The Completely Insane and Accurate Archive Of Eli Monpress

I have been alone in this fandom since I was 11 and am now 22, thus I have too many opinions and ideas, all of which I think are correct.

[thefandommind]

Can't stop me from snatching this out of the tags on a different post and making a new one!

I fucking think about this scene ALL THE TIME.

Eli specifically setting out to find Nico to check on her, actually finding her, and sharing an intimate moment of friendship with her.

It's important to me because one, the first time we see Eli specifically go out of his way to show Nico she's important to his team is in Spirit Rebellion with their meeting with Slorn. And then through Spirit Eater we get a rift between the two of them. And this rooftop scene is like the first moment they get where yes, they once again get a bridge between them via their concern and feelings for Josef, but also them being wizards together.

And like, Nico doesn't get a pov in the first book, in the second we get to see how she actually feels internally about Josef and Eli, and we get to see Eli appreciate her but still treat her as Josef's friend. It's like they have an understanding that Josef is what ties the two together, and they have to level with that. In book two we get Eli finding out about demon seeds being wizard and starts inviting Nico into that world, trying to open that shared thing. That is then stressed in the third book, but they do come back together and trust each other, for Josef and for their trio.

And that rooftop scene is great because they get a moment of friendship. That also leads into one of the best scene openers of all time; the King and Queen of trash.

Also, it's the first time Nico admits feelings for Josef, and her mental spiral about Adela being his "perfect demon free princess", fucked me up. So I'm glad to have immediately gotten a scene where she is both introduced to alcohol and platonically intimate with Eli.

Also her seeing the spirit world, and being the actual first thing in the entire sphere to try and describe what she's seeing to a person who can't. Not even Gin was able to describe what spirits looked like/how they see to Miranda, but Nico tried and succeeded. That's huge.

And Eli flashbanging her with his spirit on a hunch is hilarious. That's another thing. Eli doesn't fucking do that.

He's really powerful, and he's got (at this point in canon) the mark of the Shepardess, but he's a master of soft touch. Like Miranda has figured out the smallest opening of the spirit can make everyone a little unnerved and step away from her, but Eli doesn't go opening his spirit full blown often, he uses it to grab spirit's attention very gently. And he HATES showing Benehime's mark. And doing either would gather the attention of every spirit in his range, full open spirit or mark of the favorite, they will fucking wake up. But like nada, no spirits woke in the roof.

It was a controlled flashbang. But imagine that for a moment. Just as you gotta imagine how it is for a spirit deaf person to watch Eli converse with a wall. You gotta think about how Eli watched Nico react to a trick he was testing, just she looks dead in his eyes, and recoiled having been blinded by fucking nothing he can see. Like he knows what he did, that was the test, but it's probably the closest he's gotten to half of an experience. And then he gets to question a person with Spirit eyes and know in some part he can trust her for it.

Also, I checked the scene to write this, when Eli interrupts Nico's internal dilemma, she takes a moment to process it's him, because he's glowing. And then that light goes out and they have their moment, AND THEN he flashed her. So Eli snapped her out of her throughts by putting the bottle to her cheek, but his spirit was open.

So I will point out he probably tried to get her attention by talking to her like a spirit, just as he does later in Spirit End. And when she didn't react, then he prodded her with the bottle. But it means he was trying to wake her from her mental sunny field by talking gently in his spirit voice, which was probably his second attempt.

So adding onto that lovely Nico and Eli scene, shown to us via Nico's perspective, is Eli, finding his friend on the roof of the palace facing the window and thus the door Josef just disappeared behind, in a complete trance, and he tried very sweetly alerting her to his presence for a while before lightly touching her face and her jerking to reality and staring in confusion dead at him because she couldn't see him behind his slightly open spirit.

And then they pulled an all nighter, bribing servants into bringing them junk to look at.

In the middle of a war. Like they knew by then their continent was facing invasion by the Immortal Empress by then. Nothing bad had happened yet but like they knew she was active.

I love them so much

Stole this from @camthecatchameleon 's tags so I'm tagging you so you can see this lmao tehe

[thefandommind]

I bet Eli forces Nico and Josef to have tea parties

and while Josef hates them, he knows the proper etiquette since he is a prince and gets annoyed when the other 2 do something inproperly

Okay okay, so we have leeway, because its the opposite.

Josef sucks at being a prince, it was completely surprising to his closest companions that he grew up in a palace. Literally the only mention before that hinted at him being noble is him having "tutors" who first taught him swordfighting. And like after he mentions in an internal pov that he broke the habit of sleeping in late when he ran away.

But like he sucks in every way at being a prince, hence he ran away. I will come back to this because the man doesn't drink, and I don't think he'd enjoy coffee, so tea is like the obvious choice in beverage then right.

Eli is basically a Disney princess, he was raised in a tower by what is technically a government official (Banage was a Tower Keeper back then, and while the Spirit Court isn't apart of the government he's pretty fucking close that's what Tower Keepers are they are the go between for the spirits and humans for a designated region. They are legal representatives), ran away, got kidnapped and groomed by an evil nature lady, ran away and got adopted by a rogue who taught him how to steal. There's probably a fairy tail out there with that premise and we haven't even gotten to the talking to trees thing.

Now we know two things.

Banage and Miranda have a tradition of having breakfast together in the garden

And Giuseppe is fancy as fuck.

So Eli is the one who knows the etiquette and is good at it.

Now, Eli talks with his mouth full and puts his elbows on the table in canon. The three of them are lax on manners, they are rogues they are allowed.

But see, while Eli doesn't care for manners and the proper way of doing things, man loves annoying the shit out of Josef.

So they have tea, proper tea with cups and a pot of it, Eli is going to take the piss out of it. He's going to criticize everything Josef does, he's gonna act like he's better then him by being proper, he's going to comment on everything. And Josef is going to take it because he doesn't care and knows Eli is just being hilarious.

Now Nico, we know she ain't got any past with tea, doesn't mean she doesn't have manners. A lack of previous memory doesn't mean anything for this, and we don't got much in canon to say she's a proper tea drinker or not. But we know she doesn't like it when Eli teases her, but is often entertained when Eli teases Josef.

So we can fucking assume that if they are having tea together she's gonna make sure she isn't a target, and if she is, it's because she's doing everything right. At least as far as Eli has chastised Josef for.

And that just adds to Eli's game. Cus Eli can call Josef an animal for getting crumbs on the table, and watch Nico quietly brush the crumbs off her side of the table, and point at her and go "see Josef? Nico understands cleanliness."

And that's entertainment for the two of them, while Josef gets to watch them laugh at his expense. Which he tends to be okay with.

Josef does get to have fun too, don't worry. He'd shove food into Eli's mouth to shut him up, and then tell him it's impolite to talk with his mouth full.

Who gets the last treat? Nico.

It's always going to be Nico. Eli and Josef could wrestle for it but it's going to be Nico who gets it in every scenario. Why? She deserves it. But also that one Daggerback scene in Spirit Thief sits in my mind at all times. Nico wins, Eli and Josef are distracted, both are alright with her winning.

But in this specific thinky thought she takes the last cookie or whatever and Eli notices it's missing while it's still in her hand and is like "who took the last-" turns and sees Nico shove it into her mouth as fast as she can, and screeches "THIEF!" while Nico tries not to choke on her prize.

And just blatantly adding onto this post, I think Nico is a black tea with cream and sugar type or person.

Josef likes herbal like ginger or something, but will drink anything.

Eli will drink anything but enjoys sweat ice tea in the afternoon.

And adding Miranda she's a fruit tea without sugar kind of person I think.

And Eli is really good at biscuit chicken, where you dunk your tea cookie and then eat it without it crumbling apart, Nico is not as good at it, can't get the timing right. Josef doesn't see the point of the game, I don't see him as a tea dunker.

[lupdublupdub]

Eli, Josef and Nico

Josef and his swordmanship

[thefandommind]

LOOK AT THEM GO HAHA

[thefandommind]

Not sure if you talked about this yet or not, but any thoughts around Benehimes white world?

Who knows if I've rambled about the Between specifically but I will 100% talk about it now ty.

I don't remember what my original thoughts were when you originally sent this ask (my bad this has been sitting in my drafts) but I had a new thought come to my sickness riddled mind and while I lay in bed sipping tea I must tell you about it.

Spoilers for Spirit End probably

So firstly, I'm just gonna mention the titles for Benehimes white world and what they mean in context of our source, and then what they could mean for us when given a more typical context.

The Between is simple, it's the space between the Spirit world and the abyss outside. The Veil is I genuinely can't remember why this was a point I had to make, I know I started this at work and then came back while I was sick as fuck, but this is literally all I had in this draft.

Anyway, I came up with this new idea while listening to sad songs so YEAH.

Rebirth is a concept in this series, it's mentioned only once by a single character in the first book, Coriano himself (his first name is Gerard and that fucks me up every time I remember it), and isn't it funny how a singular line of throw away dialogue can cause major implications.

Because why does he seemingly genuinely believe in his final moments that both his human soul and the dying spirit in his broken sword are going to be reborn and reunited in the next life.

ESPECIALLY WITH THE UNIVERSE BEING A BUBBLE FLOATING IN THE VOID.

So like, rebirth is a concept, grand, anyway let's run with that.

I REMEMBER NOW WHY THE TITLES WERE IMPORTANT look at me go.

The Between is literally between the Spirit world and the demon void. Boom easy. There's two layers to the weave, the white world is smack dab in the center. (Side note, the inside weave is the sky, the outside is black? Too dark to see? When Nico is in the void she sees the opening not the walls. Fascinating thought.) The Veil is the cloth the weaver weaves. Simple, easily explained within the source.

BUT LET'S CONNECT IT TO TYPICAL SUPERNATURAL BELIEFS

Death isn't destruction. Death isn't the opposite of Creation, it isn't the nature of the Demons. Nothing lives or dies in the void. That is a gift of Creation, it thrives in the Sphere. Where does the spirit go when it dies?

It doesn't cease to exist within the sphere, or the spirits would find death instead of endless sleep. It has to flow like the water cycle. From the sea to the rain to the rivers to the sea.

And the soul would pass through the veil, see the light if you will. And eventually be shepherded into their next life. Reborn. Recycled really.

When the Hunter was killed, everyone heard his death, because he was a Power, one of the three. Ancient and beloved, but I like to imagine it echoed because it was in the Between.

Imagine souls passing through the Between as echos before entering the Sphere again. Not as ghosts but just whispers of old lives, blowing past in your periphery.

Think of Benehime siting vigil by her Sphere for five thousand years, deaf to the death zipping invisible past her, while she ignores the air.

Eli not knowing why the white world chills him other then it being a frigid Power's household. Meanwhile he's surrounded by death he can't see or hear.

What if Eli was truely close to slipping away, but the Weaver caught him and pulled him back to life when he saved him from Benehime's stabbing. What if the Weaver was successful because they were so close to the Veil.

It's sad but hopeful I think. To imagine a renewal to all spirits within the sphere, regardless of creed.

Maybe demon seeds slain by the League get a second chance. Their seeds may live on, but their once human souls may be released and forgiven. And even that premise isn't too sad, as all the seeds of the Demon Under The Mountain fell dorment when it was banished.

Maybe Nico will eventually die. Maybe she already did. Still the sphere goes on, the bubble stays whole.

Maybe even Benehime found peace.

But I think humans and spirits are simply not supposed to be in the Between for long. We only have two of Benehimes human favorites, and I will remind y'all that Nara was just a star before she became favorite, only to be replaced by Eli who jumped to the top immediately though no hand of his own. But we know Nara didn't spend much time in the Between, she entered it using a tear and such. But she didn't stay there to our knowledge like Eli did. I don't know what I think that means. Maybe spending years in the between may have enlightened her to Benehimes crimes, maybe not. Maybe Eli was the first, maybe he wasn't.

But I leave you with this. Benehime was humanity's first mother. She gave them their short lifespans, lifespans unheard-of in a world of mountains and Powers. And she offered her favorites the gift of immortality. She was life and death. Creations cycle.

Wouldn't her home, be death's house? Her singular haven, shared with no one, but the ultimate rest stop? A highway of the Sphere, spanning the entire world, watched over but the Shepherdess.

[thefandommind]

The last time I wore my Miranda suit was in November.

I have since moved up in my job and now daily lift heavy machine parts. I'm wearing my suit and it's tighter in the arms then I'd ever expected.

Like cutting off blood flow a bit tight. It's just the arms though

[thefandommind]

Steam Powered Giraffe has admired the bicycle suit.

It was a great concert, Mother Mind loved it and got her CDs signed.

Not the most on blog theme blog post but well

Y'all know how it's my personal joy to make Miranda steampunk

[thefandommind]

The last time I wore my Miranda suit was in November.

I have since moved up in my job and now daily lift heavy machine parts. I'm wearing my suit and it's tighter in the arms then I'd ever expected.

Like cutting off blood flow a bit tight. It's just the arms though

[thefandommind]

My best friend was practicing Japanese and using Google translate to check their work, that combination gave us this grand mishap

[thefandommind]

If you were in the world of Eli Monpress, would you be a spiritualist, demon seed, wizard or spirit deaf?

And what would you do/what group would you join in the story?

I have a feeling if I was a wizard, I would likely want be a spiritualist, I know this because I'm opinionated but generally for the greater good.

That being said, I think I'd be a lousy spiritualist. As I think my options are being hated for being reclusive and working with just spirits, or being annoyingly pro spirits when interacting with the general population.

I enjoy people, but being a powerful wizard in charge of educating people on how to be kind to their environment sounds like being a teacher on a good day, and customer service on a bad one. I feel like I'd lose my temper with idiots faster then Miranda does.

I also enjoy living my life doing hard labor while day dreaming. I'm not a scholar, and mental work tires me more then just doing something with my hands. So I think the life of a spiritualist wouldn't be very fulfilling for me.

SO, I've decided if I was a wizard I would most certainly want to be a Shaper, as that sounds like the best balance.

That being said I don't think I'd be a great shaper, as much as I like the idea of spirits and I like making things in every context, I feel like I would miss the sunshine and warmth outside the mountain. So, not a perfect life but well we make due with what we're delt.

If I was spirit deaf however I would definitely live in Zarin. It's not a monarchy, it's capitalist as fuck and that's not much better but at least it's what I'm used to, I could find a shop to run or mill to work in, somewhere near the port as I'm also from a port city so that would be comforting and profitable. And I'd be close to the gossipy bounty boards, and the lively Spirit Court.

And I would enjoy being near the Spirit Court I think, all those wizards traveling in and out, and as important as Zarin is, not much happens there.

Like, for the headquarters of like the entire wizard population, it's very quiet. They had a flood (but everywhere was effected by spirit panic when that happened so like it's not unique to Zarin), and then at one point the army tried to siege the Spiritualist's tower. But other then assumed mishaps with apprentices, nothing world shifting happens other then the world shifting.

I don't think I would interact with the plot much, I'd probably be an npc, like if asked of course I have heard of what Eli Monpress is up to, he's famous. Yeah have you heard what's up with that Spiritualist Lyonette? I've read the papers and people say she's in league with the thief!

I'm not nosey enough to become more then a passing side character.

So those are my thoughts! And I'll link this because why not, I personally think it's one of the best things I've made.

Welcome to the world of Eli Monpress, a world of many strange folk, what are you? Take a small adventure and find out!

[thefandommind]

Long car ride, my options are work on posts or read fanfic, I can't focus on working, and I don't have new fanfics to read. So I guess I'm just stuck rereading my own.

I'm gonna start with my first ones and refresh my memory

[thefandommind]

I'm so entertaining my god I need to write another for this series

https://archiveofourown.org/works/71867376

It's 2 in the morning and I'm laughing at my own jokes this is great

[thefandommind]

Long car ride, my options are work on posts or read fanfic, I can't focus on working, and I don't have new fanfics to read. So I guess I'm just stuck rereading my own.

I'm gonna start with my first ones and refresh my memory

[thefandommind]

Been on my bullshit lately please behold my scrunkles dressed as my other scrunkles

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN MASHUP CAN I GET APPLAUSE

Eli Monpress as Captain Jack Sparrow

Miranda Lyonette as Barbosa

Nico as Will Turner

Josef Liechten as Elizabeth Swann

I'm not creative enough to come up with a proper character meet character crossover but I love mashing these fandoms together look at them, I love my little flat earthers.

I have reasons for these picks, and I hope anyone who looks at this can figure it out but if needed...I will of course explain.

[thefandommind]

We need the "absolute cinema" but Eli Monpress characters

Shadows and values was pissing me off so I apologize that we have an edit here instead of a fresh drawing but I'm sure it will work for our purposes

Edit: I realize now you said "characters" and not "character", I'll do better in the future babes I'm sorry I'll come back to it

[thefandommind]

A fucking blizzard came through and made it impossible to go to work today SO LOOK WHAT I HYPERFOCUSED ON

I hand sewed Eli into a plush doll, isn't he cute

[thefandommind]

Eli: would you rather be a worm in a garden, or a cow on an incline?

Josef: why do you exist as you are?

Nico: I think a cow on an incline would be happy.

[thefandommind]

If TLOEM characters were in the modern day, what music genre/artists do you think they would listen to?

I've been thinking about this one, thing is I'll listen to anything but I mostly know rock and sad gay indie, but here's my best just know it's heavily biased.

Miranda is listening to queer pop princesses and divorced dad rock. Like modern day this woman drives to work in a shit box car, that only has a radio, and she doesn't like most popular modern pop stations and only sometimes flips through them. So she's on 80s to today stations listening to Journey, Queen, and Nirvana and Nickelback.

But she's also clearly a queer woman and she's enjoying the music her peers show her, so she's got all the pop princesses on phone. This ranges from Chappell Roan to Brittany, she's mostly listening to women and men she's decided are poetic enough to be women.

But mostly she's listening to podcasts and video essays on YouTube. She's refined and enjoys philosophy, but also sometimes the essays are deepdives into memes or something hilariously random, depending on the time of day she's consuming content.

Nico is listening to emo, I don't make the rules, it's either Linken Park and Evanescence. But she's be into Fall Out Boy over My Chemical Romance, and that leads her into the rabbit hole that is movie soundtracks, starting with Imagine Dragons and then somehow she's found herself disassociating to the Ice Age soundtrack.

Like she's being angsty about being a monster and such with the first few and then she's just vibing to swelling orchestral music because it's larger then her sense of self.

She's also listening to folk pop, just a mix of Aurora and Florence and the Machine, she's really into epic soulful instrumentals and sad out of body experiences.

She's listening to Mitski and Marina for this same reason, and her and Miranda bond over this.

Nico also doesn't wear headphones behind her bangs, she wears em like a headband with all her hair behind the headphones and her bands are pinned back and up like a crest of feathers. So depending on if she feels like showing forehead or not she's picking those or earbuds.

Josef puts on noise cancelling headphones and sits in silence.

But he will listen to anything Nico and Eli puts on, and knows the words and titles and lore. He doesn't sing along other then once in a blue moon. But he remembers and can distinguish. He knows the words to Fall Out Boy songs because he looked them up.

I want to say he likes country but I genuinely think he's listening to whatever Nico picks. Other wise he sits with his own thoughts. Eli thinks he's insane. And Eli also thinks Josef just doesn't want to admit he prefers rock and macho manly shit, but truely Josef will just listen to whatever he doesn't too much care.

If he really wants to listen to something he'll listen to an audiobook or a movie or show in the background. He doesn't do that with headphones or earbuds, he'll just have it playing live from his phone in his back pocket, which also bugs Eli.

Eli is listening to everything. He'll listen to anything, so he has a lot of popular shit, and then niche bands too. He's listening to Ghost with Nico, he's playing mixed genre covers of pop songs with Josef. If a song could be made into an edit to a fan favorite character, he's listening to it.

He's got the largest library of songs of all of them, and his music streaming app is jailbreaked so he doesn't get ads, the others make playlists for vibes, he's just putting his likes on shuffle and skipping the ones he isn't in the mood for. No thoughts just vibes.

This means he's rapidly going from stuff like Ed Sheeran to Burn the Ballroom, to Autoheart and Kylie Minogue. He's all over the place, and he's singing along, anything to amuse Nico and annoy Josef.

I imagine the trio eating lunch together just listening to Minecraft music like Aria Math, like it's random for Eli, a soundtrack for Nico, a calm background for Josef.

But also he's got like Tom Cardy followed by Enya. He's a man of many faces and hobbies, so he's into just about every genre.

Sparrow is listening to any artist who references Shakespeare too much

[thefandommind]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/77925431

New tiny fic!

This one can lean more plutonic or romantic whichever you prefer, twas just a little thing to destract from the snowstorm my family had to drive though

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

Reblog if you love “—” and have never used ChatGPT

[thefandommind]

I learned how to use em dashes from Percy Jackson fanfiction and Carry On, they are very helpful literary notations.

And fuck chatgtp