Finally, Finally I Am Back On My ArSen Bullshit. So Starting From Where I Last Left Off (chapter 94):

Finally, finally I am back on my ArSen bullshit. So starting from where I last left off (chapter 94):

Fr tho, Hilmes, where was this when I needed you to have the attitude? This just reads as copium ffs.

I normally don't give that much thought to Team Zahhak's philosophy, but this time I decided to sit down and mull on it a bit. Evil is the way of the world, the root and origin of all things, and humans have established “justice” to oppose it. The problem? Justice isn't One True Thing as many like to think— to borrow Narsus' metaphor it's actually like a thousand stars fighting to dominate the sky. And what this causes is conflict, everybody thinks they're right, and therefore the others must be wrong, and to prop up their own justice blood is shed.

One would normally associate bloodshed with, y'know, evil. Which makes me wonder if Team Zahhak thinks of justice as a hypocrisy— in fighting for their justice the pain and loss the fight inevitably causes is no different from that which evil would cause. In seeking to banish evil they just kept inventing evil itself over and over, with a prettier facade on top.

Maybe Team Zahhak sees it as a pointless, fruitless endeavor, and thus chases evil in its own right instead of dressing it up in pretty ideals that ultimately mean nothing.

That's my interpretation of these panels, I buy that line of philosophy obviously, but I think I can see where they're coming from, especially considering the origins of Zahhak himself (which, to make it as vague as possible, he was born from evil, so surely that must've shaped his worldview?).

I want to say, “what did you think was gonna happen when y'all went crazy like rabid dogs on the capital and let Bodin run free to do whatever he wanted???” because I am right— but my anger is tinged with dread/grief because the consequences. They're going to bite Hilmes in the ass.

Interesting. VERY INTERESTING. I'm spinning this in my head. What can I do with this, hmmmm~

They were conscripted, ey?

There's something about their faith taking the shape of brutality. That their “love” for their God wasn't characterized by, like, I dunno how to put it, a genuine connection with Yaldaboath nor spirituality nor anything like that if that makes sense, but rather in the form of... Gah, my brain isn't cooperating.

The way they were so proud of killing the defenseless and vulnerable (women and children) leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

“I think we've done our duty to God well enough to call it a day.” my god my fucking god, like, killing enough people means you did your job means you don't have to do anything more no meaningful deeds or introspection you don't need to do more you've murdered and that's apparently fucking enough shut uuuup.

I know they were manipulated by those above them, the clergy and the higher-ups who wanted this campaign but ugh. Ugh.

If one were to only look at the deeds of followers of Yaldaboath, I don't think it would be inaccurate to say that Yaldaboath is an ever-hungering bloodthirsty god who demands bloodshed and human sacrifice as worship.

Of course, it's not the case, I'm sure the faith means something else, something far less murderous, but there's a point where the original intent and purpose is lost and the twisted version takes over. It is the real, tangible impact it has on the world and the people in it that ultimately matters.

Of course, this is not a problem unique to the faith of Yaldaboath, the Parsian priesthood is pretty corrupt (@innerchorus made a post about that, I'll link it if I can find it again), and y'know, all institutionalized, big religions seem to follow the rough chops. Hell, in my homeland's history one of our kings went to war to seize Buddhist texts from another king!! Like what!! That's so antithetical to what Buddhism is supposed to be about!

Where am I going with this? Honestly, I've got no fucking clue. I just needed to rant, I suppose.

Everybody's big sister comes into clutch and nudges Arslan to not lose focus.

Also, is it just me or does Arslan's hair seem kinda long in this scene? Like,

Am I imagining things???? Was his hair always this long?

After two whole rants in the same post I no longer have the brain juices to dedicate any meaningful thought about the Royal Academy thing but I will say that I definitely want to know more about it. Who attends it? Is it a boarding school? Do other regions of Pars have similar academies? How do children of nobility and the wealthy in more rural areas learn? At home, with private tutors? This was never elaborated on and I'm left with a bucketload of questions.

They!! Alfarīd looks so cute here, look at that smile! And Farangis is so fond. I really love their bond, though I wish it was featured a little more (I guess it kinda is, but it involves Farangis pushing Alfarīd onto Narsus and I'm not sure how I feel about that so yeah).

And between and behind the two there's one of the dresses Alfarīd showed Narsus later on! The one she didn't end up buying, though I have to admit it's a cute design.

Sometimes I find myself wondering why Shapur's mother waited two years before she attempted murder on Isfan and his mother. Or perhaps she tried/wanted to try earlier but was unsuccessful due to Shapur's presence and interference? I'd love to hear your thoughts about it.

Okay, I have a confession to make. This ask unlocked a memory in me and I went to look in my drafts and sitting there was an unfinished post about this very matter, in which I tagged you because I think we had been talking about this in comments somewhere, and I checked the date and it said July 2022 🫠

Anyway, this is going to involve a lot of theorising and definitely veers into headcanon/possible fic backstory stuff, but it's a question I've thought about a lot and there are a handful of possibilities, in my opinion.

My first thought was that to begin with, she didn't know for certain who Isfan's father was. I'm sure there were also male slaves employed by their household, or it could have been any number of soldiers of other visitors that was the culprit. But perhaps in time the resemblance between Isfan and his father became impossible to ignore, or perhaps gossip reached her ears and her suspicions grew to the point at which she could not put them aside.

Perhaps she suspected right from the start, though. Maybe her husband's behaviour gave her cause to; maybe it wasn't an isolated incident. In that case, for someone willing to do what she did it feels like suspicion alone would have been enough, so why wait? One thing that comes to mind is infant mortality rates. Maybe she was hoping that the babe wouldn't survive past the first year or so, in which case there would be no need to dirty her hands.

Or perhaps at first it didn't seem to matter — her own son, both legitimate and older, would be heir.

I don't think Shapur's father would have involved himself with Isfan at all (after all, in not wanting to cause trouble with his wife he was content to ignore her actions in consigning a mother and baby to freeze to death) but I know we've both speculated before that Shapur might well have taken an interest in his baby brother even before he rode out to save him.

So was Shapur's behaviour a factor somehow? Was it his acknowledgement of his younger half-brother that changed things? Did his mother, for some reason, start to fret that one day, Isfan might be the one to inherit everything from Shapur rather than a son of his own, a grandchild that would carry her blood? How would she have felt at seeing Isfan accepted by the one other person she had assumed would also see him as a threat?

(Going down this line of reasoning definitely veers into some potential headcanon territory that I can't recall whether I've talked about before, but essentially something I toyed with was that his mother's fears not only stemmed from Shapur's clear affection and bond with the child but also the fact that she had begun to have her suspicions about her son's preference for men, and worried that given his closeness with Isfan he would be content to pass things to him rather than marry and have children of his own.

At this point, Shapur is 16, a year over the age of majority. I wouldn't be surprised if discussions of marriage had come up at this point in terms of potential matches, especially if he is the only legitimate son. Certainly I headcanon that later on, the main reason Shapur doesn't marry is to protect Isfan's status as his named heir and ensure it can't be contested, but before his rescue of Isfan I doubt he was thinking that far ahead; he was simply fond of his younger brother and did his best to look out for him and his mother. He could have easily brushed off talk of marriage without realising why his mother pushed for it.

Still, overall I think the biggest factor was simply that Shapur's mother hoped that if she ignored what she thought of as a problem for long enough, it would go away. And when it didn't, she opted to take matters into her own hands. The cold simplicity of Isfan's mere existence being enough for her to want him and his mother dead speaks to both her own callousness and the problems with Parsian society in the importance it places on bloodlines, so I've always been a bit wary of diluting that.)

Porcelain dress. Porcelain flesh.

I guess I'm in the translucent dress phase these days✨

So, sadly, I have a small writers block, and therefore, chapter 4 is going at very much a snail's pace. (And the more I think about some scenes in chapter 2 and 3, the more I want to scrap them completely, so there's that...)

I also have decided to have so many new art projects besides doing stuff for uni...

Long story short - have a sneak peak of one!

(I have updated Azar's design a little to suit it more to the real-life georgian armour)

You know what? Have another even more out of context one!

Muhahaha! (I have officially lost it, you guys...)

Anyways, wish me luck for my exams starting next week!

Recent scribble of Daryun

Here is the first drawing of 2024. Don't know what to draw? Draw Daryun! Handsome, boring and soulless.

(on this art)