#AND LIKE! none of this is ADDRESSED

[bumblingbabooshka]

I know the most common fanon for Tuvok post Voyager is that he's mostly fine and one of more stable ones but I personally think it'd be funny if he cracked like a goddamn egg and went off the deep end for a few years before finding his way back to semi-normalcy. Janeway's like "Where's Tuvok?" and the answer is that he quit Starfleet, joined a temple, left the temple in the middle of the night to go wander around the desert, almost died but was taken in by a kindly old woman, lived with her for two months before she died, left the desert hut to alert her family and upon completing that task hopped on the first freighter off Vulcan, got stranded on a deserted asteroid after being the sole survivor of the crash, was rescued, mind melded with an alien who can see the future but died in the process and can't remember anything about it except for the vague feeling that he spoke with Kes, was brought back to life by Chakotay who told him that Janeway was looking for him [at which point he pointed out that Chakotay is also not in contact with Janeway and then ran away again], returned to Vulcan but only to find and climb to the top of a holy mountain which took several months and upon reaching the top he feels a sense of enlightenment which permeates his familial bonds as the first sign in almost a year that he's alive at all. Upon finishing his climb down the mountain he stays in a nearby village and serves in their temple for several more months until it's attacked by aliens because of some artifact hidden deep within the temple walls and he puts his tactical strategy to good use, fending off the attack. Harry Kim [first guy to essentially skip lieutenant class and go right to commander] appears and is like "You need to go home, man. People think you're dead." Then he goes home and joins Starfleet again and he's literally only allowed back in because of Janeway and Janeway accepts him out of her love for her crew and also because she's kind of worried that he'll join an ice fishing expedition or cult if she doesn't. This only adds to the lore of Voyager as a cursed ship and her Crew as all-in-the-family maniacs.

[dykedvonte]

Jimmy killing himself because he knows he is incapable of living an life without Curly and knows that in the miracle chance they were found and saved they would not let him have contact with Curly and he hates the idea he'd actually have to take responsibility.

Even if he lied, its only a matter of time before Curly is capable of showing or telling what a monster he really is, no matter what delusions tell Jimmy Curly would never do that to him.

He understands that he was the monster in everyone's worse moments but refused to accept that at the end. So he made sure that he died without the possibility of it being actualized as he's the only one that saw death as an escape rather than a release. Jimmy truly didn't believe Curly had anything to escape from even after everything and let him have what he perceived as glory as the sole survivor and thus Captain of the Tulpar.

[commsroom]

minkowski and hera (indirectly; to herself) are the only ones who call eiffel "doug", eiffel is the only one who calls minkowski "renée", hilbert is the only one who calls lovelace "isabel", and no one calls hilbert by (any of) his first names. kepler calls jacobi "daniel" and maxwell "alana", and maxwell and jacobi use each other's first names too, but neither of them ever calls him "warren" - the only person who does is rachel, while he calls her "miss young." pryce and cutter are the only people who use each other's first names (though cutter's habit of almost always only using first names is a whole other thing.)

[diazmaximoff]

Deck Nine The Cash-Grab Company on their way to erase LIS2's timeline from their games and pretend that none of the politically significant events, like Esteban's death or the border wall getting destroyed by two kids, ever happened:

[softpine]

i like how we all collectively agreed that covid does not exist in any of our sims stories

[youareheaven]

Apple TV: no Slow Horses merch for u

me: ok

[rragnaroks]

hello. it is i, your friendly neighbourhood goblin that pops up every now and then to scream about something new.

i love damien haas.

this has been a psa.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I know it’s been talked about ad nauseam, but I think one of the things that got lost in the discourse about TTPD and the muses and whatnot is how one of, if not the core trigger points of the album is the yearning for commitment and perhaps even more poignantly, motherhood.

The reason she was so susceptible to falling for the “conman’s get love quick schemes” is because she was grieving that imagined life with the person she had long assumed would be the one to give her that. What has been beyond clear in several albums, let alone interviews etc, is that those plans for building a family were very much real and top of mind for years, and she kept holding on and shifting her world in service of making that happen. And when whatever happened happened that pulled that rug out from under her, it left her bereft not just for the relationship that had once been her world but also the imagined family she had been hoping for and sticking out the hard times for.

And that’s likely why she was swayed by and trusting of the promises of someone who knew her history and knew how unmooring that loss was to her. It may have been partially about the person himself or lust or whatever, but the core issue was the pain of giving up the dream, and sublimating that dream into this new opportunity in front of her, because she was so desperate to hold onto the last scraps of that imagined life she wanted so badly. (And I don’t mean desperate as in pathetic or negative, I mean as in fighting within the last ounce of energy and hope she had.) It wasn’t rational and it wasn’t love, it was grief, not just for a relationship but even more so for the family it represented.

So to me the core issue of TTPD isn’t just the Joe vs. Matty or whoever of it all: it’s Taylor and her yearning. She wanted a family badly and a life that was theirs and was processing losing that in all kinds of ways. It’s all over the album in overt and subtle lyrics. It may not have been grieving a literal death but I’d bet it felt pretty darn close.

And I’d also bet that’s why we’re seeing… what we’re seeing now.

(I have so many more thoughts about womanhood and motherhood on TTPD but that is another post being worked on piecemeal in my drafts… this is just a little Saturday morning post-zoomies reflection)

[every-sanji]

[free-luigi-mangione]

We don’t know when the fed letter was written - it could have been while he was on the road for 5 days not eating or sleeping well. I think don’t think trying to dissect his written syntax is fair when he was clearly not in a good state when he was found.

have you considered that maybe it wasn't written by him at all and the NYPD officers so famous for falsifying evidences actually made that up so they could make a scape goat out of him?? also your assumption works only if you're violating his right to be presumed innocent and are hellbent on painting him as guilty before the trials even start

[a-very-sparkly-nerd]

You think YOU'RE obsessed? Well, at the start of every single session, the first thing my therapist asks me about is TDP news bc it's like all I talk about

[awesomefringey]

.

[goldenbellamy]

I think the main reason why I feel lukewarm about the season finale of doctor who is because in regards to Ruby it only answers the question about who her mum is and I was only tangentially interested in that question because I thought it could be the answer to the question I was actually interested in: who is Ruby? But it isn't.

And to be fair I do like that Ruby's mum was just a normal person. But now that we have this answer I still have so many questions about Ruby and I am no longer confident that we will get to have an answer to those questions.

Seriously why was Ruby able to make it snow?? If we never get an explanation for that I am going to be furious. Why did Maestro say that Ruby was wrong? Why were people so scared and disgusted by Ruby in 73 Yards?

If all of that was just a bait and switch to get people talking and theorizing about who Ruby's mum is then I think that was bad writing and that the set up doesn't flow naturally to the conclusion. You can't say that Ruby is special and can do all these magical things only to in the finale go "what do you mean Ruby is normal?"

[lurkiestvoid]

I can't stop imagining the alternate timeline where the EU did to Facebook what the US tried to do to TikTok. "Meta has to share its full proprietary software with our government, or sell to a European company" lmao can you imagine

Like EU and some others did some regulations on privacy and social media. As they should have, and as we should have here. And Zuck is still crying about it, as he should be. Notably, neither FB nor TT is banned in the EU, and while ByteDance hasn't made much noise about complying over there, Zuck is crying to drumpf to pressure the EU to lay off.

But anyways we can't do any of that here. Why?

Because any privacy regulations or social media regulations will affect our own data-farms. Because those data-farms are important to our government. Because Meta and Shitter freely share that data with our government.

The problem was never 'companies shouldn't have your data' because the US government is fully in favor of companies stealing and profiting from that data. We do it constantly!! Around the globe!! That is literally what Meta DOES.

The problem is our government isn't the one profiting, and that's what's not allowed.

[silenceoflink]

Okay- so i just watched the first DS9 mirror episode and I am flabbergasted at something: SPOILERS IN TAGS

[summertimemusician]

Linktober Shadow Day 7

Gloom Hands

This goes out to the way I cackled hysterically once seeing these things in TOTK, well done Zelda Team. They're a terrifying concept and I really feel exploring that could be fun, even if this prompt gave me a headache and a half.

Bit late today because we've been pelted by way too many storms/lightning and writing on mobile with lightning shaking your house is generally a bad idea, so I spent most of the time writing this and the Linktober prompt by hand, then transcribing it back onto mobile as soon as I could touch eletronics without the major risk of being zapped and picking a god and praying that my internet wouldn't be too funky so I could get it out on time. Short one again though because I still need to finish the Linktober prompt so it should come out later today or fully tomorrow, sorry folks.

Anyway, as always can be read as romantic or platonic, also Sage is here both because of the prompt and because the mental image of Wild Reader and Sage trauma bonding over the extremely twisted nature Gloom/the Malice have compared to just dark magic in general in LoZ was too funny to resist, if Nintendo won't talk about the many variations of Dark Magic in LOZ and how it affects any who come in contact with it then lord darn it I guess I'll just have to do it myself (or as much as I can without breaking out the companion essay to the Realm of Darkness and Realm of Light essay which I'm already having trouble digging out).

TW:

Technically graphic descriptions of decay, gore and eldritch horror, and Reader just not having a good day in general, don't recommend reading I'd you're highly squeamish.

When you’ve first met Sage, as the Chain temporarily dubbed him, you and Wild didn’t miss the way he looked so, so haunted. Emotions warring like a storm as he looked Wild over in a mix of disbelief and the weariness of a wounded fox getting ready to bite just to escape, at the Chain with such longing ache that made one’s heart break, the way the first time he met Wolfie he didn’t hesitate to throw himself atop the canine and hug him so close like he was trying to melt into the fur, and looking at you like he didn’t know wether to cry, scream or to shut down before he buried it under the mask you knew your resident Champion could use when trying so desperately to keep it together, hands shaky as he signed in a way that set your teeth on edge and felt like you had taken a dozen of ice arrows to the back, urgent, 'It’s not safe. None of you should be here. You need to leave. Now.'

Needless to say it was alarming, even as you all knew just how ferociously untamed his and Wild’s Hyrule could be, with being overrun with so, so many types of divinity through each crack, root, drop and flesh of it’s beings. From Hylia’s cold calculating care, the Three Goddesses blood, tears and breath of life, to the Malice’s howling self sustaining fury, The Lost Woods ever overgrowing freedom and even the remnants of the Fierce Deity’s hunt in Satori’s and Malaniya's savage display of cyclic eternity, it wasn’t any surprised that apart from the Traveler’s Hyrule it was the most aggressive one with the smorgasbord of energy so thick it made even you choke on it everytime you stepped foot in it. Beautiful and free in an echo of it’s once untamed state in the age of myth even before Sky.

Over time, you and the Chain learned how to adapt to it. To listen to the warnings Wild gave about the Guardians and about the remains of Malice in his monsters, of how the moon had been forever tainted with it and how, until Sheikah tech was fully repurposed it would be best to avoid the castle all together it was difficult but manageable, and even if Sage’s reaction was alarming (and he seemed even more troubled once Wild passed onto him from Sky that, while he wasn’t to come with them yet due to how things were apparently ‘fated’ to happen, there was no way you all could leave quite yet, distantly sticking by Wild and Twilight when possible and checking on everyone’s health when not doing so), you’d though it would be much the same for his own, and in parts you were right as the Chain had taken to the new environment like fishes to water even if it took some adjustments.

Though you were quickly proven wrong, and you could have laughed at your past self’s naivety.

It was meant to be a quick run to clear a black blooded monster camp, and while decently challenging, it was over quickly between the Chain getting more apt at fighting the enemy, Sage’s addition as the man fought as ruthlessly and ferociously as Wild, switching between deadly marksmanship and feral combat on a dime and the absence of the unnaturally inteligent black scales lizalfos, you’d rest and be on your way quickly. Or so you all thought.

Twilight had been the first to smell it, the bubbling of dark but distinctively twisted magic, even more so than Zant’s brand of madness. Wild the one to spot it, the rot black and blood crimson building up at the edges of camp from his vantage point but it was Sage who had tensed, eyes snapping to the faint glow the Master Sword emmited just as the sky darkned before his frantic, alarmed howl swept over the Chain, the sheer desperate, protective panic making all of your boys still, because Sage never used his voice unless he absolutely had to, “IT'S NOT OVER! MOVE!”

It was all the warning any of you got before reality twisted, straining, and then finally screaming, the heavens staining with crimson as if gutted open, the eyes of a sin against nature itself cutting through your relief and infecting your veins with terror. It shakes you to the core, freezing with indecisive flight or fight as you spotted the tide. Heart in your throat as you tried to comprehend what you saw.

“WHAT THE-“, Legend cursed, looking ashen as his grip on his fire rod tightened. Really, all of your heroes look disturbed and you can’t blame them.

“Get to high ground if you want to live! We can’t fight these things.”, snapped Sage, much more composed, but no less frenzied.

None of you hesitate to listen.

(There were some unspoken rules, when in Wild’s Hyrule the first time around. If there is something the Champion, the most reckless of all Links, wasn’t willing to fight head on or said wasn’t worth it, the best course of action was to listen, specially if the group was vulnerable.)

The hands screech, the tide rolling over the land with an reality splitting clamoring, a sound so filled with fury and so, so twisted it made your Hylian’s ears friends bleed and you lift a hand to your head in pain as Wild pulled you along, Sage leading the charge for the nearest cliff face as Warrior’s threw Wind over his shoulders and Twilight didn’t hesitate before doing the same to Four, the frost from Legend and bomb arrows from Time and Sky barely doing nothing to slow it’s relentless charge, merely taking from it a distorted, pitched crescendoing belt of pure rage and the overlaying of many tortured souls screaming all at once, of Hyrule rejecting this existence from the world but wounded at being unable to vanquish it, the sound it makes as it spreads and drags itself across the ground with uncanny speed with it’s many, many arms like something in between sludge and smacking, wet, rotten flesh.

Sage switches between shooting arrows to helping the other Links up the cliff and shooting at it’s eyes with the strongest bow he has,making as many arrow fusions on the spot as he dares. The others quickly taking as many ranged weapons from their sides to do the same. You help Hyrule up the clifface, while Wild swipes Cryonis over the field, climbing up himself, being hauled to Sage’s side.

You are almost there when one of the hands latch onto your ankle, and you go down with a scream, Sage all but dropping the bow in his hand in favor to latching onto your hand with snarl. And

It.

Is.

Agony.

(It burns through you like your very atoms have been set on fire,bthe hands take the opportunity to sink into you, long long unnatural fingers sinking into your flesh in a unhurried blanket of darkness, the Demon King’s will is roaring, growling with abyssal rage, if it cannot rule Hyrule, it would kill everything in it instead. Gloom sinks into your cells, raptures the membranes and makes the skin slip, frantically invading, you taste rotten flesh on the back of your throat and the scent of wither and ash choke you as it sinks into your flesh, marrow, breaks down your bones bit by bit, cracking and infecting and breaking down your very essence with the fury of a dead deity which refused die, decay on an accelerated rate all over where the hands clutched like a vice as the Links trunfo pull you out or attack it and it is painful and it’s excruciatingly wretched and make it STOPCEASEITHURTS-)

A well aimed Skyward Strike severs the connection, the pain stops and you fall into Sage, breathing hard and unevenly, grasping at him like a lifeline, clawing and counting at Wild’s arm on your other side like a wounded animal, your taste blood on your throat from the screams that were ripped from it, Hyrule falling to his knees on your side as healing magic washes over you like a shroud, trying to get you to respond.

Reality howls along with you, before all is silent.

It barely took a second.

“... Just what were those things?”, rasps Sky, horrified, a sentiment echoed through the Chain, though you can’t focus on it, trying not to choke on your own blood and to pull yourself together, Wild’s hand unconsciously settling on your pulse, shaking, and Sage’s tense tone cuts through the air as he scans the area. Still tense, tone hoarse.

“... The reason why I wanted you to leave.”

Later, much, much later, before you all leave, you learn they are called Gloom Hands.

It’s unanimously agreed that all you hold loathing for those abominations, even long after you’re forced to leave Sage.

He whispers something to Wild on the way out, hugging him close, trembling. Your Champion nods, you can’t make out the words, but you make sure to hold him as close as you can before you go, indulge him in checking for your pulse even long after you’re healed.

You hope he’ll be safe, he hopes that the next time you all see each other again, it’ll be under better circumstances.