#Spit and Pathos

[iceskatingmobsters]

I'm having a very good time writing for outer wilds but goddamn there is a reason I'm only doing pregame stuff and if I think about that reason too hard then my whole fucking process grinds to a halt

[hotvintagepoll]

This is a three-way poll. Only one scrungle may continue onto the next round of the scrungly little guys contest.

Louis de Funès (Hibernatus, La Grande Vadrouille)—He is THE French scrungly icon, everyone knows him and either loves him for his scrungliness or fucking hates it and there's no in between. He is The Scrungly. He is Little. He is amazing. His facial expressions, his little noises, his everything - he's freaking hilarious. Also he's not afraid to crossdress in his movies and he looks fucking AMAZING in drag just saying Old men fuckers, this is your call 💪

Thomas Mitchell (It's a Wonderful Life, Stagecoach, Only Angels Have Wings)—One of those job'bing character actors who turn up in a lot of movies in bit parts. He is a very good actor, with a lot of pathos—you probably know him as the uncle from It's a Wonderful Life, or Jean Arthur's newspaper friend from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A salt of the earth type who brings gravitas and pathos to every part. He scrungles gorgeously.

Russ Tamblyn (West Side Story, Tom Thumb, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers)—when they were making 7 brides for 7 brothers they didn’t even hire him to dance, they were like, this is russ, he’s a redhead, we need redheads, he’s shrimpy and will do. But then. But THEN. Choreographer Michael kidd meets him and is like ‘can you do anything?’ and my boy russ is like well! I can do gymnast stuff i guess :) And he gym stuffs so well he’s like in 80% of all the dancing sequences so you think my boy, russ, my goodness, russ is a DANCER! (he can’t dance. he is just very good at doing FLIPS and GYM STUFFS.) and then he’s so so good at flipping and making it look like dancing they put him in Dance Movie of All Time, west side story. Truly scrungling your way to the top. He’s good in that tom thumb movie too I guess. Go russ go.

This is round 2 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you’re confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Louis de Funès:

He is a small old comedy man, what else can I say? My mom loves him and even was disappointed that such a charismatic man wasn't in the hot contest.

Well... Look at him! He started as a jazz pianist, but he became super famous for his roles of angry little guys, or grumpy little guys, or very, very fractious little guys. A comedy, and in particular physical comedy, legend! And in all of them, he is scowling, contorting himself, seething, spitting words and incoherent with rage, making the funniest faces and noises and... he's like a very, very angry wet cat. Angry Wet Cat is, in fact, the best description I can come up with!!!! He was #ScrungleLifestyle #BornScrungly #Scrungle4Life

[editor's note: I don't speak French so let me know if anything in these clips is offensive. The first two clips are mostly physical comedy and a good introduction to Louis de Funès' humor for non-French-speakers :)]

he is so silly!!!! little old man with crazy energy and facial expressions like you wouldn't believe!! the scrungliest!! he makes the most insane characters seem lovable due to his comedian skill and his scrungly quality :D my favorite actor of all times

Thomas Mitchell:

Russ Tamblyn:

here he is once again fooling us into thinking he is a dancer when really he just has no issue being weird in a dance like fashion

[girls--complex]

hi, love your work a lot! it manages to blend coherence with layers of esoterica, in a fun & meaningful way. do you have any big influences with your style?

Writing this as a narrative because my whimsicall mind can't seem to organize information logickally otherwise

So

When I was a child my Dad would show me a lot of comics/cartoons in all different styles/eras and so I was internalizing comic book logic from the very beginning. He really liked American comix both capes and Indie stuff but was also into franco belgian artists and let's be clear my papa has good taste so I was readying good stuff though I couldn't remember it all too reliably... Also Comics Journal, so I was reading comics & meta about comics. So basically I have like a deep archetypal brain stem dark spring of mind that spits out raw comic information like a dream that I can't place until I rediscover them, and a lot of deep unremembered imprintations that R kinda roiling around under the surface #Stupidsoldier

N then I was a deviantart kiddo and a reading manga at barnes and noble kiddo, and then I went and got a formal art education and learned about all these artists that sort of did pseudo comics or cartoons but didnt articulate it that way-- The German xpressionists are a big example of this -- and also about overall principles of like scale and hierarchy and time and presence -- and also just that I really like drawin the human figure in particular :)

I'm really grateful that my parents especially my dad were actually really supportive/invested in me being an artist even though they had very little faith in my character or overall competence. so I was always doing art activities to make me better at drawing because that was like the one redeeming quality I had, a lot of household resources went into me having art tutoring or doing community classes, and I was really strongly encouraged to get ma BFA

So 4 influences well I like things that are very stylish but very specific in how they represent figure N physiognomy... Naoki Urosawa & Jeff Smith were fascinations 2 me along this line... Arakawa is good too... I feel like this is a strength of American and British cartoonists generally but struggling to think of names

My favorite painter is tied between two commies: Siqueiros, who was a Mexican muralist and chaotic socialist, really specific markmaking and texture, pathos drenched figuration, charged epic landscapes, and Petrov-Vodkin, Russian ikonographer who became a propagandist for the USSR, semi-social-realist, semi-ikonographic compositions in which space is wrapping around itself to organize human figures according to a mythological logic, flattish, very cartoons/comics aligned, strange treatment of color but all really effective

History painting overall is everything to me it really doesn't show in Coward but I think it shows elsewhere some of my other dramatic sensibility is a lot from 00s action movie shlock which I would always enjoy to go see when I was younger and was somehow fascinated with the environment of government buildings and prisons and secret operations happeningunder the surface of every day life erupting into wet violence of men punching each other

I love the movie THE RAID redemption !!!!

I learned a lot of the logic of pacing N building pages around Tezuka's work as well as FMA N Death Note I think were big 1s to teach me that logic. Tezuka is a really good artist to look at for how to compose a page that supports the energy of the events that are happening on it, not that that's something I personally am good at. Favorite mangaka for tone and environment and visual identity are Katsuhiro Otomo, Tustomu Nihei, Suehiro Maruo, Nishioka siblings, Hideshi Hino

A lot of my sense of timing is also from news paper strips tbh. It's just a gut thing to me at this point hehe , Character design is also a gut thing for me I draw a little thing and I can either ensoul it with psychosexual fixation or I can't

I was born in the hospital Henry Darger worked at St. Joe's he's an ancestor to me but ofc inimitable by virtue of GOD being his sole audience

As for the esoterickal dimensions I feel like it's all it's own post let's just say I lack the inclination and ability for systematic and rigorous study but I am really interesting in gathering little packets of information and arranging them into dioramas and the longer I do it the more packets I accrue

I want to make a list of artists on here that I like/admire sometime too but that's too much for me rn. I also suspect a lot of people R mad at me for arbitrary reasons just as I also am mad at a lot of people for arbitrary reasons so I dont wanna bother no one ...

Oh well so I'm intentionally reorganizing how I draw right now because I sense a shift in my trajectory again so thanks for making me reflect

[writergeekrhw]

Hi! I’m currently writing a sitcom pitch as a project for my history degree - I usually find it easy to make people laugh but this is so much harder! Do you have any advice?

Thanks for all the time you spend talking with us fans on here, it’s very groovy of you :)

"Dying is easy. Comedy is hard!" Edmund Gwenn

Comedy is tough, man. It's a skill, it takes practice, and sometimes you succeed ("Little Green Men") and sometimes you fall on your face ("Fascination").

I don't have a lot of specific advice other than watch comedies and, when you laugh, rewind and break down the structure of the joke. Also I'm not a comedy writer by trade. I can be funny, but I'm not a sitcom writer.

But from my drama writer perspective, I see basic joke structure as...

Set-Up: Character walks down a sidewalk carrying a fish in a glass bowl. There's a banana peel.

Tension: Character doesn't see the banana peel. Character talks to fish, says they'll be best friends, and that they're going to have a wonderful life together. Getting closer and closer to the banana. (The audience gets to feel a little superior to the Character because surely they'd see the banana. But also there's a little pathos. They want the Character to be happy.)

Disaster: Character slips on banana! OMG. Fish flies in the air and character falls. Maybe some funny or ironic music here. Slo-mo. Tommy Petty's "Freefalling" plays.

Twist! The character screams as they fall and the fish falls into their mouth.

Relief. The character spits the fish back into the unbroken bowl. Character tells fish he tastes awful. Fish looks at character in complete incomprehension.

Milk It! (Optional): Character stands, slips again, rights themselves and continues on their way.

Hope that helps.

[third-generation-female-warrior]

Okay, so, fair warning, this is an anti-Reylo, anti-Kylo Ren, long analysis of The Acolyte, so if you choose to read this and get mad at me for bashing Kylo Ren, that's called a you problem.

Basically, seeing people compare the "situationship" between Quimir and Osha with whatever the fuck Reylo was and putting them on equal pedestals gives me the ick and I think I figured out why.

For clarity, I can't fucking stand Reylo for a lot of reasons, but for the sake of my analysis, I'll keep it condensed for why I can't stand Kylo Ren.

He is the warm mayonnaise of characters.

Don't get me wrong, he was generally interesting in The Force Awakens, when he was framed as the monster with a human face, and that's because the narration in TFA treated him like the goddamn villain he was supposed to be.

And then the pants were shat and the spine was broken when the narrative with The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker was doing backflips on a trampoline trying to give him pathos, trying to make him empathetic, while also decimating literally every other character to put him on a pedestal he didn't deserve on his spit-washed "redemption" arc.

To me, it was like they didn't know what to do with him. Those movies might have been okay if they just stuck with making him the villain and continued to treat him as such. But they didn't, even when he was making bad choices and did nothing but make BAD choices up until the actual last fight, and instead, framed all of this BAD CHOICES as "he's complicated~~ <3" and that's where it all fell apart because the narration didn't like, punish him AT ALL for making these bad and barely even framed these as objectively bad choices.

Now, the Acolyte is different.

In the middle of lavishing us with the eye candy that is Manny Jacinto, and Qimir's apparent lack of threat and honesty to Osha, the narrative did something interesting and brilliant that I hope they continue to lean into.

While showing us how non-threatening Qimir can be, we are given a very rude awakening.

When we cut back to Khofar, it is a very long, very uncomfortable lingering shot of Jekki's dead body, as she is positioned towards the audience with open eyes, not quite looking at the camera, but forcing us to look into the eyes of Jekki all the same.

It is a rude awakening, a reminder that Qimir is a deceiver, and, most importantly THE VILLAIN OF THE SHOW!!!!

Under the facade of the hapless sidekick to Mae was the Sith Master waiting to strike her down should she fail.

A reminder that, through his honesty and intentions with not harming Osha, he is a murderer who could remorselessly justify his own slaughter of an actual child.

We look on as it shows Yord in the dirt, and the pile of dead Jedi bodies and we see that what Qimir has done was terrible and devastating he does not care, even if we do.

And THEN, ohohoh!!! AND THEN! We see how his dark deeds were not solely committed on Khofar, but he is continuing to do terrible things on Ahch-To the Unknown Planet.

Oh, we thought, we thought Osha was safe because she could pin him with his own lightsaber, she could kill him, she could leave!

But it becomes very evident in the last 30 seconds that Osha was never safe as she puts on his helmet, surrounds herself in dark, and symbolically succumbs to it as she closes her eyes.

He has been corrupting her this whole time and that's treated AS A BAD THING, and THAT'S where The Acolyte succeeds and The Sequels failed!

Qimir for his apparent defensiveness, is still treated as the villain, his act of corruption and seducing Osha to the dark side is treated as a scary thing, where you shake your head at the t.v. and beg her to not do it even if you know she's going to anyways.

And then you realize the answer to his riddle to Mae.

You realize this is how you kill a Jedi without a weapon.

And it's all very very wrong.

And, better yet, to finish this off, even though the narration establishes MOTIVE for his anti-Jedi stance, with his scar leading to his supposed backstory of betrayal (that we have to take at face-value for now, even if I think there's more to reveal), the motivation is just narratively justifying him or his actions, and he is STILL THE VILLAIN WHO MUST BE STOPPED!!

[rathologic]

biggest disconnect in pathologic's reception has kind of always been a divide between "patho is driven by mechanics" and "patho is driven by story" camps where opinions only ever come from one of these extremes... around p1's development and release the developers considered it exclusively a survival challenge sim, not a game marketed for its story (despite story representing a huge fraction of the time and thought put into it). In The Society Of Dead Poets goes into so much detail about this. and it WAS a stunning technical work under the circumstances, but the complex story was what gave the franchise cult appeal, or at least enough so for it to get a sequel... reviews from the period tend to go along the lines of "this game looks and plays like shit but it's extremely thought-provoking". there's a little to be said about the mainstream view of a "Gamer" in 2005 and what they would be interested in marketing-wise not tracking with story games yet; anyway, the one-dimensionality here was consistent with the studio's approach to games as a whole (cf BoneHouse.ppt).

so IPL's perception of their work was what informed p2's priorities, which turned out to be A Way Better Survival Challenge at the expense of things like characters having complex motivations (expansion on this has been omitted; iykyk), and they did an incredible job with that & basically perfected what they had been going for mechanically. which created this weird divide where p2 fans think 1 isn't worth playing because it's less engaging as a gaming experience, and p1 fans (me included, to be clear) see 2's story changes as a spit in the face of everything that made the series work. like, neither of these are fundamentally incorrect, but they refer to completely non-overlapping paradigms of engaging with the material. when hopefully it can be agreed that a Video Game is comprised of Both a narrative aspect and an interactive aspect, and that they need to work together to create the player's transformative experience (again, premise of BoneHouse.ppt).

Anyway. that helps explain a lot of hbomb's stance on the franchise, particularly that he can endorse patho2 without comment as an ostensibly leftist youtuber when even the most cursory playthrough is enough to let players in on its gleeful centering of ecofascism... that game's representation of colonial relations as an unfixable divide employing the racist trope of reciprocal violence, its obsession with maintaining status quo, and its completely tasteless approach to MMIW are all elements of Story and thus all secondary to p2's huge improvements on the survival system. in the same vein, his discussion of p1's changeling's route is limited to the constant reputation decrease and the repeated quests because those are the only mechanical features introduced over the previous routes, even while clararoute text is fundamental to understanding most characters... his video isn't like Bad for getting the interactive experience p1 would present to you, but it sucks for engaging with the story because it's not about the story. and unfortunately, on discussion posting websites, we do usually post about story

[silenthillmutual]

do it! show us the ocs!!

okayyyyyy ^_^ this is gonna be kind of a long post so i'll clip it under the first image

i don't have much of my own art bc i'm still re/learning how to draw but this is a recent one i did of frost :] (genderfluid, gay, he/they)

frost is my bloodborne hunter buuuuut i have also thrown them into pathologic for shits & giggles. and sometimes i dick around with them in a modern setting where they remember bloodborne & pathologic as past lives. which is complicated by them having bipolar disorder (it is not an OR IS IT??? type situation it's literally both).

i'm trying to write a longfic for them for bloodborne but uh. i'm writing the boring bits and thinking. now why the hell am i writing all this. i have actually published fic of them in bloodborne (here) and patho (here). frost is the oc/canon guy, he has a friends -> lovers -> enemies -> ??? relationship w alfred. my problematic oc/canon ship. anyway in bloodborne 'verse frost is in yharnam to try and "fix" his bipolar disorder by any means necessary but as the night goes on his episode gets worse to a point where he's just kind of like fuuuuuuuuck it this is fine actually. i can be a little crazy as a treat.

and then in 'patho verse he's a utopian (cringe!) (makes sense thematically if you know bloodborne) and he's working with the kains, initially came over as a tutor for khan & maria but is actually kind of a living science experiment for the kains. i've gone through many different iterations of a "what are they doing with him?" but i think there's a lot of things they'd test, like "can a soul inhabit a focus without the body dying? let's find out!" and in return the kains are setting up to take care of his sister fox (@gemteeth)'s oc candra. he's friends with yulia but he cannot stand the stamatins and especially andrey. he's also a maria defender but not in a #girlboss way but in a "she is so young and has so many responsibilities please give her some empathy" kind of way. [i also borrowed alfred for this au because humble!alfred is so fucking hilarious to me.]

alos modern au frost looks like this (first pic ~14 second pic ~24)

so far this is my only bloodborne oc but there may be more...... eventually......

then i got the pathologic ocs starring....

[this is a picrew ^^^^^]

my baby girl chestnut......... (nonbinary, lesbian, she/they) chestnut is my ray of sunshine oc. nothing bad ever happens to her (nothing major anyway). she's my main fankid oc. chestnut is a nickname, her regular name is bayarma. the nickname is bc she's precious to her parents like chestnuts are to kids in the town.

she's semi-verbal. my buddy dj has drawn her for me quite a bit :] sometimes she's a twin or little sister to one of his ocs. sometimes she's a little half-sister to fox's ocs ksana and inisa her special interest is bugs & insects and her favorite kind are grasshoppers & crickets. she is very friendly and sociable. she doesn't have any enemies but she isn't fond of vlad jr (it's the facial hair). she also probably wouldn't like mark although other than 'looks too much like the cheshire cat when he smiles' i cant think of why.

she does occasionally get bullied but since her parents are artemy & daniil like. how much can you really bully the only doctor and surgeon in town. their uncle is rubin. do you want to piss them off? no. and anyway someone (i'll leave it up to the imagination who) taught them that if someone does something to you that you don't like, you defend yourself. so the one time a boy tries to kiss them they just slug him. love that for them!!!

i have two other burda fankids (buzzy & duunai)

the important thing to know about buzzy (he/him) is that he is a, the spitting image of daniil but fat, and b, INCREDIBLY anxious. he's agender aroace and his special interest is in technology, especially as it pertains to film and photography. (so the year update of 1924 is sooooo good you know when he heard about man with a movie camera he flipped his lid!!!!) (you should watch man w a movie camera it's v cool. to me. i like old films.)

also he's named buzzy because murky & sticky demanded they get to choose a baby name and they wanted a name that ended in y like theirs. so buzzy is indeed his legal name.

duunai (trans girl, she/her) is bix3 [bilingual bisexual bipolar]. she got both parents' sense of humor so you KNOW she is in trouble allll the time. she grows up to be a menkhu. she was the last one i came up with so i'm still developing her.

i have two thanatica ocs, svetlana & karol, but they're very underdeveloped. and then i have two ocs that aren't related to any fandom, isaiah & holly (who i don't have a pic of atm but here are picrews of the other 3)

svetlana (she/her) & isaiah (they/them) are both very autistic. karol (he/him) is dysthymic. svetlana is very energetic, so she & karol have a dog & cat kind of dynamic. both in the "happy vs stoic" kind of way and in the "we may be different but we will work to communicate bc we are family" kind of friendship. they r lesbian besties. karol kind of idolized daniil. he started out writing a paper about palliative care for a sociology course and daniil is the one who came to talk to him. isaiah i am trying to find a nickname for bc i feel like they'd pick one from sonic the hedgehog. i still gotta get into sonic myself it sounds like it rules, it just felt right they'd be a sonic fan. (initially i thought shadow for a character they'd be autistically obsessed with bc if i got into sonic at the right age that's absolutely who i would have been obsessed with but as i am still developing things.... wouldn't make sense to solidify that.) they're also a werewolf bc i'm thinking about werewolves as a metaphor for neurodiversity..... and nonbinary identity.... [thinkin abt that poem]

anyway ty for listening anon :]

[practically-an-x-man]

Symbiotic? *big grin*

Ooooh thank you!!

WIP Folder Ask Game

Okay so this is easily one of my oldest fanfic ideas (at least, oldest of the ones I came up with while consciously aware that they were fanfic, lol). The document itself is the first few chapters of the fic, but it's SUPER old and choppy since it's one of the earliest fics I've written.

With that disclaimer... there's the old idea that's in the fic, and the revamped idea that currently just exists in my head. Some things change, others don't.

In either form, it's an Marvel/loosely MCU fic following an OC named Persephone Michaels, who is bonded to a symbiote named Viper. Without Viper, Persephone is in organ failure, but Viper cannot survive in Earth's atmosphere without a host, so they need each other to survive. Viper takes shape as a jewel-green symbiote with darker green scales, as well as infrared vision and venomous fangs (and potentially the ability to spit venom like a spitting cobra). Logically, Viper would probably be some relative or offspring of Venom, with their similar abilities. Without Viper, Percy is a skilled programmer and hacker.

The original idea jumped back and forth between timelines - earlier, when Percy was in the hospital and amused herself by attempting to break into StarkTech and access the video files from Iron Man's suit-cam; and later, after Percy is bonded with Viper and is healthy, functioning as a low-grade vigilante. There are a few different threads I'd explore here, it was going to be a very ambitious fic: one being Tony discovering the break-in and eventually starting to see Percy as a sort of successor, even signing her onto a project to recreate the Vision AI and bring him back to life (this idea was before WandaVision was a thing), another being Percy and Viper discovering the wreckage from the crashed Sakaarian ship from the start of Infinity War and managing to heal a few people who were preserved in the trip through space and just-barely hanging on (including Loki...), an ongoing conflict between Viper and another symbiote OC named Pathogen, another supervillain trio based on Pathos, Ethos, and Logos... there are way too many ideas to list, honestly. Some of these ideas also explore wider Norse mythology and bring in a few more gods and mythic themes (Skadi, Baldur, the myth of Loki being bound with snake's venom dripping into his face, etc.)

The new idea hasn't changed things too much, mainly just added some more dimension to Percy's identity, her relationship with Viper and the other characters, and cleaned up a few of the plot points so it doesn't feel as "fanfic-y" (there's nothing wrong with tropes, but the fic is so old that some of the plot ideas just feel a little trite).

I do still want to write this someday, but I know it'll be a huge project (comparable to A Love Once New, and that one spans 72 chapters and 215,000 words by the end of it) so I'm kinda waiting to have the time and emotional capacity to put it together.

[shmowder]

Embracing the pathologic spirit by eating buttered bread and mandarins in the middle of the night like a sad little rat, and i just remembered that thing about your spouse peeling oranges/pomegranates for you that spread around socials a while ago, and wondered what the patho characters would do

Artemy really tries, but his hands and fingers are so big it's hard to peel off all the bits of stringy skin off a mandarin. He'd have more ease with pomegranates scooping out all the seeds with a spoon into a bowl.

Daniil will not stand for anything but perfection, he'll literally get his lab tools out and dissect both of the fruits for you. But It'll probably take a while and by the time he presents it to you, you've either already peeled one for yourself or forgotten you had even asked him...

Grief will be sort of annoying about it if you request it, but he'll definitely still do it. It's a very clumsy job though... probably eats half of it and makes you watch just to annoy you.

I love you anon, and I recognise you as a person with your very own freedom of thoughts and headcanons, but I really couldn't disagree more on everything you just said.

Artemy's especially, oh my god, the man is a surgeon. A whole ass surgeon. Sure, big fingers and all, but he literally extracted organs perfectly intact in P1 WITHOUT needing a scalpel. And in P2... do you know how hard it is to extract an undamaged heart and brain whole with nothing but a scalpel and your own fist? Didn't that one engineer have a whole freak out over getting to shake his hand because his reputation as a great surgeon spread throughout the town and reached such an impressive level that people started referring to them as golden hands.

I'd be pretty damn alarmed if the surgeon who's gonna be digging around in my guts was struggling to peel an orange. The one fruit closest to, you know, human skin itself. Alarmed might be underselling it.

Actually, this headcanon is even more infuriating because you know what starting surgeons practice on in surgery 101? fruits. They practice ON fruits, even med school encourages them to.

Like Artemy's legit... smart, yeah he's built like a himbo, but his hand&eye coordination and precision are genuinely impressive. He's very good with his hands, which is what I'm saying. It takes a lot of effort to control the exact amount of pressure in your touch, to master your nerves this much.

There aren't many skills in which the benefits of being good at surgery automatically transition over to, but peeling fruits must be somewhere near the top of that list.

-

With Daniil, yeah, sure, he likes going out of his way to do things above the bar, but I don't think he'd go as far as to bring out tools to... what, open a pomegranate? That sounds a bit silly, even for the man walking around in a snake skin coat. He'd do it neatly so as not to stain his sleeves, place the peel on a separate plate. He has the cleanest peel, and it only takes an extra 5 minutes, nothing major.

Just a little extra effort. He probably starts off with washing the fruit himself because he doesn't fully trust that you washed it—even if you said you did, he thinks you didn't do it properly.

The most likely scenario is that he'll tell you he's busy and to peel it yourself. He strikes me more as the type to cut fruits with the proper knife, never peel them with his bare fingers.

Best way to get him to do it, is to peel the fruit badly somewhere in his line of view, watch as he gets frustrated with you, goes to grab a knife and a plate, takes the fruit from you, and finishes the job himself.

-

Grief will just bring out his pocket knife and make a quick work of the fruit, swift at the cost of being messy. I do agree on the fact that he eats half of it and calls it the chef's tax.

There are bits and pieces of skin still on the fruit itself, not out of clumsiness, he just doesn't care much to be precise and says a little orange skin isn't gonna kill you, just spit it out when it gets to it. Since it's how he eats his fruits.

[meirimerens]

hallo!! Thoughts on the different endings of patho2?

i'm 1.5k words into a pdf about the fits and tack of patho equestrian au so i might be a little be distracted sorry i'm gonna try to make it make sense

first part of my answer: considering i've written a 25k words fic taking place directly after a diurnal ending and dealing with the grief (and etc) you can guess i might have thoughts. but mostly i have feelings.

at the heart(s) of p2 endings lie dichotomy that is explicited by Isidor; facing both past and future are ways of love, and yet they are incompatible with each other. I could be goofy and go "nice dichotomy idiot what lies outside of it" but ain't that the point? Isidor was not all kind. Isidor weighted sacrifices himself; how much death is acceptable for "herd immunity" in a sense. Choices that are made. Choices that are... willed, and yet he recoils, and yet he is reserved. When you tell him you are "choosing the past", he tells you that "you need not choose, not yet", but he doesn't say this when you tell you you are "choosing the future". Does that mean he discovered something? is he trying to warn you? he can't stop you anymore. the whole point is that he cannot stop Artemy. And the thing with the dead is that you cannot make them speak. you can act in ways you think they will approve, but they are dead, and cannot tell you if they do. the grief, regardless, is unbearable. whatever is your choice, you pay in grief, in neverending grief.

the Kin comes to your door and begs you to keep the Tower upright, for she festers the wound of Earth, and of that wound flow miracles and life and fantasies; for she keeps them alive. The themes of crushing colonization are present in text, within text; your choice can be the killing blow to this people. Tower goes down, miracles go down with it. Does it ought to? you are made to ask yourself if things can go any other way. nice_dichotomy_what_lies_outside_of_it. you are made to think about the worth of survival. those who walk out in the Steppe in nocturnal ending likely will not survive either. it's a long trek out, and nature is hungry. where i live, limestone deposits sometimes create holes under cover of leaves, and people fall in these holes, not to be found again. voracious. aurochs graze and whoever walks out in the steppe might just get eaten. can you kill a Living Earth? how far does she sprawl? I know what i think. I think she cannot be killed. I've written it, not just out of a IM_COPING.png but also because. between you and me i do observe some woowoo goddess living earth spirituality myself. Earth eats. earth swallows and spits out, spits life and kills. was she born before life? if she life? can't she re-birth herself? we have ouroboros as an implicit symbol within this game. we have body of one is body of all textually in this game. life of one, life of all. can she die? can winter be eternal? i don't think winter can be eternal. just at my window i see snowflakes and flowers on the tree across the path, both at once.

nice dichotomy. can earth eat and spit herself out of it?

this is a game. it is neverendingly replicating. can't she be? can she be? is she? right now, is she? i am back in. i walk the grass again.

[tatachin]

Pathos - an excerpt of the chapter from my Modes of Persuasion fic

Description: Johan centric fic

A dull thud, and hairline cracks spread out under where Johan has him pinned.

"You don't know how much I hate you," Johan hisses. "how dare you hurt them so, you have no idea how much they love us-"

A startled, derisive laugh. "How dare I? Hahaha!" His forearm gripped in a bruising, destructive hold. "I could say the same for you, mongrel." There's a struggle, halfhearted in the way that's only meant to make a point. "You have no idea how much I've suffered with your image imposed on me," They're close enough that his snarl sends spittle flying onto his face. Johan holds firm, still. "not just your pathetic worthless of a god but mine! all I wanted was to serve my god in peace and yet! Talks of belonging to someone else, like all my efforts was worth nothing to him!"

Something snaps his counterpart, and his struggle proves fruitful this time as his rage doubles his strength, sending Johan stumbling back a few steps. As if he was angry that he had accidentally let loose his one vulnerability to his nemesis.

"You will never know what it feels like!" Black hair whips back from the gale caused by summoning Exelion and Johan gets a split second to brace against at a reckless swinging bash. "To forever live in someone's shadow!"

"To be abandoned since birth!" A ringing clash, and they're both at a stalemate again as their swords lock against each other. Johan grits his teeth from the exertion.

"Unwanted," His counterpart spits out with an aggrieved, desperate light in his eyes. "even by the god you devoted your entire self to."

Something resonates with Johan's deepest fears, and his back chills as if someone dug out his old ghosts to haunt him.

Golden eyes sharpen at his brief falter, and with a sweeping blow Johan's sent back a few more steps, with ridicule in those awful eyes for sympathizing, worse, showing hesitation before the enemy.

Anger vibrates the air around them as they're both just one step shy from summoning a barrage of Exelions to run each other through, self mutilation be damned.

"So what if your god preaches free will?" His counterpart utters sulkily, as their swords crashes together once more. "I never wanted anything to do with them at all."

"..."

So what, indeed. And what can he even say to him?

Fury, indignity, condemnation, but most of all, regret. For a life lived in shadows, for a life where he was weighted with undue burdens. Nothing he can say here would help either of them. They could only go around in circles, round and round, only hating and hurting each other as they continue this worthless stalemate.

His dark aligned counterpart tracks his damning hair with a vengeance, a head of spun gold that they love so much. In a moment of clarity, he reads envy, jealousy, and so much want.

A twist of his arm, a wrist flick, and Johan parries the lock away. A quick few steps away, he's retreating like he's been burned, not so much of a let go but a throwing motion. Backing away with shame coloring his visage, he collects his swords in terse silence, all without taking his eyes off his counterpart.

At his silence, "What, nothing else to say anymore?" his counterpart snarks with a hand massaging his neck where cloth chafed skin from their previous scuffle, as if it could hide where the other hand wrapped around the hidden weapon strapped to his thigh.

Johan hates how he knows. Hates how they have the same habits, hates how he sees they have the same reasoning and logical pathways, hates hates hates. He doesn't like how he ended up like this in this lifetime, just as he knows this is how he'd end up in every lifetime had it not been for lord's influence, or anyone's really, if he never had help from the mire he was born in.

tbc

[m0th-g0th0]

The Kin's beliefs in pathologic are quite unique, but I've seen many similarities to slavic mythology, so imma write about this enjoy ig.

Just to preface slavic mythology is extremely obscure and most of it was lost to history (we love Christianisation :DDD), so be careful about sources always. Mind that I'm speaking from a Polish perspective - Slavic people across different regions had varied beliefs.

The Kin believe the Earth is alive - that's basically the case for Slavs too. Mother Earth, known also as Mokosz (Mokosh, Мокош), was said to be pregnant in the early spring, so it was forbidden to dig into it, plow it, build fences and generally harm it during that time. It was also always forbidden to spit on the ground, and tripping and falling was a bad omen. Offending the Earth was seen as a very grave crime.

Another aspect of Earth, or nature, was Marzanna (Morana, Morena, Śmiertka, Śmierciucha) who was the goddess of death and winter but also life and renewal - the cycles that rule us. She was also vaguely associated with plagues (мор - Морана etymologically). I like to connect that to the pest being death and life itself.

Obviously a very important aspect of cultural life all over Europe and Asia, cattle was also revered by The Kin. While Slavs didn't consider bulls to be a part of them, they were still quite sacred, providing meat and hides. The patron of cattle was Weles (Veles, Wołos), who was also a chtonic god of riches, promises and a ruler of the afterlife.

Slavic religion is very focused on unity with nature, gratefulness for its gifts. I wouldn't be surprised if IPL actually took from it while creating the Kin.

Just hand to ramble about my special interest and connect it to my patho brainworms

[thevaudevilledemon]

Rap Battle: Stan Pines vs Scrooge McDuck

Don’t judge me, I had fun writing this.

In this battle, two money loving great uncles will verbally duke it out to establish grunkle dominance, it is the world famous trillionaire adventuring Scotsman, Scrooge McDuck, versus the old conning tourist trap runner, Stan Pines!

Scrooge McDuck:

Life is like a hurricane, when you fight me Multi-trillion business man, you can, bite me

World famous adventurer Through all opponents I'll be breezin' I could have figured out how to beat Bill Cipher in only one season

I've faced witches and monsters and obstacles of every kind So I'll have no issue with this crooked scammer's wrinkly behind

Been around the world inspired Indiana and Cobb Star of one of the greatest retro-games courtesy of Capcom

I'm a hard as nails, thrill seeking treasure hunting man of action I don't need a shabby run-down twelfth rate roadside attraction

I made my fortune square being tougher and smarter You got your money by swindling and making back-handed barters

From the klondike to the combat mic my battles have changed But my opponents are always greedy slimy, stupid and deranged

Stan Pines:

You got guts duck a hard working core But now you're boarding the Stan-O-War

You want to dive into this like your coin bin With all your tact and grace? Are you aware of everything I've punched in the face?

Dinosaurs, Zombies, Eagles and a trans-dimensional God of chaos And now, a dumb rich duck with no morals or pathos

So you're gonna need more than your bark, bark, Barks You need to spit fire but you're just coughing sparks

Now we've both had familial issues and the reunion’s always sweet But my brother was trapped in another dimension You couldn't just see your nephew down the street?

The Scott can call me the Kingdom of England because I'm endlessly attacking you The only thing that could make your rhymes worse Is if you had the bag-pipes backing you

I'm on my toes can't stay stagnant like you  Face it, You're not Young anymore Everyone is saying, Scrooge Who?

I got through the government when gravity was in flux I'll admit, I'm no real prize but you look like a million bucks.

Scrooge:

Is that the best you can do, You dirty swindling conning old crone? You're as lucky as my nephew Donald and as Lazy as Gladstone

For ten cents I started my own business empire With a single cent I could set your world on fire

This frugal plaid clad warrior never steps away from a fight I Rosa to the challenge of this verbal Scarpa to bring your cons to light

You're getting eaten alive I'm the sea monster and you're the ice cream You couldn't get the drop on me if you were Darkwing on a high beam

You're crashing like Launchpad in your hot air balloon It's time for the greatest great uncle to claim victory A-Woo-oo!

Stan:

Look, I came back from amnesia you need to punch harder than that I can't expect to lose against a duck in that inferior top hat

Why don't you get Gyro to build a rapping machine for you? Your rhymes were so bad I think your family would implore you

You've gone to the moon and back And the bottom of the deepest sea I've built interdimensional rifts Caused a tear in my reality

Soos couldn't fix your rhymes You've got too many issues Flaunting all that wealth over the family you misuse

And that is where we differ in how we see our family You'd cut down your family tree If it was profitable for your logging company

You think you can be saved by all that wealth that you've boasted? It must be a holiday because a duck just got roasted

[actual-bill-potts]

Beor/Finrod for the ship bingo! Please don't bite us xdd But jokes aside, please, do tell all your thoughts!

many many thanks to @sing-a-songofsix-pence, @thelordofgifs, @that-angry-noldo and @searchingforserendipity25, who also requested Beor/Finrod, I love all of you and am kissing your foreheads so sweetly <3

Almost got the full bingo on this one! so close! unfortunately balan and finrod are both dating and married to me <3

WHERE to start with my thoughts, omg, i love them so much. Hm. I guess to start with, I can explain why I love this ship so much and why it ends up making its way at least a little bit into everything I write. To me, Finrod/Balan is one of the few non-canon ships that just deepens and enriches the entire narrative. How? (under a cut because this got LONG)

It nicely rounds out the polyptych of Elf-mortal romances in the First Age. Idril/Tuor is immortal love, that binds both of those involved more closely to Arda; Beren/Lúthien is mortal love, and sets them free; Finduilas/Túrin is love doomed; Aegnor/Andreth is love unfulfilled; and set against all of these, Finrod/Balan is love paid for. These are two people who canonically were deeply committed to each other for Balan's entire life (whether that was in a romantic way or not), but in the end they were separated anyway. Whereas for Aegnor and Andreth it was their own choices that separated them and for Finduilas and Túrin it was a curse, Finrod and Balan lived in a time of relative peace but were still sundered in the end. It's a perfect illustration of the griefs of Arda Marred.

It's a lovely thematic rebuttal to the anger and anxiety the Eldar of Valinor felt towards the coming of mortals. Fëanor said after the Darkening: "we and we alone shall be lords of the unsullied Light, and masters of the bliss and beauty of Arda. No other race shall oust us!" and to be honest if you just look at Balan changing his name to Bëor and following Finrod to Nargothrond, there's definitely a way to read that where Finrod is just trying to ensure the obedience of Men. But when you consider that instead of doing this in a spirit of dominion he is extending his hand in a spirit of friendship, and will eventually cast aside his crown to serve a Man in return, it becomes a beautiful illustration of the other reasons the Eldar wanted to return to Middle-earth: curiosity and love and fellowship. And if you consider that for Elves, marriage is a permanently-binding state in which you very literally give the well-being of your soul into the keeping of another, Balan and Finrod committing to each other in such a way is low-key spitting in the face of Fëanor's entire ideology, and good for them.

The Athrabeth, as seen through a Balan/Finrod lens, becomes much more interpersonally meaningful. @eilinelsghost has a great analysis of that here, but the short version is that Finrod's decisions re: his advice to Aegnor and his delight at the hope Andreth reveals both become much more than merely philosophical interest if you consider that he was bound to a mortal and lost him.

In general, it gives another facet to Finrod that I find really interesting to study. So many of his named actions in the text after his first meeting with Balan revolve around the Atani: settling them, re-settling them, smoothing their way with Thingol and the other Elven-kings, talking with their wise women, attending funerals, and of course his famous meetings with Barahir and Beren. If he is doing this out of friendship and general goodwill, that makes him a solidly lovely guy; if, instead, he is motivated by his commitment to a person who is gone and views all who came after Balan as his "children in spirit" - that's a character who is slightly less disinterestedly selfish, but possesses a great deal more pathos and provides an interesting insight into the way Elves might grieve.

It adds a new dimension to his actions in the Lay of Leithian, and provides a more solid reason as to why he threw his crown away so readily for Beren: it wasn't just his oath to Barahir binding him, but also his deep love for Balan and his descendants. Maybe it was fate and his Oath driving him; but maybe he gave the matter some thought and decided yes, the happiness of a descendant of Balan is worth more than my kingdom to me, and that's a terrible decision for a leader to make but it's a perfectly reasonable decision for a grieving widower.

And finally, it provides a gorgeous, gorgeous little mirror to Leithian. Finrod and Balan meet in the woods and Balan is enraptured by Finrod's music; they wander in happiness for awhile but then must return to Finrod's kingdom; Finrod gives Balan a new name which he bears forever after; and in a very real sense their love released both Elves and Men from the shackles of prejudice and fear that otherwise would have hampered an alliance between the two (can you imagine if Curufin, for instance, had been the first to find Men?).

Some more random things that I have to say about Finrod/Balan...

go read the Atandil series by @eilinelsghost, the big sleep by vauquelin, and no expertise could tell me by @raisingcain-onceagain if ur at all interested in this ship, u won't regret it i promise <3

they have a little chihuahua named Rodent. Rodent is an elf-chihuahua who does outlive Balan and Finrod spends a lot of time crying into her fur. that is all thank you for your time

once finrod and balan actually get over their various hang-ups and start dating, finrod uses the cheesiest pickup lines ever and is generally the sappiest and most over-the-top bf you've ever seen. balan tolerates all of this very generously

on that note finrod accidentally flirts with people a lot because he is a) quite beautiful and b) quite oblivious and his relations with the Nargothrondrim at large improve quite a bit once balan shows up because balan can very gently point these things out

no Elf has ever bound themselves to a mortal in marriage before. Look into Finrod's eyes for too long after Balan dies and you will see a great yawning emptiness

in the modern AU that only lives in my head, Balan is absolutely that one dad that is way too into grilling and spends his saturday afternoons cooking up something complicated while wearing socks and sandals and a "kiss the cook" apron (bought for him by finrod ofc) and Finrod is that guy who absolutely would stick a fork in the microwave on accident and has been relegated to dishwashing duty. he is a fantastic step-parent to belen and baran however. the kids have a running bet as to what the most outlandish piece of clothing is that they can make finrod wear if they tell him it's "in fashion." they also bought him that one "the worst day of fishing beats the best day of court-ordered anger management sessions" sweater (y'all know the one) despite the fact that he does not fish and has never lost his temper in his life. he loves it

finrod is always cold and is a blanket hog. luckily he doesnt need much sleep so balan can and will kick him out of bed for these transgressions. finrod keeps desperately adding more blankets to the bed in an attempt to Not steal them all, but his unconscious self still manages to do it.

finrod wears a very stylish sleep mask to sleep because Elves sleep with their glowy eyes open and balan Cannot Sleep with finrod Glowing over there. the hair is bad enough.

fealty kink? FEALTY KINK IT'S LITERALLY IN THE NAME

[loopylivy]

My astrology observations: Libra

As a Scorpio sun Gemini moon Leo rising

*I am not an expert AT ALLLLL!!!

(I promised I would get back to this!!)

Ok so in my experience there are two types of Libras and/or sides to Libra. Interesting, just like there are two sides to a scale lol!!

The first side, which is what I feel like I see talked about more in media, is the people-pleasing, Venus-y, lover side. The house of libra rules relationships as well as equality and balance, so Libras like everyone to be happy, and to be in partnership. They also love art, beauty, and fine things. Libra stands opposite to Aries, represented by the god of war, so libra in some ways represents peace.

The other side to Libra is the side of justice. I think of great marble pillars and statues and stern, artful logic. I think a lot of Libras have a strong sense of justice and what is right/fair, and so they can be a little intimidating or unbending at times, especially when it comes to beliefs. Also, Libra is intellectual, as an air sign, and beauty can be found in many places - not just art, but also mathematics, physics, the order and structure of nature.

I know Libras who get walked all over 24/7, and I know Libras who are very intimidating. And sometimes, these people are both/and! For example, my boss is a libra and he's kinda intimidating, but he also often doesn't speak up when something bothers him.

I also had a teacher who used to terrify me with her really strict policies (it was something like if I see your phone out three times this year I'm dropping you a letter grade :0 ), but apparently she's also a people pleaser out of the classroom?

I've even got a Libra family member, who does so much for our family without even thinking twice, who constantly mediates between certain other disagreeable family members, etc... but also when it comes to conduct is very unwavering in his ideas.

I have my Mercury in Libra, and I see this energy in myself as someone who likes to be fair and unbiased in my judgements, and who likes to put things logically if the situation calls for it. Like I don't always want to be in my logic mind, (and OF COURSE I have my blindspots) but if I'm making an argument best believe I am deconstructing it piece by piece with a heckeva lot of logos, with supporting pathos and ethos ;) . I also like to speak peacefully - I don't like to upset people, I tend to say things as inoffensively as I can, and I sometimes find myself trying to take care of other people with what I say. Rarely do you find me bluntly spitting harsh truths. I also like poetry (though I've been a bit off of it) and beautiful words. You might say I like to speak with a gentle tongue, and give words with a kiss and a flower. <3

I've also got a Libra Venus, so I feel like that kinda compounds the way I like to care for others but I also want fairness. I've read that Libra Venus people can love anyone if they put their mind to it, and I think that is true. OF COURSE I want to marry someone I really love and connect with, and who sees me for me and gets me... but I've always kind of felt that I could have been okay if I was in an arranged marriage or like a little peasant town with five options or something... cause I could be tender with and love just about anyone.

In my opinion, healthy libra energy is about justice! Justice, but also grace and peace. Being a kind person, but also a fair person who stands up for yourself and others. It's also about working with others, appreciating beauty, and the good that logic and ideas, as well as art, can do for the community. Unhealthy libra energy would be letting everyone walk all over you, being overly flighty, or on the other hand, being so unbending about "justice" and the perfect world that you forget about grace and mercy in this beautifully imperfect world.

My favorite famous Libra is Suzanne Valadon. You should google her and check out her work, it's awesome!! I think you can see her Libra-ness in her commitment to bold, harsh truth, as well as her artfulness and love of color and form.

[templesofdelight]

nape of the neck

navel in the womb

opposing sides

of a fruit

swollen ovary

filled with stored

sugars.

exit through the entrance

pass the baton on to

The ones who raised you.

was there a time when there was more time?

Or it was more valued?

distance that plots a course

circumnavigating

circumambulating

Past pure circumstance.

dream of a blood sport

played with lethal blades

sides shorn of hair

your faces mirrored

commedia in pathos

subservient to an idol

dictating the rules of play

In morbid sacrosanctity

a metaphor for vomiting

In a low-res graveyard

Bounded by aliasing

And disquieting messages

retroactive

each level built up

standing

Apart from the haggard figure

in a Lohengrinic castle

compressed

in unstately ruin

Spitting up bits of cereal

bursts of acid

in an attempt to make yourself gag

in front of the people closest to you

that won't let you concede

and force you to go in, to give in

tormenters undelivered

by each dry heave

and chunk that peels away

dribbling

a metaphor for vomiting

if we spent

every second of entertainment

spewing out memories

there would be no-one there to read it

the pale summary

of all the little things lost with each calumnitosis

the details of how your mother read to you

or what someone liked

or even that there was someone there at all

we try to move past our ancestry

getting a little closer to the sun

desperate grasp

pairs of fates

faces in paltry squalor

try to undo

the crimes of each generation

regenerative trauma

a metaphor for vomiting

a metaphor for vomiting

bolus in escape

emesis in ekphrasis