#shes got like every disorder

[cordyceph]

mm lestat post time

ever think about how ALL of lestat's relationships remind him no one truly loves him as a person? that he's good for his body only?

his father beats him. no love there, nor with his brothers. his mother never saved him from his father or brothers, and at the Literal First Possibility ditched her title and slept with him. nicki loved him until he was disabled (for all vampires are horrors, they are also textbook disabled. cant function properly in the human world, can only masquerade as human- they are inhuman, survive off parasiting others. for this moment, nicki is only thinking of how he lost his lover to the darkness that took them both- he hates lestat at the end. hates what lestat turned in to, against lestat's will. hates that lestat wont give up)

armand doesnt really love him, either, not then in paris before lestat flees to america. armand likes powerful, demanding blondes (thx marius). armand wants the pale mockery of his maker to adore and cherish- no, to BE cherished by (mixing book and show, when louis is his maitre. when lestat ruins the children of darkness, he tries to give the coven to lestat, to Be Lestat's, ignoring that that's not what lestat wants)

even with louis and claudia, their love was conditional. in the book, claudia choses to kill him because she wants to leave and he wont go with her, but louis will. in the show, its different, because show lestat abuses her. and still, before the townhouse (which we know we/daniel were given false versions of), claudia and louis did not love lestat. louis did not let him into their family, claudia did not want him Ever.

every relationship lestat has ever had has been burdened by the fact that no one has ever truly loved or forgiven lestat for anything. not for little mistakes or grandiose bad decisions. no one has sat with him and treated him with gentle hands or words. claudia, louis, nicki, gabrielle, they all had HIM when theu turned. relied on him, and his teachings. he had nothing. claudia relied on them as both a fledgling and a daughter, but he didnt ever have a parent to rely on

armand is the closest to truly understanding what lestat went through, given the brothel and marius and his two or so hundred years of living in mud. but even then, he doesnt have the empathy for lestat; only chasing after the images of his abusers in his relationships. he would have turned lestat into lestat's father, into magnus, before he would have understood that lestat did not want to be evil.

love lestat. girl with every personality disorder. how do u manage it girly youre so close to being suicidal yet you never really breach the line into depression cause youre too busy being manic

[drenched-in-sunlight]

one thing that i find interesting is that even though we never get to interact with Marika directly, only knowing her via obscure cutscenes and other characters' dialogue... she actually displays a wide range of emotions as much as any other NPCs.

her statues depict her as having a warm, gentle smile:

the Mimic veil description points to her playful, mischievous side:

(it's a popular theory in the JP/Asian side of the fandom that it's sth from her childhood - hence the "Marika's Mischief", not "Queen Marika's", and she used it to escape the grisly fate befalling her family.

additionally, its equivalence in Dark Souls is also something described as "the mischief of a young girl who sought relief from the solitude of the woods at dusk", aka Princess Dusk who hails from "Oolacile, land of ancient golden sorceries", but i digress)

her portrait, the story trailer's "Queen Marika was driven to the brink" and Gideon's dialogue after the player defeated Malenia pointed out her sorrow:

(back when i first played the base game, this is the portrait that drove my eyes most in Roundtable Hold. i kept gazing at her - the Queen with permanently lowered eyes, and thought "there is a girl in there")

The bat lady's song, Messmer's entire Crusade, all those conflicts to establish the Erdtree, shows her anger, and the cruelty she's capable of:

Then there's Shaman's village, the clinic underneath Shadow Keep, the golden braid, the Minor Erdtree, the sealing of Death - that points to grief, trauma, survivor guilt, kindness, and the ruinous drive for revenge that results in the above path down hell:

(there's also a theory for the Crusade's headless statue being a reminder for the Hornsent of what they put Marika's mother through, but it's not concrete canon so here is the link if you want to check it out)

The fact that all of Erdtree's incantations are heal and protection spells (with only one exception of Wrath of Gold spell which was found after the Elden Ring was shattered), the Capitol's Perfumers originally being blessed healers, and that all Erdtree blessings come in the shape of tears give the picture of Marika's gentle wish at the beginning: to heal everything and everyone.

(and to me personally, there's a kind of vulnerability and honesty in showing your tears to the world and let it be your power to heal at the same time.)

the eye she blessed Messmer with (i do think the Eng translation at some part lost the sentiment of the JP text - that the eye is always referred to as a blessing)

the blessing flask that - unlike its Dark Souls equivalent (which ranges from 6-13 flasks), only have 4 available to us player, heal all ailments and status effect, and specified as sth made for Messmer.

the Marika's soreseal in the Haligtree + the waterfall near Godwyn's final resting place

the Regal Omen Bairn (that was fashioned after the Jizo statue - sth made by grieving parents wishing for protection for their deceased child in the afterlife)

the blessing, gifts, equipment that Messmer and Godwyn's personal knights all get

the fact that Marika's bedchamber and the Impaler's Catacomb (which is the only catacomb in the base game to have the spike trap mechanic used in catacombs in the DLC) remain the proof of Messmer's existence in the base game

how Godwyn's ending is the only ending where the mending rune is placed on the position of Marika's womb (the lower arc or the Elden Ring - also referred to as the basin in which its blessings pool)

that's a whole barrage of motherhood. the love, the fear, the postpartum depression, the guilt and anxiety, (the occasional scheming for revenge with her son). and despite how flawed and tragic that love ends up being for all of them, it is there.

(there's a whole subplot about how Messmer is the only demigod to be called ugly in-game (Hornsent npc dialogue) while Boc's questline is about how his mother being the only one to always assure him he's beautiful, despite everyone else calling him ugly. and how each NPCs questline does reflect a wider theme seen in Marika and her children. but again, i digress)

every time i think of her, Marika is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope, holding everything from within (the beauty and the malign, light and dark, birth and death, she's warm and gentle, she's cruel and unjust, she's strong and kind, she's weak and resentful, she's sweet and she's bitterness made flesh)... and i could only stand there and admire it all.

[seaweedstarshine]

RIP Krakoa 🌹 I can’t lie I’ve been kinda behind since midway through Fall of X I’m gonna catch up before my first SDCC this summer but I hear Vulcan didn’t see much action anyway. Anyway my hand slipped and I found myself looking into the eyes of my canonically psychotic son the best Summers brother who’s never done anything wrong in his entire life, (he’s done lotsa wrong things but I love him more for it)

[itz-pandora]

Huh. If my life was a quote, it'd be "one of those sad ones with a deceptively happy tune"

[lilworms]

so

[cowboy-robooty]

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. I AM NOT TRANS I AM A CIS MALE LORD PLEASE WHY DOES EVERYONE I MEET THINK IM TRANS

[running-in-the-dark]

a short list of 'fun' things my mother has done, for the next time I forget what she's really like

the one time she was supposed to pick me up from a friend's house (less than 20 minutes away), my friend and I were a little late getting back to her place because our train was late. I would've been 13 or 14, and I couldn't call my mother because neither of us had money/credit on our phones. when we arrived at my friend's house, her parents told me that my mother had been there and waited a few minutes, but then said she had a toothache so she left. we were maybe 20 minutes late. it was a Friday but we had school every second Saturday, so it was a school night.

I was supposed to go to her friend's wedding with her when I was 11 or 12. she was supposed to pick me up at my dad's place where I lived, and I was alone, so I walked our dog before she was supposed to be there. I was in a hurry, so I forgot my keys, but I thought it was fine because she was supposed to be there any minute. she showed up three hours later. it was winter, there was snow. I think I eventually broke a small part of a window at the back of the house so I could get in because I got really worried about my dog - that was right before she showed up though, so we'd been outside in the snow for hours and it was already getting dark by that point.

her, my brother and I were on the way to a dentist appointment, I think I was maybe 13. she stopped somewhere to run an errand. my brother got out of the car and kept shaking the car really hard the entire time she was gone. he didn't stop when I asked him to and eventually I got upset. when she came back, I told her what he had done and that he wouldn't stop. she told me to be quiet and stop being difficult, I was upset and said that's not fair, she slapped me in the face. my lip was bleeding. we were driving through the village where my dad and I lived, but she refused to stop the car and let me get out. I refused to go to the appointment because my lip and shirt were bloody.

didn't take me to a doctor when I fell on my head and most likely had a concussion

didn't take me to a doctor when I twisted and probably sprained my ankle falling down some stairs and couldn't walk for over a week

once pretended she left me and my brother behind in a small town because we were walking too slowly (we were maybe 3-5 years old) and actually got in the car and drove off (she came back after a few minutes but it still terrified me)

yelled at me when I didn't immediately understand how to knit when she tried to teach me (I was about 6)

made me copy 4 pages of text into the about me section of my friendship/poetry book (that you let your friends write stuff in) because what I wrote wasn't good enough

explained to me that I didn't need to be scared of airplanes because of crashes because those are rare - no, I should be scared of them being kidnapped by terrorists instead (I was 4 or 5)

immediately after that: explained what prostitution is and that it's important so that men don't rape women and children (again, I was like FIVE. the news were on the radio and I didn't know what the word meant so I asked.)

one time my art teacher told her at a parents evening that she (my mother) was just jealous of me because I was young and so different from her and that's why she treated me that way and didn't like me. she thought that was hilarious and immediately told me about it when she came home. she just found it sooo funny and ridiculous. I'm still not sure if she made it up, but tbh both options (it really happened or she made it up) would be weird as hell.

[dumkana16]

Whatever the fuck kinda fuck ass hormones are happening in my body right now I'm mad at them. pmsing pre-period-ing whatever you wanna call it and I'm so mad. So grumpy. And I can't help it! But I'm aware that I shouldn't dump that on people so that means that I'm mostly just silent or making noises to myself. Also mad for other reasons but last week I was able to handle it somehow. Premenstrual me struggles to handle it much more tho

[blueheartedwolf]

I wish I could find a doctor that wants to find out what’s actually wrong with me instead of recommending prescriptions to address the symptoms. I’m so tired of being recommended ibuprofen for debilitating pain. Tired of relaying my medical history to a new doctor and getting the same furrowed brow and shrugging shoulders I get every time. Tired of having so-called medical professionals ask why I need a cane if I’m able to walk down their clinic hallway without it. When will someone fucking help me?

[bearstuck]

theres a hypothetical instance of asylumstuck being written well and not incredibly offensive and yet every single time i see some old asylumstuck posts i am blown away by how they manage to get literally every depiction of mental illness incorrect. its like they googled the symptoms and then deliberately wrote against the reality of those illnesses. its like they googled awful stereotypes about mentally ill (mostly psychotic or suicidal people) and made it their personal project to include as many as they could

[aropride]

how are we doing today!

[actual-changeling]

.

[newfeeling77]

i was thinking the other day about my middle school experience and i remember getting an award for having the highest scores in science in my grade and im not that great with anything that isnt reading/writing or art so it was odd. but i think its all because from what i remember i really liked the teacher n she never had the lights on in that classroom she only used the natural light from the window so it was always a little dark in there and i never got overstimulated by the horrible overhead lighting. so i think i was just really focused for once. my therapist also keeps her office extremely dark and i function so well

[warriorprincesstramp]

every once in a while I rerealise that my teenage self wasn't crazy/selfish/ungrateful and my parents really were just Like That

[set-wingedwarrior]

I have this feeling that I am going to hide in my university much more and much longer just to avoid my roomate because she's really stressing me out

[theriverdalereviewer]

just finished reading this book called the list by siobhan vivian and you know what I recommend even though I found the ending to be lackluster