#The One problem solved

[fofi42]

I hope it's clear now and we all can ENJOY the Taskmaster s18e10. The One problem solved.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Finally caught up with Apothecary Diaries. I can't believe they gave Maomao a gun.

[corkinavoid]

Danny, appearing out of nowhere: Hi!

Danny, reaching into Jason's chest and pulling out a misshapen, disgusting blob of dark green goo: You've got a spare part you don't need there, buddy.

Danny, molding the goo into a different shape with his bare hands, throwing the darker parts away: And, you know what they say, sharing is caring, so.

Danny, holding up the pure green and slightly glowing blob that is not melting or looking sick anymore: Here you have it, an entirely new spleen, fresh baked and up for grabs!

Danny, shoving said spleen inside Tim: Since you're missing one, you get to have it for free, no returns, you're welcome.

Danny, fading from view with a two-fingered salute: There, puzzle solved, everyone have a great day, bye!

Jason, whose Pit Rage is gone:

Tim, who has a new organ now:

Bruce, who, just like everyone else, has absolutely no idea what just happened and who that glowing kid was:

Dick:

Dick, a moment later: Hold the fuck up, when and how did you have a splenectomy, Timothy?!

[monkesupreme]

Making Bruce the kind of guy to work through his thoughts out loud when he knows hes allowed to. This leads to him rubberducking off of anyone who will let him, including, but not limited to his boys and assorted JL members. He latches on, and suddenly, this is not Bruce's Case, its Our case.

Despite him doing this to anyone that will listen, Clark tends to be the most available victim due to his extreme patience, his investigative skills, and love of listening to people ramble at him <3

[i-love-dopamine]

NO LITTLE GERMAN BOY DONT GO INTO THE ASEXUAL TAG!! YOU NEED A GARLIC BREAD SWORD TO KILL BOTS AND KEEP YOURSELF SAFE FIRST!!! NO GERMAN BOY WAIT!!!

[ruporas]

how to guide your mossball (ID in alt)

[frownyalfred]

kid at school: so what does your dad even have down there? some kind of sex dungeon?

12 year old Jason Todd, who has been the cause of no fewer than three (3) separate arguments in the Batcave in the last 36 hours and has been forced to do inventory on every single water sample Bruce has ever collected from Gotham Harbor going back ten years as a punishment: god I fucking wish

kid: what?

Jason: I mean -- yeah, something like that

[camembri]

you wanted zoro to be on whole cake island to fulfil your weird desire to see zoro punish sanji. I wanted zoro on whole cake island because I think he's stupid enough to right place wrong time the plan and accidentally marry Sanji in full view of the whole wedding party in what becomes the most elaborately constructed comedy of errors ever written. we are NOT the same.

[thecindercrow]

[sesamestreep]

it’s wild to me that like every modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (and by modern I mean “made recently” not “set in modern times”) is like Hell Bent on coming up with a Reason™️ that Watson stays with Holmes and trots around with him on adventures all the time despite the inconvenience and the danger and all, and so it’s like “oh, Watson’s a gambling addict, he loves uncertainty and mystery” or “oh, Watson’s an adrenaline junkie, he gets off on being constantly in danger from criminals” or even like “Watson’s atoning for sins of the past of BEING IN THE WAR by solving crimes with Holmes now” or WHATEVER. And it’s like, girl, maybe he’s just in love! Did you think of that?? Maybe he’s got a crush and it’s making him do stupid things. Maybe he’s just got bad taste and his type is guys who don’t know how to refold newspapers properly but can identify different types of cigar ash by sight, smell, and taste. And wrote a monograph on the subject. Maybe he’s down bad is all. I mean, Keep is simple, stupid!!!

[micahmaeve]

[fofi42]

The very nice one and not ironical at all from Blue Sky

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Five foot something and he's royalty.

[angryjewishcockroach]

I told my dad today about the Passover frog debate and his response was that it was really one little frog which father bought for two zuzim so I think that puts an end to that debate

[tsuutarr]

Could you make a yandere farmer?

(THIS CONCEPT...... YES!!! I immediately thought of a yandere!farmer that also so happens to be a cow/bull hybrid hehe there's just something about someone who seems so bright and cheerful and helpful but is actually yandere)

“Hey there, neighbor!”

The last thing you expected when you began moving into your new house in the countryside iss the bright greeting of your friendly bullboy neighbor, but you can’t say you’re displeased. You give him a response that makes his mouth stretch into a pretty smile.

“It’s great to meet ya! We don’t get many new folks ‘round here.” He looks at the boxes by your feet curiously. “Can I help ya?”

You try to reject his offer, but his movements are quick and powerful. Before you know it, he’s helping you haul your heavy boxes into your home with ease. His help makes the move go by so much faster that it really, really makes you grateful.

When you try to offer him something to drink as thanks, he waves it off with a warm laugh. “Don’t mention it, cutie,” he says, “I’m always happy to help a neighbor in need.” For a brief moment, he looks contemplative, before he shakes his head. “Yer welcome to reach out whenever ya need me.”

With that, he waves goodbye to you, leaving you with happy feelings and unaware of the small cameras and mics he’s hidden in your home.

Since then, he keeps helping you, giving you eggs and produce from his farm. Whenever you’re in trouble, he’s there immediately, too. When your tires got punctured, when your lights went out, when your pipes clogged – he was there. You’re filled with so much gratitude that you don’t notice that none of your troubles are naturally occurring.

One day, while he’s helping you fix your stove, he says, “By the way, there’ve been reports of some wild animals running amok ‘round here.”

You gulp. Wild animals? What kind? Rabbit? Deer? Or… bears? Something worse?

“Don’t ya worry ‘bout a thing,” he continues, gently patting the stovetop once he’s done fixing it. “You’ve got my number and I’ve got a mean aim.” With a small smile, he makes a gun motion with his hand. “So don’t be scared to call me, okay?”

You nod, though you still feel a little terrified.

That very night, you’re awakened by loud noises outside of your house. Fear clutches your heart and you wonder if you locked your doors and windows, but are too scared to check. With trembling lips, you pull your blanket tighter over yourself, pressing yourself into your bed as you take a quick glance outside your bedside window. A black figure with glowing eyes and horns looks back at you, making you scream.

Before you know it, you’re wrapped in strong, warm arms as a kind voice rumbles in your ear. “It’ll be okay, sugar,” your kind farmer neighbor coos. “I’ve got ya.” 

Too caught up in the moment, you snuggle into him without questioning how he got into your house or how he was by your side so quickly. Nor do you recognize how eerily similar his horns look to the ones you saw on that black figure outside.

[applestorms]

(tw for extensive discussions of dubiously consensual sexual situations, typical to canon. also spoilers for the decay route update)

honestly, one of the most interesting aspects of andrew's psyche that we get to see in the most recent decay route update to me is his nearly unending hesitancy about having sex with ashley, despite both his overwhelming desire to AND her incredibly blasé, Yeah Sure Let's Do It attitude in response to the question.

while the end of the burial route provides some key insight into ashley's point of view regarding this topic (e.g. if you go with the less enthusiastic/more teasing answer to andrew's question of "we're not like that, right? right??"), and the shots & such ending provides even more intrigue into her motivations, i think that decay presents two key reasons as to why andrew has continued to hold back for so long: his two core conflicting desires, and an inability to see ashley as her own full person. notably, both of these parts can easily be connected to his mother's childhood abuse and parentification of him as well.

with regards to the first point: andrew has two main overwhelming desires at the heart of his character that motivate most of his actions, which unfortunately for him are completely incompatible. andrew wants:

to be a normal, average person-- someone who can hold a steady, respectable job, fit in at the block party BBQs, and not attract any negative attention from the neighbors.

to fuck his sister.

to some degree, you could even read the distinction between the two main routes themselves (burial and decay) to be motivated by whether or not andrew can diffuse the tension between these two wants-- in burial, he gives up on his need to fit in with the rest of respectable society, presumably pushing him more towards the fucking-his-sister route; in decay, he struggles significantly to let go of this desire for normalcy, and the stress almost always breaks him. notably, in neither of these routes can he fully give up on the second desire-- really, his relationship with julia and the rest of his life up til the point that ep1 begins has been about him trying and failing to do so, so this makes sense.

(sidenote: i would also like to clarify that i think the Most key distinction between these two routes comes down to the decision you actually have to make to get one or the other-- namely, whether or not the siblings are able to trust one another. but anyways)

this focus on the first desire for normalcy is also interesting in that it seems to be one of the core desires that renee holds as well, as we see her so happily boast about during their interactions in ep2. honestly i could probably write a whole post about how much andrew (consciously or, more often, not) mimics his mother's behavior and takes on her standards and ideals, but the key point to pay attention to here is the fact that andrew has subsumed his mother's viewpoint in such a way that he is either not fully aware of or simply hasn't questioned in all that much depth yet.

we can also see this with the aforementioned parentifiication, which has really interesting consequences on how much andrew does (not) see ashley as her own autonomous person. pretty much every single childhood flashback we get in 3a shows the same terrible cycle:

andrew is told by renee that ashley is His responsibility -> ashley causes problems on purpose -> andrew takes the fall for her

frankly, we don't even really need that first step for andrew to fully internalize the idea that ashley's actions are His to take responsibility for. the horrible consequences of this are also quite obvious: not only is this pressure to take responsibility for someone else's actions an incredibly unfair burden to put on anyone, much less a kid, but it also continually pushes andrew to see ashley as something less than human, or as little more than an extension of himself rather than her own person.

the main conflict in decay really comes down to this conflicting desire between the two of them, where what both andrew and ashley want above all else is Complete and Utter control over the other-- andrew wanting control because he has again been groomed to see ashley as his full responsibility, and ashley wanting control to assuage her own insecurities and fears about being isolated and hated forever. the more sympathetic throughline underlying a lot of this is that what both of them seem to want is safety, to protect both themselves and each other from any and all situations outside of their control-- though, unfortunately, a lot of times those exact external situations are simply the other acting on this mirrored desire for control lol.

anyways, going back to the sex thing-- since andrew doesn't see ashley as her own person, since he sees her as incapable of taking responsibility for her own actions and therefore as someone who cannot make decisions for herself, due in large part to him automatically transferring this burden to himself, andrew also sees ashley's consent as essentially meaningless.

the more sympathetic reading here is that andrew does genuinely want ashley to be at least kinda into it as more than a manipulation tactic/transactional thing-- but i think it's also equally likely that andrew simply doesn't want to have to once again shoulder the full burden of Committing Incest on his own, and he doesn't trust ashley to ever be even capable of taking the fall for her own actions. the fact that andrew still ultimately sees ashley as Leyley and NEVER as Ashley Proper (as he himself recognizes at one point) really just reinforces this to me. he says it himself-- he practically raised this woman. and in this case, even above all others, ashley's actions are quite literally also his own. it all goes back to that initial mistrust, and he carries that resentment with him even after they get around to actually doing it. mutually dubious consent, truly in-fucking-deed.