micaiah meta dump
Jan. 19th, 2021 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelavso in a funny set of coincidences, i was wrapping up a zihark/micaiah confrontation strip at the same time as beta'ing lua's glorious, wonderous, delicious as hell micaiah/(naesala)/sothe nagamas fic. naturally, was thinking about micaiah a lot, intensely, in a short period of time, when I previously hadn't considered her fairly.
i've talked before how drawing strips like the above is very much an exercise in acting for me, not quite physical method acting but full on 'shifting into a compartmentalized character headspace'. ended up also word-vomiting half of it to lua in the beta notes as far as connecting the beads on a pearl necklace of like ... why, id-wise, she acts the way she does (in the fic, in the game, etc)
* what clicked it in the strip first, was how incredibly stone-sure her trust was in Pelleas when all the blood pact shit went down.
It's almost a lover's trust, or even more than that. the same unwavering rightness as to a God, a Master, or a Muse - because the loyalty's To Him is based on your mental calculations that he's doing the right thing, and the beauty of it is that she can read Pelleas' mind-emotions and knows he's doing the most right thing of his options, and cornered, even though she doesn't get the specific whys.
* it had to be the kind of trust that would lead her -a canon empath- to commit genocide, even as she would've done anything else to stop it. Likewise for her to overrule Sothe's concerns, and he's her most important person in the world. (Realizing this little nugget also opened up the association that she, in my interpretation, had a much more complicated not-always-platonic kind of dynamic with Pelleas. More on this later.)
* in the strip right after Zihark finds out about Daein attacking the Laguz Alliance, he confronts her at probably her rawest, most emotionally vulnerable time (perhaps second only to when she was separated from Sothe), and so I was on the lookout for what reactions she instinctively goes for when prodded and annoyed. Sarcasm and bitterness, it turns out (from a few lines in the game, most infamously in the 'father of Sothe's children' line).
* part of the reason I made the strip on that exact moment was that Zihark was also probably the one character that would be determined enough to try to dissuade Micaiah to the point she retaliated in anger. Sothe backs down in canon. the rest of the Dawn Brigade treat her as the head and don't have a reason to go against her. Jill might be the one other character to push for a reason, but I always got the sense she was 'Daein first' rather than 'laguz first' (though Haar coaxes her over later). Zihark ... has the option to stay in the Daein army, but the game hints at his real feelings with how many times he's allowed/nudged-to-be a permanent traitor. Micaiah's a very composed character due to necessity (more also on this later), and we don't see her angry without Sothe there.
(In some ways I think she treats him as her surrogate when she's actually annoyed - she sees herself as 'having to be the calm one' whether it be self-preservation of herself or the country).
* To tie in the above with Pelleas, will say Micaiah and willingness to go for open relationships is not as surprising as it may feel, because she's got that messy side that wants to understand and dig into people with her own two hands - it's the shadow side of the heron mind reading shtick. She's so emotionally Othered and distanced from people that she goes the other extreme and wants to burrow herself into them like one of those skin parasites (at the same time proving that she has no emotional weaknesses to herself) (very much a personality informed by trauma)
* Her previous life experiences are not a clear case of a 'one and done' trauma, or even repetitive, but she has a truly complicated double humanity given very deep scar of what being (heron-)Branded does to her / marks her as. Distant self doubt, quiet loathing of humanity that i think is instantly always buried under guilt at even feeling such an ugly emotion. bitterness at being put on a pedestal (that turns out to be half rotten every time as somebody finds out she's branded). Being able to read minds is such a double-edged sword because in some ways I can see her using it as a crutch for the self preservation again, but it also teaches her just now needlessly thoughtful and cruel a large swath of humanity is.
hmm this was supposed to be about kinks lol
* kinks are so much fun to think about non-sexually in terms of where they come from personality wise, and the bits in the fic (and intuiting from her connection with Pelleas separately) were such "specific" kinks I had to sit down and think about what from their life experience drives it.
* in general it always reads to me as a light / shadow yin / yang tension / catharsis sort of dualism. what is important/fearful enough to your subconscious mind that it's obsessively recreated and chewed over in your id? for micaiah the whole othering / put-on-a-pedestal / heron-mind thing (so she overcompensates with ego-boundary merging issues) (very pisces, zero can be nothing and infinite at the same time, as a friend has mentioned before)(why yes yours truly is a pisces LOL)
(for sothe's kinks ... feeling worthless/abandoned/disposable (so he overcompensates by selfishly marking his territory "through" her, somebody marked as Important by society).
* regarding her and sothe as a couple - he's her safety, her shelter, the idea that she's so othered through everyone else *except* him and her head basically stops screaming when he's around. that kind of bone, nerve deep sort of weighty belonging, anchoring. i don't want to say subspace directly (hilariously she definitely reads as more of a dom type, which was also reflected in the fic. it's quite often the mild meek-mannered ones) - but it's a cousin of that headspace of true-serenity-through-limitation.
* speaking of Sothe, he's a hard one to get a bead on. I confessed to lua that i didn't quite read him in the games as that emotionally wise/deep (him being an utter brat for a good chunk of Path of Radiance, and that was only three years before RD). i can see him being kinky enough to *like* what Micaiah's into (the open relationships shtick especially re: Pelleas) and that - most important - she comes back to him afterwards. i can see his enjoyment coming sort of from the whole vibe of this street urchin leaving such a mark not *only* on Micaiah but through everyone she touches too. quietly vicariously weirdly possessive/internally gloaty *through* her, essentially.
* lastly, interestingly enough i've gotten a lot of comments about the expressions in the comic strip, micaiah's dynamic range of expressions in the strip particularly. she strikes me as somebody who a lot of folks draw/see on the surface as very "still" (and i see that as well - tries very hard not to take up space in a traditionally feminine way, not to mention the usual demure heron vibes influencing it), but when she's pissed, agitated, shaken loose from her moorings, the sheer contrast in that flash of anger and bitterness likely feels more jarring than on any brash character. I also grin at this considering she's aligned with the goddess of chaos, not order, so it's a neat little "shadow side" nod if you fold in what I mentioned on the kinky tangent.
anyway~
i could probably come up with more if specifically asked about a tangent, but boy this one's a long one as is. enjoy.
i've talked before how drawing strips like the above is very much an exercise in acting for me, not quite physical method acting but full on 'shifting into a compartmentalized character headspace'. ended up also word-vomiting half of it to lua in the beta notes as far as connecting the beads on a pearl necklace of like ... why, id-wise, she acts the way she does (in the fic, in the game, etc)
* what clicked it in the strip first, was how incredibly stone-sure her trust was in Pelleas when all the blood pact shit went down.
It's almost a lover's trust, or even more than that. the same unwavering rightness as to a God, a Master, or a Muse - because the loyalty's To Him is based on your mental calculations that he's doing the right thing, and the beauty of it is that she can read Pelleas' mind-emotions and knows he's doing the most right thing of his options, and cornered, even though she doesn't get the specific whys.
* it had to be the kind of trust that would lead her -a canon empath- to commit genocide, even as she would've done anything else to stop it. Likewise for her to overrule Sothe's concerns, and he's her most important person in the world. (Realizing this little nugget also opened up the association that she, in my interpretation, had a much more complicated not-always-platonic kind of dynamic with Pelleas. More on this later.)
* in the strip right after Zihark finds out about Daein attacking the Laguz Alliance, he confronts her at probably her rawest, most emotionally vulnerable time (perhaps second only to when she was separated from Sothe), and so I was on the lookout for what reactions she instinctively goes for when prodded and annoyed. Sarcasm and bitterness, it turns out (from a few lines in the game, most infamously in the 'father of Sothe's children' line).
* part of the reason I made the strip on that exact moment was that Zihark was also probably the one character that would be determined enough to try to dissuade Micaiah to the point she retaliated in anger. Sothe backs down in canon. the rest of the Dawn Brigade treat her as the head and don't have a reason to go against her. Jill might be the one other character to push for a reason, but I always got the sense she was 'Daein first' rather than 'laguz first' (though Haar coaxes her over later). Zihark ... has the option to stay in the Daein army, but the game hints at his real feelings with how many times he's allowed/nudged-to-be a permanent traitor. Micaiah's a very composed character due to necessity (more also on this later), and we don't see her angry without Sothe there.
(In some ways I think she treats him as her surrogate when she's actually annoyed - she sees herself as 'having to be the calm one' whether it be self-preservation of herself or the country).
* To tie in the above with Pelleas, will say Micaiah and willingness to go for open relationships is not as surprising as it may feel, because she's got that messy side that wants to understand and dig into people with her own two hands - it's the shadow side of the heron mind reading shtick. She's so emotionally Othered and distanced from people that she goes the other extreme and wants to burrow herself into them like one of those skin parasites (at the same time proving that she has no emotional weaknesses to herself) (very much a personality informed by trauma)
* Her previous life experiences are not a clear case of a 'one and done' trauma, or even repetitive, but she has a truly complicated double humanity given very deep scar of what being (heron-)Branded does to her / marks her as. Distant self doubt, quiet loathing of humanity that i think is instantly always buried under guilt at even feeling such an ugly emotion. bitterness at being put on a pedestal (that turns out to be half rotten every time as somebody finds out she's branded). Being able to read minds is such a double-edged sword because in some ways I can see her using it as a crutch for the self preservation again, but it also teaches her just now needlessly thoughtful and cruel a large swath of humanity is.
hmm this was supposed to be about kinks lol
* kinks are so much fun to think about non-sexually in terms of where they come from personality wise, and the bits in the fic (and intuiting from her connection with Pelleas separately) were such "specific" kinks I had to sit down and think about what from their life experience drives it.
* in general it always reads to me as a light / shadow yin / yang tension / catharsis sort of dualism. what is important/fearful enough to your subconscious mind that it's obsessively recreated and chewed over in your id? for micaiah the whole othering / put-on-a-pedestal / heron-mind thing (so she overcompensates with ego-boundary merging issues) (very pisces, zero can be nothing and infinite at the same time, as a friend has mentioned before)
(for sothe's kinks ... feeling worthless/abandoned/disposable (so he overcompensates by selfishly marking his territory "through" her, somebody marked as Important by society).
* regarding her and sothe as a couple - he's her safety, her shelter, the idea that she's so othered through everyone else *except* him and her head basically stops screaming when he's around. that kind of bone, nerve deep sort of weighty belonging, anchoring. i don't want to say subspace directly (hilariously she definitely reads as more of a dom type, which was also reflected in the fic. it's quite often the mild meek-mannered ones) - but it's a cousin of that headspace of true-serenity-through-limitation.
* speaking of Sothe, he's a hard one to get a bead on. I confessed to lua that i didn't quite read him in the games as that emotionally wise/deep (him being an utter brat for a good chunk of Path of Radiance, and that was only three years before RD). i can see him being kinky enough to *like* what Micaiah's into (the open relationships shtick especially re: Pelleas) and that - most important - she comes back to him afterwards. i can see his enjoyment coming sort of from the whole vibe of this street urchin leaving such a mark not *only* on Micaiah but through everyone she touches too. quietly vicariously weirdly possessive/internally gloaty *through* her, essentially.
* lastly, interestingly enough i've gotten a lot of comments about the expressions in the comic strip, micaiah's dynamic range of expressions in the strip particularly. she strikes me as somebody who a lot of folks draw/see on the surface as very "still" (and i see that as well - tries very hard not to take up space in a traditionally feminine way, not to mention the usual demure heron vibes influencing it), but when she's pissed, agitated, shaken loose from her moorings, the sheer contrast in that flash of anger and bitterness likely feels more jarring than on any brash character. I also grin at this considering she's aligned with the goddess of chaos, not order, so it's a neat little "shadow side" nod if you fold in what I mentioned on the kinky tangent.
anyway~
i could probably come up with more if specifically asked about a tangent, but boy this one's a long one as is. enjoy.
