#now edited because I misremembered some things

[evilwickedme]

Do you have Jason fic recs that specifically deal with the batarang to the throat?

hey, I absolutely do! it's a short list, but it's some of the best fics in my bookmarks. I'm sure there's more that I'll regret not adding later but that's how it always goes so

take care of yourself some of these fics can get dark

as if i would ever have a place for you is a short established jayroy fic written specifically for the prompt "batarang scar". it's mostly about boundaries within the jayroy relationship and how Jason relates to his own trauma, and I wish it was longer because I think it's very elegant in how it approaches these subjects

Say Something is a mute!Jason au, where the batarang to the throat actually damaged Jason's vocal chords. this is another jayroy, though in this one they start as strangers. it also touches on Roy's history with addiction. it's also relatively short at 3k I don't have much else to say, strangely soft get together tho

My Scars Aren't Silent (Selectively Mute Jason Todd) is, uh... well, what it says on the tin, idk what to tell you. this one's another au where Jason is mute as a result of what Bruce has done to him, and is also jayroy, but this one's a series! so that's different! anyway in this au everyone thinks Jason is dead for the second time, established jayroy come to live in gotham, the batfam slowly get to know this Jason, and he tries to rebuild his life. it's pretty emotional, actually.

finally, as usual saving the best for last, is to the red planet Mars. this is a relatively long 'un at 36k, but I've reread it multiple times. this one explicitly deals with Bruce's canonical physical abuse of his children in depth and while the other fics here deal with the aftermath of a single case of violence without ever showing it on page, we absolutely see Bruce beating Jason in this fic, so please take care of yourself. it's not an easy read but I love it a lot, and I think the rest of the series is pretty damn good too, but unfortunately it's not complete :/. Roy does show up but it's not a ship fic, I actually read this before I started shipping them, which seems weirdly impossible now.

anyway, yeah, dark subject matter and there's certainly more fics out there, but I actually started making a jayroy fic rec list (which you can really tell lmao) and realized I was making this list instead, so that one got delayed for now. enjoy and let me know if there's anything else anybody wants to read about!

[opbackgrounds]

You didn't really answer my qustion though. What can you name that should be edited out? For example: which warlord do you cut out? Which arc they brought do you feel is unneeded and should be taken out? I promise I'm not being mean or snarky, it's just I've heard the 'too many randoms' all over, but nobody can actualy point to an actual character they find should be cut out so it kinda sound like 'just make it better'. And unless wiki is wrong, Tama is Koruzumi, not Kozumi - the fact you mixed it up kinda shows it didn't really matter, though I would argue it is important from narrative perspective of showing Koruzumi were not 'evil by blood' despite all names one being villains. Also: Zoro's lineage was also released trough SBS and I don't see people break up about it? Again, I'm just honestly curious about what you think.

my point is not invalidated because I misremembered a name, and Zoro’s lineage is another thing that either should have been in the manga or not been a thing at all. If Oda wasn’t going to do anything with it, he should have kept the connection between he and Wano be through Kuina. The Zoro lookalike characters during Yamato’s flashback only set up expectation in the audience that wasn’t followed through with. I understand that Zoro doesn’t give a fuck, but if that’s the case then don’t make it a thing in the first place.

But to answer your question let’s look just at Wano. The Nine Scabbards should have been reduced down to a more reasonable number. I love them both dearly, but you could easily combine Dogstorm and Cat Viper into one character. Raizo doesn’t do much after Zou, so replace him there with someone else—I’d say Izo, since that’s the character who could have used some time with the main cast to make their ridiculous death more impactful. You could say after Marineford they were trying to get back to Wano and stumbled upon Momo and the rest while traveling. Shinobu can handle being the main ninja character, and no Raizo means you don’t have to have earlobe guy so now there’s no meaningless 25 chapter fight.

With Izo reintroduced thusly, there’s no reason for Marco to show up at all. In fact, he has a built-in reason for not showing up by protecting Whitebeard’s homeland. This will require some rewriting of the arc, but imo he ended up taking away too much valuable hype from more important characters to really justify his presence, so get him out of there.

It was clear Oda was having a hard time finding a purpose for Drake, and Hawkins, and Apoo. Of those three, you could easily get rid of Apoo and not lose anything. Have a quick flashback of him dying epically in the Kidd Pirate Alliance battle against Kaido. It would have been a better showing than he gave in the arc itself.

And that’s just off the top of my head. I haven’t done any rereading of Wano since that chapters were released. If someone went over the arc more carefully there would be more (like, does Carrot really need to be there? Do any of the other Zou characters?) I really think you could get the Scabbards down to 5 characters if you tried, but I’d have to figure out how that would fit with the rest of the story.

My problem with One Piece isn’t the number of arcs, it’s that the arcs themselves are too long. Enies Lobby was epic in scale and had a lot of different factions to account for, but it didn’t take three years to get through. Theres going to be some ballooning in size as the crew has gotten bigger, but even that could be worked around. Have more tag team fights like on Thriller Bark, for example, so the enemy crews don’t have to have so many people. Reduce the roll of side characters and give their feats to the Straw Hats who haven’t gotten enough love after the time skip. There’s lots of things Oda could have done, but he hasn’t.

[roguemonsterfucker]

Some people seem to think James Somerton never reached out to hbomb’s team at all but as someone who is in their discord, I can tell you that Kat confirmed that he did contact them at some point before the recent apology.

Kat said he was asking for their list of people he plagiarized.

According to hbomb on twitter, he hasn’t (last I heard) reached out about donating his ad revenue.

According to kat in the discord though, they have no intention of accepting it regardless.

Now all of that info is several days old at this point so things may have changed. Also I may have misunderstood things so take my words with a grain of salt.

Edited to add:

[Image ID: A discord message from user kat, dated 02/26/2024 that reads "A while ago James emailed us for a list of people he plagiarized because he couldn't remember" End of Image ID]

I will add screenshots of the other messages later. I'm pretty sure everyone has already seen hbomb's tweet, but I'll see if I can get the other discord message from kat. Though looking back, i may be misremembering. She had made a sarcastic comment regarding the donation and I may be confusing that with an actual statement about their intent regarding the donation.

[kaelio]

Macro/micro for the fetish thing 📏

Ok, I know this ask is because of that entry in Anne Rice's journal where she watched Jack & The Beanstalk (she misremembered, I'm pretty sure this was Jack the Giant Slayer) so she could mack on Ian McShane and was annoyed the giants in it weren't hot enough, but obviously this is relevant to me because I draw micro/macro applicable stuff for a couple fandoms, or I have anyway.

The answer to this is, however, complex! Yes, in a way, but also not really, in a different way.

So first off, I like to write pornography, but it can't really get me off if I was the one who wrote it. Same with fanart. It's a writing challenge with a smack of pay-it-forward, or the sex is inherent to something I am trying to capture, but if I write it myself I'm too close to it; I remember too much of the process or mentally go into editing mode.

But as a result I tend to think of fetishes as both multipliers and ingredients.

As a consumer, I tend to think of fetishes as multipliers. Like, something that you're totally neutral on is a 1x. Something you just can't stand at all, total horny-killer, is a 0x. Hypothetically there's no upper bound but, say, 3x would mean the story is 3x hotter to you because it features that fetish. An example for me would be scat. Hard 0x. The second I see it, I'm out. No matter what else is going on, the multiplier is 0; the story is at a level of 0 hotness. The earlier answer on oviposition is like a .1x. I haven't run into a story with it that was good enough to get me off, but Bloodchild got close, so I'm saying with the deftest of hands, it can work. Micro/macro is maybe like a situational 1.2x. It's a little bump but it's not going to be make or break per se. It could be in a story where it added nothing to me.

Because that's where we get into fetishes as ingredients.

When I'm thinking about an effective piece of erotica, it's got components, right? It's expressing some notion. It'll have different ingredients in it that make up the whole, that make for a cohesive work. I do think that micro/macro can enhance some recipes a bit, but more than that, it's a virtually essential ingredient to others. Let's say you're into werewolf porn. If the werewolf is like, same-entity-size.... I dunno. Like I guess. But isn't the werewolf theme usually leaning on some sort of power dynamic that the savage nature of the werewolf highlights? The werewolf is going to be 140 lbs? Sure you don't want it to be a bit more Big? Or, to make a different point, more Small? That might take you in a funnier direction, more like a comedy premise perhaps, but something's being communicated by the inclusion of some kind of noticeable size difference.

Let's now take it over to tentacle porn. God, I tried. I have on an occasional whim thrown my lot in with Kurt Eichenwald and it just does not take. I can't get off to it. I'd love it if I could. But anyway, let's say someone's being pointedly caressed by an octopus. You can't have that be just a regular-size octopus. Kind of pathetic. Obviously, that octopus has to be bigger than an octopus should be. "Well, what if you add more octopuses, like an octopus gangbang?" Sure, that might work for some people. But for me it comes off as lacking in confidence. Oh, you had to bring all your little octopus friends to nail this twink? Sad.

Now, I am a scaley straight-up. The only limiting aspect to this, for me, is that most scalies seem to have gotten into it from like... Spyro the Dragon? And they're really cartoony. Doesn't hit. As a kid, I had books on ancient Egypt, and I was intrigued by Sobek. Also we had a caiman. And my mother would find people in the classified ads who were trying to sell giant snakes and pay for her kids to go pet (but not buy) the giant snakes so we wouldn't be afraid of snakes, like she was, so as a child I was just overwhelmingly exposed to giant (16'+) snakes. My mother would go dump us off at places where big snakes were so we could observe big snakes, like reptile shows and the reptile house at the zoo. The result of this was super funny but suffice to say I am not afraid of snakes. (Not into vore though! Does nothing for me! Responsible owners don't live-feed.) I want to be super clear: I do not want to fuck animals, never have, but I did want to nail Bleu in Breath of Fire more than you can possibly imagine. However, if I'm doing scaley stuff in particular, one simply has to admit that micro/macro is the baking soda in that quickbread. It's not the part that makes that fetish work, but it's certainly more likely to turn out the way you intended if you put a little bit of it in there. When I made Cardassians huge in my DS9 redesigns, however, that was mostly in service of it being funny since I was a major bottom-Garak advocate, the bigger they are the funnier that is. Also like, whiny old queen giant lizardman is just fun and has room to spitball where like, I don't know, a more straightforward big hot lizard man would utterly bore me. It can't all be baking soda.

[nothorses]

There are some problems with how Riordan writes Piper, the only member of the cast to be Native American, with the most egregious bit being the frequency of which she puts feathers in her hair. It's not the worst racism in children's fiction by far, but it's still disappointing compared to the usual caliber of his writing of diverse characters.

I hear that. It's been a hot minute since I've read the HoO books- I think I read them pretty much as they came out, and I haven't picked them up since- but this sparked my curiosity, so I did some poking around.

Riordan wrote a post about this in 2020 (now deleted). It seems like he mostly aimed to answer the questions, "why did you write her to have feathers in her hair?", and, "why don't you update that now that you know better?", and the post is not an apology (though he does acknowledge that he could have done better, would do differently now, and that the portrayal is definitely outdated).

This post from an indigenous blogger critiques his response, and is worth checking out, with the nuance that the author seems to be responding only to his blog post and surrounding twitter drama (unclear if they read the books themselves).

This post goes more into depth on some other issues with Riordan's portrayals of people of color, including Piper, but the author is not indigenous.

It sounds to me like he thought he was doing due diligence and fell short because of ignorance, and the real issue is that he didn't do a better job of owning up to the mistakes when confronted with them- and when he took the opportunity to actually speak on them- after the fact.

I will say that it doesn't feel to me like he's looking for excuses; it feels more like he's explaining that the attempt was flawed but not thoughtless, that he doesn't feel he fully understands the flaws, and that he's not sure if this is something that can be "corrected" with some simple changes in wording in newer editions. I think some of the posts I'm seeing interpret things a little more harshly, but like, I'm white, I'm not personally impacted the same way the folks writing these posts are, and that privilege is part of the initial problem.

Not to defend Riordan either! And to be fair, the context of this ask is that a teen I work with had clearly misremembered or misunderstood who the dude is when talking about his "extremely bad political beliefs" and I was baffled that they seemed to think he was, like, openly racist and did not want people of color in the PJO show.

I just want to take this ask as an opportunity to elevate this part of the conversation & invite some critical reflections on a series I love and an author I respect.

[rearranged-fanfic]

Cut Content (REARRANGED: Arc 2, Ch. 3)

Because this chapter is completely kicking my ass, let me share one of the many, many sections that I've had to delete from the chapter. It has been a process, TBH. I've now edited out over 15K words and shuffled them into my 'Scraps' file for later perusal/deletion. So, in the time that I've tried to get this thing wrangled, I've basically managed to type up 1.25 chapters worth of content that simply doesn't fit. And this chapter still refuses to come together in a cohesive way. Fun. Lol.

*Spoilers Below*

Excerpt 1:

Gojo cradles the shades in his long digits and taps his temple in a telling way.  Right.  His Technique makes his eyes sensitive.  But how much, I wonder? Sensitive enough that he has to wear blindfolds and thick black glass to keep them hidden away for most of the day, if the way he dresses is any indicator. “Then just turn the Six Eyes off for a bit.  Like,” and I pause to mime flipping a light switch, “click.” “Yeah, no.  No can do, I’m afraid.”  But he hardly sounds put off by it.  And he shrugs to capture some more of that ‘don’t give a fuck’ energy he embodies so very, very well.  “They’re a permanent fixture.” And that… that doesn’t seem right, does it?  The Six Eyes are permanent—since when?  In the Hidden Inventory Arc, he was able to turn them on and off at will.  In fact, letting his Technique drop is exactly how Toji had managed to sneak up on Gojo and stab him.  Or maybe I’m misremembering?  Honestly, I’m not sure.  Truth be told, there’s very little that I understand about Gojo, The Six Eyes, or Limitless.  I can’t pretend to know how his Technique really even works, not when it’s a combination of Physics and mystical mumbo-jumbo.  And the Six Eyes had gotten even less explanation. “You could turn them off before, right?  Before the whole,” I gesture vaguely, “thing that went down in your teens.” ‘Thing’, I say, because bringing up the fight with Zen’in Toji and Amanai Riko’s murder like they weren’t awful and formative parts of his past makes me feel icky inside.  So, I leave it up to interpretation.  He’ll know what I mean, anyway.  Again, I show more knowledge that I shouldn’t have, but do.  The man in front of me is used to it now, though.  There’s no suspicion or paranoia anymore.  Just a calm acceptance.  He nods at my query, blue eyes boring into me. “But not anymore?” A shake of the head.  Perfunctory.  Short. “So you’re stuck with them on all the time?” “Pretty much!” he chirps like a bird, seemingly not bothered at all. I can’t help but think about how sad that sounds, to hide his eyes permanently. And, before I can stop it, the question is out of my mouth: “Don’t you ever miss it?  What if you could turn off the Six Eyes again and just be… normal.” I wince at the word.  Normal.  That’s pretty fucking ableist of me, isn’t it?  ‘Normal’… Like having anything less than perfect sight makes somebody some sort of freak.  I lambast myself for my poor phrasing.  And I start thinking of a way to backpedal when I notice his thoughtful expression.  Gojo’s frozen in his seat, staring down at his glasses.  He takes a long moment to think.  And he finally breezes out a laugh. “’Normal’, huh?” he says softly.  “I’ve never even considered it, really.  What does ‘normal’ look like in the world of Jujutsu Sorcery, I wonder?”  He tilts his head and looks up at me, considering something.  “Does something so mundane even have a place in it?  Or is it an impossible concept for people like us?” “I, err, didn’t mean for that to become a philosophical question.” “No.  I’d imagine you didn’t, my curious creature.”  The glasses slide on, cast his haunting eyes in shade.  “You want an answer to your question, Oracle-chan?  The truth is that I don’t think about it. I could wonder ‘what-if’ for so many things in my life.  A hundred things—a thousand things, even.”  Those long pale fingers of his find the notches in the table that he’d left a few days ago.  They sink into the warps left behind perfectly.  It’s like he’d dipped his fingers into wet clay for how well the table has remembered the imprint of them.  “But to do so is to stand idly in place, never moving past those things, never coming to terms with them.  I’d be stuck facing behind me, always, feet chained to the ground.  But I don’t have the luxury to wait around.  I have to keep moving forward and accept things as they are.”

Excerpt 2 (directly related to 1):

But I also know that there’s a deep layer of hypocrisy to this as well.  Because Gojo is stuck in the past, in a way.  He can’t let go of his friendship with Geto Suguru, and probably agonizes over not being able to stop him from leaving.  I don’t know the man well, not now that he’s no longer a 2D character in a manga panel or television screen, but I’m certain that this is one ‘what-if’ that he’ll never leave alone.  I wonder what other skeletons lurk in his closet, what other fixations he purposely buries to keep from becoming distracted by them. And I wonder how exactly he distracts himself. Casual murder, my mind supplies instantly.  And then I realize that I probably don’t want to know if that’s true or not.  Not exactly the healthiest coping technique.  Or most legal.  Or sane.  Maybe he has a secret harmless hobby, like macrame or nude modelling?  Or maybe he secretly paints Picasso counterfeits and sells them on the black market? I don’t know.  Anything other than fighting and killing for sport, I hope. Maybe I need my own distractions, if this night is any indicator--besides what Shoko had suggested.  Because that clearly hadn’t worked out at all.

Why was this removed?

Honestly, because Reader-chan and Gojo aren't currently at the comfort level to be having these kinds of discussions. I think this talk about vulnerabilities is best saved for a little later, when they can actually be in a room together without teasing each other (Gojo) or insulting each other (Reader-chan).

Plus, this scene was running too long anyway, TBH. So this is the fat that got trimmed. Might reincorporate it in the future, but not in this chappy.

Hope this tides you over for a little longer, pookies 😘

[four-white-trees]

SUNDAY SIX - Lexi forgor edition

This week I've been doing some preliminary work on two more experimental fics. This particular one will be in first person and present tense - two things i rarely or never write. The other fic may show up on a S6 sometime soon...maybe. Or maybe I'll keep that one close to my chest

Tagging: @mike----wazowski @overdevelopedglasses @jichanxo @skysquid22 @passthroughtime @fragilitease @woundedheartwithin @danketsuround

Tsukumo’s late. It’s a bad sign. 

I’m usually never bothered about time. I’ve had so much of it taken up that now I try to enjoy it whenever I can. Even when waiting, I can usually entertain my brain with little logic puzzles. I think back to an old riddle I remembered from a video game that I never figured out at the time. It haunts me sometimes. A riddle I couldn’t figure out at eight years old should surely be something I can figure out now in my twenties, but I can never puzzle it out. Maybe I’m misremembering it. 

I glance at my phone. The train is going to arrive soon and Tsukumo is still MIA. I snatch at the fleeting irritation that passes through me because it helps me to ignore the message icon on my phone’s notification bar. 

It was Tsukumo’s idea to do this. We’d planned the move for weeks. And now that the day has arrived, he’s nowhere to be seen. I know I should text him, but that would mean opening my messages. 

Then I hear his voice behind me. “Sugiura-shi!” he calls, and I turn around to see him hurrying onto the train platform, two plastic bags in hand. He stops in front of me, bowing way too formally. “My apologies! I lost track of time. But I got us snacks for the train.” 

I smile, any semblance of irritation washing away. “No problem,” I say, raising my voice because the train is close and its roar has started to rise on the wind. “You made it right in time.” Tsukumo’s smile is bright as he straightens up, and his long, messy hair rustles in the artificial breeze kicked up by the train. 

[canmom]

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere 049-064 (pt. 1)

Previously: 000-012, spinoff post about entropy, 013-032, 033-048 [all Flower posts]

Hoo boy this is a bunch of chapters. It's time for more Flower.

All together now: no, not that flower.

...yeah, I'm having to reach for flower-related videos to keep up this running gag at this point. But hey, look, hear me out here: Kanae Nozawa is really fucking good at playing the erhu. And it's called 'Flower Dance'. I think that's flowery enough.

...yeah, I will take suggestions for the next one. Send me your favourite flower-related videos. Especially if they're anime and kinda dark.

Anyway, welcome back to my liveblog of The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, an ongoing serial web novel by @lurinatftbn. Our arc titles today are The Die Falls and Cut-Out Face.

And this time around, Umineko intensifies. I won't say too much more than that above the fold this time, because we're starting to get some mysteries answered (opening more mysteries, naturally). But if you don't mind spoilers, the space elevator awaits.

So where we left off last time, Su had discovered the body of (probably) Neferuaten. It's time to get into that part of Umineko where people are dropping like flies and everyone is desperately trying to figure out who's doing it before it's their turn. However, in this case, everyone involved is a wizard, so this makes things a little more complicated.

There was one important mystery missing from my list of mysteries, incidentally - the pantry with the signs of aging and the tally marks.

Someone on the Flower discord helpfully pointed out that I'd misremembered the rule on red text. I edited the previous post, but just in case: the rule is that if you get a description of a body in red, it's definitely a dead human (and that person is definitely really dead, it's not a spare body or anything). But which dead person? There's no rule that Su correctly identifies the deceased. So while Su definitely found a body, there's no guarantee that it's Neferuaten's body. It's not even guaranteed to be a member of the known cast, since we don't know how many people were already on the island.

Indeed, in this pair of arcs, we start to see characters question the identity of a corpse. So it's definitely intended that you keep that kind of question in mind whenever Su finds a body.

To broadly outline the events in this arc (as much to keep it straight in my head as anything):

Su finds Neferatuen's body and reports it to Linos and Lilith.

They link up with the rest of Su's class and break the news. Everyone freaks out a bit.

A broadcast is made to every computer on the island in which we get an Umineko-style challenge, declaring that everyone on the island will soon be killed by 'heavenly beasts', but it is - sportingly - possible to escape the security system and get off the island. Everyone freaks out a lot.

Fang, who apparently put all of their points into 'chill', takes charge of the situation. Linos explains how the lockdown works.

Linos sends Su and a few others up to get a map. While they're up there, Su bungles her way into confessing the body that she and Kamrusepa discovered earlier. The characters start to compare notes.

Moving as a group, they all set out to shut down the lockdown at the admin centre, covered by various types of magic shield. They blunder into a trap which involved Linos's gun being rigged to fire to cause a distraction, and then Bardiya is murdered while the party is split. According to Theo, the only witness, he was attacked by something which dragged him into the window.

The party share various recriminations and perform some diagnostic magic. Theo and Linos are declared Intensely Sussy, but Fang points out a narrow possibility that an external culprit could have dunnit while Linos's shield had briefly been disabled.

Mehit flips out and grabs Linos's gun. She takes Lilith away from the group of arcanists, intending to wait out the crisis in one of the areas where the Power is suppressed.

The gang moves out. Ran challenges Linos on some of his claims about the nature of the lockdown. It turns out he's been telling some fibs.

They travel through a tunnel that runs from the womens' entrance hall into the research dome. There, they discover a big bloody hole in the ground, and also Anna and Zeno are there.

Zeno's back in girlmode and is trying to transport a bunch of boxes. It turns out their actual 'main body' is a kind of a Made in Abyss 'cartridge' situation - surgically minimised, in this case to slow down aging as much as possible, and hidden. All their bodies are (according to them!) puppet bodies. I'm behind 7 proxy bodies or whatever.

Anna, it turns out, has age regwessied! We get a flashback narrated by Ran (notably not marked reliable) in which we find out what happened during Su's amnesiac episode - more on that later, but the upshot is that Fang brought a spike of true iron that they finished on behalf of Su's grandfather, which allows the Order to operate a giant machine built by Su's grandfather to interact with entropy. The Great Work is successful, and Anna was age regwiessed down to a young adult again.

Su has started to suspect Balthazar knows something time loop shaped. She and Ran and Linos go to confront him. Bal pretty much says yes: we are in fact in a time loop, we've already had thousands of iterations, and I get to remember it, and you should remember it too Su. Every single time, everyone dies and someone makes a tally mark in the pantry, which is for some reason not getting reset. Bal intends to wait out the timeloop where he is with a magazine and won't budge. He also says this is supposed to be the last loop. Ran and Su are dismissive. We the readers know better. Although somehow I suspect this isn't the last loop.

Anna hands out tracking bands.

A flashback sequence shows what happened when Ran found out about Su's situation. More on that later.

The gang go downstairs to find the admin console. On the way down, they discover a bloody magic circle with Durvasa's name written in it.

The three present Order members (Linos, Zeno, and Anna) are able to log into the admin console. They discover that it's not a standard lockdown, but a secret time-triggered protocol installed 20 years ago, around when Su's grandfather was fiddling with the computers. This means it can't easily be reset. Also, in a couple hours the security golems will turn on. Wuh oh.

They hatch a plan B. Everyone goes upstairs to 1. get masks from the mask room to bypass the golems (idk if I mentioned the mask room, there's a mask room) and 2. hopefully rewire re-rune the inputs to the security centre to spoof its inputs and activate the exit.

In the mask room, they discover Durvasa has probably been murdered, but the corpse is too severely mutilated to permit positive identification.

All the students are given masks in order to pass as members of the order. Su anticipates that these masks are going to create a situation where it's harder to identify who's who.

I think that's all the main points. Lots of moving around.

Having done what I promised not to do and write a plot summary, let's get on to the actual substance...

Mystery solution unlocked (somewhat): who is Su?

I feel like I should have been able to predict this one, in retrospect.

In logical terms, maybe not deduce it. But with this reveal, the narrative purpose of a lot of earlier scenes falls into place.

So, Su's unnamed childhood friend - the nerdy academic one who she met on the beach and encouraged her. Well, that friend is in fact Utsushikome of Fusai, or Shiko to her friends!

Wuh? Isn't that our dear protagonist? No - the character we're calling 'Su' is the mind of the other girl, our POV in that flashback. Or maybe it's the other way round, I'm a still little unclear on which POV was which in those flashbacks. I'm fairly sure though that POV girl is Su, and the other girl is Shiko. It's confusing because multiple flashbacks are narrated in the first person - the memories of the beach probably belong to Su, while the memories of the doctor's office where she learned about ascension probably belong to Shiko.

Anyway, we're told in chapter 55 a bit more about the mechanics of how arcanists work. Basically, the Tower of Asphodel, in addition to a few hundred thousand human bodies, also has billions of backup minds in the form of 'pneuma', a semi-biological element that interacts with the higher planes and basically amounts to a soul. The pneuma encodes memories (redundantly it seems), as well as preferences and habits - it's something akin to what Seth Dickinson calls the 'inner law'. In modern times, egomancy - the kind of magic that fucks with pneuma - is highly forbidden.

When humans are born in this world (perhaps more accurately 'instantiated'), stage 1 is to block the pneuma in the clone and permit a new one to form. Unfortunately this breaks the Power.

It was found that the new generation, the children born from this process, had no capacity to use the Power. Even though it had no visible effect on consciousness or intellect, this alteration to the nature of their pneumas damaged the ability of their minds to take on an Index, meaning that using the Power was impossible. There were cases where this didn't happen - where the 'trauma' healed just so - but they were one in a million. So rare as to be useless.

So, to set someone up as an arcanist, you download one of these backed up pneumas from the Tower, and install it over the existing pneuma. But the downloaded pneuma is deliberately weakened so that usually the downloaded personality dissolves quickly and reverts back to the identity of the person who became an arcanist. This process is apparently destructive to the backed up pneuma in the Tower.

So when Lilith said that all arcanists are murderers, what she means is that in a 'proper' initiation, you devour the soul of someone from a dead universe in order to steal their admin password.

In Shiko's case, something different happened. Instead of downloading the soul of someone from a dead universe, she's got the soul of a regular living girl from her own universe.

Here's how Su recalls the situation:

"One day, I got a letter. It offered me a whole bunch of stuff... My own house, shares in a bunch of local businesses that'd get me a stream of luxury credit.. If I agreed to go along with something for a couple weeks. That was what it said-- A couple of weeks." Under the table, I was having trouble keeping my legs still. "I thought it was some strange prank at first, but when we met, they seemed really serious. They said it would be best if it was someone who knew her." "Knew who?" "Oh..." I shifted reluctantly in my seat, my voice getting even quieter. "U-Utsushikome, I mean. I'd known her when we were kids... But we hadn't spoken in years." I cleared my throat. I felt so anxious about what was happening that I was shivering. "Anyway. They told me that her grandfather was dying, and there was something he'd been trying to do for years and years, but it was too late for it t-to work out. But they wanted to-- I dunno, do the next best thing, give him some peace--"

So, agents of Shiko's grandfather - who was evidently up to his fucking follicles in conspiracies - approached the girl we're now calling Su (her original name is not given, for reasons we'll see), operating under false pretenses. It's not clear how much they told her, just that it would involve Shiko. She agreed. They extracted the soul from her body and implanted it in Shiko at Shiko's induction. It seems likely that Shiko's grandfather intended to do this with his own soul, but could not for some reason? Why they did this with some random girl remains unknown. It's also not clear why Su of all people should have chmod +x for the Power.

Su was presumably supposed to dissolve back into Shiko's identity, but probably because the induction was far from normal, she retained her previous identity and Shiko was the one suppressed. Su did her best to try and figure out how to pretend to be Shiko, but Ran - not yet an arcanist herself - noticed her sudden personality change and confronted her. Su came clean, and Ran was all 'kill yourself, bitch' over it.

Seriously she does not let up. Here's some quotes:

This time, she did glance at me, a scowl forming on her face. "Don't try to act compassionate, you perverted fucking body-snatcher. You're not my friend." (...) She grunted. "Just be late next time. I don't want you messing with how she looks on your own impulse." (...) It was strange, us investigating it together like this. Even though I went along with it, acted repentantly, and had explained to her that the way things were weren't exactly my fault - that I'd been deceived at the premise of what I'd agreed to do - she wasn't willing to afford me much charity, but in a way, that was comforting. She was like a beacon of sharp reality in the dreamlike, dissociated existence I was now living.

And so on. Even when Su reveals that her original body is now months dead, and there is no body to go back to, Ran will not cut her a break:

"...this isn't you getting cold feet about trying to save her, is it?" she asked, suddenly suspicious. "Because you can't--" (...) Ran must have realized the absurdity of the statement, because a few moments later she spoke up again-- Disgust having crept back into her tone, even if that hint of conflict still remained. "Don't act sorry for yourself," she said. "It's your own fault for going along with something so perverse for your own gain. Blame her grandfather for being such a fucking lunatic, if you want, but don't act like a victim. No one gives a shit about you."

People in the comments start pulling out the word 'abuser' over this kind of thing and yeah, *sucks in air through teeth* they're not wrong. No wonder Su has such a complex nowadays.

It's notable how much Su's fantastical scenario here has in common with the experience of plurality/DID. Certain friends who are plural talk about how they may be able to recall alters' memories, but with difficulty, and it feels like they belong to someone else. And of course there's the process of forming new alters. Manifesting suddenly in a body full of memories of another person seems like a pretty distressing experience all told, but it's also something that the other people you're sharing with can make easier.

I talked a bit more about this in the Baru article on brains, so I won't reprise it all here. Broadly speaking, if someone is plural, their mind supports different 'alters', which are states of being which typically express distinct senses of identity, access to memory, preferences, stream of consciousness etc. Whether you think of them as distinct 'people' or distinct states of 'one person' seems like a matter of philosophical speculation, but 'co-consciousness' of alters is not an unusual thing, and sometimes I've witnessed externalised disagreements between alters. Since we don't have any ability to prove the existence of other minds in general, the only surefire way to know what it's like to be plural is to be plural already. Unfortunately the main way to inculcate plurality seems to be 'go through severe child abuse', so it's not easy to find out. But maybe tulpamancy is real?

Su's situation is not so different from the recent recurring 'lesbians and imperialism' subgenre device of having someone's mind inserted into a protagonist's body through some kind of scifi means. In modern 'plural system' terms, the word used is 'introject': in brief, an alter derived from another person, who often (but not always) understands themselves to be that person even in another body.

The big difference for Su of course is that the other alter she'd hypothetically be sharing this body with has just disappeared. Su can't talk to Shiko, Shiko's gone. It's not actually uncommon for alters to disappear like that, I've known people who very rapidly generate and discard identities in an intense traumatic situation, but the timeline doesn't really fit that here, and it's pretty much nonexistent I think for all alters but one to disappear and leave someone a singleton again.

I admit I'm not familiar with all the modern taxonomy of what psychiatry terms 'dissociative disorders', so perhaps there are other related categories, that are closer to Su's situation. Of course, even ignoring all the flaws and limitations of the DSM approach, this is a sci-fantasy world in which souls are real and manifest in a specific organ (ironic given how I declared they definitely aren't real and 'the body is all that is' in the first post on this book), so different rules apply!

What's not clear to me at this point is whether Samium the egomancer is going to be capable of restoring Shiko's soul in any meaningful way. It seems like when you shove two pneumas into a body, only one survives.

Anyway, as for Ran, she's clearly backed off on the 'perverted fucking body-snatcher' talk, having spent many years building up a friendship with Su and losing sight of her original zeal to save Shiko. Despite this, she really hasn't owned up to the fact that she's a big part of the reason Su is so determined to do a special magic suicide.

We could only suppose that if Shiko was brought back at this point, she would be in the exact same situation Su was - suddenly inhabiting a body filled with memories that are not her own, surrounded by people she does not know, and forced to carry on pretending to be the previous occupant. None of Su's present classmates know Shiko. Shiko's context was the school, and that is now in the distant past.

Su, however, is carrying The Mega Traumas and has spent however many years defining her life's purpose as dying to bring back Shiko. She has fully internalised the idea that she's a monster and doesn't deserve to live, that it's somehow her moral responsibility for the twisted experiment that Su's grandfather performed on these two girls.

At this point, the 'healthiest' outcomes are one of two things. Maybe Samium the egomancer could reactivate Shiko's identity, but without destroying Su, and Su/Shiko can share the body. Being plural doesn't seem to be so bad. (I admit I don't know what it's like, but if there's anything I've observed from knowing people who are plural, it's that once that cat's out of the bag and you recognise that you're plural, you can't really just try and suppress it. Trying to just will yourself into not switching is going to fuck you up much worse than coming to terms with it and developing ways to interact comfortably and share embodiment with your new headmate. Apparently 'integration' or fusion of alters is possible, and was traditionally pursued by therapists, but if it's rushed it just breaks down. And that would be disagreed with by the modern plural identity movement.)

On the other hand, it seems fairly plausible that it won't be possible to bring back Shiko. In this case, both Su and Ran need to finally grieve their friend who was effectively murdered at a young age by Su's grandfather, and move on. Easier said than done, of course. And they're definitely not going to get there if they can't have a very honest discussion about it. Which doesn't seem very likely with all these distracting murders.

Anyway, that resolves a few of my list of mysteries...

what skulduggery happened with Su’s ascension that made it go so badly wrong?: Shiki had the soul of her childhood friend, now known as 'Su', instead of some rando from the Tower of Asphodel. why did Ran react so badly to knowing that Su can’t assimilate?: she was not yet an arcanist and did not know about what initiation entails. she sees Su as culpable, even though Su was deceived. Su is a stranger and she will happily let a stranger die to save Shiki, and rationalises this. what did Su’s grandfather have to do with it?: agents claiming to work on behalf of Shiki's grandfather deceived Su. it seems it was too late to do it with his own mind.

it also opens some brand new mysteries.

why did Shiki's grandfather carry out this sadistic experiment? how is this the 'next-best thing'? is it just to prove the body-hopping technology works?

did Shiki's grandfather and co. anticipate that Shiki's mind would be overwritten by Su, or did they expect Su to be killed, the same as minds from Asphodel?

who are the agents who carried out this weird plot? do they have any relation to the current murder spree?

can the mind of Shiki really be retrieved?

Now I've gone through all the ins and outs of it - this plot is really cool and spicy. So much drama to be had. Now I understand the point of those flashback scenes to Su's childhood, and it fits so neatly that I wonder how I couldn't see it before. Not enough imagination! But if this is the wavelength the story is operating on, I should try and imagine similar payoffs for the other mysteries...

Anyway, now that we've established that body transfers are possible, we might wonder if anyone else had one done.

Let me wrap up this section by saying... body-snatcher is a very specific term! It tickles me to think that Ran might have seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

The time loop

This was described at the outset as a 'control' scenario, but we have several apparent divergences. And supposedly thousands of iterations of this experiment have already run with slightly different outcomes.

Su's memory is slightly leaking info from the other loops, but for the most part she remains immersed in the scenario. Balthazar, meanwhile, obviously has history with Su from previous runs. This explains Su's inexplicable feelings of animosity towards him, his knowledge of the name 'Shiki', and many of his remarks.

As mentioned up above, the pantry is somehow not getting rolled back after each loop. This explains why it's so old. I had previously been assuming it was some kind of 'hyperbolic time chamber' type scenario, and the tally marks were the time that someone was stuck in the pantry, but this is way more interesting and cool.

We have our equivalent of On the ninth twilight, the witch revives, and none shall be left alive. from Balthazar:

"When I said this is a closed circle, I meant it in every sense," he explained. "In absolutely every instance, for every marking made on that wall... By the time this is over, there isn't a single person here left alive."

Presumably either Balthazar or Su is the mark-maker, and they always end up dead after making this mark. I assume they usually mark the wall fairly early in the loop in order to make sure they don't die too soon before making it!

This actually means I think we have a fairly good suspect for the "who knocked out Yantho" case. If Balthazar came here to mark the wall (although why bother, if it's the final run), and Yantho was about to see him, maybe he'd have panicked and knocked Yantho out? I don't think that would extend as far as killing the cook and faking her suicide though!

Anyway, Balthazar claims this is the final run. One commenter had a little hissy fit about this not fitting the standard time loop story mold, but I'm more inclined to wait and see. Admittedly, I have the unfair knowledge, compared to when this chapter came out, that the story is hundreds of chapters long and still going strong, and given the murders are now going at a rapid pace, I feel like we'll surely see at least one more loop. Hard to say though. Just because it's inspired by Umineko doesn't mean it's got the same structure.

Anyway, let's revisit the very first chapter given what we now know...

They were also a woman, though you wouldn't have been able to tell. Everything beneath the head-area was buried under black fabric, without so much as an inch of flesh visible, and their face was covered with a expressionless, androgynous porcelain mask. Otherwise, the outfit evoked something like a funeral gown, with only subtle frills around the cuffs and hem of the skirt.

We can now recognise this is probably the outfit of a member of the Order, back when they hid their identities. The mask sounds similar to how Neferuaten's mask is described in chapter 31:

It took me a moment to realize which mask she was pointing out, since it was so unremarkable. It was little more than an oval of silver, with holes cut for the two eyes and mouth, and a little dent to accommodate the nose.

Though Nef's mask is described as silver, not porcelain.

We can also get to hear Su's victory condition.

"Understand this: Your role in the scenario has been elevated from that of bystander to that of the heroine, and your victory condition is thus," she continued. "You must ascertain the identity of your opponent, the cause of the bloodshed to follow, and prevent it before it comes to pass. In order to accomplish this goal, you must pay close heed to all which transpires, and use deduction, alongside your skills and past experience of the events to follow. Do you understand your role?" (...) "Should you deviate from your role, the scenario will be compromised, and a grave outcome is forewritten. But should you succeed, then you shall open the path to a brighter future." She paused for a moment. "That is all. Should we begin?"

It's not at all clear why this should be the final loop, given that Su seems nowhere near close to 'winning' at this point. It's hard to know whether 'the scenario will be compromised' applies beyond a single loop though.

Two more mysteries to put on the list: who is Su's interlocutor here? And what was Su's request?

One thing I noticed, incidentally, is that chapter 000 was written some time after chapter 1, released 27 July 2020 - the timestamp places it in between chapters 020 (24 July) and 021 (6 August). I don't think this means anything - the intended version of the story is clearly now the one with the prologue attached - but it's an interesting example of how a serial novel can evolve with time.

Anyway, if the time loop is a challenge for Su to solve, it raises the obvious question of why Balthazar gets to remember the loop. (There's also incidentally a thing where most of the students' clocks are mysteriously stopped, with the exception of Ophelia's and Ran's.)

Anyway, Su (like us) has to solve whodunnit and whydunnit. Though howdunnit is probably also relevant.

I'm going to wildly speculate that Su's identity stuff is somehow connected to the timeloop scenario, just because narrative efficiency. Here are some possibilities to consider:

the woman in the mask is Shiko

the woman in the mask is Su. the POV of the first chapter is that of Shiko, and her request is that a scenario could be created where Su has to take on the scenario.

the culprit of all the murders and shit is Shiko. she was not overwritten, but evicted into a different body again.

the culprit of all the murders and shit is Shiki, from Tsukihime.

Ran's chapters and the Great Work

Ran recounts some of the stuff that happened while Su was out of it. This is later shown to be a diegetic conversation.

These chapters are super cool and intriguing. That said, while it starts out fairly believable - Ran's summaries with her voice - there is something a bit weird about how Ran can quote long conversations verbatim. Admittedly, if Su is telling the story, she is also able to remember everything in incredible detail. But Su has been established to have something like an eidetic memory, at least as far as figures are concerned, so I can sorta handwave that part.

Though that said, it's just a minor stylistic quibble. Putting it in Ran's mouth is an interesting device. Ran's inner voice is quite sarcastic, way more so than Su, who is honestly painfully sincere?

More importantly, these chapters are not marked with a first purple letter to confirm they are reliable. This is a narrative that Ran is telling Su. We can probably assume the broad details are accurate-ish, but it's entirely possible that Ran is lying or omitting things according to the rules of the game.

Anyway, the students are all taken down to a huge chamber underneath the Everblossom that's full of fractal cables and complicated magic runes that use a city's worth of eris to interface with the Ironworker entropy machine. So far it lets them essentially perfectly recover information from the past, allowing them to do stuff like de-age Anna.

It's a little bit handwavey how it all works. Anna's memories appear to be intact, so her entire body can't have been rolled back. We could raise all sorts of questions about motion and the interface between brain and body but it's a nitpicking.

What we know is that after Fang brings out a piece of iron and it's integrated into the machine... Anna goes offscreen with the other members of the Order, and then comes back appearing much younger, and they claim the machine worked as intended. Not much time to celebrate though because shortly after, the murders start.

There remains the possibility that the younger individual we're being told is Anna is... not Anna, but someone else acting as her (perhaps even Neferatuen). Though why the Order would deceive the students in such a way I couldn't guess, so it's a pretty dubious theory.

The murders

The murder of Bardiya is fairly extensively discussed by the characters. The two scenarios raised are: Theo attacked Bardiya, then lied about it, or, an unknown party ducked in while the shield was lowered very briefly, then attacked Bardiya through the window.

Given the specifity of the window stuff, I'm inclined to believe the second story. Theo definitely has something going on with him (he's been super cagey about some personal business), but he doesn't have a murderer vibe, unless he's an improbably good actor. The capabilities of the adversary remain unclear.

It's also possible that the death somehow involved an adverse interaction with Linos's shield. This possibility was raised by a commentator.

...actually, fine, let me go into Linos's shield.

Linos's shield (or the inevitable nitpicking)

The main group of characters rely on Linos's high level casting of a shielding spell called energy-nullifying-projecting. This takes incoming energy and redirects it back out. We get more details later:

"The base component terminates all motion in anything that comes into contact with it and essentially acts as a brick wall on top of blocking incoming incantations, while the additional one conjures an electromagnetic repelling force, physically damaging any matter that tries to pass through it."

"Wait, uh, I'm kind of confused," Ptolema said, scratching her head. "If it works like that, wouldn't just moving it around damage stuff? Like, when you expanded it to cover the kitchen, shouldn't it have smashed the wall to bits?" "Mm, well, the energy nullification doesn't actually apply when I move the barrier, so as long as everything I'm expanding it through is motionless already, then it'll just pass through harmlessly. I do have to disable the repulsive component for those times, though--- There's an element of the incantation to give me dynamic control over it."

My nitpicks are two: firstly, Ran mentioned special relativity applies to this universe in an earlier chapter. 'Motionless' is relative, and in Newtonian physics and relativity, you don't have a 'preferred' reference frame in which things can be 'absolutely' at rest. So I wonder how the spell is able to distinguish between 'thing moving towards Linos' (block) vs 'Linos moving towards thing' (don't block).

My second nitpick is thermal motion. Even a solid object is constantly full of random lattice vibrations corresponding to temperature. Negating all motion that touches the barrier would amount to flash-freezing anything that comes into contact. Though perhaps you can 'code' it to identify macro-scale objects in motion and block them.

Neither of these are like important.

Anyway here's how Bardiya's death is described by Theo...

"I... Bardiya was right up near the window at the far side of the room, when I turned. I only saw him clearly for a moment before the lamp fell over... But the window was open, and he was staring out of-- No, rather, it almost looked like he was being pulled by something. One of his arms reached out to try and grab hold of something, but there was nothing." He shook his head. "When the light was gone, I tried to call out, but I couldn't hear a sound from my own mouth... Or from anywhere at all. And then, I... I..." He ran his hands urgently through his hair, as if trying to wipe something off them, and gasped urgently. Mehit, who was sitting next to him, stared wide-eyed. "I couldn't see well, but it looked like something was... Was feeding on him," he went on. "He kept being pulled out through the window over and over again, and every time, there was more and more blood when he pulled back. I could even feel some of it splatter on my face, see the light reflecting off the puddle... And more than anything, I could smell it. It was like a butcher's shop, but sickly sweet." He shuddered. "E-Eventually, whatever it was let him go, and he slumped down. I'd been too shocked to move up until that point, but realized I needed to help him, so... I tried to step forward. I still couldn't hear my own voice, so I tried to turn his body around. That's when I... That close, I could see..."

Getting pulled out of the window by an unseen force and torn to bits definitely sounds kinda like getting caught in a repulsive barrier, right? Then again, there's no reason Bard would stick his hand out the window unless forced.

It's a shame, I liked Bardiya. Had a good head on his shoulders. But hey, I guess that's the point! You always kill the fan appeal character first for maximum tragedy points. (By the same token, I expect Ezekiel will last a long time.)

Durvasa we have less information to go on, since the corpse was arranged decoratively post killing. As we've observed, it might not even be Durvasa.

I'm too tired now to try to solve this one, but I might do a followup, to comment on any other stuff that stands out, later.

Great story, anyway. I'm so intrigued by all that's going on. I accidentally posted this instead of sending it to drafts, so I'm gonna unprivate it now, see you next time for more on these chapters or maybe just advancing straight to the next batch!

Thanks for reading my liveblog! And if you read this Lurina, great work, this book kicks ass, so many intriguing ideas and moving parts, I have no idea how you keep track of it all lol.

Umineko liveblog to pick up after sleep hopefully. We'll see though.

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

Hazbin Hotel x Helluva Boss Theory: Adam & Stolas Deserve Better (So Does Blitzo...)

[Note Edit Of May 7, 2024: I know I had put the tag for it yesterday...but just in case I'm editing this in now....one of the tags for this says "do not reblog without permission" so please read the tags so there be no misunderstandings in the future.]

[Note: Reading This Is Optional, BUT this will still be for Mature Audience Readers Only, so NO kids allowed and Parents need to stop scapegoating and actually make sure their kids don't view something that is 16+ to 18+ when they are not the correct age to view it...though half the time it wont be just the parent or parents at fault, it would also be the much older relative like a uncle or aunt or cousin, who lets the child watch something that is not meant for them until they become the proper age to view it........I seen a movie I shouldn't of seen when I was a little kid, and I had misremembered that being my Mom who let me watch it when we had rented at some old video place......but it was one of my much older cousins that let me, which I guess they did cover my eyes at some parts, well maybe not them but maybe my Mom. I still love the movie though and I finally own it on DVD, but I realized what happen when I was little was still irresponsible of them and they should of known better...it isn't the Movie that is at fault, it was the grown-up that had carelessly allowed me to watch it when I was not the proper age to view it....so yeah, since I do have the DVD of that movie now, I think maybe later today or maybe tomorrow I can find the time to watch it again...at least I know now what one of my older cousins did was irresponsible.]

so anyway, even if Stolas may have a right to be upset during what happen at Ozzie's and even after him being drop off by Blitzo.

but he shouldn't play some innocent victim after what happen at Ozzie, as it is no wonder why Blitz didn't want him to touch his hand and the whole not wanting to go inside Stolas's Home...

I might think that Stolas deserves better than Stella, who needs to get a clue and just let the divorce happen...

I don't even think Octavia understands anything about her parents relationship or the fact they were NEVER in love to begin with, and that Octavia's Mom has been always verbally abusive to Stolas.

they were in a LOVELESS Arranged Marriage, but in theory even those who did end up in a Arrange Marriage could end up falling love with each other at some point and or just growing to love each other in a platonic way...

even if Stella is upset the affair happen because of what it does to her image, but maybe the affair wouldn't of happen if she wasn't throwing in Stolas face that the two of them weren't divorced and even making it into a Not-Divorce Party.

even if some think she is some innocent victim, she really isn't.

what did she suspect, for Stolas to come around and treat her like the "Queen" like she deserves to be, to even worship her like the "Goddess" she views herself as....oh please, like that was ever going to happen in the canon.

even though what Stolas did was wrong, but he was with a woman like Stella who should be happy about getting a divorce from a man she hates, but the only reason she stayed with him was probably for the power and the title...and with the title she was given before, could very well be taken away as well as the power she was given.

but Stolas is probably no better than her, when it comes to how he can't see how much he hurt Blitz, well of course Verosika, Fizz and Ozzie did the same thing, but it probably hit him even more when Stolas chose to use that Menu to cover his face.

and I wouldn't be surprised if Verosika may have did something that caused Blitz to run off the way he did, but maybe they can still patch things up and become friends, like how he patch things up with Fizz.

Fizz and Ozzie, I love ya both and if you both were real I would slap you both if you EVER put Blitz through that again...

I would be on Alastor's Shoulder (when he is in Full Demon Mode" to slap Ozzie, and if Fizz is on Ozzie's Shoulder, then I will still slap him one too...

Ozzie & Fizz are so lucky they are so Adorkable and have those VERY cute and sweet sides to themselves, even if they were jerks to Moxxie, Millie, Blitz and Stolas..

well at least Ozzie from Helluva Boss, didn't cause me to accidentally exist like that one story about the whole King Solomon and Asmodeus basically implies...

NEVER gonna let The Embodiment Of Lust that was one of those Keys of Solomon, live that one down I guess.

I know it had to do with the ring and how Grandpa King Solomon was tricked into taking it off, and Asmodeus had threw him to the other side of the world, where he would end up meeting and getting together with one of my Ancestor Grandmothers.

so yeah, I may be a Defective Earth Angel Princess who calls herself "The Eveningstar Princess" because of that weird thing about my Mom having NEVER getting Morning Sickness when she was pregnant with me, and she had ONLY got Evening Sickness...

but what Asmodeus accidentally did, is maybe one of those weird little accidents that can't really be helped and not sure if it is more strange than the whole getting Evening Sickness...

I was a little weirdo even before I was finally born apparently.

and I came out looking like a 2 week old apparently, blame it on the Nephilim gene I guess...I mean if it does play a part in it...

I hope we can finally stop procrastinating in finally checking to see if my blood type will come out O RH D Negative for the third time.

we have been putting it off for way too long it seems, I guess one of the things I don't look forward to it, is the whole pricking and the whole last few tries we did, I ended up not feeling all okay and needed to go sit or lay down.

but it might not be so bad, if I just close my eyes through most of it.

I don't know if I have a certain phobia or not...

but anyway, Fizz should be lucky that his boyfriend didn't accidentally cause a Earth Angel to be born by hooking up her Ancestors together, cause the Earth Angel wouldn't let Big Blue Cotton Candy Ozzie live that one down...

and before I get back to the whole talking about Stolas and everything else, I think if we think about it some percent of Earth Angels are Demi-Angels, having Souls that are Half-Human & Half-Angel, which half the reason could be from the blood they/we carry and the other reason having to do with the souls they/we have.

of course some damages could happen to the Soul, no matter if it is a fully human soul or a hybrid soul.

(if you wish to skip some parts of this, just keep a look out for the bold words...)

like you end up dying way too early more than once in your past lives, and you are lucky not to have full memories of those times in each of them.....plus I really shouldn't be forced to forgive those that had hurt my past life selves, one of them being the reason I may of possibly had Stolas as a Caretaker if certain info is correct.

is it weird to think that he has a small lab type room with those beakers and other stuff that may also have some plants around as well...? like he keeps it a hot mess most of the time probably.

and yeah I'm talking about the Stolas from our Universe this time, that he keeps the room he has a hot mess possibly, which might be his type of lab...?

don't know if I'm right or not though, even with the thoughts that they have some kind of gladiator arena and have some type of fights to possibly show off their strength...

and there is the thoughts of them having a library, which could be a bit smaller than a library in Heaven, like the bookshelves in Heaven being super high that it would take a Angel to fly up to get a book or scroll to get the item your looking for if you aren't able to fly that way...like one of them being that you could still be scared of some heights and can't fly because ya don't have wings.

it might be a good thing that one can't remember fully of their past lives, one of the reasons could have to do with some damage done to their soul even if it did heal, but the problem could still be there.

I know one of my past lives had inspired the idea of some OCs I had made before, of course I had to change the ideas a bit on the OC that I had made, even if the first one was a Creepypasta (which I had posted the drawings about them in another place, like Deviantart.) and I had no idea at first that I was just remembering past life stuff...

and that past life is probably more closer to me, and I know I died in a dress when I was probably about 4 years old...which of course when I died at 4 years old before, I for some reason started to hate wearing dresses at 4 years old in my current life, and for all I know my 4 year old self was likely traumatized and remembered that we had died in a hospital when wearing a dress.

I do have a birthmark that may prove on the ways my past life self had lost her/our life in that time.

and it can suck for anyone to have bad luck dying a bit too early before they are too helpless to prevent it.

and some Toxic-Religious Inhuman people that have crossed a line when doing harm to children and babies do count as children...

they are lucky I don't go "Alessa Gillespie" on them, as tempting as that is...

Toxic-Satanist are not the only ones on that whole list, and if some of them think I will EVER forgive them for the messed up stuff they did, they can think again...

I suppose in theory, if they got me SUPER mad, and if Charlie, Vaggie and Emily were real, they would probably have to hold me back from trying to pull some hair...

like even if you never punched anyone before, but you think about the possibilities of if some who have did some messed up stuff, if they peeve you off to a very high point, you could go into a type of "Feral Earth Angel Mode" as I like to call it.

I know now that I was apparently born in a Catholic Hospital that had Nuns in it, even though my family is Christian, but most of our Ancestors came from different Religions anyway, and one of my Ancestor Grandpas was a Rabbi...

I am thinking of going by "Neo-Christian" again, but still go by "Neo-Spiritual" but I think I want to think about it a little more.

I still can't tell my family that I really don't go by "Christian" anymore.

or the fact that I don't just believe in God only, but also a Goddess now as well...and there is the whole believing the balance of the Divine Feminine needs to be healed and restored a bit more to stop the twisted form of justice and other stuff that involves a possible future that has to do with Jesus & is Army and the Antichrist.

how is it that not many have figured out how messed up that is, I mean you are doomed either way, but I still rather not take that mark and I would rather take a spray bottle, hold some food salt in my hands and pray to both the Heavenly-Father & Earthly-Mother and then place the salt in the spray bottle and then spray the Antichrist in the face than let him try that messed up stuff...

and even though I can't really do the same to Jesus, plus one of the reasons he could take part on that messed up logic is because he his being influenced by the Toxic-Masculine energy, and hopefully he can be saved from himself and to prevent those terrible futures that involve him and the Antichrist...

but yeah, if I were allowed to, I would use the spray bottle on Jesus's Army and maybe even the Antichrist's Army....that would probably need a lot of spray bottles there...

but if some info about what those two sides want to do is correct, it is still messed up, and hopefully such a terrible future can be prevented.

I guess the song "This Little Girl" by Cady Groves would match the feelings.

anyway back to the original topic, I can agree that Stolas deserves better than being married to Stella, even if she is a Party Girl, which I guess wouldn't be so bad....but throwing a party and celebrating Not being divorce was probably bite her in the tail feathers in a karma type way anyway...

Lilith is no better than Stella, even if Charlie might think her Mom is a good person who loved her kingdom, but we know there is always more sides to the story.

Lilith, Charlie's Mom....is just as Bad as my Dad, well my Human-Dad who is still biologically related.

I was told by my Mom that when she was pregnant with me at the time, both she and him got into a type of I guess heated argument.

I can only guess what it was about, and the thing I'm guessing it being about....hopefully I'm wrong.

I know my Dad wasn't there for my birth, he was off some place else...

it doesn't help that he cheated on my Mom, which if I remember right, I think I was told he did so when Mom was still pregnant with me.

at least Adam wasn't pregnant when Lilith cheated on him...

even if Adam did become a Sinner, I hope he can find someone better than Lilith, and well maybe also Eve....unless the whole there was never truly a Eve turns out to be canon in the show.

and well, blame it on some fan fics I couldn't help but love that involves Adam and Eve being one in the same, and it being because of Lilith leaving him.

Adam may have been sweet and innocent, and maybe a bit clingy during his younger days in The Garden of Eden.

he probably didn't understand most things, same with Lilith who is no better than him...

I mean, misunderstandings and miscommunications can happen.

and back then in the Garden, Adam's words of suggestion likely came out as a order and anything he did was probably good enough for Lilith.

if Lilith got off her high horse, she could realize that she just matured faster than Adam during those times, and Adam wouldn't of turned into a full of himself jerk if it weren't for the fact that both she and Lucifer had hurt him, like BADLY hurt him...

Adam and Lute's relationship could of been platonic, even if in the Fanon there is more to it and them being in a type of loving relationship, like a mix of lovers who are like best buddies.

and yeah, I'm still gonna view that both Adam and Charlie are both in the right and wrong, Adam can't just senseless give a game over to every Sinner, and Charlie needs to understand that there are some Sinners that should be taken out by the Extermination Day.

like the type of Sinners that shouldn't be in Pentagram City, and should just go to that dark and blue, and possibly cold place that we see in the Lucifer Tv Series, which if it were in the same world as Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss, that place would be The Double-Hell...or as I like to call it "The Original Hell"....because of the whole current one that isn't the "Original" or "Double" Hell...

had possibly been a part of The Goddess's Earthly Queendom, before that whole imbalance happen and it had to be possibly placed under quarantine from the rest of the Earthly Queendom in the Celestial Realm.

for all we know, Double-Hell could be REAL in the Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss Universe, but it is meant for the very Worse and Toxic-Sinners that are just too far gone, and are even more bad than The Vees and have done far worse than The Radio Demon himself.

those are the types, who are send to Double-Hell, that Charlie can't save or get redeemed, and who deserve to be taken out in Extermination Day.

and as weird as it might be, Adam from Hazbin Hotel, reminds me of Spinel and Pink-Pearl from Steven Universe...

and right now, he also reminds me of Marianne from Strange Magic.

I like that movie, even if some might not.

Adam likely was all sweet and innocent, even if a little naive when his suggestions came off as orders when they weren't, and he could of been different from the Adam from our universe...

if the Adam from our universe knew what those three angels were going to do to Lilith, he would of left her alone and gave her the space she needed...

Adam from Hazbin Hotel, is The Marianne, and Lilith from Hazbin Hotel is The Roland.

yeah the people that Adam and Marianne became at some point are different, but that doesn't mean they weren't still hurt by Lilith and Roland.

it could be possible that Adam hides the fragile parts of himself that was caused by Lilith and Lucifer, that he likely only lets those closes to him see, like Lute.

Humanity already had some form of Free Will, even before the whole Forbidden Fruit Situation, cause Lilith had the free will to leave Adam.

but Adam isn't the only one that Lilith hurt, she also hurt Lucifer and Charlie, and possibly hurting Alastor as well.

even if Charlie might not realize that her Mom is hurting her, she needs to face the truth at some point.

plus it could be possible that Lilith in Hazbin Hotel, couldn't become pregnant like her Fanon Counterparts.

and if Lucifer being the one who was pregnant is true, it could be more than just Lilith not wanting to.....its just she couldn't, because she had become sterile, because that was one of her punishments for the forbidden fruit incident.

she is unable to have children, she can't bring a life into the world like Eve and those lucky enough to have a child.

Lucifer likely found a way to become pregnant with Charlie, and for all we know, Roo could be Charlie's True Mother, who had helped Lucifer have a child that he wanted to have have with Lilith but couldn't because they weren't able to, even if they took some DNA and Magic from Lilith's Soul and Body, it likely came out as a failure which ended up creating nothing.

a true mother would still love their child, even if the child ends up being adopted and not biologically theirs.

for all we know, the Flashbacks during the song "More Than Anything" that had Little Charlie in it...

it might of seem like Lilith in the Flashback, but for all we know, it could of been someone else, and Lilith left a long time after when Charlie was probably still a baby.

Roo is one of the likely people who could of been the "Lilith" in that Flashback, well either her or some other characters who is likely Charlie's real biological mother.

Roo could turn out to be Charlie's Bio-Mom, and she likely took the form of "Lilith" after the original Lilith left both Charlie and Lucifer, and Charlie's Dad was likely very aware of it.

anyway, I think that Adam, Stolas, Blitz and even Charlie's Dad Lucifer, were hurt and deserve better.

and hopefully things do work out with Stolas and Blitz, but Stolas should get slap over the head for making Blitz feel really bad at Ozzie's.

in theory, Adam could come back as a Sinner type Fallen Angel, but we will have to wait and see what the future seasons of Hazbin Hotel will bring.

and maybe like Charlie, Octavia will learn a bit more of how hurt her Dad Stolas has been, even before Octavia was born.

to Stolas, Octavia was the one good thing that came from his marriage to Stella, and he probably wouldn't change a thing if he had to do it all again.

even if Cain's Bio-Dad is like also technically my Grandpa too, but the Adam from our universe is also biologically my Grandpa but through Seth's side.

but Adam can be considered the true father of Cain, because despite the messed up stuff between Cain and Abel (which I'm still gonna view both Cain and Abel both being victims but also both of them still being in the wrong...) but Adam had possibly still loved Cain, and he is Cain's True Father, even if they aren't biologically related.

of course in Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss AU Fanon Timeline, if Adam turns into Eve every once in a while, and well that would mean that both Cain and Adam are biologically related.

even if it ends up not becoming canon and being one of those times when a fan accidentally predicting future canon events, like in Chapter 2 of Deltarune, with Kris eating the whole pie, and Darkners becoming items in the light world and turning to stone statues in different dark worlds...Best Accidental Fan Predictions Ever.

even if it does turn out Adam and Eve in Hazbin Hotel, not being one in the same and Adam not only having to be The Father of Humanity, but also the Mother of Humanity as well...

and it does turn out not to be one of those Accidental Fan Predictions, still gonna love the concept. :)

Stolas might of been hurt after what happen at Ozzie's, but he can't just act like he didn't do anything wrong either...

he hurt Blitz, even if Verosika, Ozzie and Fizz ended up hurting him words, Stolas hiding his face with the Menu had probably cut Blitz deeply in a emotional way.

and it's no wonder Blitz tried to drown his sorrows the way he did in that episode that Bee appeared in.

Bee and Bel are still gonna remind me of my childhood, always being tired and always having to go to the hospital because of seizures.

which by the way, even if my family and doctors might not agree with me, but I still think its possible the energies from both people and places that I was around, had caused my seizures and it is possible that half the time the energies would cause me to become really tired and go to sleep.

still need to post about the whole Empathic Epilepsy thing, I had been meaning to talk and post about it like maybe a month ago...?

so yeah, The Queens of Gluttony and Sloth remind me of all that...

Bee might be a hardcore party girl, but she could see and possibly feel how badly Blitz was doing and him not being okay.

and if she knew what happen at Ozzie's, who knows if she would get on Stolas, Fizz and Ozzie's cases about it, well them and also Verosika's as well.

and if Bee ever went to The Hazbin Hotel, and if Adam was there as a Sinner, she could probably feel the really bad feelings coming from him, that has to do with the hurt from what Lilith did to him.

there could be a reason why Bee couldn't feel the negative vibes coming from Loona, but could possibly feel it from Blitz and Adam.

Loona likely keeps a better barrier up of her really bad negative emotions.

also the stuff that happens in the Pilot of Helluva Boss, even if it isn't canon the other episodes, but we could view it as Semi-Canon.

that the Pilot episode of Helluva Boss, takes place in a Alternate Timeline.

so even if it does turn out the Loona from that Alternate Timeline, lied about Eddie being the target, the Loona from the other timeline who ended up getting a crush on Vortex, probably wouldn't stoop that low.

yeah, the kid was a brat and him being the way he is might have to do with his terrible parents who wouldn't just be Gray-Parents but more like Toxic-Parents.

and even if it did turn out the Pilot takes place in a Alternate Timeline, it could be possible the Eddie from the timeline we follow now, is probably very much alive unlike his counterpart from the Pilot Alternate Timeline.

the pilot from Hazbin Hotel, is likely still canon to the first season of Hazbin Hotel.

it could turn out it is only The Helluva Boss's Pilot, that is not fully canon but only Semi-Canon and takes place in a Alternate Timeline.

even if Adam, Lucifer, Blitz and Stolas became hot messes but maybe things will get more better for them.

I mean if Adam does come back as a Sinner, but the likely hood of that happening is possibly very slim.

Adam possibly needs a hug and being told that the reason why he became a worse version of himself, is because he was badly hurt by Lilith and Lucifer, and they were too high on their horses to see the damage they were causing.

I can't really bring myself to hate him, I mean it could be possible he became so terrible later in his life, because of what Charlie's Parents did to him, and he hides those really bad and depressing feelings by making him seem like he is the greatest gift to women, and give off that macho-man ego.

and yeah, it sucks that my Mom was cheated on...

which I guess misremembering what I was told, it either happen when she was still pregnant with me or sometime after she had me.

but I wouldn't be surprised if he did that cheating when she was still pregnant...

also anyone one could end up having Daddy Issues, like for some it can be for both your Human and Angel Dads...

and some can have Mommy Issues as well.

also if it does turn out that Charlie's Story book, has half-truths and half-lies in it.

maybe we will find out the full story on what it was like in the garden when Lilith, Adam and Lucifer were there in the future episodes of one of the future seasons.

we just have to wait and see.

the book was likely wrote by Lilith, it makes herself seem like a tragic heroine to her daughter, when really she isn't...

at least the Lilith from our universe has a reason why she became a worse version of herself, because she wasn't given the proper space she needed after her and Adam's fight, and Adam wasn't mature enough to understand that both she and him needed space.

he was likely a immature brat who couldn't understand that couples do need space from each other at times, and those Three Angels are just as much as fault and knew better than Adam did, I mean those three angels were old enough to know better, and probably been around for a SUPER long time even more than Adam and Lilith (and later Eve) were, so they should of just let Lilith be alone until she was ready to go back to where Adam was.

trying to force her was wrong and it is not love at all, it is messed up.

but the versions of Adam and Lilith from Hazbin Hotel, play out very different but at the same time the same as the ones from our universe.

Adam from Hazbin Hotel, was possibly just curious and had this innocence about him, and any suggestion on what he wanted to do got taken the wrong way by Lilith, who only saw him being bossy to her and trying to order her around when in theory, he wasn't.

she likely twisted the truth in that book she made for Charlie, in what she believed to be true, that Adam was demanding control...but that could only be what Lilith believed and she ends up twisting the truth in her favor to get Charlie to see Adam as having always been the "bad guy" but really he wasn't, he became that way because "The First B**th" and Lucifer, had hurt him and he became like The Marianne (from Strange Magic Movie) of Hazbin Hotel.

not everyone has to take this theory and thoughts the wrong way, the chance of it turning out to be true and canon is possibly very small chance....

I'm still gonna view Charlie's Mom by the nickname The First B**th.

Stolas and Blitz might still have a chance together, and Stolas may have time to tell Blitz he's sorry and not play the victim when he is partly the reason Blitz became so hurt at Ozzie's, not just Fizz, Ozzie and Mayday.....but Stolas himself also had hurt him.

even some fans could see that, that Stolas had hurt Blitz, and it could of been hinted from how Blitz spoke about Stolas when he and Fizz were captured.

Lucifer possibly holds on to hop that Lilith will come back to him, so they could be a happy family again.

but Lucifer needs to understand, and maybe he will in the future...

that it is possible that Lilith, will NEVER get back together with him.

even if they are still married and separated, he will need to get that divorce if things aren't going to go back to how they were when they were once deeply in love.

even if RadioApple might not become Romantically Canon, but some could view the whole Alastor x Lucifer as the highest favorite ship possibly, even if I still like the whole idea of Lucifer being ship with Angel's Dad...which someone is to blame for that. XD

also in theory, if Lucifer from our universe did have a Twin Flame...

she is possibly "Gone".....like Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz, like she may have pulled a Rose Quartz, even before Steven Universe.

not everyone has to agree on tat theory, but it could be a possibility.

if Adam does come back in the future as a Sinner Fallen Angels, the chances of it are pretty small, but we will have to wait and see.

and if it does happen, maybe someone at the hotel will get through to him and make him open up about the bottle up feelings that has to do with how badly Lilith and Lucifer, and possibly Eve (if Adam and Eve aren't one in the same) had hurt him.

Eve is possibly a even more sensitive topic for Adam, and Lucifer might of not understood how badly he hurt Adam.

even if we are suppose to see Adam as some Macho Jerk, but it could be possibly he didn't start out that way, he only became a worse version of himself because he was deeply emotionally hurt.

and I know that not all fans will agree about that, and it being possible that only half of the fans will agree on that possibly being true.

Adam and Lucifer (and possibly Alastor) were hurt by Lilith.

and Stolas was in a loveless arranged marriage that he tried to make work, to give his daughter a normal life.

but it was never good enough for Stella, who had to rub it in his face that they hadn't divorced.

even if Stella was hurt, but did she truly love Stolas...?

well maybe in a Fanon AU timeline she would of, and been a more nicer version of herself, and in some alternate timelines she is Stolas's Girl-Buddy and Wife, and their wedding was more of a Lavender Wedding, and her being more of a Pife.

Pife being short for Pal-Wife, and Budband being short for Bud or Buddy Husband.

we wont know if what we assume about Lilith from Hazbin Hotel, will turn out to be true...but a part of myself and maybe others, hope we are wrong.

that she isn't as heartless as she seems, and maybe a part of her still loves Lucifer and Charlie...but the likely of her not fully caring about them, and it possibly been Roo who had to shapeshift and take her form because she fell in love with Lucifer and had formed a motherly love for Charlie, like you know Roo being the Maleficent and Charlie being the Aurora from The First and Second Maleficent Movies.

we don't know if Stella did truly love Stolas, or was just in it for the power and title, or like she only acts like it was only for the power and title and she hides the fact she did love him...

but he couldn't truly be in love with her, despite how he did tried to make the family and life they made together work.

how Stella treated him was likely one of the reasons Stolas gave into his feelings for Blitz, I mean possibly...

I do have a theory about Blitz I will talk about after this post of course.

anyway even if some think Adam doesn't deserve to be given another chance, and well maybe he does and maybe he doesn't.

but it doesn't change the fact about him possibly hiding some pretty bad emotional pain and him probably secretly hating himself.

Blitz likely hates himself too, as it was implied in a episode.

and it doesn't help that both family and friends made him feel that way.

Fizz and Blitz rekindling their friendship, is one step in the healing that Blitz needs.

Adam, Lucifer, Blitz and Stolas would need some type of healing, maybe we will see it in the future.

I mean not sure if Adam will come back as a Sinner, but if he did, that man needs a hug and sit down and watch Strange Magic, and maybe some Steven Universe. XD

okay him watching Strange Magic and Steven Universe, would be like Fanon...but hope some can get what I'm trying to imply.

he needs to watch some shows and movies that reflect his deep hurt feelings he bottles up.

and even if not all fans like Steven Universe Future, but I and some do, and well we can relate a bit with Steven, and possibly a few other characters that have been hurt and ended up with some depressing feelings.

lucky I'm not having one of those depressing feeling days now. :D

I'm still gonna view that Greg was a spoiled brat who didn't have the full story, and his parents (Steven's Grandparents) likely wanted him to learn self-defense to stay safe, and likely gave him curfews because their neighborhood use to be really unsafe, and he was possibly given meatloaf for a reason.

and it could be possible that Greg couldn't understand that his parents either one of them or both, may of not been able to handle very loud sounds coming to the music he listens to and had the volume up really high to the point where it became painful for them, and the reason why they didn't let him have any music was because he was irresponsible with the volume that was causing one or both of his parents pain, and they likely couldn't afford certain things that Greg wanted, and he viewed it as them just being unfair.

sometimes there are more sides to the story, and maybe Greg wouldn't of thought so terribly about his parents, if his parents had sit him down and talk to him and explained to him a bit better about why they made him take up wrestling and have a curfews and even chaperons, because it was for his own safety. and the reason why he couldn't have music, because he wouldn't listen to them about turning the volume down because the high volume he puts it on ends up hurting one or both his parents, causing them great pain.

and him getting meatloaf, could have to do with iron or something else...who knows, maybe it was to help with giving him the proper diet...?

by the way I tried the guacamole on the meatloaf, and strangely enough.......I ended up liking it. XD

guess that is another thing that makes me super weird.

if it does turn out that Steven Universe is coming back, maybe like on a Adult Swim, I can't wait to see it.

still gonna view Sans being the future self of Steven Quartz Universe.

it doesn't help the image I saw with Steven wearing a blue jacket, reminds me of that theory that Sans and Steven are possibly one in the same.

Adam, Lucifer and Stolas deserve better than how Stella and Lilith treated them...

and Blitz deserves better as well, and hopefully both he and Stolas do work things out, and we will have to wait and see if they will work things out, and Stolas will stop and realize that he had hurt Blitz, not just Fizz, Ozzie and Mayday...

but we will need to wait and see if that realization will happen in the future or not, but hopefully things will work out for Blitz & Stolas.

is it weird to view Adam as not just as Spinel, but also the Pink-Pearl and as for Lucifer, he is like Pearl of the Crystal Gems.

Lucifer might not see how badly Lilith had hurt Adam, so picture in some Fanon Timeline of Hazbin Hotel AU.

Charlie is the Steven, and those two are The Pearls, and they end up fusing.

it's fine that not everyone views Adam being like Spinel & Pink-Pearl, and Lucifer being like Pearl of The Crystal Gems.

I'm weird okay, and those thoughts and views are likely gonna be a part of my weirdness. XD

it be nice if my Dad didn't sleep with another woman when he was still married to my Mom, and there is that whole possibility he could of well did that, even before my Mom finally gave birth to me...

it does also suck to know that my older brother was cheated on as well, but even if they are no longer together...but maybe I wont go too deep into that right now.

we can only make some guesses and theories about what could happen in both Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, and it's fine if some theories end up getting debunked, plus the theories that do get debunked can still work in a Alternate Timeline way in the Fanon.

so hopefully Lilith being a terrible person, wont be true but we know that we have to wait and see if it is true or not.

like a part of you hopes that Lilith isn't a terrible person, who had purposely hurt Adam and Lucifer, and makes herself out to be a tragic heroine to her daughter who doesn't see her for the person she truly is and views her Mom as a wonderful and loving queen when really she possibly isn't.

Octavia is likely the same way, she possibly views her Mom as being the full victim, and she still loves both her parents.

but she can't see that there was always a problem between Stolas and Stella, that has been going on even before the affair.

but maybe Octavia will learn more about it in the future, maybe.

we can only hope that Octavia gets a even more better understanding of her Dad, and how bad it was for him being married to Stella, for all we know, Octavia just thought her parents had always been happy and in love but they hide their true feelings from her until the affair that Stolas and Blitz had, had made both Stolas and Stella a bit more open in front of Octavia on how bad their marriage truly was.

both Octavia and Charlie, were likely protect by both their Fathers: Stolas and Lucifer from a very cold and hurtful truth about their Mothers: Stella and Lilith...

but as much as Stolas and Lucifer love their daughters, they can't hide them from the truth forever.

just as much as Adam can't hide from his own hurt feelings forever.

if Lute, Blitz and Alastor had to sing a song together to Adam, Stolas and Lucifer...

it would be "Treat You Better" by Shawn Mendes.

some might get why that song, but it's okay not everyone agrees.

but Adam, Lucifer, Stolas and Blitz (from Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss) still deserve better and to be loved.

[melonteee]

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to start making video essays.. whats your process like...

My advice is to just go for it! The scariest part is uploading it imo, but if you have something you're DYING to talk about and your brain is swarming with thoughts about a topic or character or whatever, then write it all out!

My process is literally just being CONSUMED by the thought of something in (usually) One Piece, then going back on scenes to refresh my memory to make sure I'm not misremembering anything, and from there the thoughts just keep on building and I take notes of EVERY single thought I have regarding the character or topic.

After that I get all my notes together and write out a script, but I think the most important part (for me at least) is to put some flare in the script! Write the script as if you're writing a story, or writing a love letter to what you're talking about. After all a YouTube video essay isn't a university one, you don't NEED to be professional or be cut and dry with it, you can gush all you want WHILE including the facts of the matter! It's why I only ever make videos on things I love now, because the process of writing about what you LOVE makes the words fall right out of you. Don't be afraid to get everything out in a heap of word vomit, then go back and restructure things or edit it to make everything flow well.

The way I (try) to write my scripts is the way one would write a story, with a beginning, a middle, a climax, and an end. I don't think of it as an essay structure which is why I think some people struggle since, while essay writing can be fun, it can definitely just be a drag to get through at times. I try to always include the most emotional parts, and the biggest moments, near the end - as to have built up from everything we've seen and show the outcome of everything we've gone through with the character or topic. And...well, it seems to be working so far!

I'm definitely no professional regarding all of this, but I hope this has helped anyways! Just don't be afraid to actually start on what you want to make, anon!

[topaztimes]

hello! I have finished re-reading Scrimshaw from the beginning. here are my thoughts! some of it is probably not very coherent. sorry about that. im not gonna edit it or anything this all just came from my brain as i was reading. also all of the questions are rhetorical. DO NOT feel like you have to answer them. this is just a stream of consciousness. im sure all will be revealed in later chapters anyway!!

Chapter 1

"You don’t work like that anymore." - voice of the dragon? Will absorbed his dragon due to trauma, if I'm understanding correctly. So the dragon still has a separate consciousness and set of memories? Or Will's soul has been replaced with the dragon's? Dragons' eyes can adjust to darkness! That's cool.

"your creations" - the moon created dragons. All of them? Or just some?

Winston had a collar at some point. Who put the collar on him? If the scales are chipped and scratched then the collar was most likely made of metal. Chains maybe? How did he come into Will's possession?

The dragonets are dragons who absorbed their humans. Can they remember their human selves? Do they still have their human intelligence? It would seem not.

The dragon is Hannibal, right? The stag antlers would seem to suggest as much. But he can't talk in dragon form and seemingly can't remember being a dragon when he is back in human form.

"He felt a flicking sensation by his ear, yelped, and clapped his hand to it." - this feels important. Can't put my finger on what it is yet. I'm guessing that wasn't Winston or Hannidragon? Abigail's dragon maybe? Since it is small. Idk man. More data needed.

Will talking to himself - seemingly two consciousnesses? Is this his human soul and dragon soul talking or just talking to himself? Could be either I suppose.

Chapter 4

How small actually IS Ellie? Are we talking chihuahua size or actual anemone size or what?

OMG I JUST REALISED WILL WANTED TO SEE AN INSECT DRAGON AND ABIGAILS IS A BUTTERFLY THATS SO CUTE

"He quietly mourned the pages of his notebook that he’d have to make edits to." - Will has never encountered anyone without a dragon before, huh. But. He doesnt have a dragon. Right? So why would he assume that No One Else has the same thing. Unless. ???? Will didnt HAVE a dragon and absorbed it, he IS a dragon. Wait wait wait he is a dragon for a Thing??? Like the moon??? And is in human form???? What's Will's Thing??? Is it fish. Its fish isnt it. /hj

Ok but if Will IS a dragon, like Luna, then why does he not know that people not having dragons is a thing. Because Luna knew, right? And she said it like it was a thing that happens reasonably frequently. Unless im misremembering.

Chapter 6

"He saw a man smile in his rearview mirror a couple of times, and impressed himself with how ready he was to accept that the image was himself." - more evidence that Will is a Thing Dragon. I'm on this train now choo choo motherfucker im onto you

“He’s a dragon too,” - hmmmmmmmm. And Will immediately says "What happened to him?" SO HE DOES KNOW. THAT PEOPLE CAN ABSORB DRAGONS. SO WHAT WAS HE GONNA CHANGE IN THE NOTEBOOK. IM SO CONFUSED. AM I MISSING SOMETHING im being stupid arent i. Probably

Chapter 10

Dragon in the woods. Does this dragon belong to someone or is this a Thing dragon? Mischa's dragon?

She's yelling at the ground. Is the ground sentient? Is there an Earth Dragon? Probably.

Shimmerscales says trans rights

So. Mischa had a male dragon. That Hannibal absorbed? And he was a girl at the time so now he's trans. Ok. So the dragon soul replaces the human soul when you absorb it? Or they combine? God what are the fucking mechanics of this im so. I can get it i think i just need to process lmao

So humans also count as Things. A dragon forms for every human born. So, is there a dragon for every single tree, or for the concept of trees as a whole? That's uh. That's a lot of dragons. Do you know how many beetles there are? If there's a dragon for every single beetle. Im overthinking again arent i

The knowledge that you have Read and Comprehended Scrimshaw is actually insane to me. You are absolutely wonderful. I hope to return the favour someday but I need to survive GCSEs first *sobbing emojis

Uh uh!!!! I'll answer the questions that I don't think I'll get around to answering naturally any time soon!! I'm giggling and kicking my feet so much rn you actually have no idea omg

-Winston's collar was there for the same reason dog Winston's was -- he was forgotten about and broke away. Technically this WILL be explained soon but I also think you deserve to know now seeing as you DID draw him (I treasure that drawing so much...) -The flicking is the moon! I didn't explain that very well lmfao -- it happens after he badmouths her but I did NOT elaborate enough. However, the fact that she CAN flick him without being physically present is important... greeheehee -Ellie's like... slightly smaller than a chihuahua. I did a little diagram a while back that I'll put in a reblog when I have my phone lmfao -Abigail being an insect was completely unintentional 💀I wish I was smart enough to think of that intentionally LMFAOO (I KNEW there was a reason why I picked it. I didn't even realise) -Part of Will's notebook is actually the next chapter (is that a spoiler?) so all you have to know for him will be revealed kuahahahah. You are NOT stupid for not knowing because I didn't really elaborate, like. At all. So there's genuinely no way you could have knew LMAO (thank goodness for second, third, fifteenth drafts) -Luna was being silly when she explained how Hannibal's absorption worked so he's going to be figuring out the actual story himself. Basically, take everything she said with a pinch of salt -- like Hannibal is actually -(Also yes. Defo an Earth-dragon. I mean... there's a moon-dragon! But idk if she was thinking of that or if she just wanted to yell at something lolll) -THERE IS A DRAGON FOR EVERY SINGLE BEETLE!!! The finer point is: -Every species is a Thing -Every individual in that species is a Thing So, there's a tree-dragon... and there's also a dragon for every tree. Thing is, dragons change in size based on the Thing's thoughts, so since rocks and things like that don't think at all, their dragons are really small. They do hold little dragon teaparties together though. Also, OTHER people's thoughts can increase the size of a dragon, too! Hence why the moon was a stupid rock, but eons of worship turned her into a big, powerful, shapeshifting dragon.

Everybody in the fic gives you kisses as thanks

[violivs]

NMTDaily: BIRDS

- There he is, folks. My favorite fictional character ever. In his first solo episode. I cannot be held responsible for the level of fangirling that must now commence.

- I mean, I was a lonely teenage girl watching this show in 2014, and he was a cute, nerdy, dark-haired guy with an accent. It was a foregone conclusion, shallow though it might sound. There was no way I was watching this show and not loving Benedick. Including when he’s being cringy and over the top. And then we peel back the layers and see that “having a new friend every week” just means Ben is ALSO desperately lonely and self-conscious? I was toast. It was so over for me, from day one.

- I love that his header image is just a piece of paper with The Ben Show written in messy Sharpie and he’s still acting like he’s presenting the most exciting show ever. The confidence! His icon image being him kissing his reflection and the username “benaddicktion” are also strokes of genius. The cocky, overconfident characterization is so strong just based on those choices. Truly a teenage version of the character from the play.

- We must note the heinous laser cat t-shirt and how Ben is matching Beatrice with her Grumpy Cat t-shirt in recent videos. Love it. Another parallel- they both have extensive collections of nerdy and random t-shirts. AND they’re both cat people!

- Set dressing: Ben has a horse lamp for some reason, which reminds me of “Hero, it’s Darcy on a horse!” Beatrice, meet your very own personal Darcy. He’s just, you know, a lot less shy and buttoned-up than actual Darcy.

- He also has several sports trophies on his desk there, I like that he’s accomplished. Proud of you Ben! A good soldier becomes a good football player, modern adaptation choices! (I can practically hear Beatrice snickering about them just being participation trophies though lol)

- The trophies do remind me of another question: why does Ben never try out for sports at university in Lolilo? He can go intramural just for fun, he doesn’t have to be on a scholarship or trying to go pro. Maybe anxiety??? Maybe he just wasn’t feeling it anymore, or maybe he did try and didn’t make whatever team? *adds to social anxiety headcanon evidence list*

- I always wanted to know what book was on Ben’s bed, and someone in the comments has come through for me! It’s Children of Huron by Tolkien even though that cover art looks like it should be literary historical fiction about a tragic married couple who are lighthouse keepers. Which is also a valid literary genre!

- He also has Game of Thrones books, another connection to Beatrice and her interests. You know they must argue about whether the books or show are better at least once offscreen.

- He also has a little rubber duck dressed like Shakespeare (thank you again comment section for your eagle eyes), which has catapulted me back in time to one of the NMTD fandom’s finest early crack!posts: the Beneduck. Born of an unholy typo made by yours truly these many years ago. (I only made the typo, though, not the edit. Credits for that at the link lol. Miss you both, hope you’re well.❤️ ) You’re welcome. 😂

- “A story about birds”- this reminds me, Ben doesn’t seem as upset about all the bird killings as someone who loves birds would be, so does that mean him loving birds wasn’t set in stone yet? I sometimes wonder if I’m misremembering Ben liking birds because Jake likes birds. But the flamingos are canon so I guess it is canon.

- “easily the best driver in Messina High School, no matter what Beatrice says” Oh, Ben is absolutely only making a video about this topic because he and Bea had another argument about this recently. He’d be like, “I’m an excellent driver” and she’d say, “oh yeah, how many living things have you killed” and that’s the true “how many hath he killed in these wars” moment!

- This video is, of course, intentionally, very cringe. But Ben is so damn good at making it likable. Honest props to Jake, the comments in this video are all loving Ben already because he makes him so likable and fun to watch make a fool of himself.

- Not even 45 seconds into Ben’s first video and he’s already mentioned Beatrice TWICE. Speaking of it’s so over- he was literally always obsessed with her. It’s adorable.

- “obviously he’s quite nervous- but it’s all good! He knows he can do this ‘cause he’s great.” Oh my GOD there it is! There it all is! His entire character. Ben gets so nervous- anxious- and he gets through life by ignoring that feeling and having a big head. Because if he keeps telling himself he’s wonderful and perfect and confident, then he can make himself believe that’s true long enough to get through the scary thing. I love him.

- The fact that Ben definitely scripted this and hunted down all these props ahead of time though. The water gun for the rainstorm! It’s so cute and earnest of him. It reminds me a little of Lizzie Bennet-style costume theater, but it’s puppet theater instead. Good thing, too, because some of these stories sound like they were extremely visceral and gory in real life 😬

- “Bird death rua” Ben knowing a little Te Reo Māori reminds me of another backstory question: how long has Ben lived in A/NZ at this point? He’s lived in Auckland since he was 13, because that’s when he met Peter/Pedro, the year leading up to the summer he was 14 and met Bea. But did he live in another part of A/NZ before that for a while? Or did he come from the UK at 13? I just feel like the timeline is important for the “has a new best friend every week” thing, and actually it could make sense if they lived in the UK for his early years (he didn’t know the reference to an A/NZ little kids’ tv show the flatmates made in Lolilo because he was too old when he moved there to have ever seen it), but then also maybe bounced around different parts of A/NZ for a while before settling in Auckland- he was always the New Kid and that’s why he comes on so strong in friendships and never believes they’ll last. But it’s also very cute if Peter and Beatrice are his actual first friends he makes in A/NZ right after moving countries. I don’t know.

- Extremely funny to me that Ben is a Taylor Swift fan since the moment we meet him. The artist who is stereotyped for only writing about Ben’s supposed least favorite thing, romantic relationships. It’s not even like he gets into her music while he’s coming to terms with his feelings for Bea, no, he’s already singing I Knew You Were Trouble back when he says he hates relationships and romance. Actually, goddamn, that’s a good song choice for him right now, when he sees Bea as the ex-best friend who broke his heart. She’s the one he knew was trouble when she walked in! She’s the one who puts him down!

- Now I am admittedly not a pet person, but it seems unusual for a teenager to be taking the cat to the vet by himself. He doesn’t hold the pet insurance policy, right? So this is the first moment that shows Ben is actually really independent and mature on some levels (foreshadowing), and that his parents are very hands-off. That’s partly because of the “parents must be absent so the kid can have a plotline fully unencumbered by rules and adult interference” trope. But I also always interpreted Ben’s parents as loving but emotionally neglectful. And that also contributes to his anxiety, loneliness, and wild self-esteem fluctuations. (It suddenly occurs to me that this interpretation of it being unusual for a teen to be able to take a cat to the vet by himself might be colored by the fact that I had severe social anxiety as a teen, so I literally could not have gone up to a person working a desk and asked for what I needed in most contexts. If it’s normal for a teen to take a cat to the vet alone, then never mind. But I still hold these headcanons.)

- He dedicated the video to Hero and Bea! Oh he was definitely so nervous and hyperaware that Bea was on the sidelines that whole game and he doesn’t know why it genuinely made him happy that she was there. He’s being sarcastic here, but still! Cute.

- As mentioned in one of my other NMTDaily posts, Ursula helped edit this video and Ben thanks her in the description, and I love that for them. Ursula is probably relieved that Bea hates the video too much to bother reading the description, or she would be mad at Ursula for being friends with him.

- I still can’t watch this video without thinking of the song “Live in Living Color” from the musical Catch Me If You Can. Really, it’s literally the perfect MT song to represent this video. I should find and reblog my old NMTD as a musical fanmix just for fun.

- You see? A big long analytical post about a video in which my cringy dorkass boy pretends to gnaw a bird-shaped oven mitt to death. I can’t even help myself.

- I am so behind on these but i promise I’ll catch up!

💖🦩🥭

[mariesstudying]

Edit because of some replies I got: I deleted a paragraph about Eloise's reaction to the Marina and Colin thing because I had misremembered and was wrong. Also added an anti-eloise tag because even though I'm not anti-Eloise, the post isn't pro-eloise

I have thoughts about Eloise Bridgerton and I'm dumping them in this post. Before I start dumping I do want to say that in no way am I some Penelope stan who thinks she is perfect in every way and my issues with Eloise are critiques of her character that I’m sure will be fixed once there is more focus on her storyline.

I have 2 problems with Eloise: 1) the fact that she seems to be unable to accept or understand her privilege; and 2) that she can't seem to understand other people's pov's.

Eloise can't seem to comprehend or understand her own privilege. Now I know that we haven't reached her season yet meaning her character development has yet to come but it's so infuriating and irritating to watch Eloise because she is so privileged but can't seem to acknowledge or be grateful for it. I also fully acknowledge that because it's the Regency era, we can't expect intersectional feminism but I'm still annoyed lol. We see her go to these rallies and get Theo entangled in her shit without seeming to be able to understand that whilst what she is doing won't really affect her (just fulfil her curiosity), Theo (who needs a job because he isn't rich) may lose his job. She can't seem to understand that whilst she can get away with not being married, someone like Penelope can't. The Bridgerton's are super rich and that means Eloise could live an unmarried life if she wants to but for Kate or Penelope, financial security in London means marriage. She may think she is above all of the marriage market stuff but for many of the other women in it, it is their way of ensuring they (and their parents and future children) live a safe, comfortable life without the fear of being homeless or without money. I also have a very strong feeling that if these political rallies and events led to the financial and social downfall of her family, she would not be as "radical" as she is. Whilst (like I said), intersectional feminism can't be expected from the Regency period, I feel like these are privileges that can be acknowledged.

She also seems so stuck in her own worldview. I remember all the stuff she said to Daphne in season 1, acting as if Daphne shouldn't be wanting to get married, without understanding why Daphne would want or need to marry and marry well. When she is (rightfully) mad at Penelope for writing about her and Theo in LW, she also doesn't seem to realise that the scandal hadn't really affected her family much at all and also that it's not like someone else hadn't seen her see Theo. Even if Penelope never wrote about it in LW, it still would have gotten out, like the Queen knew for fucks sake. She always gives me the vibe of "if you don't understand or agree with my worldview, then you are what is wrong with society" without bothering to try and understand other people's views, just shoving them off as "wrong". She also doesn't seem to understand that Bridgerton's status is almost unbreakable, relatively little effort is needed for them to maintain their status in society and scandal doesn't affect them at all or if it does, it doesn't affect them for long. For others, especially the Featheringtons, don't have the same privilege. 1 wrong move and they lose everything, they are ridiculed and looked down upon by a lot of society.

LMK if I should do more Bridgerton posts (if I do, I won't do the books because icba with anything other then the show lol)

[thessalian]

Thess vs Older Titles

So here we have one of the big problems with this “Always Online” bullshit.

Some games I own, I own in two places. Because Reasons, mostly, I think. One of them is Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. And one of the things about that one is that all the DLC you get with specific editions can only be accessed when you’re logged into your EA account.

Amalur’s one of the ones I reinstalled on Steam, but apparently it has a tendency to bork out before it even hits the title screen on Steam. Does it on the EA app too, but ironically, that’s easier to deal with - you just run the Repair function and you’re fine. (Or rather, it was; today that fix is not working.)

Then I ran into the other problem of “Okay, it won’t log me into my EA account”.

First thought was “Did I misremember my password?” It’s possible; there’s a lot of autofill on passwords nowadays. So I changed my EA password and ... still no.

Did some Googling. Turns out that in May this year, EA shut down the server that services Amalur. Which means the base game is playable, but I don’t know whether we still get the DLC. I mean, if we have to be logged in for it, I don’t see how we can.

So there it is - I know there are other examples of this, but this is supposed to be a full-on single-player game with no actual need to be linked to Being Online, but they did it to validate DLC, and now they can’t validate DLC anymore because the servers shut down. So everyone who’s starting a new game at this stage loses their DLC, which includes entire zones, I might add, as well as some gear I really liked. Fine, it’s an eleven-year-old game, but ... people play those. *gestures emphatically at Dragon Age*

(I’d be gesturing emphatically at Mass Effect too but the LE kind of made that superfluous.)

Not that it matters when the damn game really does not like Win10 and now I can’t get it to load no matter what I do. I guess I’ll just have to find something else to play. I struggle to decide which game to play, and get my wheel spoked at the outset with tech incompatibility and the problems inherent in lack of physical ownership of product. I mean, I’m trying really hard not to be “Old Man Yells At Cloud” here, but I look at my computer, which didn’t come with a disc drive because that was apparently a more expensive option somehow, and I look at this shit, and I go, “...Honestly, doesn’t anyone miss games where you just owned the disc and you played?” I can see console players being smug but given the online store and subscription services run by the biggies, we’re not far from losing disc drives on consoles either.

There’s a lot I could say about how precarious an existence it is these days. We own less and less, and there’s a security in ownership. There’s knowing that no one can take this away from you on a whim. But most people can’t afford to actually own a home, so they’re beholden to landlords who could play silly buggers with the terms of the lease at more or less any time. Job security doesn’t exist for most people, particularly given “at-will employment”. And as for things like entertainment...

Side bar: If Netflix wasn’t being such a stingy bitch about cancelling programmes before they’re due residuals, I’d probably be more or less okay with the renting of that particular service because I remember a time before all this when we couldn’t afford a VCR or cable TV so we were at the mercy of the networks a lot. And even with cable, it was just more channels where someone else controlled your programming entirely. They do have to consolidate server space somewhere - I just wish they’d do it more with older movies instead of original programming, and that it really was space consolidation instead of screwing the writers and actors and so on out of hard-earned residuals.

For things like video games, though? I mean, come on. How many of us are sitting on games we’ll play eventually but haven’t got around to yet? It’s absolute shit when we do get around to those, only to find out that no, apparently the publisher decided that it’s not profitable for them to run the game that we specifically paid for anymore. It’s one thing when it’s a MMO; it’s another when it’s a single-player game that didn’t have to be online that you paid full price for but suddenly can’t play because the publisher said so. I can live with the technology no longer being compatible because age - it annoys me, but I get it. But they didn’t have to make it need to be online. Yeah, I know, digital rights management, anti-piracy action, blah; it never works anyway and I have a whole other rant about piracy that I don’t really want to go into right now. I just want to be able to own what I bought.

Right. I’ll stop bitching and go find something else to play.

[fearowkenya]

Winds of Change

Chapter 4: Stemming the Tide

It’s hard to hold onto hope when panic and fear take root and start to spread, climbing the notches of his spine and weaving back and forth between his ribs. But Ryo knows now, that hope and fear can both exist at once—he’s seen it for himself.

The group witnesses something that looks a lot like a miracle, but it's still not enough to chase away everybody's fears. Ryo and Shuuji each find themselves with separate demons to battle as they resist the pull of despair.

ao3 link in source, extended end-of-chapter author's note below!

editing this chapter took WAY longer than usual. I do two proofreads per chapter before i post, and if i edit more than a couple of sentences at any point, i start the entire proofread over. needless to say, i did a LOT of editing and rereading before finally making it to my posting checklist. ultimately though im pretty happy with it. mostly im just so glad to have finally posted the scene that was jokingly titled "labramon the egg wizard" so i could talk about how much I enjoy the title "labramon the egg wizard". jokes that are for me

anyway, "labramon the egg wizard" is one of the first parts of this fic that i wrote! there's a skeletal outline of the events in that section in my replay notes, though a lot about that scene has changed since then. it was always going to be labramon who was gonna help out though! why labramon..? … … well she's a dog , and it made me go 'heheh' to think of her doing pointer behaviors. no other reason (:

i know we get renamon egg in moral, but i don't actually remember much of what that looked like because it lasted like 2 seconds. thats absolutely NOT what i wanted for shuuji - i wanted it to be a scene that completely bodies him, where hes got this unexpected second chance hovering just beyond his reach, but he has to confront exactly what he's done in order to get it. i dont remember a lot of 02, but that one episode where ken goes looking for wormmons egg has this very specific vibe where its like, "here's some hope for you when youre at your lowest but never forget that you seriously fucked it up". it was brutal but beautiful and then i cried a bunch i think. idk it was a long time ago. maybe im completely misremembering that scene, who can say. thats how it lives in my memories tho

in any case, i definitely wanted it to be from ryo's perspective for the same reason that the aftermath of wendimon was from his pov. he's so much more observant than shuuji, who would not take notice of what the others are doing and saying while he's in the middle of getting pingponged between hope and gut-wrenching remorse.

the middle section, titled in the draft as "mcfreakin losin it", was a lot of fun too! the Plan(tm) at the beginning was something i edited in pretty late in proofreading. having an itemized list like that might feel more like a "shuuji thing" than a "ryo thing", but i think ryo's active effort to take responsibility and try to help kunemon with what hes stressed about would lend to him trying to come up with something a little more concrete. unfortunately for ryo, he has no backup plan for when the first one is turned upside down, and we all know what happens when something catches him off guard lmao. it was actually really interesting to write ryo in a position where he's witnessing more or less what he himself is like when he shuts down. being the one who has to snap shuuji out of this state has ryo realizing that this is what takuma and kunemon have to deal with when he's the one freaking out. i think that's kinda fun.

the last section has what feels to me like the most editing. it really wasn't a section that i spent a lot of time fiddling with until now because the bulk of it was quoting or paraphrasing existing dialogue from the start of part 6 for context, then diverging into what that scene looks like in a world where lopmon isn't around to be unable to explain what happened. like i said on ao3, as i was reading over the canon dialogue in truthful for reference, i realized i really just…didn't like it much. the argument escalates and de-escalates several times but never to a degree that feels all that extreme, and ends up feeling like it's just dragging out for no reason. people make their points at times that feel WEIRD, particularly ryo. lemme see if i can explain this.

so ryo doesnt say this til the latter half of this argument, and i HATED THAT because it's like… after everything he's been through with kunemon, it doesn't feel right that he's having those doubts. but i thought about it and i actually think it makes sense for him to have a momentary lapse where he slips back into old habits - letting fear take over and pushing away anything and anyone that has even the slightest chance of hurting him. he spent a LOT of time in that mindset, and even though he's working on reversing it, it's not gonna happen in a day. that said… the placement of ryo's doubts in the canon dialogue still feels super weird. i think it makes a lot more sense for him to panic at the very beginning of this argument, and then calm down as he remembers how solid his bond with kunemon is before sticking up for the digimon a little more aggressively. it just feels so passive in-canon when i think he would have taken a much more active role in defending falcomon and the others once 1) he remembers the context surrounding what happened in the waterway, and 2) he's reminded of how kunemon has helped him change.

i know some of the weird pacing of this dialogue is because the player needs to have input at some point, but i think takuma could've been much more powerless during this argument - the game has no problem taking away agency, since saving ryo is the only thing that will save shuuji, no matter what the player does. maybe im nitpicking, idk.

regardless, minoru's dialogue makes the most sense, but i still think it could have been condensed into a much sharper and more sudden escalation. it keeps being like "(minoru voice) IM MAD IM MAD" "(takuma voice) chill" "(minoru voice) oops sorry. … … … IM MAD IM MAD IM MAD" "(takuma voice) calm down" "(minoru voice) oops. … … … IM MAD IM MAD" etc etc etc. it just made the argument feel weak and drawn-out instead of intense and explosive.

i did keep some of it though! i thought that minoru's paranoia and sudden fear of trusting his partner was pretty compelling, which is why i kept those doubts in and quoted the lines about him wanting falcomon to prove his loyalty.

i chose those lines specifically because they say a LOT about minoru once you connect this argument with what i think is the root of his insecurities - his parents' divorce.

it's funny because as far as im aware, The Divorce doesn't even come up unless you choose an INCORRECT ANSWER in an OPTIONAL affinity event with minoru. im not 100% sure thats the only mention though! im currently at pt8 of my replay where the goal is to see every bit of truthful route dialogue possible. if it comes up in other routes, i managed to miss it lmao. anyway, because of that, for the longest time i thought The Divorce was just a popular headcanon, and didn't actually see that dialogue until recently. but as soon as i did i started looking at the stuff he does and says through the lens of somebody who was affected extremely poorly by his parents divorce, and it contextualized A LOT for me. suddenly the way he reacts in pt 6 makes so much sense, because imo falcomon turning around and killing him isn't his only concern: he's also terrified that he was vulnerable in front of someone who doesn't actually care.

pre-game minoru lacks a support system, and is afraid to rely on a new one. im not going to go on about it for too long because we'd be here all day, but im pretty sure that his parents divorce was MESSY, and he witnessed all of it. that same event where he mentions to takuma that his parents are divorced is also when he says that he doesn't think his mom has noticed that he's missing, even though at this point the kids believe that they've been gone for several days. he doesn't see his mother as support because she's too busy working, and since he doesn't even know where his father currently lives, clearly he doesnt get much if any support from his dad. the difficulty minoru has in shedding the goofy exterior and being genuine and vulnerable in front of people makes me think that he never found a support system to replace the one that he watched crumble in realtime when his parents split.

prior to part 6, we can assume that minoru started to see falcomon as someone that he could allow to see his insecurities. i also believe that minoru understood that shuuji and lopmon's relationship was supposed to look a lot like his and falcomon's, or like anybody else and their partner's. minoru could see lopmon trying to be supportive, so the dysfunction only seemed like it was on shuuji's end. so when lopmon flies off the handle and tries to murder shuuji, one of the things that minoru gets from it is that, no, actually, the trust and support that the digimon have for their partners is NOT unconditional. i think that watching this happen looks exactly like how it felt when the support system he'd had in his parents completely fell apart, except the lopmon situation comes with a fun extra "I'm going to kill you" sort of vibe that tells minoru that his relationship with falcomon is just not safe.

or worse, maybe that support system was never real in the first place. what if there was something darker beneath the surface that he just couldn't see?

anyway.

now, as dracmon says, all we gotta do is hurry up and wait. well. you do. i dont, im gonna be editing chapter 5 til the cows come home. im getting the distinct impression that it's gonna require even more reworking than this chapter did.

but that's neither here nor there - id love to hear your Gamer Theories about what im cooking up. there are a few things that are still going unaddressed after four chapters, and i wonder how much of it can be puzzled out based on what i've said so far. obviously im not able to see the story from a reader's perspective, so im not really able to gauge if the stuff that's being foreshadowed or otherwise implied is starting to become clearer. so please consider leaving a comment with what you think, or your favorite part or anything else that stood out to you! I'd much appreciate it. thank you for reading, and see you… mm… nnnnext…week…? ideally.

[whetstonefires]

for the... somthing similar to the "fuck, marry, kill" game, but with different longer anwsers I don't remember now, from one of the posts you rb. Anyways, what about: yu ziyuan, wen chao, xue yang

get them randomly assigned as your lab partner for a whole semester, get trapped with them on a broken elevator for ten hours, and they’re your employee trainer for your new job at McDonalds

so before i went and checked, i had misremembered this game mashed up with a different one, and thought the first option was share a cake, which made this easy. because obviously i would let xue yang have the cake and flee while he was distracted by his sweet tooth, and then the other two were obvious because madam yu isn't going to randomly assault me.

this one's harder, because there's no 'run away immediately' option.

xue yang still gets to be the controlling entity, because he does random murders and not dying is priority one.

so he's going to train me at mcdonalds, because if he's bothering to hold down a job at mcdonalds long enough to be in a position to train me he's clearly got some goals here that may conflict with on-site murder. having authority over me also gives him a non-murder route to torment and get entertainment out of me that way, and also this one doesn't say i can't quit my job if he freaks me out enough.

i have decent odds of not being there or not being noticed when he beheads the franchise owner and sets the mcdonalds on fire or whatever.

then i'm still going to be in the elevator with madam yu, because she won't make it fun but i should get out without any kind of physical damage. she may even be reasonably polite; there's nothing about me that's inherently offensive to her. unless madam yu elevator-riding edition is racist against white people or something. which can't be wholly ruled out, given her everything.

(....i'm assuming she knows what an elevator is and we can communicate, so i don't get mistaken for some sort of disfigured demon creature responsible for imprisoning her in this steel chamber or something, because after all the other two scenarios presuppose the characters are reasonably well-integrated into the modern world in places i have reason to be. i still have the best odds with her even if this is a sudden isekai thing, though, since she is both sane and intelligent.)

leaving me stuck with wen chao for a lab partner. there are a lot of ways for this to go badly, especially if i don't go into this already knowing what he's like and that he is absolutely likely to have his father get me expelled if i don't put up with sexual harassment.

but it's a reasonably structured setting, where we're officially on the same level as students, so hopefully he'll just drag down my grade, make lab section unpleasant, and expect me to do all the work.