NoteInABottle

I like to write!

[noteinabottle168]

I’m dusting off my tumblr and trying something new!!!

Some random notes:

- I am extremely multi-fandom. Some of my fandoms are Tower of God 🌰❄️, ORV 📚🌟,Durarara 🔪🚏, MHA 🍀💥, danmei 🌸, genshin 🍅, arcane 👊

- I like to write!! My Ao3 is at https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoteInABottle

- I mostly use Twitter to look at art: https://twitter.com/noteinabottle1

It’s nice to meet you :)

[dreamsparkle]

Fan art for my favourite fic that I am loving reading at the moment. It is seriously so much fun. Go check it out!

The Mirror of Ecidyrue by starbrigid

---

"Well, take a look at me, Potter," Draco drawled, leaning back beside Potter and gesturing over his body. "No, seriously, go ahead. Take a look. Take a nice long look, yeah, as long as you please." He waited until he could see Potter's green eyes traveling over him. "That's a nice Gryffindor red that's put on your cheeks. Well, what do you see when you look at me?"

Potter seemed hardly able to answer. "Um, uh..."

It made Draco impatient, seeing how little Potter seemed to have caught his point. "Am I hurt? What terrible fate has befallen me that requires the Chosen One to come rushing to save me? What can you see that's wrong with me, Potter? Do I look desperately in need of rescue?"

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[prokopetz]

"It doesn't help your credibility to exaggerate, most employers wouldn't literally work you to death" like, I used to work in distribution. If booking a truck driver for back to back shifts until they fall asleep at the wheel, crash, and die counts as being worked to death, I have personally met employers who've worked employees to death and gotten away with a slap on the wrist. It may not be universal, but it's a hell of a lot more common than a lot of us would prefer to think.

[backofthebookshelf]

The FAA had to explicitly make rules about how long pilots have to have off between shifts, and how far away from their home you can pin their home airport, because it doesn't mean shit that someone has 10 hours between shifts if they have a 2 hour commute each way. They had to make these rules because multiple passenger airplanes crashed because the pilots were exhausted from tight scheduling. Employers won't just work you to death, they'll take a hundred random customers with you.

[lordgolden]

Happy belated Workers’ Memorial Day, celebrated April 28th

[milo-hypno]

'Please Return to Work': Amazon Workers Say They Were Ordered to Keep Working as a Coworker Died on the Floor

A worker died at an Amazon fulfillment center in Oregon under circumstances that have drawn widespread criticism. According to latest report

[chilewithcarnage]

there is no discourse between gen z and millenials. we are siblings. come on lil bro, ill take you to amc. yeah we can go there early and play the arcade games before the movie starts.

[midlifecrisis2021]

Can we get popcorn and a drink to share :)

[chilewithcarnage]

we sure can buddy, we sure can

[microwaveabl]

Why do the two reblogs read like a soldier dying in their friends arms and talking about when they’ll get back home to give them a bit of comfort before they die

[snowy-icarus]

because have you seen the economy and society lately

[crabopank]

Ichirou: I would kill my own brother for you

Nathaniel: ...okay-

Ichirou: Please ask me to kill my brother for you

[whomst-the-hell]

aftg stuff we as a fandom do not talk about or appreciate enough:

neil punching the shit out of riko and wymack having to drag him off

neil repeatedly wanting to hit someone but not allowing himself because he was trying to stay low profile

neil getting back from evermore, realising riko tattooed him, and immediately attempting to carve the tattoo off his face with a knife

neil fantasising about stomping andrews face in at columbia

neil being experienced with guns

neil specifically liking exy because its aggressive and violent

neil grabbing the racket at thanksgiving with the intention of using it as a weapon, then asking for it back after

" "Need anything else?" "A clear shot at Riko and no witnesses," Neil said. Matt grinned like he thought Neil was joking and left. "

[popagan]

I download AO3 fics occasionally, mainly DRRR ones. But since Apple Book default covers are downright hideous, I took matters into my own hands.

Truthfully it isn’t any better than the default, but it is an excuse to draw Izaya.

[moveslikekeithrichards]

there is no greater joy on this earth than Making Lists, Categorizing, & Sorting

[flying-lemons]

oh do I have the game for you

[dancing-crow]

I could . not. put. this down for 48 hours - stayed up too late, had weird dreams about it, woke up early, and played it while I was supposed to be doing other things. the last several dozen items took a lot of googling, which I do not even begrudge it.

and then. My partner started it. And the SAME THING happened to him.

surprisingly compelling. start when you have free time. like, yanno, a snow day.

[foone]

oh my god, if you are the kind of person who gets sucked into logic puzzles, do not click that link if you have to do anything/go to sleep in the next couple hours

[improbabledreams900]

I was disappointed there weren't more levels, so I made them! The creator's code was under CC Share Alike, so I moved a copy to my website, rustled up 40 new categories, and added buttons so you can generate smaller puzzles!

Check it out! More levels!

[moringmark]

[runcibility]

I liked this post, scrolled for like another minute before I went “SHIT FUCK SHIT” and scrolled back to reblog it

[quadriviummuse]

I always reblog this one when I see it on my dash. When someone posts their own art, writing, or music here they are really hoping you will share it.

[ariaste]

i need everyone to let me lay my head in their lap while they pet my hair and make soothing noises and tell me i'm doing such a good and brave job marketing this book. fuckin sisyphean indignity of hurling it at instagram over and over and getting basically no traction whwkwhfwlfwhjsklgfwhjkl

[ariaste]

meanwhile my BELOVED FELLOW TUMBLRINI are being so INCREDIBLY kind and generous with the signal boosting and the general interest and encouragement, i am so grateful

[ariaste]

#wait wait wait wait wait hold the fuck up#i was like ‘omg ariaste?? like ariaste from ao3?? like ariaste author of some of my favorite mdzs fics ever????’#‘they have a tumblr?! (how did this not occur to me before lol)’#and then ‘omg ariaste has a BOOK i must read it immediately’#then i go to their tumblr and am SLAPPED IN THE FACE by the fact that ariaste and alexandra rowland are the same person#like. ‘yield under great persuasian’ alexandra rowland.#you’re telling me tam beckett and attempting the impossible au!jiang cheng are written by the same person???? mind. blown.#*becket#this is like when i found out naomi novik was astolat all over again#sorry op you probably have this happen to you all the time it’s just my little mind is struggling to absorb this into rn lol (via @jcbmcdrmtt) it has only happened to me a handful of times (i am not nearly as famous and cool as @astolat) but it IS delightful fun to harmlessly jumpscare people in this way, i must admit.

extra funny in this case because i believe my AO3 username was listed in the bio at the back of Yield Under Great Persuasion lmaooooo

anyway hi hello yes it is me. a gremlin making questionable choices about doing a kickstarter and now i have played myself with having to do all this promo

[ariaste]

#to my deep shame for like 15 seconds I thought that the Fantasy Romans post was a colloquial misspelling of “Fantasy Romance”#And then I was like oh thank god like ROME ROMANS (via @peri-hellion) No no wait this is hilarious this is so good, this is a brilliant joke and you should not be ashamed of it. "Local romantasy author Alexandra Rowland has written a new romantasy novel" and then the camera pans to me and i'm standing there vibrating with excitement, my hands full of Ancient Roman Trivia And All The Best Bits of HOT GOSS AND EVEN HOTTER TAKES From Classical Antiquity, and the interviewer is like "uhhhhhh i thought this was.... a romance???? novel???? romantasy? romance fantsy?" and i'm like "oh. no. no it's very much not a romance novel this is a ROMANS novel it's about the romans, Roman Fantasy, haha yes can i tell you about the romans???? nevermind i've actually already locked all the doors and windows ANYWAY SO THE FIRST THING YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND IS THAT THE ROMANS DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAVE A GENDER BINARY AND YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND DEEPLY AND *WITH SPECIFICITY* WHAT A 'VIR' IS--" and the interview is crying and shaking while i just hand them trivia tchotchke after trivia tchotchke and unload my pockets into their arms

[leebrontide]

DONT JUST TEASE US ABOUT THE LACK OF ROMAN GENDER BINARY GIVE US THE GOODS!

[ariaste]

oh my god okay so. For one thing. They straight up have words for intersex people. If a word exists, the concept exists. So already they're aware that sometimes bodies aren't easily categorized, so anyone who says "but the romans definitely did have a sex/gender binary" is just self-evidently wrong from the get-go.

They also straight up have words and social roles for people we'd now probably classify under the transfeminine umbrella, the galli. These were AMAB people who voluntarily underwent castration, dressed in women's clothes/jewelry/makeup, and were priests and worshippers of a particular religious cult to the goddess Cybele/Magna Mater, and Attis, her consort. (There is a character in the book who is a gallus! She is the emperor's augur, meaning she makes divinations based on observing the flight of birds. Important person to bring along on a quest.) Here is a statue of a gallus looking extremely cool:

But all of that is sort of.... normal to us? Like we get it, we understand that, we go "Oh, yeah, it's like this other idea we already know about," it fits into our mental model, it does not challenge us to bend our brains in any weird yoga poses.

"Vir" is the thing that will do that. "Vir" is often translated as just "man" but this is bad and lacks the weight of certain encoded subtleties. It is one of two words that means man, the other being "homo" (as in homo sapiens), but the vibes of that one are more generally just "a person (nonspecific)". "Vir", however, has extremely specific vibes, because it is not just "a man" as we would think of the concept today. A vir MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST possess ALL of the following traits to qualify as a vir:

adult

freeborn

male-bodied

CITIZEN!!!!!!!

with intact genitals

(behaves correctly as a vir)

If he's a teenage freeborn AMAB citizen, he's not a vir (yet). If he's an adult freeborn transmasculine citizen, he's not a vir. If he's a slave or a freedman or an immigrant (aka Not A Citizen), he's not a vir. If he used to be a vir and then got castrated (either by misadventure or as punishment for a crime), then oops he's not a vir anymore, he's a semivir (half-man). If he is a vir but he doesn't act reputably and adhere to the Required Gender Norms, then he's on THIN FUCKING ICE and should stop immediately and get his act together before his paterfamilias disowns him for Betraying The Vir Code.

From the word "vir" we get words like "virtue" (aka the qualities a vir should have), and "virile" (a vir's ability to be Fucking). This is also where we get words like "triumvirate" (a governing body comprised of three viri) -- which, when you realize what "vir" implies, REALLY showcases how unequivocally other genders were excluded from being full participants in government. Couldn't be elected to public office unless you were a vir!

The thing that makes this incredibly *GENDER* is that there were mandatory anxious toxic masculinity expectations forced on the viri that other AMAB people did not have to comply with. The Romans were out here conceptualizing gender as being something that was as much informed by your SOCIAL CLASS as it was by physical sex. So a male slave, freedman, or foreigner could (for example) refrain from shaving his armpits, and it doesn't really matter. Meanwhile, if you are a vir, you DO have to shave at least your armpits to be behaving Properly. JUST ARMPITS. If you shave your legs or your chest or your pubes, then [middle school voice] EW that's Gay. (The Romans' concept of vir-masculinity was very much a VERY FRAUGHT AND TENUOUS AND ANXIOUS attempt to find a Goldilocks zone in the midst of constantly shifting goalposts. If you're not manly enough, obviously that's gay and bad, we still have this concept today. BUT IF YOU ARE TOO MANLY THAT IS ALSO GAY AND BAD. Gladiators??? A super shredded mega-hot gladiator who's drowning in pussy? The viri are like, "Gay. Gay of him. Unmanly. Effeminate. Ew yuckie no no no." We do not have an upper limit on "how much masculinity is good" in our culture, we sort of think "the more the better" and that's why everyone's horny for a lumberjack.)

A lot of the time people are like "The Romans didn't have homophobia! They only had bottomphobia :D" but actually they DO have homophobia once you account for the fact that "vir" is a separate gender from "servus" (male slave), "libertus" (male freedman), or "peregrinus" (male foreigner/immigrant/other non-citizen), etc. A vir can fuck any of those genders, AND any of the AFAB-aligned genders, AND the galli, AND intersex people and that is perfectly fine and normal and Roman Heterosexual of him. Why is it fine? Because the default cultural assumption is that the vir will be topping. A vir absolutely must top, viri who do not top get mocked and made laughingstocks in satirical plays. This is catastrophic to them. They would genuinely prefer to die in battle, even though it's kind of gay to get stabbed when you think about it because that's basically another man penetrating you????? Cringe. Cringe and effeminate to be stabbed.

Actual Roman homosexuality would be a vir fucking another vir--someone of his own gender. This absolutely cannot happen, because then [GASP] ONE OF THEM WOULD HAVE TO NOT TOP. Morality crisis. Philosophers throughout the empire are clutching their pearls and scribbling the ancient equivalent of Reddit posts about how one time they heard about a guy (vir) who fucked his friend (another vir) and it's Probably Because Of Moral Bankruptcy Such As This That Society Is Collapsing Before Our Eyes, We Live In The End Times If Viri Think It's Okay To Kiss Each Other With Tongue, The Only Thing Morally Worse Than This Is How All the Twinks Are Becoming Gold-diggers (we can't get into the twink golddiggers panic of the 2nd century right now. it's about the viri buying twink boytoy sex slaves and then leaving them their entire vast fortunes in their wills when they died. Seneca the Younger had a Reddit tantrum about it)

basically the Romans did not INVENT toxic masculinity but they did perfect it and raise it to an art form. absolute slapstick comedy clown shit. Don't kiss your wife in public, that's gay. Don't fuck too much. Don't fuck too little. Don't fuck other men's wives. Don't chase pussy. Don't be too fashionable, don't be too unfashionable, don't belt your toga too tightly, don't scratch your nose in public, DEFINITELY do not be an actor, do not play music or dance in public. You can be an orator but that's still a bit sus tbh, because it's LIKE performing in public like an actor, and that's BASICALLY the same as prostituting yourself. Don't comb your hair too much. don't comb your hair too little. Don't be unkempt. Don't be too well-groomed.

[holds up the viri proudly like a naughty cat, stinky bastard man] they are making themselves miserable every day of their lives and that's one of my favorite things to watch a man do <3333 read my book. look at it on kickstarter

this is sincerely only scraping the surface of Roman gender nonsense and how absolutely fucked up these guys were. And i CANNOT get into stuff like how manumission (an enslaved person being voluntarily given freedom) was treated with rituals and attitudes that kinda make it feel like a gender transition process (you get new social roles, you get new expectations, you are washed clean of any "necessary shame" you might have had to endure, a sharp line is drawn between your old life and your new life). I also can't get into the Twink Genders right now or this will be impossibly long (twink is a roman gender, and there are multiple sub-genders under the twink gender umbrella ("puer" "exoletus" "pathicus/cinaedus" etc))

and you thought having a lot of genders was a new modern thing. no no. lol. lmao even. go read Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity, it will give you SO many more cool facts about these fucked up lil guys if you don't want to wait for my book (though the author, a presumably cis man writing in i believe 1994 doesn't have the "ohhhh wait this is GENDER, this is ALL GENDER, this is just GENDERS ALL THE WAY DOWN" epiphany that i, a nonbinary person on tumblr in 2026, am predisposed to perceive)

people should also ask me about the Latin Fuck Verbs sometime.

[doujinshi]

[animationtips]

An EXCELLENT animation joke here! Please note that all of this has been animated on 1’s(which is to say that each drawing is only being held for 1 frame), where most anime is animated on 3’s(each drawing held for 3 frames). This makes the animation look especially fluid, but is extremely time consuming to do - even classic Disney cartoons tended to animate on 2’s as much as possible! Also worth noting is the beautiful flow of S to C curves in the long hair - this is another thin that is often heavily simplified in anime. What’s more, the entire shot is complicating the animation - the low angle with multiple head turns, the way the hand interacts with the hair, and the extreme foreshortening of the hand as it moves towards the camera. Lovely animation combined with a wonderful awareness of the skills and pitfalls of the industry! (This clip is sourced from an anime called Joshiraku, and the rest of it appears to be animated in a more traditional anime style)

[cthulhubert]

Since Japanese animation is often made on such a tight time frame and budget, they use every work around in the book. Fans have taken to using the word “sakuga” (作画) which just literally means “animation”, for this: scenes where the animation quality jumps because it’s an especially important scene (or for a great joke, like this one).

[prokopetz]

Sometimes you send something you found online to a friend because you want to brighten their day, and sometimes you send something you found online to a friend with the precise attitude and bearing of a cat very carefully lining up their paw with the back of another cat's head.

[meiyinart]

The Anarchist

[fuckinkfruious]

@alemonleaf on IG

[tiyetiye]

Hi, Hey Hello, this is fucking great

[noteinabottle168]

Analysis of Fairy Tales from Don't Let the Forest In

On my first readthrough of Don't Let the Forest In by C. G. Drews, I really loved the dark fairy tales scattered throughout the book and I thought they were a neat way to establish the dark gothic horror romance vibe. On my second/third/fourth readthroughs, I broke out a highlighter and started to use them to do the math, because it was 4AM, I was crying, and I needed to understand what the heck I just read.

1. The Fairy Tale Characters Are Real

It was pretty obvious to me on the second read-through that the characters in the fairy tales parallel Andrew, Thomas, and Dove. In a way, they're a more reliable source of what's going on than the actual text, because Andrew, what the fuck.

Here are some examples:

"Once upon a time there lived a prince who wore a crown of rowan to protect him from woe, but a sweet willow maiden asked him to take it off in return for a kiss. After the kiss, she cut out his eyes."

The prince is Thomas. I looked up what rowan represents, and it represents protection from magic/enchantments/evil spirits. (As a side note, this suggests that the source of all this magic is 'woe', which yep, checks out). The willow maiden is Dove, who is repeatedly associated with trees throughout the book.

This little fairy tale turns out to be exactly what happened, since after Thomas kisses Dove, they both realize it's wrong, because what Thomas actually wants is Andrew. Then Dove tells Thomas not to touch Andrew or even look at him.

There are also so many instances of a character's eyes or mouth being scribbled out or having roses growing out of them! What a freaking way to represent forbidden love :(

The second story we see is:

"Once upon a time there lived a woodcutter who crept into an enchanted forest and took his ax to an enchanted tree. It was said a log from here would burn bright and merry forever. Indeed, the woodcutter spent a comfortable night roasting apples with no care in the world. But the next morning, he found the enchanted forest had come walking. Acres of trees surrounded his cottage, all crying bloody tears. He ran through the forest, but could not find his way out. All he found were trees weeping blood and blood and blood."

The woodcutter is Andrew. The fire is probably love, warm and comforting, something that's supposed to burn bright forever. But then there's that log, or the branch that snapped and caused Dove's death. And everything goes to absolute shit.

There are also multiple instances where Andrew hallucinates, remembers, or sees leaves covered in blood. IMO this imagery represents guilt and regret.

Alright, last one:

"They gently lowered the fairy prince’s body into a glass coffin, leaving bloody fingerprints smudged on the case. His chest had been caved in from battles fought and lost, and they’d filled the space between his ribs with flowers. Even now the flowers grew, blossoming as they drank the last of his blood. The princess’s silver tears fell like rain upon the coffin. True love’s kiss should wake him, but she had tried seven times and nothing had happened. Behind the princess stood her brother, a poet with soft lips and soft moss for hair. He whispered, 'Let me try.' But no one heard. They buried the fairy prince alone. By evening, the flowers had grown over his whole face."

The fairy prince is Thomas. The princess, Dove, is the one who kisses him first because that's how love stories usually go. But not this one! The brother, the poet is Andrew.

So, now that we've seen a couple stories, we can start to pick out a few common words that we can use as clues to figure out who's who in later stories.

Thomas is often called the 'fairy prince' associated with 'sevens' and 'apples' and 'flowers' and 'blood' (specifically from injuries).

Andrew is the 'poet' associated with 'moss' and 'moth wings', and 'wishes'.

Dove is the 'princess' or the 'maiden' when she's alive, but more often in the fairy tales she is closely associated with 'trees'.

2. The Wolf and the Wishing Well

Ok, so if the fairy tale characters are real, then what about this one?

Alternatively, who killed Thomas's parents?

"Once upon a time, a cutthroat queen and a wormwood king had seven sons. They loved them all except for the last, who was made of sarsaparilla and foul tempers and had beautifully pointed teeth. They gifted their first six sons crowns made of willow switches. But they ordered the seventh son to be switched with the leftover rods. They gifted their first six sons golden apples. But for their seventh son, they put worms on his tongue and made him swallow. They gifted their first six sons a wishing well. But to their seventh son, they gave the hacked-off head of a wolf cub. The years passed and the seventh son’s skin toughened under the switching, and he developed a taste for flesh, and he befriended the murdered wolf cub and told it all his secrets. When the wolf decided justice was necessary and ripped out the hearts of the cutthroat queen and the wormwood king and ate their six perfect sons, the seventh son did not even notice. He had found his reflection in the wishing well and liked staring at his pointed teeth."

The seventh son is definitely Thomas. But who's the wolf? It could be Andrew, but I don't think it is. For one, I don't think Thomas ever told Andrew all his secrets. For another, I don't think Thomas's parents gave him Andrew. They hit him, they starved him, and they messed with his head.

The fun theory is that the murdered wolf cub is a perfect encapsulation of the impossibility of real, actual monsters. Something impossible coming to life, born out of Andrew's stories and Thomas's art.

The not-fun theory is that the murdered wolf cub is a Thomas who becomes a monster. Maybe he doesn't remember it, or maybe he's really good at denial, but this is the same guy who tells Andrew "I'd be a monster for you, if you asked" in the prequel. Later on in the book, it's revealed that his parents' bodies are probably in a well, and now reality matches the story just a little too closely for it to be a coincidence.

"You know how there's an old boarded-up well in the grove behind my house? I can't even tell the cops to check in there because it's as good as a confession."

I'm undecided on this one. Because Andrew was actually the one who originally wrote this story. He's the one who wishes for the wolf to exist, or for 'justice'. Thomas doesn't think about the monsters' motivations as deeply as Andrew does. Why would Thomas be the one who turned into the monster?

Just throwing this out there: I think it's because Thomas's parents would let him return to Wickwood Academy. I think they got into an argument the day before classes started, and they made the mistake of getting in between him and Andrew. Andrew straight-up disassociates for the entire summer before returning. Thomas doesn't care about the willow switches and the worm for food, but he does care about Andrew. That's the wolf - him and Andrew. Trying to keep Thomas away from Andrew would be a very realistic trigger for him to turn into a monster, throw them in the well, and then go buy a bus ticket the following morning.

3. The Woodcutter and the Ax

"Once there was a boy who slept in an enchanted tower, his back flecked with whip marks from battles lost and monsters who’d won. He wore a crown of cherrywood and firebird bones, gifted to him by his sisters who were trees in the forest. But they had not been able to protect him, and his capture meant endless years of torture. The boy whimpered in his sleep, waiting for the whips to return. Instead, a witch climbed through his tower window. She wore a cloak covered in the gold dust of wishes, and she promised to save him. For a price. 'Take this ax,' she said with a coy smile, 'and cut down every tree in the forest. Then nothing will ever harm you again.' 'But the trees are my sisters,' he said, his bones already filled with dread. 'Why do you care for them?' the witch asked. 'They do not love you. They did not come for you. Take the ax.' He began to cry, but he took the ax."

We already know, from earlier stories, that the woodcutter is Andrew.

But what's the purpose of the ax?

In this fairy tale, the ax cuts down trees. In the book, the ax cuts down monsters (who come out from behind trees). In the fairy tale, taking up the ax is a betrayal of his sisters. In the book, what is Andrew's betrayal? He forgets Dove's death, and he goes against her final wishes. And because he forgets, he never understands the source of his pain or guilt. And because the pain and guilt of her death doesn't go away, it manifests in the form of monsters. Monsters that need to be cut down with axes, not swords.

I think the ax or the hatchet is a temporary fix. A stopgap. A choice made out of desperation. Note that Thomas and Andrew don't actually defeat all the monsters by chopping them down one by one. What actually ends up working is Andrew rewriting the story into something different. Something happier.

3. What is the Forest?

So the one thing that repeatedly shows up in fairy tale after fairy tale is the forest. It's everywhere. It's in the title. It's in Andrew. It's where the monsters come from.

I think it's grief.

Specifically, suppressed grief, the kind that Andrew is feeling without remembering or realizing why he's feeling that way. I think the whole story of Don't Let the Forest In is about Andrew and Thomas, but mostly Andrew, struggling to suppress his grief. The Academy tries to fence it off. Everyone tries to tell Andrew to stay away from it. Thomas is the only one who goes there, again and again, and at first he's just fighting his own monsters, alone, but later he starts fighting Andrew's monsters too. But the ax is just a stopgap. The forest and its monsters start invading the school - it collapses a wing of a building, it bursts into the dining hall, it grows inside of Andrew and causes headaches and migraines.

When framed this way, the ending of the story is actually really beautiful. It no longer matters if the monsters were real or not, and if our boys were alive or dead. I mean, it matters, but not as much as the fact that in the end, they did let the forest in.

Once Andrew lets the forest in, it's no longer suppressed grief. He is no longer in complete denial and disassociation. There's no longer any need for the monsters. The grief is still there, just like the forest will probably always be there. But the monsters are gone.

[yakichoufd]

Fanart for Don't let the forest in by CG Drews :) ref