#I'm at the point of convincing myself of literal impossibilities

[banannabethchase]

Me as I got in my car to drive home: Ugh I'm too tired to work out.

Me after 45 minutes of rage music that exacerbated the infuriation I was feeling: I MUST RAGE

[bolognamayhem117]

Hot Take: Astarion does NOT hate flowers. You just missed a few subtle hints through Act 1 and early Act 3.

Astarion's negativity is directed toward just about anything remotely pleasant as you move through early act three, starting the moment you leave Wyrm's Rock. First thing after Gortash's coronation he marvels near tears at the colors of the city in daylight. If you ask if he's alright, it pisses him off.

There's other instances I can't quite remember but he's a straight crank throughout early Act 3 and it took me several hours of gameplay to have a lightbulb moment about his newly crappier attitude.

He just spent the last two hundred years seeing everything in the overwhelmingly warm dim tones of indoor lighting via sconces, rushlights, and braziers, or the dingy blue gray of moonlight outside. Daylight colors are something he had more than a lifetime to forget and now that he has a chance to remember that vibrancy in his own home town, he knows he's going to have to forget it all over again either by death or by remaining a vampire spawn forever. The worm isn't going to live rent free in his head forever, and killing Cazador to ascend in his place likely feels like an insurmountable and impossible fight against a literal titan who could stomp him flat without a corm of effort.

He doesn't hate flowers, he hates EVERYTHING right now because it's all going away very soon and if he convinces himself he hates everything then he won't miss it when it's all gone again. He was denied this for two hundred years and he's PISSED at what was stolen from him and PISSED it's all going away again.

He behaved similarly in Act 1 about anyone besides him enjoying physical intimacy. Some of this content was cut, to my best knowledge, but the overwhelming majority of his dialog addressing the PC romancing anyone but him are negative or backhanded. This is for two reasons, I think. A: his Simple Plan just dissolved right before his eyes when you chose someone else which in his mind means he has zero safety net, and EVERYONE gets to enjoy sex (key wording being ENJOY, not simply having) except him... And it pisses him off.

He also gleefully interrupts the bug bear and the ogress, I think for the same reason as the above paragraph, being: If he doesn't get to enjoy intimacy neither do they.

He reacts with anger and disgust at anything he's being unfairly denied. Which... That's fair. His feelings are valid, but his reaction to it is pretty shitty and meanspirited.

The other companions I tend to keep in my party, (that is Lae'zel, Halsin, Karlach, and Wyll) however, are actually appearing to behave pretty patiently with him in Act 3 which I find interesting.

In the instance with the flowers Karlach doesn't bother trying to convince him otherwise of his opinion, she just tells him how they make her feel instead and rather than getting snippy or doubling down he more or less agrees to disagree. I also don't recall anyone disagreeing with Astarion during Gale's last quest tasks when he mentioned that he quit praying to gods who wouldn't hear him a long time ago but to be fair, I think the gods did everybody in this crew dirty and they all know it. It seems like they're consciously giving him the space to be mad about things, is what I'm saying.

Everyone I know including myself who crawled out of a long-term hot garbage situation kinda went wild for a bit with freedom, spoke poorly, behaved strangely, had extreme emotional reactions to things, and made some particularly terrible choices. I think that's just a part of recalibrating yourself, healing and learning how to be okay again.

Point is, I wouldn't conflate too many of the turbo-negative things he says with how he actually feels about anything. We certainly know what he says and what he feels are two very different things.

[reiderwriter]

May I please request a fic where Spencer finds out about the new female team member’s love for gaming by seeing her play her Nintendo Switch on the jet? Bonus if he sees her struggling to beat something like Five Nights At Freddy’s or Catherine Full Body and he helps her out much to her shock

A/N: Thanks for requesting! I'm not much of a gamer myself, so it took a while to figure out what I should write. I went with FNAF because I’ve literally been held hostage by that Josh Hutcherson Whistle tiktok for the last seven days, so I hope you enjoy!!

Warnings: mild spoilers for FNAF 4 Night 8, fluff.

“What is that?” Spencer asked casually, glancing over at the screen from his seat on the jet.

For some reason, despite facing monsters in real life, you'd been addicted to horror games in your downtime. Apparently, it was better for you if the crazy murderers were actually sentient animatronics possessed by the ghost of murdered children.

“It's a Nintendo Switch. It's a video game.” You replied without looking at him, heart racing from the pressure of the level.

“Like pacman?”

“Yes, Spencer, like pacman.” You sighed in frustration, trying to avoid running into the animatronics running around the building your character was supposed to be guarding.

“Then why is the screen black,” he said, just as Mad Freddy snuck up on you in the game and you lost the level. You sighed, head falling back in defeat.

You'd been stuck on night 8 of FNAF 4 for at least a week now, but who could blame you? You had to play completely in the dark, and you were dealing with some of the worst animatronics, too.

You'd been so happy to discover 20202020 mode, and you'd passed night 7 easy enough and they were honestly pretty similar, but one week into consistently playing it in all of your downtime, and you were seconds away from sacrificing your switch to the animatronic gods.

“It's supposed to make it more challenging. I think it's just impossible.” You threw the switch down, making sure all your progress (or lack of it) was saved.

“Can I try?” Spencer curiously asked from beside you, smiling at the soft pout on your face.

“Are you sure? It's not exactly your style…?”

“Humor me.”

You passed him the switch, showed him the controls, and snuggled back against your seat, eager to catch some sleep now suddenly. You had just closed a long case, and you may as well try to sleep now before the pile of paperwork made that impossible.

If it was easy to fall asleep, it was impossible to drag yourself from sleep.

You'd felt the familiar movements of the jet jostle you side to side, but you also felt a warmth next to your body that was too comfortable to convince you to even crack an eye open.

After a week on the case, plus a week trying to solve the game level, you really hadn't slept soundly in some time.

So when someone shook your shoulders, you simply ignored the motion again and cuddled closer to the arm and chest you'd wrapped yourself around.

Until you realised that the arm and chest had to belong to a person. And the only person that could be was Spencer Reid.

“It's okay, I'll wake her up, you guys go ahead.” You heard him say, with a few muffled voices agreeing.

You decided to just play dead as you heard the shuffling sounds of the rest of the team climbing off the jet. At which point you just happened to stretch yourself naturally out of your peaceful sleep.

“Spencer?” You yawned, trying to sound confused. “Did we arrive?”

You disentangled yourself from his body, realising that in facing him, your faces had hovered centimetres apart from one another. His breathing was calm, but you could feel his heart beating hard as you pulled away from him, mind racing at the not so innocent touches he traced down your skin as he let you go.

“Yeah, the team got off already. We should probably head out, too, before the cabin crew comes through to reset.”

You stood yourself up and grabbed your things, including your switch, now packed carefully into its carry case.

“So, you gave up as well, huh?” You laughed at the obvious sign of Spencer's white flag.

“What do you mean?” He said, grabbing his own bags now he was free from your grasp.

“The game? It was hard, right?” You smiled at him as he collected himself and turned back to you, pausing slightly.

“I finished the game.”

“What?” You whirled around on him, voice breaking through your lips before you could control it.

“I finished the game. I was just watching the credits when you… made yourself comfortable.”

You felt embarrassment spread through your body but pushed it down to make space for the sheer disbelief that known technophobe Spencer Reid had completed the video game you'd been struggling with for the past week.

“How?” was the only word that would leave your mouth as you froze in the aisle.

“There was a pattern to it. I realised if I went between the left door, the bed, and the right door, the fox thing-”

“Nightmare Foxy.”

“Right, Nightmare Foxy wouldn't come out of the closet. And then the others wouldn't pop up until 4am, and after that, it was pretty easy to get through.”

“Oh my god.” You stood in awe, blocking the aisle and forcing Spencer to stop next to you as well.

“You have to show me how. Please, Spencer, I need to see it.”

You hadn't realised your hand had crept up to grab his sleeve, pushing closer to him slightly.

“Are you free this weekend?” He whispered back at you as you realised that the space between you was miniscule. You could only nod your confirmation enthusiastically.

“Then it's a date.” He whispered again, pushing past you and letting himself off the jet.

[leggerefiore]

I've been forced to push myself too much at work and now I'm sick and exhausted 😩 can I request the dead inside trio and submas comforting a sick/overworked s/o??

I struggled a lot with this one so it's probably not my best

cw: stress, comfort, mentions of fainting in some parts

character: Ingo, Emmet, Nanu, Cyrus, Larry

▲Ingo▼

● His immediate thought is to scold you after you basically collapsed from overwork. As your emergency contact, he was naturally the one they called when it occurred. When you declared yourself fine, if not just a bit tired, he helped get you back home to rest. Your work had so kindly given you a few days off work to recuperate, seemingly horrified at the thought they were quite literally working you ragged. So, as you lay in bed at home, Ingo also took opted to take a few days off to help you relax, too. His worrying would have made doing his normal work next to impossible, he knew. Emmet was more than happy to give him the time, anyway, knowing how badly he often overworked himself, too. It may have felt a bit hypocritical when Ingo chided you for letting yourself be worked like that, but it was a sign of his genuine care. He was in an absolute panic when he got the call about your collapse and could not have gotten off the battle line any sooner.

● Ingo will make you rest. There will be no chores or anything done until you had at least a day or two of unwinding. At best, you can convince him to help him as he handles the chores. At worst, he chases you away from even something as simple as folding towels. He does not want you to further exhaust yourself – The image of you suddenly collapsing now burned into his mind. Why your work thought it was okay to treat you like this until the very extremes was beyond him. He certainly would never do that to his employees. That could endanger the lives of so many for little return. He bites his lip as he knows you will not want the offer to work under him. It was wrong for him to consider nepotism there, even when it came from genuine concern for you.

● Instead, he focuses that energy into doting on you. Ingo dutifully makes many dishes that you like simply so you keep up with meals, worries that it may have also been a factor in some way. Any hobbies you have are also brought up and engaged if it suits you. He also spends plenty of time just cuddled up with you and reminding you how much he does truly love you. Part of his behaviour is like an overbearing mother. This has shocked him horribly, and he now completely understands how you feel when he overworks himself. Internally, he makes a promise to never do that to himself again if you feel this horrible concern as he does. In the end, you will feel well rested and stress-free. Ingo works tirelessly to make it so. You both make a promise to not let the other do that to themself any more.

▽Emmet△

○ The younger twin notices the telltale signs of your behaviour and feels a mild annoyance. Nothing really bad, just a thought that you and Ingo were acting for too similarly for his liking. He is certain to stop you before it becomes bad. A bright smile on his lips as he tells you to demand time off work. He feels you need at least a day to gather yourself, but he knows more would be better here. No matter what, he would panic if you got worse. Emmet is bad at expressing his worry, and he may just actually go into your job, ask for you, pick you up, and carry you away. He is just impossibly worried. Ingo is bad enough… The thought of you in such a state is enough to make him start being more aggressive in his battles. When you finally do get that time off, he finally eases him up on people to a point where it is noticeable and debated among Depot Agents.

○ Emmet instantly takes off time alongside you. He is so worried about you and wants to make sure that you actually relax on your time off. His mind thinks about a time he forced Ingo to take a day off and came home to find him having cleaned their shared apartment. He does not want something similar to occur here. Any household chores and needs can be handled by him. He will not pretend like he enjoys doing them particularly, but making sure that you are resting his highest priority. There is something oddly endearing about the younger twin dutifully washing dishes while you lay out on the couch cuddling with his Galvantula (who he asked to keep you busy). Seeing you unwind makes him feel immense relief, truthfully. The poor man was nearly really about to physically drag you from your work to make you relax.

○ He gets take out from any place you want in an attempt to make sure you are getting proper meals and not having to stress yourself with even minor cooking. He internally knows he is being a bit ridiculous there, but he has scared himself too much. His cooking skills are lacking, and he is a bit terrified of somehow accidentally poisoning you. Joltik cuddle time is assured also. He figures the little bugs have some energy to spare with you, and time spent with some cute things might reinvigorate your exhausted mind. Emmet cuddle time happens as well. He is almost constantly all over you since he is just so worried. There will be no escaping his affection. (Unless you tell him you cannot relax with him clinging to you. In which he will pout but relent.) You have to promise him that you will not let this happen so badly again. You and Ingo will make him “was Emmet” instead at this rate.

🐈‍⬛️Nanu❤️‍🩹

🌑 He notices when you start overworking yourself and throws out a helpful remark about not doing that. Nanu knows there is not a lot you can really do – especially if it's work making you like this. At best, he can tell you about standing your ground, but he knows boundaries will not always be respected. He does feel a bit frustrated seeing you like that despite it all. His indifferent facade melts away, especially after you end up having bad exhaustion spells. It is then that he helps you schedule time off since you clearly need it. He has seen some people collapse from exhaustion back in his International Police days, so he refuses to let you get to that point. And, admittedly, he used to be guilty of overworking, too. Obviously, not these days, but he still remembers.

🌑 Your time off is spent strictly away from anything that might be too much. Nanu cannot really stop you, in truth, should you want to, though. Mostly, he just asks that you let yourself relax and forget about any obligations for at least a day if they are not overly important. It is hard to deny the old man such a request. Besides, his Meowths are clearly ready to lounge around with you. How could you say no to some lazy times with the kitties? You really cannot decline when one opts to curl up on your lap and sleeps so peacefully while purring. (Nanu sent them after you, wanting to make sure you had a little time off your feet.) The Kahuna opts to handle a few things around the home to keep them off your mind, too. There is something a little sweet about catching the old man folding laundry and glancing at you reading on the couch.

🌑 He also goes out of his way to subtly do numerous things for you to help you recover. Casually, he will pick up takeout for you to eat or even try to bravely cook you something of edible quality. There is something nice about simply sharing a meal with you and helping you relax. Usually, you end up lounging out on the couch, watching some show half-heartedly. His arm rests around your shoulder as he pulls you close to him. Red eyes drift, to you leaning against him, and a sigh leaves him. He was ready to do everything you wanted, honestly. You could ask him to juggle, and after his initial deadpan, he may just try. You agree to be more careful next time in the end, seeing how genuinely concerned that Kahuna was for you.

🌌Cyrus🛰

☄️ He fails to notice at first – Something that will bother him immensely for far longer than he will ever admit. The blue-haired man usually does keep a close eye on you, as he is distantly aware that he worries about you far too much. Yet here, where he felt it most important, he had failed. You had fainted at work from sheer exhaustion, and he had been called as your emergency contact. Mortification was the only thing he could feel while rushing over to get you. Whatever harsh words that he used to hit your workplace with about being so negligent were swallowed as he instead confirmed that you were otherwise alright. Thankfully, they gave you a few days off in response to such a grievous situation. Or, perhaps, it was due to Cyrus's terrifying expression as he helped you up.

☄️ Whatever hypocritical nature may be present as he scolds you about taking adequate breaks and pacing yourself with work completely goes over his head. Even attempting to bring it up will make him insist that it is different from what he is doing. (In a sense, it is.) He also bars you from doing any housework. Cyrus has no reservations about doing them anyway— It is almost relaxing to him in a way. (Once again, chiding him back for overworking will not lead to realisation.) There is even an offer to book you some kind of spa or massage appointment to help you further relax. He would admit to having gone to a few himself during more light moments of stress. Cyrus would take off the day following you passing out, but not really anymore. Though, he does check in on you throughout the day. If you do take the spa offer, however, he may join you. Free Cyrus date at the cost of your mental and physical health.

☄️ Most of his real effort is far subtler. He is not inexperienced in cooking and will take over that while you recover. Most of the meals are more basic, but there is a surprise attempt at making something he knows that you like. It is not half bad. He also seems to come home more regularly, wanting to make sure that everything is going well and that your condition is not worsening. This means more time to spend with him. While he usually opts to focus on home upkeep, if you ask for some physical affection, he will relent to it. Your comfort matters most to him as it stands. He honestly is willing to do many things he otherwise would refuse normally simply to make you happy. (If he was even in the middle of his plans, he might be willing to drop them if it seems like they would stress you out even more.) In the end, you do make the decision not to overwork yourself because Cyrus obvious worry is a rare thing, and it made it clear that what you were doing was too much.

💼Larry🏢

🍙 He does not notice. There is a large amount of shame in failing to notice this happening, yet his work simply keeps him too tired to really give anything his full attention. Sure, he had seen the signs, but he had thought it was mostly him projecting. Then, you suddenly had intense fatigue at work and had to call him to come pick you up. He was mortified when he recognised you symptoms as so familiar to him. This was a common thing he experienced, admittedly. Walking you home, he asked you to schedule a few days off if possible. He knew it was a lead into a fainting episode or extreme burnout. Both of which he thought were best to avoid. He knew how difficult management could be, but he was far too worried about you. There was some relief that it got approved quickly soon after.

🍙 He struggles to really know what to do to relax. Whenever he gets himself into such a state, he usually sleeps for a few days until he has to return to work. Whether you wanted to do that or not was beyond him, but he does mention it. There is some mention of how to better manage a workload between you both, but it is a struggle for him, too. How you kept going on so long like that was truly not within his range of comprehension. Larry opts to aid you by covering house chores and doing other various things for you. He could not get any time off to join you himself, but he works to avoid overtime, so you have him around more. His Staraptor seems to decide to keep an eye on you, too, when he is home. The bird cawing whenever you tried to do anything more intense than putting dishes in a dishwasher. It seemed that if it could not stop its trainer from stressing himself, it would stop you.

🍙 Larry is not only coming home more often, but he tries to be more engaging with you when at home. Casual check-ins on you become more common since he does not want to fail to notice anything going on with again. Lazy affection is also common. You both often end up lounging on the couch together, forgetting whatever woes had been bothering you. He frequently calls ahead before he comes home, too, to ask about what food you want. He is certainly no cook, but he does know the best restaurants in Medali. You will whatever food you desire. Larry does not care if he ends up having to visit Kofu to get it. He also discusses the situations vaguely a bit with you and gives you more experienced advice on how to handle situations at work to make life more bearable. In the end, you return back to work better equipped to advocate for yourself, and be more mindful of your workload. Larry is relieved.

[itsclydebitches]

Though I adore the dynamic myself, it struck me as odd a few months back that fans were taking a "Monster loved for the first time" approach to Astarion. Part of the allure of a vampire (for me anyway) is the act of transformation; the horror and tragedy of having lost who you were before—including all those everyday, human experiences. There were debates about precisely how old Astarion was when he died and at the same time fans were screaming over him having his first hug, his first real romance, this is the first time someone has helped him without ulterior motives, etc. and I'm going, "How is that possible?" This is an elf who lived a life before being turned, even if it was short compared to what his race would normally experience. Astarion had a family. He had a job! Yet the fandom (and to an extent the game as well) treats Astarion as more of a Phantom-esque character: deemed monstrous from birth and blindsided by the simplest acts of love because he was denied them from the get-go.

Of course, it's easy enough to read everything through the lens of slavery and torture. Sure, Astarion had all this at one point but it's been so long and his life as a vampire has been so unimaginably torturous that it's eclipsed those earlier experiences. I get that... but time as the answer still didn't fully convince me.

Not until I started romancing him and hit this line:

"I... I don't know. I can't remember."

This is in response to asking Astarion what color his eyes were before they turned red. Can we just sit with that for a moment? He doesn't remember the color of his eyes. This line was a game changer for me because I can't even CONCEPTUALIZE that. Mirrors appear to be pretty common in Faerûn—it's not like this is a setting devoid of all modern inventions and Astarion, as a member of the upper class, absolutely would have had access to various ornate mirrors like the one he starts this scene with—so what does it take to make you completely forget such an ingrained bit of knowledge about yourself? 200 years as a dehumanized slave, obviously. Still, my mind continues to trip over the idea. I have blue eyes. That's a fact I've known since I had any real sense of self. If my eyes were to suddenly change tomorrow I can't imagine forgetting that they were originally blue. Even if I'd put it from my mind for an extended period of time I'd expect the very pointed question, "What color were they before?" would fire some old synapses and drag the information back. Obviously none of us have any idea what 200 years would do to a human brain (or, you know, an elf's) but it still feels firmly in the real of impossibility that I could ever completely forget something like that.

Yet Astarion has and this line more than anything else has sold me on his Baby Monster Loved For The First Time characterization, both in-game and in the fandom. He acts like he's never been hugged before? Of course he does! The guy can't remember his eye color and you think he's going to recall any probably-treated-as-casual-and-thus-didn't-solidify-as-significant-memories hugs while alive? When was the last time you were hugged? I'm not sure. I know I HAVE hugged recently but was the last one with family over Thanksgiving? Did I give my friend a brief side-hug before we parted? I'm lucky in that hugs are such a normalized part of my life that I don't give them much thought... which means that if you were to suddenly enslave me and keep me isolated for 200 years, yeah, I'd probably forget what they feel like too. Or that I ever had any at all.

(Self-hatred is going to play hell with memory too. Once you feel like you don't deserve something and it's continually denied to you it's easier to convince yourself you never had it to begin with.)

So yeah, Astarion acts like someone who was always the monster because he has, on a literal canonical level, forgotten what it was like to be anything else. Which just sets his relationship with Tav into such angsty, terrifying focus. Here's someone who has lost his previous identity. He (rightfully) despises the identity Cazador forced on him. Even if he didn't, Astarion is now miles away, the tattered remains of his self threatened by ceremorphosis. He stares into a mirror knowing he'll never see anything, but doing it anyway because he needs to figure out who he is—and that's precisely where most of us would start. What do I look like? What do others see when they see me? Is that the person I want to be?

Then Tav offers to be his mirror, just like they offered to sketch out the poem on his back. How exquisitely horrible for Astarion. He's being given precisely what he wants but he's in NO position to take it. All his sense of self placed in the hands of another? Asking, "Who am I?" and hearing, "I'll tell you. I'll be the keeper of that knowledge"? That's a far more intimate, potentially destructive power than anything else Astarion is looking to get his hands on AND he's trying to manipulate YOU at this point in the story! It just makes me crazy because Astarion is desperate to figure out who he is, but circumstances have ensured that, at this point in time, he needs to put his trust in someone else to begin answering that question... and the one thing he does know about himself is that he's a manipulative, mistrustful rogue who's only out to keep himself safe. Allowing someone else to take the reins with his identity (again) is probably the least safe thing he could possibly think of.

It's this messy tragic loop that yes, Astarion is working to break by the end of the game (depending on your choices) but in Act 1? Goddamn. No wonder he's trying desperately to maintain control of this relationship. No wonder—despite his best efforts—he's still undone by the simplest acts of kindness.

[athene-owl]

Dream Video Followup

OK, I know I said I was done but, after a sleep and some more thinking about the video, there are a few things I really want to add before I can never talk about this guy or his fanbase ever again.

This is the one thing I'm kicking myself for not pointing out - the Pastebin stuff. So, in the description, Dream has 3 links to Pastebin posts. The first is a statement allegedly from Jamie, the second is a statement allegedly from an anonymous person in one of the burner account screenshots, and the third is for some reason a statement by an employee behind the whole Dream USB armband thing????

OK so I'm gonna go into the third statement first before getting into the other 2 more serious posts - this statement about the baby photo discourse is quite literally a short statement from a random employee of Dream's merch company saying he doesn't believe the allegations because he doesn't think there's enough facts. He doesn't even mention the baby photos which I don't think people even really cared about. I have no idea why this of all things was included but also cannot take any stock in this because this guy 1. Would have no insight into Dream's private behavior and 2. Would financially be VERY inclined to back up Dream. While researching for this I found out there's rumors of Dream's company being unethical or something? I am not getting into that can of worms my god. Here, I'll put the entire quote below to show you how ridiculous this is, yes this is the entire thing.

As for the other 2 statements, I'm just gonna say this - as far as I can tell, there is no evidence these statements are legit. In the prelude to the 'Jamie' statement, Dream tries to address this and explains that 'Jamie' wants privacy and how in private he can verify their identity. If you wanna give him the benefit of the doubt, this makes sense to me personally given my current knowledge on the situation. BUT I won't say I'm inclined the do so esp given his history and the stakes of the situation. It'll be enough for stans and will probs make him look respectful and noble for 'protecting' her but it just flat out is not convincing evidence to me. This statement is not the slam dunk people are treating it as, if it is genuine then I am sorry for Jamie for being dragged into all of this and that's all I'll say. This is speculative but I need to mention it - even if this is Jamie, this is not 100% conclusive. If she's afraid of public backlash, if she's afraid of Dream, if she never wanted this revealed, then I think she would understandably just want to say nothing happened and for people to leave her alone. We don't have a clear way of knowing. Given how much Dream bemoans fake evidence in his video, given how much he lambasts people for not fact-checking, this is a huge issue with his evidence and I am not convinced by this personally. This is also all true for the second statement from the anonymous Discord user too.

A lot of the things Dream seemingly proves don't actually matter. With the photo at the police station, Dream got his team of lawyers to use this single photo to find out the exact station so they could contact them. They seemingly succeeded at this and found absolutely no records of Dream being reported for anything. I get the feeling this is the piece of evidence Dream is proudest of and that is impressing a lot of people. Doesn't it look really convincing and impressive that Dream's lawyers went through all this trouble, sent emails, made calls - all to find no report against him? It is impressive, but it doesn't prove as much as people are acting like it does. If anything, the photo being connected to a real station proves that Amanda did at least go to the police, since this wasn't a stock photo or anything. And while I'm no legal expert and am happy for someone to correct me, you absolutely can go to the police, talk to them about something, but choose not to report it. I don't think its impossible that Amanda went to a police station, consulted them on the situation without dropping names or wanting to file a report, and then left. This evidence proves no one has reported Dream and his records are clear NOT that he did nothing. He offers 2 answers - 1. That she was lying about intending to report him which he then leads into 'why wouldn't she be lying about everything' (lots of issues with this reasoning but whatever) and 2. She told the police her story but it didn't meet the standard of proof AKA it wasn't even seen as worth filing a report on by the police. But there's a third option - she backed out due to one of the countless reasons these crimes go unreported. I'm seeing so many people treat this as conclusive evidence, proudly supporting the idea that a woman not reporting her abuse makes her a liar. As if its unreasonable for a woman to plan to report, go to the police, but then change her mind. Really disgusting ideas are being spread and popularized by this video and men online are eating it up.

He also tells Amanda to check her mailbox - he has identified her, found her address and sent something to her, I'm guessing some sort of legal notice. This makes me incredibly uneasy. All I'll say is this - if I was groomed by someone like Dream, with his resources and stans and success, I wouldn't report it.

Small thing but at 1:14:35 he mentions how people thought he admitted to the moaning audio being him because he called it "essentially unsubstantiated "revenge porn"" - people thought him calling it 'revenge porn' was him admitting to it being real while he insists he meant it was fake but being passed around like it was him. And I just need to say that he really should've just flat out denied it was him, just say 'that audio is not me' and this whole confusion could've been avoided.

At 1:17:42, when Dream is discussing 'false allegations' he specifically mentions that it is a current 'trend' in the Minecraft community but assures the audience it will grow and spread to other communities. Really hate how that's gonna be cited as proof of victims being fake from now on, I really must ask why Dream had to speak beyond his own situation and make wider claims about this shit because I am fucking fed up. I need random internet men to STOP positioning themselves as experts of complex issues of rape culture right now. I also have seen a lot of big Youtuber men take Dream's side in this and support this message and yeah this will make things moving forward a fucking nightmare. I want people to at least consider how hypothetical hidden abusers in an online community would react to Dream's insistence on 'false allegations' being a popular trend OK? Again, women are statistically far, far, far more likely to face sexual violence from men then men are to EVER be falsely accused so please keep this in mind and do not let your guard down because I guarantee this will have wide reaching consequences!!!! Remember how many celebrity men started suing their abuse victims after what that shithead did to Amber Heard? Yeah.

I never watched the DSMP, Dream's content, any of his Minecraft friends' content, nothing, so I have no context for the bits where he talks about those topics. I've seen people saying there's a ton to that whole side of things, a lot of complex and interpersonal drama so I wanted to mention that he does briefly talk about it if you're interested.

Even from an outside, casual perspective as someone who doesn't follow the Dream stuff closely, my friends and I know of some controversies he didn't mention and I just wanted to point that out. I'm not even saying these things are true/damning for Dream BUT these are all well-known things that he really should've addressed in a video that took over a year to make (this is not a comprehensive list, I'm sure there's more because this man is in drama every week). And before you say that he wanted to focus on the 'serious stuff' - he decided to address the speedrunning stuff, an AI video of him sucking his own dick, 10 minutes on Nick Cantu, and interviews with both his mother and an Uber driver he met once where they both wholesomely recount how funny and honorable Dream is. Anyway, here are the points:

His whole image/persona was taken from Cryaotic, a sexual predator

Him apparently supporting Trump

The drama he had with his SMP - he does briefly mention the QSMP thing but even I know there was a lot more to say on this

People in the DSMP being bigots, Dream was in charge of the whole thing and should've explained why he allowed this

Dream making sexual jokes and comments about underage friends of his (there's a whole Youtube compilation of this and it's weird as fuck)

The whole Pride month donation debacle

Dream's own bigotry towards various marginalized groups

His fans mass doxxing of multiple people - the most infamous being of Twitter user @/faerieluv, a black person who had a welfare check called on them by Dream stans for criticising him? Where they live, 'welfare checks' had resulted in black people being murdered by police before, their ADHD medication was questioned - their life was in danger due to his stans and as far as I can tell Dream has never acknowledged this. Unfortunately, it seems they have left Twitter but I don't have an account so its hard to verify. Also, I previously said they were a woman but that's not clear now so I apologize.

[chaotic-history]

Thank you @enlitment for the book tag! Putting it in a new post since it's long. This probably isn't the best time to do this when my brain is still brain fogging, but here goes

Last book I read: The Satyricon by Petronius, specifically the 1694 translation (shoutout to V's birth year). It's the second most fully preserved Roman novel, and I don't know what I was expecting from it, but it's just kinda meh? In its defense, the translator has a very specific writing style that didn't read very smoothly for me, so I'm sure it's much better in the original. The best parts imo were Encolpius and the poet complaining about modern (ie, to them) things in the exact same ways that we complain about the exact same things now.

Book I recommend: The Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer. It's a sci-fi series with a philosophical bent set in the year 2454 and written mostly in the style of the Enlightenment era (the narrator, Mycroft, has a very bad case of 18thC brainrot). One of the things it touches on really well is how gender is perceived in different ways according to different standards, and I don't want to explain that since I think you have to go into the book not knowing a lot-- it's throwing you into a society that's as different from ours as the 18thC is, and you're supposed to feel like that. And I know "the worldbuilding is good" is probably overused, but it really is; parts are fantastical enough to feel like it's verging on a dream, and it's grounded in enough of a potential reality to make even the impossible things seem achievable. Featuring a very politically significant 18thC brothel, the ghost of Thomas Hobbes, the actual Achilles, Humanists, the world's #1 unreliable narrator, and a sex scene taken almost word-for-word from de Sade until the reader asks the narrator to stop.

Also Candide because I need to keep up my streak of convincing people to read Candide.

Book I couldn't put down: Do not underestimate my ability to put down literally anything. That said, the fourth and last Terra Ignota book (can you tell I'm trying very hard to sell it?). I can't say much about it because almost anything at that point is a massive spoiler, but books 1-3 are all gradually building up to a major event in book 4, and it's sort of the quiet kind of suspense where you know what's going to happen, but all you can do is wait and see the extent of the damage, and the main focus of the tension even during it is how you're going to rebuild, and any solution is so painfully flawed but it's something and the narrative drags you along throughout all of it by the sheer force of its hope.

Book I've read twice: Quite a few, but my favorites that I've read multiple times are Catcher in the Rye and L'Immoraliste. I read Catcher in the Rye the first time for class, and I don't want to go on another long rant, but I love Holden so much and I'm incredibly glad that I read the book when I did; I can see so much of myself in him and having sympathy for Holden taught me that maybe I need to have a bit more sympathy for myself as well. Also, sorry Mrs. [redacted] for stealing your copy of the book. It wasn't on purpose but it'd feel weird to return it now.

L'Immoraliste I originally picked up at the library to read the first time because based on the year published and the title I assumed like a 90% chance of it being gay, then I fell in love with the writing style and so I reread it in French. The part where Michel is going out to lay in the sun naked (<- absolutely terrible desc. of it but I can't think of smthn better right now) is up there in my top three book scenes ever.

A book on my TBR: Way too fucking many, reader, way too fucking many. On the top of the list right now is Goethe's Faust since I'm intrigued by @iron--and--blood's Faust AU for Morton's Hope, and also since I should maybe read some philosophy that isn't just French (does Goethe count as a philosopher? At least by the 18thC definition I think he could). And Goethe said V was good, so at least I know he has good taste.

Also I should maybe finally start reading all the Molière/Racine/Corneille stuff I've been stocking up on lol.

A book I've put down: Voltaire et Frédéric II by Roger Peyrefitte. It sucks shit and I've tried to read it at least five times now and every time I have to stop because it makes me want to personally murder the author by like 50 pages in and I am not exaggerating in the least.

A book on my wishlist: There's a couple 1780s editions of Villette's works for sale that I like to look at every so often... I'm sure I'll eventually cave in someday but for now I'll keep trying to convince myself I don't need it.

A favourite book from childhood: I had to google a bunch of stuff to find this since I couldn't remember the title, but it's first book from the Epic Order of the Seven Series by Jenny L. Cote, about a bunch of talking animals during various Bible stories/major events (yes it is very weird). This one is about Noah's Ark, and since the animals were from all around the world, parts of their dialogue were written in a bunch of different languages with a little dictionary at the back which I thought was the coolest thing ever (it kinda is tbh).

A book you would give to a friend: Depends on the friend and what I think they'd like, but the last book I gave to a friend was Discourses on Livy since we were talking about The Prince.

A book of poetry/lyrics you own: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage! Yet another book I haven't gotten around to reading yet.

A non-fiction book you own: Changes in the Land by William Cronon. It's about the ecological changes in New England from before the Europeans arrived roughly up to 1800 and how the environment shaped and was affected by the economies of the Native Americans and the settlers, and one of the points that really stuck with me was that one of the major differences between the two groups' relationships with the environment was that the Native Americans primarily viewed resources as being valuable in terms of the function they served, while the settlers saw natural resources as being valuable firstly because they could be sold, and he talks about how it was that mindset which we still had today that made a healthy relationship between the colonists' economy and the environment unsustainable. It's also written in a way that's super easy to follow, even if you know nothing about ecology (which I do not).

Currently reading: The first volume of V's correspondance from the Garnier edition. So far I've made it up to 1731, and I realised I'm still thinking of him then as young V even though he's 37. There's so many gems in the letters though (especially to Thieriot) and it keeps leading me down a bunch of rabbit holes.

Planning on reading next: Faust!

Tagging: @ouiouixmonami, @acrossthewavesoftime, @apurpledust, @captainsamta, and @orchatab

[glitch-pep]

A somewhat comprehensible essay about how the Chaotic Crossover AU was created

Word count: Around 3000 words.

Approximated reading time: 25 minutes.

Summary: Me explaning my weird thought process and the string of ideas that lead to the Chaotic Crossover AU. I wrote the essay for fun, don't take it too seriously. I'm totally not saying that because I went off topic a few times.

It's seperated into 10 sections so that it'll be easier to read. This is my first attempt at posting a longer piece of my writing as well as an essay, I tried to make it interesting and entertaining.

I hope you'll enjoy! 💚💛💜💙

#1

It was around some point at the beginning of the year 2023 that my mom and I randomly decided to watch the movie Ocean's 8 together. I'm usually really picky about movies because my attention span is terrible and if I get bored I don't wanna watch anymore, but when she told me it was about a heist I was hooked. I love heist movies, I always did, and I loved this movie too, it's fun and actually funny and charismatic, with a decent twist to it that I won't spoil, but I definitely do recommend that you give it a watch.

Anyways, that day changed everything. The moment the movie was over, the moment that I went upstairs to my room, I had no real idea what I was getting myself into. I put on my headphones, put on "Mission Impossible Theme - Electric Guitar Cover by Kfir Ochaion - ALP Guitars" on loop, I took my purple hula hoop and I started to pace around my room trying to come up with ideas while spinning it around like a weird stim toy. Ideas for what, you may ask?

For my oc's to be in a heist together, of course.

#2

You see, my mind is very easily influenced. That's definitely not a good thing to be honest, but I don't know how to phrase it differently. Basically, whenever I watch something I immediately start thinking of oc ideas that have something to do with it. If I watch a movie about cowboys I'll be trying to make a cowboy au in my head, If I watch a movie about a royal ball I'll be imagining them all dolled up at a fancy event.

You can bet your ass, that I, heist movie fanatic, wanted my oc's to be in a heist together real bad. Thing is... at the time, I had a teeny tiny little problem that made this idea a little difficult...

I literally only had two oc's to work with.

Those two being Charlie and Mina.

The girlies. The legends. The og's.

...but yeah, still. Two oc's isn't a lot to work with. I did have Charlie as a plot starter, she's literally a thief, of course she'd want to go on a badass heist to steal a bunch of valuables. But how on earth would Charlie convince Mina of all people to go on a heist with her?

Besides... these two are a fun duo, but they're not entertaining enough on their own, seeing only the two of them interact constantly will get bored real quick...

But did you think that stopped me, dear reader? Oh no, no no no no no. I didn't let go of this concept. I felt a mighty need. I NEEDED to see a group of my own special little guys on a wacky heist together.

#3

In an act of desperation, I literally thought about bringing back my old Ducktales oc's and the Club Penguin oc's I had recently scraped. The Club Penguin oc's were a no go, I firmly decided to turn those into humans and to work on them at some point in the future. As for the Ducktales ones, I'd have to rewatch an entire show to be able to properly rewrite and redesign them and I didn't feel like doing that...

...but then, I remembered two oc ideas that were lingering in my mind, waiting to be thought of. A Making Fiends oc, which I did try to create but ultimately scraped the idea of cuz I couldn't make the design look right, and a Welcome Home oc concept, of a sleep themed character with a moon head.

While I was going to start to work on the Welcome Home one, I still didn't wanna tackle the Making Fiends one. So, in my mind, I firstly created a weird meta version of the au we know today.

I started to design and slowly form a personality for moon girl. While I was doing that, I added her to the heist even though she was nowhere near done yet.

As for the Making Fiends guy... well, he was going to be a self aware scraped character who was supposed to be able to exist only in this au, and nowhere else. It was supposed to be an universe where everyone is self aware that they're characters, and that I, their creator, exist.

The guy was supposed to be very mad at me specifically at all times, because the girls got their own lores and stories in their og universes, meanwhile his only role is to fill up space in a heist scenario.

I remember getting the idea that, before I even post about these two, that I should create a series of fake screenshots where I'd showcase these two without explaining who they are, as a sorta little thing that only I would really understand the context of.

...and this is where things changed.

For fake screenshots you need fake scenarios, for fake scenarios you have to imagine the characters interract. 

#4

The very first idea I had for this was Charlie, excitedly breaking into the guys house and then trying to convince him to join her crazy heist plan, and him of course not wanting to.

It was this bickering that I really liked. It was this bickering that I found insanely entertaining.

It was this bickering that ultimately saved both Charlie and Milo as characters.

These two are at their BEST, when they have someone to go against, a rival. Someone to argue and fight with. These two basically shaped each other as characters.

Most of Milo's personality was created while I imagined him arguing with Charlie like they're in a Danganronpa trial. And while Charlie's personality didn't change, it definitely expanded. The Charlie from a year ago isn't the Charlie we have now.

Also, I gotta add this, Charlie and Milo are basically Ash and Five but in a different font, I have realized that only later on, and I really love this dynamic. I won't explain who those two are in detail, if you know you know.

So, we have established that these two helped and pushed each other to become the best versions of themselves.

But let's be real, there ain't no way in hell Charlie's gonna convince Milo, even the Milo we have today, to participate in a heist that easily.

So, what does Charlie do?

Drag moon girl into it, of course.

#5

I thought to myself... huh, what if Mr. Serious had a soft spot for moon girl? And then Milo proceeded to shape Molly's character into place, with one of the most beloved dynamics I've made so far. Molly changed Milo a lot too, of course.

Molly is the thing that made me realize that Milo is at his second best when he has someone to care for, someone to love. Eventually this love did spread to Charlie and Mina as well, but he doesn't show it towards them the same way.

Charlie and Molly changed each other in a way that made me realize that Molly is at her best when she has someone to lead her. A lot of Charlie's personality came to be from me imagining her explaining something to Molly in a cool leader type of way.

And then there's Mina. Now you're gonna say, Mina's the odd one out. Mina's the only one who hasn't changed at all since I first introduced her.

Mina has changed, she just changed the least. All three of them shaped her character to be more caring and less cold, which isn't very obvious... given that it's Mina we're talking about.

Heh... I guess ya could say, that she was too lazy to change any more than that. Mina's the most simple character out of all of them, I don't wanna change that too much. Her simple character is fine, and it's at it's best when it's put together with complicated characters. And welp, we got three complicated mfs right here.

All of these dynamics were born while I was imagining them in the heist scenario. You forgot about the heist already, didn't you? I can't blame you, I did too... for a long time.

#6

I just started to imagine them in different scenarios and those kinda made me forget about the heist one, but, within this au the heist thing did happen... well, it was supposed to.

Basically the au began with them all just being thrown into this white room with four doors lined up before them. Each of them had a missing item from their inventories that they wanted to get back. They got to know each other a little while they were going through each other's universes, they found the items and that was it for a while.

Until Charlie found that a new door showed up in the room. The door lead to the front of a giant building, which turned out to be some rich guy's massive mansion. And of course the mansion was full of valuables that Charlie wanted to get her hands on, but failed attempt after failed attempt... she just couldn't get in.

That's when she realized that it would be far easier if she had someone with her... y'know, preferably three people. And boom she's at it with the convincing. Mina agrees cuz she wants to avoid another one of her aunts weedings, Molly agrees cuz Charlie told her that it's a good thing that they're doing this, Milo agrees cuz Molly is a part of it, and because he's baffled that she managed to drag Mina into it.

And because they were like in a heist together I almost called the au the "Charlie's Angels AU". Because y'know... there's Charlie who's conveniently named that, and the other three who's names all start with an M. I honestly still think it'll be a clever name for some sorta au, but I went for the name Chaotic Crossover AU because it's more simple and it explains what the au is about better. Besides, I feel like if I actually went for the title that's a movie reference I'd have to constantly stick to the whole heist thing or otherwise it wouldn't make much sense.

The only other type of name I considered before I went for the one we have today, is something along the lines of MMCM AU. Maybe the letters were arranged differently, I honestly don't exactly remember. Yeah, I didn't get too creative with this one, it honestly sounds like a band name to me... and yes, I did consider making a band au but nah, I'm going to use the band concept for something else. Also there's lore reasons as to why these 4 wouldn't really be capable of being in a band together.

So they meet up to create a plan, they have fun chatting and messing around for the whole day, only to find that the door which Charlie talked about dissapeared. She wasn't lying about it, she even took pictures as proof.

But, oh well, does is matter that much anyways? Maybe the real treasure... the real heist, was the friends we made along the way.

And, it was.

#7

Besides this beginning, there is no other plot to this au.

The rest of it is just them mindlessly having fun with each other as I put them into random scenarios and funky outfits.

I said this somewhere before, but, the au has no actual ending or middle, just a beginning.

Time doesn't flow the same, they're just meant to stay the same age, time has been stopped, basically.

There was supposed to be a plot at some point, but I realized that I would spoil a lot of stuff from their actual canon stories, and I am always overly cautious with not spoiling people.

Also, the characters here don't line up 100% with their canon counterparts, even if they do for the most part, because I erased their canon problems for the sake of having them be actually happy unlike their canon selves.

Thing is, to what extent did I erase these problems?

Because, for some of them, if I erase the problem then they're not the same character anymore...

So it's basically a weird situation where they are and aren't themselves...

...I'm losing you, aren't I? Yeah, I'm losing it too.

What am I trying to say?

I'm trying to explain in a comprehensive way that the Chaotic Crossover AU makes no logical sense.

...unless, you hear me out about the explanation I came up with because I feel the need for everything to magically make sense.

#8

I present to you,

The Dollhouse Explanation

Which says, that the oc's in this au, are doll versions of the actual characters.

1. The white room with the doors is actually a dollhouse. Every universe they go to is me adding another playset to it.

2. Molly, Mina, Milo and Charlie are dolls. I play with them, making up roleplays and scenarios. I dress them up in different outfits very often, like one does with dolls.

3. They don't age because they're dolls and dolls don't age, so it seems as if time has stopped.

Could some of this apply to the act of making oc's and stories in general?

Yeah.

Does this change anything about the au?

No. Not really.

Why did I add this to the essay?

I showed it to my friend and she said that I should keep this part so I'm taking her word for it.

(She doesn't have Tumblr or other socials but shout-out to her!)

Have I watched too many theory videos on YouTube?

Yeah.

Should I stop?

Yeah, but we both know that I won't. :)

Also, the au was inspired and influenced by cartoons in danganronpa, which is basically a giant crossover in itself.

I'm saying this because, like in cidr, the characters and designs clearly aren't from the same universes, they still kept the each individual art styles from the shows, and I really liked the look of it. But, you could still tell that the sprites are from the same project because of the lineart and shading. It's the same situation in this au.

#9

...this is a cursed addition to this essay that I, on one hand, don't wanna cover cuz Part A of it is the cringiest and worst development fact about the au and I've kinda wanted to just pretend it never happened, but it influenced Part B in a way as to where I can't not mention it, and also I find Part B incredibly interesting.

Ok, so, Milo was always pansexual, but Charlie used to be bisexual before I settled on her being a lesbian.

...I'm just gonna rip the bandage off, Milo x Charlie was supposed to be a thing.

I know, I know, eugh. Look, I will think of many romantic character combinations just in case I might hit the jackpot, I like to explore romantic dynamics as much as platonic ones.

And, for like... a month, I was genuienly planning to make these two slowly get crushes on each other, I was gonna hint towards it with some sorta ship art.

But then, I was reconsidering things.

I started to contemplate the meaning of life, as well as all of my life choices and how they affected my life, me and my oc's. I looked into the distance, and then I took one, good, longggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg, look at Charlie. And then, finally, like a light at the end of the tunnel, my critical thinking skills tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned around.

"Her ass would never date a man." it said. I nodded, and shed a tear. It may have taken me too long to realize it, but at least I did.

And that's the story of how Charlie became a lesbian instead! :D

#10

And no, before you ask, Charlie wouldn't like Milo in that way even if he was female, or when he's presenting himself as more feminine like in the one purple design I made for him. She doesn't find him appealing in a romantic way at all. Same goes for Milo with Charlie.

Besides, both have standards... and different types.

Their relationship is far more interesting and genuine if it's presented from a purely platonic perspective, which it is, and which it always will be.

Basically, they're besties, your honor. Case closed.

The same thing goes for another ship I considered while I was still figuring out everyone's sexualities, Charlie x Mina.

I admit, I hate this one less, but still, it's the same situation.

They're besties, your honor. Case closed yet again.

Ever since I decided to keep it all platonic, thank heavens I did, I've always had this underlying fear in the back of my head that, somehow, people are still going to see it as romantic. I remember when I made the drawing of Milo and Charlie standing next to each other in greaser inspired outfits, I was like, oh crap, are ppl gonna see them as a couple?

But no one did. A decent amount of people saw it, and no one said a thing.

And I think that's nice. Beautiful, even.

I've seen plenty of characters which were, if you ask me, forcefully pushed together in a romantic way, despite the fact that they were clearly meant to just be friends. Having this sense of control over things, being able to determine the right path for these oc's, it gives me a sense of peace and satisfaction.

Everything is in its place.

Balanced, as it should be. 

Anyways let's talk about how this decision made everyone in this au absolutely unshippable with each other in every conceivable way.

1. Molly is an adult the other three are kids if you don't think this is a no go get the fuck away from my blog.

2. Mina is aroace and would never be in a romantic relationship, so that's a no go too.

3. The only two left are Milo and Charlie. Charlie is a lesbian and since Milo is a guy that's a no go.

This happened completely on accident and I realized it on accident too, but I'm not complaining.

Hooray to friendship! Hooray to platonic love! Hooray to platonic relationships!

They're just as valuable and beautiful and powerful as romantic ones!

Go tell your friends or family or partner or pet you love them!

You'd be surprised how happy they'd be to hear it.

And that's how the Chaotic Crossover AU was created.

If you've actually made it to the end, thank you for sticking around, you beloved madlad.

I hope you have a lovely day! 💚💛💜💙

[nelliebachesneg]

S13 Alternate Ending Headcanons, Because What TF Did Epsilon Mean, Exactly, By "Deconstruct Myself"?

Ok so I’ve had this idea spinning in the back of my brain since, what, 2016? But when Epsilon died, he said “the fragments I’ll leave behind” would get the Reds and Blues through the fight, and then there’s a flash where it seems like each of Epsilon’s fragments corresponds to one of the Reds and Blues. So my thought at the time - and on-and-off again since - was that Epsilon gave a fragment of himself to each of the Reds and Blues to help them win the fight. Then when the fight was over, each of their suits would have had a piece of Epsilon. These pieces would have been fragments of a fragment, though, so they wouldn't have had an interface like Epsilon did; they would have just been really finicky, specialized, supposedly helpful computer programs that would sometimes do things that were more funny/annoying than helpful. These programs would have activated after the fight. List below.

Church's messages, then, would be him explaining what the programs do and why he gave them to each of his friends (as well as saying his last goodbyes). He would also convince his friends not to put him back together again because the time they figured out how to do it and/or got the equipment for it, his fragments would have developed too much on their own to fit nicely back together - and even if something did come back it would not be the Epsilon they knew before.

Now I don't want to get into a debate over whether or not this could even be canon because tbh I couldn't care less, but I am curious to know if anyone has a different take on what kind of program Church would give each of the characters. Is there an aspect of someone's character I missed? Are there things a sci-fi-bullshit AI can or can't do that I'm forgetting about? Does the theme of each program make sense?

So yeah, let me know in the notes if you've got the time!

(Btw which character gets what fragment is based mostly on positioning in that scene at the end of S13, as well as headcanons from the amazing fanfic Mind over Matter by kineticallyanywhere on Ao3.)

Grif: Omega. 

The theme: Take control of your life or someone else will. If you let that go far enough, you won’t like how it turns out - but also remember that a little help isn’t a bad thing. 

The program: literally controls every aspect of Grif’s life inside his suit in the exact way he hates - i.e. organizing his saved files in a way that makes it impossible to find what he wants, setting alarms that wake him up just as he's falling asleep, constantly reminding him to exercise, making his suit heavier and heavier the closer he gets to the mess hall, randomly contacting Matthews and Sarge, etc. The program can also jump from the suit into the surrounding wireless network, specifically cameras and radios, to keep an eye on him when he’s out of the suit. The program can report his behavior (in increasing order of severity) to Sarge, Wash, and/or Carolina if it feels like it. Simmons and Carolina have the manual override code in case of emergencies, though; the program isn’t smart enough to distinguish between a firefight and Sarge being a jackass. (It’s a spoken code word. No it’s not “code word”.) I'd like to think that a lot of how the suit messes with Grif has to do with Simmons because what is an RvB headcanon without Grimmons. The thing is, all of the things the program does are reversible if Grif just takes the time to go into his suit's settings and do that. If he makes the effort enough times, the program will cease.

Simmons: Sigma. 

The theme: Loosen up. Realize there’s more to life than seeking the approval of others - but also don’t disregard others completely. 

The program: Listens in on orders from Sarge, Kimball, Carolina, and Wash. If it determines the order to be bullshit, it cuts the call and immediately radios Grif or Donut instead. It also prompts Simmons at multiple random points throughout the day with the question, “What do you want to do?” and “Why?” If Simmons inputs with a satisfactory answer, spoken or written, the program will generate suggestions for how to accomplish that task. Its programming also allows it to respond to Simmons’s anxieties, though if it gets fed up enough it will call Grif or Donut because Church could only take so much of that. It is able to sync with Simmons's robot parts to keep an eye on him, much like it does with Grif. Also like Grif's program, it will cease once it sees an improved pattern of behavior.

Sarge: Delta. 

The theme: Creativity needs to be tempered with logic. Sometimes you need reality check - but don’t let that discourage you from trying new things. 

The program: In a way, the antithesis to Simmons’s. If Sarge starts muttering about a hare-brained scheme, e.g. fighting gravity, the program will annoy him into sharing the details. It will then either give him a list of reasons why that’s absurd and challenge him to justify his reasoning, calling (in order of severity) Grif, Simmons, Wash, or Carolina if it can’t talk him out of it - or it will help him pull it off, because this is a Church program, and Church would absolutely want to help Sarge mess with the rest of the guys. As a result this program has a lot of Church’s residual personality programming in order to make those judgment calls, which kind of forces Sarge to bond with Caboose and thus has the added bonus of helping Sarge further overcome the ‘Red vs Blue’ mentality. This program's reach does not extend outside of Sarge's armor.

Tucker: Epsilon

The theme: Losing people does not make you a bad leader, nor does it make you a bad person. Don’t obsess over your grief and failures. Take the time to feel it, of course, but then move on knowing that sacrifices are made out of love and faith.

The program: Helps Tucker keep track of Caboose, mostly. It may sound weird but I am literally thinking about the “you need something to take care of” thing from the first John Wick movie. Tucker doesn’t have a “chat” feature like Simmons and Sarge do, since the goal is to move on, but the program does automatically connect him to Wash when he meets a certain set of concerning criteria because Wash gets it. The program will also alert Carolina and/or Wash whenever he steps out of line, as a kind of revenge for all the times Tucker called Church out - and should the fallout be entertaining enough it will be broadcast to everyone on Chorus. No one's reactions to such broadcasts are inherently hostile, showing Tucker that he doesn’t have to worry about too much judgment from others for his flaws. (Side note, the program cannot run the Meta’s suit - at least not while running any extra equipment.)

Caboose: Eta and Iota

The theme: “No matter how many friends you do lose, you can always make more.” Just. Just watch “Caboose’s Guide To Making Friends” again (and try not to cry, again). 

The programs: Yes, Caboose gets two, and yes, it’s because Church cares about Caboose and actually wants to show it this time. The remnant of Eta is specifically for communication, particularly with Wash and Tucker’s programs so that it can help Tucker help Caboose and help Wash keep track of his team, but it also makes sure that every single one of Caboose’s friends can know where he is at all times. Meanwhile, the remnant of Iota is essentially an outreach program for Caboose. It connects him to Sarge, Donut, and Dr. Emily Grey, helping Caboose make more friends - and yes I am talking about robots, but also potentially squishy people too - through an appointment calendar, “google translate”, and a step-by-step manual for creating safe robots. Both programs work together to alert everyone when Caboose encounters something potentially dangerous that he will inevitably also befriend; between the two of them is an entire database of criminals, dangerous flora and fauna across the galaxy, and other hazards. That way they can hopefully identify whatever Caboose has decided is the next member of the family.

Lopez: Doesn’t actually get a program, but he absolutely gets a full software upgrade before Epsilon deconstructs and the ability to mess with everyone else's programs (to a point). This includes the ability to speak English though I feel like Lopez would more likely have the language in everyone's suits change to Spanish in an attempt to make them learn it because he's stubborn like that.

The theme: Lopez is his own person and deserves to be appreciated and understood.

Doc / O'Malley: Also doesn't get a program, but Epsilon does make it so everything done in Doc / O'Malley’s suit is automatically and unstoppably recorded. That way, when either personality blacks out (assuming that happens) then they can see what the other one did. He also downloads several actual medical textbooks, including the DSM5, into Doc / O'Malley's suit. 

The theme: Knowing yourself in both body and mind is important, because you are important. I imagine this is also Epsilon's way of saying sorry for what happened the last time an AI was in Doc's head; though it wasn’t Epsilon’s fault, he would still try to alleviate some of the consequences of that because he gets it.

Donut: Gamma. 

The theme: Sometimes you need your jokes repeated back to you. It is important to understand how others see you and how your words affect them so that you can help both them and yourself grow - but don’t deny who you are in the name of that growth.

The program: Essentially a journaling program, somewhat customizable and with the ability to convert physical journal pages into a digital format through the camera. The program also analyzes the journal entries for double entendres, highlighting them and explaining the meaning. It will also record Donut’s conversations and do the same thing with his spoken words, playing the recording back when Donut is alone. Thus Donut learns exactly what he's saying. Donut can then use the program to double check either written or spoken words, because the program can simulate the reactions of the Reds and Blues to Donut’s words, effectively giving Donut the tools to be the master of communication between everyone (read: everyone’s unofficial therapist) should he choose to be so. It also tracks online deals for wine, cheese, nail polish, and every other material comfort Donut likes so that he can more easily take care of himself, too. 

Wash: Theta. 

The theme: Trust that you are, in fact, a badass both despite and because of what you've been through - but also a human who deserves all the love in the world both despite and because of what you’ve been through. 

The program: Lets Wash be in contact with the Reds and Blues (including Carolina) at all times. It’s like a marauder’s map that lets him always see where they are and contact them if he wants, and it works across planets and solar systems so long as nothing is actively jamming it. Epsilon wants Wash to never be without a family again. However, Epsilon gives him a choice of whether or not he wants this program, because Wash never really had a choice about Church before. The choice is his real last gift to him. (And of course because Wash has already forgiven Epsilon for everything, he wants to be able to use the program, but it still takes a bit for him to get to a place where he feels like he can, but it feels like an opportunity to make amends that they really didn’t get while Epsilon was alive, and this is Epsilon’s way of saying sorry and also that he cares about Wash, and Wash cared about Epsilon so he actively tries to overcome that barrier of letting a fragment of a fragment of an AI into not even his brain but his suit, and UGH MY HEART I’M GONNA CRY--)

Carolina: She doesn't get a program, because Church has always believed that she doesn’t need an AI - or even just a program from one. To give her one would imply she’s not self-sufficient, and Church would never dare disrespect her like that.

The theme: Carolina is awesome by herself, and she deserves to give herself permission to be part of a family (the Reds and Blues). Church gives her a really nice message telling her all that.

[spiritualitygeek]

I Don't Know Who Needs To Read This But-

At this point I'm literally so annoyed about the misconceptions the LOA/LOAss communities and people have in general about "manifestation."

I mean, I'm sorry not sorry if I sound rude or blunt on this one. But it pushes me to the edge to see literally everyone around me, including myself feeling guilty and insecure and what not about wanting/ desiring something.

Like, despite having read so many books about the concept and having understood the fact that "Creation is finished," as Neville Goddard quoted. And that "There's multiple versions of each of us in multiple realities," as explained by Frederick E Dodson in his book Parallel Universes of Self, I still suffer from the feelings of insecurity and guilty, time and time again.

And not just me, I've seen many, even on YouTube, Tumblr, etc, stuck in the same worries and doubts. Whether it's about wanting something or someone in our lives. Specially when it's a "big deal" that seem practically impossible.

I simply don't understand why we humans are so fixated on being practical and staying grounded, fearing that we might lose our sense of reality? That we might go insane.

Influenced by these fears we accept things we don't truly deserve. And it's pathetic because we aren't ready to do even the bare minimum for the things we actually do deserve.

It's sad that just to feel secure and avoid losing our minds, we conform to a life that isn't what we truly want, all the while ignoring the fact that the life we desire exists in another reality. And it's not mere wishful thinking and woodoo stuff.

If it wasn't attainable, it wouldn't have been on your mind to begin with.

So many quantum physicists, Metaphysicians, are they probably dumb? And are we, ignorant humans very smart?

Why? Why it's so hard to accept that there's nothing wrong with wanting what the version of ourselves has in that different reality. It's all about our own damn conciousness. We can literally shift into that reality the moment we gain this clarity and stick to it.

So many coaches and metaphysicians kept repeating. And it still can't be stressed enough that "Manifestation isn't about creating something new or manipulating circumstances to attract things. No! There are countless versions of each of us, existing simultaneously in numerous different realities. Manifestation is about aligning ourselves with the version of us that already possesses what we want. We aren't attracting or creating anything externally. There's literally nothing and no one to change but self."

The key is to manipulate yourself. Command yourself. Control yourself. Keep repeating to yourself. You don't need to change a thing out there, you simply need to convince yourself of the simple truth. Because that's exactly how things work.

Once you start to see it like that, you'll see why there's literally no need to feel guilty or insecure about wanting things for yourself. You're not a bad person to want love or to want happiness. It doesn't harm anyone as long as your intentions aren't meant to hurt others physically or mentally. And rest assured, for people who mean harm for others, Law of Karma exists.

But for others of us, who want love, money, happiness and joy in life, you're not doing anything wrong! Because again, I can't stress this enough!! There's already a reality where you do have it all. You just need to align yourself with that version of you. It's not about manipulation or attraction; it's about embracing a reality, a version of you, that's already there. Just shift your focus away from what you're seeing with your naked eyes and dare to see with your third eye that sees beyond physical realities, aka "imagination."

[reverie-starlight]

hello, hope ure doing well :D may i please request an akaashi fic where the reader is going thru grief of the passing of their mother and can’t focus in class leading onto low grades for their semester exam making them feel even worse bc that’s not what their mom wants (reader always gets good grades) and reader feels like a disappointment and just breaks down one day?? i’m so sorry if this is too specific, just finding it hard to cope and no one understands!! thank you so much <3

ANON I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG, but I have literally been dealing with exactly what you requested (still am, but now I'm on reading week so :P). And since I'm literally writing this immediately after a rough grieving session of my own, I feel like now I can tackle it and do it justice. bc... as someone who also used to get good grades before my mom died then started almost failing everything after... this hits hard!!

And just another little side note, I'm so sorry for your loss. if you ever want to reach out to talk to someone who's going through the same thing, my inbox or my messages are always open <3 dead mom club solidarity !! thank you so much for your request, anon and again i'm SO sorry this took so long.

{Grades and Grief- Akaashi}

warnings: death of mother (mentioned and focused on, no descriptive details), depression/grief, anxiety, this counts as hurt/comfort right? fluff and lots of support from akaashi. university life needs to be a warning tbh so its here.

gn!reader, timeskip!akaashi (except it's more like, in between the time skip cause it's university)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

your heart dropped as you opened your emails and saw that the grades for your midterms had been posted.

on one hand you were hopeful. maybe you did better than you expected? maybe you would open up the online portal and see that you passed. just a pass, that's all you were hoping for at this point.

you ignored the way your stomach twisted at the fact that all you wanted was a pass. you used to be at the top of your classes in high school, and now you were barely scraping by.

but deep down you knew it would be a failing grade. it was getting impossible to hope for anything better. you could barely find it in yourself to go to class some days, let alone actually study. it required more brain power than you could expend.

and on the days you did go to class, you felt like a zombie. mindless, lethargic, stupid. definitely not in any condition to take notes that were good enough to aid you.

you opened the email and sighed. another fail. you tried to convince yourself that you'd do better next time. that you'd start studying earlier, you'd go to your professor's office hours and ask questions, you'd do the work that needed to be done.

your future was at stake, why couldn't you just put in the the work-

this was one test in one class. there would be other chances to raise your grade.

breathe.

how many times can I keep telling myself that before I stop believing it? before it becomes an empty promise?

breathe. you'll be okay.

it's self-sabotage, how much longer can I just stay like this? mom wouldn't have wanted this for me. she'd want to see me succeed. I'm such a-

breathe.

you tried to do exactly what your boyfriend kept telling you: be kind to yourself. "you're grieving the death of someone who was supposed to be there your whole life. the one person you never thought would leave. it's completely natural to be struggling with your mental health right now. don't be mean to yourself." is what he had said. "take the time to feel what you need to feel, bottling it up will only make it worse."

you sighed and curled yourself into a ball on your bed. you were finding it hard to breathe.

feel what you need to feel, huh? when was the last time you had a good cry session, anyway?

the tightness in your chest only grew as you started to tear up. you tried to keep the thoughts of being a disappointment to your mother away, but you glanced at the picture of her smiling face on your nightstand and winced.

if she could see you know, you wondered if she would be angry or comforting.

grieving was one of the loneliest experiences anyone could ever deal with. unique to each person, not one person to share the same memories with, becoming acutely aware of your own timeline. and not something that happens often to young people. none of your friends understood. they could try, but they'd never get it. and sometimes you felt like they didn't even care enough to attempt it.

you've never felt more alone and you've never been more aware of it.

"and if you ever need comfort, I don't know how much help I'll be, but I'm always here to listen. it's never going to be too much."

so instead of dwelling on it, you picked up your phone and called the one person who would.

it took three rings for akaashi to pick up.

the smile in his voice immediately soothed you. anything related to your boyfriend felt like a blanket to you. comforting, warm and soft. "hello, my love, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

you sniffed and tried to get some words out without choking up. "keiji," his name came out pitifully.

"oh sweetheart, what's wrong?"

"can you come over, please? I need you."

"of course I can, I'll be right there. I love you."

"I love you, please be careful."

the second you hung up the phone, you let more tears fall freely. you didn't even know what you were crying about anymore, there were so many emotions mixed up inside you. but for some reason you didn't want to fully let loose while you were alone. you wanted comfort when you were at your most vulnerable- comfort and validation you weren't capable of giving yourself in that moment. there was only one other person who could give you that now.

while you waited, you thought more about your mother. it really wasn't fair that you had to lose her, why did she have to go? it didn't matter how long it had been since she passed, this type of pain will be everlasting, you thought.

ten minutes later you heard the door to your apartment unlock and you got up to greet him. he had a bunch of bags in his arms that he set down the minute he saw you walk out of your room.

he held his arms open and you crashed into him immediately. finally you felt safe enough to let the dam break. akaashi shushed you as you sobbed into his chest, rubbing your back gently and whispering soft affirmations into your ears.

"what happened, my love?"

"I- I failed another test," you hiccupped. "and I don't know what to do to help myself get out of this hole."

"oh dear... it's going to be okay."

he tenderly picked you up and carried you to the bedroom and you continued to cry into his shoulder. his heart broke at the sound of your whimpers.

once you were both settled comfortably on your bed, you took one of his hands and played with his fingers. "keiji, am I a disappointment?"

he shook his head before you could even finish speaking. "never."

"I just feel like I'm letting so many people down, myself included, but mainly my mom... her one request throughout my whole life was that I do my best in school. and now I'm failing and I can't help but think-" your voice cracked and he cupped your cheek with his other hand.

"baby, look at me. you are not a disappointment, okay? you are so far from that ever even being a possibility. and she would be so proud of you."

you looked up at him and your eyes widened. "but I'm not living up to her expectations-"

"you're doing your best. she would understand that."

"I'm not, though!" a flash of red hot anger ran through you. "I'm not doing my best! If I were doing my best, I'd be passing. I'd be studying, paying attention in my classes and not just staying in bed. not just staring at the ceiling and dissociating for hours when I need to be working on assignments. I'm not doing my best and I don't know how to fix it!" instead of getting upset at you for blowing up, he just listened to what you were saying.

as you got up to pace the room, you kept ranting. "I know something needs to change, I can't keep going on like this, but it's like I'm stuck, keiji, I don't know what to do and I'm so angry. and I'm tired, exhausted, actually. I hate this, I feel useless. I'm in limbo. I don't know why I can't force myself to change, but I'm absolutely not doing my best."

true anger wasn't an emotion you felt often before your mom died, but now you were well acquainted with it. you thanked your lucky stars you scored a partner as patient as akaashi.

"have you considered that you're doing the best with what you have right now?"

you paused and looked at him. "what?"

he shifted and took your hand. "my love, you've been through something extremely traumatic. you've told me before that you've been in survival mode for a very long time now. that's not your fault. you can't control it on your own. keeping that in mind, you absolutely are doing your best. you get up and keep going everyday. even though it scares you. you're still kind, and actively striving to be a good person. this rough patch is temporary, everything will be okay. she would be proud of you for everything you've overcome so far."

you bit your lip and looked down, shaking your head. "what if this is 'my best' forever? what if I'm not capable of changing anymore?"

"anyone is capable of change at any given time, my love, you're the one who told me that. I promise you, everything will be okay. and besides," he tugged your hand to guide you onto his lap. "the willingness to change and not just refuse to heal is there."

"but what if it takes too long?"

"it won't. there's no such thing as too long, everyone's healing process is different. and you have me by your side as well, ready to help however you need." he finished his speech with a kiss to your nose and you smiled a bit.

"...thank you, keiji. I love you."

"I love you too, dear. I'll be here as long as you'll let me."

"forever, if that's alright with you?"

"of course, my love." his arms tightened around you.

"can we stay like this for a bit longer?"

"mhmm, you've had a big day. we can cuddle for as long as you need."

you buried your face into the crook of his neck and planted a few kisses. "I love you,"

he kissed the top of your head. "I love you too, sweetheart."

you repeated the phrase over and over again, smiling a little wider each time he returned the sentiment with a kiss to your face.

"can I ask you one more thing?"

"go ahead."

"are you proud of me despite me failing so much this year?"

"I'm so proud of you, baby. nothing would ever change that."

looking up at him with wide eyes, he just smiled and leaned down to kiss your lips. "so proud of my baby. always trying their best. so sweet, so kind, just needs to be loved on a little extra sometimes. all mine."

a happy sigh was released, and with it, most of the tension in your body, so you rested against your boyfriend. "all yours."

you felt a lot better now. not perfect, and still uncertain about some things, but at least with akaashi there you knew you didn't have to go it alone.

~BONUS SCENE~

after a while of cuddling in bed, a thought hit you and you shot up, obviously in a clearer, less fuzzy state of mind.

"love, what were all those bags you had earlier? did you stop somewhere before you came?"

his eyes widened a bit and a blush spread over his cheeks. "yes and no. uh... before you called, I was actually picking us up some food and other things for a stay-in date night. I was planning on surprising you today."

you could have burst into tears again at how cute his confession was. "keijiiiii, you're so sweet!" you ran your fingers through his hair a bit and he melted into the touch. "what a sweet boy I have," you cooed.

he made a noise of protest and you giggled. "can we go see what you bought? please?"

he nodded and smiled at you. he was so glad you seemed to be in better spirits now. there wasn't anything akaashi keiji wouldn't do to see you happy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

this was literally just me projecting holy shit. that was really a look inside my brain, wow. but anon I hope you enjoyed it!! and I hope it was worth the wait, I'm so so so so sorry it took so long. this is the first thing I've managed to write in a while (and I wrote this all in one sitting!!). But the ask was very therapeutic for me, I really need this type of validation :'D

[rebelpapermaker]

Got an opinion on a popular FNAF concept, and I'm gonna be kinda harsh but it's only because of my own feelings- if you like it you're valid and I got no problem with you!

Michael time-travel-fix-it fics are literally the one thing I can think of that is worse than anything that happened to him in canon. It makes me viscerally upset to consider that, regardless of if he can actually change the past.

1. He was a kid when everything happened, including killing his brother. Even if he has the experience of an adult, the idea that one child with the knowledge of what is going to happen could prevent it all is cruel and impossible. He wouldn't make the same mistakes, but there is no way to prevent every single thing, because it wasn't all caused by him. He can't convince anyone around him of what will happen.

2. As someone with childhood trauma, the idea of being transported back and forced to live through that time again while knowing what will happen is literal hell. I would eliminate myself before allowing that to happen, and my trauma is nowhere near the same level.

3. It invalidates all the effort he made to pay for his mistakes. Of course none of that makes what he did right- neither does going back in time to prevent it from ever happening. That's not how hurting people works. You still chose to do that at that point in time. There is no version of this where he can do enough to feel that he never made the original mistake, or that he can do enough to make up for it. Even if he prevents all the murders, there will always be something that was kind of shitty that he regrets not preventing. It's a never ending spiral, and it's why self forgiveness is important.

4. It is not on the children to prevent the atrocities that would happen. That's why Mike's story is so tragic. He blames himself, and to an extent it is his fault his brother died, but it's also the fault of the adults around who didn't intervene, most of all William. And then William goes on to murder more children, and he is a full grown adult who understood all the implications of his actions. Mike is a foil- he regrets his one big mistake, working constantly to try to make up for it- William regrets nothing, despite committing the same crime over and over again.

I definitely am biased because of my own experiences, which is all this is meant to be- just needed to get it off my chest.

[isthe-protag-cluelesstho]

Okay so,

I have been drafting up a really self indulgent fic, where its a No Powers/No Dungeons SCTIR fic and Sung Hyunjae meets 3 jobs and estranged from my baby Y^Y Han Yoojin one (1) single time and decides That's His Now,

I adore fucked up codependency and I am current up to chp 217 of the novel so (spoiler) I am currently So Obsessed with SH's offer to be YJ's protector QwQ

I am genuinely kinda stuck on how to move the plot tho... cause I am stymied by Han Yoojin's Stone Wall of a goddamn personality... I am trying to keep Sung Hyunjae's job NOT mob boss, which may frankly be impossible cause even a CEO type is kinda underselling the amount of Big Dick Energy required to pull Han Yoojin.

maybe I'll just have Sung Hyunjae like, fucking by Han Yoojin's shitty apartment. That's stupid and agressive enough I think,

Han Yoojin is such a fascinating character to me, especially as a person who raised my two younger siblings. I identify so extremely hard with how YJ tries so goddamn hard to take care of everyone all on his own, cause I deadass had to get therapy in order to fully convince myself it was okay to move states. I unironically was extremely worried about my siblings to the point were i was like "I can't move! no one will be able to take care of them if I leave!" which is hella silly cause my sister was still there (I'm the eldest but she's too close to me in age, she also helped raise our younger two) AND all of my friends literally have been through the same thing (homeschooling fucks you up) and promised to be Surogate Eldests if needed. AND I STILL HAD TO GET THERAPIZED TO ACTULLY MOVE

So every action Han Yoojin has made so far is entirely understandable to me :// which means, if there is a character with even a fraction of my trust issues (lol) how overbearingly persistent must a fantasy man be in order to wife that character?

I am probably going to make Sung Hyunjae act so goddamn ridiculous but given how bizarre he already is, it'll probably be okay,

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING IF YOU DID

[thessalian]

Thess vs Upcoming Elections

Both the US and the UK are coming up on elections this year, and the usual notifications are coming up - hell, I've posted them myself - about how people are going to try to convince you that there's no point in voting because both parties are the same, and that it's a psyop by the Republicans / Conservatives, etc. And in the US, that's probably true. But I did want to say something about the whole deal in the UK, because I actually live here, and there's one problem with that theory.

That theory doesn't hold true when we're hearing it directly from the Leader of the Opposition.

Those of us in the UK have heard Kier Starmer saying, time and again, how he will fall into lockstep with the Tories on so many issues. He's spoken in support of teachers outing transgender kids to their parents. He's refusing to condemn the genocide in Gaza. He's going to continue to 'bolster the NHS with private contracts', which basically means stealth privatisation of the service and already cost us billions during the early days of COVID. Just about every nasty policy the Tories have put out there the last few years, Starmer has more or less agreed with. I'm not sure where he stands about this stupid Rwanda thing, but he is a lawyer so I'm pretty sure that at the very least he's wary of breaking international law.

The worst part is that it feels like we're damned either way. If we don't vote Starmer, our not-two-party-system-BUT is arranged in such a way that the Tories will probably win again. This will bolster the far right element and things will get worse for us. However, if we do vote Labour ... well, Starmer's going to go on about "See, that's how you win an election" and carry on with his Tory-With-A-Red-Tie mentality, and the Tories will go, "Well, obviously we need to go further right to win the next one", and get absolutely fucking feral about it. And the Tories probably will win next time because the absolute mess the Tories have made of the economy and everything else is impossible to fix in five years, and everyone will blame Labour for it because they have the mental capacity of goldfish.

I mean, I'm going to vote Labour anyway. My borough is one of the safest of safe Labour seats, but I'm going to do it anyway. People keep saying, "Vote Green!" but ... I'm sorry, no matter how important that one issue is, I will not vote for a one-issue party. The Lib Dems have become basically wallpaper at this point, and there aren't a lot of other political entities in my borough. I mean, the absolute best we could do by voting third-party is to force a hung Parliament, but I mistrust that kind of thing ever since the Conservative / Lib Dem coalition in 2010, which was the start of this whole mess.

Anyway, I'm going to vote Labour even though I know what they are and what they're doing because I cannot imagine aiding and abetting the Tories at this point. I can hope that Starmer, who has been very cagey about his manifesto to stop the Tories from spending time during Prime Minister's Questions trying to use it as ammunition against having to actually answer the man's questions, is further to the left than he appears. Then again, we live in a capitalist hellscape and I would guess not? But at least he doesn't want to send refugees to Rwanda. Maybe. Maybe he'll actually respect international law. And maybe he'll even get rid of the idiotic voter ID laws which Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted was deliberate gerrymandering on live television and no one batted a fucking eye. In fact, Rees-Mogg said, "We just have to do it more effectively" and then there were even more draconian laws put into place around postal votes, and again, no one seemed to care.

It's sad when all the hope we can cling to in these cases is "Maybe the other guy won't be a literal criminal" ... but I guess the US knows that one too.

[melting-houses-of-gold]

🚀 🎁🦈

🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

Sure! This is from a long-marinating WIP that I swear I'll pick up one day!

The first time he sees her, it’s raining. 

Not the romantic, hazy hue of a light city rain but the torrential chaos and pelting downpour of a jungle storm. It's hot and heavy as it falls but as it soaks through his already sodden jacket it lingers and freezes against his skin, chilling him to his very soul. All he wants is to curl up and wait out the storm, to seek shelter but his enemies are in pursuit so it’s keep moving or die.

Despite the threat of imminent capture (and death), moving is slow-going. His lower half is covered in mud, his boots so caked with muck that each step feels like he’s carrying ten tons. He can still see the pattern of his fatigues through the swirling brown. The blood—not his own, for once—has washed away or at least blended in well enough with the mud that he can’t see it anymore. A blessing.

He’s lost, he thinks. Unsure if he’s ten klicks or two away from the rendezvous point. Any distinguishing markers he noted on their arrival are now nearly impossible to see through the pelting rain. For all he knows, he's walking in circles; in a jungle, there’s no concept of time, no real sense of direction. It’s only adrenaline that keeps him moving forward and experience that tells him he’s not nearly far enough away to rest, despite the exhaustion that’s threatening to stop him in his tracks.  

At least he has the intel he came for. Something the Agency insists is vitally important, a matter of life and death, figuratively speaking. In the case of his squad, literally. 

Vitally important is a lie he might have believed when he first joined the Agency. When he was fresh out of special forces, and they filled his head with the exotic places he’d travel, the missions he’d be on, the good he’d do around the world. Within weeks he’d realized the lie. That sure there were exotic places he’d only dreamed of visiting but much of his last seven was spent waiting in torrential rain or blistering heat or several feet of snow, with little more than field rations sustaining him for days at a time. 

Reality is grim, but the truth is grimmer. 

None of the intel matters. For the Agency, it's all vital and important, which is to say that none of it is. What's vital and important is that he brings it to them and not to their enemies. 

He knows all of this and yet he stays. Still going on missions, still getting shot at, and—as he finally finds a tree with a decent foothold—still scaling up structures he has no business climbing.

Other two questions below the cut!

🚀 Do you like to outline your fic first or create as you go?

Both! I'm more a pantser than anything else, but I typically have a good idea of where I want to go (and how I picture something ending), so I usually have the opening and the closing of the fic done before anything else. But I also hate overly outlining, even though I know some people thrive with it, I get too stressed and feel like I'm locked into something.

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

I feel like it's more eras of characters that I struggle with. Like I very much vibe with Clone Wars through Rebels Ahsoka, but I have zero interest in writing her in the live action era, so I think convincing myself to write something then would be TOUGH. Never say never, though, sometimes when the vibes hit, they hit.

[chvoswxtch]

hi again, court!

it's once again the anon that sent the massive ass paragraphs rambling about the punisher after i finished watching it. i feel like i should either just un-anonymise myself or give myself a name or something to make it easier to identify myself?? but idk?? i'm still new to tumblr so i dunno how these things work

anyways, just wanted to say, i also am just so happy that they are taking the reboot seriously!! i only really got into like the daredevil/punisher in like the past year or so. so i feel like i don't really have the same grounds to stand on as some longer term fans but i just remember being so disappointed with karen/foggy originally not being part of born again so i'm so so glad that that changed and we have the true trio back. and frank being in it just makes me SO happy because i have become incredibly incredibly attached to frank (it might be a little unhealthy but big strong men who are morally questionable is my type haha)

i totally agree with season 2 feeling rushed, it definitely felt like some of the plots were supposed to be fleshed out more or like storylines would have carried on into a season 3 and billy not being fucked up enough is SO FUCKING REAL. like frank literally BRUTALISED him but he comes out looking okay?? like idk?? it just doesn't look convincing i feel like ben barnes' acting is good and he plays the subtle psycho (though you're right, him being more outwardly bloodthirsty and vengeful would have been AMAZING) but the visuals don't hit right. but this is such a wider issue with pretty actors in hollywood?? especially cause they also did it when he played the darkling in shadow and bone. i dunno if you ever watched shadow and bone but like his character should have been way more scarred but they just didn't make it as brutal as it probably would have been in reality and it makes me so mad because i just don't understand why??

AND THE WILL THING, LITERALLY, WHEN HE FIRST CAME ON SCREEN, I LOOKED AT HIM AND WAS LIKE 'is that?? is that WILLIAM LAMONTAGUE??' and then everytime he came on and was being psycho, i was like 'someone get jj to sort her husband out' and also this is so DUMB but i love to think that this is what will was doing during criminal minds and that's why we never see him, he was just off being pilgrim and terrorising frank, obviously it doesn't really work timeline wise BUT the thought of it just makes me laugh so it is now my headcanon.

I HAVE FOUND ANOTHER MADANI LOVER. that makes me so BEYOND ECSTATIC. I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW HAPPY THAT MAKES ME. karen is literally a stronger woman than i could ever be. both with madani and tbh with frank, i dunno how she doesn't crumble in front of either of them. like i wish i had karen's strength. but like yeah if madani even LOOKED at me, i would be spilling all of my goddamn secrets. i'm so glad i'm not the only one who sees the lack of love (i may end up trying to fix that with some fics hehe)! i am such a whore for her, it's actually insane. like the past few days since i finished watching it, she has been on my mind 24/7, what i would let her do to me is EMBARASSING. i love that woman so much and i'm so glad i'm not alone.

i'm done ranting for now but i cannot promise i won't ramble in your inbox again. i truly have punisher brainrot (and criminal minds brainrot too but that's not important right now)

thank you for reading my ramblings again <3

welcome back nonnie!

totally up to you love! if you’re not comfy coming off anon & wanna give yourself a lil nickname, that’s totally fine with me :)

don’t even worry about how long you’ve been in the fandom, that doesn’t matter. you’re here & your opinions & feelings are just as valid as everyone else’s. to your point about big strong men with questionable morals: yes

I haven’t watched shadow & bone but I have seen ben’s character in that role and maybe he’s the problem like maybe they try to make him look bad & it’s just impossible bc it’s ben barnes 🤷🏻‍♀️

LMAO pls that would be so funny. hey will what have you been up to lately? oh nothing just terrorizing the punisher in new york no biggie

karen is a strong woman bc the second frank or madani looked at me like that i’d fold & be like yeah literally anything you want I will give you. if you do end up writing any madani fics pls send them my way! i’ll get around to writing for her eventually. it’s been hard for me to focus on writing anything other than bodyguard frankie bc that’s my baby

I don’t ever not have punisher or criminal minds brainrot so pls feel free to rant with me anytime <3