#Service-Modus

[hexastitchimera]

Okay but, as someone who can have a glasses prescription that works, and as someone who suffers from minimal to moderate auditory issues (+ processing), I cannot even BEGIN to emphasize how actively hostile the system is to blind & deaf peoples, as well as those on the spectrum of both.

I don't even have to give anybody a theoretical situation for them to understand. Just leave your seat for a second, close your eyes, and try to navigate to the furthest room in your living situation in order to turn on the light switch there.

Tough enough already? Now try that in a noisy, busy street, where all you have is a cane, and an immense urge to use the bathroom.

The anxiety, uncertainty, and tension is there with deaf persons as well. Imagine not being able to communicate with others, and there as no signs indicating where you need to go. Good luck if you don't have a phone, anything to write with, an interpreter with you, etc.

If I'm already having difficulties as a neurodivergent 2+ TBI survivor- where I will look both ways, make sure it's safe to cross, and STILL nearly get hit by a car careening at 100MPH because auditory processing issues and noisy streets don't mesh- then I cannot imagine the sheer, utter strength, courage, and perseverance blind, deaf, and all peoples on those spectrums have to have.

This is why actions like Spotify's- to put accessibility features like lyrics (accurate or inaccurate as they were) and others- are a genuine disgrace upon the business's name.

It shows their true colors, as well as how they'd rather take money from those who need it than from those who can truly afford to.

[ozzgin]

We have yandere school,, but what about yan! Restaurant? 👀

You've only ever visited this particular restaurant once, but the food was just so good that you can't help but come back from time to time! And, oh.. The workers and manager there can't help but favor you a lot more than the rest ♡

I'm not sure if you meant it in the sense that the restaurant is a regular, normal business, and the staff became obsessed with you, or if the restaurant is quite literally advertised as a yandere service. I went for the latter, for the memes. Content: gender neutral reader, parody?, horde of (adult) yanderes

Yandere!Restaurant provides you with an extensive list of employees to choose from. From grey-haired and soft-spoken, to brash and youthful; the restaurant guarantees you will find your matching server within their impressive catalog.

Alright, where is the menu? Most customers are indeed taken aback when presented with a leather-bound book of blank pages. The gesture is quickly followed by a second, much thinner folder: a questionnaire, and an agreement to be stalked.

You see, Yandere!Restaurant has a particular modus operandi - you provide them with the basics: your full name and date of birth. Everything else will be uncovered by the yandere themselves. Once they have found you, the true serving process begins.

The first part is always the longest, hence their recommendation to book months in advance if you're a new customer. It's the research phase. Your chosen server will follow you around and gather all the needed information.

"No, thank you, it's too sweet for me", you tell a friend offering you some of their snack. From within the shadows, a cloaked figure scribbles down furiously.

The second and final phase is your usual dining experience. You are seated at the table and presented with your dishes. They have been carefully curated to match your taste in that very moment. Maybe you'd recently hoped you could eat your childhood favorite again. Maybe you'd seen a social media post about a trending dessert, and wished to try it out yourself. No matter the reason, know that it has been skillfully uncovered by your loyal server.

"This is..."

You gasp quietly and cover your mouth with a napkin. The taste is exquisite, filling you with a wave of nostalgia. How did they know? This is exactly what you wanted.

Why, of course. It was made with utmost love and attention. Won't you visit them again, (Y/N)?

[More Yandere Scenarios]

[redmyeyes]

Fellow Travelers sex scenes

I can't stop thinking about what Matt and Jonny keep repeating over and over again in interviews, regarding the FT sex scenes. That, in the writing and filming it was important that:

No two scenes were the same.

Every sex scene informed the story.

The characters were not the same before the scene as they were after. That they were changed by it.

So, let's talk about them.

"Pretend"

establishment of hawk's usual modus operandi -- brief fucks with strangers. he keeps a tight rein on his desires and won't allow himself to want more.

2. "Fold them."

establishing dynamics, hawk is in control, tim is being (happily) led. par for the course for hawk (or is it?)

3. "I'm your boy, right?"

tim can play, too. this dynamic is not one-way. the 'power' in this relationship definitely does not lie solely with hawk. you might even say this flips the power dynamic on its head. hawk is GONE.

4. "Do you like it this way? Your life, like this?"

not a sex scene, but one of the first slow, tender aftermaths. clear now that, for both of them, this goes much much deeper than just sex.

5. "I belong to Hawkins Fuller."

tim showing that he's willing to meet hawk on his level. the submission and dominance are so intertwined here they can't be separated. it's the willingness of that submission, the willingness of that Belonging, that changes everything.

and tim begging (through provocation) hawk to acknowledge him / what they have, out loud. "who do you belong to" = "i love you, i need you, tell me you need me too."

6. "It's your turn tonight."

a fucked-up goodbye, on hawk's part. he really thinks this might be the last time he's allowed to see tim, and he says 'i love you' the only way he knows how -- with his body, with service.

7. "Your Honor, I stand before you accused of being sweet."

crucially, not a sex scene. even more crucially, there is no sex at all in episode 5, where they separate for the first (and, they think, last) time. instead, we're shown what they're really giving up -- this too sweet (painfully sweet) domesticity.

8. "We don't have to do what we used to do."

the horribly empty aftermath. where they give in to "sex", of a sort, but it's dry and horrifically painful and NOT AT ALL what either of them want. because what they want is intimacy, not sex. and they're not allowed this.

9. "Stay with me."

the botched threesome, where craig is an afterthought, an excuse for hawk and tim to be together, and even then, horrifically painful in the way they LONG for each other and for what they can't have.

10. "I want you to fuck me."

a true surrender. again, hawk showing what he wants the only way he knows how -- through his body -- giving tim his willing submission, body, heart and soul.

11. "We'll be colleagues. We'll see each other every day."

not technically a sex scene, but the truest expression of them 'making love' that we ever get on screen. returning to #1, it's the polar opposite of what hawk had previously allowed himself, and it's what he really wants -- all the intimacy he'll shortly be sacrificing.

12. "That better?" "Oh yeah."

finally, finally, after all those years, a return to the true intimacy they were craving.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Why the Alpha Timeline is the Alpha Timeline

I figured I'd make a post, since it's pretty subtle and I think it genuinely passed a lot of people by? Homestuck is made up of a lot of words, haha.

The alpha timeline is described by Doc Scratch, functionally, as "the timeline that causes LE to exist."

The path which alone has my absolute mastery is the alpha timeline, a continuum I define as that which boasts exclusive rights both to my birth and to my death, two circumstantially simultaneous events.

Aranea also gives the explanation that the alpha timeline is the one where reality is perpetuated.

AG: Reality itself is using you and many others to propagate its own existence. Strictly speaking, there is only one path to its successful propagation. 8ut it still permits you to make choices.

Caliborn also states that his quest as a Lord of Time is coming to terms with the inevitability that everything, ever, in all of time, will be because of him - that he'll be the one to shape it, including the circumstances of his own defeat.

uu: AS A LORD OF TIME. I THINK I'M GOING TO MASTER TIME. NOT WITH MY BRAIN. WHICH WOULD BE TOO HARD. BUT WITH MY INSTINCTS. uu: LIKE IN A WAY THAT WORKS WITH MY NATURAL IMPULSES. SUCH AS MY AMBITION. MY WILL TO COMMIT MAYHEM. MY DESIRE TO PUNISH THOSE I DESPISE. uu: SO IF I WANT YOU TO BECOME STRONG. SO YOU CAN CHALLENGE ME LATER. AND I SEE EVIDENCE. THAT YOU PROBABLY BECOME SUCCESSFUL. uu: I THINK TO MYSELF. WHY SHOULDN'T I BE THE ONE TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN? IF IT'S GOING TO ANYWAY. uu: I THINK PART OF MY PERSONAL QUEST. IS TO BECOME AT EASE WITH THE FORCES OF INEVITABILITY. uu: INEVITABILITY THAT ALL THINGS SHOULD AND WILL FALL IN MY FAVOR. THAT ALL CAUSALITY ANSWERS TO ME. AND THAT ALL OUTCOMES NOT ONLY SERVE ME. BUT CONSIST OF MY BEING. uu: SO I FEEL THAT. THE MORE I GROW IN POWER. uu: THE MORE STUFF IT SHOULD TURN OUT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR. uu: UP TO AND INCLUDING. EVERYTHING THAT EVER HAPPENS. uu: EVEN IF IT HAS TO BE. uu: RETROACTIVELY.

Aradia's stint as stewardess of the afterlife is explicitly described as "service to the lord of double death," and Dave explains that he acts instinctively - like Caliborn does - to fulfill the conditions of the alpha timeline. It's also worth noting that their classes, Maid and Knight, are roles that directly serve a Lord in the real world.

TEREZI: LUCK1LY YOU M4K3 4N 4DOR4BL3 H4NDM41D TO TH3 M4ST3R OF D34TH, 3SP3C14LLY 1N YOUR CUT3 CH3RRY P1X13 3NS3MBL3 ARADIA: you think so?

GG: well youre from the future right? GG: dont you know already if itll work? TG: yeah more or less TG: i never really studied how it went down all that closely TG: i just figured when the time came to sort it out the right thing to do would be obvious TG: like it is now TG: managing the loops is a balance of careful planning and just rolling with your in the moment decisions TG: and trusting they were the ones you were always supposed to make TG: by now im pretty used to having my intuition woven into the fabric of the alpha timeline

I'm starting with all that so I can explain that the GAME OVER timeline doesn't end when the time players disappear from it, like doomed timeline offshoots normally do, because it IS the alpha timeline: the sequence of events that causes GAME OVER to occur is the sequence of events that Caliborn/Lord English have chosen: one where (nearly) everyone dies, all hope of victory is lost, and his servant, the Condesce, gets to claim the Ultimate Reward, perpetuating the same misery and oppression in the new universe, and presumably all universes to come.

We see from Caliborn's chess match with Calliope that his (and by extension, LE)'s modus operandi is to follow the rules to the letter, while manipulating his opponent, tricking them with "shitty twists". It's always been explained that LE's actions have been "sanctioned by paradox space," that is, everything he's doing is explicitly allowed, nothing he's doing is against the rules - including the fact that he must be defeated. He has, via his mastery of time, perfectly engineered a situation where the only viable reality is the one where yes, he IS defeated... in the dream bubbles, by the dead and doomed, whom he sent to the dream bubbles in the first place via Condy, Jack English, and all the other boss fights. And his will, his ideals, are imposed on the new universe in spite of his defeat.

In a completely Watsonian read of the text, Lord English is an incredible villain because - subtly and unsublty - he IS basically responsible for every bad thing that ever happens, ever, to everyone. He has legitimately been the puppetmaster pulling the strings the entire time, pretty much all because Caliborn is a huge asshole who loves to hurt other people, and wants to do it as much as he can, to as many people as he can, for as long as he can.

But I think he's especially interesting through a Doylist perspective, through a reading of the text as a coming of age. Homestuck is a worth riddled with theme and symbolism, and thematically, Lord English represents everything that these kids need to overcome in order to mature into kind, empathetic adults who will be one day responsible for the care and oversight of a new universe. He represents selfishness, sadism, greed, destruction, oppression, fascism, murder, genocide, and hatred. And also literally the patriarchy.

And, you know what? Don't take my word for it. Here's Andrew Hussie's commentary from Book 6 Act 5 Act 2 Part 2:

Much of the logic [for who contributes to Lord English] orbits around these negative traits associated with men, or more specifically, the “toxically masculine” aspects often linked to certain male personalities. Dirk has a lot of these traits, which are central to Dave’s feelings of tension and abuse concerning his bro. The intellectual aggression, the power of assertion, the knowitall-ism, the mansplaining. That’s a lot of Dirk stuff when he’s at his worst. Equius shares a lot of those traits too, with some different points of emphasis. Both of them have this creepy-guy streak running through them, with strange or offputting interests, and seem to get a quiet kick out of making others uncomfortable through demonstrations of these fascinations. They are actually pretty similar characters in this way.

He's invited into the trolls' universe (and, by extension, the kids' universe) via the Dancestors, in an original sin kind of way. I'll let Hussie explain on their Formspring (emphasis mine):

We learn more about the troll race, as a once peaceful species and such before kid-ancestors as players scratched their session, though the short term relevance of this is mainly as a preamble to Scratch's religious story. Establishing an Eden-like paradise from which there is some departure through sin is sort of the boilerplate basis for religious lore. ... The failed players from peaceful Alternia made a classic "deal with the devil" move by causing the scratch after being given a choice by the mother of all monsters. (Echidna. Hey, she's a big snake!) By doing so they brought Scratch into their universe, and therefore all the things you'd expect that comes with summoning the devil.

The Dancestor's "departure through sin"? It was the fact that they couldn't get their shit together and grew up inside the Medium. That's why they're the age they are, 9 sweeps - adulthood by troll standards. They aren't kids anymore because that's the ultimate sign of having failed to do a coming of age. Symbolically, the Dancestors represent a prior generation of grown-ups that fucked everything up, leaving a huge mess for their descendents to clean up after. In fact, Doc Scratch even describes the alternate choice Echidna gave them:

The heroes could either accept their defeat along with the extinction of their race, and put no others at risk.

In other words, they could have stopped LE if they'd simply chosen not to Scratch. But once more, in line with their behavior up until that point, they chose the selfish option, and bore descendants into the world they ruined. They're immature, nasty, mean-spirited, cruel, callous, and shallow on purpose, because their role in the story is antagonistic. They're aligned (even if unwittingly) with Lord English, as they're the ones who directly invited him in via their failure to grow the fuck up.

There's also a reason why SBURB/SGRUB directly tie achieving godhood and reaching the Ultimate Reward to planetary quests fundamentally designed to help children mature. God-tiering is supposed to come at the end of one's quest, as achieving it directly teleports you to the Battlefield for the final boss.

AG: I really think how successfully they mature is tied to success in the game. It challenges the players in all the ways they need to 8e challenged to grow, which is different for every individual, and veeeeeeeery different for every race. AG: I don't think we were so hot at that aspect of the game. In fact, I'm sure we were quite awful. Hell, even I wasn't that gr8 at it! I actually just kinda fell ass 8ackwards into the god tier, to 8e honest.

And there's a perfectly functional Watsonian explanation for this - in order to increase the odds that the new universe will successfully propagate new universes, it's ideal to leave it in the hands of kind, mature people. But the Doylist explanation is, again, even more interesting.

Hussie has spoken extensively about the comic having always been about two things at its core: first, a creation myth... and second, a coming-of-age. These are complimentary themes, as Homestuck also makes statements about society and its effects on kids. In the real world, the kids of today become the voters, revolutionaries, and lawmakers of tomorrow. In Homestuck, they create, and are responsible for, a new universe.

I always saw HS as an exploration of young people developing relationships over the internet […] There’s a lot more to HS than just that obviously, but if there’s anything which it’s been about through and through, it’s modern kids relating to each other from afar, developing as people and growing up.

In fact, all the initial kids' entry artifacts are metaphors for "departures, loss of innocence, and sometimes the journey from childhood to adulthood outright." John biting an apple, symbolizing the act that cast Adam and Even from Eden. Rose breaking a bottle, the act of christening a boat, and an item integral to the main means by which she relates to her mother, alcohol - an adult substance. Dave hatching an egg, literally the act of bringing new life into the world. Jade shooting an effigy of her dog, both symbolic of Old Yeller, and of breaking a pinata, an act often done at quinceneras.

There comes a point in childhood where the child stops being a child - the safe, familiar, comfortable world that they knew stops existing, and they can never get it back. They are thrust into a world that is alien and massive, and forced to grapple with the weight of their future duties. They deal with losing their guardians and finding direction in their absence. They must decide how they want to grow up, and then are responsible for shaping the society that comes after them. In other words, SBURB/SGRUB in this metaphor represent adolescence.

Within that context, God-tiering is actually interesting because it symbolizes adulthood - a semi-permanent state that a child is supposed to reach at the end of their SBURB/SGRUB journey. And, in fact, it's treated that way - none of the characters reach god-tiering the "proper" way... and of our god-tiered characters, nearly all of them have some sort of emotional struggle with growing up too fast. Vriska with the expectations of her shitty society, Rose with her emulation of her mother, Dave with his abusive brother, and the Alpha kids with substance abuse (the jujus) and romantic drama.

Anyway, sometimes when Mario's running sideways he gets a star that makes him magic and invincible. OH. YOU MEAN HE BECOMES TRICKSTER MARIO. Yes, but less stupid. So for a while he becomes flashy and hyperactive and nothing's challenging anymore. He just starts barreling over mushrooms and leaping over pits as fast as he can, then gets to the end and jumps on the flagpole and that's it. Mario "wins". But the point is, he didn't really win. That magic star was actually devastating to his development as a human being. WHY. Because he skipped over many critical trials on his spiritual journey. Mario NEEDS to stomp on all those mushrooms. He NEEDS to bonk those bricks with his head, for the sake of his personal growth. By using the star, he is denying himself many powerful moments of catharsis.

Like... I dunno... seems pretty blatant to me!

So with Homestuck so firmly being a coming of age, and with the Dancestors - whose primary failure is that of unrelenting immaturity - being cast in an antagonistic role, doesn't that make Caliborn's position of ultimate final boss extremely fitting when we take this conversation into account?

You may be destined for bigger things, but you’re still an atrocious, stupid child. And you may have won the “game” with your sister, but that doesn’t mean it was the best thing for your development as a person. You had her dream self killed, which is not an opportunity your species typically gets. So she died prematurely, instead of allowing the conflict within you to settle itself naturally. In short, you forced your predomination to happen a little too early, and now you’re stuck. STUCK? Yes. Your personality is stuck in some sort of cantankerous prepubescent limbo. You are going to be a stunted, miserable tool forever.

He's literally a child who chose to stunt his own growth so that he could reap all the game's rewards for himself. Someone who so stubbornly desired the selfish, greedy, and immature option that he was willing to hurt himself to achieve it. Caliborn - and by extension, Lord English - is a direct symbol for the refusal to mature, to be kind, to care about other people. By including Dirk, Gamzee, and Equius at their worst, he also comes to represent misogyny, toxic masculinity, the patriarchy. He's the Condesce's master, and so by extension, he represents fascism and oppression; as Doc Scratch, he gets off on abusing girls, and so he also represents predators and abusers. And his goal is to perpetuate himself, his ideals, what he symbolically represents, down every successive generation. Much like how these cycles of abuse and oppression seek to perpetuate themselves in the real world!

And that's why the alpha timeline, the GAME OVER timeline, is the way that it is: it's one where Lord English WINS. In Lord English's version of the story, everything is fucked up forever. He might be defeated, as is the timeline's inevitability, but his politics, his bigotry, and his ideals live on.

Except.

Our Breath player gains a power that literally unsticks him from time.

Now, personally, I don't believe that the ending we got is the one that was originally intended. I don't feel the need to elaborate upon that here, but suffice to say, given how clearly and consistently these themes are set up throughout the entire rest of the comic, it just makes sense to me that the ending we got, where characters stay dead, never finish their character development, etc. etc., is a MASSIVE tonal and thematic departure, which smacks of external pressures and influences. Everything after [S] GAME OVER is soft canon to me for this reason. But there's things that survive in it that are really really interesting, so I'll mention some.

First, the pre-retcon versions of the characters still exist, as we see from (Vriska). That means that everyone who died in GAME OVER would not necessarily have stopped mattering to the plot. I firmly believe that the original ending would've seen Lord English confronted by the GAME OVER (characters), who would also have the most karmic claim to beating Lord English's face in. This would also satisfy his whole deal of playing by the rules - he knows he HAS to be defeated, he just gets to choose the circumstances of his defeat; without realizing that John's retcon powers can rewrite a timeline, he would've set up his own death to be in the bubbles, at the hands of the already-dead, while Condy claims the Ultimate Reward - thus making it so that he still wins in the end.

But Breath represents freedom, choices - and the retcon powers are something John gains mastery over after completing his personal quest, which we've established is directly tied, both literally and symbolically, into growing up and maturing. By becoming a kind, empathetic, mature adult, John is able to choose something else.

Second, that the Ultimate Self is brought up at all, which seems to me like it would mitigate the bittersweetness of the (characters) from GAME OVER staying dead - because, in my head, the original plan for the retcon was that it would bring everyone back, and therefore, all the (characters) from GAME OVER would live on through the surviving post-retcon gang, who will eventually achieve Ultimate Selfhood, as Davepetasprite^2 says they will. This would also directly mirror the words Godtier!Calliope gives to her counterpart:

CALLIOPE: bUt then... CALLIOPE: what shoUld i do? CALLIOPE: you don't need to do anything. CALLIOPE: be who you've become, and who i didn't. CALLIOPE: consume the fruits of an existence i could never understand. CALLIOPE: live.

Third, there's just so many outstanding plot threads, even for the characters that DO survive. Jake's prophesized to defeat Lord English, Dave never actually gets over his hesitance about time travel and defeating Lord English, Karkat has multiple means of bringing his dead friends back to life and doesn't say anything, Vriska and Terezi still aren't 100% reconciled, Gamzee's tragedy is never addressed, Jane, Dirk, Jake, and Roxy never really figure out their situationship, etc. etc. etc. ... to say nothing about all the plot threads left dangling for the characters that stay dead.

And finally...

Isn't that just kind of a better story? One where the kids get to grow, change, learn from their mistakes, and create a better, kinder universe, after defeating the avatars of cruelty, oppression, and immaturity?

Is it just me? Haha.

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Renault Modus Concept, 1994. A prototype multi-function modular commercial vehicle that had a base cab/chassis and a series of pods that could be fitted to suit multiple services. Presented at the Paris Motor Show, it could be transitioned from a pick-up, to a van, a refrigerated van or a 6 passenger taxi. The fully glazed cabin was equipped with an early satellite navigation system, telephone and fax machine.

[saintsenara]

What parts of canon do you find the most frustrating/that you are dissatisfied with/wished that was handled better/explored more? Mine is the inconsistency of Voldemort as a character. How he is described as being perhaps the most talented student that Hogwarts has ever seen and so powerful and intelligent but regularly made such dumb decisions e.g. in the final battle where he still uses Avada Kedavra despite seeing it not work before. I like the explanation that Horcruxes rotted his brain

thank you very much for the ask, @sarafina-sincerity!

the parts of canon which i find the least satisfying all have the same thing in common: their morality is individualist.

the harry potter series has - at its core - a really profound and very black-and-white belief that good and evil not only exist but are rooted in the individual. and while i understand why this is the case - the later books in the series are governed by the genre conventions of folkloric epic and, especially, of christian folkloric epic, which means that the whole seven-book narrative arc ending in a battle between christ and satan after which all is well is only to be expected - i don't like it.

so here we are... ten things i hate about canon, for fanfic writers to win my heart by interrogating in their work...

i hate the series' insistence that everything is fine once voldemort is dead

the middle books in the series - especially goblet of fire - do a really interesting job at hinting at the endemic rot in the ministry of magic, and the ways that the state and its enforcers perpetuated harm during the first war that was indistinct from that perpetuated by the death eaters - above all the use of internment without trial for suspected death eaters [which is a reference to something the british state actually did in the 1970s!].

they show how widespread blood-supremacy and magic-supremacy is, even among people who don't openly support voldemort; how the wizarding population is kept deliberately ignorant by what appears to be state-controlled media; and how no serious efforts have been made to eradicate the conditions which enabled voldemort to attain such power.

this is then forgotten completely in deathly hallows, where the fact that almost the entire civil service keeps working for a government which is committing genocide is hand-waved away with "oh, people are scared", and both the epilogue and jkr's post-series writing take the view that kingsley manages, as minister, to preside over a government which easily sheds all its old prejudices and starts working properly.

i don't like this! i think it's just much more interesting for corruption to be impossible to fully eradicate from the government, for blood-supremacy to have long-standing causes which actually take a lot of very hard work to untangled [especially the fact that the wizarding world not appearing to have a welfare state means that those whose lives are poor or unstable are prime targets for radicalisation], and for kingsley to have the same capacity for leaning on the prophet and worrying about his polling numbers as any other politician...

i hate that the series changes how the death eaters are written between half-blood prince and deathly hallows

connected to this shift from the series hinting at the broader issues in the wizarding world to a flat battle between good and evil is that the death eaters, their aims, and their modus operandi are written very different between half-blood prince and deathly hallows. in the former, the death eaters can be situated very easily as anti-state sectarian terrorists who have all sorts of complex analogies within british history and politics. in the latter, they're just caricatures of pure evil - which is why the death eaters introduced from the latter stages of half-blood prince onwards, especially the carrows, are considerably less interesting as characters than those, such as lucius malfoy, barty crouch jr. and bellatrix lestrange, who are introduced earlier.

it's also why the voldemort of deathly hallows feels so uninteresting. i don't like the fanon that the horcruxes render him insane at all - when he's shown outside of the epic battle between good and evil in that book, he's shown to be as lucid and cunning as always - but he ends up having to flop because his only purpose in the overarching narrative is to be killed. in the earlier books, in which he's a paramilitary kingpin poisoning and corrupting a society which was designed to exclude him because of the fact of his birth in revenge for its treatment of him, rather than satan and hitler's lovechild, he is so much more interesting.

i hate the series' belief that slavery is fine

obviously, one of the biggest examples of state malevolence in the series is that wizards own slaves. like many readers, i loathe that the house elf plotline ends up being reduced from its potential for radicalism in chamber of secrets - in which dobby mentions whisper-networks of elves who decry their treatment at wizards' hands - to what we see from goblet of fire onwards - in which elves love being enslaved and think that any attempts to free them from their subjugation is cruel.

i also hate that elves' freedom is then hand-waved away as part of the general race towards "all was well" with the implication that hermione found it easy to undo what appears to be centuries of state-sanctioned oppression without any pushback at all.

the house elf plotline is one of the clearest distillations of the series' individualistic morality. harry abhors the treatment of dobby at the malfoys' hands entirely and only because he doesn't like the malfoys. he abhors voldemort's treatment of kreacher, but sees absolutely no issue with sirius' because he likes sirius - and he clearly sees no issue at all with his own legal mastery of kreacher, seeing as, literally minutes after the end of a war in which the good guys fought for the rights of muggles and muggleborns to be seen as fully human... he is considering ordering his slave to make him a sandwich.

i hate that the series doesn't show the realities of resistance

the reason i think the whole "why does voldemort keep using avada kedavra, isn't he supposed to be clever?" question arises is because the series is incredibly resistant to the idea that the good guys must have to kill as well, which makes it look like it's only the death eaters using it while the order use lots of clever magic that the stupid terrorists are too thick to think of.

this is idiotic - not only because the killing curse is canonically flawless unless the thing you're blasting is your own horcrux and so the order would use it for efficiency's sake alone, but because the reality of being a resistance fighter is that, even if you're on the "right" side, you are going to have kill people or they will kill you.

lupin is completely right in deathly hallows that harry is breathtakingly naive to avoid shooting to kill and that - without the protection of genre conventions allowing him to be preternaturally merciful - his resistance to killing is going to result in him being destroyed by the enemy. it is inconceivable that the rest of the order don't using the killing curse - and the question of what this does to their souls [is it murder if you believe yourself to be justified in your actions?] and their senses of self post-war is so interesting to think about - and i wish we were shown this in the text.

especially because molly absolutely blasted bellatrix with it.

but i also hate that the series thinks that violence is fine when the good guys do it

this is primarily another example of the black-and-white "this is fine because harry's good" theme which runs through the series, which we see in things like harry using sectumsempra on draco malfoy in half-blood prince or the cruciatus curse on amycus carrow in deathly hallows. harry's overarching response to committing attempted murder is to sulk that the incredibly minor punishment he receives is reducing the time he could spend hitting on ginny, and his response to torturing amycus is "lol. lmao."

the series thinks - again and again - that cruelty and violence are completely fine when the person they are perpetuated against "deserves" it, and it does not bang.

and that the series allows the good guys more complexity in characterisation

the role played by the house system in the story - and, above all, the fact that our heroes are all connected to one particular house with straightforwardly admirable associated characteristics - means that the villains receive less opportunity to also have positive traits intermingled with their negative ones - and, therefore, complex and interesting personalities.

i also dislike that when non-gryffindor characters - especially slytherins - do reveal themselves to be brave and loyal etc., instead of recognising that this is because bravery can be multi-faceted the series suggests that they should be recategorised as "belonging" to a "good" house.

or, in other words, me and dumbledore's "i think we sort too soon" line in deathly hallows are enemies for life.

i hate that the series blames merope gaunt for dying

and - of course - the main way a villain isn't allowed as much complexity as a hero is that the series never examines the impact of voldemort's childhood on his adult self. while we see hints throughout canon of just how profoundly affected he is by his institutionalised childhood and the weight of his grief over his parents [his mother especially] - such as him learning as a baby never to cry for attention because it's futile - this is hand-waved away throughout the series by dumbledore-as-the-voice-of-god as irrelevant. the eleven-year-old tom riddle is straightforwardly evil, that he grows up in an orphanage is used as nothing more than narrative colour to underline how creepy he is, and dumbledore's spectacular mishandling of their relationship is viewed by the series as undeniably correct right up to the very last moment [when harry imitates dumbledore by - and we should call it what it is - deadnaming voldemort in their final confrontation].

but the most egregious thing that dumbledore does when discussing the course voldemort's life takes is blame merope gaunt for her own death in childbirth, by implying that witches are immune to one of the most common causes of death throughout human history if they just try hard enough and then saying that a nineteen-year-old girl whose life appears to have been nothing more than unrelenting abuse and misery [perpetuated both against her and by her] lacked the moral fibre to try hard enough.

and this infuriates me.

i hate how the series treats female characters who don't fit its narrow spectrum of "correct" womanhood

merope is but one victim of the series' general issues with treating women who aren't its heroes - all of whom are exactly feminine and beautiful and clever and talented enough that we know they're good people, but not any of these things in an extreme which could make them vapid or arrogant or defiant of social norms or so on.

the series takes a very low view of women who exist outside of narrow boxes - whether they are interested in a hyper-feminine aesthetic [lavender brown, rita skeeter] or a more masculine one [marge dursley]; conform to stereotypes about being bitchy, flighty, or vapid [pansy parkinson, romilda vane] or refuse to adhere to social expectations to be polite, meek, and demure [fleur delacour]; are unmarried, are not inherently maternal, and/or are cruel to children [bellatrix lestrange; petunia dursley; dolores umbridge]; are unrestrained emotionally [cho chang; moaning myrtle] and so on. and i don't like it.

and i also hate that - connected to this - the series uses physical appearance - especially weight - as a shorthand for [female] characters we're supposed to dislike.

what it says on the tin, really - if the series doesn't like a character, especially if the character is a woman, you can almost guarantee that they will either be fat or be unusually thin.

and finally...

i hate that the series prioritises one form of love - love as suffering and as sacrifice - over all others

part of the series' march towards the epic two-person showdown between good and evil is that harry is made to endure trial after trial - including his death for the salvation of mankind - in the name of love. obviously this is because he becomes, by the end of deathly hallows an allegory for christ, but it also fits into the series' view - articulated most frequently by dumbledore - that love, suffering, and sacrifice are all synonyms.

the acts of love the series foregrounds - snape's willingness to endure anything because of his love for lily; sirius' willingness to rot in azkaban and caves and grimmauld place because of his love for james and harry; harry giving up a love that's like "someone else's life" with ginny so he can go die - are all sacrificial, and the series generally takes a dull view of love that is fluffy, silly, carnal, selfish, soothing, transformational and so on. lavender and bellatrix's open adoration of their lovers is mocked; dumbledore's sexual desire for grindelwald is punished by his sister's death; tonks and lupin's uncomplicated happiness in the birth of their son is not to last.

but happy endings and silly jokes and forehead kisses are love too. and the hill i will die on is that they have even more potential to bring about the salvation of the world than constant suffering and abiding.

[edmcmayonnaise]

Months ago, I wrote "biographies" for Edwin and Simon in the style of the Edwardian (Third Edition published in 1915) study on "Sexual Inversion" (medical phrasing that pre-dates the term "homosexuality") in the style of Studies in the Psychology of Sex by Havelock Ellis. This book can be found for free online and is a treasure trove due to the collection of biographies written by queer people.

Maybe against my better judgment, I will share them now for Simon Appreciation Week, as they capture to some extent how I perceive their interpersonal dynamics.

HISTORY E.P. - English, student at public boarding school, aged 16. His father, who comes from an unremarkable middle class lineage, is a physician. His father has been deployed to France since 1914 for wartime service. His mother’s family has a history notable for hysteria in his maternal grandmother, and his mother he describes as a high-strung and nervous woman who herself has been intermittently institutionalized for afflictions of mood. 

He has no siblings, and describes the relationship with his parents as distant. He lived most of his early childhood life in the care of a nanny. At age seven, was sent away to boarding school. 

He has never been attracted to girls or women, though had minimal contact with girls his age, He takes little interest in women or in their society. There is nothing markedly feminine in his general appearance, but he does believe that his general kinesthetic disposition is not viewed by others as manly. Specifically, he says that he is concerned that the animated way in which his hands is too recognizable as a symptom of what he considers to be his congenital condition. 

He is of average height and medium-slim build, but generally normatively developed and healthy. He considers himself to lack skill in athletic pursuits with the exception of fencing, but is an omnivorous reader and excels in academics. 

In his own words:

“I have always been very shy of showing any affectionate tendencies. Most of my acquaintances (and close friends, even) find me curiously cold. For obvious reasons I have been unable to speak as to why this is. I fear being cruelly misunderstood, and I have at times felt as if wrestling in the folds of the morally reprehensible python of inversion.

"I find myself cut off from others, feel myself to be an outcast, and, amongst others my age, am intensely withdrawn. Privately, I am miserable. The desire to love and be loved is hard to drown, especially when treading through a veritable pool of ‘what-ifs’ as I am surrounded by male virality in all aspects of my life at school.

“I am not sure entirely what it is for which I am longing. Certainly, my parents neglected to impart to me any sort of knowledge of the adult modus vivendi. The only thing I do know with confidence is that no bodily satisfaction should be sought at the cost of another person’s distress or degradation, including my own.

“At my school, I have heard rumor, and in fact been the subject of rumor, regarding attachments and gratifications with other boys, which are all untrue. As with any topic that is discussed only behind cupped hands and in whispers, the stories become more and more fantastical as they are shared from schoolmate to schoolmate. Upon my truest promise, I have never yielded to the temptation of any sort of intercrural connection. I have preserved strict chastity. I do not know how long my mind can hold back the instincts of my heart and body, but I am terrified that I will soon lose this seemingly never ending battle.”

Shortly after E.P. submitted his history for publication in this book, it was reported that he and several other boys at his school went missing in what the school is calling an Act of God. Any additional information about what may have happened to this youth and his friends is not forthcoming at this time. 

~

HISTORY S.M. - English, student at a public boarding school, aged 17. Father and mother both living; the latter is of a better social standing than the former. He is much attached to his mother, and she gives him some sympathy and companionship, when he is at home. He is the third of four siblings, all boys, and he suspects that his next elder brother is also inverted.

In early life, S.M. was of delicate constitution and his studies were often interrupted by illness. Though living under mostly happy conditions he was shy and nervous, often depressed. This he attributes to having been on several occasions mishandled by his next elder brother; concedes that his brother is prone to foul and violent moods. However, his brother is well-liked, by his father and other siblings, he says, because of his masculine character. His brother has many friends at school. Though S.M. does report that he does have some influence over some of his classmates, he has few close friends.

Of his inversion, he reports the following:

“There is a boy in my year who has become the absorbing thought of my school days, and who comes to me in my dreams almost nightly. I have absolutely no words to tell you how powerfully his beauty affects me. He is well-formed, lean, shy, and in my dream he sits beside me, allowing our legs to touch and for me to caress his thigh. He looks at me with desire in his eyes, green, but clouded over dark with his want for me to kiss him. And I do want to kiss him– on his wrist, and his palm, and into the gentle, milky curve of his neck, and to leave my lover’s mark on him, to say to anyone who might pursue him that he is mine and mine only. 

“I keep my feelings hidden, however, hardly daring to look at him for fear of being found out. His bed is next to mine, and the rest of the dormitory is boisterous and lewd, and there is a good deal of bullying, which I cannot bear to have directed my way.

“I have tried to tell myself that these dreams are not due to a moral failing of my own, but indeed this boy’s own influence upon me. I love him and I resent him. His seeming indifference towards my existence, as he has never responded well when I have plucked up my courage to speak with him, angers me. I want him to look towards me and love me, too.”

S.M. was involved in the same incident as E.P.,  where he and several other boys went missing from their school. It is reported that their last known whereabouts were their school dormitory rooms.

[weirdmageddon]

💿⚛️ davejade headcanons

sorry for leaving you guys waiting on this for like a week lol i kept being like “tomorrow for sure” but falling asleep but anyway here it is. i might add more to this if i think if anything but reblogs might not reflect the up to date source version so you can always find it here

most of these are pointing out stuff thats basically canon anyway but whatever lol. basically canon headcanons

dave tries to impress jade to get her attention because he likes her

this ones for you *misses hoop by 5 feet*

he doesnt mind jade’s inane riddles honestly. he isn’t perturbed by how she just knows things like rose is, because he doesnt think into it too far. he trusts her

he spends a lot of time indulging in her interests and showers her in his music and poetry

they draw things for each other a lot <3 jade has the pictionary modus and seems pretty good at drawing and of course dave sent her sbahj as furries in the mail. sending jpegs over the internet is BABY NONSENSE. real boys send their childhood friend/crush pictures they drew for them through the INTERNATIONAL POSTAL SYSTEM to an unspecified island in the middle of nowhere, pacific ocean that gets packages dropped by plane so the recipient can tangibly hold it and hang it in their room

actually i was going through the commentary and hussie addresses it as such:

“Also notice her SBaHJ furry poster, which was clearly a very thoughtful gift from Dave”

aww

jade would give dave a "cool" plushie of a tiger or something nd he keeps it on his desk . froot’s beautiful idea

he loves her plushie sensibilities. so much less unnerving than his bro’s phallic puppets. they're still soft but no cognitive dissonance this time about the softness coming from foam puppet ass hoorayyy

theyre still reading homestuck on act 4 but they understood them instantly

jade humors dave’s ironic cool facade because it makes dave feel more comfortable without feeling too exposed, but it’s because of this that he feels like he can open up to her because she isnt prying. (im still not over the smile here btw. only jade could make dave smile after a fucked evening where he spilled juice on his turntables and accidentally skewered an innocent crow with his sword and broke his window this mf is TYPING. also getting a bit of joy out of the fact that the only visible suit on his cards-themed bedcover in this panel is a heart)

but he knows that jade is not unaware of what he's hiding. couldnt even refute her lol

from the knight’s perspective, it’s “i’m not as [blank] as i appear. i want you know that about me if i know you well and trust you, or i DON’T want you to know that about me if i DON’T know you well. the reason is that i want to know that i can trust you to avoid turning my insecurity into a Whole Thing”

basically she allows dave to take initiative when HE feels comfortable and confident in sharing the things he’s self-conscious about. this really helps him be comfortable and form a strong bond with her

dave would wrap his arms around her to “ironically” imitate a pair of tangle buddy squiddles (while actually concealing genuine affection basically unbeknownst to himself) but he winds up looking just a little too into it for just an “ironic” bit yall……

jade is slower to realize her deeper feelings since she shows love to everyone (so long as theyre deserving of it!!!) it just hits her one day that she actually Likes him in a special way, while for dave it is more dynamic and gradual but very on the downlow, expressed in creative acts and services

once dave actually recognizes he’s really caught feelings for her down the line, dave and jade happily do the tangle buddies hug all the time. its like their handshake. its their weird couple thing

these two when together as a unit they do not give a shit about what other people think of them

this shit lol:

Creative Fucking Powerhouse the two of them

davejade ass song to me

jade is quite spacey and super appreciates dave’s level-headedness and steady pragmatism while at the same time not being a rigid stick in the mud about it. for example when they were acting as each others’ server players dave was advising her but it was appreciated by jade

sorry its just literally socionics duality LITERALLY THIS IS THEMMM (also i spent WAY too much time making these graphics and integrating texts from multiple sources please appreciate it)

fittingly with that, as ouroborista writes about the opposite space-time aspect dichotomy,

Space and Time are the fundamental Aspect pair. Their job is to make shit take place. To create novelty. Between them they span not only all of existence but also the inseparable twin approaches of any creative project. Space goes for breadth, for ideas, for expansive, holistic input, while Time goes for needlepoint focus and a rapid-turnover ability to pull through on the prompt. There’s a reason why these are the two Aspects necessary for any successful session of SBURB.

jade is literally always having a little giggle about him. dave is a funny guy. lame court jester ass boyfriend

he’d draw his post-ironic fursona and show it to her with the usual deadpan expression on his face, eyes obscured by his shades. but jade will look at it and when he sees her smile and laugh it makes it all worth it. his cheeks feel warm and he’ll smile slightly like “heh heh”. dave the type to smile like an idiot over anything jade does like his mouth keeps making a thin line and hes trying to fight it but . Jade

dave thought jade looked absolutely stunning in her 3 in the morning dress his mouth probably stupidly hung open the tiniest amount seeing her after swapping into it

of course she only wears it for what she considers "very special occasions"…..spending time with dave seemed to be a very special occasion :)

jade think dave looks sharp in his suits!!

imagine jade adjusting daves crooked bowtie and lapel and his palms start to sweat and he darts his eyes from behind his shades and chews the inside of his cheek she making him nervous bro 💯

jade is definitely the teaser and dave is the teased. still i dont think jade teases dave as much as john and rose which is why he feels more comfortable opening up to her about his shit. her teasings are much lighter and inconsequential

despite how funny and informal he is dave is a classy well-put-together romantic. he is responsible and harmonious in how he choses to present himself. remember when he got secondhand embarrassment from rose when she was drunk before her date with kanaya and he suggested to her and kanaya that the two reschedule? … he’d NEVER do something like that. sober. suit is ON. hair is neatly combed. he is right on time, not too early not too late, and his first words are “yo whats up”

dave has this designated driver energy about him

after dogtiering jade’s dog ears can perk and flatten, adding even more expressiveness

jade has so many hobbies and interests i think she’d get dave into horticulture somehow unironically

theyre both the kinda mf to ask “would you still love me if i were a worm”

dave’s hands are warm

jade’s skin can be cool to the touch in some places like the back of her arms or shoulders and dave places his hands there to warm them. or by rubbing them or something

idk just some associations space is cool and time is warm to me. the vaccuum of space is cold and time is associated with gears which are associated with generating heat and dave’s classical element is fire and jade’s is earth and her planet is initially covered in snow and daves is covered in lava idk…. just makes symbolic sense i guess but its also cute in its own right

dave would love going to the beach with jade on earth c cause the ocean is so boob i mean boob i mean boob i m,ean boob i mean SHIT . blue. blue

this Fucking animation bro

she infodumps about science and he sits his ass down to listen

jade does this (excuse the fact that the url is roselalonde)

[cityof2morrow]

CDK: Customer Service

Published: 9-14-2024 | Updated: N/A SUMMARY Use the Cubic Dynamics Kitbash (Simmons, 2023-2024) collection to set up corporate, exposition, and office environments. Envisioned as an add-on to the Cubic Dynamics set (EA/Maxis, archived at GOS), it features minimalist and retro-futuristic objects. Find more CC on this site under the #co2cdkseries tag. Read the Backstory and ‘Dev Notes’ HERE. Set up an area in your business for routine customer reception, processing, and other service-related work with the CUSTOMER SERVICE SET.

DETAILS All EPs/SPs. §See Catalog for Pricing | See Buy/Build Mode You need the Company Expo (Mesh Pack) set (Simmons, 2024) for TXTRs to show properly in game. ALL files with “MESH” in their name are REQUIRED. Several objects in this series are oversized/offset. You may need to shift an objects upwards once to level it, and you may need “move objects” and “grid on/off” cheats to place them to your liking. When placing partitions/floating shelves and tables/desks/counters on the same tile, place the partition/shelves first. I recommend using this set with Object Freedom 1.02 (Fway, 2023), which includes Numenor’s fix for OFB shelves (2006), for easier use overall. ITEMS Bench (1735 poly, HIGH) Comfort Chair (496 poly) Counter (610 poly) Counter Desk (288 poly) Counter Island (500 poly) Fence (~424 poly) – not included in collection file Partitions 001-003 (40-132 poly) SimSafety Glass Partition (48 poly) – thumbnail looks “blank” but isn’t Table (64 poly) DOWNLOAD (choose one) from SFS | from MEGA COMPATIBILITY AVOID DUPLICATES: The #co2cdkseries includes edited versions – replacements - for items in the following CC sets: 4ESF (office 3, other 1/artroom, other 2/build), All4Sims/MaleorderBride (miskatonic library, office, postmodern office), CycloneSue (never ending/privacy windows), derMarcel (inx office), Katy76/PC-Sims (bank/cash point, court/law school sets, sim cola machine), Marilu (immobilien office), Murano (ador office), Olemantinker, Reflex Sims (giacondo office), Retail Sims/HChangeri (simEx, sps store), Simgedoehns/Tolli (focus kitchen, loft office, modus office), ShinySims (modern windows), SH (reverie office, step boxes/shelving), Spaik (sintesi study), Stylist Sims (offices 1,2, & 3, Toronto set), Tiggy027 (wall window frames 1-10), Wall Sims (holly architecture, Ibiza). *The goal is to link the objects to the recolors/new functions in the #co2cdkseries without re-inventing the wheel! Credit to the original creators.

CREDITS Thanks: ChocolateCitySim, HugeLunatic, Klaartje, Ocelotekatl, Whoward69, LoganSimmingWolf, Gayars, Ch4rmsing, Ranabluu, Gummilutt, Crisps&Kerosene, LordCrumps, PineappleForest. Sources: Any Color You Like (CuriousB, 2010), Beyno (Korn via BBFonts), EA/Maxis, Offuturistic Infographic (Freepik). SEE CREDITS (ALT)

[astradyke]

Dan was born to be a bottom but life had different plans

LMFAO no but like... if i may at 10 AM... service top Dan with pillow princess Phil is definitely their modus operandi, right, like they are on that grind most days. but Phil Lester OBLITERATED that twink's hole back in 2009 and changed the course of his life forever. at least three videos i watch where i'm like oh that motherfucker (Dan) is about to get devoured like it's Michelin. walk with me here but post WDAPTEO 2* sex is a scene out of Titanic (not clarifying if this metaphor is about the people on deck or that ship with the iceberg). Dan still has such an alive and well bottom in him and i know this it's just also decidedly true that Phil is inexplicably the most well endowed perfect human alive and Dan Howell is just a humble man in Phil Lester's orbit with the power of topping within him. and the universe was right for that

[amuseoffyre]

Today I ended up reading about the historical punishments meted out by the church in Scotland. I can safely say that the modus operandi of the Kirk of Scotland was to control and manage their people with shame and humiliation as the primary tools.

The Kirk sessions were a collection of elders in the church (always men, because lol, what else is new) in each parish who would hold court and pass judgement on the actions of their parishioners. Parishioners were encouraged to report each other for anything from "swore on the Sabbath" to "got married in another church without paying all the fees for the Banns!" to pre-marital sex and adultery.

Punishment varied from parish to parish, but universally, it was about shaming the people into not doing it again (and demanding a fine, if they could afford it).

The big hitters for the punishments were:

Sackcloth/bare feet the people in question were made to attend the church and stand either inside, in front of everyone, or outside the door in sackcloth and/or or bare-foot/bare-legged. They would be made to stand for hours, sometimes for days at a time, no matter the weather. Sometimes people protested about doing it in winter and were told if they stopped, they would have to restart the count all over again and do it all again.

The Stool of Repentance Does what it says on the tin - it was a stool/bench in a very visible place in the church, usually on a raised area, where people would be made to sit for a specific number of services, until they were deemed to be penitent enough. Robert Burns famously ended up on his kirk's multiple times. Between the drinking, the illegitimate kids all over and the serial adultery, he should have put his name on it.

The Mercat Cross This is very similar to the Repentance Stool (and ties into the next thing on the list), where there was a raised platform at the market cross in the centre of the town square. People were made to stand there, sometimes in pillories or jougs (more on this in a minute), to be lambasted by the community.

Jougs I have no idea if these were ever used anywhere else in the world for church punishments, but the jougs were brutal: a heavy iron collar shackle that was fastened around the culprit's neck, and they were forced to stand, wearing it, for set periods of time. They were mostly in churches, but occasionally found at places like the Mercat crosses, and every the time, they were chained to the wall. The one below is from Duddingston Kirk, in Edinburgh and is visible by the church gate.

Urban legend is that they stopped being used after an elderly woman was put into the jougs as a punishment, but she was too short, so they stacked some turf for her to stand on and went off to do their Good Christian Duties. When they came back, the turf had slipped away and the woman had hanged in the collar.

Needless to say the church had a powerful stranglehold on the community with people dragged in for punishments like this for something as simple as gossiping or swearing.

[christinebloodwrittings]

Till' death do us apart: Chapter 3

Pairing: Angel Y/n x Alastor Fandom: Hazbin Hotel. Warnings: Murder, the axe man of Louisiana. Mostly backstory. Smut. Valentino being the sick fuck he is.

Masterlist –– Last chapter–– Next chapter

Taglist: Open...

(Images source: Pinterest. Artists: Unknown)

“Scandal! Brutal murder, four more men found, missing a variety of body parts and inner organs!” were the headlines, seven different papers covering the same Serial killer, with now a body count of thirteen victims.

You had collected the alleged Axe-man of Louisiana three years before he started. But the recent events, were a different pattern. The people thought it was the same murderer, the weapon, the fact he did not steal a single object of value and the objectives, they were almost the same modus operandi.

However, their victims had a reputation as local alcoholics, abusers, rapists and generally bad people. The fact that the bodies were missing organs and mainly limbs was what had people terrified, they were dealing with a cannibalistic imitator.

Detective had a severe hard time investigating the bodies, giving that their psychopath was no idiot, he hid the bodies in hunting grounds of the bayou, which everyone knows either wild life, or the hunting hounds may smell the blood and dig in, damaging any evidence he may have left.

You on the other hand, knew his face very well.

The 1920s were already experiencing a lot of hustle and bustle, more for a social issue than anything else, New Orleans had lost one murderer and gained another, this one adopting the fame of the one who preceded him.

And they were not so different, the Axe-man's victims described him as a man with a strong build and who wore a dark suit.

The last formal assassination of the Axeman was in 1919, the man was foolish enough, to your taste, to leave a letter behind.

“I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axe-man. When I see fit, I shall come and claim other victims. I alone know whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with blood and brains of he whom I have sent below to keep me company.” You saw him write, his ink being the blood of a man from whom you already sent his soul up to heaven. His scalp split apart.

Such arrogance and ego, well, it wasn’t a surprise, he was mortal after all.

“I’m gonna live forever!” he laughed hysterically to himself, unaware of your presence behind, his name written in ink on your list. “Is that so?” your voice echoed in his mind, making him freeze in place, “I admire you, human, but I’m afraid I have to cut your fun short”.

He somehow gathered the strength to turn around, his bloody axe falling into the ground with a heavy thud. He took a shaky breath as you walked closer, your many eyes reflecting on his, “It’s time” he shook his head at your words, “NO! this cannot be the end, I…I have so many…so many things I need to do” his sudden arrogance made a disappearing act.

“There’s nothing I can do” you pointed down at his body, lifeless on the floor, a smile on his face despite having falling on top of his axe, “Well, fuck” you giggled at his expression, “Is a good thing that you put me in a good mood, I will do you a favor, but you must do something for me in exchange” his body language perked up in your direction, expectant.

“I will hide your body and make it as if the Axe-man killed you, so no one will connect you to her, and you’ll remain the ghost you deemed yourself to be” you saw his eyes lit up with the proposition, “But, I will do you no such pleasure to send you to Hell, instead you will pledge your services to me, and serve in my land, throughout eternity” your powers manifested a pair of chains, clasping around his hands, pulling him closer to you.

He scoffed, smiled and then he dared to utter, “What makes you think I would accept such bullshit?”, to which you laughed.

“Otherwise, I’ll keep you here long enough for you to watch your victim’s wife call the police, then they will unmask the oh so fearsome killer, who would, to probably anyone that hears, be a disappointment to know that he was just a fed up wood artisan, a xenophobic and a failure, whose cause of death was that, on his run, he tripped on a branch and fell, head first on his own axe” you were deadass mocking him, but even a cold blooded murderer like him had an ego, so he did nothing but let out an annoyed groan.

“Fine, you made your point” he took your hand, “What now?” his body started morphing into a grey skinned small creature, with short wings on his back, and a pair of small horns on his forehead, “I’ll file your soul to Limbo, in the meantime, can you be a dear and feed my menagerie of pets, please?” you handed him a bucket of meat and pushed him into a black portal.

“Oh, and please be careful” he looked back at you as you smiled, “The wendigo bites if she feels threatened, thank you!” you closed the portal, last thing coming out of it as it disappeared was the Axe-man scream for mercy.

The cannibal, on the other hand, was very much more intriguing.

You watched as he dig into the soil, your body lying on the handle of your spear, barely hovering the ground. Something, maybe the way he moved, the almost permanent smile on his face, his darling brown skin, the sweat making his caramel brown locks stick on his face, or the way he was so satisfied with the violence he released on the man, but there was a spark in him, that was so…

Interesting.

And of course, people could say, "Oh no, that's horrible, Death has a taste for maniacs, horrible, she's crazy!" To make matters worse, a cannibal sociopath, who feels, not pleasure, but satisfaction from the slaughter. Or so you thought, because despite the everlasting smile on his face, he showed no other emotion. How you dreaded not being a mind reader, otherwise you would’ve ransacked his brains…probably.

The funniest thing about him is that he killed the men out of idleness, while the women, being the vast majority of his victims, were chopped up to eat.

And yes, it would have been a deal breaker if he didn't make it so...poetic. You might ask, how the fuck could cannibalism be poetic? Well, the same as if you practiced eroticism on the hamburger you normally eat, but instead of a cow thigh, it was a human leg. Although you were very attracted to watching him cook, the fact that it used to be someone, didn’t failed to make your appetite go to hell.

You didn't know much more about that enigma of a man, and searching for him throughout Louisiana would interrupt your work, so for the moment, you had to turn around, and simply wait, for the blood of his next victim to call you back to his side.

And you just knew when the call was about him.

⚰️ 📻

Taking a deep breath was a big mistake, although it was hot, the air that went through your throat was bitter, acidic, it felt as if it was burning its way down, slowly. Your body regained consciousness with a lot of resistance, your eyelids desisted any attempt of lifting, the material covering them was soft as well as the one under your knees, that much you could feel.

Your arms were forced up, securing your sitting position, your body painfully relying on top of your calves. A chill breeze going up your spine made you acknowledge that they had dispose of your clothes, vulnerable at the sight of everyone. Again.

“Mariposa, you’re awake” butterfly he called you, Valentino’s velvety voice sounded, seemingly, not very far way, yet not at arm’s reach either. “You know, word ‘round the street stated that a fallen angel was fighting, my, and I thought it might’ve been an exorcist that was left behind, forced to fight for her life, but instead…” he carried that last word, taking just one step closer as he spoke.

“I find six scars on your back” his breath collided against your ear, “I found myself rather, confused, so enlighten me, preciosa, what other secrets you keep hidden from me?” his finger ran under your chin, while another hand unclasped the band that kept the gag on, letting it fall on your lap.

“Why does it matter?” you heard him smile at how dry your voice sounded. “I do have a question for you, may I?” he allowed you to, his silence was answer enough.

“You seriously waited in the room for me to wake up? Ha! Such a dramatic one you are” your mockery earned you a punch to your gut, but you expected it.

“That little attitude of yours, though it is enticing, will get you killed” he growled, clearly losing his patience, “Spare me the speech, will you? I’ll be eternally grateful” he noticed how though he manhandled you, there’s not an ounce of fear in your voice, but perhaps you didn’t know.

“I know angels can be killed with holy steel; you must be no different, and you bleed” his confidence made you huff in mockery, “Look, we can do this forever, I have an eternity ahead of me, whilst you, eventually will cease to exist, I just have to wait, I trust you made enemies along the way?”.

“You are way too confident, I’m gonna have to fix that” he purred.

Trying to negotiate with a man so used to having what he wants, was futile. “You don’t quite heal, do you?” his hand graced down your scarred chest, long and sharp marks covered your torso, mostly  grew from the center of your chest going outwards, the middle part was golden, then there was a black-purple hue, “A high archangel made them, if you see one covering a whip with their blood, run, I barely survived” the bare memory made the sting on your chest wake, feeling each reminder with every breath. He chuckled, He cut the rope above your head, your arms however did not fall, he held them still with his hands, letting them fall gently against the small of your back.

It wasn't really a surprise, but you weren't used to having so many hands on your skin. “I’ve never had an angel, I wonder what things will I do to you, to what extent I can go” he wondered, his cheek delighting in the warmth and scent of your clavicle, “Why so quiet? Talk to me, what have you tried?” he nuzzled his head in the crook of your neck, his voice sending vibrations down your spine, “Sex related? Not much since the fall of Babylon”.

“What a unique specimen, your hands are rough but soft, the muscles on your back where, I dare suggest, your wings were are built to lift a hell of weight, you’re a soldier, strong but velvety to the touch, I dare say, you’re magnificent, Angelito” he sat behind you only to pull your hips backwards until you were in between his legs.

To think that not even your previous husband, a man who, although he treated you with devotion until the crude end, never touched your body with such eroticism and desire, more like never at all. Valentino kept you at bay by holding your hips in place of his, while with his other pair of hands, he decided to take his time to savor all the violent spasms his small actions caused. His bulge grew with each whimper he managed to rip from your throat.

“So wet, and I barely touched you” he taunted, cupping your dripping heat, making your head fall backwards on his shoulder, “Okay, stop, it’s enough” the hands on your hips moved up to your breasts, he was specially careful with the split nipple, it obviously took a hit of the whip as well.

“Be honest with me, if you really didn’t wanted me to touch you, wouldn’t you transform and kill me?” he made a point, and it stabbed your pride really hard, so you stayed silent, “Deep inside, you know you need this, let me take care of you”.

His upper hands handling your outer skin were soft and gentle, while he slid two fingers inside your core, earning a surprised yelp from you. His digits worked looking in between the soft walls for your G spot, he smiled at your back arching against him, with both moans of pain and pleasure.

His tongue left pink trails down your neck, it was a slimy sensation, but not as distasteful as to actually taking smile in your hands.

He noticed your breathing getting harder and your walls sucking on his pumping fingers, so he flipped positions, breaking the rope that held your hands together, allowing you to fall against the soft fabrics hands still pinned over your head.

“What a good girl you are” he praised, ridding you of the blindfold. His eyes glowed red, even more when he got a good look of your golden irises, and the way your long locks fell against your face, drenched in sweat, “Wouldn’t you like to stay with me?” he caressed your face, moving away everything that prevent him from seeing you, “You promised…” you barely stated, as he kept his idle touches, always ghosting your poor and needy clitoris.

“I know” he groaned displeased. His tongue licked over your lips, forcing his way in. Sucking, biting and moaning against your lips. Your knees were suddenly pulled apart, an unexpected heat fell against your folds, taking in as much juices as he could, before pushing himself in.

You moaned as he kissed you, feeling him smile before he took his mouth from yours and pressed it against your shoulder, sucking on small marks as he reveled in your body contorting at the intrusion.

He wasted no time, he initiated a bruising rhythm, slapping his slender hips against you while his dick hit all the places you neglected for millennia. Sure, he never courted you or asked you for any permission whatsoever, you were conscious of that, but he was right, if you had truly hated his advances, you would’ve easily erased him from existence.

Everything about you was heat, electric sensations numbing your brain, between the rubbing of his skin against yours, his constant adoration, your insides being abused, all sensations that you longed, you just didn’t know how much.

“I…Feels tight!” he laughed at your desperation, “Cum preciosa, you can do it” he thrusted in a few times until he felt himself letting go, just after one last strong bite to your neck, you released.

“Hey Val, get this, the princess of hell made another commercial, fucking idiot” Velvette came walking through the door, her phone being the only thing here eyes wouldn’t glue off from, so she really didn’t paid attention to the scene going on.

Though, the words princess of hell ignited a flame, one that made your irises go black again, making Valentino stare at you horrified, “She is not talking about Lilith, is she?” Valentino just shook his head, “Lucifer had a daughter, you didn’t know?” he slipped off of you, then walked away to put on a puffy robe he had around.

“Holy shit, you didn’t” he surprised at you angered reaction, “Velvette dear, our friends needs an outfit, she’s about to see her family” he half mocked you, but he had to tore your clothes earlier, because he lacked the patience to removed them carefully.

“Sure” with a snap of her fingers you were dressed in a puffy dress with a lot of hearts and ribbons, “Could you make me look a bit more presentable? Like a 1940’s attire” she sighed, snapping her fingers again. A long sleeved dress hugged your figure, the dark blue fabric going down on you stopping at your ankles, the neck was high and covered everything that Valentino had done previously.

“Thank you miss Velvette, much appreciated” she smiled at her work as you walked in the blue high heels she had materialized, rather proud of how pretty you looked. “I’ll have my car take you to that shithole, but before that, Voxy?” Valentino stopped to give the word to the TV man.

“I need an assistant, I’ll pay you a considerate amount for it, you just have to file a few things and arrange my schedule” Of course there was the soul exchange on the golden paper he handed you, “I’ve heard that men like you trade work for ownership, I have to warn you though, I own no soul, since I’m not exactly alive” he widened his eyes at that, he took the paper and scratched that part, “There, fixed” you laughed as you signed, “Fine, whatever. I start tomorrow, I have a family matter to attend to”.

Oh what a hell you were going to drop on your brother.

[galedekarios]

Oh wait now I’m curious what the backstory reasons behind Alton’s physical design are! He’s very handsome and I crave the oc lore.

thank you so much for asking about altonaufein. i really truly do appreciate it a lot! 🖤he's the favourite of my bg3 ocs.

his development and growth as a character is mostly tied to his hair and how he presents himself, so this is what i focused on for my choices throughout the game:

altonaufein was born as the third child but first son to matron ithrana of house hlarahel, a younger brother to his eldest sister nadriina and the second-born iraeae.

house hlarahel of ust natha has produced a long line of powerful clerics in service to lolth so altonaufein, with his natural talent and inlination for both the divine and the art of combat, was trained as a cleric to aid drow scouting and raiding parties:

this is how his hair would have looked then--perhaps even longer as the cc allows us--white hair worn long and open, symbolising lolth's demon webs, her reach and control on her drow, despite altonaufein's dreams of a bright moon hanging in a dark sky he has never seen.

i will put the rest under a cut because a) it's very, very long so sorry in advance and b) because it deals with some very heavy themes so if you aren't comfortable reading, you absolutely do not have to!

(cw assault/rape, cw mind manipulation, cw enslavement, cw drow society in general tbh)

drow society is a matriarchal society, where male drow are considered lesser, and it functions under a particular set of rules:

"The cruelty and injustice of Drow society are utterly familiar because they are constants, from the womb onward. Drow mothers punish and manipulate from the start, and Drow women rule each household. Typically, nobles are divided up into houses which jockey for position in the city, and each noble house is headed by a cleric of great skill. A wise matron mother will have several cleric daughters to ensure that her line and influence continues, but she will watch them carefully. Inheritance is passed through daughters, with children ranked in importance by gender, and then by age. A matron will guard against her eldest daughters and pit all of her children against each other to ensure her own survival." "Drow children are not coddled. They are raised together and sent to schools with high standards of conduct. Drow children are trained to compete with one another and to show no mercy. Some children do not survive the intense childhood games." "The Drow are infamous for their torture practices, as well they should be. Among the elves of the beginning times, they were the first to experiment with the sensation of pain. They have honed torture into science and psychological treatment. Drow parents will punish their children with pain and humiliation in very tactical ways. Drow students are publicly punished in front of their fellow students and class clowns are rare (although pranks for which no one was apprehended are remembered by Drow students as legends of a sort). Drow adults are not all masters of torture, but they have seen enough pain to know how to make others hurt. Not all Drow use physical pain as their modus operandi. A good many are adept at humiliation and terrible mind games. Some slaves are so broken mentally that all they can do is concentrate on the task at hand. Some Drow actually do not like to put forth the effort that torture requires and would rather kill someone than waste their energy. The worst punishments are said to come from those closest to Lolth - the yochlol and the clerics. They are whispered to be divinely inspired."

these are the circumstances that shaped altonaufein as much as it did nadriina and iraeae, who, in the tradition of house hlarahel, are both striving to become powerful priestesses of lolth in their own right, seeking to inherit control of the house from matron mother.

drow house politics are insane and it's all encouraged by lolth. lolth wants to determine who of her followers are worthy enough to be supported by her, so all drow have to pass a test of faith, a trial of lolth.

after altonaufein foolishly (he truly did love--in a way that drow are capable of--his sister iraeae and confided in her visions that spoke not of lolth or a great spider swallowing the world, but of a moon, shining bright silver.

iraeae felt conflicted. she, too, loved her brother in her own way. of course that weakness was what made her realise what she had to do: weed it out. so she told not only nadriina, but her her mother. it was then decided that altonaufein was not simply to die.

they would not further shame their own house like that. instead he would be put through his trial of lolth, to weed out that weakness and corruption within their own ranks. should he die, he'd be a sacrifice to lolth, should he live, he would prove lolth's favour to their house and advance them further in ust natha's society.

altonaufein with that was sentenced to undergo the test of strength. power and resourcefulness, whether or not the subject is strong and clever enough to defeat a powerful foe. the test is only fulfilled by a battle to the death between the test subject and another, stronger person, sometimes a creature.

the fight is usually difficult, and the test subject often has to expend all their resources to survive and vanquish their foe, who must be slain: the more brutal, the longer drawn out the fight, the more you've suffered and the more your foe has suffered, the more it will satisfy lolth.

altonaufein earned his first brutal kill like that. he had just reached maturity.

nadriina had hoped he would die. winning the trial had garnered favour and attention. a strong male could be just as dangerous as a scheming female. she devised a plan with iraeae to ensure that they would not be threatened and, with that, iraeae passed her own trial of lolth: chwidevbrii, or the test of betrayal.

it's a punishment that strikes particularly deep. trust is a distasteful concept to drow, though they understand that sometimes it does happen and is even necessary. to rid themselves of this, to succeed at this test, the drow must betray someone who has garnered her trust or in whom she has placed her trust.

mentors, teachers, leaders, friends, family members. as long as there has been a solid connection of dependence made in the past. the relationship between master and slave or servant does not count; the goddess knows that no betrayal can happen in such a relationship. it is simply a slave. the drow must utterly destroy the other drow in a way that allows her to advance in some manner. the method is not important: blackmail, slander, torture... magic. in the end, the victim must die or be thoroughly disgraced and dominated. usually, the victim is murdered by the drow herself, commits suicide, or is killed as a result of the drow's action.

so what better way to show to her goddess that she is a true drow, that she is worthy, what better way than to serve the house than humiliating and dominating someone who was once a little brother.

drow females are able to take over the mind of a male drow just like that, with a spell, akin to a thrall. all thoughts are gone, all will is gone. your mind is not your own anymore.

iraeae did just that: after he was beaten, whipped, mental and physical defences exhausted, the spell on altonaufein took hold and, as perhaps a final "kindness" in her utter triumph, altonaufein was discarded in ust natha's dark underbelly.

ust natha has a tavern. to entertain both those lusting for blood, for sport, and for more carnal pursuits. altonaufein still remembers szordrin and sondal, the keepers of the tavern. their taunting faces. mind gone, he and others were kept in a cage. he served there for a while. to fight. to please. to be of use. to those who asked. to those who had power or gold. for battle. for pleasure.

he was there, under that spell, until it broke: iraeae dead by her sister's hand. betrayed just like altonaufein had been by her. altonaufein doesn't remember how long it lasted, remembers only parts of it: the many hands, more than hands, the pain. he remembers fighting. other drow. other prisoners. the surface. running. the moon. fever. then nothing for a long time again.

and finally, karl:

karl is an ilmater cleric, a part of a small settlement built around a modest church of ilmater that, unknowingly, is very close to an entrance to the underdark.

during one of his patrols with another of the settlement, karl found altonaufein: delirious with fever, malnourished, ravaged by old wounds that never truly healed, hair tangled.

any other man might have killed the defenseless drow, thinking it to be a ruse, or perhaps to put him out of his misery, but karl is an ilmateri through and through, for better and for worse, and so he shouldered this suffering and brought altonaufein to the temple. he was tasked with caring for him. and watching him.

so karl came to care for the drow: he cleaned and dressed his wounds, sat by him. tried to talk to him, engage him in moments of clarity and despite the obvious language barrier. karl, an ex-soldier and deserter, was forced to fight for his homeland cormyr against sembia. he saw a lot of cruelty during that war. a lot of violence, both in battle and outside of it. in the villages and cities that were torched and conquered and pillaged. he saw a lot then and sees a lot of it now in altonaufein, who survived a different kind of war.

as for altonaufein himself, he tries to settle into that new life, tries to come to terms with what he remembers of his old one... it was incredibly violating. he remembers only snippets. moments. sudden movements and motions, that send his heart racing.

the clearest memory is a hand gripping his hair so tightly, pulling and guiding. it's not anymore, but he still feels it.

he hasn't brushed it or touched it since his rescue, it's a tangled, matted–and it’s also something that hasn’t escaped karl’s notice.

altonaufein goes to cut it with the only blade he could find (stolen and kept on his person from one of the meals karl had shared with him).

(ilmater clerics and priests are good and nice, but they are also no fools who would give a drow access to sharp weaponry. kindness goes only so far, even here, no matter how much karl vouches for altonaufein.)

so altonaufein begins to cut it with a dulled blade and it goes about as badly as you'd imagine: it's hard to do, it hurts, and the strands that he manages to cut are choppy (which is the least of his worries). he still manages to hurt himself simply by the virtue of hard he is trying and how badly his hands are shaking with it.

karl would find him, take one look at him and leave, coming back with honeyed tea to soothe frazzled nerves and a sharper blade, one of his own. he drinks the tea first from the little teapot, pouring himself one cup and another for altonaufein, to show him it's not poisoned or meddled with. he had noticed how skittish altonaufein was with things he hadn't seen being prepared.

they sit there for a while before altonaufein, too, calms enough to drink his cup, and it is only then that karl begins to speak, voice soft but clear.

he takes up the sharp blade, lets it rest on his hands just so, where altonaufein could reach out and take it at any time, and tells him of what could happen: he could leave the blade with altonaufein and he can try again, but karl would prefer it if he could help, clean the cuts and nicks and heal them, and help altonaufein cut his hair.

altonaufein looks at him for a long time, searching his eyes, still holding onto that dull blade as a last defense, but there is no deception in karl, none at all. only that strange kindness that he has come to associate with the human.

it was one of many, many small gestures, things, that karl did for altonaufein that made him trust karl. trust him enough to at first take food and drink from him, later to help fix injuries like this one--and finally, to let him cut his hair.

he turns his back on karl--even though the human might not realise fully how meaningful that truly is--so he can do as he had said he would. and karl does. he keeps his word.

time passes and altonaufein settles into his new life, bit by bit. he helps with that he can at the temple and the settlement: repairing fences, caring for the animals, the harvest, building and repairing things.

he still wears his hair short, but here and there, he allows it to grow just that bit longer than it had been for a long while now:

and it's this way when the settlement is attacked and he is captured on the nautiloid.

on his journey to find a cure, and to find karl, he meets another human, just as kind as the ilmateri. one who knows the goddess behind the light and moon he had dreamed of, prayed to, albeit not knowing just how to, and gives her a name that altonaufein had not known until then: eilistraee, lady silverhair--and a close friend to the man's own goddess, mystra.

this bond between them, beginning with a moment of connection, grows ever closer and brighter.

through them, karl and gale, with them and alongside them, altonaufein begins to heal and helps them heal in return, begins to find his purpose and helps them find theirs:

he is a cleric of eilistraee. he can be more than a tool for bloodshed and violence.

he's not kulg llarzoran ithrana qualla hlarahel (his designation as a male of his house). he's not auflaque (dog) as he was called during his captivity. he is simply altonaufein and that's what he is to gale, to karl and the friends he has made.

settling in waterdeep with them, altonaufein joins the promenade and its leader trelasarra zuind. to help others as he had been helped.

🖤

[monstersdownthepath]

Homebrew Horror: Plague Tapper

(Art and concept from the Book of Unremitting Horror, pg. 27-29)

Plague Tappers are not natural creatures. A simple glance at them is often enough for most people to conclude this, but the truth goes even further: they're a bioweapon created for assassinations. Many groups are credited with the creation of these horrors by those who've experienced them, from cruel alchemists and mad curse-crafters, to the Dominion of the Black, to Apollyon, the Horseman of Pestilence (or one of his servants; the Tappers fit the modus operandi of Voda quite well), but whoever made them first matters little nowadays, as these horrors can be called into service by anyone capable of using their Occult Ritual: Festering Hatred.

Every Plague Tapper ever found on Golarion was called to its soil by this ritual, and each one was crafted with the purpose of executing a single target in a horrifically gruesome manner. Unfortunately for everyone involved, once the initial target has been infected by the plague which makes up half the Tapper's name, the creature is freed from the command of the ritual and may seek out others to torment with its hideous disease... including its creator, if the opportunity arises. Though not particularly intelligent, Plague Tappers are guided by malefic instinct to cause panic, pain, and death, and hold signs of good health and vitality as an insult to their craft, intentionally targeting creatures who appear at the prime of their life and the height of their health and then watching from nearby as they succumb to its disease, the Roiling Rot.

The Roiling Rot is found only inside the bodies of Plague Tappers, and any attempt to create it without conjuring one of these creatures or store samples of it in any container BUT a Tapper's body has--thankfully--failed, perhaps because the disease is linked directly to and sustained by the emotional focus of the ritual used to create it: intense hatred. The Rot is a tenacious and terrifying disease which cannot be fought off without magic, and acts so quickly that most creatures affected by it believe they've been poisoned or even cursed, utilizing the wrong methods and magic entirely to try and end their suffering only for their every hope to fail. Most creatures perish from it long before they can find any form of help, but there are rare tales of people miraculously resisting the disease's effects on their body until a cleric or apothecary could reach them.

Plague Tappers are most dangerous when first conjured, as they're created with a full payload of their disease to blight their target. Once the payload is delivered, Plague Tappers quickly flee to hide until they can create a new dose the next day, as the entirety of their threat hails from this infection; without a dose, their painful bites only cause terrific pain and nausea, which is merciful compared to what the Roiling Rot does to its victims. One can tell when a dose of the disease is prepared, as the Plague Tappers will loudly 'tap' themselves with their lengthy legs to pump it from their body into their mouths in preparation for the fatal bite, which for the victim sounds an awful lot like a clock ticking down.

Plague Tappers are scarcely larger than mice, making them extremely difficult to spot, especially in the darkened ceiling corners they tend to hide in and attack from. They do not reproduce and have no worldly needs, existing only to bring about terrible ends to their victims. Thankfully, they live for approximately one week (1d4+7 days, specifically) before finally running out of energy and perishing, dissolving into a greasy black smear within seconds of their deaths.

Festering Hatred School: Conjuration (Calling, Evil); Level: 3 Casting Time: 30 minutes Components: S, F (an effigy of your target made of wax and/or straw, or the target themselves) Skill Checks: Bluff or Intimidate DC 25 (see text), 2 checks; Knowledge (the Planes) DC 25, 1 check Range: Personal Target: Any one creature the primary caster truly and sincerely hates Duration: Instantaneous; see text Saving Throw: None; Spell Resistance: No

Backlash: The primary caster is automatically infected by Slimy Doom and is exhausted. Failure: The primary caster's tongue is torn from their mouth, inflicting 2d6 bleed damage and preventing them from speaking until their tongue is restored.

——— Effect ———

Special: If the primary caster bites off their tongue during the casting of this ritual (inflicting the failure state upon themselves willingly), the ritual succeeds automatically, casts in 3 minutes instead of 30, and the conjured Tapper lives for 3 weeks before dying. However, that primary caster can never again perform this ritual, even if they regain their tongue, and the summoned Plague Tapper gains the benefits of its Find Target ability against the primary caster once the initial target is infected, compelling it to seek out and kill its creator.

This ritual is a cruel and terrible one, conjuring a Plague Tapper within the primary caster's body as they speak and swallow down every curse and vile thing they wish to say about their target until their hatred literally congeals into the tiny fiend. The lump in their throat grows more and more pronounced as the ritual nears its completion until, finally, the horrid thing squirms up their throat and out of the mouth, pushing its way into the world. The target of the ritual is immediately marked by the Tapper's Find Target ability, which it pursues to the best of its abilities.

Once the Tapper successfully injects the target with its Roiling Rot disease, or the target dies in any other way, it becomes free-willed and typically seeks to kill as many creatures as possible before it dies, unless the caster can somehow reason with it to gain control of it.

------

Plague Tapper CR 5 Neutral Evil Tiny Outsider (Daemon, Evil, Native) Init: +7; Senses: Darkvision 120ft, Detect Good; Perception +11 ------ Defense ------ AC 23, touch 22, flat-footed 15 (+7 Dex, +1 dodge, +1 natural, +4 size) HP 40 (5d10+5) Fort +2 Ref +11 Will +7 DR 3/Good or silver; Immune Acid, death effects, disease, poison; Resist Cold 10, Electricity 10 Weaknesses Curative Vulnerability ------ Offense ------ Speed 30ft, climb 30ft Melee Bite +16 (1 nonlethal plus agonize plus disease) Special Attacks Agonize, Disease Spell-like Abilities (CL 5th; Concentration +2) Constant--Detect Good, Feather Fall ------ Statistics ------ Str 1 Dex 24 Con 12 Int 11 Wis 16 Cha 5 Base Atk: +5; CMB -4; CMD 13 Feats Ability Focus (Disease), Dodge, Weapon Finesse Skills Acrobatics +15, Climb +11, Escape Artist +15, Perception +11, Stealth +27, Survival +11 Languages Abyssal, Draconic, Infernal (can't speak); telepathy 30ft SQ Find Target ------ Ecology ------ Environment Any Organization Solitary Treasure None ------

Combat: Plague Tapper exist to deliver their disease, then flee into the shadows. Once they successfully bite their target, they Leap to Cover swiftly as possible and begin to use Stealth to make sure they succumb to the Roiling Rot. If forced into battle, they use their painful bites to debilitate attackers into retreating and flee once their enemies fall unconscious or otherwise cease their attack.

Morale: Tappers with a dose of their disease will risk their own lives to deliver it. Without it, they flee any combat they enter until they can create another dose, biting only in self-defense. Tappers cower in the presence of creatures who they have seen use magic to cure disease or poison, and will flee any encounter with one as swiftly as they can, lest their Curative Vulnerability be taken advantage of. ------ Special Abilities ------

Agonize (Su): The bite of a Plague Tapper is supernaturally painful. Any creature bitten by one must succeed a DC 16 Fortitude save or take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage and become sickened for 1 minute (the sickened condition applies before the Tapper's disease is injected, if a dose is prepared). A creature that is already sickened or suffering from the effects of a disease instead takes 2d6 nonlethal damage and is nauseated for 1 round. This is a pain effect, and the save DC is Constitution-based.

Curative Vulnerability (Ex): A Tapper that is successfully affected by any spell effect which cures diseases (such as Remove Disease and Heal) immediately loses any dose of Roiling Rot in its body and takes 1d10 damage per caster level. It does not receive any benefits from such spells.

Disease (Su): Once per day, a Plague Tapper can spend a move action to 'tap' its body to prepare a dose of a fatal and fiendish disease called Roiling Rot. This rhythmic, clock-like tapping gives the creature a -10 penalty to its Stealth checks for the round. The next bite attack the Tapper makes within 1 minute attempts to infect the bitten creature with the rot. No amount of saving throws can fight off the supernatural rot, and once symptoms have begin to manifest, only magic can halt its gruesome progress; before the onset period finishes, near- immediate amputation of the bitten limb or excision of the flesh around the bite prevent the sickness from taking hold. Both acts deal 4d6 damage and 1d6 Constitution damage to the victim, but a successful DC 20 Heal check made over the course of 10 minutes reduces this to 2d6 damage and 1d3 Constitution damage.

--Roiling Rot (Su) Bite--injury; save Fort DC 16, onset 30 minutes, frequency every 10 minutes, effect 1d8 Con damage, cure none.

Find Target (Su): When a Tapper is first conjured, it immediately locks onto the caster's target and can track them unerringly, as though it had a permanent Locate Creature which is not blocked by water and has an unlimited range. It always knows the swiftest possible path to reach its target. The Tapper is irresistibly compelled to seek out the target and deliver its disease to them, and will not bite any other creature but its target when it's first conjured. Once it has injected the target with its disease, it loses the benefits of Find Target and is no longer compelled to attack that particular creature. However, it will almost always try again if the target successfully resists the disease.

Leap to Cover (Ex): Once every 1d4 rounds as a full-round action, a Plague Tapper can leap up to 50ft in any direction, including straight up, and make an immediate Stealth check at the end of the movement. It can make this Stealth check even while being observed as its swift and chaotic movements cause creatures to lose track of its exact position.

[queen0fm0nsterz]

Do you think is confirmed the Ferryman is the one who bring all kids to the Nowhere? Do you think he still has affiliations with/works for the Maw?

Do you think he brings kids to different places and acts as a link/gateway to the Nowhwre? Or do you think he is the person who tricks kids into coming with him to deliver them to the Maw as the comics implied?

I like these questions, I've been waiting to have an excuse to mention the Ferryman and his modus operandi again for a while.

1) No, he's not the only way to access the Nowhere. This is an easy thing to misunderstand, but if you pay attention to what happens in TSON - especially when Noone describes how her dreams begin - you'll realize fairly quickly that the Ferryman is not directly involved in all of the instances of her doing so. Hell, in episode 4 he's not even present at all!

What I think the Ferryman is -- which also lines up with the behaviour we've seen him exhibit previously -- is a guide. He "saves" children from other monsters only to guide them somewhere else.

In the comics it was the Maw, but it can also be argued that he's not necessarily tied to just the submarine but rather, he offers his services to a wider range of... institutions, let's call them that. With that being said:

2) Yes, I think he's still deeply affiliated with the Maw. If he's got other affiliations as well, I don't think his connection to them would be as profound as the one he has with the Maw - considering that it is implied that he and the Lady are closely acquainted.

(Obsessed with this page by the way. It parallels another page where Six is also reflecting on what she has seen by asking herself "what has she seen?" while she's walking in the rain surrounded by monsters. Brilliant.)

She also keeps several paintings of him in the Residence, which was after the comics were discontinued, so I'd say him being somehow connected to her remains canon even if he's no longer affiliated to/just to the Maw.

It'd be interesting to see him be more of a neutral force rather than being specifically tied to one place, so I say it's a possibility that he may be working for other kinds of establishments as well. Though, in all the other places we've seen him, he's always been an outsider, like how he was wandering the Prison, Bathhouse and Sewers. When it comes to the Mall, he took an antagonistic stance against it, much like he does with the other monsters we've seen him directly interact with, so I'd say he most likely only works for the Maw -- but that it's not entirely out of the question.

3) I don't think he's a gateway. I think he's just the one who waits close to it to catch anyone who comes through. Like Charon - another ferryman who takes souls to another realm I definitely do think treachery is at play here, as he does manipulate the desperate into trusting him.

[sgiandubh]

Ad hominem

Alright, BIF. I let you shine your yellow light all night long on your blog. You specifically call me out as, at best, uninformed and at worst, a liar. It is my (legal, ethical, etc) right to answer.

You quote me and you add a long list of shippers who sent you comments and Anons, just to prove me wrong. It is your strictest right, of course:

This is exactly what I did write. But let's see a bit closer your 10 entries list. Curious people can check it here: https://www.tumblr.com/brian-in-finance/751660983126294528/kudos-for-saving-all-these-comments-and-anons-bif?source=share:

Out of those 10 entries, 7 are made before I entered the fray - unless you think I am a maniac, I had no clue about it. Out of those 7, #4 at least was written by a person I blocked myself. And #7 is anything but hateful (SHW does not need another lawyer, of course, but it stroke me as very representative of what you people do ALL THE TIME) - it is simply a decent, but firm answer:

If a different opinion is 'sowing hate or spreading doubt', kudos to you, lady, indeed. But let's continue, shall we?

Entry #8 is an Anon. God only knows who wrote it. Perhaps a shipper. Perhaps one of your people. Perhaps yourself. It's not unheard of, after all. I never did anything remotely like that on my own page. Sending myself Anons is simply idiotic (hell, I never sent any Anon after starting my own blog, for that matter). I have no idea who dunnit. Anons are Anons. And it is a nasty one. Unnecessarily so. Entry #10 is also an Anon, so same modus operandi by you, here: you include something impossible to prove conclusively. And you know it. Entry #9 is by someone I have no way or wish to identify (typical sock account avatar, so probably one of those) and who called you 'dumb' on your own page. She shouldn't have. It is naive at best and disingenuous at worst. It's poor taste, indeed and it brings absolutely nothing to the table. That person should have written a post about it on her own blog - but I am not that person, BIF, so 🤷‍♀️.

That being said, let's see how your ever serviceable friend, Miss Marple, does in the calumny department. Before anything else, it is absolutely correct she NEVER leaves comments on adverse pages. She just loses her temper, from time to time, on her own page - don't we all?

She writes in her long reblog of your post (FYI, the correct term is 'beliefs', not the one being used):

Guess what? I also have a list, BIF. A list of personal attacks by this user. Directed at me. Maybe it's not as long as yours, but it is there, alright. I have often thought of compiling it, but somehow never got around to it. I am not going to post it, because I do not want you people to cannibalize my time. From calling me a nut case, to comparing me to Emily White, to accusing me of insulting her deceased mother, to belittling me, to publicly denouncing me towards a third party, I have seen it all from that woman.

One more time - what she thought to be a personal insult to her mother, is in fact an idiom:

I used it to mean she would do just about anything to achieve clicks and traffic. But hey, for sure, victimization is a way better strategy.

Your problem with me is a personal one. That goes for both of you. But it just goes to show how intolerant you are towards different opinions, how irritated you are when you are called out for being wrong about things and ultimately, how terribly useless this whole thing is.

Below is something to reflect upon, BIF. Not about your reliable friend, but about another troll. Her Opinions Only, of course 🐮:

That is all. You do you, all of you, by all means. But whenever you mention me, you should expect an answer. For the time being, this is my response to you.