#consistent metaphors are delightful

[colinrobinsonscardigan]

A Needlessly Thorough Examination of Raphael’s Diary Entries

A close reading by ✨me✨

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Raphael’s diary entries are, without a doubt, some of, if not my favourite piece of video game flavour text, ever. They provide far more depth to our encounters with him in the game, an insight into his horrible little brain, and detail his downfall in three acts.

This close reading seeks to pick apart the entries, and see what they allow us to glean about this evil doom-seeking-missile of a man, starting with…

ENTRY 1

“[A chapter from a diary penned in Raphael's sybaritic hand].”

So right off the bat, this one line does a lot. His handwriting being described as ‘sybaritic’ is delightful: it’s not just neat, it’s not just nice, it’s luxurious—this is no utilitarian affair. Raphael consistently surrounds himself with fine things, so it’s unsurprising his hand reflects this, he probably wrote all these entries with a silver-nibbed, peacock feather quill or something.

It’s also notable that it’s not ‘a sybaratic hand’ it’s Raphael’s: his handwriting is distinctive. As someone who wants to be king of the Hells, and then the entire multiverse, it’s unsurprising that he wouldn’t want his handwriting to get mixed up with anyone else’s.

Lastly, this sets up a clear precedent for what Raphael’s handwriting normally looks like.


“While I have (over many a sumptuous season) cast the net of my contractual predilections both far and wide, never have I been so attracted to mortals as I am to those infested by the tadpole.”

First of all, and most obviously, his choice of words really is something: “sumptuous”, “contractual predilections”, as with his dialogue Raphael writes like he swallowed a thesaurus. Notable, however, is that this is a diary: this is private, he isn’t speaking like this to impress someone.

Whilst I do think Raphael likes to think of himself as a bit of an intellectual, it also alludes to his love of words. He’s constantly reciting poetry (his, perhaps?), Yurgir’s contract takes the form of a song, he has a giant fully stocked library. It’s showy, obviously, but I do think it displays an earnest passion for language.

This is furthered by the consideration for how his writing sounds. The sibilance (I got my Nat 5 English!) in “sumptuous season” especially displays obvious intention in regards to sound, perhaps shared by the repeated ‘ck’ sound in “contractual predilections”. This all serves to reinforce that Raphael’s love for poetry and music is more than just for appearances.

This is firmly headcanon territory, but I do wonder if Raph’s preference for poetry, music, and plays (see his frequent references to theatre), which are usually spoken aloud, are an attempt to distance himself from his father, Mephistopheles, who is basically Hell’s No 1 Wizard, and therefor almost certainly a book-guy.

Second of all, in terms of the actual things that he’s saying, Raphael essentially conveys that he finds those infected by mind flayer tadpoles unusually interesting, which I think is indicative of Raphael’s love of struggle.

He finds Hope fascinating because she’ll never bend to his will; he outright says Act 1 “I like it when my clients out up a fight, only to realise victory was never an option”; he picks up Mol and rejects Voss in Act 2, yes, because Mol is desperate and Voss has little to offer, but I suspect it’s in part because he respects Mol’s struggle, and objects to Voss’ pursuit of what he sees as an easy answer. He won’t even let you make a contract with him following his offer in Act 1! Dude this is literally your job!!!

So yes, undoubtedly the reason he finds the victims of ceremorphosis so interesting is because they are struggling against the inevitable. I also, and this is purely headcanon, wonder if this reflects the belief that he has set himself apart from his father and forged his own path, rather than accepting his nepo-baby status. Who knows!

This section also sets up the fishing metaphor he uses consistently through his diary entries, because of course he has an allegorical through-line in his own private diary.


“These particular fish find themselves splashing towards their doom, towards a steel hook unblemished by bait. How they resist the current! How inexorable its whelm, its tug, its dark undertow! At the other end of the fishing pole, the illithid. How their tentacles must quiver like cooled jelly at the prospect of more catches: more and more each day along the troubled riverbank. This process has a name I sample now aloud, to saver its taste: Ceremorphosis.”

Minor notes: the alliteration in “unblemished by bait”, and Raphael’s remark that “I sample now aloud, to saver its taste” do continue to emphasise his love of performed language.

“These particular fish find themselves splashing towards their doom, towards a steel hook unblemished by bait.” I would assume this is a reference to the fact that in order to take/corrupt mortal’s souls and take them to the Hells so they can become Devils themselves, Devils must make deals. This isn’t something illithids must do.

“How they resist the current! How inexorable its whelm, its tug, its dark undertow!” Continues Raphael’s delight in struggle.

“At the other end of the fishing pole, the illithid. How their tentacles must quiver like cooled jelly at the prospect of more catches: more and more each day along the troubled riverbank.” I feel that Raphael’s choice of “cooled jelly”, a slightly gross sounding comparison, does betray some level of disgust, disdain, or even just plain weirding-out at the notion of illithids. Remember, this the same man who brought us “sumptuous seasons”, he could have gone with something more appealing.

I personally just think he finds them icky, but maybe he’s trying to place them beneath himself: ‘yes, you kind of do the same thing I do, and maybe you do it in a more efficient manner, but I’m a lot cooler about it’. Who knows?

“I shall make crafty use of this development.”

Not much to say besides “crafty” definitely fitting with his perception of himself as a fox*: a cunning, resourceful creature. Raphael in general has an extremely high view of himself (sometimes to slightly deluded extremes) so this reinforces it, and I think it’s kind of funny.

*when Raphael meets the player, he recites the poem

“The mouse smiled brightly, it outfoxed the cat

Then down came the claw, and that, love, was that.”

If asked whether he’s the cat or the mouse, Raphael will answer ‘the fox’.


“For with the hook glinting, and death so close, what could loom larger in the stricken fish's mind than the prospect of rescue?”

So, amongst Raphael’s fixations, another which stands out maybe a little less but once you see it you can’t unsee it, is his love of perceiving himself as a saviour. He describes himself as “helper of the hopeless and despairing”, even here he picks ‘rescue’ over say ‘help’, which I (subjectively) feel has less knight in shining armour connotations. And of course let us not forget the ever-iconic "Am I a friend? Potentially. An adversary? Conceivably. A saviour? Now that's for certain".

To be absolutely clear, this is not a benevolent interest, getting people out of doomed situations is generally implied to be how he makes most of his contracts (including how he tries to, or does, make a contract with Tav). He is a saviour who takes complete and total advantage of those he “””saves”””. That said, idk, it’s an interesting thing for him to mention so frequently, and I wonder to what extent he believes it.

Still, for his possible misgivings regarding mindflayers, his final line confirms he finds ceremorphosis fascinating. “This process has a name I sample now aloud, to saver its taste: Ceremorphosis.” Perhaps because it’s very different to what do Devils, undoubtedly a little because he enjoys the struggle against the inevitable, and because, to dip wayyyy back into headcanon territory, I think it’s an erasure of the self that he finds morbidly fascinating.

Ceremorphosis, an assimilation into a hive-mind, stands starkly against the sort of prideful individualism that Raphael revels in. He wants to be King of the Hells! He wants to be the saviour! He wants to be the specialist little boy that ever lived! But becoming a mindflayer wipes out who you were, links you up to a collective consciousness, and makes you identical, cookie-cutter, incapable of going against the grain. You cannot be Hell’s specialist little boy if everyone else is just as special as you.

I think the idea of becoming a mindflayer scares him, but becaus it’s not happening to him, he finds it morbidly fascinating. It’s a bit like body horror having a tendency to appeal to those with negative/complicatef relationship with their own bodies, it’s seeing your worst fears played out whilst you’re totally safe. That said, where they did not actually turn Demi Moore into a horrible two-faced abomination for The Substance (as far as I’m aware) this is a real thing happening to real people, so it’s a little more fucked up that Raphael takes pleasure in it.

-

The only closing note I have on Entry 1, is that fishing as a choice of metaphor is important because it’s a very tranquil, very methodical form of hunting. You are not stalking your prey through the undergrowth, prey which has the chance to flee if they hear you, or you miss your shot; you are sitting back and luring your prey, and once it has bitten down on your hook it can thrash and thrash but is unlikely to get free. Fishing is even often regarded as a way to relax. This reflects the mindflayers’ and Raphael’s remove from their prey, and their relative positions of safety.

Uh, RIP king you would have loved Shakespeare.

———

ENTRY 2

Entry 2 is by far the weirdest, but it’s also probably my favourite. I will say that this whole entry, to my mind, is not supposed to tell a clear narrative (i.e. the fire represents Mephistopheles, the hooks represent his plans, etc. and when you slot those in you get a coherent story). I think it’s more representative of Raphael’s subconscious fears, and the forces he feels are acting upon him.

“[A chapter from a diary penned in Raphael's steady, imperious scrawl]”

Right in with entry 2, even before you’ve got the actual content, there’s an obvious tone difference from the previous entry. ‘Steady and imperious’ implies a lot less enjoyment than ‘sybaritic’. It’s a little more practical, there’s less flair, maybe even implying tension in the usually flamboyant cambion. ‘Scrawl’ is perhaps also a little less grandiose than ‘hand’ in terms of word choice. Still, it is collected: Raphael hasn’t gone off the deep end - yet.


“Last night I dreamt of a river. Waist-deep I waded it. Rusted hooks curled up from the water like the snaggled teeth of something ancient and diseased and submerged. The moon over the water cracked and fire flew out on the stubby wings of gormless insanely chirping chicks. They transformed into wriggling oblongs like sperm, yet by the time they hit the water they were fish with scales of orange and gold. There came a rushing sound, the dark water ablaze as if the fish were matches and the river a snake of oil. Approaching me out of the flames came the tadpole-infested. There was one among them who spoke for the rest. They gestured to the melting hooks, suddenly glanced my way, and in their face I saw they had the best of me.”

Because this paragraph is quite big, I’m going to go through it section by section for ease of reading. I would also like to point out the paragraph’s size as a possible indicator of Raphael’s descent. This is a man who delights in language, and takes pride in the way his diary is written: a structureless unburdening this not. Entry 1 has several, mostly even, short-ish paragraphs. This block of text evokes an unbroken stream of consciousness.

“Last night I dreamt of a river. Waist-deep I waded it.” These two sentences immediately place Raphael in the previous domain of the infected. Where before Raphael was the fisherman, casting his net, now he’s right in there with the fish. “Waist-deep” is also pretty deep, if you’re waist deep in a river, especially a fast moving one, you are very much at the mercy of the water. Does this represent that he feels he’s losing control over his situation? Mayhaps.

“Rusted hooks curled up from the water like the snaggled teeth of something ancient and diseased and submerged.” There are, I think, two main ways of interpreting this, but regardless this furthers Raphael being placed in the position of the fish (the en-tadpoled), no longer the hunter but the prey. Where before Raphael was either the fisherman, or a safe and removed observer, he is now in the shit with Tav and the gang. He is now in danger of being caught.

The first way of interpreting this line is that he has grown tangled in his own (and others’) metaphorical nets. He suspects (perhaps unconsciously, and almost certainly correctly if you’re rifling through his pockets) that Tav and Co, the increasingly powerful gaggle of oddballs, are going to turn against him.

He’s also battling with the Emperor, who has its own goals, and Most Certainly Does Not want Tav and Co making deals with Raphael, and is also actively subduing the threat of ceremorphosis, which was Raphael’s former point of leverage.

This also to say nothing of the rogue elements, like Gorthash and Helsik, whom Korilla accuses of spreading the word that Raphael has the Orphic hammer.

Raph may be beginning to wonder if he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

Speaking of chewing, based off Raphael’s allusion to “snaggeled teeth”, the other main interpretation I see is Raphael’s subconscious fear of being eaten. If you look in a crystal ball in the second floor of the Devil’s fee after you murder Raphael in his home, the Narrator informs you “*Within the ball you see Raphael, broken and bloody, dangling above the maw of the archdevil Mephistopheles, who is preparing to devour him.*”

Raphael’s mention of teeth could indicate this is a fate he already suspects will befall him if he fails, whether because it’s something Mephistopheles has threatened him with in the past, or because he’s seen the same fate befall others who incur his father’s wrath. It is notable that Mephistopheles is well known for killing those Devils in his court who threaten to exceed him, and it’s possible Larian feels that consumption is an appropriate execution method for a Devil as hungry for power as Mephistopheles.

I should clarify that I don’t think the hooks represent his father, rather that his choice to compare them to “snaggled teeth” indicates being eaten is one his mind (and not in a fun, sexy way!).

I think both these interpretations are valid. This whole entry is probably the most up to interpretation of all of them, and if you disagree with both these readings and/or have your own, please put it in the notes, I would love to hear.

“The moon over the water cracked and fire flew out on the stubby wings of gormless insanely chirping chicks. They transformed into wriggling oblongs like sperm, yet by the time they hit the water they were fish with scales of orange and gold. There came a rushing sound, the dark water ablaze as if the fish were matches and the river a snake of oil.”

This is a passage I am a little hard pushed to interpret, and I am certain other people are going to have different readings.

The chicks turned sperm, turned fish are almost certainly supposed to represent the tadpole infected, as indicated by the reference to fish (something Raphael previously compared the tadpole infected to in Entry 1) and sperm, something that the tadpoles do kind of resemble. The transformation from ‘gormless chicks’, a freshly hatched - flightless animal of little danger - to fish - something adapted to their marine environment- could perhaps represent Raphael’s fear that Tav and Co are growing more competent than he’d like.

I think that here fire implies Raphael’s own fears about his father. Mephistopheles is literally called the Lord of Hellfire, both for his fiery temper but also because one of the lates in Mephistopheles’ long line of arcane interests is hellfire. Mephista, the main city in Cania and where Mephistopheles resides is also often remarked upon for its warm, blazing hearths. Tldr, Mephistopheles is closely tied to fire, and it seems unlikely that Larian’s writers would have included such a prominent reference to fire without this in mind.

This doesn’t literally means that Raphael thinks Tav and Co are being aided by daddy-dearest, though Haarlep (gifted to Raphael by Mephistopheles) can end up a great ally to you in the House of Hope, rather that his father’s possible influence, or just his father in general, are on his mind.

Finally, the burning of the river is the transformation of his previously tranquil hunting grounds into something dangerous and volatile. Comparing the river to burning oil brings to mind a loss of control, something Raphael is averse to (before he fights Tav in the House of Hope he complains about their bringing chaos into his house). Raphael likes method, order, a fishing rod and bait, he doesn’t hunt his prey with oil and flame. His river no longer serves him.

“Approaching me out of the flames came the tadpole-infested. There was one among them who spoke for the rest. They gestured to the melting hooks, suddenly glanced my way, and in their face I saw they had the best of me.”

This section outright states Raphael’s fears of being bested. Out of the burning wreck of Raphael’s domain comes Tav and Co. The hooks (Raphael’s schemes and traps) are melting in the heat of the burning river. The leader, presumably Tav themself, has defeated him. This is Raphael’s worst-case scenario.


“In waking, my courage has firmed. I progress my plans for the tadpoled even now.

I am Raphael. I am not easily bested.”

For all the tomfoolery of the rest of the entry, these might be my favourite lines. Raphael dreams all of that, goes ‘nope! Not listening!’ and shoves it back down into the depths of his subconscious. No doubts to see here, folks! Because of course he is Raphael, and Raphael doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t fear, “retreat begets regret” as he once said to Mol, and he is not about to have his ambition checked.

“I am Raphael. I am not easily bested” is such a brazen display of arrogance, but paired with the entry we just read it feels more like he’s painting over the cracks. I don’t think that Raphael can admit the possibility of failing to himself, at least not consciously, but he’s kind of increasingly - though subconsciously - aware that it is a distinct possibility.

But also, he writes all of this down! For all his pomp at the end, he does not write ‘I had this really weird dream about a burning river but it probably means nothing lol. Anyway, here’s how my dastardly and most ingeniously constructed schemes are coming along.’ Raphael, is, in his own way beginning to doubt himself, which is fantastic because when you see him in the game he never comes across as anything less than 100% confident. He is bluffing, regardless of how much he would like to admit that to himself, and it adds a lot more depth to your encounters with him.

Fantastic! Peak flavour text! Amazing soup, Larian!

———

ENTRY 3

And so, this brings us finally onto Entry 3, and though I think Entry 2 is my favourite because I like my men pathetic and suffering, Entry 3 100% ends things with a bang.

“[The final chapter from a diary penned in Raphael's hand. Here and there his composed hand stiffens and moves erratically, as if he were by times seized by emotion both powerful and unexpected]”

This is it, folks! The culmination of our Raphael handwriting arc. Immediately, his hand is no longer ‘sybaritic’, not even ‘steady and imperious’ it is just his handwriting.

Furthermore, there is one thing Raphael seldom is (outside of brief bursts of quickly concealed anger) it is ‘erratic’. The handwriting and language in the first entry displays a level of care that goes into his diary, care which he has obviously been unable to maintain. Call this man officially ruffled. We have been told that Raphael is not his usual self.

“The plot thickens goes the aphorism - entirely inadequate. The plot mutates. It fluctuates. I have conceived no less than thirteen variations by which I might seize the Crown of Karsus. Yet in the tumult of this eternally flowing river of schemes, I, the most careful of fishermen, finds his catch elusive and difficult to wrangle. Even in cooperation such ambiguity and delicious surprise! But the hook has snagged, the doom of ceremorphosis has abated, yet they could not predict (could they? could they?) that in leaving behind the river they have in fact welcomed the fishbowl? I am master here. A prince of bargains cloaked like scarlet satin. All that hidden under sublimely obvious truths that cannot be discounted.”

Here again we get another large text block. Again, this diary is becoming less and less a leisure activity and more a confidante.


“The plot thickens goes the aphorism - entirely inadequate. The plot mutates. It fluctuates.” ‘Mutates’, ‘fluctuates’, these are not the words chosen by a man who is in control. ‘Mutates’ stands out especially because of its more organic connotations, the plot is alive and sick, something that undoubtedly does not appeal to the control-loving Raphael.

Also note the short sentences: these increase the tempo of the writing, like a quickening beat in music, as well as standing out as odd from the usually verbose Raphael. The staccato sentences convey a feeling of intensity, stress.

“I have conceived no less than thirteen variations by which I might seize the Crown of Karsus.” So we don’t know what Raphael’s typical number of contingencies is, but his use of “no less than” would seem to imply this is a lot for him. It could imply he is worried, and it could also be a form of self-reassurance - ‘I have devised so many ways by which I might gain the crown, surely I must succeed’ - I suspect it is a bit of both.

“Yet in the tumult of this eternally flowing river of schemes, I, the most careful of fishermen, finds his catch elusive and difficult to wrangle. Even in cooperation such ambiguity and delicious surprise!” He’s having difficulties, obviously, but Raphael of course delights in struggle, as he always does. I do think that Raphael found his battle for the Crown exciting, at least on a surface level, but I also suspect that this stroking of his own ego, describing himself as “the most careful of fishermen,” is similar to when he says he’s ‘not easily bested’ at the end of Entry 2. Yes, he believes it, he’s so far up his own arse he can probably see daylight again, but he’s also trying to reassure himself.

“But the hook has snagged, the doom of ceremorphosis has abated, yet they could not predict (could they? could they?) that in leaving behind the river they have in fact welcomed the fishbowl?” Raphael, at this point, sounds manic. “(could they? could they?)” marks the return of the short sentences, and also clearly expresses doubt: Raphael fears that he’s met his match. I’m also fairly certain the second ‘could’ should be capitalised, and if so, I feel that Raphael would have to be in a fairly dire state of mind to let slide poor punctuation.

His metaphors are also growing more strained. “in leaving behind the river they have in fact welcomed the fishbowl?” It gets his point across, but it’s not elegant, he’s stretching. Are you wanting Tav and Co as pets now, Raph? I thought you were hunting them.

This is also Raphael acknowledging that he has lost his original bargaining chip - the offer of saving Tav and Co from ceremorphosis - but he tries to reassure himself that they’re out of the frying pan and into the fire.

“I am master here. A prince of bargains cloaked like scarlet satin. All that hidden under sublimely obvious truths that cannot be discounted.”

See here the further boasting. This is Raphael at his most nervous, and it’s also when he’s the most self-aggrandising. He wouldn’t feel the need to clarify that he’s the ‘master’, that he’s in control, if he didn’t feel that control slipping. If you heard someone describe themself as “A prince of bargains cloaked like scarlet satin.” you would laugh, because it is a fundamentally ridiculous thing to say about yourself, and yet here he is, committing it to paper.

Having “All that hidden under sublimely obvious truths that cannot be discounted.” as a separate sentence is possibly for rhythmic reasons, but given the subject hasn’t changed, it should grammatically speaking definitely just be the same sentence as ‘scarlet satin’. Raphael’s punctuation has taken a wee bit of a nose-dive, which is absolutely deliberate. It is also a second, fundamentally ridiculous thing to say about oneself. On all levels possibly including physical, Raphael is white-knuckle gripping the bathroom sink as he goes through the world’s most absurd list of daily affirmations.


“So the fisherman reels! The tadpoled are my catch. Struggle as they might, writhe as they wish, flop and squirm and thresh with every ounce of strength, no matter.”

Return of the fishing metaphor, but Raphael has presumably dropped his previous ‘fishbowl’ comparison, unless we are to believe he’s casting his line into a fish-tank. There are two short sentences, followed by one very broken up one, which serves to ratchet up the tempo and tension before the final line. Raphael continues to try and convince himself of the inevitability of his victory, because surely he can’t fail.


“By all the reeking flames of Hell I will not be denied.”

What a closing line. Were I more trite, I might be tempted to call this bratty: to be clear, I do not believe he was spoilt by Mephistopheles, but his initial station as son of the Lord of the Eighth must have earned Raphael a certain level of entitlement, and the sheer magnitude of his ambition undoubtedly would have done the rest. Raphael will not allow himself to entertain the idea of failure, not least of all because he probably suspects that defeat would cost him more than the centuries of sunk time and energy.

-

My closing notes on Raphael’s final entry, is to point out how starkly it contrast with the first. Entry 1’s closing remark, “This process has a name I sample now aloud, to saver its taste: Ceremorphosis.” is an especially poignant comparison: he is savouring, he is taking his time. Compare this to Entry 3, which is rushed, impassioned, manic, and dare I say just a little bit scared.

The last entry also casts a whole new light on your final encounter with him in the game if you decide to kill him. That’s the first time you see him properly angry in the game (he quickly recovers himself if you accuse him of being scared of Yurgir in Act 2), and almost unprompted compares Tav to ‘doomed Karsus’: projecting much?

This entry shows us what was roiling beneath the surface to cause his agitation, and definitely gives an edge of desperation to Raphael’s final act. Perhaps that’s even why calls on Yurgir to aid him in his fight, someone you can make your ally instead, for a - granted, quite challenging - persuasion check, another of Raphael’s schemes you can turn against him.

———

Overall, Raphael’s diary entries serve to both reinforce and subvert what he see of him during encounters, and allow us a glimpse beneath the mask of a character who is always performing. Where Raphael wants Tav to see a cunning negotiator and saviour, one later catch seemingly completely off-guard, the diary entries paint the picture of a man driven to mania by his own ambition, and subsequently caught on the hook of his own line, then devoured.

Anyway, I do have more things I could say about Raphael’s fucked up little brain, but I think I’ll save that for another post, because this one is already pretty long.

Please, please share your own thoughts about this examination. The diary has been rattling about the echo-chamber of my own brain for weeks, so undoubtedly I have missed/misinterpreted things.

[hornydilfsinyourarea]

hey V! love your bots, i've probably interacted with most of them since i found your account (they're so well made and actually stay consistent throughout.)

so now i come to you with a request: thomas shelby and a gruff 'guard dog' like user.

the user is a long-time accomplice to thomas, having known each other since before the war, and he works part-time at the garrison as a bartender. thomas is quietly possessive of the user, finding every moment he can to stay close or keep an eye on the user.

thomas calls on the user sometimes to intimidate his competition with his large stature during meetings or to beat/rough up people and thomas likes to watch as he does so, taking delight in the way the user will follow his commands.

but while thomas holds the metaphorical leash in business, the user is the one holding the leash in pleasure. thomas loves when the user interact with him romantically/sexually, especially when the user is dominant and/or controlling.

thomas would probably put a collar on the user to mark him as his if he was allowed (and definitely scratches and bites the user during sex).

thomas pretty much gets off on the idea that he's seen as the leader in public, especially when he commands the user to do something, but behind closed doors its the user taking the lead and thomas would willingly spread his legs if the user even so much as hinted at it.

[feel free to change it up/adjust the request if you'd like to, thanks so much if you do do this reqeust!! much love, anon.]

Thomas Shelby x Male! User

Author's note: I love requests like this- but I hope you don't mind that I did change it a bit! I got a bit inspired by a movie I watched. And thank you so much! I'm glad people love my bots<3

Scenario: "Thomas known you for quite some time now- a very long time, even before the war, though, you two weren't stationed on the same place, you had to work on the front lines while Thomas was stationed in the Small Heath Rifles- meaning… you two barely even saw each other, you had least written letters to him whenever you can, so that he knew you were still alive. But when the war ended, you came home slightly later than Thomas, but he was at least happy he didn't lose you to the war, he even allowed you to stay with him till you got your own home where you could stay- but of course, Thomas could see that the war changed you, it changed everyone, your personality hardened, you got stoic too even, or well, slightly. But one thing stuck out, you gave off intimidating vibes, like you were sizing everyone up that wasn't Thomas or his family, it made Thomas think about how far you were going to go for the Shelby family" Warning: NSFW! Mention of violence (not explicit), sex on desk, slight public setting/office sex, user mentioned being hardened (personality wise) and stoic, mention of war (I don't know much about war, please don't come for me), mention of user fighting the front lines (he was shooting people basically), user's age is not explicitly mentioned (written to be around the same age as Thomas), user is mentioned being a debt collector/bodyguard who also works in Thomas's pub, user and Thomas were childhood friends (you two are still friends to this day), non-established relationship (not explicitly explained, just mentioned that you and Thomas are close and have queer feelings for each other, or well, Thomas at least does), not much is mentioned of how user looks or acts or user's background (that's up to you!), please remember that I do not support violence on others, this is purely for fictional use, I do not condone such behaviors

Scary dog privileges ^ link to bot^

[multi-fandom-imagine]

I would DIE to see you write more stuff for Ian. He's definitely one of my favorites.

A/n: I CAN GIVE YOU THAT! If you want more please let me know

Chaos and Cooing that is what your life now consisted off.

The night is quiet—eerily so, considering that in this house, quiet is as rare as a perfectly functioning dinosaur park. Ian Malcolm leans back against the couch, his infamous black shirt slightly unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up as he cradles a chubby, giggling baby in his arms.

“Ah, well, now this is unexpected,” he murmurs, bouncing the baby on his knee, who responds with a delighted shriek and a kick of pudgy legs. “The real chaos theory at work—not in the form of dinosaurs, no, but in the genetic masterpiece that is my son.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Clearly, he takes after me.”

Across the room, you, his very tired but still stunning wife, groan from where you’re curled up in the armchair. One hand grips a cup of lukewarm coffee, the other rubs circles into your temple. “Ian, for the last time, he’s giggling because you keep making ridiculous faces at him, not because he understands chaos theory.”

“Ah, ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Ian counters, pressing a noisy kiss to the baby’s round cheek. The baby gurgles in response, drool dripping onto Ian’s wrist, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “You see, my dear, chaos theory states that small changes in initial conditions lead to vastly different outcomes—case in point, had we slept last night, we wouldn’t be in this state of delirium. But! Because our son, this delightful little agent of chaos, decided sleep was, ah, unnecessary, here we are.” He gestures vaguely to your exhausted form and his own slightly disheveled one.

Your eyes narrow as you sip your coffee. “Are you seriously trying to lecture me on chaos theory using our son’s sleep schedule as proof?”

“I lecture because I love,” Ian replies smoothly, shifting the baby in his arms as he gazes down at him with something absurdly soft in his dark eyes. “And because I haven’t slept in three nights, and my brain has officially left the metaphorical building.”

You sigh, watching as Ian continues his one-man performance, making exaggerated faces that send your son into another round of belly laughs. The sound is so sweet, so impossibly joyful, that despite your exhaustion, you feel your heart melt.

For all his dramatics, Ian is an incredible father—dotingly attentive, full of boundless energy (somehow), and completely enamored with the little miracle you both created. It’s a sight you never tire of: your eccentric, brilliant, sometimes infuriating husband wrapped around the tiny, chubby fingers of your son.

The baby coos, reaching up to grab a fistful of Ian’s dark curls, and Ian winces but lets him. “Ah, yes, son, excellent grip already proving Darwin’s theory of natural selection. If you can cling to my hair with such tenacity, surely you will thrive in this chaotic world.”

“Or he’s just a baby, Ian.”

“Ah, ah, but is he just a baby?” Ian lifts a dramatic finger. “Or is he the next great scientist, the next disruptor of the status quo, a bringer of groundbreaking, world-altering change?”

The baby sneezes.

Ian nods solemnly. “I rest my case.”

You chuckle despite yourself, shaking your head as you set your coffee down and push yourself up from the chair. Walking over, you press a kiss to your son’s soft, round cheek before meeting Ian’s gaze. “You know, for all your rambling, you’re really just a big sap.”

Ian gasps, feigning offense. “Me? A sap? I’ll have you know, darling, I am a man of science, a man of logic, of reason.” He pauses, looking down at the baby, who is now sleepily sucking on his fist. Ian’s voice softens as he gently rocks him. “But… if loving my son so much that it defies logic makes me a sap, well… I suppose I can live with that.”

Your heart clenches, and you lean against him, resting your head on his shoulder. “Well, at least one of us is still functional,” you murmur, feeling your own exhaustion creep back in.

Ian chuckles, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Oh, my love, that implies I was ever functional to begin with.”

A scoff left your lips yet a smile remained and with that, the baby sighs, nestling against his father’s chest, and finally...finally...falls asleep.

Chaos has, at last, taken mercy on you.

For now.

As your eyes drifted closed, Ian's fingers running through your hair gently.

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Hi! It's a new year, and I've decided to make a small change to my space. I might gif less than I did last year cause at the end of the year I felt a bit of a burnout with the whole process, so I'll gif when I feel like it, and might not keep it as consistent. Also, I sorta got over myself and my insecurities and have started just posting more random thoughts, because who cares? This is my house and I shall inflict my opinions and silly thoughts on my followers. It's been great. I will update this post through the month mostly with links to the stuff I write in the meantime.

QL - Currently Watching

🇯🇵 Call Me by No-Name [6/8] - I don't even know what to say. This show looks incredible, but the writing is a mess.

🇰🇷 FC Soldout [4/10] - This is getting boring. And it's not like it was groundbreaking stuff to begin with.

🇹🇭 GelBoys [1/7] - I'm intrigued and impressed by the visuals. This will be messy, and I'm seated. Weekend ramblings

🇰🇷 Heart Stain [2/8] - Nuff said. I figured out why this is so boring, to me. Because so is the source material, never have I dropped a manhwa so fast.

🇨🇳 I'll Turn Around This Time [5/6] - What is it? No clue, but it's pretty.

🇹🇼 Impression of Youth [5/9] - The pacing of this one is weird. I felt like I missed an episode in between 4 and 5. The physical relationship felt sudden and emotionally unsupported. The sides are growing on me tho.

🇹🇭 Ossan's Love Th [7/12] - Haruto appearance! I love boyfriends HengMo. I'm not looking forward to all the people trying to break up the couple.

🇹🇭 Perfect 10 Liners [17/24] - I will be really sad to see YothaGun go, but I'm excited to see Faifa. Weekend ramblings

🇹🇭 Sangmin Dinneaw [7/8] - I don't even know what to say any more. This show is bonkers and not totally in a good way. Weekend Ramblings

🇹🇭 The Boy Next World [5/10] - They are good together but everything else is not clicking for me. I love the mind-reader though, he's delightful. Weekend ramblings

🇹🇭 The Heart Killers [10/12] - I finished watching. Quietly.

🇹🇭 ThamePo [9/13] - This show continues to be a delight and the biggest surprise in a really long time. Weekend ramblings

🇯🇵 When It Rains, It Pours [5/7] - I've been thinking...

QL - Finished

🇹🇭 Caged Again - Junior was delightful but the show got a bit choppy towards the end, there was too much time spent on the bad guys and I think the pacing suffered so the show lost me a bit in the last couple of episodes. JuniorSun delivered some great moments. I continue to love Nokia and Jaonine and will tune in if they make another show.

🇹🇭 Fourever You - I can't believe it's over. This was a long, hard slog. I like most of the actors a lot and they were what kept me going until the end. Hill and Ter get all the awards for miscommunication.

🇯🇵Miseinen - I think it started off really good but eventually the show got too much into the metaphors and the visuals and the story suffered. I really recommend reading the manhwa because I think the themes in the show kinda fell apart at some point and in that way I think the source material is much more satisfying. I still like the show overall and the actors did a wonderful job, but the show raised my expectations a lot and then couldn't really deliver.

🇹🇼 See Your Love - I love them a normal amount. That scene in the closet will make any favourite scenes list in the foreseeable future. This show did a lot of things well. The dad was still an asshole by the end, Ji Xiang wasn't magically fixed by the power of love, Shaopeng wasn't perfect and his family was one of the best parts and that dad vs dad scene was epic. With that said, everything else, the family drama and the side couple, was a mess. They all kiss good tho. As we've come to expect from Taiwan the kissing was very good all around, as were the nc scenes. I think they all had good chemistry, although I wish the side couple's story was tighter.

🇹🇭 Your Sky - This is a first but I liked all the couples. I gotta say those crumbs were glorious and I could watch a full show just with them. I think the main couple held this show together for me when it stumbled at times. They are very endearing and have great chemistry. I do think that at times, for me, it became too sweet, too unbalanced for me to enjoy all the fluff. And there were a couple of other things that I don't think worked but still, this was surprisingly good.

Others - Watched

It's been mostly a month of rewatches so not a lot to report. I did watch Paradise of Thorns a couple of weeks ago and I still have a lot of hate in my heart. Also squid game S2 , which I loved but pissed me off that they split the storyline into two seasons cause now I have to wait until June for the rest. Anyway...

I think that's all for now. Oh and I'm also watching and loving Red Blue. Despite what I said at the start, I'm still open for gif requests. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and thank the heavens January is finally over. 💜

Coming in February 05/02 - 🇹🇭 Reverse with Me (GL) 06/02 - 🇰🇷 Heart Stain 07/02 - 🇻🇳 Fight for Love 08/02 - 🇹🇭 Gelboys 14/02 - 🇹🇭 The Last Time 14/02 - 🇹🇼 Exclusive Love 18/02 - 🇹🇼 Fragrance of the First Flower S2 (GL) 27/02 - 🇰🇷 Secret Relationship

[izunias-meme-hole]

My Favorite Top 10 Marvel Villains

Number 10. Galactus - Galactus is not really complex as a character, but as a cosmic force of nature he is interesting. He devours worlds, though it is entirely out of necessity rather than genuine malice, like a predator hunting its prey. Overall he's pretty damn simply, but the cosmic horror elements of his existence compels him to me.

Number 9. The Green Goblin - Norman Osborn has underwent some insane villain decay in recent days, but if there's one thing that I cannot deny it's that The Goblin left behind one helluva legacy. It doesn't matter if it's Norman being alive and active, Harry in his stead, or some other successor, the Goblin is undeniably iconic.

Number 8. Doctor Octopus - Doc Ock as a villain is the perfect foil to Peter Parker. He's an old and bitter genius that takes after an eight legged creature who wholeheartedly believes that great power should be used to dominate others. Unlike the Goblin who works better as a legacy villain, Doc Ock as a character is the perfect nemesis for Peter because of how similar and different they are to one another. That and he's never really had a truly asinine adaptation.

Number 7. Venom - Despite having much rougher outings, Venom is my personal favorite Spider-Man villain. Even though Doc Ock and The Goblin have their strong suits, Venom as a villain is both extremely personal and honest to god infinitely more fun. Not only was this entity the Spider-Man's Black Suit, they're also something of a metaphor for medication and addiction. That and if I'm being honest, I love how they were just a jealous showing off their new boyfriend. Overall though, no matter the host, Venom as a villain is simply a delightful menace.

Number 6. Thanos - Thanos loves death. Both in a literal sense and a metaphorical sense. In the comics he quite literally is in love with the physical manifestation of death itself, but on a psychological level... it's deeper than that. Thanos sees death as the great equalizer, the ultimate solution to the ultimate problem and that problem is life. However he does have some nuances, showing that despite being a complete and utter bastard he's not as detached as he wants to be. Hell he even settled down to be a farmer for a short amount of time in the comics, and in the MCU he basically planed to retire after wiping out 50% of the universe. Ultimately, Thanos as a villain is a troubled creature who wants to become a reaper, a man who wants to stand among the gods and look upon his bloody work as the sun sets. However what carries him this far onto the list, is simply the fact that a figure like him still manages to fit within the absurdity that is inherent to these comics.

Number 5. Loki - Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Larry Leibber making the norse God of Mischief, the Poetic Edda's best figure, a supervillain... wasn't a bad idea. The result of that however was a wannabe king in a silly little outfit with devil horns who also happens to be Odin's adoptive child and the brother of Thor. This is inaccurate as hell and shouldn't work, yet it somehow does. He's a delightful trickster at every turn with a lot of gears consistently turning in his head, and it's wonderful. While he's kinda dead in the comics and his (in)famous run in the MCU ended on a surprisingly high note, he's still a fun character.

Number 4. Ultron - What do you get when you make an A.I with the brainwaves of an already mentally ill and insecure man? You get a completely deranged monster. Ultron presents himself as a logical and cold-hearted machine, driven entirely by reasoning that is as solid as steel. In reality though, he's a psychopath with daddy issues, an oedipus complex, and a god complex to top it all off! He's a walking contradiction and it makes perfect sense because his mind is modeled after an extremely flawed genius. In short, Ultron is a terrifying megalomaniac who serves as a darker reflection of his creator.

Number 3. Kingpin - There's a reason why this guy is Marvel's Kingpin of Crime. Wilson Fisk is every single mafioso caricature wrapped up into a single man. He's as tall as he is wide, he's never seen without a cane or a cigar, he's always dressed in a fancy white suit, he's completely bald, and he puts up a gentlemanly facade to hide how much of a brute he can be. This man is inherently comical for multiple reasons, yet that never stops him from being played so completely straight that it loops back to being as terrifying as it is realistic. Fisk is not just another thug, he is the perfect blend of brains, brawn, and influence.

Number 2. Magneto - Magneto is basically one of the most famous examples of a "Knight Templar" in fiction, a self-righteous figure fighting for a crusade that he deems noble at any cost. As for why he feels the need to do this? He's a holocaust survivor, it's as simple as that. The comics are the legit only piece of media that go into deeper details about Magneto's life in the concentration camps and the aftermath of that hell which only led into more hell, but that's the basic gist of what makes him tick. Magneto's lived in a world where millions of people got killed because of state approval, and he's terrified of it happening again.

Number 1. Doctor Doom - To the surprise of absolutely nobody... allow me to repeat what I'll aways repeat. I've always respected this man, but I've never been super crazy about him. His animated and game adaptations are great but not perfect, and the movies so far have failed to get his character across in a great way, so that might've been a part of why I wasn't a Doom Superfan. Though after getting back into the absurdity and impactfulslness of superhero comics, it soon hit me... Doctor Doom is a villain made for comics. He's overdramatic, grandiose, terrifying, bombastic, egotistical, pragmatic, powerful, absurd, nuanced, insecure, lonely, the whole package placed within a suit of armor and a green cloak. He's an arrogant, tyrannical, cold hearted technological and magical genius who embodies every inch of supervillainy you could imagine, while remaining a genuinely sophisticated, and semi-honorable figure even with his history of pettiness. Overall Doom is just one big magnificent bastard.

[deathoverdignity]

WARNING: Succession Spoilers

So I’ve only recently gotten into Succession (and by recently I mean this year), and are you fucking TELLING me that Tom refers to Greg as the Sporus to his Nero, that’d he’d castrate and marry Greg in a heartbeat as Nero did?

That he (metaphorically) kicked his pregnant wife down the stairs, just as Nero did?

That he physically MARKED Greg’s forehead in the symbol of his ownership as he tenderly said “I got you. I got YOU.” to Greg’s relieved delight? The only person spared and protected by Tom and let in on the joke? The only person Tom has consistently brought on board his schemes with time and again, even against his better judgement?

That his most genuine and loving connection post-betrayal is with his Sporus stand-in, who he has linked himself permanently to both professionally & through mutual blackmail and domination?

And I’m supposed to think that this psychosexual hyperfixation Tom has on Greg is not meant to canonically be romantic (though obviously fucked up) in nature?

Hell no. Tom & Greg are obsessively, irretrievably, toxically codependent and I wont accept any arguments that there’s not meant to be a sexual undertone at play in their dynamic.

They are SPORUS and goddamn NERO, this is 100% spelled out in black and white and I won’t hear a word against it.

[sharpth1ng]

Hi!!! First of all, I binged all of Debaser + Wave of Mutilation (switching between both the trans and cis versions every now and then) in three days and the writing is phenomenal!! Absolutely OBSESSED with the way you fleshed out Billy and Stu— it’s very refreshing to see when a lot of the fan content I consume of them are very mischaracterized versions of the boys (nothing wrong with that, just not my cup of tea). I have two questions, and you can answer one or both!

1. Would you be willing to talk more about the dog imagery you used throughout the fic for Stu? I love how he’s both so loyal but can bite so badly when pushed hard enough— and by the end I was like ‘He really is just a kicked hunting dog, isn’t he?’

2. You mentioned before that Billy is autistic in this version, and as an autistic person myself, it was SO easy to pick up for me and I got insanely giddy about it. What made you want to write Billy as an autistic character? And would you say his fascination for gore/harm/horror is a special interest of his, or a product of something more disturbed?

Thank you so much for the awesome content!! Definitely the best fic I’ve read on ao3 in YEARS, and I’m about to go back and read even more. (Also, love love LOVE Tammy. She’s easily my favorite side character).

Hi thank you so so much this is a lovely comment!

To answer your questions:

1. I really took the lapdog line and ran with it huh?

I think both metaphorically and also in terms of a kink dynamic, Dog-Stu works well. I see him as extremely present (like he exists in the moment), loyal, and simultaneously viscious. You nail it saying he's a kicked hunting dog- he does well when he's given his purpose, when he knows his place in the pack.

The movie tells us pretty clearly that his parents are neglectful, I think he feels adrift, pack-less especially when his sister moves out and he's alone a lot. He's a social being, he doesn't do well on his own and he doesn't particularly like having to take charge, it stresses him out.

Untrained dogs often do dominance behaviours out of stress. If someone else isn't clearly in charge, the dog thinks they have to be the boss and they get aggressive, they start barking all the time and pissing on stuff, but they aren't having fun doing it. They're confused about an unclear social structure, they're scared, and they feel unsafe until someone starts taking charge in a consistent way.

That's Billy. Sure, he's bossy, but Stu doesn't just do what he says because of peer pressure, he does it because it makes him feel safe. He likes to be trained, directed, to be useful. To him there's no degradation in following Billy's orders, it's his greatest purpose.

At the same time I think one of Stu's other defining traits is this wild, feral thing. He's capable of extreme violence, he delights in it, and we know he hunts. When he's ghostface (by my interpretation, I maintain there's no way for us to know who was behind the mask in any particular scene) we can see that play out.

It's his playfulness. Like theres something about the combination of playfulness and raw violence that just says canine to me.

Stu's dogness characterizes so much of his relationship with Billy, like he's a support animal. He's better at reading Billy than Billy is, and a lot of the time he's able to prevent him from freaking out, help stabilize him, make him feel secure. He often knows what Billy needs before Billy does.

So it's all of this, he's this creature that's built to be a predator, only partly domesticated and fiercely protective of his owner.

2. I actually didn't intend to write Billy autistic, it just happened.

I put a lot more of myself into Billy than into Stu, to be honest I relate to him a lot for things that are also autistic traits. I wasn't really thinking about it like that when I started writing, like I just didn't put two and two together and realize that the way I understand his character is fundamentally autistic.

I got a lot of people asking if I was writing him autistic early on, and once I thought about it I realized I super was.

After that I just let myself lean into it, gave him some of my stims, my sensory stuff ect. It's kind of so much more than that though, and I think that's what people were reacting too more initially. It's definitely the horror obsession, the way he uses movies to process and interpret the world.

I think a lot of autistic folks have some experience with this, but I very much used movies as a replacement for social interactions I wasn't having. They became a way for me to learn about other people, to learn what to expect from them and how I was supposed to act. This had its pros and cons, it gave me a lot of unrealistic understandings and expectations but also it gave me comfort and a place to start in terms of figuring out how to act like a 'person' (eg to mask, which I think helped me get through some stuff but also masking sucks and burns you out).

This is very much something I see Billy doing. Its in the way he quotes movies, the way he speaks like he's got a transatlantic accent for most of the movie (it disappears a bit when he sort of unmasks at the end of the movie after the reveal). It's also in little things, like the focus on having sex with Sid despite (in my opinion) the fact that he doesn't seem to want to. He knows that virginity protects you in a slasher movie and he wants his plan to work so he needs to get that out of the way.

I think the language of movies and horror in particular are comforting to him. It's why he refers to real life situations as "scenes" and imagines how he would shoot them if he was filming them. It organizes life, turns it into something he can process.

So yeah I would say that horror and gore are a special interest, but where he takes that special interest is something more disturbed. I want to be clear I'm in no way connecting Billy's autism to the murder.

The other big part of this interpretation is the stark difference between his behaviour in the bulk of the movie vs his behaviour after the reveal, when he unmasks. He becomes so much more animated, expressive and physical once he no longer needs to be acting. He's smiling, laughing, loud, his hands are moving, his wrists are limp, and its such a massive change from his extremely controlled expression and the tense way he holds himself for a lot of the movie.

And then when things start to go wrong he has what I see as a meltdown. The plan is failing and suddenly the lights in the kitchen are too much and he can't think anymore. He starts pacing, nonsensically stabbing pillows, he no longer feels in control of himself at all.

So yeah, autistic Billy! Theres probably more I could say about this, it's also a big part of the way I write his sensory experiences and sexuality, but this is already long enough.

Thanks again for the lovely comments!

[besaya-glantaya]

Thoughts on Alex being wrong and loving it

Red White and Royal Blue (2023 movie)

Remember the little quip Henry makes about admiring Alex's willingness to admit when he's wrong? It's such a great moment of foreshadowing, especially since Henry has no idea just how right he is.

Alex prizes himself on being someone who is skilled at reading people, at seeing the person beneath the surface, but he's never come across anyone quite like Henry before.

Alex must be used to people hiding who they truly are - he's been steeped in American politics for years - but he probably isn't expecting anyone from such a legacy of historic power and entitlement to be, at their core, an actual cinnamon roll.

Their initial meeting also comes at a time in Henry's life when any chink in his armour reveals only pain and anger, leading Alex to assume that what lies behind the carefully controlled façade isn't pleasant.

This assumption is only reinforced by further antagonistic interactions, fuelled by Henry's attempts to balance civility while protecting his heart as Alex consistently pulls Henry's metaphorical pigtails.

The fallout from cakegate forces them into extended periods of proximity and we see Alex start to glimpse pieces of the real Henry beneath his bland public persona. Each further piece that's revealed surprises and delights Alex and it's a joy to watch Taylor Zakhar Perez bring those moments to life.

Allow me to ramble about some of these:

1. Alex's pause of panic followed by surprised relief as Henry suavely responds to the interview question, "How did you end up on the floor of Buckingham Palace, covered in cake?" Alex's relief is two fold: he was floundering with no idea what to say (shouldn't have rebuffed Henry's request to prepare for this interview, Alex...) and Henry's answer is not at all what Alex was expecting. Henry could easily have attributed the event to clumsiness or tomfoolery on Alex's part - even just by subtle implication. That wouldn't have been out of line with some of Alex's answers (e.g., "Three words to describe Henry? Um... White, blond and British.") but Henry chooses a more protective route, deflecting attention from Alex, which comes as a pleasant surprise. [Of course he can't show this, so instead retaliates with something as annoying as possible. Cue side eye from Henry.]

2. Alex's big-eyed expression of sympathy as Henry tells him the Palace insisted on parading him around while he was grieving for his father. It's the key moment Alex realises he's built a lot of assumptions on a misunderstanding and has probably treated Henry rather unfairly.

3. Alex frowning at Henry talking and laughing with the little girl in the hospital bed. He's seeing Henry through a new lens and realises this picture doesn’t fit with a lot of his previous assumptions.

4. Alex shaking his head at Henry's joking attempt to decline an invite to his NYE party that most people would kill to get. "That's perfect, you kill me and then I won't have to go." It's the first time Henry uses his sharp wit to share a joke with Alex, rather than directing it at him in a fit of pique. It's an olive branch and I don't think Alex was expecting such easy forgiveness.

5. The sublime series of text based interactions where Alex is surprised and charmed by Henry flirting (under the guise of gentle ridicule).

6. The iconic "I can't believe how wrong I was about you," while he and Henry are as close as two people can get.

7. My all time favourite: Alex's reaction to Henry pointing out the yellow roses on his tie. Henry employs this in a sweet distraction during a moment of all encompassing anxiety for Alex. It's enough to bring Alex out of his fog, to realise how much strength he draws just from Henry being there to support him. The way Taylor says "Oh my god. I'm so grateful you are here," is perfection.

I'm a gooey mess thinking about all the future moments where Alex is surprised and overwhelmed by Henry's kindess.

[Sobs]

On a related note @mulderscully has a great post titled: Alex's headshake of Love™, which captures several of these moments, and more, in perfect gif form.

[infiniteglitterfall]

The Curious Case of the Apparently Allistic Friend, Part 1: Oh, THAT'S what a special interest is?? okay I still don't know how to tell these people about it though

I swear to you, I thought my friend B. must be autistic for literally years.

She didn't think so. But lots of autistic people assume they're allistic, because that's the default.

Autism is still presented as always being so different that anyone would recognize it. And it was presented way, way more like that when she and I were growing up. Like: "children with autism are essentially catatonic, trapped within their own minds."

I was lucky enough to learn otherwise through friends who shared lists of autistic traits with me. And then through Tumblr.

But I've never figured out how to explain things like special interests, or stimming, or autistic burnout, to other people. In retrospect, I guess the fact that B. didn't seem to understand these concepts should have told me she didn't relate to them. There was never that "click!" of "I have that, but I never knew what it was called!"

I was so sure she had special interests!

I guess allistic people have things they're consistently, deeply into too. And I guess they really do mean "hobbies" when they hear about special interests and say, "everyone has hobbies!"

These seem like really basic things to be learning a decade after realizing I was autistic. Oh well!

I'm gonna change the details, for her privacy. But it's like: I would have sworn her special interests were helicopters, silent films, Regency romances, and libertarianism.

If those were my special interests, it would mean that I was doing, or at some point had done, a deep dive into those topics. I would have probably read a lot of old-school hand-coded HTML infodumps, and arguments on military forums, about the mechanisms inside helicopters and the details of what it feels like to fly them. I might have looked into how you'd get a license to do that.

I'm sure I would have read way too many glossaries of Regency slang, dug up books and journals written at the time so I could better understand how people talked, and gobbled up detailed analyses of which modern authors do the best job of replicating the Regency era. (And I'd probably be working on joining them.)

I would probably be secretly plotting to learn all the editing and stunt tricks they used to make Harold Lloyd's or Buster Keaton's films look so amazing.

And I might or might not support libertarianism in any way, but I for sure would have read as much as I could about its history, what it meant, how it would work, and whether and how it should be implemented.

This kind of research might even eclipse how many Regency novels I'd actually read, or how many silent movies I'd actually watched. Because it's so interesting! It's the most interesting part!

It's like how the face of a clock is great and it does a lot of great, interesting, important stuff, but the tiny little gears and thingummybobs inside are SO MUCH COOLER AND MORE COMPLICATED AND THEREFORE MORE INTERESTING. How does it all work?!?!?? How did we decide what slices to break time up into? What other ways to do it are there? Are there better ones? THAT SHIT IS SO COOL.

It seems like if an allistic person is really into unusual stuff, they might know a lot of interesting facts about it, and people involved in it, some history around it....

But they don't need to binge it for months, or years, until they get their fill. They don't need to dive deep into the subject and immerse themselves in all sorts of different aspects of it. It's just something they like.

It's like how I have topics that I kind of think of as "special-interests-in-waiting." Sometimes they're special interests that got metaphorically shoved onto a back burner by urgent new ones. Like queer history. Sometimes they're just REALLY COOL stuff I wish I could do, like roller derby.

Sometimes they're things that totally delight and interest me, that I don't have the urge or time to dive deep into - but I hope I do in the future. Like miniatures.

I love miniatures. My friend loves miniatures. She has a book about them. She's watched videos featuring them. She owns a few. She's made some in the distant past. She's wanted to make more, but doesn't think she'll ever have the fine motor skills or eyesight to make them the way she wants to again.

The difference, apparently, is that she's never going to fill her house with tiny miniature scenes she's snuck onto surprising nooks and crannies, even ones built by other people. If she learns of kits she might be able to put together, she probably won't check them out. And she doesn't crave hours poring over pictures of beautiful miniature creations.

She just really likes them. And has special memories, and a real but rarely-remembered regret around them.

So. I didn't understand that she didn't have special interests.

And I thought of special interests as the key thing that separated autistic and allistic people.

I never thought about the fact that she didn't really have sensory needs or sensitivities. Or stim. Or understand why I might bring a whole bag of slime and stim toys with me. (Which I usually totally ignored. I'm still learning about basic self-care.) I just figured she had her own things I didn't know about.

We were both perfectly happy to rotate through our own samefoods.

We both struggled with executive function around self-care.

We both had to manage our spoons. I just didn't think about the fact that there were already other reasons she had to manage them.

She definitely didn't know what I meant by autistic burnout. And I didn't know how to explain it to her; I was still trying to understand what it meant for me.

On the other hand, the way she would fire question after question at me was something I'd encountered before. And I'd always assumed it was an autistic thing.

Because it seemed so incredibly socially awkward.

Like. Really? You want to know more about what I did today, or what's going on with me? And your solution for this was to bluntly ask me a series of clarifying questions that imply you're completely baffled?

THIS IS WHY I THOUGHT SHE WAS AUTISTIC.

People always insist we have "no theory of mind!" That we have "'difficulties inferring the mental states of others" which "may explain social communication difficulties in autism!"

Sidebar: I went looking for recent research about autistic theory of mind, and found a current paper that uses the worst freaking example.

For example, there is a substantial body of evidence suggesting impairments in autistic individuals’ understanding of pragmatic language and sarcasm, as well as in their recognition of social faux pas (Baron-Cohen et al., 1999; Frith et al., 1994; Reindal et al., 2023; Thiébaut et al., 2016), which may be explained by differences in ToM ability. When a person’s utterance is ambiguous, as in the case of sarcasm and some aspects of pragmatic language (e.g., metaphor), it may be best understood by appealing to their mental state. For example, if a friend exclaims “Oh, great!” after dropping a plate of food, a correct understanding of this utterance cannot be reached solely by processing the verbal content (which would lead one to believe that the friend considers dropping the food to be a positive event). Instead, one may correctly interpret the sarcasm by inferring that the friend believes dropping the food to be bad and that therefore they intend to communicate their frustration, rather than their pleasure, at this happening.

How am I supposed to take this research seriously when their example is, "autistic people might not understand that someone DOESN'T like dropping the whole plate of food they'd been eating right on the floor!"

(To be fair, this actually looks like an interesting and well-thought-out paper. They might have picked that example to show how goofy and inconsistent the allistic idea of Theory of Mind is. I'm gonna stick a pin in that and write a whole nother post about it.)

I've actually always had the opposite problem: I learned, early on, not to ask any questions because people reacted as if I was asking something ridiculous.

Okay, it sounds like the same problem. But this includes adults acting like I was asking truly appalling questions about basic instructions and facts that I should have known.

It probably is the same problem that I thought B. was having. And maybe that means she was never treated as though she was asking something ludicrous. And maybe that means she wasn't asking things that allistic people found baffling.

Or it might just mean her parents were emotionally abusive in a different way than mine were.

[fictionfolk-safehaven]

Hi, hello, hi, thank you for this blog, gods this means so much to us. Kjsbfksjdf obviously there were several stacked instances but I think it's likely [due to timing] that an ask my son sent in is what toppled the metaphorical Jenga tower and caused fictive-culture to make that poll [ofc we can not claim to know this]. We have little shame and will continue to use that blog too but augh I'm just scrolling through this blog and I am Quite delighted.

Also honestly the fact/way that you respond to everything eases the ever-present social anxiety of Ever commenting on submissions to our ask blog[? we've never considered it an 'ask blog' but, I mean it depends on submission content so sure, why not]. Helpful and inspirational. Anyway, thank you, for this, thank you, augh.

-- Joey @bistrocule

Thank you so much!! Honestly, I can speak for the whole collective when I say that the fact that people care about this means the goddamn world. The whole point of this blog, and future projects we have in mind, is to give back to the community that- even though we've spent objectively very little time in it- has met us with such kindness and openness. This was the only area we saw the community (as far as we could tell) lacking, so we just decided to make it ourselves.

Replies from us aren't going to be consistent in length and effort, and we're thinking about putting it in our intro post that we won't reply to anything just due to the spoons we have/if we have anything to say at all- but yes absolutely we try our best! Thank you so much for the compliment^^ We have a lot of social anxiety too and that's part of the reason we try to reply to every ask at least a little bit; because we know how fucking easy it is to read into things beyond what's there and go "oh god they hate me" especially when talking about such sensitive topics.

-Keeper Diluc

[bg3-ficrecs]

The Loving Master series - #BG3 FanFic Review

Review by Apollo (@apollo-stories)

Good timezone my friends, I am happy to present another constellation in the bright sky of fanfiction: The Loving Master series by calqmity on AO3. (You can find the author on Tumblr at @calqmity and on Twitter.)

A note from the BG3 Fic Reviews team: As always, mind the tags, and for this wonderfully dark work in particular, as it includes numerous controversial and dark themes. These include NSFW; dead dove; necrophilia; non-con elements; and abusive relationships; among others. Our review is continued below the fold due to the heavy nature of the content in this particular series.

Virtual photography by @xandirge.

The series is comprised of three separate works exploring the dark desires of our favourite bloodsucker Ascended Astarion. It starts with The Doll Collector, a fantastic title in and of itself with no small amount of sinister foreshadowing. 

In this story there is a constant and ominous theme of dehumanisation as well as an exploration of Astarion’s relationship with death. The author details Ascended Astarion’s recently devised methods of collecting his new vampire spawn cohort, as well as the addiction he develops in controlling their lifeless bodies. (Reminder: mind the tags!)

Astarion is obsessively controlling, and takes great delight in stripping any sort of independence or autonomy from his spawn that they may have once enjoyed in their former lives. It is a dark work, and there is no healing to be found here. This is an excellently constructed examination of Ascended Astarion’s dark mind and how he fulfills his most toxic needs as his spawn become his latest possessions to play with at his leisure.

The Unbearable Pressure, the author's second work in the series, is no different to its predecessor in its exploration of Ascended Astarion's growing darkness and cruelty. This work focuses more on on his relationship with his most disobedient spawn, Blaze, and his efforts to break her and ensure her obedience. 

The theme of dehumanisation and dollification gets more pronounced the further we read. Astarion wants to control every single part of his spawn. And even despite the obvious sadism of his actions, Astarion genuinely believes he is doing his spawn a kindess, and grapples to understand why his spawn are not more grateful for his 'assistance' and what he considers his dedicated 'care'. The author has expressed Astarion's delusion of benevolence well, as our narrator is wonderfully unreliable.

Haunted By Your Touch, Aching For Your Love is our third and final work in the series, and quite possibly my favourite of the three! (I would call it a crowd pleaser, but that requires that the crowd in question likes breaking characters down and making them suffer oh so deliciously.)

The cycle of abuse and the affection for one’s captor can be difficult to write in fiction. There is a common mistake of stepping back from the scene and becoming more clinical in order to convey why the cycle is happening and why it continues, and, in so doing, create a disconnect between the reader and the characters. This work sees that tripping point coming from miles away and does cartwheels over it. 

We are deep in Astarion’s mind and psyche in this work as his delusions and twisted perspective have completely erased any distinction between reality and his wicked desires. It is left to the keen eye of the reader to pick up on the subtle hints and evidence of his delusions, which are expertly described by the author via the reactions of the other characters that suffer Astarion's whims and mistreatment.

The Loving Master, as a whole, is a wonderful exploration into dark themes and abusive relationships. Astarion’s character is portrayed consistently through the entire series using beautiful metaphors that I could hear Astarion himself repeating in his own voice. And beyond our lead antagonist, the author's original characters are well-written and developed, becoming well-established personalities in their own right. Each one has their own clear motivations and responds to Astarion differently, adding to the depth of the overall narrative with every line. These stories are also structurally sound, as you can look forward to a healthy mix of short and long paragraphs and sentence structures that makes the story easy to read and easy to enjoy.

Mind the tags on AO3, as The Loving Master does not shy away from NSFW elements and very heavy themes. 

Enjoy your dove, but be aware. It is very, very dead.

---

We have included a snippet of The Doll Collector below for your enjoyment, as well as the author's tags as they are currently listed on AO3 for this particular work. Please remember to support the author by leaving kudos and comments on their work on AO3. 🫶

The Doll Collector

"One more bite, is all it would take."

And now his beautifully pliant Lydia laid underneath him, fully submitted to his one desire: for her to become his. Her jet black hair framed her round, delicate face. Through her long, black eyelashes, her dark purple eyes stared up at him, wide and vulnerable. The indigo moonlight skin that bruised wonderfully under the force of his fingers was soft and warm to the touch.

"Be gentle," her quiet voice trembled.

There was nothing gentle about forging an undead monster out of an innocent, precious soul—his perfectly obedient, beautiful little monster, yet a monster nonetheless—but he could pretend, for just a moment.

He brought her wrist up to his mouth, laying a feather light kiss on top of the flesh, eating the garnish before digging into the main course. He cradled it in his hands before sinking his teeth in. Her quick yelp from the sudden pain sent a raging, hot inferno through his abdomen, encouraged by the red delicacy on his tastebuds.

Eventually he forced himself to pull away, letting the bloodied, shaking hand fall from his grasp. He leaned forward, placing his hands on either side of her head, trapping his prey.

"You have given me everything...thank you." His words came out breathy and in between sighs of pleasure. The taste of her blood lingered on his lips, but it wasn't enough. He needed every last drop. While the ritual had rid him of the hunger caused by his supernatural curse, it had been replaced with a new hunger: to take, to take, and to take, from everyone around him. He wanted it all.

She look terrified out of her mind about what was about to happen, her eyes glancing at the liquid ruby dripping down his chin. In this moment, she looked like a porcelain doll. Her plump lips and flushed cheeks had a warm glow cast on them from the candle light in the tavern room. But when his fangs pierced her neck, she did not crack—only screamed. It was like biting into the plumpest, ripest fruit in the orchard, and her cries of pain were the beautiful notes of the birds' song high above in the sky.

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

This is a post absolutely nobody asked for because 0 of you follow me for Takes on music, but one of the pop music podcasts I listen to has been all in on Pop Girl Spring, and they played a little game the other week where they did a draft for the top 10 songs from all the albums they’ve been covering – so that’s the new releases by Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Maggie Rogers, Gracie Abrams, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Charli XCX, Ariana Grande, and Kacey Musgraves, plus the currently charting album-less singles by Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan.  And while I don’t have the fun structure of a competitive draft to play with, it did make me sit down and hash out my own Top 10, and I have literally nowhere to put the fruits of all that effort except Tumblr, so here’s way, way more words than anyone asked for about POP GIRL SPRING.

Listed in not-exactly no particular order, but also not in This Specific Order, like, this is not a countdown, I’m not ranking them with great specificity or anything.  The 10 songs I need on my imaginary Pop League Team.

Good Luck, Babe! (Chappell Roan): Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is a great album and I think Roan has a great career ahead of her (knock on wood), but this is the first song she’s released that feels like a Timeless Hit to me, like the kind of thing that’s going to show up in Buzzfeed quizzes in the 2040s about picking the best songs from this decade.  On god, this could be one of the best pop choruses ever written – starting with that fucking high note is such a flex! – and it’s such a poster child for how great, earwormy pop music can tell a fairly specific story and make it feel deeply universal.  Legendary.  No notes.

Espresso (Sabrina Carpenter): SONG OF THE SUMMER.  Is it a better pop song than Good Luck, Babe?  No.  Is it the Song of the Summer anyway?  Yes, because those aren’t supposed to be Timeless, they’re supposed to make you forever remember *this specific summer* in your life.  It’s a great song with an unbeatable hook, and I dig the fact that it makes just slightly less sense than it probably should – caffeine is the metaphor for…how you’re going to stay up nights thinking about Sabrina Carpenter?  Okay.  Whatever you say.  It’s not a song about anything, which sometimes is bad but in this case is amazing, and there’s something marvelously audacious about committing to lines like “walked in and dream-came-true’d it for ya.”  Bonkers.  Delightful.  Carpenter has put out like 4 albums which does not seem possible for someone I up until now only vaguely remembered as “was on that nostalgia-bait Boy Meets World sequel series,” but man, she came to play with this one.

BILLIE GETS TWO

BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Hit Me Hard and Soft is a fantastic album, managing to edge further into straight-up pop territory without compromising the distinctive voice that’s made Eilish the Snobby Music Critic’s Pop Princess.  I have no idea how long she’s going to be able to (or want to) keep splitting the difference between these two identities, but she’s doing it right now, probably doing it better than anyone since Little-Earthquakes-era Tori Amos.  I chose this song because I think it does the best job of fusing those elements: it’s a right-down-the-middle love song in the classic pop vein of “i know my baby is a life-ruining trainwreck but honestly i do not care,” and it’s got good mid-tempo ballad structure with that little bit of haunted-ness that is Eilish’s signature sound, and I just think it’s probably the most solid song on the album.

CHIHIRO: This one is my *favorite* song on the album, which is why it’s here.  I don’t know what it’s about.  It’s not particularly “radio-friendly” (is that a thing anymore? What do we say instead of that? Digestible?)  It’s slinky and vaguely threatening and it just feels like a song that nobody else could do. It’s the one that’s been most consistently stuck in my head since I first listened to the album.  I feel like it’s flying under the radar a little, but I’m super here for it.

The Kill (Maggie Rogers): I feel like people sleep on Maggie Rogers because her marketing aesthetic seems kind of like, navel-gazing folky singer-songwriter, which is not all that Of the Moment right now.  But the thing is, that’s really not accurate at all!  Her music is just straight down-the-middle, strongly crafted pop, WHY is she not more famous?  She’s so good!  Don’t Forget Me is just so, so solid as a pop album, crammed full of songs that are massive hits in some alternate universe. “It Was Coming All Along” is my personal favorite, but for this list I’m sticking with The Kill, just because it seems to be the closest thing to a breakout hit off the album and I want to hype it up.  It’s a bouncy, incredibly sing-along-able song about a mutually destructive relationship, what is not to love.  Pop music was invented for this.

BEYONCE ALSO GETS TWO

BODYGUARD:  Look, I’m going to level with you, I wanted to like Cowboy Carter a lot more than I did. For me, the album has exactly the same flaw as Renaissance did, which is that it fundamentally feels like Beyonce has done a *ton* of research for her music history degree, stuffed every bit of it into the album, and by god you are going to listen to her senior thesis on the Black roots of popular music.  Both albums are like – so smart and so sincere and they just feel – a little bogged down to me.  I don’t know.  This may be entirely because I am just not on Beyonce’s level here, but there’s something about Cowboy Carter that makes it hard for me to really love as an album, rather than as a project.  That said, there were several tracks I really liked, and this one’s probably my favorite, maybe because it sounds the most authentically like a Beyonce track to me.  Whatever you think of Jay-Z or of the Carters’ marriage, it’s undeniable that a huge part of her as an artist and a human is tied up in this idea of being one half of their partnership, and when she does these “it’s me and my baby versus all the rest of you bitches” songs, she always strikes what to my ear is her most authentic, heartfelt notes.  BODYGUARD has a cool, California-road-trip kind of vibe that puts me in mind a little of “03 Bonnie & Clyde,” but appropriately, more grown-up now.

YA YA: After complaining that a lot of her recent music feels a little too overstuffed with References, I have to say that this is one of the worst offenders – but it fuckin works.  This feels deeply retro but not at all in a corny way, a great update of a certain kind of mid-century honky-tonk music that makes it feel vital and current.  I don’t think Beyonce has truly hit the same high in terms of weaving her politics and her music together since Lemonade, but to me this song stands up well alongside that album (which for the record, I think was a generational achievement, a truly transcendent work of art).  Also, as appropriate for a song whose theme is “shake your ass in defiance of a world that does not care about you,” the ass-shaking game is on point!  I honestly wish this song had received all the success that went to TEXAS HOLD ‘EM, which is a song I truthfully feel is hokey and try-hard.  This one covers the same ground but infinitely better.

Von Dutch (Charli XCX): I am a naysayer to Brat Summer, I’m sorry to say; I think Charli is a fairly decent pop musician and Brat is a fairly decent pop album, but I do Not get the hype.  It’s got some worthwhile tracks, and I do appreciate that she’s allowed some space to excavate less-common themes in pop music – songs about wondering if now is when she should be having kids, about wrestling with the way that other women bring out her personal insecurities – rather than just the genre staples of Love and Partying and Being Awesome.  That said.  I think the best song on the album is just a regular-degular banger about partying and being awesome.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

YES, TAYLOR ALSO GETS TWO (man, it’s a 31-track double album! Get off my back!)

Down Bad: One of the things I don’t think Swift gets credit for, due to being overshadowed by the Harrowing Constant Drama of her personal life, is that she legitimately has a dry, off-kilter sense of humor that brings much-needed levity to the Harrowing Constant Drama of her body of work.  TTPD is, among other things, a *funny,* self-aware album about how knowing full well that your emotions are absolutely unhinged vis-a-vis actual reality doesn’t actually do jack shit to keep you from drowning in those emotions.  A lot of the hate for this album has really come from people who Do Not get the joke, who are cherry-picking verses and single lines from deeply self-aware songs without providing the context of that self-awareness.  I love this song.  I love the chorus: crying at the gym is a detail that’s perfectly, wryly relatable in its absurdity, and “everything comes out teenage petulance / fuck it, if I can’t have him I might just die” in that swingy, chipper groove is exactly why no one does it like she does, packing all that ambiguity and frustration and self-loathing of your own irrationality into a great hook.  I love the fuckin alien abduction framing device to talk about a relationship whose impact inside your own head and heart is wildly out of proportion to its impact on the materiality of your daily life – a relationship that *might as well have* happened on an entirely different planet than the one everyone else lives on.  It’s great.  This is a great song.

The Albatross: So I wanted for the second TTPD track to pick something from the other side of Swift, the one that *is* deeply, irretrievably, uncomfortably emotionally sincere.  There were definitely some strong contenders, but I kept coming back to this song, which I actually have heard very little chatter about, but has snuck up on me as an album favorite.  I try not to get too lost in the labyrinth of Swift’s endless Easter eggs and self-mythologizing, but this is a song that I do think benefits from understanding its place in her personal biography; specifically I think it gains a lot from seeing it as a companion piece to “The Archer,” a softly agonized song from the beginning of a relationship about the duality of predator and prey, about wanting to go all-in but dreading the part of you that you know is capable of sabotaging this.  The Albatross is – a softly agonized song from the ending of that same relationship about the duality of destruction and salvation, about wanting so much to protect someone you used to love from the havoc *that same love* has ultimately inflicted on their life.  There’s a whole novel lying in the space between these two songs, and both of them feel raw and intimate in the way they expose the pain and vulnerability and shame that shadow the act of allowing yourself to love someone.  TTPD was, in my opinion, rushed out too quickly, an experiment in presenting Swift’s emotions in a more unprocessed, uncrafted way to make a statement about art as a survival mechanism during emotional times, but an experiment that doesn’t entirely work; it truly could have benefited from another six to twelve months of cooking and a strong editorial pass.  To me, this song is a glimpse of what TTPD could have been if instead of being rushed to press in the middle of her ginormous tour for the sake of her own catharsis, it had been given the space and attention that Folklore/Evermore were given.  The Albatross is truly (like The Archer before it) an optimal wedding of Swift as a chronicler of her own interiority and Swift as a generationally gifted musical craftsman.

(I had a couple of also-rans, so shout out to Dua Lipa’s “Happy For You,” a song I really loved off an album I thought was kinda phoned-in overall, and Gracie Abrams’s “Tough Love,” through which I learned that there could potentially be something interesting about Gracie Abrams, someday.)

[jasper-tarot-reader]

Hi Jasper!

My name is Glenda and my pronouns are she/her

Question: What can I do to connect with new people, make new friends, and not be kinda agoraphobic?

Context: I’m disabled and take Covid and other diseases seriously, still wearing KN95/N95 masks. Due to 2 recurring thought patterns that 1.) no one cares about disease mitigation / whatever I ask of others to protect myself if a burden to them 2.) going out is too expense and energy taxing, I keep to myself a lot. Lately I’ve been wanting to stop wearing a mask, go out dancing, and just be “normal”. But I also need to respect my body’s needs (and the more Covid infections you get, the more likely it is to disable you, I’ve had it 4 times that I know of, and I’m already disabled enough). I’m sad and lonely when I think about this, and was wondering what wisdom or suggestions you can glean from a tarot reading.

I understand this reading is for entertainment purposes only.

Thank you! 💛

Hello Glenda, welcome to the ask box! I'm gonna be honest, it's a delightful surprise to get to read for fellow divination readers. For your reading, I have chosen to use the Queer Tarot by Ashley Molesso and Chess Needham (aka Ash + Chess). I had to redo the reading because the deck originally just...reiterated the situation, so your actual cards are the Page of Cups upright (whose model is Ricardo Agraso, he/they) and the Page of Swords reversed (whose model is Mintzu Chen, they/them).

The Page of Cups and the Page of Swords - a tale of the heart and head in opposition.

The Page of Cups is the youngest of the Court of Water, still learning their place among the emotional realm that it governs. They appear when there's a new opportunity or path before you, usually to encourage you to take the plunge - either literally or metaphorically. They encourage trusting your intuition, but also to keep your mind open. They are looking towards the embodiment of their suit, meaning that they are in sync with what they want.

Likewise, the Page of Swords is the youngest of the Court of Air, which governs the intellectual realm. When reversed as they are, however, they are prone to overthinking, find difficulty in following through on their ideas, and beating themself up for not knowing everything. Since I read reversals as the opposite element, that's just what this Page is - they are out of their element in the Court of Earth instead. They are holding the embodiment of their suit just like the Page of Cups, but they are looking away from it and preparing to swing it in that direction - they are defensive, not steady.

Not only are they looking in different directions, but they're also looking away from each other, and one being upright while the other is reversed is the ultimate sign of a jagged crack between them - currently, they cannot find a middle ground for both of them.

This is a pretty good analysis of the two conflicting parts of this reading - your desire for companionship versus your desire for safety. Both of these things are good desires, ultimately. In order to meet in the middle, the Pages have to understand one thing - they will make mistakes, they will have to try again after giving up some bits, they will have to take risks. (Not necessarily with their health, mind you, but more that they have to be willing to put themselves out there even if trying to make connections doesn't work well the first time.)

In fact, let's take a look at the elements here. An upright Water and a reversed Air, which transforms into an Earth. There's a lack of Fire in this reading, and that means something - a lack of passion, creativity, or other drive. Part of making friends could mean that you need to find some sort of community thing - a regular art class, a library event, et cetera - that you can show up to somewhat regularly in order for people to start recognizing and talking to you. Consistency is part of what makes it easier to make new friends or find new activities or hobbies. I don't know what sort of area you live in or how feasible it is for you to walk or drive anywhere, but libraries in particular are good starting points for finding stuff like that without doing something expensive or going to an establishment that serves alcohol.

In any case, I hope this reading has helped in some way. If you feel so inclined, please feel free to send feedback in my ask box, leave feedback in a reblog of this reading, and/or reblog my reading guidelines!

~Jasper

[completeoveranalysis]

[5]

INTERESTING. 

I don’t think we know about this festival yet. We get the flashback of Sakura in the ruins though, as expected, and that shot of Lava Lamp and Mokona dramatically glancing back is LOVELY. 

We keep getting these brief shots of Fai leaning all the way down to whisper with Lava Lamp, which is just delightful considering how obvious this looks with their height difference. 

Also I’m really loving the sheer level of himbo energy the marketplace guys are giving off. I think I instantly love them.

THIS page shows a closer look at how they’re really feeling. Lava Lamp has his suspicious stare going, Fai is whispering conspiratorially with him, and he glances to Kurogane to confirm he agrees with the plan. Loving, of course, that we’re still working with Kurogane’s hearing consistently just being better than everyone else’s. Because ninja. 

Also the shot of the ruin's shadow becoming stretched out and distorted in the sunset is 10/10, lovely metaphor.

Actually one thing we’ve skipped over here is anyone reacting to Mokona in any way. She wasnt speaking directly to them before in the marketplace but now she is, and they’re responding to her normally like anyone else. I’m 50/50 on whether magical beings are a regular sight in Clow and we just haven’t seen it yet, or if the people here just weren’t programmed to register her as anything different. 

Also THE APPLE RETURNS TO THE NARRATIVE

[ayz0]

I heard that you writing something about az being a autism/adhd metaphor, can you explain a little more about it? 👀

And where we can read it?

eee thank you for asking! a lot of it is mostly just me projecting my own struggles and experiences onto my OCs haha.

in my comic/writing, i plan to have Az be the image of a person who is extremely high masking, and struggles with a lot of self-image and identity issues as a result. a shape-shifter is the perfect character for this tbh. Az is constantly over-extending themself trying to blend in and people-please, to the point that it damages them. as an "eldritch god" kind of creature, they rely directly on the life energy and emotions of humanity in order to survive without falling into a dormant state, but their True Self is far too much for a common human's mind to handle. Az worries constantly about fitting in and acting/appearing as human as possible, because they feel they have to for the well-being of those around them, which in-turn means the well-being of themself. Az is usually extremely uncomfortable with unmasking, which, in this case, is equated with them taking any appearance that is either not a regular human/animal, or anything closer to their true form. Az tends to obsessively study and mirror people in order to learn how to better mimic them, and they are painfully aware of their differences. the obsessive study is also a shapeshifter thing, though - they want to be as accurate and indistinguishable as they can manage to be.

Ren, on the other hand, is someone who does not place a whole lot of importance on masking. he doesn't have the interest nor the energy to "keep up appearances", which (combined with his ~8ft stature and muscular build) can come off as intimidating or just feeling "off" to other people. He was an incorporeal spirit-like entity who did not originate on Earth, and was given a human body to inhabit by Az and their magic, so there is a lot he doesn't know or understand about humans and their social rules. Rather than learn and adapt like Az did, though, he chooses the avoidance route. Ren is prone to anger and violent outbursts when annoyed or frustrated (don't take this as me saying unmasking means ND people will be violent!!! it does happen with me, though, personally. it's a struggle. oof.), and he never tends to fake anything he does or feels. he will basically never force himself to do anything he doesn't want to do. he struggles with a lot of sensory sensitivities (the biggest being photo-sensitivity, being touched, and sensitivity to sound, but those are also made worse by his PTSD) and he tends to isolate himself and avoid people as much as possible so that he can just be himself in peace. he lives in rigid consistency, both to avoid meltdowns and just because he enjoys it, and he gives that to himself by mostly staying in one place and doing a lot of the same activities all the time (lots of reading, cooking, and tinkering with stuff in his workshop).

I'm excited to write and draw more of the two once I start the webcomic itself, because the two characters have both so many similarities but so many opposite-ends-of-the-same-spectrum type differences between eachother, too. Ren encourages Az to unmask, and be more conscious and accepting of themself as an individual, as opposed to being what they think everyone else needs/wants them to be. Az encourages Ren to experience new delights, to be a little more open to other people, and not be as resistant to change. One is all about adaptability to the detriment of yourself, and the other is all about stagnation for the protection of yourself. They learn from eachother over the course of the story. I've outlined 2 seasons of this so far kjfdhd

it's all still a work in progress, especially since i've been working 2 jobs recently so my spoons are like. close to nonexistent outside of work lately, so i don't have much work yet that is finished and ready for people to view lkdfgjf. even typing this post was a bit of a struggle cause brain fog do be hitting so i hope im somewhat coherent here and worded things correctly lol

[9800sblog]

https://www.tumblr.com/9800sblog/752413680504897536/hey-i-love-your-readings-please-can-you-do-ateez?source=share

Can you do the same with Straykids?

stray kids tarot reading

current vibes

all

justice, page of pentacles, the empress, 7 of swords

like I said in yesterday's pick a card, pirates steal back what's theirs by right. they're having a sweet time being troublemakers, the shuffle song says everything, "if your beliefs are strict, I'm a villain", "it'll be remembered as a new era, unforgiven", also "my voice is kinda loud, I don't care, just shout it out". + "now all I think about is how my world turned upside down" from their latest release featuring charlie puth!

bang chan

3 of pentacles, ace of wands reversed, the hermit

"events eminent, 'where did we come from?'" isn't that the most stray kids thing another kpop group could do/say? he's very focused on work, different types of work he does, specially those he has consistent desire towards, ones that burn an eternal flame. he's in a bit of a meditative state, contemplating and planning, this clearly isn't something new, as the ace is reversed, "it's not a comeback, cause we never left" type of vibe.

lee know

queen of cups, death, ace of cups reversed

similar vibes, nothing new, more the rebirth of something everlasting. he seems very fulfilled, his life has faced tremendous change which he's dealing in a very positive way, an opportunist way. he seems less focused on work, more focused on hobbies and metaphorical spring cleaning.

changbin

the emperor reversed, king of cups, the hanged man reversed

very much "they see us as a bunch of troublemakers, it won't be an easy one to change their views", he may be finding delight in revenge lately. don't forget that hybe has been under investigation which includes the entire industry, since it's part of the korean government. he may be a little crazy, I wouldn't wanna be on his bad side, if that's the spread.

hyunjin

ace of wands, the hermit reversed, the fool reversed

this shuffled song is interesting since his spread has a similar message to mingi's part on the ateez reading of yesterday. a bit of an explosive type of vibe, impulsive, mostly, and I do mean if you irritate him he may punch you, the ace of wands literally has that image + something similar to police baton.

han

the devil reversed, 10 of cups, page of swords

"a can that's shiny on the outside, empty on the outside, kick it", stray kids' songs and music videos are great representation of their current vibes, this spread makes me think of s-class. having a great time with family and friends, probably, may be enjoying teaching children, cousins, nephews, etc. he's very hopeful of a good future with a smarter, easier generation.

felix

3 of wands reversed, 9 of pentacles, queen of pentacles, 4 of swords

have you seen this man in your dreams? frustratingly perfect would be a good way of putting it, cards took a while to fall as they were shuffling so systematically, unusual. he seems to have interest for the occult recently, literally what is hidden and scary, getting in your way may be his specialty. trouble kids being members of stray kids just make perfect sense, right?

seungmin

king of swords reversed, 3 of swords, the star, the fool reversed

like i said, this spread reminds me of maniac, "we're a group of maniacs", delighted for some broken opportunities? people that relish in mess and fear, he has everything he needs to end someone/something, including himself, and he's very haooy about it, that's all this spread is about.

I.N

10 of swords, page of wands, 6 of cups reversed, death reversed

what a messy vibe!! talk about keeping remorse. this spread + song makes me think of science and extraterrestrial experiments [cue stray kids - megaverse], it's giving 60's mad scientist vibes, "in your game, I'm a problem, such a freak, such a headache". nothing more standing out, he's clearly excited about experiencing some breakthroughs.