#correcting some further information problems

[piranhaincaps]

.....Sorry OP but some more mistakes: - "fijita" should be "Fujita" - The original Fujita scale was under critic well before Jarrell, and Ted Fujita himself had suggested specific changes in 1992. - Jarrell was not the last F5. That title goes to 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore in Oklahoma. If you've heard of May 3rd 1999—that's the one. In total, there were 3 more F5s after Jarrell though.

What are dead man walking tornadoes? :O

it’s a multi-vortex tornado. i dont remember the tribe it originates from (i think it was cherokee), but there’s a native american legend…? saying? that goes “if you see a man in a tornado, you are about to die.”

the most infamous shot of a dead man walking tornado hit jarrell, texas in 1997

it did so much damage to the town it caused the scale that tornados are measured by, the fijita scale, undergo revisions, and it made anchoring buildings in the tornado alley region pretty much mandatory. (it took the entire town off the map. only those who had taken shelter outside of the town or in underground bunkers survived.)

two more examples of dead man walking tornadoes looking like a person are a tornado from 2011 that hit cullman, alabama

and a tornado from 1975 that hit xenia, ohio

edit: it has been brought to my attention that the native american “legend” part of this post was a rumor spread by a documentary.

i have been asked to remove it, but i believe in letting my errors stand because i’m not perfect. i make mistakes

[beast-of-the-void]

.

[oh-look-car-horns]

Wondering what boop count your 3 letter word corresponds to? I gotchu:

Using a python script I wrote, I booped myself 50,000 times, saving an image of my boop-o-meter every 500 boops. Before we get into the results, there are two important limitations to this study that I should mention:

Firstly, because I only recorded the boop-o-meter every 500 boops, if a message appeared for less than 500 boops it may not have been caught.

Secondly, every now and then my computer would lose a boop or two when a click wouldn't register. This is seen in the 500 and 1000 boop images below, which in reality read 498 and 994 respectively. Because of this, boop values are slightly lower than they appear.

With that out of the way, lets dig in.

0-999:

From boops 0-999, the boop-o-meter displays your boop count, and changes color as you boop

Boop count: 0 Boop count: 500 Boop count: 1000

Boop fact: the colors do not change after 1000

LOL:

Between boops 1000 and 1500, the boop-o-meter changed to display 'LOL'. This likely took place at 1000 boops, but maybe it said 'MAX' or sumn for awhile at first? Idk this is already the misinformation website so not my problem.

Boop count: 1500 (actually more like 1490 ish)

More results below the cut

OMG:

Between 1500 and 2000, the boop-o-meter changed to display 'OMG'. Again, this probably happened at 1500 but who knows. Maybe staff made it 1523 for the bit or something.

Boop count: ~2000

WOW:

The boop-o-meter remained at omg until the 3500 boop readpoint, when it switched to 'WOW', meaning this transition happens somewhere between ~2980 and ~3480.

Boop count: ~3500

Boop fact: 'WOW' is the second longest reigning message

*-*:

Between 5000 and 5500 the boop-o-meter switched to '*-*'. You get the idea at this point so I'll speed it up.

Boop count: ~5500

WHY:

The boop-o-meter changed to 'WHY' between 6000 and 6500 boops. For science. That's why.

Boop count: ~6500

PLZ:

Next was 'PLZ', switching between 7000 and 7500.

Boop count: ~7500

AAA:

I'm not sure what bloody urine has to do with anything, but for some reason staff felt is was important to display, switching between 7500 and 8000.

Boop count: ~8000

;_;:

Huh the colon makes that one look weird. 8000-8500.

Boop count: ~8500

Boop fact: That fucking cat haunts me in my dreams

0_0:

I realized after I set my pyautogui script running that my computer wouldn't turn off its screen because of the clicking, so there was a strobing blue light in my room all night. This encapsulated my expression while trying to sleep (8500-9000).

Boop count: ~9000

MAX:

After 9000 it displayed 'MAX'. This was cap. (9000-9500 switch).

Boop count: OVER 9000 (9500)

<33:

I miss my wife. 9500-10,000.

Boop count ~10,000

TUM BLR:

THE HOLY GRAIL. The boop-o-meter switched to displaying 'TUM BLR' between 10,000 and 10,500 boops. Because my actual boop count was slightly behind my theoretical, I'd guess that this change happened at 10,000 boops.

Boop count: ~10,500 (likely switched at 10,000)

Summary:

When charted the boop curve looks as follows:

Boop curve: 0 - 10,000 boops

My script continued to run until 53,000 boops, but no further changes were observed. Again, there were quite possibly more messages at lower boop values, but my ass is not checking. Maybe I should have scaled my sampling accordingly, but it is what it is. Thank you for joining me on this journey, and if you have any corrections or more information, please add it to this post.

Boop fact: Terfs DNI

[qqueenofhades]

Hi Hilary, thanks for your efforts and deeply informed political posts. I appreciate them and have learned a lot! I have a sincere question if you have the bandwidth for it - why is posting not considered activism? I think it should be. I mean sure it isn't getting out in the world and protesting or working at a soup kitchen and such but isn't sharing information and building community also part of activism? I've learned a lot from posts shared by yourself and others online (and further research they pointed me to) and I'm a better, more progressive person for it. Education is important and that's part of the road that leads people toward those more material acts in the world, isn't it?

There is an important clarification that I should make here, which is that posting cannot be substituted for activism. Too many people, especially on the left-leaning side of the spectrum, think that the only thing that counts as activism is constantly and loudly posting the Correct Opinions on social media, and that's it. There are several fascinating analyses that have been made about how living in late-stage capitalism means that consumerism is the primary actionable force, so you have to make sure that you only "consume" (i.e. post and mindlessly repeat) "morally pure" or "ideologically correct" content, and that if you do that, there is no other action necessary.

This is why we have had the online keyboard warriors who have yelled so loudly at the rest of us and then are absolutely dum-dum-diddlysquat amount of use when the rubber hits the road and it's time for even the smallest amount of practical action -- whether it is voting for Not A Fascist (literally the lowest imaginable bar and one at which they repeatedly and spectacularly fail) or just taking a small action to resist, call their representatives, or do so goddamn much as post "hey it's not all doomed and maybe we have a chance to fix this." That is because accelerationists (the kind who think that everything will get really bad and then The People Will Rise Up and Gloriously Revolute, The End) depend on these kind of constant logical fallacies and displacements, and in some sense, it's beneficial for them to keep feeding the "just let things get a little worse and then this time the Revolution will definitely happen!!!" line, because it keeps them relevant even when they do literally nothing. So. Yeah.

In short: spreading information, awareness, and action tips online, because so much of our socialization and community-building takes place online, is indeed a valid form of activism. But when it's taken to mean "you only have to post the correct opinions and do nothing else because that totally counts as activism," or "actually taking concrete and flawed action outside the black-and-white neo-puritan stricture of an online leftist echo chamber is actively bad and evil," then that's where we run into problems.

[tikitakatia]

Under Watch — A. Putellas x Reader

"New Neighbour, New Problems "

WC: 1.8k

Summary: The threat against Alexia looms closer, but the management has the perfect solution.

You’re leaning against the hood of the car when she appears. Hair still damp from her post morning workout shower, hoodie slung over her shoulders, earbuds in. Alexia walks like someone who doesn’t expect to be bothered. Which is really ironic, considering that’s your entire job description.

She slows when she sees you. One eyebrow arches. "You’re driving me now? What is this, high school? Should I sit in the back and pretend I need some lunch money?"

You nod toward the driver’s side. "New protocol. Until further notice."

She groans audibly and mutters something in Catalan that you don’t catch, but the tone is universal. Disgust. Annoyance. A hint of ‘I’ll set this car on fire if it proves a point.’

And then she sees it.

The note.

You’d already bagged it, gloved and stored. But the outline where it sat on the windshield is still obvious.

She goes still.

"Another one?"

You nod. "Same handwriting. Slightly more aggressive."

"Of course it is. People get weird when their teams lose. Or win. Or breathe."

"We’re escalating precautions."

Alexia exhales sharply through her nose. "You mean panicking."

"They mean panicking," you correct.

"I mean adapting."

She gives you a long look. Not hostile. Just tired. Then gets into the passenger seat and slams the door with unnecessary force.

"Fine. But I’m choosing the music."

You don’t answer. She turns up the volume anyway.

They break the news right after practice. No warning, no soft lead-in.

��You’ll have a new neighbor starting today,” says the club security lead. “It’s part of our reinforced protection protocol.”

Alexia blinks. "Okay... What does that have to do with me?"

He shifts in his chair. "It’s your new bodyguard. She’s moving into the unit next to yours."

The silence is instant. Then loud.

“You cannot be serious.”

"Alexia, this isn’t just about notes anymore. Someone got inside the building. They knew your car."

"It’s a public parking lot. You let fans in there all the time."

"Not with access to your elevator."

She scoffs. "Maybe the security team should be better at their job then."

You don’t speak. Not yet. You're leaning against the back wall, arms folded, face neutral.

Alexia wheels toward you. "You knew about this?"

"I was informed this morning."

"Of course you were. And you just what? Packed up your little secret agent suitcase and showed up like it’s nothing?"

You shrug. "It’s part of the job."

"Well, I hate it."

"Duly noted."

She turns back to the security team. "This is ridiculous. I have a lock. I have an alarm system. What do you think is going to happen, someone crawls through the vents and I need Sombra next door to kick them in the face?"

"This isn’t a negotiation, Alexia. The club signed off on it. It’s a temporary assignment."

She mutters something under her breath that sounds like "temporary my ass" and stands, grabbing her bag.

“I’m not agreeing to this.”

“You don’t have to. It’s already done.”

A few hours later, you’re unlocking the door to your new apartment with a box under one arm. She’s standing in the hallway with a protein bar in hand, unwrapped but untouched.

“Let me guess,” she says. “You also have access to my building, and floor layout, my grocery list, and the microchip they implanted in my skull at birth.”

“Just your floor. And your training schedule.”

She stares. You unlock your door and step inside. She follows like an angry cat, keeping her distance but making sure you know she’s watching.

“This is overkill.”

You open the window. Sweep the place. First habit.

“You’re not that important.”

She bristles.

“That’s not what I meant,” she mutters, but you’re already plugging in your encrypted laptop.

She lingers in the doorway. "You’re not going to say anything else? No apology for completely violating my life?"

You look up. "I’m not here to violate. I’m here to protect."

She makes a face like that might be worse.

That evening, she stomps by as you’re bringing in another box.

“Are you going to be pacing the hallway all night like some sort of armed Roomba?"

“No. Just until I'm set up."

“Well, can you at least do it silently? Some of us are trying to pretend we have privacy."

You say nothing. She rolls her eyes and disappears into her apartment, slamming the door harder than necessary.

The next morning, she sees you in the hallway.

“I almost tripped over your boots,” she says. “Are you nesting in the hallway now, or should I just assume you live here more than I do?”

You nod toward the wall. “Your door has a new sensor now. Motion-triggered. You’ll hear it if someone lingers outside too long."

She freezes. Her mouth opens, then closes.

Then: "So now my door tattles on people. Great. Can’t wait for it to go off when I get home drunk."

You glance at her. "I'll disable the alarm if you're singing."

She glares. “You think you're funny, huh?”

You don't answer. That, in itself, is the punchline.

Dinner is loud, messy, and deeply therapeutic. Alexia’s on her second glass of wine, slumped into her chair like she’s aged a decade in one week. Patri’s already warned the waiter that the table might need extra bread, patience, and backup wine.

“She’s everywhere,” Alexia says, stabbing at her grilled vegetables and pretending they´re you.

“Like… omnipresent. A specter in a hoodie.”

"Sounds kind of hot," Marta says casually, sipping her sangria.

Alexia throws her a sharp look. "That’s not the point."

"But you’re not denying it," Irene hums.

"It’s irrelevant," Alexia snaps, then sighs.

"I open the door to take out my trash and she’s there. I go down to grab a delivery, she's already standing by the elevator like she’s predicting my thoughts. I swear it's like she has motion sensors or something."

"That’s… literally her job?" Patri says slowly, brows raised.

"Yeah, to protect you?" Irene adds. "Not to wait around until you're ready for a hug."

"Okay, but do bodyguards really need to be so silent all the time? It’s unsettling. She’s like a ninja. I dropped my keys in the hallway and she just... appeared. No footsteps. No sound. Just materialized out of nowhere like a ghost."

"A ghost in Nikes," Marta says, grinning.

"With great cheekbones," Irene adds.

Alexia makes a frustrated noise and drops her fork with a clatter. "This is not the support I expected."

"We’re just saying," Patri starts gently, "you’re not the same level of anonymous anymore. You’re… big. A worldwide football sensation. That means more weirdos, more creeps, more risk."

"And she’s good," Irene says. "Did you know she checked the entire restaurant while we were coming in? Didn’t even make a scene. Just a little loop like she was on her phone."

Alexia blinks. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Marta nods. "Clocked it right away. Didn’t miss a beat. Kind of badass, honestly."

Alexia sinks a little in her seat. She hates that she hadn’t noticed. Hates that she kind of agrees.

"She even nodded at the hostess like she was confirming something," Patri adds. "Stoic, but polite."

"Oh my god," Alexia mutters. "She’s efficient. She’s polite. She’s a fucking Girl Scout with a security clearance."

Marta smirks. "And did we mention-"

"Yes, yes, she’s attractive, I’m not blind," Alexia grumbles into her glass. "But that’s not the point."

"Maybe not," Irene teases, "but it’s a nice bonus."

Alexia opens her mouth to argue, but her phone buzzes. She checks the new message.

[Sombrita]: Crowd is forming outside. Photos, videos. Suggest back exit. I’ll be waiting by the kitchen doors. Van is ready.

She groans. "She’s already planning our escape."

"That’s actually kind of hot," Patri says with a grin.

Alexia shakes her head, but there’s a reluctant tug at the corner of her mouth. "I just want her to be less… present."

The table goes quiet. Her friends exchange a look.

"Less present," Irene repeats softly.

"Not gone," Marta notes.

Alexia glares at her wine. "You’re all the worst."

Another buzz. 

[Sombrita]: Five minutes. Back exit. Let me know if anyone needs help getting out.

Alexia sighs again. She types back a terse: Got it.

As they gather their things and follow the waiter through the back, Irene leans in close.

"Hey, at least she makes you feel safe, right?"

Alexia doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t argue either.

It’s late when you hear the sensor alarm start its soft beeping. Silent, subtle, set to trigger if anyone stays in the hallway for more than two and a half minutes. You’re on your couch, sweats and tank top, a book open in your hand you haven’t really been reading. She's been standing there for a while.

You wait. Half a minute more. Then, for your own amusement more than anything, you switch it from silent mode to a single loud beep. Just one. Just enough.

"For fuck’s sake!" Alexia growls angrily from outside, voice muffled through the door.

You’re up in a second, unlocking her front door with a single tap of the card.

She’s startled when it opens.

"Have you been watching me this whole time?"

You don’t say anything. You just smirk.

Alexia narrows her eyes. She’s flushed, slightly tipsy from wine with her family, wrapped in a soft oversized coat, hair messy from the wind. She looks more tired than drunk, but the tipsiness makes her looser, sharper-tongued.

"Well? Are you going to let me in or are we going to stand here all night while you flex your creepy telepathic door-opening skills?"

"After you." You step aside and gesture smoothly.

She walks in haughtily, except her handbag catches on the door handle as she passes. The momentum jerks her back slightly, throwing her off balance.

You catch her instinctively. One hand on her elbow, the other lightly at her waist.

"Careful," you say.

Alexia steadies herself but doesn’t pull away immediately. Her gaze flicks up to yours. "Are the reflexes also part of the job description, or do you just enjoy being everywhere at once?"

You tilt your head. "Would it bother you less if I said I enjoy it?"

She scoffs, but there’s a small smirk threatening to betray her. "A little full of yourself, aren’t you?"

You release her gently, stepping back. "Just observant."

She walks into her apartment, still facing you, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, well. Don't get used to catching me."

"Wouldn’t dream of it."

Alexia turns away fast enough that you don’t see her smile, but not fast enough to stop you from knowing it’s there.

She closes the door behind her, and for the second time that night, you return to your post.

Across the hall, light from under her door seeps into the hallway. You hear her footsteps pause.

Then nothing.

But a few seconds later, the peephole darkens for just a heartbeat.

She’s watching you too now.

[f0ofishies]

You were just a nice addition to the company's financial team. Either you were hired because of your pretty looks, or maybe you're just pleasing to the eyes. Now Giyuu Tomioka was having a hard time– that pretty face of yours was just so distracting to him. He was the finance leader, getting promoted just recently. . .

. . .But you were as dumb as can be. How? You were terrible at statistics. Seriously, why did the boss even hire you in the first place? That's why the team made you some free use. When someone needs some coffee? You'd be there in a jiffy with their preferred creamer or sugar or plain old black. Maybe, when they needed something to be copied over by the machine? You'd be in the copy room for hours to help with that.

The only one who never regarded you was the leader, Giyuu. He had a problem with you or something? You couldn't tell at all, you pursued your lips shut. He was explaining some new project the team was assigned. Honestly, the information went from one ear and out the other.

Your eyes looked up wide as giyuu's thumb slid against your lips. "Naughty baby.." Letting out a small grunt that escaped your lips, you unsubconciously nestled between his legs. "Giyuu– stop teasing.." You let out that whine. Back at the meeting room, but doors locked, everybody had left it left only you two in the tense atmosphere. He'd only ever notice you when he wanted to fuck.

"Eh? But you weren't even listening to my instructions, were you?" You shaked your head as you leaned your head out. "–I did, giyuu.." He harshly tilted your chin further. "Then tell me, why are you grinding me like a degenerate whore right now?" That was not a lie, you'd been quivering– your hole spasming at the slightest touch of that blucher shoes of his. The heel stimulates your drenched undies, so good you held back a moan.

"Mmm, can't help myself when I'm with you.." You reasoned, trying to get on his good side. The one that fucks you slowly and lovingly like you were so fragile to him, you would break in an instant. No. . no, he was looking at you with desire those lapis blue eyes staring down at you– you could literally climax in an instant.

"A fuckin' slut. . .recount what I just said, hm?" His voice went on a lower octave, fuckfuckfuck. You were going to lose it, "Yes well–" another subtle grind from you to his shoes. "You instructed us to calculate the sum of—" Your breath hitched as he had wrapped a hand around your throat, squeezing lightly. "Dumb.. dumb bunny, that isn't even correct.."

"What?" Then you felt it another squeeze— you'd be gasping for air right now, but the lightheaded as you were. You'd let out a hard breath, blinking. Giyuu was never this rough, not that you don't want.. no, you want it— it was just weird. "Get your fucking ass on the desk now."

Your tears were nonstop at this point, crying at this point. He'd been edging for how long? Fuck, it didn't matter anymore. The spanks, slaps, and spewing insults didn't matter. You needed his dick now. . ! Even with the way his spit rolled down on your sensitive nub without his fingers, there's no way you'd even fit half of it in.

"Shitt— it's not gonna fit if you don't relax..!" You really did try, but he was penetrating so rough– the pain and pleasure letting out your high-pitched moans bouncing the meeting room. He grabbed your face and then stared, both of you sharing a moment of bliss from his roughness. "Sweetheart, you gotta relax.. just spread your legs better.. 'Kay?"

"Hold your legs—agh.. fuckk you're tight just like last night?"

[lostbookmark]

MDNI 🔞

Main Masterlist here

Game Masterlist here

Summary: After the death of your brother and his wife. You find yourself adjusting to a new role in your life. A single parent to your teenage nephew. How do you help him heal? How do you help yourself heal? You're not sure. You don't think you can, until an annoying basketball coach enters your life and turns everything around.

Pairing: Basketball Coach Yoongi x Single Aunt F. Reader

Genre: Romance, Angst, Smut, Strangers to Lovers, Hurt-Comfort

Warnings: Death Of Parents / Brother/ Family, Car Accident (Cause), Swearing, Explicit Sex, Arguments, Physical Fighting, Past Abusive Relationship, Talks Of Domestic Violence (Past)

Ten minutes late. A client had you on the phone forever, and now you're ten minutes late to Nicky's practice. Your heels click and clack down the hallway of the middle school as you hurry to the gym doors in your pencil skirt, swearing to yourself under your breath. You were more annoyed that you didn't have enough time to run home and change your clothes more than anything. Now, you'll get to sit through this practice with a sore ass and tight skirt that cuts slightly into your stomach. As you open the gymnasium door and step through the threshold, you can see all eyes turn to look at you.

Shit!

“Sorry,” you say quickly with a tight, guilty smile and make your way to the bleachers.

The first thing you notice when you climb a couple of stairs is the horrid group of moms shaking their heads at you. You roll your eyes directly at them as you sit down, trying to focus your attention on the court. That is when you notice blondie… Coach Min, who also gave you a look that you can't quite interpret, but you think he is annoyed. You swallow hard and sit up a bit straighter. He turns to watch the boys, and you slump back down some. This is stupid. You feel like you're in trouble with your parents and waiting for them to scold you because they had caught you sneaking back into the house when you were supposed to be grounded.

Ridiculous.

You pass your time ignoring everyone around you playing on your phone while occasionally looking up to check on Nicky like you did the past three days that you were here. You need to try and remember to bring something for you to do as you sit waiting. It would be easy to bring a book or maybe you could learn how to knit. Okay, that wasn't a good idea. You shouldn't have a pointy object around these moms. You don't know if you could trust yourself with sharp objects. You sigh with relief as both coaches finally blow their whistles, signaling the end of practice. Standing up, you stretch your back and make your way down to the floor to wait for Nicky to finish his team huddle. The other parents make their way down as well, all gathering further down than you in a group talking amongst themselves.The boys finish their huddle after another minute and disperse, finding their adult to finally leave. You smile at your nephew when he makes his way over to you.

“You ready?” You ask as he walks over to the bleachers and grabs his duffle.

‘Let's go,” he said, wiping the sweat from his face on a towel.

“Hold it,” Coach Min's deep voice said. You turn to look at him and watch as he approaches you. “Good job today, Nicky. Could you give your mom and I a minute alone?” You and Nicky look at each other. Neither one of you jumps to correct Coach Min. Nicky nods his head before running out the door to stand out in the hallway to wait for you. You give a loud sigh and look at the handsome man in front of you. He has a clipboard in his hand, which he flips a couple of pages before looking back at you.“Y/N, is it? You were late.”

“Yup,” you say, giving him a blank stare.

“All players need a guardian here,” he informs you.

“And….here I am,” you say.

“You were late,” he says again.

“Again….yup,” you say, shrugging your shoulders.

“You're going to be my problem parent, aren't you, Y/N? I always have at least one every year. Did you at least read our handbook?” He asks, and you look away guiltily, giving you away easily. “Of course not. You weren't even paying attention that first day of practice.”

“Listen, I'll read your little handbook and be on time from now on. Am I free to go, coach?” You ask sarcastically.

You watch as he presses his tongue to the side of his cheek, nodding to his head, agreeing that you can go. Without another word, you turn and leave, meeting Nicky in the hallway. When the young boy sees you, he starts to laugh at you, and you send a mock glare his way.

“Your coach is a dick,” you tell him as the two of you make your way out of the building.

“Awww, you said a bad word. You said dick,” Nicky says laughing even more.

Yup, laugh it up little boy. Laugh it up.

Your mom always said that if you weren't at least ten minutes early, then you were late. Well, that was good for her because you would be happy if you showed up to places right on time. It always felt like a big accomplishment. You run in your heels once more to the gym doors, bursting through them right at four o’clock on the dot.

Perfect!

Straightening your skirt, you tuck some stray hairs behind your ear as you walk over to the bleachers with some of the previously picked up paperwork in your hands, feeling triumphant.

“Cutting it close, aren't you?” Coach Min asked you with sharp eyes and crossed arms.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I made it, didn't I?” You ask back as you push Nicky's paperwork against his chest. His hand shot up to grab them and in turn brushed up against your own hand. You quickly remove your hand from the paper, bringing it back down to rest at your side.

“This is your only warning,” he said, moving his face closer to you.

“Warning for what?” You ask, incredulously .

“You clearly still haven't read our handbook. We don't swear here. Keep it clean around the kids.” He informs you. You purse your lips in an attempt to stop yourself from lashing out and saying every swear word you know out of spite. “Have a seat,” he said, walking away and putting your paperwork away.

You roll your eyes, biting your tongue as you take your normal seat just off to the side of the normal group. Another thing your mom always said was that you were mouthy. You never learned to keep your mouth shut. She wasn't wrong. It always killed you when you couldn't get the last word in during an argument. Did it get you in trouble? Yes, all the time, and you think you learned it from your mother. Maybe you inherited the trait from her. After all, she was the one you argued with the most, and just like you, she needed the last word as well.

“You better show the coaches some respect,” Ara, the main bitchy mom says from behind you. “I don't know what gutter you crawled out of, but we don't act like that here.”

You bite your tongue even harder, curling your hands into tight fists. Your patience with her is starting to run very thin, but you know that is exactly what she wants. Taking a deep breath through your nose as you look for Nicky on the court. He was laughing with another boy on the other side of the gym. Slowly, you exhale out your mouth, You know the deal with these types of things. Team things. You mess up and make the wrong person mad. Nicky will be the one to suffer.

Unfortunately, you were still you.

“It's probably the same gutter by the trashcan you crawled out of,” you say with a smirk, looking at her over your shoulder. “That would explain the smell.”

She, along with the other moms in her little entourage, all gasped. You can also hear deep chuckles from the few dads scattered about. You look to the front just in time to catch Coach Min looking back to see what was going on. His eyes flint between you and the rest of the moms, scrutinizing all of you. You give nothing away as you go about your own business. There was no way that you could do this for months. You wonder if maybe you could talk him into joining the school band or something less…competitive. You doubt it. You don't think you have ever seen him play an instrument, but how hard could learning the flute be? Internally, you sigh to yourself, knowing damn well you couldn't do that to him. Not when he was fitting in and finding his place on this team. All this bullshit was going to be worth it in the end. At least, that's what you will keep telling yourself.

You grimace as Nicky throws his sweat towel at you with a laugh. You remove it from its landing spot on your face and stick your tongue out at him. Looking at your watch, you swear under your breath. You had to get to your parents for your weekly dinner. You think you would rather deal with Ara and the other moms than deal with your own mother for a couple of hours. You'll get to hear about what a horrible job you were doing with Nicky. How she would be better for him and more attentive to his needs. How your house isn't clean enough. How you should cook more nutritionally balanced meals. You were already tired, and you weren't even there yet.

“You haven't signed up for the team app yet,” Coach Min says from behind you, making you turn around to look at him. His gravelly voice that you would normally find sexy is starting to sound like the most annoying voice you ever heard.

“I don't have a phone,” you lie.

His eyes drift down to your hand where you are obviously holding said black device. He raises an eyebrow as he looks back up to you.

“Schedules change all the time. That's where we keep you updated,” he continues like you just didn't straight up lie to his face.

“Let me guess,” you say quietly. “It's in the handbook.”

“You have an answer for everything, don't you?” He says, crossing his arms again. You wonder if he thinks it makes him look tough. You find it amusing.

“Sunshine, we're going to be late,” Nicky says, coming up to the two of you.

“Have a goodnight….coach,” you say sharply as you throw your arm around Nicky's shoulder before leading him out of the gymnasium. You don't have time for him. You have bigger fish to fry.

“Sunshine hates Coach Min,” Nicky says while eating his dinner. “She called him a dick.”

“Language,” your mother says, snapping her head to the side to look at him before turning her glare to you. Her eyes were wide, astounded by what came out of her grandson's mouth. “You can't disrespect your superiors like that.”

“He's not my superior, and I didn't say it to his face,” you say, defending yourself. “I'm not that stupid.”

“You can't teach Nicky that it's okay to say those things,” your mother stresses to you.

“He's fine,” your dad says, cutting into the conversation from where he sat at the table. “He's a respectful kid.”

“Yes, he is respectful, but she has issues with her mouth,” she bites back at him. “Kids are impressionable. They like to repeat things that they hear in their household.”

“Oh, I know not to call Coach Min a dick to his face,” Nicky says, and it makes you want to laugh.

“I think maybe that he should stay here for a while if you can't handle his extracurriculars,” she tells you while ignoring what her grandson just said. You notice Nicky suddenly freezes and stops eating as he takes in her words. “We are paying for everything, so it just makes sense.”

“You're not paying for everything,” you correct her, placing your own silverware down on your plate.

“Do you want me to make a list? Pictures, school clothes, your house…” your mother starts.

“STOP!” Your dad shouts, making everyone at the table jump. No one says a word as you all look at him. You don't even dare to breathe loudly. “Nicks, are you happy with sunshine?”

“Yes,” he says quietly, looking down at his plate. “I like living with her.”

“You can like living here too,” your mother says softly, leaning over to him across the table to grab his hand. “It's okay if you want to be here with us.”

“This conversation is over,” your dad says, turning back to his own plate to resume eating. “I don't want to hear it anymore.”

You're embarrassed as you pick up your fork and move the food around your plate. Your mom wasn’t wrong. They did pay for almost everything. Your brother's assets were sold and went to paying off debt that they had. You didn’t have much of a savings and were pretty much working paycheck to paycheck before they stepped in to help you. The house you were living in was actually one of your moms rental properties that happened to be empty. You didn't pay anything to them. Your dad wouldn't let you. He didn't even want to discuss taking money from you when you asked about rent. Luckily, due to this, you have been able to start to grow your savings once again. You weren't stupid. You knew your parents paid a lot to help you live a little more comfortably now that you have Nicky in your care. You just hated that she threw it in your face in front of him. That's not what family is supposed to do, but you have to deal with it. You couldn't do this alone, and everyone knew this. Staring blankly down at your plate, you take a bite of your food, letting her win.

She always wins.

“Is grandma going to make me live with her?” Nicky asks as you walk past his bedroom later that night.

“No,” you say, walking in, and sitting on his bed.

“Then why does she say things like that?” He asks while sitting down next to you. He drags his sock covered toes into the cream colored carpet, creating lines in the fibers. “Mom and dad wanted me to live with you. Why can't she just leave us alone?”

“I don't know,” you admit softly. “I just think that you look and act so much like your dad that by having you close…..it's like he's still here. I think you probably make her pain just a little more bearable.”

Nicky grows quiet as he looks down at the carpeted floor and the maze of lines he created in the textile. You think that you can hear him sniffle, and it breaks your heart. Tentatively, you place your hand on his back and rub gentle circles, trying to comfort him. Your eyes scan his bedroom and notice that he hasn't decorated it all. A bunch of his boxes were still taped up, hiding away in his closet. It doesn't even look like a teenager lives there, but more of a guest that's afraid to make a mess. You want him to feel like this is his home.

“We should get you some posters,” you comment very casually, still looking around his space. “Maybe some of your favorite basketball players. Tom Brady is popular, right?”

“That's football, sunshine,” he says while laughing a little.

“Oh,” you say with a shrug of your shoulders. “We can put up some shelves for your trophies. Maybe mount a tv and move your gaming system in here. If grandma lets us, we can even paint. How does that sound?”

“Yeah, I'd like that,” he says, giving you a watery smile.

Wrapping your arms around him, he gives into your hug as he collapses against your body. You can feel his body shudder as he silently cries in your arms. You wish you could take away the hurt and the pain for him, but you know that's not possible. You will have to have a serious talk with your mother. You will not let her make him feel about wanting to live with you. You will not let her make him feel for her own selfish reasons. Absolutely not. Everyone was hurting. Not just her.

“I'm okay,” he says, pulling away from you and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I'm sorry. I'm okay.”

“You don't have to be sorry,” you say softly, as you wipe some stray tears that continue to run down his young face. “Come get me anytime. If you need me, I'll always be here, and I'll never judge you for crying. You can snot all over me anytime you need to.”

Nodding his head, you get from his bed and walk out of his room, giving him some time alone to gather himself. Closing the door, you lean against the wall, taking a deep breath, holding it for as long as you can before you have to exhale. You're still not ready to cry. You can't do it. Not tonight, and probably not tomorrow. In fact, you don't ever want it to happen. You're stronger than that. You have no choice. You have to be.

Running down the hall of middle school has now become a normal routine for you. Today, however, you dared to change out of your skirt and into black leggings that you brought into work. You can run a bit faster today in the tennis shoes compared to the heels that you normally wear. You giggle as you make it to the door. Pulling out your phone, you check the time as you walk into the gymnasium.

Ha!

You made it.

“3:56. You can't say anything,” you say as you walk by Coach Min who was turned in your direction probably to say something smart to you.

You mentally smirk to yourself as you keep on walking and head up the few steps before sitting on the bleachers in victory. You were early, you stopped an annoying coach from talking to you, you had better clothes on. As long as those women don't push your buttons, this is going to be a good practice.

Unfortunately, good things always come to an end.

“What's this?” You ask Coach Dick…errr Min, as he shoves a piece of paper in your face after practice.

“Safety practices and health codes for running the concession stand,” he says simply, waving the paper for you to take. Spoiler…you do not take it. “You should learn before our first home game.”

“The handbook says it's voluntary,” you say.

“Usually, but I think you can do it,” he smirks, waving the paper once more.

“I don't know how to read,” you tell him, making him roll his eyes.

“Someone can read it to you,” he responds.

“I can't work with money. I don’t know how to make change,” you try again.

“You can have a calculator,” he retorts.

“I have rabies,” you say as seriously as you could.

You watch his lips twitch in what you think is going to be a smile before he bites his bottom lip and looks away. It takes him a good minute and a neck crack to get himself back together. He tries to hand you the paper once more, and you shake your head at him.

“You are a part of this team,” he says. “Everyone…”

“I am not a part of this team,” you say seriously, dropping your act. “These parents have made daaa…darn sure to let me know I'm not part of this team. Don't give me the whole "we are a team” bullshhhh ….. crap speech.”

He drops his arm and stares at you for a moment. You can't tell what he is thinking, and it unnerves you. His eyes are dark, and his gaze is piercing, penetrating deep into your soul. You want to squirm under their scrutiny. Maybe you shouldn't have said that. If he is petty, he probably won't let Nicky play, benching him for the season.

“I know they are a lot to handle,” he admits. “Don't let them push you out.”

With that, he turns and walks away from you. He didn't try to make you take paper again. You sighed with relief, but there was something else, too. You think a part of you feels bad, or you ate something rotten as you feel your stomach flip. He can't control how the mothers treat you, and he definitely can't control how you react to them. Maybe you should try a little harder. You wouldn't try harder for him or the bitchy mothers, but you'll try harder for Nicky. You want him to feel like he's completely part of the team and if that means you have to sling some hot dogs then so be it.

Dammit!

“Give it to me,” you say, walking up to Coach Min, who was packing away a bag.

“Excuse me,” he said, blinking rapidly at you before licking his lips and clearing his throat.

“The concession paper,” you tell him as you try not to stare at his mouth and the wetness that his tongue created. The blank look on his face morphed to one of understanding. He reaches for a folder and hands you the safety protocol paper once more. This time, you did take it. You bite your lip in concentration as your eyes fly over the words quickly. “I don't have to do this every home game…right?” You ask, looking up at him through your lashes.

“No,” he answered, clearing his throat again while shifting a little nervously. “No, just the first game. I have volunteers for the others.” You nod without a word. Turning, you make your way to the double doors of freedom. Opening one side, his voice makes you stop and turn to look at him. “Thank you. Have a good night, Y/N.”

Lazily, you raise your hand in goodbye. In your car, Nicky was typing away on his phone. He didn't even spare you a glance as you got in, starting your vehicle. With a defeated sigh, you turn your head to look at him.

“I have to do concessions at the first home game,” you announce without much emotion in your voice.

“What did you do to make him mad this time?” He asks with a laugh.

“Very funny,” you say, buckling yourself in.

Who knows. Maybe working the concession stand will be better than sitting with a bunch of people who don't want you there. Maybe you'll like it and demand to do it every home game. You doubt it, but crazier things have happened. Crazier things have happened.

《Chapter 3》

Tagged Readers:

@busanbby-jjk , @meelismee @jajabro , @wicked-game-black-butler @wobblewobble822 , @damn-u-min-yoongi @mintedagustd , @Granataepfelchen

@yoongiiuu93, @jimeg629 @jincapableoflove @redragdoll @seoullove96 @kam9404 @amarawayne @haileyborig @mar-lo-pap

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

I'm watching you answer all those people in your inbox telling their horror stories about people misusing things like personality tests and I'm internally screaming. Are reliability and validity just...foreign concepts to these people?

For the uninitiated, a test should do two things: measure what it is trying to measure (validity) & measure that Thing the same way consistently (reliability). The consistent measuring isn't usually the problem; defining what you're trying to measure - especially if that Thing is an abstract concept, like 'personality' - is the more wonky of the two.

The SAT is a great example. The SAT is not an intelligence test (my brain exploded hearing a mom tell me that once); it is supposed to measure a student's 'readiness for college.' That's why it's called the Scholastic Aptitude/Assessment Test. You can maybe understand why an arbitrary number, maxing at 1600, is um. Not the Best for measuring that particular Thing, especially since being 'ready' for college involves a lot more than just what base level education you start with. IQ tests are a little better, but we have at least nine different types of 'intelligence' that have been delineated and so it highly depends on what 'type' of intelligence one is trying to measure.

Does the MBTI actually measure psychological or personality types? Have we even delineated those terms well enough to say? This is why there are so many criticisms of the MBTI to start with, to say nothing of the numerous other personality tests out there. The MBTI is only the most popular one! Are we using the Five Factor Model or not?

Biological determinism (I think? That's the closest I can come to what this is anyway) is a disease infecting these people's ability to use any form of common sense.

the thing is that everything you said is true and correct but unfortunately to answer your initial question: yes, reliability and validity are foreign concepts to most people. the average person takin the MBTI or cliftonstrengths or whatever have absolutely no concept of what's being measured or how; they're just told that they're going to receive information about themselves and don't really question how it works further than that because they trust that there must be Some reason the test is so widely used.

which, you know, there is a reason, but it's capitalist devilry more than any validity of the tests themselves.

[hidingfromthelackofreadingcomp]

I like how Captain Curly is written. He's a peacekeeper. I myself, am a peacekeeper, I can relate. I'm not saying it's a good thing, in some cases it's really not a good thing and I admit that. For example: the rape of Anya. Curly tries to play it cool and de-escalate the situation like he always does. But this is rape. This isn't an average, more tame problem. This is very serious and peacekeeping isn't usually an option in cases like this. Also take into consideration, there wasn't much time for Curly to act further about the situation before the crash. To my understanding, Anya only confirmed she was raped to Curly when she told him she was pregnant. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in a polite and civil way). So if I'm right about that, Curly REALLY didn't have much time to fully process the situation and act accordingly. Also keep in mind, he's good friends with Jimmy. If you found out that someone you don't care for is a rapist, you would automatically take the survivor's side. If you just found out that one of your good friends had raped someone, you'd be in denial at first because you like your friend. You would hesitate at first, even if only for a second or a minute. Some people, depending on who they are and how close they are with the rapist, might need proof to fully believe it. Only after you've gotten proof that the survivor is in fact a survivor of your friend's assault would you stop giving your friend the benefit of the doubt. What kind of proof? Well, that depends on the person, some people need more proof than others, it also depends on how close the person is with the rapist. I believe Curly is in a situation where he needs more proof. He wants to inform himself on just how bad the situation is in order to make a decision. Which is why he talks to Jimmy. He talks to Jimmy hoping for humanity, any kind of regret, he's hoping that Jimmy will take responsibility for his actions. He's also secretly hoping it wasn't really Jimmy who did it. Also also, he wants to see both sides. Which is usually a good thing, but when it comes to rape, it should be pretty obvious that you should take the survivor's side. But Curly doesn't know that, he's used to smaller, lesser situations, so he acts as if it's a smaller, lesser situation without realizing that's what he's doing. He's trying to process everything. Maybe if he had time to process everything, it would hit him that hey, this situation should be handled more seriously and you can't keep being the peacekeeper to make it better. Because Curly does like and respect Anya, he has no ill will towards her, he's just plagued by his peacekeeping nature and bias due to his friendship with Jimmy. However, he doesn't have time to fully process the situation because, well, the crash happens and he loses all ways of communicating with others. I am in no way defending Curly, he's not a great person, but I recognize that he's trying to be, he's just not used to this kind of situation. He feels like a real person. Which is why I personally, don't dislike him, but I see why some do. And that's ok :). I just wanted to rant about him, honestly. If anyone comes at me in a hostile way, I will block you. If you're civil, I will gladly discuss with you!

[lisafication]

Digging Graves for your Morals; Or, The Ethical Problem of Outlawry

Hello, yes, I am here again. This one is shorter, I swear (it’s under four thousand words, even). If this is the first post from me you’re seeing, this is a follow-up to my prior essay posted here on the game The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, although it should be able to mostly stand alone.

At the end of my last essay, I touched on both the game’s nearly uncompromising moral scepticism and relativity, but I didn’t really dig into it. I outlined that the game only textually frames actions as ‘morally bad’ in the context of a morality set by the society and the world that has treated them as no better than farm animals raised for the slaughter. Well, I have a lot to say on the topic of ethics on the topic of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, so buckle in, this one’s going to talk about the social contract, moral scepticism and everyone’s favourite topic: Mrs. Graves.

As usual, this was originally posted and formatted for on Sufficient Velocity and you can perhaps more easily read it there. Spoilers abound, and my content warning from last time still applies.

She’s not too hot on either ethics or her mother

The Meat of the Matter

Since a lot of this is optional or otherwise missable information, let’s review the premise the game gives us. If you’re already aware of all of this, I apologise, it won’t take long.

First off the bat, the quarantine at the start of the game was a hoax-driven money-making scheme of which you can pick up more-or-less all the relevant details of. This is entirely missable and by the time it’s possible to discover, our protagonists have better things to dwell on and have dialogue about, so I’ll give you a summary of what you can deduce from reading the notes and thinking about it.

The quarantine is an organ harvesting operation, as per some documents you can discover in the wardens’ office. They entrap the residents, test their blood types and starve to death those they deem surplus to requirements — alternatively the starvation itself could be their method of ‘preparing the harvest’, there’s evidence in both directions and it hardly matters — harvesting the organs of the others for sale. As our protagonists are AB-typed, the ‘universal recipient’ or ‘most selfish blood type’, they’re some of the first on the chopping block.

If you read through the newspapers and the documents in Mr. Washing Machine’s car, you can discover that ultimately ToxiSoda are responsible, and a similar thing is happening in a different city under the guise of a ‘chemical leak’.  Should you further investigate matters, you will find mentions of the ‘man behind it all’, the doctor, or the Surgeon, as the fandom have been referring to him — you may recall Mrs. Graves mentioned someone similar! Yeah, he’s the guy who runs ToxiSoda, who are themselves partners with the water company that faked the parasite outbreak in the first place.

It’s all a life insurance scam, apparently

How much the details of the operation matter is something open to interpretation — it might just be something for players to figure out and Episode 3 will not cover the Surgeon at all, or he might play a major part; it's not particularly relevant to this essay. What matters is that it happened at all — indeed, it’s fairly easy to justify Ashley and Andrew in everything they did in Episode 1 (flashbacks aside), arguing that if they’d made any other decisions they’d have died — an argument that the victims dug their own graves, even if the Graves siblings put them in them. How correct that is is a matter of debate, but that you can make the argument at all matters, and we’ll be returning to this later. In my last essay (and again in the introduction here), I made an analogy to farm animals, raised without love and for slaughter. Let’s put a pin in the ‘for slaughter’ part for now and take a look at the ‘without love’ part. 

That’s right, it’s time to meet the parents.

As Andrew notes, there are significantly more compelling reasons for you to say that

They Fuck You Up, Your Mum & Dad

They really do. 

Our charming protagonists are, as with many things depicted in this game, an exaggerated, almost farcical example of this phenomenon — one that’s just grounded enough to still feel very real, just like the siblings themselves. 

The late and lamentable Mrs. Graves is just the same: originally a teen mother, hopelessly out of depth with two difficult children — even if one was good at masking it — and an unreliable, emotionally unavailable (at least to their children) partner who can’t hold down a job, ends up foisting them off on each other and doing a Parental Negligence because she simply Cannot Cope. That’s the real part. The part where she gets paid off by an organ harvesting operation to leave them to die, that’s the borderline-farcical exaggeration that throws all the nooks and crannies of her character into sharp relief.

Mrs. Graves does not have a good relationship with either of her kids. Having self-admittedly fobbed the job of raising Ashley off on her son, to the degree that they did not even celebrate her birthday as kids, both of them hold differing degrees and types of resentment for her.

For Ashley, it’s hate — perhaps not quite so clear cut as that, as it’s her that calls for the eulogy and she shows some potential signs of discomfort while cleaning up her parents’ corpses, but by and large, it’s fairly simple and straightforward, as usual for Ashley. The sentiment is not exactly unreturned, either.

This brings Ashley’s heart great delight!

The most clear incident raising her from everyday ‘neglectful’ to ‘wow she wanted nothing to do with this kid’ is the optional ‘birthday cake’ scene, obtained by finding the present in Ashley’s first ‘transitory world’ dream, in which we see Ashley’s birthday  and the founding of a lemon cupcake tradition between Leyley and Andy. She has received nothing from her family, notes that her ‘friends’ would say they were busy before she even told them the schedule and Andy takes her out to buy cupcakes with his pocket money.

This scene gets a callback in Andrew’s dream later. Just remember to Ask Nicely, rather than Kill Her.

Parents of the year, everyone.

So with Ashley it’s as straightforward and obvious as she herself is — she hates her mother, her mother hates her. With Andrew, as with Andrew himself, it’s a fair bit more complicated. His mother is a much more nuanced figure, who is believable in her role as an unfortunate teen parent who was trying her best. He has a degree of trust in her against, seemingly, his own good judgment In her conversation with Andrew, she acknowledges her fault in raising him and seemingly sincerely tries to offer him a ‘way out’, an olive branch.

I think many people have had relationships where they might say this

This scene in particular intrigues me, because she is acknowledging fault in a way that Andrew strictly avoids doing — and well, there’s nothing Andrew likes more than a good way to avoid acknowledging any fault of his own. With her dominant relationship over their father as a model for Andrew to draw comparisons to his own relationship with Ashley with, it’s no surprise that the narrative resonates with him to the point of ‘Accept’ being many people’s first completion.

Of course, that’s not all there is to it. There is a fascinating contrast with her later conversation with Ashley, where she — despite accusing Ashley of brainwashing Andrew — refers to Leyley and Andy as ‘two psychos’ and states that she always knew they were responsible for Nina’s death and that, implicitly, they owe her for not turning them in. 

There's something about mother-daughter relationships here that I just do not have the time or reading to dig into, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, when Andrew interrogates her on her possession of their death certificates, she has… an interesting, plausible story about a life insurance scam and claims that she really did think they died in the fire, implicitly denying the claim that she sold them. It’s entirely possible that she’s describing the details of the ‘scam’ correctly — you can even buy that she genuinely does care for Andrew in some way, if not Ashley, but her claim about being an honest, grieving parent shocked at their deaths… doesn’t add up?

This is a very normal reaction to your supposedly dead children showing up in your house.

As Andrew himself notes after hearing her story, she’s full of shit. This gets into speculation, because there are a few ways to read this, but the most plausible ‘gist’ is that she and her partner were paid off in money and jobs to not raise a fuss — the surgeon she mentioned is almost certainly the founder of ToxiSoda, remember?

The overwhelming difference in presentation between how she speaks to Andrew and Ashley invites investigation — and when Andrew turns down her offer and tells her he isn’t interested in her offer in Decline, her reaction isn’t… despair, it’s shock — and well, there’s a good reason for that.

Why do you think she did it in the first place?

This is the happiest we see her

Well — it’s so she can finally fit into society. That white picket fence, that idyllic 1950s life — hell you can call it the American Dream. She wants that, or as close to it as she can get — the working-class teen mother, living in poverty, aspiring to the middle-class. It’s a very common, very real and very grounded motivation.

And to that end, she effectively sold off her children. It’s no wonder she can’t fathom why Andrew wouldn’t choose the same.

That’s the part that makes you think — just like the deaths in Episode 1, well- maybe the siblings are justified here, too. It’s a weaker argument, but it’s still one you can make under many common moral paradigms today — what goes around comes around, all that jazz. Just look at how awful she was to Ashley.

She’s finally found what she’s been striving for.

Here’s the thing, here’s the thing though — what, reasonably, could she have done? Andrew and Ashley briefly highlight this in conversation about Ashley’s ‘friends’ in Episode 1 — was she supposed to fight gunmen to try and break them out? Throw food to the balcony from four stories?

Moreover, as she herself says to Andrew… would anyone really have been able to do better than her in her position? She was seventeen when Ashley was born, living in poverty with a partner who couldn’t even remember Andrew’s name when he was a kid. Anyone would have had difficulty, let alone with these kids.

Her evils are — they’re not any deliberate action, but rather… prompted inaction. She didn’t have the emotional energy, resources or plain capability to properly parent her children, she didn’t have any solutions to their murder of Nina in a state so blatantly hostile to its underclass, she didn’t have a way to connect with Ashley and she took the money rather than fight a futile and likely suicidal battle against a corporation and its armed goons in a dystopian setting.

Ashley, notably, does not deny this.

Her sin is the one we’re all, I think, guilty of — that of not trying hard enough, that of inaction in the face of difficult tasks, of not standing up on principle because it’s just too much that day and you don’t have the spoons, you’ll do it tomorrow (no you won’t). It’s a petty, everyday kind of evil — that of not doing enough. 

Is that enough to condemn her? Certainly, there’s a pretty manipulative read of her that likely has some truth to it — in the locked door in Ashley’s dream in ‘Decay’ you can discover that she has a ‘not-hatched’ tar soul — but consider that lens — the game won’t make up your mind for you, so you’ll need to choose that for yourself.

The dad is interesting in terms of negative space — but he’s mostly important in that he doesn’t matter, so I decided to not fit him in here. He has art, though — just no sprite, because, well, he’s never mattered to either sibling.

The Contract We Call Society

Right, it’s time to get a little bit Theoretical in here. Not much, but a little. Social contract theory is a complex topic with a lot of nuance, much of which I will be eliding in the name of not writing a twenty thousand word paper on semiotics, law, and anthropology, but the short analogy is… the idea that as long as you play by society’s rules, as long as you are a good citizen, a good person, the state, or the community, will take care of you.

In a number of ways, the harshest penalty levied by many historical states and legal codes was not death, but rather the criminal status of outlawry, a practice that’s cropped up a number of times in history — the practice of no longer being protected by the law. This meant one could be killed or worse with impunity — you were no longer protected by mob justice and, while overexaggerated as a term of reference, certain texts from Medieval England refer to outlaws as bearing a wolfshead, ‘for the wolf is a beast hated by all folk’. Never minding that wolves are actually delightful, this was a time when wolves were actively hunted and sold by people — and the same was intended to happen to outlaws. They were ‘fair targets’ as far as society was concerned, no longer to be treated as your fellow citizens.

This was the gravest punishment on the books, for most of these legal codes — something saved for those who had broken the social contract so completely that there could be no turning back (civil outlawry is… a bit different, that’s not the topic here). Among others, a modern critique of the concept is that it offers no incentive for improvement, no incentive to change or to cease harming society — if an outlaw has none of the social contract’s protections, what reason do they have to obey… any of the social contract? If that seems familiar, well, let me ask you this:

What if the state or community fails its end first? What responsibility does the innocent outlaw have to that contract?

It’s an interesting phrasing, that the world is better off.

It’s time to talk about the incest, and part of why it’s there. The cannibalism too, but that’s less impactful here. If you’ve seen me elsewhere, you might have seen me say that the incest is a load-bearing narrative pillar — in large part due to it being a critical facet of the siblings’ relationship, but in another large part due to it being an equally critical part of how the game uses taboo.

A taboo is in this context something that is considered repulsive and to be avoided by society. It’s a more complex term than that — you can also use it for certain sacred actions or utterances that are only permitted to certain people, for example — but that’s what it is here. Swearing, premarital sex, BDSM and murder are, approximately from weak to strong, some example taboos held in modern Anglospheric society. 

Strong taboos are a staple of horror — they shock, they disgust, they draw people’s attention and it’s that last one that’s critical here. Incest is a very strong taboo — while I am absolutely not segueing into its historical context, the very well-established Westermarck effect gives it a certain timelessness and immunity to desensitisation that most other taboos don’t have — murder, to contrast, is a taboo we’re largely desensitised to in modern media and works of modern media have to put in actual work to make a murder seem horrifying — through atmosphere, cinematography, evocative prose etc.

And this is important because the use of taboo I’m covering in this essay is that the incest is used to invite judgment — it is so ingrained as a ‘wrong thing’ in people’s brains almost regardless of background that it forces the player to engage with the work morally. And that’s where the fun starts.

I’ve mentioned before, very briefly, about the juxtaposition of tone between the Burial & Decay endings, contrasting with the very monstrous difference in morality. Burial is remarkably light-hearted — they play around with the drain blockage, they joke about their mother’s personality and this is further exaggerated on the Love path, where Andrew is much more comfortable with casual contact and the two make a game out of how far they can throw their parents’ skulls, the humour is directly contrasted against their abhorrent actions.

I’ll be real Ashley is far more merciful than I, I’m shuddering at the thought of that gunk in my hair

In comparison, Decay is… bleak. I’ve seen it being referred to as being ‘emotionally sandblasted’ and, yeah I think that’s fair — it’s uncomfortable, it’s heavy and it’s just not fun. And this is the route in which, if you chose Trust into Accept, Andrew has bought into the narrative that his mother’s offered — that he can fit just fine into society if he wasn’t stuck, if not for Ashley — the route that ‘fits’ most closely to the social contract, to Andrew feeling the guilt that we think he should and hating the monsters that they’ve become, as the social contract deems them. Given the pains the game takes to attach the player to the protagonists, this normative moral ending is very easily interpreted as the bad ending.

And well, isn’t it?

Thing is, as mentioned above, the social contract has never held up its end for them. The game takes careful pains to point out to a viewer that they’ve never had the life that society promises people, so why do its moral standards apply?

The game invites you to judge the characters, and in the same motion, asks you from what principles you judge them, making a pretty good guess in that, like most people who haven’t spent a large amount of time navel-gazing and reading some very boring books by very dusty old men, they come from the society around you.

Love even has Ashley express this sentiment directly after the incestuous dream — she asks you — well, Andrew, but this is also something for the player to mull over — why this is what’s engaged your morality or sense of revulsion, rather than the desecration, cannibalism or murder.

Andrew and Ashley are both very funny and very fascinating in this scene.

And that’s the framing that it casts all of its own moral judgement in — even the ‘tar-soul’ aspect is… well, it’s unclear what it even means. Mrs. Graves was a ‘not-hatched’ tar soul, after all. Other than that, it’s society and the world being better off without them, rather than any kind of assertion of objective morality. Due to the present of ‘soul colour’, we’ll presumably see the game make some moral statements in Episode 3, but as it stands?

It’s nearly completely morally sceptical, in and of itself — it’s not interested in moral assertions or education, it’s interested in making you question your own morals. Deconstructive (not that kind), rather than dialectic, to be mildly pretentious.

It uses taboo and shock to invite moral judgement, but then uses tone, charm and our instinct to look for the happiest end for our blorbos to get you to recognise that these are principles you yourself brought into the game, rather than any it’s handed you. 

To summarise: you’ve brought these principles in from society, but what do the siblings, the protagonists, the villains to the world, owe society? Enough that they should follow them? It failed them first, after all.

Closing Thoughts

This one is a bit less energetic than the last, tragically — my sleeping schedule is the stuff of nightmares recently, I love windy weather. Wait, no the opposite. Huge thank you to everyone who commented on the last one, you are the wind beneath my wings and the main reason I managed to get this out this week.

This essay is a bit more interpretative than my last one — certainly, there are alternative readings and I’ve been toying with the idea of deliberately taking a reading I don’t like very much and writing from that perspective as a demonstrative exercise recently — mostly that you shouldn’t just take my word for things!

Otherwise, if the last bit at the end seemed murky, I apologise — I did try to write a more detailed version, but firstly, it was three thousand words and secondly, I re-read it the next day and I could not understand what the fuck I was talking about. Personally, I blame Derrida — suffice to say that I strongly recommend playing through it with an eye towards considering culpability, morality and why you think certain characters are more or less forgivable than others, and for what deeds. See what you get out of it.

I managed to keep one particular thread open to wrap up with here —  I try to keep speculation on Episode 3 content to a minimum in the main essays, but it should be fine here — you might have noticed that I refer to Episode 1 and Episode 2 being on something of a spectrum of justifiability, with the siblings’ actions being ‘more’ justifiable in Episode 1 and ‘less’ justifiable — but still justifiable if you try — in Episode 2. 

To continue the thought of the happiest ending being the one in which they step the furthest away from common morality and to further jar the viewers’ sense of morality by contrasting societal morality and blorbo-oriented morality, Episode 3: Burial could continue this trend in having a major victim be someone who, well, has done nothing wrong and isn’t even guilty of bystander syndrome.

I wonder if there’s any good candidates, someone who’s sweet, harmless and will indisputably be an innocent victim…

…I’m sure she’ll be fine

[sowrennie]

Okay so I’m currently in Love and Deepspace hell and now it’s everyone’s problem. I may not entirely ever understand what’s going on, but that’s okay I’m still going to give my two cents on what Caleb may bring to the table. Please correct me if I’m wrong😭

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE MAINSTORY SPOILERS AHEAD!

1. Ties to EVER

Hear me out here. I know this is a common speculation but I want to delve into it and lay out the facts where I can see them. We kind of know what EVER’s goal is, we also— according to the notes we collect— know where their investments lie. They play a dominant role in biotechnological developments, aerospace, Evol energy, and international trade. We also know that Caleb works as a fighter pilot for the Deepspace Aviation Administration. He attended the Aerospace Academy in Skyhaven: an artificial floating island above Linkon. From what I gather, Skyhaven is powered by a protocore— and EVER is known for their involvement and use of protocores in modification/advancement. With what is made known to us it’s safe to conclude that Caleb is an affiliate. It’s hard to say whether or not he knows about the aether core, assuming he does though, he knows that upon the experiments— MC is basically immortal. She would be an asset to their research, and goal of extending lives. I wonder if Caleb feeds them this information, but at the same time— I’m just… not fully sure, seeing his particular niche and all. It does feel like they have their eyes on mc, though… I don’t entirely remember, but in awaited revelry, doesn’t Sylus imply that Josephine and Caleb have malicious intentions…? That being said—

2. Caleb’s return..?

I have a speculation that, like many cases we see (albeit some failed ones), he’ll be resuscitated via protocore; EVER can’t lose a valuable asset, after all. It fits thematically, and can further establish Caleb’s character as a character foil to Zayne (who despite his regrets, feels that death is a necessary part of the human existence.) An apple a day keeps the doctor away and all! This is the first ML we know that actively has interacted with another, and I genuinely can’t wait for what this means for Zayne’s story, even if EVER isn’t behind Caleb’s heavily implied return. He’s still facing what should be a dead man, and ugh. I KNOW his emotions are going to pile up. Staring directly at the Mt. Eternal anecdote. This could be a stretch, but— Carter, Xander Sciences trying to rope Zayne into their projects over and over— MC is the perfect bait, and bringing Caleb back may establish MC’s direct involvement and have Zayne be enticed by proxy. Caleb does play the role of the forbidden (potentially), and this could be how that motif comes into play.

3. Snake Motif…

Okay so I have yet to do my research on this entirely, but like— I just think it’s so interesting that they released Sylus during the year of the Dragon, and then potentially Caleb, during the year of the Snake. That aside, though— the clear biblical connection between the snake and the apple and potentially being that lure— what snakes generally symbolize (mystery, deceit…), and I saw this floating around somewhere, but apparently in CN he calls the MC ‘little tail’? I’m so interested in what this could mean symbolically with all his apparent affiliations, buuut that’s for us to see.

I’m looking forward to that livestream and tbh idk if anything here made sense but I’m so normal about this game (even if I likeee barely understand it.) What are you going to do Caleb. What’s happening. I know this is different from what I usually post here but I NEEDED to yap or else I might go insane idk

What are you hiding.

[flcwermimi]

Is it true that if you go into the void state and revise or change something of your appearance or life, you'll wake up on another reality?

it actually makes sense, cause if you're not attached to any reality while you're in the void, then, wouldn't you shift to a reality where you have what you asked for?

Cause I've been sacred to go to the void and not coming back to my cr, and i dont want that to happen. I think that's what has me holding back and not be able to enter the void.

Hey girl trust me when I found out this I was confuse tf out of myself . I didn't wanted to Believe that " when we manifest something in void we shift reality"

So later I did reaserch on several platforms and it took so long to me to understand those 3D 4D 5D and all related to Shifting because nobody used to post correct information regarding on the topics and later misconceptions used to spread.

Void is state is a state of pure consciousness where u can manifest anything instantly and it will show up to your 3D . ANYTHING is possible in void state and on the top that I want clear this misconceptions void state is not the deep meditative state ( but it can be achieved through mediation)/ lucid dreaming state/ half awakening half sleeping state. It's is the state complete nothingness once individual access to this state he/she can manipulate their very own reality.

In the void we don't feel / hear / we are formless because the 3D/4D time gap doesn't exist there ,not because "we are not attached to any reality"

We can manifest anything here because we have surpass our consciousness mind.The void state is free from these limiting beliefs. When you are in the void, there is nothing, no thoughts no beliefs, you may even feel as though you are floating. Reality merges with dreams and everything becomes one. The void state is a place where you enter back into a state of oneness with the universe. The void is the absence of the ego, or the sense of self we have developed in life. Your beliefs vanish and you connect with the universe.

So comming to the problem mention by you— Do we shift realities when we manifest something from void??

: The answer is no we don't shift in the way we all think. We can manifest anything there because we have reached our higher power of ourselves not because we are not attached to any reality as mentioned above our beliefs, thoughts doesn't hold any power to ourselves in when we are in the void . So don't worry about that.

As you said This was holding u back from entering void ( it also known as iceberg in the void where those negative beliefs, intrusive thought, past trauma, misconceptions doesn't let us achieve what we want ) I hope it's all clear I know it will take some to fit in this all. Further more u have read those success stories of void and so if they had shift realities while manifesting their desire in the void u wouldn't be seeing those things in your reality it would be only visible to those whom they wanted so don't worry about that I hope I was able to help you 🤍 feel free ask anything if u still have doubts

[homewardskies]

Holidays, Offerings, and Other Ancient Praxis in Paganism: It's Not an Exact Science

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

A lot of people just starting out have questions about the specific details of their praxis, which isn't necessarily a bad thing! Beginners, I've noticed, especially want to know how many holidays, what to do for them, when exactly they are, etc. Some are caught up in wondering what acceptable offerings are, how they should offer, and how should they pray. And these are all very reasonable questions from a beginner's perspective. The problem is that pagan religions, particularly those that are reconstructed from ancient belief systems, (in other words, not new age religions like Wicca) are not that easily simplified; there isn't one secret collection of knowledge on how to get it "right."

So, I wanted to break down a few of the difficulties with reconstructing historical traditions that you might run into and also remind you that maximum accuracy isn't always the goal.

1. Timeframe

The first problem we run into for recreating really anything, is that some traditions (ahem, especially Hellenic and Kemetic paganism) have a lengthy history. Those civilizations spanned thousands of years, so their religion did not exist in one singular, unchanged form for the countless generations it was practiced. If you want a modern example, we can look at holidays popular in modern culture, like Christmas, that have already changed and adapted over the course of maybe the last 200 years.

Now, put that into perspective for figuring out holidays from ancient religions. There is no single answer for how to go about Paganism because there wasn't just one correct way to practice when these religions were "alive." The best we can usually do is guesstimate based on surviving records and fill in the rest with our own UPG and experience. And that leads us to the second struggle:

2. Lack of information

This is a bigger issue for pagan traditions like Norse, Celtic, or Slavic. These people relied far more on oral tradition, well up to Christianization. Because of this, we don't have a super detailed idea of what certain aspects of the practice looked like, particularly from further back in their history. There's a bit we can infer from anthropological findings and secondary sources, although those aren't always reliable since many were retold from a Christian perspective, and we then lose the context.

3. Localization

This isn't so much an issue as it is something to simply be aware of. Ancient pagan civilizations were not monoliths of culture and belief; different regions had different practices. In Hellenic Paganism, for example, there were different deity cults that were city-specific. Just as culture changed over time, it also changed over space, so the recorded history of holidays in, say, Athens, wouldn't be the same as a rural village fifty miles north of Athens.

This is one that can really inform our modern practice because I'm fairly certain that the average practitioner isn't living like folks were back in those times. We can localize according to our own cultures, geography, and lifestyle, just as they had to do. Example: Olives and wine were a central part of Ancient Greece and many offerings were centered around this. I, however, live in the southern US. Instead of stressing about the cost of imported Olive Oil, I will instead pick honey suckles, offer a locally brewed Stout, or set aside some Crawfish.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Now, this is all to say, don't get weighed down by the finer details of your practice, especially if you're a beginner, because the "right way" is in itself an oversimplification of the change inherent to spiritual practice. Even when the religion was still "alive," it was not a single, uniform structure (deconstruct that Othodoxy, ya'll).

Yes, a pre-made calendar is a good frame of reference for worship, and yes, a guide on how to pray to each God would have helped in the beginning. But odds are, you live in a different environment than ancient people, under different circumstances than the religion was originally practiced, and most of the original context under which they practiced no longer prevails. So you have room to create your own path.

Don't get stuck in the "learning phase" because your whole practice is the learning phase.

[n0r]

WHAT DOES DARLINS REACTIONS TO CERTAIN SITUATIONS SAY ABOUT THEM AS A CHARACTER?

A Darlin analysis >:)

Darlin is first introduced snooping around Wonderworld, looking for Quinn Fox, and is found by Sam, who happens to be on patrol that night. Right from the start, we learn a defining feature about Darlin: they are reckless when it comes to their own well-being.

Darlin’s first character arc centres on finding Quinn, a dangerous vampire with whom they had a brief relationship. They actively hide that they’re looking for him from David. They are caught by Sam, who quickly becomes defensive, knowing Darlin shouldn’t be there. After discovering they detected a six-month-old signature, Sam snarkily remarks, “If you were that good of a tracker, you should be in a lab being studied, not running around in the moonlight on some wild goose chase.”

When David finds out Darlin lied about still being in Washington, he calls Sam and sets up a meeting to discuss Darlin and the risk they’re putting on themselves, and unintentionally, the pack itself, dubbing it a “vigilante vendetta.” He explains that Darlin was never very close with the pack, which led to them “falling in with a less-than-savoury crowd” and finding Quinn. David continues by telling Sam about Darlin ignoring most of his check-in texts, how he looked into the two new members of the Solaire clan, and how the circumstances of their turning reminded him of Quinn. He therefore discovered that Quinn was never apprehended by the Department. While Darlin claimed they kept the information from the pack to protect them, David dismisses this as “short-sighted and bull-headed, but well-intended.”

Though Darlin constantly puts themselves at risk, it’s always in the name of protecting their loved ones. However, they clearly lack self-preservation skills, convinced of their own invincibility due to their accelerated healing ability. In the "Vampire Tends to Your Injuries" audio, Sam calls Darlin about information on Quinn and notes that they sound weird. They admit they’re hurt. Sam immediately expresses concern and chews them out for not going to see a healer to avoid being asked questions. When he arrives at their house, they ask if he is okay with the blood, despite being very hurt, their concern obvious despite their condition. He heals them up before lecturing them on taking on two vampires without backup: “You’re a werewolf, not a damn tank.”

When Quinn is caught, Darlin is out the door with David immediately. Sam meets them there, and when they find out Quinn will only speak to Sam, it upsets both of them. Still, they quickly agree because a girl’s life is on the line. Sam agrees, albeit reluctantly, though he makes a point of stating, “He should have to see you, hear you—he doesn’t get to hide away.” Darlin clearly appreciates Sam’s feelings on the situation—if kissing him was anything to go by (plus I was fully ready for Darlin to launch through the two-way mirror).

Another instance of Darlin’s reactions I adored was with Alexis at the Summit. At this point, they hadn’t interacted with her at all, with Sam actively dreading the inevitable. When Alexis refers to Darlin as “Sam’s latest conquest,” Darlin immediately corrects her, telling her that they’re mates. Alexis, who turned Sam because she wanted to be with him, is bitter about them being together and manages to get a rise out of them quickly. Porter is quick to save them from a public display, remarking, “You looked a second away from taking a swing at a half-century-old powerhouse, and that’s a fight I’d rather not witness.” This furthers the fact that Darlin is quick to react, and that reaction is usually violent—if past references and Alexis feeling the need to say, “Problems don’t get resolved by hitting them,” are anything to go by.

Porter and Darlin seem to have a dynamic of harmless teasing and aggressive reactions, the first of which is in the "Vampire Boys Have It Out." Darlin opens the door to let Porter in, and he immediately takes a dig at Sam, which I can only imagine was met with a tense response. They’re more controlled around Sam, no doubt because the oncoming lecture wouldn’t be worth it.

Darlin’s tendency to jump to violence at the first sign of trouble complements their obvious strength. This is described by Sam at the start of the 2024 Valentine’s Day Sam audio: “Do you have any idea what it’s like to see a wolf of that size push off a tree, hit a guy jumping at vamp speeds, ash him, and still land on your feet?” Their ability to fight off two vampires and force Quinn makes this very clear.

They’re clearly a force to be reckoned with, and to top it off, they’re dating a fine-as-hell cowboy vampire who would both die for them and give them a lecture from hell for it.

Proofread and edited by @achios I LOVE YOU <333

[lostbookmark]

MDNI 🔞

Main Masterlist here

Summary: After the death of your brother and his wife, you find yourself raising your nephew. How do you help a 13 year old heal? How do you help yourself heal? You're not sure, but maybe a basketball coach can help.  

Genre: Romance, Angst, Smut, Strangers to Lovers, 

Warnings: Death Of Parents / Brother/ Family, Car Accident (Cause),  Swearing, Explicit Sex, Arguments, Physical Fighting, Past Abusive Relationship, Talks Of Domestic Violence, 

A/N: Super small teaser of my next story.

Ten minutes late. A client had you on the phone forever, and now you're ten minutes late to Nicky's practice. Your heels click and clack down the hallway of the middle school as you hurry to the gym doors in your pencil skirt, swearing to yourself under your breath. You were more annoyed that you didn't have enough time to run and change your clothes more than anything. Now, you'll get to sit through this practice with a sore ass and tight skirt that cuts slightly into your stomach. As you open the gymnasium door and step through the threshold,  you can see all eyes turn to look at you. Shit! 

“Sorry,” you say quickly and make your way to the bleachers. 

The first thing you notice when you climb a couple of stairs is the horrid group of moms  shaking their heads at you.  You roll your eyes at them and sit down, focusing your attention on the court. That is when you notice blondie… Coach Min also gave you a look that you can't quite interpret, but you think he is annoyed. You swallow hard and sit up a bit straighter. He turns to watch the boys, and you slump back down some. This is stupid. You feel like you're in trouble with your parents and waiting for them to scold you because they had caught you sneaking back into the house when you were supposed to be grounded. Ridiculous.

You passed your time ignoring everyone around you playing on your phone while occasionally looking up to check on Nicky. You sigh with relief as both coaches finally blow their whistles, signaling the end of practice. Standing up, you stretch your back and make your way down to the floor to wait for Nicky to finish his team huddle. The other parents make their down as well, all gathering further down than you in a group talking amongst themselves.The boys finish their huddle and disperse, finding their adult to finally leave. You smile at your nephew when he makes his way over to you. 

“You ready?” You ask as he walks over to the bleachers and grabs his duffle. 

"Let's go,” he said, wiping the sweat from his face on a towel. 

“Hold it,” Coach Min's deep voice said. You turn to look at him and watch as he approaches you. “Good job today, Nicky. Could you give your mom and I a minute alone?”  You and Nicky look at each other. Neither one of you jumps to correct Coach Min. Nicky nods his head and runs to stand out in the hallway to wait for you. You give a loud sigh and look at the handsome man in front of you. He has a clipboard in his hand, which he flips a couple of pages before looking back at you. “Y/N, is it? You were late.”

“Yup,” you say, giving him a blank stare. 

“All players need a guardian here,” he informs you. 

“And….here I am,” you say.

“You were late,” he says again. 

“Again….yup,” you say, shrugging your shoulders. 

“You're going to be my problem parent, aren't you, Y/N? I always have at least one every year. Did you at least read our handbook?” He asks, and you look away guiltily, giving you away easily. “Of course not. You weren't even paying attention that first day of practice.” 

“Listen, I'll read your little handbook and be on time from now on. Am I free to go, coach?” You ask sarcastically.

You watch as he presses his tongue to the side of his cheek, nodding to his head, agreeing that you can go. Without another word, you turn and leave, meeting Nicky in the hallway. When the young boy sees you, he starts to laugh at you, and you send a mock glare his way. 

“Your coach is a dick,” you tell him as the two of you make your way out of the building.

“Awww, you said a bad word. You said dick,” Nicky says, laughing even more. 

Yup, laugh it up, little boy. Laugh it up. 

[2075215]

Further more information about my Gravity Falls AU( Dimensional Attendants! AU)

Background story about: How did Dipper and Mabel become dimensional Attendants?

There was a small change at the beginning of the story. The day when Dipper and Mabel went to their grunkle's house was not sunny, but raining heavily. It was this small change that led to the disaster. The tires of the bus they were riding slipped, drove off the road, and rushed down the cliff. Dipper and Mabel did not survive. The problem is that this is not an normal car accident. This is a distortion of reality caused by the abnormality of the boundary of the universe. Most of the time, the distortion is very small, but under the butterfly effect, this time led to a completely different ending. Dipper and Mabel are the first victims of the distortion of reality. As for who caused the distortion of reality, it is not difficult to guess.(yeah the triangle guy) The AXOLOTL also noticed this tiny distortion. They found Dipper and Mabel and "reorganized" them. Dipper and Mabel were saved from death and survived in another way. Since Dipper and Mabel are the only two victims caused by distortion and abnormality, their own "energy" is somewhat unstable, but this instability allows them to shuttle between illusion and reality, which is conducive to repairing the abnormalities of the universe. This is why they became dimensional attendants.

Q: Why is Mabel holding a stick with an oil lamp hanging on it, while Dipper is holding a toolbox?

A: Before Mabel and Dipper died, when the bus crashed, Mabel was holding the handrail of the bus tightly, while Dipper was holding the suitcase tightly. Later, the salamander modified it for this purpose, and now it has become their tool

Q: If the twins didn't make it to Stan's house alive, what about Stan

A: What can he do? Stan still didn't find other journals, still couldn't bring Stanford back. When he heard that the twins had died, he actually felt guilty to death, as if if he had gone to pick them up, the twins would not have died. He even didn't open the door to do business for several days and hid in the house, letting the guilt overwhelm him

Q: What is the process of repairing the anomaly at the boundary of the universe?

A: Mabel will take her oil lamp to detect abnormal locations, and then share the location with Dipper. Before Dipper comes, Mabel will evacuate the creatures of nearby planets and universes to avoid accidents during the repairing process.

Q: What are the "accidents" that occur during the repairing process?

A: Hallucinations Leak, which will temporarily affect the cognition and memory of creatures, and more seriously, the space. Dipper once experienced it. He came to a bus. He sat in his seat and watched Mabel sleeping soundly on his shoulder. He listened to the harsh sound of the bus tires slipping and felt the violent shaking. He once again saw Mabel dying and lying beside him with a bloody head, but he was powerless, there's nothing he can do. It's a Hallucination after all.

Q: Why does the boundary of the universe expand and burn?

A: Incineration is actually burning away accumulations, some waste, some useless things. It is self-correction and clearing abnormalities; while expansion is a product of reality, creation, and expansion.

Q: What is the "abnormality" of the boundary of the universe?

A: Expansion > Burning. Burning is the self-correction of the universe. Excessive expansion will lead to uncontrolled splitting of reality. The better case will produce parallel universes, while the worse case will lead to distortion or disintegration of reality.