#perhaps it is a viscious cycle

[sunkingwrites]

Walking laps around the living room with my cat rn before I take her back downstairs. No one else in my family will do laps with her and they always think she's hungry when what she really wants is to walk it out

[the-lord-of-springs]

Medraut and Lleu could pull off The Lovely Princess, but could Athy and Jennette pull off The Winter Prince?

I don't think lp!Athyette could. Lp! Athy is too meek and has little to no power over Jennette(which is a no go if she's supposed to be Medraut's stand in)

Wmmap Athyette may be able to if Athy is paranoid enough.

Medlleu to me starts out as, normal brother love on Lleu's side and complicated feelings on Medraut's, those feelings fester and spread to Lleu eventually ruining him, he in turn lashes out at Medraut who also fights back, viscious cycle go!

In a perfect world where Athy is more active in the plot she'd personally meet up with Jennette, when she's still young and lonely, and keep her under her wing. Watching over her, making sure the bud doesn't grow too far which then leads into obsessive surveillance and perhaps even stalking, she needs total control over the situation and justify's it by saying Jennette is naive and it's to keep her safe.

Jennette meanwhile is happy to have someone so close to her all the time and doesn't realize she's being trapped and left vulnerable in an unknown place(the palace) She wants to know everything about her sister-cousin, she's the only one to cling to.

She already knows her favorite food, her favorite color, her favorite flower, her work schedule, where she goes for lunch, her handwriting, etc, so when she finds out she's been secretly meeting up with not one, but TWO men(one of which was her fiance and brother-cousin) she'd explode with rage and accidentally unleash her magic making it a spectacle for all to see.

She'd retreat in fear afterwards and feel so utterly hurt and betrayed when she finds out Athy has known things about that as well, how could she keep secrets about her own body! (many, many parallels as you can see :3)

She'd lash back with tears and accuse Athy of many things, she'd pretend to act distant which panicks the princess as Jennette may be the reason for her greif but also her most powerful weapon. Her existence is proof God has forsaken her, and yet that same girl will give her salvation one day. So she bends to her whims and stays by her side, alone, for long periods of time. Jennette treats her better than anyone ever has after all, perhaps it was worth it for her smile, her hugs and kisses...

I think they could pull it off but perhaps it wouldn't be as weighty as the contexts and motives are different. Still would love to see an au where Athy is more like Medraut though.

[alien-ally]

Personally, loneliness comes from the fact that my relationship with friendship is pretty skewed. and perhaps that i expect ‘too much’ from my parents, who are too buzy caught in their 27 year old viscious cycle of ego, undiscussed conflict and lack of communication. Who will never understand me. Parents are meant to be the fixture right? who i could fall back on, where i could head back at the end of the day. For me though, it’s quite the contrary. i will never get the things i want from them cause their dissatisfaction from life has narrowed their sight and stunted their growth as people. i’ll always only be playing a role around them, aching in silence to get away, so i can finally be myself. I’m not even going to have another family apart from them cause I’m non-partnering. The loneliness from never being understood or comforted is so deeply rooted in me, now when i finally get it, i can’t imagine what i’d do. Given that i have a long long way to go in life, and to rediscover the meaning of intimacy separate from conventional relationships, i can’t even begin to imagine how that would work out for me, now that the loneliness has become an indispensable part of me.

i think a lot about the loneliness of being aromantic. because it's something that's so profound, right? you're told your whole life that you need something to make you happy, to make you complete, to give you connection with other people, and when you realize you're aro, that's torn away from you. everything you've been raised to want is no longer something that will fulfill you. you are not built to be happy. and it gets better with time, it does! you restructure your world view, bit by bit, and the sting fades, but... i don't think it ever truly goes away. it's hard to express, because i love being aro, and i'm happy being aro, i wouldn't want to be any other way, but at the same time. there is such a profound heartbreak to knowing that you will never be someone's most important person in a society that values romance. that you'll never get the happy ever after that you were promised as a child. and you know you can be happy. but there's a lifetime of amatonormativity that lives in your brain and tells you that you can't.

[vela-pulsars]

Sketched a lil theory I had because I love the idea of ancestors and skykids having fantasy logic levels of anatomy and basically being lantern folks. Hollow inside for light and warmth :]

Explaining my reasoning and thoughts under the cut, it's a bit long.

I never really liked when people went into the trope of losing magic when growing up to explain why ancestors (who pretty much represent "adults" in that game) are flightless, because it makes people afraid of growing up and missing out on their youth.

I think both youth and adulthood have their pros and cons. As a kid you might feel lighter because (ideally) you're safe and taken care of, you're given space to mess up and try things, and you're new in a world bigger than you can imagine. As an adult, you're toughened up by experience so you're less vulnerable to the horrors that you were spared from as a child. You're less sheltered, but also free. You hopefully have a better vision of who you are and what you want, staying critical of your surroundings.

It could be the same with ancestors and skykids, who I headcanon as different because while they represent the old generation ("adults") whose legacy is inherited by the new generation ("children"), that doesn't necessarily mean older skykids would lose their wings if they grew up. Rather, I think they are simply built different.

The ancestors could be made from heavier but sturdier material. They could withstand darkness for longer than skykids (see how Crab Whisperer walks through the polluted muddy waters of the shipwreck) at the cost of being less receptive to attempts at recharging their light, which would fit the concept art where they grew detached from and less attuned to the Light. Perhaps they were more reluctant to be vulnerable in a world getting more hostile as well, isolating them further and starting a viscious cycle of distrust.

In contrast, skykids could be made from fragile but lighter materials. They can take off with the slightest breeze, and have no problem mutually recharging eachother and taking in light from their surroundings. They're more vulnerable to darkness, but in groups they can survive it. It would also fit the contrast between the strenght in numbers of skykids getting them through trials, and how following the hero's journey crushes a single person with the fate of the world much like ancestors relying on themselves alone when they ran out of light and reaching a critical point above their darkness tolerance were doomed to fail.

I think the power of flight comes from Skykids just being built to be featherweights, but it symbolically represents connection; we see from ruins and murals flying boats were omnipresent, and in concept art you can see water is sacred in Sky (interesting how it's what harms you in Forest and Wasteland) so I like to think fluid elements (air and water) as well as what is used to navigate them (boats and large light creatures) would have some importance beyond transportation to ancestors, perhaps they were linked to the Light as well since it represents connection ! Rivers and seas irl were used worldwide since ancient times for trade and even as roads, and nowadays we took that to the sky... Skykids could be meant to succeed where ancestors failed, because in Sky, alone and isolated we struggle, connected together we soar.

Interesting fact, in the help menu for emotes, the game refers to the spirits as "your ancestors"... And with the whole death and rebirth thing, could it be that we play reincarnated ancestors ? The Light seems to go in cycles, carried by light creature migrations, ancestors before they sedentarized and now skykids, from the farthest reaches of the kingdom to Eden where it will ascend to the stars then rain back down on the world.

Like a drop of water making its way down to the sea then going back up the mountains with clouds to complete the cycle again, perhaps skykids are, in a way, the incarnation of the dreams of flight of ancestors if not their reincarnation within that river of light.

Hence why I think they would be similar to eachother, and really like how poetic it would be if they were like lanterns.

[musingsofchris]

The truth is, you can never expect or wish for anything to be smooth sailing. Take work for an example, it would be absurd to go through a day without hiccups, countless revisions and just about anything that gives you a fresh wave of anxiety.

I was thinking about it. I really cannot, and should not pray for a day of no shit. Not that I want to deal with shit, but it just isn’t ideal, if you get what I mean? It will be a viscious cycle of - help me, plz, help me, that. Well, I’m sure God is happy to hear our little outbursts. Even if I’m well put together and spiritual, we are ultimately only human and we still need to whine, and reach out to God. But where I’m driving at is, perhaps I need to change my perspective. I may not be able to change my circumstances, but what I can change is my mindset, beliefs and actions. And today’s baby step will be - yeah, there will be shit. But I’ll find a way to deal with the shit because God has equipped me with a skillset to deal with whatever comes my way. Amen.