#maybe clean some things up

[annaraebananawriter]

Hi, I'm just about to go to bed but I thought of yet another little fanfic idea I thought I'd share with you all before I forget--

A few centuries ago, in a remote village, there lived two brothers, Dream and Nightmare. Their mother cared for them, and she was the unofficial leader of the village, too. However, when the boys were young, around 6ish, their mom died. The village, feeling lost, looked to them for guidance, though the adults shortly realized they were far too young to lead. The villagers took it upon themselves to teach the young boys and train them.

They quickly found that Dream excelled in making sure everyone was fed and cared for, all the making of a strong and good leader. Meanwhile, Nightmare excelled in any kind of scholarly area, acing tests and flying through books. The villagers discussed the boys frequently, and most of the adults favored Dream over Nightmare, finding his social butterfly personality charming, while his brother’s tendency to stay tucked away in the house reading a bit frustrating. A leader couldn't keep their head in a book and take good care of their village, after all.

So, slowly, they gave the important lessons to Dream, busying Nightmare with test after test, gradually marking lower and lower to make him focus on getting the grades up, all in hopes of keeping from getting suspicious as to why Dreams lessons were far longer than his were. And why did Dream walk out of the lessons with such different homework than his? It looked far more wordy, too complex to be for school. The teachers never gave him much answer when he asked: "Dream simply outgrew the regular schoolwork."

Nightmare, used to being the academic one, grew worried about his place in this village. Mother always said he would be a great person to go to regarding decisions for the villages' problems one day. She taught him to have pride in how smart he was. But these teachers marked him low, made him feel stupid, chiding him on taking too long to answer a question, for getting too excited and rambling on, all because he recognized the subject matter from a book ge read the other day.

At first, he tried hard to get his teachers to see him, to tell that he was smart, too, just like Dream. He deserved the special lessons, too. But the longer this went without notice, the longer the teachers dismissed him, and the more time the manor halls were empty and he was alone, waiting for Dream to get out of lessons, he grew tired of trying. He stopped doing his schoolwork and stopped participating, which only made the teachers madder. The teachers told him to quit acting like a baby and do the work they gave him or waste away into nothingness. Nightmare, angry because they still didn't understand, yelled back about how he didn't see a point to work if he didn't get recognition for it. The teachers didn't take this kindly--in fact, they slapped him for it.

Stunned, Nightmare could only listen as the teacher berated him for being so selfish. From then on, he kept to himself, and he played the part the adults wanted him to play. All while nursing a stirring jealousy and bitterness as he watched Dream step into a position of leadership, hours upon hours of work and work, most of the time away from the manor.

Dream, on the other hand, was shaped for leadership and nothing else. He was taught to put the village above himself, above Nightmare, above anyone he might love. The teachers told him a leader wanted the best for his people, and the best was always everything you could give and more. When he transitioned from schoolwork to village work, he's unsure, but it was not a sudden change; he looked over his work one night and had a slow realization that this was not the schoolwork his brother was getting, no, it was something far more important. And he never got a break from this work, not like his brother did. It just piled on and on, more problems appearing the minute he solved one.

One day, he complained about this workload, saying it made his head spin. He had had so little sleep that the ceiling seemed to dance around his head. This day, the teachers had apparently been in a bad mood, for while they would normally laugh and gently chide him, this day they screamed: "Leaders do not rest until all of their village's problems are satisfied. You do not get to rest until we say you can. You do not deserve to." Needless to say, this woke Dream up well, and he apologized quietly and said he would do better.

Trapping this as a lesson in his head, Dream changed. He accepted his leadership position with no complaints, throwing himself into his workload in hopes of getting done fast enough to still make it home in time to eat supper with Nightmare--he rarely made it. Taught to be selfless, nothing more than a tool used to better the village, Dream lost himself, the lines of who he was and who his teachers wanted him to be blurring.

Dream also hid away a spek of jealousy as he watched him brother lounge on the couch at home, reading all day long. It seemed like he was so free, able to do as he pleased. He was free to be himself and nothing more, not expected to be something untouchable, something immovable, invincible.

Both brothers envied the other; Nightmare for how loved Dream was, Dream for how free Nightmare was.

Eventually, all the time away from home, away from his brother, wore on Dream. He messed up more and more, too distracted by the ache of missing Nightmare, and the villagers noticed. They snapped at him to pay attention. In secret, they planned. Nightmare was distracting their leader, and if this continued, their village would be ruined. They planned to fix this by getting rid of the distraction for good.

Nightmare's sickness started as a cough. It lingered and lingered and drove him mad. He grew feverish, too, barely able to get out of bed some days. And it all came to a head when Drema returned one night to his brother passed out on the floor of his room, blood dripping out of the mouth. The doctors could do nothing, leaving Dream anxious and Nightmare bedridden.

Dream, unable to take the tragic news that his brother could not be helped, searched and searched for his own cure. He came up with nothing--until. He saw in a book, a dusty old thing hidden away in Mother's library, writings about creatures in the woods around the village that are rumored to grant a wish of any kind. Even to cure and uncurable disease.

Hopeful and desperate, forgoing the warnings of the book to not make deals with beings you cannot trust Dream snuk away during the night and pleaded with the creatures to save his brother: "I just want to see him smile, please. I will do anything for you, be anything for you, just please save my brother."

And the creatures did.

But not in the way he wanted.

Nightmare died the next day. And Dream, overwhelmed with grief, shut the manor gates and ignored all attempts the villagers made to fet him out, no matter how much they yelled and threatened. He hoped he might wither away, join his twin in death, but he never did. Even though he did not eat or drink for years. Turning his anger towards the damn creatures that caused this, he stumbled back to the forest after decades of hiding out, and he screamed at them: "This was not the deal!"

"Wasn't it?" The creatures replied, "You said you would be anything. So be someone we can talk to for years to come. We gifted you, you see. You can learn so much from us and us from you."

"I asked you to save my brother. I told you to make me see him again."

"And you will. We just never said when."

Dream heads back to the manor, still shaking from anger. But sure enough, around winter, he finds a small child in the woods, abandoned and about to die of hypothermia. Taking pity, he brings the child home and cares for it until it is well.

When the child wakes up, he asks him his name.

The child blinks. "My name is Nightmare."

(Basically: In this AU, Dream and Nightmare are cursed so that one of them is immortal and the other one reincarnates, and the one who reincarnates always stumbles into the immortal ones life, and yet always dies young.

Dream watches his brother die over and over, having to rebuild their brothership from the ground up because Nightmare doesn't remember him when he comes back.)

[arinmoss]

Mr. Elliott Stardew Valley

[medi-bee]

isat pokemon au, my liege?

my rambling in tags

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

what kind of favour do you require in exchange for an equineswap jiang yanli

I will fight god if that's what it takes.

No favour required! These guys were in the original doodle dump!

[thatdamnrookie]

He is just a little guy. A fella

(Also congrats to Lackadaisy on that 1.5 million and counting!)

[hallwyeoo]

Ellie’s memory of the golfing scene and what it tells us about her.

🚨spoilers for tlou2🚨

I think Ellie’s flashback to Joel’s death is very telling of how she internalized the event and the meaning she applied to his death. It’s also a good demonstration of her relationship to autonomy. Let’s break down the elements that were inconsistent with the actual event:

The stairs/hallway are much longer than they were. This suggests a sense of helplessness, an inability to get there fast enough. Joel is constantly out of reach.

There is blood on the floor outside of the door. Not entirely certain on this one but my hunch is that she blames herself for not seeing more obvious signs of violence/not knowing something was wrong sooner.

The door is locked, another roadblock in her path to Joel. She can’t access him, she can’t help, he needs her and she isn’t there.

Most importantly. Joel yells “Ellie, help me” (which he didn’t in the actual scene, he just screams. He doesn’t say a word in the actual scene)

Ellie hearing Joel scream for her help, calling for her while being horribly beaten, and her being repeatedly impeded on her way to him suggests that what she took away from his death is that she wasn’t enough. They always helped each other, always had each others backs, always got up. Ellie views his death as a failure. She was too slow, too weak, not smart enough to save him. She failed him when he needed her most. She is absolutely helpless to save him, just like she was helpless to save Riley, Tess, Sam, and Jessie (and Marlene, and humanity, and and and-).

Once again, Ellie makes a decision (staying with Riley, going to the fireflies, staying with Joel, being the cure, trying to forgive Joel) and once again her autonomy and ability to find closure is ripped from her.

This is the inciting incident of tlou pt2, this is the moment where Ellie’s whole world shatters the same way Joel’s did at the start of pt1. Ellie enters into the same cycle (which I like to call the “Joel cycle” because… yeah.) that he did, and throughout pt2 she stays in the “20 years later” phase of the cycle. She is changed, she has lost her light, lost what she fought for. She lost her chance to genuinely forgive Joel and rebuild their relationship. She is stuck in a gruelling and violent world that she has no anchor in, at least not anymore. His death is so sudden and so incredibly violent that it practically gave her (and me as well, tbh) whiplash. She’s in a state of total shock.

On another devastating note, this is one of the three times in tlou that we see Ellie beg (that I remember). The first is begging Joel to get up at the university of Eastern Colorado, the second is begging him to get up and for Abby to stop, and the third is begging Abby to not kill Dina because she’s pregnant. (Two times she begs Joel to get up, one time he doesn’t. Two times she begs Abby to spare her family and one time she does. What a beautifully haunting contrast)

To wrap up, every person creates an internal narrative, a story of their life that is crafted from their context and lived experiences. The meaning we derive from those experiences doesn’t always reflect the truth, and that can sometimes bite us in the ass majorly when we experience a traumatic event. We tend to want to find someone or something to assign blame to, some reason or rationale to why it happened. We tell stories. We write them in our minds about ourselves and what happens to us and what that says about us.

But Ellie is wrong. Joel’s death happened in response to a conscious and willing choice he made. It is in no way her fault, and there was absolutely no way for her to know or to stop what was happening. I think Ellie knows that much on an intellectual level, It just doesn’t change how devastated she is over the whole event. It can’t change the fact that she FEELS as though this was all her fault, that Joel did what he did to save her, that she could have saved him. That she should have.

[cheddar-baby]

the wild thing is my minimum wage job would be managable and fine if my managers didn't randomly go on power trips and micro-manage me for completely pointless nonsense.

[canisonicscrewyou]

my eye-spy sitcom best friendcore ass apartment. btw. just thought you should know. I kind of recommend zooming in if you want to.

Constant Visual Stimulation. No Escape.

bonus: the newest addition that we stole rescued from my place of work yesterday after taking these pics. a lovely lady.

[shiqingxuanz]

another little wip art dump

[mantisgodsdomain]

Finally, we get the opportunity to put our Spy Cards worldbuilding in a work. Though there are many questions about such things as "regulation" "how these cards are printed" "who approves a single spy card", and so on, we are here to present a bold new take: this game is based like 60% on obscure roach memory-reading tech that got turned into a card game with absolutely No card-game-related intentions included in the original tech and most of the card vetting is just from the fact that there aren't too many card printers out there and most of them make cards that need to be translated from Roach.

Strictly speaking, as a card game, it is not a terribly good or well-balanced one. It's popular primarily because of a mix of the difficulty involved in getting the data for high-level cards, the fun of seeing the variety of monsters that can be brought to the table, and the incredible amounts of ham and drama that goes into specifically the professional scene.

[boxheadpaint]

how do i start coming up w more interesting character designs like urs. they are sooooo cool and i try to make a character like that but it always comes out stinky

if it stinks thats great

[tirfpikachu]

guys sometimes i get really scared that we radfems are all actually bigot and we're in a bigoted perspective that's actually harmful to trans people but we're in an echo chamber or smtg :'( like what if i really am in my qanon era (leftist edition) i'm scawwed y'all.......

[always-a-joyful-note]

You know. Thinking about it, the best thing the anime did for Tsumugi was give her professional attire. Like the clothes she wears on the CGs we see her in are cute, but I really think she looks best in the formal business style

[ghoulaxyart]

Watched Birds of Prey tonight. It’s still one of my top ten movies of all time

[hikkokoro]

My brain is now rotting with SAMS aus about Ruin.

[foreignobjecticus]

Having lots of hobbies is great! No matter how much you achieve in a day, you will always also have the Guilt of 'I should be doing Other Hobby' gnawing at your insides. :)