#kiddos present

[wanderlust-----witch]

Went on a huge witch/craft supplies run yesterday, spent a fuck ton of money more than I wanted, but I thing it's worth it. I got refills on a bunch of the stuff I've been sharing with kiddo and coworker, I got a book on mermaid magic that looked hella cool, four more oracle decks including three of the Seasons of the Witch decks (Beltane, Litha, and Mabon!), hubby managed to surprise me by sneaking these gorgeous tree of life notebooks into our cart when I wasn't looking, I got a few more notebooks myself in a different store (those were for a good cause and I can't resist notebooks lol), and there were two copies of Cunninghams Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs so I grabbed them both, one for Kiddo and one for Coworker.

Next step in kiddos present is gonna be Grovedaughter Witchery by @breelandwalker and herbs out the ass lol. They already have the crystals I could share, and I've gotten them a pendulum and a tarot deck.

(Sorry if I get overly emotional about Kiddo this week y'all, they turn 18 on Wednesday and I'm having some very strong emotions about it...)

[corviiids]

sparknotes for chapter 9 of as you like it because a very kind commenter asked for a breakdown and if theres one thing im good at it's breaking down

(spoilers for the fic obviously)

tihs chapter gave me so much trouble. i sat on it for so long i literally hated it by the time i posted it but im starting to forgive it now. it was, as ive said, originally way longer, and the next part of the fic was supposed to be the second half of this one... but it was starting to get absurd and i realised that neither part would have the weight i needed them to have if they were lumped in together. (with some relief, honestly, because i kind of had wanted them to be separate initially but didn't think they'd be long enough. i dont know myself very well.) anyway, the next chapter should be a bit of a doozy now although hopefully not SO absurdly long.

this chapter picks up where the previous cliff hung off, which is to say, after the 'shadow' akechi reveals that he's actually just the real ass guy. akechi in the palace what will he do. the chapter doesn't immediately kick off with ren's reaction though and that is because ren is the most repressed man alive and does not know how he feels about it.

so, akechi disguised himself to enter his palace, which is significant for a few reasons:

1. he's disguised as himself

which i think is ironic in a fun way, but it's also just a very basic nod to the fact that akechi pivots between which of his personae is his default. this isn't necessarily super meaningful, but he does later refer to the black mask suit as

a costume, instead of an outfit. i mean, don't read into it too much, he's just talking, but i did think that probably points to how he feels about his appearance generally.

2. more importantly, his disguise involves taking off his mask.

so he's disguised, yes, and he's disguised as himself, yes, but that disguise is a literal unmasking, which is also kind of ironic. in presenting himself this way he has literally and figuratively made himself vulnerable. they're inside his heart, and the entire time he's in the palace, he is exposed... again both literally and figuratively because he also starts sharing more with ren than he ever has. look, i just think it's fun to have a character who has so many layers that he has to lie so hard that he becomes himself again.

i only want to point this out because (this is also part of larger meta about mona lol) akechi knew about the metaverse, but there is no way to intuit the method of stealing hearts without guidance. it's such a specific and involved process. thje most akechi could work out on his own was that if you killed a shadow, that person would have a mental breakdown. no way to guess that if you send a calling card and then go in within the next 24 hours and take a physical manifestation of a thing that you didn't know existed (process) would lead to that person ahving a change of heart (result). so even if akechi had a palace and knew about it, even if he wanted to do something about it, he would have assumed there was nothing he could do about it - i also have no idea what the process would be for sending yourself a calling card, even if he DID know about the process. so basically in this fic akechi found his palace and just assumed that was it. he was like, fucked up lol. anyway

this just straight up isn't true HAHA so i put in the silly little dichotomy of akechi gently taking ren's arm to protect him from slipping on the ice while telling him that he lied about caring about him. i think in this chapter as akechi begins to openly explain more and more of his thought process, this is probably the first truly clear glimpse you get of exactly what akechi's distortion is and how deep it runs.

the things akechi says with total conviction in this chapter are just... not true, not a fair or founded way to view the world (or the art of performance haha), but he says them with total conviction, and hopefully it should show off how unreliable he is as a source of exposition. one commenter asked about this moment of akc's eyes going yellow and if it was somehting that happened in canon - not really, i was just thinking about those little moments in the game after you send a calling card where the game cuts from the person to their shadow to do a little oneliner about their distortion.

akechi's IN his own palace, so i thought it would be fun to kind of make it a physical thing that can happen to him where he sort of merges with his shadow for a brief second in the moments when the distortion is strongest.

OKAY this is one of my favourite bits of the chapter HAHA the deep soda lore. i dont expect anyone to remember all the way back to chapter 3 but:

literally nobody asked about this but i love the phantom thieves!!! i dream of all the little silly moments of being a team that they must have that we don't get to see in gameplay, for obvious reasons of it wouldn't really work in a game, but i can imagine them in my brain. i can imagine their trickshot contests that get their asses kicked. i can imagine them chanting at each other to chug while joker and oracle compete to down an entire bottle of brand neutral mountain dew baja blast. i can dream.

soda lore is gay.

i dont honestly think it's inherently a bad thing necessarily but this part does kind of set up like... you can see akechi very early on in life forming this worldview that the truth isn't always what you want, you know? this was a 'lie' he and his mother both bought into, they both knew what the truth actually was, so it wasn't real dishonesty, but they just had this little fantasy. i just thought it would be fun for akechi to have a way to bond with his mother and feel closer to her, and that way is by buying into this white lie. idk

akechi's mother isn't really a character and i don't want to form her into too much of one because i think it's very much the point that, like... he made this point in an earlier chapter but having lost her at a pretty young age i think it's quite crucial that akechi doesn't really have a fully formed image of who his mother is outside of what she was to him as a child. so i actively don't want her to feel too real or defined. im not interested in making an oc out of her because i think it defeats the purpose. that said, this line exists to maybe gesture very vaguely at the notion that akechi's mother was a very bright person who similarly was stuck in circumstances that didn't serve to foster her real potential. just the image in my mind of a person who's clever enough to get across algebraic notation in chess by flipping through a book in a few minutes, but was never exposed to the opportunity to learn chess until this moment in someone else's house, and also the particular situation of learning this skill WHILE at someone's place as a call girl, i dunno . i hope im treating this with the grace it deserves but i wanted to build just this particular image in vivid colour while also keeping the reality quite blurry and vague, just to give the reader a sense of where akechi came from while still preserving his limited pov.

my thoughts on the phantom thieves' methods (and how they compare to maruki) are definitely too long and involved to put into a post about this fic chapter specifically, but maybe one day. i also wanna stress im not like... strictly anti-phantom thief or anti-heartstealing lol but i do have thoughts about the philsophy of it and the thieves' hypocrisy WHATEVER that's not for this post. i bring this up only to crow about finding a way to bring up the experience machine (ie maruki's reality) in this fic without it being royal compliant and have it be... hoepfully... sufficiently relevant to the plot. wa hoo! the experience machine came up for the first time back in chapter 4 and im just delighted that i finally got to close that loop. by the way, that experiment is also called the lotus eater machine after the lotus eaters in the odyssey! i dunno that it's actively my favourite thought experiment but it's definitely up there and i think about it a lot.

TITLE DROP

i think i spoke once about what 'as you like it' means. it's obviously the name of the shakespeare play from where 'all the world's a stage' comes, but it has a couple more layers to it as well - akechi's palace is a place where he performs to what he believes other people want or need to see from him - so his appearance is as you like it. and his accusation of the thieves' heartstealing methods is that they twist a person's internal reality to suit their vision - that's the meaning he's taking here, claiming that joker is turning akechi into an unfamiliar new thing, as [joker] like[s] it. you get it.

this running joke of ren really hating vents wasn't something i planned but im attached to it now. prayer circle for his knees

ive basically given up on making sense of samerecarm, which is par for the course for any rpg or video game really where reduction to 0hp/revival are mechanics. like, im inclined to think 0hp is more equivalent to unconsciousness, because... well... otherwise it's pretty cold that they left akechi dead in the engine room without even looking for a way around the wall. lol. but one of mona's revival lines is 'being dead isnt easy!' or something like that, so i kind of just give up and assume it's video game logic you'r enot meant to look at too hard lol. the way i reconcile it for my purposes is to say it's a sort of metaverse-exclusive state of being which is not quite dead but sort of in a limbo state wher eyou can be brought back with specific revival magic, which i refer to as being down. that's uhhh, that's different from the battle status of down... which you get after being hit with a crit/technical/weak skill... look, don't think about it. joker in crow's arms.

this is literally meaningless i just wanted to include a cameo of my very favourite persona q2 battle theme.

[smallvictorianchildwhofoundwifi]

When the fighting ceased and the war was officially considered over, all heroes were checked and tended to. Afterwards, the students were given the go-ahead to return to their families but most of the students of Class 1A and B wanted to reconvene at the dormitories to check on their classmates first.

The class of 1-B had tearful and heartwarming reunions with each other, but silently worrying for everyone they had yet to see after a period of time. Logic said that the few might still be in the hospital or had returned to their families after all. Koromi recalled Kendo and Fukidashi together after everything ended, and Awase and Tsunotori joining the group- and that was the last she saw of the four of them, but they looked okay. Shoda decided to text Kendo to put all their worries to rest, but was left on delivered.

Most of them decided to stay at the dorms until they got confirmation of the safety of their missing classmates, which took hours. Kuroiro appeared suddenly and explained he was with his family and was checking up on everyone, before returning with his sister to the temporary living quarters of their family.

After a few hours without word from about six of Class B’s students, the doors to the dormitory suddenly opened, and six figures walked through- four of their classmates, and 2 familiar Pro-heroes: Mt. Lady and Present Mic.

Fukidashi announced he was going to his dorm room and walked away with barely having changed his shoes. Awase and Kendo seemed ready to join him, but decidedly didn’t, and Tsunotori was staring off into space, making a hole in the ground with her gaze.

“Hey!” Tetsutetsu started. “Glad to see you guys are okay!”

“What’s Mt. Lady doing here?” Togage meant as a whisper but was louder than she intended.

Present Mic took it as an opportunity, “Mt. Lady helped me gets these kids home from the hospital… and also to help me share the news on your classmates conditions.”

Everyone tensed at that and Shoda did a mental count on all his classmates. Excluding Kendo, Tsunotori, Awase, and Fukidashi, who were all now accounted for, the only two he hasn’t heard anything from is Shiozaki and Monoma.

“Miss Shiozaki had breakage in her leg that will take a while to heal, but she will be expected to make a full recovery.”

Everyone took a sigh of relief at that, but took notice to Kendo, Awase, and Tsunotori’s still miserable expressions.

Tsunotori had made her way over to where Honenuki sat on the couch and stood next to him, clinging onto his shoulder and arm, trembling. Her melancholy, practically heartbroken look, left the surrounding classmates tense for the last of the news.

Kendo shot her head up and took a deep breath, but nothing came out of her mouth for a second. “M-“ a hand jumped on her shoulder and she quickly looked to her left where Mt. Lady stood, who placed her other hand on Kendo’s other shoulder to turn the student towards herself.

“You don’t have to be strong right now,” Mt Lady whispered, “let the adults handle this.” The two stared into each other’s eyes for a moment before Kendo rushed into an embrace with Mt. Lady, holding tightly and not letting go. She cried no tears but her eyes were squeezed shut and she didn’t move.

Present Mic and Mt. Lady looked at each other for a moment before the giantess hero spoke up, still holding Kendo with one hand holding cradling her head.

“Monoma was stabbed on the battlefield which hit in-between his ribs and pierced a lung.” there were several gasps and hands flew up to mouths “-he also suffered a traumatic brain injury.” There were a few beats of silence: the classmates of 1-B processed that information and the heroes figured out what to say. “It was a miracle he lived through the ride to the hospital, but he lost a lot of blood.”

“But he's okay?” Kodai asked.

Present Mic continued what Mt. Lady was saying, “The doctors said he died at 16:13, about 3 hours ago.”

Most of the few students who were standing sat down on the couch or dropped to the floor. Dead? Monoma? No…

“What?” Komori's brittle voice echoed like a pin dropping.

“There’s no way… right?” Tetsutetsu was the quietest he’s ever been and his voice broke at the end.

“I’m so sorry.” Mt. Lady whispered.

Hokenuki looked up at Pony, who was still clinging onto his arm. She was biting her trembling lip looking like she was trying hard to not cry again. Suddenly his sight of her got blurry, and the ceiling started to rain.

[ember-owlet]

25 days of agere moodboards

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ day 8 : your ideal playroom -> indoor natural theme ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[c-kiddo]

hello . asking politely for if anyone has suggestions for theoretical tattoo flash since i would like to practice translating ideas. no promises on posting things, im practicing, but if i can figure out payments later and it goes ok then its something i'd like to sell

[paused-waterfall]

Praying that Phil is given access to egg bedrooms or NINHO rooms for Purgatory 2 and the holidays. He's been vibing with offline cookie quests and is going to be around during a bunch of absences, but if he has to deliver cookies outside of safe zones, he's gonna explode from the stress

[limerental]

every so often the demons in me are like 'oh yes you could write an Original Fiction book' and then five seconds later I'm smacked with the present reality of what all of that entails. nevermind! at what cost!

[ask-zerotrio]

Me, explaining this trio: It's about the angst and sheer heartwarming silliness!!!!! XD

[lil-ichigo-bunny]

everyone pls meet clove!! >u<💖 isn’t he so cute?🥺 and lookie all the pacis!! :0

[m0ssmell0w]

[mutopians]

ignoring the fact that self-inserts can be ridiculously fun and shouldn't be treated as cringe because of it, i do think something can be said for how freeing they are. i've learned so much about myself as person by sitting down and writing silly little self insert dudes in my silly little favorite stories, and i genuinely don't think i'd be as comfortable in my own skin without them

[canine-teethed-sheets]

BABY JUMPSCARE

BEHOLD!! HOOD'S AND SPAZZ'S NON CANONICAL CHILD, VERIDIAN!! OR MINT!! (they both nickname her Verdi)

yes!! her soul is a firelike shape!! kinda tipping from my DT brother's soul headcanon but shhh

Mint is a small curious child who's really pouty most of the time but she means well <:)

she was found in a box while the two were taking a walk in an AU and Spazz WAILED that she wanted to give her mercy on the poor littol babey

bonus:

Mint: *points to Flower* doggy!!

Flower: wh- N O—

(@socksandbuttons look a baby!! :D)

[dancing-heart-pony]

Dancing in Drawcember: Day 25, Presents 🎁

What did lil’ Jack get for Christmas?

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas (had a good day in general if you don’t celebrate Christmas)! I was very busy with family gatherings, so that’s why I didn’t get this up earlier… 😅

[hxans]

My child does not understand Good Friday means (nearly) all the shops are closed. This is most inconvenient to him.

[mythrae]

I’m going to the state fair tonight and I’m going for three reasons only:

1. cute pics

2. good bad food

3. THE FUCKING PIG RACES

and they have the most hilarious names too. like fuckin “Kim Kardashi-ham.” who comes up with this shit

[sainteddie]

missing home heavy for the first time since i left