#granted i don't have much writing time

[icewindandboringhorror]

boy in silly sitting positions compilation

[johnslittlespoon]

ohhh my GOD it's 4am and ch3 of the dog coded fic is finally done i could WEEPPP lfg

i literally had to save half the scenes i planned out for the next chapter bc it was already nearly 5k words and it would've ended up being like 9k otherwise lmaoo and it's a lotta them yapping but ykw. it's progress so idc <33 just need the bestie to beta when i wake up and then hopefullyyy will post before tonight :') thank u for ur patience as always i rly rly appreciate it <3333

[mariocki]

Parasite (1982)

"That thing on your stomach..."

"A new strain of parasite. I deserve it, in a way. I created it."

"For the Merchants? Why?"

"I thought for the government. They're so mixed up with the Merchants now, they work for one another. This 'thing', as you call it, is growing. It's dormant now but it will soon grow larger... and kill me."

[desalvar]

ayo i'm not dead!

[orchideae]

When I approach Yelan (or anyone else I've written), I don't just look directly at her character, but I also look at her surroundings. Both the ones that she knows by some semblance of necessity, but also those that she chooses. Like here, I talked about the Chasm, and what being 'okay' with existing down there needs to mean for a character, because it's not normal. Someone's surroundings, room, or home say a lot bout who they are and what their mindset, or specifically, their perspective is of the world. And sometimes, I think it says more about people than even the characters realize.

This brings me to the topic of the city of Fontaine. Now, I personally think it's rather obvious that a lot of the nation takes from historical France, and so when looking at it, I think it really adds to remember its monarchy, the view that the 'common folk' had of it, and its inevitable demise to non-existence today in terms of importance as a result. So my first question is, who constructed or decided on its layout? Was it Furina, Neuvillette, Egeria? Whoever it was, there's a lot that can be said about their view of the world and their placement in it when you look at locations of buildings. Look at where Palais Mermonia, its governing body, is located within the city; it sits at a rather astounding elevation in comparison to, well, everything and everyone else in the city. This frequently represents the concept of 'distance' between groups in one way or another, and seeing the consistency in other nations, this is something that is rather intriguing to me, especially keeping Fontaine's characters in mind (and considering this is the nation of 'justice'). Mondstadt has everything almost entirely uniform, with arguably the church on the highest level (but it isn't greatly elevated in comparison to all else), but it's joined with the plaza and statue which are a common gathering site for all people in the city. Liyue had the gods and adepti visibly living among the humans back in the days of the Guili Assembly for reasons of 'integration' (my apologies to numerous from our dear Guizhong!) The fact that numerous adepti now live far outside of the harbor is a different matter entirely, and the one who seems to function within a semblance of separation of sorts is Ningguang with the Jade Chamber (but I'm not one to speak on behalf of her character as I don't bear the knowledge). Inazuma also has the Tenshukaku at a higher elevation in comparison to the rest of Inazuma City. Sumeru is interesting, but ultimately Nahida was kept at the very peak of the city, far out of reach of humanity— but that's exactly the common denominator that has my interest, the distance between the 'governing body' and humanity for one reason or another.

But Fontaine really takes separation to a different level in my opinion (and again, think of this when you think of the person having designed the whole city), not only because of the above which I'll elaborate more on in a moment, but also its separation from the outside world. Now, this is interesting to think about if you keep in mind that it was perhaps done in eventual protection of the city's inhabitants in terms of the prophecy (which means that this would have been constructed anywhere during or after Egeria's reign), but then why is only Palais Mermonia far above the water's reach? If the walls surrounding the city were ever breached during said prophecy, all its inhabitants are pretty much immediately caught in the flood and would drown, which tells me nothing positive of the city's 'architect' or whoever signed off on the designs. But if not done for the prophecy, then why? Stand in the middle of the Court of Fontaine and really look around you, the only sights you really have of the outside world are the sky, and it's obstructed by a fair bit of the waterways and gardens that hang overhead, which you can only properly enjoy when you take the ages long elevator to the upper level where the palace is located (which, credit due, seems freely accessible to everyone in present-time). But if you don't venture up, how much of the outside world do you get to see? It feels very secluded, very much under lock and key. On some level (and this is one of the many reasons why I think that the Meropide is so excessively important in Fontaine and it's likely why we spent so much time there; it's all to show the ever, ever important contrast and nuance between this 'autonomous nation within Fontaine' and, well, 'Fontaine'), it almost feels like a prison, regardless of how pretty it may look or come across (and despite not 'lacking rights'). And considering how people in the Meropide speak of not always wanting to return back to the 'overworld' following their sentence, I think that there's definitely quite a bit of truth in that. But again, stand there and look around for yourself.

Now to return to the original topic, but keeping the last one in mind as well, look at one other thing that I'm unsure how many have really kept an eye on: the massive effect Palais Mermonia's level has on the rest of the area (inside and outside of its walls). Have you ever walked through the city of Fontaine at any given time of day or night, north to south, east to west, clockwise or counter-clockwise circling through it; have you ever seen how it overshadows an immense part of the streets below it either entirely on its own (which to me signifies a very domineering presence), or together with those outer walls that surround the city? I know how I've spoken thoroughly with people before about how much I enjoy Fontaine and how dark it is in its storytelling, but despite how gorgeous this region with its water- and landscapes are; its city bears quite a heavy weight to me. I don't know who designed it, or ordered it to be constructed in this way, but nothing about the city itself truly, rationally, shows a healthy perspective versus its citizens.

Me: /continues on to ramble in tags because I'm me and I'm a nuisance with always more to say than I know how to coherently put into these posts.

[lieutenantselnia]

Internet archive I love you❤️❤️❤️

[castleinthemist]

finally read through understanding comic and goddam it's good. I love learning about critical ways to look at mediums. Been mulling it over in a sense about video games since there was a post about games being art so majority of them are bad, and while i don't disagree with that statement, I think such a medium is fairly young-ish(being only 40-50 years old) and i'm sure other mediums didn't have all their shit sorted out by that point - regardless, there is already plently of critical writing about games as a medium and industry but also it's important to understand that a great swathe of the art produced in the medium is commerical and that's the predominate way people interface with, and understand it, and that that colours most of the citical discussions on it.

[valentine-writes]

y/n who does a funny little thing where they keep taking a little nap in the strangest places while they're supposed to be actively working.

it's not a huge deal since they mostly work after hours in the late night, but... like. why? they never seem tired and the napping spots are... weird. and they're innocent really– but most can't help but notice how the locations become increasingly odd.

it starts somewhere tame and unexpected– there they are, sitting asleep in an out of service go kart at roxy's raceway. roxanne wolf barely even thinks about how uncomfortable the position is, slumped in the seat, head at an angle which almost guarantees a sore neck. roxy just wakes y/n up. y/n laughs it off, apologizes, and goes on with work.

in the kitchen, where the pizzas are made, chica sneaks in to grab discarded trash and other food items that may have been deemed unsafe or unfit for human consumption by now. and there's y/n, sleeping while sitting upright, back leaned against a fridge. chica tries to tip toe around them– but they snap awake. alarmed, chica tries to explain herself– but they only apologize for napping on the job, as per usual, and returns back to their duties.

after hours in the green room are usually reserved for the animatronics to get some alone time. practice for their next show, give themselves pep talks in the mirror, rip everything and anything in the room to shreds if you're monty, or just reorganize, decorating with the bits of fan creations received that day. freddy does this last task very often, considering constantly he received many gifts from his adoring fans. today, his ears pick up a faint noise... something unfamiliar. he sets down a letter on his vanity, looking around. no one. he slowly reads through, hangs some drawings of him up made by enthusiastic children– and heard the noise again. although he's sure of what it is now.

there's a soft snoring, coming from the vents above. lo and behold, from the panel of the vent he can spot their familiar resting figure. how'd they get in there?

by now, everyone's aware of y/n's weird napping habits. it's just a race see who finds them next.

...

curled atop a pile of discarded staff bots, limbs torn from their non-operational bodies, decapitated, and some too dismantled up to even identify as staff bots– is y/n. their eyes are shut, their body completely still.

a certain gator's gaze fixes on them– too scared to scan their vitals, but much too concerned not to move any closer. maybe, this time they weren't sleeping. there was a real possibility someone harmed you– something had knocked you unconscious, leaving you splayed across the pieces and remnants of much more unfortunate staff bots.

if this montgomery could breathe, his breath would be baited.

approaching carefully, slowly, as if too horrified to even figure out their current state–

he watches a small yawn escapes their lips, eyes slowly fluttering open.

"oh... hi." y/n rubs the sleep out of their eyes, as if there's nothing wrong with this current situation or location. they smile up at monty, who wears an expression that is unfamiliar on his face. concern.

"...i just had the weirdest dream." thinking very little about the entire situation, they simply chuckle and shrug their shoulders, apologizing about their strange little nap mishap.

monty only stares a moment. there's a glint in their eyes of something unfamiliar. before he can even speak, they stand up and stretch, walking off briskly.

y/n's good at acting like nothing is out of place. they're casual, nonchalant– as if this was just another nap in the go kart or kitchen.

the truth was, resistance to the afton virus wasn't effortless. it was draining– living hell, as they fought for the right of autonomy, while the stranger within their body grasped for the controls to their mind.

fighting it back took a lot of control. like draining energy from a battery. when that battery ran out, rendering them unconscious as the virus took control? well. y/n didn't quite know what took place once they snapped out of it.

good thing the afton virus dulled their feelings of regret too. maybe the indifference towards their actions was somewhat of a secret blessing.

y/n didn't even worry about being suspected. they didn't wonder whether any of the animatronics picked up on the subtle violet tint in their eyes. being the one sitting in the passenger's seat of their own brain, while someone else took the wheel–

it wasn't their job to worry about it.

[yellowocaballero]

this entire chapter was a joy to read but I gotta say I 100% understand knives’ fear of brad—the opening scene was one of the most strangely fear inducing things I’ve ever read. kudos and 10/10 for making me feel nauseous over what turns out to be a very funny scene of knives getting murder-grounded

Love this ask. Love asks about experiences that surprise me a lot, in a good way - part of me is always like 'write a dialectical essay on why you think so???' and the other part is 'the picture and vibes you've painted is incredibly funny and I love it'. Thank you for the ask anyway. Get to talk about Brad and Luida FINALLY.

I'm deciding that this is a victory, because it gave you a great insight into exactly how Knives felt LMFAOOO. He has spent literally this entire story acting superior, holier-than-thou, won't shut up about how he's physiologically and mentally leagues ahead of you puny humans, you're so lame and pathetic and Millions "Genius Cool Guy Surgeon" Knives is soooo much better than you. And then the minute he goes home and sees his foster parents he is suddenly the goodest little boy who you would both introduce to your parents and give a doggy treat. They are two geriatric astronauts and Millions Knives is pants-shittingly terrified of them.

I was legitimately a bit worried that I wrote Brad as too harsh in the flashback scene, or uncomfortable-in-a-bad-way in the beginning scene. I was really careful with both. How Brad and Luida raised Knives is absolutely not a great method of parenting, lmfao. But they weren't really raising a child - they were taming a tiger. I think you can safely assume that Knives was not given a single inch his entire adolescence. He didn't get away with shit. That's how behavioral conditioning works. I really can't stress enough that, although Knives is a pretty good guy in the present, he is still the literal actual Millions Knives. And what 14yo Knives here got up to wasn't all that different from what canonical 14yo Knives was getting up to. The difference is Brad and Luida - and they knew exactly what they were trying to prevent. They knew they couldn't fuck up. They knew what would happen if Knives didn't change. It must have been a lot of pressure.

The sheer balls on the guy who walks up to Millions Knives and just goes, "Okay, asshole. Kill me. Do it.". So insane that it gaslights Knives into believing that Brad and Luida are the only superior lifeforms to himself.

But at the end of the day, what that scene still conveys is - it's a farce. Their family is a social contract: Brad and Luida will give Knives what he wants (a meaning to his life, and on a deeper level he won't acknowledge, a family), and in return Knives politely pretends that they are remotely capable of controlling him. A handcuff is an insanely restrictive method of grounding somebody - and obviously Knives could have gotten outb of it any time. But Knives lets them do it, because if he doesn't then it would break the keyfabe, the farce. And that would destroy Knives' only path towards becoming a good person. Because Brad and Luida told him that they are the only path towards becoming a good person. And if you aren't a good person you have no reason to exist btw. Also we don't love you anymore.

Kinda fucked up if Knives was, like, a regular child? Yes. Only sensible thing to do if the child was Millions Knives? Yes. It's complicated but that's why I really love it. Also for the insane funniness of Knives experiencing fear.

TL;DR Handcuffing your child to its bed is only okay if the child has bad vibes and is unfun to be around.

[anyroads]

Posts I've seen in just the last week:

AO3 is one of the most visited sites in the world

It's ok if your fanfic [that you're writing for free in your spare time] is unfinished! You do you!

How very dare these WGA writers not finish writing my stories for me [that they spend full work days every day working on] just because they don't get compensated fairly for their paid labor and decided to go on strike?

Respect unions! Unionize your workplace! Respect picket lines!

Posts I have not seen ever but maybe it's just me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

AO3 would not exist without the paid writers who are currently striking. You would have no stories to write fanfic of. The entire world your fic exists in was created by someone else's labor.

[binch-i-might-be]

while I'm back to Novel Posting on main I wanted to mention that Alex's dad will also get an overhaul <3

[jammy-badger]

okay quick rant

fucken hate how christian/catholic/whatever people act like a kicked puppy whenever you express even a remote discomfort about them or their religion

like ill say the smallest thing about how im not religious or at most like an offhand mention of like, 'yeah no im not religious because of past bad experiences as a queer neurodivergent person and im not interested in or comfortable with engaging with it' and they ALWAYS take it like a personal attack, or worse an invitation into a theological debate

like i totally understand how all-consuming christian (and all its variants, don't @ me) faith can be, ive been there, but would it kill you to just have a little self-awareness about you?

however good your intentions may be, it costs nothing to consider how christianity/catholicism/whatever has huge connotations to queerphobia, racism/colonialism, ableism and abuse and that countless people from vulnerable groups have suffered, and that people's discomfort is not an invitation to justify or defend yourself or your faith. seriously

[tea-of-destiny]

I guess the most I have to say about Evan Barde is that he was a caring father. He cared about Arianna to the point of destroying other people's lives so that his daughter would live by shutting down the factory and preventing the pollution. Which is like...cool motive, but it doesn't fix the poverty or the general class struggle -- one of the other major themes portrayed in the game, with the divide between the Black Ravens and the other kids (Luke & Finch & the Bardes) being a microcosm of the larger conflicts in Misthallery in general between the disgruntled factory workers and the upper class adults who are not disgruntled factory workers. And Emmy's backstory, too -- she's portrayed as, at the very least, of a lower class than the person accusing her of stealing money. It's definitely a nice change of pace, considering that we do have some very rich people in other games that do some pretty outrageous things (Clive, the Ledores, Baron Reinhold). (To an extent this was also present in Diabolical Box with the mines, but it's less focused on than in Last Specter.) Evan Barde is the ultimate culmination of this theme -- he's the rich guy in town, the one who ruined everyone's lives because he had money and """was too self-obsessed to see that everyone else didn't""".

I don't really have a neat way to conclude this, so I'll just leave my thoughts here! From the length of this paragraph it's a good thing I didn't leave this as a reply haha I would definitely have hit the character limit

.

[aeide-thea]

still picking my way thru s3 of the witcher episode by agonizing episode but it's going SO slowly bc every time i watch one it's just like. right. this show is a B movie now and not in a good way

[kerorowhump]

[spectrearia-archive]

can't believe in a little over a week, it'll be a whole year since i started writing khalan's journal :0 i've never kept up with a writing project like that for so long before (it's at 27k words now!) so i'm really proud of myself for sticking with it for this long ;o;

haven't updated it online in forever, mostly because i've been writing the entries out of order and have to slowly piece them together... but hopefully I can get back to sharing it again sometime soon. it's such a passion project of mine and i gotta remind myself that even if no one reads it or cares, that shouldn't stop me from writing anyway <3