Mermaid!AU where as a boy Fingon saves a wounded merman with long red hair who was beached and tangled in a net. He helps free the merman and return him to the sea, and as thanks he gives him a golden ribbon that has some of his brilliant red scales dangling from the end.
Fingon takes that ribbon and hides it, not wanting to share his merman with anyone else, and as he ages he would have thought the encounter was a dream if not for that ribbon.
One night, on his 25th birthday, he wears that ribbon in his hair, and he and his siblings and cousins go sailing around the islands that make up their home in celebration. The party is loud and joyful and the fireworks over the ocean are brilliant. Except something goes wrong and suddenly, the boat has caught fire.
Fingon, as the eldest, makes sure all his siblings and cousins are on a row boat and safely away from the blaze, but before he can jump overboard to swim to one, a piece of the mast falls and hits him in the head right before he jumps. Fingon slips into the ocean, unconscious as his family screams for him.
Unknown to the humans above, King Feanaro's seven sons circle underneath. Celegorm and his pet shark are more than happy to feast on the unlucky sailors in this shipwreck, Maglor prepares a sirens song to lure those in the row boats into the depths, while Caranthir, Curufin, and Ambarussa wait to loot the sucken vessel.
Maedhros, the eldest of the sons and crown prince of the seven seas, is the first to see Fingon in the water. At first, he is entranced by the beauty of the drowning human, how the fire light overhead dances across his unconscious face. Maedhros swims closer, and his silver eyes widen when he sees his ribbon and scales in the hair of this unconscious man, the very gift he gave away years ago to a young boy that saves his life. A boy that must have grown up into a man since then. This man.
Maedhros calls off his brothers, sends them back home as he drags the mortal back up to the surface. The least he can do for the man's valiant efforts is to repay them. He sings as he swims, urging thr waves to help the swiftly reach the shore, to take them for enough out that he won't be washed back in with the tide.
On the sandy beach, Maedhros looks down at the mortal man and feels something in his very soul sing out. He is no singer, not like his younger brother Maglor, but he is a merman and does have the ability to attempt to put that feeling into song. As he sings to this man, coaxing the water out of his lungs and to heal the wounds on his head, Fingon wakes a little.
Fingon hears the most enchanting voice as he comes back to wakefulness. His eyes are bleary with salt water when he tries to open them, but he sees red hair and glowing grey eyes and his heart swells. He almost forgot those features, hazy like a long forgot dream that they are. Weakly, he reaches up to brush a red strand away from sharp cheekbones. He hums along so the melody that is imprinting itself into his heart, not aware that the same is happening to the merman above him.
Hearing him sing, it unlocks something is Maedhros, something he didn't know he was missing. Impulsively, he bends down, breathing in the same air as this mortal, his mortal, and pressea his forehead against the brown skin under him. Nothing but breath and Song and the waves lapping at the shore.
Then, shouts in the distance. Voices calling out a name. "Fingon!" They cry.
The man, Fingon, Maedhros knows now, just blinks. Brought back to reality with the sound of his brothers and sister's frantic calling. Between one blink and the next, the being above him is gone, a splash the only signal of where he disappeared too.
Fingon scrambles to sit up, hoping to catch another glimpse. In the distance, highlighted by the red dawn rising, a flash of red scales glint before they vanish below the waves.
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decent video covering the work of kitty horrorshow. for the most part he just goes through each game and relays the plot, but it is interesting to see them all laid out together, how they are similar and how her work has evolved and the common themes that she keeps revisiting in each one. his analysis mainly focuses on the Places that she explores in her games; the environments, the haunted houses, and how they are all "built wrong." he talks about haunting of hill house, house of leaves, myhouse.wad, vivarium, and a few other movies towards the end.
my own ramblings about some of the games under the cut :-)
one thing i've always projected onto haunted houses, and especially some of the hostile, haunted places prevalent in kitty horrorshow's work, is a trans narrative *everyone pretends to be shocked*
sagan does mention this briefly in the video, and he admits that it's not his personal interpretation that he plans to talk about (which is totally fine) but that is very obviously there, these themes of autonomy and transformation in these works all go hand in hand with gender identity, with the trans/nb experience.
so when people talk about a house being "built wrong" it always reminds me of the trans narrative of "born in the wrong body." i know this isn't necessarily a mindset a lot of people still agree with anymore now that our language around being trans has evolved, but i also know there are some people that do still feel this way regardless, and even if we don't completely consider ourselves "born in the wrong body" i think the majority of us do have a very... contentious relationship with our bodies.
i always see a house that is intent on haunting you as a body that is inhospitable.
we see people in kitty horrorshow's work that try and change the world around them, or failing that, that literally change themselves. in rain, house, eternity, the structure we've been traversing is someone who has broken free of her physical form and been reborn into something that she chose for herself, after her community forced her down a path that she did not want. sagan brings this up again at the end of his analysis, where he talks about the way the environment is molded by the player as well as the way the player is molded by the environment. he mentions the movie vivarium, and how people are forced into these littles boxes (ie the nuclear family, gender roles, preconceived stereotypes, etc), whether they want it or not, by their environment and the societal expectations that are a part of that.
but again, the environment can also be molded by the player; it is influenced by the characters within the narrative. the environment grows flesh and teeth and has a heartbeat and i like this idea that our environment is alive and is also flesh and blood that can be reflected back at us. it could be cathartic or horrifying depending on how you feel about your body, about your experiences, about how society perceives you. in the end we can become the structure, we can change ourselves and become our environment, undefinable and infinite, or we can be restricted by it, and forced into something we don't want-- made inhospitable.
there is both a lack of agency in the house being built, but a reclamation in the haunting as someone or something transitions and fills the empty rooms with a new form. stone to flesh or flesh to stone as it is in rain, house, eternity, or drywall to glitches and blood like in anatomy. inhospitable but at least it's mine.
in 000000FF0000, the game itself doesn't even want to be found. it's a living thing that's hidden itself away and is in great pain. it's restricted by its own code, it longs for the seasons and the sea but it can only think about the cages it's been locked in. the only agency it finds is in shutting itself down after the player reaches a certain point. we are forced to be perceived by others, by society, even when we are in pain, even when we aren't really ourselves, due to how we look, how we were born, or whatever other cages society has put us in. the lack of autonomy, the lack of control in our own creation... this game is actually one of the ones that have stuck with me the most, i think it's extremely well executed and impactful and is possibly her second best behind anatomy.
and then there's circadia-- the girl returning to her childhood home, seeing her childhood and memories and her body reflected back at her in this house. wanting to hurt it, feeling trapped by it and how she used to be. the people there that don't really see her as she is now, the trauma literally in the walls. she laments her apartment, missing it "like a lover" because that's the place she carved out for herself versus this house she was forced into, this house that's always there and always waiting for her to come back even though she clearly never wants to come back.
when you're trans, there are always people trying to get you to "come back," to be like you used to be. looking back at yourself, childhood photos and old memories of when people treated you differently. your body a new space now but there are still the bones of that old house you left behind. the world trying to force you back into the house even if it doesn't fit anymore, even if it's painful, even if all you can do is haunt it.... the code in 000000FF0000 confining the game to exist in one way even though it hurts them, no other option but to bury themselves deep in various folders within your computer and hoping to never be found. hiding from the world because there are people that insist these things are hardcoded into your biology, that predetermine how you have to live and there is no other way for you to live. and if you go against that code it breaks the game for them... does that make sense?
and in rain, house, eternity, she demolishes the house and turns herself into stone, she finds autonomy despite what the game wants and what the world wants. indefinable and infinite because there is no binary and the walls of this house are your house to destroy and rebuild as many times as you want in any way that you want.
i definitely recommend kitty horrorshow's work if you've never played any of her games before. she's most well known for anatomy, which i didn't really touch on because it's so popular (for good reason) she does have a few twine games, hornets and wolfgirls in love, and then circadia is just a 5 page flash-fiction. and of course i also super recommend rain, house, eternity, and 000000FF0000. i already linked her itch page up there but here it is again! check her out.
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The fuller Darcy next-gen headcanon, while I'm at it:
Elizabeth Jane (Lizzy) Darcy. She's quiet, withdrawn, dutiful, and intense. Strong eldest daughter vibes. She's very handsome and expected (not by her parents so much as their wider social circle) to be charming and witty to go with it, like her mother, and is neither; she low-grade resents her while also idolizing her. Gets on well with her father and most of her aunts, but rarely confides in anyone.
Edward Darcy (named for Mr Gardiner and Lord —). He's sensible, down-to-earth, loyal, earnest, and easy-going. Very much wants to live up to his strong sense of responsibility as The Heir. Most people like him well enough without having a strong impression of his feelings or personality. Gets along well with both parents, but is slightly intimidated by his father's sterling reputation and force of presence.
Christopher Darcy (Kit, named after Darcy's father in my headcanons). He's high-spirited, clever, friendly, and very content in his own skin, more so than any of his siblings. Like Edward, he's easy-going and practical, but more energetic. He can be a bit careless and outspoken, even impertinent, while also able to pull on a touch of hauteur when annoyed. His spirits and confidence can make him exasperating at times, but also endearing to pretty much everyone around him, including both parents.
Georgiana Darcy. She has quite a bit in common with her brother Kit; she's not quite as comfortable with herself, but she's at least as fearless and impulsive (Voted Child Most Likely To Give Her Caretakers Headaches). She's quick-witted and can get carried away with her own ideas, but is also gregarious and kind, and readily befriended the family's shy charity case, her cousin Fanny Price Bella Wickham.
Honorable mention next-gen characters: Bess Wickham, the most driven, intelligent, and calculating of the Wickham children; George Wickham, her closest sibling, less ambitious but more careless; Martha Bingley, a bubbly, inquisitive, matchmaking middle Bingley child; and Sarah Gardiner, born a few months after P&P ends, thoughtful, pragmatic, and courteous.
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