#anyway back to your regularly scheduled programming

[mysteriouspersonrambles]

Stimming isn’t enough I need to explode

[arcane-vagabond]

Listen, I don't like the way I look half the time, but I WILL say that I have pretty great tits

[cannedheet]

//dear god. i hate when media (books, specifically) write a female character brushing her long, curly hair (that she wore down when she slept) and how the brush usually just. goes through???? that is NOT how that works. brushing long curls is a horror known to both dog groomers and people

[thepunkmuppet]

random but it has to be shared!!

basically by some freak of nature (he sits on the opposite side of the room) I got put in a group with The Fittest Man In My Class yesterday and I mean he’s in a relationship so I’m not gonna DO anything (as if I would anyway lmfao) but man. hot people you will always be famous <3

[crusheswhimsandfancies]

[front-facing-pokemon]

[soybean-official]

The parts of you that support me

[glowingsand]

my cutieful :(((

[mr-avocado-man7]

did this instead of working on my past due art projects

^ this is what it’s in reference to btw please do not take this seriously 😭😭😭😭

[strawberriesatan]

I loved drawing this but I was fighting for my life with Laxus, why is he so ugly I heart him so

[hurrakka]

Violet Mizutsune Leon and Thunderlord Chris

Every time I'm at that cutscene in RE6 all I could think of are the monster hunter turf wars and this has been eating away at my brain so uhhhh ye had to get it out of my system lol

[xx-j4nu5-c4t5-xx]

got bored and drew the flour sack

[mumms-the-word]

Duke Belynne Stelmane and the Emperor

currently reading lore stuff about mind flayers for an upcoming deep dive and anyway here's some depressing content about how the Emperor turned Belynne Stelmane into his thrall (probably)

This is not Hot New Lore or a Brand New Theory by any stretch of the imagination, but hear me out

Remember when Wyll talks about meeting Stelmane? How he only saw her twice, but the second time she was very different? They attribute her changes to a stroke.

Wyll: I met her twice. The first time, I was a boy of seven or eight, at a banquet in the Flaming Fist's honour. One look and I was smitten. Chesnut hair that flowed behind her like willow fronds. She floated from one room to the next as if carried by clouds. The second time, Stelmane was...different. Even with the aid of a cane, each step she took was a struggle. Every word she spoke took great physical effort. 'A stroke victim?' I asked my father later. 'No,' he said. 'A stroke survivor.' Not a mere stroke, as it turns out - but the scars of her possession. Gods, what I wouldn't give to drive a dagger through the Emperor's building head. We can never let it do to us what it did to Stelmane.

The last part, the part where Wyll realizes that it was more than a stroke, is conditional upon you calling the Emperor out for possessing or messing with Stelmane, which is when the Emperor literally shows you him possessing her.

Note the glowy purple eyes and then later the mechanical movements, the fixed stares, the way Stelmane toasts the Emperor as if moved by puppet strings. Her gestures are stiff, as if she's being controlled.

Wyll and his father attribute Stelmane's movements to being part of a stroke. Slurred speech and difficulty moving parts of your body are stroke symptoms, so it's a convenient explanation for her change in behavior and her difficulty with movement and speech. But possession?

No, dear readers, I don't think the Emperor was possessing Stelmane. I think he genuinely made her a literal thrall.

(please excuse the horrible quality lol)

From Volo's Guide to Monsters on Mind Flayers:

A thrall-to-be is first rendered docile through psionic means. Using a low-power version of its Mind Blast ability, the mind flayer bombards the victim with energy that washes through its synapses like acid, clearing away its former personality and leaving it a partially empty shell. This step takes 24 hours. Over the next 48 hours, the illithids rebuild the victim's memories and personality, and the victim gains the skills and talents it needs to perform its intended function.

A Mind Blast that "washes through synapses like acid" sounds a lot like a stroke-adjacent experience to me. Strokes attack the brain, causing parts of the brain to literally die (usually due to a lack of blood flow or oxygen). It could explain Stelmane's stiff movements.

The "clearing away" of her personality and the suggestion of "rebuilding" her memories would also be extremely useful to the Emperor. Rather than exerting the mental energy to possess her all the time, constantly keeping her under concentrated surveillance, all he had to do was literally break her and then rebuild her. She becomes a Stelmane that is only partly herself, and empty shell that he can mold as he pleases.

This is veering into headcanon territory, but I imagine if it was just basic possession, she would move a little more fluidly and naturally than she does in the Emperor's memory. She wouldn't be exhibiting movements and speech that mimic stroke symptoms. That, and there is always the potential she could break free of possession.

But if she's a full-on mind flayer thrall, broken and rebuilt? An empty husk that has had her memories and personality pumped back into her, still under the control of the Emperor? That makes a ton of sense to me. There's no snapping out of that. As the Emperor says when he threatens you...she becomes a puppet.

And the fact that he keeps the threat of doing the same to you in his metaphorical back pocket at all times is honestly quite terrifying.

[flandesuka]

tl;dr here's my thoughts on the game awards this year

[kennywhoremega]

A picture a day until Jay White wins a championship: Day Four

[pynkhues]

Alert! Positive, sincere engagement into your inbox <3.

…I have no words for this whole scenario except to say 1. take care of yourself and your family 2. Your mom sounds like an absolute beast of a mom and I love that for you (I miss my mother every day) and 3. When you say this says a lot more about the aggressor, you’re absolutely right. Projection is a very real thing and I hope they can find what they need, but it very clearly isn’t all-of-this.

And really, if anyone read your writing, I hope the takeaway would be the shock that they’ve known a sleeper wordsmith this whole time and had no idea :).

Thank you, truly ,and thank you to everyone who sent DMs, comments and asks (a few I haven't included, just because I'm a little concerned they might've been a bit provocative, but I'm still grateful to you for taking the time to send them), I really do appreciate it a lot. It's been really lovely to be reminded that for every one person who'd reach out to harraass and threaten, there are so many more who'd reach out with kindness, support, advice and their own stories.

I'm okay. I went for a really beautiful, long walk through the botanical gardens this morning to clear my head, caught up with some friends, and then came home and cleaned my house (very therapeutic for me, haha). Now I'm just hoping to leave it at yesterday, and hopefully everyone can just move on.