#I fucking love goblins so much

[greatfunkystatic]

This new keynote from FFXIV was unintentionally made just for me.

GOBBIE/MOBBIE GANG RISE UP!!!!!

[lazylittledragon]

did somebody say dadkarios

[dnncats]

slaying while slaying 🔪🩸

still + alt color:

[inkskinned]

it is all chaos and entropy. the thing is that the chaos and entropy make it beautiful and lovely.

yes, it's true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is terrifying. i have lived through some of the unfairness - i got born like this, with my body caving into itself, with this ironic love of dance when i sometimes can't stand up for longer than 15 minutes. i am a poet with hands that are slowly shutting down - i can't hold a pen some days. recently i found a dead bird on our front porch. she had no visible injuries. she had just died, the way things die sometimes.

it is also true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is wonderful. the sheer happenstance that makes rain turn into a rainbow. the impossible coincidence of finding your best friend. i have made so many mistakes and i have let myself down and i have harmed other people by accident. nature moves anyway. on the worst day of my life she delivers me an orange juice sunset, as if she is saying try again tomorrow.

how vast and unknowing the universe! how small we are! isn't that lovely. the universe has given us flowers and harp strings and the shape of clouds. how massive our lives are in comparison to a grasshopper. the world so bright, still undiscovered. even after 30 years of being on this earth, i learned about a new type of animal today: the dhole.

chance echoing in my life like a harmony between two people talking. do you think you and i, living in different worlds but connected through the internet - do you think we've ever seen the same butterfly? they migrate thousands of miles. it's possible, right?

how beautiful the ways we fill the vastness of space. i love that when large amounts of people are applauding in a room, they all start clapping at the same time. i love that the ocean reminds us of our mother's heartbeat. i love that out of all the colors, chlorophyll chose green. i love the coincidences. i love the places where science says i don't know, but it just happens.

"the universe doesn't care about you!" oh, i know. that's okay. i care about the universe. i will put my big stupid heart out into it and watch the universe feast on it. it is not painful. it is strange - the more love you pour into the unfeeling world, the more it feels the world loves you in return. i know it's confirmation bias. i think i'm okay if my proof of kindness is just my own body and my own spirit.

i buried the bird from our porch deep in the woods. that same day, an old friend reaches out to me and says i miss you. wherever you go, no matter how bad it gets - you try to do good.

[ibeewashere]

I genuinely cannot describe how deeply DEVASTATED I am about riz being the only one who can take stress tokens for the others. Yes fig is a protector and will fight endlessly for her friends and I love that about her but there is something about the way riz loves his friends. It’s a more subtle kind of love, but just as relentless and passionate and he will take any burden for the people he cares about and bear the weight of it on his shoulders so they don’t have to deal with it without any hesitation. I am ILL.

[teddybeartoji]

while i'm on the talking abt cats spree i might as well yap abt shrimpy some more too hehehee did you guys know that his actual name in his little passport is "house cat"? yeah... i almost attacked my brother for that lmao when we first got him (14years ago btw), we couldn't settle on a name at all and so we decided to just write down the names and then pick one out the bowl blindly, right?

and so when i heard that my brother (who was like.. five at the time) wanted to name him "house cat" i got so mad bc i thought it was the stupidest fucking thing ever😭😭😭 but then my parents were like c'mon let's just let him put the name in the bowl anyway we're not gonna pick that one. 😐 right.. anyway that's his real name now lmao but nobody calls him that it's more just for shits and giggles

TALKING ABT NAMESS we all know how we now call him Shrimp bc well he.. sleeps like a shrimp (thank u for the name btw ari ilysm) but but but i need you all to know that he has many other nicknames aswell. i also call him Sheep bc his meows are sometimes kinda raspy and he sounds like a sheep. and then i also call him Puppy bc he likes to gnaw on my hand like some little dog smh... theen i also call him Rat bc he eats a lot aaaaaaaand then i also call him a Critter bc he's a weird little thing and then i call him a Beast (well ig the translation is actually Predator) bc he acts like he's some feral creature sometimes.. he is very versatile!!!!!!!!! BUT I LOVE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mau:333

[trilliath]

Soooo...how are you liking bg3? 😁

I've had this game for twelve days

[pinacoladamatata]

I'm still so mad about the Wyll rewrite actually

[hamiltonforpowerpoint]

I just finished ACOFAF believe y’all think RueHob is toxic? Is it perfect? No but y’all placing all the blame on RUE. Saying that they only love this idea of Hob is crazy

Some things I want to touch (To my understanding this is what I perceived)

Rue didn’t choose to serve the court of wonder like it was some planned decision. Rue was an orphan who was kidnapped and forced to stay in the fae relem no? I think it makes sense for Rue to take the place next of the ppl who raised them.

So Oscar/Rue took the love at first sight route. Doesn’t inherently make it selfish, unreasonable, or shallow. I’ve heard plenty of stories of ppl getting together within days/weeks/months of meeting each other. Some people feel differently

Just because Rue lived in a place of lavish doesn’t mean they can’t be sad. Idk maybe it hit me more personally bc I saw it as yk yt parents non-black kid adoption. Rue being an OwlBear just trying to fit in in the society around them. We always say money doesn’t buy happiness why can’t this apply to Rue?

The love Rue wanted was romantic love. They may have had the love of the people, court, Wuvy, etc but it wasn’t the love they WANTED. Is Rue not allowed to want love? Love that is of kissing and holding and not making face and contracts?

It’s almost like the Bloom is made to make connections of any kind 💀 Again I don’t understand why it’s wrong for Rue to want to love somebody/love them. Rue didn’t force Hob to fall in love. Rue didn’t feed him a love potion or pushed him till he breaks.

I feel like we are a being harsh on Rue for being more emotional/dramatic but at the end of the day this is a dnd game. These characters actions rely on the descriptions provided by the player. If they add in a sigh here or a tears in the eyes there I don’t think it’s fair to fully put that on the character without the context of performance.

Wuvy Wuvy Wuvy. I love Wuvy but it’s clear that their relationship was platonic .l. I think Rue has felt that everything Wuvy has done (sort of) was due to responsibility of position/duty. Ofc Wuvy denies that but we don’t know how long Rue felt this way. I don’t think we see any evidence that says Rue told Wuvy to To change herself and make herself smaller I think Wuvy did that out of the love of her heart. If I had to take a major guess I would assume Rue made these changes to themselves first and Wuvy followed so that they wouldn’t be alone. While Wuvy may follow Rue command her actions are of her own. Did Rue do Wuvy wrong from time to time. Yes!

To imply that Rue is selfishly satisfying this hunger through Hob is crazy to me. I feel like y’all are babying this man. Hob was major and was set to be married. At the end it was Hob who went after Rue not the other way around. If he wanted to he could’ve atleast cleared the air with Rue then continue his duties. No one told him to hold on to Rue token. No one told him to dance with Rue. No one made him give Rue his badge. No one forced him to quit. He decided those things bc of his own heart not Rues.

Ig my question is if Rue only loves Hob bc of what he “represents” (like this idolization I suppose) why does Hob love Rue. He had his court, his honor, his goblins. A big chunk was Hob being to loyal to his court.

P.S The thing with the goblin court was f’ed up. Just makes Rue flawed not horrible.

TLDR: I’m more trying to fight I’m just RueHob number one defender. I’m not digging on anyone or being like “I’m right you’re wrong”. I’m just expressing my feelings after being on an 8 episode rollercoaster

[zellkabellk]

Picked up BG3 on my main run after a long while not playing it (I stopped during the beginning of act 3 bc I was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity omfg) and I just finished a BIG step in Shadowheart's quest and I'm.... so emotional ;;;;;;;;; I cradle her in my arms and give her the biggest hug ever

[prettyflyshyguy]

What the fuck........ What the fuck

[sarcasticsra]

Now: imagine you’re Hob, and you meet a fey so stunningly poised, a true gem, in your eyes, of their court. You think their magnificence is only further enhanced by the fact that they, too, understand what it is like to serve others, to work so that others may enjoy the majesty of the Bloom. You share an unexpectedly tender moment, alone in the forest, and then it ends abruptly, and you are unsure as to what you have done.

This uncertainty is only further exacerbated when you are challenged to a duel by their assistant, and even once it is over, she refuses to tell you what offense you have committed. It seems logical to conclude that your foolhardiness in expressing any tender sentiments to someone so majestic was an insult that could not stand. As you are reminded by your superiors, you are a blunt instrument. That is your purpose.

Then you see them transform at the tea party, the lovely elven form fading away to reveal them as they truly are: a resplendent, breathtaking owlbear, eyes kind, nervous. You stumble over your own feet, marveling at the splendor of them. Their magnificence truly knows no bounds.

You realize, then, what an arrogant fool you were, to think anything you did or said impacted their thoughts in any way. They simply had their own inner worries to focus on. As if a humble goblin such as yourself could even begin to factor into any of their considerations at all.

And in the hedge maze, as you turn away from the scent of peonies, you know you are something else, even worse than a fool: a coward.

At the tailor’s shop, you remind yourself that you are an idiot, insignificant to their mind, but you remain enamored by them, the glory of their beauty such that it could inspire a sunrise to jealousy. They don’t say much when the conversation turns to deriding the Court of Wonder, and you are moved, wishing only to comfort them, as they describe their complicated feelings toward their court. You understand them. You know that isolation.

When they tell you that you were used, that it seems as though no one else in the Goblin Court has given any concern to your needs, you feel the coldness of the medal in your hand so keenly, stunned even as you know they are correct, unable to offer any reproach to their words. This wondrous fey before you is like none other you have met, and you are unworthy in their presence. You hurriedly give them your medal, rushing to the door, hearing but not heeding their insistence that you protect yourself.

At the masquerade ball, when the fireworks explode above, your only thought is of them. You act so rashly, ungentlemanly, placing your hands on them without permission, but their response is kind, gracious. You can scarcely believe it when they show you their empty dance card, and you feel the breath leave your lungs when they ask you for yours. You meet their eyes, feeling the magic in the air, and you eat your card, so that their name and their name alone will ever be the one it bears, as close to you as you can keep it.

You dance, and you dance, and you dance again, and even when you muck it up with your typical oafishness, they seem to enjoy it, to enjoy you. You are spellbound in their arms, and when they ask you what the P stands for in your name, you can only whisper it, a secret just for them. They smile, lifting a peony from their ensemble, and place it behind your ear, as if in exchange. For the first time in your life, you feel cherished. You feel pretty.

Their kindness this evening is a gift you will be grateful for forever. They have given you a glimpse of possibility, of what it might be like to be... loved, and it is as beautiful a dream as they are.

Reality, of course, returns the following morning, with your new promotion and your new assignment, and after your conversation with BINX, you think it is no wonder you are so easily cornered by Prince Apollo, as true a scoundrel as you’ve always suspected. You flee, taking substantial wounds for your trouble, but you do find the others, them included. They ask you if you’re hurt, and you try to assure them, but your answer seems to upset them, and you realize you must have looked a fright. Wounds are nothing to you if you may be of service, but of course someone so kind would be concerned. They ask you again about your own wants and happiness, and you do not know how to answer. There is no alternative to obligation, is there?

They simply wish you happiness before they leave, something in their demeanor... dampened, and Lady Featherfowl quite understandably assumes you’ve been stabbed once again, this time right through the heart.

At the theater, when the message from the Court of Sea Foam comes through the blossom, you are frazzled, moving to find more information, and the confirmation of your terrible suspicion feels like ice in your veins.

You are a fool. You’ve known it all along. Of course a fey so wondrous and glorious would not lower themself to entertain a lowly goblin like you. Of course they would not truly care about your wants, your needs. What you took as kindness out of obligation to the Bloom was nothing more than calculated cunning, expertly wielded to keep you off guard, to dissuade you from your mission. You’ve been tricked, made a mockery of, and so easily, too. It mustn’t have taken them much effort at all, to make you feel as you did--as you do.

You confront them, knowing you will be unable to fully conceal the effect they’ve had on you. Even now, in the moonlight, in their red-rose dress, they are stunning. They speak of love as the basis for their actions, as though the damage they have dealt to your court is irrelevant, as though your duty, your service, is irrelevant. You know now their actions toward you were a charade, but still it stings. You thought you understood them. You thought they understood you. 

And then they tell you they love you, and you are caught, frozen, mouth agape, as they explain how much they love you and how much they care, that they’ve professed their feelings and did not receive a response. They explain why they turned away from you in the forest, that you inspired their glorious unveiling, and in that moment, your mind reels, and you feel as though you’ve forgotten how to breathe.

[nyan-bynary]

Also ppl who like geto but shit on his jjk0 looks and personality are WEAK and will not survive the winter

[fantasykiri5]

ALRIGHT I HAVE FINISHED FRESHMAN YEAR OF FANTASY HIGH. What the hell. That was awesome I was grinning all the way through that. PLEASE tell me they dried the dragon meat or something there is no way two goblins could have gone through ALL of that before it rotted. Please tell me they cooked it that much raw meat can’t be good for anybody. I’m gonna start season two now. These kids drive me fucking insane

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

Hi! I’ve sent you two asks already, sorry for bothering you. I just can’t stop thinking about nhthcth, but I was wondering, does Jon get paid? Was he getting paid as a child?

For some reason I got this idea in my head that if Jon didn’t get paid the contract wouldn’t work. Because like, contracts are usually an agreement that one person does one thing and gets another thing in return. Like the Magnus Institute’s contract is like “you work here and never leave and sell your soul to me and I’ll give you maybe more than minimum wage,” so if Jon didn’t get paid, the Institute wouldn’t be holding up their end of the contract, so Jon wouldn’t need to hold up his end and he could leave.

Although I don’t know how that would work when Jon’s a child, he wouldn’t have a bank account, (does he have one as an adult?) I assume it would just go to his legal guardian’s bank account, which I guess would be Elias, but did Elias ever fully adopt Jon? Like legally? Did Elias have to forge adoption papers and stuff or did he just kidnap a child and hoped he’d get away with it. (I suppose he did get away with it) does Jon even have an ID? How did he go to university when he doesn’t have any school history past third grade?

Anyway, sorry I started rambling, you of course don’t have to answer this (nor do you need my permission not to answer, so I’m not sure why I said that) this is just a funny little question I was thinking about. Also, sorry if you’ve answered this already or there’s something in the fic that would answer it and I didn’t notice. Thank you for the amazing story and answering my other asks.

So, you've actually hit the nail on the head on one of the very important rules for nhthcth as a universe, insofar as like, magic systems (for lack of a better word) goes. That being said, a lot of the specifics of this ask is something that I can't answer due to spoilers (like how he went to university, whether elias ever adopted him, whether he has an ID). Those will receive direct explanations in the course of the fic so I can't answer them here.

But as to like, the magic system itself, it's already been seen/addressed in the fic (in a lot of disparate bits and pieces), so I don't have a problem with a more detailed explanation below the cut.

so, most of this system has been in subtext and broken up amongst a lot of little moments in the fic itself. its there but figuring it out takes a lot of patchwork. I don't currently have a more explicit breakdown of the system in the narrative itself because having like, Jon explain it super explicitly feels a bit too much like those internal monologues of an anime fight scene where the characters are having these really in-depth breakdowns of what they're planning and what's happening while they're throwing each other through walls. I just like more subtle storytelling, personally? A lot of the time, it just becomes so painfully obvious that they're talking to the audience and it feels clunky and unnatural. So I scattered the foundation of this amongst a bunch of little moments throughout.

You're absolutely dead on about contracts needing to be "one person gets one thing and the other person gets the other." That is a hard and fast rule in nhthcth, and it has everything to do with what the Web is.

One of my favorite bits about TMA world building is that the fears as so metaphysical. Which makes for a very fun (again, for lack of a better word) magic system. I hate it when magic systems break their own rules or become too powerful and you can just supercharge on the Power Of Friendship to do basically anything if you Believe Enough. Personally, I think characters get to really shine and show their intelligence when you stick them with very narrow and firm rules and make them work inside that system without breaking it. TMA in particular does an amazing job with that.

The Fears are the platonic ideals of their own identities and they legitimately cannot resist what they are. The episode with the Web's theatre production best encapsulated this: The Web said something along the lines of "If only you could see the strings on me."

In that same episode, Jon almost got trapped in the Web domain watching endless plays, because the Eye could not resist what it is, and what it is is something that spectates pain endlessly. The Web couldn't resist trapping Jon in there, because that's what it is, despite the fact that it would have fucked its own endgame if it trapped the Archivist in its fucked up theatre production until the End claimed them all. They're incredibly powerful beings, but they're still, in a way, trapped by their own nature. Humans can change, adapt, be different, but the Entities can't be anything but what they are.

In nhthcth there's a line that i tend to use again and again to encapsulate this, and it's usually something along the lines of "These things only are what they are."

They're not versatile forces. They're not a flexible tool like most magic systems where you can use this abstract and malleable force to cast the Spell of Fire and the Spell of Healing and the Spell of Ketamine Ape. They can only do what their own existence allows them and they cannot resist their own nature. It's one of the reasons why Jon in nhthcth is so insistent that the Eye can't be used as a force for good--good is completely outside of its existence. If you know anything about Greek philosophy, I think Plato's idea of the forms is pretty analogous to what the Entities are and how they work.

Which is also why Jon's like, "Duh, of course it's the Web that's got us bound and not the Eye. That's what the Web does."

The Eye just isn't about binding and trapping. What Jonah can use it to do is completely limited to stuff that falls under the Eye's umbrella. He could have the most powerful connection to the Eye on the planet (he doesn't), but that doesn't mean he can supercharge on Eye God Juice and blast a hole through the wall with the power of his mind, right? That would make the entire magic system in TMA ridiculous. In the same way, he can't use the Eye to enforce contract terms. That's not what the Eye does.

That's the Web, through and through. So when you're considering the contract, you have to think in terms of what the Web is.

The thing about the Fears is that they're shown to be a little multifaceted in that multiple distinct fears fit beneath the same umbrella with them. Take the Eye. The fear of someone knowing your deepest, darkest secrets fits beneath it, right? And that's very much Jonah's area of expertise. He probably fed on Martin's terror about being discovered for forging his CV for years. He neutralized Daisy by finding out the secrets that hurt her and using them against you. He's the invasive, watching part of the eye that may know your secrets and want to use it against you.

but the Eye is also the fear of someone watching your pain, your suffering, and (for lack of a better term) getting off on it. Enjoying it. It's bleeding out in the street and, when help finally arrives, they just sit down next to you and watch eagerly as you die.

That is so much the Archivists role.

Sometimes, I think of how terrifying the Archivist would be if it wasn't Jon in the role. Don't get me wrong--he has his moments of terrifying power, and he definitely didn't get good reviews on yelp from statement givers. But, fundamentally, he does care.

But imagine you go to the Magnus Institute under the assumption that they may help. You sit there and you tell them the worst fucking thing that ever happened to you. It's like you're experiencing it a second time, in all the horrific detail. You're retraumatized all over again, and then the Statement ends and you're sitting there, tape recorder still running, and you realize the person you went to for help just... enjoyed every second of pain you went through. There's one episode in particular that I think pulled this feeling off so well--the one where the guy in Scotland who found Gertrude's circle opened with something along the lines of "I don't care about any of this. I just want to know if you'll save my son." Like, imagine the horrible, crushing horror of going to someone for help and the moment you realize that were never going to do anything. They just wanted to watch you die too.

It's also one of the reasons that I think that Jon, for all he thrived as the Archivist, kept so much of who he was because of the inaction part specifically. In Season 1, he makes these vague mentions to fights he's getting into with Elias. Elias keeps lecturing him about noninterference, how they're here to research and not interfere, and Jon has these moments were he's like "anyway I don't give a fuck there's fucking leitners out there and if i have my way there will be a hell of a lot less of them." He legitimately says at one point that he's going to get another lecture about Institute mission statements and watching without interference.

Jon made so many bad choices when he was Becoming, but the one he consistently made against Becoming was that, almost against his will, he wanted to save people. That's picking the opposite of what the Eye is, and I think that that's the part of him that he got to keep.

that was more of an aside and not so relevant to the question. i got on a tangent. but it's here now so it stays. i already typed it. Anywho.

Jonah can't do what Jon does. He can't compel answers out of people. He's a panopticon, and the fear he embodies is that someone may be watching you and catch you in the act. It's not the fear of someone forcing the information out of you. But Jon can't do with Jonah does either. He can't just hop through eyes and spy on people. That's not his relationship with the Eye or the part of it he embodies.

They both have a very metaphysical limitation to their own experience with the Eye, because the idea of the Eye itself is just a human classification. Maybe Jon's sky blue and Jonah's dark blue and the Eye's all the blues, but at the end of the day, we just made up the idea of "blue" to explain our own experience with colors. They don't get to wield the full spectrum of "colors" available under the Eye. They can both be attached to the Eye but they're completely limited to what it means to be sky blue versus dark blue.

So it's important to remember that when you consider the contract, because it's just an aspect of the Web. It's not every aspect of the Web.

The Web is the fear of being totally under control of another--think raymond fielding in Hill Top Road, Mr. Spider, forcing people to walk, that kind of thing--but it's not just that. It's also the fear of being manipulated. Of being outmaneuvered. And I think that fits much more metaphysically with what a contract is than being under total and absolute control.

A contract is just an agreement of rules that two parties have to abide by, right? And sometimes the contract is way more favorable to one party than the other, but we also recognize that there's limits to that. You named a very big one--"this for that." For contracts to be enforceable, there has to be this thing we call "consideration." I get this, you get that. If the contract read "I have to give you one million dollars and you don't have to do anything" that'd be a gratuitous promise and it wouldn't be an enforceable contract.

That being said, consideration doesn't have to be balanced. The contract doesn't have to be fair. I don't know a super huge amount of British law (though a lot of American law is derived from it) but in american contract law we have a standard that basically says there has to be a "mere peppercorn" of consideration. We're not going to see if the exchange is fair, just if there is an exchange. there's this huge body of law around what's allowed in contracts and how contracts should be interpreted because we recognize that, at a certain point, something isn't a contract anymore. It breaks the rules of exchange.

And I think that very much goes towards the real fear the Web would be working with when it comes to the contracts. Think of like, law dramas. People like law dramas because the characters show off how clever they are. They're working in some system of rules and then at the eleventh hour they pull out some kind of loophole or interpretation that saves the day, right? The fact that there are limits and rules to what the characters can do is exactly what makes it so exciting when they figure out how to flip them in their favor. You need to have the chance to succeed in the system, however small, or it all just kind of becomes meaningless. There's no point in manipulation or machinations if you instantly lose no matter what.

That's the exact fear the Web would be playing on with the contracts, in my mind. It's being at the mercy of someone who has to follow the same rules as you, but they're grossly skewed in the other person's favor and the other person is better at using them. It's being stuck in a game where both players have to follow the rules but you have no idea what the rules are, and the other player gets to know them and have them severely favor them.

But the entire fear just becomes kind of ridiculous if it's not limited. It kind of becomes like a game of make believe between little kids if you can just write something in the contract without limitation. Like saying "well, my power is at one million percent" "my power is at one BILLION percent" "my power is at FIVE TRILLION percent." Right? Like, if you're playing that game, the rules don't really mean anything. It's all just bullshit. It doesn't invoke the fear of someone manipulating the rules against you. If the contract terms don't enforce obligations against Jonah too, it just sort of leaves the realm of what fear this is, which breaks the rules of the magic system. Being totally at someone's mercy is just a different fear than having someone outmaneuvering you at rules you both are stuck with.

Which means that, for the contract to be what it is, Jonah has to be bound by it in some way. It has to follow some kind of rules that bind him too. It can be very unbalanced and favor him greatly, but it still needs to set some kind of obligation and limit on him or the entire thing becomes ridiculous.

That's why Jonah so aggressively tries to keep Jon from trying to learn the terms of the contract. If Jon knew the way Jonah was bound by the contract, he'd be able to use the rules against him. Jon's playing the same game as Jonah, but he never got to see the rulebook.

We know two ways from canon that you can use to escape the contract: (1) gouge out your own eyes and (2) the archivist dies and the assistants can leave. but we never see the terms of the contract itself, and the fact that option #2 popped up in season 5 when all we knew before that was option #1 means that maybe there are more ways to break the contract and maybe there aren't. Maybe it's just options 1 and 2, or maybe there's other ways to escape we never figured out. Why do options 1 & 2 work? Is it explicitly written out somewhere in the binding instrument? Is it some loophole that not even elias expected? All we know for certain is that ways out of the contract include but may not be limited to options 1 and 2.

So, yes, Jon gets paid. But is that a term of the contract? Was that the consideration that Jonah wrote down in the Web's binding contract, or is there something else? Jon doesn't know, so he can't use it against him.

Maybe Jonah does have to pay Jon under the contract. Or he's only paying Jon to keep up appearances. Like, yeah, maybe the metaphysically binding contract would allow him to chain people here without paying them, but payroll would still have massive questions about why the Institute Head's angry adoptive son has been the Institute's unpaid slave worker for the past decade.

One of Jonah's biggest strategies to keep Jon from escaping is to abide very strictly by what may or may not be the terms of the Web's contract. Jon can't deduce what the rules are if Jonah voluntarily plays by more rules than he has to.

Take Elias's promise to Tim, for example. Jon still doesn't even know how the Web contract is formed. It sure as hell isn't simply the contract that most employees see--there's no clause that says "and by the way you can never ever quit or leave or you will die xoxoxoxo." Are all the terms already written down somewhere he can't find? Could oral promises be binding? He has no idea, because Elias is never going to act in a way that lets him eliminate the possibility. He'll follow the letter of his promise, and maybe that's because he has to or he'll breach the contract, or maybe that's because he's choosing to keep his promise when he doesn't have to. Elias keeps the terms of the contract unclear by following more rules than he has to.

It's one of the reasons why he uses so much doublespeak. Elias says something like "I'll keep my word, and you'll have to do the same." That only tells us things we already knew--Tim would have to be bound by the contract and wouldn't be able to leave. He'll keep his word, but does Elias have to under the contract? If he broke his word, Jon would be able to conclusively tell that oral conditions are non-binding. He'd know that there's some kind of outside binding instrument that has the rules already set out, and Elias can't change them with an oral promise. But if Elias toes the letter of the oral condition no matter what, then it could be because he has to or it could be because he chose to.

There are rules that Elias has to abide by, but Jon is only pretty certain of a few: 1) He has to have Jon's signature before he moves people into his department. He can't give him assistants unless Jon signs off on it first. Jon only got that much because Elias tried so damn hard to get his signature for the transfer. If Elias could break that rule, there's a pretty good chance that he would have, but he didn't so it probably means he can't. It's a place the contract almost definitely binds him too. 2) the contract kills you if you spend too long away from the Institute, but Elias has a way of letting you stay away for longer. If Jon leaves without approval, then he gets sick within a few weeks. But he's made it months away from the Institute just because Elias approved the leave.

So is that because Elias is the one who triggers the contract killing you in the first place? Or does he have a way of stopping a power that will automatically go off.

If the contract reads, "In the case of unapproved absences, the Head of the Institute may file Form B45, the 'Kill My Errant Employees' Form, and the employee will suffer a heart attack within a period not to exceed fourteen (14) days," then they'd be able to pretty effectively escape just by finding a way to immobilize Elias permanently--chuck him in the Buried, he'll never die but he also won't be able to file a Kill My Errant Employee Form. But if the contract reads "In the case of unapproved absences, the employee will suffer a heart attack within a period not to exceed fourteen (14) days unless the Head of The Institute files Form U95, Approved Leave of Absences," then they need him alive and mobile to file a leave of absence form so Jon won't fucking die the next time he's kidnapped for a month. Or maybe a leave of absence form isn't necessary if Jon's only kept away because of a kidnapping. Maybe the contract reads "In the case of unapproved and voluntary absences" and being involuntarily missing isn't a breach at all. They don't know, because Elias is going to file the fucking leave of absence form whether or not he has to.

If they knew the exact rules and minute details of the contract terms, they could wriggle their way into an exception that makes their conditions more livable. Instead, they're just stuck with a very broad correlation between Elias's action and/or inaction and the contract not killing you when you leave for long periods on approved absences. Maybe they could just chuck him in the Buried and fuck off, but fuck if they know, and that's the sort of risk you really can't take unless you're certain.

A lot of Jon testing boundaries with Elias has been trying to figure out the boundaries of the contract. Remember in the martyrs chapter, where Martin is like "jon why do you have an employee email you're like sixteen???" it's because jon was already an employee, and employees are required to have an official email. He knew it and Elias knew it even if no one else did.

If Elias refused him an official institute email, Jon would know that the contract does not require him to provide all employees with Institute-standard resources as outlined in the employee manual. Maybe sections of the employee manual isn't binding, maybe the entire thing isn't binding. Jon knows breaking the Institute dress code probably isn't a part of the binding contract because of his Epic Fashion Moments (or, if it is, the penalty isn't death like leaving is), but does that apply to all parts of the employee manual? If he doesn't get an official email at the shiny age of sixteen when he's Not Supposed To Be Employed, then he knows another section of the employee manual just doesn't have teeth. But if Elias just gives him what any employee would be entitled to, then it could be because he had to or it could be because he chose to.

It's also the reason why getting people to quit was important to jon--yes, he was trying to get people free of the Institute, but if he pushed someone into quitting, he'd be able to test out some very valuable information about the contract. Can people quit if Elias allows it? Maybe the rule is that the Archives can't quit, but everyone else can if Elias allows it. Maybe everyone can quit if Elias lets them. Maybe no one can quit and they're all fucked. If Elias can let some people quit but never lets them quit, then Jon has no data points to work with when trying to figure out how people escape the contract.

Which is also why elias flipped his shit and burned the HR records the one time Jon managed to get his hands on them. Over the years, there have been people who unknowingly stumbled into one of the rules binding Elias, and he let them quit without protest. There's a very good chance that that's because he had to let them quit. If Jon could find the common denominator between people who quit successfully, then maybe he could figure out how to do the same, which is why Elias has spent so long making sure he gets as little information as possible to work with. Jon can't win the game if he never learns the rules.

It is important to note that Elias breaking the terms of the contract that bind him may not be "and now Jon can finally go home oh my fucking god." The penalties for breach of contract, that we know of, are death. Does Elias face the same penalties if he breaches? Does he face some kind of other penalty? We don't know yet, because Elias is guarding those terms like his fucking life depends on it.

[for-tymora]

Doing an evil run of BG3 is both very easy, and also. impossible.