#yes I am totally fine with all of this yes

[catras-breakup-song]

I’m evil but all my evil friends betrayed me and I’ve decided that the best revenge is to ruin their evil plans. Yes, this means I’m a “good guy” or whatever. No, I don’t like it any more than you do.

I was evil but all my evil friends betrayed me and now I’m going to latch onto the first person who shows me kindness. If that happens to be the protagonist, I am totally fine with realigning my morality to match theirs.

I never wanted to do what I did, and now the biggest obstacle to me switching sides is convincing me that I’m not a living weapon.

Look, I legit thought that being evil was going to be my best option to get this important thing done, but, uh, that didn’t pan out. Help?

some random redemption arcs that aren’t just ‘zuko, but a little to the left’

I’m evil but all my evil friends betrayed me and I’ve decided that the best revenge is to ruin their evil plans. Yes, this means I’m a “good guy” or whatever. No, I don’t like it any more than you do.

I was evil but all my evil friends betrayed me and now I’m going to latch onto the first person who shows me kindness. If that happens to be the protagonist, I am totally fine with realigning my morality to match theirs.

I never wanted to do what I did, and now the biggest obstacle to me switching sides is convincing me that I’m not a living weapon.

Well as long as you’re imprisoning me in this magic amulet I might as well give you pointers on your technique. I mean come on if you all die I might be stuck here for millennia! It’s not because I like you and don’t want you to die. Nuh uh.

Look, I legit thought that being evil was going to be my best option to get this important thing done, but, uh, that didn’t pan out. Help?

[honeygrahambitch]

"In the right pile we will put the suits we keep and in the left pile the suits you are no longer using. Okay?" Will explained. "Hannibal?"

"Remind me, dearest, why are we doing this?"

"Because I don't have place for my own clothes. And that says a lot since you fucking have a dressing room and three wardrobes."

"I don't mind sharing them with you."

"Yes but for once I would like not to search for my clothes between your suits, Hannibal. Last night when I couldn't sleep I decided to count them. Do you know how many suits you own in total?"

"Including all seasons?"

"Including all seasons."

"Seventy-three." Hannibal replied innocently.

"Seventy-three, Hannibal." Will repeated, crossing his arms over his chest. "You don't even wear all of them anymore."

"There are so many reasons I am keeping them. Some of them are pieces of art. Some bring back fond memories."

"Let's make space for new memories." Will said. Even if his sentence was too cheesy for his own taste, he forced a smile. He knew that he had to try his best if he wanted to obtain results.

"Fine."

"Great. Let's start with this. I haven't seen you wearing this in years."

"I'm keeping it. It makes your eyes pop."

"It's your suit."

"And it matches your eyes."

"As I was saying..." Will said patiently and threw it into the left pile. Only seventy-two more left.

"This one."

"I'm keeping it. The fabric is spectacular. Don't you find it unique?"

"Okay. You can keep it. Next. Definitely not keeping this."

"What do you mean? Remember how three months ago I put this suit jacket on you when you were cold? I associate it with you now and I treasure it dearly."

Will groaned and threw it into the right pile. It would probably take ages to get to a conclusion.

**

"This?"

"It makes my waist appear incredibly snatched. Don't say you don't like it."

"This?"

"We can throw it away. Because I have one which is identical. I found it so wonderful that I had to get two."

"You are sick. This is worse than being the Ripper, you know, right?"

"I really like suits. Condemn me for that."

"Whatever. We are done. We threw away six. Six, Hannibal. Six out of Seventy-three."

"And my heart aches for them. What are you doing?" Hannibal asked as he saw Will suddenly searching for something on his phone.

"Ordering myself a wardrobe from Ikea."

[thebabycage]

JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH THE MAGP TEAM CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS HOW ARE YOU SO GOOD AHHHH

You can’t just drop a nuke like a blatant TMA reference in ep 13 and on ep 22 hit me with a right sock in the face like it’s prime time wrestling with a direct name drop in season one

And Gwen??? She’s trying her hardest okay let her go please she did nothing wrong and now she’s marked by The Big Scary for trying to Girlboss Gaslight Gatekeep a little too hard.

And is Gwen finally gonna reveal her “complicated immigration status” aka being from a whole different universe???

THIS IS THE KINDA STUFF YOU REVEAL IS SEASON 3 AFTER LONG BUILDUPS NOT LEADING ME AROUND THE CORNER THEN BASH MY HEAD IN WITH IN SEASON ONE BECAUSE THEN WHAT HORRIBLE REVEALS WILL THERE BE IN THE LATER SEASONS AGHGGDKRFVRVEJSK

[excedrinpm]

YES

Also idk if this is like ok to add & also probably worded horribly but to kind of piggyback off of this I feel like the “aesthetics” of subcultures have been narrowed into such tiny little boxes. Like when I was younger black jeans and a t-shirt were very much considered acceptable in emo, goth, grunge, or even punk subcultures. But now it feels like people are so picky about what is and isn’t the fashion. It feels like because of fast fashion people are so intensely elaborate about the aesthetics which like that’s fine if you want to go all out that’s totally cool, but it feels like everyone is expected to go all out all the time and that’s just so not what these subcultures are about. Especially bc majority of these subcultures were based around political ideology, music, and DIY culture.

Also it feels like people make micro labels for every tiny subset of a fashion aesthetic. Which we had to an extent with like pastel goth or nu goth or romantic goth, but it feels so weird and meaningless now. What is “clean grunge” “fairy grunge” “mermaid goth” “emocore” it’s just beyond me but that might just be me.

It feels to me like the labels are becoming more important than the subcultures themselves. Like back in the 2000s a lot of us would never even claim labels like that (partially out of fear of being called a poser and partially out of just simply not caring). We just kind of did what we liked and whatever label people chose to give us was like “okay cool whatever I guess but also I just like what I like”. Whereas I see so many posts that are like “am I emo? Am I punk? Am I goth? Is this okay for Jirai” like babe it’s really not that deep if you like it then you like it & just run with it.

I don't know quite how to articulate this so bear with me, but it feels like there's something about this era of fast fashion and social media that has robbed subcultures of an understanding of their own barriers and pushed people into aesthetic boxes that just aren't "real." I started considering myself goth age 12 because I listened to the music, and I liked the associated aesthetics. I was way too young for goth clubs and shows, and I couldn't dress goth for a variety of reasons. But nobody would've objected to that label to the degree that people would these days. "You don't HAVE to wear x fashion to be part of x subculture but why WOULDN'T you?" seems to be a prevailing idea. Because clothes are affordable now beyond DIY and require no skill and resourcefulness, and subcultures are more 2d and visually tethered to certain images than ever based on social media presences, and... Idk. there is just something depressing about this, you know? there are reasons beyond money why people might not wear certain clothes or wear them regularly. there are reasons beyond money why people might not want fast fashion. there are people who don't even have the money for fast fashion. there are people who have lives you will never understand, who love the same things you do, and shouldn't that be enough?

[howtodisappearcompletelyand]

20/10 stars little guy

[iraprince]

Hiii, i love your stuff and kinda from a distance really look up at you for, in my perception, being able to express yourself without giving a fuck. Thats sick dude, Im so so afraid, of absolutely everything, its nice to think like i might grow into someone less apologetic of my existence. Nice to see people just being yknow

hey, thank you, this is really really nice. the secret that is probably not a secret is that i am also deeply afraid a lot of the time lmao -- but less than i used to be, and in ways that feel less stifling and self-suffocating, if that makes sense.

like, it used to be "i'm scared that if i express myself the way i want to, everyone will find me obnoxious, so let's just sand those edges down to be safe" -- now my fears are more like "now that i'm expressing myself in a way that feels natural and real, i'm afraid that it's all stupid/vapid/not worthwhile or meaningful" (<- specifically abt my art) or "i'm happy that i talk and act the way i want to now, but what if it makes me impossible to befriend," etc etc etc. which still feels bad and puts me in a funk a lot of the time but at least it's a fear that comes After/in reaction to doing stuff, rather than a fear that STOPS me from doing stuff, you know? like, it's evolved into a kind of fear that's less in my way.

anyway. i believe you'll experience something like this, because wanting to grow is the first step of growing. the fact that u hope or wish for something different means you're already on your way. to fewer fucks!! or at least distributing the fucks u give in a way that serves u better

[adarlingmess]

You download mods that makes BG3 characters look underage.

I download a mod that gives Haarlep Raphael's wrinkles and stubble. We are not the same.

[celerifleuri]

i often worry about some aspects being too implicit/obscure so seeing things being picked up on makes me incredibly happy!!

i think you can never truly achieve a perfect balance of implicit vs explicit because it depends heavily on the individual and how willing they are to engage with the text

as a reader who loves specificity, word choice and generally reading into things, i try to write so that one line can be read in multiple ways

this kind of writing may not be for everyone but it's a kind that's very fun to me and knowing that im not alone in this is always quite reassuring !

to your comment on the title and tongues, im going to add a silly expression

silence is a key part of maelyn's character (the game as a whole even) and she quite literally holds her own tongue at times!

depending on how you read hold and which tongues you associate it with, the title can also refer to the tongues maelyn physically held in her hands, the tongues held together as feathers for the wing, anything you see fit!

(was going to put a screenshot there but it'd be quite long so just go ahead and google 'hold meaning' and have fun 😭)

eric is one hell of a character and i have plans to really highlight the facade he used to have back when everything seemed fine

that will probably be easier to see in bonus episodes but at its core, his character is all about the duality of abusers. how no matter how good someone may seem, you can't know how they think and what they can do, especially when things don't go how they want them to

you mention the dress (rightfully so) and there's also another thing he gives/leaves her with! the braid and ribbons!

he used to tie her hair (//trap her into a sort of feminine ideal) and you'll notice that no matter how loose, she still keeps her hair tied. until a specific ending!

but even there, she didn't untie them herself, she simply became the doll of another. so no matter how free she can appear then, she is very much dead (you could totally argue that death freed her of everything but if she/her mind was freed, her body was not!)

more things can be said about the hair and the doll but ill stop there, you can think of them yourself !

thank you for the 'grounding yourself again' because yes!! it might be in the details but here and there, feelings will take her out of her thoughts and bring her back to reality

for the 'to be kept' part too, thank you

not commenting on everything but i am very much chewing on your words, i love reading interpretations!!

the 'so she could breathe' is also quite ironic because if you're not deluding yourself like he is, maelyn is dead, so what is the point of giving her room to breathe now? like many out there, she needed that way before. it's pointless now, it only serves the one that does the act, it only makes them feel better, considerate

feel free to share your thoughts anytime, i love reading them and rambling in response!

MERU😭😭😭 i finally had a free moment to relax and the first thing i wanted to do was play hold your tongues and i've spent the last few hours pouring over how absolutely beautiful of a piece it is in storytelling and visuals. i genuinely have so much to gush over and idk where i should be doing it so into your inbox it goes. i apologise in advance, you also don't have to respond to this bc 1) i am aware it's gonna get vv long and 2) spoilers will definitely be mentioned

i hope sel knows what an absolute gem of a writer she is for executing all of this bc i am fucking gobsmacked by how well certain ideas and concepts were interwoven throughout the entire piece. maybe a lot of the things following are just my interpretations, but that's another thing i really really love — there's enough ambiguity in the prose to be able to infer it in so many different ways

first to the namesake of the game, ‘hold your tongues’ and the many connotations of tongues that are explored throughout; as symbols of liberation and entrapment that intermingle so so well. i feel like the game really delves into the struggles that women face in society, in relationships, just in general and i like how since it's done so through maelyn's own perspective, we're privy to a more complex and raw display of how deeply emotionally scarring it can be.

eric is a little bitch imo (i won't retract that statement ever) but the ever judgmental, taunting and superior tone he has as the ‘voice’ in maelyn's head speaks volumes of the character he possessed and the lasting impact it had on her. giving her dress to another man makes her ‘unfaithful’, the fact that it's emphasised that these are only ‘remains’ of a dress too — bc eric left her with shreds, physically, mentally. 

if we take the dress to act as a metaphor for maelyn herself, he left her in shreds.

in response to this, maelyn bites her tongue, so hard that it bleeds. it's restraint, quite literally biting back your anger and the feeling of being wronged. grounding yourself again to the harsh reality of it all, and it brings her back to the present moment when starling points it out.

we see a similar occurrence later on when maelyn relays her tongue ‘longing for a taste, was to be kept down.' so again, she stops herself (and i think the wording here is particularly interesting, that it was to be kept, so intrinsically this too may also link to how women are commonly taught to be submissive and forced to fit to certain standards). 

in both contexts, the act of biting the tongue can be taken as a suppression of some sort of desire — the first is the desire to be mad, and the second is the desire of lust. both which women have been criticised for through the ages.

i also like to think that the tongue is a representation of freedom. starling is very much making wings to fly out of them, and taking them away from ppl has ‘forever deprived of their ability to lie’ (in which case lying = freedom, i won't expand on this too much bc it'll be another whole essay😭) so going back to maelyn, her biting hers can also be seen as her freedom being hurt, prevented.

another thing is, the line just before ‘he never ran out of tongues’, we can take this as starling never having his freedom threatened. and it poses further questions. is this because of his strength? is it because he has the ocean ‘wholly’? is it because he's a ‘man’?

on my first run through, one of the most prominent questions i came away w/ was what was it that attracted maelyn to starling? to the concept of these monsters of the sea that had surpassed human constraints that had her waiting out all those hours to catch a glimpse of one to begin with. what was it that kept her coming back? time and time again, day after day when she could've not gone back to that shore after leaving.

the text narrates a couple of things that i think contributed, there's a sense of warring humanity and animosity in the repetitive motifs of dirt and uncleanliness, in her noting that starling looked ‘half a man’ and that one half could've ‘consumed’ the other. maelyn has an envy that's touched upon frequently. does maelyn want to be closer to a monster so that no one can hurt her? or does she feel like a monster is all she can be now?

then there's a dynamic with power that was honestly done so well. again, my praise to sel for how well thought out it all was. that part where she put her hand into his guts and he made sounds he was ‘unable to control’, another when she tells him ‘cut’ and he does so without question — she recognises she holds the reins in that moment, acknowledges, ‘in control, I breathed.’ 

starling listens to her for the most part, it's a reoccuring theme. even when making his wings, he's following her instructions although it's made clear that he learns quick and is capable. perhaps this gives her comfortability.

but we see this turn on its head when things start to go left, starling begins to do as he pleases and maelyn is taken back into her trauma, back to feeling ‘disgusting’ and ‘unclean’, she even apologises and promises to do better.

leashes are mentioned a few times, maelyn first describes them as a sort of ‘necklace’ — perhaps this is tribute to the way a woman's submission is often beautified and normalised. the ‘leash’ starling puts on her in one of the ends is made of pearls, he keeps it in his mouth before this. could this be a reference to eric's sweet words that bound maelyn before he revealed himself? starling ties it somewhat loosely ‘so she could breathe’ yet that doesn't take away the fact that it's still there. it has a sort of your cage is not small, but that doesn't mean you're not locked in it kinda feel.

there's so much more i could say but i think ive alr said too much😭 i didnt even get to touch on the cuddle ending which was my favourite, or the symbolism of losing fingers, the significance of the numbers two, three and four to the story. I DIDN'T EVEN TALK MUCH ABT THE ART😭😭 MERU SORRY I GOT DISTRACTED BUT THE ART WAS PHENOMENAL❗️❗️❗️❗️

maelyn is super pretty and i love how her and starling contrast each other in design so nicely. starling's expressions were stellar ++ the bgs and cgs were beautiful (you're right, if you didn't clarify it i would think you were behind the chest one haha). also the body horror aspect was really brought to life with the visuals and ik it definitely mustn't have been easy drawing all those organs, thank you for your service meruuuu

i'll shut up here before i write another 3k, but both you and sel did such a great job w/ this. the two of you deserve a nice break to rest so pls make sure to take things easy and take care of yourselves!! drink water and sleep when you can, and know that you've made a masterpiece♥️

OH MY GOD THIS ASK IS MAKING ME GO FERAL

It's so well written??? You did such a good job picking up the details hidden behind their lines??? I fish you continued writing because I for sure did not want to finish it and please do send the other thoughts you had if you can, I love this so much

I'm sure @celerifleuri will too so I'll tag her

You already mentioned the spoilers at the start but I'll also note it down here for people who haven't played the game yet. I'm sure sel will do a much better job answering your story analyses but I'll also say you're completely right with most things you've said.

The story takes place in 1800s with dated gender roles we unfortunately can still relate to. Maelyn is a curious woman who wants to study and experiment, but is being held back by society and even people who she thought she could trust, but again Sel will do a better job explaining those.

I'll talk about the art a bit. One thing I really enjoyed that was kinda unintentional on my part was the use of night and day.

The story starts at night time, the first ever cg we get of Maelyn is her jumping down the cliff, with the moon's reflection on her left and the waves giving an illusion of wings as she looks up, in that very moment she is free.

On the other hand the first ever cg of Starling is day time. The sun is shining brightly from his left, almost blindingly, as he looks down. His hair covering the screen like spider webs.

To contrast these, it's night time in the wood ending. Just like the first cg of Maelyn, we can see the soft moonight shining upon them but not quite reaching Starling's face. Maelyn is alive.

Meanwhile in the bone ending, even though they are underwater we can tell it's day time, just like the first Starling cg. We get to see a glimpse of them through the seaweeds covering our view, the sunlight showering them gently. Starling is alive.

For the character designs too, a bit of a reverse but I'd say Maelyn resembles the sun, meanwhile Starling is like the moon.

They both share green eyes, although quite different shades. Maelyn has bright red hair that contrasts Starling's red tongue tail.

I also like that Maelyn's hair, albeit a bit loosely, is braided and kept tidy. Meanwhile Starling's hair is usually all over the place and quite messy.

[silverselfshippingchaos]

man... this crush is.. certainly something!

[itspileofgoodthings]

you know what I’ve realized lately? that’s really helped? the axiom: it just doesn’t really make that much of a difference. Or at least it doesn’t when you’re talking about good things and not, like, doing good vs. doing evil. Big choices, little choices, decisions, decisions —it’s not just that they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things—because they do! —but just. It won’t make that big of a difference. Life will continue to be wonderful AND difficult, fascinating AND hopelessly mundane, full of roses AND thorns and all the other cliches whether you walk down one road or another. And you’ll get used to the joys and sick of the sorrows whatever they are, and you’ll be ungrateful and bored and dissatisfied in some measure some of the time and you’ll have to work on all the things you have to work on anyways and just. Yeah! It doesn’t make that big of a difference! Even the biggest things!

[foreignobjecticus]

Today I got to go to the races (up 70p), went rock climbing (got to the top of the actual rock walls first time omg), drove 95mph (about as comfy as my baby goes but boy does it get there easy), AND

Odo's boyfriend arrived! What a nice day ehehhehe

[luckybatcreations]

I am VERY NORMAL, and I TOTALLY DO *not* IDENTIFY WITH Pink Diamond Pt.1

[thekeatoncadet]

Drew some background/minor characters to purge the brainworms. Unclear if it worked or not.

[tsukasalover]

(credits to ssruis)

This song is the only thing keeping me going I do not play about mr showtime 😞 nothing ruined me (made my life better) the way this song did

(Sendn. Me songs to do this with in my ask box… sniffle…)

[aeide-thea]

i do wish, like, literally anyone i knew were even a little bit hesitant or skeptical about the institution of marriage where i could hear them

like—i accept that presumably the thing can be done in a more radically ~examined~ way or whatever; but how does that happen if no one ever actually, you know, examines it through a lens that’s anything but rose-colored? or at least, not out loud where some actual collective discussion and theorizing could happen?

and also i just, as always, think there’s value in voicing a variety of visions for how to live, because i think a worldmodel in which there’s a default goal, and then a stigmatized alternative for those who can’t or won’t meet it, is in fact worse for everyone, even the normie or normie-passing, than a worldmodel in which that false, stifling binary gets expanded back out into a full range of free, deliberate, joyous choice, and the original default becomes just one of many, equal, gorgeous possibilities…

[ichorblossoms]

sighs fine i'll make a third honeybee sketchbook file