#we can just make a compilation

[fandom-puzzle-peaces]

CREATIVE PROMPTS LIST: CURSES

As we know, LCF/TCF has curses in it. We heard about them and how good a certain ex-priestess is at slinging ‘em around. However, we have never actually seen one used throughout the entirety of the novel so far except for the White Star's reincarnation thing and the Crossman one (the first of which I count more as a divine punishment and the second being completely fake as it was more of a word of warning). So I made some up!

Here is a list of curses, both silly and very much not silly, for those who need a little creative juice. None of them are designed to kill and for the serious list they will be put in descending order of how painful/effective they are. So the ones at the bottom are the absolute worst to get hit with in my opinion.

I will be honest in stating that a good chunk of these I made up with a certain character in mind (cough Cale cough), and it might be a little obvious. But you can use them on whoever, just have fun and I wanna see what ya'll come up with. ENJOY!

Silly:

Curse of No Filter

Like the Curse of Unveiling, but with thoughts instead of emotions. The afflicted will be compelled to literally speak their direct thoughts whenever they speak (does not make them compelled to do the act of speaking, but when they do…oh boy).

Do you like dissing people in your head? Better be prepared to get slapped or worse. Do you like swearing in your head, but not verbally? Get ready to start swearing up a storm. How about internal screaming? Better get earplugs cause you will be loud and your vocal chords shall be missed.

Curse of Babble

Like the tower of Babel, the afflicted will switch to be able to only understand either an actual other existing language no one else knows or a made up one. They can only speak, write and understand anything in that new language. Everything else is just gibberish to them.

I imagine they speak Sim

Curse of the Damsel

Get ready to embrace your inner Disney Princess cause the afflicted will feel compelled to sing and frolic through the fields dramatically and somehow befriend all manner of the small and fluffy.

Whether their singing and dancing are any good is up for debate

And of course, you can’t forget being kidnapped on an almost daily basis

Curse of Shrimp

The afflicted will suddenly get minisculed into a chibi version of themselves and start seeing weird colors

Curse of Worm

The afflicted gets turned into a worm like creature thing

The epitome of “would you still love me if I was a worm?”

Ultimate Curse

It’s a bottle of glitter you can throw at another and curse them with eternal sparkly-ness and humiliation. It will never leave.

Now here are the angst ones

Very much NOT silly:

Curse of Conveyance

The afflicted will be cursed with a sickness that will not fade unless the conditions are met. The conditions being that the afflicted and the caretakers must communicate effectively with each other. The afflicted must be honest with their condition throughout the effects of the curse so the caretakers can provide needed support. The caretakers must also listen and be transparent with the afflicted on what they think is needed.

is meant to help facilitate trust and camaraderie between both parties involved through effective communication, so whether it is actually a curse or not is up for debate. It is believed it was created as a way to help mend relationships

Curse will only fade after proper communication has been achieved and kept up for 2 days

in other words, you will learn to talk with each other and you will like it!

Curse of Unveiling

The afflicted will have any-and-all emotional control stripped away from them. So, if the afflicted is a person who is usually calm and composed or repressed, they will start showing their emotions regardless of how hard they try to control themselves in the moment.

Lasts for a week

Curse of Wretchedness

The afflicted will suddenly have any-and-all past events they remember that caused them pain to be drawn forward and they will not only emotionally, but physically feel the pain they cause. So, if their history is particularly traumatic, it will hurt like nothing they have ever felt before

Believed to have been created as a form of torture

The only reason this curse isn’t rated higher is because it only lasts an hour

Curse of No Rest

The afflicted will be cursed with the inability to sleep. No amount of laying down, closing eyes, or taking any other form of rest will give any relief. The afflicted will slowly but surely be drawn down by an exhaustion that cannot be fixed while the curse remains. They cannot die via exhaustion, for the curse will not let them. However, they can get to the point just before then and they will be kept right at that precipice of almost too much until the curse is broken

Curse must be broken to be removed, or it will stay for the rest of the afflicted existence

Not even in death can they escape from this curse, hence the name

Curse of Isolation

The afflicted will slowly but surely lose all their senses starting with smell, then taste, hearing, sight, and finally touch. Once all senses have been removed, the afflicted will be unable to perceive anything outside of their own thoughts; total isolation from the world outside their own mind.

Curse must be broken to be removed, or it will stay for the rest of the afflicted’s life

For those who aren’t sure how to work with touch being removed, think of your foot falling asleep. I have tested it before on myself cause I was curious, but my foot literally couldn’t feel anything when I touched it. Not even pressure, and I pressed down kinda hard. So no sense of pain or pressure or even where it could be in relation to the rest of your body or surroundings. Now imagine that but full body in conjunction with having lost the rest of your senses. That’ll be terrifying.

For a bit of extra oomph if ya’ll want you can also make it to where, when the appropriate sense is lost, the afflicted can no longer perceive anything extraneous such as Ancient Powers, Elementals, mind speak, or even the Divine. That option is up to you guys.

[croquettish]

Claustrophobia as a Metaphor for Hans' Feelings for Henry

All right. I'm ready to go full tinfoil hat here but I have a theory, y'all. And there is a lot of evidence to back it up even if you decide I'm off my rocker for most of it:

I think Hans' claustrophobia exists in parallel to his feelings and, more importantly, how Hans feels about his feelings for Henry.

We first get the hint that Hans is claustrophobic when he and Henry get tossed into the dungeon at Trosky:

This is immediately post-divorce era. The boys haven't quite yet made up and Hans has gotten his first taste of what life is like without Henry. He did not care for it, and that realization comes alongside an incredibly unexpected vulnerability that Hans is not used to and has not had to deal with before.

The threat of losing Henry before was of course something he could conceive of before, most recently following Henry's ~terrible fall, but that would have been losing him in the abstract. If he lost Henry because of their fight, that would be (at least in his eyes), 100% his fault, at least in part because-- as you'll recall-- Henry was ready to make up literally the next morning. Earlier, even, if you watch the way he tries to look at Hans while Hans is stubbornly staring away as if to keep from being persuaded by Henry's puppy dog eyes.

The divorce era presented a different sort of loss, namely losing Henry not because of God's will, but because of his own stubborn pride. He got Henry back after, but the risk was there and it's only after getting him back that the full weight of what he almost lost hits him. At the beginning, when he's still panicking in the cell, he's still in what he perceives to be the proverbial doghouse, and he promptly follows this up by eating crow and apologizing to Henry for being an asshole.

Panic abated.

Until Henry is taken away from him, of course, and the walls truly start closing in. I have to really commend the creative direction of this scene in particular because that zoom out + transition to a Dutch angle is so fucking haunting in this scene while we watch Hans clearly trying not to have a full breakdown. It really induces the feeling of claustrophobia even if a person doesn't suffer from it themselves.

Henry was taken away from him, and as far as he knows, he might never see him again. No wonder the walls start closing in on him.

After that, things return to normal. No bad claustrophobia concerns for some time, incidentally. Henry is there, and his feelings regarding Henry are completely logical and rational. What a good friend Henry is!

The next time we see Hans' claustrophobia flare up is after Nebakov is hit by the Finger of God/bombard. Hans is trapped under a beam and is (understandably) freaking the fuck out. We also know from his dialogue later on that this scene magnified his claustrophobia even more than it was before.

What's notable, however, is that Henry at this point is barely conscious and isn't responding to Hans. As far as he knows, Henry isn't alive. That bombard could have easily killed any/all of them and tbh it's kind of a miracle that it didn't. Never mind that after his brief foray into consciousness, Henry is promptly hit by a full-length ceiling beam and (presumably, logically) knocked the fuck out. Meanwhile Hans is being crushed by his own fear of his feelings.

We obviously don't know what happens between the time of the tower's destruction and the scene in the cart after, but we do know that Henry was woken up at dawn to the commotion and by the time they get done being tortured, it's very late at night. So presumably Henry was out cold for a while there. Not only are the walls closing in on Hans here, they're literally crushing him. The fear of losing Henry is more present than ever.

And to make matters worse, he has no idea when or even if he's ever going to see Henry again. Henry has no value as a hostage. He could easily be simply disposed of without a second thought.

Henry could die, and it would, in Hans' eyes, be all his fault. At this point his feelings on the matter are guilt and a tremendous amount of self-pity (as we later learn from Brabant). As if to coincide with Hans being confronted with his feelings regarding Henry and the loss of him at this point and time, he ends up stuck in his gilded cage at Maleshov.

Once again, the walls are closing in.

We learn about how he felt about this only later when we chat with him at the Devil's Den:

The big problem with the room, Hans explains, was simply that he couldn't leave.

If we bear in mind the claustrophobia : confrontation of feelings metaphor here, this makes sense. Henry could be dead. He could have been tortured. He could still be in captivity. Hell, depending on how you play Henry being tortured, he even tells the torturer to just go ahead and fucking kill him because he's not talking. Henry was ready to die.

Hans knows Henry. Extremely well. He knows that Henry has some truly insane principles that he will stick to no matter what. There's no doubt in my mind that Hans probably knows there is a good chance that Henry doesn't make it through this. And he's confronted with all of these feelings over an extended period of time where he gets to sit and spin.

In light of that, I think it's interesting that he calls it a hole, because I would never use a word like that to describe what is effectively a fancy hotel room. But figuratively speaking, of course it's a hole for him. He's despairing. He needs Henry in his life and there's nothing he can do to get to him or to save him. He can't leave.

And then, of course, Henry shows up after all. No wonder Hans looks so unbelievably elated to see him. Of course, this is when Henry brings up the secret passageway. Hans is told that he can leave this enclosed space for another, even tighter enclosed space!

Now, if you pick the correct dialogue option here and tell him that you'll make it through, together, Hans of course discloses that the shit about how it's not ~chivalrous was bullshit and that it's because he might endanger him:

He just spent the last x amount of time (depending on how long you had Henry dilly-dallying around Kuttenberg and its environs) trapped here and steeped in his feelings regarding Henry. The fear of losing him is at the top of this list. To Hans, going into that passageway could also make him lose Henry. And it would be his fault. Again.

There's also something to be said here about close quarters. If we're to return here to the metaphors, then those close quarters force Hans to confront his feelings for Henry. Henry even says it himself back when they're in the Trosky dungeon together:

From there, it's on to Raborsch. Which is where things get very interesting.

Hans is told that he's going to be getting married. Much like in the Trosky dungeon, we get that zoom (albeit in the other direction this time) and then his POV. The way time seems to slow, the wobble of the camera... being something of a panic attack haver myself, this is exactly what it feels like. It is honestly impressive how well they mimic the feeling of it. And the way it's executed almost makes it look as though the room is shrinking.

This is my own personal headcanon that will probably not be shared by most people, but I think this is the moment that Hans realizes that he's in love with Henry. It would make sense for him to feel faint and like the walls are closing in on him in that moment.

It's also the worst possible moment for him to realize.

And then he proceeds to try and shove those feelings aside and repress them as best as possible. Nevermind that yet again Henry isn't there to help support him.

There was a wonderful post going around the other day about why Hans' responses to the romantic dialogue options Henry chooses sound so platonic. Because... yeah. He's holding that shit in TIGHT. He is on LOCKDOWN.

And we see that reflected in where he chooses to place himself physically after that point!!!!

After the announcement, Godwin can find him outside on the balcony getting absolutely hammered and talking to Rabbi Jehuda.

Even at the Devil's Den, where he's objectively free, he feels... crowded. Like the walls are closing in on him:

No fucking wonder. If he just realized that he's in love with Henry, then at this point in the story he's still trying real hard to repress that shit. Hans is erecting these walls himself as if he's trying to choke these feelings out of him. It also makes sense why he's constantly going out to get away from this confrontation of feelings as much as possible, riding out whenever he can:

Even in the group meeting with the Devil's gang, he says this:

Now it's the whole tavern! Anywhere that has walls and a roof is choking the life out of him! And of course here Henry is suddenly fucking everywhere.

When talking to him about the rides he goes on in the surrounding areas, this line of inquiry leads him to ask if he's fucking poaching again, and Hans comes back by saying this:

Allow me to just say.

And I cannot stress this enough.

He did not need to tell Henry that.

Henry tells him as much, but it feels fairly obvious that this was said with intent. It's like he's trying to reinforce his own heterosexuality to both him and Henry.

I would also like to highlight here that to Hans, it's always outside that this heterosexuality occurs. Even at the baths those hookups are merely in tents. The girl from Bohunowitz he found in (or near) a hunter's camp in the forest.

So we see a pretty direct correlation here. The inside of pretty much any building (or passageway) that also contains Henry or the Absence of Henry (in the abstract) is profoundly unsafe. This is the space where feelings always seem to happen and where Realizations™️ occur.

So! The outside is safe! Nothing can get him there, not even his feelings for Henry!

It's interesting, then, that Hans decides to invite Henry into that very space not long after:

Even in the space Hans uses as an escape (including as an escape from Henry), he still wants Henry there. Much as I discussed in this post, Hans views hunting with Henry in this scene as an escape into the past. Pre-betrothal, pre-feelings. A simpler time and a return to normalcy.

Naturally, he has to counteract Henry's presence in the Comphet space by bringing up as much heterosexuality as possible:

He brings this up regardless of how you respond.

Depending on your dialogue choices, you then learn that the girl from Bohunowitz is named Karolina. (Tbh if I didn't know better, I'd assume she was fucking made up seeing as she shares a name with the same girl he was running after in The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon and there is no such girl to be found in Bohunowitz.)

Regardless of whether you chose to tease him or grumble about his womanizing, Henry makes it pretty clear that he doesn't want to hear about it. He says something similar as well earlier, when Hans says that the girl from Bohunowitz (who may or may not be made up) gave him a ~ride:

Hans quickly changes the subject, but Henry keeps them on topic and brings it up again, effectively asking him if these wenches are more important to him than he is:

(Tbh it's pretty fucking obvious from these interactions that Henry is already feeling quite a lot here and is looking for validation from Hans... which Hans then, perhaps unwittingly, provides. Maybe he just can't help himself. The truth slips through the cracks.)

Hans immediately reassures him, of course:

At which point it's Henry's turn to brush him off and put some distance between them again.

Distance which Hans immediately closes up again...

... only to freak out and instantly backpedal.

The assault on Maleshov really hammers this connection home, where even outside, he can't run from his fear.

In this case, because the Finger of God fires and hits the fortress walls.

Hans falls back and just... stares.

And just stays there for a while. For long enough, in fact, that Henry and Godwin have to come help him up.

Henry, in this instance, is both the problem and the solution: all Hans has to do is accept the fact that he's in love with him—with a little help from Henry.

And then we get to the Italian Job. Hooo boy.

It does not escape my attention that these two dialogue options come up in the same conversation, one of which of course leads to a romance choice:

Henry tries to insist on how much he enjoys Hans' company only for Hans to brush him off. Quite substantially. Like if I was Henry I'd be fucking gutted or at the very least baffled that my friend could be that obtuse when I'm over here dropping all these hints.

And then, of course, Hans promptly panics again when Henry brings up the underground passage and asks if he's joining him in going through it (almost as if those two bits of panic are related).

He even brings up societal judgment! But I think it's that last one that carries by far the most weight. He's still looking for any possible way out that he can find and asking for validation from Henry while he's doing it. Which is asking quite a lot of Henry imo.

Of course, then he suddenly doesn't have a choice anymore. Which is also where Hans actually comes to terms with his feelings. He has to go through the passageway. There's no choice. The walls are closing in and he has to accept it or he'll go insane if he keeps repressing any of this any longer. The narrative is practically telling him: you can't run from this anymore. His feelings for Henry are real and they're right in front of him and they're not this terrifying thing that he's been running from all this time.

Katherine tells Henry that Hans was trailing behind Godwin and her "like a dazed sheep" and that she hopes he didn't get lost.

The good news is that he didn't. Instead, quite the opposite happened: he finally found his way to accepting how he feels.

And when he does, he finds that he's no longer afraid of them. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, confronting his fears meant that they're not nearly as terrifying anymore.

Again, Henry asks if he's really all right, and Hans insists that he's never been better. No fucking wonder. This was a come-to-Jesus moment if ever I saw one.

And then he checks on Henry. All this time, he's been looking at his own fear, stuck in this, quite frankly, closet, and not thinking about how Henry has been feeling.

Even so, Henry is worried. At which point Hans gets to reassure him that, no, he's all right. In fact, the one holding him back and hurting him most in all of this has been none other than himself. If anything, Henry has been encouraging all this time. He does his job well. And that includes loving Hans.

Henry suggests that he overcame his fear, and Hans insists that no, that's not quite it.

Which makes sense. You don't just overcome your fears by facing them. Certainly not something like claustrophobia. It's also unlikely that an actual miracle occurred here. If you listen for his idle talk before or after this conversation, even Hans is absolutely baffled that he just... overcame his fear. Just like that.

To me, that suggests that this is about something else entirely, and not tight, enclosed spaces at all. He's always been afraid to face this part of himself.

In fact, if we recall what happened during their successful siege on Maleshov, Hans fell and couldn't recover without aid. Here, he fell and got himself up again because... it didn't kill him. It's okay to have—wait for it—fallen in love with Henry.

Is this a stretch? Maybe. But the fact that it happens twice makes me think that it was done with intent.

(If I wanted to bring in a real stretch here, I'd suggest that there's meaning behind the fact that Hans helps Henry up to his feet several times, first after his terrible fall at the beginning, while they're walking to Bozhena's, and again after he's on the floor getting kicked at the Semine wedding. If this was meant to be a hint as to where Henry realized that he was in love with Hans, having lost him first almost to death and then again to the divorce arc, it wouldn't surprise me tbh. He fell, and Hans was there to be his solution—the only difference is that Henry wouldn't have had a problem accepting it the way that Hans did. But, like I said, this one is a stretch.)

All of which brings us to the second confession.

Henry tried telling him this same exact thing before, after nearly losing him to the noose and their temporary split. Now he's saying this exact same thing again. Which feels... pointed and frankly intentional.

And this time, Hans responds in kind. He also cares about Henry. He's just really bad at showing it sometimes.

Because of course he's bad at it. He's spent the whole game thus far stuck in a closet of claustrophobia battling against his own internally homophobic demons.

But his success in a) escaping that closet and b) battling those demons brings us to the promised land.

Where they fuck in a (relatively, considering Hans' fear from before) small room and with Hans underneath Henry, the safest ceiling to come (down) on him of them all ♥

[newttxt]

and thats a wrapppppppp!!

from the 10th and final chapter of utilities included

masterpost

[urfavcrime]

dsmp is still SO insane to me. still not completely convinced it wasn't a social experiment. it is something that can never be replicated again due to the really specific circumstances that attributed to it's creation and popularity

[pinkseas]

no bc like. is it just me or are the banshee and the original wishful aurosa outfit CRAZY complementary ???

the colors VERY obviously ofc, you have the banshee's red hair vs nikki's green, all the reds and silvers and grays and blacks vs the gold and white (even down to nikki's gold eyes vs the banshee's gray), but even beyond that just.

the roses get me so bad. both of their outfits HEAVILY incorporate them: both circlets, countless details on both dresses, both chokers, both tights and shoes.

on one hand, there are the banshee's red roses for elegance and passion (and very possibly sacrifice and martyrdom), versus nikki's golden ones for perseverance and eternity.

but beyond that, the banshee's roses bear GREAT resemblance to the desperate vines born of the dark. the ones that infected the wishing woods, born of the same power which caused the coma incidents. directly opposed by nikki's wishful aurosa, an outfit that specifically allowed her to wake the coma victims, to purify that darkness from their souls.

just. something about the banshee's extremely strong associations with death and corruption, and how she's been creating/capturing people as puppets but its clearly stated that she herself is a puppet of the dark as well. all of that death and entrapment, the warped and twisted eternity that comes with undeath in the first place.

versus nikki, who tracks the banshee down, who dances with her fearlessly, who's capable of matching her if not beating her outright in the styling competition even though the banshee is actively attempting to possess/corrupt her in the process.

we see it!! we see the banshee actively pulling nikki around like a puppet on strings, and we see nikki, halfway through, begin to Resist That Pull. to dance of her OWN accord, instead of under the banshee's influence. nikki's own ability to resist that corruption vs the wishful aurosa's ability to, at least to some degree, actively purify it.

the banshee as the sovereign of elegant and the wishful aurosa specifically as an elegant outfit. how well they compliment one another. death vs life, freedom vs control, purity vs corruption. eternal sleep vs finding eternity in waking.

[hybridheroes]

i've been getting a lot of asks, and unfortunetaly i can't answer most of them, since those questions will be answered in the comic eventually, so i'm just giving you a heads up that if i didn't answer it might be because of that! i dont wanna spam yall with my answers just being "you'll see......" , hope that's okay! and it makes me really happy ya'll are curious about what will happen :DD

[thatfriendlyanon]

hmm

[deus-ex-mona]

mona’s self liner notes for fukutsu no idol!

This song was the first of my new songs to be released. I sang it with many thoughts and feelings about everyone I know and everything I’ve gone through up till now in mind. I really love the MV and my costume too. I did fret about how well the song would be received, but I was really happy to receive many comments about how excited people were for my album♡

[aroaceleovaldez]

because i like making lists and community resources i'm kinda tempted to make a list of riordanverse/pjo discords, since they can be difficult to find

would people be interested in that at all?

[mad-hunts]

so, i'm sorry in advance for the cursed images again, y'all. BUT i was thinking about it, and honestly... this is the most accurate description that i could give y'all as to what barton is like around people who he's in love with versus almost everyone else (besides those in his family and his friends + POSSIBLY others... though, even then, he might just act this way towards them 💀)

barton around his love interests:

barton around almost everyone else (at least about 50% of the time):

[saturndevouringhislasagna]

Adderall makes time travel possible even if I don't want it to happen. Medication and chemicals are amazing. The fact we can just concoct something like that...I get to pretend I'm taking a potion or magical Substance...

[candycryptids]

😇- What's their best trait?

👿- What's their worst trait?

for Tuesday and Chuu

“Miss Chuu’s best trait? Mmm… You said this is an interview for your retelling of the Warriors of Light and their journey, right? I’d say it’s her unshakeable resolve. She decides she’s going to do something, and she doesn’t give up until it’s done. Ah… I’m not allowed to speak more on Miss Chuu without her presence, my apologies, mister Levraut.”

“You broke into my house,”

“Your lovely wife let me in actually,”

“To wake me up from my nap and interrogate me on my assistant,”

“Interview, Mademoiselle, not interrogate. Though I am sorry for waking you, your eyes were open so I assumed-”

“Ah-ta-ta. You wanted to know Two’s best trait right? Adaptability. Any environment, any obstacle… he’s got brains enough to figure the way through most anything. And failing that? He knows a top notch engineer in Magitek to kit him with the right tools to overcome his few shortcomings. Hey wait did you fucking call me a mad gazelle, you lop-eared scab?!”

“Thank you for your time, both of you. I have just one more question before I consider this interview complete and I let you both go back to your.. erm, busy schedules. What would you say is each others weakest trait?”

“I knew it! This IS an interrogation! Two, don’t-”

“Ah, that would be Miss Chuu’s paranoia, mister Levraut. Most of her other traits net positive gain,”

“Watch your mouth, Two.”

“That is.. ah, her paranoid trait has served to pull her out of many situations she would have landed in had they not afforded her foresight and caution to approach most situations.”

“Two’s worst trait is how I just can’t seem to keep mad at him when he finds and exploits loopholes in whatever rules I’ve set for him. And last week I asked him to bring me lunch, and he was nowhere to be seen for nearly six bells.”

“… Miss Chuu, if I may, you were in Azys La, and you called me via Linkpearl to bring you specifically egg sandwiches from the Bismark, even utilizing the Aethernet it takes time… and when I arrived at your last marked location you were nowhere to be found.”

[Duo Oc Ask Meme !]

[aylinhadmoretimeforthis]

if ONE MORE PERSON asks me why tf I was listening to "nikocado avocado" on spotify I'm going to lose it

*sigh*

IT'S NOT FUNNYYYYYY 😭😭😭😭

[mishkakagehishka]

"This is the problem with your generation" is such a funny thing to say to students whose courses you're taking bc you failed a year and ended up in their generation, but if i say anything i'll end up the bitch

[iridescentis]

I had no idea there were still people in the mako/h2o fandom that's so cool actually

maybe I need to get on with that essay huh

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

It is incredible how some (not all, thanks) western historians, journalists and researchers are supporting Israel in their writings after literally saying "they are europeans settlers". Sir??? SIR??? If you admit they are european settlers, then wtf do you call them fighting Palestinians and kicking them out of their homes a "Independance War"??? Indepedant from what? The people living them BEFORE them??? What are you all smoking to be admitting they are european settlers, but somehow deserve more the territory than the Palestinians living there??? You criticized France colonization of Algeria two pages ago, wtf??????

European settlers fighting to gain independance from the people they are colonising... What a joke.