#It's driven me absolutely insane multiple times

[chocopinda]

You think of me.

[lisafication]

This post is uh, extremely normal I swear

So hello yes I am absolutely On My Bullshit regarding my new favourite game. 

That’s right, it’s the cannibal incest game, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. And I’m here to shove five thousand words of pretentious analysis down your throat because, and I do not exaggerate, I think it is one of, if not the best written game I have ever played. And I have played a lot of games, including Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XIV and Undertale, to name a few narrative luminaries to come to mind.

That wordcount is not an exaggeration. My brainworms are extremely powerful and now you can share them with me as I walk you through my insane skyscraper of inference-driven analysis.

Or you can click away. I really wouldn’t blame you, it’s quite a lot.

Content Warnings: …Yes?

(To drop the bit for a moment, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley covers extremely disturbing material and challenges you to examine aspects of living in this world that many have taken for granted all their life, it is not a comfortable game, this will cover similar topics and will often echo the game’s unremitting scepticism on basic principles of society and humanity and you should look after yourself first. My Content Warning is framed as a joke, but it’s also quite real in that the game is designed to make you uncomfortable and there’s no shame in that not being for you.)

This was originally posted on and formatted for Sufficient Velocity, and you can probably more easily read and discuss it with me here.

With that said, let’s dig in. I have had to split this into multiple posts because tumblr will only allow so many images. There will be spoilers for all endings.

She’s excited, are you?

It’s All About Ashley

It really is, isn’t it? I mean, for approximately eighty percent of the total game as currently released and the entirety of Episode 1, you’re in control of Ashley, just as she’s in control of her and Andrew’s relationship for 80% of the game, up until the various ending sequences where it begins to slip. The only other characters who really matter at all in and of themselves are Andrew and her mother — and the former is under her thumb, and she eats the latter. It’s all about Ashley. Even her obsession with Andrew is, ultimately, about Ashley.

But who is Ashley? What is Ashley? Why is Ashley, even? Let’s take a look.

Ashley as presented to us in Episode 1 is very straightforward, so let’s list off the traits we’re given — she is malicious, she is fearless, she lacks empathy, she doesn’t have anything resembling a conscience, she demands Andrew belong to her and her alone, she has him at her beck and call.

In Episode 2, we’re ostensibly shown how she has him at her beck and call— she leverages the threat of reporting Nina’s death over him and had him swear to be with her forever. We’re shown that even as a child she was “just, like that” — but as a child, she hadn’t learnt to live with it yet, to laugh at the farce of it all.

Yeah, exactly like that!

And she does this throughout Episode 1 — The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is a remarkably silly game much of the time, finding moments of absurdity and levity against a backdrop blacker than pitch — and most of the time, your internal narration is coming from Ashley and the jokes will not-infrequently come at her own expense.

She will later get negged by her human sacrifice for her poor ritual circle drawing

Her reaction to being told that her soul is as dark and viscous as tar is “You guess you already knew that” — it’s confirmation to her, not new information. Ashley knows who she is. But who taught her this? There’s layers to this, nothing in this game is as simple and straightforward as it appears at first sight, which is why I’ve been obsessing over it for days.

While it’s common in fiction, the truth of the matter is, most ‘bad people’ really do think they’re good people. But Ashley has never once thought of herself as a good person — or perhaps better put as a person worthy of love — as we learn across Episodes 1 & 2, with our flashbacks to Andy and Leyley and the VERY VERY QUIET!!!

I really wish I had space in this essay to talk about this, but I’d like to touch on these being traits usually more easily forgiven in young boys than young girls at some point.

If she removes all other options, only then can she expect him to like her.

This is something that is echoed in the modern day — her seeming self-assurance is easily shaken and she reaches out to the world — usually Andrew — to affirm and validate her, soothing her insecurities, using any tool she deems necessary. Even when her life is on the line when Andrew has her by the throat at the climax of Episode 1, the only ‘compelling reason’ she can give Andrew to not kill her is her ability to soothe his nightmares. When he tells her there are sleeping pills for that…

Most people would have a bit more to argue for their existence.

While she, unlike Andrew, acknowledges having had friends before the quarantine… you know she’s got a point that they didn’t even bother to answer her calls, that was clearly not something the state was interfering with given Andrew’s calls with his mother and his girlfriend, and given her general demeanour it’s not hard to imagine that… they weren’t ever very close. When we see her and Nina talk in the infamous ‘box scene’, it’s clear that Nina doesn’t like her very much, despite Andrew’s assessment of Nina as being one of Ashley’s friends.

We see further support for her general lack of companionship in her dream sequence in the Burial route — Leyley and Leyley Alone. No matter what you do, you can’t place the pink plushy at the family table, the flowers won’t bloom if you give the Julia and Nina plushies her own as a companion instead of Andrew’s — and if you’re bold enough to go for the ‘incest route’, in the ‘Love’ room you see that no one ever looks happy to be with her in the childlike depictions of her history, nor is she happy in turn, save for when she’s with Andrew. In a bit of heavy-handed metaphor, the player then overwrites all of these tense, upset, hard moments with Andrew, having him fill in for everyone else in life — and happy with her.

Once Upon A Lousy Life…

THE END

And that’s why she needs him to affirm her, because no one else ever has and no one else ever will. It’s even included in their comic beats — when the siblings are getting along well, they’ll often play a game where Andrew dramatically overpraises Ashley while she demands more; it’s a comedic bit but I mean — it really does matter to her!

For the record, she opened a door. She gets a little heart in a speech bubble after this exchange.

We have a great example of this dynamic, that of insecurity and affirmation, in Episode 1, after Andrew has killed for her, butchered for her, his girlfriend broke up with her, he’s seemingly thrown his entire life away for her… she’s still insecure over her relationship with him, she’s uncertain of her control and she needs him to reaffirm it for her.

This is her victory, surely?

Andrew affirms her once, with his usual dead-eyed look.

But she's still not so sure.

He actively reaches out to affirm her again with cheer.

Look how happy she is!

While it’s most obvious and clear cut here, it’s hardly the only case. Let’s look back to the aftermath of Andy and Leyley and the VERY VERY QUIET!!! (I’m not using the other name). Leyley is, after similarly extreme acts — he murdered a girl and hid her body for her — convinced Andy doesn’t like her and she needs this leverage to keep him around, to meet her basic needs for survival. Because that’s what this is — she receives no care of affection elsewhere, so she forces it out of the only source she sees available through the means she sees as necessary.

I really hope we see some of their earlier childhood in Episode 3

What exactly made her like this? Was it just neglect, or something more specific…

She needs this to be the case because otherwise she doesn’t believe he’d stay.

This pattern repeats throughout — Ashley’s insecurities are hit on and she reaches out to Andy to affirm that she is not alone, and she will use any and every tool to exploit her ostensible control over him and force him to be what she needs him to be — and as long as she has that, as long as she is everything to him and it’s not possible for him to leave, she’s happy. As long as she thinks he loves her in her very particular, very peculiar view of love, she’s content, come what may. As long as Andy and Leyley are together, they can take on the world.

Let’s talk about that view of love, because there’s always more layers to unpack here I’m only scratching the surface with this essay — Ashley consistently refers to anyone else Andrew may have befriended or spent time with as a whore, a slut, a bitch — highly gendered insults that bring to mind the idea that he’s cheating in some way. But it’s not even about sex — when Andrew mentions that their parents had friends, she accuses them of cheating on each other in the same way!

There’s a lot to unpack about Ashley’s view of femininity and the role the patriarchy plays in their relationship.

Any kind of emotional engagement, any kind of commitment, any kind of life outside of your significant other is, to Ashley, cheating. Because that’s what she needs from Andrew, a seeming complete and total commitment, secure in her place as the only thing in his life, because she cannot understand anyone picking her if they have a choice.

This insecurity she has in her relationship is what drives her to empower the trinket — he can’t leave her as long as she can protect him with prophetic dreams, after all. She needs every kind of leverage she can get because until she succeeds in being everything to him, in devouring him so completely she has him in her thrall mind, body and soul she can’t be sure of herself — hell, her dream sequence in Burial has you placing Andrew’s signature green plushy, ‘the best thing in the world’ in a cage far away from anything else.

Ultimately, it really is all about Ashley — even her seeming obsession with Andrew ultimately comes back to her own insecurities. If she is everything to ‘the best thing in the world’, some of that ‘best’ must surely reflect on her! 

But that’s enough about the more normal, straightforward and understandable sibling. 

That was not a joke.

Andrew’s Rank 100 Deception

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he did not exist.

Let me explain.

You might have noticed that in the previous section I often use language such as ‘ostensibly’ or ‘seemingly’ to describe Andy and Leyley’s relationship, and there’s a good reason for that. From the beginning of the game through to its end, Andrew is lying to you, the player, without ever falsely representing or misinforming you about events that occurred.

The common, or obvious ‘initial take’ on Andrew as presented in Episode 1 is fairly straightforward. The game primes you to think this way, it frames things and strings reveals just right so as to make it very easy to overlook the incongruities it introduces in Episode 2. He’s a victim. Plain and simple, Ashley is his abuser and he is her victim and would be fine, a normal albeit kinda depressed guy without her.

It really is not a difficult conclusion to draw

You can go all the way through the game, have him try to accept his mother’s olive branch and enter the Decay route as a method for him to finally actualise his desire to get out from Ashley’s thumb and it makes sense, it’s a reasonable way for the story to go, given his character.

You see him this way because the game primes you in Episode 1 to view their relationship like Andrew does — he’s lying. He’s lying to himself, he’s lying to Ashley and he’s so good at it — Deception Rank 100 — he even lies to you. Without misrepresenting a single event or otherwise misleading you directly, the game gets you to buy into his preferred self-perception. Nina? Ashley. Julia? Ashley. The murders they commit in the course of the game? Ashley, Ashley, Ashley, it’s not his fault he’s not to blame he’s just a doormat at the beck and call of his demonic sister.

But he wants to be there. From the very outset, the very first puzzle, that’s made clear. Does anyone else remember this exchange, from right at the beginning of the game?

Ashley wants to investigate the music!

Andrew disapproves…

…Or does he?! 

Like. Listen. Okay. You do not frown when saying ‘Nope’ and then smile when saying that you’ll instead tag along if they do it if your heart is at all in the no. That’s not an objection, that’s using Ashley as his excuse. Especially if you immediately throw her the balcony key that she could not possibly have gotten from you by force (more on Andrew’s ability to use force later).

This is the very first time you control both characters together with Andrew following Ashley instead of off on his own, the first adventure, the first puzzle! 

But put a pin in that for now, let’s talk about his initial framing in Episode 2 first. Episode 1 has set us up to, generally speaking, believe the superficial framing of the siblings as portrayed in its promotional art:

The question that we then ask, right at the heart of it is… why is he a doormat? We explore this in his dream sequence in Episode 2, which does make it clear that the boy’s not okay but— it’s real easy, given the priming from Episode 1 to make you think that he’s the one with the originally functional moral compass, to think that that him being fucked up is damage done to him by Nina’s death and being bound to Ashley for his entire life. She corrupted him.

But, well, is that the case?

You're primed to ignore this as manipulation (which it is) but the best manipulation has some truth to it.

Precisely two things spur Andrew to action in the entire game, consistently — they are the fear of consequences and Ashley. And the first incident of that fear, the very first time we’re shown his seeming moral compass as a kid — the first time it’s really hammered home that it’s a fear of consequences rather than any true moral qualms is after Nina’s death. And why does he fear consequences here?

……

The ‘natural’ read that many take away from this sequence, particularly those who have only played Decay, is that Ashley browbeat him into doing this against his will, using emotional blackmail to overwhelm his objections, and then used the event itself to bind him to her forever as her personal doormat.

In a strict sense, this is true. But this doesn’t match up with the details, something the game uses shock to encourage you to overlook. That outburst is before any kind of threat has been made, and absolutely nothing either of them say anything about it being morally bad until Ashley weaponises ‘you’re a bad person’ against Andrew — morality didn’t seem to enter his mind or the equation at all until Ashley brought it up. More than that, his greatest fear and driving motivation even prior to that is, as shown above, being taken away from Ashley.

She, of course, recognises this and uses it against him. But she never needed to, it didn’t change anything about Andrew’s attachment to her, it was there to address her own insecurities.

Just like to touch on how a lot of his affirmations are preceded by him confirming her insecurities.

I adore this phrasing

There’s a second prong to this as well, to the question of ‘who really calls the shots here’ because — Andrew can, at any stage, apply an ‘ultimate veto’ of physical violence. The game is very clear to the player that that is on the table — even when they were children, when Andy swears their blood oath, he briefly considers killing her — and take note of how he ultimately got a ‘winning’ condition out of her by not specifying there wouldn’t be others and she is forced to accept that, there. Even outside of their most serious confrontations, Ashley is portrayed as having to convince, manipulate or otherwise coerce Andrew into going along with her schemes — she really can’t make him do anything, she doesn’t have the supremacy in violence and, to a lesser extent, capability that would allow her to. 

Andrew, you are like ten years old.

The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don’t mean in the sense that I’m saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this. He needs her.

But it’s true that he hates her, too. He has to hate her, because if he doesn’t hate her, if he isn’t forced to have done this, that means… he’s responsible. And nothing, at the start of the story, is as important to Andrew as avoiding the consequences of his own actions, not even Ashley. By the midpoint, he loves her, he hates her, he can’t live without her, he wants to kill her — by the end… well, that depends if you’re on Decay or Burial, but more on that in a bit.

A great scene to study for this dynamic is the climax of Episode 1, when Andrew grabs Ashley by the throat and considers strangling her to death. She’s pushed him too far with hurtful words and assault, and he’s seemingly had enough.

It’s still framed as a question of risk, of consequences happening to him. 

Like, this is not the usual behaviour of someone who’s been pushed past their breaking point.

He tells Ashley that he wants to kill her, because she’s just going to throw another fit and that’s a risk to him. She is… not framed as being able to fight back (she does have a gun here, and more on that in a later essay, maybe). He’s so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence here, which isn’t at all what you’d expect of someone about to commit a crime of passion… but it’s very easy to overlook because of the abuser/victim narrative that the player fits his behaviour into the narrative that the game primes them to accept, brushing incongruities under the carpet.

At the start of Episode 2, we get to control Andrew for the first time, and the first obvious holes in his cover start to show. Some of this is optional — you only learn that he’s been faking having nightmares in order to share a bed with Ashley if you choose to go back into the motel room and check the bed, for example — but not all of it.

----(See reblogs for the second half)

[salty-ironstrange-shipper]

Hi. I saw this post asking for a fic that changed one's brain chemistry. Now there are a lot of fics I like; over 2000 bookmarked on ao3. And a lot of fics I love; I have 400+ of those fics tagged 'fave'. Of those 400, there are only around two dozen I would say legitimately changed me as a person. 1% changed the way I saw relationships and the world, changed the way I read and write. And I couldn't narrow it down to one - or ten - and didn't want to dump in OP's tags. So have this list of fics that permanently changed who I am as a person.

Warning: I love long fics, and some of these are the same specific tropes that I love or that really affect me personally (ex. arranged marriage). Expect angst, and especially angst with a happy ending. That said these fics are all objectively amazing.

(sorry to people who don't like long fics, but we are simply not the same. and that's OK.)

listed in order of fandom, then length.

Banshee In A Well - 43k, complete, DC, Tim Drake. Childhood trauma, childhood trauma, came back wrong/can't stop coming back! Tim is a little FREAK and I luv him.

straight on 'til morning - 102k, complete, DC, timkon/Kon-El. This is within the niche genre that for some reason appeals to me specifically, of characters having a LOT of feelings about sex and dealing with it poorly.

variations on a theme - 5k, complete, MCU, ironstrange. This is one of the fics that made me truly love ironstrange. Stephen sees through millions of possibilities and in doing so, falls in love with Tony. Evocative, beautiful, succinct.

The Art of Losing - 33k, complete, Red White and Royal Blue, firstprince. This fic made me cry. This fic BROKE MY HEART. And I WENT BACK TO IT. Multiple times! This is a breakup fic that breaks you down then puts you back together. You will come out different, and only you can say if it's for the worse or the better.

With so much of my heart (that none is left to protest) - 65k, complete, Red White and Royal Blue, firstprince. There are so many firstprince fics that essentially translate the events of the book into a different setting. And I love all of them. (My own fic, then fucking have me, also does this, self plug self plug self plug). I had to narrow this selection down to just one, and this is probably my absolute favorite.

You Don't Have To (Say Yes) - 192k, complete, Star Trek, spirk/Jim Kirk. This is within the niche genre that for some reason appeals to me specifically, of characters having a LOT of feelings about sex and dealing with it poorly (yeah, again).

THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS - 262k, complete, Star Trek, spirk. Star Trek arranged marriage epistolary fic. I read this 4 years ago, and I STILL think of a line from this fic constantly (we're aligned, we're aligned, we're aligned). If you don't read anything else for the rest of your life, read this.

DON'T THE WAVES PULL THE SAND? DON'T THE MOON PULL THE TIDES? - 58k, complete, Star Wars, finnpoe. I don't even go here. And yet. And yet. This is within the niche genre that for some reason appeals to me specifically, of characters having a LOT of feelings about sex and dealing with it poorly (yeah, AGAIN).

Not Part of the Plan - SERIES, 8 works, 337k, complete. Supernatural, destiel. This is an arranged marriage fic au series, that started with a oneshot pwp, and somehow grew into a sprawling, world and character building EPIC. And that to me is always a marker of quality. You KNOW it's good if the author couldn't stop themselves.

wander your own land - 379k, incomplete, Yellowjackets, shaunajackie and others. I told you I like long fics. Girl survival situationships, cannibalism, jealousy, cabin fever, hallucinations, trying to keep a fucking baby alive in some of the worst possible circumstances.

Infinite Variations of a Summer Day - 76k, complete, X-Men, Pietro Maximoff. I love Pietro, he is one of my favorite characters of all time, and this is such a great character fic. See Pietro slowly driven insane in a time loop that examines his relationships with himself, his team, his family, and his powers.

drop your own recs in the notes. and if you have any suggestions for griddlehark/the locked tomb, pLEA- *gunshots*

[blue-grama]

The Sign finale probably should have disappointed me, but... didn't?

It's been a heck of a run lately with Thai BLs that haven't quite stuck the landing, and it's got me pondering why The Sign worked for me despite sometimes feeling like a storyboard for a longer, better show.

I don't think they pulled off the emotional payoff they needed, despite that last reunion scene being so pretty and well-acted, simply because too much happened offscreen, from Khem's recovery from a gunshot wound to the entire multlifetime Tharn/Chalothon dynamic getting resolved without us seeing any of it. But somehow I wasn't that mad about it? And ultimately I think it's because this show did so many things well and so many things I'd love to see more of that I'm just like, yep, I enjoyed that ride sirs, please show me something this gorgeous again. In that sense it's joining something like Manner of Death or Kinnporsche where it's like, plot holes? Yes. Bizarre tonal shifts? Absolutely. Occasionally insane writing choices? Uh-huh. Love it anyway? You betcha. So here's what really, really worked for me:

Premise

I am always going to be onboard with QL that isn't solely coming-of-age or coming out. I'm not against those stories, of course, but give me gay romance with adult characters who know themselves and are doing adult things. I'm also a partisan for romances with high external stakes, so the mixture of crime and reincarnation was catnip to me.

Do I care that none of this training makes any sense? No.

2. Setting

Listen. Is The Sign the reason I have a document on my laptop titled "Imaginary trip to Thailand without ever seeing a beach?" Not exactly. But it's also not not the reason.

I am being willingly manipulated by the Thai Tourism Authority.

Kidding, kidding, but I do love when my Thai shows feel Thai or my Korean shows feel Korean, etc etc. I want to be driven to Wikipedia to learn more! Half the fun of watching stuff from not your own country.

3. Chemistry

I think @biochemjess covered what was underwritten about the romance in The Sign. Billy and Babe carried it on their backs and it was hard to dislike their romance, even when the series skipped over key beats.

Any time the pink lighting came out, you were gonna be in for a good time.

4. The camerawork

I don't know enough about film to speak intelligently about this, but the camerawork and aesthetics of this show were just so lovely to watch. It was really doing a lot. @chaos0pikachu wrote about it better than I ever could.

LOVED THIS. LOVED IT. So good.

We had some really lovely storytelling and visual parallels, too, like the first episode and finale both having a big action warehouse scene, or the multiple times that Phaya and Tharn ended up overlooking the Mekong river.

5. It was always kinda off the rails

I know some people felt this show started out with a strong premise and didn't live up to it, but I gotta say, I didn't have that experience. It was always kinda a bonkers watch for me. There were long training montages, random bodies in the shallows, missing genitals, extended performance art, that comedy flashback to Khem and Thongthai's college years... I never knew what I was going to get each Saturday. And I kind of loved that? I'm into unhinged. I was comparing this in my head to Last Twilight, which did disappoint me in the end, and I think it's because Last Twilight was NOT always bonkers and DID set itself up to tell a straighforward story, then dropped the ideas it had been juggling in the last episode. The Sign always felt chaotic to me, so a chaotic ending was par for the course. This is where I'd compare it to KinnPorsche, which had the weirdest fucking ending, but like, okay??? Why not!

End result? I see the flaws, but I'm giving this show tender forehead kisses anyway. Here's hoping for more like it.

[mixelation]

i will also share with u the absurd toxicity (reborn au au (tm)) rpf lore developed with @waffliesinyoface

point one: obito would not be naturally drawn to fandom, but he IS a troll who likes absurd things, and it's important to him to know what's up with the people in his life. he has read the entirety of icha icha (more than once!) for the simple pleasure of sniping kakashi with a well-placed reference. when tori gets fixated on ninja rpf, he also obviously starts reading it so he can have fuel to tease her.

unlike kakashi's brand of obsession (which is PRIVATE, obito, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS), tori's obsessions crave interaction. you want to talk rpf with her? she is going to drag you down into a terrible vortex of rpf fixations

obviously "driven to making insane decisions for petty reasons" tori is obito's favorite tori. he is SO supportive of her ongoing war against the sasori girls.

obvious outcome of point one: obito becomes a kakashi girl

tori is SO supportive of his psychosexual kakashi obsession. she thinks him working through his feelings like this is good for him. also she likes reading fic

obito is not well-liked in kakashi fan circles when he's writing in under a pen name because he keeps writing kakashi as a damsel in distress in constant need of rescuing due to chakra exhaustion. fangirls hate this because kakashi should be cool and badass all of the time???

point two (horrible realization): in this au, obito retains his uchiha pretty privilege. he's also the infamous loose canon of the yellow flash's students. there's ABSOLUTELY insane fic about him

obito's favorite ship is obviously him/kakashi, but NO ONE writes it right???

yes he and tori are dating. no she doesn't care he keeps looking up kakashi/him. she knows what she signed up for.

in fact, tori inspires him!! if tori can go hunt down a random sasori rpf writer to argue with her, OBVIOUSLY he can go have a converastion with some obito writers and gently push them in the right direction!!

but he has to do it cool and mysterious, see, so they get him. he shows up in the dead of night in his super dramatic madara personality. he just wants to talk. he gives a dramatic speech and throws in some killing intent for Effect

obvious outcome of point two: everyone stops writing obito fic because they're terrified.

tori: realizes there's still READERS for obito fic but no writers

tori: that's free real estate

she's converting. she's an obito girl now. (obito: babe that's SO sweet of you)

NO ONE likes her obito fics either because she writes him as a deeply pathetic whackjob who cries during sex. she gets multiple replies that are like "when will obito show up to murder THIS writer"

instead of being normal she's like "FYI he DID show up in my bedroom but that won't stop me because I AM NOT A COWARD"

third, miscellaneous point: obito is shunned by fandom when he's a faceless person writing in. at in person meet-ups, people love him despite his rancid opinions because he is hot. :'(

tori: PUT THE MASK BACK ON I HATE THIS

obito in kakashi cosplay??? with kakashi's real clothes he stole???

i thought about writing a joke about them going to an in-person fic exchange and people not realizing they're together to mirror the ANBU Party Debacle. however i do not think this is the mood for Torito because they cannot physically resist bothering each other for more than 90 seconds at a time. obito shows up holding her hand so he can swing their arms like literal children. if he doesn't pay attention to her for long enough, tori WILL tug his hair/loose clothing/etc. he attempts to sit in her lap at least twice. they're both super into the other person's rancid headcanons. they are so fucking obnoxious

no one ever matches obito-in-person with obito-showing-up-to-harass-fic-writers because of the insanely different personalities

people are okay with obito in person despite his personality because he is. hot. and a man. and they're a group of mostly women who are attracted to men. do you see? but they still fucking hate tori

a rumor starts that the reason tori can write bonkers obito fic without him murdering her is that when he showed up to threaten her over it, she slept with him. so not only is she annoying, but she cheated on her hot boyfriend (obito) with famous ninja uchiha obito! she doesn't deserve either of them!!!

(obito: that's exactly what happened tho. i gave you my super cool and scary "write better fanfic" speech and you slept with me. <3 / tori, who will never EVER admit she found his stupid "madara" personality kind of hot: (tea kettle noises))

[morganafayes]

i want to talk about the dark tower (5.06) because it is SUCH a frustrating episode for multiple reasons. it’s unique in that it’s one of the only morgana/gwen centric episodes in the entire series - and yet it ends up becoming a detriment to both of their characters’ development. this episode sucks not just because of the evil gwen plotline (which was terrible yes. we love the writers just removing her autonomy over and over again for no reason!) which resulted from it but also because the lost potential of it all - when this setup could have been easily used to create some of the most interesting plot lines for gwen (and morgana) in s5

like. sorry to say but would it be that impossible or insane for gwen to actually sympathise to some degree with morgana here without magical brainwashing. to me its not! the thing about gwen is that she's a morally driven character first and foremost. one of the main reasons she falls in love with arthur is because crucially, she sees him as a good person. she loves him for the values that she believes he upholds and his desire to do justice. it was same with lancelot - it's emphasised that she liked him because he's honourable and good. we also see that she values her morality and doing the right thing above her own emotions at times (re: her not wishing for uther's death even after he killed her father).

with that in mind, would it be that insane for her entire perspective on arthur and merlin (AND magic) to change because of morgana? firstly, gwen never finds out that merlin poisoned morgana. this is very important to me.... because although yes he didn't 'have a choice' (im not gonna get into all of that but i understand both sides of the argument. whatever) he still did something wrong. like. killing 1 or 10 people in the trolley problem still makes u a murderer. she has every right to hate him. he objectively betrayed her and took advantage of her trust. i feel as if gwen would sympathise with morgana and at the very least this would affect her opinion towards merlin to some degree, and make her realise he's hiding things (because she, like arthur, doesn't know half the shit he gets up to and does! she even less than him!). furthermore (and more importantly) i can absolutely see gwen sympathising with morgana against arthur to some degree too. like yes he's her husband but AGAIN she's someone who always puts her principles first and objectively arthur is upholding his father's legacy by continuing the oppression of magic users. he is textually an oppressor. in 5.13 its clear gwen doesnt fully distrust or hate magic from her conversation with gaius (although she might be suspicious of it considering her past experiences) so she would probably be very sympathetic and understanding if morgana were to explain to her what it was like to be a magic user under uther's reign. how demonised and oppressed they truly were and continue to be. like. she would absolutely still criticise and call morgana out for hurting innocent people but ultimately morgana's cause (despite it being not really true to what it claims to be) would be sympathetic. at the very least she would see that arthur is wrong, even somewhat, for continuing to uphold his father's legacy. especially because (as the writers seemed to forget for some reason.) of her extremely complicated relationship with uther in the past, considering he almost had her killed more than once and did in fact murder her father because of his obsession with banning magic. and now her husband is doing the same thing.

no of course gwen would not side with morgana at this point in the story. but she would understand her and sympathise and it would create such an interesting moment of character growth/conflict. it would make her question her marriage, the things she THOUGHT arthur and camelot stood for and whether those things are really true. it would make her doubt merlin's character and realise he's hiding so much more than she thought. it might make her distrust him or demand the truth. it might make her wonder what SHE wants to do as queen, as a ruler in her own right, especially if she starts to have ideological disagreements with her husband. there's literally so much that could have been done with her in s5 as fallout from just this one episode and they did the most boring thing ever and made it suck so bad. bbc merlin writers ur not seeing the pearly gates

[sourstroll]

Summer Of Cum 2023

Day 8 - Multiple orgasms

Pairing: Daniel/Oscar

WC: 849

❀❀❀❀

Daniel hated Oscar.

It was complicated, truly, because Daniel doesn’t consider himself hateful, or mean, or malicious. He knew Oscar was, at most, an innocent bystander, but sometimes, it felt nice to have a scapegoat to pin all of his shortcomings on.

Hated, is the keyword, past tense. Daniel hated Oscar, but now, it was much different.

Daniel sometimes thinks about it as his hands coast along expanses of pale, freckled skin, touching soft curves that’ll turn into muscle with enough training. He thinks about it when chocolate brown eyes stare up at him from between his legs, with wet lashes and tear-stained cheeks.

Daniel is thinking about it as Oscar’s hips move in figure eights, grinding himself down onto his cock. Oscar is leaning back on his hands, planted behind him on Daniel’s thighs, using them as leverage. Daniel shouldn’t even be at this hotel, where the rest of the McLaren team were in the surrounding rooms, probably listening to Oscar’s sharp moans and his own groans of pleasure.

Daniel’s hands are gripping bruisingly at Oscar’s waist, helping him move up and down. Oscar is always shameless and doesn’t care about whether he’s too loud or if someone could see, something he’d learned quickly and had to come to terms with.

“Ah- Fuck,” Oscar whimpered, his cock slapping uselessly against his stomach, already straining as his first orgasm hit. He hadn’t even been riding Daniel for that long, but it was just that good. Oscar is coming all over himself, some dripping down his length and the rest getting on his tummy or on Daniel’s.

What Oscar most loved about Daniel was his willingness to be used, how he could lay there and let Oscar fuck himself silly on his cock for as long as he wanted. Daniel was perfect in that regard, in every regard, really.

“Good boy,” Daniel hummed contentedly, eyes trained on Oscar’s cock, which was somehow still hard. The kid had stamina like no one’s business, so his ability to give himself multiple orgasms was barely a surprise, definitely a welcome aspect of his sex drive.

Oscar felt his whole body set ablaze when Daniel spoke, cheeks red and skin covered in a layer of sweat, making his hair stick to his forehead. “Don’t stop,” he begged, not letting up on his own movements despite his oversensitivity feeling quite intense.

Daniel didn’t, he would never, not when Oscar’s begging sounded like music to his ears. Daniel doubled down and pushed up into him as Oscar slammed himself down, nails digging crescent-moon shapes into the younger man’s skin.

Oscar came again a few moments later, weaker this time, come dribbling pathetically down the length of his dick. “Daniel,” he moaned, mouth hanging open in pleasure. “Fuck me, fuck me,” he babbled. Oscar felt like he was going insane, driven mad by the man underneath him.

As much as Daniel loved watching Oscar make himself come over and over like this, he can’t take his own desire and lust anymore, sitting up and going to lay Oscar on his back. In the new position, he still had his hands on his waist, though it was much easier to fuck into him harshly, hips snapping back and forth, making the slapping sounds between them even louder. “Fucking take it,” he groaned, nearly drawing blood from his bottom lip as he sunk his teeth into it.

Oscar barely registered that he was now on his back, his brain full of Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, every synapse firing on all cylinders. At this new angle, Daniel felt like he was deeper than before. That, combined with him telling him to take it, made Oscar tremble in delight, so far gone for Daniel that he’d do absolutely anything for him, no question.

Daniel didn’t stop until he felt Oscar squeeze around him a third time, the rookie coming dry, nothing left in him as his final orgasm wracked through him. It pushed Daniel over the edge, too, still fucking into him as he came, making it spill out of him in globs.

Oscar was reduced to sweet whines and heaving gasps for air, not able to form words after coming three times in a row. The feeling of Daniel’s come inside of him was indescribably good, such a perfect reminder of who Oscar’s body belonged to. Oscar lay limp against the bed, Daniel putting all of his weight on top of him as he also tried to gather himself. His arms went to wrap around his neck, keeping them pressed together. Oscar only gave him a few moments of rest, before he was grabbing Daniel’s face to kiss him, welcoming the feeling of scruff against his own baby-smooth face. He keened against his mouth, Daniel’s tongue hot against his own.

“You’re insatiable,” Daniel teased, catching Oscar’s lips in another kiss, not pulling away until Oscar did first, continuing to kiss along his jaw and neck when he did.

“Just for you,” Oscar breathed and closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of Daniel’s lips sucking marks into his skin. “Only for you.”

❀❀❀ Previous Days ❀❀❀

[ineffabildaddy]

6, 8, and 21 for the soft asks <3

omg hiii hehehe

6. say three nice things about yourself (three physical and three non-physical)

oh god okay, physical: my tattoos are sick, my beard's coming along nicely, and ermmm i'm stacked in the back lmfao

non-physical: i try to be a friendly person, i'm very organised and clean at work which i'm proud of, anddd i'd like to think i know a good amount about music

8. tag someone (or multiple people) who make you feel good

this bit's gna be long so i'll put it under the cut dlfjlkdg

@raining-stars-somewhere-else he's an inactive king atm but he's my bestie and i love him<3 so so hilarious and observant and talented and kind. he's my dude and he means a lot to me go away

@sad-chaos-goblin i feel like i can be totally insane around you and you'll get on my wavelength immediately, it's amazing dlkkkljgfjkld. also i feel really lucky to be friends with someone so well-rounded and driven and fun, not to mention compassionate<3 i'm really really lucky to have met you and i hope we get to do irl adventures in the nearish future!!! until then we're great friends from afar!!!

@omens-for-ophelia we're just perfectly matched for our headcanons and kinks and shit and i absolutely love it. u get me, i get u, we get each other on this front and on many others!!! ur an extremely nurturing person too. i also love having u around bc ur full of fun facts and passion and energy, and of course ur art is absolutely incredible, i'm scratching at the walls just thinking about it dklkjldfgjkl. can't wait to create more absolutely feral works of crowley and aziraphale [redacted] in various ways hahahhkshjdf. and also hopefully have some london hangouts soon<3

@queer-reader-07 of course i've gotta mention ya because you're one of my fave blogs! i feel so warm and welcome reading all your posts and tags because you're a very lovely individual, and you've also got so many valuable things to say and i really look forward to seeing your takes on everything<3 also as i said before ur a very funny person and i enjoy that heh. i always get so excited when u pop up in my notifs i'm like little old me????

@foolishlovers bestie your writing makes me so happy but chatting and things makes me even happier<3 you're a really enthusiastic friend to have and you've got so many wonderful qualities that i just wanna share the love as much as possible hehe. i'm very glad we're doing shhh it's a secret together and that we've become close in general uwu

@crowleyslvt ur a little lad who's always got something hilarious and insightful to say about literally anything i come to u with, whether it's fkn silly memes or an existential crisis lol. you have such a unique way of looking at the world and i really enjoy it. also having a giggle with u is always top tier and on top of that ur a very supportive king<3 and of course u writing's delish at all times in any context

@voluptatiscausa i can literally tell you my most redacted thoughts and you'll be like yeah this is just another day at the office dkffjddgl. you're a silly and goofy guy (gn) who's simultaneously very easy to open up to which is always a comfort<3 the fact that we both like mitchell and webb makes us collectively Not Like Other Girls and we need to capitalise on that more tbh. also i greatly enjoy ur writing ofc

@bowtiepastabitch you're jokes. also we're very different and yet somehow the same brand of fucked up which i love<3 the lore could not be more disparate but the vibes could not be more immaculate. pls continue to be my friend smh

some more legends i love @crowleyholmes @fearandhatred @crowleys-bentley-and-plants @celestialcrowley @sabotage-on-mercury @quoththemaiden @ineffable-rohese @crawley-fell

21. if you could tell your past self one thing, what would it be?

probably this - one day you're going to start sticking up for yourself, i promise<3

[i-write-hurt-not-comfort]

To all the DL fanfish readers, I get you, all of us gathered here want new chapters, new attention-grabbing stories, or even in general some new content or some other DL-themed post. Unfortunately, however, this fandom, like it or not, is dying a little less, fighting for survival absolutely every day. So we should be truly grateful to people, blogs and writers for continuing to "fight" and keep the fandom alive to this day. Thanks to them, to the fact that they give part of their free time, even part of their life, to make us happy is a real gift in itself.

So please respect those who do all this for us and give them as much time as they need, don't push and be patient and most of all grateful for everything so far. Yes, I want new chapters too, I check almost every week for an update, if there is any sign that one is coming soon, yes, I'm dying but I'll keep waiting, no matter how hard it is. The writer has his own life , is currently in its heyday, but despite this, it is not giving up on us. She has been writing for DL ​​for years now, it's normal for the attraction to wane and go at some point. And recently she even admitted to us that there is already another series that has occupied a place in her mind, but despite that she still writes about DL, yes things are happening at a slow pace, but I know that the story will have an end for sure. Think about it, the more you insist, the more you pressure her and force her to write just to please us, which in turn will lead to significantly shorter chapters with a more rushed plot, which will reduce the quality of the story , and the most interesting part is just beginning. If a writer writes because he is driven by force, without passion or emotion, this will result in significantly worse material. Remember patience pays off sweetest!

P.S. I apologize for all the nonsense I just scribbled. If you consider this to be rude or unnecessary you are free NOT to post it. I just wanted to support you, just you reading this is enough for me.

good afternoon anon, i'm going to assume this ask was prompted by this post. don't worry, you aren't rude to me or anything!

when i received the original ask, i was trying not to say anything cuz i'm sure it had good intentions, but uh, yeah, i was kinda thinking something along the same lines. i know there's people really into that fic and it's been almost 3 months since i updated the basketball diaries, but there's a reason for that.

like you said, firstly, if i'm forcing myself to write for something i'm not insanely hyperfixated on, it's not gonna be as good. i'll always deeply love diabolik lovers and i 100% intend to finish the basketball diaries. but i did notice a pattern where the series i write insanely for seems to go in 2 year cycles. of course a part of me is sad i'm not writing as much for DL considering i earned myself a following, but i had the same for pandora hearts and then vanitas no carte when i started writing more for DL in 2022. and i'll always love the series deeply and keep my friends i made through it.

on top of that, part of the reason i put the basketball diaries on hiatus was because i was writing for the fengqing gotcha for gaza, which is a charity event. people donated to the people of palestine who needed humanitarian support and submitted prompts, and i ended up writing a total of 17 fics in 2 months, a total of 70,978 words. so naturally i prioritised that, and i'm genuinely proud of my contribution to that.

so yeah, i did leave the basketball diaries on hiatus, but it was for a good cause, yknow? hence people asking when i'm going to update it, and i got multiple comments on the fic asking me this as well, it left a bit of a bad taste. repeatedly being asked when i'm going to update it without saying anything else makes me not wanna update it, because it makes me feel like my readers are forgetting that i'm a person too and that i have other obligations.

i started my full time job 2 weeks ago too, so i've got at MOST 2 hours of spare time during the week, but i posted my final fengqing gotcha fic today, so yes, i am going to start the basketball diaries chapter 12 next.

having said that, i generally write 2 long fics at the same time to keep myself occupied, so i'm Begging people not to ask me to update it between chapters. of course i'm grateful for my readers and i know what it's like to desperately want a fic to update, but sometimes it's best to hold back and be patient for the writer's sake as well.

so thank you for your ask, you said everything i'd wanted to say but didn't know how asksjfkdf.

[mycoblogg]

What's your top three favorite fungi that you have found/seen irl?

oh, i *love* this question. unfortunately, i do not have access to my camera roll so i can't provide my own photos !! however, i will try to find the closest ones from the internet. (the sources of each image will be below the cut, as usual<3)

1 // death cap mushroom (amanita phalloides) : this mushroom was absolutely insane to find because it is the world's most poisonous mushroom !! i found it earlier this year, completely by accident. i was looking for a different mushroom i had driven past with my brother, then he spotted it. :-) i was so happy i immediately patted it.

2 // frosty bonnet (mycena adscendens) : another "most" - this is the smallest mushroom in the world !! i've found these multiple times ; i believe they're quite common here. i found a few at my boyfriend's house, a few down the street, & some growing on a moss-covered tree. they are so tiny i couldn't photograph them with my phone !! (& i didn't have my camera with me)

3 // chicken of the woods (laetiporus sulphureus) : this was one of the first i found, & i found a *huge* cluster !! it was at my old high school. my friend & i used a looong branch to break off a piece from a tree. my mother wouldn't let me eat it, but i am sure i could've. ^^"

so, yeah !! those are probably my picks. :-) i have also seen beautiful purple & green ones, but i couldn't stop to take a picture so i couldn't iD them.

[images : source, source & source]

[crookedfandomquill]

"Hotel King" Rewatch: Episode 1

Let’s address the elephant in the room: if I had a dollar for every time Lee Dong Wook and Lee Da Hae played love interests in a fake-out incest plotline…

Tragic backstories are like blood in the water and I am a hungry-ass shark

I’m sorry but his name being Jayden will never not be funny to me. I am from the American South and I know multiple Jaydens, all of whom are polo-wearing white boys ages 5 to 26 whose moms sell knock-off essential oils out of the backs of their minivans. I can’t take the name seriously in this context

“Is this heaven?” Oh honey no it really isn’t

Ah and the gaslighting begins. I’m remembering now that the main character in this drama is one of the more traumatized ones I’ve come across

Mmm yeah this is a good look for LDW. Not my absolute favorite (*cough* Soo Yeol *cough*) but objectively spiffy nonetheless

You know what, that party was so painfully lame that Chairman Ah saved it by falling to his death in the middle of it

Say what you will about the balls-to-the-wall plots of melodramas, but more often than not they deliver really incredible character writing. 30 minutes into the show you already know so much about Jae Won: he’s cold and full of anger, but he’s also idealistic and a bit naive (he genuinely thought Chairman Ah would acknowledge him and beg forgiveness if he just confronted him). He’s competent and driven but also completely beholden to his abusive father figure. He’s a man of few words and fewer platitudes, and the only thing sharper than the lines of his suit is his business acumen. Going back through the journey of getting to know the characters is my favorite part of any rewatch

Meanwhile, Mo Ne be sneakin’ (badly)

Gosh, imagine your beloved father has died and you make your grand return to the country by crab-walking in public, committing widespread property damage, and braining somebody with a large frozen fish 

Oh look, it’s the manager who CARRIES A HORSE WHIP??? Look, she knows her aesthetic and she’s rocking it. And no patience for guests creeping on the maids, I can’t not stan

Alright, but the fact that our lead couple starts out with him thinking she’s his secret half-sister/rival for his inheritance, and her thinking he killed her dad? It’s the messed up, angsty, weird, character-driven stuff that dreams are made of (mine, at least) 

Mo Ne really said “I want lots of money and zero responsibility” and let me tell you I felt that in my broke 20-something soul

Very strong soundtrack on this drama tbh, even if it does get repetitive after a while

Overall rewatch thoughts: I’m a ho for intrigue and this drama has so much of it, no wonder I binged the whole thing in about two days the first time around. The acting is as good as I remembered it, the secondary characters are so promising just from the first episode, and the vice chairman really makes my skin crawl. Knowing all the insane twists and turns the story takes just makes the rewatch extra fun. Safe to say that I have been thoroughly dragged back into Hotel King!

[yourlocaldisneyvillain]

just because I’m curious: does it bother you at all to wait to post chapters on a certain day or do you like having a posting schedule?  I have the disease where I absolutely have to yeet things into the void immediately or I will start climbing the walls LOL, even when I briefly tried to keep a schedule to finish older stuff (prisoner draft 2 and songbird) it just made me crazy and I ended up posting way sooner than intended!

dskjfhadfjs okay so this is the first time in my life i've had a posting schedule, and that was bc with "particular" i was trying out a method where i write the entire fic and then post, bc otherwise i have a tendency to like.... just let it sit for months unfinished lol. and tend to lose momentum. this way, i'm driven by the Overwhelming Desire to yeet the thing to the people and receive Sweet Dopamine of comments and kudos, but i don't allow myself to until it is Finished, and somehow this method works for my impulsive ass? idk, i've found a loophole in the neurospiciness i guess.

i did struggle IMMENSELY with keeping a consistent posting schedule once it was written though asjkdfhg. i picked wednesdays to post bc it's the wednesday fandom (haha i'm so funny) and just the meme of it all was keeping me on track tbh lol (i am a simple woman sometimes). multiple times i posted on a different day, either bc my impulsive brain just said hehe Yeet(TM), or bc i didn't proofread/edit the chapter fully on time bc i was busy. but overall i did like. okay, i think! i think what was keeping me from sticking to it more is that i wanted to start posting relatively early bc i am Impatient (i was done with this thing in october), but i wanted to space it out so that the christmas epilogue was posted a week or two before christmas, and this equaled to posting once a week. if it weren't for that i'd for SURE have posted more frequently and just picked a posting schedule that's more realistic for someone with poor impulse control lol.

so i think the trick is like edging yourself lololol, like do the max amount of time you can last without posting (and if that's like two days, that's good enough) and then the sweet dopamine of Yeeting it into the void is even sweeter! also accept that sometimes you will Not Stick to the schedule and that's okay, and you can still return to the schedule once you've had a slip-up!

i'm now done with my next longer fic and i think i'll just yeet it all into the void all at once, but that's simply bc i expect hordes of weirdos in my inbox calling me a pedophile lol. otherwise i would likely have posted thrice a week tbh. that is like the ideal schedule that wouldn't make me insane i think!

but yeah, for me i think this method's pros outweigh the cons!

[pomrania]

In general, “this woman is grandmother-aged but she looks like she’s in her twenties” is the Worst Fucking Trope, guaranteed to make my opinion of the writer plummet like a meteor. HOWEVER. There is ONE instance I’ve come across where it’s NOT Absolutely Horrible, and that is Alice Price-Healy in the InCryptid books by Seanan McGuire, specifically ‘Spelunking Through Hell’, which is the first book that focuses on her.

I can’t get too deep into the reasons why it’s acceptable in this case, because some of them are legitimate spoilers. But the first reason is that Alice isn’t doing this to “look young”, rather that she has an extremely physically demanding lifestyle, and the benefit she obtains is her literal physical condition. The second is that the METHOD of her “continued youth” is, um, very disturbing; I’m not going to describe it because you don’t inflict that kind of thing on readers without ample warning, but multiple characters think that she’s insane for willingly going through something that horrific, multiple times. 

(The two reasons I won’t get into here because of spoilers, one of them is something that happens in the narrative, and the other is about a certain character’s motivations.)

I think what it boils down to here for me, in no particular order, is that a) “her looking young” is only a side-effect and not the goal, b) she has agency in the matter, c) there is a very visceral cost, and d) it isn’t presented by the narrative as an admirable decision. I mean it’s not presented as a BAD decision either, but it’s played as “this is a thing that an obsessively-driven woman did, in furtherance of her obsessive pursuit”.

[scuderlia]

thanks for the tag jo @liamlawsonlesbian <3

star sign: aries sun, capricorn moon, virgo rising. being chill and normal was never an option.

favorite holiday: probably Halloween 💀 as someone who loves horror and is a recovering theatre kid, it's perfect. plus, i'm gay.

last meal: three twizzlers & a litre of ginger kombucha

current favorite musician: i've been listening to a lot of Wolf Alice and SASAMI recently.

last song listened to: 'No Girl So Sweet' (PJ Harvey)

(a tangent... but if any of my mutuals want to stalk each other on Spotify pls lmk...)

last movie watched: Talk to Me (2023) dir. Danny & Michael Philippou. i watched it on my flight and it was honestly a lot better than i anticipated. even though gore isn't typically my favourite, i was pleasantly surprised by how they managed to integrate it into a possession film. loved the grief-driven storylines, and the characters charmed me. rating: ☆☆☆☆

last tv show watched: Betty (HBO) !!! i have debilitating crushes on everyone from Skate Kitchen.

last book finished: Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline. it was assigned in one of my first year uni courses and i sped through it without really taking the time to read it properly. now that i have it's been rotting my brain non-stop. her use of simile is insane.

i also recently finished An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks. one of my all-time favourite authors and academics, would highly recommend this as a foray into 'medical' non-fiction.

last book abandoned: i don't think i've ever abandoned a book in my life, but i recently had to choke down this technical document about building codes that i can't be bothered to remember the title of.

edit: just remembered the absolute chore that was reading Outlawed by Anna North. i feel cheated and lied to by the cover because i love the cover, but the book is honestly unbelievably boring. i’m tired of the evangelical horse girl narrators, i had enough of those where i grew up. i did finish this because i hate quitting, but it tested my patience and made me feel like pulling my hair out.

currently reading: Milk Fed by Melissa Broder (for like the third time). this book is sooo weird and kind of gross, in the best way. it's definitely not going to appease everyone but i have a sick fascination with it and keep coming back. i've also been having a love affair with the cover design for a while now.

last thing researched for writing/art/hyperfixation: common apartment floorplans in Italy (if anyone has this info, hmu). i'm also in an internet sinkhole of background on the 2024 F2 grid and their respective karting histories.

favorite online fandom memory: when i was 15 i had public beef with a bunch of conservatives in a politician's comment section over pipelines and green policy and then said politician blocked me on every platform. this wouldn't be fandom related if not for the fact that i used my fan account to do all of this, so [redacted] had to search my cringe username multiple times... like omg are you a fan?

favorite old fandom you wish would drag you back in/have a resurgence: the euphoria that i felt being a part of the haikyuu fandom during quarantine will never be replicated, but i think about it every day.

favorite thing you enjoy that never had an active or big fandom, but you wish it did: i'm really into the original, morbid Grimm fairytales and wish that someone would produce a proper remake of Cinderella already. let the doves pick out the step sisters' eyes, cowards.

tempting project you don't have time for: this is a trick question because i always give into temptation regardless of whether i have time for it or not. i really want to do a series of deep-dive posts about track design and the 'architects' of f1... i've been fixated on it for a while now and haven't seen a lot of discussion about it, plus it seems like it would be fun to put all the research together :)

~ all the people i would tag have already posted, but pls do it if you'd like!

[spotsupstuff]

Hi I'm back again

Sorry for any bad takes, while I've done lore dives for other media in the past I've never hyperfixated as much as I have with Rain World. The complete and total void of information about so many things in this game has driven me to the brink of insanity so every little detail I notice I'm like "ah what if this is actually important and lore related and mmm wild speculation"

Also I fricking feel like I'm apologizing way too much. I absolutely refuse to apologize for having my weird-ass speculations, but I will apologize for dumping all of my unedited speculative rambles in your inbox. As I said tell me to shut up at any time I don't want to to be annoying or anything also I'm probably overthinking this damn it talking to people is hard

(And absolutely PLEASE give your opinions!!!! The whole reason I'm dumping my stupid ramblings in your inbox is because you have the COOLEST lore and being able to rant about my stupid theories and hear some of your theories and ideas in exchange-- shbddhgbjksttd I'm having too much fun)

What you said about artistic choice and stuff makes total sense-- I haven't really drawn ancients except for some stupid little doodles (and yeah, their hair is hard. the little circles make way more sense as 'shape defining artistic feature' rather than 'possible lore detail') and I have no idea what I'm doing anyways BUT I am going to offer a very small and completely nonsensical defense for my tentacle-hair-bone-thing theory cause I honestly just think it would be funny if they had cactus skulls

the holy grail of ancient imagery returns

that one specific tentacle. it looks like it pokes straight up before flopping over. I'm reaaaally grasping at straws now lol

Different topic-- I absolutely think that the ancients practiced some form of limb-binding. The difference in feet sizes between some of the images of them, the cloth wrappings, the fact that iterators don't (canonically) have 'feet' feet... I also think some ancients may have done the same to their hands? I mean, look at the karma 4 mural. That dude has weird hands. And feet. And way too many tits. Ancients are just fricking weird.

But yeah if any of my theories or thought trains or anything are weird or don't make sense just know I have no clue what I'm doing, I'm just throwing stuff at the walls and hoping some of it sticks haha

(Join me, next time, for 'Why Ancients Really Liked Birds~~')

yea, u r apologizing too fuckin much!!! -baps you with a newspaper- lord in heaven... /lh not sayin by this that u do annoy me- but i'd suggest makin these into posts n throwin em into the main tag rather than yeetin 'em all at my inbox! so more peeps can see 'em n such, you might find more people with neat opinions, who knows. but also thank you for finding my stuff that cool jgsdlkmcklsdmgklsd

GJKSDLKLMD I CAN,,, REFUTE THAT AS WELL BUT I WILL TELL YOU THIS: if you find it funny then that is all the reason you need for the thing being a canon tidbit for your stuff. a lot of my lore building comes from "wouldn't it be funny if..." and then committing to it

oh they absolutely Are doing some fucked up binding. it would make a lot of sense if Videocult implemented that- since they are already taking inspiration from Buddhism, it would make sense for them to jump into China n other surrounding cultures to look for inspiration for fucked up aspects a culture can enforce and then spin it out into interesting lore for a game. so from Chinese feet binding we get to multiple body parts binding (stars above, sin two mural the ancient's on top feet... it never hit how Tiny those are. also who da FUCK IS HAVING SEX IN SNEAKERS, GODDAMMIT. WHAT IS THIS BITCH.)

the hands i like to blame on religious mutilation and the fuckin... third n fourth "tits" are just fat storage- the upper pair are the proper tits in the sense that they are the muscles that move the arms. but oh how i adore it when people give four boobs to their Ancient designs it's so funny to me... praise the boobification

n tsk, aaaaaarhg, "weird"... that's the basis for the best stuff. this is an alien world, anything goes. the more fucked up it is the better it will be (-gestures to face tentacles n the back gills of my interpretations-)

[campgender]

hiii i was wondering if you had any sam/gabriel fic recs?? i read your fic (you talk like a man & taste like the sun) and it's driven me insane and i need more of them hehe

thanks for your time and also love the fic !!!! excellent excellent writing i cannot stop thinking abt it

thank you so much, that one is really special to me and i’m so glad you liked it!! & OOH excellent question and although i’ve read a lot of them, i’m also on the lookout for any recs folks may have because it’s very difficult to find something without one or more of the seven deadly sins of sam/gabriel fic - ableism, untagged w*ncest, anti-addict rhetoric, an abundance of diet culture, random transphobia, plain old bad writing, and gabriel not being enough of an asshole.

multiple choice, open response by @bendingsignpost is far and away my favorite. the characterization is absolutely immaculate - the layers of mind games, distractions, and defensiveness make me genuinely jealous of the craftsmanship in the best way. i’ve read it like three times in the past two weeks. 12k, rated E

Gabriel snorts. “How’s this: if you can prove you know me so well, I’ll tell you all the boring little nitty gritty details of my tete-a-tete with Death. Deal?”

Hollow’s Gate by chiaroscure fucks hard; the atmosphere and tension are ramped up in a way that can’t be described as anything other than delicious, the premise is original and engaging, and this one also hits the oft-neglected but very vital fact that gabriel often sucks. i rarely read works that aren’t yet complete but this was very worth it. 46k, rated E, in progress (10/11 chapters posted)

Sam holds the glass tightly and searches Gabriel’s face. There’s something mischievous about the crinkles around his eyes and the sharp line of his mouth, but he’s easy to talk to and unjudgmental of anything that he has seen or that Sam has said so far (lots to judge in a gathering of hunters, for a guy wearing a silk waistcoat). He makes Sam feel like he’s in on a joke, even when there’s no joke to be in on. That kind of reminds him of Dean, and it sets Sam at ease.

A Feeling Like You’ve Been Here Before by @majorenglishesquire is languid in the best way, like being half-asleep on a humid summer afternoon. really captures the aimlessness of their states at the time and does some interesting emotional exploration. 15k, rated E

"It's alright," Gabriel says at last, waving it all off. "It's alright. You know what? I'm gonna get you ripped, I'm gonna loosen up whatever has you screwed up so tight. We're gonna make out, and it's gonna be fine. So it's alright," he repeats again. "Say whatever you gotta say."

Open and Shut by @entanglednow for a short and not-quite-sweet glimpse into their dynamic. 1k, rated E

"Do you enjoy playing with me?" Sam asks. He means it to sound like an accusation but it comes out quieter, stranger.

"I always have," Gabriel says simply.

for anyone interested, my fic they mentioned is available here - 12k, rated E. and as i mentioned please hmu with recs if you have any :)