thinking about flame again (as per usual).. genuinely i dont and never will understand wof fans who saw him be bitter and angry and cold and shut off from years of never having a home or real friends and feeling isolated and say "yeah, no, he's evil."
he lived his whole life in the talons, constantly moving and never having any place to tether himself to emotionally. imagine the impact that must have on a literal child. i know i like to headcanon that he and viper and ochre were friends but nothing in the books actually indicates that he found any emotional consolation in ANYONE with the exception being his mother, who probably never even really got to spend much time with him. i dont really remember what exactly the talons did though so idrk. he probably had to witness the horrors of war via the aftermath of battles that he likely saw when traveling, and even though he was shielded from being drafted into the skywing army that still doesnt lessen the emotional impact that that'd have on a fucking kid.
imagine you go through years of that, and finally, one day, some big, majestic, 'allknowing' nightwing shows up and tells you that you're a part of the fabled dragonet prophecy, and you finally have some hope that maybe it was worth the struggle, that you are actually worth something, just to find out that you were nothing but a replacement. and don't even get me started on when he and the other alternates were transferred to the nightwing volcano, where they went without food for DAYS and were forced to fly nonstop to some remote island and for probably the first time in his life, flame met other skywings- just to watch them burn alive in front of him. all while he is STILL A KID.
then the literal NEXT DAY he is forced to fight the other alternates, and winds up with an unimaginably (both physically and emotionally) painful scar that makes him feel like an unlovable, weak, ugly monster. all while he watches a dragon who's essentially his sister die right before his eyes in the lava.
this all makes him wall himself off from other dragons, because he's scared that they'll think he's as weak as he sees himself; it makes him angry and bitter at the world, it makes him hate himself and it eats him up inside. we get a really good insight on this in book 6 when moon reads his mind, where he thinks that he doesn't even deserve his mother's love because of how scarred he his, where he thinks that nobody takes him seriously, where he thinks that he has no friends nor allies.
and then people still have the sense to call him evil because of, not despite, the emotional barriers he has from the turmoil and trauma he's experienced.
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"The body and face of this sculpture are in idealized youth, with plump cheeks and round face, and his hair is usually unkempt..his youthful appearance, large eyes, pouting lips, and layered locks of hair over his forehead are some of the iconography that can be used to identify him"
^ this quote is genuinely still fucking plaguing me. THIS IS LITERALLY SEB???? LIKE LITERALLY 2010 SEB SPECIFICALLY????? It is actually fucking me up how it is literally quintessentially Seb. Like big eyes...plump cheeks and round face...unkempt hair...pouty lips...okay okay okay!!!! And that Antinous is basically the peak perfection of pretty boy from that time, I'm like, yeah that's Seb to me 🥹🥹🤧🤧
But god the "youthful appearance, big eyes, pouting lips, and layered locks of hair over his forehead" Does that quote not evoke pictures like these in your head???????
I feel so unwell about it 😭😭 I am going through it 😭😭
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