#and fear is not worth a life choice of that scale. but love is

[asinglesock]

so uh

[amarynthian-chronicles]

Do you remember the stars?

Sebastian Solace x Reader

"You have been making questionable choices regarding your inventory lately. What is this nonsense? It only takes up precious space."

Sebastian had stolen the little bundle of photographs from your person, visibly upset with your unforgivable crime of permitting yourself the mistake of carrying such sentimental things.

You pouted at him.

"Practical value is not the only thing that matters to me, Seb. Give those back."

"These are a distraction that will get you killed. I am not allowing this. You will focus on your missions and the preservation of your life. I do not want to find your corpse for the umpteenth time because of this tomfoolery."

"Somebody is very worried about me, I see. Have I found a home in your heart, Seb? Or did I create a new heart in the place of the old one that had disappeared ages ago?"

"Such an abysmal tragedy that you cannot conjure a new brain for yourself, while you are at it, my beloved light."

You giggled, amused with his silly insults.

He didn't stop you when you approached him, gently caressing along his tail, admiring his scales. You felt him shudder under your touch, your tenderness. He would never admit how sensitive his tail was, despite you proving it time and time again with your caresses and kisses.

"Will you return my photographs?"

"No."

You slowly climbed into his lap, squeezing his sides, reaching for one of his hands, kissing it once, twice, an infinite amount of kisses.

"Pretty please?"

"Never."

You leaned your head onto his chest, waiting to hear the cadence of his heart, knowing well that it was only beating for you.

"Silly man. I would love to have a photograph of you, though."

"You know how I feel about flashing lights, dollface. No cameras near me."

You tried to sneakily take the photographs away, but he held them out of reach.

"Naughty, naughty. Do not play tricks with me. It may cost you dearly."

"You are impossible. Let's make a deal. We look at them together, I explain the meaning of each of them, and if you deem it fit, you will return them to me. If not, I will not ask for them again."

He pondered your offer for a few minutes, before grinning.

"Add a little kiss to seal the deal and we have an arrangement."

You made a sweet little moan as his lips claimed yours, savouring you, worshipping you. His sharp teeth grazed the tender flesh, tempted to draw blood, but he commanded his instincts to remain under control. He did not wish to lose himself. Not yet.

You had to gather your thoughts, submerged in the ocean of his desire. He was a dangerous being, and his love was a force to be reckoned with. Never forget that.

Clearing your throat, you began with your little presentation, showing him each photograph and what it represented from your former life. Your favourite town squares, flowers in bloom, silly pictures of kittens playing with toys, wondrous landscapes, beautiful and little things that made life worth living.

Sebastian observed you with a dull sorrow nesting in his chest. Such a darling you were, speaking of earthly things with a joy unlike no other. Your inner light had to be otherwordly, Fae magic, sorcery. It had the power to dissipate darkness and despair as if it were a mere nothing. A force of Life melting the clutches of Death.

A part of him feared that your faerie self would one day never return, leaving him in the shadows, rotting for all eternity. He deserved nothing less, he was well aware.

He felt you poke him several times, bringing him back from his dark thoughts.

"Seb! Hello? Look at this one. Dusk, the early appearance of the magnificent moon and the royal court of stars. Do you see how beautifully the light reflects off the clouds?"

Sebastian narrowed his glowing blue eyes at the small picture, admiring it from both a technical and aesthetic angle. Impressive night vision features of the camera that had taken such a picture. Marvellous angle.

It had been an eternity since he had enjoyed the scent of night air and the beauty of the stars. Constellations twinkling in the midnight sky. A promise of freedom.

They say that stars could fall and grant wishes. Were you his fallen star? His true fate?

You whispered gently, cupping his cheeks:

"Do you remember the stars, Sebastian? I promise you, we will see them once more. Together."

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

"Hey, Ed?"

"Mm?" Ed yawned massively, squeaking a bit on the exhale, snuggling a bit closer to Stede. They'd finally managed to negotiate the new bedframe inside the narrow doorway of their new place, and they'd just had a lovely time breaking in their new bed (they'd spend half the bedroom budget on the nice sheets alone), but Stede's voice had sounded a bit too contemplative for what had really been a very nice day, all-around.

All the days they'd spent together after deciding to be innkeepers had been nice days.

"It's just..." Stede sighed, making a little curl of hair flopped over his forehead jiggle. "It's stupid."

"Hey." Ed nudged Stede's arm, resting his chin cutely on his chest. "I still wanna hear about it. Pleeeeeease?"

"Alright," Stede huffed, reaching down to scritch his fingers through Ed's beard, and Ed practically purred. "I was just remembering what you said, the morning after Calypso's birthday -"

"I told you, babe," Ed started, "I was just panicking, I didn't really regret -"

"Not that," Stede interrupted gently, patting Ed's cheek. "When you thanked me for saving your life. Because you had that vision of me as a mermaid the night you died."

"Oh," Ed said slowly, frowning as he tried to work out where Stede was going with this. "And?"

"It's just..." Stede worried at his bottom lip. "When the crew voted to banish you, that morning..."

Ed felt his face harden.

"Did you..." Stede's exhale was a little wobbly. "When you said I was no fuckin' mermaid...did you think that..."

"You were abandoning me again?" Ed filled in, as gently as he could, and he shrugged one shoulder. "I mean...a bit."

"Love, please, we promised not to lie to each other -"

"What, man, do you want me to say yeah, I figured you'd made me want to live, again, only to immediately kick me out of your life, again?" Ed forced an even breath out, tilting his head, still resting on Stede's chest, to watch his own hand as he played with a bit of Stede's chest hair. "It's okay. We're past it. I don't blame you for not wanting anything to do with me, after what I did -"

"Edward," Stede interrupted firmly, gently turning Ed's face back to look at him with a finger. "I was always going to follow you."

Ed frowned. "Really?"

"Really," Stede promised. "And as for what you did? Love, you were in such an awful place, I mean, I think there's a reason everyone forgave you pretty easily, don't you?"

Ed hesitated. "But you made me leave -"

"And I'm sorry for that," Stede said, resting a hand over Ed's, squeezing his fingers gently. "Wasn't my choice. But I was always, always going to follow you."

Skeptically, Ed huffed. "What if the crew hadn't wanted to let me back?"

"I think they always would have," Stede said evenly, "but if they hadn't, I would've stayed with you. Do you believe me?"

Ed could remember the pain of that morning so well. Finally wanting to live, for the first time in what felt like forever, and then questioning if it was even worth it when it felt like his fears that everyone wanted him dead were just confirmed.

Maybe he could remember it just a little more gently, now.

"Yeah," he said, closing his eyes, smiling at the memory of shimmering goldfish scales. "I believe you."

[ennn]

How are you feeling about the aaa finale? idk I’m loving this show so much and I’m so afraid of being disappointed by the ending. I was still hoping for everyone to come back but now I’m accepting that they are gone, gone and the way it’s going Agatha’s coven will only be her and Billy and I like him but not nearly as much as I love everyone else

And then there is Rio, hopeful I’m just being too pessimistic but I fear the show will just end with her still being the antagonist, they will fight, there will be a truce and she won’t kill Agatha and Billy and they will part ways. The only way we will get that kiss is in the flashback which will be worth it but I still wanted more. idk the interviews usually makes me excited for what’s next but this time it made me conflicted

but Jac saying the show will be all about Agatha to the very end was nice to read. I can’t stand all this talk about where is wanda??? who knows but not in this show hopefully!!!

Hello Anon! Well, I would say my emotional state towards the finale has been about the same for the past few weeks, which is a mix of absolute excitement and nerves.

Probably not the best for my emotional and mental health so maybe I should be glad this is a limited series! My body certainly will be.

I was entertaining the thought of dead coven members possibly coming back but Lilia's death was so beautiful and her choice despite it being also her destiny, and her arc was about accepting the life she had and making the best of it and embracing her power.

As for Alice, it's possible she comes back, but it's also possible her character gets closure and moves on, given that we do know there's a scene with her post-death coming up. And Jac Schaeffer seems big on delivering emotional satisfaction at the end of her stories (not to say she's guaranteed to deliver, but it's her goal at least).

Putting the rest under a cut because omg this got long

I have some meta thoughts brewing about this episode's take on destiny and fate and time and death (alongside other death personifications in media) and as hinted at in the latest Schaeffer interviews, there's definitely stuff the show wants to say about it.

On another note, I've mostly processed my feelings about the tragedy of these two as star-crossed lovers in this post if you haven't read it it may help. For me it's still hard to get a read on Rio as they're building new lore with this version of Death. This is definitely not the same Lady Death from Marvel comics.

But I do think that it's actually a good thing that Agatha and Rio are getting into open conflict, the same way Agatha and Billy are having it out in the open, because the characters need to deal with their shit.

And I feel like... especially from the last episode, the show isn't setting up Death to be evil, or necessarily bad. Death is Agatha's antagonist because – as Schaeffer puts it – she refuses it, she refutes it. Lilia ran from her visions because she wanted to avoid seeing death but ultimately embraced it. Agatha's a rule-breaker, a trickster but witchcraft is inherently rooted in nature.

There isn't a simple or clear answer here on what's right or wrong, which is why I'm really interested to see how the finale unfolds. Schaeffer genuinely seems to love ambiguity and the discussions around her shows.

Like yes, Agatha and Rio are going to fight. That's not really new for them? Okay maybe the scale of this will be. But as we've seen with all these reveals, what really matters is how and why and all the details in its crafted execution.

And again, Schaeffer has said that she's aiming for an emotionally satisfying conclusion. Even if the stories for these characters continue beyond, this series is designed to stand on its own. And the Agatha-Rio relationship has been important to the show, from the very first episode.

I'll also be making a predictions post for the finale for funsies, if you want to see what my guesses and expectations are.

[sorcerous-caress]

If you have the time, could you do a Wyll request with a durge!tav who is waaaaay too selfless to balance out the violent parts of their brain. Like Wyll is about to take a massive hit and tav just pushes him out of the way, taking the damage and bleeding out on the ground but they just offer a smile to Wyll in return. They don't know how to express that it makes them feel less of a monster when they do this stuff.

Into my arms | Wyll

[Angst, comfort, themes of indirect self harm/destructive behaviours, getting better together, Durge Reader, Nb!Reader]

[ part of the Wyll's Week event]

To bleed is to know you have a soul.

Oh, how reassuring it was, the sight of your own life essence escaping your veins. A cleansing shower of red that washes away all of your sins.

All of your father's sins.

To be bathed in your own blood, to bear the scars of every arrow and sword that you dived in front of, it's proof to the world of your innocence.

Your companions, your friends, the people who accepted you for who you are, you can't fail them.

So you closed off your walls, built a fortress of steel and enchanted the bricks to deflect all of your emotions and urges inwards, on yourself instead.

To protect the ones you loved, to spare the world of your cruel heart.

If your brain craves for blood to be spilled, it will be yours. A member to dismember, will come from you.

Wyll was the most vocal out of your other companions about his discontent with your ways of indirect self-flagellation masquerading as selfless kindness, your constant sacrifice of precious parts of you until you hoped nothing will remain.

“I am grateful for you sparing me from that arrow, truly,” Wyll sat down next to you just as Shadowheart bid her goodnight after healing your wounds, “but why put yourself in front of me? Why tempt death constantly by using yourself as a shield for me, for all of us.”

He sees the way you look at him, at all of them. As if they were something precious, as if they were doing you a favour by giving you a decent treatment. A stark contrast to how hollow your gaze becomes whenever you glance at a mirror, face your own reflection with disdain.

You would carve out your own flesh to feed them if you had to, it was written in your soul clear as day. And that notion was far too scary for Wyll's brain to comprehend.

You haven't given him a reply, merely smiled. Too tender and sweet of a smile for someone who's ready to sacrifice their own body for him, for someone who already did countless times.

He isn't blind, he is far too familiar with this kind of overcompensation. The idea that if you let the world punish you enough, drag your limbless form through the mud and dig deep, then maybe just maybe salvation will be an option.

An attempt to balance the scales of fate, the unfair hand you were dealt in this life, the child of a slayer god. Bathed with blood and adorned with carcasses since the day you were born, not that you had any choice in the face of your ever so doting father.

Where is he now? Wyll wonders. Where are any of the gods? When they turned their backs on him that damned night, when he begged on his knees for a devil to deliver what the divine couldn't care to.

They only reared their ugly head when it suited them, and yours seemed to only send you the best of gifts after forcing your own hand to rip something equally as precious from your world.

The campfire flame cackles at both of your miserable states, your joint desperation for approval.

Wyll tries to offer you what he cannot give himself, to be the person he needed most that night.

Reassurance.

“You're not a monster, you don't deserve to bleed just because.” He tells you the word he repeated to himself once before, “you don't have to be strong for us.”

You can be weak

Be weak and drop the weight of the world from your shoulders, be weak and fear death for your life is worth living. 

Be weak and cry when you get hurt, stay down when you fall, hug yourself when you crumble. 

Please be weak.

“Let me have your back, be your sword and shield.” The campfire light reflects off of his horns, he just like you, already paid the price.

The bandage around your waist where the arrow struck is still fresh, you wince as you try to get closer to him. Before you could force your body to move again, Wyll himself closes the distance, leaving his seat and kneeling on the ground in front of you.

“Please.” You see your reflection in his eyes, “promise me you will at least try, depend on me, on all of us.”

The words are dry in your mouth, his lips look especially lovely as he pleads his case.

So many words unspoken, so many thoughts swirl around your brain.

I can handle it.

It's my fate.

It's what I deserve.

I rather die than watch you get hurt.

It claws at my skin every second demanding I give in.

You deserve more than I can afford.

I'm death incarnate.

I should be hurt.

I can't handle it.

Then your mind blinks away, a blank state as you feel his lips, those same lovely lips, kiss your bruised knuckles.

Then, emotions.

You almost forgot you had them, almost forgot you deserved to feel them.

You cup Wyll's face gently with the same hand, hold him tenderly.

“I promise,” you vow, “I will try. For you, I will do anything.”

[queenthiax]

Gilly's Letters

Just a tidbit I wanted to get out of my brain, Gilly Cinderheart you have all of my heart <3 Even though I like to break it doing things like this.

- Dear Mama,

I made it to the adventurer’s guild! I would have written earlier, but getting all of the paperwork done and settled into my quarters ended up taking longer than I expected and the next thing I knew we were getting schedules and orders.

Everything around here happens so quickly it makes my head spin. I think Papa would like the hustle and bustle of the routine though. He always complains about how bored he is at home. 

They’re telling me that training starts tomorrow though. I thought getting accepted into the Guild meant that they had already assigned me to a seasoned adventurer, but it seems that there is some basic training they like everyone to go through before that. And something about the choices being made ‘after the heroes get to see our grit’ with their own eyes.

I’m taking everything in stride though! I’ll make sure to show everyone here what I’ve got and make sure the support everyone at home has given me will be worth it!

All of my love,

Gilly-pad

–

Dearest Mama,

Thank you for the care package, knowing that a taste of home will be waiting for me after each day of training is the best motivation to get through the day.

Training is… hard. I knew it would be, but it's so eye opening the difference in expectations here for monster hunting and adventuring is to the little threats that I handled for everyone at home. Really gives a lot of scale to how important the work is!

We haven’t had any adventurer’s looking for apprentices coming in yet, but my teachers all say they’re really impressed with my skills! Especially my ‘special skill’. It’s been really amusing to spar with others who take my size for granted and get to show them how sturdy us halflings can be!

Doing everything to keep you proud, give Papa my love.

Your Gilly-pad

–

MAMA!!!!

I GOT CHOSEN!! I’M OFFICIALLY AN APPRENTICE TO A GREAT ADVENTURER!!

MAMA YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHO IT IS!! 

THE GREAT SIR HORACE TREATY!!!

HE CAME AND WATCHED US AND PICKED ME OUT OF EVERYONE!!!

I’M SO HAPPY I COULD MELT!!

YOUR OFFICIAL ADVENTURER APPRENTICE DAUGHTER!!

LOVE LOVE LOVE FROM YOUR GILLY-PAD

–

My lovely Mama,

Life on the road has been so hectic, I apologize for the sporadic letters. I didn’t realize how unreliable sending through different post offices could be. Don’t worry too much about trying to keep track of me, sending them to the Adventurer’s Guild will make sure I get them eventually!

But it’s officially been a month! I’ve already been on so many adventures and helped slay so many monsters. It’s been a wonder to watch Sir Horace and his frequent companions work.

Sir Horace treats me well! We’re still getting to know each other so I do fear sometimes he keeps up his ‘hero’ act up with me, but I know I’m wearing him down!

Can’t write long since I have so many tasks to keep up with! But do know I’m having the time of my life! Tell Papa to not get jealous of my adventures!

Your monster slaying girl,

Gilly-pad

–

Mama,

I know the letters don’t come often enough, I’m so sorry about that. Sir Horace is taking my training seriously though and keeping me plenty busy!

Not only am I learning about actual adventuring and monster slaying, but he is doing the work to make sure I stay… humble. It’s important to not look down on all of the small tasks that keep you moving every day!

And I am never bored! Even when we’re not working Sir Horace keeps my mind sharp with his tales of his years of experience!

One day I want to show you all the places I’ve seen… I think you’d like some of them. But not as much as I love home, I hope to visit you soon.

All my love,

Gilly-pad

–

Mamsies,

I was just speaking with Sir Horace and he has given me leave once we get back to the city to come back home and visit for a while! He won’t have need of my services for a bit and I do crave your cooking.

We have an engagement - the fabled feast of glory - on the 25th of this month, but afterwards I’ll make my way back to you all! And I’ll be able to tell you of all the heroes I meet at the party!

Missing you and Papa always,

Gilly-pad

–

As darkness starts to take her - her body worn and bruised - the bravado of her last ‘fuck you’ leaves Gilly’s heart… one final thought… “I wish I could have read your letters Mama… I hope you’ve gotten mine… I’m sorry I couldn’t make good on my promise to visit one last time….”

[ipsen]

etoken, 001

rubs my silly wittle hands togethew

when I started shipping it if I did

i've always shipped it on the downlow since the re scene (The One), but i started hardcore shipping at the start of last year, when I did a reread then happened upon an old eto meta post. after actually internalizing their similarities and why they were so naturally drawn to/rejecting of each other, i caved.

my thoughts:

they hate themselves, but when it comes to the other, they can never fully hate them, and that scares them. it leaves them at a sort of crossroads where they can either pursue this fear and conquer it, or succumb to it. the former requires a lot of wingmanning, but is worth it, while the latter will simply leave them giving odd stares at each other every now and then. i just want them to be happy together because that would be nice and they would be whole :]

What makes me happy about them:

they're flexible! it's possible to have an arc about them learning to reconcile and love the worst parts of themselves by loving each other. kaneki rekindles eto's empathy, and eto teaches kaneki how to make choices. on the flipside, it can end really badly. a breakup between these two probably ends up with one of them dead (or multiple uninvolved parties dead (or both)), if not both. they have a tendency to cling (cling) to things that love them, to the point that having one more rejection will push them off the edge.

What makes me sad about them:

their interactions are so few :( i wanted to see them talk more, even if it was just in cochlea. i wonder if eto ever sought out reaperneki during the six month timeskip

things done in fanfic that annoys me:

an annoyingly high portion of the etoken fics on ao3 are just multiships ft. kaneki’s harem and i despise it. it’s just disappointing. also there are some bad eto’s in some of the fics and it’s even more disappointing.

things I look for in fanfic:

character studies of eto and kaneki that utilize the other. fics that explore their pain on some level, or their resignation to death, or even a bucket list are interesting.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: that sounds illegal :(

My happily ever after for them:

a quiet, anonymous life in society where they have regular contact with their loved ones (of which they have plenty). a place where kaneki can cook for eto, and eto can provide kaneki with a little snack in peace ;]

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

eto is the little spoon. she gets a power trip out of being clung to like she matters, and also it keeps her grounded when her thoughts wander to the bad places. kaneki needs something to hold onto because he wants to be the reason that someone stays (despite often allowing them to do otherwise). holding onto eto and knowing she enjoys it means that he's needed, and that's all he's ever wanted.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

sexually charged book discussions, often about tragedy, mystery, or horror. there are actually slight differences in their analyses despite their similarities. kaneki analyzes more emotionally and like a reader in the truest sense. he approaches the scales local to the narrative and what is in the text itself + his own experiences ("death of the author", if you will). meanwhile, eto is more macro-scale in terms of thought, approaching the narratives as an author would and accounting for cultural, temporal, and author-specific influences. she effectively tries to distill the author's intention when discussing, and why that's important. it complements kaneki, both because it fills gaps in his knowledge and because there's finally someone who can actually keep up and engage with him.

——-

thanks for the ask <3

[animehouse-moe]

Mobile Suit Gundam - The Witch From Mercury Season 2 Episode 2: Father and Child

It seems that this is the episode where the real Gundam begins. Death and destruction, senseless violence that consumes everything under the guise of politics. There's certainly quite a lot to go through.

Out of the 3 episodes we've gotten in this new season, this one has been the best. I'd still say there's heavy handed pieces that mostly reside with Norea Du Noc and the rest of the characters aboard Astsacassia, but outside of that we're treated to some really great content.

And unironically? In the short amount of time that Guel's been given on screen, he's done more than his share to prove that he's an incredibly well written character. His desire to please his father, the breakdown of his character and ego, and a reset that gives him his direction. He gets very little time, but makes the absolute most use of it possible, and it's on display with this episode

He's a shell of a person, haunted by patricide, unable to even eat when faced with his reality. It doesn't matter that he's a prisoner, nor that he's only worth as much as the Benerit Group makes him out to be. He's consume in sorrow by his actions, which is placed eloquently against a young girl in the compound whose father also died at Plant Quetta.

It strikes a very strong chord in grounding Guel as still a child, and uses this little girl to express the emotions that he's unable to. Alongside that, it's an incredibly important piece about discussing the losers in violence. GWitch has very strongly spoken about that, to where both sides suffer loss that perpetuate the hatred and sorrow that deepens conflict. Here, we get shown it on the individual scale with a twist, which is what allows Guel to relate to the girl. Her father was stolen from her, but Guel took his himself, so he doesn't have hatred for Earthians in the way the girl does Spacians. Rather, Guel finds common ground in the girl's hatred and sorrow.

And that's what spurs him on, that relation to the young girl who lost her father and has nowhere else to reach out to. Through that, Guel's able to rebuild himself. Through guilt, he's able to stand tall. Through love, he's able to find a way to take that step forward. And even through uncertainty and sorrow and depression, he finds a reason to search for that light. This young girl had no one else, she had nowhere to turn to and was left to die. And in that, Guel saw himself. It wasn't pity, and it probably wasn't even a deeper connection. It was fear, desperation that rang out from his soul to try and save the girl that suffered a similar fate to him.

And what does he get for his deeds, his attempt to save someone in this world? More suffering.

It's incredibly powerful and emotional, and rages in the face of war. Olcott has a mobile suit, he had a chance to get her the attention she needed to have a chance to survive. She was still alive. But he chose violence, he chose to sacrifice the girl's chance at life for his own opportunity of killing another. He couldn't live with the choices of his past so he cast away not only his own future, but that of those around him. He perpetuates his existence as a dog of war and violence and furthers the suffering of everyone.

But at the end, he's forced to realize his actions. A Spacian, a prisoner that was to be used as a bargaining chip, is the one that does all he can to save the young girl. He has no obligation, no real reason to do it, but he does so over the man that could have. And even at the end of it all, that prisoner refuses to let go of his past. He holds grief and love within the same hand, forcing himself to feel that pain so that he can still remember.

And that's about it from a story perspective. I think Norea is still too heavy-handed for my liking, but I can admit she at the very least gets the point across. Nika is great by comparison though, she just feels a little awkward aside Norea's performance. In the same breath, the few cuts we get of Shaddiq conversing with his father are pretty solid, but neglect the sort of childlike naivety that I think is important in pieces like that. In opposition to his father you get that he doesn't have the full or perfect picture, but Shaddiq himself is void of any arrogance or certainty that could drive such confidence and certainty in actions that serve to only tear things further apart. Maybe it's his aloof personality that doesn't allow those pieces through, but I feel like more could be done to shake his foundations a bit more than what they're at currently.

Now, world stuff? I appreciate the details that went in to the combat and work. The Benerit Groups security forces are well formed and thought out. There's several different types of mobile suits, and their space to ground descent concept is solid as well. Using a high powered glider to conserve energy and hasten transit is a solid idea in Earth gravity. In opposition though is the Earthians mobile suits. All the same design and with standard hardware, they're not kitted out for this specific type of conflict or anything like that, nor do they have a very strong commander or experience as a unit.

What I really love though is the differences we're given. The Earthians exclusively use bullet based weapons while the Spacians are able to use a bevvy of weapon types to overpower their enemies. It showcases the power structure between the two groups very well, forcing the Earthians into inferior and outdated mobile suits when up against the expensive and cutting edge ones of the Spacians.

So following that, the combat? Yeah, it's got its "hype" moments and pieces that stretch the truth, but overall it's incredibly well laid out. The Earthians focus on Guerilla tactics while the Spacians operate in a tight formation on a battle plan. Decapitate the HQ and take up high ground positions to target the Earthians. Knowing they have inferior equipment, the Earthians are forced into a maneuver battle centered around their preparation at the factory. It's a rather textbook approach, if not for the excessiveness of the Earthians.

Do I discount the combat because of them? No, but I will say it's silly. Why would someone ever sacrifice a mobile suit for a Himars? It's the dumbest trade possible in the situation, and I really don't believe that "camaraderie" is what allowed it to take place, especially when the man that jumped in front of it had a family. To me, 100% an intentional writing decision to elicit an emotional response from viewers.

At the end of it all, we're "in the Endgame now". The school setting has been shattered, influence reaches out to the ends of space and time as the threat of a Permet God looms and warfare breaks out between Earthians and Spacians. Everybody's a target, nobody's safe, and we still haven't seen Miorine and Suletta together in this second season. I still believe that the first two episodes rushed, but they rushed to get to a good spot so I'm not terribly concerned about it. Now that we're here though, I hope we get to spend a lot of time with it, there's a world of things to explore given what the first season teed up, and I want to hope that all of it gets executed upon. So yeah, now this is really a Gundam show.

[cellard0ors]

For over the last thirty years, Laura has lived in captivity.

Trapped in a glass tank full of water from Lake Septimus, she was shuttled all around from town to town, no one's company to keep save her own.

At first.

But eventually she struck up a kinship with another fellow captive, Silas. Or Silas the dog boy, as Vorez called him.

Eliza Vorez. Their 'mother'. Their owner would be more accurate.

However, she found Silas long before Laura and at least treated him with some semblance of decency. Not much, considering she still expected him to perform at showtime, but he at least got kind words and a gentle attitude.

Laura got the exact opposite. She can only assume it's because, at some point, Vorez thought she would break her. Make her docile and meek. Subservient.

She chose the wrong Mer for that.

It didn't help that Silas was younger and kept so through a perpetual age retention spell - one that kept him trapped at thirteen.

Laura was allowed to go through her First Embarkment and gifted two years after before Vorez struck her with the same spell, coming to the conclusion that it served a two fold purpose. One it kept her attraction young and beautiful. Two, as a punishment.

...Laura wasn't even allowed to naturally age alongside her lost love.

Her lost love - Travis Hackett - the starry-eyed sweet boy who kept her going. The one she grew up with, played with - the one she sacrificed everything for, because she loved him.

She loved him and thinking of him - alive and safe and out in the world, was her only respite from the life she was enduring - not living - enduring.

And now here he is, sneering at her and the only way she can think of to cope with it is to turn it to anger, "Or else what? You'll shoot me? Go ahead. I'm not telling you where my brother is."

"Your brother?" He scoffs and he gets to his feet, peering down at her with disdain, "Well, your 'brother' is responsible for the curse on my family and I'll be damned if I let it continue when I finally have a chance to end this thing!"

"And what do you think I'm here for? The sights?" Laura snaps at him and she does her best to shift around. Her jeans are wildly uncomfortable, her scales having returned and her legs wanting to rejoin to form her tail.

That's not even to mention her patch covered eye socket, which feels like it's bubbling and fizzing, the lake water on her skin, but not where she needs it to heal.

This in mind, she tosses off the patch and while she can hear the sheriff make a sound of disgust at the sight, she ignores him, scooping up handful after handful to splash on her face.

Sure enough, the cool water seeps in and she lets out a sound of sweet relief. There's a slight bit of discomfort as her lost eye returns, but it's worth it once she blinks and realizes her depth perception has returned.

Travis sees her eye is back and gapes at her, "What the hell are you?"

"You said it yourself." she grumbles, "I'm the fish girl..."

"So...a mermaid?"

"We prefer the term Mers." She sighs, "Gender more a human convention..."

"But you said-?!"

"I identify as a girl." Laura explains, "That's my choice."

"Okay..." He says it lightly, in that way where it's clear he's trying to understand and doesn't. It's funny, because it's the exact same response and tone he used when he was ten and asked the exact same thing.

Looking at him now, she can still see bits and pieces of that little boy. She can also see the parts of him she fell in love with during their teens. But he's also different. He looks...tired. Worn. Sad and the sadness kills her, makes her ache, so she speaks to distract herself, "This lake is my home. I was born in its' waters, so they can heal me from pretty much anything."

"Like a lost eye?" He offers and he's managed to fish out the patch she's been using since the last full moon.

Laura eyes it with distaste, "It was an accident. Normally I can be around Silas without fear - my blood is made of these clear waters, so, he tends to avoid me once he's changed, but," she shrugs, "I pushed."

"It shuns clear water..." Travis mummers and she just nods, because clearly he knows more about Silas's condition than she thought. What he knows about her, thanks to her singing, is zip, so she holds up her arms, "If you could, ah - pick me up?"

His expression is cold, stone faced, but she ignores the sting it causes - again, he doesn't know her. Not anymore, "Look, you saw my scales. The water in the lake can turn me back into my natural form. When I'm dry, I have legs just like any other human, so-?"

Travis looks out over the lake and then back at her, his tone full of doubt, "You were down here by the water."

"Yeah, to fix my eye! Not swim away! I would have gotten some water, healed myself, and then been on my way if you hadn't come stomping through!"

"I wasn't-?!"

"Just pick me up, Officer Dick Whippet!"

His jaw sets and he looks furious, but he does as asked. He scoops her up and makes a big show of acting like she's heavy even though she knows that he can more than handle her weight.

...in fact, his arms have gotten very...muscular since last she saw him. Laura can feel the corded strength of them through his police uniform. Swallowing, she feels her face heat and thanks the darkness for covering her blush as he carefully sets her far from the lake.

As she begins to dry, he begins to interrogate, "You say you weren't planning on swimming away, but you refuse to lead me to Silas."

"Uh, yeah. Because you'll probably just kill him." Her tone tells him that he's stupid for thinking she's dumb enough to have thought otherwise.

He sighs and runs his hands over his face, "Look, I don't want to kill the kid. Okay? I just-? I want this nightmare to be over."

Silence settles between them for a moment while Laura patiently waits for him to continue. He does, "When my niece, Kaylee, and my nephew, Caleb, busted your 'brother' out of his cell, he bit one of them. Turned them into a werewolf and they passed it on. So now I've got three infected family members and for the last six years, we've been dealing with all kinds of hell."

"Silas is my brother. You can stop air quoting it." Laura hisses, "You have no idea what he and I went through. No idea. We're bonded by something more than blood and what your family has suffered is nothing more than an eye blink in comparison to the amount of time he and I were trapped with Vorez!"

"Okay, okay, but if that's the case, then why did you two run?!" Travis cries, "When Kaylee and Caleb freed you, you could have-!"

"Could have what?!" Laura interrupts with a bark of laughter, "Gone to you and your family? Yeah, right."

She shakes her head ruefully, "There's only one Hackett I trust, and he didn't show up that night."

Once the words leave her mouth, she realizes the mistake she made. It was said in the heat of the moment and her eyes widen at the ramifications of what she just admitted.

Travis, for his part, seems - thankfully - confused, "The only-? Which Hackett? What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Nothing." She waves her hands, "Let's just-? Just drop it."

She wishes her legs were dry enough that she could stand. If life were perfect, if it was as well timed as music or a scene in a film, they would be. But this is real life, so it leaves her in this well of awkwardness as the minutes pass and Travis, obviously, works over what she said.

And while he might have been confused initially, it doesn't take him long to figure it out. No, of course not. He's the sheriff for a reason. He's capable of solving a puzzle when need be and his eyebrows rise, face a mask of shock as he says, "Wait...that night..."

Laura gulps.

"The night of Harum Scarum...the tickets were addressed to me."

She feels her bottom lip tremble, feels herself looking away from him, eyes heating with unshed tears as he rises to tower over her and growls, "You sent the tickets to me. Why?"

She starts shaking her head and he reaches down and grabs her arms, shakes her roughly, "Why? Who in the hell are you?!"

"I'm-? I told you. I'm nobody. Just some fish girl, just some-!"

"Oh, don't give me that horseshit! You sent me the tickets! You're responsible for all of this! Who ARE you?!"

"Laura!" she cries out sharply, "Alright?! My name..."

She sucks in a shaky breath, "My name is Laura..."

[acorrespondence]

I was just thinking about how much I love Boyd in your Boyd/Raylan kid fic, and sorry this is such a vague question lol but I'd love if you had any like bonus Boyd backstory or details that you'd want to talk about in that universe, or like just any info on how this version of Boyd and the like perfect imo characterization of how he would be as a dad and a partner came to you!

Oh no this is a great question! Well, great for me because I love to talk about this stuff, maybe not so great for you since this answer is about to be real long and rambly haha. Ultimately though I think it comes down to the fact that, at his core, Boyd is a lot less like his father or even Arlo, and a lot more like Mags Bennett. I think on the surface level, they’re actually quite different—Mags has her matronly, pillar-of-the-community persona, and her ruthless pragmatism is tucked away underneath that, but it bubbles up to the surface sometimes. Boyd, on the other hand, inhabits his personas much more fully, and cycles through a lot more of them. I think probably the biggest difference between them is that Boyd really doesn’t seem to believe in violence as a form of control, at least not for those in his employ. Killing Devil and Dewey isn’t a way to control them, it’s just a solution to the problem their presence presents. Even when he gets violent with Ava in the last season, he’s not using it to influence her behavior, it’s just more of a controlled version of a child’s tantrum—you hurt me, so now I’m gonna hurt you.

At their cores, however, Boyd and Mags are both motivated by the same thing: the idea of legacy. I think many people often mistake this in Boyd as a survival instinct, and I sort of agree, in the way that legacy and lasting impact past death are our way to blunt the innate human fear of mortality—death may be inevitable, but our works and stories can continue on. Except I think saying he’s “just trying to survive” throughout the show kind of neuters his character a bit. Because one of the things that makes him so interesting is that everyone else around him is just trying to survive, and he’s not. He wants more than that, and makes other people believe that he can get it, not just for himself but for them too. It’s why he can rally people around him so easily.

In fact, he routinely does things that he does not *need* to do, that put his life directly in jeopardy, in favor of making a name for himself and trying to improve his position in life. And in so doing, he and Mags fall into the same trap: this idea that legacy is achieved only when you beat the game. All the suffering will be worth it when you reach that light at the end of the tunnel. Mags hurts her children over and over again, both directly and indirectly, all in the name of securing her legacy, *for them*, and in the end it takes Doyle dying and losing Loretta and getting the thing she thought she wanted for her to look back and realize: *that* was her legacy. Nothing good was ever going to come out of any of it. Every action she took in the name of securing her legacy was actually destroying it, was moving her further away from the thing she thought she was working toward. All that suffering in the name of legacy? That *is* her legacy. That’s what she’s leaving behind. Ava saw it clearly, even if none of the rest of them did: it’s all just people making choices, all down the line.

I honestly think characterizing Boyd as being motivated solely by survival throughout the series is a bit of a disservice to his character development as well, because I think his whole arc in the show is leading up to his realization, in the finale, that his life is actually more important to him than his symbolic life after death—whether that symbolic survival is secured by religious means, by his epic Bonnie and Clyde-style love story with Ava, or by his adherence to Raylan’s own personal mythos that places them in opposition on a time-tested scale. These are all just the natural replacements for his astronaut goals and later his goals in going off to war—the theater for his exploits grows smaller and smaller as he fails to make a name for himself outside Harlan. Ava even came right out and said it: in Lexington she’s anonymous, no one knows her name or marital status or anything about her. If anyone’s going to remember Boyd, it’s gonna be Harlan (though several times throughout the series he gets designs on something bigger, it never pans out). In the end, though—and in contrast to Mags, who couldn’t see past the crumbling of everything she’d thought she was building—Boyd makes the decision to put life over legacy.

On the surface, his situation in season 2 might *seem* like it should have done the job of disillusioning him about legacies already, but that was more of a symbolic suicide, Boyd resigning himself to the fact that he was doomed to have no legacy and thus making *no* choices. He didn’t deny his previous legacy; it was taken from him by his father. He doesn’t even get the legacy of having killed his father, or of having killed the woman who killed his father. And following that, other people make his choices for him: Kyle with the mine robbery, Ava with their relationship. But he’s *not actually dead,* and his commitment to not making choices is a choice in itself. He’s absolutely capable of fighting back against the desires and machinations of those around him, but he just—doesn’t. And in the end, both of these non-decision decisions in their own way present him with a new legacy, which he immediately latches onto as soon as that light comes back on at the far end of his tunnel. If he’d made the realization that his life is more important than his legacy, he wouldn’t have needed this symbolic revival, because *he was never dead.*

For the purposes of my fic, the inciting incident that caused the canon divergence had to be a latter such event, to my mind—Boyd losing his way—because otherwise he’s just going to stagnate in Harlan and stay in his neo-Nazi persona long enough to get calcified in it like Mags, or until something shakes up the game board, like Raylan’s arrival. But it wasn’t enough just to give him a kid, because all he’d care about was the legacy he’s securing for that kid. So I had to figure out how to make Bo do the equivalent of killing all his followers in the woods. So: the kid’s mama runs off, Ava leaves Bowman to try and make a life on her own in Corbin, Boyd’s really low on child care options and figures Bo’s a better bet than Bowman. Only it turns out that’s kind of a rock and a hard place situation (we know from season 6 where Bowman learned his wifebeating ways, and Bo definitely strikes me as the “small children and animals don’t understand any kind of discipline but physical” kind of guy, whereas Boyd as I’ve said doesn’t really believe in control through violence, likely because it never really worked on him).

Enter: Boyd going to Raylan hoping he’ll give him purpose, just like he did in canon after the equivalent event. Only this time, Raylan offers him more than just the potential for retribution against his father. He offers pretty much the same thing Ava did, for the low low price of papering over the past. So Boyd basically teaches himself architecture—few other legacies last longer than buildings, and if you make enough then at least a few of them are bound to stick around a while—and invests in a series of failed startups until he’s hit, quite suddenly, with a Mags Bennett-style reality check as detailed in chapter 5, forcing him to confront the legacy he’s already created and the fact that it’s absolute shit. Luckily for him, unlike Mags, it happened before anyone died, and he had a chance to course-correct. Fast-forward to now, where Boyd is *trying* to make choices that actually bear out his goals, but maybe still puts a little too much stock in legacy, since he hasn’t yet reached that final step of enlightenment that he hits in the finale when he refuses to pull on Raylan.

[adoseoftrees]

There were many Valarin songs about Uinen and Osse.

No. Aule did not plead her to save Osse. He would ask no one to do that. It was just an ordinary day, when he walked to the seashore and looked east, still grieving the ones left with Melkor. A Maia of water approached him, and they talked.

There were whispers, about the conversation between Uinen and Aule, how she left her friends and family in secret, her long journey into Utumno with every wave trying to push her back, how she offered her service to Morgoth, the dreadful acts she committed as the unwavering deadly sea, and the time when everyone believed she was lost like many others were.

Melkor remade her the same way he remade Osse and other Maiar that submitted themselves to his will. She let him to reshape her into the chains that kept Osse in line. 

Uinen was gentle, quiet, and she kept secrets. She was a good actor, or she wasn’t acting at all. Melkor did have trouble differentiate anger and fear. And Melkor never fully understood to what extent one can do for the other; he expected Uinen to serve him for Osse, but he did not expect Osse to betray him for Uinen. After all, Osse sang with him in the Song.

Uinen eventually stirred up a small-scale rebel. She did not come to Utumno for Osse only. She gathered a small group of Maiar that did not want to serve Melkor any longer, and ran for the ocean when Melkor was away. Osse followed her.

It turned into a bloody, desperate fight. They very likely melted some ice and left a small part of Utumno temporally flooded. They knew no one would come for them; Osse created that mass extinction, and Uinen had her share of atrocities when she was undercover as well. Melkor made sure that everyone served him became traitors unredeemable.

Eventually they were cornered and Melkor came to get them himself. They were not prepared for the fate they would suffer; no Ainu could possibly prepare themselves for the horror Melkor would do. Both of them considered shredding the other to spare them from being made into some mindless beast. 

Then the land split open beneath them, and the sea flood into the crack and swept them away.

They were expected to be jailed or exiled, but both Aule and Ulmo pleaded for them. Yavanna did too; she was not entirely happy with the mass extinctions, but she was happy to have a few of her former Maiar leaving Melkor and contacting her again. (They refused to come back, but they were now doing fine and making things on some remote islands.)

----------

Uinen was swiftly accepted back into Ainur community. She was always loved by everyone before she left, and her friends were too happy to find out she was on the good side all the time. 

However, nobody knew what to do with Osse. The fucker really only came back for love; people remembered him happily singing with Melkor & committing atrocities.

Only an Ainu could fully understand what Uinen sacrificed for Osse. The things Melkor did to a Maia was permanent; she was never the same again. Not all her friends and family considered her sacrifice to worth the outcome, and they definitely blame it on her horrible awful boyfriend that made evil life choice. 

----------

So yeah, the tale of Osse and Uinen was considered a great love epic among Ainur. But the story was very controversial and there were different versions written by multiple parties.

Ainur sang about them the same way Noldor sang about Fingon & Maedhros and Sindar sang about Beren & Luthien in later ages.

The universally accepted idea was “What Uinen did was crazily heroic but the mess was all preventable if someone (pointedly looking at Osse) could make wiser decision about who to follow in the Song.”

[desultory-suggestions]

I'm scared to recover because it kind of feels like who i am now, and I'm really scared of gaining weight because I'm already considered a healthy weight. Since i was about age 4, i was considered "unhealthy" by the bmi chart. And I'm so scared to get back to that. The mean comments get to me so much, and things online about foods being unhealthy and my unrestricted body being bad or unhealthy too. Do you have any advice or tips? I'm also autistic and I don't get hunger cues. Professional eating disorder treatments haven't helped me, and I want to be able to make my own choices (they never seem to understand my autism and say it's the ed when it's not.) , so if i tried recovery, it would be at home with my family.

Hello, my dear. This is actually an extremely common fear and one that I had too. Sometimes, it still crosses my mind. Your eating disorder is the least interesting thing about you. It doesn't define you, and it doesn't make you any better of a person. In fact, all it does is create suffering for a beautiful person who has so much life to share. You are good, and so much energy and life is sapped away from you by this disorder. You will be shocked by how much you can accomplish when you are no longer under the thumb of an eating disorder. Your energy, your happiness, everything is ten times better. Every pound you may gain comes with added health and joy for your life. The people worth keeping in your life, want you to be the healthiest and happiest you can be.

You can be considered a healthy weight, but that doesn't mean you are a healthy weight for you or that you are maintaining it healthily. If you have to starve to be that weight, it is not a healthy weight. We are so afraid of the idea of bodies, weight, and being fat that we tell ourselves it's better to suffer than change, and that is just not true. There is nothing wrong with gaining weight or being fat. When we say every body is a good body, we mean every body. Working on dismantling our engrained fatphobia and obsession with thinness is vital to recovery. I was considered healthy at the pinnacle of my ED, and trust me I was not. Your body has a healthy weight range it can happily and naturally live within, and you deserve to let it live.

Interjection, never ever ever ever ever ever (this goes on for several more days) EVER listen to the goddamn BMI again. I cannot even begin to explain the absolute bogus that BMI charts and scales are. They mean nothing. There are ways to measure health with health professionals, BMI is not one of them even if a professional tells you it is. Research points to many issues with such scales. I am so so sorry anyone ever even told you such a thing. No one should be measuring your worth by your body. Generally, work towards avoiding all such scales. Even if it was accurate, so what? If you have personal health concerns you can address them with a professional, but being fat doesn't equal being unhealthy either. No one gets to measure your worth.

You will likely always see fatphobia and misinformation online, but it can be reduced. Unfollowing anyone who makes you feel lesser or increased ED issues is extremely important. And don't worry! There are so many amazing blogs to replace them with! Check out who I reblog from for some wonderful people who will remind you that you are worthy and loved in every form you take.

I can totally understand why conventional ED recovery specialists don't work for you. While you may be able to find someone who specifically works with autistic people or is autistic as well, you also may need to focus on what you can do for yourself. It is possible to recover without that standard treatment, but I still encourage speaking to a therapist in general. If hunger cues are an issue, you may find scheduling meals to be more helpful. You can play to eat with company to have support or to eat alone but have someone checking on how much you manage to eat. You can make a meal plan with a REGISTERED dietician (avoid plain nutritionists, as they often do not require a formal education) and follow along to get what your body needs. Whenever you do happen to sense hunger, follow it and eat! It can be rare, and maybe it doesn't happen at all. But if it does trust in it. Work on eating foods you are afraid of, small increments are still progress. Stock up on foods you love, and that you want to enjoy without shame.

Extra Tips:

I watch videos while I eat to reduce anxiety and shame. I love watching people who are food positive! Keith Eats the Menu helped me so much in recovery because I could see him and his friends all shamelessly enjoying their meals along with me.

I challenged myself to eat things that scared me once a week. Even if it is just a bite.

I recommend using a big Sharpie and hiding all the nutritional facts on food/drink packaging. You can also ask a friend! It feels like you will never forget those numbers, but trust me you do. It helps to also focus on all the good that is in it. Every food item holds nutrients and vital resources for us, every food item.

Keep affirming yourself, and as much as possible remove those who devalue you. It may not be completely possible, but even so keep adding the people into your life who treat you and your body with respect.

I know you can get through this. You are so much more than your disorder, and I can't wait to see how you grow.

Best,

Evan

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

kotokiri

1. Foils do it better!!! I LOVE how they both mirror each other, and how that fuels their immediate animosity from afar but also the fixation and fear. They both clock the other as their most significant opponent in the Holy Grail War, sight unseen. And it’s because they each respectively see something of themself in the other’s actions. I’m also obsessed with how the narrative draws those similarities only to break them. I love that moment at the end of Zero, where Kirei sees Kiritsugu stumbling through the rubble of the city, utterly wretched and with no will to fight, and how disappointed he is at it. Or in Heaven’s Feel when Kirei is ranting at Shirou about how much he hates Kiritsugu because it turns out he never had evil!depression the same way Kirei did, he just *chose* to distance himself from people who he loved and who loved him, and his miserable life was of his own making. Whereas Kirei isn’t isolated by choice, he’s just… born evil. That kind of ships passing in the night quality, of just nearly being able to understand each other and connect, but turning out to be fundamentally at odds is fascinating to me!

2. Their trajectories are so interesting and complementary, they technically both “lose” and “win” on their respective emotional and goal based journeys. Kiritsugu’s main goal was to sacrifice the few to save the many, doggedly convinced that at the end of the road there was going to be some awesome miracle to right all wrongs ever, and save everyone (no matter what “saving” means) that would retroactively make all the sacrifice and suffering worth it. And it’s just such a compounding sunk cost fallacy of a perspective—that itself is just a coping mechanism to avoid dealing with the trauma of killing his father, of everyone on the island dying, of *not* having the courage to kill shirley when he should’ve— that he’s ready to sacrifice literally anything and anyone for it. And he loses on this front SO dramatically. There is no big miracle or anything to justify all the previous griefs. They simply exist and he has to deal with them! But emotionally he manages some sort of small happy ending in saving Shirou, and in idk learning to appreciate people I guess? It’s definitely more bitter than sweet but it’s something. Meanwhile Kirei starts out like genuinely trying to be a decent person and go through the motions of adhering to any morals whatsoever and he fails at that abysmally. His corruption arc is a quick plummet down a cliff lmao. And that should be/can be considered a negative outcome. He’s no closer to understanding his nature, even if he’s chosen to embrace it. Meanwhile, Kiritsugu, the person he’d singled out as similar to himself turned out to very much not me. And he may have felt some kinship with Angra Mainyu but it didn’t happen either! But yeah uh on the tremendously brighter side he *has* embraced being evil, and the Grail’s answer to his wish was a small scale apocalypse and he has a great time with it. Idk idk it’s just so interesting and funny.

3. Okay okay ruthless, miserable mercenary and evil priest is just a fun and hot dynamic, I don’t know what to tell you!

Send me a ship and I’ll list three things I like about it regardless of my overall opinion!

[that-one-fluffy-anon]

.

yknow that moment?? that moment when you realize that your friend group won't be around forever?

(tw for cussing, a bit of a vent-y beginning ( but it lightens), heavy-ish topics)

that moment when you open your eyes to the pain around you and unknowable future that is bound to occur, and you suddenly feel blindsided by the sheer amount of shit that you have to prepare for.

that moment when childish idealisms about everyone being kind to each other and adults knowing everything slips into the void, and your entire belief system crumbles at the seams.

that moment when the weight of everything you've said and done crushes your soul, pressing against your will to continue through the horrible stress that you-- yes, you-- decided to put yourself under.

that moment when you cry your fucking eyes out in front of a mirror, wishing your body was better. stronger. prettier. too many curves there, not enough here, too pale, too hairy, too much.

that moment when you want to run from everyone who asks you if you're okay because that brings the emotions that you've worked so hard to bury right back to the surface of your graduated cylinder life. congratulations. you're overflowing.

that moment when you can't let the people you love help because you don't want them to yell at you, to take you to someone they think will help. you don't want them to pity you. you don't want them to worry. you don't want them to stress more. they deserve better.

that moment when your heart explodes from your choice like a blowfish in fear, your hands shake as you desperately try to explain yourself to someone who thinks of you as a fragile piece of shit.

that moment when the people you know, who you've depended on for so long, just... stop caring.

...

yeah. it feels pretty hopeless.

but.

there's a way to climb the cliff you've fallen from.

a way to conquer what you've experienced.

and... it starts with...

well, that's what we all want to know, isn't it?

we all want to know how to scale this wall in life that prevents us from growing, from wanting to grow. but instead of climbing the wall, we lean against it, cut into it, try to carve it into something for us. but it just won't give.

so what do we do?

no idea. i'm still a minor with weird-ass emotions and stupid-as-hell problems.

but if i've learned anything from my friends, my parents, my brother, or even Toby Fox...

it's that there's still hope.

yeah, it feels kinda stupid right now. hopeless. but there is still a light at the end of a tunnel. an ice cream sandwhich waiting in your freezer after a long performance. a ball of fur to cuddle and gain unconditional love and support from.

i mean, it might be small, but... goddamn, it's worth it.

and i believe in you.

go fight the world. :)

[darkfeath3r]

A Rediscovery and Review of The Sea Eternal

Death is inevitable. Whether it is a plant, animal, bacteria, or fungus, every form of life will die someday. That is the law of nature. But what if that law was not so absolute? What if there was a way to obtain immortality? What is an acceptable price for this immortality? Is it possible to be happy forever, free from worry, guilt, or fear? Is maintaining the status quo worth it? These are some of the core questions of The Sea Eternal, an interactive fantasy novel with multiple endings, romance options, and character customization. It is also written in second person, which I find to be a very unique way to tell a story. It was written by Lynnea Glasser and developed by Choice of Games.

In The Sea Eternal, you play as an immortal mermaid in an ancient underwater city filled with other immortal mermaids. They serve whales who granted them many abilities, including the ability to live forever. Though no one knows how the whales did this, everyone does their best to please the whales. There is a class among the mermaids called the Everwardens, who fight against the whales' enemy, the giant squid. The squid operate as a hive-mind and can control minds. You play as a disgraced, human loving Everwarden struggling with the morality of their immortality after a renegade mermaid, Cinza, is captured after stealing the Eternity Orb.

There are many different dialog options in The Sea Eternal that branch out into various story lines. I think there are ten endings and thirty-six achievements in total, but I still have not gotten them all. Every option effects different stats, which help unlock different dialog options and endings. The main stats operate on a sliding scale that changes based on whatever dialog option you chose. If you mess up on a choice, you can't go back. You can either restart the whole game or continue playing and hope you pick enough options to tilt a stat in your favor and get the ending or achievement you want.

Independent and respectable choices affect each other, and bold and patient choices affect each other. Trust is another, lesser stat that tells you how much each character trusts you. This stat is more nuanced since it's in text form, not numerical form. Paying attention to this stat will help you unlock the romance endings. Unfortunately, only the two human characters are romance-able.

The main conflict is between the giant squid, the whales, and Cinza. Cinza stole the Eternity Orb, which is the source of the mermaid's immortality, to either destroy it or use it as leverage to force the whales to retire her from Everwarden duty. Mermaids are forced to fight for the whales for all of eternity unless they majorly flub up. Most Everwardens dislike Everwarden duty because, at some point, they will be forced to endure nightmares and false realities. But they go along with it because the whales can take away their immortality. Cinza is the first merperson (that we know of) that has rebelled against the whales.

The giant squid are a major part of the whales' diet, but they have developed mind-control to fight back. The squid are purely logical creatures, so they don't feel any emotion, good or bad, for mentally torturing merpeople. However, they do sense that the merpeople are tired of serving the whales and are willing to ally with the merpeople. No one faction is supposed to be the right choice; they all have pros and cons and are supposedly morally ambiguous. I say "supposedly" because I feel that the novel leans more to the side of one faction, but I will discuss that more in-depth later.

There are not very many characters, but they are interesting, complex, and diverse. The council leader, Ichtre, is an mermaid who's compassionate, level-headed, and well-spoken. However, they lack the confidence and initiative to stand up to the whales when they need to, but they are good at calming people down and keeping the peace. They are also agender.

That’s right there’s major lgbtq+ representation. This novel has a special place in my heart because when I first downloaded it in 2016, I started questioning my gender and sexuality. It was unlike anything I ever encountered as a sheltered Catholic that dealt with lgbt characters. Homophobia or transphobia aren’t huge conflicts. Almost all the characters are accepting and supportive, which is a breath of fresh air. It's fantasy after all; why can't we have an accepting lgbtq+ society? The only exception is Tephra, your sister and the mermaid who brought the new human Faye into the mermaid city. She isn't aggressively transphobic, but she doesn't want Faye to transition because it might reflect badly on her. She cares more about upholding her own status than supporting Faye, which is still transphobic. Her motives don’t really make much sense to me. However, Faye usually ends up breaking up with Tephra even if you don't romance her, and she does eventually realize she was wrong and works on changing herself.

Your character as well as one of your love interests can be male, female, agender, bigender, or a customizable gender. I usually went with agender for both, but I also like the choice of a bigender character. The name for a non-binary love interest is Awet, so I will be using that name when I talk about them.

Awet is a black human your character rescued from racist trying to kill them. They’re a bit of a rebel, demanding and headstrong; but at the same time, they dislike conflict. Treatment from the other mermaids has made them distant and lonely. The details of this treatment is kind of vague; but, nonetheless, your character’s refusal to resolve this issue is what caused your relationship to be put on hold.

The other love interest is Faye. She is introduced as a man named Flynn, but later on, she confides in you that she is a woman who would like to be called Faye. She's a hopeless romantic. She's curious, playful, and eager to make friends and explore. But she's somewhat shy and guarded because she's a transwoman and is afraid of people hurting her. She just wants to be free to be herself.

When I first started playing this game, I preferred Faye. I liked her sweet, adventurous nature. I wanted her to be able to be herself too, and I felt bad whenever I made a decision that could impact that. Now, I prefer Awet. Your character has more history with Awet. Faye can fall in love with you in three days, which doesn't seem realistic. Romancing Faye also doesn't challenge the status quo of the mermaid and whale relationship. Awet is more assertive and desperately tries to change the mermaid society as best they can. I also like making up for your character's past mistakes and rekindling a lost love. They are harder to romance, though, and romancing them could potentially mean abandoning the mermaid society. However, you can romance both, which is something I also like to do.

The last two major characters (without getting into spoilers) are the mermaid couple Arraia and Estre. Their relationship is on the rocks because they don't see eye to eye on the whale and merperson relationship. Estre doesn't want to serve the whales, but he's so afraid of death he doesn't want to change the status quo. Arraia completely disagrees with how the whales handle things. She's on the verge of forming an alliance with the giant squid. You can help Arraia achieve this, or you can convince Estre that things need to change, and Arraia and Estre work together to free the merpeople from the whales. Or you can skip all this and stick with the whales.

Overall, I like this game/novel, and I highly recommend it. It’s something I like to play from time to time when I’m feeling down. However, only the first couple of chapters are free. The whole book is available on Steam, Amazon, or an app store for $5.99. But I think it is well worth the price. And that's all I can say without spoiling too much. If you want to know my thoughts more in-depth, feel free to continue reading.

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The Sea Eternal tries its best to remain neutral on the squid/whale conflict so the reader can make their own decision, but it still leans more to the squid's side. It pushes for a squid alliance even if you ignored the squid and destroyed the eternity orb on your own. Yes, the whales are bad because they wipe your memories, pit merpeople against each other, and continuously remind you that the fate of your immortality rests with them, but the squid aren't much different.

The squid have no remorse because they have no feelings; all they care about is surviving no matter what. They have no problem mentally torturing people and seem eager to use their mind-control whenever someone brings it up. In the battle flashback, the squid force a pod of whales onto a beach, ensuring a slow and painful death for all the whales involved, including child whales. They also lie. When you meet a lone squid, it tells you that it was kicked out for expressing interest in forming a mermaid alliance. In reality, the squid was a scout sent to test the merpeople, and the rest of the squid are close by, waiting to attack the city. I don't see how a squid alliance could be beneficial for long.

But, if I didn't go with a romance ending, I usually chose to side with the squid and give up my immortality. I wanted the merpeople to be free from the whales and not hypocritically use the squid's powers to force the whales to let the merpeople keep their immortality. Immortality, fast-healing, and the decreased need for sleep are nice, but it's not worth getting or using mind-control. I also only let them take Elho because it's not fair to punish all the whales, and I don't want to immediately commit genocide. Let the whales have a chance fighting their own battles. I wish you obtained some of your human memories back when you defeat the whales or catch a glimpse of them when Faye or Awet transform into merpeople. That would have helped me understand my character better.

One of my favorite endings is convincing Faye not to take the whales' deal to become a mermaid. That way, she can be herself without sacrificing her humanity, and Tephra peacefully leaves Faye alone. I volunteer to take Cinza's place as Everwarden, so she doesn't have to deal with the squid. Awet doesn't have to sacrifice her humanity either. And I romance both Faye and Awet. The merpeople still serve the whales, and the humans still can't leave. It's not a perfect ending, but I like to think the merpeople will eventually rebel against the whales.

My other go-to ending is romancing Awet and escaping the city. Awet gets to keep their humanity and finally leave the place that became their prison. Though, I do wonder what Awet thinks about never being able to stray too far from you because of the breathing spell. It's addressed in the friendship ending but not the romance ending.

There's a major bug when siding with the squid and using their mind-control powers to convince Elho to return your immortality. After letting the squid take Elho or all the whales, Arria still comes to get you to deal with Cinza. The whales are still there, so you have to replace Cinza's place with yourself, Faye, or Awet. I don't know what caused it, but it happened two out of the three times I went for this ending. There's also a minor bug that lets you address Faye as Faye before she even tells you she's a transwoman. Still, I love this game. I can tell Lynnea Glasser wrote it with love and hard work, and I would love to read more from her.

[unmak3r]

ooc. daenerys & kelerel as leaders. currently thinking about the paralells between kelerel and daenerys; they were both a similar age when they were pulled into something far too big for them. being a pre-teen/early-teen being used and manipulated for corrupt purposes, being drawn into a fight that turns into a riot, that causes a battle and then a full-scale war. and all they wanted to do was free people from being enslaved and victimised by cruelty and fear. when daenerys becomes a khaleesi in her own right after the death of drogo and her first child, it is a similar energy to when kelerel becomes the high witch against the griddas. it's not something they really had a choice in, but something they took on because they have such strong moral beliefs & literally had no other choice other than to give up or give in to the 'evils'. the more they both give of themselves to a cause that they do love & believe in, the more of themselves they lose in the pursiut. is it all worth it? is has to be. at more than one point throughout, they both find themselves considering if this is worth their life - because they likely have to sacrifice their life, or the person they were/are, to this overwhelmingly large cause they were inevitably saddled with. they are both so lonely yet they are rarely alone, and it's often only when they are alone that they find themselves either at peace for a brief moment, or swamped with the enormity of their life.