#I'm not leaving (willingly) but just in case idk

[blapis-blazuli]

Anyway, you can find me on Discord under the name Cartoonatic, Blapis-Blazuli on YouTube (I don't make anything lol), AutieDocOck on Reddit, and Crabsolutely_Crabulous on AO3

You'll have to ask for my Pokémon Go account code, if you're into that (would really love to meet more active players for it)

Haven't gotten around to properly looking into BlueSky yet, but I will update this if/when I do

Okay, now for some real shit

(Updated: June 7, 2025)

Ericka/Jack. 30s. White, autistic, bi, and genderqueer. He/She/They (in no particular order).

I swear a lot and sometimes make sex jokes. If that's not your thing, you should probably go elsewhere. Some reblogs here get political/serious, so if you only want happy, fluffy fun times without that, this blog probably isn't for you. This includes posts about Palestine. Serious posts will be tagged under "serious matters" from now on.

My partner is the lovely @animatedc9000 ❤️

I usually schedule certain types of posts/reblogs for certain days of the week:

More serious subjects on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

Mondays are for Pokemon and other animals

Fridays are for flowers and food stuff (sometimes Gravity Falls)

Saturdays are for cats, Spider-Man (namely Doc Ock) and shipping stuff

Wednesdays are for whatever

(You might occasionally see posts about a certain crab on Tuesdays too. Old habits die hard.)

June 2025 Edit: I am temporarily closing my inbox as I will be away on vacation for most of the summer.

Fandom/character mainstays:

Pokémon! Carnivine, Belossom, Marill, Corphish, Crabrawler, Piplup, Delibird, and Darkrai are among my favorites

Spider-Man, particularly Doctor Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus, especially the Raimiverse one. I'm also a Rosie stan and a Mary Jane Watson stan. (Disrespect either one and I'll block you /srs)

Batman antagonists, namely Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin (especially the 2004 one).

Sonic the Hedgehog, mostly Eggman (the games/cartoon versions).

1933's The Invisible Man. I like Universal Monsters in general, but that one's my favorite.

Gravity Falls (though I usually avoid the fandom these days)

Steven Universe (no, I don't want to hear your commentary on it)

Cookie Run. I haven't played Ovenbreak in a while, but those little guys still have my heart. Especially Pirate, Dr. Wasabi, Squid Ink, Sorbet Shark, and Strawberry.

Moana. Mostly Tamatoa and Matangi, but I honestly love most, if not all, of the characters from both films to some degree.

Great Mouse Detective. I'm a Great Mouse Detective fan first and a person second /j

Bill the Lizard (Disney's Alice in Wonderland/Great Mouse Detective version). He's been here a long time, I've just never really talked about him on here until I started developing him more for a fanfic (he has trauma and a mouse wife, if you even care /lh)

Alameda Slim and Mr. Wesley (Home on the Range). I have Many Thoughts on the movie, but they're mostly about them. (Congrats to being bumped up to mainstays, you weirdos. Now kiss.)

Current fandom/character fixations:

Team Fortress 2 (mostly Spy, Sniper, and Demoman)

The Invader (The Day the Earth Blew Up)

I'll update this at random, idk

[keitheaverage]

So full disclosure, when Power of Potluck was first announced and I saw the preview of ENA with her blue side having returned, I was almost a little... disappointed? Like, I had this feeling of "Why couldn't she have just had her Happy ending in Temptation Stairway where she and Moony got to keep their new favored forms forever? Is this a cruel rule of the status quo that tortured souls like Ena's can never heal?"

But then I watched the episode when it premiered, and... I got it.

For starters, the joy Ena received from Runas was only surface, skin-deep you might even say. Whatever's gone on in her life to make her that way didn't suddenly disappear with her sad side, it simply went quiet for a little while after making her wish.

Also, and this is more of a headcanon, but I figured that maybe any wishes made to the Great Runas only exist while those making their wishes dwell within it, therefore when Ena and Moony finally went back home after their little 10k-year sabbatical, they immediately reverted back to their original selves. Any so-called "progress" Ena made on the other side in regards to her mental health basically went away after she left. Her wish was voided and her sadness returned.

In canon, it would seem that she carries a bit of shame over her sad side's outbursts. And if my hc has any truth to it, the blow-back from all her sadness coming back to her was probably all the more jarring and painful for her to live with. Naturally she would grasp at the first thing that would help her hide her sadness away from people: the mask. And like her Runas wish, it probably worked for a while! She was normal again! For a while.

Her wish in TS numbed her sadness. The mask numbed her emotions fully. She tried to take shortcuts to healing her sadness for everyone's comfort and convenience (including her own), but none of them stuck. None of them were actually making her feel better. Only when she decided to take the uncomfortable steps of seeking out real help for her emotions, in this case finding and speaking to the therapist in POP, could she really begin that healing process in earnest.

So, like, I get why TS could not be the last episode of the series. I get why POP was made. In fact, POP is now one of my favorite S1 ENA episodes next to TS. Certified Good For Her™ Cinema, in my book.

In regards to my own headcanons and past artwork, I think all the stuff I've drawn of her and Moony in the past can still comfortably exist without having to pull too many strings. Although I think I'd have to leave their fankids behind in the Great Runas' Domain. :n( Though whether they stayed behind willingly or were simply not allowed by the Powers That Be to leave with their mothers... idk if I'm THAT cruel, but who knows. ;n) Regardless, canon doesn't mess with my fanon timeline too much, not yet, anyways.

Either way, I had to refresh Ena's post-series look to accomodate for her blue side returning. I also just wanted to see what she'd look like with that bobbed-hair-with-long-braids look, I thought it'd suit her vibe of embracing her different sides, being more at a more natural emotional equilibrium. I also also thought it'd be cute if Moony gifted her the earring I used to draw her humanoid form wearing.

[dustcrumbs]

Little confusion

Idk if I made this up by myself or if there's actual reasoning behind it

does toxic ships = abusive ships???

I thought toxic yaoi or whatever meant that 2 lads were EQUALLY bad for one another. Not just one person having power over the other

Cause then if that's the case, why are we calling an abusive relationship.. toxic yaoi and squealing abt how good it is.

Don't get me wrong, being equally bad for one another is horrible as well. But abusive makes me think of, "Hey I have power over you and I'm FORCING you to stay with me even if you dont want to. I'll hurt you physically or mentally (or guilt trip) if you try to leave me." And that is just, woah!! Not good

Compared to, "I hate you, and you hate me. We hurt each other but can't stand being with someone else. We are willingly stuck with one another even when given chances to leave (without harm)." or some other variations where it's more of a willing relationship rather than forced/pressured by a more dominant person.

So, are they different or the same or have been mixed up a lot that there is no definite answer.

[kings-highway]

I had a drabble written for this and idk if I will ever post it but I wanted to share this idea with you since your Ushiten posts are so adorable:

Basically I was thinking about Tendou returning to Japan from Paris for a vacation and Ushijima is very determined, adorably so, to show Tendou how much he missed him and likes loves him.

And he cooks dinner for him, something easy on the stomach in case he feels queasy from his flight. And when Tendou shows up at his doorstep Ushijima gives him this tight hug that just makes Tendou melt before he can even say hi. (Mind you, they don't really... Hug a lot.) And Ushijima is worried it might come off as sudden but he really did miss Tendou, he missed having his company and having his partner by his side who understood him so fully. He doesn't say it, he doesn't know exactly how to articulate that feeling.

And Tendou is just so amused but enamoured by this whole thing. He teases Ushijima for it but goes along, enjoying it. The jet lag and everything is exhausting him and everything at the air port was so loud but Ushijima's place is dim-lit, quiet and homey.

But then there's dessert. And Ushijima pulls out these cupcakes, these chocolate cupcakes that Tendou had given him the recipe for ages ago. There is some tempered chocolate on it as decoration and Ushijima comments how he didn't know if it was tempered correctly (they don't have a themometer) and Tendou is trying not to actually cry because it's one of the sweetest gestures someone's ever done for him (the chocolate is not tempered correctly at all, Tendou spots a fingerprint or two on the decorations but he doesn't say a thing)

Aaaanyways yeah they're totally not the sweetest thing ever. /s

eepers jeepers McMan, post the drabble! since you already have it written i'm just talk about some of my own highly related headcanons for how they handle long distance that i may or may not have written/are writing into some of my wips so enjoy~ (and post the damn drabble):

tendou being incredibly, unbelievable homesick in a way that he hadn't expected to be, because his whole life he's felt like an outcast and had cheerfully gotten on the plane to leave, finally expecting to be free of his childhood baggage and make his own path in like

ushijima, who had always been 100% content alone, who had been absolutely thrilled by tendou's success and his ambition moving across the world, who'd seen him off at the airport, wishing him well and making him promise to eat healthy, so proud of his best friend for chasing his dreams and never thinking twice about it.

an airport goodbye that had not a single tear shed, because their mutual lives before hand had set them up perfectly for this moment. nothing but excitement and crackling energy of possibility.

tendou's near instant feeling of otherness stepping foot in France, trying to make a place for himself and realizing that all his bravado about "starting over" and "finding somewhere he belongs" has actually set him back 3 years, and that he'd willingly chosen to be the outsider and the freak again, that France is not inherently easier to survive than Japan was, he's just older now and there's something to miss back home

while Ushijima's confidence over always being okay alone is immediately shattered, because the truth is he *wasn't* alone for the last 3 years, he hasn't been a loner since he met tendou, actually, and he let him go without a second thought because he simply hadn't realized that.

they both regret not hugging goodbye a little tighter at the airport - and there's no amount of video calls and phone calls and texting that can quite make up for the fact that they just really, really miss getting to be beside each other, to have someone watching their backs in a way that they *fucking forgot to realize they were doing.*

so yes, yes yes, when they are finally set for a reunion, when one of them finally gets to see the other, the first thing Ushijima does - despite it being incredibly out of character - is hug Tendou as tightly as he can, head pressed down into his neck, fingers digging into the clothes on his back and holding him as if trying to compress him into himself, and it shocks tendou, not just for the intimacy of it, but for the purpose. Ushijima doesn't hug him to greet him, or out of some sense of social obligation to show affection - he is hugging him purely because he doesn't want to let him go. Because he cannot stand the idea of being separated again. And *that* realization, that Ushijima has been just as desperately homesick despite never setting foot off Japanese soil, almost breaks Tendou, because never in a thousand years would he have guessed that he'd willingly walk away from someone who wanted him so deeply and so authentically to *stay*, but they'd already made their choices - they made their choices stupidly, a year ago, and Tendou's flight is booked for just seven days from now and there is simply not enough time before they have to redo that airport goodbye, and there is no more excitement, no more sense of wonder and progress, but just intense, aching sincerity as they hold on as long as possible until Tendou has to go through the security gate.

[raiseupyourbat]

G o d. All gekkos' outertale posting makes me wanna talk more in depth about the characterisation and plot issues in this game and why they bother me...

(readmore bc holy fuck this got long, it's probably like 5k words. It's also pretty much all salt, categorised by character)

Toriel

Why. Why is she like this. Kinda feels like the creator of the game hates her and if they don't, they have a weird way of showing it. She's treated as overdramatic and unjustified in her anger at asgore despite the fact that he DID declare war on humanity and he DID willingly let the people believe he was killing human children to harvest their souls. Even if he didn't do it for real in this game, she has every right to be angry and to not trust him, and it CERTAINLY doesn't make her undeserving to be a mother or whatever. Idk about you, but I don't think wanting kids to stay away from a man yelling about wanting to kill every child that crosses him makes you a bad parent, even if it turns out he didn't really hurt anyone y'know?

They also REALLY zoned in on 'mother' with her in a way that doesn't really make sense here. I could maybe see her feeling guilty for making a snap judgement but how would that call her motherhood into question?

Sans saying isolation messed with her makes no sense too!!!! The outerlands or whatever they called the ruins isn't sealed off in this game, other monsters seem way less intimidated by her in this game than in undertale (she has friends! She knows sans by name and goes to napstablook's shows and even has their phone number!), and we outright get told she takes the taxi to get her groceries... Meaning she headed off to the rest of the outpost and probably does that often enough.

All things considered, Toriel seems fairly well adjusted in outertale, at least by outertale standards. Kinda then makes it feel like everyone's just trying to convince her she's hysterical and that... Sucks.

Also the fact that they added an ending where you stay with her and framed it as a bad ending that doomed everyone is... Really mean? It sucked ass I'm sorry :/

Sans

... Why is he like this. This take on Sans is absolutely infuriating tbh. The only positive I really have here is that his puns are kinda good, I've seen fangames that fuck up this element massively and it was kinda fun to see his interactions in starton.

Okay, back to salt. His whole 'i became a sentry to help humans' thing is trash. He didn't care about that in ut! He didn't care about that at all! The only reason he looks out for frisk is because he made a promise to toriel, and he hates breaking promises. He didn't want to let down his friend.

...Huh. realising this is yet another case of Toriel disrespect somehow. Yet another thing they took from her, that they then just... Handed over to sans instead. :/

His lack of backstory. Look, I get wanting something silly, but they took almost everything that makes sans interesting away. Not hyperfocusing on sans like certain aus do is nice, but it feels like in a lot of situations in this game they overcompensated by a long shot.

No mysterious past/origins. We know he worked with alphys I guess but???? Honestly I have a LOT to rant about for that part so I'll leave it for twinkly's section. And yet despite all this, Sans inexplicably bleeds in tpe when not even undertale has that happen? Make up your mind!

His role in non Asriel chaotic also... Sucks ass. I'm in a pretty awesome corner of the fandom in terms of the people I follow and the takes I see as a result, so if I'm honest, when I saw all those posts about 2024 fanon sans being indifferent to his brother's murder, I kinda just figured they were vaguing about this game. You're telling me that sans of all people just shrugs off you killing everyone and complains a little bit before letting you pass?! He should know alphys already ran off. He should know the only person left to stop you is asgore, and that it's obvious he won't. Part of this could be connected to how frisk is written perhaps, and much like the twinkly situation, I'll have much more to say on that further down.

I understand the creator didn't wanna have a sans fight in their game - however, if that's the case... Maybe come up with a reason for him to NOT show up in the last corridor, then? Have him busy helping with evacuations or something, or already dead like in the first chaotic ending... This was just sloppy.

Papyrus

Honestly he wasn't... Terrible. The phonecalls were fun even if most were cheap references (though they can be fun in fangames sometimes so I'm not mad at this lol). Him being extremely talented at making spaghetti is just one symptom of one of this game's biggest flaws, however. I really don't like how nobody's really allowed to be bad at anything or have any real struggles in this game - especially when spaghetti in undertale is used to demonstrate his relationship with undyne and the similar wavelength they're on when humans aren't involved. She's the one who started teaching him to cook it, it's deeply intertwined with his desire to be a royal guard, and it's something they suck at together. Him just inexplicably being good at it is... Weird, and feels really disconnected from their friendship and her reluctance to let him in the guard yknow?

Also: his boss final phase. Having the dog NOT take his special attack away this time was really funny admittedly but... Idk? Not only is the fight really unfair for pacifist/neutral and those who aren't as good at the game (ut never gets this hard outside of geno), it feels way too on the nose in terms of insisting he's strong and has powerful attacks. Undertale didn't need to overcompensate to get across that papyrus is strong and disciplined and the way you have to infer that in undertale is way cooler. I might just be nitpicking with this point tbh but it's whatever. Letting myself be a hater for once.

And don't get me started on him getting together with Mettaton. It seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere, the idea that they were already friends in this was glossed over really quickly and no time was really put into developing the relationship save for papyrus commenting on finding him attractive every few minutes.

Gotta be honest, I've never been a fan of this ship nor understood its popularity. Papyrus very briefly mentions thinking he's attractive in undertale, but it doesn't really go anywhere and I'm not even sure mettaton knows he exists. It feels like it was just kinda added because it's a popular ship and that's it, not sure it really contributes much to either of their arcs. It was a light-hearted celebrity crush in canon and never really tried to be more.

Oh, oops. Had more to say here than I thought.

Undyne

Not much to say here... I think she was okay, there's nothing super bad with her. I do think the way gerson kinda downplays her/lacks faith in her in the chaotic route kinda sucks and I think choosing to make her non-undying chaotic bossfight harder sure was A Choice, but it's whatever. Undying was weirdly easy in a way that didn't do her much justice. Honestly they didn't do enough with her for me to have a wall of complaints and I can't tell if that's a good thing or not. Her relationship with alphys didn't really amount to much and her lack of understanding of human culture doesn't really hit as hard when she's just talking about random sci-fi things that we have no way of knowing are real or not in this game's idea of the 2600s ourselves, y'know? Her love of anime (that she mistakenly thinks is human history) is pretty absent here except to validate her relationship with alphys in a very shallow way.

The Ghost Family

Hoo boy... Was gonna make this the mettaton section, but I wanted to talk about napstablook at the same time, so I'm just gonna lump them all together.

What. What the hell was this plotline.

It feels like they tried to go for 'smalltime farmer chases passion for stardom after feeling unfulfilled at home' and as I've seen someone else say, 'shy business owner struggles to talk to their cousin outside of work'. This would've been fine tbh, but... There's a lot of things in the execution of this that kinda grossed me out if I'm honest. I don't think they were intentional, but I think it could've been thought through a lot better to avoid some unfortunate implications - or even lean into them in a respectful way.

Firstly, the ghost family intervention was pretty long, awkward, and didn't feel like it really added much - especially when most people playing would already know mettaton's backstory anyway (and his house is still accessible like in undertale!!!!! What was the point?)

Mettaton airing out his family issues on live TV feels very ooc - he keeps that stuff very close to his chest and I doubt he'd like it getting out. Him entertaining any of that out in the open seems... Weird.

Speaking of the intervention, his cousins' treatment of him was horrifying! Part of it seems intentional and it's nice that there's at least one part in the game where characters are allowed to have flaws and do bad things but... There's also elements that feel like you're meant to agree with them? Their insistence that mettaton just come home and everything they did in the past with constantly badgering him to come and help out on the farm were rightfully treated as something that hurt mettaton's feelings and that gave napstablook and the others pause. That's (mostly, we'll come back to it later) fine. He called them out for it and they reflected on it, cool. The way his ghost form was utilised makes me extremely uncomfortable, however.

Napstablook talks about hearing 'the real [mettaton]' in the recording, right to his face, 'the real mettaton' in this scenario alluding to his ghost form. Considering mettaton is a trans allegory, this feels... Kinda gross? In a similar vein, when passing mettaton's quiz barriers, one of the questions is 'what is mettaton's true identity' and you have the option to deadname him (using a name papyrus literally just made up in undertale rather than having any kind of creativity ofc) Alphys' reaction is simply to ask how you know that which... Doesn't feel great. The correct answer is 'mettaton' ofc thankfully, but everything around this particular plot point feels weird. Maybe don't do that w the most prevalent trans allegory character..?

And ofc, they keep insisting he just come home, go back to working on the farm, go back to his family... Idk, gives me vibes of someone abandoning their shitty transphobic family and then insisting they want to see 'the real [deadname] again' and for them to abandon their new life and just go back to the way things were before. Not good.

All of this would still be okay for the most part since the ghost family are painted as being unfair to mettaton... But in true pacifist, he goes back to helping out with the farm anyway and talks about how he thinks he was probably just being dramatic after all, and how 'blooky didn't do anything that bad'

... What?

It takes me right back to Toriel's treatment. Napstablook, Maddie and lurksalot gave no real thought to mettaton's feelings, made it all about them and showed pretty much no support for his transition nor his career! Fuck those guys! It's funny - mettaton is pretty consistently a pompous asshole (affectionate) in undertale but here, I think all his feelings towards his family were COMPLETELY valid. Mettaton outertale didn't do anything wrong.

Lurksalot didn't feel like they contributed much to the story either, save to be yet another character treating mettaton like shit with zero consequences nor narrative judgement. They just made every ghost family event even more drawn out.

And then ofc!!!! Mettaton and Alphys' friendship is so bland in this game! They're two people who kinda know each other and she says some nice things about him in a letter in chaotic but that's about it. Their friendship and the subsequent conflict frisk's arrival brings to it in undertale is the heart of hotland and the core, but here it's just replaced with unnecessary, hard to watch, boring family drama. The two of them have no issues to work out. She doesn't ask too much of him. There's no funny quips and barely any chemistry at all. God forbid either of them have any real flaws.

One last thing: I'm glad maddie gets her mew mew body, it's nice. Wish it was an on-screen moment or something alluded to more though. Some of that time dragging out the family drama could've been used on that instead, y'know? Especially with napstablook getting the mew mew doll... Genuinely thought they were gonna show it to her when they first got hold of it, rather than dragging Frisk into their intervention. She should've gotten to be more mad, too. Kinda a big part of her identity.

Oh, and mettaton's no-asriel chaotic fight was bullshit. It was a nice spamton reference and the first phase was cool, but the second was utter bullshit and dragged out the fight way too long. Attacking him after snapping all the wires should've killed him im sorry. It's even more of a shame bc I genuinely really liked this game's mettaton neo fight - it was fun and creative and felt possible.

Holding myself back from adding any more to this bc I could go on and on, ugh.

Alphys

Alphys. For a game that tries to make her the star of it, it's actually kinda impressive how much they managed to take away from her and just how uninteresting she is in this game.

At the surface level she's awesome, powerful, and the star of the show. In my first playthrough I was actually pretty happy to see her thriving like this! The more routes I played and the more I thought about it though they just kinda... Declawed her. Took away all her flaws. Made her 'perfect' in a way that I don't think works at all.

The amalgamates never happened. None of her experiments went wrong. She never hid away from her mistakes, or lied to anyone (save for keeping Asgore's secret, which she has no negative feelings about), nor did she over engineer any situations to make herself seem cooler. She doesn't argue with Mettaton! She's confident and assertive! She's Asgore's right hand woman and next in line for the throne! And ofc, the badass final boss! What's not to love?

...But none of this is Alphys, is it?

Her anxiety isnt just because of the determination experiments, it's pretty clear she's always been a pretty shy and nervous person. In fact, based on her entries they were one of the things she was more confident in before it all went wrong. People are hard, but she knows science, y'know?

She doesn't get to be flawed or interesting - despite her presence, she's just a generic cool scientist who's suave with the ladies, I guess..?

She isn't particularly dorky, shes overly confident, she has zero issues to work through. Her relationship with undyne is perfect (derogatory) and her infodumping about anime just before the archive feels very forced, like they remembered last minute that she does that and thought it should be included somehow.

Depicting what she'd be like in a scenario where the determination experiments never happened is a fun and interesting idea! But deltarune demonstrates how to do that well, and I think they completely missed the mark. The way she talks, her body language, the way she acts around others in general... These things are universal constants and yet in outertale, she's basically a different person entirely.

Outertale alphys isn't allowed to lie (save to cover for asgore Secretly Being A Good Person), she isn't allowed to miscalculate, she isn't allowed to mis-speak or make mistakes or do anything she'd regret. She feels like an alphys written by someone who hates her in canon and thinks all her flaws make her terrible and unlikable. I doubt this is the case since I don't think a person like that would've given her such prevalence, but that's the level of love and attention I feel was given to her writing here. It makes me sad.

And, of course... The DT experiments and her fight.

... Why did she have vials of determination if all the humans are alive? Did she take it from them? If so, was this before or after they went into stasis? We know she's not been the royal scientist for long in relation to how long humans have been falling, so did ROMAN take the determination? How much of this did she even DO?

Why did she and sans even DO anything with determination? It... Doesn't really make sense.

Speaking of determination, why did she melt at the end of her fight? I'd assume she's injected herself with determination as one of the vials in her lab is mentioned to be partially used, but I'm pretty sure it's also like this on pacifist. Was that overlooked? Are we just meant to assume it's MORE depleted? Does she just have natural determination now because She's So Cool And Badass? This isn't even really a complaint about the fight, more just how poorly that part of her lab is handled lmao

But getting into her fight... Idk, it didn't really feel like her. A lot of it was just random bullshit that was hard for the sake of being hard, that didn't really seem to be tied to her identity very well at all. People complain a lot about the Zenith Martlet fight in undertale yellow but that's done far better than this, imo. It clearly reflects martlet's character, personality and canonical bullet patterns (we see Alphys' in ut tpe!), there's a genuine feeling of progression in the fight and the act you're given to help with the fight feels more effective - you can still damage her on her turn, so taking a turn to heal act doesn't feel like a waste. The Asriel acts though... They just don't last long enough to feel that worth it? Sure they're okay, but in general, you get a lot less time to breathe. Martlet's fight lets you retry from phase 2 if you die. Sans' in undertale gives you as many turns as you need to heal while he's sparing you. Alphys' fight just feels like it's made to feel un-fun and painful throughout in a way that just isn't worth it, and doesn't really feel like it fits her personality either, y'know? The fight was just a slog and like many others, I had zero motivation to finish it legit. I don't think it helps that the undyne and mettaton fights in this route are fairly easy and simple in comparison.

Tldr: they took away everything that makes alphys endearing, fun and interesting. This isn't alphys at all.

Asgore

A huge chunk of this essay accidentally got deleted, including my first attempt at writing this section. In it, I mentioned that the Asgore apologism went way too far.

This time though, I don't think I'd even call it that. Reflecting on it, it feels less like an attempt to defend him and more like a way to hate on and spite Toriel.

Seriously. So much of his character basically just feels like someone going 'fuck you toriel. I'm giving EVERYTHING to asgore.'

It's... Really weird?

Asgore having a way out of killing humans is an interesting concept! Outertale takes place 500 years in the future compared to undertale, so the idea that they have the resources and technology to do that is kinda cool and in theory, exploring this idea sounds really fun. In practice though, it feels like it was mostly done to make Toriel out to be an asshole for no reason and to laugh at her for ever assuming he would've really killed anyone (despite... Y'know. Telling everyone that's what he was doing.)

He just. Completely moved on from Toriel without a second thought seemingly, and doesn't even look that affected by seeing her turn up again - meanwhile SHE'S got crumpled up tea recipes in the trash and all the Sad Divorced Energy - it doesn't really fit either of them! Toriel wasn't really given a reason to miss him like that, and I think even if he DID fully move on, he'd be way happier to see her than that.

All his leading statements on how she must feel in LV1 pacifist sucked ass also, especially with the way she kinda just agreed that yeah, she feels like shit for not trusting that he'd suddenly do a 180 and not hurt anyone (AGAIN. AFTER HE CONTINUED TO LET EVERYONE BELIEVE THIS) and that she must feel unworthy of being a mother. She hadn't even said half of this in front of him yet! He put words in her mouth! That in itself would be fine (social blunders are pretty normal for asgore after all) but it... Wasn't treated like that. It was handled as if this was a sweet and compassionate thing for him to say which... Yikes.

And ofc he gets to adopt frisk, and monster kid, and get to have Asriel live with him! His fatherhood is never called to question in undertale, but ofc Toriel's motherhood has to be here. Hell, despite their divorced status, if you talk to gerson in tpe it's highly implied frisk asks if asgore would start aging again if he became their dad! Idk, all of this part just reeked of Toriel hate and nothing more. Asgore is just yet another character to get sanded down and de-clawed and it sucks. So much of what makes him interesting is his mistakes and flaws and how they impact him, y'know?

Twinkly

I wanna start this by saying I don't think his writing is too bad. It's not amazing by any means but by outertale standards, he's one of the better written characters. That being said, Flowey is my favourite character of all time so I'm still gonna be critical.

So they did save the goat. Save the goat aus really aren't my thing nowadays - I feel like so often people act like he's a separate person to Flowey entirely and act like the alarm clock app dialogue doesn't exist. Asriel didn't end the story as a doomed tragedy fated to fade away! Flowey ended the story as someone who finally got closure on the loss of his best friend, and can finally learn to move on, even if it takes him a while to adjust. I don't think he needs to be a goat again for that.

That being said, I know these kinda aus are a big wish fulfilment thing for a lot of the fandom that aren't even necessarily something people want to be canon as much as they just wanna explore the idea and see him truly happy, so I won't judge that element too harshly. People are allowed to have fun, and I think save the goat can be fine if it respects him as flowey rather than separating them.

I really like that they allow Asriel to be fucked up and an asshole rather than him soft rebooting into some Sweet Perfect Little Prince once he returns to his old form, like so many other save the goat takes. Even in lv0's ending he struggles to bite back insults and mean comments aimed at Monster Kid which is... Admittedly kinda refreshing! There's definitely some flowey (or I guess in this case, twinkly) behaviour that still comes through here and I'm glad. This carried over to chaotic, too. While his characterisation wasn't perfect, this at least felt like twinkly obtaining a few form and continuing to play with the world, rather than your standard Asriel take. I also really liked that he remembers and acknowledges chaotic if done before pacifist, that was neat and adds to his character (as far as this game goes) I think.

However, onto the biggest, glaring issue I have with him.

Why. Why does he exist.

No, seriously.

In its attempt to make the world perfect, a world that blatantly only exists so the creator could make a save the goat ending, mind, there's no reason for the goat to need to be saved at all. Nor for him to exist after dying back when Chara lived with the dreemurrs.

Asgore isn't killing humans, so the souls don't need to be absorbed by anyone. Frisk can just enter the archive and lend their power to destroy the forcefield themselves, so there's no ultimatum like there is in undertale - there's no implied tradeoff of Frisk's life for the freedom of monsters without twinkly's intervention. In undertale, flowey's messing around opened up an ending that would've otherwise been impossible, something that worked for everyone.

Without him existing at all here, frisk could've broken the barrier just fine. All it really added to pacifist was a couple extra boss fights and asgore being dead for two minutes. And him being saved I guess but again, there's no real story justification for him being here EXCEPT to pat yourself on the back for saving him.

Why was he created? In undertale it's pretty clear - they wanted a vessel to hold all the souls in for now during the true lab experiments. He exists because Alphys selected the first flower to ever grow in the garden and injected it with determination that she extracted from the human souls.

... But all the humans are... Alive and well in outertale? They don't need a vessel to contain their souls. They don't need to extract any determination from anyone. Again, why do they HAVE vials of determination? And why did she inject one into a flower?

AND THAT'S THE OTHER BIG THING. It's established she and sans injected a starling flower for... Whatever reason. SO WHY THE HELL IS TWINKLY A CARTOON STAR?!

This point makes absolutely no sense at all. He looks absolutely nothing like a starling flower nor does he behave like a flower at all, which is confusing if that's what he started as. Honestly, I think it would've made more sense to just keep him as Flowey if they were gonna include him at all, and just have his appearance reflect a starling flower instead of a golden flower.

This applies to his fight too. Mechanically I think it's AWESOME, but the visuals are... Just very very boring. A huge part of why his fight in the original is so good it's the bizarre and chaotic nature of it, the horror elements, and the way so much of flowey's trauma in terms of how he was created and the things he finds scary was put on blast for all to see. The combination of mechanical and organic elements, all the plants and insects... Idk, just going 'hmm he's a star. Let's have him go through a star life cycle' is boring, there's no visual appeal.

If his creation is so vague and wishy washy, this would've been a great opportunity to flesh it out more. How was he created? What kinds of technology and machinery did alphys use to put all this together? How did she (or roman????? unclear) get the determination? What does twinkly remember?

That leads me onto a tangentially related topic - his trauma. I... Don't think this was shown very well. He talks a bit about BEING traumatised from the lab, but telling isn't the same as showing and canon flowey is terrible at hiding it, whereas I'd just as easily believe outertale Asriel made it up for sympathy points. He never really projects, he doesn't force anyone else to experience anything like he did, nothing like that. He's just a cocky asshole who likes killing, and who eventually decides to start being nice.

This game constantly seemed to be speedrunning ways to get him from being twinkly to being Asriel as quickly as possible in almost every single route which... Huh???? It's weird. Would've been nice to let him be a star more rather than just Asriel...

(final amendment bc I lost a huge chunk of this essay originally and had to rewrite it, and I'm realising I didn't manage to fit this in this time... How does a single monster soul let him get his Asriel form again? Sure he's still treated as if soulless and it doesn't make him a good person, but if he was 'so tired of being a star', why hadn't he tried doing this sooner? It makes no sense...)

For a game that exists to give him a good ending, it's so ironic how little he needs to exist at all in this world. Just goes to show what it looks like when you go too far with 'fixing' things or removing stuff you seem 'too problematic' for the sake of being wholesome or whatever.

Chara

Speaking of which... Look I'm just gonna say it. This version of Chara sucks so bad.

Chara is one of my favourite characters - they're really interesting, morally grey, and a fascinating way for undertale as a game to interface with us as players.

They're a child who likely saw the worst of humanity, then found themselves in a home with family who genuinely loved them once they fell down and met the monsters. Their intense saviour complex made them feel like the best way to help their family was to sacrifice their own life to get enough souls to break them free (and once they realised they had control, get payback against the humans while they were at it). They could be mean-spirited and a prankster. They valued efficiency HIGHLY. Their favourite number was nine because it's the limit, the absolute, a way to stop hurting and to stop others hurting.

And by doing geno, you can push this fixation on stats further. Max out all your stats. Gain power. Get stronger. Become invincible. Nobody can hurt any more if the world is gone. And ofc, they stand as the final arbiter of consequences for the player. Your punishment for killing everyone and for pushing them into believing it needs to be completed. Chara both IS is and is separate from us in a way that can't really be fully disentangled and it's really, really cool.

Anyway, enough gushing about undertale Chara. What's outertale Chara in comparison?

... Nothing.

They're nothing.

Outertale Chara narrates occasionally. They're a ghost that follows frisk around, but aren't confined to that, and have been actively wandering the underground since their death. They also still have a SOUL for some reason? This part doesn't really make sense at all.

Other than sacrificing themself and maybe wanting to take out a few humans after Asriel absorbs them, they don't do anything that could be considered bad ever. The most devious thing they ever do is snatch Asriel's diary to leave a silly comment in there when they first arrive at the outpost (sans does this with Toriel's phone in undertale tpe for comparison lmao). Despite what Asriel seems to believe, Chara is completely absent from the chaotic route - never getting corrupted, never caring about our stats, never wanting to hurt anyone, never even trying to make us face any consequences. They're just... Not here. For a character so prevalent in the murder based route of undertale this is fucking wild.

They all but vanish if you so much as say something slightly mean to someone, too! It's strange, makes no sense, and just like with sans, it feels like they overcompensated waaaaaaay too much for the people who insist they're evil. On top of that, if you do chaotic before lv0, they don't even remember chaotic happening! They'd may as well have just been a member of the ghost family who likes following Frisk around when they're especially nice. Like Asgore and alphys, they've been sanded down and de-clawed to be 'wholesome' and 'perfect', and it just results in a bland, boring character who loses anything that made them interesting, nuanced and fun.

'Chara wasn't the greatest person'... Why, though? They don't have enough substance in this game for that line to really have as much impact.

Frisk

I'm gonna be honest - I actually ADORED their frisk at first, and I think that's because I started with a neutral run and ended up drawing them a lot. They felt silly and mischievous and interesting, and this continued into chaotic. They seem pretty chill with what's going on but then take that even further by being hilariously affectionate with Asriel and still doing silly things like being up for picking up the electrodampening fluid or drinking directly out of the fountain. They felt like a funny little mini-kris (save for being okay with all the murder ofc).

Then uhhhhhhh... That's when I experienced the second chaotic ending, the one without Asriel, as well as lv0. I feel like they definitely DID try to lean on the Kris angle on purpose in terms of their feelings on being controlled and stuff but it???? Just doesn't work very well? There's no ambiguity to this version of frisk once you've seen all the routes. Just like EVERYONE ELSE, they're just a perfect little angel who would never do anything wrong and anything past lv0 is just the eeeeeevil player influence or whatever. Come on, we have deltarune for that kinda approach to control 😭 (though even then, Kris is a layered and interesting character who isn't goodness and innocence personalised, and that's why they're cool)

In undertale, we have no idea what frisk is like as a person. WOULD they spare everyone without our influence? Would they kill? Would they be a scared child lashing out in self defense? Would they run from everything, then give up and let themselves die permanently somewhere? We just don't know! We're not supposed to know! It feels like it went back to the very early fandom interpretation where frisk is Good And Sweet and Innocent while Chara is evil incarnate - except this time they're BOTH the former.

It's a contradiction too! Why in the Asriel chaotic route are they so down to follow him, and pet him, and hug him every chance they get if they don't like all the stuff we're making them so? The player has no influence over Twinkly. Every single thing he did, he chose to do, and yet even if the only time frisk has seen him was him destroying their mercy button and forcing them to kill for him, they seem to love him to pieces and go along with whatever he says happily. What.

I feel like they didn't know what to do with Frisk here at all and it shows.

Other characters

This has been ridiculously long, but to quickly go over non-major characters... They did very few things to make Roman seem interesting, the amount of stuff hes implied to have helped Asgore with just reduces even further any influence or impact alphys had, and (a smaller nitpick)... Why didn't he use times new roman as a font when we DID see him speak in the archive/on the signal stars? It's such a missed opportunity...

Burgerpants was fun... Kinda. Developing him like this feels like something that should've happened DURING the actual game rather than before it though because it made him feel like a whole other person entirely? The poisoned food was very funny though.

Why is Snowy now Stardrake when his dad hasn't changed at all and Crystal looks like any other snowdrake? That was bizarre.

I actually really liked the humans! Establishing them as actual characters was really fun, and I especially like justice. Justice, at least in my opinion, is probably the most interesting character in this whole game tbh - someone who tried to do good but ultimately caused more harm than good, while NOT downplaying it, showing the consequences directly, and showing them work to try to make things better. The way we don't grab their item like the others in the twinkly fight nor go through an area for them in the archive (and just talk to them instead) really adds to their intrigue - what are they like? Who did they know? Is there something they don't want us to see? How are they strong enough to not need us to grab their weapon at all to lend their help? I think it's get funny that the only character I'm fully praising is the clover-adjacent one. Justice outertale they could never make me hate you

(that being said... seeing the way this game is clearly just supposed to be a 'fix' for undertale does sour my thoughts on the humans a little. did they only do this bc they thought them NOT being full characters in ut was bad/a problem with it? ��� This applies to the additional monster kid story focus too).

Speaking of monster kid... Them being an orphan was clearly just a plot device to give asgore more kids and therefore feel like he won more than Toriel. Monster kid in undertale seems like they probably did have real and loving parents, and they have a sister too!!!! Would've been nice if they'd at least done something with their sister :(

This got... Way longer than I expected, so I'll stop here. But outertale definitely gave me an even bigger appreciation for other ut fangames. My gripes with deltatraveler section 3 feel much smaller in comparison now, if tsus misses the mark on Flowey later down the line they've at least already done most characters so much more justice, and it really puts into perspective all the heart and soul that went into kissy cutie, as well as its genuine love got the source material and characters.

Sorry outertale, you weren't for me. That being said, if anyone disagrees with any of this then that's fine! These are all just my opinions and feelings on it after going through all the routes and talking about it with friends. Media is always gonna resonate with different people in different ways and that's a good thing! If your perspective on any of this is different and if you had way more fun with it, I'm glad you did and I genuinely wish I could've felt the same. I feel like at the very least, making it has probably been a great learning experience for the devs and I really hope they carry on making games and improving their skills. Hope y'all are thriving and having fun regardless 💙

[atopvisenyashill]

What do you think rhaenys dornish letter said? Or as well, what is the most believed/popular theory about what it said? Do you think we'll ever know?

i don't think we'll ever know the truth of it, no.

Most popular theories are

Rhaenys was still alive and and either about to die, being held captive, or had remarried someone else

Rhaenys had a child that was being held hostage by Dorne

Rhaenys' bones had been found

They were threatening Aenys

So what's most likely? Well I'm not sure that the threat to Aenys is likely - I don't think Nymor is going to send his daughter and heir with a letter that's like "neener neener we're gonna put a hit out on your son if you don't back off." That just seems likely to get Deria killed? Look at the terms that go back and forth between the Lannisters and Robb - they're not sending fucking Myrcella or Tommen or Tyrion or Kevan, they're sending like, lesser cousins, in case the person receiving the letter doesn't like the message. I think that goes the same for "we're holding Rhaenys/your child hostage" - in that case, he's likely to just keep Deria as a hostage but he doesn't.

So this leaves a) Rhaenys' bones are being offered as closure or b) Rhaenys willingly wrote the letter for whatever reason. I think the bones theory is the one most believed because it's the neatest and simplest. I don't know that I agree with that though, because why would he not tell Visenya? Why would we not know that Nymor offered her bones up and Aegon agreed to stop the fighting? Why was Deria not taken as a hostage?

So then we get into Rhaenys writing the letter, or part of the letter.

Basically, what my read on this is that-

Rhaenys is found alive by the Ullers and tortured in the Hellholt but crucially she is kept mostly healthy and alive because Meria and the Ullers know she's a useful hostage

They have Rhaenys write some sort of letter to Aegon, like Sansa does in the capital, and it was sent to Meria first to check over or to add some more threats to it in her own hand

When Visenya and Aegon lose their minds and burn Hellholt to the ground, Rhaenys wasn't healthy enough to be moved and died in the fire

Nymor finds the letter (maybe it got lost on the way, maybe Meria had it the whole time but once Rhaenys was dead didn't see the point in sending it, etc etc) and adds his own bit that basically goes "You killed your own wife. Was it worth it?"

Deria goes specifically to ensure that Aegon knows this isn't a threat, this isn't them being full of themselves, it really is a peace offering, and part of that peace offering is that Rhaenys bones - maybe they show signs of being crushed? idk - have been smuggled to Dragonstone

The idea that Rhaenys married someone else, lived long enough to have a child (come on, she would have miscarried when she crashed!), had been tortured into insanity - I just think it's either too soapy or Aegon would have reacted worse. I think Aegon didn't want anyone to find out that he was responsible for Rhaenys' death, maybe even wanted to spare Visenya the knowledge that they had caused it in their anger, and that's why he keeps his mouth shut about it.

[cupboardgods]

Thoughts on arresting Klaasje

So I really liked this post by @jjjunebuggg, and I started writing this in the tags. But it ended up being too long and I didn't want to hijack the post with my tangent.

Also, in writing this, I realized I never had to give her a station call slip, did I? Is that something you can do? I've played five times with different builds and intentions, and I think I did 1 arrest and 4 call slips. It didn't occur to me that not doing anything was an option. Oh my god.........................

...

Anyway. I want to talk about not the morality of arresting Klaasje, but moreso the legality of it.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm of the mind that Klaasje didn't do anything to warrant arrest. Not that she didn't do anything wrong! She did, for reasons. But I gave her the call slip so many times because I genuinely didn't think it fair to arrest her.

She came to the city because "corporate espionage" is technically legal in Revachol, so she couldn't be tried for those crimes in Revachol. The extradition laws meant she couldn't get in trouble while she was there without being handed over to the ICP. But you can't legally arrest her for corporate espionage (although you can threaten her with it and then do it).

Maybe this is me being a bad detective, but it's not fair to call her a flight risk, even if she flees--Klaasje willingly hung around the crime scene, waiting to be interrogated, for over a week. She gave her testimony (and lied, but oh well, not under oath right).

Here's the fayde link to the reasons you can give for arresting her--none of which I think are actual charges (save for "murder suspect", for which there is little evidence to accuse her, especially if you know the actual cause of death).

Kim talks about how the RCM relies on call slips and fines over making arrests "to avoid overcrowding". If you don't arrest Klaasje, then giving her a call slip covers your ass. The call slip makes the paperwork clean, absolves the policeman of some fault, especially if you solve the case. More on this in a second.

Because of all that, it frustrates me that your colleagues give you a hard time about "letting a witness get away." Kim can say, "We really should have arrested her," during the tribunal. On what grounds should we have arrested her? To be sacrificed to the ICP because we're moralintern dogs? To be handed off to the mercenaries to appease their wrath? Literally Kim, shit timing. There was no reason. IMO it was her legal right to flee, as much as it was for Joyce to leave on her boat.

When Jean grills you for "failing to assess a flight risk" and "letting the witness go," I think his complaints demonstrate a systemic preference for corruption. Which like, duh. The RCM is full of corruption, they "exist in the twilight of international law", they're an imperialist armed force, etc. But this particular instance stands out to me because I believe in Klaasje's legal freedom, not just moral.

What makes me so sad, for both Klaasje and Ruby, is that if they both run away, they become fugitives. Idk if an officer can shred that station call slip, but if it gets filed, the ICP will know Klaasje's in Revachol right? It's another way of dooming her in the long-term, without a spooky shivers check weighing on your conscience.

Both of them were trying to bury criminal pasts; in playing the game your investigation digs them back up cruelly. This is made even more ironic because you can spend the entire game wondering if Harry himself is in the the pocket of La Puta Madre. If he is, or was, he's protected by his job.

Even Ruby's involvement in the harbor drug trafficking was only legally dubious right? Not outright incriminating. I think it's likely that both of their criminal identities would fade into obscurity, maybe because of Le Retour, maybe because of time. But still they're two vulnerable people who're permanently on the run when they both could have had a long-term home in Martinaise.

Anyway, great writing in the game as always. Love that I can play five times through and then some, and still fail to question the narration, authority, or even myself. Like I needed another reason to play again.

[stevie-petey]

hello m i hope you are well. would you believe this was an excellent time for me to read your fic, truly what i needed tonight!! not to get #intoit #toodeep but a blowout fight with my mother puts me right in the headspace to ruminate on childhood and how to carry it inside of you in a way that doesn't hurt.

One thing before i start crying, i love this line so much, "Passenger seat is reserved for girls I’m dating.” passenger princess bug iktr!!!

Steve and bug finally, FINALLY being in a stable place with each other is so beautiful <3. i love them so much. them actually talking about what is happening between them, finally trusting each other enough to be open and vulnerable is tooooo good, espcially since we've seen what it took for them to get here. i am terrified for how this will break down in s4. Steve offering to come back to weathertop when bug is thinking about how she used to come with jon as she's about to lose jon......i love that he's doing that for her and with her <3333. i love that nancy promises bug to take care and keep jon safe. i love that nancy and steve do that for bug and jon. i love that they reassure to be their new person responsible. i also love that weathertop is a special place for both bug and dustin's first loves <3. i love how they keep making places more comfortable for each other. steve making the beatles a beautiful memory again, bug making the flower field into a nice birthday date with her joy about his best birthday gift in the world is really what love is all about. i also really, really loved their conversation about luck and love, and i have a nagging feeling in my mind it will come back in s4 to confront bug as she finally exhales the mountain of grief she is holding onto. i am trying to find the words, because i don't really believe in luck very much, but i do believe in counting your blessings, and the i find the act of counting the blessing of how many people love you, and you get to love back, no matter how it ends in circumstances out of your control, a very brave thing to do. Joyce asking bug to live the life she decides is so special <3. a mother figure who actually knows bug to her core and knows the totality of bug's circumstances and then tells bug that she deserves a happy life is soooooo special and beautiful <33333. i love that joyce gets to be the person who tells her that, especially since joyce herself is so kind despite everything she's been through. i always thought bug would be like joyce when she grew up.

I also really shortly would like to also talk about bug and her guilt. i'm sure this will come up terribly for her in s4, but it really fascinates how much bug takes everything on herself, and i also don't really understand it either, but it does make her very interesting. even taking on the guilt of billy's death when it truly wasn't her fault at all in any way, jesus christ she's like a catholic saint. guilt isn't very logical and i really, truly get that, but i just idk, feel very sad that she feels that way at all, i wish i could talk to her about it.

i also loved this part, "Nancy screams back at you now, insulted that you truly believe she would ever leave her brother behind willingly. She wouldn’t do that. She knows that you know this." st has always been bad at handling the emotional consequences for their characters, but i really wish we got more nancy and mike. they're a complicated relationship because they weren't close before the upside down but obviously they love each other and are siblings, and like bug said, siblings are too strong of a bond to shake off in the worst cases. i wish they got more time in the show to breathe.

Finally i love the way bug's childhood ends softly and not the violent end she was sure of. "Time stands still. You’re seventeen and your childhood is coming to a close." Bug is so lucky to know she's in the good old days when they're happening to her. I don't like jonathan very much, but i appreciate they were kids together. they were almost girls together. having to figure out how to be adults apart is difficult for friends with less complicated histories.

This was a really beautiful story. I hope you know how much richer you make this story, and how much life you breathe into this world.

hi darling <333

passenger seat line ,,, i was DYING to write it for MONTHS !!!! my god it makes me giggle thinking about it. like yes steve pls dub me ur passenger princess <3

you understood the luck and love monologue perfectly. i also really do believe its brave to continue loving everyone and everything around you even in the most grim circumstances. its brave to keep loving even if the love itself has faded. to try again, to be human in doing so, its my favorite thing ever. its why i adore steve n bug so much. theyre trusting one another to love again, to try once more to accept the love theyre scared of. its raw and its tender and its terrifying. loving someone after your first love is i think, personally, the most authentic type of love. its the most vulnerable you will ever be and lowkey why im scared to love again as well.

the joyce and bug scene <333 theyre so special to me. bug really is the daughter joyce never had. she sees so much of herself in bug (and i also 100% picture an older bug just being joyce) and bug loves her like a mother as well. claudia is wonderful, but as you said: she doesnt know what bug has been through like joyce does. all claudia can do is patch up bugs wounds afterwards. its what made the scene so special to me: joyce reads bug so well, shes watched her take care of her boys the whole time shes known her, so for joyce to tell bug that she doesnt blame her ,,, its huge. to be told to live the life you deserve by the woman who you admire heavily is such an impactful thing.

bug and her guilt ,,, whew. youre so right that a lot of her guilt is irrational, thats the whole point. she piles so much on herself (we saw this more in season 2) because she physically cannot help it. its in her bones. she has to help, and in her eyes when her help fails, its her fault regardless of the circumstances. its such a #healthy way to live LMAO (season 4 will ruin her)

JUSTICE FOR THE WHEELERS UR SO RIGHT !!! its always bugged me that we never really see mike and nancy being siblings. nancy wasnt really concerned for mike (who had just lost his best friend mind you) in season 1 until WAY after he had gotten into so much shit. i hate the way the siblings are written, we so rarely get to see them be concerned for one another :(

and finally the goodbye scene. sigh. ive had her in my mind since we started season 2. i love her dearly, and the line with bug saying her and jon were more than just kids will stick with me forever. for some gnarly m lore: my first love and i were childhood best friends. when we broke up and severed all contact (because im insane), it truly did feel like my childhood had come to a close. it was terrifying. there i was, 19 and grieving, and i didnt know how to be someone without my ex. i wanted to portray that fear with jon and bug. when you grow up with someone, when this person knows everything about you, and they suddenly leave, its the most painful and confusing thing. i cannot explain it. but knowing that my childhood lives in my ex boyfriend, the same way his lives in me, even though we havent spoken in almost two years ,,, it haunts me, and yet oddly its comforting.

i was a kid with him. somewhere, a piece of me still is. im still that kid he met when we were 14, and hes still that kid to me, and i think its beautiful :)

[theneighborhoodwatch]

I've been thinking a lot about the houses, specifically how they might correlate with WH's theme of religion. The parts in the livestream trivia where Clown talked about the houses is really interesting, how Home is the only "alive" house but all the neighbors believe their houses are alive to some capacity. And the fact that the holidays are to celebrate their houses, where human holidays are usually to celebrate deities/religions.

The only thing on the website that still has this religious theme is the So Below page of Wally (possibly) worshipping Home. Perhaps Clown removed the cross cufflinks and Baphomet imagery so WH could be an allegory about religion instead of straight up about Christianity. The houses/Home could be metaphors for deities and the neighbors are their followers, even if their perception of religion and what it means is probably very different than humans'.

i was wondering why i had a hard time answering this message yesterday, and i think it's because i never really saw welcome home as a story about christianity or even religion as a whole, in either its current iteration or its earlier drafts. i think there is a very good chance that it's one aspect of welcome home, but... how do i say this.

when i see posts from clown talking about what he feels welcome home is about, i get the impression that at its core, welcome home is a story about alienation - from society, from one's environment, from one's peers, even from one's own self - and Specifically about alienation that comes as a result of changing (or at least desiring change) in an environment that upholds stagnation/the status quo/etc. as The Ideal. not Quite the same as but very similar to nostalgia poisoning, two peas in a pod. and i don't think it's a coincidence that this can be used as a criticism of the practices of Many christian denominations in the usa, a country in which christian hegemony is still very strongly felt in many aspects of daily life (let alone back when welcome home was airing in-universe or when its supposed creator, ronald dorelaine, was growing up.) i suspect that part of the reason the christian symbolism seems to have been reworked into something more subtle between welcome home's 2019/2020 concept and what we have now is because:

A.) it would have been rather on the nose, even hokey, to have the world of welcome home (the in-universe show) be a textually christian one when you don't really Need welcome home to be an explicitly religious production to demonstrate the idea that art is shaped by the culture/society in which it exists and/or its creator(s) hail from.

B.) it was originally less ... nuanced? idk if that's the word i'm looking for, but - i do not think it is a coincidence that wally's old cross cufflinks were a holdover from a time between the version of welcome home we are familiar with now and a draft in which wally seemed to be much more overtly, Aggressively antagonistic in his status as the center of attention, and was pitted against a much more straightforwardly heroic character who was on more equal footing with the rest of the neighbors. i Suspect that if any of what i just said comes into play, then perhaps the current iteration of welcome home is the way it is because it leaves room to acknowledge that even people who are hurt by this upholding of stagnation as the ideal willingly perpetuate it anyway, for a number of reasons.

BUT to get back to the actual ask: since we have no idea what's actually gonna happen in welcome home at this point in time, let's say that none of what i just talked about comes up even once and that the concept of The Home is really what we should be focusing on here wrt the religious symbolism, or at least that the two are not mutually exclusive. in this case, i think it's less that the houses themselves are metaphors for deities and more that, like - the importance of homes in the world the neighbors live in is so great that the only way it can be expressed in terms that a human could understand would be through the lens of religious/spiritual beliefs. i am intrigued by the idea that each neighbor has their own relationship to this belief though, and how that may effect their environment in the future. Much To Think About.

[sebstanismyspiritanimal]

Here's chapter four! This one is a little awkward, I'm not good at writing cases and idk how to solve them so i kept the case out of it as much as possible 😂 but we get a cameo from Max! In my head the CB radio is bc obviously walkie talkies are the parties main mode of communication but obviously that wouldn't work over several states but they're jaded from government spying so they don't wanna use cellphones. So Dustin and Lucas rigged up a CB that can do that! Idk if that possible but hey sci-fi.

I'll probably be adding this to ao3 soon bc I finished writing chapter five, I will continue to post over here unless people just tell me they want to link for each new chapter instead of the whole one

As always here's chapter 3 if you missed it!

Eddie Munson is acutely aware of the fact that she did not go to and graduate the FBI academy, or any academy for that matter. Honestly, she hadn't been worried about it until Hotch sent her and JJ to talk to the families of the victims and she quickly realized that she had zero idea of what she was doing.

"Mrs. Barlow, I know how difficult this is for you, but any information you can give us can help." They were seated across Lucy's sister-in-law, the one that had reported her missing and the woman was crying into a tissue at her kitchen table.

The woman took a shuddering breath and nodded, "Okay."

JJ glanced to the side in an awkward way and cleared her throat, "Was Lucy involved in drugs, in anyway?"

Tammy- the sister in law grimaced and nodded, "She had problems as a teenager but she was sober! I met her brother when she was 25 and she was already 2 years clean. Why? Do you think someone from her past did this?"

JJ leaned forward and as gently as possible broke the news that Lucy's cause of death was of a heroin overdose. Eddie flinched as the effect of the words was immediate.

"How dare you?! Lucy was sober! She wouldn't give that up after this long!" Eddie leaned forward and clapsed Tammy's hand before she could jump to her feet.

"Ma'am, I understand that this is difficult and that Lucy took great pride in her sobriety. She was probably a sponsor for other people too right?" At Tammy's nod Eddie smiled and continued, "We aren't suggesting that Lucy willingly took these drugs and I know that by you entertaining our questions it seems like you are letting Lucy down, but Tammy we need your help. There is another woman missing and the clock is ticking for us to find her before someone else gets hurt."

JJ and Eddie held their breath waiting for Tammy's response, hoping they weren't about to be kicked out.

After what felt like an eternity Tammy slumped in her chair and raised a hand to her face, "Okay, what do you need to know?"

At JJ's encouraging look, Eddie continued the questions. "Was there a recent event in Lucy's life that could make a dealer able to lure her somewhere? A breakup? Maybe a job loss?" They watched as Tammy pressed a hand to her mouth and let out another sob before nodding, "She had just broken up with her girlfriend of 8 years, Lucy had discovered she was having an affair."

JJ and Eddie quickly finished up their interview before leaving the house, not wanting to make the family's grief worse.

2 hours later they were walking into the station to update everyone on what they had found out.

"Lucy Barlow was a recovering heroin addict and had been sober for 11 years and had just recently found out her girlfriend of 8 years was having an affair." JJ smoothly took over for Eddie, "Andrea Lakes has been a sober alcoholic for the last 7 years and just recently got laid off from her law firm. They were both sponsors too."

The others were silent as they took in the new connection the girls had found out from the families.

"So the unsub might have been able to lure them away to a secondary location using the promise of drugs and alcohol?"

"After five years the chance of a relapse decreases to 15%." Reid said contradicting Morgan's theory, but making Eddie perk up.

"You're right, with all of the years of sobriety breaking it is uncommon, but not unheard of and both of them were sponsors for many other people. What if they were going to meetings? New people are coming and going to those all of the time, it wouldn't be unusual to see new faces and with both of them sponsors, approaching these new people would be expected."

They spent the next couple of hours bouncing ideas and leads around the room before Hotch called it a night, leading them back to the hotel.

Hotch talked at the front desk for close to 5 minutes before sullenly walking back to the group.

"So there is apparently a cheer competition in town and they are running low on rooms. We're going to have to pair up." The group groaned before getting into usual pairs when they realized they were uneven with Eddie on the team now.

Hotch grimaced realizing that he was going to have to put her with one of the guys, or make one of the girls share a bed.

"Are you comfortable sharing with Reid or would you rather share a bed with one of the other girls?" He questioned making Eddie shrug, obviously unconcerned.

"I've slept in worse conditions than having to listen to Spencer snore. Can't be worse than Russia in December." The snoring comment made Reid squawk in protest before everyone jumped on the Russia comment, complaining when Eddie wouldn't give up any more info on the walk to the rooms.

---------------------------------------------------

Spencer was startled awake a few hours later by a loud bang. He rolled over in bed and went to reach for the bedside lamp when he saw Eddie's silhouette at the lit up window instead of in bed.

"Eddie?" He questioned, sleep roughing up his voice.

"It was just a car backfiring, Spence, go back to sleep." She murmured back not turning away from the window. Spencer watched as she palmed something into her pocket, a silver flash of something before it disappeared.

Spencer glanced around the room, taking note of the chair pulled back from the table in the corner and an old CB radio with weird wires and a pack attached sitting on the table.

Spencer was debating if he should say something when the radio crackled to life.

"Eddie?" A whispered female voice came thru the speaker and Spencer saw Eddie glance at him as he hurriedly shut his eyes, hoping she thought he had just gone back to sleep.

"I'm here Max."

He heard her whisper and the same voice whispered something he couldn't quite make out back before he really did fall back asleep.

[cirrusin]

Haiiii ur DGM thoughts are always juicy what are your thoughts for Kanda or Lenalee (*＞∇＜)ﾉ

hi <3 kanda and lenalee are such insane characters i love them

i have a bit of a theory about the relationship between kanda's hallucinations (of his past life) and mugen's ability to create illusions but idk how to word it yet .. in any case kanda's sheer capacity for love and loyalty is astounding. when you meet him initially youre like what a rude cunt doesn't he care if finders die?? and admittedly kanda still has negative tact but now WE GET IT. if people willingly served and died for an organization as corrupt as the order i wouldn't respect them either tbh. what does it mean when the order has stooped to levels that even the earl says are fucked up? but the way kanda continued to fight for the order for the precise purpose of finding that person from his past, and the way kanda refuses to leave the battle even after finding alma just to repay allen. man .... something something his ruthlessness for the sake of love . then the way kanda "killed" alma to continue living and find that person from his past (WHO WAS ALMA), what a perfect tragedy jesus christ!!!

and lenalee IS SO FUCKING INTERESTING!! it's been a while since we saw lenalee and allen's "dream worlds" but i haven't forgotten. they're mirrors of one another separated by what seems to be a lake? with the same moon!! god i could write a whole essay on the dream worlds in dgm, because somehow we see nea mourning mana in allen's dream world and by extension lenalee's mirror world, and we kind of know allen's connection to the earl but where does lenalee lie? there's something to be said about how dark boots and crown clown have both acted independently of their users but somehow i don't think she's the heart, she seems like she's being set up to play a larger role that we haven't seen yet. i'm so excited to see where she goes!!! aside from that, it's no coincidence that dark boots now looks like shackles around her ankles :( all in all lenalee is such a sad character too like she's the perfect representation of somebody who's lost everything and would do anything to prevent that happening again ... she was terrified of lvellie when she was young and she's still terrified of him now (side note, her sibling-like relationship w kanda where she kept running to him whenever lvellie visited.. augh)

but i hope lenalee and kanda both end up fully defecting from the order 👆

[purplink8]

Well, idk if you've read the entire thing, but Light does NOT follow his own code at all, and completely breaks them whenever he deems necessary. Case in point: Ray Penber, the FBI, Naiomi, not to mention his own Task Force or his family members if that ever had to be the case.

Also, his purpose to kill people was not to make it a better place, but mainly for him to RULE said world with the power he obtained. He isn't someone like the Punisher, who does mass murder of criminals to "protect the innocent" and to prevent scum from causing someone a bad day at the park like how they did to him. Punisher knows what he's doing is wrong, but he's so fucked up and hell bent on his mission to stop scum whatever the cost he doesn't CARE, he'll gladly reunite with his wife and kids once someone skilled enough can take him down, and until that day comes he will keep the streets clean.

Compare that to Light, who makes it very obvious that he's solely doing this to "become GOD OF THE NEW WORLD HAHAHAHAH" as he puts it. If he truly cared about justice and not his ego, he would've covertly written names in the notebook, in his room, and any prompt by L or the law would be ignored so that he can continue justice as long and effectively as he can. But does he? No, because he's bored and wants a challenge so he rather go down that path where he gets as CLOSE AS HE CAN to L, leaving any innocent people who are involved in the case directly in the crossfire of his battle of wits with L.

The only time Light himself brings up his morals or the innocent, it's directly after someone accuses him of being a monster. It's more of a defense mechanism to justify his actions rather than being an actual purpose to his actions.

...I've been staring at this ask** in my inbox for a while now & I still can't comprehend which post of mine warranted this??

** - There's no question in this ask, just your opinions. While I do not mind such asks at all, I am nonetheless baffled since I haven't made any posts recently of Light following his 'code'.

Also, I haven't read the Punisher or whatever so this is confusing to say the least. No offense, but you do know that you can make your own posts right? Like you don't have to gain approval from me (if that is what you're seeking? Forgive me if that's not the case but I can't see why you'd willingly send such an ask to me & how I'm supposed to answer this), or anyone else for that matter, for your opinions.

[agerasiaa]

Hey! I just reread Glass Love Eclipse for the hundreth time and i have two questions that have been nagging at me for forever.

1. In the end scene, where Drew finds his star in Jake’s jacket, Jake claims he just found them in the halls and thought of them as pretty. Is he telling the truth or did he figure out it’s Drew’s and kept it as some sort of lucky charm or something?

2. Does Drew ever tell his friends he suffered from star tear disease? Or when they inevitably find out he turned colorblind he just makes up some excuse? And how do they react?

Sorry if im bothering you with this, i know it should be mostly to the readers interpretation, but i would really like to know the idk “canon” from the author. You dont have to answer if you dont want to! <3

Hi there! Don't worry, this didn't bother me at all - on the contrary, I'm very happy to see someone take an interest in my fanfiction!!

1. I did indeed leave it vague on purpose because in the case that I decided to never make a sequel to Glass Love Eclipse, I wanted the reader to be able to have the freedom to imagine their own preferred ending. But since you are asking directly - let me explain what's up with the stars from Jake's perspective (canonically).

The most important hint I left was that the color of the star in Jake's pocket is yellow. Yellow stars were the first stars that Drew spread around the school. And Jake happened to be the first person who noticed them: in that scene where Drew turns and rushes away to the bathroom when he sees Jake and Hailey - Jake noticed him walking away and automatically left to follow him. Then he thought better of himself and stopped. Before returning to Hailey, he noticed the yellow stars in the hallway. He did kind of associate the stars with Drew only because "it looked like they were left there on his wake" and they looked pretty so he decided to collect them. (Jake has since taken other colors too and he doesn't quite know why he is drawn to them.). But no, he has no idea what star tear disease is.

2. Drew wouldn't ever willingly tell anyone about the star tear disease. It's partly self-prevention - he thinks his feelings would be rejected which could cause him to go blind, and he is trying his best to avoid that. It's also because "eww, my embarrassing feelings would be exposed if I told anyone"

However, his condition is hard to hide and at some point eventually, someone would notice it. Drew would try his best to make excuses or just plainly be mean toward anyone who tried to make sure he was okay. Star tear disease is not hard to find if you know what to Google, and if someone saw Drew crying out the stars, he would be pretty much exposed. If someone took only a note of Drew's colorblindness, he could tell pretty convincing lies about it.

"How would they react" is a hard question to answer since it depends so much on who is the one reacting. Every character would have a different reaction. But I can say for sure that Jake would take it the hardest. He would be torn up about it, "Drew is colorblind and losing his vision because of me!!??" (And even if he didn’t know it was bc of him, he would be still the most worried one.)

Thank you for the question! The answer got a bit long haha since I really liked answering it :)

[unsaintness]

aspd ask anon here (🫧) - "It means that you were something genuine to him or it could also mean that you provided him with something he could exploit that he didn't want to let go of yet"

firstly, thank you so much for your genuinely thought out reply! i wanted to make sure i was being respectful since i still struggle to understand but desire to. yes, we online dated, and he lied a lot and exaggerated truths. even unnecessary things, i still would have loved him but i found out of course and would cheat even though he was the one who came back when i would realize he was being shitty and leave him - or he would make me leave him when my mental deteriorated too much and i ended up in the hospital. leaked my nudes in my music community... he pretended to be his own childhood best friend on an alt account and befriended me and got us back together after we broke up (making it seem random) and kept up this act between his alt, him and me for months...

he lied about having schizophrenia + DID (because i have schizotypal & bpd ig), his name, would exaggerate about how good his music is actually doing lol (weird, we both make music i could just see?) but he acted like he really loved me but i'm sure its more on the end of him having something to exploit when i look back. i think i was the closest he got to a person 'genuinely' caring about him and forgiving him even when he was bad... also sexually it was probably very gratifying for him. i think he told a friend he was only with me because i was a 'freak' but i think he also just likes to brag to seem cooler than he is bc no one really likes him in real life...

overall, he just lies about bullshit for no reason and everyone knows... i want to believe none of that is who he is and hes a good person deep down but i know i have to forget that ideal but i guess me even asking was me looking to see if maybe im overreacting? i dunno. you can probably tell what he meant by me being easy to manipulate lol.

aah sorry.. long ask but yeah. i dunno. he kept coming back so i like to think its cus a part of him cared -- he even admitted to some lies the last time he came back before i personally found out everything he did and lied abt and his manipulation tactics -- i felt like oh at least he admits to some things but he kept so many lies there. it just sucked. i don't get how someone could pretend to love me like that? we video called often too..made music together.. sorry to vent to a stranger on their blog lol. yeah idk he was just incredibly cruel in doing this for years. i don't want to ever demonize a whole group of people but assuming he does actually have ASPD maybe its just a rly intense case?

Well it seems like deep down you're pretty aware of what kind of person he is but is quite pretty much blinded by love all this time. That's okay, being aware is one step closer to healing from it after all.

I wouldn't call it a case of ASPD or any type of disorder at all, he's just generally an asshole, he isn't a good person, a pathological liar based on everything you told me. But again we can't know for sure, that's the psychiatrist's job to diagnose him, but even if he was to actually have any type of mental illness- his intelligence wasn't stunted because of a personality disorder, I can assure you that everything he did was willingly- let's not excuse anyone just because they have a disorder.

I don't want to reality check anyone at all since people have a right to believe in something that they want to and it's not exactly my place to tell you what to do since it's something between you and him. But I wholeheartedly hope that you understand what I'm saying and make a decision that you wouldn't come to regret later on with him.

The disorder can be the motivator but it's not the initiator for anything. He cheated because he wanted to, he made the choice to cheat, he made the choice to lie. We always have urges and thoughts about a lot of depraved and disgusting things, but we aren't mindless beasts with no self-control and sense of morality. ASPD doesn't coerce us to do anything- we are able to choose to act on those urges or not.

Hypothetically, let's say he does have ASPD. Then he seems like the low-functioning type of antisocial, always giving in to whatever the disorder speaks to him. I can't say for sure but it's very likely he would fit in that criteria of ASPD, I'm on the high-functioning spectrum so I can mask my symptoms quite well and capable of leading a relatively normal life. I can still form genuine connections with other people, reject and keep the depravity at bay.

It's the person, not the disorder. Sure it fucks up your mind and personality to a degree but I don't go around killing people just because I'm antisocial. Don't excuse their behaviours on the disorder and don't demonize a whole category of struggling people. A lot of people with ASPD lead successful lives while the other lot rot in a ditch somewhere by getting in trouble with the laws, they aren't much different from people who don't have a personality disorder- we just have it way harder, we're all humans. We differ and vary from each person.

Remember, choosing to act on something is a conscious choice, the disorder doesn't decide for you. And a lot of times it's not even because of a disorder that motivates their actions, maybe they're just bad in their core after all. They did it because they don't respect you, hate you even! Maybe they're just an asshole and a shitty person at heart, plain and simple.

[ikram1909]

hahah it’s okay i talk a lot too!! especially about this because it really really does piss me off. but yes exactly, i think people overlook the very clear personality differences the two of them have too. pedri obviously gets along with the whole team too they all love him but he’s also clearly much more introverted than gavi is and therefore is much more likely to stick around the same people (mind you gavi is often one of these people too, so that’s why i’m???, gavi pedri and ansu used to go out to dinner a lot as well). gavi is like, best friends with the literal entire team. and i feel like i’m not even exaggerating. he’s close to everyone and therefore isn’t going to be around pedri 24/7 even when they are OBVIOUSLY close (they play for two teams together it’s kinda impossible not to be as well lol. why does this get ignored)…. and yeah the complete disregard of the fact that gavi is also close to ferran and eric is insane to me as well, he’s seen with the three of them pretty often. that one edit made me laugh too, i think pedri has actually mentioned gavi more in interviews than gavi has. completely unprovoked too, he’ll get a question about him bellingham and musiala being stars of the next generation and bring gavi up. like he clearly loves him a lot, that’s his little brother fr, so i truly don’t know why pedri is getting painted like he actively wishes gavi would stay away from him (mind you he willingly drove him everywhere for a year and a half, he wouldn’t have done that if this was the case). a lot of this just really gets me going because i just KNOW they’ve seen it, especially on tiktok. i think that’s why pedri even answered the question on the residency app about him and gavi fighting because he was probably sick of it. i feel like a broken record because i’m sure these people don’t care about any of the things we’re saying, but then again i’m also sure they can’t be above the age of 14 so i try not to get TOO annoyed but oh my god (also sorry for this being so long LOL)

This!! Their personalities are almost the opposite of each other. On one hand, you have Pedri who does pretty well around strangers (you can see how comfortable he is while doing interviews, how easy going he is) but has a pretty tight group of who he spends time with. On the other hand, there's Gavi who's super super reserved around strangers like he gets so shy my poor baby 😭 but once he warms up to someone? That's his bestie and he'll be all over them like an over enthusiastic puppy 😭 just take their meeting with Anitta as an example, Pedri was comfortable talking to her from the start while Gavi kept his distance and looked very nervous but after a while you can see him warm up to her and laugh with her then they took that selfie together.

Pedri only has good things to say about him, and makes sure to praise him every chance he gets because he clearly cares for him and respects him as a player. Idk what more is he supposed to do? He does more than enough people need to leave him alone.

Yeah I'm pretty sure he saw those edits, they were all over tiktok and have entirely too many views. I've seen ones in THREE (3) different languages I kid you not. Being teenage superstars has its downsides I'm afraid. The fact that he had to come out and address it is actually very sad.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

ITS OVER... aaaahhhhhh..... man i am just kind of Emotionally Exhausted now but also still kinda riled up. I did really like Act 3. Lots of action lots of go-go-go and a bigger sense of pressure (despite. how much time I still spent kicking over every barrel just in case there was another codex underneath).

further thoughts below cut just in case but this is just short first jibberings not my Cohesive Thoughts which i will probably do a big write up of uhhhh later sometime (its now 6am, no i did Not sleep)

The ending I got was Solas willingly binding himself to the Veil, then Lavellan joining him to... wherever it is that they fuck off to, in the Fade or however else it's happening.

Solavellan wise. I will call myself satisfied. It's certainly not my perfect ending but I do think my kind of perfect ending would be, weird and disliked by almost everyone else lmao, so. that was never an option. I think the reason this ending is the one they wrote is that it leaves things open ended enough for everyone's personal headcanons that they can justify never bringing them back again and also not having to use the Fade/Veil or Evanuris as looming threats moving forward anymore. I AM curious how all the other outcomes go and will play through them eventually, or watch videos or smth. Probably, I will come up with a headcanon version that is similar but slightly more tragic or something, as i am wont to do.

Otherwise: Harding sacrificed herself, and I was hooting and hollerin the whole time. I really thought bioware was gonna pull that punch and I'm glad it didn't. It set the tone for the rest of the act that things would have more serious outcomes, though in the end I didn't lose anyone else (despite being nervous for a bunch of them because i did NOT have everyone at level 10 bond, though everyone was a Hero, so idk if that makes a difference or i was just paranoid from my Mass Effect suicide mission days).

i have 10000 other veilguard thoughts but i will probably save those for its own post... in many ways this game was not For Me, and i didn't like quite a lot how it was structured/written. but i do think at least it ended in a good place, with a mission sequence that was fun + dramatic + had waaaaay more tension and compelling reasons for action than the other parts of the game. though now i am sitting here wishing for Some Kind of post-game... last chat with the gang or somehting just bc staring at the menu screen is driving me a little nuts lmao. what do you mean i can't click continue and just loiter around in arlathan. alas. ok this is already longer than i intended hitting Post now

i am so so so close to the ending now and i truly cannot believe i made it this far without getting spoiled for the solavellan ending. i accidentally saw a handful of other stuff before this point, but after a decade of Waiting to see where things go, here i am… going in blind and About To Find Out aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH