#but it’s also about doing what you need to survive vs what is best for the people dependent on you

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCXDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 5)

—

Tw: torture scene (GiW agent receiving), general angst, canon-typical violence (DC), nobody is having a good time

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually

(Masterlist/subscription post)

—

It was pretty easy for Danny to forget that Dr. Crane was a rogue at times.

Most of the time he wasn’t comically evil, like what he’d expect of a Gotham rogue. He was helping Danny, even if only because he didn’t want to be taken in by the GiW as well. He was even downright nice most of the time, or at least neutral.

Sure, he had a strange obsession with fear and psychology, but that wasn’t really out of the ordinary for Danny. It didn’t feel like living with a rogue, just like…staying with a distant relative, or something.

He seemed like just an ordinary person.

Today, though, Danny was brought back to reality.

The GiW agent they’d tracked down together writhed on the ground, screaming in pain and terror. Scarecrow was sat a few feet away, setting up a syringe of the antidote he’d made.

After a few more moments, he injected the man with the antidote, watching him like a hawk the entire time.

Suddenly, the man surged forward, lunging at Scarecrow with a feral scream.

Unluckily for him, though, he was still weak from the fear toxin in his system, and from the beatings he’d received prior. Scarecrow easily wrestled him to the ground, settling himself on the broad part of the agent’s back with a vice grip on one of his arms.

“Let’s try again,” he said sharply, all of the warmth Danny had grown used to gone from his voice. “Where is the GiW base of operations?”

The agent took several shuddering breaths before spitting at Scarecrow, defiance and hatred written all over his face.

For just a moment, the room was utterly silent.

“Fine, have it your way.”

Scarecrow began to twist the man’s arm further. It wasn’t long before the agent began to squirm, then writhe, beneath him. Danny’s stomach churned.

“You know,” Scarecrow began, almost conversationally, “there are plenty of jobs that one can get without the use of their legs, especially with the level of education you have. Anything that doesn’t involve hard labor, really.”

The man’s face was beginning to turn red in his struggle not to scream. He took in gasping breaths, the way that his mouth moved almost reminding Danny of a goldfish.

(He felt awful for the comparison, but it was true.)

“However,” Scarecrow continued, “I find you’d be rather hard-pressed to find a job without the use of your arms. Especially in a place like Gotham, where you can always be replaced by someone eager to do your job for even less money. Of course, you could most likely coast off of savings and severance pay for a while, but…”

He leaned closer to the man’s head, his voice lowering.

“Would you be able to live like that? To live with yourself, if you no longer have a purpose?”

He allowed the agent a few seconds of rest before increasing the pressure on his arm. The agent gasped, letting out a strangled hiss. His arm bones were making fascinating noises in response to the strain. Danny felt sick.

“You seem like a rather driven young man. I’m sure your family would hate to see you unmotivated, directionless. Would they resent you, do you think?”

“Fuck you, you—”

The man was cut off by his own scream as Scarecrow finally allowed his arm to break, audibly splintering into thousands of useless shards of bone.

He had the exact pressure memorized. Clearly, he had done this before.

This was wrong. This was wrong.

Shouldn’t Danny step in, do something?

“That won’t heal cleanly. Even with the best medical care in the world, you’ll end up with permanent damage.”

The man below him wheezed and sobbed, choking on air as Scarecrow let go of his arm carelessly, letting it flop back onto the ground.

“Just the sort of thing something like you deserves,” Scarecrow hissed, his voice cold.

“You tortured a child, and you enjoyed it. You laughed with your friends about it. In your notes, one of your friends complained about the screaming,” Scarecrow brought his leg around, grinding his boot into the man’s broken arm. He howled in agony, writhing uncontrollably.

“Was it inconvenient to him, do you think? Too loud? If you were joking about it, clearly you thought so, too. I could fix that as well.”

He drew out another needle, this one once again filled with fear toxin.

“Scarecrow, wait,” Danny choked out.

Scarecrow turned to look at him.

Even his posture was different than usual. He looked… stiff, more like an animal than a man. When he tilted his head at Danny in a silent question, it looked like something in his neck had snapped, his head lolling to the side.

Danny wondered if he was consciously moving like that, or if it was habit at this point.

“You—we don’t have to do this. We can get information some other way, right? You don’t have to…”

Danny looked down at the GiW agent below Scarecrow. He didn’t even have it in him to glare up at Danny like he had before. Instead he laid limply on the ground, tremors rolling through his body uncontrollably.

“We’ve exhausted every other option and you know it,” Scarecrow said, his voice low, “this is the only way we can move forward.”

“Still, I—I don’t,” Danny swallowed, his throat tight, “this isn’t—this isn’t right. Isn’t there some other way to do this? Like—a truth serum, or something?”

“Truth serums are notoriously unreliable. They’re almost as bad as lie detectors. We’re much more likely to get a reliable result from this.”

Danny just stared at the GiW agent and his splintered, ruined arm. He began to weakly wriggle in Scarecrow’s grasp, which was graciously ignored.

He vaguely remembered himself doing the same thing when he was on the operating table; even if he knew there was no chance of escape, he still thrashed and screamed, desperate to get away. The jagged I-shaped incision on his torso felt uncomfortably warm.

What was there left to say?

“The Bat does the same thing at times, you know,” Scarecrow said, “him and the rest of his brood. By using my toxin, I’m actually lessening the amount of permanent damage that I’m doing. Physically.”

“Still, that doesn’t make it right,” Danny said desperately. “Even if—even if everyone in the world did this, it wouldn’t make it right.”

Scarecrow hummed.

They were both silent for a moment.

His next words were gentle, absurdly so when compared to the scene in front of him.

“I would love an alternative. But…”

He shrugged, hand coming to rest on the break in the GiW agent’s arm. Even without applying any pressure, the man stopped squirming immediately.

“There aren’t any other options,” Danny repeated, his voice flat and his body numb.

“Yes,” Scarecrow said. “I’m sorry.”

There was a pause. No one moved a muscle. Eventually Scarecrow spoke again, his voice strangely empty.

“You can stand outside and keep watch, if you’d like. At such a short distance their radars won’t pick us up.”

Danny said nothing, leaving the room silently.

He sat outside for quite a while.

He was grateful that Scarecrow had, with his help, dragged the agent to one of his previous hideouts. It was soundproofed, after all.

He was glad that he didn’t have to hear the rest of what Scarecrow did to the man.

After what felt like an eternity, Dr. Crane left the building, joining him outside. He guided Danny back to his beat up old truck and they drove home in silence.

“Did you at least…do you know where they are, now?” Danny asked as they entered the apartment, his voice small.

“They didn’t share the details of all of their locations with any one person. I know where one of their locations are, but not their main base of operations.”

Danny felt disgusted. With himself, with Dr. Crane, with the GiW.

He was disgusted by the agent, too. Did he just hate the restless dead so much that he would prefer to be tortured than to give them the upper hand? Did he really think he was in the right?

Was there a chance that he was?

Danny felt very, very small, and very stupid. Stupid and weak and cowardly.

“Danny,” Dr. Crane spoke, his voice soft.

“I’m truly sorry that this is happening to you. I really, truly wish that you didn’t have to endure my company. I…”

He fell quiet. Danny wondered if he was just saying this to pacify him, or if he truly meant it. He wondered if it really mattered in the end.

After a few moments of silence, Dr. Crane sighed, looking truly pained.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Danny was quiet.

“I’m going to bed early,” he finally said, turning away and leaving without a second glance.

—

[bumblingbabooshka]

One of the best Voyager scenes to indicate Tuvok & Neelix's dynamic and how I think Tuvok is just as if not more 'annoying'(positive) than Neelix is when Neelix pours Tuvok a fresh squeezed glass of a fruit juice blend and Tuvok's like (paraphrased) "I don't want to drink this." and Neelix is like "Can you please try it?" and Tuvok's like "I don't want to, you're really bad at this sort of thing. It's going to taste bad." and Neelix says that Ensign XYZ said she LOVED it, she even had a second glass! And Tuvok says Ensign XYZ could drink poison without a second thought and Neelix is like "Tuvok could you please just TRY it? Just try a little SIP of it PLEASE??" and Tuvok sighs and rolls his eyes and sniffs it before taking a sip and it turns out he loves it. Turns out it tasted good actually. And then after all that Neelix tries to talk to him over eggs (which he's again cooking fresh for him) and Tuvok tells him he doesn't wanna hear "the life history of his breakfast." Absolutely insufferable this man I would have burned his eggs on PURPOSE!!!!

[milo-is-rambling]

Thought about the concept of me either having children or not ever having children and both options make me want to cry

[hellenhighwater]

Hi Hell, I wanted to get your thoughts on something. My friend who has been vegetarian for close to 30 years is thinking about becoming vegan. His main reason is that the pain and suffering of an animal in the large majority of the animal product industry is not worth the enjoyment he gets from cheese, milk, etc. He hypothesizes that most people are not vegan due to lack of education about the industry’s methods, and because eating meat is so normalized. I mostly agree, but something about what he’s saying makes me feel bad. Maybe because I don’t see myself ever becoming vegan, due to how much I love certain foods, but I like to think of myself as an empathetic and moral person. So I think I just feel quite selfish.

He is a very analytical and logical thinker, and says he wants to find more anti-vegan arguments before deciding for sure, but can’t seem to find many. What do you (and your followers) think? I was thinking you aren’t vegan, but I don’t actually know.

This is very much not my lane, but if you want my two cents then for me it comes down to a few things.

One: there is a basic mass of food that any human needs to consume in order to stay alive. That can be plants, it can be animals, it can be animal byproducts. For the a significant proportion of commercially produced food, there is a negative impact. It's hard to quantify; in some cases it is certainly direct, quality of life issues for animals. In other cases it's more broad environmental impact from commercial farming, or quality of life for the human laborers involved in harvesting etc. It's hard to come up with any objective measurement for harm when comparing individual animal suffering vs human quality of life vs large scale environmental issues. There's plenty of information out there on some of the vegan diet staples and how increases in farming things like quinoa have enormously detrimental effects on their native communities, if that's something your friend is not already aware.

Two: There is a degree of this that is just...unavoidable. Things eating other things is the way living creatures survive, and on a systematic level there's not a ton we individually can do to change things--and on a practical level, there's only so much you can afford to spend on food, and organic, cruelty free stuff is more expensive. There is a level of privilege in being able to choose to spend your money in that way that is not always an option for everyone.

I'm not vegan. I'm not vegetarian. I care deeply about animals, and I'm aware of what commercial husbandry looks like--it's pretty terrible. I still eat meat. I try to do so as ethically as I reasonably can.

I don't have an issue with eating other animals. It's a part of nature. To me, I see the obligation more to do our best to try to get meat (or byproducts) that have been raised as well as we can manage. Free range eggs are pretty easy to come by, if you live in the country. Same with locally made cheeses and butters, even farm fresh milk--some places have self-serve milking that allows cows to roam in pastures and then be milked at will. Price and availability will vary by where you are, but it's more and more common; as more and more people start to care about how the people and animals involved in making our food are treated, better options become more available.

It also should be noted that the animals involved in farming are almost universally completely domesticated. There's no alternative for these animals and their progeny except for life in human care. These breeds require human aid for their own health and safety, because we have been breeding them for (in many cases) thousands of years to rely on us and to develop traits that will not aid them in the wild. If everyone decided, tomorrow, to become vegan, then these animals would need to remain in human care for however many thousands of generations it would take to breed them back to the ability to survive without us, or we would have to sterilize them en mass and terminate these breeds through lack of reproduction. It is not an option to just release these farm animals into the wild. Domesticated animals require human care. Some of them, like pigeons, have gone feral when we abandoned them, but they are not like their wild cousins, and it shows.

Because of the selective breeding involved in domestion, most of these animals are producing byproducts--eggs, milk, honey, wool, etc--in quantities that they do not need. While some species have been bred to do that to their own detriment, most heritage breeds are fully capable of producing more than they need of these things, and there can be true symbiosis between these animals and their human caretakers. Some of these things they need to have removed for their own health. It's an ancient bargain--we keep them safe, and warm, and healthy, and protected, and they give us that which they have in abundance. The problem isn't the animal product, it's how it's produced commercially.

So yeah--veganism is one option, but it is, in my opinion, a narrow scope at an issue that is far more nuanced. I think it's equally ethical to aim for a diet that focuses on local, ethical farming practices--for growing crops, for caring for meat animals, for beekeeping, for chickens and sheep and whatever else we need. We've spent longer than any of us will live making these animals part of our world--discarding them and what they can give us is not going to benefit them. We just have to learn how to treat them respectfully.

[cooki3face]

Your present reality vs far future

message: I'm doing a reading from bed today guys, believe it or not, I have not done any readings from bed in quite a long time lol! I have a designated table for these types of things in the house but I'm feeling like taking it easy today and relaxing. Sometimes doing readings or creating tarot content feels like a chore although I really love it. Many things in my life have felt like a chore lately between work and school and managing my time properly and whatever else I have selected to put on my plate. This is the reason why I'm pulling this reading out of my draft list, I have many readings stored away in my drafts about various things. I felt called to do this one because I felt that maybe the collective wanted some insight as to what the life they're working towards or manifesting may look like. I've been feeling called to do these types of 3D-themed readings for a while. I also considered releasing a financial forecast reading as well. I'm asking spirit and setting my intention for this reading to motivate and help awaken the collective to the reality their higher selves live and what needs to be done or put in in order to receive the manifestation of the dream life you deserve collective. I know many people whose past life karma, the beliefs they grew up with, their childhood trauma, and the experiences that they were given within this lifetime to put them on their highest path of ascension if they made the right choices or saw things the best way has made them feel very discouraged and stuck and has ruined the idea that a good life is available for them to be a recipient of. It is not your fault that the divine plan that was set in place for you to learn certain lessons was difficult or was dreadful or took such a large toll on you but it is possible to heal from and be relieved from such a way of things. I swear. And today I will try and deliver to you the truth of a life you could live away from the hurt, the karmic cycles, and the trauma or hard times. Anyways, many months ago when I created the draft for this reading I chose Miss Frida Kahlo and her wonderful art for my banner and my pick-a-pile covers. I hope that you enjoy her as much as I enjoy her and her legacy and art.

-

i.

your past: I pulled the three of swords for your past pile one, there could've been a lot of loss and a lot of heartbreak cut out for you. Loss may have served as a large aspect of some of your greatest lessons. The loss of a parent to death or to outside third party obligations, the loss of a lover or many, the loss of approval or much-needed validation from outside sources, loss shaped the way things were laid out for you and was responsible for some of the behaviors or needs that you had for a long time. There's an essence of learning that is so incredibly significant to you here, you could've begun your life in a way where knowledge or the need for knowledge was heavily significant in your life, but I also see this idea of the primary purpose for your life events and circumstances was for you to learn important lessons early in order for you to become something great in your future. You could've had to grow up really fast, had to experience or see things or undergo drastic changes and hardships that people usually don't at such a large volume but you were made to survive and flourish. You're someone with a great purpose, you may be a healer or a light worker or someone who has a heavily significant gift even if your gifts aren't in the world of helping people along their ascension or things that fall into the metaphysical.

your present reality: you've reached a point within your journey where you've outgrown and broken all of your karmic cycles or successfully and fully completed the portion of your life that was heavily designed by the divine to teach you some of your most intense and powerful lessons, congratulations pile one. I almost said pile two, there may be messages for you in pile two. Last night in a reading I had said that there is a portion of someone's life in which their past life karma and the events in their lives and their experiences are heavily determined by what needs to be a part of their reality in order to reach the level of ascension needed to step into their higher self and fulfill their purpose. Sort of in the way in which we spend a large majority of our lives as minors in someone's care before we're considered legal adults and can go off on our own and create our own lives and stories. and This was exactly that. You've graduated or aged out of a space in time within your journey where your hardest lessons were that were meant to shape you.

You are at the beginning of your life, the world is yours. Some of you have just turned 19 years old or are newly adults. The number 19 is associated with perseverance, inner power, and finding your own path or finding your own spiritual path. The number 1 symbolizes the beginning and the number 9 symbolizes completion or near completion or the point in which someone is about to reach their highest level of completion or wholeness. You also have the ten of cups here indicating bliss, harmony, and alignment. This point is the calm after the storm that you have experienced, the ages of 6 and 7 may be incredibly significant for you as well and could've been the point in which certain karmic cycles or karmic energies began to flare up for you within your life.

You're at this extremely significant point in time, I see spirit or your spirit guides and ancestors opening up this huge door for you or you getting ready to walk through this gigantic door you've been waiting to enter for a long time. I see little you or someone being a teenager waiting in front of a door or sitting in front of a door. Someone had an ancestor or a spirit guide that always wanted to let you in early or always wanted to let you see what was on the other side even if you weren't ready yet someone's ancestor or spirit guide is very sorry that you had a hard time or had to go through so much, you have buckets of compassion in other realms for you pile one. Behind the door there is all of these opportunities, all of this abundance and all of these beautiful things for you to have and experience as compensation.

your future: in your future there's a lot of you using everything you've learned or everything you've experienced to keep you grounded or consistently moving in the right direction. Not out of a place of fear but out of a place of wisdom and knowing. You may also be someone who struggles with commitments in your life either emotionally or in the physical/material aspect of things and this is not going to be something that continues to hold you back I just heard "You'll find your way." or something along the lines of being able to put your money where your mouth is or stand fully in the things you want to accomplish will come to you eventually and you won't have to worry about this any longer if you worry about your productivity or your performance or your ability to take action and make things happen. You'll soon be seen as someone very disciplined who has things figured out and mapped out and you'll not only be seen that way but you'll be that person actually.

Some of you are young and may feel disappointed in yourself or having a hard time accepting that you are in fact young and there are skills or things you're not immediately good at or have to learn to do with time as you come into yourself due to the fact that you may be someone who is very grown up, wise or mature in a lot of areas. You are not behind. I just heard "allow yourself to grow." someone's ancestor or spirit guide thinks it's funny that you might get upset at the fact that you have a hard time. They see you as a baby in a suit lol. You may be unable to see just how much you have within your life or feel you crave more or don't get all the recognition you rightfully deserve within this lifetime to some extent here. You may fall into a practitioner role or be someone who teaches or creates a name for themselves through a leadership role or through something like divination. You'll be someone mysterious and sensual or someone who attracts the attention or curiosity of many. I just heard "friend of the world" or "mother" You may hold mystique and/or have a very high status patriarchal or matriarchal vibe. You may be well known in the world of the arts or there will be a worldly presence about you that you'll hold for the remainder of your life.

I pulled "The Daughter of Skulls" in the deck I'm using today and in essence, she represents infinite potential of life on earth. "steady and secure materialization. infinite potential. birth. completion. abundance. strength. tangible. earthly happiness. pure creation. opportunity. generous. beautiful. sensual. benevolent. arousal. adoration. truth. security. commitment. freedom. sensations. perfection. divine inspiration and holy wisdom. here is the message behind this card in the Tarot book for this deck:

In your future, what you put out in the world you will receive in return in full capacity and you will give to the world a lot and the most valuable and most cherished things. Anything that comes from you or derives from you will be held at high regard and will be something of value. Your ideas, your guidance, your charity and even your children if you bless this world with any.

how you'll get there: value yourself and value your energy and your time and your essence. You are a person of high rare value and you must behave as such. Your first line of defense is always going to be you in the physical realm and world of the living and your second line of defense is your spirit guides and ancestors. You cannot receive the things you want in your life or get to where you want to be or be who your higher self is if you do not protect yourself in every sense there is. respect your legacy in the making. make choices according to where you want to go, be the energy you want to receive. your success in your life will come from you using your wisdom and using the respect you have for yourself and the love you have for yourself as your biggest weapon. People often see us the way we see ourselves when we have a very strong sense of identity whether or not it's a honest one or not. People will come to you because you're magnetic. Success will follow you because you're magnetic and it's safe in your hands. continue to nurture yourself and your energy and your persona. I don't even mean in the sense of who you present to others as an alter ego but your higher self or who you feel called to be. Love yourself, love your life, value your essence. easier said than done for most but if this message is yours you know exactly what means, looks like, feels like, sounds like, tastes like. Love is your sixth sense.

-

ii.

your past: your childhood or past could've had a lot of stagnancy and suppression within it. There's something authoritative here or something that restricted someone's self-expression or was very judgmental and inflexible. this could be anything a parent or a legal guardian, a school system or a culture or a religion. Someone was a brilliant child or was someone with a lot of broad potential for many things who didn't get the freedom or ability to blossom or grow the way they rightfully deserved, there's a suppressed part of someone here that has been pushed into the shadow or has been lying dormant. you may have a difficult time making decisions in your life or have low self-esteem or an inability to think for yourself, express yourself or have a wicked case of imposture syndrome that tells you that you're not worth much or that you aren't capable of much but you're very powerful and very divine.

incredibly smart, have a psychic ability or an oppressed spiritual gift. someone told you that you were crazy or weird or led you in a direction or raised you up in a way that very heavily wounded your sense of self. this could also be a case of environmental oppression of the spirit, somewhere you once resided or the place you do reside and/or haven't moved away from didn't have the resources to accommodate you or help you. you may have a mental illness or a disability or have very heavy trauma that may impair you. There was some complication with the message that came through at first, I couldn't grasp it right away and I think this is reflective of the energy you may be in because something has cut you off or pushed you to lose something that was a naturally given birthright for you that you inherited from your ancestors or one in particular like a father or a grandfather or someone on your paternal line or a masculine energy. potentially one who passed away before your time. I pulled "The Lord of Knives" in the deck I'm using here's the message and essence behind the card:

someone in your life could've known that you had a gift and took advantage of the fact that you were a child and may have had their own ideas about which direction they felt you were destined to go or put a lot of energy into suppressing your gifts or trying to break your spirit for fear you'd be entirely too difficult to control or be disobedient or out of jealousy for what you'd get in life or what you'd reap if you were allowed to grow into your power or be yourself. I see this could've been multiple people who chipped it to see you fall or have a hard time it may have started in the home or came from the home as well but it also was something you dealt with outside of your life, in your social life. Someone was afraid of fullness of conserved power in you.

your present reality: You're about to grow into yourself or at the brink of your ascension, you couldn't spent a lot of time in a stagnant place with many karmic behaviors and cycles, you could've fallen into addictions or fallen into some hard places or ran into a lot of karmic people and situations that were meant to shake you awake or act as major catalyst to put you on the right path. I hear someone saying that these were the cards you were dealt in terms of your past (both as a child and in your early life and in your recent past or in these past couple of years) and there isn't much you can do about that but you can use the cards you were dealt with to alchemize your self and learn the right lessons and find what you may have lost a long time ago. there's something significant here about your crown chakra being closed or you having a hard time learning lessons or taking the positives out of a negative situation or circumstance.

There was a recent catalyst that you've just experienced or are standing in at the moment that has been the last one for this block of time or this cycle of misfortune or hardship. You need peace and quiet or you need most at this time the ability to break away and turn inwards and soul search. It's about time some inner clarity on certain matters including the directory of your life and what you need to do come to you. you're about to rethink an idea or any clouded judgment you've had or carried with you about your sense of direction or where you needed to go, do, or be is about to clear. At this point in your life you're potentially in a place where you're juggling the persona you've been given or the one you've grown into to assimilate or that was in alignment with your choices and the life that goes with it and the person you really are and the life you are destined to have that's in alignment with who you truly are. this collective is always a really heavy one within my readings, you're always with me, I've practically grown up with you and now is your moment. I've always loved you and seen your light. it is now time you see it to and step into your power pile two.

You're in the process of regeneration and healing as well after a time long spent carrying with you wounds and skeletons. You're finally on the rise and about to reach your freedom. You're so close.

your future: I see you feeling and being victorious. a force to be reckoned with. people might actually believe you to be the golden standard of something or may idealize you or feel that you're glorious. You may be someone who is heavily put on a pedestal by their romantic partners and romanticized even to a point where you don't understand and they may become increasingly disappointed or have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that you're a real person with real flaws are can't possibly be everything they've chosen to try and make you out to be but I see this no longer being the case with anyone in the future in the sense that you will be everything and more. You may be heavily attracted to someone in your present life or be really infatuated or obsessed with someone in your present life who is a fantasy-like individual or has a really beaming sort of divinity that you wish that you could embody on your own and you will. You are divine and you will be divine and that will be the end of it. You'll be someone in the future who has a knack for improving themselves or finds great pleasure in self-improvement and pushing limits, even to the point of perfectionism it may work against you at some point but what it really does for you is set the standard for which you think you're worth and what you think you're capable of doing or accomplishing.

You may find that you'll be someone in the future and for a good amount of it who is a lone wolf or is seeking out a divine counterpart or someone to compliment you and bring to you your ten of cups or your divinely ordained commitment here or some sort of completion. I see you holding off for it and devoting a large amount of your energy towards your self-care and your physical world and career as you look for deep and divine commitment in your love life and partnerships. You may be someone who commands a lot of attention or that people desire to follow around or invest in deep commitments with but will find yourself not necessarily lonely but seeking something profound, at this stage in your ascension you'll have the ability to detect intention and what is in store for you and another individual intuitively. You could very well be a masculine energy or just someone who is very action-oriented and moves through their lives with a sense of fluidity. I pulled the "Prince of Scepters" here is the essence and description attached to this card from the book:

how you'll get there:

focus on taking the time you need for yourself to thoroughly recover from the things you've experienced and allow yourself the time to make the changes you need to make to come into your power and refine who you need to be. Don't rush into commitments out of loneliness or force yourself to be around people just to keep company or just to make it seem like you are loved by others, it's okay to be alone or to use the time you have being alone for a productive cause that pertains to you, you're not selfish or wrong for it. Continue to grow and pour your energy into yourself. Love yourself enough to meet your own needs, love yourself enough to do things for the sake of your own nourishment, and stay far away from things that can destroy you out of craving or desire. take time to think about what you truly want and come into alignment with that by trusting that it exists and that it's available for you to have if that's truly what you want. the world is yours after such a long time of being denied it and it's time you align yourself with receiving it.

-

iii.

your past: This may not be for the entire collective but it's likely there could've been some of you that could've experienced some violence or abusive environment even may have had someone in your life that was emotionally volatile that you could never truly please or had to walk on eggshells around. could've also been heavily oversexualized in your life as a child and during your teen years or general early life. there's a possibility someone could've attracted a lot of people who wanted to take from them or exploit them and did. Some of y'all could have experienced a lot of heartbreak from a young age or a lot of your needs not being met or your first heart break or massive bouts of betrayal from significant individuals like family members or like your parents and that could've heavily affected the way you behaved in front of others or how you navigated in the world. It's possible some of you could've developed a personality disorder or may struggle with mental health. You may have developed a tendency to lie to get approval or to get your way or obtain opportunities you don't believe you could receive if you were just yourself. lie or put on facades.

You may also have liked to party within the past couple of years or went through a lot to try and keep from being alone with yourself or being isolated or feeling alone. If it wasn't partying it was attempting to keep as many friends as possible or do what was necessary to keep as much attention as you felt you needed.

your present reality: you could be potentially dealing with a lot of energetic pressure in the heart space or undergoing a heart chakra awakening. You could be in and out of depression at this time potentially as well. Things from your past or past suppressed feelings or memories are resurfacing. if it's coming up, it needs to come out. You're learning what it means to love yourself and operate from a place of love instead of fear. You could be experiencing heavy emotions attached to codependency There could've been a loss or multiple. Of friends or lovers or both, people you may have heavily relied on past even a healthy point. relied on for various things, to regulate your emotions, validate your existence, or prove to you that you are loved or could be loved. There's also a potential you may have several uncut soul ties from past lovers and failed relationships, talking stages, or sexual rendezvous. You may have attempted to use your knowledge to cut them or severe them but it was somewhat unsuccessful.

You've been isolating yourself lately or having a lot of trouble being perceived or have developed a deep/deeper fear of being seen. You may have spent a lot of time off of social media or have been minimizing the amount you're willing to share about how you feel with "friends" and family. This could potentially serve as a way of being able to control your environment and what comes in and out of space so as not to trigger you. someone might be an air sign as well, you may not have the ability you may usually have to let things flow right through you or control the way you react to certain stimuli. You're bothered, triggered, or heavily emotionally sensitive or volatile at this time. You're undergoing a dark night of the soul and are in the process of waning in order to return in better shape soon. You're the last portion of the collection to undergo a full transformation. Some of you apart of this pile/collective are individuals who have younger spirits or haven't been on this early plane for very long or haven't lived multiple lives here.

You could have very youthful or childish energy or tendencies in your most authentic and natural state, you may look older or give the impression to others that you are older than you really are. You're in the process of healing the part of you that's karmic behavior may stem from a stunted place in your growth. learning how to properly navigate in the world and in your relationships, learning how to communicate properly, some of you may also be seeking out therapy or psych evaluations or may be placed in alignment to receive those types of mental health services.

your future: You'll be completely committed to the cause that is loving yourself and being the energy that you want to receive or manifest in all forms. Self love or insecurity may be something you have struggled with for the vast majority of your life so much so that a few of you have learned to heavily overcompensate or have developed an extremely inflated sense of self-importance that comes from a seemingly narcissistic place due to your past. learning how to do things authentically and from an honest place and not take short cuts or use your trauma as a way to cushion the fact that you may have some unhealed aspects of your shadow is something that you'll be learning to do and be determined to do.

You'll be in the process of challenging beliefs you've learned from your past or carried with you a long way and be in the state of learning and growing for a large amount of time for the earliest portion of your enlightened life. Any growing up you failed to do or limited mindset you've carried is what you'll primarily be working on. You may be disconnected spiritually or disconnected from spirit or God as well and your faith and purpose is something that you'll be working on or trying to find guidance through. You'll be entering your most in-depth spiritual journey or spiritual rebirth. You may have spiritual knowledge already but it comes from a limited place or the intention for learning isn't in the right place.

by the time you've completed this inner work and have come into alignment with your purpose and what you're meant to do within this lifetime you'll find yourself feeling relieved and having more room within yourself to build your life in such a way that will bring true fulfillment for you. You may have a tendency to heavily fixate on the physical or material world or the way your reality "appears" in the 3D and neglect your spirit, emotional/mental well-being, or internal affairs which has played a huge factor in your stunted growth and ability to operate and your future will begin itself with you having no choice but to shift your focus and find alignment internally before you can make anything come into rightful alignment in your physical life.

how you'll get there: you'll receive your highest reality by nurturing and healing the parts of you that need the most care and attention, which happens to be everything within and in spirit. There can be no true abundance or alignment if we don't bring into true order our internal aspects first. Be for your inner child who you would have wanted for them growing up. You are your first line of defense for your internal and vulnerable self and behind that is your spirit guides and ancestors. Your journey to your highest reality and your deepest place of alignment is going to be a lot of soul searching and a lot of inner work and growth and the effort that you put in to get yourself there. I pulled "The Daughter of Scepters" in the tarot deck I've chosen for this reading and here's the essence and meaning of the card for you to read:

I also channeled the song "Tell Him" by Lauryn Hill, and "Him" as referred to in the song would be self (you).

Your greatest strength will be utilizing the natural free-spirited energy of your spirit, use it to allow yourself to embrace change and do the inner work to break karmic cycles and emerge out of stagnancy when it finds you.

-

This reading took me so long guyss 😭😭 I broke it into two parts, I completed the first two piles that took me a couple of hours last night yesterday and then this morning I woke up with the intention to finish. I hope you found what you were looking for in this reading and it touched you!! I was unsure about the directory spirit took it in because I had envisioned it to be more of an entertainment type reading and be more surface level in its content but it turned out completely different. Bless you. 🤎

[justcallmesakira]

hihihihi AUGH i love ur work sm?!! omg if u can fyodor with a younger sister (she has the same level of intelligence of him and works in the doa and his organaization) who is dating dazai? :) I know there are some but i need crack and suggestive!!1

ty and er bye good luck take ur time!

"Fyodor with a sister dating Dazai''

Sypnosis: Your rat brother is anything but happy about the fact that you are dating his only enemy on earth! Good luck on surviving!!!

Genre: crack, suggestive at the end

Warnings: bombing, terrorizz, , mentions of maniupulative behaviour, mentions of verlaine, roblox radgoll, loads of simping words, me being down bad, making out (lol), your mom

A/N: my reqs are currently closed but ehhhh who cares lol also THIS WAS SO HARD TO WRITE HONESTLY- pls enjoy and reblog i tried my best--- *dies of mental ilness*

How bro-

JUST HOW DID U DO THAT W/O HIM BLASTING DAZAIS INTERNAL ORGANS? 🤯🤯🤯

No bcs fyodor did not even plan to let u meet dazai but ofcourse bcs of the dead apple tower and stuff and since then he had completly fallen inlove with you whether you are dostoevskys sister or not

He prob asked u to do a waltz with him in the mukokukokurokito or whatver the phuck that towers name was when you entered the castle with your brother

Fyodor WAS NOT happy because he saw the flirty glint in dazais eyes when u came

If looks cold kill-.. (KILL ME, RUSSIAN ZADD😍😍---)

And all you went was giggles and flirting back

Fyodor is prob gonna get his own medicine bcs they two are so like each other??? but he still couldnt believe how you with such high intelligence could fall for him???

(fyodor take your anemic medication first)

Dazai obv had some skeptics after you but like the manwhore he is and prob slept with the entierty of yokohama! ofc hes gonna court you as if you might not just use him!!!

Very (not) normal behaviour indeed!!

HELP YOU KNOW THAT ONE INDIAN RIZZLER VS. UWU CAT??? HES LITERLY THAT BUT

Dazai: "I fucked your sister she be screaming high pitch😈" fyodor: "What did you say, you little child i will crush your skull 😡😡😡should have known when i smile, I also play cello, i can be anything Уву"

that was UWU in russian btw-

But in all serious he will try maniupultaing you or gaslighting you into leaving dazai, he cant leave his only family to a man he does not trust! fyodor doesnt even trust himself-

fyodors gonna act a bit more colder then usual bcs of the fact HIS sister is dating someone and that someone is his enemy

Honeslty you go up to say chuuya whos like "why do i get deja vu-" *flashback to verlaine* you: "First time?"

But ofc since you are also extremely smart you somehow convinced him (after playing roblox radgoll with him for 8 hours) to let you atleast join date with dazai

I bet you rizzed up dazai by "He said his favourite colour was blue, so i blew him up😍💣"

*insert proud brother noises*

He speaks in russian or any slavic language whenever you three are in a gathering to mostly embarress dazai

I have seen some hcs on dazai being a collarbone biter so if you were off shoulder shirts and fyodor sees them by chance hes going to glare at you as if you are covered in mud :33

"Sister,,,what. is. that." *nasty side eye to the love bite on your neck*

Dazai 100% one time randomly pulled you into the alley and started aggresively making out with you with his hands literly sprawling all over your body like hes daddy long legs or sth-

Bcs HE KNEW that fyodor had cctv set in that part of the city and fyodor would be raging at the fact that the sluttiest man is touching his precious sister like that

bros gonna forgot abt human rights- oh wait hes russian

IF HE EVER CATCHES YOU TWO THO--

Like making out on some bed or sth hes actually no LIKE ACTUALLY GOING TO throw a whole ass cabinet at dazai with a face full of nothing but malice-

"How dare, an inhuman animal like you touch my very sister" "BRO CHILL I AM YOUR BROTHER-IN-LAW--"

And your just trying to stop your brother from commiting murder even though that his hobby ^^

fyodor finally forgot he had anemia bcs now all his focus was to give dazai the most painful death know to the medieval period\

Good luck on stoping your brother from poking a fork in your lovers eye in family dinners!!

A/N: guys ik i am doing the valentines req pls be patient i am trying my best!! i have a relly bad mental health rn so yeahhh-

Divider crds!: @cafekitsune

tags! @silverbladexyz @biscuits-lovely-corner @riiwrites @heartsfourdazai @tojifile @atsquie @atlasnessie @chuuyasboner @yosanosboner @ruanais @darling--angst

[devdirt]

Hollow Knight vs. Vivziepop character design language

I know it's kind of a wildcard comparison but Vivziepop is a fan of Hollow Knight and its designs. I wanted to explore how shape language, color usage and storytelling in design are used in both properties.

NPC designs do a great job at telling you the character's personality or occupation without being overly detailed. One well placed trait does wonders, like Cornifer with his bundles of maps or Tuk and her hoarding, scrap salvaging hobbies. Paired with the world it tells two people doing their best to survive their dying realm, one by mapping out the twists and turns and the other by scraping up whatever she can find from abandoned civilization.

Now when we look at visual storytelling in Hazbin there are some good details! Alastor's outfit design and trademark microphone give you old timey host vibes right away. Niffty (my angel) sports a poodle skirt, kerchief around her neck and apron, also telling you her occupation and time period she's likely from. Everyone in this show has a big toothy grin but hers plays well into her hyperactive and always happy personality.

But there are also really poor moments of character storytelling. Everything about Beelzebub has already been said. She doesn't read as gluttony, she doesn't read as a bee, and she doesn't read as an animal tamer. When I look at her I see every other wolf character Viv has ever done. If Jayjay is party wolf and Loona is goth wolf then Beelzebub is lava lamp wolf.

The sins are mostly misses for me. They don't read as their sins or their circus related occupations. Asmodeus has fire powers but doesn't read as fire spinner. Mammon doesn't give off greed at ALL but the jester look works (which is also wrong because he's a CLOWN apparently, not a jester.) And don't get me started on this one.

This is not Lucifer.

Nothing about this reads angel, devil or even pride. This design goes all in on the ringmaster design, which is great for the circus theme! But the apple on the hat is the closest we get to this being Lucifer. I didn't even notice the snake on his hat because it looks like a worm for the apple, and they both cover the crown.

Add a second apple on the cane. Okay, so we know for sure this is supposed to be Lucifer but...why? It's another Beelzebub moment where you're left wondering why the design went in this direction. "Apple" shouldn't be the only giveaway here for the most important man in the world these stories are being told in.

Now let's see the celestial leader of Hollow Knight.

That is a god.

Removing all story context, this is incredibly quick to read. Large wings, all white, glowing yellow eyes and a crown. It looks celestial and it doesn't even need color, which is the point!

Now lets view them both within their stories. Is there visual storytelling when compared to other characters and the world around then?

Hollownest is a dark world where every character is dully colored. The Radiance and her power stick out with a glow, juxtaposing themselves with the dark as the light.

Lucifer does not look any different than most of the Hazbin cast. He has all the red, the same sharp toothed grin, the same body type as 90% of the cast of both Hazbin and Helluva Boss. If you lined him up with everyone else somebody like Asmodeus would be chosen as the obvious leader of Hell with his stature and power in the design alone.

Simplicity can tell an entire story while overextending your designs can muddy it.

Hollow Knight relies on few details and minimal storytelling yet it weaves a tale of an usurped kingdom and a god fighting for revenge. You are void, the world is dull, and god is bright and beautiful and terrifying to your way of life.

Vivziepop wants to weave a complex tale but utterly fails to do so with her designs. I purposely did not bring up Cherri Bomb, Sir Pentious or Stolas' designs since they have elements that were taken from other people and properties. I wanted to focus on what she made with her own hands, and when I narrow it down I do not see the story being told or even what side some characters are supposed to be on. Adam and the exterminators look the same as any demon. The leaders of Hell mostly sink into the ocean of overdone details. When everybody is trying so hard to stand out nobody stands out.

[r3medialch8os]

so since u guys liked that i did this with remedial chaos theory i will now also be doing this for epidemiology.

the most incredible thing about this episode is that it is in fact Not merely an homage like most concept episodes are; it actually happens. a zombie epidemic For Real takes place at greendale. it's not a gimmick or a game or a way to frame the plot. the actual conflict is derived from the fact that people are zombies and the study group need to outrun them/turn them back. how often can you say that a sitcom incorporates a storyline like this and sincerely pulls it off? never.

the emotional tension in this episode is framed around troy/abed/jeff and the dichotomy of being a nerd vs. being cool, which respectively get attributed the qualities of caring about the people around you who have turned into zombies or wanting to run and escape from the zombies without trying to help. abed and jeff's costumes are both pointed out in the beginning receiving clear denotations of 'lame' and 'too cool to care' and therefore their positions in the conflict are cemented. the episode has a push-pull with troy being the moving factor, having to decide what he thinks is most important. he gets swayed in the beginning by two girls rejecting him over his costume and jeff mentioning how expensive his suit is. he changes from his ripley costume into a 'sexy dracula'. abed spends the whole episode trying to get troy back to his side, even saying "what defines a nerd? committing to an awesome halloween costume with your best friend?" troy is eventually 'turned back' into his nerdy self (perhaps a zombie metaphor itself, keeping in tone with the theme of the episode) because jeff cares more about his suit getting dirty than surviving the herd of zombies.

a crucial part of the episode is that it is soundtracked by abba music playing from the dean's playlist. now, who would i be if i didn't investigate significant music choices connected to scenes? first up and probably the most important one: s.o.s. is used in the background of a scene where abed confronts troy about changing costumes. troy insults him and walks away. the lyrics are: 'you seemed so far away, though you were standing near. you made me feel alive, but something died, i fear. i really tried to make it up, i wish I understood. what happened to our love? it used to be so good.' next; gimme gimme gimme plays right before the scene where chang and shirley hook up. another insane choice is at the end when troy is fighting the zombies. the whole sequence has mamma mia playing in the background Faintly. then when troy eventually gets to abed and has to fight him, the music comes in much louder with the lyrics: 'here i go again, my, my, how can i resist you?', which i think fits perfectly. the ending song fernando has the lyrics 'there was something in the air that night', both referencing the thermostat changing the zombies back and the fact that it was just an incredibly weird fucking night.

troy is dressed as ellen ripley and also kind of acts as the ripley of this episode. his journey in this as being the sole survivor and the one to eventually save greendale adheres to a common science fiction model where a life-threatening force is faced against the protagonists and they fall off in degrees, resulting in one person being left to mend everything. here specifically, it seems to mirror ripley's journey in alien (1979) as it starts with a crew that eventually gets cut down leaving only her. i thought that was really cool.

more alien tidbits, but the jumping cat scene is also inspired by it. jones the cat is an imporant figure in the first alien movie. in various scenes, members of the crew will go looking for him, then get ambushed by the titular alien and subsequently killed. it is a minor homage to the movie through yet another subtle reference. the bit is also parodying jumpscares in horror movies in general, and how they are used to cheaply amplify the tension. anyways, it's quite the multilayered joke because it also really works out of context as a bizarre comedic moment.

troy and abed's scene in the basement pays homage to princess leia and han solo's scene in the empire strikes back. the conversation in the film takes place just before han is frozen alive in carbonite by darth vader. not knowing if he’ll survive, he kisses leia, only to be torn away from her by stormtroopers. she says 'i love you,' and as he descends into chamber, han replies, 'i know.' an undeniably romantic moment, maybe one of the most memorable ones ever, is applied to troy and abed who have held reign over the emotional core of the plot for the entire episode. it's pretty special that such an iconic moment is given to them, i feel like the creators of the show wouldn't just do this sparingly. it also perfectly resolves their conflict as troy makes such a vulnerable statement and abed assuring him that he already knew, validating their bond once again.

more on troy and abed, it is pretty amazing realizing the emotional implications tied to how dire the situation was. everyone in this episode was under the direct threat of Not Surviving, and still abed sacrificed himself for troy. he knew this was for real. he couldn't be sure if they were going to make it. but i think he had enough faith in troy to aid in his escape. it's very touching. further, it's incredible that troy is willing to fight all the zombies (all his friends) but when it comes time to punch abed, he refuses to do it. he's struck by the force of their friendship, mumbling 'we're friends' defeated before eventually succumbing to his bite.

troy saving the school by controlling the temperature; nicely setting up his further plot with the ac repair school.

him being the one to escape and abed saying 'be the first black man to make it to the end' subverts the common horror trope of 'black dude dies first'. a playful way of keeping up with the horror movie theme of the episode.

also ironically this episode, which features the song mamma mia by abba, sets up a plotline in season two about shirley not knowing who the father of her new baby is, which is functionally the plot of the movie mamma mia!, a musical based on abba's music. probably a coincidence but a pretty funny one.

at the end when the army arrives, they ask the dean about witnesses. when he says he is the only witness, one of the guards reaches into his jacket, suggesting that he's pulling a gun intended to kill the dean and get rid of the witness. when they notice everyone in the school is still alive, they abandon this plan and go for 'scenario b'. kind of dark but i laugh every time that scene happens.

anyways that's all i could pull from my brain crevices for now. this episode is a genuine masterpiece, it will never ever get old and will remain to be one of the most unique sitcom episodes ever created.

[stem-sister-scuffle]

STEM SISTER SCUFFLE: ROUND 1 MASHUP 9

Mercymorn The First (The Locked Tomb) vs GLaDOS (Portal)

Mercymorn The First is a Cryogenics Scientist and Anatomist!

GLaDOS is a Quantum Physicist and Behavioural Psychologist!

Why you should vote for each contestant:

Mercymorn The First:

"Scientist working on human cryogenics/necromancy. She's a genius in a codependent toxic polycule with God."

"Fits the criteria for STEM (science, tech, engineering, math (specifically science)), and also Quirky STEM (stabbing, tearing, eating, maiming). She was a scientist trying to save humanity from global warming, before one of her science buddies became a necromancer and killed the entire world. Now she’s the meanest lady ever and had a threesome with god. Also she got ultra exploded (also by god)"

"She was trying very, very hard to save humanity! She was aiming to preserve people for an interstellar voyage, so that humans could survive the end of the world. It didn't work out and the project got shut down, but after the world ended she pioneered the field of necromantic healing and was known as the foremost anatomical expert among God's Lyctors. She says ick! bleh! out loud when she's disgusted. Also she's much, much more ethical than most people in the series."

"She was a doctor that joined several of her friends, most of whom were other STEM people and a few who weren't, in trying to convince the governments of the world to make an active plan to save the world from climate change. This ended up with one of them destroying the solar system and everything in it, resurrecting it all, and becoming God. She was resurrected as one of his Saints, and continued to use her medical knowledge to become an anatomy specialist and as a key part of a plan between her and another of their friends to take down God for being a tyrant. She might have been an OBGYN but I can't remember if that's actually canon. Also, she has naturally "apricot-colored" (so, pink) hair."

"She was a Regular Doctor working to save humanity from climate change but got resurrected by her friend after he ended the world and became a powerful goddess-like figure. She uses her knowledge of human anatomy to do crazy flesh magic including making her hair naturally pink just for funsies (iconic). She doesn't put up with any bullshit from anyone, including the universe's ostensible god. I love her"

"It's not specifically described but she was the medical support in a cryosleep project, and she knows enough later to have artificially created a baby without either of the biological parents knowing about it

She's the worst and I love her. Here's a description of her in Harrow the Ninth:

You could press your hand to Ianthe’s chest, if you wanted—which you didn’t, naturally—and the blood-warm sternum beneath would gradually unfold for you. But it would take effort, and close contact, and you would need to know the sternum.

Mercymorn the First knew the sternum. Mercymorn the First knew the pericardial fat, the soft-tissue secrets of the mediastinum, the false-heart shape of the thymus. You might have to press your whole palm to Ianthe’s breastbone—doubtless—and take valuable seconds to search out the bone, and the things behind the bone, their characters, their locations. Mercymorn could pinpoint your pineal gland with the merest touch to the skull. This was not due to some Lyctoral power that she alone possessed, no honed necromantic theorem; as God had told you, she had simply memorised the body, by rote, over the course of ten thousand years. She had studied the measurements and their range of differences, and on the rare occasions when she needed to assume where something was or how it worked, her assumptions had the accuracy of ten thousand years’ experience. What Mercy didn’t know about the body wasn’t just not worth knowing, said the Emperor; if she didn’t know it, it hadn’t existed previously.

Over the dinner table you asked Augustine why, if it was simply a matter of memory, he hadn’t done the same thing. Ianthe choked discreetly on a forkful of boiled flour-paste shapes in red sauce. “Lord! I can barely remember what I had for lunch last week,” he said. “Besides, anatomy has too narrow an application.” Mercymorn opened her mouth, hurricane eyes promising a coastal lashing, and said, “Application!” but Augustine said, languidly— “One would only really need it to kill Lyctors, Harrowhark, and the rest of us never evinced any interest in that.”

That broke up the dinner somewhat.

This is her and I love her dearly

https://youtu.be/pvJOuUJNcx8"

GLaDOS:

"i’m not sure how to explain this one. she’s an evil computer who makes a woman do fucked up tasks that all involve a portal gun in some way. evil computer woman i love you :3"

"She's witty, fun, they had to restrain her intelligence and it didn't work-"

"She should be able to kill everyone forever. Anyways she runs aperture she loves science so much it transcended lives and identity. It’s just what she does"

"she kills people 👍 shes cool and i like her"

"…. I mean she’s categorically not but it would be funny to include her. Again, it would be Very Funny"

"mad scientist robot representation with a complex emotional arc through multiple video games"

"She might not know what the point of her tests are, but she sure is good at making them. Bonus points for being hot"

"Managed a massive and highly advanced scientific facility in which she ran tests and experiments long after the fall of human civilization. Chell/GLaDOS <3"

"She’s GLaDOS"

[moonshine999]

Team Green promotional stills

side note : this “analysis” is only limited to the promotional stills and I’ll probably do the trailer/posters a bit later. Also that this is just speculation and most of it is probably bs because I just woke up from a nap and decided to start typing.

this might be one of two things

a) Larys talking to b&c in the dungeon..possibly informing them of their punishment OR watching their punishment unfold

b) Him talking to Aegon about fleeing King’s Landing or actually fleeing King’s Landing

now this also may be where Larys says the “survived dragon-fire” line if it is the second scenario

I would really like to think of this as a scene where Aemond expresses more emotion to Criston about what happened at Storm’s end.

If you notice then Criston seems to be in his night clothes while Aemond is still in his “fighting” or training clothes (if that makes sense).

possibly to indicate how at ease Criston would be trying to make him feel while talking about this but Aemond just keeping his guard up.

it also does look like Aemond is trying to avert his gaze while Criston talks

Also if the above is true (which is highly unlikely actually), then it would serve as a great parallel to Alicent & Aegon with the candles of the sept vs the candles Criston has lit in …possibly his chambers?

Im not very sure about this particular shot at all so even though I’d like to, going into detail on the above point seems useless

SERVING CUNT

okay so all possible times we may see Aegon at the coucil basically come down to a) the first episode as an introduction and b) after b&c

If it is his introduction, then he is probably zoned out here - thinking of something else and playing around with his dagger until (according to the leaks) he is snapped out of it by either a council member or a guard informing that Helaena needs him

But if it's after b&c then he may be zoned out because he refuses to listen to other council members dictate what he should "rationally" do at this time. His mind would be struck with grief and a want for revenge and maybe the placement of the knife near his face like that is no ordinary mistake.

He is probably plotting something here on his own (could be the reason he could ask Larys for help) and it would be such a good parallel, if he's sort of snapped out of it again by the thought of Helaena

phia saban is turning your kids GAY

so we know this is the funeral dress…the two main questions are whether it’s after the funeral or before the funeral and who she’s looking at

my personal bet is before the funeral. This is because she still looks a bit composed as she not seen her son’s body / refused to see it since that night probably because she realises she can’t handle it

(don’t exactly know if the above bit is phrased properly at all but hope the point gets across)

also in details of the shot itself…her veil isn’t tied on yet and her hair is undone/not braided yet..signalling that she is still getting dressed.

As for who she is looking at…the safest bet is either Alicent or Aegon (considering the situation these two are the people who would understand her emotions best)

If it is Alicent.. then it’s most likely her providing comfort to her daughter and sharing feelings/thoughts of what it means to be a mother

And if it is Aegon (which I do think is more likely and that is not just the helaegon manic shipper in me)… then it would probably be him trying to justify not being there (in the room when it happened) and probably promising that he will get revenge for such a heinous act (or something along those lines)

another note : I did not do Alicent’s promo shot because I think that shot could be anything and I personally did not notice any details that could specify the situation or what she may be doing

[greyscale-enthusiast]

chapter 17 thoughts

You’ve forgotten about our promise.

Shut up.

I’m not your toy, Reo!

Nagi is a genius, in every sense of the word. We have been told this so many time. Of course he’s going to know the rich ‘i get what i want’ kid has taken an interest in him as a tool for getting whatever recognition he’s looking for. But it’s also the first time he was told he was fun to hang out with, that he’s been made the center of someone else’s world if only for a couple hours a day (we have not been told his background yet).

Nagi knew he was a ‘tool’ for Reo, and he was okay with it. In a way, Reo was also a ‘tool’ for him, with the way the promise to feel alive was dangled by Reo over his head. He thought a friendship could be maintained like that, probably. And Reo had only had friendships like that, so they were both in for an unpleasant surprise once they started wanting more: wanting to be more vulnerable, more authentic. They wanted real connection. And boy they really are teenagers cause the way they seek it is so gut wrenching i had to stop reading for a bit :(

Reo is showing Nagi through his actions he has forgotten the promise to -become the best- together. Reo, before, was kind of okay with the idea of telling Nagi they’see each other on the future. It was a show of good sportsmanship, he’d get across how he was strong enough to not fear what the future departs. Yet he couldn’t say the words because it wasn’t about only football anymore. It was about attachment.

Now, Reo doesn’t want Nagis kind words. He doesn’t want Nagi to look down on him here, because he gave it his best and it still wasn’t enough. Twice. Here, the possibility of Nagi leaving him became a reality to him. So he did what his ego needed him to do to survive and changed tactics. He made Nagi mad enough to ‘properly abandon’ him (still controlling Nagi which Nagi probably knew in some level), maybe to have a reason to leave soccer or to actually force himself to find another way to fight for himself, like he explicitly wanted to do in the MSC vs BM.

(Then Isagi had to come and, not content with being the catalyst to their separation, had to go and make Reo overthink even more his ego survival tactics and further humiliate him in front of his person. Isagi ur so funny.)

What i really like with Nagi fighting back against the idea of being Reo’s toy is how they both had this perspective of their relationship. Because BOTH WERE DOING THE SAME THING. Both Wet Cat Reo and MSC Nagi were trying to make the other behave ‘out of character’, thus controlling them like toys. But that’s a really cold way of seeing normal friendship interactions. In a healthy friendship you change your friends and they change you, allowing each other to safely explore the aspects of their personalities in a safe space. And Future Nagi, who had probably the least ‘materialistic and exchange-focused’ interactions through his life in the basis of having the least interactions out of the two, will see this, and think ‘i never wanted that but i can sense why you’d think that’. Not like that but in his body, if that even makes sense.

TLDR Reo wanted to be the best and got stuck on the ‘together’ part and Nagi made Reo promise to stay together while getting distracted by the ‘best in the world’ part.

Also TLDR2 Nagi saw Eternal Sunshine and manifested it perfectly in his life. Really the epitome of born to shojo forced to shonen, these two.

[lazaruspiss]

Do you know what side effects of the pit are actually canon

Typically it's safer to assume no on most pit side effects. Or ask yourself "do people also say this about Talia, Ra's, etc or is this just a Jason fan thing"

Red Hood: Lost Days is your best bet for clearing up what's canon vs fanon in terms of Jason's resurrection, but I'll try and summarize the important bits.

1) The pit is not what brought Jason back. A superman from an alternate timeline punched the timeline itself so hard that it accidentally revived Jason.

2) Jason ended up in a hospital for a while before he escaped and wandered the streets for five months. He doesn't have any memories aside from his muscle memory, so he can fight but not much else. He can't communicate at all and only reacts to things to defend himself or to manage physical needs.

(Side note. Talia cares so much about him it makes me wanna cry.)

3) Ra's tells Talia this is over. He thinks Talia's attempts to save Jason are part of a desperate attempt to make Bruce love her, and tells her it's over. This is when Talia resorts to using the pit. Jason is alive, mute, doesn't seem to remember much, but still showed extremely small signs of recognition. I do think Jason could have eventually recovered naturally under Talia's care. He would have still been disabled to some extent and his progress would be excruciatingly slow, but it does seem like it would have been possible if Ra's hadn't cut it off.

4) After bringing Jason to the pit Talia guides him to make a break for it. She has him take a survival kit and run into the river in order to escape Ra's' anger. Ra's is the first instance of anyone implying the pit made Jason mad, and Talia immediately shoots him down and says it has had no such affect. Ra's is also speaking out of anger and giving Talia a hard time. I wouldn't take his words about it seriously.

5) Jason does not go "mad". He is mad. Because his murderer is alive. He is not irrational. His reactions are not disproportionate or unusual. After the pit restores his brain functions he is incredibly strategic. Even through the grief he is thinking and planning. He never acts on blind rage, pit induced or otherwise.

But that's just the New Earth timeline. Prime Earth/N52 gave him magic resistance or something. Unrelated to the pit he also seems to have just learned some magic. He can do a magic punch and summon swords that can only be used on beings of pure evil.

Gotham Knights is the funniest one. They needed a fast travel method for him for gameplay reasons and gave him magical bunny hops. GK has the most shit going on with the lazarus pits:

1) repeated use gradually drives you nuts. Jason is fine, Talia is a bit wacky, and Ra's is completely off the deep end before the game even starts.

2) the fast travel abilities are still funny. Talia can turn into mist and Jason can do magic jumps.

3) Jason got magic punches and Talia can do all sorts of fun magic attacks.

4) the pit magic reacts to Jason's trauma/panic attacks, but still doesn't seem to cause them or any other emotional reactions. Even the fanon pile that is GK doesn't have pit rage.

[tetradynasty]

So, one thing that I’ve seen is people wondering why Fuuko seems to be doing a lot better in this last time loop than Juiz did in her own, especially considering she had 99 previous loops to practice with.

I think that there’s actually a lot of reasons why.

First, the loop itself. The first 20 loops or so were probably pretty useless. By that, I mean that loops without all of the master rules or any of the foundational ones, like kindness or burn, were probably incomparable to modern loops. There would be so many differences that information you gained there would be flat out wrong in later loops. I like to imagine a scenario where in an early loop Juiz and Victor try to prevent Burn from ever being added to try and depower the Sun.

Then there would be the one-off loops where something went wrong, completely dooming the loop. Somebody killed Tell, and now everyone is mute. Or Juiz trusted the wrong person and they rebelled against her. And you know Unluck ruined at least one loop from how much she wanted Fuuko dead.

Also about the loops, we know there is a bit of variance. The author’s deliberately been a bit vague on how much stays the same vs what differs, but people can be born later or earlier, in different places, and that can really fuck up a plan dependent on careful timing. Trying to recruit negators or manipulate events can pretty easily fail if they appear a couple years before you think they would. The missions are different too, so a mission that’s a cakewalk one loop could kill everyone sent to clear it the next. There’s no relying on a scripted plan, you have to be prepared to improvise a lot.

And speaking of plans, there’s also the underlying goal that Juiz has throughout her loops. It’s not actually to kill God. It’s to make the next loop more capable of killing God. Because her biggest advantage is the ability to carry over knowledge, and unfortunately, a low chance of killing God just isn’t worth it when it means she’ll lose all the knowledge she’s gained if she dies and can’t loop. This means that she can’t take huge risks. Staying alive and keeping all her knowledge is her highest priority.

And one of those risks that she doesn’t take is increasing the size of the Roundtable.

The bigger the roundtable, the longer they have to survive against God. During Ragnarock, we see the process of God reaching Earth takes about one minute. So if Juiz is the only member, that means that it is impossible for God to stop her from looping. With Victor as a guard, that time limit can reasonably be increased by a few minutes, so they can add a few more people. But any longer, and it no longer becomes a guarantee. And that means that Juiz has to deliberately fail any mission that adds seats, to not overstretch.

Now that she’s deliberately failing missions, that puts a hard time limit on how far she can get into a loop before Ragnarock occurs. And that’s not counting any missions that may fail for reasons out of her control, such as underlings getting suspicious of their leader who keeps on trying to fail missions.

And that’s where it starts coming down to human nature, and what I think is the biggest reason Juiz isn’t as successful.

Juiz and Victor aren’t as empathetic as Fuuko and Andy are.

UU is a shonen manga at the end of the day, and there’s a big focus on how teamwork and connecting with other people is the best way to overcome your problems. And Juiz and Victor aren’t going out and building the team they need, because of who they are as a person.

They have reasons for this, of course. Victor is overprotective, stubborn, and willing to sacrifice countless other people to protect Juiz. She’s the only person he cares for after so many others have left him, and is the only person that can understand what he’s gone through. Billions of years of suffering have worn away any softness he might have, any desire to reach out to others.

Juiz has gone through everything along with Victor, with the addition of the fact that Unjustice is implied to only work on people she doesn’t like/hates. So she is encouraged to dislike people she meets, in order to not be defenseless against them.

However, it’s not just all of the disadvantages that Fuuko no longer has to deal with. There’s all the advantages in this loop, that come from everything Juiz has done to increase their odds.

Juiz was the one that put G-Liner into the loop, which allowed Anno Un to save Fuuko in loop 100 and Fuuko to grab a bunch of artifacts in loop 101, creating Andy eventually led to Andy restraining all the master Rules and preventing them from fucking things up before the Union was ready to fuck them up which Victor refused to do, and lastly there’s all the general training and knowledge she gave Fuuko.

So I guess what I’m saying is that yes, Fuuko is doing better than Juiz did. However, that’s based on a hundred loops of Juiz’s hard work.

[kaymarie-bell]

TWST Book 7 Chapter 6 spoilers and reactions ahead

.

.

You know, through all the updates people have been wondering "where is OB Malleus? is he seeing the dream too? why is he not interfering despite our group being 'awake'? does he even know about all of this?" it might seem crazy what I'm about to say-

This update started with a banger giving us Baul knighting Sebek and giving him an armor that's just like his after fighting off the Silver Owls together

Btw I'm currently on a mission of stealing all the gel in NRC to keep Sebek from putting his hair up again. If you care.

Silver carrying an injured Lilia on his back while Yuu and Grim look after the egg instead of leaving him behind like he asked. I'm ok I'm ok.

Sebek got to show off his UM training. I'm so proud of him 🥹

They killed my hot wife.

Fighting as Meleanor vs The Knight of Dawn felt so sick and twisted knowing what the outcome was.

FUCK THE SENATE. TF YOU MEAN "Filthy bat" "Don't touch Malleus" "get out of the capital and don't show up here again" I'm genuinely upset, what the fuck leave Lilia alone 😭

Maleficia's magic was not helping with hatching the egg, and touch and love is more effective so of course the responsibility falls on Lilia. Huh, who would've thought-

Lilia and the egg communicating. Did y'all see that. Is anyone else being totally normal about it.

Meleanor knew what she was doing when she left her child to Lilia.

Also what do you mean his own grandmother couldn't provide him the love he needed to hatch? 👀

Lilia's numerous travels around the world were all to find something to help hatch the egg. And he got discriminated against by both humans and fae everywhere oh I'm so sick-

Egg!Malleus feeling lonely even before hatching. Lilia being the only one who hears him crying. Lilia running to him despite it being dangerous. 😭

HE DISCOVERED HIS SIGNATURE SPELL WHILE SEARCHING FOR A WAY TO HATCH THE EGG. THE SPELL THAT BEST REFLECTS THE ESSENCE OF HIS SOUL IS THE ONE HE USES FOR BOTH MALLEUS AND SILVER. Shaped like a father fr.

Oh so the egg seems to gain strength only whenever Lilia shows up around it? What a coincidence I wonder what could this mean

Lilia's VA did a phenomenal job. I started ugly crying too. The 200 years were worth it to Lilia 😭😭😭

*Silver voice* I'm sure we were all wondering, "if these dreams are supposed to be happy then why have we seen nothing but pain and suffering so far?" well, it turns out Malleus being born is his happiest moment in life.

not a single thought behind that baby's eyes (he's 1 minute old)

Leona was right he sure *is* a lizard

not the senate suddenly praising Lilia as a hero 😒 I haven't forgotten what y'all said earlier.

Oh shit OB!Malleus is back. I got so caught up in the euphoria of seeing Malleus' birth that for a moment I forgot about overblots.

Malleus has his mom's looks and his dad's voice according to general Lilia

OB!Malleus is absolutely pissed at his grandma and the senate. Good for him.

Malleus offering Lilia a dream where Meleanor and Levan are alive...

If anyone is wondering "how are we supposed to win a battle against OB!Malleus?" the answer is: you don't. We only survive 😔 (for now ig)

Silver is able to secure the entire group in his arms. So normal about it haha.

SON IS BACK.

IDIA IS AWAKE LET'S GO GAMERS LMAO

we have reached 100 chapters. I can't wait to see what Idia's victory strategy is going to be

[drewtanakagf]

So i was scrolling through the drew tanaka tag as one does and found this post by @curseofdelos that i was like !!!!! about, and i read through it and I was like. Yes, but also… 

So this is my also. I suggest reading the post first as it does very well in explaining the issues with Piper and Drew’s writing and why that’s harmful. 

But I’d like to take it a step further and extrapolate to the bigger picture of cabin 10. 

What about the boys? 

TL;DR: There are a lot of in-text and meta negotiations of masculinity versus femininity that occur in /influence PJO/HOO, and that leaves boys in the Aphrodite Cabin in an awkward limbo. 

Before we get into the nitty gritty, I first want to establish that masculinity is not femininity. Which like, duh, but that means that anything that is not masculine can and will be considered feminine. Point blank, no nuance (There is a literature backing, but I think its a bit too much, so I’ll just put it at the end if you wanna find the article I’m referring to). 

And that’s what Rick is operating on, while you can’t deny it is a spectrum, at the time of writing TLH and such, there was a general societal understanding of masculinity as being macho and strong and rejecting softness for hardcore or whatever. And this positioning is where femininity comes in, and where we can begin to talk about Cabin 10. 

Rick writes Cabin 10 as inherently feminine, thus attaching “beauty” to this narrow idea; best shown through describing the cabin as a Barbie house and Piper's claiming ordeal. It is a place where there is nothing “masculine,” leading to the stereotype of Aphrodite kids not being able to fight, since war is masculine and thus out of their purview. 

This does deconstruct with Silena and then Piper, but the existence of Drew proves that it is still upheld and important enough to the story. 

I do believe that Rick tried to have his “oh you can still be feminine without being hyper feminine!” moment with Piper & Drew’s conflict, however, he failed to give Drew enough agency to make it seem like there was a genuine conflict rather than just “mean girl v girl-next-door.” (again, @curseofdelos explained it very well, go read!). 

Now with the girls out of the way, the boys are kinda… lost in the sauce? The only Aphrodite boy we get is Mitchell and it is very telling that a lot of people hc him as gay… which again is the posturing of masculinity vs femininity and whatever is not masculine is therefore feminine. And being gay is being attracted to masculinity and this feminine etc etc (according to societal norms). The fact that he is the only male Aphrodite kid rep is again, telling and really affirms the inherent femininity of Cabin 10. 

“Hey! He’s not the only ‘Aphrodite’ Kid! What about Michael!” And Michael just further proves my point! He’s the son of Venus, and Roman counterparts are considered as more “warlike” than their Greek ones. War being considered masculine and a rejection of femininity, as established earlier w/ Cabin 10 kids not being warriors. Now, Micheal exists as a (hyper) masculine counterpoint to Drew’s (hyper) feminine, making the Roman Venus a direct opposite as the Greek Aphrodite. 

This is actually, kinda commendable in terms of plot, since it helps reinforce the differences between Greek and Roman and how extreme they were. Great storytelling device, bad everything else. 

One more thing I want to touch on is the vilification of femininity, and why it must be rejected in the pjo/hoo. You can only fight if you adopt masculine traits, and therefore not fighting and still surviving means that you are doing something dishonorable like, abusing charmspeak (Drew) or using magic (Circe, Medea, etc) or even spying (Silena). Which is a very masculine idea, of how things should be solved by violence ( i mean, look at violence perpetrated by men compared to women in our society…) I think I’ve said this before, but in Piper’s arc, there needs to be an antagonist to prove how she doesn’t “fit in” at CHB, and create that tension of her either choosing to save her father and betray or continue the quest as is; and that antagonist ended up being Drew, and that makes sense bc Cabin 10 is against what Piper is characterized as, and she just is a rejection of that femininity. 

Anyways, let me not get away from myself. Basically, within the story, there is no real opportunity for the characters to reject gender stereotypes without falling into others. And Rick wrote himself into that hole. 

Literature Referenced: Shippers, Mimi. “Masculinity and Femininity, Theories of.” The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, 2016. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[pocketgalaxies]

what did you mean about laudna and ashton driving you nuts?

mmmmm. dangerous territory! for me, i mean. to indulge the side of me that don't give a fu about–

it's pretty interesting how this ep turned out to be a direct comparison between laudna and ashton and how they discover and come to terms with the idea that there is an option for them to ostensibly destroy themselves in the name of protecting/helping/saving the rest of the party

a few ppl have already discussed this with far more thought and nuance than i'm willing to put into words right now but something something both of them taking this as an opportunity to Be Useful and Contribute to the cause, blind or perhaps willingly ignorant to the fact that these people love them for who they are and that they don't need to Do Something in order to be loved - in fact, losing them is actually a far less acceptable outcome to the party than whatever reward they perceive to be gained from their self-sacrifice. which is all very sad and tragic and juicy and pulls at the heartstrings which i always love. but this is kind of where the similarities end?

laudna follows this with a conversation in which she tells imogen what she would want to happen in rather explicit terms. and when imogen responds by saying she'll do everything in her power to stop it from getting to that point, laudna says "i can accept that." the next morning, they tell the whole group what happened. on the other hand, ashton pulls fearne aside and has their own grave conversation but in more vague terms, at least in the sense that i don't think fearne picked up what they were putting down or at the very least wasn't given the opportunity to really process and respond to what was asked. and then ashton isolated the two of them from the rest of the group to undergo this transformation without their knowledge. all of which drives me nuts! to see the direct comparison in which one is so much more communicative than the other

and i don't think it's fair to say that this is a consequence of the party being poor communicators overall. it's somewhat reminiscent of vax's initial response to scanlan leaving in c1 - we don't know your mother's name because you never talked about it. aka there's a difference between ashton bringing up this desire or plan to hold both shards and everyone brushing it off/not sufficiently exploring it vs. ashton choosing not to ask for their opinions, ideas, or feelings about it because he thinks they won't let him do it. he unilaterally made the decision for everyone, which is the most frustrating part for me. they presume to know what is best for everyone, and they presume to know that this is the only option, despite being surrounded by not only some of the most powerful people on the planet but also the people who care for them the most. which he said himself: nobody will miss me when i die, given that we all die - implicitly saying that if i am the only one who dies, i know you all will miss me. so to me it feels disrespectful to them, because even having acknowledged that they care, he doesn't trust that they might have ideas for a better solution or that they might recognize what this means to him and try to help him survive it. or that they might not want to be "saved" if it means losing him. or that they might like to say goodbye.

i know many people are saying that this is in line for ashton's character, frustrating or not, which i think is true. but it feels stagnant to me. ashton has come a long way in terms of learning to care for these people but they have learned little about being cared for. and while laudna is trying to believe what others say to her (that they love her, that she's important, that she deserves life) with varying degrees of success, to me ashton feels like they have made minimal progress and/or aren't trying to make progress. they refuse to see bells hells for what they so loudly and clearly are - people who love and care for each other, ashton included. and unfortunately, 77 episodes in and coming up on a vastly important mission (the first in a while), this brand of hypocrisy (taliesin's words not mine!) and lack of awareness for the group's feelings in the name of High Risk High Reward is something i have a rather low tolerance for ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

and for the record i've been thinking about this a loooot because i know most of it is colored by my general apathy toward this character. and i understand that a lot of people who love this character are so so fascinated by and invested in what happened. but my apathy toward ashton is something that i've tried to circumvent or logic my way out of a LOT in the past few years and at this point it's kind of an immovable object. and doing mental gymnastics to try and enjoy someone that i simply don't makes everything so much worse! so i don't mean to rain on anyone's parade but these are my thoughts whether i like it or not

tl;dr the end of this ep didn't make me excited, it just kinda made me feel annoyed and crazy. sorry