#like your just making it worst...

[roguefort]

btw if you interact with any of those dumb fucking negative confession/"gossip"/"tea" blogs then dni :3 so yeah!! don't interact with me + don't join my event!! and block me whilst your at it!!

[chimerafeathers]

i really love how intensely Mirabelle reacts to act 5 Siffrin botched friendquest.

Isabeau is mostly operating out of concern and, eventually, hurt. he already knows something’s up before Siffrin gets to him. he knows something truly awful must be wrong for Siffrin to be lashing out like they are, and as soon as he can’t handle the situation anymore, he leaves and asks (with strained cheer) for time apart to cool off.

most of Bonnie’s anger comes from being upset and afraid that Siffrin would willingly put themself in danger for no reason, when that’s exactly why they’ve been so unsettled since the eye incident. they hate that Siffrin values their own life so little, they hate that they’re the cause of any pain or loss for him, and here he is, putting himself in that situation AGAIN. on purpose. it’s loud and explosive, but it’s familiar, too, being “hated” by Bonnie for this reason.

Odile pushes, and keeps pushing, until her concern overwhelms Siffrin and they strike where they know she’s most vulnerable. she gets physical, just for a moment, grabbing his collar before controlling herself and letting go. her fury shuts down into cold detachment, and she walks away.

but Mirabelle—dear, sweet, gentle, loving Mirabelle, “the most wonderful being on earth,” with her secret “ruthless side” that largely involves lightly badmouthing people behind their backs and then apologizing—slaps them. immediately.

and then COMPLETELY RENOUNCES THEIR FRIENDSHIP.

not just “we’re not friends anymore,” but “we were never friends in the first place.”

that’s!!! pretty extreme!!!!

of course, she ALSO starts by asking what’s wrong. something must have happened for him to act like this. but as soon as Siffrin brushes her off, she jumps past that line of questioning and dives headfirst into re-evaluating everything she thought she knew about them as a a person.

if he could say something like that to her and not see anything wrong with it, then she was wrong to treat him as a friend, wrong to read camaraderie into his teasing, wrong to think they must care about them all under their aloof demeanor.

that’s how Mirabelle phrases it—“I was wrong about you”—but i think that there’s a hidden layer of I was right about you, too.

she talks about the way they tease her like she had to convince herself that he was doing it in a friendly way. she says they talk like they “know better than her” like that’s a thought she’s had for a LONG time.

“Always soooo mysterious, Siffrin, always talking as if you're better than me! As if you know me!!! But you don't, Siffrin!!! You're just as lost and useless as I am!!! So stop!!! Talking!!! As if you know me!!!!!!”

none of this comes across as a new, sudden way to view Siffrin for her. it doesn’t shock or confuse her. it makes her angry, defensive, almost like she was waiting for something like this to happen at some point. the feeling of resentment, frustration, jealousy, being patronized and condescended to—this is something she’s been actively pushing down and rejecting this entire time, but they’ve given her ample reason for it all to boil to the surface. violently.

Mirabelle’s kindness is not inherent or easy. it’s a choice she’s making. she treats Siffrin warmly because she gives him the benefit of the doubt—refusing to act based on anxiety-fueled, cynical speculation, and reassuring herself that his actions are driven by care and friendship even if she can’t quite see it.

“I was wrong about you” doesn’t mean she always and without question believed them to be a fundamentally kind, caring person from the beginning—it’s that her first, colder instincts were right, and she was wrong to convince herself otherwise.

never mind that she asked what was wrong at first. she barely gives them time to speak in their own defense, to explain what they really meant by what they said. all of her suppressed doubts and frustrations are getting aired out now, now that all the trust she’d so deliberately placed in him has been betrayed. her pain feels bigger than this singular moment, so when she hurts him back, she makes sure it extends back through the entirety of their relationship for him, too.

“You're awful. You're not my friend, not my ally, not anything. You never were.”

like the others, she goes back to the clocktower and tells Siffrin not to come back until later. but there’s a finality to the way she ends this confrontation that isn’t quite there with the others. Isabeau and Odile reach their breaking point and remove themselves from the situation, asking for space to cool off but still somewhat leaving the door open for Siffrin to tell them what’s really going on at some point. Mirabelle is the only one who tries to fully cut ties—after everything else she says, her “I don’t want to see you until tonight” reads to me somewhat as “I don’t want to see you anymore unless I have to.”

I can’t wait to never see you again.

even back at the clocktower, Mirabelle doesn’t really defend Siffrin’s place in the party when Odile suggests leaving them behind out of concern for their trustworthiness on the most important day of the journey. Isabeau and Bonnie protest out of sentimentality and faith in Siffrin’s abilities and connection to them, and Mirabelle agrees, but…

“I agree, but... B-But would he even agree to come with us, still? Maybe they won't even come back tonight...”

she doesn’t say much outside of that. maybe the stutter and hesitation here are signs of regret about how things happened, but she lacks Isabeau and Bonnie’s confidence that Siffrin even wants to come back to them in the first place. she doesn’t trust that their bond was real anymore. maybe it never was in the first place, or maybe she broke whatever was there herself.

and she’s still mad when they finally catch up to Siffrin at the King! and she makes sure Siffrin knows that—after saving them, assuring him that he no longer needs to fight, that they’re all there for him. she still cares, of course she still cares—she’s still hurt, too, but they can figure that part out once there’s less world-ending stuff going on.

she’s the first to say that they all reserve the right to still be angry at Siffrin later—and that they’ve already forgiven him.

she’s also the first to say we want to stay with you, too. it’s not just you.

she was wrong! she thought they didn’t care but they care so much, it’s overwhelming, it’s world-ending.

i think she’s gonna be wallowing in guilt post-canon the moment she remembers what she said and did TO SIFFRIN and not just what Siffrin said to her. especially now that she knows Siffrin’s exact hangups, and especially especially if she figures out what Siffrin was trying to say.

they put themself through hell out of loneliness and fear that none of the others cared about him the way he cared about them, he was going insane from repetition and exhaustion and hunger and trying to keep them all safe and together, and all they did in the midst of all that was say something kind of mean to her one time (that turned out to not even be MEANT to be mean it was supposed to be HELPFUL they just SAID IT ALL WRONG) and she SLAPPED THEM? and told him that they WEREN’T FRIENDS AT ALL??? how could she!!! she should have known better!! what they said hurt a lot but still!!!

so when they eventually manage to try to talk about it, they end up almost in, like, a guilt competition.

Mirabelle apologizing for how she reacted, that she shouldn’t have yelled or hit him, that she doesn’t want to be the kind of person who acts that way out of anger and she’s sorry that she made Siffrin expect that reaction from her, she should have known better and believed in him more and they only messed up like that because they were losing their mind in a time loop but what’s HER excuse—

and Siffrin going nononono stop I deserved it—(HUH DON’T SAY THAT NO YOU DIDN’T)—and that he should never have said such awful things to her, ever, and she was under so much pressure already with the weight of the country and everyone’s lives and futures and her religion and their whole party counting on her to do this impossible task because she’s the only one who can, all this unbearable expectation and hope crushing her, and they KNEW that but they thought they could skip to the ending as though her feelings didn’t matter at all, like helping her wasn’t as important as saving a little time—

until they’re just. in tears together, apologizing for all the horrible things they did in between complimenting each other’s strength and kindness and resilience and how much they admire each other and saying that no, everything you did was completely understandable, actually, the only one who sucks here is me. which neither of them will accept coming from the other!!

they’re so similar, in ways they couldn’t really understand, before.

warm, affectionate, perfect Mirabelle, the resolute hero, a beacon of compassion and hope for all those around her, who wears her heart on her sleeve, her fear making her courage shine all the brighter—nothing like the insignificant, forgettable Siffrin, too terrified to be known, too fragile to touch, too selfish and disgusting to bear letting go.

cool, mysterious, unflappable Siffrin, the worldly traveler, as charming and silly as they are confident and skilled, who brushed off losing an eye like it was nothing, accepting the risks of this journey with barely more than a shrug—nothing like the anxious, stagnant, undeserving Mirabelle, a fraud and a nobody crumbling under the weight of a mission too important to be entrusted to someone like her, doubting herself, doubting her friends, doubting her mentor, doubting her faith, too weak and brittle to bend and change the way the world needs her to without breaking.

not worth bothering others with their problems. they should be able to handle this alone. stay positive, stay calm. breathe in, and out.

they’ll struggle with it, still—the hiding, the minimizing—but now, they understand each other a little better. they can hold each other accountable for what they leave unsaid.

it’ll get easier, eventually. they have plenty of time.

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

[lungthief]

listen. i know it's not 2014 anymore and i know it's just a throwaway line and that the russo brothers didnt intend for marvel action blockbuster captain america the winter soldier to become the tragic gay love story that never was but man. having steve say "it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience" in a conversation about romantic relationships right before the bucky reveal is so cruel. it's not just about steve and bucky obviously having the shared experience of being "out of time," it's the fact that they've both been stripped of their humanity in opposite directions. steve is a legend, he is an american hero and a national icon before he is a human being the same way that bucky is a weapon and a killing machine before he is a human being. steve knows that anyone who falls in love with him in the 21st century fell in love with captain america first, and that's just not him. but then the one person who knew him first and knew him best and loved him (not captain america, that little guy from brooklyn) so much he died for it is alive, impossibly. and it's a miracle because he's back and it's horrific because he's back under the worst possible circumstances. but to steve, the winter soldier is worth tearing the world apart for because he's always been bucky first. they find each other and suddenly they're human again. and maybe, despite it all, being "out of time" becomes a blessing, because in this century they'd finally be allowed to love each other the way they've always wanted to. like real people do.

like. no. the captain america trilogy isn't about two queer men traumatized and alienated by war and modern life rediscovering and reclaiming their humanity through their love for each other. but. i mean. it couldve been

[ruporas]

need to exist in your warmth (id in alt)

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[proxythe]

sorry im really obsessed with this pair … 🧚 u guys must understand… i have a rare pair addiction …

[allimili]

you used smc as bait, successfully got me hooked, introduced me to homicipher, and i'm now obsessed with it. i hope your happy with yourself /pos

i’d be that one idiot in a horror movie and take every opportunity to hang around mr. eyes. he may look a little scary, but he can't be all that bad... right? right??? he seems friendly enough, what's the worst that can happen?

Mr eyes doesn't view you as food ! They are friend to you !

[s0fter-sin]

something people just don’t think about is how often chronically ill and disabled people just don’t have access to good food. not healthy food, good food; well made, tasty meals that don’t come from a jar or a freezer. how many of us are housebound or can’t drive? delivery services only offer within certain distances, if you live outside a city they aren’t an option. many people don’t have the energy or ability to cook for themselves if they have the skill to begin with. many certainly don’t have the ability to learn how. it’s something that goes completely unnoticed, just the opportunity to have a good meal and how much that wears you down

[casualavocados]

Learn from who? Learn from you?

Chen Bowen as CHEN YI & Chiang Tien as AI DI KISEKI: DEAR TO ME (2023)

[starcurtain]

"The Lion Has Its Own Historian:" Parallels Between Gorgo and Aglaea

While re-reading Mydei's "As I've Written" stories recently, I was intrigued again by the (seemingly impossible) section in which Aglaea unknowingly echoed Gorgo's words to Mydei, and this led me down a rabbit hole of thought: The roles of Aglaea and Gorgo--not only in Mydei's life but also in the story overall--form some interesting parallels that are worth looking at in closer detail.

Seize the Means of Control

Gorgo's ascension to a position of authority was predicated on power--not only on her martial prowess, which was expected in her culture (i.e. slaying a lion with her bare hands), but through her courage to meet the existing symbol of authority, Eurypon, in single combat and not concede. In Kremnos, status is conferred and maintained through violence. Though on the surface Gorgo defies this belief, she ultimately remains an active participant in Kremnos's tradition of "might makes right" through the Kremnos Festival, reinforcing rather than rejecting her culture's military-centric social structure.

Although Gorgo originally took part in the Kremnos Festival with the intention of beating Eurypon and seizing the throne of Kremnos for herself (presumably because she thought she could rule better), she ultimately chooses to accept his continued leadership and become queen instead, even granting him an heir to cement his legacy. In this way, despite presumably wishing for a less wasteful (of life) philosophy for the Kremnoans, Gorgo becomes one of the foremost beneficiaries of the very mindset she opposes. She clearly wants to reduce the meaningless bloodshed in Kremnos--she strongly rejects the notion of patricide, for example--but she doesn't (at this point) reject the overall structures of the Kremnoan culture, including the belief that combat ability should determine who leads.

In short, her position of authority was achieved strictly through her ability to oppose her foes.

Despite coming from a wholly different culture, one which (ostensibly) values debate, diplomacy, and the rule of law as the primary tools for establishing status, Aglaea's rise to power was remarkably similar to Gorgo's. The game confirms that the prominence and influence of the Chrysos Heirs in Okhema is no lucky accident--instead, Aglaea has clawed her way to the top, fighting tooth and nail to establish herself as a figure of authority in the Holy City.

We're told she exerts her pressure both through economic means, amassing wealth via monopoly on resources such as Amphoreus's internet, and through literal bloodshed.

The story dances around it, but Star Rail's marketing embraces it: Aglaea represents not just the joy of love but also the "deadliness" of romance, the figure of power in Okhema "pulling the strings" and making others dance to the tune of her vision for the future. She basically rules the roost in the Holy City in large part because of her capacity for violence, because of the literal physical and political power she wields as a demigoddess and the leader of the strongest group of fighters on their entire planet.

This "silk concealing steel" behavior reflects not just how she approaches any who oppose her--the Trailblazer and Krateros, for example--but also how even the NPCs throughout Amphoreus view her:

It's particularly Krateros's view of Aglaea which intrigues me, because the very same things he accuses her of are the things Castrum Kremnos is famous for (being warmongers, usurpers of power, etc.). By all rights, he should admire a "queen" such as Aglaea who rules by force and who is leading her people into the greatest war Amphoreus as ever known. And yet he and the rest of the Kremnoans seem to revile Aglaea for the very same things they saw as virtues in Gorgo.

The context is the key: Gorgo seizing power for herself is viewed as honorable and good because it happened in the context of Kremnos, while Aglaea's power struggle and military dominance occur within the so-claimed peaceful structure of Okhema's democratic society, casting her in the role of a "power-hungry tyrant" for the people living in Okhema, even those who should most appreciate her mindset.

Comparing Gorgo and Aglaea in this way highlights a key double standard in the way the Amphoreans react to women who rise to power, and makes it clear how thin the veneer of Okhema's "peace" really is. Stepping to the top rung of the social ladder through the threat of martial retaliation, Aglaea's battle against the Council and the Flame Chase's foes is no different from Gorgo tearing a lion apart with her bare hands, challenging a king, and taking her place at the top of Kremnos's hierarchy by seizing her weapon and making her stand. All that differs is how violence is received in their contrasting cultures, resulting in two diametrically opposed reactions from the "mere mortals" around them.

With Violence as Your Tool

I think it's important to emphasize that Aglaea and Gorgo also parallel each other not just in their rise to authority through physical power itself, but also in their stances on the necessity of that power: Both Aglaea and Gorgo (at least at first) view bloodshed as a necessary evil, an unpleasant facet of life that one must accept in order to achieve a goal. Violence, for both Gorgo and Aglaea, is a tool.

We see this clearly with Gorgo throughout her flashbacks, both in her initial fight with Eurypon (where she claims she would embrace the notion of death only so long as it is not "unnecessary") and in her other confrontations with Eurypon: Gorgo insists that the tradition of regicide must be broken and makes Eurypon promise not to lead Mydei to that path--yet later, she goes so far as to scold Eurypon when he shies away from his fate, essentially calling him a coward for fearing the prophecy that Mydei would one day kill him. "What prince of Kremnos hasn't killed his father?" she taunts, implying that, even as Gorgo fought to change the violent history of Kremnos, she still believed--at least at that moment--that refusing to face violence when it was foreordained made Eurypon a weak and unfit ruler.

However, we ultimately see this stance change. In Mydei's dream of training with his mother, Gorgo reveals that nearly losing Mydei completely changed her perspective on Kremnos's beliefs, finally killing any faith she had in their system of rule and their constant pursuit of Strife for strife's sake. She rejects the notion of combat being the ultimate test of a person's worth, explicitly casts aside her title and role as queen of Kremnos, and embraces a kinder identity as strictly "Mydei's mother." This is a crisis of faith brought on by experiencing the impacts of Kremnos's faith firsthand--by being forced to experience grievous loss, Gorgo is implied to have grown as a person, from one who is willing to accept violence as a tool to get ahead, into one who solely values peace.

These views, too, mirror Aglaea's pursuit of the Flame Chase Journey and her "hidden" feelings toward its necessary loss. We know already that Aglaea views the threat of violence as her go-to "means to an end" when it comes to achieving the Chrysos Heirs' goals.

She is not at all above putting people into harm's way to pursue the prophecy, such as letting Phainon take the Strife trial even knowing that he would fail, and she tells us players over and over again that her own humanity has nearly vanished, claiming that she now no longer has sufficient empathy for humankind to be swayed away from the path of Era Nova.

This is clearly not true (given how deeply she cares for Tribbie, how kind she is to Castorice, and how unwilling she is to actually bring any harm to Anaxa), but Aglaea insists on this emotionless illusion likely because it makes it easier to tolerate the cruelty required to continue pursuing her goal--she needs it to be true that the last of her humanity has already waned, because this is what makes it easier to accept that the Flame Chase Journey is a journey of "loss," one that is fueled by bloodshed.

It is an unfortunate truth of the prophecy that people will die in pursuit of the dream, that capturing all the coreflames and pushing the world forcibly into its next cycle will cost lives and require cold, rational decisions that will crush people's happiness and freedom. Aglaea cannot hesitate, cannot waver, cannot choose kindness over action.

But, like Gorgo, we know that accepting violence as a tool does not mean that the person wielding the tool is always happy to do so. As Gorgo loses her genuine faith in Kremnos's beliefs and begins to view training Mydei for war as nothing more than a rote requirement, devoid of meaning, Aglaea too struggles to uphold her emotionless facade, a protective cocoon whose cracks reveal the enormous weight she is bearing and how deeply the inhumanity of her own decisions wounds her.

We see this clearly in her character stories, where the actions and then later loss of her maid completely reshape her definition of "beauty":

And we also see it very clearly in her behavior toward Anaxa, where she hesitates at the crucial moment, unable to commit to the course of action that she herself set in motion:

Like Gorgo who longs for a softer world where she can simply be Mydei's mother, Aglaea too (no matter how much she claims) has not lost the part of herself that cares not only for the people closest to her but even for the innocents of the world, the boy who wants to bring his sister something beautiful, the girl who shares her bracelet...

Her nature, no matter how much of it has worn away, is at its core humble and kind--reviling the pain of others.

It's this fundamental conflict between love and what must be done that lends both Gorgo and Aglaea their depth as characters, that grants them both an air of nobility, in the way that everyone good who suffers is noble. Being forced to cause harm without a desire to do so creates quintessentially contradictory characters, making the audience privy to both their external mettle and their internal hesitation, easily humanizing both of them. Aglaea and Gorgo are virtuous women whose cruelty is justified for the greater good. Yet in watching both of them struggle under the immense pressure of that cruelty, we recognize the inherent evil of a world that forces kind-hearted people into positions where bloodshed is their only path forward.

Both Aglaea and Gorgo are not women who normally hesitate to seize the tools available to them, or the kind of women who will shy away from wielding their strongest weapon--the threat of death--with impunity. The reaction to female characters who are willing to exert this kind of power over others (including over the men in their lives) both in-game and in the fandom (where Aglaea in particular is treated poorly for her "coldness") demonstrates how unique this particular type of female character still is, and suggests interesting overall power dynamics in Amphoreus that privilege women willing to utilize violence even above men who choose the same route, despite the strong patriarchal bent one might expect of a story with ancient Greece as its primary influence.

Mydei is not the son of Eurypon, but explicitly and always "the son of Gorgo" even in flashbacks where Eurypon is still alive; in Okhema, both the Chrysos Heirs and the Council appear to be primarily directed by women (Caenis occupies the more visible role of Aglaea's opponent than Lygus does), with all of Okhema's demigods (including Cipher) being female. Gorgo's violence is regarded as honorable; Aglaea is met with disapproval from her peace-loving society but no one ever actually dares to stop her. Perhaps Krateros comes closest, by defying Aglaea's will and entering the Strife trial without her permission, but even he ultimately has to be rescued from Aglaea's clutches by Mydei, who explicitly invokes his mother's name to ensure Krateros's safety. Say it with me: The male character with the highest social status in all of Amphoreus has to rely on the power and reputation of his mother to rescue another man from a powerful woman. Amphoreus really said "Ladies first." 💯

Anaxa's reactions to Aglaea are humorous but are also a perfect example of this overall social structure in Amphoreus which assumes strong women in power have an automatic degree of legitimacy because they are willing to seize violence as their means, despite violence being, in real-world cultures at least, stereotypically the domain of men. In 3.1, Anaxa simply accepts it as a given that he will become Aglaea's prisoner and that she will be able to do whatever she wants to him, because nothing in Okhema's social, political, or military structures would enable him to genuinely oppose her (if he even wanted to).

Even in his (sort of) fake-out "siding with the Council" phase, all Anaxa does is move himself from the grasp of one powerful woman to the next, shifting from being Aglaea's prisoner to Caenis's ace. Cerces even has an entire voiceline where she points out word-for-word that Anaxa is functionally just moving from one woman's cage to the next. Caenis in particular seems to view Anaxa as an object, a biting dog she can keep on a leash until she sics him on her enemy. Anaxa obviously is not so easily manipulated, but Caenis's threat about karma eventually comes true, and he nevertheless suffers the final wrath of the Holy City's society, being judged more harshly than anyone else for his seeming unwillingness to submit to the power of either woman in control of Okhema.

Both literally and thematically, the game tells us players that Aglaea and Gorgo are courageous and effective leaders because they live by the blade, because they are willing to harden their hearts and do whatever it takes, whether that means taking another's life--or their own.

To Usher in a New Era

Of course what really distinguishes both Gorgo and Aglaea's willingness to cause harm from malevolent forces in Amphoreus is their ultimate intent. Although both women are willing to do whatever it takes, they do so only in service to a greater purpose, one that they believe will better their world. In this way, Amphoreus's writers reinforce the underlying impression in Amphoreus's plot that women are more trustworthy and reliable leaders than their corresponding male counterparts. Slight side note on this, but it's kind of funny just how consistent this is--even "outside" of Amphoreus, Welt and Sunday had to turn to Herta to save the day, while inside Amphoreus, Trailblazer is still relying on Acheron's advice to get them through. (When you cater to the incels so hard you somehow loop back around into writing staunchly feminist plotlines...)

The message, repeated and unsubtle, is that there is a link between women's leadership and righteousness, with both Gorgo and Aglaea representing an idealistic desire for a better future for Kremnos and Amphoreus as a whole--one by opposing fate and the other by enforcing it.

Both Gorgo and Aglaea face prophecies that promise to reshape the world as they know it, prophecies which require them to make decisions that will ultimately cost them their lives in a desperate bid to influence history toward the best path. Gorgo rejects the prophecy she is given, determined to protect Mydei despite the destruction the omens claim he will bring to Castrum Kremnos.

Because of the players' predilections for Mydei, this choice to reject fate paints Gorgo as a heroine, an unselfish and moral person who will choose the life of an innocent child over she own safety. Her willingness to fight to the death to prevent Eurypon's atrocity against their son flies in the face of fate itself, attempting to stop an inevitable, self-fulfilling prophecy.

And, in fact, the game even teases us with the idea: What would Kremnos have been like if Gorgo succeeded? When Mydei returns to Kremnos, he either "envisions" or actually experiences (via timelines bleeding into each other), a seemingly parallel universe where Gorgo succeeded in saving him from the Sea of Souls, and where she clearly rallied the people of Kremnos to her cause. The Kremnos we see in that vision is entirely different from Eurypon's:

The people are happy, rejoicing and at ease, talking about pomegranates and writing and playing games with kids, while the sun paints the whole city in a soft and gleaming gold.

Contrast that with the Kremnos that Trailblazer and Castorice find when they travel back into the past where Eurypon betrayed his wife and left Mydei in the sea:

In the seemingly alternate timeline where Gorgo lives long enough to raise Mydei, the Kremnos we're presented with... looks a lot like Okhema. Looks a lot like the peaceful, idyllic Holy City where children frolic in the streets and the people are still full of light and life. By defying fate, we are shown (at least in some fragment of Amphoreus's timeline) that Gorgo achieves what she had longed for in Kremnos from the start, creating a better, gentler future for the people, prosperous and free of the cycle of Strife and meaningless violence that had plagued their kingdom for thousands of years. In this way, we can say that, for that lost timeline at least, Gorgo essentially achieved the Era Nova for Kremnos, ushering in a time of peace for her people. What Aglaea seeks, the game shows us that Gorgo was capable of achieving.

Conversely, Aglaea's path forward involves taking the complete opposite road: Rather than rejecting fate to create a better future, Aglaea seeks to embrace it. She has fully invested herself and her resources in the prophecy of the Flame Chase. She has to, because if there's no Era Nova to look forward to, then there's no hope at all for Amphoreus, and how can it be that something so beautiful is doomed to total destruction? If the Flame Chase Journey will end in a new start, if someone--anyone--will get to live to see the world born anew, then every sacrifice, every burden, every agony will have been worth it.

By embracing her prophesied fate instead of rejecting it, Aglaea is taking the same decisive stand as Gorgo, seizing the future of her world in her own hands and forcing Amphoreus along the path toward what she believes will definitely be a brighter future.

Not only does the description of Era Nova match the idyllic Castrum Kremnos we see under Gorgo's likely rule, but even the moments where both women truly make their stand and reckon with fate reflect each other as well: Gorgo demands her fellow Kremnoans stand with her, hoping they will see the wickedness of Eurypon's decision and reject blind faith in the prophecy they've been given. With her own strength, if even just Krateros alone had stood with her, she easily would have been able to push back against Eurypon's scheme. She lays out her vision for a different future, rejects the notions of the past, and is met with silence.

Meanwhile, Aglaea faces the Council of Elders in Okhema, where the decision about the Flame Chase Journey hangs in the balance, waiting on the final vote of a single person to join up with her cause. Just like Gorgo, the alignment of even one person to Aglaea's cause will make proof of her righteousness, prove the she's right. Aglaea lays down the gauntlet, demands the loyalty of her allies--and her leadership and vision are rewarded when Anaxa joins up with the cause, tipping the literal balance of the scales towards the new era Aglaea believes her efforts will bring to fruition.

(In essence, at the end of 3.2, we get to watch Anaxa do exactly what Krateros failed to--stand on the side of the woman who wields justice.)

Ultimately, through they do it through diametrically opposite paths--rejecting and embracing prophecy, respectively--both women are characterized by their drive to create change, their refusal to accept a quiet descent into cruelty and darkness. Both take a stand, outlining their vision for the right way to go on, for a better, softer, brighter world, seeking the loyalty of comrades to legitimize their causes, and--failing that--willing to make the ultimate sacrifice of themselves to further their truly noble causes.

The strength of both women lies not just in their martial prowess, but in their unwavering dedication to a just cause, no matter the cost to themselves.

Generational Influence

What actually started me off on this whole look at Gorgo and Aglaea as thematic parallels was Mydei's scenes with Aglaea, particularly how he clearly considers her a role model for ideal leadership. While I won't go so far as to say Aglaea perceives herself filling any sort of maternal role for Mydei, I think the connection is obvious on Mydei's end: Having never gotten the chance to truly meet his mother, Mydei is almost certainly projecting "the leader my mother would have been" onto Aglaea. (Or perhaps we should say the opposite: The empty spaces in Mydei's mind when he thinks of "Gorgo" are sutured closed with Aglaea's golden filigree.)

Does this sort of praise sound a bit familiar? It ought to, because this is how Krateros describes Gorgo:

Both women are characterized by their ability to move people's hearts, to inspire hope, and to model ideal strategy for others.

So how could Mydei do anything but link Aglaea's leadership with the life he imagines his mother would have led if she had had the chance to rule Kremnos?

Consider the entire situation from Mydei's perspective: His people have just been (forcibly) rescued from an insane king whose true downfall began with his betrayal of wife, their nation's one genuinely noble leader. If Gorgo had been their ruler, none of this suffering would ever have happened. Fleeing the madness and death Nikador is bringing to Kremnos, the entire surviving host of his people migrate to the "Holy City," the (supposed) last bastion of light and peace and happiness in Amphoreus--which is effectively ruled by a woman so powerful that she knows and sees all.

Seemingly effortlessly, she commands respect and fealty, marshaling her forces to do battle with the might of her own sword, while fighting to maintain the very same values Mydei's mother wanted to bring to her own nation. While being unafraid of bloodshed, she treasures life more than anything else. She's honest, direct, and unflinching, but still, despite everything, kind and dedicated to protecting the world she loves.

Mydei doesn't know his mother but there she is. There's the "queen" that his mother should have had the chance to be. There is the leader that Kremnos needed. There is the powerful woman whose dream for the future could have single-handedly changed the course of fate.

Clearly, for lack of personal experience, the Gorgo in Mydei's mind is less a real person and much more an idealized figure. His only direct knowledge of her comes from one "dream," where she tells him that he's more important than the world to her (undoubtedly leaving Mydei to grapple with the question of whether that is something she truly felt or something he just wishes to be true, by the way). Mydei's only other frame of reference for his mother is Krateros's blind veneration, with Krateros constantly holding Gorgo up as the standard Mydei should meet.

Gorgo is clearly on an achingly high pedestal for Mydei. He shaped his entire youth around the need to avenge her, and then he shaped his entire adult ideology around her vision for Kremnos. In "our" timeline, Gorgo may not have lived to create the change she hoped for, but her goal was ultimately achieved nonetheless, through the inter-generational influence her memory had over Mydei. It was Gorgo's hatred of wasteful bloodshed that helped Mydei to hate it too. It was Gorgo's desire to change Kremnos's traditions that led Mydei to consider tearing down its dynasty. It's his mother's gentle love for her people that echoes in Mydei's same affection.

And through Aglaea, all those views and lessons were enforced. Before joining up with the Flame Chase Journey, the game tells us that Mydei's life was effectively still a hellscape even when he had his friends: They wandered the land with nowhere to call home and were attacked by (or themselves attacked) everyone they met, engaging in endless violence just to keep existing, while he watched his companions be brutally murdered one by one. At the risk of extreme understatement: Mydei was not living the life his mother wanted for him.

After joining the Flame Chase Journey, Mydei becomes one of the "heroes" who dedicates himself to protecting innocents and serving as a guardian; he finds a cause, does his best to create a new home for his people, and works to reshape their views towards the beliefs his mother espoused. Like Gorgo putting down her weapon and taking up the role of "just your mother," Mydei gets to (temporarily, briefly) let down his guard and live as just a person, cooking sweets, roleplaying with kids, and cuddling with chimeras.

He inches closer to the dream of finding meaning in finding peace.

And if it was Gorgo who inspired those choices, then it was Aglaea who made them possible--Aglaea who accepted the Kremnoan Detachment into Okhema, Aglaea who literally put aside her fear of Mydei to accept him as a fellow Chrysos Heir, Aglaea who guided him, Aglaea who modeled transformational leadership for him, Aglaea who gave him the final (if forceful) push he needed to commit to changing his people's future, destroying the bloodstained Kremnos of the past. In all his struggles to move forward, the threads of Aglaea and Gorgo's mirrored ideology lead Mydei through the labyrinth of uncertainty.

All things considered, Gorgo might actually be the character with the single most significant impact on Amphoreus's current plot other than the Trailblazer, because the guidance and beliefs she instilled in Mydei will live much longer than Gorgo and even Aglaea herself--may even live on through the end of the world and the rebirth of all of Amphoreus, because it is her exact ideology that becomes the backbone of Mydei's life advice to Castorice. When Castorice reveals their future, telling him the demigods of today's Amphoreus will become the titans of the new cycle, Mydei looks her in the eye and tells her the exact thing he learned from his mother and Aglaea:

Don't accept defeat--defy despair with everything you have and weave the future with your own two hands.

Perhaps nowhere do we see the parallels between Gorgo and Aglaea more clearly than in the "As I've Written" chapter, where we are told that what ultimately swayed Mydei's decision to join the Flame Chase Journey was when, completely without knowing it, Aglaea spoke the exact same words as his mother.

Though the organization of "As I've Written" is often unclear, making it difficult to determine which passages are actually linked to each other and which are entirely separate, I'm going to personally interpret the quote included in Mydei's third chapter as that special sentence once spoken by both Gorgo and Aglaea:

"The lion has its own historian, and the history of the hunt should not be held by the hunter alone."

Putting aside that all of this is completely impossible in the timeline as we know it (Mydei has no way of remembering the sentences his mother might have spoken to him, and none of the sentences in any flashbacks or her letter to him have anything to do with lions or historians), if this is the line echoed by both women, it is an obviously poignant phrase that would immediately signify to Mydei that Aglaea's ideology matches his mother's.

Although the English translation of "As I've Written" leaves A LOT to be desired (sometimes to the point of being entirely incomprehensible; I legitimately have no idea who okayed those translations, rife as they are with just straight up grammar errors lol), the origin of this phrase is unmistakable. It comes from the African proverb that is normally translated as:

"Until the lion has its own historian, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."

Essentially, "History is written by the victors."

If we take the English translation seriously, what Aglaea and Gorgo would have been saying is that "the defeated" (which, by the way, is symbolized by the lion repeatedly in Kremnos's history) should have their own historian, and that no one should get to speak for them. That is, of course, that no one should get to speak for Mydei except himself--that he should take charge of his own destiny and write his own history into the books.

Krateros repeatedly insists that Mydei is the hunter, the one who should be controlling the whole hunting ground:

But Aglaea sees through Mydei in the first moment of meeting him--sees that he's not the victor but the victim, not the Kremnoan king-to-be but the "wandering lion" who is at risk of being slaughtered on the altar of Kremnos's glory. Kremnos's history is not the "hunting lion"--it's the lion hunt. Gorgo the founder killed the lion, Gorgo the mother killed the lion... So where does that leave Mydei, the symbolic lion?

This line is saying, Aglaea and Gorgo would both have been saying: I see you. I see that there's an entire unspoken legacy weighing on your shoulders, a horror you're fleeing from like wounded prey, a fierce desire in you to refuse the tale this world is writing for you. And in supposedly echoing Gorgo's words, Aglaea would also have echoed the very core of Gorgo's faith:

Those who have lost everything still deserve the chance to shape their own futures.

Those who have faced impossible odds, those who Fate itself has marked for death, those who would martyr themselves to secure the futures of others can and should still rage against the dying of the light, still fight with every tooth and nail to bring about a different ending.

When no one but (apparently) the ghost of Gorgo in his head had ever said it to him, Aglaea told Mydei:

If you want a different history, you can write it.

Of course he joined the Flame Chase Journey after seeing that its leader carries the very same deep-rooted goodness as his mother.

And while we're here talking about the mirrored ideologies and guidance both women have offered to Mydei, I also want to add a tiny aside about Aglaea's symbolic leadership of the other Kremnoans as well.

Although of course Mydei remains their de facto leader even in Okhema, Mydei himself makes a big deal out of the Kremnoans having submitted to Aglaea's authority, repeating in several places that the Kremnoans have a duty to follow her commands.

This isn't an off-hand statement; for someone who should have already been crowned king to state in his own words that his people should submit to someone else's authority is effectively tantamount to ceding his throne specifically to her--Mydei has essentially handed over the reins of Kremnoan leadership to Aglaea. He's the crown prince, but she's effectively the queen (that his mother never got to be). The promotional materials even label Aglaea and Mydei as occupying the same role ("King"). This is especially clear in how the Kremnoans refer to her. In multiple places, Aglaea is referred to as "the golden-haired usurper."

You don't get called a "usurper" unless people believe you're attempting to undermine their current ruler. In all but flat out saying it, the other Kremnoans perceive Aglaea as usurping Mydei's authority, despite Mydei himself willingly giving that power to her. Mydei isn't careless with the Kremnoans' futures, he doesn't shirk his duties as their crown prince, and he certainly would never surrender his power to a weak, unfit ruler. Undoubtedly, Mydei is comfortable with the idea of ceding authority to Aglaea in part because he recognizes his mother in her, sees the qualities that elevated Gorgo to royalty in Kremnos alive and well in Aglaea's Okhema. In this way, perhaps we could say that another factor contributing to Mydei's hesitance to take up Kremnos's throne might be a subconscious sense that the Kremnoans are already in the right hands, that Aglaea--embodying the ideal leadership Mydei projects onto the memory of his mother--is a better fit than he could ever be to lead them anyway?

Heck, while we're at it, I think it's even interesting that the cities of Okhema and Kremnos mirror each other so much, down to things that honestly don't make sense: We're told the legend explaining the lion heads on the walls in Kremnos, but... why are there are also talking lion heads all over Okhema's walls? Gorgo who tore the head off the Tretos lion is echoed in Aglaea, who rules a kinder, softer city still symbolized by the lion, where the talking lion heads get to be gossips and riddle masters instead of war strategists.

Okay, and the last silly thing I want to say: Aglaea would definitely not call herself a mother figure for Mydei, but after 3.2 reveals Gorgo's tough love methods, Aglaea's attempts at scolding him start to look pretty familiar, from her exasperated chiding to her genuine criticism:

Mydei has it tough, having to meet the expectations of women like these lol.

To Fade from the World

Sorry, that was a bit too light-hearted for me, so time to end this post with some more pain:

A final point I think worth comparing between Gorgo and Aglaea is the ultimate fate that both of them face in the story: Gorgo is already gone, but Aglaea is not far behind.

Gorgo's death in particular is treated as abominable. Kremnoans may be warmongers and Strife worshipers, but they're supposed to be honorable about it. Key to their obsession with combat is the idea of noble combat, between contestants who are each given a fair chance. Despite being Gorgo's greatest ally, Krateros does not stand up and join her in her revolt against Eurypon, likely because of that same "might makes right" mindset that shaped so much of Kremnos's decision-making: If Gorgo's cause was truly righteous, then she should have been able to stand up for it herself and win a duel against Eurypon. If it had been a fair contest as expected by Kremnoan cultural standards, then whoever won would have been considered the "correct" person, and no one could have contested the fair results.

But Eurypon's cowardice drove him completely from the path of Kremnos's sacred virtues, causing him to betray their values by betraying his wife, using poison to deny her her fair chance in the duel. This action--forsaking the core tenets of Nikador's divinity--marks the truest extent of Eurypon's downfall, and cements that he is utterly unfit to rule, lacking both the courage to confront his wife in fair combat and the honor to reject under-handed schemes to ensure victory.

Gorgo's death is treated as a tragedy, an act that entirely shapes the course of the story through Mydei's loss to the sea and his subsequent quest for vengeance. It was cowardly betrayal that took away Kremnos's path to a brighter future, locking the self-fulfilling prophecy of Kremnos's downfall into place.

And this, of course, is a perfect mirror to the prophesied end Aglaea is going to face, possibly sooner rather than later. Upon their ascension as demigods, each Chrysos Heir is told how their life will end. Aglaea's prophecy states: "You shall have your final bath in warm and radiant gold."

As Aglaea is most often seen there, the assumption is that she will literally die in the baths--Mydei states this in-game, saying "If a normal person heard that prophecy, they'd probably just stop coming to the baths." Aglaea effectively dismisses this threat (in a very Kremnoan fashion even, lol) by simply saying "Well, who cares? I like baths!" Whatever will be, will be; if her assassin has the strength to end a demigoddess, then truly, it doesn't matter where she goes in Okhema or across the world--fate will find her.

Of course, there's also the possible interpretation that "final bath in gold" refers simply to bathing in her own golden Chrysos Heir blood...

But in either case, the prophecy, Mydei's comments, and some plot leaks I've seen all point towards a violent and unexpected end--likely at the hands of a betrayal.

Like Gorgo, Aglaea will not live to see the world she wished to create, the softer, golden future she wanted to bring to her people. At the hands of her enemies, either facing it with honor or in an unexpected moment of vulnerability, Aglaea will be eliminated before the final hour, fading from Amphoreus's memory as the survivors succeed--or fail--to usher in the new era she sacrificed everything to create.

Although both unique characters on their own, entirely separate from each other, examining Aglaea and Gorgo's parallel plot points, core character traits, and their roles and influences on others throughout the course of the story reveals yet another incredible "echo effect" in Amphoreus's writing, aligning opposites--Okhema and Kremnos, Beauty and Strife--through eerily similar patterns and revealing the enduring thematic threads that bind together the separate portions of Amphoreus's tale.

More than anything, Amphoreus feels to me like a very Hamilton-esque "Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?" plot, one that hinges on the question of who has the power to shape and reshape the future of their world, who has the power to break through a pre-ordained structure and bring about a better end--who has the courage to sacrifice it all to seize the reins of fate itself.

Through Aglaea and Gorgo, the story reinforces a message about women in power, women who perfectly balance violence (the traditional domain of male figures) with love, with beauty, and with righteousness to shake the foundations of their world. In what they value and how they lead, the story mirrors and mirrors again, mise en abyme, the message that those who are willing to give it all for the greater good are the true crafters of our story.

(Perhaps all this is preparing for the presence of another woman, one just as willing or more to do all that must be done to usher in a brighter future for her world?)

The history of the hunt should not be held by the hunter alone.

The lion has its own historian--and so too does the lioness.

Although Gorgo and Aglaea will both fall before that golden Era Nova can be achieved, the marks they have left on Amphoreus's plot, through their legacies of defiance and grace picked up and carried, torch-like, by other characters, demonstrate just how central both women were to all that happened in the world's past and all that will happen in its future.

[aria-greenhoodie]

You see, @localcanadiancryptid22, I’m a motherfucker who LOVES drama, so I fw anything that can create that.

I’m normal. Btw. In case you were wondering.

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about how deeply lucanis' life has been defined by a lack of control of that life -- as he himself points out, even before the ossuary went and carved the headline out again with big bloody letters. of course he reacts badly to losing what little control he did manage to construct for himself even within those circumstances.

(namely: experience has taught him that things (caterina, loss, pain, love, all horribly and indelibly intermingled) will happen to him whether he wants them to or not and there's nothing he can do about that... but he gets to decide what's let in or out of his soul as it happens, even if he has to close it all down and deaden and numb himself out in the process. (even if that means he drifts further and further away from illario, who's been desperately reaching out and trying to keep hold of him until he finally gives up completely and tries to cut the bond all at once when lucanis doesn't seem to reach back anymore.) it's such rare well-observed freeze logic solidly constructed from the bottom up, I'm still so impressed with it.

the way illario seeks constant external means to cope with caterina's abuse and importance in his life -- he can't win her admiration or acceptance or warmth (or like. acknowledgement even, at times :') ), no matter what, so he goes out and finds those things in others and then disdains and dismisses it for how easily and falsely it's won from them. he plots, he conspires, he tries to beat her at her own game however clumsily, he tries. lucanis doesn't try things that way. he's not about 'how do I improve my situation' by nature, he's 'how can I stop this from getting worse'. he avoids, he internalizes, he hunkers down and makes himself nothing until the pain maybe ends. he's fundamentally not a plotter, he's a reacter. an expert assassin pantser, if you will, to illario's clear and stated exasperation fhsak. man I love them. illario says 'get us out of here!!! if you loved me as I love you you'd help me get us out of here before it kills us both', lucanis says 'there is no other place, there's nowhere to go, all we can do is endure. and if it kills us... well, that's just family. that's what love is (the way things are headed I'll die first anyway so it's fine I won't have to face losing you)', and they're equally baffled and hurt by each other's POV. but they're both right, and they're both wrong. there's no 'right' way to deal with caterina's treatment of them, or their situation. the house always wins, if you pardon the expression. house dellamorte still stands and that is what matters to caterina in the end more than anything.

it also fits so well b/c like... their core wounds are that illario is the least favourite and is constantly dismissed, so he has to prove to caterina again and again that he matters. not even that he's worth love or respect or warm regard, but that he's here at all and as such should be considered. he has to shout 'in case u forgot I EXIST!!' at the top of his lungs or else be rendered nothing within the family structure (and himself, because it's all about family, that's all that really matters. in some weird twisted way I think caterina openly declaring him before all the other crows to still be of house dellamorte -- and no one from house dellamorte kneels -- is kind of a victory for him, as much as it's also a furthering of a prison sentence and public humiliation. house dellamorte brainfuckery goes hard.). lucanis is the favourite, and it's the double-edged sword that he gets all the affection and attention but also all the control and impossible expectations. drowning under all of that constant stress and close evaluation, his brain whispers 'I don't exist' to try to escape, to hide and hold on to the deep parts of himself that are crucial to life but not part of the perfect grandson caterina demands of him as the price of her love.)

I think a lot about how what seems to disquiet lucanis the most post-ossuary (as it would anyone with that psychological makeup) is the dissolving of internal boundaries and control he's been relying on, which is part of what spite symbolizes. his anger and reactivity has seceded from the union to the point of personification as a little guy (a little guy he resents and fears for his unpredictability and invasions into regions of his psyche he wishes to stay frozen and barren, and yet cares about deeply, loves! and also constantly dismisses and frequently helplessly lets down unless he's helped to learn to do otherwise. does this remind you of another relationship in his life, perhaps. it makes me feel nuts to think about the illario/spite parallels thanks for asking), and now that little guy is out there running the show freely the moment he glances away or closes his eyes. literal nightmare scenario I feel for him so deeply. so much of his coping is predicated on being able to Not do or feel or want certain things, and that's out the window now, Spite has Opinions. Spite refuses to stay wisely in place even if that place is hell on the logic that if you move you could find yourself in a place that's even worse, somehow. Spite actually wants to experience the world, however fucked up and scarring the way he arrived here, not just endure it. Spite means he has to face that maybe illario wasn't wrong all those years, at the same time as having to admit and face what illario has done to him, and figure out what to do about any of it.

anyway. mary kirby ma'am that's some good fucking metaphor work. thank you, and sorry about all the shit that happened

[freyadragonlord]

Finished Heavenly Tyrant and my first comment is.........

......... Qin Zheng was WAY too funny for how much he sucked. Made me feel so conflicted.

Anyways, Heavenly Tyrant is an amazing book, highly reccomend!!!

Power to the people ✊️

[burningcheese-merchant]

Hear me out... We got Yandere Burning spice...what about Yandere Herald of Change

Oh God... That would be so horrible lol. If we're working with the Herald of Change from the time travel AU, theeeeeeeen he would have to be closer to corruption than he is in the actual story (Golden Cheese is transported to a time where Burning Spice was still a genuine good guy). Yandere Herald would be different from Yandere Beast in that he wants to have Golden Cheese to himself forever, but is more... discreet about it. He tries harder to pretend to be normal, because he's actually aware that he'd drive her away if he didn't. But his mask would start slipping with time, because Golden Cheese wants to go home and he doesn't want that. He wants her to stay. He doesn't actually know or understand where her home is (Time Travel AU Spice doesn't know she came from the future, only that she's lost), but does it really matter? Why can't she make a new home here with him? Why can't she stay with him? She should stay with him. He'll convince her to stay with him. She'll understand and agree. And if she doesn't? If she doesn't... No, of course she will. Won't she? Why wouldn't she? That kingdom she's mentioned? Those people? They don't need her like he does. He's sure they're doing ok without her. Worse comes to worst, they can make a new kingdom together. That's his job, after all: to build and nurture civilizations. They can have one of their own, they can be king and queen. They can be happy. She can be happy. She just has to stay. She has to stay. She has to stay. She has to stay.

If she still doesn't want to stay...?

Fine. It's fine. He'll make her stay.

[mosskissed]

how does your f/o react if you wipe your mouth like you're grossed out after they kiss you