Very like a whale

Oh you were a gifted child and now you're a loser? Well I was supernaturally experimented on alongside 12 other abducted children and became the lone survivor and dubbed "The Lost Sibling" and now I'm the assistant manager at a struggling small town Wendy's

Imagine if a like 8 foot tall guy that looked kinda like an alien species just kinda showed up at the house you rent a room in and crashed on the couch and at first everyone hated him but you kinda just accepted this weird massive kinda-human alien species thing as a part of your group even though he's like twice the size of everyone else there

Cuz that's literally happening to sea lions in San Francisco right now

in terms of "dead dove" tropes in general one of my favourite ways to pervert an otherwise healthy and consensual relationship is to have one of the characters be responsible for something that was objectively and unsympathetically their fault and that they're determined to spend the rest of their lives making up for, but are unwilling (or unable) to confess to their new partner who only knows them as they are now and not as the shameful fuckup they once were, so they end up convincing themselves that they're essentially committing rape by deception - for the entirely selfish reason that is wanting to prove that they can succeed in obtaining and keeping one genuinely good, stable, unblemished thing in their life - by concealing it. but because they both desire comfort and don't feel that they deserve it they continue to do so, going so far as to try to prevent their partner from being exposed to any situation or interaction where they might learn the truth, even as it becomes a case of using them and the relationship to self-harm to satisfy their unresolved guilt that only grows with each passing moment.

and then, just when they've finally started to relax and let themself consider that maybe, just maybe, they do actually deserve to be happy and move on with their life, that's when the other shoe drops and their partner stumbles across the information that fleshes out and gives shape to the unspoken thing that's been hanging over their relationship since day one, to the point that they'd adjusted to living in its shadow, in the least favourable circumstances possible. building your home in someone only to find out that your house is haunted and the spectre has been in the room with you this entire time >>>>>

They weren’t lying when they said that as an adult you have to fight for your life to practice your hobbies

They also weren’t lying when they said that when you fail to do so your soul shrivels up inside your body and dies

if you spoke to lestat or louis about your pain, they would say, "your pain? what about MY pain?" but if you spoke about your pain to armand he would say "let me lobotomize you and you will never feel pain again." he has a solution-based mindset and we could all learn from him.