#this is where I post brom btw

[arbielikestrains]

This is where I post from btw. If you even care ^*-~~`

[heliophxle]

okay so my twin @saturnisonf1re made me watch headless today and i am SO INSANE

so ive been watching shipwrecked since poe party AND THE EFFORT THAT WENT INTO HEADLESS IS ASTRONOMICAL

like… the shots, the script, the characters, the actors, MARY KATE WITH A SWORD??? it was so incredible to watch. the twist? freaking GOBSMACKED.

and brom and mathilda??? was so fun?? and kat was so good omg. i sensed much homosexual energy from mathilda towards kat i need a minute.

like the absolute TRAGEDY of mathilda trying so hard to save the only person that mattered to her (super gay btw) but in the ending choosing not to because maybe Ichabod wasn’t so bad. the SUBTEXT of Ichabod making mathildas life worth it without kat? its almost (definitely is) shakespearian.

and the little family shot at the end? where brom and mathilda could move on from kat TOGETHER??? and ichabod was teaching highschool?? that ending was so powerful in that everyone got they wanted/needed. mathilda got her store and somebody to support her in the way she wished kat would’ve. brom got the wife he wanted, but also someone who would support him (other than his babes) Ichabod moved up a level, both physically (middle to high school) and mentally, as he is no longer a newcomer but rather a returning citizen.

and the fact that the fake book is a reoccurring object?? its GOT TO be alluding to the message/theme of ‘dont judge a book by its cover’ that we see with all the characters. brom appears to be a shallow, fake character but turns out to be a supportive, loyal friend who genuinely wants to be better. ichabod seems like a loser (which he is, affectionately) but is actually a key piece in the puzzle and the worthiest of his bloodline. kat is self explanatory, although her character is so nuanced and layered that she deserves her own post. mathilda seems gloomy and as if she doesn’t care about anything but really cared a lot. and henrietta hudson was a woman, not a man like everyone assumed.

speaking of assumed, brom is one of my favourite characters, and i loved how it didn’t seem as if he was genuinely upset at himself for messing up Ichabods court case BUT HE WAS. we just assumed he wasnt. he is my favourite male wife and gabe is so freaking funny

this is a masterpiece of cinema, and honestly the most impressive thing, as a creative myself, is the fact that they got past the “this would be cool to make” phase and actually finished the project!

it’s truly unlike any other show on youtube, in the best possible way

[modern-inheritance]

I don’t really know where I’m going with this but do you have any Oromis/Morzan headcanons? Before or during the fall, or Oromis’ feelings towards Morzan afterwards?

I have a few! More than a few apparently, I'm just finishing this up and uh...yeah that got longer than I thought!

I’m going to do my best to leave Glaedr and Morzan’s dragon out of these because while they’re large parts of each other's lives and even maybe personalities considering how deeply bonded Riders and their dragons can be, I want to be sure I’m keeping the characters separate. Kinda like how you shouldn’t constantly group identical twins together as a single entity, ya know?

Alright let's start off with Morzan. Time for some backstory!

Modern Inheritance!Morzan

Morzan was born into a family of low level nobles. By the time Morzan was about six or seven though, the family had fallen out of favor and was struggling to keep up appearances, spending money they didn’t necessarily have on lavish items and acting increasingly narcissistic in a desperate attempt to hold onto the standing and power they once had.

Morzan probably started showing antisocial behavior around this time, mainly impulsive petty theft, inserting himself in dangerous situations, and manipulation through charm with adults and intimidation and violence with other children. Due to his family’s last shreds of political strength and their long time in the area, most of these incidents were swept under the rug or outright ignored by his family. This generally left a very angry, disgusted-with-others, burgeoning narcissistic young Morzan to his own devices.

When Morzan was chosen by his dragon, his parents were quietly glad that he wouldn’t be their responsibility anymore. They didn’t disclose any of his troubling behaviors and Morzan was quick to understand that he would need to tamp the more obvious ones down and manipulate others into hiding his transgressions.

Despite all this, Morzan and his dragon do deeply care for each other. Due to Morzan’s mind linking with the hatchling, there was a sort of evening out of his behaviors as some were ‘shared’ do the hatchling and some of the hatchling’s personality was ‘shared’ with Morzan. This is what helped Morzan fly under the radar for so much longer until his eventual betrayal.

On a lighter note, Morzan shot up like a weed when he hit puberty, once growing nearly five inches (~12.7 cm) over the span of a year. It took a year or so for his muscles to visibly bulk up, so he was this tall gangly teenager for a while. His clothes constantly needed altering.

Initially Morzan doesn’t really know what to think of Oromis and Glaedr. His family was always distracted from giving him the attention and nurturing he needed, and suddenly he has not only this baby dragon who he can share his frustrations and emotions with but also parental figures.

Eventually he warmed up to them, but more in the sense that he became attached to their attention and the praise he got when he did well in magic and other lessons. He didn’t showboat as much, but would push himself to get more compliments, praise and attention from Oromis. Oromis saw this more as Morzan taking his training seriously. There were a few instances of Morzan and his dragon being pointed out as instigators of some scuffles or small acts of possible, unproven acts of sabotage harming or tripping up other Riders-in-training, but these were generally believed to be accidents or bad luck.

Morzan’s bullying and belittling of Brom was the result of Morzan feeling like his unfettered access to Oromis and Glaedr’s attention was being threatened. He knew he couldn’t get away with physically injuring Brom and Saphira I, so his physical actions never really went past ‘accidental’ full force hits in sparring and roughhousing. If Brom got praise or compliments from Oromis, Morzan would seethe quietly, eventually exploding in rage at some later point after it built up. Again, Oromis merely thought this was just adolescent growing pains.

Wooo! That is getting LONG, eh? I’ve got more, but for now I’m going to move on to Oromis and his feelings around Morzan’s betrayal and link you to whatever extra stuff I add later. I’m really unsure about the timeline of when Morzan betrayed the Riders and when it was known that he had, so I’m mostly going to skip that chunk. Let's go!

Modern Inheritance!Oromis

Even without 100% knowing/being sure of Morzan’s betrayal, I think there was a whirlwind of confusion and general chaos when Galbatorix murdered Shurikan’s original Rider. Who was a child. A Rider had murdered a child Rider and while everyone knew Galbatorix was unstable I don’t think anyone would have expected that. Oromis was swept up in all this and didn’t have time to really ask where Morzan was. I mean, Morzan was a grown man at that point and well beyond Oromis’s control.

Morzan’s involvement was probably confirmed without a doubt at the initial attack on Ilirea, and Oromis and Glaedr didn’t have time to process this until after their brief capture.

Oromis felt some really strong guilt. That’s putting it bluntly.  Let’s expand it, shall we?

First off, I think Oromis felt some guilt over not being able to help in the sort of final big battle at Ilirea. He was previously quite powerful since he was on the council that refused Galbatorix a new dragon (that’s a whole other topic to look at later on btw), and despite his age and wisdom I think it’s safe to assume that any sudden event causing massive life changes can be pretty shocking. Oromis felt powerless and after the deaths that occured in Galbatorix’s initial attack with the Forsworn on the Riders, I think he knew that there would be more. And all he and Glaedr could do was hide in Ellesméra and tend to their wounds and new maladies.

As they healed I’m pretty sure Oromis spent a lot of time thinking ‘how could I have stopped this?’ Hindsight is...well, whatever-elves-have/20, and Oromis would have put all the signs together that were telling him that there was something off about Morzan from the start. He probably thought subconsciously that he was fixing Morzan and didn’t want to acknowledge just how dangerous that little 10 year old boy and scrawny hatchling he had met all those years ago had become as he grew. There was also a lot of guilt post-Ilirea’s final fall around not protecting Brom from Morzan enough, and feeling like a lot of Brom’s pain was Oromis’s own fault because of this.

Oh man, Oromis also has heaps of survivors guilt about the Riders that, while he does work through it and focuses on extending his life to train the next Rider, never really fades completely. He understands that he could not fight in his condition, but there’s always the nagging ‘what if’ questions that can rear up unexpectedly.

Once he learns of Murtagh and Thorn and their forced fealty to Galbatorix, I think Oromis’s guilt probably pushed him over to definitely join the fight at Gil’ead. It’s likely that he feels that if he had separated Brom and Morzan, had taken the signs of Morzan’s growing antisocial disorder seriously and gotten him proper help, and hadn’t been so blind during the Golden Age, then in some strange way he may have prevented everything from happening. Morzan wouldn’t have let Galbatorix into Ilirea, Shruikan wouldn’t have been stolen, the Forsworn wouldn’t have been influenced by Galbatorix and Morzan (who used his manipulative charm to sway some), and it all comes to, in the end, Murtagh and Thorn, both relatively innocent in this and dragged in only due to parentage and some situations which they have no control over, would have never been forced through torture and cruelty to join Galbatorix and fight people they once saw as friends and family.

Overall I think Oromis, while having processed/processing and come to terms with the Riders Fall and the hand he inadvertently had in it due to his connection to and, in some ways, his failures surrounding Morzan, he still carries this deep feeling of guilt. He doesn’t let it simply sit there though, as he pushes himself to be able to train the next generation, but it’s always there.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH okay that’s what I’ve got for now. Holy shit that’s a lot of bulletpoints, huh? 

I spent some time researching antisocial behavior and Antisocial Personality Disorder, but per usual I want to state that I am by no means an expert, and the behaviors and traits portrayed here are not the only results, symptoms, or scenarios that can occur when someone has antisocial behavior or ASPD. Mental health is a difficult subject to write about, especially when I have no personal or second hand experience with the specifics, and I’m always open to educating myself on these topics. I am doing my best to learn so that I don’t stereotype or offend. If there are comments/concerns/critique please please don’t ever feel bad about messaging me privately, via the comments, via reblog, or through the ask box point out what I got wrong or if you simply want to share your experiences or concerns. 

I’ll probably have more Morzan specific backstory and ideas later on, but for now I need to make some dinner and get to work on the other ask. Cheers!

Thank you again to @siriusly-misunderstood-creatures​ for the ask! I always appreciate asks and comments, they make my brain work!!

[sageandginger]

I started the game! 100% bc of you btw, just to make that clear lol. I’ve only played the first two days, I saved just before meeting Rost before the proving so things are about to get moving pretty soon.

I really enjoy it so far!  I’m visually impaired so I pretty frequently have had the ‘oh man i can’t see fast enough for this’ feeling, not even with the fighting bits but more just walking around the environment, it’s kind of overwhelming. The focus is a very unusual gameplay feature that I enjoy, although I struggle actually being able to see the highlighted bits.

I’m very intrigued by the Nora society, I’d love if you have any Nora culture stuff to share. The idea of a society that reveres mothers and motherhood, to the point where a motherless infant must be cast out, is fascinating, and makes me wonder about their attitudes towards idk barren women, homosexuality, women choosing to be childfree, etc. But also I just wonder more about tribal life and social structures, I’m sure I’ll get more of that once I join the tribe. (I haven’t yet set foot in any of the settlements, I felt like it would be rude to try to go in. I also feel real weird when Aloy keeps talking to people lol they’re going to get in trouble! stop bothering them!)

Speaking of outcasts, I just did the sidequest where you go to find Brom, who clearly has some form of psychosis and was cast out for murdering a man who was cruel to him.  The actual writing I didn’t have much problem with, I feel like yeah, in a primitive society like the Nora it makes sense that it would be interpreted as angry spirits, and Brom’s affliction does parallel many real people’s experience with psychosis when unmedicated.  But oh man. The acting. Brom’s actor clearly was not told that his character was NOT supposed to be comedic, what in the fuck were those choices?! Pissed me off so much.  There’s a difference between “strange and delusional and agitated” and “cartoon character,” and the actor did not get that.

In your first replay post you talked about how kid!Aloy was animated really well by people who have experience with small children, and i was delighted to see her walk up stairs on all fours, it felt very real. However! who tf did the sound for baby!Aloy. that’s not what a six-month-old’s vocalization sounds like. that’s not what any baby sounds like. what is this. honestly they could have just had her be quiet the whole time and that would’ve been fine, maybe thrown in a laugh or two from a real baby but skipped the weird cooing.

Wrapping up with some things I’m looking forward to learning more about: I re-explored the ruin as an adult and I’m excited to find out more about whatever the fuck happened to kill the world, something about Blackhawk or something? (Also the last words thing was. very cool and moving. i’m going to think about Maria sitting against the wall next to her bed singing the last verse of Amazing Grace for the rest of my life.)  It also seems to me that the robots have jobs? like the Watchers are guards obv, the Striders do lawncare? like they cut the grass, and whoever made them based them off of ruminants but they don’t actually eat grass bc they’re robots so someone designed them like that for fun? Scrappers break down fallen robots (and might originally have broken down other metal things back when other metal existed? or maybe it was just robots) and my guess is Sawtooths did lumber. based on the spaces in my notebook I’m guessing there are way more robots types that I haven’t discovered yet but I want to learn more about them and why they were built and why they’re coming back and also whatever the FUCK that tentacle thing is in the mountain what HAPPENED. does that guy wake up? is that the final boss? we shall see.

just wanna talk about hzd folks