#It had to be ousted

[crumpet-doodles]

The shrike is a small carnivorous bird! It typically catches its prey, and beats it against a tree branch or other dull object until dead or unconscious. It then proceeds to stab it onto a thorn or sharp tree branch, letting the carcass sit there. The shrike comes back to feed on it periodically, or let other creatures indulge!

It's also known to have cannibalistic tendencies, sometimes eating other shrikes and birds, along with its usual prey of small rodents.

...Sorry. I don't know what came over me.

[midnightwind]

gonna stream of consciousness discuss Lucanis, Spite, their relationship, and the control they have over each other

This started as me wondering just how their communication works, because sometimes Spite chimes in with a thought or feeling from Lucanis that he doesn't voice. Yet the vast majority of their interactions are verbal on Lucanis' end. Spite also operates mostly on the basis of "if Lucanis or one of the party members doesn't explain something, then I won't be able to understand" which is one of the popular reasons for his many tantrums. So it seems like Spite can only comb through Lucanis' mind so well. Is it because they've been at odds for a year? Is it possible for them to reach a level of harmony where they can converse solely in the mental? Is there a point where Spite can sift through Lucanis' memories and knowledge without needing the man to audibly tell him anything?

I think Lucanis doesn't realize just how much he controls Spite's environment and abilities. When Spite asks for your help in Inner Demons and pulls you into their mind palace, he's locked out of the inner chamber. He can't get past the many guardians Lucanis has put up to reason and guilt himself into isolation. He needs Rook to make any progress towards his host. Lucanis wants to distance himself so much from Spite, he has recreated their prison and then locks Spite out into the farthest reaches of it.

Imagine being ripped from your home and shoved into another person, to go from a life of fluid freedom to a small vessel of unyielding flesh. Imagine that, at the very least, you are not alone in this agony. In the Ossuary, the real one, Spite and Lucanis always had each other. They hated everything about it. But they were never alone. They came to an understanding. They are as much kindred souls as they can be given their twisted creation. There is a comfort to be found in that.

Instead, Lucanis has trapped himself in the very room where they likely were forced together. Where Zara likely tortured him most. He picked the room holding the worst memories and the sharpest pain, and he forced Spite out of it. Lucanis has decided to hold a knife by the blade in a white knuckled grip and pushed away the one being who knows that pain intimately. And it feels like a betrayal. They experienced horrible things in that room, together. They survived the ordeals, together. They found reason to cling to themselves, the determination to live, together. And at the end, Lucanis chooses to be alone. Because it's easier to think he deserved it all if Spite isn't there to save him from himself again.

But they escaped the real prison! They're finally free. Spite can finally experience all the happier memories and thoughts Lucanis held onto, see the world he's now trapped in, because not once does Spite think to kill his host. Not once does Spite try to walk him off a cliff, use any number of sharp knives or vicious poisons a Crow carries, never tries to talk him into death. He wants out. He wants to be free, but he knows that it would come with a price. So instead, he settles for living. That's why he's furious at Lucanis for locking them both up in a pantry, for keeping himself tucked away from the others, for refusing to even acknowledge the torture he is subjecting them both to.

I can only imagine how infuriating it must be for Spite. He's thrust into the physical world where nothing makes sense to him. He's trapped in a man who would rather carry their prison with him forever than try to find a way to live, changed as he is. He's not even allowed to cling to the one bastion of comfort in this new, gently hellish existence because the would-be friend has locked him out. And to top it off, their new home is a bubble inside his home. Lucanis is staying in the Fade, and Spite isn't allowed to exist there. Imagine being in a cage where your home is just outside the cell. You can see it, smell it, hear it, but you can't even so much as poke a finger through the bars. I would have started biting people.

The two times we see Spite take over in the Lighthouse, he isn't reveling in this touch of home. He isn't seen trying to walk them into the welcoming abyss to drift forever in the Fade. He's trying to reach the Eluvian. People have theorized that Spite was trying to take Lucanis back to Treviso. To take him home, to his family, to get help. Spite wants out, but more than that, he wants Lucanis to start living. When Rook starts getting through to the assassin, when he starts opening up and engaging with the group, Spite lashes out less. He earnestly tries to talk with the party at times. He expresses more curiosity than animosity to them.

I can only imagine Spite's frustration as Lucanis insists on holding onto their prison given how much better things are with the Veilguard. How bitter it must be to have thrown himself at every door in the ghost of that cage for naught, just to watch Rook breeze through it. How gutting it must have felt to finally reach Lucanis and he's chosen the place that hurt them the most. And he has chosen to live in it alone.

I think Lucanis never truly realizes the extent to which Spite cares. The tragedy of their existence isn't solely a spirit trapped in a man, it's two kindred souls who experienced the worst, but always had each other. It's one rejecting the other despite the shared trauma. They should have been happier, more at peace, after the escape, but Spite was never allowed to properly leave because Lucanis dragged that place into them. He spent a year trying to survive hell, then left Spite thrashing at the walls of it. And he wonders why the demon is screaming.

[forcedhesitation]

crazy how he just ignores everyone else and speaks directly to wyll. it's like wyll is like one of the most important characters in this game, or something.

[ducktracy]

Is "Horton Hatches The Egg" the last appearance of Slappy, chronologically?

as if to imply that Slappy would ever shuffle off of this mortal coil... he could withstand it. Horton Hatches the Egg was just before Standards and Practices was a thing so that's why we didn't hear an "I'M OKAY" in the distance

TANGENTIAL but i was just talking in a Zoom meeting with the crew recently how cool it is that we get to go full circle with these references. like how celebrity references have both eluded and amused kids and adults for years growing up watching LT, we get to push it forward with Slappy! or even way beforehand with Nosferatu! i'm very lucky to work on a show that still allows kids and adults all over the world to ask the question of the century: who is this guy and why does he look like that?

[secretagentsagainstwhatever]

Your least favourite mp's least favourite mp

[hazellvsq]

reyna as the leader of camp jupiter and hazel as the outcast. neither can opt out of the system the way jason and nico, their counterparts, have, because the camp needs reyna and hazel needs the camp and neither have anywhere else to go. both so alone but unable and unwilling to help the other directly, uninterested in saving the other, instead going through the intermediaries of percy and hylla. both stoically bearing their burdens but inevitably going to crack under the strain. they have to be accommodating they have to polite and thoughtful at all times or they won’t survive in their positions. all duty little freedom and they aren’t friends and they’re both being manipulated by octavian and neither is allowed to snap in public. so strong but so lonely. roman girls <3

[iguessitsjustme]

Hey, quick questions. What's worse? Violating a dumb clause of a contract that you signed (when the clause should not exist in the first place) in a way that is not harming anyone and filling the world with love in the process or....being a fucking narc?

or

[quikyureblogs]

This aged so poorly 🥲

[skiitter]

The world is often an ugly place but it’s nice to know that not everyone sucks.

[aurumacadicus]

The Last Star in the Sky - Winteriron

You know, you guys give me such deep titles for this pairing. I've decided this makes it not entirely my fault when I write tearjerkers.

The Last Star in the Sky

"How long are you going to go on like this?" Steve asked, not unkindly.

Bucky didn't look at him, gruffly answering, "I told you that you didn't have to come with me."

Steve didn't rise to the bait. "You know I'm with you 'til the end of the line. I just want to know what I'm in for."

Bucky bit back his resulting anger. It wasn't Steve's fault that his best friend was a lovesick fool. "This is the last one," he said, instead of calling him stupid, or saying he'd be better off leaving at the next space port. He frowned at the map he'd been toying with for the last three days. There were no other galaxies that he could see. No where else left to look.

"...We'll find him," Steve said after a brief pause to take in all of the things he hadn't said along with what he had, promise in his tone.

"This is the last fucking solar system we can reach, Steve, and I haven't found him in the last eight years," Bucky snarled, spinning to face him, trying to goad him into a fight.

Steve reached out to grab his cheeks, staring into his eyes in a way that made him immediately lose all his hostility. "We'll find him," he repeated firmly.

Bucky couldn't help the way his eyes began to burn, trying to blink back tears. "What if he doesn't want to be found, and that's why he's never there when I look?"

"He loves you," Steve said. "And he didn't leave you because he wanted to. He left you because he had to."

"I know," Bucky muttered, dropping his eyes to the floor.

"Natasha said he cried the whole ride back to the main port," Steve continued.

"I know," Bucky repeated, adding a bit of acid to his tone as he jerked his gaze back up to his face.

Steve scowled back at him. "Then stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's embarrassing. You got to travel the galaxies to find Tony again. Tony has been stuck on his planet, ruling a people who don't respect him, so much that he was terrified they'd hunt you down and kill you to teach him a lesson when you know the only thing he ever wanted besides to stay by your side was to explore space. You've gotten to do everything he ever wanted as you searched for him, and all he's gotten to do is sit and worry that you might be dead."

Bucky dropped his gaze again. That was true. Tony had always chattered about exploring other planets, maybe extending trade treaties, but then he'd remember that his freedom had an expiration date, and he'd go quiet and grip Bucky's hand tight. He'd been afraid his people would be so intent on cutting him off from the outside world that he hadn't even told anyone the name of his planet, let alone where it was. Bucky had picked up things he thought Tony might like on his travels, but he'd known, even as he bought them, that despite any joy it might bring him, it would also make him wistful for a life he couldn't have.

And that was if Tony's people didn't kill them as soon as they found him, anyway.

[midnightwind]

gods, do I try to dig up any info on the city of Salle in Antiva or do I just make up a bunch of shit and hope no one else tries to fact check me

[northern-passage]

clem is such an interesting character and so different from what i usually see in IFs like I've yet to see an RO who is scared of everything? in a world of girlbosses and mansplainers we need the clems

thank you!

i'm glad that they feel different :-) when i started tnp, a lot of romance stories, especially fantasy or supernatural, tended to put the mc in Clementine's role. there are exceptions now, of course, i'm not trying to make a broad statement, especially since within IF that's actually something that's changed a lot over the years, but i definitely wanted the mc in tnp to be the competent, protective, "mysterious stranger" type, which is an archetype that used to (typically) go exclusively to love interests.

which means that we get to have poor little meow meows like Clementine as our love interests, instead :-) i also really like having Clem as a bit of balance, because they're life has been so different from everyone else's - Merry is a career criminal, and we've seen that she has no hesitation getting nasty and violent, while Noel, Lea, and the hunter have all been entrenched in the Order for their entire lives, with all of them also being very familiar with violence and comfortable with it or at the very least indifferent towards it.

even though Clementine is running from something, and is just as much as a fugitive as Noel, compared to the others, they really are the "normal" one, who just had their life upturned by running into a group of hardened fighters and criminals. or at least, upturned in a different way than it already was.... we'll get to see their reaction in the second half of chapter 2, but Clementine deals with what happened in Blackwater very differently than everyone else, because it's not like something they've ever really experienced before.

[spootsaline]

i do think its fascinating that the program I'm in really is middle/ high school all over again

because im a huge proponent of having open and effective communication, especially since I know, and ive told others, I'm rusty with irl communications/relationships

but to find out that more people have been lying to my face and apparently dislike me is very interesting, like cool so not only are you a liar, you are also a pussy.

...also why are you in your 20s and can't communicate correctly, like at this point it's such a skill issue on your end.

[meowmeowmessi]

laughing remembering the outrage when cruyff had said that in the event of barça purchasing neymar they ought to sell messi. only man who ever looked out for him out of the goodness of his heart btw

[livvyofthelake]

well basically like raise your hand if you’ve ever been blocked by a close mutual you though you were actually friends with and not just fandom-mates because you expressed an emotion they didn’t like because apparently they only want to interact with people who watch the same media as them and when you didn’t anymore they stopped talking to you and the media you DID have in common they gave up on once they found something more popular and seeing as that thing happened to be your favorite thing you graciously let them have because you believed you were friends and they would treat it with care and love but they didn’t and it made you feel like they didn’t respect you or like you or think of you as a person but rather as a faceless entity who sometimes could make Posts about tv shows you have in common. despite the fact they know what your face looks like because they’ve seen it because you’ve gotten together on zoom and watched movies together like friends do but that doesn’t mean anything i guess if you try to delicately have a conversation about how you feel because they just immediately dismiss you and start talking to you like you’re coworkers in a polite email chain because you said you didn’t like their tv show. which was a fact they already knew but didn’t take seriously because they were apparently never viewing you as a person! or has that only happened to me.

[greetings-inferiors]

If I could draw I’d draw Sora, Clairen, Juri, and Ramlethal hanging out because they’re my fighting game mains