#this might be my hear me out character

[royalarchivist]

[A sad violin song plays over an image of a sad hamster]

Pac: This doesn't have anything to do with me – I wear a blue sweatshirt, you're crazy, this mouse doesn't even have a sweatshirt, this hamster! [Reading chat] Am I a depressed hamster?

[ Transcript continued ↓ ]*

–

Pac: Actually– that's fine! I embrace that idea – of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy? [He hits his desk, then starts counting off people on his fingers] Fit is gone, Richarlyson is gone, Ramon is gone, Bagi and Empanada who were always there when we were there are also gone, I haven't seen them! It's just me and Tubbo, and sometimes Philza shows up.

Pac: I lost Chume Labs, I lost the Favela, I lost Murder Mystery, I lost Ilha Chume Labs, it's crazy! Look at how much I've lost, and I've gained nothing! Of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy?! How am I supposed to be happy?!

Pac: [Reading chat] "You have us Pac," that's true, thank you. No, that's true, sorry.

* NOTE: Please note that this is an incomplete transcript, as I was primarily relying on Aypierre's translation mod at the time and if I am not confident of the translation, I do not include it. As always, please feel free to add on translations or message me corrections.

[nats-uvi]

Angst time :D👍

You can read my rambling about her in the tags

[marshmallowgoop]

I combined footage from my Detektiv Conan Blu-ray with audio from my Case Closed FUNimation DVD and made an HD English dub clip compilation for Episodes 57-58, "The Holmes Freak Murder Case."

[sealbuffed]

post covid south park game where everyone still calls you the new kid but you're a grown ass adult who has lived there for thirty years

[bigkickguy]

scrapnik island is soo good !!! I really want mecha and silver to be farming buddies now!! :,)

[non-un-topo]

I've started to write little medieval jingles in my head while trying to fall asleep, so do with that information what you will

[moeblob]

Deacon loves two things: Ymber and digging himself a grave.

Fulj hates one thing: Deacon.

[emblazons]

"I think it would be easier if we were a team."

Day Five of @bylerweek2023 - Secret Identities aka - the Modern!Byler + DnD AU no one asked for

The details for their character sheets came from here + here, though only Mike's is confirmed secondary media. The details + story behind these versions of byler under the cut!

The Secret

The Cleric (Will) & The Paladin (Mike) have been playing digital campaigns together for nearly five years now, after Mike‘s then-newfound investment in Critical Role inspired him to hunt for an online DnD game to play for himself.

Inseparable on the pixelated battlefield, their half a decade of campaigning together has slowly turned them into the best of (digital) friends, as they’ve shared their deepest secrets in the anonymous-but-meaningful way you can only online. From Will admitting that his main concern even outside being ridiculed for his sexuality is healing from childhood PTSD to Mike admitting that his picture-perfect family hates his interests and would never accept that he likes guys, both of them have learned to defer to each other in and out of campaigns—they have grown deeply fond of each other through their characters’ adventures…and chats that mean more to both of them than they would dare admit aloud.

Even so, all the Cleric and the Paladin really know about each other on a practical level is that they’re both 20 this year, are both in college now, and that they both come from the Midwest—though they do hope to meet one day if it ever makes sense.

There really is nothing like a friend who gets to see the sides of you you’re not allowed to show in any other space—and neither of them wants to live their entire lives without someone who treats them as well as their longtime D&D companion.

The Identities

Mike Wheeler and Will Byers have been in each other’s orbit since elementary school in Hawkins, though Will’s been pretty distant about keeping tabs on Mike since he dated (and subsequently broke up) with his sister El during freshman year. Mike always enjoyed the time he spent with Will and could tell that Will felt the same, though Mike knew from the second he broke up with El that Will’s love for his family was going to take precedence over their mutual interest in the same (nerdy) things—the same way it did for his sister Nancy when she broke up with Will’s brother, Jonathan, when they went to college.

It’s been years since that happened now, though—and the last time Mike spoke to Will was when they gave each other a friendly hug goodbye the day of high school graduation. Now well into his 3rd year of college, Mike only knows that Will goes to IU just like he does…but on a campus of over 30,000 people and as an English major to Will’s Visual Arts, it’s not like they see each other.

Even so, time away from his exacting family has made Mike more comfortable, and he has slowly realized that it’s time to branch out of his solely hypothetical “rebellious” spaces and into meeting real people who share his interests—to fully embrace is love of DnD in real life to learn the fine art of figurine painting, soak up all the wisdom to be found in classic printed dungeon master guides, and experience the ruckus of a well-strategized in-person campaign. That’s why, on one rainy Friday night in March, he wanders into the Hellfire Club—the on-campus DnD group he’s heard of but never been brave enough to join.

Given his knowledge of Will from all those years ago, seeing the guy he grew up with sitting next to him for Eddie Munson’s grungy basement campaign wasn’t all that much of a surprise, actually. What was a surprise was what happened when he looked down at the table in front of the boy next to him….only to see “Will the Wise” at the top of Will Byers character sheet, plain as day.

tl;dr - you're 20, and your long-time online crush bestie who knows all your secrets turns out to be the brother of the girl you dated for five seconds at 14. Chaos ensues.

[aulerean]

listen to Time With You by Valley Palace 🔫

[remyfire]

Today's gleefully sadistic brainrot is the realization that Hawkeye was not the first person to call BJ Beej, and how incredibly annoyed he must've been to hear Leo use Hawkeye's Special Boy Nickname that now Hawk knows has never completely belonged to him.

[meeks-just-wants-to-scroll]

The gist is this:

Mitch (our Gordon-inspired protag of the story) is a 25-ish guy who hasn’t seen his friends and hasn’t been doing well for a WHILE. Mitch was followed home by an entity and is paranoid he’ll die if he leaves his apartment. He and his three friends (Mill, Tex, and Laís) decide to play a video game and chat to take their mind off of it and reconnect.

They play a Half-Life 1 inspired game entitled “Epicenter” and pick characters from the 4 unique classes they offer (soldier, security officer, CIA agent, or scientist). It is all dandy until the game starts glitching. Instead of a resonance cascade inside the game’s plot, it’s more like the entity that followed Mitch home caused a resonance cascade to the game as a whole and utterly fucks it up! Also, Mitch and his friends are transported into the game. They’re all stuck in the game with mild amnesia and tasked with getting to the end. A 5th player appears to be there too… The cast fill out the class roles they picked at the start, which forces the cast into a tense alliance as they stick together through the science facility. Through near-death experiences and one on one moments, the friends slowly piece together what happened to them and how they knew each other before shit hit the fan. They also piece together that the 5th player, Baxter, isn’t one of them… 👻 ohhh scary

The story is a WIP and I don’t intend it to be anything fancy. I just like Half-Life and I can appreciate the foundations of HLVRAI. I wanted this story to be something for me to chew on while I’m fixated on HL.

[transmasccum]

Thinking about how I'd literally do anything he asked if a guy in a nice suit made me kneel in front of him in my own ratty boy clothes and wait for him to finish his cigarette while I'm just drooling waiting for him to finally take his cock out so I can blow him.

[jichanxo]

was at my friend's karaoke party and was amusing myself by going "ahhh this is kuwagami" at as many songs as possible, and then we get to one song and i realise. this is kuwagami. as in, i've seen this music video before, but only in the context of kuwagami. anyway the art in question is this and this, and the music video is this. so glad to finally have context for this artwork lol even if it's by accident

[sisterdaniela]

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL ABOUT HAVING A MALE STRIPPER AT "OUR" WEDDING

[shallowseeker]

You know what's crazy ( ⊙_◎) ? Literally everybody and their momma said to Dean that Cas is in love with him, But at the same time we kinda have just as much saying Cas doesn't have feelings for him. Most iconically Naomi (which honestly slay for her),Pamela kind of , and just as much blaming dean for cas's "downfall", Ishm, Uriel, Hael. Demons knowing abt it.

Would love to know abt your theories on how they know that Cas was specifically in love than deep friendship

Hello! I hope you don't mind me adding your second part to this:

Pt2 I got kind of more to say but sent too quickly, anyways! Like angels can understand emotion especially the ones more in control, angels have felt before, Lucifer and anna and other fallen angels so it's not like it's a new concept and that cas was unique in that matter but yea curious on why you think the angels knew cas was specifically in love

///

This is a lovely ask, and I struggled to do it justice all week and I...just can't. So my answer will run the gamut of all the vibes. I hope you don't mind! :D

Biggest giveaway?

Cas's default is -> he's a big dick

The theorem: As Cas is to Sam (read: mean), Cas is to most everyone else.

Support: Cas was by Ishim's definition, "the angel's angel," he exemplified everything warrior-angels should be. In the words of Naomi: "swift, brutal, no hesitation."

Behavior: Sam is Cas's friend, but Cas is also kind of a dick to Sam. He gets annoyed with Sam, even pretty late in the series, especially when Dean's not around (when Dean went to AU world, Cas was abrupt with Sam, rolling his eyes and making lil digs, especially when they're interacting with Gabriel). And well, the crux of my argument is that think that's actually his default with all angels/people.

Dude was stationed with Uriel. At one time, they were the biggest assholes in the garrison, okay?

This default serves to highlight the ones he's gentle with:

The list of the people Cas "babies" is vanishingly small (Dean, Meg, Samandriel, Claire, Hannah, Charlie maybe, Jack, Mary, and eventually Rowena, only occasionally Sam). He's much meaner with his actual friends, and almost all of his close friends are a little mean.

That's my fun answer, anyway. :-D

My serious answer is, however, a little contrarian...I hope you don't mind, but I wanted a little variety today. I'm not gonna support all this with text like I usually do, but it's one of the things I'm going to focus on in my next rewatch. Maybe!

TLDR for below; I don't think a lot of people really knew. We confuse misrepresentative-innuendo and conceptualized-loyalty for “romantic” understanding at our own risk.

///

I don't think everyone and their mother actually knows that Cas is in romantic love with Dean

Or at least...not in the capacity that certain phrases are emphasized in fanon.

That's not to say I don't think some characters suspect. I do.

But I think some of the soldier-angels shriek moreso over shifting loyalties and perceptions of corruption. They perceive the shifting of Cas's loyalty to the human family as corruption and abandonment.

In fact, I think Cas bedding down with his human family could be a sore spot for the angels in particular; it's like God abandoning them for humans all over again. I'm not so sure they view that abandonment as romantic...only that Dean is the root of the problem.

TLDR; I think most recognize it as devotion, but I don't think it's well-parsed, especially for the soldier-angels. I think their assumptions run the gambit, from fealty to devotion to fanatical, and I can easily, easily see them viewing Cas's allegiance to Jack with the same kind of unhinged grief.

//

In the world of SPN, I think much of the romantic and sexual needling comes down to warring power dynamics and simple verbal sparring/one-upmanship

Characters will do anything to get the upper hand and feel in control in a dicey situation, and those barbs often come in the form of misrepresenting, diminishing, and disrespecting other characters' relationships, whether those are relationships with their parents, siblings, friends, comrades, or other loved ones.

In SPN, we get numerous equal-opportunity jokes about sexual attractions, incest, love, affection, weakness, etc etc etc.

TLDR; I think the one-off innuendos are often not a real commentary on the truth of any relationship but simply...disrespect.

//

Some examples to consider:

Balthazar - Often held up as proof that Bal thinks Castiel is "in love with Dean," I don't think Bal's line "The one in the dirty trenchcoat who's in love with you" means much at all. I actually think Balthazar's one of the least cognizant of parsing the complexities and differences between romantic/filial/friendly/etc emotion. (He's also a gloriously morally gray dude, our first meeting with him is him taking possession of a child's soul, after all.)

I mean, sure we got Balthazar saying Cas "is in love with you (Dean)", but we also got him calling Cas Sam's boyfriend. Either my man Balthy does not parse the complexities of relationships, or he's just...simply being disrespectful and diminishing Cas's relationships to his human fam in any way he can. It's about the one-upmanship in the conversing.

I don't see a of of compelling evidence that even angels like Balthazar parse Castiel's emotions on anything more than a superficial level.

///

Hael - "When Castiel first laid a hand on you, he was lost!" I tend to file this one under assumptions of fealty and mission-oriented devotion. Yes, they fear Dean has a corrupting effect. But you could argue the same about Jack. That when Cas laid a hand on Kelly's stomach, he was lost—became a terrible weapon laid at the feet of the child instead of Heaven.

So, I'm not sure that the desperate bleating of warrior-angels can be conceptualized as romantic. I think it's far more likely to be mission-oriented. They want Cas to have devotion to The Authoritarian Company/War Machine and they perceive Cas's "new" human-oriented locus of morality as Needy Little New Family.

It's the same way authoritarian governments seek to sunder "blue-collar" soldiers from their families, purposely stationing them away from their hometowns so their loyalty is divided and dehumanization of the enemy gets easier, too.

A war machine like Heaven wages an overwhelming, all-encompassing war. The British Men of Letters and Hell are big war systems, too. American hunting is a medium war, their guerilla tactics and case-by-case approach a smaller scale, still. A family is an even littler one. (Kelly Kline's name, in fact, means "little war.")

///

Crowley - In season 10, we get Crowley needling Cas about burning through his grace to "save his boyfriend," but he also jokingly calls Sam "Dean's wife."

At core, it's disrespectful teasing, seeking to misrepresent, to get a reaction, to have power in the conversation. That's kind of Crowley's MO. Just because Crowley says something sexual doesn't mean we make the assumption that it's true. People that are verbally sparring, and especially men that are in a tense power dynamic, talk like this all the damn time, especially when we're mixing social classes. It can get real crass and real mean...real fast.

It doesn't mean it's meaningless in the context of being revelatory. Crowley and Rowena both desperately want to be included in any social group they can worm their way into, and quite badly, so there's often real emotion hidden within their barbs.

My point is you have to consider the source and speech patterns of that character before taking that ball and runnin' it downfield.

///

Innuendo, innuendo...

Another example is Zachariah's "erotically codependent line" with regard to his brothers. This barb has the sole purpose of invoking a class stereotype to make Adam lose hope and respect for his "lower class" bros. It's literally the classist "hurp-durp-Alabammer-cousin-fuckers" trope.

I personally tend to take innuendo primarily for what it is: incessant, pathetic barking.

In general, I take the demons' words with a grain of salt. They're always coming from the weak position and always hurling as much innuendo as they can to undermine and disrespect any relationship.

Even the demon Cas sits with in season 14 who says, "How'd you lose Dean? I thought you were joined at the everything," is just a crass attempt to have power when conversing. He could just as easily have made this comment about Jack or Mary or Claire and landed the same with respect to have a tonal upper hand.

Strategically, they don't have to assume Cas is in love to recognize the weakness of caring. They can say anything ugly about any person he appears to care about.

And very generally speaking, innuendo is typically lobbed from a weak/insecure position. The saying goes:

"The louder the bark, the weaker the bite."

Take for example, my man Crowley and my homegirl Rowena--almost always coming at a situation from the weak position. Crowley lobs barbs, innuendo, and faux-affection left and right. (So do other "scrappy" characters, like Dean, Rowena, Bela, every demon, Balthazar, etc)

Generally, we see this speech pattern emerge from Hell-oriented characters, which makes perfect sense, as Hell is the bottom "rung" of society, and Hell-oriented characters and witches often have the weakest social currency. These characters've got the biggest chips on their shoulders!

///

Mary vs Dean's speech patterns

Despite their similar natures, this is a big, very fascinating personality diff between Mary and Dean Winchester. Mary prefers to attack from the stoic strong position (more like Cas, Sam, etc), and she rarely mouths off. Dean is more drippingly sexual and "mouthy" because he's used to being IN the weak position. (Mary had a stabler homelife, we can suppose, at least when it comes to this.)

"You're the bottom in the relationship!" Crowley barks at Cas in season 6. Meanwhie, Cas isn't even threatened, thinking to himself quietly in TMWWBK, "I was stronger and smarter than him." Not threatened in the slightest. It bites Crowley in the ass eventually too, "You like to bend 'em over quick, don't you?" he laments at the beginning of season 7.

Likewise, Cas too gets more verbal when he's coming from the weak position with other angels. Take for example Michael in season 15, "In the worlds of a friend, you had a whole oak tree shoved up your ass." Cas rarely engages in this kind of false bravado, preferring to keep his aces up his sleeve. But with Michael, he is definitely coming from a strategical weak position with a goal in mind: goading Michael to act.

Goaders and Goad-ees

There are exceptions to the rule, like when you get sadists such as Alistair, Lucifer into the mix. I think more often than not, the goaders and the goad-ees reveal structural weak-strong dynamics.

I'd even argue that Lucifer's volatility keeps him in an emotionally vulnerable position in perpetuity. He's almost always trying to get reactions from those around him because he "needs love, he had a jakced childhood." We see this with Cas, and the effectiveness of his gray-rocking with Lucy. In season 12, getting a reaction from Cas becomes a stand-in for getting a reaction from Chuck.

///

So, that's my opinion.

I think most of the screeching and barbs are mostly power dynamics in action, not proof of knowledge per se and certainly not proof of understanding the nature of how deep Cas's feelings go

Are there exceptions? Sure.

A few of them, like Anna and Samandriel and Hannah, seem aware of Castiel's "too much heart" but I'm not super convinced that they conceptualized this as being about Dean in particular so much as about being who Cas is as a person with respect to his past rebellions.

Uriel knew something was up, I think, but it's hard to tell if his needling was more disrespectful like Balthazar's or not.

Naomi knew something was different for sure. Interestingly, she seemed aware of both Dean's and Cas's feelings, which makes sense as her work is in intel.

On that note, I think it’s interesting that the ones who truly conceptualize Cas's feelings tend to also recognize Dean's. Very few truly "knowledgeable" characters see one side in a vacuum.

I'm not sure that Ishim contextualized love outside of obsession, but he was jealous and seemed particularly jealous that Dean appeared to return the feelings, "That's what I thought." implies that.

I think of all the characters, Lucifer knew. He's got one of the higest cognitive empathies in the show. He knows it so well, he doesn't even need to resort to innuendo to tease them about it. (See the simple, effective: "CAS!") Same with AU Michael. Like Naomi, they seem to know and acknowledge both sets of feelings.

///

Close family and friends

Beyond the scope of this, but I think a lot of the fam n' friends knew what was up to some degree, but that didn't typically come out in the form of disrespect or teasing once they knew about it for real, especially characters like Bobby, Mary, etc. Eventually Rowena, Crowley, Ketch etc probably could tell something was up.

Now, are soldier-to-soldier relationships life-of-death kinda intense? Yes. Because of this, I think some neurodivergent characters that are more "cerebral" when it come to emotions (*cough* Sam) could be a little slow on the uptake. :-)

[compacflt]

I just finished rereading Slider's oneshot and I loved it just as much as I always do. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how the conversation between Ice and Cougar went at Ice's retirement ceremony. You gave us little snippets of it from Slider's point of view, but I'd love to hear more of it if you have thoughts on it you'd like to share.

this is such a kind ask. i have no idea

for the same reason there is no explicit reaction in ch 12 when ice first hears mav say i love you—i spent a good week low key trying to figure out whether a reaction was needed there—it’s such a potent powerful cocktail of so many wild & unfamiliar emotions that i don’t personally think i have the literary juice to even attempt to try to describe it

i also am allergic to writing ice or mav explicitly coming out to anyone because it gives me secondhand embarrassment for them. the idea of the commander of the pacific fleet having to psych himself up to awkwardly mumble “um i should’ve told you all this time … i think i…i think im gay” to his friend gives me the ick sorry he’s not fifteen years old. so he Could be doing the big lgbt rite of passage of emotionally apologizing and coming out to Cougar in that conversation. but he Could Also be doing the ‘im nearly sixty years old im not gonna bullshit you’ thing of simply saying: “you and I have been very shitty to each other in the past and i apologize for that in x,y,z way and you were right about me and maverick and we’re gonna make it official this summer and if you want to come we’d really love to have you & normalize diplomatic relations between us again, you’re a real great friend when you’re not being a massive fucking douche”