#are pretty spooky no matter the context

[crowdsourcedloner]

18. Has your OC ever had a prophecy made about them? Was it a big deal or did they ignore it? Was it straightforward or cryptic? Did it ever come to pass or did they circumvent it?

Yomi left home due to a prophecy about her, though she didn't know it at the time.

Her mother was a skilled oracle, divining prophecies and fortunes for whoever approached her and offering them sage wisdom or guidance from the kami. She loved her only daughter dearly and sought to pass on all she knew in time, but a dark portent made itself known far before Yomi's training was complete. The prophecy stated that Yomi would be held dear by those that are kin to destruction - what form that destruction would take was unclear, though. Yomi's mother had to make a choice between keeping her daughter and protecting her village, and she chose to protect the village. She sent Yomi on a pilgrimage to "better understand the world and kami inhabiting it" and imposed exile upon her once she left.

Yomi is not able to return home because of it, but she's made a life with Zezene and the others. Her friendship with the Warrior of Light is something she wouldn't give up for the world, prophecy or not.

[windienine]

on soul of sovereignty, ysmé the exalted, and gender presentation.

so! soulsov. soulsov and gender identity.

on my second playthrough (a livestream with friends), somebody pointed out that ysmé scanned to her as trans woman. i asked why, and we ended up in a conversation that lasted long into the night and notes for an analysis post i'd make at some inchoate point in the future.

that inchoate point is today!!

below the cut are some explorations into ysmé's character, her past, and potential intersections with gender identity. spoilers for the prelude ensue. if you're planning to play the game yourself in any capacity, i gently urge you to do that now before reading further. :)

I. YSMÉ, PRESENTATION, AND SPECTACLE

Ysmé is a practiced mage whose highly idiosyncratic use of artisanry (constructive magic) as a body mod is vital to how she chooses express herself as a person. She's out to become God and/or die trying.

We get introduced and reintroduced to Ysmé a whopping seven times throughout the prelude alone. In order, we are presented with her:

as a thief, stealing from a church,

as a sickly damsel, at the Lamplight,

as a treasure-hunter, when her guise starts to falter,

as a crazed mage, when she holds Loïc at gunpoint,

as a spooky ghost, when she is stabbed,

as a goddess, when she ascends,

and, finally, as a tired and scarred woman in the epilogue.

In many of these circumstances, how she appears to others is something she gets to dictate. Most notably, this factors into her choice to take the guise of a frail, sickly maiden` to better court the goodwill of Loïc (who she's already designated as a mark for this kind of act)

and when she later reveals her "true self" in the middle of the Hollow Temple to awe and frighten him. Here, she's in her full clowngirl glory! You can tell that she's spent time poring over every little flourish of this outfit, down to her nails matching the color of her facepaint. It's tacky, it's maximalist, it's sensual, it's a little unsettling, and boy is it everything. This is Ysmé qua Ysmé, and she makes sure you know it with the impact this one scene makes.

Even when we see her put together a look as a literal goddess, we get so much ostentatiousness that points exactly to what kind of person she wants to be seen as!

Two faces, one beneath the other, victory beneath a pulled-aside mask of tears. Fuller lips, fuller lashes behind a mask of smudged makeup. Eyes on her tatas because who the hell is there to tell her not to. She gets scene after scene where we get to see that she curates every single aspect of her appearance, and as someone who takes on many of the signifiers of a stage performer, she cares deeply about the kind of mask she chooses to wear.

Nothing here is accidental. Everything about how she genders herself is purposeful!

II. GHOST YSMÉ... (HEAVY SIGH) AND ALSO LANGLAIS'S ACCOUNT

The first time we see a version of Ysmé who isn't carefully curating her presentation using glamours, it's when she is quite literally dead. Along with wild hair and a body made of ghostly flames, she has a broader, straighter build than she had in any of her past guises (plus a gaping stab wound.)

It's our first hint that Ysmé's use of "glamour" goes beyond just a change of outfit and hairstyle. For friends more observant than I was on my first playthrough, this was the first "wait hold on is this an art style thing or is Ysmé being telegraphed as transgender, here?" moment.

There's one other named character appearing in the prelude who already has his own idea of who Ysmé is prior to the plot, and that's Langlais-- a police officer pursuing Ysmé at the behest of the Church of the Builder.

He quickly demonstrates himself to be pretty repugnant.

Regarding Ysmé's skill with artisanry, he remarks:

From context clues laid out in the wider text, "artisanry" is a magic based around weaving physical matter out of nothing. It is used in construction, art, and the production of goods, generally at a slow, measured pace, making one object at a time. Constructs made with artisanry are meant to be durable. It seems to be the main form of magic taught within the Mosaic, and its creation-based theming seems appropriate to the Builder writ large.

Ysmé's favored use of it (weaving entire new outfits and tools out of thin air, trading durability for speed and flexibility) is considered non-standard and low-brow-- "illusions" that are deceitful or childish in nature. Loïc has been mislead, he warns.

Langlais feels justified in treating Ysmé like some backyard nuisance that needs reining in and Loïc like a wuss for flinching at the sight of a gun, despite him having taken a demonstrably very real bullet from Ysmé's demonstrably very real (if spontaneously generated) handgun just the day before. It all clashes from what we've seen and the inferences we're meant to draw about how Ysmé uses magic--

however temporary, however breakable, Ysmé's "illusions" are to be taken seriously. I think that the way in which she chooses to modify herself should be included here, along with the possibility that that's not exactly an intended use case for artisanry.

In addition, when initially interrogating Loïc, he refers to Ysmé like this

implying that he believes that "Ysmé" is some sort of fake name or alias.

III. BODY DYSMORPHIA

The scene after Ysmé comes down off of her holy high and wakes up ass-naked in god-knows-where, having been assigned to do god-knows-what by the Voice of the Sovereignty, holds a lot of interesting implications for Ysmé in particular.

We get this remark from her internal narration:

Okay, so this is generally the first thing she does when she wakes up. Before doing anything else with her day, she uses artisanry to change her appearance. There are plenty of reasons why this could be the case (vanity, status as a wanted criminal, etc.), but the emphasis on it in this scene makes me believe the text is indicating that Ysmé might suffer from dysphoria and/or dysmorphia.

We get a good look at her in the very next CG, along with the one after, showing us an Ysmé with a different appearance than any of the guises we've seen before...

Ysmé, without any glamours or illusions being sustained, is an androgynous figure, akin to her ghost form. Still quite pale, still a skinny little thing, but the entire cut of her face and all of her body proportions are pretty different than, say,

any of this, in scenes where she's in full control of how she gets to look using magic.

Frankly, she looks like "mysterious elven prince" material, and it contrasts quite a bit with how she presents herself in the temple especially.

For now, I'm not going to go into any supplemental materials like the sketches and paintings featured on GG's blog, but they play with Ysmé's presentation on the regular there as well.

The conclusion I feel like I'm supposed to draw from all of this is that Ysmé is a transgender woman who uses her unique skill for artisanry to change her appearance to whatever she feels suits her. She is not necessarily comfortable being seen or seeing herself without a glamour on, but in this scene she is too spent to do anything about it.

IV. HAHA HEY GG WHERE ARE YOU GOING WITH THIS

BUT, that is not where the game ends. The prelude leaves us on a stinger.

A lone figure stands over an altar, praying to the Builder that His lost children, swayed by the Devil, may yet find their way.

The camera then pans over a figure that looks nearly identical to the Ysmé we saw a scene ago (albeit without any scars), right down to the soul-stealing blue eyes, fancy hair part, and really good clavicles. They open their eyes in response to the prayer.

So far, we've got very little context for this. It appears to take place in the same church as the opening scene where Ysmé is caught stealing, but we don't know who this person or the figure in the church is, and we don't even know if this is happening concurrently to the prior scene or if this is a flashback.

It's still of interest, I think. Something that didn't catch my eye the first time around and that I still didn't quite process until I saw the isolated CG on GG's blog:

Hey, check out that carved idol (presumably of the Builder himself?) right in the center of the goddamned church-- a familiar cut of the jaw, and a familiar hair part. Ysmé doesn't just look the part of a prince, she quite literally looks like an incarnation of the Mosaic's creator deity, who is exclusively referred to using masculine terms.

If the person in the end CG isn't Ysmé, then who is it? Why do Ysmé and this person both heavily resemble the Builder?

I could draw all sorts of conclusions about this from the text as written so far, but the one that feels most relevant here is this: if Ysmé is indeed "meant" to look like the Builder, if she was made to serve a very distinct purpose, if she was at some point meant to serve as a living vessel for His will,

wouldn't that put any decision by her to trans her gender in a very narratively relevant light?

Wouldn't that put her decision to leave the Mosaic and seek the Sovereignty in a very different light?

Wouldn't that mean that the story that she told Loïc on the way to the Hollow Temple (fleeing a religious family to serve a higher purpose-- even if it's just for herself) was technically true, after all?

If nothing else, it would put into perspective why a Church lapdog such as Langlais has been ordered to pursue her, along with a fully mobilized police unit in tow.

This pretty quickly takes a flying leap into the realm of speculation on my part, but I'm sure there's some connection between all of these similar elements and I'm interested in how it plays into Ysmé's character.

V. LOÏC, AND CONCLUSIONS

Let's jump back to that scene of Loïc and Ysmé waking up together.

None of this seems to come as much of a surprise to Loïc, who gives her the cloak off his back for modesty and regards her kindly despite the kind of day she has just put them both through. There's never any demand from him for her "real" name, no demand that she explain herself further, and certainly no shock about her appearance.

I'm inclined to agree with Loïc's read of the situation, here.

Ysmé is demonstrably a pretty poor liar. The dying ingenue act doesn't have much in the way of substance to it-- certainly not enough to buoy her through several conversations and a mutant wolf encounter with Loïc on the way to the Hollow Temple-- but the speech she gave in the forest about wanting something better for herself, a second chance away from a controlling family

struck a chord with Loïc. Despite it having been woven into her ongoing wicker basket of lies, there's a glimmer of something true, there. Ysmé wants the capital-S Sovereignty-- and lowercase-s sovereignty over her future and what she gets to make of herself.

Judging from her seeming unfamiliarity with the outside world, it might not be something she's ever had before.

None of her presentations by themselves comprise a complete snapshot of who Ysmé is as a person. However, they are different parts of the elephant, so to speak-- there is flicker of truth in each of them. After seeing several, Loïc decided that the fuller picture they form isn't one of the kind of person who would doom humanity.

He doesn't truly know her, yet, no. However, I think he has decided what he has seen of her paints a picture of a lonely, long-suffering, malcontented queer lady who, indeed, as mentioned by the pastor (?) figure in the first CG...

... has a heart. More alike to his own than different, even. In every form she's taken, she's revealed a little more about who she is and who she would like to be seen as. (For the record, I also feel like there are a few parts of the text that imply Loïc is his own flavor of trans and/or queer, but that's a much bigger leap and would deserve its own post)

I'm not sure how much all of these inferences will be backed in the final release. In Loïc's words,

Thank you for reading!

(your honor, i love her.)

[woundlingus]

Colour Grading, Insincerity, and Loki is right and Gabriel is wrong; a Lokiel Meta

It’s the big gun, it’s the mother lode of me ripping apart Unfinished Business frame by frame to feed my shipping and laying out all my thoughts on the matter clearly as can be so maybe I can sway some people sitting on the fence or at least give some context to those who see my posts and go “wtf” because they’re not viewing this through the lens of my insanity. Want to know why these guys haunt me? Here;

Credit where credit is due, the one thing I’ve always really liked about supernatural is how they use colour grading to tell the story, and it’s not really all that secretive that the Gabriel episodes look aesthetically like some of the best episodes because they colour them very specifically to set the tone for them;

Fun

Nonsensical

Insincere

The three big tells that something trickster is afoot in the episode, (and I apologise for the scuffed quality on some of these, I’m skating the tumblr upload rules).

(Tall Tales 2x15)

(Mystery spot 3x11)

(Changing Channels 5x08)

It tells us that whatever is currently happening typically feels very real to those experiencing it, but is actually not at all. This is make believe. It’s a figment of Gabriel’s imagination that he’s whipped up at his own convenience to tell the story he wishes to impart upon the narrative. While this is obvious in the earlier season when they’re still shooting on film and using the dark overlays to create a spooky ambiance, it still follows through to the end for Gabriel until he puts down the trickster label and picks back up the archangel one and officially joins the Winchesters bringing him into the same dark coloured world that we’re used to viewing. There’s a sadness in it, that Gabriel went from all these bright colours to essentially having his spirit snuffed out by Asmodeus, but it gives us a very clear point to reference when things are real and when they’re make believe.

Obviously Gabriel is a liar, we’ve all known that to be true since his very first appearance- but there’s one incident that I talk about often that bothers me deeply but I’ve never really explained why.

The hotel with the rest of the trickster gang.

Gabriel tells this story three times in a pretty short time span- short enough for Dean to remember and call him out on it in the moment, and every time he tells it the story is altered ever so slightly.

I was alone with porn stars in Monte Carlo

I was alone with Loki and Co in Monte Carlo

I was with porn stars AND Loki n Co in Monte Carlo

He’s always been a very unreliable narrator, but this one was particularly on the nose and when it comes to “continuity errors” Gabriel is always aware of them, he does it on purpose because he wants to get caught. We should ask the question, why did it take you three attempts for us to hear this?

He tells his final iteration of the story in grand bright colours, telling feats of his sexual exploits and how good he is at cards, “and then everyone clapped and cheered for me” and then Loki Judas betrays him because Gabriel is so cool and his brothers are so tough and Loki was scared witless and hoping to avoid bloodshed blah blah blah…

Here’s what the real world looks like in comparison to Gabriel’s little fantasy he’s got running here-

This matches the rest of supernatural, this is a realistic portrayal of events through the eyes of Sam and Dean. This is the bitter reality Gabriel is avoiding with his fantastical little displays; he’s a broken little man who is hurt, injured, and scared.

So, Loki tells another variation of this story, yes? Gabriel was the betrayer here, not Loki. Gabriel ran out recklessly and while passing world saving information to the Winchesters, both saving the world AND the vast majority of Loki’s family, he cannot convince Odin to leave and he dies in battle (and like, he would’ve gone to Valhalla can we just unclench a little?). That is why Loki chooses to damn Gabriel to Hell with a very reckless move to attempt to take down an archangel, sell him to a demon, and then cross his fingers and pray his bestie- the 6th most powerful thing in all of creation ever- doesn’t break free from this pitiful demon eventually and come looking for him. But the environment tells another story, look;

It’s the return of the high vibrancy filter, because this room isn’t real, Loki isn’t real, and neither is the story he’s telling. What are the tricksters, if not liars and showboats?

There’s a huge lack in vulnerability which is what they’re both trying to paint over in these scenes to make themselves cool, to make themselves the victim, to make themselves untouchable. Loki tells a half cocked story about the archangel bastard who took his father, completely detached from any real sort of attachment to Gabriel or Odin- even says himself that he hates Odin! And in a story where we know the ending is Gabriel at the hands of Asmodeus he spends ninety nine percent of the story talking about pornstars. They cannot be vulnerable with these outsiders watching them, they also don’t seem to want to admit to themselves what the crux of the issue is here.

They both want to be the ultimate victim of the situation, they’re painting these half done stories trying to convince an audience (Sam and Dean) that doesn’t care that they are right and the other is wrong—

Until they meet each other;

You can lie to everyone, but you can’t lie to yourself.

We’re back, grounded in reality in this moment when they come face to face with each other, the lighting darkens and becomes gritty once more meaning all facades are down and what’s transpiring here between them is without tricks, and there’s an honor in that when it is a battle between two very clever tricksters who could make this endlessly complicated if they wanted to. When they fight, Gabriel is next to silent (listening, or trauma response? You can decide) and Loki does all his talking for Gabriel and Gabriel alone. They have no one to impress here, they sent the Winchesters on a fools errand to have this moment alone creating a tense intimacy where Loki shreds Gabriel’s facades and calls him out for what he truly is and lays out his deep rooted fears and secrets bare, letting us as the outside party they’re unaware of know that what the two of them were here wasn’t some ordinary friendship or half cocked deal out of desperation, but a real and honest bond between two beings terrified, alone, and looking for safety and someone to confide in. They’re each others secret keepers. Long time confidants. Their most trusted. The reason both of them ran to begin with, in a plan that would involve them wrapping themselves so tightly around the other they’d become one in all ways but physical, and promise to keep each other and that secret until death do them part.

It is bloody, and messy, and Loki has no real way of winning this fight because he cannot hurt Gabriel in any way that matters because he’s an archangel and whether he takes damage or not he will live because of the way he was made, only one of them is killable here and only one of them has any intention of killing the other and it’s not Loki. It’s never been Loki. Ever faithful Loki.

They made a vow, and maybe it was childish and unrealistic but that’s what the two of them are by nature are they not? Fickle, childish, and endlessly devoted. To their families, to their lovers, to their fathers, to each other.

Loki should run at this point, if he has any intention of wanting to live. He’s not stupid, he knows Gabriel better than anyone else in the world and Gabriel acknowledges this by how hurt he is emotionally by the way Loki talks about him and the secrets they’ve passed over the thousands of years they’ve known one another. He’s smart enough to know sentiment won’t save him here, it didn’t save his sons, Sleipnir tried that already and it failed spectacularly. Gabriel is here to kill him, and when you take into consideration the wild power imbalance here in this battle what Loki is doing is essentially laying his head down on the chopping block for Gabriel. He’s a smart creature to survive this long, he could be gone if he really wanted to be just like the many times we watched Gabriel disappear.

He doesn’t.

To me, the crux of their story here is abandonment. You left me. Gabriel made the choice to break his vows, and chase after a family he left behind and even though YES it was for a noble reason that is still nothing when it was a personal stab in the back to Loki who also left his family behind to run away with Gabriel and didn’t go for Odin even though the call was put out to Loki to join the gods for the evening.

Loki didn’t go for his family, but Gabriel did.

Loki didn’t go to save his father in an event they were both invited to, Loki had the opportunity to go and save Odin and he chose his bond to Gabriel over saving him. Gabriel discarded his vow and went anyway, and Odin died.

Gabriel betrays Loki, and it’s not that Odin died, it’s that Loki was willing to sacrifice the opportunity to save him and Gabriel couldn’t say the same for his own family. Odin died for nothing, when Loki could’ve been there the whole time to come get him, and he was robbed of that opportunity while Gabriel went behind his back to do exactly that for his family.

Loki was faithful to his own detriment, and Gabriel was not.

Gabriel is punished fairly in Loki’s eyes because this isn’t just about some deadbeat dad (who chained Loki in a cave to torture him). This is a slight of a much more intimate nature. This was a betrayal of the worst kind.

Gabriel is unfaithful.

Everyone knows that Asmodeus is the demon Prince of lust, but in a little more detail that’s not entirely what makes him up. The cardinal sins are the worst because they are what you inflict upon others, an upon your very soul. Lust is something inherent to the condition of just being alive, but the sin is in the act of hurting others and yourself, so the vast majority of what Asmodeus is imagined ruling over is the adulterer, he is most often the one depicted punishing the unfaithful. Loki wasn’t just looking for a way to hurt Gabriel for the sake of inflicting pain, the trickster is never like that. The trickster doesn’t strike just to maim. Loki is sending a very explicit message to Gabriel by giving him to Asmodeus of all people;

“You were unfaithful.”

— Okay, maybe it’s wrong to say that Loki had every right to do what he did because it was definitely still A LOT to do to someone, but it’s far more understandable when the emotional weight of Gabriel’s crime is made clearer. You probably shouldn’t torture anyone ever for any reason— I’m avidly anti-torture— but dick move Gabriel…

And look, yeah they both sleep around and invite porn stars and hookers to the hotel rooms and what not and I certainly will not hang my ‘Gabriel is a bad person here’ hat on the human morality of monogamy because I think it’s shallow and a disservice to the kind of bond the two of them actually have, but there’s an extra added pain in it that Gabriel also turns up for his ex girlfriend in this situation who is willing to betray him for basically a can of pop but not for Loki who will let Odin die to protect Gabriel.

Gabriel comes back, and he offers no apologies because he isn’t capable of learning his lesson, he is selfish by nature (Also the inherent message of the nature of Hell and torture being one that is wholly unnecessary and cruel, punishment never breeds change internal or societal, you can’t change and reform under immense duress it just further traumatises and keeps you locked in the cycle, the system of Hell shouldn’t exist period). Instead, Gabriel comes to kill Loki’s boys so he can watch them struggle and die first before Gabriel delivers the final blow to the man himself. Would you want to live after all of that either, entirely alone without your family or the one who loved and understood you the most- or so you thought?

And could Gabriel live with it either, knowing the punishment didn’t fit the crime but that Loki had a point (see script) and he wasn’t innocent either and it’s cost him everything because now he gets to look at what it was he saved and it’s a brother who seeks him out in the dark just to torment him about his abuse?

And the story ends circular here, devastating me personally even further by twisting the knife.

Gabriel ran away because his family was so horribly broken, and Loki took off with him to escape his torture. Together they made the plan to become one and Gabriel could use Loki’s face and name to hide among the pagans, and his archangel might to take all the hits being thrown Loki’s way and keep him hidden, because no one’s going to fuck with the god who has the freaky new upgrade and just escaped the slammer. Slowly over time what was Gabriel and what was Loki had melded into two very similar personalities, a little different based on their life experiences, but still so the same they were indistinguishable to everyone but each other.

The core difference between them is their life experiences.

Until Gabriel comes back, tail between his knees and asks Loki to please take him back and let him resume playing the ‘Loki’ character, and Loki says sure, and he binds him and and subjects him to torture at the hands of Gabriel’s very own snake in the cave. Mouth stitched shut. “Be me, then,” He says. “Be me in my entirety.”

And Gabriel comes back after this, bitter and angry and he picks up a weapon and he starts knocking Loki’s family down piece by piece, stalking them through the night no matter how far they run, to make sure Loki’s family is as broken as his own before he delivers the final blow to end his life.

Loki’s family as shattered as Gabriel’s, Gabriel as shattered as Loki himself. Fully one in death.

[hoeswater]

I'm Talking about MagPod and Archives Again

I know that those of us in the middle of the Venn diagram of “Magnus fans” and “People who actually know how archives work” have really given Jonny a hard time about the way that the Magnus Institute archives and artefact storage are shown as working (or, I mean, not working) in the podcast. Not just in terms of best practices (where) but also like… archives can be spooky, it can be a spooky job, but not really for those reasons, you know? Anyway, I think that Protocols Episode 9 actually engages with the archives’ role as an archives in a way that’s really, really interesting. Qualifications: I’m almost done with my master’s in Library and Information Science/Archives Management and have been working in actual archives of various types for a year and a half. 

Specifically, I’m really interested in how Dice Guy engages with the horror within the context of the donation process. We hear a lot about the horror that objects in this universe cause while they’re still in the possession of their pre-Institute owners-slash-avatars, and a lot about the horror that these objects cause when they’re mishandled (looking at you, Jon “It is Remarkably Easy to Buy An Axe in Central London” Sims) while being stored at the Institute, and every now and again we get to see Jon or Gertrude accept or turn down an offered object (the teeth apple, Eric Delano’s page, etc) in TMA. But this is one of the only places in the podcast(s) where the process of donation and acquisition registers as a part of the horror story for the people giving or receiving the object. I’m thinking specifically about the beginning of the “statement proper,” where the statement giver says:

“So yeah, I tell you all about them, how I got them, all that crap and you just… You take them away, right? You accept them. Good. I think. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. It’s how it worked for me, at least. Put them in whatever vault you like, bury them, drop them in the ocean for all I care. All that matters is that they’re yours now.” 

At surface level, this disclaimer seems pretty similar to some of the other things that statement givers say in TMA: I just need to tell someone, I just need somebody else to know, You have the power to do something about this and I don’t, etc. But this statement differs from the ones we saw in TMA because it’s not just about catharsis or reaction to a terrible thing happening; it’s the actual change of ownership of the dice that gives this moment meaning within the horror story for Dice Guy. And this hinges on the fact that Dice Guy, like a lot of real-life people, sees the purpose of an archives as being locked vaults designed to keep non-expert people away from things they don’t know how to handle, rather than their actual purpose, which is to preserve things for the express purpose of making them accessible to the public. I imagine that the Magnus Institute, if it were real, would have some pretty strict access policies due to, you know, special circumstances– the stuff it holds generally having the ability to kill or maim or otherwise make people’s lives miserable– but it’s fun to think about. If Dice Guy had understood the fact that archivists and staff and conservationists and sometimes researchers interact* with the materials in their care, would he have still donated the dice? Was he at the point where it didn’t matter who got the bad luck, as long as it wasn’t him, or was he leaning on the stereotype of archives being locked vaults as a way to absolve himself of the guilt of giving the dice away to a person, because people use the things they're given and he thinks archives don't? 

It also raises some interesting questions about ownership. Real archivists think about the ethics of donation, acquisition, and ownership a lot. What does it mean for somebody to give something to an archive? What does it mean to accept it, therefore a) accepting responsibility for the preservation of the object and b) assigning cultural/historical/ideological value to it? This is where TMAGP comes pretty close to real archival theory: Dice Guy thinks that he’s nullifying the dice’s power by giving them to the Institute, but isn’t it true that to accept an object into an archive assigns it a level of power? The notes at the beginning of the statement seem to suggest that the dice coming under the Institute’s ownership lends them power beyond what they had originally, as well: “Viability as Subject,” “Viability as agent,” “Viability as catalyst,” “Recommend referral to Catalytics for Enrichment Applicability Assessment.” To me, this says that maybe the dice were in the running to potentially be chosen for the role that the tape recorders fill in TMA– to facilitate, or serve as a catalyst for, the narrative/the fears’ growing power by being passed to the “agent” (Jon or Jon-equivalent) through the Magnus Institute. We, the audience, know that, if the dice had been selected to fill the tape recorder role, that would give them the potential not just to make one individual’s life more miserable, but to fundamentally change the entire world a la TMA 160 and 200. 

*In TMA canon, the Web uses the Magnus Institute as a site for agents and catalysts to interact, just as much as the Eye does if not more. The fact that the archives is a site of interaction between people and particular objects is critical to the narrative as told by the Web, even if it seems incidental to Jon–and even if Jon doesn’t understand the archives that way. It’s an interesting way to look at the Magnus Institute and archives as functioning in a similar way to actual archives, which serve as sites of interaction between people and historical objects (in spite of Jon’s complete lack of ability to function as a regular archivist.)

[eldritch-spouse]

The Clergy’s Eye employees/monsters ranked on how much I’d trust them to watch my cat Emma! I apologize if I misspell names or if I forget someone

For context: I wouldn’t be the Admin, and personality wise Emma is sorta like a dog. She actually likes playing in water, and she follows me around a lot. She is a hunter though

TLDR to start off

NO: Vinnel, Magus+Glauk, Krulu, Sybastian, Hellion

Its not that I don’t trust them, it’s that I don’t trust her: Morrel, Patches, The Bobbles (excluding Agner), The Cleric, Colmei, Gallon

Sure, why not?: Agner, Santi, Pebbles, Nebul

The best options: Fank-E, Grimbly, Belo

Now for specific reasonings!

Vinnel: Whether or not Vinnel is good at it, doesn’t matter (though I doubt he’d be great) I’m sorry Pinnie, I just hate Vinnel and want to spend as little time around him as possible

Magus and Glauk: Do I even need to explain? I mean she likes water but come on. I’d be better off leaving her to fend for herself

Krulu: He’d likely thing the task “beneath him” Unlike the previous ranking, though, I would consider him if he was the only option.

Sybastian: Sorta between “NO” and “Not that I don’t trust them, I don’t trust her” in that I don’t think he’d be all that good at caring for her needs, but also she might try and hunt the mimiclings which NOBODY wants to see the aftermath of.

Hellion: Yeah no I just don’t trust him

Morrel: I think he’d have enough self control to not do anything bad to her, but Emma? Listen she’s not a very bitey cat but you can never be too sure. And she is MUCH more likely to break skin than a human. Even if she doesn’t bite him and get poisoned, she’d still mess with the bobbles and knock over stuff in the kitchen and steal food. I care about Emma too much and I respect Morrel too much to put her in his care.

Patches: She’d just get in the way. Best case scenario she’d be sleeping in a spare pumpkin but let’s be honest she’s probably tormenting the bobbles.

Speaking of Bobbles..: No. She’d try and kill them.

The Cleric: They have bigger things to focus on. Plus she’d probably get tangled in the strings soo..

Colmei: If it weren’t for the bees, he’d go in the “Sure, why not?” category. But Emma HAS stuck her paw down a hornet nest before. Don’t trust her.

Gallon: She’d be a menace. Knocking over bottles, getting cat hair everywhere, stealing sips from drinks, getting caught in the goop a couple times. Not a fun experience and I respect Gallon too much for that.

Agner: Nothing notable to say! I think he’d do a decent job.

Santi: As long as he’d not feeding (don’t want to traumatize her or have him and whoever he’s fucking get stared at by a cat) I think he could do a good job!

Pebbles: Nothing notable to say, once again. I think it’d be cute though.

Nebul: Long as he can keep her chill and away from the products, I think it’d turn out well. Maybe he’d had to tell Purpur to be careful with her though. Give the “pets for sale” a little serotonin to brighten their day.

Fank-E: Omg I would get SO MANY cute silly pictures by the end of it!!! Probably make like ten more viral memes with her, get her internet famous. I would have to make sure he doesn’t dye her pink or something though.

Grimbly: I think he would LOVE her, as long as he’s on break. Pretty bows and glitter galore. Just uh, try not to get TOO much glitter on her, don’t want her to get sick. Maybe make it edible glitter for when she grooms her fur.

Belo: The best of the best and my first choice! I mean, cuddling with an angel already has to be an amazing experience, but a FLUFFY ANGEL? I think he would be determined to take good care of her too! Plus, they say cats can sense vibes, and I mean, considering everyone else Belo probably would have half decent vibes.

So that’s my ranking! Signing off

- Spooky Anon 🕸️

To be fair, I agree with most of these too.

Except Pebble and Fank-e, for similar reasons.

Pebble is too nervous. Animals sense that nervous energy and they generally don't like it. I think your cat may react aggressively or negatively in general based on that. And, at the first hint of aggression, Pebble is putting distance between himself and the feline. He might even lose her.

Fank-e is an animal repellent. He's very LOUD, makes odd sounds, probably smells like all sorts of artificial products that are awful to a cat's nose, and he's hyper. He'd love to spend time with your cat, but to her, he's probably the equivalent of a blaring alarm on two legs.

[thewakingcloak]

The State of Things Past

this post is mirrored from the Studio Spacefarer Patreon! please consider supporting me, and you’ll get access to devlog posts, gifs, and other info before the public!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, The Waking Cloak has been in development for eight years.

ProtoDungeon: Episode III has itself been in development for a few years, pretty much since 2019 (oooof). I've gotten plenty of questions about how the project is coming, as well as the occasional question of whether The Waking Cloak / ProtoDungeon is even alive at all at this point. Thank you for asking this. It means people are still interested in these games.

Okay, but still, what happened? Why are things taking so long? Well, this post is the first in the Christmas Carol series, in which the ~Ghost of Spacefarer Past~ appears to explain things (wooo spooky explanation sounds).

Progress has been made, very slowly, on ProtoDungeon: Episode III. I'd love to have done more, but, well… in the time since I released Episode II, we continued adjusting to parenthood for our first kid, went through the pandemic, had a second baby (who is now almost 3yo), and survived through a series of really difficult events, which culminated in a move to a new house in a new town and the start of a new chapter (but that last bit we'll save that for the Ghost of Christmas Present so he feels useful).

But yeah, it's been a rough ride. My wife and I are intentionally open about what's been going on. At the same time, the internet is an extremely public place, and I don't want to overshare, or worse, trigger anything for anyone, so I'll try to keep this list brief:

Two miscarriages (the first one was late term, and absolutely, brutally devastating)

The loss of our faith community due to the pandemic

Loss of job for my wife due to the pandemic (the pandemic was unkind to teachers)

Loss of a dream job prospect for my wife (same issue)

The great Texas freeze and power outage (us huddling under blankets in shifts through the night with our newborn infant (he's fine now!))

Severe, life-threatening post-partum and post-natal depression

Family covid and two-week cabin-fever quarantines (twice, despite being vaccinated and careful)

The death of my grandma (we were not able to attend her memorial due to aforementioned covid and living on the other side of the country)

Multiple heart attacks for my father despite his active and healthy lifestyle

Autoimmune disease scare for my wife (may still be a thing, just dormant?)

etc., etc., ad infinitum.

A lot of people have had things significantly worse, so this is definitely not an attempt to "compare griefs" as it were. This is just context for, no matter how much I wanted it to be otherwise, the fact that I didn't have the mental or emotional (or temporal) space for creativity. It was one thing after another, and we were just trying to keep our heads above water.

Even when we'd mostly recovered from the hits that just kept comin', we moved away from what my wife lovingly refers to as the "trauma house", and she started a teaching job at a brand-new school. Both were good things, but they were pretty big transitions, and it takes time for the ol' brains to adjust. We love our new home now and have a bit more breathing room.

Okay but also I HAVE been working on ProtoDungeon. Dev was really sporadic, but it did happen. The next post will have more detail on the status of Episode III, but there were kind of two big things I worked on during the past three years, big shifts in the foundation of ProtoDungeon and The Waking Cloak.

First, I switched game perspective. I made a few posts about this a while back, but PD/TWC interiors were originally like Zelda interiors (where you see the insides of all four walls). There are good reasons to do this, but it was also kinda making me crazy. So I switched to a more natural front-perspective, keeping things consistent with the exteriors. It definitely was the right choice for the game I wanted to build, but it took time.

Second, and building on that, I made the game fully faux-3D. You can walk behind or in front of stuff--not something the old Zelda games did, and still pretty rare for 2D games. I was toying with the idea for a long time, but I played through an old PlayStation title, Alundra, and that convinced me it could be done. It's way harder than you might expect, and it was a massive block for me for literally years. I was able to slowly work my way past it and finally resolved it with a 3D z-tilting method, but dev slowed to a crawl.

And that's it for now! The ghost releases you from your vision of Spacefarer Past….

Thanks for reading :)

[retphienix]

Oh nice!

So I had planned on breeding a new team before tackling them again, but I also decided to do my grinding IN their castle for a little bit before doing the breeding (and then after, obviously) and when I got to the boss room I noticed it retained the second form.

So I figured "Oh, I can probably just beat the second form, I'm in a much better position now. Let's try." and I got it pretty cleanly :P

The fight itself is pretty good; Definitely one of the best I can remember in this game but I won't sugarcoat it- my mind wasn't so focused on boss encounter design in a DQM game where you basically zerg your stats up to a billion by breeding :P

That said- heavy melee attacks, a couple debuffs, and every few rounds they toss an AOE that can be dangerous- that's something to counter! Pretty nice!

After we knocked out the boss everything is happy go lucky~

There were a couple lines of dialogue I rather enjoyed- like the framing of the orbs of Loto as being a title granted to the brave who will save/lead this world (a repeat of DQ stuff around Loto) but following that more specifically with "That is why it targets children since they are the future" was pretty cool- I liked that- especially in the context of the DQ spinoff that's always been far more focused on the younger group of DQ fans, I like that :)

Everything's good and great and we're heading home and then we see a spooky image of eyes in the darkness where the spirits are, yippee!

Also I really enjoyed the little credit sequence showing some of the little "scenes" we've had on this adventure. I have mixed feelings on the efficacy of those scenes but I like it! Also smiled at the caravan camp scene but it also just made me wish there wasn't a limit on the camp because GIVE ME MY SUIKODEN STYLE BIG CAMP!!

So. Here is where I am at an impasse. I need to summarize my thoughts on the game (got a good amount of them) and I need to confront that ending scene since I've already admitted I know what comes next.

So here's what I'm going to do. I am going to explain my thoughts on the game As Of First Credits Sequence (now). Then, I am going to ATTEMPT the "second quest" orb collection part of the game.

I say ATTEMPT because I don't know how.... invested, I am.

From the sounds of it it's the "Do you want to grind nearly forever to get level 3 caravan members and max out your monster stats" mode. It SOUNDS like that- and *I* don't *want* to do that in this particular DQM title. But it also has a definitive goal- you're aiming to get the orbs, fight the thing, you get a second credits scene- then you can fight the dragonlord from DQ as a victory lap. I also think there are boss fights against each of the spirits and I do not know if those are challenging or bonus or required or anything about them.

I will ATTEMPT the orb quest, and if it feels too tedious- if it feels like I HAVE to seek out a level 3 sage for teleport just to keep my sanity with all the back tracking (it sounds like a LOT without teleport)- basically if I don't enjoy it after a few hours of trying, I'll cut it there, I'll admit my defeat, celebrate having beaten the main game because this is objectively the main game, the orbs are post game "Max your team!" stuff, and that will be it!

So then, my thoughts on Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart.

Altogether. It's alright.

This feels experimental as all hell. It's trying to mash a lot of ideas from main DQ titles in a way that I feel is... not altogether working here.

Mainly for me it comes down to two things.

The Caravan aspect is under-utilized, it's a weight around your ankle for the first few hours of gameplay and then it's just kind of "there" for the rest of the game with no real relevance.

Caravan members DO matter, except they kept the basic DQM monster aspect and arguably even buffed monsters to be better than before since their stats seem to explode MUCH faster than in prior titles- so it's??? Kind of just another layer to the gameplay that doesn't feel like it needs to be there and doesn't feel like it adequately adds to anything I'm doing... Kinda.

Early on you're struggling to breath and are excited to find new members that can alleviate your various caravan needs, then you learn better skills and get a decent income and all of a sudden caravan members are just "Here's some bonus damage, here's some bonus healing, here's a map"

Perhaps in the post game where you get stronger variants of each job they will begin to be much more impactful on play, but in base game eeeeeeh.

I do not hate it though. I think it's a failure because the primary impact it had on my gameplay experience was making the beginning hours worse, but, I think the strength of DQM titles is in team building prior to fighting rather than the fight itself- and the caravan is explicitly an expansion of that idea. You have no (real) control over the caravan in combat- so pre-planning is essential to getting the most out of them- this aspect I don't just like- I LOVE.

It's just I pretty much ended up with just "Here's some warriors to hit, and uh... the rest of my caravans sure do have members." because my options weren't too interesting and my monsters far out-performed anything they could do.

The reforming / breeding system is just fucking god awful compared to previous entries, and it does NOT make up for it in any meaningful way on its own merits.

The core issue comes down to the frequency at which you're allowed to interact with the system. Breeding in DQM games is one of the coolest parts of the entire experience- mashing skill sets together to make a new one, mashing monsters together to constantly get new mons you've never seen before- it's THE most fun part.

Not here.

In DQM:CH they retained the level 10 minimum requirement, but then limited your max amount of monsters PERIOD for the entire experience. You get 3 monsters, TOTAL, in the main game, 1 monster in a side quest, and apparently 1 more monster (I think that's it?) in the post game.

I had 4 monsters TOTAL to do breeding with.

Now for proper context, you don't breed the 4 monsters you have together- you collect hearts from random encounters and loot (the random encounter part is "pretty much" how it worked in previous games) and mash 2 hearts into your 1 monster to make that monster become a different monster.

The thing is, the monster limit matters, a lot. Your backup monster does NOT level up, so they can't be bred at all unless you swap to them which you're given practically no reason to ever do that, and you breed, I repeat, by mashing 2 hearts into 1 of your monsters.

This means you HAVE to level up your core 3 party members to 10+ to breed and you can only breed in ways that include your 3 party members.

The problem is hard to describe without an example from a prior game; In previous games "hearts" were just monsters- you had a farm full of monsters. Monsters on the farm leveled up as you leveled up your party (at a reduced rate). And every time you wanted to breed you just mashed ANY 2 monsters (party or not) together.

This meant in previous titles you could go to the starry area and breed 10+ new monsters all at once, having fun exploring the combinations and deciding who you wanted to make your new team out of.

In DQM:CH you breed your main 3 and that's it. There is no way to combine hearts to see new combinations for fun, you preview it on top of your current monster and then decline until you find the 1-3 breeding combinations you'll be doing today.

The severe limitations put on the quantity of breeding you get to do SEVERELY hampers the fun, like entirely- I had no fun breeding in this game. That sucks.

Now the system in place Works. They made the stats you retain more apparent and they made it so when you breed you don't start from "0" and instead you get to keep your skills from level 1 instead of re-learning them. Those are "nice" adjustments, but then where's the fun part? I had no fun.

Moving on though.

DQM:CH overall felt, interesting. The caravan aspect is something I think has potential but it doesn't really do much with it, and the breeding system is revamped in a way that entices you to explore it- only to find you're not really allowed to play with it much to explore it much so it falls flat too.

The game beyond those two features is kind of a "bland" DQM story. While DQM1 was all randomly generated zones, it had 2 things to keep it grounded a bit- each zone ended in a beautifully designed reference location to previous Dragon Quest games which gave each zone a little memorable scene- and Great Tree itself was a fantastic hub world that evolved as you progressed and gave the entire game a lot of identity.

DQM2 repeated the hub world sense of "life" with Great Log, but also gave each of the zones you explore a little mini narrative to solve along with their unique aesthetics like the desert world and ice world etc.

DQM:CH on the other hand is like.... a really low budget retreat of Dragon Quest's hub. No place feels like it has any real life going on, no place feels real, the whole game /feels/ like "overworld walking" with nothing going on. Perhaps part of this is how towns were handled, but in general the feeling was omnipresent. You get a basic goal at the very start and then just sorta walk forward until it says you won, I don't know, maybe I'm being a hater but I didn't really get the same charm I see in the prior 2. No place to consider my caravan's home*, no location that evolves over time in meaningful ways and gives you a reason to talk to anyone, nothing beyond "Walk forward until you finish" pretty much. :/

*Speaking of home, the camp just felt like a missed opportunity. I keep bringing up Suikoden but I mean it, what a missed chance to let us make a big dragon quest home base with tons of classes! On top of that, the camp isn't a fun place to be. Great Tree and Great Log are fun- they have tons to explore and they have interesting changes over time. The camp can get a couple buildings added if you recruit specific jobs. That's it. No one has anything interesting to say, and you're forced to return A LOT despite that.

And every time you return you do the same few things. Save the game through a ton of dialogue at the church tent. Talk to old lady or merchant to restock rations through a TON of dialogue. Sometimes talk to the camp dude to reorganize your caravan through a TON of dialogue. Sometimes breed your monsters through a reasonable amount of dialogue. And then when you want to leave you just go- wait- wait no you don't. You can't just go. You HAVE to go talk to Luin who will ramble for a calendar year about hints of your current quest EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Before asking if you want to leave, or leave and bring the camp along.

Going to the camp sucks eggs.

Anyways, positive stuff, the gameplay kinda hits the mark. You do get "too strong really quickly" but that's okay! It's fun leveling your guys and forming your party around roles and (when it lets you) breeding some new monsters, and the quest is straight forward the whole time- almost always "Hey, there's a dungeon to tackle and it's kinda tough, go do that" or "Hey, can you collect these 5 things? Go find em" and that's chill since every quest is located in a relatively small zone.

The biggest zone is the end game where you suddenly get the whole world to explore.... except it's for nothing because the end game is just "Go to one of the spirit's homes, come back, okay there's the castle" so- a little weird- but alright.

The straight forward-ness is a bit lacking for excitement, but I was invested the whole time. I was enjoying playing with my monsters and completing each spirit's task, I'd say it worked out!

Anyways I typed too much. My take on DQM:CH is that it's......

mid.

It's experimental and I am giving it some slack for that purpose. It's really slow to start, it's not very charming compared to the previous, it messes some stuff up, but it gives you reasonable tasks and some toys to play with and then you win. It's Alright.

I wouldn't play it again, beyond the bit I plan to try of the Orb Quest. So I GUESS that makes it my least favorite DQM title so far, Joker 1 was more interesting than this one I think.

But being the worst of the series (so far) doesn't make it a terrible game I don't think. Especially considering what sounds to be a pretty meaty amount of post-game stuff to do. Definitely not bad.

Not a fan. 💜

[world-cinema-research]

Alfonso's Young FRANKENSTEIN Essay

So I wanted this movie so many times I just love the movie and every time I watched it just get better every time I really laugh a lot and is just a good movie to watch when it halloween. So why I picked this film is because it's just such a classic movie to watch and I just love how Frankenstein comes alive and just starts to walk but can’t and he is not used to his brain but the movie is so cool. The scene that I love is when the character creates Young Frankenstein and gives it a brian that is so awesome how it comes alive. So a fun fact about the character that played the science teacher in young frankenstein was that Gene Hackman wanted to try something new and had a tenis buddy named Wilder Hackman and he convinced his buddy to play a role in the movie. So Wilder Hackman played the role of Harold the blind man in the movie. So the movie is in black and white colors and it's a horror movie but most importantly is that it’s based on creating monster that have brain like human and act like a human. The historical context for the movie and has a lot of behind the scenes of when they were working on the film So from all the research I done for this film I really enjoyed learning how the films change over time because now we have all this technology that we use back then we didn’t have the technology or the cameras to film like now but personally I love colored films but black and white films are very cool and just want to watch to see more of how films evolve. I just love how films are made but want to learn more about how a film could change and how they film them in certain angles. That is the cool part about film making and how they make profit when the movie becomes one of the most watched. So one of my favorite characters is Harold because he is just a funny guy and personally is the best character I've seen in a movie. Some big events that happened in 1974 were the big fight for Mohhamed Ali vs George Foreman and the political distribution of president Nixon. So the creature in the movie illustrates that the creature has some emotional and physical characteristics and the obsession of the Frankenstein family to create creatures. So another scene that I love about this film is when Harold drops the brian that was supposed to be for the moester but instead he drops the good one and gives the bad brian to the monster. So the style of the film is mainly old school but catches the authors attention with the angles that he put on the movie and how the characters have different meaning and how the movie has a spooky vibe and personally I love that mix and match with the film it can be spooky but funny at the same time. I just love what the movie is all about but it is a good movie to watch when you just want to watch a movie and chill. So we could watch this movie on Amazon Prime. You could Watch it on Apple TV but with a subscription. I just love movies that have spooky vibes and that are very funny and this movie is one of them because I just enjoy watching movies in my free time and it could be any type of movie but since Young Frankenstin is one of my favorite movies of all times. So the moral for Young Frankenstin is all about love and acceptance because in the movie the monster is not as well developed as the creator and doesn’t have a pretty face but the creator accepts the monster as he is and that is what matters. This movie could be one of the best movies I have watched in a long time because Young Frankenstin and Forrest Gump are my top two movies to watch and they both have some similar scenes but they both focus on love and acceptance. So if I had to pick a colored film or a black and white I would go for the black and white just because I love Young Frankenstin and is the best film as far as picking to do for my essay.

[treemotan]

Long post ahead because I have a lot of thoughts/ideas and ADHD makes me chronically unable to get to the fucking point.

So after thinking about it, if I were to change one thing about The Quarry, it would ABSOLUTELY be the backstory going on with Eliza and Silas and the overall setup to the events of the game. Because as it stands, even if it's probably meant to be a reference to The Wolfman, not only is the whole Harum Scarum plotline pretty fucking racist against the Roma people (who are consistently used and stereotyped in media even in the modern age and is my main gripe), but it also REALLY doesn't make a whole lot of sense given the timeline of the game.

Like, it's meant to be taking place in 2020/2021 somewhere in the U.S., with the fire and Silas's escape taking place six years prior. When the fresh hell was the last time a "Traveling Freakshow" actually toured around the country? I highly doubt Eliza would've gotten away with locking her disabled (because friendly reminder most people with albinism are at least partially blind due to the lack of pigment in their eyes) son in a cage and exploiting his condition by showing him off as an oddity in 2014/2015 without the police and CPS immediately getting called on her ass and the whole thing getting shut down. Like I get law enforcement is often pretty useless, but probability-wise eventually SOMEONE would've looked into it. It doesn't make much sense in a modern context and feels really shoehorned in, in addition to being pretty insensitive.

So my vision of a rewrite. I feel like rather than grapple with potential negative stereotypes, we should remove any sort of "ethnic flavor" to Eliza and Silas in addition to the whole "travelling freakshow" plotline, in favor of having them be residents of North Kill at the time. If we wanted to retain an air of mystery about them and keep a lot of Eliza's "spooky" aesthetics, perhaps they only recently moved in. Eliza herself maybe is recognized as an occultist or is a practicing witch of some form, which combined with her loner tendencies and temperament probably doesn't make her particularly popular in this small, rural town. Maybe runs a taxidermy shop out of her home for an actual living; adds to the "spooky" and also makes sense in an area where hunting is probably popular.

Silas himself is probably "officially" homeschooled, and seldom-seen by most of the populace except for perhaps the rare occasion he accompanied his mother out of the house (and clung to her like a lifeline the entire time, with Eliza herself keeping an iron grip on him in turn), or is glimpsed peeking out his bedroom window, or staring down customers of the taxidermy shop from around the corner or the top of the stairs, but never really talking to anyone. And never really allowed to, for that matter, nor does he ever seem allowed to play with any of the other kids in town either. Even though he very much seems to long for companionship. And occasionally, the observant individual may be able to see blood on the kid, by his mouth or nails, for example. And unknown to the other folks in North Kill, on the night of the full moon, is locked away in a cage in the middle of the woods near the home to prevent him from harming anyone when he changes.

Essentially, what I'm going for is that Eliza isolates her son, either out of possessiveness or fear that he might harm or bite someone, even accidentally. Certainly abusive through these actions - but in a way that I feel leaves a lot of interpretation up to the viewers as to how sympathetic she actually is because while it's certainly doing no favors for Silas in terms of social and emotional development and fulfillment, and ultimately leaving him VERY dependent on his mother, it can very much be seen as attempts to reduce harm on Eliza's part. And on the flip side, how much of it is genuinely wanting to keep people from getting hurt versus a desire to have control over her son. And overall makes for a much more compelling narrative.

At any rate, I feel like it also gives room for Kaylee and Caleb to observe Silas and his situation, maybe even get some kind of bond going if we wanted to make things even sadder. We know that Kaylee was very outgoing and kind - I could see her attempting to reach out to what she saw as a shy, scared little boy. Maybe she'd sit down and try to talk to him when his Mama's attention was diverted, or when she accompanied her grandpa and uncle Bobby to Eliza's to have their latest trophy preserved and mounted. On that note, hell, maybe Eliza softened a little and begrudgingly allowed the Hackett girl to entertain her boy; it made Silas happy, and she seemed to have a way with him.

All of this of course leading up to a presumably 12-14 year old Kaylee and Caleb discovering a caged Silas in the woods. Night has not yet fallen; Eliza makes sure to lock him up WELL before sunset so she herself is not at risk. Kaylee asks Caleb to run to Eliza's and keep her distracted while she frees Silas and gets him away so they can go to the Sheriff. Caleb starts the fire, which is probably NOT what Kaylee meant by a distraction, and meets up with her and Silas after the latter's been freed. Night is falling while the fire blazes out of control, having spread to the woods and possibly to a couple other buildings in town (claiming the lives of most of the North Kill sheriff's office), Silas transforms and bites Caleb before fleeing into the wilderness, and the story progresses as normal.

Anyways that's how I'd rewrite it. It's a lot more realistic I think and adds a lot of weight to Eliza's grudge towards the Hacketts, since they'd probably interact with her for business and if Silas was fond of Kaylee ahead of time. Since maybe Eliza would see it as a betrayal in this context. Also puts Kaylee and Caleb's shortsighted plan into the context of dumbass preteens making a very bad decision in the panic of seeing their pseudo-baby brother (since Silas was maybe what, 6 or 7?) locked up in a cage like an animal.

Anyways shutting up now hope y'all liked my brain worms.

[wired-for-weird]

Once read a story about a naga and his vampire boyfriend using their respective hypnotic powers to “fight” over which one would get to dom the other, it was very fun (and pretty cute) and something I haven’t seen a lot. They both had different approaches so it added layers to it~

I don’t mean that in a “oh you should do something similar” way, more like an example of something that stuck with me as a cool way to explore power dynamics without involving humans

You seem to have such an extensive worldbuilding for mers, why not use that? Like, I’d want to read about mers banging in that context! There’s lore! I’m sure you’d come up with something I’d never have thought of! 

(I say that but also right now I’m in a phase where I prefer light-hearted stuff over dark, so don’t necessarily take this as a writing request if it’s not your style. But I’m curious to hear your thoughts!!)

oooooo that's a really interesting example. I do love that it's set up as an interplay of personal powers- my own go-to with human/monster stuff tends to focus on broader things, like physical differences and fundementally different requirements for just... being in the world. I feel like something you described would be a really fun way of developing the individuals personalities a bit more.

A lot of the mer worldbuilding me and my partner did definitely revolves around power play! if you're still on that light-hearted kick, anything I end up doing with it possibly wouldn't be for you at the moment- most mer live fairly brutal lives out of necessity, and their social/moral taboos reflect that. The handful of coastal communities who have the most interaction with humans are probably those that mst closely resemble general human morality, but ironically since they're the ones that interact with humans the most, they've probably got the most concretely bad reputation, since people are able to name specific individuals rather than just get a general sense of 'spooky people fish that fuck with our boats out in the ocean sometimes'.

That said, there's a reason that lore post has a whole chunk of its own dedicated to sex and gender XD since mer are hermaphrodites, but are only capable of presenting one set of genetalia at a time (unlike, say, most gastropods) persuading the body to pick one or the other is a central part of foreplay. There's probably communities where one role is held in higher esteem than the other, or communities where preferring only one role and avoiding anything that might prompt a change to the other is seen as anti-social, but equally there's communities where it simply Does Not Matter.

So, mixing and matching those expectations could be fun. Maybe one mer from a community where everyone is expected to switch roles and carry eggs but would much rather never do that part, matched with one mer who never seems to be able to find a partner who can get their body to present a vagina over a dick, despite the fact they'd much rather be the one to bear young. Or a mer from a community where preferences aren't expected to be fixed matched with a mer from one where they are. That kind of thing might be fun.

...unrelated to mers, but I do have a naga oc who has ended up with social parental instincts, despite being part of a species that is fundementally solitary. Maybe giving him a partner from a social species that communally raises their kids would be fun, like a werewolf beastie of some kind. That would be adorable actually (though it's extremely unlikely a reptile and a mammal could interbreed, and he'd be so cut up about that. I say, as the person in charge of the rules who doesn't have to decide this, but enjoys Suffering).

[jaytoons7]

Now that September's here, Here's something to fit the occasion

Tim and Jim were just hanging out at an amusement park (And getting a pretty big sugar high off of cotten candy and caramel apples) when Timmy got the bright idea to explore the spooky looking woods nearby, Practically dragging Jimmy along. Little do they know, Something sinister may lurk within...

It was really fun to design some autumn clothes for these two. I especially like how Jimmy's outfit came out, It looks really cozy :)

(This can be seen as platonic or romantic. It doesn't really matter in the context of the pic. Either way, The boys are gonna get in some trouble)

[bitchgray]

How would you best describe each of your selfships? What aesthetic, things or colors do you remind each of them of? - meggs’s toothless anon

OH GOSH okay uhhhhhh....

Okay, full disclosure, if you're from the server then you are probably vaguely aware from the number I have put as server roles, I have like.....a lot of self ships. So to avoid this being a mile long post, I'm just gonna meander through a handful off the top of my head, many of whom are mentioned only briefly on the server, if at all (most of whom aren't even in my roles). If you had any ship(s) in mind that weren't covered here, please feel free to send a separate ask. Readmore-ing now.

Tim Stoker

Fire, for....reasons > - > (Most of these reasons are nice, but there are also sadder reasons)

In terms of colors....sorta pale yellow, for reasons I can't put my finger on, but. It's how he makes me feel.

Wolf memes/pictures. This isn't necessarily like. Aesthetic. But like. Okay, there's this one meme that's circulating around here--I have it somewhere--and Lili (touyaspeach) agreed that that's just. Him.

Additionally, in that same vein, The Bigfin Squid (Magnapinna). Another one where we just tagged him as a random animal and it stuck.

Almonds. Candied almonds. I'm throwing them at him from across the Archives break room and missing almost every time.

Holding hands, touching hands--like--that sounds weird out of context, but he's an exceptionally touchy person, and for me (touchstarved) that just. That being something just makes me soggy.

He's an autumn ship! So a lot of that gets wrapped up around him. Makes sense, too, given how he's from Spooky Media.

Clavis Lelouch

Well, easy/simple answer--pale lavender and blue grey for colors, because those are his canon colors.

His emblem animal is a leopard, but whenever I think about him, I just feel like I'm getting picked up and swung around like a housecat. And I'm even being nice about it, not even scratching or biting him, though he deserves it.

Lilacs for flower.

Gloved hands--because he almost always wears gloves and I almost always wear gloves, the contrast between that and skin contact is like.....powerful. Big stuff. If that makes sense.

Fancy ring on a necklace chain--that's how I keep my engagement ring safe, given that I don't want to risk it getting any sorta damaged while I work or train (knight).

Tea--it's one of the things he's really good at making--can't make food that seems normal for the life of him, but his tea I really love.

Swords. Easy answer, but in my defense, I *am* a knight in this, and he *is* a practiced fighter.

He's a spring ship.

Gale Dekarios

Purple for color. Easy answer, I know, but.

Also another easy answer--books. Books of all kinds with any kind of thing marking places--scraps of paper, ribbons, proper marks, feathers, gloves.

Stars! Like, constellations and shit. My self-insert is a sailor, so stars are a pretty important thing.

Embroidery in gloves and scarves. During my first winter in Waterdeep, he gets me a pretty scarf embroidered with flowers that matches his, and gloves enchanted to stay warm. I pretend to have forgotten them at home when I just wanna hold his hand when we're out at the market.

Swords. I like swords, in case you can't tell.

There's a lot of really pretty Magic that can fit into an aesthetic, he's so easy to be pretty.

I also like the idea of like....engraving runes or something on metalwork--because I end up taking up enchantment as a hobby and work source after Canon Events and Personal Story Events, so I think that counts as aesthetic.

I'm stealing Tara. Less a matter of aesthetic, just me saying things again.

He's kinda an end-of-autumn, start-of-winter ship.

Azul Ashengrotto

Well, he *is* part of the origin of Bitch Gray. His hair color is kinda like, emblematic of him, alongside purple and black and blue.

He kind of has his own distinct aesthetic, a sorta mob thing, but I'm trying to piece together something distinct from that, at least sorta.

Ink stains on hands. Can't separate from that image.

The dawn--I can't understand why, just. It seems like him.

Simple, delicate and elegant jewelry. Mostly golden.

He's another gloves ship. This one's more about touch/not touch again, because he's also touchstarved, so when we finally get together it's like...dams are open.

Water-dappled light. The sounds of the waves.

Love letters, filled with clumsy, frustrated poetry, sealed and never sent.

He's a spring ship--water getting warmer, the skies getting lighter, kind of just. Hope.

Anders

You know that iridescent green that black feathers can have? Yeah. That green and the black it's on.

He's another one who loves housecats. He gets a big cuddly orange boy, and I will die on this hill.

Dried plants--medicinal, mostly, but also things like pressing flowers in books.

Swords again, but this time with the image in particular of sharpening blades--of work and pride put into who we are, what we do.

Hand-written words. We both do writing, him for his work for mages, mine for simple pleasure.

He's another mage--so you can get Aesthetic Magic shots.

Also, hands. So much of his healing is based around touch, around helping create poultices and tinctures, or around using his magic. So I want to give him a tender touch, too, if he'd let me.

Secrets--hard to put into aesthetic form, I suppose, but. There's a level of trust with each other with secrets afterwards.

He's a winter ship. So he's fireplaces and warm cloaks and ensuring that the other remembered to bring gloves, bundling scarves a little closer.

[mdhwrites]

What is the Dark Genre?

There really isn't one. It's entirely a vibe that people end up talking about. This isn't even a joke. You look up Dark Fantasy and authors admit that the commonalities between any two pieces are often sparse, mostly being in atmosphere and potentially including horror elements. You try to just look up dark fiction an you don't even get Wikipedia but just a bunch of listacles telling you different dark books or movies for you to check out.

And I'm!... Not going to try to firmly say what is dark or not in this blog. I have a lot of thoughts, especially on what I think many are talking about when they call something 'dark' but most genres at least have some elements most people can point to. Adventure books will have challenges, a journey and a destination the character is trying to reach. Action will have fighting and danger. Fantasy will have magic while Scifi reaches into speculative, future territory.

Dark as a genre though doesn't really have specific identifiers though. What any two people think makes a work qualify as dark is going to change and even then, what is required to sell those dark elements. Two people may agree that a person being killed is dark but then diverge about narrative framing being required or not to make that the case. After all, most people agree that massacring thousands of people is horrific. However, boot up a muso (Warriors) game and BOY is it fun to just carve your way through an entire army! How do you bring together those dichotomies into something coherent for a genre?

Narrative framing does a LOT of work for what people consider 'dark'. Horror crosses the line into dark for a lot of people and when I say haunted house in this context, you shiver and go "Yeah, lots of dark and spooky things to do there." Then I tell you what I'm talking about isn't a horror movie but the set to a hidden camera prank show and the haunted house isn't scary or dark, it's a place to laugh and enjoy. Same element theoretically, since in both the enjoyment is primarily from seeing people deal with the gruesome, horrific nature of the house but the framing changes the vibe so much as to make you never even consider the latter to be dark.

Intended audience can also have this effect. Someone in Game of Thrones complains about having grown up hungry and you might throw them some sympathy but compared to what could have happened? It's small time. Barely worth considering until they mention what the horrors they committed to break free of those days. Meanwhile, in a kid's show, a character mentions having grown up starving and that's all they need for a dark backstory: That they struggled for food. That's because people see the topic as more taboo in the context of the intended audience and so inherently is darker than when something that is seen as more 'mature' addresses such topics.

And that gets into what a lot of people theoretically mean when they talk about dark media. For many, it is actually pretty much the opposite of children's media. The more all ages something is, the more it is perceived as inherently light and incapable of being dark. Worse yet, many people then dismiss these works for this lighthearted perception, claiming that such works can never talk about deeper, more mature subject matter that much dark media claims to brood about.

This is of course bullshit. I rewatched the pilot to Static Shock and while I wouldn't call it dark, it includes literal gang violence and mentions of the consequences of that gang violence. How people are pulled into gang violence. Has the main character, who is a teenager, literally get given a gun and be told to be ready to use it. This would be serious in ANY piece of media NOW and Static Shock came out in late 2000.

But because the dark genre is mostly vibes based, how we perceive it has to contrasted by something else. This is how we got the grimdark 90s where the push for wanting 'serious' stories instead of paragons and boy scouts led to everyone murdering people with giant guns and fucking because, you know... Not gonna see Superman doing that! Disney would never dare to have a princess curbstomp an innocent person!

This is also why edge and darkness are so often back lashed against as juvenile. It's probably why something like Game of Thrones wasn't pushed as 'dark' fantasy by many of its fans but as 'subversive' of fantasy tropes. The former can be mocked using past examples that aren't actually that severely different from something like the Red Wedding. The latter uses the new buzzword though to claim to look at that old, bad storytelling and be able to claim its better, even if the only way that it is better is because of its rejection of the most basic, straightforward interpretation of a genre. You know: Like dark in 90s was just rejecting what was societally acceptable.

Does this all mean that dark media does not exist? That it as a tag is meaningless? Of course not. We use it in our lexicon for a reason. It is a useful tool for comparison or warning. Despite the overall optimistic tone, I would tell someone Crises Girlfriends is dark because it spends much of its time ruminating on the effects of depression and the fears it can instill in someone's mind. Others may disagree but I wouldn't want to call it just a regular romance because for some, these subjects are BRUTAL compared to what they expect out of a piece of romance media.

And there's a lot like that out there. Someone tells me that a story deals with really heavy, dark subject matter and I need to properly evaluate if I'm really in the right mental space to want to consume that rather than something that may go down a bit easier. If someone tells you they like the campier side of Batman, being able to say that Christopher Nolan's Batman movies generally trend towards the darker, moodier side of the character is useful to making sure someone is consuming what they have an interest in.

But just as darkness wouldn't exist without light to compare to, the dark genre cannot be something entirely on its own. Telling someone something is dark is meaningless without some amount of clarification. Is it dark because it includes gore? Is it dark because of sex? Is it dark because of properly addressing horrors of our reality or just because it has horrors of some variety? Is it dark for having a horrible ending or is the whole piece languishing in this mood?

Because again: Dark as a genre does not have specific traits. So next time you wish a piece was darker or you try to claim it's dark, please make sure you actually specify what you mean? Because otherwise, someone has to go by their own assumptions and they may look literally nothing like yours because the lighting in their brain is just a little different.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[3rddimension]

Thought on Psychic Predicts Our Love Life video

So, I've been bingeing bunch of old Smosh stuff because I am pretty new on the channel and stuff. I've already watch "We Suck At Dating" series but I haven't watch "A Psychic Predicts Our Love Life" before because I didn't really vibe on that kind of stuff so much. but boys this one is a spicy and spooky one that I wish I watch it before.

When one of the Shourtney IG fans account stories cap the snippet of video on predict that C will has a first child. I was like "they really goes that hard on that video?!?!?!" So I decided to just watch the whole thing. What I've discovered is so fucking spooky. If you don't have a relationship context before you will think that it's just a normal prediction video. They might or might not be true. But if you do, this psychic prediction is open up a lot of thing. Like A LOT. So I decided to write this up here because of all the small details that psychic give is matter a lot.

I've transcribed all the prediction in video below and I will add my commentary on each one according to what we know. Also, this video is released on 7th Feb 2020. So at this point there should not be anything with them yet. just FYI.

NOTE: This is just a speculation not a proof btw.

C Prediction

Present

"You're waiting for partnership." |-> Of course, that's normal prediction.

"There's gonna be a man that sweep you up and making you feel like you're starting all over again." |-> This one is pretty fun because that fans IG account mashup this snippet with Christmas themed Agree to Disagree with a question "I should be on the naughty list this year." and C moved to agree with bunch of horny comment. LMAO You never know when they just fucking around but if it's true, It would be related with one i guess? You'll be the judge. hahaha

Past

"Do see a breakup." |-> Normal stuff.

"You're still learning about yourself." |-> This one goes deep since she said that she came out as pansexual before this video. BUT the gender fluidity another one that she still doesn't discovered yet at the time. Quite spooky this one.

Advice

"Nobody perfect. Angel don't exist. I know you're looking for an angel to swoop you up and take where you need to go. He's never gonna come. You're gonna have to show the angel who he is inside. And when you show him he is an angel, then he can pick you up." |-> This one goes harddddddd. We all know that S is not the one that good at expressing his affection but C does. Also, with co-worker thing and his hard breakup as well. So, C need to adjust her expectation and let S know and help him open himself up. SPOOKY STUFF GUYS.

Future

"You partner is definitely not here right now. So that's definitely be the reason why you're not in the relationship." |-> This one quite confused with the wording at first. But basically he tell that you're not in the relationship at this moment. Not that S is not the future partner.

"This man is pretty hard to catch. Because he's popular or something." |-> DUHHHHH

Extra Question

"I do see a partner coming from the industry but it's mainly that's going to give your first child." |-> HOLY SMOKE NUCLEAR BOMB. I mean the same industry comment confirmed already but with first child tho. WTF.

S Prediction

Present

"You need to be able to make mistake and give forgiveness. Forgive your partner." |-> This one can't really comment without pulling our ass off because we would never know behind the scene stuff for real but it might related to his breakup. We would never know tho.

"Love is not hard to find but family is hard to find. That's what you look for." |-> It said basically he want to find long-term partner. So yeah, I mean he does now. lmao

Past

"Someone broke your heart. Real bad. That one is rough one." |-> This is really interesting one since we know that his old breakup is really hard because of Olivia comment back that it happened during Summer Games Wild West. So this comment does track with real stuff somehow. quite spooky.

Advice

"You're all about imbalance right now. Every single time you wanna make a love come to you, either you're not good enough for them or they're not good enough for you. Find joy again in the partner." |-> So this one might also related to his breakup as well. It might transferred to his love life and make him closed himself and cannot find joy in it.

Future

"You did exactly what you need to do to break down your wall for you to find love. Something that was said here open you up." |-> FUCKING SPOOKY ONE. It said that after this video he will take the comment from his prediction and finally open himself up and find love. WTFFFFFF.

"You're protecting yourself from people that did hurt you but at the same time. Do not protect yourself from the people that want to try to help you. Cause you will find love in them." |-> This spooky one can relate with C advice since he build the wall but C want to tear it down. S need to let C tear it down.

That's all of it from the video. I would say that this is very spooky one because I do think that after this video he does open himself up. Then it lead to August 2020 stuff that we already discussed before and to today.

You can comment or send in question for any more thought!

[notmariolevi]

The Buddies universe and Elderitch Horror: An essay

Okay, so you probably read the title and asked yourself: “What the fuck did I just read?” And That’s a justified reaction. I mean, who even gives a shit about some shitty disney direct to DVD franchise that’s a spinoff of some stupid dog sports movie?

Me, I do, all too much. Let me explain.

For context, the Buddies franchise is a spinoff of Air Bud, a movie series about a Golden Retriever who plays basketball. Why they decided to make a spinoff about Air Bud’s offspring is… I don’t fucking know, Puppies sells more DVDs and VHSs. The First movie, Air Buddies, was just 101 Dalmatians but with 92 less dogs and Golden Retrievers, and overall wasn’t a great movie… But it sold quite well, and so Air Bud died so Buddies could dominate.

Next was Snow Buddies which, than having 5 dogs die on set and using underaged dogs, thus making causing the “No animals were harmed in the making of this film” Disclaimer to be removed, it still sold quite well, and the franchise continued, much to the dismay of the USDA…

And from there, the franchise went off the rails.

Instead of making normal talking animal movies like everyone else, the Buddies decided to smoke a shit ton of crack and made 5 sequels (7 if you count the Santa Paws spinoff) that are so bizarre, that I need to talk about them or it will eat me up inside.

So, without further ado, let’s begin.

To start things off normally, Santa Claus exists, thanks to Santa Paws and its sequel, alongside the crossover movie Santa Buddies. Now, there’s nothing much I can say here. I mean, that’s pretty normal for kids movies. Santa is a part of childhood for many and, naturally, his existence makes sense in family media.

“Really,” I hear you asking, “Santa Claus is normal for kids' media. Where does it start getting complicated?”

Don’t worry, you’ll see soon enough.

We next go to treasure buddies, where we learn magic exists alongside ancient curses. Evidence for this includes that one moment when B-Dawg (the thug one) gets turned into a cat and Ubatsi (the cat) gets turned into Stone like Ash Ketchum at the end of the first pokemon movie. Now, of course, Santa Claus’ existence paves the way for more magic to exist, so it’s only natural that magical curses and shit like that would exist. But that’s it, right? I mean, those two instances of magic are all that exist, right…?

You see, when I said Treasure Buddies introduced magic into the world of Buddies, I was lying. It was actually introduced earlier, and with far, far more sinister implications.

And this is where the eldritch gods come into play.

 In Spooky Buddies, we are introduced to the Halloween Hound, an eldritch demon who seeks to bring hell itself to earth and destroy humanity. And not only are we introduced to him, but we are also introduced to an Occultic follower of his, Warwick the Warlock, who has a magical staff that can bridge the worlds of hell and earth together. And also we’re introduced to ghosts, but that’s not really important. The existence of Santa Claus and Egyptian curses are somewhat normal for kids' media, but Eldritch gods aren’t. The truth of the matter is, that this world is at constant threat of demonic invasion and the apocalypse.

But there is more than one way to end the world, as we see.

Let me explain why Space Buddies is here.

In the movie, we find out that technology has developed to the point that faster than light communication is possible and that Shuttles are able to be piloted from control and launched into space without the need of rockets. We learn why technology has developed so fast, as we see that the Soviet Union still exists, with Yuri and Sputnik being cosmonauts aboard a Soviet Space station. This implies that the Cold War never ended and that, instead, the two powers still face each other. Such advance technology implies a very tense atmosphere between the two powers and, thus, the high likely hood of nuclear war.

But why does this technology exist? Hyper advanced shuttles, faster than light communication, all of it implies that the two powers are far stronger than in our timeline. Or maybe, that they are not preparing to destroy each other, but instead preparing to defend against something far, far worse than anyone could ever imagine…

We find out the real reason why technology is so advanced in Super Buddies, where it is revealed that an alien technology exists, including the rings of Inspiron which give the Buddies super powers. But technology doesn’t come out of nowhere, and it’s not all that comes from beyond. In the far reaches of the galaxy, Commander Drex, healing from an alien empire, seeks to conquer earth for itself, as it had done to the planet Inspiron before. The few survivors of the massacre on Inspiron, including the exiled leader Megasis, who took on the name Captain Canine in order to hide from the empire, are scattered across the galaxy, unable to prevent the coming conquest of all worlds. Even with the defeat of Commander Drex at the end of the movie, the empire still lives on and Earth is now defenseless without the rings that once protected it. In truth, the world of the Buddies is now doomed to destruction.

And I know what you’re going to say: “Dude, you’re crazy. It’s not like all of these movies are connected, right?” Wrong. At the end of Super Buddies, Commander Drex, distracted by the decoy rings melting, crashes into an asteroid field and dies. But not just any Asteroid field, mind you, it’s the exact same Asteroid field from Space Buddies, thus proving a connection between atleast Space Buddies and Super Buddies. And if I’m right, which I have every reason to be, then a horrifying conclusion has to be drawn.

The Buddies universe is an eldritch nightmare.

This is a universe where Eldritch Gods exist, tearing away at the fabric of reality, where Egyptian curses lie in wait to be unleashed upon the world, where Cold War tensions continue to tear the world apart through technological progress and political chaos, where the world is on the brink of Alien invasion, where not even the concept of Childhood himself can stop the apocalypse, and all that stands in the way between earth and oblivion, are 5 Golden Retriever Puppies. It’s a miracle that earth has survived this long, but the buddies will eventually fail to stop the inevitable end.

 And with Jungle Buddies coming out in 2025, I have high reasons to believe that the world of the buddies will be fully unrolled for what it is, the perfect Eldritch horror story, disguised as a shitty direct to DVD turned Disney plus exclusive franchise…

Or maybe I’m just fucking stupid and this whole essay was just my insane ramblings at 11:25 PM EST, that could work too.

[ryuzakemo128]

Ding, Dong the Wicked Bitch is Dead

Prompt: "I think that's a dead body, but I am not totally sure and I'm not totally sure I want to find out." + "It'll depend on what you're planning to do the next day."

Prompt List: Link

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Marianna (Female Reader)

Trigger Warning(s):

Mention of death

Swearing/ cursing

"I think that's a dead body, but I am not totally sure and I'm not totally sure I want to find out." Marianna thinks to herself, moving closer and closer towards the body that had her jacket draped over it. Her heart was beating faster and faster.

"Don't be who I think you are," she keeps repeating in her mind over and over again. The forest had a spooky feeling to it now, only getting spookier each second she stayed there.

"I don't understand. I do everything in my power to prevent this, but it still happens no matter what I do." Marianna said to the body in front of her.

"I don't think you understand what you're doing," a creature said to her from the other side of the portal that drew the two trees closer together.

Marianna stepped towards the portal that looked like an open flesh wound. "Who are you? What the hell are you?"

"Stop. You know who I am." it replied from the portal.

"I don't even know you, I have no idea who you are." Marianna said before the creature grabbed her and took her into the portal.

"Am I dead?" Marianna asked looking around as she was in her old bedroom again.

"Where did we go wrong?" it said to her circling around her appearing each time she tried to get a better look at it.

"You should have been better by now." Another creature said to the other.

"You have to be fucking with me right now. I'm not some helpless rat you can torture." Marianna yelled at them. She spotted the door on the other side of the room hoping it would take her back.

They walked away from her, leaving her locked inside the room and the yells echoed as they left her there. Marianna turned to see which of the creatures remained with her.

"Let me out of here! Let me go!" She screamed as she tried to kick down the door every few minutes.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" the creature said to her.

"What do you want from me?" Marianna asked it.

"You have nothing to give, but as much as I would like to say you do. But since you lost your powers, it's only fair that we give them back." It said to her.

"How do you even know about that?" she asked.

"We caused it to happen," It said to her. "We didn't need anyone interfering with what needed to occur."

Marianna is dragged out before she could know the full context of what it meant. "Come on. It can't be that bad." She thought to herself. Unfortunately it was that bad and it seemed to only get worse the longer she stayed there.

"It appears my trusting nature got the better of me. It's happened before." Marianna thought to herself, as the portal closed behind her and she promptly threw up near a tree on the way to her car.

The noise in her ears rang louder and louder, church bells rang in her ears and her throat burned as if a demon shoved coals heated by hellfire down her throat. Once she returned home, she went to her bathroom and went to have a shower before doing anything else.

"Marina are you ok?" Eddie asked her knocking on the bathroom door.

"I wish I was." Marianna replied while still in the shower.

"What happened? You were gone for hours." Eddie said to her walking in.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" Marianna asked him as she washed her hair again to get the blood from her hair out.

"Bad news first." Eddie says to her.

"Bad news I saw a dead body and I'm pretty sure I saw something afterwards." Marianna explained to him while still in the shower.

"and the Good news?" Eddie asked her.

"Good news is that I feel sick and I know how I couldn't see into the future anymore." Marianna says thinking about it further.

"Which is?"

"I think it's because I wasn't meant to be able to in the first place." Marianna replied.

"Here's your towel by the way." Eddie says passing her towel as she finished showering.

"Did you get my valentine's day present by the way?" She asked him.

"No. I haven't gotten the chance to get to it." Eddie replied getting pjs from her room for her to get changed into.

"It's fine. I haven't gotten round to finishing it yet." Marianna replied thinking about it more. After she got changed in her pajamas she went to get back to work on the sculpture she was making for Eddie. More or less the finishing touches at the very least.

"You got me flowers?" Eddie said to her from the living room.

"Yeah. It's part of the present but not the entirety of it." she mentioned before completely finishing the statue.

Marianna took Eddie to a nice place for dinner and they went to the movies afterwards. She would have to wait until tomorrow before she could give it to him.

"I sleep better in your bed." Eddie stated after they came home from the movies.

"Even though you sleep like a baby in your own room?" she asked him confused.

"I'm not a big fan of the dark." Eddie commented.

"I certainly hope this headache goes away tomorrow." she sighed putting her pjs back on.

"It'll depend on what you're planning to do the next day." Eddie told her. As she got into bed, she pulled him towards her to cuddle him more comfortably for the both of them.

"Goodnight Marina." Eddie says to her.

"Goodnight Eddie."