#(a bit of a hyperbole but also true)

[daydrinking75]

the innocence in me has died

and i feel guilty all the time

i think too much

but thats alright

you tell me why dont you just lie

i know its true

all roads lead back to you

[echthr0s]

my toxic trait is that I absolutely am one of those people that will not remain interested in a show for long if I don't want to fuck at least one of the characters

[occasionalsnippets]

Anomalous MC interactions with SCP 423, 2474, 3143, 3812, 3999, 4028, and 7069?

pick a struggle

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

The appeal of One Piece

I know everyone's a bit sour on One Piece after the clown stunt tumblr pulled, but with the live-action series out and the anime popping off on social media, there's more eyes on this goofy pirate story than ever, and I've been dying to talk about it, so now's the time.

A lot of the conversation around One Piece is steeped in hyperbole, and it's hard not to be hyperbolic when you're talking about a work of almost unprecedented length and popularity. With that in mind, I wanna try to explain what makes One Piece so good in a way that is concise, spoiler-free, and that will give you an idea if this might actually be a story you'll enjoy.

And I do actually think a lot of people who would enjoy One Piece are currently writing it off, and I think a lot of the blame lies on assumptions people have about shonen as a genre. One Piece is no doubt a shonen, with young and teen boys as the primary demographic, but it is also first and foremost an adventure story about a group of quirky outcasts setting out to follow their dreams, despite (or often in spite of) the crushing weight of reality.

But you can't have an adventure story without a world to set that adventure in, and what a world Eiichiro Oda has crafted. One Piece manages to feel like it has fully realized an entire planet, with every island we travel to having a very distinct sense of culture and visual identity. A lot of care has gone into building the history and politics of these places, and the mechanics by which their more out-there elements, like the sky-high ocean geyser or the mountain with an upside-down waterfall, function. As such, it is a setting that afford its story a lot of variety, while also being able to tackle a lot of very heady topics like authoritarianism, racism, and abuse in intelligent, nuanced ways.

But just as important as all of islands we visit are the wonderful characters we meet. A lot of people aren't into One Piece's exaggerated cartoon aesthetic, and I respect that, but it does lend itself to a lot of very unique faces and body types that make its cast of 1000+ characters a joy to behold. This is admittedly less true of the more conventionally attractive women, many of whom look very similar, but this is does not extend to their writing. Oda is very good at imbuing his characters with life, pulling on their histories to give them personalities and quirks that are often as funny as they are sad. Everyone I know that reads One Piece has a side character that they stan hardcore for, be it the lovable klutz Donquixote Rocinante or the petulant ghost girl Perona.

And all of this is especially true for our protagonists, the Straw Hat Pirates, each one of which is a deep, multifaceted character whose drive and dreams can be traced back to their often heartbreaking origins. I know I mentioned it at the top already, but at its core, One Piece is ultimately a story about a group of hurt, lonely individuals who find in each other not just friends, but a family that will support and protect them as together they chase their dreams in the face of a world whose systems have been built to squash them underfoot.

All of this is brought together by Oda's exceptional artistic skill. While as mentioned earlier, One Piece's cartoony artstyle isn't for everyone, it's by no means an accident. One Piece is a story set in a cartoon world, and Oda is able to give even his most ridiculous characters and places a tangible sense of physicality, making everything feel real within the confines of the page. While Oda has a team of assistants to help him, he still does the brunt of the art himself, and his dedication to his craft means the comic is full of panels that are breathtaking in their complexity and visual density.

But it's not just his technical skill that makes the art of One Piece so good, it's that Oda is also very good at letting his art speak for him. Compared to a lot of other big shonen manga, One Piece doesn't lean as heavily on the dialogue to give the readers all the necessary information, but can convey a lot of what is happening and how characters are thinking and feeling through its artwork. There's some sections where this doesn't hold as true (and they are frequently less well-liked as a result) but it makes One Piece a far lighter read than its soon to be 1100 chapter-count would make you believe.

But the thing I think makes One Piece the most exceptional of all, and what makes me recommend it despite its length, is that as a story, One Piece has a remarkable clarity of vision. One Piece has a stance and a worldview that it does not waver on, and it is present from the very beginning. It's is romantic story, about the power of faith and dreams, about people's right to be free and be who they want to be, and about how the beauty and wonder of the world makes its worth its danger and uncertainty.

One Piece knows what it wants to be from the very beginning, and because of that you don't have to wait for it to get good. A problem that a lot of longform media struggles with is that the opening hours are a slog to get through, because it doesn't show you its hand early enough for you to know if it's something you'll like, and that is not a problem One Piece has. It is exactly what it is going to be from the beginning, only in a simpler, cruder form that it is going to expand upon to become the sprawling pirate fantasy epic it has grown to be. This clarity of vision also makes One Piece very rewarding for attentive readers, as it frequently hints at future places and characters, and plants story seeds that it pays off hundreds of chapters later. It does a lot to make the world feel big and interconnected, and makes One Piece very fun to re-read as you pick up on things you missed the first time around.

It is frequently recommended that new readers start with the initial 100 chapters, the East Blue saga (which is what the live action series adapts, for the record), to see if One Piece is right for them, and that's the note I am going to end this post on, as well. East Blue uses its 100 chapters to tell a fairly self-contained story that introduces the first half of the core cast, setting the stakes and building its world while giving you plenty of interesting places, bizarre creatures, and wacky action all the while. It is One Piece showing you its hand, with the promise that if you like what you see, it'll have so, so much more in store for you

[raayllum]

What Does 6x09 Actually Tell Us About Aaravos?

Now that we know a fair bit more about Aaravos and his motivations in canon rather than interviews or TDP short stories, and because 6x09 confirmed some juicy pieces of speculation I've had for a while (staff, Sol Regem, and First Elf—Archdragon relations I'm looking at you), I thought it'd be a useful overview of what we can glean from everything we get about Aaravos — and Leola — in 6x09. So let's get into it:

First Elves and the Archdragons

I talked about the potential peer-adjacent relationship the First Elves might've had with the Archdragons in contrast to the First / Star Elves and primal elves a few months before S6 aired. This was largely due to things such as Zubeia saying things like "In the name of the dragons of the First Elves" (4x03) and the fact that primal elves are seen routinely in subservience to the dragons, specifically Archdragons (the Dragonguard, the draconic monarchy at all, bringing gifts to Rex Igneous, etc). There were also lines where Zubeia was spoken of in a similar manner as Aaravos that felt indicative of something:

EZRAN: Zubeia, Queen of the Dragons, your heavenly majesty... (4x03) ZUBEIA: Our adversary was literally a being from the heavens. (4x04)

This is of course entirely literal when it comes to Aaravos, and hyperbolic praise towards Zubeia, but the parallel imagery / association stuck out to me, as well as Ancient Draconic specifically being the language of primal magic (already theorized in said meta to have been a gift from the First Elves to 'primal' elves and/or dragons). Given all this, I'd posited that "Archdragons at least once upon a time had been contemporaries of the First Elves if not peers".

Now thanks to 6x09, we can say it seems that this was true.

Sol Regem — or as he was going by then in his youth, Anak Araw — was a contemporary of not just the First Elves in general, but presumably their highest court in the Cosmic Council. He was the sole witness in Leola's trial, and there to oversee her arrest.

We also know that this point that the Cosmic Council / Order was involved enough that they dictated what merited the 'Order' and that they'd intervene to punish those who broke it, however well intentioned, so we know that the Draconic monarchy must've existed with their blessing, if not created by their hand for there to already be a hierarchy and trust established.

We don't know if the other Archdragons we're familiar with were around, such as Zubeia or Avizandum, but I'd be willing to wager that Luna Tenebris was at least, given that we know she's presumably not much younger than Sol Regem as she was the immediate Dragon monarch after him as far as we know. So it seems right now the hierarchy was as follows:

The Cosmic Council, maintaining their Order

Aaravos? Plus other First Elves who aren't council members?

The Draconic Royal Family

The Archdragons

The primal elves

Other misc Xadian creatures (rock creatures, mushroom guys, etc)

Humans

which was the hierarchy that was supposed to be maintained, but then humans were given/shown primal magic by Leola, and this led to the great upset by presumably putting them on 'the same level' as ordinary primal elves.

Speaking of which, let's talk about humans, specifically Aaravos' view on them.

Aaravos' view on humans

Aaravos shares very little about his view on humans in 6x09 directly. We see his views filtered through Claudia in 4x07 ("Aaravos believed in us when all other elves and dragons thought we were worthless, stupid, dirty animals. Aaravos believed we could be better. So he gave us magic!") but given how much what she says parrots what Ziard says ("When humans starved and struggled, helpless and pathetic?" / "We were starving and wretched and helpless"), how much that perspective holds up is of course debatable.

All that said, Aaravos' view on humans then is very much not, it seems, what his initial view on humans were through his dynamic with Leola. We know this in a few ways:

1) Aaravos' home with Leola was on Earth. This is presumably a decision made by Aaravos before she came into his life, which indicates a fondness or fascination with mortals / Earth his kind didn't typically have. Alternatively, it was a decision made because of Leola's fascination once she was a bit older, but one he was wholeheartedly supportive of.

2) Regardless, both options in 1. take us to the same place, which is that it is unlikely that Leola would've been able to form the friendships she did without her father's support and approval, both of which were readily given. Aaravos is happy and unsurprised to see her playing with a human girl, which would mean having a positive to neutral view on humanity.

3) The Cosmic Order was broken, and Leola punished, for the "crime" of sharing primal magic with humans. This was a law Aaravos was familiar with ahead of time, as he immediately understands during the trial that it would've been an issue.

4) Therefore, the most straight forward way for Aaravos to sow discord/chaos and further what Leola died over was to continue teaching humans primal magic. This may be what he eventually did with the Key and the book, and was possibly his original plan, despite the 'chaos' it would lead to.

(Side note: this line makes me think that Aaravos, as well as the other First Elves, are all basically timeblind by default.)

Basically: there's a definite piece of the story we're missing about how Aaravos went from witnessing humans having primal magic to actively cultivating dark magic with them. We also know he presumably stole a staff from the Starscraper, took its gemstone out (Laurelion's necklace that Claudia wears?) and replaced it with a stolen quasar diamond, using moon magic to hide the theft of the stone but not the staff. This transition of "humans are okay / I'll help them" (especially considering he reaffirms that Leola loved this world and all its creatures) to "I'll ruin everything and it doesn't matter what the collateral damage is" was always what I think we as a fandom expected to have happened, but it's still nice to have confirmation.

Speaking of which, time to finally talk about

Aaravos and Sol Regem

I'd speculated since Oct 2022 that Sol Regem and Aaravos had a potential personal beef between them, given Sol Regem's rage only really comes out in his confrontation with Ziard (3x01) after it's conveyed that the staff was a "gift from one of the Great Ones".

(It also was a chance to provide stronger characterization for both of them than if there hadn't been a connection in a series that already has very limited time, but I digress).

However, it seems that Aaravos and Sol Regem's issues go even further back than just "Sol Regem snitched on Leola and was instrumental in her execution" given that the second Aaravos hears about the golden dragon, his face changes from confusion/fear to anger:

Like he knows that if Anak Araw is involved in anything, it can't be good. This makes me lean towards Aaravos having a more positive view of humanity before everything, with this being the root of the issue that caused Sol "you are lesser beings" Regem to have their initial disagreement, and it all spiralled from there.

Conclusion: What did 6x09 Teach Us?

Confirmation on:

Aaravos had a positive view of humans and at some point during his revenge scheme, this changed

Sol Regem and Aaravos have a long, personal, and treacherous history with each other ("Tell me, betrayer")

Aaravos stole the staff and a quasar diamond

The First Elves and dragons / Archdragons were peers with one another and worked in collaboration

New questions it asks:

What caused Sol Regem and Aaravos to initially have problems with one another?

Are the First Elves aware that Aaravos game humans dark magic?

If they are, why wasn't that known by more Xadians at the time?

Why did Sol Regem testify against Leola?

Guess we'll have to see what answers S7 gives!

[saintetheldreda]

one of the most fascinating things to me about supernatural is how the mistake that the show is remembered for and hammered for the most is how it handled destiel. which sounds like just one element of the show. i mean, the main plotline isnt about that, the show isnt about that. but no fan will tell you youre disproportionately upset when youre inconsolable about november 5th. and its because in a way it wasnt just an element of the show it was kind of the whole show. so many of the most famous moments of the show are the comedic ones, and the moments of self-parody, and the episodes that dont take themselves very seriously, that conjure new rules out of thin air so that they can make something totally awesome happen. and its like, actually, maybe this show was an average horror show and a camp masterpiece

i mean im being a bit hyperbolic in my phrasing there but im trying to make a point. take dean for instance. so few fans admire how strong and brave dean is in comparison to how many of us are in love with him for being an utterly failed attempt at masculinity, for trying so hard to be cool and always coming off awkward, i mean the show itself saw the most value in rock as something that is self-aware about how stupid it is - sam and dean singing badly to wanted dead or alive, dean blasting rock of ages to go into battle with two people who just think its so lame - and these are moments of unseriousness that are also SO serious, they are desperately needed sources of strength in these moments

and you start to feel like the masculinity that is supposedly bound to heterosexuality is just another idea that is so much stronger, more helpful, more useful and more meaningful when it is self-aware about the fact it is performance. dean can be masculine but there should be no rules about how he does that. it does not have to be defined by a boundary, with an other - men are allowed to do this, women are allowed to do that - it can contain its paradoxes within itself. without a boundary

and i guess in conclusion my point tl;dr is that the show was always being most true to itself when it loosened up and let itself be a space for experimentation and weirdness and performativity. and every time it pushed away the liberated, camp elements it was a little like dean not confessing back to cas. it affected the very direction of the show and steered it a little further away from the heart of where it should have been pointed to

[alpaca-clouds]

Dungeons & Dragons - Or: Why Capitalism Sucks at Making Money

If this past year managed anything, it managed to get me really into DnD. Before I did not play DnD much, rather going with Shadowrun or (heavily homebrewed) World of Darkness. But with first Honor Among Thieves releasing - and then Baldur's Gate 3 giving me brainworms tadpoles... Yeah, hurray. New hyperfixation unlocked.

But as I started to read through all the lore, but also meta stuff happening around it. And yes, I quickly understood why basically everyone was frustrated with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. But I also think, that this betrays one of the big issues with capitalist logic and how it often fails to reach an audience - for the reason I outlined before: capitalists are actually super bad at realizing what works and why, because they only judge based on spread sheets.

And yes, the headline is hyperbolic. But let me explain.

A Community-Based Game

I mean, the biggest scandal of DnD this year was probably the entire thing about the community license. And this is very much something that shows quite well, how bad WotC is at recognizing why DnD works and has worked so long.

DnD centrally has been build around this idea of community. Now, mind you: This community was very, very focused on cis white guys for the longest time, but everybody else just managed to get in there and make their own little bit of community. Which also lead to a lot of homebrew stuff, that at times tackled some issues that the rules themselves did not address at all or not well. The combat wheelchair is probably the best known example of this.

But even outside of marginalized communities... DnD always thrived through the community aspect itself. People self-publishing magazines and adventures for it since the fucking 70s. As well as play sets, dice and what-have-you. DnD was always very much about all this and thrived through it. And now in came WotC saying: "Oh, yeah, actually you will now have to give us a big cut. (The big irony was, how Unity made the same move later on.) The fandom outcry was obviously big, there was a boycot, it worked. And WotC went all:

Of course they basically won the world competition in backpaddling (though again, Unity was a big contender this year as well) and quickly went back on this. But of course there is a problem: When your entire product is so much build around community and your community starts mistrusting you, you got a problem.

And this is basically what happened.

The Audience Problem

There is another problem of course. Financially the DnD movie failed - and I actually think this says a lot about how WotC kinda misunderstands the audience.

Now, there will be people trying to tell you, that given that the movie had great reviews and stuff. But the movie had a production budget of 150 million USD and only earned a bit more than 200 million on worldwide box office. Given that the marketing budget was likely around 30 million, the movie barely broke even.

Of course, part of the reason for it was that it just had a bad release date. It released parallel to the Super Mario movie, which ended up being one of the most successful movies of this year.

A friend of mine could not believe that the movie had financially flopped. They were like: "What the hell? Literally everyone I know who watched the movie went to cinema like three times to see it again." But... Yeah, that is true. But the issue is that these people are a very certain group.

Because lets make one thing clear: The people, who adored the movie so much, that they went to the cinema several times and bought the DVD/BluRay on release... were mostly queer nerds. Because this is the group of people who this movie spoke to.

And let's make this clear: I love the movie for this. I love that it so clearly went for this audience. Because I am part of this audience - and I adore this film.

But basically the movie has a general issue in terms of audience. Because on one hand the movie is too nerdy to have a wider audience appeal of people who had never played DnD, while on the other hand the movie was kinda not nerdy enough to go full force for the nerd audience.

A lot of people in the fandom have instantly sussed out one thing about the movie: "Why doesn't Edgin cast any spells? And why do we see so little of the weirder species?" And part of the reason undoubtedly was budget related. But the other reason is that... well, it is currently a well accepted wisdom in media production that you cannot sell a high-magic story. At least not outside of animated media.

Hence... There is surprisingly little magic being cast in this. And we also do have a mostly human main cast - or why Doric is the most classically pretty tiefling you have seen with her human skin tone and all of that. Because media productions do not trust the audience to accept high magic concepts.

Who is DnD actually for?

Okay, let me talk a bit about DnD 5e - and a good decision, and a bad decision. And how that affected DnD.

Everyone, who is somewhat into DnD probably knows that 5e massively changed the game. With one simple goal: Make it more accessible. Which manifested in several ways.

For one, the game was in some ways made less offensive. Because prior to 5e there was a ton of racism, sexism, queerphobia and ableism inherent to the game rules and times to the game lore. This is just a fact. Things like species that are inherently evil and stuff like that - and also some of the real-life racial coding inherent to some of the species. Removing all that stuff is a good thing. Like amazingly good.

And also, they made the rules a lot more accessible. Before the rules were bogged down with a lot of stuff, that was simplified or removed. Again, this is a good thing.

And this worked. It worked really well. Of course, this was also partly due to stuff like Critical Role and other actual plays like that happening and promoting the game. The player base probably increased ten-fold from what it was before.

Yes, it should also be noted that there is probably a good topic for a study on how formerly nerd-thingies became more and more mainstream during the last 10 years or so, but yes, DnD was one of those things.

But in this there was also a rather bad decision made, which ironically also mirrors what happened with Marvel. And this decision is: Because we want to reach a wider audience, every single thing we release for this has to reach the widest audience possible - rather than allowing that certain things might have a more specific audience.

I am sorry to talk about the MCU here, but it is just such a perfect example of this: The MCU basically made two mistakes. Overwhelming their audience with too many releases. But also not allowing the movies to be for a certain audience, but for the broadest audience possible. A good example is how they dealt with the minority-lead movies. They got directors and at times even writers from that minority - but then basically did not allow them to be too specific and be too critical of, for example, a racist system because that might not go over too well with white mainstream audiences.

Now, WotC did not really do anything like that. But they also went with this idea that everything they officially released should have the broadest possible appeal. Hence the weirdly low-magic approach to the movie, of which I assume that it definitely was an executive decision made.

The fact that the movie resonated so much with the queers more than anyone else was also not intended - at least not from the production company. Like, let's be honest. No, Xenk and Ed were not supposed to be read as romantic. And how appealing the found family trope was, probably was not intented at least on the side of Hasbro (not sure about screenwriters and director).

The Lore Problem

This perfectly connects to one of the big issues that all the franchises going for a broad appeal after being very nerd-focused for so long, run into: The Lore Problem. And this is quite ironic, because I ran into the problem earlier this year as well.

See, as I was writing fanfics for DnD:HAT I quickly ran into the problem that I knew next to nothing about the world of Faerûn. Sure, once upon a time (like between 2007 and 2011, while I was living in Austria with my then-boyfriend, who really was into those games) I played the old games of Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate 1 + 2. But let's be frank: I barely remember shit from those games. And getting to understand what actually happened in the lore between and after... Well, there is just a ton of lore. I mean, people are playing around with this world for literal decades. So, yeah. This can very much be overwhelming for someone getting into it anew. Like, where can someone new even start?

The fact that - at least partly for legal reasons - most of the Actual Plays also do not work with the official lore, rather just using the rules to create their own worlds, obviously adds to this. Even the tables I played on so far always preferred original worlds, because the lore of DnD is just very intimidating.

The one thing that actuall ended up getting me into the lore was BG3, because it left open just the right questions to go into the Forgotten Realms wiki and just look for stuff, before also starting to listen to lore podcasts.

But here is the thing: WotC is also not helping with this issue. Like, they absolutel could create a proper accessible compendium on DnDBeyond that would just allow people to get an overview of the world and the timeline of things happening, maybe go into some of the major factions of the world and such. I mean, heck, they really, really want you to use DnD-Beyond rather than roll20. Yet, in DnD-Beyond I do not even have a monster compendium without paying, which roll20 offers.

Like, sure, WotC, it is okay to lock up the adventure modules behind a paywall, no problem. But if you do give me even the most basic tools to run a campaign, I am gonna use roll20, thank you very much.

But yeah, what WotC should make just more accessible was just: Timeline, important places and the maps (heck, make them interactive, you have the fucking money), maybe also a proper list of the pantheons and factions within the world. Heck, add maybe some inspiration there for what players might want to do within one of the scenarios and then, under this, go and link "hey, we made this one adventure about this, if you are interested!"

Something I did not realize originally was how much freedom the lore still leaves the people. Like, often even the important settings and events are just set-ups for adventures that the characters can have in there. There might be a few novels or comics then, that go into an example of a thing certain established characters like Drizzt or Elminster did during the time, but there is a ton of freedom to explore.

But by basically locking everything up behind a paywall, you will never get people even interested in this kinda stuff.

Because here is the thing: I like my lore. I love lore. I adore lore. But... Without BG3 explaining some stuff and giving me specific questions to ask about it, the lore would have been very inaccessible to me.

Just think of people as... people

Of course among it all there lies the central problem that comes with capitalism running something like this. See, whatever CEOs and shareholders are sitting on those chairs with WotC and Hasbro, they do not see the players as players or the community as a community, but as consumers. Just as they see their employees not as valued constributors, but very exchangable wage slaves.

They do not see the value of the community exchange with stuff like fanmade modules and things. While incorporating a bit of homebrew stuff in DnD Beyond, they are absolutely not interested in the wider market of people just creatively interacting with DnD and making a little bit of money from it. If anything they see those people as potential rivals on the market.

Heck, they have issues seeing things like Critical Role or Roll20 as the enrichment for the franchise that either are - but more like potential rivaling forces and money they have lost.

And their employees? Yeah, as we learned... Most people who from the side of WotC helped the Larian team with BG3 have been let go by now. Because WotC and Hasbro do not care for their employees, they only care about having some numbers going up.

I fully admit it. Apart from Buying BG3 and the money I have invested in anything DnD:HAT related, the only money that WotC got from me, was some of the novels I bought on Audible.

But here is the thing: WotC is doing a shite job at wanting me to invest into any of their stuff. Partly because those modules I would like to have are not available anywhere anyway - and partly because... As I said, give me a reason to get something, rather than just expecting me to randomly get something.

And mind you, this is no slight against any of the people just working for WotC. This is mostly about shareholder and executive decisions made. Stuff that basically just sees either their employers or the players just as a ressource to exploit, rather than... people.

[thesherrinfordfacility]

what does aziraphale know?

i wanted to have another look through the pre-fall scene because there was something that wasn't feeling Quite Right to me about it, and honestly the below is just a stream of consciousness rather than any coherent theory, analysis or otherwise - so read at your own peril.

so the school of thought for many reasons has been that the Angel Who Crowley Was (AWCW) was a powerful angel, and i don't think that can be argued sufficiently given what we have seen so far from s1 and s2. but after rewatching the pre-fall scene i do wonder if crowley's importance in the Grand Scheme of Things has been overestimated, possibly by noone more than AWCW/crowley himself, and if aziraphale was actually the one with status, however quiet and modest.

when we open with the pre-fall scene, we see crowley alone, and he calls at a passing angel for some help with the map/plan. now this angel seems to rocketing past at the literal speed of light, and i cant help but feel that they were actually intending on going somewhere. and at the below specific angle, that angel looks like they were heading in a downward trajectory.

given that AWCW points up when referencing "Upstairs", we can infer that whilst heaven may not be bound by concepts like upstairs or downstairs, it does seem to have a concept of a higher placement for a higher being (ie god). this is also going on the assumption that in this scene, AWCW and the angel are even in heaven-space (which arguably, they're not), but regardless the angel seems to be heading down, indicating that they've just come down from the Up.

in any case, when aziraphale arrives, has helped AWCW with the cranking, he then says, "was that it?". and the way he says it, his body language, indicates to me that he is being polite, but in a perfunctory way. to me, it almost feels like he has things he needs to get on with - not in any frustrated or impatient manner, but just simply, 'is there anything else you need from me?', because he has things To Do.

(gif quality does not display this lmao but it's the impression i got anyway)

but AWCW puts out there that that was just the starting the ignition, and gleefully says that the next bit is where the true magic happens. which, i think is obvious, is where aziraphale actually reacts in any of the same manner - he begins to really smile, and offers up his name, even going so far as to say hi for the first time in the conversation. and i do think this is because he's just gotten a slam dunk of 'oh shit this angel is cute', but that's almost immaterial.

the part of the dialogue that struck me however is that AWCW says, "ive been waiting for this since... well, always!". it's not particularly revelatory, but to me basically says that AWCW has literally been working on this since he was formed from the firmament, having concept and design meetings with god, but this has been his entire "life"'s work, and he has never known anything else. he could just be being hyperbolic and i could be reading into it, but it would make sense for this starmaker to have only ever been a starmaker.

and heaven is certainly portrayed as being the most desolate place ever conceived, whether its in the dreaded High Rise Penthouse office building or in this vast, empty, dark space (presuming of course that the latter is in fact part of heaven, which it may well not be - and instead be in the space between planes before the universe was actually created)

regardless it gives the distinct impression of being very Lonely. so can we surmise from this that AWCW is not only a starmaker, but The Starmaker? working entirely in a team of one (thinking about the ep6 line of a "team... of the two of us") to create this nebula, possibly even most of the universe? crowley is described as being the only demon with an imagination, and his weapon of choice is literally the same instrument with which he cranked up this nebula... was his imagination in heaven also that revered and that's why he was entrusted with this project? and other similar ones? possibly.

but that spells for loneliness - single genius can be lonely. so it stands to reason that AWCW would be eager to have someone around to get dizzy with him about the wonder that is this new nebula and appreciate him for his creation. but it's not out of it being aziraphale being the one to appreciate it - we can surmise that in the way AWCW brushes him off. is this a case of self-importance? feeling he has status and should be recognised for this achievement? i feel like this is potentially a likely scenario.

in any case, AWCW seems pretty set on creating not only for himself, which he evidently finds fun and self-rewarding - going so far as to preen at the heartfelt but small praise that aziraphale gives him, but because its part of gods plan, and he's doing it for her.

he's even given perhaps one of the most famous lines from the bible, "let there be light". do we even trust that in GO it was god that originally said it - was it in fact AWCW? well either way, he completely believes in her vision, as far as he understands her vision to be.

so imagine how it must have felt then, in this instance, to have this stranger angel tell him that hes fairly certain that god is planning to destroy it in the next few millennia. AWCW, who is entrusted with creating parts if not all of her universe, isn't even clued in on the full facts, but aziraphale seems to be.

aziraphale is even seemingly part of the team (or is the whole team?) that seems to be entrusted with the plan of god's ultimate creation - earth and people built in her own image... but in kind doesn't seem to quite understand the true purpose of the nebula AWCW has built, at least according to him.

do we take this as an indication that god doesn't readily share her plans between angels, or that the nebula doesn't actually have as much importance as AWCW believed it to have? in any case, aziraphale seems to have been entrusted with god's plan, and AWCW - a creator whose creation the plan directly threatens - isn't.

aziraphale then goes on to describe the people they are currently designing; if we went with the notion (ie not sure how true this is in GO!verse) that humanity is god's ultimate creation, aziraphale has been trusted to help with that. i can't imagine just any angel would be, so there must be something in aziraphale that god sees as being fundamental in helping her with building them. from what we know of aziraphale's characteristics even this early on in his arc, he seems to be a kind and selfless person, and these may be the qualities that in building humanity god considers instrumental.

when we further consider that aziraphale then ends up being guardian of the eastern gate, and seems to have gone unpunished in giving away his sword (spelling its own implications for humanity as concerns war, cruelty, and death) and lying to her about it, this really does indicate to me that aziraphale is literally one of - if not the - favourite. given his qualities that it seems the other angels seem to lack (yes, even AWCW to a certain extent), it might just be that aziraphale was god's perfect angel. that would make sense.

the other thing that struck me is that aziraphale warns crowley against questioning god. the fall hasn't happened yet, so what gives aziraphale the foreboding sense of doom if crowley were to directly question her and her motives? "if i was the one running it all, id like it if..." strikes me as being the foreshadowing that it's this exact phraseology that AWCW puts before god and spells for disaster; that crowley intimates that if he were in charge, he would do things better. which is eerie when you again take into consideration the bookend that is aziraphale, "if im in charge, i could make a difference".

i would take the context of this being set pre-fall to indicate that there isn't any concept of actual punishment in heaven just yet (other than what a supervisory angel might order another angel to do, or a general reprimand). so what exactly is aziraphale afraid of? why is he scared for AWCW? doesn't he trust god to be understanding and kind if AWCW were to ask questions? what is it that aziraphale knows that AWCW doesn't?

so this is where i come to wondering if crowley was indeed prince of hell (okay yeah, fuck it, this is now a theory). what if it was actually aziraphale? god's perfect angel, entrusted with creating and guarding her ultimate creation? would it really be implausible that aziraphale went back to god and mused on what AWCW had said to him?

that it would perhaps be beneficial to have further input on how things were being created, especially when all the hard work, the creativity and genius, that was going into making her plans a reality, was just going to be wiped out in a snap? AWCW had 'friends' that fanned the flames of questioning god, doubled down on his resolve, and aziraphale tried to forestall the punishment that would inevitably come for him... but in doing so was punished himself?

but because aziraphale is her Favourite, instead of making him fall, she wiped his memory of it? he evidently remembers crowley as an angel, but beyond that? especially his remark that he's never killed anything (when, even if indirectly, aziraphale actually has? s1 with the french guard and the airfield soldier (perhaps not taking book canon into account here re: soldier) and the demons in s2) - does aziraphale not remember being a soldier? had a hard factory reset and is back to the unblemished, untainted angel he was before?

what if crowley did indeed bargain for aziraphale to be spared? that it was his fault that god was going to make him fall, it was his questions not aziraphale's? i think narratively it could make sense in the way that aziraphale and crowley are put as two halves of the same whole; that crowley did a selfless thing and was damned for it, whereas aziraphale wanted something selfish for crowley but was spared from the consequences. it would also go some way to explaining why crowley always has to protect aziraphale - its literally been his way since the beginning, in recompense for what happened to aziraphale?

i realise that this is completely batshit, but i do like the idea (im a huge fan of a bait and switch), and poetically speaking i think it could work - that instead of crowley being the original fallen angel, it was actually aziraphale? borne out of kindness and fondness for his new friend, the friend that actively seemed to welcome his company and wanted to show him the stars, and wanting to make heaven and the world a better place?✨

[deluxewhump]

This isn’t about any one thing specifically, but in my 4+ years here and 3 million years in fanfiction circles it’s something I’ve thought about more than once regarding dark topics in fiction and harassment (and if you're sick to death of the subject, i feel you, skip the read more, it’s just my opinions)

I try to imagine what I would think if I was someone who anonymously (or not anonymously) harasses and tries to censor writers on the internet. I assume I would feel pretty righteous. And if you’ve ever felt righteous you’ll likely agree, it feels really good. I wouldn’t do something like that if I didn’t think that I was clearly in the right. This would probably come from the idea that the content in question is harmful. Harm itself is a large, ambiguous concept. If I believed that writing certain things was inherently harmful (not just to certain individuals who don’t want to see it, which is their right, but in general), I would certainly feel vindicated in my behavior.

Personally I think harm is more complex than that, and I think a majority of people here believe censorship is more harmful to society than any illegal, immoral, or disturbing thing someone can depict in fiction. The issue with crying “harm” is that it is so subjective when it comes to fiction. I’m not saying fiction exists in a vacuum, but it is not the same thing as real world harm, which unfortunately can also be leveraged in bad faith to distort arguments with hyperbole and diversion.

If I was in the business of trying to censor writers on the internet, and I was a stickler for nuance, I might say that the *way* someone depicted something was not correct, responsible, or heavy handed enough in the moral messaging of “X is bad.” This might be a mental compromise I would make in order to justify to myself the fact that I’m advocating for censorship. Criticizing someone’s handling of something is fine by the way, it’s the harassment and trying to get them to stop writing it bit that I’m taking issue with. I would probably feel really good about harassing and criticizing people I thought were wrong for depicting serious things in a way that didn’t sit well with me. I would probably secretly feel (because to admit it plainly would be embarrassing) like a bit of a vigilante. It might come from a deeply personal and complicated place, or just a place of general beliefs I’d picked up. I’d bet money that I would consider myself left leaning on most things, maybe even strongly so. I wouldn’t like to consider that my goals are ultimately conservative, because that would cause me mental discomfort. But “conservatism and liberalism” in the sense we’re usually talking about them is not a binary. It’s more of a circle, and you can find yourself batting for another teams tactics real quick if you’re not methodical and honest in your thinking.

These conversations often devolve into and circle back to “for the love of god just please tag everything” which I agree with. But that is not the reason why people continually harass other people. It’s more that they think the content should not exist at all, which is what I just don’t fundamentally agree with. I also think human beings tend to enjoy feeling like they have intimidated someone they’ve decided is wrong or bad. I try not to be too dug in on absolutely everything I think. If I’ve put personal biases into my little profiling opinion feel free to suggest where I’ve gone wrong lol. One other thing— there’s all kinds of things in books these people would have to say, to be true to their own logic, should not be in print. What do you say then, should we pull it? I wonder if they’d say that with their chest or if it’s relegated to the internet for them.

[total-feminism-takes]

Yeah yeah tdi writers when it comes to female characters could be better but can we please focus on the fandom? Y’all have no excuse as to how you treat these characters!!!

Hello some of the best written and intriguing characters are female, some of the best dynamics include females but y’all are too busy with your male characters and male ships and your internalised misogyny I mean what who said that???

But fr to go onto some of my most hated things in the fandom because I’m in a whingey mood and want to complain and this blog is great if it’s okay I’m gonna dump these here;

Courtney haters need to SHUT UPPPPPPP!!!! I don’t care if you think she’s badly written she’s not and especially not for tdi standards y’all just want to complain about an interesting female character there’s sooo much to her you can just dig into it’s delicious I love her!! And yet she’s still antagonised by the fandom??? I’m not gonna act like she did no wrong and wasn’t the villain because hello did we see action but it’s more nuanced that her being annoying and evil! Y’all just need to look at her more!!!

Svetlana is ALWAYS neglected by the tdi fandom hello she’s one of the alters we see the most yet everyone hates her!! Why!! She’s not my favourite sure I prefer Vito, Manitoba and maybe Mal maybe but come on! She’s a part of the gang too stop ignoring her!!!

People who hc male characters as misogynistic are icky stop itttttt!!! It’s not fun!!!! I have more to talk about this later but I hateee when people say that male characters are misogynistic when either they’re clearly not or they make such a deal of it cough Ezekiel. I’m fine with it being a joke once again I will make fun of Ezekiel till the day I die but when people low-key make the male characters misogynistic it’s like why! Especially when it’s male fans sorry had to be said.

Can we please not ignore platonic male and female friendships pretty please!!!!! We saw how many of the male and male friendships were fake and caved in on themselves we saw the downfall of the guys alliance why do we act like it’s only the females?? I swear the male and female friendships are the only normal ones in the show bar like Gwen and Duncan because they had to do that but hello we all love a bit of DJ and Heather why do we act like we don’t???

The way tdi fans treat the male x male relationships compared to the female x female relationships is soo gross leave them alone please! They can be just as good!!! You don’t believe me well gwourtney has just as much potential as any male x male relationship but y’all don’t want to hear that! And they’re all so fun hello?? Mkulia did more for the homosexuals than anything pride ever did (jokes). Also you can have your toxic yuri like you have your toxic yaoi y’all just can’t understand that there isn’t as critical of a difference between females and men as you like to act there is oops sorry

The way y’all treat Dawn… sighs. She’s not some cute little garden fairy especially not after tdi she definitely doxxes people on Reddit if they’ve wronged her she definitely leaked Scott’s ip address after tdi. Like yeah she’s nice and a good person and likes animals but let her have fun too please

The way roti fans treat zoey is despicable. They treat her either likes she’s the devil and evil and poor little Mike zoey is so hypocritical and evil and mean, or they treat her like she’s a two dimensional piece of cardboard. Didn’t want to say this but she had some of if not the funniest lines in roti. Yeah she sucked in AS but everyone did and im predicting people treated her like this before AS even came out.

Uh TL;DR treat the female characters like how you treat the males please they’re not that different you just hate women.

Uh take this all with a pinch of salt if you do any of this you don’t hate women im just being hyperbolic but there is clearly some issues with the way you view women if you do any of this. Sorry it’s true I’m sending anonymously because I fear this will strike a nerve.

❤️

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

This one is so long I'm putting most of it under a readmore to save your dash

Anonymous asked:

AITA for stabbing a kid?

(this is less Am I The Asshole and more Was I The Asshole, bc it's really just a story from high school that I - as an adult in my mid-20s - was remembering recently and thought could be fun to toss to The People in as objective of a form as I can. anyways, all names are 100% made up to replace actual names, and everybody involved ends the story safe and alive)

I (16ish F then, 20s NB now) was trying to prep for an upcoming speech and debate tournament (yes, I was insufferable as a teen) with a group of other students in our debate coach's classroom. specifically, I was working with a younger student, Tammy (14ish F then), on understanding this specific type of debate (LD for my fellow insufferable teens out there) and brainstorming with her on some of the main components of her own case. as we were trying to work, another student, Tony (15ish M then), kept butting in to pester Tammy, making it impossible for Tammy or me to focus. in hindsight, I'm like 74% sure Tony had a bit of a crush on Tammy in that moment and expressed that feeling by being an annoying little shit towards her (as teens often do). that was at least how I would characterize the general vibe of Tony's actions and how he seemed to really need Tammy to be paying total attention to him. from my perspective and based on my basically decade-long memory at this point, Tammy (maybe?) asked him to leave her alone. she at least seemed frustrated and annoyed with him, or just generally flustered in a way I read uncomfortable. (take all this with a grain of salt here bc, regardless of how Tammy really felt, I was for sure super annoyed and that fact would almost certainly impact my interpretation and memory of the situation.)

idk if any teen girls out there (former, current, or future) have tried to teach or learn while a teen boy is flirt-bugging you or the person you're with, but it got old real fast for me. so, almost immediately, I asked Tony to knock it off so me and Tammy could work. he refused and kept bugging her. I continued to tell him to quit and he continued to ignore me, and this went on for a while. so, as one does, I figured it was time to threaten him with physical violence. I told him that if he didn't back off and let Tammy work, that I would stab him.

now, to give a bit of context for what the fuck I was thinking in that moment, I had learned a particular lesson earlier in my time as a supposed teenage girl dealing with supposed teenage boys in the 2000s-2010s: don't make threats you aren't willing to follow through on. so when I threatened to stab him, I 100% meant it. to provide a tad more context, I did also have a bit of a casually violent streak in high school for this reason (but maybe those stories are for a different AITA submission at another time, but they were all in a similar vein as this one in terms of cause and severity). also, does it help or hurt to add this was in a rural public high school in Texas? either way. to be fair to Tony, that's still undoubtedly a deeply unhinged and disproportionate thing to actually do, but would be a semi-common hyperbolic empty threat to make as a teen to another teen.

as you can assume based on the title here, Tony did not quit despite these threats. so, true to my word, after us arguing back and forth for a bit more, I stabbed him in the arm with the pen I was holding. he was obviously upset (to be clear, it did hurt him but did not injure him to the best of my knowledge beyond leaving a light mark for a bit of time that afternoon*) and he complained about having been stabbed. I said I warned him repeatedly that I would stab him before I actually did, to which he replied that that was an insane thing to actually do (fair enough, ya know?). the teacher was in the room, but if she saw any of this she ignored it. tbh, I don't see how she could have not noticed a kid loudly complaining about having been stabbed by another kid. so, I assume she chose to ignore it, possibly bc I was a bit of a teacher's pet (ie. president of the speech and debate team she was the coach of (I told you I was insufferable)). actually, now that I think about it, that was not the only time I stabbed another kid in her classroom in almost identical circumstances... maybe we are both TA....

anyways, in conclusion:

reasons I think I'm NTA: he was being an annoying dick to the friend I was mentoring at the time, and I did warn him that I'd stab him if he didn't quit being an annoying dick several times before actually following through (and it was only with pen and did no serious harm, but I think it does still count as assault regardless (?) and also I love the classic AITA storytelling technique of Being Dramatic, so feel free to ignore this point and *any other times I brought up that he was ultimately okay when considering how you wanna vote).

reasons I think I'm TA: I mean... I fuckin' stabbed a kid just bc he was being annoying and I fully got away with it bc the teacher liked me, plus I was a repeat offender of doing lowkey violence like this in response to other kids being Kinda Annoying and Shitty™. pestering other people on purpose bc you possibly have a crush on them is a very normal thing for a teen to do. stabbing another teen with a writing utensil just bc they did so though?... perhaps not.

(also, as an endnote: just to be clear, I do not stab teens at all in any context whatsoever since growing up. out of AITA-writing-character here, I think I was a kid who was just sick of guys around me crossing boundaries and dealt with that in a myriad of very unhealthy ways that were also informed by my general redneck upbringing that - understandably or not - sometimes saw some violence as a valid way to assert personal boundaries if it seemed they weren't being respected. that doesn't make it okay and is not at all a defense against being TA in this story, just trying to assure folks that regardless of whether you think I was TA I am now also a somewhat well adjusted adult who at least channels their overwhelming fury into organizing/activism stuff and mutual aid rather than stabbing annoying teenagers. while this isn't some stressful conflict that I feel torn up about or anything even close to that, I am interested to see what folks think, so thanks for reading if the mod(s) found all this worthy of posting for y'all!)

What are these acronyms?

[rainbowgod666]

Really fucking stupid patch notes, wizardposting edition

Fixed a bug where @the-gnomish-bastard could NOT turn back into a normal gnome when using "Become Lead Statue" in some cases. This somehow applied to every "Become Statue" spell but the Lead one was the most broken one

Fixed a bug where Meme Summons straight up couldnt work if you had more mana than usual. No, we have no idea what the fuck happened

Fixed interactions with every variant of @the-wizard-council-blog, including the Illegal one, the NSFW one, The worse one, The better one, and all other iterations

Fixed a bug where the stew arcanum was straight up uncraftable because all the data was gibberish. This was fixed a few versions ago and now you only need 3 high-tier gods to make it. Also you need Meme-Infused Magic Spellwood Bowls to hold this post-post endgame item. Yes, its still too much stew but we kept it like that because its unironically funny

Speaking of magical trees: fixed a bug where some types of trees straight up Did Not Grow unless some form of "chunk loading" was enabled. In other words, what the fuck.

Fixed a bug where stacking too many attack ups made the damage 0 on any "explosive" spell. @official-megumin can now deal 9 quintillion damage (as long as its not over the positive 64-bit integer limit, because then the bug stays) (also the code is less fucked)

Fixed a bug where some unusual but valid items for wands and staves (such as LITERALLY EVERY NUCLEAR METAL and some fantasy ones like orichalcum and australium) straight up couldnt exist.

Added more items to mythril, but this time everything you can do with mythril can be done with other materials, so now you can choose between mythril orichalcum AND adamantine depending on the color

Adamantium crafting now doesnt require a bordering-on-hyperbole amount of adamantine. Also you now need industrial steel instead of normal one.

Fixed a bug where "Triple Summon of Meth Berserk Chimps" not only was unobtainable, but required over 2.14 billion mana. Granted it was unreleased back then but then it was released and it still was in its testing stage

Fixed a bug with many spider-themed spells not really being "spidery", this one goes out for our boy @autism--wizard, may you find many cute spooders in ur life :3

Fixed a bug where "induce memetic stroke" accidentally... told people about the meme. Whoops.

"TACO BELL TACOSPELL OF INTESTINAL IMPLOSION" fixed to deal less damage than the psychological damage. We know its a forbidden spell but fuck you we are not sending people to the therapist because omega diharrea

Speaking of: fixed a bug where "steal item" could work on vital organs. Youre gonna learn "Spell Of True Thievery" and youre gonna shut the fuck up about it

Fixed a bug where non-sentient kobolds could be... "milked". Yes mr gnome. KILK existed and it was kobold sperm this entire time. This is why you said it didnt exist, CAUSE THAT SHIT WASNT MILK CHIEF! Anyways now KILK actually doesnt exist so y'all better shut the fuck up or FIND A MILKABLE SOMETHING WITH A K IN ITS NAME

Fixed a bug where familiars didnt familiar. Yes it was terrifying in every way ever, so thank @familiar-union for this. Yes thwy cant be tagged by us idfk why

Fixed mithril tools being literal reskins of their steel equivalents. Whoops!

Fixed a bug where that one April Fools joke of "summon cock" actually summoning a penis. Now it actually summons a rooster (and a really big one)

Speaking of that, Summon Rooster has been fixed and now its a better version of the aforementioned spell

Fixed the interaction between A LOT of spells. Turns out that 99% of harry potter being trash doesnt stop people from doing Dragonball Beam Struggles with their spells. Also yes, elements apply

Fixed a few lines of code so that now the "use pokemon typings" option doesnt disintegrate the UI. Over 120k spells and each and every single one of them now has functioning typing. Now shut the fuck up wE DID IT

Fixed retrocompatibility issues. Now runescape can scape the runes! (HR is fully aware that the joke is shit) (but fuck it, it was funny)

Fixed a bug where any "Robot" something would bug up and change colors. Considering that people somehow managed to make trans flags with this, we added a transgender flag skin for every "robot", "wulfrum", and similar tech spells.

Greatrererest Blahaj Blast Barrage now has a hitbox AND a cost. It can be set as your ult and we already have the Gold, Platinum, Uranium and other skins ready. Yes the transgender skin is unlocked by default if you already have the spell, and if you dont- Magical Battlepass has it at levels 10, 32, and 69 (otherwise you get materials and xp) Because the one battlepass that works without FOMO and Whaling had to be the magical one

Fixed a bug where "draconic" items were only easily obtainable by dupe glitches. We may not have fixed those but we upped the drop rates so you dont have to exterminate dragons for one singular heart. Now it takes 3 dragons at most! (Yeah so it turns out the drop rates were HELLA WRONG. Whoopsie daisy!)

Speaking of that: Draconic Evolution Backporting works now! Now when you use a staff of power, people wont think its an euphemism for your di-

Magical swords now can be made woth higher tier elements. No idea why would you need an Entropic Steel Magic Sword but fuck it. You deserve to put some sparkles on that Alien X looking ass blade

The Throngler's Gold Skin now doesnt make it a mess of metal and gold. Now its actually good

Fixed a bug where bad connection made the online version of "the potion seller's strongest potion" unplayable because some elements were only obtainable in multiplayer. Fuck you and your theories about thwnpotion seller being an eldritch dragon eater. LoL. KeK even

The Augur Dragon now doesnt get stuck flying in circles above the Forbidden Volcano Arena. Now it actually CAN hit you from 10000ft in the air!

The marble wyvern boss (and therefore all other marble wyverns) actually drop the dragon marble builders want

Added tier XVII to the Magical Engine. Also recipes for Tier Ascension were fixed.

N2O Blast was fixed to deal hellfire instead of fire. And also being blue. It was easier than you believe

Using "Golden Shower (Metal) actually rains coins instead of being "golden shower but identical and deals steel damage"

Sniler's quests now update in 1 hour instead of 24, and the quests are better. During multiplayer, there are 5 quests avaiable instead of 3

Ghastly Mist now actually blinds opponents instead of being really dense

"F.I.S.T." can no longer be boosted by attack boosts, but nOW its damage is "(999 × your level + (your attack stat × 2)) × 2", and its cast cost went from 1000 mana to 1200.

More scroll duplication bugs were fixed, but the "use Grant Spell Usage onto a low level non-magic enemy so they have a spell that they cant use and then using Turn Into Scroll" has been made into an ACTUAL feature. Go ahead and make a billion "Scroll of Imaginary Technique: Hollow Purple"!

"Starlight Thunderstorm" now has 1% paralysis

Removed the "domain expansion" function until we figure out how THAT works. Theres still the tab, and when it will be implemented just send screenshots of what "domain expansion customizations" and then youre getting them once we implement them

[broodwolf221]

happy friday! i said i'd send you tethraghast, and here it is :3 from the "as said by cassandra" prompt list: perhaps this would be a good time to stop talking.

hehehehehe oh this was FUN. im love them 😭also what a fitting prompt @dadrunkwriting 636 words cws: none

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve already read that part.” She winced as Varric approached, resisting the urge to slam the book shut and try to hide it. Useless.

“That is true,” she admitted simply. He snorted, then sat down on the bench beside her.

“You’re actually rereading it? Seriously?” Under the apparent shock she swore he sounded a bit flustered, glancing over at him. His eyes were wide.

“It seems so,” was all she said, beginning to feel a little more playful than defensive. 

“Seeker, it’s really not that good of a story.” He sounded almost beseeching—a bit dramatic, even for him.

“You underestimate yourself.” She turned the page, although she hadn’t really been reading since he approached. “As usual.”

“Excuse me, I think I need you to say that again.”

“You have so many layers, Varric, I could write a book about them.” She gave up the pretense, closing the book and setting it on her lap. “A false humility to cover your ego, except the ego itself is false. It’s all false. Layers upon layers.” He blinked, looking genuinely surprised. She pressed her advantage. “You are a capable fighter, a good strategist, and a skilled writer. Even when you think you aren’t.” She tapped her finger against the book on her lap, driving home her point. “Your skill with wordplay is remarkable, but it is not surprising—you couch yourself with half-truths and deflections as a matter of course. It’s all parabole and hyperbole. Nothing straightforward.”

“I— um—” She smirked, watching him flounder for the first time. He cleared his throat and glanced away, fingers curling into the edge of the bench.

“I think the most sincerity I’ve ever seen from you was… during our fight.” Her voice dropped as she recalled that time, her anger. It had deepened the wedge she had already driven between them before, when she had Varric brought in for questioning.

“You were scary, Seeker,” he muttered and she winced again, nodding.

“And you were angry.” Now he nodded. “And hurt.” He hesitated now, then sighed and nodded again. She was only watching him out of the corner of her eye, trying to not intrude.

“We both were, I guess,” he pointed out somberly. 

She stared down at the book in her lap. This was her fault—she had brought this up. She had twisted this moment. “Varric,” she began quietly, feeling his attention shift back to her. She steeled herself, wondering why this was harder than facing down a dragon, and turned to meet his eyes. “I should… That is, I have been meaning—”

“It’s okay,” he began but she shook her head.

“It is not. I am sorry, Varric.” They stared at each other in silence for long moments. He looked away first, laughing a little.

“Shit. Never expected to hear that from you.”

“Nor I,” she admitted a little sourly, smiling when it made him laugh again. “There is much that I regret. I should have apologized long ago—I should have thanked you when you stayed to help. That was brave. I should have—”

“Seeker,” he interrupted, turning to face her properly, drawing a leg underneath himself. “Cassandra,” he said, her name startling on his lips. “That’s enough. Perhaps this would be a good time to stop talking.” She turned to face him with a frown, wondering if she had upset him, but he looked…

She did not know how he looked.

Not upset, certainly.

But she did not press, and eventually he smiled at her and resumed his position—but she noticed he had closed some of the distance between them, his shoulder brushing her arm. She did not move away. And eventually she opened the book again, feeling his attention lingering on her even as she lost herself in his words and world once more.

[boyfridged]

"a death in the family" is a culmination of many frustrations and insecurities of jay; frustrations and insecurities that would come to light one way or another. jay is angry, yes. he's grieving, he's disappointed, he's scared, he's traumatised, he's lost when it comes to his role as robin and a son, he simultaneously thinks bruce is not doing enough to achieve justice and that he only cares about beating up criminals, he wants his mom, he fights like he has "a death wish"-- and it all spans throughout a couple of days; if you include garzonas' case, which was a trigger for this sudden (when it comes to the sheer intensity of it) breakdown, it's maybe 2/3 weeks at most.

what i'm trying to say, is that it's all based on very real concerns but also that these concerns never took this shape before. they never overlapped to such an extent. jay did not have a long-term issue with trusting bruce before; he did not cry every single night thinking of his parents; he did not think bruce was too busy fighting crime to talk to him; he did not question his place in the family on every step. for all we know, garzonas' case is also the first time jay feels that helpless during an investigation.

it is, in a way, just a very bad week. you know that feeling when you're 14/15, and something shitty just happened, and a family member or a friend says something, and you snap at them and think, or maybe even say-- why are you always like that. and it's not all true, or maybe it is, but it never truly bothered you before. it's also nothing that cannot be fixed or talked about, but you're upset now, and that now feels too much like forever, and when you start thinking about it, that's only one of many many issues you never really considered before, and it's too much to deal at once with, and even if you wanted, you already feel as if it wouldn't work.

it's not merely a hyperbole; some of these things will perhaps hurt a bit forever. but some others are salvageable. some were a lie your anxious brain invented. probably most of them you can live with. of course, the problem is that it doesn't seem to be the case at that specific moment.

and i think this is what jay's anger and despair were in these final week(s); not some great universal truth uncovered. not a complete delusion. just one of these times when everything is too much.

there has to be some nuance in reading aditf because of that. the reader should recognise jay's anguish, but this anguish should not overwrite all the love and trust that jay had for bruce otherwise. there's so much going on there and none of it can be told as a story of absolutes.

[john-laurens]

As a follow-up to this meme, here is the story of a supposed pact between two brothers, Francis and Cleland Kinloch, to ensure they would not be accidentally buried alive.

This story comes from the collection "Biographical and genealogical research on Francis J. Kinloch" from the South Carolina Historical Society archives. To my knowledge, the "J." used in his name here is simply to refer to the fact that he was Francis Kinloch, Jr. and does not imply a middle name.

This story is titled "Anecdote Legend: A Death in the Kinloch Family," which I think really captures the potentially hyperbolic game of telephone that gives us this account. The story was recounted by Kinloch Bull, Jr. - I am unsure what his relation may be to the Kinloch family. This story was relayed to Kinloch Bull, Jr. by his father, who attended the General Thomas Sumter Memorial Academy for boys in the early 1900s. This Academy had previously been Acton, the home of Cleland Kinloch. The father of Kinloch Bull, Jr. was told this story by a Colonel Dargan. And so the story goes -

Cleland Kinloch and his brother Francis were, like many people in the 18th and 19th centuries, afraid of being accidentally buried alive. Accordingly, the brothers made a pact - when one of them died (or appeared dead), the other would stab him through the heart to ensure he was truly dead before his burial. Cleland later dropped dead in the upstairs hall at Acton. Francis, holding up his end of the agreement, proceeded to stab Cleland through the heart. This produced a great amount of blood that stained the floor. Some believe that the amount of blood produced indicates that Cleland was actually still alive when Francis stabbed him. The blood left an approximately 2 feet by 3 feet stain that would remain when the house later became the General Thomas Sumter Memorial Academy for boys.

A few things to note here:

This very much sounds like the sort of story that would be exaggerated or completely made up to scare young boys. Some of the details are also a bit questionable. Did they not have a doctor assess Cleland for evidence of life before Francis did the deed? Why did they not move the body off the floor before stabbing him? Also, the amount of blood that will leave a dead body after being stabbed or cut depends upon how the long the body was been dead. If Cleland had very recently died, the blood may not have significantly clotted yet, and a stab wound could have caused blood to spill out.

The story gets the year of death wrong for Cleland - it states that he died in 1826. According to "Kinloch of South Carolina" by H.D. Bull (same last name as our storyteller - perhaps a relation?), Cleland died in 1823 while Francis died in 1826. It is true that Cleland died at Acton and that Francis outlived him.

While I made fun of Kinloch in the meme for not taking a less graphic route such as cremation, cremation was not commonplace at the time. Henry Laurens was actually among the first to be cremated in the United States when he died in 1792. For the time period, a stab or shot through the heart is honestly a pretty effective and expedient way to ensure someone is dead.

[thewebcomicsreview]

A'ight a'ight, new Hamsteak tonight! This update, the cue ball update, apparently has a content warning for physical and mental abuse, so I'm putting the liveblog behind a ReadMore

It's still weird that GCATavros and Erisol (and Fefeta) are a thing, for all sorts of reasons, but I'm not going to question it I guess.

Sneaking suspicion we're getting a new Vriska look today. Also confirmation that sprites can't change their appearance. Which I guess is not new information, but...it's also not very interesting! Moving on!

Sollux has the hardest-to-read quirk of any of the main trolls, and adding Eridan doesn't help at all. "Class-swah Dichotomy" probably means class as in social class, and not as in Classpect, but keeping the phrase in mind regardless. Davepeta is the leader of the group, a combination Rogue/Knight of Time/Heart and they passively stole Vriska's time by trapping her in the hyperbolic character development chamber, which seems like something for the classpect chart people to want to focus on. @bladekindeyewear is back in the liveblogging scene, presumably taking all sorts of notes on this.

Why the fuck is GCATavros talking like Gamzee?

Kind of interesting reading this comically pathetic version of Tavros after reading the author's commentary on the first part of this hell tier where they focused on how there was actually a lot more to him than being the buttmonkey. Also after the last update I'm reading this whole conversation expecting that Vriska will meet Doc Scratch and this will somehow tie into that relationship, though I have no idea how.

Well, that's not at all an ominous thing to say in the "Hell Tier" arc. I'm also kind of curious how this can really be an escalation over Spidermom, unless they're going to make some reveals.

This entire arc is character-based, of course, but the lore nerd in me wants to know where Scratch's parlor comes from here. Vriska never saw it, nor did any sprite, so why is it accurate? Where is Hell Tier coming from? It's also worth remembering, along those lines, that Doc Scratch is partially Hal Strider, and thus a shard of Dirk, though this is presumably not the real thing.

Scratch's text also has a typewriter sound effect, which I like. None of the characters in the flash have "voices" in like a Banjo-Kazooie/Celeste-type way, so it's immediately notable when one does.

Getting kind of creepy pretty fast here.

Vriska's text has a black background suddenly. The implications of this I don't really remember off the top of my head, though. Actually on my other monitor it's a green background, which makes a bit more sense. I think one of my monitors has kind of fucked color settings but I don't know which one.

Oh wait, that's right, Vriska has seen Scratch. Scratch distracted Aradia and Terezi so that Vriska could throw Tavros off the cliff that one time. Maybe she has been here before, on the Green Moon.

I feel like Momfang has that title, but make your case.

Oh, what the shit. I'm starting to see where the content warning is maybe coming from.

Okay, seems we're going there. Scratch was certainly always, um, pedo-coded in the way he targeted and manipulated young girls, but it seems like we're about to get some confirmation.

Um.

UM.

Okay, getting de-aged back into Hivebent-era Vriska is honestly the best outcome of Scratch putting her in a "uniform".

As much as this is about Scratch, this is also about Vriska herself, in the end.

Man, I feel like every single Scratch line here is worth examining, but I don't really know what to add. As much as this is Scratch the cueball dude this is also the concept of Fate itself.

More classpect stuff about how Vriska's power is "borrowed". Really, that's true of all the kids, their god powers and even their Ultimate Powers all come from Skaia and can theoretically be revoked at any moment. Not sure when Light "abandoned" Vriska, though, unless it's referring to (Vriska) getting killed. This Vriska knowing that her own best friend tried to murder her and that it was divinely judged Just has have fucked her up a little.

Interesting. Generally the fandom considers classpect has being an extension of your true self and your title being Skaia simply describing who you already were. This (which is partially Vriska's opinion of things) frames it as the kids being Warlocks who were granted power by Skaia. This is mostly Worldbuilding (tm) but if that's the way Vriska's thought of it it kind of explains a lot about her. She doesn't feel like she's ever earned anything she's had, even her divinity.

Vriska doesn't get a revelation here, she just gets insulted and kicked out and-

Erisol, you dick, lol.

Well that was a lot to take in. I think I need to process it. Kind of wild that it's only the halfway point. Up next is the feather and the 8-ball. I think we're down with flashbacks, and the feather is Davepeta and the 8-ball is Vriska getting out of hell.