#but will it leave unscathed? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cellarspider · 2 months

Text

20/?? Special delivery

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

We return to a movie that has never been to medical school, Prometheus.

Here it is. The scene that everybody remembers because it gave a fair few people the screaming heebies. This is their version of the chestburster scene–except for the less impactful, literal version of the chestburster scene we’ll get later, I mean. This one, though, this one, they got it right.

Content warnings for gore, nudity, nude gore, exhaustive discussions of the place of chestbursting in franchise history.

But first! I saw a tag with a desire to see the scene with David and the star map. To spare everyone from watching the rest of the movie to get there, here it is!

youtube

[See previous post for lengthy description of the events. I didn’t talk about the music in this before though! It really adds to the sense of wonder in this scene. It reminds me of Daft Punk’s Overture to Tron Legacy (2010), another beautiful and flawed movie. Given the modern use of temporary music in editing that definitely sneaks into what directors demand of scores, there’s a chance this was a direct influence. In terms of the “oh wow, space!” feeling it gives me, I’d also mention the Star Trek TNG opening theme.]

Anyway! On with the horror.

In Alien, the creature’s life cycle was developed by writer Dan O'Bannon, who had two major ideas for its early appearances: sexual, reproductive threat directed at a male character, and Crohn’s disease. O’Bannon had Crohn’s, and he said that inspired the idea of a critter chewing its way out of a man’s guts.

That personal connection has been lost through subsequent media, in part because the series has continued to use the same creature and the same method of killing, minor deviations like in Covenant and tasteless ones like AvP Requiem notwithstanding. The chestburster is a thing that can only ever really work once in a movie. The first time is relatively drawn out, made a setpiece of the movie, and is a horrifying plot twist for anyone who goes in blind. After that? Drawing it out may risk becoming meaningless gore or boring, so most movies have chosen to just have the little bugger pop out within seconds. It’s the sideshow before you get to the main event, despite being the iconic scene of Alien.

Prometheus’ equivalent scene wins back a fair amount of tension by altering the details of the event, if not the general arc of it. It certainly hammers on the reproductive horror aspect, but loses the original subversion of targeting a male character. Which is a shame, because male-targeted reproductive horror is still boundary-pushing. From the world of horror gaming, Outlast: Whistleblower produced some notably panicked reactions from male players when they encountered the emasculating, specifically reproductive threat of Eddie Gluskin. (Content warning for gore, death, forced feminization, misogynistic language, censored nudity.)

Regardless, we have The Chestburster Scene again, but now it’s in the back half of the movie, and happens to the main human protagonist.

I find it very odd that this movie is so self-consciously iterating over things that were first done in Alien. It’s like watching a devout Catholic pray at the Stations of the Cross.

Speaking of crosses

Before we get to the main event, there’s the first actual attempt at character work between David and Shaw in the movie, as we’re in the final act. David confiscates Shaw’s cross as she wakes up from her post-boyfriend-barbeque faint. “It may be contaminated,” he says.

Shaw’s christianity is one of the few character traits in the film that ties into one of the themes, and has its own arc. She’s giving up her cross to the person who killed her partner, a metaphor for a crisis of faith which is so blatant as to barely be a metaphor at all. And, given the general arc of how these things go, means she’s going to get it back at some point. The context for it is going to be confusing and disappointing, frankly.

And it’s especially weird given the other metaphor going on simultaneously: David runs some scans on her, and declares she’s three months pregnant. This is a non-virgin virgin pregnancy. She is Alien Mary. This, then, is the narrative reason why Shaw is infertile–so that she could be the Mary figure, and, more practically for the plot, have foreknowledge that something was wrong.

Except it really didn’t have to be that way to make this work. While christian allegory and the creation of life are themes in this movie, Shaw’s infertility was handled with zero grace. And honestly, the movie could work without it–Shaw and Holloway did not have romantic chemistry, as far as I could tell. Lean into that! Just say they haven’t had sex in ages. This scene would actually flow better, because Shaw explicitly objects that she only had sex with Holloway “ten hours ago. There's no bloody way I'm three months pregnant.”

Which again hammers in how stupid fast this movie has been racing its characters toward their doom, but I’m immediately distracted by David pronouncing “it's not exactly a traditional fetus.”

It certainly isn’t. It’s an alien squid, placed there by the holy spirit of black goo. She’s all set to give birth to Squesus.

I think that’s the only worse way he possibly could’ve said it.

David, frankly, gets some of his worst dialog of the movie here, because he is infected by The Plot for a bit. “It must feel like your God has abandoned you,” he says, after sedating her, “to loose Dr. Holloway after your father died under such similar circumstances.” Which leaves one momentarily with the wild mental image of Dad Shaw sacrificing himself to a flamethrower-welding corpo, but no, David means ebola. David found this out via that dream-watching tech that exists solely to be a mildly unnecessary plot point. Blessedly, this is the last time we see any mention of it.

It’s very strange, how the movie is stuffed full of plot and edited so tightly around the plot that characters barely have room to breathe, yet what it prioritizes as plot-relevant is so scattershot. This failing is also inflicted upon the part of the otherwise very effective Chestburster: The Prequel scene.

Shaw attacks the people who come to take her away to cryo, running in her underwear to the PAULING MED-POD the movie very loudly announced earlier, so that you wouldn’t forget it exists. She tells the PAULING MED-POD that she needs an emergency caesarian. The PLOTPOINT MED-POD informs her that it’s only formatted for male patients.

I’ve seen many people complain this makes no sense. It’s in Vickers’ quarters, why would she have an expensive medical device that she can’t fully use? Others counter that no, it makes sense, because the med-pod was actually installed for Peter Weyland, thus justifying its male specificity. He’s a selfish bastard, he got it for himself, plot hole avoided.

…Except that doesn’t address the more fundamental problem: What does this add to this scene, to balance out the fact that the audience is now distracted by this information? It slows Shaw down a bit as she figures out how to cue up a foreign body extraction from the abdominal cavity, adding to the tension. But you don’t need that to be what draws out the scene. Maybe the PAULING MED-POD has a slow boot-up sequence. Maybe someone follows her there, and she has to fight them off, possibly killing them in her panic. A dead body in the room would solve an actual logical problem with a later scene.

It’s frustrating, because the pacing of this scene is actually excellent, as is its premise. Shaw has to forego anesthesia and make do with self-administered local painkillers, because the prosthetics and CG teams have done a bang-up job making her stomach writhe unpleasantly, making it very clear that whatever’s in there is mobile enough to be a danger to her, even if it’s removed.

The pods instruments are mostly CG, but its combination of unhurried routine and abrupt, industrial roboticism adds to the uncomfortable nature of the scene. Sound design is also important here, with all sound effects well-chosen, and mixed to imply claustrophobic closeness and how trapped Shaw is.

The creature itself? Eh. It’s a slightly phallic squid, and squids were already slightly phallic to begin with. They added on a slightly vaginal mouth, which is also a lateral move--squid mouths already look quite a lot like an unworksafe orifice with a beak tucked away in it. Unless you're looking at Promachoteuthis sulcus, whose inner lip structures fold into patterns that look distressingly like human teeth.

Honestly, this is freakier than the actual prop. Good job, Promachoteuthis sulcus. You're only 25 mm long, and a delightful tiny terror.

...But the fact that Shaw’s stuck in the pod with her flailing squid-child is what actually adds another minute of fear and wince-worthy pain, as the almost comically brutal medical staple gun closes her incision and the pod slowly opens up.

She tries to kill it with what appears to be a soothing mist of decontamination spray. This is the one other stumble of the scene, because it’s just… I mean, look at it.

It’s just been spritzed with Febreze. There’s nothing that leaves you wondering if the thing’s still alive for later, you know it’s still alive.

But overall, a well-done scene. The standout horror scene of the movie, which is light on scares. That sparsity wouldn’t even be worth mentioning if the movie were going for slow tension, but with its strange blend of existential quandaries and unremarkable horror tropes, it takes a very strong, singular scene to feel like the tension has actually paid off. I don’t think it completely balances out the deficits of the rest of the horror, but it very nearly manages it, and does manage to be memorable.

Next time: An entirely underwhelming horror scene, and the movie takes another swing at having themes.

⛬

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

Citations for alt-text rambles:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/30/memory-the-origins-of-alien-review-francis-bacon-greek-myth-dan-o-bannon-sci-fi-classic-film

https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/blog/aliens-chestburster-mechanism-behind-the-scenes

https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Seegson

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3314219/how-do-u-v-coordinates-work

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgical_staple (medical gore cw)

https://sites.uw.edu/pauling2020/

https://www.paulinamarket.com/

Overflow Ramble #1

A shot of the screen on Chekhov’s g–I mean the PAULING MED-POD, showing the text “EMERGENCY PROCEDURE”, and that it is “AWT VERBAL CMD”. The med-pod turns out to be a Weyland product, because all corporations in Alien movies are either Weyland, Yutani, or Seegson, if you’re particularly unlucky (cite 3).

They made the mistake of putting more actual words on here, and so I’m squinting at the top right corner at “CARDIAC STRESS TEST”, “ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHY” AND “MECH ALGN TCH”, which means the pod appears to think she needs to have her heart checked or her wheels aligned.

But what I find funniest is that there’s coordinate sliders in the center bottom: X/Y/Z and U/W. You know where I recognize that from? 3D modeling. U/V/W are used as an alternate coordinate system in that context (cite 4). Somebody was designing this, thinking “well, we need more buttons. Where can I get more buttons?” and then looked at the horrid mass of options and sliders in their modeling software and realized they had the answer.

Overflow Ramble #2

A close-up of David’s hands, holding a sample container and placing Shaw’s necklace inside. Two details, one of them insane, the other just plain funny: First of all, this is a different set of hands than the one when David was messing with the black goo–there was a small but notable blemish on the fingerprint that wasn’t there, proving once again that hand and arm doubles are one of the odder things you don’t think about in film production.

Second: The container is turned so that the label on it is facing away. This allows you to see the necklace, but it also highlights a completely flat Braille label, reading “PN#ZTZouSthe#Z”, which is obviously very informative.

But the real reason why the label is facing away is because it almost hides the fact that the label says “PRODUCT CODE” on it, which means he may have just put Shaw’s necklace in an empty peanut butter jar.

⛬

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

#Prometheus 2012 #Prometheus (2012)#finally some well done scenes #though the plot still does not leave them unscathed #Youtube

34 notes · View notes

raiiny-bay · 4 days

Text

monster boyz thoughts...

#ok so. basically i woke up thinking about teeth & how he would show his love for red #bc 1. he can't talk & so he can't outright say he loves him but also.#2. neither of them really understand love or that what they feel for each other is love yk #so i was thinking. teeth probably always leaves the actual act of killing their prey to red or #at the very least. makes sure red is watching when it dies bc he knows that's like... uh. he knows that's the ''important'' part to red #if that makes sense #also! i think the only reason teeth eats people is bc of red #if he hadn't met red i really don't think he would have survived all that long bc he's not particularly fast (bad leg)#& he's not particularly smart either. so he most likely would've gotten taken out by monster hunters if he was alone #though he is very strong so the hunters wouldn't have been left unscathed #& i think red wouldn't have survived all that long either bc he was never particularly careful about anything until he met teeth #he was doing increasingly risky & dangerous hunts bc he simply didn't care yk. but teeth gave him like. a reason to be careful & calculated #which just further proves they're bound by fate yk.#um. i also had some breakthroughs with teeth's origin story so. i maaaaayyyy work on those today. i might actually make red's finally #we'll see. i might end up drawing all day again. idk. n e way.#rainyrambles

37 notes · View notes

bottombaron · 9 months

Text

I think that Guillermo, at the end of Laszlo's 'Roast' party in episode 7, will reveal his secret.

The party will most certainly devolve into a roast of him instead, because of course it will. Because Nandor won't be able to make clever jokes or get anyone to laugh and in order to save his ego he'll do what he always does in those situations and sacrifice Guillermo in its place. He'll say unnecessarily cruel things because he thinks no one person can be more important to him than the fear of his own weakness. He'll pile it on too. One thing after the other. Maybe the other vampires invited to the roast will laugh along because familiars are easy marks. And the heat will build. There's only so many lashes Guillermo can take on behalf of Nandor's pride. And Laszlo, Nadja, and Colin are starting to grimace and wince.

And that's when Guillermo will do it.

He will stand up, with the chair he was sitting in making a horrible noise across the wood floor like a record scratch. To let you know that the party has been violently cut short.

And Laszlo will do a panicked head shake, maybe try to salvage the situation from the precipice that Nandor has unknowingly brought them to. That Guillermo is about to jump off of. With all of them helplessly attached.

Guillermo was put in the audience on the other side of the room. Already segregated from the rest of the group. He's in a room filled with vampires who were just laughing at him but now look. Nandor's peers. The whole vampire community is here, watching him.

Guillermo's vampires sit across from him at a long table with a podium, like a panel of judges. Like he's a prisoner standing before the pulpit awaiting a verdict. He's got one last moment to either swallow the pride he just started to embrace on a float earlier that year and sit back down, let himself be ridiculed like always but live to see another day ... or burn it all down like it deserves to be, with his plea of guilt.

Holding a struck match, Guillermo will finally speak the truth to Nandor. To everyone. The real truth. The one he hasn't spoken out loud yet. The one nobody knows.

He will say, "I have a joke." And everyone will listen.

"I paid to have some barely-turned, low-rank, nothing of a vampire. Who hasn't even been one longer than I have been a familiar…to bite me. And turn me. In the back room of a gas station where he works. And he did it."

"I've been turned by a vampire that wasn't my master. That wasn't you."

Guillermo's jittered, bitchy energy tapers. He no longer fidgets or looks around at the faces slack-jawed at him. He's gone cold.

Like a killer, he delivers the next blow straight at his master's heart, sitting across the room at the podium, similarly frozen in place.

"But that's not the joke."

"The joke is, I may not have known how taboo it was…that it would be such a big deal to everyone else…but I did know…" (he licks his lips and despite his unshakable intent the uncontrollable emotion he always carries inside him threatens to undo his composure. Still, he keeps his voice loud and steady. Mostly. His attention is focused. His eyes start getting a little wet, but he hardly notices. He's going to follow through.)

"I didn't even really do it because I wanted to. Not then, or like that. (Not with him). Not for the same reason I had wanted to do it before. Or the reason I told Laszlo and Nadja I did it."

"See…the joke is…"

(His voice has become softer. It still carries across the room easily. There is no one else in the whole house but Guillermo and Nandor.)

"I did it because I knew how it would make you feel."

"I did it because I wanted to hurt you."

#wwdits #what we do in the shadows #guillermo de la cruz #nandor the relentless #nandermo #and Harvey will do that thing that he does so well #that beautiful little exhale - like he's been holding his breath this whole time #like it was him not Nandor that had just been given a killing blow #and Kayvan will do that thing that HE does so well #going from being a fucking cartoon character - like he was drawn by wb in the 50s and lives by the Bugs Bunny laws of physics #he walks thru fallen anvils and acme dynamite mostly unscathed because it's funny #and then without any warning he's /real/ he's a real physical living breathing human man (vampire)#he walks on earth and lives by the same laws of nature we do and he can hurt and be hurt with equal ferocity #Nandor's mouth is slightly open and his eyes have a quality of both dissociation and focus on Guillermo #like someone watching tv instead of real life #like this horror was happening to someone other than him #and after his exhale in the dead quiet of the mansion Guillermo turns away from Nandor and leaves #after 13 years of continuous abuse of Guillermo in order to fuel the lingering dredge of Nandor's barely functioning ego #Guillermo himself kills it in one short decisive moment #because he was always the only one who ever could #who held that power over Nandor the whole time #and it cuts them apart like a guillotine

61 notes · View notes

24bughours · 7 months

Text

Y'all ready to be WRECKED about Petrigrof and/or Simon possibly getting destroyed by his Super Satan wife

#im so nervous/excited about tomorrow #i was seriously considering staying home to watch it but no #if simon leaves this series unscathed i would be genuinely shocked #i am expecting the cycle of saving the other and losing yourself to continue and if that doesnt happen. one of them probably die #fionna and cake #fionna and cake episode 9 and 10 #fionna and cake finale #simon petrikov #betty grof #petrigrof #my toxic yuri is sustaining me #fnc

49 notes · View notes

hearts4juzi · 7 months

Text

post-dave doodles for zombie au

#yes dave took michaels eye #no its not here #ull see #u shouldda seen the other guy!!! dave did not leave unscathed #michael wouldnt let him #and its the only reason mikes alive at all #fnaf #doodles #zombie apocalypse au #blood tw #michael afton #evan afton #the crying child #elizabeth afton #william afton #gregory fnaf #fnaf au

36 notes · View notes

peggingprowl · 4 months

Text

I've been cooking up some Thoughts while at work today about Jazz playing with a remote to a vibrator in Optimus' valve during a meeting.

Jazz is pretending to pay attention to the meeting while just directing a recording of whoever's currently presenting to a subprocesser to take care of it. He's much more focused on the subtle shifts and analyzing every little detail about Optimus as he idly plays with the remote settings. Watching as Optimus gets slowly more and more distracted and terse with his responses as the meeting just drags on. Jazz keeping it on a low buzz right up until Optimus has to speak and then ramming it up, causing Optimus to stumble with his words. Watching him get closer and closer to overload before denying him as he flicks the vibrator off. Optimus nearly cries at that, getting a few odd looks, but waving them off, he's fine, really, please pay attention to the current presenter

Poor Optimus just going slowly insane as he keeps getting edged and played with. Eventually he gets so fed up that he calls the meeting to an end early (really Prowl, that report can wait until later, he's sure—) and once everyone else has FINALLY left the room, (Jazz making sure to take his time chatting with people as they trickle out the door, of course) and he's BEGGING for Jazz to let him overload pretty please. He's been so good and he needs it oh Primus PLEASE

And how can Jazz resist? Gotta make sure his Prime is properly rewarded, after all (even if he did cheat a tiny bit by ending the meeting. But it's okay)

#cookie talks #valveplug #Jazz tf #Optimus Prime #JazzOp #poor Op being put through so much by Jazz <3 #but dont worry. Jazz makes sure he gets his overloads for being such a good pet and making it through the meeting mostly unscathed :)#Optimus is afraid to get up from his chair during the meeting bc hes leaving a puddle behind even though his panel is closed shut

38 notes · View notes

active-mind-15 · 15 days

Text

Another baby Akashi scenario I just thought of

Imagine the first time he ever loses a tooth. I bet when he feels it wobble for the first time, he goes to tell his mother, who then tells him about the tooth fairy and how when his tooth comes out, he should leave it under his pillow, and then when he wakes up the next day, there will be money.

Masaomi later expresses his disapproval to Shiori privately because the tooth fairy is just "fairytale nonsense", but she is adamant about letting their son believe in it because he already doesn't get much time to be a kid as is.

For the next few days, baby Akashi constantly jiggled his tooth back and forth to see if it would come out, and his father had to tell him to leave his tooth alone multiple times. It isn't until one day during dinner time, baby Akashi is eating, and while he's chewing something, he feels a weird tugging sensation and then he opens his mouth and pulls out his tooth.

He drops everything to run over to his parents' chairs and announce that his tooth finally came loose, and Shiori reminds him to put it under his pillow that night while Masaomi just looks on in skepticism. He seems about ready to say that the tooth fairy doesn't exist, but then he looks at how excited his son is and ultimately can't bring himself to do it, so he says nothing instead.

The next morning, when baby Akashi runs out of his room to tell his parents that the tooth fairy left him a 1000 yen bill, Shiori glances toward her husband and gives him a knowing smile. Masaomi pointedly avoids her eyes and continues pretending to read his newspaper.

#masaomi continued to leave him 1000 yen bills until baby akashi woke up one night while he was trying to sneak in #they had a whole new type of conversation the next morning #i am once again trying to push the idea of a slightly functional household for the akashi family #baby akashi is too cute for even masaomi to be left unscathed and i will stand by this #just needed to get another cute headcanon out there #kuroko no basket #knb headcanons #akashi seijuro

18 notes · View notes

youremyonlyhope · 5 months

Text

Hey. RTD2. If you're playing some sort of long game with this whole not even mentioning the existence of Martha Jones thing as a way to throw us off the scent of a possible appearance from her later in season "1" or "2" of this era...

Nah. I can't even begin to let myself hope it will happen.

#dw spoilers #doctor who spoilers #doctor who #martha jones #i was gonna say he's on thin ice but nah boy is underwater with me #i'll still be tuning in. for Ncuti Gatwa. i've currently lost the bit of hope i had in RTD2's era though.#because so much of what i predicted would happen in the handling of Fifteen came true. and then top it off with Martha.#but i let some hope grow during Wild Blue Yonder. because i was enjoying it. a lot.#but we've really gotten off on the wrong foot. making Fifteen really have to share being the Doctor.#and Fourteen's face as Ten traveled with 3 companions. 4 if you count Sarah Jane. 5 if you count River.#and you mention all of them. besides Martha.#not even a joke of 'hey well Martha got out.' to the Toymaster in retaliation for all the dead companions #the Fam and Dan were left out too. but they all survived relatively unscathed. and none of them traveled with Ten.#you have Tennant's face. you mention all of Ten's other companions. you leave out. Martha Jones.#will he gain it back? hopefully. but dude. you do a 6oth anniversary special. you bring back Tennant for the THIRD time.#you leave out Martha Jones. almost purposefully. not even Mel or Kate saying 'lots of companions worked for us. like Martha.'#SIMPLE. JUST NAME DROP HER. SOMEWHERE. ANYWHERE. AT ANYTIME. JUST ACKNOWLEDGE SHE EXISTED.#all those 'ah your old face' 'look same face' 'i got this face back' comments. no mention of someone the face traveled with.#i'm upset

17 notes · View notes

artvann · 20 days

Text

hey maybe you shouldn't wander around that empty circus with an inexplicable fog surrounding it. just a thought.

doodle

#he wont kill you i prommy #you probably wont leave that circus mentally unscathed though sorry #hes not making you experience circus horrors to be MEAN he just thinks its FUNNY #the horrors make YOU lose your mind. they make him laugh #bernadette oc

8 notes · View notes

starleska · 2 years

Photo

thinking about them...😳

#physically incapable of engaging with new Cuphead media and leaving unscathed #baroness von bon bon #werner werman #cuphead #the cuphead show #the cuphead show spoilers #starleskatalks

283 notes · View notes

ghost-proofbaby · 1 year

Text

live footage from my google docs rn of me and all my wips

#who's it gonna be?#smutty hour 13?#devastating mordor?#more requests?#seasons pass?#who knows? not me #i aint leaving unscathed tonight tho boys

47 notes · View notes

tibli · 3 months

Text

Beloved Husk

Here I stand in her scorched remains.

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, and her vacant body has acclimated to my presence.

No longer do her damp, wooly tissues squelch beneath my feet-

they have long since dried out, compressed into a single mass of dull, cotton-candy pink.

In some places, her flesh has completely burned away, leaving nothing behind but blackened, splintering bone. There is no ink in the world rich enough to match the soot that clings to her skeleton.

Sun rays filter through her blown, empty eye sockets, and the daylight is no less beautiful for its thoughtless transgression.

How dare you illuminate her suffering so callously! You have made her into a spectacle- a cadaver to be prodded and studied, rather than a soul to be mourned.

My cheeks are wet, but I can't be sure if it's from grief, or the ever-present haze of smoke. The cause doesn't matter- I am weeping all the same.

#poem #poety #body horror #for anyone wondering- this is about the immediate aftermath of my house catching on fire on mothers day earlier this year #we were living in a rental house up until our house was rebuilt and we were able to move back in #the house didnt burn down per se- it was still standing. but the kitchen was completely destroyed as was most of the living room #i refused to go into the house for a little while at first because i didnt want to look at it. but i eventually did go in #and this poem is kind of a symbolic recollection of the various times i'd gone inside before they started repairs #this has been my home since i was three. although my room was opposite from the kitchen and unscathed bc my door was shut #there were still a lot of sentimental things that were destroyed.#and since the house was built so long ago it looks like a completely different place now #its not the same. and thats been kind of hard for me #i thought i was over it but my dad watched this show with a house fire scene and i had to leave the room bc i was remembering all of it #this was my way of getting some of that grief out #im not much of a writer so this probably sucks but i dont care. and maybe someone else will find some value in it

7 notes · View notes

swordmaid · 5 months

Text

I was reading up on stuff about eilistraee though and they mention that her way of guiding/blessing is very subtle. she wants them to ultimately be making their own decisions. but she is there to give them the support if they need it. and that aligns with shri’iia and her newfound oath tenets actually.

like accepting her role as an Oathbreaker means that she’s now accepting her new freedom. she doesn’t follow the tenets of lolth’s paladins nor does she follow the dogma of the spider queen anymore. but it is not an easy thing to denounce since she’s essentially choosing to leave behind her own culture and home. and when you’re raised to not know anything else besides the very thing you’re leaving, where else do you go? but she moves forward anyway, choosing to follow the freedom she’s now left with even though she doesn’t even know what she’ll get from it. but by choosing that freedom she’s also choosing to pursue her own free will. all her decisions, choices, and everything in between are now up to her. before, she used to rely on the approval of her matriarch and her spider queen but now she’s on her own and it’s terrifying …!!!! and uncomfortable…!!! but also strangely relieving….!! and she’s eventually learning how to make peace with it ….

but I imagine her oath breaker oaths is very similar to the guidance that the Oathbreaker knight provides. her tenets are now based on pursuing freedom and free will not just hers but other people as well, but she’ll only give her help if they want to be helped. they have to make that decision first, she can’t make that choice for them. and that aligns well with how eilistraee functions and I do think eilistraee will give her some guidance especially before she accepted the Oathbreaker role since shri’iia WAS lost and alone in the surface. and I think shri’iia is aware of that divine guidance, she would’ve recognised it’s presence and she is thankful for it (though I’m unsure if she’ll voice that thanks anytime soon) but I don’t think she’ll convert to eilistraee… it is too soon … the taste of freedom is still very foreign to her and she has to follow her own path before she follow anyone else again. but in the far future, perhaps she could swear herself to another deity again, maybe….

#but I was just so surprised at how well eilistraee’s way of blessings aligns with shri’iia’s …#story .. and her way of doing … so now I’m rethinking of that ending where shri’iia turns to a drider once the protection from the artifact #is gone. like I do think it would be fitting for eilistraee to protect her from her mother’s wrath #but I also don’t think shri’iia will leave unscathed???? like no way…#like what I’m thinking rn is that she’d prob get hunted down by her matriarch’s house for a) turning away from lolth #b) shri’iia knows too much info on her matriarch’s house and also the other noble houses bc she was her matriarch’s secret tool thing ..#she knows all the tea… she has the potential to ruin them so ofc now she’s a threat

10 notes · View notes