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#there’s so many things in it with the capability to be Absolutely Horrifying
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I managed to pull this together in the middle of an Absolutely Horrible work day! Yay! (Writing this is probably part of what got me out of a stress and caffeine induced panic attack) Unfortunately I didn’t get it edited on time to post on time, but Hey! It Exists :D Anyway, people should write more characters having autism shutdowns. It’s very frustrating being barely able/unable to talk (I am autism btw)
Anyway, this one’s very environmental. I feel like the timespace distortions in PLA could have been a LOT more horrifying, and I’m here to deliver! Warnings: animal attack (again), uuuuhh what do you call this.. time and space are being bent and torn around him and it is some sort of cosmic horror or something idk what that term means exactly I just know it’s what comes to mind, but uuuh yeah this one’s kinda tame actually.
All of mine so far have been pretty tame, let’s be honest. I promise I can write other stuff we just haven’t gotten to the Good Stuff I Have Planned yet
Day 5: Reckless
Takes place some time after the battle atop Mount Coronet. (After day 4 of this event, far before day 3, which happened before days 1 and 2)
~~~~~
Volo should have known this would happen when a strange energy started to fill the air. He should’ve known this would happen when sparks started to fly.
He thought he had more time before it did, thought he could pick a few more berries from this tree and run.
He should’ve known better than to test his fate, especially in a distortion that he had indirectly caused. Arceus has a sense of humor, after all, and Volo is no stranger to the cruelty that fate seems to love to bring him.
Scents from past and future flow into the air, and he can hardly breathe, stumbling as the ground morphs and shifts under him. One moment, he’s standing on the grassy hill, and the next, a structure he doesn’t understand appears out of nowhere, trapping him inside.
He scrambles his way out a window and brings his fingers to his mouth, whistling as loud as he can.
But Toge doesn’t come. She can’t hear him in the storm.
I could die here.
The realization sends chills down his spine.
He’s been confronted by his own mortality plenty of times in his life. It’d be a surprise to hear someone hasn’t, really, in a world as dangerous, as cruel as this one. Wild Pokémon attacks that aren’t immediately deadly can still be incredibly dangerous later, after all, and there’s a myriad of other dangers in this world.
Volo happens to be particularly good at getting himself into bad situations, and fate has always seemed to be especially cruel to him. He’s faced death plenty of times.
But it’s never felt so close.
He could run from murderers and wild Pokémon. He managed to strike a deal with Giratina when they met, he learned everything he could forage so he would never starve, he had even escaped the wrath of a particularly powerful zoroark, which is an impressive feat, considering the fact that even the normal zoro put plenty of people on the death toll.
But he can’t run from this. Not when he can’t breathe and the ground itself doesn’t seem to work as it should, flickering in and out of existence at the drop of a hat.
He curses himself for his stupidity as a terrified steelix shrieks, a sound like boulders tumbling down a mountain. It’s moving too quickly to see where it’s going, barreling straight towards Volo.
He just manages to dodge out of the way, ducking and rolling behind a tree- but an electric attack hits him, and he shrieks as his whole body jolts from it, falling to his knees.
It’s hard to move, he’s shaking, his muscles are spasming.
He can’t run.
Paralyzed.
I’m going to die here.
Something falls into his hands, a strange device. Some sort of bracelet, with a thick, flat face.
It lights up as he touches it.
He frantically presses back against the tree as an alpha raichu steps forward, holding the strange device up.
He’s about to move to throw it in desperation-
And then something he touches on it creates a shield of pink and blue energy, surrounding him just as the raichu tries to hit him with a Thunder.
He can breathe.
Volo scrambles to his feet, catching his breath. “Is this- some sort of shield..?” It moves with him as he walks- no? It’s moving with the device.
He scoops it off the ground, shaking his limbs out to try to get the rest of the electric attack out of his system, and he sprints towards the outside of the distortion, carrying the device with him. The ground materializes beneath his feet, holding steady even as it breaks around him, and he thanks fate for finally giving him something good.
Some attack hits the shield, and he yelps as he’s thrown, but he isn’t hurt by anything except his own bad landing. Scrambling back to his feet, he runs the rest of the way out, jumping through to the outside of the bubble of distorted land just as the timespace storm starts to swirl.
Terrified pokemon shriek as they’re swept into it. Volo nearly throws up as he sees human remains inside, swirling with the rest.
And, in a flash, all of it is gone, leaving no sign of what just happened but specks of shimmering pink dust, floating softly to the ground.
He’s in a cold sweat, shaking as he stares at where he was almost swept away. The trio would RUN INTO these. For FUN, to collect the things inside.
What the HELL is wrong with them!?
He takes a few shaky breaths, collapsing to his hands and knees. The device makes a clicking sound as it wraps around his hand, but he pays it no mind for now.
Okay.
Okay, I’m okay. I’m alive. I’m okay.
..I have nobody to blame for that except myself. I shouldn’t have stayed when the storm started to gather. And for what, a few handfuls more of berries? That wasn’t worth the risk!
He stares at the strange device, which has moved to his wrist. There’s numbers on the front, though he’s not sure what they’re for.
It’s a miracle I made it out. And it’s because of this wondrous device..
It’s locked itself around his wrist somehow. He can’t see the locking mechanism- it looks like a clean band, aside from the face. The only sign as to its origin is some strange lettering on the side, though he doesn’t really recognize the characters. He knows he’s seen them somewhere before, though.
With some experimentation, he figures out he can move the device up and down his arm, but he can’t take it off. It’s comfortable no matter where it is, fitting perfectly to his skin, but it won’t go over his hand, despite obviously having the capability of doing so.
Fascinating..
Okay, he’ll deal with that later. He stands, making his way back to the little camp he’s set up.
He’s still feeling a little stiff with the after effects of a fairly mild electric attack paralysis, but he’s not too hurt- he must’ve not been hit too bad, thankfully.
Volo sits at camp, dumping out his bag and counting the supplies he’s managed to gather.
If he finds a way to preserve the food, what he has gathered today will be enough for a few days. So the progress towards what he and his Pokémon need to survive the winter is slow, but it is progressing.
The extra berries he grabbed are enough for two extra meals for Toge, so there’s that, at least.
Was it worth the risk? No, not in the slightest. Not when he can easily gather that safely.
But does it make him feel a little better about it?
Absolutely.
He looks up as a shadow falls over him, quickly moving to catch Toge as she flies into his chest. “Hey!”
She squeaks happily, shaking her bag- and that’s the sound of a bunch of apricorns. He can also see the leaves of a few different edible plants and medicinal herbs sticking out.
Volo smiles, cuddling her close. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he murmurs, burying his face in her feathers with a quiet sigh. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
~~~
PARADOX DETECTED
A young woman leans over to look at the alert, brushing curly red hair out of her eyes. “Oh! Well, that explains where he got his watch.. That is a dangerous paradox, wow. Very lucky it didn’t break anything. Dialga must have helped..” She sighs, tapping a few buttons on her watch and sending a quick message to Management. “..Dragons. I need to figure out how Eclipse got it off so I can update the security systems.. What a bother.”
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Idk why I keep going back to The Case of the Devlin House what kind of fucking masochist am I.
But it's just. It's just done so well. The wholesome and lighthearted moments, with the dandelion sprites or with Charles and Crystal or Monty meeting Edwin, and the glaring contrast with the absolute HORRORS that happen in the episode.
And how the horrifying parts aren't even the supernatural elements. It's not the misery-ghoul-whats-its-name that's terrifying. It's the human man who is a fucking asshole, creep and brutal murderer, and what he did, and who he was. And the echoes of that toxicity that Charles sees his own father in. The monsters are the humans. The same thing happens with the date between Jenny and the librarian.
It's the human part and the knowledge of how real those situations are and how they occur every day around the world, in some degree. How humans are entirely capable of those things. That's what's the horror. Not the ghosts, but how they lived and died, how Charles and Edwin and the Devlin family and so many other people were killed.
GOD this episode brought back dark memories for me but I cannot help going to it because it's so well done.
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blacknedsoul-blog · 9 months
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The divorce of the White Raven was the chronicle of a foretold death
Now that the White Raven divorce officially begins tomorrow. I wanted to do a little review of why I've been looking forward to this moment for over 40 chapters and the delicious drama to come. 
The chapters of Annabel and Lenore talking in the greenhouse are wonderful for many reasons, but mainly because they lay the groundwork for what the conflicts in their relationship will be from now on, simply put: these two just aren't on the same page. 
Annabel wants to save them both, Lenore wants to save everyone.
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Annabel calls Lenore "my favorite," "my darling," and "my petal"; Lenore understands "my companion animal" (and Annabel doesn't bother to clarify). 
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Lenore says they are friends; Annabel clearly knows they were a couple.
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Annabel tries to kiss her goodbye on the lips; Lenore kisses her hand. 
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As the comic progresses -and especially with the last chapter released by the Freepass- the more fundamental root of this problem becomes more apparent: the White Raven don't really know each other, they think they do and, incidentally, insist on not listening to each other.
The Annabel Lenore Knows
The "disappointment rooms" are a Victorian myth (I say "myth" because there is no evidence that they were a widespread practice, although there are cases like Blanche Monnier's, they did not seem to be particularly common. But they exist in this comic, so they will be treated as real in this essay) were isolated rooms where a family member with a mental illness or physical deformity was kept isolated from the world, making him or her an outcast. 
We don't know the real reasons why Annabel wanted to get close to Lenore (this scene make it clear that it was of her own free will, something Lenore knows), but anyway, this was extremely strange at the time, the kind of thing that could severely damage someone's reputation if it became public.
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In other words, for Lenore, Annabel not only pulled her out of the spiral of madness she was in, made her feel alive again, and treated her like a person (something that hadn't happened since Theo's death); she also put her reputation on the line to get closer to "the crazy woman in the attic". 
Add to that the fact that Annabel, like Lenore, is someone with an extremely protective personality, albeit in a much more subtle way: containing Lenore's outbursts by trying to distract her, complimenting her when she doubts herself, trying to give her a sense of purpose by asking her to write her a song, and automatically containing her own panic attack when she sees Lenore's horrified expression. 
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To Lenore, Annabel is someone who would rather destroy something that makes her happy and be hated than let Lenore suffer for her absence.
This is a gigantic contrast to the Annabel readers know, yes, the basics are there: she is seen to genuinely care about Prospero, and gratuitous violence against someone who cannot defend himself infuriates her. But Lenore does not dimension how Annabel's methods of survival (shaped by her trauma of not being heard, reasons why she machines her way through people) make her a Machiavellian, manipulative and cold-blooded person. 
The last time Lenore saw Annabel in a situation where she could do nothing, she saw her give up. But readers know that this time, Annabel is willing to burn absolutely everything down to get them both out of it.
That is why the Duke affair takes her by surprise. Never mind that Annabel has said she's willing to destroy or trample anyone to get out of Nevermore. The Annabel Lenore knows would not be capable of that.
The Lenore Annabel knows
This part is more difficult to analyze, because unfortunately Annabel's memories are tied to big mysteries within the plot. On the plus side, this comic is excellent at dropping large amounts of information at the point of detail. 
The most obvious: Annabel is carrying around the ring Lenore had when she burned down her house, in other words, "Leo's" charade worked so well that the two of them got engaged. In other words: Annabel has seen this woman burn down a family home (perhaps with servants inside), fake her own death, steal, take a continental trip, change her identity and pose as a man, all to save her from an arranged marriage. 
A very "you and me against the world" situation. A scenario Lenore made possible by lying to basically everyone, even Annabel herself, who must have spent at least a few months believing Lenore was dead until "Leo" knocked on her door. 
Add to that these two scenes: in the first, Annabel seems pretty convinced that Lenore has a good idea of what's going on here...
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And in this one, Annabel thinks Lenore is doing this out of guilt.
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Again, this is a huge contrast to the Lenore we readers have seen throughout the comic: a person who desperately wants to show others the affection and security that no one (except Theo and Annabel) has given her. A mix of a naturally vivacious and caring personality with traumas from which her need for control stems from anxiety and a terrible fear of abandonment. 
In this light, Annabel putting Duke in danger to keep Montressor away from Lenore was something that was informed, known, and something that Lenore would agree with, because the Lenore she knows would be willing to sacrifice anything to achieve her goal. 
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In that sense, that scene is foreshadowing. Not only did Lenore trick her into using a memory that Annabel does not have, but it comes right after Annabel confidently says that "no one knows Lenore better than she does.
The masks
One of the most painful tragedies of the White Raven relationship (besides the fact that it ended with both of them dead) is that one of the two has had to wear a mask on both sides of it: Annabel pretending that this relationship isn't as deeply ingrained in her as it really is, and then Lenore doing the whole "Leo" thing to be "the perfect fiancé" in everyone else's eyes.
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Their divorce is imminent because both of them (especially Annabel) are projecting onto the other the expectations they have that are a product of the few memories they have been able to recover, rather than really looking at the person in front of them. 
I'm going to enjoy all the beautiful character development that comes from here on out, because they both have a lot of unpacking to do separately from this divorce arc. And, I hope that, when they can finally reconcile, we also get to see how, for the first time in the history of their relationship, Annabel and Lenore can actually see eye to eye.
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oldshrewsburyian · 7 months
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Any thoughts on *why* so many people are subliterate now? Is the educational system really that much worse than it was even 15-20 years ago? Or is the tsunami of information we all live with too much to deal with? Or is there something else going on?
...I do have Thoughts on this, actually! Quite a few of them! And I suspect that the answer to your slate of options might be: D, all of the above. I will address your points out of order (sorry.)
B: As for the information tsunami/superhighway, I don't think it's to blame in itself. As the president of an academic organization said at the biennial conference in 2016, "Nous lisons de plus en plus, mais nous lisons autrement" (we read more and more, but we read differently.) It says something about what he meant and about that particular historical moment that I was live-tweeting. And obviously I'm not saying that reading the internet is bad (I read the internet all the time.) But I do think that it facilitates habits of minimal, shallow, or superficial reading, and I do think that's a problem. I once had a student say--in class!--that the historical essays I assigned were challenging for him because he's more used to reading tweets. I stared at him for several long seconds before saying "Then this is good practice for you." I also had a very sweet student in a first-year college seminar who just had no clue how sentence mechanics worked, so I had to find a gentle way of asking, in office hours, "Do you... read at all? for fun?" "Oh, I read all the time," said this sweet student confidently, and my own reading habits enabled me to counter: "Fanfic or published works?" And yep, that's your problem right there. Obviously I read and write fanfic myself. But reading principally fanfic is a great way not to learn how grammar works.
A: in the US? ...yeah, it kind of is, actually, which is horrifying. Like a lot of the rest of my demographic (educator, xennial, NPR devotee,) I listened to the APM podcast Sold A Story. In going to find you the link, I found bonus episodes which I also highly recommend, in part because they include criticisms of the podcast and notes on policy. But what this podcast describes also tracks with my experiences in two very grim years when I tutored reading at the elementary/middle school level, and also found reading comprehension to be a weak link in ACT/SAT prep.
C: this brings us to "something else going on?" And I don't know what that is. But even my college students who can read at a basic 6th-grade level (sob) seem to have really stunted capabilities for inference. I ask them to make inferences and they look at me with the heartbreaking expressions of confused dogs. Or they'll see something blindingly obvious and say things like "Could this... possibly be...?" and I say brightly: "Yes! that's absolutely what it is! good job!" instead of saying: "What the **** else would it be?" Sometimes an entire class of students will read something without comprehension and subsequently thank me for "explaining" a text when all I have done is paraphrase it. And we're not talking academic articles here; we're talking 2-4 page excerpts of primary sources selected with TLC for a target audience of beginning college students. So far I have not snapped and screamed, "I didn't explain shit!" But I do find myself having to, well, explain that explanation would mean digging deeper into the text. I also find myself puzzled and alarmed by the fact that they don't seem able to identify or describe what they find challenging. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard "Just the entire thing was confusing"...! I've modified entire courses to try to get students more of the reading practice and additional skills they need. I'm not sure how much it's helping.
I really wish I had more answers. What I do have is a lot of despair.
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hostdoozy · 5 months
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The horrifying implications of Meat Sweats powers.
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Rupert (mainly known as meat sweats) is possibly one of my favourite side-villains within Rottmnt as of this moment. Down his writing and animation, the Gordon Ramsey parody is an absolute delight to watch.
Something about his mannerisms is beyond fascinating to me. He's a double threat, both cunning and robust. I could go on about for hours about this overgrown porky pig characteristic and how he is so much more than the very thing he is parodying.
But I'll spare you that mercy and focus on ONE aspect of his character.
His mutant powers. (read more down below)
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In 'Nothing but Truffle' we get a lot of insight into how his abilities function. Using the strange tendrils that make up his arm and hands, he can latch onto his prey and suck out their 'essences'. Temporarily possessing his victim's powers while his victim is either immobilized or die after the process (implied). The key word here is "Temporarily" During the episode, after Mikey is betrayed by the British Meatbag we get this little exchange between the two.
"B-but- i thought you were nice now?" "Oh. that wore off hours ago...and by the way, you play lousy mandoline" This shows us, that once he absorbs his victim's powers- throughout the course of an entire day- they only last for a short period. This shows us, that his mutant form can quickly burn off "essences". why is this horrifying? I'll get into it soon enough, sit tightly. Let's us examine what exactly he IS absorbing.
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We see that whenever Rupert is absorbing something- it is always GREEN and you what else is green? Empyrean. the source of yokai power, the ingredient used to create mutants. His mutant form requires Empyrean. What do I mean by "require"? well then. We established that Rupert can quickly burn off Empyrean after absorbing it. now i'd like to point out something to you. Notice how Rupert is often described as "cannibalistic" or "vampiric" by other characters, merch and even concept artwork. Notice how often he hunts, he jumps at any opportunity to catch any prey. See how within the show, there are many instances of him having cages upon cages of mutant/yokai saved for special occasions. Almost like, he NEEDS a constant onslaught of Empyrean not because he enjoys the power that comes with it but rather, out of necessity. It is VERY possible that his Mutant form needs it to survive. Normal food won't simply cut it, He hungers for yokai and mutants alike.
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So is that it? seems pretty simple enough, right? AHAHAHAHAHA NO MY DEAR READER, WE ARE NOT DONE YET! you are stuck here with me. I had a shocking revelation, one that seemed rather far-fetch but please bear with me.
Rupert has minimal control of his powers.
When the metal gauntlets come off, Rupert cannot control what his tendrils can absorb. An example of this is featured is once again, in "Nothing but Truffle". The second Mikey pulled Rupert's arm to the weretree, the tendrils began draining it upon contact- against Rupert's will. He can't stop it. This is just one of the many instances of it. We know that Rupert can form "claws" with his tendrils based on this one Ep but this is the only time it happens. Usually, they are untangled instead of interconnected
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While this could just be an animation inconsistency- please just. indulge me for a moment. Rupert is known as most dangerous mutant according to Tmnt and there's good reason for this. Despite Ruperts disadvantages, he is capable of working AROUND them. He is dangerous not because of his mutant abilities but for his intelligence. we the viewer don't suspect it because He is capable of making split-second decisions within a fight. Rupert is competent in many others ways that we overlook and mislead into thinking he's in full control of his powers. (Idk if he's autistic but he'd be a master at masking lol)
So NOW why is this horrifying?
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Keep in mind. Rupert was a human- a shitty one but still human regardless. His mutation wasn't by choice. His cannibalism wasn't a choice. Imagine, you are at the height of your career and in the middle of your show- in front of an entire audience- you suddenly feel a pinch. everything is painful. Your body contorts into a horrific pigish amalgamation in a matter of minutes. The world has its eyes on you. people are watching. All you see is RED.
You've become a monster.
Once the red is gone. All that is left is the hunger. You are reduced to nothing more than a creature lurking within the shadows. A wall is put between you and the remaining semblance of your old life. Everything you work for, Gone. Left to rot away.
No matter how many scraps you pull out of NYC's trash piles. You are still hungry. This disgusting form of yours demands more. The only thing you can do to survive. is give in. indulge. you didn't just become a monster. you ARE the monster.
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Whether or not Rupert was deserving of this faith is up in the air. We know that he's always been an Asshole. (both Mikey and himself go on to confirm this)
This isn't meant to suddenly paint Rupert in a sympathetic light nor be an attempt to "redeem" his actions. Far from it. This is meant to further insight into him as a villain and why he acts the way he does. Rupert still values his humanity. Rupert resorts to extreme measures to ensure his own comfortability and his legacy (i.e his restaurant) but thats a topic for another day.
To finally conclude this tangent. While Rupert is scummy sod, the situation he's forced into is unsettling when you sit down and think about it. If anything. he might have become a bigger asshole due to his mutation. (now excuse me- im going step inside this man's food truck and kiss him)
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Tim and Sylvia Friendship Headcanons
-They both met at Buck’s when they were ten years old, Tim having just started dealing and Sylvia flirting with the old drunks at the bar so she could pickpocket them. Tim noticed how much money she was getting and tried to shake her down for it but when he flipped open his switch she just laughed at him and pulled out one of her own. They’ve been best friends ever since, even though it took ages for Tim to admit it
-Sylvia is the only person who can call him ‘Timmy’ without getting slugged and it’s mostly because she wore him down.
-Sylvia is a con artist extraordinaire and Tim’s a gang leader and somehow they know everything and nothing about each other at the same time
-Almost everyone in Tulsa thinks they’re an item/have hooked up at least once but their relationship has only ever been 100% platonic. Even if Tim wasn’t gay and Sylvia was capable of love they both just couldn’t ever look at each other that way
-Tim thought HE had a good poker face but his is nothing compared to Sylvia’s. The only thoughts or feelings people can read from Sylvia are the ones she wants them to 
-They both have a radar for when Curly and/or Angela are about to get into trouble even though Sylvia is better at dealing with problems AFTER they arise whereas Tim is all about stopping them from happening in the first place
-Sylvia will occasionally disappear for a few days or a week and Tim never asks where she’s gone, but once she was gone for nearly two months and when she showed back up (twenty pounds lighter and with a newly stitched stab wound) he almost cried- he didn’t, but he did hug her and she actually let him
-Sylvia has been locked up almost as many times as Tim has, and they have a joking competition where they keep track. Whoever has the most tally marks each new years owes the other a pack of cigarettes. Tim had the title for three years in a row before Sylvia beat him and he was genuinely kind of upset about it (mostly because she kept making smart remarks about him becoming a ‘model citizen’ and he has a reputation to keep)
-Curly got the idea to play chicken with Ponyboy from Sylvia because he overheard her make an offhand comment about she and her cousins used to do it
-Sylvia originally went on a date with Dallas Winston because she knew it would piss of Tim, and then kept going out with him because of curiosity (y’know that meme that’s like ‘i wanna study you in a lab but also share fries with you’- that’s how Sylvia views Dally)
-Tim also warned Dally he had no idea what he was getting into when he asked Sylvia out but he obviously didn’t listen 
-we all know Dally & Sylvia we’re a toxic ass couple, and I think a huge contributing factor is that Sylvia played dumb but she was actually way smarter than Dally ever gave her credit for so every time he thought he had her figured out, she’d do something or say something that would shake up how he saw her and it made him feel stupid (which we all know he hated) but also made him more desperate to figure her out 
-Sylvia thinks the Curtis brothers are strange and avoids them as much as possible because they’re genuinely upstanding guys and she’s not used to people who aren’t just out for themselves
-Sylvia lives in six inch stilettos and they make her the same height as Tim (Sylvia is already tall for a girl) and it annoys him to no end
-Sylvia and Steve absolutely loathe each other but because they’re both friends with Angela they try to be civil when she’s around. Tim finds Sylvia’s ire at the guy endlessly funny
-Sylvia was the first person to find out about Tim being gay. He was terrified but she just rolled her eyes and told him to hide his magazines better 
-Tim is the only person who knows anything about Sylvia’s parents that isn’t rumour based speculation, and he will take those secrets to his grave
-Sylvia was originally HORRIFIED when she realised Tim had a thing for Darry Curtis because she does NOT trust that guy he is too nice to not be hiding some dark secret. It’s the only time Tim didn’t at least take her advice into consideration (and Sylvia was eventually forced to grudgingly admit she was wrong about this one)
-Sylvia is a better marksman than Tim, but Tim is more patient than Sylvia, so when they go hunting Tim bags more animals, but when they’re target shooting Sylvia always has a better score
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sapphorror · 5 months
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The relevance of chronology in IZ is dubious at best (in the show—it is flat-out non-existent in the comics), but I do kind of love to think about it regardless because there are so many weirdly specific points of internal continuity, practically and sometimes even emotionally, that we can't pretend there's absolutely nothing to examine there, even if the degree to which it matters is next to null. And anyway, I love a fool's errand.
So with that disclaimer I'd just like to talk about everyone's favorite organ harvesting episode and how much it kills me when examined in the context of an on-going continuity, because it's not just one of the most horrifying things Zim ever does across canon, it's really the first horrifying thing that Dib is present to bear witness to, at least on that scale. For all that NanoZim must've been scary and violating on a personal level, it was ultimately still a contained, targeted attack, and not even an unjustified one—not that Dib would consciously think of it this way, but Zim was acting in reasonable self-defense, he just chose to be really brutal and vindictive as he did so. Plus, Dib did come out on top of that encounter, so there were no real lasting consequences besides losing his evidence, which only put him back to square one. Basically, it was a great basis for forming a personal grudge, but it didn't really say anything about how generally malicious or threatening Zim actually was outside the context of their quickly-coalescing rivalry. Zim's only a monster at this point insofar as it's fun for Dib to have a dragon to defeat. The danger he poses does not yet hang over Dib's head like a guillotine.
Dark Harvest, though. In Dark Harvest, Zim shows just how capable he is of committing brutality on total bystanders at a mass scale under much less urgent circumstances without so much as a trace of hesitation or remorse—and by the end of it, Dib learns firsthand how severe the consequences for losing to Zim can actually be. Healed through the miracle of the status quo reset button or not... well.
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And this adds a lot of context to why Dib spends the rest of the series so totally convinced of the danger Zim poses, even if most of the time that POV is extreme overkill. If he ever starts to doubt the necessity of his mission, just think about the time Zim stole a bunch of kids' organs, and that's irrefutable proof that Zim CAN accomplish terrible things if left unchecked. If he ever starts to doubt the morality of his intentions, just think about the time Zim stole a bunch of kids' organs (and would do so again!), and he can rest easy knowing Zim deserves every terrible consequence coming for him. If he ever forgets why he absolutely cannot afford to let his guard slip for even a second, just think about the time Zim stole a bunch of kids' organs, including Dib's, and now he remembers exactly why it's so important Zim's never allowed to gain the upper-hand. Even when he finally ditches Zim in Mopiness of Doom, it's not because he stops seeing Zim as a threat, it's that he's gotten too burnt out on single-handedly saving the world all the time to care.
(Gaz, of course, was there too and still thinks Zim is harmless, but Gaz also thinks expressing pain after having your entire lower body melted into off-brand bug spray makes you a whiner, so let's not put too much stock in her judgement here)
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Even during Dark Harvest, Dib's immediate response upon finding Zim is to tell him this is totally beyond the pale, as if Zim might actually care—and while Dib trying to convince Zim he's acting totally unhinged isn't exactly unusual throughout the show, past this point he usually does so by appealing to Zim's self-interest ("stop trying to blow up the planet, you're still ON the planet") rather than any hypothetical better nature or good sense, can you even imagine. But that's exactly what he does here, reflexively or not, and that to me is a perfect demonstration of how this episode marks a radical shift in what Dib thinks he's up against.
And for some bonus meta? This also stretches into The Wettening in a really fun way, which is the second episode after Dark Harvest and the first with Dib. The sheer glee Dib takes in exploiting the new-found weakness for all it's worth, just because he can, makes a lot of sense in the wake of Dark Harvest and his new understanding of Zim as an out-of-control inhuman lunatic he has no idea how to stop. Seeing Zim vulnerable to something, openly afraid, and in obviously agonizing pain—well, humanizes would be the wrong word under the circumstances, but it cuts him back down to mortal size. He might be tough, and he might be terrifying, but he's not invincible. Even after Zim very unambiguously wins that fight and finds a way to protect himself from Earth's water, the important take-away is that there are things that can hurt him—Dib just has to figure out what they are. If Dark Harvest is the episode that shows Dib Zim is truly a monster, The Wettening is the episode to teach him even real monsters can be defeated.
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infiniteeight8 · 22 days
Note
If you're still interested in the series... Soul and Tony? IronStrange
I am absolutely still interested in this series, Anon! I have so many notes. I’d have written more of it already, except when I have other prompts I feel compelled to keep up with those, instead. So you have resolved this dilemma for me. 😀
After last the last ficlet in this series, Tony was due for a bit of a freak out...
The other parts of Tony & Soul can be found here. 
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The more Tony thinks about Soul’s powers, the more unsettled he gets. 
If a ghost was effectively a soul—and both Stephen and Soul had said it was—then it followed that the nature of the soul was independent of the human body. Which made sense given the transformations he knew Stephen was capable of: no matter what he did to his body, his soul remained the same. 
Further, given that astral projection was a thing—and Stephen had demonstrated it several times—the body didn’t have to be dead in order for the soul to go walkabout. 
So if a soul could be removed from a living body, and a disembodied soul could be encouraged to pass on into the afterlife, what was stopping Tony from killing people just by pulling their souls out and sending them on?
Soul? Tony demanded.
Nothing, the Soul Stone admitted. Such a thing is entirely within your power. Tony shifted uneasily, and Soul stirred. How is killing them this way any different than shooting them with a gun? 
It just is. Tony hadn’t even believed in souls until recently, but they still felt sacrosanct. The core of who you are should be something outside of anyone’s control but your own. 
An isolated soul is a damaged soul, the Stone insisted. All souls are connected, and therefore all souls are subject to influence. Your influence is greater in many ways, this is just one more.
Influence is one thing, control is another, Tony says. No matter how much someone influences me, the choice is ultimately mine. Even if the options are shitty, I still get to pick from the shitty options. But what I can do, what you can do, is more than that. If I can pull a soul out of someone, can I put it back?
Yes.
Tony took a shaky breath. What if I wanted to put it back somewhere else? Can I play musical chairs with people’s souls?
There’s a pause. Soul feels reluctant. Tony knows the answer before it comes: Yes.
When you warned me not to make contact with that boy’s ghost, Tony goes on, despite the dread that was slowly filling him. What would have happened if I had?
Several things are possible, Soul hedged.
Give me the worst news first, Tony says. Soul hesitates, and Tony waits. He needs to know this.
You could have consumed him, Soul admits. Absorbed his soul and used it to strengthen your own.
Tony swallows down a surge of nausea. His knees feel shaking, but he’s already sitting down. His breath is coming faster. His heart is racing. He drops his head into his hands, struggling to breathe. This wasn’t right, this couldn’t be his life now, he wasn’t the right person, he couldn’t, he couldn’t—
Slowly, Tony becomes aware of a hand resting on his back and another curled around his forearm. A deep voice is murmuring nearby. Tony’s breathing slows bit by bit, and eventually he raises his head to meet Stephen’s gaze.
“Soul called Time, and Time directed me here,” Stephen explains. 
“Makes sense.” Tony takes a shaky breath. “Soul and I were talking about some of the things I can do now. Which apparently includes consuming people’s souls to make my own more powerful.” Stephen winces, but doesn’t seem surprised. Tony stares at him for a minute. “How does that not horrify you?” he demands.
Stephen grimaces. “Sorcerers can do something similar. Not with souls specifically, but with magical creatures, some of which are sentient. It’s frowned upon, but… not forbidden.”
“Not forbidden,” Tony repeats, swallowing down an edge of hysteria. “I really didn’t know what I was getting into when I said yes to this whole deal. I don’t want to be doing this, Stephen. I don’t want to be dealing with ghosts, I don’t want to lie to all my friends, I don’t want to be the guy who gets to decide when it’s okay to suck out someone’s soul, and I don’t want to live forever!” 
“I know,” Stephen says simply. That’s… not what Tony was expecting. He stares. Stephen goes on: “When I found Kamar-Taj, all I wanted was to heal my hands. I didn’t want to be a sorcerer. I didn’t want to be the keeper of the time stone. And I certainly didn’t want to spend 14 million lives facing down Thanos and losing.” He spread his hands. “But the alternative was the death of half of all life. For both of us. Even now, would you choose that instead?”
All the anger drained out of Tony. “No.”
Stephen slowly, carefully takes Tony’s hand. “I know this is hard, but you don’t have to do it alone.”
Tony doesn’t know the name for the feeling rolling off of Stephen now. It’s deep, and intense, and a little like love, but not exactly like that. Whatever it is, there’s a certainty to it that steadies Tony. He takes a deep breath and gently squeezes Stephen’s hand. “Okay, then.”
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feladi-fority · 6 months
Text
haven't posted in a while, but I completed Undertale Yellow a while ago and none of my friends have and I need to scream into the void about it SOMEWHERE! Spoilers abound
So, Flowey. He's really well written in this. In Undertale proper we don't get to see much of him and what we do see is really 1 note. He scares you, tries to manipulate people, and tries to hurt people for his own amusement. In Undertale Yellow though we get to see how immature and impatient he is. Whenever Clover does something Flowey doesn't approve of he lashes out even when doing so directly impedes his ability to manipulate Clover, such as killing Marlet at the end of the neutral route. Flowey is a terrible manipulator, putting in absolutely zero effort to understand Clover, instead blaming them for his own plan not working. He talks about how much he hates Clover and relishes in their death but Flowey has done nothing to understand Clover, instead just viewing them as a problem to brute-force a solution to. All of this is, of course, consistent with who Flowey was in Undertale but it's so much more textured with how much screen-time Flowey gets.
Additionally, I find the implications of what I can only describe as Flowey's Blackspace. During the meta-Flowey fight his attacks are monstrous versions of himself, many of which are killed as part of his attacks. He pulls out his own pedals, cries to attack, and kills images of himself. Then there's the section where you walk through piles of Flowey corpses which call for help. The dialogue the later corpses give is ambiguous, but lines like "this must be it" in the context of the rest takes on a dark implication. Flowey seems to hate himself and view himself as a monster who deserves to be cut-down (he has that in common with his dad lol). Maybe then Flowey's plan to destroy the world via collecting the souls is ultimately self destructive, a way to go down with the world, and rid himself of the possibility of coming back, a true completion through obliteration.
Now I need to talk about Marlet. She's fucking great. She has this deep sense of maturity to her character which was really cool to see. It isn't all that clear in the pacifist route as there we mainly see her inability to get things done and her self-hate, but on the more violent routes we see her constantly trying to empathize and resolve conflict with Clover by understanding them. I think it's incredibly note-worthy that Marlet is the only character who recognizes Clover as a child who shouldn't be capable of committing such violence, and the implications of that fact. Marlet doesn't let her emotions stop her from understanding people and doing the right thing, and I really like how that was executed.
I loved the themes of this game. I expected the game to tackle similar themes to Undertale, either just recreate theme entirely or at least tackle something similar to Undertale's very meta exploration about what it means to care about things. Instead this game goes for an old classic, the cycle of violence, and I think it executes it very well!
Throughout the game characters interact with this theme in different ways. Clover (on the vengeance route specifically), and Ceroba parallel each-other in this way. Ceroba objectifies humans due to her position as a monster separated from humanity and growing up with an adversarial relationship to them. Chujin finds it extremely easy to hate humanity for a slight against him and enacts violence on humanity due to perceiving them as inherently evil due to historical mistreatment by humans and personal experience. This violence horrifies him in the end, but still in his attempt to get vengeance he perpetuates the cycle, projecting his hate towards humanity onto Ceroba who goes onto hurt more people because of it. Clover on the vengeance route is in a similar position, objectifying monsters due to being a human separate from them and learning of slights against humanity by them. Clover finds out monsters killed 5 humans (either all children, or some of them children) and is able to easily objectify them for it due to their position. Clover enacts disproportionate violence in reaction to the violence monsters committed against humanity in reaction to the violence humanity enacted against monsters by sealing them underground. Asgore remarks at the end of the vengeance route that Clover's actions will result in many more deaths on both side's parts, and he's right, Clover provided more reason for another Chujin to come about and enact more violence on humanity which in turn would provoke a response. Violence creates violence creates violence.
Flowey, under this framing, becomes an embodiment of the cycle. The game cleverly uses the power of resetting as the mechanical manifestation of this cycle. Flowey continues to reset events over and over and over letting Clover get killed over and over and over, just as the cycle of violence repeats, so to does the game itself. The game resets, new runs provide new content, certain events are enshrined in this game's concept of fate. The fate here is just that things cannot change with more violent inputs, Flowey can never get what he wants because he's incapable of doing what Marlet could do. Flowey can't change fate because he's what's locking it in place, he's the logic of violence that forces the world to over and over again punish characters and kill them, but Marlet through her empathy and compassion at least tries to break the cycle, she tries to get Clover to stop hurting people and break this repeated cycle of violence, and she does the same for Ceroba and Chujin to less success. How fitting then that Flowey kills Marlet in the neutral route.
Pacifist Clover is the parallel to Marlet. They face the cycle of violence and chose to understand and help others despite it. The vision for breaking the cycle that Undertale Yellow provides is empathy and compassion, choosing to not give into anger at horrible things done to you as to not perpetuate that being done to more people in the future. It's a really well-executed theme, I love this game.
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fartface025 · 28 days
Text
headcanon page bc i am the reverse 1999 fan of all time
assorted, pavzima flavor and kaalaa6 agenda.
erick ran into ttt once and conked her head fell unconscious. she didnt remember. ttt has never told anyone out of guilt. theres a conspicuous bump on her middle television. she feels so bad about it.
a knight likes to eat elk. jessica never finds out because he’s so fucking scared of her. like gloves shaking scared. she doesnt know. thinks hes just a cutie.
melania takes lilya’s advice to spike coffee with vodka for a kick. lilya is going to tease her, but she’s actually kinda scared because melania is one hundred percent cool with it. no gagging, no side effects.
arcana and druvis iii have fucked nasty.
forget me not would be trash at sex. hesd say the dumbest shit.
dikke and darley clatter fucking hate each other, nobody’s really sure why
sonetto likes leilani she thinks shes nice
sonetto doesnt like to purposefully loiter after a mission is complete, but vertin knows she wants to stay and do things. usually she lies and says they have business in whatever quaint coffee store sonetto’s been staring at, or at the carnival, or on the london wheel
john titor is the it guy. sputnik, the robot, and ttt all HATE him. “monthly checkup guys” “SCATTER!!!!”
nobody’s heard dikke swear so lilya jokes she must have a medieval swear she says. even a knight thinks she never swears, and he would know if she did. an an lee knows better, she once heard dikke say “fucking stupid ass fucking cretins.” (in reference to lilya and darley clatter deciding to headon fight like fifty monsters, immediately dying.) she looked at dikke. dikke had no response, no change in countenance. nobody would believe her.
aroace horrorpedia, but if he was capable of getting some he’d say some stupid shit when a girl/guy takes off their pants. same is true of diggers, who is very into anything, but gets no pussy because he once said “rocking” when a beautiful woman undressed for him.
NASTY SWEARERS, frequently (swear INCESSANTLY, and filthily, ranked by frequency) pavia, centurion, lilya, an-an lee, NONE of these people save pavia and lilya are allowed near children, centurion once took charlie on a roller coaster and it was maybe the worst experience of both their lives. pavia is exempted because mondlicht stalks him and he has nothing to make her stop. also matilda is so horrified by swearing and tells on them all. sonetto is also horrified but kinda intrigued.
NASTY SWEARERS, infrequently (swear rarely, but when they do its filthy) tennant (she learnt the term fuck nasty from ttt and then went on to use it on as many women as possible, accelerating language evolution in india and the uk), dikke (she likes to play with an an lee, who is still not sure who to tell), bkornblume (being free of censorship for the first time in a while is … encouraging), tooth fairy, vertin, satsuki, necrologist (rarely does but gets in a few nasty ones), kaalaa baunaa, shamane, kanjira, tooth fairy. (six doesnt really swear but he is captivated by the way she swears which is usually in hindi and absolutely vile.) melania, druvis.
TAME SWEARERS (frequent). madame z. APPLe loves saying shite, regulus loves saying shite, X says fuck, bunny bunny says aw shit, sotheby, john titor has her own equivalent, la source is la source.
TAME SWEARERS (infrequent). sotheby, ttt, sonetto, mesmer jr.
WOULD ACTUALLY DIE IF THEY SWORE: matilda swore once (ass) and then cried to kanjira.
kaalaa likes ttt because shes funny and lame as hell. so does kanjira. kanjira says GO WHITE GIRL GO and ttt gets tripped in her cable and cries. kaalaa helps her up but is also chuckling as she does so. shamane tells them to let up but he is also giggling.
sotheby and kanjira love picrasma candy.
six likes the flavor so does kaalaa. (im subliminally messaging you so fucking hard)
kaalaa explains what she thinks the stars mean and vedic astrology. six listens. hes genuinely interested. they talk abt astrophysicists and the math of it, the science of determining fate. fate is a strange concept for him. he is rather grateful theirs intersect.
sotheby finds out arcana and druvis are exes. it’s so over for druvis.
“why does the freaky ink lady call you beloved!” “How about we stop talking for a little bit” (about to tear her hair out)
bkornblume and lilya r dating, purely bc theyre that couple who goes we really liked ur vibe at the bar.
they did that to bunny bunny, who is acearo
37 fucking hates gogurt and shes gonna be so annoying about it. regulus nearly decks her clear on the face. “its not real yogurt” (seething regulus) “ILL REAL YOGURT YOU” (leaps and x has to restrain her)
regulus has eaten various knickknacks for missions. big bad villain comes out and says “HEY! what do ya think youre doing with that key!” vertin and sonetto swivel to look. regulus takes one look at the guy, vertin and sonetto, and immediately eats it. they have to magic school bus inside her guts to get it out.
X and regulus are girlfailure x boyboss and also he listens to the worst music of all time.
“regulus listen to this sick beat!” [angelic 2 the core by corey feldman]
spathodea loves melania theyre best friends. melania is 6 foot and can lift spathodea one arm. “SPATHY!” “MISS MELANIA!!!!”
the rollercoaster incident is so bad. theyre banned from that carnival.
rabies gets along w all the animals, esp pavia and zima’s. the haybale supports gay rights
click and necrologist are friends. sonetto and click are friends. necrologist and sonetto are friends
shamane teaches mondlicht to swim. mondlicht hates the water. like a lot.
kaalaa and shamane sit on the roof to stargaze even if the stars arent like the ones outside the suitcase
kaalaa can recite a variety of fables, and so can shamane. sometimes theres lightning in the suitcase, and they deal w the lil kids. kanjira scares them though
matilda and kanjira kissed bc matilda wanted to practice and kanjira doesnt mind. matilda learned things abt herself. kanjira also does but shes NEVER gonna tell anyone.
cristallo as ment in my prev post hangs out with leilani erick eagle and mondlicht.
erick is the famed mood killer of couples. pavia teasing zima about to get a reaction? “I gotta pee mr pavia can you take me there.” 6kaalaa bonding? “mr 6 we need to go i kicked some politician in the groin” vernetto really intimate moment? “ms timekeeper, whats it mean when you can see your kidney”
regulus HATES IT. shes abt to score in a movie theatre, and BOOM blondie kid.
pavia and mondlicht both can barely read but pavia’s a math god and mondlicht is an expert in biology and also has midwifed before because her village js mostly women. theyre both really smart.
pav and mond get help from eagle to read. zima teaches pav basic poetry. pav enjoys it.
pav and zima are exact same height.
cristallo wants to eat a burger one day
druvis and arcana have fucked nasty did i say that already. ungodly toxic. would do again
tooth fairy and madame z are very married. only time z went on a mission technically was to pick sotheby regulus and druvis up from jail. tooth fairy is deadpan. “hello sir we are these three minor children’s parents.” “yes, sir. very married.” (sotheby is SO dead for hitting that senator with her car)
charlie fucking loves rabies.
6KAALAA Explanation
6kaalaa explanation. 6kaalaa is basically its not that 6 is really repressed i think he would act the same way abt romance even if he wasnt 6. maybe more interested just bc its an interesting component of his existence.
i rock w both hcs abt demiromantic or asexual 6 and also ones where he is unlabelled, not averse to anything but not seeking romantic love. i see him as the latter but like.
theyre like pavzima. theyre not a romantic relationship as normally construed or imagined, but theyre def romantic in nature. they have a good friendship before they ever consider romantic entanglement.
6 is gen interested in kaalaa and vedic astrology, kaalaa finds his life interesting. also they have close familial dynamics in sophia 37 and 210, and kanjira and shamane.
i talked abt this w @anonymocha and how funny it would be w 6 meeting shamane and kanjira.
another discussion w anonymocha has made me confident. let me explain:
disclaimer, not an expert on kaalaa or 6, i missed mor pankh, i dont have kaalaa bur i know aspects of her character, 6 i am good friendship w did his story event when we had the 1.6 update, but havent gone past c5
HOWEVER!
LISTEN!
firstly, kaalaa is great at math. vedic astrology as she practices demands great skill as a mathematician. she’s qualified to be a professor. she has to be excellent at it to calculate planetary movement. compared to any average person, she’s a prodigy in this field. i feel confident saying that out of the cast members that aren’t of the 1.6 island, she’s one of the best mathematicians. (john titor i dont know much of, i would assume she is a great mathematician too)
headcanon: i see both kaalaa and 6 on the same scale of demiromanticism. 6 isnt averse to aesthetic attraction, but he doesnt seek or need romantic love, and i think the same is true of kaalaa (SUBJECTIVE! this is my idea), and i think sex is just a if it happens it happens. (though they wouldnt want it or seek it out most times.) i j think they both understand aesthetic appeal and kaalaa is rhe single most beautiful reverse 1999 woman. send tweet
kaalaa is an astrologist who depends on seeing fate into something that can arguably be attributed as math. math as fate…why does that sound familiar…
the difference is kaalaa is of the opinion fate can be altered or is divergent and is never cemented. atticus was defined by his destiny and it eventually fulfilled and became him, but he was resistant. and from what we see of him in his event story and his interaction w the other worshipper in his second story implies remaining elements of humanity and individuality from his identity as atticus, PLUS he was curious for sophia and her human normal behaviors. this intersection between two people who know fate and have it entwined in their life, who both know math well and use it to define a large part of their beings, but the main differences of preconceptions of fate and exposure to human emotion, culture and illogicality? it feels opportune for a story, especially with the islanders learning that human traits are good and make life worth living (personal thinf, i Love humans and our illogical persistent emotions. apathy is an emotion. we are inescapably made of them.)
i hope this doesnt sound like romantic love teaches someone to “be human”. i explained that i think of them as a close friendship that naturally becomes romantic in nature, but i dont see the romantic love as the Woahhh hes human now. i see it as this as well as exposure to arcanist and human culture and nuance (a journey that him and 37 embark on) informs his worldview and its really secondary to both kaalaa and 6’s familial love with groups who care about them dearly (kanjira and shamane, 37, sophia and 210). that last part sounds like headcanon but i think its another poit of connection
REGGHHJNNNHGHSHSBSBSBSHSNNANNAN J JSUT LIVE THEM. I LOBE THEM
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loveinhawkins · 1 year
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For the made up fic title game "1983 is Calling" bc 1983 by Neon Trees randomly came up on my Spotify lol
god i love this title so much. i think 1983 is calling has a Steve Harrington character study written all over it.
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In the November of 1983, Steve Harrington’s world falls out from underneath him. When his feet finally find solid ground again, everything looks a little different, like he’s an Alice who’s grown just slightly too tall for his surroundings.
And maybe most people in his shoes would chalk that up to finding out that monsters are real, that a kid can come back from the dead. But Steve knows that’s not the whole truth.
What’s really tripping him up is the dangerously quiet anger he didn’t really know he was capable of; he spends many sleepless nights staring up at the ceiling, hearing his father’s words come out in his voice, slipping through clenched teeth, finish the sentence.
It’d be easy to brush it off after the quite frankly insane series of events he’s lived through, to claim that wasn’t me.
But it was. It was.
It’s not a dramatic transformation. If anyone was really looking out for it, maybe they’d notice him being just a touch more reserved in school. Slower to react, more careful with his words.
He doesn’t sit with Tommy and Carol in the cafeteria—and while there’s an ache in that decision which he steadfastly ignores, he finds that he doesn’t really mind sitting alone sometimes.
In the quiet, he has more time to think. He tries to keep his assumptions in check, finds that he cares less and less about cliques—does his best to ensure that his first thought about someone isn’t a judgement.
He remembers the casual indifference he had when watching Jonathan Byers put up a poster for his missing brother. His unbothered drawl, God, that’s depressing.
Never again, he decides.
Above all, he doesn’t want to be cruel.
One lunch, he sits with Jonathan, and they swap pudding cups, Steve trading chocolate for butterscotch.
“I… listen, Jonathan, I shouldn’t… shouldn’t have said what—what I said,” he starts, awkwardly, inadequately. “About. About your mom, and your family, and…”
It horrifies him still, the words that came out so easily, never mind if they were echoes of things he heard.
Joyce Byers is one of the strongest people he knows.
“Thanks,” Jonathan says, delayed. He smiles tightly, but Steve knows it’s not personal, that the guy’s still on edge from… everything.
Steve smiles back.
But there’s still a thorn that he hasn’t quite prised out.
“And I…” He lowers his voice. “I shouldn’t have called you that. Y’know.”
Jonathan’s eyebrows go up. “No,” he says mildly. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I…” Steve rubs a hand over his mouth. “I hate that… there’s nothing bad about…”
Jesus, what’s wrong with him?
Jonathan’s expression softens. He blinks, and he has that pensive look on his face, like he’s seeing the world through a camera lens—like the flash has lit up something unknown.
“I agree,” he says quietly, and then he digs into his pudding and asks genuinely about Steve’s holiday plans, talks about getting Will an Atari for Christmas.
At New Year, Steve is abruptly conscious of the fact that he really, really needs to look like he’s having a good time. He doesn’t want to analyse who the performance is for. If it’s for himself, he’s not convinced.
But drink dulls the anxiety; he laughs a lot, sways with Nancy in his arms because that’s what he’s supposed to do.
Even in the euphoria of the midnight countdown, he can see Nancy smiling too brightly, like her face might crack with the strain.
Do you feel it, too? he almost asks. Are we always gonna be back there? Are we always gonna be running from it?
The semester after winter break starts off reluctantly.
There’s a few classes with mixed year groups: they get an absolute horror of a substitute teacher in second period, one who insists on them copying things word for word from the blackboard. She makes her funeral march down the desks and shouts at a student for mis-spelling ‘January.’
“Psst,” comes a voice, before she reaches Steve.
He looks over to see Eddie Munson in the seat next to him, handing over an eraser.
“Wrong year, Harrington,” he whispers.
Steve glances down at his paper. Sure enough, 1983 stares back at him from the top margin.
Steve scoffs. “Figures.” He uses the eraser and passes it back to Eddie. “Thanks.”
“No problem. I wish we were still on vacation, too.”
“Eddie Munson.” The teacher slams a ruler down on Eddie’s desk so hard that Steve flinches. “Shall I send you outside for talking?”
“Oh, no, ma’am,” Eddie says, without missing a beat, “I’ll surely cry. Profusely.”
As other students stifle giggles, Steve manages to write the date down correctly before the teacher peers over his shoulder.
He can’t help noticing that even with the eraser, there’s still an imprint: 1983 faintly engraved on the page.
Well, Steve thinks wryly, so it goes.
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ms-demeanor · 2 years
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I don’t duck with predatory schools or cheap unaccredited courses/ capitalism/white washed alternative medicines… but does you beef with alternative practitioners extend to Eastern/ traditional medicinal practices as a whole? Like you don’t think herbalism or acupuncture have healing capabilities?
I am deeply, deeply skeptical of nearly all alternative medicine, but you are unlikely to find anyone who says there are no benefits to most types of alternative medicine. (I'll say it about chiropractic and homeopathy though - there's nothing that a chiropracter can do for you that a physical therapist or massage therapist can't do better and more safely, and homeopathy won't do anything except possibly poison more infants)
However, here's the problem with that:
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Acupuncture appears to have fairly reliable effects that are not explained by the placebo effect for things like pain relief, anxiety, and depression, and may also help with disorders relating to those things (insomnia and asthma, for instance). But you should not stop taking your asthma medications because you are being treated for asthma with acupuncture because if you are asthmatic, deciding "oh, my asthma [which treatable, but not curable] is cured!]" and throwing away your rescue inhaler can kill you.
Herbal remedies may be comforting for some people, and may have some effects, but it is dangerous to use, for instance, St. John's Wort to treat depression because it is impossible to standardize a dose of St. John's Wort in something like a tea or an extract, and supplements are not regulated in the US so it is impossible to know *what* dose you're getting in a St. John's Wort supplement.
Many people find chiropractic to be a reasonable means of pain relief, and I'm not going to pretend that their pain isn't reduced from chiropractic treatment, but literally hundreds of studies suggest that for the things that chiropractic has any reliable measurable effect on (musculoskeletal pain) you are going to get better treatment from a massage therapist or a physical therapist.
Ayurvedic medicine has a long history of things like surgeries including cataract surgyery and cauterization to treat bleeding, which do actually work! However ayurvedic medicine also often includes consumption of harmful materials like heavy metals alongside herbs that may have actual medical benefits, or practices like oil pulling, which do absolutely nothing.
Chinese Traditional Medicine may have some useful treatments, but is also associated with things like lead poisoning.
Use of Kava as an herbal alternative pain treatment was linked to a spate of people having liver failure. Kava does work to treat pain, it just also causes liver failure at completely unacceptable rates and at completely unknown doses.
So I don't think that alternative medicines are uniformly awful. Some stuff seems to work okay, and there is some stuff that is very unlikely to cause harm even if it doesn't actually heal.
But, hoo boy, herbalism has *immense* capacity to harm (because it is difficult to ensure accurate dosing, because herbal medications may interfere with allopathic medications, because it is difficult to avoid contaminants and easy to make mistakes with preparations in herbal medicine), which is made worse when people choose herbalism in place of other treatments. There are a thousand horror stories of people using black salve (a caustic substance that is used to treat tumors by chemically burning them off) to treat breast cancer, which is only marginally more horrifying than people who chose to forego cancer treatment in favor of herbalism.
And I'm not particularly in the business of telling people what to do, but I am someone with chronic illnesses who has had alternative treatments proposed to me in place of recognized best practices and I understand that for people with a new or frightening diagnosis it is easy to fall victim to a confident person who is offering 'treatment' at a lower cost and with more hands-on care than an overworked specialist who doesn't take your shitty insurance. Because of that I think that it is often safer to assume that alternative treatments are at best unproven and to start treating medical conditions with allopathic medicine and to use alternative treatments alongside of allopathic medicine (with the full knowledge of your medical team - a lot of "detoxifying" alternative medicines work by making all of your medications ineffective!)
And even if you're going to be using herbalism or acupuncture to treat someone and doing so in conjunction with proven treatments, I still think it's important for the practitioner of alternative medicine to be intellectually curious and scientifically educated enough to recognize when their treatments aren't working; if you have cheerfully taken a course in chiropractic and homeopathy as part of your alternative medicine degree, that does not suggest that you are being given a rigorous, evidence-based education in herbalism or acupuncture by the school that provided the homeopathy class!
It's like if you were getting a degree in engineering and had to take a class on the physics of the time cube in order to graduate. Time Cube Theory 204 cancels out Advanced Fluid Dynamics! Time Cube Theory 204 calls into question the validity of all your other classes! Time Cube Theory 204 is a major alarm bell, and if that didn't chase you out of the building you shouldn't be trusted to build a dam!
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laceratedlamiaceae · 1 year
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OFMD characters if they were worms
(and whether or not I would still love them)
Izzy: Pseudobiceros hancockanus
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Also known as "Hancock's Flatworm," it has a distinct black coloring and is part of a genus known for engaging in "penis fencing" for reproduction, which I like to imagine is something Izzy does too. Obviously I would still love him; I don't think there's anything that could make me stop loving him.
Stede: Sabellastarte spectabilis
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Also known as the "feather duster worm." It's popular in squariums because of its flamboyant plume of tentacles, which are almost as ridiculous as Stede's hair. If anything I think I'd love him more as a worm.
Ed: Eunice aphroditois
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Also known as the "sand striker" or "bobbit worm." This thing is a horrifying monster that feeds on fish unfortunate enough to come near it with its sharp mandibles. The rainbow iridescence is pretty though. Sorry Ed but I've read too many horror stories about these; I would not love you if you were a worm.
Calico Jack: Trichuris trichiura
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Also known as the "whipworm," which is the only reason I chose it. Unlike Calico Jack, I wouldn't want one of these in my large intestine because they're the cause of trichuriasis, a parasitic infection. I'm not that into parasites so I'm unfortunately going to have to pass on loving Jack as a worm.
Roach: Hirudo medicinalis
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One of a few species of "medicinal leeches." Leeches are still used for medical purposes to this day because of the beneficial secretions in their saliva, and they're also cool as fuck. They're like vampires except they're worms, so obviously I'd still love Roach as a worm.
Frenchie: Lagis koreni
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Frenchie is a "trumpet worm" because that was the only worm I could find with a name related to music. Also the tubes they build for themselves to live in are super cool and I wanted to include them somewhere. I would for sure love him if we was a worm.
Wee John: Megascolides australis
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Also known as the "giant Gippsland earthworm." Because he's big, get it? 10/10, would still love him as a worm.
Lucius: Spirobranchus giganteus
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Commonly known as the "christmas tree worm." The two spiral things on either side of its body function both as gills and to capture food, and they're also gay as fuck. Love that for him, and I'd absolutely love him as a worm.
Jim: Bipalium kewense
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Jim is a "hammerhead flatworm," mostly because it kind of looks like it's wearing a hat but also because it produces a deadly paralyzing neurotoxin. Obviously I love that, and I'd love them if they were a worm.
Oluwande: Maritigrella crozierae
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Commonly known as the "tiger flatworm." I chose this for Oluwande because they apparently often live together in pairs and Jim/Oluwande is the best couple in the show. You already know I'd still love him if he was a worm.
Buttons: Plagiostomum vittatum
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Not much is known about this mysterious species of marine flatworm aside from the fact that it's native to the Atlantic ocean (by which I mean there isn't a Wikipedia article for it and I can't be bothered to do more research). I do like a mystery so yeah, I'd love him if he were a worm.
Fang: Hermodice carunculata
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The "bearded fireworm," like Fang, looks soft but is also deadly. It's namesake white bristles are capable of penetrating skin and injecting a powerful neurotoxin. I would love him if he was a worm but I'd keep my distance.
Ivan: Arthurdendyus triangulatus
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Known as the "New Zealand flatworm," it fades into the background a bit but it's still cool. Apparently they roll up when they rest which would be really cool if I could find a picture of it. Anyways yeah I'd love him as a worm.
The Swede: Caenorhabditis elegans
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C. elegans is a species of nematode notable for being the first multicellular organism to have its entire genome sequenced, because it's so simple. I'd definitely love him as a worm.
Black Pete: Lumbricus terrestris
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The common earthworm. It's a bit plain, but it plays a vitally important role in its ecosystem. Of course I'd love him as a worm.
Mary: Riftia pachyptila
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Also known as the "giant tubeworm," it's capable of surviving in the extremely hot, toxic environments of deep-sea vents, which is almost as impressive as Mary being able to survive living in a house with Stede. Obviously I'd still love her as a worm, she's an icon.
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what are your thoughts (and potential headcanons) about aegon iv's nine mistresses?
Ouffff well I gotta be honest I probably won’t have as many headcanons about them as I did for the daughters in law of Daeron and Myriah- but I’m more than happy to share my thoughts about them!
Falena Stokeworth
Thoughts: Groomer!!! Get lost lady you’re literally his dad’s age!!!!! Should’ve locked her up in Harrenhall and thrown away the key maybe!
Headcanons: Honestly I think canon already kind of spells it out for us given her age relative to his own, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was preying on Aegon’s whole mommy issues deal in order to get into a relationship with him. Pain and suffering all around.
Megette
Thoughts: Honestly poor girl she deserved sooo much better :( pretty sure her whole deal was supposed to be another commentary on how nobility don’t actually give a shit about the smallfolk even when they’re lovers and all that, but goddamn I just feel bad for her :(
Cassella Vaith
Thoughts: Ngl another girl who deserved so much better- it’s kind of weird how they give her a description but not the other mistresses but hey who am I to judge- makes her easier to draw ig?
Headcanons: Oh she was absolutely psychologically tortured during her time with Aegon because that man is notttt capable of being nice to any woman. I imagine the reason she wasn’t married off after being returned home was because of how traumatized she was
Bellegere Otherys
Thoughts: Okay this may sound stupid as hell given all the shit I talked about Aegon prior to this but like…. Idc, I support her decisions in choosing one of the most rancid men in Westeros to be her lover. In her defense!!!! Pickings for royalty were very slim- her only other options were a former teen dad who’s still hung up on his ex wife and is always busy trying (and failing) to keep his nephews from dying, a member of the kingsguard who’s obsessed with his own sister, and Baelor, of course she was gonna go for Aegon! Bellegere can get the one exception because I think pirate women are really cool and tbh I think she’s also the only one who was with him for funsies before dropping his ass like a sack of potatoes when he got too annoying for her
Headcanons: Ngl I kinda like to think her daughter Nahra took up the whole trading/smuggling/pirating business after her, and Bellegere got to retire and chill in Braavos watching all the shit go down with the Blackfyre rebellions. Good for her <3
Barba Bracken
Thoughts: I mean…. She’s a bitch, but tbh she kinda deserved better too. Even if she is meant to be a bad person, she was also just a teenager when Aegon began sleeping with her and was mostly pushed forward by her own dad, and its sad that she then continued the cycle of abuse to her own sister :(
Headcanons: I kinda like to think she and Daena had a very toxic frenemy-ship, that’s my main reasoning to explain why Aegor was so loyal to Daemon lmao
Melissa Blackwood
Thoughts: I mean, she’s one of Naerys’ only canonical female friends so she gets an automatic like in my books. And also kinda funny that the Bracken/Blackwood slap fight actually caused another Targ civil by just pushing their female relatives in front of a horny king. She absolutely deserved so much better
Headcanons: I refuseeee to believe she died in childbirth, in my head she’s also retired chilling in Raventree Hall with her daughters and occasionally got updates from Brynden about the war crimes he was committing <3
Bethany Bracken
Thoughts: Deserved so, SO much better. Mr lord Bracken sir I will see you in HELL!!!!!
Jeyne Lothson
Thoughts: Only thing I have to say is…. Absolutely gothic horror girlie because holy shit. My god. Was George intentionally writing her story to be horrifying or was it a weird fetish- I’m hoping to god it was the former. Anyways she absolutely deserved so much better than all the adults in her life
Headcanons: For added flavor aka more horror! I do headcanon her to actually be Aegon’s daughter, and I believe Danelle was either her daughter or granddaughter because- well, we do definitely need to sprinkle in some more cursed bloodline shit to the house that’s already doomed cause they’re living in Harrenhall, yippe :))
Serenei of Lys
Thoughts: Boring as hellllll that she died from childbirth like- COME ON!!! Let the lady die from implosion, or slipping on a banana peel or something!!! Also kinda sucks that we barely know anything else about her! I want the lore George!!!
Headcanons: Due to lack of lore, I’m stealing someone else’s previous headcanon that she’s actually a Hightower bastard because 1. Absolutely hilarious and is absolutely the level of hustling scam-artistry that I would expect during Aegon’s reign, and 2. Kinda explains her whole deal- why Jon even brought her to court, why we know nothing about her past, why she’s so distant and kinda secretive. Shout out to whoever came up with that headcanon cause that lives in my head rent free forever now
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trulytiredhermit · 1 year
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So sorry for the spam!
But couldn't you just imagine the reader being absolutely flexible and is capable of many gymnastics?
Like probably one time there was a battle but it seems as though the yanderes didn't think that they'd attack you first and they expected, some of them hoped not, that you'd get injured.
Now that pisses off the chain.
But before any of them could lay any hands on you, you, being the most flexible person ( probably ) out of all of the Links, dodged using gymnastics gracefully.
You’re good!!! Just been busy playing BOTW with my little sibling!
Funnily enough I have though about this and I’d imagine Reader being as flexible as one of my favorite characters from Demon Slayer: Inosuke.
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Aka this man right here.
And why I think’d be hilarious if Reader was as flexible as Inosuke, is because Inosuke is flexible enough to bend backwards and grab his ankles. He can also dislocate every joint in his body and fit into any hole that his head fits into. BRO IS LITERALLY ABLE TO SHIFT HIS ORGANS AROUND. LIKE MY MAN CHILL!!
Now if Reader could do all that and they did it around the Chain. They would be horrified, some would be in awe though.
For any flexible position/move they do/get into Hyrule is just nervously hovering over them like: “Does that hurt!? Do you need to be healed!? I have red potions!?”
Wild and Wind are trying to copy any moves Reader does, Wild sometimes succeeds. Wind not so much…
Poor boy just wants to be as cool as his older sibling. Don’t worry Wind, you’re still cool in Reader’s eyes.
Everyone is fine with Reader doing the typical gymnastic/flexible stuff like stretching or posing. It’s when Reader starts breaking out the weirder things they can do with their flexibility that they start freaking out.
Reader ain’t allowed to dislocate ANY of their joints. Chain’s bout ready to wrap them up in a blanket and put them in tortilla blanket prison and give them to Sky so he can make sure Reader doesn’t get out of it. Man’s got a death grip when he’s awake AND when he’s sleeping. The perfect warden for Reader.
Like, sweetie we know you could help us get through this dungeon faster by going through that small tunnel. But we’d rather DIE a thousand deaths then let you. ☺️
Now with Reader using their flexibility and gymnastics to dodge attacks you can bet some of the chain are just stunned by the elegance and beauty of Reader.
Warriors would never admit it to the rest of the chain, but he almost got knocked out by a bokoblin club because he was distracted by Reader’s moves.
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crazycookiecrumbles · 2 years
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The One With the Sex in the Gym
A/N: This is a prequel series to my Stark!Readerverse series. Those are all my stories that start with “A” and have some other shit following it.
Masterlist
Stark!Verse Masterlist
Pairing: Steve Rogers x Stark!Reader,; [[Pre Shang-Chi x Stark!Reader]] Tony Stark x Daughter!Reader
Warnings: swearing, sexual themes, minors DNI, tony losing his mind, steve proving he is just a little shit from brooklyn
Summary:  Tony has been insufferable to deal with. As such, Steve feels it’s time to teach him a little lesson when it comes to your relationship.
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Tony Stark was a lot of things. The man was a genius ,billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and according to some in the Tower, he was also an absolute overbearing and overprotective mess of a man. Well, at least according to some people. Apparently, since the rest of the team moved in after the events in D.C., Tony was seen as an overbearing, doting, nosy, invasive individual.
Sure, maybe he crashed one-too-many dinner dates between Y/N and Steve.
Yes, perhaps he did throw open her bedroom door a few times to make sure that they were decent and say that he was not hosting a brothel.
Okay, maybe he followed them to the movies but that was only one time.
Fine, the people that said he was too overbearing happened to be his own daughter and her boyfriend, but he had valid reasons. I mean, he was her father, right? This was his job to protect his little girl. Besides, how much did they really even know about the super soldier anatomy? Not enough, probably. Who knows what Steve was capable of? He could accidentally kill Tony’s kid, for all he knew or worse, get her pregnant and force a shotgun wedding to a man old enough to have seen the invention of sliced bread…….
Was he that old? Eh, who cares.
Well, Tony cares, but that’s about it.
So, on one of his many daily missions of finding out what his kid and her geriatric boyfriend were up to, Tony found himself navigating the tower. They weren’t in either of their rooms, nor the living room, the lab, nowhere. Everywhere he happened to look was a dead-end, so Tony had to rely on the work of Jarvis to spy on his kid.
“Sir, the two are currently in the gym.”
“The gym?” Tony raised an eyebrow as he set down his smoothie. “Cap trains in the mornings.”
“I’m aware, sir.”
“Y/N has to be dragged to the gym for combat training.”
“I’m also aware of this, sir.”
“Oh, god. They can’t defile the gym, those stains will never come out!”
“I’m curious to know what you think is exactly in super soldier sperm that it wouldn’t —“
“Ah, don’t say sperm!” Tony shouted as he leapt up from his seat and made his way to the gym. “That’s a hex upon this household, Jarvis, you know that.”
Jarvis would have sighed deeply if he thought it would help Tony to register how ridiculous this was, “Sir, need I remind you of the many conquests of yours I’ve witnessed and had to order particular cleanings for?”
“No.”
“Very well, sir.”
Tony was approaching the gym and he was horrified. He could hear a deep guttural groan and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
“Oh, fuck, Steve! Right there.”
That son of a bitch.
“Yes, yes, yes, don’t stop.”
Tony wanted to die. Next, he heard a sharp squeal and an intake of air that made his heart drop to his ass. He quickly looked through the gym doors but could only see you, laying on a yoga mat, hands white-knuckling it as you lay on your stomach with a pained look on your face.
“Steve, you’re too deep! Stop, stop!”
“Come on, doll, if you want it to get better, you’ve gotta take it as deep as I can get.”
Tony Stark was officially going to kill Steve Rogers.
“Get off my daughter you wretched, geriatric, overage, disgusting old pervert!” Tony shouted as he threw open the gym doors and ran inside.
However, when he ran inside, he skidded to a halt.You were laying comfortably on your stomach and staring at him in surprise. You were also fully clothed, which he was surprised, given the sounds he heard and the fact he couldn’t see your bottom half from outside.
Behind you, Steve was sitting on a chair. Your knee was bent, your foot up in the air in front of Steve’s lap. The man’s thumb was pressing into your heel while his other hand held your ankle in place. Steve gave Tony a blank stare while your father stared right back at the two of you, red in the face, vein pulsating on his neck.
“What the hell is this,” he seethed.
“Doc said I have plantar fasciitis, so he’s murdering my heel for me,” you explained. “What did you think we were doing?”
Tony’s jaw tightened, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Really?” Steve raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you thought we were fonduing.”
Tony pointed a finger at him, “Don’t you dare make a funny right now. You have no right.”
You rolled your eyes, “You know, dad, we do have sex.”
“Stop it, Y/N.”
“It’s pretty crazy. With that strength of his, he can just hold me in the air and —“
“Enough — “
“I mean, gosh, I —“
“She’s kidding, Tony,” Steve said quickly. “I respect her too much to do such intimate acts in a public setting.”
“Good, good. As you should, you old fart,” Tony nodded and scratched the back of his head. “Well, I’m glad we got that settled. I will be in the lab if you need me.”
He left feeling more uncomfortable than he ever had in his entire life. Once he was gone, you two laughed uncontrollably. Steve held his side as you let your face fall to the mat and laugh. Eventually, you rolled onto your back and held your hands up. Steve leaned over, pulled you up, and sat you down right on his lap.
“I think he’ll leave us alone now, don’t you?” He hummed as he kissed your neck softly.
You snickered, “You are such a little shithead, Steve. I love it. Yeah, he’ll definitely give us some space. Which is good, I have a plan.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“He has a really beautiful red car I’ve always wanted to have a little fun in.”
Steve blushed, the tips of his ears turning red, “Doll, I meant it when I said — “
“Yes, yes I know. You’re so very respectful and a gentleman, but you have my full permission to defile me in my dad’s car.”
“Is this a late-stage act of rebellion?”
You blinked twice, “Yes.”
He sighed and shook his head, “Doll —“
“What? I’ve always wanted to do it in a car! Haven’t you? He’ll stay far away from us now because he’s traumatized. It’ll be fun,” you sang as you draped your arms around his shoulders. “Can really get that car rocking.”
He shook his head as he studied you, “You’re devious, Ms. Stark.”
You beamed, “That I am, Steve, that I am.”
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