#those r both true statements

[b0rtney]

My JOB as a pretty white girl is to CONVERT RIGHT WING NUTJOBS into having EMPATHY and im REALLY FUCKING GOOD AT IT

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

What DPHW Means, and Its Relationship to Smirke's 14

The following contains spoilers for all of TMA, TMP (eps 1, 2, and 3 released currently if you’re in the future), and the ARG. Spoilers for all of this are throughout so I would advise against reading any of this unless you've listened to everything mentioned. It could also spoil episodes of TMP that have yet to release but if it does I don't think it will be a major spoiler. If I'm right I think I'm only right about a fairly trivial piece of information. 

Theory of Fears; or, Zur Furchtlehre

Part 1: Opticks

Smirke's 14 isn't the truth. With or without Dekker's +1. It is, however, necessary and correct. It has also been talked about ad nauseam and isn't a topic I want to dedicate a lot of time to. Smirke's 14+1, or even TMA in general, isn't the focus of this theory nor is it that relevant past its necessity as a point of comparison.

There aren't 14+1 distinct entities in the TMA cosmology. There is a singular entity that has been given divisions by fear and labels by those that have witnessed it. There is no objective line in which to draw these divisions. No matter where you put them or what you name them these concepts will always bleed into each other. Aspects of one Entity will manifest in another because the labels are invented and Fear is a storm of concepts crashing into each other. That's not a flaw in Smirke's list but its strength. A single entity of that scale is impossible to discuss in meaningful terms, the concept has too much gravity to be properly conceptualised and so an entire spectrum of fear must be divided in order to combat it. Categorisation is a vital part of TMA's cosmology and Smirke was as correct as anyone to put those lines down where he did. The real flaw with Smirke's list is forgetting the spectrum exists and stopping seeing the shades in between the Powers.

Finding a way to categorise this concept is important, but the methodology isn't. Smirke's 14 isn't the truth. The only truth is there is a singular whole. But branding goes a long way both in terms of research and in terms of following. This branding lacks accuracy though, it is in large part arbitrary and by its nature removes the shades and the bleed. TMP takes a different approach, one only hinted at, but one that I think is now fully explainable. 

Part 2: Lost in Translation

Perhaps the most interesting mystery in TMP thus far is DPHW. However, I think based on episodes 1 and 2 of TMP (and now 3), and the Klaus excel sheet from the ARG, we have all we need to explain its utility.

In order to show that conclusion in a satisfactory manner some basic facts need stating, and the order of my thoughts on those facts needs explaining. Firstly, each DPHW is 4 digits. Secondly, each DPHW is read as 4 numbers rather than, say, a pair of 2 numbers. Thirdly, these numbers can change independently of each other. Fourthly, incidents may share CAT#R#'s but have a different DHPW as found in the Klaus sheet (a German document listing OIAR-style incident reports). Finally, the German equivalent of DPHW is TSHU also found in the Klaus sheet. We can use those facts to determine something important. Each letter of this initialism is paired with a digit meaning that DHPW is a group of 4 categories. If that is true we can intuit some of its meaning. It is likely that these numbers are a rating of sorts for each category there. To prove that's the case we would need to know the categories and fortunately we have a starting point to understanding it, German.

If the categories that DPHW describes start with the letters TSHU in German then what needs to be done to find the categories is quite simple. You pair each letter up and then find a suitable word to categorise the supernatural whose first letter starts with the respective letter from the initialism in its language. D/T, P/S, H,H, W/U. After some brainstorming in the Statement Remains PLUS Discord server we had come up with strong candidates for 3 of the 4 pairs.

The first was Deadly/Tötlich, a seemingly solid start that gave this theory some legs. Next was Painful/Schmerzlich which was a distinct enough category for the threat of an incident that proved this was a strong direction to head it. H/H proved more troublesome. To my mind the two strongest contenders here were Hypnotic/Hypnotisch or Helpless/Hilflos. Both sound very reasonable but that in itself is a problem. However the last one was found relatively easily as Weird/Unheimlich. With 3 of the 4 it seemed like this was all but correct at this stage. However, I had been thinking about this backwards and it wasn't until I had a revelation that the pieces really fell into place.

Unheimlich sounded familiar when it was suggested but not in a way I could place. It wasn't until the next day that the aforementioned revelation happened. The ARG had a huge focus on Germany, and Ep 1 of TMP revealed why. FR3-D1 uses German source code which makes German the original language for the OIAR's methodology. Meaning DPHW is the translation, and I now think it's a shoddy one at best. The reason unheimlich sounded so familiar to me is because it's a fairly important part of psychology's history.

DPHW's Weird isn't weird, DPHW's Weird is uncanny. A direct translation could give you weird but a more accurate one, especially in this instance, gives you unheimlich. Unheimlich as in Jentsch's "Zur Psychologie des Unheimlichen", and Freud's "Das Unheimlich". Both of which are essays on the uncanny. It's all about the fear of the unfamiliar, and a central example of this is Olympia from Der Sandmann, a seemingly living doll.

The German word unheimlich is obviously the opposite of heimlich, heimisch, meaning “familiar,” “native,” “belonging to the home”; and we are tempted to conclude that what is “uncanny” is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar... - Freud, The Uncanny

This is incredibly relevant to a lot of what has been discovered so far. The uncanny as a topic in psychology was kickstarted by two Germans, and a central part of their essays was the German Der Sandmann, and a German, SSandman, was a large presence in the ARG. The strength of this connection all but solidified this theory in my mind. And, briefly, this is also related to Masahiro Mori's uncanny valley hypothesis which I'm sure I won't need to explain.

The obvious way to test this is to take the few W ratings we have been given and compare them to the incident to which they're assigned. The first is from Ep 1, “dolls comma watching”, and was given a 7. This is a good start both in that a 7 feels appropriate as an "uncanny rank" but also that a doll is a focal point on the essays on the subject. Also in Ep 1 is "Reanimation (Partial)", again with a 7. Another very appropriate number. The last in Ep 1 is "Transformation (eyes)" with a 5. Certainly less uncanny than the previous examples so this is still strong. In Ep 2 we get a 5 for Bram Stoker's Dracula, which seems more than fair for a strange man like him, and a 7 for Frankenstein which gives parity for another story of the resurrected dead. Finally we get "Transformation (full)" at a 7, more uncanny than "Transformation (eyes)" which tracks nicely.

With what I felt was such a strong theory for the W/U pairing it helped clarify the ideas of the others. The final digit rating the uncanniness of an incident gives an idea of how these categories work and the breadth of their definitions. Up until this point I was leaning towards Hypnotic/Hypnotisch for our H/H pairing. But giving it more thought, and comparing it to TMA's own groupings, it becomes apparent that Helpless/Hilflos is more appropriate. Hypnotic effects are too aligned with things that would already be very aligned with Uncanny ones, the Stranger's Not!Them alter memories and prey on the fear of something being not quite right, so as a categorisation tool I think it makes less sense because of the greater overlap. Helpless on the other hand works better for things like The Dark, The Buried, or The Lonely. Aspects which I don't think show up in our current other 3 groups. But given the current definition of the strongest category, the fear of the uncanny, I think that helplessness is a more apt label. The fear of helplessness. Which makes H Helplessness/Hilflosigkeit.

With this level of breadth established re-examination of the final two categories is warranted. Painful/Schmerzlich is more likely to be Pain/Schmerz. Not just incidents that are themselves painful but the fear of pain, possibly including the emotional. A comparison to TMA gives this rating a strong affiliation with Entities such as The Desolation, The Corruption, or the Flesh. Similarly Deadly/Tötlich should now be broadened beyond the fear of things that will kill you, to the fear of death in a broader sense. Which makes D/T Death/Tod instead. To compare again to TMA this is The End, The Extinction, or The Slaughter. Although, while I might be describing these ideas as the fear of ____ I think it's important to know that they do appear to be more conceptual in nature rather than just if something is scary or not.

Comparing each of these assumed categories against current DPHW’s strengthens this argument. “Dolls, watching” scored 1157. It’s a very low fear of death and pain, but they present a medium fear of helplessness and a high fear of the weird. For a fear that’s rooted in paranoia that makes good sense. “Reanimation (Partial)” got a very similar rating, at 5257, but it being a corpse cranks up its fear of death. “Transformation (eyes)” got 2155 which, again, seems to fall in place with what we know. It’s more human than the doll is so it’s less weird but a physical and alarming transformation naturally seems like more of a terminal concern. Combine that with some good ol' internet death threats and it's not nothing, but not much.

As a small aside, while it's not come up in the episodes so far the Klaus sheet shows DPHW's are 0-9. There is a good bit of evidence to suggest 0 might be read as 10 here. 0 most commonly showed up in that sheet for P and the incidents often had the notes "Kriegsvolk". Literally "war people" but more accurately "army/soldier". So pain of 10 for those would track better than P of 0, and it explains why things like the watching doll rate a 1 for D and P instead of a 0, and Dr. Webber's infection is a P of 1 despite entirely removing physical and emotional pain as it goes. Because 1 is the lowest.

For Ep 2 we start with Dracula scoring a 7465, he’s undead and a killer for high death, if he kills you it hurts but it’s not extreme, he’s both hard to physically stop and has mental tricks, and he’s just a weird dude in general who always seems off somehow. Frankenstein at 5337 has aforementioned parity with the reanimation incident as you’d expect but notably less on the helplessness rating as he is just a man. Next is “Transformation (full)” at 1567. This is generally a more severe rating overall than Transformation (eyes) and you’d expect that, but I think it does show something interesting. At no point did Daria want to end her own life. The transformation is far more severe, arguably looks more life threatening, and was clearly more painful but it is explicitly and repeatedly not about dying. I take that as a suggestion that these ratings take into account more than just the mundanely observable nature of the incident. She looks very sick which would make you think of death but it rates low for it because of the emotional, or maybe supernatural, purpose of the incident. She didn’t want to die, the manifestation didn’t try to kill her, and so despite its appearance it’s low on death.

Then finally in Ep 3, we have "Infection (full body)" with a 8175. (Although I'm assuming that's a misfile and it should be Infection (Arboreal)). I think D and H here are more interesting to dig into. P is pretty obvious it's the lowest rating because it seemed actively pain-numbing as it went. W being 5 tracks too is certainly uncanny and has strange geometry but it's not full Distortion levels. So with those two out of the way we can get to the good stuff. D is the most interesting of the two to me. Because while it's pretty clear he died I don't think that's got much to do with it. Rather I think the 8 is more specifically about the way it deals with death, decay, and rot in relation to new life and the growth of other things, plants and insects. Thematically, I think there is a lot more emphasis on death as a broader concept beyond the terminal nature of the infection. For Helplessness there is also an additional element beyond whether or not he was able to do something about the infection, and that's whether he wanted to. As the symptoms worsened his desire to treat them decreased. Initially he was worried about the infection and determined to seek attention when able, then he was happy to let someone else help instead (a hallucination, which makes things more helpless), before finally wanting it to happen. These sorts of elements are things I think we're going to see factor in quite a lot.

In summary; it is my belief that DPHW is a way to rate incidents that the OIAR catalogue based upon the strength of the fear they elicit in the categories of death, pain, helplessness, and weird (uncanny). This system is effectively the TMP equivalent to Smirke's 14 from TMA. Rather than assigning each statement to an Entity each incident is rated for those qualities. These systems are distinct methodologies but each is a way to categorise the supernatural.  

Part 3: On Analogy

That is the juicy bit of this post out of the way so now I have to put a bow on it and touch upon the overarching analogy here. As alluded to by the title and some turns of phrase, it's colour theory. It's a somewhat common analogy for TMA's fears but I think it applies in equal measure to TMP and taken together might provide an insight into how the cosmologies will differ. So, to me, colour theory is not only the perfect lens in which to view the Fears as a whole, it's the perfect lens to view these methodologies.

Smirke is Newton. He broke up a singular spectrum into wide chunks. The Dread Powers themselves are very analogous to a colour wheel. Colours bleed into each other and the boundaries of where one stops and starts is up for debate but red is still red, and blue is blue. That is a useful context for them, it aids discussion. Try talking about red without ever saying red and only referring to a representation of a divided whole. But all too similar to Newton's 7 colours Smirke's 14 lacks nuance, it lacks shade.

On the other hand we have DPHW and this is all shade. DPHW is CMYK. It's not one thing or another with DPHW. You don't have the pitfall of Smirke's methodology where one manifestation is in one arbitrary box. Here, assuming I'm correct, each incident is made up of constituent parts. The OIAR, and presumably its German forebear, are less interested in Smirke's occult ancient gods and more interested in bureaucratic precision. Smirke was doing research while the OIAR are doing administration. As such DPHW takes a wholly different approach. It's now all shades. This has its own problems in that it's harder to discuss in broad terms. It's such a specific methodology that it's lost a lot of what Smirke triumphed with. This is well represented already given that no one has been shown to know what it means at all yet. But if there is a truly different cosmology at play here we might see the axes of DPHW being where alliances fall.

All that leaves us with is a comparison of these two. The only way to really do that is to talk about how Smirke's 14+1 would fit in DPHW's system. This is something I touched upon briefly. Death is strongly related to The End, The Extinction, or The Slaughter. Pain to The Desolation, The Corruption, or the Flesh. Helplessness to The Dark, The Buried, or The Lonely. Weird to the Stranger, or the Spiral. But that's not all of them and even within those it's already clear that something like The Vast isn't just about helplessness, and we've already seen Daria who would likely be an avatar of the Flesh rank highly in Weird. Which hits upon what I feel is the most interesting aspect of this entire theory. We've seen what happens with Smirke's boundaries on the Entities. We don't know if Entities even exist in this setting, or if they do exist whether they'll be the same ones, or even if they're not the same ones whether they'll function under similar rules. But now we get to see what happens when there aren't those boundaries. We get to see much broader mingling than TMA showcased. It was hinted at there, especially early on before the lore really settled, but now that mingling seems to be the whole point.

And as a brief mention, and to further labour the theme, I don’t think there is enough information to really discuss how CAT#R# works but there are some analogies to work with here. From the Klaus sheet we can infer that CAT# has the following values 1/2/3/12/13/23/123. Or three non-mutually exclusive groups. What those groups are is hard to say right now. There is some soul/body/spirit stuff for the alchemic tria prima that's got some nice connections but doesn't map well now that Ep 3 is out. Either way, this is RGB. An incident can be all red, or red and blue, etc. R#'s values we can infer to be C/BC/B/AB/A/S with maybe an AS in there too. That's a linear scale of similarly unknown value but could represent something like potency/threat. If that is the case then R# is saturation. Some things are more intense than others. We also know from the Klaus sheet that CAT is the German from the "kategorie" meaning "category" the R was from the German “rang” meaning “rank” and so probably has more meaning to it than currently implied.

[mystxmomo]

hi hiii

so. what if. iiii. enabled u to be autistic on the internet again :3c

i wanna hear your thoughts on eilistraee and vhaerauns relationship! the nitty gritty, the dynamics, how they think of each other vs how they act, and how thats changed over time+how its reflected in their church

im ADORING all your posts on it if i could id print them out and eat them 🫶

Okay. So this is officially the third part of my "I need to go crazy on some character analysis" Saga. My analysis on Vhaeraun is Here, and my analysis on Eilistraee is Here. I recommend, if you're stumbling across this post in the wild as tumblr tends to do, reading those two first so that you have an idea of how I see these two characters and where the basis of my argument for their characterization comes from. If I need to reference something from either post, I'll quote it here. But y'know. Need be said.

Okay so.

I believe this post is going to the most subjective of mine. I am going to try and pull up canon screenshots from War of the Spider Queen, The Lady Penitent, and Evermeet, but unlike how you kind of get told directly how the drow gods behave and hold themselves and a lot of things end up getting built on them, I would argue so many hands have touched DnD and so many interpretations of their relationship have sprung up over the books that it's hard to give a truly simplified "This is how they see one another."

Water is wet statement, relationships are complicated.

Anyway. Given what my thesis is, I am going to be talking a fair bit about abusive family dynamics in this one as well. My goal for this (and any character relationship I do, really) if to try and keep it very fair. I think a of people make the mistake when talking about Eilistraee and Vhaeraun's relationship of picking a side. Like this idea of one of them being right and one of them being wrong and needing to "Fix" the other. And I don't think that's true at all. I think to be able to understand why they feel the way they do about one another and why their relationship is the way it is, you need to respect both of their characters individually.

(Granted, I think this should be true of any relationship you're writing for in fiction. If I can preach for a second, I think even if you don't like a character, you have to be able to respect the character to properly portray them.)

Final note before I get into this. Everyone thank @abracadav-r again for being on screenshot duty. The posts wouldn't get done nearly as fast without them, they know exactly where to find these little moments.

So. That all said. Lets get into it.

I've made a smaller joke post about what I think their dynamic is like before here. But now that you're giving me the opportunity to do so, I will go indepth about it. Yes.

I'm kinda of the opinion that Eilistraee is more incorrect about Vhaeraun than Vhaeraun is incorrect about Eilistraee (But also that this is the result of DND Canon not being entirely fair to Vhaeraun.)

Let's get the discussion about my thesis about the Elven Pantheon being an analogy for an Abusive family on a divine scale out of the way first, because it's something I've mentioned a few time's, but only every really shorthanded. And I think here, in the discussion about relations, is a GREAT place to start and actually explore that.

Now. I should probably start by saying, I don't think this was intended by DnD. Like, I think when they were originally making this lore, it was the intention to just make a justifiable evil worth killing. DND came out of a time of the romantic fantasy, the very Tolkien and Fairytale esc ideas of good and evil and have this classic hero's journey power fantasy ideal to it. Other people have gone into depth about that origin with far better sourcing and dissection than I can ever hope to, but basically: DnD is absolutely (as all art is) a product of it's time and of the community it stemmed from.

However, I personally think those themes and ideas are a little outdated, and a modern audience (myself being the modern audience) tends to be more enthralled by very nuanced interpretations of good and evil, and find indepth character driven narratives more engaging. And I think that for what this mythos has become over the course of it's 60+ years of evolution, you can reinterpret the narrative to be a fascinating depiction of a mythos that echo's the abusive family structure.

Copying and Pasting from my Eilistraee Essay:

It is of my opinion that, when you look at the Eilistrae-Vhaeraun Dynamic and how they were treated by Lolth and Corellon, you're looking at a classic Golden Child/Scrape Goat dynamic. This is important to mention here because I do think that's important context within how Eilistraee (the person) see's and understands the world, and where her mind is at when it comes to the perception of her sense of self. To VASTLY oversimplify about how emotionally abusive family structures work by a lot, when you look at emotionally abusive families with siblings, you tend to find a pattern where one child ends up getting the bulk of the favoritism and affection (The golden child), while the other takes the bulk of the abuse and tends to take a of blame and is seen as being deserving of the abuse (The scrapegoat.) I'll get a little bit more into the specifics of what that means for their relationship in a later post.[*] Now. Calling her the Golden Child, but I don't think being the Golden Child is strictly a good thing. In a lot of ways, I think a lot of golden children end up very emotionally stilted, and I think you kind of see that in Eilistraee. She HAS to be the perfect one. And she's had this expectation to be The Good One placed on her shoulders since she was young. Golden Children are often blinded to the abuse their siblings face because they themselves are not subjected to the same kind of abuse.

[*] And well. It's that later post!

In emotionally abusive families, siblings tend to be pitted against eachother, either unintentionally as a result of the Golden Child being the subject of a parents time, attention, resources, and affection, or as a purposeful attempt on the part of a parent to put divides in a family. In the real life world, it is more often the first. I think a lot of people think Abusers are more like Lolth where there's an intentional "I looked at you and from the day you were born decided to make your life hell."

But I would argue the tricky thing about abusive family structures (Especially with parent-child situations), is that more often then not, the abusers love the idea of the person they're abusing. To them, what they're doing is love. It is very rare that an abuser is this knowing evil schemer that actively sits and thinks to themself that "That's my least favorite child, they don't deserve my attention."

(Though, as a small side tangent not immediately related to the fictional character, you might see this logic manifest more in the way finances are weaponized in abuse, especially see in America where college is more expensive and therefore often used as a control tactic. IE; My wonderful son wants to go into STEM, why would I waste money by giving it to my son who wants to do art college. Because people get comically evil about money.)

Instead, emotional abuse is often more insidious. It's... I'm going to put the blame on everything that goes wrong on my son (Who I left in the hands of his physically abusive mother to have his arm constantly bent behind his back by her) I can't bring myself to believe that my daughter would ever want to scheme against me. YOU could have been good once, but you're evil because you're not happy, you're too moody, you're too violent. I'm not even going to give you the chance or the environment to grow, because it's just in your nature to be evil, and because you are evil because you were born evil that all that goes wrong is your fault.

You know. That kind of logic.

So. Eilistraee was Corellon's Golden Child. She was the free spirited happy one. She was the one that loved to hunt and dance. She was the good one.

(But often, when a scrape goat leaves the family, the golden child becomes the new target.

Y'know. Like..

Corellon gave up on the idea of trying to turn his son Vhaeraun to abandon his ways. He vowed to kill Vhaeraun if he ever tried to hurt his sister. Nevertheless, the Masked Lord did threaten the Dark Maiden's life, without known action against him on Corellon's part.

Corellon's servant Solars claimed that, with this act, Eilistraee had exhausted her purpose, because the willing had been saved, and the unwilling cast down as a necessary sacrifice.

The in-story context for this being honestly worse and kind of containing bad racial implications:

“Her soul was destroyed,” Felarathael said solemnly. “But before she died, she saved many. She cleansed the taint from hundreds of drow who might otherwise have been condemned.” “But the rest!” Lashrael wailed. “Thousands! Hundreds of thousands! No hope of redemption for them, with Eilistraee gone. Condemned to darkness and despair, forevermore!” “Another necessary sacrifice,” Felarathael said without a trace of emotion. “Else the game would have been lost.”

This, to me, is the framework of Vhaeraun and Eilistraee's relationship.

Likewise, the Masked Lord nurtures an abiding hatred of Eilistraee. The Dark Maiden always held Corellon's favor more than her hateful brother, and she thwarted Vhaeraun's early efforts to bring all the Ilythiiri (southern, dark-skinned elves) under his sway, enabling Lolth and Ghaunadaur to make great inroads among those who would become the drow.

I'm under the impression that Eilistraee doesn't know Vhaeraun. She has this idea of who he is in her head seemingly both based on the what their father thought of him, and as a result of being an outsider looking at the things he did at the hand of his mother. (And again, let's be clear and establish in this post. That wasn't WHOLLY Lolth. Vhaeraun did play his part. But I don't think Eilistraee see's that, I think she strictly see's an eager climb for power) And then she makes a lot of assumptions about his motivations based on the idea of him she's made in her head that reaffirm that idea.

On the other hand, I think Vhaeraun understands exactly the kind of person his sister is, because it's really not that hard to understand who Eilistraee is. She really does just mean well. While I consider her to be a lot more guarded and lonely then people tend to give her credit for, I don't think she's being insincere with her wants and wishes and you don't have to doubt what her intentions are. Instead, the ways that I think Vhaeraun is often wrong about how well she can handle herself and how strong her allies are by 4e, and what that could mean for drow as a whole. Because he's so willing to discredit her as a threat, he doesn't pay attention to her, and because he doesn't pay attention to her I don't think he realized she'd gotten friendly to people like... Mysta the goddess of magic.

And being realistic, even if he had known, I don't think he understands the weight of her being friendly TO people like Mystra because he himself only ever makes allies, not friends amongst gods.

Now. The reason I capped that whole screenshot above is actually because it contains a very interesting bit of framework that I think proves this. Even back in the 2e source books, the phrasing of these things matters. If it was a matter of Vhaeraun thinking that something was the case, they would have mentioned it. However, the specific way that it's set up in that passage is: "It's not that Vhaeraun thinks Eilistraee's involvement in circumventing his climb to power allowed Lolth and Ghaunadaur to gain power. Her involvement DID allow Lolth and Ghaunadaur to gain power."

And I don't think she's aware of that. But Vhaeraun is.

To further this, we're to copy/paste a passage from Sacrifice of the Widow. Now. This is from the perspective of a Vhaeraun worshiper, and it holds as much bias as Eilistraee's priestesses have towards him. But. Because it correlates with metatextual information we have from all the way back in 1998, I'm inclined to say it's not a full dishonesty, just a biased truth.

The dance might have been beautiful, had it not been a violation of the sacred order. Had Eilistraee not interfered, Vhaeraun might have united all of the darkelves under a single deity millennia ago, but Eilistraee had proved as greedy as Lolth and had stolen the females away from the Masked Lord’s worship. She’d taught them to exclude males from her circle, to subjugate and revile them instead. Vhaeraun’s followers had learned a bitter lesson. Females could not be trusted.

Compare this to how Eilistraee speaks of Vhaeraun's influence in Evermeet: Island of the Elves.

Like... Eilistaee. There are bigger threats out there than your brother But. She's so blinded by her history with him that she can only ever see her brothers influence is a bloodstain on the land.

As I mentioned in my other post, I think Eilistraee is a biased narrator in this scene. I don't think Vhaeraun wants his sister to die for the crime of existing. I think his feelings on his sister are way more complicated than his feelings on either of his parents. And we know when Vhaeraun explicitly wants someone dead, because the text would have told us that.

...

So, to understand Vhaeraun and Eilistraee's relationship, I do think we need to talk about The Masked Lady.

Given how much of DnD is oral tradition and people building on concepts that the games give to us, I think people feel more comfortable engaging with some of these things through the wiki and building off of the idea of the ideas they get from the wiki without searching out the original source. And to be clear, this isn't like, judgement for doing that. Nevermind that the IP is older than I am twice over, that a lot of old blog posts are only acceptable through niche internet archive links, and that a lot the source books are neither applicable to 5e or still within print. I'M personally guilty of doing it all of the time.

Instead, the point I'm making is because of how the realms is set up and how people engage with DND, not a lot of people know when plot point comes from a source book, a blog post, a prose book, an official magazine, when something was fan-submitted and made canon, or Ed Greens personal twitter/discord. They all kind of merge together to create a collective canon. I think, as a result, a lot of people end up engaging with these concepts with the same amount of abstraction. But the thing about The Masked Lady is that they're like. A book character. This isn't just a concept that was placed out into world abstractly, they're a fully fleshed out character within The Lady Penitent.

This is important to us and our purposes of engaging with these characters on a more transformative level rather than at a dnd table. Being a character, we can look at how they behave and what the actual intent of their portrayal was. And I want to show you a few things, because I have an argument I would like to make given that portrayal.

==

A voice called to them: a voice that was neither male nor female, but both. A moment later, it became a pool of utter silence. Then song, then silence. Opposites, twined together, yet somehow harmonious. Side by side, the awarenesses that were Kâras and Valdar drifted to the place where the song-silence was coming from. It caught them like leaves and swirled them up toward itself. They drifted in front of an enormous face. Moonlight bathed the face’s upper half in shining radiance; the lower half was shadowed in utter blackness. A glint of blue danced across eyes the color of moonstones. Masked Lord, Kâras asked. Is it you? A feminine laugh rustled the mask. Masked … Lady? he ventured. The chuckle deepened, became male. Hands moved to the blackness that was the deity’s mask. Fingers gripped its edges. Kâras tensed, and felt the eager anticipation of the awareness that was Valdar. The mask lifted. Kâras wept. So did Valdar—and as he did, Kâras saw into the other Nightshadow’s heart. The emotions that had prompted their tears were as different as moonlight from shadow.

==

“Masked Lord,” Kâras prayed. “Is it your will the breach be opened? Have you—” He hesitated, then forced himself to say it. “Have you allied yourself with the Ancient One?” This time, the god answered. Not in words, but in the distant peal of a hunting horn. That alone wouldn’t have convinced Kâras; it might have been one of the priestesses, signaling the others. But as the horn sounded, a rectangle of darkness with two eyeholes appeared in the air a short distance away, within the tunnel leading to the ruined temple. The bottom of this “mask” fluttered, as if the mouth behind it were lending its breath to the hunting horn’s peal. Dots of angry red blazed where the eyes would have been. That decided it. Kâras wouldn’t run. He’d fight.

==

===

My argument about The Masked Lady is this: Despite taking a lot of Eilistraee's visage and Churches Iconograpy, When you look at how The Masked Lady behaves in practice I would argue that this isn't actually strictly Eilistraee. The Masked Lady feels like a new character that is both Vhaeraun and Eilistraee..... but also Neither Vhaeraun and Eilistraee. In that strictly esoteric kind of way, by merging their aspects together they've created a new god made of their parts.

And on one hand, you can read some of this as Eilistraee Masquerading as her brother to try and get his church to work with hers, but on an authorial level? I don't know if that was the intent. For one, I don't actually think Eilistraee is good at being manipulative, she's too well intentioned. She'd have fallen apart under the weight of that lie.

Granted, I do think with both of them being in there Eilistraee is more "in control." Vhaeraun is absolutely ""Dead"" in at least some ways. The piece he puts down representing himself is destroyed in the Sava game, Eilistraee ends up with his mask, and Lolth is able to show off his corpse in the astral plane.

But even all of that aside, I'm tapping in both Ed Greenwood's thoughts for this and something from Faiths & Avatars.

(I'm going to copy this summary from the FR wiki page on dead powers because, as always, it's quite good at summarization. But as always, I've double checked Faiths & Avatars to be sure)

Sometimes, the memory and personality of a deity was separated from their power and true form at the moment of their death, typically by the interaction of the magical turbulence of their death with the magic of a powerful relic or artifact into the same area. In such cases, the deity remained awake but imprisoned, in a sense, though vastly uncomfortable with their much-reduced state.

As such, I think during The Masked Lady era, three things were true simultaneously.

There was a part of Vhaeraun that was dead. That's the part of him on the astral plane. And even that part of him seemed to hold mild consciousness. But I also think a part of him was trapped by Mystra in a dream, and another part of him existed simultaneously within his sister creating a new entity as The Masked Lady, in the same way that Eilistraee seemed to both exist as herself AND The Masked Lady separate from herself as she's playing the Sava game. Because these are gods. Their existence does not exist in singularity.

But. Why does this matter to Vhaeraun and Eilistraee's relationship. Why do I think this is an important talking point for them.

Because I think the fact that they exist together implies a level of respect and understanding towards one another. This is not how this would have happened if they truly hated one another. What happened with Vhaeraun and Eilistraee seems closer to what happened with Zandilar the Dancer and Bast (Absorbed and became Sharess) or (Sehanine Moonbow, Aerdrie Faenya, and Hanali Celanil) > (Came together to become Angharradh and notedly, can separate to spent time apart as times have changed.)

This feels like. Notedly different, compared to what happened with (for example) Ulutiu and Auril, where he got entirely subsumed by her.

For a moment, they were one god. And they could have only synergized as one if they understood eachothers intentions well enough to agree to be one.

==

It's worth noting before I get into this section. Both the idea that Vhaeraun didn't actually die and was put in ⋆ ˚｡⋆⊹❇Mystra's Dream Prison <3 ❇⊹⋆ ˚｡⋆ and that upon returning to life he started working with Eilistraee are not actually ""canon"" to 5e. They are, like many things, Ed Green-ism's that a lot of people (myself included, because I do actually think he's an incredibly creative person with good character building ideas) take as canon. Despite taking it as canon, I think it's worth mentioning that there is no official source material to pull from for these ideas, because unlike the masked lady, these two ideas exist as concepts to be built off of rather than media to be examined.

We can only logic and reason what happened between them and how it's changed their relationship using everything else we have.

Posted from the FR wiki:

"The Grand History of the Realms explicitly says that Vhaeraun's assassination attempt failed and Eilistraee killed him. However, Ed Greenwood suggests that Eilistraee didn't actually kill her brother. The Dark Maiden defeated Vhaeraun with the indirect help of her ally Mystra, as the Weave frustrated the Masked Lord's magic while enhancing Eilistraee's. The goddess temporarily took her brother's portfolio, and trapped his sentience in the Weave, where it was enfolded in a dream by Mystra. The Lady of Mysteries did this to ensure that the two drow siblings would survive the cataclysm that she knew was coming—the Spellplague—in which she would be "killed" to renew the Weave and magic would go wild. After Mystra and the Weave were completely restored in 1487 DR, the goddess of magic could finally give Eilistraee her own lost power and do the same with Vhaeraun, after having awakened him from his dream."

It was one of Ed Greenwood's ideas to have the two deities reach a reciprocal understanding, and to make the personal enmity between them was no more. More to read here

So here's my take on this situation.

I think a lot of people like to paint the "Mystra and Eilistraee put Vhaeraun in Dream Prison" Situation in a very limited light. In the same way Eilistraee tends to get romanticized as a wholly good and Vhaeraun demonized as a firm evil, it tends to get boiled down to the idea that Mystra and Eilistraee managed to convince him to be "Less Evil."

But, I don't know. To accept the Mystra/Eilistraee tag team as something wholly good, you have to also accept the sentiment of Vhaeraun as someone who is evil and needed "fixed," and I don't think that's ever been the case. As I think my multitude of arguments have implied, I have never been under the impression he's an actual evil.

As such, it's always felt little bitter-sweet to me. I think it's more impactful if they just managed to rub off on eachother due to their time spent together as one. I think it was especially a turning point for Eilistraee, given how many changes came to the structure of her church as a result of that merger. She understands why he uses the tactics he does, she understands that what he's doing is coming from a place of (what I would argue) is sincere love for the drow as a whole, and I think she got a little bit more of a nuanced understanding of the uhh Sexism. I also like to think she understood his experiences more, and that his love doesn't come through the same lens as hers.

Likewise, I think Vhaeraun came out of that understanding that he was stretching himself thin. I think that he learned that he NEEDS to be able to rely on others, he NEEDS to start trusting the outside world more. While he's more accepting of drow as they are now, I think his goal has always been to put them back in power to the extent that they were when he had worship from the Ilythiiri. But, thats not the world they live in anymore. Even if he did pull all the drow from the underdark, they could not and would not manage to be that. I think he comes out of The Masked Lady era understanding that to get the drow away from his mother and to coexist is stability in itself. They don't need to rule to be powerful, they just need to coexist.

You know. It's choosing to forgive. We can't change what we were, but we can start this relationship over and grow something new from it. And sometimes, that might be enough.

....

And ALSO I think they had to start getting along, because it really didn't take their churches THAT long to start meshing together when they fused as the masked lady.

At the word “died,” the priestess glanced down at the male. The cleric didn’t look good; his eyes had fully rolled back in his head and his skin was turning gray. Halisstra reached out and lifted the priestess’s chin, forcing her to look away. “It’s only a weak venom,” she lied. “You have plenty of time to heal him. Plenty of time, still.” “Yes,” the priestess repeated softly. “Plenty of time.” Her eyes reminded Halisstra of another priestess who’d succumbed to Halisstra’s bae’qeshel magic, years ago. Seyll had stared just as trustingly into Halisstra’s eyes a heartbeat before Halisstra plunged a sword into her. And yet Seyll had told Halisstra, as she lay dying, that no one was beyond redemption—not even Halisstra. She’d been wrong. This priestess had a wide mouth and creases at the sides of her eyes that could only have come from frequent laughter. The frown of confusion looked out of place on her forehead. The slight bulge of her stomach hinted she might be carrying a child. Halisstra hated her.

Come on guys, The Masked Lady hadn't even existed for half a decade and there was already pregnancies. We don't know what their churches are like 100+ years out. But, for as much as Ed emphasizes the infighting of the churches (And I have no doubt in my heart there ARE factions who refuse to mesh, that's canon to the text) we are inevitably met with 1-2 generations where the combined churches are all that they knew. Vhaeraun and Eilistraee had to work together, because I think as much as they're their own people with thoughts and opinions and experiences, they are also a reflection of their worshipers.

==

I think, to summarize what I think Vhaeraun and Eilistraee's relationship is like in a few paragraphs

With the way their relationships are described, I think Eilistraee was the golden child and Vhaeraun was the scrapegoat in the earlier parts of their childhood. They become reflections of the parent that favors them, because those were the parents that acted as their main influence. Eilistraee saw Vhaeraun as a reflection of her mothers evil, and Vhaeraun saw Eilistraee as undeserving of the favoritism their father gave her.

This view of eachother was cemented when she followed him to Toril. She saw him and his power as an evil and bloodstain, unhelped when he exiled her (probably out of spite and due to the grudge he had as a result of the earlier years). As such, she worked to undermine the influence he had. And when that allowed their mother and Ghaunadaur to take hold, it was the same kind of evil to her.

Her enabling them to take that power worsened the grudge Vhaeraun had of her, because he knows he isn't the same kind of evil as Lolth or Ghaunadaur, and them having that power worsened things for everyone.

This grudge between them kept itself in the legacy of their churches, all the way until The Masked Lady Era. The Masked Lady era was one where they actually managed to come together for a similar goal. It was the first time they were truly about to understand eachothers motivations, experiences, and perspectives, and the first time that divide between them and their communities truly lessened.

And when they finally came out...? I mean. That's going to change anyone. I think not only their relationship changed, but they sort of managed to change eachother a little.

I don't know. I think their relationship is complicated and messy and such a product of their parents influence on them. There is no forgiving Lolth, and there really shouldn't be forgiving Corellon (though, dnd might disagree with me on that.) But I think theirs one that could eventually heal. Out of all of the relationships in the Dark Seladrine, theirs feels the closest to being one that can be refounded on equal ground and with respect towards one another, especially as drow return to the surface and find more acceptance (even outside of their communities.) Because they are to me, two sides of the same coin.

[visenyaism]

my great bastard oc is rhea royce, and just like her namesake, she lives to make daemon miserable

her mother is jyana manderly, widow to lord royce, who comes to King's Landing to deal with a tax issue. she leaves with the issue solved, and nine months later has a daughter, rhea royce, who she claims as her husband's, despite him being dead. everyone knows it's a lie and accepts it anyway.

Jyana's adult sons are both married. her younger son Hugh already has a daughter named Rhea Royce. Jyana ignores this and does what she wants, a trait she passes onto her daughter. her reasoning? this child is the daughter of Aegon Targaryen, fourth of his name, and she thinks it'll be really funny if a Targaryen is named Rhea after all that happened with the Rogue Prince and his Royce wife. also, Hugh was rude about her pregnancy and she thinks he deserves it.

Jyana mainly abandons her daughter to the care of her eldest son, Brandon, while she goes to stay with her mother. Jyana's mother, Tayara Reed, went back to Greywater Watch after her husband died. Brandon raises Rhea along with his children. Hugh does not like this but nobody cares, not even his wife, who finds Rhea weird but interesting. Rhea is also vaguely prophetic sometimes.

seven years later, there is another issue that requires the Royces to go to court. this time, Jyana and Rhea go. Rhea winds up having a prophetic episode in front of court, which is proven true the next day. Aegon IV recognizes Rhea's facial features as Targaryen, pays someone else to do the math, and declares Rhea as his bastard daughter.

Rhea makes several other prophetic statements while at court, and Aegon requests her services as a cupbearer. he and the Royces work out a timeshare agreement between the Red Keep and Runestone. Rhea's job is to sit next to Aegon and give him advice. No one is pleased to see the king making policy decisions based on the hallucinations of an eight year old, but such is life in this court. on her advice, Aegon overhauls half of his small council, does not start multiple wars, and starts several ludicrous fashion trends. Rhea also convinces Aegon to marry off Daemon.

about one in ten of Rhea's prophecies are genuine, and those are mainly used to annoy Bloodraven. the rest are split between her furthering her extended family's interests, personal gain, or something that's really amusing. mostly things work out, and Aegon is impressed enough to let her continue.

Shiera Seastar thinks that she's funny up until Aegon dies. Bloodraven and Rhea are mortal enemies, and she keeps making unsettling statements about his future that he doesn't like. Daeron thinks she's weird and hates her influence on his dad. Daenerys likes Rhea because all of Rhea's predictions about her are positive, Rhea's predictions about their creepy half-brother Daemon are negative, and Rhea will do complicated braids in Daenerys' hair. Daemon wants Rhea as a counter to Bloodraven's spy network and is unaware of how much she enjoys hating him. Aegor also thinks she's weird.

eventually, Rhea disappears, only to resurface at Aegon IV's funeral, tell Daemon that he'd succeed at taking the throne if he tried, calls Shiera a Hightower, and dips again. she's actually been a frequent guest at Greywater Watch and Runestone for a while, but nobody's telling the Targaryens that. Bloodraven knows, but every time he tries to tell someone, he gets a letter in the mail that has uncanny information about his personal life and decides to stay out of it.

Eventually, one of Daemon's allies finds Rhea in Essos, and asks for her help in the war, the war that she started. Rhea says no. her family side with Daeron but offer minimal support, all except Hugh. Hugh goes 100% in the war. Hugh attempts to personally duel Aegor but dies before he can get anywhere close. Meanwhile, Rhea is chilling. She has two kids with her husband and neither are blond. She goes on vacation to a nice beach while her half-siblings are fighting. She gets rich off of the stock market, and is totally not relying on prophecy to do it. She sends ravens to both sides of the war, implying that she is working for their enemy. Both believe her and both are wrong. After the war, she frequently shows up and terrorizes her family before leaving on vacation again.

after Rhea's death in a twenty-carriage-pileup in the middle of a riot that she started, Bloodraven gets frequent letters giving the date, his location, and the next five sentences people will say to him. The last one he recieves informs him in great detail of exactly how the rest of his life will be spent and how uncomfortable he'll be, right before he goes across the wall.

I am in love with this entire concept like delusional advisor with a spire name making up prophecies to start shit for her own entertainment. Aegon has to know this. It’s so beautiful. Also “bastardy timeline accountant” being an official court position is fucking sending me. Aegon would.

[rouge-fauna]

I’m sorry I swear I was planning on moving on but then I had a conversation with my friend last night and now I’m triggered again… I don’t mind if people disagree but damn it was really frustrating, for a few reasons, one of them being that even if I’m biased I still think I’m a better source of information and opinion after having watched 12 hours of streams versus some reaction channel videos. Like sure I like Dream and relate to both c and ccDream but I’m not heartless or unreasonable. I’m not saying, ‘oh my poor autistic dweam can do no wrong.’ I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m here for the facts and truth and what it says and what is reasonable based on that. I’ve dropped plenty of other YouTubers for doing messed up things, and Dream would be no different if he actually did cross a serious line. But honestly I don’t think he’s really done worse than plenty of other creators and at least he has apologized which is more than you can say for most others. So by all mean hate him for whatever reason, there are plenty of YouTubers I dislike, but don’t do so because you think he’s a creep or because of things that just aren’t true, and give me a little more credit that I’d not just support anyone or use autism to justify anything.

The reason I’ve talked a lot about the autism and ADHD is because I feel like it is very important. But my friend (who is also autistic), last night was giving me a lot of shit for it, noting how autism doesn’t excuse behavior and is beside the point. The thing is though, this situation is not like how people are saying Elon doing the salute is an autistic oopsie, no I’m literally just pointing out actual statements and points the content creators have said about why they dislike Dream, which are literally characteristics of his neurodivergence. Look no further for an example than what Jack says in the podcast, “I genuinely think he lacks the ability to read social queues.” That’s literally just autism 101, I’m not making excuses for behavior, I’m just pointing out the why a behavior is happening to say it’s not because he’s some evil bad manipulative guy. Tubbo is the one who noted that Dream’s behavior was weird and inappropriate and how he didn’t seem to understand the social rules and stuff. Those are actually things that have been talked about here. People have actually commented on how Dream’s over explanation and stuttering and repeating himself and such is manipulative and all I’m saying is no it’s literally just AuDHD. I’m not making stretches for behavior here, I’m not extrapolating here on what Dream did, if anything I’m focused more on the actual comments of the opposing side.

Autism isn’t relevant to the situation because of the meme. It’s no longer about whether or not he is allowed to use the r word because he is autistic, it’s about this inherent loathing people have where a lot of their listed reasons are typical ADHD and autism characteristics. All I’m doing is looking at what they themselves said, I don’t even have to theorize, Jack straight up just said he thinks Dream lacks social queues as part of his discussion on why he dislikes Dream. What do you mean his neurodivergence isn’t relevant, when the reasons people are currently bashing him are neurodivergent traits. That’s like saying, well her blue hair is irrelevant to the conversation - well then why do you hate her? - because I don’t like how she always dyes her hair. Heh? It is relevant because the things they hate him for connect directly to autism and ADHD, it is relevant because the internet is making fun of him after that stream with Tubbo for how he speaks because of his neurodivergence. It’s relevant because the reason people believe these rumors or spread rumors in the first place is because of the inherent dislike of autistic people they are literally describing on air.

[rutadales]

So instead of sending an ask clearing up misinformation on these tags bc that would be pointless and serve to only make people upset, instead I am going to illustrate to all of you how short, quippy, and wrong statements completely control the conversation. Any attempt to clear up misinfo is going to take twice as long and be a lot less clipable (tbc this person isn't doing this intentionally doing this (at least to my knowledge) but it goes to show how pervasive these quick and wrong statements are). Watch:

"dream gave gumball's va alcohol" completely wrong, dream and gumball here both went to a birthday party of a mutual friend and met 20 minutes prior to the interaction in the Uber. There's nothing to show that Dream even brought alcohol to the event, let alone saught out a 20 year old to give it to him.

"VA is underage" technically correct in the specific context of America's legal drinking age, but so misleading it feels intentional. For most people underage means below 18, a minor, and not a 20 year old adult making the decsion to drink a year before it's legal. Any reasonable person is going to assume 17 or younger here.

"VA had a bipolar swing" There's nothing to suggest this besides people decided it. You can't diagnose a manic episode from a 4 minute clip and the majority of you are not capable of diagnosing anytime at all. No one has confirmed this, not even gold statue Michaelangelo (who by the way has deleted every tweet involving the situation). But even in the scenario where he is manic in those clips, being manic is not a free pass to verbal harass minimum wage workers and be freely antisemitic, ablest, and homophobic. But I digress.

"and called Dream a faggot" yeah that parts true

Even more additional context that is relevant is Dream was physically assaulted by Gumball's VA. Gumball's VA directly asked if Dream was Jewish after saying Dream would never get rid of his money, called the Uber driver the r slur and said the Uber driver had down syndrome. He then threatened to kill or paralyze Dream.

See how long that took? Almost 400 words to counter 4 lines. And I'm giving the original commentor the benefit of the doubt here and assuming they're just repeating what they heard but you see how that's dangerous? You see how this method of controlling interactions keeps the flow on the side of the person who is factually wrong?

And I didn't even get into how this is a tactic of the alt right, how it serves to normalize using faggot as a weapon, how it actively desensitizes people to bigotry if the person on the receiving end "deserves it". Or how harmful instantly trying to make the assaulter in this situation the victim, or using mental illness as an excuse to assault and threaten to kill people is also bad! Because even though that is all true and absolutely necessary in this conversation, I can't get into it! Because it would take even longer and "I ain't reading all that" is the most annoying, damaging phrase on twitter right now.

[liseytopia]

───★

summary: you're terrified of snakes. your girlfriend, lucy gray, is not. in fact, she loves them.. and tries to make you love them too.

pairing: lucy gray baird x fem!reader

contents: fluff, scared r and comforting lucy gray!!

warnings: fear of snakes

an: THIS ONE IS FOR YOU @littleacrxbat !! MERRY CHRISTMAS

wc: 0.6k

───★

𝐬𝐧𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬.

- 𝘭𝘶𝘤𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘥

oh, how lucy gray loved snakes. she thought they were beautiful little things, adorable and harmless pieces of nature. you tried to have the same mindset about them as her, but.. well, you couldn't. to you, snakes were treacherous and definitely harmful. lucy gray tried to warm you up to them, tried to show you their true beauty, but you could never pull yourself to hold one or even be comfortable around one.

you were with the covey, out by the lake and playing around. swimming and splashing, this was one of your favorite things to do in district twelve. you ran out to the dock and did a flip off the edge, making a huge splash and covering everyone with water. you and lucy gray laughed and she pulled you through the water to be close to her, kissing your lips with a smile still on hers. "we'll be right back!" she yelled to the rest of the covey, taking your hand and pulling you out of the water with her when she saw you looked a little tired.

the both of you found a spot on the beach, right in front of the forest. you sat down next to lucy gray and rested your head on her shoulder, closing your eyes. she hummed a little song for you, making you smile, and continued to stroke your hair with her soft and delicate fingers. the sun shone down perfectly on the two of you, its rays warming you from the outside.

you would have fallen asleep right then and there, if it weren't for when lucy gray stopped stroking your hair and turned around. she giggled. "aww, look at you, little thing? c'mere." you opened your eyes slowly to see your girlfriend holding a snake wrapped between her fingers and spiraling around her wrist. suddenly you weren't so tired anymore. you jolted backwards and your eyes widened. lucy gray's smile dropped and she tilted her head to the side. "hey, darling, it's okay. it's just a little snake," she tried to affirm you. your voice was shaky but you still spoke, "you know how i don't like snakes.." she scooted a little closer to you. "oh, please. it won't hurt you, sweet girl. just take it easy." you swallowed hard, looking away as to think for a moment. "i.. don't know. just don't get it near me, okay?" you pleaded. she neglected your statement, saying "will you at least touch it? you don't need to worry about anything, love. it's not dangerous."

you sighed and squeezed your eyes shut, reaching your hand out to touch it. you felt lucy gray's hand guide your own to the scaled creature and winced at the feeling of it at your fingertips. suddenly you weren't so sure about this. "i-- i don't wanna do this anymore. you have fun with the snake," you said. lucy gray pouted at you and brought the snake to her other arm, the one facing away from you, for your comfort. she leaned in and kissed you on the cheek. "maybe another time," she whispered, "you're brave, i know it."

you decided you would hold a snake if it were for lucy gray. you decided that you would probably do anything if it was for her. "i'll do it tomorrow. promise," you told her, looking at her with those eyes that said you really meant it. "no rush, beautiful. i love you either way," she told you in a genuine voice, letting the snake slither back into the forest and taking her arm to wrap around you and pull you into her. you rested your head on her shoulder and she kissed the top of your head. you whispered "love you too," before falling asleep on her, taking a nap.

───★

© liseytopia 2023 : do not copy, translate, or steal my work.

[tenthgrove]

Reverse Engineering the OIAR Tagging System

I'm not the first to theorise that the tagging system is important - this post is inspired by the person who noticed that Needles and Bonzo share both a CAT and an R tag.

This is an incomplete attempt to decode the entire system for theorising purposes. Unfortunately, I was not able to figure it out as thoroughly as I hoped but I'm sharing it here in hope others can make observations. Here is the table:

For those who want a better look, or cannot see the image due to screen-reader use, here is a google document with the same table: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wc4COCMHdwKz6N-KawvMOs4Y3k3W6Kq-NDhZ7brcRLg/edit?usp=sharing

So, my observations thus far:

CAT (probably short for categories)

There are four categories so far- 1, 2, 3 and 23.

Needles, both Bonzo statements and the very first statement are the only CAT 1s so far.

Needles and Bonzo are likely to be major recurring characters, so this could suggest the creature in the first statement (which to me gives distortion vibes) may also be.

Alternatively, CAT could suggest danger. Needles and Bonzo are serial killers, while the CAT 3 statements tend to refer to very old or contained objects, so perhaps these are less dangerous? The only gap in this theory is InkSoul being CAT 3, which makes little sense given their livestreaming. Unless... could InkSoul be dead?

Generally, but not absolutely, newer statements tend to be closer to CAT 1, and older statements closer to CAT 3. Bonzo and Needles both referred to statements taken days before the episode dropped. Again, this isn't an absolute rule and the first statement is again the odd one out.

What I absolutely cannot figure out is CAT 23. I thought it was a typo until I encountered it again for Ep 11. It clearly means something special. Unlike for the R system, I don't think it means between categories 2 and 3, because the statements we get are both quite important. We'll probably have to wait for more episodes to figure this one out.

R (probably short for rank)

This is the one I'm more sure about. I believe it indicates 'grades' of some measure, like school grades. A is best, B is after that, and so on.

I think AB and BC are borderline grades.

Ep 3 and 4 (plant boy and violin man) do not have an R tag. My working theory is that this indicates the statements are below a grade C.

So what does R actually grade? Again, it could be importance (assuming that isn't what CAT means), or usefulness to the institute, but then why is our known external Mr Bonzo only a B?

So far we have no rank As and only one rank AB - the Red Canary statement.

If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that the first rank A statement is going to be very big indeed.

Conclusion

I believe category and rank indicates any two out of the following: importance, danger, level of OIAR control, level of usefulness to OIAR, certainty of being true, amount of evidence. Ultimately, we need more statements to be sure.

For whatever two measures these systems represent, I am fairly certain that a category closer to one and a rank closer to A represents a better grade on that measure, with the exception of CAT 23 which I think is its own thing. The ultimate purpose of this post is to encourage people to pay attention to these tags more as I am certain they contain clues, and if anyone smarter than me can spot them as more episodes come out, then great.

PS: As I was just about to post this I had a sudden idea as to what CAT 23 *might* be. It could be dimensional cracks. This is clearly what's going on in the magnus institute (with the dice statement being exempt because it was taken before the institute burnt down) and it's possible the graveyard in Ep 11 also serves this function. This is pure speculation however.

[dykedvonte]

I find the line "I have to believe our worst moments don't make us monsters." Fascinating because it comes from Anya, and I feel she really proves it the best.

For obvious reasons most people are in the "Anya did nothing wrong" camp and for good reason but there is a single action that I don't think she did well and it was her suicide. Specifically her method.

Realizing that Anya took Curly's painkillers was horrifying to me. As a Nurse I have no doubt that she'd know how terrible dying from overdose is. She had access to a gun which is well known for having a far more instant and far less painful death. And despite everything falling apart around her, knowing how bad Jimmy was, she still left Curly alive.

I don't think I thought about it much like that at first but the longer this game has sat with me the more horrified I am by the action. Curly is man who has been horribly disabled and is completely unable to help himself and he is very much a human being who does not deserve to be anywhere close to that amount of pain. Those painkillers were one that the few things that could give him any amount of relief and Anya took them.

She could have shot herself and left the painkillers for whoever was left to help Curly. She could've shot Curly and then taken the painkillers. She could've shot them both and quickly put an end to their misery, yet she didn't. Anya had a great amount of her agency stripped away from her, to the point that she didn't deem life to be worth it anymore and ended it, right next to a man who couldn't make that choice for himself even if he wanted to.

It is easily her most horrific choice and yet, she's still an angel.

(Please don't take this as Anya slander, I genuinely love her so much. I just find this to be an incredibly interesting thing)

I do subscribe to the idea that Anya realized that Jimmy was hitting Curly when giving him his medicine but didn’t intervene. I also don’t think her taking the pills from Curly as monstrous mainly because (while she knew he suffered worse with out them) she likely also knew they were basically bandaids on a bullet wound.

I have this sort of belief that that statement can only really apply to Jimmy in the inverse. Like some statements in the games aren’t meant to apply to all characters and not in every context of every action they do. It’s the idea that no one should be responsible for Jimmy’s actions but himself but they are forced to by him or the environment. Everyone is experiencing their worst moments but no one is a monster outside of Jimmy due to his inability to take responsibility and how he escalates the severity of the situation through his bad choices. Even then it’s not one moment that makes Jimmy a monster it’s the culmination of every moment that prove his inability to be anything but in this scenario.

With Anya you must remember she did have the code to the gun. Yeah, she could’ve broken it open but who’s to say how easy or how long it would’ve taken. Not to mention, there’s this misconception that she wanted the gun to kill Jimmy which isn’t true. She wanted the gun to defend herself in the case he got aggressive which is an important note of Anya being the only proactive person on the ship vs reactive. Locking the door, knowing there was no way in was likely a duel mercy for them both. A person in his state would die relatively soon without constant care and she has ample time to pass. It’s a hard decision to make for herself and someone else but it was the easiest even if it caused more damage than it was ever meant to cause.

It’s a sort of parallel to how Curly made choices he thought would help Anya and everyone but ultimately doomed them all further. Jimmy got what he wanted in both scenarios of crashing the ship and wanting Anya gone. What happened on the Tulpar will go down as a tragedy if they are ever found, a mystery if not but certainly not in a way that Jimmy wanted. Anya and the pregnancy are effectively gone but he’s still facing the repercussions for it.

There’s this idea that it’s controversial to say that Anya was anything but perfect and while I don’t think she did anything wrong, she certainly didn’t make the best choice in telling Jimmy but that again was because of the situation and environment she was in. We don’t know why she didn’t wait on Curly after their conversation in the cockpit, we know that was the plan and we know Jimmy finding out through her alone was the catalyst to the crash within like the next hour, yet you can’t really blame her. We don’t know why Jimmy came to medical nor what anyone else was doing. It can be considered her one mistake but then again we can’t blame a reasonable action on someone’s unreasonable response.

I think that’s a big aspect a lot of people look over in the characters actions. Most of them are normal, reasonable, human. But the systematic responses to them and Jimmy’s are unreasonably harsh and punishing.

This has gone off in a tangent from what you originally posed but I genuinely think of what might do happened if that confrontation happened with Curly there and away from the cock pit. I assume it’d happen in medical or even utility, hell, an area away from anything sensitive but what if? If the ability to do something awful wasn’t at Jimmy’s finger tips, if there was more than one voice in Curly’s head during that moment, what would’ve changed?

When I look at Anya I see her as having the best responses to anything happening during the events of the game but the environment, systems against her and even the other crew mates to an extent made it so it would inevitably backfire on them and mostly her hard.

[ohumokay]

Can I just say!...

I live for the sillies that are the EPIC cast, but the way everyone got serious around THOSE parts of the Ithaca Saga (and just the Ithaca Saga in general, since it was mainly serious topics) was top fucking tier

While I was watching the live, I was enjoying them making fun of the songs and such, but a voice in the back of my head kept asking "will they act this silly when it comes to Hold Them Down and Odysseus?" I was a bit scared, but they didn't disappoint

Other notes that may be spoilers (tho, if you haven't heard it yet, why 😐)(also trigger warning: talking about SA)

Like many others, I am so so so SO happy Jorge didn't sugar code what was happening and said the word (the ONLY reason I'm not saying it is because idk how strict Tumblr censorship is). My only minor complaint (which is just something I noticed, but I saw it explained somewhere else) is that they dived in attempted SA with the suitors, but not the literal R that Calypso inflicted on Odysseus or the power imbalance SA between Circe and Odysseus

Someone somewhere (I genuinely can't remember who or where I read it) said it was so the trauma of the two girls weren't disregarded because of their actions. And I get that, I do. But trauma is an explanation, not ever an excuse. They were both sentenced to islands, yes. They were both abandoned and hurt, yes. But they both forced themselves on Odysseus, and their trauma cannot and will never excuse that.

Plus, representations for male victims are so far and few in between, it would have made a true statement (not that EPIC!Odysseus needs to go through anymore).

And maybe I missed it. I know with Circe, it literally showed him resisting and her leaving him alone, but maybe I'm not analyzing Calypso enough. Maybe the mention was there. Maybe it was implied, but I feel like the implications could have been more direct, idk.

WITH THAT SAID

This is, in NO WAY, a dig at the AMAZING cast and creator of EPIC. I love this concept musical with all my heart, it has gotten me through a lot and I'm not so sure I'd be here now if I hadn't discovered it. I'm simply analyzing and sharing (because I overthink and yearn to express)(also, my bsf hasn't listened to it yet so I can't rant with her)(I'm suffering).

This will absolutely not be my last rant, I can't help it :3

[mischiefmaker615]

Die For You

Rating: R

Summary: True feelings are revealed and intentions are brought forward…

Requested by: @Laer111ee (wattpad)

Inspiration: "Die For You" by The Weekend.

‘’you are so annoying-‘’

‘’am i?’’

‘’yes!’’

‘’stop lying.’’ That smirk.

You resisted the urge to kick Loki from under the table as you both sat across from each other, not giving two shits whether you were in a nice restaurant or not. This wasn’t a date after all.. just a place that finally gave you business considering no one wanted the destroyer of New York entering their building.

‘’I’m not lying-‘’

‘’then why did you agree to dine in a place like this?’’ Loki quizzed, casually sat back in his chair without a care or concern in the world, regardless that his presence practically evacuated the whole room. He had both his hands resting on the white tablecloth beside his place while the candles illuminated his stupid, handsome face. Yet what irritated you more was that he seemed to try to get answers out of you, and for what??

‘’..someone had to keep an eye on you.’’ You explain, doing your best to use your poker face as your fork poked at the rest of your food, having the urge to keep your hands busy for no damn reason while your leg bounced under the table. After all, no one was at the tower and you were starving. Fury would kill you if he found out you left the god of mischief unsupervised.

‘’that’s not it darling. any one of those places, even here, could have let you take your food back home with you and I.’’ his amused look said it all as his eyes seemed to scan you up and down, almost lustfully. ‘’I would suspect that all this one on ne time lately was because perhaps you were developing a fondness towards me..’’ he teased and you stuck a finger out to interrupt him.

‘’don’t. don’t think that all this,’’ you motioned around you. ‘’was something more than just two friends sharing a meal in a nice change of environment-‘’

‘’so we’re friends?’’

You snatched your fork and raised your hand to chuck it at him but the second he stood from the table, hands remaining flat on the table cloth with a deadly look in his eyes, stopped you in your tracks. You both starred at each other, not moving a muscle but with each passing second, his expression got harder and harder to read, making you lower your hand and place the fork back on the table. This action seemed to add a slight gentleness to his features and even his shoulders lowered from his defensive stance.

‘’..besides.. you hate Midgardians-‘’

‘’incorrect darling.’’ He said gently, his tone almost scary calm as he seemed to be studying your features with a purpose, it almost made you squirm in your seat. He then lifted his eyes to indicate the rest of the room that pretended to be minding their own business before looking back at you. ‘’ I could hurt them. i could kill all of them, but not you. if it was up to me, you’d never see a drop of your own blood again.’’

The sudden statement was scary and.. well, it made you look up at him with nothing but wonder as your hands lowered to your lap, fingers fiddling in a nervous state as he gazed upon you with honesty, not giving a damn if he was still standing.

‘’..you don’t mean that Loki-‘’

‘’you know what I’m thinking love, I see it in your eyes.’’

Just that comment alone made your eyes glance away, suddenly aware that he was trying to read you, and dare you say it.. he wasn’t incorrect. As handsome as he was, he was so.. annoying. Mischievous is more like it, it was just him. there was not a single moments peace without a sarcastic comment, a flirtatious tease, the subtle pet names, the fact that he wished to be in your presence regardless even though he claimed to not be bothered by anyone.. all this shit and yet why did you.. love it.

‘’and you hate that you want me.’’

Your eyes snapped back up to him, almost as if someone poured cold water on you as you stare at him in shock. Your mouth didn’t produce words, nothing that indicated that what he was saying wasn’t true. your fingers dug into your palms as your heart began to remind you just how fast it was capable of beating.

‘’Loki- I can’t..’’

‘’you are scared to be alone?’’ he asked, his voice quiet but words clear as day as if he were right next to you as you sighed.

‘’I’m.. I’ve been hurt before.. i- why the hell am I telling you this??” not a question.

You stand and grab your purse, putting down a bill where they could keep the change before you take a step to the side to leave but he’s already in front of you, causing you to stop short where your hand supports yourself on the table behind.

‘’I’m sorry Y/N, but I know that your worth it. I can’t just walk away.. you’re different. Yes this is all sudden.. but it’s getting a bit to difficult to go on without at least telling you the truth..’’ Loki said, his voice gentle as you look up at him with hesitation, suddenly aware of just how tall he really is. ‘’..i would die for you..’’

Your lips parted, a breath in to speak but no sound came out. Even the room itself seemed to be silent where the only things in existence at the moment was just you and him. better yet, you were suddenly aware of the slight pool between your legs and the butterfly feeling in your chest and stomach returned; a feeling you’ve always tried to ignore day in and day out whenever you were around him- oh god! You.. wanted him..

By now he had slowly raised a hand and placed it against your cheek, your body thinking it would have flinched or tensed but you were the most relaxed you had ever been in a long time. Maybe a bit shy, your crude and sarcastic demeanor no longer there to protect you as your eyes looked vulnerable into his knowing ones.

“its hard to communicate the feelings I hold darling, but tonight I’m going to let you know..’’ his hand traveled down to take hold of yours, his grip gentle but prepared on leading the way as his eyes flashed a bright green for a split second. ‘’tell me my dear, when is a monster no longer a monster?’’

By now the only sound you could hear was his sultry voice and your own heartbeat and your hand impulsively gripped his as your body screamed at you. Your jeans and t shirt suddenly felt tight around you as you took a deep breath and let him pull you forward.

‘’.. when you love it.’’

It was almost as if time moved in slow motion, how ironically that the tower was still abandoned and the darkness of the night enveloped you along with every emotion you were feeling at that moment. But no thoughts. No words. Just eyes. Breathing. Feeling. You. And him.

His hands gripped yours in a gentle embrace, having kissed your knuckles the entire time he was walking forward while it had you stepping back. Upon feeling the bed behind you against your calves, he helped you sit down before releasing your hands as you looked up at him in awe and lustful wonder.

‘’I want you Y/N.. I know I am not worthy of it darling, but tonight let me let you feel bliss, forget about all pain, suffering.. you are not alone my love, and never will be again..’’ his voice was a promise, almost a whisper as his nose gently nuzzled your own in a playful matter while his hands flattened against your sides and glided down to grip the ends of your shirt.

Your breath hitched but for all the damn reasons, you trusted him. you let him. you want him. and so you followed his lead, raising your arms above your head as he pulled your shirt up, all motions slow as if to savor every waking second before the shirt was history behind you.

The sudden remembrance of going commando that day hit you and saw Loki’s eyes take in your breasts as if you were a feast to behold.

‘’ohhh darling.. you are as beautiful as I imagined..’’ he breathed as he kneeled down on one knee before you, between your legs to stay closer while his fingertips glided along the sides of your breasts.

Your body shivered by the new temperature and by his teasing touch that glided against your skin before he finally flattened his palms on your mounds, gripping and kneading them.

‘’absolutely gorgeous..’’ he whispered as he massaged them both, thumbs teasing your nipples while your back arched so your chest was pressed more into his hold. He took this opportunity to lean forward and take one of your globes in his mouth, sucking and flicking his tongue deliciously.

The pleasure made you shiver as your fists gripped the sheets beside you, feeling the pleasure grow between your legs and felt the need to press your thighs together- being stopped by Loki as he looked back up at you with a smirk.

‘’don’t pretend like you hate this.’’

‘’this is.. I feel..’’ you breath, having a hard time finding your words as he merely smirked and crawled up your body, causing you to lean back on your elbows as he loomed over you.

‘’despite the quarrels that happen between you and I amongst these walls, I’ve admired you the day I set my eyes on you. Your fire and sass, that mouth of yours spurred my words on to keep them coming just to trigger your spirit. I wanted your fight, your eyes show more truth in them when you are fired up than when you are trying to avoid me and stay quiet; and I know that you feel the same.’’ He told you, his eyes almost piercing yours as if daring for you to lie to him and you felt his fingers play with your jean’s button and zipper.

‘’i.. I didn’t enjoy our fights I just- it was the only reason for me to even be around you without being a stuttering mess..’’ you say quietly and you heard him chuckle, feeling your cheeks heat up.

‘’so you are shy around me darling? So your sass is merely a mask while you find yourself unable to speak to me. I think I’d like to see you squirm and stutter instead then.’’ He teased, his eyes admiring your shy honesty and gripped your jeans, slowly pulling them off to reveal your silk panties. By this reveal, he was faster at moving your pants off and it flew behind him before he rested his hands at your ankles. ‘’I should have been honest with you sooner love.. I myself was in denial with my own feelings. Me, of all to fall for a mortal. I’d hate to admit that I see what my brother was talking about..’’

You didn’t know if you should be insulted but his traveling hands was more than enough distraction as they glided up the back of your calves while his lips pressed delicate kisses against your knees. His phantom strength made it clear you wouldn’t be able to close your legs now if you wanted too.

‘’.. I don’t believe it..’’ you whisper and he merely hummed against your skin.

‘’which part darling? I assure you everything I’ve told you so far is more than true.’’

‘’that you’d die for me. Many people just say that to be.. romantic-‘’

He tilted his head up at you, briefly resting his chin against your leg. ‘’I came to this world to conquer it. that is all. That is all I wanted, and more. Upon setting my eyes upon you.. something shifted. For a brief moment, my entire focus moved to something else.. you. I moved on with my plan.. which is why I failed in the end. I believe that you were my distraction, and my main goal. I’d give up the crown if it meant you wouldn’t be beside it with me..’’ he whispered, all the while his piercing blue eyes gazed into your own as if in them themselves would hold proof.

By his words, you couldn’t find your own. You bit your lip, wanting to hold back a moan as his lips continued now to the inside of your thigh and a hand moved to tangle in his hair. ‘’Loki…’’ you breathed, trying your best to form proper sentences. ‘’I’ve wanted nothing in my life this bad but you.. despite it all, I find myself able to trust you, before and now..’’ the light grip in his hair made him look up but briefly. ‘’you are not a monster.’’ You told him, your words serious and your eyes lustful as you promised him his previous statement at dinner was all but true.

‘’..then love me..’’ he whispered, now realizing his fingers had hooked onto your panties before he yanked them down and it joined the rest of your clothes behind him.

Upon his eyes settling, you saw a predator, a man starved and hungry as his muscles tensed and he kneeled completely before he set a gentle hand on your chest, pushing you down to lay on your back before he raised your legs to rest on his shoulders. Your fingers gripped the sheets hard as he dove in, licking a strip all the way up before pressing his lips against your cunt and pushed his tongue through your folds.

His grip on your thighs slightly tightened, he moaned at how you tasted, made you shiver as the vibration seemed to hit right through your core. His tongue stroked deeply up and down repeatedly before he used the tip to flick and swirl your clit. Your limbs began to shake, your breathing becoming a bit hard as if you needed to concentrate to take in a breath. Your back arched as he began sucking at your clit, now and again moving to tongue fuck you as he made his movement slow and fast, taking turns as if to tease you.

The butterfly feeling returned to your chest, stomach and began making your pussy throb as you moaned, your fingers tangled in his hair and it made him growl, his mouth moving faster as if he needed to drink you that very second. His grip made it clear he wasn’t going to let you go and your thighs made it clear they weren’t for him either as you tried not to crush his head as they pressed together. His nails dragged lightly against your thighs as he lapped your cunt and you felt yourself nearly falling off the edge to the pleasure abys.

‘’I’m.. I’m..-‘’ your breath hitched as your back arched, eyes squeezed shut as did your thighs as you threw your head back and came, moaning out his name, “LOKI!..’’ drinking in your orgasm as he moaned into your pussy, taking every last drop as your body began to shake, your eyes fluttering and cunt convulsing before he began slowing your movements.

It wasn’t until he was sure you were down from your high before he raised his head, kissing your thighs and up your body before he finally pressed his lips against your own. Your arms wrapped around his neck as he gently rested his body against yours, fitting as perfect as a glove while you felt him relax, kisses being pressed against your neck as you relaxed with him.

The way you both laid together, your eyes opened as you felt his erection being pressed against you and your eyes widened by the mere size of it. he made no move though, no suggestion and the way he took his lip against your skin, his smile and the joy in his eyes showed he was in no hurry for himself, if at all. A smile came to your lips and you cupped his cheeks, him kissing the inside of your hand with that opportunity before looking at you for what you needed. You flashed him a teasing look,

‘’.. how about I love that monster next?’’

DM a song for your very own Musical Mischief one shot :D

[susiecarter]

Consider, dceu superbat + hunter by paris paloma:

Bruce (-> Clark)

Clark (-> Bruce)

Clark & Bruce (those two lines just felt too fitting for the both of them)

What was it that stayed my hand then? With dagger held unsheathed, blade pointing in its side I'd been set upon by a predator It was just looking for a meal, I saw ribs and fearful eyes What is it that stays my hand now? With so much misery that I could mercifully put ends to For that animal I let slink off into the undergrowth, unscathed Do I not fear death, but just pretend to? For it was starving, it was hungry But had eyes too close to let me If you were easy to kill, I would have done it already Plagued by phantom noises That that skeletal beast was haunting all my steps Questioning all my choices With that dagger held unsheathed, I felt sick at my contempt For you were lonely, you were like me Like some outside force had sent me If I was easy to kill, you would have done it already You are at my feet, we're by the fire You're a gentle beast and I'm alive You are at my feet, we're by the fire You're a gentle, purring beast and I'm alive You are at my feet, we're by the fire You're a healthy, gentle, purring beast and I'm alive You are at my feet, we're by the fire You're a healthy, gentle, purring beast and I'm alive You are at my feet, we're by the fire You're a healthy, gentle, purring beast, and I'm alive You are at my feet, we're by the fire (like an outside force had sent me?) You're a gentle beast (if you were easy to kill, I would have done it already)

it ends up feeling a little bruce-leaning, which makes sense considering the title is literally "hunter", but i think the song fits the dynamic between the two of them pretty well. what do you think?

*chinhands* Hearts in my eyes, anon! "Hunter" is SO GOOD for these guys, unreal, and I had never heard the song before, so thank you very much for the rec, too—I LOVE "if you were easy to kill, I would have done it already" for Bruce in BvS, who needed so long to work up to genuinely doing it and then still couldn't do it ;-; (like, literally true, considering it's Superman, but then also EMOTIONALLY true, on a much more devastating level!). And you are absolutely right, in terms of which lines you highlighted for which of them—"you were lonely, you were like me" is p e r f e c t for Clark and his perception of Bruce once he's started to see through the things Bruce is shoving in his face. OH YOU GUYS. And you were ALSO absolutely right to highlight those two lines in pink for both of them! "Questioning all my choices" is, like, the ultimate thesis statement for BOTH of them in the DCEU, as is "feeling sick at my contempt" once they've come as close as they do to killing each other, BE STILL MY HEART.

So, yeah, YOU ARE SO RIGHT and you should feel right, and thank you thank you thank you for sharing the song and the lyrics and your angle on the Superbatness of it all with me! :D ♥♥♥

[destinyc1020]

Tom's fans are different, but they speak the facts. It's absolutely normal to want a successful project for your favorite actor because his work and talent should be recognized. It's also normal when you want to see activity on Tom's part. Sometimes some of Tom's fans are negative, but in many ways they are honest, to me they are much better than some hypocritical TZ fans who claim to be equally staned Tom and Zendaya, but in fact they are Zendaya's fans first and foremost. By the way, your theory is very interesting and I think to some extent I can agree with it. But at the same time, it amuses me how sometimes you are too optimistic or do not notice serious problems with some things related to Tom

I mean, I don't mind if fans are honest about their faves. I've always said that I'm 100% honest here on my blog about how I feel about a variety of people and topics. 🤷🏾‍♀️

But to me, it seems as though some fans of Tom (notice I said SOME) can be a bit harsh on him, or complain about things that in the grand scheme of things, really aren't big deals in the long run. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Or, they'll make blanket negative statements that aren't even true, like, "it's normal to want a successful project for your favorite actor" (as if Tom hasn't had MULTIPLE successful projects already?? 🥴🤔), or, you"want to see activity on his part" (as if, we don't get Tom content either through himself, friends, and or family on a REGULAR basis). Look, some actors out here don't even have social media at all, or never post, or don't have their parents posting content about them. 🤷🏾‍♀️ Yet, ppl are still their fans.

I've already made peace with the fact that we're not going to get the same social media happy Tom that we got in 2017. I've made peace with that with both Tom AND Zendaya tbh. If smthg harms my fave and their mental and emotional health, I'm not going to be upset if they're not posting on social media.

I will agree with you that a lot of Tom's fans are actually fans of him by extention of Zendaya, his gf. But he can't help that. 🤷🏾‍♀️ Their stars happened to rise at the same time due to their Spiderman movie that they were in together. Many fans of Z were fans of her BEFORE she got to the level that she is today though, but it's not a bad thing imo?

But at the same time, it amuses me how sometimes you are too optimistic or do not notice serious problems with some things related to Tom

I just feel like Tom's fans are a bit hard on him, and undermine his success already in the industry all the time (his R&J PLAY sold out in like 2 hours!!!) Like, c'mon. 😏

And what "serious problems" are there related to Tom exactly? Is he on drugs? Is he wilding out? Does he look depressed? Is he looking homeless? Has he lost a ton of weight in a short amount of time? Is he acting crazy out in these streets? To me, those are "serious problems" and signs that an actor is going through smthg. All the other stuff you've mentioned aren't "serious problems" imo Anon.

Yes, we all want great things for our fave actors, and of course we wish them the best! 😃 But unless there are some serious issues going on in that actor's life, we need to know our place as FANS, and let an actor live his (or her) life! Actors usually only film about 1 or 2 films a year (if THAT), and the rest of the time, they're working bts, negotiating other future projects, promoting current projects, or simply just taking a break. When you're at Tom's level of success, you can afford to take longer breaks if needed. He's been working and going non-stop for over 7 years. If the man wants to take a break, his fans should be okay with that. Jmho 🤷🏾‍♀️

[jackpotsadnessgirl]

i fucking hate the pro vs anti argument bcs it always goes down to fiction and reality are seperate versus fiction affects reality when BOTH of those statements are true and should be treated as such!!

fiction and reality are not the same, if you maim and torture a fictional character guess what? theres no real damage bcs they arent real! same for literally anything that falls under "proshipping", you are basically playing dolls its not like these are real people that are doing this!

on the other hand YES! Fiction can affect reality. but on the 2 sides of that- if someone imitates what an author did in a story, that is not the authors fault and they should NOT be blaimed for others actions. and then if the author genuinely wants to do those things? id rather it be expressed in fiction than irl. if they do it irl yeah then i have a problem but the fiction itself is not the issue then!

and then just. theres no nuance in this argument i swear. theres no room for depictions of trauma, theres no room for morally grey storys or unreliable narrorators. if you dare depiction the "bad things" without explicitly saying they r evil then u must be hung!!! its fucking stupid.

i just wish both sides would shut up

[free-luigi-mangione]

I don't have a reddit so can someone explain what is wrong with r/freeluigi?

anon where do i even begin lol

there's nothing very wrong with that sub per se but there's certainly a lot of things that has happened there (and the other sub too but that's a different matter) that a lot of people don't like at all

before the free sub got censored very heavily by the mods, it was basically the same as the murder sub with all the theorising about his mental health and personal life and everything but then what initially made most people angry about that sub was how the mods reacted to the hashbrown letter, i don't know exactly when it was written but the letter sender had talked about his mugshots, so he'd mentioned how he was in solitary for ten days from december 9 to december 19 and had talked about mugshots taken on both of those days (all of which were true facts) and had joked about how he was arrested for the heinous crime of ordering a hashbrown, which now that we know details of how he was arrested, it's completely true too, he was surrounded by cops after he'd gotten himself his food and had tried to eat while they were questioning him (and he was essentially under arrest already at that time). the mods of that sub shut down all discussions about that letter and instead dmed the letter recipient and said that they thought he wasn't "in the right state of mind" only because he'd dared to joke in a letter

shortly after this hashbrown letter debacle the sock notes drama had happened altho that became public information exactly a month after it actually happened. so the day of the 2/21 hearing in the NY state case, there were two pink heart shaped notes in his socks and these were discovered in the courthouse but before the hearing, so like before he changed into his court outfit. the presence of these notes was brought up by the NY prosecution to argue against a lot of other legal things, in a court document. his lawyers released photos of the notes in their letter to the judge immediately afterwards. we all saw the sub mentioned in the notes, the exact same way you wrote it in the ask (the notes were handwritten tho) and everybody immediately realised that not only had somebody from that sub been so immature as to write notes to him and sneak it like it was a high school classroom, the person who'd written the notes had used that sub as an indication to their identity and that is something only a mod would do so the main mod of that sub, the one who's now made that sub unusable because of the censoring was asked to answer for herself and she only gave out a statement saying anybody out of the 37k people in the sub could have done it

fast forward to around another month after that and we hear about that sub trying to send him a birthday booklet containing thousands of wishes (and pictures) from $27 donations to his legal fund for his birthday and were planning to sing happy birthday outside of MDC on his birthday, needless to say both were disastrous ideas and the singing idea was stopped by people quite soon. next thing we knew they made up flat Luigi, which was basically making cutouts of him and clicking pictures with it out in the wild, sounds harmless but the thing is any of these three ideas could have gotten him bullied endlessly and since he's in prison and has four screws in his back and he can't bend that portion of his lower back and can't really fight it was a question of is it worth doing any of this to make his situation worse (also he could have been thrown into solitary confinement for anything that would have happened even if none of it was his fault, because that's how prisons work unfortunately) so anyways his birthday came and went his legal fund reached 1 million a few hours before midnight (and his birthday) and none of the three ideas from that sub actually became a reality, thankfully

around the time the flat Luigi idea came up, that particular mod got doxxed and some very personal details got leaked along with her handwriting so we now know her handwriting definitely matches with the notes in socks and everybody kinda hates her and that sub and doesn't trust anything that she says or anything that happens on that sub altho all of that was true from the time prosecution brought up the sock notes contraband (also she was kinda doxxed by a journalist, around 2/21, who was looking into Luigi support spaces online before being doxxed because of the sock notes thing)

also edit: i forgot to add this, at a certain point of time after the sock notes incident had become public information and before flat Luigi idea started, NY prosecution was supposed to ask for a protective order for witnesses (that i assume was granted altho we don't know any details because it's a protective order) and there was a deadline that we knew of, when the day came and went and we heard nothing about it whatsoever, most of us assumed that it was because it was a protective order so it was supposed to be sealed info, the public is not supposed to find out about it. but that same mod was planning to mass call (using everybody else from that sub's discord) Manhattan DA to ask about the protective order. despite knowing that he is being charged with terrorism and that prosecution has used people heckling the mcdonalds employee as a sign of his intended message reaching the public, thus enhancing the terrorism charges against him

[agentravensong]

a ramble about truth, death, performance and perception in rosencrantz & guildenstern are dead

this last time that i watched ragad (a week and a half ago now), there was one line that stood out to me in a way it never had before:

truth as currency.

performers and patrons are, as we know, the same side of two different coins.

but does that mean they're both a side (the same side) of the coin of truth?

well, the "truth" of performance is something that has to be viewed to be viable —

(see my post about how both the player(s) and r&g seek an audience)

— and that's not how truth works; at least, according to guildenstern. he says truth is a thing that is self-evident, that exists always in the periphery, that you know without having to be taught it or shown it. it doesn't need to be validated by outside perception — in fact, forcing it into that position only serves to undermine it as truth.

and seemingly, the player agrees. their performances do not contain any inherent truth ("I extract significance from melodrama, a significance which it does not in fact contain"), and the fact that they need to be perceived makes them — come on, say it with me, you know the line:

but then, the player said (above) that "truth is only that which is taken to be true". there is, in his opinion, no truth, no reality, outside of what can be perceived. there is nothing in the periphery. so as long as enough people believe in something, it's as true as anything can be.

(hamlet by william shakespeare is a work of fiction. and yet, we will talk about the "facts" of what happens in it as if the play was a record of actual happenings; and, we often discuss adaptions in the context of how "true" they stayed to those facts.)

evidently, though, if that truth counts as currency, then the players have not had any people view and believe in them in quite a while.

since the player's idea of what's true, what can be true, is, essentially, everything and nothing, let's return to guildenstern's perspective for further digging. if what's true, in his mind, is what exists on the periphery of one's vision and becomes "grotesque" when you're forced to confront it... what things does he treat or speak of in that way? what things, to him, are true?

well, for one, he treats his and ros's theoretical free will in that manner. it is a fact they cannot test, because of how existentially devastating the consequences would be if that test came back negative.

better to take for granted that they do have free will, and just. not make use of it. better to assume that they're real people, with histories and identities, free will and a future.

(ros could get by with that assumption. guil, ultimately, cannot. we'll get back to that.)

but that's not the only thing. in fact, there's one thing for which its truthfulness is more evident and important to guildenstern than even his free will; a thing he directly clashes with the player over making a false mockery of.

death is not a thing that can be witnessed from an outside perspective. it is the simple but irreversible switching of a statement — "he is alive" — from true to false. the spectacle, the performance of death, is a shared hallucination of those who happen to view it, a thin layer over reality. the spectacle, however, is what people expect, what they're conditioned to expect (by society — by art), and so it's what they believe in.

...or is it the other way around? that it's what they want to believe in, and so it's what they expect (hope for)?

perhaps the very fact that the deaths the actors perform aren't true, that they get right back up at curtain call and go on living off the stage, is what makes people want to believe in them as accurate to what "true" death is. of course, the people know it's not true, and they will make that clear to any onlookers by declaring that they know it's false. they know that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. they know that unicorns don't exist.

but we know better. we know that if it needs to be declared to others, then it is not the truth in their hearts. and guildenstern is a person who wants to believe in unicorns. so is it such a surprise that, in the end, even he falls for the player's performed death?

...

the player's business (when it's not sex) is death. guil and ros are also, by act 3 (though unknowingly), in the business of death. they are ferrying hamlet to his death; for money — and, guildenstern is expecting (hoping) — for the truth.

and he does get it, in a sense, once hamlet has disappeared, not to reappear ("he's dead, as far we're concerned"). the player's version of truth ("you are rosencrantz and guildenstern. that's enough.")... and guil's own. make no mistake. rosencrantz and guildenstern die on stage. but they do not perform it. (unless, of course, you count the whole show up to that moment as the performance.)

does that make it a "true" death? well, tell me, reader. do you believe it?

...

if guildenstern's idea of truth does exist, then isn't the currency actors live on. their currency is the appearance of truth — and, from the perspective of the viewer, the suspension of disbelief. the two sides of the coin. performance, and patronage.