Some ship ramblings (for another ship) inspired by some stuff in @crimsonshadesblog ' D7 fic "The Black's Encroachment."
This is about Danchou's Before and After.
Seofon is correct in saying that Djeeta/Danchou's life will be split into a Before and an After, the dividing point being 'arriving at Estalucia'.
On that note, that also made me recall how there are also 2 events in Danchou's life which I place Before and After signifiers (albeit in the context of a different ship—Sandanchou. It still applies regardless because this is tied to Danchou's canon and not the ship). Those 2 events being:
The Departure from Zinkenstill <Childhood's End>
The Fateful Yeeting "Your fingers are delicate."
Arguably I can also include the Dadchou departure as a crucial point, but I digress.
Anyways.
I think those 2 events are self-explanatory, so I'm gonna ramble about why I hold them as special points in time re:Sandanchou. It is because....they are irrelevant, to Sandy as he is. Irrelevant, but not insignificant (does that make sense?).
The first one has nothing to do with him. The second INVOLVES him but, he was very much the enemy at that point in time. His objective was clear, and he didn't care about what happens to Danchou. They were merely an instrument (a punching bag, too); the cause and consequence of That Moment on Danchou is...not really important (to him). (I'll get to back to this later)
Back to the 1st Event. The Departure. Danchou's childhood.
This turning point has no relevance to Sandy whatsoever because he literally ISN'T THERE. He's not even part of the story yet. He has no influence here at all—this is an inevitable event in the fabric of destiny. Not to mention, Sandalphon has no such thing as a concept of childhood—and that's where the significance begins:
(at least in my takes or hc continuities of sandanchou) Sandalphon's problem is he cannot fathom this "Before". Again, because he wasn't there, and while his time in the Garden was similar, it is still so different from that of a (presumably human) mortal skydweller child.
Sandy may have known that Danchou was kinda some sort of ordinary before revealing the Singularity thing, BUT not the history behind—BEFORE they became captain, before the adventurer.
The secrets of Danchou's childhood, their history, their joys and sorrows from that time...are not privy to him. To any other mortal, I think it's normal to not know the everything (like the past) but with primals it's just an interesting case to think about. They may know the person behind the Singularity, the Captain, but they cannot possibly know who is the person deep inside, the one from the Before...unless they are Phoebe lmao. (I love No Rain, No Rainbow. And Miscolored Memories was also fun! I personally consider it required reading for 9th anni)
A bit of a tangent but yeah, the angels and some subsets of cast herds kinda stand out (to me) in that, I don't think they have ever brought up The Journey's Endgame even in seasonal lines. For the purpose of this post, I am talking about Sandy. Does he even canonically know we are headed to Estalucia??? Does he know about Dad???? I know that most R/SRs and mortals know that because it keeps getting brought up in their intro fate eps. (I may edit this post for corrections)
I think this line of thought is what keeps me going back to The Journey, Dad, and also Zinkenstill (The House In Zinkenstill is sacred ground—heroes were raised here. And Loki is such a great antagonist for intruding, defiling it) when it comes to souping this ship.
And then, to the obvious 2nd Event. Your fingers are delicate.
I personally read this as the Proclamation of Protagonism™.
You haven't realized it yet, but the world revolves around you. Because you are the singularity for the acceleration of evolution.
And now there is a Before and an After.
If you know me you must also know I am so not normal over the meta of protagonism 🤣 The route I take with souping this ship re:their most Iconic interaction is that, it was Sandy's "fault" that things kicked into high gear. In an in-universe context, I think all the plot happenings across storylines were gonna happen, but his declaration awakened the catalyst, ACCELERATING it. (Smth smth observer effect i do not have enough braincells for that topic at this point)
And I just had fun having him blame himself for that lmao. I like watching my blorbos suffer and angst.
As a final note, I consider Sandanchou as two people currently on the same path, but have inevitably different destinations. (And there's also more soup cooking in my kitchen about how despite being virtually immortal, Sandy is not the one who will suffer Eternity. But that is a post for another time)