#also unrelated but what do we think about WORK

[monsters-demons-and-ai-oh-my]

TW: Talk about mental health and sui ideation and sui attempt

I feel the need to talk more about Jayce's "attempt" again because of what I learned from his journal in the "Council Archives"

There's a fair argument to be made that Jayce was already in a very bad headspace even BEFORE the explosion in his apartment.

If you read Jayce's journals it feels like Jayce was ALREADY spiraling before he got kicked out of the academy. For a few reasons.

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1.Jayce was very isolated to begin with.

He was working on experiments he knew were illegal and was so paranoid about being found out he started coming up with insults to call another student who almost caught him throwing away a failed experiment.

He also seemed to only be able to cheer himself up by talking shit about other people's work and how everyone else just couldn't measure up to how important his work was and would be. And when he finally meets Viktor he talks about never really thinking he'd take to working with another scientist.

(Honestly, pre-act 1 Jayce comes off a little more like his LOL counterpart which make me believe Arcane Jayce meeting and working with Viktor as early as he did is what helped make him the version of himself he is in Arcane?)

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2. Jayce was not really sleeping and his schoolwork and grades were going downhill.

He talks in his journal about the fact that he's not getting to sleep until sunrise a lot of nights because he was trying and failing to make the crystals work.

And as a direct consequence of not sleeping he talks about Heimerdinger (the DEAN) having to come talk to him because his grades are slipping.

Jayce literally decides to make a graph correlating his lack of sleep to his poor academic performance.

(Later he expresses concern that he might get expelled from the academy because his work is slipping that badly).

And remember all the while when he is so sleep-deprived he can't focus on coursework he is FULLY CONVINCED he can figure out Hextech. You know a whole new field of study. It doesn't work, shockingly.

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3. Ximena was already worried about Jayce wellbeing and trying to get him to go outside and be around others.

He eats some snacks insults some people's work to himself and then goes back to doing what he was doing.

Not a lot to talk about with this one except it's no wonder she tried to get him to back off magic if she could already tell he wasn't okay especially when we consider the state he was in at that point.

You also see that both his mother and Heimerdinger were expressing valid concern for him only for him to brush it off.

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4. Near the end of the journal entries before we get to the ACT 1 content he says some concerning things considering his later attempt on his life.

First he starts to doubt what he's getting anywhere he remembers something Heimdinger once said about most inventors failing a 1000 times before succeeding and he makes a self-deprecating joke about "I suppose I must be closing in...".

Then he straight up says he can't see a path forward.

And when makes a pros and cons list of his experiments where he talks about how the work with the crystals is very dangerous and if he pushes to much it could kill him but also how he's in danger of getting expelled if he can't sort out his schoolwork.

and then he writes.

"Which is worse? Killed or expelled?"

Which is certainly a Harry Potter reference but also given his eventual attempt is very telling.

And it's closely followed by him saying his mom was worried about him, which... seems valid.

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Also on a side note unrelated to the journal entries.

Jayce's attempt was not a choice made suddenly in a rush of emotion like Viktor's, he planned it.

Jayce not only left what was implied to be a suicide note he took the methodical time to literally WAX SEAL the note with his official house mark. And it took Viktor a long long while of talking to him to get him to back away from the ledge. He was fully committed to committing.

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Final thoughts: I think Jayce was in a place in his mind backed into a corner.

He wasn't able to reach out for help or even trust anyone because of the nature of his work. He wasn't listening to people that were concerned about him. And the way in which Jayce was doing his work was damaging to himself and his life in general. He was spiraling.

He needed someone else there to share the weight of what he was trying to do, to be able to reach out to outside of his own head which was the person Viktor became to him.

Part of me even wonders if Jayce was already in a place where he might have ended up on that ledge without the explosion if he didn't change his ways or have a sudden breakthrough.

[williamvapespeare]

going to u for advice/hear others thoughts, not to attack u, but how do u reconcile knowing the actions of neil gaiman with interacting with dead boy detectives stuff? i know he didn't make all the comics but he made the original/other comics are based on his works and he was an executive producer for the netflix show. i'm feeling conflicted and i haven't seen a lot of dbda fans talking about it

hey! this is something i've been thinking about a lot too and my answer is solely based in my own experience; i can't speak for all dbda fans. i wouldn't say that i was a huge neil gaiman fan before this, even though i did like his work - you can see i wrote one good omens fic back in the day and i do remember loving "ocean at the end of the lane" when i read it. i was really sad that i couldn't see the play when it was in london. i definitely liked what he did, but i hadn't read all his books or anything like that so i can't imagine the hurt other people are going through who DID feel that way.

i see dbda as distanced from him in part because i haven't read or seen Sandman, which is maybe a problem because it allows me to block out his association with something i love. i've engaged with it mostly by reading dbda fanfic that uses sandman characters, etc (also HUGELY unrelated not, but once i got a comment on a fic gushing about how i'd used sandman lore in a throwaway line about charles not dreaming and i just said like "oh thank you!" or something but it was completely accidental al;sjkf). from what i know: neil gaiman didn't write the comics and wasn't involved in the show beyond executive producing. i want to support people making fun queer horror art because that's the kind of art i love and i personally like to make. the way people engage with this is going to be individual, especially for anyone who needs to grieve or deal with feelings of betrayal and trauma.

personally, the things i will do going forward are: try not to give support to media that will benefit gaiman, and DO give vocal and monetary support to the creatives of dbda when i can (ie i supported the Appearances fundraiser because i want to see these creators make more excellent weird queer art and i knew that money would go to them), give praise and credit for the show to the people who were actively involved in making it - Steve Yockey, the writers, the cast, the writers/artists of the comics - these people we KNOW were the ones who had hands in crafting the story we love and none of them are neil gaiman.

you are 100% right to call attention to the fact that gaiman is inherently connected to this world and story that i/we love and that IS something i need to learn to acknowledge in my existence in fandom and as someone inspired by it. i don't have a concrete answer for how i'm going to do that morally, other than make sure i'm aware of it and try to make decisions that support the creatives who make artistic and moral choices that i DO believe in.

hopefully this answer was somewhat coherent and answered your question alright? again, this is probably a really individual thing for all fans of the show so i'm sure everyone will have their own insights

[madridfangirl]

Intimacy quiz

(Blurb of the one-shot)

Ananya clicked on the link and started going through the questions, very aware of his firm gaze on her and his warm, large palm stroking her bare waist. 

‘First question. How often do you have sex?’

‘Does it mean number of days or should we include number of times also on those days? Or the number of orgasms every time or what?’

Ananya rolled her eyes.

‘It’s not meant to be so technical. Just the number of days is fine.’

He smiled.

‘A few times per week, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

Jude took her to bed pretty much every time their schedules allowed them to be together, unless there were some extenuating circumstances. And like he had insinuated, it was never just one time in those sessions, unless one of them was tired from work.

It had been almost 6 months of their relationship but the passion had only increased. 

‘Next question. Do you daydream about your partner?’

‘You go first.’

She played with the strands of her hair absentmindedly, something he always found cute. 

‘I mean, yeah.’

‘Tell me an instance.’

‘Like, when I am watching your match. Or some….training pics.’

‘But you can see me then. Do you think of me in a completely unrelated manner, out of nowhere?’

The hair playing became more vigorous, making him smile.

[kalisseo]

i know this is so late!! I barely check my strawpage 💔💔 but anyway yes ofc!!

I know this asks for s3 but I'm gonna mention s2 bc I think it's important

also big big warning im a tophabe shipper and an over analyzer blah blah what clone high did y'all watch blah blah im delusional. also sometimes I forget words or phrase stuff weirdly, so I hope that my gibberish makes sense to you!

anyway, now to the interesting stuff!!

how topher feels about people and friendships

a bit unrelated but not really, I think most people loved clone alone, and how all the boys interacted, and me too! it was funny, and a lot of people wanted topher to be a part of the boys group, and obviously me too, but, even though I loved the idea there was something that didn't convince me about it...and i couldn't figure out why until s3 aired

topher's friendship with the bleacher creatures works because they're all outcast

and that's a bit of the reason why topher and abe's friendship worked (in a way)

Topher feels understood by the bcreatures, something he wouldn't have with many people

Topher's feelings towards people, as a whole, are a bit different to his different towards friendship, so first let's take a look at

how he feels about people in a more general view

(this is mainly s2 bc I don't think one can talk about s3 without it, u can just skip it to the next section tho)

Topher has a clear resentment towards the popular or "normal" clones, he tried to cater to people's sympathy using his woke persona, but his peers probably never liked him because of his shitty behavior (personally, I see Topher as more socially awkward that intentionally rude in s2, this doesn't mean that I'm trying to justify him, but in s3 is when he actively tries to ruin the rest of the clones day, when in s2 he's just intentionally "evil" a few times) and topher never understood that was the reason, creating this hate or resentment towards them.

in s2 he's pushed to the side on some occasions, for example in s2e5 when harriet rejects him twice in her musical because well she doesn't like him. another example could be the death maze where jfk destroys his phone and spends more time with abe (something that he caused to himselfff but yeah), then in s3 we have the dialogues 'until she kicked you to the curb' by jackee and 'the same curb we've all been kicked in' by topher, he clearly felt ignored by his classmates, and personally I think he's referring to abe forgetting him and talking to jfk and confucius.

also his roll call song 'nobody likes me, I do not know why',repeating it, but I think it's important to keep it in mind, to Topher, the rest of the clones don't have a reason to hate him but they do, who wouldn't hate their classmates when they seem to hate you too without a reason?

(my personal view is that he blames it on being a clone of columbus, that's why the name change and the woke persona)

so, in a general view, topher first starts to cater to his classmates so they would like him, more than friendships he wants fans, to say in a way, he wants people to like him. he doesn't really seem to care about friends, which could kinda count as canon, s2e2 he only talks to abe because he's basically forced to. all his attempts fail horribly, and even though he made a friend, abe left him too, so he decides to hate everyone and embrace his horrible side, and to me, because of Abe he had mixed feelings.

at first, he probably thinks that friendships aren't really important anyway, and that Abe is just another popular kid who pushed him to the side. I like to think that even so, abe made him realize that maybe he shouldn't be that selfish.

topher and friendships in s3

buttt the way he thinks about friendship in s3 is clearly different to the way he did in s2!

like i said before, in s2 he doesn't seem to care much about it, but in s3 his friends seem to be everything to him!

and to me it's because of what i said earlier, topher feels understood by the bleacher creatures

all of them were losers, outcasts and 'kicked to the curb', they all know what it's like to be slone

maybe topher doesn't really have what he 'always wanted', but he gets a group of friends that for once aren't weirded out by him, he cares about them

one of the reasons why I think his friendship with abe changed his view about how he needs to interact with other people, it's because yeah, topher keeps being bossy with the bcreatures, but he listens to them and pays attention to what they want, something he didn't really do with abe

improvement, if you will, to me this shows how much he doesn't want to lose them

to me, topher is also able to connect with them because he sees them as special, or well different, not in a bad way, but to him they're the same kind of different as him, again, he feels understood, he feels that they're all together against the world, and he tries to keep the group together

he kicks out joan because she didn't respect them and was causing trouble even though joan is supposed to be his crush

then during cloney island, they all decide to just. die there. together, because they're finally accepted, not getting too much into this because this alone could be its own post, but when they decide to escape, it's just because they were convinced that escaping death would bring them closer (bond people, something like that)

sadly I don't have a screenshot rn, but just look at him, he was so happy to be having a bonding experience with his friends

so yeah, topher goes to not really caring about having friends, to them being an important and essential part of his life, and wanting to keep them together, friends are now one of the most important things for topher, he's able to open up to them because they just understand each other

bleehhh

i made a first draft for this post, but I was focusing too much on s2

and I actually have a post like this! but really old so consider this a re make

anyway anon I hope this post gets to you

[minghwa]

woosan for vogue ♡

[brionysea]

if stranger things 5 comes out and they're like 'omg! the upside down has been a product of someone's dark and twisted mind this whole time! it's... WILL!' I'll immediately lose interest

[cerealmonster15]

i forgot grunt meant like henchman or whatever for a second i thought they were like yeah leonas bitch ass grunts and growls are partial proof to savanaclaw being an athletic leaning dorm lol

[nobodysdaydreams]

Giving a complicated tragic childhood backstory to your favorite character is all fun and games, until you realize you need to account for how old all the other adult characters would have been at the time and realize that scenes that would work perfectly if one character was twenty three and the other was fourteen stop working when you need other characters who are played by adult actors clearly younger than they are to be in college at the same time so your story beats line up thematically.

[pezpenser205]

the main reason i know im not femme in the slightest is bc i cant comprehend why anyone would Ever want to be feminine. i can understand neutral leaning fem, but the idea that people are born wanting to be feminine is appalling to me personally because femininity always felt like imprisonment and torture. it was and still is a restraint. a training weight i was forced to bear. i cant fully empathize or understand anyone who wants to be more feminine because i have never and will never want to be more feminine out of anything other than pressure or insecurity. im most comfortable being gender neutral, hairy and disgusting in old gym shorts and stained tshirts no matter how much insecurity it causes me. i dont care. im never dressing up all pretty for anyone elses benefit ever again. and i assume this is how people who want to be feminine feel about masculinity to some extent. if thats the case im super glad we could trade because holy moly

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

There always seems to be one kid who just screams like a tornado siren, all day long, at any given opportunity. Like, kid, I love you, you are precious and deserve all the happiness in the world; but please for the love of god shut up. There are people trying to learn here and you’re not helping them or yourself.

[cestacruz]

Mmm Jeanne

[arcadequeerz]

Oh mind electric we're really in it now.

[elytrafemme]

friendship is cool bc you get to have these funny little guys who make you happy and become a better person or whatever and laugh a lot. but then there’s the horrors (trying to see and message them frequently enough when you know you can’t possibly juggle all of them all at once and never knowing the best answer)

[teaboot]

Sometimes I think a lot about my mom's cat

My mom's cat is a common domestic shorthair we found on the side of the road as a kitten

Regular cat, not a maine coon or one of those massive breeds. His mom was smaller than a loaf of bread

But in a sort of a Clifford The Big Red Dog situation, he grew super fast, and really really big, and took a super long time to stop growing

Worried that she was overfeeding him, she eased back his portions, but he stayed a massive round baby

When he started having kidney problems, she took him to the vet.

The vet took a look at him and said, "holy fuck, what are you feeding him", checked the nutritional listings on his chow, and told her "Yeah, maybe he's reacting badly to the amount of grain in this, try a meatier diet"

So my mom wound up special-ordering this specific high-protein prescription cat food made of like. Kangaroo meat or some shit that cost like sixty bucks a bag

And, as typical act two in an episode of House, he somehow got worse on the fancy specialized stuff that was supposed to be Primo Athlete Olympic Feline Blend

Like. WAY worse. His guts were inflamed and his kidneys were shutting down and he was all sore and HE WAS STILL HUGE, just miserable and sad

So shetook him back to the vet, where they had to help him pee (he was apparently close to bursting and had some kind of blockage too) and went "Yeah no this is NOT normal and we don't know what's going on, we're gonna do some tests but in the meantime you should go back to what he was eating before, at least that wasn't actively killing him" so she did

And he still wasn't great, but he also improved

And so they take his blood and do an ultrasound and a couple g's later she gets a call back like "this is gonna sound crazy, but we want you to put him on a low-meat diet. Just the least amount of protein and iron and shit. We need you to find the grainiest, filler-iest dollar tree kibble available and give him some of that bad bad shit"

And my mother is a woman of science. So she did

And he GOT BETTER

His energy picked back up, inflammation went down, he started drinking normally again, got back to pissing like a fuckin champion

And so it turns out that out of all the random ass freeway bonus cats we possibly could have scooped out of a ditch, WE got the one-in-a-million freak of nature with a SPECIFIC genetic defect that means a paleo protein free range diet is essentially poison and he THRIVES on cheap ass garbage

Like. He medically NEEDS junk food

I dont really understand how that works, but i cant argue with results.

If we had four of him, they'd outweigh my mom. And he's FINE

Also blind, but that's unrelated

Im not using him as a symbol or a metaphor or anything. I just keep catching myself thinking about my mom's Big Fucking Cat

[theprincessandthepie]

im so sad they wrote joanna out of the show. and then they never let laurel have any friends of her own again T_T