Honk Honk

contemplating danoli arranged marriage once more… (the seeds planted by @wet-poodle-nudes of course.)

so, thinking about a timeline where dante’s parents never died and he was just sort of… kept. very bird in a cage. he never underwent the trials of the elemental spirits of fire because his parents feared the strain would kill him.

with his parents’ continued rule, solaria teeters on falling into ruin. it stays afloat mostly through luck. the local public sentiment towards the sun lord (dante’s father) and his consort (dante’s mother) is pretty negative due to their lack of action against those who attack solaria. meanwhile, the other territories view them as frivolous, ditzy nobles; they’re both too nice, too kind for their own good. its quite fanciful that desert rulers would purchase ice sculptures and other luxuries.

dante, in the midst of all this, resents his parents and his position immensely, but he’s self-aware enough to know that he doesn’t exactly have the health to rule and he’s lived an incredibly coddled life. he’s privileged, but he can’t do anything.

as solaria’s position becomes more and more precarious, it becomes evident to dante’s parents that the best move, for solaria and dante, is to marry dante off. it would bring in a strong alliance, wealth, and, if they can send dante off, perhaps they can protect him from the local strife.

enter: olivine.

there were probably a lot of possible suitors dante’s parents looked at for him. but, olivine’s healing ability puts him head and shoulders above the rest. after all, if their son’s survival is paramount, then they want someone who could properly look after his health.

after some intense discussion, the marriage is arranged. there’s a wedding in solaria. and then a wedding in the water territory.

for the wedding in the solaria, dante and olivine meet one day before their wedding to be.

going to solaria a bit of an adventure for olivine; its nice for him to be able to see the world outside of the water and light territory, even if it’s for an event that’s tying him to a stranger. he hopes that maybe the marriage means he can visit again.

meanwhile, dante is so furious about the whole ordeal that he stonewalls olivine’s attempted visits for several days. his parents reassure olivine with soft words and laughter; they invite him to hospitality in dante’s stead. it’s clear to him that dante’s parents are incredibly kind people who love their son dearly. they are very much unlike his own parents whose love is shown through unyielding and weighty responsibility.

on the final day, dante agrees to see olivine. as he arrives to dante’s bedroom (a scandalously intimate place to visit but it seems that dante’s health will allow nothing else), he sees dante’s mother bowed close to dante, cupping his cheek. they exchange whispers, cajoling and reluctant in turns. dante’s mother introduces them while dante remains mute to olivine. his mother says that he wanted to meet with him alone and wishes them both luck as she leaves.

two caged birds left to talk… dante is terse with olivine. in their conversation, it becomes very quickly evident that neither of them particularly desire their marriage. olivine has a gentle, sad smile when dante asks, angrily, ‘don’t you want more?’. dante’s prospects are rather dire, but surely, olivine, a beloved priest, could protest a marriage he didn’t want.

going into more of a broader overview of what the potential dynamics would be: dante goes to live with olivine in the water territory.

olivine is pretty chill with letting dante do what he likes and also helping him do what he wants. its a kind of freedom dante has never known and he uses it to his full ability. though the marriage wasn’t his choice, he’s determined to take control afterwards. he’s also very much an only child and kind of a brat.

in their adventures together, i feel like dante gets very frustrated with how passive olivine is. he sees how olivine’s temple goers ogle and fawn over him. once he’s sure olivine’s kindness isn’t some ploy, he starts to bully olivine into having preferences.

i like to think, at some point, laying in bed together at night like children at a sleepover, they discuss their wishes. they both have many, many wishes they’ve kept close to their heart, for one reason or another. and like… though some of them may be difficult, once their wishes are spoken aloud, they help each other realize how achievable those dreams are.

dante’s straightforward thinking cuts through much of the winding anxiety that strangles olivine’s wishes. he can see all the strength, all the power olivine possesses. he knows olivine is capable. meanwhile, olivine’s experience with helping others overcome their own struggles opens up possibilities that dante didn’t consider because he thought if his wishes did happen, he’d have to muster the strength to complete them on his own.

together, they find that they arent quite as trapped as they thought they were

Being carried swiftly by mama

topping is actually gayer than bottoming because like the top is the one who's deciding again and again to put his dick in another man. The other guy could just be chilling. For all we know

He is indeed a guy

ok ive been thinking about this since like chapter 12 and chapter 16 is just around the corner so:

here’s my theory about how clan member contracts work + the contract powerscale 📝

so huey signs a contract with someone and they each have to fulfill it. simple enough. in return for fulfilling the contract, huey gives them a fraction of his essence (which culminates in a gemstone on their body) and they go on a roadtrip to fix the altars every once in a while

each original clan member signed their contract for a reason. we have pretty good guesses for some of them quincy: to protect the tribe/tribe’s land (pretty much confirmed as of razor’s edge) olivine’s ancestor: to assist(?) the church dante’s ancestor: to protect the solaria yakumo’s ancestor: to protect his loved ones (see: misty vale) what happens when someone doesn’t fulfill their contract? based on rei’s flashback in ch. 12, i’m guessing that the body part their gemstone is connected to + their essence begins to go haywire. rei mentions he ‘never chose to enter any damn contract’ while his gem huey also mentions that rei must learn to ‘harness the power’ he was given. it seems like part of that ‘harnessing’ is using huey’s power in service to the original contract.

rei, it seems, was not doing that. this is in contrast to someone like quincy who spends a great deal of time protecting and aiding the forest tribe and, likewise, possesses an incredible amount of power.

i think olivine is in a similar position (though he doesn’t know it). he’s got a lot of control and power and, unlike yakumo and edmond, his gem wasn’t cloudy when eiden met him (although, his sr also covers his gem with a decorative gem so?) (at any rate, iirc, eiden doesn't notice anything wrong with his gem). (EDIT: i have been informed that eiden does comment on olivine's gem in his h-story room when he sees his real gem and he says it’s clear (healthy gem = good essence health). OLIVINE WIN.) olivine's ancestor (likely) asked for power to care for/protect the church and olivine has been doing that (monster semen not withstanding. we’ll get to that.📌) + regulating with the altar. the more a clan member ‘fulfills the purpose of their contract’, the more power they reap from it. it’s hard to say this definitively because some of the original contracts are very ambiguous.

this puts quincy + olivine + kuya(?) in the upper tiers edmond + yakumo + g/karu(?) are in mid tier

the familiars + blade are N/A (never signed a contract)

and then bottom tier are rei and dante. who also happen to be the only main clan members who have been conspicuously sick as part of their character rei, we know spent an ample amount of time doing something outside of klein (i.e. not fulfilling his ancestor’s contract). so, we know where his dysregulation came from and it likely didn’t occur while he was a kid based on the few childhood flashbacks we get from him. his problem was mostly getting megabullied 😔✊ but what about dante? how did he fail his contract as infant, straight from the womb??? (assuming that was the cause of his sickness)

well. when he was born, solaria wasn’t doing very well. and, honestly, his parents weren’t doing a great job running the show. it also probably didn’t help that he was stopped from doing anything that could help solaria since he was isolated to palace grounds.

that is until the night of the riot when he ran and sought out the elemental spirit of fire's trial.

we don’t know exactly when dante ‘stopped being sick’ but i’d hazard a guess that it was after his trial with the elemental spirit of fire. the essence + power he gained from the contract with the elemental spirit of fire (i.e. his agreement to protect the fire territory) stabilized his essence and thus, his health. his newfound health (plus a lot of training) gave him the strength to improve solaria and become what he is today. (as an aside, similar to how kuya provides a lot of insight on huey, dante provides a lot of insight on contracts and communication with the elemental spirits. his contract is directly compared to the contract scrolls used by huey (by blade in chapter 10 part 1). in that chapter we learn that failure to fulfill his contract will result in his death. otherwise, we see that he gains power and favor from the spirits.)

even though solaria has improved a lot, i think dante's essence from huey might be permanently effected given that in sunburst fever, he can’t use magic w/o the elemental spirits. in general, he seems to struggle with outputting essence compared to other clan members.

tl;dr: huey’s contracts make you more powerful if you do what you said you’d do (or your ancestor said that they’d do) and, if you don’t, wuh oh… 📌 so olivine and the monster semen. yes, he did try to sabotage the church, so why didn’t he face some kind of huge consequence for breaking the contract? well… he also protected the church and, despite trying to harm it, he did his best to maintain it. so, what might seem like a huge breach of contract, is actually alright. the church didn’t face any major harm and it was protected. bada-bing-badaboom also, a possible question might be ‘so what about the mid-tier guys?’. so, yakumo and edmond don’t appear(?) to be actively fulfilling their contracts (though yakumo is well on his way).

what’s important is that they aren’t violating their contract. from when we meet them, it seems like ‘neglect of a contract’ does lead to degradation of one’s gem (cloudiness of the gem, poor condition in general) and would eventually lead to illness (like rei), but it’s a much slower process. it’s a good thing eiden regulated with them when he did.

Timelapse for my piece for rei zine + finished product

tbh when they announced fairy tale event my first thought was THIS

this video is CUTE. the animal is stressed and having a terrible time but it's a practicing nihilist so it actually feels liberated in the meaninglessness of its suffering

pikmin book club