#An enigma and an answer

[anonymous-flowers-on-the-beach]

Alone in a crowd of people 

I know you but do you know me              Are we here together or am I alone?         I recognise your face from long ago         Every other face is blending in my mind          

You don’t know me but how do I know you            Am I sitting on the sidelines or waiting for you?            I seen you in my dreams so often             Reality can never be my dreams

I knew you but you didn’t know me          Are we holding a gaze or am I in the way?         I’ve held you in my arms for years            Anyone else’s touch feels softer 

You know me but I don’t know you       Am I with you or are we separate?       I can’t even recall anything about you        You remembered my everything        

[anticidic]

Doing my at least bi-annual reread of the manga, and I kinda just glossed over this bit the first time around because it wasn't something that I considered to have much significance until later. But the fact Dazai refers to Chuuya as partner and not ex-partner, or even just Chuuya can be interpreted in a bunch of different ways knowing Dazai and his propensity to kid around, especially with Chuuya. But the panels after where Steinbeck asks what kind of duo they are, and Dazai responds with terrible rivals rather than enemies or the sort makes me lean more toward the fact that even though they're on opposite sides now, nothing's really changed between them. Certainly not for the worse. They were also supposed to only be partners for the night and Chuuya set aside his grudge just this one time, but we know that ends up not being true because of the entirety of Meursault. Sure, Chuuya was likely at least irritated (and rightfully so) by Dazai's sudden disappearance the night he defected and went out with a literal bang by blowing Chuuya's car up, but I think if Dazai sensed any real animosity from Chuuya he wouldn't be so eager to refer to Chuuya as his partner still, even if he was teasing. But also, like, if Chuuya harbored an actual grudge toward Dazai, he would've been more hesitant about using Corruption, and yet he still trusted Dazai. Dazai knows he can be a little shit. He's definitely self-aware that he gets under people's skin. But over the duration of their partnership even he's had limits he wouldn't cross when messing with Chuuya—hasn't brought up the Sheep, the Flags, or rubbed any of the losses or betrayals in Chuuya's face. And vice-versa Chuuya to Dazai with Oda. I fully believe Chuuya knows why Dazai left, and that it was probably an open secret Mori obviously wanted to keep hush-hush about to save face, but Chuuya probably found out regardless. And that's why I think Dazai is still comfortable with Chuuya even after the reunion they had in the dungeon—Chuuya doesn't have to agree with what Dazai did and he has every right to be annoyed that Dazai just upped and betrayed the Port Mafia, but he understands because Dazai was driven off in an almost familiar way as when Chuuya was ostracized from the Sheep.

[pommunist]

mister fit em cee i will support whatever ending you choose for your character but please don’t have it be an ambiguous ending or i will have to check myself into the nearest mental institution

[househrt]

okay I've talked about accidental chaser House before because it's funny (Stacy and Cuddy are trans women, Wilson is a trans man) but consider:

accidental chaser House -> t4t transfem House who didn't realise the reason why she kept falling for trans people as a "cis" person is because she's not cis

[havockingboo]

Tell me everything you can about the Second Enigma AU.

What is the key difference between it and regular Monkey Wrench?

Divulge please

I’m curious

HOOOO BOY let me tell you right now, it is a MESS of ideas all mashed together!

Really, this thing is just a mish-mash of “what if” scenarios and theories of my own just put into one big AU!

“what if shrike wasn’t found by LAW and instead by one of my ocs? What if Beebs became a LAW enforcer instead of Shrike? What if Beebs and Shrike never met? What if Some characters roles were swapped around? With if this happened with my ocs to make this work?” etc. etc.

If you can’t already tell too, it’s just a big excuse to shove my ocs with the boys even more too haha

Soooo to give a summary without giving too much awaaay, Shrike was found by Vivek, my oc who’s an ex-LAW scientist, took him in and raised him alongside his living abomination, Zahari. They both grow up pretty much like siblings would in a crappy environment, sticking together cause they’re all that they got. They’re stupid and cause nothing but trouble for Vivek.

They become Vivek’s henchmen, doing dirty jobs to get by like hunting bounties and breaking into low secured areas to steal and pawn off items. Becomes pretty notorious criminals, which catches the eyes of one of the LAW officers who’s been on their tail for months :]

Beebs, ooooh Beebs…Nothing changes much about the big guy! Only that his morals are being challenged at every turn while on the job. Especially when he runs into Shrike :3

Lot’s of fun stuff!! High stakes, stupid scenarios that make me laugh, original takes and silly theories I threw into this whole thing just for fun!! Oh and of course angst and lore oh yeah baby

[freakartack]

Your theory honestly sounds something either Doc Crygor or Penny would make up outta curiousity.😂 It also fits with the whole fascination thing with Doc on his alien friend

[ideavian]

Raineorld questions

18 and 19

God I hope you meant the rain world oc questions because I spent way too long on this

18. Does your iterator have opinions about karma/karmic urges? If so, what are they?

19. Does your iterator know who Sliver of Straw is? If so, what do they think of her?

[hellonerf]

unusual face post where i don't bring up caname marriage. all of their gangstalia childhood photos have been shown! i've been very captivated by their answers

the question is virtually the same for each of them with different wordings. here lord and owner have a goal for their future. between a distinguished admirable grown up and a welcoming hotel runner. meanwhile hero and parrain's answer are like. so vague. [(i?) can be anything] and [(be?) me] makes me laugh. what are these kids even saying? such blatant different personality dynamics. i actually don't have any coherent words i just point at a difference and go wowwww coool(keys jingling in front of me). but really. how sweet!!! the different similar answers

[ghostradiodylan]

Can we just talk about Kaitlyn’s response to kissing Ryan for one second? (You know, not that we do that perverted het shit in this house /j)

Now if you’ve only ever made the correct choice kissed Dylan, you could be forgiven for thinking Kaitlyn is pretty into Ryan. She looks a little pouty about not being chosen here.

[Also oh my god she’s so tiny the beer bottle is huge in her little Barbie hand I want to squish her 😍]

This is right after the “shall we?” She doesn’t look unhappy… but she looks a little trepidatious. She does not look like she’s won the kissing Ryan Erzahler lottery.

Is it because Dylan’s giving her a real cunty side-eye? Hard to say.

[Look, they're besties and he'd literally die for her, but he's thinking about cutting a bitch right now.]

Pre-kiss. Does she look excited about this? She kinda looks dead inside to me.

[Why does she look like she’s thinking, did I leave the oven on?]

Immediately after…

Does… does she look pleased to you, my guy? She kinda looks like she just realized she doesn’t actually like men disappointed to me.

She kind of cringe smiles at this line. You would, right?

I just really want to know what kind of direction they gave Brenda here because my girl is NOT happy. There’s, like, a silent ‘ugh’ in this face! And we don’t know why! Is it because she’s worried about Dylan’s feelings? She didn’t seem that worried about him before the actual kiss. Is it because of the awkward silence that accompanied it? It’s not like she knows everyone would have cheered if he picked Dylan, only we know that.

Then she sits down and…

Well, guess that happened.

She looks significantly happier about Dylan kissing her supposed crush.

She could just be putting on a brave face for her friends, but Dylan can’t even see her yet and she’s already smiling.

And, of course, the game further affirms this because we don’t get the ‘disappointed’ chyron regarding Kaitlyn if Dylan is chosen instead.

So, I totally respect everyone’s right to ship them as a throuple, but when people say SMG should have just made them a canon throuple in the game I have to disagree, unless they were going to fundamentally change the characters and their reactions to each other in order to do it. (Other than Kaitlyn’s reactions here, writer/director Will Byles says Dylan is gay, not bisuxal, and we know he’s canonically pretty jealous.) And that’s not just my compulsory monogamy speaking, I actually think Nick/Abi/Emma would be a perfectly workable throuple and I’m surprised more people don’t write them that way.

But mainly I think Kaitlyn just… really isn’t that into Ryan. And I do wish we got more insight into her character on this topic and just in general. Is it because she knows Dylan likes him more than she does? Is it because she’s actually a lesbian suffering under comphet (or completely aro/ace and just not accepting it) and she had to tell Jacob something when he asked who she thought the hottest person at camp was, so she picked the brooding loner who never talks to anyone because that seemed safe? Is she secretly harboring feelings for Jacob and that’s why she’s so hard on her childhood friend about his relationship with Emma?? There’s just no way to know.

[doctorcranes-ask]

Jon!! Oh my god thank god!

Autumn took a seat next to you, plopping her tray down

I forgot how much it sucks here- are you alright? Did you get sedated too?

@quite-the-enigma

Jonathan blinked a few times before looking up at Autumn

no. they thought "yeah let's just not medicate the dangerous criminal this time. that'll work"

he's such a bitch sometimes

[000marie198]

Nine getting jealous that some of the other tailses are growing taller than him (poor boy didn't realize that welding a bunch of robot spider legs to his spine might stunt his growth)

Remember how in the show he always kept using them to gain height on others so he'd be taller and more intimidating? Yeah...

[tabellae-rex-in-sui]

I'm new to Sade so sorry if this is a stupid question, but was Sade gay? I'm currently reading Justine and noticed the passionate, semi-romantic descriptions of m/m sex, which contrast with the crude descriptions of f/m sex. I've not read all of Sade's books, but the ones I have read also feature characters who're mostly disinterested in women, who give off self-insert vibes (e.g. Dolmancé). Am I reading too much into it? IDK but I was wondering if you could shed some light.

Happy deathday to Sade!! lol

Really all that can be said with certainty is that he definitely wasn't straight lol. Like anyone who died before modern queer theory, Sade's sexuality can be difficult to label with today's terminology. He was certainly attracted to both men and women, so for simplicity's sake I just say he was bisexual. But really, who knows...

Characters that he uses as self-inserts like Dolmancé in PitB or Bressac in Justine are pretty exclusively attracted to men. Like you said, there's multiple times in his writing where characters will praise m/m sex and show blatant disgust towards sex with women. But if you look at Sade's life, there's only one known* male sex partner and many women. There's also several women Sade was in love with throughout his life, but there exists no letters of him professing love to any man. Could this be because male victims were less likely to go to the police, therefore less known to us? because women were easier to pursue in public? because even he felt the pressure of societal norms? because he kept relations with men better hidden? because any such letters or records were selectively destroyed by a relative? Who knows! It could be some, all, or none of these things. It's really up to the interpretation of the reader. The misogyny, philosophical extremism, and very culturally different ideas about sex add so many different variables to Sade's sexuality.

To add further confusion: gender and sexuality were much more correlated in Sade's writing (and seemingly in the time period in general, I mean look at the bisexual Lord Hervey being referred to as "the third sex"), male characters who get sodimized call it them "becoming women", women who put on strap-ons "become men", even women who get sodimized are masculinized: Saint-Ange says she wants to be a "Ganymede" to Dolmancé. So sodomy seemed inherently gay to Sade, regardless of the sexes involved or what roles they played. Whereas today, that's definitely not the case. Beauvoir follows along with the sexuality-gender correlation and suggests that Sade felt more feminine than masculine and his written contempt for female genitalia was a product of his own gender frustrations. From what I've read, most modern historians tend to avoid labeling Sade with anything other than "sodomite" and "libertine" only using "bisexual" and "homosexual" to label certain actions he performed like "homosexual sex" "bisexual orgy" etc. This is when the word queer is godsent.

Tldr; He's too 18th century libertine for modern labels. Colloquially, I default to calling him bi, but we'll never really know. Maybe he would have preferred gay due to his preferences/philosophies. Who knows. Safest bet is to just call him queer.

*Should go without saying but, there were obviously more. Latour is just the only named one with recorded proof.

[pigeonstab]

Doing this to you and then running away hehehe >:3

Bonk! Hehehe, that's such a cute gif, we should be cats together, no responsibilities for you. You'd be a ginger car. Cause you're Irish. And I'm stereotyping you.

Also! Idk how I even got this fucked up but I just woke up at one AM with the light still on and one shoe on in my bed.

I've just spent like 5minyes explaining my dream in the tags and I replaced 'where' with 'were' two times so if you're going to read the novel I wrote be wary of that. Loll this post is a mess, goodnight Charlie!! I love you!

[ilovedthestars]

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lot

17. Any OC OTPs?

18. Any OC crackships?

28. Your most dangerous OC?

(OC ask game)

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lot

Well, there is this one called Blank that i think is cool :)

I have also REALLY enjoyed hearing about @specialagentartemis's SecUnit (and other assorted tmbd-universe) OCs recently! The stories they're in are sooooo compelling, I love Sky and SecUnit A and i want to hear so much more about them.

(Honestly this could also include anyone i drew for artfight or an OC-tober swap! All your OCs are so cool and once i've put in the effort to draw a character i'm Invested)

17. Any OC OTPs?

I don't really do shipping, like, in general, so romantically speaking i got nothing. My OCs are all functionally aro because i simply cannot be bothered to write romance.

If we're counting besties and dynamic duos, though, either Yuma & Crowbar or Niri & Aybee :) Y&C are just delightfully inseparable, they're functionally life partners but in a "of course i'm going where you're going, what is there to even discus at this point?" kind of way. And Niri & Aybee are just so fun to write as Best FriendUnits! They're art buddies! They spend a bunch of time together but miss each other so so much!

18. Any OC crackships?

See above, re: shipping. I honestly can't even think of a platonic example either. I imagine my version of this is just "which two characters would have the craziest vibe if you put them in a room together" and I'm genuinely not sure. I feel like OldUnit has the most potential because of the sheer friction of any attempt at social interaction with it.

28. Your most dangerous OC?

Ooh, good question. You know, out of Polaris, it's quite possibly Enigma. I think it has the roughest background out of all the SecUnits—I've been thinking "guard on a prison colony," which means its probably seen its share of riots. Plus all the hacking skills it built up from being rogue but still on contract for like 7 years.

Which is fun because I also write Enigma as the shyest, least aggressive of the group. It would try to hide or flee before it'd try to fight. So as far as the actual most dangerous person to cross...maybe Hope? Violence isn't xyr first resort, but xe also doesn't have any of the hangups about it that the SecUnits do. So you probably don't want to find yourself in a position where xyr diplomacy fails.

[havockingboo]

*cha cha's real smooth in your ask box about the second enigma AU* What's the dynamic between Zahari, Shrike, and Vivek in this AU? :]c

Whatever the hell this is is their entire dynamic

LOL but in all seriousness, their dynamics are…something.

They get on each other’s nerves, but at least with Shrike and Zahari, they can still bond with each other and get along since no one else can handle their stupidity and lunacy. Vivek on the other hand is just antagonistic towards them. No matter if they get the job done like he asks, no matter if they’re on their best behavior, he is just a hateful man that maybe just likes to be an ass, who knows!

[enigma-whispers]

Putting my robot partners wires in my mouth and using them like a chewy stim necklace

Yes excellent. That is the spirit 👁

And the way they feel the sparks through their body.