#solus zos galvanize

[dandelionofthanatos]

Whenever someone accuses me of woobifying some character whom I've written in a SPECIFICALLY CHILL SETTING AND MOOD, I want to laugh and also throw an eraser.

"THAT'S A VILLAIN; THEY AREN'T NICE"

Yeah, no shit? That's why I wanted to explore what they'd be like when they're relaxing/content/not trying to slap the crap out of the heroes.

AND THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THOSE MOMENTS AND THE STABBY ONES ARE FUCKIN' DELICIOUS. Those brief glimpses behind the usual self, revealing hidden facets that the antag's trying to deny, or that they forgot about, or something.

And it's heartbreaking when they hurl themselves back into old habits because "SHIT, I SHOWED MY SOFT UNDERBELLY" and whatnot.

The times Emet-Selch drops his mask/role around Eiri up until Vauthry gets his ass kicked make his reverting to DOUCHE MODE that much more painful. Not only that, but it really fucks with Eiri and appeals to her mean-student-of-Diabolos side.

She's basically going: "OHOHOHO, SO YOU'RE PLAYING THIS GAME? COOL BEANS. YOU SHOWED ME A WEAKNESS AND THEN DECIDED I'M YOUR ENEMY? COOL BEANS. ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR. IF I SUFFER DECEPTION FIRST, MY HANDS ATEN'T TIED ANYMORE. You're full of tasty nightmares, lovey. If you've decided to see me as food, I'll decide to see you the same"

It turns out all right after they beat the shit out of each other and then talk things out, but for a while it gets so much worse because Emet-Selch let down his guard and then felt stupid for having had hope.

[dandelionofthanatos]

It just hit me right now that the reason the Amaurotines we see in the abyss of the Tempest are glowy is likely that that’s how Emet-Selch actually saw them—he sees souls, and souls show up as a glow in a lot of media. So to him a living person has a visible inner light. (The fallen Amaurotines in the vision of the Final Days have no inner light, and when I realized that it made me cry a bit!)

So we’re able to see the people of Amaurot the way Emet did, by his design. He wants us to see and understand.

They’re grey-scale to our eyeballs, though, because we don’t have soul-hue-sight as good as our host does.

This is speculative as heck but—yes 😆

[dandelionofthanatos]

Mozart’s piano concerto no. 27 (it’s K. 595, and his last piano concerto) reminds me a lot of a certain Ascian—PARTICULARLY the beginning Allegro part.

I don’t know when it became one of my “Emet-Selch Hath A Pianoforte (& He May Or May Not Make That Everyone Else’s Problem)” classical pieces, but it is. And it makes me happy.

[dandelionofthanatos]

Emet-Selch on the beach, relaxing under an umbrella with a drink in a pineapple (plus tiny umbrella), wearing one of those '30s swimsuits and making it look very sexy

[dandelionofthanatos]

thespian thaumaturgy

“Amon was my protege,” says Emet-Selch, and Iyddreh whoops and starts to laugh.

“That explains so very, very much. Particularly his whole--”

She launches into a series of familiar melodramatic poses and then snaps her fingers.

“--Before the entire room went on fire. I very nearly exploded. Annoying, that, but I can’t fault him for insisting on fabulous flair as well as fulsome flame. I’m a Mhachi, after all. One only need glance at our ANYTHING to know we’ve got no place to judge Amon for indulging in a few dramatics.”

Emet chortles in spite of himself. 

“That--performance looks like a signature Amon maneuver, indeed.”

“Apprentices tend to follow their teachers in one way or another,” Iyddreh says with a grin. “Shatotto inspired a passel of pernicious poets, and you inspired at least one dramaturge thaumaturge. He clearly thought the world of you...and I’d wager that, even knowing what I know, he’d think the same.”

“Would you disagree with his assessment, then, hero?”

Iyddreh doesn’t even think before she replies: “Not entirely.”

Her grin broadens, and Emet feels his expression start to mirror hers. Just a bit.

[dandelionofthanatos]

further shenanigans of the WoL kind

It occurs to me that it makes more sense in ShB if IYDDREH is the one holding the anger-photons and going Slightly BerserkoWeird/demi-s’neater. Initially, I thought it would be Dell, but Dell’s not built for that.

Dell can hold, like...one warden’s worth of glitter before she starts making hairball sounds and kecking up sparklies grossly; Iyddreh can handle MUCH MORE, but her void-touched status makes her Go Weird and do stuff like chase Vauthry around shrieking “WE ARE WAITING FOR SNACKY-SNACKY” like some manner of felid banshee after a random cricket...fuck, lol, I’;m sorry Vauthry. Consider this the passion of your atonement...?

And given Iyddreh’s stoic-knightly tendency to kind of curl up against herself when in pain and try to ENDURE ALL THE THINGS...it makes more sense that she would be the one to go odd and just gleefully wale on Ran’jit AT LENGTH for touching her wife and her wife’s little sis etc. 

Seriously. The old man triggers Iyddreh.

Dell likes fighting with the old fart because he’s another safe outlet for her aggression (until he has to tap out; he’s not as durable as she and Zenos); Iyddreh is strongly reminded by him of Mhachi hierophants (the assholes who guarded Cessair in prison) and just wants to pound him into a single layer of molecules on the floor.

To Dell he is an opponent to be defeated (and taught a lesson about his overweening pride).

To Iyddreh he is an enemy to be annihilated.

So while Dell will grin scarily and SAY things like, “You’re in my way and you look like an easy tally mark on my belt, FOSSIL, ha ha”, Iyddreh is the fierier of the two and she is FAR more likely to slug someone out of nowhere.

Or jump on someone a bunch like Raiden or fuckin’ Mario or something.

So this means that, rather than being clobbered by Dell, Ran’jit would be CLOTHESLINED by a metamorphosing Iyddreh who gives zero fucks that high-sticking gets you a major penalty.

This also means that the one making hairball noises in the echo of Amaurot is IYDDREH...and Emet-Selch has to try very hard to not giggle when she wheezes, snerks, and says she just expectorated a nebula. 

(”Our wife is weird,” says Dell, totally ignoring Emet’s denial extravaganza because it’s completely weaksauce.)

[dandelionofthanatos]

Currently amusing myself imagining a somewhat-inebriated Emet singing “O Sole Mio” at the top of his lungs. 😆

[dandelionofthanatos]

Things Iyddreh has said to Emet-Selch:

“STOP receding behind doors and corners ominously and dramatically this instant or I will be forced to throw a shoe.”

(Dell is similarly unimpressed: “All the world may well be a stage, but that hardly means that lurking in the wings makes you invisible.”)