#she would be very pissed lmao

[luckloveandwaterfalls]

thoughts on the grieve family pls and thanks

Oh I have many, you have no idea!

So the Grieves are in a completely horrific position, where not one of their champions has won over eight hundred years. Understandably, this—along with the public opinion of them—is discouraging. Every twenty years, they send one of their kids to die. Usually right away too, so there's little hope that any of the Grieves would survive. This is an unambiguously bad situation.

By AoUV, the Grieves have given up. It's so obvious. They have zero involvement in Gavin's life and don't even include him in family photos, accepting that he is going to die at seventeen. His parents clearly aren't happy with their marriage, but they don't do anything about it. They drink and scream at each other, and ignore Gavin, and drink some more.

The problem isn't even that they've given up expecting to win the tournament. They've also completely given up on their kids (and I'm using the plural intentionally). Almost immediately after the tournament begins, Gavin's parents get rid of all of his possessions and leave his room bare. I can't even find words to describe how fucked up this is. They don't even wait. They don't even hold out hope for his survival. It's like he's already dead, like he's been dead his whole life.

To a lesser extent, they behave this way at Callista's wedding too, which I find super interesting. Her father kind of shoves her at the groom once he walks her down the aisle, like he's disgusted, like she's dead to him. Like he's saying that Roland Payne can have her, the Grieves don't want her anymore. Callista's great crime is...not wanting to be associated with the Grieves. Not wanting anything to do with that reputation and name.

Which...okay? I don't like how she treats Gavin, but this is peculiar because Gavin remarks that Fergus is their parents' favorite because he isn't old enough to be ashamed of his family. Callista, therefore, is both old enough and ashamed of them. Rightfully so, and not because they don't win the tournament. But her parents are ashamed, too. They don't take any pride in being Grieves because they literally don't try anymore, so it makes me think that it's less of disgrace and more bitterness. Like none of them are happy, so they resent Callista for verbalizing it and actually breaking away.

That's pure extrapolation, but it seems plausible considering the bizarre way everyone is acting at Callista's wedding. Truly wtf levels of family dysfunction.

So back to Gavin, the issue is that they have given up on him. They gave up on him years ago. Good parents in their position would look back at the centuries of dying Grieves and do everything in their power to make Gavin strong enough. They would help him train, get him access to advanced spellwork, find quality sponsorships that would help him succeed. They would take an active interest in making sure their kid doesn't die. I feel justified in saying that this is a) the bare minimum and b) the reasonable thing for a parent to do.

But they gave up on Gavin as a champion, and they gave up on Gavin as a child. That scene in All of Our Demise when he's remembering having nightmares as a kid and all he can hear is his parents yelling? It broke my heart. It's such a lonely position for a kid to be in, and then for Callista to shut the door in his face is even worse.

The relationship between Gavin and Callista is so complicated and real that I might make a separate post about it. To summarize: their parents suck, which gave them no good options. Callista shouldn't have been put in the position of a parental figure when she didn’t even have one, and she shouldn’t have been there for Fergus but not Gavin when they needed her. Gavin shouldn’t have been left in the lurch when he desperately needed validation and support as a child. Gavin shouldn’t have had to look after his younger brother because no one else would. Fergus shouldn’t have had to grow up in such a hostile, turbulent environment with an ostracized sister and a brother who was expected to die.

The banquet scene in AoUV boils my blood. Even if the Grieves didn't have such an abysmal track record with the tournament, even if everyone had equal odds of winning, that's a 1 in 7 chance you'll see your kid alive again. And the Grieves, historically, have much lower odds. And Gavin's parents go off to get drunk and don't say a word to him the whole time.

So, to reiterate, it isn't just that the Grieves have given up on getting high magick. They've completely given up on their son, and by extension on being a parent. They don't know a single thing about Gavin, his interests, his goals, his abilities, because they just don't care. They've never tried to care. They've never tried to get attached to a boy that they're throwing away, and they've never even considered trying to help him survive. To them, it's a waste. It's like he's just an inconvenient necessity to buy them another twenty years.

In summary: I can't hate Callista because of the situation she was thrust into, but my god she could have handled it better. Fergus is a sweetheart who thankfully has a good relationship with his brother. Gavin is going to need a lot of therapy to deal with the shit his parents put him through. And the Grieves are a different brand of fucked-up than the rest of the families, not because they're trying so hard to win that they become despicable, but because of how thoroughly they've given up.

[forcedhesitation]

Man.

there's just something about the love between a woman whose impending death is inevitable and a man who's an immortal undead...

[werebutch]

My mom getting a new place is kinda making me anxious I think she thinks I’m gonna move in w her instead of my dad 😭 and I’m not sure why I don’t want to. Cuz she’s way better. But I don’t. And I feel responsible I think and plus my sisters will never favor my mom over my dad… so we’d live apart. but I’m 20 years old I can live whatever I want. But. But but but

[camgoloud]

you ever just. become overwhelmed by a sudden out-of-nowhere wave of tenderness and affection and longing for reconnection directed towards someone to whom you no longer speak for Very Good Reasons

[carcarrot]

well that was a shortlived good feeling about my job

[intriga-hounds]

baz has had a lot of stressors stacked on top of one another, so he’s had a neurotic couple of days. delyla was here for a week, which he hated bc she is very high energy with no impulse control; our neighbor had a gardener come for the first time in recent memory and baz hates gardeners (flips out if he hears a lawn mower, etc.); another neighbor is having their roof worked on, so lots of banging and people noises; and pepperoni has been barking and bouncing off the walls more lately, which he always answers with more barking. he barked alllllll day yesterday. i was very tempted to traz him, but he gets so loopy on it that i try to use it as sparingly as possible. delyla went home tonight and you could instantly feel him deflating. he went from curling up on top of me to sprawling on the couch. he’s knocked tf out in bed now.

[blitz0hno]

There's incredible fear of people and all the facades they put up behind Kotoko's malice it's incredibly sad and worth noting the prison system does indeed reinforce to her the Violence is The Answer

[sage-nebula]

someone needs to take lions away from Disney.

[widowshill]

apropos of going apple picking with @criticalfai1ure and fam im currently drowned in the Visions of r/v doing fall activities

[vogelmeister]

i saw a widm hint and it seems super far fetched and also ive seen many wordplay hints to different kandidaten (molik = mol ik and meloen = een mol) but i saw one saying analoog was a hint to anna bc it could be read as anna ligt

[screechingsandwichhologram]

the only thing that im,,,, uh,,, kinda pissed about with my parents is that i wasnt raised bilingual. my dad speaks fluent french. my moms first language was french. my grandfather was a french teacher. every single relative i have speaks french (with most not speaking English at all). but here i am, only knowing a couple of words and having no fucking clue how to string together a sentence. it really sucks.

anyway if ur a parent please please please raise them as bilingual if u can its such a good skill

[jwooyoung]

idk why I put so much effort into doing things for my mother for mother's day when I know for a fact she won't appreciate it and also I don't even fucking like her lmao

[th3houseofleaves]

thinking abt dove baek and how they've done a variety of illegal things to survive and they justify all of it bc it was for their survival right and as an adult they're avoiding breaking the law as much as possible bc they have to be a good influence for sparrow bc they don't want him to pick up any of their bad behaviors right but at the same time they're super nonchalant and open abt some of the stuff they did (there's some things that are going to stay buried forever thank you very much) so sparrow absolutely picks up on that energy and the first (and only) time dove has to come pick their son up after he's caught stealing they're incredibly upset – at him but mostly themself – and they fear for their LIFE bc it's totally going to be blamed on them and while karina isn't gonna hold it against them forever she won't be happy abt it and her parents will be even more upset.

meanwhile sparrow thinks he's done some cool shit and doesn't understand why everyone's not being chill about it

[shidoukanae]

Paris Valerian but i redesign his dragon form for funsies based on how i see him=. Not sure if I like this design bc im not a fan of bulkier looking dragons but for Paris I think this works??

Some headcanons about this design:

has a bit of a bull-like look bc I associate bulls with persistence and madness and idk that fits Paris well so if Fian has a “fox” motif Paris gets a “bull” one for his dragon form 

His design is based a lot on how a stereotypically evil dragon would look???? Because imo OG!Paris reads as a massive antagonist and I think giving him a look that fits that vibe in his dragon form works!! Especially because he still is an antagonist in a way (though god does he not read that way lmao)

he’s stronger in his dragon form than Fian is and he uses this to his advantage to bully Fian around whenever they playfight as dragons. That said, it seems Paris is surprisingly gentle towards Fian in this form and never hurts him.

he uses this form to intimidate people into getting what he wants. He’s not used to getting retaliated against while in this form and quickly respects anyone who does so (read: Fian, Lyla and Helene)

the silver scales on his body can glow in the same way his eyes do. Typically, he keeps them dull-colored (see above) but if he feels a strong emotion of any sorts they’ll glow brightly without him meaning to (noticeably: they glow constantly whenever Helene is around for obvious reasons~).

[windupaidoneus]

i do love that i have /slump bc i can now physically roleplay as emet too. perfect for 'emet is in hildes head' era shit. imagine being the scion who has to find out emet is alive, in the wol's head & can front

[jentlemahae]

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