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stergeon · 10 months ago

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at some point i will figure out how to write the post-canon, post-empire edelgard autonomy fic of my dreams. it just feels like a very big task and maybe like with playing the dane, i’m simply not old and traumatized enough to manage it yet.

but my vision is thus: it’s set years (realistically, decades) after the end of crimson flower, when everything has gone as right as it can possibly go. fódlan is thriving. the social reforms have taken effect. the nobility system is nearly eliminated, if not entirely so, with titles made merely symbolic. social mobility, welfare, and prosperity are high. there’s an explosion in arts and culture and technology. brigid and duscur have gained independence; relations with sreng and almyra are much improved; heck, maybe they've even figured it out with dagda. in my most idealistic version, leicester and faerghus would eventually be ceded back to become autonomous regions, essentially disbanding the adrestian empire. rule is no longer hereditary, but merit-based. there's a roadmap for the future, and everything is on track—and more than that, people at all points on the power spectrum have already seen it bear fruit. with or without edelgard, it will be pursued. there's buy-in. they believe.

of course, it's not perfect—nothing can be—but edelgard's vision has been fulfilled. the people are empowered. humanity is free. fódlan has healed.

and somehow, she's had enough time to resolve her goals outside of politics, too. those who slither in the dark have been eradicated. edelgard and lysithea's second crests have been successfully removed, allowing them to live if not full lives, then substantially longer ones than they would have with their twin crests intact. who knows—maybe she finally gets around to having that wedding.

point for point, every item listed in edelgard's manifesto has been checked off. the ghosts of her past have been laid to rest. she can finally take off her crown. she can finally pursue the quiet, humble life she's wanted for so long. she can finally breathe.

... but can she?

edelgard is nothing if not driven. her intelligence, vision, and sheer willpower allowed her to plan and execute a revolution against two countries and the most powerful institution on the continent, all while she was still a teenager. as royalty, her life was never truly hers even before she became heir to the adrestian throne, with all the additional baggage of survivor's guilt and the desire for vengeance and her need to ensure nothing that happened to her can ever happen to anyone else, ever again.

so what happens when that drive has no outlet? what happens when someone who has been constantly in motion, constantly working and planning and preparing every spare second of every day since she was fourteen years old, suddenly has to stand still? what happens when someone whose hands have been bound for so long—first literally in the dungeons of enbarr, then by the weight and responsibilities of her crown—is set free?

being edelgard, she would step away from the throne, no matter how hard it was for her to give up control. she's always been focused on the endgame, and she knows that if she doesn't let go, she'll be setting the wrong tone for fódlan's future. she's too devoted to that endgame to cling to power much longer than she needs to, though i could see her making some excuses and trying to iron out just a few more things to buy herself some more time to mentally prepare before she's done for good.

but who would she be then? who is the woman without the crown? what becomes of a machine once it is no longer needed, when it has made itself obsolete? what about when that machine is a person with legs and arms and an innate unwillingness to gather dust on a shelf?

what happens when you get everything you want? what happens when all your wanting has been for others to thrive, and now you have to want only for yourself? how do you discover who you are when you've spent decades being everything for everyone else? how do you find meaning again? how do you find purpose?

after a lifetime of devotion and passion and movement, how do you learn to sit with yourself, and be quiet, and be still?

gosh, i would love to meet her. i would love to pick her brain. but boy, i do not envy the work that girl has to do.

#sterge.rtf #fire emblem #fe3h #edelgard von hresvelg #realistically edelgard is not getting all of this done in her lifetime. but that wouldn't keep her from stepping away anyway #'cause a funny thing happened to edelgard during the crimson flower route: she learned to have faith again.#so even if she couldn't check every box and fix every societal ill she'd still be able to pass the crown to the next ruler.#maybe not without fear. but with confidence. with optimism. with the belief that she's leaving the world better than she found it.#she'd have faith in her people. faith in the future. faith in the groundwork she's laid. faith in the systems she's put in place.#faith that her vision will be carried out with or without her.#and that faith would allow her to eventually let go.#i so love edelgard pulling a george washington and saying nah i'm good on power. peace #though unfortunately i could also see her pulling a teddy roosevelt #and saying nah i'm good on power. peace. wait what are you doing. you're ruining it. you're bungling everything. i can't believe this #and making several (failed and increasingly insane) attempts to get back into politics #who is the taft to edelgard's ted tho. i don't want to do ferdinand the disservice of saying it's him even though i think it's very funny.#it's literally the opposite of his character as taft notoriously sniffed roosevelt's farts for a long time #until he finally pulled his head out of the guy's ass and realized there are other smells. such as the sewer. and garbage.#smells which he pursued quite happily much to ol ted's chagrin #meanwhile ferdinand does not think anything of edelgard's ass except that his is definitely better-looking than hers #(he's wrong on so many levels but you try telling the guy that)#in fact ferdinand has always taken great joy in pointing out all the things that smell better than edelgard does #which gives him an instant up on mr Take-Advice-From-Theodore #all this to say i think ferdinand von aegir would have been a much better president than william howard taft. that's just my opinion.#i'm getting off the rails in these tags idk what's wrong with me #sorry for equating your blorbos to long-dead american politicians everyone. i know this is a cardinal sin #also please don't take this to mean i think positively of washington or roosevelt or taft or whatever.#i hate all dead old white guys who ever held a modicum of power #i just had a hyperfixation on american presidents when i was in grade school and unfortunately now my brain works like this

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threewaysdivided · 6 months ago

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The Shaper of Minds and its possible consequences for a certain character

I have finally joined the rest of the internet in losing my mind over a D&D Podcast - in my case, the wonderful Dan Jones & Dragons. With Episode 26 due to stream on Dan’s Twitch this week, I really want to talk about some of the stuff that came up across the just-finished Gala sessions because the fallout from that has the potential to be incredibly fraught.

THE SHAPER OF MINDS

The relic the Flower Crowns were going after this mission – The Shaper of Minds – is a potentially fascinating narrative device that might as well have been lab-engineered to be my exact brand of personal nightmare fuel. It’s a small, ornate brass key that can alter any part of the target’s mental faculties/thoughts/memories at will should the wielder touch it to any part of their victim’s skin.

Now, on one hand, there are a heap of interesting (and even benevolent) applications for a tool like that. It could instantly grant access to skills, languages and knowledge that would otherwise take a person years of study to learn. It could be used to sort through and resolve memories that had been faded by time, muddied by trauma or forcibly supressed by magical/medical means. But on the other…

As described and used in campaign so far, the primary function of the Mindshaper is to alter memories (and the attendant personality) with the target having no awareness that their mind has been changed. It’s basically gaslighting on steroids, except that where a gaslighting victim still retains their original recollection – and has to be manipulated by their abuser into doubting their own perceptions and instead accepting the alternate telling of events (a cognitive dissonance that can eventually lead the person to recognise the manipulation) – the Shaper of Minds entirely replaces the original recollection of events with the version the wielder wants their victim to perceive. There is no internal conflict between accounts, no inconsistencies that could alert the victim that someone has broken into their head and rewritten their perceived reality. The person they reshape you to be is the person you believe you always were. And all it takes is a single touch.

That is a brand of existential horror that had me on edge all throughout Session 24 (basically from the moment it was implied the key was in play). Reality may be objective, but each individual person’s internal reality is governed by their perception – their memories – of the events in their life, no matter how incomplete, biased or otherwise skewed that personal perspective may have been. You have value just by being you because you are not replaceable, but the thing that makes you unique is, in large part, the sum total of those inimitably specific personal memories. No-one else will perceive the world in exactly the same way you do, and even a few minor changes to just a few of those perceptions can flow on to massive differences in ideals, values, priorities and future choices. In that regard, the use of the Mindshaper Key isn’t so much an alteration as an obliteration of the victim’s former self and replacement with someone new; even if that new stranger is largely indistinguishable from the original. And, again, all it takes is a single touch.

[Sidenote: This made Mister Wick an especially effective antagonist to wield the key, since his Galas functionally trap even targets who are aware of the threat within the rules of high-society behavioural expectations. Otherwise-innocuous actions like a handshake or private conversation suddenly become incredibly dangerous, while being nigh-impossible for the Flower Crowns to extract themselves from without committing an atrocious faux pas and potentially tipping Wick off. Perfectly designed stage for a psychological horror-thriller encounter.]

Which of course, brings us to a certain character who fell victim to the key in Episode 24… [put under the cut for spoiler reasons]

MORENTHAL

This poor Drow, he can never catch a break…

Morenthal may not have been the most mechanically dangerous party member to fall victim to Mister Wick’s manipulations although, given that the key was revealed to let its wielder read existing memories during the alteration, and that all of the Flower Crowns were fully briefed on the locations and nature of the Eversteel artefacts, him getting a hand on any of them could have been very bad plot-wise but from a character point of view I think he’s the one who the key’s effects had the potential to be most personally devastating for.

The way things ended up playing out across Session 25 was precisely the nightmare scenario Gamb was fretting about out of game: Mister Wick forcibly implanted Morenthal’s mind with false memories of being his lifelong trusted confidant and supporter, then – before the Flower Crowns could reverse the key’s effect – Morenthal discovered that Mister Wick had been killed in combat with Coil and Preston, leading to the Party having to physically restrain him so they could use the key to undo the damage, thus confronting Morenthal with the realisation that not only was everything he thought he knew about Jonathan a lie, but in actuality Jonathan had committed possibly the most invasive violation he’d ever been subjected to in order to forcibly make Morenthal into one of his loyal tools. That level of emotional and mental whiplash would be rough on any character, but for Morenthal it’s particularly brutal because…

Based on what’s been revealed in-game so far, the core of his character is that Morenthal is an abused child. This most-clearly came up in his conversation with Gelnek in Session 14; he was a child who grew up with nothing, raised by the Bloodletter Mercenaries as a tool instead of a person, and taught to see faces only as targets – with him also mentioning to Hobson in that their “combat training” involved being relentlessly beaten down until he learned to fight back. During his Session 21 visit with the Nightmother, he openly admits that “nowhere feels safe”. From that it’s pretty clear to read that Morenthal has never felt unconditionally loved, safe or respected around other mortals.

(This also helps contextualise why he’s so devoted to the Nightmother. From what little we have seen of his visits to her, Iris is a fond “adult” figure, who does not threaten, does not judge, asks nothing of him aside from his company, and cares equally for all the souls that pass through her domain. For a child “growing up with nothing” but violence, that would have been everything.)

But then, enter Jonathan fucking Wick. And now, just for a short while, Morenthal has all these “memories” of Jonathan being there to confide in, encourage him and support his escape from the Bloodletters. Suddenly he believes someone was there for him and, while the memories might be fake, the feelings of unconditional safety they would have brought were very real. Little wonder that he started acting like a Trilby-level naive goober around Mister Wick to the point of accidentally snitching on the rest of the group. Only, then it turns out to be a lie and those memories are gone.

For me, I think one of the worst things Morenthal might end up dealing with in the aftermath of having his memory fixed isn’t the specific feeling of personal betrayal or the potential shame at having been caught: it’s the realisation that he was always alone. That there was no mortal on the outside who cared or came for him when he needed them – just him and the distant fondness of a Divine. That would be awful beyond words, and yet the Flower Crowns were forced to inadvertently inflict it upon him in order to restore his mind. No wonder he wouldn’t look any of them in the eye before the session closed.

Worse still, the nature of the key makes it incredibly hard not only to trust others, but to trust your own mind. The players and audience above-table know that Morenthal is back to experiencing and remembering reality as it happened, but the question could very well linger for him, bringing with it a hefty dose of paranoia. Sure, Morenthal correctly remembers that Coil is a straightforward, loyal person who wouldn’t be tempted to tamper with his mind beyond undoing Jonathan’s manipulations… but he “remembered” that about Mister Wick too, and wouldn’t that be a beneficial thing for the Party to have him think? To Morenthal, people were already Not Safe™, but now the one person he ever believed might be had actually violated him worse than anyone else in order to force and abuse that trust. How is he supposed to trust anyone if he can’t trust the authenticity of his own recollections. (I get the feeling that Morenthal probably isn't going to be capable of relaxing until the Shaper of Minds is confirmed to either be locked back safely in the Vaults of Eversteel or fully removed from the Mortal Plane by Six).

It makes it really tragic that all of this came directly on the back of Episode 23, where Gamb revealed during the above-table break chat that - even if Morenthal didn’t recognise why – he unconsciously trusted Trilby and Gelnek enough to jump off the airship without checking that his rope was secure, because deep-down he knew they would catch him. To go from that high-point to the whiplash of him first thinking the Flower Crowns had killed the only person he was ever “safe” with, then them inadvertently subjecting him to the most painful realisation he could ever experience and potentially leaving him wondering whether he can even trust his feelings about them is absolutely gutting.

I think the thing that scares me most about how the aftermath could potentially play out is another trait that Gamb and Dan have established for Morenthal: he's a flight-risk. He shies away from letting people get close and, if he feels unsafe enough, he runs. It’s already been mentioned/implied that he’s considered fleeing the group at multiple different points across the sessions. And with him likely not feeling safe even in inside his own mind right now, that risk is probably at an all-time high. The poor lad is staring down the barrel of a potentially-impending multi-level emotional crisis, where a lifetime of instincts will probably be urging him to run hard and fast because People Are Not Safe™.

And the thing is, that instinct isn’t a good one for him either. Morenthal might have gotten by on his own “just living to be” up until Filgrove, but that feels a lot more like surviving out of necessity than having an actual life. It’s pretty obvious that he pushes people away as a defence mechanism: if you don’t care about anyone then you can’t be hurt by them or have those people used against you. But if you don’t let yourself care and feel things, you’re not really living. The truly tragic part of his running being a potential foreseeable outcome is that the Flower Crowns are good for Morenthal. (I doubt Morenthal realises it and can’t speak to Gamb’s above-table thought process but it’s interesting that one potential interpretation of Morenthal’s cynical, faux-apathetic, “stinky” behaviour is that of a former abused child quietly testing the boundaries of whether he’s allowed to exist in a way that’s inconvenient for others, to which the answer from the Party has largely been yes provided he isn’t actively encouraging Trilby to get himself killed, or killing people without explaining himself). He survived alone before because that was all he knew, but I get the feeling he wouldn’t do so well if he tried to go it solo again after being with people (he’s already confessed that the idea of Feyli being gone makes him miss her). That’s not a road to walk on his best day, let alone with his current headspace and tendency towards self-destructive choices.

It reminds me a lot of this article:

“Still, it’s easier for us to keep blaming ourselves because it’s preferable to facing the unthinkable: the fact that our parents don’t love us. … Most people would rather do anything than accept this as the truth. Not only is it painful; it’s humiliating.”

So yeah, suffice to say I am incredibly concerned about how Morenthal’s arc is going to play out over the next session(s). Here’s hoping that Gelnek and/or Coil have enough emotional savvy to keep an eye out, and enough patience to stick to him even if he lashes out in attempt to drive them off. Even if it all works out okay, I get the feeling that this one’s going to be ugly.

Can’t wait to see how everyone chooses to play it ❤️‍🩹

#The Shaper of Minds #An artefact that is absolutely fascinating and whose implications make me PHYSICALLY NAUSEOUS if I contemplate them too much #(So now I must share that nausea with you all)#Session 26 is going to be so rough for the poor guy I feel anxious just thinking about it #I am CONCERNED FOR THE LAD #there is a nonzero chance that he could walk away from the best thing that's ever happened to him and that terrifies me #Also just to say: this is NOT me trying to enforce a certain reading of events or backseat game how Gamb and the cast should play things #I'm just indulgently speculating because I have a personal interest in trauma recovery and character analysis is my great love #child abuse discussed cw #gaslighting discussed cw #existential horror #Dan Jones and Dragons #DJ&D #The Flower Crowns of E'lythia #A Party to Forget #DJ&D Meta #DJ&D Spoilers #Morenthal #Morenthal (Wolfsbane)#Character analysis #(Also for anyone unfamiliar with this campaign: Yes. The villain of this arc WAS named Jon Wick. DJ&D is great)#3WD

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nevsclowntown · 2 years ago

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for the doodle prompts: hashirama making flower crowns for his brothers? ♥️ only if you fancy ofc :)

they managed to hunt tobirama down for his crown!

#hashirama senju #tobirama senju #kawarama senju #itama senju #senju siblings #naruto #doodle #ask #justsomeoneunordinary #THANK YOU THANK YOU #I LOVE THESE KIDS #and hashirama makes them flower crowns all the time!#giving them a bit of happiness #(whether tobirama says he likes it or not)#little crumpy gremlin child lmao #nevart #THANK YOU

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skyloftian-nutcase · 9 months ago

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Since you are apparently writing angst (I saw the post), and I know that it can be as cathartic as it is heart wrenching. That being said, have a fluffy picture

Hyrule made Sky a flower crown, and Sky in turn made Hyrule a tiny remlit statue (the tiny lizard on Hyrule's head is Lord Larry)

Awwww they’re adorable! And Lord Larry is a King and should be given all due respect and honor ❤️ Thank you very much for sharing this with me! ☺️

#you ask skye answers #lovely taddy cat #Now I want Hyrule to make me a flower crown #They’re so cute awww #lu sky #lu hyrule #lord larry #<- he deserves his own tag

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aquateenpatrolsomethingshowshow · 1 year ago

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OH MY GOD OH MY HECK 😭🥺😭🥺

#WHY 👏🏻 TF 👏🏻 ARE 👏🏻 YOU 👏🏻 SO 👏🏻 ADORABLE?!?! 👏🏻#HE IS THE GOOBY WOOBY OF ALL TIME #AND THE FLOWER CROWN MAKES HIM EVEN MORE PRECIOUS 🥺🥺🥺#I AM GETTING SO EMOTIONAL ABT HIM I NEED HELP 😭#i am so super duper normal abt meatwad (not at all)#athf #aqua teen #aqua teen hunger force #meatwad

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awakenthebeing · 2 years ago

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I've become obsessed with drawing piepoe now this is your fault. anyways i realized my pizza tower oc (who is just some kid peppino found) calls fake peppino "zio" (uncle) so she'd probably think piepoe was also her uncle

(piepoe is thinking "so small..." if that's hard to see)

BEHEHEH I APOLOGIZE....!!!! BUT OUGHGHGH THIS IS SOOO SOFT... SHE IS HOLDING THE LITTLE ONE SO KINDLY I love this!!!!! Caretaker!!!!! 🥹🥹🥹🥺🥺🥺💖💘💖💘💖💘💖💓💓💓‼️‼️‼️‼️ THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ADORABLE GIFT... IT IS SO FRIEND SHAPED!!!!

#this is such a soft artwork fr HE CARES ALL small creachers!! will give them pie and pick flowers with them #care!!!! thank you so much fr.... these arts are all so cute and so lovely!!!! thank you!!!#make sure to eat food and drink water and rest!! sending lots of love your way!!!! be safe!!!!#💓💘💘💖💘💓💘💖💘💖💘💖💘💖💘💖💘💖💘💖💘💘💓🥺🥺🥺‼️‼️#it would make a flower crown for the little friend!!!!!!!#Piepoe gifts

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suntraitor · 7 months ago

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im sorry mom and dad, i know i messed up bad

#scp 166 #dr clef #50th fucking drawing of me in jacks necklace bc guess what #im sad about it again!!!#i remember 035 being pissed when he saw us after what i did and i remember kondraki trying to talk to us and i remember how much-#shame jack felt #im sorry jack #im sorry dad #i did what i had to do #lyrics are from parents by anna clending #vent #sorry to vent on main and in the scp tag guys #i will do it again #PLEASE DO NOT TAG AS ME//RI I HATE BEING CALLED THAT NAME SO FUCKING MUCH #i honestly just need to cry it out but i wanted to draw #someone talk to me about my memories i promise its not all traumatic #like fr one minute im making flower crowns for my friends and the next im killing myself for the ''greater good''#fuck the foundation #and fuck you too jack but i forgive you #epon.txt #traitor art #or whatever the fuck our art tag is #might post more vent art later but t b h i just wanna sleep i oddly miss my cell. i miss cain and able #i miss my brothers ^

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witchwhaat · 9 months ago

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OKAY EVERYONE STAY FOCUSED IT'S JUN TIME

#okay ignoring the mistakes he's making it look so effortless???#YEEES THE CHOREO #JUN I LOVE YOU #looks like he's doing better🥺#hope he's not in any pain #i'm so so proud and happy that he got that bronze he deserves it #omg a flower crown waaah #CONGRATS BELOVED #figure skating #agnes talking

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softquietsteadylove · 2 years ago

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So, I've got a prompt for you.

I love movies and tv series and they are all so different from each other but also have so much things in common. And there is one thing i can picture our beloved men from Eternals in.

I think at least one time in their whole time on earth, Ajak forced her children to spend time together, in groups. So while Ajak is dragging her daughters around, the group of men are forced to hang out with each other. And a full men group, hanging out, means normal conversations drifting to uncomfortable and awkward conversations (for at least one or two individuals.) So I'd like to ask you to write Kingo, Phastos, Druig, Ikaris and Gilgamesh (god i love him, malewife) in such a situation, maybe sparring together, drinking alcohol but the most important: talking about (their) girls! (or boys, or whatever preference our individuals have in a partner)

"This fuckin' sucks."

No one spoke up to agree with Druig, but certainly no one argued with him, either.

Ajak was with the other half of the Eternals, having brought Sersi, Makkari, Thena and Sprite with her to the beautiful natural springs just outside the palace grounds. India was so mild in climate, and they were still getting used to the place after arriving short of a month ago.

She had claimed it was mother-daughter bonding time, and encouraged they do the same. Gil and Kingo had certainly had their reservations, while Ikaris, Druig and Phastos had quickly asserted that they would rather let the villagers burn them on the pyre.

And yet here they were.

Kingo took a sip of his...whatever it was. He winced a little at it, staring into the fire they'd built simply for something to do and occupy their time. He was the most antsy, the rest of them having devolved into silence naturally. Which wasn't really Kingo's style. "Is anyone going to say anything, or...?"

"Just did," Druig barked at him from an entirely separate log bench all to himself, "sucks."

"Oi," Ikaris snarled at him, which did nothing to improve the atmosphere. He leaned on his knees, also sitting on a separate log bench.

Phastos was occupying himself with whatever, using his powers for something or other, ignoring them all deliberately. Also on his own log.

Gil sighed, staring up at the moon from where he had given upon talking and simply laid down on the ground.

Kingo turned around to look at Gil, lying down behind him, "what's with you?"

The Strongest Eternal shrugged, absently pulling up a bite of mango for himself. "I wonder what Thena's thinking about right now."

A round of loud groans hit the air, startling the birds in the trees.

"What?" Gil sat up with a frown at his band of brothers.

"Thena-this, and Thena-that," Phastos supplied readily, rolling his eyes the hardest at it.

"Oh, come on," Gil huffed, but he looked over as Druig barked out a sharp laugh at him.

"Gil, you ever heard yer own thoughts, mate?" the mind reader snickered, poking at his own temple as he said it. "Thena-this and Thena-that is exactly what you're thinkin'--always!"

Gil sighed, dusting himself off and sitting himself on Kingo's log properly. "I don't see the problem."

"You wouldn't," Ikaris snorted, and this time Gil took a little more offense to it. "You've got all that muscle and not a single one in your brain."

Gil picked up a rock and flicked it at the Soaring Eternal. For any mortal, it would have gone clean through their head like a bullet, but Ikaris snarled as it bounced off his forehead like a nut shell. "Aren't you supposed to be getting married soon? I'd expect you to have thoughts of nothing but your future wife."

Ikaris also soured at having his fiancee brought up. "Some of us can think of more than one thing at a time."

"Okay," Phastos held a hand in both of their directions, as if trying to soothe savage beasts. "No one has to talk about anyone's wives, y'animals."

"Let 'em have it out, Phastos," Druig laughed, picking up a pear for himself and biting into it with a disgusting amount of gusto. Chunks and juice flew from his mouth as he pointed, "I wanna shee what 'appensh!"

"Close your damn mouth when you're eating!" Phastos barked at the 'youngest' of them present.

"All that'll happen is Ajak getting mad at us," Kingo pointed out liberally. He patted Gil's shoulder, knowing that he was the more easily reasoned with between him and Ikaris. "Look Gil, I support you, and your gross, sappy romanticism."

"Thanks," Gil sneered at him and his 'support'. He turned his glare in Druig's direction, "I don't bring up you following Kari around, now do I?"

"Oi," Druig grumbled.

Phastos shared a look with Kingo, both of them entirely capable of disparaging their siblings in similar and opposite ways. Phastos wasn't opposed to the vessel, but needed the right soul. Kingo was proudly uninterested in everyone equally.

Ikaris also looked up at the moon and sighed. "What're they even doing?"

Kingo looked at Druig, "what did mother-daughter bonding mean?"

Druig snarled up one side of his nose and lips. "You think I'm in everyone's heads all the fuckin' time?"

"Kinda."

"Well, m'not," Druig shrugged, tossing away his pear seeds and reaching for a fresh one. "That'd be exhausting."

"Whose thoughts are the loudest?"

"Yours."

"I don't believe you," Kingo countered just as quickly as Druig had. He got a look for it but shrugged. "Maybe sometimes, sure. But it can't always be me."

Druig chuckled, bobbing his head in Gil's direction, "who'd you think? It's Mister Thena over 'ere."

"What do you mean they're loud?" Gil crossed his arms in his defense.

"Just what it sounds like, Gil," Druig offered at least slightly more amiable than he had been before. "S'not like shoutin', I guess. But they're...they're loud and clear. All the time."

"Like wh-"

"Thena," all four other Eternals answered for him simultaneously. Gil pursed his lips, feeling his cheeks warm. But at least the others were smiling and laughing (even if it was at his expense).

Druig slapped his knee in glee. "It's always 'where's Thena?', or 'wonder what Thena's up to', or 'I miss Thena' from you."

"Okay, okay," Gil sighed. It wasn't as if he had a correction to make, or even a defense to it. Those certainly sounded like his thoughts.

"Her too."

"Huh?" Gil blinked, hearing a much softer follow up from Druig.

The solitary Eternal was looking down at his pear, toying with it in his hands as the truth of his words made him quieter. He offered Gil a smile. "She's the same way--if you somehow didn't know."

"Thena?" Gil blinked.

"Yeah, Thena?" Kingo repeated from next to him. "I mean, I don't doubt it about Gil, but I figured T was...harder to read."

Druig grinned, shaking his head. He became a little more sheepish, but shrugged. "Most'a the time, yeah. But when it's about Gil here...she's clear as a bell."

Kingo just nodded, taking another sip of (whatever). "Wouldn't have guessed."

"First time I caught it I thought I was fucked," Druig shook his head. "T doesn't take kindly t'me pokin' around, 'course. But this thought just--it shot out like an arrow."

"What was it?" Gil asked, unable to resist.

Druig looked at him, offering a much more genuine smile, "Gil."

He just stared, "yeah--I'm asking."

"No, that's it," Druig chuckled, shaking his head again and ruffling his hair for good measure. "Just Gil--she walks around with your name in 'er head like the breath in 'er lungs. I had to learn to block it out--s'like a clock, tick-tick-tickin' away in the background."

Gil looked like he could burst with joy.

Ikaris cleared his throat faintly, already ruddy cheeked when the others looked at him. "Does, uh, Sersi-"

"Don't know, haven't checked."

"Okay!" Phastos stood, clapping his hands together before Ikaris could pick up Druig and throw him clear across the Ganges. "Why don't I reach out to Ajak and see what they're up to?"

Druig rolled his eyes as a loud and clear I want to see Thena floated into his mind. Gil was like an unchecked faucet--sometimes dripping, sometimes on full blast, but always leaking in some way.

"That's a good idea," Ikaris growled as he floated back down to his log, fists still clenched and eyes still glowing.

"Well," Kingo sighed as he set down his nondescript beverage. "What an unproductive discussion."

"Speak for yourself," Gil chuckled, nudging his most jovial brother's arm.

#I do think this is exactly how a conversation like this would go #because first of all #these five in particular #do not want to all hang out together #Even malewives extraordinaire Druig and Gil #don't want to talk to Ikaris let alone about the loves of their lives #Kingo thinks it's all very boring #unless it's funny and then he loves to get the gossip #even if it's about his brothers and sisters being in love #and yes that's how he phrases it #much to all their distress #Phastos is like I hate each and every one of you I hate this family #but he is the responsible brother in charge of every camping trip #and of course Gil is just moping around like I wish my wife were here #and listen...Thena's the same way #she's over in the springs with her sisters and their Prime #She and Sersi are braiding each other's hair while Ajak and Makkari are making little flower crowns #Sprite is lying face down in the water trying to achieve drowning #and Thena is sighing every five seconds until they're like jesus what the fuck is it???#and she's like what?#obviously she misses Gil they all know that #but Thena's like that's silly I know where he is and that he's unharmed #I don't miss him #I just want to be near him and feel him next to me and breathe the same air as him #like babygirl is down bad HORRENDOUS #Thenamesh...themed?#Thenamesh AU #let's say

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