#You think I would be used to the fact all these games end with grotesque monsters and the MC getting a OP weapon to kill them but uuuhhh

[highlifeboat]

Once again left with No Thoughts after the ending of a Resident Evil game beyond "What the fuck was that"

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

YASASHII NO DE

HE CAME IN 20 PULLS……………….. ……… ….. …. . … …. .. .. . . … . .. . .. . . . TRULY YASaSHii OF YOu, GOOD SiR 😭

***Crowley Groovy, chibi sprite, lesson lines, and vignette spoilers below the cut!***

Unfortunately, we do not get any more details on his profile. It’s the same as the profile he had before the update. Age and birthplace unknown, 185 cm tall, favorite food is wild game, and his hobby is vacationing.

SDFHEGYOGYFQEN;jkhaCWIDODB A LOT OF CROWLEY'S LINES ARE VERY CHILDISH OR GOOFY... Like he has one where he complains about Grim eating his snacks, tells on students who are sleeping in class, and gets distracted by shiny objects (which, I guess, is par for the course for a crow).

Crowley cannot attend Alchemy class and does not have Chats. His Buddies are Deuce, Vil, and Grim (with Grim being his Duo Magic partner). Deuce and Vil are interesting choices, I wonder why those two in particular... (Some friends and I were memeing earlier about how "all those characters have single parents so Crowley must be a single parent" and, "Vil is the Evil Queen and Meleanor is a princess of evil", etc.) Crowley can, however, attend the other lessons and it’s every bit as awkward as you think it is. (He has a pre-lesson line where he expresses surprise taht he has to do homework 🤡)

THE CROWLEY DOPPLEGANGER ALLEGATIONS ARE TRUE 💀 He can just straight up run into a clone of himself during lessons… THE DEVS KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING, they even goofily have Crowley say, “Oh! Hello, me!” while the other Crowley is in class for the special lesson… THEY KNEW HOW DUMB THIS WOULD BE 😭 (The dialogue states the Crowley that barges into class is a magical projection…?)

Here are some of his chibi sprites, as well as his Groovy candy. Crowley is not only very yasashii, but also very cute!!

He does, in fact, have vignettes but they are unvoiced. The first part is him running an assembly with the dorm leaders present. Crowley discusses the health of an adolescent apple tree in the school's courtyard, and no one seems to be interested in his speech. Malleus barges in late and, in a fit of anger at having not been invited, starts unleashing lightning. Wow, just like how Meleanor shoots lightning at Lilia... Like husband, like wife/j Everyone retires to their dorms, leaving Crowley to deal with an upset Malleus. The second part features Crowley having lunch with the other staff members (Sam included!). Each staff member is eating something different (Vargas is of course having eggs), and Crowley is revealed to have a great appetite in spite of his age. Crewel and Trein wonder how many decades old Crowley is, since he was apparently still headmaster when Crewel was a student and when Trein started teaching at NRC. Finally, Crowley is walking down main street and spots Yuu, Grim, and some mob students skipping class… so he uses his Lash of Love to discipline them! He binds everyone together and proceeds to drag them back to class. (It was surprising, we haven’t seen the Lash of Love since like… what, the prologue? I almost forgot about it.) Crowley alludes to the fact that even though the students joke about him, he is actually a very powerful mage that shouldn't be taken lightly, you know?? The vignettes end with Crowley referring to his students as "apple trees" that he is nourishing and watching over as they grow, which rounds us nicely back to the apple tree he mentioned in his first vignette.

BUT ANYWay HEREmS thE GROOviY in JUICy DETAIL INkjoW YOU WERE ALL WAiTING FOR

It’s so pretty AaAAaaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaAaaAHHHHH 🥺 His grotesquely detailed hand reaching out to the viewer, who appears to be awaking from within a coffin… and do I have to mention the parallel between Crowley here and the mysterious hand that is offered to us in the mirror at the very beginning of the game????? Which could imply that Crowley is beckoning/summoning us into another world... The dim room, light spilling onto the Mirror of Darkness… So atmospheric!! If Crowley knows how to do one thing well and consistently, it’s drama~ The Groovy totally reminds me a lot of the prologue when Crowley tells Yuu to go before the mirror to get sorted. Omg guys... He's posted like Masquerade Malleus/j

One detail I super appreciate in this illustration is that you can see the dorm leaders in the background! If you squint, you’ll realize that there are 5 of them posing exactly like how they are in the following promotional artwork:

The one without a matching pose is Idia, who is present via his tablet. Though… I feel like we’re forgetting something 🤔 … Eh, I’m sure it’s nothing, nothing at allllllllll~

[cheezeybread]

Back to our regularly scheduled Alice-asking with Anon McGee.

After playing the game for a few hours and getting through some stuff, I have some thoughts. None in particular for any sort of request [although, at the time of writing this specific part, I am unsure of if I'll tack one onto the beginning of this ask [I did not]. I am also unsure of if it will be related at all], but they're still interesting and maybe can be used for this stuff going forward [for as long as I keep requesting such self indulgent things].

1. Teeth are a currency. Not a whole lot to do with that one, but it is incredibly strange to me even still.

2. Many of the enemies are made visibly of this black, ink-like ooze. Not all of them, but a good majority of them. I feel this means overblots may cause additional layers of stress because of the implications it might cause [something to do with the fact that this inky substance was what corrupted Alice's wonderland, it sounds like it COULD be taken as a physical representation of that same kind of corruption, and the overblotter going literally insane. Could be good oneshot fuel?]

3. Alice is actually SUPER chill in the environment of the wonderland aside from when it's actively trying to kill her [although the reaction does not necessarily have to apply to the reader character we've been using as a stressball for these scenarios, I think it's pretty interesting and likely means that the initial reaction to the students of Heartslaybyul would be void should I have known prior to this that wonderland was actually pretty alright and fine for the most part]

4. Another minor detail that doesn't really mean a lot, but in the Hatter's domain, there's flamingos all over the place. While I was exploring, I saw several just sort of Around. In cages, hung up on walls, some- upon entry- were on those like.. Spitroasters or whatever they are. Many were on wheels being forced to run to give power to some machinery. They all looked pretty... Not alive, though. Also, they were strangely dodo shaped, but that's neither here nor there.

That's all I have for the moment regarding that! Feel free to take it and run however you want, I can't think of any specific request I can give relating to any of these except for the overblot one

Dang, this game sounds absolutely vicious, I love it XD

I need to take your mind and put it in a little glass jar filled with water to observe it (meant in a positive way). Maybe shake it around some to see what kinda scenarios pop out.

But the best I can come up with are some *. * ·imagines*. * · to keep your brain occupied for now

Imagine an MC who- in every single fight they get dragged into (which is an awful lot in the game lmao)- stays behind for a moment to collect some of the teeth punched out by spells and fists. The broken ones that are cracked aren't worth much, they say to their friends who ask what they're doing, but the whole teeth can buy you a lot of good things. Much to the horror of the Twisted Wonderland students, it's eventually realized that MC thinks that teeth are a currency here. They don't know why, but can only speculate that it's from the same issues from before... Riddle eventually ends up begging (or as close to begging as he can get-) for Azul to tell you about Twisted Wonderland's currency. Horrified yet intrigued by your grotesque idea of money, Azul teaches you about merfolk economics, as well as the thaumarks people use on land...of course, he's going to try and get you to explain the whole "teeth currency" thing to him, and what makes one tooth worth more than others.

The inky enemies would actually make for a KILLER oneshot, I might have to write something along the lines of it one day... Maybe Twisted Wonderland (or at least, the part that held the Queen of Hearts in it) and Alice's Wonderland are two sides of the same coin...? While they're both in different dimensions (maybe even parallel to one another!), they're both similar. The main difference was that Alice's Wonderland is isolated from the rest of the world, while "Twisted Wonderland" had different cultures and societies to expand with? The isolation caused some in Alice's Wonderland to "Overblot" (or, at least, some form of it) and become enemy bosses. So maybe Overblots are slightly different in each world, but they're still present!

Imagine an MC who (after having a few breakdowns at first regarding Heartslabyul) eventually calms down...to the point where everyone gets extremely worried about them. Riddle accidentally says "Off with your head!" to an unruly student within their earshot, but MC is so chill that they look...almost zoned out, their eyes glazed over. Like they're in a completely different world. As the overblots go on throughout their stay in Twisted Wonderland, MC's calm demeanor only gets worse. They don't seem to react hardly at all to- well, anything. It's like they've just accepted where they are and the danger they're in.

Mmm short and squat dodo-like flamingos. I like to think that our poor MC, after first seeing the flamingos in Heartslabyul, didn't actually see them, but saw their not-quite-alive bodies wandering around, some being roasted over a fire, others lurking ominously behind bushes, some in cages. All some form of injured or deadish. It would most definitely take a while until MC could see the creatures as they truly were (that is, alive and well, and most definitely not so creepy), but until then, they take it in stride. No one even knows how MC sees the flamingos until they offhandedly mention it one day, and Cater's just like "....no?? Why would we be roasting flamingos???"

[missciato]

“I’ve spent all these years training for a duel with a corpse.”

[CW: discussion of death and loss]

One thing I really like about Azure Moon and Azure Gleam was the exploration of grief and how a single individual’s death can have rippling effects on a family unit. Felix and Rodrigue’s significantly different responses to the event alters the way that they interact with each other in the present. It casts a pall over all of their interactions; it has tainted their relationship.

Often, in times of hardship, family disagreements can spiral out of control, causing minor rifts to become major ones. As someone who has dealt with a lot of death in the family recently, I have seen this time and time again. Especially as a young person, platitudes about the death of a loved one can feel hollow and ring as insincere and hurtful even if the deliverer was trying to say something that would help in the moment. The tragedy of the Rodrigue/Felix interaction is that both of them are grieving and could use each other’s company and love in hard times, and yet their fundamentally incompatible ways of grieving make it impossible for Felix to reconcile with Rodrigue. 

I looked at the coin that my aunt handed me, with a cross on the front and back. “Everything happens for a reason, dear. The Lord was just callin’ your brother home. Let this coin remind you of him.” She gave me a pat on the back, an affectionate gesture. I admit, I had trouble comprehending what ‘Lord’ would see it fit to take my brother from this Earth at his young age.

After my own brother passed away, I found myself understanding much more vividly why Felix was so upset and so ready to bury himself in his sword training rather than interacting with the people around him, who seemed to be grieving in this way that he found unconscionable. He felt that they were trying to try to justify Glenn’s death using the norms of their culture, which was to say “He died like a true knight.” or “He was the very picture of a perfect knight–noble and virtuous. In the end, he laid down his life–the ultimate sacrifice. I feel proud of him in ways that words can't quantify.”  

Much like in the example I gave above, an event that happened at my brother’s funeral in 2021, there are cultural explanations for death that can seem comforting to those who ‘buy’ it. Most of us can accept that our older loved ones will sooner or later die, and then when we become old we will die as well. But when it happens to people who are young and have a life ahead of them, the religion/pseudo-religious in the case of Faerghus justifications become more incomprehensible. And make you angry.

Rodrigue and Ingrid, in these instances, are simply trying to square how such a horrible event could have occurred. They aren’t trying to be hurtful or mean spirited, but they are a product of their cultural upbringing. I think trying to ascribe one side as being 100% wrong or 100% right misses the point; all of them are struggling with the same grief, but are finding different ways to cope with it.

And Felix is struggling to understand the way other people are grieving. He’s young and has trouble putting himself in other people’s shoes. He’s also 17 at the start of the game and trying to cope with the senselessness of his brother’s death. As he talks about in the Seteth support, he doesn’t want to be around people who remind him of the thing he hates, the thing his brother died for, the thing that his father uses to justify said death.

Felix: My brother was doing his job. My father is the real problem. When my brother's armor was brought back to the castle, do you know what he said? "He died like a true knight." Chivalry begets the worship and glorification of death. Am I alone in finding that grotesque?

Ironically, the Dimitri/Ingrid support chain sheds light on the fact that Dimitri himself is not fully on board with Ingrid and Rodrigue’s logic, and because of his mental illness he is also struggling to cope with this event. Felix and Dimitri would be natural allies in grieving, except that Dimitri is turning into the boar, which also triggers Felix! 

So Felix is left to stew in his own thoughts. Left to build a wall around himself to protect from the hurt that his friends and father have inflicted upon him with their careless words. And yet, he does try to mend fences with them, in his own way. 

Ingrid: Why are you taking over my cleaning responsibilities?

Felix: You're wounded, and you're going too slowly. I couldn't stand to watch.

He wants to rebuild the relationships!!! He just finds it difficult because he’s so angry!!

In Hopes, we get a support between Felix and Rodrigue where those differences are splayed for all to see. While I’m not a big fan of Azure Gleam, I like how there are two possibilities:

The path of reconciliation 

or

Words that go unspoken because of death

It really fits in with the themes of grief and loss; sometimes you are angry with your loved ones and when they pass from this Earth, there is no turning back the clock. I was angry with my brother when he died; he was a Trump-loving anti-vaxxer who fell into the maw of the cult. I was frustrated and sad at what he had become. Stopped contacting him much at all. And in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

One of the really important things about the whole situation, at least to me, is that no one in this situation is ‘wrong’ to grief in the way they do. It’s not as if Rodrigue’s coping mechanism – which is a logical one, given the culture he is part of – is horrible, it’s just the coping mechanism that Felix did not need. And Felix pushing his family and friends away is not good for his mental health or long term grieving, but it’s the thing he felt like he needed to do given the way he cannot cope with the way other people have processed this event that he finds so triggering.

And if Rodrigue ends up dying, it makes the whole situation even more tragic.

[reposted to add some stuff]

[littleeyesofpallas]

I have always loved this final(ish) boss design in Wild Arms 2nd Ignition so I'm just gonna babble for a bit here, apropos of nothing. So, spoilers I guess(?) for a quarter of a century year old game --I think it's still available on the PlaystationStore, but obviously emus are always an option. Large flightless Australian birds are crafty like that.

Even though, design-wise, a good chunk of it falls in line with pretty standard JRPG angelic monster/grotesque angel/now-your-teen-hero-fights-god motifs, it was just so out there in terms of lore.

The game starts with you gathering a band of heroes --A fresh faced army recruit, a grizzled war hero, a magical girl, a sacrificial martyr, a brooding anti-hero, and an optional vampire-- to fight an evil organization out to take over the world.

The evil organization, Odessa, declares that the world is changing, monsters are popping everywhere, and the kingdoms of the world do nothing about it, and so they threaten that if kings and queens and politicians cannot or will not do anything about it, then Odessa will conquer their kingdoms, seize their resources and manpower, and they will fix the problem thru unilateral authority.

But while there is a certain righteous anger behind their manifesto, they of course end up attacking innocent civilians, staffing themselves with war criminals and homicidal lunatics, sacrificing people to summon demons, using the monsters they claim to want gone as weapons, and ultimately trying to threaten the world's governments into submission with a nuke that is also a dragon...

So you smack their four generals around, corner their boss in his giant flying fortress, and then when he knows he's done for he tries to launch himself and the heroes into space to kill them all. It mostly fails, in so much as your party escapes the fortress, but the protagonist stays behind like the big damn hero that he is and consequently dies in space... He gets better tho, don't worry.

But then comes the sort of inverted 3rd act twist --instead of all hope being lost and then a reveal saves the day, everything seems like we should be done with the world ending threats and the world should be safe, until it's revealed that it is very much not-- an alternate universe is colliding with this one, and has been the whole time...

What that really means and how that works and how to envision that is left meaningfully abstract. Metaphorically the other world threatens to "devour" theirs, but it's not clear what that consumption even means... The slowly merging realities are actually why those monsters Odessa swore to eradicate had been appearing at all, and as the two alternate realities collide, the shape of the extra dimensional invasion isn't just a flood of monsters, but that the very nature of reality in this other world will come to replace this one.

Also in a cool throw back to the original Wild Arms, in which the extraterrestrial demon invasion the kicks off the game's plot is heralded by the sky cracking and chipping away, when the protag recovers from his whole died-in-space situation, he awakens to a literally unfamiliar, alien sky... a shifting, sloshing, iridescent acid trip looming over a doomed planet.

In fact the terrorist threat that had consumed so much of the heroes efforts until now was part of an elaborate long con by a certain wealthy would-be-hero out to save the world from the existential threat of total annihilation... The same man who recruited your heroes to fight terrorist in the first place.

Convinced that the world governments would be too fickle and petty to set aside their differences and personal interests to combat something as incomprehensible as (another)reality itself, he actually funded the terrorist organization in order to scare the world into cooperation against something much more concrete and straight forward --or, if international cooperation really did prove impossible, then as an owner of the new dictatorial world government, he'd simply make Odessa to save the world for him.

(A Note: The whole thing has strong american cape comic energy running thru it, specifically Watchmen and DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths.)

But then even his Xanatos gambit falls just short of saving the world in the final stages, and he's pushed into a corner. It turns out that even after tricking the nations of the world into allowing him access to harnessing the raw life force of the planet itself, the life force of a planet with a dying ecosystem just isn't enough to contain this hungry eldritch reality. So, in a last ditch effort he turns to the raw energy of creation, the miracle of life itself, to contain the menace and shackle it to a tangible reality in which it can be fought and killed... and so in a prison of otherworldly flesh contained in the belly of the earth itself, you confront the alternate universe in the form of an unborn child, and with his mind speaking thru it he tells you to kill him.

Anyway, yeah, that's you end up in a big red meat room fighting a vaguely angelic baby in an orb.

Immediately the thing that jumps out is, "Hey, that's the Starchild from 2001: A Space Odyssey!" Which is of course, very cool because everyone loves an unnerving weird fetus. But when it comes to JRPGS and weird fetuses, and incomprehensible reality destroying menaces, of course, the first thing to come to mind is Gigyas in Earthbound.

But more over, I really love that --where as, by point of comparison, there have been questionable theories about the layout of the Devil's Machine dungeon map looking like a womb, piggybacking off Giygas's ultrasound looking fetus shadow pattern-- the rest of the boss form surrounding the little Starchild core actually do appear to be modeled off a reproductive system, complete with ovaries and fallopian tubes, even going so far as to include the fimbriae as stylized angelic wings.

And I like the odd little detail that, because most babies develop upside down, the design with the fetus upright seems to have taken that into account by also rotating the reproductive anatomy accordingly? The baby is upright, so the organs are upside down.

Plus, even though it's not how fallopian tubes look in a real body, most anatomical diagram will show them as having this kind of flared arc over and around the ovaries beneath them, but the wings of the Kupier core arc under the two green orbs approximating ovaries. All that just to say that the big metal golden halo structure hanging under the core is technically oriented toward the "top" of the implied anatomy.

Also the game has a whole big subplot about a Christlike martyr --as an extension of the broader themes of heroism, and what it really means to be a hero-- and there is even a moment just before this final dungeon where Irving refers to his sister, the mother carrying this alternate reality made flesh, as "The Madonna of Destruction"... That all being context to support that, although it can be hard to notice or discern meaningful details on, that weird little fetus is definitely wearing what I can only assume is a crown of thorns.(I mean, that or it could be a pair of little devil horns? but I find that a less interesting alternative) Because he was, after all, conceived(although not so immaculately...) so that he could die to save the world.

Also not at all related to any fun themes or anything but I like how there's this big mouth it's seated in, that I only just realized has a "bottom" jaw to it. The top teeth are most noticeable and go around the front and sides, and I always kinda assumed they were a nod to the whole vagina dentata myth, but on a scale and at an angle that would've been imperceptible thru the blur of a CRT, there's definitely 4 little teeth normally hidden by the glare of the little uterus bubble

Oh and I didn't even get into the name itself being named after the Kuiper Belt, the asteroid belt around our real world solarsystem, as a play into some other astronomical terminology the story borrows from; namely the event horizon of a blackhole being referred to as the thing sealing away the mythic evil demon that started the whole world decay thing that makes the setting a desert wasteland in the first place, and became the wrench in the aforementioned plan to harness the planet's life force as a weapon against the parallel universe.(that ancient evil demon is the actual/surprise final boss of the game after this fight, btw...) There's so much more going on just in general, but that doesn't really play into the way this boss mosnters looks or why.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Mamma mia

It is a truth universally acknowledged, by everyone who has ever played any game in the Tetris series, that there is something wrong with your mother's cooking.

It is a truth universally acknowledged -- but, alas, a sad one -- that almost everybody whose mother's cookbook has been featured in the Tetris World Encyclopedia has been cursed with one of the many horrible, grotesquely mutilated specimens of the genre. The names of the authors and publishers are so horrible, so unwelcoming (e.g. Mamma Mia, Mamma Mia Cookbook, Mamma Mii, Mamma Mia!: The Official Cookbook) that -- yes, just you wait! just you wait! I'll give it to you in a second!

But even in this case -- just you wait! -- a sort of happy accident saves us from having to endure the most ghastly specimens of the genre. The names of the books are terrible, but they contain terrible recipes inside them, which we can now get the full, perfect experience of. This is a rare instance in which a lesser good has been raised to grace the greater evil. A blessing has been conferred on us, in this case, because our mothers' cookbooks have been featured so prominently in the encyclopedia.

And then there are others, where we are confronted with the fact that, when it comes to cooking, we are all on a completely different level, and that some people just can't make good food at all. Such people are not mentioned in the encyclopedia. Their names are simply unknown to all of us. That's the way it is. They are the ones who write recipes that no one can make, and we do our best to pretend that they aren't there, but they are there, and we can see them and we are scared.

Well, not this time. Not this time.

This time -- and I can't believe this is true -- there was a recipe. It was called "Mamma Mia."

Oh, now that really would have been a dreadful entry. The poor writer. The poor, cursed person. What a name. "Mamma Mia" is not a recipe or a dish.

But then, it turns out to be the most delicious thing ever. I tried it. I tried the same recipe over and over again on two separate occasions, just to make sure I was not hallucinating some great culinary masterstroke. I was not. This is really good, and in fact the best dish I've ever made. It's simple and straightforward and delicious and really beautiful, all things you should never expect from recipes in the Tetris World Encyclopedia.

Mamma Mia, that's what I'm going to call my dish. I can't help it -- it's so cute. It seems like the sort of thing someone would just invent, because of the name. It also seems like a terrible thing to eat, which I suppose is how it ends up tasting. It may even be the first dish to be known to be named after an entry in a popular book of "recipes to die for." I can't help but feel like I'm going to get cursed by this. And yet, there's no question: Mamma Mia, or no Mamma Mia. I have to make it.

In short, what I've described was a culinary experience that can be best summarized as Mamma Mia!

Mamma Mia was something I couldn't wait to try. It didn't come in a box with a bunch of other stuff. I had to make it from scratch. For days. It came in its own individual package, and all it said was Mamma Mia.

Mamma Mia did not come with step-by-step instructions. It came with only one instruction:

You are going to make Mamma Mia. I couldn't figure out where to start. It was as if they had decided to make sure I'd figure it out, once I started, but didn't want to give me a clue. You know, they don't want to help anyone else out of the trap that they have already sprung, or something like that. Anyway, I had no idea where to start. That's one reason why I had to eat it over and over and over again. I needed to try it at least ten times to get a true sense of what it was supposed to taste like, and if it tasted like I'd been told. And then, after it was over, I kept thinking about how delicious it was, and it was just too tempting to waste so I had to try it again.

And so, after days of deliberation, I got ready to start.

First, I needed a recipe. It's not something you get. It's a piece of art. It had to be made. I had to make my own. But this is fine, really, because you do not need to know any recipes for it, or anything else. Just get the ingredients and go straight to step three: Mamma Mia.

I had to get this right -- which is why I didn't start right away. It's the last thing you want to do at the start of anything, especially a recipe that does not even exist yet. You just want to get the ingredients on there, and you do that by doing everything else right. If there are already steps to do before starting, the step you start with is going to be the first one, and you should never do anything else.

So I kept waiting for something like step one or step two. I kept getting pissed off, and then I'd start, like, crying and going crazy because step one is never there. And, eventually, I realized that the fact of the matter is that I had to make the recipe myself, and I needed a recipe. I had to make my own, and this was step one, and, yes, I cried.

Well, I did, because there were so many of these steps. Like, okay, so I cannot just look up the recipe, because of all the steps -- and what I'd do instead of the steps was to look up recipes for step one. And then I thought, that is obviously not going to work because step two is never there, right? So, then I realized that, really, there was only one way to get it done. I had to start by doing step one. And that's how I made it.

First, you need a recipe. And here it is:

STEP ONE: you are going to make Mamma Mia.

You need ingredients -- and here are some of them:

Ingredients

[maletofujoshi]

elden ring shadow of the erdtree really is like. the end. like its literally it. there probably maybe idk won't be a game in the same style again- both in its gameplay grooves borrowed from ds3 and developed from demon's souls, and in this repeated narrative of a land diminished, and spurned.

okay so this leans on what seems to be cut dialogue- but im only using that to further support things that do actually exist in release.

"Now comes the age of our eden." is a line that in my mind confirms parallels between elden ring and that story of original sin- original sin being referenced in game as something miquella wishes to "bury". We are shown that original sin in the trailer. Marika takes a few golden strands of hair, hair that does not seem to be her own, and holds it up towards the gate of divinity- a golden sky and wind appears to bless her, as the held up hair forms the shape of a rune arc.

This is the moment where marika receives the bounty of the elden ring. It is also the betrayal, following the seduction. what marika goes on to do is creating "gold" and "shadow" (is this true? what of the crucible?), with the birth of the erdtree and the scadutree existing as a necessitated inverse.

there's this idea of two trees- the erdtree is obviously a tree of life. the scadutree... is probably a tree of knowledge of good and evil. To see the land of shadow, and to see what is rejected is to understand "morality", and it is also a realm of learning. Marika seems to be Eve, but is maybe also the serpent that "seduces" Eve (why did marika give birth to a serpent? why is there shed snake skin near the shaman tree in bonny village?), but here- rather than eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge (maybe an act committed long ago by someone else), Marika eats the fruit of of life- becoming like god, becoming god. This act is a betrayal of the hornsent, and the keepers of the tower/enir-ilim. in fact the gate of divinity is first obscured by another sealing tree, veiled in shadow, and once seen... it's no longer the grotesquely majestic thing that marika once stood facing. It's dried. the once fresh, bloody and flowing walls are white, and seem to be disintegrating into sand. for as much as miquella is following in the footsteps of marika- he can't be as marika was. her circumstances are gone and any attempt to recreate them is defined by what marika went on to do. this is seen in the very clear image of an erdtree- branches of light, a trunk, and roots, seen in the negative space of the gate and by miquella's hair

by embracing the whole of it, miquella wishes to become a perfect god, ruler, and mother. to deny nothing. but his age of compassion rests on him abandoning everything- including his love. and his charm manifests as this suppressing thing. ansbach describes a vexing fog, he literally places a spectral golden circlet over you if you get grabbed, one that allows for your "heart" to be "stolen" if you are grabbed again. He wishes to embrace but in that embrace dissent and conflict is simply suppressed, held down, agency is taken away... it's literally a return to the cradle, the halcyon days of the age of plenty. "loved" but not allowed to grow, or to truly exist. as a dissenting lord, you refuse to be embraced, and miquella loses to the first powerful opponent he and his consort face.

what does miquella want here? well- okay miquella the character we know is different from miquella the god- but miquella the empyrean was terrified by his destiny, but felt that he Had to become a god- that he would become a god. to this end, and to amend the sins of marika, the mother, he divests himself of everything- his flesh, his fears, his "love". and yet he wants an age of compassion... how does he square this? firstly there seems to maybe be two types of "love" here. I think there's a division between "godly" love, of including all within paradise without discrimination, and then the love trina feels for miquella, or the love miquella felt for malenia. for now i'm going to call one compassion and the other love. "love" as it exists, in miquella's mind, might be no different from discrimination (in the same way when prompted, a person may choose the life of their loved one over that of a stranger). if he held onto it, as a god, his love may have once again redefined gold, and then redefined it's subjugated inverse, shadow. to "embrace the whole of it" (i.e. take power without creating disparity) would require compassion without love. in order to create an "eden"- a walled garden, a cradle humanity dwelled in before rejection. burying original sin so you can go baby mode, essentially. Miquella wants to become a "perfect" mother, where Marika was unhinged from the start

Ranni stands as the obvious parallel here- rejecting the divine, embracing the self, solving the issue of power by upending it entirely- leaving the world in it's state of disrepair, but also leaving behind nothing to trust in... it's acceptance of being out of the garden of eden, and into the cold night, without the guiding light of god, or the hand of a mother. Ymir and Miquella are going about it the wrong way, you don't need a "perfect" mother, or "perfect" roots, you just ought to grow up.

Extending the base game, Shadow of the Erdtree is """about""" being a mother, and being a child to a mother- and there's a conflation between parentage and the development of societies and cultures. The one thing miquella is incapable of divesting himself of is his lineage as "the true golden child", by leda's account, much like any culture or society can not be free of its history. Miquella will always be Marika's son (daughter maybe actually? okay "child" is the important thing here.) just as Marika carried lineage from the grandmother. Though, maybe there was a chance, roads not taken, ways in which miquella could have helped others and himself. But he abandoned all of that. Sad! A tragedy if there ever was one and such, should've gone blue mode.

...theres more things i wanted to integrate but i still have to sort things out in my head. the crucible and "normalized crucible currents" or whatever, the grandam, nanaya and midra, the erdtree and the moon as carriers of memory... but aghhh! this game is hard! as in this part of the game is hard! images fall together but finding the coherent elements from connection is. Hard. why is there no easy mode for thinking

[fishmongeringstudies]

sad pelvis story (it’ll get better after you give up!)

the remarkable thing about pelvic bone separation is that according to the internet and every medical health professional I have spoken to so far it only really happens to pregnant people, so if you look up care and recovery options the only thing they’ll say is: it’ll get better after you give birth! Well Then, I say, shaking webMD lookalike number seventeen by the collar of their stupid starched shirt, shaking them so hard their neck snaps off and they die right there in my goddamn arms, what about the rest of us? What if there isn’t a baby splitting your pelvis in half like a chainsaw? What then?

it’s hard to talk about my pelvis without talking about the evil secondary school dance club and the eight-year-long mental health crisis and the remarkable PAP-endorsed notion of pushing through and overcoming and fucking annihilating adversity. They’re all tied up in each other, like headphone cords in a backpack, or five gymnasts in a game of Twister, or a DND fantasy-themed orgy. It’s not, as I was cautioned against yesterday, that I went and based all my personal worth and value as a person on dance. In fact, one might argue that that would be an easier string to untangle. You’d just have to cut it in half and yank the two ends apart and then boom— no more Liya; an endless world of possibility.

the problem is I picked happiness. So I’d still be a person if you took the dance away from me, you see, I’d just be miserable.

circles in the water. Shark circles. Finger circles, finger rings, rings of people trapping me in the middle of the circus, muttering to themselves about fire.

yesterday I went to dance class (my most recent mistake) and we flung objects around like sweaters and broomsticks and yoga blocks and then it ended and my pelvis went YAHOOBA and while I was lying on the floor contemplating the inherent fragility of man my professor came over and said you have to stop dancing for at least a week and I cried and my friend wandered back in and was like are you okay and I cried a little more and in the evening I called my girlfriend and cried again, cried into my cereal, cried into my nice Fruit Of The Loom (1871) shirt, cried in the bathroom with the cracked-open window. I cried to every single person who asked me if I was okay and then I did it all over again. What else is there to say? Take this lump in my throat and cook it. Throw it in the fire.

one time last semester a friend and I were hanging out in the weed dorm (my Humble Abode in sophomore year) and after we finished trading life updates she was like (a little incredulously, with feeling) damn bro, you are Doing Well. I tried to explain that the fact of my wellness was less a given and more of a series of lucky coincidences that had subsequently gotten tired and sat down for long enough for me to achieve personhood for the first time in my life and I don’t think she really believed me. I don’t think anyone really believed me when I said I was a clown in a fursuit at a furry convention doing cowboy moves and that if someone took off my cowboy hat I would immediately dissolve into a pile of fur, that I was grotesquely aware of how easily all of the good things could slip out of my grasp and that was why I was on anxiety medication, but maybe now they will. Which is a terrible thing. When one dons a clown suit your greatest nightmare is falling. Because falling means the end of the dream. And the end of the dream means no one will want to look at you anymore.

rest is good for you (even for a clown!). Given the fact that we live in a society, which involves, you know, capitalism, complete dissolving of work life balance, et cetera, rest almost has a patina of subversion to it, a sense of you’ve done something that you weren’t supposed to, a quiet roar of fury. Unfortunately, this means nothing to the Singaporean work ethic. In fact the Singapore education system is so uniquely constructed that at every juncture in the road anyone who isn’t thriving at full capacity gets quietly yoinked and is never spoken about ever again.

which, like, injury and mental health aren’t remotely the same thing. But they sure can affect each other and make out vigorously and fuck each other in the ass. My broken pelvis has fucked me in the ass. Like an earthworm hanging out. With itself. At six a.m. in the morning.

a list of absurd things:

one— cows have an ambiguous number of udders. They definitely have multiple nipples and my friend and I thought about it and generally agreed that each nipple probably leads to a separate store of milk but is there one udder or are there four? Six? Nineteen? People have boobs. But cows aren’t people. We spent five minutes looking at photos of cow boobs and concluded, quite gravely, that there are some things in the world we will simply never understand.

two— among the activities not recommended for people whose pelvic bones have separated are the remarkably high-exertion activities “sitting” and “standing”. I was so stunned by this discovery in my English class surrounded by people who were also not answering the poor discussion leaders’ questions that I almost fell out of my chair. Which would have been better for me than sitting in it, apparently. Which would have been ridiculous. I can’t slide around my college campus like a fucking worm. I know I said I was a fucking worm earlier and I was going to fuck another worm but this is different. This is going up to a dung beetle and asking it to sing, to dance, to do calculus. This would kill a worm. If I were a worm, I’d be dead.

three— I emailed my school’s international student center telling them how fucked up everything was and they were like you should consider taking medical leave. All right, Karen, so tell me: if I leave, where the fuck am I supposed to go? There is no place on this continent that even vaguely resembles home and I can’t just buy a thousand dollar ticket back to Singapore out of the fucking blue because I’m not rich, I’m not well-adjusted and well-supported and happily connected to my large family of rich doctors and lawyers, I’m a college student and a dancer and an ex-depressed person who needs to not go back into that dark, airless hole, I’m scared to death of what the next five weeks will look like, I’m fucking

miserable. Didn’t go to dance this morning and I was miserable. Skipped taiko this evening and I was miserable. Sat in the new dining hall and chewed on cherry tomatoes and I was miserable, miserable, miserable. Crying’s off the agenda now because I’m tired but it fucking sucks, you know? Being injured is embarrassing (my most recent problematic thought). Not being able to do the things that spark joy in my life is embarrassing. Like I finally found a way to make myself not want to eject my body into outer space and now my pelvic bones have fucking separated. Google keeps screaming at me about pregnancy and my dance friends keep on going to their dance classes and I just sit here with my sad angry bones and my angry lonely heart, hurting and hurting and hurting, and I write. I write about how pelvic bone separation occurs in between 1 in 300 and 1 in 300,000 vaginal deliveries. I write about how I am not part of this statistic. I write about what it’s like to love yourself in a way that finally makes sense to you, and then have that wrenched away.

I write my sad pelvis story, because I can’t go over there and tell you about it. I write an email to my professor. I write a hundred apologies.

I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.

10.27.22

[aeoki]

Sandstorm - Pointless Death Game: Chapter 9

Location: Desert Characters: Hinata & Kaoru

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ< Ten or so minutes later. >

Kaoru: Alright. 

We stocked up on the tools we needed at the nearest “Oasis” and took a short rest too. Looks like we’re ready to take on the pyramid.

Hinata: We also got to check Yuuta-kun and the other’s video too. Ahh~ seeing Yuuta-kun’s face makes me feel alive again~♪

Kaoru: Ahaha. They’re getting more and more in-sync~ I feel like I’m not really needed after watching that video.

I realised “UNDEAD” is still “UNDEAD” whether I’m with them or not.

Hinata: I felt kinda melancholic too.

If Yuuta-kun paired up with someone other than me, if he joined a unit that was far more amazing and capable than me…

Maybe he won’t be suffering as much and could be easily loved by everyone normally.

Just a thought… I’m just kidding, though.

Kaoru: Hmm. Teaming up as family seems pretty tough and I think it would be nice if you two had some away time too.

Of course, you two have a strong bond and I know it’s hard for you to spend time away from each other.

It would be impossible for me to be an idol with my siblings.

Sure, I love my little sister but I don’t think I’d ever get to catch a break if I spent day and night with her.

I can’t leave her alone, you know? I have a feeling I’ll be poking my nose into things too much and she won’t like that, so things will turn sour between us.

And if we end up having an argument, then that would be the worst. If you’re seeing that person at work and at home, you wouldn’t have anywhere to go. Wouldn’t that just feel like hell?

Hinata: …………

Kaoru: Well, I’m just trying to say everyone has their own preferred sense of distance. I know you must be feeling sad because you’re away from Yuuta-kun.

But I feel pretty calm in that aspect. In fact, it gives me a sense of freedom. I don’t want to be glued to their side all the time~ My members are a pretty noisy bunch.

Hinata: …………

Kaoru: …Huh?

You’re not responding. What’s wrong? Hinata-kun, why are you slowly getting further away from me?

Hinata: Hakaze-senpai.

Kaoru: (Hm? What’s with Hinata-kun’s gaze…?)

(Why is he looking at me like that? I’m not Yuuta-kun so I can’t tell.)

Hinata: Sorry. I don’t have a grudge against you or anything.

Kaoru: ………?

Hinata: In fact, I think I grew to like you more after spending time with you. You’ve always been considerate and nonchalantly trying to help me too, right?

You let me choose where I wanted to sleep, let me take a bath first, wiped my face if it got dirty and even let me decide our meals or the topic of our conversations.

I could feel your kindness from all those things. I could tell you wanted me to feel happy when I’m with you.

I could feel that’s what you wanted to do for me. Of course, I don’t think you’ve got a hidden motive behind all that and I’m sure you must be a good person deep down.

I think if it was anyone else, they’d fall in love with you thinking “does this guy have feelings for me?”. I think I understand why you’re so popular.

Kaoru: What’re you talking about…?

Hinata: But unfortunately, I belong to Yuuta-kun.

No. Yuuta-kun has gone on the wrong path because of me so I need to guide him in the right direction. That’s the meaning of my life right now.

That’s why I’m sorry. Now that Yuuta-kun has been placed on the scales, I can’t help but prioritise him.

We’ve now become this grotesque monster you’re seeing before you. But from the moment we were born from our mother’s belly, that fact alone won’t ever change.

Kaoru: Hinata-kun…?

Hinata: So, bye-bye, Hakaze-senpai!

Kaoru: Huh…? What…?

(What? Does Hinata-kun have a “Desert Coin” in his mouth?)

(That’s gotta be dirty, but wait…)

(Isn’t that the “Desert Coin” I had?)

(“Desert Coins” look like a coin, but it actually looks more like an IC chip.)

(You’ll have to pay a fee, but you can turn a large amount of “Desert Coins” into a single coin.)

(It’s because carrying a couple hundred coins would be far too heavy.)

(Which means he stole the special “Desert Coin” that’s worth a couple hundred coin’s?)

(I didn’t want to drop it so I put it in my pocket with a zip on it.)

(I’ve only just realised the “Desert Coin” that was in there is gone now!)

Hinata: Ahaha! Sorry~ I secretly took it when we were resting in the “Oasis”! I said I’d give you a massage because you look tired, right?

It was easy because you had your guard down completely! I knew you were from a family with a good upbringing~ You won’t be able to survive on the streets like that, you know?

Kaoru: Huh? But why would you do that? Why steal it? If you wanted the “Desert Coin”, I would’ve given it to you!

Actually, if you didn’t lend me the “Desert Coins” in the beginning, I would’ve been driven into a corner earlier and would’ve been eliminated.

Why would you take back the “Desert Coin” you lent me at this point in time? What’s the point in doing that?

Hinata: You don’t know? Ahaha, you really fully trusted me, huh… senpai.

That makes me happy but at the same time, it feels like you’ve underestimated me and that doesn’t make me feel good.

Maybe you’ve forgotten but “SS” is an event that will decide who’s the strongest idol.

Only one unit can stand at the top. You should’ve already noticed that the other idols are enemies that we should be defeating, right?

Or could it be that the strong and amazing “UNDEAD” only sees “2wink” as small fry that can’t even be considered an enemy?

Kaoru: …………

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂ Next Chapter →

[human-psyche]

LADY OF THE BLOODFALLS

#Ko-fiChallenge

This is an excerpt from a fictious novel created in one of my stories to reflect the same genre / topic, as a sneek peek of a project / work of mine. The cover / design is also created by me.

I hope it will stir interest and gain appreciation, so do share or reblog if you like and my ko-fi is always open if anyone would like to buy a coffee to help with my writings, other art related stuff and future posts.

A life worth living is not a life without mystery. Many of us believe that. We live our lives confined to routines and defined by mundane calculations, yearning to become one with the unknown. We dream with our eyes open about universes in which we could be different, able to afford to own the key to what is out of our reach. We create, we shape, we destroy and rebuild, we crave to escape logic and free fall into the irrational, we cover up the disappointment in our hearts when superstitions are the only hints we've got, we wait for the world to end and crash, we delight with some of the most unproven facts and fear losing control of the normal eventhough normalcy feels suffocating sometimes. 

It's a given: we're human, we are not programed to not wonder. Human nature dictates that life and mystery are entwined forces, and everything in between becomes a piece of red. Ancient, beautiful, violent. It starts and ends. It gives life and takes一 the color of birth, love and death, the color of blood, the color of desires, aggression and sacrament. This is what life is: grotesque grace, something only the color red can weight equally. A middle ground where the fair bow down to the tainted, where innocence dies too young, where shadows move on their own, and the dead walk amongst the living. 

There are the ones who are ignorant, the picture perfect of the normal. They live simple lives, guided by a false sense of safety surrounded by preconceptions and walls. Then, there are the ones who open their ears to the whispers of the dark, reckless, toeing the line of the insane. They search and test the waters, they take a myth and look it in the eyes with conviction, they feel and see what is not there. 

We fear death and what could lay on the other side, perhaps more than we fear the unknown itself, but above everything, we fear losing ourselves through a blindfolded game of hot and cold where nothing is as it seems.

Immortality sounds like the answer to a lot of problems, a gift, a phenomenon none can offer or obtain, or so do we think. 

This life, minimal, transparent, human frailty and the flaws that make space for the little moments of joy, unity and memories: the error is not in being human, it's in being anything else, and death grants us that sweet release. 

There's no rest to immortality, the wicked will never know the comfort of oblivion, destined to remember everything, to feel everything, magnified at a million degrees.

It's true, vampires steal lives. They don't just kill, they're ink into water, creeping through the cracks and right inside the cavern of the ribcage, in the shivers climbing shoulder blades, in the fear that asphyxiates, the touches in the dark, the wind through the curtains, the steps down corridors and stairs, the wars of the mind, to flee or stay, the secrets, the chase. And they exist, cursed to relive a lifetime on repeat, to love once and die a thousand times with each loss and memory, forever outsiders between reality and illusion, not belonging on either side. They're trespassers and looters of human nature, they pillage and possess, to fill the empty hole in their chests. 

To live forever is hell on earth: it burns the soul from the inside out, perpetuating the cold numbness to the core of the heart, but that's the pleasure of it, slow torture, reaching the night sun with wings of paper. 

The embers of charcoal devour it, untill all that remains is red...

1904, Leonore von Nieve

[randomclam24]

Replaying N64 titles with LQ2XS filter + per-pixel lighting

I was trying for something that would take the lobby from Mario 64 and make the walls and ceiling especially resemble a sky, like the original, and not just surfaces. I think it took this combination to pull that off with upscaling. LQ2XS makes bizarre visual artifacts, but it seems to be the best overall Was using Smooth filtering 2, but Smooth filtering 4 might work the best Smooth filtering 2 worked best with LQ2X

7/18 It was my uncle Butch, my mom's brother who never succeeded in life and lived with my grandparents, who told me the variation of the nursery rhyme with hand figures, "here's the church, here's the steeple, open the door and CRUSH ALL THE PEOPLE!" Then when he was the one who took a bat to someone after grandma and grandpa moved out to the old people's home, leaving him alone there with no real means, that was absolutely during the time when my gangstalking ramped up to 250, out of 10. It proves that he was capable of being *manipulated* into doing it.

Update I think "inspiration" as the very concept is overblown in our society because even with that, I'm still incredibly lazy.

Wait. About a third of men have dropped out of society by now, according to recent news. Are you saying it's not just us?

Update I was thinking by now what I really need is an external hard drive to store all the games, so it's not just download-one-at-a-time.

Update later Now, having an up-to-date-enough laptop at my disposal doesn't seem nearly as much a valuable commodity. It really should, because there's technically nothing a phone can do that this can't, not that I would want to try it. I have never had a phone other than hand-me-downs which are flip phones.

Update The Steam sale I was trying to go for before that I had to go to the bank over again because it ended was Saya no Uta. And the restoration patch had to be bought outside the site itself because of Steam's policies. Fuck censorship ever There were options to blur/dim "grotesque" backgrounds. No, none of that. Unironically have alcohol on the side to numb myself for it

Update So, guys, when are we going to talk about the glaring problem of the censorship in the EU? People need to be able to talk about how the Holocaust didn't happen, as it was *obviously* a hoax

Come on people, it's 2023

Update So people can already make the connection that liberals consider something to be right or true in the fact that it can be made to seem right or true to a majority of people. Why doesn't anyone put the 2 + 2 together to understand that this is related to what the jews call pilpul? They *know* they're disingenuous.

Update Thinking back to that one time drunkenness ever actually took a hold on me while drinking with my cousin at night - what we ended up doing, as I've said before, is share a single jacket in the early winter or something, applying friction for heat when it's off, and that was to go to Taco Bell and back, even if only to find out it's not one of those that are open all night - isn't what I get drunk from time to time, hoping to recreate that kind of experience ideally, just trying to make up for the reality that I can't go outside without crippling anxiety? And given what I've talked about, that's probably not what they call anxiety. That's probably trauma.

Update It's like the way I envision people just inherently looking at me is so negativistic

That one time when in Mechanical Drawing class, in downtime when people had all their assignments before the next deadline done and got to play Halo online in a local server, which is a miracle in itself in a way, I semi-consistently sniped down guys in Banshees with a shotgun - one guy said across the room or something, if that were real life, you wouldn't be able to do that with a shotgun (now that I think of it, despite it being short-range in classification in videogames, they're used for disk shooting at ranges, and you wouldn't have overshields, combined with the fact that Banshees absolutely have this gaping open back section exposing the pilot)

Update There was one point in trying Quake III Arena well after its heyday I figured the people there were going to be more experienced than me no matter what, so in a narrow situation of 1v1'ing one other person who happened to be the current winner of the match by a longshot, I went into overdrive mode and won. One time. And then that got people spectating monitoring me until they eventually just concluded, "he's useless".

Online multiplayer modes killed my ego

Update Good not to be isolated to people whose investment in these things in the first place is casual, otherwise I would still be left with the impression from "You're a wizard Harry"

Update Having a Gameboy Advance rendition of the school's sport Quidditch basically made it glaringly more obvious that the role of the Snitch makes practically the entirety of the rest of the game surrounding it defunct. It was always designed to produce those scenes, where the sense of empowerment with the protagonist was had.

Update What did I end up liking as a "main" instead of that later on in childhood? A Series of Unfortunate Events, the novel series. And even then my actual readership was kind of skimpy, but I did stick with the final releases. I found out *much* later, in high school, that the same author went on to make some novels with a romantic bent, but i never went into that.

I don't think it's far-fetched to think the concept of "VFD" as an acronym for a secret society gave me ideas. Either way my ideas are not great

Update I try to dismiss something like the Stanley Parable retroactively - big booming noise in the distance like a thunderstorm just arrived. But there was always the fact going in that I had that kind of ideation taken from that series.

Update That psyop that gets regurgitated every now and then that the founding fathers were Masons by nature of modern freemasonry, and so they're discredited as patriots, and I hate that because it's not hard to recognize these things as actual societies that existed in the past before being taken over from within in whatever capacity that they were to be as they are, today.

7/19 night Given that a cartoon rendition of something is what is shown to kids, I'm surprised from my own experimentation that the cartoony representation of bubbles appearing around someone would take such a massive amount, whereas most people just drink a casual amount. But that trope might have come around back in the early days of cartoons like Popeye the Sailorman.

Update I wonder if there's a "zen state" you have to master in videogames to play Cuphead and Mugman, because I can't beat World 2

Update What was I even thinking, taking the time out to make a comprehensive map, hand-drawn, of Link's Awakening as a kid, and then thinking about advancing the details further later on? There's no "true level" on which to advance, yet that's how I was feeling.

Update In high school, I landed a preliminary task for contributing to a major wad with a zombie invasion, and the idea was to make a zombie mall. Not only had I not played the actual games already made with that concept, I don't think non-abstractly enough to come up with what the mall stores are going to be just from scratch as an organic addition to a game. Sure, you could just copy-paste actual stores and just edit them slightly, but that wouldn't be any fun.

There was a sentiment going around over the factoid or observation that the worst kinds of people tend to outlive a catastrophe. Really, that's the way I feel this whole job market deal comes out to. Those are my feelings.

Update It's like, what am I getting up for? (So we don't kick your ass?) That's what I already do, and I take naps.

Update The best wives only come as 2D images. Wtf is this bro

1/4 of gay men have a body count of over 1000. Compare that to most women

Update I honestly had in mind with the Common Filth upload "Esoteric Cannibalism of the Old World Order" the kinds of things that used to scar me, like MLP Snes, or more specifically the screaming face wall texture from the original Doom, which in its first appearance really has that kind of effect, unless you're just phasing it out or, I don't know. Also, a comparison of MLP Snes to the spirit of corporate greed I think is just a plain dumb ass take. Those were things like, if you don't not want to look at it for very long in the first place, you're doing it wrong.

7/19 It's not that I don't like work per se. It's more that I'm legitimately scared of it being sprung on me as something that I have to do indefinitely, because I've heard about crunch time hours. Also, if there isn't a way to learn computer programming such that having a higher IQ actually counts for something, since it *is* all about memorization for its own sake, I'll be spinning my tires in the mud just to keep the same pace with everyone else, and that will be the case indefinitely.

It's scary, and the only way to avoid that fear is to keep putting it off.

There's no doubt my mom thinks I'm not *doing* anything, because whenever she catches me sleeping during the day, something that my own dad has suggested for things like after mowing the lawn on a weekday, she says she's just going to have to send me off again because she's about to give up. That doesn't match anything that's being said about my actual workmanship. If they thought that, they would be screaming at me constantly. This economy has gotten by in its greatest years doing on average fifteen minutes of actual work every day. That's an exaggeration, but still. They've actually accepted when I've taken naps during the day, but if it's in the morning just after I get up, then it's different.

There's a sentencing that comes implicit with this kind of perception of someone. If I just work *now*, I'll be *accepting* that all of this has been put in place - this is a problem because there is falsehood preceding anything that I can actually do that puts me in a bind conjecturally. They were thinking it was just because of the conjectures, but that's specifically why i said there's a falsehood preceding anything that I can actually do: the conjectures are wrong!

Is it strategically sound in representation of others to just say I don't care about embarassment, because other people might be stuck in the conjectures on my account with their bosses because they saw

Literally education only ever worked despite the modern world when it was elementary in nature. That way, they couldn't say it was over my head in ignorance because it was so obvious. *Now* it comes with a *complex*.

There's too much crap. To begin with, I want to start in the direction of something that isn't completely coated and buried in faeces. Well I don't have anything other than computer science. That's where I compulsively get *up* and don't fuck with the thought.

Update Alright, let's sit down and write what it is, and hope this doesn't get the account taken down, although that *is* the principle on which accounts are taken down across the Internet. This is deliberate disobedience.

Look. This is a narrative about the employer and their story about how employees don't want to *work* (by this point the voice carrying that narrative has taken off onto their level of speaking and will *not* let -)

"In this narrative, I don't exist" doesn't even register

One thing I've heard within my online campaign is that the origins of language and commerce are so simple, it doesn't even warrant the kind of worrying we're doing at this point, or at least that's how I'm feeling right now.

Staying right for the employer precedes essence to such a degree, the rest might as well be reduced to smearing shit on the walls, because that people do less than fifteen minutes a day of actual work is fine has no bearing on the fact that you have to appease in the moment. And literally *none* of that adds up to mathematics. I actually feel like even difficult topics for other people are simple and so a breath of fresh air relative to the bane that is appeasement.

Update after dinner I think the thing is, no one honestly does "work" - when you're doing that, the joke's on you.

Update I mean, I would just continue typing out the online course as I have been up to this point, but it's at the point in involvement now, it's just so that going any further would be what everyone else in this game would already be considering trying too hard or extra.

Update All that the best of us say is "It's just that I'm not doing it is all, hahaha", and that's the product end-result of caring the most about their country which is now nonexistent. No one's work ethic I think actually goes beyond that in all seriousness. I think that's an illusion.

Update I guess it's time for white people to just face mass starvation and death. There's no such thing as productivity anymore. We just sit here and shitpost.

That positive net worth in statistics showing whether people gave back or took away from the overall value of the country based on race - I think that's what the hood was referring to when they said "extra"

They had actual snow crab legs in bags in a refridgerator at the local foods stand, and I pointed out that the price per pound was like ten dollars, which is much less than Red Lobster, and she said that's by pound - you would probably have to buy the whole bag. Now when I remember it I can't stop thinking about it, because I've actually been to Red Lobster and gotten that recently, and it wasn't snow crab, but the new kind they had on the menu which allegedly everyone who tries it says tasted better.

Peanuts straight out of the shells are probably the strongest taste I've got to drown out the aftertaste of alcohol, and it kind of has that same kind of saltiness, and the fact that you're breaking it out of shells.

I'll take my mom kicking me in the pants to do something productive over that schtick of, I'm going to just go all the way giving *up* on you It's not that hard. They *could do* that They act like I've usurped all authority over them or something to that effect so that they can't just prod me to do something, and I don't remember that ever happening

They act like they're broken as parental authorities on account of their image of me that they lived through vicariously. It's not natural. I think it's the gangstalking bugging.

Have someone actually kick me in the pants to do something. What does that mean? What will that mean? Setting an alarm for every morning regardless of how late I stayed up? Opening the blinds in my room?

I'm not setting a good example, but to begin with, neither was anyone else - I know that's not an excuse

Update It's almost like I *want* a circumstance where I have no choice practically but to do something productive so that I can be productive without doing this thing where I internally rationalize the act of being productive against my will for no reason at all and thereby normalizing it. I want a circumstance where I'm just doing things because getting ahead would be practically desirable. Right here, it seems like the white men dropping out of society are the ones in the lead socially, despite what everyone else might be saying. Right now, competition doesn't seem relevant.

And of course there's something funny about the fact that liberalism has been criticized for requiring people to live in such a way that is mere existence, while white men dropping out of society are more literally doing just that.

Update I don't know why I identified with MLG montage parodies to the extent that when someone came out and made a personal video calling them out for being the only ones still making those kinds of videos in the first place, I got it but still found that unrelatable

Best argument you can make - and that raises further questions: MLG montage is a representation of a lifestyle, such that even apparently making parodies of the thing itself is still considered valid as a continuation of that lifestyle, after the fact of the original cause dying out because of loss of interest

Some people made mods for GZDoom to the extent that you can have more or less all of the standard film effects from 7th-gen gaming in the original classic Doom. I don't see why that wouldn't be welcome with Mario 64 - I think in its current form, no matter how you slice it, there's a certain limit to its immersion

There might be an opportunity down the line for some mass redpilling regardless of this perception of mine that the heyday for this has passed and you can all go home now if you want - maybe I don't want to ramble *too* much

For some reason, in my dreams, stores typically have at least a couple of things that I really like that stand out to me, like videogames that are less common, or tasty treats that seem overly fancy for the location

There used to be this mentality with me like there's always going to be something to do that can be done in a more narrow amount of time than what typical work or homework expects of you, so get this all in now while you still can. Now - where is that supply of things to do?

Surreal take: yes People act like the age of marriage from ancient times is something disgusting, when the body count of women leaves hardly any virgins out of high school

And I've heard about Common Filth's take on the subject matter: the people in Europe pushing the envelope on that, they're not even doing that, but homosex - it's between a severe age difference, so it's called "man-boy love"

Update There are some truths that are inconvenient in society which have to be said. I don't know if that's ego, that I want to be the guy to be held to the heat of it. So inasmuch as that's the point, it's more like "Christ is not a respecter of persons" - how much could the Christendom of the first centuries change about the modern era, that being your orientation where productivity only in the system's terms would have taken precedence otherwise?

I'm sorry for acting crazy good Lord But it *was* being honest

No I'm not going to smear shit on the stalls - that's a meme

Very, very, very, very, very seriously - it's not pronounced culturally *that* much, but K. Lamar's "you don't gotta try so hard", in the song where he calls out people trying to impress each other like the feds

Acting like you have to own up to the kind of pressuring that modern society puts to people - is that necessary

But I had a mentality like the message from Pokemon, "There's a time and place for everything" - so then where does the pressure that society gives us even come from?

If transgender activism was removed wholesale from schools and so on such that it would no longer be the main rite of passage to just homeschool your kids, maybe I would have some faith in this country

It's kind of true that I haven't heard anybody recommend a song album on account of it being a kind of spiritual experience, despite what people say about things like LSD opening your mind to the possibility that everything is a lie - and that was what was relevant throughout the 60's, at the time of the major bands like the Beatles

Update I called out, the point at which Metaverse instantiated itself as a thing, I had just been thinking along those lines of virtual reality with the wad Phocas Island 2. That may just well be the comfiest thing I've played.

Update SOAD - I think the only common factor in their lyrics was that it has some roots in what American culture actually portrays, so it's a question sometimes whether they're dramatizing it or just parodying it

I know it's probably not the most stable thing to put all your eggs in the basket with, but now that the general idea of what I felt the need to do the "mission" for has passed, more or less - but there's no real cutoff point, though - maybe the next thing I would do is try to fortify my own more fundamentalist version of Christendom and challenge the current "orthodoxy" of the casual church with it, in such a way that they really feel compelled to address it as opposed to staying at ease

I don't know exactly. Just basic things like "turn the other cheek" are construed from being a smart tactic to being the moral focus.

I don't have a full image of what the United States actually has going on, especially throughout. If that last thing alone is already too hard to teach to the modern churches, then maybe we do deserve to collapse and just be let alone during the process.

Honestly, one thing that inevitably pops up is the Christian doctrine, abstain from all appearance of evil, which is a personal conundrum. Though I think that's more to do with how other people will see what I'm saying. This is where all the purists have their basis.

One night, my mom decided to take my blood pressure, when no one thought I had alcohol at home, and she was shocked. Only because I convinced her to take it again the next day on account of having played MyHouse.wad at the time did she later get a better recording and calm down some, but I still have to eat healthier now. I'm actually going to take it myself again once it's been more than half a day after the fact. If after two days or so it's totally normal, then we have our verdict.

7/20 Midwits. The fact that I have to correct after-the-fact every single individual time when I feel like pointing out these people act like mindless beasts, unlike what they take from that, that it's people with *less* than midwit IQs who are stupid and useless, to which they agree, no, it's midwits' sense of "better judgment" that makes them act as mindless beasts in the first place out of all of us! You don't even see this.

No, I do not just call people that for its own sake

Update It's been these people that definitively have to constantly distance themselves socially from other groups of people so that other people don't think they're stupid or something. I don't even have to worry about that.

The midwit bellcurve is real

Generally speaking, when it's you saying the entirety of everyone else as a group is off their rocker, it's basing itself on a point that might happen once in a blue moon to one person, and even then won't be that big of a deal unless it's severe. Basically it's *your* personal issue. Hence no one else made that issue out of the thing. That goes to show that, outside of yourself, that issue doesn't even exist. Again, okay, maybe a minor catastrophe will happen once in a blue moon. Why are you so preoccupied with distancing yourself from people you consider swine? And I mean this is the mindset midwits have when they make their appeals to science, because no one else is making that big a thing out of it but them at this point, now that the sciences are slowly dying.

All things considered, considering where "better judgment", the meme, comes from, it's *not* a legitimate thing but just more midwit hand-having of what's good in life. From what I've experienced in life, midwits all act like narcissists.

Midwits are the ones with the greatest ability to jump to actual belief on such a level that they go absolutely crazy simply for being challenged on it. Nobody else does that more than narcissist midwits.

Update Talking about what would actually be going on in the mind of midwits sounds like what would effectively get you banned, because that sounds to be the base of operations of the kinds of ploys made by the mainstream media on the masses, on whom it works best is midwits

Okay, but generally speaking, it seems like every "argument" they forge is focused on modifying their sense of self-image in real time. That it's what's really going on in real time, that much I do know. I just don't know exactly what they're *doing*. And once the altercation is made, it's like it can't be revoked and taken back because it's already become a part of themselves, done in their subconscious, and they act like you're asking for something crazy when you try this.

So yeah, that bonkers behavior is their base state. It's just a matter of time until you see it come out

Unironically, with a theoretical study done on midwit minds, if such a thing could even happen, you can expect the same as with circumcision psychology: "Our problems began when we attempted to publish our findings", or in *this* case, much earlier because of what it taps into

Even jews in pilpul have enough self-awareness, they will get off it if called out succinctly enough. Midwits don't even know how to do this, so in fact they're far more insufferable in person.

These are literally the people who gave me the actual impression, "with [midwits], you lose!" You literally cannot win unless you were to physically shut them off.

[jiminiesfavouritecolourisblue]

Our little love part 2 - mafia/yandere au Drabble {angst + fluff}

As always please let me know what you think, I am actually going to go to bed now my brain is angry with me for not sleeping.

It seemed the cycle was never ending, you fucking up and pissing them off, them punishing you by drowning you in their love, only letting you come up to breathe so you could swim in your own guilt and submit to them.

You wince as the victim to your latest fuck up gets another blow to his chest. Taehyung and Hobi held onto his arms as Jungkook and Jimin kick and punch the poor individual. You know not to speak, it’ll only make things worse. Temperament was a fickle thing in their lives, trust was everything, and you still had to build yours up again.

“Y/n help please,” Kai whimpers as you stood with your arms crossed looking away.

“Don’t fucking say her name,” Jungkook growled before punching your ex colleague in the face. You’re frowning, the need to beg them to stop was fighting for exit on the top of your tongue, but you bite it down and pray Kai doesn’t say another word. You know if you do as he asks they’d kill him. Your punishment was to watch silently.

Yoongi strolls up behind you, hands in his pockets before he rests his head on your shoulder, watching the display in front of you both.

“Nothing to say little love?” He whispers as your friend groans out in pain.

Please don’t kill him, you want to say, but you just shake your head in defeat. You want to believe they’re better than this, but the evidence of the contrary was never hidden from you. They showed you every side of them whether proud of it or not with bold eyes daring you to stop loving them, pushing your boundaries and morals waiting for you to snap. But the breaking point never came, you loved them, you shouldn’t and you knew it, but you did. You were completely and utterly theirs, yet still they treated you like you hadn’t seen the worst of them. Like you would run away the second you realised they were monsters, not that they would let you run far, only far enough to let you take a single breath before making you drown in them once again.

Yoongi wraps his arms around your waist, keeping an eye on your reactions. The asshole deserved it, not that they cared either way, he tried to take you away from them, that was enough.

Kai was your old partner before you took a very early retirement, what you didn’t know was that he continued the case you were working on before you left; the case of the seven men you now loved and the reason you quit said job. He had called you to meet up for old times sake and you, very naively in Yoongi’s mind, decided it was harmless. But if it was harmless why didn’t you say anything to the boys? You thought Kai didn’t know the reason you handed in your resignation, but he had been keeping an eye on you all before he realised you were the key to their downfall. He knew you harboured some feeling for him in the past and thought you’d reciprocate when he tried to flirt his way into getting his hands on the evidence you collected, he didnt know you burned it all. You lied to him and said you lost it, same difference anyway. This prompted plan b from him.

“Y/n they’re criminals,” he had said to you. “You’re a cop at heart you can’t love them.”

You floundered at his words when you realised he knew, and yet he still asked you to betray them.

“Kai I think I need to go...”

It was a mistake, you knew it then, but he followed you out onto the street and you hoped tonight the men you loved weren’t keeping an eye on you. Maybe naive was an understatement.

“Are they coercing you Y/n! Do they have something on you or are they threatening you?” He calls after you. “Because the Y/n I know would never love killers, what have they done to you?”

It was when he reached his hand out to grab your arm that your boyfriends decided to show themselves from the shadows. Which lead to the situation now, Kai beat up and bruised beyond recognition, and you forced to watch. He falls unconscious and they let him drop to the floor, you hate this side of them, it was cruel and cold but you’d never leave. They turn to face you now, their anger still present despite the last hour of releasing it onto your old partner. They don’t miss the way you’re shaking, the shallow breaths as you try and keep your tears to yourself. As much as you hate their violence, you hate their disappointment in you more.

——————————————————————————

You’re sitting in Joonie’s lap for what you call the debriefing of your punishment, this happened way too often in your opinion. You look down but he wasn’t having it today, tilting your head to look at him by your chin.

“Why did you get punished today little love?” He starts the same way as usual.

“I went out without telling you guys where I was going or who with,” you say while fiddling with your fingers out of nervous habit.

“And?” Hobi sits across from you in a chair, legs straddling the back and an elbow rested on top with his fist holding up his face. Hobi was hardest to pacify, he was ruthless and unforgiving and while that didn’t extend to you, you still had a hard time with his stubborn anger.

“I met up with Kai, and I let him touch me,” you’ve done this too many times before to not know how it worked. Kai’s ‘touch’ obviously meant nothing to you but for them it was the worst crime anyone could commit against their little love.

You remember the time you nearly tripped in the park and a guy steadied you politely, but you still had to hold Jungkook back from throwing hands.

“Kookie would you rather I fell and hurt myself?” No he hadn’t wanted that so he grumbled in agreement still seething but you cooled it down. “Instead of hitting him maybe you should thank him,” it was a joke but it made the youngest scoff.

“Baby girl why can’t you just be good?” Namjoon’s sigh brings you back to the present. “Why do you always have to test us like this?”

You didn’t mean to, you want to say it but the words are stuck below the sob in your throat. You actually whimper as his tone, bottom lip wobbling pathetically. He hadn’t even told you off properly, but you already felt like a mess as he bathed you in his disappointment. That was the common consequence of your actions and you hated it, you couldn’t do anything right.

——————————————————————————

“Jin do you need help with the food?” You ask your eldest boyfriend politely, he was frowning and you thought it was because today’s meal was too much for him to handle alone, his tone of voice made you realise it was because of you.

“No, I’m alright,” he doesn’t look at you as he speaks and you’re left gaping at him like a fish. Jin loved it when you cooked with him, it was your bonding time without the others, although Yoongi would join you from time to time. The others also tried but Jin wouldn’t let them anywhere near the kitchen, they hogged you enough anyway.

You feel your soul deflate, still standing there as he ignored you.

“Are you mad at me too?”

The way you said it made his heart twinge with guilt, but the others were right you wouldn’t learn and your first betrayal was still fresh on their minds. He sighs and you turn away, refusing to crying in front of them for the tenth time that day. What was wrong with you? Ever since that day where they found out who you really were you felt like you werent enough anymore, you tried so hard to make up for it all but you kept messing up. You weren’t like this before, but after seeing the hurt you put them through you were constantly on edge and second guessing yourself. You wish you could go back and stop them from ever finding out.

Jin hears the sniffle as you walk away and he can’t go through with it.

“Wait little love,” he calls for you. “I forgot to cut the onions, would you mind?”

You shake your head, you didn’t mind, but you didn’t trust your voice to answer for you. Youre grateful to Jin for giving you this task, it hides the fact you’re crying, but you know he doesn’t miss it.

——————————————————————————

Jimin and Taehyung were giving you narrowed stern gazes through dinner, it put you off your food which resulted in getting told off by Jin just after he branched out to you in the kitchen.

You felt alone, like the seven men you loved were against you and there was no one to blame but yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you say quietly before getting up and removing yourself from the dinner table and dining room, ignoring all of their stares. You decide maybe an early night is best, you could start again fresh tomorrow. You don’t get too far up the stairs before a hand pulls you back, you turn to see Jimin with Tae a few steps behind him.

You’re so used to seeing them laugh and play around that it feels like you’re looking at different people. Even during missions or gun fights, the youngest three were always joking their way through the bloodshed, keeping scores of who got the most headshots and other grotesque games. You remember the time Jimin and Tae called you during he middle of a shoot out, arguing with you and each other over who you loved more out of the two while you begged them to not get shot or killed.

“Why did you go see him Y/n?” Jimin asked, he wore the demeanour he used for enemies and it takes you back to that night.

“I... h-he said he wanted to see me to catch up,” you explain but you know it’ll fall on deaf ears.

“And you thought that was a good idea, to see your old cop buddy?” His tone makes you feel stupid, you weren’t stupid.

“He was my friend Jimin,” you say in disbelief, you know in the end it was a mistake but at the time it didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world.

“You’re ours,” Taehyung moved forward, towering over you even though he’s a step below you. His face is close to your own, eyes burning into yours as he looks disgusted at the words that left your mouth as if they’re still attached to you. “How do you think we felt when you went to see another detective? Do you have any idea what was going through our heads?”

“Tae I love you,” you lean away from him, searching his face for a hint of softness and love in his gaze, but there was only fire. “You know I wouldn’t, you all know I wouldn’t, I left that life for you why would I turn back to it?”

He stalks away from you without a word, Jimin close behind, giving you a final cold glance before leaving you alone. You thought your love could make them better but if anything you made their darkness worse.

——————————————————————————

Jungkook needed to vent, the only way he knew how was physically. Obviously it wasn’t the cleverest thing he’s done, taking rounds with the punching bag only to open up the cuts on his hand from beating the bastard earlier. He mutters a few curse words under his breath, why did you make matters worse? Maybe they were being harsh on you before today, finding any excuse to punish you a little, test your boundaries and see if you would run, but today they honestly feared that was what happened. They thought you chose to leave them and go back to the life you had before them, but they’d never let you go, they couldn’t let you go. Despite everything you loved them and they worshipped the ground you walked on. You were everything for them now, there’s be no point to any of them without you. Why didn’t you understand that?

He throws another punch to the bag, spreading his blood across them, it hurt like hell, but the thought of you running back to your old partner still played on all of their minds. He wanted to cry, he wanted to find you and beg you to never leave them, they’d be nothing without you.

There’s a knock on the door and he finds you on the other side, waiting for permission to come in. You never waited for permission, it makes him frown, maybe they were too harsh on you today. He could see you shuffling your weight, insecurity screaming through your eyes, you feared his rejection more than his anger.

He notices the first aid kit in your hand, you must’ve heard him. He doesn’t let the fluttering in his chest reach his face as he sits on the bench, waiting for you to come to him.

His gaze is expectant, daring you to cross the threshold and face him, you were no coward, you didn’t fear them the way others did, why were you behaving so meekly now? You force yourself to move and sit beside him, setting the kit down and pushing your hair back behind your ears. He doesn’t move his gaze away from you, even with the sweat and hair hanging in front of his face.

You carefully take a his hand into yours, sucking air between your teeth at how injured it was.

“I’m sorry you hurt yourself because of me,” you say, eyes on his bloodied knuckle as you press the ointment against the open wounds. “Are you sure you want me to stay, I keep hurting you...”

You try to sound like you’re joking, that you’re okay and the hurt isn’t weighing you down with your doubts. He frowns, they really did take it too far. He sets down the cotton wool from your grasp, taking both of hands into his before kissing each finger delicately without letting you look away.

“You’re perfect little love,” Jungkook says, reassuring you with no question in his voice. “We’re the ones who don’t deserve you, we’re mean and cruel but we’re never letting you go.”

You remember how loving they were before that night, maybe while they accepted the truth at face value they could never really forgive you in their hearts. Maybe that’s why they were being like this, they didn’t love you the same way anymore.

“Do you love me?” You had to know, the doubt was eating you alive.

He looks at you as if you’re insane, maybe you are, you don’t know anymore.

“Little love, don’t you see how much we love you?” He asks sincerely. “We would do anything for that love even if it made you hate us, you belong with us, and no one is going to take you away.”

You could see the crazed look in his face grow as he spoke, you believed him, the honestly worn like a heart on a sleeve. But his answer bought a wave clarity to your hazed vision, you made them like this, you made them worse, you had to leave.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

Top five MSR moments

Memento Mori hallway scene, kiss included bc even though it's technically not canon.... it's still canon. the gentleness and mutual adoration and repressed grief and hope gets to me... the fact that he waits for her... the fact that she closes that last inch of distance and KISSES HIM BACK... the incredible amounts of tender love.... I'm insane over it actually. also even just in the regular cut, the way Mulder rubs the bsck of her head and she leans into it??? like??? for this once she lets herself be vulnerable and taken care of and she accepts that closeness because she's just... so tired, and so scared, and she visibly feels safer in Mulder's arms than anywhere else.

every single scene of them in pre-abduction arc season 2, but especially the in Little Green Men ("I wanted to know that you're okay," + the hair stroke both at the beginning AND when she finds him in South America) and The Host (meeting up at the bench like that... babies). they so obviously have a tremendous mutual crush and are like... honestly kind of obsessed with each other, in a super sweet and innocent way. they're best friends and they love each other so much and they're SO fond; they take so much joy in being around each other and even though they're separated by work, there's so much hope in them. that scene where Scully suggests he try to get a transfer to Quantico, just so they can work together or near each other? UNHINGED ADORABLE SHE LIKES HIM SO MUCH

"You have to lay it all on me," "I can't do that" in Redux II. Scully is literally dying and all she wants to do is save Mulder and his mind is screaming "I LOVE YOU" but he can't say it, won't say it, is too scared to say it but when she tells him to lay the blame on her, he laughs like he's about to cry and seems absolutely shocked by her love for him. and the way he kisses her hands and face is simply Too Much

every single time Mulder kneels or sits down so Scully is above him — i even wrote about it in several fics and made a web weave about it. I think especially in Ice, when she's so perturbed by the video at the beginning and he crouches down to be right beside her, and the scene in Pusher before he says "smile, Scully" (and she DOES for him and he smiles for her too because if they can do that, if they can still smile for each other, then maybe everything can still be okay) and gives her his gun and looks at her Like That... peak romance

Young At Heart and Grotesque — I'm counting both of these, even though one is in s1 and the other is in s3, because they both deal with Scully's loyalty and care for Mulder when he's dealing with people from his past and the internal issues those situations bring about. in Grotesque, I'm OBSESSED with the way Mulder snaps at her and then just leaves and even though she's frustrated, Scully turns around in the next heartbeat to go to bat for him with Patterson, because she will not stand to see Mulder used and she sees the toll it's taking on him.

honorable mentions must go to the FTF hallway scene (of COURSE... Scully consistently unable to handle the impact of verbal affirmation and love from Mulder GETS TO ME), the entirety of Fire (Scully trying to take care of Mulder even as Pheobe quietly unravels him...), and the flirting in Small Potatoes and Chinga (imagine if Scully teased right back at him when he was like "marry me" and was like "ok :)". Mulder would have a whole breakdown). also the end of End Game, but that's a whole other ramble shdjdnsksm

ask me my top 5 anything

[blossomingimagines]

Salvation

Lady Dimitrescu x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2,134

Summary:

Notes: I hope you enjoy this. (For @yukinechan021)

The ground beneath your feet was crumbling. Giving way due to your manic pace as you flew through the underbrush. Your hands barely have enough time to raise up to protect yourself. The small twinges of pain that appeared because of the brambles and low-hanging branches barely making an impact on you. You had only one goal in mind. Only one purpose as you took another sharp turn around a bend. 

Run.

You could still hear the screams from your village. Hear the distorted voices in the distance calling out for help. Hear the horrid sound being interjected with the ravenous howls of hungry beasts. 

The smell of blood and decay reaching you before the first animal ever did. Your father taking hold of you and shoving you towards the wood. His gaze desperate as he said his last words to you. “Go, Y/N. Run like you’ve never run before. They’re here now. Mother Miranda isn’t going to protect us any longer.”

You had hesitated. You didn't want to leave your father but he hadn’t let you. His gentle nudges becoming incessant shoves towards the foliage. “You need to run, iepuraș. Don’t look back no matter what you hear. Just keep running.”

With his words, you had done just as he told you. Trying to not let the screaming or the howls stop you. Trying to not let the fear shining in his eyes stop you. You didn’t want to think about what it meant for your father when the beasts finally did reach him. 

Skidding to a stop, your chest heaves as you take in your surroundings. You knew that you had to begin moving soon. It was only a matter of time before the beasts caught your scent. You had only a small window of opportunity before you’d be captured too. 

The sight of rustic stone work causes you to blanche. Fear shooting through your body as the knowledge of where you were came rushing to you. Castle Dimitrescu; the one place you had always been warned to never venture near. The tales of bloodshed and twisted horrors doing little to persuade you to try. Its foreboding presence is always looming over your village for as long as you’ve been alive. You never thought you would ever see it up close.

The intricate stonework winding up towards grand towers in the sky. Its color is a rich black in the setting light of day. You could tell that the castle was old, even barring the tales you had heard about it, from the weathered quality to its structure. Even though it was no doubt still taken care of. Standing the test of time despite everything. 

A chilling feeling works its way up your spine. Causing the hairs on the back of your neck to stand on end. Your body stiffening as a cold cackle reverberates through the air. A sharp breath catching in your throat at the faint shifting of metal against the ground. 

“Well, well, well.” The gruff voice purrs. “What do we have here? I don’t believe my dear sister let you out of your cage. So you must be a village girl.”

Flinching away from the strong grip suddenly on your face, your head is unceremoniously jerked towards the speaker. To a man with dark glasses and a cruel smirk on his face. Amusement clearly dancing through the expression. A twisted sense of glee lighting up his face even more when he saw your fear. “It’s a pity the doggies didn’t get to you too.” He pauses before a broad smile pulls his lips up. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with you. Oh, Mother Miranda is going to love you.”

Your brow furrows. “Mother Miranda?”

At your words a bark-like laugh falls from his lips. “Yes, child, Mother Miranda. I do hope she’ll let me have you. You’d make the most interesting tool in my games. I’m certain we’d have a blast. Well,” His head tilts to the side. “I know I would.”

Trying to jerk your head away from his hold, you couldn’t stop the pleas from leaving your mouth. “I don’t have anything worth giving you. No money to my name or family that would be willing to pay it. I have nothing of value that you’d want to take.”

“Oh that’s not true child. You shouldn’t sell yourself so short.” His hand loosens ever-so-slightly but it does little to abate your nerves. Especially as his other hand shifts his hammer. 

“I don’t have anything. Please.”

He grins. “While I do love to hear a beautiful maiden such as yourself beg, I must decline. As you do have something very special you can give me.”

You could feel tears welling up in your eyes. Fear began to run through your body as the man grew closer. “What?”

His face once again twists into a dark sense of amusement. “Your life.”

You didn’t see his other hand move. Didn’t hear or feel anything except for the sharp crack of pain against your skull. Your world is immediately consumed by darkness.

Only the sound of his maniacal laughter following you. 

-----

The rough stone scraping along your back is what roused you next. Your eyes blearily blinking open as you’re unceremoniously left against the hard ground. The basic stone ceiling being all that kept your attention for the moment. You could tell already, without even having to move too much, that you were restrained. The heavy presence of metal feeling like a sentence. 

To what? You weren’t sure. 

“Why did you bring her here, Heisenberg? She’s of no use to me.”

The female voice that spoke was familiar to you. You couldn’t quite grasp from where but you knew that you had heard it before. Lifting your head off the ground, you’re finally met with the sight of your captors. 

A sight that quickly causes a chill to run down your spine. 

Your original captor, Heisenberg, was lounged against a couch. A calm nonchalance surrounding him as a gleeful smile took over his features. His cruel intent still being as palpable even from the distance you were now at. 

A hunched over figure standing just behind him. A crown of bones situated atop its head as heavy breathing reached your ears. The grotesque form causes your stomach to churn at the very sight. You had to turn your head away from it. 

The other was in the form of a doll. Your body flinched away ever-so-slightly as it drew nearer. Its lifeless staring at you with something akin to interest before it scampers away. The clear barking order for it to do so coming from the woman who had spoken. 

A woman that was standing in the middle of them all. Her black dress and veil obscuring the majority of her features from you. Though you could still feel the tangible power that radiated off of her body. The command she clearly held over the people in the room. 

Mother Miranda-- through and through. No one but her held that type of power. The pull that she had on people. 

It was a spell that was only broken by the arrival of the fifth person. 

A heavy, yet graceful, gait announcing their presence before they even appeared. The faint clicking of heels against the stone floor telling you where they were. That they were growing closer and closer towards you by the second. Your body is already tensing at what monstrosity you would be subjected to at their arrival. 

Nothing would have ever prepared you for what you saw. 

A woman stops just within your field of vision. Glowing golden eyes taking in the room with a vague sense of interest. Painted red lips pulled into a small smirk as she finally settled her gaze on you. Raven black locks standing out against her pallid skin. Her clear beauty stands out even through the darkness. But that wasn’t what caused your breath to catch. 

It wasn’t the way an exotic tinge of danger exuded from her.

It wasn’t because of the way she gracefully moved through the room. Her white dress shifted against her form with every minute movement. 

It wasn’t even because of the way the dress looked on her body. 

No. It all had to do with her height. She stood taller than any person you had ever seen; man or woman. Her imposing height did little to detract from natural elegance that seemed to lace itself within her movements. In fact it only seemed to enhance it. 

Mother Miranda’s voice interrupted your thoughts. Your gaze being torn from her form towards Miranda’s. “You’re late, Alcina. I expect better from you.”

The woman, Alicna, offers an almost apologetic smile towards Mother Miranda. Her colossal from resting easily against the backrest of the couch. Her ankles crossing in the manner that only seemed to come from habit. 

“I apologize, Mother Miranda. I got caught up with affairs at the castle.” She dips her head towards the black-cloaked woman. “It won’t happen again.”

Miranda sneers. “Make sure it doesn’t.” Pausing for a brief moment, Mother Miranda seemed to observe the room. Clear contemplation taking up most of her concentration-- until her gaze once again landed on you. “Now it’s time to figure out what we’re going to do with our little friend.”

Almost immediately Alcina and Heisenberg speak up. 

“I found her. It should be I that gets to keep her.” No. Anything but that. 

“I would have the most use of her. She does look quite appetizing.” I don’t think I want to know what that means. 

At Alcina’s words, Heisenberg scoffs. “I’ll have the most use of her, dear sister. You’ll just hide her away in the private rooms of your castle. In the dark. Playing games with her that would end like it started; boringly.” He turns towards Mother Miranda. “Let me have her. I know exactly what I wish to do.”

“And you’ll just toy with her for only a few moments before she’s crushed by one of your contraptions. There’s no finesse to what you do, dear brother.” Her golden gaze flickers towards you for a moment. An almost contemplative look flashing across her beautiful features. “I’ll make sure I have something spectacular planned for her.”

Mother Miranda speaks before they can argue any further. And by the tone of slight agitation in her voice you can tell that this was a common occurrence. Your body shifted away from her ire even as you were restrained, almost painfully, from moving any further. 

“Enough. Alcina you will get the girl.” At Heisenberg’s whine, she snaps at him. “There will not be any more complaints regarding this issue. You’re dismissed.”

The next time you blinked she was gone. 

Your head is already plopping down against the ground. Despite the harsh greeting it got in response. You couldn't believe that this was your life now. You had just been sold to a woman, while undeniably attractive, that would sooner rip out your spine then let you walk free. 

At least it wasn’t Heisenberg. 

The thought only brings you a modicum of comfort. 

The sudden looming shadow around doing quick work to wipe out what was left. Your eyes trailing up well muscled legs, across a white-clad torso, an elegant neck, to finally reach her amused gaze. Even if her amusement was tinged with a darker entity that you truly didn’t want to think about. 

“Well, darling, it looks like you’re all mine,” she purrs as she leans towards you. Her hand coming up to brush against your cheek. Whether it be a way for her to maintain control or for her to know what you felt like; you hadn’t the slightest idea. “Aren’t you going to say anything to me? I did just save you from my brother.”

You still weren’t sure if that was a good thing or not. 

Raising your gaze to meet hers, you clench your jaw. Trying to prepare a biting retort to her clear teasing. Hoping that you’d be able to get even with her in some small way. If you were going to die you were going to die your way. 

However, the moment you opened your mouth, another two words appeared. “You’re beautiful.”

The moment that words slipped from your lips, you could feel your face heat up. Your body automatically tensing at the knowledge of you had just said to her. Fortunately she seemed to be just as floored as you. Shock clearly showing itself across her elegant features before an almost feral smile takes its place. Her arms wrapping around to hoist you in the air. 

But, before she did, she whispered one last thing towards you.

“I’m going to have so much fun with you, pet.”

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Mia Deserved Better: An Analysis of RE8's Themes/Symbolism

Foreword: I would like to thank @lepusrufus for posting about both Mia and Miranda, and at one point directly saying that Mia deserved better, which is a large part of what caused me to start examining her role in the canon story. Now, I will say that this post, like some of my previous explorations of Village (such as my attempt to determine Donna's age), will not be the best organized. My ADHD makes such things rather difficult for me. However, I have tried more than usual, and have broken up this "essay" into several distinct sections. Still, I am worried that my thoughts will not be as concise or coherent as they were inside my head.

Under read-more for length and spoilers for RE8: Village.

Introduction:

Village is, inarguably, about parenthood. Is it a horror game? Yes. Is it also science fiction? Also yes. But is it still, at its core, a story, and therefore contains imagery, symbolism, and themes? Yes. Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with Mia deserving better. My proposal is as follows: While Village is overall about parenthood, it is more about motherhood than fatherhood. Furthermore, Mia's background + actions from the previous game tie her story directly with Mother Miranda's, making their potential interactions massively important to the story... and could have served the theme beautifully. The missed potential in her involvement in the story is honestly a little bit absurd.

Now, let's examine each of the Four Lords + their sections, as the beginning of analyzing the game's theme.

Lady Dimitrescu + Castle:

Ah, perhaps the clearest (albeit unimportant) bits of theme within the whole game. We are immediately presented with another parent, with three daughters she loves very, very much. Initially they work as a team to capture Ethan, easily overpowering him. When they do split up, each still has dialogue regarding their family members. Each of the daughters expresses a desire to be like their mother/make their mother proud. Lady Dimitrescu herself gets very upset every time one of her daughters perishes, and delivers some important dialogue about this in her final confrontation with Ethan.

To paraphrase, Lady D says that Ethan has done something unforgiveable, caused damage that can never heal, and deserves to die before his daughter. That last part is interesting, in the sense that Lady D seems to believe that outlasting your own child is a fate so terrible that she would not wish it upon anyone, including the person who killed her daughters.

Throughout her dialogue and actions, Lady D serves as an important figure of a living mother. What do I mean by that? Well, the only other mothers we see in game are Mia and Miranda. The former doesn't show up until almost the end of the game (seeing as the "Mia" at the start is not actually the real Mia), while the latter does not have a living child, and her behavior has (presumably) changed quite a bit since that loss. As Ethan goes through Castle Dimitrescu, he watches (he causes) Lady D to go through what Miranda did all those decades ago. When we see her loss, when we experience her loss, it is something we connect with, even comparing it (as Lady D does) to Ethan's loss of Rose.

For the more visual side of symbolism, we can turn to Lady Dimitrescu herself. She is very tall, is visibly older than the majority of the Village cast, and has a fairly classic (old-school) motherly look. Everything about her reinforces her position as an example of a mother, especially when she's with her daughters and becomes such a strong figure of protection. Her height allows her to seem the caretaker for her children, even though they are scary/intimidating in their own right.

Donna Beneviento + Waterfall House:

Yes, the baby/fetus/monstrosity is part of this. No, it is not the only bit of thematic work in this section of the game.

To begin, you can find out that Donna is officially the adopted daughter of Mother Miranda. Her birth parents are dead, implied to be from especially tragic causes (more than is the norm when it comes to "orphan making"), and she has suffered greatly from it. We see that she has been seemingly neglected by Miranda, and is incredibly isolated. The tragedy of her loss, along with the consequences presented by it, are something to keep in mind further down the road, when we inevitably deal with Ethan's own death.

One of the consequences of the environment Donna was raised in is, arguably, her reliance on Angie. While interpretations of their exact relationship (aka how much control Donna actually has at any given point) vary, the two very clearly have something akin to a mother/daughter vibe. Alternatively an older sister/younger sister sort of thing. This shows in the way that Donna holds/carries Angie, as well as the contrast in their demeanors. Moreso, the fact that Donna gave a part of herself to create Angie is almost enough to make the symbolism nonnegotiable.

We also see that Donna has a strong understanding of family/family dynamics, through the way that she uses her powers to manipulate Ethan. She dissects his connections to Mia and Rose, taunts him with the lengths he's willing to go to save his child, then shows him a grotesque version of parenthood: The aforementioned fetus monster. Does the monster represent Ethan's fears, or Donna's?

What if the monster is how Donna sees herself, in some way, perhaps thinking that it's her fault her parents died? Bit of a stretch, but it's not a keystone of my theory, so I'm just throwing it out there. We could, however, go a step further and ask ourselves if Donna has noticed the way Miranda neglects her, and the fetus monster is how Donna thinks Miranda sees her. A baby, true, but grotesque, so terribly imperfect compared to her "real daughter" (Eva, obvs).

Regardless, the monster presents an ugly side of parenthood. It shows us the blood, the hunger (with the way it repeatedly attempts to swallow Ethan whole), the wailing. If Lady D shows us the love of parenthood, the bond, Donna in turn shows us the hate, the misery. Everything that one must endure to reap the rewards of family.

Lastly, we get one last bit of symbolism with Donna's death: We play a game with Angie. A childhood classic, hide and seek. Ethan chases her down repeatedly, stabbing away, seemingly only hurting the doll. But what happens when he kills Angie? It turns out that he killed Donna. You kill the child, you kill the parent. A reinforcement of the connection that comes with parenthood, along with another notch in Ethan's family-murdering belt (not saying that he's the "true antagonist" or anything, just keeping track for one of my later points).

Moreau + The Reservoir

Let's get the worst possibility out of the way: Moreau, weakest and sickest of the four lords, lives in a reservoir, where he is relatively safe. To defeat him, you have to drain the water, forcing him onto dry(ish) land. Paired with the main ideas of his section (which I will detail after this nightmare), one could theorize that he's meant to represent birth itself. Again, he's safe in his ("womb") water, and becomes vulnerable when he leaves (like a fragile newborn). Kinda gross, in my opinion, and also not a strong enough connection for me to care much about. It was merely an interesting (albeit horrifying) enough thought that I felt it warranted sharing.

Moving on to the big stuff with Moreau: He's a baby. Evidence: Whiny, has difficulty moving around, struggles to adapt to his growth, throws up a bunch, loves his mother very much, cries for his mother when he's in trouble, etc. Although Mother Miranda does not care for him, he clearly cares for her, and plays yet another role of an abandoned child (like Donna). Without Miranda there to protect him, he perishes terribly, crying out for someone who does not care to answer.

Hearing him cry out for Miranda, over and over, only for her to continue ignoring him is a key piece in the build-up to our confrontation between Ethan and Miranda. The game, in many ways, centers around the comparison between the two. In my humble opinion, Mia should have been involved in this comparison, as opposed to supplying the solution to the result of said comparison. Yes, I know that was a lot of words that don't mean much yet, but trust me, I'm getting there.

Heisenberg + The Factory

Ironically, of the four lords, Heisenberg is the most similar to Mother Miranda. In his massive factory, he is alone except for his numerous experiments, the results of decades of playing God. In comparison to Ethan + Mia, Heisenberg represents artificial parentage, or more accurately, the artificial creation of "life". While the others Lords also performed experiments, they used living subjects. Heisenberg instead chose to use corpses, which he then "brought back to life" with cybernetics + his powers, a somewhat futuristic version of Dr. Frankenstein.

Together, Miranda and him show a rotten side of parenthood (whereas Donna + Moreau showed us the uglier side of the children themselves). To put it simply, they are bad parents. They throw their "children"/experiments into the fray, uncaring, using them as pawns for their own greater gain. The most important part of this is that Heisenberg offers to "help" Ethan: By using Rose as a weapon. In his act of refusal, Ethan demonstrates one of several important distinctions between himself and Mother Miranda. Where she is willing to use her "children" (read: lives that she is responsible for) as tools, he is not.

Miscellaneous Symbolism/Imagery:

The old hag is one of my favorite parts of Village. She's seemingly nuts, has a crazy old lady laugh, wears bones that make soothing bone noises when she moves, and she draws lots of symbols in the dirt. If you look closely (I can provide screenshots if anyone desires, but it will take a bit of work to get them onto my computer), she's drawing one of the most iconic images in the titular village: The winged unborn. This symbol acts as the key you build up after every fight with a Lord, understandably called the Unborn Key (which turns into the Winged Unborn Key). Whether this counts as foreshadowing towards the hag's identity reveal is technically irrelevant, but I like to think it does.

In essence, you build up the key, this depiction of an infant, to progress in the game. The more wings it gains, the closer you are to your goal of rescuing your child.

The cadou itself is very clearly fetus-shaped. Furthermore, the only place within the human body that we know it ever gets implanted is in the "tummy" (thanks Moreau), aka roughly where someone's womb is/would be. Every infected person we see presumably had the Cadou implanted there (though I think it would be interesting if implanting it in different spots caused different mutations. of course, that is a discussion for another day). To become immortal, you have to "bear" a "child". Does it get more direct than that?

Mother Miranda gained her immortality in part for her grief at the loss of her child. She embodied the despair that Lady D spoke of, becoming an eternal source of anguish. Just as the loss of a child is a wound that lasts forever, so too would Miranda last forever (well, until Ethan comes along).

Mia is a loving mother, who puts up with the BSAA making her move across the world, deals with the complications of having a mold husband and mold baby, and has proved herself (see her section in RE7) to be an immense badass. Previously I had forgotten that, and even embarrassed myself in the comments of another person's post by implying she wasn't a tough, ass-kicking machine. Y'all remember feral Mia? People talk about "poor Ethan's arms", but sometimes we forget that Mia was one of the people who did a number on them. Furthermore, she's one of the only living people (from outside the village) to have any connections (pun intended) to Mother Miranda. They worked together, although possibly not directly, on Evelyn. If anyone in Village has a chance of really understanding Miranda's plight, or knowing the truth behind it, it would be Mia. Yet we don't see them interact a single time. Which leads me to the next section...

Conclusion On Theme + Missed Potential:

Okay, okay, so it's pretty obvious at this point that, as previously stated, the game's theme is parenthood. Every section has its symbolism, the story is very obviously about a man trying to rescue his daughter, etc, etc, but what's the point? Is there a lesson, or a more focused interpretation of the central theme? Let's take one last step back, and focus on something I've mentioned a few times now: The comparison between Ethan and Mother Miranda.

Recurring dialogue from Ethan, Alcina, and Mother Miranda all point towards the developers acknowledging that the characters are similar, but there's nowhere near as much conversation about it as I would like. Several times we have the antagonists ask Ethan how he's so willing to kill someone else's child, or prevent them from (essentially) doing what he's doing (aka saving his daughter). While Ethan responds with a mix of "well you started it" and "aghhh fuck-a-you, bitch", there's a much more solid, unspoken difference: Mother Miranda sends her underlings to kill, so that she may revive her daughter. Ethan kills (read: does the work himself) to get his daughter. The difference is much bigger, and more important, at the end of the game, when we realize just how far it goes. Ethan dies to save his daughter. Time and time again Mother Miranda has killed others for her work, but in the end she is stopped when someone willingly dies to stop her.

Where does Mia come in? Mia, the badass mother, the one who once worked alongside Mother Miranda, should have been the nail in the coffin. She is the one who survives, who lives on to raise Rose, she is the silent solution to Ethan's sacrifice. Miranda, you fool, what could you have accomplished if you had held onto your makeshift family? Through Mia (and Chris, to a lesser degree), his "loss" becomes a victory. There's a certain poetic justice that comes with Rose's full family being instrumental in saving her, when Miranda so readily spurned her own family.

Mia could have had an actual conversation with Miranda, their history giving the latter a reason to actually listen. I'm not saying that Miranda would have changed her mind/plans, but the conversation would have been a well-needed contrast to Ethan's "arggg what the fuck is happening, I only have two reactions to things. agg fuck you". Additionally, I feel that Mia (who was captured and had to endure who-knows-what) deserves the opportunity to be the one who points out Miranda's mistakes, who delivers the final "fuck you" to her. More than that, she's the one at the end who can say that hey, maybe she can understand some of what Miranda did. Was there anything her and Ethan wouldn't have done to save Rose? As much as Ethan is a foil to Miranda, Mia could (and should) have played a similar role.

When so much of the story and symbolism revolves around Miranda's experience as a mother, it only would have been fair to shine a light on her equivalent. Her better.

There's more I wanted to say/feel like I didn't properly get across, and I might add more to this at some point, but it's 5:40 AM right now, and I'm starting to feel like my brain is slowing down, so... Feel free to reblog/comment and add your own thoughts!

[aimasup]

Maybe i'm late but, did anyone, like actually have left remus in a small place (for his claustrophobia) for like 4 hours or something just because he did something bad? If yes did anyone just stayed here and heard him suffer? Or actually tried to help him out in secret? Sorry if it is long ^^'

Deceit’s smarmy snake grin never left his confident face. Oh god, Remus was giving him the look. No one ever liked being given the look, something that no Side should ever be subject to, carrying the promise of your emotional vulnerability, a sackful of seeing through your bullshit and a dash of demented purity rivaled only by Patton. And Vir

Deceit cleared his throat, loudly and with purpose. “Well? Go on, Remus.”

Remus rolled his eyes, a childish staple of his that always looked comical. “Oh come on, Nope Rope, you and I both know you spout more shit than a bull with diarrhea after one of your nightmares. So you might as well follow it up with some tea.”

So much wrong had just come out of Remus’ mouth. The man smelled like tonsil stones on a good day yet he still managed to surprise the Sides with horrifying bouts of intellect every now and then. The slimy little bugger.

"Clearly you've remembered what I told you about calling me names."

Remus leaned happily. "Nakey Snakey."

"Remus..."

"Boop Noodle!"

"Remus."

"Dangle Fangle!"

"Remus! Shut up!"

Remus feigned offense. "I'm trying out ones that start with a D!"

"That's not my point! Now distract me with musical ditties as you were instructed, you foul wretch!"

"Slithervester Stallone-!" Remus had time to squeal before Deceit squashed his face with a pillow and snatched the remote. The game was on as if by instinct and Remus tackled him from under the pillow, shrieking muffled. Deceit whacked him on the head, hard, with the remote. Remus was distracted momentarily, so Deceit took the chance and shoved him off of him with more force than necessary, insulting him all the while.

"-you nitwit, you just can't listen, can you, you moron, you bitch, you're so thick-headed, do that again and I swear-"

"You'll what, you'll lock me in the closet?"

All of a sudden, it was like an invisible giant had drowned the room in heavy syrup. The tightness from before returned and Deceit, still breathing hard, glared at Remus with gritted teeth and panicked eyes. The Side was below him, pillow on his chest, grin gone and singlet askew.

That one sentence, although it needed no context to tell who had been on the receiving end of it, brought more distress to the deceitful side than it did to the other, strangely enough. They kept their eyes trained on each other. Neither would admit that they felt like they were breathing molasses and it wasn't sweet. The television had long ago blacked out, a deafening silence following its rather meek departure.

Remus' eyes didn't stop glowing. Deceit's didn't either. None were good signs, but Remus still said, in the rare soft tone his voice could manage at times, "That's the problem, isn't it?"

Deceit swallowed. He turned away and stared at the floor, eyes narrowed to slits. He had put down the remote with controlled harshness on the sofa. He exhaled through his nose and never made eye contact with Remus.

Everyone had their little tics. Remus hated being called scary. Roman was a compulsive perfectionist. Patton had a repression habit. And Thomas didn't want to be a bad person.

Neither did Deceit.

"You know I'm over that, right?"

"... obviously."

That could mean anything, and that wasn't even getting to which part of the question he was answering. Remus bit his tongue. His canines dug into the muscle, and he pulled them out again, breathing in the scent of his own blood. Feeling a bit better, he turned away from Deceit and stared at the black screen of the TV.

"No, really you don't have to worry about it. You worrying about it pisses me off."

Still no response.

"Deceit?" Remus couldn't help but feel a bit concerned at this exchange.

------------------

"Who--who are you?" Fun blurbled at the figure on all fours before him. Fresh tear stains still stained his cheeks, an ear-to-ear smile etched below his eyes.

Something was off. Heart had run away with someone who looked like him, and had left him alone. He'd never do that. He'd always stuck with him through anything, no matter what he said or did. But the look Heart had given him... it was as if he didn't know what to make of him all of a sudden. Less than that, even.

The figure, still cautious and poised to pounce, didn't answer. Its impossibly wide reptilian eyes glowed bright in the dark, illuminating nothing on its entirely pitch black body, and Fun could make out nothing but a few familiar features.

"Are you a--a Side too?"It flinched and hissed at him. Fun found that he didn't duck away from the grotesque mouth that opened too wide. Or more like, there wasn't anything in his head that told him it was gross. He found it cute because it was gross, in fact.

When the brown-rimmed mouth closed, it was as if it was never there. It glared at him through narrowed eyes and spat at his feet.

"Oh."

With all the pure spite radiating off of the thing, it still approached, walking perfectly on its hands and legs. It didn't look clumsy moving like that, and Fun suspected it had always been that way.

"Wh--what are you doing?"Fun tried not to find this tiny demonic thing adorable. Didn't help matters when it planted its face on his sticky, black knee (... huh.) and walked off.

Before Fun could process what just happened, it turned around with the calmest expression and stared. And waited. It wanted him to follow.

As adorable as the thing was, Fun still had his doubts. He didn't want to leave. This was where his friends were. Curious little Learning, sweet as sugar Heart, cowardly yet caring Careful. But he had a feeling they didn't want to see him again.

It broke his heart.

So with a greasy squelch, Fun struggled to his feet and went with the creature.

------------------

"Deceit, you need to stop holding yourself over that. We can't be like the Others."

The further lack of response frustrated Remus. He probably should be trying to comfort Deceit, but that wasn't his type. Tough lo--learning would have to do, it was how it always went. They couldn't afford to be wishy-washy with stuff like feelings.

"Deceit, if you don't stop feeling bad about it I'm gonna smack the shit out of you. With my bare hands. And this morning star."

"Aren't you trying too hard not to be Roman?"

Remus slammed his weapon into the pillow. "Well I think you're trying too hard to be Patton!"

"Wouldn't you think Virgil would have wanted that?" Deceit was weary. Remus breathed in sharply through his teeth and stuttered.

"What?"

"It's clear we weren't the best to him. It's not his fault he left. It was for the best. He needs better than us. He deserves better than us."

"What the fuck!" Remus threw up his hands. "What the fuck, Deceit! What happened to being your own person? What happened to not giving a shit about living up to anyone's standards?! You don't know what you're talking about, because you're tired, and you're just a hypocrite who was never able to see past your own horseshit!"

"I know."

Remus wanted to rip his hair out. Deceit's or his own, he didn't really care. "Jesus Christ! Ugh!"

He flumped into a pillow and screamed into it.

Deceit watched him.

------------------

"You know, it's kinda weird how you don't wanna be called a Side, you know? Like, you look like Heart, and we all know that Heart looks the most like Thomas. So you gotta be pretty important. If you look the most like Thomas. Next to Heart. You know what I'm saying?"

It was still silent. The quiet walk down the tattered corridor had been awkward, and now that they were up the stairs and in some padded room that was probably the creature's, Fun tried to fill the silence as the creature studied him. It prowled around Fun as he sat cross legged on the floor, leaking tar all over the place.

"And, well, Learning is super important too. And Careful. We're all super important." It brushed by his shoulder and stared at his back with interest for a good two seconds before sitting back on its haunches.

"But Learning only looks the second most like Thomas. Careful just likes his hair to be all dangly. Though he clips it back sometimes to fit in? I think? I dunno."

"Anyways, I just thought that maybe once we're done here, with." Fun looked at the creature. "Whatever this is. I could bring you back with me to the others! I just got rid of the bad stuff in me, and once I get all cleaned up, and you too, we'll be all okay again!"

The creature stopped prodding at his back and he could feel it staring into nothing. Fun couldn't help but note the lack of breath on his neck. Either it gave up trying to appear human a long time ago or it was just that short. He giggled at the thought.

But that faded away when he started feeling slight concern. It was too silent. He hated silence. Fun turned to look over his shoulder, then shuffled his body around to peer at the creature, who was now deep in thought.

"Hey bud? What's wrong with ya? Cat got your tongue?" He chuckled. "I've heard that from Learning and Heart a lot. You're gonna love em. They'll help you lighten up! Trust me, we've been through lots together, they'll like you too!"

It lifted its head up and fixated him with the saddest stare anyone could give a Side. Fun felt his excitement at meeting a new friend weather away when he felt that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

A thin line of brown appeared, and widened. It's eyes darted here and there with consideration. It was choosing its words. Fun titled his head as it strained to force out words.

"Not."

"Uh. Huh? You can talk!"

"Fun."

"Wait, what are you saying?"

It bounced in place with clear frustration. After clutching its head and shaking it, it tried again.

"You. Not." It tried once more. "You. Not! You! Not! Fun!"

Fun withered under its glare, a little hurt. "I'm not fun to be with? I'm sorry, uh-"

"No!"

Fun's heart ached for the thing, confused and intrigued. All of them learned how to speak along with Thomas. How was it that this Side didn't?

"Gone."

"..."

"Fun. Gone."

"I really don't understand."

"Fun." It drew a capital F in the air. He nodded, a little less lost. It nodded too.

"Fun. Split. Gone. You. Green. Half. Heart. You. Red. Half. You." It was closer now. It stuck a finger onto Fun's chest, sorrowful expression looking like it was supposed to be welling up with tears. Its jaw trembled. "Half. Bad. Half."

"Not. Their. Fun."

Fun wasn't so sure about anything anymore. He understood it perfectly, he just really didn't want to. "You can't be serious."

It was. It looked as if it has never been more certain of anything in its life. It lowered its head.

Panic gripped him like no other and his mind began racing. He gestured wildly.

"Then--then who's that other half?! They can't go on without Fun! Thomas can't go on without Fun!" The partial emptiness that he'd been trying to ignore a long time ago had grown more apparent as he ranted. "I can't let that happen! What will they do?"

Half. Bad. Half.

It struck. 'Fun' felt his chest drop to his stomach. "They. I'm the bad half."

The creature was still as a statue."They--they think--they think the red me is--is Fun, they, Learning, Careful, H-Heart--they don't know me."

The black and green outfitted grease blob blubbered on. "It's--it's not fair! I know them! I drew pictures with Thomas, I came up with our names, I--I'm--I know what Fun knows!"

He desperately turned to the creature in front of him. "They can't do this! I-if the other me is Fun, then I'm Fun too! I'm still Fun! I still know them! I still love them! At the very least, I'm still one of Thomas' Sides!" The creature silently stared as he kept talking, as his words blurred together with cries of anguish, as he put his forehead to the floor, bunching his sash in his hands. All tears had run out earlier, and there were only bawls of despair that dissolved into whimpers.

The humanoid grease blob didn't know what to call himself anymore. But it still wasn't fair at all. The truth was that. They thought that their Fun had returned from the battle, sword held high and rid of the beast. To them, Fun was better than ever.

But what was he?

------------------

"When you explained in your dumb loophole way that my stupid ass brother wasn't me, it was the first time you had advice you didn't follow, did you?"

"Remus, you can't pretend you don't feel the same."

"Fuck off!" Remus groaned. "I'm not pretending for anything, Dee, I've said it multiple times, I have nothing I want to hide! But you can't be serious about wanting to be like Patton!"

Deceit pondered his answer. "I may or may not have considered it."

Remus let go of Deceit's shirt slowly. He still fixated him with fierce angry eyes as his fingers loosened, setting the smaller Side down a little. So he didn't actually think it. Just a passing thought. Okay then.

Deceit straightened his collar and smoothed out the wrinkles in his outfit. And he was back to looking sullenly at the a spot on the carpet.

Remus swallowed. God, this was harder than it needed to be. He wondered if this was how Deceit felt when he was younger, rawer in his state, unable to speak in anything but opposites. He didn't have to teach Deceit how to not speak in opposites, because the more they raised each other, the more Deceit's black scales had resided and his speech freedom loosened up.

They always talked it out, they always had to stick close. So why was it so hard now?

------------------

The squeal of unbridled joy when it was introduced to noir films, the long bath chases, the practice with his creations and tentacles, the nights spent splayed out messily on the same bed after a nightmare. It was simple. So simple.

------------------

Deceit could feel the stare from Remus leaving him. God, if that moron tried to comfort him now he was going to explode. His eye would leak tears like a broken faucet and he would be a pathetic blubbering mess, and Remus would have blackmail until the day Thomas finally died.

He swore he could feel the long exhale and mutterings as Remus thought on what to say. He really didn't care, in the end. Deceit wanted nothing more than to do his job and think nothing of anything ever again. He didnt--

"Virgil's gone, and there's nothing we can or could do about it. Because of how we are. It's jackshit to say we can change our nature. Nothing. Nada. Zero." Firm hands with black acrylics gripped his shoulder and turned his tired eyes onto Remus' own.

"Feeling sorry for yourself won't change anything. Things happen, jackoff."

Deceit's breath hitched, but he didn't quite feel like crying, oddly enough. Strange that through gritted teeth and eyes that could gleam death to anyone who doesn't know Remus well, he felt more clarification than all his thoughts combined. His mind had chanted a mantra of things his whole life, and what Remus said was only one of them. Deceit had been hoping to finally hear them from an outside source. But somehow, someway, Remus had found a way to make this line of reasoning sound less harsh.

Unpredictable as always.

"Remus. I.."

He placed his hands gently on Remus' wrists, patted twice. Remus let go and studied him, an air of sternness and also nervousness apparent in his face. They simmered in the unsaid apology, sitting on the couch in their lonely, mangy living room, like it was a vague yet satisfactory ending to a movie. That was how all their arguments would usually end, but it was rarely in any way fulfilling.

Deceit thought on it. Swallowing the hard lump in his throat, he choked out a laugh. "God, we're such a mess."

Glad the tension was broken, Remus smiled, ugly shark teeth in full view. "Yeah we are. We're the Mindscape's dumpster fires."

They were delirious with more emotion than they experienced on a daily basis, and they both chortle along to Remus' weak joke. Jesus, if you could lose fat due to mental work as well as physical, Thomas would be underweight by now.

Remus shook his head. "Honestly, you can't think too much about it. Just think of all the times we battered each other in this place, and you'll feel better about the closet thing."

Deceit snorted. "How is it that I'm more affected by it than you? Like all the times you ripped out my hair."

"Or all the times you silenced us whenever you felt like it."

"Or all those times you slammed me in to a hard surface."

"Remember that one time you left me in the closet for a week?"

"I still remember how I silenced Virgil for a month."

Remus snapped his fingers. "Yeah, Virgil, I remember how many times he gave us hallucinations. Sometimes he'd give us panic attacks for the hell of it!" He laughed.

"He was always quite the hothead."

"That's not even counting his stabs. Not just with a knife."

"Knowing you, that could mean anything."

Remus swooshed his hands in a rainbow-shaped gesture gleefully."Oooooh, whatever you want it to mean!" The joke was lacking and childish, but Remus' delivery was so goofy.

Deceit chuckled, back of his hand pressed daintily to his mouth as always. Remus giggled in short bursts of high-pitched derangement along with him.

Then it dissolved into awkward silence as they pondered their situation, up at ass o' clock in the morning, sprawled over the couch in undignified manners, dim light flickering because they were too depressed to fix it, talking about unreasonable hostile behavior so casually like they were fond memories of family vacations.

"... let's go make breakfast."

"Okay, Caution Ramen."

"I'm sorry?"

"Hazard Spaghetti. Murder Spagurder."

"...what."

"Judgemental Shoelace."

"Oh, shut the fuck up."

------------------

"No! Get away!" The sobbing figure cowered away from the green and yellow-tinted Sides, if you could call them that.

Bad Thoughts put his hands out. "Woah, woah, hey, we won't hurt you! Much."

Deceit slapped Bad Thoughts as the Side, who was slowly fading into a full black and purple from the legs up, put his hands in his hair and screamed louder. "Shut up! Go away! I'm sorry! Please! I hate you! Go away!"

"Well that's a lot of mixed signals." Bad Thoughts muttered. Careful looked a lot different from what he had remembered. He was seeming more tired and grievous. A faint spark of recognition flashed across Careful's eyes when he peeked up at him, but ducked away when Bad Thoughts stretched the arm with his morning star.

Without a word, Deceit knelt down and wrapped his arms around Careful. He flinched, but he stopped sobbing at least. He was still breathing hard when BT decided to join in, planting himself as softly as he knew how to on Caution.

"You're okay," Deceit murmured. "You're alright. You won't hurt anyone. You won't do that."

Caution hiccupped, staring at the ceiling, eyes brimming with angry tears. He hissed though gritted teeth."How--how do you know? You don't understand, I cause so many problems--"

"Yeah, we do. We know that. But that's you." Remus said. "Who cares if you do? Causing problems is what we do around here. You can't blame yourself for doing what you do best."

Caution was still dubious. He was sniffling. Slowly, he put his arms on Deceit's back. "I don't want to make more trouble."

Deceit lowered his head onto his shoulder. "Just come with us. We cause trouble, but whether you want to do that is up to you."

The black was receding, but the purple still lingered a little. All four of Caution's eyes blinked.

Remus pulled away, leaving only his hand on Careful's shoulder. His old friend, who didn't know who he was, who was meeting him for the first time. "Besides, I don't think you meant to cause that breakdown."

Caution finally turned and looked, actually looked at him for the first time since they were children. "You don't?"

"Nope!"

The purple color was down to his knees again. The black was gone.

"But," Caution started, both Sides pulling back to give him space. "But, it was so unnecessary, and--and the whole damn class was watching, and the other sides were freaked out-"

"Yeah, so? It was cool! Don't you think it's some way of letting everyone know that Thomas was upset? Things were getting hairy and you pulled it off perfectly." Remus gave an exaggerated chef's kiss in the air.

"That power is something only you hold, storm cloud." Deceit said. "Like Remus said, it's who you are. It was quite the display."

Caution eyed them suspiciously. "Yeah, well, you guys would think so."

"Don't you see? If you come with us, you can learn to control that! You can choose your own rules, you can choose when you want to have influence over Thomas!" Deceit lowered his voice. "You can protect Thomas by forcing the others to hear how much you try."

Caution didn't make eye contact, finding it difficult when two people stared at once. But he was thinking about it, clearly. The others had been trying to ignore him lately, and no one had to be a genius to figure that out. The rise and fall of his chest grew a little quicker as he realized how unfair it was that he was just trying to be a Side, and Thomas didn't care. The spite and betrayal was evident in his eyes, the same that had plagued Bad Thoughts and Deceit so many times in their childhood.

It was decided.

He looked up with grim determination. "C-call me Fear."

Previous parts here and here

Claustrophobic Remus post here