#(i am pretending that is the case)
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Classic Clown-To-Clown Communication
#tcf#trash of the count's family#lcf#lout of count's family#cale henituse#cale#tcf cale#alberu crossman#alberu#tcf alberu#alver crossman#cale is a total clown#so is alberu#tcf manhwa#in case someone is confused what i am specifically referring to#these two pretend they don't like or respect each other#while calling each other and talking LITERALLY EVERY DAY#you guys are totally not friends yeah uhuh i believe you#just exchange best friends bracelets already and call it a day#tcf no spoilers#trash of the count's family no spoilers#lcf no spoilers#lout of count's family no spoilers
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Assisting Acquaintance Acquired.
[First] Prev <â-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wen ning#wei wuxian#Ignore how Wen Ning's hair looks here because I messed it up. Let's pretend he just sported a different hair style for a brief moment.#I am not exactly great at consistency but I am trying very hard to work on that (immediately messes up again).#Absolutely *love* how Wen Ning clearly remembers and admires WWX...who does *not* recognize him.#This is the best day for Wen Ning and it means *nothing* to WWX. A painful one-sided crush made worse.#It is bittersweet to realize that we care about someone more than they care about us. Sometime we pour love into a relationship-#-with someone who just can't reciprocate. It isn't always a conscious things either. Some people just aren't aware we care.#And painfully - so painfully - You can't make them aware. No act of kindness or gift or self sacrifice will make someone care about you.#You can martyr yourself for someone and they will continue on unchanged.#I think a lot about the parallels between WN and LWJ. Not foils - just reflections. A theme repeated.#People who give so much of themselves to someone who doesn't have the capacity to give any part of themself away.#I will die on the hill of 'Wen Ning would be the love triangle romance if that trope wasn't being avoided'.#And to be honest - thank the stars above that is the case. I do not know any good love triangles in media.#We are skipping some of the sad Jiang Cheng content because I really want to finish season 2 before May.#Sorry JC emo moment lovers...I'll deliver another time.
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So does he, Gallagher.
#honkai star rail#hsr blade#gallagher#i based this off of how many times i used funny soda man to help be a healer with his poppin soda pop in SU#and then blade constantly just being blade as usual#its normally him saying unnecessary to my actual healer but#i kept forgetting gallagher heals and i kept healing when i didnt even need to so TECHNICALLY yeah it was unnecessary#but the amount of times blade was the recipient......#i cant use like most of my newer units in story bc i cant ascend or i run out of leveling mats so i just#get them and toss them into simulated universe for funsies cause i can match their levels better#so thats where i tossed gallagher and he is genuinely fun to play as ? like i love his punches and kicks to start the battle#funny soda man is funny (to me) and im really behind in plot still#but last time i tried to play it on my laptop and got a kickass cutscene my laptop lagged and i couldnt even see it RIP to me#so now that its like ... me trying to play it on desktop ?#i mostly get on desktop for comms and if i do much else i feel like im slacking off even if i would take a break anyway#one day i can play more story plot stuff and actually meet the funny guys#also in case you know me for Not Having Boys in HSR i need to point out#i did pull Gallagher however same 10 pull got a 4 star girl copy for someone i never use and she is at e4 now cool#and i didnt even think of the irony as i started this i just like drawing blade and i wanted to draw gallagher#so when i already had the dialogue planned and am drawing i was like OH WAIT haha im funnier than i thought#(no i am not but we can pretend)
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Ok So who is down for a bit of a wild Eddie Diaz is Freddie Mercury theory that is actually based in colour theory?!!
Yeah, yeah, I know that sounds insane but hear me out!
So Freddie superstar queer man of moustache wearing fame who also happened to sport a swept back floppy haired look in the 1980âs
Remind you of anyone??
Yeah - similar hairstyle and moustache! Keep that in mind as we continue!
Did you know that he never actually confirmed his sexuality publicly?
He hinted at it in the lyrics of Bo Rhap - which he wrote (and released with Queen) in 1975 when he was figuring things out. At that time he was in a relationship with a woman (Mary Austin - who he called his wife even though they never married. They remained best of friends and she was at his side when he died - he left her most of his estate) but had an affair with a man - and was also dealing with religious and childhood trauma (he was sent to catholic school and had a difficult upbringing at the hands of his mother). Bo Rhap was Freddie sorting through all of his feelings around his sexuality - the lyrics can be interpreted in many ways but the other members of Queen have spoken about its meaning being clear and personal to Freddie at the time. So âmamaâ is a reference to the Virgin Mary and also to his mother - playing on both his childhood and religious traumas, saying he didnât mean to make them cry is about not wanting to disappoint them but also about needing to be true to himself. ��Just killed a manâ is about the death of his heterosexuality. I could go on (I can always write a post explaining the lyrics more fully if that is something that would interest anyone - Queen and Freddie were a hyperfixation of mine as a teenager!!) but I wonât in order to keep to my actual wild theory!
Now I wonder who that sounds like?? Childhoood trauma at the hands of his mother, catholic upbringing that didnât fit with who he is, relationship with a woman who he loved but didnât love the right way?? Yeah that sounds remarkably like a certain Edmundo Diaz if you ask me.
Now the moment Freddie actually âcame outâ without actually coming out and essentially confirming he was not straight (there is debate about if he was gay or bi because he referred to himself as bi) was when he released âThe Great Pretenderâ in 1987 - when he was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS (he had been showing symptoms since 1982 but he also never actually confirmed his diagnosis until the day before his death in 1991) The reason this is significant in relation to Eddie DIaz is multi fold!
Firstly this was the moment Freddie chose to shave off his moustache as a symbol of not hiding who he was anymore and he never grew it back. So for Freddie Mercury his moustache was a literal mask and not a symbol of his queerness. The song is literally about coming out to the world and confessing and not hiding who you are and about wanting to fit in even though you are different. When we have had Episodes titled Masks, confessions, and have wannabes coming up - and we have Eddie Diaz shaving off his moustache as a symbol of not hiding any longer - choosing to embrace his true self - thatâs a pretty loud parallel if you ask me.
Now to the colour theory of it all - because you see we have pink coming to the party for both Eddie and Freddie!
Freddie wore this wonderful double breasted pale pink satin suit for the promotional photographs and for the music video of âThe Great Pretenderâ and the scenes he wore it for in the music video were the ones that symbolised him being his true self as he reflected back on his life and all the various costumes and âdisguisesâ he wore throughout his life and career.
And now weâve had Eddie in Pink for two very key scenes - the only time he has worn pink in the entire show.
Firstly we have the karaoke scene with Eddie in his Crockett and Tubbs pale pink suit and dark pink shirt.
And then we have Risky business Eddie in a pale pink shirt
Both times Eddie has worn pink pale pink have been in connection with being shown his true unmasked and unfiltered self - at the karaoke we see him letting loose and just enjoying himself, and then we have the newly shaven Eddie dancing the Risky business dance finding joy in something. Theyâre both scenes about Eddies joy, his freedom and him expressing himself. Theyâre about showing the audience who the real Eddie is - when he isnât weighed down by all the other things in his life.
Oh hey look, its not even just the pink parallels of it all because we also had drag queens in the great pretender music video (L-R Roger Taylor, Peter Straker and Freddie Mercury) just like we did in the Karaoke scene.
And then we have the green and pink parallel!
Because something I have been side eyeing hard since we first got the stills for the karaoke scene is the colour swap for Buck and Eddie. This was the first time we saw Eddie in pink - in any real colour colour to be honest - Eddie has stuck to a pretty rigid colour palette since he first appeared in Under pressure (oh look yet another Queen reference!) always in muted shades rarely wearing anything bright and generally in a green, grey, blue, black and white colour palette with a little bit of burgundy/maroon thrown in. The only time weâve really seen him in anything close to a bright colour is the yellow shirt from 601 which we have just seen again in 806. Buck however has worn pink on numerous occasions (Mays graduation party, the tsunami, the hilly coffee maker scene, when Chim figures out Buck knew where Maddie was scene etc etc) and so it is a staple colour for him. Mint green however is not a colour he wears - in fact Buck wearing green more generally is not common at all (especially outside of break up scenes!). So I was already looking for significance in the colour choices that had been made - but didnât have all the pieces (and not just because the actual karaoke element of the scene had been cut) - until now! Now it is very clear that wardrobe and ABP have to have been given specific colour instructions about Eddies costume colour - because they needed it to play into the Freddie Mercury concept - the pink suit and the swept back hair, the drag queens - the entire thing was a nod to the great pretender and basically the kicking off of a queer arc for Eddie - now backed up by the 806 scene.
I wrote at the time in my meta about pink being the colour for the season and being a play on innocence and naĂŻvetĂŠ - which did fit with this scene and Eddie in this scene, but it also felt like it wasnât the entire answer - with the context of the risky business Eddie scene though - now it is making sense - it is about showing Eddie letting go and being free, but it is also symbolic of Eddie becoming lighter (and no I donât mean in terms of the fact he seems to only wear half his clothes when heâs in pink!) as he allows his true self to see the sunlight.
It also gives us this very interesting parallel/mirroring - Eddie in Pink - Buck in green - in both scenes - the framing is the same - right down to Eddie drinking his beer!
Notice how the tone has swapped though - Eddie darker toned in his darker pink shirt while Buck is super pale in the mint green - switched to Eddie in the super pale pink while Buck is in the very dark green. In S7 both are in relationships and theyâre all over each other - because it is âsafeâ to do so - its the most intimate weâve ever actually scene them (physically I know theyâve metaphorically been closer) Then when theyâre both single theyâre keeping a foot apart!
The parallel is a really interesting one - this idea that the episode before - in 705 both Buck and Eddie nearly end up single but choose to stay/ pursue relationships that are not the right fit for them - highlighted by this karaoke scene showing who there person actually is - now backed up by the final scene of 806 - reversed colours and all - showing who their person is after both relationships have ended. The light and dark of both scenes plays into who is in the better place in that moment - So Buck was in the best place in 706 while Eddie is in 806. The other aspect of the two scenes is the loud v quiet. Bucks bi arc being a loud and bright colourful affair full of drama etc, while Eddies is taking a more sedate and quiet route - much like the quiet of a scene where they just sit together in silence. This is a reflection of what each needs in those moments - Buck needed the world to accept him and his bisexuality in 706 and in 806 its about Eddie accepting himself. Their journeyâs from here on out are the opposite - Buck now needs to sit in the silence and accept himself while Eddie needs the acceptance of the outside world (namely his parents and Chris) they are holding mirrors up to each other and it perfectly highlights their respective personalities and wider journeys. It also reflects the duality of Freddie Mercury himself - a complete showman - confident and full of charisma on stage - off stage however he was, by all accounts a quiet and unassuming but complex man who accepted himself privately but wasnât able or wiling to share all of himself with the world (as was and is his right).
So the Freddie Mercury parallel that it seems Tim is playing into is very loud and telling and the colour theory is backing it up perfectly so far.
This is a rambling mess - itâs 2:30am and I should be asleep so apologies if it makes zero sense, but I hope it does!
#Eddie v Freddie#the parallels are paralleling#honestly Iâm obsessed with the fact the show appears to have done this#its just so clever and good#the pink suit and the moustache shaving and the meaning behind them in tandem is reallly loud and a clear choice#it cannot be a coincidence#I am in your walls Tim and I just want to chat#now all I need is the bo Rhap needle drop#911 costumes#911 colour theory#eddie diaz#911 abc#911 spoilers#is it spoilers?? idk but Iâm tagging just in case!#Kym costume meta#911 costume meta#Kym costume theory#Freddie Mercury#The great pretender parallel#its all about the pink!#pink costume colour theory#buddie#evan buckley
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The cutest reminder ever that the way family works in TSAMS canon is that two parties have to be in mutual agreement that they are family. If one party doesn't agree then they aren't family. Parties can revoke familial ties whenever they want and that means they are no longer family.
"Code Relation" theory is stupid because you're then implying that Eclipse is Sun and Moon's child. Which he isn't. Or that Killcode is somehow Moon's child and his brother at the same time that he's Eclipse, Lunar and Bloodmoon's "father" at the same time that they're Sun and Moon's grand children. Like, we're seeing the issue here, right?
Don't make things more complicated than it has to be. Just accept the fact that family is literally determined by a verbal agreement between two animatronics and nothing else because none of them were born from wombs. That means respecting canon when characters in canon decide that they aren't comfortable being family (like Eclipse) or just straight-up disown everyone (like Bloodmoon). It's okay to have headcanons, but don't try to push them onto canon.
#alex talks#tsams#tsams discourse#the sun and moon show#just respect canon#not everyone has to share your headcanon about how family should work#pushing headcanons onto people and claiming it's canon is rude#and really fucking gross too#let people enjoy canon without having headcanons that they don't like/agree with being shoved in their faces#istg if I see another argument as to why a harmless ship is âactually incestâ because of âcode relationsâ I'm going to scream#yes I am staring at the people who are making that claim about shadowplanet#code does not define family in this show have we not learned this already#if that were the case then most of the animatronics would be related because they were made by fazbear and that would be an issue#because a lot of them are dating like bros please open ur eyes and see how this stuff actually works in TSBS instead of#Pretending your headcanons are canon#again#it's fine to have family headcanons and the code relation headcanon but don't push it onto canon#that's so rude and annoying#also do you really think the VAs would joke about shadowplanet if they thought it was somehow incest#in any way shape or form#family doesn't work by ârelationsâ it works by agreement#Solar wasn't family until he agreed to be family#and even then he was like âyeah a distant cousin or smth idkâ#idk now I'm just#alex screams into the void#yeah#pop off king
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A lot of cis people may not want to hear this, but here goes:
You are going to have more in common with trans people who have a similar gender identity to you than you think. Trans people are reliable narrators of their own experiences, and whether you like it or not, we will have similar or even identical experiences to yours. Cis people don't have a monopoly over their gender or the experiences people have as a result of their gender.
#trans#transgender#lgbt#lgbtq#ftm#mtf#nonbinary#ally advice#like in my experience i have had way more in common with cis men than cis women#and of course it is always more complicated than what a tumblr post can provide. but by and large i have noticed this trend#cis people like to pretend that trans people are a seperate species to them when that can't be further from the truth#cis people don't like to think that their bodies/experiences/lives could be in any way shape or form similar to a trans person's#but they're wrong in that case. there are so many of us with baried experiences. because we are PEOPLE#i feel like i am screaming my personhood into the void sometimes so i hope maybe this reaches somebody#as horrifying as it is (/s) i am as much a person as i am a man#and as horrifying as it is (/s) other trans people are as much their genders as they are PEOPLE#enjoy me posting my stream of consciousness then going back to play skyrim and fo:nv until i pass out or whatever i feel like lol<3
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btw i am goin on a little posting hiatus for like a week !!!! brain is slop
#barks#and also i am doing other things#actually this might be a lie i might draw on wednesday but. if thats the case pretend u didnt see this
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they have now revealed another character for ride kamens, hayate, and it looks like he's a kr jin homage? glad they confirmed that it's not only titular riders getting representation, but still, a pretty off the cuff surprise for me
yeah, Jin is a welcome pull, but a pretty weird one! I saw the post when it dropped (don't ask why I was looking at twitter at 3 AM) and the replies were. very confused. :') nice to see some Jin rep though! and if this opens the door to characters based on more deepcut riders, all the better!
of course, if they really want to stay true to the spirit of Jin, we know what he'll be like
#art#ride kamens#gun#(this is me still pretending like i'm not going to end up drawing all of them)#(gonna have to go back and draw saigo at some point)#i guess jin scored high in the algorithmically-generated list of characters popular with female fans#seriously though i am happy it's not going to just be main riders! the POSSIBILITIES this opens up...#in that case i'm gonna go ahead and say that one silhouette with the ponytail is absolutely gonna be brave#(which covers the ex-aid rep so i don't need to face the possibility of an ikemen poppy)#anyway hayate seems like fun! a bit of a 'what if jin was a small business owner' take which i am VERY into#i do think so far the doubleboys are my favorites#but we got two more reveals this week and many more left so we'll see if that holds!#who will tomorrow bring...
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When I came across that "joke" from Tav to Quill and Z'rell's comment (plus Halsin), I had to take a minute to process what happened. Gale might be a bit silly and eccentric but he's the kindest, sweetest and most passionate character in that party. No wonder the poor man has deep insecurities to solve, so many people reduce him to an easy target! Ofc one of the side effects would be overconfidence and ambition as a defense mechanism. He's obv lonely; only Tara and Morena ever loved him for him.
his eccentric nature might be a part of it. he is loquacious, outgoing, and doesnât see the point in hiding his enthusiasm. he is considered to be the weird one. naturally, wizards in general being seen as somewhat squishy and physically weak might also add to it.
personally, i really donât like the implications of the (widely considered) autistic-coded character being the one who faces the most ridicule by far by other characters and fans (and larian) alike.
some might disagree with me on that, but i donât find it funny by any means either. mostly it just makes me feel bad. âhe deserves it. cocky, arrogant, hubris-ridden wizard needs to be taken down a pegâ like he isnât⌠yâknow⌠already at his lowest. it also disregards the fact that much of his bravado is part of his carefully curated Great Wizard of Waterdeep⢠persona that he has skillfully adopted to mask his general feeling of being defective. being fiercely proud of your skill and knowledge and being doubtful of having something truly worthwhile to offer are mindsets that can coexist. according to fandom, gale is either secret hubris incarnate that is only waiting to be unleashed upon the world or pure baby that can do no wrong. instead of a character that is just as flawed and traumatized as all the others, but no less deserving of genuine love.
to me, the constant ridicule just reads as further feeding into his deep-rooted insecurities and his belief that he (as gale, the person) isnât someone who holds inherent worth. it really, really doesnât sit well with me.
#gale dekarios#gale of waterdeep#bg3#baldurs gate 3#but then again i believe that fandom still has a hard time grasping his character as a whole#we always talk about wanting complex and complicated characters that contain multitudes#but once we get them we donât know what to do with them#and proceed to try our hardest to reduce them to a few select traits#gale is a kind and good-hearted person. that is not up for debate.#anyway gale deserves people around him who respect and cherish him and are genuinely supportive#protect that wizard and shower him in all the adoration. he needs it.#and i get you anon!!! i also really wish we could call out our companions & npcs#my tav would always keep a spray bottle on hand just in case#someone is being mean to gale again? [pssssht pssshhht] u stop that right this instant#on that note i also donât like the undertone tav has when they have the option to talk about gale to other parties#whatâs with the hesitancy and the derisive undercurrent???#am i supposed to pretend that my tav wouldnât turn into the personification of the will smith meme whenever they had the option to#talk about their bf/husband???? lies and slander#larian critical#it speaks
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Artificial guest
Cw: mentioned torture, creepy/intimate/possessive whumper daydreaming about whumpee, captivity whump, stalking, conditioning
They are lost in a foggy forest.
They are cold. They flinch at every sound, expecting a wolf or something to jump out at them. They are lost, so utterly lost. They have no idea how they even got here, having woken up under a tree with nothing but their winter coat and a narrow path leading deep into the misty woods.
They come to a clearing, eventually. There is a pond in the middle, similarly misty and foreboding. Past that pond, past the spruce and up a hill in the distance, they see a palace. It stands tall and lonely, all slim towers and pointed roofs; it reminds them of the shadow of a terrible beast of claws and wicked teeth, perched up high and surveying its territory.
Storm clouds are congregating overhead. They decide, with nowhere else to go, to see if the intimidating looking mansion has someone there that can help them out. If they could let them stay just as long as the storm lasts, that would be enough. They could give them directions, or even a ride. Some food â they are starving...
Unbeknownst to them, the owner of the palace watches them from afar, leaning up against a tree somewhere near the clearing, hidden by the fog and grey light preceding a deluge. They follow their guest, pleased to see them walking the path they had carved for them so perfectly. They will come across a crossroads a little bit from now, and they will have to choose where to go next. They may choose wrong, and end up lost once more. The tempest may catch them outside, thirsting them into a fever, a terrible cold.
By the time they arrive at their doorstep, shivering and small and weak, the owner of the mansion will be waiting for them. They will open up their doors to the poor thing, letting the warm air and the smell of a delicious feast dizzy them into a desperate hunger, a quiet need to enter. They might play around, act like they are suspicious of the lost lamb, think it over for a good minute; â their guest will surely beg to be let in. Their voice will quiver, their eyes will widen in terror at the prospect of having to spend the night outside, and they will beg, make promises of behaving, of not taking up their time for long, that they don't need anything just a roof over their head, just a little mercy.
Standing off to the side, hidden, they feel a chill down their spine at the pleasant thought.
And they will let them inside, of course. They will help them out of their dirty, torn, wet clothes. They will offer a warm bath, lend a bed to sleep, dinner to enjoy. Their guest will find it a little scary, all alone in such a huge, strange home with a stranger, but what other choice do they have besides freezing to death in the mud outside? They will be so sweet, so timid, quiet and unobtrusive. They will feel guilt for bothering someone like this, demanding them to let them in their home like this. They will go to bed â lie their head on their pillow, in their magnificent guest room, among the softest duvets, in a bed surely ten times the size of their own back in their own home, â feeling remorse at needing help, feeling like a burden, out of place, a nuisance.
Like they don't deserve good things. Like they have to make up for being useless, have to earn their mercies.
When day comes, they will wake slowly. Their clothes will be thinner, their stomach empty. Their bed will have morphed into concrete. Their wrists will pound with the force of their pumping veins, finding chains tethering them to the floor. Their hands will clasp around a metal shackle ensnaring that beautiful, toned throat, their pupils blown wide in the near pitch black of the dungeon, and then â
Then they will know. They will know fear. They will know helplessness, vulnerability. They will get acquainted with the way the air around them turns thin sometimes. They will recognise â if not right then, then a bit later on, â but they will recognise that they are trapped; truly, completely, hopelessly trapped. They will yell, and no one will come. They will scream, and no one will hear. They will beg, and cry, and sob, and keen â and the only one who will listen will be the kind stranger that let them stay.
They will come see them, of course. They will descend the long staircase leading down to their Hell, and they will tell them, simply, that they will be hurt. They will hurt, and they will hurt, and hurt, and hurt, until they know nothing but pain. Until their entire existence becomes agony; a trembling, uncertain, exhausted, meek little life between these four unforgiving cement walls, living at the whims of their saviour, their one connection to what was once a livable, if not pleasant life, with friends and family and things they knew, things that made sense.
They will see no one but their captor. They will hear no one but their captor. They will feel no one, but their captor. They will learn soon enough, a crushing, terrifying truth. The truth that their life has become their captor.
They will only think about them; they will not be allowed to have thoughts about anything else. They will only look forward to seeing them. They will live for the little moments in-between two sessions of suffering, where they are told they did well enough to receive dinner that day, for the proud, fond words of praise that humiliate and bring tarnished, disgusting delight at the same time, at the kind touches running down long healed scars and deep-purple bruises and bubbling burns, gently promising more, admiring the carnage and letting them know that the one person in the world that matters is pleased with their pain, and that they will return again soon to see more of it.
For late nights, where they will weep, brokenly, weakly, sweetly, into the embrace of their captor, their worst nightmare, the only one that cares, the only one that matters, and they will hush them, gently rocking them back and forth, keeping them warm, pressing a loving kiss to the top of their head, hair wet with sweat and blood, and hold them.
They will remind them of the day they became theirs. How they were allowed in without issue, even though they didn't really know how to beg yet. How they were allowed food, their own bed, their own room, a fireplace, a bath. How they took it all, so flustered and nervous they barely remembered to say thank you. How later on, once their cold had really shown its ugly, feverish colours, they were given things like medicine, a blanket, tea, painkillers... And not only had they refused to thank their captor, but cursed them out, too outraged and afraid to accept their generous gifts. They will remind them of the day they saved them, and their little lamb will cringe at the memories, curl up in shame, apologising every time, earnestly, for all their stupidity and ungratefulness, forever regretting ever thinking they were anybody but their saviour's little broken toy, a sweet little pet spending all their time waiting for their owner to return and play with them so they can earn their little mercies one by one.
Theirs. Hopelessly, utterly, irreversibly theirs.
Their guest has long disappeared into the fog, climbing their way up the hill, all hope and full of life. Perhaps it's time to return home. Set the fire. Fish out the fluffiest blanket from deep within the closet. Pick out replacement clothes in their size. See how the chef is doing with dinner. Make sure the chains downstairs are holding steady, the blades are all sharpened, the collar won't cut off too much air, the cement floor won't scrape at their delicate flesh too deep. Many things to take care of before their guest arrives.
They shiver in excitement. Finally, someone new to keep the dungeon warm.
<3
Masterlist | Ko-Fi
Taglist (tagged in everything I write): @morning-star-whump @whumprince
#whump#creepy whumper#my writing#whump writing#intimate whumper#sadistic whumper#fear#captivity whump#chains#torture mention#possessive whumper#this started out as a prompt#it was just gonna be maybe a couple paragraphs#but my brain went jk you're going to sit here for two and a half hours and write a whole thing#case no. 7846374629 of me pretending that this was going to be anything but me putting my consciousness into whumper and daydreaming#about kidnapping some guy and putting them in a situation#reminder: i am deranged#if you see me write about whumper daydreaming........ its just me#im daydreaming#stalking
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god i wish it was tomorrow at 9pm est
#agatha all along#i am having a BAD TIME#i would like to pretend that's not the case for at least the half hour of a new episode
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i must talk to the guy who offered me the part time bookkeeper job again (wasn't 100% sure i was qualified for it when he first brought it up lol) and depending on what the pay is, i may survive after all
#i am moving money around arbitrarily in my accounts to pretend that i am doing something#and I've gotten the credit card debt low enough now that it's theoretically possible to have it paid off before i would have my surgery#which of course is only the case if i use the e-begged amount for the current debt and then just take on more debt lol#so far I've only pulled from it to make my payments to joss for the amount that i borrowed from her for the myofunctional therapy#so that way i don't have to give her my entire bonus next summer lol#so if this extra job pays even what I'm hoping for as a low estimate i should make it#and escape the pits of debt slavery in like 2 years#i think
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I'm not a new follower and I've been here long enough but i do have a relatively bad memory
So I've wanted to ask, what's your opinion on "Dishonored: death of the outsider"?
Right now I'm replaying Dishonored games not in the release order, i already finished DH2 and started Daud dlcs. Maybe I'll go for vanilla DH later
But thoughts about going through death of the outsider again makes me feel something that i can't explain... đŹ
It has some interesting ideas but antagonists are underused. Locations repeat a lot. And Billie herself deserved SO much better than whatever is going on with her character
I'm genuinely debating if i should revisit *this* one or pretend that DH2 is the last game. I know that some people love DOTO but i can't find strength in me
love to chat about death of the outsider, ty for the ask!
i feel your pain. it's the one game i struggle to revisit. but! i was thinking about your points and how DotO has the feel of budget cuts.
it's been about a year since my last DotO post - so, essay time -
a measured response to common DotO criticisms
(the thousand bugs of dishonored 2 I had borne as I best could, but when doto ventured upon sidelining billie and retconning daud's arc I vowed revenge*
*can't resist a cask of amontillado joke
criticism is easy and creation is hard, so, if this isn't the type of response you wanted, you can read my other DotO posts:
how i'd write death of the outsider
that post i did after trying to play doto a third time and couldn't make it past the opening scene (you might like my tags on this re: your comment "makes me feel something i can't explain")
billie lurk as a nonprotagonist & misogynoir (more on this below...)
gonna leapfrog off your comments cause I agree!
antagonists are underused/locations repeat a lot.
who is steering the boat?
let's start up at the top; everything stems from there.
DotO was caught up in ownership/transition issues. here's an article about harvey smith and raphael colantanio at that time. if you didnt know, colantonio is the main founder of arkane (semi-related but just for fun look his appearance up then go through arkane's protags and tell me what you notice...).
quote from harvey smith re: DotO -
âThen, just as I move back, [Colantonio is] announcing that heâs leaving. Going forward, Iâll focus more and more on the Austin studio and what weâre going to do there. Death of the Outsider is my wrapping up with the guys in Lyon â the first half of that we planned together while I was living there, but the second half was worked on while I was living in Austin. Iâve been communicating with them through video conferences and stuff, so they carry a lot of the load of the second half of it.â
so the founder jumped ship and the co-creative director has to step away from his usual position (over to sinking ship Austin). meanwhile, DotO is still in development. i'm a big believer in people making art, and not companies (even in this article Smith acknowledges much of their "secret sauce" can be traceable to specific devs but i digress)
$$$ kaching - some speculation
on the note of founders - past this point in arkane's history (ie. the main founder stepping back), arkane would have been being primed for sale. this translates to high scrutiny on project expenditure (such as hiring cheaper early career staff, hiring less workers, denying your best staff raises causing them to leave and hiring cheaper workers in their place, etc) to make the company's EBITDA look more appealing to buyers (briefly, its the piece of paper that proves you're profitable). based on speculative timelines, from a purely $ perspective within the first year of dh2 being released is when you'd be looking to slim down your capitalised expenditure (aka: cutting staff while the revenue is at a peak to make number go brr and make your company look like a better investment) because to maximise the profit of a company's sale, you really have a great track record for a few years.
this is purely speculation based on timelines. companies are very careful to hide when they're doing this, ideally they want ~3 years of a great track record (and staff that will keep working their hardest).
big goals and no money
DotO was meant to be a two-part DLC like the Dh1 DLCs, so shout out to what could have been made if their original pitch had worked.
On locations & antagonists & budget - this dev's site discusses the Conservatory level in game AND specifies it was budget constraints being the reason for cutting off traversable area from that mission. Great link for comparing the original level & the DotO version, especially re: your point about reused assets/levels.
We could pick other examples here but this post is already long so -
Billie herself deserved SO much better than whatever is going on with her character
i would forgive this game anything if there was any good billie storywriting.
:')
its never just the writers
after revisiting articles to fact-check for this essay, i've seen a lot of articles blaming writers by name (you didn't do this anon which i love <3)
games are made by teams, and decision making is generally done top-down, so blaming individual contributors is shit. 1) writer's pay isn't good enough to cop this kind of abuse. 2) it's rarely in their control - you can write a beautiful scene only to have that level cut due to costs (etc), and then you need to work out how to make the story make sense. ideation & decision-making are separate and i guess 'this idea was [X]'s' should not be mistaken for 'this is the fault of [X]'s.'
on hiring fans (& imm-sim writing strategies)
the new writers [...] already had an idea of the world, as theyâd seen it from the outside, as fans. âThese are all people that knew this world we had created and they took it as canonical, as the gospel. Whereas, for us, it was bits and pieces weâd made up along the way.â
as someone who used to hire writers, and i promise this isn't in bad faith: don't hire fans unless your priority is cost then, sure, fans are likely to put in overtime (and not be in a position in their career where they can ask for higher remuneration - they'll pay the passion tax to be involved).
writers (esp new career writers) have to be open to receiving feedback assuming healthy/functional processes, and being a fan makes that harder because you care more. and, as a fan, you know what loose ends exist and that's where you'll naturally jump to, even though writers should start with target audience and branding, and build from there. if i expand on this i'll get offtopic so let's keep going!
DotO feels lifeless because it doesn't add anything to the DH universe, it only takes away by closing storylines without the satisfaction of closure. sure, stuff was added - the cult subplot, locations, some NPCs/enemies, etc. but they feel like part of the objectives, not part of the dishonored universe. you can feel the decision-making process when you play: there's a feeling that the priority was to finish the assets required for missions, instead of writing a story that feels immersive.
compared to standard videogame writing, where you can generally get away with "everything you touch and read relates to your objectives as the protagonist", as an imm-sim writer, you need to focus on:
how does this text build the universe so that the player feels like they're only seeing a small part of the world?
of course - this is difficult with budget/time concerns. i've said it before but this is part of why we rarely have games as rich as dishonored 1 & 2, because imm-sim design philosophy flies against the current videogame industry trends of microtransactions & cheap-to-make addictive mobile games. given a tight budget you focus on the high level story, but player immersion is a function of details.
most likely, dh2 was the end of an era. typing that out makes me sad.
what did the devs say about writing billie
*breathes deeply*
the death of the outsider protag was originally pitched as being about a regular human, someone not related to emily and corvo but instead an overseer or a brigmore witch. daud was also pitched.
this could have worked! really cool to have a nobody, or a heretic, or an overseer, be involved with the death of a god. and i've mentioned before that storywise DotO's protag could have been anyone (i think i made a joke about wyman? hah) and wouldn't change the story much, bar some daud bits.
quote from the same article:
eventually Arkane settled on Billie Lurk, Emily's companion from Dishonored 2. [...] Bakaba tells me that because Billie had already received her redemption arc in Dishonored 2, Death Of The Outsider's story could be about something more than that.
welp.
so there's two things here - a redemption arc claim, and DotO's actual story.
in addition to not being the first pick, the view was that billie's story was over. i question the 'redemption arc' claim - sure, billie helps the protag in dh2 but after her confession, if you tell her she's changed, she brushes it off and you part awkwardly without forgiving her... does that count? if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound? if a character redeems themselves but the story never tells you, are they redeemed?
billie's role in dh2 isn't really that different to the dlcs, where she follows you around being Mr Exposition while withholding a LOT of information that could have actually helped the protag. given DotO's plot, going after the killer who shaped her doesn't scream 'reformed' either. ludonarratively speaking, the lack of chaos implies billie never changed from being a callous killer - which i'm not against, it would have been a cool story.
and! contrast this with daud who already had his redemption arc!
When first conceptualising Death Of The Outsider in around 2014, Smith and Duval knew they wanted two things: Billie Lurk being used to get to The Outsider himself, and closure for Dishonored villain (and later ally) Daud.
in the two DLCs, as we know, he comes to realise his actions sucked, and as the player you actively make things right (related: my post about ludonarrative dissonance in dh2). so if billie had "already received her redemption arc", why was this another daud story?
imo this isn't a budget issue but a misogynoir issue. "we want this story to be not about the protagonist so any random NPC will do, how about we go with billie lurk and get a black woman as a dishonored protag?" this logic, which is what i'm reading of the above two quotes, feels frustratingly tokenistic when she's an established character with a rich background. it's an example of surface level diversity because DotO is not about her by arkane's own admission. it's a similar vibe to the companies who say they have a diverse team but you check their staff page and all the people of colour have 'assistant' in their title and the board is all white, so it's not people of colour who are driving the business. maybe this was entirely by accident but these accidents add up to systematic failure - billie gets her own game but never her own story. it feels like she got assigned the caretaker role for these two guys. great.
for fairness, let's compare to dh2. corvo & emily are relatively hands-off protags in terms of their ongoing thoughts about their surroundings and the lore placement about them specifically is sparse, and this style continues in DotO. the issue is the core narrative: corvo & emily are both the protagonists of their story in the sense that dh2's story reflects their goals ("take back what's yours"), whereas Billie is an established character who has arguably little reason to go along with each mission. worse, the main plotline she's literally forced into going along with. in the opening scene billie gets assaulted and still helps the guy who assaulted her.
fundamentally, DotO's narrative is not about billie but about daud and the outsider, and this article makes clear that was by design.
whats the takeaway
DotO is the weakest entry in the Dishonored series for most people, and blaming budget & a corporate changeover makes me feel... uh well it doesn't really help me tbh but your mileage may vary. it does interest me to think about what we could have had!
for me, my opinion is that if writing billie was a priority (link to my own post where i describe the feeling of playing doto as someone interested in billie) arkane would have made it a priority, even amidst constraints. billie's redemption arc was not resolved imo, and putting her in a game without a chaos system feels like as much a backwards slide for her as daud's plotline to kill the outsider was for his arc.
we absolutely đ¤ on not being in a rush to play the game again.
on the upside. dishonored 2 is a really wonderful game and i love it very much.
#death of the outsider#dishonored#billie lurk#look i dont like to go on even though i think there's a genuine conversation that is almost never had on here#every year there are fewer and fewer fans interested in dh. so i dont want people to feel bad if they like it#you know? its not my priority to be negative. but there's a lot about this game that doesnt sit well.#full disclosure never worked in game dev! but i lead devs and am involved in financials and led writing projects#so my angle is half business. half writing.#im always a bit surprised when people say theyre a fan of a company#the work doesnt happen in a vacuum sure#but people make up that environment#most companies are one leadership change or two bad firings away from releasing crap forevermore#we pretend that's not the case because its hard to sell a business if you cant pretend you have a 'secret sauce'#but realistically that 'sauce' is people (ew) (bad analogy)#its better to see games as art and your relationship to that art as an evolving thing#my relationship to doto is poor and that'll probs always be the case! oh well. other games with billie in!#pres writes essays in tags
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If you truly want to do what's best for mentally ill people, you have to learn that you often won't be able to separate the "salvageable" parts of ourselves with our illnesses, and you can't pretend like we are sane people underneath the façade of insanity, like we can flip a switch and magically erase the differences that make us "disordered"
#mental health#mental health advocacy#i'm not sure how best to explain it but i see this attitude a lot that anything even mildly 'unsightly' must be punished or ignored...#...or fear mongered...#...or this idea that we *are* just secretly... not disordered and that we can choose every single aspect of our disorders and how...#...that will impact us and our world#it's really hard to explain if you haven't experienced it yourself. it's so hard to know that who you Fundamentally Are is seen as unhuman#that you cannot be disordered and seen as an equal in so many scenarios is precisely what i mean by 'if you want to do right [by us]'#we shouldn't HAVE to present as non-disordered or non-ill just to be treated like a person#i shouldn't have to be forced to pretend like my illnesses are an optional part of who i am that OTHERS should ignore so they can 'love me'#my illnesses are intrinsically tied to Who I Am. i will never have the opportunity to know what Being Sane is like and i shouldn't...#...have to pretend like that isn't the case#it's just fucked up to me to know that people would rather that we just... ignore often fundamental parts of who we are for *their* comfort#maybe that's how i'd word it? i find this a very complex topic but at the core...#...the idea is that we shouldn't have to fucking live a lie for the sake of the 'normal' folk#(obviously 'normal' isn't accurate on a technical level but it conveys how i see the conflict)
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There's something that always bothers me about people saying "Barbara going back to being disabled" doesn't matter if it's positive, negative, or neutral. It's the "going back" part because it's just not true. She wouldn't be going back, she would just be without assistive medical technology.
In the closest real-life example, not everyone who uses similar technology is considered "cured" as the removal of the device would mean they are no longer enabled. In only a few cases have I ever seen "cured" but that's potentially dependent on injury/cause of disability where it was possible the device just made recovery easier and there are many different causes to SCIs/paralysis/similar conditions. Others have no chance of recovery but have a chance of being enabled. But still not fully becoming an able-bodied person. Even some of the ones who recovered their ability to walk were still limited in what they were capable of (and therefore still disabled)
So honestly now, it's just coming to me how bad representation the chip is of similar realistic treatment and disabled people who use that treatment. Before anyone is like "But Barbara's isn't real" I know that, but now I'm literally seeing people say the same shit about REAL PEOPLE who have had nearly THE SAME TREATMENT because they're letting poor representation in a comic book determine how they view this course of medical treatment.
TLDR: No Barbara Gordon wouldn't "go back" to being disabled without the chip. Writers and fans aren't good at writing disability and it shows
#I'm pretty sure the only one that has 'guaranteed' by it's own claim to be a cure is Neuralink which is Elon Musk so.....#take of that what you will#barbara gordon#oracle#batfamily#batfam#batman#dc comics#Like I'm reading legitimate research articles about this and in only a few cases has 'cure' been used to describe the process#also why am I reading research articles? well if comic writers aren't going to be nerds anymore someone has to be lol#but really who's surprised a bunch of people don't give an actual shit about disability even when they pretend to#not my disabled ass that's for sure#disability#actually disabled#actually I should say the only other things calling similar tech 100% cures even if the chip were to be removed are also clickbait#I feel like I shouldn't have to mention that but really I do
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Ah I guess that now that we are still in pride month this must be my first post â¤ď¸đ§Ąđ¤đŠˇđ
#I've been basically communicating with this for weeks#liam gallagher#Pretending I didn't have this in my drafts#Because I am SCARED#SCARED every time I post something new on a tag hahah#Even more if it's first post in a new sideblog#Anyway hellooo ;p#My mutuals are probably tired of me sending them this so the wise option is making it everyone's problem (I guess?)#Ah what kind of image do you get of me when this is my first post#That I'm a lesbian?#Maybe#If that's the case then I guess it's ok#Happy pride btw!#my art#(establishing an art tag so I don't lose it)
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