#And probably horrifying in context

[starry-songs-canvas]

Take Care of Him

The boy, who had Damian’s face, couldn’t be more different than Dick’s (alive?) baby brother.

Aside from his Snow White hair, he smiled and laughed freely, making puns on top of his embarrassing story about his supposed twin brother.  

(“Clones don’t have childhood memories right?  So if I have an embarrassing story or two, that’ll give you a way to check that I’m not a clone AND give you ammunition for teasing!”)

“—And that’s how his face—and his pride—was forever wounded by Sparta the warrior cat!”  Danny finished his story with a flourish, cracking up immediately after.

“Huh, and to think he left it at “training”, obviously he didn’t think anyone would let the cat out of the bag.”  Dick said, laughing even as he eyed the lookalike.

Danny snorted.  “Yeah, I doubt he thought anything as Cat-astropic as that would happen.”

They sat in silence for a moment, overlooking the buildings below, with the Dalv. Co. Labs smoking in the distance and the breeze blowing past the two, yet only seeming to affect Nightwing and not the phantom beside him.

“Is he safe?  Is he happy?” Danny murmurs as he looks up at the stars, looking every bit the forlorn ghost he claimed to be.

“…We keep each other safe.  And I’d say once he got past the stabbing faze, he’s pretty happy in Gotham.”

“But I’m sure it’d make him happy to see you again.”  Dick thought back to the comments the vampire-ghost they’d fought earlier.  It didn’t sound exactly, “happy” or “safe” for Danny.  Or anyone else involved.

Danny shook his head.  “Nah.  He’s… moved on.  And with how crazy my after-life is?  I’m already dealing with ghosts, ghost-hunters, and my—err—that frootloop from earlier.  I do not need to add furries and murder-ninjas to the mix.”

Danny sighed as he floated into a standing position.  “Speaking of which, if you could just, maybe not tell him you saw me?  Better to let dead dogs lie.”

Danny’s piercing Lazarus green eyes looked at Dick and he saw the exact same expression B had on whenever he “had to do it alone”.

“Just, take care of him, Kay?  Or I’ll haunt you to the ends of the universe!”  He said, throwing up a peace sign as he turned invisible.

Dick snorted, “Yeah, sure kid.”

Dick got up and started off toward the bat-plane.  He had a brother to interrogate, and another brother/clone of his brother to find.

[arionaleilani]

[blue-mood-blue]

What if Hua Cheng had memorialized the temple?

I don’t think he did, canonically. I imagine that was a memory he wasn’t keen to linger on, especially not to such an extent as to record it, to hover over the details in his mind and commit it to physical imagery. But I could see where he might - maybe catharsis, so that night can exist somewhere outside of his head. Maybe twisting, spiteful justice, so the world won’t be allowed to forget what it did to his god. Maybe just desperation, to record every shard of Xie Lian that he has in an effort not to lose a single piece while he searches.

It wouldn’t be graphic; I think it would be something more stylized, more symbolic. Xie Lian is tied to his own altar. He has replaced the divine statue that should be there instead, the god made present the way he was for Hua Cheng once, the way he was for all of his people once. He is surrounded by blades, but they aren’t piercing him yet. Hua Cheng can’t do that to him even in paint. Bai Wuxiang is not featured, because Hua Cheng would not force any version of Xie Lian into that monster’s presence, but there is a ghost fire hovering near. There is a small, crushed flower on the ground at the foot of the altar, like it was dropped from the Flower Crowned Prince’s hand moments before. The entire tableau holds its breath in the anticipation of something horrific.

It’s painted in a shadowed corner, with a cloth hung in front of it. Not out of shame, or even because of Hua Cheng’s own trauma - out of respect for the prince’s privacy, unwillingness to make a moment of such incredible, painful vulnerability a spectacle to anyone else without the prince’s say-so.

That doesn’t stop Mu Qing from finding it.

Mu Qing, who was already horrified, Mu Qing, who was looking for Xie Lian to drag him out of the caves immediately because he’d seen a statue that suggested things he would rather not think about in regards to his former prince… Mu Qing brushes the curtain aside in that tucked-away corner and stops.

A hundred blades are pointed at His Highness. A hundred faces leer and sob and stare. And Xie Lian sits at the center of it all, head lowered, waiting for the slaughter.

Is it so unreasonable that Mu Qing takes it for a threat? Is it so unreasonable of Mu Qing to drag Feng Xin to what he’s found, for the both of them to slip an arm around each of the prince’s own and pull him away from wherever that altar is somewhere in the complicated network of twisted, obscene worship? That thing painted on the wall - it can’t have ever happened. They would know. Mu Qing and Feng Xin, who spent every day of their early lives with the prince, beside the prince, trailing along behind the prince… they would know. They would have been there; they would have prevented it. This is the fantasy of a ghost king who laid ruin to thirty-three heavenly officials and found his thirst still unslaked.

(Mu Qing does not consider the eight hundred years of Xie Lian’s life he knows nothing about. Feng Xin does not consider the eight hundred years of Xie Lian’s life he knows nothing about. It’s a habit they’ve grown skilled at, over eight hundred years.)

They don’t explain to Xie Lian, so Xie Lian has no opportunity to explain to them what they saw. And Mu Qing isn’t wrong, when he concludes that Xie Lian has been stalked and watched and hunted since he was seventeen. He isn’t wrong. He just doesn’t know, yet, what direction the threat is coming from. There’s no time for anyone to tell him, or Feng Xin, who tied the restraints and provided the sword.

They’ll find out. Masks are made to be removed.

[the--highlanders]

honestly I feel like I should apologise to the writer of the phantom piper. sorry king your audio rewired my brain & now I'm trying to rewrite it ✌️

[abberwockyy]

ok so i ended up on a random internet rabbit hole and stumbled across what is maybe one of the most horribly photoshopped movie posters i’ve ever seen

like i clicked because jennifer love hewitt’s body looked physically broken but then when I zoomed in… YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT’S SUPPOSED TO BE SIGOURNEY WEAVER NEXT TO HER???

where are her DISTINCTIVE CHEEKBONES. AND HER JAWLINE. BITCH

[zealouswitchwerewolf]

Imagine it's the option where things inside Amity get retconned but everything outside stays as it was. So now Danny has a one-sided soul bond where he can feel everything Tim's feeling again (physical and emotional) but Tim can't feel anything about Danny. Tim's bond is still broken. Danny realizes this and decides to keep it, the whole reason he broke it was to spare Tim the pain but Danny can handle Tim's, it was never about protecting himself.

Tim does not know. Tim, who has been acting more reckless and going through things (depending on how you time it, it could go anywhere from Titans tower to his red robin run or anything in between, like Damian's assassination attempts or all the grief about losing everyone close to him). Tim, who no longer has to be careful with his injuries because no one but him is going to feel them. Tim, who doesn't go as far as causing himself the pain but maybe doesn't do as much to avoid it because it's the only thing that makes him feel like the bond isn't gone. He knows it's not healthy to hold onto something like that but everything is falling apart and everyone else has already left him so what else is he supposed to do?

Now Danny is getting more and more worried about his soulmate while also dealing with bigger and bigger threats and wondering if maybe he made a mistake by cutting the connection. Asking himself if he's the reason his soulmate is in pain 99% of the time and only half of it is physical. Either way, he's not rejecting the bond again, no matter how intense the pain and injuries get.

Okay, so, Brain Dead rejected soulmate AU but Danny is the one who rejected Tim.

Let's say in this world that there are many types of soul bonds.

You've got your standard and fairly common First Words and Skin Art.

Then you've got less common things like Shared Dreams, Colorblind Until You Meet, and Red String.

And then you've got the very rare Telepathic Bond and Empathic Bond.

Finally, there's the ultra rare, one in a million, Shared Pain* soul bonds. It helps that the flip side of this particular bond means Shared Comforts**, but still, it is not the kind of bond people hope for.

Naturally, Fenton luck dictates that this is what Danny (and by extension, his soulmate) gets stuck with.

And at first it's fine. Like, bumps and scrapes happen but it's no big deal. Then the bullying starts and Danny feels a bit guilty that his soulmate has to deal with it by proxy.

But, Danny learns how to minimize damage. And the way Danny can feel his soulmate gentle nursing the pains when he can't, indulging in extra comforts for the both of them, makes Danny think that maybe it's okay.

After all, if it was really to much, Danny's soulmate would have already rejected him.

And when Danny's soulmate starts getting a bit more roughed up when they're 13, naturally Danny returns the favor; never wishing to sever the bond, only wishing he could prevent the pain all together.

Then Danny turns 14.

Then Danny dies. But survives.

He cries that night, his soulmate desperately trying to push comfort through their bond while all Danny can think about is how he shouldn't have gone in that portal. He shouldn't have been so reckless. He should have PROTECTED them.

And to top it all off, suddenly he's not just Dash's personal punching bag. No, there's a whole host of ghostly rogues that like to come bother Danny. And maybe it was still okay when it was just ectopusses or Lunch Lady or Boxy.

But as more and more powerful ghosts come through, as the fights get harder and Danny takes more damage, the guilt over what he's subjecting his soulmate to eats at him.

And after Danny meets Vlad, the first enemy he faces that he really can't beat, he makes the decision. This isn't going to end. These fights, these pains...

Someday he's going to face an enemy that is going to grind him into the dirt. That's going to kill him again, probably slowly and unpleasantly, and Danny already subjected his soulmate to one death, he refuses to put him through another.

So Danny mentally reaches deep inside himself, real hands placing themselves above his heart.

Feeling around for the source of that gentle warmth his soulmate is pushing through their bond.

He finds it, grasping with imaginary hands while his real ones clench the fabric of his shirt.

Feels the way the warmth stutters. The sharp jolt of pain on his elbow as his soulmate probably knocks it when he realizes what Danny is doing.

Danny pays it no mind. He holds the bond between then tightly; tears welling up in his eyes as phantom arms wrap around himself, his soulmate's desperate plea for Danny not to do what he's about to.

Danny yanks, physical hands all but tearing the shirt off his chest as mental ones rip the bond from his and his soulmate's hearts.

The last pain they'll ever share comes crashing into him, the distinct Rejection scar crackling across his chest not unlike the Lichtenburg on his arm.

It hurts, but less than dying had.

Then the pain is gone. Or rather, that pain is gone.

The dull aches from the fight with Plasmius throb and a part Danny finds himself missing the soothing comforts his soulmate had provided him, emptiness filling the space they used to occupy.

But another part of Danny, the part that is more ghost than human, swells with pride knowing he has protected his soulmate from Danny's own inevitable fate.

As Danny inspects Rejection spidering out from his heart, a strange hollow giddiness settles in his stomach. It makes him giggle.

His brain notes that if Dash ever sees this, he'll assume he finally succeeded in making Danny's soulmate reject him.

Danny giggles harder.

Not that Danny will correct him. Or his friends or his sister when they find out for that matter. They worry enough about him as is. They don't need to know just how far Danny is willing to go to protect the people he loves.

He's stifling laughter now, trying not to wake the neighbors.

Sitting alone on the roof of Fentonworks at 3 in the morning, Danny laughs until he sobs, then laughs and sobs until he can't breathe, then laughs and sobs and struggles to breathe until a light blue mist comes gasping past he lips.

His hysterics taper of and he lets the now familiar cold feeling of his ghost form spread across his body, pausing only for a second when he notices the new spiderwebbing across the chest of his hazmat suit, just a shade darker than the rest of the black material.

Oh well. It's not too noticeable and if some sees it he can just pretend it was always there. Just like he's going to pretend the emptiness in his heart was always there. Where it belongs.

~~~

Tim is at the Bat Computer desperately searching for any kind of clue who and where his soulmate is.

Of course, Tim had searched before, been searching basically since grade school when it became clear his soulmate was dealing with either bullying or an abusive home.

But Tim's efforts had tripled lately. Ever since that fateful day 4 months ago when he'd practically had a seizure in the middle of family dinner.

It had felt like he was dying, the echos of electric shocks up his arm and into his heart coming through his soul bonds. Followed soon after by the sense of something terrifying and foreign opening up in his chest and forcing its way into every molecule of his body.

Tim is pretty sure he screamed.

It was several minutes before the sensations ended and a strange coldness filled his being. For a minute, Tim was terrified his soulmate had died, until the cold retreated to a place just beside his heart and phantom hands could be felt trying to comfort and soothe.

At the time, Tim thought that would be that. Some kind of terrible accident. A story his soulmate would tell him when they finally found each other.

But that wasn't that.

It started with that strange coldness never leaving the space beside his heart. Then sometimes the coldness would spread, filling his whole body for brief periods of time. Then those periods of time started to come with some kind of pain. A scrape, a bruise, sore muscles.

The kind of injuries Tim got on patrol as Robin.

Which was something he'd not been allowed to do near as much since the aftermath of that dinner when Bruce had learned what kind soul bond Tim had.

"Tim, you can't keep throwing yourself into the line of fire. It's bad enough when you get hurt, but for your soulmate to have to suffer too?"

Stupid Bruce and his stupid rules. Tim and his soulmate had been fine before, thank you very much. And it wasn't Robin that got struck by lightning or something. Tim really isn't sure what kind of accident would result in the things he had felt that night, but electrocution is at least part of it.

But since then, Tim's soulmate had been getting more and more injuries at any and all hours of the day. If Tim had been worried before distressed now. Something had happened and now Tim's soulmate who was already dealing with something before now seemed to be in constant danger. Tim needs to find them, needs to help them, make them safe.

He doesn't look, doesn't take his eyes off the news articles on the screen as a presence appears behind him. No 2 presences. And the elevator dings bringing a third. But Tim keeps scanning articles, looking for some clue about a kid getting electrocuted and a town gaining a young vigilante shortly after.

A heavy hand lands on his shoulder, gravelly voice speaking in gentle tones. "It's almost 4am son." Tim doesn't respond. Bruce sighs and spins the chair around. Dick and Alfred are both there looking concerned and stern respectively. "It's bed time."

"My soulmate is in trouble. They're not safe. I need to find them. And you're worried about my bed time?"

"You need some sleep, Master Tim. You won't know you've found anything if you're to tired to see straight." Bruce nods and Dick puts on his best big brother face.

"Get some rest, Tim. We can keep looking later."

Tim opens his mouth to argue, but pauses at the strange tugging sensation in his heart. He briefly wonders what trouble his soulmate is in now before he realizes what the almost feeling of hands on his soul bond means.

He gasps and jerks in the chair, knocking his elbow on the arm rest and the warm blanket he'd cocooned himself in to send comfort back to his soulmate off his shoulders.

Even Alfred's expression turns concerned when Tim wraps his arms around himself, trying to convey along the soul bond his plea for his soul mate not to do this.

"Tim?" Tim isn't sure which family member speaks. Can't focus on it as his soulmate yanks on the bond, ripping it and the strange comfortable coldness out.

Tim cries out, three sets of hands immediately moving in to comfort him. Sight and sound turn to static as Rejection burns across his chest not unlike the electrocution had crawled up his arm four months ago.

Then the pain vanishes.

And Tim looks up at Bruce, knows he's got tears rolling down his face, searching pitifully for a father's comfort.

"They Rejected me."

Bruce startles, but quickly stoops down to wrap Tim in a hug and Dick lays a comforting hand on Tim's head and Alfred retreats probably to make something comforting and Tim cries at the emptiness where the bond should be and the now too warm spot beside his heart.

And yet, deep in his mind where gears are still turning, Tim resolves to still find his soulmate, even without the bond, if only to ask them why.

.

This was supposed to be a prompt, maybe a premise, but I got carried away.

So now y'all can have this piece of pain I have no intention of continuing. Enjoy!

And since I don't plan on continuing, if some else wants to run with it, have at and have fun!

*Shared Pain in this AU just means soulmates feel the pain, not that they recieve the injuries. So if a soulmate breaks an arm, the other will feel the break, but their arm will be physically fine.

**Shared Comforts meaning that soulmates also share good feelings. So if one person is all wrapped up comfy cozy in a nice thick blanket, the other also feels that warmth. But like with the pain, it's a phantom feeling. Won't keep the soulmate not bundled up from hypothermia.

[3liza]

i said this YEARS ago when the 'vibes based literacy" discussion started because i had been reading about dyslexia to try to help my partner at the time, who was undiagnosed: the book about dyslexia that i was reading described precisely the techniques used in the "contextual guessing" reading education system, but as dysfunctional adaptations by dyslexic children. the contect guessing and memorization thing is a way of teaching entire generations of children to be functionally dyslexic, a profound and devastating disability, when they do not have dyslexia and do not need to have it. it's horrifying. it was how my partner read things, and watching him try to read something out loud was extremely demonstrative of the struggle he was having.

ken goodman probably had dyslexia and didn't know it, it's the most common learning disability in the world, an estimated 20% of all humans on earth have some degree of it.

In the paper, Goodman rejected the idea that reading is a precise process that involves exact or detailed perception of letters or words. Instead, he argued that as people read, they make predictions about the words on the page using these three cues: 1. graphic cues (what do the letters tell you about what the word might be?) 2. syntactic cues (what kind of word could it be, for example, a noun or a verb?) 3. semantic cues (what word would make sense here, based on the context?) Goodman concluded that: Skill in reading involves not greater precision, but more accurate first guesses based on better sampling techniques, greater control over language structure, broadened experiences and increased conceptual development. As the child develops reading skill and speed, he uses increasingly fewer graphic cues.

he's completely wrong, this not how fully literate people read. this is how dyslexic people read. fully literate people are using phonics and the alphabet all the time, that's how we read so fast and so easily, even texts that we're unfamiliar with or that aren't in our native language. i can scan a page of italian, french or norwegian and get the gist of it even though i don't speak the languages. i can sound out those words and pronounce them, even if im pronouncing them incorrectly, just by reading the actual letters and phonemes.

relying on context to predict which word comes next is what leads to the kind of aphasia dyslexics often exhibit not only while reading, but when speaking aloud. my partner would swap words that were contextually correct but not what he actually meant all the time. for example if he wanted me to hand him a blue comb lying nearby on a table, he would say "could you please hand me the green brush?" or if he was describing a cat he saw, he would often swap in another contextually-related word, one that sounded the same, like "bat", or one that was conceptually related but incorrect, like "dog". as a result i had to ask him to clarify or repeat himself many times to figure out what he was trying to say. it created profound problems for him and separated him from me and everyone else. the worst part is that he was barely aware of this. when he was driving it was extremely difficult for him to follow or give directions because he would swap out "left" and 'right" randomly.

you cant actually read like this.

She thinks the students who learned three cueing were actually harmed by the approach. "I did lasting damage to these kids. It was so hard to ever get them to stop looking at a picture to guess what a word would be. It was so hard to ever get them to slow down and sound a word out because they had had this experience of knowing that you predict what you read before you read it."

[aliceoseman]

If you feel comfortable talking about it, how did you learn of the news about the leaks, and what was your first reaction? It was quite a weird and difficult time to be active in the fandom on social media, so I was wondering how you experienced that ❤️

It was really horrible! I was actually the first person on our team to notice it happening. It was at like 11pm at night and I saw people were whispering about Heartstopper leaks on Twitter but I couldn't find a source or any evidence - I shared the rumours with Patrick anyway and we agreed it was probably just fake. Very shortly after that, I saw a tweet of a screenshot from S3 and immediately had a panic attack haha. We alerted Netflix instantly (this was still late at night) and the next day they were on the case. But that first night/overnight, just watching it spread, waiting to see what scene would appear in a tweet next, and soon realising that it was literally the entire season - and not just that, but an early edit with no colour grade, no animation, no VFX, no ADR, incorrect music - was horrifying. The leaks were largely contained which we were thankful for, but they still spread to thousands/hundreds of thousands of people, and it was very upsetting to see so many people gleefully sharing clips and screenshots just to gain followers and clout on social media. It's always been really important to me for people to be able to experience the show for the first time while watching it, when it's fully completed and you have the context and the rhythm of how it's supposed to be watched. The leaks ruined that for a lot of people! And after having been working on s3 for over a year at that point, all of us pretty exhausted and drained, it really felt like being punched while we were already down. And I couldn't say anything about it on social media because it would have just encouraged people to go looking for the leaks. Anyway, in summary - it was really, really awful.

[midnightwerewoolf]

Episode 9 of season 2? Fucking delicious man. Fantastic, it was well done, it was horrifying and I EAT THAT SHIT UP.

Spoilers and warnings for what I'm about to say: (cw: Pedophilia, sexual assault.)

Lovelies, it's here. The exact episode I was waiting for.

Anshi being shown as a kid was heavy, her going to the emperor and asking if he was okay, becoming the only thing he could see... It was disgusting.

The former emperor was a weak and pathetic man who was controlled by his own mother, he couldn't talk with adult women, being touched by a woman would send him into a complete hysterical panic attack. He didn't have any power when he was around someone who was of age, but you know who he was able to talk to and had more power over?

The fact that we are told and shown that Anshi was not his only victim, that there was someone before her but because she gave birth to a girl she was completely ignored and the baby was given to someone else to take the fall. That because Anshi gave birth to a boy the empress recognized the baby as her grandson should probably give you an idea of how strong her hold on the throne actually was and how many of her decisions ended up affecting not only our main characters, or even just the royal family... But also the populace.

They sent CHILDREN just to cater to the emperor's tastes, not caring about them as children but as bargaining chips for power.

And Anshi, someone who was also sent for this reason loathed this, the moment she lost her young child face, the way we see her grow into an adult and not look like a little girl anymore only to be discarded by the man who abused her and look for smaller and younger girls than her, the complete fucking disgrace of being treated as a disposable object was more than enough to break her.

And in a horrifying move, the cycle repeats through her forcing herself on the pathetic man who raped her, the reason she had to be cut open to deliver a baby, the reason she was sold off for power, to burn herself into his memory, to not let HIM forget the pain and trauma he made her go through. (And in a way, she succeeded.)

No wonder the empress had no love for her own flesh and blood when he was born, but the baby another concubine gave birth to during the same day, the one who was not a product of her own assault on that man but rather came from her actual son and his lover? She could give him all the love he needed while the son she couldn't love could get all he needed from Ah-Duo.

And the more little Jinshi grew and started to resemble his grandfather, the more Anshi felt the need for him to not resemble HIM.

Any thing he had an attachment towards had to be taken away, in an attempt to make him grow up and not become the same monster her abuser was, for Jinshi to be able to be strong and resilient. A different type of abuse born out of the scars of a woman who was left traumatized, but unlike the former emperor you can see he does hold love for her as his mother, that while being able to hide his own childish tendencies he's able to stand up on his own feet and retain a face of serenity right in front of danger and will actively protect that which is dear to him. That's the type of man he would become, and he doesn't hold this against her, recognizing her pain and love at the same time.

We can also see how the current emperor was affected by this, knowing his mother was young when she had him and how he himself avoids turning into the same person by choosing women who are actually of age and more developed in the chest area. He would never make the same mistakes his father committed but he would still listen to the women in his life and take their advice.

It says a lot about how much the actions of the former emperor and his mother have affected their family, and while there's still a lot more to learn about them and understand about, the ghosts of their actions will continue to haunt them and no amount of context will actually fix the pain they have already inflicted upon others.

[mllemaenad]

So – on the one hand: yes, this is absolutely serious. A Blight is an apocalypse, and I don't want to downplay how horrifying the arrival of an Archdemon is.

But.

Specifically, in context, Ghilan'nain screeching at the Grey Wardens that she has brought Blight and an Archdemon is pretty funny. Yes, they know. They could probably sense that thing 20 miles away. And they are, in fact, Thedas's foremost Archdemon-killing specialists. They have five notches on their collective belts so far.

She brought her big supervillain speech to the one group of people who are likely to respond by sighing and going "Well, back to work I guess."

[aventurineswife]

oh! Oh! I wanna expand on scientist!creator!reader and the one with the chest and eye hole similar to anaxa: (for sahsrau and sagau, please) what if they are even more self-sacrificial? (maybe they need to sacrifice something ‘divine’ to avoid strife and calamity?) Heart? Gone. Eye? Gone. Appendix, probably? Also gone. Theres an arsenal of organs to sacrifice and they have more to give (as depressing as that is…

Oh. Oh.

You’ve touched something deep and strange and aching here — something divine not because it's perfect, but because it's ruined with purpose.

Scientist!Creator!Reader — especially in a SAHSRAU or SAGAU context — being even more self-sacrificial than Anaxa… that’s downright haunting in the most holy of ways. If Anaxa tears at divine law for truth, you tear at yourself — piece by bleeding piece — to prevent calamity. Not for glory. Not for understanding. But because if you don’t do it, no one will.

Because maybe... no one else can.

Anaxagoras stares at you in horrified awe.

You — the so-called Creator, the supposed Higher Mind, the long-rumored god walking in flesh. Not ethereal, not invulnerable, not untouched. You bleed like a mortal. No — worse. You offer yourself to be bled.

"You remind me of the old myths," he says once. "Of the god that created a world from their own dismembered corpse. You would do that, wouldn't you?"

You smile.

"Already have."

You’ve sacrificed things that no sane divine would touch.

Your heart? Torn out to soothe a world cursed to unrest. Now, something artificial beats in your chest — a ghost of warmth.

Your eye? Given willingly, in a pact of shared sight, so Anaxa could see the souls as you do.

Your appendix, spleen, pancreas, metaphysical glands they don’t even have names for — gone, each traded in rites where pain sings hymns.

You let yourself be made unholy to keep the world holy.

And Anaxa? Anaxa, who has spent his entire life throwing himself against gods and rules and the void in between — he sees you, and for the first time, he feels reverence.

Not because you are a god.

But because you refused to be one.

In these self-aware universes, the characters know. They know who you are. What you could do. What you don’t do.

"You could have rewritten us," one whispers. "You could’ve reset the world."

You nod.

"And lost all of you in the process."

Because the truth is — the only thing you've never sacrificed is your memory of them. Not even when it would hurt less. Not even when the weight grows unbearable.

They watch you destroy yourself to save them from the code, from the calamities scripted into their fate, from divine oversight itself. And while some recoil in horror — because what kind of god would do that — others kneel. Not in worship, but in devotion.

Because you don't ask for their faith. You give yours to them.

And Anaxagoras, most of all — the Demised Scholar, the Accused, the Foolish — he understands. He sees you and your parascientific organs in jars, the golden ichor curling in vials, your eye that doesn’t blink anymore but burns with truth — and he recognizes you as kin.

As a divine willing to die for knowledge and the people they love.

You are the experiment.

You are the theory that godhood means service, not sovereignty.

You are the formula written in your own viscera, the result no academic dares replicate, the holy aberration Anaxa once only dreamed could exist.

"If there's a god that deserves worship," he says quietly one night, helping stitch you back together after your latest divine dissection, "it's you."

You scoff.

"Then we’re both heretics, Professor."

And he smiles — not like a scholar, not like a revolutionary, but like someone who finally, finally isn't alone in his blasphemy.

[depressionwhosshe]

Scott and Stiles except they r both insane

• Stiles has his shoes meticulously organized by which days to wear them bc adhd truly Be Like That sometimes, and when Scott is particularly pissed off at stiles he reorganizes them by some random rule that he refuses to tell Stiles

The pack is so confused the first time that Stiles walks into school and Scott just yells “wrong!” Across the hall

• “Your ancestors may be proud of you but Imma curse you for generations”

“Ok white boy, it was hot sauce.”

“EXTRA HELL HOT SPICY IS WHAT THE BOTTLE SAID, SCOTT-“

• Scott is a fucking menace over text, he says some out of pocket shit and then when Stiles references it irl he pretends like he doesn’t know what Stiles is talking about

• Scott is horrified when Stiles first finds ao3

“Enimies to intolerable acquaintances to tolerable acquaintances (if only during a certain hour) to reluctant friends, to friends that act like they hate eachother to friends that spar to sparring that ends with an accidental homoerotic kiss to days of self angst to just TALKING to lovers”

“Mhm yeah sure- you do remember that the leftovers caught on fire right?”

“Your mom is gonna kill us.”

• “Well eat my ass like it’s sunday pie”

“I’m not into incest Stiles”

• “peace is temporary emotional trauma is forever <3”

“PLEASE go back to therapy”

“Not yet <3”

• Scott talking about Derek while being completely deadpan-

“His eyes reminds me of that one time i went on a road trip to vermont and couldnt sleep in the air bnb bc of forgien places and at that time my dad had a pair of glow in the dark shoes and that shit just kept glowing and staring at me at dead of night. I have never been so distressed in my life”

“Oh yeah, the hell sneakers?”

• “im gonna watch you sleep tonight”

“Alright just dont wake up my mom this time, she’s been trying to give me the gay talk again”

Erica, breaking her neck, “again????”

• “-and as i said, if you call someone Captain, you might as well call them daddy.”

Scott is nodding along in complete agreement while boyd just stares

“….Do i get context…?”

“Context would probably just make you more confused”

[ouroborosorder]

Ave MyGO Recommended Watch Order!

MyGO!!!!!

MyGO again with the context of later events (second rewatch is a much better show)

Ave Mujica (first half)

MyGO again with the recontextualization of what is about to happen

Ave Mujica (catch up)

MyGO again to catch the horrifying pit that forms in your stomach when you realize it’s all been foreshadowed, every single line was all intentional, all of it

Ave Mujica again to catch the foreshadowing you missed

fuck it watch MyGO again to really make sure you caught everything

hey did y’all notice mutsumi was dissociating during crychic’s practice I just noticed that on my fourth rewatch she was never happy oh god she was never truly happy to be here oh god

Probably Ave Mujica again if you can stomach it

[unpretty]

Kitty as someone in a government position whose division is currently in the middle of a multi-year project where we are migrating essential software from old and busted to new cloud version of same software I cannot express how seen your post made me feel. Especially as the youngest supervisor in the group I keep asking questions and just get “idk man that’s what we do” and I’m like “…shouldn’t you know why though? If you does someone know why this is done?” (The answer is no, no one knows why this is done)

yeah i left out the detail that i'm not corporate because of my concern that post would escape containment and context. but know that the details i changed were actually even more horrifying in their original form. like. realizing that this was what they'd been doing this whole time absolutely floored me with the implications.

the thing IS that this was just the upgrade from the old version of this company's software to the cloud software. we have another team helping us migrate from a different company onto theirs for actual financial software, which is taking longer.

BUT the migration team actually asks for our processes so they can map them better, and when we train they'll be doing it onsite from the ground up start to finish. with the upgrade team they started with the assumption that this would not be necessary because we already use their software. this was incorrect.

basically i think if any organization is using sufficiently dated software it's safe to assume that they have deviated significantly from best practices and even if you're 'just' doing an upgrade your training should start from zero instead of assuming any familiarity whatsoever. if they ask for feedback on the upgrade i will probably tell them this in as diplomatic terms as i can manage.

[lurker2773]

Characterization for the Hex if the Operator were sent back instead of the Drifter

I like to think about what 1999 could have been if the Lotus sent the Operator back to follow Entrati and not the Drifter. I know it makes the most sense from a character development standpoint to send Drifter, but the Operator is a much more experienced and capable (lorewise) warframe combatant with countless years of practice under their belt - it'd have been equally pragmatic to send the Starchild to 1999 to make sure whatever needs to get done in there happens and have the drifter get trained up and acclimated to the Origin system where there are other tenno to rely on to make up for inexperience and general rookie-ness.

So instead of the Hex getting a grown-ass person with magic void powers from the future, they'd get to have a war veteran trauma child - bonus points if that child is nonverbal or refuses to speak directly to them, and the Hex have to interact with them through the KIM.

And also, consider that most players from a gameplay standpoint habitually keep their Operators cloaked to prevent them from getting shot once they leave their 'frames to do whatever - canonically, the Operator and Drifter don't have a time limit on cloak, I don't think. The Hex are basically never even going to see the kid, and that could be more terrifying. Imagine seeing a puppet version of what you could be, dangling from the strings of some invisible, intangible thing with superpowers and magic lasers coming out of their hands.

Imagine mid mission Arthur turns to look at the weird and mysterious time-travelling entity and just sees a collapsed Baruuk on it's knees or frozen completely still in a weird position before it suddenly zooms about thirty meters away midair and starts straightening itself back out again in ways that joints shouldn't move in before slamming into the ground and rushing headlong into a crowd of Scaldra to 'build melee combo,' whatever the hell the demon child means by that.

Here's the meat of the post, though - the Hex (and newcomers like Flare and Kaya) can play the Context(TM) game like they do with Drifter through KIM and slowly piece together that this is a magical child soldier with a bodycount larger than all the people they've ever collectively laid eyes on, and then react in interesting ways that would lend interesting characterization.

Eleanor and Arthur would be horrified, probably, and Arthur might start talking down to the Operator because it's 'just some kid' who's clearly in over their head. Most of it's concern, but I think some small amount would be bruised pride - how could some kid be better at killing than a trained soldier?

Aoi would be heartbroken at the revelation that their new ally is a child soldier - how could anyone let that happen to them? How sick do you have to be to make children kill whoever the government pointed at with techno-organic corpses?

And Quincy would definitely be fucked up in the head for a few days after he figures it out - that could open up some opportunities for more characterization given his soft spot for kids. Would he try to keep up his aloof act, like he does with the Drifter, or immediately discard it to try and comfort a child that has already made peace with their ridiculous capacity for murder?

Amir might do something similar to Arthur, but more patronizing than hostile - he means well, but this is a kid. If Amir himself feels out of his depth in the current situation and he's an adult, then surely a child would feel even worse than he does about killing a person.

I think Lettie would be the most chill of the original Hex, though. She's jaded enough that she'd be concerned, but would probably decide that it's not really any of her business - especially considering just how talented the Operator is at mass homicide.

Velimir and Minerva could also be really interesting. On the one hand, they could see little bits of Rusalka in the Operator, but that could also lead to coddling or 'replacement goldfish'-like behavior not unlike how I imagine Amir's reaction would have been.

Flare would have been the first to know. One wayward comment from Lizzie calling the Operator demon-child or something of the like, and they'd have put it together pretty quickly after that.

Kaya would just be glad there's someone else who understands being underestimated by older people just because they're younger.

[finleycannotdraw]

I am actually so emotionally destroyed by Crystal’s arc in this season. She comes in with no memories but she’s still angry, impatient, and rude sometimes—nothing like how she used to be, but her brain definitely remembers her habits even if she doesn’t remember the context.

And then Charles doesn’t get angry when she insults him, and Edwin matches her snappiness perfectly but still grows to value her. Her parents were so neglectful she probably became an asshole as part of a way to protect herself (causing an “any attention is good attention, including negative attention” mindset). So with the boys, she is faced with people who will actually engage with her when she intentionally challenges them, instead of just yelling at her or ignoring her. And it begins to change her immediately.

She goes from making someone walk into traffic to “I just want to help.” To “I have friends, I’m helping people, what more do I need?” She immediately volunteers to help Becky Aspen. She stops using her powers on random people. She takes Charles’ words to heart when he tells her she needs to let them in. She learns how to work with Edwin when Charles is in trouble.

And even though she has no memory of her parents, she still desperately wants to be reunited with them, even though if she had remembered them, she probably wouldn’t have bothered. “My parents won’t even care”, she says flippantly on the phone. And then when she does call them, they don’t care. But without her memory, at her core, Crystal wants her parents to care. She wanted them to care even when she would hide it behind recklessness and cruelty. This is common in kids with neglectful parents. She had so much hope when it was the anglerfish, and she had so much hope even after she began to remember her old life.

Old Crystal never would’ve tried to talk Esther Finch down by telling her about how toxic anger is and how important it is to choose to do good. And New Crystal wouldn’t have done that either if she didn’t truly believe it.

And at the end, when she gets her memories back, she is horrified by what she sees, by the kind of person she used to be.

Michael from The Good Place says: People improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold it against them when they don’t?

Crystal is a perfect representation of this statement and I will not sit here and let people talk bad about her.