#also reading this while forgetting the context is so funny

[wickcipher]

OMG YOURE THE GENIUS OF FUN GUY

This makes me realize I need to make a pinned masterpost lol

[ruesol]

ex-convict!sukuna gets into a bar fight for burnt out reader but she’s embarrassed of being seen with him. For more context, read this prompt.

ex-convict!sukuna series masterlist

There’s a fine line between procrastination and being burnt out, and you weren’t sure which part of the spectrum you belonged to. However, you could blame part of your confusion to the toasty bitter liquid in front of you. Condensation collecting around the large jar. College bars weren’t exactly crowded during finals week, but the bartenders were glad to have you there as you single-handedly kept them in business after downing drink after drink.

Your friends had long ditched you to catch some sleep before their study session the next the day—an event you weren’t invited to because you simply slept the entire time, not being much help with memorizing naming reactions in organic chemistry.

Your notes from the first half of the semester were still incomplete. Forget revising for the final. You were fucked, winging your past quizzes and exams by getting Cs.

Life felt stationary. No internships, no friends you could actually rely on, car broken down, and no boyfriend.

Boyfriend. Funny word. The closest thing you had to one was the older man you were messing around with. To make matters worse, he was an ex-convict without a job.

His truck, however, said that he had enough money to spare. His apartment? Not so much. Heat pooled between your legs as you thought about his room. His bed. A Pavlovian response. You only went there to momentarily forget about your struggles after all.

“You’re looking worse for wear,” a smooth, rich voice calls out from beside you. Geto Suguru—English Literature major. Honors student. Persistent ex-hookup from your second year. You were surprised that you were even able to recognize the midnight-haired man. He eyed your figure—slouched and red (courtesy of the alcohol).

“Need me to drop you home? I live nearby.” You knew he meant well. But a small voice deep in the corners of your consciousness told you that you were most likely going to invite him in. Finding solace in one man’s arms were enough. You were not going to split your loyalties. At least for the time being. You were too mentally exhausted.

Also, you weren’t sure how Sukuna would react knowing that you were sleeping around with other people.

His angry grunt after you asked if he had been hooking up with other girls was enough to tell you that your arrangement was exclusive. It was a good thing that you asked him while he had you sheathed around his dick. Who knew what he would’ve said if he was in his right mind?

“I’m alright, Suguru. Thanks for offering,” you slurred out. He wrapped an arm around you, probably to shield you from the leering eyes of the other drunk patrons at the bar. “It’s just colder than usual here. And you don’t have a jacket.” You simply nod at his reasoning. Relishing in his warmth and the smell of his subtle cologne. Much tamer than Sukuna’s and even then you’re able to sense his heavy natural musk.

Maybe it was because you’d been intimately entwined with him more times than you could count. You couldn’t even remember what Suguru’s scent reminded you of. All that clouded your mind was that darned tattooed ex-convict.

“You know, I’ve been watching you around campus for a while. I can tell you haven’t been feeling well for a while and—“ Suguru sighs before tightening his hold on you “—if you ever feel like you need to talk to someone, please know that I’m always there for you.” His warm smile almost feels fake. You couldn’t remember the last time someone showed you genuine kindness. Save for Sukuna immediately replying to your text where you’d told him you needed to let out some steam.

“Thanks,” you choke out, a singular tear falls down and for the first time in a while you see something other than pity in a peer’s eyes—concern. True and genuine concern. You felt cared for. Your tears began to flow out your eyes yes and you sobbed uncontrollably, unsure if it was the alcohol or the shred of kindness you were just shown.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said as he rubbed his arms up and down your shoulders. “It happens to the best of us. You’ll be ok-“ You’re suddenly left cold without Suguru’s warm hold. You turn to see his hand in the grasp of another man’s.

Sukuna. He was in front of you.

“Get the fuck away from her,” he spat at Suguru. “If you know what’s good for you.”

Suguru ignored the older man’s imposition and turned to look at you. Eyes softening again. “You know this guy?” Your tongue was too thick for your mouth to answer him.

What could you say? If you agreed then all the people in this bar (who were in your university) would know that you liked to mess around with strange men. If you said no then you’d have Sukuna’s supposed wrath to deal with.

You didn’t even know what he went to jail for.

Too overstimulated and confused to answer, you simply glanced around the bar. All eyes were on you three. An unwanted spotlight.

“Tell him you know me,” Sukuna’s red eyes bore into your delirious state through a frown. “At least I know where you live.”

You felt conflicted. On one hand, you had a man who was genuinely concerned for you and was explicit with providing you with support. On the other, was a man who knew about your emotional state and didn’t let you feel afraid to put your guard down despite never asking you about your troubles.

“That doesn’t matter. She didn’t say anything about knowing who you are. Hell, I haven’t even seen you around campus. Are you even a student at our school?” Suguru snapped. You were grateful that a mere acquaintance was so protective of you, but at this moment, everything felt uncomfortable.

Cold sweat prickled the back of your neck as you watched both the men raise their voices with each insult thrown at one another.

And to your horror, both the men started fighting one another. You looked away, shielding yourself and cringing. You heard a distressing crunch and didn’t want to guess whose nose had gone bust. It was all so embarrassing. Your friends always joked that you had the worst taste in men and they were right.

Humiliated, you ran out the bar, too frantic to pay your tab. The fight had gotten so bad that you could hear the faint sirens of the local police patrol cars driving towards the bar.

The bus ride back home was as excruciating as ever. Its rockiness and constant bumps on the mussed streets made it a nightmare to hold your bile in. The acidity of it had travelled up to your mouth, and you were grateful for the bathroom being in close proximity to your front door.

A few uncomfortable belches and spurts of vomit later, you dragged your dehydrated and exhausted body to your couch, scrolling through your phone to order hangover soup for the next day.

But your finger stopped before you could tap anything because a text had popped up.

11:27 pm | Sukuna Ryomen: are you okay

—

No part two for this. The “storyline” (?) is more focused on reader’s unhealthy coping mechanisms, and how sukuna affects her life 🥸

[ironteeth-fury]

👋 👋👋

Do u give ghoap fic recommendations? If so can u give us please 🙏 (iys alr if u don’t want to ^~^)

*rubs hands together* finally my time has come, the 436 cod bookmarks i have will be useful!

right so you didn't specify anything beyond ghoap so i'm gonna throw a bunch in here with different themes and lengths and settings and stuff.

Gonna try to keep it to one work per author as well, but generally check out the other works of these authors!

I'm gonna cover WIP's that i'm following and loving, canon ghoap, still military but au in ways that might be timeline or in the sense of magic or abo or supernatural or something. Also completely AU ghoap, and I also have a couple crack fics that i just think are really good and funny.

Buckle up there's a lot

WIPS

Acceptable Loss by MildLimerence. Limerence is one of my favorite authors, definitely check out all the other works as well. Acceptable Loss is post MWIII wherein Soap gets turned into an agent for Makarov. This has made me cry and scream.

But not to yield by monsterlice and toomanybats. Definitely also check both authors out, more good shit to be found!! post military service for ghost and soap both. Demi!Simon in an abusive relationship, absolute perfect specimen who will treat you right! Soap. Pretty sure this updates weekly on wednesdays or thursdays, i forgot sorry :/

There will be no tenderness by Simcoehole. Simcoehole is where I break the rules, there will be 4 of their fics in this list and I will not apologise (really you should applaud my restraint because i could've put a lot more in here). This is canon Ghoap with Soap on medical leave, stalker!ghost, a lot of angst and pining, and Simcoehole's specialty: idiots to lovers. has only one chapter so it's the best time to get into it! Updates on mondays, I think.

Crack fics

right so a couple shorter fics that are just generally funny

miannach by simcoehole. Right. Simcoehole fic #2. This is very much Crack Premise, executed super well and quite seriously as well. Premise: Soap cuts a hole in a bar of soap (lol) and it becomes a magical portal hole to his ass. So after fucking himself with it, he decides to leave it in teh communal showers. Which is fun but overwhelming. Then Ghost gets a hold of it. (this is just a lot of porn, but it's awesome)

Save a pony, ride a ghost - Jazzybot4 and naughtypixie. Soap has Stripper Skills and it is the perfect opportunity to show them off. the rest of the 141 is stunned <3

the divine and the blessed by ghost_throat. Soap finds himself being sacrificed to a god (believe me this will be 1000x better iwthout context. Don't forget to read the sequel)

Talk Too Much by achievement_huntresss. '22 ghoap who are in denial about their feelings run into '09 ghoap who, while not fucking (anymore) immediatly clock that the idiots are head over heels for each other, and decide to do something about it.

Russian Roulette by Red_Clegane. Just. Soap being a badass completely casual, as you-please. Love the attitude

Canon Ghoap

Up In Arms by eclecticscribbles. Ghost introduces Soap to BDSM so they can infiltrate a fancy exclusive bdsm club to find their target.

Any Time You Need Me by thirteenbullets. right so this is technically an entire series that i've linked, but, they all fall under what im gonna tell you: non-sexual intimacy, physical touch, a bit of angst and a lot of comfort. This entire series feels like curling up with a blanket on the couch in front of the fireplace with a mug of hot cocoa. it's comfy. (also has one of my favorite sentences ever that will live rent-free in my brain forever. He drew the ducks <3)

Seasons by StinglessWasp. the writing is breathtaking, it's a beautiful look at soap, ghost and their relationship and how they change over the course of four seasons.

What Has One Good Leg and Bleeds? by YmeMadarame. Soap gets his leg injured and betrayed and falsly confirmed KIA in the depths of hostile territory. He tries to make it back home. A classic case of it gets worse before it gets better.

Mission Briefs by BleedingTypewriter. What if ghost and soap hooked up before they met for the mission in al mazrah? Written as missing scenes between game cutscenes and missions. Beautiful, funny and sexy!

sometimes words have two meanings by Bluejay141519. beautiful take on the "the team accidentally massively hurts soaps feelings and trigger his inferiority complex" featuring a lot of hurt!soap.

its just a shot away by Bluejay141519. so another breaking of the rules by adding a second fic from bluejay, but both these fics are special to me. This is soap on a mission that went beyond FUBAR, trying to survive long enough for the 141 to come get him, and has been going on stims for almost 4 days. Soap reacts real bad to stims once he comes off of it. This is beautifully written and grabs me every time, and somehow manages to be one of the funniest things i've ever read while the tone of the fic overall is very serious and angsty.

Take a Breath by TAFKAmayle. Longg before the 141 started, we get Sergeant Simon Lamont (who will later be Lieutenant Simon "ghost" Riley) in charge of training the platoon of Corporal John "soap" MacTavish. There is tension. (turns out, it's sexual tension. who'da thunk it?) Includes them meeting again in game canon. (love this, its hilarious and i love it as a peek into Simon's mind)

can't keep johnny down by Wheezing_Joe. Soap loses comms on a mission. The 141 have to leave him behind. Soap makes his own way back to base. Turns out they missed him.

Bad Habits by NebulaGazer. I think this is the first real long fic that I'm linking, at 140k words. It's a mission fic of ghoap getting together. Soap gets thrown out of a couple of windows. It's great!

I Woke Up Underground by WispScribbles. this is a fun one!! we get wump, angst, buried alive trope, more wump, dad!price, and a lot of Feelings. (also definitely comfort at the end no worries)

Bait and Switch by Starlight_VLD. Another Soap gets turned into Makarov's assassin fic, this time with body doubles!! it's beautiful, it's sad, it's comforting, it's 141 as a family.

Oh, Brother by MeowMeowRiley. Ghost's family lives, and through some work civililan connections, both get roped into helping Soap's sibling move, unbeknownst to each other.

This is Ghost and Soap as Simon and John, seen through the eyes of their siblings, who do wonder 'why the hell are they not fucking yet?'

Military Ghoap AU's

faege by Simcoehole. #3 Simcoehole fic!! Soulmate AU following the MWIII storyline. Ghost and Soap wake up tied together by a red string of fate, declaring them soulmates. Both of them decide that, no, fate must have made a mistake, just because I'm hopelessly in love with him. He doesn't feel the same. I don't want to ruin our friendship. Let's see how we can get rid of this because he deserves better than being stuck with me for the rest of his life. (yep.) A lot of pining, angst, Idiots to Lovers (altho the idiots never really goes away with how fucking bad it is lmao). This is beautiful and it will make you yell at your screen and want to throw things but the worst part is that even though they're being big stupid idiots, when you're in their head you GET IT, you might not agree but you understand why they're comign to the conclusions they are (mostly). It's infuriating in the best way.

The devil has my throat by Simcoehole. Hi, last but certainly not least (with over 400k words) we have the devil has my throat. THIS FIC is what got me into the author, and what got me into the community. This fic is the start of my tumblr account. So, yeah.

Vampire!Ghost and Previously-Traumatised-By-Vampires!Soap. Who has, obviously, not processed said trauma at all, but is also immediatly horny as fuck for ghost. Features: being idiots, a lot of kinky vampire sex (so blood and biting and also some fun surprises you'll love later) a supernatural plot, price who doesn't get told even 10% of what's going on, and my Favorite OC Of All Time Ever.

Thrown for a Loop by enter_fand0m_reference00. Time Loop Alone Mission!!!! need I say more?? no, no i don't. (check out the rest of the series for more time loop shenanigans)

Results May Vary by HigherMagic. HigherMagic is one of my favorite authors so definitely check out all the other works as well, but this is the one I picked out to go on this list. It's wolf shifter soap deciding to woo the shit out of dragon ghost. (with a lot of lore!!! we love lore!!!)

Wont you lay your hands on me by Kensington. ABO but make it make sense! Alpha Ghost, Omega Soap, courting, world-building, trauma processing. absolutely one of my favorite abo fics ever (it's #2)

Yes to Heaven by Apollos_Last_Prophet. Okay but what if Soap was "killed" and taken and been made into Makarov's assassin before the 141 is even a thing?? You get this. The Ghoap is absolutely gorgeous in here.

My heart in your hands keeps going on by FetteEule. Former Military Soap! Neighbours Soap and Ghost! Ghost being forced on leave and fucking hating it, and soap changing his mind on it <3 (also of course price knows soap too)

Collecting Strays by WhisperedWords12. Check out the author again, there are more!! Werewolf soap gets rescued from a werewolf fighting ring and, being military, gets kept by Price and the 141. Ghost does not trust Soap at all.

No Rest for the Wicked by WispScribbles. Retired Ghoap are called back in when Price goes MIA. Mission fic. Feelings. Established Ghoap (theyre marrieddd)

hell hath no fury by sunshowers_and_dandelion_wine. Dragon shifter Soap!! Who accumalates the 141 as his hoard and is super protective and possessive, while trying to keep his being a dragon a secret!

Varium Lupus Division by North927. Sort-of military, sort of not? Post 141, Simon sets up his own division where they rescue and rehabilitate shifters/hybrids. Soap is the latest rescue.

Take Me On by Monsterlice. this is the #1 abo fic. It's got traumatised omega!Ghost who does Not Trust Anyone who goes into heat, has put it off long enough that it might kill him if he doesn't get handled by an alpha. Surprise, Gaz and Price, the only alphas (people, really) he trusts in the world are not here!! and won't be back in time. So, Laswell calls in Alpha!Soap (who will start at the 141 in like, a couple weeks) Features Consent!King!Soap who is absolutely enamoured by this huge feral omega who will fucking kill him if he steps a toe out of line. I fucking love soap in this soooo much.

a patron saint for butchers, fools and living fire by ForgottenFrog. I dunno, don't really want to spoil it by telling too much about it. This is one of the fics that settled into my bones and refused to leave.

(are you tired yet, cuz we've got some more to go)

AU's!

Dark Eyes Meet Under The Sky by Aessedia. (gonna have another one of Aessedia because i could NOT for the life of me choose) University professor Ghost. Grad student Soap. Soap needs a reccomendation for ghost who is known for being grumpy and hating his students. Also, Soap begins talking to a Dom on a kink-related dating website. Wonder who that is.

The Aerialist by Aessedia. LIsten okay Aessedia is just fucking amazing and go check /all of it/ out, because these two are my favorites but all the others are super good as well. Also, happy birthday to The Aerialist!! Aerialistic Acrobats Soap and Ghost who starts as rivals but then suddenly have to work together. Beyond overcoming their rivalry, there is also seemingly someone out to kill or at least ruin the 141 acrobats.

Why Did The Cowboy Take Hay To Bed? by LawfulSlab. Definitely check out all the other works as well they're beautiful. Historical au. Omega Soap and Alpha Ghost are the only two survivors of a convoy ambush. They seek shelter and have to pretend to be married to save Soap's virtue (unmarried omega out all alone, gasp!!) and then they fall in love. It's domestic as shit, and beautiful and the convoy was definitely a plot device to get them here and not something that will come back later as more plot, nahh.

Head of Department by Goblin_Pudding. Professors AU! Rival professors who hate each other, Price forces them to work together and /shit fuck we're in love now/. Including the past coming back to haunt you and Feelings <3. Romcom!!

Yellow Card by eddie_dxaz and skerryB. Football players AU! of course our boys start out having a massive rivalry and then Soap comes on the team and they have to play nice. Featuring homophobia of the world of sports, shitty exes coming back to create chaos, alive Riley family (except Simon's dad).

a pirate's life, aye? by victorianankles. firstly, pirate AU is one of my favorites. WE need more pirate au. Just gonna quote my bookmark of this one:

Soap's voice is the perfect mix of melodramatic, sad, hilarious and that somehow humble cockiness that's all Soap. I laughed so fucking much reading this and everyone should read this too, it's beautiful and I love it and I'm gonna cherish this fic forever

for those who need more convincing; one of the epilogues has soap in lingerie that's made of fancy chains and shiny gems. (i might or might not absolutely need art for this fucking hell)

Spoils of War by WhisperedWords12. RIGHT losers of a war get kept as war prisoners until the losing party signs officially that they've lost or something. They get used as sex slaves by the winning party. This is considered normal by everyone involved, as long as you treat your (temporary) slaves well. Soap gets captured and falls under Ghost's care. They are both not prepared for how much they like the other. (a tag from the fic: Enemies to Something They'd Rather Not Talk About. Which I think is quite fitting.) I love the dynamic in this, it's gorgeous.

RIGHT so that's it. For now. I mean i'd assume it's enough for the forseeable future.

Again, like i said i have more than 400 bookmarks so if you want more reccs, reach out, tell me what you like and I'll dig through my bookmarks and brain to see what i can find <3

Also people dont forget to leave kudos and a comment on the fics. If you dont know what to comment, give 'em this one from me:

✨️✨️💕🫧❤️💀💕✨️✨️

[shouts-into-the-void]

Just read screenshots of the Aaron extra chapter and I have so many thoughts, so here they are:

It's always so funny to me to be reminded of the fact that the animosity between Aaron and Neil is mostly one-sided. Like, Neil finds Aaron frustrating, but all the antagonistic stuff he does to him is ultimately in service of helping him in some way and while he's angry when Aaron provokes him, he otherwise regards him with disinterest and even expresses the desire to see what he's like when he's relaxed and enjoying himself during the party with the Vixens. Meanwhile Aaron just really hates that man.

I really appreciated Nora using this chapter to clear up some of the gripes a lot of the fandom has had with Aaron's character in the past and confirm that Aaron's comments to Nicky have to do with his cousin making graphic and unwanted sexual advances on their teammates, and his accusations towards Neil were from a place of concern for his brother. I also liked that it was pointed out that of course he would have at least some internalized homophobia due to being raised by religious zealots in a conservative area, but is unlearning it due to Nicky.

On a similar note, I'm glad that we were provided the context that Nicky's inappropriate behavior is a defense mechanism to weed out people who might hurt him rather than legitimate advances, because I think the fandom tends to forget that he is also a character with extreme trauma written outside of the "perfect victim" stereotype. His actions aren't okay, but the entire point is that they are the result of what he's had to endure just like every other member of the team

The implication that Andrew specifically signed with the Foxes so Aaron could go to college

Aaron and Andrew have the same nervous habit of picking at loose thread

It causes me physical pain to see Andrew clearly trying to open up to Aaron about his self-harm, but because his way of communicating is less straightforward (he doesn't lie, but he because he stuggles to confront and be open with his emotions, he presents the truth in flowery, vague language) and because the two dont really know or understand each other, Aaron can't fully grasp the implications of what he's saying

On the subject of things that cause me physical pain: baby Aaron telling his mom that he wanted to be a neurosurgeon like the people on TV and her laughing and saying he'd never make anything of himself. Fuck Tilda Minyard, all my homies hate Tilda.

Andrew is so uncomfortable, someone Get Him Out of There.

Going off that and his nervous habits (that Aaron mentions he did often enough to be noticable as a habit premedication), I am highkey wondering if the reason Sober Andrew doesn't talk to anyone outside Neil is because he's just. Socially Awkward.

We get a little bit of insight into Andrew's "misogyny" (I personally think distrusting certain people as a result of extreme personal trauma is a little bit different than just being sexist, in the same way women distrusting men because they're used to being harassed and belittled isn't misandry, but that's up to your personal opinion) and that his distain for Katelyn comes from the fact that he thinks she's stringing Aaron along and will turn out to be awful like his previous girlfriends (there's also a notable implication that Aaron has the same self-destructive tendencies as Andrew, and may be why he went out of his way to get him into college and on the straight-and-narrow) also see that this extends to Bee as well despite their close relationship, with him being so afraid that she'd reject him for being gay that he can't even look at her while talking about Neil, probably made worse by the fact that she's a maternal figure for him, which is where this trauma response originates.

Aaron is the only person on the team who's aware that Andrew hasn't slept with Neil, and the only one to grasp the significance of the fact that they've gotten close to that point already despite Andrew's trauma, outside of Renee

It was overall really interesting to see inside Aaron's head (I actually wouldn't mind a book from his perspective, he has a similar way of thinking to Neil but much more grounded) and to see Andrew through the lense of someone who just views him as Just A Guy

[miwiheroes]

Dropping Byler Evidence Every Day Until Season 5

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ Day 1 - The M&Ms scene . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

So yeah, this scene is never really talked about that much as like actual proof, more like a funni little thing where Mike looks at Will for a moment when he walks away, but analysis of the cinematography, framing and narrative of this scene can be revealing.

First thing: as soon as El wipes her nose, revealing it was her that helped Mike and Lucas, the camera zooms in on Mike, as if to be like 'oooh wonder how he's going to react'! and the audience is then in suspense, because they're probably expecting him to smile or try to take this opportunity.

What does he do? He just says 'Thanks." And the moment of suspense is broken. It's almost like a record scratch. We will come back to this reaction later, basically because it shows that Mike really does not mind being on these terms with El.

Second thing: At first glance there seems to be 3 main characters of this scene: Mike, Lucas and El. However, Will also seems to be included in this scene unlike Max who is also there. There is no reason to have Will be in some of these shots that, I want you guys to understand, is intentional. The directors didn't just accidentally set up this frame:

They didn't just forget to move Will out the way. In this shot, the Rule of Thirds can be applied. While El and half of Mike are in the second third/ third third, both half of Mike and Will are in the same third. This is also the third on the left, which is where (in western cultures) people begin to look at images from (reading from left to right). The fact that Will looks at Mike when he says 'Thanks' is the first thing that the audience is intended to notice (because its on the left), even if it is very subtle.

It is also important to note that the writers of the show know, in this moment, that Will is in love with Mike, they've had that planned out from the start (this is undeniably canon, unlike Mike's feelings to Will). Therefore, it is interesting that they included him in this shot and the next part too:

Like?? what was the point of the directors putting him in this part? Placing him in an interactional role with Mike in a Mike and El scene is just interesting to me. Like,,,, also could Mike not have talked to El with Will there?

After Will gets up, there is this really awkwardly long part where Will goes from the left third to the right third of the screen and just stays there? Like he's still in the shot (which they can easily catch and retake if they needed to). Why do the writers/directors want you to take such notice of his presence?

Also, going back to the fact that Will has to leave for Mike to be able to talk to El. Again, the directors did not need to put Will in this scene, they could have had him doing something else. Instead, they had him there to subtly further his character arc of being selfless/being shoved away by Mike in favour of El. It's also maybe simply because Mike just can't handle having both Will and El in the same context without ignoring one for the other, because he holds them to the same romantic standard.

We see this mishandling of El and Will in the airport scene, the whole time Mike is with El in the beginning of S3, Rink o Mania, the dinner after Rink o Mania etc. Basically, when both El and Will are around, he feels like he has to get rid of Will to be able to be romantic towards El, despite being able to talk about it to Lucas. When it's just him and Will, he's pretty happy (we see this in the 'Cool. Cool.' scene and the 'Guess it's up to us again' scene which are the only two scenes in S4 where Mike believes he is no longer in a relationship with El and just thinks he needs to team up with Will and go back to Hawkins without El). Therefore, he needed Will out the way because he can't be romantic with his girlfriend with Will distracting him lmao <3

Third Thing: Lucas is the one to encourage Mike to make up with El.

To be honest, him encouraging him alone isn't really that convincing of the fact that Mike is queer coded blah blah, like, your friend is allowed to say 'That was the Olive branch! Your way in!' without it being queercoding. The queercoding however, comes with the reaction to that information.

First, I want to point to something I may bring up in the future of this series. In S1, Lucas is the first person to ever suggest that there might be something romantic going on between Mike and El. When he says "Why don't you just marry her?", Mike does not go all ooooh flustery and blushy, he does not go 'EW GROSS' like a lot of boys that age would, instead he just acts confused. Multiple times.

The first time is when he goes, "Lucas what are you talking about?" The second is in response to Lucas going "Mike, seriously?" saying "What?" again. When Lucas then teases him about caring about her, he just says "Shut up Lucas" in this really tired tone, rather than a flustered or angry one. He basically gets the idea that he probably should like El romantically, if he shows even any care towards her.

Now, throughout S3, Lucas is the one to constantly question Mike's actions towards El. He's confused on why he won't tell her the truth about Hopper, and everything else, which all culminates into this "Oh my god. You're hopeless," when referring to picking up signals about girls.

I must say this rn too: You don't pick up on signals you don't want to receive. You do pick up on signals you do want to receive. I think most of us know what it's like to have a crush. You constantly look out for little things and overanalyse their actions towards you. But Mike has no clue. Maybe because.... he just doesnt feel that way.

Okay going back to reactions. Basically, you would kind of expect Mike's reaction to hearing that his girlfriend, that he's sooooo sad about losing oh nooooo, has decided to reach out and say that she's okay with him would be excitement, right?

When Lucas is describing how he's going to let Mike talk to El, Mike looks extremely nervous, which I get. It's normal to feel nervous in this situation, but the thing is, El seems okay with him, surely he would at least have a little light in his eyes?

When Lucas has to say 'Talk to her, alright?' (as if Mike has no fucking clue) Mike nods and then there is a swell in the music, the camera zooms in on him, and instead of the music swelling to some nice, positive tones, it's almost foreboding, mimicking the mixed feelings swirling in Mike's brain. His face also kind of looks.... weird like he's unsure, or maybe he's disappointed? Nervous? idk

I would understand this to be a little romantic if he smiles, but jesus, he does not crack a single grin at this part.

It almost seems like he's deciding to do something he doesn't really want to. I think he was completely content with the fact that she helped them, but didn't want to do anything about it because he's totally fine being on good terms with her, obviously, but not necessarily on romantic terms with her. Maybe he's fine with the fact she doesn't really want to be with him.

However, after Lucas says this stuff, now he's looking over at her and thinking, wait, maybe she does want to be with me.

But instead of a:

Wow, maybe she does want to be with me! :D

It's a:

Oh, so she does want to be with me.

^basically this means Mike decides, based on his encouragement from Lucas rather than his own feelings, that he should talk to her. What can he say to Lucas here? That he doesn't want to? That isn't really an option for him.

Fourth Thing: Okay this is very small but for some reason this scene is interspersed with scenes of Jonathan and Nancy getting almost killed by the mindflayer army like???

Why would they cut from this very tense scene where these beloved characters are about to be killed to this scene between Mike and El where everything is fine!

It's like.,,,, they want the audience to be tense watching them, even if it's not directly for the right reasons. They want the audience to maybe feel the tension in the foreboding nature of the fact that the mindflayer is in the same building as them, meaning there is always some danger lurking in the background.

Okay hope you enjoyed today's byler evidence :) stay tuned for tomorrow's!

[ace1diots]

Also I finally figured out why “Raise Up Your Bat” gets to me so much, and the answer is the dichotomy of what Ralsei sings vs the actual lyrics.

The lyrics he censors aren’t even inappropriate. They’re not really that at all. They’re kind of middle schooler levels of edgy but i just. I dunno. I think its interesting that he still refused to sing them despite that. Also, something about Ralsei saying the word “kite” and the original word being “night” and the two blurring together for a moment to almost read as “knight” when the lyrics are overlayed.

its like theres a double meaning layered over a double meaning layered over something trying to change the meaning thats inadvertently adding to it. like. what if both sets of lyrics are gonna be relevant somehow. blinks and loses my mind

(more rambles under the cut)

For posterities sake heres a link to the lyrics that contains both the original lines and what Ralsei sings

some of Ralsei’s lyrics are probably just there for nonsense reasons (like. the line about Mites.) but some of this with their additonal layer-over feels. idunno how to put this. almost like a prediction.? im thinking mostly about the festival here.

looking specifically at verse one and ignoring the mites line. the “sun shining brightly” line layered over the “blood gushing bright” line really gets to me for some reason. “Lets get your friends and fly a kite” sounds very festival type activity. i didnt know what to do with the “fur is looking white / future lost its rights” line at first but. toriel, asgore, asriel, even ralsei himself? could be about or related to any them. “raise up your hat for a funny sight/raise up your bat for a burning fight” just fit together perfectly- laying that line on top of the lyric feels like it adds additional context to the original line that was there.

the chorus is interesting because ralsei doesnt change Any of the lyrics. And the additonal added thing of this is the Freedom motif/Don’t Forget motif. it uses parts of Don’t Forget’s lyrics and ideas as well as just referencing it musically. It’s asking you to follow someone (the singer of the song, arguably most likely Dess) into the dark, that they’re with you, and that your heart will guide you through the waves (once again associating dark worlds/darkness with water.)

now lets look at verse 2. The only utdr related ducks i can think of are the small bird that carries you over a large gap and washuwas duck so this might not be relevant or we don’t know what its about yet. “And mom kiss goodnight” my first thought there was well, the end of the undertale pacifist route if you choose to stay with toriel- so this line is probably about toriel loving kris as her own child (that sung over the “blood gushing bright” line reads in very “the player has killed toriel in the past” type of way to me, but i dont know if thats intentional?) “When your pancake’s slowly frying” is about the opening of chapter 4 of deltarune (pared with the “hope slowly dying” line to reflect the new fears of our cast of characters, particularly susie here i think given that she gives a whole speech at the end of chapter 3 about how she hasnt had hope for a while and having friends has finally given her some). “and your future’s really bright/and your future’s lost it rights” is just very Yeah- not much to say about this one but it still feels Relevant to it all. “Bring extra smores to the campsite/raise up your bat and face the fright” this. this line in particular feels about how Dess was lost in the first place- all of them camping out in the woods behind the graveyard until something Happens and Dess goes to protect them, only to be dragged into darkness/the bunker somehow? and the last line of “i bet my friends still want a bite/lets knock em dead into the night!” feels like a proper last hurrah for the song, as well as a reminder that Dess misses everyone just as much as she is missed, and that theres still things that have to be/should be fought for no matter how much/who is lost in the process

[k3n-dyll]

Zionism in TLOU2

I just was talking to my friend about this and I'm sure plenty of people have explained it already but it's just so insane to me that the Seraphites are really meant to represent Palestinians IRL and Neil just thought "Yup, people will believe this".

Before I knew anything about the conflict, when I was playing the game I was just like "Well duh, anyone would be ready to fight tooth and nail against a group that broke a peace treaty and started gutting/hanging their people" but when I realized what it was supposed to represent I just found it a bit funny? Not funny "haha" but funny weird in the way that he tried to make it so that the actions of Israel (the WLF) are justified through his inaccurate, racist, and Islamophobic, representation of Palestinians (Seraphites). And honestly, even the WLF's actions against the Seraphites are still very much not excused in the fictional context of the game, because there is never a reason to gun down children.

There's so much more I could rant about on this topic, but for now, I will just say: Don't buy anything from Naughty Dog. Don't watch the show, and if you must for some reason - become a pirate. Neil Drunkman has donated the money he makes from these games to Israel's genocide before. The strike may end on the 25th but do not stop talking about Palestine. Pay attention so that you are aware of when the next strike takes place. Don't forget, don't ignore.

Also, let this be a reminder that while you may enjoy certain media, and while that's fine, you have to be critical of the media you consume to be sure that you aren't getting caught up in propaganda.

WAYS YOU CAN HELP!!!!

For anyone wanting a better deep dive (and for those saying that its just a "cynical take") please refer to this post and read it thoroughly^^^

[ethereal-engene]

just one kiss | jaemin

pairing: bf!jaemin x gn!reader

genre: fluff, slice-of-life, and humor // warnings: usage of cuss words & not proof-read

summary: jaemin tries to kiss you while his face is basically covered in Vaseline. // word count: 658

note: this is the video for reference/context of this fic!

Jaemin is such an oddball but you love him either way

But even there are sometimes where you can’t help but question who he is

For instance right now where he walks into the room with the happiest smile

You turn around and are greeted with said happiest smiley face

Actually you find him so cute that you almost miss the way his nostrils are shining when the light hits it

Because you’re sitting near a lamp, when he comes in close to give you a kiss

His face just glimmers and you stop him before he gets any closer

Upon closer inspection and also swiping a finger on his face, it’s Vaseline 😭

And he doesn’t think that there’s anything wrong with that so he continues trying to place a kiss on your face

“Na Jaemin. If you think, I’m letting you kiss me with your face full of Vaseline, you’re wrong.”

“But babeeeeeee! It’s just one kiss and I put it on so you wouldn’t complain about my chapped lips. I’ll never forget how you put me on a kiss ban when my lips were chapped. That was the worst week of my life.”

Your head tilts back in laughter as you remember how you couldn’t do anything but focus on his chapped ass lips while he was talking about something

You just zoned out and ended up looking for some Vaseline as he talked.

After finding it, you handed it to him and he thought you were asking him to put it on you but before doing so, he was gonna give you a quick kiss but when going forward, he was stopped by your hand pressing against his chest

“Oh my poor baby, the Vaseline is for your lips actually. They’re so chapped and no way in hell are you kissing me with those lips.”

His eyes widen as he runs to the mirror to check and 💀 true to your words, they were

“You’re not gonna even let me have one kiss?? Isn’t that a bit too cruel? Depriving me of my energy supply and all??”

“Yep! In fact, you’re on a kiss ban until your lips get better. I promise you that no kisses for a while won’t kill you nana! You’re acting like we haven’t kissed in months while you’re on tour or something” a roll of your eyes follow the reply

End of flashback

You wave your finger back and forth in a no motion at him like a child

But Jaemin won’t give up on trying to give you at least one kiss before considering wiping off extra Vaseline

Oh no, this is a challenge and he wants to get at least one kiss in

And this is interesting because his attitude towards games don’t ever seem that appealing to him

So here he is still finding some sneaky way to get some Vaseline on your face

Like caging you in with his hands, hugging/holding you from behind, using his hands to squish your face and bring his in, and many more

To no avail, you’ve dodged all of them

In the end, he ends up almost giving up… he’s got one more trick up his sleeve

Right before going to bed, thinking that he’s wiped it all off or at least from the parts that don’t necessarily need it, he kisses you

“Na. Jaemin. You can’t be serious right now” all said with a hint of annoyance & some ounce of pride in him for not giving up

You smile and kiss him back. It was funny seeing him try so hard to give you a kiss all day

“You’re so lucky I love you Nana but I swear next time, imma find a tissue and wipe it all off.”

“You’re right, I’m so lucky but I’m also very lucky that I’m in love with you. Because who else would put up with my antics like you do?”

Thank you so much for reading this! I just remembered I had this clip of him slathering Vaseline/lip balm on himself and couldn’t stop laughing 💀 I swear I hate him sometimes (affectionate)

If you enjoyed this, please consider leaving a note or reblog with tags and your favorite part about it! You can also send me a dm or an ask <33 they’re all appreciated as much as your support

signing off with love,

- ash

[godfeelscanon]

so what’s your thoughts on transfem Dave anyways? Godfeels has always kinda… not exactly sidestepped the idea, but not yknow, lingered on it very much. I’m a big fan of that character interpretation tbh so I’m curious what your thoughts are!

it's not that we've sidestepped the idea so much as put it on layaway. in general i'm not huge on transfem Dave-- not because i think he's cis, but because it's Dave we're talking about here. he canonically lived with Karkat for more than half a decade before they had their first kiss. this is a dude for whom suppression is an artform. there's no "sudden moment of gender revelation" for him the way there was for June, no magical gender ghost to deliver the answer full formed. in a way he's sort of the opposite.

waaaaay back in the gf3 prologue, Jade hit him with the button that turned him into a cat against his will, but when he returned to being a person he kept the ears and tail as a subconscious acknowledgement that he liked being a cat. but he had no agency in this process. it wasn't something he asked for. i think after you've been trans for a while you'll meet someone who is just SUCH an egg, and every cell in your body wants to blast them with rays until they crack. and you know what, sometimes it works! i'm not an evangelist of the egg prime directive, it very much depends on context and sometimes somebody just needs to get walloped with a big gay mallet. but Dave very much is not one of those people. at least from my read of him, he's the type of guy who takes each step into new territory slowly and timidly, and if you try to hurry him along he's just going to give up and retreat until he can start over again on his own terms.

which is, you know, very catlike behavior. he's kind of a traumatized rescue if you think about it, even going back to him and Karkat on the meteor. it's easy to forget since Dave is such a funny and avoidant character, but he's lowkey got the most fucked up backstory of all the betas and maybe of all the homestuck humans. like the way Bro raised him is so messed up. it really reminds me of videos you'd see at the dawn of youtube, of gamer bros walking up their sleeping cat and then screaming loudly out of nowhere, chasing them around and laughing. if you've ever fostered an abused animal, you know that that kind of treatment leaves a mark and it doesn't come out easy.

so Dave's now in this really interesting position of being totally out of his comfort zone in every way imaginable. fleeing from earth with people he just met on a mission he has no stake in and unable to communicate with his better half for the first time in like a decade, while ALSO having these lingering feline features he very much has not come to terms with. he's started wearing skirts because they're more comfortable for his tail, but he's SO embarrassed about it. and now the people who meet him for the first time, the only version of him they know is the one with cat ears and a skirt. so already before he's even gotten used to artificial gravity, other people are defining his image for him just by bearing witness to how he looks.

this, to me, is not a conflict you resolve by having Dave say "oh wait, i'm a girl."

which is why he's latched onto Dare as hard as he has, and why the both of them have so quickly reverted to the comfort zone of how they used to act when they were teens. there's a boyishness to their friendship right now that is... i mean, god, i might as well say it since we've been circling this drain for a few paragraphs already, it's kind of an age regression arc isn't it? that's not how we've been writing it but in practice that's basically what has happened. both are majorly traumatized and suddenly single, both have a ton of baggage to sort through and have no idea where to start or even what their goal is. sometimes when you're in that situation the only rational choice is to bunker down and act like a kid again until the storm blows over. i like them as a pair because it lets us kind of relitigate classic JohnDave as a concept in a vacuum, but with all these added complexities orbiting around them in the background. gender being, naturally, one of the big ones.

all of which is to say that this is 100% narratively relevant territory that will be touched on periodically as 3.2B progresses. thanks for the great question!

[gingerteaonthetardis]

no sorry but in context the tmmm loco amor scene feels like the craziest shit ever put to screen. lenny bruce is midge's comedy fairy godmother slash agony aunt slash spirit of new york slash part-time innocent flirtationship who she knows nothing about but can read like a book. they meet almost exclusively by accident and never talk about anything that means anything to either of them—unless it is funny. each time they meet, a temporary pocket universe is created to hold specifically them for specifically that moment but it would never in a million years occur to her to seek him out in the real world. so then imagine her seeing him while she's on tour. in florida. where for some reason lenny decides, yes. now. he invites her out for a drink in a few weeks and then shows up to collect twenty-four hours later because he apparently can't wait that long. and he brings her on live television with him and introduces her as his beloved wife (or sister) (but definitely wife) and then immediately after takes her on the most astonishingly sexy and atmospheric date of all time where they do nothing but eye fuck and utterly forget to be funny. and dance. he is so visibly in love with her he can't even engage with her attempted bits. their dynamic is completely wrecked but also completely the same. it's like a fever dream. the universe is still making room for them even though it shouldn't. they're speedrunning falling in love for reasons that do not seem clear to either of them but are also completely exactly right. they don't have sex because it can't be over yet. it just can't. and it was never supposed to happen at all but now they know it has to. someday. (before they're dead.) this happens in approximately half an hour

[erme-maererme]

the funny thing about dragon age is that sometimes the narrative of the game is aware of the narrative of the chantry and separates itself from it, and sometimes the narrative of the chantry becomes the narrative of the game, and it just keeps hopping back and forth in this respect. which not so subtly points to who the writing identifies with and in what contexts.

there's a degree of absurdity to reading codex entries such as "turned the purity of justice into the unthinking hatred of vengeance". it could have worked if it were just the chantry/other characters/even anders himself saying it, but character codex entries are held as the ultimate truth of the game (on par with game mechanics instructions via codex), this particular passage is supposed to function as an argument and explain to the player who anders is. but i argue that it only makes sense within a very particular paradigm. why are "justice" and "vengeance" treated as opposites? why is justice pure and vengeance an "unthinking hatred"? how is the line between the two defined? who defines it?

it is not surprising exactly, christianity and the concomitant discourse have been deeply embedded in the story from the very beginning, but one must keep an eye out for when it rears its head unquestioned by the narrative of the games.

sure, there are instances when the games are critical of the chantry and what it represents, or at least offer the player some roleplaying options in this respect. same for the fade-related things, you have merril’s “spirits are people” which denies this division into demons and spirits as bad and good emotions, in dai you have cole and solas's interpretaion that goes somewhat beyond the chantry's taxonomy of demons.

ultimately, however. cole "the good spirit" or "not really a spirit anymore" lets the templar who killed him (and how many more?) go either way. this is what humanity means, this is what true compassion means, forgive and forget. solas's interpretation merely increases the number of categories of spirits and demons, he still separates them into morally good and bad emotions/concepts. it is curiously close to what has previously been held as the chantry's teachings.

merril is portrayed as eventually proven wrong by the narrative, a pride demon outsmarts her and forces her to kill the keeper and the rest of the clan.

interestingly, other than anders, merril is the only other character (and the two of them are your two main mage companions in da2) whose doom is brought on by a demon. a demon of pride to punish you for trying to restore your culture that has been systematically and most violently erased. a demon of vengeance to bring on your execution for resisting the oppression and annihilation of your people. the conclusion to draw here, other than "trying to change the status quo ends badly, so don't you try anything", is also that the chantry's interpretation was right. and it is quite curious as well that despite blood magic being much more accepted among the dalish (the keeper herself is a blood mage too) than under andrastianism, they treat merril with such hostility for it. or for trying to restore the eluvian. why do they suddenly agree with the chantry?

1 the existence of the blighted magisters (the architect, corypheus), the elves (i'm sorry the elven empire and the evanuris) now being responsible for the blight is also how the chantry was definitely right about something

then, there's the whole schtick with “oh this particular feeling/experience is A Sin”. directly borrowed from the christian tradition. so we have desire demons. and pride demons. the rage demon in the fade who was a mage just way too angry at the oppressors (i reference this note here).

in conclusion, while dragon age offers some room about spirits and demons and the chantry, enough for your alternative interpretation of the text to be a time well spent, the hauptnarrative, the leading idea, remain such as they are. when it matters, the chantry stops being merely a speaker position (that is, one of many perspectives) in the tapestry of thedas. its point of view, its mode of knowing the world is how information is revealed to the player. oh, the chantry meets the sky, why? well, you see, the guy who was fighting to save his people is just too possessed by a demon now, that is the reason. this is where our story has been heading the entire time. a pity the mages could not find a compromise with the fantasy stand-in for fascists templars who intended to kill them all just for existing because of this guy. you are expected to sympathize with the chantry and elthina specifically (sebastian spells it out for you, that's why he is there), it is supposed to be the last straw for hawke to stop supporting anders, this should be a step too far.

it is the sentiment the player might have in relation to the real life equivalent of the chantry that is expected to prevail over your knowledge of elthina's direct complicity and the chantry's ideological and physical support of the oppression that are responsible for creating a regime where it is normalized to order people into prisons to later kill them all without consequence simply for the way they were born. importantly, i mean this not necessarily and solely in the sense of being religious, but in terms of how the player is expected to view hegemonic institutions. within a dominant reading the receiver interprets a text the same way the author does, they have the same blind spots, they define common sense the same way. if we identify the said blind spots and the aspects of the story that are treated uncritically by the narrative, we can glean on the culture (with its ideological dimension) in which the text was made.

2 it has been said before that the most interesting explorations of oppression that dragon age allowed are largely a by-product of the writing approach focused on representing different points of view and allowing a vast range of player choices. it made the games well-written, it did not make them unbiased

3 if everything else is not a hint enough, there is textual evidence that the portrayal of the templars in da2 was inspired by fascism, "the tranquil solution" and "death-squads" are very pointed references to nazis. and then they turn around and expects me to disagree with anders about mage rights. it is absolutely no wonder that the fandom is so divided about him

4 and elthina is certainly complicit. she appointed meredith, she could have removed her from her position (it wasn't just cullen's right to do so), she could have supported the mages. and it's the chantry that promotes this violence, gives it justification and orders it. it is the system elthina is quite successful in and the one that grants the templars the right to enact the annulment

i have set out to write this to explain to myself the dissonance that follows my experience of playing the games, my freedom for interpretation comes with the constant awareness of the story's own views. to recount, in this essay i've established how, despite its occasional attempts to criticize the chantry as a system and analyze various perspectives on it, dragon age treats its narrative as the ultimate truth. the magical lore is regularly used to affirm a point being made about power relations between oppressed groups and the oppressor. they converge to illustrate how attempts to change the status quo or resistance against the oppressive system are punished. to demonstrate that one must simply accept the system. and how, ultimately, the system knows better than you. vigilskept et al (read the tags too, i meant to say) discuss the ties of such ideologemes to colonialism.

in other words, magic and all the related lore are a metaphor, and not a fixed one, it is worth investigating how it is used to support the main narrative and themes. thus, "he is possessed though" or "she did blood magic" are not reasons on their own. they may be presented as self-explanatory by the text, but as a player you need to acknowledge that the fade, magic and spirits are simply narrative tools to amplify the leading idea. so feel free to question them as well.

[rainworld-name-verifier]

Intro post 2.0 go!

This started as a clone of a different clone of the same gimmick, but I’m pretty sure both of those accounts sadly deactivated. Feel free to make your own clone/spin off gimmick account. I love interacting with those.

Don’t take anything I say too seriously, I’m just trying to have fun here.

You can send me names and I will verify whether or not they fit the naming schemes used by slugcats, iterators, and the echoes/ancients/benefactors/whatever you want to call them.

Note that any names sent to me might take up to weeks to be verified, I get hundreds of submissions and have to use a queue to make sure I can get them all verified while still having consistent post schedules.

If you submit a name that I think is really really good and creative, or succeeds in making me laugh out loud, you get the special stamp:

What makes a name valid?

Technically, the iterator names seen in rain world are inspired by concepts used in Buddhist philosophy, but the average rain world fan is not going to know enough about it, so for all intents and purposes here, a iterator name is just made up of a phrase. If you have an inspiration or backstory for said phrase though, feel free to share! Lore you’ve written about any OC’s you’ve given these names is also a very fun thing to see.

Echo names seem to generally follow the same pattern as iterators, but with a bit more strict of naming schemes. Echos are always made up of two phrases instead of one (although spinning top implies that you might earn your second phrase as you get older) both phrases always contain a amount of a subject, (for example, in Six Grains Of Gravel, Mountains Abound, the first subject is gravel, which there are six of, and the second subject is mountains, which is plural so we know there’s at least more than one. Sometimes the amount can even just be a implied 1, like spinning top)

Slugcat names are always simply the word “the” followed by a descriptor of what they do. In a pinch, if you can’t think of anything good, the descriptor, followed by the suffix -cat, also works, although the name change of nightcat becoming the watcher suggests that these names might no longer be valid.

Other creatures in the game don’t have name schemes, so you’re free to call them whatever you want.

What makes a name invalid?

Theres not much that can make a name invalid, sense just a phrase is a pretty broad category, however some names may be more valid than others, for example, pop culture references are usually fine by my standards, in fact I encourage them, however if those references wouldn’t make sense in the context of rain world, they might be considered less valid. (For example, the iterator name: “War Amongst Stars” would be valid because war and stars are both things that are not exclusive to Star Wars, but the echo name: “A Lightsaber, No Small Moon” might be considered less valid, as you would have to assume that lightsabers exist in the rain world universe.

Regular human names like “Bob” or “Frank” or “Tragidieh” are obviously not valid, that goes against the entire point of having a nonhuman naming system.

Other remarks

My main blog is @stinkodude sometimes I post art and stuff there, and occasionally I might repost something from it if I it it’s important.

If I forget to clarify whether or not a name is valid, or simply leave a funny remark or joke about the name, then you can automatically assume it’s valid. This is done to make my job a little bit easier, as well as make the blog more fun to read through.

Rain worlds naming conventions, like the games many other mysteries, aren’t a completely solved puzzle. And things like the introduction of spinning top in the watcher DLC can change our perception on what these people used to refer to each other. This means some posts might get outdated as time goes on. And I’ll try to keep things updated.

Just to recap:

Iterator: (phrase)

Echoes: (amount)(amount)

Slugcat: (the)(descriptor)

Lastly, be civil in the comments please, I may make mistakes, and some people might have different ideas on how close a name has to stick to the source material. In the end, I’m just trying to create a fun place to share OC’s, make jokes, and talk about rain world. None of this really matters anyways, as all is naught but to serve the void…

[lucabyte]

Hello! First of all I love ur art, and because of that I have something to ask you regarding it. This comic has never left my mind for the last year or so since you first posted it and I was wondering where the specific things the characters are saying came from! Even if it's not from anything and you came up with it yourself, I would love to be able to quote the dialogue elsewhere and know who to attribute it to (because the depth of the relatively simple exchange is MASSIVE and I wanna be able to share it with people)

Hiiiiiii :D

Thank u very much hearing that you wanna quote something i made is insane and absolutely go ahead feel free.

and yea! it comes frommmm my brain. i guess attribute it to my username lol?? Unless it's in a context where attributing usernames would be strange in which case uhh dm me im not super precious about my irl name being used i just find it funny to be anonymous. old timey nettiquete n all that I can step you through what i recall my thought process was at least? Lol. I recall it came to me for the most part like, basically fully formed with the exception of flipping the pronoun from 'me' to 'you' happening when i was thumbnailing it.

Thought process below if u want it. it got long and is kind of a ramble but wheee. idk if this would Ruin the Magic or not but i usually enjoy hearing the reasoning of artists so. ?? sure

so. despite being listed as "alt title:" that joke was actually the starting point. I had been thinking about that one tumblr post that goes "one must imagine sisyphus pokemon puzzle challenge gbc" riffing on the whole one must imagine sisyphus happy thing.

and like ive already rambled about the Bonus Depth that siffrin being named for sisyphus has. The whole thing where the *reason* sisyphus got trapped with the rock in the first place was because he cheated death & in the process stopped death for everyone else too. (though. siffrin did that on accident and sisyphyus was. a rascally and intentional little scamp about it. what with the corpse desecration and all (don't get me started on a potential siffrin/loop reading of sisyphys' time spent seperated from and then returning to his gross rotten body. but im sure we could do something there too.))

so id been thinking abt siffrin-short-for-sisyphus for a while and that obviously makes loop the boulder. and the "one must imagine sisyphyus horny" thing is funny and had been in my brain since. i had been thinking about that post.

then it kind of combined with a disguuuuuustingly mushy train of thought . (spurring from *another* previous joke of mine about how siffrin was >on a boat >looked back >shouldn'tve >this is an orpheus) where i had been batting back and forth an exchange in my head of the two of them (postcanon) arguing in circles who suits orpheus/euridice better and that "well you hardly Doomed me by looking back, you saved me." "I could say the same for you!!" which is just. so sacchirine its embarrasing. (so when i used it for this i cut it off at the 'doomed' part for the mid-canon fight implications.)

And then there's just the. like viciously obvious narcissus stuff. Like loop's design is literally inspired by a contemporary piece of art of narcissus. Howeverrrr I had also been thinking about the part of the narcissus myth everyone forgets. Echo. Whose name literally went on to be Our Fucking Word for a copy (with undertones of being a Hollow Copy!!!) which is obviously supposed to be bleak irony re: narcissus falling in love with his reflection. and because i was being blorbobrained i was like hmm. a Copy falling in love with someone whos infatuated with their Reflection. Being so in love with them despite their utter ignoration that both wither and die? Yeah thats . that could be sifloop

so i come up with that first panel's dialogue due to having these three trains of thought in a relatively close timeframe. But its in like a sappy "eaugh too cute while still being oddly nihilistic" manner. The two of them using a rotating list of greek myth allusions as weird pet names for each other wistfully type shit. Again so saccharine i kind of want to not tell u this but i am being soooo honest right nowwww. but yeah i kind of rotate it in my head for a while, while im just wandering around the house doing nothing.

and then as im scolding myself for "oh come on now. three? three *different* greek myths? not everything is your scrimblo bimblo shipping fuel dude." the second half of the dialogue forms in my brain just kind of unprompted and i go "oh . or it could be fucking baller. hold on" and i think i like. made this in only like 3 hours or something scary like that. just got posessed by how sick as hell my wording was and yknow what? i was right it fucks like hell. glad i pounced on it.

but yeah there's the thoughts. overall it was very meandering and disjointed as always lol.

i'm a little mean to myself for calling my readings "surface level" since like. well nah dude they aren't *that* surface level. im just a horrid stickler for Artistic Integrity and Intent. and like as i point out above yeah. there's plenty implications to read into outside of the surface stuff. Narcissus and Echo dying unfulfilled despite being right next to each other, Sisyphus' seperated body and spirit thing & stopping death for *everyone* (and sisyphus being a king. i am never not on sisyphus being a literal king. What A Choice.), and Orpheus and Euridice being a tale of how You Can't Help but be worried for the people you love, how you'll love so much you'll go against the 'rational' thing to do. Very siffrincoded. Also boats. (Also that part where orpheus gets torn asunder by a pack of women. uh. maybe not that part. hmm. maybe that can be mal du pays (<- JOKING))

Honestly there's a major treatise to be said about like. how even though im talking sifloop here i keep implicating the party (the other people sisyphus stopped from dying, the 'loop as orpheus and the party as euridice' read) because they're kind of so viscerally inseperable- especially loop- after having so much other identity discarded that this becomes their Whole Purpose. However best i can really do is just gesture at it ?? and go ????

this kind of mapping is good to do though especially in a deeper sense. a friend of mine still has an outright *biblical* reading of The King up her sleeve that she may or may not detail someday. so . yknow this kind of drawing back to mythology is where my head tends to be at. anyway narcissus was real for that #1 self love king get it dude (watches him atrophy) uh oh

[aries-of-spades]

Ok so I did a li'l project with a fic of mine

Basically, I'd wanted to draw an art peice for every chapter of Zombie Fungus, making them almost like illustrations in a story. This was partially for practice with this sort of thing, and also so I could put them in when I print out my fic to bookbind.

I'd been working on this for a few months, and it was pretty fun choosing what scenes from each chapter were my favorite, or looked the most cinematic in my mind, and then transferring that to drawing.

Also good practice for actually doing thumbnail sketches and using references and values since they're all black and white.

Obviously, spoilers for Zombie Fungus, if you are wanting to read it it's here.

mild body horror for some of these

oki

Chapter 1, I liked the mental image of Scar floating the items w/ his magic.

Chapter 2, bird. To be fair, not a lot happened in that chapter XD

Chapter 3, it was funny trying to figure out how riding a strider would look and realizing it is not comfortable. But I had to draw this scene.

Chapter 4, Abigail ^^ also IDK why but Ren is always hard to draw for me

Chapter 5, I'm actually really proud of this one for some reason XD (dancing zombie-)

Chapter 6, thinking back, I could have done the falling bookshelf for this, and I'm not sure why I didn't. But I still like how this came out.

Chapter 7, I just really wanted to draw the hug.

Chapter 8, this one was oddly fun to do. It was also funny trying to figure out just how a bloody nose would bleed, only to find internet restrictions not liking that search.

Chapter 9, Love me some movement and effects. Looks like an album cover...

Chapter 10, this one was tedious just because of how many people there were. And then trying to get the lighting right.

Chapter 11, I do like this one, though it's hard to tell False is holding a shovel. Also all I can think of while looking at this is creepypastas 'cause that's what I was listening to while drawing it. So I think she's suitably scary, lol.

Chapter 12, I kinda like how the fire came out. Something about Bdubs' face is off, but I don't really know what and didn't want to go back and change it after finishing.

Chapter 13, of course, I had to draw this scene. I had a pintrest board of faling people for this. The movement was a bit hard to get, but I thinked it worked out. Also expression :)

Chapter 14, this one was... fun. I don't know what to say, other than it would be really hard to explain the context XD But I think the details came out nicely. Living pinecone. Also I keep forgetting Ren's sunglasses.

Chapter 15, this one might just be my favorite out of all of them. The values and the circular layout worked well, and the spooky vibes are there. I really wanted to capture the idea of the ghosts without directly stating it, just like when writing that scene.

Chapter 16, I do like this one, though I feel like the values don't have quite enough contrast. It was interesting trying to figure out what exactly the source block would look like, and just trying to get the general atmosphere. But overall, I like it.

I debated doing one for the epilogue, but couldn't decide on a layout I liked. If that changes I will update this lol.

But yeah, they were super fun to work on, and I totally recomend doing this sort of thing with really any story if you want to practice scenes/backgrounds/just making a drawing look like it would be in a book.

[atopvisenyashill]

Not to act like a child snitching to a parent, but I just saw the take 'People throw the word coloniser when it comes to the Targaryens but the Starks are right there, Martin is clearly playing with the themes of European colonialism and supremacy way more with them and their relationship with the Wildlings.' in the year of our lord 2025, and like, man... idk. No one in this fandom has a grasp on anything anymore, and I'm kinda starting to doubt that we ever did.

On second thought, maybe I shouldn't be so pressed about this because I think I might have seen this same person say that it's racist to depict the Starks as non-white, because 'Northerners are described, on text, as savages that look ugly and unruly' before and I just fundementally disagree with them on a lot of levels

Yeah okay, the thing about the "starks are european colonizers of the cotf" stuff is that

this is part of the ongoing trend with Those Types who will completely deny the actual canon people of color that exist as being people of color, like in dorne and essos, while insisting that the little green people are the only "true" indigenous or "of color" representation in the series

will completely ignore the very real way dany is stomping her way through essos on a rationalization that is very similar to a lot of the rationalizations people have used when it comes to colonization and imperialism like ~saving the savages from themselves~ and dany's very unkind and superior feelings about the cultures she is ruling over goes hand in hand with that

i cannot stress this enough but the us government, the canadian government, the spanish, the british, the french, and every single other group you can name that came to the americas did not honor their treaties with the natives. even in places like greenland, where genocide became not possible simply bc of how hard it is to live in greenland so it is the only nation in the americas that has a majority indigenous population, treaties were broken as inuit language, culture, and history was suppressed by Denmark. Do you know what the first men did? they honored their treaties. they stopped cutting down weirwoods and they stopped warring with the cotf, and (as far as we know - i am not opposed to bran finding out more context here that makes the first men look bad tbc!) kept those promises until the andals showed up and chased the first men north. with the information we have about the cotf and the first men - even if you include the idea that the cotf invented the others as a way to stop the fighting with the first men and force a pact - i think it is ludicrous and also, insulting to me as an Indigenous person, to say that these things are similar when the entire reason I live in Chicago and not on Menominee land is because the us government broke every treaty they made with us!

i think it's so funny that in their quest to scream at everyone who reads the First Men as some sort of Indigenous group they wind up regurgitating the exact sort of anti-Northern fantasy racism that Northerners experience in the books. Truly, truly, life imitates art.

Obviously I think everyone throws colonizer and imperialist around way too much which is why I've mostly stopped doing it. But I think something everyone really forgets when getting defensive about the valyrian and targaryen critiques is that like. it's about the extractive relationship between the valyrians/targaryens and the people they conquer, the imbalance of technology which allows for further destruction, the superiority complex (and westerosi people aren't above this, i mean when you look at how absolutely superior they act compared to the essosi, there's a pretty clear western view being explored and critiqued through all of them, not just the targaryens and valyria) and expansionist behavior, and the diffusion of ideological, religious, and political beliefs. like, it's the dragons. it's the incest. and especially imo people will talk about the roman inspiration for valyria and then conveniently ignore that one of the first genocides ever committed was by rome against carthage - and another important note here (to me) is that carthage existed in what is now modern day tunisia, which is part of north africa aka one of regions that dorne is inspired by. there's a reason dorne is is so nervous about the dragons during the conquests and when you look at the carnage of the dragon's wroth and daeron's war and doran's comment that dornish population never recovered from that, i do in fact think we are meant to draw some parallels between the way rome conquered and destroyed their enemies and the way dorne is treated by both the targaryens and the rest of Westeros.

But again, I've pulled back on that a lot, I think this topic is very complex and I also think the one-to-one parallels can be confusing. I think you can, for example, compare a lot of Scottish Independence stuff with Northern Independence, and just like in the real world, that is a fraught and complex topic. There's, firstly, a real gap when it comes to the treatment of lowland Scots and highland Scots, not to mention the far ranging issues when it comes to the assimilation of upper class Scottish peoples into British society at the expense of highlanders, the religious wars that exist all over that area, the fact that Scottish people experienced both a repression of their culture at home but also perpetuated the repression of Indigenous cultures in the Americas and were in fact intimately involved as some of the first settler-colonists in what is now known as North America. I think this tracks really well with the Starks and the Northerners in general, as both perpetrators of politically motivated violence towards the wildlings and victims of it from their southern neighbors, and in fact I would argue this happens frequently throughout history, that A People will act as both perpetrator and victim, because no people are a monolith. But like, trying to get this across when a) i feel like i'm just stupid and too goofy and b) there's clearly people who don't want to listen they just want to say "WELL ACTUALLY YOUR FAVORITE HOUSE IS A COLONIZER HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT" as if this is a stan war and not me trying to have an actual in depth conversation about the way the various cultures in this series interact with each other.

And finally - I have in fact seen people get Real Weird about the wildlings (similar to point 4, people will be like "these are a savage people" just kind of uncritically regurgitating the shit bowen marsh is saying about the wildlings despite the fact that we get an entire book where jon is learning that no, actually, these aren't just mindless savages but a society with its own rules, its own culture, that is very similar to his own and just happened to be very unlucky in where they were born) but like, the northerners being weird and fantasy racist (ethnist? can it be called xenophobia in this case, initially i felt that was imprecise but i think maybe that's the correct word here) towards the wildlings does not negate the fact that valyria colonized like 80% of the known world, that the targaryens are weird and fantasy racist towards dorne, and that dany herself is deeply weird and racist towards the dothraki, lhazareen, and ghiscari. two things can be true at once!

[milkichip]

This is probably over, and I kinda don't care about it anymore, so Imma yap (bored and this is stupid anyway)

I was sent these screenies of ... whatever this is

I don't know what the hell made this fella think that I give a shit about shipping discourse to the point I would bother people I don't know about it. So that's an interesting ... opening to start with.

I'm mainly active on Tumblr, not Twitter. (LOL)

This has been my Twitter bio since ... fall 2024 (the fall I apparently transformed my 18+ into ... an art account). So yes, it has suggestive art like once a month on it, but it's not...an 18+ account. But since I do have bouts of psychosis from time to time (and forget a lot), I did ask people who have been following me for a while if my account was ever 18+ (with the warnings and such), and I just so happened to forget... But they all said "no". Because uh... that never happened.

Of course, I still kept my suggestive art. Because that's what's advertised in the bio.

Here's what my bio was in the summer of 2024. So I guess I just...I'm stupid or can't read.

And the whole angle of me befriending minors on Twitter is...odd, considering that I don't really talk to anyone on Twitter, but I will admit I do call a lot of people "my friend" when I talk to them. Not because I'm friends with them, it's just polite. But uhhh... no, I don't go out of my way to talk to minors. As far as my knowledge goes, I talk to my same 3 friends who are all adults. The only Twitter friends I have.

Speaking of 18+ accounts, I do have one

There is 18+ and NSFW on this account that I made in fall 2023. (?)

BUT no, I don't have an 18+ for talking to minors on and an 18+ account for adults. I'm not that far gone.

My screenshot is on the right, theirs is on the left, but this was the "proof" that I'm sexually harassing a guy this person knew for over a year. It turned out to be my friend (my actual friend, haha) of 2-3 years. Screenshot of a conversation in a voice call taken way out of context as my friend was saying stuff like that first, and I just reciprocated because. Friends do that. So the only proof of all of these claims (as the rest have no proof whatsoever, go figure) was just not proof of anything at all. But me having friends. And he didn't want to start beef, not because he's scared of me or anything, but literally just he didn't have a problem with me.

Weird to try to convince my friend that they are a victim of me talking to him how he talks to me. Hey, what's the difference between me and him to the point that he would be a victim of sexual harassment, but I wouldn't? Hmmmmm...

Also, he told me because I asked, because we are friends. No, the mods didn't tell me it was my friend's screenshots. I kind of don't talk to that many people on the internet (stated before), so I know what my friend's DMs look like. And how would it be useful for the mods, or anyone else for that matter, to believe everything claimed about me without proof and then kick me from spaces I'm settled in?

I got confirmation of the person who made the claims from the mod, yeah. Not the screenshots, though.

I can understand boundaries and respect them really well but while I have stated multiple times (since like 2021 until now) that I don't really like and I'm not receptive to sexually charged replies to my art it's funny coming from the person who completely ignored all that shit and then

also

c'mon bro, pronouns are a simple boundary too, right there in the server

Yeah, that was an annoying thing to have to deal with for like. A week. Some of my posts started getting flagged after I stayed on the server too.

Two of my posts got removed, too, and yeah, I'm still upset about that (could be a coincidence, bro)

I'm not asking you (1 reader) to care, btw, cause I don't. You shouldn't either, frankly

It is just a very funny thing to happen to me over telling one person (it was not the insect person 💔 I don't know this fella) to stop badjackting queer people you don't like over ships. and then got badjacketed over that lmaooooo I didn't even have to ship anything. I think that was the "shipping drama that I started" like two months before they tried to tell the moderation team of a Discord server that I'm favorable of minors.

I don't really got a reason to believe this hasn't been done before and I just wasn't told, but y'know. It is what it is bru

still bored