#because something is wrong

[hamletthedane]

I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

#shut up e #long post #Saturday thoughts #this has been in my drafts for a week haha #also this is the heart of why AI art feels so wrong #forget the discussion of copyright and theft etc - even if models were only trained on public domain they would still feel very wrong #because they’re not art. art is the labor of creation #even commercial art and art commissioned by the popes and kings of history: there is humanity in the labor of it #unrelated: I did not know living in the Bronx was now something to brag about. How the fuck do y’all New Yorkers afford this city???

[buggachat]

something so fucked up about Chat Noir’s whole deal is that he is in a lot of ways Adrien playing a character. Like Adrien picked up his miraculous and was told he’d be a superhero so he was like “ok, time to act like a superhero!” and he lets himself have fun w it and play up the role and let loose and kind of just allow himself to be silly and goofy and have fun and for once in his life not care about performing Perfection™.

But. But none of the other characters KNOW THAT. So everyone just sees Chat Noir and is like “look at this guy’s ego. He’s so full of himself. Surely it’d be fair to knock him down a few pegs” without being aware of how few pegs he actually HAS. He’s like the “insecure character who overcompensates in ego” trope except he’s really not doing it unironically, he’s just having a fun LARP pretending to have self worth in his off-hours but nobody else is on the same page about it being a game and he refuses to tell them. He just dramatically pouts about it and lets them laugh and pretends like he’s not internalizing it and it is almost 3 am and my brain forced me to write this instead of sleeping I’m gonna take a melatonin

#writing this my brain was like: what if he actually likes it? #what if he likes people openly criticizing him in ways nobody actually does to Adrien agreste? #because Adrien Agreste is perfect and can do no wrong. maybe he enjoys being insulted or something #and then I remembered chat noirs multiple breakdowns about feeling unworthy and yknow what yeah I don’t think he likes it LOL #do normal people actually fall asleep when they lie down #if you can’t tell I recently decided to make my random ml musings your guys’ business instead of keeping it to myself #hope you enjoy #buggachatter

[mumblesplash]

i know it’s like years old at this point but i love that one collab mumbo and grian did with tommyinnit bc it’s like the single most concentrated example i’ve seen of mumbo’s Chaos Nullification Powers

you get to see a bit of it on hermitcraft, mostly via his interactions with grian, but until seeing that collab it didn’t really hit me just how completely mumbo can no-sell other people’s attempts to control a situation. tommyinnit is possibly the single shoutiest, most chaotic minecraft youtuber out there, and in most videos i’ve seen he pretty much overwhelms everyone else and sets the tone for interactions because of this. but mumbo just. doesn’t let him. no matter how much tommy escalates in intensity, mumbo reacts with *exactly* the same energy he always does. grian largely comes across in the whole video as annoyed and reluctant to engage with the whole thing, but mumbo’s not even affected. he just rolls with anything he finds funny and basically ignores anything he disapproves of, only seeming more and more unflappable the harder anyone tries to get a rise out of him.

AND imo, this is the key to my favorite interpretation of him as a character

see, when the people around him are being more reasonable/calm, i think mumbo often comes across as anxious and a bit easily overwhelmed. the thing is, his nervous wet cat vibes do not scale. he has one setting. his responses to the last life ‘ah-ha!’ jokes and to hermitcraft 8 starting to crumble to pieces under a falling moon are almost identical.

mumbo jumbo is inexorably and eternally Just Some Guy, but that gets stranger and stranger the weirder his surroundings become. the giggly incredulousness that makes him an easy target for goofy puns looks Very different when it’s also his reaction to the impending end of the world.

#anyway yeah i have this whole idea in my head about mumbo’s friendship with grian from a characterization standpoint #bc i agree with the somewhat? common consensus that being friends with mumbo has made grian softer and friendlier over time #but i don’t think it was in a ‘reflecting back the kindness he’s being shown’ way #i think it’s because the more harsh and chaotic you try to be towards mumbo the more you feel ineffectual and out of control #and grian can’t handle it so he slowly becomes nicer until he feels like they’re on equal footing again #like don’t get me wrong i think they genuinely are good friends #and i don’t think this is necessarily something mumbo is doing on purpose #but i think the power dynamic going on under the surface is much more bizarre and weighted in mumbo’s favor than it seems at first glance #mumbling

[wren-kitchens]

im annoyed and a little pedantic so can i just say as a blanket statement

queerbaiting is when the promotion for a FICTIONAL STORY intentionally hints towards two characters having a romantic relationship, without any intention to follow through in the show, in order to get queer people watching without discouraging the homophobic enjoyers of the show

queerbaiting is NOT:

a celebrity who you think is queer because theyre gnc or they have a 'vibe'. that is a real person and they cannot queerbait

two friends of the same gender pretending to flirt with each other for fun. those are real people and they cannot queerbait

a show with two characters of the same gender who are canonically friends that YOU PERSONALLY think would be better in a relationship. that's not bating, that's shipping, and subject to opinion

there are more but those are the main examples of people misunderstanding what queerbaiting is and being mad at something that isn't actually a problem

#the general rule if youre unsure is to ask yourself 'is that a real person i think is hinting that they are queer' and if the answer is yes #then that cannot be queerbaiting because thats a human person #apparently this is not a known fact anymore but even celebrities are human and have human emotions and human experiences #so sometimes their experiences appear to match yours and if your experience stems from your queer identity then often you can assume that #the celebrity in question is also queer #you may be right but you're probably wrong because you do not know that celebrity and have no way of knowing if they do not explicitly say #also its none of your business #anyway im annoyed at how many people dont know what queerbaiting is anymore #no jimmy solidarity and joel smallishbeans are not queerbaiting because they are FRIENDS and they are allowed to interact with each other #however they like because they are FRIENDS and they are not even remotely trying to hint that they themselves are queer or something #queerbaiting #queer #lgbtq #wren wrambles

[egophiliac]

LET THE BOY HAVE AN EDUCATION

officially at the point where we're starting to see where it's all headed and I am just going NYEEHEEHEE in delight at it all. ahhh...next week can't come soon enough...

#art #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland spoilers #stage in playful land #stage in playfulland #leona: (devises an actually somewhat clever plan to take out the staff-puppets without breaking any rules) #leona: (taken out two seconds later because he sat down in the wrong place) #at this point i'm half expecting the ssr boys to actually bust in with a big sandwich platter or something #a cake with 'please don't kidnap people :)' written on it in shaky icing #kalim isn't good at plans but he DOES throw a good shindig and by god he's going to play to his strengths #also IT WASN'T SHINY TICKETS IT WAS GIDEL?! #MY BOY #MY BEAUTIFUL MAGICAL FELINE BOY #i mean i'm assuming at this point but that seems to be the implication #genuinely kind of shocked that they actually WERE being magicked into being extra gullible #it was ✨foreshadowing✨ all along... #the blot though! what about the blot! #is that going to be an issue or are we going to have enough to deal with already! #i have rocketed from 'i find these villains entertaining' to 'i am suddenly incredibly invested in them as characters' #LOOK there is one thing better than characters with sort of unhealthy codependent relationships #and that is characters with sort of unhealthy codependent relationships but TWIST IT'S NOT THE WAY YOU THINK #nyeeheeheeeeeee

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Tim is the first to find out the Red Hood’s identity and from then on sticks to Jason during patrol like glue (much to Jason’s chagrin, dammit, it would feel wrong to beat up Robin when he’s that starry eyed…)

Cue: PANIC from the rest of the Batfamily, who still think Hood is a forty-something year old crime lord and now assume they’re dating.

#misunderstandings #miscommunication #protective batfamily #dick is NOT having it #neither is Bruce #I connected the dots- YOU CONNECTED SHIT #I connected them #Tim is very confused about all the ‘you can tell us if anything is wrong’ talks #are they talking about the one time Jason shot at him? because honestly it was pretty obvious he wasn’t even trying to hit him it’s FINE #if I see anybody add something that comes even CLOSE to ship bashing I shall make this Jaytim out of spite #no bashin in this house nah-uh #maybe some mild joker bashing #but it’s still ok if you like him #let’s keep this ✨harmonious✨ #jason todd #dick grayson #batfam #bruce wayne #robin #tim drake #red hood #fic #Nightwing #Batman #prompts #this is part of my fic roster btw hehe

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...

#not a shitpost #serious post #ask to tag #tw trauma #cptsd #c-ptsd #and if so we should TALK about it #because it means there are a whole group of survivors out there whose mental health regularly worsens during holidays #like i know i am most certainly not the only person who feels an undefined Dread hanging over christmas/my birthday/july 4 etc #bc too many shitty things happened during those times and now my brain is hypervigilant bc traditionally these are the Danger Times #and this seems like it would be particularly common for survivors of abusive/dysfunctional households (aka most people with c-ptsd) #because holidays/vacations typically mean 1) the whole family is together/being forced to interact #2) and undergoing external stressors e.g. travel/relatives aka 'outsiders' visiting/routines & coping mechanisms being interrupted etc #3) there is social pressure for this to be a Fun Family Bonding Experience which only highlights the cracks in the foundation #and exposes the common Everything Is Fine/We Are A Happy Family lie #4) the cognitive dissonance of feeling tired/anxious/stressed/afraid during a time when you are 'supposed' to be Making Good Memories #and then everyone is angry/tired/anxious/triggered and things boil over and something or someone goes Very Wrong #weird that i'm posting this in october when halloween is...sort of the ONLY holiday i have only good and happy feelings towards #i got lucky there #also i have positive feelings towards Labor Day but that's for socialist reasons

[ironunderstands]

The way some of yall mischaracterize Ratio as being stoic in chill when in reality he is 24/7 resisting the urge to rip everyone around him a new one is crazy to me like. He cares so much, so much. It’s unhealthy, he loses the idgaf war every time because Ratio is the least nonchalant person ever like

He was this close to breaking character and throttling Sunday like you cannot tell me he wasn’t planning a murder in this scene. Ratio straight up calls Sunday a crazy bitch but everyone brushed it aside 😭

Honestly his entire conversation with Screwllum is just him tweaking, watch it on YouTube the VAs performance is amazing, you can here just how much He Cares

Genuinely, Aventurine is way better at concealing his true feelings that Ratio. Ratio may be acting for the sake of the plan but the way he truly feels about anything he’s doing always seeps through, it’s why he apologizes to Aventurine in 2.0 in their staged argument scene. It’s why he is as mean to Sunday as he can be. It’s why him pretending that he “hates” Aventurine makes him act so silly. Ratio can’t fully commit to the bit, he can’t force himself to not care or to be someone he isn’t, because fundamentally Ratio CARES and that is something he is incapable of hiding, alabaster bust or not.

The problem is that him expressing his care is often done in a rude and/or blunt manner which people tend to interpret as stoicism or apathy when it’s anything but. Ratio’s vial that he gives to Aventurine is short, sweet and gets straight to the point, because that’s the easiest way for Ratio to express his emotions, even if it’s often detrimental for him and anyone else around him. However Aventurine understands him quite well, and knows that although brief, Ratio telling him to “stay alive, survive this and keep on living” is how he truly feels towards Aventurine, and that’s enough to keep him going.

Underneath Ratios carefully crafted marble facade is a man who cares so much and is so bad at expressing it and I wish the community in general, especially Aventio shippers would acknowledge that more. Ratios true moments of sincerity are brief, but they are anything but stoic. Let the man be soft, it’s in character.

#This turned into a mini essay whoops #I hold Ratios party voiceline for Aven so close to my heart #Not the EN one idk what the translators were on but CN is UGHH it’s so good #Someone else can point out the potentially ableist undertones to how people view Ratio #I’m not gonna do that again because the last time was a disaster #“He’s selfish and cruel and narcissistic” *concerned glance* #Like I know some of it is just hoyo players having the media literacy of rocks #But like theres something wrong there just is it sits so wrong with me #Begging yall to write him correctly in fan content PLEASSEEE #dr ratio #aventurine #aventio #Not necessarily a ship post though

[perdamian]

hey guys… we all know that it’s okay for mithrun to have a caretaker for the rest of his life, right? that even after he heals and potentially regains his desires he will probably still need support?? that the goal of healing is not to become a “normal person”, but to build skills to navigate the world in a way that accommodates your disability??? that relying on the people around you is not a failure, but proof of your desire to live????

#i’ve seen multiple posts the last couple weeks saying that post-canon fan works that show mithrun w/ a caretaker #are ‘wrong’ because they imply that he will never overcome his trauma #there’s something more to be said about the difference in the perception of/expectations for mithrun’s recovery #depending on whether you read him as an allegory for depression or an allegory for chronic (physical) illness #both are valid btw - it just may change the way you headcanon his future (especially if you live with something similar yourself) #but that’s for another post that i will probably never make #dunmeshi #dungeon meshi #dungeon meshi spoilers #dunmeshi spoilers #mithrun #mithrun of the house of kerensil

[thedreadvampy]

Losing my shit about this article in which a transphobic Tory was so busy panicking about existing in the vicinity of a Trans that she almost certainly misheard "jeans" as "penis" and decided that not only was this a problem with the other woman, but also that the world must be informed of this pressing danger.

"a trans woman! I had to stand directly behind her....I thought, 'this is going well', I'm handling The Situation fine'..."

translated: I saw a tall woman with broad shoulders. How would I get out of this alive? I thought. she has a PENIS. PENIS PENIS PENIS. through some force of PENIS I mean will I managed to PENIS behave normally towards her. My hands were PENIS PENIS PENIS shaking as I tried to dry them. summoning up all my PENIS courage I said 'dryer's crap innit'. she turned to me and said " yeah I'm just goiPENIS PENIS PENIS"

It's been a week and I'm still shaking. This proves trans women are the problem and I'm not weird. I'm fine. It's fine. If you think about it I'm the hero hePENIS!!!!!

very this

#red said #it's just. I'm obsessed. #everyone on Twitter is saying 'never happened' and i think they're wrong #this absolutely did happen and she's been obsessing over how vindicated it made her feel enough to WRITE AN ARTICLE ABOUT IT #because she MISHEARD SOMEONE IN A CASUAL CONVERSATION #i lay out my reasoning thusly: if you were INVENTING a scary trans woman in bathroom story out of nothing. why would it be this? #why would you go with 'we had a banal conversation until she said a sentence that makes no sense and that no human has ever uttered #but which does coincidentally sounds almost exactly like a mishearing of a very NORMAL thing to say in the circumstances #then she left and nothing else occurred' #if you were going to INVENT a story you would probably make it MAKE SENSE or SOUND THREATENING #i truly believe this is a very authentically told account of what she thinks happened #because who would. by means other than mishearing. think 'I'm going to wipe my hands on my penis' makes any sense at all. #a) 'I'm going to dry my hands on my genitals' says the presumably fully clothed woman #b) who then proceeds to leave without doing anything threatening #c) WHO SAYS PENIS THREATENINGLY? sorry it's writing out 'penis' repeatedly that made this jump out to me but like. who says that? #you might hear someone talk casually about their dick or cock but i stg it's only doctors and TERFs who casually use the word penis much #it's so. clinically descriptive. it's a weird use of language. but it IS. something you could plausibly mishear from 'pants' or 'trousers'

[uncanny-tranny]

To any disabled person undergoing tests to find What's Wrong: I hope your results come back the way you hope and that you receive the help you need. I hope you are not denied care, I hope you are taken seriously even after this, and I hope that you will be taken care of compassionately

#disability #currently going through something like this for myself and while i doubt there's anything 'wrong' i still did it #people are always weird about people who are disappointed or devastated about 'normal results' but... #...it's because normal results don't mean much when you still have the issue at hand... #...if my test came back that my back is physically normal that doesn't indicate that i don't have back pain does it? #because i am still in pain so often even if i have a 'physically normal' back... #...just as an example but i don't think a lot of abled people 'get it' #also like... if your tests are coming back 'normal' every time that might give your care providers pause... #...and they might just start infantilizing you or treating you like a hypochondriac... #...'are you SURE [problem] isn't just anxiety?' 'are you SURE you're actually experiencing [x] or are you exaggerating it?'

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Swapping tips on how to be a bestie in the bath.

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wei wuxian #dungeon meshi #marcille donato #It is going to take a long time for pd-mdzs to get to the bathtub scene. At least we can have another gay bathtub scene sooner. #I know everyone is hyping this up at the yuri episode but guys it does not even start nor stop at the bathtub scene. #Hey old danmeshi fans; you guys remember when the animated trailer came out in 2019 and we lost our minds? #Now we are on the cusp of getting a *second* animation of the farcille cuddle moment. It feels unreal. #I have missed drawing wwx so much by the way. This was so healing. #This week is for dungeon meshi and next week is for raffles. Wei Ying... I miss thee. #Marcille and wwx have more in common than just this but that's spoilers B*) #I'll be back Thursday with more Dungeon Meshi art. Wouldn't miss this one for the world. #DUNGEON MESHI SPOILERS: now that the anime has caught up to the scene…yeah this handshake was also about necromacy #and bringing back someone loved…wrong. It is also about being a prodigy who falls from grace #and they both opt to study something that is deemed ‘evil’ because society said it was. They believe their method can be used to help! #not to mention the toxic self-reliance qualities. And the dark outfit transformation moment. They should have brunch together.

[lilybug-02]

Wow. That could not have turned out worse.

Part 23 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

This comic will be on Holiday Hiatus this December and January! While on a cliffhanger? What a scam! >:/

#Chara finally realizes something is wrong....very wrong #And you get to see little Chara for all of 2 drawings. wow. You guys are so spoiled uwu #Asriel and Chara bbfs #finally out of that darn tootin' Darkworld! WE'VE BEEN THERE FOR 2 YEARS!!! #LORE TIME LORE TIME. I know Chara is very vague about it but player-human relationships are very personal. #it can be hard to talk about them if you've been possessed yourself. especially with some stigmas around it #chara just wanted a glass of water. why you gotta do this to em #I am so so so happy to get here #the full excitement has faded since I first thought up this scene but It's still one hell of an accomplishment #YOU GUYS HAVE NO IDEA how many times I reworked this and how many rough drafts I've thrown out the window because of it. #tbh. I may post the 10+ rough pages that will never see the light of day #Im glad I didnt go through with that scrapped plot bc It was too many unneeded pages. I've learned to start condensing in a better way #I am also planning on showing off my Patreon soon :) so I'll be posting complete scrapped story lines over there #deltarune chara timeline #deltarune #utdr #deltarune chara timeline comic #art #my art #bread #chara #asriel #saloon darkworld #darkworld #deltarune au #college chara #college asriel

[skradio]

the crane returns on the wind

#shenhe #genshin impact #genshin #genshin fanart #yaay :) this was for the fanart contest #i feel quite productive recently and more like confident (?) in my process. maybe #原神 #申鹤 #iuhope i win something because i think i completely tagged my post wrong last time #SKULLEMOGI #artists on tumblr #i also stayed up until 6 to finish this ystd because i had other plans today LMFAOHGSKLD #and yet i still posted it within 12 hours of the deadline

[solarmorrigan]

Steve Harrington is absolutely the sort of person to become emotionally dependent on a pet. He grew up lonely and he loves taking care of things, and here's this creature that loves him unconditionally and is dependent on him for care? He's a goner

He finds a kitten in his backyard, wet and cold and alone, but in pretty good shape, all things considered. It hisses and swipes at him, but it's also mewing pathetically, and Steve can't just leave it, so he manages to get the thing inside with minimal blood loss (all his) and cleans it up and feeds it. It's a lot more amenable to the idea of Steve once it's warm and dry and full, and by the end of the day, it's curled up and purring in the crook of his neck, and Steve is already prepared to die for this thing

He does recognize that the right thing to do is to ask around and see if anyone is missing a kitten, which he does do, but no one on his street or the next one over lays claim to it, and there aren’t any kind of wanted posters going up for it, so Steve decides he is now the proud owner of a cat

He names her Baby and dotes on her accordingly. (In his defense, the name is Robin's idea; she tells him that he treats the cat enough like a baby, so the name might as well fit. Steve's always been shit at coming up with names, so he just goes with it)

Baby is the world's most spoiled cat, which Steve readily admits. But isn't that what cats are for? She's a wonderful cat and she clearly deserves nice things and Steve is going to get them for her. Toys, treats, a plush cat bed, the best food, whatever he thinks she could possibly need or want. If "I work hard so my cat can live a better life" t-shirts had existed in the 80s, Robin probably would have gotten one for him and he probably would have worn it

Of course, it helps that Baby actually does adore Steve. With everyone else, she ranges from frosty to outright hostile (she's taken a particular dislike to Eddie, of all people, which is unfortunate, because Steve really, really likes Eddie); she'll consent to be admired, and she'll accept treats, and she might even let more familiar people pet her, but in the end she is very much Steve's baby. If he's home, she's stuck to his side like a burr, curled up wherever he is and purring away, content just to be with him. She still snuggles up in the crook of his shoulder at night, just like when she was a kitten, even though she's bigger now and is a bit less easily accommodated

It goes without saying that Baby is strictly an indoor cat. Steve lives right up against the woods and there are predators out there, and people in town drive like assholes, and Steve won't take the chance of her being eaten or run over or meeting some other horrible fate. He really doesn't think his heart could take it

But of course, because all cats are terrible bastards at heart (affectionate), Baby darts out the back door one day as Steve is coming in off the patio, chasing after some other small animal that Steve can't even see, and she's out of the backyard and up towards the trees before Steve can do much more than make a grab for her

And Steve, who has survived interrogations and monster attacks and many situations objectively much more stressful than this, does not panic. He does spend half the night wandering around in the trees with a flashlight, shaking a bag of cat food and calling for Baby, but that's not panicking, that's problem solving

He eventually gets too cold and too tired to keep going and has to pack it in for the night. He holds onto some shred of hope that she'll be waiting by the back door when he wakes up, wondering why the hell it's taken so long for him to come let her in, but apparently that's not the way life works, because the patio and all areas around the house are still distinctly catless come daybreak

Eddie shows up sometime mid-morning, just as Steve is preparing to head back out and look for her. He has genuinely never seen Steve so upset; he looks like he might actually cry if he doesn't find that damn cat, which just isn't something that Steve does. But he's actually fucking distraught, and Eddie simply can't have that, even if Baby is his nemesis, so he goes to the phone and makes some calls

He cashes in on favors, he makes promises, he actually agrees to pay Mike ten bucks to show up, but he gets the kids, all the older teens (the only reason Robin hadn't been there already is because Steve hadn't paused long enough to tell her what was going on), and even the Corroded Coffin boys up to Steve's house to comb the woods for Steve's damn cat

It's Eddie who finds her in the end, a shock of pale, mewling fur actually stuck in a fucking tree. The cliche nearly kills him – either that or trying to climb down a tree one-handed while holding a cat. He's surprised she actually lets him pick her up, but then again, she's been out here all night, she's cold, and at least she recognizes Eddie. Maybe this is the beginning of a truce

Or, she might go back to hissing and swiping at Eddie any time she the mood takes her, but Eddie doesn't even care, because Steve is elated to have Baby back, so fucking happy that he doesn't even seem to notice that she's digging her claws into his arm as she clings to him for dear life all the way back to the house. Eddie will deal with anything that Steve loves that much

Steve pays for pizza to thank everyone for putting their Saturday on hold to search-and-rescue a cat, and everyone warms up and eats their fill before slowly filtering back out of the house. And later, after Baby's been cleaned up and fed and properly doted on and is purring away curled up over a heating vent in the living room, Steve takes Eddie upstairs to show his thanks in a much more thorough manner

After all – Baby is very important to him, and he's more relieved than he can say to have her back, but she isn't the only thing that Steve adores

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #eddiesteve #while I'm sure steve would love a dog too I just really see him as a cat person #he wants to spoil the shit out of something and that's what cats are made for #meanwhile Eddie is losing his mind because cats love him normally. they LOVE him! what is wrong with Steve's cat! #(she does not like sharing steve. that's it that's the reason) #solar wrote

[wilchur]

I've seen a lot of people talk about how the game doesn't give you any leeway when you play The Dark Urge, how it makes it very clear that Durge was A Bad Person, but I haven't seen it pointed out that Sceleritas seems VERY well versed in gaslighting the hell out of them and steering Durge away from any doubt or guilt in regards to their actions. Makes me think that they've probably had those types of conversations before because Durge actually always had a soft spot, only it got smaller and smaller in time. I have not had the opportunity to see the Heal cutscene yet, but I've got the butler in my camp now and he had some interesting things to say, like

[Durge: Can you tell me the worst thing I ever did?

Sceleritas Fel: There was one time you gave a beggar some coin while we were en route to the Devil's Fee.

Sceleritas Fel: You didn't kick him or spot on him or anything! I was so shocked I almost fainted!

Sceleritas Fel: I still have nightmares about it to this day. But I'm sure you only did so to lower the suspicions of the Flaming Fist. Surely?]

and it struck me because tossing a coin to a beggar is a bit of a thoughtless act isn't it? You don't put much thought into it, you just see someone in need and you do it. Out of empathy, generosity, something The Murder Incarnate should not be capable of. Sceleritas' uncertainty of Durge's reasoning for it totally convinces me it was NOT intentional. A simple act of kindness that slipped out.

ALSO

[Sceleritas Fel: The only way for a Butler to die is if we are not of use to our Master. But you have always needed abundant assistance.]

They always needed abundant assistance. Why? Because they kept slipping out of Bhaal's grasp? We know they did at least once, with Gortash. Maybe it was not the first time, maybe there are more "Letters of Forgiveness" tucked away somewhere.

To me pre-tadpole Durge is just terribly mindbroken and indoctrinated person hooked onto the sense of safety, purpose and acceptance of their dark side that the cultists and their father give them. Yeah they enjoy murder, gore and all that. That's the curse of their blood, but I don't think they were ever entirely consumed by it. Morality, guilt and empathy have always been there on the edge of their mind. Losing their memories (depending on player choices I know, but bear with me) was what they needed for them to be finally brought forward.

#i am very normal about this #its 3 am #i just hate the “inherently bad baddie character” trope sorry #durge is my little meow meow #imagine everyone treating you like a monster all your life because there's something Wrong with you #and then these wackos come along and are like “actually its all good we love you please do more of that” #unconditional acceptance is one hell of a drug lemme tell you #that's exactly how all those repugnant online communities get created #the dark urge #bg3 spoilers #bg3 #durge spoilers