything under the Crown’s control, and asks what he knows and Cassian explains what it is, and faerug wonders if the Made dagger will offer some immunity against the Crown. while Azriel and Cassian go, Amren says that she’s going to have a long talk about the bargain bw fey///sand to fey///sand. back in Nesta’s POV, she’s running for the knife in the tree but the Illyrian rams into her and then they both go tumbling down into a streambed a hundred feet below. turns out she stabbed him in the throat while they fell and he’s dead. she takes his clothes, puts them on, and pulls the knife free before leaving to find Emerie and Gwyn.

chapter 65: Cassian once told Nesta about the three sites where participants of the Rite are placed. Nesta isn’t sure where to find Gwyn and Emerie and remembers that Cassian won’t be able to come for her bc of the rules of the Rite. any wounds would heal at a human rate bc the Rite saps all magic. the charm on the bracelet she made with Gwyn and Emerie is glowing, telling her to go north, and apparently she Made the charms into beacons when her wish was to always be able to find their way back to each other. as she runs north, she knows she needs to find food, water, and shelter bc it looks like snow is coming. someone shoots an arrow at her and then tells her to get up when she falls. Cassian and Azriel find Briallyn’s stronghold.

chapter 66: the male Illyrian is smaller than the other but he has a bow and arrow and tells Nesta to give him her weapons. Nesta asks if there was a female where he came from and he calls Emerie a “cr*ppled bitch” and say she left her to the others bc Nesta is “better prey”. Nesta pretends to acquiesce to his demands and then throws the dagger at his groin, and he screams in pain. as he screams, she charges him and knocks him down, then pulls the knife free, steals his bow and arrows, and runs in the direction he came from, leaving him there to bleed out. she finds a group of Illyrians filling canteens at a stream and talking to each other, and listens in but doesn’t hear anything about any women where they came from, and then hears one of them say that Emerie escaped but would have made good entertainment. turns out Emerie went down the river but may have died in the rapids, so Nesta goes looking and finds Emerie clinging to a tree. Nesta strips to cross the river for Emerie. Nesta uses Emerie’s nightgown to tie her to Nesta’s body bc Emerie is unconscious, then crosses the river again, covers Emerie with the dry clothes, and then gathers wood to make a fire. Nesta holds Emerie for skin to skin warmth. she makes a plan to survive the night, help Emerie, and then find Gwyn. Nesta starts looking for a cave and a male Illyrian shows up and says “the entrance is here” and even though she is barely clothed, she senses no lust or hatred in him. the Illyrian points out the cave and says it’s big enough to fit inside, and that they won’t survive the night on the ground. he says that bc she’s not scaling a tree, it’s clear she has someone hurt with her, but she doesn’t say anything. he says he saw the man she killed, wonders who dropped weapons here, and that he has no quarrel with her, and will go to Ramiel by a less traveled path. he’s spending the night in the cave and invites her to do the same. she says so he can steal her weapons and he says no bc he knows who she is and wouldn’t be so stupid. she says it’s the Blood Rite and that he’d be forgiven, and he says faerug would not forgive him for killing her sister. he swears an oath on someone named Enalius to not kill Nesta or whoever she’s with. she counters with not to harm them in any way either, or have anyone else do the same, and he swears to that too. she asks for help carrying Emerie. we learn the guy’s name is Balthazar, and he gives Emerie his wool cloak to lay beneath. they sit on either side of Emerie to keep her warm. Nesta says that, by dawn, Balthazar needs to be gone, and he says he’ll be glad to bc the beasts in the forest might scent Emerie’s blood and come looking. she asks why he isn’t out there killing everyone, and he says bc he wants to reach Ramiel and become Oristian, but if he finds someone he wants to kill he will. they hear snapping branches and a howl, and Balthazar says they’ll be patrolling all night, but many Illyrians forget that. Balthazar offers to take first watch and Nesta says fine but she doesn’t sleep at all that night. Illyrians scream all night as the beasts hunt. Balthazar says she’ll find plenty of clothes today, says good luck, and leaves. she sees that countless bodies lay scattered around, many half-eaten. back in Cassian’s POV, they’re unable to find Eris in the lands surrounding Briallyn’s castle. Azriel asks a human merchant if he’s seen a male fae and he says yes, he saw one with red hair dragged into the castle the night before last but that he’s to be taken somewhere soon. Azriel says they’ll wait here until night and then follow them with cloud cover. Azriel and Cassian don’t talk about the bargain fey///sand made. Cassian knows he’d feel if Nesta died bc of the mating bond. Nesta looks through the bodies for clothes and supplies: two canteens, another dagger, and someone’s half-eaten rabbit dinner. when Nesta returns to the cave, Emerie is awake and asks after Gwyn, and Nesta dresses Emerie in better-fitting clothes and uses the charm to find Gwyn is to the south, which hadn’t changed since yesterday.

chapter 67: Emerie explains that she’d been attacked and chased by the Illyrians, leapt into the river as a last-ditch escape, and knocked her head on a rock. they pass many other Illyrians as they head south. some of them are solo and ignore them, while others are fighting in packs. a day passes and they find another cave to spend the night in. Emerie takes first watch and Nesta sleeps, and in the morning more beasts killed more Illyrians. it starts to snow. Emerie smells fire and they think it might belong to Gwyn bc the charms also tell them to go that way. they see Gwyn’s nightgown but no Gwyn, and they see a group of Illyrians around a fire but no Gwyn, and then Emerie is captured. Cassian and Azriel are still watching the castle but Cassian wonders if Briallyn knows they’re here and are waiting for them to make a move. Azriel can’t tell if Eris is even still alive. Cassian says they should break in and Azriel says the castle is too well-protected. one of the Illyrians says that Nesta and Emerie are stupid females for falling for the nightgown. Nesta demands to know where Gwyn is and they say they haven’t seen her, they only found the nightgown lying somewhere. one of the Illyrians who captured them is Emerie’s cousin from that day in her shop. Nesta asks if he sabotaged the Rite with weapons, and he says he wouldn’t call it sabotage and neither would some nameless “she” who Nesta suspects is Briallyn. a monster attacks before the Illyrians can make good on their threats. Nesta shouts at Emerie to run and grabs their weapons, and Emerie grabs a sword, and then hears a female voice shout at them to come her way. Gwyn is waiting for them in stolen clothes and leads them far away. she says she woke up before the others, and Nesta wonders if it’s bc she and Gwyn aren’t Illyrian, and Gwyn explains everything she’s been up to. she also lead the monster to the Illyrians holding Emerie and Nesta. Gwyn says they really came looking for her, and Emerie says of course bc that’s what sisters do.

chapter 68: as night falls, Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn climb a tree with no caves to be seen. they use a rope Gwyn found to tie them to the tree so they can rest. Gwyn asks Emerie what she knows about the Rite. they trade watches to sleep. in the morning, sun shines and Gwyn climbs the tree to find that Ramiel is days away to the northeast, leaving them a day to climb it should they reach it. there’s a ravine with a wooden bridge they can reach first if they run, so they run. they see six Illyrians, who sprint toward the ravine when they see Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn, and the three of them give chase. Nesta decides they need to intercept them to make it to the ravine first, and then they fight the Illyrians. they kill all six. Cassian says he and Azriel have been sitting on their asses for four days. Azriel points out a lot of spying is waiting for people to do anything, and Cassian says that’s why he quit spying, and Azriel says spying suits him. Azriel reassures Cassian that they trained Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie well. someone leaves the castle and the fly into the sky to watch. they see that Briallyn snared Eris with the Crown, and Azriel points out that he’s still carrying the Made dagger. if he’d been under her control, she’d have taken it from him. Cassian calls him a traitor and Azriel says they need to follow them to see who they’re meeting with. Nesta and co haven’t reached the ravine before another group of Illyrians shows up with bows and arrows. they keep running even as arrows rain down, and Emerie reaches the bridge first. Nesta makes it across with Emerie, but Gwyn was shot in the thigh on the other side. she yells at them to cut the bridge and she stands up but can’t make it across the bridge in time, so Nesta ties the rope they have around the tree, then around one of her arrows, and shoots it toward Gwyn. Gwyn wraps the rope around her waist and yells at them to cut the bridge. Nesta cuts the bridge while Gwyn runs across it, and then as the bridge falls the rope around Gwyn catches her. the Illyrians behind her fall to the ravine. Emerie and Nesta pull Gwyn up to the top of the ravine, the Illyrians on the other side yelling at them. they remove the arrow from Gwyn’s leg and bind it, but she’s slowing their pace. they encounter no one else and by the time night falls they’ve made it to the foot of Ramiel, but Gwyn isn’t doing well. Nesta wakes up before dawn, then makes sure Gwyn is still alive and the wound isn’t infected. Nesta says that only twelve have made it this far in the Rite, and that they’ve already become Oristian. Gwyn says they should keep going when Nesta suggests hiding instead of climbing it, and Gwyn says so rather than try and fail they’d rather not try at all, and Emerie says not if it costs Gwyn her life. Gwyn asks if it’s really living to take the safe road, and that she’s tired of hiding in the library and that she doesn’t want to take the safe road, she wants to take the dangerous one with Nesta and Emerie. Emerie says they call it the Breaking for a reason, Nesta says they haven’t eaten in days and they’re down to the last of their water. Gwyn explains what happened with her sister, how and why she was beheaded, and tells them how she was gang-raped. then Azriel arrived and killed everyone, followed by Mor and riceman. Mor healed her and brought her to the library. she says working with Merrill helped her recover. she says she saw Nesta appear at the library and knows that Catrin, Gwyn’s twin, would’ve been the first to sign up for the training, so Gwyn did, too. and then Emerie starts talking about what happened to her, about her dad beating her so badly she once broke her back. he beat her mother, too, and when she died made Emerie dig her grave. she came to training bc she knew her dad would’ve forbidden it. Nesta then explains why she came to the House of Wind and who she was before it. Nesta says that neither of them failed anyone, and Gwyn says that she didn’t either, and they decide to climb Ramiel.

chapter 69: Eris and the caravan head east for three days. they see that Eris isn’t chained and rides beside Briallyn, but they don’t see the Crown. they enter a forest that Azriel says he’s never been to but reminds him of the Middle. Eris’s caravan halts by a lake and Azriel and Cassian land to begin tracking on foot. Eris says “Over here, Cassian” and Cassian turns and Eris holds a knife to his ribs. Nesta and co climb the mountain. Nesta wonders if the Breaking also messes with their minds bc she can’t turn hers off and Gwyn and Emerie look haunted. they rest a little and then keep climbing. at nightfall, Emerie says it looks like they’re 2/3 of the way up. Gwyn says she needs to rest, her leg bleeding. Emerie also twisted her ankle. she says that the Pass of Enalius isn’t too far ahead and that if they can make it it’s a clear shot to the top of the mountain. Nesta tells Emerie to let Gwyn rest. Gwyn spots Bellius, Emerie’s cousin, and other Illyrians making their way up the mountain. Nesta tells Gwyn to get on her back and they climb up the mountain. back with Cassian and Azriel, Eris holds Cassian with the dagger to his ribs. Cassian says that he always knew Eris was a lying bastard but this is low, and Eris says he’s disappointed in riceman, who didn’t even bother to look into his mind. Azriel says that Eris is a “dead male walking” and Eris refers to Mor as “the Morrigan” which clues Cassian in that Eris isn’t himself bc he never refers to her like that, and Cassian tells Briallyn, wherever she is, to let Eris go and come play with them instead, and Eris removes the dagger from Cassian’s side and Briallyn says that she’s already playing with them. back with Nesta, they reach the Pass of Enalius and Emerie says she’s standing where none of her ancestors ever stood before. they keep climbing but then fall back to the Pass of Enalius. Nesta says she can’t carry Gwyn anymore and Gwyn says so they rest a minute and then keep trying. Nesta says she can hold the Illyrians off while Emerie and Gwyn keep climbing. Gwyn refuses to leave her. Nesta hugs Gwyn and then knocks her out, and asks if Emerie can carry her the rest of the way, or at least until dawn. Emerie gives her all the weapons and Nesta tells her to take the canteen and lies that she has enough. Emerie says Gwyn will never forgive Nesta for this and Nesta says she knows. Nesta ties Gwyn onto Emerie’s back and Emerie asks her to come with them again, and Nesta says to consider it a repayment of a debt for being her friend, and Emerie says there is no debt, and Nesta insists there is. Emerie goes and Nesta turns to face the approaching Illyrians. Cassian knows that with Eris in Briallyn’s grip there’s little choice in doing anything, and refuses to consider himself or Azriel becoming locked in the Crown’s grip. the party that Eris and Briallyn traveled in has vanished, and Cassian wonders if they were even real. Briallyn removes her cloak and reveals there’s nothing there, and Koschei says it’s an animated kernel of magic and they’re by his lake. Nesta sees that Emerie is on the straight path to the top of the mountain and then gathers her weapons and shield.

chapter 70: Bellius sends the others through the pass toward Nesta first. Nesta fights them and wonders what she could have done with her sword in her hand, and then tells us the meaning of Ataraxia.

chapter 71: Azriel asks Koschei where Briallyn is. Koschei says he spent so many months preparing for them and now they don’t want to talk to him, and Cassian tells him to let Eris go and then they’ll talk. he hopes they can’t tell that the dagger Eris holds is Made. Azriel’s shadows seem to give a warning and he tells Cassian to run and then grabs Eris and flies into the sky, but Cassian is held in place, and Koschei tells Briallyn she can take Cassian now bc there’s plenty of time before dawn, and she emerges from the trees. Koschei says to tell Vassa he’s waiting. Briallyn says she has need of Cassian and then tells Koschei to winnow them. back with Nesta, she’s exhausted but only Bellius remains. Bellius tells her that the Illyrian god, the first of the Illyrians, fought against enemies right where Nesta stands. he says that Enalius, the god, died after three days, climbing to the sacred stone atop the mountain to die. he says it’s why they do this ”stupid thing,” to honor him. Gwyn and Emerie both touched the stone and were winnowed away by its magic. Nesta says it looks like Bellius didn’t win, and he says he never wanted to win, only wanted this, and then attacks her.

chapter 72: Nesta knows she only has to hold Bellius off until dawn, when the Rite ends. they fight and snow begins to fall. he knocks her sword and shield away and then starts cutting at her. he asks if Nesta honestly thinks she can beat him and she says yes, dodges a strike, and then smashes her hand into his nose, and says this:

And Nesta hissed, “Because my mate taught me well.”

chapter 73: they launch themselves at each other again. after more fighting, she falls and can’t get up, and Bellius approaches, but before he can kill her he’s killed by Cassian. Cassian helps her up and then says he’s going to cut her throat. in Cassian’s head, we see him trying to break free of Briallyn’s control. Nesta tries to break through to him, but then Briallyn says he’s hers and Nesta turns to see Briallyn.

chapter 74: Briallyn stands on the pass. Nesta launches herself away from Cassian when his arms loosen, but he remains still as a statue. Briallyn reveals that her plan was to nab the “maimed one” (Emerie) after having Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn brought to the Rite. Briallyn says she saw how much Nesta cared for Emerie when they were connected via the Harp ages ago. Briallyn wanted Nesta here so she doesn’t have magic, and Nesta says she was worn down days ago, why didn’t she come sooner, and Briallyn says she was waiting for Cassian. Nesta can see that rage is in Cassian’s eyes now, breaking through the glassy veneer. she says she had to use Eris to draw Cassian to her. when Eris’s soldiers came to capture him, he tried to help them, but they took him. Briallyn says that Bellius was a “hateful brute” just like Cassian. she told Bellius to hunt Nesta down but not kill her, and surmises she wasn’t precise enough in her wording to Bellius. Nesta asks why Briallyn is doing this and why she doesn’t want peace, and Briallyn says what she wants is the Trove, not peace, and that Cassian is the only person who can make Nesta summon the Trove. Briallyn says that once she has the Trove she’ll leave Cassian and Nesta unscathed, and Nesta scents the lie, and then Cassian breaks the control to say “Don’t” and Briallyn makes him close his mouth again but the glassiness isn’t in his eyes anymore. Nesta says no and Briallyn says she’ll have to try to convince her, and Cassian attacks her and Nesta has no strength to fight back. Cassian pleads with his eyes for Nesta to stop him. Briallyn says that it’ll kill him to kill his mate. Nesta says that if she’s dead Briallyn won’t get the Trove, and Briallyn says there’s others in the NC as “delusional” as Nesta. Cassian is ordered to kill, but Briallyn never specified who, so he tries to kill himself and Nesta “erupted with the force of the Cauldron.” the entire world shakes as Nesta does so, and then she attacks Briallyn and sucks her life from her until she pretty much vanishes.

chapter 75: Cassian lies facedown on the ground and Nesta runs toward him and he reveals he’s alive and she starts to cry. Cassian says Nesta Unmade Briallyn. Nesta calls Cassian her mate and then they kiss. Mor and Azriel appear. Cassian asks after Eris, and Azriel says he’s safe in the Hewn City and the Made dagger is back in their possession. Mor says “It’s Feyre”

chapter 76: the river house is silent and Mor says faerug started to bleed a few hours ago. Mor takes Nesta to faerug, whose legs are covered in blood. she’s pale and barely breathing and riceman is scared. Madja says she turned the baby but he’s stuck in the birth canal. after faerug says to do it, Madja says they could cut the baby out but it and faerug would die. Elain appears and takes Nesta’s hand and they start praying. Madja gets the tools and tells riceman to go into faerug’s mind to take away her pain, and faerug says no goodbyes. then Madja swears and riceman screams. Cassian and Azriel pull riceman away from faerug. Cassian sees Nesta wearing the Mask, Crown, and holding the Harp, and she moves toward the bed with her eyes full of silver fire, and riceman lunges for her but Nesta holds up her hand to stop him and he does. Nesta plays the twenty-sixth string.

chapter 77: the twenty-sixth string is Time itself. Nesta stops it as faerug “took her last breath.” Nesta walks through the frozen-in-time room to stop by faeurg. Nesta tells faerug she loves her. Nesta says that if she’s shown how to save faerug, the Cauldron can have its magic back. time resumes. Nesta says she gives it all back again and again and light flows from her to faerug (idk man). light keeps flowing around faerug and, as the light fades, Nesta is marked with another tattoo bargain with the Cauldron.

Yet Cassian could have sworn a luminescent, gentle hand prevented the light from leaving her body altogether.

chapter 77 continued: riceman rushes to faerug, who looks healthy again, and she turns to Nesta and says she loves her, too. then the baby starts to cry. Madja says that it appears faerug now has Illyrian anatomy. she also tells faerug to feed him. riceman falls to his knees in front of Nesta and thanks her, weeping. she hugs him.

chapter 78: Gwyn and Emerie are waiting in the parlor of the river house. Gwyn says she should never forgive Nesta, but Nesta just hugs her and Emerie and says they won. Mor took the Trove back to the place Nesta summong them from. Nesta asks how Emerie and Gwyn are healed and she says the stone did it. Nesta asks Emerie if her family will punish her for what happened to Bellius, and Emerie says that deaths happen in the Rite. the book waxes poetic about Nyx, fey///sand’s baby. Cassian holds the baby and he and faerug coo over him. riceman is still pale and shaken. Nesta walks in and looks at Cassian, silently requesting something, and he gives the baby to faerug. they go outside and Cassian asks if Nesta’s magic is really all gone. Nesta says she gave it all back but some of it’s still there and she thinks something or someone else stopped it from giving it all back. she also made some changes of her own. Cassian realizes it’s the Mother, who would have seen Nesta’s sacrifice and saved some magic for her. he asks what changes Nesta made. she said she changed herself a little so she can survive a birth. Cassian is shocked and asks if she’s ready to have a baby and she says no, she’ll be drinking her tea for a while yet. she says she wants a “disgustingly ornate” mating ceremony, and Cassian says they’ll never hear the end of it from Mor and Azriel. she gives him a biscuit instead then and says it’s part of the ceremony, to offer the mate food, and Cassian laughs and says his options are a stale biscuit or a frilly ceremony, and she says yes. he says they’ll make a coronation of it and she says she already has a crown. Cassian starts to think about everything they have to do and Nesta says they’ll think about that all later, and then tells him “I love you.”

chapter 79: two days after Nyx’s birth, Cassian goes to meet with Eris in the Hewn City. Eris says he can’t stay long and Cassian says “good”. they want to know what Eris told Beron. Eris says that Beron knows Cassian “assisted” him when he was kidnapped. Cassian wonders if Beron tortured him and Eris explains the lies he gave him in answer. Eris tells him to not pity him. Cassian asks why Eris left Mor in the forest that day. Eris says that Cassian isn’t the person he wants to explain himself to. Eris says that Beron might be stupid enough to try to ally with Koschei. Cassian goes to leave, then stops.

chapter 80: as spring blooms, faerug and Nyx are well enough to leave the house, and they go on walks around the house with riceman or Mor with them, both really protective. Cassian and Azriel are too. one day, Nesta, faerug and Elain all go on a walk. we learn Nesta and Cassian have sex a lot and he calls her mate all the time. Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie told Cassian and Azriel everything that happened, and the two of them made lists of what to fix during training, which doesn’t stop even though they’ve passed the Rite. Gwyn says she might leave the library to come to the mating ceremony in three days. Nesta wants an outrageous party but not a big crowd, and so the temple is done up and riceman promises it’ll be what she hopes for. riceman gave Cassian and Nesta the House of Wind, since it decided it liked Nesta more than anyone else, as a wedding gift, with the library still belonging to the priestesses and the house being used for formal occasions. faerug painted Nesta holding the line at the Pass of Enalius as a gift. Nesta had let riceman see some of the Rite but had no idea it had been to give faerug ideas for a painting. now, Elain, faerug, and Nesta go to visit their dad’s grave so they can show Nyx and vice versa. faerug says “Your grandson, Father”. faerug had asked Nesta if she wanted to go with them that morning, and Nesta had said yes. Nesta lingers by the gravestone and tries to think of something to say, like an explanation or apology, but nothing comes. she says she’s going to live the rest of her life deserving the love of the people who love her. she leaves the carving she took from the cottage at the gravestone. she says “thank you” to him and hears Cassian flying overhead, making sure she’s all right, and she thinks “busybody” but blows him a kiss. then she turns and joins her sisters, who beckon to her from halfway down the hill.

#anti sjm #anti acosf #myth and kat read acosf #spoilers #acosf recap #long post

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spaceskam · 4 years

Text

ao3

Alex Manes stormed into the Wild Pony with an uncharacteristic fury in his eyes.

Michael immediately assumed it was for him, so he stood up and took a step in front of the table to take the brunt, but Alex pushed past him. Michael grabbed his arm and tried to figure out what was going on, but Alex yanked his arm out of his grasp.

"Whoa, what's going on?" Michael asked. Alex looked at him and Michael noticed the anger was laced with fear.

"What's going on? What's going on?" Alex repeated, scoffing, "What's going on is your brother, who I went out of my goddamn way to help more than once, is the reason I have to have a formal meeting with all of my fucking superiors and, if that doesn't go well, he's the reason I'll be court martialed."

"What?" Michael breathed, panic slowly stirring in him.

"What do mean, what the hell did I do?" Max asked. Alex seemed to remember that he was there and turned to face where he sat in the booth, visibly fuming. Michael didn't know whether to try to calm him down or if he should let him yell at Max.

"I gave them that space to use as a lab to save your ass. I was giving them somewhere safe to experiment and figure shit out because they needed it to save you. And you just, what, decided to blow it up for fun? What the hell am I supposed to tell my superiors? What am I supposed to say when they investigate and I have no idea what they'll find? They'll look into me, who I'm affiliated with, and they'll find a whole bunch of shit I covered up to help you," Alex scoffed, shaking his head. Max was just staring with wide eyes. "What, you don't have anything to say? You aren't even going to try to explain why the fuck you did that?"

"I..." Max breathed, "I just... I needed to destroy Liz's work. She was going to expose us."

Alex laughed humorlessly, the whole sound wet with tears. Michael felt his heart pounding in his ears as he became flooded with more than one genuine concern for Alex, for his siblings, all because Max had less self control than everyone he knew.

"Right, okay, so you blew up government property that I was in control of? Do you understand what you've done?" Alex asked, shaking his head, "They're going to find something, they always do. We're all going down."

"I didn't realize it was government property, no one told me, I mean, I didn't think–"

"Yeah, you're right, you didn't think," Alex scoffed, "Because fucking exploding a building shouldn't be on the list of options at all ever. I don't give a shit what's going on. Your move was idiotic and we're all going to suffer."

Alex turned to leave and Michael followed. Typically, in times like these, he turned to anger and booze to distract himself, but he'd been trying to do better. That meant going to Alex for comfort. But, unfortunately, Alex couldn't be that for him right now, so he'd have to find something that helped them both.

"Alex," Michael called, jogging to keep up with him as he stalked towards his truck.

"I can't right now, Guerin, I really can't," Alex said. Michael didn't stop.

"Just tell me what I can do and I'll do it. Do I need to get Isobel to mindwarp someone? Do you wanna go on the run? Tell me what you need and I'll make it happen," he said.

Alex stopped with his hand on the handle of his truck's door, taking a deep, shaky breath. Michael waited for him to say something, but a few minutes went by before he realized Alex was crying. He hesitated, unsure if he should touch him. But then he remembered all the times that Alex needed him to just stop arguing and to just hold him for a minute.

So he wrapped his arms around him from behind.

"Guerin," Alex said weakly, his voice a whine as he tried to hide his tears by looking away. Michael bowed his head into his neck and just hugged him, unable to relax until Alex's arms layered over his. "I'm sorry."

"For what? Max is the one who blew up a building," Michael said, "Which I didn't know he did. I swear I didn't."

"No, I'm sorry I can't protect you anymore," Alex admitted softly, shuttering a breath as he held back a sob. Michael gave him a small squeeze.

"Hey, stop that. None of this is your fault. Besides, this whole protecting thing isn't one-sided and this isn't over. Just tell me what needs to happen."

"I don't know," Alex admitted, clearly frustrated, "I don't know. I don't know how to get out of this one, Michael. They're probably exploring the site right now and finding what they ca–oh, God, your DNA is all over that place. Fuck."

"Hey, hey," Michael said, pushing away his own fear as he focused on Alex's. He'd always failed at that before. Not this time. He reached up and brushed the tears off his cheeks. "Look, it's not over. Let's head out to the cabin and come up with a plan. It's gonna be okay. I'm not giving up."

"I'm going to be court-martialed, but none of it's gonna be public knowledge once they figure out what I've been covering up," Alex said, panic in his voice, "I'm either... I'm gonna go missing. I know too much, Michael, I know too much."

"Hey," Michael said, grabbing his chin and making his look at him in hopes it would steady his breathing, "You're not going anywhere and neither am I. We're going to fix this."

"How can you be so sure?" Alex asked. Michael searched his face for a viable answer. A few came to mind, stubbornness and denial being major ones, but there was one bigger than all of that.

"Because our time isn't up, Alex. I still got a lifetime with you in my future and I'll be damned if that's taken from us," Michael said. Alex sniffled, his eyebrows furrowing. "So we're going to figure a way out of this, okay? We always do. It's gonna be okay. You trust me?"

"Yes," Alex said without hesitation, "Yes, I trust you."

"Then let's get to work."

Michael got into the driver's seat of Alex's truck and began the long drive out to the cabin, praying to anyone who might be listening that he wouldn't let Alex down.

Not this time.

#malex #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #roswell new mexico #my fic #does this count as angst

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kalligfamilysoapopera · 3 years

Text

COMPANION MEME

Stole this from @shanfamilydrama because I thought it sounded fun. If you haven’t done it yet and want to, consider yourself tagged!

Cyra Kallig

Selection Line:

“Now, we crush our foes.”

“I knew you wouldn’t forget me.”

“What new mayhem awaits us?”

"I do not serve you, but I will accompany you nonetheless.”

"Let’s have a bit of fun, shall we?”

Class: Assassin

Weapons: Dualsaber (purple crystal)

Battle Lines:

"Time to die!”

"Feel my power and tremble!”

"Are you afraid yet?”

[Maniacal Laughter]

Exiting Battle:

"Aw, over already?”

"Well then, that’s done I suppose.”

“There was no chance of our failure.”

"Perhaps there will be a real challenge next time.”

KO’d/Low Health:

"I won’t die here!”

"Help me, you fool!”

"It’s nothing... just a scratch...”

Resurrected:

"Thank you... I suppose.”

"I could have handled that myself.”

"That was close... uncomfortably so.”

Misc. Click Lines:

"What are you looking at?”

"If I had anything to say to you, I would say it.”

"Don’t we have more pressing matters to attend to?”

"I know dark secrets that you could only dream of.”

"In time, perhaps we can talk more.”

"Is there not a galaxy to conquer?”

"Hm? Oh, I was lost in thought.”

(Nar Shaddaa Only) “All these glittering lights hide such a vile underbelly... how repulsive. But useful in the right moments.”

Healing lines:

"Let the darkness embrace you.”

"Get up, you’re stronger than this.”

Crew skills lines:

Sent on Mission: “I suppose I can lower myself to this.”

Mission Success: “Did you ever doubt me?”

Mission Failure: “The task was beneath me anyway.”

Gifts: Likes, Favourites, Loves

Courting

Cultural Artifact

Imperial Memorabilia

Luxury

Military Gear

Republic Memorabilia

Technology

Trophy

Underworld Good

Weapon

Maintenance

Delicacies

Full recruitment quest below the cut because I had to be extra like that.

Recruitment Quest:

ALLIANCE ALERT: Enshrouded in Madness Contact: Sana-Rae

Description: Commander,

I have had a vision of you, travelling to the planet Belsavis. There, a new darkness is festering, one that may grow to rival the other ancient things that dwell there. In my vision, you enter this darkness, and vanish. When you return, the darkness has lifted, and the alliance has been strengthened.

My vision tells me that you should begin your search in the Tomb. More than that, I cannot say.

Quest Objectives and Conversation Tree:

OBJECTIVE: Search for the source of the darkness on Belsavis

(Upon arriving on Belsavis, travel to the Tomb and enter an instanced area in the Cells of the Lords of the Infinite. Fight your way through a few Primordial Beasts to reach a sealed doorway and Cyra Kallig standing in front of it, lightsaber drawn)

OBJECTIVE: Speak to Cyra Kallig

Cyra Kallig: Why have you come here? Fool, you shall fall as all those before you have fallen! Cyra Kallig: Wait... there is something... different about you. You are not here to stop me, are you?

[Option 1 “I’m here to stop the Darkness”]

Commander: I am here to put an end to the darkness. Whether that means to stop you, well, that depends. Cyra Kallig: Ah, I see... one of those, then... well, I’m terribly sorry to disappoint, but I am not the source.

[Option 2 “You’re a Sith?”]

Commander (Force-Sensitive): I can sense the darkness within you, Sith. Commander (Non Force-Sensitive): I would know robes and a lightsaber like that anywhere. You’re Sith, aren’t you? Cyra Kallig: Congratulations! What, do you expect some sort of prize? Cyra Kallig: Of course I’m Sith. But I am not the source of the darkness that you seek.

[Option 3 “I just want to talk”]

Commander: Of course not, I just wanted to have a talk. Cyra Kallig: As if I would believe that. You wouldn’t come out all this way just to talk to a Sith you’ve never met before, would you? Cyra Kallig: You’re investigating the darkkness here, aren’t you? Well, sorry to disappoint, but it isn’t me.

Cyra Kallig: I’m here for the same reason as you-- seeking after the source of this darkness. Cyra Kallig: If I know anything about the Dark Side-- and I know quite a lot-- then I would say that this feeling is almost certainly comign from an artefact. A powerful one. Cyra Kallig: Why it’s only just now created a disturbance, I cannot say. Perhaps the turmoil and conflict in the galaxy is resonating with it and has woken it from its slumber. Cyra Kallig: Regardless, I wish to access this artefact. And if you do as well, I don’t see why we can’t cooperate. Cyra Kallig: I’ve studied this vault and meditated on this matter, and I believe that the artefact is within this sealed chamber. It seems that the only way to open it is with a key of sorts. Cyra Kallig: Within this vault, there are various other fragments-- alone insignificant, but when placed within the sealed door, I believe that they will resonate with the artefact inside and cause it to open. Cyra Kallig: If you find these fragments and bring them to me, then we can reach the artefact inside.

[Option 1 “Why should I trust you?”]

Commander: And why exactly should I trust what you say? How do I know you won’t turn on me? Cyra Kallig: Oh, I very well might. But you want to unearth this artefact, as do I, so it’s best we just cooperate. We can figure out the fine details later.

[Option 2 “I’ll find these fragments.”]

Commander: I will return once I’ve found your artefact fragments. Cyra Kallig: Good, and I hope you do hurry.

[Option 3 “Why can’t you do it?”]

Commander: Why am I the one who has to do the grunt work? Why can’t you find these fragments yourself? Cyra Kallig: I could find them myself, of course-- but if I were to do that, there’s no chance that I’ll let you share in my discoveries, and you wouldn’t want to be left out, would you?

Cyra Kallig: The artefact fragments will probably be scattered throughout this vault. I doubt that they’ve been taken, but if you can’t find all of them, perhaps killing a few of the vault’s denizens might help with your focus.

OBJECTIVE: Locate Artefact Fragments (4) Bonus: Defeat Vault Guardian Beasts and Droids (15)

(The artefact fragments will be in clickable places around the vault, they’re set within carvings. A number of Guardian Beasts and Droids can also be found, and they’ll drop credits and junk loot. Once you’ve found all four fragments, the objective will update)

OBJECTIVE: Return to Cyra Kallig

Cyra Kallig: You’ve found them! Oh, how wonderful, now, hand them over to me and I’ll unseal this vault.

Commander: [Gives artefacts]

[Cyra Kallig places the artefacts in the door. It begins to glow, and opens up. Within the vault is a Rakata Mind Prison, suspended in the middle of the chamber.]

Cyra Kallig: I’ve seen these before... they can trap a person’s consciousness inside of them... but this one, it’s strange. Not like the others. Cyra Kallig: It feels... empty. Like an endless void, but one that spreads out, consuming all...

[Cyra Kallig approaches the Mind Prison]

Cyra Kallig: Whoever, or whatever, was trapped here... is no longer the same as they once were... now, simply a fountain of dark power... Cyra Kallig: [maniacal laughter] Cyra Kallig: Such power that it will drive mad anyone that comes near it, should they not have the strength to resist! This is amazing!

[Cyra Kallig turns to face the Commander]

Cyra Kallig: You... you’ve come here for this artefact as well... I will not allow you to have it!

[She draws her weapon]

OBJECTIVE: Defeat Cyra Kallig

(Cyra Kallig is an elite enemy and uses a variety of melee and Force attacks typical of the Sith Assassin, with both a stun and knockback ability. At 75, 50, and 25% HP, she will stealth out and summon a pair of Illusions, both Strong difficulty, who you must defeat before she will re-appear.)

OBJECTIVE: Speak to Cyra Kallig

Cyra Kallig: I cannot believe it-- you’ve beaten me! I was right, there truly is something special about you... The artefact is yours, I suppose... even I can admit when I’ve lost.

[Option 1 (LS) [Destroy the Artefact]]

Commander: I won’t keep it. It must be destroyed. (The commander strikes the artefact, destroying it)

[Option 2 [Seal the Artefact away]]

Commander: No, it’s dangerous. I’ll leave it here in this vault, and destroy the key fragments. (The commander backs away from the artefact)

[Option 3 (DS) [Take the Artefact]]

Commander: Yes, it is mine... It’ll look nice in my collection, don’t you think? (The commander takes the artefact)

Cyra Kallig: You’re far more powerful than I could have imagined... You can resist its pull. But then... I suppose I’ve always been a little mad myself anyway. Cyra Kallig: [chuckles ruefully] I suppose you’ll just leave me to my fate then... now that you’ve beaten me down, broken me, mortally wounded me... Cyra Kallig: Typical. Just when I think I’ve finally attained power, everything is lost...

[Option 1 (LS) “Let me heal your wounds.”]

Commander: No, everything isn’t lost. Let me help you. (Heals her wounds) Cyra Kallig: What... you... but why would you do this? Now you’ve made me indebted to you!

[Option 2 (DS) [Say Nothing]]

Cyra Kallig: I suppose all of this seeking after power was bound to catch up with me... Eventually, I would have to find a foe that I couldn’t beat... [dies] [[ QUEST END: Cyra Kallig is killed and cannot be recruited ]]

[Option 3 (DS+) “You were always weak.”[Kill her]]

Commander: Killing you wasn’t even a challenge. (The commander deals a killing blow to Cyra Kallig. Cyra crumbles to the ground and dies.) [[ QUEST END: Cyra Kallig is killed and cannot be recruited ]]

(If Option 1 is chosen, conversation continues as follows)

Cyra Kallig: I suppose I should give some grand speech about how I owe you my life now, and will follow you to the ends of the galaxy or something along those lines... that’s what you’re used to, isn’t it? (She gets up) Cyra Kallig: But I’d say that, since it was you who wounded me in the first place, and you who then healed me, that it cancels it out-- so truly, I don’t owe you anything at all! Cyra Kallig: Still, though... if you came here seeking this artefact, there’s a good chance you’ll find other sources of power in the future, so I suppose it couldn’t hurt to aid you. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to take them as my own. Cyra Kallig: Or-- who knows, perhaps if I fight beside you long enough, I’ll discover how to defeat you! [Laughter, but more genuine than before] Cyra Kallig: At any rate, I am more than willing to work with you on your future endeavours. If you ever wish for my assistance, I’ll be leaving for Yavin Four shortly, so you may find me there.

[Option 1: “You should join the Alliance”]

Commander: I am the commander of an Alliance fighting the Eternal Empire. Your power and skills could be useful. If you’re interested, come to Odessen. Cyra Kallig: An alliance... fighting the Eternal Empire... how fascinating. Quite the monumental task, isn’t it? Well then, perhaps I could be persuaded to help, provided I have sufficient opportunity for mayhem. Cyra Kallig: No-- I’m certain that with my help, your alliance will wade to victory through the blood of your enemies! I shall join you. Cyra Kallig: Farewell, Commander. I will gather my things and join you and your Alliance on Odessen. [[ QUEST END: Cyra Kallig is recruited into the Alliance. She can be found in the Force Enclave and is now available as a follower. ]]

[Option 2: “I’ll keep that in mind”]

Commander: Thank you for your offer. I have no need of you right now, but I will certainly remember this. Cyra Kallig: Yes, yes, of course-- but be aware. Should you take too long to show up, my mind might have changed. [[ QUEST END: Cyra Kallig is not recruited into the Alliance, but should you wish to recruit her at a later time, she can be found in the Temple Ruins on Yavin 4 and can be recruited there. ]]

[Option 3: “I would never seek your help.”]

Commander: I do not wish to have someone like you within my alliance-- go where you wish, I don’t want to speak with you again. Cyra Kallig: Suit yourself. Just remember that, should we meet again, I will not be inclined to show you mercy. [[ QUEST END: Cyra Kallig is not recruited into the Alliance and cannot be recruited at a later date. She can be found in the Temple Ruins on Yavin 4 in a small instanced area as a hostile champion-level solo boss. The area also contains a lockbox with credits and a “Cultural Artefact” type companion gift. Once Cyra is defeated once, she will not respawn, and the instance will be closed to you. ]]

If you chose to delay Cyra’s recruitment (Option 2), and visit her later on Yavin 4, you will receive the quest “Continued Madness” in your mission log, which directs you to her location. Should you abandon the quest, you will receive it again upon entering the instanced area on Yavin 4.

CONTINUED MADNESS

OBJECTIVE: Speak to Cyra Kallig on Yavin 4

Cyra Kallig: Ah, Commander, it’s you again. Have you reconsidered my offer? [Option 1: “Yes, Join the Alliance.” ]

Commander: Yes. I would like you to join the Alliance. Cyra Kallig: I thought you would never ask! Fortunately, I’m still interested. I will see you on Odessen. [[ QUEST END: Cyra Kallig is recruited into the Alliance. She can be found in the Force Enclave and is now available as a follower. ]]

[Option 2: “No, not yet.” ]

Commander: No, I haven’t decided yet. Cyra Kallig: That’s no fun. Come back when you’ve become capable of making a decision, and we’ll see if I still want to join your little cause.

[Option 3: "I’ve changed my mind.” [Attack]]

Commander: I’ve decided that you’re too dangerous to be left alive. Cyra Kallig: Oh, well then-- let’s at least make it good!

If option 2 is chosen, the “Continued Madness” quest remains in your log, with the objective “Speak to Cyra Kallig on Yavin 4″ until she is recruited or killed.

If option 3 is chosen, you will fight Cyra to the death, this time as a champion boss with more difficult mechanics than before.

In any ending where Cyra is killed, she will drop a unique set of armour called “Cyra Kallig’s Armour Set” which is bound to legacy and can only be obtained through killing her. She will also drop “Cyra Kallig’s Maddening Lightsaber,” a unique weapon with a special purple-indigo crystal “Cyra Kallig’s Lightsaber Crystal” and a dark-side haze tuning “Cyra Kallig’s Lightsaber tuning”. Cyra will only need to be killed one time to unlock the armour, the weapon, the tuning, and the crystal in collections.

#swtor #swtor oc #oc: cyra kallig #sith inquisitor #swtor sith inquisitor #swtor companion meme #i went way overboard with this help

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ghostmartyr · 4 years

Text

SnK 130 Thoughts

My opening joke is going to be a brief description of Historia’s circumstances, because it requires no creative energy on my part to make it a joke.

To review!

107 introduces the concept of Historia being a breeding factory. This is suggested as part of Zeke’s 50-year plan to establish Paradis without it being genocided to death. At the end of 107, present-day Historia is shown to be pregnant.

At the very beginning of 108, the Military Police openly discuss how this is kind of weird. And while the mood is largely in favor of Historia having children so the Founding Titan stays in Paradis control, she’s having a child at a very inconvenient time for everyone, because she’s supposed to eat Zeke before he can cause trouble.

In 114, it is revealed that Zeke’s actual plan is to sterilize all Eldians so they die off and stop being a problem. By virtue of five seconds of pondering, this falls apart when you consider that Zeke’s plan is the beginning of Historia being prepped to breed children. Having any royal children would actively interfere with Zeke’s ability to guarantee that his choices for the Founding Titan would be the last.

In 130, Historia is shown to still be going along with the 50-year concept, and no one is stopping her except Eren, who is against Zeke’s sterilization plan (which a child would stop), and who says that Historia making this kind of choice is what’s driving him to genocide.

To which Historia suggests a baby.

-draws a line back to 107-

-underlines Eren’s angry feelings about all of this-

This would make sense if it were live action and the actress were pregnant.

Not within the story or anything.

But an explanation would at least exist.

I should take up drinking. Or cocaine. Or something.

There’s virtually zero content this chapter. Half of it is just Eren going on rampage. This is how you know it’s the end of a volume for a story that’s ending. The subtle ways the story beats come firing at a machine gun’s pace before slowing to a deliberately controlled crawl.

Surprise, Liberio’s no longer a factor!

-surprised Pikachu faces-

-everyone officially burnt out on violence-

-except Eren-

-this is a problem because Eren is indeed causing the most violence, and violence would probably be a great help in stopping him, so having someone on that boat thinking they should just fucking stab him would be just a little encouraging that’s all I’m saying-

Then we dash straight into a slightly more visible flashback to Eren’s memories of the future being unlocked, and get to the development of his genocide plan.

It isn’t much of a plan.

It mostly still involves genocide.

But worse.

He’s basically going to do what Karl did, only when he tells people on Paradis that all the humans beyond their borders are dead, he won’t be lying. He is keeping the genocide and the mind-wiping, though. In this spirit of how well that worked out previously.

This is a choice.

A bad one.

Even by Eren’s current standards.

This is especially impressive given that he has none.

Alrighty then. Uh.

Here we have Eren’s mission statement. That’s nice?

“The only way to put a final end to the cycle of revenge born from hate... is to remove that history of hate from this world and bury it in the ground, civilization and all.”

Legitimately, Eren’s entire plan amounts to, “The First King was right about everything except not actually making us the last humans alive on the planet.”

See, Zeke’s plan of killing all Eldians off is evil and bad, and Eren is disgusted at the very idea of going along with it.

Eren’s plan of killing everyone else off, regardless of who they are, is a good one.

As is manipulating all of his friends into following it, telling them he hates them, fairly directly letting one of them know this is basically all her fault, and.

Look, I’m sorry, but what the fuck?

I mean.

Fuck, do I have to go full Madoka on main?

Here is a brief summary of the third Madoka Magica movie, for those who do not understand the reference: Person who has spent her entire life torturing herself to save one girl feels like she didn’t save the one girl hard enough, and compensates for this mental breakdown by turning into the literal Devil.

These are decisions that can be explained by trauma. The character in question has been through a lot, and arguing that she’s too emotionally stable to undo the universe is harder to do than it feels like it should be.

She still takes the established order of the series and 90% of the movie and drops it in the shredder, leaving the characters who are around and aware of this move to stare, aghast, as the new world order is established.

To catch up the uninitiated, when the new world order is established in the series, it’s a happy ending that ties up all the struggles everyone has been through. Not necessarily neatly, but they’re honored, and the cast continues on.

The new world order of the movie is one character screaming “NO” in various cries for help as she pounds her heart into the pavement and the pavement is everyone else’s quality of life.

Anyway, the current reason everyone on the planet hates Paradis enough to attack it is because Eren publicly murdered civilians at a festival with international significance, including the one Eldian in the world with good publicity.

Things weren’t pretty for anyone, but Eren snatches the ball out of the court and throws it into the backyard with vicious guard dogs. He decides to bring everyone into a war, and he decides the initial terms. He makes a violent declaration, and ever since, the story has been devoted to people catching up to him to ask what the fuck his problem is.

As opposed to the usual routine of catching up to him to steal him back from whoever’s kidnapping him that week.

Eren’s the direct cause of this mess.

Fucking Marley doesn’t help, what with their hundred years of brainwashing and titanizing to actively keep the hate of Paradis alive -- but Eren’s the one who turns it into an issue of national immediacy when everyone around him is trying to find more time.

All the while going, “look what you made me do”

Right.

Where it breaks down for me isn’t that it makes no sense for Eren to have fallen this far. This entire series has been destroying him one piece at a time, and I do feel like you could have a very powerful conclusion with Humanity’s Hope turning to Humanity’s Despair, and the people he once inspired having to bear the torch themselves instead of forcing one person to carry their entire future.

Hell, that could still happen. I would still love an ending where Mikasa wraps the scarf around Eren, and he’s finally saved from himself.

What’s aggravating is that as many ominous hints as we’ve gotten about Eren’s monstrous nature throughout the series, there’s just as much material of him loving his friends, and wanting them to be free and happy, and understanding that walls aren’t the only prison.

Angry Eren the Rage Boy is there. He’s even easy to understand, sometimes. OG Ymir’s history inspires a desire for death and destruction. It would be and is wrong, but the impulse isn’t difficult to parse.

He’s more than that. He stays up all night listening to Hange’s theories. Armin’s dreams of the sea catches his mind like wildfire. Fighting Annie even after she’s revealed to be someone who’s ruthlessly murdered his comrades is painful. He wants to believe Reiner and Bertolt are innocent even when they’re making the worst show of hiding it. He smiles every time he sees his friends genuinely happy.

Eren’s rage has always been a direct response to his views of the world. The slavers are monsters. He has no problem killing them. Titans are monsters. He wants them dead. He runs off in Trost and gets his leg chomped off because he’s so upset that a bit character we barely spend time with is being eaten.

“When we’re born... all of us... are free. People who reject that, no matter how strong they are... don’t matter.”

Since leaving his friends in Marley, Eren has rejected the freedom of every single one of them. He doesn’t tell them what he’s up to, but expects them to have his back. He pushes events into motion that nearly lead to all their deaths. He actively lies to Mikasa about how her brain functions. He tells Historia to get on board or have her memory wiped.

The rage and agony and helplessness Eren feels isn’t particularly strange, in my mind. He hasn’t coped with any of the manga’s arcs well, and the few victories he’s been part of have landed him in worse and worse places, emotionally.

The conclusions he’s reaching don’t work.

It isn’t that strange for people to not realize that they’re contradicting themselves, especially when they’re in this frame of mind, but Eren loves his damn friends.

Meanwhile, he’d find it easier to take if Mikasa were attached to him because her bloodline made her do it, but that’s.

Actually, no, that’s relevant.

Eren suggests plot magic chemistry before he considers that Mikasa actually loves him.

He’s a dying man.

He’s condemned himself already. It doesn’t matter what he does, as long as his friends are alive. Anything else -- everything else is secondary. They’ll be alive, and he’ll be dead, and it’s as simple as that.

But it isn’t like he doesn’t know right from wrong. This might be a wrong he can accept on his deathbed, but it’s undeniably wrong.

How horrific is it that people might be so attached to him that he can do all this, and they’ll still fight for him instead of putting him down like the monster he is?

Eren struggles with greys. If he’s willing to be the bad guy, it makes sense for him to commit. He’s rejecting freedom, so by his own rules, he doesn’t matter.

It would be so much easier for him if everyone else agreed on that point.

He seems to be doing what he can to make that happen.

...But that’s just whimsical speculation born of profound pity more than anything. I still have trouble figuring out what his deal is. He’s eviscerating his friends in the name of them surviving, but he still terms his want as them having “long, happy lives.” While actively interfering with both those aims.

This chapter doesn’t seem to leave much room for a secret other plan that Eren is secretly putting into action. That’s been my hope from the beginning, and pretty much every bit of my confusion here is why. The majority of the conflict here comes from Eren deliberately fucking things up. It’s like he accidentally poisoned a bunch of people by using the wrong chemicals to clean up the dead body of the person he killed who totally deserved it, and figured the best following response was to repeat the process.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the Eren we’re starting to see looks broken beyond all repair, and we’re missing the breaking point. We can puzzle out possibilities and trauma, but at the end of the day he has chosen such a destructive route that it needs more justification within the story.

Personally, I think that this Eren is buying into his own bad press so completely that he’s stopped giving himself freedom. That is my most established take.

The fact that that read play in nicely with Mikasa wrapping the scarf around him and taking him home has very little to do with that except that’s where my brain spends most of its time now, I guess.

AND NOW WE’RE BACK TO HISTORIA BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I EVER GET TO HAVE A SINGLE MOMENT OF PEACE.

Hell.

I am tired of going over all the ways in which this does not make sense. I am, perhaps, equally tired of how every single time the pregnancy subplot comes up, it manages to get worse.

‘what oh noooo she’s being used to breed an army of royal babies who will eat their mother’ ‘wait nooo she manipulated a guilty childhood bully into fucking her so zeke could live for some strange reason’ ‘oh nooooooooes it turns out she actually goes and fucks npc farmer guy because zeke needs to live for eren to commit genocide and if she doesn’t let eren commit genocide that’s bad for some reason even if she was just saying it’s actually bad for him to commit genocide’

????

Additionally, I realize this chapter has probably reinvigorated people’s theories that Eren is the father, which. um. continues the trend of being worse, because then you have Historia feeling like she’s backed into a corner where fucking the guy who’s about to commit genocide is her only option because if she can’t come up with some good excuse to not eat Zeke he’s going to wipe her memories.

(ETA: Hours later, I sit here remembering he can’t actually wipe her memories until after Zeke shows up. Oops. ...That somehow manages to make all of this make less sense.)

I deeply do not want to discuss that element.

I’m just bringing it up to establish that every way you spin Historia’s situation is fifty shades of rape, and it’s skeevy as fuck along with making no sense.

Glad to know that in two years, literally nothing has come along to make this better or more logical.

That’s vaguely true because it lends more credence to the idea that it’s all a lie, but at this point, the writing is breaking its own back bending over to try and make this work.

“If there is a most reliable way to make sure that this island lives on... I’ll go along with it. There was no other way... But... you defended me back then... everyone acted for my sake... That’s enough for me.”

I’m going to try to explain my problem with this without screaming.

I’m probably going to fail.

The thing is, Historia’s entire arc is about fighting fate.

Her entire arc is about undoing the cycle of abuse her family has perpetuated, breaking free of it to reclaim her identity as a person and forge a better future for the world.

She almost kills Eren for her father’s approval.

When she doesn’t, her commentary isn’t that it’s wrong, or ineffective (though she’s aware of both these elements).

She makes her case very succinctly.

“God?! What a load of bull!! You’re just saying whatever you can think of to manipulate me and save yourself!! That’s it, I’ve had enough! I won’t let you kill me!!”

Replace “save yourself” with something related to Eren, and we have the exact same plot beat we already had, for a character who’s already gone through it.

Historia’s lack of agency would be bad enough on its own.

The entire focus of the pregnancy subplot has been that it causes Eren angst.

We have not gotten Historia’s thought bubbles.

We have received her verbal compliance.

We have had her misery over her situation on display.

This is something for Eren to feel guilty and angry over, not something for Historia to interact with.

On its own, that’s bad.

When you have it attached to a character whose entire arc is about breaking damaging cycles and living a life designed by her own choices instead of following orders and roles, you have a problem.

Historia never tries to resist this fate. Not that we’re shown. She’s clearly terrified, even in the scene where she staidly offers acceptance, but Eren is the one to speak up. She’s miserable whenever we see her pregnant, but every scene with her involves her sadly going along with this thing she clearly does not want. Even when she asks Eren what he thinks about her having a child, she’s unhappy.

This is the first time she’s gotten dialogue of her own in two years.

The first little bit is her shrugging at her inevitable suffering.

The second bit is being appalled at Eren’s everything.

Then somehow we land at her proposing her inevitable suffering.

Which...

How does that help??? Anything???

My answer to that is that I’m Team Fake Pregnancy, and Historia is proposing a hypothetical thing where she ponders how her having a child would play out, but I’m sorry, what?

Eren’s upset about you losing your bodily autonomy.

Among other things, yes, but having a child you’re not enthusiastic about is the entire fucking ignition point of this fucking fuckening idiocy how is it that NEITHER OF YOU ARE IN POSSESSION OF YOUR SOLITARY BRAIN CELL WHAT IN THE F U C K.

Even if you read it as Historia not having a child with the intent of future cannibalism, but simply having a child to get out of eating Zeke --

Holy fuck is that not better.

It’s still her feeling forced to have a kid because the alternative is lots of people dying.

She’s nineteen.

At the very fucking least this could have the decency to be her story, not a story built around making the main male lead angst enough to commit genocide. At the time of this writing, we are denied that, and while I don’t think this is totally beyond saving, the story the narrative is selling is inexcusable and insulting. The only room for improvement is if we’re actively being misled.

Which is a valid theory, but that doesn’t change my disgust at what we’re being told to believe.

Having Historia simply accept her fate is a sledgehammer to Historia’s entire character development, and Historia’s character development is a microcosm of the guiding themes of the main story. You can’t dethrone her without the manga’s entire thematic significance ringing false.

Also, while I’m here, Eren’s being a fucking prick.

In case that was somehow missed.

'hi historia friendly reminder that i’m only here to commit genocide because you saved my life because like you said you’re the worst’ ‘lol remember that time you said the titans should just kill everyone and i teased you and you said you were caught up in the heat of the moment well guess what i listened to you and everyone’s gonna die thx for the protips’

Anyway.

This is either really good or really bad.

Because Historia does some very stupid things. That is not a writing flaw, it’s a character flaw and feature. She’s impulsive and dumb and realizes things conflict with her principles nine steps into committing criminally negligent homicide, and if that’s how this is all justified...

Hell, I guess I’ll just be tired. Which I already am, so that’s. fine.

It’s funny. This is one of the times I could have gotten away with writing barely anything, since half the chapter is just trailer shots for Eren’s monster movie. Yet here we are, many words in.

I’ve thought a lot today on if I should keep reading or not. One of the things that got under my skin is that I’ve spent a long time coming up with ways for this all to turn out okay. I complain a lot, and certainly lose my temper, but I like to think I stick around because however bad this gets, I have faith that the story’s thesis is that beauty wins against cruelty.

If that’s the case, I want to be here to see it through. I want that high of things being okay when all signs point to nothing ever being okay again.

But it’s been a long day, and I’ve spent two years split between anger and hope that I’m not sure if I feel because I trust the story or if it’s become a habit I’m afraid to break.

Or if it’s because if I did give up, I’d feel insanely guilty for any of the times I’ve tried cheering people up over the bleak things going on in the manga.

I want this to be a happier story than anyone I know thinks it will turn out. I’m an optimist to a degree that people tolerate, but don’t find particularly realistic when gauged against the content.

The main character is on a genocidal march in the name of friends he has broken and betrayed. Friends who can still barely vocalize the option of putting him down.

I don’t know if I want to be here for this.

I don’t think I need to watch more cruelty unfold, no matter how much beauty survives it.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 130 #Eren Yeager #Historia Reiss #shingeki no no #shingeki no spoilers #SnK spoilers #spoilers #tl;dr #chapter post

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tlbodine · 3 years

Text

Literary vs Genre Fiction

The divide between literary and genre fiction is one of those topics that gets endlessly debated in writer circles. You’ll see it making the rounds on social media every time a book gets some buzz for busting out of its category. You’ll hear it in MFA programs across the country. But what even is literary fiction? How is it actually different from genre fiction? Is one better than the other? Why does anybody care?

A lot of smart people before me have thrown their hat in this particular ring, but I’m going to try tackling this one anyway.

First Off: What Do We Mean When We Say “Literary Fiction”?

Defining the thing is almost the hardest part of this whole discussion, and that may be part of the reason why people argue so endlessly about the literary vs genre divide -- if you don’t have a clear definition of the categories, that divide can be drawn up just about anywhere.

So before we dig into characteristics of literary fiction, let’s look at some clear examples. The Booker Prize is a literary award specifically given to works of literary fiction, so it stands to reason that winners of that award would be the best examples of the category, right? Here are some recent Booker Prize winners (as pulled from Powell’s bookstore):

Margaret Atwood - The Testaments The sequel to A Handmaid's Tale, told as testaments from three female narrators in Gilead, a dystopian setting where women have been stripped of their rights.

Bernardine Evaristo - Girl, Woman, Other Twelve central characters, mostly black British women, lead intersecting lives with struggles of identity, race, sexuality, class, etc.

Anna Burns - Milkman A girl identified as "middle sister" catches the unwanted attention of "the milkman," a local paramilitary, and has to deal with the threat of violence and spread of rumors.

George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo A father-and-son story about Abraham Lincoln and the 11-year-old son who died of illness in the midst of the civil war, leading to them both struggling in a type of purgatory.

Paul Beatty - The Sellout A satire about an isolated young man who ends up at a Supreme Court race trial after trying to reinstate slavery and segregate the local high school in an attempt to put his town back on the map.

One thing becomes immediately clear about literary fiction when skimming through the titles and summaries of these award-winning books: These novels are well-nigh impossible to summarize in a way that actually sounds enticing.

So okay. What are some genre fiction books, for comparison? There are genre fiction awards, like for example the Hugo award for Sci-Fi/Fantasy:

Mary Robinette Kowal - The Calculating Stars A cataclysmic meteor collision in 1952 causes an accelerated effort to colonize space, leading to a woman fighting to join the astronaut team in this alternate-history book.

N. K. Jemisin - The Stone Sky The third in a trilogy of post-apocalyptic novels about two women with the power to avert destruction of mankind.

Cixin Liu - The Three-Body Problem Against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project makes contact with aliens whose civilization is on the brink of destruction, leading them to plan a takeover of earth.

There’s also the Edgar Award, which is given to mystery fiction (it’s named after Edgar Allan Poe):

James A McLaughlin - Bearskin A man on the run takes a job as a park ranger, but runs the risk of being found by the men he's hiding from when he tries to expose some poachers.

Walter Mosley - Down the River Unto the Sea After spending a decade in prison for a crime he was framed for, former-detective King works as a private investigator whose investigation of his own frame-up leads him to cross paths of a journalist with a similar story.

Sujata Massey - Widows of Malabar Hill In 1920s India, Bombay's only female lawyer investigates a suspicious will on behalf of three Muslim widows, a case that takes a murderous turn.

These aren’t the best summaries in the world, but there does seem to be a stronger sense of both plot and character in the story concepts. At least, when someone asks, “What’s that book you’re reading about?” the genre fiction ones will have a somewhat easier time explaining it.

So What REALLY Separates Literary From Genre Fiction?

There are a lot of battle lines drawn between genre and literary fiction. I’ve heard it argued that literary is about character while genre is about plot; that literary is about the quality of the prose while genre is about the story; that literary is about experimenting while genre is about adhering to formulas. That literary is about expanding horizons while genre is about escapism and comfort. That literary is about realism and genre fiction is about fabulism.

I think there’s a nugget of truth in all of these, but I’m not really happy with any of them.

So I’m going to toss out my own hypothesis: I think the difference between literary and genre fiction is the way tropes are employed.

“Okay, great, but what are tropes?”

I’m so glad you asked. Fiction tropes are a type of shorthand. They are things that we the audience have seen before, so we know immediately what they mean. Tropes exist in characters, plot points, settings, concepts -- you name it. Here’s a sampling of tropes you might be familiar with:

The tough lady-cop whose dad was a police officer

Thanks to a mix-up, two people with hidden romantic feelings book the last available room at a hotel but there’s only one bed

A man goes on a quest for vengeance but destroys himself in the process

The wise old man who teaches the young hero valuable lessons but then dies before the pivotal battle

And so on, and so forth. Every genre has its own tropes -- a formula, if you will. In that sense, genre fiction is formulaic, but that doesn’t make it easier to write; actually, a big part of the challenge is in giving fresh twists to familiar tropes. Readers of genre stories demand certain tropes; the author has to deliver on those demands in a fresh way.

By comparison, I would argue that literary fiction does not rely upon tropes. There certainly are tropes and conventions that emerge in literary fiction -- a middle-aged academic struggling through divorce, for example -- but these tropes are more often than not met with irritation, not delight. Readers of literary fiction are looking for fresh insights and innovations, not familiarity.

Tropes are powerful tools. They are the mythic seed of storytelling. They are the archetypes that pass down through generations. They are a sacred backbone of mythology and folklore. Genre fiction, at the end of the day, carries the torch for storytelling in a long and (ha, ha) storied tradition from our prehistoric days huddled around a campfire.

Literary fiction, on the other hand, eschews tropes -- with their agreed-upon meanings -- in favor of assigning fresh meanings to things. Literary fiction is chock full of metaphors, but it’s the author, not convention, that determines what those metaphors mean and how they’re employed. Literary fiction reinvents the wheel. When it succeeds, it hits on depth and emotional resonance that can be life-changing for the reader. When it fails, it comes off like so much navel-gazing nonsense. So it goes.

Fiction Wars and Gatekeeping

The problem with the literary vs genre fiction divide is that it never stops with “This is how these categories are defined.” The problem is that people will insist on ascribing moral significance and hierarchy to them.

Literary fiction is viewed as being smarter, deeper, more meaningful or more valuable than genre fiction. If a genre fiction story manages to break out and gain wider appeal, suddenly people will start ascribing to it literary attributes (whether or not the book and many others in the genre had them all along). And that is all a bunch of nonsense.

It’s the exact same thing that happens in horror fiction -- when a horror story goes mainstream, suddenly it becomes a “psychological thriller” or a “dark drama” or anything other than horror, because “horror” is an inferior genre.

The fact of the matter is that literary fiction gets elevated over genre fiction for systemic reasons:

Most MFA programs focus on writing literary fiction, which means that a lot of lit-fic authors come out of those programs, which means that literary fiction is often the domain of upper-middle-class, frequently white, people who can afford to graduate from those programs

A focus on dense prose and “difficult” writing means lit-fic books must be analyzed and interpreted; it’s hard to read, making it exclusionist to people who lack formal education

Lit-fic dominates awards, gets pushed heavily onto book clubs, is talked about more often on daytime TV and so forth (because it is perceived as being better/more important, thus creating the ongoing cycle)

Basically, lit-fic gets held up as an example of Fine Culture. And any time something is designated as Fine Culture and High Art, it is subject to a completely arbitrary classist distinction meant primarily to keep out an undesirable element (women, BIPOC, poor people, you name it).

That’s not a problem endemic to lit-fic itself. It’s really a problem of the culture surrounding it, and attempts to hold it to a higher esteem than genre work.

Cross-Pollination Is Inevitable and Desirable

How do tropes get made?

Someone comes up with a new metaphor, concept, character, or idea that resonates so deeply that others who follow borrow that same thing and its meaning, and it gets repeated enough times that it becomes a stock trope.

In other words, every single piece of genre fiction exists because someone writing in some other established tradition decided to experiment and go off on a tangent to create something really fresh and new -- and knocked it so far out of the park that people were compelled to follow.

People like to pretend that the overlap and blurred lines between genre and literary fiction are somehow a new trend, but the fact is that this has been the trajectory of fiction-writing for the whole history of storytelling.

Literary agents have a term for this: Upmarket fiction. Books that “transcend” genre definitions to appeal to readers on either side of the aisle. And those are highly sought-after books, because they have the potential of bringing in double the readers.

So, snobby gatekeeping aside, is there any real reason to argue about the definition of literary vs genre fiction?

I’d say...no. Not even a little bit. I’ve got a mix of both on my shelves. I incorporate a mix of both in my writing. And I don’t see that changing any time soon.

A Final Note

I mentioned above that lit-fic tends to be written by people in MFA programs, and I wanted to touch on that again as an MFA drop-out and someone who was once warned by a teacher not to bring “any more of that genre nonsense” into the classroom.

I can understand, from a teaching perspective, why writer’s workshops would want to focus on lit-fic. From the perspective of learning how to write, forcing writers to derive stories from their experiences, to dig deep into themselves and ascribe unique meaning to things, to develop their own metaphors and hone their craft at the sentence level -- all of that makes a lot of sense. Banning genre tropes is a way to force writers to hone their craft without leaning on the work of generations of storytellers before them, and as a teaching tool I think that’s actually really valuable.

But I think it’s pretty important that we keep that in context. The lit-fic focus in writing classes should be a teaching tool first and foremost. It should not be the end-all and be-all of writing classes.

This post topic was voted on by my Patreon subscribers. If you would like to vote for future posts and get early access to posts before they go live on tumblr, you can become a patron here: https://www.patreon.com/tlbodine

#writing #literary fiction #genre fiction #on writing #long post

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pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer · 3 years

Text

Right of Law, Section XXVII

(Zaekura meets again with the Le-Koronans, while the situation surrounding Civitas Magna’s kolhii tournament begins to escalate.)

“Everyone will be so happy to see you!” Tamaru said as she bounced down the path. “We were all worried sick!”

Zaekura walked a few steps behind her, flanked by Charla, Antroz, and Emsar. “Yeah, dealing with Atero wasn’t exactly easy, but we managed. I’m hoping it’ll go a little smoother when we have to take the fight to them.”

Tamaru hummed. “That’d be nice...you controlling Atero. Ah, here we are!”

They arrived in a clearing lined with scores of people: Matoran, Toa, Glatorian, and Agori of all kinds, some on solid ground while others perched in the surrounding trees, creating a circular wall of eyes all trained on the visitors. Zaekura felt like she was trying to walk underwater.

“Okay, everyone’s here! Go on, Zaekura.”

“Right, of course. Um…”

She found herself unable to recall the words she had prepared. Charla set a hand on her shoulder then, reminding her to breathe, and she was able to relax a little.

“First of all,” Zaekura said, “I’d like to thank you all for welcoming us. It isn’t lost on me how out of the ordinary this gesture is, nor the implicit risk my being here carries. My name is Zaekura. Up until recently, I lived a very quiet life...but now, the Great Beings have it out for me, since I’m one of the rare few who possess the same potential as them. I’ve had to fight to defend myself, and it’s been…quite an adjustment. But now I realize this isn’t just about me. Countless lives have been destroyed by the Great Beings, and countless more live in constant fear of them. And I want that to end. So now, we’re fighting to stop the Great Beings and take control of Spherus Magna, to reform it into a place where nobody has to live in fear.”

Quiet murmurings rippled through the crowd. To Zaekura, it was nearly deafening.

“I know that I can’t do something like this on my own, so I’m asking for help from anyone who’ll listen. We’ve approached you because we think Bota Magna’s natural resources would be a big help to our cause, but if anyone wants to join the fight, we’ll gladly take you. No matter what, though, I want you all to know this: you are welcome any time. Even if I go back empty-handed, each and every one of you will be free to come and go from my territory as you please, and we’ll fight just as hard to defend you. I don’t need anything in return for that.”

The chattering grew louder. Kiina emerged from the crowd then, saying, “You say you’ll defend us? How do you plan to do that? You’re provoking the Great Beings, fighting nonstop against an insurmountable enemy. That doesn’t sound safe in the slightest.”

Zaekura breathed. “I understand your concern. There will absolutely be risk, I won’t deny that. Our current forces include several Makuta, a few hundred Rahkshi, the militia of both Xia and Mahri-Nui, and a large number of Vorox under the command of the Sand Lord. Several individuals have already requested to be part of a team dedicated to protecting Bota Magna, if you’ll have them.”

Kiina grumbled—not a very clear response, but it was the only one she offered. Taipu was next to emerge, waving and calling, “Hey, Zaekura! Did you get a chance to try out Nuparu’s invention yet?”

She smiled. “I was able to take a look at it and test it out. That’s one impressive machine! We’re still working to reproduce and install them, but we should be using it in a matter of days. Thanks again, Nuparu.”

Taipu shook Nuparu, who tried to hide his grin. Zaekura waited while the chatter continued. Soon, Takua came forward, saying, “I can’t speak for everyone, but...I think you make a pretty good case, Zaekura. The fact is, we are living in fear—I don’t think that’ll change much whether we stay here or come back to the city. Being that close to the fight is definitely scary, so I understand why someone might prefer to stay here. But, a chance to change things, to make a future where we don’t feel like we have to hide...that sounds pretty good too. If you show me a team that I’m convinced can keep Bota Magna safe, I’ll be willing to fight alongside you.”

New energy rushed into Zaekura. “Thank you! I’ll bring them out to meet with you as soon as possible!”

The Le-Koronans talked amongst themselves. Taipu and Nuparu came into the clearing, the former saying, “We’re definitely coming back with you! This is so exciting!”

Gradually, more and more Le-Koronans followed suite. One of them, a Toa of Earth with weathered black and purple armor, came up to Zaekura and smiled at her.

“I can tell that you have a good heart, dear,” she said. “I’m a bit too attached to these woods to leave now, but I want to offer you what help I can.”

“Oh, thank you very much, uh…”

“The name’s Korgot, dear. I’ve become very familiar with the lay of the land here, so if you’re looking for spots to mine or to log, I’ve got a few in mind. Just promise me you won’t overdo it. The people are important, but we have to take care of the jungle itself, too.”

“Korgot. Yes, I promise. Thank you so much!”

They briefly discussed when would be a good time to send a mining team, and then Zaekura answered the questions of a few more Le-Koronans until it seemed everyone’s decision had been made. She gazed over them all, ultimately turning to Charla.

“I’d say this went well.”

Charla giggled. “I’m inclined to agree. Is there anything more you wanted to add, or do we just have that final matter?”

Zaekura glanced back at Emsar, and the Vortixx came to her side. Turning back towards the Le-Koronans remaining behind, she said, “There’s one last thing before we go. I wanted to let you know that Emsar here is venturing deeper into Bota Magna; she’ll be fine on her own, I just didn’t want anyone to be surprised if they saw her.”

Takua looked up at Emsar. “Alright. Where’s she headed, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Valwahi.”

The clearing grew eerily still. Quietly, Takua repeated, “Valwahi?”

Zaekura nodded. “Like I said, I’m asking anyone who’ll listen.”

“Do you think they will? The Valwahans aren’t exactly the most understanding bunch.”

“I have to try. Even if we can’t become allies, maybe I can at least make peace with them—that’d be one huge load off my plate when getting things in order once this is all over. Though, I could be thinking a little far ahead with that...”

“Heh...I guess a little optimism doesn’t have to hurt.” Facing Emsar, Takua said, “Good luck, then. Don’t hesitate to ask for help if things go wrong.”

“Much appreciated, but you needn’t worry about me,” Emsar said. “I’m quite prepared should events take a dire turn.”

The Le-Koronans began to scatter, as did Emsar. Antroz said, “Emsar. Please do be careful.”

She grinned back at her. “You too, Makuta? I thought you of all people would know better. Your lack of faith in me is demoralizing.”

“It is precisely because I have faith in you that I’m letting you go alone. This is something that only you can do.”

Emsar paused, then turned away. “Hmhm...you’re still no fun.” She disappeared before anything else could be said.

Zaekura turned back to her party, now far larger than the one she had entered with. “Alright. Let’s get everyone back to Xia!”

“Um…”

She realized Tamaru had come up behind her. “What’s up?”

Tamaru fidgeted, eyes scanning back and forth over the dirt. “I, uh...I’ve been giving it a lot of thought...I didn’t say anything before because I hadn’t really decided, but now, I…” She shut her eyes tight. “I-I want to come with you!”

“Really? If you need more time to think, that’s okay.”

Tamaru shook her head. “No...I need to go before I lose my nerve. I mean, I am nervous, but...if I can really be myself around everyone...I guess I feel like I just have to know.”

Zaekura nodded. “I’ll do whatever I can to help. Are you ready to go?”

After taking one last look back into the jungle, Tamaru nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go!”

***

Hewkii raced down the field, battling for control of the ball with a Toa of Earth. He pulled back his kolhii stick; the Toa of Earth, expecting him to knock the ball forward, shifted his weight to block. Hewkii then swung his stick around, hit the ball back the way they had come, and immediately leapt back to scoop it up.

“The Hydruka’s Hewkii has finally wrested the ball away from Dosne! He’s headed right for Kazi, and the Iconox Iron Wolves’ goalie sure doesn’t look ready for him!”

Hewkii carefully observed the Toa of Ice he needed to aim around. Kazi was laser-focused, but stiff in his movements. He could hear Dosne approaching—at the last second, he threw the ball with all the force he could muster, and it sailed just past Kazi to the cheers of the crowd.

In a special balcony high up the arena’s wall, Ekimu laughed at the spectacle. “That Hewkii’s pretty good! Maybe I shouldn’t kill him after all.”

Standing next to him, Ahkmou chuckled. He busied himself jotting down notes for an article, but his thoughts were elsewhere. This is the opposite of what I wanted. The tournament was supposed to distract these common idiots from the rebellion, but everyone’s heard that Hewkii’s defected—with him center stage, I’m sure it’s all they’re thinking about!

He joined Ekimu’s cheer as another ball was set into play.

Sure, no one’s stupid enough to speak out while Lord Ekimu is right here, but that’s ignoring the bigger picture. This is long-term, delicate work. If I don’t think of something fast, it’s all going to go right down the drain…

Hewkii leapt in to intercept Dosne’s shot. Swinging around, he then sent the ball flying back across the court, catching Kazi completely by surprise. The crowd roared.

“Incredible!” the announcer cried. “The Mahri-Nui Hydruka have won by a landslide! Looks like they’ll be moving onto the next round, folks! I know I don’t want to be the team unlucky enough to go up against them!”

Ekimu applauded with the crowd, but his hands steadily fell still. “Alright, game’s over. You can come out now.”

Ahkmou looked over his shoulder, expecting to see one of the Makuta coming to join them. But he couldn’t quite make out what he was looking at. The shadows in the balcony moved strangely, almost as if they had a will of their own, refusing to surrender the visitor to the light; all Ahkmou could see clearly was an organic purple face with numerous ridges over where a nose and mouth should have been. Confused and terrified at the sight, Ahkmou could only remain silent.

“Forgive the intrusion, Lord Ekimu,” the face said. “We wanted to consult with you, to clarify our orders before acting.”

Ekimu continued to watch the field as the two teams exited. “Who are you?”

“I am Eliminator, of Odina. The Keeper’s realized that the operatives sent previously failed to carry out Lord Heremus’s orders, so my partner and I have been dispatched to rectify the situation.”

“So that’s it. You want Hewkii, I take it?”

Eliminator’s face moved, the shadows moving with it. “He seemed like a good place to start...but, since you haven’t intervened thus far, we suspected you had another plan.”

“I wouldn’t say that. I just don’t want the kolhii tournament interrupted. Once his team’s done, take him if you want.”

Ahkmou jumped as a sudden burst of energy appeared in the space next to Eliminator. The energy grew into a swirling portal, and out of it stepped another being: he was tall, at least twice the height of a Matoran, clad in blue and gold armor that shone through the darkness that clung to his companion. Ahkmou didn’t recognize the gold mask he wore, but he found his eyes more drawn to the enormous double blade he carried.

Kneeling, he said, “If I may, Lord Ekimu. I think there is a much more fruitful route we can take.”

Ekimu grunted.

“Once the tournament has concluded, we will see that Hewkii and his team remain here in Civitas Magna...and be sure that the whole planet knows it. I have heard that Zaekura is quite the bleeding heart, and I am certain that if she knows one of her allies is being held here, she will march in an effort to save him. Once we have lured her in, Eliminator and I will capture her and bring her to Lord Heremus—what happens to her associates will be no concern of ours then.”

“So we bait her out. What was your name?”

The being grinned. “I am Brutaka, my lord.”

At this, Ekimu finally turned around. After staring at Brutaka for a few moments, he said, “I thought you sounded familiar. Good. If you’re here, then the Keeper must be done messing around.”

The crowd began to cheer as new teams took the field.

“Go ahead,” Ekimu said as he turned back to watch. “As long as you don’t make a move before the tournament’s over, I couldn’t care less.”

Brutaka nodded. “Of course, Lord Ekimu. If you’ll excuse us.”

Another portal opened, and Brutaka disappeared into it. Eliminator was already gone by the time Ahkmou turned to look. Facing the field once again, the Toa thought, Odinans...and they’re going to draw Zaekura here...how am I going to cover that up? Can our public opinion survive something like this? If we lose control of the people…

“Ahkmou.”

The Toa started. “Y-Yes, my lord?”

“You’re nervous.”

“Ah...I was just shaken by such a sudden arrival. I’m sorry, my lord: I’ll focus on my job.”

“Good.”

Ahkmou watched as two new teams met in the center of the field. If we lose control of the people...then that means I failed to do what the Great Beings asked. What will happen to me then?

Outside the stadium, Gaaki and Tarduk regrouped near the south entrance. Flipping through her notes, Gaaki said, “Well, that should be enough of a sample size. Any favorites among the people you asked?”

Tarduk squatted next to the wall with a sigh. “The Hydruka are the talk of the town, surprise surprise. Remains to be seen if Ahkmou will even let us publish all this.”

“Same on my end. A couple of die-hards for the other teams, but they hardly have enough to say to fill a feature. A full day’s work and we’re probably going to end up with a block under the horoscopes…”

Tarduk craned his neck. A particularly dense section of crowd had gathered on the other side of the street, thick enough that he couldn’t see exactly what had drawn them. He went to push his way closer, Gaaki following for lack of any other distraction, but the Ga-Matoran soon began to fall behind. Glancing back at her, Tarduk saw that her eyes had gone wide.

“What’s the matter?” Tarduk asked.

“You mean you don’t…” She shook her head. “Er, right, you can’t see from here. Come on!”

Gaaki dove into the crowd. Tarduk began to have second thoughts, but, figuring it was too late now, went in after her. At the epicenter was a Toa of Stone wearing a Komau, with various stone carvings laid out before him on a blanket. The sign behind him made the Agori stiffen: “CARVINGS FOR SALE! ALL PROFITS HELP NYNRAHN REFUGEES!”

“Gaaki,” Tarduk said, grabbing her by the arm.

“I’m just looking,” she said, picking up a small carving.

“With your hands?”

“Yes.”

The Toa of Stone turned towards them. “Anything you’re interested in?” Gaaki set the carving down. “Just browsing. This is impressive work, uh…”

“Onewa.”

“Onewa...oh, you made the statue they added to District 2458’s historical center!”

“So someone does remember! Maybe that commission was worth it after all.” He turned away for a moment to make a sale.

“What brings you here?” Tarduk asked.

“I’m an old friend of one of the players in the tourney. You know Hewkii?”

Tarduk stiffened further. “...I’ve heard quite a lot about him.”

“We go way back. Though, I ended up not being able to get a ticket...but, at least I have a chance to sell some of this work. We need all the help we can get.”

Gaaki prepared to ask something. Tarduk tugged on her arm. She debated continuing anyway, but then the crowd began to quiet, and they both turned to see why. Their spines turned to ice at the sight of Vamprah cutting through the masses.

“Ah,” Onewa said, climbing to his feet, “that took longer than expected. Not the Makuta I was prepared for, either.”

Vamprah stalked forward without a word. Just as Onewa was about to say something more, the Makuta snatched him up in his claws and hurled him against the arena wall. Total stillness fell over the crowd. Turning to the remaining carvings, Vamprah waved one hand and unleashed a burst of Plasma, melting them in a matter of seconds. Then, he turned around to see Onewa slowly getting to his feet.

“Heh...you live up to your reputation,” the Toa said. Blood could be seen dripping from the gashes left in his armor. “Guess that’s what I get for pushing my luck, huh?”

Vamprah advanced towards him again. Tarduk struggled to keep Gaaki still.

“But...I’m not gonna make it that easy for you.” Onewa took something in his hand, a pellet of some kind, and grinned as he crushed it. In the next instant, he was gone.

Vamprah froze. He scanned his surroundings, but saw no trace of his target. Giving one last look to the crowd, Vamprah unfurled his wings and took to the skies, slowly coasting towards the inner city. Gradually, the crowd scattered, while Gaaki just stood staring at the still-warm slag that had been beautiful carvings mere seconds ago.

“He got out,” Tarduk said.

“Yeah...this time. But with Vamprah hunting the Nynrahns, their chances look pretty bleak, don’t they?”

Tarduk sighed. “What can we actually do, Gaaki? If we step out of line, we’re going to disappear just like Kodan.”

“I know!” Gaaki turned and rubbed her temples. After a bit of thought, she said, “Tarduk...don’t tell Ahkmou we were here to see this.”

The Agori raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

Gaaki locked eyes with him. “Please, just don’t. He can’t know. If he does...then nobody else will.”

It took Tarduk a long time to decide on his answer. “Alright. But there’s nothing else I can do to help you, Gaaki. Terrible as things are getting, I just don’t see an opening yet…”

Gaaki nodded. They parted ways then, Tarduk heading into the stadium while Gaaki found a secluded bench to rest on. She glanced around, making sure no one was looking, and then pulled at the corner of her breastplate, opening it just long enough to remove a small crystal she quickly tucked into her bag.

A few witnesses are easy to dismiss. But if everyone sees what happened, then at the very least they’ll have to work a lot harder to lie. I’ll need to be careful about exactly what footage I use...but by this time tomorrow, I’ll make sure everyone can see the truth.

#Bionicle #fanfiction #Melding Universe #Right of Law

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