#do you think they're going to run out of backstory???

[wildflowercryptid]

potentially batshit headcanon, but i think it'd be funny if these two were related somehow.

[gachagon]

This is big spoilers for the commercials in the Awayfrompryingeyes website on the Welcome Home site.

I've been saying since DAY 1 that Eddie Dear was going to be one of the most important Neighbors to pay attention too, aside from Julie, Frank, and Sally. And this update just practically confirmed it, I had this long running suspicion about Eddie Dear, and it's that I think he was one of the first besides Wally to gain sentience in a way.

I know most people believe Wally was the one who "woke" up first essentially and was able to see the reality of what they were actually living in, but I think Eddie Dear was the first of Wally's friends to actually wake up. My reasoning for this is that Eddie's "backstory" on the neighborhood page is so vague and strange compared to the other neighbors. He's the ONLY one who doesn't remember where he came from, and we see routinely throughout these updates that he's kind of the odd man out a lot of the times.

And that's not totally unusual for a kids show, but there's something about Eddie that just points to him being a lot different from the other puppets. Like that he's also the only one who's able to actually tell what time it is, as he's the only neighbor with a real watch.

And he really REALLY wants to fit so badly into the world of Welcome Home that he sticks to his job as a mailman as much as he can. But even looking at his interactions with the others, you can tell he's not quite playing the role he's been set as perfectly.

I don't think Home (the house) had anything to do with Eddie waking up, I actually think it was a combination of Eddie just not being able to mesh well with the part he has to play and the other characters breaking his routine without asking him. The moment that really shakes him is when he can hear the Narrator say "And Eddie Dear was happy." and i think that's because he really doesn't know if he is happy or not. Home is still strange because its obviously the one thing that Eddie fixates on when he first gains sentience, but I don't think its what shook him out of just being a puppet only.

Eddie is also so obviously playing along with the idea of Homewarming and doesn't actually know much about it. But he's not letting the others know this, as when he's alone is when he tells himself to just "focus on the festivities" instead of the other confusing parts of Homewarming. When he's with Poppy decorating the tree (with turkey...? and gravy...?) He just makes it seem like what they're doing is a no brainer, and something everyone does during the holidays.

But when he starts spiraling at the party, all of the things he helped decorate look strange and confusing to him. He can't focus on anything, staring into the wallpaper makes it seem worse, and the fabric of his own reality is literally being ripped at the seams (there's just an excessive amount of video tearing which I equate to Eddie's sense of sanity at the moment and just how present he really is)

It's here that Eddie finally realizes just what they're doing, and what everything really truly looks like. Eddie even tries to focus solely on Frank's face to sort of ground him, but the goddamned credits for the episode itself is playing over Frank's face and obscuring his vision. The scene itself wants to move on but Eddie is still able to see what the audience normally wouldn't be able too, and that split from his reality to ours is what makes him freak out in the end.

[alastors-antlers]

Why Alastor is good aroace rep after all, written by an aroace

Hello all! I just want to start off this post by saying that I'm one person who definitely doesn't speak for all aroaces, but I wanted to make a post on this anyway, and maybe some folk would be interested in hearing out another perspective?

I'm not really caught up on everything that's been said over the course of HH's creation - only more recent interviews, since I'm pretty new to the fandom. Apologies if I've missed anything, but also I do not have the time to keep up with all the out-of-canon-material backstory unfortunately. I'm working with what we've got here.

So here's the thing:

Alastor is cruel, he's narcissistic, he doesn't care about anyone except himself, he's a serial killer and a monster.

(That's the argument I've heard - please tell me if that's not really what people are going for lol, in which case I've totally misunderstood?)

The issue with aroace rep when it paints asexual people with those traits is that it aims to dehumanizes them. Sex and love are essential to the human experience, right? So why wouldn't someone be interested? Because they're self-absorbed, and cold, and detached. They don't have the capacity to love others enough to feel romance.

And sure, Alastor is a killer, and a schemer, and prideful, and a monster by hell's standards. But no matter how above it all and stylish and in control and provocative he wants to be, he's a very human character, and his aroace-ness never serves to add to his alienation. You could even say that it makes him seem even more personable.

That's what I think is the key difference.

why he's human

Alastor's whole persona is about control, and he basically straight-up says this. He's controlling what his enemies know, what his public image is like. His goal is to be the Radio Demon -- overlord of Hell, charismatic, Machiavellian, and undefeatable. He's not. Despite that smile plastered over his face (a powerful tool, huh) he's so expressive for someone who's constantly pretending.

You see his exasperation with the Egg Bois and with Charlie's ranting; his nervousness in front of Zestial; his frustration with Lucifer and the petty lengths he goes to to piss off the ruler of Hell.

You see his desperation, making that deal with Charlie. He's surprised by the idea of being vulnerable in front of an enemy like Adam, and so close to danger. He drops the radio filter and the affect out of fear, and runs on broadcast TV to let out panic and anger and bitterness in his hideout, where no one else can see him.

He has a smile that tells us he's genuinely happy to see someone; it's a little wider than his default. You see it with Mimzy's greeting, you see it with Rosie. Rosie, especially, serves to make Alastor more human to the audience. More on this later, but for now, I'm just saying that you can see that he at least seems to respect her greatly. Whatever bond they have, we know that he trusts her to touch him, to share history with him, and with support that he trusts no one else for.

He pretends, but he can't pretend it all away. Loads of these emotions aren't even advantageous for him to show. It isn't necessarily how the typical asexual psychopath acts; he's not emotionless or only capable of anger or brutality.

He's so full of emotion that it leaks through, despite all that he does to avoid it. He's not inhuman and aloof, not really - he's so, so human, even when he tries not to be because he thinks that'll be what keeps him above all the rest. In control, and free from his chains.

(If anyone wants to see images about all this, I'll make a separate post - just let me know.)

(I also have another post, talking about why Alastor is at least a little attached to the hotel's residents too, shown via conversation with Niffty. In what way? different question.)

how the aroace part contributes to that

Now, to be fair, we don't hear much about his aroaceness in canon. It's just not relevant a lot of the time.

In the pilot, Angel's proposition ruffles his feathers so much that Alastor blanks for a moment. It's a joke, sure, but that ace panic face is a pretty popular Alastor moment in the fandom - Alastor, thrown off-balance by a sex joke of all things, after so many years in Hell that he should probably be used to this.

It's a moment that makes him more approachable; his aroaceness shows him unprepared for something someone else does for one of the only real moments in the whole episode.

And the other part: the ace in the hole statement.

Rosie apparently knows Alastor so well that she read that he's aroace. That tells us about their relationship; namely, that it is long-standing and genuine enough that she gleaned a piece of real information from him. It's a casual fact that she knows about him before he even figured it out himself. It lends legitimacy to their bond - this bond that shows us a more comfortable and warm side of Alastor that we don't often see.

If their relationship is purely business, isn't this something pretty frivolous and personal? It's not like he has anything to gain by telling her about his life, but she learned about it somehow. How close are they? That's where it adds a layer of complexity and personality to his character..

thoughts on representation

Overall, Alastor's an interesting character who has a level of depth and care and personality (outside of cruelty) that asexual psychopath tropes lack. Again, the moments where he's being represented as disinterested in sex or romance don't make him seem detached. Again, they don't say "look how hostile toward relationships his behaviour is - how separate he is from our humanity". That's what bad villain ace rep is. That's not what the show's doing.

Also: I'm not saying that we need to lower our standards or anything, but even if you think it's not the best rep, I feel like we should be supporting HH's efforts here. I know that on Tumblr we have a pretty queer-friendly space going, which is honestly an understatement lol but

Aces are incredibly underrepresented in fiction. There's a whole Wikipedia page about asexual characters in media, and it's short as all hell, and even if you consider what's on there you see quite a number of one-off characters who are never mentioned again.

In terms of real life business - before the DSM updated their definition of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in 2013, identifying as asexual wasn't even a recognized thing. If you talked to a clinician about your lack of sexual desire, you could be diagnosed with a disorder. Only in the 5th edition do we now have a little exclusion footnote about it.

The concept of asexuality hasn't been explored nearly as much as other queer identities in our scientific research. We get crumbs in terms of mainstream representation and understanding. House M.D. has an episode where House "disproves" us because he's just so smart.

Alastor isn't going to be perfect representation. There's no such thing as perfect representation, and from the moment he was conceptualized, you could see how people would take him poorly. Still, I think he's a net positive.

He isn't a side character or a token ace - he's a core part of the show, whose personality and character motivations we can reasonably presume are going to be explored much more deeply in upcoming season(s). He's loved by the fandom. Right now, given what we know, I trust Vivziepop to write the aroace representation he deserves, because with the way I've heard the cast/directing/etc. talk about him, they're trying to do the aroace community justice, so I wish people would let up just a little on the whole "Alastor is bad rep".

Let's give him a chance, all right?

[moonsaver]

ok this is not really a request, but what would yan!dan heng be like? i barely see any yan!dan heng content and thats probably because I don't even know how he would behave. Would he silently obsess over you? Would he not let you leave the archives, taking his life when he was young as an example, giving you books as your only respite? Would the astral express crew be in on it?

I feel like yan!dan heng would be like a pathetic wet cat about it, acting unfeelingly but then begs and begs for your affection in private, guilt tripping you without noticing and then finally giving up and taking what he wants whether you like it or not.

Hello anon!

I understand your frustration, and tbh even i struggle a bit with characterizing yan!dan heng, so i havent been able to push out any of his content.

He's not an exact favorite either, so i wasnt at all bothered by the lack of content but i understand you (sunday enjoyer here).

Honestly, i think one of the major reasons its hard to character yan!dan heng is kind of because hes actually a bit of a mellow character who's pretty cozy. Im not thorough with his backstory but it seems like he's always trying to be on the down-low, and never do things that warrant attention. Yan!dan heng would, as a result, not be so different in my opinion. However, a few of his aspects do seem to be interesting as a result.

As far as i know of his character, yan!dan heng would probably be extremely secretive as a result,kind of the stalker-ish type, who gets insecure easily and has to constantly keep grounding himself about you. But whenever you're within the vicinity, his patience wears thin. It grows dreadful to handle over time.

If his obsession gets strong enough, he'll only frequent his darling more and more through mysterious means, the kind that makes his darling more paranoid and as a result, seek out refuge in him about their "stalker", not realizing who they're actually talking to. Yan!dan heng would probably gauge out how much info his darling has about their "stalker", and if it's too much, he adapts and finds more hidden and unnoticeable means. The only time i can see him officially tie down his darling is if they take the initiative to investigate what's been going on and find out his entire archives worth of information on darling, and dan heng being confronted by it. In a bit of a panic, he'd take countermeasure and his patience finally snaps.

Another flip side of him is what you mentioned. Depending on how far within yan!dan heng's grasp you're in, he would be very starved for any form of affection. He's been constantly leaving behind everything, running away from things, to the point he probably seldom feels like anything in his life is permanent. So when darling comes along, yan!dan heng is so so desperate, he won't show it at first because he'll try to resist and give darling space, but it just constantly snaps taut strings inside of him, and he can't help but cling onto you. You'll thrash and scream and yell at him but he's so eerily quiet, gripping you and crushing you against his chest. He feels so guilty about it, but he's just so lonely. He does guilt trip you sometimes, and gets you to quiet down, but who knows how often that'll last? He can't get himself to "punish" you often either, so he just gives you strict warnings and scoldings from time to time, but then his insecurities get the best of him, and he can't help but cling to you even in your sleep, afraid you'll slip away like everything. He has self-doubt very often, and his main way would be just to seek you out, and force himself onto you in any physical form of affection, even if you grumble and protest about it.

In any case, i feel yan!dan heng would be a luckily tolerable yandere.

[lilypadding]

👒 maraudersdenier Follow

sometimes to feel alive I rewatch danganronpa season 1 and 2

#idk it was peak series to me #they had the hope's peak arc going #season 3 was completely different

5 notes

🪴 soniasansflowers Follow

I can't believe the surviving casts of DR are just walking around now??? you survived a genuine killing game and now you're just waking up on tuesday and driving to starbucks to get a drink????? what???????? 

#danganronpa #scribby.txt

111 notes

🧚‍♀️ loserrrville Follow

sorry but I still think it's funny that dr2 was the only season where they revived the cast 💀

#and the only cast that deserved it was s15 but you guys aren't ready for that convo #sdr2 #dr15

42 notes

🧸 danganwrongpers Following

🎮 monokumasmilk Following

Do you guys ever think about how everyone in Danganronpa isn't even real...? We'll never know their actual backstory, especially not from their perspective. Their memories are always wiped and replaced with hijinks fabrications. And we've already talked about how everything is real to them because it's in their head, but it's not. Their memories are built on lies. nobody in this show is real. 

🧨 fdr38frontlines Follow

average danganronpa fan discovers acting

#the reblog is funny and everything but op is onto something #I've gotten so uncomfortable whenever I think about it for too long #yeah they're all consenting adults #and they signed up for it knowing what would happen #but...

23.8k notes

☁️ komaedasoup Following

remember when people got so weird about nagito and hajime hanging out (and being actual friends in interviews) that they stopped talking to each other just to avoid you freaks shipping them 😭

👤 despairinglyhopeful-deactivated

they probably stopped talking publicly not privately 👀

☁️ komaedasoup Following

THIS 💥 POST 💥 IS 💥 ABOUT💥 YOU 💥

#be NORMAL??!?!

547 notes

🍇 junkorenoshimer Follow

everyone's suddenly so obsessed with danganronpa not being "ethical" but how did you guys not realize this show is kinda fucked when that one interview with makoto came out and he literally says he got nightmares of the game and intense survivor's guilt. like the signs have always been there

🎮 monokumasmilk Following

Yet you never made a post about it until now did you?

3.1k notes

🔑 wannabekirigiri Following

KYOKO'S RED CARPET LOOK??!?!?! 😍😍😍😍😍 SOBBING AND CRYING ADN SKINNING MYSELF RUGHT NOW

#i am normal so normal so

2 notes

🎀 sdr2-supremacy Following

the things I would let hajime hinata do to me

🍡 hinatahajimeofficial Following

Okay let me run you over

🎀 sdr2-supremacy Following

HAJIME??????

#help I forgot he was real #DOES HE SCROLL THROUGH HIS OWN TAG??? 

52.9k notes

🔑 wannabekirigiri Following

all my mutuals will be very happy to know I GOT CAST FOR SEASON 53!!!!

#for legal reasons this is a joke haha 

1 note

based entirely on @okthatsgreat 's original post

[burr-ell]

Putting Terms on the High Shelf: Main Character Syndrome

As I'm watching C2, one thing I've noticed about Caleb's various sidebars to talk to different people is that he's still very much involving them—the conversations reveal various different priorities not just for Caleb, but for the people he's talking with. Liam's RP is often geared toward encouraging character work out of the other players at the table; it's something you see with Vax early on, and it's very present with Caleb.

So I find the accusations and warnings of Liam having Main Character Syndrome, which started during C1 but really ramped up in C2, to be rather shallow. Look at the contrast between the tables during this:

and this:

In C1x27, Orion adds pressure to the cast's already-frayed nerves with him, compounded from previous incidents of bad behavior, by taking up several minutes of time purely to himself—his only interaction with anyone else at the table is to ask Keyleth for help with alchemy mechanics (fun fact, early Keyleth was into alchemy!). This included:

An attempt to buy 1500 mirrors to build a light array;

A request to his father to send in his home country's army to Whitestone; and

An attempt to combine a fog spell and a sleep spell after being told point blank that it was mechanically impossible

This was all very obviously an attempt to make himself the hero in what is clearly set up to be a Percy-centric arc. (Worth noting, for the record, is that up to this point Percy had actually had very little focus and largely kept himself in the background, while Tiberius had been in focus for most of the show's run up to that point.) Laura snarks that he's like the giant eagles in Lord of the Rings and can just do everything, and if you actually watch the clip that I've giffed above, Travis's tone is genuinely aggravated. This, by the way, is all after Tiberius was notably not present for Percy revealing his backstory to the rest of the party in episode 24; while everyone else voiced concerns for him and went down to his workshop to check on him, Tiberius largely ignored this and went off to do his own business.

That is a selfish player. That is selfish behavior and a clear example of someone who thinks the story should revolve around them. There are several reasons Orion was asked to leave, not just because he fudged his dice rolls.

C2x62 is a completely different story. None of the conversations Caleb has within that episode are just a way for Caleb to gain information; he's engaging with what the other people are doing. When he asks Nott and Jester about the letter they wrote to Astrid, he reveals a little about himself—something he is particularly reluctant to do with Jester—and they are given an opportunity to respond. His conversation with Beau gives time for both of them to check in on each other and where they're at and lets Beau give her own perspective on the politics of the Empire, the Cobalt Soul, and Xhorhas. The discussion with Fjord lets them both level with each other a little and does more work for Fjord's character, letting him open up about his insecurities and issues, than it does for Caleb's. Caleb is still initiating these conversations and he still gets something out of them, but both the players and the audience still get the benefit of the other characters pushing and pulling against that in response.

Like many terms that get thrown around in this circle ("player agency", "manipulating", "metagaming", "going dark", to name a few), Main Character Syndrome has been so misconstrued and warped to fit a heavily biased perspective as to be almost meaningless. Main Character Syndrome is not when a character initiates a lot of conversations, even if you personally don't like the conversations for whatever reason. Main Character Syndrome is not when a character chooses to take a risk or push a big red button, even if you personally don't like the choice for whatever reason. Main Character Syndrome is not when a character has an arc or aspect of lore heavily focused on them, even if you personally don't like the character for whatever reason. (Particularly considering that arc focus is entirely out of the player's control; Taliesin, Liam, and Laura did not in fact force Matt to focus a significant portion of each campaign's lore on Percy, Caleb, or Imogen's backstories respectively.)

Main Character Syndrome is specifically about player selfishness—it's a player inserting their character into scenes or roles where they do not logically belong in order to make them the center of the story, as we see with the example of Tiberius. The camaraderie at the current table versus what was going on back in 2015 does not suggest that anyone currently sees anyone else like that; everyone is laughing at the jokes made at someone's expense, and everyone is getting something to do. Your favorite character may not always be flashy or in focus all the time, but then again, you wouldn't want them to have Main Character Syndrome, would you?

[anonymouspuzzler]

you know what? fuck you (heartbreak gulch's my own guys)

(@heartbreakgulch courtesy of the inimitable @strangegutz & collaborators, also miscellaneous Thoughts under the cut bc it's my blog no one can stop me the doors have closed behind you)

HEARTBREAKER BULKHEAD:

Probably does not have superpowers anymore but still came from a family of considerable influence and was under pressure to inherit, pressure which he very much Broke Under.

Turned to a life of crime, definitely got in over his head with it, and essentially got rescued by Eddie, who he is Utterly Obsessed With And Heartsick For.

Has spent literal years as one of Eddie's attack dogs and generally jumping through hoops for him for Whatever Scraps Of Affection He Can Get, though he's still kind of squeamish around Literal Murder and thus tends to be assigned to supply runs and such most of the time.

Amateur mechanic and car enthusiast. Probably did a lot of McGyver-ass fixes around the Gulch-slash-generally assisted Ami til Davey was recruited.

Speaking of, was still the guy who recruited-slash-rescued Davey. They fell for each other hard and are in a committed relationship now, which has helped Buck take a little bit of a healthier step back with whatever the hell he and Eddie have going on (and helped him be a little less jealous and curmudgeonly about the Hot Young Things In Town, ie Zeki and Felix).

Absolutely not prepared to be a guardian to Minnie which has led his and Eddie's whole Relationship to enter a fun new stage of "hey man can I ask you for parenting advice nothing weird"

HEARTBREAKER DYNAMO:

Pretty similar backstory to the Villain-Coded version. Civilian turned criminal, lost his arm when he got in over his head on a job and Buck rescued him.

Has a bunch of different prosthetics he swaps out for different purposes, ie. one for combat, one to use for mechanic work, a kinda general use/everyday one, etc. That said, he goes without a lot to make sure he's prepared for a situation where he doesn't have access/one breaks or fails on a job/etc.

An alarmingly good recruit; I feel like originally Eddie kind of let him stick around as a kind of "gift" to Buck, but now that he's actually got him on jobs he's become a real rising star. Real good in a scrap and is a little more flexible with his moral lines in the sand compared to Buck. Outside of that he works with Ami a lot doing mechanics and repairs - probably interested in learning CompanDroid maintenance/repair but figures it'd be skeevy for him to push that point too much.

He and Eddie have a complicated relationship I think. They'd be kinda suspicious/distrusting of each other but also have a LOT of similarities and work really well together. To say nothing of their respective relationships with Buck.

I don't think he's Trying to Uncle the younger recruits in the Gulch but he definitely Does. He likes White a lot. He and Ami would also definitely get along really well. He is being The Bigger Man and Mature Adult and not giving Felix a wedgie no matter how badly he wants to

HEARTBREAKER(?) MINNIE:

From the same family of prominence as Buck and is currently very much on the run after a failed attempt to kill her own dad.

Extremely a city kid and is Not necessarily adapting well to Middle Of Nowhere Self Sustained Living.

Knew Of Buck but never met him before this so his whole Life and Little Criminal Commune featuring Multiple Guys He's Got SOMETHING Going On With is. it's a lot

Would like to do some crime actually but is A) still a little traumatized and adjusting to the whole Situation and B) 13 Whole Real Human Years Old.

Fascinated by Zeki's whole deal and his work but I think they would absolutely bring out the worst in each other they would fight so much. Autism to autism hostility

Having a very complicated response to White and Ami wherein she thinks they're SO cool but interacting with them at any length would make her realize Things About Herself that she's not consciously ready to confront so just like. Imagine being White and looking over your shoulder and that 13 year old is just Intensely Staring At You Unblinking from around a corner and as soon as she realizes you've seen her she turns around and runs off as fast as she can directly into a wall

Zarita absolutely hitting that Cool Just Slightly Older Kid niche for her.

[faeiri-tft]

PLEASE do the toontown online rant i want it so badly

this post kinda got away from me, and by "got away from me" i mean this 3000 word toontown rant is Part One. there will be a Part Two to this later in which i actually talk about the fanservers i wanted to talk about. anyway let's go

toontown online (tto) was a children's mostly-turn-based subscription MMO released in 2003. after a few years of obviously being on life support, disney gave a one-month notice that tto (and several other games) would be closing on september 19th, 2013. on the same day the game closed, the fan-run server toontown rewritten (ttr) was announced (with multiple other fanservers/fangames/reimaginings being established since), and is a few months away from outliving the original game

see, one thing about tto that allowed fanservers to crop up so quickly and easily was that it had, um, interesting choices. very interesting choices. like, "kids could use a code injector to turn their backyards into giant mashed-together nightmarescapes"-level choices

(loose video description: a rabbit toon running around a chaotic mismash of rooms, obstacles, and npcs that Should Not Be There. audio caption: Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life".)

but ok let's talk about the actual game first.

toontown online (tto)

the game starts with you creating your player character - you can pick from eventually-9 species, a couple body types, and 2 dozen preset colors. the gender code is a spaghetti nightmare but you won't learn this until the fanservers come about so don't worry about it. you're then taken to the Toontorial, which explains maybe 20% of the game's mechanics before setting you loose into the main game

the toontorial also gives you the basic "plot", such as it is: Toontown is suddenly* under attack by a bunch of boring businessrobots called the Cogs. their goal is to turn toontown into a dreary gray featureless corporate hell; their business activities are so boring that they're physically painful to be around. luckily, they can't take a joke, so the toons have figured out how to defeat them: by playing pranks on them until they laugh so hard they Explode

*originally, the game installer had a little animation giving a backstory for the Cogs' creation. this was never referenced in game, removed pretty quickly, and i think even the devs kinda forgot it existed

that's...pretty much the whole story! in that context, your toon progresses through all of toontown, helping some mostly-pretty-interchangeable shopkeepers, reclaiming buildings from the cogs, eating ice cream, etc. occasionally, the cogs would Come Up With New Tricks (read: major content update) and the toons would Find A Way To Fight Back (read: same major content update). that was the closest thing to Plot, unless you count "the devs scheduled a bunch of invasions of high-tier cogs right before the game's closure". but...i doubt most the kids really expected a Plot. mickey mouse was there

the gameplay:

the Free Account

there were two...pretty different approaches to playing toontown online. when the game launched, there was a 3-day free trial to the entire game, after which you got kicked entirely until you subscribed. at some point, this was changed so that the first area, Toontown Central (TTC), was Always Free - you could do all of that area's quests/"taskline" and limited activities, indefinitely, and in theory this would make you beg your parents for the rest of the game

i have no idea if this actually got more subscriptions or not. from what i can tell it just spawned more warrior cats

(source)

there were. a Lot of warrior cats. there were some other social activities, too, such as Fashion Shows (with your limited range of clothes) and Begging Subscribed Players To Summon Cog Buildings To TTC and Getting Chat Banned. ...however, as one of the subscription kids i didn't really interact with this side of the game, so i'm not the best person to talk about it

2. the Paid Account

mmm look at those crisp clear graphics. hell yes

a subscription account gave you access to this whole map, along with all these areas' tasklines. to progress through the game, you must complete a variety of "ToonTasks" for the Toon Resistance (it's called that. their catchphrase is "Toons of the World, Unite!". you were giving disney money for this). these reward you by increasing your max health (your "Laff Points"), slowly unlocking more combat options, and sending you to different, higher-difficulty areas of toontown

some of these tasks were...longer than others. generally, though, they all boiled down to: "just go fight some cogs"

combat:

(source)

toontown battles are turn-based: the players use their attacks ("gags") first, and then any surviving cogs attack you with, usually, office equipment and puns thereof (unless the cog is e.g. a Loan Shark, in which case they can just fucking bite you). if you defeat a cog, it explodes; if the cog defeats you, you "go sad" and are sent back to the safety of the playground, lose your gag inventory, and can't leave until you heal.

early on, most your battles are 1v1, but later on almost everything is a multiplayer 4-ish-v-4.

an...interesting feature here in the game's early days was that you could only Type Your Own Words to someone who shared their "friend code" with you IRL. otherwise, you had to use this thing:

(source)

you had a set list of phrases you could string together, which generally covered most the things you wanted to say. but it could get frustrating when you wanted to have a real conversation with your toontown friends! so...as the source above mentions, people obviously found ways around the system. turns out that if you let players move objects around their houses, they will use that to Draw Letters and pass their friend code along regardless

eventually - before the warrior cats, of course - disney presumably realized this system was pretty goofy (🥁) , so the game got a real chat, albeit one that functioned on a very strict whitelist. my favorite is that it didn't let you type numbers, however you could just say won too tree for hive etc. like. disney i really don't know what to tell you. anyway

(isn't he charming)

cogs come in levels 1-12, with levels displayed above their heads, and as you'd expect their damage output and HP increase with their level. however, the game doesn't...actually show you cog HP? instead they have a little colored light on their chest that fades from green to red until they explode. you see numbers on all the damage you do, and you see your own HP/laff, but never the cogs'. also lategame cogs are Too Tall For You To See Their Level once they line up for battle (which isn't actually that bad but it's funny). there's a formula for HP per level, but it's never mentioned in-game. i guess someone can teach it to you but then you have to watch them type "a level tin cog has won tree too health" and is that really worth it

(as you can tell i just…don't get this. "my kid is practicing arithmetic with toontown!" - marketing angle expressly denied by god. the stealth edutainment was right there)

anyway! in theory, you have seven base combat options ("gag tracks"), which combine in a variety of ways:

toon-up, which restores your teammates' health;

trap, which does guaranteed high damage but only if someone uses lure;

lure, which stuns the cogs for a few turns and is the only way to make trap work

sound, which does low damage to every cog;

throw, which does medium-high-ish damage to one cog; multiple throws combined give percentage combo damage, and hitting a lured cog will also add percentage "knockback damage";

squirt, which is exactly like throw but less damage;

and drop, which does high damage but cannot hit lured cogs, and has low accuracy unless you hit the cog with something else first

each gag track has 6 levels, which you unlock by using that gag track a bunch. you can't carry as many of the high levels with you - i mean, putting one piano in your backpack makes perfect sense, but two is just silly, right

a few years into the game's lifespan, level 7s were added - these were huge AOE that you could regain with every 500 track EXP. there was also something called "organic gags" to promote the please-log-in-every-day gardening system

every player starts with throw and squirt, and throughout the game you slowly unlock four more gag tracks. your choices are permanent: once you have your six tracks, you're locked out of the seventh forever.

in theory, all of this opens up a huge variety of combat options!

in practice, the battle strategy looks something like this:

use sound

as mentioned, almost all of lategame will be 4v4 battles, which means sound will almost always outdamage everything on earth. you don't even need four foghorns (the highest normal sound gag) to break 200 AOE damage, and the highest health a cog EVER has is 200*. and two of the boss battles can reward you with gag restocks and heals that you can use mid-battle with no consequences (other than having to grind for those rewards a bunch). and failing THAT, you can just...ration your foghorns and take 2 turns to clear a set of cogs, interspersed with healing.

(*okay there was something called "v2.0 cogs" but they were...strange, and we just used sound anyway)

sure, once level 7s were added you could use those occasionally. and you could fall back on lure+throw if you didn't want to use your sound restocks. but even then, for most of tto's existence there was something called the "knockback bug" which. well. just look at it

(link for transcript. it's tvtropes sorry)

if you are a target-audience eight-year-old this translates to "lure + throw will only do enough damage if the cogs Feel like it." like it's really just insult to injury at this point. this was the result of One misplaced variable and was not fixed until the game closed

in the tto era, if you didn't have sound, you were kinda doomed to be kicked out of every fight forever

(bonus fun fact: there were Four entire battle themes and they were 40-second midi loops. let me out)

the bosses:

each of the four cog departments has a Boss Cog. to face off against them, you have to assemble a cog disguise and collect enough merits/stock options/whatever to be allowed into the boss's office.

(pictured: your convincing disguise)

when you enter, your disguise pops off due to Reasons, and you have to fight through...a bunch of waves of normal cogs. it's basically a really long normal battle. once the minions are dealt with, you have to, inexplicably, do a live-action battle against the boss themself:

(loose video description: four toons defeating the CFO by using magnet cranes to hit him in the face with safes for 32 seconds.)

the live-action rounds aren't supposed to go this quickly, but it's still...kinda strange? certain reoccurring game areas require Parkour, but there are no battles like this outside of the Four bosses. the CFO's room is the only place you see these cranes and they have A Lot Going On. the other 3 bosses have their own unique weird mechanics. before the first boss was added we neither had nor needed the ability to Jump. it's just weird

once you've defeated the boss, you're given a reward of varying usefulness (the best/most unbalanced reward type is Unites, which are a free heal or gag restock you can do inside or outside of battle. essentially lategame toons can simply choose not to die. riv2u etc.)

and, um. then you get some more merits/stock options/whatever and do it again. and again. and again. and again. and agai

the grind:

so the thing is that tto was a subscription mmo. every addition to the game had to be measured, above all, in terms of "how can we best get kids to beg their parents to give us money." this especially shows in the suit grind:

(source/source)

you have to defeat each boss 78 times in order to get all their laff points - and as you proceed, you have to defeat an increasing amount of cogs to even be allowed into the boss (although once you max you get in for free).

by far the easiest way is to run through the designated HQ facilities - basically, cog fights interspersed with some platforming or minigames. you only collect your merits/whatever at the Very End of the facility. the only way to increase what a facility gives you is if your last battle ends during an "invasion" - a timed period where One Specific Cog replaces all street cogs, usually summoned with boss rewards.

the sellbot HQ grind isn't so bad. bossbot HQ - the endest-game HQ - frequently requires you to do an hour-long facility and on six separate occasions you have to do seven of them. if the invasion ends before your final battle, you have to sit around until someone summons another. if you lose your internet connection because it's 2008, or if your parents make you come to dinner, or if hacking or the game's general bugginess cause a server reset because you're probably in the busiest district for the invasion bonus, you have spent that Entire Hour On Nothing. the CEO (bossbot cog boss) probably also takes an hour because you and your fellow players are 10

this shit, combined with laff points locked behind gardening (time-gated), racing and golfing (multiplayer minigames with absurd requirements), and fishing (RNG-based with some fish being absurdly rare. i watched my mom fish for one every day for a month), meant that maxing a toon took Years, if you managed it ever.

it wasn't, um. it wasn't good

ok so what else is wrong with this game:

i had "aged out of the game" (lol) by the early '10s, so i'm not the best person to do a writeup of the hacking/scripting situation of those days. that said, what i'm going to do is give you a few examples, and i want you to just...look at them

(source)

(source). early '10s youtube was funny i'm trying to decide if i miss it

(source). fun thing to note here is that other players had collision, so a swarm of t-posing toons could just barricade the gag shop if they wanted to

(video description: toon who has Replaced His Head Model With An Anime Logo throwing thousands of jellybeans at everyone) (cw mild flashing just in case? and also the feather headband accessory)

i should note that the Bring Me To Life vid i started with was client-side, meaning only the player could see their technicolor hellscape. this guy's face was server-side. i do Not Think you should be able to do that

(video description: a player demonstrating use of a bot to get into the nutty river district, followed by other players using it to go to different game areas)

the above video was posted on august 17th, 2013. if you don't want to watch an Unregistered Hypercam 3 recording at about 5 frames per second, what's going on here is:

the player goes to a specific location and says a specific speedchat phrase.

a bot toon teleports to their location and provides some prompts on how to use it

the player tells the bot, via speedchat, to teleport to the (currently closed from the outside) busiest district so the player can follow

these "taxi toons" were server-sided, persisted across server resets, were made by a future fanserver dev, had younger kids referring to them as a "glitch" as if this were something that could Accidentally Happen, and stayed functional until the game closed

like...a lot of the "hacking" was just baby's first script download. this one - afaict also created by the laughing man head guy - is like...the fact that after years of no substantial game updates, someone effectively programmed their own "QOL feature" (note: not actually good for the poor mid-00s server being turned into a clown car) into a silly disney MMO and it just fucking sat there for a year is just. it's just.

i don't know what this is. this is not Playing The Game Toontown Online. this is nothing. this is everything. there are comments from 2013 on some of these videos saying stuff like "hackers killed toontown", but your game cannot have this happen if it is not already dying

and, like...it was. i'm not sure how many moderators there were by this point, but at the very end of tto, the number of active devs was One. the original devteam recently brought this up at the 20th anniversary celebration: devs just...slowly started getting pulled from the game, one at a time. there were a few updates after bossbot HQ - Field Offices, which i've basically never heard anything good about in their tto form ever; the Silly Meter, a yearly event...thing whose main function was to add unskippable dancing-inanimate-object cutscenes to your street battles; Parties, which...yknow parties were okay actually. i accept parties. but they weren't exactly a Major Game Update like the ones that had come before. in 2011 we gained the ability to Wear Hats. in 2012 the test server got some actual QOL updates that never made it to the main game; the final test server update was some maintenance in february, and then nothing for 18 months. disney was not providing enough resources to address the scripting because disney was not providing enough resources to address toontown. imagine being the last dev standing on an MMO that was older than some of its players, was losing its business model to mobile gaming, and spent most of its life falling apart at the seams. just imagine it, for a second

it couldn't have kept going, not like this.

on august 20, 2013, the closing announcement came: we had a month left of toontown online. the test server shut immediately; subscription refunds went out, and the game became actually F2P for the month; the part of the announcement that went like "we're shifting our focus to other games!" made a bunch of twelve-year-olds hate club penguin as if club penguin wouldn't also close in a few years; all the holiday events went off at once; and...

there wasn't a "thanks for playing!" popup. everyone online just got kicked, all at once. it was finally over

hey wait.

[witchinatree]

i'm having so much fun with the new tmagp characters (and i will miss them dearly until april 11th) (side note: patreon members get access on my sisters birthday which is pretty cool) and i don't want to compare them to the tma characters because they are unique and different in MANY ways, i just also notice some parallels

gwen is very similar to jon, she has had a somewhat skeptic attitude but has now clearly been exposed to the horrors (bonzo..) and she's also climbing the corporate ladder if you will. she runs the place, she's grumpy, and i think she's closer to becoming an avatar than any of the others (even sam) (see my other post about it if youd like) (idk how to link it on mobile sorry)

alice and tim are kinda obvious, both comedic with younger brothers and are very susceptible to romantic feelings (sasha/sam). there was a lot more going on with tim and we haven't seen much of that side of alice, so i'm really excited to learn about her backstory and/or traumas. less excited about what that might to do her but yk.. yk..

sam/sasha is the most interesting one to me. sam is curious like sasha was. sasha wanted to know which made her archivist potential in everyone's eyes. sam also wants to know, he'd make a great archivist. except he's not cautious, he's like sasha if she had never worked in the artifact storage. i think sasha's strength was what she had already experienced and what she knew, but she didn't know enough and ultimately that got her killed. sam is going to keep learning until he does know enough, but he doesn't have that prior knowledge to stop him from going too far. very interesting characters from both of them

celia and martin i guess? celia's different since she's not exactly from tmagp

lena and elias because creepy murder boss

and finally colin and gertrude which is kind of insane of me to say but hear me out. gertrude cut out the eyes of book covers and magazines and everything in her home. she was incredibly paranoid she just was also a boss ass bitch about it. i think younger gertrude must've been a lot like colin, but she figured it out quicker and realized what she needed to do to survive. she asked the right questions and took the right precautions. she had the archive full of knowledge. colin doesn't have the archive, he's messing with the wrong thing and he's taking every precaution and hurting himself and those around him (sam's phone specifically comes to mind). i think gertrude was like colin but she had the right resources to get through it

idk all of these are very interesting and it makes me worry a bit, but ofc every character is unique and has aspects to them that change their stories. they're probably still gonna die though, we know jonny sims loves killing characters ☹️

[manicpixiefelix]

is reader rich? how rich are we talking, like what their family heritage or something?

idk im sorry i just like exploring lore

Don't apologise I love thinking too much about the lore for my stories (also this will probably develop into something far more concrete as the story progresses)

this is regarding head, heart, hand if you wanna read the fic 🥰

Also, warnings of parental emotional neglect and distance regarding the reader's backstory.

So I'm thinking the reader is from Old Money, long-time generational wealth, like the Cattons. While I assume their grandparents were more occupied with the family business, I think on their mother's side, both their father and their mother are image-obsessed "philanthropists" who make a big show of their charity fundraisers and feel-good endeavours, despite their family money almost definitely being sourced unethically.

The reader and Felix are childhood friends, since their parents are old friends, as the Catton's used to attend many of the reader's family publicity events, usually just Elspeth and Sir James, but several times they brought Felix and Venetia when encouraged.

Most people don't actually know the reader is even their parents' child. They were born to satisfy their grandparents wishes for a grandchild, but neither of their parents were particularly interested in raising a child. After Felix and Venetia took a liking to them, and Elspeth too, their parents were more than happy to let them spend breaks with the Cattons after they were finally old enough to send to boarding school.

The reader is a legacy student at Oxford (I think that's the term when one or more parents have graduated from the institute). While their mother comes from old money, she, like Felix, was attending more as something to do. She met the reader's father there, and he is well off, but from much newer money. Both sets of grandparents have approved of the marriage, and while the reader's mother finished a BA in Art History (that she uses to determine the value of various paintings across the world to then auction them for charity), their father studied law. While he completed his degree, he never attended the exam to allow him to officially become a lawyer, as soon after they were married, the reader's father fell ill, and he elected his new son in law to become head of the business. These days it's more of a symbolic title, they simply use the money while the company's board of directors actually runs the company.

They're very distant with the reader, even more so than Sir James and Elspeth are with Venetia and Felix. reader's parents just seem to be glad that they became so quickly independent, without realising how emotionally neglectful they were, which is another reason the reader clings so strongly to Felix. That independence their parents see is also why they believe the reader is capable of making important decisions so young, hence why they were allowed to attend the same schools as Felix and Farleigh and Venetia in their youth.

😅😅 maybe I actually have thought about this a lot haha I love this stuff, is there anything else you'd like to know?? I'd love to dive into this world, it helps me figure out how to write it and these characters going forward 🥰🥰🥰

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

I had a long argument with someone on whether or not stomping Belos before he dies was better than letting him die pathetically, and I asked myself if that is what fans really believe in... or if they would hail any Belos' death as the perfect one if Dana choose a different one?

They also justify the stomping as being part of horror-comedy genre and that Belos should not have any dignity what so ever because apparently letting him die in despair with no stomping is running the risk of making the audience feel "sorry" for him.

Honestly, these justifications make The Owl House feel more shallow. Like, why shouldn't the audience be allowed to feel sorry for Belos? What is the danger? That people would agree with Belos' views?

Or are we supposed to develop a black and white view of the world akin to a conservative view but inverted? And then hide behind the horror comedy genre to justify less drama? I hate to say it, but Nostalgia Critic is right about Belos being this strange outlier. The show seems to be afraid of actually doing a complex, tragic and yet irredeemable villain.

It doesn't make any sense to argue that Belos' death fits because of toh's genre as a horror comedy because the scene was neither played for horror nor laughs. At best, you have the image of Philip slowly being dissolved by the rain and then Raine's smug "that was satisfying" line. The overall tone of the scene is one of contempt as Philip tries one last plea to Luz only to be snuffed out (and weirdly validated) by the heroes. Its intent is to be cathartic for both audience (though as you know doubt know, YMMV) and the characters.

Frankly, despite its marketing, I don't see toh as either a horror or a comedy because it spends more time on slice of life stuff and high school teen drama and romance. And even when it does go for the horror and comedy, both are rather tepid. You want a real example of a horror-comedy for kids, then go watch Courage the Cowardly Dog or Invader Zim.

The reason why I argue the heroes validated Belos is because in the moment of his death, he clings to the idea that as humans, "we're better than this!" It's a moment of pathetic delusion that is appropriately met with silence but then it's ruined with Eda and Co. barging in with "Well, we ain't!" only to then prove his point by mercilessly stomping an already dying man to death. There's a reason why kid shows usually end with either the villain being imprisoned or not outright being murdered by the heroes. Evil has to die by its own hubris, not get killed by the heroes after the Big Battle when they're no longer a threat. I made a post about the importance of defeating a major antagonist twice.

Belos' death also doesn't work with a "Kill your oppressors" theme because the show isn't about that. The show barely spends any time showing why the EC is bad for the Boiling Isles and Eda is the only named wild witch we see getting harassed by them and even then, it's mostly played for laughs given how inept the coven scouts are (seriously, they're able to quit without fear of repercussions).

I think a reason fans are split on Belos' death is because of differing expectations; the fans who paid attention to Belos and the implication of his backstory and waited for every lie to come crashing down on him since that's what the show seemed to be building up to only to be unceremoniously ignored in the end were no doubt disappointed. Then you have the other fans who hated the character to the point that any gruesome death will do, regardless whether it made narrative or thematic sense or not.

Ultimately, I think the biggest reason his death doesn't work is because Belos fails as a villain.

Belos' status as a colonial puritan only works on a meta-level; it serves a cathartic release for marginialized people to see a representative of real world oppression beaten by queer characters as it fulfills the fantasy of finally overthrowing an oppressive system. The fatal flaw though is that none of this works on a narrative level because the coven system is either treated as a joke or simply a career path one must choose and we never see the disenfranchisement of wild witches. People largely get off scot-free opposing Belos, which undermines his credibility as both a dictator and a villain because no one cares about him until the plot needs them to. Luz doesn't even care about proving he's evil until Hollow Mind, which is halfway through season 2.

Belos as a villain only works if you project your own feelings and desires in wanting to see the Evil Christian/Evil Parent destroyed. While this is extremely satisfying emotionally, it does not make a sound story.

All the reasons why people like his death ("it's great the evil colonizer died so pathetically!" "omg, the white christian colonizer was killed by two queer people and their adopted son!" etc) are all meta reasons. And to be clear, it's totally fine if you thought his death was satisfying. But for many people, it did not work for a variety of reasons, including narrative ones. And that differing opinion should be respected instead of arguing some nonsense like "we have to make our villain as stupid/evil as possible or run the risk of people liking/sympathizing with him."

Belos should have died in a manner that connected back to his original sin: the murder of his brother. All of his lies and delusions and fear of being wrong should have played a part in the finale. He should have not died thinking he was right. He should have died realizing that all he did was for nothing. And that he is to blame. And that there is no one waiting for him back home.

[itsclydebitches]

Don't mind me, everyone, just gonna slip on my Tedependent conspiracy hat for a bit...

Okay, for real though, can we talk about how Trent's backstory in 3x06 completely re-contextualizes his dinner with Ted in 1x03? Based on my own interpretation, the implied timeline is that Trent was married to a woman, attempted to come out to her and was dismissed (perhaps in large part because they were married: what do you mean you're gay? You can't be. You love me, etc.), either having his daughter forced Trent to become more honest about what he and his family needed, or they had her in an attempt to "fix" the marriage, she gets caught in the crossfire of all this, Trent comes out again, this time his wife believes him, they divorce, are still good friends, and their daughter is happier than ever because she has two loving parents who are now living their best lives.

Given her age - 3 at the start of the series, about 6 now - that means there's a decent possibility that Trent was still married at the beginning of the show.

And that his dinner with Ted is one of the things that pushed him to try coming out again.

As his core Ted is someone who is authentic and that authenticity is what catches Trent's interest. He's dismissive of it at first, literally thinking it's a "fucking joke," only to later end up with the revelation, "You really mean that, don't you?" - that Ted honestly enjoyed spending time with him. AKA, Ted says and does what he means, even when it seems completely unbelievable. How freeing must that be to see? I'm just imagining this interview-turned-dinner through the eyes of a man who is still unhappily married, mostly closeted, and struggling to help his daughter through the stress of that dynamic. Then he meets this sunshine of a coach who is so authentically himself that it initially comes across as an act, an exaggeration, a joke. But Ted never wavers, simply refuses to be anything other than himself. Soon he's doing even more than that, breaking down gender norms by characterizing the masculine, aggressive Roy Kent as the "little girl" from A Wrinkle in Time, burdened with the responsibility of leadership. He turns what should have been the end of a horrific day of shadowing into a dinner date and Trent finds himself answering the hard-hitting questions instead of his interviewee. Ted brushes off his accusation of greed with, "Wait, I'm supposed to be getting paid?" but Trent is completely caught off guard by Ted's "What do you love?"

The textual answer is "writing" and the fun fandom answer is "you," but if this is a Trent who still hasn't fully come out yet that's! A hell! Of a question!!! A closeted, queer individual's mind is going to jump to their biggest secret and, when offered an out, they're going grasp at it, so Trent eagerly agrees with Ted's guess of "writing" the same way Colin eagerly pulls the 'This is a gay bar? Haha, my mistake' card and makes a run for the door. Reading this interaction as Trent not just being gay, but potentially being closeted and unhappily married makes it less about the journalism (this strange coach likes me and thinks I can be a good person despite my invasive career choice) and more about his sexuality. Oh, no big deal, just having an intimate dinner with another good-looking man who's questioning me on love of all things and slowly inspiring me to be the best version of myself, which would require coming out to my wife again. This is a totally normal and not at all life-changing night! I definitely don't need to run away now!!

Via this reading Trent's article feels so loaded. Ted is "out there in the community" either "bravely or stupidly facing the music." That sounds a hell of a lot like a parallel to literally coming out and facing the music of a community's potential rejection, with Ted's American background/inexperience/unique personality acting as a stand-in for sexuality; the reasons he's labeled a "wanker" before anyone actually gets to know him - as the pub trio does while those very words are narrated by Higgins.

And then we have this:

"If the Lasso way is wrong, it's hard to imagine being right.... and though I believe that Ted Lasso will fail here... I can't help but root for him."

There are other elements at play here, like the football's celebration of ego and the threat of the club being relegated, but underneath it really sounds like a still-cynical Trent wanting to see the kind of changed world that those like Ted could bring about, but not really believing that it's possible. Given his history, is he really just talking about football when it comes to "the Lasso way"? I doubt it. Trent is potentially feeling trapped at this point in time, pessimistic to the point where yes, he still thinks that Ted will fail at football and creating a more inclusive, accepting community... but even still, Trent can't help but root for him. Of course he can't. He wants what Ted is offering. He needs it.

But then, of course, Ted succeeds! Not just in doing well by the club, but by the community as a whole. He maintains that inspiration and hope until, potentially, Trent felt like he could do something about his own situation. He found the nerve and strength to try again. So he comes out to his wife, they divorce, their daughter is happy, he goes on a date with a mustached man at the local pub, ditches him to try and 'interview' Ted, blows up his career because he realizes that his job is undermining the very thing he's been rooting for and he can't not give Ted a heads up, begins shadowing Ted as he looks for something "deeper," and then comes out to Colin, gazing wistfully across the water as he imagines being able to kiss a man after a win...

I'm not saying Ted Lasso is going to go there - and I'm DEFINITELY not saying there should be ANY accusations of queer baiting if/when they don't, because we've absolutely built the majority of this ship in fandom spaces - but I AM saying that if Trent's potential intersection of his history with Ted's influence and Ted's desire to shake things up while imagining bisexual triangles actually led to something... it would be a damn well done setup!

[inklore]

crucified

premise: when his fingers slip between your open thighs you know there’s no other god you’d give yourself over to. no other god who can feed you, starve you, with such a loving hand.

pairing: lestat de lioncourt x human!reader

word count: 852

contents: blood and blood drinking, cult au, scars, inflicted wounds and cuts mentioned, foreplay, ownership kink, religious undertones.

note: if there's a sign up sheet i'm at the top of it hehe.

haunted hoedown day seven.

The cuts no longer hurt. 

No longer give your flesh that rippling sting through your nervous system for longer than seconds before the euphoria hits. 

Before the reminder of why you’re cutting yourself open with a blade to begin with. Why your fingers and wrists stain with the smell of copper for days after because you’ve bled so much for him. 

Always for him. 

The scars on your flesh only grow the longer you stay here. Stay with him. Worship him the way a man like him thinks he should be worshiped. 

Except he’s not a man.

Inhuman. 

Monster. 

God. 

The titles mean less to you than the beauty of the magic that is him. 

Lestat. 

You have a backstory. Something sad and traumatic that explains how you got to be here. How you’re on your knees in front of him, blood spilling down your arm—a new scar for him to lick clean. To heal with his tongue as he drinks from the bounty you’ve presented for him. 

A symbol of your devotion.

A symbol of your love. 

But you can’t remember anything but Lestat. Can’t think of a thought that doesn’t have him wrapped up in it. That isn’t a chant screaming out his name or making your insides swell until you have no choice but to relieve the burning. 

Sometimes with your own hand.

Sometimes, when you’ve proven yourself, he'll help you. 

Rid you of an ache that he’s caused. Take pity and use your body for selfish needs that stick with someone even after they’re no longer human. 

“It’s what you were made for.” He’ll whisper in your ear as his hips roll slowly between your thighs. 

And you’ll eat it up. Cling to him like something small and fragile who doesn’t want to be weened off the poison that gives them their only comfort. 

It’s why you showed up here tonight. Why you’re in his room, at his alter, knees digging into the hard floor, blood dripping, hooded eyes looking up at his smiling face. 

His legs spread, back against the velvet covering of the chair he’s in. 

A throne for a god. 

A monster. 

There’s a plead on your dry lips, falling down to his feet, licking his ego. It makes his hips shift, makes something in his eyes turn from hunger to starvation—something worse than thirst, than want, than need.

He loves his pets, but he loves them even more when they're bleeding for him. 

When they need him.

Elation makes a weak smile pull up the corners of your mouth as you watch him move to his knees in front of you. Joining you on the floor, showing you that yes, he’s going to give you what you want, what you need, even if that means stooping down to your level of frailty, to show his mercy. To show the kindness of a good god. A god who loves his people just as long as they’re offering up their lives in his hands.

Their blood on a perfectly scarred wrist that he’s wrapping his lips around and sucking from. 

Gasps and whimpers, head pointed towards the sky, eyes fluttering, insides burning, as he feeds from you. As he takes your offering, your gift, what he’s owed, what you’ll always give him—what you’re made for. 

His lips parting from your flesh to run the tip of his tongue over the cut, wet mouth pressing against the rough skin of past cuts he’s had his mouth against—tongue inside, fingers scooping up your devotion and pressing to your lips so you can taste the sweetness for yourself. 

“Do you like it when I bleed for you?” Your vision no longer blurry as you murmur the words. As his mouth hangs open centimeters away from yours, blood drips from his bottom lip and onto your white nightgown. 

His hand coming to hold the side of your neck, nails skating across your sensitive skin, making your jaw twitch on a silent moan. “Yes, ma petite.” He whispers before pressing his mouth against yours.

Yes, little one.

Yes, darling.

Yes, meal.

“When you taste this sweet, how could I not?” His tongue licks into your mouth, coats your tastebuds in the coppery flavor of your own devotion. Of your own demise. “Swallow it. Swallow and see why I keep you around.” His palm presses against your throat, waiting, wanting, daring you to swallow against it. 

Waiting to feel your throat bob as you do what he says and take back what you’ve offered him. Replenishing your senses with the blood that already beats within your veins to keep you alive—that you’ve relinquished to the monster who only keeps you alive when you’re spilling yourself of that life.

But when his fingers slip between your open thighs—the skillful press and pull of them—you know there’s no other god you’d give yourself over to. No other god who can feed you, starve you, with such a loving hand as Lestat can. 

When you come on his fingers, you know that this is truly what you were made for. 

You were made for him.

[jazeswhbhaven]

Maybe I want Him to Bite...(Lucifer Selfie Card Prologue React II) *Spoilers*

BEFORE YOU PROCEED, make sure you caught the first part ->

If you already checked that out then you're good to go~

We're back with part 2 everyone!!! Let's gooooo

So we left off on Gamigin being excited about Phenomenon, and even stated that Jjok was getting ready for his arrival too

But a little before that I wanted to point out that Buer was so happy that Lucifer likes his tea where he was saying to himself that he has to remember the recipe so he can make it the same way next time.

I love this because I'm sure Lucifer likes to see his nobles happily doing something for him, it kinda reminds him a bit of his brothers in heaven though a painful memory....(SAD I AM SAD)

BUT LOOK!!! Seeing his face plus the blossoming trees warms my spirit he is truly a wholesome chubby little thing and I want the best for him

So Gamigin is rambling this entire time to the 3 nobles and he's like LUCIFER SHOULD ENTER :D And all of them are like "yeah sure he would win" because they're slightly annoyed with Gamigin being so energetic lol

I love that this is gag of their relationship. Gamigin is the annoying little brother that won't stfu and seems to run on 24/7 sugar highs

At the same time Gamigin asks Lucifer if he wants to enter, and for a few slides of the story it's literally Lucifer fucking sipping and drinking his tea in silence which killed me

💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

because that's all he's doing is drinking his fucking tea like what a damn mood

All he did was do that and no one complained about his lack of enthusiasm and honestly? Same. Just let me have my damn tea.

He then just says one word. "Why" and everyone is creaming themselves.

I mean? I get it. Lucifer probably doesn't speak much at all, a true man of silence. And I thought Satan was a person of few words.

Gamigin though explains to Luci he feels he should enter and flaunt how beautiful he is to Hell. To which Marbas is like basically calling him annoying for being so loud lol

And even though he's being scolded by all three of them, he's not even phased and keeps doing what he's doing lol

He brings up that Luci needs to meet Ra-On, and Morax agrees that since Luci thinks they're the key to ending the war, it would need to happen sooner than later.

Marbas though brings up that MC is always seemingly afraid of Luci so he's not sure if it's a good idea. Buer though counters that it's Gaimigin's theory that overtime meeting someone over and over changes things.

So it appears all of them are on different wavelengths based on what they think is comfortable for Lucifer.

But I mean...can't ya simply.... a s k?

So here's where we get some backstory on how the nobles are more perceptive of Lucifer's feelings and habits based on his actions. Even though it's been a good minute since he switched teams, old habits die hard.

In Luci's case...it's pretty much impossible to get rid of. He's still stuck in those angel ways of his and honestly I love him more for that. He's spent what? Eons being an angel? You can't just forget that within just a couple centuries. He'd probably still be the same way even the next 500 years lol

So Luci's forever beef with Solomon runs deep alllll the way to MC

(sorry lol but damn, that means if you're self-inserting and a Luci stan...he doesn't like you because of ya punk ass grandaddy ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ)

Morax is a cheerleader and I love that about him. He just wants the best for everyone. I want to give him head smooches.

Buer does ask though what this all has to do with MC in the first place, and Gamigin explains that showing Lucifer's beauty to them would be best and would possibly tempt them and successfully bridge the gap between the two AND give Luci a chance to win the contest at the same time.

While they're all talking amongst themselves and listening to Gami's reasoning, Luci starts to reminisce...

IM SO SAD..

He even says "The voices are here again" meaning he's truly trying to block out his brother's voice...his main ride-or-die sibling Michael. And that's just...so angsty. But his nobles remind him of these moments and he just silently fights through the memories.

I want to hug him if allowed.

So when he gets out of his daze, he agrees that he should participate if Gamigin says so. (lol that's his fave "brother" now)

Gami is happy, but Morax brings up an important element.

You gotta be beautiful AND most obscene. Like levels of heathen shit. Real hot girl shit.

And poor Gamigin is like "Mess Lucifer up? WHY (｡•́︿•̀｡)"

And the other three healers are just like "Oh sweet summer child..."

Because you know, Gami is a dragon lol he knows nothing about this they probably didn't do anything like this back in his homeworld

So the three start going over what everyone's level of obscene is. Starting with this wild ass thing

I'm right there with you Gami.

Now...not to yuck anyone's yum...but come the fuck on vomit??? I'm shivering just thinking about being NEAR vomit lol

did someone in avisos do that...i feel that's an avisos thing

Also Gamigin points out how does Buer's eyes glint while they're shut and I'm wondering the same damn thing like how does that even look. Buer you are an enigma.

HOE STORIES???? OLD COWORKER OOOO SPILL THE TEA WHO IS IT BUER??!?!?!?

MARBAS???? YOU TOO??? But tbh...I believe he's originally from Abaddon so that wouldn't be farfetched...

SO THE DEVILS OUT HERE SHARIN' HOE STORIES THEN OKAY

Just a regular ol' day where you're coworker is like "So btw I have some freak ass nasty sex so good I thought I'd need a exorcism" or something like that lmaoooo

THEN WE FIND OUT WHO WAS SHARING THE STORIES

VALEFOR??????? MY HUBBY????

g a w d I wanna swallow his dick so badly why is he out here being so shameless? The best? Ooooo I'll show my appreciation for saying it was the best he's had.

LERAYEEEEEE??????

I've been sleeping on him apparently because not him saying it was the best. Phew.

I'M SCREAMING... SITRI???????

PFTTTTT MARBAS JUST RANDOMLY HAS SITRI'S NUMBER WITHOUT EVEN ASKING FOR IT PROPERLY HOW DID HE HEAR THIS INFO THEN???

Nah Marbas, why you change the subject after saying you don't remember how you got this info from Sitri? Lmao omg

But yeah, the most obscene sex is from our little MC (which...I mean I feel there are some biases...B U T lol I'd like to think they'd say me too if it were I being bragged about)

Poor Gami is still hung up on the vomit scenario and I'm laughing about that. He just like me foreal.

He does suggest though that they just ask MC to come and "mess up Lucifer"

While Buer and Morax agree with Gami, Marbas scolds him again out of habit instead of praising him 💀

Meanwhile Lucifer is trying to gather himself and be prepared for MC to show up. Which is also a mood because it's like "Damn I really gotta be social today?"

Lucifer is also me when I just wanna sit here and be a recluse lmao.

So we're back from the flashback, and in Luci's private room which looks pretty swank. I'm pretty sure that's a wet bar in the background or a potion bar or something of the sort. (does he even play chess? lmao)

Gamigin asks MC to help Luci win the contest and well, they find him difficult to understand and get along with. That it was hard to look him in the eyes even with the 3 second rule and the devil who most understands that is....

Our boi Beelzebooo <3 (hey bae it's a cameo)

So he explains why it's really hard to be comfortable around Lucifer and it's due to his overpowering angelic aura despite becoming a devil and it bothers him quite a lot.

MC even asks him to confirm and he kinda stares at MC and ruffles their hair.

which means yes he's bothered he's just not gonna admit it.

And with that MC is like ALRIGHT LETS DO IT I SAID I WOULD...and...

.......why are they clumsy like my ass? LMAO

Whelp...let's go on over to part 3 and see what became of MC~

[chaifootsteps]

VIv´s lack of undestanding of addictions is honeslty quite concerning. We can see this clear as day in the character of Husk

Husk is someone with a gambling addiction, one that got so bad that he lost his overlord position to Alastor. But apart from that, the show doesn´t really go into how debilitating and scary having an addiction like that can be.

Wanting to chase the rush of winning even when you don´t have anything to bet with. Running quickly out of money and getting into serious debts, living in constant poverty. Aliniating family members and friends since you only ask for money everytime you see them.

Not facing that you have problem... You are just having fun! You are not addicted!

You can write something decent with this denial, if you know how to play your cards right.

Like Imagine Charlie having to shoo away debt collectors becuase Husk went on a gambling spree without having any money... again. he having to hide in his room for months on end becuase he owed pretty pissed of powerful sinners

Valuable objects going missing in the hotel becuase more high-end casinos wouldn't let him in without a colateral. Together with some valuable personal items.

Husk always has a excuse, or denies taking them or promise to pay it forward when his luck changes.

One day he decides to take one of Angel´s gold collars to go into a high end casino

He is definately not happy about.

A scene similar to the one in loser plays out, but this time, it is Angel the one going into rampage trying to find Husk and get his priceless jewerly back. Only to end up saving him from some shark loans who are about to beat his ass.

They both end up in a pretty bad shape and escape out of pure luck. Angel hasn´t fired a gun since he started working for Valentino ( he doesn't allow him) and Husk's diet of beer and greasy meat doesn't allow him to move very well. So lets just leave it that when Charlie saw them again, she left everyting to attend their wounds

It was there, when Charlie told Angel that one of his arms was broken That he finally said it.

"S0.... I think I may have a gambling problem"

" Ohhh you think?!"

You know how that Anon from yesterday gets to keep Niffty because they're clearly more qualified to write her? Congratulations, you get Husk. Here's your thing to carry him home in.

Also, when episode four aired I kept waiting, cautiously hoping they would do something with Husk's backstory and the horrors of gambling addiction, but it never manifested because it's Viv and of course it didn't. Even five minutes of scrolling a casino worker horror story thread on Reddit or something would have gone such a long way.

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

I know theres a lot ot talk of Hobie's past and I love the idea of BigFamily!Hobie. But may I PLEASE add to the table:

StreetKid!Hobie -

It's not as happy or wholesome of a backstory as Hobie with a big family, and a big community - but there's still tenderness there I PROMISE.

Like - Maybe Hobie understood what Gwen was going through because he's been through it himself. He knows what it's like.

I like the headcanon that Hobie just...didn't have a family. No tragic backstory or anything. Just the sharp reality that the system lets some kids fall through the cracks.

Because it's a story or reality we hardly ever see, but it's one that exists - being a homeless street kid. We hardly see that story in it's entirety, rather than just the dramatic scenes.

But like STREETKID!HOBIE

He doesn't have anyone to take him to school or buy him uniforms - so he went to the library to teach himself. He doesn't have much money, but the men at the kebab shops know him, the kid that comes in asking for 'anything they've got' , with 2 pounds 50 pence. So they start feeding him, free of charge.

He helps run errands for the old ladies, and they make sure he has clothes for the winter. They'll knit him sweaters and scarves, and give them to him, telling him to run home and get inside, not knowing that might not be an option for him.

But even if they don't know the whole story, the know Hobie the streetkid, who looks tough but has a heart of gold and will help with anything - the kid who'll feed the stray cats before himself.

Most nights, he sleeps at F.E.A.S.T - because we always talk about how great F.E.A.S.T is but never what it's like to actually have to live there as a homeless person for an extended period of time.

The adults know his face, they worry if they don't see him in a bit. They set blankets aside for him, ask him if he's eaten, and for the first time in forever, maybe in his life, he has people who cares - people who want to help.

F.E.A.S.T makes Hobie wanna help people.

And THAT's where he finds his family.

He starts finding other kids too. Older Streetkids start helping him out. They let him squat with them, and show him how to do things like steal electronics, and which shops throw out a bunch of good food at night.

And he starts meeting people, and seeing the teens that'll make him person he is later.

He starts hanging out with them more and more - and they start calling him Hobie.

The take him under their wing. They looked out for him, made sure nobody messed with the youngest of the bunch.

Anywhere they sleep or squat - Hobie does too. And on the nights that it's the worse, that's it too much, or too scary - or the nights where he's just angry at the world,

They're there to remind him there's kindness in the world.

That kindness and joy and having a laugh with the mandem is RADICAL, it's an act of defiance, and a form of power. And that you don't need a big house with the picket fence and 2.5 kids to grow up 'right'.

One of the street kids give him his first patches. They snag him the leather vest he wears today, back when he was tiny and short and he had grow into it.

They taught him everything he knows - from laces code to how to stud a jacket. They start taking him to protests, starts explaining why things are the way they are, how the system is meant to keep people like them down.

They teach him what ACAB means and true anarchy

The first person he ever met wearing blue laces - was a Streetkid. An older kid that Hobie couldn't help but look up to, or even be a little jealous of. A cooler kid with tall leather boots and blue laces.

And when the kid smirked and told him what they meant, Hobie couldn't help but think 'That's SO kickass'.

One night, one of the kids brings a record they stole. They play it on the player - and it's Ramones. Hobie, maybe only 13, hearing rock for the first time.

And he's wide eyed and asking who that is, who's playing the guitar, what's the song name, and the older kids just smirk and chuckle cause they KNOW -

That's when Hobie falls in love with rock.

And Hobie spends his teens with these people, becoming the punk rock anarchist god he is. He learns how to help people like they help him.

Some of those kids are still around, some on their feet now, and some living free, sticking with the life of a Streetkid by choice. Some he sees often - they're the ones he has a laugh with at the pub.

Others, have moved on, or passed away.

And one day Hobie looks around and realizes he's the oldest one now. He looks around and realizes he's the older street kid now. He's the big bro - and he loves it.

Gwen wasn't the only one staying there when she lived with him. She's not the first Society recruit either.

Because of the streetkids that gave him a family, Hobie is who he is - he has a houseboat that always has at least one or two kids staying there, just looking for a place to stay or a meal to eat.

No matter what - Hobie will help.

At to all the StreetKids that came before, Hobie remembers them all - all the help they gave him and all the times they saved him. He hopes that one day, there are people to remember him too, the same way.

Because that's what he wants to be remembered for.

Because he's not a hero - SpiderPunk isn't the hero. Those streetkids were the heroes.

They way they helped him - is the way he helped Gwen.

I need more StreetKid!Hobie SO BAD S OBADDDDLLY

What if Hobie's brown ideology and fashion and beliefs and his love for everyone around him is a reflection of the very teens who raised him and kept him safe and they're the reason why he does any of this to begin with for the streetkids MY GOODDDDDD

HOBIE BROWN - THE PATRON SAINT OF WARWARD TEENS