#which was obviously that loss and grief are things you just have to accept

[mrderbird]

people keep trying to mess with the "came back wrong" concept to be Original and Cool but i'm sorry nothing will ever be as sexy as the original trope

[matan4il]

Ahead of Eurovision 2024

I was listening to Eden Golan's song, Hurricane.

At first, it didn't seem to me like it stands out. I'm one of the people who prefers my Eurovision song less on the power ballad side of things, so this being in that genre...

But then I found myself haunted by the lyrics. By specific lines. Singing them to myself quietly, over and over again. I had to listen to the song again.

And it got to me, it really did, I haven't stopped listening to or singing it since, so I guess I needed to share a bit.

There's more than one hint that this is a song about mourning and survival. Lines like, "someone stole the moon tonight, took my light" can be interpreted in more than one way. But they become less ambiguous when combined with ones like, "holding on in this mysterious ride," when the mysterious ride we're all on is life itself. It makes it clearer that this isn't just a break up song. Then it becomes even more explicit with, "we shall pass, but love will never die."

The imagery in the videoclip is also telling, that ending when Eden is looking up, much like many do when talking to or thinking about a loved one that we have lost.

But the line that gets to me the most, the first one that took over my brain? "I'm still broken from this hurricane."

We all get what this song is about, in the wake of what happened here in October 2023, and since. And I am broken. So many Jews and Israelis are. As one survivor said (his words have haunted me first, then I heard them echoed in this song): "We are broken, but strong." That's exactly what the song is about, deeply feeling the pain and the tragedy, the loss, this impossible to accept grief, and still trying to find a way to live with it, to survive not just the horrors of a massacre, but the trauma that follows it as well.

The other line that affects me the most is directly related to this, "baby, promise me you'll hold me again." Because I have spent the last 5 months watching the news, seeing the funerals, and hearing people breaking down, as they say a variation of this to their loved ones, who are gone. Asking for a promise that can't be made, or fulfilled, and knowing that it can't, even as the request is being uttered. I hear their voices breaking around their words, whenever I listen to or sing this line.

The videoclip is also infused with imagery that's related to the massacre of over 360 people at the Nova music festival (and the kidnapping of 40 more from that scene), which is in a way very apt for music lovers. The images show dancers in what looks a lot like a nature party, just like Nova, and since the massacre happened when the music festival was meant to reach its peak, a long night of music and dancing climaxing around sunrise, that's exactly what we see, a move from the "moon light" throughout most of the videoclip, to the "sunrise" at the end.

But in the case of this "sunrise," Eden can smile, she can find comfort, she can sing a few words in Hebrew that reflect hope, about that little light that's left even when the moon's been stolen.

She's bringing the song to a beautiful, emotional closure.

Obviously, it can't be ignored that this is a re-write. The original song (which was called October Rain) was disqualified as "political."

You can read the original lyrics here. They're almost identical. I heard an interview with the song writers, who said they weren't even told what got their song disqualified, so they had to guess what the Eurovision Broadcasting Union had in mind, when they called an expression of our pain, and our strength at the face of that, "political."

I admit, I find it very hard to accept this disqualification. It's not like there isn't precendent for countries at the Eurovision expressing pain (including the kind originating from political circumstances) through their songs.

If you take the wildly popular Ukraine 2007 entry, the singer was quite obviously singing "Russia goodbye," with allusions to Russian interference in Ukrainian elections while wearing outfits reminiscent of Soviet uniforms. And that wasn't called political, because "Russia goodbye" was changed into gibberish that still sounds like it (and in recent performances, it was blatantly sang like that).

If you take the much talked about Croatia 2023 entry, it was about the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and also criticized Belarus' tyrant kissing Russia's tyrant's ass, by referencing the tractor that Lukashenko bought for Putin, while the band members played with military weapons and uniforms on stage. And that wasn't disqualified for being political.

If you take the Ukraine 2016 entry, that was explicitly singing about their pain over what the Russians did to the Tatar population in Crimea in 1944, with clear allusions to what Russians did when they invaded Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014. And that wasn't called "political" either.

Even this year, we have the entry from The Netherlands being political, with both the lyrics and videoclip referencing the borderless Europe (which IS a political issue, as Brexit, if nothing else, had made clear). I've seen people pointing out online that the song isn't political, because the whole borderless Europe thing is a metaphor for the singer's grief for his father/parents. I have no problem with that reading, but let's acknowledge that there could have been many metaphors for that, and he chose a political one.

So why is Jewish pain treated differently? Why is our pain labeled "political," when the metaphors for it in the songs aren't that, there are no specific political mentions of people or organizations in the song (unlike the Georgia 2009 entry, which slipped Putin's name into the song's title) in either version, when there are no political statements being made in the song, there's just expressing our pain, and trying to find a way to cope with it?

This WAS the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and expecting Jews not to write about it, not to sing about it, not to try to process it through art... Our pain is not political. It's human. When Ukraine won in 2022 with a song that wasn't originally political, but became one, as it was adopted by Ukrainians suffering from a war that they did not choose, but had to fight, singing it wherever they were displaced (I remember the winners, Kalush Orchestra, coming to Israel to sing it for and with Ukrainian refugees who found shelter here), I thought it was quite obvious, even for people who don't like politics at Eurovision, why the song won, and why everyone overlooked the fact that it was only partly based on its qualities as a Eurovision song. I don't expect Israel to win, I very much expect that, even as Israelis embrace this song about our pain during a war, that we didn't choose, but have to fight, and while hundreds of thousands of us are still displaced, we will get a lot of hatred, instead of understanding and sympathy. But I still have to speak up. I still have to point out that treating Israeli or Jewish pain differently is wrong.

(as a footnote, I wanna get ahead of the usual, "Why is Israel allowed to participate in Eurovision to begin with? It's not in Europe!" comments, while I haven't come across the same ritual for certain other Eurovision participants, like North African Morocco, just-as-Asian-as-Israel Lebanon, transcontinental {despite some of these countries only being considered European culturally, while geographically speaking, they're fully Asian} Georgia, Russia, Cyprus, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the one that's a continent all on its own, Australia. They all have the right to participate, because they all belong to the European Broadcasting Union. Just like Israel)

[amethystina]

So my brain is at it again...

And this time it wanted to inform me that it would be very interesting with an amnesia fic where Ga On loses his memories but can still detect emotions related to those memories. Just imagine the possibilities.

Quick disclaimer: I'm sure there are several amnesia fics in the fandom already — maybe even one exactly like this — but I haven't read them so I'm just going to tell you all about it anyway because, to me, it's a new idea xD

Anyhow.

Imagine him waking up at the hospital, sometime during the later half of the drama (maybe he got shot instead of Soo Hyun and complications led to him getting memory loss — idk, let's handwave it for the sake of the scenario), and he's met by Soo Hyun and Professor Min. And while Ga On can't say what their names are, he can tell that he knows them. He can't access the memories but he feels the affection and the trust and accepts that they must have been a part of his life previously. And, understandably, they become the rocks he clings to because everything is new and confusing. He can still remember how to do basic things — he could probably even drive if they put him inside a car — but not who he is.

And Soo Hyun and Professor Min are going to have a rough time explaining some of it, no doubt.

Like, imagine the pain when Ga On asks where his parents are and even before Soo Hyun or Professor Min say anything, Ga On feels a rush of grief and anger. Because he doesn't remember them dying, but his body remembers the anguish of that tragedy all the same.

Some things are more humourous, though. Like: "... why is my face plastered all over the city? Am I famous?" Ga On would be so confused because the emotions he feels as he sees billboards with his own face aren't necessarily good ones. He mostly feels embarrassed and self-conscious. But he is kind of proud when he hears that he's a judge. It must mean he's smart.

Anyhow. The real fun part begins when Soo Hyun brings Ga On back to his apartment and Ga On is like: "Yeah, this is familiar." But he can also tell that, no, it's not right. It's not home. It feels cold and stale, as if he's not really living there anymore. And he doesn't understand why. Because, according to Soo Hyun, he's been doing so since he was a kid. But Ga On just shrugs his confusion off because, all things considered, he trusts Soo Hyun more than his own memory.

Also, imagine when he asks Soo Hyun if he has a girlfriend and she looks stunned, then awkward, then shy, and starts giving some mumbled response that no, he doesn't — at least not that she knows of. And Ga On has an "oh" moment because her behaviour makes it very clear that she'd want to be that girlfriend. But then he'd get confused because what he feels when he looks at her is a lot of warmth and love, sure, but not that kind of love.

Because this Ga On doesn't have years of memories to confuse him and muddle their relationship — he just feels the emotions. And, from his currently pretty objective point of view, it doesn't seem like romantic love.

He may love Yoon Soo Hyun very much, but he's not in love with her.

He doesn't tell her that, of course, because that would be rude, but he definitely makes a mental note to be careful with how he acts around her because he doesn't want to accidentally lead her on.

And it continues like that, with Ga On trying to navigate the world with nothing but emotions to go on. Which, obviously, will sometimes become very overwhelming for him, but he's stubborn so he'd still try and, of course, do his best to recover his memories. And some start to trickle in eventually, but it mostly old ones that are very deeply ingrained in his psyche.

Eventually, Professor Min decides to bring Ga On to the Supreme Court. Not to make him go back to work or anything — that would probably be disastrous considering the state Ga On is in — but to see if any of it can jog Ga On's memory. And sure, Ga On can tell that he's been in his office before and he can tell that he's met Jin Joo before — he feels both intimidated and bewildered by her — but nothing really stands out. All of it is just like ghostly silhouettes of a former life he knows he must have had but can't see clearly.

And then he meets Yo Han.

Just sees him from afar at first — Yo Han isn't even looking in Ga On's direction — but the familiarity still hits Ga On like a freight train. That is someone he knows as instinctively as he knew Soo Hyun and Professor Min. And before Ga On can really think things through, he just walks up to Yo Han because, clearly, this man is important. Ga On can tell that this man is important because his heart starts racing, his breaths go shallow, and he's suddenly overwhelmed by such a myriad of confusing and conflicting emotions he can't even sort them out. Some are negative — even outright alarming — but there's also joy and fondness and longing.

Which just makes him even more confused when Professor Min catches up and explains that this is Ga On's boss. And said boss looks at Ga On with what he first thinks is bland indifference. But the longer he stands there — and listens to Professor Min tersely explaining what they're doing there to Yo Han with half an ear — Ga On realises that, no, that's not indifference. There's something underneath it — a spark of something else he can't name but can definitely tell means something. And he desperately wants to know what that something is. He wants to scratch at it until he can peel away the layer of indifference hiding it from sight.

He needs to know.

But then, not long after that thought has crossed his mind, Ga On is reminded of the fact that this is, apparently, his boss. His male boss. And Ga On really shouldn't be feeling any of the things he's feeling. But, at the same time, he can't just ignore it. Because this is what a connection should feel like.

He might not have a girlfriend but, clearly, he has someone he's in love with.

And that's a little daunting, not to mention disorienting. Because Yo Han doesn't look approachable at all, and there is also a lot of frustration and anger mixed in with the much happier emotions when Ga On looks at Yo Han. There's just so much. And Ga On is confused because he can't really see himself falling in love with the man in front of him. Yo Han doesn't look like a very kind man.

And then, suddenly, Ga On realises that he has no idea if Yo Han knows that Ga On is in love with him. Maybe they're even a couple? It sure seems like they could be considering the attachment Ga On feels. He gets impulses to be physical in a way he hasn't with anyone else he's met thus far. He felt comfort hugging Soo Hyun, sure, but this is something else entirely. This is a need burning inside of him, urging him to draw closer to Yo Han.

He kind of wants to kiss Yo Han, right there in the corridors of the Supreme Court.

But Ga On can't be sure because Yo Han isn't exactly easy to read and aside from that spark of something when he looks at Ga On, Yo Han is impenetrable. And, if they were a couple, wouldn't Yo Han have insisted on finding Ga On earlier? Even if they have some sort of secret relationship that Soo Hyun clearly isn't aware of? Shouldn't Yo Han look more worried?

So maybe they're not together? And Ga On is just hopelessly in love with his boss? A boss who, judging by the way he looks at Ga On, might not even like Ga On.

Whichever it might be, Ga On realises he has to find out. His old memories are already trickling in, slowly but surely, but they're all of Soo Hyun and Ga On's parents and stuff that happened ages ago. And Ga On wants to know more about his life now. He wants to know more about Yo Han.

And he desperately needs to know if his feelings are reciprocated.

Even if it will definitely break his heart if he finds out that they're not.

...

SO YEAH.

It would be quite fun, wouldn't it? If I can find a way to make the story relatively short, I might just write it. Because I'm really intrigued by the concept of Ga On still having the emotions attached to the memories, but not the memories themselves. So he'll remember being both frustrated by and attracted to Yo Han. But without all the memories and years of influence from Professor Min and Soo Hyun fresh in mind, he wouldn't understand the negative emotions as much, nor put as much weight on them.

And it would be interesting to see how that would change their dynamic.

Because some of Ga On's behaviour would still be the same — he'd still be stubborn, righteous, a bit awkward etc. — but he'd also be freer. And a lot freer to act.

So that would be interesting, I think?

And now my brain will hopefully let go of this story and let me focus on other things for a while

[saintsenara]

Opinions on Tonks/Snape?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

here's where i confess that i've got quite a soft spot for stonks as a ship - and not just because of that ship name - because it's a great vehicle for one of my favourite post-war questions: how the hell do you put a life together in peacetime if you never expected to have survived the final battle?

that this would apply to snape is obvious - it's pretty clear in canon that [much like harry] his experience of the entire period 1981-1998 is that he's following a script written for him by dumbledore which he believes [and, i suspect, hopes] will end in his own annihilation. while i don't think he imagines dying in the exact way he does [and while a hill i will die on is that dumbledore tried as best as he could to arrange things so that snape would survive], i think the only post-war survival scenario he envisions for himself is a lifetime rotting in azkaban, continuing to punish himself and consider himself unworthy of absolution for his role in lily's death.

but - perhaps more controversially - i also think that this can be said to apply to tonks. while i would absolutely reject the suggestion that she would have imagined herself dying because she was a bad mother, i think that several things she says in deathly hallows - above all her recognition that she's locked into a battle to the death with bellatrix - would lead to her sharing the view lupin's shade expresses to harry when he summons him with the resurrection stone: that the greatest act of love she can show her son is to die for a world in which he can live freely.

[and i also think - indeed i am convinced of it - that she also thinks it's her duty to die trying to off bellatrix because her decision to join the order means that andromeda and ted's safety in the first war - something voldemort can be plausibly said to grant at bellatrix's request on the proviso that they keep their heads down and their mouths shut - is forfeit in the second.]

the post-war tonks - a widow at twenty-five, navigating life as a single mother to a tiny baby, dealing with her own cavernous grief over the loss of her father and her mother's grief over the loss of her husband - can be written about really interestingly as someone who's unmoored within her new life and looking for something - anything - to anchor herself.

and a snape who survives nagini is a really interesting tool in all sorts of post-war ships [snarry and snack chief among them] in how he serves as a connection to a lost generation. and, in this case, he is the only person tonks will know who - no matter how negative his assessment of him - actually knew lupin well.

and it's so clear that tonks' relationship with lupin in canon was shaped by her searching for answers about him which he kept hidden behind the mask of his own self-loathing. i can absolutely see her being devastated at the knowledge that his death means that she finds herself with no chance of ever actually uncovering the reality of him, and i can see this leading her to snape's hospital bedside out of a desire to grasp at someone - anyone - who might help her fill in those gaps.

but tonks is also clearly very bolshy and very brave - two traits you need to help you survive grieving the loss of one love and still have room to chase after another.

she's also clearly very curious and very kind. and so i think she's the order member - other than harry - who would be most able to accept the fact that snape was on their side all along and to believe that he should be pardoned. i think snape would find that show of trust in him terrifying - obviously - and i think he'd go out of his way to push her away as a result. but she's got plenty of prior experience at dealing with emotionally constipated men...

and i think you can make a very credible case for the idea that snape must genuinely quite like tonks. i think it's often overlooked just how clever she must be to be admitted as an auror, and how one of the areas in which she would have been required to be clever was potions. she's also clearly one of the youngest people in the role, and her position as a junior auror who ends up doing far more for the war effort than many of her seniors mirrors snape's experience as the youngest teacher at hogwarts. i also think her shock at just how horrible to her snape is in half-blood prince when he mocks her new patronus can be read as evidence that, during the order of the phoenix timeline, she and snape had a cordial relationship. and cordial for snape is transcendentally fond for anyone else...

[plus, his disappointment in her being interested in lupin is clearly because she's someone he respects - if he didn't think she was far too good for lupin, he wouldn't have bothered saying anything.]

i genuinely think you can do something lovely with the two of them initially coming together because they view the other as a life raft in a world they don't think really belongs to them, but then something which looks a lot like dry - and stable - land coming into view as they realise they have more than that in common.

snape's terrified, obviously, but tonks is a woman who understands how to go with the flow. she'll follow love where it takes her - no matter the obstacles she finds in the way - and he's going to have no choice but to come along for the ride.

[abstractppsychopomp]

—on sacrifice and conditioning

"Clones being programmed- nothing controls me!" "Wrecker, it is a logical conclusion that your affinity for destruction would stem from your conditioning." "You take that back!" "I'm merely stating a scientific hypothesis based on factual data." "Oh well I've got a fact for you. I like to blow things up because I like to blow things up!"

Wrecker and Tech, The Bad Batch season 1 episode 1 "Aftermath"

(disclaimer that here I'm talking headcanons, and while it is all based on my personal analysis of canon events, nothing here is 100% canon!)

So.

Reconditioning exists. I first read about it, obviously, on Archive of Our Own, and later researched more for other reasons, to find almost nothing on the topic- one of the most interesting ones regarding the clones, for the simple reason that it is called a reconditioning. To be conditioned again, twice.

What made me really think about this was the fic I wrote, that resolves around Echo's time after Skako Minor, as he deals with grief and loss, and a brief interlude about Dogma and his reconditioning.

So, Wrecker and Tech's conversation is put there before a (n almost) comical situation, them fighting in the cafeteria against the regs, which distracts a bit the watchers from it- and it's a pity, because it's one of the few things The Bad Batch gave to regular clones.

Tech proposes the idea that clones are engineered to be the way that they are, and Wrecker hates the idea, saying that he's his own person and no one made him that way- and it's the most reasonable response, isn't it terrifying to think that you're not a real person but what someone else made you, that what you are, what you feel you feel because someone else wants you to be that way, to feel those things?

They're, of course, both right.

One of the things I liked the least about The Bad Batch was that they gave us a whole show about clones, but defective ones- which is a huge huge deal, and handled "regs" in a really bad way, at least for me.

Not because regs were the "bad guys"- people who are mistreated can mistreat others, I'm not that naive, but they chose to not explore at all the differences between Echo and the others- and I find that the biggest difference is their perception of death.

My whole fic was born because of this- I imagined Echo, after Skako Minor, learning that Fives is dead, that Dogma and Tup and Hardcase are dead, that so many died while he was imprisoned, and the Bad Batch is watching him grieve from the sidelines, knowing nothing about grief.

Yes, they did mourn 99 when he died, but they aren't like other clones, who consider every clone close family and think that dying for them is a duty and honor. They're a tight-knit group, and while they understand sacrifice they're not part of a group of a thousand clones- they're four, they're clones, they have a thing called Plan 99.

Echo has seen thousands die, and is ready to die any day for the Republic, and the Bad Batch in the meanwhile is almost no used at all to the loss of loved ones.

It's enough to compare two sacrifice scenes, Hardcase and Tech, to understand the difference between Echo and the others, and the difference in how the writers perceive regular, ordinary clones and defective, unique clones.

Hardcase sacrifices himself, and Jesse and Fives are clearly sad- but they accept his sacrifice, because it was Hardcase's choice, and they would have done the same. It's a choice made in the moment, but still a sudden thing that they're all ready for- a juxtaposition that for them is the norm.

When Tech dies, they have a plan for just that- self-sacrifice to make the team survive, Plan 99, and they all oppose to that, they all try to stop Tech, they're, not to be mean, way more emotional.

Yes, we spend more time with Tech than with Hardcase, of course his death is written as something way sadder, but we're here to work with what they gave us, so we have two sacrifices.

One accepted in a minute, a name said twice before, a character made to die and make us empathize and suffer for his death, one that left such a deep mark in everyone around it.

Well, it's telling.

In The Clone Wars, we had some arcs dedicated to clones specifically, but most of them were pretty rushed (I have a beef with the way they wrote clones in the animated shows- except Rebels, but Rebels is the My Only Exception the Paramore spoke of), when The Bad Batch was all about clones.

Just not the regular ones.

So we have Echo, and we have the Bad Batch.

Echo, who's more prone to self sacrifice, just like Hardcase and his other brothers, and the Bad Batch, who has a plan made just for that, I repeat.

The Bad Batch received a different treatment from the kaminoans than the regs, which is why they think that regs hate them just because they are what, stronger, more efficient, different?

The so called 'regs' hate them, they do, and they hate them because their defections are called desirable.

(let's not talk about the word 'regs')

If they're clearly called desirable, there are defections that aren't desirable, and what happens to the clones who have them?

Imagine being scared of being different, of sticking out, because it would mean only bad things and danger (for the people who love angst and aren't scared of suffering termination) for them, and then see someone so clearly different and so 'beloved' for it.

Clones are brothers, sisters, siblings, yes, and not only in the way that makes them fluffy and miss each other.

What happens when, let's say, an older sibling sees their younger sister do what they used to do and used to be berated for by their parents, and not suffer any consequences?

In the worst situations, it ends up creating jealousy, hatred, and ruins the relationship as a whole. Or it simply strains it.

This is what they have.

The Bad Batch had a different upbringing, they had a different life, and their chip didn't work.

(Let's not think about Wrecker and Crosshair for a moment, and focus on the others. Hunter and Tech's chips didn't work. Whether it was wanted or not, they didn't. Why? Their defection, again.)

And they're not prone to sacrifice.

That's not the first thing they think about, that's not an easy answer they can give.

Sacrifice is difficult for them.

(less difficult than for a nat-born, more difficult than for a reg)

Now, sacrifice should be difficult for anyone, but it isn't for the clones, who were trained to fight and die for the Republic.

"Live to fight another day" not fight to live another day, because regs have to fight and fight and fight, and sometimes die- die is considered fighting. They were trained to do it, to fight and to die.

And the only reason this could have happened, is conditioning.

There were nat-borns on Kamino, that they met and interacted with, and they studied nat-borns since they had to one day work under them, so they know an alternative to their life, they have the tools to find out that they aren't being treated right. They were conditioned to accept their situation, their life, this life of fighting and dying, because otherwise why would they? Why would CC-8357 choose to die for a Republic who bought him, if he isn't absolutely sure that he is something made to be bought?

so yes.

Does this make Hardcase's sacrifice less important, less genuine? No, it doesn't because conditioning isn't something infinite.

Can we consider it his choice? Yes, I think so, but not a fully rounded one- in the way their choice to fight isn't a real choice, since they had no other options.

Does this make clones less human? Absolutely not, because with every second they spend outside of Kamino they learn and evolve, and this makes any part of their personality ten times more special- imagine being witty, broody, annoying and short-tempered, and imagine being witty, broody, annoying and short-tempered despite having humanity trained out of you.

the clones are so interesting because they should exist in the middle between droid and human, but can't help but be so human that people created enough lore that if someone wants to read on ao3 about them they have to research beforehand! The Clone Wars writers didn't deserve them but we do.

[herearedragons]

Out Of Water (Mermay fic)

content warnings: mild violence, violation of privacy, suggestive themes, grief/loss of a family member

read on AO3

BANG.

The door of the rangers' cabin slammed open so suddenly and so loudly that Aloth nearly fell out of his seat, dropping his chemistry textbook and knocking the radio on the table over.

On the other side of the door, his figure filling almost the entirety of the doorframe, stood a man with a crazed look in his eyes, breathing heavily, as though he'd sprinted there.

Fortunately, that man was his colleague Edér, which meant that Aloth was not about to be murdered.

Unfortunately, the very first thing he said was:

"Mermaids are real!"

Aloth blinked.

"...Excuse me?"

"Mermaids are real."

"Good... morning... to you too, Edèr."

It was morning; he could see the sky over Edér's shoulder begin to turn purple. It wouldn't be long until their shift was over.

"Really? That's all you're gonna say? The mermaid thing ain't news to you?"

Aloth set the radio upright again and picked up his textbook. He didn't mark the page he was on. He'd have to find it later.

"I was being polite. Also, I have no idea what you're talking about." He closed the textbook and set it aside. "...What do you mean, mermaids are real?"

Finally, Edér stepped into the cabin and closed the door behind him.

"There's a mermaid in the lake," he said. "And I saw it. Her. I saw her."

"....Uh-huh."

Aloth stood up. 

In the dim light of the early dawn and the singular yellow lightbulb illuminating the cabin, it was difficult to say whether there was any redness in Edér's eyes, or whether the pupils were dilated. The fact that he was always squinting didn't help, either; in all honesty, he probably needed to have his sight checked.

Edér noticed him looking, obviously.

"...I get the feeling you don't believe me."

"You did just claim that you saw a mermaid. Which is fascinating if true, but it usually isn't."

"Well, I got proof!"

The "proof" turned out to be a series of pictures taken on Edér's phone. However, as he swiped over the cracked screen looking for the right one, his expression turned more and more confused.

"...Wait. No. That's not right. How could it - gods damn it."

Aloth peered at the phone - this required standing on his tiptoes - and saw what Edér was looking at: about a dozen images, all consisting of a pure white rectangle.

"You took those pictures?"

"I guess? I took pictures of her, but... it's just this." Edér scratched his beard as he stared at the perfectly white screen a moment longer, then turned off his phone and, with a heavy sigh, put it away. "This kinda thing happens once in a lifetime, and I messed it up. Guess I'll just have to remember it best as I can."

Aloth hesitated.

Whether it was the strange picture or the genuine heartbreak in Edér's voice, something about the "mermaid" incident seemed... real? Not entirely fabricated, at the very least. By now, he was willing to believe that his colleague saw something while patrolling, even if he wasn't necessarily sure what.

"What did... she... look like?" Aloth asked.

Edér gave him a look.

"You making fun of me?"

"I sincerely promise that I'm not."

"...Alright.”

Edér pulled one of the chairs in the cabin over and sat down; Aloth followed his example. 

For a brief moment, he saw Edér's eyes glaze over, as if he was recalling something.

"...She was blue. Blue skin, white hair. Long tail, also blue. Really pretty scales; kinda shimmery. And she had those... markings, all over her. Crescent-shaped. They were glowing. And her hair; it was glowing, too."

"Glowing... markings?"

"That's what I said."

A thought had just occurred to Aloth, and now, he had a choice.

He could either share his thought - which would require accepting Edér's tale of a glowing blue woman with a fish tail at face value, at least temporarily - or keep silent, and let the mermaid incident fade into obscurity.

In the end, the temptation to test his hypothesis was stronger than his skepticism.

"...Did you... use a flash, in those photos?" Aloth asked.

"Don't remember. Why?"

Aloth let out a deep sigh.

Oh gods, he really was going to say this. At least no one but Edér would ever find out.

"Her hair and markings might have been not luminescent, but highly reflective," he said. "If you took pictures of her using a flash, the resulting glare may have been too strong."

Immediately, he could see the excitement return to Edér's eyes as he worked out the explanation.

"Like a cat's eyes?"

Aloth nodded.

"But greatly amplified."

"Damn... Yeah, that makes sense. Bet she's nocturnal." 

The absurdity of the situation was palpable. Here they were sitting, two relatively reasonable people - Edér had his moments, but overall was extremely reliable - talking about a mermaid like it was a slightly unusual species of deer.

But, seeing as he had started to pull on this thread already, Aloth decided that it was best to get the full story.

"So, how did you find her?" he asked.

Suddenly, Edér's expression darkened.

"About that. We've got poachers."

*

It was a spool of nylon rope, secured to the trunk of a nearby tree. The end of the rope was frayed, as though it snapped or was cut. Considering that the edges were even, the latter was more likely.

As Aloth examined it, he heard the familiar faint hiss of a match being lit, followed by the smell of whiteleaf smoke; Edér had lit his pipe.

"It had a loop at the end, like a snare," Edér said. "Her tail got caught in it. That's how I found her, right there."

Aloth turned around and saw him point to a patch of mud near the water. It certainly looked like it was recently disturbed by something large.

"I was walking the trail when I heard water splashes, and something thrashing. Went to check, and, well, saw what I saw. She saw me too, and she went real still. That's when I took the pictures." Edér looked over at the spool. "Then I noticed this thing, and realized her tail was tangled in it. I thought, well, I've got to help, and she still wasn’t doing anything, so… I cut it with my knife. Next thing I know, she went into the water, and I lost sight of her."

Leaving the spool alone for now, Aloth approached the spot Edér pointed out and crouched beside it. He didn't quite know what he was hoping to see: something, anything, that would allow him to make up his mind once and for all about whether Edér's story was real.

There was a central large groove, which he could believe was left by a large animal wallowing. Then, there were trails around it that looked like something was dragged through the mud in a strange, wavy pattern.

It could have been a tail. It could have been something else.

Then, a series of smaller grooves caught his attention; thinner, deeper lines in close proximity to each other.

Aloth stared at those lines for a few moments. His brain was still at work putting the thought into words, but the intuitive understanding was already there. He felt nauseous all of a sudden.

Slowly, as if compelled by an unseen force, he held his hand over the grooves. His fingers fit into them almost perfectly.

He clawed his fingers slightly, and dragged them through the mud, following the pattern.

"Yeah, she did that."

Edér's voice startled him; Aloth turned around rapidly, and discovered his colleague leaning right over his shoulder.

"Gods above; give me some warning next time," Aloth muttered.

Edér just smirked, and puffed out some smoke.

"You believe me yet?" 

"...Your story does seem more likely now, I'll admit."

Suddenly, Edér's eyes lit up. He leaned over Aloth - forcing him to duck to avoid being knocked down into the water - and picked something out of the mud.

"Look!"

Once Edér had pulled back, Aloth could see what was in his hand.

A large, slightly translucent blue scale, carefully pinched between his fingers. 

At the sight of it, the nausea that already started in his stomach intensified; Aloth swallowed, suddenly aware of the loudness of his own heartbeat.

He hesitated, then held a hand out, palm up.

"May I?..."

"Sure, but be careful with it," Edér said. "Don't know if I can find another one."

Then, he dropped the scale into Aloth's hand.

It was softer than he expected and very pliable, but still sturdy, and of a strangely smooth texture. It bent easily and snapped right back into shape when he released the pressure; he couldn't dent it with his fingernail, or with a rock he found nearby. When he turned it in his hands and it caught the light just right, the outer side of the scale had a pearlescent shimmer to it.

It could have been artificial - some kind of plastic - but something told him that it wasn't.

"Well, that's..." Aloth trailed off, trying to find the right word. "...Unprecedented."

He looked up at Edér.

"...What should we do? My first thought is that we should report it, but I can't imagine it will be taken seriously, even with evidence. I could take the scale to my university's lab and have it tested - "

Edér shook his head.

"I take it you have a better idea, then," Aloth said, somewhat irritated. He thought that the lab idea was pretty good.

"We don't tell anyone," Edér said.

"What?"

"That spool." Edér gestured to it with the end of his pipe. "Ever seen this kind of trap before?"

"Well... no."

"That's 'cause it's not normal. It's not for fish or animals; it's for her."

"...Oh."

He could see Edér's point, now.

If they weren't the first to learn about the mermaid, and the others' intentions towards her were harmful, bringing even more attention to her could do more harm than good. In the worst case scenario, the efforts to capture her would be redoubled.

That was not the way to approach this kind of discovery. Careful observation and documentation, for an extensive period of time, before ever attempting any interaction; that is what Aloth would have advised, had anyone asked his opinion.

He knew people who would share that opinion. However, none of them had the kind of sway that would be required to truly protect the mermaid.

Secrecy was their best option. For now.

"Then," Aloth said, "We need to find out who the other party is."

That earned him an approving nod.

"My thought exactly," Edér said. "Here's what I've got. That spool wasn't there when I walked by before sundown, or I would've seen it. Someone came at night and set it up. How soon do you reckon they'll come check on it?"

"Soon, I would imagine," Aloth said. "Unless they saw you free her. Then, they might not come at all."

"Let's hang out here for an hour or so," Edér said. "They don't show up until then, they're probably not showing up at all. That case, I'll come here tonight, try to catch them after dark."

Aloth gave him a doubtful look:

"Alone?"

"I mean, you wanna sit in the bushes with me in the dark, you're welcome to join."

"...I really don't." 

Aloth hesitated for a moment, examining his colleague's expression. 

"Please don't take this the wrong way," he said, "But... You're not suggesting this just because you want to see the mermaid again, are you?"

The guilty look in Edér's eyes told Aloth everything he needed to know before a single word was uttered.

"...Well," Edér said finally, "Wouldn't you?"

Hearing the wistfulness in his voice, Aloth was certain that the next words he was about to say were very necessary.

"Edér," he said, "You are a professional. I know I may not sound like it, but I would, in fact, trust you with my life in a dangerous situation. But I need you to understand that this… mermaid… is a fully unknown creature to us. We don't know anything about her. I agree that we should protect her, but we also should not attempt anything before we know for certain what we're dealing with."

"...What are you saying, Aloth?"

"I'm saying that if you do see her again, you should keep a safe distance."

Watching Edér's expression, he couldn't quite tell whether his words found their target.

He could only hope that they did.

*

The poachers did not come in the morning.

The truth was, Edér was glad that they didn't. He had a feeling that, even had they caught the poachers earlier today, he'd still wind up here tonight: hiding in the brush with his brother’s camera, waiting for something to happen.

This way, at least he had an excuse for it.

To say it was quiet wouldn't be quite right - it was a summer night, which meant bird calls and skittering in the bushes and so many bugs - but nothing weird was happening, so far. According to his watch, he'd been there for forty minutes; it felt longer.

Part of him was itching to smoke, but he knew that would give away his hiding spot.

He wasn't too worried about dealing with the poachers. If one or two people showed up, he could probably take them on; if there were more, it could get dicey, so then he'd probably just get pictures. The poachers would set the trap and leave, and he'd take it down again, and then in the morning he and Aloth would try to figure out who they were.

Poachers weren't really the main thing on his mind, though.

So Aloth was right. So he wanted to see her again. So what?

You see something like this - something you were told as a kid was real, and then found out that it wasn't, and then it was suddenly real again - you can't just let go. You have to see it twice, just to make sure.

Edér didn't like using Woden's old things if he could help it, but the camera was a good piece of gear, and it would have been stupid not to take it along for a stakeout like this.

Woden probably would have let him borrow it, if he was still around.

Edér could almost hear him saying it: told you I'd get you into photography one day. And then he'd spend way too much time trying to teach him about stuff like shutter speed and exposure and what all the buttons do.

Things as they were, Edér had to figure it out himself, and he was maybe half sure that he got all of the settings right.

He didn't exactly need the pictures to be high art, though, so it was probably fine.

Time passed, with nothing but the noises of wildlife and his own thoughts for company. 

One hour. Hour and a half. Two hours.

Then, at the beginning of the third hour, it happened.

At this point, his vision was long glazed over with boredom, and it took him a few seconds to shake off the stupor before he could really process that something was happening in the lake.

There was a faint glow, getting brighter and closer by the second, until he could clearly make out a long ribbon-like shape moving under the water's surface.

She wasn't swimming like a fish, more like an eel, her tail weaving back and forth in a wavy pattern. It looked like she was getting closer to the shore, but slowly; she'd stop and hover in place for a few moments, then move on. Almost like she was looking for something.

Then, it hit him: she was looking for more snares.

The realization gave him goosebumps. He wasn't sure why.

Finally, Edér remembered the camera in his hands. He raised it to his eyes, and found that he could see her even better through the objective.

The shutter clicked one, two, three times. The mermaid kept moving, and then, all of a sudden, she poked her head out of the water.

He was a fair distance away, hidden by foliage. He knew she couldn't possibly see him, and yet...

And yet, she was staring directly into the camera.

This was the best look he'd ever gotten at her face. At first glance, it seemed like her eyes were big glowing circles, set lower in the skull than human eyes, but then he realized that those were just glowing markings, and noticed the real, dark eyes set above them.

Her face was... sharper than he expected. Human-shaped, but different.

He managed to snap a picture before she disappeared under the water again.

Just as he put the camera down, Edér realized that the pattern of her movement had changed. She wasn't looking around anymore; she was making a beeline for the shore.

Eventually, she stopped just short of where the water became really shallow, and poked her head out again.

Why did it feel like she was staring directly at him?

Edér remembered Aloth's words: keep a safe distance.

Aloth was right: they didn't know if the mermaid was dangerous. Hel, even in kids' stories, they sometimes drowned people to death.

Don't do it, Edér told himself. It's not worth it. You've got pictures. Don't ruin it by dying now.

The mermaid opened her mouth and made a soft, high-pitched keening noise.

It didn't sound exactly like a human voice, but it was just close enough to trigger the response of someone is here and they need help somewhere deep in his brain.

Edér tightened his grip on the camera like it could help him stay put. It should have helped; the memory of his brother was as good a reminder as any of what happens to those who go too far off the trail.

They just don't come back.

Don't. Do it.

She got a little closer to shore and looked around, then made the noise again.

And again.

It sounded a little like singing. And a little like she was asking, is anyone there?

She was looking for him.

If the poachers came right now...

Edér looked down at the camera in his hands. Back at the mermaid.

Then, he gently set Woden’s camera down, and stepped out of his hiding spot.

Immediately, her head whipped towards him, and she froze; most of her body was still underwater, with just her shoulders and her head poking out, and her hands planted in the silt at the bottom of the lake.

Edér froze, too.

His first instinct was to raise his hands up to show that he's harmless, but would she know what that meant? With wild animals, you'd raise your hands up to make yourself look bigger and scare them off.

For a moment, they just stared at each other.

Then, as softly as possible, he said:

"Hey."

Nothing about the mermaid changed, but she didn't flinch or dive into the water either. He took that as encouragement, and continued:

"I'm Edér. You got a name?"

A completely blank stare.

Damn. Maybe she couldn't speak - not Aedyran, at least.

She made the keening noise again; lower-pitched, this time, and longer.

It was a pretty sound. Edér was trying very hard not to linger on that; the tiny part of his mind that wasn't completely enraptured by everything that was happening still remembered the stories of mermaids luring people to their death.

"You're not gonna drown me, are you?" he asked.

Same noise again.

Yeah, it seemed like that was about it for communication. He could speak, she could sing. Chances were, neither of them had any idea what the other was saying.

But she was trying.

He took one careful step forward. There was still a solid distance between them; it wasn't like he was going against Aloth's warning by doing that.

The mermaid mirrored him, pulling herself closer to the edge of the water, which was becoming more and more shallow around her.

Her entire torso was exposed now, and, in the moonlight, he could see the same blue scales running along her arms and shoulders.

She wasn't wearing anything, which he was theoretically ready for, but it still took an effort to compose himself.

It's fine. She's a mermaid. It doesn't have to be weird.

It was a good thing that it was dark and that he was standing far away, though, because he was blushing.

When the water got too shallow for her to continue moving, the mermaid coiled up her tail and... sat down, was the only way Edér could describe it.

She looked at him, and waited.

He cleared his throat.

"So... what do you... what do you want?"

Blank stare again.

"You know," Edér said, "I'm not a student like Aloth, but I think I'm starting to notice a pattern here. The pattern being that I say words, and then you just stare at me."

He watched the mermaid for a moment; still no reaction.

"...You're also not doing anything, though. You waiting for something? Need me to get closer?" 

Nothing, still.

Edér looked at the stretch of ground between them and decided that he could afford another tiny step forward. Just to see what would happen.

As soon as he moved closer, the mermaid perked up, and sang a shorter version of her call.

On a hunch, he tried to hum the call back, the way you'd meow back at a cat.

It came out not nearly as good as hers, but he got more than a blank stare back this time; she shifted, leaning in his direction.

She sang again. Edér hummed back. She responded.

Alright. That was doing... something.

He could probably get as close as the edge of the water. It seemed like she couldn't get any closer to land, so, technically, it'd still be a safe distance.

"Okay," he said. "I'll walk up to the water, but I'm not getting in. I don't wanna drown today. Deal?"

She didn’t say anything, obviously.

He closed the distance, and stopped just short of the water.

That would have to be it. Getting closer would be stupid, even by his standards.

"That's it," he told the mermaid.

Edér didn't really expect any response - every time he'd tried to speak so far, she did nothing - but, this time, he got one.

The mermaid's long tail began to uncoil, shimmering in the moonlight. White crescent shapes brightened and dimmed as light hit them in different ways; small waves created by her movements raced to the shore.

Uncoiled, her tail was about three times the length of her human torso. He was right about her being eel-like; the tail was long and flat, with a single translucent fin running across its entire length.

And now the very end of it was resting right next to his feet.

He could touch it, if he wanted to.

"...Oh, that's a bad idea. That's a really bad idea."

The reason Edér was saying that out loud to himself was because he was going to do it.

He looked at the mermaid. She met his eyes in a way that... seemed sentient.

Maybe he was about to make contact with a new species. Maybe he was about to get lured in and eaten.

He'd get a great story out of it either way, if he survived.

Without breaking eye contact with the mermaid, Edér crouched down. 

He did have his knife, still. If she lunged, he could probably hurt her enough to scare her off.

He really hoped it wouldn't come to that, though.

Slowly, he held a hand out, stopping about halfway to actually touching the tail.

"...Can I touch it?" he asked.

She made the noise again.

"Alright. I'm gonna touch it. Please don't kill me."

Oh gods he was going to touch the tail of an actual mermaid. If he was going to get eaten, it would almost be worth it.

Almost.

Edér lowered his hand and touched the tail.

It didn’t feel like an eel at all, which made sense, on account of the scales. The texture was soft but also a little scratchy, and slick in a way where he couldn't really hold on to one spot even if he tried.

Feeling her tail shift under his hand also made him very aware of the strength it probably had, and reminded him that it was longer than his entire body.

He didn't dare touch the fin - it looked kind of delicate - but he carefully ran his fingers over the scales, trying to burn the feeling into his memory.

He looked up at the mermaid. She was looking right back at him with an expression that almost seemed... curious?

Edér realized that he was grinning.

She didn't kill him! He was touching a mermaid's tail! Mermaids were real!

"Nice tail," he told her. "You're very pretty, you know? I, uh, I don’t mean that in a weird way. I mean - you’re a pretty lady, too, but I was talking about the fish part. Scales 'n stuff.”

It was probably for the best that she couldn't understand him.

Suddenly, the tail under his hand tensed.

Everything after that happened very quickly. The mermaid's tail slipped out from under his hand; he lost his balance; then, there was a loud splashing noise, and something slammed into him at an incredible speed, knocking the air out of his lungs and driving him into the ground.

Then he was on his back, starry sky and the black shadows of trees filling his field of vision, and a cold, wet, very strong hand was clamped around his throat.

Water dripped down from the mermaid's form, soaking his clothes.

She wasn't pushing down on his throat, just holding him in place, but for some reason he couldn't move at all; not even a finger.

Edér was pretty sure that it was a bad sign.

Can't talk, can't struggle - so that was it, right? He was going to get eaten.

Gods damn it. He was going to go out just like Woden. They’d find him in pieces a couple days later, or maybe not find him at all.

A strange dizziness began to set in. His thoughts were turning fuzzy and light, and swirling around like they were being carried by a current; memories came up of people he hadn’t seen in a while, and some he hadn’t even thought about in years.

His mother. People he'd served with. People he'd worked with. Girls he'd been with. Elafa - 

Was his life flashing before his eyes? Was he dying already?

No.

Among the whirl of his memories, this single word stood out: clearer than anything else that was happening in his head, and uttered by a voice that was unfamiliar.

Then, suddenly, the grip on his throat was gone, and he could breathe and move again - which he did immediately, sitting up and taking a deep, gasping breath.

I'm sorry, said a woman's voice somewhere... to the side? Behind him?

"Who's there?"

I'm here. 

Edér looked around, and saw no one else on the shore.

In the lake, though - 

There was the mermaid, in the deeper water again, just her head and shoulders visible.

Looking at him.

"...No way."

I'm sorry. I needed to touch you.

Her mouth wasn't moving, but he heard her, loud and clear.

Holy shit.

"Are you doing that? How are you doing that?"

Thoughts. I touched you. Now we can understand.

"Holy shit."

...What?

"I - nevermind."

Edér rubbed his neck. She wasn't trying to kill him after all - but, if that grip was anything to judge by, she definitely could have.

"...I thought you were gonna eat me, for sure."

I don't eat your kind.

"Well, that's good to know."

I need help.

The sudden statement caught him off guard, but he recovered pretty quickly.

She was asking for help! That was exactly what he was there for.

"Sure," Edér said. "What do you need?"

Come in the day, when it's safe. I'll wait here for you.

That... wasn't exactly what he expected to hear.

"...That's it?"

I need help.

"Yeah, I got that." 

He hesitated for a moment. Leaving it at that didn’t seem like a great idea.

 "Do you know about the traps?" he asked.

Traps?

"The thing you got tangled in the other night. That's a trap."

Oh. I know traps. This is why I need help.

“You know who’s setting them?”

Come in the day.

Edér sighed. Somehow, he wasn’t getting anywhere with this, even though they could talk now.

"...Alright. You want me to come here in the day. Got a specific time in mind, or?"

Come after dawn.

“Dawn. Got it.”

I’ll wait here for you.

The mermaid began to slink back into the water.

“Wait - “

Desperately, Edér racked his brain for any more questions he could ask her, but, by the time he had one, she was gone.

“...Damn it.”

He should have at least asked her name again.

*

It was a really good idea to bring the camera.

Aloth's jaw dropped the second he saw the pictures. Before Edér knew it, the camera was out of his hands and in Aloth's, and he was poring over every pixel on the small screen, zooming in on details and muttering to himself so fast that Edér could make out only bits and pieces of what he was saying.

"...incredible... research potential... observed in her natural habitat..."

"Alright, alright, slow down," Edér said eventually. "You can write your paper when we know she's safe."

Aloth looked up from the camera, eyes burning with excitement.

"But do you understand what this means? - " 

"Yeah, that mermaids are real. I was telling you yesterday."��

"You were,” Aloth admitted. “I would apologize for my skepticism, but being told that something like this exists and seeing undeniable proof of it are two very different things." He paused. "...Why do you look so pleased with yourself?"

"If you like undeniable proof," Edér said, "You might wanna take a walk with me later."

Bringing Aloth along to meet the mermaid seemed like a good idea. She needed to know that he was safe for her too; and then she could talk to him, and Aloth would probably have a better idea of what to ask her.

Edér hadn’t told him about the talking part yet. He was pretty sure it would just make him sound crazy again - he'd have to admit he got way too close to her, too - and, in any case, it would be better if Aloth just experienced that for himself.

So that's how they wound up on the trail together, just after dawn, like the mermaid asked.

Why that time?

To Edér, the first hour of daylight always held a special meaning, but that was a lifetime of Eothasian morning services speaking; the mermaid probably didn't have the same associations with dawn as he did.

What was it that she said, exactly? It's safer in the day? Safer from what?

While he was thinking that over, Aloth kept pestering him with questions about the mermaid; now that he was finally sure she was real, he wanted to know everything, and, well, who could blame him?

Certainly not Edér. Certainly not after what happened at night.

So he answered the questions as best as he could, tried to recall the exact length of her tail and the way she moved in the water, and whether she needed to come up for air.

They were still talking about that when they came up to the lake.

Then - 

Uh.

Then, Aloth made a weird choking noise and turned right back around, grabbing Edér's shoulder - with a strength that was honestly impressive for a guy his size - and forcing him to turn around also.

"Edér," Aloth hissed, "This is not a mermaid. This is a fully nude human woman."

"...Oh, good. So I wasn't the only one seeing that."

She was sitting on the ground. She had pale skin and light hair, and, like Aloth said, she was naked. That was about all he got before Aloth turned him around.

"Edér. What is happening?"

Before he could figure out a way to answer that, a voice sounded behind them.

"...I'm sorry."

It was a little lower and scratchier, like she had a sore throat, but it was her voice . It had only been a few hours since Edér heard it in his head; he hadn't forgotten it just yet.

"I know I'm supposed to wear clothes," she said. "I didn't have any."

Aloth's eyebrows somehow went even higher than they already were.

"...Alright," Edér said, "Hear me out. I know this sounds crazy, but I think this is the mermaid."

"Wh - "

"It's gonna make more sense in a second. Give me your jacket."

Aloth unzipped his jacket and handed it over to him. Silently, Edér thanked the gods for sending him an Aedyran partner, who would get chilly even in the middle of summer.

Keeping his eyes planted firmly in the ground, he turned around and tossed the jacket to the mermaid.

It landed on the ground somewhere between them; he heard shifting, and the sound of a few slow, deliberate steps. Then he heard the rustling of fabric - that went on long enough to make him wonder whether she was having trouble with it - and, finally, the sound of a zipper.

Edér looked up.

The jacket was baggy enough that, if you squinted, it could count as a really short dress. She was wearing it inside out, but she did somehow get it zipped all the way up, which was good enough. 

Her face had changed since their last meeting. The features were still similar to those in his photos, but the edges were softer; the sharpness that so clearly marked her as something else was gone now. 

Her eyes weren't all black anymore, either. They were human eyes, with whites and a pupil and an iris, blue like her scales were.

He tapped Aloth's shoulder.

"Alright, you can turn around now. Aloth, this is the mermaid; mermaid, this is Aloth. He's also here to help."

"Aloth," the mermaid repeated, looking at his friend. Then, she looked over at him. "Edér."

"Yeah, that's me!" 

He probably shouldn't have been that giddy to find out she remembered his name, but, he was.

That reminded him - 

"...What's your name?"

The mermaid made a sharp hissing sound, some kind of gurgling noise, and a keening noise that sounded kind of like the call she used last night.

"Uh," Aloth said.

Her face briefly scrunched up in discomfort.

"...It doesn't sound right in this voice."

The way she spoke was a little weird; her voice was very even, almost monotone. She also hesitated a little every time she spoke, like she was choosing her words.

It must have been weird for her to talk like a human if she was only using her thoughts and singing before.

"Wait," Edér said. "Can you say that again?"

She repeated the sounds.

Sssss - llrm - eeee

He thought about it for a moment.

"...How 'bout Selene?"

He must have heard the name somewhere recently, because it came to mind pretty quickly. It had similar sounds and the exact same cadence, so he figured it could be a good fit.

"Selene," the mermaid said, copying his inflection.

"You don't have to say it exactly like that, but, yeah."

"Selene," she said again.

For a moment, she looked like she was thinking it over, and then she nodded.

"Edér. Aloth. I'm Selene."

"Yeah! I mean - it's nice to meet you," Edér said. "Again, that is. With names this time."

"It's good to meet you, Selene," Aloth said. He hesitated, darting a glance at Edér, before adding," ...I don't mean to be rude, but I was informed that you were blue. And that you had a tail."

The mermaid - Selene - looked down at her bare legs.

"This is new," she said.

She looked up, and met Edér's eyes.

"I looked at your memories. To make sure I made myself look right. Then I changed. The first time takes a while. That's why I said to come later."

...Was that why his life flashing before his eyes mostly consisted of women he knew? 

Was she looking at his memories of - 

Aloth gasped softly; at first Edér thought that he was also reacting to the memory thing, but apparently he had something else in mind.

"You went through metamorphosis," Aloth said.

Selene blinked.

"Meta?..."

"You altered the structure of your body."

She nodded.

"How - no, that can wait. Why did you do that?"

Edér was right about that, at least: Aloth did know how to ask the right questions.

"The water isn't safe anymore," Selene said. "Someone wants to hurt me. They go into the water to look for me, and now they make traps. I made myself look like you, so I can hide. Will you help me?"

"We will try," Aloth said. "What kind of help do you need?"

"Help me hide."

"By... pretending to be a human?"

She nodded again.

Aloth turned to Edér.

"What are we going to do?" he asked quietly. "We can't just - what, let her live at the ranger station? How would we even explain where she came from?"

Edér was still caught on the fact that Selene had apparently seen some really personal stuff while she was looking for blueprints, but eventually he got himself to focus on Aloth's question.

Ranger station was a bad idea. Aloth's dorm wouldn't work, either.

"...She could stay at my place," he said, finally. "I've got a spare room."

He'd have to move more of Woden's things, but, for a good cause, he could do that.

Aloth gave him a very pointed look.

"...Are you sure about that?"

"Listen, I know how it looks," Edér said, irritated. "You got any better ideas, I'm all ears."

Aloth frowned, but stayed silent.

"Yeah? Something you wanna share?"

"...I suppose until we think of something better, that could work," Aloth admitted, finally.

They turned to Selene again.

It was as if she hadn’t moved or blinked the whole time they were talking.

It was pretty hard to look her in the eye now, knowing what she did. She didn't mean any harm, but... that didn't really make it better.

Was he really going to let her into his house?

Yeah. Yeah, he was. Because she didn't mean any harm, and the people out there would hurt her.

"You can stay with me for a while," Edér said. "If that's fine with you."

After a moment, Selene nodded.

"Thank you," she said.

"Well. Least we can do." He looked at Aloth. "We're gonna figure out who's setting those traps. Then... we'll make them go away, I guess."

"Sounds very easy. Surely, at no point will we run into armed individuals working for the government or a terrifyingly large company," Aloth remarked dryly.

"Hey there." Edér clapped his hand over Aloth’s shoulder. "Look on the bright side: it could be just a bunch of local weirdos. We've had worse than mermaid hunters before."

The corner of Aloth's mouth curled up just a little.

"That is true. There was the deer man, for one."

Gods, he hadn't thought about the deer man in forever.

That was the job, wasn't it? Sometimes you got rowdy campers; sometimes you got a guy running around with a deer skull on his head; sometimes you got a mermaid.

This time, it was a mermaid.

Selene was still standing there, watching them talk, and she was probably getting cold.

"Alright," Edér said. "Let's get you indoors."

[valtsv]

Hey there Mr. Loveless! As a fellow chronic pain person, how do you deal with the fear that things might only get worse? I want to believe in the whole "it gets better" thing, but it's hard when I can't do things I used to be able to. Sending you all the best <3

i'm sorry i didn't answer this sooner; i needed time to think about my answer because i really wanted to say something meaningful and constructive. but i think i have it now.

i've been reading a lot about death and grief recently (there's a point to this, i promise) and coming to terms with accepting the inevitability that i will experience grief and loss, especially as i age (which is also inevitable). i feel that's something that can be applied to the experience of having a chronic pain condition as well. grief and frustration are inevitable, and it doesn't make you weak, nor is it the 'wrong way to handle' those feelings by being afraid that they'll get worse. it's okay to feel those things. it's important to let yourself acknowledge them, even though they hurt. there might be nothing you can do, and that's an upsetting thought no matter how optimistic you try to be, and no matter how much you love life and living despite everything. it's the kind of thing that can drive you to despair if you're not careful.

but i find that a good way to balance that out and acknowledge my disability whilst preventing a full-blow anxiety spiral is to ask myself what i can do for myself right now, in the present. the future is uncertain, and that's frightening, but right now is within my control and reach, and it's up to me to decide how to use it. to me, that makes the future feel less daunting, less of a looming spectre that prevents me from enjoying anything or being too afraid to participate. there's no point, to me, in "saving" my opportunities to experience life and avoid pursuing things i think will bring me satisfaction and fulfilment for a later date. it's not something i'll get any bonus points for at the end of the game if there's more unspent happiness in my inventory when it's over.

obviously i try to be sensible and know my limits so i don't complertely wreck myself and destroy any chance i have of experiencing a future at all, but sometimes you just have to say "fuck it, we ball" and do what you want regardless. it gets easier with practice. the fear is still there, and it always will be, but so is the knowledge that no matter what happens, i'll try to make the most of what i have for as long as i can. and i can live with that.

[reelvibes91]

X-Men '97: A New Era of Animated Brilliance"

It's no secret Marvel has been struggling to find their footing since the end of the Avengers saga. Now that X-Men 97 has released, it seems like things may be shifting back in a positive direction for Marvel.

97 is the type of series that baits you with Nostalgia and then delivers much more than you could ever expect. It takes a lot of the same themes the X-Men have always had present and moderinzes them for today's world.

The visuals in this series are some of the best we have ever seen. On par with other modern superhero animated content in terms of animation. It surpasses most in terms of writing and fleshed out story. There were obviously stand-out moments such as episode 5 and some weaker moments such as the Lifedeath storyline. However, overall, this series was impressive.

It had a lot more emotion than I ever expected it would carry. Some scenes were very heavy in terms of grief and character development in unexpected ways. That is what more content needs to do. Hook us with the bait and do more unexpected things to make sure we are not just getting the same old content on repeat.

X-Men has always had incredible themes such as acceptance, loss, family, and politics. We get to see a lot of that here with the episodes that focus on the UN and Genosha and how the human race views Mutants. It's not stuff we have not seen before, just not this well written. This show brings it to another level.

When it comes down to the team itself, they are well ultilized. Cyclops has always been my favorite X-Men, and this show really brought his powers and character to new heights. He was given the struggle of choosing between staying with the X-Men or pursuing the idyllic family life. Gambit and Rogue were used to perfection, leading into the big episode 5 ending that completely blew me away and shocked me.

The three part finale was very well made as well and provides insight into what the next season will look like. Long-time X-Men fans will be waiting with anticipation for this massive story, which should definitely bring more heartbreak and destruction to the world of both humans and mutants alike.

Everything about this show works because there was a clear vision that shaped the season. What happens at the beginning still matters at the end. While the animated series of old were great, there seemed to be less narrative flow throughout. 97 held strong to the themes they set out to explore and created a cohesive and strong story to get from point a to point b. With that strong storytelling, it is now just a quick jump back into season 2 and more compelling storylines if all systems keep firing the same way they did for the first season.

[sun-marie]

Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire spoilers, but I finished it the other night and I haven't been able to stop thinking about how juicy this story is for a Drifter!Watcher and I need to talk about it at least semi-coherently.

In my memory, nearly every time you talk to/about Eothas you have the option to justify your pursuit of him by the fact that he destroyed Caed Nua. Obviously sometimes this is meant to be comedic (calling the God of Rebirth a "jackass" was one of the more surreal moments of this game), but from what I could see it is pretty consistent; whether the Watcher is talking to the other gods about Eothas or talking directly to him (including the final confrontation with him), they can swing back around to the same thing; "You destroyed my castle and you need to answer for it."

And I just think this is so interesting for my Watcher, who has the "Drifter" background! Sabina wasn't one by choice, and the reason she came to The Dyrwood was to start over, away from the people who have been chasing her, and settle down. While it didn't happen the way she expected, Caed Nua gave her the one thing she always craved, which is stability. For five good years, she remains in her new castle in the Dyrwood, gains a respected place in the community as its Lady, and finally has a home to call her own.

And then a big green giant rips it away from her in an instant, and she wakes up on a boat, in the middle of the sea. Drifting.

And suddenly she's right back where she started, wandering from island to island, never fully stationary. While she grows to love her crew and the ship itself (annoyingly, being a ship captain comes very naturally to her) and finds a new kind of home in them, she never really gets over the loss of Caed Nua. It was her castle, yes, and while she enjoyed the luxuries of being a Dyrwoodan Lady, that was never really the point. It could have been a run-down shack in the middle of the woods for all she cared, what mattered was that it was her's. And even so, it was deemed acceptable collateral damage by Eothas, and that stained whatever relationship they could have, and even her relationship with the other gods. Not to mention she has precious little time to even process her grief for it, or for the people there.

It feels so petty to say that you still haven't forgiven Eothas for destroying Caed Nua in your final conversation with him, after everything else that's happened since then, and that is precisely why it's so juicy. Whatever else the Watcher may be, they are still mortal, and the damage done to them is just as lasting and as unfair as it would be with any other mortal.

And the final nail in the coffin is that once it's all finally over, Sabina leaves most of her companions in Deadfire (including her new partner Aloth) to go... home. Wherever that is now. It's not in Deadfire. And neither is it in the Dyrwood, not anymore. Until she can find it again, she'll be left, once again, drifting from place to place.

[everlastiingiimmortals]

Feel free to ignore this if you’ve already gotten a question like this, but who do you think was at fault for starting the Sedition? Some say it was DF, others say YX, some say it was both, and others still say the Preceptors led them into it. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Unprompted. Always Accepting! | Anonymous

This is a question I didn't expect to receive given that I don't write either muse, but I do have some thoughts on this! It's made pretty apparent that all three had some influence in the Sedition occurring, but the major issue at hand is the fact that all three are also extremely unreliable narrators. In fact, we don't get any of their perspectives at all, only Mirage Echoes, obviously biased readables, and whatever clouded, fragmented memories that B.lade and D.an H.eng respectively have (J.ingliu is also not a reliable narrator in this situation, as we can assume she was not involved in the build up to the Sedition and has her own biased views on what happened, and then went insane). So! What do we know as facts?

We know that the Preceptors had mad issues with D.an F.eng, jealous of his power and their inability to gain any further control due to his prowess and attitude (fuck Taoran, all my homies hate Taoran).

We know that D.an F.eng was constantly pressured to find solutions to the Vidyadhara's inability to reproduce, both by his subjects and by his own personal interests and hate of the death that war brought.

We know that Y.ingxing was heavily traumatized and vengeful towards the Abundance for what the Borisins did to his family before he joined the Alliance.

We know that the trigger for the Sedition, or rather its final straw, was B.aiheng's death. She died saving him from Shuhu when he fell into his Dragon Delirium, presumably with the use of a Stellaron? but that is a little more ambiguous.

We know that everyone in the HCQ deeply deeply loved B.aiheng, and all were crushed by her death, especially D.an F.eng and Y.ingxing, which is why it was the final push.

So what do I think happened? I think that, sensing the loss of B.aiheng as a weakness to take advantage of, the Preceptors wormed their way into D.an F.eng's inner turmoil and possibly suggested just enough of a "solution" to get his wheels turning, prodigy that he is, and start looking for ways to undo her death. Not only would this solve the issue of their inability to reproduce (D.an F.eng said that the Preceptors told him it would make a new High Elder -- which sounds like absolute BS even though it kind of sort of didn't really work), but it, if it went wrong, would give them a scapegoat through which to seize more power. Which it did. Which they did. It's also evident that J.ingliu was kept in the dark until the Sedition, and J.ing Y.uan is just entirely not present (which character-wise doesn't make sense to me unless he had also been seriously injured in the war that killed B.aiheng, which is the angle I am choosing to take with my portrayal until proven otherwise by canon). I imagine D.an F.eng was also spurred on by Y.ingxing, who was... likely not the same after B.aiheng's death. I mean, B.aiheng was the one who got him to open up when he was just a kid. It's very clear from B.lade's broken cries in the HCQ companion mission that her death ruined him; she was another family member taken by the Abundance. I absolutely do not think that Y.ingxing was in the right state of mind, so when D.an F.eng suggested there was a possible solution... he likely would have jumped on it right away, desperately, regardless of the fact that he would have abhorred the thought if he were sound of mind. Grief can make you do unspeakable things that you'd never do otherwise. If Y.ingxing had said no... D.an F.eng probably would have listened to him.

TLDR: All three are at fault, but the Preceptors were definitely the first spark in my mind.

[pastanest]

if you’re wondering why I’m having to repost this, or why you were perhaps previously following me but no longer are, please refer to this post. I was able to retrieve this thanks to the very lovely friends who have relentlessly sifted through tumblr archives to recover them, thank you all so much!! ♡

Family Of An Inmate

It’s crazy, really. How being the wife of Negan made you the queen of something, for a while. How the two of you lived in some kind of fairytale, where it was safe to have a baby together, because there was nobody who could possibly take your home and that safety away from you.

By no means did you agree with everything Negan did. His methods were gruesome and at times, cruel, but his reasoning was sound. It made sense to you, and when it came down to doing what it took to keep your family and your home safe, you hated to admit that you turned a blind eye to what he felt he had to do. You didnt have to live with or see the consequences, he never hurt anyone that you cared about, and you did care about people.

The saviours knew you as many things: Negan’s Queen, Strictly-Off-Limits-Unless-You-Wanted-An-Iron-To-The-Face; but you were also a motherly figure to almost everyone, you cared for people, you made them smile. Negan loved that about you. His “other wives”, were actually just to keep you company, they were friends for whenever he was away.

“It simply aint right for a sweet lady like you to be surrounded by assholes all the time!” He would say.

And they were your friends, you cared for them too, you made them laugh and feel safe. He called them his wives because he had a “rep to protect”, and you didnt mind that, you thought it was quite funny.

You didnt go out with Negan often, you didnt feel the need to, it wasnt your area; you were very much a home bird who kept things going while he was gone. People knew better than to mess with you, Negan would destroy anyone who so much as talked back to you if he found out about it whenever he came back.

The only time you did go out with Negan was on the worst day of your life. When you saw your husband’s throat slit by Rick, and while you screamed and got held back by people in Rick’s group, Rick called for the medic to save Negan. You couldnt believe it, but you also couldnt not be grateful for Rick not killing your husband.

After that, everything changed. Rick’s group took you and your daughter, questioned you, and they were surprised to find you werent an awful person. Rick offered you the chance to stay in Alexandria, you’d obviously be under strict supervision because they couldnt trust you, but he was a good man who understood that although you were Negan’s wife, you were not a partner in his crimes.

For the first time, you saw the repercussions of Negan. The grief, the loss, the pain. You didnt even know who Negan had killed from this group, but you could tell there were people missing. It broke your heart, it really did. But again, you understood why it had happened. Just because he‘s your husband doesnt mean that you agree with every decision he’s ever made. He did what he felt he had to do, and you loved him, but his crimes were horrific, that was undeniable.

It didnt take long for the group to accept you, which was somewhat strange in the circumstances. But you were kind, you offered to help with whatever you could, and your daughter won the hearts of everyone. They had no reason to dislike you, it wasnt you that had hurt them. Still, the loss of your own community weighed you down, and the fear of one of Rick’s group crossing you and trying to hurt you or your daughter was something you had to live with. Rick allowed you and your daughter to visit Negan, and he didnt request supervision for that. Rick knew you werent going to break him out, he knew you were eventually going to feel safe in Alexandria and you would know that Negan was being kept safe, too.

And so, everyday, you and your daughter travel down from the house you were generously given, to visit your husband, her father.

“There’s my two favourite girls!” Negan cheers, and you can see the sadness in his eyes at not being allowed out of his cell to spend all day with you both.

You smile at him, unlocking the cell door with the key that the person guarding gives you that day whenever you walk in. The two of you step inside the cell, your daughter running to jump in her father’s lap.

“DADDY!” She squeals excitedly, and he laughs, bouncing her on his knee.

“Hey there princess! And how are you today?” Negan asks, and you cant help smiling seeing them together. It always warms your heart.

“Good! Today, we helped pick tomatoes and we jumped in the puddles! I picked some flowers too, I brought you some! Look!” She digs in the tiny pockets of her dress with the highest degree of excitement, pulling out clumps of crushed daisies and placing them in Negan’s open palm, which dwarfs hers dramatically.

“Well, would you look at those! Beautiful flowers from my beautiful little girl! I’ll keep these close.” Negan says, kissing her temple as he places the flowers in his shirt pocket, over his heart. He looks up at you. “C’mere dollface, I’ve developed a frightful sickness that only a kiss from you can cure.” He smirks, knowing you cant resist him.

You roll your eyes at your cheesy husband, sitting down beside him on his cell bed and leaning in to kiss him. Not too passionately because your daughter is present, but passionately enough. He is your husband, and you are deprived of him for most of the day.

“Will the nice man Rick ever let you out of here, Daddy?” Your daughter asks Negan innocently, playing with the hem of her dress distractedly.

Negan laughs softly at that. “I dont know, sweetheart, but for now Im just grateful that he’s keeping both of you safe and close by.” He leans close to her ear. “But dont tell him I said that, he thinks Im the big bad wolf that’s gonna gobble everyone up!” Negan tickles her, pretending to munch on the sleeves of her dress at her shoulders to tickle her more, and emphasise the idea of being the big bad wolf.

“Nooo! That’s not you, Daddy! You’re a nice man too!” She corrects him, and you nod in agreement.

Negan looks between the two of you, grinning. “Well, thank you both very much.” His eyes linger on you. “And thank you, sweetness, for stickin’ by me through all this, I know it cant be easy.” He leans close to your ear to whisper. “Your strength is very sexy, by the way.” He places a teasing kiss to your neck and you sigh, but pretend to roll your eyes so your daughter thinks her daddy’s just being silly.

“As is yours, mister.” You tell him, patting his knee and resting your head on his shoulder.

Negan turns to kiss your forehead. “This is gonna sound cheesy as all hell, but I really miss cuddlin’ you, my mighty fine lady.”

You giggle at that, snuggling into his shoulder a little more before sitting back up fully. “Let’s cuddle right now then. C’mon, lay down!”

Negan laughs, but you raise your eyebrows at him to let him know you’re serious, and his face lights up. You stand up and lift your daughter from his lap, Negan lying on the edge of the bed. You lie in front of him on your side, your back to the wall, facing Negan, with your little girl lying between you.

“This isnt a very comfy bed!” Your daughter complains, and your heart aches, because she’s absolutely right.

Negan smiles. “It’s real comfy when I close my eyes and imagine Im back with you two.”

Your heart aches more, and you lean forward to kiss him again, the three of you sharing a single-person-sized bed. It doesnt take long for your daughter to fall asleep, cuddled up to Negan’s chest. And then it’s just you and Negan, staring into each other’s eyes with lazy smiles on your faces. His hand moves from your waist to your face, gently tucking some stray hairs behind your ear before his fingertips settle for tracing the line of your jaw down to your chin, tipping it up ever so gently to kiss you again. You dont say anything, you dont need to. Comfortable silence is something that you havent had with him in a long time.

Rick comes to check on Negan later that night, after finding out that you hadnt been seen heading home. He finds the three of you cuddled up together on Negan’s bed, all of you fast asleep. He pulls out his own key to Negan’s cell, locking the three of you in as quietly as he can. And then, he leaves. He tells Rosita to forget about her shift watching Negan and head home for the night, then Rick heads home himself. Because despite everything, Rick empathises. Just because a man has done unspeakable things, doesnt mean his family should be tortured for his crimes, too. And he knows that as long as Negan’s family are kept safe, Negan will stay in check, because just like Rick, Negan has done horrible things to protect his family. They’re pretty similar after all.

[yermes]

Hello and good morning to all of my beautiful step children. 🌤️ I kinda took a plunge and apologized to someone who I thought was my friend. They accepted and we seemed chill. We talked for a while and they presented an occult idea of mine from my journal to me as if it were my own idea and APPARENTLY I forgot I gave the access to my book notes and some of my other ideas got in there. I wanted to see how far back this went and on their tiktok I saw that some of their videos match our DMs verbatim with times and everything.

Now I am just mourning what an absolute moron I was and I figured everyone has dealt with shitty people so heres a reading. And as the saying as above so below the lower aspects of your life which you may be ashamed of need to be celebrated and loved just as much as the higher aspects of your life. 🪼How can I over come the loss of a friend even if they’re still living and they just royally took advantage of me.

Pick a meme

Pick a card

Devil 🦚

Saturn the darker aspect, moon (pick a lane king), Tiphareth to Hod, represents the element earth

This card represents Lucifer more than the traditional devil. You were born to be free. In this situation you are not confined to rules. Now I am not advising you to dig up ur ex besties grandma and sit her corpse up by their window or anything but you are in the realm of doing whatever the fuck you want. Enter that healing era. Do things FOR YOU THAT BENEFIT YOU. You are no longer in this toxic spiral where you convinced yourself you would do anything for your friend you are now free. Take care of yourself.

Interference 🍈

Hod through air, eight of swords, Jupiter in gemini

Theres some issues here (obviously look who’s reading ur looking at rn) you would THINK with eight that this would be a lot of structure and reason however with 8 in Hod (structure and reason of the mind) with swords (freedom of the mind) there is a lot of internal turmoil. Which I get this is a shitty situation. On one hand you want to be logical and be like I shouldn’t be upset because and I am finally free and I am justified and X Y Z. But on the other hand you are hurt and you need the freedom to express that. Its hard trying to be a logical girly just manage both sides of this coin to the best of your ability give yourself time.

Princess of wands 🐅

Venus in fire, The Earth in the fires of Aziluth, Malkuth, earth aspect of fire

Well a big part of this card is revenge I should have saved the dead grandma joke for this card. Basically just flames and heat and the earth aspect as well as air aspects gives physical fuel to provide for these flames. Your sadness and betrayal skipped right to anger and you’re walking the war path. HOWEVER, another aspect of this card going again to feeding the flames with no water to subdue it is this cards lust for life. There is life at the end of this grief while its manifesting in hate as of now. Realize your love for life and put that FIRERY ASS ENERGY INTO THAT.

I hope this reading was helpful for you guys. For me my magic is so deeply personal. Like I will talk to someone for hours about it and help problem solve and come up with new solutions but giving my personal spells and theory to someone just is a line I usually do not cross and all my friends know this boundary. No they have not reached out or spoke to me after they stole some of my words and presented me with my own idea. I hope you all have a WONDERFUL day step mom germ loves ya 🩵🪼🩵💛🩵💛💛🪼❤️

[adobe-outdesign]

What do you think of cubone?

You really can't go wrong with Cubone. A little dinosaur-ish creature wearing a skull makes for an interesting visual and unique theme as-is, but the heartbreaking backstory is what really helps people remember this line, what with the whole "it constantly mourns its dead mother and wears her skull" thing it has going on.

Arguably this backstory doesn't make much sense when applied to the species as a whole, especially when you can obviously breed them without the mother dying, but the powerful imagery associated with this 'mon can't be beat. I think just fleshing out the lore behind it would help it a lot; maybe skulls are passed down through generations when one dies, thus explaining where the Cubones that have mothers get their helmets from.

Backstory aside, the design also looks solid; the skull has a good sense of shape and depth to it (also love the cracks, even if it's a bit weird that they're always in the same place), and a nice, neutral body to compliment it. I wouldn't have minded a bit of a darker brown for contrast, like the above art sports, but otherwise I have no real complaints.

Marowak has some really interesting lore behind it: basically, Cubone's grief makes it stronger, and when it comes to terms with its loss, it evolves:

It kind of adds a nice moral about accepting grief into an otherwise sad story, even if you still have to try not to question the "dead mom" thing too much.

Visually, it does the logical thing and fuses the skull with the head completely. I do kind of question it changing shape, given that it's supposed to be the skull Cubone wears, but it at least looks nice and streamlined.

I guess my one problem with Marowak is that it maybe looks a bit too similar to Cubone? They're not the same, obviously, but it feels like the concept could've been pushed more at this stage. Make it ground/ghost, make the underbelly look like rib markings, add a skeletal tail tip, that kind of thing. Really advance the skeleton motif it has going on.

Another option would've been for Cubone to not carry the bone club until it becomes Marowak, which would've done the same "advancement" idea with drastically changing anything. It's not bad as is or anything; just could've been pushed a bit more.

Thankfully, Alolan Marowak is one of those designs that comes in and does everything the original design doesn't.

First, the dark body and skull markings look great; they compliment the skull well and add some much-needed contrast. Meanwhile, the fire adds some nice pops of color. And not only does this Marowak add fire to the bone it carries, but it also has some great vertebrae markings on its back, going back what I was saying about Marowak pushing its visuals a bit more.

Combine all that with fire/ghost typing and a fire dancing theme going on with the bone, appropriate for the Hawaiian-based region it's from, and you have a pretty perfect regional that's honestly far better than the original in my opinion.

My sole nitpick with it is that for some reason the body way skinnier than on original Marowak, giving it a weird top-heavy appearance for no real reason. Also, while I'm not opposed to cutting pointless regional pre-evos, it does feel weird that regular Cubone drops ground in favor of fire and ghost typing out of nowhere, but that's beside the point.

So overall, Cubone is a adorably pitiful Pokemon with a great theme and solid design. Marowak is fine, but doesn't push its design as much as it could; Alolan Marowak makes up for that with a refreshing take that really breathes some new life into the design. Overall, a very solid line.

Also, final side note: the Gen 1 betas reveal that the theorized connection between Cubone and Kangaskhan was indeed real via a third evolutionary sprite, though exactly what the intention was lore-wise here is left ambiguous. It might have been interesting, but at the same time, I feel like it might've distracted from Cubone's own themes a bit by tossing a baby in there. Too hard to say without knowing the context.

[linkspooky]

What do you think about the recent trend of the evil Superman? It has become more popular to portray a Superman like character as evil and even in the movies they seem more interested in showing Superman turning evil in the future rather than a symbol of hope.

This is a question I can answer despite not being super familiar with superman's lore, because I just spent a really long time going through the entirety of the Injustice Comics.

Which I think is the best example of evil superman, because in those comics themselves Clark does not really believe himself to be the bad guy and that is the problem in itself. Superman's fall from grace in those comics comes when he starts using his power not to save, but to punish perceived evil in the world around him, because he believes things like enforced police state rules, and him using his powers to assume more political control over the world will lead to him saving more people. Except it's not saving anyone. It's not about other people either, it's about Clark and his need for safety and control after suffering this huge loss in his life.

I actually think evil superman arcs are fine when they come from people who understand Clark as a character. Clark is ultimately just a human. Like he's just a dude. Everyone makes a big deal on how he's the last son of Krypton and obviously like the loss of his birth parents and his home planet is a huge part of him, but life on earth is the only life he's ever known. He was raised on earth by two normal people as parents who never treated him differently than any other child. On all levels except for biological he is a human. In fact Clark's greatest hero and inspiration is batman, because batman is a normal person with no powers who has chosen to do good anyway.

This is the mistake a lot of people make with Clark's characters, they see him as a kryptonian, or a set of super powers first. Clark Kent is like, an interpretation of the Nietzschian idea of the ubermensch. He is a man who has the ability to rise up above normal people and become a hero. However, he's like based off of the interpretation of two jewish men of that very nietzschian idea which I think is incredibly important to who Clark is as a character. Clark is the Superman, not because he has incredible powers he is gifted with, not because of any inherent superiority he is born with, but because he's just a normal person who chooses to do good. His hero is batman. Clark loves Dick Grayson. Nightwing is based off of a krytponian fairytale that Clark shared with Dick. Clark Kent is not a secret identity or even a cover for who Superman, Clark Kent is him. You could say Bruce Wayne is an act on some level for Batman though I don't interpret it this way, but there's way more pull between the batman identities and the Bruce Wayne identity. Then there is for Clark. Clark Kent is Superman. Superman is Clark Kent. They're just the same dude.

Which is why the conflict in Injustice comes not from Superman's powers corrupting him, but Clark using touch with his humanity by the loss of his connections in his life and to the world. Clark loses Lois and his child yes, but on top of that it's cited in Injustice 2 several times that Clark would never have gone as bad as he did if Bruce had been able to accept Clark and comfort him after the loss of Lois and his murder of the joker, rather than just abandoning him and leaving him to his own devices when he was crying out for a friend to help him. Clark goes bad in injustice not because of any inherent quality to Clark himself, but rather just like any person when he has his place in the world ripped from him, and loses all sense of control, he in his grief starts controlling both the people around him and the world at large to regain that sense of control.

So basically, I think when evil superman stories are from treating Clark as a human being and a person reacting to trauma, rather than a set of powers.

Invincible is another good evil superman story, though I would argue the evil superman in question in that story is not Clark, he's not even Clark adjacent. Clark is pretty much a human, whereas Omni Man is an alien, and not only that but one who believes he comes from a superior culture that has every right to dominate and colonise earth because their abilities and technology make them inherently superior. Clark is a character who never believes himself to be superior than the average dude, in fact he's just an average dude who just chooses to do good. Omin-Man comes from a culture that believes in racial superiority, and for most of his time onscreen totally buys that and practices it. So they're almost two entirely different characters, they just have similiar power sets.

Which I think is a common problem with the way modern audiences perceive Clark in general, as a set of powers. Clark isn't really superman, superman is just one of the ways Clark helps people. Clark is just Clark.

[tomatoluvr69]

Sorry you’re experiencing sad events:(

Ah thank you, it is quite alright…I am good at grief, it’s familiar to me…the rest of this got slightly lengthy so I’m putting it beneath a cut because obviously I have no idea who reading this might not care to be reminded of loss.

I’m not lucky of course to have gone through a significant loss during adolescence…but I am very lucky that I took from that experience the epiphany that to begin to heal, you must feel it fully and let it ravage you as much as physically possible…while maintaining as much of a standard of care for yourself as possible. Maybe not “you” so much as me— that’s what I’ve found helps me. I think a lot about Victorian mourning customs, or the practice of sitting shivah, etc. (I know there are more worldwide, these are just the ones I’m most familiar with due to cultural proximity); and how much a period of battening down the hatches and hunkering down and giving yourself up as a tide of feelings beyond your control comes in to wash over you can/should be engrained within both the structures of society and within the way we think about our own emotional trajectories surrounding loss. I live with someone in death care, at an eco-burial cemetery, and something that has resonated with me from him & from other friends who have worked there is that the difference in closure journeys between people who go through a traditional American funerary process (i.e. taboo, compartmentalized, jarring…I have a lot of thoughts about funerals in this culture and the way they injure the living but that’s a long ol thang and I don’t have it in me right now) versus the families and close ones of the decedents at the green sanctuary who are getting fucking down and dirty with the process— they are digging the grave with him, they are picking out the headstones, they are watching their loved ones lowered manually in nothing but a shroud (and sometimes some garments inside it), they are picking up a shovel and placing the earth back on top, they are creating wreaths out of pine boughs and wildflowers six foot in diameter above the mound…these are the ones who come back to the sanctuary months later and speak about how being involved with their grief allowed…something to occur. All of this is secondhand for me, my friends **** and *** could say this so much better but I’m not going to tell them about tumblr lmfao.

This has gotten away from me. Point is that I have accepted long ago the need for grief, (and the concept of grief as the natural continuation of love) and I can look it square in the eye and face it head on. Does it still fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucking suck?? Yes. Is it easier for me if I transition intentionally into a languid state like a brumating lizard…also yes…which is where I’m at right now.

So I am doing alright (all things considered that is) & just must force myself at gunpoint to give myself extreme grace and allow for levels of rest and behaviors that I would not ordinarily indulge in routinely…I’m coming out of the worst of the shock & able to go about some of my normal activities. And also in this particular case I’d known it was coming for a long time, it just happened months earlier than expected, which is a whole nother feeling as well… Mostly I’m just listening to a lot of familiar and beloved comfort music, meal prepping big batches of things when I’ve got some energy so I can just eat from them when I’m feeling really rough, and pouring myself into garden prep which was the most beautiful and profound balm for me when I experienced the last death of a loved one in spring of 2020. This won’t be as difficult, I won’t get into specifics…but I anticipate a lot of garden time as like…stopgap therapy again. Anyways this sort of turned into a diary entry and I’ve done enough oversharing on my blog for the day…thanks for the kind wishes. I will be okay, but part and parcel with that for me is accepting that I won’t be okay for a while and just changing my expectations and standards for myself and my lifestyle into realistic ones, and also just straight up letting myself lie down feeling bad with generous frequency so it can have time to build and then dissipate naturally like it must if i would like to ever move on. If I feel it, then I can process it. It’s in trying to ignore it and shove it aside without confronting the truth of loss and change that the grief gets stuck and begins to morph and malinger into deep spiraling harm, in my incredibly limited (I’m super young and never lost a parent/sibling/partner/child) experience

[beevean]

Just post your Hecula rant you coward >:(

LET'S GOOOOOOOOO

I am embolded by the sheer amount of Dracula/Jonathan (harker, not morris) content floating around, I think people have realized by now that I'm a disgusting degenerate who very much likes the trope of "creepy ass old man falling in 'love' with a young boy/girl under his thumb" :'D

So this is a translation of this post, which I translated because I noticed some people seem to be interested in Hecula :)

Obviously there's going to be extensive talk of grooming and abuse.

It's hilarious how I fell into this rareship hell simply because

I memed too much about everyone in CoD wanting to fuck Hector (which is true and I can prove it);

no i will never stop using this image it awakened something in me worse than the Stabbing Scene

And then yeah, everything fell apart :'D

First of all I just want to say one thing: if CoD was more famous in the fandom, many more fans would accept the idea that Dracula fucked his Generals in between genocides. C'mon man, the set up is perfect. Y'all are cowards, I tell you :P

But other than that, it is interesting to compare the differences between Isaacula and Hecula.

Isaacula is your typical villain/simp ship. Isaac adores Dracula, he's literally crazy for him, he would destroy himself for him, and Dracula is like, "okay". Personally I like the idea that Dracula is perfectly aware of how much Isaac worships him (not that Isaac even tries to hide it lol), and takes the opportunity to manipulate him just the right amount... and c'mon, if a pretty boy offered himself to you like this, what would you do, not take advantage of the situation? 👀 But he sees Isaac as he would see… I dunno, his throne? It's there, it belongs to him, no one would touch it, he doesn't have to do anything else. It's not interesting.

Hector is interesting. Hector is a prodigy in the art of Devil Forging. Hector is a skilled fighter. Hector is smart (and so is Isaac, but he's a lot more emotional so he may seem dumber). Hector, after a childhood spent believing he didn't deserve to exist, is now realizing his own worth. Cold, proud, obedient Hector, without Isaac's fanaticism but far more efficient, and just as grateful to his benefactor.

I think there is a possibility for Dracula to be attracted to Hector. And yes, the mental image of him suddenly realizing one day that the shy little boy who one day knocked on his front door has grown to be such a handsome man in a short time makes me want to bite the flesh off my arms and it drives me insane <3

Not only that, but if I really wanted to be cynical, I could also point this out:

:)

Speaking of Leon, I can now get to the point of what I call the Bride Hector AU: Dracula, gone insane with grief over the loss of Lisa, clings to Hector tooth and nail (literally lmao) and insists on using him as a substitute for his wife.

It has been pointed out to me that, in that scene in LoI where Mathias proposes to Leon to join him in immortality, his goal may also have been to replace Elisabetha with his best friend. Mathias was clearly out of his mind with grief, and he trusted Leon, and he couldn't even comprehend that Leon maybe didn't want anything more to do with him. He just wanted company. He didn't want to experience his immortality alone.

But Leon was free to tell him to go fuck himself, rightfully so.

Hector, who is as handsome as Leon, as strong as Leon, and as dear to Dracula as Leon used to be (although in different ways, the two are not friends obv) does not have this freedom. Hector swore allegiance to Dracula, Hector became one of the strongest creatures in the world thanks to Dracula, and he still trusts the only person who granted him the right to exist.

Hector should be grateful to Dracula.

So, don't you think that kissing him isn't the least he can do to his Lord to compensate for all that he has given him? Or offering his neck? Or accepting to be brought to Lisa's old bedroom? :)

It's very, very easy for Dracula to get Hector to give him what he wants, even if Hector doesn't reciprocate Dracula's feelings at all. He doesn't need tricks or magic, he can simply exploit the loyalty of a poor boy who has no one else, and who by now is so used to being his Lord's favorite that he can't even consider disappointing him.

On the other hand, at the heart of it all there's an old man unable to move on. As a vampire, he's frozen in time, and it's very difficult for him to accept change. He became a vampire in the midst of grieving the loss of his first wife, and now he has lost his second one too? He can't do it. He can't handle the pain. He breaks. He needs someone.

And Hector just so happens to be right here, this pretty boy who can be seduced, who can help him feel less alone.

After Lisa's death, Dracula becomes... protective. Very protective. He will no longer allow anyone, not even God Himself, to take away the only light of his life. Which not only means protecting Hector from all the beasts that would dare to harm him or worse, but also making sure that the boy doesn't slip away from him. Dracula has complete control over his castle and all its residents... so Hector, love, you better be nice and don't do things that might displease your Lord :) like, for example, running back to Isaac, who meanwhile he's dying inside of jealousy :) oh, but don't worry, you're the favorite, so nothing will happen to you! But Isaac will take the fall :) so he will hate you even more, and your relationship will break down, and Hector will truly have no one left but his Lord :)

Or his husband :)

Dracula loses it more and more, he needs Lisa, he needs to feel sure that he will never be left alone again. He gets the morbid idea of marrying Hector and calling him his wife, even giving him the wedding ring that used to belong to that poor woman whom Hector might have seen as a mother figure. He can't escape. Now his Lord is his husband and Hector must behave accordingly, and if Dracula wants to be called by his first name and pet names while he fucks Hector on Lisa's bed, well, he has to do it. What can he do about it, say no? Hahahaha you're so funny <3

(A little appreciated perk is that, as a Devil Forgemaster, Hector is far tougher than a normal human, and he can conjure Fairies to heal most of his wounds. A perfect match for a ten-feet-tall cold vampire with sharp fangs and claws :) you're welcome, Hector dear <3)

Hector, needless to say, has a hard time clinging to his sanity. He doesn't want any of this. He doesn't want to be the sex toy of the person he once could have seen as a father, he doesn't want him to suck his blood so often that he's practically anemic by now (because, among other things, let's not forget that he still has to work), he doesn't want all these scars around his neck that almost form a collar he can't take off, he doesn't want Isaac to hate him and envy him for a situation he refuses to understand, he wants to be seen as Hector, as a person.

But he can't hate Dracula. Dracula isn't cruel with him, he just needs some help. Dracula did some good things too after all, and it's true that Hector can't live anywhere else, because only Dracula appreciates and accepts him. There is still a small part of Hector, the boy who was stoned by his peers and slapped by his mother, who still loves Dracula, to a certain extent.

But the more Dracula degenerates, the more the outside world doesn't seem so terrifying, compared to the madness of his Lord...

He's not Isaac. He is loyal and obedient, but he's not willing to objectify himself to this extent.

In short, I really really like this kind of dynamic, an older man seducing a younger person into a relationship of trust and dependency, until the younger person escapes and takes their life back into their own hands <3 and yes, while the idea of the older man thinking of the other as simply a warm body to fuck is appealing in its own right, I'm growing to love the alternative of him instead falling in "love", but it's a twisted, selfish, all consuming love.

tl;dr: hecula hot

And just in case, I have written 4 fanfics to explore these ideas :)

If you have a good tool, you use it, don't you?

It is forbidden to touch the Lord's belongings

Honeymoon (technically a spoiler but I long gave up on that)

Shame (the only fully SFW fic so far lmao)