#as ir has happened with some personal posts i made

[heavenknowsffs]

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[markantonys]

i'll be interested to see if this holds true for WOT s3 since the s1 finale had so many extenuating circumstances and can't really be included in the comparison, but based off of the s2 finale, i believe that season finales tend to bear the brunt of "It's Different From The Books!" ire because they are the culmination of all the smaller changes made throughout the season.

this turned into a bigger analysis post than i expected lmao par for the course with my blog! read on for exploration of how the 2x08 conclusion of each season-long arc is the the most emotionally satisfying conclusion and/or the most thematically appropriate conclusion possible based on the show's particular version of the story, plus a bonus tangent on the nature of adaptation.

for a finale episode, the writers' prime concern 100% has to be "wrapping up all the season's arcs in a way that feels satisfying with everything that's happened in the first 7 episodes, using the book version of the finale event as the framework" rather than "recreating the book version of the finale event exactly as it is with all the same scenes and themes". the nature of storytelling inherently means that every single person who tells the same story will focus on different themes (just think of how many versions of the hades & persephone story there are), and a good adaptation knows that being internally consistent with its own Emphasized Themes is more important than copying-and-pasting scenes from the source material without making any changes to account for the specific way this adaptation is telling the story.

(but a lot of people can't even get past this first point because they don't understand that this is how adaptations - how storytelling in general - work. like, person B literally cannot tell the exact same story that person A told without putting their own spin on it. it's not possible! unless they're simply reading out the exact words that person A wrote, which can't be done when putting 14 massive books into maximum 64 hours of tv. so many readers like to meet this point with "but why does the books' version of the story need to be changed at all?" which is just a non-starter because a) medium differences require a ton of changes, and b) even if no changes were *required*, they would happen anyway because that is human nature when it comes to storytelling. when it comes to story-listening too! ask a hundred different book fans what WOT is about and you'll get a hundred different answers. rafe & co can't possibly make an adaptation that captures every single reader's idea of What WOT Is About, and nobody in the world could ever re-tell the story of WOT in the exact same way that RJ told it, not even the most die-hard book fan; all rafe & co can do is focus on making sure the show honors the core of the books' story while also telling a good story in its own right, independent of the source material.)

i was a classics major, okay? it gets to me! anyway, corralling myself back on topic.

for 2x08, it's very telling just how far Minority Reader Opinion deviates from the general audience opinion. general audiences fucking LOVED this episode (it's the highest-rated on imdb out of the entire show, currently at a 9.0; most episodes are in the 7-8 range), but a bunch of readers call it disappointing and one of the worst episodes of the show. if it was actually a poor quality episode of television, the general audience ratings would reflect that too (as they do for 1x08, currently at a 6.4 (i personally think 1x08 gets way more hate than is deserved and i thoroughly enjoy that episode, but i accept that's just me)), but they don't.

so what does that mean? to me, it means that 2x08 is objectively a very good episode of television which general audiences found satisfying, but which some readers disliked because it prioritized the emotional & thematic needs of its own version of the story over the exact nature of the falme events in the source material. which is exactly what a good adaptation should do! if you forget the books and just look at the show (which the vast majority of viewers are doing), then every resolution that happens in 2x08 is the most satisfying resolution possible and/or the only resolution that was thematically permitted for that particular season storyline.

egwene: her season arc was about learning to stand on her own two feet and not cling onto her mentor figures or compare herself unfavorably to others. thus, her freeing herself from the a'dam is the most satisfying possible conclusion to her season arc. nynaeve and elayne freeing her in the books is nice, but in the show version, thematically, it would've undercut egwene's Overcoming Impostor Syndrome arc to go "yeah actually it's true that she's not good enough on her own and when it comes down to it she does always need nynaeve to help her out". that version worked in TGH where she didn't have an Overcming Impostor Syndrome arc, but it wouldn't have worked in the show where she did. (but, yes, egwene learning in 2x08 that she doesn't have to rely on others is a double-edged sword, which nicely sets up her later-series struggles with trying to shoulder too much herself and not letting even her friends or partner help her.)

rand: his season arc was about learning to lean on others and not isolate himself or try to protect his friends by withholding his burdens from them. thus, him failing to defeat ishamael until all his friends come to lend aid in various ways is the most satisfying possible conclusion to his season arc. rand defeating ishy singlehandedly in the books is nice, but in the show version, thematically, it would've undercut his Learning That Strength Is In Numbers arc to go "yeah actually it's true that rand is capable of winning his biggest battles all by himself and thus it's no problem for him to push his friends away". given the themes that s2 emphasized for rand, the only appropriate finale outcomes were either success with his friends' help or total failure on his own, and they chose the former. (that being said, rand pushing his friends away is a continuous issue for him throughout the series, so i doubt he's perfectly learned his lesson after 2x08; we shall see!)

interesting to note that rand and egwene have inverse arcs in a way (foils!) and that some elements of their book falme climaxes were swapped, and that the way the show has done it subverts the expected gender roles. typically, men are expected to be Lone Wolves and women to be Team Players, and the WOT books absolutely play into these stereotypes throughout the series (sometimes intentionally as social commentary, sometimes unconsciously as an accepted truth of the world), but 2x08 and s2 more broadly did the opposite with our yin-and-yang co-protagonists. it's egwene who has the arc about learning to be a Lone Wolf and rand who has the arc about learning to be a Team Player. and imo these subconscious gender role expectations are a part of why some readers (esp reddit) got SO heated about "how come egwene can succeed by herself but rand can't", because it feels Wrong to them and Not How Things Are Supposed To Work (they've never questioned why rand can succeed by himself but egwene needs her friends' help in TGH, or all the other times in the books when men succeed by themselves and women succeed by relying on each other). but it's a totally apples-to-oranges comparison because egwene and rand had totally different season arcs and focal themes (but many paralleling & foiling moments within that), and so they each get a conclusion tailor-made to their individual stories.

mat: his season arc was about realizing he's a good, worthy person, finding the inner strength to overcome his worst impulses and temptations, and coming through for his friends after leaving them at the waygate. thus, him getting his Big Damn Hero moment with the horn of valere, getting validation that he is literally a hero, and overall spending the episode doing all he can to support his friends is the most satisfying possible conclusion to his season arc. (but stabbing his bff just as he was flying on a confidence high and trying to save the day was a downer note to end on, so we've complicated his relationship with heroism and set up some more internal issues for him to wrestle with next season.)

perrin: his season arc was about learning to acknowledge his inner wolf but also coming to regard it with fear and to believe that wolf & human sides can't coexist and he must Choose One (.......suddenly being struck by the bisexuality metaphor of it all. nice!) thus, him giving into violence to murder a human to avenge a wolf is.....well, it's pretty upsetting for him and serves to reinforce his growing belief that his two sides can't coexist, but thematically, it's fascinating and sets him up for some really great internal (and external) conflicts in s3. he's just gotten what he thinks is pretty strong evidence to corroborate ishy's claim that embracing his wolf side means embracing the shadow, so he's set up for a season 3 of deep-diving into his relationship with violence and his inner wolf. it's also a neat parallel with 1x08: there perrin's avoidance of violence allowed fain to escape, whereas here his embracing of violence has traumatized him (again), so our poor guy is really feeling conflicted in the pacificism-or-violence question because both sides seem wrong to him right now. huh, i guess perrin's full-series arc is about finding a middle ground rather than one extreme (pacifism/tuatha'an/human) or the other (violence/aiel/wolf). i feel like i've just had an epiphany lmao this is why i love the show! it tells the same story as the books, but tells it in a different way that makes me think about it differently and gain new insights!

nynaeve: her season arc was about learning that she, on her own, as she is today, is not enough to protect her loved ones. this is a tough pill for both her and the audience to swallow! but it's needed for her character, and we see it in the books too. nynaeve has an incredible amount of power, but she's terrified of having that much power and wants to pretend it doesn't exist. she's resistant to change, she's used to being in charge, and she's very "my way or the highway". these are all things she needs to grow out of (or moderate, at least) in order to be able to step up and do her part for tarmon gai'don. she has to learn how to embrace her power instead of being afraid of it or being too stubborn to let other people guide her and teach her, so s2 shows her what happens if she doesn't, first hypothetically in the accepted test (everyone she loves dies because she's blocked and refused channeling training) and then for real in falme (she couldn't help elayne fully or rand at all because of her block). so her 2x08 conclusion being Total Failure is not emotionally satisfying, no, but it's thematically exactly what she needed and will goad her into facing her block head-on next season. thematically, like rand, nynaeve only had 2 options for falme: break her block and succeed, or retain her block and fail, and it was too soon for the former (we gotta let her cook a while longer, plus the story will become too easy if nynaeve, or rand, reaches supernova capability too soon), so it had to be the latter. if the show had gone with a third option of her succeeding without breaking her block, then that would've taught her and the audience that it's fine to leave the block in place and she doesn't need to challenge herself to grow as a person, because when it TRULY matters she can always get around the block.

other characters get appropriate resolutions too! moiraine and lan get to work together to succeed after being at odds and failing on their own all season (rand foils!). elayne gets validation that she is an essential and trusted part of the friend group after feeling like somewhat of an outsider earlier in the season. ishamael getting vanquished and lanfear betraying him only to be betrayed by him in turn is exactly where their mutual mistrust was leading them (and it shows us why it's so important that Team Light be able to work as a team rather than as self-interested individual operators; the contrast between ishy & lanfear looking at the seals together while plotting to betray each other vs. rand standing on the tower with all his friends behind him makes me cry your honor. imagine hating that ishy's defeat was a team effort, could not be me!)

(it's also worth noting that the characters who had the least individual success/victory in 2x08 (nynaeve, rand, perrin) are the ones who will have the biggest individual storylines in s3 (tanchico & moggy, waste arc, two rivers arc), whereas the characters who had the most individual success/victory (egwene, mat, moiraine, lan) are the ones who will be taking a bit more of a backseat (of course they all have their own stuff to do, but none of them is *the* lead character of their TSR/s3 traveling group). this is intentional!)

so there you have it. 2x08 is adored by the general audience, and it's because of this: it gives us some damn satisfying conclusions to all the season arcs (and some exciting and visually stunning battle sequences to boot), and all the viewers who AREN'T beleaguered by "But The Books!", which is most of them, recognize that for the good storytelling it is. i for one will always care far more about the show telling a good story within itself than the show being identical to the books, and rafe & co will too, as they should.

the only downside to the episode is that, yes, it is quite cramped for time because there are a lot of arcs to wrap up. this should be less of an issue in future seasons when the season finale isn't "every single major storyline converges in the same place at once". for example, judging by the "goldeneyes" episode title it seems s3 might split it up so that perrin's conclusion in the two rivers is in 3x07 while other conclusions in other locations are in 3x08, giving each more breathing room. whereas 2x08 had no choice but to stuff everything in that episode into that specific episode because it's not like perrin could just do his falme stuff an episode early and take a nap while everyone else was doing THEIR falme stuff in the next episode, nor could the full falme sequence have been split into 2 episodes since that would have disrupted the flow of the story. the only solution would be for 2x08 to be extra long, which is nice to imagine, but we all know that streaming shows almost never deviate from their set episode lengths and so there isn't much point sighing about "this episode should have been 90 minutes long!" because that just is not on the table, never has been, and never will be. the first step to being able to jive with an adaptation is making peace with the limits of its particular medium!

plus, the only things i might deem "missing" from 2x08 are non-essential (ingtar darkfriend reveal - that is NOT important fight me, it's only important in the books as our first example of a morally-gray shadow-aligned person but the show has already been doing that in spades) or will likely be included in 3x01 (the gang spending some time together to breathe and process and catch up). at the end of the day, the show is always going to need to be paced very very tightly with not as much breathing room as those of us accustomed to entire books dedicated to reacting to the previous book might expect. and 2x08 did manage to pack in a LOT of character work amidst all the action and did a good mix of resolving s2 arcs while leaving some unresolved to carry into s3 and introducing some new arcs/issues/conflicts, all within 70 minutes, which i find pretty impressive. in conclusion, 2x08 my fucking beloved <3

[babyangelsky]

Peat's acting is stupendous and it's hurting my feelings

I need to talk about the bedroom scene and the fight that preceded it because it felt like I was having a mirror held up to me and looking at my younger self and in doing, so I've come to love Tongrak as a character even more than I did before.

I talked about the expressions already but I just cannot get past this one. Rak's eyes are so dead and he looks so tired in a way that I understand so deeply. He knows what's about to happen. He screened Prin's call earlier precisely in hopes of avoiding it but she showed up anyway.

I do have to acknowledge that a lot of my interpretation and feelings about him and these scenes are very much a product of my own experiences, but believe me when I tell you that having a family as fucked as his and having to deal with relatives like this drains you. You fight back because you have to, not because you want to. You don't go seeking the bullshit but somehow it always seems to arrive at your door.

I know exactly how he must be feeling because I've felt it. Because I've fought back and made sure my mask was firmly in place for as long as I needed it to only to break the second I could turn my face away.

I'm impressed that Rak didn't run from Mut and that he didn't start crying on the way to his bedroom. That powerwalk he did instead though? I know it all too well.

To Rak's mind, Mut has already witnessed far more than Rak ever intended for him to. That fight was nasty. It poked at so many wounds, touched on so many painful, intimate things about Rak's family and about him. Prin wanted to hurt and humiliate him and she succeeded.

I can confidently say that if someone I cared about witnessed that happening to me, the last thing I would want is to break down in front of them on top of it, so I completely understand why Rak's first instinct was to put distance between him and Mut. You know the breakdown is coming and the only thing you want is to have it in private.

I know people feel some kind of way about Rak's refusal to let Mut into his bedroom and essentially shutting him out but Mook tells us in episode 4 that no one is allowed in Rak's bedroom. This isn't just about Mut. Everything we have learned and seen of Rak so far tells us that he's a person who needs a safe place to hide. A place where he can close the door and know he won't be intruded upon.

Sure, it's his house and ideally he would have the freedom to break down wherever he wants to inside of it but given that Mook comes and goes pretty freely, he doesn't really have that luxury by his standards. There's always a chance she'll walk in. And he certainly doesn't have it now that he's no longer living alone.

So he goes to hide in his bedroom so he can process and feel what he needs to.

And when Mut comes after him, this happens. Mut pushed at that boundary out of genuine care and concern and he's not wrong for that. I've been on his side of this equation too and the impulse to help in whatever way you can is impossible to resist, even if all you can offer is a meal.

But I also understand Rak. God do I understand him. That need to be alone, demanding to be left in peace, lashing out when someone won't despite it being with good intentions. When you've been pushed to your limit and you know a breakdown is coming and that there will be shrapnel when it does, the very last thing you want is for the people you care about to get hit with it.

Like @bird-inacage said in their post, Tongrak is a caged animal at this point. He's feeling vulnerable and defensive and he lashes out. He doesn't want to, he tries to stop it, but it ends up happening anyway.

And he regrets it. He does. The way I see it, he couldn't bring himself to knock on Mut's door both because he'd exhausted all his nerve in the fight with Prin and because a part of him was probably worried that he'd be rejected if he did. When you lash out, especially when you don't mean to, there's always a worry that you've done irreparable damage to your relationship with whoever was on the receiving end and that you won't ever be forgiven.

Sometimes it really is something as simple as a sticky note that brings you to tears and has you sobbing into your dinner in the middle of the night.

The note and the meal are proof that Tongrak hasn't been rejected, that he's still cared for despite the way he reacted after the fight and the things that he said. We know that Mut wasn't going to reject him but Rak needed to know that as well.

And now that they had their moment in the dressing room and the issue of the money has been talked about, we're paving a way forward for Rak to be able to express what he feels without using it as a defense mechanism. He still will, and he will hurt me many more times before we're done, but we're making progress.

[it-happened-one-fic]

Any Weight - Idia

Author Notes: So I really didn't know what I was going to post today in terms of oneshots, so this happened. This fic has been sitting my google docs for quite while and honestly started out life as practice for writing Idia. I wrote this and edite it while listening to the song "Heavy in Your Arms" by Florence in the Machine. As per usual, reader is gender-neutral. I hope you enjoy!

Type: Gender-neutral reader/ sfw/ fluff with angst/ comfort/ romance highly implied/ Spoilers for Ignihyde Chapter

Word Count: 1539

Idia shifted slightly as you leaned against his back, reading some book as he farmed one of his games. And in easy, quiet moments like this, with the weight of your body resting gently against his, feeling like a silent but ever-present promise, it was easy to forget the truth of his situation. Of his life.

But Idia was cursed. It was a weighty, but simple truth that had hung over his head for his entire life. Because he’d never known a life where he wasn’t cursed.

Idia was cursed to remain chained to the Island of Woe, to S.T.Y.X., and to guard the remains of those who’d fallen prey to their own magic and dark thoughts, just like he almost had back when you’d come all the way to S.T.Y.X.’s headquarters after Grim and your friends.

Idia was also cursed to never be able to feel darkness’s embrace, which could hide even the greatest of shames, until the light inevitably came. Because his hair always shone that cold blue light on him. Never letting him hide away from the gaze of all those who looked upon him in horror or disgust and saw all of his many flaws.

Idia was even cursed by his own personality. Unable to tolerate being around others without shutting down and drowning in their silent gazes. Judgmental, fearful, and sometimes pitying, no matter how he felt about it.

It was disgusting, infuriating, and so many other things that left him filled with ire towards anyone and everyone who didn’t understand him or his life. If they were going to gawk at him, then he would mock them for their naive, stupid views, and avoid them. There was no use in bothering with people who would never care.

After all, his life had been decided for him from the very moment he’d been born.

And all of those reasons, as well as so many others, were why he’d pushed you away initially. A laughable thought now, considering you were sitting on his bed, with your back pressed to his in a gentle reminder of your presence that, rather than causing him to tense like so many did, made him relax into the silence that rested easily between the two of you.

But when he’d first met you, he never would have imagined this. Not with how you’d seemed so strange. 

A weirdo, to be sure, with the way your gaze had never held that crushing weight that threatened to smother him that so many others had.

Some person from another world who apparently had far greater concerns than a flame-haired freak that lived in some other dorm. And, to an extent, Idia had been able to respect that.

It had quickly become obvious that you were more than just a weirdo, though. If nothing else, you were capable of handling and surviving numerous overblots. And even as he was getting to know you, it had already been clear to Idia that you were capable of so much more than him.

And that was still clear to him even today. Because if he was a curse, then you were more akin to a blessing.

A blessing who stepped in and stopped overblots from destroying their victims rather than studying the remains of those who were already done for.

A blessing who could see people at their very worst, and still accept them.

And finally, you were a blessing in that you had a personality that was like a balm to introverts. A person he could just be himself around without having to be surrounded by the multitude of people who’d already noticed your calming demeanor.

In reality, Idia knew you weren’t a blessing. Something so good could never survive in a school like this one. And he’d experienced firsthand exactly how much of a pest you could be.

But even with that knowledge, there were still moments when you were like a protagonist with the way you stood out so glaringly from the crowd.

Of course, Idia stood out from the crowd as well, but never in a remotely good way. 

At odds with this, your only supposedly negative quality was that you lacked magic. And while it did make your life a pain sometimes, you never let it bother you. Not like how Idia let his negative qualities and anything he lacked burden him.

And it was a heavy burden. A heavy burden that Idia knew made him equally heavy and unpleasant to be around. Because Idia was no fool. He knew his presence, his friendship, and even his very existence was a weighty one. He could easily drag a person down to their doom with the curses that trailed after him, like an entourage that couldn’t and wouldn’t go unnoticed.

And all of those reasons, plus a myriad of others, were why your presence here, with him, right now ought to be strange. But it wasn’t. In fact, it was perfectly normal for you to hang out with him in the solace of his room. Sometimes gaming with him, and sometimes just doing your own thing in silent companionship.

The selfish part of him clung to both you and your presence even as he continued to face his game in silence. 

Were he just a bit bolder, it would be easy to imagine himself turning to face you and wrapping his arms around your neck, with his fingers curling around your temple as if they could crown you as he cradled you to him.

But what could he ever crown you with other than the knowledge that you deserved far better?

It was his way of betraying you, and he knew that. His betrayal was one of the reasons he never tried to cross the dotted line that strained to keep you and him from growing any closer. Similarly, it was the reason the silence remained between the two of you as Idia pondered all of the oddities that were your relationship with him.

Because you supported him. Embracing him in your arms like he was weightless, rather than the way he knew he had to be a chain tangling itself around your ankles, threatening to trip you up and drag you down.

But you didn’t let him sink, and you didn't get pulled down by him. 

It was like you were a hero in some tropey anime. Willing to plunge into the very deepest of sorrows and pull him out. Never fearing the chances of drowning in the deep darkness of his curses, but also not shunning the light that revealed all. Good and bad.

Or if you did fear it, you didn’t let that fear hold you back. And perhaps that thought was even more alarming. Because that meant you cared about him enough to not let fear hold you back.

Either way, you seemed to just accept both his good and bad traits. Taking it all on with a smile not unlike the one you’d worn when you’d first forced your way into his life.

You’d shrugged off his moody words and met his gaze with your smiling one, “Nobody’s perfect, and it’s not like you’re the only guy at NRC who has overblotted or has caused me problems.”

You were definitely still a strange one, but Idia could no longer view that strangeness as bad. How could he when you could somehow look at the chains that surrounded him, binding him to his curses and doing their best to condemn him and those he chose to tie himself to, and smile in the face of it all? 

But as frustrating as your strange but oddly charming weirdness was, it made him want to do better.

To support you just like how you supported him. To let you know that even in this world that was not your own, you weren’t alone.

If you could willingly walk into that never-ending light that constantly showed his every weakness to the entire, unforgiving, and uncaring world, then he would hide you in the darkness and carry you when it hurt too much.

Because he knew it hurt, even if you hid it well with that smile that only seemed to truly fail you when you were facing an overblot or when the mention of your home came up.

Even if you were strong enough to carry him and all his curses, Idia knew it hurt and that the nights were long for you. 

In fact, it was obvious to him.

Because that weight you carried was why, even after having made friends and forged yourself a family, you still sought your own world. And he recognized that weight’s presence. How could he not when he was all too familiar with carrying a burden all his own?

But you would never be too heavy for him. Not when he was used to carrying the weight of his own curses.

He could carry you, and you would never drag him down. In fact, he doubted your feet would ever even touch the ground. Because, just like how the weight of you leaning against him was more of a comfort than a burden, he knew that, if it was you, he could carry any weight.

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

We Are

A lot has been said about this show over the last 15 weeks. And despite what some people seem to think, most of it has been positive. I tend not to write much about shows in general, and stick to making pretty gifs of the shows I really like. The fact that I made exactly one set for the entire duration of this show should tell anyone who's reading that this will not be glowing review of the show. I'm not going to be mean, but if you loved the show and don't wanna do read someone with a different opinion, I beg you to stop reading. Also sorry if this is less than coherent but I'm tired so I won't be re-reading this a hundred times like I usually do before posting. Which also explains why I don't write a lot here.

We are - the story

One of the things that have been said about this show is that it lacks a plot. I would agree that the show as whole does not have single plot, but a series of plots. At it's most basic definition a plot is a series of events that shape a larger narrative. In the case of a linear plot there is a major plot line that follows the narrative from beginning to end with changes throughout. I'm not going to go into it, there are several ways this can be done depending on the type of narrative but most commonly it goes, beginning, rising, climax, falling, resolution. Now there's no such thing in this show as a whole. No single plot line. There is however several plots inside it, and these different plots do follow their own lines throughout the show. Every couple has its own plot line. And if we could only watch one couple at a time as if they had their own separate show, it would look just like any other bl, although it would certainly not be all that original. I think the friendships are what ultimately brings it all together but that by itself is not a central plot because it basically remains unchanged throughout. It's the anchor but it's not what moves the narrative forward.

We are - the ships

Once again, if you are a die hard fan of these ships do not read any more. Before I talk about them individually I just wanna say that @italianpersonwithashippersheart made an excellent point here about the fact that since we were familiar with most of the ships here, the show had an easier job in making us care for them. All the couples had their own storyline, with different stages of their development happening at the same time. And for the most part the show didn't have to spend a lot of time selling us on the relationships. It made use of a solid, reliable product that could be repackaged and resold. This is not necessarily a bad thing nor is it a new thing. It's thai bl.

Phum & Peem - The main couple. And in my opinion the least interesting one and the one most wasted here. Look, PondPhuwin are good together, this is their third show as a couple so they are a solid bet. So why not give them something with more depth? Why did I have to watch them exchange longing looks for the better part of this show? Don't get me wrong, they are great at it. Pond specially could teach a class on how to stare lovingly into Phuwin eyes. But lord was I tired of it. I mean, I'm sorry but I was fast forwarding through some of their scenes together because I've seen them all. I didn't count them but the amount of times they fell into each others arms must have been some sort of record. Sure, Phuwin is great at the facial expressions, Pond's hair ir gorgeous and he should be doing shampoo commercials, and yes, they can pull off the 'you're the only person in the universe in this moment and time loses all its meaning when I look into your eyes' thing. But enough is enough.

Q & Toey - It's fine. They're fine. They're actually much better than in My School President. Both of them I think improved a lot in their acting. But their story didn't do much for me. I enjoyed Q's change after they were boyfriends, I thought it was fun, but the drama before that, I thought, was so forced so I was not really all that invested. Also not a fan of the jealousy plan even if it did give us some entertaining moments with the friend group. I don't know, they just didn't click for me.

Tan & Fang - Is Tan one of the most adorable simps we've had in thai bl? YES. Did the boyfriend moments of this couple make me grin like an idiot 80% of the time? YES. Did I believe in the reciprocity of this relationship from the start? NO. Tan was the only reason that this relationship had me invested. His loud and unapologetic love for Fang filled the gaps in this particular love story. But the way it started made me have to work extra hard to believe the rest of it.

Chain & Pun - They were my favourites from the start. I waited 15 weeks for that kiss. Was it worth it? honestly, probably not. But at least they delivered in the end. That scene was everything I could've wanted from those two even if I wish it had happened sooner. The change in casting might've been the reason why it had to be this way so I'm not complain about that because ultimately I really enjoyed their story. Marc delivered as usual. Poon was so endearing to watch and his face is lovely. They remain my favourites and I wish I had a bit more time with them.

We Are - The friendships

This is what kept me going. When the episodes dragged and I found myself a bit bored, there was a big group moment and it brought me back to the show. When this show started, in my monthly breakdown I said I thought that @bengiyo comparing watching this show to watching the actors IG reels was a good way to describe the experience. But for me that wasn't always a bad thing. Just like with the couples, the fact that I knew these actors and they knew each other made me feel more connected to those ensemble moments. They felt very natural and grounded, and ultimately I could relate and be touched by them. I think that it's the show's biggest strength.

Well, this got longer than I expected and I never really know how to end these things so in conclusion. It was good fluff, with good friendship moments and solid acting from the couples. I will however forget most of it by this time next week, specially with the amount of ql's I'm watching at the moment.

If you've made it to the end, thanks for reading. 💜

[thesupernaturalhouse]

Right so- Emily's personality ir charlies design for the hazbins Fallen au?? Which should I talk about first??

Let's go with Emily-

Alright! So, Emily is still her cheery self but also due to the nature of the au defiantly isnt all niave and trusting and stuff

In this au, she's learning about seras lies from others, which I think would give her trust issues. I also made her more, angry

I imagine in the au she holds grudges a lot more, mainly against alastor, and has more of a silent anger type personality- here's a small snippet of the pilot for the au

Emily: alright so now we watch *Katie starts throwing insults* ...oookay- vaggie, spear, down *gently holding said spears tip down

Vaggie: wha- but, come onn

Emily: no 'come onn' I don't think you scaring people with you angelic spear is a good ide- *Katie says soenthifn homophobic* .....neveemind *releases spear* do whatever you want ant. I want that bitch to fear for her life

Or it'd go something like that, I'll work out any kinks when I start writing the story, first I wanna awake an episode layout whoch is harder then it loks- I have the ideas but I need it in a list so- jsut gotta sort through all that

Like she isn't like Vaggie, spear raised, but not like Charlie, easy to forgive.

I do imagine she bites her tounge however if you ask for her hienst's opinion, she will NOT hold back. I think once she and Husk become more of a father-daughter duo, he starts rubbing off on her, and she starts blurting some ruder things out

He is so proud of his little(200k year+) girl

It's probably the most evident when I have her tell of Alastor- which will also be one instance of her being super protective over her found family.....listen I know yall love Alastor i do to, but I think he fandom over hypes him, and so does he himself, and I want Emily to kinda call him out, and threaten him in this au

But that'll be another post :)

Remember how I said charlie and slaviathen are like Ron and Tammy 2 but without all the sex? Yeah, well, then Emily is Diane! Vaggie is to but vaggie mostly focuses on getting them out and stuff. Emily and slaviathen just have passive aggressive argument and comments thrown at each other

"Always a pleasure to meet you charlies friends" "*strained smile* always a pleasure seaweed hair stranger" "oooo-Kay let's go- and let charlie Dela with this"

Why vaggie is passive with sleviathan and Emily is the protective one? Honestly idk but I think it's funny :) maybe it's cause Vaggie knows Charlie doesn't tale shit from slaviathen one bit so lets her gaurd down more because she knows charlie has it, so she's more passive or smth

Emily meanwhiem can't STAND being talked down to so absurd bites back no matter what. Which is also why her breaking point would be Katie calling them a slur.

She hates being talk down to, which stems form her years in heaven being treated as a child by almost everybody, good intentions or not it was still always so condescending to her. Especially when it was from Sera or the other heaven born and elder/arch angles

So she definitely internalized that, remember how I said she was often referred to as 'lucifers replacement' by many elder angles?? Yeah, that's where it MOSTLY stems from

She'd also have resentment and hatred for lucifer because of it all, like "I never want to meet whoever the fuck lucifer is" kinds mentality, it's due to this that she refused to search him uo and relaize he was her girlfriends, one of them, DAD

So the dad beat dad episode is...fun!! Emily gets piss drunk with HER dad, husk after realizing the short man in the middle of the living room is lucifer

It's after that whole song at the beginning happens does she realize he's lucifer, cause charlies only referred to him as dad so-

......I should start drafting a psot for her and Peter's relationship- mlm and wlw solidarityyyy

She also be a lot more sexual active I think because liek heaven is restricted so being in hell with norestricrions she definitely is THRIVING on that freedom

I have a scene planned out for when Angle takes them to that bdsm club that involved her buying black silk stuff because why not-

Anyways, the finale change in Emily, I think, for her personality that is would be she absolutely take sfter a more Sloth like sin

"Screw both of you I'm sleeping in!" She absolutely HATES waking up early in the morning, especially if it's after a night of certain events. Vaggie will throw clothes at her and force her to get up. Charlie will already be downstairs full of energy-

[snailsnaps]

Part 2 of a Computer Science student's analysis of the FNAF: SB intro

Full with tech lingo, abundant personal interpretations, and translations so that my tech illiterate fellas may undertand whatever the fuck im yapping about!

This post is written under the context that you've read my last analysis. I highly recommend you first check out these two posts before continuing with this one if you haven't already: > First post + Continuation ( IMPORTANT!! ) > An addition to the first post

Once you've read through those two (three?) posts, come back here! You're back? You've read them? Awesome! Let's begin then. =)

Reminder! This analysis has been done based off of my own understanding of the subject of both computing and programming - which I am currently studying. I would also like to yet again shout out this reddit post, that also gives a great perspective. Definitely check it out if you're interested later!

Also I have not re-read this, you may find typos - don't hold it against me, they will be fixed, someday =(

Now then, fellas, this is where shit gets wild.

Last post, I talked about the command box we can see at the top right corner of the intro - what each command did and how it basically corresponded to what happens to freddy in the events of the intro.

However, you might recall I mentioned a second command box, the one found at the left side of the screen. This command box is by far the most important piece of information we have throughout the entire duration of the intro. Mostly, because it changes 3 times.

It changes a total of 3 times in the time it takes for the right command box to finish.

Each time it changes, it displays new lines of code. And every single line of code it displays, tells us a lot about what is happening to Freddy.

This is the first block of code that we get:

system32> Get-568_win heat_869%yTnu_bl8 lvl_b> 228.wst serial.dot_btb rec.556> dtd /

You might inmediately realize that the first line of code from this command box matches exactly the one from the first analysis. Here are both of them as comparison.

Hopefully, you've already made the connection. This command box is the one possibly being run by the Glitchtrap/Vanny Virus. Whatever lines of code appear on the command box to the left, are the ones being executed by the Virus - and they affect Freddy in real time. However, the command box on the right ir Freddy's, so to speak.

Both CLI (command line interfaces) are being run at the same time - yet independently of one another. Keep this in mind.

I don't want to go too in depth with this first block of code. All you need to know is that it moves around some directories and runs something called 'dtd', wich could be a command or a program.

The next two blocks of code, however? Ohhh damn... This is it, fellas. This is what I've been waiting for.

Now, I want you to know that this doesn't quite resemble any 'real' code, at least not at first glance. I do believe that it is a very 'condensed' form of the Python programming language, since the syntaxing of the commands shown here somewhat resemble how a string written in Python would look like.

So, I have taken the time to try to decipher what each line means, and what they do. And well, let's just say it explains why Freddy wasn't affected by the Virus in the first place.

def rule(x) return warning78 init; self_overdrive abort(3)RTLKt abort(5)XGE END

This is the second block of code that we're shown, so lets break it down.

def rule(x) return warning78 init;

This string would define "rule" as a function, specifying "x" as the parameter. Basically, this line specifies that if the command rule is inputted, it should return whatever value (or argument) x has taken.

Normally, define is followed by a return function, which is why I've shown them together, as well as the init; command.

The command return followed by "warning78", makes it so whenever we call upon the function rule, it shows us whatever warning78 may be - and judging as to what happens in the intro, it could be any of the multiple warnings that appear in Freddy's GUI. Or it could also easily be the big "WARNING!" message that can be seen the entire time near the top of the screen.

Lastly, the init; command isn't exactly a standardized python command - but it is a common abreviation of the initialization command, where in the field of programming, it means "the assignment of an initial value for a data object or variable". Basically, it's when you assign the initial values and variables to a program so it can start.

All in all, these three lines create a command that, when called upon, gives out the warning78.

self_overdrive

Again, not really a python function, but important nontheless. This command doesn't have a specific meaning, but we can try to understand what it does.

The term overdrive doesn't really exist in the field of computing/programming. However, it is asociated with overclocking - "the practice of increasing the clock rate of a computer to exceed that certified by the manufacturer" - Overdrive is also a term in the field of music, also known as distorsion, which is when you force an amplifier to output past its limits.

Both of these definitions go around the same concept, pushing a computer to its limits so that it works better, or faster - even while it possibly damages the computer.

We can then assume that the function self_overdrive is making Freddy's system run pasts its usual limits. Which is why I believe Freddy's integrity level plumits during the intro.

abort(3)RTLKt abort(5)XGE END

Lastly, we have these three lines.

The abort function isn't a real python function - but I believe you can asume what it does. Both lines are attempting to kill something - a program, a process, another function... However, I am not sure wether these two are really functions, since they could very easily be error handling messages. Essencially, warning messages that the system returns when something crashes, for example.

The last line, END, specifies the end of this string of code.

Which leads us to the third and last block of code. The one which in my professional opinion, is the one that reveals to us why Freddy's cool with us during Security Breach! =]

report.NULL gridlock [ax674] init_task>void alloc [overload] SW.failure return /

THIS IS WHAT WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR, FRIENDS. THIS IS IT. This is the part where I had the most fun with this analysis...

report.NULL

Now, usually report, in the field of programming and software, it means to record or log something. For example an error log, or crash log. However, it being followed by NULL could also mean that this is an error handling message of sorts.

In computing, Null is, well, zero. It's nothing. It's the absence of value, when something that should be there, isn't.

From this, we could gather that this is a warning message that attempted to report something, yet failed to find anything to report back. No value at all.

...or, we could take this line literally. Taking into consideration that this code is being executed by the virus - this line of code could be taken as an attempt by the virus to stop Freddy's system from freaking out.

Remember that this entire code is being executed as Freddy's actively getting a big flashing WARNING! message. So, this line of code could be an effort to silence it, returning a null value to a warning message.

Both scenarios are plausible, so stick with the one you think fits best!

gridlock [ax674]

This one... man... this line was wild. It's where everything clicked for me. You will want to ignore the characters [ax674], what we truly care about is the first word: gridlock.

You see, a gridlock isn't really a term used in computing at all. It is a term refering to a "severe congestion of traffic, where continuous queues of vehicles block an entire intersection". HOWEVER, gridlock is also known as another term for deadlock.

A deadlock is what's known as a stalemate. A situation where two opposing parties come to a point where no progress can be made. In programming, it means basically the same thing.

A situation where two processes can't proceed, since both of them are waiting for the other to release a resource. Now, imagine this scenario. We have two processes, A and B, and two resources, R1 and R2.

Process A is currently using resource R1.

Process B is currently using resource R2.

Process A requests resource R2, but is blocked because it's held by Process B.

Process B requests resource R1, but is blocked because it's held by Process A.

Now... imagine this situation, but with Freddy, and the virus.

What we most likely have here, the line gridlock [ax674], is an error handling message, warning that a deadlock is ocurring. The string of characters beside it has no meaning, and could easily be but an error handling code of sorts.

init_task>void

I've explained before that init is the abreviation of initialization. So, we can gather that this is a command that is attempting to initialize a task. Now then, in the context of the previous line, this one could mean one of two things:

The virus is attempting to initialize a task (a set of instructions) called void.

The virus is attempting to initialize a task, however, due to the deadlock, it returns this line as an error message, indicating a void return. In programming, when a function returns the word void, it usually means that the function was not able to return a value. It is similar to Null, yet not the same.

Either of these could be a posibility, so I will leave it to your personal interpretation.

And here it when it all goes to hell...

alloc [overload] SW.failure return

Alloc is not a real function, but it can be considered an abreviation of the word allocation. In computing, the allocation is the assignment of memory and resources to the various processes the system may have.

Proper memory and resource allocation is very important in a computer. As you may know, a computer as a limited amount of RAM it can work with, and the same goes for it's processing power. But, for example, what happens when you try to allocate resources that aren't available?

Well, a lot of things may happen. Mainly, the program could hang, the process could freeze - or the entire system could crash!

Remember earlier, we saw that it was likely that Freddy and the virus were in a deadlock. Yet, the Virus tried to allocate more resources to itself... Which overloaded the system, and likely resulted in the next line.

SW.failure has no real meaning - but I've interpreted the first two characters [SW] as software. This would make this line an error message warning about a software failure.

So... What does this all mean? How does it all tie together? Why didn't Freddy get infected by the Virus? Because it got too greedy. It tried to allocate too many resources/memory, overloaded the system and crashed both itself and Freddy.

Why only Freddy, though? Why didn't this happen to the other animatronics? That... I'm not sure. I believe this is more of a lore question rather than computer question.

In my opinion, I don't think this was a case of 'Freddy knew that he was getting infected by a virus, and fought back'. I'm leaning more to the posibility of it being a 'wrong place wrong time' type of situation... or maybe 'right place right time'? In general, a lot of factors and a lot of different things happened that lead to this specific scenario happening.

Anyways, this is it! This has been my analysis - or nerdy infodumping, if you please.

I do hope that I was able to teach you something today, and that this whole analysis helps you understand the animatronics a bit better - and helps you with future fanfics, comics, AUs, artworks... whatever!

One last reminder - if you have any more questions about this stuff, my ask box is open! I love talking about this stuff!!

Oh, and, coming soon...

DJMM's Bouncer Mode ! A theory by a computer science student as to why it's still present, and why it makes him so aggressive.

[sharkface]

what do you hate about Legends Arceus? I've seen it received pretty much universally positive so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it

I have plans to make like an in depth post (or maybe video idk whatever but it'll happen eventually) but the TLDR

1. It's boring as an open world game, environments feel empty and indistinct and while I really like the Idea of an open world pokemon game I don't think it was a great plan to have their first in that category be set in a past version of Sinnoh that's mostly unpopulated so you have like, three very small towns to visit within this game which has been made very long through Tedium (see point 3)

2. I have 0 attachment to the characters or town mechanics, I personally am very capable of getting attached to boring characters if there's SOMETHING for me to work with but I found the overwhelming majority of character interactions very boring within this hollowed out world. IMO the only characters that Id say I like in PLA are Volo and Melli and admittedly that's just because I have kind of a thing for smug effeminate men

3. The aforementioned Tedium. While I do think the gameplay loop and mechanics are some of the most dynamic and enjoyable in the entire franchise (also a rare instance of a crafting mechanic in a series that doesn't usually need one that I liked), the fun I had started to wear veeeerrrryyyy thin when I realized how much extra work was needed to complete the pokedex (the one thing there really is to Do in this game) beyond catching one of everything. I also don't think you should need to catch one of everything to finish the game's story but that is a slightly lesser gripe. The bad map leaves me unable to see why there was a need for the wisp collection mission. Most quests are just "find this specific pokemon for me" which means you have to do a lot of roaming in the Bad Map. Really I think if the map was good I would have way leas ire for all of this, but it doesn't feel like I'm completing a game, it feels like I'm doing chores.

PLA to me feels like the beta version of a better game and this is because it literally is a beta version of scarvi's mechanics with a story loosely laid on top they charged you for. It's totally possible I just failed to connect with it initially, but I've played it a few times since it first came out and it's still fallen really flat for me. I see the appeal for other people, I do think there's a strong enough framework that I believe people genuinely enjoyed it, but I also feel I can't really justify its failures wrt its price point and decades of prestige. If they'd charged even just like 40 bucks for it I don't think I'd be nearly as frustrated with it

[mythicalmyles]

— request,

somnophilia, breeding kink (moreso for the reader), nipple play + extreme dubcon

the reader has been so pent up recently and haven't had the time to pleasure himself... so when he suddenly has a wet dream he doesn't question it, even when it starts too feel /too/ real and sososo good. It's not like there's a real person laying on top of him, pinning him down to his bed while they fuck him (longdeeprough), and toy with his nipples, right? still. Since this IS a dream he can do whatever he wants, like push his hips back the same time the person fucks into him. and well, if he wakes up to hickeys on his neck and an ache in his lower back, just blame it on a bug and how he slept the previous night.

- same anon who requested the last somnophilia ask that you posted. :') thank you really, i enjoy your writing a lot.

Hope u dm i added some more and i lov u also ir so detailed god bless u frfr

18+ dubcon, somno, breeding, medication/misuse mention, also used Hoodie since u didnt specify who hope thats okay:,)

(Name) felt his eyes start to droop close as his medication finally hit him, his insomnia had gotten bad lately and he was taking more then suggested. He felt his cock harden for a brief moment and sighed, he was too tired he’d been super busy lately he hadn’t had a moment alone.

Before another thought could cross his mind he was passed out.

It wasnt much longer after that his window creeked open, afterall, he was in the middle of nowhere. There was no one for miles and miles, he was the perfect victim. Whoever broken would be gone long before any cop came.

Hoodie smirked to himself as he crept in, the room was coated in dark but due to his lifestyle it wasn’t much of a hinderance to him.

He easily made his way to the bed of his sleeping victim, taking a moment to look at their sleeping face. Hoodie froze, his eyes glued to them.

A smirk took over his features, he could have some fun. He pulled the covers off of the other male and threw them to the bottom of the bed, leaving them exposed to him.

His only obstacles being the boxers and shirt that currently donned (Name), he took a moment to take his own pants off before situating himself inbetween (Names) legs.

He marvled at the softness and gently squeezed the flesh, he bit his lip at the skin he grabbed before letting go.

He made sure to be gentle as he took (Names) shirt off, pausing to tweak his nipples.

Once he finally had it off he dropped it off the side of the bed, moving back to play with (Names) hardened buds. They reacted so quickly Hoodie shivered, he hoped the other was this sensitive everywhere.

He paused as (Names) face scrunched up and they shuffled position, after a few moments he let out a sigh and continued.

He pulled his mask up just enough to suck on one of (Names) nipples as his other hand flicked and played with the other, once (Name) squirmed again Hoodie paused only to switch to the other a moment later.

After abusing (Names) nipples Hoodie pulled back, he used his own saliva to lube up his finger.

With his free hand he pulled down (Names) boxers, leaving them at the knees before placing his legs on his shoulders.

Due to the position his finger slid in with little resistance and Hoodie couldn’t help but moan at how tight (Name) felt. Hoodie couldn’t help but imagine what would happen if they were awake, he pictured the boy crying and squirming. He let out a low groan as his cock pulsed and he pushed another finger into (Names) hole.

This time he was met with a furrowed brow and squirm, part of Hoodie wanted him to wake up to Hoodie ramming into him with his fingers but he’d rather have the other wake up on his cock.

Hoodie wasnt patient and had three fingers in before he probably should have, but he wanted to be inside them.

Once he felt (Name) had loosened up enough he pulled out his fingers, grinning when they subconsciously chased him.

He was quick to angle his cock at their ass, head pushing against hole. He rubbed (Names) rim for a few seconds and relished as their body twitched again.

He spat on his hand a few times before using it to lube up his cock, he then started pushing into (Name). Hoodie almost snapped and started ramming his cock into (Name), the tight heat enveloping his cock drove Hoodie insane.

Hoodie took a breath before slowly pushing into him, Hoodie bit his lip as his cock sunk deeper into (Name). He ended up having to pause a few times as he nearly woke (Name) up, once hoodie was fully deep inside of (Name) he took a moment to admire the others sweat covered face and twitching brow.

Hoodie tested the waters by slowly pulling out and pushing back in, he was met with a discomforted moan as (Names) body pulled itself together.

Hoodie froze, he wanted to at least see how far into fucking them he could get before they woke up. Luckily they made no other movements and Hoodie began to slowly fuck them, after a few thrusts (Name) let out quiet hum like moans.

One of Hoodies hands moved from (Names) hips to his nipple, rolling the bud and gently flicking it as he sped up his thrusts.

The sound of (Names) thighs slapping Hoodies was dopamine inducing and His head fell back as he thrusted roughly into the other, not noticing their sleepy eyes open for a moment before closing again.

(Names) moans picked up and he raised his hips up as his head flew back, this had to have been the best wet dream. It felt so real.

(Name) was too high on ecstasy and too dopey off of medication to really think. He let out a loud groan as a body landed on top of him, the feeling of their mouth sucking on his neck was intoxicating.

“Hmm breed me.” (Names) speech was entirely slurred and he could barley comprehend that he was the one who said it.

“Oh ill breed you good baby boy.” Came a deep voice. It didnt take much after that for (Name) to cum all over himself as Hoodie also hit his prostate dead on with every trust.

(Name) completely passed out and Hoodie almost laughed, he would’ve laughed if he hadn’t came in the same breath. “So pretty full of my seed.” Hoodie whispered after pulling out, using his fingers to push some of his cum back in.

He quickly stood up after not wanting to push his luck and quickly pulled on his pants, leaving the way he came.

The next day (Name) woke up with a sore back and ass, he shrugged it off as his back sorting out after finally getting a full nights sleep. He pulled the covers off and gazed at his own naked body, he’d sworn he’d worn clothes.

He quickly caught sight of them by the bed on the floor, he rolled his eyes at himself. He probably got too hot and stripped again. He laughed at himself as he noticed cum all over himself. “Jesus christ couldn’t wait until today huh?” He questioned himself aloud before getting up from his bed. He quickly threw on his boxers and shirt, he’d shower later he was thirsty.

He sleepily poured himself a drink, his throat drier then a desert. He caught his neck in a mirror, eyebrows furrowing at the red marks all over him.

He let out a small whine as he frowned, he hated bugs and the thought of them making a meal of him last night was horrifying, he quickly pulled out his phone to buy bed bug and anti bug spray, he wasn’t going to take any risks.

[luxurysystems]

big fan of your gta vice city au! i wanted to know what you thought of this: in the end of gta:vc where tommy is the crime king of the city, could you see any, say... conflict of interest between big money ted and crimelord tommy vercetti? maybe one where irs has to visit his old pal tommy to uh... yknow, talk "business" 👀

First off, anon, thank you so much omg 🥹💗. I’m so glad you enjoy it; revisiting one of my favorite games and mashing my two favorite guys into it has been a blast!! It’s gonna be a bit of a read and a little scatterbrained since all of my ideas right now are so chaotic and subject to change. I’ll put the answer under a read more!

Let’s start off with Ted. In this au, he’s not too much different from his wrestling persona. He’s loud-mouthed, prideful, charming, and of course: greedy. Since Vice City takes place in 1986, I thought it’d be great to explore Ted before he becomes the Million-Dollar Man that we all know in the WWF. Maybe he didn’t start out with a silver spoon in his mouth? He's definitely well-to-do, scrappy, and resourceful. In the AU, we are introduced to Ted already *semi* wealthy, a fraction of what his wealth would balloon to. He’s already a made criminal by the time he’s made his way to Vice City- wanted, even. But not by the authorities, he’s wanted by his former employer (who will remain unnamed since he’s not a big player in the AU).

Ted is wanted for embezzlement; he’s been stealing money and assets from his old boss for years. Ted starts looking like he’s “living above his means” and this makes him look suspicious. Long story short, Ted’s boss is right. He wants to find and……”interview” Ted to find out where his money went. This plan falls through, however, as Ted is long gone before his old boss can find him. Having made some powerful connections in Vice City, Ted flees to Florida and contacts Lawyer Ken Rosenberg to see what can be done with these large sums of money he has in his possession. Ted’s goals in Vice City are dubious at best, all he knows is that he needs a fresh start.

Enter Irwin. Already well-known in the criminal world as a contract killer, he’s also great at catching those with a bounty on their head (happens to be a great accountant, too). Ted’s old boss gets Irwin’s number from a contact who happens to be one of Irwin’s former contract clients. Irwin is then tasked to capture Ted. Ted’s capture doesn’t go as planned either as the two form a partnership (😉😏) in Vice City. (<- I will get into this more in a separate HC post in the future!)

SO, I know that was bunch of backstory, but I feel is relevant to your question which I will get into now.

Ted’s greed certainly doesn’t go away after he aids Tommy in killing Sonny Forelli and taking over Vice City. If you mix the personalities of Avery Carrington and Ricardo Diaz and throw a lil coke addiction that’s *definitely* under control (he can stop any time he wants, promise), you’ve got Ted.

Post Sonny Forelli mission, Ted starts to buy up more properties and businesses to help launder his money. It’s at this point that Ted is sought after by other white-collar criminals to help conceal some questionably acquired funds. So by the end of Vice City’s original story, Ted is doing pretty well for himself- even Tommy is a client of Ted’s at some points. Ted is an established man in Vice City and has a handsome enforcer by his side that helps things go smoothly. But greed and coke are a hell of a combo…

Paranoia starts to set in around early 1987; Ted is, for all intents and purposes, a millionaire. He starts to feel the way that Lance did towards Tommy (“….you think Tommy’s not utilizing me properly, or is it just me? Just me, right??”). Ted and Irwin would make frequent visits to the Vercetti estate to make sure their partnership is still on solid ground. It is, confirmed by Tommy and Ken (who at that point is also dealing with his own coke problem too). It gets to the point where Ted would just send Irwin to the Vercetti Estate just to talk business (not sure entirely sure what kind of business, stumping both Irwin and Tommy). Tommy, being-hot headed, threatens Irwin- and by extension Ted- with: “If you come back here one more time without anything of substance to talk about, you’ll be leaving in a body bag.”

One night, Ted gets a bright idea:

“We can rule this city, Irwin. We can run it better than-“

“ Enough. I think we need to get out of Vice City before you get us both killed.”

Having soured their relationship with Tommy and his syndicate, Ted realizes that maybe his time in Vice City is about up. Before he does accidentally get himself and Irwin killed, he makes plans to close down a couple of his businesses and hand them over to Tommy as a sort of peace offering/apology. Ted knew when to steal to make a statement- but even he knew that he’d be punching above his weight if he were to take on Tommy. Tommy wasn’t like Ted’s old boss; if Ted were to go back to his embezzling ways, he’d end up with new concrete shoes.

So Ted and Irwin decide to leave, leaving on a good note with Tommy (and their lives). The two decide to make plans and head north. With some cash stuffed a couple of briefcases and their accounts secured, Ted gets another bright idea….

“ You ever thought about getting into wrestling? I know I have….”

[periodiccompletionist]

50% of 118 is 59; 75% of 118 is 88.5; 90% of 118 is 106.2

Periodic Symbols are: H He Li Be B C N O F Ne Na Mg Al Si P S Cl Ar K Ca Sc Ti V Cr Mn Fe Co Ni Cu Zn Ga Ge As Se Br Kr Rb Sr Y Zr Nb Mo Tc Ru Rh Pd Ag Cd In Sn Sb Te I Xe Cs Ba La Hf Ta W Re Os Ir Pt Au Hg Tl Pb Bi Po At Rn Fr Ra Ac Rf Db Sg Bh Hs Mt Ds Rg Cn Nh Fl Mc Lv Ts Og Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Yb Lu Th Pa U Np Pu Am Cm Bk Cf Es Fm Md No Lr

EDIT: As of November 14th 2023, I've decided to start keeping track of when a post does not include a single-letter element. Single-letter elements are, in order: H B C N O F P S K V Y I W U. These posts will be tagged with "missing single".

Spaces, capitalization, emojis, numbers, and punctuation will not be taken into account. For example, the term "lush🍃13garden" would still count for Mercury (Hg). Letters are the only thing that interrupt symbols.

Anything that isn't a tally is tagged with "not a tally", asks are tagged with "Arsenic Potassium Sulfur", and posts people tagged me in are tagged "Thanks for the tag!" (because "tag" and "tags" unfortunately can't be made with only elemental symbols. they could if we had G but we do not)

Some things to keep in mind:

I try to avoid any piece of moving media (video/gif) that has words in it of any kind. I'm already a transcriber as a job, and while I love it, I'm not gonna do it on my silly little side blog.

I usually don't analyze anything fandom-related, since nothing good can come from a fandom post leaving its circle. There are some exceptions I'll make, though.

I use a script to search for the symbols, but it can't read the words in images, so they have to be retyped into the script 100% manually. I'll most likely still do it, but just keep that in mind when sending in posts with lots of images.

I'll only analyze posts where it's very clear what order things are read in; charts, graphs, doodle pages, and other images with words all over the place won't be counted.

When it comes to URLs, I don't count them for the main tally unless they show up in a screenshot or as a tag somewhere in the thread; instead, the URLs of the users in the thread are listed out afterwards in their own separate tallies, with the elements listed in the order that they appear in the person's URL (this does not include URLs that only appear in screenshots/tags).

If you tag me in a post, I won't be counting anything that you added to the thread, though you will still be part of the secondary URL tally.

When I make a tally, I (usually) won't be adding my own comments, and on the occasions that I do, whatever is in my comment is not added to the final tally.

I tend to stray away from analyzing posts with other similar gimmick blogs already in them these days. This is because we all tend to influence each other's results- for example, if I analyzed a post where alphabetcompletionist tallied up all 26 letters, that would (potentially) artificially add Cd, Mn, and No to my tally. If I did end up doing this, I would be highlighting Cd, Mn, and No in a different color to denote that they would not have been there had I not reblogged from alphabetcompletionist directly.

My main account is not disclosed at this time; please do not try and find out what it is or I will block you. Another blog I run that is publicly known is @cantheykillmacbeth, if you just want to see more from me.

There might be times where I will accidentally reblog from someone other than the source of the post, or where I can't due to the source having been deactivated. If you go digging into the people that I reblog posts from, I am not responsible for what you see. If you blame me for what you saw from the people I happen to follow, then you shouldn't have gone looking in the first place. That's on you.

I will not be adding my gimmick to posts about serious topics. This is not because I do not care about these topics, but the exact opposite: I do not want the gimmick of this blog to be used to detract from anyone's message. These sorts of gimmicks are meant to add to the humor of a post, not act as a twisted punchline to a serious discussion. If you tag me in a serious post, you will be ignored (at best).

I don't care how you feel about gimmick blogs. I'm having fun and you can't change that. Seethe.

[trashlie]

ILY FP 220

CW for abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, etc. Sorry for the minor spoiler, but we’re digging into the way Yui has manipulated and abused Kousuke since he was young and that might be triggering to some readers. 

Whoo BOY! Idk about you guys but I loved this episode (I keep saying this every week lmao). Again, there’s so much confirmation of things I’ve been saying/believing, and I find it really funny that this arrived on the cusp of a related discussion I’ve been having lol. This time, I’m also going to link to some interesting posts/threads from the 220 discussion post on the reddit, because they are presented really well, and while I’ll talk about them in this post, I want to highlight the comments that have furthered my thoughts and commentary! The reddit discussion posts are really what helps me put my thoughts together!

I am a big fan of this comment and the subsequent replies between them and cheeselounge; good explanation of exactly how Yui’s manipulation/gas lighting/abuse works and why it maintains a compelling hold on Kousuke, as well as some good food for thought about black and white vs shades of grey, the ableism that runs rampant when people on a whole talk about Kousuke, and how harmful it is to view characters as 100% innocent or guilty. Also really fantastic points on the parallels of how Shinae, Nol, and Kousuke are shown waking in the hospital. Just an all around top tier comment!

This is my own comment lol but what is important is not the comment itself but the discussion in the replies. I’m not a medical person so everyone’s input on what it means for Yui to shut down Hansuke’s tests is invaluable to me lol. Someone also brought up blood type - and while I don’t think that’s something Hansuke would be testing, it does bring up interesting thoughts re: Kousuke’s parentage. 

So let’s get into it! 

I know it’s tacky to be an “I told you so!” person but this episode, besides making me feel incredibly unsettled and angry, absolutely made me feel I TOLD YOU SO! Yui is SO skilled at manipulation it’s like second nature to her. Every now and then I still see people defending Yui as loving Kousuke so much that the way she treats him can’t possibly be manipulation, and that you can’t prove it’s manipulation - and like. THAT’S THE THING LOL Textbook abuse is often met with people who don’t believe it because they’ve never seen it, because you’re being so dramatic, because it’s not big deal. That’s how abuse WORKS. The abuser is seen as someone who couldn’t possibly be abusing you, because they do so many nice things or they seem so lovely and they just don’t seem like an abuser~. That’s why it works!!!! Because they have created a reasonable cause of doubt. Because they make YOU look like the liar, like you’re dramatic, like you’re just making a big deal out of things that aren’t. 

Also, people can say they love you and still abuse you, still hurt you, still use you for their own gain. And Yui does just that. 

It’s been a source of great ire to me that so much of what Yui has done has been swept under an umbrella of “she just loves him so much of course she wants the best for him”. But it’s not about him, and we can see that now! Yui doesn’t respond to Kousuke with love or affection. She has NO CONCERN about what happened to him. In fact, even as Hansuke tries to argue in favor of running tests on Kousuke, Yui tries it on him. “He’s dramatic, you know that. I know him well, and I know he’s fine. You are making a big deal out of nothing. We don’t want to make him think something is wrong with him do we?” Hansuke is the only one showing concern for Kousuke. It’s not just about him hitting his head - it’s about the unresponsive state in which he found Kousuke. It’s that HE knows Kousuke and HE knows something happened, something set him off, and that he responded to it in a worrying way! 

Yui SHOULD be concerned about Kousuke. She should want to understand, she should worry that something is going on with him. Instead, she just tries to pretend it’s nothing, to sweep it under the rug, to hide it not just from everyone else but from HIMSELF. “We don’t want him to think something’s wrong with him, do we?” 

But it’s not just that, it’s the way she operates! For so long I’ve been trying to say that while Rand is very much responsible for his choices, I believe Yui absolutely has affected his relationship with Kousuke and encouraged/fostered the distance between them. If Kousuke ever got close to Rand, maybe he would have laid off, calmed down, felt that he’d reached his goal and now he didn’t have to run so hard. But as long as that goal is unmet, as long as Rand is distant from him, Kousuke would have to keep pushing until he reaches the top, just like she wants. 

It’s the way she took Rand’s real gift and threw it out and replaced it with some random cardigan that looks like it’s not up to Kousuke’s standards. “How sweet of him” so sweet that he doesn’t know what his son likes, right? So sweet that he just got you whatever and you’re supposed to like it. She’s further fostering that divide. Not only has Kousuke not reached Rand, but he looks like he doesn’t know anything about him, like he doesn’t even care. And that’s further supported by the reality of the night - Kousuke knows Rand is with Nol and while on some level he understands why (even he was concerned about Nol being hurt) eventually he might internalize it as “Father chose Nol over me.” 

How many times has Yui intervened? Swapped out gifts? Relayed the wrong information, just FORGOT to relay the right information. How convenient, that Rand was never around for Kousuke’s birthday because he had meetings elsewhere. How convenient, that Rand never knew when Kousuke’s recitals or EVEN GRADUATION were. I want to reiterate I think Rand deserves critique. He has made his choices, he could have reached out to Kousuke, could have inquired about when his events are. But also as we’ve extensively discussed, Yui absolutely has and continues to weaponize what Rand loves and cares about against him. She’s weaponized it against Kousuke in how she commodified the concept of love and Rand’s love. She’s done it to Nol. At some point, people give up. There’s only so much misery they can endure. It’s very likely that Rand made efforts, in the beginning. We’ve seen him talk to Kousuke before about how he doesn’t have to follow in his footsteps, that he’s allowed to be whatever he wants. We’ve seen him try to instill little life lessons in Kousuke, only for Yui to swoop in and contradict him. At some point a person is going to burn out, grow tired. It’s unfair to Kousuke, because as his father, Rand still has a duty to him. But he’s also a human and we can only take so much. 

Rand and Yui exist in a toxic relationship, and Rand has spent so much of that time in a state of misery. We’ve seen it in Nol, how at some point he thought maybe he should give up, maybe there’s no point in fighting, maybe he just needs to let it go. We’ve seen it in Shinhan, who was overwhelmed by stress and his job and schooling and didn’t have the time and energy to be a present father and at some point turned to alcohol for comfort even at the expense of their funds. 

People can only endure so much. That’s the tragedy of Rand and Kousuke - that Rand was eventually worn down to such an extent that he didn’t have it in him to keep trying, that he was sapped of everything, that it was used against him time and time again, and that in the end it hurts Kousuke. That there were two children involved and impacted by this and both have come to meet danger and harm. 

I have so many thoughts about Rand, and Rand and Yui, and I’ll have to save them for another post. I don’t want to absolve Rand of his crimes against his children, but I also think it’s important to consider the circumstances, because at the end of the day that’s why this is so tragic. It’s so real. Yui is not the first parent to ever pit her child against her spouse, she isn’t the first person to manipulate others in her life. It doesn’t absolve the other parent, but we have to acknowledge the circumstances, because I don’t believe this is the father Rand wanted to be. I think he wanted to have a relationship with his son, but that Yui made it a difficult task, and after some time, he gave up on it. 

Anyway that’s a whole sidebar lmao the point I REALLY wanted to make was: seeing Yui pull this, swap out the gift, replace it with something that is unsuited for Kousuke just further fosters that distance between Rand and Yui. And because Yui is the one who is here when Kousuke wakes up, it further perpetuates the belief that Kousuke is not good enough for Rand to care about him - especially given the circumstances in which Rand found Kousuke. 

Do we ever get to know what’s going on in Rand’s head? What did he think, when he found his sons out there in the snow? What did he think, when it looked like Kousuke was running away from Nol left bloodied and bleeding out in the snow? What did he think about this scene, after the phone call he had earlier that night with Kousuke and what he overhead. We still don’t know what Kousuke said the night he was drunk and left his father a voicemail, but we can deduce that it probably had to do with this - with his relationship with Nol and the hate and the jealousy and the fear and the desperate want to be loved, to be good enough? 

The blood is on his hands both metaphorically and physically. 

Something I want to stress is how grey I find this. Kousuke acted on Nol’s goading. If he hadn’t pushed Kousuke’s buttons, Kousuke would not have done it. Punching him as he was leaving the room was a fight or flight response - I don’t think it was his intention to knock him off the balcony - but I also think in that moment he didn’t feel guilt. Likewise, when Nol left the party, Kousuke chased after him, caught up in his fears and jealousy, the paranoia that stems from it. In so many ways, Kousuke does believe Nol is better than him. Nol’s ability to walk away and not fight back not just at the party, but even after he chased him, infuriated him, because he was goaded into chasing and attacking and yet Nol didn’t even choose to defend himself. Did he intentionally slam Nol like that knowing the glass shards would dig in and tear him up? Did he even register the glass?

What really strikes me is that when Kousuke realizes Nol is injured - badly - it doesn’t come across to me like he’s afraid of getting in trouble for it. He seems genuinely concerned that something has happened to Nol, that he’s bleeding. He wanted Nol to fight back, but I don’t think he wanted to HURT him like that? His reaction is so different from back at the party, where paranoia clouded logic and that flashback returned to him. I think yes, Kousuke wanted to hurt Nol, but I don’t think he wanted it to be like this?

Idk they’re complicated and it’s why I enjoy getting to see these kinds of scenes. 

But again, this is a tangent I didn’t mean to go on, but I think it’s important to state so that you guys understand how and why I interpret the scenes as I do. There is no one who is 100% guilty or innocent.

I definitely think we are meant to dig in to Yui’s actions and understand the manipulation and gaslighting that has gone on for the entirety of Kousuke’s life. That it isn’t solely about Nol, that even before him, she was doing this, that Kousuke as her son has always been a means to her self-serving goals and ambitions, that he was never a child to her but this extension of herself, this opportunity to go after what she wants, a way to cut Rand out of the picture so that everything falls back into the hands of her family. Though Kousuke she is able to orchestrate everything she wants and needs because he is solely at her mercy. 

Look at how deftly she discredits Hansuke while ensuring she is seen as the one who has the most concern for him. Look at how she makes it look as though Hansuke was trying something shady, to run tests on him without his consent, how can he overstep those boundaries - as if she doesn’t do that very thing at every opportunity. That’s how it works! You isolate your victim by making them believe everyone is out to harm them, that no one is trustworthy - no one except yourself, of course. It’s how she remains that safe shelter to him. Even though she does overstep his boundaries, even though she inserts herself into his business, she’s also the one who brings him “comfort”, the only one who he can trust. And it’s why he is unable to part ways with that manipulated reality he adheres to. It’s why, when other people speak the truth to him, he cannot believe it if it contradicts what he knows and believes, and that’s why no one is able to get through to him. 

Kousuke is a textbook victim of manipulation - he can never grow and progress as long as Yui exists. 

And something that someone pointed out (in the first link I included above!) is the visual progression of that. While we knew Kousuke would likely regress and everything he confronted and admitted would be out the window if Yui shows up, it’s further illustrated at the beginning of the episode and how it’s juxtaposed against the last scene we saw. 

From Nol and Shinae standing together, hands clutched and Nol resting on her shoulder with the sunrise and light, the clocks turn back and grow darker and darker, until Kousuke awakes. His moment of illumination is over, he’s back to the dark. Yui’s arrival represents that darkness, and how it undoes every moment of truth he had prior. 

As long as Yui remains in Kousuke’s proximity, he will always be in the dark, unable to reach the light. 

In that same comment, they talked about the parallels in how we were shown Nol, Shinae, and Kousuke all waking up in the hospital. 

Shinae woke to her father and his love and care. There was never a moment she had to doubt him. I still can’t get over that little snippet of Minhyuk in the hospital before she’d fully woken, how feral he sounded, how upset he was about what happened - that he knew he was one of the only people who actually cared about her and his anger at how she was hurt. There was never a moment that Shinae had to doubt these people. Even though her mom has left and took her sister, too, Shinae has never had to feel entirely alone. 

On the flip side, Nol didn’t wake up to relatives, to his parents. He woke up to panic and fear and his fight or flight senses kicked in - until he noticed Shinae asleep at the foot of his bead and realized he wasn’t alone. His friends showed up despite the way he had treated him to celebrate him, to make him feel special, to make him feel better in the ways that they can. Nol has spent a lot of time alone, but he’s not. He has people at his side. 

But Kousuke also wakes up alone - no peace, but instead a hard to make out argument outside his door. Isn’t that awful? At least Shinae and Nol wake up to a sense of comfort, but Kousuke wakes up to people arguing about him. When he fully wakes and sits up, there’s no one in the room. Just him. And then in sweeps Yui, paying off a nurse to trash Rand’s gift, ready to spin a new web to further ensnare Kousuke. 

As long as Yui remains that safe place, that comfort to Kousuke, he cannot be free. 

That’s the power of isolation, that’s the power of discrediting the people around him, of ensuring he believes only her words, convincing him that only she knows him well enough, that only she can help him, only she will tell him the truth. 

“They were all superfluous. Don’t worry, I told him to stop. It’s best to save resources on patients that actually need it, right?” 

We know Hansuke is in the right mind, wanting to run tests on Kousuke. He is rightfully concerned that something is going on with Kousuke and hopes tests could be indicative of something. He’s a doctor and thus believes in science and if there’s scientific evidence, maybe THAT could sway Kousuke, maybe THAT could convince him to listen. But not only does Yui put a stop to it, but she manages to discredit his intentions. She conveys to Kousuke exactly what she needs to - of course there’s nothing wrong with you you’re just fine don’t listen to what anyone else says because they don’t know you like I do. They’re all just being so dramatic. 

And the next time Hansuke dares bring up to Kousuke that maybe he needs to get checked out, Kousuke will double down against him, will continue to believe Hansuke has a vendetta against him, will add him to his growing list of paranoia. The one person who is actively fighting for Kousuke is a big threat to Yui, so she has to ensure that Kousuke won’t trust him.

But that begs the question then. Is she putting a stop to the tests in effort to discredit Hansuke, or is it more than that? I am not a medical person, so this is not my area of expertise and I can only go off of the input others have put out there. I do personally think that whatever Kousuke is dealing with is not so much a mental illness as much as a response to the various stressors in his life, and while I do think a psych evaluation could at least better pinpoint a way to help Kousuke, that’s not the kind of test that Hansuke could have run while he was out. 

But what could be gleaned from simple labwork and urine analysis? If what Kousuke is dealing with is his stress levels and his response to internalized fears and jealousy resulting in paranoia, if it’s his body’s reaction to dealing with a past trauma, if it’s his body shutting down when he can’t deal with something, that’s not something blood is going to show right? 

There’s a lot of theories.

The first assumes both the rules of the mukoyoshi theory and that Kousuke is not, in fact, Rand’s child. It would go like this: because Rand was adopted into the Hirahara family by his marriage to Yui, it means he is treated as much as a blood relative as Yui is, and because the family business passes through the males, it means Rand’s progeny are the next in line for heir. This theory can branch off a couple ways. 

The first is obviously if it’s found out that Kousuke isn’t Rand’s child - but from simple labwork, would that even be possible? Unless Hansuke is checking Kousuke’s blood type AND knows the blood types of Rand and Yui, how would he be able to uncover the truth? But still, Yui would want to cover that truth at all costs, so maybe stopping Hansuke before he gets further and digs in deeper? 

But there’s also the fact that if it was believed Kousuke was not fit to be CEO, that his mental state was worrying or they couldn’t trust him to carry out the necessary duties, he could be stripped of his role - and it would go to the next in line, and as a blood-relative of Rand, that would be Nol. Thus, it would be very important to cover up any indicator that Kousuke cannot handle his role as heir. While we know Kousuke’s stress responses are directly related to unassessed psychological triggers, it would be easy for someone on the outside to look at him and go “He can’t handle stress and he lashes out at people, he isn’t fit for this.” And I don’t think that stress response is new to Kousuke. Though we didn’t see it really take affect until Nol and Kousuke were working closely together and Kousuke’s fears and paranoia were reawakened, we can assume from what little we saw of Kousuke’s recollection of the night Nol was taken away that this was another time he reacted to psychological triggers and shut down. 

@poisonheart pointed this out and it really put a lot of things into new light. It would also lend credence to Nol being unstable - ensure that he never stands a chance, that no one will ever think he’s fit for the role. 

Anyway, that brings us back to: Yui cannot have anyone, and especially not Kousuke, thinking there’s anything wrong with him. It’s not that she believes he’s perfect and thinks anyone who wants to run tests is insulting. It’s that she knows Kousuke is not perfect and she cannot let anyone find out. It would be so easy for the company to swing to one of her sister’s husbands if it turned out Kousuke and Nol were unfit and she absolutely cannot have that. That’s HER fortune, that’s HER business and she will not let it fall into the hands of another man. 

I want to make it clear that when I say something is wrong with Kousuke, I mean that when his triggers stress him out too much, he goes on spirals. I don’t think it’s something like “Kousuke is bipolar” because we can see clearly WHAT affects him, WHAT sets him off, and why it sets him off. I think, in an ideal world where it as easily possible, Kousuke was able to make peace with his feelings about his father, he’d be able to make peace with his feelings about Nol, and he’d be able to eventually reduce the probability of getting swept into these spirals. If Kousuke had no reason to fear Nol, to feel jealous of him, the intense need to best him at every opportunity, if he didn’t see everything Nol does as being an attack against him, as him plotting against him, as him trying to overtake him, he wouldn’t get so worked up. 

I also think making peace with Rand and Nol means whatever it is Kousuke is protecting himself from, whatever it is that happened in his falsified memory, would have less power over him. It’s not that Kousuke would act like this regardless - it’s that he is actively responding to things that trigger these reactions. 

I think I lost track of where I’m going lmao the point is: Kousuke is a direct result of the manipulation he’s experienced, and every time he experiences a truth that goes against the world Yui has gaslighted him into believing in, he cannot process it and it breaks him down. It’s a normal reaction! He’s not reacting like this because there’s something “wrong” with him, he is responding to high levels of stress and his brain wants to maintain the truth he knows. Certainly he needs therapy, but we all do. They all do. 

And this episode illuminates WHY and HOW Kousuke remains trapped in this state, and why any attempt at showing him the truth goes awry. Kousuke doesn’t put his beliefs ahead of other peoples’ solely because he has superiorlistic feelings about himself - it’s because he has to, in order to continue what he knows. 

Yui offering him tea is also a chilling moment, because we know the way Nol reacts to tea. He knows - he understands. But on the flipside, Kousuke doesn’t have the same reaction to it. He may even associate tea with comfort. I think this difference is VERY important, because Nol is aware of the witch Yui is, he probably is aware of the ways she has hurt him. Kousuke, though, isn’t. He still seeks comfort from her, and the tea theory, that maybe it’s laced, that maybe it is something his body responds to in order to placate him, is an important one. I don’t think this theory goes as far as some people think - I don’t think he’s being constantly drugged by his personal chef, for instance, nor do I think he ate or drank anything that night that would have triggered how he acted this night because a. Yui was surprised when he showed up to the party at all and b. Again, everything about Kousuke’s reactions are perfectly in line with the things that tip him off. He didn’t get worked up because he was drugged, he got worked up because he was responding to the dissonance between what he believes and what he sees, the stress of what Nol did and how Kousuke fears it will reflect on him, and his desperation to never disappoint Rand. 

HOWEVER I AM very much on board with the idea that after very traumatizing moments, perhaps Yui has placated Kousuke with a special tea that would calm him down and interrupt the dissonance, something he would come to associate as calm and safety, and thus further push her goal of ensuring Kousuke only feels safe with her, that she is the only one he can trust and seek refuge in. Everything going wrong and then mommy shows up with nice special tea and suddenly he’s calm and all those questions have been tucked away, there’s a new memory in its place; that’s not how that played out now is it, dear, wasn’t it like this? 

Something else about Yui worth noting is that she is VERY unhappy. There’s something so jarring and uncomfortable about the way she reacts when Kousuke tells her he was looking for Nol and Rand, that Nol has been hurt. That eerie smile mask of hers and how it closes in on her, that she came not because Kousuke needed her but she needed something from him - she needed to know Nol’s whereabouts, she needed to know where her scheming husband has gone. And Kousuke has no information for her. She is ANGRY but it’s also an opportunity to further drive that wedge. Rand isn’t here - not only does that mean he’s not here to check on Kousuke but it also means someone lied, whether it was Rand or Jayce, and it doesn’t matter which it was because Kosuuke will internalize it in the worst possible way. Why didn’t they come here, why did they hide their location? As readers we know exactly why - Rand is protecting Nol from Yui. But in doing so, it looks like he’s hiding things from Kousuke and he will not be able to rationalize it any other way. 

Even his reaction to the fact that Rand isn’t here shows that - he’s starting to get worked up again, he’s agitated, he doesn’t know where they are and Nol was hurt and Yui is grabbing his injured hand and trying to placate him. There’s something about Kousuke’s “You don’t believe me...?” that REALLY hurts, because it’s all a part of her manipulation. He’s in a vulnerable state, he’s confused and instead of receiving clarity, Yui is muddying the waters. If Yui doesn’t believe him, does that mean he could be wrong? Does it mean that Jayce was wrong? 

Again, in the end, he can rely on and trust only Yui. 

I really love that we also got to see Meg and Jayce! What an unlikely duo! I have this hope that one day Meg and Kousuke can become unlikely friends - as much as anyone can be friends with Kousuke lol. I think we’ve seen that, like Hansuke, she is someone who at least likes Kousuke for something attributed to who he is, rather than chasing him for the fortune and power. I think that could have added fuel to the fire, but we’ve seen that Meg’s interest in Kousuke was rooted in him being one of the only people in her life to cheer her on, to make her feel seen and like she can do what she sets her mind to, unlike her parents who encouraged her to give up and go for something easy. I don’t want to downplay her harassment and stalking, because it was very much so out of line but I’m glad she seems to be coming around and I think from that, if Kousuke can ever learn to be comfortable around her, we could see a really interesting dynamic of friendship. I think Meg has a lot of potential to have a similar relationship as Kousuke and Shinae have had, where Shinae calls out Kousuke and tries not to let him push her around and make her feel small. Clearly there’s a lot of things Meg and Kousuke both need to work through and it’s not something that would immediately happen, but I think it might be a series of incidents that could build up to them being able to trust each other, maybe? 

Meg finding the gift that was thrown out fuels that hope, at least. I know right now she takes it as Kousuke choosing to throw it out, but I wonder if we won’t get to see a scene where Meg mentions the gift he threw out and makes Kousuke go “Excuse me? What? I would never throw out something from Father” and create that little seed of doubt. That’s the biggest issue with Kousuke being caught in Yui’s web - no one can get through to him. But if that seed of doubt is planted, if could lead to Kousuke questioning the things he needs to. Because if she’s thrown out this gift, what else has she thrown out. What else has she prevented? What else has she lied about? Maybe he can reach that conclusion that it wasn’t that he was never good enough for Rand, but that she continued to make that gap wider and wider and to destroy every bridge before either Kousuke or Rand ever had a chance to cross them. Even if it’s not the case and she hasn’t actually interfered as much as we think, it still creates that doubt, because it still means she lied and that she isn’t the only pillar of truth in his life, and there’s still a question of what else he’s lied about. 

I love that we get to see Meg hanging around that long, too. I mean, I’m glad she’s getting a wuber and will go home, but I just can’t help but feel like we will get to see a lot more of Meg and Kousuke - after all, just like her unlikely appearance with Yujing, they DO have a lot of mutuals, and Meg has become much more important to the story than anyone could have accounted for. Now that she holds the actual key to possibly unlocking some doubt in Kousuke’s mind, I think we will get to see more of her. Again, I know at the begnning her harassment was treated as a tasteless joke, but I love Meg because of how much we’ve already seen her change and grow, her decision to love herself and stand up for herself. I think in time we might get to see Kousuke develop a sense of respect for her, as he kind of has with Shinae. I like to hope that she might be able to eventually bring some comfort to Kousuke, in the way that maybe she can be someone who brings him truth and honesty. I don’t mean this as a shippy thing, but just in the sense that Kousuke is very much alone. Shinae has people who love and care about her. Nol has people who love and care about him. Kousuke doesn’t have that as much. Having someone who has your back is vital. That’s what makes it so hard for victims to leave - where do they go? who do they turn to? When for so long their abuser has been their only sense of comfort and shelter, when their abuser has made everyone view the victim as hysterical and dramatic, when they are left all on their own, isn’t that scary? 

This isn’t a “they can fix him” thing, but rather for Kousuke to grow he needs to escape his mom, and for him to do THAT he needs to understand who she is and what she’s done to him. Hansuke is doing his best, but maybe having someone else on his side would be beneficial. These are complex stories and it’s not enough to just have someone at your side, there’s a lot of psychological recovery for Kousuke to work through - but it’s not as daunting when you aren’t alone. 

Idk, I say it every week but I just. I have a LOT of feelings. I’ve really enjoyed the complexity of the pain train that is Kousuke (I took that from @poisonheart lmao) because it’s so well done. He is a man who has been manipulated his entire life, he’s felt neglected by his father, he’s been isolated, everyone who cares about him has been discredited, he’s been trapped in this web and haunted by his jealousies and fears and he’s lashed out every time he feared he was losing his place, every time he worried Nol would best him. Just like how tragic it is that Yui was able to drive that wedge between Rand and Kousuke, it’s tragic that Yui has been able to do this to Kousuke, that as a result of the seeds she’s sown, he’s grown up to be this kind of person, to do despicable things, to break someone so that they never had the chance to grow.

Nothing ever happens in a vacuum, nothing is ever black and white. Kousuke is both a victim and an abuser. Rand is both suffering from Yui’s games and a bad, absent parent. Nol was hurt over and over by Kousuke and still reached out, still tried to help, tried to bond. I think we absolutely have to acknowledge that Kousuke is dealing with something that is very difficult to escape, that is very psychologically damaging. That’s why we can’t look at him and go “I can’t believe a grown adult is acting like that.” There’s always more to the story, and it’s unfortunate that the pain inflicted on these characters has caused them to hurt someone else.

Rand’s misery led to him giving up and hurting his son, which lead to his son living with so much fear and jealousy that he hurt the only person who tried to reach out to him over and over again, which lead to that person hurting the people who loved him and wanted to help. It’s an endless cycle, and even though it begins with Yui, I’m sure she has her own hurt, too, that she’s turned on everyone else. 

[citrusella-flugpucker]

Do Better.

To @habitica staff (and in the interest of notifying Tumblr users who may not have realized anything was happening at all who may want to integrate this knowledge into their understanding of Habitica’s landscape going forward--open letter and all that jazz):

On Tuesday, January 31, you said that conversations in the Tavern had been disruptive and alienating to fellow Habiticans. You directed this at socialites.

So let’s talk about that.

On Monday, January 30, a troll targeted me and others in the Tavern for over two hours before you finally completely put your foot down regarding it.

Except you didn’t. You saw that I had tried to give their story the benefit of the doubt and tried to politely note some problematic phrasings of theirs and you decided sending the convo to PM was okay. Because, IDK, you didn’t see the flags from earlier where they were trying to gaslight me or whatever.

The user tried to strong-arm me into letting them share my words in a TikTok they claimed was about their autistic sibling’s “coping journey” (something I was not keen to be part of considering what I know about the kind of person who is likely to post autism-related things phrased that way). I know you know this because I reported the messages to you and you responded to those flags with clear understanding and took action (I presume a mute but I don’t actually know).

...And then the user took it offsite. They made a post about me on Twitter and by the end of the day I had several flames to fics on my AO3 account. (I “know” this was a tweet despite not having concrete proof because I am choosing to believe the least hostile (even nice at the end of the day) person who commented to my fics and who I was able to reply to and get a reply back from is telling the truth.) I was afraid to check my email for three days straight.

All for something I firmly believe the mods would have put a stop to and evaluated the full situation of far before it could have become that kind of problem. But there are no more mods. Only you.

Do better.

You said that comments posted in an effort to incite a hostile or contentious environment in public spaces in Habitica are unacceptable. You implied that PMs about it are also unacceptable. You directed this at socialites.

So let’s talk about that.

Since December 5, 2022, your treatment of sharing the reasons the mods were gone and why, after their strike and subsequent removal, has made everyone feel like anything they do or say or feel about the decision can’t be discussed without fear of account consequences. That is a hostile environment in public spaces.

In late evening January 31, you--at least temporarily--unhid a post that clearly did not comply with ultimatums you had just laid out in the very same chat, despite receiving reports that it was directly hurtful to other users and violating the ultimatums. There is no clear reason this was done unless it was because it was declared to be okay because its ire was directed only at contributors and not at staff. That is a comment that incites a hostile or contentious environment in public spaces in Habitica.

Between January 31 and February 2, you have muted and even full-on banned people without clear explanation of the things you believe they did wrong, and sometimes with a flimsy, nonsensical, or even nonexistent explanation when you were pressed for one. People are afraid to do anything now lest a staff that is employing increasingly totalitarian consequences to actions that shouldn’t call for consequences that severe prevent them from accessing the site at all. That is a contentious environment.

On January 31, you posted a message to Aspiring Socialites declaring these ultimatums but also suggesting we “do better”. This message, crucially, was describing something that not all socialites did something to cause (I know this because I asked point-blank and you (eventually) answered), but yet its words apparently apply to all socialites. But if that’s true, we can’t all need to “do better” unless you thought we were all “doing worse”--and this was a public message directed to all socialites and not individuals who exhibited behavior you thought to be bad, something I witnessed little to none of, anyway. That is a comment that incites a hostile or contentious environment in public spaces in Habitica.

Do better.

You are making people scared. You are letting people get hurt. Your moderation practices since the mods’ removal have resulted in noticeable changes to chat that have alienated many long-time Habiticans. You don’t seem to even want a community so much as an army of underlings who will never say anything that might challenge you to think about what you’re doing or to reflect on your actions.

As staff, people look to you as examples of what Habitica should be. Do better.

[starsscarmyceiling]

ooo um I want to know about this merrical zombie fic 👀

Aww, thanks anon!

WOW, well, where do I even start with them?? THEY. The idea for this fic came from having an already started Reylo TLOU fic from my post TROS and TLOU 2 pains, and one day I sat down with myself and was like…but what if also Merrical though (much like I did with my neighbors AU bahahaha I have no self-control). Then the image of Cal wielding around two machetes fell into my brain and I was like OKAY THIS IS HAPPENING…

BUT THEN—I was like KATIE for the love of GOD please do not start another WIP, so it went on the back burner…for like a WHILE. I barely had an outline really, and then for quite some time I knew it was just going to be something I wanted to do down the line—but THEN—

Last October I got COVID for the first time, and well, I got into my TLOU 2 feels again (of which, that game was very hard for me) and was like UGHHHH WHYY, and idk I had a lot of time to kill…and oof well then started the absolute FEVER dream of me then writing the first 130k of this fic in two months. That was just insanity I cannot account for so much of that time. Everything just FLOWED out of me fuck have these two ruined my life.

Cal is traversing aimlessly (and has been for quite a few years) with his very well trained German Shepard, Beedee (who helps him hunt and kill infected), and he is in these woods realizing there are like not a lot of resources around…but he’s just hoping to find something…when he happens upon some featherfern he can harvest and is like OO!

Then he hears a sound snap and he only has milliseconds to react as a net is being set off around him, to which he ofc parkours himself out of it and was like damn that was close. He was going to leave, but then he’s like well actually what if I stick around for a minute and see who’s trap this is. Sitting up in a tree, Cal realizes he might just be lonely and want to see another person, and just before he’s about to give up—guess who comes onto the scene…

And GUESS how Cal decides to approach this situation??? It’s absolutely ridiculous I will tell you that:

“Sorry, that would have been me,” he said as she whipped around, and he supposed it wasn’t totally unexpected to be staring down the barrel of her rifle. Cal held up his hands.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t shoot you right now,” she demanded.

“Uh, well, I know you don’t know me, obviously, but…I swear we mean you no harm,” Cal insisted gently, still focusing on her weapon.

“We? How many of you are there?”

He let out a breath, tilting his head, “Just me and Beedee.”

Beedee barked, but the woman didn’t dare move, “This is your animal?”

“Yeah, yup,” Cal offered, sort of regretting the way it came out, “so…if you’re planning on killing me would you at least take care of my dog?”

Instead of entertaining anything he just said, she opted to scoff instead.

“So you just go around,” the woman said, stepping closer to him, “with your dog, and set off people’s traps? Why?”

“Uh,” he said as the gun was only inches from his face now, “I mean, I didn’t do it on purpose or anything.”

For the first time, she broke her focus on him, and looked over at the net again, but before Cal could fully relax, she grunted and reignited her ire.

“Did you tear a hole in it?”

“Well…I kind of, cut myself out of it when I was in midair—”

“You what?”

“What? Did you expect me to just lay back and let myself get caught in that thing?!”

She shoved the rifle at him again, “It would have made things a lot easier for me.”

Inhaling, his eyes flitted over to Beedee, who was now approaching them, “It’s fine Beedee, stay down.”

The dog did as he was told, sitting down once more, and Cal looked back over to the woman, “I really am sorry, alright? I didn’t even realize there would be anyone out here at all, let alone someone setting traps.”

“Do you have any idea how long it will take me to put it back up?”

“Well, I wouldn’t really suggest that because a torn net isn’t going to do you much good—”

She cocked the rifle’s chamber and narrowed her gaze, “Is this how you always talk to people who are literally brandishing a rifle in your face?”

In what was probably poor judgement, Cal nervously let out a chuckle, “Not…exactly, but…usually by this point the person would have made a decision whether or not they were going to shoot me—”

“And you think I won’t?!”

“No!” Cal shouted, moving his hands a bit in protest as he shook his head, “I mean—yes! Of course, I definitely still think it’s a possibility, but I kind of have this habit of talking too much when I’m nervous—”

“Something tells me that it is not just when you are nervous,” she said flatly.

“Look,” he tried to say as calmly as possible, “I can help you fix the net. I can even help you put it back up.”

She stood there for a couple of seconds, “Why?”

Cal thought the answer to that was obvious, “Well, I am the one who wrecked it, why wouldn’t I?”

“You’re acting as if we aren’t in the apocalypse. No one just does things out of the goodness of their hearts.”

A sigh escaped him, “I…realize that, but…I swear on the life of Beedee I have no other ulterior motive here.”

Again, she said nothing.

Cal closed his eyes for a moment, opening them again, “If I wanted to get away, I would have done it by now.”

“Oh, is that right?”

For an instance, Cal did nothing, but then he was swiftly reaching for her rifle before she could respond and had it pointed at her.

Then in what was the next few seconds, Cal watched her place her hands in the air, and now that he didn’t have a rifle in his face, he really got a look at her.

She was blonde, a few braids against her head with it all pulled back in a ponytail. Her skin was pale, and she had wide brown eyes that gleamed with amber as they realized the predicament she was in.

And as Cal stared on, her rifle in his grasp, he realized the one he was in.

She was goddamn stunning.

“Well,” she said, lowering her hands, placing them on her hips, “if you are going to shoot me with my own gun, just do it.”

She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever fucking seen.

Cal breathed shakily, “I’m not going to shoot you.”

Her eyes were still skeptical, but she didn’t move.

It was okay, he could definitely still have a conversation with this…ethereally…gorgeous…person.

It was fine.

“I told you…I would help you and I meant it,” he insisted, but she still narrowed her eyes nonetheless.

Cal relaxed his stance, “My name is Cal Kestis, and…I’m pretty handy with a knot or two.”

Her lovely countenance gave nothing away as he even lowered the gun all the way and offered it to her, “I even saw a rabbit just go by here. I can have Beedee on its tail no problem, so he could hopefully catch some food.”

She looked down at the rifle and then back at him. For a moment, Cal maybe thought that she was going to just take it back and shoot him, but, in what was probably considered a miracle, she took it back gently.

Cal let out an easy breath and smiled, “I can—”

“Cease your talking!” She demanded, to which he rapidly obeyed.

And…was that kinda hot?

No, it couldn’t have been.

“You are going to help me take this down and take it back to my home to patch up,” she said as she strapped the gun over her shoulder and walked over to the tree the trap was tied to, “and then you are going to leave after you put it back up. By yourself.”

Okay, so it was a little hot.

Oh, fuck.

“Alright,” he agreed, “let me just—”

She whipped her head at him, and he held up his hands, “Let me just get Beedee on that rabbit.”

Her head gave the slightest of nods, and she went back to untying.

Again, he let out a breath, and he had to quickly turn around himself, lest he lose himself in checking out the rest of her body, which was just downright unfair.

“Come ‘mere buddy,” Cal said softly, and Beedee trotted happily over to his master. He knelt down on the floor and let Beedee lick his face a couple of times, “alright, alright. We’re okay, huh?”

Cal gave him a few scratches behind the ears, “Good boy, now, I need you to track that rabbit that just came through here, okay?”

Beedee merely panted at him, so Cal pointed at the ground, giving the whistle that meant to track and hunt, which caused the dog to start sniffing right away.

Ever the great hunter, Beedee seemed to sniff out something right away, proceeding to follow it in the bushes, and then, he was off to hopefully find the bounty for them.

Cal turned back around, seeing her look in his direction as she finished untying the rope.

“So he is just going to hunt it?” She asked in a less hostile voice.

“Oh yeah, he’ll be fine. If he finds it, he’ll bring it back to us,” Cal explained.

“But we are going to be moving,” she pointed out.

Cal looked up, seeing that the net was caught up in the tree, close to where he was before.

“Well, he’ll be able to find me as long as you don’t live too far.”

She stood there, crossing her arms, “I live about one hundred yards to the east.”

“Oh, see! That’s like nothing, hey,” he said, “the net’s caught up there I can go get it down.”

Before she could say anything, he jumped up and grabbed the nearest branch, pulling himself onto it. Then, it didn’t take him long to find where it’d gotten stuck, so he quickly identified and solved the problem, to which the rest of the net fell to the floor.

He descended the tree, and then was jumping down again, his feet hitting the ground with another thump. For a moment when he looked up at her, he thought that she might have her rifle out on him again, but she was just standing there with her arms crossed.

She was staring at him, her eyes briefly looking up and down him, which made him nervously alert for more than a multitude of reasons before she was kneeling down and gathering the net.

Cal was immediately going to do the same, but then his eyes landed on the featherfern he was planning to harvest.

“Oh right, I was going to—”

“Do you have something better to do, monkey man?”

She was looking up at him incredulously, and he shook his head, his heart beating at the nickname she had suddenly given him.

“Uh, no,” he said, blinking a couple of times before he decided he could just come and get it later.

As Cal also now knelt on the ground, he felt anxiety spike through him, and he knew that he was never going to be able to shut his stupid mouth.

“It’s Cal,” he said out of nowhere.

Her head lifted to him with a raised eyebrow and he shrugged.

“In case you forgot—”

“I remember your name Cal Kestis,” she said, and then it did other things to him to hear his own name come out of her mouth as she stood with her side of the net, to which he quickly followed. She appeared to be about half a foot shorter than him, but she was still exceedingly intimidating, “I just prefer to compare you to a monkey due to your affinity for flouncing about in trees and your incessant chittering.”

She finished her sentence with gathering what she had of the net and slammed it into his chest.

His mouth was hanging open stupidly as he stared down at her. Their eyes met for the briefest, terrifying moment, before she was turning around and promptly walking off in a direction she obviously seemed confident in.

“Right,” he said, not sure if the whole ‘monkey man’ thing was meant to be an insult or not, but he just let himself breathe in and out before he was following her, presumably to where this beautiful, mysterious woman lived.

WE LIKE TO HAVE FUN HERE.

ALSO—I feel like I kind of have to put another preview in here…it’s kind of become a Thing™ in the Merrical server to say “giving someone a haircut” is to express care for someone as a metaphor. After Cal and Merrin have been traveling together and have grown close, Cal still has a difficult time like ever advocating for himself or anything he needs. It’s very easy for him to take care of everyone else instead, and he again, never even knows how to ask for anything in return. So one day, Merrin comments on how Cal's hair has grown longer, and he's like oh yeah I guess it has I've been meaning to take care of that, but then Merrin just--offers to cut it for him, which just like makes his mind explode. It just meant so much to him that she would offer without even having to ask. SO…I suppose I wanted to share some of that scene too considering what it’s meant to all of us…✂️💕✂️💕✂️💕

Both of her hands were on either side of his head now while she was still in front of him, and she seemed to be testing the length of hair out with her fingers from what it felt like.

For some reason, he thought it was pertinent to open his eyes now.

There she was, practically eye to eye with him as her fingers sought purchase on his scalp, and it was only made worse when she flicked her gaze to his.

Despite all of the anger she had just been projecting, Merrin’s countenance seemed completely softened now. And her coffee brown eyes were scanning all over his.

What he felt in that stare was the most beautiful sunset cresting into the distant mountains, and up until this point in his aggrievedly ambivalent existence, those mountains always felt like they were so impossible to reach, too far to even fathom before the darkness settled over.

But now?

With her here with him?

He was there, at the summit and letting the last of the sun’s rays warm his skin, like she was his guide, his refuge, in the night.

What a simple change, it seemed.

Or, at least it did in this moment.

And fuck he felt like Beedee whenever Cal scratched at just the right spot, and the dog turned into a melted mess on the floor, belly up and ready for all the pets.

Cal was certainly belly up now with her hands still so gently trekking their way through his hair.

“Hm,” he let out in a completely unwitting manner because he really was a fucking mess, and his eyes blinked slowly at her.

“Sorry,” she whispered softly with a bit of a lift in her voice, “I am just trying to see if everything is even.”

Cal practically wheezed at her. Apologize? She was apologizing?

He was about to lay down on the goddamn floor and tell her she could do whatever she wanted to him.

His mouth was a bit ajar as a brief exhale escaped it.

“It’s fine,” he finally attempted to convey, “take your time Mer…”

In another practically perfunctory action, he offered her a smirk. And he probably looked like an idiot, but—

He felt, for once in his whole miserable goddamn life where he thought for so long the only good place he had any more was in his memories…too special to care.

People just simply—didn’t do things like this for him, even before when he was at the base.

And it wasn’t their fault, really. It’s not like Cal knew how to ask for anything pretraining to himself or of his needs ever at all. That is another reason why taking care of everyone else came so easily to him.

So to see Merrin here now, so delicately weaving herself into his soul, it could have practically brought him to tears if he wasn’t careful.

This whole experience was certainly surging him through quite the myriad of emotions.

And Merrin was just giving him a fucking haircut.

But he wanted to reach for her now, turn his head so he could kiss at her wrists, slide his hands over her arms and slowly beckon her to sit in his lap now for an entirely different reason, so he could just hold her, show her his gratitude.

And if that led to him being able to lay his face gently on her cleavage, then that was just something he was willing sacrifice for the greater good of such an expression of thanks.

“Alright,” Merrin gently concluded as her hands, much to Cal’s dismay dropped and fell away from him, but they ever so briefly fell to his upper chest, where he was seriously about to raise his hands to place over hers in order to return the sentiment, but then she was actually standing up straight again.

Her eyes seemed to be taking him in, or more than likely examining her work, even though they lingered in certain places that Cal wished he could know so he could meet her there.

“I think it is complete enough,” she resolved now.

He was going to need about five to fifteen hundred business days to recover from that.

“Mm, okay,” he said, feeling like he had almost fucking disassociated for an actual positive reason for the first time in his life, which he honestly didn’t know was a possibility for him.

Cal did live in and inhabit a body, that’s right.

Why didn’t he just slide his way back into that thing, that ginger thing on the chair that was completely at this woman’s mercy.

Luckily, Merrin seemed to be able to pick up the slack when it came to human interaction.

“Would you like to go see it?”

He would like to go do literally anything she suggested.

His head trailed up her form as he breathed out though his nose. Their eyes met, and hers seemed to be surprisingly not impatient, but just waiting. Waiting for him to finally figure out how to be a person again.

A slow grin formed on his face, “Yeah. I’d like to see it.”

Finally, he recalled that he possessed leg muscles and used them to stand up.

Merrin was there, and he felt like he was drunk. Fucking inebriated off of her presence.

“Come on Cal Kestis,” she stated, taking him by the arm as she picked up one of the candles on the counter.

I am going to follow this woman to the end of actual time, he thought to himself.

And he would—he would stand there with her, until the sun rose again.

OOF, Cal Kestis, you are fucking in for it.

Yeah, idk what it is about these two in particular, but dear LORDT. They have…they have really fucked me UP.

Buuut, yeah, a lot of moving parts in the works rn before I post this. But believe you me, so soooo very eager to share…you DON’T even fucking know.

This was so much fun guys!!! Thank you SO much for all of your asks in this game

[avidrawsthings]

Cursed Snyde (Post-Soft Reboot)

When I gave a soft reboot to my au, one of the many details that were changed included the curses inflicted on Merula for the actions she took in Year 5. Pre-reboot, it was only one. This time it's two. Everything's been divided into sections in case there are parts you'd rather skip. For those already familiar with the backstory, feel free to skip to Section II: The Curses

I. Context

This is a Merula that actually faced consequences for the stuff she did to MC from day one. As Reina's relation to Ricardo (Jacob of this setting) wasn't publicly known, she avoided the same scrutiny the MC faced, so the ire of students fell on Merula for her own behavior. She refused to learn anything from it and her dislike of Reina turned into full-blown hatred, and by Year 5 she was practically a villain.

She reached her breaking point after Reina tried to warn her about Rakepick, as the former correctly sensed the woman had malicious intentions. Merula took it as Reina trying to rob her of the little happiness she had, and from there opted to make her life a living hell. Her goal at first was to drive Reina into leaving Hogwarts for good. Wanting to do as much emotional damage as possible, she:

Took advantage of Penny's vulnerability after what happened to her sister Beatrice, and manipulated her into turning against Reina and the rest of their friends. Her bragging about it drove Barnaby and Ismelda to cut ties with her.

Worked with Emily Tyler to spread some nasty rumors that nearly ruined Reina's reputation for a good while.

Knowing Reina had a potentially lethal allergy to poultry, Merula tried tampering with her food to leave her hospitalized.

Vandalized many of her personal belongings.

Caused Reina's stress levels to get so high that it led to chunks of her hair falling out, prompting her to cut it short.

Despite being confronted and receiving a well-deserved beatdown, Merula wanted Reina gone, even if it meant her death, self-inflicted or not.

She had Reina's Crystal Wand stolen and succeeded in breaking it. Those wands are made from a fraction of the user's Soul. Breaking it would cause them to fall into a coma for several weeks until said wand would finish repairing itself. Crystal wands are far more durable than traditional wooden ones, but Merula was determined.

The only reason she didn't resort to the Killing Curse was because the risk of getting caught was far too high. Not knowing the wand break only led to a coma, Merula thought she succeeded and felt nothing but pure joy. She really wanted Reina to die, after all.

Surely Rakepick would be impressed with everything Merula had done to earn her approval, right? Reina had to pay for all her lies and false accusations. Madam Rakepick would understand.

II. The Curses

It's because of these malicious intentions and desires that Merula was Cursed. Not by anyone in particular, however. This was different. As the products of Vytarian Magic, these Curses were triggered all on their own, punishments born from the actions she willingly chose to take. Curses that no mortal was capable of casting no matter how hard they tried. These Curses are known as Retaliation and Seal of the Condemned.

They're irreversible as they trigger when the person has reached the point of no return. They're rightfully feared and shunned in Vytarian communities, and they're arrested on sight. Those Curses need to be earned, after all. The thing about such Curses is that it's exceedingly rare for minors to be struck with it. Vytarian Mages have a strong belief that children shouldn't be condemned for things they can outgrow and learn from with proper guidance. For a child to be struck is nothing short of a tragedy, as their fates have been eternally sealed.

Their Souls have been forfeited to the Demons. As the representing Denizens of Death, Destruction, and Darkness, the Demons are also tasked with delivering eternal punishment to all of the evil Souls that are sent to their domain known as the Nightmarescape, depicted as Hell in some religions. While by no means evil themselves, Vytarian Demons are still incredibly sadistic and waste no time in subjecting their targets to torment the moment they're Cursed. When the target's Soul gets consumed at the end of their mortal life, it's only then that their true eternal punishment begins.

At the time her own fate was sealed, Merula was just a few weeks shy of turning 16. Both Curses struck her shortly after she broke Reina's wand.

"It appeared as though she may have been in denial at first after these Curses took hold. Turns out she just wasn't taking them seriously. She was too busy taking delight in believing she successfully killed my daughter. That's all that mattered to her in that moment. She said so right to my face after I asked her why she did what she did. The grim reality will set in for her sooner or later. Reina will recover in time, so I won't be pressing any charges. Not that it'd do Ms. Snyde much good, anyway. Azkaban is nothing compared to what's up ahead. To see someone so young throw everything away like that is nothing short of tragic..." -Rolando Celestia, Reina's father

**TW: Mild body horror, eye injury mention, Ommetaphobia**

III. Retaliation

A powerful Curse that triggers on its own when the individual commits an act deemed unforgivable. The Curse mutates the person's body into a state that will permanently remind them of the innocent(s) they chose to harm. Merula's trait would turn out to be roses that grew out of and replaced her left eye. Thanks to her irrational hatred toward Reina, Merula also despised roses because of their association with the former. She would destroy every last one on sight if she could. Imagine her dismay at having to look at them whenever she stood in front of a mirror. Not that trying to remove them would do her any good. She'll never be allowed to forget what she has done.

"She didn't even try to hide those roses growing out of her face. Either she couldn't, or simply didn't care. Perhaps she did that to herself in a vain attempt to ruin Reina's reputation ever further? The timing between the incident and Merula's new look was no coincidence. Although Rowan confirmed that Curse wasn't contagious, just about everyone avoids Merula like the plague."

IV. Seal of The Condemned

A powerful Curse that triggers on its own when the individual commits an act deemed unforgivable. The seal is a circular sigil that appears on the person's torso, where the Soul is believed to be located. This officially marks the user's Soul as condemned and forfeited to the Demons, who waste no time in beginning their torment of the target. Bearers of the mark give off an aura that warns all beings around to steer clear of them, causing animals to run away and people to feel intense dread toward the individual. The seal is only visible to the bearer, Demons, and those who use a simple vision spell to locate it.

"Barnaby and Ismelda told us how they'd see Merula muttering to herself and acting rather off lately, as though she's seeing and hearing things no one else can. Rowan looked into it and told us the type of Curse it was...I've never heard of Curses being earned before. Now it makes perfect sense why Mr. Celestia chose not to press charges."

~~~~

[usarmytrooper]

A comment this morning…

This morning when I checked my feed for what happened overnight, I found the following comment regarding a posting I had made of a Soldier:

“Do you think he says yas [sic] when he bombs civilians” (I have no idea what ‘yas’ are).

I cannot begin to describe, as a Soldier myself, how offensive, ignorant, and intellectually shallow that comment is. First, the Soldier this was posted about was junior enlisted, and had nothing whatever to do with deciding targeting of military weapons. As the person making this comment should know, the decisions to go to war and how that war is executed reside with the Congress, the Commander-in-Chief, and those whom he appoints as officers. Second, the United States military more than any other goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. I know this for a fact because one of my prior jobs in the Army was to give final approval for targeting decisions for war plans on the Korean Peninsula and I have also trained Soldiers on what is acceptable conduct in combat zones. Third, while there may be unfortunate incidents, I know of no case of deliberate targeting of civilians in the Iraq or Afghanistan campaigns. The unfortunate fact is that nearly all (if not all) of the civilian casualties that did occur were the result of accident or because legitimate military targets used civilians as human shields and other similar tactics. Frankly, the person who made the comment could easily have looked up any of what I have just related. Instead, he chose to engage in a vile attack that is unjustified by any factual basis.

Among those of us who have served, many carry the scars, both physical and mental, that resulted from choosing to do that which our country asked of us. We accepted this—and the losses that resulted—as our duty. It was a matter of honor. Only a fool who has never served and consequently has never suffered the pain and loss that results from that service could have made such an ignorant comment.

As many of you know, I am outspoken in my opinions. For this, I have drawn the ire and occasional venom from some who have read my posts and disagreed. I am fine with that. Despite disagreeing, I do not generally resent anyone who disagrees with me, though in the heat of the moment I am certainly capable of returning fire in kind. This is partly because I am an almost absolutist when it comes to free expression. It is also because I enjoy the give and take. I try not to assume the worst about others, including those with whom I may disagree. I have never blocked anyone who disagreed with me, nor have I ever deleted comments made regarding my posts.

Until now. I have never, and will not now, suffered fools gladly. There are limits on my blog, and I am the one who gets to decide what they are. And so, I would like to congratulate the person who made that despicable comment. He became the first that I have ever blocked from my Tumblr, and his comment was the first that I have ever deleted. To him, I will say that I have much more respect for that Soldier that he smeared than I ever will for him and his ilk who leech off of the largesse of this country, accept the benefits of being an American, and do nothing to support or to help improve our Republic.

Good riddance!

USArmyTrooper