#also that unicorn didn't get close enough even in the rest of the clip

[hislittleraincloud]

[demystifiedstardust]

The Whale and the Dream

Pushing this forward in the queue because dreams are In™️.

Cw unreality

Way back in 1.1, Childe's whale made me remember a few long-dormant things from my childhood. I had a conversation with my partner around that time that went something like this:

Me: Did you get the whale dream, too? Partner: What whale dream? Me: (realizing that this was maybe not a standard, assumed childhood occurrence) You know, the whale dream? With the big whale? That shows up and swallows you and takes you crazy places underwater and in the sky?? Partner: (even more confused) No??

So that's the story of how I kinsidered Childe for a bit. But then the Fon//taine arc happened, and traveler being shown to tap into Childe's memories of it was a whiplash moment.

Unlike the seelies, there are physical differences between the whale as depicted by Gen//shin and the whale I remember. Mine was still very astral, but more whale-looking in terms of shape. Also, mine was more like a bus one would get unwittingly swallowed by in terms of function. Still, I can't believe I kind of got to fight my childhood deep-water night-sky whale... in the same game as the rest of these whiplash moments, no less.

I guess in the interest of future Gen//shin updates and whatever reality-questioning bullshit they contain, here's the other important beats from those whale dreams (and yes, you better believe Scylla gave me one hell of a jumpscare as well. If Gen//shin pulls out a third whale, I swear...).

I remember a library that was very narrow and hallway-like, but infinitely tall. I could not see the top; the shelves started to fade out of reality as they got very tall. There were tall ladders here and there, and the taller parts would come into focus if you got close enough in height (I never went too far though, because I didn't want to lose sight of the ground). The floor was very dark, like some kind of extremely dark-purple-green-marbled hardwood, and the cabinets themselves were more dark reddish like purple heart wood. The books themselves were leather-bound and in all sorts of colors.

At the end of the long library hallway was a very tall window with a rounded triangular fan shape at its top, through which you could see galaxies. There was also a small desk and a bird in a golden cage. The bird spoke and had clipped wings. It would warn you that it was dangerous and that you should leave. If you didn't heed the warnings and got close to the window, that's when the whale would spot you and suck you in.

Other than being trapped for the duration of the ride, being inside the whale wasn't much of an issue. It was largely transparent looking from inside, so you could see where you were going. It would travel through the stars and the skies and the seas indiscriminately as though randomly phasing through different spots in spacetime. It would thankfully always spit me out close to land, however... the journey itself gave a sense of foreboding, like I shouldn't have been there.

The most haunting moment was traveling across a rainbow bridge in the sky, as meteors rained down from above. The whale itself was incorporeal, and I knew that I was safe inside. However, the world below was most certainly experiencing an apocalypse in every sense of the world. Raging fire, continuous meteor impacts, dramatic fissures. I recall a determined unicorn-pegasus-like thing diving down past us, and I understood that there was a war down there, and that everyone on that world was destined to die either fighting or attempting to avert the disaster.

(That made me a somber child for a while irl...)

If this sounds like any myths you know, modern or ancient, could you please send them my way? I never had a mythology phase, but typing this out made me think there may be some parallels out there with existing myths.

Also, Gen//shin please don't do this. Please. If this whale-as-an-ark-over-a-doomed-world showed up in-game, I think it would actually break me.

Illustrations available upon request, but only privately. I'm not ready to blast them over the internet yet.