#even the dialogue is eerily similar

[arimarushunya]

I'm sure I'm not the first person to feel this way, but man, Starfield really just feels like Bethesda got mad at the popularity of Outer Worlds and wanted it for themselves

[fiendishartist2]

If everyone's sick, well then nobody can catch it // And if everybody's different how could anybody match?

(image 1): "you are carrie mark"

(image 3): "when i look in the mirror, i don't see myself. but, i don't see you either"

[teddyreblogslotf]

kinda crazy to me that so many people like yellowjackets and are in that respective fandom and not a single one of them is in the lotf fandom like it’s basically the same plot line i’m confused /gen

[snowballseal]

Pretty Bird

Sylus X Reader

Summary: Sylus is jealous of you giving Mephisto attention. That's it. You tease him when you find out.

Word Count: 2123

Note: Nothing really, hope I did him justice! His dialogue is a little harder for me to nail down.

---

The first time it happens is when you cross to the N109 Zone to accompany Sylus on an “errand”.

The first thing you do when you reach the ornate, empty house - of course - is say hello to your favorite bird.

“Hey there pretty bird.”

Mephisto squawks, bobbing excitedly on his perch as you bound up to him. You grin and give the crow a gentle scratch on his head. He preens under your touch, mechanical feathers fluffing with another quiet, scruffy caw. Adorable.

Despite his unnerving gaze, which you find to be eerily similar to a certain Onychinus leader, you can’t help but love the little bird. For some reason, it always comforts you a little bit to see him perched outside your apartment, or following you around Linkon. He always tries to act like he’s not spying on you, but you know he is, and you know he’s going to report right back to Sylus. Maybe that’s why it’s comforting.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re trying to sway his loyalties.”

Speak of the devil.

“As if,” you snicker, giving the bird one final scratch before spinning on your heels to face Sylus. He sits across the room in one of his big armchairs, eyes glued to the gun he’s loading, face carefully blank. As always. You saunter over and pop yourself onto the arm of the chair, bumping his shoulder. “You know Mephisto doesn’t listen to anyone but you. I’m just like the fun mom who gives him things.”

His lips twitch ever so slightly, “Mmm, does that make me your husband in this situation?”

Heat creeps up your cheeks.

You are no stranger to Sylus’ flirty nature. That’s how things have always been between you, though it only really gets to you now. Before, when you kind of hated his guts, it was just annoying. Well, maybe even then-

“You wish,” you retort, but there’s no hiding the blush painting your cheeks.

“Hm, I thought you knew me better than that, sweetie.” In an instant, his hand curls around your wrist, giving it a sharp tug that knocks you off balance. You let out an undignified squeak, tumbling right into his lap. And before you can squirm away, Sylus locks an arm over your legs, keeping you trapped against him. Those red eyes freeze you in place, dark and warm with mischief. “Why would I wish for something I could so easily take?”

You stare at him, eyes blown wide, face completely red now. You can’t even form any words in response, which seems to amuse him even more. A smirk curls his lips, and he gives your hip a playful pinch.

“What? Crow got your tongue, sweetie?”

You sputter, finally finding your voice, “Sylus!”

“Good. Now that you’re focused, we can go handle business.” Sylus sets you on the ground, making sure you’re steady before he stands nonchalantly and tucks his gun in its holster. Like nothing just happened! “We don’t want to be late now, do we?”

Before you can even say anything more, he’s heading for the door. It takes a few seconds to shake yourself from your  state of shock, and then you’re quickly following after him.

“Sylus-!”

He cuts you off, that stupid, attractive smirk still on his lips, “And by the way, try not to spoil Mephisto too much, sweetie. He’s grown rather petulant when you’re not around.”

You’re pretty sure your blush sticks around for the entire car ride after.

---

The second time is when you visit on one of your off days. 

When you get there, Sylus is still asleep. You take a moment to crouch by his bed, a fond smile adorning your lips as you take in his peaceful face. You remember when he used to sleep sitting up, so he was ready for anything, but now he looks relaxed. Though you still spot the gun tucked under his bed.

Deciding not to bother him, you quietly make your way back out to the living room and grab a book. It’s about the only way to pass time in the N109 Zone, at least, without getting yourself into anything dangerous. As soon as you sit down, Mephisto flaps across the room and lands on your arm, plopping himself down into your lap like a cat.

A giggle escapes you when the crow throws his head back, looking up at the most awkward angle you can imagine. You give his beak a little rub, and he makes a soft clicking sound, beady red eyes falling shut.

“I swear, it’s almost like you’re a crow with cat programming,” you hum, mostly to yourself. Mephisto ruffles his feathers, though, at the word ‘cat’, eyes flashing back open. You snort, easing a hand over his wings, “No worries, pretty bird, no cats. I’m just kidding.”

He settles back down, seemingly embarrassed by his reaction, which only makes you want to coddle him more. So cute. If only Sylus would be this cute with you. Heat tinges your cheeks at the thought of the tall man resting against your lap, looking up at you with softly narrowed eyes, humming in content as you pet his ha-

Snapping your book open, you throw yourself into the story in hopes of banishing such rogue thoughts. If Sylus knew what you were imagining, he would tease you for years. You really don’t want to feed his ego even more. Mephisto wedges himself between your arm and your side, happy to just fall asleep as you read, oblivious to your inner turmoil.

It doesn’t take you long to actually get immersed in the storyline, though. So much so that you don’t hear the steps coming up behind you.

“It seems you come here more often to spend time with Mephisto than with me.”

You practically jump out of your skin when a strong arm circles your shoulders. Sylus’ voice is a low rumble in your ear, thick with sleep. He leans over the back of your chair, and you narrowly miss the way he eyes the bird in your lap with distaste. He looks far too content curled up on your lap.

“I didn’t want to bother you while you were sleeping,” you hum, closing the book.

He grumbles, sleepy eyes shifting to bore into you. The smallest pout pulls at his lips, and you have to stifle a giggle as you reach up to smooth down his messy hair. Sylus leans into your touch, much like Mephisto did, his eyes flickering shut. Okay, maybe he is just as cute.

“Are you mad I didn’t come cuddle with you?” You tease. Sleepy Sylus is definitely your favorite Sylus. “I didn’t know the big, bad Onychinus leader likes to snuggle.”

“It’s simply to ensure you don’t cause trouble in the N109 Zone,” he murmurs, still just as quick-witted though he’s half-asleep, “I can’t have my kitten wandering around all by herself, now can I?”

“I was just reading, Sylus. No trouble here.”

“Hmm, then you might as well come read in bed.”

You hesitate, fingers tracing along his jaw lightly, “You sure I won’t disturb your sleep?”

Those dark eyes blink back open lazily, a rare, genuine smile dancing in their depths, “Trust me, kitten, my sleep will be much better with you at my side.”

God, you’re weak for this man. Mephisto squawks his complaints as you lift him from your lap, but takes off to his perch without much fight. Sylus feels a flash of victory as you intertwine your fingers. The sensation of your small hand in his eases the strange tightness in his chest whenever you’re apart. He curls his other arm around you possessively, sending the bird a smug smirk.

You catch it this time, lifting a brow as you glance between him and Mephisto. Your brain stalls. Was he…jealous? No way. There’s no way Sylus would be jealous of you spending time with his bird. He’s more mature than that…or maybe not, you realize as he drags you back to his bed, only to lay himself over you like a large cat, using your lap as his pillow. Exactly as you imagined.

Your heart flutters a little, which you’re sure he hears somehow, because he squeezes your waist teasingly. You pinch his cheek lightly before running your fingers through his snowy hair. It’s always softer than you expect.

“Go to sleep, Sylus,” you murmur, voice far too fond, “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He hums, and you can feel the sound vibrate through his body. Almost like a purr.

God, you don’t even have a chance, do you?

---

The final time is when you visit the N109 Zone to attend another auction with Sylus. And this time, you catch him in it.

“Where’s Mephisto?”

Sylus’ face sours at your question. You bite back a smile.

Ever since the day you spent napping in his room, you haven’t been able to escape that thought swirling in the back of your mind. So you decided to test your theory. Sylus is always messing with you, afterall. It’s only fair you get a bit of revenge.

“I sent him out to gather intel,” Sylus huffs eventually. Why do you always look for that d***  bird first? “That is his purpose, afterall.”

“Oh.” You feign sadness, letting out a long sigh. “That’s too bad! I brought him some treats.”

“Well, you can leave them here. I’m sure he’ll eat them later,” he says, voice dismissive as he fixes the cuffs of his coat.

“Hmm-” You slowly make your way over to him. Those perceptive eyes narrow on you, watching you carefully while you straighten his collar. “Will he be here later? Maybe I can give them to him after the auction. I miss my pretty bird.” 

Amusement curls in your chest when you see the man’s brows twitch ever so slightly. He’s really annoyed. Now you understand why he loves pushing your buttons so much.

“No, I’m afraid he’ll be busy all night.” You can practically hear him gritting his teeth. Almost there. You keep your eyes focused on his coat, avoiding the intensity of his gaze. He’s trying to figure you out and you’re scared that if you look up, the laughter you're holding back will break loose. Instead, you put on an exaggerated pout.

“That’s unfortunate. I was really hoping to see him tonight.”

Sylus growls. Actually growls in annoyance.

“Would you prefer to have Mephisto on your arm tonight instead of me?” His words come out biting and harsh, tinged with unmistakable jealousy.

The air goes silent.

Before you burst into a fit of giggles. Sylus’ eyes widen when you collapse against his chest, your entire body shaking with laughter. He freezes, though his confusion quickly gives way to realization. 

You were playing with him.

“I suppose this is some form of revenge,” he hums, shaking his head. It’s surprising it took him so long to catch on. With anyone else, he’d be beyond angry, but your laughter is so bright, so infectious, that he can’t stop the small smile that pulls at his lips. When you finally look up at him, tears glint in the corners of your eyes. Who thought this would amuse you so much?

“You’re jealous! The Sylus is jealous of a little bird. His bird.” You bite down on your lip in an attempt to muffle the giggles that keep coming, but it doesn’t do much to help. It’s just too much for you. You never ever thought you’d see Sylus actually jealous of someone, let alone an animal.

Sylus narrows his eyes, though they glow with a certain fondness. “Such a sadist, sweetie, messing with a man’s heart so lightly.”

“Oh, but your reaction was so adorable,” you sing, reaching up to poke his cheek. He playfully bites at your finger, making you draw it back quickly with another laugh. “Just the fact that you could even think I like Mephisto more than you is so silly. I couldn’t help myself.”

“Hmm, then I’m afraid you’ll just have to prove my silly conclusion wrong, won’t you?” His hands settle on your waist, drawing you closer to the warmth of his body. You oblige him, stretching your arms up and around his neck to draw him down.

“Of course. I can’t have my pretty bird walking around thinking he’s second best,” you tease, fingers curling through his hair. “Even if he has a jealousy prob-”

“Quiet.”

Anything else you say is muffled as Sylus finally kisses you.

Safe to say, after that, you make sure to give Sylus extra attention, especially when Mephisto is around. (Though you do still sneak him treats when Sylus isn’t looking.)

[lovebugism]

can i request angst☹️☹️shy!reader barely ever talking and being soo hyperaware of everything and steve slowly breaks her out of her shell? then she overhears him saying she talks too much and she just feels bad and reverts into herself

Angst w happy endingn if possible please ily!!🫶🏼

ty for requesting!! — steve tells you he likes when you talk a lot (shy!fem!r, hurt/comfort, established relationship, 1k)

Your smile is wide and unknowing. Steve thinks there’s something extra special about it because you don’t even realize it’s there. “—And since Eddie was working the register, he let me take one of the new tapes for free. You know, to try it or whatever, and he was all like, ‘flattery works with me,’ and I was like, Steve would keel over if he was here right now.”

A giggle spills from your mouth when your rambling ceases, lips curling and eyes crinkling.

Steve blinks at you with his own absentminded beam, too busy thinking about how pretty you are to react properly to your story. 

Your smile sobers slightly. “What?”

“Nothing,” he assures with the shake of his neatly styled head, rogue strands of chestnut hair draping his forehead. He shrugs and leans his elbows over the Family Video counter you stand across. “You’re just… You’re talking a lot. ’S nice.”

Your face heats. Your chest burns with a similar fire. Your eyes widen ‘cause you didn’t realize that you hadn’t shut up until now. “Oh… Sorry—”

“No, it’s good!” he tells you, laughing. “It’s a compliment.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah! I mean, I used to have to bribe you to get you to talk about your day. Remember that?”

Benny’s Burgers was your very best friend at the start of your relationship. Steve would always buy your dinner — not in exchange for you to talk exactly, but in the hopes that the additional time spent with you would help you open up. It did. Most of the time, anyway.

Your nose scrunches. “I thought you took me out because you liked me?”

“I took you out ‘cause I liked you and because the sugar rush from the milkshakes made you talk more.”

You nod once. “Right.”

The conversation ebbs. The store gets eerily silent without your voices to fill it. Steve, undeterred by the lapse in dialogue, flashes you a lopsided smile. “Wanna show me the tapes you bought?”

“Yeah,” you murmur and push off the counter. 

Steve watches you over his shoulder while you saunter down the hallway where your bag is kept. The breakroom door squeals open and shut again. A voice sounds suddenly from beside him. “Nice job, dingus,” Robin chides, gritty and montoned.

His head snaps to the other side, brows twisted with confusion. “What?”

“You hurt her feelings,” she answers like it’s obvious, dropping a stack of VHS tapes on the counter with a heavy thud.

“I didn’t even say anything!”

“You said she was talking a lot.”

“I said that I liked it!”

Robin rolls her ocean-blue eyes, huffing ‘cause he’s too oblivious to get the point. “Yeah, but if I said, Wow, you have a ton of gel in your hair— but it’s styled really nice today, it’d give you a whole complex. Wouldn’t it?”

The make-believe compliment is dreadfully backhanded. Steve’s face floods with a gentle horror, the realization of a fallacy he hadn’t realized he’d made. “Shit…”

“Exactly,” Robin deadpans. “Now go take care of your girlfriend, dingus.”

He finds you in the breakroom, idling in place. You’ve got the cassettes in your hands, and you fidget with them between anxious fingers — like you were planning to come out sometime, but not quite yet. 

You tense when the door creaks open, relaxing again when Steve enters.

“Whatcha doing?” he wonders with a crooked, pink smile.

“Getting the tapes,” you answer in a mousy voice, waving the pieces of plastic in your hand.

The door clicks shut behind him. He inches towards you, fond and terribly soft with it. “I missed you,” he confesses in a faint murmur. His wide palms settle on your sides. You warm instantly under his touch.

“I was gone for two seconds,” you respond with a quiet laugh.

“Yeah. And I felt like I was dying.”

You meet his pout with a small smile, blinking up at him with sparkling doe eyes. “You’re so dramatic.”

“I just love being around you, alright? Sue me,” he argues, squeezing softly at your hips. With a quieter smile, he confesses, “And when I said you were talking a lot— I didn’t mean anything by it, you know?”

You’d disappeared back here because you thought it was something silly to be so upset over. He’d told you it was a compliment, but it didn’t really feel like one. Your brain refused to be anything other than hurt by his well-intentioned remarks. The ache in your chest became unignorable, and you shrunk inside yourself accordingly.

“I know,” you murmur.

“I love hearing you talk,” he tells you, shy smirk widening to a lopsided beam. “It’s my favorite thing in the whole world, actually.”

Your lips purse to the side. Your anxious hands fidget with the plastic cassettes in your palms, aching to hold him. It takes you a moment or more to find the courage to speak. “I’m just… I’m normally super aware of… when I’m talking too much, you know? I was just… Excited, I guess.”

“You were. And it was really fuckin’ cute.” A laugh sputters from his lips. He wears all the love he has for you in the deep honey of his eyes, rich and swimming with warmth. “I love seeing you happy.”

“Well, you make me happy…” you whisper, gaze averted. “So, it fits…”

“Yeah, it does,” he murmurs in response, ducking down to kiss you. It’s chaste and terribly fleeting — lips locking together one moment and then smacking in protest when they separate the next. 

It takes your eyes a second too long to flutter open again after he’s pulled back from you. You find Steve already grinning as he nods to the tapes in your hands. “Wanna pop those into the radio? So we can listen to ‘em while I work?”

Your brows pinch with a distant worry. “Won’t Keith get mad?” 

“Probably,” Steve answers with an uncaring shrug. “You don’t have to worry about him, alright? I’ll take care of you.”

You melt.

[saltymarshmall0w]

So, Pre-robin Tim definitely wrote self-insert fanfiction about being Robin.

Like, a full story 400k plot starting with Jason graduating from being Robin and onto something bigger and better to the next Robin's journey, which ends up being modeled after Tim's life.

At first, some of Tim's most compelling plots are ripped straight from real missions, mostly using info the public doesn't know about.

Then, after YEARS of constantly updating this fic and being known as THE Batman Fanfic due to it's length and constant uploads, Tim is in the middle of writing a new chapter and just. stops.

"What am I even doing?"

Because at this point he's been Robin for almost a year and he's still fantasizing about being a part of a family he is already a part of.

(is he though? It's been a year and they barely acknowledge each other out of the suit, and at the end of the day he still goes home to an empty mansion)

EVEN BETTER

Five years later, one of the bats dredges the fic up from the deep dark corners of the web.

The others endlessly tease Tim for his writing as a 9-13 year-old

(they keep reading and discover between the analytical jargon and awkward dialogue a lot of worrying details that give a better peak into the traumas of his childhood. The littlest of scenes explains why Tim treats himself the way he does.)

Jason, despite initially being one of the biggest teasers, unironically loves it because little Tim's portrayal of the second Robin grew up to be eerily similar to how Jason is now. He would never say it to Tim's face, but despite (or maybe because of) being a literary nerd, he reads every chapter up until it was abandoned.

The B plot of this all is, of course, Bruce finds the fic and thinks TIM is the one with a stalker and gets really concerned about the data released in the fic.

[lokittystuckinatree]

Before season 14 breaks our fandom’s last collective brain cell: anybody else notice the Master and Thoschei was haunting the narrative in the specials big time?

Rusty made the Toymaker and the Master even more eerily similar. They also narratively foil the Doctor in the same manner.

There are multiple direct call backs and dialogue that references previous dialogue the Doctor had with the Master: the Doctor proposing to the Master and then Toymaker that they run away to the stars together; Ruby’s mom telling her “I wonder what I’d be without you.”

And the 15th Doctor telling Ruby he doesn’t have any family. 14 has Donna and 15 only has his crazy ex

Coincidence but the Master killed 13 with a giant laser and now the Toymaker has done the same

The fucking TOOTH and how the Toymaker lowkey sees the Doctor and Master as a matching set

I’m not hallucinating or reaching, am I? Whatever Russell’s up to, I’m onto it.

[sunlightmurdock]

this is your psa to just be a kind person and respect other people tysm

okay so after being subposted about a lot, I just wanted to clear some things up on my end because this was not random and I literally refuse to be made the villain here.

About a month ago, I was sent an anon about some similarities between my fic Blow by Blow and another creator’s series of drabbles. I messaged this creator calmly and we had a really nice conversation where we both agreed that lines get blurred sometimes and it’s easy to forget if you were potentially inspired by another fic you had read a while ago.

So, they had read Blow by Blow and still followed me at this point. But, they acknowledged the similarities and apologised. I was more than happy to continue with my life bc who cares.

Then, I received another anon about the same creator but about similarities between another of their series of drabbles and my fic Trouble in Paradise. I took a look for myself, and it was astounding. Upset, I blocked them. After a really upsetting day yesterday, I published that anon. I have since taken it down because exposing their name didn’t feel like the right thing to do at that point…

But, after they made a series of subposts last night claiming to have never heard of me or read any of my works, I’ve had enough to be honest. I have screenshots of this person in the likes of that fic. Even if they haven’t read the whole thing, they posted two chapters to their drabble Masterlist that were strikingly similar to chapter 1 of Trouble in Paradise, which they have liked and read. One of those chapters has since been deleted (I can only imagine why).

I reached out to them this morning explaining the situation and giving them an opportunity to talk to me, but they decided to block me instead, so here are:

similarities from the not stolen fic from a creator who has never heard of me or this work, theirs highlighted in purple while the original work (mine) is highlighted in pink. If you’ve read trouble in paradise, you may also spot some more underlying similarities. sorry in advance for the long post 🙄

so the premise of their drabble plays out exactly like the second half of Trouble in Paradise 0.1. reader is wearing the exact same thing. male mc is a stranger to the island, who on his first day has found someone exciting, happy and much younger. description of the bedroom is also looking eerily similar… they are both bartenders, who after a shift drive the male mc back to their place.

So in this realm, we can see that the dialogue is not only the exact same but once again, the reader is wearing the exact same thing and performing the same actions.

and here we have their Drabble ending the exact same way my chapter does, with the dialogue being nearly word for word the same.

I am not claiming to own the silly girl on an island trope, but after specifically speaking to this creator before about another one of my fics which had wayyyy too many similarities of theirs to be a coincidence, and them apologising, I thought we were beyond this. This creator then claimed to have never heard of me or my work.

I have screenshots of them in the likes of this fic, I know that they read at least the beginning, which is where the similarities start and end as far as I’m aware. Up until I blocked them, they had followed me for 11 months. This is the second time I have had an issue with them, after handling the first privately.

It’s really upsetting 1. not only to have had the premise of my stories rewritten by someone else but 2. for them to pretend that they have never heard of me when we have had conversations, and when I have screenshots of them interacting with my fics.

@devinedoll not really cool

[chloe-caulfield94]

The theme of suicide in Life is Strange S1

Suicide is a prominent theme in Season 1. And its depiction doesn’t end with Kate’s ordeal in Episode 2. I’d argue it’s just the first salvo and this theme continues to be explored in later episodes as well. After Episode 2, Max encounters another character going through a suicide crisis. That character of course is Chloe.

In Episode 4, when Max is in the alternate timeline, Chloe, who is paralyzed from the neck down and terminally ill asks to be put out of her misery. Max has the option to do so, by overdosing Chloe with painkillers, or refuse to do that and promise Chloe never to leave her again instead.

What Chloe asks for is assisted suicide. She doesn’t want to live anymore, but since she is unable to take her own life, she asks Max to perform the deed.

But that’s not the last time Max has to deal with someone experiencing a suicide crisis. Because Chloe experiences such a crisis twice.

What Chloe asks for in Episode 5 at the cliff is once again assisted suicide. She loses the will to go on. She gives up on herself. But once again she is unable to take her own life. In Episode 4 she couldn’t take the deadly dose of painkillers on her own, because of her paralysis. And in Episode 5 killing her would require using a magical photograph as the murder weapon, which only Max is able to do. So Chloe is once again reduced to begging Max to kill her, as she is unable to do it herself.

Look at the incredible similarities between the two scenes I mentioned. Both Max’s and Chloe’s dialogue is eerily similar in both instances. Some phrases are repeated almost verbatim. First Chloe makes the shocking ask. Then Max reacts with disbelief and says she would never be able to do such a thing. But then Chloe keeps arguing in favour of her own death. She says that her demise is inevitable and close at hand, so it might as well be Max who kills her. And in the end it’s up to the player to decide if Max’s resolve remains strong, or if she is now able to do something that the mere mention of shocked her moments ago.

Alt Chloe: “I want this time with you to be my last memory”.

Chloe: “All those moments between us were real!”

Alt Chloe: “All you have to do, is crank up the IV to 11”.

Chloe: “All that would take is for me to …”

Max (E4): “I can’t kill you!”

Max (E5): “I can’t make this choice!”

Alt Chloe: “I know I’m just putting off the inevitable”.

Chloe: “I think I should accept my fate”.

Max (E4): “I had another friend, who wanted to end it all and I did everything I could to try and save her life. How can I be responsible for ending yours?”

Max (E5): “Don’t say that! I won’t trade you!”

Max (E5): “Fuck that! No, no way! You are my number one priority now! You are all that matters to me!”

Alt Chloe: “Don’t forget about me”.

Chloe: “Don’t you forget about me!”

Alt Chloe: “I love you, Max”.

Chloe: “I’ll always love you!”

Chloe’s motivation is essentially the same in both cases. It’s a mixture of hopelessness and guilt. Hopelessness manifesting as a belief that her life could not be made better in any way. And guilt that her continued existence was supposedly hurting others, but her death would benefit them.

In Episode 4, her hopelessness stems from the conviction that whatever time she has left to live, she’ll be forced to spend it alone. That Max wouldn’t want to spend any more time with her. If Max refuses to overdose her, Chloe says “You’re just bailing on me, like everyone else”.

Max: “I’m going to help you. But not like that. You have to believe me, Chloe!”

Alt Chloe: “Why, Max? You’re just bailing on me, like everybody else”.

Max: “I am never leaving you again”.

Chloe is so used to being neglected that she instinctively assumes that Max popped back into her life just for a minute. She doesn’t even consider the possibility that Max could stay with her, give her company and comfort in the days still left. We don’t know how long Chloe had left to live in the alternate timeline. Maybe a few years? Maybe a few months? But however long or short period of time that would be, I feel it would be wrong to say that there couldn’t be any moments of joy, happiness and friendship in it. Especially if her best friend decided to spend those days with her. Chloe, in her hopelessness, couldn’t even dream of such a possibility. Of such a positive turn in her life. She thought only loneliness and despair awaited her in her final days. So why not speed things up?

And Chloe’s guilt stemmed from the emotional and financial hardship her parents had to endure due to her illness. Even though her parents loved her and wanted to fight for their daughter every step of the way, Chloe mistakenly thought they would be better off with her dead.

Alt Chloe: “My parents suffer along”.

Hopelessness and guilt fuelled Chloe’s suicide crisis in Episode 5 too. Guilt that the Storm looming over the town was inexplicably caused by Max saving her life. Guilt that pushed her to believe that she didn’t deserve to live if the cost of her survival was the town’s destruction and her best friend having to live with such a heavy burden for the rest of her days.

Chloe: “There’s so many more people in Arcadia Bay who should live. Way more than me!”

Max: “Don’t say that!”

And hopelessness, once again manifesting in the belief that Max would never want to be a part of Chloe’s life, not after all the hardships she had to endure to save her.

Chloe: “Nobody, especially you should have to go through that”.

Chloe: “I don’t blame you for wanting me out of your life”.

She assumed that she was about to be abandoned, again, for a final time, to die alone and afraid. The girl who was left behind so many times didn’t dare to dream that this time someone would choose to stay. To wait out the storm with her.

Notice that Kate was driven to a suicide attempt by a very similar combination of hopelessness and guilt. Kate thought she would forever remain branded as a drunken embarrassment, her supposed crime endlessly echoing in the hateful void of the Internet.

Kate: “I’m already on the Internet forever. No wonder they call it a web. Nothing can ever get out. Like my video”.

And she thought her sinful existence was causing grief to her dear father, who would be better off with her dead, the stain on his honour removed.

Kate: “Dad does care. Even though I hurt him”.

In both instances, should Max decide to end Chloe’s life, her last desperate plea is not to forget about her.

Chloe saw no way for her life to improve. If she couldn’t have a life filled with joy and friendship, she at least wished to become someone’s happy memory. But memories are never good enough. In time, they fade. Or worse yet, they sour.

“That impossible anger strangling the grief, until the memory of your loved ones is just poison in your veins. And one day, you catch yourself wishing the person you loved had never existed, so you’d be spared your pain”.

Max would have responded to Chloe’s dying wish with “never”. But can you honestly imagine Max nurturing the memory of the erased friendship that never was for the next seventy years of her life? The memory of a friendship discarded, nipped in the bud in the service of something supposedly greater? Max would hate herself for lacking the courage to stand by her “number one priority”. And in time, she would hate Chloe for making her feel that way.

Would Joyce find the strength to nurture the memory of Chloe? The woman who was so unable to deal with the death of her husband that she had to hide away all his photographs would now be able to keep the memory of her murdered daughter? Chloe’s pictures would join those of William in the closet. Reunited at last.

Chloe: “Wherever I end up after this, in whatever reality, all those moments between us were real!”

“Wherever I end up after this, in whatever reality” is actually nowhere. It’s the dark tunnel of a pistol barrel, suddenly illuminated by a flash of burning light. And then blood pooling on the white floor tiles, like in a slaughterhouse.

With Kate’s suicide attempt, the situation is clear. Max tries to help her the best she can. There’s no option to let her jump. Whether Max succeeds or fails in talking Kate down from the roof is a separate matter, but she always does her best to save Kate’s life. Because that’s what should be done when encountering a person experiencing a suicide crisis. Because Kate’s hopelessness and guilt were not valid reasons for her to kill herself. Because her life could’ve been improved and she had no reason to feel guilty.

With Chloe’s request in the alternate timeline it’s not as clear cut. I believe her life could’ve been improved if Max decided to accompany Chloe in her last days. And Chloe had no reason to feel guilty, because it was William’s and Joyce’s decision if they wanted to share the burden that was so unfairly thrusted upon their daughter. And they decided to share it. Ultimately, the decision to honour Chloe’s request or to refuse to do so largely rests on the way the player sees her condition. We are not given any specifics, so we are forced to speculate. The way I saw it, while Chloe’s condition in the alternate timeline was terminal, she most likely had a few years left to live. A few months at the very least. Her condition caused her a lot of physical discomfort, with recurring migraines, but she didn’t seem to be in constant pain that needed to be stopped. Playing Episode 4, I couldn’t escape the feeling that Chloe’s pain was more emotional than physical in nature. How happy she was to have spent one day with her best friend. Wasn’t her feeling of hopelessness, which made her wish for death, a product of being abandoned, at least in part? Wouldn’t she be more willing to stay for whatever time she had left if she had someone to share that time with?

But I acknowledge that we could also speculate about Chloe’s condition in the alternate timeline in a much less optimistic manner. If a person’s illness reduces their life experience to constant pain, precluding them from enjoying anything positive, even the love of their family and friends, then ending their misery seems to be the right thing to do. If we assume that was the case with Chloe in the alternate timeline, then a convincing argument might be made in favour of honouring her request.

But that ambiguity is absent when Chloe presents Max with the choice to kill her on Friday at the cliff. Chloe’s life is no longer in danger. She is safe. And if her best friend chooses to stay in her life, it could change for the better. She could gain a second chance at life. And Season 2 established that this is exactly what happens if you choose to save Chloe’s life.

I find it incredibly difficult to perceive Chloe’s self-flagellating “I don't deserve to live” speech in Episode 5 as anything other than suicidal ideation. I think her offer to be sacrificed was mostly a result of her depression and feelings of low self-esteem and hopelessness. Once she saw that her death could prevent the Storm and save Max from her guilt, it pushed her over the edge.

It would be deeply wrong for Max to take Chloe up on her offer. It would be no different than letting Kate jump, just because she wanted to when she was on the roof.

In Season 1 Chloe is depressed and I mean in the medical sense. Max can find prescription antidepressants in Chloe’s bathroom. Sweet innocent Max, not knowing what Fluoxetine is, comments the find with “Chloe is taking medicine? I hope she’s okay”, as if those were vitamins, but it’s actually a potent antidepressant.

Chloe most likely had suicidal thoughts prior to meeting Rachel. I don't know how else you can explain her standing in front of speeding trains. And she said Rachel had “saved” her, which implies she would've done something very bad hadn’t it been for her friendship with Rachel. The thoughts came back after Rachel’s disappearance. In Chloe’s hideout at the junkyard, Max can find a scribbled note which says “I want to die”. Max wonders aloud who wrote this, but at that point, Chloe has been the only one using the hideout for months. And the handwriting matches the graffiti on the walls of Chloe’s room and in her truck, as well as her “Chloe was here” signature in the junkyard.

Chloe tragically lost her father. Her mother moved on way too quickly, hiding her late husband’s photographs and refusing to acknowledge Chloe’s grief. Her only friend left and cut contact. She was bullied at school for being a “scholarship kid” from a poor family.

Max (Farewell): “What do you mean she wouldn’t leave you alone?”

Chloe (Farewell): “She was making fun of my clothes and calling me a scholarship kid”.

Rachel promised her a life together but then decided to skip town with someone else. Her stepfather made her feel worthless.

David: “For your own good, you should stay away from Chloe. She’s a loser and she’ll only drag you down”.

Can you even imagine hearing from your own parent that you’re a loser and that others should stay away from you, because you would only drag them down?

Frank hooked her up on drugs when she was sixteen if not younger. When she couldn’t pay her debt he exploited her as an accomplice to his crimes and then started threatening to cut her.

Frank: “You want me to cut you, bitch?”

Max: “Holy shit balls! Frank is scary. I should’ve let Chloe take that money!”

Nathan slipped her date rape drugs and attempted to assault her, which she barely avoided. And then, in the span of four days, she was almost killed multiple times and she found Rachel’s decayed corpse. I don’t think it’s far-fetched to argue that when a teenager who experienced all that says they want to be “sacrificed”, they should be provided with immediate care, because they are most likely in the midst of a suicide crisis. Someone who went through all that cannot make a fully informed, conscious decision to be “sacrificed”.

If Max fought tooth and nail to save Kate, who was driven to suicide by all the bad things that happened to her, wouldn’t she do the same for Chloe?

There’s no context in which letting a depressed teenager kill themselves is not an act of disgusting evil. This is something a comic book villain wouldn’t do, because that would be going too far.

Shouldn’t a game with such a strong theme of hopelessness and desperation leading to suicide end with the main character preventing suicide, not assisting in one? And given the theme of finding one’s confidence and learning to move on, wouldn’t it be much more fitting if the game ended with the main character restoring hope for a better tomorrow to someone who lost it, showing them the past has no power over them? Instead of crushing the last remains of their hope and pushing them back into the quagmire of the past, to their death?

[tainebot01]

Quick Eustace Sketch to celebrate the official release of AAI2 ^^

I’m not going to be able to play this game until November due to semester finals, but I’ve taken a quick look at a couple of Stacey’s lines from case 2, and I give them the Winning Stamp of Approval - I didn’t think it was possible for me to adore this character's writing more than I already did, but they somehow made it!

(Minor otl spoilers below)

Somehow they managed to make Stacey talk eerily similar to how I did as a teen (minus the calling people losers part, I hope I was a bit nicer back then). Just… The use of a saying, thinking it has a completely literal meaning, only to find out that it means something entirely different later on. And by “later”, I mean I literally only found out today what “sweet nothings” is really supposed to mean. I’m in this picture and I don’t like it. This was already kinda there in the ftl, but somehow it’s even worse (read: better) in the otl! There’s also a lot more energy to all the lines, and they read a lot more natural than the ftl, at least to me.

I’m surprised at how well they managed to adapt this unusual manner of speaking without directly copying the fan localization. Like I said, I’ve only really seen some of case 2 dialogue so I don’t really know if it’s like this for the entire game, or if the plot relevant malapropisms will be carried over, but fingers crossed. The ftl set such a high standard for this game that I'm sure there are a few things here or there that I’ll prefer the fanon, but that's to be expected when it's existed for a decade. I'm sure those who're experiencing this game for the first time now will have as great of an experience as I did with the fan version.

Besides, I couldn’t do this with the ftl, could I?

[somewhereincairparavel]

this is to the people who find Jason's POVS boring, what exactly in his POVS do you find uninteresting? Is it his dialogues? This is a genuine question asked out of pure curiosity. I love character analysis sm, so im eager to read the responses this post gets.

Before I picked up Hoo, I was a little brainwashed by the whole Jason-is-boring thing by the fandom. BUT. Instead of getting turned off, I was only intrigued by how much hate the guy got, I even thought that he was the bad guy or smth, causing my interest to pique about his character, ultimately picking up the lost hero. It's a little ironic actually, that the more hate I saw about him, the more I actually started to like him MUCH before I even read the lost hero. I also over spoiled my self a little while looking his character up, so I found out that he died from the very beginning (huge mistake on my part)

And after I read the whole book, I just felt like the whole boring thing was a little too exaggerated by the fandom (imo!) bc I personally thought Jason's pov was great? Like his dry ass humour and stuff. Sure, NOT as great as Percy's of course, but still good nonetheless. Is it because people were disappointed that Percy wasn't the main character? Is it because I read it in an unbiased stance?

In retrospect, I found Jason and Reyna's povs a tad similar aswell, like the tone and the way they speak/think was eerily similar to me. Yet I don't really see any criticism on Reyna's povs? I personally enjoyed both of theirs.

So back to my original question, what do you guys dislike about his POVS? Why do you dislike it more, compared to the others in the 7?

I might get cancelled for saying this but, there were moments in SON where I found Frank's povs very dry/forgettable, that I was literally itching to get to Hazel's/Percy's, so how do you guys hate Jason's povs over Frank/Reyna/Piper etc?

What makes you like the other's povs compared to his (excluding Percy/annabeth since they're the ogs)

[dramadramallama]

Love Supremacy - brain rot part 1

So I have a problem. I enjoyed the first half of Love for Love's Sake without knowing I would get absolutely bowled over by the second half. I have so much to say holy fuck, I'm all over the place.

Unfortunately for everyone, my brain has been love supremacied, and I'm unable to move on. The show has a high rewatch value. It’s full of details; big, important ones, and small, insignificant ones, but they all add a lot of weight to the story. I need to exorcise my thoughts for my own sake. I guess if I have to intellectualize it somewhat, I really liked the show cause it’s perfectly balanced in terms of structure, and its themes. Judging from the amount of notes I have made on this show on my second watch, it’s safe to say it’s got some substance. It cleverly uses a mise en abyme, “a story within a story (within a story)” to really stack all those layers, and answer an age-old, quite difficult question: “what’s crucial to a happy life?” Dialogues, scenes, characters, and motifs all echo, mirror, and circle back to one another, giving the story enough dimension to avoid banalities.

Simply put, the thesis of the show is surprisingly philosophical, with universal themes. It posits that life is neither fate nor chance, and the answers are in mundane details of life. "Happiness is hidden somewhere in each of our days."

It’s obviously about love; a double love story even. Myung-ha learns to love someone else, and himself too. It's about life, and it's about death, new beginnings, and everything in between. The show made me feel like this, and like this, and like this, and...

▶️1. Mirrors/Symmetry

2. Fate, Free Will, and Happiness

3. Game/Reality

The story structure is very symmetrical. Circular almost. I LOVE IT, I EAT IT UP LIKE A HUNGRY, GRUBBY GOBLIN. Things begin where they end, elements keep repeating themselves like a series of mirrors.

By going through the game, Myung-ha finds himself on the other side of the mirror: he is supposed to find his own happiness, and will to live.

Yeo-woon is introduced to the audience as a sad side character in someone else’s story, victim of his “fate.” He almost perfectly mirrors Myung-ha: his background is eerily similar to his. He was raised by his (recently deceased) grandma, with an absent mother and a dead-beat dad. He’s lonely, unhappy.

When Myung-ha first meets him, Yeo-woon is resolutely standing on top of a building, about to fall or jump, which directly parallels Myung-ha's own suicide. In this new iteration of life, in this “game,” he saves Yeo-woon from hurting himself, which is the start of his own salvation. Saving Yeo-woon, the poor guy who didn’t get his happy ending, is saving himself. Yeo-woon is like a version of him right before he lost control of his life, after his grandma died, and he felt abandoned by all. It’s the core of the game, and the core of the drama, but Myung-ha (and we, the audience) can’t understand it right away.

Several details, in retrospect, show that he is the driving force behind this "game", and that it’s, by lack of a better term, both a test (as in, an exercise, a learning mechanism) and a Test (as in, an exam you don't wanna fail.) Myung-ha’s main, most important mission is to “make Yeo-woon happy.” Which he happily and enthusiastically tackles. He does what we all do: he takes a liking to the character most relatable to him. Time and time again, the way he reacts when presented with someone who struggles the same way he did is very telling.

He provides comfort. The comfort he lacked in his own life. (distant sounds of my heart shattering.)

But Yeo-woon isn’t the only one mirroring elements of Myung-ha’s life. Sang-won is a careless, tough-looking student, who seems slightly directionless. He picks fights easily and has a reputation at school for being “crazy.” He also smokes and rides a motorcycle (both illegal lol). His mom having abandoned Myung-ha, it’s also relevant to note Sang-won doesn’t seem to have a very good relationship with his own mother, and craves her attention. Although, he is your typical badboy, he is overall nice, sensitive, and has good intentions.

Myung-ha himelf appears to have been quite the turbulent student, with his own “mad dog” nickname. He, just like Sang-won, knows a thing or two about school fights, also drives a bike (lmao 100% sure he didn’t wait to have a license to drive though). Although he berates Sang-won for his rebellious side, with the patronizing tone of someone who’s done it all before, he shows genuine care.

Finally, Kyung-hoon. To me, he’s like another facet of Myung-ha’s personality. An absolute sweetheart, without friends, but always ready to help, and open to be befriended. While Myung-ha seems nonchalant about speaking badly of himself, he cannot stand it from others. He makes him his friend on the spot.

Once again, he provides like-minded friends the safe space he probably would have liked as a troubled, most certainly depressed teenager. Of course, it turns out Yeo-woon hates himself the most too (and by extension, dislikes everyone else.) It's the first clue for Myung-ha to realize some self-love might be the answer.

As it will become increasingly clear, Myung-ha has no issues protecting, providing for, and loving others, but fails to realize he should do the same for himself to achieve balance, and maybe, a little bit of happiness. The journey to get there makes him care for someone else the way he should care for himself, love someone else, like he should love himself. 

The last episode does a wonderful job of confirming what seemed to be threaded through the whole show, and explaining very clearly, in no uncertain terms, what it was all about.

However, the interesting aspect of this “mirror world," is that all of them, and Yeo-woon in particular, flip the script, in more ways than one. They all are a reflection of Myung-ha's life, but transcend their condition of “fictional character.” They’re not virtual. Yeo-woon is not made of something unreal, and he’s not a messed up copy of someone else. He has his own needs, desires, and quirks.

I don't think I can name them all here, but one of my favorite circular storytelling moment happens when Yeo-woon parallels Myung-ha by running to "find his fave." That moment in ep 8 counterbalances the one in ep 1.

Nothing is written in stone, and both of them set off to build their own happiness, against fate.

[sneezemonster15]

Okay yeah this. Gotta share this. So I love watching cute animal vids like all the other thousand people per square mile, and recently I stumbled onto this one. And of course it reminded me of them, like duh, look at them.

Also now look at the comments and how not so eerily similar they are to the dialogues that go on here. @teddywiththumbs is the op, owner of the cats.

Now just to be clear, yeah cats can be gay. Along with most other animal species. Homosexual behaviour and courtship has been widely documented across species. And yeah, there is the issue of anthropomorphism (the attribution of human-like qualities to animals) as well. But I just can't help but notice how people like the commenter simply don't see what they are actually responding to when they get offended with a woman, the owner of the cats, simply stating a fact about the cats she owns. They don't see it so they think they aren't being homophobic but they are.

This is a response that I am sure some of you will relate with.

Hahahaha. No seriously, this is the case isn't it?

Sometimes when I see these posts made by SNS fans here, and in spirit they read like the creation of bards of the yore who crooned graphic songs of eternal, fantastical love about two boys who once were and were made for each other.....and I wonder if the term shipping came from 'worshipping'? Maybe it did.. Heh.

They are talking about the love, the absolute spectacle of the romance of Sasuke and Naruto, aren't they? But all that is reduced to an outcome of the mental illnesses that plague these fujoshis and dirty lesbians. What this says is, this kind of bias doesn't exist just in fandoms, it is simply a reflection of the larger society, fandoms are made of the same people. This gives us a look at how people generally think of homosexuality, fandom is simply one of the many microcosms.

Hehehe accurate. Or friends, brothers, comrades, etc.

No seriously, just to see how quickly reactive people become when it comes to homosexuality, like what a potent trigger it is. How easy it is for people to be so upset at something that is simply natural, a fact of life. And this is just cats they are talking about, but how well it translates to other things...

Like the outrage, the desperate need to explain it away in a 'safe way'......they really harassed the op for talking about her own cats. Like no one even waited a second to google how it is possible for animals to be "gay", just like some fans here who could have saved a lot of trouble if only they had used the internet for things other than reading het smut.

What I am saying is, look how similar the narratives are. It doesn't matter if it's cats or humans, it's not about that. It's about ingrained homophobia. It doesn't say so much about cats and love, it says how uncomfortable it makes people to even consider normalising homosexuality, that seeing it so clearly portrayed or documented in media really triggers their prejudices so unquestioningly, so unerringly, so insidiously, so organically, that they don't realize what they are actually reacting to and how deeply biased they are. Good thing the op was quite insightful.

It really says a lot about people's attitudes and sublimated prejudices. The op knows homosexuality makes people deeply wary, feel deeply wronged, they feel as if they are entitled to their outrage. It results in reiterating the "natural order" of things and showing righteous indignation at what they think 'maligns' it. It is the same blueprint, settings may differ.

[aemiron-main]

I'm The Only Friend You'll Ever Have: Did Patty Get Agent Smith’d During TFS? Why Is Brenner Everbody?

So, I’ve been working on some other posts re: The Matrix vs ST & the idea that the weird Brenner-esque Henward that we see during the massacre is the result of Brenner pulling a Matrix 3 Agent Smith-esque move where he’s able to possess people/infect them like a computer program.

I’m specifically talking about what Smith does where he possesses Bane and Bane still looks like Bane, just with new parallels to Smith + Smith’s mannerisms, speech patterns etc-

-rather than Smith’s other ability to assimilate other residents of the matrix into himself/take over their bodies & shapeshift into them looking like him (although something like that could also be at play here considering all of the shapeshifter stuff in ST, especially both Brenner and Patty's shapeshifter references):

And so, I’m wondering if Brenner did something similar to Henward during NINA- but anyway, like I said, I have more in-depth drafts on that in the works, but right now, I want to take that idea and also apply it to TFS- specifically, to Patty.

So, I talked in this post about Patricia from Split vs Patricia/Patty Newby, and the Brenner-One stuff and the idea of Brenner with absorption abilities, and how that could connect to Patty in TFS.

And then, also keeping in mind all of the weird simulation stuff during TFS, such as the anachronistic song references the fact that Rachel, Nevada didn’t exist until 1978, and the CONSTANT references to The Matrix during TFS etc, such as Patty being referred to as “the anomaly,” versus Neo getting called “the anomaly,” in The Matrix-

-I’m now wondering if Brenner may have pulled an Agent Smith move with Patty during some of the TFS scenes and possessed her in a very similar way to Agent Smith with Bane, and like whatever’s going on with that weird Brenner-esque Henward during the massacre.

Like a puppet master.

Let’s dig in.

So, like I said, I’m wondering if some of Patty’s scenes are Brenner basically puppeting her- NOT all of her scenes, though, and eventually I’ll go through them all & figure out which ones this does vs doesnt apply to, but the main scene that I think connects to this is the Henry-Patty kiss scene.

So, when it comes to the kiss scene, the visual parallels between the Henry-Patty kiss scene and one of the Brenner-Henry scenes have already been haunting me:

But there’s more.

There’s a dialogue line from Patty during that scene that’s always stuck out to me- when talking to Henry, she says “we’re connected, whether you like it or not”:

Which, first of all, that line stuck out to me because it just seemed kind of odd and out of character for Patty (as does quite a bit of her behaviour/lines during this scene).

But second of all, it’s not only phrased eerily similarly to how TFS Brenner phases his lines, (especially with how it’s more forceful/“whether you like it or not,” versus Brenner always trying to control Henry/referring to Henry as US government property/saying nobody cares about Henry except for him/that Henry’s going to come crawling back to him etc etc) but it’s ALSO got parallels/shared word usage with two of Brenner’s lines:

1.) We have Patty saying “we’re connected,” versus Brenner constantly telling Henry to “connect,” with the shadow:

And 2.) We have Patty saying “whether you like it or not,” versus Brenner saying “you liked it, more even than you thought you would”:

And then we also have Patty saying “let me help you,” versus Brenner saying that he’s “here to help”:

And Patty also has the clasped hands during this scene- just like how we see clasped hands with Henward during NINA and Flayed Billy etc:

And interestingly enough, Patty’s clasped hand poss is basically a perfect combination of the two main hand clasp positions- Billy & Normal Henward’s (not pictured above but his hand clasp pose is the same as Billy’s) hand clasp position vs Weird Henward’s hand clasp position (hes the one in the above pic).

And on top of all that, during this scene, Henry says “it’s not you,” to Patty during this scene:

Which, on the surface, Henry is saying that Patty isn’t the problem/that Patty Herself Specifically isn’t the reason why he doesn’t want to do the kiss- but when we look at it subtext-wise, it connects to the idea that this literally isn’t Patty during this scene.

And that line gets EXTRA suspicious considering that we JUST saw a vision/fake version of Patty/“Not Patty” in the bathroom right before the kiss scene, wearing the same blue dress and everything- and doing the SAME HAND CLASP AS SHE DOES DURING THE KISS SCENE:

And so who knows if the kiss scene even really happened at all but that’s a whole other topic. So whether she’s being puppeted by Brenner or not, and whether the kiss scene is totally or partially a vision or not a vision at all, it still seems likely that this “isn’t Patty” during the kiss scene. Ppersonally, I’m wondering if this “isn’t Patty,” but not in the same way that the bathroom Patty wasn’t Patty, like with the bathroom scene being a vision & “not Patty” because that “Patty” isnt real vs kiss scene “Patty” being Patty physically but with some sort of weird Brenner puppeting stiff going on, esp because while Vision Patty and Kiss Scene Patty do both have the same hand clasp, Vision Scene Patty’s hair/wig is very obviously/intentionally wrong, which isn’t the case for Kiss Scene Patty However, despite what I just said, oddly enough, Patty also has the weird wig during the entire classroom scene that happens right BEFORE that bathroom scene (it might be hard to tell just from a screenshot but I 1000% guarantee that this wig in the pic is not her usual wig and IS the same as her bathroom scene wig):

And while at first I went "hmm, maybe this weird wig thing IS just a genuine "error"/her wig looks weird because she ends up pulling clips of it out and has a whole weird scalp brain thing under that wig during the bathroom scene so maybe that's why this wig looks odd, because they have to fit all that under there" but a.) there's so much 1000% intentional weirdness going on with the TFS hair/wigs (see: things like this post where I talked about Calum Ross' weird brown haired Henry wig versus brown haired 7 year old Henry) and the idea of wigs plays a large role in ST in general (see: S1 El's blonde wig), so they're very particular about how they use wigs/hair & how that connects to the plot, and b.) there's a fair bit of time where we see Henry alone in the bathroom prior to Vision Patty showing up/a fair bit of time where we aren't seeing Patty at all, so it seems like there may have been ample time to swap her wig from her normal wig to the vision scene wig (espeically since they quickly swap from the vision scene wig to the normal wig AFTER the vision scene for the kiss scene, like theres WAY less time between those scenes vs between the classroom scene and the bathroom scene, and it's Ella Karuna Williams in all of these scenes, so it's not just double with different wigs, instead, they ARE rapidly swapping Ella's wig).

So, did any of that scene really happen??? Did the scene before the bathroom scene even happen?? Did the kiss scene even happen??

And also, going back to The Matrix briefly, and what I talked about re: Agent Smith puppeting Bane, Vision Patty in the bathroom has a line that references the exact scene where it's revealed that Smith was puppeting Bane- Vision Patty says "We want the same thing" versus Smith-As-Bane saying "I want what you want":

Not to mention that right after that line, Smith-As-Bane says these lines about "nowhere"- versus Patty being the "girl from nowhere":

And so, I hate to say this, but if Brenner was puppeting Patty in some sort of simulation in that scene, then that makes the Henry-Patty kiss even worse- but it would track with all of the in-show “Brenner’s a creep” subtext re: Brenner and Henry, and would also track with how weird Brenner is towards Henry in TFS- TFS Brenner straight up acts like a jealous husband towards Henry and treats him like a battered wife.

The weird “””””romantic””””” tones from Brenner towards Henry are VERY on the nose, like there’s a parallel between Brenner/Henry and Byler- Brenner is acting all weird and jealous because Henry wants to leave the lab, but instead of assuming that “hey, maybe he wants to leave because everything that’s happening here is fucking horrifying and he also just almost died in here a little while ago,” Brenner instead immediately jumps to “you want to leave because you want to go to prom with some STUPID GIRL,” in a DIRECT parallel to the Byler rain fight scene:

Point is, having Brenner puppeting Patty during a kiss scene where Henry very much did NOT want to kiss would align with all of Brenner in-show creep stuff AND with the way he behaves towards Henry in TFS.

It could also tie into all of the HNL conversion therapy imagery, especially since TFS Henry is painfully gay, and Patty very well might be a lesbian (Lonnie’s line about lesbian vs thespians vs Patty acting in the DOTM play & Patty’s robin parallels & Barbara Holland being a lesbian vs Patty playing Barbara Allen in the play etc etc) and so, there’s definitely conversion therapy vibes when it comes to puppeting a lesbian and making her kiss a boy & at the same time, making a gay boy kiss a girl as a result/Henry didn’t want the kiss, so the forced/lowkey conversion therapy vibes are definitely there for him AND for Patty re: her being puppeted.

And hell, further reinforcing the idea that Henry/Patty were being puppeted here (especially Patty), the kiss takes place on a STAGE, when they’re supposed to be ACTING, when they’re supposed to be PRETENDING TO BE SOMEBODY ELSE- which would connect to Brenner pretending to be Patty when puppeting her Agent Smith style, just like how Agent Smith pretends to be Bane). And also, Brenner later has a line of dialogue that's VERY suspicious in the context of the idea of "Patty" actually being Brenner/being puppeted by Brenner in some scenes- Brenner says "And hell, further reinforcing the idea that Henry/Patty were being puppeted here (especially Patty), the kiss takes place on a STAGE, when they’re supposed to be ACTING, when they’re supposed to be PRETENDING TO BE SOMEBODY ELSE- which would connect to Brenner pretending to be Patty when puppeting her Agent Smith style, just like how Agent Smith pretends to be Bane).

And there’s also all of the weird Vecna-Brenner connections in ST, plus the shadow of Vecna flashing over Brenner at the end of TFS-

-which then brings me to a.) how often Vecna appears as a woman in visions, looking like rotten versions of Chrissy’s mom and replacing Max’s mom with himself and b.) the fact that right before the kiss scene, we saw a vision version of Patty who looked normal at first, but then started transforming and rotting just like the Vecna versions of Chrissy’s mom and Max’s mom AND we also saw the same thing happen to Patty’s mom (which also lmao if Henry is supposedly solely Vecna with no weird Brenner merging or anything else involved, how the hell was he having what’s basically Vecna visions during TFS?).

And speaking of mothers, this whole puppeting may not end at Patty- because I’m also staring at Virginia.

Especially since one of the Virginia-Henry scenes also parallels the Brenner-Henry face holding scene and the Henry-Patty kiss scene:

And Brenner also has a line whre he says "you think you can run back home to mommy and be a good boy again?" to Henry- which, that line implies that Virginia called Henry a "good boy" at some point/saw him as a good boy/tldr they're connecting the phrase "good boy" to Virginia- which then makes it VERY suspicious when Brenner calls Henry a "good boy" at the end of TFS:

Brenner, why are you everybody?? Why are you Henry's mother?? Is it because you're puppeting people??

And also, TFS Brenner has another extremely suspicious line when it comes to this whole "people in Henry's life are actually Brenner"/in the context of the idea of "Patty" actually being Brenner/being puppeted by Brenner in some scenes- Brenner says "I'm the only friend you'll ever have" to Henry, which, Fake Patty also brought up being Henry's friend during the bathroom scene, and the word "friend" was also associated with Brenner back in S1- so while on the surface, Brenner is telling Henry that nobody loves him/that he only has Brenner, there may also be a literal double meaning here, that meaning being that all of Henry's "friends" in TFS (see: Patty) are actually Brenner because TFS involves some sort of weird simulation, and Patty is being puppetted by Brenner:

And again, I’m not saying that in the ACTUAL events of 1959, Brenner was puppeting everyone- I think that TFS Virginia is likely accurate to what actually happened with Virginia, and that Patty was a real person at some poiint, BUT TFS has so many references to it not being real/it being some sort of memories/simulation/alternate timeline/combination of all of those, that I think within the simulation, Brenner is puppeting people around/possessing them Agent Smith style. Like TFS Henry’s likely got actual memories of Virginia and Patty,, but some of those TFS scenes are likely Brenner messing with Henry’s memories by puppeting the memory-simulation version of Virginia around, like when you’re playing The Sims & start actually making your Sim do things instead of letting them do stuff on their own- I think that’s what Brenner’s doing, he’s nabbing various Sims, playing as them to mess with Henry within the simulation, and then letting them go back to “normal”.

Like, imagine if when El was in NINA, we got shown that Brenner was puppeting 002 & pretending to act like he really was 002 while possessing him- that’s what I mean here except Henry’s the one getting NINA’d, and that’s also what I think happened with that weird Brenner-esque Henward during NINA.

Not to mention all of the weird shadow hivemind stuf and the fact that if Patty and Brenner were also connected to the hivemind, who knows what sort of weird possession stuff could be happening…

Anyway! Just some Thoughts!

[afkenma]

bakings never been so chaotic: karasuno first year drabble.

A/N: HEY HI HELLO AGAIN!! For my second piece I decided to exclude a reader and try to work on my biggest enemy; dialogue. it probably won’t be as sweet as the first one but I think it’s the grind that counts, kita said something similar, didn’t he? Either way your gonna see my perception of each character here, and I’ve come armed for criticism!!

“Alright, here’s our plan,” Yamaguchi declared with a toothy grin on his face and and a rolled peice of paper in his hands. Gathered around him were the rest of the first years, each seated on brown dining chairs circling a round, simple dining table. He begun to spread out the paper on the table, for everyone to lean in and take a better look at, except Tsukishima, who’s already seen the pictures. (“your overdoing it.”)

The paper was a simple comic, coloured and sketched in black ink, and using stick figures to narrate the plan. Yamaguchi assertively points to the first one. “…As you can see, everyone is gonna go into the kitchen and use these cups to measure the ingredients, and Hinata, Kageyama, flour is a white powder here, not the plants.”

“Yes, sir!” The oddball duo exclaimed, as Yachi timidly nods out her agreement.

“And then—” He dragged his finger to the second sketch, “We’re gonna add everything into the bowl in order, and mix.”

“Yes, sir!” They repeat, with more passion that suggested they were more exited to start than before. Tsukishima reluctancly nods with Yachi. Yamaguchi excitedly glances around the room in a smile, before finishing.

“Then finally, we’re gonna bake and decorate the best cake ever!” He then neatly folds the paper, as the freak duo spring out of their seats like slinkies with a loud “Yes, Sir!”, bolting to yamaguchi’s kitchen to start first, yachi in tow.

“They’re too exited. I can’t imagine how many mugs, cups and dishes are going to be destroyed by the end of this.” Tsukishima scoffs, taking in his arms a small audio speaker Yamaguchi was shoving at him.

“It’ll be fine, I think. You just focus on good music.” Yamaguchi hushed, flailing a limp rist around to undermind the very possible reality. He leaves Tsukishima in the dining hall, where the taller realizes that the speakers in his hand look an awful lot like the ones he tragically lost last year.

Concerning bangs and unidentified noises greet Yamaguchi at the doorframe, which leads him to wonder if he’ll even be able to take a ‘told you so’ when paying his parents for the damages, but upon turning a knob and opening a door, he’s subjected to an eerily-underestimated scene. The twins in orange and blue are carefully measuring out all-purpose baking flour in translucent measuring cups, attentively following Yachi’s instructions to them. They toss snide remarks at the other’s performance, but it’s enough to relieve his worries…until he watches them continue to siv in the flour into metalic bowl even after he’s certainly already seen them add four cups.

“G-guys, your overdoing it, too.” He steps in. Yachi keenly leans into his attention and smiles.

“Don’t worry, they haven’t reached the nine cups yet.” She hesitantly assures.

“H..huh? The recipe didn’t say to add four?”

“Four!? But…I just read—” Her voice instantly dies in her throat as her eyes scan, then frantically re-scans the first handwritten line of the instructions, panicked over her mistake. “Ah…What!?! I’m sorry, I-I’m sosososorry!! Here!” She slurs out as she swoops the measuring cup off kageyama’s hand and aggressively shoves scoops of flour back in. Yamaguchi catches her contagious fears, but profusely re-assures her that it’s okay and to take no mind to it, and Hinata smugly scolds Kageyama on how he knew he was right when he “…Said it looked like too much! Mom never adds this much into her pancakes”

“That’s because it’s flaming pancakes, of course it’s gonna have less flour, dumbass!”

“Oh shut up, I’m still right!”

“You’re right as you all tall.”

“W-what’d you say to me?!”

Four minutes was enough for any sense to be completely disposed of and ten screaming children would look like angels put next to this kitchen, which were the exaggerated thoughts of Tsukishima cautiously entering through the kitchen door into the unsheathed chaos, handling the speaker that sung a default playlist from Spotify. Yamaguchi hastingly scurries toward him, shamed and about ready to cry. “Please don’t say I told you so, but—”

“Told you so.”

(they never finished measuring the ingredients, or baking anything at all. Instead, they were all subjected to the harsh scolding of Yamaguchi’s mother once she stumbled home and into the flour-bombed room)

[junegirl06]

A more literal interpretation of Jevil's "freedom" (also some rambling)

The last post I did on Jevil- I talked about how his "freedom" could be like a sort of "inner freedom." He is trapped physically, but free from the contraints of responsibility, society, morality, etc. Now, I think that mindset is exactly the thing that led him to do whatever he did to get imprisoned, but the freedom he talks about in game might be a different thing entirely.

The thing that got me thinking about that is a video by halfbreadchaos. (I forgot the specific video but check them out- they make great stuff) They led me to notice the fact that Jevils prison is very oddly positioned, and the entire "???" floor area as a whole is really strange as well.

The room itself looks eerily similar to that first area we wake up in on chapter 1. The creepy atmosphere, the color of the floors (kinda), and the torches are literally the same as the ones found in that pre-castle town area. The entire place looks so incredibly different from the rest of the card castle. The walls and surrounding area don't even seem to be like... there. Like it's some sort of abyss. Like the entire room is out of bounds of something.

Jevil's cell/room shares a very similar vibe in that aspect as well. On the outside, the bars just seem to lead into nothing. And even on the inside, It just looks... wrong. The spinning carousel thing is so different from anything else in the game. I mean, toby said it's made out of 2D parts, but it's obviously supposed to look kinda 3D. The characters aren't even standing on the thing properly. Even behind the carousel, it's just more nothingness.

____

Now, let's look at Jevils dialogue directly.

"BUT I'M FAST, FAST, CLEVER, CLEVER." "THEY LOST THE CHASE, AND LOCKED UP THEIR ENTIRE RACE." "BUILDING A PRISON AROUND THE WHOLE WORLD. NOW I'M THE ONLY FREE ONE." Ralsei: "But you're clearly the one behind bars..." "THINGS DON'T SEEM SUCH FROM HERE LIGHTNERS!"

Looking at this completely literally, this is what we can gather: The guards and/or Seam chased him around, but he was too fast and clever for them. They somehow decided to build a prison around the dark world and trapped everyone behind bars, making Jevil the only free one. This is obviously not the case. If we try to fit this interpretation into what we know about the dark world and Jevil's situation... it uh, kinda looks like he's joking about how it looks like everybody is trapped because he's looking at them through bars.

But that answer is pretty boring, isn't it? There is obviously a lot more we can read into the dialogue. Jevil is shown to speak with a certain bit of abstractness. This analysis is supposed to be a more literal interpretation, but it's clear we need to look a little more deeper than that.

____

Let's take what I brought up before the dialogue, along with some other points.

Jevil's prison is very clearly separated from the rest of the dark world. Hell, maybe even the rest of the game with how odd it is.

Jevil talks about how everybody else is trapped, and he is the only "free" one.

This freedom doesn't exactly seem to be "inner freedom," as he directly connects his prison with this "freedom" by inviting us "outside" when we use the key on the door.

They way he doesn't elaborate any further when we do enter his room, and because the characters don't seem to have like, any sudden revelations or something inside of the room, leads me to believe that it's that inherent oddness, that separation from the "normal" part of the game that Jevil is finding freedom in.

Nobody in the world of Deltarune technically has automony over their choices. Every single choice, every event, is because of the plot. All of these people are characters in a video game, able to be manipulated by higher forces on a whim. Gaster/the mysterious entity made Jevil realize this and drove him insane with the knowledge.

Now, Jevil doesn't actively dispise that fact like Spamton does. He might almost relish in it- as he did go on that "NOTHING MATTERS EVERYTHING IS A SIMULATION! UEEHEEHEE!!!" rampage that caused so much chaos.

But then he faced the consequences of his actions. His own coworker/quite possibily a good friend locked him up in this dark, creepy place far, far below where the regular prisoners are supposed to go. And it all felt quite... stupid.

"Look at all those little people, obediently following the rules of this worthless world. They don't realize, don't they? They've simply placed another peice in the great game being set up by the higher beings. They're just walking themselves closer and closer into their eventual end. It's almost as if... they're trapping themselves. Building a prison around all of them, allowing themselves to be puppeteered by the people who control the world.

Hah! I'm quite clever, aren't I? Thanks to what I've done, I've been relagated as even lesser than a side character, sitting in a little haven tucked away from the influences of the outside world... No, I'm the one looking from the outside this time. I'm the only one here who truly understands, aren't I? But it's not my job to enlighten such fools. I'll be content watching from the backseat as the chaos unfolds..."

___

I, uh... didn't mean to write a fanfic- but I'm pretty sure that's Jevil's mindset. He fully accepts this messed up world he's inside, but he defnitely wouldn't mind if he was granted a little more freedom. And somehow... that's what he got. As a secret boss, he's... basically fully separated from the main story, but his presence is still enough to make it clear he exists in the world.

He's "free" in a much more literal sense than I intially thought. After all, isn't being that pedestrian on the streets who (hopefully) doesn't get caught in the crossfire of the MC's the best freedom any story could give?