#//and that yeah monster scary

[mechahero]

//honestly i could write a whole thing about lambda’s encounters with monsterfuckers and how much he heavily dislikes them

[artsycooky13]

Depth

[smokbeast]

poe thoughts and scribbles for my aching soul

[astro-b-o-y-d]

I'm aroace, and at most I like to consider Bill and Ford's relationship to be a little bit more complicated than what would be considered romantic. I feel like a lot of allos forget that there's more than just friendship, romance, and family dynamics, and not all of them have exact words to explain them! While it's undeniable that the book of Bill was implying a romantic undertone, it can just as easily be interpreted into something that's far more interesting!

It's hard to put into words how I'm currently viewing their relationship but it's mostly a mutual obsession, that loneliness and longing for connection Ford has with Bill despite the fact he's literally IN HIS MIND. It isn't romance, it's a man who feels impossibly alone and is trying to connect with something he thinks is similar in intelligence to him.

Bill's side is an obsession that Bill refuses to unpack in favor of taking over the world, because to be clear, Bill cares about Ford but he doesn't understand that Ford isn't "just like me fr." He's also just generally insane and thinks that Ford would genuinely side with him, eventually or otherwise. Unfortunately, he thought wrong.

I also liked that idea that he's obsessed with Ford in the little blorbo way, it's the closest way to describe it. It's so distinctly not romantic and I can't place it in anything else. He turns him to gold and uses him as a fidget toy- that's not screaming "omg old man yaoi" it's "chat should I turn Sixer into a paperweight"

Speaking of him being an unredeemable abuser..I mean it's not wrong and I can't say I can't see it but I also like reading stories where he gets redeemed anyway (dragged kicking and screaming) because it's far worse for a person to do horrible things, than a "monster" to do it. Like from what I've gathered bill accepts the fact that he's horrible and unredeemable, but imagine him having to confront that he's NOT that?

Imagine him having to accept the fact that he isn't this concept of an evil and unforgivable monster but a person who has done horrible and unforgivable things, and now he just has to accept that and become better. He's a person, and that's far worse. (Based on the fact he tried saying everyone loved him on Euclydia and he liberated them all when the decoded messages displayed a very different story, and then him being devastatingly honest with Ford. I think he wanted to be a monster- it's easier to swallow that a monster did those things than the idea that he made a mistake. Lie until you're not lying anymore.)

Oops a bit long but I don't find much others who takes their relationship as anything other than romantic. Aro curse 💔

Anon, I think you perfectly summed up my own personal feelings about their dynamic. There's nothing more I could add myself, well done. 🧡🧡🧡

(Also lmao, aro curse 💔💔💔)

[mad-hunts]

my daily visual and actually serious headcanon for y'all today is that barton does not like cheaters at ALL. and i'm specifically talking about in romantic relationships right now, though i may talk about other kinds of cheaters on a later date. he hates them SO much, in fact, that pretty much the only real instance that barton has ever committed arson was against a guy in organized crime who he had been dating for about 8 months (anddd this guy also tried to kill barton, BUT back to the story) who he found out had cheated on him multiple times with a woman he had been working with.

and as you can imagine, that did NOT bode over well with barton, so he torched his house... with him in it JSJSJ yeah, i know, it's beyond awful + he also came out of there with singed eyebrows and partially burnt clothes, but he honestly couldn't care less. thus, needless to say, i would really not suggest doing it to barton because there is a good chance he will make sure that you regret it xxx / j (i kid, i kid LMAO but still)

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Do you think Home and Bardaby would end up- if not friends than at least allies eventually in your fantasy au? I think it would be a real shame if Wally's best friend & his patron couldn't find some common ground. Maybe they could both keep an eye on Wally for each other? I know Home is literally Always There with him, but there are some human(puppet?) issues that an elder god just wouldn't really get. idk, I just think it's a bit of a shame that they don't get along, since Barnaby's the only other person besides Wally to actually interact with home in the original ARG.

oh no yeah! they do Eventually! it just takes a while and some work. Home in this au is pretty protective of Wally for Reasons, and it takes a lot to make them go "hey, you're chill. i like you". unfortunately Barn is also protective (not nearly to Home's extent but yk) so they naturally clash where they should get along

i have the full process In My Mind but essentially: Home, if given express permission, can "possess" Wally (put in quotes bc technically Wally is already possessed by them). this happens either when Wally wants a fucking break / is overwhelmed and wants Home to take the wheel (Wally's consciousness is kinda 'turned off' - it falls into a deep sleep!), or if Home does Wally a favor - they trade the favor for a set amount of possession time. because Home would like to have a body & make the decisions from time to time <3

during one of these "Home has the wheel" periods, i imagine that some shit goes down that forces Barnaby & Home to work together w/o a mediator. and during this time they're trying to get through this while keeping Wally's body relatively unharmed - Barnaby experiences a nice disconnect of "this is Wally but its also not Wally & its also a being i don't like very much bc its a dick-". but through the power for Forced Interaction, they realize that yeah, they have common ground, but they're also not too bad :]. catch Wally taking the wheel and being perplexed at how Barnaby is all "hey say hi to Home for me!" or asking for Home's opinion on things.

[tswwwit]

That art does remind me, does Bill know about the lamby lamby dance? Who told him and what's the reaction from both him and Dipper? Is there, perhaps, some Lamb for the Slaughter imagery introduced into certain activities?

He does, and nobody told him - he went through people's brains about it! Plenty of people have seen the performance, even if Dipper tries not to think about it.

Dipper, however, doesn't learn that Bill learned, until Bill makes a very pointed comment at exactly the right time, leaving Dipper stunned. And cringing. And maybe horrified as well, for the hat trick!

As for Dipper being a Sacrificial Lamb - it seems like a Bill thing to suggest! So long as he gets to play the Big Bad Wolf.

[hahaoatmeal]

That is NOT Skirk. That is not Skirk #affirm oh my god why does she fucking look like that I mean genshin designs have been pretty boring for a while now but oh my god. What the fuck. I thought she was gonna look cool and abyssal. Why does she look like generic anime girl #283 that you’d find in any other piece of media. Oh my god she was supposed to look COOL

I saw the beta design leaks and I was just ignoring them and hoping the final design was going to be very different and unfortunately it Was but in the wrong direction. Why does she LOOK LIKE THAT

[ombrathefurry]

I was listening to Don't Listen by jakeneutron and thought of Loading and Smallfeather if only I could animate 😭

Do you think it fits them?

Some parts, yes, but not the whole song in my opinion

I cant think of any character of mine that would fit with SF, but I know plenty of my friends characters who’d that fit with

[infernaltenor]

the third (and... maybe final?) niki shiina analysis

thats a lie there's a nonzero chance i'll do more <- i really like reading into his character

the focus of this is intended to be the foil relationship of niki and mayoi. this is something observable between all members of alkaloid and crazy:b, with clear distinctions between who is meant to be a foil/mirror of who: rinne and hiiro, kohaku and aira, himeru and tatsumi. while i would love to do a full in depth analysis of every member in this particular grouping, i've been avoiding any discussion of events that are out on jp but haven't been on en, if only because i want to experience the stories myself, which is why, for the time being, i'll be skipping the rest of the alkaloid and crazy:b units.

there's a second major factor as to why i'm focusing on niki and mayoi: they have the weakest link. that is to say, everyone else in the group has a clear connection in their pasts. niki and mayoi lack this. while you can extrapolate and make guesses (mayoi living in the basement of es and having a surprising amount of information in the building construction and hidden rooms; niki's father being kicked off the air in preference of idols; my conclusion here is that mayoi's parents probably run es and likely ran niki's off the air. is there proof? no. that's why i'm not counting it.), nothing for them is as explicitly stated as it is for the rest: rinne and hiiro through the nature of being brothers, kohaku and aira's childhood friendship online, whatever the hell is happening with himeru and tatsumi's complicated fucking relationship. niki and mayoi have... none of that. and arguably, that's a connection in and of itself, that they have no past in common, but given the care taken for the rest of the units it feels almost like an oversight.

no matter! i'm not here to discuss what ifs; i'm here to read far too much into the silly goofy character of what is otherwise an incredibly sad and tragic unit (despite their rather goofy construct) because i love him and need his depth to be at the front page rather than ostensibly passed over. enstars where's my niki shiina breakdow-

anyway. with that out of the way, let's start with the most basic parts! game design and character design. for game design, they also typically are in the same spot (spot 4 for the live mechanics), although i'm willing to ignore this due to the fact that kohaku and aira, as well as tatsumi and himeru, do not adhere to this particular criteria. niki and mayoi are the two characters within their unit that have long hair; niki's side ponytail and mayoi's side braid (hey where's the niki shiina hair down car-). interestingly, niki and mayoi's main hairstyles occupy opposite shoulders. while it's something that's easy to overlook, i'm counting it because it's something i think is also an easy way to put differences together, the same way color palette is. and for niki and mayoi, color palette isn't really a concern (the same dictates the rest of the crazy:b and alkaloid pairings, however), but niki's hair is more blue-toned, while mayoi's retains a level of red in his purple (shinobu's, for instance, is way cooler in tone).

but this is all superficial stuff. things you can simply observe. beyond the unspecified parents, where's the digging in way too much?

well.

crazy:b is a unit that is altogether kind of goofy, but the individual characters are by and large, tragic. niki shiina reads as an outlier to this specific set up.

alkaloid is a unit that is altogether serious down to their aesthetic, but the individual characters are largely kind of silly. mayoi ayase reads as an outlier to this specific set up.

as an author's note, right here in the middle of this analysis, i know both units are not so clear cut, and that you can see incredible amounts of angst and silliness in the characters i have decided not to focus on. why i am focusing on niki and mayoi is because of their decidedly obvious contrasting personalities to the larger construction of their unit. niki, more often than not, serves as the crazy:b character who has no indication of what is going on, not to mention how much his personality is driven by his own unspecified condition and his relation to food; mayoi is the alkaloid character who has such a clear indication of his tragedy, as opposed to hiiro and tatsumi, both of whom acknowledge it less, and aira, who does it moreso through inner monologues. i digress.

with both niki and mayoi serving as the contrasting element to their respective units, this does include that they are not always that contrasting element; think, whenever niki puts himself down or reads rinne like a book, or mayoi's clear serious relationship with teaching the other members of his unit.

another aspect that i think contributes to a foil relationship more than the mirroring is the opposite ways they talk about themselves and even moreso, how they think about themselves. niki, by and large, puts himself down as an idol; it's expected, especially since being an idol was never his intention (for fun and profit! and also rinne), so he tends to think of himself (frequently) as someone with less experience. while mayoi's full story (afaik) hasn't been touched on, he shows considerable knowledge to the background and teaching of idols (dropping notes in on unsuspecting juniors, teaching alkaloid the choreography throughout the main story, just to name some off the top of my head), even showing in some ways his mastery of the skills for being an idol. what mayoi lacks for in confidence of himself, he makes up for in being confident in his ability to guide others with advice and teaching. this places niki and mayoi in clear opposite corners of their idol positions. that being said, mayoi hardly does think himself an expert in the industry, but while niki recognizes himself as not being an idol expert, he does frequently call up his cooking expertise, something that cannot be overstated. just with these two skills you can see how niki and mayoi treat their own expertise: niki acknowledges his with frequency, mayoi tries to push people away from knowing his.

niki is a character that tries to stay silly on the surface. to be fair to crazy:b, rinne also attempts this. the difference is that rinne's silliness has been broken clearly before, notably in the main story for the game. niki's character, at the point that i'm writing this post, has not had such a break yet. another aspect of niki is he does try to stay as clueless as possible (try isn't quite the word i'm looking for; he seems genuinely uninterested in the politics of the idol world! this is something i count in contrast to his fellow unit members, as much of crazy:b is focused primarily on that political atmosphere). without such a drastic break, niki's character does read as one intending to be seen as a silly character.

mayoi's character, while being silly in his own over the top reactions to, well, everything (alkaloid and mayoi is bocchi the rock if btr was yaoi, but that's... that's a different post), is probably one i would argue meant to be taken much more seriously in alkaloid. for one, his character does frequently deal with intrusive thoughts, which imo makes his overall character feel more serious. another aspect of this matches him with tatsumi for overall being what i feel to be the more seriously read parts of the alkaloid unit, as tatsumi is shown to be levelheaded often; there are some clear breaks for this particular formula with tatsumi imo, for instance, both his driving and technology usage serve to lighten his character considerably. mayoi's character, i think, due to the heavy usage of self-deprecating language, is meant to be read much more seriously than he sometimes ends up being.

my conclusion is basically... well niki and mayoi occupy (what i think) is an interesting balance for the foil/mirror imagery of crazy:b and alkaloid. their unit structures and symbols, as well as intentions feed into this, as do their character pairs, but due to niki and mayoi's own (mostly) untouched connections, their place in the structure feels much harder to nail down. this doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it does mean that i can (and more importantly) will tear into this gacha game like its a piece of literature.

[vimbry]

oh man it's so disappointing when you bring up a memory of some media that really freaked you out as a kid, and you track it down thinking hehe I bet this is gonna be soooo scary and it's just. absolutely not as bad as your dumb baby brain inflated it to be at all.

[loregoddess]

kill them with kindness? wrong *summons a lynel*

[psychopacifist-rm-arts]

Bring it back, stoopid

[bubblepopsims]

❤

The Two Played around for a bit nothing crazy just harmless tussling and playfighting, had late lunch with ended up putting them on their asses for a rainy day snooze. Cesar was going to work out while L. took her nap but... he's a old man XD

Pt. V - Pt. VII

[firelord-frowny]

i love that modern tv/film has made zombies like 100x scarier just by making them faster omfg.

zombies never struck me as being particularly terrifying horror movie monsters until I Am Legend omggggg.

[arlathen]

im. i am actually writing this fic but i will never have the energy to edit it so it's not going to be posted anywhere but in the Inquisitor In The Lighthouse Fic i am at the point where amadea is like "hey <3 can we please go get my kids <3" and everyone is like who is we. your bones are more broken than not. and solas volunteers. because he knows the crossroads the best. and for no other reason.

and when he gets there hahlena does not trust him as far as she can throw him. she wants to throw tomatoes at him. she wants to hit him with a broom. and sorin. who is five. is like hi strange man. do you want to come push me on the swing.