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rakashavia https://ift.tt/2HvCJDC
sparklecryptid:
There are certain songs that, if you’re smart, no one wants the double-edged ‘privilege’ of hearing from the Dancer.
Songs for when Jean is tired. Tired, and angry. Angry at the pain the gods have condemned him and his father too, furious at the pain that hampers their every moment, overflowing with sheer righteous wrath at what they have dared to do to them.
There are songs. Dark songs, when Jean leads the Midnight Parade and kicks aside all morality and mortality, gamboling and cackling as a vaguely human-shaped deamon as he lets go - even if only for a little while. (It’s good to pretend. But is he pretending? No one has ever asked Jean that question, and he’s never ventured the information.)
There are songs, for when Jean strides through a sea of deamons and howls to an unforgiving sky.
After the Fall
Grace for SaleFair Game
Although for that last one - Fair Game - I can see Jean spamming his illusionary skills to give a truly disturbing performance for any onlookers. If anyone tracks him down as he sings that - well. If it was the Glaive, Nyx et al would be treated to a spectacle of their own laughing, Scourge-ridden faces laughingly singing the almost-innocent tune. The Chocobros would face that same, and Cor - Cor would find it *extremely* disturbing to see alternate versions of himself, Regis, Cid, and Clarus singing said song. (At the very least he can spread said uncanny effect if he’s recording this - Regis et al would hear their own voices drifting from said recorder and shiver.)
(Ardyn, of course, thinks it's hilarious.)
Then again - someone who stuck around long enough to see the Dancer singing that song more or less to himself? Might inadvertently gain some *very* valuable information - if only they could figure out just who the people the Dancer is appearing as are. (Somnus, Gentiana, and Gilgamesh, at the least.)
Can I just say that I love the idea of these midnight parades being a time where Jean just- lets go. Where he drops the pretense of being nice®, where he can be bitter and free and rage at the cards that were dealt to his father and him.
Because Jean is tired, by the time he’s an adult, he’s tired of having to dance along to the strings that destiny has woven for him and he’s tired of watching his father be in such terrible pain that it hurts to even move. And he himself is tired of being in pain from the Scourge, he’s tired of being a monster but if he has to be one then he’ll be one on his terms.
And- for some reason, I keep thinking of Cor coming across Jean appearing as Somnus and Gilgamesh and others and upon their next meeting asking who thoses people where.
And Jean of course gives a cryptic answer.
@hamelin-born
@sparklecryptid
Sometimes, you just have to be angry. Despite the fact that society conditions you to be anything but most of the time, despite the fact that Jean is trying to slap on his best face for his father, Jean just. Understands the bitterness gnawing at Ardyn’s heart far, far too well; the difference is that Ardyn Raged so long and long ago, until the fire of his wrath burned away and he was left with ashes and the vicious poison of revenge.
Jean’s young still, and Ardyn watches with bittersweet nostalgia as his son rages.
Because Jean, to his own mind, is a monster, and sometimes - sometimes it’s good to be one. To just - take a vicious, twisted pride in it; to own that status, even if only so it will stop hurting for a little bit. (And, after all, it’s always fun to sing the villain’s songs…)
And yes, I love that. I think - Cor might recognize Gilgamesh, even if he’s never seen the man without the mask, and it makes him suddenly very interested in Jean and how Jean knows the sword-ghost.
“Who are they?” Cor asks, because he knows the way this goes. He knows the formula of the story he is caught up in, that the Dancer has taken for his own - three questions in one and one in three, each with a different truth wrapped in a differing answer.
“Those that shall never come again.” Says the man across from him, a hand rising casually in a too-familiar gesture on a totally unfamiliar face.
The face is gone, shifting from dark and suspiciously reminiscent of the Lucis Caelum to tanned and pale-haired, and Cor finds himself gasping as he licks his lips and stamps down the memories. “Who are they?”
“The first of three, though not the first. The first to set the pattern in blood, and make it stick with prophecy.”
“Who are they?” Cor asks softs, one last time - and yet another fluid movement, and he sits across from a face he knows - that of the Orllce’s Messenger.
Or is it?
(Your picture was not posted)
sparklecryptid:
There are certain songs that, if you’re smart, no one wants the double-edged ‘privilege’ of hearing from the Dancer.
Songs for when Jean is tired. Tired, and angry. Angry at the pain the gods have condemned him and his father too, furious at the pain that hampers their every moment, overflowing with sheer righteous wrath at what they have dared to do to them.
There are songs. Dark songs, when Jean leads the Midnight Parade and kicks aside all morality and mortality, gamboling and cackling as a vaguely human-shaped deamon as he lets go - even if only for a little while. (It’s good to pretend. But is he pretending? No one has ever asked Jean that question, and he’s never ventured the information.)
There are songs, for when Jean strides through a sea of deamons and howls to an unforgiving sky.
After the Fall
Grace for SaleFair Game
Although for that last one - Fair Game - I can see Jean spamming his illusionary skills to give a truly disturbing performance for any onlookers. If anyone tracks him down as he sings that - well. If it was the Glaive, Nyx et al would be treated to a spectacle of their own laughing, Scourge-ridden faces laughingly singing the almost-innocent tune. The Chocobros would face that same, and Cor - Cor would find it *extremely* disturbing to see alternate versions of himself, Regis, Cid, and Clarus singing said song. (At the very least he can spread said uncanny effect if he’s recording this - Regis et al would hear their own voices drifting from said recorder and shiver.)
(Ardyn, of course, thinks it's hilarious.)
Then again - someone who stuck around long enough to see the Dancer singing that song more or less to himself? Might inadvertently gain some *very* valuable information - if only they could figure out just who the people the Dancer is appearing as are. (Somnus, Gentiana, and Gilgamesh, at the least.)
Can I just say that I love the idea of these midnight parades being a time where Jean just- lets go. Where he drops the pretense of being nice®, where he can be bitter and free and rage at the cards that were dealt to his father and him.
Because Jean is tired, by the time he’s an adult, he’s tired of having to dance along to the strings that destiny has woven for him and he’s tired of watching his father be in such terrible pain that it hurts to even move. And he himself is tired of being in pain from the Scourge, he’s tired of being a monster but if he has to be one then he’ll be one on his terms.
And- for some reason, I keep thinking of Cor coming across Jean appearing as Somnus and Gilgamesh and others and upon their next meeting asking who thoses people where.
And Jean of course gives a cryptic answer.
@hamelin-born
@sparklecryptid
Sometimes, you just have to be angry. Despite the fact that society conditions you to be anything but most of the time, despite the fact that Jean is trying to slap on his best face for his father, Jean just. Understands the bitterness gnawing at Ardyn’s heart far, far too well; the difference is that Ardyn Raged so long and long ago, until the fire of his wrath burned away and he was left with ashes and the vicious poison of revenge.
Jean’s young still, and Ardyn watches with bittersweet nostalgia as his son rages.
Because Jean, to his own mind, is a monster, and sometimes - sometimes it’s good to be one. To just - take a vicious, twisted pride in it; to own that status, even if only so it will stop hurting for a little bit. (And, after all, it’s always fun to sing the villain’s songs…)
And yes, I love that. I think - Cor might recognize Gilgamesh, even if he’s never seen the man without the mask, and it makes him suddenly very interested in Jean and how Jean knows the sword-ghost.
“Who are they?” Cor asks, because he knows the way this goes. He knows the formula of the story he is caught up in, that the Dancer has taken for his own - three questions in one and one in three, each with a different truth wrapped in a differing answer.
“Those that shall never come again.” Says the man across from him, a hand rising casually in a too-familiar gesture on a totally unfamiliar face.
The face is gone, shifting from dark and suspiciously reminiscent of the Lucis Caelum to tanned and pale-haired, and Cor finds himself gasping as he licks his lips and stamps down the memories. “Who are they?”
“The first of three, though not the first. The first to set the pattern in blood, and make it stick with prophecy.”
“Who are they?” Cor asks softs, one last time - and yet another fluid movement, and he sits across from a face he knows - that of the Orllce’s Messenger.
Or is it?
(Your picture was not posted)
