#my interpretation

- growing up

I have a personal niche-ish idea of Ellernate having covert dissociative identity disorder, I really like the perception of Ellernate struggling with amnesia, lack of identity, and overall struggles of those with DID. I believe he isn’t aware of it, nor will he be unless he got professional help.

This lead to me believing that Ellenate has struggled with repeated trauma (whilst I think mental abuse is the best way to describe my belief of what happened, it could really be anything repeated. Up to your belief.) from birth.

Some point along the lines, he ran away from home and had been living the high life since.

- relationships/friendships

His childhood lead to him being a people pleaser, and wanting people to like him and rely on him. He doesn’t form meaningful relationships, however. Instead he has a disconnect from most people.

Ellernate feels like he has a huge gap of “who” he is and “what” he is. So there is a wonder of if anything he has ever done was genuine at all, these stops makes him struggle with forming actual relationships that are more than just deals.

However this yearning lead him to wanting to have someone who loves him truly, platonical and or not. This yearning, along with his people pleasing traits, lead him to encouraging unhealthy behaviors and having a fake positivity with others.

If one or two people truly relied on him, then he would self-isolate and try to better them in his “own” way. Something something, Ellernate having a savior complex to his special people would be sick.

I also think a lot of his identity is sourced from others, so if his friends is mad , HE’S mad. Despite him not understanding why they’re so mad to begin with. (He’s a hypocrite)

- personality traits

Bc of Ellernate’s lack of identity, I don’t think he even knows that he realized that he mimics and takes from other people around him. A lot of his traits are stolen from those who he “admires” or is “friends” with, or even his own “persona” (the people pleasing traits) of himself because he can hardly remember what he’s like on his own.

This mimicking blurs together to make his own “persona” at some point, but it’s not really who he is as a person. He’s unsure who he is as a person, since he “changes up” every week, at least that’s how he views it as.

- he does care for people

Despite everything, he does care for people. He just doesn’t understand how to use his care in a way that doesn’t value his own self-worth on it. His love for others isn’t fictional, despite him thinking that it is.

I like to believe it’s care, but his struggle and need to feel important gets in the way. He could learn to be healthy, he could learn to be better, but he already feels so amazing when his special people, trll him he’s special.

He does his actions because he thinks that it’s the right thing to do, he believes in encouraging isolation and other unhealthy behaviors, bc he views it as love.

- home life

I think Ellernate tries to over-compensate himself by doing actions around the around the house, acts of service and physical touch is a huge love language for him.

Like one makes explicit mentions of ophelia and her story in the song and music video, and the other merely alludes to it in the album cover and imagery. However one of them does a much better job at representing the moral of the story. "The Fate Of Ophelia" is a blatant misrepresentation of the story of ophelia ("The eldest daughter of a nobleman/Ophelia lived in fantasy/But love was a cold bed full of scorpions/The venom stole her sanity"). It treats her death as a consequence of love, not of misogyny. Meanwhile "Down By The Water" not only uses the imagery of drowning to tell a story that has a similar cause to that of ophelia's, if it were to be presented as an adaptation of her story, it would be much more accurate to the original intentions. In addition, PJ Harvey's song is haunting, apt for the story of Ophelia, while Swift's is a love song about how men will save you from the fate of Ophelia.

I truly do believe that this song is about internalized homophobia and growing to love yourself. If anyone has anything to add then I’d love to hear!!

This one is the most self explanatory on why I think this song is about internalized homophobia. “A million reasons but I need a million more”, he has this love for someone of the same gender but for it to really be true love, he needs millions of reasons to accept this love. Coming out could ruin relationships with your family and in this case he mentions faith. Religion and faith is one of the main causes of internalized homophobia. While for others it may have been easy to accept being gay, believing in religion taught him that homosexuality was a sin.

For many people in homes that cannot express their love openly they might have thought of moving far away and isolating themselves. They were raised with shame and that they have to hide, meaning their only escape is to move far away.

Also the lyric “wake up breathing” really stuck with me because being lgbtqia+ has put a lot of people into dangerous situations. For just loving the person you love it has caused shame, pain, and sometimes even death. Hate is so powerful and praying to wake up the next day is the reality for many people.

“You don’t understand, we don’t hold hands” is also about shame. As someone who is gay I sometimes didn’t feel comfortable holding hands with my partner because I was afraid of the stares and what others might think.

This last interpretation might be the most far fetched one but also imo the most telling. When Gerard Way says “let’s use our magic powers” I think this can be a response to when people call gay people “fairies.” The mythical creatures are known for the magical powers and by saying that he can use his magical powers with the children it might be a sentiment that he is trying to tell the kids that it’s okay to be yourself and that you should not grow up ashamed of who you are.

Ok I just re-read Ovid's depiction of the legend of Icarus, and I just wrote four pages of interpretations in my journal so here it is for archival purposes

(Note: interpretation is not based solely on Ovid, it was the basis but lots of it is based on prior knowledge and other retellings as well)

Why did Icarus soar? What drove him to rise?

After years in the darkness of the labyrinth, he finally knew what it felt like to be free, to feel the heat of the sun on his skin that served as the proof of his freedom. It was glee, childlike excitement and hunger for the wind and that feeling that urged him to soar high. The risks never crossed his mind because he wanted to keep feeling that warmth after the cold of the maze and he wanted to keep feeling that light after the darkness of his prison.

And in the fall, who's to say Icarus did not embrace the ocean, for the water brought about a comfort that his cages never did? Who's to say Icarus did not laugh as he fell because though the wind carried him to his end, would the fall not have been a good one?

In Icarus' life of imprisonment, darkness of prisons, would the sun not allow him to feel his rays, to touch his fingertips on such a divine chariot?

In Icarus' life of cold mazes, would the wind not cradle him as he fell? His journey to the ocean was but a moment, but the wind made sure it was not a terrifying one.

And so, Icarus laughed despite himself, for the feeling of flying was freeing but there was something so thrilling about falling and feeling the full force of the wind as it grasped onto him.

And who's to say the ocean did not accept him willingly? The benevolent ocean who knew nothimg but freedom across all his seas, to see this trapped boy falling freely and feeling no fear, to welcome his inevitable demise with a bright smile on his face.

His life would not be his for long, but he held it brightly, as if the last moments of his life were his most alive.

The ocean took him in and allowed him to feel his sands, to touch the bottom of his seas. Icarus, who'd known nothing but the cold floor of the labyrinth and the smooth, unforgiving tiles of his prisons, laughed evem as water filled his lungs for the rough, unfamiliar surface served as proof that he had truly experienced freedom. The ocean accepted the boy whose father had once cheated him, for though his father had performed misdeeds, the boy was but a pure soul who longed for a life uncaged. The life he sought was close to its end, but the ocean wished it a blissful one.

(And, if in the boy's end would rise the father's suffering, well. The ocean would keep that joy to himself.)

As Daedalus mourned his son on land, Icarus accepted death's hand as easily as he sought the sun's warmth, as easily as he opened his arms to the wind's force in the fall, and as easily as he embraced the ocean's cradle.

So I had this interpretation of Vampire Empire and I wanted to share it cuz I like it.

Tw 4 the concept of drugs ig idk