#neverending stories on loop

[twinsloveco]

Our roots are connected down to our very cores , I feel your vines swimming inside me ,your air/breath encompasses every fiber of my being I feel it is intensities moving through my body , wriggling around lovingly and soft angelic , your content purrs how deeply you have me like nonone else will

How bad you crave own protect want and desire and yearn scream beg pleading for me

I haven't felt it so strongly in a while dear..

I remember 2013, I feel estranged from earth

From humanity , you take me to the divine ✨️💕 my body gets a little dizzy nauseas from it's overwhelming power of your light.

I know that you cherish and protect me now

With every molecule in you , you are mine.

And I am yours g0d damn our bond is strong

Intense powerful magnetic absorbing...

..and all consuming radiating blissfully.

With elegance and stamina and stature.

You re awaken all I thought was since lost!!

You drive me wild and bring my demonlord

Out, he wants to go feral on you rawwwerr

I can hear your call!!! Over and over again.

There's so much more I wanna write but rn

I am rolling demon screeching and squirming in my bed i can't sit still or contanrin myself

What do u do to me twin? Fuck I need u so bad - you're an angelic devil and I'm a demonic angel lmao we are so ass backwards! You're so yandere nymphomaniac possessive loving obsessive!

[pendwelling]

!!! Wow! So you have a favourite story, too?

[ao-xingyume1987]

Good lord I want to work on the original work so badd but then I have to figure out how the story goes ToT

[erikiara80]

Hopper's letter tells us what this story is about. Family, friendship, love, and also accepting loss and learning to heal. Because "life is always moving. And sometimes it's painful, sometimes it's sad. And sometimes, it's surprising. Happy."

I'm thinking about the "two Joyces" here, and the JCPenney store, a big Back to the future Easter Egg, all the twin imagery and swapping places mentions, lives that are lesser copies than the ones before, people perfoming in a silly, terrible play

If they're stuck in a loop, maybe people are living different lives, upside down versions of their lives, lost in a labyrinth of timelines and memories

Maybe there are even people who should be dead (Hopper? He was shot in the past?) or were born stillborn (El?) but are alive because of what happened to Will.

[hedgehog-moss]

Pls give recommendations for Odd books 🙏

Here we go, a list of literary oddity :) This post contains majestic spheres, alien taxonomies, cruel subway polytheism, a fourth-dimensional cat, disturbing earthworms, infinite space football, existential mussel terror, a Parisian absurdist time loop, and a picture of a telegraph-pole-man-cheetah. I'm not exactly recommending these books, in the sense that I won't take any complaints if you find them more odd than good, and some of them transcend the concepts of good and bad anyway.

• The Other City, Michal Ajvaz. It's all like this:

• Contes du demi-sommeil, Marcel Béalu ('Half-asleep tales') —is the book that prompted my post about stories that have no ambition or justification beyond being odd. I'm sad that it hasn't been translated :( One of the tales is about a strange opaline sphere that rolls on the road. It doesn't accelerate when the road becomes a steep slope but continues rolling majestically. At one point it floats away towards the sky. Someone wonders if it was the moon. Someone else says authoritatively "It was an angel's egg." Everyone is reassured by this explanation. The whole thing feels exactly like remembering a dream you had. There is also a man who reads too much and whose body atrophies so only his head is left and his wife puts it in an egg cup for better stability.

• Leonora Carrington— The Skeleton's Holiday, or maybe the Hearing Trumpet. I've read them so long ago but I think the latter is the one with the old ladies and nuns? There's also a guy who was murdered in his bath by a still-life painter because he said there was a carrot in one of his paintings, but it might not have been a carrot? It's hard to remember details from this book without feeling like I might be making them up. Bonus Leonora Carrington painting which kind of feels like a short story:

• The Codex Seraphinianus, of course. I wish there were more bizarre encyclopaedias out there.

Also I love this review:

• Sleep Has His House, Anna Kavan —I really liked the way this book used language; making life feel like a fever dream even more than in Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream (which I really liked too.)

The eye is checking a record of silence, space; a nightmare, every horror of this world in its frigid and blank neutrality. The actual scope of its orbit depends on the individual concept of desolation, but approximate symbols are suggested in long roving perspectives of ocean, black swelled, in slow undulation, each whaleback swell plated in armour-hard brilliance with the moonlight clanking along it . . .

• The second half of Michael Ende's Neverending Story, where things get stranger! I remember the hand-shaped castle with eyes and the city of amnesiac former emperors and the miserable ugly worms who cry all the time out of shame then create beautiful architecture with their tears...

• The Gray House, Mariam Petrosyan. This is the one I had in mind when I talked about a 'museum of the strange, but one you wouldn't want to be trapped in after closing time'. Another book that made me feel uncomfortable in a similar (good) way was Edward Carey's Observatory Mansions, the protagonist of which is a man who curates an odd private museum and can't stand the sight of his own hands.

• Oh, speaking of uncomfortable, and hands—He Digs A Hole, by Danger Slater. To me this book was in the more-odd-than-good category but I liked its refusal to have a coherent philosophical meaning. It's about a man who can't sleep so he goes to his garden shed and saws off his hands and replaces them with gardening tools. Then he starts digging a hole. And then it gets weird. (Read at your own discretion if you have a worm phobia; there's some body horror featuring sexually aggressive earthworms. And then it gets disturbing.)

• 17776 — Someone sent me an ask a few years back to recommend this online multimedia narrative to me and I really enjoyed it! Here's the summary, borrowed from the wiki page: Set in the distant future in which all humans have become immortal and infertile, the series follows three sapient space probes that watch humanity play an evolved form of American football in which games can be played for millennia over distances of thousands of miles. The work explores themes of consciousness, hope, despair, and why humans play sports.

• Saint-Glinglin, Raymond Queneau —the author admitted that this book presents some "internal discontinuities." I didn't like it much but I respect the talent it takes to write a novel where everything feels like a random digression, including the key suspenseful scene that matters to the plot. The one digression I loved had to do with the way the narrator is existentially horrified by various sea creatures. It's like he dreads them so much he can't help but think about them when he should be telling a story.

The oyster... This gob of phlegm, this brutal way of refusing the outside world, this absolute isolation, and this disease: the pearl... If I conceptualise them even a little, my terror starts anew. The mussel is even more significant than the oyster and even more immediately admissible in the domain of terror. Let us indeed consider that this little sticky mass whose collective stupidity haunts our piers, consider that it is alive in the same way as a cow. Because there are no degrees in life. There is no more or less. The whole of life is present in every animal. To think that the mussel, that the mussel has, not a conscience, but a certain way of transcending itself: here I am once again plunged into abysses of anxiety and insecurity.

Near the beginning he philosophises about what would happen if a man and a lobster were the only two survivors of the apocalypse. The lobster would break the man's toe and the man would say, "We are the only beings that remain on this devastated Earth, lobster! The only living beings in the universe, struggling alone against the universal disaster, don't you want to be allies?" But the lobster would disdainfully walk away towards the ocean, and "the sight of the inflexible and imperturbable lobster pierces the sky of humanity with its unintelligible claws." (I can't overstate how little this has to do with the rest of the book.)

• Autumn in Beijing, Boris Vian —needless to say the story does not take place in autumn nor in Beijing.* To the extent that it can be said to be "about" something, it's about people trying to build a train station in a desert with tracks that lead nowhere. (I just went on goodreads to check the title, and it's actually called Autumn in Peking in English. I also discovered that it was featured in a list of Books I Regret Reading. I liked this book, but I understand.)

(* French writers love doing this—like when Alphonse Allais said about his 1893 book The Squadron's Umbrella "I chose this title because there aren't any umbrellas of any sort in this volume, and the important notion of the squadron, as a unit of the armed forces, is never brought up at all; in these conditions, hesitating would have been pure madness.")

• The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins—I fear this one makes a little too much sense for this list, but you can't say it isn't weird; and I loved it and recommend it any chance I get.

• The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, Carol Hill —this book was so wacky and made me laugh. I've not yet managed to successfully recommend it to someone; its brand of odd didn't resonate with the people I know who've read it but that's okay. You could say it's about a woman astronaut whose weird cat disappears into the fourth dimension (or the quantum realm?) and she goes to space to save him—but that makes the book sound more straightforward and less messy than it is. Her cat leaves her a note before he disappears:

• The Bald Soprano, Ionesco —fun fact, there's a tiny theatre in the Latin Quarter in Paris where this absurdist play has been staged every night for nearly 70 years, with the exact same set design and costumes and everything, like the actors are stuck in a time loop. They celebrated the 20,000th performance this year! There's an actress who has been playing her character for 40 years and said joining this theatre was like joining a religion. I've been going to see this play as a New Year tradition with my best friend since we were 14, so I love it madly, though I wouldn't say it's good, necessarily—the author said it was about "absolutely nothing, but a superior nothing."

• Statuary Gardens; or Les Mers perdues (apparently not translated) by Jacques Abeille. This man is obsessed with weird statues. Unfortunately I find his writing style rather dull—I feel like he takes strange ideas and makes them feel mundane in a bad way...! But his books still have a nice, quiet, oneiric atmosphere, and images that stayed with me, like a solitary gardener trying to grow stone statues in the depleted soil of a walled garden. Here are some illustrations from the second one:

I'll look into some of the books recommended on my previous post! (and I agree with the people who brought up Cortázar, Borges, and Junji Ito. <3) Some potentially-odd books I have on my to-read list: Clive Barker's Abarat, Goran Petrović's An Atlas Traced by the Sky, Salvador Plascencia's The People of Paper, Jean Ray's Malpertuis; Jan Weiss's The House of a Thousand Floors; Brice Tarvel's Pierre-Fendre.

[starleska]

73 Yards has devastated me and i have some theories

we all agree that 73 Yards was a genre-defying, harrowing episode...and i think there's some really interesting themes and ideas going on here. tw for discussion of trauma, abuse, neglect and abandonment:

i hope we're all on the same page that the Woman seems to represent Ruby's fear of abandonment, brought to life. always present, always out of the corner of her eye, and whose primary mechanic is to drive people to scorn and leave Ruby without explanation. even people who do not know her, or people she's just met, or who are incredibly warm towards her...they speak to the Woman, and they look back as if to confirm their suspicions, and then run away, maddened and horrified. it is an unbelievable stroke of genius to make the Toymaker's breaking down of the boundaries between science and fantasy bring Ruby's abandonment into being...and for Ruby to weaponise her. but that's it - as soon as Roger ap Gwilliam was taken care of, we expected the Woman to disappear, right? but that could never happen, because Ruby's fear of abandonment will never disappear...no matter how purposeful her life is, or how much she distances herself from others. the use of the cruel, distant individuals in the Welsh pub to set up Ruby sympathetically is excellent...and then, we see people approach Ruby at all levels of emotional connection, when time and again she is considered untouchable, as if her very being is contagious. and all this time, we have the fairy circle being broken and hope vanishing...with hope being the Doctor. the one man who potentially holds the key to uncovering Ruby's deepest desires - to find out why she was abandoned, and by who. and at the end of it all...even in death, Ruby doesn't find peace. she is transported into a neverending hell-loop where she is her own abandonment. the two are inseparable, inexplicably the same, because Ruby's very existence as herself is built on the bedrock of abandonment. and i think this resonates heavily with any trauma survivor...the way that our trauma and our very real anxieties brought on by that trauma are inextricable from ourselves. i think the plot with Roger ap Gwilliam shows off a very real symptom in trauma survivors: we often daydream that our hurt and pain will be useful one day - functional. and not only does Ruby get to do that...she gets to be the quiet, unsung saviour of the whole world, protecting us from a world-ending terror in spite of the abuse and neglect she's faced. she endures menial work and constant fear, while only confiding quietly in one other person...Marti, who i believe is coded as another trauma survivor due to her response to Roger (who she describes as a monster). if Ruby can't receive love and affection from anyone else, at least she can feel satisfied that she served her purpose. on a practical level, the presence of Mrs Flood and Susan Twist in this episode AGAIN gives me pause. my theory that someone here is another of the Toymaker's Legions, and is the embodiment of Story, has only deepened. the fact that we had a cold open without the title sequence, we met Susan Twist very quickly, we seem to have flipped genres for the show and Ruby was able to embark on a self-destructive wish-fulfilment saviour fantasy in real life...it all indicates to me that the boundaries between reality and fiction are fully collapsing. when Kate says things are trending towards the supernatural lately, i think we've only hit the tip of the iceberg. on a broader level: my God Russell T Davies, what a brilliant script!!! this is one of my favourite ever episodes of Doctor Who, and is absolutely my highlight for the season. huge kudos to Millie Gibson for giving such a killer performance...i am now terribly endeared to, and protective, of Ruby, and hope against hope she gets the happy ending she so deserves 💖

[therainscene]

There upon a rainbow is the answer to a Neverending Story: Will's time-travelling coming-of-age

[Spoilers for The First Shadow ahead, though they don't begin until after the cut. And obligatory disclaimer that I haven't seen the play for myself yet.]

Will Byers is a character haunted by his past.

I mean, obviously, right? After the awful events of S1, Zombie Boy finds himself getting literally hunted down by a giant metaphor for trauma; by S3, when all his friends are starting to grow up, Will is still clinging pathetically to childhood escapism while that trauma metaphor continues to bristle under his skin.

That's not to say that Will's refusal to conform to other people's ideas of what growing up means isn't one of his strengths -- but there's a difference between that and refusing to grow up at all, and Will is very much digging his stubborn little heels in when it comes to the inevitable changes of adolescence.

Because Will is also a character haunted by his future.

As a gay boy growing up in an era that despises gay men, Will's fate has been quite clearly spelled out for him: if he's lucky, he'll just be looked down upon as a pervert; if he's not, he'll get murdered or become an AIDS statistic.

It's hard not to be a late bloomer when you know how quickly undesirable flowers get pruned.

So the prickling at the back of his neck doesn't just flare up in moments that remind him of his past, but also in moments that remind him of his future.

The dark intimacy of the cinema and the sweltering eroticism of the sauna remind him that his feelings for Mike are developing into something new and terrifying...

...while Milevn's heteronormative antics remind him of how unlikely it is that Mike would ever want that sort of future with him anyway.

Even his debriefing on the Mind Flayer's return hints towards his struggle to accept this truth about himself:

Will describes his encounters with the Mind Flayer as like being frozen in place, and I think that applies to his timeline too: the Shadow surrounds him on both sides, boxing him in, preventing him from moving forward or backward.

The only temporal direction open to him is sideways... towards that equally frozen realm the Shadow came from in the first place.

And he's not the only one in this predicament.

-------------------

Like Will, Henry was trapped in an alternate dimension as a child, and like Will, the Mind Flayer followed him home and possessed him -- allowing past and future to torment his adolescent self in tandem.

Brenner pressures and manipulates young Henry to give in to the dark urges demanded by the Shadow, sending him helplessly down the path towards becoming Vecna.

It's the classic self-fulfilling prophecy that dooms many a "difficult" (traumatized/neurodivergent/queer) child whom the adults in their life have no idea how to handle: Henry is deemed too broken to be worth treating with patience or compassion, and when the abuse finally does break him... well, that's just proof they were right about him all along.

The Shadow possessing Henry in 1959 somehow presents not as a formless cloud of particles, but as the spider monster he himself would shape twenty years later...

...and I think this is evidence of a predestination loop.

El didn't just banish Henry to Dimension X, but sent him back in time, allowing him to create the same monster that possessed him as a child. The Shadow was never an alien -- it was a manifestation of Henry's worst possible future, bootstrapped into existence by Brenner's meddling.

Note that this means El is also trapped in a self-creating loop:

If El hadn't used her powers to send Henry to Dimension X, then he never would have been able to sabotage his own childhood... which means Henry might never have become an asset to Brenner, which means Terry would never have been injected with Henry's blood, which means El would never have been born with powers.

To be clear: I'm not saying that El or Henry brought this on themselves.

This is all an allegory for the cycle of abuse, so the self-sabotage going on here isn't about these characters literally being to blame for what Brenner did to them, but about how they self-blame: internalizing the abuse and perpetuating harm in turn.

Let's return to Will and consider one of the show's biggest mysteries: why was he taken in S1?

The play heavily implies that Henry's powers were acquired in Dimension X, and outright states that the lab kids' powers came from Henry's blood, so it's unlikely that Will was born with powers.

Maybe Will was just in the wrong place at the wrong time... but then why was it so important that this random kid be spared from Vecna's plans to kill everyone in S2? Perhaps something happened during his week in the Upside Down that made him an asset to Vecna... but given the similarities between Will's connection to the Mind Flayer and Henry's, I propose an alternative explanation:

Whatever made Will a target in S1 is something that won't happen until S5. Because Will is also trapped in a predestination loop.

If predestination loops are what happens when a self-sabotager is linked to the supernatural, then frankly it's almost impossible for Will not to be trapped in one.

Every season since returning from the Upside Down, Will has sacrificed himself to help his friends fight the horrors... and all three of those sacrifices have been deeply entwined with his feelings for Mike.

In S2, Will was willing to die to save his friends from the Mind Flayer after Mike's heartfelt monologue broke through his possession.

In S3, Will bottled up all the pain he was feeling after his fight with Mike and refused to address it again once he realized the party was going to need his help with the Mind Flayer.

And in S4, Will pretended that his painting was actually from El in an attempt to support Mike -- and save the day once it started to look like a S2-esque monologue from Mike was needed once again.

Over and over, Will takes the love he feels for another boy and channels it into The Greater Heteronormative Good as though he's trying to atone for something. But the older he gets, the less effective that becomes:

S2's sacrifice was crucial to saving the day.

S3's sacrifice was helpful... but like... his role was to be a glorified Geiger counter; he didn't exactly need to shut down emotionally to pull it off.

S4's sacrifice did fuck all to save the day, and he definitely didn't need to meddle with Milevn's relationship by injecting a lie into it -- the painting could have passed as platonic if he wanted.

If this pattern holds, then we can expect Will's next move to start causing harm.

I usually interpret Troy's above line as Vecna foreshadowing... but what if it's actually foreshadowing how Will's nearly-adult self is going to start the chain of events that lead to 12 year-old Will's kidnapping?

Homophobes often accuse gay men of being a threat to children, which is rich because homophobia is the actual threat to children. In his desperate efforts to suppress the desires that make him a target to homophobes, all Will has accomplished is to hurt himself on homophobes' behalf. He's become a homophobe.

And thus he dooms an innocent child to needless horrors.

It's tempting to believe that Will's S5 coming-of-age is going to involve breaking the loop and undoing all the horrible things that happened...

...But I don't think this is likely to be the sort of time travel story in which the past can be undone. For one thing, Will breaking the loop would also undo the entirety of Stranger Things; for another, this show isn't really about defeating abuse so much as surviving it.

My bet would be that Will can't destroy the loop any more than he can destroy 80s homophobia. But once the loop completes, he'll also be free to leave it in the past and take a brave step into the future -- one in which he fully accepts his right to be in love and lust with a boy.

As scary as that future is...

...he might be pleasantly surprised by what he finds there.

[ven0moir]

i'm BAFFLED at all the bychance hate on the tag right now because they're genuinely like

"Mike is Will's FOREVER. He said so and therefore he will continue to castrate himself over and over until Mike chooses him because that's TRUE LOVE!!!!!! Mike saying he loved El in front of him did NOTHING to weaken the powerful, endless loop of his love! also, he won't go for CHANCE because he is EVIL!!!! Will is above mortal temptations because of his neverending love for Mike!!! he would NEVEEERRRRRRR, the duffers would NEVER dare to give Will a chance at love that isn't Mike because Will isn't even gay, he's Mikesexual, that's the healthiest expression of true love possible for Will and that is EXACTLY what the duffers will give us!"

is this real life????????? Not the mileven-coded mentality 💀 i even thought they were satire for a second. with cypherheartnokey's recent post, and your bychance timeline, at this point anti-bychance bylers are the weakest link. Bottom of the barrel behavior. isn't that why we shit on mileven so much anyway? because of how obsessed they are with each other? Make it make sense!

i don't even care about bychance and am personally open to whatever happens as long as it feels right. But the Duffers said some people might not like the way things go in season 5, and for all we know, they were talking about bychance in that sentence. The truth is that they did whatever the hell THEY felt is right for their story, and nothing we do or say will change what they have already decided.

hi anon! omfg not the "mikesexual" mindset HELPP ...

and ty for bringing up the only expectation you have being that you just want things to be fair bc YES. SAME

i talked about the general idea that seems to be agreed upon amongst bylers: mike confessing to will last minute during a life or death situation... and ... sure, maybe the duffers manage to pull that off in a way that feels sincere, but tbh? as per how we left them in S4, they both deserve better.

will deserves an opportunity outside of mike to reclaim his agency and not be a bystander in his own love life, and Mike deserves the opportunity to step into his heart's true desire in a way that feels natural to him and not at the face of the world exploding if he doesn't confess. but bc he WANTS to.

the writers are walking a very fine line when depicting this bc they have to balance this with everything else going on, in the very limited time they have. ironically, that's why I think bychance is the fastest way to achieve both those things

agency for will, catalyst for mike. like, bychance could literally be done as a one-time thing and still serve a purpose. I'm talking legit within ONE episode kinda deal.

i say this bc, we talk about jealous mike, sure, but think about robin seeing vickie with a boy vs her hoping vickie liked boobies ,,, she didn't even expect vickie to like HER, the question robin and steve were trying to answer is if she had a chance with her at all.

same thing with mike. mike seeing will with a girl? will is straight. suffering, game over. re: robin seeing vickie with dan + will seeing mike reunite with el = no hope, it's done for.

robin's hope was restored when she heard that vickie had broken up with dan + her and steve's initial 'queer-coding' read of her via Fast Times was confirmed right.

mike seeing will with a BOY? ( a bully, granted, which gives the audience plausible deniability ) while having the upper hand in the situation by having El's letter AND Will's painting in his possession?

Mike's brain connecting the dots like ...

'El's letter + Will's painting/speech + Will likes guys confirmed = "Is Will ... a liar AND traitor or ... is he in love with me?" '

something along those lines bc yeah if bychance is only meant as a way to make mike jealous then eh ... but if its used to unpack that in one clean swoop and prepare them both for their eventual fight? yes. give it to me rachel.

[dukeofdelirium]

re the El is a part of Will theory, I don't get how more people don't subscribe to it? Not only does it make so much sense - I literally cant unsee it now, esp. with all the media references ST makes - it pretty much guarantees Byler endgame (I mean we know Byler was gonna happen regardless if El was "real" or not, since Byler is the story). Seeing people get so angry over the theory, calling the Duffers shit writers over it, I don't get it... I know people like to project on El and see her as this sweet angel that must be protected but after seeing all the evidence I will be legit surprised if it doesn't turn out to be true

Yeah, I’m in the same boat. I’m curious how they will depict it all, obviously, and I have some ideas myself that may or may not happen (and I’m putting them in my WIP byler fic lol), but still. I would be surprised myself if El didn’t turn out to be a creation of Will’s.

There’s too much reference to alter egos, doppelgängers, someone’s personality being “split” in two, etc for it to be a coincidence. And that isn’t even including the media references that depict the same concept, most notably the neverending story, but there’s others too.

Here’s my theory: when Will was taken, he was originally going to be kidnapped and killed by Lonnie. However, Vecna, who was by this point basically living in Will’s mindscape (the upside down), knew this and appeared instead to basically take Will before Lonnie could. In a way, I guess you could say he saved him, for selfish reasons but still.

Anyway, Will encountering Vecna in the shed, is so terrified that he creates Eleven. He “splits”, and when he’s taken, she then appears in his place. She is strong enough to rescue him whereas he can’t save himself. So she “dies” at the end and he returns. So on and so forth.

Now I know her being created at this instant has holes because of the timeline. Some possible explanation is that if Will has the power to create, then why couldn’t her creation essentially ripple back through time, changing it so that she existed for longer, so that people have memory of her, etc? This could explain some of the time travel imagery and hints… imo, it won’t be conventional time travel. Or maybe the timeline is wrong. Idk lol, someone add to this if I’m making any sense 🤣 I think of it like a time loop

They will time travel somehow, through Will, or more specifically through memory, his memory? That’s my feeling on it. Or maybe the key is Mike.. he’s always late every season. Maybe he will be the time traveler in this scenario. Idk lol.

I could be way off on some of these thoughts, but regardless I do think he created Eleven and maybe they won’t depict it even somewhat how I picture, but the theory stands and I believe it 100%

[vulpixisananimal]

SIFSTEM ACT 4 DIRECTORY

Act 4 starts with a few mini chapters to establish time passing after Act 3, up until chapter 67.

- The Main Event -

The Chapters following the main story, in intended reading order.

[66.1] - Pilot Studies [66.2] - Worms!!!! [66.3] - Nightmares [66.4] - Card Counter [66.5] - Socks? [66.6] - A mutual threat. [67] - Rimae [68] - One for all. [69] - Training! [70] - Pains and Planning [71] - Prescriptions! [72] - The Snake [73] - Recoveries [73.1] - Birds of a Feather [74] - Beyond ones nature [75] - An enlightening encounter [76] - Aftermath [77] - Like a Hammer to a Nail [78] - Lazarus Phenomenon [LOOP 1] - Ten Minutes [LOOP 10] - Tracking [LOOP 29] - Training [LOOP 44] - If at first you don't succeed. . . [LOOP 56] - Dun, duh dah, dun, du du dah. [LOOP 75] - Dysphoria [LOOP 79] - Ebb and Flow [80] - Neverending Night [81] - Past [82] - Present [83] - Future [84] - Event Horizon

- Side Events -

Side stories or chapters that are somewhat important, but for one reason or another cannot be placed with the other chapters. As of writing, this and the below sections are incomplete.

Saudade - Percival Indécision - Isabeau Malheur - Pétronille Nostalgie - Loop Folie à Deux - Odile Diapason - Merlon Refoulement - Mirabelle Mal Du Pays - Siffrin Constellation Cauchemar - Bonnie

Mini lesson!

- Funnies -

Random asks or pieces of art that while not explicitly relevant or important to the main story, are still fun go back and look at. Bold Letters indicate posts that aren't canon/have been de-canonized.

Shopping list / Regrets / By any means / Every universe / idiots / Red / LANGUAGE / . . . / The better kisser / Nya!!! / Danger of Crafts / Thriving / The kisserrrr / Fun /

[jayladfanpage]

OPENED the first page of Robin lives #3 and just EXPERIENCED EMOTIONAL DAMAGE

fuCK. LIKE. GENUINELY. FUCK. going to consume raw bismuth rn im sobbubg I had hopes after they showed Shelia and just F U C KKKKKKKKKKK

I think writers forget so much of what made adtif adtif and what made Robin Jason Robin Jason. that boy was willing to give up Robin at that point for just a loving family? The issues that led to adtif? WHAT ABOUT HIS whole struggle and issues with being robin itself? what are we even doing here. Nothing is addressed. Instead we get fucking revenge story after revenge story I'm going to implode die. now I feel stupid about waiting for it. I'm half incomprehensible about most of the things I HATED. DICK. What is he saying. God.

I miss u robin Jason, he was so much... a singular character... barr's run... starlin too to a degree... UGH. HIS CHARACTER THESIS IS LOVE ??? ON GOD I will consume 2 tons of pipebombs today fucking hell on god he barely gets dialog, he barely gets shit, I liked 1 panel and that s it im

Anyhow :D yippie ! Happy to see that you're here for fanon writers and all ! Super cool of you ! And your posts are vvv cool, much love ! Would love to hear your thoughts on Robin lives#3 :) <3

Anon you are so incredibly fucking real for this

Issue #3 is... such a fucking disappointment. Exactly like you said, already the first page makes my blood fucking BOIL.

There's a fundamental misunderstanding, in this issue, of where Red Hood!Jason's ideas of revenge come from. His obsession with Joker's death specifically isn't actually out of a need to have Joker dead, it's a need to prove to himself that Bruce loves him more than he loves his mission. Which is not true for Jason or any of Bruce's other children. Gotham will always come first.

So to have Jason go after Joker with the intent to kill him (and succeed at it!) is spitting in the face of all the complicated, messy familial ties that are at the core of UTRH, for the sake of some sense that Jason was always doomed to be the way he is as an adult.

Jason also doesn't feel good after killing people. He doesn't derive any pleasure from it. He's not disgusted by or ashamed of the things he's done, far from it, but to him the murders are just a means to an end. A task to complete if he wants to save Gotham in the way that Bruce isn't able to. Murdering people sure as fuck isn't the "best thing" to ever happen to him. What the fuck.

I also really hate this page. As much as I don't expect any teenager to fully "deal" with their trauma, because they're a teenager, Jason certainly wouldn't run from it. Jason is perhaps the most openly emotional Bat character, and that's always been one of his most important personality traits. He talks about his pain and his trauma, constantly and endlessly, because Jason benefits from communicating his emotions, even if he does it aggressively or explosively.

Plus, "paralyzed with fear" ?? Jason's fear response is FIGHT not freeze. It's never been freeze. Every time Jason is scared, as Robin or otherwise, he responds by picking a fight. He flings himself head-on to the thing that's making him afraid because god fucking damn it Jason has always been good at saving himself -- which is why he's so desperate to have Bruce kill Joker, so that somebody else will protect him for a change.

This plot I'm conflicted on. I've always hated Timmy Todd and always thought that Jason should have been Joker Junior instead. However, this was not the comic to do it in. Robin Lives should have been a comic about trauma and vulnerability and healing. Main Continuity already gives us the neverending loop of Jason's trauma, of how it keeps constantly getting worse and worse, and I wanted Robin Lives to have been different. I wanted it to grab me by the shoulders and say He could have been fine. Jason could have healed. If only things had been different, Jason Todd could have been good.

But it didn't. It's just another fucking Cheer storyline where we read about a child being "doomed from the beginning" and shifting the blame of Red Hood onto Jason for being a lost cause instead of acknowledging the greater context of Jason's death and revival and it's just. Ugh. It fucking sucks.

Also, Bruce would never say this about saving like a dozen children. "Bigger fish to fry" WHILE HE IS RESCUING BRAINWASHED CHILDREN? where is my Bruce Wayne and what did you do to him

About the fanon writers -- thank you! I always find the hate for them a little misplaced. There are dozens of canons across hundreds of comics and fanfiction as a medium is supposed to have a certain degree of separation from its source. I think a lot less people would be upset over "fanon" batfam fics if the writers understood better core traits of the characters. Fanfiction isn't about "Would [x] do this" it's about "How would [x] do this" and a lot of non-writers don't understand that and just think fanon is always horrible.

[kohakurin8]

~ Elevator Hitch ~

What Does it All Mean!?

A brief theory on the symbolism and lore behind a really cool game

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️

This post will contain SPOILERS for the game and all 14 endings. If you wish to play Elevator Hitch before reading, you can download it for free at this link.

So, Where do we begin?

Elevator Hitch is a really cool isolated-loop surreal horror game. For those of you who aren't familiar with this concept, an "isolated-loop" is a time-loop scenario which only affects a single person, small group of people, single room, etc. — but does NOT affect the entire world or universe. This is where it's common to see things like acquiring an item in your inventory, getting murdered, then waking up again at the beginning of the day with the item still in your inventory.

This concept has been used in various different media, and to varying different degrees of complexity. But, honestly, I think this game is my favorite instance of it so far.

So our story revolves around Protag, a somewhat meek and nervous lil guy who comes to this office building to take an interview for a new job. All he knows is that his interview isn't on the first floor, so he gets in the elevator in an attempt to find it. Before the door closes, Coworker forces his way in, and the elevator suddenly shorts out and jams before you two can begin your journey. The rest of the game is your various attempts to exit the elevator (alive) which get increasingly bizarre — especially after Protag realizes that whenever he dies, time restarts to when they first entered the elevator!

Shame Coworker doesn't seem to remember anything, though...

Now, since the lore within the game is pretty cryptic, none of our questions about the situation ever seem to get totally answered. It's up to the player to theorize and surmise just what exactly is happening to Protag and Coworker, and that's exactly what I've come here to do.

Death and Clues on Every Floor...

Literally! Every floor is a single room containing at least 1 clue, and at least 1 possible death — including the elevator itself. But what's even more important than that is the lore that all of these scenes show you.

Interestingly enough, the lore all seems to revolve around who Protag is as a person, to the point that one of the floors is actually his childhood bedroom.

Kind of intriguing that everything about this environment is centered around him, huh?

Hold onto that thought.

Every room and scenario is increasingly more bizarre, featuring anything from Eldritch-esque beings to settings that could almost pass for torture chambers. Every puzzle requires something from a different floor, making it ridiculously easy to screw up and croak, meanwhile Coworker is so maddeningly unaware that even when he tries to offer advice it's just as cryptic as the situation itself.

It all feels a lot... Like Hell...

Not just as an expression, but actual Hell. Mind rending stimuli navigated through tedious puzzle solving, where the penalty is gruesome death and the only reward is more torture. A neverending loop of suffering and confusion. It's all quite hellish!

At first this feels a bit superficial. "Of course it's hellish, this is a horror game!" But, honestly, good horror like this game is rarely ever bizarre and incomprehensible for the sheer shock value. If all of these allusions were superficial, why would we have such a detailed and cryptic conversation with Manuel, the maintenance worker?

Why would every single "correct answer" to the puzzles have sinister undertones?

Why would the religious subtext in Protag's room be so subtle and yet so distinct at the same time?

So if we humour ourselves and follow this train of thought then that leads one to wonder...

Why would Protag be in Hell?

Good question! After all, he doesn't even seem to be aware of having any initial death!

But, we are given breadcrumbs to what sort of person Protag is through the various different scenarios that ensue. Some things are minor details, like his lack of remorse for feeding an innocent rat to a hungry black hole. Others are more intense and significant, like the clues in his bedroom...

Let's start with pointing out the obvious direction that Protag's dialogue trees nudge you in.

After all, this game is a visual novel, so of course there are points when your dialogue options matter and can very well change the outcome of the situation. However, most VNs have options that are distinctly "good" or "bad" for the story directions, often leading the player on a journey of teaching the protagonist how to be a better person.

But Protag.... doesn't become better...

All of his dialogue options are either:

• Confusion, Frustration, Disbelief

• Self-Deprecating, Meek

• Deceptive

• Lashing Out

Obviously some of these options are better for certain scenarios. Deceiving Coworker into giving you his lighter is a way better idea than trying to steal it and burning you both to death.

And deceiving your Doppelgangers into trusting you before your brutal betrayal is arguably better than trusting them and getting betrayed in return.

But none of these options point to Protag being a good person. As much as he learns to adapt to his environment, nothing he does teaches him how to be a better person than he started out as. In fact, some of them even lead him to commit murder himself!

Of course, this isn't saying that Protag is necessarily a bad person either. After all, his initial reaction to the Doppelgangers is to trust them and even show them pity.

We also get a lot of information about Protag from the floor that mimics his childhood bedroom. He was monitored constantly by overbearing and religious parents, to the point that one of the Bad Ends is his parents entering the room.

He couldn't sleep, plagued by nightmarish beings which he even made drawings of, and had to take sleeping pills just to cope (which may or may not have been hidden from his parents as well)

Considering this, and just the sheer amount of existential dread Protag has upon visiting this floor, it's very possible that his parents were abusive. His personality issues are probably a result of that abuse, meaning even though he isn't necessarily a good person, he also isn't inherently a bad one.

The Allusions of Suicide...

This should honestly come as no surprise, but this game does have a lot of potential allusions to suicide. Especially when taking into account what suicide means in Christianity...

I first noticed this in the dialogue on Floor 9 with Normal Guy, as well as the dialogue contained in Ending 13 (screenshot above). During the interview on Floor 9, Protag seems to struggle with answering most of the questions. When asked why he wanted a new job, all of the answers imply that he doesn't actually know why, and when asked why he left his old job, Protag states that "it wasn't a Real Job" or at least not one viewed as respectable.

Then, when attempting to leave the Lobby on Floor 1, Protag is blocked by an alarming figure who berates him. The figure taunts Protag with phrases he's likely told himself, like "you worked so hard to get here" and especially "you NEED this job"

Now, this game absolutely LOVES its workplace puns, and something about these ones just struck me as significant. Upon further reflection on everything going on, I realized that these phrases are almost synonymous with suicidal thoughts.

As someone who's experienced this myself, I understand that a lot of suicidal thoughts are rooted more in the desire for change, and not the desire for death. So consider this...

Protag isn't looking for a new job, he's looking for a new life. His old life didn't feel "real" or "respectable", likely because of whatever abuse he endured from his parents. After all, his childhood bedroom is described by him as his "old place", meaning he likely was living with his parents until somewhat recently.

So then when he finally passes the interview — passes this hellish elevator trial of self-discovery — and tries to flee, he's stopped by the thoughts of regret for taking his own life.

"You worked so hard for this new life, why are you throwing it away?"

"You NEED this change."

"You can't go back to what you were before."

Then there's the Sleeping Pill found in Protag's bedroom. It's not found in a pill bottle or any other typical storage, but rather it's under the bedsheets. This gives the impression that the pill either fell out of Protag's hand in bed, or that he was hiding the pills from his overbearing parents.

Then there's the fact that sleeping pills are a very common medium for attempted suicide.

This leads me to suspect that Protag either overdosed in an attempted suicide as a child, causing his parents to become even more protective.

Or... This is how Protag ended up at the office building in the first place...

Welcome to Protag's Purgatory

Yeah, you may have guessed it already, but I am in fact suggesting that Protag has committed suicide and is currently trapped in Purgatory. After all, if you consider the distinct hint at his religious background, it's not unlikely to be following the Christian belief that suicide will condemn you to Purgatory. In fact, the opening of the game, where Protag feels like the only one who doesn't know where he's going, is a reference to the nature of Purgatory.

Consider, also, the nature of the game. Everything you do in it is a sort of trial, and it all tests the nature of Protag's true self. Not to mention that Purgatory is an unchanging limbo, just as the game paints a picture of an unending time-loop on repeat.

Protag took his own life, and his penance is to be trapped in an unending trial of self-discovery. Floor 9 resembles Heaven, like Cloud 9, where Protag is administered one final test. Normal Guy gives Protag the option to have become a better person, and possibly pass on to a better afterlife, however our dialogue tree tells us that Protag hasn't reached that level of self acceptance yet.

Therefore, the only options are what appears to be working in Purgatory (possibly like Manuel), enduring the trial over and over again, or as hinted by the eerie staircase downward in Ending 14, descent into Hell...

You're probably wondering if this theory accounts for Coworker, and it certainly does. After all, he seems rather unperturbed by the events he's undergone. I suspect he also committed suicide, but didn't have the same background of religious guilt that Protag had growing up. Coworker knows that he's supposed to go to the top, that he's supposed to pass on. He's at peace with who he is and where he's going, therefore he doesn't endure the same personal torture that Protag does.

No matter what ending you get in Elevator Hitch, nothing truly changes for Protag, because he himself hasn't changed. It's possible that there is some sort of future where Protag can change and move on — in fact, Normal Guy even hints that speaking to Coworker more could be the key to his salvation — but this possible future is one we will never see.

Because that's not the point of the game. The point is to become immersed in the torture which Protag goes through, and to try and unravel the mysteries of who he is and what he's enduring.

So there's my thoughts on the game. I hope you all enjoyed reading, and I'd love to hear any comments or input you have!

[reineydraws]

Hey Reiney! i've been following your Renkaza comic for some time now and it's kind of gotten me into the ship. Would you happen to have any fic recs to get me started?

im so honoured my comic got u into the ship! (@sshcomic for those who don't know! 🫶) i love giving out fic recs omg thank u so much for asking!!!! i have 15 for ya haha.

i'll have specific recs under the cut, but first i wanna just say that anything by emilieee @e-milieeee ; dragonsandcryptids @lesbiansanemi ; and tippertupper are great places to start! they're amazing writers with a good body of work and i've definitely gone through a lot--if not all--of their renkaza stuff! please check them out!

word count is rounded to nearest thousand btw! :) smoke and mirrors + demon's choice are big inspirations for my comic, if ur coming from there!

i've also realized these can be pretty lengthy so if u want recs with shorter word counts just lmk and i'll comb through my bookmarks for <15k. but anyways!

Smoke and Mirrors by emilieee (272k)

canon happens in modern times au, where akaza ends up as kyo's apartment neighbour, tho kyo doesn't initially realize akaza's a demon. it's emotional! it's plotty! akaza mentions kokushibo made all the kizuki's fake id's and i still think that's hilarious! it's got one of my fave enemies to besties akaza & shinobu plots ever! please read this!!!

last sunrise by DragonsAndCryptids (182k)

akaza turns kyojuro by accident bc he bleeds too much into kyo's open wounds during the mugen train fight, and neither notice until it's too late. shinobu notices too and decides perhaps that this might be a prime research opportunity... uh-oh! the ethical quandries are good in this, and shinobu while flawed is very well-written. renkaza also end up with a soul bond. another emotional one but god is the journey amazing. tw for some torture scenes that could be graphic.

Small Fire of Winter Stars by phabulousphantom (66k)

modern au where akaza is a tattoo artist and kyo runs a teens program at the local community centre. it's one of my faves bc i just love stories about jaded people opening up and finding love and trust again, and this is exactly that. i also love the ensemble cast in it. the teenagers are adorable, especially inosuke who is a problem kid that finds something aspirational with akaza. thinking abt this fic is making me smile again!

Camp Kasugai by si1verbird77 (20k)

also modern au where renkaza are both counselors at a summer camp. kyo runs a percy jackson program, and he and akaza fall in love over the summer with the help of the deep trust that camp atmospheres usually end up fostering. kyo and sen, and akaza as well, also touch on the grief of losing parents, and the nature of camps as a place to grow into yourself and how time keeps moving. it's nice. i love this one a lot.

Inertia (series) by TipperTupper (23k)

akaza saves kyo from freezing to death, and kyo marvels at the compassion and humanity that akaza seems to hold in his muscle memory. ends up digging a little bit into akaza's trauma both as a human and as a demon controlled by muzan. sanemi gets a little mad about it in the third part and it's funny. overall vibe of the series is warm.

The Neverending Night by apodis (155k - incomplete)

when i say this fic rotates in my brain 24/7!!! akaza gets stuck in a time loop that resets every time kyo dies. it explores akaza's nature as someone who is willing to sacrifice everything for loved ones, and it's interesting bc at first kyo hates him, and then he starts to realize there's something wrong with akaza's memories bc of muzan, and he starts to really see how self-effacing akaza is. it's SO good, and the realizations both kyo and you as the reader have build and layer as the story progresses. akaza and kaname (kyo's crow) also build a friendship that is so important to me.

Demon's Choice by Celeste Gladnick (lairMorbidon) (69k - incomplete)

akaza defects early and joins tamayo, and so many more people are alive as a result. kyo in this one is interesting bc he's bigoted against demons thanks to his upbringing in a slayer family under abusive shinjuro, and refuses to see that akaza is anything other than dangerous, despite literally everyone else sticking up for him. extra fun bc he crushes on butterfly assistant hakuji without realizing that it's akaza in a human guise. akaza himself also has some deeply held trauma he doesnt quite realize he has.

what i wouldn't give by DragonsAndCryptids (59k)

senjuro becomes terminally ill and his end is fast-approaching. akaza, who's been bothering kyo on and off for two years since mugen train, hears about it and offers to help by turning sen into a demon. at first, kyo gives a hard no, but as his baby brother's illness progresses... well, anyone would get a little desperate, wouldn't they? love this bc one of my fave things abt renkaza is pushing kyo to his moral and ethical limit lol.

if you fly (say you won’t come back) by apodis (10k)

siren au! well, akaza's a siren, and kyo is the caretaker of a house that sees many different travelers. akaza's just the latest one. i love this one bc it's fantastical elements are wonderful, and it builds a very interesting world. as the reader, you have a lot of questions and it's an experience getting them answered. it's also prettily written. :)

Little Fighter Boy Comes Marching Home by VTheTrashKing (19k)

akaza gets de-aged by a demon's blood art, and kyo comes upon a little human boy with black hair and blue eyes, a chip on his shoulder and a very implicitly sad past, what with the criminal markings on his wrists and the way he insists he can take care of himself. another one of my fave renkaza things and kyo getting bowled over by hakuji's tragic story so i loved the way he puzzles it together in this one based on the little boy in front of him, and just finds one sad thing after another.

“Don’t die, Kyojuro” by Lenasaurous (24k)

akaza lets kyo live and often tells him not to die. kyo, who's life is often visited by death considering his occupation, begins to rely on akaza's immortality as a demon, and depend on his company as a constant--that is, until akaza passes out from not eating, and stays down for the count. uh-oh. (i also love this fic 'cuz there's this scene where akaza tries so hard to make kyo like him by giving him herbs and helpful plants, even tho kyo doesn't really want him around at that point, and it's so sweet and so sad. i wanna give him a hug!!!)

Memories behind broken glass by GammaRays (58k - incomplete)

this is the akaza whump fic of my dreams lol he gets captured and experimented on by shinobu (and it can be grisly so tw for that). kyo lured him into a trap to get him captured and ends up standing guard and starting to question his morals when it becomes clear that shinobu is being intentionally cruel. as the torture experiments go on, akaza also becomes so delirious that he begins to remember his human past. kyo loses it a little. it's good.

All the things a cup can hold by Liatheus (9k)

akaza takes shinjuro demon hunting lol. this is actually more of a shinjuro character study with side renkaza, but i love it specifically for a scene near the end where they all have tea, and ruka's empty place at the table feels obvious, and kyo and shinjuro are sort of crying about it. i also love that it explores the way shinjuro used to be a hashira, and how akaza investigates his strength in that sense. shinjuro's strength is an important aspect to kyojuro that doesn't often get delved into, and it makes sense to me that akaza sort of looks into it, as someone who loves kyo's strength.

Hello Again (the weight of memories welcome me home) by VTheTrashKing (15k)

this one's more artsy than anything but i love sci-fi as a genre so i'm reccing it lol i'm being self-indulgent. for whatever reason, throughout his life, akaza gets visited by various hashira. it's all very timey-wimey and the renkaza is more implied than anything, but there's this scene where akaza's being held trial at a hashira meeting, and then a future sanemi and future giyuu come out of nowhere to protect him and shock the living daylights out of their past selves, and it's so wild. i love it so much.

the milk incident by lattelesbean (4k)

this is just funny haha! short and fun read. modern soyama twins au where akaza's a café barista and accidentally puts his foot in his mouth in a very embarrassing way, bc he was too busy thirsting over kyo, his latest customer, to double-check what was about to come out of his mouth lol. i am still laughing.

[bulkyphrase]

Female Steve Rogers: a fic rec list

@lavenderbuckyy asked on the Steve server for female Steve recs and I couldn't resist making a list! These are some of my favorite stories from AUs where Steve was always (or at least originally) a woman.

Genesis by teaberryblue (@teaberryblue) (Stony, Teen And Up Audiences, 35,578 words)

Summary: Reluctant to make the truth about their secret weapon known, the American Government tells the world that Captain America is a man named Steve Rogers. According to public record, he died, tragically, in 1945, and he became legend. In 1998, the Avengers find a body trapped in ice. She's alive. Her name is Eve. She has Captain America's shield.

turntable by Zekkass (@zekkass) (Gen, Teen And Up Audiences, 2,144 words)

Summary: "I've been a girl before, Tony."

More below the cut!

This New Air by merry_magpie (@sevenmerrymagpies) (Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, Teen And Up Audiences, 10,979 words)

Summary: Stevie wakes up in a world she doesn't recognize and tries to build a life for herself. An Always-a-girl AU.

The Wheels of Inevitability by sinuous_curve (Stony, Explicit, 1,241 words)

Summary: “You know, once in high school I got into an argument about whether or not the serum made your tits bigger,” Toni says, threading a loop of black cord down the center of Steph’s sternum.

A Particular Style by sinuous_curve (Stony, Explicit, 3,640 words)

Summary: “The erotic tale of one camp counselor’s descent into lesbian madness?” Toni rattles off the summary, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead in a swoon that Steph can’t see. “I can’t fault your taste. It was always one of my favorites.”

Fire Drills by isozyme (@isozyme) (Stony, Explicit, 19,506 words)

Summary: Tonia Stark is the Iron Mantle. She's also dying of cadmium poisoning, fending off competition from HammerTech, dealing with the nasty leftovers of her father's legacy, and taking care of Eve Rollins, one of Rhodey's Air Force friends who needs a place to stay. An Iron Man 2 Genderswap AU where Nick Fury sends Eve Rogers to spy on Tonia Stark instead of Natasha Romanov.

girls can't play guitar by isozyme (@isozyme) (Stony, Explicit, 4,209 words)

Summary: On nights when Tonia fucked Eve, Eve left her bed sated and woke up with a guilty desire to walk into Tonia’s room, strip off her kevlar uniform, and surrender herself to whatever Tonia wanted to do next. Captain Eve Rogers has a complicated relationship with sex and masculinity. Tonia Stark has a really big strap.

Falling Slowly by neverending_shenanigans (@neverending-shenanigans) (Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, General Audiences, 8,945 words)

Summary: When Darcy follows Jane to new York, she only did it because Jane would be a mess without her. She can't complain, though, when she meets Stella. Stella is nice, maybe a bit reserved and one hell of a woman. And, oh, Stella might just have not mentioned the fact that she is actually much older than she looks.

in retrospect by welcoming_disaster (@welcomingdisaster) (Stony, Mature, 2,128 words)

Summary: Fresh out of the ice, Eve Rogers isn't happy about being stuck onto the Ultimates' roster; the team, in her view, is a shameless PR grab with no real talent. Her teammate, Tonya Stark, might change that.

[sainteclectic]

HMSW TMA entity alignments please!

okok. rubs my hands together

heart i had to think about for a bit, but i think he's the vast. the vast is all about feeling like you're small and meaningless in the universe. a lot of his songs focus on insignificance. just apathy is the most obvious example, being all about how insignificant everything is and how nothing matters, a common theme of the vast. there's also good day, where heart flips between "it likes to say that it is nothing" and "it insists that it is something," both resigned to his meaningless existence and desperate to prove he has meaning. there's a touch of end in there, with mentions of "everything will turn to dust" and entropy, but the end is a passive fear, and heart certainly isn't passive. in fact, I'd argue his attempts at hurting mind fall under the vast too - he feels insignificant while mind acts so important, so he tries to drag mind down to prove that he's just as helpless. there's also some buried in there, with the entire "being in a hole" thing and feeling suffocated, but this is way too long so I'll leave it there {hah}

mind is the web. there's a touch of the eye, of course, but knowledge isn't what makes him scary - it's his manipulation, his power over others. the recurring ruler of everything motif {within the song itself and him singing it in other places} is somewhat self explanatory. he needs to be in control of everything, to pull the strings and be the... well, ruler of everything. mind is referred to constantly in this way, especially by heart: "see how the mind tricks the soul," "controlled by digits," "take control, let's see how you fare." he's convinced his methods are the best and most effective, and he's willing to exert control over others in order to ensure he gets his way. at the same time, he's trapped in this role himself, feeling the fear as well as projecting it onto the others. he feels powerless, so he takes that power by force, which is consistent with what we see of web avatars - their controlling nature stems from a deep fear of being controlled themselves.

soul is the stranger. soul's entire thing is being the "identity" part of whole, therefore being a not-quite-whole. the identity of whole without an identity of his own, a mimic instead of an individual. and he's treated as essentially a surrogate whole throughout the narrative, furthering the theme of being an impersonator taking the role of whole in his absence. soul becoming or representing whole but not truly being him because it's lacking the full spectrum of humanity. not quite whole, not quite human, not quite anything else. something in the shape of a full person that goes through the motions of being a person but without true humanity. furthermore, soul treats this loop like a neverending performance. he's "paraded," he tells the listener to enjoy the show, and in the bidding he's clearly playing it up for the audience. the stranger has a heavy emphasis on playing a role, which is exactly what soul is doing throughout the entire album.

and whole is the lonely. from what we see of whole's life, particularly in hidden in the sand but also in special and taken for a ride, he's a fundamentally lonely person. he suffers from a deep sense of alienation from others, struggling to connect with others. at the same time, his isolation is also self imposed - he admits that the rejection is "what I was convinced," not an accurate telling of events, as well as saying he remembers "practicing most weekends at the expense of spending joyful time with friends." he shuts himself away from others to avoid the risk of being shut out by them instead. he convinces himself that it's the best option and finds some level of comfort in the isolation. whole as a construct is another story, and honestly with how metaphorical the concept of whole is, you could argue basically anything. so I'm sticking with what we see of whole as a person ^-^

[nalascat]

WIP List tag game where @classicbarbie and @cak31ssuperi04 challenged me to post my ENTIRE wip list and its gonna be an incredibly long scroll for whoever DARES to click the readmore button

rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs

I am not tagging 100+ people

Click if you dare ->

I have finally organized all of my fic wips into folders based upon their fandoms!! Yippee!! So, for this, it's all sorted by fandom! Some of these wips are over 4 years old and some I worked on today!! Either way, there's a ton and it's bound to be fun!!

Feel free to ask about ANY of these!!! Maybe it'll get me to write them haha

Spider-Man

Aunt May

Gwen

labyrinth

Ghost

Urusq

True loves kiss

Trilogy harry

Tom n Gwen

strawberries

Speeding

Slow burn parksborn

Raimi hehe

Parksborn wedding

Mob boss

3 brothers

ggghost

Goblin 2???

Raimi againnnnnn

Parksborn mermaid

Country club

Black Cat

He almost died

Gala

Cats

bro

Star Trek

Demora annie

demora

Mcspirk cuts

Shore Leave

Soulmate

Cat meow

Dragon

janice/kevin

Sulu's Garden

David

music man

Janice & Sulu soulmates

Snow trek

annie

Aaaaaa sulu

bones

Kirk is jealoussss

Chulu

Barbie

vegas

Tshort

Mariposa

Cat

rockers prompt 28

Luciana

Jealous

Nail salon

Timeloop

The page

TOMMY

Sis chose

Julian/Dominick bc l'm weaj

Louis part 3

Erika

Friendship bracelets

Board

A pauper ig

Nicktoons

soulmarks

I wrote this in the wrong fic moment

Soulmate s

jim

spider timy

tigerghost engage

dibjim engange

tiger family

dib loop

Vampireeeee

Start wreck

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Factory kids

Ethel/Olge

yeessss

Unrequited Augustuca

tiny

Ticket

Spider catcf

Ring

Post tour gus n mike

mike

Ghosts

Hair

Parents

norman

Mike

MAGIC

Fluf

Fake Engaged

ethel/Molly

Mike again

Code

Ethel n Molly

ballet

Ace

Magic Au

Catcf labyrinth

Christmas Market

Ninjago

Superstar Jaybird

Echo n Chad

greencheer

TWOMA REDO

Plasma ebgaged

Techno

Hanahaki kai

Abberation

scars

Twoma

ninjago is an illusion

old ninjago stuff ?

Ninjago Concept

Spy Kids

Juni spider

leeke leeke

spy kid forest

Soulmatr

Rex

oop

juni loses

gary is an idiot

found fam :))))))

Freeverse

Arnold

Dreams (sharkboy and lavagirl)

Carm

Starlight Express

why haven't you kissed me yet

propose

GreaseDinah

I thought you didn't want me Dustin/Ashley

Don't hide your tears

Dinah

Crash

Control intro

control

Cb :)

Cats (Musical)

Victoria

Plato

5+1 Misto

Muppets

Wooter 14

RESTAURANT

Skeeter

Muppet starlight

heehee

club wooter

The Legend of Zelda

Ravs

lorule!!!

Raviolink

ravio

Trolls

Trolls Trek

jd evill

Barbbbb

broppyyyyyy

Jd iawl

Crossovers

Harry Spy Kids (TASM2/Spy Kids)

Dp/ninjago (Danny Phantom/Ninjago)

Tasm trek (TASM2/Star Trek)

warrior (Cats Musical/Warrior Cats)

spy catcf (Spy Kids/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

Silence (Teen Titans/Danny Phantom)

Rob (Teen Titans/Danny Phantom)

read (The Legend of Zelda/Kid Icarus)

Choccy spy (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/Spy Kids)

Miscellaneous Fandoms

Tin petals (Tintin)

Rufio (Hook)

Petal Dance (Descendants)

Neverending Story (Neverending Story)

Lukas (Minecraft Story Mode)

Louis (Ghostbusters)

Jaylos meet (Descendants)

Herbie (The Love Bug)

Coffeeshop Tintin (Tintin)

Beacontown Station (Minecraft Story Mode)

Chronicle (Chronicle)