Shut Up and Feed Me

Guards! Put the blond man in spandex in situations!

Welcome to the Star Spider Grace AU Pilot! Here’s the previous Initial concepts . Me & Sam have been brewing this concept and now we’re both into too deep. Dunno how many chapters I will draw but anyway-

NEXT (ISSUE #1 / ISSUE#2 (already on my ko-Fi!)

Fics inspired by this concept:

Aline: the most obvious. Dissolving herself in the last true ensouled possession of her loss, until she and it are so entangled it's almost impossible to pull her out of it.

Renoir: fighting against his grief by fighting against Aline's grief. Refusing to accept losing anyone else but making it her problem over and over and over again, scrubbing it all clean like it never mattered because it shouldn't matter, not when the loss has already occurred. Trying to rip Aline from her grief by force, refusing to confront his own.

Clea: so level-headed. So much rolling of her eyes at Aline and Renoir. So much anger. Letting them duke it out, disappearing while they aren't paying attention so she can take care of the problem herself. So dead set on revenge that anyone else's grief is seen as petty, childish, unworthy unless it's combatting the problem: her own grief.

Sciel: grief so intense it drives her out into the ocean, hoping she'll drown because she can't think of any other way to fix it. Everything around her has become too much, too soon, too loud, until she is convinced it's the only choice left to her. Ultimately, this is the reason she can wear the Mask of the Axon and be unaffected: she has done this, past-tense. It was already the worst it ever could be. Acceptance, slow and steady but sure and ongoing. Accepting that death is a friend, so even the choices that should piss her off drive her to comfort those around her instead.

Lune: the grief of a life never lived, a life whose outcome was only ever going to be one thing, a life she didn't even choose for herself. Turning away from everything and everyone until all that was left was what was laid out before her because she can't bear the burden of legacy and have a life of her own. The mourning of a life that was supposed to be her own but never felt like it actually was hers to live. A constant, aching grief of feeling you cannot afford distractions, so you cut yourself off from all of it and tell yourself that it doesn't matter. All you know is protocol: keep going, follow the rules, tomorrow comes - these are the only things that matter. That can matter to you. Don't think about how heavy it feels.

Maelle: the grief of estrangement. Knowing she had parents she would never truly meet, gone before she could form true memories of them. Then being left orphaned, passed from foster to foster, experiencing a constant I am not wanted here, nor anywhere I go until it is all she knows. Even to the point that no one takes her on as an apprentice, leaving her to be a runner between warehouses. Feeling belonging for the first time ever with Gustave and his sister and Sophie, but knowing that, this year, she will lose one to the Gommage, one to responsibilities, and one to the Expedition. Chasing after the one place she has left to go - with Gustave, to the Continent - because she can't, she can't take that grief anymore. To say nothing of everything she discovers.

Gustave: grief in real time. A love had, a love held, but lost twice in Sophie. Once to the only choice it felt like existed in a terrible circumstance, the other to that same terrible circumstance. Losing everyone on the beach and ending up alone. A grief so driving that, the first time he has a chance to be alone and time to really think about anything other than his own immediate survival, he puts a gun in his mouth and is about to pull the trigger before Lune steps in. Thereafter, trying to be hopeful for the sake of everyone around him and especially Maelle. Trying to make the best out of a bad circumstance, the way Sciel learned to do before even stepping onscreen.

Monoco: the grief of watching someone you love age and lose their memories. Losing their memories of you, even after you have fought tooth and nail to keep them alive after everything they did for you. Knowing what it will cost you and paying that cost anyway. Watching as the person you love slowly becomes less and less themself, until they don't recognize you at all.

Verso & Monoco being little shits to each other, pt 2.

Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo! NEVRON!

Gustave's eyes turn blue immediately after Renoir attacks him, and they're a very similar shade to Verso's. It's like whatever part of Alicia is still present in Maelle is being reminded of her real brother's death in that moment

Verso and Gustave are the only two characters whose themes don't have vocals (I count the bow wows at the beginning of Monoco's as lyrics lol)

Alicia/Maelle's theme features a piano and a cello pretty prominently , the instruments of Verso and Gustave respectively

In addition, Alicia/Maelle's main instrument seems to be a combination of the violin and vocals as they both feature heavily in songs related to them. Maelle's virtuose stance almost looks like the stance of a violin player, and the word virtuose often relates to music, so presumably that represents her, and the vocals could represent Alicia in an ironic way, seeing as the fire took her voice from her

On the subject of instruments representing particular characters, the primary instrument of each act's overworld ost matches the the characters they're named after (so act 1 - Gustave being a cello piece, act 2 - Verso with the first instrument you hear every time you go to the overworld being a piano, and act 3 - Maelle featuring the violin and vocals more than other aspects throughout the song)

In the real world, Aline's greenhouse is at the top of the manor and Renoir's atelier is at the bottom, mirroring how they're trapped above and below the monolith in the canvas