#but it does seem to be very much true

[skylarbee]

hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems like a lot of people still don't know this. ashley reese, who met alex at that pool party and interviewed him like a year ago is treated by the fandom like she's some kind of angel and is very much loved (even though she did nothing special?) when she's... well, I'll let you decide.

she thinks miles is such a bad person that he shouldn't be allowed to have a dog (x)

she very much enjoys him getting a really bad review (x)

she's glad about him not joining am for 505 (x)

she calls out am fans who still like alex and alexa, even though she's the exact same ("when she gets comments like this all the time" girl, you're the one writing similar shit. she has other posts discussing alexa and alex, but they're old, like the ones from the last screenshot) (x, x, x, x, x)

[vvelegrin]

i'm really enjoying pathologic 2, actually. i mean, i didn't think i wouldn't enjoy it as much as i was worried it would just, i don't know, muddy the water. and maybe it will, but i'm not really bothered by that anymore. that said, i do think patho 2 took a fairly unsubtle game and increased its unsubtlety by about tenfold.

well. calling og pathologic 'unsubtle' doesn't feel quite right, but i'm not sure what word would feel right. maybe it's 'distinct in its sensibilities'. I think og patho felt more obtuse, whereas patho 2 is like. here. take it. do you get it. here is the information. do you see the themes. i am announcing them to you in such a way that you know that i am saying something thematic. i'm not far enough into the main story of 2 to be able to say that there's less reading between the lines, but it feels very much so far like there's less reading between the lines. whereas the original had a somewhat different... i don't know, affect? it felt like a hostile workplace where everyone recited shakespeare about even the mundane. in patho 2 nothing feels mundane in the first place, everything feels loaded in a way that og patho was but didn't feel, if that makes sense.

but i think that's okay. at the very least, it feels very much like leaning into the 'theater' aspect of it, which is enjoyable. pathologic 2 feels to me more like... bonus content? not to be Stuck Up For Pathologic HD but i enjoyed the feeling of grinding my face against a cinderblock, having to tease out information and conclusions. it felt like a game that you had to figure out, but you actually weren't really doing any ground-level figuring out of much; you're not a doctor, your character is, so the puzzle of Solving the Plague belongs to The Story, whereas the question of What the FUCK is This Town's Deal is your job. it's a very linear game in most respects, but all three playthroughs come through as a thematic package deal.

i so far get the impression that pathologic 2 can be played on its own and be enjoyed in its own right! however it exists to me as like. director's commentary. i'm really liking the playing with different character relationships and alternate things, the expanding of steppe language and the kin, love my worm guys, but i like it because of how it enriches my eternal mind rotation of og pathologic. sorry guys i played the original pathologic and it broke me and remade me in its image. sorry.

[imflyingfish]

Honestly i dont like sculk spreading/corruption storylines theyre really boring with a few exceptions

[marzipanandminutiae]

As someone who owns a doll I have literally seen levitate, but yet have no desire to be rid of because I love her, I wholly subscribe to the theory that you just have to learn what enriches and soothes the spirit and just like… be respectful.

This doll started out it’s life very normally, just one of many my grandmother bought at a craft store because she crochets Victorian dresses for dolls.

It would move around my bed while I slept and it scared me so bad I threw it in my closet. Every night it was in the closet I would hear tapping sounds on the door from inside. It scared me so badly until one night I flung the sliding doors open and it dropped down from eye level while I watched. Hecking spooky, to borrow a phrase.

However, in the cold light of dawn the next day I folded up a scarf into a cushion and sat her upon it, with her hair neatly tucked under her hat and her purse resting around her wrist on her lap, onto a doll sized rocking chair I’d had since I was a baby. There was no more moving or tapping after that.

I’ve had her through four moves now, and as long as she is proudly displayed and has her hat and purse with her, she is so perfectly well behaved. I have even been able to pick her up and carry her around without fear as long as I don’t lose any of her things or try to hide her away.

She still terrifies most of my friends but hey. We vibe. It’s pretty cool. /ramble

And that's the thing of it, for me. Everyone assumes that you should immediately peace out of a haunted house, or ditch a haunted object in the nearest campfire. But these things can be staggeringly mundane IRL, and really no cause for alarm.

Most haunted buildings I've been in have like one or two minor things happen every three months or so. Sometimes the intervals are even longer. Most haunted objects I've found, like your doll, cause very few incidents. Plenty of ghosts are happy as clams if you simply acknowledge them, and will thereafter be pretty quiet.

Okay, so you've got a haunted doll. Can you work out what the doll wants and come to a mutually acceptable arrangement? Great! No need for torches and pitchforks. And now you have a ghost friend, which is always nice.

(That seems like a more likely scenario re: Robert the Doll, to me. As I said, that Ms. Reuter voluntarily kept him around for 20 years. Would she have done that if he were actually violent? Highly doubt it.)

[borom1r]

…would it be helpful for anyone if I compiled all my notes/references for armor/appendages + clothing?

i’m mostly thinkin abt this from th perspective of a LotR fanfic author bc while we can find a ton of good visual references they’re also 1) costumes meant for actors, not actual practicality and 2) th visual references don’t generally have accurate names

[fullmetalpotterhead]

THIS IS SO PETTY BUT ITS MY PET PEEVE SO LOOK

Chapter 120, XL says:

Then chapter 179 HC says:

And then in chapter 238 HC says:

BUT THE ORIGINAL QUOTE IS XIE LIAN’S!!! HUA CHENG ATTRIBUTES IT TO HIM BOTH TIMES HE REPEATS IT! HC DID NOT SAY IT FIRST, FACE THE FACT THAT XL IS JUST AS MUCH OF A MUSHY MESS FOR HIS HUSBAND AND LET THEM AT LEAST SHARE THE QUOTE, IT IS NOT SOLELY HC’S!

[wild-at-mind]

If you ever see me becoming one of those transmisandry people, please fucking call me out immediately.

[steelycunt]

was thinking about how i would hypothetically divide up characters between welsh miners / london lgsm for the au and well. let’s just say we are looking at a situation in which r does not have any friends. except for his mum. who you (<- r) will be pleased to hear would still have breath in her lungs for once

[pastel-rights]

And then I finally end it off with some doodles of them… they make me feel things.

[fragmentedblade]

Not to be a jingfu on main, but it's so cute that Jing Yuan thought of Fu Xuan with those jelly beans

[caffeinatedopossum]

Events of last night:

Me: *crying*

My girlfriend: what's wrong?? :(

Me: *struggling to form words* intrusive thoughts are bad... I don't want to talk about them because then I'm scared that they're true and you might think I'm awful

My girlfriend: ah I actually get that. I have those a lot. It doesn't mean anything though, intrusive thoughts are just like dreams. Like the things you do in them aren't really things you want to do, it's just stuff your brain comes up with.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

most of the examples i see of this are in a vacuum harmless but i do find it concerning how often i witness an exchange on the internet that’s like:

some complete fucking rando on social media, potentially a self-branded expert of some kind but probably not even that, like literally just a person with internet access: did you know that actually [information that may or may not be factually accurate, because it’s literally just some person saying stuff on twitter]?

other people: wow this is so helpful, thanks so much for telling me, i had no idea

like even when the thing the person is saying is true i find this concerning. because like, Some Person On Twitter should not be an automatically accepted source on…… anything. like it’s fine to read something like that and be like “oh interesting i’d never heard of this” and then do some more digging. or i mean if it’s not serious it’s also fine to be like “oh huh cool if true” lol. but it stresses me out how many people are wandering around with their default reaction to certain kinds of alleged information, regardless of its provenance, being “thank you for enlightening me, o kind stranger,” and not, “hm, i wonder if there is literally any basis for believing this other than that someone said it was true?”

[knight-of-blaze]

ok im rewatching the og tailors shop scene and its making episode 9 hurt a lot more

hob directly asks if either rue or binx know who was at fault for the breaking of the engagement. rue let hob leave that conversation still believing it was apollo. they immediately pulled the conversation away, asking him about it being his victories that lead to the engagement.

maybe it was originally a first step. a lead-in to a confession. an explanation of how this has all been a big misunderstanding. but rue never gives that impression. they never make it seem as though they have other ideas of who hob is looking for. even knowing that it was themself.

they go on to have this revelation of their on feelings heightening into love at the reveal of hobs first name. and what do they do next? they scold him. yes, theyre telling him he deserves better and the sentiment behind those words are positive overall. they want whats best for him. but wouldnt it have been a perfect opportunity to come clean? to say "knickolas, i care about you so much and knowing the full scope of what youre going through now i cannot bear to continue hiding this from you"? wouldnt they understand that to criticize his very nature is to use the exact same tactics that his own court uses to keep him in line?

as far as im concerned, all the misunderstandings could have begun to clear in that moment. but rue chose to prioritize the pushing of their own ideals onto hob. they chose to hide. to not give even a hint to hob that they know the answers he seeks.

[rynnaaurelius]

Hi! I went scrolling though your tumblr and stumbled upon one of your previous asks where you mentioned a carter-and-sadie-get-thrown-back-in-time au. I’d love to hear more of that!

Oh hell yeah let's do this. Mind, this AU is The Absolute Most at all times.

-Okay, so, first off, extremely obvious place for this to happen is at the end of The Serpent's Shadow, when they fail to banish Apophis for whatever reason during the final battle. This is a fun place, sure, but I think it's A, better for character development, and B, funnier, if they both bite it while in the Land of Demons with Zia and Setne. Let's say they both wind up in the Sea of Chaos, win the lottery spin of various universal outcomes, and boom. Time travel.

-This is totally how magic works. Uh-huh.

-Carter has a fucking aneurysm That's Not How The Force Works-style over this, trying to figure out what the fuck happened. It's great.

-Seriously, the PJO time travel thing is fun because Percy angsts and things go wrong and he tries to do everything Alone. The Kane Chronicles one is fun because Carter and Sadie have negative respect for authority, neither of them have any issue with throwing someone through a window to save time, and they both know about a dozen different ways to get it done.

-Oh yeah, speaking of throwing! They both wake up with massive headaches right after Julius explodes the Rosetta Stone. Carter stabs a bitch (Set) with a magic sword, then passes out because ~head trauma~.

-Also, bear in mind that these kids are fourteen and twelve and the House of Life just went to six years' worth of trouble to try and keep them as much out of the know as possible. And then they show up, kicking ass and taking godly names and knowing things that they really shouldn't, like they've been at this for years.

-Desjardins needs a drink. Or possibly six.

-Something something butterfly effect something something chaos. Anyway, things here are largely Their Past But Two Inches To The Right. Sometimes things change that are small but explainable, things that are big and inexplicable, and some are medium-sized and only resolved after an offhand comment from Zia a decade from now. The biggest thing here is Carter and Sadie struggling to manage everything.

-See, the fun thing in TKC is a lot of the big decisions? You can't just speedrun that shit! Re-opening the path of the gods is dangerous and takes time. Zia won't be in a spot where she's willing and/or able to take on Ra for years. Sadie can't just walk up to Walt and say that he should just merge with a god to fix all his problems when he's barely come to terms with Tut's curse.

-Fuck, they can't even go to the Duat and start shit with Apophis because. . .well, first off, they need to go and get the shadow, which they didn't even quite manage last time, because Setne and Land of the fucking Demons. Second off, no matter how powerful they are, starting shit with Apophis with an extra plan or two is pretty suicidal. Also! There are a lot of magicians who want to kill them! They need to be careful!

-Half of the gods are extremely freaked because Carter and Sadie's minds are Not Right and getting Horus and Isis to play ball is a chore, since they need that agreement do things like the combat avatar or casting really complicated spells, even if they have two-ish years of experience under their belts.

-This does not, to be clear, stop them from trying to speedrun The Red Pyramid, or this being their exact attitude towards their resident gods-in-the-head:

[Picture ID: GIF of a Black man pointing two fingers at his eyes, staring at someone off-screen with a serious expression, and saying, "Look at me. . .look at me. I'm the captain now." End ID]

-Since. . .well, uh, look. Carter and Sadie are incredibly hyper-competent. But they're also incredibly freaked teenagers who haven't had serious adult supervision in. . .a while. They also the ability to warp reality, and have the respective jobs of: Future king of the universe and his sister, saving the world from the snake who wants to eat the sun, and re-opening an really dangerous path of magic that the Reigning Magic Organization has said they'll kill for doing.

-Also, all their friends no longer have a fucking clue who they are. Carter already did this song and dance with Zia, too, which is. . .huh. Fascinating neuroses forming there.

-The Kane siblings are very fun here, because Sadie is Very Loudly Not Fine about very mundane changes, but not saying a peep about the things that are actually fucking her up until someone taps her on the shoulder at the wrong moment when she's gone vacant-eyed at the sight of her gran and she flinches like she got punched in the jaw, while Carter is Insistently Just Fine until Jaz says hi to him one morning and he starts sobbing.

-Bast doesn't count as supervision either, because she's a cat god. Bast wants to shake them by the scruffs of their neck until they start acting their own ages or she gets a satisfactory explanation for what's taken residence in their heads. Their magical auras are wrong.

-About the only fun part of dealing with the gods is when Sadie sucker-punches Serqet and goes What, Like It's Hard?, Legally Blonde-style, to a very confused and unnerved Zia. This move is not something she can make a pattern of, to be clear. But it feels good and she can do it now, so she does.

-I have no idea if Amos is definitely still possessed here by Set, for the angsty comedy of Carter and Sadie repeatedly knocking him out and dragging him around until they have time to Deal With That, or if it's ambiguous and possibly actually in someone else? And they have to go Holmes and Watson on the case.

(Of course, they may have different gods themselves altogether, and goddammit, I need to stop coming up with AUs)

-Like, yeah, sure, they know Set is the problem, their dad is probably fine, but they have to explain this in such a way that people don't think they're possessed! This is a very valid concern and leads to worries that they're terrorizing their younger selves by stealing their bodies or something.

(they're not. but it's a Recurring Thing that people think that they've possessed Younger Carter And Sadie)

-Anyway, they still get dragged to the First Nome, because Julius broke half a dozen rules of magician-ing, these kids are acting. . .like they've been possessed by Horus and Isis, to be honest.

-Carter tries to warn Zia about the being-possesed-by-a-god thing before Iskandar tries to save her life and inadvertently consign her to Watery Nightmare Coma Hell, to convince her to come with them, and thinking honesty may be the best policy--Zia's pretty morally upright, and more than trustworthy and willing to trust the Kanes, after all.

-This does not go as Carter planned.

-Sadie, remembering Iskandar fucking dies and not wanting to deal with the complicated and short reign of Desjardins as Chief Lector (or the whole guilt thing about him dying and just. . .complicated. Inconvenient. Just make sure it never happens!) by giving him a boost in the health department and extending his life.

-This does not go as Sadie planned.

-Oh, and neither of them know how to convince Nephthys to play ball since neither of them know Set's name, so even though they know how to defeat him, short out of an out-and-out brawl that there's no guarantee they can win, they need to get that! And Anubis is super suspicious and not into getting bullied by Isis into giving them a Feather of Truth!

-On the bright side, they decide to pull the Carter Will One Day Be Pharaoh Card and convince Sobek to be, like, marginally useful as the pharaoh's enforcer after Sadie dropkicked Serqet into next week.

-Meanwhile, Iskandar is alive, but reluctantly all They Should Probably Be Brought In And Restrained At Minimum. Zia is contemplative and ends up pursuing Carter and Sadie on her own after her powers start going sideways and Iskandar nearly does knock her out.

-So now Zia's a fugitive. Sort of. Iskandar really doesn't want to do it, but Desjardins is doing the Godlings Must Die thing, and a lot of the First Nome is on his side.

(He lightens up after the Kane siblings + Zia manage to save the world and certain things about Sadie and Iskandar's health come to life. Marginally)

-Anyway, things are chaotic, sort of working out for the better, but Carter and Sadie are about fifteen times more traumatized than they were last time.

-Also, Jaz is canonically from Nashville, so I say that when they decide to drop by Thoth's place to try and get an idea of What The Fuck happened, they find her and she joins their ridiculous quest to Save The World: Electric Boogaloo, because Highly Enthusiastic Southern Cheerleader Who Just Found Out She Can Commit Arson With Her Mind is a brilliant person to have along.

-I think the last big thing I have from this, beyond everything going so sideways (The House of Life is, like, ninety percent sure that Carter and Sadie are possessed, but can't do much about it at the moment beyond periodically trying to kill them) is the whole power thing.

-The urge to basically blast their way through everyone until they agree with what's up is strong, guys. Also, the urge to drag Setne out of the Underworld just to beat him up for a bit. Lots of power struggles and reminding themselves not to commit too many war crimes in the face of an oncoming apocalypse where they have no idea what their best plan is, and also, half the people they could trust off the bat this time? Don't trust 'em this time.

-Oh yeah, and for a while, Amos and Julius/Osiris aren't unconvinced that this isn't some sort of power play by Horus and Isis to leverage things in their favor, so. . .. Sad times. :(

-I am a big fan of "Time travel doesn't necessarily fix everything", but this trilogy is just so fucking chaotic, and so many of the biggest parts rely on character growth, and you can't force that! No matter how much you may get frustrated and want to, if you're Sadie and/or Carter.

[lebrookestore]

oh girl what the fuck