#feeding into each others worse impulses

[girlboypersonthingy]

Hello I'm sorry if I'm bothering you but I had an idea about a hazbin hotel request, so what if everyone at the hotel (except Alastor) consider the reader a big sister who takes shit from no one, like will slap someone without hesitation if they talk bad about any of their friends, especially when Valentino tries something will literally beat him up until he's half dead. (If you're not comfortable with writing this that's completely alright and I wish you a good morning/afternoon or goodnight)

Oh, nonnie, you are never a bother! I love getting new requests, feeds my soul tbh. I love this idea too! As much as I love romantic x readers and NS/FW x readers, I also love me some platonic Hazbin 🤍 good morning/afternoon/evening to you and ENJOY!

Notes: fem!reader, this is kinda short sorry, added Alastor at the end but just a snippet :)

TW: aggression, fighting, swearing

Rough and Tough- Hazbin x platonic!reader

Charlie ❤️‍🔥

Adores your passion and bravery but is often the one to hold you back or stand between you and your foe.

She loves keeping you close tho bc she has a hard time asserting dominance and speaking up for herself and you’re always willing to speak your mind on her behalf. You always help uplift and empower her, she greatly appreciates that.

Charlie also really does see you as a sister. As an only child, she grew up pretty sheltered and lonely, but being with you now is really healing her inner child.

When Charlie is having any kind of issue, she always goes to Vaggie, her darling girlfriend. But, when Charlie feels the need to vent about and get advice on her relationship with Vaggie, she turns to you. When Vaggie is busy and away, Charlie goes to you.

Pretty much every weekend, Charlie invites you and the other girls in the hotel to her room for a sleep over and some fun girly time

You def tagged along with her to the meeting with heaven along with Vaggie and while Vaggie is like “keep a cool head, babe.” You’re literally trying to climb up to where Adam is seated so you can rip that smug smile off his stupid, ignorant, narcissistic face and slap Lute with it.

Vaggie’s just panicking as she tries to keep you and Charlie calm lmao

Vaggie ⚔️

TWO PEAS IN A POD TBH

Vaggie adores you and you are often each other’s impulse control and each others biggest instigators

Vaggie getting pissed that someone is trying to sabotage the hotel and storming up to the traitor with her angelic spear cocked back and ready to kill

Enter big sis pulling her back and trying to talk some sense into her

Also you getting livid when someone talks negatively about Vaggie being a fallen angel, or worse being a former exorcist and being untrustworthy

Bad words and ugly names are pouring from your angry mouth, fists balled up and ready to go, muscles tense in anticipation

Cue Vags hugging you as she pulls you away, whispering that it doesn’t bother her so don’t let it bother you

But it bothers you bc you know it bothers her…she doesn’t deserve that.

As Rosie said, maybe she’s trying to be redeemed too…? Being shit talked is only going to put bad thoughts in her head and you can’t stand to see your family belittled like that

Sometimes, if the situation is just bad enough, you and Vaggie lose it together and no one can stop yall now. It’s honestly just as frightening as when Alastor shows his full demon form, you and Vaggie violently teamed up together like this.

Angry Vaggie + Angry big sis reader = a terrible ending for whoever is at the sharp end of her spear and at the mercy of your fists

Angel Dust 🕸️

Is very intimidated by you at first but grows so fond of you as he gets to know you. He admires your courage so much, he wishes he could be more like you.

He never feels safer than when he’s at the hotel with you near by. He knows that whatever he lacks when up against an opponent, you’ll be there to pick up the slack and watch his back.

Angel doesn’t have many true friends or familial figures in hell, and he misses his own sister so terribly. You fill that empty spot in his heart so perfectly, he wishes you had been around when he was still alive.

You two hang out a lot- his flirty, bubbly, goofy demeanor and your kind, accepting but stubborn attitude makes for some fun late night talks and some exciting outings together

Some dude tries to touch Angel out on the street without his consent? Oh fuck no. Before he knows it, the loser demon is groaning from the hard concrete floor as you grab Angel by the wrist, both of you stepping over the banged up body of the handsy asshole.

“It’s called consent! Look it up, ya fuckin prick.” Angel gets such a confidence boost being with you, you are the physical threat and he is the voice that tears them apart even further. You bruise their skin, he bruises their ego

Angel can’t help but laugh everytime you lose it for him. He just enjoys your company and support so much. He says he can handle himself and while he totally can, it’s just nice to have someone back him up, someone who truly cares for him.

Husk 🃏

BRO IS SUCH AN INSTIGATOR!!!

While Vaggie and Charlie often try to hold you back and calm you down, Husk cheers you on in any and every tense situation you find yourself in

“Oooooh you’re in for it now, bone head.” He’ll smirk and watch with a pleased smirk on his face as you pummel some sinner who dared to threaten the hotel and its residents

Husk’s fav pastime is sitting back with a bottle of booze as he watches you just go ham on some stupid, loud mouth loser who tried to pick a fight with the former overlord

Husk isn’t afraid of a fight, he’s not afraid to get up close and personal with the action but he must admit it’s nice to feel cared for enough to have someone sacrifice their own safety just to protect him.

The only time Husk has intervened during one of your episodes of frustration and rage is when Alastor said something to Husk that rubbed you the wrong way. Seeing Husk’s terrified and helpless expression in response to Alastor’s threats lights a fire in your chest.

“How dare you talk to him like that! I don’t give a shit if you own him, he’s not your fucking pet, you piece of-“

Husk practically, no literally begged Alastor to let it go and leave you be which he did but only bc he sort of admired your lack of fear and your loving but fierce protective attitude.

Husk also greatly admires your lack of fear and strong will. He wishes you were his family for real, maybe he wouldn’t be so depressed and fucked up.

Sir Pentious 🐍

Admires tf out of you, babies tf out of you.

He sees you as more of a little sis, wanting to coddle and defend you always.

Sees you coming back to the hotel one day with some bruises and bloody hands and hes immediately comforting you, trying to clean you up even tho you’re clearly fine.

But, he must confess he loves teaming up with you bc together you’re the perfect pair- Pentious with his tools and inventions and intricate weapons and you with your amazing strength and hot headed, witty comebacks and your courage and your quick thinking.

When he feels that he needs to step in and keep you from doing something stupid, he does so with all his might. Pentious would rather face your wrath himself than let you go and get yourself hurt or killed.

Go ahead, take your anger out on him but don’t risk yourself just for him.

You two totally bond over wanting to be seen as evil, devious and powerful but you’re both actually soft little sweet hearts deep down.

You two cry together a lot lmao. It’s always him crying first and then his crying triggers you.

He would frequently talk to you about how you are always so brave, fearless, strong, never faltering, never second guessing yourself. He’d ask where you learned to be so sure of yourself, he wants to learn to be more like that.

Alastor 🩸

SEES YOU AS HIS EQUAL BUT WILL NEVER ADMIT IT. CANT UNDERSTAND HOW YOU STAND YOUR GROUND AGAINST EVERY ENEMY YOU’VE EVER TAKEN ON, EVEN HIMSELF. YOU HAVE NO POWERS, YOU OWN NO SOULS, YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS PARTNERS OR BLOOD RELATIVES DOWN HERE SO WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU’RE SO SPECIAL??? YOU’RE NOT SCARED OF HIM? OH, VERY INTERESTING. HE WANTS TO CUT YOUR LITTLE BRAIN OPEN AND EXAMINE IT, YOU’RE JUST AN ENIGMA TO HIM, HE ADORES YOU. WISHES YOU REALLY WERE THE DAUGHTER HE SPAWNED FOR REAL FOR REAL HE’D BE SO PROUD

#platonic hazbin hotel #hazbin #hazbin hotel #hazbin x reader #hazbin x you #hazbin hotel x you #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin charlie x reader #charlie x reader #vaggie x reader #hazbin charlie #charlie hazbin hotel #hazbin vaggie #hazbin hotel vaggie #vaggie hazbin hotel #Vaggie #angel hazbin x reader #hazbin angel #hazbin angel dust #angel dust x reader #angel hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel angel dust #hazbin husk #hazbin hotel husk #husk x reader #husk hazbin hotel #hazbin sir pentious #sir pentious #sir pentious x reader #hazbin alastor

[fabricated-misslieness]

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: joel miller x male reader

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: how a crush looks like when it's mutual between two old men

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 1234 (𓁹󠁘◡𓁹)

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: middle school crush type cliche's, suggested makeout session

ᴍᴀʏʙ'ꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇ: reader and joel are around the same age, and reader has a collection of records, he also has a beard. written from Ellie's pov. (its unsettling to see pics of joel smiling bc HES NEVER FCKN HAPPY)

☾⋆☆⋆☽

It's silly to see old men acting nervous, especially with Joel around. He's never really nervous, or at least he doesn't show it. What was it, something about life lessons?

Being as old as they are, knees givin' way, calloused hands, joints ain't like they used to be; you've experienced it all. You've experienced that shame of not knowing the answer in math class, tripping over your own feet or misjudging just how slippery freshly mopped floor is; missing a shot, getting nailed in the face by the stock of your own gun, and getting ambushed by a group of clickers. Most of all, you've experienced many rejections.

And yet...it still seems like you're afraid?

That's what Ellie sees, anyway, with the way you look at each other. You're both smiling, it's sweet, sickeningly so, because you're looking down at your own feet and not even seeing those smiles you're sending each other.

"I, uh, 'ppreciate it. Truly." Joel speaks up first, his eyes flitting up from the fresh cup of warm coffee in his hand to your face. Those eyes stay, with courage, on your face, and maybe he doesn't notice that you're not looking up at him because he's admiring you.

"It's, um," Your smile widens, you shake your head, shrug your shoulders lightly like, "it's nothing."

"No, really." Joel puts the cup down. It makes a loud sound in the cricket-silence, thick awkwardness in the room, and it finally brings your eyes up to his. "This-this stuff is real hard to get your hands on 'round here, 'cuz..." He pauses, suddenly self aware of his ramblin'. "well, I'm sure you know why."

You open your mouth, gape for a moment as the words just on your tongue are suddenly replaced by a conscious mind, "Yeah, I know."

Joel picks his cup back up, but he doesn't take a sip. Instead he takes it in both hands, inducing more sweat to slick up his hand for more than one reason now, "How-how'd you get this stuff, anyway?"

"Traded it."

Obviously. Ellie rolls her eyes, How else does one get stuff around here? It dawns on her the second after that killing is the other way.

"What for?" Joel follows up, thumbing at the top edge of the cup, dangerously close to slipping his finger into the dark, scaldingly hot liquid.

There's humor, finally, from your end that eases a bit of the tension. "You do not wanna know."

"I do!" Joel's quick to object, he stands up a little straighter, his smile widens a little more, "I want to know what I owe you." He says it in a way that enunciates each word correctly, like he was serious, and yet the smile on his face is clearly turning his tone rather playful.

"I, well..." You scratch the hairs of your beard, looking away from his eyes nervously, out the kitchen doorway, out the window to the snowing outside. It's clear your intensions teeter on a yes or a no, to tell him or to not, but you stand on what you've previously said, so as to not cause you the trouble of admitting the truth.

Joel places his coffee down again, except it doesn't bring your eyes to his. He scoffs and crosses his arms, shifting his stance in a way that brings him a tiny bit closer to you, and yet he still looks like the standoffish asshole Ellie likes to joke he is. "It can't be that bad."

"It, it is, that bad." You admit on an impulsive thought, which only further feeds his curiosity.

Joel tries at a guess. "What, a gun?"

"Worse."

"Two guns?" He tries again, although on the same object, because to this old man, Ellie thinks, nothing is worse than the slight increase of the possibility that his world's in danger.

"I–" You're teetering, there, again, and Ellie makes a game of guessing what you'll decide. It's a yes this time 'round, she can see it in the way you're beginning to close your eyes, to wince, to prepare for his disappointment. "A record."

"What?!" Joel explodes, almost immediately, because he knows you love those things, that you collect them. You'd give up such a priceless piece of your collection just to give him something he'll consume, something so momentary that it's almost entirely—no, it is not worth it.

"It's–" You open your eyes again, to look at him, moving your hands frantically to ease him. "It's fine, really, a small thing, I barely listen to it."

"You have your records on a cycle, damnit! You put them on a cycle so that you can listen to all of them an equal amount, so nothing goes unappreciated!" It's something so particular, so unnoticeable, that even Ellie didn't know that.

"Joel–"

It's petty, frustratingly so to the spectator, Ellie. It's just a record, and coffee is just coffee; but she's barely sixteen, and she doesn't know the emotional attachments to these things the two of you do.

She doesn't know the bliss Joel finds in coffee, but you do; and she doesn't know the escape that those damn music records are to you, but Joel does.

"I'm sorry." Joel opens his eyes, stops pinching the bridge of his nose. It's an immediate deflation of emotions that Ellie would've liked to laugh at. "That's, a record. It's a lot to you."

"It is," You agree, not downplaying it anymore. Or, well, "it's just–" some low quality band, he stops you with a pointed look.

You look at him, eyes at full attention, accepting defeat and yet the way your eyes...Ellie can see admiration. "You do." And when you say it, it's not in a self-righteous way, but a simple fact.

"I owe you." He says, with finality; he won't take no for an answer.

You stare at each other, just a couple of seconds, no words, nothing about the fact you're starin' at each other, just unspoken, yet still visible appreciation in the look you share.

You two were and are just so caught up with each other that you'd forgotten she was even there at all. She must admit, it's very sweet, but she likes her foods more savory.

"You guys are pathetic." Ellie finally speaks up, a look of evident. played disgust on her face.

There's a snap and a jump and now you're about two feet away from each other again. You're looking away from each other, Joel's eyes are on the floor, yours are to the roof, and it's just so hilarious; and finally, finally, Ellie gets to laugh.

☾⋆☆⋆☽

Joel and him are talking again. It's too sweet, the way they avoid looking at each other, well, actually, they can actually keep eye contact now. At least for a couple minutes, anyway. He touches his beard when Joel makes him nervous, and Joel fingers at his jacket like he's pulling a trigger. What are these two, twelve?

—

Maybe they're not just talking now. I saw Joel checking him out, totally indecent behavior you definitely do not want to see from your so-called father figure.

—

I think they just came back from making out. OK. Yeah. They did. It looks like his beard has lost a patch. Figuratively speaking, of course. Joel's hair is messy and his jacket's buttons are all wrong. Gross.

—

Maybe I've warmed up to sweets.

#🤬 // swearshirt #joel miller x reader #joel miller x male reader #joel x male reader #joel x reader #last of us x reader #last of us x male reader #🌸 // success! #💞 // darlings

[comradekatara]

Saw you mention a Sokka and Azula relationship some days back. Any elaboration?

@spacecuttle Sokka/Azula? I saw you say they could make each other worse.

well they share all the same flaws and complexes but are also scarily intelligent so they would just enable in each other in the worst possible ways if left to their own devices. like they could rule the world together but also feed into all their worst impulses to be condescending assholes who simultaneously negate their egos and consider themselves nonhuman vessels of obedience and sacrifice for their respective causes (both informed by the patriarchal logic they have internalized thru their fathers). they are so fucked up and insane, whether as rivals or as friends or even something more, because it’s like. well it’s the recognition of the self through the other but also they both refuse to look in the mirror (they both have their mother’s face btw) so it’s just this undefinable essence that exists within them both that they refuse to locate despite being so brilliant and observant otherwise, bc their biggest blind spots are themselves, but somehow they know the other like the back of their hand, except they don’t even know the backs of their hands. do you get what I’m saying no i think i sound insane. but they ARE insane. is the thing.

realistically i think postcanon they’d begrudgingly get along because azula genuinely respects sokka and sokka thinks she’s kind of funny and also just feels bad for her (again, he’s like “wow she’s so fucked up. glad I’m normal and nothing like her”) so he sort of just hangs out with her out of pity, but eventually does grow genuinely fond of her. adopts her as yet another little sister (which zuko thinks is crazy he’s just like “ummm you can have her”) and they play pai sho together and talk political theory and gossip about zuko and the gaang. azula tries to get into engineering and physics to help him with his research but realizes that she’s actually way more into politics and history than math and science (like she’s good at it, but it’s not as fun for her) so sokka starts giving her history books with slightly more accurate information in them so that they can actually have a conversation that isn’t just him attempting to dispel imperialist propaganda for two hours. and aang gets really into it too and they start a little book club where they read history and philosophy and go to archives and older libraries.

and they’re just vibing they’re just hanging out but everyone around them is afraid that one day zuko is going to do something so stupid that they’re just gonna snap and stage a coup d’état and take over the world. but thankfully they’re both so fucked up in the ego that even though they’re both constantly like “zuko is an idiot who should listen to all my advice” they never once consider actually deposing him. because their role is to serve not to rule. but no one else knows that they are loyal and humble before anything (because they’re also loud, condescending assholes) so everyone just lives in fear of them snapping. they don’t tho. but they could :)

#alamand #spacecuttle #asks #azula&sokka #postwargaang #azula #sokka #aang #zuko #i love them so so so much #in my avatar sokka AU that i currently have 30k+ words of but will (probably) never post anywhere #their partnership is central to the narrative #and it goes crazy #firelord azula being puppeted by avatar sokka is even crazier than firelord zuko being puppeted by just some guy sokka (which is canon. 2me) #he’s still just some guy as the avatar. somehow. #anyway im obsessed w them

[thisisthinprivilege]

Fat hatred is a morality play.

The hatred of fat people isn't about aggregate social health outcomes. It never was. The hatred of fat people is an exercise of the oldest most animalistic impulse of man---the morality play.

Morality plays are ways we pattern situations and society in order to instruct people about some set of social rules (morals) and the rewards and punishments for not adhering to the social rules. The most important function of morality plays, however, is to instruct people on why the shame, disrespect, and social lashback they receive for not adhering to the set of rules is justified. That shame is for our own good, lest we receive some worse physical or cosmic punishment.

Concern for fat people's health, or for the health of society given some statistical indicator about its fatness, is absolutely a morality play. "Look what happens to the fat people who do not slim down!" "Look at what happens to societies who allow their people to get too fat!" The idea is to justify the rules: one mustn't be "too fat," whatever that's currently defined as, or else one is punished with bad health. Therefore, fat people must be shamed, so they adhere to the rules.

I do believe that the worst haters of fat people believe that they are justified in their hatred and shaming of fat people because they subconsciously are acting out their part of the morality play. Being the shame-giver in a morality play is incredibly satisfying to most people, because it makes them feel morally superior and higher-status.

Note that I believe there are strong feedback effects from the shame-givers to the people coming up with reasons to moralize body size in the first place. The two industries feed off each other. If fat people weren't as much of an accepted social target, I believe a great deal of the academic hyperfocus on fat people as a medicalized group would also fizzle. Why fat people and not tall people*, after all?

-ArteToLife

*Very tall people have a number of conditions correlated with being very tall, some which are similar to being very fat. Google Scholar is your friend, if you're curious about the literature.

#fat discrimination #fatphobia #medical fatphobia #morality

[silverskye13]

Hi! Something I'm curious about- how do helsmets get created? I've (I think) kinda gleaned the gist of what they are from context clues reading through rns, but what actually spawns them into existence? Like is it usually some Big Life Event that happens to a person, or an overabundance of feeling/emotion that splits off, or is creating a helsmet even something intentionally done by a person? :V

Helsmets kind of just happen! There's not much of a specific how, or a specific why. I'm trying to convey through the characters that they very much feel like they just spawned in one day. They woke up in hels, and with half a personality and a lot of faults, and the inherent knowledge that they were missing a half of themselves that they would never get. Not all hermits/mirrors/etc even know they have a helsmet out there. ImpulseSV for example, we've established the Demon is his helsmet, but that the Demon can't skip between worlds with the same ease that Helsknight and Tanguish can. I think, on an instinctual level, Impulse can feel something is off. He might feel exacerbated good/bad days, or get hints of thoughts that don't really feel like his own. But unless he actually meets his helsmet someday, or asks someone who knows about their helsmet if he has one, he has no reason to really know the Demon is there. As for a Big Life Event! There's probably some correlation with big events and helsmets forming [I feel like a lot of helsmets formed as a result of the life series, for example] but only because it brings the issues behind them into sharp relief.

If I really had to pin down how I think it feels, it would be like,,, noticing your intrusive thoughts are worse for the first time. Like, we all have bad days, where we down talk ourselves a little, or berate ourselves for something we did that we didn't like. But when was the first time it became a problem you noticed. If you have anger issues, when do you know you have anger issues? Is it the first time you punch a wall, or the first time you punch a friend? By the time you've realized there is a problem, there's a helsmet out there living it. When you realize your intrusive thoughts are hampering your life, those thoughts belong to another person. When you realize your anger is flying wildly out of hand, that anger is being fed by another person. It's not just a habit, its a living thing now, with its own ideas and triggers, and sometimes it triggers itself without input from you. And it makes you miserable. It hurts your relationships. It might not ruin your life exactly. But it will impact it. They're hard to get rid of. It's like having a demon sitting on your shoulder, an antagonistic force that, just by being there, breaks things. And that's all you ever see of it. And sometimes, that little demon on your shoulder, blames you for creating it, and tries even harder to ruin your life. If they're strong enough, they become your personality, your defining traits, until you're just them now.

Tanguish and Tango's relationship works specifically because the problem Tanguish is, is codependency. Tango needs his friends and feels like they're leaving him behind, and his anxiety about that turns into a little guy who feeds it. But there's two of them now, and they get to be codependent with each other, feed each others' problems. And its Tanguish's fear as a codependent person who needs someone to feed off of that fuels him rescuing Tango. It's a self-serving purpose that turns into something bigger and better.

#answering asks #redstone and skulk #yayforstuffs #does that?? answer your question?? i'm not sure if it answered your question OOPS #i'm sorry if its still confusing #the problem with making a story about a nebulous idea is the edges stay a little fuzzy sometimes #rns asks

[finnglas]

In order to explain my cats' latest obsession, I have to give you some history. Behind a cut, warnings for Cat Illness.

In 2015, both K and I were working a lot and I felt bad that my>our cat, Luna, was being left alone for hours on end. So we decided to get a second cat - thus, Evie joined the family. Now, being that Evie was about 2 years old and Luna was about 5 years old, they didn't really enjoy the Sudden Roommate Situation [SRS]. It took a lot longer than normal for the introductory methods to work. (They still tolerate each other more than anything but they seem to have made their peace, eight years on.)

Anyway, we got Evie in November of 2015 and in January of 2016 I lost my job and Luna also developed an ongoing UTI due to the stress of the SRS. (Between this and the Politics Situation at the time, I was so stressed I skipped my period for almost seven months. I don't think any of us have recovered.) Anyway, so Luna had to go on antibiotics, and the antibiotics gave her diarrhea, so we also put her on probiotics, but the probiotics (I learned later) gave her worse diarrhea, and the stress of constant upset stomach meant that she kept having ongoing UTIs which meant ongoing antibiotics/probiotics, etc., in a vicious cycle. I'm still mad at that vet because they refused to slow down to consider me asking "what if the fact that it's making her sick is contributing to the infection" and kept just assigning more rounds of antibiotics that I couldn't afford. Yeah that credit card JUST got paid off two months ago.

A N Y W A Y. The result of all this is that it tore poor Luna's stomach up to the point that she couldn't eat any kind of dry treat or kibble. Literally, one Greenie treat would instantly give her the shits. This means that both cats have been on wet-food-only for like, seven years. It's expensive, and not great for their teeth, but also Luna wasn't shitting herself constantly so you take what you can get. I occasionally tried samples of kibble that advertised themselves as Sensitive Stomach Formulae over the years but none of them were successful.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, when I was at my parents' for my dad's surgery and Kellie stayed home with the cats. She had to go get some more wet food for them during this time and while at the pet store, she eyed a bag of kibble that said it was for Sensitive Stomachs and had a strong impulse to Try It. So she got a small bag. Texted me about it. I said "You're awfully brave trying that while I'm not home to give her a bath when her back end winds up covered in poop at 2am."

But miracle of all miracles: Luna can tolerate this kibble. We started very very small - less than 1/8 of a cup once a day - and have been working our way up. We are at 1/6 of a cup once a day now, and there has been no stomach upset!

This is great news for multiple reasons, but one of them is that we can now have an automatic feeder which means that we can take short overnight trips without needing a cat-sitter. For long trips, of course, we'd still want someone checking in on them and giving them their supplement of wet food.

We have one such short overnight trip coming up in two weeks, so I took advantage of Black Friday sales on one of my favorite pet brands (their water fountain also came from PetLibro) and ordered them a two-bowl pet feeder. It came in yesterday (love Black Friday being a week long now) and I set it up last night. I tested it at the time by having it dispense 1/12 of a cup of kibble. Worked great! tipped most of it back into the granary and let the kitties have a couple of pieces as a treat.

WELL. They now cannot enter the room without paying tribute to the Fickle God of Kibble, aka Sammy the Automatic Feeder, just in case he has decided to dispense more kibble.

They just had their first scheduled 9am feeding, and both of them ran around like they were losing their minds before diving in mouth-first, so I am deeply amused and will be watching these developments with interest.

#catblogging

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

If you're looking for some indie novels to get you into the Halloween mood, let me recommend the works of my friend Ren Montgomery. She's self-published over on Amazon, and I want to get the word out for her three books.

Horror

Haunt is a period piece set in the late 1970s. It tells the story of the Stewarts, a dysfunctional family who are looking for a fresh start in a brand new housing development, but the trauma they bring with them feeds into something sinister within the house itself. Pete is an abusive alcoholic, Mae is a lapsing fundamentalist at her wits' end, and their three young girls Kelly, Robin, and Lori are just trying to get through the new school year without slitting each others' throats.

Ren explores what it means to have faith when your views don't line up with what your Church dictates, and when those in power don't have your best interest at heart. Haunt is about the ties that bind a struggling family together, for better, or more often for worse, and the pain they face while trying to break the cycle of abuse. The presence which darkens the doorstep of the Stewarts' new haunt heightens their worst impulses and brings each and every one of them to their personal breaking point.

Haunt is both terrifying and gripping, and the 70s setting permeates every aspect of the plot; it doesn't feel like a modern story with a nostalgic 1970s coat of paint over it, it feels like something straight out of the dingy, smoke-filled, no-seatbelts-or-airbags era, an oft forgotten aspect of the decade that so many authors struggle to capture on page.

Contemporary fantasy

Monsters Are We is a story about burning bridges, both accidentally and on purpose. With some relationships, when the passion is gone, you can cut your losses and go your separate ways, but Penelope Draven doesn't have that option. Her old life with Leo the soul-sucking cheater needs to come to an end so her new life can begin.

She's danced this dance before, but this time around is going to be much more difficult for two very important reasons. First, she finally has something that makes her hesitate before throwing it all away, something she wants desperately to take with her when she goes; her teenage daughter, Clementine. Second, Leo knows what she is, what she's done, and what she's capable of, and he's not going to let either of them go so easily.

Ren explores the relationship between a mother and daughter from two very different generations, but who are more like one another than either realize. Monsters Are We is about figuring out who you are and choosing who you want to be. It's about being allowed to make irreparable mistakes so you can learn from them. The Draven girls find themselves on a road trip to hell and back which puts their lives and the lives of their closest friends into Leo's crosshairs. When they find themselves down on their luck, Penelope knows how to make her own, but it comes with a price.

Psychological thriller

Drawn to You is the story of the one that got away and one woman's twisted machinations to try and get it back. Ruby Deardon never got over her college crush, Sean Chaplin. They could have had something beautiful, Ruby tells herself, if only they had had anything at all. The timing was never right, the dominoes never fell the way she needed them to, so she lost her chance at her fairy tale happy ending.

Well, after nearly a decade of pining from a distance she decides to take matters into her own hands and insert herself back into Sean's life so they can finally have the life she's always wanted. He wants it too, she's sure of it, he just doesn't know it yet.

But just as she's about to zero in on Sean, she learns that Jeremy is zeroing in on her. She's was his one that got away, and while most women would be wary of his level of obsession, Ruby sees him as nothing but an obstacle standing between her and the future she's set her mind on. Jeremy is an unexpected dog in Ruby's game of cat and mouse, but cats have claws, and he has no idea what she's willing to do to make sure the mouse gets got.

#horror #contemporary fantasy #psychological thriller #novels #books #book recommendations #indie books #self publishing #halloween #halloween season #halloween books #halloween novels

[fallenstarzz]

The Kayleigh Day Lives AU

Extremely self-indulgent bullet fic with probably some written snippets later on. Canon-typical CWs.

So most of the canon backstory for Exy stays the same – Kayleigh goes to Japan, she meets Tetsuji, they create and launch Exy to rapid global fame, etc.

Kayleigh and Tetsuji really are friends. They're almost mirror images, both intent on leaving their mark on the world, albeit for very different reasons. They feed into each other's worst impulses, which works out great up untill it doesn't.

Kayleigh doesn't know the Moriyamas are Yakuza, but she also doesn't NOT know that. They are funding her dreams and that's all she needs to be certain of. And if there is some shady things are going on backstage, well, Tetsuji's the only one handling them so it's hardly like she's gonna get blamed if it gets out

The years go on, they are getting too old to play, so Tetsuji fucks off to create the Ravens and take more full control of the side branch after his leg injury and Kengo coming into power, and Kayleigh also retires after having Kevin.

The main problem is that now Kayleigh is expendable. She's no longer Exy's greatest player, she doesn't need to promote the sport as much anymore, and she and Tetsuji start butting heads over what the future of Exy is going to be. He wants them to settle down and strengthen their base in the US first before moving on to establishing it more worldwide, while she thinks they should keep diversfying the sport as much as they can. They start contradicting each other on interviews, and the media catches on to a possible feud, there is talk of a schism that could stop Exy in its tracks.

The main branch catches wind of that and is, in the simplest terms, Not Happy. They've let Tetsuji put a lot of money into Exy at this point and they can't sit by and watch as he gets usurped, or worse, as Exy becomes to unstable to be a profitable investment anymore.

So Kengo calls Tetsuji with the news that he can either put Kayleigh in line or the main branch will do it for him.

Tetsuji considers it for a while. He is not a sentimental man, but he also isn't ungrateful for Kayleigh's help so far. Plus she has that very convenient, very promising son and he has plans for a Perfect Court.

(since in canon, Kevin is not considered Moriyama property, I'm guessing that they didn't plan on fighting his bio father for custody after Kayleigh's death, it was just a pleasant surprise. Maybe he still would have been recruited, just when he was older and more clearly going to be Perfect Court material. There's a reason why Riko hasn't picked all his players when the series starts)

So Tetsuji calls her and lays down the law. He doesn't say everything yet, but makes it clear that Kayleigh can either follow his lead or the very powerful, very dangerous people she's getting in the way of are going to get rid of her. He makes it seem like he's protecting her by giving her this choice.

Kayleigh doesn't want to get steamrolled out of her own sport, but she wants to die even less, so she ends up saying yes to becoming the Moryiama's puppet. She figures she can keep pushing her agendas from behind the scenes, just with more care and sublety this time.

They end up, then, with Tetsuji functionally ruling Exy as Kayleigh takes a figurehead role, parroting his decisions and essentially becoming even more of a media darling

She doesn't agree on sending Kevin to the Nest straight away. She doesn't want to get separated from her son, for one, and also knows enough of what the Moriyamas are about by now to fully trust them with him. It is known, however, she'll eventually have no choice but to enroll him in EAU.

Kevin and Riko still regurlaly meet up for Exy play dates, become friends, and obsess over the Perfect Court and their possible roles as #1 and #2. This sets Kayleigh on edge a little bit, but she can't find a way to physically interfere and just has to hope it never escalates too far.

But as Kevin grows older, the noose starts to progressevily tigthen – specially now that they lost their intended #3 to an overeager mother.

So Kayleigh starts getting sent away in more and more media tours, and signed up for teaching workshops and attending games and really anything that will make sure she doesn't stay in the same place for more than a couple weeks.

All the moving around is going to impact Kevin negatively – he wouldn't be able to study or practice properly – and eventually Kayleigh is worn down and worried for her son's future enough that she agrees to leave him in the Nest while she travels.

Kayleigh isn't naive enough to believe the Nest is a paradise, she knows Tetsuji very well after all, but she has settled into her place well enough to start accumulating some information and power of her own inside the side branch. It's not enough that the Moriyamas couldn't still kill her if they wanted to, but it is mutually assured destruction before she goes.

So Kevin gets treated well... When she's around to watch. Which is not really that often. But Kayleigh manages to stay an influence in her son's life and have some say in what his future is going to be. (And if she has her own opinions of what the real order of the Perfect Court should be, well. That's a problem for another time).

She settles into a sort of routine as the next decade or so goes by. She becomes the face of Exy, watches carefully for Tetsuji's weaknesses, slowly ingrains herself with the Moryiamas, travels the world and periodically comes to stay with Kevin in the Nest and try (mostly fail) to mitigate the damage Tetsuji is doing. It's not her ideal life, but she's managing – all she has to do is hold on untill Kevin graduates so she can afford to throw her weight around to put him in a different pro team than Riko, so the Moriyamas can't use them as leverage against each other as much anymore. The first step towards being free is being safe.

And then, of course, Riko breaks Kevin's hand.

#all for the game #aftg #Kayleigh Lives AU #kayleigh day #tetsuji moriyama #riko moriyama #kevin day #more to come when I actually meet my uni deadlines #all for the game fanfiction #aftg fic #bullet fic #exy #the ravens aftg

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/10-11/2023: MAD LOVE (1935), BODY PARTS (1991)

I had always heard, casually, that Eric Red's BODY PARTS was a remake of Karl Freund's MAD LOVE. The relationship can't be quite that direct, since each film is adapted from a separate novel--MAD LOVE from Maurice Renard's The Hands of Orlac (1920), and BODY PARTS from a book with the English title Choice Cuts (1968) by crime-writing duo Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. It just so happens that the two films deal with the notion that consciousness exists throughout the body, not only in the brain. This is a real idea, actually (Wayback doesn't get behind this paywall, but maybe you have something better), although I haven't heard anyone posit that personality exists throughout the body like it does in these exciting movies.

Simply one of the best appearances of a human being in a movie.

In MAD LOVE Colin Clive plays Stephen Orlac, a famous pianist who, after a devastating accident, receives a transplant of both hands from the disturbed Dr. Gogol (Peter Lorre). Orlac doesn't know that he now has the hands of a murderer, and they have retained their former habits. Gogol uses the ensuing drama to try to deprive the pianist of his beautiful wife Yvonne (Frances Drake), a Grand Guignol performer with whom the doctor is obsessed. Gogol seems to know that body parts can remain identified with their original owner, and perhaps this awareness feeds into his general attachment to appearances. His projected relationship with Yvonne is filtered through layers of simulation: He "knows" her from her stage role, and he lives with a wax figure of her in a self-conscious imitation of the myth of Galatea, the living statue. Perhaps what's inside doesn't count so much, when the personality is equally embedded in the outside.

In BODY PARTS, psychiatrist Bill Crushank (Jeff Fahey, don't ya just love him?) receives a new arm after a surviving a spectacular car wreck. The experimental procedure seems like a godsend until previous owner's violent nature begins to infect Crushank's behavior. To solve the mystery of what is happening to him, he seeks out the recipients of other limbs donated by the same crazed killer, including a vigorous young athlete named Mark (Peter Murnik) who needed new legs, and Remo (Brad Dourif), a hack painter who has experienced a burst of highly lucrative inspiration since he accepted his new arm. All of the men have been contaminated with the original donor's destructive rage, but Mark and Remo are less willing to part with their, er, parts. Here we have a whiff of the notion that the beast in man--the animal self that resists civilization--is connected to bodily power and pleasure, and also to subconscious, intuitive mental activities like the artistic impulse. Crushank, a psychiatrist who works with prisoners to help civilize them, is naturally less benefited by these bestial qualities.

The makeup in this movie is incredibly great, you can practically smell that arm.

BODY PARTS and MAD LOVE share the intriguing feature of a kind of decentralized evil. There is the evil of the original owner of the parts, and the evil that grows in their unwitting recipients, and the evil of the egomaniacal doctors who perform the operations for their own purposes. Villainy is sort of a free-floating essence that travels through bodily tissue but is never confined to a single, containable, even killable person. Instead it spreads like a virus through a person's life until both their inner feelings and their outer circumstances are entirely tainted. It's fortunate for the films' protagonists that consciousness is still corporeally dependent, despite how communicable it is, or else things could have been a lot worse!

PS Both of these movies deserve a lot more attention than I was able to give them during what I did not know would turn into a speed run season of Blogtober. I reserve the right to revisit them later! I didn't even get to talk about how BODY PARTS was co-written by Norman Snider who co-wrote DEAD RINGERS with David Cronenberg...

#blogtober #2023 #horror #body horror #body parts #eric red #mad love #karl freund #peter lorre #colin clive #jeff fahey #brad dourif #science fiction #adaptation

[monstersinthecosmos]

I think what makes this whole situation even worse for Armand is that he only has one (1) fledging. There is literally no point of reference about anything when it comes to him and Daniel except for Armand’s past experiences with Marius which in SOME ways are similar to what Armand and Daniel went through but in other ways they’re completely different experiences. Lestat, Marius and pretty much all of the other main vampires in the series (even Louis even though RIP to both those cuties) have a whole roaster of fledglings to develop different types of relationships with and over the series, they allow them to grow and change and feed off each other, but Armand *only* has Daniel, so it must be legitimately maddening because all the good and the bad and the crazy is just… one relationship for Armand. And it’s obviously a position he put himself in by obsessing over and falling in love with Daniel so hopelessly to the point where he couldn’t even consider continuing existing without him. And then he cursed them both. But I think that in finding himself and regaining his will to live and to have meaningful connections in late canon, he was also able to accept Daniel’s love again, and maybe to start having important conversations about the trauma they both went through when Daniel was turned and after they separated. I’d like to think they didn’t just reunite in PL and immediately jumped right back into a relationship like two stupid teenagers but actually had Important Conversations about what they’d gone through before Daniel moved into Trinity Gate and they decided to give it another go. NYC has great therapists and they’re rich so, please? 🙏

[ dgajksdg I waited too long to answer this bc I was too sad but just for reference icymi I got this ask after posting this devastating shit ]

fuck man!!!!!!

yes! YES.

(I feel like I don’t have a lot to add except that I’m bawling my fuckin eyes out so hear me out for a sec)

It’s just like, man Armand is so fuckin tragic you know? There’s so much nature/nurture to think about when you look at the others but it’s like, he was SO deeply traumatized for his early years I’m not surprised he couldn’t even try. I bring this up from time to time but it’s like, his time with Marius was so brief in the scheme of things, and even if his turning itself or the small amount of time he had with Marius wasn’t traumatic, the fallout was ENOUGH. And like, to relapse back into a cult after being with Marius makes me wonder if he convinced himself that those years were like, an abomination or a mistake, even if his actual turning itself wasn’t awful.

Then you look at someone like Lestat, who was also super traumatized by the way he was turned, and simply will not fucking stop making fledglings because he’s so lonely and has no impulse control and can’t cope with the concept of losing people. I think the two of them are both so desperate for companionship and still approach it so differently because of their personalities. And even without turning people I just think like, Armand has dealt with so much rejection? It's hard enough to get people to stick around when they're already vampires, like, why would he invest in a human at this point.

So yeah it’s just, it fucks me up every day of my life that Daniel is the only one for him.

I think a lot about the “Remember then that it was love” convo with Marius and how like, Armand seems to have made steady progress in his relationships over the years. Like, acting like less of an animal, being more present with people, etc. And it finally settles on Daniel and repeats some of the Venice stuff.

The irony too of how he GOT Daniel there by being a fucking predator at first; same with how Marius chose Armand because he had no innate value anymore as a person, no one would miss him, every day Marius gave him was a bonus and he was living on borrowed time. Daniel’s life sort of ends the night he meets Louis and Armand harasses him to the point of completely isolating him and fucking up his whole life. In that way he’s at rock bottom with nothing else to lose, also on borrowed time, nowhere to go but up.

Anyway sdhgkjlasg boy yeah they have so much to talk about and like. I think there’s enough anecdotes about vampires who go mad and don’t recover, and it’s promising to me that Daniel DOES recover. And I want them to speak and heal and I hope they both respect how fucking special it is that Daniel is The One.

#i'm sad about armand again good morning! #armand pain #vampire chronicles #devil's minion #armand #daniel molloy #armand/daniel #deep ass thoughts about vampires #trauma hole theory #anne rice

[aispot]

Ranpo had always had an oral fixation, a compulsion to chew on things and put things in his mouth. It started off small, with him constantly chewing on pens and pencils, but it gradually grew worse. He found himself chewing on anything he could get his hands on, from the buttons on his clothes to his own fingernails.

Poe, his partner and best friend, was the one who bore the brunt of Ranpo's fixation. Whenever they were working together, Ranpo would impulsively reach over and bite Poe's arm or hand. Poe was startled and confused, unsure of how to react. He knew that Ranpo had this compulsion but he didn't know how to deal with it.

Poe began trying to find ways to distract Ranpo from his fixation. He started feeding him candy and even buying him chew toys, hoping that it would help curb his urge to bite. But no matter what Poe did, Ranpo's fixation persisted.

Eventually, Poe found out that part of the reason Ranpo liked biting him was just to see his reactions. It was a way for him to feel a sense of control in a world that he found uncontrollable at times. Poe felt both hurt and relieved to understand that it wasn't personal.

Poe tried to understand his friends struggle and tried to support him through it. He researched compulsions and fixations, and helped Ranpo find ways to control his urges. Ranpo started to talk about his feelings, when he feels the need to chew or bite, and Poe found ways to help him deal with it, for example, giving him a piece of gum or a stuffed toy to bite.

Despite the challenges, the two of them grew closer as Poe's support for Ranpo's struggles helped him to understand and accept his friend's quirks and neurodivergent traits. They were able to navigate the difficult path together with more understanding and patience for each other.

#bsd #ranpoe #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd ranpo #bsd poe

[bloodraineart]

NBC Hannibal AU, tell me if this has been done before

As expectable, below the cut features talk of: Murder, injuries, guns and knives, cannibalism

Everything that happened to Abigail in canon still happens, with the exception of her dying. Instead, she manages to stop the bleeding and escape off to a hospital or find someone who can call an ambulance. In my hc, this was an impulsive and reckless slip up on Hannibal’s end, I imagine the greater situation threw him off slightly so she ended up going unnoticed.

Abigail gets her wounds treated, recovers, I feel like she’d tell the hospital staff a just slightly off name. The second she can, she’s out of there. Returns to the woods as her place of solace. Even there, she cant escape all the damage Hannibal did. Overtime, she grows more and more disdain for Hannibal. She feels out if control of herself, like she’s not who she used to be. And in some way, she isnt. She continues hunting as a form of venting and escape.

She lives up in the woods, her home is cozy, shes fully an adult now, maybe 26-30. She has a few hunting rifles, even more hunting knives. I think she’d have dogs too. Tops 2. I can’t see her having smaller dogs here. They’d be large, like a Rottweiler or Mastiff. She brings them along when she goes out hunting.

She hones her manipulation, lures other hunters, hikers, rangers, anyone, to her cabin. She executes them quickly, if she likes them. If she doesn’t, its a much more arduous death. She uses her hunting knives to prepare the bodies. Feeds some of each ‘hunt’ to her dogs. She leaves the bones with scraps out for the coyotes and wild animals, makes sure they’re far enough from her house to avoid the animals getting too close. She’s not precious about keeping any bones. Except for the skull. It doesn’t hurt to have something for target practice.

It feels a bit worse to put it into words tbh

#hannibal #hannibal lecter #hannibal nbc #abigail hobbs #will graham #i just kinda miss her tbh #i think she’d have a good murderer set up #hannibal au #hannibal headcanons

[veliseraptor]

For the ask meme, Xue Yang/Wei Wuxian??

I haven't thought about this one in a hot minute but I think I can still solidly say that this is one that I do ship I just also have a whole-ass time getting my head around making it work, which is really too bad. at some point maybe I will work it out but awfully enough it is easier for me to figure out how I would approach writing Xue Yang/Lan Wangji than it is for me to figure out how I would approach writing Xue Yang/Wei Wuxian, which seems wrong somehow.

but this is all beside the point and maybe answering this meme ask will help

What made you ship it?

I mean, the exchange in episode 10 of The Untamed went a long way toward selling me on it and their whole back and forth in the actual Yi City arc went the rest of the way, even if I had needed a nudge to get there what with the "two great tastes that taste great together" potential of it. Which I didn't, really.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

It's really the epitome of "they make each other worse" isn't it? Xue Yang is going to enable all of Wei Wuxian's absolute worst impulses. Wei Wuxian in the vicinity of Xue Yang in a situation where they're not immediately at odds is unlikely to be a good influence at all and very likely to just embrace (a) fucking around with dark powers, which I think has it's appeal for him beyond just necessity and (b) leaning into the tendency he does have for viciousness and vengefulness. I also don't think Wei Wuxian would hate having someone who very much thinks he's the best thing ever exactly as he is, warts and all, because it would both be the kind of unconditional acceptance that ultimately ends up coming from Lan Wangji, and also because it would appeal to his pride, particularly pre-death. The whole thing becomes a feedback loop of awful, I'm pretty sure.

Of course, this is assuming that both their lives take roughly the course that they do in canon, barring (again) the part where they're immediately at odds, either in CQL terms or in novel terms.

There is a universe where they end up on the same side of things later on, somehow, and I'm very interested in seeing how that pans out, actually. Maybe an instance where Lan Wangji dies somehow and Xue Yang uses "collaborating on mutual boyfriend resurrection" as leverage to get Wei Wuxian to work with him on his Xiao Xingchen-fixing project? Wei Wuxian would hate it and Xue Yang would feed on that as something he could fixate on to stay alive and motivated through the despair. And they could fuck about it.

I've had the vague shape of that one kicking around in my head for a while but I have absolutely no idea if I could write it.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Are there enough people shipping this to have unpopular opinions about it? Other than, probably, its existing and the fact that I am more inclined to want it in a way that pulls Wei Wuxian darker than I am in a way that would make Xue Yang "better." (Not that he needs to improve, he's perfect as he is.)

...you know, it occurs to me that while I don't like "dark versions of kind characters" as a trope, I do like "grey characters who are made nastier around specific people." That's good shit.

#conversating #anonymous #xuexian #xue yang #wei wuxian #ship opinions meme #okay i think this is the last one #thanks for playing guys!!!

[pandorem]

I find it kind of interesting when people try to ignore Elias, Not!Sasha, and Jon’s burgeoning beholding powers when it comes to Jon’s paranoia and obsession in season 2. On the one hand, I completely understand the impulse, given that leaning too far into those explanations can feel like making excuses for Jon or sandpapering out his very real flaws. I actually have the opposite problem with how some of the fandom treat Sasha, Georgie, and to a lesser extent Basira, making them less flawed and therefore less complex and interesting as characters. Making them less like whole and real people. And with Jon, given that he’s the main character and canonically goes by he/him pronouns, I’m also used to fandoms historically being way too forgiving of their male characters and their flaws, so I also totally get the instinct to fight against that.

On the other hand, in this specific context, it feels less like refusing to make excuses for Jon and more like ignoring the very real context of the situation. Elias killed Gertrude and has lying to and manipulating Jon since the day they met. Not!Sasha replaced his friend, and was at times actively trying to make Jon feel threatened and afraid, and we still don’t know how much Not!Sasha was purposefully doing things to feed of everyone’s fear outside of some specific instances. Jon has just experiences a traumatic event, found out his predecessor was murdered, and his Beholding powers are slowly creeping in without him realizing it. Beholding powers that are both the antithesis of the Stranger and not yet strong enough to oppose the Stranger yet, just strong enough to Know that Something is Wrong Here. There is danger, something is not right.

I don’t think any of that context has to be excuses, because the state of paranoia it leaves him in leads him to some truly fucked up and hurtful choices (mainly stalking Tim to his home, etc.). I do think acknowledging the context can actually make the situation that much more messy and interesting. He was RIGHT, but his actions still hurt people that cared about him. Tim didn’t kill anyone, but if he had been not!Them’d instead, then Jon would’ve been right not to trust him. Where does that leave Tim and his hurt and his grief? Fics that run with that idea and have that be an aspect of Tim’s anger, that Jon was right in the end, so it’s like he can’t even decide if his very valid feelings about the situation are allowed, and worse, maybe he was only right because he’s becoming a monster! And Jon Knew something was wrong when Tim didn’t (couldn’t) realize Sasha was gone and something was pretending to be her… and that just drags him further into the spiral of grief and anger and resentment, unable to untangle the feelings there. It’s so messy. I wanna take the huge snarl of string of Tim and Jon’s feelings and untangle it, following each thread to its own painful feeling and give it a name.

So like…. I guess my point is that Jon made fucked up and hurtful choices bc he has always been predisposed to obsession and paranoia (as well as impulsivity, thank you adhd), and I don’t think that acknowledging the broader context of the situation in this specific context means we can’t hold him accountable for that or feel empathy for his natural paranoia. Like, you can paint a complex picture of someone going into a paranoia spiral, but the situation is different when that spiral is explicitly being affected by multiple people deliberately trying to gaslight that person. And Jon’s situation feels closer to the latter than the former.

#tma jon #tim tma #tim stoker #jonathan sims #tma meta #the magnus pod #the magnus archives #sorry I always tag so much I’m v bad at tagging #season 2 spoilers #season 2 Jon #season 3 spoilers #jon my beloved

[the-god-of-nihon]

The Tragedy of Jaunepin: Why Jaune would be a terrible Ozcarnation.

Imo Jaune and Oz are likeminded, but mostly in ways that make themselves and each other worse. And their strengths would be canceled out by the others flaws. Combined with the circumstances of canon, and their individual flaws, the resulting merge would make a new Ozcarnation that would bring out the worst in the two.

Jaune’s strengths are that he’s kind, friendly, loyal, and brings out the best in others. Oz has reached the point where he doesn’t trust anyone, he’s lost faith in others and believes he can only truly count on himself to do what needs to be done. He isolates himself because he’s been hurt and lost before and he’s unwilling to open up to others again. Oz’s strengths are that he’s pragmatic, while still at least espousing ideals, has several lifetimes of knowledge and experience, and he’s good at manipulating people. Pre-V7 Jaune is prone to emotional turbulence, defeatism, impulsiveness and needs other people to be the best version of himself.

Jaune and Oz’s combined self-loathing, lack of self-worth, propensity for lying and unlawful means. Jaune’s growing distrust in authority figures due to the events of canon, most notably the reveal of the circumstances leading to Pyrrha’s death. Of which Ozpin is at least partially responsible. And Jaune’s personal issues would feed into and create a loop with Oz’s greater personality problems. Oscar gets off light with the merge because he’s a simple character, that basically exists for the merge, with not much of a strongly defined personality. Even early Jaune was fairly complex and had a very defined character, and exists for reasons other than being Oz's next incarnation, which makes the merge messier.

Jaune would fight the merge much more than Oscar, for several reasons. The primary ones being he actually has an identity to lose, not to mention a family, and he’s suffered more directly and indirectly due to Oz’s actions and failings. Suddenly he has the headmaster that failed him and his friends in his head telling him how Pyrrha’s sacrifice was necessary and now he must do the same. We never get to see him come into his own like in V7-8.

Oz would be left worse off because of how opposed and unwilling Jaune would be, not to mention how Jaune’s grievances and rightful indignation would feed into Oz’s existing negativity. Every time he takes control would have to be unwilling or under duress, which would only make the whole deal more tense. Ozpin doesn’t admit he was wrong and get the chance to trust again.

Whereas Ozcar is about both sides uplifting each other, Jaunepin is the two constantly pushing and dragging each other down. Oscar is made a part of things greater than himself and accomplishing things he would have never done on his own; Jaune on the other hand was well on his way to progress into a better version of himself, and chose the fight of his own free will. A merge would mean his chosen journey is hijacked by Ozpin, and his potential stolen. And rather than a fresh start, Ozpin gets a host that hates him and has good reasons to do so.

Obviously that’s all my interpretation, and I’ll admit I’m focusing on the negatives because I think that makes for a more interesting story. But I do believe what I said to an extent; a Jaunepin merge would be more of a tragedy as opposed to Ozcar’s classical hero’s journey for several reasons. But obviously anyone could write the same thing to be triumphant or positive, that’s a matter of execution.

#RWBY #Roosterteeth #Jaune Arc #JNPR #Professor Ozpin #Ozpin #Long Post

[cookinguptales]

wwdits tarot: the devil

This is another fun card that’s largely misunderstood by people who don’t read tarot. I thought long and hard on which character should be XV. The Devil, and I had a couple very strong frontrunners. But in the end, my Devil could only be one option…

So The Devil is one of those cards that I think people assume is bad, and I mean. It is. But not necessarily in the way you’d expect. The Devil doesn’t necessarily refer to some powerful outer entity in your life who’s about to make you miserable. It’s not some evil person. The Devil is worse, in some ways, because it’s about all the worst impulses in you.

The Devil is a card that’s about choices — namely, bad ones. Imagine your shoulder angel and shoulder devil. This card is the shoulder devil. It’s the card of addictions and bad habits and self-talk that will always hold you back. It’s a card of materialism and indulgence and giving into your very worst impulses.

Put simply, it’s a card about temptation.

The Devil is about recognizing the part of you that’s tempted to fall back into patterns of behavior that feel good now, but will only hurt you in the long run. And the advice that usually comes with this card is to just tell them no.

I very seriously considered Jan for this card. She feeds on insecurities and dips her fingers into addiction. She’s very keen on power and materialism and she leads her followers down paths that will only ever hurt them.

But… again, this is not a card about a bad person, exactly. This is a card that simply encourages the bad things that are already inside of you. It encourages you to make the bad choices that you’re already tempted to make, and it makes addictions to things that hurt sound so, so sweet.

So actually, the Devil that I’ve chosen isn’t a person at all.

It’s a hat.

A cursed witch’s sphincter hat, that is.

Laszlo’s cursed witch-skin hat is an addiction that he just can’t seem to leave behind even though it has only ever brought him sorrow. It has hurt everyone and everything he has ever loved, but still he can’t seem to give it up.

And neither can Simon the Devious.

There’s certainly a sort of selfish materialism to the hat, a desperate and awful need to possess, to own, to claim, but more than that, it seems to warp even the good things in both of them to something bad.

I’ve always thought that the real tragedy of the feud between Laszlo and Simon is that they would actually be incredible friends. They get along so well. They have similar hobbies, they like the same movies, they both have a passion for home design — like, they seem to just genuinely enjoy working together and spending time in each other’s company.

And it always seems to be poisoned by that damn hat.

The two of them always seem to end up at each other’s throats, and it’s certainly because that witch’s hat is whispering to them. It’s become the bad devil on both of their shoulders. Frankly speaking, most vampires seem to give into their shoulder devil at all times — but usually that devil would at least help them!

But rather than being truly self-serving, the cursed hat only has the illusion of benefit. Like all of The Devil’s temptations, it is a misdirection from the truth — that this temporary joy will only ever lead to sorrow. The real curse on this hat seems to be the inability to let it go, even when it’s actively destroying your life.

Whether it’s an addiction to gambling, shopping, self-harm (physical or emotional), drugs, or an extremely cursed witch’s hat, The Devil is always offering instant gratification in return for your soul.

(Or, if you’re like Laszlo and you’ve already tried to sell your soul at the crossroads a few times for musical ability, The Devil can at least really fuck up your life. And keep you from enjoying the best friendship you've never had.)

Anyway. Imagery.

I do feel like there will have to be a rather radical departure from the RWS imagery here if just because for all that that sphincter still…. sphincts… the cursed hat is still a largely inanimate object.

The original RSW card shows Baphomet, or the devil, seated on an altar between two people who are enslaved to his will. They are physically chained to him, which is a symbol of being chained by addictions, bad habits, and indulgences.

I think for all that we’ll be taking the central figure (Baphomet) from the card, we can still adhere pretty closely to the rest. Instead of Baphomet seated on an altar, it will be the cursed witch-skin hat sitting on a pedestal to be admired. A pentagram still hovers above it, but it is Laszlo and Simon who are chained to its base.

I’ll leave it up to you whether they’re wearing any clothes.

wwdits tarot masterpost

#I've got a whole meta post in my head about how the witch's hat is actually a parasitic magical creature #that enjoys changing hosts every so often #but that's a story for another day #wwdits #wwdits tarot #wwdits meta