#i'm always down to talk about it

[introspectivememories]

too many of you guys think nico is the loser and not lewis for letting the divorce go on for so long. like they're both losers about each other. emotionally constipated idiots who can't talk about their toxic homoerotic friendship that imploded on itself like 8 years ago and are now making it everyone else's problem. yeah nico's on television or in beer gardens talking about lewis all the time but like every other month some reporter is like "lewis, what's your favorite moment in your career?" and lewis no hesitation is like "oh man, karting, y'know? everything was simpler then" and then spends another six months skirting around nico's name. like this whole thing they're doing in the media isn't some kinda extended foreplay for them. they're both still pressing on the bruise to make sure it's still there!!! every few months, they're literally just asking on public television, does it still hurt for you like it does for me? and like clockwork, someone will release new information about them or one of them will say something about each other (in my heart, he's still my best friend/yes... and teammate) and the answer will remain the same, yes, of course, always.

[sysig]

Two skeletons in a trench lab coat (Patreon)

Bonus:

He’s very careful! Everything was fine before you interrupted!

[royalarchivist]

Pac: I wish I had a really nice background story for my- why I'm here. But you know, Felps just crashed the ship and I'm stuck! Fit: You've got an interesting history though, Pac! I mean, look at you escaping that prison! Like, that was not easy for you to do. [...] You've told me lots of stories about yourself and Mike's adventures. You've got a very interesting backstory. Pac: Thank you Fit, thank you. I'm glad to hear that you think it's cool. Fit: I mean– the cannibalism part, that sucks, but it is– It's cool! It's cool.

People keep wondering when Pac's going to tell Fit how he lost his leg, but during their date last week, Fit implied that their characters already had this discussion! Although this could've been an OOC part of their conversation, they've referenced this specific part of Pac's lore in past streams (this is just the most explicit example we've had so far).

[ Full Subtitle Transcript ↓ ]

–

Pac: I wish I had a really nice- um, background story - background story for my- why I'm here. But you know, Felps just crashed the ship and I'm stuck!

Fit: [Chuckles] Well no- you've got an interesting history though, Pac! I mean, look at you escaping that prison! Like, that was not easy for you to do.

Pac: ...No, yeah, you're right.

Fit: You know, and you've been- you have- you've told me lots of stories about yourself and Mike's adventures, like– You've got a very interesting backstory.

Pac: Thank you Fit, thank you. I'm glad to hear that you think it's cool.

Fit: I mean, I mean– the cannibalism part, I mean, that sucks, yeah, but it is– It's cool! It's cool.

Pac: Yeah, right? Yeah- that's- that's not a good part, right? Yeah, I- ugh, yeah, it's a– [He takes a deep breath] Yeah. It's ok.

Fit: Y-yeah, yeah...

Pac: It's ok.

[twelvemartha]

Oh god, they'll never know. I... I'll just have disappeared. And they'll always be waiting. Call them.

[brother-emperors]

CAESAR AUGUSTUS AND MARCUS LICINIUS CRASSUS

this is about the spolia opima that crassus was robbed of lmao. like, yeah okay octavian could've asked him not to claim it, but nevertheless. a kind of theft happened there.

Fact and Fiction: Crassus, Augustus, and the Spolia Opima, Catherine McPherson

[deoidesign]

something that makes me sad is when people tell me the healthy communication in my writing is "unrealistic."

like guys this is how me and my partner talk with eachother... I'm writing from personal experience...

[spaceprinceencie]

I think about Nagito’s death at the end of SDR2 a lot. There’s so much symbolism and meaning in it. His death reflects a lot of the other deaths from the first game, which is a cool easter egg, but the meaning of that also kind of blows my mind. 

The symbolism of how he’s embodying so much of the despair from the first game, compiled into a single death. How he’s depending on his luck to burn out every last ounce of despair from this death game, while also embodying every ounce from the last one at the same time. He - intentionally/consciously or not - is embodying as much despair as he can so he can burn it all away and bring hope. 

But most recently I’ve also been thinking a lot about the spear. 

Because there’s two major ways you can interpret Nagito’s luck cycle: either luck is a real supernatural force that exists in the DR universe, or Nagito is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Personally, I do think it’s hard to argue that everything that happens to Nagito throughout the series is totally unrelated to some greater supernatural force. But I also think it’s so tragic to think of his luck cycle as just a bunch of psychological tricks. So a little bit of this is a “what if”: even if it’s not the most likely explanation, there is a way of arguing for it and I think that’s interesting. He believes with all his heart that he’s cursed by this luck cycle. That good and bad will happen to him in extremes, in waves. Confirmation bias tells us he’ll pick out that pattern easily, searching for evidence that supports his understanding of the world, and then presenting what is essentially cherry-picked evidence to other characters. Which is often what we see of his luck cycle: the narrative he has constructed. Then, throw in how he’d subconsciously make decisions and put himself in situations that further supports his view of himself and the world. He might purposefully put himself in precarious positions when he thinks there’s bad luck due. He might do something like hang a spear above his own head. That act, metaphorical or literal, is then, also sort of his essence, isn’t it? Nagito hangs spears above him, poised to kill him, and waits for his luck - real or not - to use them. And when the spear falls, because if you keep hanging spears above your head eventually they’ll fall, he calls it intentional and purposeful. He calls it part of his luck cycle. But how much of it is really luck, and how much of it is that he’s just hanging spears and waiting? How much of it is that he really believes he deserves bad luck or pain or hurt? Honestly, we don’t know exactly if the poison killed him before the spear did. We can certainly assume it did, since Monokuma rules Nanami the killer, and because the spear was supposedly released upon Nagito’s death (and the nature of the poison). However, I think there’s enough doubt in there to argue that, even if its unlikely, the spear did kill him. Monokuma could’ve lied, there was no one and no way to prove him wrong after all. The poison could’ve weakened Nagito just enough that he wasn’t dead until the spear impaled him. 

Just, think of the potential symbolism of the fact that we can only assume- based on incomplete and biased observations - that the poison killed him. That Nagito’s luck killed him. From that biased assumption, we are led to believe his luck is cyclic and intentional. Just like everything Nagito does and says could be seen as a biased presentation of evidence that leads us to the same conclusions. But realistically we can also assume that Nagito just killed himself by hanging a spear over himself and waiting. We can also assume Nagito's luck isn't as drastic as he claims. What if, in reality, he just keeps hanging spears above him and waiting, maybe even hoping, they fall?

[schmweed]

[13eyond13]

love it when a character that's hard to read intuitively for you has like a dedicated fandom interpreter who can just glance at their blank face in a panel and then give you a 3k word essay on their innermost thoughts & desires & fears and neatly tie it back into the themes & whatnot as if it's the most obvious thing in the world

[astriiformes]

Yesterday the TA for my history of health and the environment course got up in front of the class to say we'd be getting our prospectuses for our final paper back today, and that about a third of the class really needed to refine theirs because the ideas they'd turned in were too broad or undefined for a 10-page paper.

Which made me nervous, because she specifically mentioned folks proposing covering 200 years' worth of history, and I'd focused mine on both the 16th and 17th centuries. So I was convinced I'd gotten a poor grade on the assignment and would need to talk with her about my plans.... until I actually got mine back today and saw she'd given me a perfect score on it, because I'd explained my research plans thoroughly enough. So now instead of having to grapple with doing poorly on an assignment (the worst), I'm grappling with my TA apparently thinking my research skills are refined enough that I can tackle things other students maybe can't (strange, baffling).

And then, on top of all that, at the train station I ran into one of the folks from the center for premodern studies at school who said I should send them an email because they're inviting a few undergrads to come along to a printing event they're doing at a local book arts place and they apparently want me to be one of them?

All of which is really kicking my imposter syndrome in the gut, which given that I was really feeling it yesterday is nice, but also a little jarring if I'm being honest. What if I was good at things and people recognized that I was good at things. What then.

[theshushdragonsleeps]

So I'm pretty bad at expressing myself through writing cuz I'm pretty shit at it, but I can't get out of my head the scene of Jaiden comforting and confronting Roier during Festa Junina. It's the fact that Jaiden, through her own grief and self isolation, grabs a hold of a drowning Roier. Looking at him and truly seeing him and accepting him at his lowest point. Loudly declaring that he deserves kindness and love and she is his partner and that she is here for him. 

And I believe she will not waver about her conviction and affection for him. And while she may need time and she may be hurt beyond comprehension, she will never actually leave him until the day she is no longer wanted. (Even then she will leave with kindness and understanding.) 

In fact, until the day when one or both are ready to come apart and become their own person again, I believe that together they will be holding each other up. Unwilling to let the other fall despite their own pain.

And just, I love their partnership so much. I know other people in this fandom have been upset that Jaiden or Roier haven't been there for each other enough since Bobby's death, but I need people to understand that both are the type to self isolate when upset. Like Roier might still be a part of the bigger group and acting dramatic around others while Jaiden is acting fine with her usual silliness and then completely disappearing, but both doing the same thing. Both are trying to make a “joke” about how much of a mess they have become after Bobby died without ever having to open up and talk to anybody about it. Both are giving a show as if to say “I wont let you see how much I’m actually hurting because if you actually saw me grieve without my mask of silliness, I will become a burden and you will leave me” 

And by god if I don't feel this to my very core which might be why I’m so obsessed over this. Cuz despite their own fear of being perceived and the feeling of becoming a burden or being looked down upon and used, they are still reaching out and offering others nothing but love.

Like if I remember correctly there was a time when someone (I can't remember who, sorry) asked Roier what he wanted and he said that he wanted someone to fully accepting him and give him a place to feel like he was being cared about, and to be the one on the receiving end of love rather than always being the one to reach out. And here is Jaiden with the sun rising behind her with arms wide open bathed in the new dawning warmth, only offering love and asking for nothing in return. 

Bobby may have been their sunset, but together through the love they have for each other they are creating their own sunrise. 

 And just, ahhhh, sorry I know all of this was overly long winded and badly written and I'm deeply embarrassed by the fact that I can't write better than this but I wanted to try out being a part of a voice in the void of a fandom for once and get a little bit of my love for these two out there.

[mayasaura]

When it comes to John, I have zero interest in condemning him. First of all, it's boring. You mean destroying the world and lying to your friends about it is bad? Shocking. Groundbreaking character work.

Second of all, I'm just not all that comfortable with condemnation in general, not when it comes to whole-ass people. Actions, for sure. I am ready to wholeheartedly condemn pretty much every decision this man has ever made, but I'm only comfortable doing that with a side of compassion for the man himself. Tamsyn said once in an interview that some of the discussion she's seen about Harrow is unintentionally very cruel to people with mental illnesses, and I feel similarly seeing a lot of the discussion around John. If I'm going to try to figure out where he's coming from, why he did the things he did, and what he thought he was accomplishing by doing them, I'm not at all interested in coming at those questions with contempt or disgust.

To me, the main question when it comes to John is: What do you do when you feel that you're unforgivable? That you've fucked up so completely no one will ever love you again, unless you lie and trick them into it? How do you deal with shame? And while part of the answer is definitely "Holy shit, not like that," what I'm most interested in is: what should he have done instead? At what points in his narrative could he have changed his course? And at what point, if ever, did he become right about it being impossible for him to dial it back and turn around?

[koddlet]

hey uh do you have any advice for getting into zine making? especially like the kind of multimedia/collage ones? idk i think they're cool and i maybe want to start making some but i dont know how to start

start with scraps! receipts, tickets, offcuts, etc. takes the pressure off a bit. my first collage zine was put together with receipts and packaging cutouts! it was just about my groceries

you could do something like that. orrr collect some bits and bobs to cut/tear some shapes and stick them onto the pages. very simple but it could be a way to try out different ways of securing them, like using stitch, staples, tape. most of the time its to get a fun effect, but also glue isn't always enough. like i had to sew the netting in the 2nd image ^

tbh i find it kinda hard to give advice with multimedia/collage because for me, it's very much just jumping straight into it. if i think about it too much i get Extremely caught up in details and it's not fun, but you might work better with more planning! also don't be scared to rip or cover something if it's not working. done that many times 👍

[daily-hanamura]

Hi! Do you have any souyo fics you would like to recommend?

HELLO @littlebalsam OH BOY DO I

as a caveat I consider myself to still be relatively new to souyo, so I haven't read too many fics? but these were some of my favourites and I hope you enjoy them too!

some of these fics may have mature themes (p4 is a mature game after all) so please check the rating/tags!

a doorway back into the life he wants by chash

Rated T; a stardew valley-esque AU that somewhat follows the beats of their original story, but sees the characters as grown-ups dealing with Life (TM), with Yosuke as the manager of Junes and Souji taking over his grandfather's farm in Inaba. There's a kind of mature calmness to the atmosphere here that is both gentle and delicate, and the result is something so very gorgeous.

(and honestly, anything written by Chash has been 11/10)

mr perfect by unsungillumination

Rated G; where Yu has to work on his social stats in order to confess to yosuke - the writing here is SO beautiful and there's something so wonderfully emotional about Yu's pining here (I adore any fic that makes use of game mechanics as a plot point lol)

sharing is caring by hydrocarbon (dontrollthedice)

Rated T; where Souji learns to share (and learns what jealousy feels like when he doesn't want to) - any fic with possessive/jealous Souji is a good fic and this one was so spectacularly well done that I still think about it for days

the boy who leapt through time by MrRee

Rated T; time-travel AU where Yosuke has the ability to jump through time and struggles to create a happy ending for everyone. Yosuke's characterization here is so perfect and beautiful, and the fic is very poignant and emotional during the entire ride, but I promise the payoff is absolutely worth it.

summer lessons by thenotwriter

Rated T; "kissing practice", where Yosuke is perhaps a little oblivious, but he learns something along the way. Yu is so very patient and Yosuke is a very very lucky boy. This fic is sweet, fluffy overload and I am not complaining one bit.

just like the classics by kiwoa (Rinoa)

Rated G; Yosuke finally coming to terms about his feelings. I really love fics where Yosuke struggles a little but also when there's a contradiction between what he says and what he does, and this fic was just so cute about it!

for now (or; how to teach your boyfriend to cut an onion in five easy steps) by tattedmariposa

Rated T; Yu teaches Yosuke how to cook. If you've spent any amount of time on this blog/with me you would know how much of a sucker I am for fics that feature food as a metaphor for love - the playful, knowing banter between them juxtaposes beautifully with the bittersweet tone, and it made me so very very soft.

under cover by chromsama

Rated G; another adorable fic where Yu and Yosuke share umbrellas. I don't recall if I've posted about the umbrella scene before but I've adored it since day 1 and this fic made it something so much more. Yosuke needs a little help arriving at certain realisations, but when he does it's absolutely brilliant. I also really love the way Yosuke plays off with Kanji here, and I love how some thing can be so simple yet so impactful!

gravity's how we got here by ashley-amelie (kitana)

Rated M; same theme of first kisses in the guise of "kissing practice", a theme that I am so weak for and could read a hundred million times. I adore the careful, tentative atmosphere in fics like these, and again, YOSUKE IS A VERY VERY LUCKY BOY.

your loving is all i think about by nedrika

Rated M; yu somehow manages to read minds, and reading yosuke's teaches him something interesting. it's kind of a naughty fic so I won't go into too much detail, but it's great and that's all i'm gonna say on the subject.

and finally, absolutely feel free to reblog with your own additions!!

[shima-draws]

My doctor: Hey yeah that's not normal I don't think it's an issue with your hip

Me: Oh?

My doctor: It's an issue with your spine

Me: OH

[phoenixcatch7]

ASDFGHJKL

Just been talking to this npc and he was like 'oh hey!! Nice of them to send out a guy so soon after I sent my letter!' and when link did his little talking hand gestures my full expectation was the next words to be 'omg the hero?? Zeldas knight?? The champion of hyrule? You guys were missing it was all over the kingdom!!'

Npc: oh, so you're just some guy? Man, I thought they would have sent someone out by now, I've been waiting ages...

A) no you haven't

B) Link, WHAT????

Asdfghjkl??? NO WONDER he's been Tony Hawked he's not even introducing himself with his name??!

Actually... Given what other people have been calling him, I think he's been introducing himself as 'just a wandering swordsman'.

LINK THAT WAS YOUR FAULT THE WHOLE TIME???