#i was expecting to read about like. meat. because flayers

[cyberkn1fe]

Me: yea so you see, Oltyx knew anger at his exile clouded his judgement sometimes, so as a messed up workaround he commissioned a cryptek to augment his mind with partial copies of distinct parts of his own consciousness. However, given his general state of mind, him and the 5 resulting subminds end up spending most of the time being unhealthily hostile towards each other. The subminds are too different to ever agree on something, and Oltyx is always so annoyed at their constant bickering and criticism of him that he never properly listens to their advice. But as the stakes get higher and he's forced to work through his anger and entitlement so he could save his people, Oltyx starts to be more gentle and trusting with his subminds, and in turn they start working together, so they could take better care of Oltyx. They're not even constantly on the edge due to specifics of their minds anymore! The 6 end up being an actual team where every member is valued and respected, which is an incredible metaphor for self-acceptance, because you can never be whole if you despise parts of yourself, however contradictory, and-

My cat: meow (give chicken)

[jakey-beefed-it]

Recently, in Starbound D&D

The gang has a year to prepare before the local expansionist empire moves on their adoptive hometown

The gang gets really drunk and eats too much and engages in dubious storytelling contests and wacky tarot reading divination hijinks at the annual Midsummer festival 

Every year at the midsummer festival the friendly local Wood Elves show up and show off their blink dogs and tressym (flying cats). Except not this year.

The gang is deeply disappointed. So disappointed that they head into the Deep Dark Woods to find out why the friendly local Wood Elves haven’t brought their good good fluffy babies to visit this year.

The gang runs afoul of classic d&d monsters such as owlbears and ogres

The gang befriends an ogre, whom they dub Frogre (friend ogre), who explains that she has been kept in thrall to some fey potentate calling himself the Winter King and he is keeping her from thinking proper ogre thoughts

Thoughts like ‘wait a minute I don’t wanna work for the winter king I wanna smash him and eat him’

The gang dispels the enchantment upon Frogre and she can once again think proper ogrey thoughts

Despite this, she remains friendly with them and accompanies them to the wood elves. The blink dogs and tressym are all there and react about as one would expect- the dogs are friendly and excitable, the cats are generally standoffish at first but warm to the PCs as they hang out and are chill.

The PCs cast Reduce on Frogre so she can get into the elven tree village safely. She is awestruck by how they all got so big all of a sudden.

The wood elves turn out to have been besieged by monsters and hobgoblins sent by the aforementioned ‘Winter King’ and as such could not risk sending their people off to entertain a bunch of festival goers with teleporting dogs and flying cats

The gang befriends some elves and agrees to go look into this since things are definitely Amiss with this whole winter king business

For one thing Winter has a Queen (as in the Unseelie Queen of Air and Darkness) and no one should be fool enough to challenge that least of all another fae

The gang runs into some hobgoblins. Rather than fight the hobgoblins they sow doubt in their military leaders and move on unharmed.

The warlock gets the party so lost that they blunder into a whole other plane of existence

In this Feywild pocket they encounter the Winter King’s dreaded enforcer/assassin, a Troll wearing a cloak of elvenkind and therefore sneakier than he has any right to be

They kill the troll, talk to some harried pixies who are rushing hither and yon to bring on an unseasonable winter (it is late summer) due to the weather-warping effects of the winter king, then return to the normal world

They agree to go stop the winter king because he’s clearly bad news, and besides, then the elves will owe them a bit, and they could for sure use some elven archers when their adopted hometown is attacked by the local expansionist empire next year

They stop off at a hobgoblin town/military encampment and things are going reasonably well until they realize that the hobgoblins’ highest eschelons of leadership have been enchanted to follow the Winter King

And their leaders are apparently being mind-controlled by immature illithid tadpoles who consume their hindbrains and control their bodies like puppets, while still able to access their thoughts to better pass as normal folks

The PCs try to remove an illithid tadpole from a hobgoblin and it kills him. At least he’s not trapped in a living hell where he’s a passenger in his own body anymore?

The tadpole also dies shortly thereafter with no host to live in.

The PCs skedaddle from the hobgoblin town before they can be discovered since it looks like they just assassinated one of their highest ranking commanders.

The hobgoblins end up catching on an hour or so later and pursue the PCs halfway up the mountain where the Winter King lives

The PCs sneak into the Winter King’s lair via a little-used back tunnel

The Winter King turns out to have gone absolutely fucking insane recently and literally devoured all of his guards in his insatiable hunger

His body, in the normal world where a true fey lord can’t exist without a meat body, is basically an emaciated really tall oni 

They confront him and fight and in the process of the fight it comes out that he himself is controlled (at least partly) by an illithid tadpole that ate his brain and then completed the physical process of cereomorphosis such that his hideous fanged appearance is a glamour obscuring his horrible squidface

He’s an Onillithid

They manage to kill him after a huge battle, dispatching the body and releasing the Winter King’s fey spirit to return to the feywild and enventually re-corporate. 

The winter king had a lot of loot, most of it taken from the elves. The PCs now have a lot of loot, taken from the winter king. 

The PCs travel to the elven refuge of Paroneis, which is kind of like if Rivendell had a much more casual attitude and instead of being run by a grumpy ‘half’-high elf was run by a kindly old (very old, so old she even looks old) wood elven druid

The PCs greatly enjoy the company of said kindly old de-facto elf queen, who fills them all in on some lore and offers some good-natured advice and comfort to those who need it

Some dwarves show up from the nearby dwarven kingdom and ask the elves for help with their own problem- lately there have been weirdly coordinated attacks from below

The PCs smell mind flayer shenanigans and decide to get involved. Especially since said dwarven kingdom is the Paladin’s hometown.

[thepringlesofblood]

thoughts on stranger things three  (spoilers. so many.)

this is just me yellin into the void as usual, but I like recording my opinions on things even if no one will read them 

good:

- every single scene w/ the robin, steve, erica, dustin gang, especially!!! the coming out scene. scoops?? iconic. steve and dustin’s secret handshake? transcendent. the drugged out back to the future scene? perfect. 

- eleven and max say fuck the patriarchy. love el’s new look 

- more competent women is always a win

- funhouse fight!!! carnival fight!!!FIREWORKS??!??!

- the destruction of the mall (sadly the only anticapitalist symbolism I could find)

- the scene after jonathan and nancy get fired where they’re angry about their separate marginalized identities making this loss worse. I really liked how it went into the ways it will impact both of them, and I especially liked when nancy got home and talked to her mom. 

- joyce going buckwild and getting shit done. 

- the portrayal of hypervigilance as a symptom of PTSD. All of these characters have seen some shit, and all of them pick up on the littlest things the second they present themselves because subconsciously, they’re always on edge, always aware of bad it could break. 

- most of will’s character arc. not all, but most of it. the queer experience of watching all your friends get dates and feeling like you’re missing out on something? trying to regain their interest because you feel lost and left behind? worrying that you’re not ��growing up” because you don’t recognize romantic interest in yourself? not realizing you’re falling for your best friend until they get a romantic partner and suddenly you hate the partner even though they haven’t done anything wrong? a poignant, beautiful, very painful portrayal of queer teenhood. I really, really wish there was a moment that the audience realized will was in love with mike though. Like, it’s been building for a very long time. Also, a more thorough confirmation of will’s queerness would’ve been nice. I think they meant mike saying “you don’t understand bc you don’t like girls” to be that confirmation, but I want to hear it from will. Robin’s moment is so so so good though. 

- domestic fuckery 

- getting someone on the inside to help them/alexei as a character. not the symbolism or larger ramifications of his character arc, but how his knowledge and personality interacted. 

- mr clarke!!!!

- el going into someone’s memories again

- how prepared everyone is to fight because they’ve seen this shit before and robin and erica are just like ‘this might as well happen’ 

- keeping with the stranger things pattern of having a bunch of different groups of people all in different genres and then together they all meet up and go ?????

- I know every says billy didn’t get enough of a redemption arc but tbh I did not see his character development as redeeming in any way and I liked that. It didn’t excuse his abusive actions, it just explained them. There was no “oh he was secretly good all along”, no dramatic total character reversal on his death bed, just him deciding that he had enough of being controlled. Max didn’t get full closure with him, he didn’t say some big speech about being wrong or realizing the ramifications of his actions bc he hadn’t reached that point yet. he just said “I’m sorry” and died. that could mean “i’m sorry for how I’ve treated you”, “I’m sorry for how many people I’ve killed”, “I’m sorry for not being able to stop the monster”, anything. we don’t know what it means. we don’t get an explanation. It speaks to how survivors of abuse often don’t get to know why, don’t get closure, don’t get all the answers. 

- steve finally won a fight before getting the shit kicked out of him

- the whole no one knowing anything about each other bc no cell phones and/or wasnt there when It Happened. 

- Erica getting the DND set was poetic cinema 

- when joyce sees will on the firetruck and they run towards each other because finally, for once, will is completely unscathed, will isn’t the one who got hurt/possessed. I was already crying but this is the part where i had to get tissues bc I was sobbing. 

Bad:

- the red scare bullshit and glorification of capitalism. this show started out as “the US govt is doing shady shit” and now the big climatic “everything’s alright” is the army getting there?? what the fuck. There’s being accurate to the time period and then there’s sending a message. they could’ve subverted that trope in so many ways, but they just went for straight up “capitalism is great! fuck russia!” and I hated that. also, talk about one-note villainry. there weren’t even any dramatic monologues to make up for it, it just kinda sucked. 

- Hopper’s character in the beginning of the season. the scene where he gets wasted after getting stood up? shitty. not talking to el about his vaguely sexist overprotective actions? shitty. blowing up at joyce for no reason? shitty. he pulls it together in the end but it was OOC for a bit there. Plus I would kill for more “hopper and el work through their trauma together”, rather than “friend group splinters bc hopper did a yell” 

- I don’t know what to think about hopper’s death. It just hurts, and not in a satisfying, last harry potter book way. 

- why the fuck are the byers and el moving?????? did they ever give a reason???? WHY?????? WILL AND EL’S ENTIRE SUPPORT NETWORK, THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY’VE BEEN THROUGH AND CAN HELP THEM, IS IN HAWKINS!!!!!

- the ads. omg the ads. lucas idc about your fucking coke. there’s so much goddamn product placement. christ on a goddamn bicycle. 

- previous seasons have had body horror, but it was all black goo so it was removed from reality and conveyed a psychological, otherworldly horror. and I liked that. WHY WAS THERE SO MUCH FUCJING MEAT IN THIS ONE??? THE MIND FLAYER LOOKED LIKE IT WAS MADE OF BBQ SAUCE AND I HATED IT!!! STOP!!!THE MEATS!!!!!

- can el not be injured......for oNCE?????

- also can people stop standing around staring at shit so much? theyve seen it before. it’s not like it’s a huge shock. people stand around for like 5 minutes before Doing Things and it annoys me. with the New Kids like erica and robin it makes sense but like....whenever theres a monster mike just sits there like :o cOME ON DUDE YOU’VE DONE THIS SO MANY TIMES GET A KNIFE OR SOMETHIN!!!

- WHAT. WAS. THE GREEN STUFF?????????????????? IS IT FUCKING PLUTONIUM OR SOMETHING???? WHAT THE FUCK!!! IF YOU NEED A MACGUFFIN BE LESS OBVIOUS ABOUT IT!!!

- idk about you but murray yelling at them about sex kinda rubbed me the wrong way. 

- speaking of, you caNNOT convince me that murray, 4 locks on the front door lives in a bunker murray, would take a goddamn enemy of the state to a carnival and leave him alone for any period of time. seriously????????

- look.....it was adorable.....i’ll give you that.....but.....the song dustin and suzy sang slapped me with secondhand embarrassment and genre disconnect so hard I found it impossible to enjoy. also...planck’s constant??? you could/......idk........call mr clarke????????? you’ve interrupted the man’s life for less!!!! I was also half expecting it to be joyce who remembered it from all the studying she did on the magnets. I did enjoy the whole “i met a girl at camp” story being unbelievable until it was but like I was expecting the thing she wanted him to say to be like a famous star wars love quote or something not an entire song jesus christ 

- if hopper turns out to be alive I will face god and walk backwards into hell. I suffered through supernatural, I will not be caught in a cycle of fake deaths again. 

- i get the whole “we’re growing up now” thing but aren’t they like 13? theyre still so young??? also like i dont rly care for the vague soap-opera-y vibes the core squad gave off. 

- the only people who got flayed were either a. already pretty shitty or b. completely unknown. like. it just made it less scary????

- hopper just fucking standing by the machine looking at joyce instead of running the 5 seconds up the steps into the room. seriously? was that supposed to be slow motion or was that real time??? 

- the whole thing with cerebro not working at the beginning sucked ass. 

- hey does mrs wheeler have eyes??? like??? there were exactly two (2) scenes she had with mike and nancy and both were Big Conversations like they live there right/????tbh i forgot she was their mom until those scenes bc of the whole billy thing, which i decidedly do not have an opinion on but like....do they eat breakfast there??? 

[local-redhead-bookworm]

One of my favorite tropes in fanfic.

She sees him at Melvald’s from time to time, or when he’s picking Max up. He tries to flirt with her at first, because that’s what every other mom wants, but she immediately shuts that down. She’s a little hesitant about him at first because the boys and Max have told her what went down while she was getting the Mind Flayer out of Will, but she can read this boy like a book. It’s all painfully familiar, from the way he holds himself as if his back hurts, to the way he looks around the house, to the way he flinches when she pats his shoulder. She immediately sees the same signs that she recognizes in herself and her boys.

She doesn’t ask questions because she knows he wouldn’t say if something was going on, but one night he shows up with bruises on his face and tears in his eyes. He gets out a choked “didn’t know where else to go.” She murmurs “oh, sweetie” and pulls him into a hug. His body tenses and she hears his breath hiss through clenched teeth, then he just goes limp and sobs. Joyce pulls him closer and he wraps his arms around her. This is the first time someone’s touched him without wanting something from him in he can’t remember how long. Once he cries himself out, he manages to tell her about Neil, about how his mom left, how Susan just stands there and watches, how all the town moms keep looking at him like he’s a cut of meat, how everyone in school wants him but no one actually cares about him.

And in that moment, Joyce knows that she can’t let him go back to Neil’s house. She sneaks him over and they take whatever they can fit into their cars, which is just about everything Billy owns, and she gets him settled in a guest bedroom at her house.

Eventually, Neil comes looking for Billy. He’s asked around enough, and he knows that Billy’s moved in with the “local crazy lady.” He almost bangs down the door, and Billy’s already bracing himself for the worst. He fully expects Neil to break through the door and drag him right back to that awful house that Billy has never felt safe in. But Joyce opens the door and is stiffly polite until Neil says that “he’s never been good for anything other than causing trouble, that boy,” as if he expects Joyce to agree.

He spots Billy hovering at the end of the hall and barges in, mocking Billy that he needs a woman to protect him, like a little kid. Billy’s gone quiet and unusually deferential, but Joyce puts herself between them and firmly says that Neil is not welcome in her house, that Billy is old enough that he can move out if he wants to, and that if Neil ever comes near any of her boys again, Joyce will call the cops on him. After a few more barbed sentences, Neil storms off and slams the door as he leaves. It shakes the picture frames on the wall, and Billy flinches more harshly than he has the whole time Neil’s been there.

As soon as Neil’s car disappears down the driveway, Billy collapses like a puppet with its strings cut. Joyce sits down beside him and pulls him into a sideways hug, her hand soothingly rubbing up and down his arm. In a hushed whisper, he asks, “Did you really mean that?”

“Mean what, Billy?”

“Am I one of your boys?” He’s afraid to look her in the eye because he doesn’t want to see her rejection.

“Well, do you want to be?” She replies, offering him a smile.

With teary eyes he nods and she pulls him into a full hug. Where his face is muffled in her shoulder, she hears a whispered “thank you.”

One of my very favorite billy redemption tropes, is when joyce befriends him.

like, I love when they can bond over their traumas as abuse survivors, they can relate to each other and he finally has a place were he feels understood.

and then he becomes like her little shadow, just following her around in his free time just for the sake of closeness. shes one of the first adults he truly trusts, and he actively seeks out her touch. he doesnt feel the need to flirt or charm to get positive affection, and he doesnt ever feel dirty around her. he can just exist like any other kid, cause she treats him like a normal kid (she's extra soft where she needs to be). he's adopted into her family, he's safe, he's loved, and he knows this mom will never leave him, not by choice and not without one hell of a fight.