#like if you want me to do something a certain way lead by example cus currently your example is worse than the majority of the staff here

[nerdie-faerie]

Every shift I've experienced since deciding I'm handing in my notice has been one of the worst to date, only validating my decision to quit

[kozykricket]

oops long post about minecraft

i hope that within the next 5 years i can see minecraft move on from the stage of Adding Content, and start making more changes... but at the same time, they've always mentioned how they want people to be able to always come back to the game and ... have it feel familiar. mojang wants people to be able to come back from a loooong break, and still ultimately play the game the same, even if it looks or sounds different. even if theres more options. i think logically thats why they never replace or reshuffle content. because... well, they'd rather add something to the side of the core game than change something thats part of the core... because they dont want to disrupt peoples traditional way of playing but like, with how much minecraft has evolved every aspect of itself EXCEPT the main, core gameplay? it feels like... at this point, i think they SHOULD change the core gameplay, even if its in ways that i dont even like. just, to fit in more with the rest... but do i fault them? no. they play it safe yet they also try daring new things, at the same time. its impressive the amount of effort they put into carefully thinking about new content... and i understand so many people would be up in arms, or would be saddened, if the way they played the game drastically changed. and thats why theyre just , giving us the ability to modify the game more easily than ever

i just kinda felt like i needed to get this out here, because. yknow, whenever people mention minecraft having Tons of Content I Can't Keep Track Of What When Did They Add That What Is That it slike yeah you're not really ... supposed to notice it? but you are supposed to?

you're not supposed to feel the need to engage with anything they add, but also Marketing(TM) denotes that they have to advertise the new stuff as something for you to engage with, and really, really encourage you to engage with it via stuff like advancements or the title screen even so i guess the game is at odds with itself in that way, because as said, things are designed to ... well, not BE noticed when they're added, at least not in a disruptive yet, yet they also try to make things noticable enough that you know they exist... and . well, its a careful balance... i dont think its entirely futile, but i think the fact that they kinda have to market content to Everyone even when they know they designed that content as Not Something For Everyone, is fairly ... awkward. cus then... yknow, they end up leading people towards stuff that they otherwise would've had not much of an opinion on, but now that they're being "forcibly shown" the content that they don't personally care about, they may see it as an attack towards their playstyle, in the way that changing the core gameplay loop would be. does this make sense? okay uhh example mojang adds... deep dark biomes, but theyre definitely optional to engage with, and you might not even know they were added, because of their optional-ness and arguably low relevance. its just a fun little sidequest in a way, a self contained Thing because they don't want to scare people away. but yet at the same time, the marketing goes all "HEY WE GOT A COOL NEW SPOOKY BIOME" and then even if you're disinterested in it, you now know its in the game, and you are led to believe that mojang WANTS every player to be using the deep dark, which... makes it seem poorly designed. simply because it WASNT designed for every player to want to engage with. it wasnt designed to be an integral part of the core experience. it was designed to be optional and is being marketed as a big part of the experience.

cus the thing is they DONT always design things for every type of player to want to use. you get me? they design the... allay, to be nice for certain types of players. but then the marketing gives off the idea that they think every type of player ought to enjoy it, even though it wasn't designed to be enjoyed by everyone and... yeah i guess thats also why i appreciate loosely themed updates like 1.8 or 1.20, because they have less of a deliberate focus on the One Big Thing and so people are less likely to end up noticing something that wasnt really meant to be noticed unless they liked it. people who dont like trial chambers will be noticing them since theyre on the title screen in 1.21... even though, if they are someone who doesnt like them, then they were meant to be sorta, yknow, optional for those people? though perhaps a structure that spawns anywhere in the overworld is a poor example. maybe stuff like the sniffer being shown so much is Worse in that sense this really became a bigger post than i imagined. i just kinda intended to make a post that was like "its kind of a bummer that mojang is basically restricted away from changing the core of minecraft despite the fact that theyve changed everything else so much that by proxy they've changed the core in every way that isnt straight up full on touching the core gameplay"

[anxietyfluffy]

Wanted you ask for your headcannons for Frank, 💝💔👗🔪🥇🎭❤️‍🔥💄😭 ( I love that man so much! 😭💙)

BLUE HEART ANONNN i missed you dude!! and ofc!! we frank fans gotta stick together FYWGWEUF this will contain spoilers and the angst hc is a lil dark but that's how I do angst babey 💝: to me, Frank has always read as a physical touch and acts of service kinda guy. like, for example, he struggles a fair bit to tell Karen verbally just how much he loves her, but to show it he tends to touch and hold her a lot as well as help her out with things. the acts of service hc is even hinted at in canon cus Karen stated that he helps out fixing small electronic devices around the house. 💔: this is both a mix of my hc and au - and really what would probably happen in canon if this were to happen - but i don't think Frank can really live without Karen. like, in an au where Karen dies but Frank doesn't, i think Frank would probably off himself because the person he loves the most is dead. 👗: Frank has numerous Hawaiian shirts in his closet as well as the same coloured jeans. he doesn't care - or want to - wear anything else. ofc he will, and he has clothes other than Hawaiian shirts and jeans, but he loves his iconic Hawaiian shirt because its comfortable to him. 🔪: I think everyone agrees that Frank has anger issues, so i wont repeat the truth UYFEGWWFE but, with Frank's training in the military as well as the fact his job is pretty physical at times, he's trained in some forms of martial arts. though i can't see stuff like Karate, i see more Boxing, Jiu Jitsu, Judo etc etc. how to fight and take someone down if needed. I can also see him being really good at Jiu Jitsu and Judo UEWFYUFEW 🥇: I can see small and big things he's good at. like something small is I can picture him being amazing on the grill, but a bigger one is that I can see Frank being amazing at giving advice (though he sucks when it comes to taking it). as much as he's harsh, i feel like he's good at pushing people to do things that makes them happy, and I think he tries to get people to do things they love because for a while he struggled to understand just how important love really is. 🎭: Ooooh.. I don't think Frank would lie a lot honestly, but. He'd absolutely lie if it meant he was (or, at least he thinks he's) protecting his family. Though, you can always kinda tell when Frank is lying, because usually he's pretty blunt and honest. Sometimes too much. ❤️‍🔥: KarenFrank time teehee. Frank adores Karen, absolutely, and I can see Frank giving Karen this certain look anytime he sees her. I dunno how to describe the look other than just full of pure love. She could look absolutely messy, puffed out after trying to get the girls to stop playing in some mud or something, and Frank would still put his hand on her cheek and look at her as if she was the sun and he was the moon, basking in her light. 💄: I've given my physical hc for Frank a fair bit - the fact I see him as tanned, as well as having darker hair and more greying streaks - but recently I've used his skintone on his dead body (dark, I know) because the colour is around the same, but it looks more natural compared to the vibrant colours I tend to go for. Here is a screenshot of the way I colour-picked the skintone off of the bodies - I go for the midtone of said body instead of either the direct lighting or the deepest shadows.

😭: Well. There is an obvious answer to this one. But, instead of going that route I'm gonna explore how he felt more. I imagine Laura's death was the heavy ass stick on the camel's back. Because it was mentioned Frank was a solider before he was a cop, I'd imagine he'd have some sort of trauma related to that - especially with the fact he was in his 20s for a bit of the 80s, where a lot of wars happened. That likely PTSD mixed in with the death of his daughter probably made what was seemingly a small liking to whisky into an addiction, which lead to his life crumbling more when Karen divorced him. Might I add, they didn't even divorce because they weren't in love, it was heavily implied Karen was still in love with Frank, and then Frank was clearly still in love with her too, esp cus all the other women he got interested in in-game were just younger, more evil versions of Karen UEFGUFWE. From what I saw of the photo of Frank, Karen and Daisy - esp because she looks around 10-13 in that image while dying at 14-15, I presumed they were together - or trying to be together - for a bit, and then divorced. And even if Karen had full custody of Daisy, that image as well as Once Upon a Crime make me believe that Frank did have contact with Daisy, it's just Daisy didn't want to speak to her dad. Which, presumably, lead to more depression, and more substance abuse. This cycle only ends when he's dead - when he's with Karen and the girls again, and can live as a family all together again. It's clear that if Frank's family didn't crumble and fall apart - because of the actions of a dumb ass driver - we would have a very different Frank in-game. those are my hcs!! sorry its long i love talking abt the knight family sm and if given the chance i will ramble abt them.

[whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst]

Texts from the Lost Tomb part 6.1

🎶 Back on the bullshit I never got off🎶

Is this another unnecessary story arc?? With three sections??

Yes.

Wushanju Crew Chat

Wang Meng: You know, I’m someone who appreciates consistency in my day. My life is pleasant, very few issues indeed if you ignore the big ones. And yet. Yet here we are. With unresolved messes at the end of a day.

Wang Pangzi: SOMETHIN YOU NEED TO SAY MARY POPPINS

Wang Meng: We need to talk about Huo Daofu and the glittery bead curtain.

Wang Pangzi: MY FAVE TEEN WIZARD SERIES

Wu Xie: did you turn on that suggested word thingy lol

What glittery bead curtain

Wang Meng: I closed the shop at 6:00pm this evening on the dot. I locked all of the doors in and out of the shop very carefully, especially in light of recent events. The hall leading to the back office was empty. I filed the day’s paperwork, updated and sent emails, and then spent an extra hour organizing receipts and dusting. When I came back out, there were glittery iridescent bead curtains over the front entrance to the shop.

What could this mean?

Wu Xie: uh that you need to spend less time at work?

Wang Pangzi: LOOKS LIKE WE GOT ONE FOR THE DETECTIVES. THE MYSTERY OF THE BEDAZZLED THRESHOLD COMMENCES

Wu Xie: I think we can be relatively secure in thinking a glittery bead curtain isn’t a hostile threat

Wang Pangzi: SAYS YOU

I REMEMBER YE OLDE EXPLORATION TIMES HOW FAST THINGS GOT FURIOUS

BEANBAG CHAIRS SET AFLAME AND LEFT ON DOORSTEPS AS A WARNING

GLITTERBOMBS FOR DAYS

PANIC AT THE DISCO

Wang Meng: Ugh, forget it. I should have just taken them down, regardless of who they belong to.

Zhang Qiling: They are not mine.

Wang Pangzi: A BOLD STATEMENT COMING FROM OUR PRIME SUSPECT

SOMEONE QUICK GO DRAW CHALK AROUND THE DOORWAY TO MARK THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

Wang Meng: Do we know anyone who *would* sneak in and put those up? For whatever reason, legal or not? Even as a joke?

Wang Pangzi: ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING WHETHER WE KNOW ANYONE WHO IS CHAOTIC, AN OUTLAW, A PRANKSTER AND/OR SNEAKS INTO PLACES

BECAUSE THAT WOULD MEAN OUR SUSPECT LIST IS LITERALLY EVERYONE WE KNOW EXCEPT FOR YOU.

Wu Xie: okay let’s think about this; for starters, I didn’t break into my own shop

Wang Meng: You would be in danger of doing some work in the process, that’s true.

Wang Pangzi: LOL

Wu Xie: ANYWAY let’s keep going. For example, Xiao Ge would only break in somewhere for a good reason. Xiao Ge, did you do this?

Zhang Qiling: No.

Wu Xie: okay who’s next

Wang Pangzi: YOU REALLY MISSED YOUR CALLING IN INTERROGATION TIANZHEN

REALLY PUT THE SCREWS TO HIM

IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE;)

Zhang Qiling: How can we be certain *you* didn’t do it?

Wang Meng: Admittedly that was my guess, too.

Wang Pangzi: WOW I SEE HOW IT IS

BLAME PANGZI AS USUAL

ANYWAY HOW DOES HUO DAOFU FIT INTO THIS

Wu Xie: Oh yeah him! Oops I got distracted

Wang Pangzi: UR ENTIRE HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL

Wu Xie: Ugh fuck off

Wang Meng what abt Huo Daofu??

Zhang Qiling: ?

Wu Xie: oh sorry xiaoge I didn’t realize you wouldn’t have spent much time around him last year

He and I go way back

Zhang Qiling: Way back where?

Babysitters Club Chat

Wang Pangzi: I CANNOT BELIEVE HE IS BUYING YOUR INNOCENT ACT

IF YOU EVER TURN TO EVIL WE ARE FUCKED

Zhang Qiling: ?

Wang Pangzi: YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHO HUO DAOFU IS

YOU WERE EXTREMELY POLITE AND BORDERLINE FRIENDLY TOWARDS HIM

Zhang Qiling: I wanted him to feel welcome. I wanted to be sure he understands he has a place here. A specific place.

Wang Pangzi: FOR A SILENT GUY YOU ARE A MASTER AT SUBTLE POWER PLAYS IM ALL TINGLY

LMAO THE IDEA OF WU XIE LEAVING YOU FOR HUO DAOFU IS HILARIOUS AND ALSO NOPE

Zhang Qiling: Rationally, I understand that.

Main Chat

Wang Meng: Huo Daofu is coming for the weekend—didn’t Wu Xie tell you? Wu Xie asked me to check in a week ahead so we could start getting ready for his arrival

Wu Xie: oh yeah I did do that

Wang Meng: Fortunately I know you and so I already went ahead and took care of everything.

Re: the trip

He made a deal with Wu Xie’s doctor that he would do periodic checkups on him here at Wushanju

Bc Wu Xie hates being in the hospital

And frankly the hospital hates him too

Wang Pangzi: FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT LOL

I FORGOT HUO DAOFU WAS DOING THAT

A VERY CHIVALROUS GESTURE

WOULDNT YOU SAY

XIOAGE

Zhang Qiling: Is it safe for him to be here with a criminal loose on the premises?

Wu Xie: Right, back to the curtain! Let’s focus on the curtain, hmm?

Wang Pangzi: I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS WEEKEND.

ALSO WE CAN RULE OUT XIAO BAI FOR THE CURTAIN SHE JUST SENT A SELFIE FROM NORWAY COVERED IN GREEN SLIME WITH ZERO CONTEXT, UR PROTEGE INDEED

Wu Xie: okay but who else would do something so oddly charming yet illegal and—wait.

Snake Eyes Chat

Wu Xie: hey, Glasses hasn’t been in touch lately right?

Li Cu: uh nope

Unless u count the outdated memes

Why, is money or Xie Yuchen missing

Or is this curtain related, I saw Wang Meng’s tweet

Wu Xie: haha no nothing to worry about really

(I mean maybe? but who knows)

Wang Meng is probably just getting a little paranoid in his old age

Li Cu: better than getting reckless and stupid as hell in ur old age

Wu Xie: …hey:(

Unknown Number: Li Cu, we discussed this.

Wu Xie: ????????

Li Cu: *sigh* fine, reckless and stupid as heck

Unknown Number: …close enough.

Wu Xie: EXCUSE who is that

Madame, Sir, Non-Binary Tree Spirit, etc—whomst the fuck

Are you

Li Cu is underage FYI

So Im staying on this chat

Li Cu: okay first of all, it’s not like that

Second of all I’m literally not underage I s2g

u threw the embarrassing surprise bday party, okay so u should remember

And C, that’s my counselor and I invited her. She wanted to meet u and I knew u wouldn’t agree to a visit so I added her to our chat

we have been discussing u

Wu Xie: Oh wow!!!!!!!

What a surprise:)

hi so nice to meet you:)

Main Chat:

Wu Xie: RED FUCKING ALERT

FUCK THE CURTAIN FUCK THE VISIT

IVE BEEN TRICKED INTO FAMILY THERAPY BY A SMUG TEENAGER WHO TEXTS UNKNOWN NUMBERS

Wang Meng: I assume that means something to someone here?

Not my problem? Good.

Wang Pangzi: AHAHAHA GOD I LOVE LI CU

HES LIKE ADORABLE KARMA FOR ALL THE SHIT YOUVE PUT ME THROUGH

IM RAISING HIS ALLOWANCE

Wu Xie: wait i give him an allowance

has he been collecting on two allowances??

Zhang Qiling: Three. I knew about both of yours.

Snake Eyes Chat

Wu Xie: so uh may I ask your name?

Unknown Number: you can call me Ms. Lee.

Now, if you’re comfortable talking in this format, why don’t you tell me how things have been going?

Wu Xie: oh everything is normal and fine and safe as usual, why do you ask:)

Li Cu: I heard about ur necklace thing. nice of you to NOT mention it.

another dangerous adventure. again. prick.

Ur lucky your cool boyfriend cares about you so much or you’d have already died like ten years ago

Wu Xie: lol try twenty years ago

Li Cu: That isn’t funny.

Unknown Number: …What?

Wu Xie: shit ur right, okay that was a bit glib, my apologies.

…I use humor as a coping mechanism?

Unknown Number: and Li Cu, how do you feel about that?

Li Cu: he doesn’t even know what that phrase means

He doesn’t cope, like ever

In fact

It’s kind of why we met

Which is a funny story in retrospect tbh

Wu Xie: haha what are you talking about sweetie hahaha need I remind you of certain anecdotes that could idk send me to jail maybe lmao

Unknown Number: …You know, perhaps an in-person meeting might be more effective?

Wu Xie: haha such a nice idea but why

Main Chat

Wu Xie: If I go to jail, I’ll have to create alliances for protection, right, that’s how it works on tv

Who do we know who spends time in jail

Other than Hei Yangjing, he’s only ever there for like 12 hours and i suspect he just gets himself arrested bc he enjoys the breaking out process

Also how’s the curtain case coming along

Zhang Qiling: Has someone threatened you?

Wu Xie: well not yet but soon I’m sure

Wang Pangzi: WHERE WAS THIS PARANOIA WHEN WE GOT TAKEN TO THE TEA HOUSE HUH

Snake Eyes Minus Your Fucking Therapist Chat

Li Cu: okay how tf did u pull off spy and undercover shit

u are sus as hell

Wu Xie: damn son is it pick on Wu Xie night

I missed the flyers or I would’ve invited my uncles

Also re: the curtain it’s been mostly solved

Li Cu: I’m not your son, idiot.

Wu Xie: …oh. Sorry, sorry, you’re right, bad choice of words, haha

Forget i said anything

Delete this chat even

Li Cu: shit I meant

Legally, biologically, I meant—

shit

…I turn into an asshole as a coping mechanism?

Wu Xie: oh that’s all okay! I have to go do something else now let me know if you need anything okay kid thanks!

Li Cu: goddamn it calm down who’s the kid here

lemme organize my thoughts so I can articulate my emotions fuckin healthily or w/e

Ugh maybe for like one afternoon we could go to Ms. Lee together? She knows how to word stuff

Wu Xie: uh…okay.

Li Cu: Anyway you don’t need to worry abt jail

As if you would survive prison for one day you’d piss off half the place in like an hour or less

I gave Ms. Lee the heavily edited version of the desert highway to hell roadtrip and i discussed it more in terms of like “nightmarish but still wouldn’t take any of it back”

Well maybe the sand

that shit was everywhere

Wu Xie: oh kiddo. It’s fine, really…You don’t have to explain yourself to me.

Li Cu: no, no it’s just

I do technically have a dad

who is an asshole. Being a son doesn’t really mean shit to me bc it sucked.

So you need to stop backing down just cuz ur guilty abt stuff. I’m really really glad ur not my dad in a good way. Do u get what I mean there

Where’s the mafia widower I followed into hell, huh

Wu Xie: Ur a good kid, despite my influence. I’m really glad you have someone to talk to after everything I…after everything. Wow this talking through feelings thing is kind of weird but nice ur right

Jfc no wonder it took me and xiaoge so long to—you know what, we won’t get into that

Li Cu: ew tmi

Also re: this week’s recent necklace fuckery

I moved my stuff here, I live here now

So you can’t die anymore

Or else…Idk I don’t have a threat planned

anyways abt the curtain

Wu Xie: oh my god, kid…kid you have no idea

I am in tears.

Li Cu: see this is why I can’t be nice to you I can sense the hallmark channel from here

Ugh don’t be sad in ur room that’s dumb

Go hug Pangzi or something

Maybe delete this chat

Or the curtain thing

Focus on the curtain thing

Just stfu and go away

Wu Xie: <3 screenshotting this <3

Li Cu: I take back everything I said. This is why Xiao Ge sleeps on the roof. I hope the ghosts of the Wangs put up that curtain to strangle you somehow. Go die in a stupid way, it’ll suit you.

Wu Xie: lol don’t worry I’m not gonna embarrass you with it or anything

Main Chat

Wu Xie: omg guys look how cute my kid is *sending screenshot*

Wang Pangzi: I MEAN

HE IS WISHING YOU DEATH

BUT SURE

CUTE I GUESS

Wu Xie: no but read the whole thing:):):)

Zhang Qiling: It is indeed very hard to remain angry with you. And you are welcome to join me on the roof.

Wang Pangzi: UH NOPE

NOT WHENI HAD TO BLEACH THE COUNTER IN THE KITCHEN

DONT TRAUMATIZE THE EARLY BIRDS THEYRE ALREADY FREAKED OUT BY U YA HOODIE CRYPTID

Wu Xie: ok true but babe ur like a sexy cryptid

Wang Meng: so, are we just accepting that there is a glittery curtain of unknown origin, and Huo Daofu is going to have to see it while he’s waiting for you at Wushanju bc you’re going to family therapy?

Wu Xie: right

Wang Pangzi: SHOULDA TAKEN EARLY RETIREMENT HUH

Wang Meng: I’m going to go dust something.

Unnamed Chat:

Unknown number: so the curtain…

Unknown number 2: yep, not my best work but I kinda panicked last minute u know

Unknown number: what is in the water at Wushanju that makes everyone dumb and attractive

Unknown number 2: relax they’ll figure it out

[ruby-whistler]

Srry but i noticed in one of ur dream posts u Referred to tommy's cat as hope. I must correct u, that cat was born pussbou and died pussboi. /lh Also tommy killing that cat was nothing compared to dream killing mushroom henry in exile btw just wanna say Also for ur posts about dreams trauma or wilbur manipulating him can u provide links to vods or other proof? Srry if i seem rude i mean that in a "genuinely curious way"

Aaa sorry if my ask came off as rude im just genuinely curious :(((

hi! dw, you don't seem rude at all, and i'm extremely happy someone with a different perspective has found my blog! i really appreciate that sort of attitude and am happy to answer :]

/dsmp /rp

the cat was called pussboy by tommy, but dream only called it "the cat" and then said that "it was hope", which is why it sort of became a symbol (his hope is dead, basically) - that's why i kind of made its name capitalized, because it was more of a metaphor than anything.

most c!dream fans call the cat hope because it's just really nice and really symbolic, and also really sad when you think about it. that's why the name was used in the essay, just to clear up the confusion!

tommy killing that cat was nothing compared to dream killing mushroom henry in exile

i don't really think so? mooshroom henry was entertainment more than anything, and even if it was bad, when watching the stream i don't remember seeing him mourn that much - on the other hand, dream was very quickly and very obviously attached to the cat, with it being his only companion in months of isolation, along with the hope that even when tommy left it would keep him company.

keep in mind c!dream has been deprived of stimuli and human contact for so long it's officially classified as psychological torture at that point.

i don't mean to compare trauma or even compare deaths - because honestly, what c!dream and c!tommy have gone through individually is incomparable and i think neither should be diminished in favor of the other since they're both terrible situations.

that's why i disagree that it "was nothing compared to" - it had an obvious effect on c!dream, and was still c!tommy killing an animal specifically to hurt him, no matter what reasons he had.

when i'm talking about effects people's actions have had on c!dream, i'm not talking about those people. i'm talking about him. :) /lh

as for the trauma, a lot of people agree that a lot of the things he says or does are trauma responses, and hence it's very possible that he's had trauma before he went into prison!

this includes being repeatedly called a tyrant via propaganda by about half of your friends who decided to betray you, trying to keep peace and being pushed deeper into villainy instead, repeatedly being put in between a rock and a hard place in order to make sure the people you care about don't start killing each other, then being betrayed by your closest friends after merely trying to keep peace (sapnap & george) and just in general having no control over your life or image and grasping at straws to gain it back.

i know a lot of people with trauma who heavily relate to certain trauma responses, which aren't always just shaky breaths and flashbacks, but trauma often also manifests itself in extremely ugly and destructive ways, both inwardly and outwardly.

trying to control the people around you is also very often a response to going through trauma, as well as emotional repression which is... rather evident on c!dream during season two. it only seems to get worse with repeated abandonment.

in the end, during the vault scene, the way he acts really just isn't at all the way a healthy person would act, and a lot of his really bad mindsets come from the way he was taught by the world around him.

the character is very reserved however, and since we don't have his pov we can't really say for certain - a lot of people claim it in good faith because they have a lot of evidence for it, and i think they're certainly valid in that.

that is just before the prison, however. from what happened during the prison arc? there is no denying he's traumatized at this point.

he's been emotionally and physically abused by c!sam since the very beginning of being imprisoned, and being in solitary confinement for over two weeks is generally considered psychological (and maybe also physical?) torture. that alone shows up in a lot of symptoms of his mental deterioration while in pandora's during people's visits, and quackity's "sessions" just absolutely drove the point home.

what he's gone through during this arc is absolutely incomparable to anything others charactes have faced before, and it's just plain suffering being endured by someone who is, despite everything, still a human being.

as for the wilbur manipulation thing!! it's talking about the whole vassal scene (though even beforehand a lot of their interactions are pretty iffy), and here's a post about that :]

I also have a small question about the analysis u last reblogged cus it says "why dream needed lmanburg gone rightfully" and like. The house analogy is poor because for one cus the land is infinite. And 2 cus punz's yard was literally larger then lmanburg. And also stuff about dream being a mediator? Can u provide examples?

i wouldn't say it was poor. dream's said a lot of times that he didn't care in the slightest about the land - a lot of his problems with l'manberg arose with the fact that wilbur basically built it on lies and tried to disallow half of the server to come there. c!dream was mad about the division and the fact that wilbur wanted "freedom" to have authority in his lands - over others, as can be seen in this post also.

the table analogy was fitting not because dream was some overlord, but because these were literally friends he invited to hang out and live in a place he wanted to call home. claiming a part of it for yourself and saying people of a certain nationality can't come in is directly opposing those goals.

in the early days of the smp, dream's always been a mediator between his friends - sapnap and george, who would often get into fights and go around killing each other! he would always do his best to stop the conflict, which continued after tommy joined when he took him to court and then later tried to mediate conflicts he was a part of, which resulted in tommy killing him unprovoked, stealing his gear, and starting the disc wars when dream was trying to get his stuff back. later, during pogtopia, he is also most concerned with peace over everything, and this seems to continue indefinitely after.

Today i was thinking about how messed up the final control room was. Like. Dream arranged the betrayal and punz and sapnap killed tommy and tubbo who like. Were literal children and their pals (because the author, wilbur soot, is dead/j but srsly if u take the streamers words tommy said he was 9 during the revolution sooo)

Sorry im gonna ramble about how dumb canon ages are for a second cus like. Streamers can say the characters are one way or another (wilbur saying he is mentally 30-something, etc.) But in the end the characters act like they(or at least their streaming personas) do.

i... honestly don't find it that bad? they were in a war, and the final control room was basically just supposed to end it quicker. the l'manbergians made it clear they were going to fight to the death, so they really left c!dream no other choice. and it's not like he didn't give them chances to give up.

also yeah the 9 year old thing was retconned, because in that case c!dream would've been 14 and i don't think that's true.

c!tommy and c!dream were both young and once again, in a war. the final control room was an attempt to assure victory, which both sides would've taken if possible, but only c!dream saw he had the option.

i do agree the whole child soldier thing was bad but... complain about that to c!wilbur, methinks. he talked naive kids into fighting for his personal power. however, the age argument isn't really valid either way. they had enough agency to sign up for it, and whether or not c!wilbur pushing the intense nationalism onto them had something to do with that is another debate entirely.

Bacl to final control room cus like??? Also fun fact punz took 2 of wilbur's canon lives. And like that probably is what started wilbur's paranoia which later lead to his spiral and i. Many thoughts full of lmanburg today.

i'm pretty sure cc!wilbur said what lead to c!wilbur's spiral was a "dark, twister view of possessions" and "disregard for his fellow citizen whom he claimed to love so much", but i really wouldn't say it was the control room; if anything the sudden loss of power after the elections seems to me like the trigger for his spiral.

I watched the exile arc live and. I feel dirty almost for feeling little to no sympathy for c!dream (srry ive been forgetting to add that aa) because of his actions toward c!tommy and like. The whole probation was so humiliating and unfair and c!dream was planning to frame him for the crimes he and puffy did under the the guise of "pranks" and c!quackity was planning to seize the vice president role.

i mean... to be fair, if you didn't watch the prison arc much yet or only watch tommy's perspective i understand not feeling that sympathetic - however, i encourage you to maybe watch a few prison visits, since they could help you see the whole picture better!

i also watched it live, and i also thought it was terrible, but i share very much the same sentiment for the prison arc because. absolutely no one should have to go through either of those things, you know?

i don't think probation was that humiliating? he was just. being asked to not start conflict with the other factions for two weeks. of course, what happened as a result is in no way justified, but i don't think probation itself would've been bad at all. either way yeah the framing and c!quackity's behaviour was. very yikes, i agree.

Also c!tommy antis are dumb because they say "he deserved exile angry emoji" i dont see u saying that about ranboo. Just say you hate cc!tommy and go. Also people say c!tommy was just as toxic to c!dream and i??? No. One is the victim and one is the abuser and like. :/// man. This part is rambly srry

i wouldn't say they hate cc!tommy? cc!tommy has a persona who people think is annoying at first ( but then they subscribe because he is super entertaining big man! ) but a lot of c!tommy's actions are straight up toxic to certain characters, such as c!funndy and c!jack. he has a very dismissive attitude towards others and their trauma and it does affect the people around them very negatively.

examples; his repeated bullying and behavior towards fundy:

Tommy: “Fundy, I’m just here to kinda let you know that I – if you weren’t Wilbur’s son, you would be out of L’manburg, alright? Just remember – you need to keep that relationship with your father. I saw how asshole-y and bratty you were acting in the courtroom the other night. You need to pull your shit together young man.”

......

Fundy: “I’m wearing glasses…are you making fun of my eyesight?!”

Tommy: “Yes.”

Sapnap: “Your father would be very disappointed.”

Fundy: “Wh – disappointed for wearing glasses?!”

Tommy: “You got glasses, like what are you wearing…”

Fundy: “What do you mean?”

Tommy: “Sapnap, Sapnap, over here. Fundy, Fundy, Fundy, I’m really sorry to say this – I’m just here to publicly denounce you.”

Fundy: “…What?”

( credit for transcript: @/findingjoynweirdstuff )

he's also responsible for a big chunk of c!jack's trauma, both with actions and words, and that's why i think certain people might dislike the character, and i don't think that's wrong of them. anyone can dislike any character they want if they don't attack people for liking them, in my opinion.

also c!tommy was most definitely toxic against c!dream in the cell. it's of course understandable but that doesn't change the fact he was constantly hitting and insulting him (without dream doing anything back for a long while until he snapped) which is toxic behaviour.

i wouldn't say he was "just as" though, so i agree with you on that. they're different and they behave differently.

i made a dream blob keychain today. Is it possible to send images if u wanna see? Idk cus i havent used tumblr before. I think that's all for now. Thx for letting me talk :D peepoShy -curious anon (but fr a connoreatspants c!dream redemption arc would be cool)

yooo that's cool! i don't really,,, know if it's possible to send images? try it out and if it isn't i'll try find a way to turn it on.

also, no problem! just please remember this is a c!dream sympathetic blog, and me as well as my followers are uhh,, oftentimes emotionally attached / personally relate to the character, so if you could avoid sending hate on the character (not that you have or that i expect you to, just a friendly reminder) in the asks that would be great! we already see a lot of it unwillingly so, i'd rather not see more, but as long as the discussion is civil i'm absolutely ok with you asking more and with me answering more questions if you'd want to! :)

if anyone else would like to reblog this and add some things i might've missed with my answers, feel free to, just go easy on her (she uses she/her pronouns!) and keep it factual.

i hope u had a good or at least ok time at school today :D

thanks! i gtg now because exam tomorrow but i'm going to try write the redemption essay tomorrow as well because ohhh boy i have a lot of ideas about what all i could write around the concept.

also sorry this was long, i can't keep my tongue on the leash :[

[supercasey]

So I've been playing The Hades Game like fucking mad for the last few weeks, and although I'm not very far in it (at least, I don’t think I am; I’ve only beat Hades once!), I'm absolutely in love with it! Anyways, a certain idea has been kicking around in my head for awhile now, so I thought I'd share it with y'all; feel free to tell me what you think of it! (Warning: spoilers for when you beat Hades the first time!)

Anyways, I've already seen a really cool AU post for if Demeter raised Zagreus on the surface by herself (which you can find HERE; please check it out, the outfit for Zag alone is an amazing concept, and I love the artwork!!!) but I keep thinking about an AU where, after Zagreus dies at birth, Persephone runs away and takes his wrapped up body with her.

On the surface, she reconnects/reunites with her mother Demeter, and with her aid, the two of them manage to resurrect the newborn baby, though now he has more white in his hair than anything else. After that, Persephone sends Hades a letter to tell him that Zagreus is alive and well (because she actually has some fucking class), before proceeding to raise Zagreus on the surface with her mother, far away from the entrance to hell. The Olympians also help her out a bit, but mostly they just help by hiding Zagreus when it’s necessary.

(The rest is under a cut ‘cus this got a bit long, sorry!)

Years pass in relative peace, until Zagreus is about as old as he is in-game (I think he’s around 20-25ish???) and is living well, working with his mom and grandma to take care of their gardens and live peacefully away from mankind; he especially loves tending to the animals and guiding lost mortals to safety. However, one day while foraging for fruit in the deepest corners of his mother’s signature garden, Zagreus happens across a strange man in long robes, who introduces himself as Thanatos.

The two men get along swimmingly from minute one, and after agreeing to meet with each other again soon, they leave and tell their families/friends all about the experience, having no clue who they are to each other. After all, Thanatos was told growing up that his lord’s first wife died giving birth to their first and only child, who was a stillborn, and Zagreus thinks his father died of disease (his mom didn’t have to heart to tell him anything bad about his dad). Needless to say, they’re gonna be in for quite the shock soon.

Cue Hades losing his shit and calling on Thanatos, Megaera, and Achilles to go find his progeny and bring him home; he gives them special permission to leave the Underworld without any resistance, trusting Than to lead the way back to Zagreus. Achilles is less than thrilled to be performing such a morally grey task for his master, but Meg and Than are eager to prove themselves, so he begrudgingly agrees to help, even if it hurts his conscience to do so.

Persephone and Demeter also freak the hell out on their end, scared shitless by the fact that Death incarnate has just met their son/grandson, and they’re worried that he plans on coming back again soon. Demeter suggests sending Zagreus to live with the Olympians until this all blows over, but Persephone disagrees, wanting her son to stay nearby in case he grows ill (it’s implied that she’s a bit overprotective of him, mostly because she’s afraid of him dying again; this also means she refuses to let him know that he’s in any danger, believing it would only make things worse for him in the long-run). Frustrated but understanding her daughter’s pain all too well, Demeter at least convinces her to call on the Olympians for aid, which Persephone agrees to do.

The gods promise to help of course, but... well, they're low-key lying; they wanna see how this plays out first.

After several days of traveling through hell (literally), the “let’s kidnap Zagreus” gang makes it to the surface, and they immediately head to Persephone’s garden. All this time, Zagreus has no idea that he’s being targeted, so he goes about his chores as usual, only to run into Than again, and hey, he brought some more friends for him to meet! Zagreus is friendly with all of them, being raised to be very polite by his guardians, and while he’s busy chatting with Than and Achilles, he doesn’t notice Meg sneaking behind him. Just as Zagreus is rattling on about how the animals have been faring this summer, Meg stabs Zagreus in the back with a blade coated in Hades’s blood, cursing him to belong to the Underworld again.

With Zagreus now unconscious from a sedative that was mixed with the blood, the trio hurry off with him back to the Underworld, but not without Persephone seeing what they’ve done to her son. Horrified, she begins to sob, and winter arrives in the mortal world without so much as a fall season in-between this and the summertime.

When Zagreus comes to, he finds himself in a bedroom similar to the one he has in the game, but it’s much cleaner and has less objects of personal value to him. Hades is standing at the foot of his bed when he wakes up, and very calmly, Hades tells Zagreus that he’s his father, and that from now on, Zagreus will be living in the Underworld with him and his people, where he so obviously belongs. It’s a shame his mother can’t be here, of course, but they just need to wait awhile, that’s all; surely she’ll come to her senses and return home soon, now that her husband and son are here.

Zagreus jumps out of bed and faces his father as soon as he’s done monologuing, ready to tell him off for what he’s done, but to his shock, Hades hugs him as soon as he’s on his feet, and admits that he’s waited for this day for a long, long time. He asks his son to please just accept that this is his home now, and despite still being a bit surprised (and subtly hugging Hades back because Longing), Zagreus tells him straight up that he can’t, that he has to get home, especially with winter coming in a few months!

Dejected but not overly surprised, Hades simply nods in acceptance, but he still warns Zagreus that it’s no use trying to fight it; he’s stuck here, now and forever, so he may as well get comfortable and try getting along with him, because no one’s going anywhere anytime soon. Zagreus is horrified, but he nods nonetheless, unsure of what to say or do just yet.

Later that night, as Zagreus is struggling to sleep in this new, unfamiliar place, Achilles comes to him and apologizes about what’s happened, and although he can’t magically fix everything for him, he tells Zagreus that it actually is supposedly possible to escape; it’s just that no one’s ever done it before. Driven by his desire for freedom and the thought of reuniting with his mother, Zagreus tells Achilles that he’s going to find a way out, no matter the cost. Achilles congratulates him on his tenacity, but warns him that it won’t be easy. Still, he’s willing to help Zagreus as much as he can.

From then on, I imagine the game playing out very differently from the original, with a rather frazzled and scared Zagreus trying to get home to his mom and grandma, but with none of his training from Achilles in this AU, he has to rely on something his mother taught him; his connection with earth and all it’s inhabitants. Or, in his case, his connection with the spirits of animals (a cross of his dad and mom’s powers). That’s right, I’m making The Hades Game into a fucking Pokemon-ripoff, but still with some rouge-like elements mixed in (mostly with Zagreus not keeping his animals after runs).

Having royally fucked up in not stepping in sooner to protect Zagreus, the gods end up helping him out by sending down animals associated with them for the young god to tame for a run (I’ll come up with them later). They usually offer a selection to choose from, and from there Zagreus can build up a team and use it to try and escape the Underworld.

To replace weapons, I like to think he’d have “signature” animals that can help him out for any of his runs, specifically ones from Achilles, Poseidon, Zeus, Demeter (once he reaches the surface at least once), and eventually even Hades gives him one if they bond together enough ((yes, it’s Cerberus... kinda; it’s a puppy version of him, otherwise he’d be OP as fuck)). Zagreus’s signature animals can all be given names, and they keep certain skills that they pick up through enough experience battling in the Underworld for Zagreus.

As for story-line stuff, Zagreus ends up in a very fish out of water situation as he tries to get to know everyone in Hades’s house (he’s still our kindhearted Zag, after all, and he knows most of them aren’t to blame, not even really Than!) while also focusing on his goal to get home to his mom. Hades ends up being a lot nicer to him in this AU, perhaps overly so, as he’s trying to make his son like him more in order to make up for lost time (and fill the hole in his heart that Zag’s initial death as an infant and Persephone leaving with him created). It’s part of the reason he’s even letting Zagreus try to escape; he wants him to learn that it won’t work on his own terms (and maybe also scare the kid so bad that he comes running to him for comfort afterwards).

Also, I should really note that Zagreus is 100% a sweet country farm boy in this AU, and he has no idea what the fuck is going on with pretty much anything in the Underworld, much to everyone’s astonishment. For example:

Meg: Gods, it must be weird getting used to everything down here, huh? Sick of stepping in bat shit yet? Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it, and Dusa’s pretty good about cleaning it up to begin with. Zagreus: I mean, I guess? It’s not that different from chicken shit tbh. Meg: What the fuck is a chicken???

After that... yeah, I dunno. I’ll try playing Hades some more, see if I think up anything else that could be interesting, but for now, I hope at least someone ends up liking this dumb AU (if not, I’ll still like it... might even try my hand at drawing for it a bit tbh). Again, please check out the person who’s post/art I linked earlier in the post, ‘cus their art is really awesome and inspired me to include Demeter more in this AU!

[incarnateirony]

That heaven meta you wanted

And a little more on souls, but I already have a 40 page meta on that topic in particular. 

So someone asked if I had heaven meta, and I pointed out yes, but littered through many other topics involving things like souls, false duality, absence, the One True Thing and whatever else in my crazy-ass pagan life tag.

So the first cue here is to absolutely stop thinking of heaven as a place. The beginning mental exercise in abstraction is to apply two things.

One from Dabb’s Dark Side of the Moon: It’s “A bunch of places.” also, from 15.13, I want people to niche talk of the Occultum. It’s a Place, and a Thing. It doesn’t exist in any particular created space, but rather, outside of a particular space.

I find that in our training to think inside three dimensional space and linear time, certain details of all of this get lost. The one “place” to consider will be the Axis Mundi, and “The Garden.” -- the Axis Mundi as the road of thought that ties it together, perceived as a white hall by angels or anything from a river (like Styx) or a road (for Dean) to man. Just like in DSOTM, “for some it’s god’s throne, for others it’s Eden” at the “center of it all”. Angels perceive god’s throne. The Winchesters perceived a garden, they just perceived a different garden than Jack’s baby brain. Yes, I am implying the occultum is essentially the same place as god’s throne despite the absence of angels, and even that paradox is something I’m going to touch on inside this.

Now before I get into making everyone have to think like delirious stoners, I’m going to share with you one delightful mental image of, in DSOTM, Zachariah actually sighting Dean toot tooting down a white hallway floating on an invisible car only he perceives.

Okay, now, to the real meat of this.

Have we all stopped thinking of heaven as a place yet? Because again, stop. Stop thinking of it as a place. It’s a lot of little non-places. It is not in our three dimensional universe. In fact, our three dimensional universe may just be tucked inside of one of a million little pockets of the heavens. The idea of the heavens should not be broken down and tried to pack to make sense within the universe, but the universe should be made to make sense within the heavens.

ASH: See, you gotta stop thinking of heaven as one place. It’s more like a butt-load of places all crammed together. Like Disneyland except without all the anti-Semitism.

Dean and Sam still look confused.

SAM: Disneyland?

ASH: Mm-hmm. Yeah. See you got Winchesterland. (He holds up his hands to indicate the bar.) Ashland. (He points all around outside the bar.) A whole mess of everybody-else-lands. Put them all together: heaven. Right? At the center of it all? Is the Magic Kingdom. The Garden.

For now I’m going to forego arguing the absurdist circles reads on this section of canon and explaining fundamental things like Ash as an unreliable narrator and how honestly absolutely fucking irrelevant and outright hysterical that this is what the fandom focuses on rather than the whole vat of cosmoconception, gnostic thought and baudrillard ideas floating around in here, sure, we’re gonna bicker with alt shippers over them misreading what Ash says about soulmates, an idea that didn’t even exist mythologically until the 19th century --lol, we’ll move past that and focus on the meat.

The center of it all is the garden. Check. 

Like, meditate if you need to. I need people to let that go. Let go of old fandom wank. Let go of heaven being a space, but rather a lot of nonspaces. Time is not a thing there. Space, really, is only as far of a thing as people perceive it within their own little mental domains. Perception rules all.

Heaven is the place of the Mind.

CASTIEL: (on radio) Please, listen. This spell, this connection, it’s difficult to maintain.

DEAN: Wait. If I’m in heaven, then where’s Sam?

CASTIEL: (on radio) What do you see?

DEAN: What do you mean ‘what do I see’?

CASTIEL: (on radio) Some people see a tunnel or a river. What do you see?

DEAN: Nothing. My dash. I’m in my car. I’m on a road.

CASTIEL: (on radio) Alright. A road. For you it’s a road. Follow it, Dean. You’ll find Sam. (The radio is breaking up.) Follow the road. (The radio dies.)

And importantly,

SAM: This is heaven’s Garden?

DEAN: It’s-it’s nice… ish. I guess.

JOSHUA: You see what you want to here. For some it’s God’s throne room; for others it’s Eden. You two, I believe it’s the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. You came here on a field trip.

So beyond this, the only other mention we have of the axis mundi if you search supernatural transcripts is in Inside Man, where the hallway is acknowledged in unspoken text in Inside Man, when Bobby breaks out of his little mental box with Sam’s prompting. 

“Axis” remains the same from Latin. “Mundi” means:

toilet/dress (woman), ornament, decoration (uh, not this one)

universe, heavens (this one)

world, mankind (and this one)

Both of these ones. Bear through.

Now, this tracks, actually, if you think about heaven’s perspective there as from the angels we had the previous view seasons. We see the human perspectives in their own boxes, but when they step out rather than seeing a river, or a road, we see a white hall. These white halls, however, do lead to a white throne room that was god’s, rather than the road leading to a garden.

So again,  You see what you want to here. For some it’s God’s throne room; for others it’s Eden.

Okay, so, let’s recenter this, using Ash’s statement, at “the center of it all.” -- the garden. The Axis mundi flows to/from it, and along the way the “heavens” are there, but “heaven” as an idea comes with a lot of dogmatic associations I think makes people dig in their heels a little bit and think in... well, boxes. So instead of calling these “heavens”, moving forward I’m going to call them Thought-Boxes, alright? I want to detach any sort of christian coding you’ve attached to this in your brain and think about them as Thought-Boxes built by memories of the people using their greatest hits.

So let’s talk a little bit more about these Thought-Boxes. For example, in Byzantium, we see Jack in his own. During his time there, he’s living a greatest hit from around the time of Tombstone that was sort of an offscreen fill in. Now, Jack -- possibly from being half angel -- starts experiencing “seeing through” the parts that don’t make this real. There’s a break, a glitch if you will. The people that are there simply aren’t there. There are no souls to these, maybe there’s not even bodies. 

But despite this, even once he vacates, the place maintains physical properties. The physical props are there. They detect that Jack had been gone because his burger went cold.  This seems like an irrelevant detail but it very much is not.  I’m going to ask everybody to put a tack in this.

We can go on about the idea of abrupted memories leading to disappearing people in, for example, Dark Side of the Moon again. Fizzlefffft, baby Sam was gone once Dean cued into something not being right. But the environment remained, this imprint of a built space, a shadow of a memory.

But I’m going to go on to Thought-Boxes. Because Thought-Boxes don’t end at these heaven things. Thought-Boxes were with GadreelSam, with Casifer, with DeanMichael. I’m sure everyone wants to say “That’s not the same!!!” but... is it really different?

(Distantly hears someone yell YES)

No.

(YES)

No.

(Y-)

No, it really isn’t. Even ignoring the onset of the fact that entering Dean’s headspace in Nihilism was reflective of the Empty itself, there’s even more to this.

CHUCK:

Listen, you guys know me.

I'm hands-off.

I built the sandbox -- you play in it.

You want to fight Leviathans?

Cool. You got that.

You want to go up against -- what was it? -- the "British Men of Letters"?

Okay.

Little weak, but okay.

Okay cool, while this right here also had a bunch of subtext: such as, Chuck sort of entailing how he keeps them occupied, or that he built the sandbox but not the brings playing inside of it, I’m going to roll people back to remember what was going on inside Michael-Dean’s head, where Dean stayed complicit from a mix of contentment and battle. 

SAM Cass, wait a second. Would Michael bury Dean in trauma?

CASTIEL (dropping his hand and turning towards Sam) What do you mean?

SAM I mean, Michael said it himself. The reason he left Dean in the first place was because Dean was fighting back so hard.

CASTIEL So, if Michael wanted to keep Dean placated...

SAM Dean thrives on trauma. I mean, he's had to his whole life, right? It keeps him alert, keeps him ready, but if I wanted to distract Dean, I-I... I'd give him something he's never had before.

CASTIEL Contentment.

SAM Exactly.

So maybe, instead of looking through his bad memories, maybe let's, uh... maybe let's look through his good memories.

Hmm. HMM. Where is this familiar? Thought-Boxes. Oh, and Thought-Boxes. Now, if you have ceased to think of heaven as a single place, but rather an infinite amount of non-spaces connected by a line of the mental road-- and I haven’t even GOTTEN to the Occultum part yet-- this should be ringing some bells right now.

DEAN It'll hold. My mind, my rules.

I got him. I'm the Cage.

Do not forget this. DO NOT FORGET THIS. 

Now before I even deviate back to the full meaning of the Occultum, which will roll us back to the garden and the throne, I have a question for you: how is this different from Chuck having dominion in his own world? I mean people wanna yell IT’S REAL WORLD but I’m going to need everyone to stop. Because again, heaven is not a place within the universe. The universe is a place within the heavens. What divides it from being another Thought-Box beyond the fact that there are real souls in it, real people to have real experiences with?

This is actually the philosophical question of 15.2, but I’m not even ready to cross that bridge yet in this post. Thumbtack after thumbtack to keep track of, I know, but I’m getting to a point, I swear.

Chuck says in season 11 to Amara, “There’s a beauty, a glory in creation that’s greater than my pride or my ego. It was just there, waiting to be born. Since you’ve been free, I know that you’ve seen it. Felt it?” and looked to Amara. Amara also holds dialogue that Chuck and Amara were only Great because they stood in relation to each other, and he created the archangels to feel BIG, to make him feel LARGE. It was ego.

But that was just the beginning. This is... the rest.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

What is it that keeps the world tick tick ticking in the absence of his oversight while he tries to corral stories for his Vision(TM)? Well, there’s a swiss watch, not too unlike hitler’s swiss watch that was like a horcrux, which saved his soul. But minding that the heavens themselves are timeless, what is it that commands that men live and move and eventually time?

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

God beholdens man to time. Because his own body is a cage. And I’ll even expand on that. And then, in confusion and fear, desperation to cling to life, one of several things happen.

Death is an infinite vessel.

I built the sandbox -- you play in it.

TESSA!REAPER It's my sandbox, I can make you see whatever I want.

...Death is an infinite vessel.

So let’s play a game. The clock stops for a person when the reaper comes to collect. Their time marching forward from Chuck’s sandbox, built over an infinite vessel of death, a firmament in which it exists-- that stops. They lose that cage, but may or may not still try to attach themselves to a universe. 

They can no longer play in it properly. They watch it go by without them. They lose their minds, watching the things and people they love continue without them. They go mad and increase in power in spirit, and sometimes do lash out and become something else entirely.

T!REAPER Well, like you said. There's always a choice. I can't make you come with me. But you're not getting back in your body. And that's just facts. So yes, you can stay. You'll stay here for years. Disembodied, scared, and over the decades it'll probably drive you mad. Maybe you'll even get violent.

DEAN What are you saying?

T!REAPER Dean. How do you think angry spirits are born? They can't let go and they can't move on. And you're about to become one. 

So what happens to those that do move on?

CASTIEL: Each soul in heaven is locked in its own private paradise. That's where you are now. You need to escape. You need to find the gate to earth and open it. Then you and I will find Metatron, the Scribe of God.

[...]

BOBBY: So, while I'm playing Steve McQueen, anyone gonna be looking for me?

CASTIEL: Everyone. The Angels will not like a soul wandering free.

First of all, Dabb using “locked” is not a fluke. Notice the phrasing. Locked. Escape. “The angels will not like a soul wandering free.” Heaven has become a caging system, and it is patrolled by the forces Chuck created to be those who execute his will, wavelengths of intent created by grace that, in theory, do not have their own souls*

I’m not going to go into the entire breakdown of why I hold Castiel has something of a viable soul as a deviation, because that’s it’s own meta and this is going to be ridiculous enough, but we need to stay on the ~general~ topic of heaven and souls and Thought Boxes.

Because this isn’t new either.

SAM

Since when do angels feed on humans?

HOLLOWAY

Since the dawn of man.

SAM

What are you talking about?

HOLLOWAY

Your souls... Are little slices of heaven.

SAM

And they've been hunting humans, making them create heavens in their minds and feeding off them.

Hopefully I don’t have to dig all the way back to remind everyone of the premise of the entire season 6 plot or the final point of S11, where human souls are the ultimate infinite power reactor, and he who has the most souls is god (and able to defeat the darkness, too), right?

We all are vaguely aware of that at least, right? That was the entire Castiel dark arc and why he tried to soak up Purgatory and declared himself God, right?

Okay.

So with that in mind, let’s look back at the watch--it’s like a horcrux. GodHitler saved Their Souls. Their Literal Souls. Tick, tick, tick. Man remains subject to time. The angels won’t like a soul wandering free. Tick, tick, tick, tick. 

But that’s still just the beginning. This is... still the rest. 

“The light was a LIE.” - Amara.

He who has the most souls is god. What puts off more light and energy, what do angels feed on, what do they fight to keep contained, what gives god his power, why must they remain caged? If I wanted to keep Humanity placated, I’d give it Contentment. Locked in its own little personal paradise. You have to escape. But angels won’t like souls wandering free.

“In the beginning, there was just me and sis. But I wasn’t satisfied.”

Your story. Not mine. Not ours.

“There are billions of us,” Kali decreed, “And we were here first.” - Hammer of the Gods, Dabb.

People think this stands in contrast with the idea of late seasons, under Dabb era, but I invite you to continue breaking the linear thought box.

If for example, there was something in creation greater than his pride or ego, waiting to be born--something that just is, as chuck and amara just were--maybe something just sleeping, waiting to find a meaning to exist, perhaps even a hidden forefather of the idea of Being and Absence that is Chuck and Amara, as darkness is only the Absence of Light--and if there was a glory in chuck’s creation greater than his pride or his ego that just happened to be born, only to reject him?

What was the mother of monsters? Eve. She was thrown to purgatory. Coincidental name?

THE GIRL: You must not be human. Humans may not enter here. Are you an angel?

JACK: Um, it's a long story. Why do humans have to stay out?

THE GIRL: This is the Garden. Man's beginning.

JACK: You mean...Eden. Like Adam and Eve?

THE GIRL: God loved them so. His prize creations, until he banished them and all of mankind from the perfection of the Garden. And he hid it away.

Alright so ignoring creepy girl sort of absent spitting Chuck propaganda while vague floating around, let’s actually pick at this while doubling back:

SAM: This is heaven’s Garden?

DEAN: It’s-it’s nice… ish. I guess.

JOSHUA: You see what you want to here. For some it’s God’s throne room; for others it’s Eden. You two, I believe it’s the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. You came here on a field trip.

Okay, remember the above commentary? About throne vs garden, and hidden away? 

So a creation greater than his pride or his ego simply was in the first Thought Box designed. This is the literal original Thought Box. This is where man in its purest form cropped up. I do beg you to ask though: minding that this is where Jack was reborn in Soul, are we entirely certain the idea of a body is even mandated in what defines humanity at this point?

And moreover, why did Chuck hide it?

In other posts, I’ve covered how Jack’s dialogue with the snake is a reflection of the dialogue of Poimandres from the Corpus Hermeticum (x), and I’ve been banging on with that accursed chart you’re all probably sick to death on about the stages of development, but hopefully I’ve ingrained that into some of your subconsciouses by now. 

CASTIEL: Yeah, he is. But, um, something's different. Jack is, uh -- well, he's been to the Garden. That's the crossroads of divinity and humanity. No one's been there since the exile till now.

The crossroads of divinity and humanity is man’s beginning. You might even call it the... AXIS MUNDI. The AXIS. Of HEAVEN AND MANKIND. Also I have another post about “the union by which life exists”  (x) and if you dive into the source text linked in the Jack post you’ll also read about that idea too. And that’s without even going into me sobbing violently about the use of the Occultum itself, which it and its verse is part of the Art arcana with all the Thoth tarot stuff I been talking (x)  

This union isn’t even new to SPN, it’s just been more low-key. For example, in “The Thing”, the alternate god pours out human blood as “Light” and grace as “Life.”

At a quick glance at the fandom, this seems backwards, unless we review that Chuck’s light was a lie, and that all things divine are powered by the soul as the One True Thing -- a whole alchemical thing you’ll find me spraying about in my souls, pagan life and general my meta tags. The very line Cas had about Absence of Good even comes from this, but I’ll diverge into that at a later time.

If the constructed mental universe, Chuck’s Thought Box that the humans are shoved into in bulk after the exile from the garden that he hid away, is what have the cages of bodies subject to time, then grace is ironically Life as we know it, as opposed to eternal light, whereas souls powering it are the true Light, but by it Life As We Know It Exists. 

Now Chuck can punish those who rebel, retrofit them with cursed bodies like monsters or even, say, pagan gods that then catch the flack of blame despite “being there first.” be that being on earth before angels came kicking around or being in the proverbial nonspace before Chuck kicked them out of his pet project for being uppity. 

In fact, does anyone notice the Leviathans and Shadow are not so different even in appearance? But they never got the development of a true life, they never got to explore themselves, they were only quasi-dark-divine beings left to suffer and eat each other and birthed what we call “monsters” which also, well, have souls.

So no, there’s not even a break in continuity with the pagan god timeline, it just takes breaking the linear thinking box going on, especially three dimensional+time based thinking. Because we’re operating outside of that. Circle back to beginning: Stop trying to make heaven function within the universe. Remember, the universe functions within the heavens.

But god hid the first Thought Box away. The Garden. Which is at the center of it all, the magic kingdom. Which some people see as god’s throne. Angels. See it as god’s throne. There, at the heart of the mundi. The beginning, the center, and the end.

Humans aren’t allowed there.

Angels don’t like souls wandering free. 

Chuck made them to feel big.

And Humanity stays placated with Contentment.

In order to be in the occultum, the occultum must be in you. 

Or as it is in alchemical practice:

VISITA RECTIFICANDO INVENIES OCCULTUM LAPIDEM = visit the interior parts of the earth ; by rectification(purification) thou shalt find the hidden stone.

The philosopher’s stone isn’t a literal rock, it’s a manifestation of completion, finding the true self, making gold from the reflection of soul as the true thing through mind by exploring the body, both personal body and body of the earth.

These stages I’ve gonged on about start at phase one: Blackness, the Blackening, represented by the Inky Man and called the Shadow. This is not actually different from Jung’s use of the Shadow either.

The Shadow. The Thing that Rules the Empty, that was there before Chuck and Amara, and has no meaning to exist, who knows everything about you.

Can you throw a soul to the empty? Sure, I guess. Are we so sure that doesn’t just return you to the source? Even Amara says that when she eats souls, they live on as one within her. But if you are Within Absence, are you not simply Outside of Being?

If you dig deep enough in my pagan life or my meta tags, you’ll find me banging on about cosmoconception between the two, but it is fundamental to understand that the Soul even in alchemy is the One True Thing. The Mind reflects it, and by reflecting the Soul, it not only Observes but Creates the Body of the self and the World.

So again I point back up to stuff like Thought Boxes and Chuck as the Mind, and the maker of the first Thought Box where something had just been waiting to be born that was greater than him.

Who are you? Who are you meant to be? 

I know who you hate, I know who you love. What do you want? Who are you? WHO. ART. THOU.

These are the critical stages of development, not even minding stuff like

I’ve gone on entire goddamn rants about the use of the blossom born out of putrefaction in purgatory, or the very meaning of putrefaction in the alchemical process: the breaking down and decay of a material of being to its blackened (shadow) state that leaves room for new growth to build on it over again.

If you skim these charts even passingly, which I have been posting on a loop for like 2 goddamn years, you’ll realize over those years Dabb has been playing paint-by-numbers across these points, because just like the other gnostic books or alchemical paths or cards I source, he’s using the source material. Just like Castiel’s quote about the absence of good. It’s all there.

This is ultimately an *aside* in a talk about Thought Boxes, but something worth touching on while we struggle across issues like the Soul, the Thought Box, and ultimately The Shadow. Because the Shadow is little more than the Shadow of man, often called in Alchemy The First Adam or The First Man. It is something beyond creation, even beyond the heavens, a paradox of itself I’ve spoken of before. Chuck is the demiurge religions call god; the Shadow of Man is the true god, and yet by living through the creation of the demiurge Logos, can become a more perfect god.

So rolling back to point:

In 15.2, Dean has a meltdown. Nothing in their lives is real, he declared.  It was a dark and painful scene, but I feel in many ways fandom is still struggling to get past this road bump in the cosmogenic structure. What’s real then? Do they fight to go back to earth once they beat Chuck?

*pulls your thought box out of Chuck’s propaganda machine and HIS thought box*

The magic kingdom. The center of it all. The place man truly belongs. The throne. The garden. A nonplace and a thing hidden away and kept under lock and key and patrol.

What’s real? People, families. We are. Souls. That’s real. Souls are what power it all. Souls are what make one god. Souls are people and families. We are. Everything else here is commentary. They’re created spaces. And we can even create our own. The problem being we are caged apart in Chuck’s system to keep people placated, keep them in a system of control once his games subject to Time are done, but they stay distracted, never together, never able to resist.

...Open the door.

Just like Chuck did hell. Open the door. Open all of the doors. Set man free. Let him retake the throne, let him retake the garden. Let the walls be torn down and let them build new and infinite worlds.

Earth would be one of many heavens to still exist, but if Chuck was unplugged from controlling the souls in his codex of time, what power does he have? Nothing. Because the souls are God. Chuck is just a mind among many then, and those minds have since built diverse experiences inside the machine to create their own. 

Sure, don’t just collapse earth. There’s still billions of us (hah, thanks Kali) that still have lives to live and decisions to make and autonomy to be had, loved ones to find. But free them of Chuck’s influence, build a better world, and leave a liberated heaven to enter. 

I have propositions on the what-and-how this will go, among other things, but that’s beside the point in this already very long post.

If you’re still confused, I encourage you to view any of the videos I’ve posted over and over and over again, or skim my pagan life tag, or souls tag, or any of the related tags of this and, worst case if you’re still confused, send me an ask.

But the real reason Chuck banished Her? Why She Couldn’t Be Allowed To Exist? 

He couldn’t stand it.

He knew they were equals.

[a-cat001]

The Coolest Lion in Daikanyama

“Huuuuuhhhh, I’ll never get through all this paperwork at this rate, aaaahhhh”, Arsalan rolled over onto his side on his desk in exhaustion as he had been hours at  work filling out paperwork for the abbey as per requested by Maria. “There has to be something to do other than this” he whined, no sooner than he had spoken, an angel came by his desk with another stack of paperwork causing Arsalan to bury his face into his arms in defeat. “I wish a certain cub would come by, I bet they could make this mundane work more exciting.” he said to himself, his face still planted in his arms. A sudden loud noise made him lift his head back up to see its source, “Come on Maria!”, “No Gabriel, you have responsibilities to attend to here, you can’t go to the party.”. It was Gabriel and Maria with Gabriel trailing behind Maria clinging to her clothes in a pleading fashion “But I got to put on a hit performance at such a party, even MC is going to be there!” Gabriel cried, this caused Arsalan’s ears to perk up at the mention of your name and a party, “What’s this about a party Maria?” the lion asked. “Shinjuku Academy is hosting a large party to celebrate their recent academic success schoolwide” replied Maria, “Yeah and the one thing that a party needs is a show and you know what's even better? A duet collab, it’s just what the people are waiting for!” Gabriel exclaimed indicating she wanted you to perform with her. “Again Gabriel, you have responsibilities to take care of on top of the fact you nearly gave them a heart attack last time you decided to randomly pull them on stage” said Maria, quickly cutting down Gabriel’s hope of performing, “Plus I believe that the party is only for Shinjuku students” she added. Gabriel continued to cling to Maria as she walked off, still whining about attending the party, leaving Arsalan to himself. He soon begin to think to himself about the party, staring at the stacks of paperwork on his desk, feeling more exhausted as he thought about the hours he would spend filling them out, “I’m sure that one break couldn’t hurt, it’ll boost my moral and I’ll be able to finish this paperwork in no time, plus I bet my young cub could use some company at such a rowdy event.” he thought to himself, stroking his chin as a smile came to his face.

It was the night of the party and you meet up with the rest of the summoners before heading down to the main reception “Ooooh I can’t wait to hit the buffet line, I heard Choji prepared all kinds of delicious stuff for the party!” Ryota said as he bounced along, “Hold your horses there bud, you may have to compete with Behemoth on that one” Kengo remarked. “Don’t take me lightly Kengo! All is fair in food and war and I don’t intend to lose, not even to Behemoth!”, Ryota said, “Woah where'd all this seriousness come from?!” Kengo replied. “Isn’t it all is fair in love and war?” Shiro quipped looking puzzled at Ryota’s earlier statement, “Same thing” Ryota replied which made you laugh, “looks like no ones changed” you remark. “Remember we are here to enjoy ourselves, my friends not to fight.” Moritaka said, “There will be plenty of food and games to enjoy for everyone, speaking of which I think I may enjoy myself in a game of frisbee toss while we’re there.” he added his tail wagging at the thought of frisbee. After you arrive at the party some of your friends break off to go enjoy different parts of the party while you go with Ryota to enjoy the buffet table, sampling the delicious array of food that is present until a sudden noise from the crowd in the distance catches your attention. You and Ryota move in to find out what the noise was about, running into Kengo in the process and asking what the was causing the commotion but Kengo simply stared forward with his mouth agape before answering “Uh, who is that?”. You turn in the direction he motions to and your jaw quickly hits the floor at the sight of a large lion transient wearing shades, white high top sneakers, shorts, an unzipped leather hoodie with the sleeves ripped off and a white t-shirt with the words “Lion Pride” written on it. “Hey yo cubs! The coolest lion in Dai- Shinjuku has arrived!” Arsalan roared as he pumped his fist into the air, “That Kengo, is a cry for attention” you sigh. Perhaps you spoke too loud as Arsalan quickly turns to your direction before his face lights up and he runs over to you picking you up off the ground into a massive hug, “greetings young cu- I mean, how’s my main cub!” he shouts, earning you more than a few stares. By the time Arsalan puts you down your face is beet red and you grab Arsalan’s paw to lead him to a less crowded area where you can talk to him, “What are you doing here?”, “What, I’m just here to enjoy the party and see my favorite cub.” he responds. You cross your arms and raise an eyebrow at him to which he breaks his facade ,”Awwww come now, don’t look at me with that face, you know I don’t do well with paperwork.” he whines, you give him a quick boop on the nose before reminding him he can’t just ditch his responsibilities. “This will be a one time instance, besides Maria will have my tail if I return now”, You give a defeated sigh and uncross your arms, “Fine, just try to blend in ok?”, you ask, “Gotcha” he replies, flashing you a smile and a pair of finger guns, “Huuh, ok, also what’s with the outfit?”, “Hmm, I thought this is what the youth of this world normally wear is it not?” he replies. Looking him up and down you chuckle before heading back to the party, you spend most of the party hanging around Arsalan, partially to keep him company and part to watch over him. You and Arsalan play mostly sports games and mingle with the crowd, meeting up with several of your friends and students from your class, with Arsalan “trying” to keep inconspicuous. HIs methods are however, drawing more attention to the two of you, “Hey yo! Nice to meet ya, how’s it hangin”, he would shout or he would shout into crowds, “Come on cubs raise your hands in the air!” and while it definitely got you some puzzled looks you couldn’t help but enjoy his enthusiasm. This continued for a while so you decided to take a break and grab a drink, but as you do a pair of students from another class come up to you with smug grins on their face. “You always tend to attract the freak show don’t you” one of them said, the other behind him chuckling, you give them a glare “What’s it to you what my friends are like” you retort. “Oh it's nothing it just makes sense that someone as weird as your friend would be following you around considering just how weird you are yourself.”, “What’s that supposed to mean?” you reply, now getting tired of the pair's attitude. “Oh come on, you may be the big talk around school but don’t think I haven’t seen the way you really are, crying to yourself, freaking out for no reason, hanging around a bunch of weird transients all the time, you're just like your friend, nothing but hot air.” he says, “I-” you begin but hang your head down at the realization that someone was calling you out on your problems. The pair laugh at your defeat and turn around to leave but are stopped as the first one collides into a large figure that had been listening in on the conversation. “Would you care to repeat yourselves little cubs?” Arsalan says, his face contorted in anger, “Who are you to judge others, especially MC. They have done nothing but devote themselves to others in need, which is why I and many others follow them. They have done more for this Arsalan and many others throughout Tokyo than you two could ever hope to as you are!”. They pairs grinning faces quickly turned to scowls “Why don’t you mind your own business you old poser geezer.” The first one says as they both unseath their sacred artifacts, Arsalan grins through his serious face as he pulls out his own sacred artifact, plunging it into the ground causing oil to spew up.

Back at the abbey, Maria had just received a phone call from the police that an incident had occurred at Shinjuku Academy involving one of their guild members. Upon arriving with Zabaniyya they are shocked to find Arsalan cuffed hand and foot, his head hung low, learning later he had been apprehended after he knocked two of the students unconscious. He was later released to the two after multiple witnesses testified that the students had instigated the fight but was still warned about starting fights especially considering the amount of oil everywhere after the fight. “I can’t believe you snuck out to go to a party Arsalan, you need to be setting an example!” Maria cried, “I know Maria, I deeply apologize for my actions and accept my punishment.”. Maria continued to huff for a minute before she left to talk with the police again about the incident and to apologize to staff, so you decided now would be your chance to talk to the lion. “H-hey thanks for standing up for me back there” you start, the lion perking up at the sight of you, “It was the least this Arsalan could do for you considering all you have done for me.”. You motion for him to lean down to your level to which you plant a quick kiss on his cheek, causing his face to blush deeply as he places his paw on his face where your lips had just been. “You know if you're getting bored at the abbey I could always drop by more often to hang out.” you say, the lion giving a wide smile before replying “Thank you my precious cub, I will be excitedly awaiting your arrival -Owowowow!”, Maria had returned and began to drag Arsalan away by his ear. As he was dragged away he waved at you still smiling wide. Zabaniyya approached you to express his thanks for watching over Arsalan before he leaned down to whisper to you, “I thank you for giving lord Arsalan the quality of time, he truly misses you back at the abbey and enjoys your company,... as do I, we both await your company”. You give Zabaniyya a smile before you decide to tease him a bit “maybe next time we can take you out with us.”, Zabaniyya begins to get flustered for a minute before he settles down to respond “Perhaps we could try something simple, I do not believe I am ready for such an occasion, and if I may request that I not be forced to wear such an attire, please?”.

[rwbyconversations]

Rooster Teeth Glassdoor Crunch/Overtime Accusations #AnimatorsFirst

EDIT: Georden Whitman, former creator of Nomad of Nowhere, has come out and publicly confirmed the Glassdoor reviews are true.

Original story:

Rooster Teeth’s Glassdoor reviews have recently made serious allegations against the company, with people who work for the company claiming that the company engages in practices involving heavy crunch periods, a resistance to providing benefits, eighty hour work weeks, a management team trying to justify crunch and unpaid overtime that, according to some, led to as much as a third of RWBY and gen;LOCK’s recent seasons being made effectively for free. 

Below are screencaps and exact quotes from the pages. Any emphasis made is done by me.

From May 23rd this year, as written by an employee with three years experience at RT:

Cons

Program scheduling department has no idea how to time budget for animation, has resulted in unnecessary, preventable crunch Company takes on projects that are too big for it to manage effectively Not the highest pay compared to Anim Guild standards Open office space, gets noisy

Advice to Management

Management has been using a weird method to try and deescalate hard feelings about crunch. They’re acting like counselors who are “there to talk” and to try and find “coping mechanisms” to deal with crunch. This is a terrible idea considering that none of them are trained counselors as far as I’m aware, but more-so, they’re obviously going to be biased in favor of what they want from us. It makes me want to communicate with them even less. This past review, my manager criticized me for having “negative energy” during a terrible crunch period where we were working over 80 hrs s week, and told me I should “look for the silver lining” which is just bad advice. Advice to management is to stop pretending you know anything about mental health and also be less passive - fight harder for your team.

From May 13th, an employee with a year’s experience at Rooster Teeth:

Cons

The management is terrible. Artists are lead on with the promises of "full time employment and benefits" dangled in front of them without ever being addressed and ultimately are never given, there is no paid overtime, artists had to fight for their right to time off between productions, and good luck getting any form of benefits despite them being plastered on the wall.

Advice to Management

You're not a group of guys playing halo in your apartment anymore. Please run your business and look at what's happened to it.

From June 11th this year, from an employee who has been working at the company for five years:

Cons

- Extremely poor management (Some of it is negligence, some of it is just accidental from the sheer amount of work. Upper management is also extreme bro/friends club.) - Insanely high expectations (animate a 10-14 min episode in 2 weeks) - Very low compensation (I've worked here for years and make entry pay. Some people have gone MULTIPLE years with no raise) - No overtime pay (Every season of RWBY and GL gets about 1/3 or less made for 'free' because no one gets paid over time and it's not uncommon to work hundreds of hours of overtime) - Toxic work environment (there are a lot of cliques, complaining and even making fun of other people and depts here. It never gets punished so it always happens. Not professional)  - You know something is going right when after many complaints HR reminds everyone you have "unlimited" mental health doctor appointments... I could honestly go on and on like an emo on Myspace in 2007 but I'll reign it in. I'll leave it at this since I've seen many fans read these and be skeptical. It's not great. You can deny it but there is a lot of evidence if you just accept it. And the reason you work here is cus you get stuck and are promised "It'll get better". The work is low quality (hard to get jobs elsewhere), pay is low (can't save money) and life/work balance is a joke. We have a bit of balance now but it's only for a couple months out of the year when production isn't in full swing. Then it's back in the meat grinder.

Advice to Management

You NEED to listen to the workers and make hard decisions and actually fight for better conditions. It's been far far too long of "it'll get better" or "we know what to do next year". This isn't sustainable and I think we all know it. But someone has to be the guy to say "no" when things aren't good enough. If you don’t say no, hundreds of people suffer. Please.

From May 18th:

Cons

Crunch has gotten to an unacceptable level. Productions have been completed with over half of total hours unpaid overtime, especially impacting the comp and editing department. Management cares more about their ego than the quality of the work they put out— letting the crunch caused by their irresponsible decisions fall solely on the shoulders of the artists while they enjoy a forty hour work week. Pay is laughable compared with the amount of mandated, unpaid hours of labor. No career advancement, and contract workers are given empty promises of full time employment before being shown the door once production is done.

Advice to Management

Stop saying the crunch issue is “getting better” or that you’re “working on it”, and start actually owning up to your mistakes.

From May 19th:

Cons

-A lot of employees brought on, if not all, before the last development cycle were promised permanent positions after a 90 day trial period. As those dates approached those artists saw no change, asking their leads what was going on. The guidance from higher ups was vague at best, and some felt like they had been forced to lie to employees during the interview process. - A lot of processes went over-scope due to poor planning. -Lack of actual production experience in the management side of things is no longer something that can be glossed over as the company tries to take on more industry vetted employees. -Crunch is extreme and overtime is not compensated for, nor is that time given back in any fair amount.

Advice to Management

-Clear and concise communication -Re-structure your upper level management

From May 12th:

Cons

Crunch here is out of control. No Paid OT. Expect to work A LOT for free. 70-80 hour work weeks. Mandatory 10-12 hour work days sometimes with no days off. Management is more interested in telling you what you want the hear as opposed to the truth.

Advice to Management

Fix the crunch issue and stop saying 'we're working on it'.... because you're not. Layoffs are certain. Will layoff bad employees and good employees in the same breath, completely eliminating any reason to work as hard as you're required to do. Fix your transparency issue and stop overworking your employees otherwise your reputation will severely suffer.

From April 5th:

Cons

-No paid overtime. -Crunch is a major problem in the animation department due to unrealistic deadlines, poor planning, and indecisiveness. (Mandatory 10 to 12 hour days for multiple months are common.) -Stress levels are often very high due to harsh deadlines -Some of the producers tend to lie. -Promotions are used as a morale booster, not actual career advancement. -Hardly any time for Professional Development -Professionalism can be a bit scarce (for example people would draw penises on the boards throughout the studio)

Advice to Management

-Management needs to seriously figure out how to deal with the crunch issue. A question was asked at an all hands meeting: "How are you going to handle crunch this year?" Instead of giving a clear answer, the head of the RT animation department completely dodged the question. If you don't know how you are going to tackle a problem, try saying, "I don't know. I will get back with you ASAP." Then actually pursue a solution to the problem. Dodging questions makes you look shady and untrustworthy. -Improve production plans and make sure you have enough resources to complete your projects. If you are going to work on two shows at the same time, then you need to double ALL of your teams along the pipeline, not just one. If you can barely get one project done with your current resources, you certainly cannot finish two. If you can't get the resources needed to complete the projects, then it's probably best to keep them small or to simply not do them at all. Pushing your teams beyond the breaking point is not the wisest decision. If you continue with your overambitious ways, it will backfire in the long run. Telltale Games' closure and Bioware's Anthem debacle are examples of what's to come if you do not improve your production practices and get crunch under control. -Get more training on how to manage people. There are plenty of programs out there that can help management understand how to work with various types of personalities. There were some situations where I noticed that some leads and producers simply did not know how to talk to a person when there was a problem. Despite all of the criticism I just wrote, I feel the majority of who work at Rooster Teeth Productions are decent people. However, the management is just terrible. Put some of that ambition you have into fixing your problems internally instead of putting it into meeting those unrealistic deadlines.

From March 25th:

Cons

- Massive amounts of unpaid overtime. All while touting the importance to the company of a life/work balance. They promise to give you the time back, but it will be impossible to take. - Management is just a joke. They can’t schedule or stay on track to save their lives. Total amateur hour. - Zero followthrough on promises made. How about a pizza party? - Pay much lower than standard. Don’t expect real raises. Promotions with increased responsibilities don’t come with comparable pay bumps. - Most promises of advancement and opportunities are hollow wishful thinking. - Almost zero followthrough with meaningful investment in employee education. You can access a Udemy account and that’s about it. - Management will blame the artists instead of taking responsibility and will even through people under the bus to cover themselves. - Internet celebs are more valuable than artists.  - Their awards are called “cockbite of the month/year” and it’s what they call their employees. You may not want to be called that but that’s too bad. It’s their culture. A few guys draw penises everywhere to be funny. - Not very much diversity in management. Feels like you need to be a straight white male to be appreciated.

Advice to Management

Hire some actual seasoned industry professionals to upper management in Animation. And demonstrate there are some consequences for them, instead of taking it out on employees.

From April 11th: 

Cons

-Overtime, and hours will cause any person to slowly become something they don't like. -Management is typically made up of "talent" and treats other employees poorly, not to mention 0 years of previous managerial experience. -Management also blames other employees for the problems they create, and don't show actual leadership. -Echo chambers within management. -Stress levels incredibly high -Lack of professionalism

Advice to Management

-Get rid of "talent" in managerial roles, it's clear they're costing the company serious problems and money. The ones who end up being hurt are the employees who knew and constantly warned about problems ahead of time that were ignored. If the company stays the same a huge incident is bound to follow. -Try to respect creatives that aren't "talent" within the company as well. It's clear management doesn't and goes against the entirety of the company's "core values." those who have had previous industry experience should be listened to and considered instead of being shrugged off and given responses like "Well that's just how we do things." -Collaboration doesnt seem to exist for a majority of managment here. If this one massive change happens the company could really grow far and do much more than create crude content with a lack of care/heart for the final product. -If people are able to sleep and have a normal schedule more thoughtful input will also happen, and your content can only get better. -A multitude of people and lives have been hurt from management at this company, from in house employees being mentally abused to freelancers that are ghosted. So many immature and poor practices have taken place within the animation department I'm amazed a lawsuit has yet to happen. -Management should be leaders not bosses.

It’s almost darkly funny that most of the positives are just “They give you free food on Mondays and the people are nice.” 

But these are all from just the last year alone. Most reviews from before the start of 2019 don’t speak of crunch barring one from April 2018, one from March 2018 and one from June. This is a problem that has been affecting Rooster Teeth for at least an entire year, and since the start of the new year, the problem has magnified tenfold. Most reviews mention that the heads of departments are aware of the crunch and unpaid overtime but refuse to do anything about it beyond offering platitudes or dodging the question on what the company is going to actually do to fix the crunch problem.

Crunch is a problem plaguing many companies, especially in the western hemisphere. In gaming development there’s a story nearly every month about what apathetic upper management think they can get away with by forcing employees to spend dozens of hours every week slaving away on their product. I hoped that Rooster Teeth would not be one of these companies, but I am saddened to see that they were not. 

Crunch’s negative effects on mental and physical health have been well documented, alongside the basic fact that crunch isn’t worth it and doesn’t work. Employees forced to crunch are unable to work as well as employees who are well rested and have time to go home to their families. 

To anyone working these impossible crunch hours at Rooster Teeth right now, I hope your suffering ends soon, that eventually basic human empathy wins out and hours are lessened while you receive your just rewards for your work.

For @roosterteeth? This is appalling and a slap in the face to the fanbase you conned into thinking that you were a company that cared for everyone within as a huge family. Your entire management team should be ashamed of the environment you signed off on. No profit margin is worth the suffering you have subjected your crew to. Shame on you. 

As a fan of RWBY, it disgusts me that a product I enjoy was made through blood, sweat and tears. And as a fan of RWBY, I wish to make a public call to the fanbase, be it on Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter or Youtube. I want to make a public statement to Rooster Teeth that we are willing to wait longer for new shows if it means that they are made ethically. I can’t in good conscience support a product if it was made by putting the workers through hell. Maybe I can’t change anything on my own, maybe ultimately we’ll just be ignored, but I refuse to stand by and stay silent on the matter, maybe even get Rooster Teeth to make changes in their workflow (I won’t say “I hope they respond” because they seem to respond in-house to complaints about crunch without ever actually changing anything) 

I encourage you to share this around as much as you can. Share the accounts of the Glassdoor reviews as far and as wide as you can. We love and enjoy media, we love the people who make it- the animators, editors, writers and voice actors, and we as a community want them to not have to resort to RT’s seemingly unlimited mental health coverage or “find a coping mechanism to deal with crunch.” As much as it pains me to admit, I’d rather see RWBY die instead of seeing continue to be made on the back of crunch.

Thank you for reading. Again, I encourage you to share this around as much as you can. Let your voice be heard if you stand against this. 

[artpoint420]

Melvin and the Silent Diagnosis for a Brilliantly Broken Psyche

Hypothetical Diagnosis Insecurity masked with narcissistic tendencies characterized with compulsive obsessions driven by blatant autism, and no that is not an immature insult I test extremely highly for Asperger's myself Here's the Evidence: (I will state before hand that Melvin-borg is a completely separate character in my mind, and thus will not be included in this particular theory.  Melvin decided not to turn out like him, so they are canonically separate characters) He is obviously and frequently inspired by George and Harold, but his deeply embedded fear of rejection makes him dangerously bitter, and it doesn't help that everytime he breaks out of this protective shell, he is rejected or betrayed once again. It’s important to note that while he may be high-functioning (aka: Aspergers) he is still Autistic. That’s because Asperger’s is not a form of autism- it is autism. Period. And any kind of autism or mental attypicality left untreated can develop in to many, many other severe mental disorders, or, in general, make life a metric heck ton harder and complicated than it already is. I also need to confess that I test highly positively for autism myself as well as being an INTP female (Myers-Briggs Personality Test). Not to brag, but all that combined with my naturally creative nature makes me rare af, but it also means I can't communicate or handle stress #liketheothergirls, so that has lead me to being/feeling bullied and ostracized.  I also have anxiety and depression issue which run in my family, and mild insomnia, and may or may not be relapsing into an eating disorder. Paired with psychical problems like acid reflux and severe neck tension, health, whether psychical or mental is of uttermost importance to me.  It suffices to say, autism is not easy to deal with and if not taken care for properly a person, especially if not made at least aware of what autism truly is, it can truly ruin their life. Combined with the neglectful nature of his parents (at least in the books) I and many others in this fandom truly believe Melvin is at least autistically coded. Not only does this fit the archetype of his character but it also fits the theme of the books to a TEE. At its core, CU, of all things, is a children's book series, about living your best life despite not being “normal.” Even characters like the teachers or Mr Krupp who strive for “normality” are shown to actually have deeply repressed creativity, or, in some cases, deep trauma from their own childhoods. It suffices to say that I resonate deeply with Melvin. Say what you want about him or me, I was able to relate to him the second he spoke his first line in the second book. Sorry to turn this into a long vent, but I feel it is best to use myself to support this theory as well as harder evidence, even if it is mostly a means of self-therapy. To start, we both are obsessed with school even to a detrimental degree. Ever since head-start (Pre-K but a million times better), these "book-smarts" were the first thing I ever truly excelled at. When the other kids bullied (or as I now know as teasing) me, I would lose myself in a stack of homework or a book 2-3 grades past my grade level (this is before I drew or wrote as a main hobby). Similarly, Melvin is rarely seen without a book or gadget, just like me. We both over analyze things and hide our feelings. We both have intense crushes on others but are terrified to dare express them, or do but to nothing but awkwardness. We were both science kids, and fascinated by words and/or numbers alone (I still am just in a more artistic way). We both struggle to communicate and relate to others. We both have a unusual sense of humor and are highly observant of surroundings all the while missing what’s in front of our noses. We both have interests that quickly spiral into obsessions and dropping the obsession only when sick of it. We both practice similar forms of stimming. We both not only thrive but crave control and structure with the world around us, even to the point of being "control freaks" and creating odd habits, routines, and rituals regardless of whether they are necessary or make sense. We both have an intense fear of intimacy and rejection to the point of practicing self-isolation and in some cases self harm or other unhealthy coping methods (seen with Melvin over eating sweets or over working himself. For me it’s disordered eating or self flagellation, something I have all but completely dropped but still) We also both tend to see ourselves as inferior to others and attempt to mask those feelings with a superiority complex (I feel bad for my siblings but I didn’t know what I was doing, and no it was not abusive just sibling rivalry and I’m the oldest anyway, and we are country kids and understand “rough-housing” =/= using each other as a punching bag, but accidents happen I'm sorry) We both seem to become easily overstimulated and have explosive mental and emotional breakdowns when things just . . . become too much However the harsh divide between male and female and fictional and nonfictional means we both present certain traits differently. Whereas he presents a more linear line of thinking my mind is overwhelmingly sporadic. Also, I have over sensitivities to touch and light (and sometimes certain noises, but not anything not normal? Wfk.) But maybe he does have oversensitivity but I can't think of an example off the top of my head. Enough about me however. I know Melvin and autism has been done to death.  Hell, I just did it to death.  My actual theory is more on the inner mechanisms of his mind and predicting how he will develop should the series allow for full character development. Also, similar to my Krupp theory, I will be listing his crimes out and give him a proper sentence for his age and maturity level (which will be light as I am sympathetic to his plight).   This is already getting too long, so Imma try to finally get to the point.  Characters with autism are honestly a mixed bag, sometimes there as standardized as my mystery Daddy Sherlock Holmes and other times they are as subtle as Pearl or Peridot from Steven Universe (has Rebbaca Sugar confirmed this? sorry). Honestly, it does distress me that autism is almost always used to have an evil genius character or some weird side character for brownie/ diversity points. (this makes me a bit hypocritical I guess, considering my own stories. I guess tropes are tropes for a reason) And while Dav Pilky May not be subtle with his scholastic politics or humor his one spectacular tool in his writing books has always been, when it comes to his characters, showing instead of telling. This is something I latched on to even as a kid, and I was already thinking up theories on the characters before I even knew character theories were a thing.  Like what happened to Harold's Dad (hint, hint).  Why was Harold's sister rarely used?  Does Mr Krupp actually like their comics (a now accepted theory, but not just min? And many many others I'm probably never gonna write.  It took until how long in the books to reveal George and Harold have ADHD? Before that they were simply described as being as smart as Melvin but just in different ways. Personally I feel that autism is inverted ADHD. This is an opinion I’ve recently formed so if I’m wrong bloody attack me in the comments. Anyway, Melvin presenting autism makes him the perfect foil to George and Harolds’ more sporadic antics. The only true difference between autistic folks and ADHD folks is that those with autism tend to crave a structured environment full of rules, and set goals to achieve, while such an environment is HELL to children with ADHD (aka:George and Harold). (Even though if with adults they can trust, children with ADHD thrive in structured environments if they are surrounded by adults or authority figures they can trust.)  I know some will tell me ADHD is on the spectrum, but I just learned this like actually the other day and don’t fully understand it.  My prediction is that Melvin will eventually and naturally mellow out if just because staying so high strung all the time is a huge waste of mental energy.  I know good as hell I had to.  Also, he mellowed our in the books and went from a screeching revenge exacting lil narcissistic white boi prick to a person who simply wants to pursue his interests and even helping George and Harold (selfishly, but help nonetheless). He even went from enjoying the fame and attention of hero-ing to realizing it did not fufill him. Indeed quite the opposite.  His true passion lay in solving world problems through science, and I don't think the ending for him in the books could have been any more perfect considering his character.   In the Netflix show, similar to how I think Krupp's personalities are merging, I believe that Melvin will eventually become more like his Broski alter ego (which I calmly demand more of).  Overall, given that this show needs to go back to the status quo more often than not, I don't think his core character will ever change, and it doesn't need to.  Multiple times throughout the series he's been shown to crave friendship from George and Harold, despite audibly hating him . Textbook Tsundere, I know.  He will form a friendly rivalry with George and Harold, I have almost no doubt about that, taking the season 1 finale, season 2 finale, season 3 first episode, and halloween special into consideration. (Yeah, if someone will send me clips I will give them my eternal gratefulness) To conclude, because by god this is long, Melvin is, SHOCKER, just a little kid.  A little kid who likes muffins and dolls and has big hopes and dreams.  A little kid whose love for science and unrecognized creativity is channeled into making inventions that are even more impressive than those of Professor P (sorry P).  But he is a little kid with his own needs and stuggles which at this point remain unmet.  His parents are canonically neglectful, I cannot repeat that enough times.  The effects of neglect are a hell-hole of its own regardless of growing up with undiagnosed autism.  But that's just a theory- Alright, that was a banger, I guess next up is Melvin-borg since writing this has given me some interesting ideas for him.  Let’s see how long this hyperfocus train will go!

[tainbocuailnge]

ive played all the story chapters and a bunch of side missions and tried out a handful of characters so now it’s time for The Official Lance Tainbocuailnge Review Of Fate/Extella Link if you’re like me and were kinda on the fence about buying it after extella massively let you down

tldr; gameplay is actually fun and varied with loads of different objectives and the same servant can be played in different ways so it doesn’t get boring. main story is a bit disjointed and most servants only have a quick cameo but it gets charlemagne’s plot beats down well enough and the silly everyone-knows-everyone banter is delightful. everything looks better, the world actually feels populated, and there’s a lot of care put into special interactions. link will not disappoint you like extella did

the gameplay has much more variation than just press button use moon drive repeat. you’ve got a mix of regular attacks that lead into various combos and active skills with cooldowns. each servant has like 7 of them, generally some combination of damage skills buffs and debuffs, and you can set 4 at once so there’s a degree of customisability to how you play each servant even within the fighting style they’re inherently geared towards. servants with similar regular movesets (like cu and scathach) still have decidedly different active skills so they don’t feel interchangeable. certain moves from servants that were already in extella are generally reused either at the end of some combo or as an active skill which for me goes a long way in still making it feel like the same game, just better

attacking builds moon drive meter, and fighting enemies while moon drive is active earns you np meter. this means you can use your np as often as you can charge it instead of the pathetic One time it was in extella and you can just blow up a whole sector without remorse. you can also end moon drive early with a weaker version of your noble phantasm. some active skills are labelled as class skills and if you use those in a combo against a servant you get the button mash attack that extella had. altogether it really gives the sense of an all-out servant battle

allied servants are much much much more proactive. they’ll actively go out and conquer sectors for you and will try to join you wherever you’re fighting the boss servant. if your allies are nearby more of your active skills will get the class skill property and they’ll join you in the button mash attack. before the battle you also set two support troops, who will randomly join in on your combos or defend you when you’re in a pinch. hakuno is also out on the field, so combat is much more a team effort than before

stage objectives are varied too, there’s field effects, map jamming, hunting down messengers before they can call for reinforcements, escorting allies to specific locations, waves of shadow servants, lancelot disguising himself, robin or lishu going invisible, iskandar or darius with endless armies, drake or gilles bombarding from afar, all often used in various combinations too. on top of that the extra stages will provide random additional challenges so even replaying the same stage will be different every time. 

there are four difficulties (that I’ve unlocked) but I haven’t tried any of the higher ones yet so I don’t know what they change to make it more difficult other than enemy level. there are like. i think at least 50 maybe even 100 extra stages to play after you’ve cleared the ~30 main story battles that continue until servant level 200 or something so there’s a lot to do even after you’ve gone through the story. servants unlock by clearing story battles and I didn’t realize this until very late and was very pissed off that the game wouldn’t let me use cu but that’s on me. the money is power system is still in place so you don’t have to manually train any new servant you want to try out you can just powerlevel them. install skills are also still in place and you do need to level servant bond if you want to use any decent number of those

there’s a pvp mode too but I haven’t tried it yet so no comment on that beyond i bet skilled lancelot players are The most annoying motherfuckers to fight against

graphics are a huge step up from extella. reused areas got a complete visual makeover while retaining the same feel. everyone’s models got spruced up and now they don’t look plastic anymore. there is an unreal amount of care put into sculpting karna’s asscrack. the ost actually slaps beyond the main theme this time as well as featuring some ol reliable CCC tracks. everything looks much more polished

the story is somewhat disjointed because of both the large cast and the splitting routes. the story splits up at various points to create an excuse to make different battles but it means a lot of things happen at approximately the same time in slightly different ways and it can be confusing to keep up with what happens in which order. for that reason I suggest looking closely at what path leads to which ending and playing all the quests of each converging branch before moving to the next day. the story seems to go out of its way to be ambiguous in when what happens exactly and how it’s even supposed to follow the events of extella so I think it’s best to look for the themes and the fun lore details over the linear coherence

overall the atmosphere is pretty silly and servants constantly banter back and forth even during tense situations, but it lands the occasional serious moment well enough imo. charlemagne and karl are the only ones who have any significant story focus but since they’re the only newcomers it’s not like the other guys particularly need the screentime. charlemagne himself is a pretty silly and lighthearted guy so he goes along well with the general feeling and it actually works in favour of his heavier plot beats because of the contrast. I grew attached to him incredibly quickly, not in the last place because he gets hyped about every single person he meets and it’s hard not to get excited too

the servants who weren’t already in extella generally get to show up more in the main story than the already familiar faces but most of them don’t have much more than a cameo. having a lot of people just randomly roam around with no idea what’s going on goes a really long way in making the moon cell feel populated beyond the people directly involved in the story so I actually like it a lot. they came up with like 3 different convenient plot devices to give you servants to fight without worrying about what that means for the alliances and it gives room for a lot of cool character moments

a good chunk of the extra stages come with their own mini stories told through the combat dialogue which adds to the liveliness of the setting. my favourite so far is the one where liz and nero try to hold a concert and hakuno frantically tries to explain to charlemagne in the middle of combat why it’s absolutely vital to keep them from doing that

everyone seems to know everyone so a lot of story dialogue is banter in varying degrees of playful versus vicious between both likely and unlikely combinations of servants and there’s a lot and i mean a LOT of care put into specific interactions. if two servants even remotely have an opinion on each other there’s special dialogue for it, and I even picked up unique dialogue for when archer acts as support troop for cu which no doubt means it exists for other combinations too (altho that’s not subtitled so i dont know what they’re saying there i could just tell it was the usual bickering because of the tone lol). some servants have unique win quotes from hakuno, she calls gilgamesh by his nickname ‘gorgeous’ for example. servants will sit around your home base and have a default line to say but sometimes they have lines that refer to each other instead. compared to how barren extella was, link is overflowing with the sense that these people have lives outside the current conflict and se.ra.ph is a thriving and vibrant world for them to live in

there’s a scene where karna and arjuna use their noble phantasms against each other in mutual destruction and it fucking RULES

[postedbygaslight]

The Problem With (Forced) Happy Endings, or, Why I Hate The Phantom of the Opera

Yesterday, I was messing around on here and suggested that I hated the way The Phantom of the Opera ended. Then, I got the following ask:

I thought I’d respond briefly, but then things got out of hand. So, @lushkitten1989, as promised, here’s way more than you bargained for.

There are many, many reasons to dislike Andrew Lloyd Webber’s monolithic Broadway musical, The Phantom of the Opera. So, I’ll dispose of some of the lower hanging fruit:

The story is dependent upon Christine being so naive that she doesn’t realize she’s getting music lessons from a guy behind a two-way mirror.

The phantom is a one-trick pony, defined almost entirely by his obsession with Christine. It’s never actually clear what he seeks to achieve by gaining de facto control of the day-to-day operations of the theater (other than merely being able to exercise that control— which may be the point).

Raoul is as interesting as a pet rock. He is unbuttered toast. He is Mom Jeans.

The music is intermittently great, but just as often annoying as hell (to me, for example, the “Angel of Music” motif is grating and uninspired).

Those are fundamental, but relatively minor complaints. Phantom has a lot of strengths. The chemistry between the Phantom and Christine is very pronounced, and, at times, shockingly blatant in its sexual themes. Some of the songs are timeless classics (“Phantom of the Opera,” “Music of the Night,” “All I Ask of You”), and some of the sequences, like the chandelier crashing down on the stage, and the ensemble pieces, like “Masquerade,” are very accomplished.

But where Phantom really shines is building a very genuine feeling tension between what propriety and social mores tell Christine Daae what she should desire, and what she actually desires. Phantom dabbles with Bride of the Monstrous themes, but never goes all in on them, and the result is a muddled, confused mess of a story— one that could have been very, very good, but wasn’t courageous or forward-thinking enough to capitalize on its opportunities.

See, the problem starts with Raoul.

Yes, wonderful, handsome, unthreatening, rich, devoted, patient, loving, convenient Raoul. The honorable Vicomte de Chagny, no less. He is our erstwhile Socially Acceptable Love Interest™️. From the moment he’s introduced, it’s clear Raoul is meant to be Christine’s white knight, swooping in to rescue her from obscurity. The plot contrives to have him coincidentally happen upon Christine, his childhood sweetheart, now a chorus girl at the opera house he favors with his parents’ fortune.

Now, I know what the Phantom fans might say: Raoul is here to allow for a juxtaposition of dynamics, placing him as an anchor point to which Christine can return, reminding her that she is more than the Phantom’s pet (or pupil, or lover, or what have you). But I’d counter that he’s really here to act as a stand-in for society’s expectations for how a well-behaved woman should conduct herself. Raoul is young, conventionally attractive, affluent, and, most importantly, chaste.

Christine’s connections with Raoul are explicitly drawn as being rooted in childish notions of affection. To wit, Raoul First greets Christine with a modified nursery rhyme she was read during their brief time together as children. He visits her in the soft-focus glow of her dressing room, showers her with praise, and proceeds to not listen to her when she insists she can’t go celebrate with him. More than that, he dismisses her objections with little more than a hand wave. The point is, he sees her as a child, and treats her as a child.

Look at what happens the moment he leaves her alone. She looks into the mirror, and runs toward the dark reflection behind her own image (heavy symbolism of Jungian animus here). From their very first physical encounter, the Phantom engages Christine as a sexual creature, and the difference in her reaction is, well:

Once alone with the Phantom, Christine is no longer the child so idealized by Raoul. She’s a young woman seeking instruction of a different kind from a strange reflection of herself whose instructions have suddenly changed from anodyne singing lessons to exhortations to “feel the music of the night.”

The next time Christine is with Raoul is when they share their duet, the excellent, “All I Ask of You.” I say excellent because, like other tentpole numbers featured in Webber musicals, the song itself is brilliant, but, in the context of the play, it’s less inspiring. This is rather like “Memory” existing in a pop culture space entirely divorced from its origin in Cats, and I’m certain there are a fair number of people who simply identify the song as a soaring Barbra Streisand number, rather than the mournful plea of a neglected alley cat.

“All I Ask of You” is preceded by Christine trying to tell Raoul about her fear of the Phantom, and her growing unease at the magnetic pull he seems wield against her. Raoul’s immediate and repeated reaction? Something to the effect of: “There is no Phantom of the Opera. You’re imagining things. Don’t be silly.” The song then drives this home:

No more talk of darkness—Forget these wild-eyed fears—I’m here, nothing can harm you—My words will warm and calm you.

The call and response Christine and Raoul have here is staged as a sweet love song. And it is. But it’s also a proposal from a young man to a young woman, where the man suggests she abandon her desires to exist as a sexual being, and come be with him, where he’ll act as her protector against such base instincts.

And this tactic works. Christine is not so frightened of the Phantom himself— she pays lip service to being horrified at his murderous tendencies, but seems aware he would never harm her personally— as she is frightened of her seeming inability to resist her attraction to him.

Raoul positions himself as a shield Christine can hide behind so she never has to grow up. He prefers her as the girl who enchanted him when they were both children, and he’ll go to great lengths to keep her innocent and doe-eyed. Is it any wonder that Christine doesn’t want their engagement to be public? (Yes, I get that Christine doesn’t want to risk the Phantom’s wrath should he discover their impending marriage, but the whole thing looks more like Christine being very unsure as to what she really wants).

Raoul, who seems to be the only person in the play who continues to explicitly deny the existence of the Phantom into the second act, is, oddly, the first to run for a weapon when the Phantom shows himself. He’s the one who pushes Christine to acknowledge (falsely, I think) that her attraction to the Phantom is nothing more than a side-effect of Daddy issues. He insistently pushes forward with a plan to permanently rid both the Opera Populaire and Christine of the Phantom despite Christine’s warnings that Raoul doesn’t really understand what he’s fighting against. More than that, Raoul insists that Christine offer herself up as bait, and to do so publicly, an overt expression of control, of making her choose her loyalties in front of everyone.

Let’s pause a moment here before we get to the inflection point of the play. What I’m referencing is, of course, the aptly titled “Point of No Return,” wherein the true nature of Christine’s relationship with the Phantom is made public. I want to talk about the Phantom.

Throughout the entire play, the Phantom is presented as a sympathetic figure coded to represent misfit and outcast elements of society. He refers to himself as a “loathesome gargoyle” and confesses to Christine that he lashes out at the world and makes others fear him because he feels it’s his only choice for survival. But he also confesses to her that he secretly dreams of love and acceptance, and being able to live as he is, free from the condemnation of the wider world.

Yes, the Phantom expresses his displeasure with being defied in very unhealthy ways, but here we are again at the Death and the Maiden trope, wherein our heroine is the only person who is able to see beyond the darkness that both conceals and protects the man behind the mask. Here, Christine should be acting as the Phantom’s succor, a balm to his constant pain, and, in playing that part, she is meant to end his curse, or blunt its effects sufficiently enough for him to find peace. And, in return, the Phantom ought to provide Christine with growth beyond her childhood, and, in this version of events, usher in her sexual awakening and facilitate her passage into womanhood.

And it’s all set up to do that, for those themes to be realized, by the time the finale is cued up. Then, everything just goes to shit.

The Problem

If you’re unfamiliar with the way The Phantom of the Opera ends, you may want to stop reading.

After Christine stops Raoul from killing the Phantom in the graveyard, Raoul and the other peripheral characters contrive a plan to lure the Phantom into the open and kill or arrest him once and for all. The plan is simple enough. The Phantom has written an opera (aptly titled Don Juan Triumphant), and has ordered it be performed with Christine as the lead. Everyone assumes the Phantom will strike during the performance, most likely to claim Christine as his bride (or something like that).

Now, I posted a little joke earlier about what happens before the plan goes into effect. Raoul goes to Christine to comfort her and prepare her for her role in the trap, but Christine is very nervous about it. She tries to convey to Raoul why she’s apprehensive about the whole plan, but, again, Raoul doesn’t get it, and insists that Christine is getting worked up for nothing.

Of course, what ends up happening is “The Point of No Return,” the high point of the whole play, where the Phantom sheds all pretense and makes an overtly sexual appeal to Christine. And Christine, who’s supposed to be playing the role of Don Juan’s paramour, reciprocates the Phantom’s ardor, resulting in a very, very sexy sequence between the two of them. All while Raoul watches from the Phantom’s favored balcony (Box Five), and something like this happens:

The Phantom speaks directly to Christine, saying:

I have brought you— so our passions may fuse and merge— in your mind, you’ve already succumbed to me— dropped all defenses, completely succumbed to me— now I am here with you— no second thoughts— you’ve decided—

To which Christine responds:

I have come here— hardly knowing the reason why— in my mind I’ve already imagined— our bodies entwining, defenseless and silent— now I am here with you— no second thoughts— I’ve decided—

This whole time, while the call and response between Christine and the Phantom reaches its fever pitch, Raoul watches, and understands the depth of his miscalculation. More than that, he’s horrified and repulsed by this display of lust from his innocent Christine. The mere suggestion that she might be complicit in the Phantom’s passions is something that, it can be observed above, threatens to break his world apart.

Thematically, this mirrors Raoul and Christine’s mutual declaration of chaste love in “All I Ask of You.” Which is important, because once the Phantom and Christine have crossed the metaphorical and literal bridge that separates them, and are embraced for all the world to see, the Phantom expands his entreaty, shifting from the blood-racing heat of “Point of No Return” to a soft, pleading reprise of “All I Ask of You.” He wants Christine to know he doesn’t just want her body, that he doesn’t just view her as a possession. That he loves her, just as much or more than Raoul.

And here is where Phantom could have become something great. Christine breaks free of the intoxicant of lust for the Phantom and turns to face him. He is emboldened, and reaches a more confident crescendo, saying

Anywhere you go, let me go, too— Christine, that’s all I ask of—

But the Phantom never finishes his sentence. Christine makes her choice, for sure. She does this. In front of the whole world. When the Phantom is most sincere and vulnerable.

Now, I might have been prepared to forgive Christine this mistake if not for the scene earlier, when she and the Phantom were alone, and she tried to remove his mask. He lashed out at her then, and proceeded to explain his sensitivity to being exposed. He opened up to her and revealed his vulnerability. And, above, when the Phantom has finally allowed himself to hope that Christine’s affections are sincere and reciprocated, she betrays him.

It horrifies me.

For the rest of the play, all the sympathy the audience has been conditioned to direct toward the Phantom is inverted. Christine shows affection to him only to trap him. She even kisses him, leading him on again, for no reason but to quell his rage toward Raoul. Even after his beastly rage has subsided, Christine can only chide him for being monstrous in body and spirit.

This haunted face holds no horror for me now— it’s in your soul that the true distortion lies—

The arc presented for the audience— to sympathize with the Phantom, and to experience with Christine the fear and wonder that can attend the awakening of sexual consciousness, is utterly squandered.

But why?

Happily Ever After

The answer is as simple as it is disheartening: because Christine is supposed to end up with Raoul. Raoul is her destined love interest because the plot demands it, and no other reason. The two of them don’t grow as a couple during the course of the play. Their dynamic as they leave the Phantom’s lair is unchanged from the dynamic they presented when Raoul came to see her in her dressing room at the beginning of the play. Even after being forced to acknowledge Christine as a complicated and sexual being, Raoul elects to ignore that, and champions only freeing her from the Phantom’s corrupting influence.

To come to this point, Christine’s character actually regresses, choosing to retreat behind Raoul’s promise of perpetual innocence and naïveté. The narrative turns from one of growth and sexual agency to one that urges the rejection of what is unpleasant to acknowledge. Christine essentially chooses to marry the nice guy with the trust fund, stays at home to raise the kids and play the doting wife, and occasionally allows herself moments of indulgence to fantasize about the tall, dark, mysterious man she always wanted to fuck back in college.

To make matters even worse, the Phantom is abandoned to misery and solitude. His suffering is rewarded with more suffering. Christine leaves him without hope or promise, and the Phantom remains shrouded in the dark, pining for Christine for the rest of his life. Through trusting and hoping for acceptance and love, the Phantom is shown only the futility of seeking either. The way this plays out is deeply disconcerting, going so far as to set up a prologue and epilogue set fifty years later, after Christine’s death, with a grieving, crippled Raoul learning that the Phantom is still alive. This represents a casual erasure of Christine’s presence from the narrative, and, worse, diminishes her role to that of the object of the struggle between two men over a young woman’s emotional and sexual destiny.

This is an ugly, sad, wretched story. It’s not a story of yearning or forbidden love. It’s a story about rejection and denial of desire. It’s a story about choosing what society deems acceptable over the needs of the self. Moreover, it’s a story about being afraid and remaining afraid.

There is nothing affirming or beautiful about this story. And I fucking hate it.

[asktheboywholived]

So I read through the ask about Remadora vs wolfstar, and I don't think I should give my input because its fiction and you didn't ask but I'm going to anyway cus you can always just not publish it, but I can't help but feel like Remus and Sirius have to go as deep as James and Lily in terms of being in love because they wouldn't sacrifice their friendship for anything less, and I also have a hard time with the idea that Tonks is healthy for remus because, as scared as he was, (pt 1/2)

he said that he didn’t want to be with her and she chased him down anyway. She’s young and living on the edge and Remus is just going to drag her down, and he’s just trying to survive and live with his lycanthropy without infecting anyone else. I just have a hard time seeing them as more than a hookup because they don’t even express interest in each other till after Sirius dies. And Sirius and Tonks are similar, they’re both impulsive punks who got thrown out of the Black family. I don’t know what’s happening with them. Either they hooked up when Remus was feeling lonely or she just took a liking to him and didn’t know how to handle rejection, or something, but Remus just didn’t seem like he was ready for a relationship and then Tonks just waltzed in and got Molly Arthur Bill and Fleur to gang up on him. It was super weird and I’m a little uncomfortable with it. I’m ok with Remadora in certain contexts just not the cannon one. 

(( OOC: I can totally see where that mentality comes from, seeing as, in canon, not much is shown in regards to Remus and Tonks. Unfortunately, there are a lot of side-stories that go unexplained due to the fact that the series is portrayed through Harry’s eyes, and he can’t be everywhere at once. 

Another example of stories that go unanswered is the case of James Potter… Rowling says he was a good man, but the only moment we get to really experience with him is when he’s being an absolute prat to Snape… which is why so many people dislike James. 

Because of that, you have to do a bit of detective work if you want to find out the reasoning behind certain choices Rowling made. Why is James a good man? Why does she see Remus and Tonks being a suitable match for each other? Why does Tonks becomes aggressive and desperate around Remus? It feels entirely out of character based on how Rowling establishes Tonks in the beginning. 

We don’t have the chance to see any of the relationship develop… we only see the tail end of that, what Harry sees, and that’s when Tonks has reached a breaking point, and the others have started to interfere… that may not be the best course of action… but there has to be a reason for it, especially considering how easy-going Tonks is as a person. 

Rowling stated on Pottermore that Tonks and Remus fell in love slowly. She definitely didn’t just “waltz in” and force herself on him. They were partners and would go on missions for the Order together… giving them time to talk and get to know each other. It wasn’t something they jumped into on a whim, it was a slow burn that developed into admiration, friendship and then love. 

Remus spent most of that time in anguish because he felt like he was falling in love with someone that would never love him back, because he wasn’t worthy of love. 

Remus panics when he realizes that Tonks is actually in love with him, something he never thought possible, and he runs away and throws himself into suicidal missions in an attempt to spare her from… himself. After suffering from a life-time of crippling self-loathing… His mental health leads him to put his life at risk.

If Tonks really was in love with Remus, I think it’s reasonable to say that she would be PRETTY FUCKING UPSET about Remus trying to hurt… and even KILL himself. She becomes aggressive with him not only because she loves him and wants to be with him, but because he wants to be with her and won’t allow himself to. 

Remus’ fear makes him completely irrational and reckless… and there’s a high-likelihood that he took Tonks on a rollercoaster of emotions, flipping back and forth between allowing himself to have her for just a moment, and then running away. 

Tonks was probably exhausted from the effort of trying to keep up with his mood swings and irrational behavior… and if his friends started seeing the kind of toll his actions were taking on him and her… then the fact that they end up intervening isn’t too surprising.  

Remus WANTED to be with Tonks. He loved her. She wasn’t forcing feelings on him or manipulating how he felt… she was trying to get him to see reason and acknowledge that his own desires were okay.  

And, as I said, it could have been done in a better way… but frankly, I don’t know many people that would know how to handle a situation that extreme with calm, collected therapy sessions. Tonks reaction was real and raw, and I have a hard time with people who claim her behavior was abusive considering the circumstances. She was being reactive to Remus’ inability to let himself live and be happy. 

SHE was suffering because of HIS actions. It wasn’t Tonks that was causing his trauma, it was his own choices. Tonks was trying to pull him off the ledge.    

I think Remus and Tonks had the potential to one day reach a point where they could be happy and healthy… but it would have taken ages to get to that point. Remus went through so much trauma, all alone, and he wasn’t used to allowing others to care for him and support him. What makes me the saddest is the fact that we never had a chance to see them outside of a warzone, outside of that outward stress that only contributed to their inner turmoil.  

… Long story short… you gotta read in-between the lines. ;) )) 

[bigmoodword]

11/11/11 Tag Game

tagged by: @confunderewrites ! ahhh! these are great questions! thank you, thank you, thank you.

Rules: Answer 11 questions, ask 11 questions, and tag 11 people to answer them

1. How many abandoned WIPs do you have, if any?  Which one would you most likely pick up again if you had to?

several, including a goosebumps-inspired horror story and a very julie of the wolves tale told from the wolf pack’s perspective. that said, most of these come from my pre-college days, so i’m not terribly inclined to resurrect them.

butbutbut! the one wip i’m trying to salvage has been mentioned previously as the crazy complex story i’ve cut in half, leading to [ stray ] and hopefully an urban fantasy wip down the line. once upon a time, this wip was on fictionpress, but ah, i deleted it wholesale when i decided it was dumb. i really, really regret that (don’t ever do it, friends!), and the only reason it’s still on my radar today is because i recycled a few ideas/characters for a roleplay.

2. Do you have an OC that floats in and out of different stories?  i.e. your guinea pig for alternate universes.  Do they have their own story?

my immortal. haha this party-hardy character has a tendency to pop up as a supporting character in different wips. it’s very... “always the bridesmaid but never the bride,” you know? they could have their own story. maybe. we’ll see.

3. If your WIP was being made into a movie, would you want to be hands-on or hands-off?  As in, what level of creative power would you want?

for stray, i’d have a couple firm ground rules, but so long as the core message is in tact? nah. i’d actually look forward to the differences, because seeing someone else’s creative take on the same idea sounds delightful.

4. What’s a trope that everyone loves but you can’t stand?

this is tough. i don’t think there’s a trope i can’t stand whatsoever. well-done tropes are well-done tropes, and even if i might not fawn over one quite as much as others, i can respect why it’s popular. 

so changing the question a bit: what’s a well-loved iteration of a trope i can’t stand? the tuxedo and martini agents in the first kingsman movie. tonally, that movie is a mess, and i didn’t like how the first half built up the kingsmen as emblematic of an ideal/positive masculinity only to become... well, the exact same james bond power fantasy i’ve seen a thousand times before. no lie. it was kind of a bummer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

5. For your characters, do you have specific face-claims in mind or do you leave it up to reader interpretation? (within reason of course)

i have some vague face claims in mind, but those face claims are still only approximations. ideally, i’d be a good enough artist to draw the characters myself, but alas! my own sketches are just approximations as well. 

i’m actually happy to trust a lot of a character’s appearance to reader interpretation. so long as the broad strokes are there, i love the unique details people come up with on their own.

6. What is your oldest WIP?

ahahaha. so again, the og wip i’m currently trying to partition out is the oldest wip still standing in some form, but! to actually shed a little more light on it... it was an urban fantasy story that featured eight major characters and rotating perspectives. so you know. kinda crazy in scope. 

in short, a demon, an immortal, a werewolf, an average human, a fairy princess, two seraphim, and death himself all want to stop the apocalypse, but they can’t see the forest for the trees. they’re all so consumed by their own issues and so convinced of their own righteousness or another’s evil that actually working together is nigh impossible. 

i think of it like a stageplay with a single set. like. the point isn’t the apocalypse itself. it’s how all these wildly different personalities clash and create a puzzle of unreliable narrators. in theory, the goal is to try and uncover the real “truth” everyone’s talking around, but by the end, we’ve turned the very concept of an objective truth on its head.

suuuuuper lofty. /coughcough;

7. Is there anything your characters have done while you were writing that just came out of nowhere?

love. my characters falling in love (and i mean real love, not just a crush) almost always comes out of nowhere. i never plan on it, and one day i’ll write an exchange, note a little bit of chemistry, then step back and just. oh. yeah, i guess they’re a thing now.

8. Is there a writing decision you were surprised you made?  (ex: killing off a character, taking the story down a different path, etc.)

i usually have things super plotted out, but sometimes certain themes kind of creep in. for example, i have a tendency to flirt with christian motifs, then one day all those threads finally came together and i realized i’d written something honestly kind of blasphemous? :X 

i liked the low-key commentary on trends in u.s. christianity, but not being religious myself, it also felt kind of mean. it was also pretty preachy, so. ;P

9. Do you bounce ideas off people when writing?  Or do you tend to wait until the first draft is completed?

so in a lot of ways i’m addicted to the relief of someone else saying “yeah, this is a good idea.” i want it. it inspires me to keep running with whatever i’m doing. but on the other hand, if i get a vote of confidence, i’m terrified of losing it. i want to keep checking in. i want to keep asking about new ideas. it’s no bueno, so while i like bouncing ideas off other people, it’s generally better for me to keep most things under wraps. at least until i’ve finished a first draft.

10. What is your favourite place to write?

at home. curled up on the couch with a blanket. surrounded by the soft peeps of my birds and the millennial elevator music known as chillmix.

11. Two of your protags from two different WIPs just switched places.  How do they react?

in stray, an unnamed character well-equipped to handle the criminal underground breaks out the guns (both arms and firearms), then turns to lily and tells her point-blank that he admires everything she’s trying to do. lily.exe is broken.

meanwhile, in unnamed character’s world, carter’s unconscious, foaming at the mouth, and probably bleeding. he was just told all those things that go bump in the night are real, and realizing he’s a fragile human, he fainted. on the way down, he hit his head on a nice man’s expensive coffee table. that nice man is attempting cpr.

Tagging: [ @illthdar ][ @multifacetedscorpio ][ @quartzses ][ @shaping-infinity ][ @honiewrites ][ @penzag ][ @scribble-dee-vee ][ @theswordofpens ][ @thelittlestspider ][ @bookenders ][ @waterfallwritings ]

Your questions are:

1. using one sentence summaries, can you tell me about your wips?

2. what inspired them?

3. which of your ocs do you most identify with?

4. if you’ve ever cried while reading, which book cued the waterworks?

5. how do you conduct research for your wips and what’s the most interesting thing you’ve discovered in said research?

6. thus far, which scene has been the most difficult to write?

7. which of your ocs do you like the least?

8. which pov and tense do you prefer to write in?

9. do you write poetry?

10. who is your writing role model?

11. if you could give your younger writer self some advice, what would it be?

[noahcdaily]

Noah Centineo, Shameless Heartthrob

My date with the best thirst architect the internet’s ever seen.

Now, I put my hand here,” Noah Centineo instructs as he slides his hand in the back pocket of my jeans. “And then we walk a little, like this.” He leads me around the Coney Island Aquarium like that: hip to hip, smiling at each other, his hand, to reiterate, in the back pocket of my jeans. I’ve just shamelessly asked him to re-create his signature move from Netflix’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, an adaptation of Jenny Han’s YA novel, in which he plays Peter Kavinsky, the high-school jock at the center of the film’s romantic plotline. I watched the movie and mentally flagged this scene — where he’s trying to convince a cafeteria full of students he’s dating the protagonist, Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) — as the one that made me wonder, Who is that guy? It’s a moment that belongs in a clip reel of classic, chemistry-laden movie moments, and I, a journalist, wondered if it could inspire the same feelings when executed in real life.

Centineo tells me how he totally improvised the move during filming. It was a thing he used to do with his ex-girlfriend. They’d be walking around, like we are now, and he’d realized he could sort of dance her around by the pocket and turn her, “just like this,” and boom, propelled by just a tug on my pocket, I’m suddenly facing him. We’re pelvis to pelvis. He’s smiling, comfortably, and I’m confronted with his hazel eyes, the scent of clean laundry, and pure pheromones. I sort of squeal, I think? Who can say, because I definitely black out for a second.

If I seem thirsty, well, isn’t that the point? At 22, Centineo is the most effective, addictive sort of heartthrob: the kind who absolutely loves being one, the kind who does everything in his power to make us thirst harder than we’ve ever thirsted before — and, yeah, it works. When the movie came out in August, Noah Centineo was immediately, breathlessly given the title of Internet’s Boyfriend. Now, with his second Netflix rom-com, Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, in which he plays yet another lovable, evolved jock, Centineo has graduated to full-on cultural obsession.

In less than a month his Instagram followers went from just under 800,000 to 9.5 million. In the movie, his character drives crosstown to buy his love interest her favorite Korean yogurt drinks — and no joke — Yakult stock has been going up. This man’s floppy hair is actually driving the market. He’s been stalked by fans and now employs an omnipresent security guard named Dave. He’s been the subject of a leaked nude scandal (“I understand why you have to ask that question,” he demurred when I asked him about a certain video that’s been making the rounds. “I just hope you understand why I’m not gonna answer it.”). His Twitter mentions are an anthology of fantasies — some chaste and some really not — written by women of all ages. “Tell them all to hit my line,” he says with a laugh.

We decide to tour the aquarium, where I’m idly waiting for him in the lobby when he walks in shirtless. Shirtless. Without a shirt. Holding his black T-shirt in his hand, instead of wearing it on his torso, which I can see right now. With my eyes. He has a real reason. He’s just been outside, taking pictures on a boardwalk in nearly 100-degree weather. But even with a rational explanation as to why he has no shirt on, the entrance is so on the nose it’s almost ridiculous: a smoking-hot leading man, walking into a room sweaty and half-naked. It’s like there should be a slowed-down frame rate, a treacly indie-pop song playing, a zoom-in of my pupils turning into those hunga hunga hearts. He hands his ticket to the woman at the front desk and apologizes, for some reason, for his bare chest. She makes him put his shirt back on, and greets me with a smile so huge, I can assure you he has zero cavities.

Even offscreen, Centineo, I observe immediately, has that whole thing. It wasn’t just good directing or the right song cued at the right moment that created the effect. He has all the qualities deemed necessary by early-in-life fans of Teen Bop and Devon Sawa at the end of Casper: white sneakers (Vans, of course), an easy charm, and a tendency to play it fast and loose with knowing, meaningful eye contact that says “I see you.” He knows the right way to lean against a wall, how to twirl a specific clump of hair so it slouches over one eye. He’s even got an imperfection you can moon over: this tiny scar on his chin from where his dog tried to rip his face off when he was a kid. When he greets me with a hug, it’s the kind of genuine, intentional, full-body contact that makes me feel like he’d write me a letter every day and build me a house.

“I’ve always played the love interest,” Centineo says. “I’ve trained for it for a while. These roles are just molds I can pour myself into.” He grew up in Miami, with a few years’ interlude in Park City, which he hated because he never felt like he fit in. He started acting as a preteen when he attended a general casting call sort of on a lark, but he enjoyed it so much he eventually dropped out of his Boca Raton high school sophomore year and moved to Los Angeles with his mom to pursue it full-time. Since then Centineo’s been playing graduating levels of “crush”: first on a tween-friendly Disney show Austin & Ally, then on a teen-friendly Freeform show, The Fosters, and now for admiring audiences of all ages on Netflix rom-coms (To All the Boys, Sierra Burgess, and one deep cut for the algorithm-determined real fans, SPF 18.)

“I like this rowboat. Do you want to sit in this rowboat,” he asks, upon discovering a fake rowboat stuck in the corner of an exhibition about ponds. (Fake rowboat, a move.) Ever the leading man, he gets in first to steady the fake boat, and helps me in. Then, he directs yet another adorable moment for us, and starts rocking the boat back and forth, like we’re on a real pond, laughing this huge, full-throated laugh like the only thing he’s ever wanted to do was crouch in a plastic rowboat with me. And even though we both know the answer to the question, I ask, “Why do you think everyone is going nuts over you right now?”

“People love love,” he says, and begins to explain how both of his recent movies “empower” people. “I think these are just great examples of feel-good films, how could you not like something that makes you feel good?”

He stops talking and looks at me, a little concerned. “If you’re still warm, we should move,” he suggests, perhaps noticing the sweat pouring from my forehead and rolling down to my chin. It’s such a hot day, even the AC inside has given up. “I just want you to feel comfortable,” he says thoughtfully, adding, “Don’t worry, I also sweat like a motherfucker.”

It’s now his mission to find the coolest spot in the aquarium. He leads me down some stairs, back up the same stairs once he realizes they lead to a bathroom. We go around all the exhibits, while he looks up at the ceiling, in the corners, searching for an air vent, determined to find the perfect spot to get the full blast. We finally do. “Can you feel it?” he asks, one last time, before he seems satisfied, parked in front of a manmade reef. It’s a specific sort of gallantry I recognize from his roles, the ones he describes as manly and masculine, but also “sensitive, emotionally intelligent, loving, nurturing, and protective.”

“That’s just what a great man is in life and in general,” he shrugs. In his two most well-known parts (both of which occurred in the past month) he plays an updated version of a familiar type of crush. In To All the Boys, a lacrosse player who loves Fight Club but drinks kombucha and falls for the film’s Korean-American protagonist. In the other, Sierra Burgess, a quarterback who thinks the cheerleader is way hot, but instead falls for the brainy girl who catfishes him. In both, he displays a preference for the unexpected love interest. In both, he drives a Jeep Wrangler, the preeminent car of teen crushes. He’s not the mysterious, brooding type à la Robert Pattinson in Twilight, he doesn’t have the cold, intellectual appeal of Timothée Chalamet’s character in Lady Bird. He’s not pure Zac Efron dumb-hot-frat boy or even the misunderstood, sexually experienced bad boy like the ones Adam Driver plays. What Centineo does well — and what nobody has really done with such conviction since Freddie Prinze Jr. — is play a simple, suburban-mall kind of crush with Stanislavski dedication. That’s it. He’s just fully nice and hot at a time that feels like “nice and hot” is a rare resource. He’s a throwback to a more classic sort of wish fulfillment.

In fact, Centineo can see a whole career based around this: being good at love. He imagines all the potential types of roles he can explore: romantic dramas, other types of rom-coms, action romantic comedies, edgier, more toxic and dangerous types of love. “There’s so many degrees to love. I think I have a lot more to offer the space,” he says. He’s got a few projects lined up already, most notably a movie coming out in 2019 called The Stand-In. He plays a post-grad who launches a start-up, which requires him to loan himself out as a fake boyfriend.

“Whoa whoa! That motherfucker just came through so quick! He ran up on us with his boy.”

Centineo jumps back and marvels at some large fish that just came swimming right at his head. He makes a kissy-fish face back at the fish. What a lovely time we’re having. Looking at fish! Then he points to a placard and carefully reads out the description for Slippery Dick, a type of fish native to this particular tank, and chuckles. Then I read one about the French Grunt. I have no idea what’s going on. I point to a particularly fascinating fish, and he leans in to see, angling his head so his hair brushes my hand. Our arms accidentally touch.

“How’d you get so good at flirting,” I’m compelled to ask.

“Am I flirting?” he laughs and leans and looks down at the floor. “I don’t know — I’m fucking so romantic. Like, such a romantic — it’s not even funny. I can’t help it. I swear to God, like, every day, the majority of my day is sentimental. You know, I’m thinking about past relationships I’ve been in, how I miss them so much or what I would do different, or why I wanna be with them again, or just moments I’d like to go back to or I know why I shouldn’t go back, and then you know, it’s just constantly love, love, love.”

He’s a Taurus, ruled by Venus, he offers by way of explanation. “That means a couple things: one, like I need a lot of nurturing, and two, Venus is love, I’m ruled by love.” His favorite movie is Gaspar Noe’s Love, his favorite feeling is being in love (which he has been, twice). I bet if you could cook Love and serve it over pasta, it would be his favorite meal. He lives, breathes, and expels love. His Instagram is a steady stream of soul-baring, puppy-dog-eyed selfies — “I’m pretty vain,” he jokes. His Twitter alternates between sort of yoga studio platitudes and vague flirtations like “Fuck…you’re so cute,” or, more in line with my personal interests, “THE BLACKER THE BERRY.”The messages are to nobody specific, he says — he’s single right now — they could be to somebody he just met, or he met before, or he saw across the room, or just to everybody.

Dating is going to be hard for him from now on, he suspects, even though he really doesn’t want to change how he pursues someone he likes (open-heartedly, passionately, purely) but he’s started worrying about the reasons people want to date him. Is it just because he’s more famous now? Do they just want to date Peter Kavinksy? But are Kavinsky and Centineo really so different?  “I’m definitely not as innocent—” he says, with a gaze, because why say anything if you aren’t going to commit.

Centineo continues to list the differences, both philosophical and material: He’s more apt to jump out of a plane or just sit in nature than his characters. He doesn’t live in the suburbs, he lives in Los Angeles with his older sister and her boyfriend. He likes yoga and martial arts. He parties with friends. He starts every day at 6 a.m. with oatmeal, the recipe for which he begins detail, slowly: “I do Irish steel-cut oats, I do almond butter, coconut butter uh, coconut oil, honey, uh, chopped bananas, and, and, uh, like, hemp granola,” and I’m struck with this familiar feeling of being completely entranced by a man saying absolutely nothing interesting to me, which, oh right, yes, is infatuation.

[raijinhasverybigpecs]

smite high school au (part 1)

part 1 - agni to erlang shen

part 2 - fafnir to odin

part 3 - osiris to zhong kui

notes

the school is a fancy private school with the gods playing a major role as important students and teachers at the school

the gods are not the only employees/students - there are many other students and teachers at the school to fill in the gaps

uniform is like this, but in the emblem colours (i’m too lazy to search up another image, give me a break lmao)

gods have no divine power but keep certain skills, talents and traits that they had with their powers (raijin doesn’t have lightning powers but he’s still good at playing the drums for example)

gods are mostly in human forms and they actually look like people - no super wild claws or fur or any of that shit (aside from cama and baka i think)

just a general note: this isn’t final or anything, and i’d appreciate any feedback or if you wanna add something or change something then please tell me, i’d like everyone’s opinions to be considered :>

roster (part 1: agni - erlang shen)

(short descriptions/headcannons of gods below)

agni - business and science teacher

for the purposes of this au they’ll be twins :>

seen constantly bickering around the school - don’t approach them if they’re having a fight bc they’ll pull you into it

ah muzen cab - groundsman

not much to say, he good at bee i guess

ah puch - science and maths teacher

subject of lots of rumors around the school due to a lack of knowledge about his past

“if you bring raw meat into the 3rd stall in the boys toilets the seat will overflow with blood and that creepy science teacher will show up behind you and kill you”

“hey kids what’s up-”

“HOLY FUCK DON’T KILL ME-”

“i was just gonna say that you did really well on the last maths test and that you should keep up the effort. is there something wrong?”

“oh it’s nothing...... haha......”

wears a bunch of fancy surgeons masks everyday due to an accident that left his face disfigured

anubis, hades, isis, artio, osiris and awilix are the only ones to know about what actually happened

extremely calm all the time, creeps out everyone constantly

strangely close bond with awilix, no one knows why they get on but they do

awilix will have lunch with ah puch at least once per week

amaterasu - student

good at everything, better than you(tm)

student government president

captain of the volleyball team

plays the cello

mutual crush on bellona but the two are incapable of saying that they like each other

anhur - student

head of the debating team

always in control even when he’s not

plays chess with anubis, ganesha and thoth on fridays in the library, students and other teachers like to watch bc it always gets v intense

anubis - history and maths teacher

grumpy old man who won’t take your shit

if he puts you on the spot for doing something wrong you will feel nothing but shame for the rest of the day

runs the debating team

doesn’t understand modern technology, needs a student to help him

ao kuang - business and hpe teacher

always vaguely angry even though he doesn’t mean to come off that way

always angry at wukong, bad gay mess

“so now we’ll split into teams-”

wukong takes a break to drink some water nearby, ends up wetting his shirt as well and winks when he sees ao kuang watching

“sir are you okay”

“it’s too early for this bullshit i can’t”

needs coffee in the morning to run

throws dodgeballs at students who arrive late in his morning hpe classes

aphrodite - student

pretty much always the lead in the stage play with apollo

good at every single arts subject

popular but not in a bitchy way - knows everyone’s names and tries to talk with everyone

head cheerleader, also a good dancer

knows how to throw a hell of a party

apollo - student

theater hoe and band nerd rolled up in a bright orange cheeto package

always annoying

arachne - former teacher

rumours around the school say that athena was jealous of her so she got her fired through her connections with zeus (the principal)

neith is the only one who can talk to her anymore

ares - student

fuck boy

that’s it

nothing else to say

artemis - student

band nerd, and just a nerd in general

still good at sports tho

v good at maths

part of the moon girls club (awilix & chang’e)

artio - english and geography teacher

she’d be a teacher that would die for her students, really nice and patient but if you annoy her she’ll destroy you

has motivational posters on her desk of bears with bad pun captions on them

one of those teachers that is always part of every school event, literally never sick or away

athena – teacher

reliable and respected by teachers and students

teaches lots of different subjects but enjoys teaching her arts subjects the most

very strict but in a good way

hiding darker secrets (see arachne & medusa for more)

awilix – student

on every sporting team, always doing the most at every moment

always puts her hand up, the type to have organised study books with colour coding and everything

remembers everyone’s name, friends with everyone

part of the moon girls club (artemis & chang’e)

special relationship with ah puch

bacchus –  chef

always drunk but no one calls him out on it

helps with the guidance councillors at times

bakasura – spooky rumour

cryptid

rumours always conflict with each other, no one is too sure what’s true or not but everyone can claim that they saw him

bastet - student

dance buddies with bastet, tries to get chang’e to go out more with her and aphrodite

too goddamn flexible, also really good at sport

bellona - student

awkward everywhere but on the sports field

even more awkward when it comes to ama, is a terrible lovesick lesbian

aphrodite always tries to set the pair up but it never works out the way she plans it

teachers always yell at her, there’s a strange bond between her and her teachers

cabrakan – groundsman

him good at dig

camazotz – pet of ah puch

ah puch wanted to demonstrate how animal wings work with a real animal but cama ended up attacking students ah puch just likes having the company of cama so that’s why he brings him to school everyday

ah puch offers cama to those who wanna take him for the night but it never turns out well for those who take him

cerberus - security guards

set of brothers who work as security guards

no one knows what the relationship between hades and them is – are they cousins? friends? lovers??? what is goin on

cernunnos – geography and history teacher

supportive and patient teacher

won’t call you out on talking during class, he’ll just walk up to you and wait for you to be quiet then step away and continue with what he was doing earlier

is busy with everything, half of the time he can’t show up to class bc he’s going to other important education stuffs 

chaac – hpe teacher

the loudest person in the room, always yelling for no reason

makes fun of students at times but he wants them to succeed

chang’e – student

quiet overachiever, probably doing better than you in everything

obviously gets best marks in dance, has won awards and stuff

part of the moon girls club (artemis & awilix), otherwise only friends with bastet, aphro and erlang

chiron – teacher

mainly teaches history and english but often fills in for other teachers

always well dressed and groomed

strict but you’ll probably never get bored in his classes ever

chronos – teacher

just like chiron, teaches every subject aside from hpe and is strict but you won’t get bored in his classes

sarcastic but he cares (deep down somewhere)

cu chulainn - student

one of the popular kids, good at everything and an all around perfect student

everyone has a crush on him and on valentines day he constantly gets roses and chocolates

keeps trying to flirt with erlang but he keeps failing

tries to invite erlang to his wrestling matches but erlang keeps leaving bc he’s really embarassed by how hot cu is

cupid – student

chatterbox, knows all the gossip

oddly enough, good at keeping secrets

close friends with aphro

da ji – unknown

seen a few times around the school with nu wa or zeus, no one knows why

secretly zeus’ lover

discordia – student

good at science, chemistry to be exact

it’s the only thing keeping her in the school – without her skill in science she’d be kicked out

bit of a bitch, pulls pranks on everyone but not on nu wa or artio 

special relationship with nu wa and artio, they lobby for her to stay in the school because they see her potential

erlang shen – student

perfect boy, good at everything

pure, sweet, innocent child that never causes any trouble (he’s a giant nerd ew), friends with everyone

likes cu chulainn but doesn’t know how to say it