guess who rewatched arknights perish in frost ep13 and remembered why faust/mephisto is my favoriiiiiiiiite childhood friends tragedy?
because what, except for the two of them being fundamentally different people, could have prevented their downfall?
Didn't you promise me? You said we'd always be together
-Mephisto
mephisto- obviously- shouldn't have turned his own soldiers into zombies, shouldn't have adopted a repulsively heartless fighting style, when his one friend has so much empathy for everybody. faust had to have that trait, to be the one person in the world who cares for mephisto, who values him above his own life
faust, meanwhile, shouldn't have turned a blind eye when he had the perceptiveness to figure out something's wrong with talulah, when he knows mephisto would fail to. but faust would rather relate and understand than create conflict. he'll fight others to protect mephisto, but he can't fight mephisto.
I'll beat anyone who dares to hurt you
-Sasha (Faust)
I don't want to hurt anyone or get anyone hurt
-Faust, in his final speech
it's mephisto that becomes the perpetrator, and faust who becomes the accomplice, rather than the boy standing up and defending another kid from abuse, and faust just doesn't know who to hurt about that except himself
it's a tragedy written exactlyyy the way i like it.
What are your ideals?
I wanted to sing
-Eno (Mephisto)
I want you to live on with a smile
-Faust
neither of these are ideals, nor are they big aspirations. and the closest they get to being fulfilled is, well, definitely not a happy ending (can a bird smile?)
faust asks mephisto to stop creating zombies, and mephisto asks faust to stop his pre-suicide speech. they're both self-sacrifices for the other's sake, and coincidentally, the one action that hurts the other the most and kicks off their tragic arc.
I-It's all okay. They aren't alive anymore
-Mephisto
look at what mephisto cares about (besides singing) because it means nothing to him to murder people who he perceives would have hurt him, if given half the chance to.
(mephisto says that line in the second image)
Singing? Sounds great! You gotta sing for me sometime
-Sasha (Faust)
look at, in contrast, the parts that faust wishes mephisto was concerned with. it's sheer disconnect. it's insanely lucky for meph that he got someone as kind as faust to stick with him for so long. they were never going to have a future together- the first person to show you kindness is rarely the person you really want to stick with for life- but maybe, maybe if they split, or they left talulah 2.0, they could have saved their own lives. and not killed thousands more in a pointless war (neither of their desires had anything to do with reunion's founding goal- they were only there to be talulah's child soldiers)
and that's how we end up with a suicide (love the anime for clarifying "he probably could've survived this alone if he wanted to") in lieu of a confrontation. and that's how we end up with the promise of 'we will live and die together' inadvertently coming true because faust can be in as much denial as he wants. mephisto was far too clearly dependent on his approval to do anything sane after his death. faust kills himself because only by their mutual destruction could he stop the most unethical, white-haired war criminal from continuing his torturous atrocities on the world
okay. i leave you with parallel screencaps:
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and a few more shots of how pretty faust is
Don't worry about ammo. "It's not a waste to show respect." Faust once said.
-Surviving phantom crossbowman
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my slightly sillier-than-canon interpretation of marazhai is that he'll go (joker voice) "wHy So SeRiOuS?" and commit a war crime in front of you and then you match his freak energy (by calling him uninspired and yawning in his face or something) and he gets really mad at you
so this fic tells cazador's story from being a spawn under vellioth, to usurping and killing vellioth using reddit's advice, to becoming a vampire lord and getting roasted on r/aita for being a narcissistic parent. the current plan is that it's told as if you are scrolling through cazador's reddit account
here's the start of it:
i haven't worked on it for ages hahah. im pretty sure the idea has merit though
one part smooth peanut butter to two parts vodka for the most vile cocktail you can have that sticks to the back of your throat btw. add the vodka slowly so they mix properly and stir with a knife. you're welcome
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everyone says they want to be a furry creature but i wonder if once you get a feeling for how itchy you would constantly be, the furless tradeoff would seem worth it
tagged by @gloura so long ago (sorry!). thanks for the tag! i'm very curious what the trends are. here lies my ten most recent fic opening lines.
1. The time flickers, headache-bright, a crisp white script against the car display's dark blue background, from 3:07 to 3:08.
2. Though he’s young, Wyll is a household name and a well-loved hero.
3. Everybody becomes an orphan one day.
4. It’s scalding, and they’re barely touching.
5. From the other end of the arena, the lithe Drukhari approaches them, his boots finding purchase on carapace shells and dismembered arms to climb over the piles of corpses they worked in tandem to produce.
6. It’s humiliatingly hard to hide being a vampire spawn.
7. Looking back, maybe Astarion should’ve resisted Cazador for longer, because the day his prayers are answered, it’s far too late for anything at all.
8. "You know, when you reassured me with 'I have my own vices, Star', I was imagining something truly sordid."
9. It’s furtive trips out of camp, careful treading with a spike of fear every time he has to slip out or slip back in the little community.
10. Behind Talon, the steel bars above the entryway slam in the dirt ground with a shudder.
no pressure tagging @raayide @stolenglow @grey-wardens :>
