#Anonymity gone

[canisalbus]

When did Machete realize he was gay? Was it only when he met Vasco, or was it earlier and he just repressed it?

If you asked him, he might admit that in retrospect he must've had a vague inkling earlier (thinking of all the times he let his gaze linger on a painting of some handsome nobleman a little longer. Which almost makes it like... a 16th century equivalent of having a secret fictional crush). But I think it probably would've been more of a detached, aesthetic attraction than anything he recognized as distinctly gay, bad and worth of repressing. It's not a sin to quietly appreciate art and the beauty of the human form.

I'd say Vasco, his best friend at the time, was most likely the first real person he had actual feelings for. The realization was so distressing he stayed in denial about the whole thing for a good while.

[vickyvicarious]

It also seems that so far Jonathan mentions Mina every day. Day 1. Get recipes for her. Day 2. If I am to be a Dark Souls environmental storytelling corpse, whoever finds this journal, tell her I said goodbye. Day 3. No imposter syndrome for me because Mina would Dislike That 💗

Fun fact: If you unfocus your eyes and tilt your head just right, you can actually see the message "💖I love Mina so very much💖" hidden on every single page he writes...

Yeah, I especially love the imposter syndrome moment so much. It's possibly the scariest moment for him from yesterday, just stuck waiting alone on the doorstep of a crumbling castle in the middle of the night after the most harrowing drive ever with nowhere to go and no one to help him... And midway through going "is this normal? this can't be normal, right???" he has to redirect because he dared to still think of himself as a mere clerk and Mina is Proud Of Him for being a full-blown solicitor now. She won't have anyone looking down on her man, certainly not the man himself. It's adorable.

[lilliejareau]

emily: what’s my favorite song?

emily:

emily: EIGHT HUNDRED FIVE EIGHT EIGHT TWO THREE HUNDRED EMPIIIIIIIIIIIRE

emily: today

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I know you don't like discussing the muses but i love your takes and perspectives and i had to ask you about this. after listening to ttpd, did you have the impression that she really loved matty more than any of her exes/previous relationships?. And listening to the whole album as a whole would you call it the ''matty album'' or do you think there are more prominent themes in there than their period together?. (hope this doesn't bother you, feel free to delete if you don't feel like answering it)

hey anon! You're right, I don't really like to get into the muses as I don't really think there's anything to add to the conversation at this point, and ultimately I don't think it matters.

That being said, and with the caveat that I am not Taylor and I do not know Taylor so I cannot speak to her thoughts and can only make relatively educated guesses based on being an avid consumer of her work and a student of the human condition (lol), no I do not think Taylor loved Matty more than anyone else. I think there was maybe a brief period in the thick of things where she *thought* she did because she was not thinking clearly and was in full-on denial, but to me the message that is loud and clear in the album (and more or less explicitly stated in the epilogue) is that it was not any kind of real love affair. It was certainly infatuation and lust and the promise of something more, and there may have been some love as well, but he was in no way the love of her life by any measure.

I would call it a "Matty album" insofar as they're about events in which he was present, sure. But I feel it much more as a Taylor album, if that makes sense, even though I know that's a cop out because every album is to a degree. I can't explain it well, but I don't see TTPD as a Matty (or Joe) album in the way that I would maybe say Red is a "Jake" album or 1989 may be a "Harry" album or even Lover being a "Joe" album whatever, because even if they don't figure in all the songs, that kind of heartbreak permeates so much of the material.

The thing about TTPD and the Matty situation is that the Matty situation is really a Joe situation (which in some ways is actually partially a Jake situation). I always say I hate treating Taylor like a character so I hate speaking about her and her work in this way, but you don't get the Matty situation without the Joe situation precipitating it. It's @taylortruther's now-infamous donut vs. hole analogy. The reason Taylor makes the choices she does with Matty is directly tied to what happened with Joe that made her feel she needed to. Which is not to say Taylor isn't responsible for her own actions or doesn't have agency in her own life, but I mean it in that the situation in which she found herself with Joe, and the pain it caused, is what made the alternative so comforting and perhaps even necessary in her mind. It's why it makes it so hard to "paternity test" the album, because the stories are inherently intertwined and you don't get the former without the latter.

The major "theme" of the album to me is the loss of a very specific, very personal dream, and the way in which she lost it, and the way in which grieving that loss drove her to make the choices she did. We're all talking very delicately about it because it's a sensitive topic, but it's late on Friday and few people are going to see this, so I'm going to say it: it's the give you my wild, give you a child of it all. The yearning she expresses both overtly and sub-textually for having a family in the album is palpable in a very iykyk kind of way, and it's the realization that those plans are not going to come to fruition in the way she had once imagined that drives a lot of the pain she experiences, and makes her jump at the chance to find that again with someone else.

I started a draft post about the theme of womanhood and motherhood on TTPD three months ago that I never finished because I ran out of time and ran out of steam, but it was the most striking thing to me on the album, not because I didn't know that she wanted those things because that's been obvious for years (definitely since Lover, and again, peace put it all on the table), but because the vulnerability she expressed about it on the album is incredibly moving, and it's so generous of her to trust listeners with those feelings and experiences.

Again, it's the thirtysomething of it all.

She is in relationship A which she at one point believes is forever, one which she at one point believes is going to lead to marriage and children. She is so committed to that dream that she either ignores or tries to fix serious issues that may otherwise lead others to think the two people in the relationship are incompatible, both because she loves the person deeply and because she feels that this is meant to be the way she achieves that dream. She gives it her everything, and it still dies a slow, painful, onerous death, and she feels like it may take her along with it. The dream of getting married and presumably having a family gets taken off the table: how we don't know and will likely never know because that is private between the parties involved. All that matters in the context of the album is that those plans never come to fruition and never would.

Then you have relationship B, an old flame who knows just enough buttons to push both to trigger and to flatter. A person who she presumably trusts with very sensitive, personal information as her life slowly crumbles, and this person is telling her all the things she wants to hear because he knows about what is happening in relationship A because she's told him. Person in relationship B doesn't get an "in" with her and sell her this dream unless what happens in relationship A precedes it. It's not a grand love affair for the ages, it's not a mutual decision on building their own dream together. It's Person B learning about what is happening with Person A and saying "I can do that!" even if he can't or doesn't. The dream he sells her is a rental car; it's not his own, he's just borrowing it from someone else and selling it back to her.

And the reason she falls for it is because it is what she aches for the most in her personal life, and she is grappling with it disintegrating, so she (unfortunately for her) falls for the easy way out, and in turn sells herself a story about how this must be fated, and this must be meant to be, because this person wants all the same things she does and she didn't even have to bargain for it! Well, yes, because she fed him the dream in the first place. (Like a mark falling for a sleeper cell spy.) It's too good to be true because it isn't true. IMO Person B doesn't come running out of the gate with the marriage/baby/dream life promises unless he knows that is what she most desires. But what's left unsaid out of all of it is that: those dreams were her dreams because they were her dreams with Person A. It was a whole life they had together, and a whole life they had planned for in some fashion, and a whole life that has to be dismantled in the aftermath.

So all this to say, yes, on the surface, Matty is a "main character" on the album, but truly he's a side character to Taylor as the narrator and person experiencing it and Joe as the ghost bit-player-who-haunts-every-scene. (Again, I hate referring to real people as characters, it gives me the absolute ick, but in this case it's the only way to answer the question.) I jokingly call it the Matty album for shorthand or when I want to say something out of pocket, but really, it's a disservice to the album to say that because it's not a muse album as in it's about the romance (like, say, Red often is), it's about a soul-crushing heartbreak that goes beyond it. The romance is the symptom, not the cause.

The loss of youth is tied in with all this: she's not 22 anymore. She isn't even 32 anymore. She had a very specific idea of what her life was going to look like at this point and had planned for that life, and it goes up in smoke. But again, to bring the womanhood into it all: there is, unfortunately, a deadline for these things. You're with someone for over half a decade you think is going to be your life partner and father of your children and and then he's not. You spent half a decade building this relationship for it to crumble, but now you're in your mid-30s and you don't necessarily have another half-decade to build that trust and faith in someone else before being ready to start a family. And maybe you're scared that anyone else who may become your partner will need that much time to build that trust and faith, because that's kind of all you've ever know in relationships. But lo and behold, someone comes into your life you once had feelings for and maybe now do again and is offering you everything you want and thought you'd have by this point in your life right now. It feels like an elixir that as we find out is actually poison.

That youth is not just the chance for motherhood, but it's also the hopes and idealism and belief in the future that often gradually erodes as we age. But for Taylor as well, it's also tied into the trauma of what she went through particularly in 2016, which kicks off a lot of things on the album as well (her retreat, her relationship with Joe, the pivoting in her career, etc.). That event caused a pretty clear before/after in her life (like a few other events, I suspect), and another major theme in the album is her finally grappling with the full weight of that. They're all different branches of the same tree of the story of TTPD and her life.

I could talk about this stuff forever, but I'm going to stop here because it's long enough and I should save stuff for one of the dozens of drafts I have half-baked lol. But this is just something I needed to get off my chest perhaps.

[shimmershy]

Chara and frisk as chihiro and haku from spirited away (not in a romantic sense)

This is an old ask because I wanted to draw something for it but kept putting it off, I'm sorryyyyy. I love Spirited Away! It's been a little while since I last watched it, but I remember that Haku and Chihiro reminded me of Chara and Frisk in some ways (also not in a romantic sense). Haku specifically makes me think of Chara, personality-wise.

Anyway, I had two ideas so I drew them both. For the first one I just put them in the setting of Spirited Away, and for the second one I was thinking more like, you keep Undertale's story but Frisk and Chara take on roles more similar to Haku and Chihiro? Like Frisk's in this strange new world and Chara takes on the role of teaching them how things work and protects them. I had fun with these, especially the first one. :)

(Screenshots I referenced are under the Read More!)

[ask2ps]

Some meme expression requests. There's quite a few more I should do eventually.

[canisalbus]

From a historical standpoint, I feel like Machete could be a figure sort of like Robesperrie (not sure if that's the correct spelling). Seen as controversial during life, after death everyone immediately wiping evidence of them being friends and saying they didn't support him, and then later on research seeing him as a more nuanced view how he actually was.

When I was writing the response to that ask I tried to think of a historical figure I could potentially compare him to. Robespierre was the first one that came to mind, but that's because someone had previously pointed out the similarities they seemed to have.

[terezis]

who wins in a fight Harrow versus Barry Bluejeans

there are so many factors to consider here. is this like a "starblaster touches down on the ninth house" situation or is harrow a lyctor yet??? is barry in his body or is it harrow vs. a lich??? what are the conditions for victory???

because i think any version of harrow could take down "flesh" barry easy, but if he's just going to rise out of his body as a lich afterwards then she's pretty fucked. bone can only do so much against a guy who can go incorporeal at will. one well-timed power word stun and harrow's done.

but that's the other thing. i think barry would pull his punches against a teenager, even if that teenager was scary. barry would not want to hurt harrow. he would probably try to talk her down and when that failed, he would reach for hold person or sleep WAY before he'd cast a blight or a disintegrate spell.

harrow i think would have no such reservations. if she felt sufficiently threatened she WOULD go for the kill and be very dismayed when killing barry did not stick.

anyways i think harrow wins but afterwards barry awkwardly pats her on the shoulder and very genuinely tells her how her skeletal constructs are SO well articulated, even barry sometimes doesn't bother about the thoracic vertebrae but the skeleton that sucker-punched him definitely had full range of movement, it was real impressive—

the fatherly approval of it all knocks harrow clean out. she can't handle that

[ddarker-dreams]

lock!!! I need ur thoughts on Wriothesley

holding myself hostage to not go on another panopticon tangent

wriothesley has piqued my interest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the underwater prison in particular adds so many unique possibilities to him as a yandere. one of my absolute favorite horror experiences is the game soma, with its decrepit submarines and the intense claustrophobia from being stuck underwater... i find the ocean terrifying. like wtf is going on down there. what is a leviathan. why are giant sea beasts mentioned consistently throughout so many ancient cultures. Why are there noises picked up in the ocean that cannot be sourced. why are anglerfish. why why why.

as it relates to yan wriothesley — the fortress of meropide would have a subjugating presence that rivals his. creaking metal vents, dripping pipes, the all-consuming scent of saltwater and rust; running back to his arms would be a temptation. it'd play an integral role to ensuring your cooperation. wriothesley doesn't demand complete submission. he knows human nature, the tenacity sentience imbues, for better or for worse. he doesn't see the appeal in dampening the flames that burn within you. he'd rather build a perimeter around it that'll keep the fire from spreading and burning too hot.

total transparency isn't how he operates, though. he'll clue you in, build the maze you're to navigate, but won't hand over the blueprints. you're free to traverse the fortress as you please. you can talk to whoever you want, say whatever you want, such is your prerogative. at first, you can't help but find him naively arrogant. he might be "the duke," but even he must have limitations.

or so you think.

the vacant areas that guards seemingly overlook wind and stretch for miles. each step diminishes your hope, little by little. will your provisions last? do you really have the expertise to pull off a successful dive and ascent? why did a prudent man such as wriothesley leave a potential escape route unobstructed? these doubts are weights that drag you down, and, inevitably, back to where he waits.

this leaves pleading your case to your fellow inmates or the guards. the first time you try, it's a rush of adrenaline, stumbling over your words just in case he'd come dragging you back at a moment's notice. this incoherent accusation of his grace forging false evidence to keep you here, in the depths where he'd like you, doesn't go as you dreamed. you're either met with awkward apprehension or outright ignored. in the case of the former, it's safe to assume they think you're having a break from reality. the latter is worse, more cruel; they can see where you're coming from and elect to do nothing about it. why should they endanger themselves for your sake? it's a dog-eat-dog world in the fortress.

defeated and humiliated, you return to the administrative area 'willingly.' there he waits, the door unlocked to show he anticipated your return, leisurely sipping his tea. he isn't angry, bitter, or vicious. he just simply asks,

"did you have a nice chat?"

[nalyra-dreaming]

Jam's kisses are quite something. There was a big difference in how Sam and Assad kissed and how Jacob and Assad kissed compared to how Jam kissed. I was actually shocked at how much open-mouthed, lip-sucking head movement there was in that single kiss. Please tell me you think we will get more like that!

I mean. That was just a dream… imagine a real reunion kiss?! 😈

[lilliejareau]

emily: happy birthday biiiitch

rossi:

rossi: so you just gon’ bring me a birthday gift on my birthday to my birthday party on my birthday with a birthday gift?

hotch: *looks away disapprovingly*

emily: happy birthday?

rossi: *smashes glass onto emily’s head*

[vickyvicarious]

"Faugh! Mina is a woman, and they have naught in common! They are Devils of the Pit!"

:)

First time reading: aww, his love for Mina won't allow him to even categorize them as 'women', because she's a woman and she would Never.

Rereading: ...ah. Oh dear. About that.

I do love the foreshadowing in this line. Mina never quite becomes one of these women, but she comes scarily close. They are eager to welcome her, and call her one of them. Jonathan himself is fully willing to change his tune too - should Mina become a devil of the Pit, he'll follow her, rather than the rejection implied here.

Of course it's not full dramatic irony. That would have to be reserved for some kind of Bad End AU where Mina's too far along and ends up joining the vampire ladies/probably killing Van Helsing, but Dracula gets killed too. Then you could actually have a potential end with Jonathan "alone in the castle with those awful women" - but by his own choice this time. The line is still pretty great though.

[silverskye13]

hi! I'm on my third reread of rns right now and a question occured to me. at the start of the story tanguish talks about how he isn't used to feeling a full range of emotions since he didn't up until he gets stronger then tango. do all helsmets go through that kind of process? if they do, what was it like for helsknight/the colosseum fighters and if they don't, what was unique about Tanguish?

It's not an all helsmets thing! It was a Tango/Tanguish thing. It felt like it matched the nature of their relationship to progress that way. Tanguish started as like, a stand-in for companionship. He was relatively 2-Dimensional in that he was only there to make Tango feel less alone, and didn't keep many opinions of his own -- until he starts getting stronger, and his strength leads to taking on more Tango-like things, his range of emotions.

Helsknight and Welsknight I always imagine feed off of each others' emotions. They can feel what the other is feeling, and respond to it. It's part of what makes them so bad for each other -- they're an ouroboros of bad feels, constantly feeding itself. When they're together they spiral, and keep spiralling, until something forces them to stop.

EB probably always felt his own range of emotions? All the Xisuma helsmets feel to me more like snapshots of him at different points of his life. EB would have been relatively emotionally intelligent and comprehensive, but he was ruled specifically by pride when he was first made, and all his feelings and actions circled around feeding his pride.

Martyn and hels!Martyn are almost exactly the same person, a carbon copy, but one never escaped 3rd!Life and the other, mostly, did. Hels!Martyn has emotions that are constantly augmented by a feeling of survival. Everything he feels has to do with that survival. Anger is bigger and more violent. Logic is prioritized over impulse. He feels like he's under a constant state of threat -- though that feeling has waned a bit now that he has the Colosseum.

Red is mostly Ren's mourning, loss, and feelings of helplessness, all tempered by loyalty and the desire to protect... Something. Something that doesn't exist anymore, given he was born out of the tragedies of 3rd life, but it's a hole he's seeking to fill. I feel like his emotions err on the side of the morose and macabre. He doesn't feel happiness right, if he feels it at all.

[sunnymainecoonx]

may i perhaps request reaper being absolutely down NASTY for geno simp reaper supremacy

They're so stupid...

[blue-rose-soul]

lucifer and alistair interactions in the kid alistair au?

"What in the unholy hell is that!?" Lucifer demanded, turning to the sinners for explanation.

Warped, darkened wood and animal skeletons stood in stark contrast to the elegant reds and golds that made up the rest of the hotel, the scent of rot and decay lingering around the bar. The unholy abomination looked like it had been sliced out of some backwoods horror show and plopped right in the middle of his building.

The voice that answered was not the voice he expected.

"Just some of the renovations we had done!"

Lucifer spun on his heel, thinking for a moment the voice had come from thin air before his eyes dropped to the lanky, scarlet-clad child standing in the middle of the lobby. The boy grinned up at him, hands tucked behind his back with a microphone-topped cane in his grasp.

For a moment, Lucifer felt a twinge of pity. It was a fact of life that, sometimes, children died. The clothes were polished but a bit dated; a red button up with black shorts held up by suspenders, socks that reached his knees and shiny black penny loafers, and a cute little black bow tie. The kid must have died quite a while ago. What had done him in, Lucifer wondered? Illness maybe? Abusive or neglectful parents? Perhaps a tragic accident? It didn't matter. He was in Hell. He was a sinner, no different than any other.

Sadly, even children weren't free of malice and cruelty.

"Wha- What is this? Who is this?" Lucifer asked, gesturing to the boy with his cane. "You an errand boy or something?"

"Goodness, no!" the child laughed, puffing his chest out proudly and tugging at his bow tie. "I just happen to be the host of this hotel!"

Lucifer turned to Charlie.

"This is a joke, right? Seriously, what's this kid doing here?"

He didn't miss the way the kid's eyebrow twitched, though that creepy smile never faltered.

"Uh, no, it's not a joke, Dad," Charlie said, stepping in and placing a hand on the kid's shoulder. "Alastor's been a huge help to us at the hotel."

There was a slight pause as the kid's eyes flit between Charlie and Lucifer and then... The boy's smile softened, his eyes became less severe. His cane vanished as he wrapped his arms around Charlie's, beaming.

"I saw Charlie's idea for the hotel on the picture show and I just knew I had to help! Being with Charlie is the most fun I've had in a long, long time!"

The expression on Charlie's face melted, her eyes swimming with emotion as she turned away from her father towards the brat.

"Oh, Alastor, that's so sweet!" With her free hand she patted him on the head, right between his little pronged horns.

Lucifer swore the kid shot him an impish smirk.

"Alastor's been a such huge help with the hotel," Charlie continued, gently extracting her arm from Alastor's grip so she could lead Lucifer over towards the parlor. "Without him, we'd never have been able to pretty it up this much, and we wouldn't have such a nice place to share stories and secrets and intimate feelings!"

Irritation bubbled in Lucifer's gut as Charlie gushed over the brat. He knew he was being a bit silly; it was just a kid after all. It was just... He hadn't seen Charlie in such a long time, and he couldn't help but be a bit greedy for her attention. He soaked in her affection as she wrapped him in a hug, forcing himself to relax a bit and then-

"Happy to be of service!"

Lucifer jumped as the kid appeared between him and Charlie in a plume of black fog. He stumbled, landing on his ass with an undignified yelp as the kid snickered.

"Charlie's ideas are strange, but that's what makes them wonderful!" the brat chirped, latching onto Charlie's newly freed arm. "Anyone would be lucky to be a part of her project from the very beginning like I was!"

Okay, that was definitely on purpose, and Lucifer definitely caught that snotty little smirk the brat shot him that time! With a growl, he pulled himself to his feet, openly glaring at the rotten little creep.

"Didn't your parents teach you any manners, you little brat!?" Lucifer snarled, jabbing a finger at the kid. The kid's eyes narrowed, lips curling into something resembling a snarl.

"Dad, relax!" Charlie cut in, and the kid's expression relaxed instantly. "He's just playing around. C'mon, why don't I introduce you to everyone else?"

As she turned towards the rest of her little gaggle of condemned souls, the little red-haired brat shot Lucifer a sharp glare over his shoulder.

Then the little shit stuck out his tongue.

Lucifer seethed.

Oh, it was on!

[anglerflsh]

how did you find out you were gay

tldr I don't fucking know man. Sono gay perché odio le donne