#(i say as i do literally anything but work for university. i just feel guilty not doing it or doing anything but university work

[tardis--dreams]

*through gritted teeth* I just gotta do it and get through it i just gotta do it and get through it i just gotta do it and get th *starts crying*

[theladybrownstarot]

Pick-A-Card : What does your feminine side wants you to know ? (Collab : @tarot-by-e11e♡)

☪︎ Here's my masterlist for more !

☪︎ Make sure you like/reblogg/follow/Comment for more pacs like these !

Pile 1. Pile 2.

Pile 3. Pile 4.

˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖

Pile 1 .

Namaste pile 1 ! Let's get with your reading :-

cards pulled out : 10 of wands rx, 8 of swords rx and The sun .

☪︎ You people are literally stressed out and burdened with a lot of things that can be felt through the reading . Are you people having teeth pain out of stress because i can feel that . Your feminine side says that stop for second leave others and prioritize your mental and physical well-being ! take proper sleep do not over-do anything because there's always a limit . Your feminine side says even though you got lot of potential inside you but still take how much you can do.

☪︎ Next , some of you might be going through some legal problems and if not then you are full of unecessary thoughts which needs to filtered out seriously otherwise you are going to face lot of problems. Doing work out fear , insecurity or any other negative emotion is not gonna help you out . You might be facing some kind of injustice and i really feel that your feminine side says that you are not taking any proper action against it this tells me the need to have proper boundary for yourselves .

☪︎ last but not the least , your feminine side says that she is going to beat the shit out of you if you cannot enjoy and let yourselves get drowned in that sadistic pool of thoughts and actions ! let yourself be happy and really bring out that child inside you that craves to go out and do whatever it wants , be positive your world is not going to end .

˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖

Pile 2 . [@tarot-by-e11e]

Thank you so much for being here ♡ @e11e27

Cards pulled out : 2 of Cups, 8 of Coins reversed, Temperance, 7 of Swords, 3 of Swords, Queen of Wands, Hierophant, Knight of Wands, Judgement.

☪︎ The time in my clock is 1:01 pm as I sat down by my window enjoying the cool summer rain, so that I can interpret for my dear pile 2.

☪︎ Angel number 101 shares an undeniable news about growth, progress and new beginnings. There is this welcoming message of growth and collaboration with your feminine side. This makes me feel like my pile 2 are either: finally taking baby steps in wanting to lean more into your feminine side OR you've reached a certain point of burn out, that you feel called to want to learn how to graciously accept the help from the universe and your guides.

☪︎ With the 2 of Cups, there's this gentle whisper of unity and mutual respect for your feminine side. It would seem that pile 2 might have "girl-bossed" a little too hard this past few weeks/months, so much so that you’d rather push your body to the point of exhaustion than actively allowing yourself to rest and recuperate. There's also this air of hypervigilance caused by the lack of genuine support and healthy role models growing up.

☪︎ More like, Pile 2 was surrounded by who they promised they will never want to become. With the first card alone, the message your feminine side wants to tell you: Let yourself be open to others again.

☪︎ It seems that Pile 2 had experience betrayals and has been in survival mode to God knows how long. To be so disregulated that you feel guilty for even purchasing skincare, even if you are not financially struggling anymore, is quite a heartbreaking situation to be in. Your feminine side is telling you: "Self - Care = Self - Love", so pile 2 can be the type of person that struggles to be okay with putting themselves first. It seems this pile is for my people pleasers.

☪︎ The songs, "You don't know" by Katelyn Tarver popped in my head. Particularly the lines, "I know you got the best intentions, just trying to find the right words to say..."; this line makes me feel like a line you want to tell anyone who wants to help you out. In this case, this is a song you dedicate to your own feminine side. But here's the thing sweetie, your feminine side DOES KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE YOU...

☪︎ Your feminine side, as much as they want to help you out, they can't seem to outscream your insecurities and troubles away. Your feminine side is soft spoken yet firm with their love for you. Your feminine side wants you to know they'll always be here for you, they're just waiting for you to sit quietly in your feelings and take the time to hear them out. They're always ready to help, they're just waiting on your signal. And you choosing this pile, your feminine side is welcoming you with open arms, with them, you are allowed to safely get vulnerable, without judgement or shame. They're always ready to welcome you back into helping you feel like *you* again.

☪︎ So first thing your feminine side wants to tell you is: "Welcome back home".

☪︎ With 8 of Coins reversed, your feminine side wants you to forgive yourself for only taking the time to only want to hear what they have to tell you. It's okay, you're safe with your feminine side. Remember, no judgement or shame will ever come from them.

☪︎ With how much you have on your plate in your life right now Pile 2, having debts and bills to pay, responsibilities piling up higher than your bookshelves, alot of people depend on you for everything, even on things that they can easily deal with themselves, yet they actively decided to pass their burdens to you. Seeing as your attention, focus and efforts are needed elsewhere, it's okay that you only felt the need to sit down to what they have to tell you.

☪︎ The more I interpret for pile 2, the more I can imagine that this pile is for the chronic workaholic people pleasers, it also has the vibe of the sole provider and/or oldest sibling energy. The heavy feeling of burn out is so prevalent in this pile, so much so that you tend to be the type to drown in work while your friends and family barely got a chance to spend time with you.

☪︎ Just know, they love you and miss you so much. They do appreciate your efforts to keeping a roof over everyone's heads and food on the table, but you tend to forget that you deserve to be taken cared for too. This is a strong message from your feminine side, let others show how much they can take care of you. Let others into your life. Learn to let love in again in your life again. Betrayals in any shape or form had closed the gates of your heart, to the point of self-imposed isolation, guised as working hard to provide. It seems that pile 2 overworks to hide their pain. It's like, "Working more means less time to feel".

☪︎ With Temperance, your feminine side suggests you start reassessing your current lifestyle and curate your daily routines to cultivate a "healthy work life balance". I can already feel some of pile 2 are rolling their eyes back so far inside that they can see their brain cells barely surviving from fatigue. And yes, I'm also lovingly call out those of you who leaned back as you begrudgingly "ugggggggggghhhh..." into surrender.

☪︎ Definitely my burn out overwhelmed workaholic people pleasers pile. You're so conditioned to always Go, go, go to the next task before letting yourself catch your breath. My dear, unless your line of work is in ER surgery, you allowing yourself to rest won't lead to someone's demise. So if you work in the medical field pile 2, your feminine side is way more stricter with you about work-life balance. I heard the words "It's non negotiable at this point". So pile 2, please, for the love of rainbows, cookies and butterflies, please curate your daily routines into a healthy work-life balance.

☪︎ With 7 of swords, your feminine side is asking you to keep quiet about your plans for self-love and self-care. This was a rather odd card to show up but with the multiple instances of me mentioning betrayal with the previous cards, it seems pile 2 is surrounded by people who benefit from your lack of boundaries. That's actually the kind of betrayals you've consistently dealt with. People taking your kindness and generosity for weakness, as if it's an invitation to openly abuse your giving heart. Oh no dear pile 2, I'm so sorry you are surrounded by people who can't stand you stepping into your power.

☪︎ This message feels rather severe but your feminine side is asking you to keep your happiness and achievements under wraps and offline. Don't post anything celebratory, it seems that evil eye and ill wishes from jealous and insecure coworkers and/or family members tends be your usual cause of bad luck. So with that, cleanse and establish healthy boundaries with people who have proven that they have no intention of wishing you well. Keep those kind of people out of your life. Take that message in any shape or form that you feel called to interpret it as.

☪︎ Your feminine side urges you to let yourself be nurtured again. You don't have to always be assertive; you don't have to also be the one that leads. You are allowed and you deserve to receive. So let yourself be on the receiving of your friends and loved one's care.

˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖

Pile 3 . [@tarot-by-e11e]

Thank you so much for being here @e11e27 ♡

Cards pulled out : High Priestess, Ace of Swords, 4 of Wands, King of Cups, 4 of Swords, Strength, 6 of Coins

𐙚 My dearest pile 3, right off the bat, this feels like the “Stepping into your power” pile.

☪︎ Starting with the High Priestess, this talks about listening to your intuition, leaning more onto your spiritual practices, and, in this specific question, leaning more into listening to your feminine side. I feel called to share a little way to discern the difference between intuition, anxiety, and wishful thinking.

☪︎ Wishful thinking feels self-gratifying and short-lived, and leans more toward satisfying an urge/itch in the moment; like having a quick dopamine fix from doomscrolling. It’s the easiest to fulfill and do, out of all the three.

☪︎ Anxiety is fear-based and meant to keep you safe; there are certain times when safety, when taken too far, leaves you stuck and resentful; If any negative thought starts with “What if..”, this is an example of an intrusive thought that’s rooted in anxiety. It feels comfortable because it’s familiar, but it leaves you regretful and resentful for not pursuing something else.

☪︎ Intuition is sometimes like an invisible cord that’s pulling you into doing something you subconsciously feel is the right thing to do. There are times when intuition makes you feel uncomfortable, if you are in a period of stagnancy; but there are also times when intuition feels right, when even without logical and substantial evidence to back up the decision, you feel in your gut that it “just makes sense.”

☪︎ With Ace of Swords, your feminine side shares that you will receive some sort of clarity/breakthrough once you learn to listen to your intuition more; it takes practice to differentiate fear and inner knowing, so be kinder to yourself as you go about this journey. The more you listen to your gut, the easier it is for you to have new ideas and have a sense of focus towards the vision of what you want your life to unfold as.

☪︎ 4 of Wands is about your community, stability, and a sense of belongingness. With this, your feminine side suggests you put yourself out into the world to call in your soul tribe/chosen family. More like, the more you become the person you know you are meant to be, the easier it will be to naturally draw in your like-minded community.

☪︎ With the King of Cups, your feminine side urges you to embrace a compassionate approach in life, not just towards others, but particularly, towards yourself. Try to strike the balance between duty and nurture. Try to find a way to hone the skill of living a balanced life.

☪︎ Pile 3, your feminine side urges you to let yourself rest in the 4 of Swords; taking a nap while overthinking is not resting; sleeping and feeling guilty about not being productive hours before is not resting. (Damn, the call-out is real in this pile). Your feminine side asks you to truly let yourself rest and recuperate, unapologetically. How about this: whether you rest later, or rest now, your responsibilities remain; so if you rest properly now, you’ll have more energy to do your tasks wholeheartedly, and the chances of you producing results beyond your expectations is a high possibility. But if you push yourself too hard now just to have something you can “produce for the sake of having an output”, 9/10 the result is half-assed, and this will lead you to have more reason to stress and be filled with regrets. So the choice is up to you.

☪︎ The Strength card feels like your feminine side is telling you to embrace your inner power. If you’re the type that’s made to feel small, now’s the time for you to step out of your comfort zone, and try to build your confidence. You don’t have to make a huge. Life-altering change overnight. This feels more like building that steady foundation of your self-confidence. Learn how to reassure yourself that no matter what, you’ll get through everything because you are sure about your decisions and dreams in life.

‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖

Pile 4 .

Namaste pile 1 ! Let's get with your reading :-

cards pulled out : The world rx , The hermit , Knight of pentacles , Ace of penatcles rx and the emperor rx .

☪︎ People your feminine side encourages you to move forward and no to give up because you are almost the half way to what you need , i feel you are going through major setbacks and still you people trying to do everything you got to make yourself come out of the situation you are in currently and you will actually .

☪︎ Your feminine side encourages you to go for deep self reflection and take time-off from people and other things to sort out what needs to be , she says that you already have got all the wisdom and solution you are seeking that was because of the constant experience , i feel there's a mistake or an action that your committing again and needs to be stopped . She encourages you to meditate and take rest and don't seek help outside because you got it all !

☪︎ Some of you might be having some male relation issue or an issue with authority which will resolve quickly but you being encourages to take your stand .

☪︎ Your feminine encourages or warns you to be aware of any future scam or money investment you are doing , you need to change your long term financial plan or need to revaluate for better , I feel some of you might not get the desired job as of now and it could be that you facing job related issue which resolve quickly withing 2-3 months or before just do not stop .

₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚☽◯☾˚₊‧⁺˖

©️ @theladybrownstarot 2023 all rights reserved. Any stealing Or copying of work will be a punishable offence.

[luvhughes43]

tuition payments | hughes!sister

[luvhughes43 masterlist🌷]

request: hi!! i love your work and would like to know if you could do hughes brother x younger hughes sister as the reader, who is short money to go to college and is afraid to ask her brothers first help hut once they find out they help her out?

word count: 0.6k

with your parents' new jobs, they were off the grid for awhile while they tended to their clients and hockey prospects. you knew that in advance, which is why your parents had paid for your tuition before their schedules became busy. so when you got an email on monday saying your tuition was overdue, you were shocked to say the least. 

there was $3 000 pending in your account, which meant your scholarship hadn’t gotten cleared again. you emailed your school back immediately, asking about the money and if your credit could be used, but you didn’t get a reply. all you received were multiple OVERDUE messages, each promising to add more money as a late fee to your already high balance. 

you didn’t have enough money in your savings or chequings account to cover the remaining balance, and so you hastily picked up shifts hoping you could make enough to cover the costs. your friends downright asked why you couldn’t just ask your brothers for the money - and in truth you could, but it just felt wrong. you felt so bad for being dependant on everyone in your family, so if you could help it you would work for the tuition money.

you had almost saved enough when you got the email that your payment had gone through. you sighed in relief, thinking your credit went through but when you checked the app you saw that the remaining balance was paid via card. 

you didn’t have a second to think before a call from quinn lit up your phone. 

“hey quinny?” 

“why didn’t you tell me about your tuition?” he asks, getting straight to the point. 

“how do you know about that?” “dad told me before he went on his work trip to check your accounts and make sure everything was paid,” quinn states simply, and you wonder briefly how quinn even got into your school account before realizing your parents have your passwords. 

“oh…”

“why wouldn’t you tell us you had tuition due?” your brother asks again, this time his voice full of confusion. “like, we could’ve handled this sooner. at least you don't have any of the stupid fees,” he trails off. 

“i just,” you pause, feeling that your reasoning was stupid now that you were about to vocalize it. “i feel like i'm so dependent on you guys. i picked up a few shifts to try and make the money up but it just didn’t happen,” you sigh. 

quinns quiet on the phone and you shift uncomfortably. “you know we don’t care right?” 

“i care!” you huff before putting the call on speaker and laying down on your dorm bed. 

“i’m a millionaire,” quinn states simply. “your schooling is important. you’re not working full-time so you can focus on your studies” 

“i know but i still feel bad…”

quinn sighs, “literally don’t worry about it. nobody feels like you're dependent. you're a university student it’s normal to need help,” 

“okay…” your voice is quiet, and you feel a pang of guilt hit your chest. sometimes you just wish that you didn’t have to ask your brothers or parents for help. 

“i love you y/nny, if you need anything just call” 

“i love you too,” you reply. the siblings stay on the call for a few more minutes, just debriefing on life and the daily dramas. you always know, despite how guilty you may feel, that you’ll always have your brothers if you need help.

[bigfan-fanfic]

The Things I Do For You (Male!Reader x Josh Washington)

@inhumanshadows Josh Washington introduces his bf to his friends and sisters at the lodge.

Set of course in an alternate universe where Josh's therapy went far better and the prank never happened!

His sisters are literally the nicest people in the world, it seems. Hannah's the one with the glasses, you remember.

Both of them were so happy to finally meet you, and instantly treat you like one of the family.

"Josh has been... so much happier lately. So... thank you. For being there for him, cause he tends to clam up around us." Beth smiles.

You grin back at her. "He's been there for me, too. We're a good team."

"That's good."

"You'll need it up here." Hannah says cryptically. Beth just rolls her eyes.

"No drama, Han. This weekend is about Josh and Y/N. Okay?"

Hannah sighs, then smiles. "You're right. I'm sorry."

It feels like some sort of choice has been made, but by then, Josh has returned and mischievously pulled you into a kiss from behind.

He grins at you. "Howdy, pilgrim." He drawls in a terrible cowboy voice.

You push him away lightly. "How dare you. Kissing me the coward's way."

"Well, allow me to try again." He winks, then moves to your front to kiss you again. Hannah mimes a gagging motion, and Beth smacks her arm.

"The others should be arriving soon. Should we just all just hang around and not say anything about Y/N until they freak out?" Hannah asks mischievously.

"You mean gaslight them out of meeting my boyfriend?" Josh laughs. "You up for it, Y/N?"

"Nah, I'm not much for pranks. Besides, you couldn't keep your hands off me for that long."

"Guilty."

Beth chuckles at your easy banter, but then the twins freeze when you look over at Josh. "Did you get your meds yet, babe? I think I heard your alarm go off."

"Oh, shit, you're right!" Josh's eyes widen and he goes to grab them.

Beth looks at you. "Wow. He used to get really sensitive about that."

"He knows I'm looking out for him, and we're just trying to work together on it."

"Well, I'm glad." Hannah grins.

The others arrive, and Josh lets the twins handle the greetings, because he took you down to the boiler to get the hot water working so you could make some tea.

"So, my friends... some of 'em can be a little... hard to handle sometimes. But deep down, we're all in a little love fest." Josh chuckles.

You nod. "They're pranksters, eh?"

"Yeah. I know you don't like em all that much, so I'll try to let em know you're not about practical jokes."

"Thanks." you smile, kissing his cheek.

An impatient text from Hannah recalls you both up from a make-out session in the basement

Emily and her boyfriend Mike are the first to arrive, having given Beth's best friend Sam a ride.

Mike shoots you some finger guns, and Sam offers a hug. Emily seems a little more reserved, but offers you a warm greeting. She makes a little joke about you finally teaching Josh some manners, and offers you some advice.

"Make sure you train them early." She winks. "These boys don't know their heads from a hole in the ground, but they learn quick. First rule: Emily is always right. Second rule, Mike?"

Mike gives her a mock-pout. "Nothing else matters because Emily is always right."

She gives you a little shrug as if to say "See?" before sauntering off.

Jess, Ashley, Matt, and Chris come next, having carpooled, Jess shows off her braided pigtails, claiming she let Ashley braid them in the car. Matt high-fives Josh and lets you know he's "totally supportive of the LGBT community, you know?"

Chris pretends to stand off with you. "So, you're the other man, huh?"

Jess giggles. "I always knew you two had a thing, Chris!"

"What? I meant, like, platonic versus romantic and-"

"Chris is jelly!" She sings, and Chris chases after her as she chants it through the lodge.

"I hope you're doing okay. Lots of meetings all at once - I'd be freaking out." Ashley chuckles, and shakes your hand.

It's lucky you're there - it's one of the last times here at the lodge for them before they all go off to college and start the next phase of their lives.

You suspect that had they not all been on their best behavior out of support to their friend, someone would've caused some huge drama.

But as it is, Josh refuses to drink cause it messes with his meds, so Mike and Chris decide to polish off a bottle in his honor - meaning Mike passes out with Chris halfway into the night and thus instead of Hannah making a move and Emily and Jess starting a retaliatory prank, the group has more of a chill game night vibe.

Josh gets clingy when the sun goes down and demands cuddles.

"The things I do for you," you playfully sigh, and the two of you settle under a blanket in front of the TV.

The gang easily pivots to putting on a movie and falling asleep, the snow falling peacefully outside.

And far across the mountain, the ancient things remain contained, another year kept at bay.

You never do get back up to the lodge. But even if a lot of Josh's friends move on after that, his sisters become your lifelong friends, and you know that Josh and you are gonna be something good...

[smakonca]

Soooo? Uhm, first of all you have a really cool design for Nightmare…..wait what was I doing- oh yeah! Right! Do you have like a specific story interpretation of the DreamTale incident/Apple incident or Headcanons for it? If so what are they? Have a good timezone!

Thank u!

Yes, yes I actually do.

First of all, it's probably worth starting with the fact that I don't distinguish a passive Nightmare from its destroyed version. For me, Nightmare is one complete character. Broken by his anger, resentment and hatred.

For me, the apple incident is not a one-day event that instantly made Nightmare spiteful towards Dream and everyone else. His corruption lasted for years. So did his hatred. It couldn't have appeared literally in one day.

Nightmare has been rejected by society all his life. All his life he has received only hatred and contempt. That's why he grew up like this. He became withdrawn, unfriendly and venomous even to those who treated him well. I don't think all the villagers in Dreamtale were terrible. Just because Nightmare was used to being treated terribly, he began to reject any support and attention. Just because he didn't trust anyone else.

As time went on, he became as angry, greedy and envious as the society in which he grew up. He began to argue with Dream more often. And avoided him as much as he tried. And I think that by the time of the apple incident, they were already in some kind of quarrel. Which only pushed Nightmare to prove that he is just as good if not better than Dream.

I don't think Dream was blind and ignored what the villagers were doing to his brother. He was a child. He didn't know what to do. He was naive and tried to solve the problem peacefully. To try and make everyone apologize to each other. However, none of the parties wanted to take the first step. Not the villagers nor Nightmare.

Then, of course, the plot goes according to the canon. However, Nightmare did not intentionally kill the villagers of Dreamtale. At least those who attacked him. It came out spontaneously, as he still did not know how to control his abilities yet and was absorbed by all the negative emotions that had accumulated in his soul.

You know, like in that African saying. "A child who has not been warmed by the village, will burn it to the ground to feel its warmth".

Dream, seeing how his brother, covered in blood, towered over the corpses, was in utter horror and shock. He didn't want to fight back then, but there was only one thought in his head.

To protect.

He felt that this was his duty. Holding a golden staff in his hands, he stood against Night.

It made Nightmare extremely angry. After all he's been through. The humiliation, the pain, the resentment, the loneliness. And his brother doesn't take his side anyway. Of course, he was furious and got overwhelmed by his anger and attacked Dream.

And the brothers confronted each other in battle. You already know the end. Dream turned into a stone.

And here I don't really like the scenario that Nightmare just leaves Dreamtale and never comes back. I think as soon as Dream turned into stone, Nightmare immediately regretted what he had done to the only person who truly loved and believed in him.

I think Nightmare made numerous attempts to find a way to bring his brother back to life, tried everything. He talked to him, mourned for him, asked for his forgiveness, begging him to come back. But nothing was working.

However, as the years passed, Nightmare’s soul hardened. He began trying to find more and more excuses for the accident of which he was guilty. Excuses for his burning hatred. With every year his memory faded a little. Nightmare came back to his brother’s statue less and less.

He began to explore the worlds. Other Universes. And study each one with passion. He began to absorb the vices of monsters and humans. And even getting acquainted with them.

No one out there knew anything about him anyway. No one knew about his pathetic past. They only knew that he was strong and incredibly dangerous.

I think that's how Nightmare began to feed on negative emotions. First, by visiting purely negative worlds. And soon after he grew an interest in changing the course of the history of other AUs in order to turn them to the dark side.

He began to revel in his own power and the opportunity to play with other people's lives. You bet, he did! He was no longer a vulnerable child, unable to stand up for himself. He was a monster. The very thing people believed him to be.

Nightmare at this point considered himself almost a god and an omniscient being, whose abilities and intelligence are beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals.

I think at some point his hatred reached its limit. And he returned to Dreamtale only to kill the remaining inhabitants and destroy the offerings they had left for Dream. Putting an end to this chapter of his life for himself. (as he initially thought).

He decided that at all costs he would make the world respect him. Fear him.

But when Dream got out of the stone, Nightmare's plan went wrong.

For the first time in hundreds of years, brothers met again. And they fought again.

After all, Nightmare understood that Dream would never allow him to gain domination over the Multiverse. And Dream, because his memory loss after many years in stone, initially thought that his brother died a long time ago. At first, he even refused to believe that this bloodthirsty and purely evil creature could be his brother. But even when he put up with this fact, he didn't give up hope. Maybe his brother will come back one day.

Personally, I like to think that it took another hundred or two years for Nightmare and Dream to come to terms with the current situation in the world and form some kind of truce. Where everyone has a certain number of universes under their patronage. Because both Dream and Nightmare will die without feeding on positive/negative feelings.

I also like to think that each of them has a certain number of allies across AUs, who provide them with information about other Universes and help maintain balance.

For example, Nightmare has a certain number of kings and rulers under his patronage, whom he helped ascend to the throne, as well as Multiverse bandits or murderers ravaging the worlds. He did this in exchange for the fact that they would arrange tyranny in the worlds where it was needed, supporting him and providing sources of negativity for him.

And in fact, Dream can't do anything 'cause technically speaking, a tyrant, ruling over his world and making it full of negativity and pain, is an unfortunate combination of circumstances, and not the work of Nightmare.

Dream's situation is similar. The fact that somewhere in the worlds the situation suddenly changed from conditionally bad to good is not always his doing. Sometimes it's just the way things are. Which sometimes is very convenient.

Oh don't get me started with AUs which have different endings or are dependent on players' decisions. This Universes are even harder to control. Or help them. Or corrupt.

I honestly don't really like it when people make a saint without a single flaw out of Dream. Yes, he is kind, merciful and resolute. But sometimes he acts solely out of his own interests.

For me, for example, it has always been a question, why does Dream protect only positive worlds? Yes, they give him strength and he is obliged to protect bright feelings. And he could not stay for long in negative worlds. However, don't other universes deserve his salvation? Can't he give them good things too?

Makes him a bit of a hypocrite, don't you think? He chooses to bring hope only to those universes that are easiest to help. Which I don't really like, to be honest.

In my headcanon he and Nightmare have formed a small alliance to keep the balance in the Multiverse. No matter what anyone says, I just like this concept. Our world has always been and will always be ambiguous. Just like conditional good and evil.

Of course, this does not justify Nightmare’s actions in any way. In the end, everything he does is hard to call "virtuous".

However, both he and Dream realize that they are unable to win. For time being they are playing some kind of mind games, trying to take control over different AUs.

Also bear in mind he fact that Universes are constantly being created and destroyed. Therefore, both Dream and Nightmare try to protect the sources of emotions closest to themselves. But the situation is different for both of them.

Dream, who is unable to help everyone and is forced to enter into unprofitable alliances with Nightmare, often blames himself for not being good enough. No matter how much he tries to help, there will always be those who want to take advantage of his kindness. It's hard for him to get used to the idea that sometimes you need to be rude and tough in order to be able to defend your ideals. For which, by the way, in many Universes he does not have the best reputation. Many blame him for still not being able to defeat Nightmare. It all falls heavily on him and sometimes makes him give up.

Nightmare who lived for a long time tries to find stability in everything. He rarely has random outbursts of anger and hate. He learned to control them. He learned how to manipulate others in order to get what he wants. He is smart when it comes to persuading people or forming alliances.

The image of Nightmare is very special to me. He's my favorite. However, not his canon version, but a certain image that I have created for myself.

I like to think that Nightmare is ambivalent, like the dark side of the moon, which he is desperately trying to hide.

He is proud and narcissistic, hates when someone restricts his freedom, but at the same time hates himself for the mistakes of the past.

He justifies his bloodthirstiness, saying that the world made me like this. But deep down he understands that he is the one to blame for everything that happened.

He dresses glamorously, hides behind the status of a king, treating everyone around him as his pawns. At the same time, he is weak and is in constant chronic pain.

He considers bright feelings and any manifestation of them as a weakness. But at the same time, he himself experiences them in relation to his subordinates.

He is smart and cunning, but his knowledge of the world is limited by his own interests. He doesn't understand simple things. Such as sincerity and care. These are strange concepts for him.

He considers himself omnipotent and omniscient. He loves solitude, but at the same time he wants at least someone to feel his pain.

He says he hates Dream. Constantly tries to mess with him, to make him suffer. But deep down inside, he misses him madly, because he knows that Dream is the only one who still has not lost hope and believes in his redemption.

He longs for love. Simple and sincere. He desperately wants someone to be with him. But he understands that no one in their right mind can love him.

My Nightmare is made of contradictions. He's a pathetic hypocrite. Remove his mask and you will find a lonely broken creature behind it.

That's who Nightmare is to me. He can get better, he can try to let go of the past and start helping people. But he won't. Because he lacks fortitude. He is afraid to go down the same road as he did in his childhood.

Dream and Nightmare have always been and will always be opposites in all aspects.

Dream is soft on the outside, but his soul is strong and noble. Nightmare seems hard and inaccessible, but inside he fears everyone and unsure of himself and his abilities.

Dream has found support and care. Nightmare has found pain and disappointment.

Dream is in pain, but knows that those around him do not deserve it and will fight for it. Nightmare is also suffering, but blames everyone else for his pain except himself. And he enjoys the suffering of others while hiding his own insecurity and hatred towards himself.

They will always be like that. Like Yin and Yang. Like night and day. Like life and death. Like… Well, you get the idea.

While I was writing it, this picture literally appeared in my head. So them actually.

Now my favorite part.

The design.

I came up with the design for Nightmare about two years ago. I've been drawing him like this ever since. The reason is stupid and simple. My love for the dark gothic vampire aesthetic, so Nightmare is dressed like a dark vampire lord or something.

I have problems with his canon design. And it seems a little strange to me that his color palette changed very abruptly after the apple incident.

Dream has a good design. Bright yellow and orange are attractive and symbolize hope he brings. The green details in the form of straps symbolize life. And the black suit under his clothes is like the pain he hides behind a bright image. You can cast an eye on Dream and immediately understand who he is. His palette tells us a little story about him. He looks like a real archer, who is quite fragile, but fast and agile. Its design serves as an element of the narrative, and I love when creators do it.

And Nightmare... Eh. I do not know why he began to look like an ordinary Sans doused with oil.

This, in my opinion, unfortunately kills his tragic story completely. I heard somewhere that he looks like this to blend in with his surroundings. And if he goes to make a massacre in another universe, everyone will blame Sans, not him. This is very strange, because, firstly, I am not sure that all AUs have a Sans as such.

And secondly, seriously? Would you confuse your acquaintance/friend with a goo with tentacles? I don't find it believable.

Thirdly, he has the opportunity to transform into anyone. Why would he pretend to be Sans, if he could become a random unknown monster, kill everyone and flee. And trick everyone, so that even according to the description of that poor AU survivors, Dream could not understand that it was actually his brother.

So my Nightmare is a little different. Purple is still his primary color. After all, it is the color of mystery, power and pride. As you know, many royal figures have worn it, which highlights the image of Nightmare as a king. He also wears a huge coat, whose long sleeves to match his vectors. And the heels. Of course he wears them. Also I headcanon that he intentionally makes himself taller. So as to look down on everyone else. Silver plaques are the opposite of Dream's golden tiara.

I really want to think that my design for Nightmare reflects his character at least a little. When you look at him, you could say, yes, he looks like royalty. Yes, he looks stately. Yes, he looks both mesmerizing and intimidating.

He needs to evoke horror mixed with reverence, respect and admiration.

P. S. This took me a couple of hours to write. I apologize for any mistakes I could have made.

[moonrisecoeur]

Nobody wants to talk about this so its down to us babe 😔 but can we think about SUGAR BABY LEON. Because im sick of all this 'sugar daddy this, sugar daddy that' what if we spoil the babygirl 🤨

if i’m so for real with u i’m literally a starbies barista i do not make the money to be a sugar mommy and i like men who give me stuff and buy me whatever i want BUT on the off chance leon ends up with a rich partner…

i also have some darker ideas for this if u want that kinda vibe too!! just let me know !!

no pronouns mentioned, reader is referred to as having a cock but straps count too 💥 , somno and free use mentioned

he does not know what to do with himself. like okay if we’re in a non apocalypse au and leon is just a cop, he’s making okay money, but he’s not living lavishly. and if we’re in the canon universe and leon is like a government agent, i still don’t think they’re paying him much beyond enough to cover basic living essentials. basically he’s getting by fine but not much more than that.

and then he meets someone, you. you have more money than you know what to do with, so what do you decide to do? you spend it all on the pretty boy you met at the coffee shop. you pay for his drinks, his pastries, and then it keeps going until you’re paying for his rent, utilities, you’re buying him new furniture since his is old and you’re taking him out to expensive dinners and wining and dining him, giving him fancy jewelry and designer clothes.

he doesn’t know what to do!! he feels like he has to repay you even if you insist he doesn’t, “leon, sweetheart. the point of me doing all of that was so you wouldn’t be paying it back. those were gifts, baby.”

“i- i know but… this can’t be right i- i can’t just take all of your money!”

“sweetie, you can have all of my money, i don’t care. i want to spend time with you,” you mumble as you press a kiss to his cheek.

he likes people who are just a little bit older, a little more intelligent, a little more confident than him. and you tick all of those boxes. you could have easily just asked him out, and started a normal relationship. he would have fallen for you anyway. but there’s something very down to earth about you thinking the only way you could spend time with him is by throwing your money at him. he doesn’t like the feeling of guilt that hangs on his heart.

but honestly? you’re completely satisfied, he has nothing to worry about. even with the allowance you give him (you have to secretly deposit it into his account otherwise he’ll feel guilty accepting it even if he needs it) you’ll still have more money than you know what to do with.

and also, every date night, you wine and dine him as usual at some fancy restaurant, you come home and fuck his brains out.

i’m talking like, he can’t think about anything but your cock for an extended period of time. you make him cum over and over until his body gives out and he goes unconscious. you take care of him, cleaning him up and cuddling him while you fall asleep, and when he wakes up, it’s morning and there’s breakfast waiting for him in the kitchen of your luxurious apartment.

after a while, you convince him to move in with you! rent is so expensive these days (you say like it even makes a dent in your net worth) and it would be more convenient if he just lived with you. it takes a lot of convincing, but he comes around. he’s a good roommate, he’s tidy and does all the chores (mostly again because he feels like he has to repay you somehow!)

and you buy him cute little gifts and bring them home for him to open after you get off work!! little things that remind you of him or things you remember him mentioning he wanted.

also, since he lives with you 24/7 now, it’s so much more convenient when you want to fuck him senseless. you don’t even have to ask him, just bend him over the kitchen counter while he’s making dinner. or fuck him when you get home from work and he fell asleep on the couch. that’ll wake him up!!

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

ok so ive been rewatching psychoville and saw on the wikipedia that there were a bunch of websites made for the series (they were all written by reece and steve btw) which i've been looking through cos they are genuinely SO fucking funny & also just amazingly creative lol!

anyway i know people in the fandom probs already know about this (since the show came out literally 15 years ago pfft) but i thought i'd share some of my fav bits (but honestly would just recommend just checking them out if you haven't i have been crying with laughter for literally hours lol)

i will say that a lot of the media (videos, games, etc) no longer work on the archived sites rip but i'm sure people have uploaded some of the stuff (vids especially) to yt or other places lol

so a) i love that we get some background stuff on jelly and 2) 'captain CRACKERS' bernie clifton's dressing room reference question mark ??????? (ofc bcdr was AFTER this but i know love the idea that mr jelly trained under len pfft)

what that red raw stump do though 👀 (sorry pfffft)

mr jolly's website wasn't that interesting soz tho i did like him comparing being a doctor to being a clown lol

the comment about fag bears did make me wheeze i'm afraid lol i also loved the blurry photos of lomax's commodities lol (kinda reminded me of the bit in tlog w/ that terrible old photographer guy lol)

when i tell you i DIED with laughter at the 'now known as hull' bit like u just know reece wrote that bit pfft

not really a funny thing but this poem written by david honestly kinda breaks my heart lol... i think it also a lot of additional context to david's guilt when he thought he'd killed his father(faver) because perhaps he felt guilty about NOT feeling guilty you get me? like, it felt to me that when maureen told david it was SHE who killed her husband, it didn't feel like he was mad at her for doing it, but more that she kept the fact from him. it's about... the mutual oedipus-coded obsession with one another that couldn't even be destroyed in death and in this essay i will....

ghoul_lass23 is just like me but about tumblr lol fr

nothing feels more cursed than the phrases 'the river minge has burst its banks', 'crying creamy tears' and 'fleshy rapunzel' (which i've just noticed they misspelt lol... don't think that was intentional lol?) so if i had to read this so do you <3

the way that i kinda wish this actually existed tho pfft... also, it does kinda remind me of that video where jenny nicholson talked about that insane reality show 'opposite worlds' lol

'cross between seven and glee' is honestly sending me pfft

also on this part there was a script from stinkfinger (which is a show mentioned on the show) which sounded suspiciously like a reference to tlc lol

the less said about swastknickers the better

(will say i did nearly piss myself laughing at the nazi section of the hoity toity website lol which wasn't a sentence i thought i'd type today lol)

i just love these kinds of jokes pfft

also the whole biography sections of each of the pantomime cast are fab lol tho i AM kinda pissed they made debbie from yeovil and yet didn't give her a west country accent lol!!! (i guess they thought it'd be a bit much w/ joy being bristolian but i'm still mad about it lol)

also i know people have probably already pointed this out but i do find it funny that brian in the in9 episode last night of the proms is a closeted gay guy who likes watching drag was probably a reference to brian in this show that was a drag queen like... is anything these guys do NOT a reference??? u know those gaylor fans who obsessively look for clues in her songs about her apparent secret sexuality? all i'm saying is that i think they'd really like the extended reece shearsmith & steve pemberton universe pfft

all three of these made me cry with laughter lol

ohh this is interesting lol so obviously they suspected that some people might be all 'um why didn't the sprinklers go off during the fire at ravenhill? plot hole much!' so they wrote this into one of the websites so they could be like SEE! WE'RE ONE STEP AHEAD OF YOU DUMBASSES lol

both the jeremy kyle reference (remember when that was a thing? yikes... my mum used to watch his show CONSTANTLY...) and nurse kenshington's thoughts on david and maureen are interesting lol.. also there's a reference to the serial killer top trumps in this bit lol! (do people still play top trumps?? man i LOVED top trumps lol...)

the entire sunnyvale care home section is so fucking funny (both the website AND in the show lol mrs wren/mrs ladybird face is unironically probably my favourite character on the entire show) these were just some of my fav gags lol...

ok but why is this the SECOND reference to a guy punching a child who was apparently looking at his dick lol!??!! did this happen to one of you ??!!?!? reece did you punch a child ??!???!?!??

&&&& that's it lol

there were a few websites i didn't spend long on or generally weren't that interesting (coughmidgetgemscough) but honestly? i was really captivated with just how funny and well put together all these sites were! you can tell they had a lot of fun making it and i'm sure fans at the time LOVED being able to have this semi-interactive element of the show lol

there was just something so wonderfully late 00's about these websites lol i genuinely don't think i've laughed this much at anything in literal months and all of this is just solidifies that psychoville is a criminally under-appreciated masterpiece lol

[absolutehomosexuals]

Baldur's Gate 3 is known for its variety in romance options, allowing you to romance all six of your companions regardless of the player's sex/gender and including the possibility of a non-monogamous relationship with some of them.

While we do think it's an interesting idea in theory, the way bg3 implemented this feature could use some work, especially character-wise.

Something that could've been fun and unique turns, sadly, into a mildly uncomfortable experience if you stop to think about the implications.

While each of the relationships is consensual in theory, the developers chose the most ambiguous characters to develop these storylines with.

We've got Mr. "Oh, is it because we haven't had sex in a while?" former s*x sl*ve Astarion, who's known to drown his trauma in unhealthy coping mechanisms and probably feels guilty for "depriving" his partner of sex during act 2.

Former sharran Shadowheart, whose cult used to push young members to "experiment [with each other]" while ironically considering masturbation a sin.

Literally untouchable Karlach, who allows you to sleep with others for as long as her engine isn't fixed, because she "doesn't want to lose you" – which is obviously not consent and in a perfect world we wouldn't even need to explain that.

It's also worth specifying that the game never clarifies whether your arrangement is a polyamorous relationship (if you also romance Halsin) or an open relationship, but that's probably up to player discretion.

Why is it relevant, you may wonder?

We could argue the characters might be individually attracted to Halsin, which would be true in Shadowheart's case.

For an ex-sharran, an exclusive polyamorous relationship is definitely less on-the-nose than full blown relationship anarchy ; not that there's anything wrong with the latter, whether irl or in a fictional setting, but the case we're talking about is a delicate (and fictional) one.

She also doesn't bat an eye after she catches the MC with Mizora, which – regardless of whether their relationship was already open or not – is clearly disrespectful to their relationship.

Ethical non monogamy requires communication in order to be, well, ethical: sleeping with a demon (and arguably, an enemy to the party) without warning your partner would count as cheating in any universe.

She just gets mildly mad and lets it slide, which is not how you enforce boundaries in this kind of arrangement, leading us to think the cult's beliefs are unfortunately still rooted in her despite her conversion to Selûne.

And of course they would: undoing religious trauma is hard work, and bleaching your hair won't heal it overnight, regardless of what our dear Shadowheart might think.

^ Astarion has an identical reaction, if you wondering.

Many people take issue with this type of take, claming it paints Halsin as disrespectful of other people's relationships and consent.

We are absolutely not saying that: Halsin asks for explicit consent from both the MC and their partner, in order to honour their pre-existing relationship despite his own feelings, which is exactly how it should be.

People can consent to situations they're not emotionally ready to take on, whether they're not right for them in that specific moment of their life or at all.

Furthermore, we're not even necessarily talking about Halsin: the MC has other occasions to live out a non-monogamous arrangement with their partner, such as with the drow twins.

Oh and, speaking about the drow twins, we hope to god you don't think rolling a DC 25 persuasion check on Gale (who explicitly tells you he's monogamous if you try to involve Halsin in your relationship) to get him to sleep with prostitutes is okay.

I sincerely hope whoever romances Gale, perhaps interpreting his former relationship with Mystra as groom*ng (which is a whole other can of worms we're not going to dive into in this post), understands how fucked up and disgusting it is to roll that check on him.

And, funnily enough, the game doesn't even consider it r*pe by coercion! Which it clearly is, to anyone sane and allowed within three feet of schools.

In conclusion, some of the choices Larian made on the portrayal of ethical non-monogamy are questionable, and anyone who enjoys this kind of relationship irl should probably strive for better representation.

Of course we should appreciate that they tried, but the amount of brownie points they're getting isn't nearly as deserved as you might think.

[accirax]

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 19

Emily has really been going full villain mode these past couple of episodes, huh? while I'm overall not a huge fan of how many women have been portrayed as rude/unreasonable as compared to their male counterparts, i do love an evil queen. i support women's wrongs.

oh, Gabby. how many people wish that were true. (very cute gabellie content as usual)

i wonder if this is a soft confirmation that we'll never see Gabby or Ellie compete again.

this is so important. also, Hunter, the heart is on Ally's pajamas, not her casual look with the jacket. unless he just drew that there because he loves Ally so much :D

glad that Tom can finally admit that he is a terrible liar. truly, the person Tom and Jake should blame is the hiring manager who hired Tom in the first place.

if you loved him this whole time then why did you lie to him about having another boyfriend, Tom? ,':/ (/lh) (i know that he was explaining in this scene that it's because he was afraid, i'm just saying that the extent of his fears is something that shouldn't be swept under the rug, and that i feel it wasn't properly set up enough in s1 or DCAS as a replacement. yes it was showcased in DCAS but we never got an explanation as to Tom's thought process between seasons that would change his mind to make him more fearful.)

*several people are typing*

we NEED to see jaiden teaching Miriam a tiktok dance.

this is your daily reminder to not take anything that's said in a greeting too seriously.

c'mon, Fiore, a true gen Alpha-er would know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell without having to look it up. unless, oh god, is that too much of a gen-Z reference for gen Alpha to understand...?

HE'S SUCH A DAD I LOVE THEM

this was probably my favorite line of the episode.

this was a really cute detail! even though they were both the archetypal "old person" of their season, Connor is still, like, 20 years younger than Miriam. it totally make sense that she'd still call him kiddo! just, not grandkiddo.

literally even Ellie is rooting for them to finish this plotline already. or maybe she's just feeling guilty for separating them in the first place, and she's lowkey hoping that the damage wasn't that severe.

that's... that's a crime? you can't just burn people, even if they're terrible??? i guess that, given Riya attempting to kill Aiden and directly breaking Connor's leg further, the definition of what counts as a crime is pretty lax in this universe. unless it's about destroying the environment. thanks, Tom! (/j)

also, why is Yul's scar so damn low res?

MCDONALD'S ELLIE ISN'T CANON??? D:

i wonder if this season is going to end with Grett giving Ellie a job/helping Ellie get a job. i could see fitness influencer and fashion designer working together well, as long as Ellie is okay designing athleticwear.

on one hand, i don't like that we don't get to have the finalists pick the people that they're closest with help them in the finale. this feels rather random, and in terms of real-world fairness, having a finalist get stuck with terrible help isn't very fair (i cite Top Chef season 4 as my example). however, i do appreciate how Disventure Camp always mixes the endgame up. it's not very fair in a real-world perspective, but given that it isn't a real game i appreciate the variety.

i also think that this is a nice fix to really incentivize whoever is helping the finalist after (in-universe) we had two really unpopular finalists, Fiore and James, who struggled to get any help. it feels like a reasonable decision that the in-universe showrunners would make.

don't distract him during the finale, you fool!

the Romber strategy!!! wow, and it's even in the first All Stars season, too :D

THE YUL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IS BACK ON?!?!?!?!

FIORE FINALE CONTENT! FIORE FINALE CONTENT!

ain't no way she's actually winning and of that $100K though, lol.

y'know, this might as well happen.

Riya and Yul really are perfect for each other (platonic) because every time that either of them gets a chance to either repent and be a good person or double down and keep relentlessly chasing their goals, they both always choose the latter. they're gonna get punished in the finale big time for sure... to the extent that Yul hasn't already been punished by getting that scar(?) to the face. like, seriously, that could be even more damage to his career.

once again, i missed the real Hunter so much :,)

while i love the roast here, does Fiore actually have anyone's respect...?

that's a wrap, folks! the most important character arc of the season is over!

[thetimelordbatgirl]

I found this on the Descendants subreddit:

What do you think?I dunno I feel about this.

For starting orders, are these from the Descendants guide book??? Because if so, I didn't know that was potentially out yet...unless these are preview pages??? If so, kinda weird Red or Chloe didn't get their pages previewed...unless they contain spoilers and can't be shown unlike Mal's and Uma's and the page on transformations... Not gonna lie though, these preview pages are kinda making me wanna buy it...soley to see how the fuck Descendants explains ANYTHING in its universe at this fucking point.

But to answer the question: let's get transformations page out of the way first, because uh, I find it the most meh lol- its just basic knowledge about transformations and Maleficent, Mal and Uma being the only characters so far to have that ability...though confusing how its surprising to Auradon, since they a fairy tale kingdom, transformations shouldn't be a surprise really... Though they really gave a list of shit Mal did with her dragon but then said 'oh and Uma can transform too I guess' like they really did not care to go into Uma much there, though curious why they saying its only via necklace she can do that as I assumed it was Ursula's magic/DNA in general that allowed Uma to go octopus form... Plus lemme just add: 'battled Uma' last I checked all Mal did was fly around and blow FIRE at WATER and that's it, Ben handled that shit more then Mal did really.

Now onto Mal's....first: United States of Auradon...okay nice to know I guess Beyond The Isle Of The Lost definitely ain't gonna be connected to the film at this rate because there they called it United Kingdom of Auradon, but now we back to the film title here, aka United States of Auradon. But heyyyy! We can celebrate that they actually resisted the urge to blame Ben for Mal's problems for once! ...It's sad I consider that an absolute win, really, but its Descendants so... "Confident and natural leader"...wait is that meant to be serious or...because I kinda laughed there given how much of a 'confident' and 'natural leader' she was in D2 and D3... "Particularly because she felt guilty about the VK's she'd left behind" Yeah, she felt so guilty in fact that she literally showed zero fucking concern in D2 about the VKs when treating the Isle like a get away place, let alone showed zero concern when Evie did on the Isle about the VK's and in D3 basically went, "Fuck those kids, my happily ever after is more important-", when choosing WITHOUT HESTIATION to close the barrier and punish the VKs for crimes they didn't do and still intended to do this even during the lies revealed scene...so clearly guilty about leaving the VKs behind, guys. "Eventually, she helped convince the Auradon citizens to accept all VKs into Auradon Prep." And by that, I mean likely everyone else did the work but Mal's being given credit because main character and Descendants wants you to believe she actually gave a crap about the VKs after that council meeting scene lmao. "Mal is talented in a lot of areas, both in artistic endeavors and in spells and magic"...wait we NOW remember shes into art???? Because D2-3 did not fucking remember that detail well before making her into generic main character for personality and shit- but also where's being a bully and getting away with it and other crimes like love spelling someone and lying in those talents? She's very oddly good at those, even after she's meant to be good. "mess with other students" Well, that's a brutally honest description of what Mal was like with magic in Auradon Prep lmao. "the queen she was always meant to be" I...Do I need to point out saying Mal was always meant to have a form of power over people isn't great, given what she's like, or...? Like, taking someone who had a form of power on the Isle and used it to be a bully and shit and giving them power over a kingdom when they haven't even changed much isn't great, but Descendants seems to think Mal's the greatest so no wonder they acting like it was simply destiny she was always meant to be queen... Also I guess Mal still has the ember and didn't donate it to the museum so uh, there's that...also why does Hades' image look the most awkward lmao???? Did they not have a stock character image of Hades like Maleficent and Ben or...

I...really don't have much to say about Uma's page lmao- not because its meh or bad, its just not giving me much to complain about as it didn't at least villainize her like Descendants normally loves too...though interesting choice to say Uma only wanted to go to Auradon because she was envious of Mal and not because she wanted to free the villain kids...but I guess we can't let someone else care about the villain kids when we pretending like Mal gave a shit about them suddenly! But uh, guess this is confirmation that Fairy Godmother fully retired??? She and Ben's parents really do just like to ditch their jobs at the nearest chance and hand it off to the nearest young person- though I still really don't get why Uma would want to be a head mistress of a school, like I know she'd want to help villain kids and such, but like, she can do that outside of being head mistress technically, it just feels random for her character. Also niece of Uliana...are they actually gonna address this fully in the film or...we know Uma captured by Queen of Hearts so like....sigh, Uma suffering more in plot bullshit, first it was Mal's plot bullshit, now its Queen of Hearts bullshit, she cannot catch a fucking break. And one last question: when did the Isle of the Lost become a KINGDOM??? It was called a prison last I checked, why does it count as a home kingdom now??? If I was a villain kid and asked my home kingdom, I wouldn't say the Isle of the Lost, because that's a prison I was stuck on for existing basically.

[ultraflavour]

Tackling the Toxic Culture of Play around "Epic" length campaigns in Fantasy TTRPGs

Definitely watch this video, but I'm also going to be touching on 4 major topics:

How I fucked myself big-time by over-committing to running a long-term game of Fabula Ultima;

Why the expectation of "Epic" length campaigns causes unnecessary stress on GMs;

How Lancer solves this problem by imposing structure and enforcing strict end-points;

How classic D&D and the "West Marches" concept applies these principles through a shared set of assumptions, and how we could apply those same assumptions to our own games.

Fabula Ultim-Oh No

A little while ago, I shared my experience running Fabula Ultima, specifically the Shared World-building portion of the game.

At the end of the article, I listed one of my 4 mistakes as being "Over-committing." That part was only tangentially related to the problem of Shared World-building, but it was related.

The group I was running for wanted to create a massive world. I gave them 3 maps to choose one of that's we'd fill out. They chose two, each representing a separate hemisphere.

I didn't know enough to say no, so I agreed. What was the worst thing that could happen? Our shared world would be too awesome?? Well.

What ended up happening was that all of the elements that the players had created during the world-building session were so far spread apart that in order to incorporate even a fraction of what we had created, this game had to be long.

So in order to live up to the expectation that I had believed to be there, I made an insane commitment that I should never have done: I promised the group that the game would go for at least 4 months, then I'd try to wrap things up in another two months, for a total of 6 months. Then, I'd leave the decision about whether to keep playing to the group: If they wanted to continue their adventures in our shared Fabula Ultima universe, we could do that.

Fast Forward Two Months

Two months into the game, and I am not vibing with the game. At all.

Fabula Ultima is a game that requires a lot more input from the players than other games do. Because at any time, a player can introduce a story element, that basically means that the GM can't really prep much of anything. The game expects the game to emerge as a constant conversation between the players and the GM.

But for whatever reason, the conversation just isn't really happening. I'm constantly feeling the pressure to provide the story to the players. And when they try to introduce story elements, I inadvertently have to shut them down because they interfere with something that I've prepped.

Suffice to say, I'm not having a good time. And because I'm not having a good time, I think my players are also not having a good time. It becomes a spiral. I start calling sessions earlier than I need to. I cancel. I don't do any extra prep, because I'm wrapped up in knots before the session.

Flame-Out Ultima

It's now the 3 month mark and I know I'm not going to make it. I'm throwing a lot of energy into my job, for reasons I won't go into here, and I don't have the energy leftover to commit to the game in the evenings. It's a Thursday evening game, and Thursdays are one of my mandatory in-office days at work, so I've fucked myself harder than I possibly could have.

So I inform the group that it's time to wrap up the game. I feel terrible. I promised them that I'd try to run the game longer, and now I'm a liar.

This guilt turns to anxiety. It begins to interfere with my work and my sleep. I'm now frustrated with myself even more, because I'm allowing this stupid tabletop game, which was just supposed to be a silly fun time (I literally nicknamed the campaign "Vibes Ultima") has gone wrong in possibly the worst way it could have.

I know that the reality is that I truly have nothing to feel guilty about. I put more effort into making that game work than anyone had any right to expect of me, and part of the reason why it failed was that the energy just wasn't there. But I'll let Rona tell you what reality means to people with social anxiety:

WHY, THOUGH?

I began to wrestle with the question of why: Why did I feel so compelled to make that stupid promise of running the game for 4 months to half a year? What was the reason for that arbitrary length of time?

I narrowed it down to three reasons:

The group had just come off of a very long-term 5E campaign, all set in a homebrew setting. The GM of that game was a player in my game, so I wanted to reciprocate the gesture of the long campaign by at least attempting something long-term.

My previous attempt at running a TTRPG campaign was Lancer, and I had made it about 6 months in that game, so I figured that was my time limit. This will be important later.

The group was excited about Fabula Ultima, but our previous attempt at running it flamed out early as the GM was unable to commit to the game due to their parenting duties. This GM had previously run epic-length campaigns for our group in the past, so I feel a sense of obligation to this player as well to try to give them a nice long character arc.

All of these factors led to the decision to set the minimum length of the campaign to 4 months, as if that arbitrary length of time was some magic number that meant literally anything.

And truly, what was the downside of only promising a short-term game? One of the players remarked during the character building session that they "weren't interested in going to the trouble of creating a character just for a short-term game." This... frustrated me deeply, but I didn't say anything at the time.

This decision ended up being not good for anyone. I had set the parameters of the adventure at the start of the game as the party needing to retrieve an object from a thief. It was a flimsy premise that should have only taken 4-6 weeks, not months, to complete. But I wasn't sure what to do after that initial adventure, so I stretched the game out over a long segment of travel (which I also felt compelled to do so that the players could experience the world they had had a hand in creating).

Truthfully, what would have been the downside of running an introductory adventure, completing something, and then calling it quits? Well, Fabula Ultima is a little bit of the problem here. Fabula doesn't really have the concept of an adventure, it's very much a "just show up, have some laughs, and get some XP at the end of the session" kind of game. You're supposed to get the feeling of having accomplished something every session, because the players are always able to stimulate the story with Fabula Points.

And I was even in the perfect situation to hand off the game to someone else, because the world was 100% shared. Everyone in the game had an equal stake in creating the game world, so any one of them could have picked up my slack. And if nobody wanted to? Then I was right to think that the group was not engaged at the same level as I was, and I was totally justified to cut things off early.

So what was the way that I should have gone about things? Well, as with many things, the answer lies with Lancer.

Lancer Loves You and Wants You to be Happy

You bet your ass I'm gonna find an excuse to talk about Lancer in every article I write.

I had previously had the most success of my entire TTRPG career running Lancer. I managed to make it to the 6 month mark, running a totally homebrew setting, and I was able to cap it off in a satisfying way that tied together all of the setting elements I'd established prior to the final mission. I set up a big bad, and the campaign ended with the players sending it straight to hell.

It's to date the only TTRPG campaign I've ever run that I've felt proud of. I didn't really know what it was about Lancer that made it actually work as well as it did for me. It wasn't a perfect game by any stretch, but I actually felt good enough about it that I felt like I could run another game of it later on down the road, and it would be even better.

In retrospect, I now understand a big part of why I was able to make it work, and that was the Mission Structure. It goes a little something like this:

Planning: The players and the GM collaborate to choose a mission to undertake, either in or out of character.

Preparation: The group collects information from the base, or puts boots on the ground in the mission area, to increase their odds in the coming mission.

The Mission: Play proceeds as the players and their Mechs enter the combat area. Importantly, the mission assumes that there will be 3-4 fights before requiring the players to take a Full Repair (Lancer's equivalent of a "Long Rest"). Also importantly, the mission ends prematurely if the players take a Full Repair.

Downtime: After the mission parameters have been achieved, or the party can no longer continue in their mechs, the team returns to their base, gains a level, and engages in downtime activities (Get a drink, gather information, etc.)

That's basically it. The loop repeats 12 times, and that's a campaign. Though it might seem needlessly restrictive, this imposition of structure prevents a lot of problem behaviours from both players and GM alike.

For the GM:

By forcing collaboration with the players during the Planning step, the GM can never plot too far ahead, because they can't make any assumptions about which direction the players are going to choose to go;

The 3-4 fight guideline prevents the mission from stretching out overly long. The mechs are usually falling apart after 3 fights, and the party can't artificially prolong the mission by taking a premature Full Repair (ie. they can't "take a Long Rest in the dungeon");

The mandated Downtime means that the GM can't put a ticking clock over the party's heads, preventing maladaptive signposting behaviours.

For the Players:

The planning phase allows players a chance to impact the narrative by providing guidance to the GM about what they want to do and where they want to go;

Being able to predict how many fights there are in the mission means the players can plan how aggressively they are able to play, as well as how many resources they can spend per fight;

Downtime gives the players time to roleplay and further their personal agendas without being under the gun of a ticking mission timer.

All of these bullet points were problems that I'd encountered in other games. Most recently in a game of 5E, I tried to suggest that the group adopt the "No Long Rests in the Dungeon" policy, or at least try to do the "Adventuring Day" thing of getting 4-6 combats under our belt before resting. My character was a martial character who was increasingly irrelevant to the game as the spellcasters in the party were always easily able to recharge their spell slots through long rests.

If, by contrast, we were operating under the assumption that we would not be able to take a long rest mid-adventure, we would have had to be much more judicious about our spell slots. But because we never really felt that pressure on our resources (because the GM was too unwilling to say no to us), the spellcasters were basically always topped up, so there was no real need for a martial who wasn't as affected by attrition.

GM Fanfic Syndrome: It Could Happen to You

But much more importantly, forcing those "end points" every 4 fights and requiring player collaboration meant that I couldn't engage in the extremely destructive behaviour of over-planning a plot. Once the adventure was set, then I could prep to my heart's content. I could even create adventure sites beforehand, but as long as I didn't attach any time-sensitive story beats to them, the players could tackle them in any order they pleased.

I can't stress enough just how much trouble is caused when the GM feels like they have to make all of the important decisions about the plot. It leads to what I have taken to calling GM Fanfic Syndrome (I got this name from someone else on Tumblr but I can't find the post any more). You write a long, epic story, but never ever finish it because the conclusion of the story is always too far out for the players to directly tackle.

The symptoms are caused when the GM thinks way too far ahead about how their game is going to play out, but fails to think about all of the steps required to get there, and how many ways that those steps might fail to come to fruition.

People who spend a lot of time in their own heads tend to play out these scenarios like little movies in their head. By the time they get to the table, they've thought it out a hundred different ways in every direction, and yet somehow it still doesn't end up playing out how it did in their heads.

So by creating these little inflection points where the players get to choose which missions they want to undertake, the GM never gets the chance to write too far ahead. For GMs with ADHD, depression, or anxiety, this can actually be somewhat helpful. The rules act as guardrails, to prevent you from over-preparing on things that don't actually help you run the game better. And it forces the game to be run in units of time that never exceed a few sessions, so there is always a hard limit on how long the campaign can go for.

Marching to the West

The assumption that there should be a hard limit on adventure length, and that players should take part in the process of adventure planning, is not new. Lancer did not invent these ideas, it merely codified them in its own rules.

You can trace these ideas back a long ways, all the way back to the beginning of the hobby. The original game of D&D was billed as being "for 4-50 players." Obviously that sounds crazy on the face of it, but when you realize why, it starts to make sense.

Early games of D&D were designed to be run as part of a "Gaming Club" of up to 50 people. The idea was that the GM would run games for different groups of people at different times. Those players would schedule a time to attack a dungeon, so the GM would know what they needed to prep and when it needed to be done by.

There are two more really interesting mechanics buried in those old rules:

Adventures needed to be completed in a single session. Regardless of whether or not the dungeon was complete, the player is sent back to town at the end of the 3-6 hours allotted to play, possibly with a negative consequence applied to them;

Time moves forward in real time in the game world between sessions. If it's been 6 days since the player last played, it's also been 6 days since their character has done anything as well.

The reason for these rules is that other groups are also undertaking adventures elsewhere in the game world, and those adventures might even interfere with the adventures of other players. For example, some other players might schedule an attempt to complete a particularly juicy dungeon before another group, so the second group arrives to the dungeon to find it's already been looted.

While some of this might not sound overly fun, there are a couple of other assumptions that this style of game makes that I think are really helpful:

The game world is a small portion of the total world with a town at the center of it.

The town is never used as an adventure site. It's always assumed that if the players can undertake adventures in the town, they will choose to, because the town is a place of safety.

The adventure is always close enough to the town that the players can get there in a day.

The player is never assumed to have only one character, rather they have an entire stable of characters so that they aren't playing the same class over and over again every adventure.

These assumptions rhyme closely with another very influential culture of play called a "West Marches" campaign.

The basic idea of a West Marches campaign is thus: A DM assembles a group of players, up to 50, and perhaps nominates some co-DMs as well. The players are responsible for scheduling and deciding on an adventure to tackle. They come to the DM and say "We would like to go here and do this on this date" and the DM says "You got it."

This still has the "Everything has to be done in one session" requirement, because you can't guarantee that this exact group of people is going to have the same availability at any time after this. So it's not necessarily the best idea for a smaller group, which doesn't have the same problem of scheduling.

Solving the "4 Month" problem with a new Play Culture

But what you can see here is that there are ideas here that actually help us in the scenario I laid out above. Remember, here are my problems:

I'm not getting the input from the players that I need, so instead of finishing the adventure and starting a new one, I stretch the current one out;

Because I don't have a finish for the adventure planned until weeks out, I can't give up the GM chair until the adventure is through;

I've set too long of an arbitrary time limit compared to the amount I was able to commit to.

So how would I solve these problems, knowing what I know now?

Well, I would implement a set of rules, directly inspired by that classic culture of play that didn't even assume that a GM would be running the same adventure for longer than one session. Let alone 4-6 months! So what do we do to make the game more sustainable?

Keep the action of the campaign centralized to one area. The party should always have the opportunity to take downtime, pursue projects, etc. and it's much harder to do that when they're on some long journey to the other side of the world.

Keep every adventure to about 4-6 sessions total. Don't let the players take long rests mid-session. If they can't complete the adventure without taking a long rest, then they can't complete the adventure at all. Letting players take a long rest resets their attrition and allows them to unnecessarily prolong an adventure.

Don't place the adventure sites too far away that the party might take more than a session to get there. The party should not be able to take a long rest in the wild, so don't bog them down with pointless random encounters before they arrive at the adventure site.

After the adventure, work with the players to set clear goals for them to pursue over the course of the next adventure. You can come up with a consequence for failure if it happens, but at the very least, the players should have an unambiguous goal to tackle. Or, allow another player to jump into the GM chair, so I can play.

This set of assumptions accomplishes two really important things:

It alleviates the requirement on the GM to plot out a long campaign with narrative arcs that require the players to essentially follow a script;

It creates inflection points in the narrative where anyone could swap out, including you, the GM. Because nothing is planned out too far in advance, anyone can swap out between adventures, no problem. The continuity of the world is retained in the town and the players' characters.

That last part is really important because it directly alleviates a major source of GM burnout, which is that sense of obligation to keep the game running. The task of keeping the game alive now falls on the entire group, so the players have an equal stake in the game. If they don't want the game to flame out, they always have an opportunity to pick up the slack.

In a long-term game with an intricate plot line, it's incumbent on the GM to see things through to the end. If they set up a plot line, they now have a responsibility to execute on it. They can't hand a game off to another GM mid-adventure, and they can't expect another GM to execute on a plot that they introduced.

So a better way of doing things would be to simply not make up a long overarching plot at all. Keep things simple so that you could theoretically hand off to someone else if you had to. Or you could even switch systems! Let the smaller adventures and the downtime sessions in town handle the heavy lifting of the storytelling. Allow a story to emerge naturally from the players' behaviour, rather than imposing it through a rigidly defined plot.

These are rules that I'm likely going to be implementing going forward for the sake of my own sanity. If you ever find yourself feeling over-committed to the role of GMing, and it's causing burnout, then maybe these ideas that I've linked to might help you alleviate some of that pain.

In Summary

I caused myself to burn out by over-committing to a game because I let my anxiety about letting down my group override my better judgment;

I examined the reasons why I felt pressured to run "Epic-length" campaigns, and how it negatively affected my ability to run games;

I remembered a time when I ran Lancer and it actually worked because of the imposition of structure that prevented me from over-preparing;

I adopted a new set of rules for my future campaigns that allows more flexibility and less stress about having committed to a long "Epic" campaign.

[writerscafehub]

𝐌𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀: 𝐕𝐢𝐜

@sunflowersteves || @sunflowerstevesmain

From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!)

3.5 bc I read an old fic the other day and I’ve improved soooooo much but there’s always room for improvement!

2. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works? I feel like I’m really good at requests.

Sometimes I think it’s hard to imagine what someone is asking for, but as a daydreamer I feel like I can visualize it so well. 

3. Are there any writers that inspire you?

Famous authors include Toni Morrison, Stephen King (minus the cocaine💀), and Neil Gaiman. In the server, literally everyone inspires me all the time and is so so supportive. Some mutuals that I so aspire to write like are @moonlightprose, @fushic0re, @darkficsyouneveraskfor, @fluffyprettykitty

4. What’s the fic you’re most proud of?

I would have to say first time (a carmen berzatto x reader) or broken hearts (eddie munson x reader). I think I really capture Carmen and Eddie’s characterization, especially how they would act in a relationship. Also, for sure my best angst. 

5. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write and which do you find most difficult to write?

I’m a hyperfixation girly so the easiest are ones that I’m currently obsessed with (joel, miguel o’hara, etc.) and the most difficult are the ones that I still love but have fallen off the obsession wagon (Steve Rogers, geralt, din djarin, etc.) 

6. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

Smut bc I’m a hoe ✨ also it’s been a year and joel miller wont leave my mind, so 

7. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about!

This has literally been on my WIP for over a year, but it has to be a notting hill AU with Sam wilson. I’ve been excited to write that for ages. 

8. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Marvel. I wrote a spider girl fic when I was in middle school lmao

9. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)? jealousy fics and protective fics,,, yum 

10. A trope you’ll never, ever write for.

Prolly the divorce trope bc I get so mad at characters. 

11. Wildest fic you’ve ever written?

It was a request but eddie munson x reader with a guitar head in the coochie and it was great.

12. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!)

I love poly fics! Love Stucky x reader and steddie x reader are my fav. they’re just so good. 

13. Do you listen to anything while you write?

I usually have to listen to classical or lofi beats bc I’ll get distracted soooo easily. 

14. One-shots or multi-chaptered works?

One shots 

15. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them!

As a certified day dreamer, absolutely. Any longer fic I’ve written, I literally day dream how it’s gonna play out. I did that a lot with ain’t no sunshine (joel miller x reader). 

16. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

I am so bad at angst and I would love to write action/violent fics but I always feel like I can’t describe it for the life of me. 

17. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

Someone commented that they turned my notifications on so that they could see when I posted the fic and that made me giggle and kick my feet. 

18. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out?

It’s currently a work in progress, but it’s a period smut fic. It’s not necessarily out of my comfort zone but more of I’ve never written a fic like that before. It’s for Miguel. I’m so ready 👀

19. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst?

tooth-rotting fluff 

20. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

I do not ❤️ 

21. If you could enter the universe of any one of your fics, which would it be and why?

I would die in literally every sci-fi or fantasy world that I love (star wars, game of thrones, lord of the rings, the last of us, attack on titan, etc.) so I’m gonna have to pick marvel. I’d have a fighting chance. 

22. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process?

tbh the hardest part for me is starting. Introductions tear me down every time rip. Sometimes, I just start in the middle because it’s so much easier. 

23. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

You pause, just for a moment. You could feel the adrenaline kick into your system, and a numbing pain flushed out your senses. The blood felt warm and sticky—prompting the sleepiness to feel calming, and it urged you forward into its safe surroundings. But then you felt it. Panic. Panic rose in your neck as you looked around for someone. Your hand darted out to try and find them, but your mind was starting to become blank from the fuzzy warmth of pain. Joel. You needed Joel. 

24. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

Ok listen, I wanna write so bad. The last fic I wrote was in March and I’m feeling that writing withdraw. My brain needs to get into hyperdrive so my fingers can type all day long. I have so many fics planned

[elizakai]

Greetings!

Was wondering if you would consent/allow me to use your Out of Pocket Dust entity design for a story? (Dustverse)

And if yes, may I know more about him (if he has an AU) or be allowed to expand on the concept?

Absolutely feel free to say no or ignore this ask

Have a wonderful week!

ABSOLUTELY YOU CAN!!!! I love that we spawned the dustverse LMAO

also ok i’ll be so fr, he spawned into the world as i was drawing, and thus has no au

however, allow me to quickly Bs the concept, and if anyone’s interested i can actually polish it later hee hoo (also feel free to use whatever concepts you like, it doesn’t have to be related to this if you’d prefer i don’t mind ehehe)

DETRITUS/ COSMIC DUST GUY INFO BELOW ⬇️

Detritus Is a Low-Level deity, at least in the hierarchy of other deities he is involved with.

He is an anomaly by their standards, the death of a star gave birth to this child of decay, he is reluctantly taken in by the others

He is younger, around 8000 years old id say😔

Detritus doesn’t know much about lower level beings, as the knowledge he has access to is rather restricted, furthermore, he doesn’t quite know his place, as he is not often given tasks.

he also doesn’t know much about just. normal life. he’s been shown things on. a very large scale but never when you zoom in and see the small things

Other deities claim grand titles and roles, but he is but decay, leaving him with no actions to take and no purpose to fulfill. they perpetuate this inaction with excuses

he befriends a star. this star is considered a lower being. this star makes him question the validity of the hierarchy of beings he’s been taught.

he begins to question why they are considered “gods”. who put them in that place? are they not just self assigning these titles and using it to justify causing strife? who are they to dictate lives. however he isn’t really sure on any of this

at some point due to these thoughts (and or an action) his friend the star is disposed of, and he is cast out. he is told he will live amongst mortal beings, to witness for himself their vileness and wicked souls.

He is but dust cast to dust

so taking on a more normal form detritus, taking being called dust LITERALLY, now adopts a new form and name. (he’s a silly little guy)

he meets a few mortals (ahem ahem you can guess who) (i’ll expand later if this interests anyone)

he is lucky for this, as he has no idea how their lives work and would just end up with someone sending him to a lab to be dissected for his “inhuman” um, abilities.

instead of learning of mortals wickedness, he only experiences kindness. he’s a bit curious, he tends to take things literally, but if you say something that is opposing to what he’s been taught, he will assume it’s sarcasm.

he’s quite funny but he has a weird sense of humor.

he’s under the impression that he’s fated to destroy any relationship he might have and thus feels guilty for making ties. he also expects to be taken home eventually

(honestly. they just wanted to get rid of him. don’t tell him that.)

Detritus, now Dust, doesn’t really have a solid form, so the one he takes on isn’t really as restrictive as you’d think. His body could contort like some demon from hell out of nowhere and then be completely normal the next second. he has to be told not to do this.

When he first took on said form, he couldn’t figure out how the fuck to form hands. his hands were very deformed and gross looking so he hid them. one of the first mortals he meets is in for a horrific experience until he figures out how to properly project how a hand moves😭

um. oh also, i keep saying he, but they’re semi genderless and wouldn’t bat an eye if you called him literally anything else. i don’t think detritus really understands gender, just things

he’s very thoughtful about inner workings of the universe but then doesn’t know what the fuck a comb is and continuously throws his new friend for a loop

he’s kind of skittish, like a cat that wants to dip its toes into the water and then immediately runs and hides but. will do it again five minutes later.

he’d probably think a butterfly is like an angel to be worshipped if he saw one

he doesn’t think mortals are evil, he compares them to his experience with the star.

he’s not immortal either, he’s more of a demi god then anything

he begins to wonder if he even wants to go home, or if it is his home, after a while of living with these new companions around. there’s definitely going to be some runs in with government authorities and cryptid hunters :))

ANDDD all of this is subject to change if i actually clean this up, as i sped typed this with very little thought beforehand ok BYEEE anyone can ask questions if you have any somehow and i’ll bs more lore 😭

[ilikekidsshows]

Okay, I'm done. I'm gonna fucking say it. This is my take that's hot enough to scorch the earth.

Marinette is not a 14-year-old girl

"Marinette" is a fictional character, therefore she is a construct made by a group of grownass adults, who should fucking know better. When Marinette does such an abhorrent thing that it has people renoucing her writing while the writers make excuses for her, that's not Marinette "making a mistake", that's the writers resolving the plot the way they intended to.

The writers literally think she's in the right to lie to Adrien. They've said so, the fucking show bible says Adrien will never learn the truth so Marinette will keep lying to him. Do you honestly think the writers would actually make their protagonist that much a parallel to her boyfriend's abusive father on purpose? They literally had no idea what they were doing when they wrote the finale with Marinette gaslighting her abuse victim boyfriend about his father's abuse. We're meant to only see Marinette protecting poor, fragile Adrien from things that would hurt him, even though that is how Gabriel saw his actions as well.

As far as the writers are concerned, Marinette has to make those decisions for Adrien, because she knows best. Because she's the protagonist. She's literally the center of the fictional universe of Miraculous, and, as of the retooling in season 4, the show is being written accordingly. Marinette only makes mistakes when she doesn't know something, meaning the mistake wasn't really her fault even when she feels guilty. She's never allowed to be morally wrong about anything, because the writers have changed the way this show works. It's Protagonist Centered Morality all the way down, now, the protagonist is literally just a mouthpiece for how the writers think things should work, and that is that Adrien's trauma isn't allowed to inconvenience Marinette in the slightest.

The people defending this writing choice are even worse, though. They actively voice the general idea that abuse victims shouldn't let their trauma ever inconvenience anyone, or they don't deserve relationships, if they're not outright denying a person's right to be traumatized at all. "Adrien isn't emotionally stable enough to know the truth," they say with complete sincerity, not realizing how ableist they sound. "Adrien should forgive Marinette for acting like his abusive father because Marinette had good intentions," they claim every time they try to justify Marinette's behavior, valuing the mistreating party's feelings over those of the party that is being mistreated. And let us not forget that even Marinette's good intentions just mimic Adrien's abuser.

Like, I know it's because these fans care more about Marinette as a character than they do about Adrien. They're both fictional constructs and not real people, so people will side with their favorite. But, once again, the people justifying the bullshit this show does with Adrien sound so much like abuse apologists that we really have to start calling things by their actual names.

[uhgood-girl]

i haven't had a chance to fully form this thought yet so bear with me while i explore my own brain but my immediate response to this is i think two things can be true at the same time.

this is me playing devil's advocate with both you and myself, tbh. if you do not enjoy borderline pedantic over thinking, i recommend you turn back now.

i watched the entirety of standing next to you with my jaw on the floor. beyond seeing jk in what i would consider to be the epitome of his element, the arrival of all that experience and hard work and raw talent finely honed, culminating in the absolute pop perfection that is both that song and performance... well, i've made a joke on here before about my brains inability at this stage to not insert jikook into things. i could maybe help it if i wanted to (i can stop at anytime, says the alcoholic 🥴) but i don't want to because i'm having fun and i've made friends with the brain worms. they're my brain worms, who are you take them from me.

i have also mentioned jikook being it's own form of pattern recognition drug for mine, obviously, and probably other's more neuro-spicy tendencies. once you have seen and unlocked the code, it's really hard to turn the goggles off.

so let's talk about patterns. what is a pattern? a pattern is lmao no, i'm kidding, i don't think i need to define this for you but i guess when i say pattern here i'm referring to what a lot of people often call coincidences. (have i lost you already bc of this word? i know people throw it around often here, but again, bear with me) coincidences can become patterns if they repeat enough. how many coincidences does it take to form a pattern? three, i believe, is the universally accepted number but that feels so small when i type it out, much less think about it, tbh. but i suppose in the discourse of coincidences, something that reoccurs without apparent connection, (traveling strangers who keep ending up in the same cities together, you and your friend always texting each other at the exact same time, two people in a band who keep mysteriously referencing things that connect them in a particular sort of light) bc of the unlikelieness of their serendipitous nature, it makes more sense. and because i want to discuss this in a more tangible form and i believe humans to be meddling by nature, i think coincidences become patterns, beyond the number three, when intent enters the equation.

was that a very long way to say that despite the fact that jk didn't write any of the lyrics himself and is quoted in the article above as telling people to not take things too literally that i'm still going to intuit some autobiographical meaning from them? well, yes. i guess so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

because ✨context✨(glass closet and comp het in particular). a context that i fully admit i am abscribing to the situation myself but if you're reading this i assume you're already in this boat with me, it's your context too, at least tangentially (GUILTY, your honor) by association. the entirety of any jikook argument has to exist in this space and to have gotten here at all required taking some liberties, a certain reading between the lines that is a tightrope of wanting to respect what someone says outloud and at face value while being aware few things are ever black and white (minus the infamous couple in question bah bum tiss 🥁).

if it feels different to you bc it's something he explicity expressed, that's totally fair. i've been back and forth about it a few times myself and maybe i'll feel differently tomorrow. but rn, this is where i'm at and this is all just spitballing at the end of the day, no?

in an attempt to not be accused of only picking and choosing the lyrics that suit my (gay) agenda, it feels worth pointing out that the lines i find applicable to jikook are not literal. as in while i fully believe jk could probably do anything he set his big, beautiful heart out to do, leaving someone's body golden like the sun and moon is unlikely. ( the jikook relevance is in it's choice, why that particular metaphor) and despite being more in the realm of possibility, i don't really believe he's fucking seven days a week either. his agreeance to the use of female pronouns in some songs and even the women in his music videos are a. the comp het standard for this worldwide pop boy takeover (inarguably) and b. don't automatically negate any potential underlying queerness of the artist himself. so when he sings she (is there even anything in the lyrics beyond the pronoun itself that could only refer to a cis woman? hell, does "she" only have to refer to a cis woman in this day and age? jimin is v in touch with his anima these days, don't kink shame :P) I'm taking that as an artistic liberty the same way I'm taking something like it's deeper than the rain. and the latter rain line only stands out to me because, again, broader context.

he didn't write any of the song lyrics but he was there for every step of the production and still approved what actually made it on to the album. he didn't write there for you, the song in gcf tokyo either but i dare you to go find a jikook argument about that video that doesn't list that song and its lyrics as evidence. he didn't write them but it's definitely something he cares about and is very aware of. i doubt anything was chosen without some degree of thought. which brings us full circle back to coincidences vs patterns and intent.

do i think the lyrics a lot of us collectively recognized as jikook coded, even if you respectfully don't want to read that far into it, were a coincidence this late in the game? ain't no way lmao. our jikook roads are paved with these sort of "coincidences." you think they weren't apart of the appeal? helped boost it right to main track status? maybe if it had just been the lyrics, without any of the imagery in the video (i would love to know how much creative direction he had here too, i hope we find out) to back it up, but between that not straight red line of fate, the black swan like wings, the dancing in front of the sun painting, the two households, both alike in dignity, in fair verona where we lay our scene aka the forbidden love vibes, etc. - it's too much for this sad little hyper-fixated romantic queer, personally lol.

so, i think two things can be true at the same time! i'm sure a lot of the songs and their implications have no autobiographical meaning to them beyond a universally relatable conversation and narrative about love, i do believe him. i think based on all the responses and feedback his first releases got, making a statement such as the one in the article was a good? pr move if nothing else too and definitely in line with what we have come to expect around an industry that bts is both sort of moving away from but still restricted by at this stage. if you've read any of my other ramblings so far on this site, you'll know i operate from a place of the more smoke screen around all this (this being a potential romantic relationship between jikook) the better, bc at the end of the day i want all of bts more than anything safe, happy, and free to pursue whatever creative fancy they can dream. them building a level of plausible deniability into this sort of stuff protects them. i will remain a broken record on that point.

but bc of the larger context of jikook as a whole and my belief that jk is both clever and also a romantic at heart, i'm going to take these crumbs and go. 🚗💨 i'm not in any sort of who can be the more superior, rational delulu competition, we're all in our own little clown cars no matter your chosen dressings until proven otherwise. that's the nature of this whole shebang, bby. 🤠👉👉

def feel free to come respectfully argue with me though, i'm never here to convince anyone but i enjoy these conversations and i love other people's perspective. are you ignoring the standing next to you jikook bait?

[milk-ly]

So fellas, it seems as though Kazui likely won’t make it back up to the innocent pool this trial💀

This is definitely one of the biggest situations the community has had with voting, and there’s apparently already been a few over the years.

So I want to talk about it, but with speculation in regards to in universe Milgram lore and themes!

First off, I’m not sure what the creators can do at this point. Because Kazui’s votes have long since dipped into the unforgiven pool, ending the voting early like they did with Shidou’s in trial 1 likely won’t accomplish much. The damage has already been done.

It’s not like they can remove the faulty votes like they did with Fuuta’s Trial 1 botting incident either. They can’t exactly hunt hundreds of people all down and remove their votes. So, I don’t think there’s much they can do.

My best guess is that they’re going to try to make it work in the story as much as they can.

Not sure how it’s gonna work, but they kinda did it with T1 Mikoto, no? They had jackalope bring up the fact that he caused quite a stir, referring to the tiktok incident.

A friend brought something to my attention a while back when I told them what was happening.

Obviously what’s happening sucks and is disingenuous to the project. However, this situation says a lot about people’s biases and psychology as well. It ironically fits the theme of the project.

How far are you willing to defend your favourites? How far are you willing to screw over your most detested characters?

Also this line in undercover:

“the fine line between “hate and OK”

Poetically enough, the person who started gathering people to mass vote Kazui guilty was a Kazui FAN was it not? And it was then some people who hated Kazui and what he did that jumped onto the opportunity to ensure Kazui being voted guilty.

We really are treading a fine line. Despite the wildly different opinions towards Kazui between the people voting him guilty, they’re still coming to the same verdict.

People are literally monetarily bribing people completely unrelated to vote. Like they are going REALLY far to just screw over a character, aren’t they?

The story of how the votes pan out is important too, not just the results. This is why Jackalope brought up how the votes actually played out during trial 1. It tells a story. It shows how we came to different conclusions during the voting sessions. It shows how strong our verdicts are. It shows our biases.

Here’s a quote from Jackalope’s report of the end of the first trial that’ll probably show what I mean better:

“Prisoner no. 04, Mu. Innocent […] but what’s with this one? You were completely on the road to forgive, but decided to change the judgement at the end. Seems you were bent on making a judgement until the end. Did you notice something with this one?”

While Muu still ended up with an innocent judgement in trial 1, this line shows how important the trip to getting there is no matter what the final verdict turns out to be. What happened in history can not be changed.

I wasn’t there for Muu’s t1 voting so I can’t say for sure what Jackalope was referring to, but I assume it’s talking about more people catching on to her “true self.” There were always hints of it in trial 1, you could deduce it from the messages written on the chalkboard and her phone messages. (Granted, non-Japanese speakers would have more trouble)

In our current situation, it’s the people with the most power and influence that’s affecting the votes the most. And that in of itself is saying a lot too. People are feeling so strongly about wanting their verdict to prevail that they’re using their influence to ensure it.

But on the other hand, this is definitely not what was intended when they said that we could vote however we wanted💀 still praying that the unforgiveness shrine will die out. And that people will stop trying to bot or bribe people. But I don’t think that there’s really anything we can do aside from just continuing to vote how we want.

Related to that, I want to give a wild prediction for trial 3, hear me out.

I am slightly concerned about what’s gonna happen to Kotoko in t3. Kotoko ticked off most of the community when the t2 designs were released. And because of that, I know a lot of people are already planning to vote her guilty.

Hypothetically, if she is voted guilty, she’ll be restrained right? But you know who won’t be restrained?

Orekoto.

We’ve learned that even if Mikoto is restrained, orekoto will not be.

This is a huge problem for Kotoko because if you saw their timeline conversation, they literally directly threatened to kill each other.

Here’s a snippet of the timeline conversation on Kotoko’s birthday during t2:

Mikoto: Ah, Koto-chan. It's been a while. We were isolated for some time but, how are you doing? Lots of things happened, but for now let's get along. Here, it's your birthday right? I figured that noone would come celebrate it for you, so I came to wish you a happy birthday.

Kotoko: ...What a carefree person you are. Someone as atrocious as you won't be forgiven next time too, surely. When that time comes, it'll be your last. Next time, I'll kill you.

Mikoto: Haah? Why don't you try it then, you lunatic. I'll crush anyone who tries to harm me.... I'll make sure to thoroughly beat you at your own game...!!

It’s pretty implied that the one talking in that conversation isn’t Mikoto. Mikoto has never talked like that from what we’ve seen. (I’m actually not sure if he uses Ore pronouns there, I’m assuming he did, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong!)

So if Kotoko IS attacked by Orekoto because of the beef they have from the two fist fights they’ve had, Kotoko will not be able to defend herself.

Originally, the only caveat I had to this thought was “well, if it comes down to that, won’t Kazui be able to protect her?”

However, now that Kazui’s likely heading into a guilty verdict because of everything’s that’s been happening, he may be physically restrained in t3. Which means that if a prisoner is being attacked and Kazui wanted to help, he won’t be able to.

It’s already pretty likely that we might lose someone when t3 rolls around. Through Mahiru’s condition, Milgram has already warned us that death is indeed possible. So there are a lot of characters that are already showing slight death flags.

Also this line:

This line about Jackalope taking action if Mikoto “becomes an obstacle for all” is peculiar. I’m not sure if they would put this line in here if it wasn’t ever gonna play in somewhere.

It’s totally possible that Orekoto wouldn’t actually go for Kotoko unless she was going for him first though. So I guess we’ll see.

Sorry this isn’t written the most clearly, I just wanted to get this out there. I’m very open to hearing what others think too! I’m hoping for the best once t3 rolls around. I personally don’t want anyone to die, but I know it might be inevitable. Maybe this post will age poorly though, I don’t know. Just some thoughts!