#like some of the information she keeps also aligns with things people would want their friends to take note of about them

[cringefailcabitha]

TT rejoin I’m manifesting it praying for it…

No offense but… I want her to rejoin thinking Cabby is up to the same old same old but see that Cabby is trying to change and that despite herself she’s made a friend… and at first they don’t want to approach each other because TT feels uncomfortable and Cabby is still sore about the betrayal of her first almost-friend… but they can’t help but entering each other’s orbits… idk I just want the undivorce arc don’t look at me. I want her to introduce and re-introduce Cabby to her friends at the hotel. And I want Cabby to become an honorary Bright Light. 😭😭 is that a crime,

[unreliablesnake]

Tough choice (Simon Riley x reader)

Summary: After a successful mission, you get a lot of job offers. But there's one that gets your attention.

Note: We lost a hero, it's hard to fill his shoes. / This will probably get another part where Simon confesses his feelings. And tells the reader about what he thought of them during the first meeting.

Warnings: character death mentioned

Ever since that mission last year, people have been extremely interested in getting you on their side. You were swimming in options, going from briefing to briefing to find that one job which managed to pique your interest. The CIA wanted you higher up the ladder, giving you more responsibilities, while some PMC’s sniffed out what happened and were now trying to sweep you off your feet. Shadow Company offered a fortune for your services, but even Phillip Graves’s charm wasn’t enough to convince you.

And now Laswell brought you an opportunity that made you think. Task force 141. “Ask Alex for reference,” was all she said before handing you the number of Captain John Price. 

It took days to get a hold of your friend, but once you did, he spoke highly of the team he helped out every now and then. “I think they need you to fill some big shoes. A sergeant was KIA and now Ghost needs a partner on the field,” he explained.

“Ghost?”

“Mhm. Man’s a mystery, but he’s damn good at what he does. If I were you, I would go for it.”

So you called Price and organized a meeting with him. This was the first round of the interview process, the opportunity to learn more about your possible future boss, the team, and, of course, how they operate. The captain works with a sergeant called Gaz, while Ghost had worked with Soap, another sergeant who had been KIA. That latter you already knew from Alex. 

Price told you to visit the base the next time they're all there, and you gladly accepted the invitation. The team’s mystery man, the one you would have to work with, grabbed your attention. His superior spoke highly of him, and the fact Alex also emphasized that he was excellent at what he did made you curious. He certainly lived up to his call sign by keeping his identity so hidden. You didn’t know his name, you didn’t know his age, you didn’t know what he looked like. All you knew is that he was a Brit, just like Price and Gaz. 

It took your schedules to align almost four weeks, but eventually you made it to their location and were greeted by the captain as if you were already a member of their team. His warm smile brought one to your lips too, and you soon found yourselves deep in a conversation about Kate and Alex. He liked working with them, and despite Alex being labeled a deserter, the team often crossed paths with him. That was good. Meeting him every once in a while would be nice.

“Ghost is waiting for us in my office,” Price began to say, only to pause for a brief moment when he stopped in front of a door. “But I think I’ll give you two the chance to talk alone. I already told him about you, even mentioned that I want you to work with us, but he has to be the one to finalize our decision.”

Nodding, you waited for him to open the door, then stepped inside the dimly lit room. The window shades were pulled down and the only source of light came from the small lamp on the desk. Ghost was sitting in the swivel chair behind it, his eyes scanning a file that you assumed was yours.

You opened your mouth to say something, but Ghost interrupted you right away. “I want you on my team,” he stated sternly as if it was an order, then threw the file on the top of several other documents. 

Despite your best efforts to keep things professional, a snort coming from you filled the room upon hearing his words. “So does everybody else,” you informed him, slowly folding your arms over your chest. “I already turned down several offers. Convince me; why should I pick this team?”

The lieutenant stood up and walked over to you, finally letting you realize just how much bigger he was. He was intimidating, yes, but that didn’t stop you from keeping eye contact with him. “You know Laswell. If you trust her, you can trust us,” he said.

“It’s not a matter of trust.”

“Then what do you want to hear?”

A sigh left your lips. It wasn’t about the money. If it was, you would be working for Shadow Company now. To be honest, you didn’t even know what you wanted from the job. But there was one question that bugged you since you first heard about this guy. “Are you a good person?” you asked him seriously.

Since you could only see a small part of his face, you almost missed that surprised glint in his eyes. “No,” came his answer. 

For a few moments you just watched him, thinking about his response. He was honest, that you truly appreciated, but you could hear something in his voice that you couldn’t quite place yet. Regret? Pain? Doubt? Self-hate? Whatever it was, it made him sound and look human. Without realizing what you were doing, you took a step closer to him, making this giant man lean his hips against the desk to build back some distance. 

“When can I start?” 

Out of the corner of your eye you noticed the way his large fingers tightly gripped the edge of the desk at your words, as if he was trying to ground himself. Was he thinking about the sergeant he had lost? If it was you, your mind would always return to the person who died under your command. What if this one dies too? You would be asking yourself this over and over again. So you didn’t want to rush him, you just stood there and waited for him to pull himself together. 

And then, after several minutes of deafening silence, he finally spoke up. “Good decision. Price will tell you the details,” Ghost informed you before moving past you to rush out the door.

[beescake]

PLEASE PLEASE MEGADUMP THE ARASOL!!! PLEAAASEE MR BEESCAKE I AM ON MY KNEES BEGGING YOU

HFHGHD GLADLY aaa i’ve been adding notes to it here and there for months but just hesitant to post it bcs im 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂

also this is just my own takeaway of the events, it doesn’t necessarily comply to the Ultimate Truth of Canon-Alignment or represent the actual facts of what hussie intended! v sentimental smh but hopefully its still interesting to read

i love when characters inform each other by proximity, it's one of my fave things to see in media :') it feels even more significant when two characters deliberately choose to stick together, so that when one operates, you can tell the other is similarly aligned in associative solidarity.

sollux is a keystone of this trope — whoever he aligns with is a wordless statement, a nod of approval. this stood out to me bcs the main four humans were alr friends by default, but once you reach hivebent you realize the trolls can actively choose who they want to hang out with.

and as we all know, after assessing every troll's biases/loyalties, sollux is the only one who maintains his selective preference for innately Good 👍 people.

aradia is such a beautiful character honestly, she evokes such incredible feelings in me. she might not have been consistently written with care but the best parts of her character are truly stunning. i think it's easy to remember sollux as the self-sacrificing one bc he's so open about it (and his friends frequently react to his Moments) but when you compare him to aradia, it's always struck me

how much more. raw it is

to be so alone as an agent of time, having to orchestrate immeasurably harrowing events nobody understands or gives a fuck about

with your role painted in the story as one who must tend to the needs of the narrative, responsible to match every next note

because when you're given the capabilities, it becomes your duty to carry it out.

it becomes expected of you to keep experimenting and arranging the machinations to work for everyone, dusting off hundreds of necessary failures to keep going

and having to be so unwavering in your drive knowing miserably that there's no one who can help you but yourself.

or alternatively: to make things fun! so other people won't think twice about letting you go off on your own.

sure she's had some very good buds, notably thanks to Team Charge v Team Scourge antics.

and yet, at the end of the day, the one friend that kept choosing her time and time again was the friend with the highest standards.

i can see why people like to define arasol as moirails/matesprits but surprisingly i find the nondescript, unlabeled aspect of their relationship more straightforward to understand.

there's no shortage of people who would accommodate sollux. most of the surviving trolls are his oldest friends bcs he’d chosen them well. his transparency with his feelings had built him strong friendships that won’t falter or break, regardless of how much of a dick he can be. they’ve already seen and accepted him at his worst, and they still like him for who he is.

contrast that with aradia, who'd been so approachable, friendly and reliable in her exchanges it was super fun to talk to her. but the moment she became depressed, all her connections broke down.

her friends became hesitant to interact with her (until she became god tier, “happy” and amicable again) because her gloom and resignation didn’t serve them. she dealt with it alone.

there’s def something of note here abt the disparity between the way male & female characters are written+perceived in homestuck (esp parallel arasol with davejade) but i won’t go into that lmaoo

with this in mind i like to think of sollux as a gift to her, a loyal companion given to complement and commend her resolve. she's capable of doing so much alone but hussie took the time to build her and sollux's relationship as one of a unit; a set.

the ambiguity of their status does complicate things, but i do believe it makes sense with their characters. aradia's relationship with romance is a rocky one, the dubious stringalong equius had with her is a pointed reminder that her feelings of attraction are ultimately controlled by the author writing her.

unlike the other trolls who can openly address and own up to their crushes, aradia had romantic emotions forced upon her (especially when hussie implies 'she kissed equius back on her own volition'). and it seems like her character is so intrinsically neutral abt attraction that even when forced by the almighty powers above, she's unable to retain it wholly.

however, looking back to pre-game when she could actually "choose" her own feelings, she did have a crush on sollux.

their soft spots for each other were so obvious to the point where other people could see it.

taunting aside, when vriska comments on their unit as bf/gf it actually informs the audience that arasol's relationship is romantic in nature despite not aligning with the quadrant system.

even while dead, aradia could still describe her care for sollux, expressing that she would like to see him happy. if they had more time to explore their relationship on alternia, it's possible they could've settled in a quadrant once they grew older.

but going back to the lack of labels, their dynamic was affected once more when aradia became god tier.

to me, her ascension was both the perfect culmination and possible closure of her character. it's the light at the end of her journey toiling through countless of timelines where she had to actively assess and participate. that's why it's cool to see her being silly and having fun giving guidance, passively exploring and watching other people do their parts.

and yet the joy of her freedom makes it hard to explore further introspection. if we take her by her word, she'd already come to terms with the hurt she's been through and forgiven those involved.

i can't help feeling attuned to how impersonal and detached it can be, to devote and meld your identity so completely with your designated position as Maid of Time until you've become hard for your old friends (and even some readers!) to personally connect to.

idk post-canon but i assume there’s some degree of similarity to be bridged here with aradia's god tier and how the hs2 humans' Ultimate forms was described as a consolidation of all their possibilities. since aradia's classpect is inherently of service to Time, going god-tier may have elevated her beyond personhood with the "game construct" possessing her entirely. sollux doesn't realize the extent of it bcs he's still mortal, but a part of him may have subconsciously understood this.

i think there is a core aspect to aradia that was lost to the dehumanizing glory of god tier — a core aspect that may have contained an element of why sollux enjoyed talking to her in the first place.

to him, aradia hadn't just been a nice girl, she was a cool girl. despite not having much in common, he's still willing to chill next to her so she's not alone while she does what needs to get done.

back on alternia, they held a mutual and equal-level regard for each other that could've definitely settled into something permanent. but now, he's placed himself in a position where he can be kept around or left behind at will. the parameters of the relationship are largely in aradia's court, so any label she suggests to identify their relationship with he's likely to accept.

but that's why it's so difficult to label it. because god tier aradia may not necessarily Want quadrants or relationship labels. rather than the initial romantic attachment, their commitment to each other had evolved into one fundamentally of companionship.

no label? ok fine. no matter what, he still thinks she's a good soul worth latching on to. the best, actually. aradia > everyone else.

even if it gets stilted at times. there's an unexpected struggle to connect when sollux's go-to default for talking points is his feelings about things, and aradia may not want to talk about emotions all the time.

not to mention god tier aradia became an observer, especially of chaos. but sollux's avoidance of involvement comes partially from his innate pressure to get involved if something goes wrong. and he can't always tell when something goes wrong, because aradia doesn't mind if things go wrong anymore.

it's a non-negotiable preference that causes them to take the occasional time apart, a new boundary that wouldn't have existed before the game and aradia's god tier.

but just like how his friends tolerated his moods, sollux accepts aradia as she is. with no quadrants, their connection doesn't break down because there's no implicit romantic expectations to be disappointed by or resentful over.

sometimes when i see hs content that deliberately distances sollux from aradia, i assume this is the dissonance people might have felt. people might find it "easier" to be cynical about them bcs of this strange tension.

but idc lmao. grab that shit by the neck

lack of easy resolutions and cleanly tied ribbons is pretty standard of homestuck and imo it doesn't make arasol's dynamic any less incredible. with the right affection and consideration, there's still so much potential to develop the nuance of their relationship outside of the popular quadrant-based depictions.

hs has a lot of really great character compatibilities but the way aradia and sollux are in their own special orbit is why i can write this much about them in the first place. it's that frail innocence between first loves that makes it so sweet to me, two kids who grew up too fast playing guesswork without being clear where they're going.

ultimately i do think you're meant to feel a little tragedy for just how much they care for each other, even if they can't quite establish it in simple terms.

maybe they keep taking breaks to progress their own paths. maybe they remain as anchor partners while seeing other people. but even if you decide to separate them, they're still (awkwardly) texting each other updates all the while. and when they reunite it feels like coming home.

and well. more than anything, i like to believe that they do want to be exclusive.

they're just afraid. after all, they're still learning how to love, beyond the projections of the foursquare quadrant system they had inadvertently distanced themselves from since young.

they might not have everything figured out, but they'll get there eventually if you just hold them together and write them there.

optional post-canon segment:

one of the limitations of main hs is that (monogamous) relationships are often written as the go-to solution to wrap up character growth; it's an easy "patch" to imagine characters getting their happy ending because they have a partner, and those who don't end up with someone don't get that closure (most notably jade).

hs2 reaffirms this by suggesting that aradia's character cannot progress without letting sollux go, because happily settling in a relationship automatically locks your potential.

that pathetic panel of sollux staring emptily into the sky is still my fave hs2 spoiler ngl i find the impact of their parting so emotionally provoking precisely bcs they were written in original hs to be each other's forever, coming back together again and again

but now, they're subject to the decisions of the post-canon authors who might choose to deviate from that.

it's not new for them to part, but now there's an underlying worry that her dropping him off this time might be the last time. while i think the prospect of shattering their stability to make them grow separately sounds fun on paper, no amount of me desperately hoping for a good execution is gonna guarantee it

idk. i guess prediction-wise im expecting sollux in classic dramatic-hs2 fashion to tell dave to back off aradia LMAO. otherwise it's just gon be sollux and karkat pathetically watching aradia and dave from a distance swimming in their unresolved feelings for narratively-powerful time players smh obvs it sounds corny as hell but who knows its still plausible

srsly tho i hope they take the opportunity to develop arasol's relationship in a fresh direction that doesn't hurt me too badly...... and i hope they force sollux out of his comfort zone. i like watching him struggle :-)

[bestworstcase]

You've said before that RWBY's writing can be non-formulaic other than the 3 Act structure that it follows. What is it then that makes RWBY's story and writing so different (especially from more typical pop culture writing) in that regard?

to be completely honest i think a significant factor is that rwby is written by people who care about telling a story and have a very clear vision of what story they want to tell that they are resolutely sticking to no matter what. rwby is pretty remarkable in its sheer indifference to 1. what the fandom wants and 2. mass market appeal. paraphrasing but isn't one of the writers on record saying that they keep an eye on the fandom and if they see a lot of people not getting something they try to make it more obvious in the text? <- i think about this all the time.

bc like. before V9 i tried really hard to manage my expectations because i didn't feel sure, at all, that i wasn't just reading around a bad case of protagonist-centered morality—like i could count on one hand the number of people besides me whose writing on salem aligned with my interpretation and what i thought was going to happen thematically in V9 was so DRASTICALLY different than what the fandom largely seemed to expect and when you're that far off the common thinking then it's kind of like, is it really everyone else who's wrong or is it just you?

and then it turned out i was right. i was in fact so right that i underestimated how hard V9 would go on delivering what was set up in the first eight volumes.

which is fucking mind-boggling to imagine from the writers' perspective. the fucking guts it take to have a finger on the pulse of this fandom and not budge an inch on what this story is about!

<- being formulaic is safe. it is easy. it's palatable. for all that everyone loves to complain about unoriginality, there are a lot of people who just want to be entertained by something familiar. rwby doesn't give a damn whether you like it or not, it's going to keep being the story that it is, you know?

so they're very willing to take creative risks. that's really the heart of it. but there are a few specific like, technical aspects of the narrative that make rwby what it is:

#1, the narrative status quo gets turned on its head not just once, but repeatedly. the fall of beacon, the lost fable, the fall of atlas, the ever after. and by my count there are at least two more key changes before the story ends. it's not all that common for stories to upend the narrative status quo once, let alone multiple times, but rwby is a story about change and the structure of the narrative reflects that. (this also synergizes quite well with the three-act structure.)

#2, the characters are wrong about all kinds of things in all kinds of ways, constantly. some of them lie. some of them make very confident, very wrong assumptions. all of them are working with incomplete information. the ancient immortal character who's spent millions of years alone is cryptic and awkward. half the cast belongs to the keeping secrets cult. the goddamned avatar of knowledge is an unreliable narrator because ruby asked specifically for ozpin's side of the story. the narrative blithely informs the audience in V5 that "truth is hard to come by" is an important enough theme to say it out loud and then throws the lost fable down like a gauntlet. good luck.

#3, related to the above, in most stories the heroic characters know (or learn) and believe the story's themes and the villainous characters reject the theme and embody the anti-themes. in rwby, theme/anti-theme is decoupled from narrative role: ozpin is on the heroic side, but he represents many of the story's anti-themes (fear, distrust, lack of faith in humanity, blind obedience of authority); salem is the main villain and notional big bad, but she believes the theme—so much so that the fandom regularly quotes her soliloquy to express the core theme: "even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change," and "there will be no victory in strength." this opens the door to a lot of really interesting character complexity and is critical for making "salem wins by negotiation" narratively possible at all.

#4, the story takes fairytales seriously. what sets rwby apart from a lot of "deconstructed fairytale" stories is that the point of taking the fairytale logic apart is not to be clever or edgy or grimdark or hyperrealist or cynical about it; the conceit is a tragic, broken fairytale that keeps going forever until it's mended because fairytales are not real but they are true. rwby rejects the moral and emotional simplicity of fairytales in order to weave a fairytale about lifelike characters rather than archetypes. that's a lot rarer than darker and edgier retellings or irreverent parodies by a wide margin.

[chaoticchaosparadiselustofren]

Stupid Assumptions About Derek (Headcanon... I Think?)

Minors, do not interact with me!

I recently played a bit of The Price of Flesh, more specifically on Derek's route. I had some thoughts about the character that I'd like to share. Firstly, he's a comical character to me, in the sense that it seems like nobody in the group actively respects him, no matter how hard he tries to appear “cool” or “tough”. Dragon and Komodo call him stupid, and it's quite amusing that when Derek tries to assert himself in front of others, it doesn't take long for him to be reprimanded or belittled by the group, and then he pouts like a spoiled child who didn't get what he wanted.

Keeping that in mind, I want to make some silly assumptions about the character. I know @/gatobob has already answered some questions about him, but I haven't seen them yet. So, if any information I assume doesn't align with what has already been established or if she has already mentioned this, feel free to correct me.

If he had to wash dishes at any point, he would be completely incapable of doing it or would do it very poorly (What would most likely happen is that he would pay someone to do it for him).

Derek is definitely a spoiled little boy. At the same time, he sounds a lot like someone with daddy issues who enjoys taking out frustrations on others.

Derek is the kind of person who doesn't handle a "no" as an answer well. If he doesn't get what he wants, I wouldn't be surprised if he cried out of anger in his room.

I also think he is someone very lonely, in the sense that his personality is so volatile and destructive, and he is so unbearable that all the people around him who are not his family are only there for “his” money.

Derek is so unbearable to people around him that I strongly believe he has never been successful with girls, boys or anyone in his romantic life. He may have managed to get some girls or guys, but that's more due to his father's money than his personality. He's the kind of guy who thinks that the key to winning someone over is through humiliation, something like: the secret to making someone attracted to you is to make them feel inferior, so you can win them over more easily. Did that make any sense? In my head this made sense.

Derek's first time was awful; he probably lasted less than a minute with the partner, who he surely had not there voluntarily. He definitely paid for a prostitute and felt frustrated and humiliated with the whole situation.

He probably is the person who boasts about the sexual encounters he's had with various people. The truth is, he hasn't had many encounters where the person was going willingly. Most of the encounters he had, for sure, were with girls and boys from the profession. But, if we consider his current performance, he's someone decent at what he does.

Derek always tries to give the impression of someone with an imposing and confident persona, but his confidence is easily shaken, and he is very fearful of certain things. He probably tells everyone that he's not afraid, but it's easy to tell that he is scared because his hands tremble.

For now, these are just some thoughts I've had. I have other things in mind, but these are the ones that make the most sense to share.

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 9 of Nona the Ninth

I'm not sure what Hot Sauce expected to happen here, or why she thinks the contents of Nona's fake conversation could have had an effect, since if I understand right, she wanted Nona to hide her mouth so that whoever was watching could read her lips? if they were reading her lips, I guess they would have seen her say "hello, hello, I am having a conversation with Crown" which may mean something to someone, but I'm not sure how Hot Sauce would know about that or what she thinks the watcher leaving means. It seems like she would have been expecting the watcher to leave regardless, since I don't think there's much else that she would have noticed happening? But possibly that caused something to happen, due to all the shooting that transpired

It is interesting that Nona loves swimming so much, and salt water in particular. It can't all be because of the pool scene memories, can it? She also doesn't seem to like eating any food, unless it's like the mush and doesn't register to her texturally as food

I'm not sure what this means. "Water cure" is apparently a kind of torture?

I'm so relieved to learn that "jandals" is a genericized trademark that originates from "Japanese sandals" and was not, as I feared, "jean sandals"

More burning bodies. Do they think necromancy can only be done on dead bodies, or do they just really not want any chance of the dead bodies walking around? It sounds like people are dying all over the place right now also, so they must be burning a lot of bodies just to keep up with the new ones

I know this is a fantasy novel and an exoplanet and all that jazz, but I actually checked and there is in fact at least one IRL species of jellyfish that can kill you within five minutes, which is a kind of not-fun fact. I have to wonder, though, how Nona's Lyctor healing abilities deal with the jellyfish toxin exactly? Like Harrow and Ianthe and the other Lyctors were in fact able to get drunk, they were also able to undrunk themselves immediately, but it was a conscious action that required necromancy and not something that happened automatically. And Pyrrha gets drunk sometimes, I don't think she would do that if she didn't get an effect. But Pyrrha did survive drinking bleach, and she isn't any kind of necromancer. I'm not sure if there's rules about which toxins are automatically purged without a conscious act of necromancy to do that, or if it's just the immediately fatal ones only for narrative convenience

What intel do they want? Do they think that Camilla has information about the Wake-aligned BOE and it would be easier to get it out of her than to get it out of the actual BOE? It doesn't seem like they're interested in Nona, since they shot her

So my understanding is that Palamedes and Camilla merged temporarily by both being in control at the same time and this gave Palamedes temporary access to some kind of Lyctor abilities or Lyctor-like abilities that he then used to kill the Merv Wing guys. But because it's in Camilla's body, which is not used to exposure to this much thanergy, she has more serious side effects from this than a regular necromancer would have, with this extreme blood sweat and the "thanergy shock" that Pyrrha mentions later. Or possibly it's also because it's a kind of necromancy that ordinary necromancers wouldn't even be able to use, but the actual Lyctors never seemed to get blood sweats or anything like that, so it's probably either because of Camilla's body's lower tolerance or because they're not exactly a Lyctor?

But it wasn't really a one-way ticket for her, was it? Unless there's something we don't know

A couple things here:

Why is it killing Palamedes too? I don't think we've ever seen Lyctorhood also kill the necromancer

Isn't Palamedes like, already dead?

And also, like... I was kind of hoping that Camilla and Palamedes would have some kind of sane implementation of a necromancer/cavalier relationship, or even a Lyctorhood, if that's possible, and they wouldn't be an absolute disaster relationship like Gideon/Harrow or Ianthe and Corona, but they totally are. Like, this is a horror story, and yeah, there are some monsters that occasionally show up, but I don't think the horror is about the monsters? The horror of this story is what if you were in a relationship that was so codependent that the other person literally devoured your soul and you were like yes please, do that some more. It's about what if you were the soul-devourer half of the relationship and didn't realize it until it was too late. And like, I've shipping unhealthy relationships before, I get why people do that and everything, but I can't really vibe with this, it's too much for every time one of these characters talks like this the bottom drops out of my stomach

[littjara-compleated-sage]

Hey could I ask you to talk about Ixhel for a moment? I’m doing research for the next chapter of Steel and Oil by going back over the original story and looking at other people’s interpretations of her and figures you would be a good place to start, as tumblr’s resident Phyrexiaposter.

Oh absolutely! I'm honored :3

To see firsthand how I write her, I have two Ixhel fanfics at the moment:

Deeper Than Faith, Higher Than Hope is about Ixhel's compleation day, her glimpse of a less-than-perfect Phyrexia, and the shame that follows. It shows a lot of the self-gaslighting and subtle reinforcements of hierarchy that Orthodoxy life runs on, as well as Ixhel's need for her family to be proud of her. Deep down, she never stopped being a newt who yearned to see her mother smile.

These Ichorous Bonds is from Vishgraz's perspective, but sheds some light on Ixhel's sources of joy and how she loves. There's also discussion from Vishgraz's much more black-aligned viewpoint about what he thinks would help Ixhel (prioritizing herself, primarily).

I care deeply about Ixhel as a character and I'm really invested in portraying her in a way that does her justice (Aysha U. Farah knocked it out of the park, god damn). Some key points:

She is a child made to grow up too fast. Physically she is a compleated adult Phyrexian, but her narration consistently points to naivety. For example, she doesn't fully understand how humanoids work (calling Belaxis's tears "clear oil") and finds it genuinely difficult to conceptualize meaning outside of Phyrexia. The Orthodoxy tightly curates the information allotted to its members and it shows. Human-equivalent-age wise, I've put her at about freshly 18, but that doesn't correspond one to one.

She will never express this naivety or uncertainty openly if she can help it. She's been taught to cover up her uncertainty with Orthodoxy platitudes and the praise she receives for being a good little cog in Phyrexia's machine.

When we first meet her, she is desperate for praise and affirmation, which Norn and Atraxa drip-feed her in order to keep her on the hook. She commits incredible violence in their names in order to earn that praise and feel useful, which she, as a white Phyrexian, has been taught is the most important thing in life.

Her mother Atraxa now reinforces Ixhel's position as a tool, giving her orders and demanding to be called "Commander". She is deprived of parental love, but consistently craves it, while feeling like direct loving expression would be sinful and shameful.

She has a lot of internalized shame, but hasn't fully repressed her emotions. She will feel hurt or yearning or joy in a "forbidden" circumstance and then immediately chastise herself for it, possibly followed by some expression of pro-Phyrexia violence in order to convince herself she's still being a good obedient Phyrexian.

The feelings of freedom Ixhel gets when she is alone, being creative, are thrilling and shameful to her. She knows they are forbidden. She tried to justify Vishgraz's creation as a way to impress her mother, but I think deep down, it was for herself. She wanted to feel that accomplishment.

She feels a lot, but needless to say she has been starved of healthy expression mechanisms. The only form of expression "allowed" for her as her mother's tool is directed violence. (Even in trying to save and keep Belaxis, whom she knows she likes, she only thinks of killing him first.) After Vishgraz, she starts to realize that creativity is another outlet.

The most important aspect of Ixhel's character development and eventual rebellion, imo, is her growing black mana alignment and focus on herself. She needs to learn that she does not exist solely for others, despite what she's been taught; sometimes being a little selfish is a good thing. This is what Vishgraz wants to teach Ixhel in These Ichorous Bonds.

I hope this is a good overview! If you have any more questions, do reply or DM me. I love talking about my girl Ixhel <3

[lilyandthegenshinbrainrot]

We're gonna talk about two things here, what's said and what isn't.

First thing, what Al-Haitham is saying is that the Akademiya only works if people are benefited, when knowledge is gained from harming others or crossing any boundaries that Humans aren't meant to cross, then that's where trouble falls. Trouble follows because this is where the line is drawn between man and god, a line that Sumeru has intentionally blurred in their impassioned search for understanding. Alhaitham simplifies this egregious act by likening it to a typo in a book. I can't decide if it's more likely for Alhaitham to believe this level of violation to require a simple correction or if he simply does not think the Akademiya's corruption is something as wide-spread as it was. After all, we found this information from one group in one place that was used years before canon. Honestly, he reminds me greatly of Lisa Minci in his mentality regarding work and the way they treat knowledge. But anyways,

Second thing, the traveler’s preferred type of ally. The most trustworthy people are the ones with a personal code of conduct that you understand, this is seen specifically with Venti, Diluc, Xiao, Beidou, and Shenhe. Characters that they can "let their hair down" with, and trust with a little more of their bleeding heart than others. These are characters who have promised to show up and be there whenever needed or wanted, and then proved it.

Venti is shown to be the Traveler's favorite person to learn what's happening in Mondstadt and personal confident whenever things are stressful, Diluc has frequently made a space for them to rest in his tavern and home, Xiao quite literally promises to stop everything at their call and to kill if they cannot for emotional or physical reasons, Beidou offers them a place in her crew and help if they ever need it, and the Traveler also tells her more about their journey than they normally would with companions, and Shenhe values the Traveler immensely as her first human friend to the point that she literally goes to bat for them against Beshet and then continues to offer against any inconvenience. Bless her.

Basically, the traveler honors people who are honest with themselves and keep their word by holding them a little closer than their other company. Overall, I would say they value allies that are not aligned exactly with the government, that are influential in some capacity, have integrity, and are kind-hearted.

This isn't to say they don't value their other friends, but there is a reason certain characters get to hear about their past experience and current stressors.

Anyways I'm bringing this post back out of the drafts in honor of his first banner ending and his character quest being released <3 I'm sure this jackass is gonna be one of the fan favorites but also a treasured companion for the Traveler themselves going forward.

[princess-ibri]

I'd like to know; how do you think Don Bluth's Beauty and the Beast would have turned out? I wish everyone would have been able to watch it. Just what would have been though I am not really into this Beast's design maybe the Baboon design that Disney turned down?

Hey! Thank you for your patience I wanted to have time to give this ask a proper reply, with some pictures. Overall I think it would have done well in the way of becoming a cult classic, full of beautiful images and plenty of nightmare fuel but rather cluttered in the way that most Don Bluth films tend to be, something that definitely adds to their charm but keeps them from becoming as popular as the more streamlined Disney Renaissance movies they were competing with at the time.

In terms of plot I feel like it would have taken a lot of influence from the 1946 Jean Cocteau BatB movie, as well as some influences from the original Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve version, along with some of The Grimm Brothers and Abhorsen and Moe’s “The Singing Springing Lark/Lily and the Lion/East of the Sun West of the Moon” bits, as I will explain below.

I think the Cocteau influences would have been seen most in the primary look/atmosphere of the film, we can see a lot of his dark dreamlike Romantic influences in the clothing and set design of this poster in particular. The Beast and Belle’s clothes could have come straight out of the 1946 film.

This dark dreamlike atmosphere of that film would have worked quite well with Bluth’s style of filmography which tended towards that sort of Fever Dream Unreality in many ways. But of course we also have the abundance of side characters with their own small arcs (and animal sidekicks inexplicably wearing clothes) in the mix as well. We get most of our information about them and the themes of the film from this page:

From this we gain the main theme of the film ‘a thing must be loved before it is loveable’, and several names of our animal/fairy sidekicks. Below we can see Beauty with Nan the clairvoyant dog, with Otto the escape artist lizard on top of Nan. The bird on her finger could be Max the bird detective in a more realistic design then the one with him in the large hat, or possibly just a random bird to go with the random squirrels. Wether these characters would have been true animals with quirky traits or people transformed like the Beast I don’t know, though with Bluth’s other films to go off of I tend to believe they were likely just funky animals who would have used their skills to try and help Beauty unravel the mystery of the Beast and his cursed castle.

Try as I might I couldn’t find any depictions of the King Bats that were mentioned (fairly sure I have Queen Livia and the Wee Beasties though, we’ll get to that in a moment) so I wonder if they were later replaced with these wolves? They sound like they would have e been aligned with the villain in any case.

Here’s where we get to the ‘Singing Springing Lark/Lily and the Lion/East of the Sun West of the Moon’ influences I think would have been in the film. As we can see in the picture below we have Beauty and a very much human prince fleeing from the wolves on Pegusus back— in these versions of the BatB story the heroine is forced to go on a journey to rescue the prince from an evil princess, after his Beast initial curse is broken. She is usually aided by the Wind, riding its back to go and find him, and in the Grimm version the pair escape via Gryphon. It’s not to hard to imagine Don Bluth deciding to swap out a Gryphon for a more majestic and recognizable looking Pegasus for his lovers to escape on once they’ve been reunited.

And of course we have the villain of our story, who I’m pretty sure is meant to be this Queen Livia. I mean look at this lady, all deathly pale and decked out in villainous green, pretty sure that a crown on her head as well. In the original Villeneuve version the Prince is cursed into a Beast by a wicked fairy after he refuses to marry her, I could totally see this woman cursing people left and right. Add that to how the Prince in the sketch version below seems to be facing off against this sinister looking woman’s head and I think it’s a good guess to say that Bluth’s BatB would have had a similar premise.

I’ve also pulled out charters I’m very sure are meant to be Beauty’s father and sisters (the smaller head by the Father possibly being a sketch of their mother?) once more pointing to following the old traditional tale where Beauty is faced with opposition from her sisters as well.

We’ve also got a lot of sketches of what I’m assuming are the Wee Beasties, who are 1000% precursors to the Jitterbugs we later see in Thumbelina, along with some more butterfly like fairies, who could possibly be grouped in as a prettier type of Wee Beastie or just be fairies.

So yeah, I think it overall would have followed the tone of the Cocteau film, with some added animal and fairy sidekick shenanigans as Beauty tries to discover the secret of the Beast, eventually culminating in her discovering he’s been cursed by the evil Queen Livia who seeks to marry him. The climax would be that after Beauty has broken the Beat spell by professing her love he’s whisked away by Livia to her wolf guarded home base, and Beauty and her friends have to rescue him and defeat the evil Queen once and for all, with her and the Prince escaping via Pegasus to ride off into their happily ever after (oh and with his mask I’m thinking maybe Livia gives a masked ball or something to celebrate her wedding with the Prince and Beauty crashes it).

Per the Beasts design I dont really. Ind it so much. It is a bit close to the Disney one but honestly I still preorder a composite Beast over one based solely in one animal sorry 😅 But I did find some alternatives designs for him for you!

Some of these are straight up goblin-y I love it 😆

[thelesbianpoirot]

Hello, I am not getting any younger and I want to jump back into the bleak lesbian dating world. Should I act like a normie to get a wife? Or should I looksmaxx and stay true to my lesbian separatist beliefs?

On one end I betray myself but on the other I’d have to do an uncomfortable amount of work to become more good looking. I don’t think women will care about my beliefs if I’m jacked.

What do you think?

Babe this is so real, people like to pretend gay women don't care about appearance and that every lesbi woman wants a low effort fat butch, but that is a BIG lie. Even gay women have preferences informed by society, few vary. So looksmaxxing will probably get you more women. I did get more attention my dating app pages when I dressed femme, but I didn't want to do that anymore, so I just get a good haircut, nice looking clothes, put stuff on my face so I don't have awful acne and take pictures in great lighting. If you can do a bit more, like working out, and buying a cool outfit or two, do it, but don't do shit you can't maintain because she'll leave you if you can't keep it up. I met a girl when I was 125 pounds, shaved and with long hair to my ass, and she did not want me when I gained 50 pounds due to health issues and buzz it all off. I have lost some of that weight, but I am definitely not 130 anymore. And I left her because I realized she didn't want me anymore, and I was not staying with someone who didn't want me after I recovered from an eating disorder. But I also don't blame her because you can't force yourself to get turned on by someone you are not. BEING JACKED HELPS A LOT but if you hate exercise, just focus on getting fit, basic walking more, stretching, eating greens, drinking water. But date while you're working on your body, so you know what the dating landscape looks like, so when you post those updated pictures, and the interactions flood in, you aren't too out of your element. SUMMARY: LOOK GOOD IN AN EASILY MAINTAINED WAY - hygienic, well-dressed, good haircut etc. It does help with dating a lot. But being an impossible to maintain transformation will never last and whatever relationship you gained because of your transformation also won't last. I don't start off relationships with strong feminist conversations, I like to slowly introduce my beliefs. You don't want to be preachy and annoying, but don't go too much against your beliefs. You'll hate being stuck with a woman who is your ideological opposite, so if you're looking for more than sex, I'll so be true to yourself, but don't bulldoze her down in conversations if she says something un-feminist, everyone has space to learn. I personally cannot date a someone heavily into trans identity, I have tried that, and I just grew to hate that person, because they would constantly try defend TIMS against any criticism, kept implying I was a trans man, and they just talked about nothing but childish things and gender. It was so cringe, I had to get out of there. Don't do that to yourself. But there is nothing wrong with not bringing up the scum manifesto to your date. Just talking about other things you might have in common before you delve too deep into specifics - books, movies, hobbies, sports. I put feminist in my bio, because I think if that dissuades any woman, she isn't my type at all. I also put "interested in sexual relationships with adult women" for the same reason. But I don't put "radical feminist aligned" because radical feminism has been given such bad press, that despite a woman agreeing with everyone of my beliefs, she might have preconceived notions implanted by anti-feminists and trans activists. Separatism is niche, not well known, so a potential woman might google it, and find some dumb article by an anti-feminist and think you're some weirdo extremist or something. Even if every time I have explained separatism to a woman, she has agreed sounds incredible. Slowly share more and more of yourself with people, don't excitedly dump all at once. It's just rude otherwise. SUMMARY: Don't try to ideologically trample normal women, but don't date your ideological opposite, people are more accepting of your beliefs after they have known you for a while.

[moliathh]

Idk if you’ve thought this much about it but I keep thinking about your reverse au,,,,, how did the groups come together in this universe? Were the members of Iscariot still raised together, or are they more of a hodgepodge of mercenaries who met through work? Has Hellsing taken on that roll of a ‘family’ in the church?

Yes I mostly want to know how Yumikel met MEUXBEKZHEBE

Thank you so much for your interest i am still working on the AU but here are some basic information i kind of sketched out about the Iscariot (i also love yumikel yess i am working on how they meet),

The initial idea (might change) i had for the Iscariot is that Yumiko, Heinkel and Enrico are all from the same orphanage and they sticked together, because Iscariot in this is neutral alignment, and i intended to fix Enrico. He's still hungry for power and control, like in canon, but more grounded because his relationship with Yumiko and Heinkel is closer and they're his found family that keep him from straying too deep into madness (btw spoiler that Millenium is good aligned and Hellsing is bad aligned, it is "reversed" from the og hellsing anyway). In this, Enrico is an occultist, and Anderson is a demon he conjured (to contrast Anderson in canon that served his Christian religion).

Yes and back to the trio, they were seperated and taken in by different organisations and got turned. I am still working on this btw, so the reasons are still unclear whether they were used as bloodbag (yumi) or maybe military purposes idk i need to think harder on it, but one thing is definite is that in this au there are more monsters, real one not artificial, than in og Hellsing, so each group have their own autonomy. Yumie and Heinkel are both true vampire and werewolf btw, not artificial. Anyway, Enrico made a pact with Anderson for power to find Yumie and Heinkel. And they started growing up together, making money by working as hired mercenaries. That's why their alignment is neutral, because they work for the organisation that pays them.

During that time, they helped each other work on the newfound power. Heinkel can't control the wolf shapeshift yet she is working on it and she still wolf out when she's excited. While Yumiko sometimes go bloodlust and delirious, after she drank a lot of people that she assassinated, and her alter ego is Yumie (almost similar mechanism like Alucard's variations in the og hellsing). Enrico binded her with black magic demon power something something idk, almost similar to the Hellsing binding in og Hellsing, but not to bound her to him but to restrict her powers so Yumiko don't just comes out randomly. (I will work on creating a mechanism on her restraint that makes sense, this is still missing a lot of informations).

And to Hellsing, well Hellsing doesn't exactly act like a family, well they almost, kind of, but not exactly. In this, Integra is probably the closest to "family" to Seras while Alucard acted more like a teacher than a family member to Seras. And to recap, Integra is supposed to be Seras' guardian angel (long story btw), but she failed to save Seras in time so she gave Seras' angel blood so Seras became a nephilim, half human half angel.

Okay, let me start from the beginning, everything process like in og Hellsing, Vlad got dragged to public execution and prayed to heaven but G didnt ascend on him. So in this au, i made Integra an archangel who pitied Alucard so she think a little bit of divine revelation to a dead man is probably not too much of a transgression, but when she appeared before him (only he can see and no one else can so they thought he was tripping when he started talking to himself), he assumed that G sent her as a prize for his sacrifice so he just assumed that he rightfully owned her (inspirations from stories of selkies or mermaids that were caught by men because those fishermen just ASSUMED he owned her what a crazy man, but that is what Vlad would do i think) so he cursed her to be bound to him and every of his reincarnations (it's a blood curse, and if you want to know how he did it, he kissed her with his own blood and blood he licked off the stage, and she became an outcast angel like Eve because she ate food from humans, and that was blood too so it was extremely sacrilegious, im drawing inspiration from Eve AND Persephone). Yeah well anyway, Integra still had some celestial power left like understanding Angel's languages and shapeshifting, immortality, demon repelling, exorcism etc etc yeah all the classic one and she can return to her angel form but only PARTLY, not entirely and also she is not allowed back to heaven (she can fly tho but she have her limits when it comes to flying). And then, Vlad reincarnate and everytime he did, he started wrecking havoc, each reincarnations of him doesnt exactly remembered his past lives but he is always born into someone with Dracula blood, descendants of the family. And because Vlad left records, other reincarnation of him also contribute their own record of encounters with Integra. Integra on another hand was stuck with humans, she have her limits and no longer as omnipresence as she was. And each angel in this au is asigned a list of humans to guard over, and Integra failed her task because she no longer capable to guard all over them, however she did have the list and she tried to find her human to protect but most of the time they're already dead by the time she arrived. And she tried to do good things to ammend her sins, but Vlad everytime he was reborn will start conflicts and war to draw Integra out because she is a repenting angel she is very drawn towards places of great suffering, and she tried to hide from Vlad's reincarnations because he have authority over her and she can't kill him, both not capable and not allowed to (as a repenting angel, remember? not allowed to harm anyone). Okay okay fast forward, in the au i am working on, this time the reincarnation of Vlad is called Alucard, and spoiler alert, this time, hes a human but with celestial powers, almost like Integra. Because the soul of Vlad made a deal with Lucifer so when he reincarnated as Alucard, he maintain all of his memories and Integra in this au agreed to side with Alucard because she sensed celestial energy from him so she thought he was blessed or chosen to become an exorcist. And as to why he became an exorcist, he doesn't really care about exorcising, he was just messing around with Integra. In some cases, he himself was the one that conjure demons up (Hellsing is bad aligned in this but Integra and Seras didn't know it yet). And as an exorcist he is invited to crime scenes of demon activities to clean up. One of the crime scenes was Seras's family and Integra finally came across someone on her list that is still at least breathing so she tried ressurecting Seras with her blood. Yeah that's how we got Seras Victoria an orphan that was adopted by the church. Integra cared a lot about Seras, while Alucard intended to use Seras to use Integra. Oh and, Alucard in this au is still obsessive as ever to Integra, he's very close to losing his shits. Alucard and Integra acted like an exorcist duo, with Seras as their protege exorcist.

(The background of Integra and Alucard is lowkey inspired from buddhism's concept of reincarnation and fate and karma something something btw)

If you have any suggestion please do inform me I would love to hear it and thank you for listening to my yappings.

[charleslebatman]

Charles approach with Alex is very weird. It has nothing to do with him trying a different tactic because Charlotte was an oversharer, it has nothing to do with him being more private, it has nothing to do with her being "private"

He still shares absolutely everything, he's a chronic oversharer to the point of us recently finding out some random things he's allergic to. That's classified information that he's willingly shared, no private person would share that. He shares where he's going. He's open about feelings and emotions. He's not private, he just doesn't want people turning up to his house and ringing his doorbell, he never mentioned privacy other than to say it's a sacrifice he's happy to make in exchange for his career.

His phone lockscreen is still his Abu Dhabi donuts, eventhough he's said before on twitch that lockscreens are like art, you can express emotions and feelings through it. He's also had both his exs as his lockscreen but after a year, no Alex. (I get it I would also pick a awesome donut picture over some random girl who keeps following me everywhere)

She stays in a hotel, granted he probably pays for it but it tells me two things. One she has no friends or family in Monaco that she's close with and two he doesn't want her in his house.

Him not wanting her in the house reinforces my theory of Charles being a memory guy. Since being with Alex he's used the Pista less, he got a new bed Christmas 2022, changed his entire house layout and removed everything he bought after Charlotte moved in, switched the spare room and his room around etc etc he did the same thing with Giada where he removed anything that she touched that he could physically remove, changed his boat, bought new shoes and was never seen wearing his main pair cause he bought them with Giada and they matched hers etc etc.

They purposely wear matching clothes, not the same clothes but matching. You can see they're not the same because they're oversized enough on Charles that the shoulder seam is aligned with his armpit instead of on his shoulder, they also give him sweater paws so on someone like Alex who is shorter and smaller than Charles, she should be 95% fabric but she's not. They're the same level of oversized and fall the same on the both of them (unless she's wearing like 12 layers and some padding)

-

[lilac-liliales]

Rumi (P5R)

Ok so hear me out. So you know my theory regarding P5R backstage narrative? Like, the premise is that picaresque narrative is limited by the perspective of the narrator and protagonist, and thus, us readers lack information on regards to “backstage” events of the plot. Most of these “unknown developments” can be traced to Shido’s Conspiracy, literally placing Akechi’s testimony as the “missing piece” of the plot. These events include his mother’s backstory, Wakaba’s research, Kayo’s investigation, the Hasegawa’s case, etc. 

Many events are seemingly unrelated to this pattern, as with Rumi and Sumire! And these two have something in common: there seems to be more to their stories than what it appears at first glance. I’ll focus on Rumi for this one!

By Maruki’s testimony, we see Rumi’s breakdown as a sudden thing. Terrible things just happened too fast in the worst way possible. However, is that really what happened, or is it what Maruki thought happened? 

Even if the closeness to the wedding was an unfortunate coincidence, the whole case is suspicious. What are the chances of a home invader killing the residents? Most robbers purposefully wait till the family is absent to break in. Even if the criminals were taken by surprise by Rumi’s elderly parents, it would still be a mean feat to kill two people when caught off guard. In Maruki’s Rank 9, he mentions the trespasser was one man caught red-handed, and he personally attacked Rumi on his way out. It sounds personal.

Rumi’s reaction, coupled with the crime’s proximity to her wedding, and the ambiguous circumstances of the murder... raise suspicions that maybe the home invaders were after her parents, and their deaths were intended to get through to Rumi & Maruki all along. As a warning, or a threat.

There are two plausible reasons for this, and both follow the parallels between Shido/Ren/Maruki/Sojiro & Ma/Akechi/Rumi/Wakaba.

1. We know that Maruki’s involvement in Cognitive Science made him a target of Shido’s Conspiracy. Shido stole Maruki’s research and decimated his future prospects. As Maruki never mentions his family, it’s safe to assume his only family was Rumi and her parents. Knowing that Shido is a cruel man (as evidence by Wakaba’s forged suicide note), it’s not unlikely he wanted to ruin Maruki’s life over it. This would ultimately feed Maruki’s guilt, as he carelessly brought ruin over his loved ones.

2. Outside of Maruki’s account, we know nothing about Rumi’s career, or about Rumi herself. Considering Maruki’s good alignment -in contrast with Shido’s evil ways and Sojiro’s neutral disposition- and Rumi’s parallels with Wakaba & Akechi’s Mom (which were both connected with the Conspiracy on some level), we could hypothesize she was related to Akechi, but in a more incongruous, innocent, yet influential way: as Maruki was Ren’s therapist, Rumi was a social worker in charge of Akechi's case during the 2-4 years span prior to the game. She was being threatened by the conspiracy, and things came to a head with her parents’ murder. Maruki blamed himself because Rumi couldn’t rely on him.

I think the second would attribute more depth to Maruki’s choices. By invading Ren’s consciousness, Maruki knew he cared about Akechi’s well-being, and even went as far as threatening Ren with Akechi’s life. However, Maruki also attempted to convince Akechi, a deadman, to accept his Ideal Reality. He didn’t extend the same sympathy to Officer Nijima, Wakaba or Kunizaku. 

Maybe he hoped Akechi’s compliance would quell Ren’s rebellion? Or did Maruki personally wish for Akechi to accept a world where he could live happily, a possibility otherwise impossible due to his circumstances? We know Rumi is what propels Maruki into creating a perfect reality, as The Laboratory of Sorrow constantly references her and her tragedy. Thus, if Akechi was somehow related to Rumi, it would give Maruki a double motive to keep Akechi alive: to relieve Ren from his grief -a concern born out of projecting himself on Ren- and to accomplish Rumi’s Reality -a world where her protege would be happy-.

Of course, this is all accompanied with a paternalistic sense of duty. I mean, he parallels Sojiro and Shido for a reason, so he has some “father” vibes in him.

[witchybiatryce]

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[autisticempathydaemon]

Hi there, Jess here! Your redacted match game seemed really fun and i wanted to see who you’d pair me with! so here’s my junk! have fun!

-—-—-—-—-—-—

* Song - Taylor Swift’s Tolerate It specifically the lyric “Believe me, i could do it”

* Enneagram- I’m a type 2 but 4 was a very close runner up then 7 in 3rd place

* Video Essays- YES!! My favorite form of media. I don’t have a specific favorite, but I enjoy ones where they analyze the nature of people.

* Imaginary Friend- She was a girl about the size of Thumbelina. She had a pink T-shirt under a pair of overalls and flowers in her hair. I believed she lived in my jewelry box and I oftentimes went about my day with her sitting on my shoulder. Her name was Dorthy.

* Sleep Aids- I typically fall asleep with headphones in, listening to contemporary ASMR, role play ASMR, a tv show, or just some kinda background noise. I usually end up cuddling with my giant teddy bear that’s nearly the size of me

* Name Change- For a long time, i just went by my given middle name cause my given first name was crap. I chose Jess because it was cool and close enough to my first name that my family wouldn’t freak. (Little do they know it’s short for Jester)

* Favorite Redacted Audio- “Going all the way with your vampire mate” the emotional vulnerability always just brings so many tears to my eyes. that audio is what really convinced me to stick around the channel and check out other storylines.

* No appeal Redacted boy- sad to say there’s a few i don’t really care for that much. Regulus and Ivan specifically though. I also tried really hard to like the balance but never could.

* Favorite Media- I could probably quote the good place to you verbatim. It’s my favorite show and i cry every. single. time. without fail.

* Redacted Best Bud- I would KILL to be pals with Huxley. They seem like such a rad dude.

* Sleepy Ramble- Typically when i’m ready for bed i start rambling about anything and everything. and when i wake up i won’t remember it. most recently, my friend said i was talking about how good ice water is.

* Gas Station- Anytime i’m at a gas station, i get a white monster and an icee/slushee and pour the monster into it. it’s an abomination and i love it.

* favorite playlist- the playlist i made to scream and dance around my room to

* guilty pleasure media- old, bad MTV dating shows. they’re so crazy and stupid and give me something to laugh at.

* Fun Facts about Me- I’m 22 and work at the local cinema and it’s my favorite job ever. i play multiple instruments and music has become an integral part of my life. i’m an ex-theater kid. i keep every letter note and drawing someone gives to me in a box on my dresser. i like candles and nice smelling things in general. I’m a generally optimistic person, almost to a fault. I tend to have high hopes and subsequently get let down easily. I’m afraid of commitment and intimacy.

-—-—-—-—-—-—

I really hope that’s enough to analyze me and assign me a lover!!

take care of yourself, much love

-Jess

You are incredibly delightful and helpful! You gave me so much information to work with, so there is nary a doubt in my mind that you and Gavin would make an excellent match!

On a deeper, personal level, taking a Type two, typically characterized by that desire to be loved, who may be reluctant or afraid to fully be loved, and pairing you with Gavin works perfectly because that aligns with his mindset. You two would have a delightful slowburn of a romance, something that sparks and smolders until he confesses you are the sky to his stars (my favorite of his lines).

On a more minute level, I also think you two would work well because of the things you’d like; like, he would be so delighted by you. The thing about Gavin that’s adorable to me is how behind he is on some shows and movies, so I can just imagine his reactions when you show him old MTV shows like “Why are we snooping through these bedrooms? Who in god’s name is Tila Tequila???” He’d also get a kick out of visiting you at work and trying to get you to neck in the back of a theater with him on your break.

Song:

I always thought/ I wasn't the type/ To plummet/ Feel every cliché/ That low-budget movies rely on/ But I'm head over heels with butterflies in my stomach/ I feel fuzzy and warm/ And it's gross but I love it

I’m a sap and so, secretly, is Gavin. I don’t know if the tone really fits, because I personally can’t nail down what genres he likes, but the vibe works. I love ships that are not, like, “I didn’t know or understand love until you” but rather “I didn’t realize how easy and fun love could be until you”, you know? It’s also a really fun, energetic song, and I do think you and Gavin would be the type who’d have and be so much fun together once you settle into that love.

Runner-ups:

Guy is a fun runner-up for you, because I think he’d love all the media you like and would be really engaged in liking them with you. Also, he is definitely a theater kid, you can’t tell me otherwise, and theater couples are super cute. In contrast, I like Lasko for you because of that slow burn potential I mentioned. Gavin was a perfect combination of those two thought processes.

note: parental control was my favorite that shit was so weird tho lol

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 7: The Expanse 1x04

Why would you introduce my beautiful wife Captain Yao just to kill her one episode later??? I will riot in the streets.

Seriously, I really was like immediately attached to her, in a way I haven’t been to any other character in this show yet, and I was all ready for her to be a fave and now she’s gone. Truly a disappointment. Also it makes me kind of annoyed that Cop 2 is still alive because while I had no particular issues with him, having him be surprise alive in the same ep as another, worse, more definitive death… so sad for me specifically.

Second thought: my favorite parts of this show are the world building sections and my least favorite are the action sequences. All the tense life-or-death-situation scenes are really boring to me still. I mean admittedly action is not my genre in general but something about the action scenes in this show just seem particularly… flat, for some reason? I just feel no intensity and no urgency about them at all and I honestly kind of zoned out through them. In this ep, I’m talking specifically about the crew stopping up the wholes in the prison cell, and the run to the escape ship during gunfire.

But the world building is exquisite. I’m really into all the information we’re getting on Mars and how they see Earth—and themselves. Every new bit of information is simultaneously exciting and surprising and unpredictable, and also fits in perfectly with all of the other information, providing an overall picture of the society that feels coherent and real. And this even though we’ve seen very few Martian characters and not yet seen their home world at all.

I was also really excited about all the tech in the dead guy that the detectives were examining (as a side note, probably shouldn’t get attached to her, and I still don’t entirely get what she does, but Octavia is growing on me a lot). It sort of reminded me of Dollhouse in its future episodes except the tech was spread throughout the body instead of being mind-focused. Like, body mods, even data storage as part of the body mods, isn’t a NEW idea but it’s an idea I LIKE and I appreciated how they were developing it here. Also the term ‘gear head.’

I did not really get what was happening with the shootout in the corridor of the Donninger, which ended with that guy getting his arm blown off and then it just healed itself. Part of this is that as soon as the shoot out started I zoned out entirely because as I said, I just cannot care. So I probably missed important information. I think…he was one of the people who boarded the ship? One of the mystery antagonists? His space suit was different than the red-faced Martian ones. But they also called him a mole? Maybe? And something about a weapon that wouldn’t be able to fire. I probably should have rewatched the scene but I wanted to keep going. I also don’t know what it meant that his arm healed itself right away but based on the expression on Holden’s face, I think that’s supposed to be a mystery.

As far as I can tell, the mystery antagonists are OPA-aligned (based on the scene where the guy kicked all the Mormons off the ship he was building, and also the stuff with the guy being tortured in the first couple episodes) but there’s something Extra about them. The arm-healing thing, for one. Maybe it’s Mormon tech? LMAO.

Oh, just remembered. Another thing I like about the world building on this show is how normal Earth looks. Like clearly this is far in the future and there’s a lot of new tech and so on and so forth, and Earth from a distance looks quite different as well, with the degree to which it’s been built up at least in major cities—but it’s not all sleek futuristic houses or minimalism or just sweeping amounts of shiny new advanced entertainment etc. The houses are just houses, the clothes are just clothes, the people still read books and talk about dinosaurs. It makes everything feel more real and believable, and sort of helps ground the (sometimes very far out) worlds of this possible future with the actual world.

I was surprised by the insta-jump to found family among Holden and the crew. His insistence he needed to get back to ‘his people’ was a little meh for me, which I KNOW is completely unfair. The show has objectively earned the right to have him be protective of them, after their recent adventures and given that they’re the last survivors of their ship. But most of what we’ve seen from them has just been infighting… it’s hard for me to feel yet like they actually like each other and would be so deeply loyal. Meh. I don’t know. At least the most annoying of them has bitten the dust. I am not sad about it.

Also WHY are there so many Mormons? Are they like really important or is this just an extensive riff off a sort of joke (even in the future and even in space, white men in suits will try to evangelize you)?