#i'd have to do more research to see what her parents thought. if they had any response at all.

[iruiji]

° just smol headcannons before I get swamped with work for the next week (⁠´⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠.̫⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠`⁠)

Also, spoilers.

- Unknowingly, player has been given the title of 'Aeon of Guidance' (coined by wonderful @amimo3, thank you) and is generally known as the main driving force behind the Trailblazers' journey - (it was originally the Aeon of Akivili, which represents the Path of The Trailblaze, but they're dead last I checked, so for the sake of this AU we'll be the main force now but like in honor of the dead Aeon), to save planets from Stellarons.

- Naturally, as time progresses with you looking out for the team, they learned to trust your decisions more. Like, if there's a hard choice they have to make they kinda expect you to make the choice (and it is you making the choice from your screen), or like hinting at them what to do. Welt and Himeko seemd like untrusting at first, but after some time they warmed up a bit and consider you as the 3rd parent of these dolts (HUH).

- The Trailblazers now get more attention than they've ever had and it's a mix of pros and cons, really. People had been contacting them like crazy until Herta helped them from blocking some of the offending/nagging ones. And let's not even start at the countless gifts appearing like crazy at the places they've been into and the people that swarm them after saving their planet/ship (for now it's only the space station/belobog).

- At the Herta Space Station, Asta placed a small room dedicated for the new Aeon filled with offerings of food (which get cleaned everyday), trinkets and generally notes and books (it was mentioned by the Trailblazer that they like collecting books and other collectibles). Unlike the people from Belobog, however, the researches are not that deep in worshipping because they're still scientists (you know how in our world scientists don't believe in god rule because it may hamper in their research? kinda like that).

- At Belobog, which the Trailbalzers saved with the Aeon, people are much more open on focusing their worship on them. Bronya has built a small temple at the Administrative District and one at the Underworld (with the help of Wildfire and the Silvermane Guards). Due to the place being trapped in eternal winter, people mostly give small, metal trinkets akin to snowflake (guess who thought of making this a business? spoiler: it's sampo.), and the wealthier ones give books as offerings (books are pricey in Belobog, I'd assume?).

(Trailblazer collects all of these, don't worry. Gotta complete the inventory y'all.)

- Let's go at Xianzhou Luofu for a moment.

- I feel like at Xianzhou Luofu, people are not that.. open at worshipping a new Aeon, since they had an ugly past from the Aeon of Abundance, and now they mainly worship the Aeon of Hunt because it's the one who've helped them fight the Mara that plagues the population of said ship.

- But then the Trailblazers came, and they are aware of the new Aeon which saved Jarilo-VI, but again, new Aeon might just be a new danger for them that's why they initially rejected their request to help them from the Stellaron.

- Jing Yuan though, he's intrigued. First, the Divination Commission cannot get information about the new Aeon (Fu Xuan cannot see anything, like Mona trying to peek at Venti's constellation and her clothes got ripped instead). It's been millenia since the discovery of the last Aeon, and now, a new, young one? How? Why? And why only now they deigned to help the universe? Shouldn't they have done that a long time ago? He surmised that, given they've only appeared when the MC woke up, they must be connected with each other - and this influenced him to consider their offer.

- What he did not expect, however, was the Aeon's gaze lingering on him even the Trailblazers left the room.

MC and co. be like: What? Where their Grace?

Ppl inside the meeting room: *sweating bullets* What is happening? Why is an Aeon staring at us?

- THEY DIDN'T KNOW READER IS SIMPING FOR JING YUAN. SUE ME LOL

- And then POV switched to Dan Heng hurriedly leaving the express after learning Blade is at the Xianzhou, and then meeting Sushang and Luocha.

- Luocha, in his credit, easily masked his shock after feeling the intense gaze from this.. Aeon? Is this the new rumored Aeon of Guidance that is folowing the people from the Astral Express? (YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE THAT HE DOESN'T KNOW WHO DAN HENG REALLY IS.) Sushang at the other hand, almost fell on her knees, but wisely did not comment about it.

- Dan Heng has mixed feelings about the Aeon switching gaze to him and his current acquiantances, texting the MC but the message is still being unsent. For now, the three of them navigate the Mara-infested place towards the main city, hoping that Blade hasn't done anything to his *cough* found family *cough* yet.

- HE CAN ALSO FEEL THE AEON'S INTENSE GAZE AT LUOCHA LOL (re: simp re: re: le simp) he thought it was because of the coffin, lol, so naturally he's more inclined to be cautious of it. Sushang is busy guiding them, however, and seemed not aware of what's happening.

- After another fight his phone chimed, and he checked it hurriedly, sighing in relief when he learned they haven't met Blade. MC also checked if the Aeon was on him, because they lost them for quite some time now, and he told them he's with other people and he's on his way to them, and that yes, the gaze is directed at him right now.

PLS HOYO JUST LET MY BABIES MEET AGAIN

- Idk about y'all but I chose to drink the medicine that blind doctor from Xianzhou gave me - so I'll translate that as MC questioning the decision if they're really going to drink it, but like being 50/50 about it but it's you and there's no way you'd put them in danger, so they took the medicine at the end.

- For the Stellaron Hunters, you became some sort of.. an enigma, because Elio - for all his depiction of future this and destiny that, haven't really spoken even one thing about you. And that's, well, suspicious. I know, I know, they're not supposed to question Elio, but the thought lingers. Like, is Elio not talking about you because you're useless to their mission and for that, doesn't matter? Or there's some more deeper reason?

- While Kafka and Silver Wolf met the new Aeon, Blade was already at Xianzhou Luofo at that point, so he missed it. But then the cutscene of him talking with Jing Yuan and Yanqing was shown, and he felt it. That warm, comforting feeling Kafka explained to him at one point during their last talk. He took a quick glance at the General and his Lieutenant, smirking in sadistic glee at the brief expressions of confusion as they seem to feel the gaze too, albeit quick. (Because that scene happened before MC got to Xianzhou Luofo if I'm not mistaken).

Ah, man. Kinda hard to do HC during this time coz the game has barely any story about Xianzhou 🤣 This is sitting in my drafts for a week so better just post it before I dip to hibernate ig. Maybe I'll tackle about DragonHeng during the next story update 👌🏻 (AAAAAAAAAAAA I'M SO DOWN BAD FOR HIM LORD PLS)

And I'm sorry for that user who tried to request something, but my feeble brain cannot connect it and still thinking of what to do 💀

[pixiekwixie]

The Observation - 1

➺ Miguel O'Hara x Reader || Mature, 18+

➺ Summary - In which Miguel struggles to keep his hands and eyes off his lab assistant.

- Next chapter

➺ warnings - slow burn(?), kissing/making out(?), lot sexual tension, story night be long sorry, some choking, some biting, masturbating (nipple play, fingering, dildo usage, anal play, double orgasm), mentions of breeding

➺ words - 3.7k

➺ notes: i had to get this off my chest, there will be 2 more parts to this, i hope you guys enjoy it. this is also cross-posted to (depending on where you're reading this) tumblr, and ao3; let me know what you guys think; might also write some wholesome sunshine x moody stuff in the future if it works out :)

--- 🕷 ---

"Hey" a voice said from the corner. Startled, you whip your head back to find Jessica caressing her tummy as she sat down on a chair, making herself quite at home. She was a couple of months along now and, by the looks of it, very comfortable in her pajamas.

"Jess, it's not safe for you and the baby...." you sigh, looking back at your computer to resume your work. Jessica urged you to take a break, to sit down and have a conversation but you only shrugged it off by mentioning you were almost done.

"You know, I'd thought you'd hate working here" she watched your back, waiting for a reaction. "There's a lot of wonderful technology here that my Earth doesn't have..." you trail off, focusing more on the work in front of you. You were so close to the end, and although Jess was wonderful, you just wanted to finish things before relaxing.

"I meant, I thought you'd hate working for Miguel"

You looked back at her with furrowed brows, pausing your work, she knew what made you tick and used that to her advantage. Miguel was your boss and there was nothing to hate except his attitude. Sometimes you couldn't stand him, but the combination of advanced technology, your own space, and a mini fridge- definitely outweighed any of his moodiness. It took a lot of convincing for you to join, and had you known he was this broody you probably wouldn't have joined.

At the beginning, you were stubborn on joining the Spider Society because you had thought it was a pity invite, given that you felt you were more intelligent than agile. Although you admit your body was pretty strong and durable- it was only because your parents had enrolled you in a strenuous amount of classes that ranged from dance to karate- and even cooking. The classes had helped with getting into a good college that allowed you to pursue your dream career, but you never sought out anything besides yoga.

When you got bitten by a radioactive Black Widow you thought it was the end of your story, that your years of classes and college were coming to an end, eventually you realized that you weren't actually dying. And as time went on you started to see the new things you could do, and you embraced them. You were excited, you began practicing moves and spent a lot of time learning how to use your webs properly. You felt like you could become a hero, save lives, and become a beacon of hope for your city.

After some rough events that left you feeling depressed, you decided that becoming a hero was no longer something you could pursue. You felt upset about your own decision for days, you felt useless doing nothing but you felt the same way doing something. The life of a hero felt emotionally, and physically, taxing on yourself and the people around you. With time you managed to overcome the guilt and began to understand that there were different ways save people.

Your new path was to be promoted at the Alchemax company in your world- they were good, you had deemed it so after hearing what they had done in other Earths. Eventually you wanted to lead a research department that could help hospitals, and homeless, worldwide.

Even though the current path was similar to that of a superhero, you still felt an immense guilt in your chest. You thought that your powers were a miracle that should be used, but you couldn't, it's not what you wanted anymore and if you went back now- it would only make things worse.

Miguel had spent many months sending Jessica to your dimension to convince you to join the Spider Society. Every time you gave a different reason to reject the offer, feeling as though you wouldn't bring much value to the team.

It only took the man himself showing up at your apartment, on a Tuesday at 3 am, for you to join. He explained thoroughly why he wanted you, although crude, you felt recognized for something other than your powers. It felt like he provided the missing reassurance you needed, you joined.

"He leaves me alone for the most part, the only interactions we have is him sending me emails, and me going to his 'office' to give him his drugs for the week," you let out a soft laugh, you had to admit, was very handsome under all of the stress, responsibility and arrogance. Despite his handsome looks, you still thought he was an asshole that needed to comprehend people better.

"He's demanding though, and... AND rude" rising from you chair, you scrunch your nose and walk to the coffee machine. There's only so much water could do for your nerves if you continued to speak about Miguel's attitude, as of recent it had been worse and you had no idea why. You tried to understand but he'd only shut you out and demand you leave him alone.

"He just want things to go accordingly for the multiverse... even if he's a little-"

"Harsh? Come on, he basically called me useless the other day because I misread the number seven- SEVEN" you raise your voice while adding stuff to your coffee. Holding the sugar container in one hand with a tight grip, it made you upset that he wasn't considerate of his words. You had worked hard to prove he could trust you, and that he hadn't made the wrong choice but his attitude made it hard to work with him.

"That's why I've been late on my reports, ideas, paperwork AND his serum. He needs to learn to respect people, especially me, who makes sure he doesn't go apeshit" Jessica raised an eyebrow at your statement, sure you could be late on paperwork but, being late to give him his liquid gold? The thing he needed to not lash out on his instincts? The thing that helped him keep his powers? She almost thought it was cruel, but she knew you felt stressed and didn't want to make it worst by making you feel bad.

"That sounds cruel but I promise it's not-"

Before Jessica could reply, a deeper voice spoke.

"Oh yeah? Let's talk about that"

It was Miguel and your heard started to pound faster, your hand gripped your coffee cup tight in hope that he hadn't heard what you said. Your nerves grew as you looked around and watched him emerge from a corner, his suit glowing bright with every step, even the way he walked spoke volume about his attitude.

Sure, you had problems with him but you sure as hell were not telling him about them, it's the last thing you needed. He had practically built this place from the ground up and could see everything that everyone was doing if he wanted to- even you, sometimes it creeped you but at this moment it felt erotic.

"Miguel she's stressed she probably didn't mean it, give her a break" Jess watched his back at he made his way towards you, "This isn't about you Jess" he spoke with a quick glance at her, her face dropped to a stoic expression that scared you and it wasn't even directed towards you.

"Miguel" you groan as you watched him walk towards you, hands on his hips as his eyes narrowed at you through his mask.

"I need to talk with you" he leaned down a little to your level, the eyes on his mask narrowed to mirror his face under it. Was he really that mad at what you had said? It's not like he hasn't said worse, except he usually doesn't feel bad about it.

Something about his proximity made you hot despite the growing tension, but it wasn't the nerves anymore, you suddenly felt hyper aware of everything around you but it all slowly led down to the man I front of you, something about him made you feel this way, something smelled so good and it was coming from him, was he wearing some type of cologne? What was so different?

"S-Seriously, you could at least tell me beforehan-"

"You wanna explain to me why-"

"Oh wow, I have to go to the gyno" Jess said abruptly while slowly getting up from her chair. You and Miguel turn to her with confused looks at the sudden declare but her eyes held the same expression as before.

She raised her hand to stop you from saying anything.

"I'm not gonna stick around for an argument, you two need to figure it out" she spoke with a look to Miguel. With a brief smile towards you she walked out the doors that shut behind her and the tension in the air became more obvious as the two of you were left alone.

"I give you one job, and it's to follow my formula, but instead you decide to be unprofessional and talk about me behind my back" Miguel's brows knit together as he looked down at you with glowing red eyes. You tried speak but nothing came out, not because you were intimidated, but because you felt your chest heave with heat at the sight of his crimson eyes.

Closing your eyes you take a deep breath to center yourself and shake off the feeling of imploding heat that was blossoming at your core. Looking back at him you found him pacing round while he muttered things in Spanish that made your tummy churn, pushing your feelings aside you take a deep breathe to center yourself.

Was this a hormonal imbalance?

"Why does it bother you so much this time? I told you 2 weeks ago I was backed up with stuff on my earth and that your-" You were abruptly interrupted with the speedy sight of him in front of you, his eyes were darker and held an intense look like he was analyzing your every feature. He was so close you could feel his breathing tickle the skin of your cheeks, it made the heat blossom inside of you again.

"I've been trying to hold it together and you think it's a game?" He seethed, inching closer until you could practically brush your nose against his, your heart pounded at the notion he was merely inches from being able to kiss you. Forgetting the coffee in your hand you attempt to raise a hand to his cheek but he stopped you by grabbing your wrist with a fast motion, the grip was tight but not hurtful. With a small wince you look up at him again only to see dark look wash over his features, were his eyes more vibrant now?

"Don't," he snarled, not breaking contact with your eyes. Why did you find his anger so attractive? There was something behind that look in his eyes that was pulling you in, the more you stood together the more your body felt attracted to him, so much so that you were starting to feel turned on with your walls pulsed in an erratic way that needed him.

Why the fuck is this happening?

"Y/n" he whispered in a way that made your back shiver, you noticed his eyes look relaxed and rather dazed like he was hot under his suit. Could he be feeling the same way as you? Did he want you as well?

"Y-Yes?" your voice was shaky, breathy, and basically pleading for him for him to do something.

His face slowly leaned down into yours, turning to the side only to brush his lips softly against yours w. Your eyes widened, you could practically hear your heart pounding in your ears as he finally pressed his lips against yours.

Moving against your lips slowly he lowered your wrist to the table behind you. The same hand he used now held your hip steadily as the kiss grew deeper, heavier, and wetter. His tongue prodded your lips and with a small squeeze to your hip you allowed for his tongue to explore your mouth.

Your head felt hazy, and your core pulsed more than before in anticipation. Pulling away from your mouth with a string of saliva connecting you both, you bat your eyelashes up at him with the hope that things progress into something more intimate.

His breathing was rapid yet heavy, and his eyes were full of lust and want with the way you looked up at him. His grip on your hip tightened as his eyelids drooped to admire the saliva on your lip that threatened to fall, before it could drip down to your chin he smashed his lips onto yours- licking the saliva into his own mouth.

His tongue lapped at your lips, and pushed through to feel every crevice within your mouth. With shaky hands you place your arms around his neck as you let him do whatever he pleased, weaving your fingertips into his hair you tug on them a bit which only earned a deep groan from him.

Pulling back from you, he stared intently into your eyes before abruptly wrapping a hand around your throat and applying pressure to the sides. Your eyes closed and your core pulsed repeatedly at the tightness of his hands around your neck, moaning softly into his face you open your eyes to find a droplet of sweat on his forehead.

"You like that, hm? Princesa?" He whispered into your ear, a whiny moan escaped your throat at the feelings of his lips on your ear, using the hand on your neck he maneuvered your face to the side- leaving your neck exposed to him.

You could feel your nipples were fully erect as they pressed uncomfortably against the material of your bra. Opening your eyes, you look down at him only see an intense, and hungry look on his face. Keeping his eyes locked onto yours he pressed his lips onto the delicate skin of your neck, planting small kisses that burnt onto your flesh in a savory manner that made your core gush with arousal.

"M-Miguel..." you mutter as you close your eyes to bask in the pleasure of his lips on your skin, tightening the grip on your throat he bit onto your neck unexpectedly. Gasping at the bite, your fingers held tightly at the hand he had wrapped around your neck- using it to stabilize yourself as he started sucking at your neck, the way his lips enveloped your skin and his tongue worked against you felt like he was trying to feed himself off you.

His actions came to a stop, the hand on your neck had gone too and you opened your eyes to be greeted by an empty view of your lab filled with bright-lit screens and papers scattered. Just like it was before Miguel appeared. Lifting your hand up to your neck you feel the marks of his teeth along with the saliva on your neck that left a warm spot at the touch. In a moment of heat and desperation you bring those fingers to your mouth and suck on them, he was gone for now and and the only trace you had of him was the remnants of his mouth n your neck. Sucking and licking the tips of your fingers making sure to intake any trace there was of him, moaning into your fingers you suck the tips before pulling them out and imagining they were his.

You were still in a hazy view of want and need for him, it would be hard to forget this moment if you saw him again. With blouse and slowly sat down on the floor, holding your chest with both hands you try to slow down your breathing.

"Where did you go..." you whisper to yourself as a pang of sadness hit your chest at the thought he left during a moment where you weren't arguing for once. It had all felt so good but to you, it would've felt better if he had stayed.

Calming down and regulating your breath you realized you would have to see him tomorrow to give him his dose for the next week. You didn't know if you wanted to see again after leaving you just like that.

You hated him for leaving you like that without a trace but you hated that you wanted so much more than just a couple nips to the neck.

--- 🕷 ---

Back in your universe, you were laid in bed watching TV as you thought about the events of earlier, the things he whispered into your ear, the way he touched you, the way his lips felt on your neck and the tight embrace he held around your neck.

Throwing the blankets off you head off your dresser where your dildo was. You had never really used it before as you were always busy with work but today was different, there was a man that awoke something inside of you that had laid dormant. And that man was your boss, Miguel.

Kicking your bottoms off you lie down on your bed again and spread your legs open letting cool air hit your nether lips in a tantalizing way. Discarding the dildo to the side, you bring one of your hands down to your pussy, rubbing in an upwards motion that spread the wetness up to your clit. Groaning at the sensation you rub your erect clit in a slow circular motion, the feeling alone had you throwing your head back with a breathy moan.

You drew your legs up and in until it was just your core fully exposed to the atmosphere of your room, circling your clit faster you used your other hand to lift up your shirt and and rub at your nipples with a feathery touch. The simultaneous stimulation made you moan as you felt your walls clench fast, you had been so desperate to relieve yourself that you could cum at any moment.

Pulling and twisting your nipples you start going faster, your breathing becoming more erratic and you could feel the coil in your abdomen start to come undone but before you could finish you stopped. Your pussy quivered at the denial as your chest hiccupped from the intensity of being so close to the end, it felt like your entire body was spasming and dripping with heat from the denial.

You throw your shirt off quickly and lie back down to spread yourself open again. Rubbing your fingers up and down with a moan you slowly insert two fingers inside of your wet warm walls that quivered around the length of your digits. Pumping your fingers in and out slowly you moan at the idea of his fingers being the ones inside you filling up your throbbing pussy. Hooking your finger in a little you lift you back from the bed at the sensation of your softest spot, pumping in particularly hard at an angle that made you pussy drip more liquid gold onto your sheets.

Your walls pulsed erratically around your fingers as you sped up, your mouth contorting into an 'o' as you felt yourself growing closer. Bringing your other hand down to rub your clit at the same pace you moaned his name as you continued to imagine it was him driving his fingers into your wet hole.

"F-Fuck M-Miguel-" your clit quivered and the coil in your belly came undone, your insides gripped onto your digits harder trying to prevent them from leaving, your body secreting juices that trickled down your anus and sheets.

Pulling your fingers out reluctantly you slide them down to your anus and circle the rim in a slow teasing manner that aroused you again. Pushing a finger inside your eyes fluttered at the pressure- you began to pump in and out in a very slow motion using the wetness from before that made it easier to move in and out.

With your other hand you rub the head of the dildo on your clit in a fast circular motion, hooking the finger in your ass you pumped faster while your clit quivered into a second orgasm. The walls of your ass started to clench as your finger brushed on the soft spot that sent shockwaves to your pussy. You started panting heavily as your pussy and ass throbbed simultaneously, getting closer towards being tipped over the edge you went faster, until your pussy started dripping onto the sheets again.

Pulling the finger out of your ass with a small pop, you grab the dildo and line up the tip with your dripping hole, you felt anxious and excited to be filled up with something thicker than your digits. You slowly ease the tip in, and with a loud moan you began to push the rest of the length inside of you until it fit snuggly in your walls.

"Miguel... fuck me p-please..." you whined as your pulled the dildo all the way out only to smack it back in, pumping in and out with a steady speed where length brushed against every itch within your walls that needed to be filled. Your started getting faster as you thought about him pumping himself inside of your pussy to breed you and use you for his own pleasure.

Your tummy churned as you started to near the edge again, the images of him bent over you driving his cock inside of you, filling you with his cum and knocking you up was enough to to send you over the edge. You slowly rode out your orgasm with the image of him painting your insides full of his seed and filling you up until you were dripping onto the sheets. Coming down to a stop you sighed as you body shook at the intensity, no one had ever made you so wet just by thinking about them.

Your body ached and yearned for him, it was truly strange as you had never felt this way for anyone before. Miguel was different and something about him had set your body ablaze in a way you couldn't stop.

"How the fuck am I going to face him tomorrow..."

--- 🕷 ---

[nonbinarypirat]

A fellow enjoyer of mairuma who likes reading others headcanons/interpretations here! just thought I'd share my own headcanons

1.) I think the misfits lack parental validation from one or more parental figures so they seek that validation from someone else, like Kalego. He, as their homeroom teacher, knows full well what they're capable of and actively gives them harder challenges to further bring out their potential. So I think the misfits would seek near impossible tasks not just for the fun of it, but to receive validation from someone they look up to.

2.) I believe that Kalego shows his love in pride. And when I say love, I mean all love; familial, romantic, platonic, and the kind that you know is there but don't have a name for. I guess a good example would be Balam, his closest friend and well-respected researcher. Balam would have achieved great things in his field of research and Kalego would be very proud of him for it, though I doubt he would explicitly show it. The same would go for his students. A mix-match group of kids who have, more than once, taken the impossible and made it reality while proving him wrong every chance they get.

(also a small group of demon plus one human children have better cooperation skills than most adult demons. yes demons are self-centered but i do think its really funny.)

well, these are my headcanons sorry if its really wordy. what are your thoughts on them and what are your mairuma headcanons?

thx for reading and have a good day/night :D

I have been fully focused into my classes and college recently since I’m in my third year (we’re so close to the finishing line yall) but YES I love this!! One, I appreciate you sending me this since I haven’t done a post for a while! I promise im still here and I’m keeping up with the recent chapters 🫡. But yeah, I just love Kalego as a character. Like, he really is my favorite because I love a rude and snide character who you can tell cares a lot. Even if he won’t tell you that.

Kalego cares deeply for his students. Like sure, they annoy him and are goofballs. But at the end of the day, he is also protective of them. He knows they can accomplish great things and that’s why he’s hard on them, it’s not due to a lack of love. His pride is his way of showing affection. He will do his damnest to make sure you succeed and through his little actions, the characters can tell that he’s proud of them too. It’s the little moments with Kalego that make them know he does deeply care for them.

And yes, I also have a head cannon that for many of the misfits, they are lacking in some sort of parental or familiar love. Obviously we can’t say this for certain for all the characters, but it just feels like that’s why, no matter how much they complain about him, he also means a lot to them too.

As for my other head cannons… One head cannon I have (with the little info we have so far) is that Elizabetta grew up similarly to that little girl from Ouran Host Club, ya know the sister of the black magic club president? That is to say, I think she’s loaded but was primarily raised by her maids who gave her a lot of the romance books to keep her entertained. I think her parents were never really around. Or if they were, they don’t have her a ton of attention. I guess this is more of a head cannon slash theory? But when we see the house visits, we don’t even see her parents. A lot of them you saw the parents, a back shot or their torso. Something. We even saw Kalego call some of the parents. But her parents just wasn’t in the frame and she just kept showing him the things in her room which gives me the feeling she had a lot of material goods they bought her, but maybe not their affection. We also don’t see any adult when we learn about her ambition. Which is why I think she’s so attached to love, she is reaching for a connection she may not feel she has with her parents. And maybe in a way, she’s wants to build a family that will actually appreciate her the way she wants. Which to me makes the relationship to the misfits even more special because she finally has the love and pride of her found family. Idk, just a silly head cannon I have based on current knowledge!

[sporesgalaxy]

updated a little flashback Vladlence script thing that I started writing in like 2020. some of you may remember this comic

Smile :)

•••

[The year is 1990-something-- before Vlad betrayed and temporally displaced Silence that one time. Vlad and Silence (in human disguise) are at some kind of businesspeople shindig. They've stepped outside for some air and are basically alone. Vlad has a glass of wine.]

S: Lord. I'd forgotten how tedious these are.

V: They're really not worth it unless you can drink. It was so much worse when my parents would drag me to these as a child.

S: Hm. I didn't mind my father's business functions, but my ex-husband's were insufferable.

V: [chokes on wine] "Ex-husband?"

S: Well... "Ex" in that my untimely departure left him a widower, yes.

V: ...is he a--

S: [rolling eyes] NO, he is not a ghost.

V: Still! How have you not mentioned him once?

S: [shrugs] It didn't come up.

V: That isn't fair! I've spilled my guts to you for your research. You HAVE to tell me something!

S: You're being ridiculous.

V: ...That's it. I've decided.

S: Decided what?

V: The favor you owe me for bringing you along as my plus-one tonight!

S: Oh, please! All I've learned this evening is that you're still capable of being intoxicated by normal amounts of human alcohol.

S: Now, you've learned that I had a husband once, a very long time ago. I'd say we're already even.

V: [pouts]

S: Why does it even matter to you?

V: .........if I say, will you tell me more about your human life?

S: I--! Oh, fine. Whatever. Yes.

V: Because marriage is--! It's--! Marriage is everything! It changes your whole life! You finally have someone to always be there for you, in sickness and in health and all that.

V: How could you just...[mimes swatting something out of the air with his free hand] move on, after that? It makes no sense!

S: [tuts, rolls her eyes] You're insufferably romantic, you know that?

S: Marriage is not "everything." My marriage had everything to do with finances, and precious little to do with anything else.

V: ...Oh.

S: That's less common these days, I'll admit, but forgive me if I still feel you're overselling it.

V: ...Well...Still, he was there, right? At least you had someone.

S: [annoyed] Sure. Can we talk about something else now?

V: Did you have a family? [leans against the balcony, resting his chin on a hand, smiling expectantly]

S: [frowning] ...Not the change of subject I was hoping for.

V: [just keeps looking expectantly]

S: [sighs heavily] [trying to be annoying on purpose] Well, I had a mother and father, two siblings-- both of which died in infancy-- and on my mother's side, my cousins--

V: [impatiently] I meant with your husband!

S: [twitches] ...No. It was just he and I, and then I died.

V: Oh.

S: [snarky & bitter] ...Then, he remarried a nice young lady who got to keep all of our money. They, I believe, had several children together.

[Silence is quiet in a sort of uncomfortable angry way. Vlad, oblivious, gets lost in his own thoughts.]

both: .......

V: [CLEARLY thinking about Maddie. a bit dreamily] ...do you ever wish that you could do it all over?

[Vlad is looking at the sky, and doesnt see the judgemental, incredulous look Silence immediately shoots him]

V: That you had more time to make it work?

S: [humorless laugh] HAH! No!

V: [snapped out of his reminiscing, looks at her, surprised] No?

S: [like its an uninteresting, obvious fact] My life didn't have anything worth going back to.

V: [disgust directed at the percieved failure of the faceless husband figure] He was that bad?

S: [waves dismissively] No, no. Our marriage wasn't bad. It just wasn't--

S: ......well, it wasn't much of anything, I suppose.

V: [furrows eyebrows] Hm.

S: [after a short pause] I much prefer this.

V: [for some reason, his heart skips a beat] This?

S: [a bit frantically] My research! In the Ghost Realm. The achievement, the influence, you know. Much more fulfilling.

V: [nods, a bit spacey because of a weird inexplicable feeling he's having] Ah. I see.

[wrinkly-fucking-qtip]

i am neutral towards galladads (more so...towards no), but every so often i tangle with my personal takes (or what i'd love to see) and i wanna share. strap in, it's long. pt. 1

Ian doesn't push the thought of kids. They had a conversation about it after s11x12, but it took some time, it wasn't immediate. Basically, I think Ian relished the idea of being an uncle for a while. After all, it's always Mickey before anything.

They took care of Franny, Freddie (+upcoming kiddo), and Liam when they were asked to as favors. It subconsciously became this mental practice for them. Some unspoken tension kept rising, cause they felt the other was thinking the same thing but went unmentioned. Partially cause Ian decided not to press, and doing so meant breaking that threshold.

I think Mickey brought it up one day probably, Ian felt somewhat defensive at first, but since he always reminds Mickey about the importance of "communication," it'd bite him in the ass, so he gave in and spoke his truth. They had another conversation about it that ended in an agreement to see a "shrink." They started going, it was a deconstruction of years of trauma, fears, repressed emotions, y'know the drill.

Considering that they were between 25-27 when the show ended, I think they engaged in "intense" therapy for like 5-7 years maybe. Trying to talk through the bulks of it, for the purpose of parenting in the near future.

Through that time, they first contacted Debbie, had thoroughly researched artificial insemination (pls mickey thinking he would have to bang Debbie makes me cry 💀), had a lengthy talk with her. I haven't reached shameless far enough to know Debbie's character, but I think she probably gives them informed advice, a lot of "you guys sure you wanna do this??" And I don't think it stems from a place of objection, more so worry. I like to think she eventually caves in and accepts to help them when they're ready. She loves Ian, Ian loves Franny and Debbie (fuck JW for making it seem like he doesn't in s11) and Mickey and Debbie are besties.

(this is a huge reach but I ponder nonetheless) After thinking of Debbie, I think maybe Ian thinks of Mandy. I fully believe (like many other people) that Ian kept in touch with Mandy from time to time ever since she left, and at some point encouraged her and Mickey to reconnect. It's a slow process, but he knows both of them needed it and yearned for it deep down.

He breaks the news to her that they're gonna be parents at some point, sort of fills her in on the process and the years of therapy, gets Mickey to tell her anecdotes too or whatever. The thing is, at some point in the conversation, he yaps about how he has always wanted two, a boy and a girl (because Ian is a dork like that). That Debbie is only gonna do this once for now because...well that was the agreement, ofc, and he just doesn't wanna overwhelm Mick with two kids of their own even though that's what they practically baby sit.

Jokingly (at first), Mandy offers herself as a surrogate in case they aim for another kid. Ian sheepishly declines, that he couldn't ask her after everything she's been through, but Mandy reassures him that shit is different now. Times have changed, and that even though it's a big deal, she'd comply. Ian says he'll think about it, talk with Mick in case shit does happen as to not spook him. It was a pleasant talk.

He talks to Mickey and at first he doesn't know how to handle the thought of two kids, one of them from Mandy, and he almost feels like all this time in therapy could crumble down at the thought of Mandy being a surrogate. They have a long ass talk.

At the end Mickey affirms that he is open to the responsibility of two kids. The whole thing goes like Ian telling him he doesn't have to do this, that he's fine with just one and that he doesn't have to comply just because Ian would love two kids, and Mickey being like "all these years and you still don't get it through your thick skull that you ain't making me do anything I don't want to" (affectionately ofc). He reassures Ian that if he's making these decisions with him it's because he wants to, and he admits he owes a lot of it to that "shrink" they go to he's come to appreciate. It was a lovely conversation tbh and many fears and goals were shared between them.

[boopshoops]

hiya!! for the ask thing can I ask for Food and Name for Jocia and Yuu Shi? tysm!!!

(also baby goats baby goats baby goats-)

Name: What does your twst OC's name mean? Why does Rook/Floyd call them [insert nickname]?

OH i have- lots of lil lore tidbits for this

Jocia, according to my research waaaay back when I finally looked into her name (I deadass thought I just made it up at first), is typically associated with "joy!" Though Im sure that was obvious from the almost constant glare on her face /sar. It is also a different form of the name Jocelyn, a German name. I always pronounced it Jo-sha til I learned it was supposed to be- well, exactly as its spelled, Jo-see-ah.

Floyd calls her Barracuda! Initially I was going to have that be what he called Yuu, but the "catfish" pun was too good for me to pass on. So- what else could I do but hand over the title to Jo? Plus I think it fits her better :P Primarily due to how the barracuda is more known for how they hunt and fight.

They are known to be ferocious, attacking quickly and using ambush techniques (similar to a certain pair of tweels). They are also known to just straight up take fish from other species, even human divers- besides that, they don't really attack humans unprovoked. Barracudas also compete with moray eels for food/prey.

I feel like this relates back to how Jocia "handles" her anger- or- howshetakesitout on people around her who wrong her/those she cares about. She is ruthless and fearsome at times, but for the most part she prefers to just... chill. She doesn't purposefully go seeking out trouble when she's in the right place mentally.

Rook calls her "Reine des épices" (pls excuse any mistakes, blame the translator), which translates to "Queen of Spice!" This is honestly more of a personal reference. Me and my partner always used to joke that Jocia was kinda like a pepper- and would often use 🌶️ when joking about her. It's mostly due to her fiery, hot-tempered nature.

Yuu- is- well, yuu. I didnt come up with that, i just snatched it JFNDJDJ. HOWEVER. "Shi" can have many different meanings! I tried my best to go for something vague. I like the thought of having something that leaves you guessing what applies and what doesnt. However! It can actually also mean "you." Yuushi as a whole can translate to "hero!" (Another ironic take, I know)

Floyd calls her catfish bc. It's funny. I think it's funny and I'd bet $20 that he'd think it's funny. So it's catfish KFNDJDK

Besides the obvious- (pretending to be someone she isnt), catfish can live in almost any aquatic climate, making them rather adaptable. They have a large range of size and behavior, and are most well known for their stinging "whiskers." (Glances at shi's taser) They ALSO compete with eels for prey- as long as they arent a small enough species, then theyd become the prey.

Rook calls her "Reine du Rock", which means "Queen of Rock"- this one is just simple. She loves rock music. She plays it all the time, and it is what she most enjoys performing. Again i am not a good translator trust me i tried to learn another languagemybrainjustcant

Another fact, the twin's parents switched them around at birth on accident, and forgot who they named what initially. It's entirely possible that Yuu was supposed to be named Jocia, but they don't know :P they fight over who is older bc of this too.

Food: What is your twst OC's favorite and least favorite food? Why (optional)? Is there anyone they can share their favorite food? Is there anyone they can count on to take over the food they dislike?

I went into this a lil bit with Yuu in the past during different ask games! Here and here. And a lil bit for Jo here. (Their fav and why<)

Yuu Shi is partial to suggesting treats to Trey- whether he actually makes Bungeoppang or just uses Doodle Suit, it is currently her easiest means of getting it when she only had it a few times prior. So, sure, she'll share... sometimes.

Jocia- given she is partial to a barbequed dish, she could share it with Leona given his love for meat... but WOULD she? No.

Yuu Shi would never subject anyone else to caffeine even if they really enjoyed it, unless that someone is the sink drain.

As for Jocia... really, she didnt have too much against olives. They were bad, yeah, but not horrible. She hated the way they made her tongue itch, though... and then she figured out that they weren't supposed to do that. She's allergic. Yuu Shi used to take them for her, but there isn't really anyone who enthusiastically WANTS them either.

[morgana96]

On Elementals, Accountability, and Criticism

A few months ago, I made a post that gained a lot more traction than I expected. It started out as more of a joke about an ill-conceived mentality within the fandom, where certain players think their Warrior of Light should be allowed to kill off the Black Shroud's elementals.

But over the course of several days, my activity feed was suddenly swarmed with notifications. The post had unintentionally reignited preexisting fandom discourse about the elementals, Gridania, and flaws in the game's writing.

And before I knew it, I'd spent several weeks writing an essay about the elementals, since I wanted to use the opportunity to better explain my original post's stance.

While the original essay was posted as a reply, I feel it works better as its own post. I had a lot of fun researching and writing out my thoughts on this, and I hope it might contribute positively to the larger discussion within the fandom.

What is an Elemental?

To start off, I think it’s important to go over the nature of FFXIV's Elementals. I think understanding them physically and ecologically is crucial to understanding their place in the story, as well as proving that they’re existence isn't the unaddressed mystery some people think it is.

According to Encyclopedia Eorzea I & II, elementals are naturally occurring beings that are almost solely comprised of aether. They usually don't have the complex body structures seen in other lifeforms, and are considered "semi-intelligent" in regards to their level of sentience (E.E. II, pg. 269).

A misconception I sometimes see is that elementals are an exclusive entity to the Black Shroud. But the reality is that elementals exist in various forms all over Etheirys.

As the above reference pages show, there are various types of natural elementals, many of which players encounter regularly throughout various maps and instanced battles/dungeons. Furthermore, carbuncles, egi, and faeries are also classified under this category, as they are also constructs of pure aether — essentially man-made elementals.

Because aether is the "building block" for all life, lands rich with aether will be wellsprings of vitality, while areas where aetherial flows are disrupted or cut off see atrophy in the environment (Encyclopedia Eorzea I, pg. 8). The Black Shroud's simply an area known for its prominent and powerful population of elementals.

In Gridania, the Shroud elementals are associated with Nophica the Matron, their patron goddess. This is described as them having "been sprung from Her essence", implying that they are a part of her and enact her will (E.E.I, pg. 112).

However, it's important to remember that this isn't history, but rather mythology specific to Gridanian traditions (E.E. I, pg. 112). Both elementals and Nophica independently predate these traditions, and Myths of the Realm provides great insight into just how significant that time gap is. G’raha mentions that the Twelve were worshiped even back in the Third Astral Era — approximately five thousand years before the start A Realm Reborn (E.E. I, pg. 24). He also theorizes at the time that the Twelve are even older than that, which is confirmed by Eulogia following the completion of Thaleia.

The reason I even bring up Nophica at all is because of the frustration directed towards her by certain players. There seems to be a trend where fans forget to separate the true Nophica from her Gridania-specific myths, causing them to treating her like an irresponsible parent who refuses to discipline her young children.

But Nophica isn't the elementals' actual creator. They aren't actually a part of her, and nothing they do is by her will, the same way Halone never actually hated dragons and was deeply saddened by the Dragonsong War. Demanding that Nophica "control" the elementals' behavior is like demanding a forest ranger "control" the wildlife in a national park.

Personally, I've always viewed the elementals as animals deified in worship — an opinion I believe is supported by what we know about them from the lore. Associating nature, plants, and animals with the divine is a reoccurring part of real-world religions, such as we see with ancient Egyptian gods or koi in Chinese mythology. Gridanian reverence of the elementals follows a similar formula: a naturally existing creature becomes associated with the divine in specific cultures and mythologies.

How Does One "Talk" to Elementals?

As established in the lore books, certain types of elementals possess the potential for "communication". This is an ability usually exclusive to the following beings:

Spoken: Any intelligent creature that possesses an independent language that can be interpreted by another spoken of a differing genus, including but not limited to all of the game’s playable races and the myriad non-playable races (E.E. I, pg. 288).

Voidsent: Beings from the 13th shard of Etheirys who are warped by their shard’s umbral aether and the shard’s lack of ambient aether (E.E. I, pg. 296). This is a more conditional contender, as only select Voidsent have the ability to speak.

But this "communication" is significantly different from traditional language or spoken words. A difference Kan-E-Senna made clear during the main Heavensward storyline, when WoL and company approached her for help in rescuing Y'shtola from the Lifestream.

Kan-E's statement helps further clarify the biology of Shroud elementals; not only do they lack corporeal bodies, but also the common biological senses we associate with humanity. They don't have eyes (hence why Y'mhitra had to present as a aetheric reference to find Y'shtola), and they also don’t possess the auditory systems to perceive spoken words and languages.

Which leaves the crucial question: how do you "talk" to a being that doesn't possess the senses for that form of communication?

The answer is to utilize the only thing that the Shroud elementals can perceive: aether.

To help refresh my memory on this topic, I decided to replay the conjuror/white mage quests, along with referencing the encyclopedias for more regarding Gridanian Hearers. They made for great reference about crucial elemental lore, particularly the Gelmorran origins of humans "speaking" to elementals.

Because elementals don't actually speak and can't hear the voices of spoken races, "dialogue" between man and elemental is more like a muddled psychic connection. The term "Hearer" describes conjurors with a natural sensitivity to the elementals' aetheric waves — a sensitivity that the vast majority of the population doesn't possess.

While similar in their rarity and status as "gifts" in-universe, elemental sensitivity is uniquely separate from the Echo. The Echo's "power to transcend words" is a passive ability that can fully break most language barriers, creating an "internal understanding" of another’s intentions (E.E. I, p. 15).

Hearers, on the other hand, must actively manipulate aether when connecting emotionally with elementals. It took fifty years to develop this technique and requires more effort and proper training, but it's still not as precise or accurate as what the Echo's able to do. Any "words" a Hearer translates are rough interpretations of the elementals' intent — a well-known flaw in the process that's noted in the side story True of Heart.

Hearer sensitivity to the elementals can vary depending on the individual. Some are better at "listening" to certain types of elementals over others, like the guest instructors in the conjuror quests who instruct the WoL in their specialties.

Other Hearers are simply more attuned to the Shroud elementals' aether overall. Padjali Hearers usually possess the strongest sensitivities, which is why the Seedseer — the leader of the Hearers and the Seedseer Council that governs Gridania — are almost always Padjal (E.E. I, p. 116). But even Seedseers aren't viewed as infallible; their "conversations" with elementals are also, at best, interpretations. These limitations are why Kan-E chose to share the role with her younger siblings, and why protocol for the Seedseer Council is to share their readings with each other, as different Hearers can end up with different interpretations.

A lot of this information comes to mind when I consider how elementals interact with spoken races in the game. It seems quite clear that elemental communions are meant to be portrayed as imperfect. The average person within the setting doesn't possess the ability to "speak" with them at all. Even trained conjurors and white mages don't always succeed in their communions, since frightened/agitated elementals aren't always easily "spoken" to.

Because of these factors, it really doesn't surprise me that characters have been hurt/killed because of elementals. I absolutely think a situation like that would be horrifying to find oneself in. But to me, it's not the same kind of terror that comes from a deliberate attack of spite — more like the terror of being caught in a stampede that you know you have little chance of outrunning.

Why "Evil" Elementals Aren't a Thing

Discourse about the Shroud elementals is nothing new in this fandom, and I think it's pretty clear that I disagree with people who think their WoL would be justified in slaughtering them.

Are the elementals gentle and harmless little creatures? No.

But they're also not some nefarious supervillain cabal plotting the demise of humanity.

I understand that getting vaporized by an angry nature spirit is a terrible way to go. But I think the reason why elementals lash out tends to fly over some people's heads, so they just assume that everything they do is out of human-adjacent hatred or disdain.

As you might expect, elementals are extremely sensitive to aetheric disturbances. FFXIV has never shied away from bringing up the dangers of aetheric imbalance; too little aether can turn environments into barren wastelands like the Burn, while too much of a specific aspect can warp not only souls, but corporeal forms. Raya-O-Senna explains the elementals' instincts in the white mage quests, and how they value aetherial balance over anything else.

Given the nature of their existence, it makes sense that elementals would crave aetheric harmony above all else; corruption and stagnation could easily lead to not only the destruction of their forest home, but also themselves. Like many wild animals in the real world, the elementals will prioritize their survival; they'll lash out the exact same way an animal who feels cornered or threatened would.

The Shroud elementals also don't single out spoken races with this behavior. They dislike any aetheric disharmony, regardless of whether the cause of that is man-made or natural. The conjuror quests even show that their agitation can be caused by other elementals; they're just as vulnerable to aetheric corruption as any other living creature, hence why those that are corrupted must be purged in order for the forest to heal.

Despite this, there are many fans who are hostile towards the Shroud elementals, and the language they use to express that disdain definitely stands out to me as part of the problem. Whether labeling them as immature “toddlers" or comparing their actions to human abusers, these players tend to heavily vilify elementals, painting them as the intentional architects behind Gridania’s biggest problems.

But these kinds of descriptors can't — and shouldn't — be applied to ANY type of elementals. They're human descriptors. Including ones for human children that are based on understandings of human development.

To treat the Shroud elementals like "toddlers" is to incorrectly apply human traits to beings that don't possess them. They are not human children, nor is there any known "childhood" phase of their life cycle. They are not creatures that grow and develop the way that human children do; they are naturally formed clusters of aether, many of which are older than any of the game's living characters. They don't do what they do because they're immature, or lack a parental figure to teach them "right" from "wrong".

I also don't agree with comparing their actions to intentional abuse. Again, there are canon events of elementals attacking humans, and those events would absolutely be scary and traumatizing. But it's also scary and traumatizing for someone to be mauled by a tiger, or to permanently lose an arm or leg in an unexpected shark attack.

Elementals aren't children throwing an unpunished tantrum, or abusers attempting to control their victims. These comparisons inaccurately associate their animalistic traits with human behavior. A correlation flawed by the fact that elementals aren't humans and don't think like them.

Would you call a grizzly bear evil or abusive for attacking a human that startled it in the woods?

Would you call a swarm of wasps immature or childish when they start stinging indiscriminately, and for not recognizing the difference between the person who disturbed their nest and those who just happened to be nearby?

Would you use these terms to refer to any of the aggressive creatures throughout in-game regions when they chase after/attack you, all because you got just a little too close while on your way to another location?

We can't predict what wild animals are going to do or control how they react to our presence in their space. Once one perceives you as a potential threat or meal, you are at risk of being attacked. It's why part of the respect we should show wild animals involves keeping a safe distance and respecting their territory.

The simple reality is that Shroud elementals aren't, never were, and never will be human. They are nature spirits living far outside the realm of human society, and canonically don’t possess the same sentience level as any of the game’s spoken races. They're a naturally occurring species that are deified in Gridania's Nophica mythology. They're alive, but the lore and game show that they behave more like wild animals.

This is why it's kind of frustrating when fans demand humanity — and human morals — from the elementals. The same way you can't explain the human condition to a butterfly or a redwood tree, you'll also never be able to explain it to a little cluster of pure energy floating out in the woods.

Nature is beautiful. Nature is terrifying. It's the comfort of sunny day and a cool breeze. It's the destruction wrought by earthquakes and tornadoes. It's the budding life of beautiful plants and flowers. It's death in the piercing jaws of a predator, even if that prey is only a baby.

Nature is not bound by human concepts of morality or fairness. To expect it to abide by our rules is absurd, and to try and force it to is futile. And whether certain players like it or not, the elementals are irreversibly tied to that philosophy.

The Importance of Gridania's Self-Accountability

Like many others within the fandom, I find that the game's writing for Gridania has been painfully neglected compared to the other city-states. As a black fan, it’s vexing when fictional narratives don't handle the subject of racism with proper diligence and respect. While not every Gridania-related quest is bad, there are far too many that drop the ball; all too often, these quests fail to properly denounce in-universe prejudice, often to the detriment of the stories they’re trying to tell.

These problems are major motivating factors in my desire to rewrite several Gridanian questlines. I've made several posts about my ideas for a Lancer Quests rewrite in the past, and at some point, I hope to do the same for other questlines in need of reworks.

But while I'm desperate for the writing team to reevaluate Gridania's narrative, I find myself equally frustrated with the "Evil™ Elementals" crowd – mainly because I feel like they're failing to fully grasp the actual root of the problem.

The players I'm referring to are weirdly insistent on pinning all the blame on the Shroud elementals. In these fans' minds, it's these semi-sentient nature spirits who hate Duskwights, Moon Keepers, and Ala Mhigans, and they are the ones who instilled these prejudices into hateful members of Gridanian society.

Honestly, this stance has always been absurd to me, and I can barely understand how it came to exist. Especially since it’s so incompatible with the actual lore for the elementals.

I've already pointed out that the elementals can't perceive spoken languages, and that they "see" other life and living creatures the same way they "see" themselves — as aether.

Furthermore, it's canon fact that a Hearer's "translations" are not direct or word for word. They're readings are based completely on the Shroud elementals' aetheric waves, and this process shouldn't be mistaken for the Elementals knowing or understanding human words.

The names of different races and nationalities would mean absolutely nothing to elementals. They wouldn't perceive the pointed ears and tall stature of an Elezen, or the cat-like ears and tails on a Miqo'te. They wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Midlander and Highlander, Duskwight and Wildwood, or any other clan distinctions that in-game characters or players can.

The Shroud elementals aren't capable of telling the differences between any spoken races.

Which means that if a Hearer claims the elementals dislike a specific race or clan, that Hearer is unquestionably spouting a bold-faced fucking lie.

There was already a situation like this in the 60-70 Leatherworker quests, which several people brought up in the tags of my original post. After showcasing a taxidermy dhalmel to raise awareness about endangered species, the WoL, Atelloune, and Enion are confronted by Hearer Marmaduke (yes, that’s actually his name and I’m honestly still not over it).

Not long after his tangent, he orchestrates the unfair seizure of the dhalmel. But Atelloune, suspicious of his claims, had already gone to the conjuror's guild, exposing Marmaduke's claims of elemental anger as a completely fabricated event.

Some might say that this isn't relevant because Marmaduke's lie wasn't told with prejudice in mind. But in the end, his motivations really aren't the most important thing here.

He openly lied about the elementals being angry, and seemed to have full confidence that he wouldn't be called out on it. He actively took advantage of his position — and the trust Gridanian citizens place in the Hearers — to falsely claim that something was wrong and force his misguided opinions onto others. Hell, I'd even argue that his behavior qualifies as a microaggression, since Atelloune is a Duskwight Elezen who he accused of a "crime" that never even happened. Not being a full blown bigot doesn't make someone incapable of racist behavior or actions (just like in real life).

This is not an incident that should be brushed off so easily. Sure, Marmaduke might have admitted to his own wrongdoings and ignorance. But the idea that this is an isolated incident within Gridania — that it's never happened before and somehow will never happen again — just comes off as terribly unrealistic.

Gridania is a five-hundred-year-old nation. How many times in those five hundred years has prejudice warped "translations" of the elementals?

How many Duskwights, Moon Keepers, and Ala Mhigans have been accused of infractions that never even occurred?

How many Hearers have abused their positions for everything from politics to petty squabbles? And how many times has someone gotten away with telling these kinds of abhorrent lies?

These are the kinds of questions the writing needs to tackle more with Gridania. Exposing the cracks within their system — and how those cracks have caused harm to innocents — will help to trigger the development and growth the city-state still desperately needs. Throwing all the blame on the elementals will never allow Gridania's narrative to escape stagnancy. At least not in a way that will actually feel genuine or satisfying to explore.

I understand that most people aren't trying to absolve Gridania of wrongdoing. But whether they realize it or not, that’s exactly what the "Evil™ Elementals" mentality does.

To claim that the elementals "made Gridanians racist" is to disregard the deliberate and intentional actions of racist Gridanians. It minimizes their level of accountability and responsibility in fixing those problems.

A prejudiced Hearer is not a gullible victim being strung along by scheming or "evil" nature spirits: they are intentionally taking advantage of their standing in society to persecute people that they don't like. They know the elementals don't understand the concept of spoken races, ethnicities, or nationalities. They also know that most of the population can't "hear" the elementals at all: a fact that can be utilized to mischaracterize the reasons for their agitation, or even fully fabricate incidents of anger all together.

One of my favorite parts of Myths of the Realm was Halone’s personal advice to the WoL.

This statement is so appropriate for Halone, especially considering Ishgard's history. But it's just as applicable to any other worshipers of the various gods.

A Hearer misrepresenting the "will of the elementals" is in the same vein as an Ishgardian priest misrepresenting the "will of the Fury". The game has so many examples of Ishgardians trying to use Halonic doctrine to not only justify their ignorance on certain subjects, but also enact unfair punishments onto others — including their own countrymen. Similar situations of false invocation have happened in Gridania, particularly when specific races and immigrants are unfairly targeted because they’ve supposedly "angered" the elementals.

This is why many fans — myself included — will make comparisons between Gridania and Ishgard. The citizens of both city-states are deeply devout to their patron goddesses. But that faith has been regularly misused and manipulated to persecute innocents and maintain unfair systems.

The Holy See's theocracy sanctioned generations of pointless bloodshed in a war they didn't want to admit they started. The Inquisitors killed countless of their own citizens based on flimsy accusations of heresy. Temple Knights have attacked and slaughtered Au Ra because they ignorantly and incorrectly assumed they were connected to and/or descended from dragons. If Ishgard can commit to reform and reparations after a millennium of atrocities, then Gridania is just as capable of taking the same accountability.

What the writing team needs to do is rethink their Gridania-centric storylines: not only do future questlines need to show more growth and change in their society, but older quests that were sloppily resolved need to be reexamined and even rewritten.

I don't agree with the claim that the writers have "written themselves into a corner" with the elementals. There's plenty lore that could be used to finally push Gridania in the right direction: they've just failed to utilize it effectively and consistently. It wouldn't be an easy task to go back and rework so much content. But in my eyes, it would be a major step forward in repairing these narrative problems.

True accountability for Gridania is taking responsibility for their own mess. No excuses. No justifications. No "the elementals made me do it". They need to establish better safeguards for their people — especially their minorities — and better checks and balances to prevent and punish blatant abuses of power.

Changing their city-state for the better will require long-term effort and commitment to reform. Not someone's WoL causing a mass extinction — which would certainly do more harm than good — and then demanding an entire nation bend to that WoL's will and abandon their beliefs. The former is Gridania taking actual responsibility for themselves; the latter echoes colonizer rhetoric and the racist ideologies these players claim to be criticizing.

FFXIV Fans and Constructive Criticism

To close this out, I'd like to shift focus to a fandom trend I've noticed for some time now.

Final Fantasy XIV is a major source of comfort for me. Besides just being a fun game to play, it's done wonders for my creative motivation, especially when it comes to my WoL and the fun I've had in building her lore.

However, there are also plenty of things about FFXIV that I'm critical of. There are class and job quests that fumble their stories (or at least falter at specific parts). Characters like Moenbryda and Ysayle were squandered in favor of lackluster "shock value" deaths. Certain quests in past expansions have come off as tone deaf to their subject matters, so much so that the script feels insanely out of character for everyone in the scene.

Criticism is important. It’s not pessimistic or ungrateful of the audience to engage critically with media, especially when it's media they love. My criticisms of FFXIV's writing don't diminish my love for the game. If anything, I want the writing to be reevaluated and improved, and for the writers to learn to avoid the same issues in the future.

But constructive criticism — at least to me — requires certain responsibilities. Responsibilities that not everyone keeps in mind before making sweeping judgements.

A good example is a certain "critique" I've seen repeated many times, usually during Stormblood discourse that tends to pop up from time to time. It relates to Lyse (a character who's regularly hypercriticized), and players who dislike how the writers gave her Raubahn's rightful place as leader of Ala Mhigo and the Resistance.

A rather odd complaint to have, considering it's about an imagined event.

Raubahn is Ala Mhigo's head of state, as well as head of the Resistance forces. Lyse commands only one faction of the Resistance — the faction based in Rhalgr's Reach — because that was the one under Conrad's command, and he had no authority over any other faction.

In other words, these fans dislike a "writing choice" that wasn't made to begin with, failing to realize that the actual scenario is provided both in-game and in Encyclopedia Eorzea II.

This is just one of many examples where players will mistake false presumptions for canon. Someone will criticize the game for a plot point that never happened, and suddenly other players will like, share, and comment about how they also hated that thing that never happened.

Even on my original post, there were people making various claims about the elementals. Some were 100% accurate. Others were slightly off. Others still were flat out untrue.

In this fandom — and plenty of others — fan-created concepts have a bad habit of getting mixed up with the actual facts. I don't think most players do it on purpose; they're usually just trying to share their thoughts and opinions on the game, and that's something I'll never try to discourage. But sometimes, they'll simply accept something someone else said in good faith, or rely too much on memory for parts of the game they haven't played through in a long time.

Criticizing the writing's handling of Gridania is perfectly valid, and I've done plenty of it myself. But those criticisms need to be based on the writing's actual faults and mistakes: not on misremembered plot lines and assumptions. Complaints need to be backed up by actual examples from the game and/or other canon sources, and can’t rely solely on muddled memories of a play-through that happened months or years ago.

It took me over two weeks to put all this together. I spent hours replaying relevant questlines and reading the side stories and lore books, not to mention the time it took me just to write all of it down. But I did all that because I wanted to be able to back up my claims with evidence. I didn't want to leave out important context or dialogue that I simply forgot or missed early on. If I were to forget about key events and fill in those gaps with hazy recollections, I'd not only weaken my argument’s strength, but also be guilty of blaming a writer for something I misremembered.

No one's EVER going to remember everything that happened in FFXIV; it's literally impossible for a game this large and with so many characters and stories. The Unending Journey and New Game+ are fabulous tools to make up for this, as well as the dedicated wikis and websites created by our fellow fans. But all of those go to waste if players never bother to utilize them.

I'll always support constructive criticism in this and any other fandom. But good constructive criticism isn't just making loud accusations on social media. It's taking the time to revisit the story and take notes on the things that could be done better. It's providing evidence to support your claims and prevent misinformation from being spread as truth. It's addressing biases not only in the writing room, but also those harbored by fellow players.

Constructive criticism requires effort and diligence. A fact I feel gets lost in fandom spaces sometimes.

[deadkidcourt]

deadkidcourt : our tale of system discovery

I've always been scared of being publicly out about my system, more posts i see from other systems has given me some courage. i like being able to see those posts and see our system or aspects of us in them. I've never publicly spoke of my diagnosis being scared that when people find out that I'm not medically recognized that the fakeclaiming will become really bad. i already deal with so much denial of my own that I've been so scared of rejection from other systems.

we have done extensive research, we have always been very self aware and would never self diagnose without a fuck-ton of research to back it up. we'd always felt like multiple people but not in the way we feel like it now. we'd always been kind of name fluid, loving trying on different names and pronouns. i thought for a long time that, that's how multi-gendered and people who used xenogenders felt.

as time went on, we would have phases feeling girly, wanting a hyperfem gender presentation, and then we would flip 100% and get highly upset even being thought of a girl. even as a child i would act completely different to how i was, and my parents would get highly upset because they felt they didn't know me. saying things like you're acting like a completely different person, but in those times i would get really sad because i was just acting how i felt.

i would often be told i was lying, because one day I'd really like something and the next i hate it with everything in me. people thought i was faking my personality to fit in, but i was just that different. as a teenager i learned about osddid but thought, oh that can't be me! I remember all my trauma! I'm just me! until i met a friend who was a system and learned that alot of how we felt and the things we did were not that of a singlet. that was in 2019, we questioned for a year and thought we were just making things up for attention and to seem interesting (it's not for attention if you're doing it when you're alone.)

i have known about maladaptive daydreaming since i was a child, it was what saved me from most of my trauma. being able to escape to a fake world, but the ‘characters’ didn't change, at least not three of them. we would have random fictional characters show up to, that we would then have a high identity kin with and could never understand why other people didn't connect with characters like that.

one was a girl that always got mad when i was hurting, i thought she was an imaginary friend. someone my brain created to help me feel better about my situation, and then when i was about nine. she would start taking over my body, fighting with our parents when they would act wrong, but after that i would be in control again scared of the repercussions of her actions. this continued for years, i thought everyone made up people in their head to help them and protect them. that's not the case.

in 2021 (roughly) we became highly obsessed with fnaf, circus baby in particular. so much so, we couldn't befriend people online with her as a profile picture. this got bad enough that when a close friend set her discord avatar as glam rock baby (fan design), we had a full breakdown.

all we could think and feel is, that is me, i am that person you cant use that picture thats me and youre not me stop stop stop. our husband has to talk us down, and we kindly asked the friend to not use that character because of the distress we felt about it. we thought that was fictionkin, but it was so distressing and upsetting we had a weeklong disassociative episode and i thought that was just normal. we know now about pur circus baby fictive and have done work to source seperate so as to not have breakdowns and episodes like that again.

now, here's where things get tricky because the memory isn't really there. but from them until this year we fought with ourselves about our self diagnosis, always discrediting our trauma, and symptoms. it wasn't until we told our husband about all of our trauma that he helped us understand how drastic that was especially to a child's mind.

then we started researching, we researched off an on for three years. sometimes noting some people in our brain that we met, but it didn't work because we weren't ready to come to terms with it. the denial was ao bad.

in january of 2024, we had what i know now as a frontstuck host that finally got unstuck and everything started to fall into place for us. we were able to integrate and lose some of our amnesia barriers and i was able to meet some of our alters. it was helpful that our husband was around, because he was able to notice symptoms and changes in our prescence that we couldn't see.

he was able to differentiate between the main four frequent fronters we had at the time and was very patient with us and did research of his own to help us. we tried keeping a notebook, able to see differences in our handwriting and vocabulary choices. the way we dress would change, one loves all dark big clothing while another alter loves showing skin with pastel colors, and another one that just wants to be comfortable. small things like that made it easy to start to see the patterns in our switching. and with learning more, i realized my amnesia is not as cut and dry as i thought it would be. i can remember the bad things but not last week, or last month or yesterday.

there's only ever been one part of our system that we can't seem to wrap our head around. our splitting patterns, and fusing patterns. we have decently good communication, very low amnesia barriers between switching, and i have low access to innerworld. that was all great, but then we started splitting alot, or discovering alot of alters. there would be like 5 alters and 15 fragments and as time went on, i noticed how easily we split fictive fragments and those fragments (usually 2-4 of them) would fuse to make a whole alter. but that alter would have several sources, that always made us feel like we were wrong or perhaps that our system has lied to us. either of which could be true, we don't really care. we just try to take care of ourselves and we try to welcome any newbies to our headspace as gently as we can. we had incorrectly thought that introjects had to have one source, and that set us back on our healing alot. that and we tend to fuse semi-easily and thought we we're lying about our system because of that.

now we just take everything one step at a time, try to meet new alters and talk to them while not forcing it a whole lot. i hope our journey can help you. I'm not the most educated person (i try tho!) so please if I'm wrong about something or something let me know, KINDLY.

- ronnie 💣 and remi 🦨

[sideprince]

I don't know if you have already answered this question: is there something in Snape's life that you wanted to see in The Price's Tale? For example, I think we deserved more information about "the prank".

I haven't yet! Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this ask...

There are definitely moments I wish had been included in The Prince's Tale, but I feel like it's difficult to separate what's in it/what's missing from it from Rowling's own issues as a writer and the way they intersect with Snape's story, or rather, how she tells it. Namely, her issues around writing women and her lack of research and minimal understanding of radicalization and fascist movements. Not to be a downer, because I feel like this is a very fun ask that's probably more about having curiosity around the character of Snape and playing around with what may have been there that we didn't see, but I can't help feeling that those moments are missing often because of what Rowling herself was overlooking or not thinking of.

I wish there were moments between him and Lily that showed us why they were best friends. It can't just be because they were the only magical kids in Cokeworth. There isn't one scene we see between them where Lily is affectionate or their mutual chemistry is apparent, not even a wry smile. The closest scene is when they're laying in the grass by the river as kids and Lily is asking him about the magical world. We understand through Snape's memories that he had a great deal of love for Lily, but it's not really apparent why. Rowling's issues with writing women as fully developed, interesting characters gets in the way, and although we're told they were close friends, we're never shown it. I'd have loved to see a moment or two where we see why they clicked. It could have been woven into the existing story as simply as the two of them exchanging a wordless criticism with just a shared look in the compartment on the Hogwarts Express when James and Sirius were being mean.

But it could also have been something more meaningful - after all, these are Snape's final thoughts, the most important moments of his life that connect to the information he needs to convey to Harry. Maybe a birthday gift Lily gave him, something small, a book she bought that she saved up her allowance for, and the impact on Snape of her putting thought and effort into it. I honestly would have loved something even as simple as just seeing Lily's humor and Snape's - not just him smiling when she says his name, but the two of them laughing freely. The tragedy of that lost friendship would have hit even more if we had seen a mutual affection, an understanding between two best friends, and an innocence that was consumed by a war and their separation into rival houses.

I also wish we had seen any of Snape's home life. We get the impression that he didn't like to talk about it too much and that Lily may not have quite understood how bad it was (given that Rowling has said that Snape's dad beat him with a belt, and the only reference to his home life we see is Lily asking if his parents have stopped arguing, plus the glimpse of them doing just that when Harry breaks into Snape's mind in OOtP). We have a couple of allusions to Snape's relationship with his mother:

He knows a fair bit about the wizarding world, including about dementors and Azkaban, what to expect at Hogwarts, and the Statute of Secrecy. Presumably, as there don't seem to be other wizards in Cokeworth, his mother has told him about these things. Either that or he overheard her talking to someone else/read her letters to someone/found information on it among her things (like wherever she kept her textbooks that he would inherit).

When Lily asks him, “Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?” Snape hesitates before replying no. This implies that he's aware of pureblood bias in the wizarding world, and is making a decision about how much of his knowledge to share with Lily, or perhaps about his own stance on it. (There's something lovely in his perceiving her insecurity and choosing to shield her from knowledge that would exacerbate it.)

On the train platform, Eileen is described as, “thin, sallow-faced, sour-looking” as well as greatly resembling Severus.

This isn't much to go on, but we can reasonably infer a complicated relationship, and a woman who is emotionally closed off and/or judgmental. She's a wizard who dresses her son in hand-me-downs so either she's not very good at transfiguration or she doesn't care about him enough to allow him the basic dignity of clothes that fit and make him comfortable. I would have loved to have seen a moment or two in Snape's memories that show his relationship with his parents, and they could have been a good opportunity to also show his (possibly codependent?) relationship with Lily as he goes to her for comfort after. I don't think she would have consciously offered him any, but rather that she was a way for him to escape his home life and convince himself that he was fine. His closed-off response when Lily asks him if his parents are still fighting implies that the subject has come up before, but also that Lily doesn't understand how bad the situation is and Snape doesn't want her to (which makes sense, most abused children don't realize how abnormal and extreme their experiences are - we accept the norms we're presented with). There could have even been something as simple as Snape showing him mom a new bit of magic he learned to do and her trying to suppress it in him lest his father see and get upset, and him then showing his new skill to Lily who appreciates it and tries to learn it. This is just an example, but it would have shown a tense dynamic at home in which Eileen prioritizes not angering Tobias to protect Severus, who as a child would only perceive a kind of rejection that he seeks Lily out to replace with validation. This would make sense in the dynamic Rowling set up, and is more complex and interesting than his "greedy" looks and Lily's questions about the wizarding world.

(Before I move on from the Snape and Lily childhood moments, I also want to say, I really don't like Rowling's use of the word "greedy" in The Prince's Tale. It feels aggressive and judgmental, and also out of place in describing a child who lives in abject poverty. My assumption is that what she meant was more of a hunger in Snape's face, or perhaps a determined ambition to get to know Lily, which would align with how his personality is otherwise written.)

The other thing I would have loved to see more of is his Death Eater arc. The whole point of Snape giving these memories to Harry is to explain himself, and convince him to listen to Dumbledore's instructions at the end (which, btw, Dumbledore's portrait could have done, but we all love a bit of drama, so fair). The idea that Snape defected from the DEs only because Lily's life was threatened feels like a weak character motivation and is one of the many ways that Rowling illustrates her naivete and lack of understanding of fascist movements, their use of radicalization as a tool to prey on vulnerable people, and their cult-like dynamics (and that's probably why she fell victim to radicalization herself). I've written a little bit about it before (please don't make me find the link), but I think that Voldemort's going after Lily wasn't the catalyst in Snape's defection, but the final thread that snapped.

When he and Lily argue outside Gryffindor Tower after SWM he doesn't deny it when she accuses him of wanting to be a Death Eater, but he also doesn't own it. He doesn't take pride in it and try to convince her that if only she understood what he does, she would get it. By that point he's been established as an ambitious boy who knew what house he wanted to be sorted in even before starting school - when Lily is sorted into Gryffindor, Snape is sorted into Slytherin so quickly that it's clear he hadn't even considered changing his mind in order to follow Lily. He scoffs at James on the train when he says he wants to be a Gryffindor. It can therefore be assumed that Snape isn't refraining from arguing with Lily because he's deferring to her opinion or trying to appease her. While an argument could be made that he lost his confidence through years of bullying by that night outside Gryffindor Tower, I think that, if anything, that would have made him feel an even stronger need to identify with a group like the aspiring DEs in Slytherin. There's also a bit of a disconnect between the way Lily refers to him and his friends wanting to join Voldemort and be DEs, and no one having come to Snape's defense that afternoon, not even from his own house.

And while this has veered off a bit into meta, my point is: Snape's experiences of becoming a Death Eater and eventually defecting seem complex and I would have loved to have been shown more of it. It would have been a useful thing to convey to Harry as well. Was there a moment when he became disillusioned? Was there a moment when he started feeling shame? Maybe he thought, as someone who had been bullied for years and abused at home, that once he was on the other side of that experience and in a position of power over someone else, he would feel confident and secure and safe. Maybe the first time he experienced being in that position, he instead felt pity and shame and it was like having the rug pulled out from under him. Revenge is never as satisfying as you think it will be, and something either happened to Snape, or was maybe always there, to make him choose to treat Sirius humanely at the end of PoA and hand him over to the authorities instead of using the excuse to wreak vengeance on him firsthand. I'd have loved to see moments that show us his growth as a person - profound realizations in volatile circumstances that prompted him to find a way out from Voldemort's ranks, and maybe a glimpse of how dangerous that way out was.

Rowling held so much back about Snape - a complex, grey, nuanced character - in order to drop this big reveal about him and Lily at the end of DH. When she finally told his story, all of it was focused around Lily, a character who wasn't developed and who we only see being reactive. The veil is lifted on Snape but only enough to show that he had a deep love for Lily (who, by the way, I think he would have referred to as Lily Evans even after her death, not Potter, and I will fight Rowling on this but then I'd fight her on a lot of much more important things so that's not saying much). We still don't find out much about Snape's life, background, or experiences, and even less about Lily. I wish there had been a lot more to The Prince's Tale than "sorry kid, I did it all for your mom because of my guilt in failing her as a friend." It's one of those moments that feels exciting when you first read it, but the potential to build it out into something that improves on re-reading the books was kind of lost.

And yes! We absolutely deserved more information about the prank! Could have been great to see Lupin bully Snape actively before it, and compare it to his lack of involvement in SWM. Could have been fascinating to see the dynamic between him and James as the latter tries to pull him back, or even the moment in Dumbledore's office where he's told to keep quiet, and how that moment contributed to his radicalization! Harry spends most of DH processing and questioning his relationship with Dumbledore and learning about him, and seeing Snape have a similar experience from the opposite direction would have been fantastic. Ie. where Harry venerates Dumbledore until DH when he begins to doubt him, Snape doubts Dumbledore and grows to trust and respect him over time. I'm sure there's more that I could think of, but this answer is already incredibly long so I'll leave it here for now.

[scoonsalicious]

you're such a wonderful writer and i hope you are doing great 💖

wanted to ask you, how do you write this type of topics that are hard and difficult? what did you feel while writing for chapter 23, 24 and 25?

i hope to know more about you as a writer and your methods because it has been mind blowing reading Unwanted

Thank you so, so much! I'm doing great! lol

So, I originally started writing an answer to this question that more specifically aligned with what you asked, but the more I thought about it, the more I kind of wanted to delve into what this story was supposed to be, what it turned into, and what it was like creating it. This is probably way more info then you every asked for or expected, so I apologize, but just rewatched Endgame in the name of research and I'm crying like a baby right now, and feeling pretty emotional, lol WARNING: This is going to get heavy. So, Unwanted was never actually supposed to turn into what it was. It started with this really simple image in my brain. Reader (not yet named) undercover, working at a strip club, and Bucky showing up to annoy her and get her flustered. She's unhappy to see him. Why? They used to sleep together, but she hates him now. What happened? In the original story, Bucky and Pocket never fell in love. They were best friends, and became FWB. A new Avenger is recruited (Jade was originally named Sage, and then Jewel, before we got to where we are), and Bucky goes on this Russian mission with her and sleeps with her. He comes back dating Sage and distances himself from Pocket, and she's heart broken, because she feels like she'd just been used, and now that Bucky had a new set of holes to fill (Pocket's words, lol), he didn't need her anymore. Then, she gets assigned to this mission in Atlantic City (that part-- the missing women, the trafficking, was always the plan), and uses it as a chance to get away from him.

But then something IRL happened that actually ended up changing the entire course of the entire fic. A little backstory: When I was a child, I was sexually abused by a neighbor/family friend for many years. I didn't have the language at the time to explain what happened to me, so I never told anyone. I changed, going from a really happy, outgoing kid, to being really withdrawn and anxious; it basically destroyed my soul. This, of course, was back in the early '80s, where CSA wasn't really discussed or understood the way it is now. The signs were there, but my parents didn't know they should have been looking for.

I thought I got over it. I thought I processed and dealt with it and moved beyond it, and I grew into adulthood. But in reality, I was just building a mask. But then, in February of this year, while I'd already been working on the fic for several months under the aforementioned plot, something happened: My young nephew started showing signs that he may have been abused, as well, by either his nanny or someone the nanny had exposed him to. My brother and sister-in-law recognized the changes in him immediately, and did everything right. This triggered me, and it was pretty apparent that I had never processed my trauma-- I'd just repressed it. And everything came rushing back. I suddenly had immense anger toward my parents for failing to protect me, for not seeing the signs, for forcing me to interact with my abuser for years and years. It was misguided, and I recognize that, but I never allowed myself to process the emotions at the time, and was kind of starting over from scratch.

So, Pocket, in a lot of ways, became me. I gave her extremes of what I experienced so she could help me work through things, to help me process everything I was feeling, that sense of abandonment, not being able to trust people, the inability to form real relationships because I don't know how to be vulnerable. And I gave her some of my characteristics: from about ages 15-25, I was addicted on and off to opiates, and in college, I started drinking excessively to numb my pain, to the point where I have liver and kidney damage from it. I gave Pocket my use of humor-as-a-coping mechanism, my penchant for swearing, and most importantly, I gave her my pain, my hurt, so that she and I could get better, together.

So, when I write Pocket's spiral in Chapters 23-25, I'm writing an exaggeration of every spiral I've ever had, because, I figure, if I can get Pocket through all of that, surely I can get myself through my own shit, right?

I'm sure it wasn't the answer you were quite looking for, but it's the best way I can explain how I, and Unwanted got here. And as for my nephew, fortunately, after a State Police and Child Protective Service investigation, it looks like he was never actually sexually abused; for that, at least, I'm grateful.

[queeoretician]

Just finished re-listening to Nona, and I have to know - what the ever-loving fuck did Jod want with G—'s arm? My first thought was that it had something to do with the dead man's switch for the suitcase nuke, but he mentions that he still has plans for it, in his narration to Alecto/Harrow after the bombs have gone off, so there's something else there. I feel like it's tied in with something about G1deon and Pyrrha being different from the other lyctor/cavalier pairs we see.

Speaking of which, there are a good few of those differences - here are the ones that come to mind:

G1deon's thanergy-void ability that lets him break Harrow's bone wards. I don't think this is it - to me it feels like it's more in the vein of Mercymorn's one-touch supernatural anatomy abilities, within the "normal" range of freaky abilities that lyctors have.

G1deon being physically imposing, unlike any(?) other necromancer we come across. I feel like there are some connections here that are eluding me right now.

The big one, Pyrrha's individuality surviving lysis. This by itself wouldn't make sense to me, but maybe it ties in with G1deon's buffness, that somehow the physical basis for their ascension was atypical?

On that last note, something else that stood out to me through Nona is that Pyrrha and G1deon's necro/cav relationship dynamic seems very different from the others we see (not just among Jod's original disciples but also with the contemporary pairs). At one point Pyrrha mentions filtering G1deon's brain fluid while working on the transference/winnowing trial, with the only other subject of that test being Cristabel rather than one of the other necromancers. In another passage Pyrrha talks about working on the Tomb's wards with Cassiopeia and Mercymorn - her plus two necromancers.

This had me wondering if Pyrrha was also a necromancer originally, somehow - but Palamedes's explanation to Nona of why she isn't affected by the blue madness undermines that hypothesis. But that aside, Pyrrha was definitely involved in what I would think of as "necromancer stuff" in a way we don't see from anyone else except Camilla (because the Sixth House are nerds). But maybe my expectations are off base because we're introduced to the necro/cav relationship through the eyes of Gideon, who is aggressively disinterested in necromancy...

Speaking of nerd shit, what kind of people were Jod's crew before the bombs and the Resurrection? He refers to them at one point as "a cop and six different kinds of nerd" and "two scientists and an engineer and a nun and a lawyer and a banker and a cop and an artist," referring to A—, M—, G—, the nun (Cristabel), C—, A—'s brother (Alfred), P—, and N— (he doesn't seem to have included himself in that tally). The narration clearly references all of their roles individually except G—'s, so I would guess he was the engineer, with the scientists being M— (medical) and A— ("the glycerol-6 genius"). But as best I can recall we don't really hear anything about G—'s role apart from being Jod's most steadfast supporter and carrying the suitcase nuke - it comes across as though Jod took him rather for granted. I wonder if Pyrrha remembers this and holds it against Jod along with all his post-Resurrection shit? I'd love to learn more about this in Alecto - I wanna know everything about our problematic fave ex-cop ex-spook genderfuck parent figure and her grief and her love...

But back to my earlier line of thinking, after the Resurrection Jod roped his disciples into a war of vengeance against the descendants of the generation ship, and defense against the Resurrection Beasts, and at a very tentative guess it seems like only Pyrrha of the original eight would have been predisposed towards that kind of combative life (jokes about academia aside). But at the same time she seems to have stepped into a research-y role that we don't see from any of the other original cavaliers (with the caveat that our info is very limited and Alecto could upend this entirely).

All this is to say, I Have Questions about Pyrrha and G1deon and who they were pre-Resurrection, but right now I don't have any coherent theory beyond "I think there's something going on here."

[annbourbon]

🖤 ✨ 🖤 ✨ Rika ✨ 🖤 ✨ 🖤

Let's start with Rika...

⚠️possible spoilers ahead, be warned⚠️

I can't believe I actually didn't realize that. I mean, I did it. Like 7 years ago, but I had no clue on how to explain it.

Besides it needs from Mystic Messenger Timeline *which I'm still working on, and trying to finish* to actually make sense.

Disclaimer: Please take into account that whatever I say here, it's only my opinion after playing the game so many years. I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, or therapist of any kind. I'm just a writer, who loves to spend time analysing characters and stories.

I did asked to my mom to help me with this and the other characters because of how difficult the task ahead of me was. My mom, who is an actual therapist, did her best to help me, but I did most of the analysis here, since I'm the one who knows the in's and outs of this game. Besides, I did my research and I'll make sure to quote it! So give it a chance and keep reading even if you disagree with me. And then, I'd love to read your thoughts on the topic 💕

Narcissus. Also known as daffodil.

Should I talk to you about the dark side of the flowers and tie it to MM characters?? Anyways, Rika is a narcissistic. But also has a profound trauma. One doesn't exclude the other. Here's a quote from Mayo Clinic:

«Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.»

Causes: The cause is likely complex. Narcissistic personality disorder may be linked to:

Environment — parent-child relationships with either too much adoration or too much criticism that don't match the child's actual experiences and achievements.

There are other two, that are genetic, and neurobiology causes, but I'll be focusing more on the environment, which let's be honest, it's what is displayed on the game. If you're interested on reading more about it, there's a link before the quote and, on References, I'll also be leaving every single link.

So let's go back to Rika and please read the next three images while remembering how's her relationship with V, and Saeran. Sometimes even with MC, and Mika.

As you can see...

Attention:

* Creates the RFA. Receives attention.

* Creates Mint Eye. Receives attention.

* Says V is her Sun.

* As soon as she gets tired, says V's killing her and wants to leave

* Wants to mix RFA and Mint Eye. I assume is because despite everything, she feels like she's losing attention on everything she created. And MC is the reason of that too.

They don't choose losers:

V is a millionaire

Jumin is a millionaire

Zen is super sexy and hot

Jaehee and the twins are really smart

Do I need to keep going? Even Elizabeth the 3rd is one of the most beautiful cats ever seen.

Grooming:

Here's the part that keeps bothering me because I realized about it before I could actually explain what it was going on. Seven years ago I decided to play the game, and I finished feeling a bit too weird on how everyone was so infatuated with Rika... it wasn't any other person that just dies and then the group dies too. It was still active two years after losing her (?) Even though they have only know each other for... 4 to 6 years?

Some even less. Like Jaehee. Which randomly brings me to: She's an ENFJ so she does focus on details like Jaehee (Jaehee might be ISFJ, ISTJ or even ESFJ considering how well she manages around people too. But that's another story.) Her enneagram is probably 1.

I can understand Yoosung, but... you know what I mean. It was weird. And once I reached the first VN novel about V and Rika I felt even more weirded out by these two.

I don't think I can pinpoint it but I felt like Rika was manipulating V so I was surprised when I realized some members were tying these two as lovers and a beautiful couple. Do you guys remember V being surprised by Rika quoting "The Sun is the mother of all"?? Yeah... Even back then, for me it was a highlight of how messed up their relationship was. But again, I couldn't exactly pinpoint it. Until, now.

After Cheritz released Another Story, and Rika DLC, many of my theories came true. But still in a disorganized way. Which is why I created The Mystic Messenger Timeline.

I did confirmed one thing:

Rika is a narcissist and V is a people pleaser (that doesn't make him any less villainous of what he is, but I'll explain once we'll reach his profile. I promise.) at least at the very beginning of this story.

She probably has psychopatic tendencies

She definitely has sadistic and abusive tendencies: I have a hard time putting through her whole behavior during Saeran's Route and especially during his AE. But she takes pleasure in hurting others. V, Saeran, MC, Mint Eye associates, etc.

A bit of One on the Enneagram:

It is called The Reformer.

Because Ones have a “sense of mission” that leads them to want to improve the world in various ways, using whatever degree of influence they have. They strive to overcome adversity—particularly moral adversity—so that the human spirit can shine through and make a difference. They strive after “higher values,” even at the cost of great personal sacrifice.

If you think I'm too far off, then please check the levels of healthy and unhealthy Ones can have. They sure ring a bit too much for me on Rika's behavior. From Level 1 to 9, we can see her evolution during the game. But here you have a couple of her worse traits.

Unhealthy Levels

Level 7: Can be highly dogmatic, self-righteous, intolerant, and inflexible. Begin dealing in absolutes: they alone know "The Truth." Everyone else is wrong: very severe in judgments, while rationalizing own actions.

Level 8: Become obsessive about imperfection and the wrongdoing of others, although they may fall into contradictory actions, hypocritically doing the opposite of what they preach.

Level 9: Become condemnatory toward others, punitive and cruel to rid themselves of wrongdoers. Severe depressions, nervous breakdowns, and suicide attempts are likely. Generally corresponds to the Obsessive-Compulsive and Depressive personality disorders

If you want to know more about this, check this.

So, why do you (player) like Rika as character?

Because it's okay, I know people who actually like Rika. I don't, but I definitely don't hate her either...

You don't need to be worried about it as long as you know what she did was wrong. That's it. Now, why do you like her/identify with her?

Things that might, or not, ring a bell:

* Trauma: Rika has a traumatic past. And you might feel like it's a mirror of your past. Hence identifying with it might not be something difficult. Of course this doesn't mean you are leader of some religious cult.

* Her willingness to fight despite having everything at odds. Let's not forget that before she goes nuts and starts brainwashing people, she did a lot of great deeds. Tried to stay positive and all that.

* Her kindness (we can discuss over certain things, but as much as she did terrible things, she also did amazing things, like creating the RFA to help people. Wether she did it with a certain master plan in mind or not, she did helped as much as she hurt and that's the important part.)

* She's just a great villain! It might be hard to understand for some people but you actually just look at her character as what it is, a character, and you're impressed by how many discussions and hot debates she brings onto the table. Understandable!

* Her flower means forgiveness♡

Do you have any other ideas for why you might like Rika? I'd be happy to read them. 💕

Also, this might be one of my last post about her. Might not be the last but I do need to finish with the Mystic Messenger Timeline, and I will but I don't think I have a lot more material to write about. So thank you for sticking with me all this time! I'm linking the main post on MysMe theories I have, I still need to finish tying up all nicely. But we're coming to the end. I'm definitely talking about trauma, coping mechanisms, parenthood, childhood and societal pressures but it'll be in other posts, possibly not even linking them to this one. Who knows? Stay tuned~!

References:

Mayo Clinic - Narcissistic Disorder Personality

Between Narcissistic & People pleaser

Medium - Beware a narcissist with a hero complex

Paired Life - Hero & Narcissist

Enneagram Institute - One

[screaming-universe]

*breaks through wall*

Hi

🐺🐺🐺🐈🐈🐈✨✨✨🌌🌌🐉🐉🐉

( ◕◡◕)っ ♡

Hi! :3c (make me write game)

🐺 Werewolf Hunters

Herne, it turned out, had volunteered Eddie as unwilling participant for the net-throwing practice of the hunters in training. Eddie did not want to hate them—they were children after all, maybe sixteen at most—but it was hard. Some of them looked at him with fear, the lies of their elders making him a monster to them. Some of them looked at their trainers with fear and Eddie wanted to do nothing more than get them out of here. Some of them though positively leered at him and Eddie was suddenly glad for the guards posted on the kennel room. It had never occurred to him that they might be there to keep Buck and Tommy and him inside, but also overzealous hunter trainees outside. "Ryan, no weapons, we need them alive for now!" Herne yelled at a boy who stared at Eddie in a way that made his skin itch and who held a net and spear up as if this was a gladiator fight in Ancient Rome. Buck had once gone a research deep dive on the different kinds of gladiators and told Eddie all about it during a slow shift. Retiarius, Eddie recalled. That kind of gladiator fought with a net and a trident and Ryan came pretty close to it.

🐈 Werecat AU

"Hey Tommy," Buck found himself saying one evening. They were in bed, Tommy spooning him, and Buck was so comfortable that he would have fallen asleep already if it hadn't been for the thought haunting his mind. He had almost forgotten about it but the afternoon they spent with the Diazes and seeing Eddie and Tommy all up in each other's space like that; until there was no space between them left, had dragged it back to the front of his mind. "Y-You said that you weren't sure it's over."Tommy just made a confused noise and pulled Buck even tighter against him. It was dirty move that was bound to make Buck melt against him and usually let him fall asleep quickly. But not tonight. "Wha-d'you mean?" Tommy mumbled against Buck’s neck when he'd woken up some more after Buck remained tense in his arms. "You said you weren't sure it's over," Buck repeated, heart racing for some reason. "The courtship between me and Eddie." "Oh Evan," Tommy sighed against his neck and placed a quick kiss right there, "that's not a conversation I'd chosen to have in the middle of the night."

✨ Space AU 1

Being called like this to appear in front of his parents was basically its own dark omen: nothing good had ever come of it. Nothing good had ever come of any interaction with his parents, a dark part of Buck’s brain whispered and today he wasn’t inclined to disagree. He was ushered into his mother’s study and there sat his parents: Lady Margaret and Lord Philip of House Buckley. Buck would rather be anywhere else. “Evan!” his mother said with the fakest smile she had ever managed. “We have secured a marriage for you!” He could feel the blood freeze in his veins but with the very next sentence his mother stopped his heart. “You will be courting Lord Edmundo of House Diaz when the next season begins.” Edmundo—Eddie—Diaz? The man he had been sneaking around with—quite literally—because their love was forbidden? Or at least he had thought it was. Buck let out a slightly hysterical giggle before he could suppress it fully.

🌌 Space AU 2

Hen was working another shift in the med bay with Chim when she—Chimney’s neighbour, Karen—walked in. She still was a mystery: when Hen looked at her directly, all she saw was a woman. Not that Hen was complaining because Karen was certainly a woman Hen liked to look at. But out of the corner of her eye Hen could sometimes catch a sparkle that no human should emit. Trying to figure out what Karen’s deal was had led nowhere so far, at least not by just looking. And Chimney had only shrugged and grinned when Hen had shared her observations. He had been no help at all. “She’s an astrophysicist,” he had said instead, as if that would explain anything. “I think you might get along really well.”

🐉 Would you still love me if I was a wyrm?

The vest, as much as Eddie hated to admit it, did have some advantages. It kept the medal safe, for one. Buck had taken one look at him clutching the now much bigger - at least to him - medal to his chest with both hands, and then picked up a leather cord and cut it to the right length. When he'd put out his hand, Eddie had immediately dropped the medal into it and he was rewarded for it by the new necklace that he now wore. Usually though he wore it under his uniform and there it was safe. Now he had a new kind of uniform, he supposed. And as much as he disliked the way the neon yellow looked against his copper scales, he would never have set fire to it when nobody was looking. Because this vest had Buck's handwriting all over it. Eddie did not know how he had missed it but after all the excitement of the day he had passed out curled up in Buck's lap pretty early when Buck had sat down with- oh. When Buck had sat down with the boxes he had some sewing equipment and fabric in. And he'd asked to measure Eddie before that but Buck was a curious guy and so he hadn't questioned it.

I'd like to thank my beta Buff who I just throw the snippets at and who saves me from confusing save and safe allkjkdfdj

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

a list of things from my season 2 rewatch, in no particular order:

there's a mundane practicality to Nate that's kind of embarrassingly relatable. "I was going to buy a suit but it was really expensive so I borrowed one from my dad" in season 1; "he's going to use a lot of water" about Dani's breakdown in the showers in 2x01. This is... basically exactly how I would respond to both these situations

Very funny that the man Roy describes as "settling for fine" is almost exclusively shown telling stories about almost beating up elderly celebrities

"Do you believe the return of Jamie Tartt will impact that so called 'vibe'" I don't have a point I just love this line.

love everyone supporting Sam in the Dubai Air protest but I feel like researching the sponsorships is probably supposed to be someone's job? That being said they were already the sponsor in season 1 and Rupert probably wouldn't care that their parent company was polluting Nigeria, and I can see how re-doing all the due diligence on the established sponsorships wouldn't be high up in the line of priorities

start of some tonal problems — trying to reintegrate Jamie into the team by shouting and flipping tables comes off a bit weird as a comedy beat when the previous episode has Jamie openly discussing his abusive father

kind of hilarious that the kebab guy thinks Ted is Roy's dad when he's like. maybe 8 years older

the end of 2x05 is very clearly a reference to something (presumably a romcom) and I believe the fact that I don't know what it is makes it much funnier. I do feel kind of bad that Roy has to spend the entire match in a suit when it appears to be quite cold outside, though

"maybe there's a good reason she hasn't replied. maybe she got hit by a bus." (Isaac) "or a train?" (Dani) they are so good at comforting

I tend to need a fair bit of personal space myself so I absolutely understand where Keeley is coming from in 2x07, and the way Roy responds to learning that she feels smothered ("I feel like a fucking idiot," "you've been making out like I'm following you around like some creepy shadow" (paraphrased)) is obviously a product of his own insecurities and he doesn't initially seem to understand that alone time is a legitimate need that doesn't inherently reflect poorly on him,  but ultimately I think the problem itself is more a result of Keeley's difficulty expressing her own needs than of Roy failing to intuit them

The first time I heard Jamie say his thing about giving Richard space I thought he was trying to subliminal message Roy. He definitely wasn't but I was very impressed for a second there

The hug. The HUUUUUG. I am having a feeling

my controversial favourite episode is Beard After Hours — it feels like an episode of a different show, but TL is a bit of an outlier in terms of my tastes and 2x09 is closer to the norm. That being said I didn't start watching until after all of season 2 had come out and might feel differently if I'd been watching the episodes as they came out

the bit where they're singing at the funeral makes me want to crawl out of my skin with vicarious embarrassment. I have never managed to listen to this entire bit with the sound up.

Is sparkling water actually much more common in the UK than in the US? I'm Canadian and it's generally not the default kind of water to offer people, but it's also not as much of a novel concept as it seems to be to Ted.

[dreamcatcheratdawn]

Hii, do u write for Chris Prince? If yes can u write some hcs for crhis x reader in a platonic way? Like they act like siblings, ty! Ily <3/p

Okay, I liked this idea because it's a bit of a departure from the romance we're used to seeing in fanfics here, it was a bold request. As I don't know Chris Prince as well as I'd like to, I did some in-depth research on him and found some nice things. (And sorry for doing this so late, my little vacation had arrived and I decided to give myself a break before going back to college, so I didn't get involved with anything on social media)

"I'll protect you, always."

Chris Prince x gn!reader Warning: Very fluffy, slight mentions of narcissism, nothing too heavy.

Chris has been your friend since you were both in your mothers' wombs.

Your mothers were best friends, so there was nothing to stop them doing the same with their children. In other words, you and him. Your friendship was so natural that many people mistook you two for brothers.

Not that Chris didn't act like one.

Man, while it was nice to share your moments with him, it was a pain to have Chris Prince all over you, showing off how beautiful and perfect he was. Seriously. He had no shortage of compliments for himself. He complimented you too, but not with the same intensity as he complimented himself.

Oh, there was also that thing about doing things perfectly. When he focused on doing something, he wouldn't let go until he'd successfully completed it. This implied that he lacked interest in his studies, no matter how much you and his parents argued with him to make an effort, but he wouldn't even listen. He also bragged about the things he did perfectly well, like playing chess and ball. He would make fun of you about why you seemed so weak at it. And for the idiot that he was, he didn't realize that this hurt you, until the point that you exploded one day and ran off the soccer pitch.

He was startled by the sudden explosion. Like any child, he got desperate and came after you, and you duly explained your point. It wasn't easy, because making amends was something Prince didn't do, even more often. But for you, he did, even if only in the slightest.

Hearing Chris's apology made you smile, and then you were back to your normal selves.

When you received your first confession letter, Chris felt an extreme need to protect you. He found out about the boy who gave you the letter, and asked you a barrage of questions as if it were an interrogation, asking things like: what are your intentions with her, what made him fall in love with you, and so on.

When you found out what he'd done, Chris thought you were going to give him a scolding, but you just laughed it off, teasing him that he was being too protective, even insinuating that he was jealous of your suitor.

He blushed, starting to freak out, justifying himself by saying that it was only to protect you from bad guys, but you didn't listen.

There was also the day he had to go to Japan, and that day was heartbreaking. You said goodbye, tears rolling down your face as he huffed and puffed, wiping away his tears.

"Don't cry like that, you look like those cats that get ugly when they're wet." He said, laughing. You punched him in the arm, not even having an effect. He said goodbye to his parents and his parents made a point of being present.

After that day, you stayed connected by cell phone, talking every day, without exception. It was like a ritual.

When he grew muscles, you asked God to have mercy on you because this boy was showing off ten times more than before. There were so many photos of his muscles in your gallery that your friends really thought he was your boyfriend, even though you strictly said that you saw him as a brother, and he did the same.

And what a gossip Chris Prince was. He would tell you about every atrocity that happened during his stay in Japan that you wouldn't believe if he didn't have proof. And he would also share with you in messages about his rivalry with Noel Noa. You had the impression that you knew Noel Noa more than you knew yourself, because Chris talked about him so often.

You made a point of following his matches, whether on television, on your cell phone, wherever you went. You were his number one fan, so you would support him in whatever he decided for his future, extolling how incredible he was, even though he was already doing that for himself.

It was about ten years ago that Chris showed up at your college door in a sports car. THE GUY LITERALLY SHOWED UP WITH A FERRARI LA FERRARI ON THE DOORSTEP OF A COLLEGE LIKE IT WAS NOTHING. Clearly your classmates were shocked that you went up to him.

"When did you get here?" You asked, circling the car and getting into the passenger side, staring at the luxury car compartment, totally absorbed.

"Yesterday, at 3:17 in the morning. I didn't tell you because I wanted to surprise you." He smiled mischievously, lifting his sunglasses and showing those captivating blue eyes that always calmed you down.

"And what a surprise." You said, smiling at him and giving him a hug, which he reciprocated by pressing your body to his.

"Come on, I'll take you for a snack. Put your seatbelt on." He said, starting the car. You obeyed him, smiling at your best friend, at your brother you hadn't seen for years, and finally you were together again, ready to live every shared adventure. You would take his friendship to the grave, and he would do the same, with all the certainty in the world.

I don't know what to think about this, I think it's a bit blergh, but okay.

[mercerislandbooks]

Book Chats: The Spellshop

Summer is here. The days are warm and long, and the evenings are perfect for sitting outside and reading (or listening and crocheting, in my case) as the sun goes down. The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst is an amazing choice for this kind of relaxing evening. The narrator was excellent, the descriptions were lush, and the setting was idyllic. A librarian and her sentient spider plant seek refuge from a bloody revolution—with crates of books in tow—by heading to Caltrey, a small island on the outskirts of a nation made of islands. All Kiela wants is to protect her books and live unnoticed in the cottage her parents left her. (Un)fortunately for her, that's not how small villages work. With an attractive next door neighbor and a friendly baker determined to welcome her into their small community, as well as a suspicious old man who is set on driving her out, Kiela has to decide if letting people in is a chance she's willing to take. Warning: you will want baked goods slathered with jam by the end of this book.

Becca: Kiela was such a fun, unique character. Her love of books obviously resonates with me as an avid reader and a bookseller, and her habit of overthinking what she says and does was also very relatable. What did you think about her as the main character and voice of the story? Lori: I loved Kiela. For the same reasons as you but also, I loved the way circumstances kept pushing her beyond her comfort zone and then, because of getting to hear her overthinking inner voice, the reader knows what choosing to be brave costs her. But she does it anyway. It's not comfortable to acknowledge that those moments are what bring growth. Also, she has blue skin. And blue hair. And lots of blue clothes. I approved of all the blue. What did you think about Kiela's scheme to barter homemade jam for the supplies she needs? Becca: Making jam is not necessarily the occupation I would turn to for survival, but I also don't live on a little island surrounded by merhorses and abundant fruit trees and bushes. Well, maybe the bushes; our blackberry brambles are out of control. I loved how she took what she had available to her and, with much determination, figured out a way to keep moving forward. Lori: She did. No matter the obstacles, she kept trying. I think we need to discuss Caz, though, the sentient spider plant! Becca: So...a talking plant research assistant. I wouldn't mind that. Maybe then I'd finally know how to care for one without it slowly fading away on me. And Caz has such an excellent personality. Lori: He stole the show in my opinion. I thought he had all the best lines. His friendship and support of Kiela really brought home to me how careful Sarah Beth Durst was to give all her characters, and the environment they inhabit, a nuanced worth. She also created an interesting magic system. Becca: I do love it when magic is something accessible to everyone in a book, instead of just the chosen few who are born with it. But with all of the impressive feats that can be accomplished with spells, I think it was the little magics scattered throughout the book were my favorite. Yes, Kiela wanted to do big magics to help her community, but the little ones that encouraged plant growth and water to flow were the ones that resonated with me. And it's the small magics that she was determined to share with those around her as a way to make their lives better. Lori: It really shows how little things, that maybe don't seem like they matter that much, actually have more of an impact than one might think. It's encouraging that making small choices towards the good does make a difference in the world. Becca: It is. And I appreciated how Kiela came to believe that sentiment because she observed Larran, her always-willing-to-help neighbor, put forth the effort to do so. Lori: I loved watching the spark between Kiela and Larran grow. She started out so wary and standoffish, but as she continued to see how good he was (and how good he looked shirtless), she started to admire him, until she found herself unable to resist.

This sweet book is perfect for summer, with its cottagecore vibes and berry-filled island. The first printing has beautiful sprayed purple edges to add to the appeal. So, stop by to pick up a pretty book, whip up (or purchase) some scones with jam (preferably raspberry), and settle in for a gentle adventure full of plants, jam, and slightly illegal magic.

— ​Becca & Lori