#and it's unedited because fuck it

[circular-bircular]

The Benefits of Being an Octopus -- Perspective

It's that time of year again!

Each year, right at the end of the school year, we read a book in the 6th grade called The Benefits of Being an Octopus, by Ann Braden. It's a personal favorite of mine, one I reread again and again each year. And each year, the end of the book makes me cry those big crocodile tears, because damn if it doesn't hit hard for me.

I like to make posts about this book, though I haven't actually made it a tradition. I've only made one other post, about the phrase "suck it up" that's used in the book, and how it really felt impactful to me as a trauma survivor -- a reminder that I needed to face my troubles, rather than just avoiding them. It was powerful when I first read it, and it's still powerful today.

However, it's time to look at other aspects. Care to look with me?

Each year, when I read the book, I realize how different the kids are. My first year, the kids were... immature. There's really no other way to say it. These were kids whose last years of elementary school were stolen from them by a plague. They had no socialization at a very very fucking important age, and that fucked things for them in a major way. The next year, the kids were... well, disenfranchised I think makes the most sense. They did not give a single shit. They couldn't. They had bigger worries.

This year... The kids cared. The kids felt. The kids... feel a little too much.

These are kids that are well aware of the world around them. We read about the war in Sierra Leone and they didn't bat an eye; we discussed child soldiers and they made jokes about war, because to them, it was normalized. It was natural. In what world is an 11 year old desensitized to this? I had to impress upon them early that these things hurt. That these things weren't just readings, but true things people go through. And I think, by the time we got to BoBaO this year, they finally got it.

Each year, I have to explain that, no, the main character cannot just stick her food in the air fryer, because they can't fucking afford one. This year, I had kids explaining to me that the chicken nuggets would probably not be fully cooked in the toaster she made them in, and that could lead to her getting sick, and that's just another sign that being in poverty leads to further issues. These kids, remember, are 11. It's so vitally important for them to understand what people around them are going through, but they get it so well. I had kids opening up to others about their own trauma; one student discussed with her table how she lived in poverty, and how the only thing that helped her was her grandmother dying, because of the payout. And even then, that led to a discussion about how people in America can't afford to die.

Like... We can all agree how fucked up that is, right?

But at the same time, I'm teaching these kids that the abuser, Lenny, was abusive the whole time. They can't see it. They don't get it. That same child came to me and said that everyone was being too harsh, and that Lenny probably was hurting too, and that's why he lashed out. I had to very gently explain to her that abuse is never okay, even if there's a reason for it. And her heart was aching for that man, because in the end of the story, the people he was abusing left him. "How will he afford things now? Shouldn't he get another chance?"

I cut off my family in August. And these insights from the conversations I'm having -- about how the systems that oppress us lead to further oppression, or how people are still hurting and that doesn't negate the pain they've caused -- has really put a lot of my own healing into perspective.

It's a running commentary in the planning room about the kids we see growing up. Students spend the majority of their time with strangers they call teachers, and their parents rarely raise them. I think to my own experiences as a kid in school, and I realize just how... different it all is. And I wonder if those comments we have in the planning room were said about me. Particularly, "that's a kid whose parents are going to lose him." We say that frequently about the students who have helicopter parents. There's nothing we can do -- we aren't actually the parents of these kids, after all. But there's something so... insert an emotion here that describes what I feel when I look at these kids and see who I used to be. Like...

I see these parents, hovering over them, and I wonder, do they know that they're Lenny? Do they know that they're discrediting their children? Do they realize the amount of manipulation they're using, and how I am teaching these kids to recognize that? Do they know they will lose them?

Did Lenny know?

This year, more than any, I've gotten asked if there is a sequel to this book. And I always have to tell them, no. And they always respond with what they want from the sequel that isn't -- "Zoey escapes poverty" being a big one, or "I wanna see what Aurora is like when she grows up!"

I sat down one afternoon and thought about the potential sequel. I know what I would write, if I wanted to sit down and write fanfiction for this novel. I know, as a traumatized person, that Zoey's life isn't just going to be magically fixed... I want her to be a social worker when she grows up, someone who fights hard to protect kids from people like Lenny. I want her to be traumatized like me, but in therapy for it, and working hard to overcome her struggles.

But I also... weirdly want to see her siblings struggle. I want to see the bullying they experience. I want them to cut off the mom, who yes, was helpful, and yes, she tried her best, but fuck that, she still hurt them, she still neglected her children due to her own abuse--

And then it all gets fuzzy, because I hit too close to home.

And I wonder... How many students this year felt that too?

And I wonder... How many of you, out there, are feeling that right now?

Looping this back to syscourse (as I do often here), I just... wonder how many of you really understand that the things being said here about trauma aren't hypotheticals. That the things you cannot comprehend aren't just random accusations. They come from a place of hurt and inner truth, even if you cannot wrap your head around it. And that isn't to say some of you aren't traumatized!!! From my perspective, nearly everyone participating in syscourse is traumatized in some way, even by way of participating in these spaces. That counts. It always has.

I see so many posts each and every day just... showing utter confusion about the other side. "How could anyone think that? How could anyone possibly defend that?" And I just shake my head, because...

How could anyone possibly stay with Lenny? How could Zoey not see what her friends were going through? How did the mom abuse her, knowing what it would do? How could Fuchsia not tell anyone, how could Silas not explode, how could, how could, how could-

You aren't them.

You aren't these other people. You assume bad faith so often, just like the people in the story, and that's what led to them getting stuck. At some point, you need to push through, and the only way out is together.

There's a really good pair of quotes we focused on this year, and the kids really struggled with those quotes. One was a metaphor about a pond of algae. This isn't direct, but it's something like... "When you're stuck in a pond of algae, you turn green. It doesn't matter how many times someone tells you to stop." When... people are in that space -- when they're stuck in abuse, or they're in these angry settings, or whatever have you -- they mold to that space. No matter how often people explain that it's bad, or try to get that person out, if they are still in that situation, then they're in that situation until they aren't anymore. Telling people to stop being traumatized will never make them not traumatized. Telling people to just... Get With It? Won't work.

The second quote was something along these lines: "Sometimes you just have to have your back up against the wall to understand what you're made of, and you just haven't had that happen to you yet."

There's a lot of talk about oppression and prejudice and ableism and... lord, every buzzword ever in syscourse. But I feel like a lot of people don't get it. They don't understand those back-to-the-wall experiences, they don't see it in the people they're communicating with.

How do you get it if it hasn't happened to you?

Well. You do what my students did and you learn about it. You research. You grow. You try to look past the edge of your own nose, your own experiences, and see that there is a whole, big, mighty world out there, with people constantly going through things you couldn't even comprehend. And for fucks sakes, you listen to them. You acknowledge what they're saying. You realize that they are being true to their experiences.

And you stop calling those experiences into question when you express your confusion.

Learn to have your back-up-against-the-wall with them. Learn to find the wood for the raft together, instead of watching them drown in confusion: "Why don't they just swim?" you ask, but you let them keep drowning instead of helping. Help each other!

Isn't that what we want these kids to do?

[a11eya]

sneakily, while bakugou’s taking a nap at your place, you change his phone background to a picture of the both of you from your last date.

he shows up to your place earlier than planned, put together and handsome in an outfit that isn’t the usual athleisure you often find him in after work.

“get dressed,” bakugou tells you, standing in your doorway.

you stare at him. glance down at yourself in your ratty t-shirt and shorts, ready for a lazy night in and some takeout. look back up again. “what?”

“we’re going out.”

placing his hands on your waist, he walks you backwards, into your apartment. he leans down and kisses you—once, twice.

“move it,” he says, turning you around and giving you a little push towards your bedroom.

he takes you to your favorite restaurant, then the dessert cafe you told him about the week prior, having seen it be recommended over and over again on social media.

when you first started dating, he had little pat ience for places like these. his idea of a date was anything low effort and lowkey, like hanging out at his place. it’d resulted in several arguments until the both of you learned compromise—that after long days at the agency, the last thing he wanted was to go out and be surrounded by people again, and that you wanted to feel like you were the effort of doing something beyond what was convenient.

at the end of the night, feeling sentimental and warm, you snap a picture of the both of you.

you’re smiling brightly in it, focused on taking the picture without him noticing. so it’s not until after you’ve taken the photo that you see bakugou’s expression in it.

his mouth’s a neutral line, steady gaze focused on you. if someone who didn’t know him as well saw him, they’d wouldn’t notice anything special.

but you know that face. he’s looking at you like no one else exists, like you’re the only thing he can see.

after you change his phone background, you know it’ll take him a while to see it. he rarely uses his phone except to answer calls and messages. even then, he uses the notifications to open the apps directly (when he can be bothered to reply.)

it’s coincidence, then, when you overhear kaminari and kirishima teasing him about it when you’re all gathered at bakugou’s place for dinner.

“didn’t know you’d get all soft and fluffy in a relationship,” kaminari says, and you can hear the big grin on his face.

“aww, you know bakugou’s a really sweet guy!” kirishima says.

“shut up, both of you,” bakugou grumbles, and the two laugh.

later that night, when everyone’s gone and bakugou’s in the shower, you check his phone to see if your friends’ teasing made him change his background back. you know he gets super annoyed when they poke fun at him, even innocently.

but when you tap his screen to wake his phone up, you find the same picture is now his lock screen too.

“hey, nosy.”

startled, you nearly drop his phone, just managing to catch it and regain your grip.

bakugou’s arms, still damp from the shower, wrap around you from behind. he rests his chin on top of one of your shoulders and turns his head so his face is pressed against your neck.

“hey,” you tell him. “i like you a lot.”

he snorts. grazes his teeth against your skin, kisses the sharp away. slides his hand up under the hem of your shirt, gliding across the skin of your abdomen.

“let’s go to bed,” he says.

[simptasia]

LOST: Season One

[sorryiwasasleep]

To share the actual video—

[rxttenfish]

Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

[resident-gay-bitch]

steve’s pov here :)

prey.

lots of prey.

that’s what eddie knew.

he watched them enter his land through that… thing. that hole in the ground that let off a high pitched sound and kept him in line. it scared him and his brethren. none of them could go near it. it hurts if you do. they’ve all learnt the hard way, whilst trying to escape. it burns your body to touch and turns your brain dizzy.

but the prey passed through it without an issue.

eddie watched from the top of the tree he was perched in, crowded around by his resting family, his cousins and friends. he watched the prey make their way through his world, listened as his master told him to kill.

eddie attacked when they least expected it.

he swooped down and swiped at one of their necks with his claw. he would have gotten it, if that one with curly hair didn’t scream his name.

it sent eddie flying back- he recognised it, the voice. the face.

it wasn’t prey.

it was a friend.

eddie flew away. too scared of what would happen if he stayed.

he couldn’t stay.

his master was mad. beyond mad at him.

he threatened to kill eddie if he didn’t complete his task. he’d send his brethren on the prey and himself.

eddie didn’t want that. he wanted the prey to live, he thought. well… the curly haired one. he didn’t know about the rest. but if not for that curly haired one, eddie might let master carry out that promise. he didn’t like this world. it was cold and dark and he felt dirty and he only remembered pain.

he flew back to his home, to his nest in a place he felt most safe. a safe place that was still standing. his old home, the one with who he thinks is his father from the other world, now destroyed to the hole that was too big and too loud and hurt too much if he flew near it.

his home in the drama room at school. he’d dragged mattresses and pillows and blankets back into the changing room and built himself a nest, collected all his favourite things.

he had a pile for his father, flannelette shirts all piled up on a bunch of random mugs. he had his sweetheart there too. he’d been collecting dice from everywhere he could find them, all different shapes and colours, they were scattered around his nest, and he played with them when he got bored and couldn’t sleep. he had a picture frame shoved there somewhere with a photo of his mother, a flower pressed under the glass that was her namesake. it was the only name eddie could remember; petunia. and he had the mangled old teddy bear she gave him as a baby that he curled up with every night.

but he had his most favourite pile there too, at the place where he lay his head every night. in the pile was a green and white jacket with a name eddie couldn’t read written across the back. there were shirts and two jumpers, a red and a yellow one. he had three odd socks and one pair, and some underwear, and a singular sneaker. he’d taken them all from a large house on the nice looking side of this world, from a room he didn’t like very much, but he remembered the boy that owned all those things was very special to him.

he couldn’t remember his name or his face though, and eddie cried about it every night.

he pottered around his nest, moving his things about and settling down in it. he hurried out and to the other side of his home where he had a pile of things he’d collected that took up too much space in the nest. he sifted through them; some more mugs, a weird al shirt, a pair of drumsticks, some comics, a bunch of action figures, a green ribbon, an old year book, some novels, an acoustic guitar, car keys, a cheer skirt, journals, a lunchbox- all things that made his heart clench to look at, to touch, but he couldn’t remember why.

except for the yearbook.

when he found the yearbook he got so excited he’d stretched out his wings and started flying in the tiny little room. he knocked over a rack of costumes with them, fucked up his nest, and put a hole through the wall. he didn’t care though.

he had the year book almost permanently open to one page. a page he remembered looking at a lot when he was younger. on the page was him, the man that eddie couldn’t remember the name or face of. the one he loved so much. and beside him was another man with eddie’s old face! he’d made it. he remembered making it. he wrote something, but eddie couldn’t read that either.

after finding that year book, eddie looked at the page every day and every night, whenever he could. he often went to sleep with the page open, he’d sometimes just sit there and look at it. he’d draw his claw lightly over the man’s pretty face and sometimes he’d lick it when he particularly missed him.

oh eddie loved him so much.

so that’s what eddie did now. he sat down in his nest and drew over his pretty face and he stretched out his long tongue until it touched the page and then he smiled.

he smiled so much his heart squeezed.

he missed his boy.

but his master was not happy with him. he made eddie go back out to kill them.

eddie promised himself he wouldn’t kill the curly haired one.

he flew out until he found them, and then he swooped down over their heads to give the prey a scare and perched himself atop an electricity pole. he crouched there with his wings hanging heavy down behind him and looked at his next meal.

only, he didn’t attack. not straight away.

there was something familiar about one of them. the one holding a bat over his shoulder, scowling at eddie. he had floppy hair and strong shoulders. eddie thought he’d put up the biggest fight.

but there was something about him.

eddie cocked his head and looked at him some more. looking looking looking. trying to figure him out. he ignored everyone else. the man adjusted his grip on his weapon, ready to swing it at eddie if needed.

eddie moved his head forward because… no…

no it- it couldn’t be.

it was him.

the boy in the picture.

the one he loved!

he straightened his back out in a flesh, sitting up tall, perched on the pole, and he let out a screech of excitement. he hoped the man was just as excited as he was.

his love leered forward slightly, looking ready to fight… to protect. oh, he looked so strong and brave like that, ready to defend his own brethren. eddie admired him so much. he was so beautiful. so strong. so handsome.

eddie stretched his wings out and stood, he let out another thrilled sound because- oh, because he was here! the one he loved was here… in his world! and eddie could have him.

eddie clutched at his heart like he’d just been struck by cupids arrow and fell backwards off the pole, like he was fainting. he was swooning afterall. he hoped to impress this man too.

eddie had to impress him.

so he free fell and right before he hit the ground he stretched his wings out further and lifted himself high into the sky. way higher than he needed to go. he looked down at the one he loved and- oh goodness, he just couldn’t help himself. he tucked his wings around his body and nosedived straight for him.

it’s what he’d seen his family do, when they found their love. one would fly high in the sky and barrel roll into the other, catch them, and take flight again.

it was their mating ritual, so it’s what eddie would do.

he crashed into the pretty golden haired love and had to take a moment to just look at him as he wiggled around on the ground beneath eddie. eddie tired to pin him down, to show him he was safe… it was just eddie. he tried to communicate, clicking his tongue to say “hello, it’s me, i love you” but he didn’t seem to get it.

that was okay.

eddie would show him.

but before he had a chance his wing was struck with an immense amount of pain.

he stretched it out to look, and found a hole clean through it, and he lowered it just enough to see one of his prey, standing there, a gun aimed right at him.

you hurt me, eddie thought, you tore me.

he was going to make her death the most painful. save her for last.

he looked back at his love and grabbed him tight and lifted up info the air. it made him scream, and eddie thought it was a nice sound. similar to his own happy call. eddie really liked this man.

he took him to his home, sweeping through the crack in the roof, down into his little home, and he lay him down in his nest. his love is the only other being allowed anywhere near his home.

the last being to try - his brother and friend - was ripped to shreds by eddie’s own teeth. no one breached these walls again.

eddie laid him down and crawled back to sit by his loves legs, crouched there and waiting. he looked at him curiously. he looked quite different than the picture. he had lighter, floppier hair, and some scruffy fur around his mouth, and he had this thing on his face that made his eyes look a little bigger than usual, and… clothes. in the picture he only had little swim shorts on. eddie hoped his love might take these clothes off soon.

oh eddie thought he was just neat.

the perfect new item to make home of his nest. he’d keep him here forever, that was for sure.

he was eddie’s now.

he looked a little confused, but that was okay. eddie would help him understand anything he needed. all eddie wanted to do was look after his love.

oh. the picture. that would help him understand. that’s how eddie could tell him he loved him.

great idea!

he crawled over to get it, leaving his love in the nest for a little moment. he sifted through some of his other things before retrieving it. he grabbed the book with his teeth, and crawled back over to pretty man, and perched himself as close as possible. he dropped the book between his own feet and pressed his hands on top of it to keep it safe, and waited.

when he turned back around to look at eddie, he freaked out a little. eddie thought it was very sweet. eddie wanted to see every face this man could make, they were all so beautiful. he cocked his head to the side and looked at him some more, trying to figure him out.

to ask if this was okay.

his love held up the jacket with the name eddie couldn’t read. he looked at the jacket, then back at his love, then back at the jacket, then back at his love and he felt warmth bubble up in his chest. he purred, hoping to let his love know what this meant. hoping to let him know he was happy that he was here. that he wanted his love to wear the jacket.

eddie noticed how his love was wearing one thing that meant a lot to eddie himself. a vest. one covered in patches and pins that he used to wear every day. eddie lowered his head to bump his loves shoulder and blinked at him once.

“it’s yours.” his love said, and it made eddie’s heart flutter so much! he loved the sound of his voice. it was so soft and smooth and eddie wished he could talk the same. his love tugged at the sleeve of the vest, “i know, i’m sorry. i hope you don’t mind. it helped ground me on the bad days.”

don’t mind? don’t mind!?

why would eddie mind about that? this was the best day of his life. not only was his love here, but he was here and collecting eddie’s things too.

eddie cocked his head, trying to communicate that of course he was okay with it. that he was okay with anything his love wanted.

“can you understand me?” he asked.

eddie nodded.

“can you talk like me?” he asked again.

eddie really wished he could. he wanted nothing more than to say that he loved him. he wanted to ask his name.

“i’ll take that as a no.” he hummed, and it made eddie’s chest vibrate, “you have a lot of my things.”

eddie wanted to collect more of them.

he dropped the book on his loves lap and watched curiously as he opened it. eddie’s heart was about to leap out of his chest when the man found the page eddie wanted him to see.

his pretty pretty love drew his finger over the page and read out the words eddie had written there many years ago… the words eddie had longed to be able to read or remember, and now he’d know, “by the time you graduate, this will be real, and he will be nice and want you back.”

oh… right.

yes. eddie loved him. he knew now. didn’t he. his love knew and- oh, he was laughing.

eddie didn’t like that. why was he laughing? did he not love eddie too.

eddie screeched at him and pouted because… because why would he laugh? that’s mean. it hurts eddie. it hurts eddie a lot. he would just like to love his love.

oh eddie loved him so much.

he watched with sad eyes as his love realised how much it was hurting eddie, and then he said, “you technically still haven’t graduated, you know?”

oh goodie. his love wanted him too!

he loved him so much he just- oh, he just couldn’t hold back any more. he flicked his tongue out and licked up his loves cheek and it was so much better than licking the picture. this time, when his love laughed, eddie liked it.

this was a good laugh.

“licking? really?”

eddie smiled at him and nodded his head because, yes. of course! he had to show his love and that’s how he did that. that’s what he knew. he hoped his love would lick him back… but maybe that’s not how those creatures showed their love.

that’s okay. eddie would learn eventually.

eddie helped shuffle his love back to cuddle because he didn’t care how mad his master got right now, eddie had his love and he’d finally be able to sleep well. he was sure this would be the first sleep he got without crying since waking up down here, in this world.

he curled up with his teddy and wrapped his wings around his love, curling into his lap and chest. eddie pressed his ear up over his heart to listen to the steady drum beat of it inside. it was one of the best sounds in every world. eddie started to purr again, feeling warm and dizzy against his love. he smelt amazing, and eddie nuzzled his face under the vest to get closer to him.

eddie felt his love pet his head softly and hold him a little tighter. eddie didn’t think he could love something any more than he loved this being right here. he was going to keep him forever. protect him and make sure he was safe, and well fed, and warm. he’d stay here, in eddie’s home, where no one else was allowed to go so eddie could keep him for himself. if he wanted anything, eddie would fetch it for him.

eddie would love him with every fibre in his body and more.

he’d do anything for his love.

he was sure of it.

if only he could remember his name.

[blueflyingturtleontheway]

So, I've heard some voices here and there lamenting how little Gabe content - especially new Gabe content - there was and you know what? I completely agree, so I thought why not, I can try to add my little droplet into this tiny sea of Gabe appreciation we have here on tumblr.

Summary: Elena visits Gabe in his house for the first time and learns something new about his past.

Word count: 1937

AN: just some friendly fluff really, headcanon heavy, from Elena's POV but Gabe centric

"Oh, watch out, the first step is-" Gabe turned around just in time to catch Elena when she started to fall backwards. "-loose."

"Thanks for the warning." Elena shot him a glare when she regained her balance. In response Gabe only sent her an unapologetic grin and pulled her up on the next step.

"Everyone's so used to it by now that we keep forgetting to fix it with my dad," he explained as they finally reached the first floor.

The stairs led to a narrow corridor, with the same room placement as the bakery beneath it. Two doors on the right, one on the left and a wide opening to the living room at the end. In a few brisk steps Gabe opened the door on the left and invited Elena in with a courteous gesture.

"Welcome to my humble abode, your highness."

Her highness graced him with a nod and slipped by him, into the small room. Elena gave it a quick one over. It was indeed small - in fact, there probably wasn't much more space than what each guard got at the barracks - and the decor wasn't much fancier either. Cream colored walls, a thin bed by the window, a wardrobe opposite of it, one wall taken up by a bookshelf and a small cabinet by another made up basically all the furnishing of the room.

"Humble is a good word." She nodded solemnly, earning herself an eye roll from her friend. They both chuckled.

"Hey, it's your room that's out of the norm, you know?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Elena retorted, thinking about how three or even four such rooms would fit into hers. She walked over to the cabinet and picked up some trinket. "But it's nice to finally see where you grew up."

Gabe couldn't stop a fond smile sneaking onto his lips when he noticed the badge she was examining.

"Yeah and I didn't really get to change much here in the past five years. For example this thing I got back when-"

"Gabriel!" He was interrupted by his mother's voice from the bakery.

"I'll tell you in a moment," he sighed. "Make yourself at home!" He added from the doors and quickly ran downstairs to his parents.

Elena took another look around the room. It wasn't entirely empty, she had to admit that, and the poster of Antonio Agama on the inner side of the door confirmed that Gabe didn't change the decor much since he moved out.

She moved to the bookshelf and moved her hand across the titles - though there weren't that many of them to count. The lower shelves were taken up by some boxes and bags and what could've been a neatly packaged tent. Then finally a whole shelf dedicated to the whole collection of Antonio Agama's books. Elena chuckled to herself when she read some of the more dramatic titles and noticed even one that wasn't in Avaloran. On the next shelf, between other various travel books and biographies, was only one book by señor Agama, titled simply 'The Gecko's Tale'. Driven by a hunch she took it out and couldn't help but laugh when she read the blurb on the back. Although that explained how the whole kingdom found out that she's a bit adventurous too.

Finally her gaze got to the plant on top of the mantle. Hidden so deep in the room, it extended its ivy like stalks towards the sun, climbing a string helpfully hung between the bookshelf and the window.

Down on the windowsill two other plants looked out on the little cobbled square behind the house. Elena leaned in to smell the orchid and noticed something half hidden behind the pot. Slowly, so as not to accidentally damage the plant, she reached for trinket and retrieved it into the light. It turned out to be a wooden doll, painted to resemble a familiar navy and maroon uniform...

"Is this you?" She turned to Gabe as soon as he entered the room and showed him the figurine with a wide smile.

Gabe stopped for a moment. Furrowed his brows as he tried to see what Elena was even holding, and then furrowed his brows even more when he recognised it.

"Of course not," he grumbled, closing the small distance between them. "It's just an old thing anyway."

"It does look a bit like you though." She jumped away from him at the last moment.

Gabe gasped. Elen giggled and moved her hand away when he tried to reach her.

"Why would I even have a figurine of myself?"

For a moment they circled each other, like two lions judging if it's worthy to fight the opponent for a steak, except the steak was now wooden and 15 centimetres high. They both hunched subconsciously and made their steps in the fencing manner.

"I don't know, why does Esteban have a whole wall of his own portraits?" A sly grin slid on her face. "But I see you've decided to match his collection."

"Oh now you've done it." Gabe shook his head to hide his smile and in the split of a second was right by her. Feigning to go right for the prize, he swiped her legs out from under her.

Elena waved her hands in the air giving Gabe just the opportunity he was waiting for. He swiftly yanked the figurine from her hands, giving her the last push to fall backwards completely. He turned his head with a victorious grin, just in time to see her legs rising at the height of his knees. And suddenly the ground was much closer than before.

He folded his arms to his chest, protecting the figurine with his body and rolled on the floor. Though he didn't have to roll far, of which he was promptly reminded by his head crushing into the cupboard.

He groaned loudly and let his body fall limply to the floor.

His pained complaint was answered by Elena's laughter from the bed.

"I'm getting too old for this," he mumbled and Elena's laughter only got louder.

Finally he sat up and lifted the figurine to his face. He carefully examined it for any cracks or splinters, checked if the joints in the limbs didn't fall out and most importantly if the head was still on firm. Finally when he made sure the trinket didn't get damaged, he let out a relieved sigh.

"You're lucky it's still whole," he grumbled, rising to his feet.

"Hey, I was being careful." Elena now sat up too and sent him a playful smirk. "All the way until you decided to trip me like that."

Gabe rolled his eyes again and huffed in pretended annoyance.

"So if it's not a limited edition General Nuñez action figure," Elena continued. "What is it?"

Gabe sat down next to her and thought of an answer for a moment. He changed the position of the little soldier's arms and reached for a pin to put into his hand as a sword.

"It's really just an old toy," he said finally. "But you know, it has sentimental value."

He finally passed Elena the figurine, so she could take a look at it herself. It wasn't as old as she thought at first. The paint was faded, but still held onto the uneven surface of the wood and as she moved her fingers across it, she realized that it must've been all whittled by hand, by someone who put great care in it, but wasn't a professional.

Still the amount of details was impressive, especially in the construction of the thing. She moved the tiny soldier into the proper fencing position and to her delight found out that it fits flawlessly, the wire on the joints creaked quietly, as if it had been waiting for an opportunity to shine for ages.

She glanced between the figurine and Gabe on her left for comparison. The uniform, despite the familiar colours, was a tad different, it resembles more what she remembered from her childhood, than the uniform Gabe was wearing at the moment.

"I got it from my first fencing teacher," he continued.

"The same one who threw coconuts at you driving training?" Elena raised a brow, earning herself a chuckle.

"Yeah, the same one." A sad smile reached the corners of his eyes as old memories resurfaced in his memory. "He was a tough man and always talked about how big an annoyance I am, but -" he gestured to the figurine and shrugged.

"Well, that explains why it looks like you," Elena bumped him with her shoulder. "I'm sure he could've already seen that you'll be a great guard."

"Oh, I don't think he even wanted me to be a guard," Gabe laughed again. "But you know, the situation was a bit different." He pondered something for a moment before continuing. "And to be fair, I didn't even realize that it was supposed to be a guard at the time, I was pretty sure he just came up with the design by himself. I only really connected the dots a few years ago, when I found this old thing again."

Elena nodded silently and put a comforting hand on his arm. She could see that this topic wasn't easy for him.

"Though maybe what you said was the point." He straightened suddenly and his gaze went back to the figurine. "Maybe he wasn't completely against me joining the guard, just... joining the right one."

His smile became wider and it was like his whole face lit up. Elena raised the little soldier's arms to make it cheer. They both laughed at how expressive this piece of wood was.

"So where is your coach now?" Elena asked, caressing the wooden toy one more time.

He only sighed at first and for a moment his gaze became clouded again, before he shook his head to cast the memories away.

"I wish I knew," he sent her a sad smile. "One day he just... disappeared. A few trinkets and one letter is all the proof I have that he wasn't just my hallucination."

Elena's lips twitched in a matching sad smile, but before she could say anything, they both heard a voice from downstairs, calling the unmistakable word 'dinner!'

Gabe clapped his hands on his knees and sprung up to his feet.

"Ah, just in time", he extended his hand to Elena. "I think eating is a much more fun topic than discussing the weird things I did in my childhood."

Elena examined his face for a moment more, but gave up on asking all the questions that pushed to the tip of her tongue. She sent him a smile instead and accepted his hand.

"Oh, you mean you did more weird things?" She made the little figurine gasp.

"I feel like I shouldn't have started this topic," Gabe laughed.

"Oh no, you won't escape now." She poked him in the chest and put the little soldier in his hand. "I gotta know all the crazy stories."

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you something," Gabe raised his hands in defeat. "But you can't mention it to my parents, please, they'll never stop until they tell you my whole life story."

Elena made a theatrical gesture of tapping her lips in thought as she backed out of the room.

"I'll consider it," she sent him a wide grin and in a second turned and ran towards the stairs.

"Hey- wait!" Gabe called out, running right after her to save what was left of his reputation.

[kingcunny]

the way viserys ducks down to make daemon meet his eye? his little pout? him STROKING daemons cheek? right infront of his daughter and wife and the godtree and EVERYONE??

[hiddenworldofmary]

solo date in the museum: XIXth century music concert, the theme is “dreamers of the industrial era”

[riddleredcoats]

tell me about celene and mythal. TELL ME ABOUT CELENE AND MYTHAL! TELL ME ABOUT CELENE AND MYTHAL!!! TELL ME ABOUT CELENE AND MYTHAL!!!!!! TELL ME ABOUT CELENE AND MYTHAL!!!!!

tell me about celene and mythal. please.

please.

I- well, I assume this is about that fantastic Morrigan post that @ammoniteflesh did that I butted in with my ceaseless love about Orlais? I can do that. Settle in, it's a long boi.

Spoilers for The Masked Empire, if you haven't read it (and you should) then this probably won't make much sense. And spoilers for pretty much everything else in DA, tbh.

More under the cut.

The Andraste parallels.

Basically, just copy-paste everything that links Mythal and Andraste in this section. This is a great post/example, though I don't think they are the same, rather just the same story repeating. But TLDR: Betrayal, Heartache, Justice, etc etc etc. I think this is a popular theory I am not going to go much deeper into it.

Celene is compared to Andraste multiple times throughout The Masked Empire. In the play (End-ish of Chapter 5), by Briala (early-ish Chapter 5), and the whole Empress of Fire (both song and the Burning of Halamshiral) debacle. Not only that, but Celene has some genuine thoughts, intentions, and actions about reforming Orlais that are close to what Andraste was doing; they are both trying to reform an imperialist power, granted in different ways (of course) but the parallels aren't meant to be exact.

Fun add-on: Hilarious that Celene basically destroys herself/her image by (in the Fandom, at least, while in Universe is intact for the most part) setting a fire. Because being set on fire was what finally elevated Andraste. It’s still a point for the parallel, just a contrasting parallel rather than a direct one.

Fun add-on, #2: Andraste is described as being a redhead, even in DAI by Cass I think, but is depicted as a white blonde (like Celene in The Masked Empire’s cover or Flemythal's white hair) in multiple paintings throughout Dragon Age. I don’t know what this means, but it’s a fun detail, nonetheless. 

Justice! (But not really)

Both Celene and Mythal are arbiters of Justice, technically.

Celene as empress doles out justice as she wishes (more or less, see Halamshiral), but more specifically she wants to create a more just society for all Orlesians. Yes, of course, there is still that delightful imperialism there, but it just do be like that sometimes. Mythal is described several times as someone who doles out justice, throughout the games by Codex and Solas. She passes judgement, solves conflicts and was ‘the good one’.

Like the story of Elgar’nan and Falon’Din, where she solved it by each having champions and stopping the start of a devastating war. Sorta like Celene solved the Gaspard/Teagan conflict at the beginning of The Masked Empire (end of Chapter 1).

They can both be fair and reasonable but are also known for taking more harsh paths (i.e.; the slums of Halamshiral and the sinner who took divine form and went to Elgar’nan). They both promised to help the elves, yet they both seem to have ditched that idea; Mythal has done arguably very little for centuries, and Celene, while helping, without Briala is less than radical about it.

The Vengeance thing is here too. Celene is, after all, no saint and actively cannot forgive Gaspard for anything he does. Ever. And is definitely on a ‘war path’ by the end of TME. Mythal, similarly seems to be on a warpath forever for ‘a reckoning that will shake the very heavens’, whatever the hell that means. Also, everything Flemythal says in Origins just screams bitterness and vengeance.

Betrayal

Both of these women have been betrayed by those closest to them.

Celene by her court, her champion (The Masked Empire), her nobles (The Masked Empire and Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts), and both of her cousins (Gaspard and Florianne). Also, arguably, Mantillon betrayed her by ‘manipulating’ her into killing her own servants, but that is a whole 'nother bag to untangle. Oh, and Briala of course, by using Celene’s feelings for her and stealing the ruby during a kiss at the end of The Masked Empire.

FleMythal by her daughter (Morrigan), her husband (Elgar’nan, though if you want to include Flemeth’s here it is also applicable, I guess), her sons (if that’s what Dirthamen and Falon’Din really were?), her fellow ‘Gods’. Oh, and Fen’Harel at the end of DAI, too.

Funny is that both Celene and Mythal when it comes to Briala and Solas’ betrayals are fine with it. Celene completely understands Briala by the end of The Masked Empire, as does Mythal at the end of DAI. And they are both betrayed by Solas and Briala in front of Eluvians Which… yeah.

Another parallel; both Briala and Solas say they must do it for ‘The People’, aka, the elves.

The Rebels

Solas and Briala parallel a lot on their own, but their relationships with Mythal and Celene are fascinating too, as is seeing how Solas/Briala view Mythal/Celene.

Obviously, both of these pairs parallel Shartan/Andraste. Actual mention of this is in the play in The Masked Empire for Celene/Briala (Chapter 5 of TME).

Each pair is obviously fond of one another, likely in different ways - but perhaps not.

Interestingly enough if Solas really was in service to Mythal first (like Cole seems to imply in Trespasser) before he rose to ‘Godhood’ then, like Celene/Briala, the relationship likely started privately and then grew into the public like once Briala became Marquise and Solas became Fen’Harel.

If we take what Cole said, ‘He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face’, as it really being about Solas/Mythal then we have another interesting parallel between Briala/Solas and Celene/Mythal.

Celene, arguably, makes Briala into what she is by sending her away after having her parents killed. Felassan helped and, of course, Briala herself is the way she is because she is herself, but Celene is the catalyst for her more abrupt change. Briala does not get a scar when she separates herself from Celene; at least not a physical one. Mythal makes Solas into what he is by asking him to come to her.

Interestingly, it is a contrasting parallel – because Celene lets Briala go while Mythal beacons Solas into her service. Which is super interesting, but that is more about the relationship between Briala/Celene than anything else.

The way both Solas/Briala describe Mythal/Celene in-game;

Briala, if you ask about Celene during the peace, but before you go to the servants' quarters, says: ‘Celene is the voice of reason in the empire…’

Solas, in that final Trespasser cutscene: ‘She [Mythal] was a voice of reason, the best of them, and in their lust for power they killed her.”

Granted, Solas is fonder while Briala is a bit harsher in her assessment, but Solas did ‘kill’ Mythal, and whatever wounds Mythal may have caused (which we will get there) have long passed while Celene and Briala’s breakup is more recent. This means very little but i suspect that much like Celene, Mythal also betrayed Solas twice. Once in the times of Arlathan - like Celene killing Briala's parents. And another in recent times - with the burning of Halamshiral. We don't know about it yet, but that's my bet.

Morrigan

Both Mythal (or Flemythal) and Celene have a protective relationship with Morrigan.

Celene is more of a patron and offers financial support and protection. And the protection seems to be mutual (or supposed to be, if Morrigan didn’t bail in WEWH, lmao). Mythal/Flemythal is well, her mother, who is supposed to protect her but who is trying to possess her.

Both of these relationships seem to range from a little contentious (Celene/Morrigan, if you believe the rumours of a palace servant) to very contentious (Flemythal/Morrigan).

Celene seems to not be as intense as Mythal. Morrigan speaks well of her, and Celene does not try to control her like Mythal did, Celene even ‘lets’ her go out into the world – something baby!Morrigan wanted – with her blessing and her protection. I legit find the relationship between them interesting, despite the arguments that apparently took place, lmao. (I also sorta lowkey ship it, but that’s another conversation).

To give the benefit of the doubt; we don’t know how much Mythal was ‘in charge’ of Flemeth (or if they can even act separately) so Morrigan’s abuse might not be Mythal’s fault. But there is no denying that she was abused and that whatever aspect of Mythal, The Mother there was, it absolutely did not act in Morrigan’s favour.

But that is yet another that has nothing to do with Celene/Mythal and all to do with Morrigan.

Symbols matter (or not)

Mythal fought with the Evanuris and the Valmonts fought the Drakons. A bit more *tinfoil* and a lot more thin, but if the Dragon is the divine form like we suspect from Codex Entry in the Temple of Mythal, then the Valmonts having gone to war with the Drakon line could be another interesting parallel. After all, the Drakons are represented by dragons. There is also, technically, the 'full' title of the quest where Celene appears in:

The Old Gods will call to you, From their Ancient Prisons they will sing. Dragons with wicked eyes and wicked hearts, On blacken'd wings does deceit take flight, The First of My children, lost to night. - Canticle of Silence 3:6

Finally, and this is really silly and not really a parallel and most likely it’s just a fun coincidence, but the name Celene, which comes from the root word ‘Selene’, means ‘Moon’, which, of course, Mythal is the Goddess of.

Unimportant sidenote: I am pettily annoyed that most characters pronounce it ce-LI-ne when it should be ce-LE-ne. Because Celine is a legit different name and Celine-Celene have different meanings and root words, but okay I’ll allow it because I do like the pronunciation ‘Celine’ better, lmao.

[merge-conflict]

alley cats

summary: goro finds johnny out with v and is too jealous to realize

johnny x non-binary (corpo) v

implied former goro x v

While his conversation with Wakako had not been as productive as he had wished, Goro was in a good mood when he stepped out of her pachinko parlor. Her flattery was all false, and she was far too wise to tell him all she knew, but visiting her still made him think irrationally of home, if only briefly. It also made him think of V– which was why it was a particular surprise to pick her profile out of the crowd, leaning outside one of the many shops selling what passed for food on Jig-Jig street.

She wasn’t alone, pressed up next to a man who was obviously a doll, in animated conversation. The way they stood shoulder to shoulder was odd– more like they were sharing gossip than flirting. But as he watched, a ravenous grin slid over V’s face, and she turned and murmured something into the doll’s ear before nipping at the side of his neck. The sight of it made his blood heat, made his hands curl into fists.

He had no right to be jealous. She had accepted his rejection with dignity– and if there was a wall between them, she took great pains to to remain his ally, and suffered every disgraceful rumor without complaint. Their positions were wholly different, and so there was no reason she should not indulge herself as he could not, but telling himself this did nothing to curb his anger. He pressed it down, resolving to slip by her while she was engaged– but as soon as he stepped within ten meters, her head snapped up like he’d called her name.

He could not bring himself to simply walk away, although he knew by her smile that she was not pleased to see him. Her companion didn’t look pleased either, wrapping one hand around her waist in an unusual display of possessiveness for a doll. V seemed to have the same thought, but when her warning glare had no effect, she seemed to resign herself to ignoring the gesture.

“Hey, Goro,” she said in greeting. “Never expected to find you here voluntarily again.”

“I had some matters to attend to,” he said, somewhat stiffly.

“Turning your nose up at this place, like it ain’t corpos that keep it running,” the doll said, to V’s instant mortification. “Maybe if you got that stick out of your ass you’d be a little less grumpy.”

“I would take great care on how you address me,” Goro responded, suppressing the urge to crack the doll’s faceplate. He could not imagine what could be appealing about such a coarse and ill-mannered personality, but the intensity in V’s disapproving expression was not entirely anger.

“Sorry,” she said, apparently satisfied with her companion’s answering eye roll. “This one’s a bit of an alley cat. Not really suitable for polite company.” This elicited a sharp laugh, but her elbow to the doll’s ribs shut his mouth.

“I see,” Goro said. He knew he should leave, but the thought of turning his back to them, for them to once again lean in exchanging whispers– the doll’s hand slipping under V’s shirt, while she decorated his neck with bruises– he stepped closer, and casually gripped the doll’s jaw in his hand. “But I think perhaps this one is domesticated…all bark, and no bite.”

The fear that flashed in the doll’s eyes was brief, and it was followed by a feeling far more vicious and angry than Goro had expected. But his grip on Goro’s wrist was hardly threatening, and if he was stupid enough to try and start to speak, the sudden clamp of V’s hand on the back of his neck made him reconsider. Goro released him, satisfied he had made his point.

The look on V’s face was carefully neutral, although he could see her vitals spiking higher. With the smallest smile, she tilted her head at him and asked, “Was that necessary?”

She might as well have said aren’t you above this? He felt shame creeping up the back of his neck, but she’d given him this look once before, under very different circumstances. All at once he became aware that he was playing with fire and wasn’t sure if he really was above getting burned.

“Good night, V,” he said simply, with a slight bow.

“Takemura,” she replied, in polite acknowledgement. The doll laughed, and at her look busied himself with pulling out a cigarette.

He left them abruptly, good mood evaporated. The more time he spent in this city, the more he despaired he would ever see home again.

[skrunksthatwunk]

a reflection on emotional validation derived from watching horror-protagonist children Go Through It

tl;dr if you bottled up your emotions as a child and dealt with everything alone there's something comforting about watching a fictional adult swoop in to comfort their fictional child, and something else comforting about watching that child crack and bleed and suffer under the pressure alone. because hey. you've been there. that acknowledgement of their hardship, big or small, aided by adults or not, is an acknowledgement of the hardship you went through growing up, and it can be really cathartic to watch someone express that strife openly when you never did/weren't able to.

there's a pattern i've been tracking for a long time. since i was in elementary school i have found myself repeatedly drawn to stories where children are hurting. whether it's the little prince and his sunsets and his rattlesnake or simpler things, like picture book plots featuring missing stuffed animals or ruined birthday parties. children in these works often express their emotions rather directly, and their sorrow is generally uncomplicated. regardless of the actual weight of the event, they are sad, and that is something the authors felt worthwhile to depict. it may be frivolous, or brief, or easily solved. it may be deeply rooted and existential. its tone may, given the big picture, appear hopeless or hopeful, but in the moment, it is an all-consuming, gargantuan obstacle. it is despair through the eyes of a child.

when i was young and upset about something, my parents would ask me if i thought the subject of my distress was a little thing or a big thing. i believe they intended this to be an exercise in critical thinking. however, young children have limited understandings of the world. when your life has been so short, and your problems (presumably) so small, everything that goes wrong feels far worse than it is. a scraped knee or a rainy day or a cancelled field trip could be the worst thing that happened to that child for a very long time. their priorities are also different, because the way they process events is different. their perspective is both limited by their lack of experience and genuinely just different from adults.

my point in explaining this is that there is something raw, unrefined, and deeply touching about stories where children cry, at least to me. and whether they are comforted and helped through the problem by an adult (encouragingly, without complaint, and without regard to how silly the problem may seem to them), left to fend for themselves, or a combination of the two (wherein the child struggles for some time, before an adult realizes the issue, generally apologizes for not being there or not realizing what was going on, then helps them work through the issue), there is a kind of achy catharsis to it all that soothes me. i realize now that part of why this is the case is that my parents were not particularly good at or proactive about comfort, and seeing kids have their distress gently worn away by a safe, attentive, gentle, and capable force was a sort of fantasy to me. even now, i'm sometimes shocked at others' experiences with their parents, because i thought that kind of teary-eyed sentiment was something reserved for movies. i did not realize this absence, because i was like. five. and without any way to discuss or address it, without even knowing there was a problem there to begin with, i sought out comfort in fiction, through second-hand parenting.

for most of my childhood, i dealt with my emotions on my own. if i was scared of something, i usually handled it through (uh.) compulsive rituals. if i was sad, i withdrew. if i needed advice, i would seek my parents out, but never for anything beyond the practical. if i wanted reassurance, their game plan would have to do. (they were and are very solution-oriented, and i am far more emotion-oriented, in times of duress. but it's not like i knew that or could communicate that when i was 9). i played by myself, battled my fears by myself, celebrated the things i loved by myself... it took me (many, many) years to realize that people told their parents about their feelings and problems, even if they didn't really need guidance. like, genuinely, i was around 14 when i figured out that was an option and that people chose it. it had never occurred to me, like many very basic things about being alive (including highlights like "you can ask for things" and "you can say no to group activities" and "you don't have to buy clothes from this store, as there are many clothing stores, something you are quite aware of").

all this is to say that watching children process those emotions, either through an internal monologue or an external, open expression, made me feel seen. it meant it was something that mattered to those authors. treating emotion itself as something normal and upset kids as ones deserving of loving, gentle reassurance, was something novel and captivating, and something i clung to. and i know i'm not alone in that, considering how many adult bluey fans there are who claim it's healing their inner child. seeing good parenting and children being cared for properly and kids working through difficult and often relatable emotions can be a very powerful experience. my point is i'm rooting for all the little guys discussed in this essay.

now, in regards to tragedy and horror, those comforts are generally denied, leaving the child-characters alone, confused, terrified, vulnerable, and sometimes very very dead. i think it's a fairly common impulse to feel more afraid for a child in a given situation than an adult in that same situation. you could chock it up to biology or experience, but whatever it is, many people have a strong instinct to protect and care for children. so when something bad happens to a fictional child, it can feel particularly painful. it may be a strange example, but i saw a local production of les miserables around the same time i pieced together that you can talk about your feelings, and i expected to bawl my eyes out (or come closest to it) at the finale. but the most choked up i got was when little gavroche was shot. some of this is because the gunshot was very loud and it startled me, but a lot of it was because he was so young. and he believed in their cause and he died bravely and stupidly. that kind of thing really gets to me. more psychological tragedy involving young characters can also be particularly heart-wrenching. for a completely different example, see the events of hunter x hunter's chimera ant arc, and the incredible strain placed on gon and killua's friendship. neither of them are strangers to violence or physical danger, but the emotional strife is something rather new between them. they'd been close from day one, and their fights were never all that serious. they're ride or die best friends. and due to their newness to real, deep friendships (particularly on killua's part), you really feel every crack in their relationship, and how gon doesn't care even if he manages to see it, and how killua cares so much (i'm being vague because i want you (yes, you) to watch it. iykyk). the suffering of fictional children, when unresolved, when it breaks them, when it hurts and hurts and hurts and changes them, is, in a horrible, frightening way, beautiful.

more tragic/horror-inclined stories tend to focus on a loss of innocence structure, the coming of age story's evil twin. the little prince jumps (primarily) between the narrator-pilot + the eponymous prince's interactions in the desert and stories of the prince's travels. in short, he leaves his boring, small, largely safe home due to ennui and travels to a number of tiny planets inhabited by figures representing types of adulthood. kings, businessmen, lamplighters, and so on, each of whom confuse and dismay the prince more. is that what lies in wait for him outside of his home? endless, desperate, ego-driven nonsense? he makes his way to earth as well, and despite befriending his fox and the pilot, it seems his sense of dread and homesickness is only increasing. [actually i'm gonna start spoiling it now so watch out ig] in the end, the prince chooses to go home, back to his bubble with his rose and his baobabs and his sunsets, and he accomplishes this through. ah. lethal snake venom. the pilot chooses to believe he returned, as part of his renewed sense of wonder and imagination the prince inspired. he chooses to believe that the prince made it home because he and the prince were both sick of the drab realism of their lives. whether or not you believe he returned or simply died is up to you. there's a very interesting discussion to be had in a different post. either way, the prince wishes to return to his imperfect, but ultimately safe, nursery. he escapes to childhood, too soft-hearted for the world of adults. but he'll always know what he saw. it won't be the same, without the longing to know. [spoilers over get back in here]. in some cases, like gavroche's, his innocence and hope in the little people is what led to his death. he died in innocence, without coming of age. gon's loss of innocence is in his grief, and the hatred and violence with which he seeks to resolve it, which strikes the people closest to him. it's in his inability to even consider forgiveness or mercy, something he struggled with for certain figures (i.e. illumi, the phantom troupe (specifically nobunaga)), but generally let go with time, space, or a shift in perspective. others, like hanzo and genthru, escape without even a brief lingering grudge.

and, for the example that led me to write this, loss of innocence is particularly prominent in the promised neverland. as a note, i've only seen the first season of the anime, and not since i was in middle school, so. grain of salt/be patient with me here. but anyone who went into that first episode blind is going to know exactly what i'm talking about. [spoilers ahead]

tpn's s1 opening situation is, essentially, that there is a beautiful orphanage with green meadows and forests and happy, well-loved children, whose ages range from around 1-11. the children want for nothing and receive incredible educations, utilizing futuristic tools while preserving a mostly pastoral feel. the children play together, learn together, and care for each other very deeply. every once in a while, a child gets adopted. they say their goodbyes, the lucky child promises to write, and they are driven away. on one such adoption day, two of the oldest children realize the child forgot her beloved stuffed rabbit, and set out to take it to her.

they find their young friend half-eaten and their sweet, strict, encouraging, and incredibly competent caretaker discussing future shipments of this kind. they are being raised so their brains can be harvested and eaten by strange, demonic figures. and, as it turns out, they won't take brains older than twelve, an age they are quickly approaching.

(idk maybe it's cliche to YOU guys but it blew MY mind so. yeah)

what followed is some of the most tense fiction i've ever full-body clenched my way through. the elements mentioned up until now are all here in full. the children are still nurtured by isabella, their "mom", and because they can't let her know they know they're livestock, they have to pretend as if everything's normal, all while trying to find some way to free themselves and their family of ~40 younger children from their walled enclosure, without knowing anything of the outside world for certain. and, of course, they can't let the younger children know, either. their resources are all extremely limited, intensely monitored, and completely controlled by isabella. there are no contacts on the outside, no adults who can help them, just the most scared tweens i've ever seen in my life. isabella's unnatural strength and intelligence allow her to outmaneuver our main three (they rope in another one), and that's before another adult gets called in to help her, playing a big sister role. every victory feels like it could be a trap, and is still extremely fragile. every setback feels agonizing. the moments where the adults show their dominance and cruelty are just. guhhhh. bone shattering. it's a hard watch but it's a damn good watch, assuming 13 y/o me was right about it (which is a bold take but whatever). if you ever wanted a bunch of very scared very competent very endearing children plot the logistics of a jailbreak from the garden of eden baby livestock farm then like. that's what this is.

and the emotion is, to me, what makes it so compelling. these children have just had their entire world shattered, and have been immediately dumped into a worst-case scenario that they have to pretend not to know about, and are responsible for about a dozen kids each, all younger than them, and many of them actual babies and toddlers. they are bottling up and repressing as much of their fear as possible, but sometimes it inevitably slips out when they're alone, and it's just SUCH a gut punch. you get the cathartic breakdowns AND the (false) comfort AND the fear AND the repression of that emotion. they're too young to be dealing with this on their own (idk if anyone'd ever be old enough to deal with the orphan meat farm but still), and they're not allowed to be kids because every second they aren't planning their escape could be the second wasted that gets them killed. it's all there babeyy that's the shit i'm here for. and, as much as any adult bluey fan has felt bittersweetly comforted by watching parents be, like, nice to their kids or whatever (<- has not watched bluey), i feel bittersweetly comforted by watching these children undergo mental torture because i'm like damn. that's exactly how i feel all the time (<- guy whose only problems are having to fill out like 3 forms) ouhhh im so scared im right with you guys. it's emma norman ray and ME. just scared little guys against the world. but one of us is a college student who is not even close to an orphan meat farm.

anyway i stole the conclusion for the tl;dr so. i'll just put that here again. sorry it's like 6am im tired

tl;dr if you bottled up your emotions as a child and dealt with everything alone there's something comforting about watching a fictional adult swoop in to comfort their fictional child, and something else comforting about watching that child crack and bleed and suffer under the pressure alone. because hey. you've been there. that acknowledgement of their hardship, big or small, aided by adults or not, is an acknowledgement of the hardship you went through growing up, and it can be really cathartic to watch someone express that strife openly when you never did/weren't able to.

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

[Belated] Wip Wednesday!

you know my life is hectic when notes ap fics while im waiting for the bus make a comeback. anyway Tesoro is being a weirdly sweet manipulative cunt<3 i need to write one of the many times Celia fucks up everyone lives shes looking to pity-able. this is notes app writing so no editing or rereading [except for the beginning with whos speaking] just stream of thoughts- i already know many places i will sit down and improve when i have time

[Tesoro] Do you know who Amelia reminds me of?

[Celia laughs] It's obvious, isn't it?

[Tesoro, dead serious] She reminds me of you.

[Celia, at the same time] Of Elen-

Seeing Celia freeze in shock, a cruel part of him was glad, to be assured that with just a few words he could still metaphorically lay Celia bare, strip away all of the stone walls and bravado, and leave behind a scared child, even after all these years.

Golden eyes were wide, the white fully surrounding. Bright pupils were growing larger, threatening to drown out the narrowing ring of gold.

Its a secret so few know that those pinpricks growing to even half the size of a normal pupil is an indicator of true fear, whereas the usual pinpricks is normal. To those who knew her younger, they think it just changed over time to be smaller, but the truth is she's in many ways conquered her old fears, and those that have taken their place are a slow constant fear, about larger factors. Celia doesn't worry that she will get physically attacked from any side. these days, its the era of mind games instead.

It was always interesting, Celias eyes. More normal than black in place of white, but those metallic eyes and bright pinprick pupils were unsettling to him even more. At first glance, human, second, anything but. Celia- of heaven, according to some old Latin books, derived from a surname meaning the same.

It was easy to see her as something other, even holy, but no benevolent god could create a soldier like her. Those who called her brother an angel were just as misguided, but the veneer of kindness and comfort that made it easy to ignore Cecios' terrifying power over people and see him as holy was lacking in his sister, who they viewed with fear, no seemingly benevolent and gracious angel but an awesome- in the most classical sense of the word- leader of man, set apart from the rest with an unsettling aura of difference. A far cry from the little girl Amelia so reminds him of. Elena was the seemingly godlike one, inspiring awe and fear, then. Celia was just another scrapper desperate to prove her worth in the eyes of her peer, and oh, how desperate she was.

It's the most likely reason why, why he can disable her like this, bypass years of walls. Because he was there before those walls became impenetrable, before she stepped up and shut everyone else out. Some lingering memories of him as her superior, in their childish hierarchy, instincts to listen to him, still dormant inside her.

For every time she learned to put up a higher and stronger wall, he had learned how to bring it crashing down.

It's the same cruel part of him that whispers it, but she truly is his greatest success, rising from the bottom to new heights - all with him by her side advising her.

[abbysbasement]

need the inspo to go into my scrap bin and finish this college au jock!abby x virgin!reader fic

[tony-andonuts]

OH MY FUCKING GOD SOME OF THE MINER IMAGES THEY EDITED ARE FROM HISTORICAL ARCHIVES FROM MY TOWN OH MY GOD OH MY FUCKING GOD

[lemoniko]

👍 i do think your aesthetics / image quality matter because we are sharing images and people like looking at nice things. but that doesn’t mean you have to make really intricate, detailed edits to posts. not downplaying people that enjoy editing it’s more so in response to the assumption that More is inherently better. like there’s some level of editing “required” regardless but i really enjoy both “literally just a few adjustment layers and crop” posts And “the time and effort that went into this is so great that the before and after pics are insane” posts. i do think posts with more detail are favoured but in my heart I believe there is a niche for every type of post whether it’s really talented edits or bare minimum screenshots (meeee ☝️) and everything in-between and beyond. likeeee looking good doesn’t have to inherently mean hours of editing. these are my thoughts 👋