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theprinceandagcd · 6 months

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home is where the heart is (but God I love the English)

Summary: Alex's relationship with "London Boy" by Taylor Swift is an emotional journey.

Words: 4,026

ao3 link

Notes: via @KeptinOnZeBridg on Twitter: "alex continuously teasing henry with taylor swift's "london boy" and singing it over and over again when they shop, when they get to bed, when they cook, and when their friends are over"

So. Anyway. I'm not entirely sure what this is? Is it a crack fic? It might be a crack fic. I hope you like it anyway. I do :)

----

you know I love a London boy

I enjoy walking Soho, drinking in the afternoon

he likes my American smile

like a child, when our eyes meet

darling, I fancy you

----

Alex wouldn’t consider himself a Swiftie, necessarily.

June has been obsessed since they were little and still in Texas – Alex has distinct memories of her strumming a guitar and covering Our Song repeatedly because it was the only song she learned at the time. When Taylor Swift stopped in D.C. for the Reputation tour the year after his mom get elected, he’d tagged along with June and Nora, dressed in all black at the girls’ insistence to fit the vibes.

It’d been fine. He’d had a good time.

But he doesn’t know her entire discography and only pretends to keep up when someone starts diving into the Taylor Swift lore, like who her best exes are or why there were five holes in a fence in an Instagram photo years ago. Her music is good, and he doesn’t actively want to turn it off most of the time when he hears it – he doesn’t understand why that can’t be the end of the conversation.

Still, when Lover comes out in late August of 2019, only a week after he had to clean cake out of places he never wanted to clean cake out of, he finds himself lounging back on June’s unnecessarily fluffy pillows, Nora and June both curled up near the foot of the bed with June’s phone as midnight rolls around. Snacks are scattered around them, like they’re preparing for some kind of fucking apocalypse instead of listening to a pop album. He’s got his HRH Prince Henry fact sheet open on his lap as they start playing the first track for the first time, because he’s here for the snacks and to make June happy, and he’s supposed to be committing this stuff to memory at the same time.

The album isn’t bad. He nods his head along to some of the songs, taps his fingers in tune with a few, and he doesn’t really offer a lot of commentary.

“Okay, this next one is… London Boy.” He isn’t looking, but he feels June’s eyes on the side of his face. “Ooh, wonder if it’s about your new best friend.”

Alex frowns, glancing up at her. “What?”

“Henry, obviously,” June says, grinning around a mouthful of Pop-tart. She gestures vaguely toward the file in his hand. “Doesn't he qualify as a London boy?”

“There’s at least a ninety percent probability that it’s about her boyfriend,” Nora supplies, unhelpfully, as she rips open a bag of skittles.

“And the other ten percent?” June tilts her head and smirks, clearly enjoying this too much.

“I’d say like, eight percent that it’s Harry Styles.”

“And?”

“Probably at least one percent that it’s Henry." Nora shrugs. "He’s the more attractive option of the two royal English men within a decent age range.”

June turns back to Alex, eyebrows raised high on her forehead. “See, there’s a chance.”

“Just play the goddamn song, Bug.”

Nora throws a yellow skittle at his head. “Boo, party pooper.”

June plays the song, as requested, and it’s good.

Except.

Except it’s a little too... boppy for his taste.

Except now he’s stuck thinking about pristine blonde hair and stupid blue eyes and an upturned perfect nose because June has made the association in his brain before he’d even been able to give the song a chance. He breathes in deep through his nose and stares at the words in front of him and tries to push down the irritation rising in his chest. Random facts about Prince Henry are staring back up at him, mocking him and reminding him that he has to fix this stupid mess that wasn’t even his fault.

Well, not really.

“It was cute,” Nora says once the song has stopped.

Alex just shrugs. “It’s not my favorite. Next.”

He pretends not to see the glare that June shoots at him. It’s easier than trying to figure out why his stomach is in knots just from thinking about Henry.

It's probably just pure annoyance.

----

Taylor Swift has bad timing.

On January 3rd, two days after Henry kissed him on New Years’, Alex is antsy and irritable and needs to distract himself because he's definitely being ghosted. So, he’s trying to get a head start on reading for his classes that don’t start for another fucking week because he has to do something when Idris Elba’s voice comes through the speaker playing a random pop playlist on Spotify.

He hates that he recognizes it immediately, even though he’s pretty sure he’s only heard it twice since it came out. Even more, he hates the way it immediately makes him feel.

His stomach drops and twists, and the book he was holding slips from his hands because they’re suddenly damp and he can’t hold onto it. He fumbles in his hurry to slam his hand on the volume down button of the offending piece of technology, and the book crashes to the floor beside his desk, loud and jarring. The silence that follows offers little comfort, the tune still playing in his head, echoing between his ears.

Reflexively, he unlocks his phone and opens his message thread with Henry, reading back over the texts he’s sent – questions of if Henry is alive and if they can talk and—nothing. No new messages or missed calls or even a fucking like on his most recent Instagram post. That had been a stretch, he knows - a desperate attempt to get anything from Henry, but the radio silence has only continued. It feels like he’s lost something, something monumental, which is fucking stupid because they weren’t anything, not really. Acquaintances, at best. Fake friends, at worst.

It’s what Alex tells himself.

It doesn’t feel true.

He counts out four minutes in ten second intervals in his head and then turns the volume back up on his speaker. Another song has started playing, one that doesn’t remind him of cold air and warm hands on his cheeks and soft lips pressed to his underneath a tree in the White House garden.

It’s another story, he guesses, if that’s all he can think about anyway, regardless of what song plays. He’ll still blame Taylor Swift for the crack in his chest that he presses a hand to as he picks his book back up, opening it up and not comprehending a single goddamn word.

Maybe he should have just let the stupid song play. He feels like shit already, anyway.

----

He plays it for Henry in Paris, just to annoy him.

They’re eating apricots and tarts and laughing curled up together on the bedspread in their robes and nothing else, and Alex gives Henry an airpod and they go back and forth picking songs. Alex pokes fun at Henry’s Bowie choices and Henry rolls his eyes when Alex plays the Beatles, but they’re giggling and it’s stupid, really, how this moment feels stuck in time. He knows minutes are passing and he knows Henry will have to leave soon, but their heads are tucked close together and Henry’s palm is warm on Alex’s leg, and he wishes they could just stay here forever.

Here feels like somewhere else, safe from prying eyes and people who wouldn’t understand. Here, they’re just two boys curled together in a Paris hotel room that are friends, that sort of understand each other, that know what the other tastes like when they come and where to kiss to make the other squirm. It’s a little terrifying, this feeling blooming in his chest and expanding. It feels beautiful and fragile, and Alex isn’t sure he’s capable of not fucking it up.

It would be on brand for him, if he’s being honest.

So, he types the song name into his search bar and clicks play. He cuts his eyes up at Henry with a grin, because this is supposed to be something casual, not something that makes him feel like he might die if he loses it. The song is just silly enough, and Henry rolls his eyes and shoves him away, complaining that he needs to take a shower before he heads out.

He hands Alex back his airpod and gets up, but he smiles at Alex before he disappears into the bathroom. Alex lets the song finish playing as he hears the shower turn on, and part of him kind of wants to take off his own robe and join him. Henry would probably let him, but Alex has already skirted the edge of what this is supposed to be this morning, when he watched Henry sleep and traced the ridges of his spine with his fingertips.

Taylor sings “you know I love a London boy” in his right ear, the other airpod tucked into his fist, and Alex, for just a moment, wonders if he could.

Or if he’d even be allowed.

----

The song haunts Alex on his worst day.

When Henry leaves the lakehouse, the rest of them stay for one more day, like they had planned originally. Alex asks to leave and let them enjoy the last day without him, but everyone refuses to let him go anywhere by himself, and Alex doesn’t want to ruin their vacation, too.

He’s pretty sure he already has.

Nora and June hover around him, and he tries to humor them, but his heart feels torn open and shattered. No, his heart feels gone, ripped from his chest and halfway across the Atlantic by now, probably. He wonders if Henry has cried over him at all, too, or if leaving was easy for him. Has he thought about texting Alex back? Has he stared at their text message thread and considered responding and giving Alex any semblance of an answer? Of a reason?

Does he understand what Alex has lost?

If, he thinks bleakly, he ever had it to begin with.

Alex lets his sister and best friend pull him onto the porch, into the warm sun that does nothing for how cold he feels, and Nora turns on some music, and he tries very hard not to open his Instagram and scroll through Henry’s feed, and he tries very hard not to wonder what he did wrong, and he tries very hard not to cry.

“We could go driving in, on my scooter-“

A broken noise slips past Alex’s lips before Nora can grab her phone and change the song. The door slams forcefully when Alex runs inside, before he's even realized that he was moving, into the room that still fucking smells like Henry. Pain laces through his scalp and – oh – he was pulling his hair. He squeezes his hands into tight fists and presses them into his eyes as his tears start to fall and fall and fall.

He was so fucking stupid.

It’s like he can still hear the godforsaken lyrics even though he knows the song was turned off, taunting him, words about loving British mannerisms and “just wanna be with you”s, and he isn’t sure how he read it so wrong, how he misunderstood the way that Henry had looked at him, how he’d let himself fall in love with someone who never planned on being there to catch him.

He curls up in Henry’s bunk and cries into one of the last things that Henry touched that he still has with him, ignoring June when she knocks on the door, apologizing profusely.

It doesn’t matter.

None of it matters.

----

The song winds up being a comfort when he needs it.

Curled into a seat on a private plane the night after dancing with Henry at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Alex slots his airpods into his ears and plays music to try to calm his racing thoughts. He brings his hand up to his sternum, feels the lump of the key and ring hiding under his shirt and clings to that feeling, that hope.

“I want you to know, I'm sure. A thousand percent."

If Alex closes his eyes, he can still feel Henry’s soft jacket underneath his fingertips, the way his palms had slid into the dips in Henry’s waist as they’d shuffled back and forth around some of the most beautiful art in the world. Or, at least, Alex assumes it is. He didn’t see much of it, too focused on Henry, on making sure he took advantage of every second that he was allowed to hold him, to press kisses into his cheeks and jaw and neck, to love him the way he deserved to be loved.

The way that Alex is going to love him forever.

He isn’t really paying attention to what’s playing, until his brain registers a familiar cadence, and he realizes that London Boy is playing.

It makes him laugh, quick and surprised, the immediate visceral reaction almost making him skip it. But, the song plays, “but something happened, I heard him laughing, I saw the dimples first and then I heard the accent” and his finger stops over the button. It’s catchy, for one. It’s true, for another.

A lot of things will probably remind him of Henry breaking his heart in Texas, at least for a while - the lake house, bunk beds, this song. He can't change what happened, but he's certainly changed his perceptions before. He did, after all, spend the first twenty-one years of his life thinking that he was straight and now he has a boyfriend.

Things can change.

He leans back against his headrest and lets the song play, humming along. Cash shoots him a funny look from his seat, but Alex just looks out the window and breathes and creates a new memory for the song – a feeling of elation, of knowing that the future is uncertain except for one thing, the one thing that Alex is more sure of than he’s ever been of anything. Before the song ends, he takes a screenshot of the Spotify app as it plays and sends it to Henry, texting, miss you already xo

Henry’s response is quick: I’m never going to escape that bloody song, am I?

Alex grins. not if you’re with me, baby.

Guess I’ll just learn to love it, then. And then, immediately after: I miss you, too.

----

Henry doesn’t escape it.

June plays London Boy on purpose after the inauguration in January, her grin wide and wicked. Alex lolls his head onto Henry’s shoulder and sings along immediately, poking at his side until that beautiful fucking smile pulls up his boyfriend’s features.

“You’re a menace to society,” is what Henry says, but his cheeks are pink and his lips are warm when he presses them to Alex’s temple.

Alex just buries his face into Henry’s neck, pressing his own kiss to the soft skin there, before trailing up to Henry’s ear and, around a giggle, whisper-singing, “Dahling, I fancy you.”

Henry shakes his head, but his eyes are bright, and his grin is infectious, and Alex just wants to live in this moment forever. His mom and Leo are somewhere – grabbing champagne, he thinks. Nora is curled up on Alex’s other side, and June is sitting on the ottoman in front of them with her phone in her hand, and Henry’s arm is looped around Alex’s waist from where he sits next to him, and it’s everything.

He swallows past the sudden emotion in his throat and then laughs as June and Nora grab remotes and start using them as microphones, serenading Henry until his blush has spread all the way down his neck. They love him, too, Alex knows, and as he joins in with them, singing loudly and off-key, he thinks that this is what Henry deserves – to be loved this fully and wholly and unconditionally and, sometimes, a little comically. Nora leans over Alex’s lap to ruffle Henry’s hair during the bridge of the song, and Alex presses his “just wanna be with youuu” into the crinkle at the corner of Henry’s eye. June fakes a gagging motion, but then she gets up and smacks a kiss on Henry’s opposite cheek, which makes him splutter as he pushes her away.

During the last chorus, he glances over at Alex, as if in need of salvation, but Alex just smirks. Henry rolls his eyes, but the hand around Alex’s waist squeezes as the song ends, and Nora and June devolve into a giggling fit just as his mom and Leo appear with a bottle of champagne and 6 glasses. They toast their wins, all of them, including Henry, who flushes but clinks his glasses with everyone.

They’re all talking over each other and it’s chaotic and messy but there’s still something warm and tangible beating through his veins, comfortable and encompassing. Alex looks over at Henry, who smiles and laces their fingers together like it’s the easiest thing in the world before giving his attention back to Leo, and Alex knows – it’s home.

----

Alex adds London Boy to their move in playlist when they’re putting all of their things in the brownstone, credenzas and way too many shoes and everything in between coming together in a jumble that will probably take them weeks to work through.

But it’s their stuff and their mess, and unpacking boxes with Henry feels nearly therapeutic, like the culmination of everything that they had to go through to have this, a home that belongs to both of them, closets that they share, and decisions that they get to make together.

Henry lets him craft the playlist, which is a mistake on his part, but Alex takes advantage and then bides his time, waiting patiently as they unpack boxes and rearrange furniture and argue over which cabinet the ceramic bowls should go in, which is so fucking domestic that Alex actually kisses Henry mid-argument, fingers curling around the back of his neck as he licks into his mouth. Henry’s hands flutter for a moment around Alex’s shoulders before settling around his waist, and Alex’s grin breaks their lips apart.

Henry swallows, eyes dark. “Um, I-“

“Put the bowls wherever you want, baby.”

The bowls go on the counter, for the time being, as Henry drops to his knees, and they christen their kitchen before they’ve even finished unpacking the first box.

Later, London Boy starts playing while Henry is setting up their coffee and tea bar and Alex is stacking glass cups in the cabinet beside the refrigerator. Immediately, Alex puts the dishes down and grabs Henry around the waist, effectively pulling him away from his work and into Alex’s arms.

“What are you – oh my – Christ, Alex, really?”

Alex laughs as recognition flashes in Henry’s eyes, keeping one hand in Henry’s as he twirls himself around once. Henry’s arm winds around his middle as he comes back, and then he’s rocking back and forth with Alex, silly and perfect and his. Alex is so deliriously happy as he obnoxiously sings the lyrics, feeling like he’s holding everything he's ever wanted in the palm of his hand.

And, well. He guesses he is.

----

It becomes a bit, something Alex always knows he can do to get a smile out of Henry. He’ll play their stupid song, and sing it off-key in Henry’s ear, and they’ll dance around their kitchen or their living room or their bedroom or whatever space they find themselves in. Henry eventually even stops complaining, unless he’s critiquing the accent that Alex sometimes tries to emanate as he belts the lyrics.

Alex adds London Boy to nearly every playlist they have on their shared Spotify account, including their chores playlist. So, it always seems to come on when they’re sweeping their dining room or dusting their ceiling fans or cleaning their kitchen countertops. They always stop, they always dance. Alex always feels like it’ll never get old, the way that Henry looks skyward for a moment and laughs and lets Alex keep doing it anyway. He’s lucky, so lucky, that this is the life he gets to live, with this man that he loves and that loves him, too, even when he’s ridiculous or overdoing it.

Henry never seems to think so.

Once, when Henry is washing the dishes, the song comes on and Alex puts down the broom that was in his hand to wrap his arms around Henry from behind. His fingers trail across Henry’s abs from over his sweater, squeezing lightly. He presses his lips to the shell of Henry’s ear and hums, “home is where the heart is, but God I love the English” in the most exaggerated bubble gum pop tone he can manage.

Henry pulls his lips between his teeth to try to hide his smile. “Your love for the English is singular, you cretin.”

Alex just kisses his jaw noisily and keeps singing, rocking back and forth, and moving both of their bodies in a way that makes Henry fucking giggle, and Alex might spend the rest of their lives trying to get that sound replicated as often as possible.

“You know I love a London boy

I enjoy walking Camden Market in the afternoon”

Henry sighs, finishing the last dish and drying off his hands before turning to rest his hip against the counter. He tilts his head in a way that Alex recognizes, slightly exasperated but endearingly fond. It still makes his heart skip a little in his chest.

He loves that – the way his entire soul still reacts to even the slightest bit of affection from Henry. It’s like he’ll never fully get used to it, even as much as he knows that Henry loves him, that Henry is staying forever. He hopes the thrill never goes away, either.

Alex curls himself into Henry’s chest, still singing along with the song as he stretches up on his toes. Henry kisses him, cutting him off and effectively shutting him up, and Alex melts, reaching up to cup Henry’s cheeks in his palms. Their noses brush together when they pull away. “I love you.” Alex grins. “London boy.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re insufferable.” Henry scrunches up his nose, and Alex leans up to kiss it. Henry rolls his eyes. “But I love you, too.”

----

At the end of the year, when they get their shared Spotify account Wrapped, London Boy is their top played song, because Alex plays it while they’re cleaning, while they’re getting ready in the morning, when they have friends over for game nights, as often as he can. He does it for the sole purpose of teasing Henry, of getting to see the splotches of color that rise on his skin and know that it’s born out of love. Plus, as much as he didn’t like it when he first heard it, he thinks that opinion was based on his feelings about Henry getting in the way. In hindsight and objectively, he was too harsh on it. It’s a good song.

When they go shopping at Target and the song plays over the store’s speakers, Alex’s eyes go wide and he sings it to Henry in the middle of the aisle, and Henry tries to run him over with their shopping cart.

When they get married, Alex adds it to their wedding reception playlist, delighted when it blares through the sound system and makes Henry blush, prompting Henry to pull Alex close and hide his face in Alex’s shoulder, his ring sparkling in the light when he covers his eyes with his hand.

A few years later, when they adopt their first daughter from an agency based out of London, Alex posts a photo to Instagram of Henry holding her, small and wrapped in a yellow blanket that has tiny water spots dotting the top of it from where they’ve both cried on her, captioning it, “you know we love a London (girl).”

June comments both a pink heart and an eye rolling emoji, then texts him asking for caption credit.

After all, she made him listen to the song in the first place.

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #rwarb #firstprince #alex x henry #my writing #firstprince ff #i actually really like this idk why #i hope yall do too

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blade-that-weeps · 11 months

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Post-Amh Araeng

Shadowbringers MSQ progress gabbling below! Spoilers, obviously. This is very rambling and unstructured, as a warning.

So I’ve been scrabbling my way through the content, and having a delightful time having my heart repeatedly kicked by emotions.

Il Mheg was not as annoying as I thought it would be (I’m Irish born and bred so foreign takes on the lore and adaptions of it can be...Trying lmao) and I actually appreciated seeing some of the nods to the mythology it’s clearly inspired by. The accents were tough though. Yeesh.

The Fuath (which is Irish for hatred) being an analog for the Fomorians, the sea-dwelling race of monsters that were at odds with the Tuatha de Danann, who were a deific race often associated with the sidhe/the fae, and the pixies/others Il Mheg inhabitants not getting along with them was a nice touch. Also enjoyed most of the mobs in the Fuath dungeon being named for Celtic creatures associated with water or generally drowning people. Aenc Thon’s ‘form of terror’ being the model FFXIV used for Cu Chulainn in the Void Ark raid made sense, because Cu Chulainn is our big mythic cycle tragic hero figure, infamous for having a monstrous battle form. (Still hate that they made him a gross tentacle monster though) Aenc Thon, leader figure of the Fuath, having a metal arm/prosthetic likely being a nod to Nuada Airgetlam, the Tuatha de Danann king who had his arm cut off and replaced with a silver one. The fixation on obligation/debt, not giving the fae your name, the passing of position to the one that vanquishes the holder, all the little things. Also Feo Ul is darling, I adore a rabidly possessive creature, so when they went from regular cheery pixie voice to ragged snarly MINE, I was amused. I wanted to shake Thancred and have Urianger sit him down to teach him how to use his words, how to emotion right, and how to communicate his feelings. Mini-fillia (now Ryne) is precious and perfect and I desperately wanted my WoL to have more chances to be nice to her, and for someone to give her a hug. Okay, so. I know everyone and their dog is obsessed with and probably horny for Emet-Selch but I have to say, he activates the same instinct in me that a rat does a terrier. He’s just so pathetic and his voice is whining and snide and his posture is AWFUL, all his lovingly animated motions are so infuriating. I want to hurl him into a mountain. Enjoyed his little story time with the murals, though, he’s fine when he has actual, like, sincere emotion in his voice. I have been told repeatedly that his story is fantastic, so I’ll cut him a little slack, but I still want to shake him until all his bones fall out. Speaking of secret keeping manipulative figures of mystery, I want to slap the Exarch for not TELLING ME THINGS what is his DEAL. Why is everyone so fucking awful at communicating in this expansion, they need counselling. Also Ran’jit is, like. He’s cool. But he’s cool in the way an action figure is cool. He makes no god damned sense. How is he so monstrously strong? We can kick gods into the sun but a buff geriatric comes along and solos the entire Scion team like they’re nothing. I’m cool with the WoL and co being slapped around if there’s buildup and it makes sense, but this just, I don’t know. It’s jarring? I feel like Ran’jit would have been much better executed if they really leaned on him being a superb, absurdly experienced strategist, really had him outwit and outmaneuver us at every turn. Instead he feels like someone’s crudely inserted OC and it baffles me. I do like the general theme he presents, and the whole foil to Thancred thing, but would love for his power to be contextualised in a satisfactory way. Also that fight with him as Thancred went on for WAY too long oh my goodness. Y’shtola not recognising the WoL was rude as fuck, she’s my favourite Scion and having that reunion be ‘who the fuck is this you brought with you’ was unexpected and a nice way to show that Something Is Amiss in the House of Light. Her not being able to see the night sky when she clearly loves it so much was PAINFUL but Urianger (sweet, good, pure, perfect sexy Urianger) describing it to her was so beautiful. Love little moments like that. The whole duty with the sineater army butchering people, after you raise the Crystarium barriers? Brutal. Loved it. Really made me feel like they were taking the horrors of combat and loss seriously. Ardbert being forced to stand there and watch as people died was agonising. Lyna being betrayed by her own people, and then not mentioning it afterwards was horrendous, the poor woman.

I am going to grind Vauthry’s bloated face into the dirt and relish every second. Fantastic job at making a villain that you really come to revile.

WoL on the verge of exploding because of too much Lightwarden aether is very cool, though I do wonder what exactly the Scions and Exarch plan to do if, you know. The only person strong enough to murder Lightwardens, punt gods around, generally one man army it up, defined by their combat ability. What do they plan to do if that person turns into a Lightwarden? The fuck are they going to do? Sure as hell can’t fight it, and that overabundance of Light aether that’s causing the apocalypse is still there in that case. Seems like the angle Emet is aiming for, but could be a mislead too. He’s slithery. Now I understand why everyone was making Lightwarden/sineater WoL designs for a hot minute.

Just had that...Flashback? Dream? Memory from a different timeline as someone else? After coming back to the Crystarium, post-Amh Araeng, which is what prompted me to vomit all this out before I kept going. That was weird, and the Exarch saying that the Crystal Tower was made possible by the sacrifices that had yet to come about, by heroes that had yet to die, makes me think there’s some sort of time-branch/timeline/AU nonsense afoot. Which is. Concerning, because it’s so rarely handled well, but FF has done time shenanigans in past instalments, so we’ll see. Oh also the reveal that Hydaelyn is a primal was rad, and explains a bunch.

#ffxiv #shadowbringers spoilers #MSQ progress #Amon rambles

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thoughtfullyrainynightmare · 3 years

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Yeeaaah… so this ended up turning out longer than I intended… but it’s a theory I felt like sharing nonetheless. Hopefully tumblr doesn’t eat this & if this is too long or odd to answer… don’t worry, I understand. I just wanted to share while it was in my head, ya know? So: Long Post Warning!

I am not 100% caught up on every chapter yet, but I do have a brief understanding of all the events up til now. So please forgive me if this has been revealed and I just don’t know about it yet.

Bell 🧚🏻 = wind spirit🌬🌪

Salamander (who honestly looks more like a dragon than a salamander so he’s gettin’ the dragon emoji) 🐲 = fire spirit 🔥

Undine 🌊 = water spirit💧

As far as I know, we don’t yet have an inkling of who the earth spirit will be or to whom he will “choose” to contract with.

Tbh, I have a some of feelings about possibilities surrounding the earth spirit…

Bell and Undine are both obviously women and I’m 96.8% sure that Salamander is a boy… but who knows, I also wouldn’t be the least bit freaking surprised if Tabata threw that back in our face and Salamander ends up being a girl like in Shrek (and on that note, I just need to ask, in Shrek 2 when Shrek and Donkey drank the Happily Ever After Potion, it’s described as “"Happily Ever After Potion maximum strength. For you and your true love. Drink of this potion and bliss will be thine, happiness, comfort, and beauty divine.” This stuff turned both Shrek and Fiona human while it turned Donkey into a pure white stallion… am I the only one that still gets peeved we never got an answer on wtf that stuff did to Dragon??? Or how it would’ve affected their dragon donkey hybrid babies??? That’s the only thing that irks me about Shrek 2… okay, whew, now that I’ve gotten that out, back to Black Clover theorizing)

Going by the assumption that Salamander is most likely a boy, it would stand to reason that the earth spirit has a good chance at being male as well like 2 female spirits, 2 male.

Salamander’s inspiration obviously comes from dragon lore, I can’t find one singularly specific mythology reference Tabata would have based Salamader on so I’m guessing Salamander is based on dragon lore.

Bell has, for the most part, 2 inspirations Tabata based her on. The main one being Sylphs have power over the skies and air. They've been delineated to have control over the wind and the clouds, and even have the ability to purify the air and control the weather itself. Sylphs are not officially from a specific type of mythology, but if they were to be categorized they’d qualify as European folklore, same as Undine and Gnome which will be explained a few bullet points later. The second and most obvious (my fav of the 2) inspiration Tabata drew from for her character is Tinkerbell; from the blond hair, green dress, gets pissed when male partner pays attention to any female that isn’t her, yeah no denying she’s based on tinkerbell; my guess is Tabata combined her with Sylphs wind magic because it was Tinkerbell’s pixie dust that Peter, the lost boys, and the Darling children used to be able to fly. “Faith, trust, & a little bit of pixie dust” (Which is even more perfect because, even if he doesn’t show it, there is no one else in the series that has more faith & trust in Asta than Yuno does… Yuno’s infinite faith/trust in Asta both drives their rivalry forward and, by this logic, is one of the very reasons Yuno can sore so high🥰).

Undine is the only spirit character, for now, that is directly based off of a real water spirit in European folklore (again, even though Sylphs technically qualify to be categorized under European mythology, as far as I know, they are not officially categorized as such which is why I say Undine is the only one) - “Undine, also spelled Ondine, is a mythological figure of European tradition, a water nymph who becomes human when she falls in love with a man but is doomed to die if he is unfaithful to her.” Being that Undine is described as being able to take human form when she falls in love with a man *cough cough* Ariel *cough cough* Black Clover’s Undine’s background states that she made a contract with the first queen of the newly formed Heart Kingdom and has thus stayed loyal and made a contract with every Heart Queen since. Maybe she fell in love with the father/brother/husband/male-figure associated with the first queen and since the queen is the predominant ruler of the heart kingdom - Undine made a contract with her to be close to this man while knowing he could/would never be hers… she wouldn’t die if her love is one sided… if her love is unsaid and unrequited then anything this man does with another woman isn’t considered being unfaithful.. and maybe she’s maintained contracts with every Heart Queen since out of sheer devotion, loyalty, and love to that original man whom she took human form for. Or she was in love with the first queen and has made a contract with every queen since out of sheer devotion, loyalty, and love not on just for that first queen but every one of her descendants. Who knows?

Tabata’s mythological references (demonology excluded because that a whole other thing) for the most part mainly circulate around Greek mythology, Norse mythology, and European folklore.

Going based off of Undine (and Sylphs) , there’s a strong possibility that this yet to be named earth spirit will possibly directly based on, even if only slightly, someone of those three categories above.

Greek mythology, I find somewhat unlikely seeing as there’s no official male god of earth in Greek mythology. There are deities that have roles related to the earth yeah… but no god surround the earth itself or the element itself. The closest thing to a god of earth in Greek mythology is Gaea - goddess of earth. Simplify it to god of dirt and still the only result is Demeter goddess of agriculture (which seems similar to Mimosa in some ways but I don’t think she will obtain an earth spirit because I think the earth spirit will have more to do with mineral earth than plants and agriculture). If there is to be any inspiration drawn from Greek mythology in terms of an earth spirit, but even this seems a little unlikely, my guess would be possibly some characteristics from Satyrs seeing as they are the male equivalent of nymphs - what Undine is technically classified as.

Norse mythology seems a bit more, but not by much at first, plausible in terms of gathering reference for an earth spirit. It probably wouldn’t be the Norse God of Earth Jörd because she is still technically a goddess and mother of earth like Gaea. However, Norse mythology does have a deity of rocks - Hrungnir is a jötunn (a type of entity contrasted with gods and other non-human figures, such as dwarfs and elves. The entities are themselves ambiguously defined, variously referred to by several other terms, including risi, thurs and troll). There is also one more Norse aspect that goes along these lines - Dvergar or Norse dwarves are entities in Norse mythology associated with rocks, the earth, deathliness, luck, technology, craft, metal work, wisdom, and greed.

Norse mythologies depictions of both jötunn and dvergar tie into the third category of European folklore’s depiction of earth deities/spirits. In European folklore, Gnome, is a dwarfish, subterranean goblin or earth spirit who guards mines of precious treasures hidden in the earth. He is represented in medieval mythologies as a small, physically deformed (usually hunchbacked) creature resembling a dry, gnarled old man. - this description is similar to that of jötunn/dvergar and also ties into Charmy being revealed as part dwarf which will most likely be explored in a later arc.

Tbh, I picture this guy’s personality being somewhere between Grumpy from Snow White, the grumpy but well-meaning and wisecrack Lorax, and Phil from Disney’s rendition of Hercules… (not only does imagining this type of personality have me laughing… imagining the 2 most whom I find most likely to be chosen by this earth spirit… imagining them being partnered up with this personality has me near cackling😂)

As for the 2 whom most likely might be the “chosen one” of this earth spirit?

Even though he is technically described as being Arcane in terms of his magical attribute, Mercury is by definition “a naturally-occurring chemical element found in rock in the earth's crust, including in deposits of coal.” So mercury is naturally occurring, derived from earth, and the fact that it can come from deposits of coal ties in perfectly to the hypothesis of this earth spirit/deity being along the lines of dwarves which (not JUST in Snow White) are heavily associated with miners in various mythologies and folklores. So even though technically classified as being arcane, I do think Nozel has a strong possibility of being chosen by the spirit of earth (+ it would make for an EVEN MORE epic rivalry between Nozel and Fuegoleon if they both have an elemental spirit) (++ based off of how dwarves are depicted in mythology and based on how I decribed how I think this guy’s personality will be, I can see this guy as wise/rational but also getting grumpy/irritated easily with a short fuse and just imagine him getting irritated and kicking Nozel in the shins when when he doesn’t communicate his feelings properly & almost always kicks Solid/Nebra/Augustus in the shins when he says something he shouldn’t have - omg this guy’ll be a hoot!!🤣)

The second possible “chosen one” of this earth spirit could be Sol. Not only is she 100% raw earth magic but I also feel like it would balance her out a bit having a male spirit attached to her and that’s where the wisdom side of the Lorax/Phil could kick in and help her not only improve as a mage but also as a person helping her not see things so one sided. You notice, even though the Blue Rose Knights are an all girl squad… Sol is the only one that goes to that much of a degree in despising men; everyone else on the squad detests men on the surface but for the most part not truly. Charlotte keeps up the façade of detesting men to both appear strong for her squad ladies but also to mask her own insecurities. Sol, while she has gotten a little better since her initial introduction, is the only one who barely tolerates men… the only one who’s depicted as not having a façade and genuinely detests all men with a few exceptions. Having a male spirit like character who does not take her BS (*shin kick💥*) but also offers her wisdom and guidance that helps her grow as a person would be phenomenal for her character overall.

I find Nozel to be the more interesting outcome (NO! not just because I’m a Nozel simp… who told you that? They lie) but either of these characters would be interesting and could improve drastically in character development and as a mage having someone like this joined at the hip.

What are your thoughts?

– Grimoire_Girl📚

OKay, okay *takes a moment* (Also: did I just stop what I was doing, just to read and reply to this? .... Maybe)

I'd like to platonically kiss you on the mouth (with your consent ofc, because consent is a big thing on this blog), because I love this. Okay the Fue simp in me was hoping to have more of him, but in the end I didn't even mind. And can I just say that I love, lovelovelove the idea of Nozel getting the Elemental Spirit of Earth.

The theory is made *so* *much* *better* by the mental image of him (supposedly 'him') being a Lorax/Phil (from now on, let's call him Phorax). Because can you just imagine this duo?! Nozel, our lovely tsun-tsun who is in need of a big, warm hug and therapy. (Like Nozel, sweetie, I know that there aren't many therapists around, but you need to talk to someone.)

I'm also thinking that since it's probable that there'll be the 2-2 divide between boy/girl spirits, because I kinda agree with you on Sal being a boy (I'm aware of Shrek 2, but unfortunately I have no answers, but I laughed *so hard* while reading that), if there'll be a divide between the Spirit forms that have wings. Because I can't see the Earth Spirit giving a flying Spirit Dive form.

I mean, what, everyone else, aka the rest 3 spirit owners can rise to the skies and then Nozel is left behind like a plucked chicken? (I'm so, so sorry for that comparison, but ain't no one leaving him behind! Nozel. Needs. To. Be. Included.) I don't think that's fair. So, it could very well be that the two else give a "grounded" Spirit form, and Bell and Undine give a flying form.

Aaaanyways... I do like your theory/thoughts on how Undine came to be. And I could very well see that to be canon.

I, honestly, have nothing further to add at this point. Because this is brilliant. I love this.

But Tabata please, give us a tiny bit more lore. Please? A pretty please

#grimoire girl #black clover theories #lovely people #this is gold #I'll be thinking about this all day

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pinksweatergettingbetter · 7 years

Text

// y’know since I finished DD I've been trying to puzzle out why the ending was so unsatisfying, and I think I’ve figured it out

First off, I felt really uncomfortable finishing off the phantom; I actually ended up feeling bad for him during his breakdown. But why, though? His breakdown is actually pretty similar to Matt Engarde’s (cowering behind the bench in fright, tearing up his face). In fact they’re both quite similar villains: They’re both responsible for kidnappings in some way, both could be considered sociopaths and both pretending to be innocent.

However, where I hate Matt Engarde and take great pleasure in making him cry as I threaten to put him in jail or leave him at the mercy of an assassin... I don’t really feel anything towards The Phantom. I acknowledge his crimes were bad, but they don’t make me feel the same hatred, so I don’t really feel especially good taking him down.

In fact, the person I felt the most hatred towards in DD was Aura Blackquill, and her take-down wasn’t satisfying at all.

So I think the main problem with this ending is similar to the reason why everyone mistakes Dahlia as the arch-villain of T&T

Lets think about her for a second; Dahlia isn’t the true villain of Bridge; its Godot (as the murderer) and Morgan (As the person who put the evil plan in motion in the first place)

But we hate Dahlia with a fiery passion. Why?

Because she's A) Really Unpleasant, and B) She visibly hurt someone we care about as an audience.

Godot doesn’t register as the main villain because his actions (though stupid, selfish and fucking awful) were based from a good intention (not really though) and his victim was someone so peripheral that it hardly matters. Hell, we don’t even know who she is and how she affects someone we relate to (Maya) until quite late in the case. (tbh I actually don’t know why people don’t hate Godot more; he put every one of the Feys in danger for his own shitty revenge and he sucks. But I’m getting off track...)

Morgan doesn’t register as the main villain because she only appears in flashback and doesn’t do anything material. She’s still disgusting for treating her daughters that way and attempting to have Maya killed, but she doesn’t appear for us to hate.

So our hatred is laser-beamed at Dahlia, who is nasty, smug, and most importantly: She hurt someone we care about. We can see how much her actions destroyed Phoenix over the course of the entire game; his misfortune is the catalyst for us to hate her, along with what she had in mind for Maya. Same for Matt Engarde and Manfred von Karma; both of them visibly hurt and endanger Maya and Edgeworth respectively, who are characters we’ve come to sympathize with and love.

Nobody cares about Juan Corrida, Robert Hammond or Valerie Hawthorne/Terry Fawles’ deaths all that much because we don’t know them. If they had been the villains’ only targets, we wouldn’t have hated them as much. What makes them an Arch-villain is how they affect a main character. Redd White and Morgan Fey (in her first appearance) become closest to arch-villains in their one-off villain roles because of their involvement with main characters.

But, returning to DD, the Phantom doesn’t actually... do that. Sure, he killed Clay, who was Apollo’s best friend, and Metis, Athena’s mother... But they’re such non-entities that it doesn’t trigger my sense of sympathy. Now I’m not saying non-appearing characters can’t have weight; but the way to do this is to have their presence made known through the actions or words of more important characters.

We can feel Magnifi Grammarye even if we’ve never met him because of the effect he had on Zak, Valant an even Trucy. We can feel Misty Fey because of DL-6 lore and Maya’s own grief. We can feel Celeste Impax because of how broken Adrian is over her death. Or at least we can at least feel bad for Adrian and hate Matt because of it.

But they don’t do that in DD; they set up their expendable characters very poorly. Clay obviously means a lot to Apollo, and we’d probably feel his presence through Apollo’s grief....... if we were allowed to actually see Apollo’s grief. He’s basically shoved out of the story after Clay’s death to ‘investigate it on his own terms’, so apart from a couple of lines, we don’t really see how much it hurts him in depth. Meanwhile, (and this frustrated me to no end) NOBODY else seems to give two shits about Clay. Even Solomon Starbuck, his mentor, is more worried about Athena during the case. He basically has a line or two of how much it sucks to lose Clay, then he totally forgets about him.

I love Clay as a concept, but he’s drowned out by all the other grandiose plot elements and never given a proper funeral. So I find it hard to care about his death.

Metis gets things slightly better as Athena doesn’t go missing halfway through the game... but her death also only comes up pretty late in the game and, well... Her memories aren’t altogether great. As much as Athena says she loves her, she also explains her belief that her mother had been experimenting on her, and didn’t care much for her. And it’s fairly obvious that Metis Cykes wasn’t the most attentive of mothers, no matter what Simon Blackquill says to the contrary. Anyone who lets their naive 11 year old daughter play with heavy machinery is not a good mother in my books. So I loose sympathy for her.

Oh! And the person who grieves for her most? It’s Aura Blackquill, who is so bitter, cruel and selfish that I like Metis even less just by association.

So our main reasons to hate the Phantom don’t really stack up. Besides that, his previous bombings don’t actually have any casualties, unless you count what happened to the HAT-1 and Starbuck. At the same time, if I remember correctly, that’s actually the fault of Yuri Cosmos and the Government who allowed the launch even when there were threats from a spy. Good going, you guys. (that might’ve been the HAT-2 actually but tbh my point still stands.)

There’s no story-weight behind his villainous deeds. Also, there’s no malice; the Phantom doesn’t kill for the horrible reasons the other villains do. von Karma killed out of twisted and petty revenge, Matt Engarde was a vain and utterly self-absorbed monster, and Dahlia (and Morgan) were both selfish and hateful.

But the Phantom kills for two reasons; orders from a higher-up, and to protect his own identity. Sounds a lot like our Other Assassin, Shelly de-Killer, who I’m not sure anyone hates, really. (I dunno. I never hated him all that much) That obviously doesn’t make his murders permissible or forgivable in any way, but it lacks the spiteful motivation that makes us hate a villain. Phantom was just ‘doing his job’. Perhaps we’d hate him a little more if we knew the origins of his mysterious contractors.... but we don’t. We don’t even know if they’re evil. They could be the country’s own government for gods sake. Hell, even knowing that would add some intrigue. But we know diddly squat. He’s a nowhere man, living in a nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody.

In any case. The Phantom doesn’t provide us with evil personality traits or close-to-home crimes. Who does?

Aura Blackquill, of course! She’s highly unpleasant, her motivation is selfish hatred for a child, her actions are ridiculously overblown and ill-timed (could’ve done something a little earlier than the day before the execution, eh, Aura?) and the person she kidnaps?

Trucy. Our precious darling Trucy who we’ve had an entire game to get to know, love and sympathize with.

Of course I love (read: hate) how the game tries to play this off like it’s no big deal; Phoenix barely worries about her (in comparison to his constant stress/anxiety/near panic attacks over Maya in Farewell) and when she comes back there’s like 2 lines of her being all “Nah it was cool i just did magic tricks lol” Along with Aura asserting that “none of this could have been accomplished without me”. Yes, thanks Aura; none of this could have been accomplished without terrorism and kidnapping. You sure are a grade-A hero.

So we finally come to the final point of the Phantom; his lack of emotions. Or his semi-lack of emotions, or... Well. DD doesn’t explain it very well. Does he have emotions? Does he not? Are they very minor, or does he control them very well (...somehow? You can’t suppress an emotion so much that it disappears; by the Mood Matrix logic, they’d still be able to hear it easily underneath.)

Phantom gives the cliché spiel of “emotions make you weak”, until the heroes insist that they don’t. And then... He doesn’t go down with defiance? He doesn’t go down cursing emotion to his grave. In his last moments, something in our heroes’ words touches him and in a moment of self-reflection he tries to ultimately remember who he is. Most villains show no remorse, but the Phantom seems very close to perhaps taking a step in the right direction. He renounces his lack of emotions and gives in to fear, and his end is really honestly terrifying to watch (at least it was to me)

This might partially be that I still associate him with Bobby, who’s been pretty much my favourite character in and motivation for finishing the game. Whatever the case, the Phantom doesn’t really make me feel smug for defeating him. Just kind of... uncomfortable.

Then he gets shot by the most amateur sniper in the universe (unless this is just another plan) and carted off to the Police. And so, with that ONE SINGLE TRIAL, the Dark Age of the Law is vanquished. Because that’s how Trust works.

TL-DR; the DD team did a poor job of setting up concrete reasons for us to hate the phantom, making his defeat not particularly satisfying. Also the whole plot is garbage and i hate it but meh

#Dealing with DD #sorry for the wall of text ahaha #ooc #just trying to long-windedly puzzle out why the end stunk so much

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