#though often none

[kedreeva]

#we spoke of this a LOT at work after that one tech was murdered and hidden in a wall

hi!👋 hello! kedreeva! i’m going to need to ask you to explain this!!!!

So back in 2009, a lab student named Annie Le was murdered at Yale university. Cameras saw her going on into a building, but not out again and it was like, the eve of her wedding (or close to? I don't remember) so clearly she had places to be and people waiting for her so they immediately started looking and the next day (or so? Anyway on the day of her wedding) they found her body in a recess in a wall, down in the areas where the research animals were kept. It turns out, a tech had killed her, but since there were cameras like EVERYWHERE, he just, I guess, left her there. Well, hid the body where it was. I don't remember how they caught him, but they did. It was a horrifying story. It still is.

And it was a huge news story among the folks at my workplace because, at the time, I was working at a different university, as an animal husbandry technician. As you can imagine this was a kind of intense time to be in that situation. They started offering, like, I'm not gonna say counseling but it was "if you need to talk we would prefer you talk to us about something wrong rather than kill anyone about it" and as techs (even if we were not even the same kind of tech, the killer was a lab tech and we were husbandry techs but I think a lot of people assumed it had been a husbandry tech since she was in an animal area), we were kind of getting the side eye from lab people for weeks afterwards. Like they thought we were gonna go "wow that's a fantastic idea, you're next!" or something, idk. And I mean like, people would freeze when you were alone in a hallway, or turn and walk the other way, or duck into the nearest room and watch you walk past, and they were all being super nice/civil to us when they did have to interact. It was very atypical behavior for lab people. Like not all of them, some of them had always been nice and weren't worried, but some of the people who had been unbelievable dicks previously were walking on eggshells. And the people who had friends in other universities reported this was happening at their jobs, too.

And instead of talking to The Man (because all the higher ups were garbage at the time), we just. talked among ourselves. It was a lot of "I may say I feel like strangling lab people sometimes when they do things that drive me up a wall but I don't MEAN it you know that right" and it also led to group discussions of what would be a theoretical *better* solution to hiding a body than what happened, with clear disdain for doing things like hiding bodies in walls, which is a terrible idea and one we would never do (looking at the people who think we might have decided this was a great idea actually).

Which consequently led to a lot of supervisors and/or managers that happened to overhear us bringing us donuts or arranging pizza for lunch in like, some kind of bid to help us feel appreciated, I guess, so that we wouldn't murder anyone, even though none of us were going to do that anyway. But also none of us were in a position to turn down free donuts or pizza or whatever.

And then after a few weeks, maybe a month or so, people just kind of forgot and moved on and things went back to normal like fifty people hadn't spent every lunch hour for weeks talking quietly among themselves about how human bodies would definitely fit into a carcass disposal barrel or that you'd have to crush hip bones and/or skulls before incineration. Hypothetically.

Like I said, it was a VERY weird time to be at my job, and every time I remember it happening feels like a fever dream. I can't even imagine what it was like at Yale.

[tubbytarchia]

got an urge to design ponies oops

[jztr-77]

Zagreus and his iconic nectars 😎

[spittyfishy]

Adrian really isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer lol

[winter-spark]

Citron's Love and Limited Self Value Disguised as Coldness & Selfishness!

Okay! So, I said I had thoughts back in December about Citron's coldness & 'selfishness' so let me actually share them now. (I was starting to doubt doing this but one of my mutuals said I should share my thoughts on a3! things and that they'd like to hear them, and this is one I really wanted to share so here I go!)

Intro/Too long; didn't read:

There are three things that I feel are true about Citron:

He loves and values everyone so much.

For the longest time, he saw himself as a title

These things combined into him making decisions that on the surface come off as cold and or selfish but underneath are dripping in love and care.

Table of contents

Paragraphs 1 -3: Fleeing Zafra Paragraphs 4 -6: Joining & Leaving Mankai Paragraphs 7-9: Leaving Guy & Lies Paragraphs 10-14: Citron vs Tangerine and their Dad Paragraphs 15-16: Good now right? Paragraphs 17-22: Tangerine in Citron's Past Role {additional thoughts on this: here.} Paragraphs 23-24: Conclusion

Let's begin with the reason he even fled Zafra in the first place. Citron was being targetted, by those who thought his brothers were better fit to rule than he. And he was aware of this being the reason strange things were happening. At least, seeing as Guy had the suspicion/knew, I don't see why Citron wouldn't have.

Instead of voicing what was going on or raising any suspicions, he just left. He couldn't let them win win because his only value is his role, he's the Crown Prince. It's all he is. But he loves his people and he loves his brothers. He's not going to cause them any problems. They want him gone. Alright, he'll leave, silently without a word to anyone. Is it selfish to leave those who care deeply about you with a word? Well, some people might say, "obviously" but Citron loves so much and refuses to stop existing in the only way he knows, so he couldn't say a word.

What was he supposed to do? Say goodbye to Tangerine and cause him to worry and rouse suspicion on others? Tangerine is very headstrong, he would've wanted to get to the bottom of it(pin on that). Similar thing with Guy, if Citron told him he wanted to leave, Guy likely would have suggested that he say something, if Guy didn't just follow him. He can't really go undercover with Guy around, and maybe he wanted Guy to have a break from being at his beck and call(more on that later). If he announced anything of this to his father, his father would have gotten to the bottom of it. Citron selfishly chose to leave, without a word. But when you think about his motives he wasn't just being selfish, he was trying to protect people because he cares so much.

Then he gets to Japan and ends up finding a struggling theater that just needs a few more hands. He's not gonna stay for long. He can't stay forever. But what's the harm in lending a hand? Afterall, he's always loved the arts.

But then something strange happens. He acts completely different than who he is, completely different than whats expected of him. And they value him anyway. It's beyond just needing another person for the play. They care about him as a person. It's not yet addressed not fully, not really but it's there. And he cares about them. So he pours his heart into them but keeps a distance as best he can, he can't stay he knows this. They can't learn more, they can't care more, they can't be sad about his departure.

Of course, they were gonna be, and of course, Guy was gonna find him. He knew his time was coming to a close when Tsuzuru brought that souvenir. So when Guy arrived, it wasn't the time to dwell on it. On his desires, on his wants. He wasn't allowed to have those. He's the Crown Prince. He must go ascend to the throne lest Orange do. As is his role. As is who he is. As is what he's good for. It's what he's meant to do. He didn't want to leave but he has to and it's going to be sad and hurt. And he loves Mankai, Spring Troupe so much, he doesn't want them to be too sad about his departure. So he creates a list of tasks--a distraction--one for each of them, he can't pretend he's not leaving but he can make it fun and silly for them. Itaru pays for a buffet, Tsuzuru joins him in Manzai, Masumi lets him have some time with Izumi. They're small things to prepare for the goodbye but they can't have an actual goodbye, it'd be too sad. So he gives Sakuya the task of performing with Mankai, something he never plans to do but is something nice for Sakuya to look forward to he doesn't realize the hope he's planting, the hint he's leaving of his own desires, but he does. I believe it's called a Freudian Slip. And that's what he does by putting Sakuya last, with Chikage's Vanishing Citron act before it.

But! Before we move on we can't leave out his love for Guy. Leaving Mankai, Spring Troupe without a real goodbye is harsh, it's selfish, it's unfair, they weren't ready, he left too fast. It was sudden, no one really got any sort of closure. But leaving Guy behind(again) and telling the people of Zafra that Guy held him hostage against his will in Japan, that's cold, that's vicious, that's confusing. That's Citron's love.

When Citron was a little tiny child, he looked at that messed up soldier in training and decided that was his person. And overtime found out just how messed up he was, and Citron wanted to help. He wanted to prove to Guy he wasn't an android, wanted to get him in touch with his emotions to some extent, wanted to get him to be able to do things for himself. Here's where we continue on the "more on that later" point, Citron understands how much Guy has devoted himself to Citron and Citron specifically, and he wanted Guy to be able to be his own person, to have a freedom Citron couldn't have. I like to believe part of the reason he didn't take Guy along with him in the first place was to sort of start that divide, to let him exist on his own, as his own person. We know that goes into him leaving him in Japan with 0 way to return to Zafra. Citron wanted so much for Guy to find his own personhood, and connect with himself, his roots, and he knew Mankai was a great source of support for Guy, because Citron vetted them. Citron loved Guy so much he'd rather be without him than let Guy continue without his own sense of self, his own purpose. His freedom was ending but he wanted to gift Guy with it.

Was it one of the ugliest ways to do it? Oh absolutely, but Citron's quick and analytical. He knew if he just said he intended on leaving without Guy, Guy would have probably followed anyway. So he asked himself how can he ensure Guy's not going to follow him and has a way to remember his past, so he leaves Guy's charm with Izumi and he returns home lying that Guy was at fault for his absence. Guy can't come in, and even though Guy's been cast out of Zafra, Citron can see this as reassurance, he knows Guy is somewhere nice and he knows, in theory, Guy's not coming back to Zafra. Did Citron really never want to see Guy again? Of course not! Like Mankai, Citron loves Guy a lot, but Citron doesn't want to doom people to sorrowful fates.

Take his brothers for example. If Tangerine hadn't been apart of the rescue plot whatsoever, Citron would have done his best to still not rat out Orange and Navel. Citron been knew they wanted him out of the picture. He knew. But he doesn't want them to have to suffer. Even if they were never close like he'd have liked, even if they hated him, even if they were trying to steal the one thing he was allowed to exist as, even if they were trying to kill him. Citron loved his brothers and valued their well-being. He didn't want them to be in trouble surely not behind him and he would've kept that secret to his grave because of that.

But things can't always go how you want them or to your plan. Tangerine (unpinning that earlier point), is very headstrong and he sees things a little more equally. His brothers are all people, and two of them were apart of a plot to kidnap and murder his other brother. He was supposed to keep quiet about that? Lots of people were nearly injured in the event. Of course, he was going to tell his father what happened. Brothers or not that wasn't okay.

And the King, very much like Tangerine, sees things more equally. The King like Citron has a role he must fulfill but he doesn't seem to have the same problem as Citron where it's all he sees in himself(I think, he's seemed to spend very little time with his kids as they grew up so that up for debate), he loves but he can put that aside and think about what's fair for all parties.

It's not fair, for Orange and Navel to simply just be scolded because they are his sons, this was a serious offense, he must treat it as such. It's not fair, for Citron to lie to the people, to lie on his retainer who has done nothing wrong. There are many things to consider. Is him allowing Citron to be an ambassador(was that the word? Idr) of the arts being a little soft on him? Honestly, I don't know, maybe, but he loves his son and he understands that he must have been struggling and in fear of running away because he was being plotted against, not saying anything because he has a big heart. And he just nearly died. He can't let someone so willing to lie over being upfront and stopping issues early on because of feelings be the next in charge, but he knows Citron is very capable and he sees the warmth of Spring Troupe, Mankai with Citron. He understands that where the Palace lacked for Citron, Mankai picked up for it. Citron had a home away from home but also wanted to serve his country. The King, his father, didn't really want to take either away from him. So he gave him a new role, a way he can have both. [How did this become a meta about his dad? lol] This scene, Citron goes through likely a lot of emotions.

Being stripped of his role, the one thing he's lived for, his one purpose in life, the thing he's fought for jeopardizing his relationship with his brothers, his sense of value. That mess is heartwrenching, it's scary. He just failed to protect his brothers from punishment and he lost the one thing he refused to ever actually give up. Now what?

Now, his father gives him a gift. A gift truly of freedom, decorated in a nice bow of still being valuable to his country but also showing him that his value wasn't just his title. He didn't have to be Crown Prince to be worth something. Could he have left the title sooner? Who can say? But right now, his father is basically saying "I love you and I value your happiness" and what more could Citron really ask for? Things are starting to look up for Citron, Guy was able to start healing from his past, Citron gets to return to Mankai and exist and have value and above all be loved. Everything is great.

Except then there's Tangerine.

Many of Citron's problems growing up were tied to him being the Crown Prince, it's restricting, it expects a lot of you, and it's a sad existence. That's how Citron views the title of Crown Prince, even if subconsciously, it's a bad thing to be thrown upon someone. It's something that destroys your sense of worth. How could Citron do that to someone he loves so dearly? He ran off, to be happy, to have a sense of worth outside of the title of Crown Prince, he left his precious little brother for dead, and what kind of person is he to do that? His suspicions "confirmed", when Tangerine shows up unannounced after running away from home.

Citron is so used to seeing himself as "the Crown Prince" he doesn't even consider that Tangerine just missed his brother, or wanted to ask for some sort of comfort or advice or anything like that. Because Citron was the former Crown Prince and Tangerine is the current one. That's where is mind is at. Citron is reliving all those years mentally and worrying that Tangerine is living like he was. Why else would Tangerine run away and come see Citron, who was once in his position? So his love for Tangerine and his pain from only seeing himself as a title combine into guilt, and that guilt turns him cold.

He can't rub salt in Tangerine's wounds by showing how happy he is without the burdens of the crown staring him down. He can't flaunt his freedom. He can't bare seeing Tangerine suffer the way he did. So he frowns and he gets serious. There are expectations of the Crown Prince, too. And Citron has those embedded into his very being. And he tries to somewhat of what you'd expect someone to be after having prepared for a role for years to someone now in their role. And he tries to get Tangerine to go back as quickly as possible. And it's selfish to send someone away because of your own feelings and not what they've done but it's also so complicated for Citron.

He's not mad at Tangerine, he's sad for him and mad at himself and every second Tangerine's there is a reminder of all of that and a show of Citron being a bad influence probably. Citron's used to falling in line and fulfilling duties so as he becomes somewhat of what you'd expect of a serious mentor, it makes sense that he's falling back into that mentally, the proving oneself to the right/expected thing to do. A good older brother/mentor wouldn't let his brother who needs to be preparing for a big event miss practice and possibly the event. A good older brother doesn't brag about how good he has it now that the younger one has it worse.

Of course, thanks to Masumi's patience with Tangerine and Spring Troupe's patience with Citron, he was able to turn his love warm again. But it was a bit rough getting there. Like the other events before.

Honestly, there's so much more that can be focused on about Citron and a part of me wants to go on a tangent about the little slips he has like the wish he'd given Sakuya and how his emotions slip through in other ways like how he got kidnapped and stuff like that. But I should probably reread things again before/if I do that. The important part here is just that I'm so fascinated by how Citron is just so full of love but for so long lack a full sense of self outside of the Crown, (not to say he didn't have interests and desires but more in the sense that nothing he had interest in or desired fully mattered in the long run because it was insignificant to the role he was meant to play, in case I haven't made that clear) and how those things combine into actions that are cold and or selfish but also so layered and so full of care.

Citron is so !!! my heart! Idk how to put it quite into words but I haven't really seen people like full-on analyze him really (outside of some analyzing in fanfictions really funnily enough) and I wanted to just give him a bit of focus. Honestly, it was long over due with how much I talk about his brothers. I didn't even say everything I thought but that's okay. Just means more opportunity for me to talk about him again later.

[sieglinde-freud]

project of insanity finally done. i can play the game now

[amidnightqueery]

I don't hate my job or anything, but man, being a float educator is so fucking thankless

[randomly--accessed--memories]

Angel is rather alarmed one day when he hears Vox call Niffty "Nancy" and she answers to it immediately, calling him "Vaughn" in return.

Names are powerful in Hell– nowhere near as powerful as contracts, but still. When you give someone your true name, they gain a certain level of power over you, which is why contracts are usually signed using human names. Only the most audacious overlords (eg. Alastor, Valentino, Carmilla, Rosie) still use the names they had when they were alive.

Intellectually, Angel knows that Vox isn't in a mental state where he can or would even want to take advantage of this, and it's entirely possible that he may just completely forget Niffty's human name at any moment, but it still puts him on edge. Angel likes Niffty and wants to keep her safe. Regardless of how far Vox has fallen, Angel can't help but still see him as somewhat of a threat.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

I'm not gonna lie. Tails has his shit together more than me. He's got his own house he got his own plane and car. He's presumably has a job too. Which is more than what can be said for me. Lol

Okay, so. First of all, anon. What a mood. I think Tails has his life together more than most people in this world. He presumably makes a shit ton of money, makes contraptions on the regular, supports Sonic's eating habits and maintains his plain, has so much property, etc etc

Second of all, though. In all seriousness, I want you to know that I believe in you, anon. I don't know what your situation is, how your home/family life is, or even how old you are. All I can say is that I've "been there" in a sense. In some ways, I still am. Owning a house one day is a dream of mine I hope I'll achieve, even though I know how expensive they are where I live and how statistically unlikely I am to be able to afford one. There are plenty of people out there who are also there

20 year olds living with their parents who've managed to get a job, but they can't drive. Maybe they're not confident enough in their ability to handle themselves on the road, maybe they don't have time to study for any permit/license tests, maybe they can't afford a car, or maybe they're disabled in some way that would make driving dangerous or impossible)

40 year old divorceees who moved back in with their family for stability and are struggling to keep a full time job (on top of raising their kid(s) and helping out their parents). Maybe they're dealing with depression, the weight of feeling like they've failed, other assorted undiagnosed mental issues, maybe they have major health issues that make holding down a job hard.

30 year olds who live paycheck to paycheck in their shitty to so-so apartment, who are scared of their rent rising (again) and their old car going out for good. Maybe they're trying their best to get a better job or a raise, but it seems as if every time they manage it everything just gets a bit more expensive. They know they can't afford to replace their car, much less pay off any potentially large medical bills in the event of an accident.

People of any age who feel stuck. Whether that's at their parent's house or a shitty apartment they can't move up from, whether they physically are and need others to care for them (but the conditions aren't ideal), etc. People of any age who feel like failures, because they won't have the stability and ability to care for their elderly parents, because they can't drive, because they can't get a house, because they can't seem to move up the ladder and hold a well paying job (even if they have the experience or the credentials/schooling). People who are feeling like failures because they can't seem to obtain their culture/area's standards for adulthood, or do anything, really (from their perspective)

Anon, even though I don't know anything about your situation (just one of many people out there in the world who can just offer words of encouragement or advice), I want you to know that I believe in you and I'm proud of you. It's a hard world out there, and all we can do is try our hardest to push forward for ourselves. All we can do is try to figure out what limits we can push bit by bit in the way of improving, try to figure out which things we must work around/deal with, and try to take care of ourselves along the way. Even if the best you can do right now is something as small as try to remember to brush your teeth before bed, or to eat something during the day, or to play a video game you enjoy rather than endlessly scroll social media for hours, I'm still proud of you for making that move.

[rubberbandballqueen]

when my sister was in her first year of high school, her english(?) teacher had them take their tests in pen and they'd correct them in pencil (bc y'know, underpaid teachers w/o assistance tend to have kids switch papers n do corrections like that; this was an anti-cheating method). anyway just now i was running like a teacher simulation in my head thinking abt that, and while by default you'd hope kids would take these things in black or blue pen for legibility's sake, but i would never want to limit my students' freedom of nuisancery that severely. at the same time, it's probably(?) not a good idea to let them take it in red pen. thinking abt it now, it's probably fine (and i also think children should be allowed to take tests in pink glitter gel pens if they so desire), but for the sake of the sim this time i decided to exclude the colors red-yellow for legibility's sake.

however, i also felt like i had to account for kids who might get kind of rules-lawyer-y abt the color of their pen, like. how yellow of a yellow-green is too yellow to be acceptable, y'know? and i would never want to crush that kind of absolute nonsense by unilaterally imposing my classification of colors upon them, at least partially bc i know i can be kind of bad at deciding what color some ambiguous case is.

therefore, in my mental simulation i just decided i'd write down the acceptable range of hues in the class rubric so that the kids would have a quantitative reference to compare their pens against, and if they really wanted to argue abt it, we could just scan a page and use a color picker or something, at which point i realized, "wait. that's kind of a ridiculous thing to put in a class rubric" and ended the mental simulation

[moodr1ng]

now and again i remember the first time i knowingly met another trans person.. i was a preteen at summer camp, and on the first day we were all sitting around and one of the camp counselors said something about how theres x number of boys and girls, and i was like "no, theres (one more) boys" and pointed out each of the boys. i was then told one of the people id picked out was actually a girl, and i was terribly embarrassed but he just laughed and said it was ok. he was presenting in a very masculine way both in style and behavior and i kept "messing up" and gendering him as a boy and then profusely apologizing, and hed just say "its fine, i actually prefer that". eventually one night he told me and a few other kids that he wanted to be a boy and he was gonna get surgery for it one day. then i just kept on gendering him as a boy. he never used the word transgender or really got into the details of it so it didnt really click to me that this was a thing you could do (that i could do?) and it wouldnt really until i later stumbled onto transgender blogs and articles online, but looking back now its a sweet memory. i hope it made that kid really happy that i couldnt help but gender him properly multiple times before he ever actually clarified his identity lol

[strawberryona]

so last night my beautiful puppywife helped me find guns for perv quartet <3

notes about how each character uses guns:

roan's pistol is extremely efficient, as silent as possible, and easily concealed. no-nonsense and tactical. his gun is my favorite one of the group's. according to my puppy, it's so quiet that the loudest part of it is the slide moving, and there's a switch to make it not move during firing (with the downside of needing to do it manually to shoot again)

vesper's gun is pretty and physically appealing. she would carry it on a garter. as usual, she's much more focused on looks and style than roan is, but still subtle and deadly.

bryn's gun is the biggest handgun possible. loud and flashy. waves it around bragging and posturing.

seren's rifle gets the job done with no frills. they barely use guns, except maybe to put down an animal that's not fun anymore. every time they shoot, they clutch their weapon way too tight and have a scary thousand-yard stare.

[guruguruguruguru]

the longer i sit with it the more it really gets me how nobody ever really mentions obito and rin before obito's reveal in shippuden. kakashi vaguely mentions his old friends and i think other characters allude to the tragedy of kakashi's past but rin and obito themselves are lost to time. something about that is so fucking haunting and so gutting. you would think it would be a pretty big deal that two kids from the same class died within a year of each other, but the nine tails attack probably wiped so much clean that nobody could really carry the grief... still, when we see their class in flashbacks, we recognise almost everyone else, so... there's something really sad and hopeless about their absence...

there's a lot a LOT to say about it from a lot of different angles and i don't really feel like going into meta posting territory i just have big feelings about it you know? and to me i guess obito encapsulates a lot of the anger. for the people who get left behind and forgotten. and that can mean a lot of things

[queensparklekitten]

time princess players how do y'all picture the MCs of every story

like since every set and piece of official art has a different hair colour, length, and style with every picture of them, and sometimes there's descriptions that don't match the images, which one do you go with

and do you make half of them look like your avatar or have your own designs

[transwalterdecourcey]

freddie trumper buzzfeed autocomplete interview

[big1ron]

Ben is so multitalented so proud of him.