#Also I didn't do it on purpose (obviously in some cases) but most of these have the symbol on the side they're standing :0

[grapebritain]

Jax is not an npc

I've seen the idea of Jax being an npc being floated around after ep2's release, which while i ADORE this idea in concept (as some parts of it explain certain parts of his character )that doesn't mean that this is the answer as to why Jax is the way he is.

Jax is a self absorbed, sarcastic, and non-serious character who seems to know far more than he actually should so far with what we've seen. He is the only human who has broke the forth wall , not just once, but twice, and has a very performative 'vibe' to him. Like he's on some sort of stage a bit like Cain does. Due to this, and with the plot of episode 2, people have drew the conclusion that this MUST mean Jax is an npc which, eventho it is deffo plausible , there are several reasons why i do not think this is the case, and people are trying to jump to conclusion too quickly to find an explanation to these questions.

1.Pop culture reference

Jax in episode 2 makes an offhaded joke about Charlie and the chocolate factory, a popular piece of media that most people do know about. It seems pretty insignificant but boy is this a really important detail.

With the recent release of other teasers of the next episodes that are yet to come, in terms of copyrighted media showing up in the game, we can see that Cain INTENTIONALLY makes off branded versions of popular parts of our world such as McDonalds and other fast food brands

So for Jax to make a pop culture references, the names would likely have to be inaccurate from the actual piece of media, being...well...off branded versions of them. The fact he literally uses the accurate name "Augustus Gloop" adding an "ed" on the end for comedic effect shows that he HAS seen or heard of the actual piece of media, which would be impossible if he was an npc.

furthermore, say even the offbranded version was due to glitch themselves not being able to use actual brands in the show visually (which is also highly likely), the implication that Cain made an ai that was aware of these sorts of things is almost nonsensical considering that gummigoo didn't know anything outside of the established plot he needed to serve his in game purpose. When another npc doesn't even have a visual memory of his own mother, something closely linked to the established motive of an npc, why would Cain give an ncp knowledge of random pop culture reference for no reason ?

i would say this is a pretty strong point to put the argument forward Jax is not an npc.

2.NPC's immersive feature

this point is a little less strong, but is still a very important one to make.

I think people are forgetting that Gummigoo is intentionally meant to be far more immersive compared to pervious ai. We are going on the basis of Jax being an ncp , based on how intelligent Gummigoo is, which with the timeline we have, would not exactly work out that way.

Obviously, Cain establishing that the ai SHOULD be more immersive, doesn't mean it will be, but if we take into context the episode prior, it does actually seem to be somewhat more advanced in a way than it wasn't before, dialogue being a bit less generic and more fluid . With the consideration this is only Pomni's second adventure, and the ai already seemingly at least, being far better than the last, that could imply that going back a couple of adventures before Pomnis arrival , this ai was much more primitive.

Looking at when Jax arrived could give us some idea of how good the ai was at the time, and with gooseworx establishing jax arriving before zooble (who already seems to have grumpily adjusted to the world) , i would imagine that Jax, if he was an npc, would be far less advanced then he currently is and much more one dimensional as a character to hint at him being an npc....which brings me onto my next point.

3."Jax is violent and impulsive " argument

I've seen the occasional argument that Jax being violent and impulsive could be an argument for him being an npc. He realized he has no purpose, so started being violent and uncaring of the world around him, but this argument completely disregards the fact that...the human characters kind of have that 'reality shattering' moment too. Pomni does, which is why she can relate in the first place to Gummigoo.

All of the human characters have to come to the scary realization that, they are stuck here. Stuck in a fake world. Most of the characters draw closer to each other people that are real because of this as some form of comfort such as Pomni and Ragatha, but Jax is own person, and different people react differently to different situations. Jax just happens to react in a rather emotionally distanced way to the seriousness of the situation.

He seems to be the most emotionally immature character, so it makes complete sense as to why he would react in an immature manner. Not to mention he is the youngest out of all the cast, and may have been even younger when entering the digital circus.

When an emotionally immature, impulsive , frankly not very morally amazing person is told they can basically do whatever they like with little to no repercussions to their actions, what are they going to do? Cause chaos of course, which is exactly what Jax does.

he even more so causes chaos by breaking one of the only rules he's can't break, the whole keeping everything family friendly.

This seems to be his way of coping with the situation and seriousness at hand, brushing it aside and acting impulsively instead because he knows full well he couldn't do this in the real world, it also keep him emotionally distant from everyone else, which seems to be an intentional move by him as he doesn't go to Kaufmo's funeral despite briefly seeming upset about the matter.

He cares in his own weird way, but he refuses to show that to the rest of the cast (unimportant but i wanna add as well, it is common for men to be emotionally closed off due to the idea vulnerability for men esp is a bad thing, which ofc it is not ).

Which also builds up off my pervious point that despite his exterior, Jax isn't one dimensional or flat as a character, which if he was an old ai npc he probably would be 1d, and we wouldn't have this small moment of slight care from him, despite still trying to stay distant.

Final thoughts

So what about the forth wall breaking? him owning keys to all the rooms? Well quite honestly, i don't think we know enough about him or anyone to fully know why Jax is the only one to do this. It could be for some deep lore meaning, or it could be simply he is the comic relief character so is the one to do this more consistently than the rest.

Personally, i DO think it's something deeper, what that deeper thing is yet is something i'm sure will be explored in future episodes, but rn, i think jumping at the first thing is not an amazing idea (eventho it is a super interesting and exciting one).

Just thought i'd share my feelings as this is the only theory i've seen around rn abt my fav stupid purple bunny.

#the amazing digital circus #tadc theory #jax theory #tadc jax #jax npc #jax is not an npc #npc tadc

[numberonetrashwitch]

Some observations about Baldurs Gate 3 that hit too close to home.

After another few runs i will probably just make an in-Depth Character Analysis for every character simply because they are good reflections of actual trauma-manifestations and how abuse can manifest in people. They are also so well written that it serves a narrative purpose to explore all the material that is out there about them. I am also personally cursed with actual medically-relevant levels of Empathy and Hyperfixation; so writing this helps me put a pin in it and move on.

But so far here are my highlights

(SPOILERS and obviously content warning bc these are deep)

before you ask; i have almost 300h in this game.

You have to convince Shadowheart to eat the Noblestalk. She actually stells you she rather get her memories back from Shar but when you hit the persuasion or intimidation (what the fuck) check to get her to eat it she'll tell you about her childhood friend. Not her name, not her parents but her best firend. Possibly because she has had a closer bond to that person after being abducted and indoctrinated. With her believing herself to be an orphan, she would've looked elsewhere for comfort and sought out her own family, this is why she falls hard and heavy for Shar and builds the backbone of her indoctrination. She is literally ripped out of her home & given a new identity to server her from all she has known. Religious indoctrination, Gaslighting, Abduction, being forced to let go of your personality are her main themes.

There is a scene out there floating around in which you see Astarions pespective of the night when he bites Tav for the first time, in his meditations he is confronted with the rules Cazador put on him, including that he can't eat intelligent creatures, can't be away from Cazador unless allowed to, has to obey every command and that they are should know that they are property. Which in turn means that Astarion literally didn't just have any autonomy, he was objectified (and not just through seductive/sexual measures) and that is really the crux to understanding why he doesn't believe in kindness, but rather shows self-serving behavior in most cases. Since we know that Astarion was extremely young for an elf before he died and became immortal (literally stopping the aging /maturing process) it is also very telling that Cazador constantly calls him brat, boy or other very juvanile names, refering to them as a family... well it is also the story of a very controlling parent. Themes of (Bodily) autonomy, infantilization ( & puer aeternus, forever-child), slavery, depersonalisation, corruption of life and torture to break someone.

Gale isn't just a guy hung up on his Ex, but also a victim of abuse. In this case a power imbalance none of us can fathom; She is described as being a jealous goddess and rules over the domain of mysteries and magic. So with Gale being a Wizard, she is literally his boss. He admits that he was foolish enough to aspire to be an equal to her, but she is so jealous that she tells him he can't really be worthy as long as he takes breath. She could just take his powers away and be done with it, that would be more than enough punishment for a guy who literally made Mystra and her domain his life's purpose, but she rather makes him do it himself. Add to that, that she literally only tells him this after years of self-isolation (after he put down so many wards that he could've blown up a whole army as he says if you click the right dialogue) to really fuck him up well. He also talks about death pretty much constantly, not surprising giving your situation, but he will tell you that he will kill himself at several points in the game, for instance after he comes clear about his nethrese orb. Themes of romantic abuse, power-imbalance, toxic work enviorment, self-isolating behavior, suicidal ideation

Wyll ... well from the looks of it he is the most well adjusted of all the companions (my opinion) but he has something that i'd describe as the "eldest daughter"-syndrome, more commonly known as parentification. This pattern usually occurs within single-household parents and is commonly described as a parent looking to their child for emotional or practical support, rather than providing it to their kid. We meet Ulder and see that he talks over Wyll a lot, not listening but expecting him to follow the standard he sets for him. That is also why Wyll repeats his fathers words like gospel (because this is what, in his mind, fullfills the expectations bestowed upon him) and why he loves fairytales / bard tales so much (because they are an ecapist view of the job he set out to do) Ulder literally exiled his teenage son because Wyll did the only thing he could to save an entire city, by sacrificing himself. Thats a lot to expect from a 17 year old - even more so, he doesn't stop with the heroics. He expects himself, as a human who hasn't even reached the age of 30 to hold up to mystical creatures such as Astarion or Karlach, or even Gale who is a accomplished Wizard. Themes of parentification, escapism, self-harming through putting himself in danger, chronic-self-sacrifice

In plain words; Gortash, Karlach's Idol sold her to a Devil. But add to that that she must have been pretty young when she was sold (late teens to early twenties possibly) and being that if you play as a Tiefling, you face a lot of predjudice she was likely forced into that position as well. Starstruck she was, with a juvenile naitivy that Gortash used. Appropriately, as he is the chosen of Bane the god of "tyrannical oppression, terror, and hate, known across Faerûn as the face of pure evil through malevolent despotism" (Source: Forgotten-Realms Wiki / Bane) So she pretty much was raised in a toxic enviorment, which forced her to become a killing-machine, first figuretively, then with the extraction of her heart, literally. Themes of slavery, oppression, misuse of trust, being taken advantage by a more powerful/older(?) person, being drafted.

Jaheira - to be honest, you need to know the lore of the previous baldurs gate games or just listen to her dialouge, ask her all the questions. She is a war-veteran against Bhaal, the good of ritual murder, and has a long history of fighting to achieve some sort of balance of power. She lost her husband and several close people all to this, or any other war, but due to her wisdom and strength people look to her for guidance. Themes of: Survivors Guilt.

Halsin - he is really closed off at first but then just casually hits you with "i was captured in the underdark and spent 3 years chained to a bedroom wall by a pair of drows who used me as they pleased". He is reprimanded by some of his druids for leaving the grove as soon as opportunity struck, just to get back and leave the next day, and if you talk to him about his position in the grove he is actually very forthcomming. He actively holds himself back; indulging in simple hobbies because he knows what lies within his heart. He is afraid of himself and his potential (canonnically he can't control his wildshape, which is very weird for an ARCH-druid) Themes of: impostor syndrome, avoidant-based self-harm, sexual opression, loss of control, emotional regulation.

Lae'zel is a very tragic case, and one that closely resembles the stories of Shadowheart and Karlach. Her entire existence is based upon a matriachial war society allowing her to live if she proves she can be of use and that in a culture which only values brutality, dominance & service. All of that culimating in her finding out that her oh-so-beloved Queen is actually just an imposter, and that everything she has lived for up to that point is merely political propaganda created to make her, and the rest of her entire species, willing pawns in a war that has no longer bearing on their survival alone, but is fought to justify Vlaakith's (the reigning monarchs) personal ambitions. Not only is she forced to reconcile that she is turned into the thing that controlled her kind for hundreds of years, that the only cure she knows of would kill her and then on top of that, that her hopes and dreams were lies and that she is now the Nr 1 enemy of the person she has served with all her being. themes of: oppression, propaganda, casual violence, objectification, child-warfare, eternal warfare

Minthara in short, her story is about being shamed for growing up in the same scenario that Lae'zel grew up in. Lolth, the god of the Lolth-sworn drows is a crazy queen who values scheming & backstabbing so much and is so volatile that you can't know what to expect of your deeds (and i mean it; there were people who were appraised by her for scheming against her, but also those who were killed. It's almost random.) She considers Lolth to be cruel and abandoned her for the Absolute, only to then be used and abused the same way Lae'zel has. Not with promises, but erasing her memory and exposing her perceived weakness. Themes of: casual violence, violent culture, her own ambition colliding with her desire to be safe, being a pawn in a larger game.

#baldurs gate #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #non-witchy #baldurs gate iii #baldurs gate character #background to baldurs gate 3 #character analysis #analysis #fan theory #media analysis #astarion #wyll #karlach #minthara #halsin #jaheira #lae'zel #gale #minsc will have to wait #im sorry its so long #yeah some characters are a bit more shallow #i will go in depth sometime #dark urge has a grip on me i swear #please do yourself a favor and look up the earlier 2 games

[wisteriaiswriting]

Can you do an autistic trans(if you do that) male reader who doesn’t really get social cues but is overall pretty quiet and reserved with the people from the Hazbin hotel?

𝕊𝕚𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝔹𝕦𝕥 𝔽𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕝𝕪

Words: 1111

𝔸𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣:

He will be unaware at first, so his first impression about you is not good. Thinks you’re being rude on purpose, but when he finds out that's not the case he’ll feel slightly bad.

For his assumptions he’ll subtly apologize by dropping presents in your room (Unnamed of course.) and lending you a helping hand.

If you two become close he will take you to his tailor to get matching suits, different colours obviously, can’t have you taking his signature colour now, can we?

***

For the first few days you’ve been at the hotel Alastor has been weirdly stand offish. Others didn’t mind, often glad he’s staying away rather than closer. But you wanted to know why, so you asked Charlie.

Who asked Alastor, to which he gracefully answered.

“Well, I don’t enjoy seeing terrible manners around the hotel, surely you don’t either?” At his words the reason for avoidance clicked in her head.

“Why didn't you say so? Well knowing you, you wouldn’t… But Y/N isn’t that good with social cues, so he doesn’t mean any of, whatever he’s been doing.”

“Oh…” At her words he left the room, finding you. “Well hello my Handsome fellow,”

“Hi?” After his most recent actions you didn’t expect him to just waltz up to you.

“Unfortunately someone has ruined my suit,” Correct, a good chunk was missing. “And hopefully you would accompany me?”

“Sure, I guess?”

“Perfect!”

ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕖:

She's unsurprisingly similar when it comes to social cues.

When it comes to you being autistic or trans she won’t notice, that’ll be the last thing she knows.

You two can not be left alone, someone will need to supervise you both.

***

It has been barely a week since you fell into hell and it’s been terrible. There were too many things happen that you could say or even recall, so today was meant to be relaxing. Or at least somewhat close, until someone pulled you around.

They were your only friend here, so of course you had to follow. After a few hours walking around you found you both in front of a hotel, one called the ‘Hazbin hotel.’ Excitedly knocking at the door while you watched.

Within seconds the door swung open revealing an excited blonde.

“Oh my, hi!” Pulling you both in as she spoke, which allowed you to see other people hanging around. “I’m Charlie, and welcome to the Hazbin Hotel!”

“Told ya you’d like it here.”

You were both aware nothing was said beforehand but you didn’t confront them. Seemed like the others knew something was up, so they had Charlie pull you away.

“Since you're new, how about a private tour of the Hazbin Hotel?”

𝕍𝕒𝕘𝕘𝕚𝕖:

Compared to the other hotel residents your quietness is a surprise, but a welcome one at that.

If you ask or signal at all to her she’ll be at your side to subtly help you with social cues and anything else needed.

Especially if you’re new (Also if not) she’ll help you get masculine clothing, although she might have to get others help as she isn’t the most masculine either.

***

Charlie had just brought you to the hotel in a… not so good condition. She wasn’t sure what you went through to look like that but she knew you needed some help, and she was going to help where she could.

“Alastor, I need your help”

“Hmm?”

“You know the newbie, I have to get him some clothes. Problem is I have no clue where to go.” At her words his smile increases slightly.

“I could help, for a price…”

“Nevermind.”

While she wanted to help she wouldn’t risk anything with Alastor, maybe Angel would be better.

𝔸𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕝 𝔻𝕦𝕤𝕥:

He’s seen some shit during his time down in hell, so your actions and attitude isn’t seen as weird to him.

To a degree he’ll take advantage of you. Never anything you wouldn’t want, but to keep him safe from Vaggie or Alastor.

But only he can do it, if anyone else even tries he’ll be there to protect you.

***

“Vaggie, why would I do that?”

“Oh I don’t know, maybe you–”

“Doesn’t matter, I would never when Y/N is with me!”

At his words Vaggie looked down at you, finding you wrapped in Angels pairs of arms. You had a few blooming bruises around your face but otherwise seemed alright.

“Just… Don’t do it again, I don’t want to see Y/N or Charlie get mad at you.”

“Really, Y/N mad at me? Never!” One pair of hands had come up to cup your cheeks, able to leave multiple kisses. Causing Vaggie to leave quickly.

“Now, let me take care of those bruises.”

𝕊𝕚𝕣 ℙ𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕦𝕤:

He’s been thrown into the same boat as you, has absolutely no understanding of social cues.

If anything the eggs make it worse, as they are somehow worse than sir pentious.

He has accidentally hurt the both of you at once somehow, no one is sure how that happened.

***

The streets didn’t seem too busy, which was weird for hell. But it might’ve been the fact you and Sir Pentious just weren’t aware of them walking. His tail was swaying dangerously behind him, knocking over any people.

During this his eggs were scattered around the both of you. Some stayed behind, in between and some strayed next to you. Which caused an even bigger barrier to form, now people had to step off the path.

ℍ𝕦𝕤𝕜:

When he first meets you he won’t really care, he’s had worst people hang around.

If he’s being honest he understands and gets social cues, but majority of the time he just doesn’t care about them.

Even then he knows with your lack of awareness you’re likely to get into some unwanted trouble, so he hangs around a lot more.

***

Husk never had the heart to blame you for any trouble, he knew you never meant it. So tonight he accompanied you to a nearby bar, intending for at least a semi-nice night out. But of course someone had to ruin it.

A drunk demon decided he wanted to bother you for the night, ignoring Husk the whole time. But over time his anger rose, you weren’t even looking at him and you didn’t seem interested.

In which you weren’t, but he seemed so incessant that you spoke, even if you didn’t. His attitude quickly became clear very quickly, except you didn’t notice. As he reached for you Husk was quicker, sending a card flying into his head.

That caused everyone to start their own fights. Which gave you two the chance to leave, with minimal injuries of course. Taking the chance you both ran out, luckily no one else was waiting outside.

“We’re going back.”

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x male reader #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel charlie #charlie x reader #hazbin hotel vaggie #vaggie x reader #hazbin hotel angel dust #angle dust x reader #hazbin hotel sir pentious #sir pentious x reader #hazbin hotel husk #husk x reader #wisteria♥

[misscinnamonroll16]

Brozone headcanons

Clay is the type of brother to not believe what any of the others tell him. Whether they're lying to him or not, he don't believe them

John Dory can get his brothers to fall asleep in minutes. He's got all the tricks that knock them out. They worked when they were kids and still work now that they're adults.

Whoever ends up with John will get a wonderful lil house husband. He can cook, clean, bake, sew, and take care of children. Basically a house husband (or pod in this case)

John definitely dated Delta Dawn. They broke up bc they were too similar and too different. This was shortly after the band broke up and before Delta became queen. They were both young and adventurous. They wanted to travel the world together but Delta had responsibilities that she couldn't leave.

Floyd had ONE girlfriend. When he got on his own, Floyd told people he was bisexual bc he knew he wasn't straight but he thought he liked girls. He and that girl broke up on good terms bc she understood when he told her he's gay.

Floyd is scared of clowns

Bruce probably traumatized the little brothers more than John Dory did. He was the one that would force them to go into a haunted house, purposely jump out with a scary mask on type stuff

Drinks of choice: JD prefers whiskey, Bruce likes margaritas and brandy (obviously), Clay doesn't drink often, he likes white wine while he reads, Floyd likes SHOTS SHOTS and mixed drink (club/party drinks), branch doesn't drink much either but likes wine and occasionally mixed drinks.

Floyd is the holder of all the family secrets. He's really good at keeping them secret. Bruce and John are too but they're also known for telling embarrassing stories so none of the brothers want to tell them their secrets and risk it getting leaked

John is incredibly handy, he's very good at fixing most things. He can FIX things most of the time. He's no good at building.

All the boys are hopeless romantics

When one of the brothers (excluding Bruce in this case) get married after reuniting, they are all excitedly helping plan the wedding

Floyd can walk in heels

John Dory handles his machete very well. Nothing gets cut that he doesn't want cut. He also flips it around like a butterfly knife

When JD and Spruce went out to those teenage parties, they had a silent rule of one of them had to stay sober to make sure the other didn't do anything stupid, was safe and they both got home in enough time to get some sleep before having to wake up for the day. Spruce made sure John didn't wander off while stoned and listened to him talk whatever came to his high mind. John Dory made sure Spruce didn't eat something he wasn't supposed to while stoned or do anything stupid while drunk. It was never discussed but they knew that one of them had to be responsible for the other

Despite the band getting back together, both John and Floyd have sole careers that take off. Floyd is more for the performing and shows, JD is more for releasing songs and disappearing for several months. Floyd is selling out shows, John is dropping a song on YouTube that blows up within the first ten minutes. Brozone fans eat it up

While on stage and interacting with fans, the boys do very different things. John Dory leans towards the crowd and the fans go wild, he's a bit taken back but blows them a kiss (cue someone fainting). Bruce still plays up the heartthrob card, showing off his body, a fan yells and calls him daddy. He whispers into his mic "I didn't give you permission to call me that." in a flirty tone, cue the deafening screams. Clay was always shocked a little bit when fans start screaming when he gets close to the end of the stage, he's talking into his mic like "you good? You need something?" which causes the fans to all scream something at him. Floyd is the most memeable, hes making faces and sitting on the edge of the stage. He didn't used to that but after V&V he gets tired pretty quick. So he often ends up laying on the stage, his leg hanging off, his mic by his head along with a bottle of water. Clay kicked him off once and nobody knows if it was on purpose or not. Branch is NOT used to the fans. They're screaming at him and he's backing away. He's also very memeable until he gets more used to it. He didn't perform as much as his brothers (by that i mean he only truly performed once)

Bruce teaches John Dory how to surf. After several hours he gets the hang of it, it's like skateboarding only rougher.

Bruce sometimes watches his boys and sees him and his bros. Theyre wrestling and he can practically see himself, Clay and Floyd on the floor of their Grandma's pod

Grandma Rosiepuff spanked JD and Bruce with a wooden spoon. By the time she stopped, Clay was old enough for him to be next, so he got lucky. The wooden spoon she used had a wooden chunk taken out of it from when she hit John once. They find it while going through her old stuff that Branch had. "Hey look it's the whooping spoon!" "The what?!" "The whooping spoon. The spoon grandma used to spank us." "What makes you say that?" "You see this chunk taken out, that's from my ass."

#trolls #brozone #trolls john dory #trolls floyd #trolls clay #trolls bruce #branch trolls #funny #trolls headcanon #trolls headcanons #trolls hcs #brozone hc #brozone headcanons #trolls band together #trolls 3

[archivesofthevoid]

how the hp boys would react to trans reader suggesting pegging ? xx

Trans FtM!Reader x HP boys + their reaction to pegging

Shaking over this request /pos because ABSOLUTELY

Also I only did the main ones!! If you'd like me to do a part 2 with Seamus, Dean, Oliver, and Cedric just lmk!!

NSFW warning!! Well slightly. Nothing too explicit but it's implied. Also for ALL intents and purposes, ALL HP CHARACTERS I WRITE FOR ARE 18+! Though I would assume that's obvious by now. Just wanted to place a reminder.

Harry: We all know this man is so obviously bisexual. So really if you ask him, he might seem a bit shocked at first but ultimately he like "well,,,," and then he proceeds to think about it for like the next week. Dear Lord please save this man because his classes will be SUFFERING. No one knows what he's thinking about but his brain is obviously not in the room with him. Once he actually TRIES it though? He's into it. Maybe more than he realized-

When you ask: You're both sitting in the Gryffindor common room, probably just doing some assignments to catch up in the week when you just casually pop out the question. This causes him to mess up what he was writing and also spill his bottle of ink on his paper as he looks up at you in shock. "Uh- I'm sorry what did you say?" Oh he heard you. He just didn't think you'd ask such a thing. Que him flushing and trying to come up with the words as you just grin at him fumbling.

Ron: Viktor Krum gave him some kind of awakening, let's be real. SO with that being said, he's definitely thought about it once or twice. Once you suggest it? He's protesting left and right as if he doesn't want to do it but once again, he finds himself thinking about it a bit too much. If he tries it, he'll like it but it's not his favorite in the world per say. He'd rather give than receive yk

When you ask: You're eating breakfast of course. What a classic thing right? Let's say you have a dream about it and just,,, decide to quietly bring it up to Ron who's shoving eggs into his mouth and once you ask there's suddenly VERY loud coughing in the Great Hall. Even Harry and Hermione next to you guys are just like "Bloody hell Ron what is the matter with you??" And the KNOWING SMILE YOU HAVE ON YOUR FACE??? IT'S NOT HELPING HIS CASE HERE-

Fred: oh he's so down. Do you even have to ask? He's definitely thought about it a LOT. Come on this is Fred we're talking about here. Plus I mean he's most likely dated a few guys himself so it wouldn't exactly be foreign to him. So he's naturally nonchalant about it and agrees with it. Though after you ask him he thinks about it to the point he's just like "so are we going to or…" because come on you can't just ask him that and not expect to give him something out of it!! Don't leave our boy hanging here :((

When you ask: He's working on his latest prank in his dorm room while you and him are just chilling together. You're actually behind him, running your hands through his hair and massaging his back but your thoughts were wandering while you were behind him. So you ask if he'd be into pegging. Glancing behind you he watches your face before just going "yeah of course I've thought about it. Why? You offering, love?" And just laughs when you playfully shove him

George: This man goes awfully silent when you ask. But yes he would probably do it in a heartbeat. Whether it's because he wants to please you or because he's curious? That's up for debate. To be fair though he's probably has kissed Lee like once or twice out of curiosity, or at least dated a guy but never really like went anywhere with it. Just be gentle with this man please or else he might explode lmao

When you ask: You're at the library with George, honestly just goofing off and you're supposed to be studying but since when did you guys ever actually do that? So instead you guys decide to just chat around. Though you however get the idea to ask George this whenever you guys start talking about your dating lives and how George says he's been with a guy but not BEEN with a guy. He goes oddly silent. BUT it's kinda clear by the way his face heats up that he's into the idea. You just of course smile sweetly and reassure him that it's okay and you'd be more than happy to help him in to which he gets even FURTHER FLUSTERED but y'know it's a win win

Draco: never in his life has ever even thought about it. Probably doesn't ever consider it. You'd honestly have to beg him for it?? But after enough persuasion and such, he'd give in. He just doesn't want to bottom like that y'know? After living in a toxic masculinity household for his whole life he finds it weird to bottom. HOWEVER if he does, it's a sight to see fr. He's just gotta ease into it but luckily he trusts his lovely boyfriend aka you <33

When you ask: You're sitting on one of the couches in the Slytherin common room and it's oddly quiet because it's the weekend so there's not really anyone there (thankfully bc Draco would kill you if anyone heard you ask him this) when you're looking out the window to the Black Lake and just straight up ask. He full on STOPS reading his book and snaps his head up to you like "w h a t" before you repeat your question but louder. "No no I heard you but why the hell-" and insert you guys kind of arguing over it? But not really. It's just him being in denial and you begging him playfully.

Neville: sighhhh. You're going to have to revive him first because good job man you killed him. Gave him a heart attack right then and there. But to say the least he probably would hesitate to agree as well just because he'd be so self conscious and shy?? But after TONS of reassurance and kisses then yeah he'd agree. Just promise you will keep it between you guys because he does NOT want his friends finding out. He knows the others would tease him for it and he'd actually want to crawl away for a thousand years.

When you ask: You asked when you guys were in your dorm!! You were just cuddling after classes right before dinner, enjoying the time with each other before you had to go be with everyone else (ew gross /j) and you popped the question. When I told you this man almost let out a scream just at your question alone because IT WAS SO SUDDEN?? He then proceeded to hide away in your chest as his whole face and ears turned bright red. He looked like he had the worst sunburn oh my god. You meanwhile were just CACKLING as he was trying to stumble over his words! What even could he say though? Yes?? Maybe?? He didn't even KNOW- eventually he just gave up and waited until he calmed down to try to speak. Though you reassured him over and over the whole time <33 good luck explaining why he's going to be a nervous wreck at dinner though :))

#x reader #harry potter x reader #ron weasley x reader #draco malfoy x reader #fred weasley x reader #george weasley x reader #neville longbottom x reader #fred weasley smut #george weasley smut #draco malfoy smut #harry potter smut #neville longbottom smut #ron weasley smut #x trans reader #x trans male reader

[liesmyth]

did john decide which of his friends would be the necromancer and which would be the cavs when he brought them back from the dead, or was that random?

I wish we knew for sure! John's friends ending up 50/50 adepts vs. non-necromancers is obviously one of TM's premises and was done for doylistic reasons first and foremost, but I don't think we have enough elements to conclusively interpret it as intentional in-universe.

Putting aside any kind of authorial intentions, this is what we know:

» The rate of necromancers as part of the population hovers around 30%. John's core group being 50% adepts is way off from that, and could point to manipulation, but also we're working with a very small sample size. Think about how it's very possible to get head five times in a row when flipping coins; probabilities are much less accurate on a smaller scale. I don't believe it's out of the realm of possibilities that a group of 10 people had exactly 5 necromancers in it.

» Harrow's birth. The Reverend Parents made sure she would be a necromancer by manipulating the embryo with thanergy. It's clearly not a known practice among the Houses at large, and John calls it "a sort of Resurrection" — implying that he could be able to do the same with thalergy. However, this doesn't confirm that he actually DID.

In the same conversation, John says, "This was all different before we discovered the scientific principles," which I think is also worth noting. The fact that he understands NOW how you could get an embryo to grow into a necromancer doesn't mean that he had that knowledge at the time of the Resurrection. It also doesn't mean that the same identical process would apply to making formerly-dead-people into necromancers as they got brought back to life.

It could very well be that necromancy was a generalised side-effect of the Resurrection that affected some people more than others; or it could be that John DID do something different when bringing back some people that conferred them necromantic aptitude. Even if it's the latter, I don't think we can take for granted that 1) it was intentional and 2) he fully knew what the side effects would be.

» Ulysses and Titania. Counterpoint! It's also worth noting that John's "test cases" turned out to be one (1) adept and one (1) non-adept. Like I said above, this could still be a random bi-product of the Resurrection... but given Ulysses and Titania's whole everything, their dichotomy reeks of control group. They are a big point in favour of the "John did it on purpose" column.

Still: I still don't think we can tell for sure that John knew from the moment of Resurrection that he was giving some people death powers, and how that'd turn out in the long run. Like I said above, he could have done something different when resurrecting Ulysses vs. Titania, but it doesn't mean that he knew what would happen.

(Obviously, this argument only makes sense if we assume that Ulysses and Titania were among the very first batch of resurrected. I personally think they were, but obviously it's not confirmed)

» The inner circle. From NtN

I could only trust the inner circle. My scientists, my engineer, my detective, my lawyer, my artist, my nun, my hedge fund manager. My diehards. The ones keeping the lights on.

Putting aside the fact that Lyctors exist the way they are because Tamsyn needed them to exist, and looking at the Canaan House necro/cav pairings from John's point of view: why not give ALL his friends magical powers? That's something I struggle to wrap my head around, for about half a dozen different reasons.

Mind, I don't think John picking and choosing who gets to be a necromancer is that far-fetched, but from a #character point I find it less likely than the alternative (he didn't do it on purpose but turned it to his own advantage). IF it turns out to be canon, I'd be really curious about what the watsonian reasoning for it, beyond "this needed to happen."

Most meta posts I've seen that take for granted John picked and chose his future necromancers ascribe him a level of foresight, knowledge, and long-term planning that I simply don't think he'd have had at the time (not to mention the mental lucidity). To quote HtN John again, "[he] had never been God" before. I truly think he was winging it at least 60% of the time.

#Anonymous #ask #tldr: I think it's possible this is the angle Taz is going with but I don't think it's a given with the elements we have so far #I think if it turns out to HAVE been intentional on John's part #it's gonna be one of these plot points that exists because the book needed them to exist and everything else took shape around it #like how everyone on the Ninth stopped making babies after Harrow was born although there was a whole generation of childbearing age #tlt thoughts #tlt theories #ejg #elle tlt posting #tlt

[thebramblewood]

If the Vatores stand united on one thing, it's their absolute disdain for Old Man Vlad.

Previous / Next

(Psst... there's some bonus lore under the cut for those who can't get enough.)

More on the Vatores' complicated relationship with Vlad to come, but for now I will say that settling in Forgotten Hollow despite hating his guts was absolutely a (petty) power move on Lilith's part. Vlad doesn't have any qualms about killing humans. In fact, he has little interest in the affairs of humans at all. But what he doesn't care for is Lilith's ostentatious style. He's very old-fashioned and set in his ways regarding how a "proper" vampire should behave and doesn't like when they draw too much attention to themselves because he believes it puts vampires as a collective at risk. He once hoped to mold Lilith in his image, but that obviously didn't work out, and he now finds her indiscreet, disrespectful, and lacking manners, and he finds Caleb a wimpy annoyance who should have never been turned.

I also wanted to explain a bit more about vampire telepathy in my universe. There's a psychic link between sire vampires and their children that allows them to communicate internally (as we've seen Lilith and Vlad do before - and we'll explore the circumstances of her turning in the future!) and also to probe each other's thoughts/memories (which, for example, is what allows Caleb to track down Helena). Physical distance weakens the link, and stronger vampires can establish barricades against intrusion (like Caleb is trying to do now with Lilith). It's also not a constant thing. It's an active choice to enter another's mind. Caleb is considerate (yes, even with his sister), so he does it sparingly and accesses only the information he needs. Lilith and Vlad couldn't care less, so they'll shamelessly dig for secrets. Most vampires are also able to wield telepathic powers over humans, although obviously this takes skill and practice. Humans' minds are more vulnerable and as such more susceptible to hypnosis. This allows vampires to control humans for feeding and other purposes and also to erase or alter their memories. I don't think any of this greatly deviates from what you would expect, and I've tried to imply most of it through the storytelling, but I just wanted to explain it all in one place.

Caleb: [stiffly] Straud.

Vlad: It seems you’re out and about these days more than your sister is. How is Lilith anyway? I can’t imagine she's finally come to her senses and decided to practice moderation for once in her life.

Caleb: Why don’t you rummage around in her thoughts and find out for yourself? She picked up that habit from you, after all.

Vlad: She’s learned how to keep up her guard against me. [pointed look] As I’m sure you’ve learned your own tricks against her. No matter. There are things in that girl's head beyond description. I’d rather not get mired in her depravity. Surely you know what I mean.

Caleb: I never acquired a taste for extracting people’s secrets without their permission.

Vlad: Of course not. You’re a peculiar creature, aren’t you? I warned her you wouldn’t be suited to this life. Well, in this case, you’re likely better off. Maintaining blissful ignorance is undoubtedly more pleasant than holding the eternal knowledge of all she’s done.

Caleb: [impatiently] Is there something else you wanted to discuss?

Vlad: That man - what is it, Benali? - and his charming little book… It’s not going to cause trouble, is it?

Caleb: I haven’t seen any angry hordes yet. This is your town, old man. There’ll be no trouble so long as you don’t let it in.

#ts4 #sims 4 #ts4 story #sims 4 story #simblr #story: hzid #vladislaus straud #caleb vatore #vlad said “yeah i'm evil but lilith is the DEVIL incarnate” #LISTEN i can't do too many scenes with him because i have no idea how to dress him lol!! #it's hard enough with caleb #i just don't have enough non-modern/sporty male clothes #also the book mention is a distraction #you should be more concerned about the rest of the conversation ;)

[glamrockraybot]

(NOT A "<character> is a robot" POST)

Honestly my favourite current theory for fnaf is that the mimic (who is probably not burntrap but may be glitchtrap) is intending to recreate the events of the William Afton Era™️ to a T, as it was built to mimic by....someone? I mean someone had to build it right.

Anyway I'm gonna lightly explain my reasoning for each of these even though I'm sure most of you have already made these connections before

I mean, we all heard the Vanessa theories already yeah? Not even mentioning her visual similarities to Elizabeth, I think either her or Michael could fit. Both of them were loyal to their father at some point (I don't know why else Michael would go into the Sister location bunker) and they both played significant roles in the story. I think if this was the case I'd wager Vanessa was *supposed* to be Elizabeth, but after breaking free she became more like Michael and hellbent on destroying the glitchtrap virus for good (maybe with a little bit of fire). I could understand arguments for Glamrock Freddy being Michael (even aside from him *literally* being Michael) but I didn't include any of the glamrocks because they serve a narrative purpose already as animatronics.

Gregory is. Obvious. I mean with how similar they look its already sort of suspicious, though Gregory is a little bit more of a fighter than CC. They at the very least share a connection with bear robots. I could see an argument for Gregory being Michael (God is Michael just every character?) But for visual similarities alone I picked CC.

Cassie was theorized from day one to be Cassidy or Charlie or both. I personally learn more towards Charlie but because of Something in hw2 I may be more willing to accept her as the vengeful spirit. I know Charlie doesn't always equal green but Cassie does have specks of green throughout her design, and she seems to be a very kind and caring friend (maybe too kind). Roxy being protective over her near the end is, well, a loose connection to the security puppet but I thought I'd bring it up.

For cassidy I can see this since if Gregory is CC, obviously cassidy and him would most likely talk and maybe be friends. In the picture that is from the logbook which might be cassidy they share a similar hair style. Not identical but, similar. Though I miss Cassie's curly hair </3

Mimic is probably the most obvious connection. William is like. The only human murderer from the original story, so you know, if the mimic is trying to kill people it's safe to say they are probably mimicking him. Though clearly they are not above mimicking other people (Gregory) in order to do this, sort of like what I imagine the funtimes did. I don't necessarily think they are acting like they did in the books where they are just carrying out an order to disassemble mechs, because if they were WHYyyy the need to lure people down there? Hey man I don't think that person you tricked into climbing down here is an endoskeleton I think that's a fucking person. This seems much more malicious, something that would make sense if they based their actions off of a killer from the 80s.

Also I guess Cassie's dad is worth a mention, who may be a parallel with Henry Emily or even Charlie herself. I'm leaning more towards Henry but I could see a case for it. I guess he can always be Michael. Because as much as I like fan interpretations of him he's sort of. Just Like. There. You know to be a foil to his dad.

Anyway I hope this was interesting, or rage inducing. And no I don't like the idea of them being robots of the character ❤️

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf cassidy #fnaf gregory #fnaf cassie #fnaf vanessa #fnaf security breach #security breach #fnaf sb #fnaf spoilers #fnaf security breach spoilers #fnaf ruin #fnaf ruin spoilers #fnaf mimic #william afton #michael afton #elizabeth afton #charlotte emily #charlie emily #crying child #fnaf crying child #text

[victorianpining]

The Game is Now

(Well The Game is over a year ago, if you want to be technical about it)

I finally took the time to write up my notes and reactions to the original BBC Sherlock Escape Room Experience! Sorry in advance if things are a little vague at points, we only played through the room once and am mostly running off of iphone notes I wrote 13 months ago. I hope to be able to go back to try out the new Mind of Moriarty room during its run, if this one was anything to go by, it should be a fun time!

My usual disclaimer that while this is a TJLC slanted writeup, I'm just playing The Game for fun at this point, I really am not expecting any of this to lead anywhere. Enjoy your television responsibly, don't idolize television writers, eat your veggies, etc. etc. etc. And spoilers for the room, obviously.

Oh, and huge thank you to @watermotif @betweendoctorsanddetectives and @647763 (and her girlfriend) for playing the room with me! I had a blast suffering with you all <3

The way I'm getting myself to finally actually write this up is by telling myself it's okay if my thoughts are a little informal, especially after this long, so this is going to be written the way I usually structure my outlines in the format of chaotic bullet points. Hopefully it's still readable!

I'm starting my recap of the experience outside of the escape room itself, which was located in what was, for all intents and purposes, a random, abandoned seeming mall in London (it wasn't actually abandoned malls are just like that now)

So imagine you are just walking through what looks exactly like your local, very dead, mall, when there's just this massive wall with dark damask wall paper and the most DFP Sherlock quotes you can conceive of plastered on it. Think "I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for a second I am one of them" "heroes don't exist and if they did I wouldn't be one of them" "I'm a high functioning sociopath" etc. It's already hilarious

You come around the corner from that and there's the gated off "Doyle's Optometrist" office, where you have to page in (I think we had to state our group name, I can't remember exactly how we got in)

Once you're inside the staff helping you are named Stamford. Yes like Mike Stamford. Yes all of them. If you didn't know you were in for psychological torment, you do now

[brief intermission here because some of us arrived early, so they actually let us through to the Mind Palace bar while we waited. It was pretty cool, apart from the guy working there being really pushy about ordering drinks. The bar is Victorian themed with framed pictures from TAB and the biggest one in the room, like by far, was a framed picture of Sherlock and Moriarty's little gun standoff, so you know, that was fun.]

[here we are trying to be normal about it]

[also I went to the bathroom at this point and there was a little sign in the stall which said that the Sherlock theme song was exactly the right length to wash you hands to which was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in my life]

Anyway back to the intended order of the experience, Stamford led us back to the optometrist waiting room where we sat calmly while John Watson's voice read out random advertisements. (The only one of these I wrote down was "the eyes are the legs of the face" because it was so random, but there was a set of them)

Also as you will see in the following picture, the posters in here were Bananas

(In case you can't see it since it's small in dash, the purple one behind Mia says "Doyle's Audiographs: for those who hear but don't listen" very evocative of the "I did tell you but did you listen" motif, 0/10 very infuriating)

Stamford came over at this point and brought us back and gave us the rules, which included no photography so photos end here unfortunately

So we were taken to a projector room where John Watson addressed the players, saying that while it says the office belongs to Doyle, this is actually a front for one of Mycroft's plans (ha ha ha (deadpan)) and that he's coopted John into helping. (hah. do you get it? the author and the narrator? hillarious)

It was so clear that Martin did not want to be there. Like yes John in character also doesn't want to be there but Martin literally looked like he was being held at gunpoint. His eyes were dead. Poor guy.

Stamford led us through another room into the 221B living room! Being in here was surreal. Because there are a few groups lumped together at this point, we had a bit of time to look around the room. Rachel found a book about fetishes on the mantle, which was something.

We took our group picture, they let you pick from a few props. I went for the white queen chess piece for Dracula reasons and got bullied into wearing the deerstalker, which was homophobic.

Also the skull was the Yorick version, and I took a moment to stare into ACD's eyes, out of respect, as one does.

At this point the game proper begins! Sherlock's voice comes on (Ben is not on camera other than one brief exception which we will be coming back to later) and starts prepping us for our mission.

I don't remember the context but I think while telling us to be careful in the flat he told us "don't scrape your knees, or do." which was funny considering "the state of her knees"

Mycroft then addresses the audience (hah) only to be interrupted by Moriarty (hah) hacking the TV (hah hah hah)

The mirror above the fireplace? Also turns into a TV that Moriarty hacks. Ha. Ha ha ha ha.

Moriarty informs us that he has kidnapped Mycroft so the point of the game is to save Mycroft from Moriarty (I was fighting the urge to bash my head against the walls of 221b at this point, like I was expecting M Theory but like Come On you're killing me here)

You may be wondering how exactly Moriarty has kidnapped Mycroft considering he is dead. Great question! You don't get an answer apart from Moriarty saying "remember I am definitely dead" in the most sarcastic voice I have ever heard come out of Andrew Scott's mouth. Full psychological warfare at this point. Having a great time. The usual.

Also at this point, while talking about Mycroft, Moriarty compares him to Sherlock, and he definitely listed off a bunch of things but the part that most stood out was he said verbatim "Mycroft is like Sherlock without the fangirls or sex appeal" so uh. Um. Yeah. M Theory Time!!! All Aboard!!! Choo Choo!!!!

We were taken to the first of our three puzzle rooms: the morgue at St. Bart's. Moriarty is introducing the room and jokingly refers to the brief time he spent dating Molly, lets us know that our goal is to break into the computer system (a development which had me thrilled, you know I love the Moriarty as a Virus angle)

Not one full minute after Moriarty joked about Molly being his cover, Molly voice over talks to John (who by the way has a beard at this point, that I had not mentioned) and goes "nice beard!" Hah. Hah.

To get into the computer we needed to put in a date, I don't remember the context for this puzzle but the answer was 2012, the year of Season 2.

The case in the middle of the room then lights up and you're able to see the corpse. On the computer, a database comes in, and in order to get into the server, we need to fill out a series of questions about the identity of the corpse.

One of the filters is the relationship status of the corpse with three options, single, married m/f, and married m/m. I let out the most exhausted sigh of my entire life and hit married m/m without even looking at the corpse. (we briefly removed it because the room was giving us clues out of order that made us think for a moment that this was wrong, it was not, the corpse is gay, you have to not assume he's straight. Do you get it?) (war and strife on the planet earth)

So the clue for that is that the corpse has the name Stephen tattooed on him (really? of all the names? Stephen????) and you're meant to figure out that he wouldn't get a tattoo of his own name. Or just be so mentally exhausted that you intrinsically know the corpse is going to be gay because of course he is.

If that wasn't enough, the corpse was also a member of the Royal Navy who was left handed. Hi John.

At this point my friends in the room with me pointed me up to the TV in the corner, which was showing random news feed but the ticker tap at the bottom was advertising BBC Dracula, which was fun.

When we were finally getting into the cage the server was in, Moriarty kept ominously chanting "let me in"

Again, don't remember the context, but one of the clues in this room was identifying the heart

We discovered the corpse died of a horrific virus (hah) just as Moriarty hacked into the server thanks to us (once again was genuinely enjoying the code stuff, this is a 10/10 from me, makes fadow better for everyone who has done this silly escape room sdhgakjdsg)

The second room was Mycroft's underground office and our task from Moriarty was to locate where his agents were stationed throughout the world and once again send off his virus. I was giggling.

Flipping around with switches on Mycroft's desk, we found that the mirrors on either side of the room were actually windows! Because of course they were!

Sherlock comes in with a clue at this point and lets us know something to the effect of "Mycroft likes to hide clues in photographs" which was uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... normal.

Those are my only notes for this room and I don't remember literally anything else about it so sorry about that on to....

The final room: The Victorian Operating Theater! Oh boy!!!

Moriarty has been using us to access the genetic code (hah) for a virus (hah) last scene in the Victorian Era (hahahahahahahaa). He literally phrases it as "an old treasure brought into the modern day." Hillarious.

Then the absolute highlight of the experience: there's this giant console thing in the middle of the room that comes to life with all these screens, and on them including Moriarty taunting us and, the absolute 12/10 winner, footage of Sherlock wandering around 221B. This is the only Ben footage you get and not only does it confirm the "Moriarty is always spying on Sherlock" part of M Theory, it's very similar to the wall of monitors I came up with for fadow. Fellow Moriarty fan Mia and I were dying at this as much as we were able to while still trying to solve the room.

Moriarty freed Mycroft but had infected us with the virus (this is why I joke that Moriarty gave me COVID, because I caught it this day and it might as well have been from him)

His plan was to unleash the virus on the world unless we could stop him

This room was more physical puzzles than mental, and we had to cure the brain, the heart, and the lungs respectively. The brain and the heart are obviously big Sherlock meta staples so since then I've been like "why the lungs tho?" My best guess is it has something to do with breathing new life into an old story, but that's just a guess

While we were solving it and making progress Moriarty came on to rant something like "the game was over! You should have known when to give up!" Flames, flames on the side of my face.

When we won, Sherlock insulted us, but Mycroft then came on to compliment our efforts and talents, which was a great way to leave off.

Apparently only 20% of people actually solve the room, and we were in the top 20% of that, all while trying to take in the meta of it all, go League of Furies!!!

Final thoughts: this really was like if watching the show was a thing you could live through in real time. If you've ever wanted to be tormented by Mofftiss in a more visceral way, this room is exactly what you're looking for. Also shoutout to Andrew, who acted his absolute heart out, 15/10 thanks for all the M Theory, it was delicious

Also once again to reiterate, I can't believe James Moriarty gave me COVID, after all I have done for him, rest in pieces except he isn't even dead all the way.

I guess 4 months of not being able to breathe fully was the real lungs meta all along.

Can't wait for the Mind of Moriarty game next though for real, that's gonna be Bonkers, if one of the scenes is a virtual version of the waterfall scene from TAB I think I would combust on the spot

Thanks for reading!!! Sorry this took me forever only to be such a casual writeup in the end, but hopefully this recreation of my mental breakdown in a mall was entertaining.

#rebs blogging #the game is now #tjlc

[eleanorfenyx]

I have finished Mysterious Lotus Casebook, and here are some of my thoughts! (Obviously not spoiler free)

The cases are absolutely batshit insane and I loved it every single time they were like 'we totally collected this evidence that incriminates a secret suspect, just believe us and also don't question when the fuck we had the time to do this or when we figured out that we needed to look for it'. 10/10 no notes, that's a hilarious way to have a genius detective. Show us nothing, tell us everything, YES king.

That being said, I could have done with a lot less standing around having the supporting cast repeat whatever Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing announce, maybe in an attempt to make sure their genius is clear for the audience? I get it, but at the same time it felt a little too hand-holdy for me, especially in scenes where LLH and FDB had already discussed their findings between themselves before presenting them to the concerned bystanders. I can read between the lines (or else understand what has just been explicitly stated) without having every conclusion filtered through a slightly different sentence structure to make sure I got it.

Di Feisheng amnesia arc my fuckin beloved

Di Feisheng destroying his 'father' and freeing everyone in Di manor in a vicious act of catharsis that tied nicely into the main Nanyin bug-mind-control-thing narrative my beloved

Di Feisheng my beloved

The amount of times I was like...genuinely surprised he and Li Lianhua didn't kiss is both embarrassing (because I do in fact understand censorship and what I sign up for with these dramas and yet and yet) and numerous enough that I could...possibly...theoretically..write a 5+1 fic of every time I want them to kiss about it. No one hold me to that but it's something I think I'd like to do.

Re: the above point: because what the FUCK was that ending?!!! EXCUSE ME?! I gotta FIX THAT SHIT.

There will come a day when the strength of my hope for an unambiguously happy ending in a queer(-coded? is the source originally bl or is this its own thing?) wuxia drama is rewarded....but it is not this day. I must fix this myself.

Jiao Liqiao's laugh is one of the most annoying things I've ever heard. I was reaaaaally hoping someone would just up and stab her during one of her little evil laughing fits. At one point I was shouting "KILL HER, KILL HER" at my screen because I could NOT take anymore of her (unfortunately, I did in fact have to take more of her).

I still think her insistence on being obsessed with DFS is hysterical when he is so VISIBLY only interested in LLH. Explicitly STATES that his only life purpose is to fuck fight LLH again. Babygirl (derogatory) he is so fucking gay let's get you a nice knife to the gut instead, okay?

I thought the whole Shan Gudao plot was interesting, going from looking desperately for his body -> putting him to rest -> hunting for his murderer -> finding out he's alive/the mastermind behind everything going wrong (which I was proud of myself for realizing before the reveal, I'm normally bad at that) -> thwarting him with sass and superior martial arts at every possible turn -> killing him stone fuckin dead with beginner level skills because he's so up his own hole he can't see that's what's happening - was really fun!

He also has a SUPER annoying laugh he can fuck off

OH OH OH MARTIAL ARTS SKILL OF TRANS YOUR GENDER?! I MARRIED HER SO HER AFFAIRS ARE MY BUSINESS NOT YOURS??? ASKING YOUR WIFE FOR HER FORGIVENESS AND UNDERSTANDING AS YOU LAY DYING AND SHE GIVES IT TO YOU?????? OKAYYYYYYY

The twist at the end that LLH is the one with royal blood was so funny to me. Like it's a good twist and I love that Shan Gudao was just quite literally always a fuckin try-hard loser in ways he didn't even know, but also it was SO funny. Granny coming in clutch at the last fuckin minute with secret knowledge she just literally never shared.

LLH is such a smooth motherfucker. Shame about his insistence on dying when quite literally everyone (bar the people who suck) is begging this man to just live. Just LIVE DAMN IT!!!!! I really liked it when FDB begs him to just consider his own life as important for ONCE and remember that people care about him because YES his self-sacrificing and committment to Chilling Out Farmer Style was not the mercy he thought it was!

LIVE AND GROW OLD WITH DI FEISHENG YOU DAMN IDIOT (the likelihood of me resisting the urge to write at least the one fic for them is zero to none)

Unironically love spitting up blood as a plot device and this show is no different. The Drama. The Panache. The desperation of everyone around you because you have BLOOD coming out of your MOUTH and you are FAINTING. Poison acting up? Spit blood. Someone bitch slap you with their magical palm ability? Spit blood. Get stressed? Spit blood. Get stabbed? Spit blood. It's always good!

Okay I think that might be all I've got for now, if I think of anything else I'll add them in a reblog. I thoroughly enjoyed it, would definitely recommend!

#mysterious lotus casebook #my thoughts #for whatever they're worth #it was nice too because unlike say Word of Honor I didn't mind the overarching plot about the jianghu #and the magical cures/objects that everyone is racing/fighting each other to get to first #WOH was just plain boring outside of the interpersonal relationships in my opinion #but in this there were only a few times I really just did not care about the latest fetch quest and wanted to get back to the relationships

[linkspooky]

BUNGOU STRAY DOGS, CHAPTER 127 THOUGHTS

There are some incredibly interesting parallels in the Akutagawa vs. Atsushi fight, and the standoff between Dosteovsky and Sigma going on this chapter. Especially in regards to how three of them are related to Dazai. Let's look at the parallels and the potential future for these characters under the cut

1. Dazai-san, Dazai-san, Dazai-san!

One of the most interesting parallels in this chapter is the relationship to Dazai that all three of these characters have. Akutagawa who Dazai recruited to the mafia, Atsushi who he recruited to the Detective Agency, and now Sigma who he chose as his item to escape from the prison and it looks like if they get out alive together he will invite to join the agency.

More specifically though, I want to analyze it in terms of Dostoevsky's statement to Sigma. That Dazai preyed upon Sigma's desire for a home, and then waved becoming a member of the detective agency over his head in order to get Sigma to do what he wants.

While it seems to be a pretty transparent ploy on Dostoevsky's part in order to get Sigma to question his alliance with Dazai, after all Sigma has him at gunpoint and apparently cornered. He would say or do anything to get out of the situation, and it's not like Dostoevsky is against manipulating people.

At the same time, I think it's Dos's statement is more along the lines of a half-lie, and half-truth. Dazai is, after all, not someone who goes around adopting orphans out of the goodness of his heart. He's not also someone who's so selfish that he only views people as tools for a larger objective. Dazai's character lies in the nuance between those two extremes.

Which is why I want to say there is a half-truth to Dos's statement. Dazai himself even confirmed this earlier, he had two reasons for recruiting Sigma, the first is that his ability will be useful, and the second is that he knew Do would kill him if he didn't choose Sigma.

The nuance lies there, you can both genuinely want to save or even care about someone, and you can also go so far as manipulate them. In general, my interpretation is that Dazai tries to manipulate people into doing what he thinks is best for them. After all, Sigma needs a place to stay, and the detective agency would be a home and a happy ending for him.

However, dirty methods for a good result doesn't always get the result you intended. Before returning to Sigma I want to briefly talk about the Atsushi and Sigma parallels. Atsushi is clearly set up as a foil to Sigma, Atsushi even goes out of his way and is especially compelled to try to save Sigma while he's falling.

Atsushi at first only saves Sigma because of the page, but then he starts to empathize with him after hearing the utter bleakness of his dying words. At which point he is personally trying to save him, causing Sigma to call him kind. Atsushi obviously also relates to those words, because he's so desperate to have a greater purpose in the world, to be an extraordinary hero rather than a nameless orphan.

Atsushi, Akutagawa, and Sigma are all orphans who have essentially had Dazai sweep into their lives and recruit them into an organization, giving them a home when they previously didn't have one. The detective agency is also, a much healthier environment for Atsushi obviously, because he's in a better place than say Akutagawa who was left behind in the mafia and spent a lot of the beginning of BSD bitter and spiraling because of that.

However, there's a pretty serious downside to the way Dazai recruited both Atsushi and Akutagawa. Akutagawa's strained relationship with Dazai is pretty obvious, so rather than dwell on that let's talk about Atsushi for a second.

Atusshi's extreme indecisiveness has been highlighted this arc over and over again. An Atsushi removed from the detective agency, and more particularly Dazai is constantly struggling to make decisions for himself. I don't believe in this case though, that Atsushi's upbringing in the orphanage is entirely to blame for this.

There are two reasons I would lay the blame for Atsushi's total indecisiveness at Dazai's feet more than anyone else.

First is, Dazai's habit is to manipulate people for their own good, but also to take away decisions from them. Second is when Dazai helps people, it's always with the unwritten implication that they now owe him for his help. Even if he doesn't directly say it, Atsushi obviously believes that he has to EARN his place in the detective agency.

This is Dazai. He nudges them in the direction that he thinks is best for them. Sometimes this takes the form of everyone just following Dazai's plan, because he's the machiavellian scheme r of the group, just Atsushi going where Dazai wants him to go, and fighting who Dazai wants him to fight. Or, like the scenes where Dazai deliberately staged a test to let Kyouka join the agency that would also make her overcome her death wish.

Sometimes, this takes the form of Dazai pitting Atsushi and Akutagawa against each other, two people who might have gotten along a lot earlier and sympathized with each other, if Dazai hadn't made them fight each other because HE THOUGHT that was the best way to make their individual abilities stronger.

Like, yes Akutagawa was in the mafia and murder is a big no-no for Atsushi, but Atsushi was able to sympathize with a murderer like Kyouka from very early on despite being aware of all her crimes. There wasn't really any reason for Atsushi and AKutagawa to fight, until Dazai made one.

However, this isn't to question the morality of Dazai's actions in making people's choices for them, but rather to point out the results. There's a reason that every. single. time. Atsushi cannot make a decision for himself he pictures Dazai suddenly showing up and telling him the answer.

By positioning himself as Atsushi's savior, and even giving Atsushi a home, Dazai's basically put himself in a position where number one Atsushi believes in a pretty idealized version of Dazai, and number Atsushi thinks he OWES Dazai. These things make Atsushi pretty obedient to Dazai in general. There's a reason that in Beast which is the darkest timeline for Atsushi, Atsushi is so paralyzingly afraid of making his own decisions he has a mental breakdown unless Dazai gives him orders to follow. He literally wears a collar that Dazai gave him.

Now, for Atsushi in the main story, aren't we witnessing him go through something similiar? Sure, he's not massacring people and breaking down in tears like White Reaper Atsushi, but every time someone throws up a roadblock on his path he literally begs Dazai to show up, and when he doesn't he imagines Dazai magically telling him what to do.

All of these subtle manipulations have made Atsushi pretty obedient to Dazai, and also, doubtful of his stability in the detective agency and left with the idea he has to earn his keep. Now in an arc where Atsushi is separted from the detective agency for a long time now, and also separated from Dazai and unable to follow his plans we are watching him continually choke underneath the pressure.

Which is where we get the results of Dazai's dirtier methods, Dazai isn't really raising Atsushi into a strong, independent adult, he's making Atsushi into a tool. I don't think his intentions are fully to use Atsushi as a tool, but rather his methods end up with that result.

There's a difference between the way Dazai takes in orphans, and the way Oda does. He says as much in Dark era.

"I have this friend who's supporting several orphans all on his own, you see," he continued his weapon still drawn and aimed at the boy. "Akutagawa, I'm sure Odadsaku would've been patient enough to give you the guideance you needed had he been the oe who found you on the brink of starvation in the slums. That would've been the "right" thing to do. But "righteousness" doesn't sit kindly to me. And there's only one thing that people like me do to useless subordinates."

Obviously, Dazai's undergone character development since then, but just compare the orphans Dazai takes in to the ones that Oda does. Oda's orphans don't have any special abilities or talents, they're just kids that he raises and supports with money. Atsushi, Akutagawa, and even Sigma all have an ability that benefits Dazai in some way.

In fact, in the AU where Oda does take Akutagawa in, despite having an incredibly overpowered ability, Akutagawa doesn't get to join the agency until he's undergone personal development and spent time with every single member to learn how to be a better person first.

Which is what Akutagawa needs, he's constantly stuck in survival mode and believes everything is a vicious battle for his life, much like Atsushi he's never been allowed to be a normal kid for a single second in his life. Beast allows Akutagawa to develop as a person rather than a Beast fighting to survive.

Dazai skips a pretty important step in their personal growth for all three of them, focusing more into shaping what he needs them to be for a greater mission.

Atsushi's still working to earn someone else's praise, Akutagawa's still ready to die for Dazai's sake because he believes that will give his life meaning, Sigma is still desperate to do anything that will give him a home. Mori, of all people in the Beast Epilogue, points out that this is the wrong way to raise a child, because you don't raise a child to be what YOU WANT THEM TO BE. You raise them so they can grow up and figure out what THEY WANT TO BE, and grow into their own person.

To give Dazai the benefit of the doubt, he's probably not doing this intentionally, but the result of it is that both Akutagawa and Atsushi are very, very compliant with his orders. After all, if they were like, free thinking adults they might disagree with him or tell him no.

Which is why while it is a good thing for Sigma to join the detective agency, and is probably the best ending for him, at the same time Dazai just dangling joining the detective agency out there to Sigma as bait to get him to do what he wants is not starting out on the right foot.

Because Dazai doesn't save people out of the goodness of his heart, he takes people in and then they owe him something back. Which is what Dos is trying to get at when undermining Sigma.

The detective agency is a much better place for Sigma, but if Sigma joins the detective agency because he think he owes Dazai, or the agency something for giving him a home, it's essentially a repeat of the way that Dos used him. Atsushi has the same desperation to continually prove himself to the agency, as Sigma once did to try to protect the casino.

2. SAVE ME!

Now to finally focus on the Sigma and Akutagawa parallels, both Akutagawa and Sigma are characters who are most likely going to finish their arcs by joining the detective agency. They are also both orphans who need to be saved.

A particularly strong parallel between the two of them is that they were both initially taken into a harmful organization, only because of their ability. Akutagawa is a starving child in the slums, but he so happened to be born with an insanely strong ability to turn his clothing into weapons which causes Dazai to fish him out of the slums and bring him into the mafia which is his current "home" so to speak. Though, a home where he has to earn his keep and is considered disposable if he's not useful.

Sigma was literally created by the book, and then found, and given a place to call home by Dostoevsky, implicitly because his ability was useful. He also once agan, put Sigma into a position where he had to earn his keep. He took advantage of the fact Sigma came from nothing and had no home, and was terrified of going back to having nothing to make him willing to risk his life and everything else to defend the sky casino.

They are both deceived into thinking they have been saved or taken in, when really they are still fighting for their own survival. It's what stunts their growth so much as people, if you're continually in survival mode, and completely insecure in your living situation and attachment to other people then how are you supposed to grow and develop as a person?

They are also essentially people who come from "nothing" though the nothing is poverty in Akutagawa's case, they're also people who were victimized by crimminal organizations, Sigma by human traffickers, and Atsushi by the port Mafia, until they were rescued by their not-so-benevolent "saviors."

They are also, both in a way resigned to their own deaths. Sigma accepts falling off of the casino to his death, and thanks Atsushi for simply TRYING to save him (please get higher standards Sigma). Akutagawa's accepted that he's going to die soon for his illness, so he's willing to put everythig on the line in a final gambit to pass Dazai's "TEST" and then make Dazai's promise that he will give meaning to Akutagawa's death.

Sigma: I never understood what I was born for.

Akutagawa: I want you to find a reason.. a meaning to my life."

They're also looking for someone else to give them the answer to themeaning of their life, and the person who promises that they feel indebted to. Sigma is of course, a little more aware than Dos is using him than Akutagawa is towards Dazai, but they both end up ultimately doing what Dos and Dazai wants them to do.

They've been taken in by someone, but they haven't been saved, which is why both of them are so easily resigned to their death. This is also where Atsushi comes in for both characters. Yes, it's Atsushi's bad habit to play hero. He saves people because he wants someone to protect, because protecting someone makes him feel like he's needed and worthy to live.

However, while Atsushi may have self-interested reasons for saving people that he doesn't seem fully aware of yet, I also believe he's more capable of relating to their personal feelings as a fellow victim than Dazai is. The moments when Atsushi truly saves someone is when he relates to them, when he exposes his own scarring and vulnerability to them in a way of saying "Hey, I'm suffering through this too that's why I want to help you."

That's why say, Atsushi's bond with Lucy just feels more natural and less codependent than his bond does with Kyouka. Atsushi didn't start with Lucy by thinking (Hey, if I protect her does that mean I'm a good boy and earn good boy points???) Also, Atsushi explicitly did not show up and save Lucy despite the fact he promised to. Because his moment of saving her wasn't showing up as a hero and rescuing her as a damsel, but relating to her feelings.

Atsushi also explicitly fails at saving Sigma. He goes the extra mile to try to save him, but Sigma falls anyway. Yet, Sigma remarks that Atsushi is kind because he empathized with the part of Sigma that believes he didn't mean anything to anyone in the world and was ultimately disposable. Which shows underneath this big hero persona that Atsushi puts on, he is genuinely someone who wants to help people who are lonely and scared just like he is.

So, Atsushi's approach to saving both Akutagwa and Sigma is different from Dazai's approach. I'm not going to say because Atsushi is more empathic and Dazai is low-empathy that Atsushi is a better person.

No, I think it's more like Atsushi tries to approach them as equals. At least, when he doesn't see them as a damsel in distress to earn good boy points, Atsushi is capable of exposing a part of himself to these people and showing them they're not alone in their suffering. Dazai is so distant to other people, he doesn't know how to relate to them on their level. Which is why he always takes control in the relationship.

Which is where we get to this chapter, Dazai isn't Akutagawa's savior. Atsushi is. This is the great narrative challenge that has been set up for Atsushi.

Atsushi and Sigma are both stuck in a situation where someone they don't udnerstand has just selflessly tried to save them for reasons they don't understand. (I won't dwell on this too long, but I think Dazai was genuinely willing to risk his life and put Sigma's life above his own, not just because Sigma's useful to the detective agency but because he's an innocent).

Atsushi doesn't understand why Akutagawa would selflessly sacrifice himself to save Atsushi. Partially, because Atsushi has been trained to see the bad in Akuatagawa rather than the good in him (hello there, Dazai).

However, on top of that I think geuniely Atsushi doesn't really understand that someone would go out of their way to save him without asking him something in return. It's not just the selfless action coming from Akutagawa that baffles him, but the selflessness of the action itself.

As for speculating for Akutagawa's reasons for saving Atsushi, I think it goes back to Atsushi's reasons for helping Lucy, there's something similiar about the wounds they've suffered in the past and Akutagawa sees that in Atsushi and relates to his pain. A lot of the attempts to connect have been on Akutagawa's part.

He comforted Atsushi the day that the orphanage headmaster died. When Atsushi challenges him not to kill people, Akutagawa genuinely keeps his end of the bargain. Akutagawa does attempt to take care of the people he sees himself in in his own way, he did it for Kyouka in a twisted way, and was genuinely happy for her when he saw she no longer wanted to die.

Atsushi tells Lucy that just letting innocent people in the street die as a part of the guild's plan, would be the same as letting the childhood versions of themselves die. It'd be repeating what was done to them. Atsushi, Akutagawa, Lucy they've all been wounded because the people in their lives who were supposed to take care of them didn't. Now, despite those wounds, all three also attempt to reach out and take care of others, because they know what being abandoned is like.

Akutagawa probably just saved Atsushi because he relates to him, coupled on top of the fact that Akutagawa knew he was going to die soon, so if one of them was going to live might as well be the one who has a life to live and a chance at happiness.

Akutagawa has also, due to the vampire's power in him, basically become a dark and twisted version of what Dazai intended him to be. Dazai scouted him for his ability, and then made his ability strong without really caring about who Akutagawa was or what his needs were as a person.

He also made Akutagawa into someone willing to die to earn his praise. Now we have Akutagawa as a literal undead zombie, that just violently attacks everything near him. He doesn't even bother to defend himself, just like Akutagawa has no regard for his own life. He just attacks, regenerates, and attacks, he's a living weapon of violence. He's a mindless zombie too, just like in his previous life he was pretty obedient to Dazai's orders.

Which is exactly the narrative challenge that is being set up here for Atsushi. Akutagawa saved Atsushi because he saw something of himself in him, but also because he believed he was going to die anyway and he was less worthy of salvation. Now it is time for Atsushi to return the favor to Akutagawa. Akutagawa won't save himself, and he won't get better with outside help, so he needs someone else to convince him that there's more to life than what he's currently seeing.

It's a narrative challenge especially because killing him would be the easier option here, Akutagawa is already dead technically, and a mindless zombie that will keep attacking everyone around him until someone puts a bullet in his brain, and then another one to double tap.

Yet, Atsushi isn't doing that. He doesn't even considering it an option. He jumps straight to trying to reason with Akutagawa even in mindless zombie mode. It's already been hinted last chapter that Akutagawa might still be in there because he didn't immediately go after Bram Stoker. Now, not only does Atsushi believe that he can reach Akuatagawa, he's actively trying to reach out for him.

Which really is just tremendous character growth on Atsushi's part. He's finally learning to see Akutagawa as a person and trying to reach that person. To do otherwise would be to abandon the child he used to be.

#akutagawa ryunosuke #atsushi nakajima #bsd meta #bungou stray dogs meta #bungou stray dogs #bsd 107 #bungou stray dogs 107 #bungou stray dogs 107 spoilers #bsd 107 spoilers #dazai osamu #sskk #shin soukoku

[utilitycaster]

i feel like for the critical role trauma thing i HAVE to ask about caleb even if that’s a subject that’s been talked to death. i’m also super interested in your thoughts on Yasha in this conversation

The thing about Caleb is he is very visibly not okay from the get-go. He has a mechanical penalty to killing humanoids with fire which we see very early on. Then his backstory came out pretty much in full quite early as well. And before I continue, I want to stress: I really love Caleb as a character. I think his story is fantastic. He is hands down my favorite Liam character. He is complicated and difficult and sympathetic and heartbreaking.

He also garnered some of the most unbelievably toxic type 2 (ie, "um he is traumatized and can do no wrong?") fans I've seen in my LIFE, and many of them were also mixed with the "there's only room for one traumatized person in this d&d party and therefore whoever fits my idea of What Trauma Looks Like and/or whoever I personally project onto the most is the winner." I'm talking people actually getting on my posts and saying "why haven't the Nein stopped all the pesky adventuring and world-saving they're doing and taken him to Duasad Keef (an NPC only mentioned in the EGTW at the time, ie, post hiatus when the plot pretty quickly went to Eiselcross and stayed there, whose methods of therapy would actually probably be triggering for Caleb and who was probably well out of their paygrade and frankly unlikely of anyone else in the party to have heard of)." Those people have largely left because they hated that Caleb decided the best revenge was doing what he could to heal and living well and ensuring no one in the future would suffer as he had, rather than murdering the entire assembly and presumably dying in the process, but man, they left a mark.

There's definitely his detractors too, and I have no patience for the "ewwww sadboy attention hog" people, many of whom were either of the "I am feeling uncomfortable when we are not about Beau?" variety or that bizarre cohort of people who just fucking hate Liam for reasons I have never been able to fathom, but I'm not going to lie, as someone who likes Caleb a lot, the fandom response was rough because there was definitely a noticeable faction who really just did not accept the idea that basically everyone in the Nein had some degree of trauma. The High Richter Heist is a great example. Fjord holds Caleb at swordpoint for deviating from the plan. We later learn that while Caleb is acting from his trauma (trying to collect as many books as possible to achieve the purpose that is frankly his main reason for living at that time), Fjord is just as much acting from his (was very recently betrayed by Sabian deviating from the plan in an all hands on deck situation, stabbing him, and blowing up the ship leaving everyone, Fjord included, to drown). The infamous Bowlgate, not long after, is also a similar case of Beau and Caleb's respective traumas clashing. It's why Campaign 2 is so good, but man, it really is a litmus test if someone's like "actually Caleb is objectively 100% right in either of these situations;" you know you're dealing with either an idiot or someone who can't conceive of the possibility that trauma isn't a competition that Caleb has obviously won.

So, with that, Yasha: I think Yasha is tough for a few reasons. The first is that she wasn't around a lot early on, so while we learned the basics of her backstory in episode 46 we simply didn't see how she reacted in all situations. The second is that the fandom is specifically really fucking bonkers about people whose romantic partners die young; see again how people were like "see? Orym would be happier dead with Will!" like that isn't the kind of statement anyone with a brain would be MORTIFIED to say. So there was some of that with Yasha. I think the extent of what happened with Obann came up in a pretty dense arc and only got unpacked after the fact (and once Ashley was at the table regularly). And finally, Yasha got a lot of hate from shippers that was not strictly related to her trauma but did sometimes include it. So she's an interesting case of "trauma not so much ignored as frequently misconstrued or taken in bad faith to support interpretations barely related to Yasha herself, compounded by the fact that you had to read between the lines to understand her trauma in the first place."

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag #caleb widogast #yasha nydoorin

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not taking care of my mom any longer when she's drunk? TW for discussion of alcoholism, some of depression, mentions for drugs, and child abuse? Idk if it was it. English is not my first language, and this got a bit long.

To make it short, my (23M) mom (54F) has been an alcoholic for as long as I remember. She met my dad on A.A., so this has been a thing for a long time (they're divorced and have been since I was 7, for the record).

She was also addicted to Xanax and smoking, so a regular occurrence on my childhood was seeing her either passed out and drugged up on her bed/couch, or seeing her completely sedated but awake. And whenever she was sedated but awake, she would make stupid things/dangerous things, although the most common occurrence was her falling to the floor because she couldn't stand still. Given I was the only other person on the house, I had to take care of her, and try to prevent her do things that would be bad for her/help her get out of situations, which included, for example, try to make her stand up when she fell or bring her to bed.

While she stopped doing Xanax and smoking when I was around... ~14 I think (I have a bad perception of time), she still drinks wine specifically, an entire carton of wine a night. And given I still live with her, I still have to help her when she gets drunk, because she does it every night. But I ended up feeling tired of having to take care of my mom. And I know she's an addict and doesn't do it on purpose, but her alcoholism has been fucking me up. I know she has it worse because she's the alcoholic and I'm not, but it has been affecting me too, and this is a thing that has been repeating for a long time.

Here's where I might be TA: I'm no longer helping her do things when she's too drunk to do them. If she falls to the floor, I pretend I didn't heard it or I'm asleep, waiting until she stands up on her own. I'm not making her go to bed anymore, fall asleep anywhere at all, I don't care. I realize this can sound pretty egoistical of me, because once again she obviously doesn't drinks just to inconvenience me but because she's sick, and I know she loves me, but I'm also tired of having to be the responsible one in this case.

I'm interested on knowing Tumblr's opinion, though. Am I the asshole for not helping my alcoholic mom? I know this pretty much sounds like validation bait, but I really don't know if I'm on the right or not, because addicts don't need judgment they need help, and I'm not helping. If I end up being voted as YTA then I will just help her again, I suppose

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[misery-has-no-company-now]

For angst purposes (and loosely based on Nevada Joins the Table) -

Gov has a lot of control over these states; far more than any other. The higher the percentage of federal land in the state, the more control he has over that state.

Nevada practically has to agree to everything Gov wants. He barely has any choice in his life anymore. Gov practically owns him.

The top 5 states (Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Alaska, and Oregon) can actually easily be summoned by Gov just by him saying "(State), come here." All the 10 can be summoned by Gov actually but the lower 5 (Wyoming, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico) are tougher to call like that since they have more power to refuse but the upper 5? No choice. Whatever they doing, it doesn't matter. They are forced to stop it and appear in front of Gov. Nevada and Utah have on multiple occasions been called in the dead of night when they were fast asleep (yes Nevada needs his beauty sleep) to 'see' Gov and they had to go. In front of the other states, Gov just pretends that with the exception of Nevada, he cannot summon any of these other states without Florida's help. But when no one else is there, he uses the power he holds over them thanks to the federal land he occupies in these states freely as he pleases.

Gov also uses this to his advantage by forcing these five to agree with him on whatever he says doing the meetings, much to their (and everyone else who knows') anger.

They spend many a night crying in each other's arms due to the helplessness that engulfs them daily. Sometimes there's also bitterness towards and resentment against the other states who are 'more free' than them. But it's not like they can do anything about it anyway, though the other states sometimes try to help them by convincing or forcing Gov to not do something he wanted to towards them/make them do something he wished for.

Since some of the states on this list were amongst the last few ones to be admitted to the union (like Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Alaska), they didn't realise for quite a long time that Gov's power over them was not normal, and that most of the other states had a lot more control over their land and themselves. Nevada and Oregon are kind of older in terms of statehood (so is California but he's not in the top 5 so didn't feel the effects this much) and thus they knew from the start that this was not right; but obviously again there was nothing they could do. It just hurt them more since they were aware of the freedom they were denied.

Literally all these states are in the west. Except Washington and Montana (and I guess Hawaii too but she doesn't consider herself as in the west since she joined the meeting of misfits so...yeah), all the western states are in this list and highly under Gov's control (maybe that's why the west decided to take turns in being the leader, because none of them wanted to be around him for longer than they needed to be, and that's why Washington went first). Gov finds it more convenient and easier to deal with have meetings with the west and all the western states (including the other two) are kind of scared of him and his power even if not all of them show it.

Since New Mexico and Wyoming are my go-to angst states (aka the ones I apparently love hurting the most), even though they have more control due to a smaller percentage of their state being federal land and Gov technically should have less power over them, he has hurt them and threatened them so much (like with atomic bombs in New Mexico's case, implying/outright announcing that he might take away their statehood and make them a territory under his charge again to both of them, then in Wyoming's case reminding him how much the others forget that he is a state - and now Gov is one of the few who remembers their existence, etc.) that he exerts a lot more authority over the two of them too.

All of this is largely why the West is so messed up :( [in their heads, I mean]. That's all I have for now but feel free to add on. Unfortunately for these states, I consider the west the best for angst (:

#the west will not escape neither Gov's control nor my desire to feel sad for them #especially not new mex or wyom #welcome to the table #wttt #wttt alaska #wttt arizona #wttt california #wttt colorado #wttt gov #wttt idaho #wttt nevada #wttt new mexico #wttt oregon #wttt utah #wttt washington #wttt wyoming #wttt the western states #additional mentions - florida & hawaii & montana

[susansontag]

for people who have read the neapolitan/my brilliant friend quartet, I have a question: how do you interpret the moment in book 3 where professor galiani humiliates elena in favour of lila?

I was reading about people interpreting this moment in the show on reddit, and was struck by all the differing viewpoints. the two most prominent ones focus on lila and her two opposing reactions to elena's dismissal by the professor, publicly trying to make it seem like elena looks down on her by saying to galiani that she didn't invite her to her wedding, whereas outside afterwards badmouthing the galiani family and telling elena she noticed how awfully they treated her. iirc, lila also uses this moment where she seems to be on elena's side to chastise her for placing so much merit on what the educated galianis think and do, further complicating the issue of exactly what lila is thinking at this moment and whether she's trying to play both sides.

one viewpoint is that lila isn't fooled by the professor and thinks she's merely complimenting her as a means of humiliating lenù, and is sincerely on elena's side. the other viewpoint is that she sincerely liked being complimented and focused on, and even partly enjoyed her more educated friend being put down and dismissed by someone she cared about, whilst also simultaneously realising she should feel bad about this, hence the cold comfort she gives lenù afterwards. I think there's merit to both of these viewpoints and will say that, whatever is correct, I do think lila sincerely dislikes professor galiani but also, like most people, loves being complimented.

but what really gets me is: for what purpose does professor galiani treat elena this way? so much focus on lila, the enigma, but not enough people asking why galiani is being such a dick lmao.

I myself wonder if we're supposed to view this moment where elena's mentor (professor galiani) puts her down as parallel to the one in their teenage years where lila's mentor (maestra oliviero), puts lila down. in both cases, we have an educated mentor showing disapproval towards one of them for various reasons. with oliviero it's obvious as she clarifies to elena later—she thinks lila's intellectual talents have been wasted and is disgusted/disappointed at her having become a housewife with, in her opinion, nothing going on in her head. with galiani it's much less clear, but I wonder if we're supposed to use the earlier instance to help us interpret it—when galiani snidely remarks about how elena has 'married well', are we supposed to interpret this as judgement of her, who held promise, effectively resigning herself to the role of a wife and mother (ironically, exactly the same judgement that lila received)? are we supposed to interpret her favouritism towards lila sincerely, so perhaps we could say she views lila as dynamic, involved in the class struggle, whereas elena has chosen the stasis that comes with the role of being a housewife? (interestingly, later on mariarosa similarly says she can't believe elena stayed with her brother and had children with him, a fairly similar view of elena's choices). this once again opposes oliviero's earlier assessment that lila 'chose' stasis and to remain inside the world of the neighbourhood, whereas elena was able to escape it through education and thus was in motion. so they change places, mirror each other, etc, during various moments in the story.

someone else on this reddit thread said that, to them, galiani's comment about marrying well was actually her being jealous her own daughter (nadia) had not done so, but tbh I think that's a misinterpretation of galiani's cutting intent with that remark. I think she's genuinely expressing disappointment and dissatisfaction with elena in some way.

we obviously can't take lenù's assessment of lila's intentions too seriously without understanding that she is prone to reading competition and jealousy into their relationship due to her longstanding feelings of inferiority in that dynamic. but how do you guys interpret both lila's and galiani's viewpoints and intentions during these moments? was lila sincere? was galiani sincere in her praise of lila or did she only want to hurt elena? really curious to know what people thought of this. also note I haven't finished book 3 but I'm close to doing so.

#my brilliant friend #elena ferrante #what I'm reading #moth.txt

[carlyraejepsans]

Sans Undertale.

the funny one. blue guy. skeleton dude. if u please

favorite thing about them: god how to choose. i love how contradictory he is. i love how much he blends into the background and has a net zero relevance on the game's story, and yet he sticks out like a sore thumb, both thematically and tonally. the judgement spiel makes him the direct deliverer of a core game mechanic, and yet he's... such an outsider about it. i love how morally grey he is. a resonance hybrid between a painfully selfless good man and a self serving bastard. he's the depressed nihilistic man. he is his girlfriend's manic pixie dream girl. he is just some guy. he is the last barrier against universal annihilation. he serves cunt (but only once). he parallels flowey in his refusal to engage the narrative, but whereas the narrative starts orbiting flowey instead, sans condems himself as the audience to the player's actions. #finalgirl. also it's still a theory, but if the otherworld stuff is ever confirmed ingame that will make him the most video game character of all fucking time. hands down. no competitors.

least favorite thing about them: every morning i wake up and i stare in the mirror and i ask myself "do i wanna fuck sans undertale??" and i hesitate. and well i could do without that kind of pressure

favorite line: "that's a promise" "besides. chances are... i've already tried to steer you in the right direction. so what can i say? what can i say that will change the mind of a being like you...?"

brOTP: i like whatever he and grillby got going on. that barman/regular comradery, the mood of the bar late at night and being the only client left. the silent vulnerability of it. it's all hypothetical since grillby doesn't really Have much of a presence in the game, but they obviously get along well. alphys too, what a pair of nerds. oh my god i didn't mention papyrus. oh well, they don't feel like a brotp tbh, it's like. they're halves of the same coin. sans inevitably implies papyrus in my mind, and vice versa. do NOT separate them.

OTP: do you have to fucking ask

nOTO: you know people usually put stuff like incest or age gap ships here because they make them understandably uncomfortable, but if there's a ""ship"" that i violently HATE re:sans it's. whenever they make him and toriel a mother-son dynamic. i am not talking about platonic or qpr soriel, i love those as well, they are besties first and lovers maybe, i mean SPECIFICALLY the take that she's his mother. no the fuck she's not. infantilization of sans and mommyification of toriel aside, that's the entire point of their friendship she is NOT his mother. they're on the same level, he is literally the first person she's gone eye to eye with as an equal in her centuries of isolation and THAT is what helps her snap out of her cycle. she is not his superior, he is not her protège. it grosses me out so much.

random headcanon: half decent singer, but hates to sing in public unless he's being a clown on purpose. used to sing papyrus to sleep as a baby. that's a pretty standard hc though, uhhhh.... he hates drinking. though he's surprisingly knowledgeable about corks, for some reason.

unpopular opinion: abby i'm so sorry i know u like it & i 🤝 about it in some cases ex: specific fics we both like, but he does NOT canonically have 1HP outside of a genocide battle. and i'd really appreciate it if people stopped pushing that hc on everyone else.

song i associate with them: Pinch me by the Barenaked Ladies, and If I Ever Feel Better by Phoenix. helplessness but silly and helplessness but funky. v sans songs

favorite picture of them:

heart eyes motherfucker

#gonna finish a couple of these before i do the fanfic idea one #answered asks #undertale #sans #mtt game show