#also you are the first person to also suggest there's someone more evil then those most people just pick one or say both

[fandomsandfeminism]

Sure. Thank you. That does reframe it some.

I think a big part of the issue might be a vocabulary one, and I'll own that.

See, in my head, it feels very obvious that when people say they are worried about keeping people safe and not letting people hurt others again, that very clearly, to me, is an issue of recidivism. People who have been through the justice system reoffending is the danger we are discussing. So interventions and solutions and sentences which REDUCE recidivism *is what makes people more safe.* (even if it doesn't LOOK safer for people who have been raised with the idea that prisons = safety.)

But that connection may not be so self evident to others.

It's also why I keep trying to get people to inspect how prisons compare in terms of recidivism. Because the evidence suggests that prisons *dont* make people safe. They don't reduce recidivism, which is the danger we are trying to mitigate, and there's a good bit of evidence that they actually make us LESS safe because someone who has been in prison could come out MORE likely to reoffend violently because of how the system can ingrain maladaptive violent behaviors.

Like. Maybe it's a numbers game. If the prison system locks up 1 serial killer forever, but also releases 100 guys who each go on go kill 1 more person VS a prisonless system where that 1 serial killer goes on to kill 5 more people but those 100 other guys DONT EVER REOFFEND then...fewer people have been harmed. (95 fewer people, actually.) Reducing recidivism is what actually, at scale, creates safety (along with efforts to PREVENT violence in the first place, of course, but that hasn't been the sticking point.)

It does sound scary to imagine Jeffrey Dahmer or the Devil murdering someone and then just going to a rehab center for a while and then getting to leave. But I'll emphasize again that the judge isn't Minority Report Psychic who can reliably just *know* whether someone is ~evil~. (I'd also push back against this idea that some people are irredeemably evil because it robs us of the ability to examine why people do these violent things, how to prevent it, and how to prevent it from happening again.)

Thank you for your patience, even when I was very frustrated in my replies.

Pretty sure @needabetternamelater has reblogged like 5 of my posts and then blocked me. So that's funny. But, just in case it's just a glitch that won't let me reblog those replies.

What do we do with rapists in a prisonless society? Well, 1. Fewer than 1% of rapists go to prison, so holding up prison as the standard that any other solution has to beat isn't hard. What do with do with rapists in a society with prisons? For 99+%? Not prison.

2. Prisons do not reduce the amount of rapes that happen. So again, prison fails pretty handedly at being both a prevention and a punishment. (It's a bit like arguing 'without the death penalty, what will we do with shop lifters?")

3. I've explain many times, on posts you've responded to, the variety of responses a justice system can have to any crime, including sexual assault. Mandatory counseling, restraining orders, restorative/reparation hearings, housing and employment restrictions, fines, caseworker check ins, mental health consults, and vocational training are all possible responses, and which would would have the best chance of preventing recidivism would depend on the specifics of that person and the risk factors in them reoffending.

In the past, we locked people in pillories and cut off their hands for crimes. Phasing out a cruel and ineffective punishment doesn't mean there's free reign for crime.

[rosettyller]

some analysis of this scene from 2x02, because i am going absolutely insane over it:

first up: it's 2 500 BCE. They've known each other for around 1500 years at this point, but they haven't been meeting up very often; it's implied at this point, that they've only met at the Garden, and the Flood, and now here (as well as in Heaven, but there's varying interpretations about how much they each remember of Heaven).

(worth noting that these meetings are all bible-related meetings)

So, they don't know each other very well at all. This is why Aziraphale approaches Crowley so cautiously (apart from the fact that he thinks Crowley's going around murdering goats and soon kids). He doesn't know what happened to Crowley when he Fell, how he changed when he fell in with Lucifer, how God's rejection has warped Crowley's perspective or changed his morals (their meeting at the Flood seemed quite short, not enough time to get a definite picture.)

Aziraphale is still seeing Crowley as demonic, although there's already that thread of doubt - can you really see him trying to talk Hastur or Ligur out of this the way he does Crowley?

Aziraphale clings to the memory of Angel Crowley - Crowley gets quite defensive.

Here, Crowley reinforces that he's changed - personally I don't believe that he did fight in the War, but his views of God's Plan definitely got more extreme than "thats terrible god should get a suggestion box".

But, I also believe that here, Crowley is reinforcing that he is no longer an angel, and therefore no longer has to play by angel rules. He can do what he wants. He's a demon, it's in his job description.

And of course, that he is a demon, and he is Evil, and of course he would kill goats.

(more under the cut, because I just can't stop talking)

This shot is very yellow. Crowley's hair being the season 1 orange rather than red, the yellow walls, all accentuate the colour of Crowley's eyes, highlighting the physical reminder of Crowley's demonic nature.

I couldn't be bothered to gif it, but here, Crowley leans forward into Aziraphale's face. There are two reasons for this:

Get his yellow Demon Eyes right in Aziraphale face, just to hammer home his point.

It's an aggressive action, moving into someone's personal space like that. Saying, I could hurt you, I'm violent and aggressive and dangerous, I killed those goats, the kids are next.

The way the light hits Crowley's eyes in the above shot and the below shot also make them a very bright yellow. (Edit: I think someone pointed out that Crowley is making his eyes glow, but the overall yellowness of the scene serves to highlight this)

Clever wording on Crowley's part, because as we will find out, he faked the destruction of the goats to keep them safe, while making himself sound very evil.

You'll notice the repetition of "blameless"; this makes him seem even more evil, hurting the innocent, but also gives deeper insight into one of Crowley's biggest issues: hurting the innocent. What have they done to deserve this? Nothing.

This ties in quite nicely with what we have seen before of Crowley and free will; he gives people the option to sin. It's their actions that decide whether they end up in Heaven or Hell; they get what they deserve for their actions. He just makes it easier to choose Hell. (see: phone lines being down making people crankier and encouraging them to be horrible to each other, but it still being their choice, setting the holy water bucket above the door, so it's Ligur's choice to come in after Crowley that gets him killed.)

Note also the use of "long":

Aziraphale says to "tell me you want to do this". "Long" has rather stronger connotations than "want", but also rawer, more fundamental. Crowley is reminding Aziraphale that he is a demon, and that he has the traits of a demon, this is what he is now. He longs for violence, for destruction.

Aziraphale looks quite sad here. If you watch the video I linked, his previous conviction that Crowley doesn't want to do it is very strong. He fully believes in Crowley, that all he needs to do is reframe not killing the kids as within the rules of Hell, the way Crowley so often comes to do for Aziraphale ("Then you can't be certain that thwarting me isn't part of the divine plan too. I mean, you're supposed to thwart the wiles of the Evil One at every turn, aren't you?" "If you put it that way, Heaven couldn't actually mind me thwarting you.").

Aziraphale believed Crowley was still good, that the angel he remembered was still in there. But Crowley rejects it - and it hurts. Crowley has become what a demon should be.

Crowley looks quite sorrowful here, too: he already cares for Aziraphale (he fell in love at the Garden), and it hurts to decieve him, to disappoint him, to hurt him.

I would argue that here, Crowley is scared.

He's in shadow, which dims the yellows; his undemonic nature is about to be revealed.

And that is not safe, because Hell does not send rude notes. And here, Crowley is not doing just any temptation, but trying to help Satan win a bet (supposedly). And out of every demon in Hell, Satan is the one you want to piss off the least.

But here, Crowley is scared because Aziraphale could reveal him - because Aziraphale is on God's side, and because it is revealed that Crowley is not nearly as demonic as he makes himself out to be. He's vulnerable. Aziraphale could scorn him, hurt him. But instead:

Aziraphale is incredibly smug. "I knew I was right", he says. "I knew you were still good".

And here is another issue: Aziraphale conflates God/Heaven/angels with good, and demons/Hell with bad.

And Crowley does not see Heaven as good. He doesn't want Aziraphale to see his angelic core past the demonic exterior. He's on his own side.

This, for Aziraphale, confirms that "the angel you knew is not me", is not correct.

And I think, out of the three minisodes, it's this one that does the most for fleshing out Aziraphale and Crowley's frames of mind this series, and why they choose what they choose in ep6.

Aziraphale has been proven right about Crowley's angelic nature, and that he wants to do good, but can't, for fear of Hell's retribution.

And Crowley does not see Heaven as good. He recognises that being an angel again will not allow him the freedom to do good. (as Aziraphale had to try and talk a demon into helping him save the kids from God.)

[poundstonaira]

Premonition - Albert Wesker x Reader

CW: PinV, Unprotected Sex, Creampie, Age Difference, Doctor Reader, Good Albert Wesker, Doggy, Dubious Consent, Friendly Experiment, Porn with Plot, Possessiveness, Resident Evil 0 Wesker.

Word Count: 7,057

Song Inspiration : Moment by Victoria Moment

Summary: You should've known something was wrong as soon as your hard-headed, cold, hostile, and rude boss easily agreed to help you with your experiment for the effects of the new drug you developed by yourself. Yet, you ignored all worries and thought nothing of it. Silly you.

“Oh Dr. Wesker~” You sang behind your boss, tapping your red bottom pumps on the floor to get his attention even more. Since your boss was so stern and hostile all the time, you attempted to put effort into trying to get some physical emotion out of the man every time you greeted him. From your getting, he only turned his head to look at you with a straight face, but you could tell he was also looking at you in disgust from behind those black shades of his.

“What do you want?” He asked disinterestedly, his hands in his lab coat pockets, seeming as if he was eager for you to leave him alone. 

“To bother you.” You stuck your tongue at him. At this action, your boss started to walk away, not in the mood for your childish attitude. You quickly walked up behind him and tapped his shoulder. “I’m joking. I have developed a new supplement and I need someone to experiment on-” 

“Go ahead and find someone else to use. I am not your mutt.” Wesker stated bluntly, not looking at you. Hearing that stung a little bit, but that was the expected attitude coming from the man. It still wasn’t nice to hear. You started to think back on if this was all worth it, was it a good thing he doesn’t want to help you? You haven’t even told him the planned experiment yet and he’s already refusing to help you. Maybe this is a sign that you should get someone else to help you, just as he said. 

But it’s too bad, your young, persistent self refuses to accept this rejection. You stood firm and let out a huff. 

“You’re right, you’re not.” You started, which caused Wesker to turn around face you fully, his eyebrow raised in what seems like amusement. “You are my colleague. You’re my boss. Which means I think you should help me.” You finished, your eyes were squinted as you held your notepad tightly to your chest in hopes that he doesn’t reject you again.

Who are you kidding? He’s Albert Wesker. He’s a cold son of a bitch. Of course it’s going to be nearly impossible to get him to help you with anything. 

“What makes you think you have the privilege to ask me to do you any favors?” He questioned you and you could’ve sworn the side of his lip curved upward, as if he was trying to mock you. 

“If you help me, I’ll never bother you for anything again, not even trying to wear your stupid sunglasses.” You had to look away, pouting your lips. Now you were feeling cold sweat run down your spine. Was it really wise to call his glasses ‘stupid’? He wears them all the time, even when it is nighttime and underground.  

Wesker then lets out a deep sigh and adjusts his glasses.

“My sunglasses are not stupid but fine, get on with it.” 

Your eyes lit up, mouth slightly agape. There’s no way. Just like that? 

…

“You made a pill to enhance sexual performance? That already exists.” Wesker spoke as he took off his lab coat and put it on the hook near your desk. 

Your desk had a computer on it that was bluetoothed to the bed itself. When powered on, the computer tracks and sees sounds and images from the person who was on the bed, but that was only if they were unconscious. How did you engineer it to work? You don’t even know yourself.

“Correct but, the effect is different on the human body. The one I made first makes the body sleepy, then falls into a dormant state, after that, supposedly, the human will then have… suggestive dreams. Dreaming about their crush or significant other…” You had to look away due to immense embarrassment, your face got hot. “Erm… fucking them.”

Wesker took those black sunglasses off and side-eyed you so hard it felt as if he was ripping your soul apart with those aegean blue eyes of his. How beautifully damaging. You still feel them on you, even though you were looking away.

“You’re crazy.” Wesker let out a deep sigh. You look back to see Wesker running a hand through those luscious, blond locks of hair. The sight slightly made your heart swoon. It’s not as if you had a crush on your boss or anything, you just found him to be really attractive. Then again, what did I expect from a 23 year old woman?” 

“I get it, Albert. You’re touching 40.” Wesker shook his head.

“Hurry up, I want to go home.” 

“Never knew you were such a grumpy old man, doctor. It’s only 9PM.” You let out a dry laugh.

“You don’t know what it's like having two jobs, little girl.”  

“Anyways, here you go. Take it when you’re ready.” Once Wesker sat on the bed, you carefully eyed the blue capsule and a cup of water in his hands.

Nothing should go wrong. Matter of fact, you don’t think anything is going to happen to Wesker, considering how he has “superior” genes or whatever that means. 

Watching Wesker’s dream was like watching an unreleased sex-tape that had to stay private because of how lewd it was. You’ve never done half of the things he was imagining with you. 

You guys were both naked,your underwear, bra, your bodycon dress, red bottom pumps, and white lab scattered on the floor next to Wesker’s black clothing and his lab coat. You were posed like a nymphomaniac, on your hands and knees, looking back at your boss with a flushed, sensual expression on your face. Eyes squinted, mouth opened from panting, the aftermath of him eating you out.   

“I have waited a long time for this moment. I thought of you. What I would do with you. How many ways I could give you pleasure.” Through his black boxers, you could see how hard he was for you, he ached for you. His erection was so hard, you could’ve sworn that the fabric of the boxers had ripped just from the tip of it. And, damn was he big. 

It didn’t matter how many times you blinked or pinched yourself. What you were seeing on the screen was indeed, a combined build of almost everything your boss has been wanting to do to you. 

You saw him pull his boxers down to reveal his long length. You almost would have woken his actual body up with how loud you yelped at the sight of it on screen. You can’t even write any notes about your current experiment down because you were in absolute shock. This man was an absolute Greek god, or so you thought.

He was so eager that he didn’t even bother to tease your wet sex, he thrusted right into you with brute force, earning a loud, wanton moan from you. It didn’t cover up the wet, moist sound of him entering you, though.

“I was bewildered when you told me earlier that you were able to develop a drug all by yourself…” On the screen, you saw him give your hair a sharp tug as he thrusted into you again, you heard yourself yelp. “You’re such a good girl, doctor. I knew you could make me proud.” 

You were so stunned that tears threatened to leave your eyes. Your mouth was so wide open that you were practically drooling at the sight of yourself getting fucked by Wesker. There is just no way on this planet that Wesker out of all people thought of you like that. 

The stopwatch was currently at seven minutes in on the dot. You decided to try and write down some notes of how the experiment was going so far. But what would you even write down when you literally hear boss’s imagination of the dream him fucking you from behind? Not to mention his actual body on the bed is sweating, letting out loud, shaken breaths. His erection threatened to make a hole in the black slacks that he was currently wearing.

There was too much going on. And what would happen to you when your boss wakes up? Would he fire you? Would he punish you? You don’t even want to think about it. Then again, he did agree to this. But, you didn’t think that the blue capsule would have this much of an effect on him, you thought with how strong he was, how he rarely gets sick, ,and how superior his genetics are, nothing would have happened to him.

‘There is absolutely too much going on. I’m even scared to leave the room. Oh goodness gracious. What was I thinking?’  

It got even worse. With one hand, he held onto your hips, the other hand had already gone to your hair again, pulling it as he kept his brutal attacks to your sex. You heard yourself screaming in pleasure so loud, you could’ve sworn people in the other labs could hear you. You had to keep reminding yourself that it was only on the screen and not happening in real life. 

You could throw up right now with how overwhelmed you felt. You tried to ignore the warm pool you felt in your stomach but you couldn’t. Were you really getting aroused by watching your boss’ dreams? What was happening to you? Sure, Wesker was a fine man. You could even say he was crafted from the Gods themselves. He had it all; the height, the body, the grace, the voice, the aura, the abs for crying out loud. But, you have never stooped so low that you could even imagine yourself getting a chance to sleep with him. Not like this. This was purely by chance. 

Your legs felt weak and your body almost went limp as the noises of your whimpers and high pitched moans, combined with Wesker’s low growls and grunts. Hearing him and you was almost driving you mad at this point. You wanted to wake him up but you hesitated, not knowing what’ll happen to you if you did. At the same time, you were almost about to jump out the nearest window if you were to hear the sounds of your boss fucking the shit out of you for even a minute longer.

‘What have I done?’ You said to yourself, your hands now to your mouth again as you attempted to suppress another gasp. You could truly throw up right now.  

“I-I can’t take it anymore… I think I’m gonna come…” You heard yourself gasp, afraid that you couldn’t accommodate his body. Not like this, not when he gripped your hips and pulled your ass back toward, as he drove in relentlessly, ruthlessly into your tight channel once again. You were such a whimpering, whining, moaning mess under his touch. The sounds of skin slapping and the bed squeaking very loudly filled the room.

“That’s it, my gorgeous slut. Come for me. Burn for me.” He leaned to whisper into your ear, releasing a low chuckle right after, showing a devilish smile. You could’ve fallen to your knees at the sight. You were trapped in his hold, he took his time as he still continued his assault on your pussy. You saw your own tear-filled eyes trying to stay open, mouth slightly ajar with drool dripping from it, hands losing the strength to grip onto the sheets still. 

It seemed as if Wesker was fucking you so hard that you were about to pass out. 

‘Am I about to pass out?’ You thought to yourself, still watching in shock. 

You heard Wesker reach his climax as he let out a deep moan, panting right after. On the other hand, you actually passed out on the bed, covered in sweat as Wesker’s hands were still on you. He pulled out, his cum dripping out of you and on the bed between your legs. Drip. Drip. Drip.  

  ‘What the hell did I just watch?’ You blinked rapidly. Now staring at your boss' physical body, he cock got harder, from inside his pants, he was sweating himself, that handsome, sculpted face of his slightly twitched from what seems like both arousal and uncomfort. The screen turned off, which meant that Wesker is not dreaming anymore and that he will awaken soon.

Your whole body was shaking now. There were a plethora of emotions that you were feeling. But which exact emotion were you feeling precisely? Was it confusion? Were you shocked? Were you surprised? Were you disgusted that your boss basically dreamed of doing this to you? Did he actually want to do this to you or was this the effect of the capsule? You wrote down everything that just happened in a few, messy bullet points before you heard some heavy breathing from the bed. 

Albert’s eyes were open.

"Doctor Wesker? Is everything okay?" You asked, walking closer to him. His eyes finally landed on you after staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours. 

He does nothing but stare at you with narrowed eyes and a slightly opened mouth as he breathes heavily, still sweating. He appears to be getting off the bed and slowly coming towards your direction.

"Oh no..." You mutter to yourself, backing away and running towards the door. At this point, your body felt light, your organs started to sink towards your stomach along with your heart. You open the door quickly, thanking yourself for not locking it earlier. You run out trying to find another room to hide in.

This isn't good. Wesker didn't even have to say anything to you for you to know his next actions. You were his target. And, to make things even better for yourself, it was literally only you two in the whole building, which meant that most of the doors in the hallways were locked. Great.

Running down the hall was one thing, but here Wesker's footsteps basically right behind you doesn't help the fact that you feel your heart in your stomach, you're sweating, and you're visibly shaking. You didn't think this would happen. 

With your white lab coat and the low-heeled red bottoms you chose to wear were slowing you down, you were already running out of stamina and options. 

'Shit. What do I do?' You turn around to see Wesker already three feet away from you. You don't look at his face in case you fall into his charms even more, trying to forget the way he was fucking you in his dream on the screen earlier. 

You can run away but, what was the point? You got him and yourself into this, even if you didn't think it would end up like this. 

You still decided to run further down the hallway. Your shorter legs compared to Wesker had nothing compared to his long, slow strides towards your moving position. Your heart stopped as you felt a sharp tug on your white lab coat, the tug was so strong that you lost your balance, which resulted in you falling back onto Wesker’s chest with a thump and a small scream at the feel of his erection against your backside. 

"Where do you think you're running to, Doctor?" He whispered in your ear. That low, deep transatlantic accent sends shivers down your spine. 

"..." You were speechless, you let out a small, nervous laugh, accepting your fate. “Uhm…” You looked for your answer but couldn’t find it. The proximity between you was terrifying, it was almost enough to make you pass out.  

“Answer me.” He demanded right in your ear, pushing you to the nearest wall with no effort, still basically pressing himself right against you. It sends shivers down your spine. You let out a small, short scream.  

“I can’t…” You chirped, still trying to contain your anxious laughter. 

“Why are you running away from something that you started? Is this not what you wanted?” Wesker whispered into your ear, questioning you and your motives. One of his hands snaked its way to your left breast and the other rested on your waist. You let out another nervous laugh, trying to think if you could survive what was about to happen to you. You were finished. You were so fucked. You’d be lucky to even think about escaping this building alive. 

‘I don’t regret anything but I didn’t think it would end up like this!’ You panicked in your head, blinking rapidly against the wall. All of a sudden, you were lifted off of your feet and onto Wesker’s shoulder in an instant. It happened so fast that you didn’t know how to react. 

“Wait–wait–wait Wesker, can you please relax!? I’m sure we don’t need to resort to intercourse to–” You were spurting out your proposal to an alternate plan before you felt a sharp sting on your ass cheek. 

“That is the solution. It is the only way I’ll be satisfied, dearheart.” You heard Wesker casually say as he walked the both of you and him back to your lab. It didn’t matter how much you squirmed and struggled in his grasp, he was too strong. His grip on you felt like a chokehold. 

“B-but I’m sure we can figure out a solution to this… can we?” Your voice high-pitched out of nervousness and a tad bit of excitement. You guys finally made it to your room and he automatically placed you in front of him, using his hand to force you down to the middle and your hands to the edge of the bed. You feel a pool in your stomach as you can feel his hard erection grinding against your fabric covering your ass.

“I’m afraid not– having such control over you is more than enough to fulfill my needs.” A quiet groan left his mouth as his left hand held your hip still so that you weren’t trying to run away. Wesker leans down so he is right at your right ear. "Your body is a beautiful playground and I plan to explore every inch of it." And you could’ve sworn that your heart almost left your body. 

“I knew I should’ve gotten Leon to do this instead…” You thought to yourself. 

Or so you thought. 

“What did you just say?” You feel a sharp tug on your hair. 

“What? I didn’t-” You tried to protest but you felt another slap on your ass. He was in your ear again, his cold, minty breath landing on the side of your face. You looked straight ahead as you felt his ice blue eyes directly on you. 

“You just say that the little pathetic rookie over at the police department should’ve been the one helping you instead of me. Do you really think he’s a better man than me?” 

“Doctor, I didn’t say that…” You whined, closing your eyes, wondering how you got to this moment. 

“But you did.”

“I-I didn’t say any of that.” The grinding got worse, the friction of his erection against the fabrics covering your ass did not make it any better, you were making it obvious that you were soaked by letting out a small whine with each dry thrust that Wesker did against you, his low groans were all you heard as you bit your bottom lip.

“Do you really think that rookie can please you like this ? Have you soaking through your panties like this ?” 

“Fuck…” 

You didn’t mind any of this at all, it was just that you wish you had more control over the situation than you had intended, and, there’s no condom in sight, and you weren’t on birth control because you were afraid it would mess up your body. 

And, Wesker isn’t even himself right now, which means nothing is off limits. Nothing. Uh oh. 

He snatched your lab coat off of you, threw it on the ground, then he lifted your dress up, revealing your wet panties. You shivered with excitement, but you tried not to make it obvious. You could hear Wesker let out a deep chuckle from behind you, his hands now steady on your hips right before he slid your wet underwear down your legs and off of you. Now you were really embarrassed, you threw your head down on to the bed, trying to hide the sounds of your whines. You heard him put your underwear into the pocket of his pants. 

“Harvesting I see…” You sighed, feeling yourself getting impatient. 

“Of course, I can smell your sweet nectar all the way from here, my love. I plan to own a collection of your under garments every time I get to fuck you.” Fireflies swarmed around your body, mainly affecting the pit of your stomach and your mind, making you lightheaded. 

Wesker pushes you further towards the middle of the bed, causing you to let out a small yelp, holding onto your hips for good measures, making sure that you don’t try to run away from him, even though you didn’t have the intent of doing so. 

“Fuck… you’re dripping so much, dearheart. You’ve been wanting, needing this, haven’t you?” Your boss purred from behind you, slipping two fingers at your folds, causing you to let out a small moan. 

But were you actually dreaming of this? You always found Wesker to be such a attractive man; it was those captivating, cerulean eyes, his pale, alabaster toned skin that had such toned and attractive muscles that covered it, that perfectly slicked back, golden blond locks that sat on his head, that straight nose of his, and those thin but sinister lips that you knew did damage to any woman he put them on. 

Albert Wesker was a dangerous man, but you still decided to step into that danger. It was funny how ballsy you were, and look where you were: In your lab, on the bed, on your hands and knees in front of your boss, a mess with your core soaked, dripping onto said bed, and his fingers toying with your flower. Did you regret having him do this? You were too horny to answer that. 

Your thoughts were cut off by Albert putting a finger inside of you and placing another one directly on your clit before he started rubbing his fingers against you. It was electrifying to say the least. He was so skilled, he pleased your clit with an effortless try. It made you such a moaning mess with every move he did. What a bastard!

“You’re moaning so loud for me and you haven’t even met my cock yet.” Wesker chuckled, continuing his foul movements with his fingers, moving them back to your folds, rubbing them faster. 

“Nghh– fuck …” You couldn’t even speak properly, you were such a wet, sloppy mess down there. 

“Are you close, doctor?” He laughed lowly, picking up the pace, splashing your juices upon your close arrival. “I would love to make you cum due to your own experiment.” He added, then slowed down. 

“Y-yes—- oh-” As you were about to come, he flipped you over with such pace that the room was spinning, to where he could see your flushed, sweaty face. 

‘He edged me… what a prick.’

“I apologize for cutting you off at the heat of the moment but I’m growing impatient.” He licked your nectar off of his fingers which made you cringe. 

He dipped his head down towards your neck, lifting your dress up even more, and taking it completely off of you. Wesker gave you several, slow, lingering licks, flicking his tongue, suddenly, tugging gently with his teeth, deliberately sending dancing flames around your body. He went down to your breasts, alternating between fast and gentle, slow and hard bites and licks, marking you, leaving signs of ownership on you. 

“Mine…” He groaned before leaving another wet lick on your sensitive buds. All the while, his fingers teased just above your glistening cauldron of heat. Muscles were ripping in your stomach, and your hips arched in desperation. 

“You have to do something…” Your breath came out in a little sob. You were covered in both your sweat and his cold saliva. 

Albert leaned back up, staring down at you with that cold, possessive and hot gaze of his as his fingers undid every button of that black shirt of his, one by one. Revealing his chest. He was a sight to behold, it was too much for you to stomach. His abs were toned, defined, muscular, and perfect . He was an adonis. You were snapped out of your daze of the lovely sight in front of you when you heard the shirt plot to the ground along with the sound of the zipper of his pants going undone, then the sound of his boxers slipping down his legs. 

He leaned back down. He was at the very center of your heat as you laid beneath him, fingernails gripping the sheets, your body arched, your throat bared as you threw your head back and lifted your hips. His wintery gaze met yours, aroused, urgent. 

Oh, and his smile was an absolute sin, he caught your thighs and spread you wider for him. Wesker’s gaze grew hotter, much sinister and all too sexual. Immediately, he bent his head and he drank you. 

As soon as his tongue touched you, you could no longer keep quiet, you moaned louder than toy did before. Your vision was shattering in the moment, you invisible circles coming from the light above. You felt your throat getting sore from how loud you scream. You were lucky that no one else was in the building besides the two of you. 

He lapped you, speared you, licked you so fast that you were seeing stars. Your muscles in your silk canal clenched and pulsed, and his hands held you down with strength you didn’t know was possible. This was all so tortuous, and there was nothing you could do about it but take it all in. You could see his eyes closed as he carefully slid his tongue against your folds, then to your opening, finally, to your clit, grazing it lightly but ever so painfully.It was crazy but unsurprising how skilled he was. But then again there was no way he could be a virgin, just look at him and how he was drinking you like a voracious beast. 

“You like that, don’t you?” He licked your clit again, his voice hoarse, looking up at your dazed, tear-filled eyes as you let out another wanton moan. “Oh, yeah, dearheart, you definitely like that.”

“I’m not certain I can stand this for much longer…” You gasped, digging your fingers further into the mattress, desperately trying to find something to hold on to. “I can’t take it.” 

“Yes you can. You will take whatever I give you. Let me make you scream, dearheart. I will make you so mindless with pleasure you do not know any other name but mine.” His voice was pure seduction, caressing your skin the way his fingers did to your hips, there were little bruises there from how tight he was gripping you. 

His tongue licked your clit rapidly and you could feel your body losing control, malfunction due to how overstimulated you were. Pleasure was bursting through you as you came and he licked it all up and swallowed your come. You buckled hard against his mouth, unable to stop yourself from the mind-numbing pleasure that came upon you.

You couldn’t even catch your breath before he flipped you around, catching your hips and pulling your ass back towards him, one hand on the back of your neck, the other on your back to hold you in place. He placed the tip of his cock at your wet entrance, teasing your desperate body for a needy response.  

‘I can’t wait any longer…’ Your intrusive thoughts took over you as you pushed yourself back quickly, causing his cock to be plunged inside of you, making you let out a scream of shock and pleasure. He was bigger than you thought, he was thick and so hard, like a steel spear pushing through your soft folds. “You’re too big.” You gasped.

“I’ve been waiting for this. I haven’t been able to find peace with myself until I was able to find myself buried inside of you, princess.” 

It was like you were scared because you thought that you couldn’t accommodate his body and his size, not like this, not when he gripped your hips and pulled your ass back toward him and drove into you relentlessly, mercilessly through your tight pussy.

“You’re so tight, my dear.” He groaned, taking in the wet sound of him sliding in and out of you. He held you completely under his control, taking his time to thrust into that hot, silky channel, it was as soft as silk.

“You have to stop…” You let out a high pitched whine, you altered your neck so that you could see his face behind you. He was fast and brutal with his thrusts. It felt amazing but you could sense that your stomach was going to hurt with the pace he was going, even the position itself was overbearing. You placed a hand on his chest, trying to push him back to get him to slow down. As if that was going to do anything. 

“No.” He grabbed your arm and hung onto it as he placed it behind your back, thrusting in and out of you even faster as a way of punishment. “Don’t do that.”  

“I-it’s too much…” You cried, drooling came out of your mouth. Your body was on cloud nine at that point. Wesker sensed that your release was coming, and so was his from how sloppy his thrusts were. 

“That’s it. That’s a good girl. Come for me. Burn for me.” Multiple orgasms were tearing through your body, sweeping through every part of you like a riptide wave, each one was stronger than the last. The sensitiveness ripped through you like nothing through your powerful spasms. 

Wesker’s release was merciless, the flame tearing up his spine and churning in his belly, while your canal squeezed and gripped him, milking out white jets of hot semen from his body.  

In an instant you were out for the count. As soon as he pulled out, your body flopped onto the bed and you were fast asleep. 

Your abdomen was hurting, and it was hurting really bad. It felt as if you had a cramp, but you weren’t on your period. 

It was the rough sex you had yesterday with your boss.

Now, the real question was, did you think that it was worth it? The experiment with the pill and the aftermath, did you really think it was all worth it? 

Well, from the way your throat was hurting after all the screaming and moaning you did from the way Albert Wesker had his way with you, it was most likely obvious the answer was yes.

The real question was how you ended up back home and in your bed; you couldn’t remember anything from last night after you passed out in your lab. You also didn’t feel like going into work today, your body was too sore and you felt too weak to even do simple tasks. This all sucked but, at the same time it didn’t. The testing for your pill went well but you were so sore that you winced at the pain in your stomach and back. 

Things didn’t get better once you heard a knock at your front door. 

“Who's knocking at my door…” You groaned, checking your phone for the time. “It’s literally six in the morning for crying out loud.” You then whined, slowly getting up out of your bed so that you don’t feel too much pain. You were already wearing your comfy pyjamas set so all you did was put on your robe and house slippers. You walked down stairs as quickly as you could and opened the front door. 

It was Wesker. He didn’t have his glasses on, so his baby blue eyes bore right into yours as soon as you opened the door. Instead, he wore a black Thunderbird sweater, black and white heavy fleece sweatpants, and black ugg slippers, which were all from Fear of God’s mainline. This man had an expensive taste in clothing, which was not surprising from the way he dresses at the work. He also had a grocery bag in his hand, it looked quite heavy.

“You…” You sighed, looking at your boss up and down, your mind imaging his body from yesterday night. It was so hard to control your mind in this state when you were yearning for more of him. And then you scoffed when you realised how much money could just be casually sitting in his platinum AMEX card at this moment. This bastard of a man did a number on you and it was all your fault. 

“Well, good morning to you, _/_.” Wesker responds to you bluntly, rolling his eyes at your bad greeting. You step out the way so he can come in and his scent almost devours you; hints of geranium and uplifting lemon take on your senses and you almost lose your balance. The other notes of the fragrance he used must’ve had depths of cinnamon and cardamom. Damn, he smelt divine. You close and lock the front door behind you. Wesker already makes himself as home as he places the bag he had on your coffee table.

“Sir, why are you here so early? It’s six in the morning.” You asked him in a whiny tone. You seriously didn't have the energy for his presence. You then stumbled your way towards the kitchen, to get a glass of water for the both of you.

“I wanted to talk to you about yesterday.” He said simply, getting a small item out of said bag. You stopped right where you were, butterflies swarmed their way into your stomach as you thought about last night.

“Oh…” Your knees felt weak and your head felt light as you remembered the feeling of his callous hands against the soft skin on your back. “I was trying to forget about yesterday.” You sighed, continuing to walk again.

“I don’t think you can, dearheart.” He throws a box at you and you catch it from where you were standing in the kitchen. You looked at it to see it was a Plan-B pill made from your company: Umbrella. You chucked at yourself. How could you forget the Plan-B pill? 

“Ah. Thank you. I don’t want any little Weskers running around me either.” You humoured him, quickly opening up the packaging, taking it out and pouring two cups of water. 

“Insulting my seed?” Wesker questioned you, raising an eyebrow at your statement. You couldn’t tell if he was seriously offended or if he was just playing around. The rational side of you was hoping if he was just joking while the other was hoping that he was offended. You didn’t know why, though . 

“Just being honest, doctor.”  You swallowed the pill then drank your glass of water before taking the other glass and placing it in front of your boss, sitting next to him. After you sat down, there was an uncomfortable, awkward moment of silence between the two of you; you just sat there with your lips pursed, your eyes constantly looking at Albert then away, twiddling your thumbs, and just wondering when he was going to say something, while he just sat there looking down to the carpet below you two, blinking every now and then. 

“I was out of character-”

“You didn’t have to help me-”

You guys both said your statements in unison, then it was silent once again. Now, that was even more awkward. 

“But, just out of curiosity…” You were the one to start the conversation, again. Your next question was going to make you cringe but you just had to ask, “Were you in control or… that was just the pill controlling you?” At your question, Wesker gave you a stern look, it seemed as if he was genuinely trying to find the answer to your inquiry.  

“I was in control. I had my conscience, but I grew impatient.” He spoke, looking down again, calmly. He showed no signs of regret or embarrassment, just a little conflicted. It was all over his face; he was at cross swords with his actions, but, from what you were seeing and experiencing, he enjoyed himself. He had fun watching you squirm under his touch, being so submissive you couldn't even resist, and screaming due him fucking you mercilessly.

“Hmm… Interesting.” You mumbled under your breath, sceptical at his reasoning. 

“You seem unwell.” Was he mocking you? 

“Well, yeah. Thanks to you and your impatience, my stomach hurts.” You let out another scoff, huffing a short sigh. 

“My apologies, dear.” At the nickname, you turned your head towards him, giving him a side eye. Even after yesterday, the pet names still didn't fit right with you. You knew why: it was because you couldn't tell if he was being serious, or if it was just the effect of the pill controlling his words. He did say that he was in control and that it basically made him uncontrollably horny, it's just that you didn't believe him, or you didn't know what to believe. 

“What’s up with the pet names?” You asked with an annoyed tone, not knowing if the side effects were still messing with him.

“The pet names don’t cause your heart to flutter?” Albert's eyes squinted at you, a mischievous glint pouring into them. In return, you narrowed your eyes at him in suspicion. There was just no way this man genuinely had feelings for you.

“Did you expect me to have feelings for you or something? That's not how love works, Albert .” You retorted, keeping the same expression on your face. 

“It's quite common that women do try and make advances on me. I would've thought you had interest in me by the way you love to pester me around the laboratory.” You practically rolled your eyes into the back of your head. Jeez Louise, just how much ego could a man have? Then again, he wasn’t wrong; you saw how your female peers would always talk about Wesker and how hot he was, how intelligent he was, how cunning he was, and how they would let him ruin their life. Although you agreed to your peers’ statement, you weren’t going to boost his ego even further just because you had a crush on him. It was probably working too judging by the way he was trying to get you to falter so hard. 

“I don't know how you expect me to have any interest in you when you treat me like shit.” You spoke out bluntly, with the fake taste of annoyance in your mouth. “Are you still experiencing any side effects?” You then asked, trying to see what was in the grocery bag from your position on the sofa.

“Well, after I poured my seed into you, I wasn't hormonal anymore.” He told you as if he didn’t just say the most explicit statement to you. You physically cringed, looking away from him and staring into the abyss. ‘I can’t believe I let Wesker out of all the people cum inside of me… Even this whole conversation we were having is beyond my comprehension… And why is he acting like he likes me? This man treats me like absolute crap! anytime I'm on the clock!’ 

Well, at least you got some data out of the experiment that would be helpful for you when it came to revisions of the pill and its prototype regarding the ingredients and substances you used. What you got so far was that it wears off after a man reaches his orgasm, and that it causes extreme drowsiness when first taken, then the man is off the shits. Interesting.  

“Did you have any other side effects?” You spoke again, still not looking at him. Meanwhile, you felt him staring at you once again, it sent shivers down your spine due to the intensity of it. The stare he gave you wasn’t exactly a rude or strange one, but it was one of curiosity; the way his winter-blue eyes squinted with his blond eyebrows furred gave it away. 

“No.” And, that there were no lingering side effects once the pill stops working completely. 

“That information will be helpful once I fill out my lab report.” You squint your eyebrows, confused on why he was staring at you. “Yo, why are you staring at me so hard?” You moved away from him on the sofa.

“You want to know what I’ve just realised?” He leaned in closer, causing you to lean back again. The proximity between you two right now was wicked.

“And what would that be?”

“That I never kissed you before.”

“Please don’t think about that right now. My teeth aren’t even brushed.”

He smiled, his blue eyes twinkling mischievously. “I don’t care about that.” Before you could protest further, he closed the distance between you, his lips capturing yours in a gentle yet electrifying kiss.

Your heart raced, a mix of shock and desire flooding your senses. You knew you should push him away, remind him of the professional boundaries, but the warmth of his touch and the sincerity in his kiss made it impossible to resist.

When he finally pulled back, his gaze searched yours, as if seeking an answer to an unspoken question. You were breathless, your mind a whirlwind of emotions.

“This changes everything,” you whispered, not trusting your voice to say more.

“It doesn’t have to,” he replied softly. “Unless you want it to.”

You looked into his eyes, seeing the vulnerability there, the same vulnerability you felt. Maybe, just maybe, this was the moment to let your guard down. “Maybe it should,” you said, surprising yourself with the admission.

He smiled, a slow, genuine smile that made your heart flutter. “Then let’s see where this goes.”

And in that moment, you knew there was no turning back.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I'm sort of confused on Silver's personality. I know the game typically portrays him as someone who is empathic/kindhearted/etc., but after looking through his battle lines and the Glorious Masquerade tower scene (where he's joshing with Sebek before they go to fight the flowers), it seems like he lets out a different part of his personality? Battle lines were sourced from the wiki.

I initially thought it was exclusive to when he's fighting, but in his dorm uniform vignette, he's just praising Sebek's skills during their sparring (unless sparring vs. real fights prompt different reactions from him, but he doesn't seem to have the same cocky dialogue in book 7 either).

For reference, I'm EN only.

To those he considers his allies, yes, Silver is generally cordial (if not blunt) and empathetic. If it’s a situation where he has to protect his loved ones? Then Silver has to get serious and take down those threats. At the end of the day, he’s a knight and he has duties to tend to. However, it’s not so much of a confusingly merciless aspect to his character, erasing his empathy, or showing a hidden dark side to him 8as it is just another facet of who he is and an extension of his preexisting traits.

Given the opportunity, Silver tends to opt for discussion first before attacking or deceiving. Notable examples of this include Fairy Gala: If (where he expresses guilt for tricking the fairies and suggests just talking with them instead) and Endless Halloween Night (where he attempts to speak with the ghosts… until his peers ruin it by preemptively attacking them). In the cases where he does have to resort to violence, it usually comes with this air of reluctance, he’s almost never the instigator (but instead follows someone else’s lead, like Jamil in Endless Halloween Night), and/or he apologizes to those he beats down (book 7). When listening to the audio for the battle lines (I’m not sure if you did this too or if you just read them), I don’t really get a sense of arrogance from how Silver speaks. They’re mostly pretty neutral and soft. Because of this, I don’t think he takes any genuine joy or pride in striking others down. It’s just… something that comes with the territory and the nature of what he does. A “necessary evil”, you might say.

I cross referenced fan translations and native Japanese speakers in my own life about Silver’s battle lines. They seem to be pretty accurate, so the explanation for the can come down to a few things.

One idea is that the Diasomnia students just speak melodramatically; this is something that Azul and Idia remark on in Glorious Masquerade:

Having others misinterpret the meaning bc behind their words and body language is a detail that may ring especially true for Silver, as his Dorm Uniform vignettes center around a misunderstanding between him and some mob student peers. Lilia notes that while it may be easy for him, Silver’s father, to read and to understand Silver’s emotions and the intention behind them, this may not be true for others.

Let’s circle back around to Silver and his identity. Being a knight is a Big Deal for him, who wants to have the power to protect the people he loves and to “pay back” what he feels is owes to his father. He even references the fruits of his training and physical prowess in various battle lines. The pride Silver has in his own power, then, comes from that selfless desire to fiercely defend the things he cherishes—but as his Dorm Uniform vignettes show us, it’s so easy to misinterpret his aloofness as something else. Due to this + the dramatic flair of the Diasomnia students, maybe some players misunderstood Silver’s battle lines as being more arrogant than he intended for them to be.

Another idea that I think also makes a lot of sense is just how Silver perceives the situations he’s in. He’s able to be a lot more amicable when he’s fighting alongside Sebek, his childhood friend, fellow knight, and pseudo-little brother figure. They have known each other for so long that they can read each other’s true feelings and can perfectly coordinate their attacks with one another. Silver understands that Sebek lashes out because he’s embarrassed and this is how he shows affection; Sebek knows that Silver is empathetic and kind but that others fail to see if because of Silver’s stoicism, etc. They can afford to poke fun of each other while they train or do a practice sparring match—and Silver, being the older one, naturally feels a sense of pride seeing Sebek make improvements.

In Glorious Masquerade, Silver and Sebek are panting and starting to get tired from fighting the fire lotuses… and yet they’re still able to lightly tease each other, pointing out that the other is slightly faltering. This is how they communicate with each other, because they both have too much pride to show weakness in front of their fellow knight.

It is Sebek who suggests having a competition to see who can cut down the most flowers, NOT Silver. Knowing that Sebek is the type who conceals his emotions with fake bravado, it’s very likely that the competition was Sebek’s roundabout way of encouraging Silver and giving him motivation to keep fighting.

Alright, now pay attention to Silver’s face between the first and second screenshots here:

At first, Silver seems surprised. Almost immediately after, he’s doing that soft, lopsided grin while seemingly saying a really arrogant line about how he’s going to essentially mop the floor with Sebek and secure the victory. Looking at this scene from an outsider’s perspective, Silver’s weirdly being stuck-up to his friend in these dangerous circumstances… and that’s the thing, it’s the OUTSIDER’s perspective.

Given how well the two know each other and their respective communication styles, I’d wager this scene isn’t how it appears on the surface level. Again, it is Sebek who suggests the competition… after he notices that the chips are down. Silver knows that Sebek is brash in his efforts to cheer others up. That is most likely what Sebek is doing now, and that’s why Silver so quickly rebounds from shock to smiling. When he says, “I was just worried about how I’d calm you down when you inevitably lost”, it doesn’t necessarily have to read as an ill-timed taunt. It could also read as Silver joking back to try and ease Sebek’s weariness and grant him some motivation too.

Lastly, here’s the boring meta answer (booooooooo): things that are said or happen in battles/gameplay don’t always match up or make 100% sense in the context of the narrative. For example, playable characters don’t always have the same stats as when we battle them as mini-bosses, somehow you can have a whole team of the same character, etc. For Silver, the battle voice lines he has do not make sense for every battle he takes place in for the main story, and thus he may not truly be telling Silver Owls “Know your place” (which does, in fact, sound a little hostile OOC) when you deploy him to fight. You have to also consider that we have like… zero explanation for any battle lines other than they’re battle lines. This is completely unlike the main story which has tons of context and set-up.

Thinking of it like this, we can clearly separate battle lines from lines of extended dialogue shown in the main story, vignettes, etc. It doesn’t mean the Silver we see in battles isn’t “real”, it just means the Silver we see in battle segments won’t accurately reflect his current state of being at that point in the story because he doesn’t have specialized voice lines to suit each scenario. Silver has always consistently been kind-hearted and willing to hear others out; this was not changed even in book 7. It only appears that he has oddly stuck-up and out of character voice lines because our brains want to stitch everything together into a single narrative even when the gameplay meta and the story meta don’t want to align.

[notsogoodangel]

Brunim is absolutely the true evil-evil triplet, he wasn't an anarchist vampire emperor and got called a psychopath by Forever because he put him in an impossible-to-escape prison which probably influenced Forever to try to do the same with Bad and Phil to not be called "evil evil"

[frvnkcastles]

hey i hope ur okay❤️ can you do Frank x Reader where she has an alcoholic and abusive father who has been in prison for two years and one day he is released and shows up at her house and she is very scared so Frank protects and comforts her

FIND MY PEACE OF MIND ➵ F. CASTLE

Summary: When your abusive father turns up on your doorstep, Frank takes care of it.

Warnings: Mentions of past abuse (not specified), alcoholism, hurt/comfort, feminine nicknames

Word count: 1.7k

Author’s note: I know what it’s like to have alcoholism in the family (parents especially) and how dire the consequences of it can be, so you have my absolute sympathy, anon! I’m sending you so much love, and I hope you’re doing alright <3 I added a little detail of Frank offering to make it a completely alcohol-free home because that’s something I’ve thought about a lot, I personally don’t drink at all because of my family and I don’t think I’d be able to share a space with someone who drinks regularly. We see Frank drink occasionally on the show but I don’t think it’s ever implied he has a problem? So I 100% feel like he’d give it up if you asked. Anyway, I hope you enjoy :)

Upon meeting Frank for the first time and subsequently learning he had been in prison, you were understandably sceptical about getting involved with him. You already had a man in your life who had deep-seated anger and hatred within him, manifesting in violent tendencies, and that had scarred you for life. So, you hesitated, and he had immediately seen the doubt and even fear on your face, and although he couldn’t explain why he wanted your approval so badly, he did.

”Hey, if you don’t wanna see me again, I ain’t gonna hold it against you. But you, uh… maybe you should read about me first. Judge for yourself”, he had suggested before parting ways with you, and you had promised to do just that. You had a napkin with his phone number scribbled on it, and against your first instinct, you didn’t throw it away. His words stuck with you, and when you got home that night, you searched up his name and were smacked in the face with a flood of news articles about him.

Most of them were negative, and you had quickly questioned why he would encourage you to read them. Journalists hadn’t hesitated to write horrendous things about him, but they had also dug up his past and spread it all over the internet for everyone to learn about. And it was those tidbits that soon opened your eyes to the enigma that was Frank Castle. He wasn’t a senseless killer and he wasn’t an abuser or a tormentor of innocent people — he was seeking justice for his brutally gunned down family and cleaning up the streets from evil.

You had been wary because of your past with your father, but the more you read about Frank, the easier it became to see that he was nothing like him. In fact, your father was a man who would sicken Frank, a man that Frank wouldn’t think twice about hurting, and that realization welcomed an odd feeling of safety into your heart.

You called Frank the next day, and it was the beginning of him always hanging around you. Before you knew it, your life had turned from bleak loneliness and anxiety about your father’s eventual return to endless kisses, late-night dates on the rooftop of your apartment building and sitting on your boyfriend’s lap while icing the newest bruise on the corner of his eyes. He was a whirlwind but in the best way, and you found yourself completely enamored with him.

He felt the same way, certainly not having expected falling in love with someone, and especially as hard as he had with you. He had tried so hard to stay guarded and deny himself the truth, but it had been impossible to resist you, and so, inevitably, he let his heart be in the driver’s seat for a change and admitted to himself that he adored you.

With your new relationship came opening up to each other about everything you had been through. You had already learned so much about Frank on the news that it felt like an invasion of his privacy, so you had asked him to tell you in his own words when he was ready, and in return, he was all ears when you shared the story about your father and his issues with alcohol. Frank had been more than understanding, immediately insisting that cutting out drinking entirely was something he was willing to do for you — whatever it took to create a safe environment for you. On top of that, he had assured you that he’d do his everything to keep you safe from everyone, but especially your father, and you fully trusted him to keep that promise.

Still, you didn’t expect that hypothetical situation would come to life. You were used to worrying about your father and the eventual time when he’d get out of prison, but when Frank began spending more and more time at your apartment, you lost track of that nervousness and it became an afterthought. You felt safe for the first time in years, but it all came crashing down on one otherwise regular Sunday.

There was a knock on your door and it caught both your and Frank’s attention in the kitchen where you were cooking dinner together. ”I’ll get it”, you smiled at him before he could jump at the opportunity, gently squeezing his arm before you left him with the chopped vegetables and headed for the front door.

You swung it open, and at the sight of your father, your face lost all vitality and your heart sank all the way down to the floor. ”There you are! At least you had the decency to open the door”, he slurred, clearly already intoxicated, and panic emerged in your chest. He had to have been only just released from prison, and here he was, already drunk and tracked you down.

”You’re not welcome here. Leave, okay?” you stuttered, far less demanding as you wanted to be, and the attempt made your father snort. He tried to step inside, but you quickly narrowed the doorway, not letting him invade your home. He reacted with a mean stare, calling you an ungrateful brat under his breath, and you tried your best to fight off tears.

”Sweetheart, who is it?” Frank called to you from the kitchen when you didn’t return, and with a shaky exhale, you realized you didn’t have to face your father alone. You had the city’s greatest weapon right there with you.

”It’s my father”, you declared loud enough for him to hear, and you instantly heard him drop the knife in his hands. Not more than two seconds later, Frank was stomping from the kitchen, fueled by his concern for you but his face twisted into something furious.

”And who’s this?” your father chortled, swaying back and forth in the hallway, barely able to stand up. Frank assessed the situation, and he swiftly understood that there was no talking sense into a drunk man. That was fine with him — he wasn’t really in the mood for polite conversation, anyway.

”Get the fuck outta here. This is your only warning”, Frank grunted, leaving nothing up to debate. He stood in front of you, shielding you from your father who was hardly impacted by Frank’s thinly veiled threat, and you quietly cried from the sheer terror.

”Hey, you can’t tell me—”, your father began, but Frank was having none of it. He shoved your father into the hallway and closed the door behind him, not wanting you to witness their bickering and get upset even more. You were scared for him, but realistically you knew that Frank could take care of himself, especially against someone absolutely wasted and delirious.

Frank dragged your father outside by his arm, his grip enough to leave bruises in the shape of angry fingers, and he wasn’t stopping despite the drunk man’s feeble protests. He was fuming, absolutely livid that your father had had the audacity to show up and put your life in shambles all over again, and he couldn’t stop thinking about all the abuse you had endured. The man under his grip deserved nothing but the worst, and he would have been honored to be the one to give it to him.

Once outside, Frank pushed your father forward, causing him to stumble down onto the pavement. ”You’re a pathetic asshole, y’know that? You don’t deserve someone like her. You don’t deserve to call yourself a father. And if you come here again, I’mma make sure you regret even thinkin’ about it”, Frank seethed, standing above your father menacingly. He didn’t get up or argue back, so Frank considered his job done for now — but he was going to stay true to his word if he’d ever show his face again. The only reason he hadn’t killed him yet was knowing that you struggled with the idea, and he didn’t want to hurt you by hurting him.

He made his way back inside where you were a trembling mess, and instantly softer, Frank closed the door behind him and pulled you into his arms. ”It’s aight, darlin’. He’s gone”, he soothed you, his heart breaking when you burst into sobs against his firm chest. He felt sickened by the thought of what you had suffered through. As a father himself, he could not imagine ever doing that to his children, and he couldn’t fathom how broken a person had to be to resort to abuse the way your father had. It was the lowest of the low in his opinion, and he was almost hoping your father would give him further excuse to royally beat him up.

”I was so scared”, you confessed through cries, and with an understanding nod, Frank kissed your forehead and caressed your hair. He didn’t consider himself to be an expert at giving comfort, but for you, he would always pull out all the stops.

”I know, baby. It’s over now. He ain’t comin’ back, I promise, I’ll make sure of it. He can’t hurt you no more”, he swore, swallowing down his rage before withdrawing from you enough to look down into your eyes. ”I’mma help you file for a restraining order, yeah? And if he still won’t listen, I’ll break his fucking legs”, he guaranteed, entirely serious, but it still got a little laugh out of you.

”I’d like to see that”, you pointed out, and with a small smile, Frank swiped his thumb across your cheek in a comforting motion.

”There’s my girl. Hey, I’ll always keep you safe, you know that, right?” he reminded you, and slowly, you gave him a nod to confirm you trusted him.

”Thank you, Frankie. I’d be lost without you”, you sighed, hugging him again, and he enveloped you into his strong arms while resting his chin on the top of your head.

”You know I feel the same way about you, sweetheart”, he whispered, always so grateful to have you in his life. He found you so utterly perfect and beautiful inside out, he couldn’t believe anyone would ever hurt you. And even though your father had done exactly that, you were still so strong and kind, something he didn’t think he always was himself.

He admired the hell out of you, and he was going to do whatever it took to help you keep your peace of mind.

[yanderes-galore]

Heyyyy can I request romanticly Lloyd Garmadon×reader, Prompts 1 and 4 because I can really see Lloyd also being an yandere who would sacrifice the world for their darlin

I didn't realize how much trauma Lloyd went through until I watched a video on it... Oml man is NOT okay.....

Yandere! Lloyd Garmadon Prompts 1 + 4

"I'd burn this world and everything in it for you."

"My heart belongs to you, I'll adore anything you do to it."

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Overprotective behavior, Possessive behavior, Unhealthy coping mechanisms/attachment, Threats, Clingy behavior, Kidnapping, Attachment issues, Dubious turned forced relationship.

The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth

Lloyd has never experienced proper love. Lloyd hasn't even experienced a proper childhood. He was instead forced to take the mantle of hero at a young age... forced to fight evils no normal person should face...

Of course he wasn't going to be okay.

Lloyd's biggest fear is becoming like his father. He knows he's done horrible things in the past and he still can't forgive himself. He's witnessed many he's cared about die... He's watched himself harm others.

So, of course, the moment he feels anything positive... It's normal to latch on, right?

When Lloyd met you, he was hesitant to get attached. He's so used to being used or watching those he cares about get hurt.... The moment you're kind he panics a bit.

But over time... Your kindness feels genuine.

It's the one thing he's always wanted... Genuine love.

Love to someone who has never had it is an addicting thing. It's such a foreign yet familiar thing to him. Yours is so warm and sweet.

However... The problem with addiction is this...

Addicts will do anything to get another hit.

Lloyd's attachment to you was because you paid attention to him. You saw past his heroic acts... and his not so heroic acts.... Lloyd felt you saw him for himself.

Unfortunately... It didn't seem like you were ready for his strengthening attachment.

You saw Lloyd as a friend. Maybe even a sibling due to what he's gone through. You wanted to comfort him... support him...

But it seems you were just making him worse....

To Lloyd, it didn't matter what happened to him or anyone else when it came to you. As he was around you, he found himself unable to be away from you. Even when you asked for distance... He was unable to give it.

Why would you want distance anyways...? Is he not good enough? Does he scare you? Are you going to leave him?

He'd do anything to prevent that.

The moment you try to drift away or distance yourself, Lloyd just tugs you back. He's never far from you. He's always dedicated... scared you'll leave if he doesn't.

"My heart belongs to you, I'll adore anything you do to it."

He says such words like a prayer to you. Like it's a promise he'd come back no matter what you did. You were not a fool to his feelings... You just knew you could never reciprocate them.

He'd never stop loving you though.

It didn't matter how you loved him. Lloyd would always love you. As long as you give him attention, as long as you look at him, he'll take anything.

He'll be forever loyal...

He'll sacrifice anything...

As long as you're there to hold him. As long as you won't ever leave. As long as you're his...

He could care less how you see him... and he could care less if the world suffers for it at this point.

Lloyd may be a hero. However, to him, you always come first. Lloyd doesn't know what he'd do without you.

He'd sacrifice anything and everything if it meant you'd be all his. He'd cling to you even more if it meant he'd secure you. It didn't matter what it took...

"I'd burn this world and everything in it for you." Lloyd had said that to you to show you his desperation. You had suggested to take a break from one another, to be away from each other. The implication hurt...

Yet Lloyd was willing to wait as long as it took... and sacrifice everything... just to keep you to himself one way or another.

Sure, you can have some space for now... but he'll always be back by your side eventually.

Doesn't he deserve something good for once? Doesn't he deserve to be selfish? He's been forced to be hero for so long....

Lloyd's biggest fear is no longer becoming his father. His biggest fear is being alone. When you threaten to put distance between you and him...

Suddenly... being a bit of a villain doesn't seem so bad... Maybe he should just... drag you to be beside him forever...

As long as it means he's never alone... maybe he should give into his villainous roots.

[tens-girl]

Finished Rivals… have things to say…

Spoilers obvs ——>

Eeeeeeeeekkkkkk!

If you go into this show knowing it’s gonna be big, bold, brash, and unapologetic about being those things, you’ll have a great time!

The hair, the costumes, the music (oh god, the music - who stole my playlist?!), the cast - just everything is dialled up to 200% and if you dare to question ‘is it good though?’ it just shrugs and cuts to another sex montage.

Let’s be honest, I came (ahem) for David Tennant, but honestly, I stayed for so much more. He is brilliant of course, he always is, and his ability to capture the exact centre of a Venn diagram of pathetic and evil is unmatched - nobody does it like he does. He draws sympathy for a truly awful character, and certainly made me headbutt a wall a few times wondering how Tony kept making such terrible decisions. (Also if someone could supply a montage of him shouting fuck with full passion I’d be very grateful) - as he got more pathetic I honestly couldn’t resist him. His destruction of the Declan set is one of the most laughably pathetic things I’ve ever seen and I was almost crying watching it.

Meanwhile, they’re bending over backwards to make us like Rupert and I just can’t do it. He also makes lots of terrible decisions (mostly with his dick of course) and for me it undermines the apparent ‘he loves Taggie’ thing. I just wish he’d go home and play with his dogs.

(Also Gertrude is my favourite character, just the best dog!)

Shout out to Victoria Smurfit who knocks it out of the park as Maud - she has some of the best line deliveries in the whole show, particularly as she prepares to leave for London and resume her career.

But honestly, my heart belongs to Freddy and Lizzie. If you’d told me I’d be grinning with happiness, with tears in my eyes, for a sex scene between Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson before I started watching this, I’d have called a doctor for you, but that’s the truth. They are spectacular and I adored them. I’ve never been a fan of Danny before, but he completely seduced me here, and I already loved Katherine (IT Crowd fans in our house) - but between them, they supplied the real ‘rooting for them’ heart of the series. I want to see them together in everything now!

Back to DT - the top tier irony of having his character win his first BAFTA and then have him clubbed over the head with it… priceless, and I personally suggest the academy honour him with a long overdue nod for this role simply in order to see him receive it with trepidation in case he gets bludgeoned with it. It even beat the joyous irony of Tony being all true blue and Tory after… well everything that went down this summer!

(Also, the way Tony passed the award to Cameron as they collected it made me think that if David had won this year for Crowley, he’d have absolutely asked Michael up on stage to give it to him because Aziraphale should share it)

And lastly… Love is a Battlefield is an excellent song, but I will never be able to listen to it again now. Oh pathetic-evil DT characters, please stop wobbling my moral compass (sorry, I’m writing Kilgrave fanfic right now so I’m all over the place in terms of right and wrong)

Anyway, it was great fun and I’ve told everyone to watch it, 80s references bingo cards at the ready!

[curi0us-gh0st]

Hi! Hope you're doing well ☺️ I would like to request headcanons for Ha Do-yeong and Jeon Jae-jun (separately) falling in love and confessing to a female reader is Moon Dong-eun's friend who helped her in revenge? She is also a very loving mother figure to Ye-sol? And what it will be like to date them? Thank you ❤️

(Im)Perfect Relationship (Do-yeong & Jae-jun)

pairings: Ha Do-yeong x Fem!Reader, Ye-sol x Fem!Reader (Platonic), Jeon Jae-jun x Fem!Reader,

word count: ± 1k

genre: Angst, fluffy, suggestive (?)

summary:

Jeon Jae-jun, He was the almost perfect guy for all the girls, he had everything he wanted whenever he wanted, and the only thing he wanted, he couldn't have, was you.

Ha Do-yeong, With his thought of leaving Seoul with Ye-sol, trying to keep his daughter away from the evils of the metropolis, he only saw a single light to stay.

warnings: mention of Moon Dong-eun's bullying, swearing, forgiveness (?), almost an unhappy ending, Reader being doubtful of any act of Jae-jun, jealousy, age gaps, kissing, mention of Park Yeon-jin, let me know if anything slipped out.:)

a/n: aaaa, kinda sad? but, after all, deep down there are feelings :((

part 1 / part 2 (smut)

Jeon Jae-jun

★ Jae-jun the moment he met you, the first time he saw you with Moon Dong-eun on the court, he quickly felt that he could convince you (or you) with his charm, but he didn't even come close, you and Dong-eun just cutting off the chat and leaving happy that their plan had begun.

★ Jae-jun, after several times seeing you in situations involving Dong-eun and his revenge, he felt tempted to flirt with you, but unfortunately for him, he always got dumped, getting angry and determined to make you surrender to his beauty.

★ When Jae-jun realized that he wanted you more than any other woman he could have, he felt indifferent, laughing in his own face, because he had simply never felt that way with Yeon-jin, much less with Hye-jeong. So he spent long moments thinking about why he wanted to stay close and wanted to impress just you.

★ Jae-jun when he touched himself is in love with you, he cursed himself internally, cursing himself every moment he found himself thinking about you, what it would be like to wake up next to you, how your lips could be soft and sweet, how your food would be hot, etc. And he quickly shook his head furiously while you were almost finishing him off in the revenge plan, he must hate you.

★ Jae-jun thought that if he got rid of Yeon-jin, he would have a share of forgiveness and found the perfect time to confess his feelings while he almost made you guys crash into his car, what a stupid idea he thought of later. You asked Dong-eun to stay in the car, saying you would deal with him and well, it was really awkward talking.

"You're telling me you're in love with me? You're kidding, right?" You laughed in disbelief, the rain wetting your hair and clothes with how much outside it was.

"I am not kidding!" He shouted angrily, it wasn't because he was in love that he would be sweet, he was still explosive.

"No way." He scoffed. "It's impossible for someone like you to have feelings, especially you! Are you aware of what you did to Dong-eun? Do you feel guilty? Do you feel ashamed? No, right? Because you are you! Superb, just thinking about money and sex, nothing Besides, it matters.” He spat out the words. "Someone like you would never know what love, empathy, compassion, those things are. Never, do you understand?"

"Y/N, please…" Before he could say anything, Yeo-jeong appeared, asking you to leave with Dong-eun and he would sort it out, you obeyed, leaving there.

★ Jae-jun in the following days felt frustrated, hating himself for every moment of that damn conversation. You were right? Could he ever feel what love is? Did you hate him? Was he such a horrible person? And if he asked for forgiveness, would everything change? Would you like him? He was so confused, so sad, for the first time in his life, he would have to fight for something he truly cared about.

★ When Jae-jun went to visit Hye-jeong, after all those events, he felt strange and even asked Choi why he was feeling that way, of course Hye-jeong looked at him strangely, in disbelief at what she was hearing, quickly Jeon he told her to forget about it and not tell anyone, the moment he left, he came face to face with you, dressed as a nurse and with a gentle smile while talking to a patient, when your eyes met theirs he soon disappeared, moving on to another wing, but was prevented by him.

★ Jae-jun took you to the hospital terrace, where you could stay afterwards, saying he had to talk to you, you had no choice but to go.

“Y/N.” He tried to find words to say what he felt. "I know you don't believe me, and you're right, I understand that. But please… Just think about it." Jae-jun put his hands together for the first time to beg for something.

"Rethink?" You asked. "What do I have to think? You hurt my friend, you made her about, what do you want me to rethink?!"

"Oh!" He shouted impatiently. "Damn, I know what I did, but… I… Fuck!" He couldn't. "I-I like you! I want you, not just to stay and leave the next morning for the first time, I want to wake up next to someone, I want to be the reason you smile, I want to actually be good to you, I don't know why I'm feeling this, but that's what I think every time I see you! Please, please, please. Think again, if you really don't want to, I'll disappear from your life forever!" Jae-jun knelt in front.

His eyes staring deeply into yours, really trying to convey everything he felt to you, he didn't understand, but he thought it was the right thing to do. You stared at him, kneeling in front of him, your heart pounding, confused, strangely thoughtful at the confession, maybe… Just maybe, could you forgive him? Was he lying? Was he cheating on you? Was he planning something with this? Why would he go to the level of kneeling and begging? Maybe, you should at least give him the pleasure of a cup of coffee or dinner to hear what he had to say. Maybe, you should talk to Dong-eun and Yeo-jeong about this, you were so confused. You really need to think about this.

Ha Do-yeong

★ When Ha Do-yeong met you, you were Ye-sol's babysitter since Yeon-jin went back to work, you spent most of your day with the little girl. He was surprised when he saw her with Moon Dong-eun after her resignation, but logically, he didn't say anything to Yeon-jin while letting you see Ye-sol while she was gone, since the girl was attached to you.

★ When Yeon-jin tried to push you away at all costs if Ye-sol, he intervened because the woman wanted to fight in front of her daughter, he didn't let her insult you, much less let her attack you. He pushed you away and apologized to you, saying that you could see Ye-sol in peace once the divorce papers were signed, you were surprised when you heard him say that but you agreed.

★ Ha Do-yeong, after Yeon-jin was arrested, he sent you a text message, asking if you would like to leave with them and leave Seoul, you quickly denied it because of your family and that your friend needed you even That you loved Ye-sol, he couldn't leave everything and leave like that, he understood that, he thought, he spent the night thinking about it.

★ He asked you for lunch one day, you were silent until the waiter took your orders, he cleared his throat to say something to you.

"Y/N. I understand that you don't want to leave Seoul because of your family, Moon Dong-eun and other personal reasons of yours. Therefore, Ye-sol has been very attached to you since forever, I think. She doesn't stop Talking about you and your times together, I wish you could babysit her again in some way. I just… I really want you close to her, she likes you a lot like I do." He said spontaneously, of course it made perfect sense in his head, but something held you back.

"Oh-" his cheeks lit up pink, it caught her off guard at this. "I know, Mister Ha. And well, of course I can babysit Ye-sol, I love this little girl more than anything and I understand that you would do anything to see her happy." You smiled shyly and he smiled brightly.

★ When Do-yeong got home after weeks of you accepting the proposal, he felt his heart catch fire seeing you and Ye-sol preparing a cake, the kitchen full of wheat and mixtures that spilled while lively music played in the background, and Their laughter filled the place with joy. When you saw him standing there, his cheeks turned red with embarrassment while Ye-sol was more radiant than anything.

"Appa, you're here!" The little girl ran to him, despite his protest that she would dirty him. "Y/N and I are making a cake for us all to snack on." Ye-sol whispered as if it was a secret.

"A cake? It must be delicious!" He smiled approaching the dirty kitchen. "Apparently, there were some unforeseen events." He laughed at how he was doing.

"I'm sorry Mr. Ha, I promise I'll clean everything up!" You assured.

"No problem, if the cake is good, you will be forgiven!" He tickled Ye-sol who laughed loudly.

Some time after everything was tidy and clean, you were sitting on the grass in the backyard, having a picnic in the moonlight, seeing the full moon in the sky while listening to Ye-sol's stories. Suddenly, Do-yeong reached out to his face, which made it red again.

"There's still cake mix on your face." He chuckled, wiping at his chin. His gaze and hand remained for a good few minutes, you were very beautiful, how did he not notice that before?

"My God!" You almost exploded with embarrassment. "I'll have to spend long minutes in the shower to clean up all this mess." You laughed shyly as his eyes lit up, quickly taking his hand away from you.

★ After that day, he found himself feeling different about you, you seemed more beautiful and more attractive than any other woman he had ever seen, and who had flirted with him. He refused to accept his own feelings, because you were younger than him, he felt hesitant about it.

★ After much thought, he invited you to go with him and Ye-sol to the beach, you accepted thinking it was just to take care of Ye-sol during it, but certainly not. You were tempted to look at his almost defined body, the masculine features that highlighted his beauty, heavens, you were feeling completely attracted to his boss…

★ And this was even deeper when you saw a woman talking to him, feeling strange, calling Ye-sol to come with you, to call him.

"Jagiya?" "Appa!" You called them, right behind him. Making the woman look at you and as he turned around in surprise at the call.

"What?" He asked in surprise.

"Jagiya, Ye-sol wants to eat ice cream… How about you join us?" You teased, making a different tone appear on Do-yeong's cheeks. When the woman said goodbye to him, it was his victory, without saying anything, he took them to the ice cream shop.

That night, minutes after you put Ye-sol to sleep, he was on the balcony looking at the stars drinking wine he found in the hotel room.

"Jagiya. Was this all to drive away the woman I was with?" You almost spat the wine out of his mouth when Do-yeong appeared in the doorway.

"I… No…" He chuckled at her nervous state. "Were you jealous?" He asked, knowing the answer. "She was a lookalike from the company, who saw me and came to greet me, don't worry." He teased making your cheeks catch fire.

"Mister Ha…" You saw him get closer to you.

"Maybe I should show you who my heart belongs to…" He said almost in a whisper, your heart pounding against your chest, your eyes dilating, on impulse, you set the glass aside, holding onto Do-yeong's long shoulders and pulling him into a kiss, soft and sweet.

"Maybe, you already have your answer…" his eyes sparkled next to his.

That night, a new passion set fire to Do-yeong's heart, a true and pure love, without lies, without deceit, without cheating. Where even his daughter felt welcomed and loved.

[luniviravosshipper]

The most frustrating thing about liking complex and morally grey—maybe leaning a bit more towards morally black—characters is that you have to deal with both sides of people who try to simplify and reduce that character to a few superficial traits that either absolutely detest that character with all their being or worship them wholeheartedly as a result.

You can’t say you like a character because of their flaws or wrongdoings or else the side that hates that character will take your appreciation of those things as you trying to endorse them and will go out of their way to even suggest that those same flaws or wrongdoings must be reflected within your own life. Because how else could you endorse the actions or beliefs of such a terrible character? But the other side will also mistakenly perceive your appreciation of those imperfections in that character as you trying to justify them and will therefore use it to prove their own viewpoint. The viewpoint that the character wasn’t wrong in the first place and shouldn’t be seen as so complicated of a person because, in their mind, they never actually were. Anyone who sees them as complicated is “misunderstanding” or “misinterpreting” them and their intentions since their motivations were quite simple all along.

I, for whatever reason, am not allowed to like a character in media simply because they’re ambiguous. Because their nuance makes them feel more fleshed out, more real.

I must like them only because I see them as good, and I need to be able to argue why I see them as good.

That seems to be the overarching dispute between those who do and those who don’t like those types of characters. At least from what I’ve noticed.

The thing is, this isn’t even a case of whether or not a character is actually good. I mean, you can write one of the most vile, unarguably evil characters ever and they can still be seen as complex. And one character’s complexity shouldn’t undermine how “good” they might actually be.

I feel like people just hate characters that are written to be multi-dimensional because they themselves can’t as easily fit them into their black and white worldview of morality. It’s not so much of a matter of whether or not that character is actually right or good, it’s more about the fact that people can’t seem to be able to distinguish the difference between what makes a character complex and what ideals they uphold.

And, of course, the fact that people seem to think that you can only like things as long as they can fit within their own sense of morals and ethics. You can’t like something or someone that doesn’t reflect your own values according to them. And if you do, well… Apparently that must certainly say something about you.

Though, again, this is all just stuff I’ve picked up on overtime.

[firestorm09890]

obligatory disclaimer that I don't think Ansem the Wise is like, embodiment of all evil or whatever I just think Ienzo's relationship with him being really fucked up is fun. talking about characters fucking up supremely does not mean I hate them and honestly I would prefer if any potential discussion in the tags of this post is not solely dunking on the man

anyway personally I think "Ienzo was manipulated into believing Ansem was worse than he was and decided to betray him with his own hands" is a lot more interesting than "they sent Ansem to the Realm of Darkness and Ienzo said 'where's Ansem' and they said 'oh he abandoned us' and Ienzo said 'okay 💖 yay 💖'". I think as nice as Ienzo's memories of him are, Ansem was not a good father. Not through any malicious intent, he just... had too many expectations and then didn't do enough. It's only a few steps from "kind but generally absent father who tells you what is and isn't acceptable" to whatever Xehanort had Ienzo believing

What little we've seen of Ienzo pre-Xehanort paints a picture of a kid who's fine honestly but definitely not "typical"- frequently runs off to explore the gardens (forcing Even to chase him), watches EVERYTHING and understands it all while expressing nothing, has zero fear when being attacked by Unversed??? (that one's the most interesting one. that cutscene is called "Eyes Without Fear" and given how much a calm, watchful gaze is emphasized in BBS Ienzo, I'm sure it's about him and not Ven). and. let's talk about expectations

Ansem's a guy with strong beliefs. this is not necessarily good. remember, he started the experiments- in the cutscene where Xehanort asks about the door, he even still has hearts floating in containers in his study

He believes darkness is evil, which is why he started those experiments in the first place to find out enough about it to prevent it from destroying his paradise, and then later believes all his beliefs about Nobodies that aren't really relevant but serve the point. It is not difficult for him to hate and fear what he doesn't understand. He is not kind with Xehanort- he shouts down the suggestion, not taking time to explain why, just saying the door shouldn't be defiled. And like yeah don't touch the door but he really, truly believes he is right (up until he realizes his apprentices have taken things too far but even then he DOESN'T TELL THEM IT WAS HIS MISTAKE FOR STARTING THEM). he has to be. Radiant Garden is perfect, and he's the ruler.

which means despite his kindness, he likely doesn't tolerate "bad" questions from Ienzo. "if there are plants that can heal then there are also plants that can hurt, right?" "IENZO why would you say something like that we only use the flowers of radiant garden to help people" and then Even goes "oh yeah poison. here's a book of poisonous plants. have fun". Ansem takes the Eraqus route of "if you feel a bad feeling that is the darkness and you can't feel it or it might consume you" which is :) fine :) and not at aaaaall stifling I'm sure. I've sort of said it before but I think Ansem was never a source of safety for Ienzo- he is In Charge, he is the one who determines what's right and wrong, he's the one who passes judgement, and he is always busy. which means Ienzo's having to turn to Even. you can imagine what that's like

I've also talked about this before- Ansem snapping at all the apprentices after finding out about their experiments is a very easy thing to twist into "see? he doesn't care about you. he never has. he was the one who wanted to do these experiments in the first place, and now he wants to shut them down? didn't he always encourage curiosity in you? no, wait, he always suppressed your curiosity. he claimed to want paradise and didn't even notice his people disappearing, one by one. do you think he's really worthy of the title of 'sage'", especially for someone with as shoddy of morals as someone like Ienzo likely had (combine the classic nd trait of "you're telling me this is bad but not why it's bad so I've decided until I understand why it's bad that your rules are stupid" with being raised by Those Fucking Guys to get a boy perfectly concocted to commit atrocities).

Book of Retribution gets it, I don't care that it concluded years before kh3

“You brought [Xehanort] to us. Even after you saw how he was—what he was—you left him to his own devices... You knew what he was doing. You knew he was dangerous. And yet you left him with us. You had already pushed us all to the wayside for him, did you really expect any differently? You forced us into a pit of vipers, and you were surprised when we had the audacity to be bitten.”

anything said by Ienzo in kh3 does not change this. how involved Ienzo was, how much he knew, does not change Ansem's actions and inaction.

I think if Ienzo ever goes evil again (very big "if", I highly doubt it will happen) it won't be because haha! he was secretly still evil all along!! but because being around Ansem for long enough again has shattered the rose-tinted glasses

in summary: I think despite his intentions Ansem was not a good father and I don't think Xehanort had to work very hard to get Ienzo to betray him

[profounddefendorcrusade-blog]

A Long Rant About The Koffin Trio

Note: So, this is my first (really) long post about this fangame, and to be honest, I was debating whether or not to even publish it. I still decided to do it since not a lot of folks talk about ts!underswap, and I wanted to give my two cents regarding my three favorite characters.

More important note: If you think it's gonna trigger you to read about Harry/Larry and Harry/Larry/KK as a found family, better click off this post. Maybe it's my inner aroace speaking, but I personally don't see the romantic appeal at all. Good for you if you do! I'm not trying to invalidate anyone's opinion; diversity is great after all :)

For those of you who are still here, I will start off by saying this:

Harry and Larry depend on Count Koffin-K for so much. I'm tempted to say EVERYTHING.

He genuinely feels like their father figure. I mean, this sentient fedora gave them a job while they were both living lives that were... bad.

He isn't cruel when they do something stupid and instead just looks deadpan. Sure, Koffin-K's not a perfect boss; he yells at the two of them and insults them (dude really needs to work on his temper), but I found it sweet how both Harry and Larry felt safe enough to tell him the truth here, which to me counts for something (pun intended) ↓

He even pranks them sometimes ↓

Koffin may not be perfect (he's gotta keep up the "evil" persona) but at least he 1) tries to give Harry and Larry a hint that he cares for them (has them both secretly do his laundry without them telling each other) 2) actually admits that he cares for them both equally (in his own way) 3) attempts to solve their disagreement despite him not gaining anything out of it

How they met is also interesting to me.

Based on their backstory, Harry and Larry were clearly hesitant to work for Koffin, but when they actually started the job the next day, I imagine that their conversation went something like this (either during the first day or at some point early on in their career):

H: "Larry, he could be like the dad we never had and provide for us and we could have all da money that we never did, see?"

L: "Huhuhu, yeah! Don't forgets da food!"

...and that's how the parade float came to be. I think Koffin secretly appreciates they made it, even though he says how he wanted the thing "as far away as possible" right after saying this line ↓

He also makes this face later on at the festival when he sees the float again cause it reminds him that the three of them are a family despite Harry and Larry getting on his nerves half the time but I can't include the screenshot bc of the picture limit

Heck, the two even built their house outside the keep, which to me suggests that they don’t ever plan on leaving Koffin.

Harry does mention his mother, and we learn that he's into embroidery (both making me think he's a a 'mama's boy'; maybe she taught him how to embroider)...

...but even on the ts!us wiki, the only relationship dynamic the two have is with Koffin-K himself.

Weirdly enough, we only know that Harry has a mom, but not a dad

Even though he was definitely unaware of this, Koffin liked Harry and Larry FOR BEING THEMSELVES. This is really important to me.

He saw something in them that others did not, even if it was initally just "your names rhyme and you give me the 'goofy henchmen' vibe." He sees them both as useful for what he needs them for. It may not be much, but it's exactly what Koffin's looking for.

In other words:

THE WAY HARRY AND LARRY ARE IS ENOUGH FOR COUNT KOFFIN-K. I mean, why look at resumes of competent potential employees when you can hire two idiots who are just as goofy as you

Exactly why Harry and Larry are so loyal to Koffin-K is unknown, but based on my interpretation, it has to do with 1) them desperately needing a father figure/someone to rely on 2) Koffin giving Harry and Larry a home, food, money, and a job that also allows them to slack off and finally enjoy life, and 3) him making them feel needed. Maybe not appreciated, even though he subtly tried to, but definitely needed. Serving under him became their purpose.

In other words, I think they're so loyal because Koffin "chose" them, even if he did that subconsciously.

Harry got the chance to be more than just a janitor. Imo, he was hesitant to work for Koffin at first because he was afraid that he would lose the only sense of security he had. I think he lived with his mom at the time, considering his low-wage job This explains why he wants to be rich (to make up for all the things he couldn't afford).

It also explains why Larry loves food so much (he literally slept under a dumpster bag and if he was both homeless AND unemployed, it would mean that he had to either be a beggar or eat from the trash. Either way, eating good food was out of the question.

It's also possible that Larry had a janitor job just like Harry (but unlike him, nowhere to live). I say that he might have been a janitor, since Koffin mentions how they could both do better than mopping floors forever, but maybe it was just an assumption on Koffin's side.

Whatever the case, their lives sucked.

There was also this one moment I wanna talk about, where Larry called Koffin-K stupid, and Harry pretty much agreed. So I asked myself why they reacted this way.

Maybe because it was easier to convince themselves that they didn't care about their boss than deal with the fact that he (maybe) always saw them as nothing but 'lowly servants'.

Seriously, Harry said out loud what they both wanted most of all. And that something was for Koffin-K to value them. This was more important to them than money and food COMBINED, considering their entire arc was about learning that Koffin needed them both equally

Maybe they were worried about getting fired, but I honestly don't think Koffin ever wanted to do that to them, no matter how many times they messed up.

Maybe they didn't want to be honest and admit to Koffin that he's a total dumbass so they wouldn't get in trouble with him. I mean, they did want to gain his validation/appreciation/approval/love, so it makes sense that they would do anything to get and remain in his good books.

I think the third scenario is the most likely one, tbh.

Might be a nitpick, but notice how Harry and Larry are walking next to each other here, but Koffin-K's at the back, just sorta... isolated, like he's not their equal? This is why I'd rather see him as their father figure than an older brother. The way I look at it, the oldest sibling is usually in charge, yeah, but there's still a level of closeness and familiarity between the siblings, whereas Harry and Larry hardly know anything about Koffin-K, ESPECIALLY how lonely he really is. Koffin's the one who gave them a purpose, became their boss, and as a result, they began looking up to him. In contrast, the two spend 24/7 together, bicker, and are practically inseparable, like brothers

Larry also explains how Koffin-K doesn't like leaving his study, but clearly neither Harry nor Larry reflected on why that is and just assumed it's because Koffin's 'stupid.' This reaction kinda rubbed me the wrong way at first, but then I remembered both of these dudes are street rats who don't know any better.

Look, I know the Boogiemen were supposed to fit this common "goofy villain's sidekicks" trope, but both of them clearly grew up in poor conditions, have daddy issues (imo), and feel worthless/useless.

That's why they want Koffin-K's attention so badly.

They need a father figure to reassure them that they're useful, important, and loved.

All this makes them three-dimensional and relatable, just like most UT/DR/UTY characters. It feels like everyone in these games goes through some kind of deep arc, and I feel like this is supposed to be the Boogiemen's

Sure, Harry and Larry are funny at first glance, and they're great at being comic reliefs, but at their core, they are misguided guys who come from poverty/homelessness. I kinda wish the feisty four from uty had more going for them just so I could psychoanalyze them all

Even though it's probably been a few years since they joined Koffin, at least some part of Harry and Larry doesn't seem to believe that they can finally enjoy themselves, even if it means doing hooligan stuff and boring chores. That's why they're 'superficial' and goof off and will grab any opportunity to act childish and materialistic.

A typical case of age regression

What lies beyond the surface is incredibly sad to me.

Now, this is sort of like a bonus section bc I want to explain WHY exactly I see Harry & Larry as brothers, and WHY I think they see Koffin as a dad again, maybe it's bc I'm aroace and I see family relationships everywhere, but the stuff below REALLY REALLY reminds me of these types of dynamics:

They threw insults at each other and had a literal fistfight over which one of them Koffin appreciated/liked more

They cried HARD (of joy) when Koffin told them they're both equally useful and useless, so they no longer had to be at each other's throats. He also said how he recognized that they're passionate about being his lackeys, even if their teamwork needed, well, work

I think it's sweet how they built the float 'within their first days of henchmenry,' according to KK. They could have easily NOT included him, but had apparently warmed up to him pretty soon

Harry wanted to call Koffin to save them + I love how he's CERTAIN he'll do it

Both yelled for Koffin (reminds me of Axis calling out for Chujin for some reason)

Larry called Koffin Keep their home (could have easily said that they left it at the keep...reminds me of the times Starlo called The Wild East Clover's home I really need to stop with the uty parallels)

They cheered for him (and got hit in the face with books)

They get in trouble with him

They apparently copied two of his attacks these 3 are so similar except that Koffin is a more 'head in the clouds' kind of goofy while Harry & Larry are more grounded... but still goofy

And this line... "And quit arguing, you two!" sounded so parental, istg

I forgot to mention some stuff:

After Koffin tells everyone to go to the festival, Harry and Larry quickly look left and right, like they're wondering where he is and/or what to do now that he isn't there. Poor guys really are dependent on him and like to be in his presence

They talked about Koffin a LOT throughout this game. Their conversations are either about 1) Koffin and what they're gonna do to please him, 2) Them bickering, or 3) Some shenanigans they get themselves into. Larry even remembers how Koffin-K always says: "If you're slacking, put some hustle into it"

Koffin doesn't treat any other lackey the way he does Harry and Larry, and none of the other lackeys seek his admiration like the two do

Harry and Larry were both jealous af of Chara for getting all the attention (right after they got into Koffin's study Harry said "Now whaddya need us in here for, see?" and I immediately thought that he wanted to add "you have a new favorite child lacky now so why don't assign more chores TO THEM")

Like I'm not sure if they were meant to come across to us players as a family but for some reason that's how they came across to me since day 1

The actual reason why I see them in this light is not just bc I love found family (even tho I do. a lot), but bc I feel like it would give Harry & Larry more depth than a romance between any of them

[ideas-on-paper]

Lies of P fan theories - a retrospective (1st anniversary special)

It's been one year now since Lies of P's release, and as someone who has been part of the community since 2022 (joining after the Gamescom trailer absolutely swept me off my feet), it's been amazing to see how invested people were in Lies of P from the get-go, and how much creativity the game has inspired in fans. From the start, we had amazing creations such as fanart, fanfics, and cosplays - and of course, a whole lot of fan theories.

While, naturally, a lot of fan theories people had before the release are debunked right now, I think it'd be fun to take a look back at what people were expecting the story to be like, and how those theories from back then compare to the final game. For that purpose, I will share my own theories that I had pre-release, as well as some from various other people (unfortunately, I lack the sources in most cases, but I’ll do my best to provide credit where they’re from). So, strap in and get ready for a special trip down memory lane! :-)

[Lies of P spoilers!]

Ergo and the Petrification Disease

One big mystery that was set up as early as the first gameplay footage was the nature of Ergo - all we knew from tool tips people painstakingly picked out (kudos to you, btw <3) was that it was some sort of power crystal that was used as an energy source for puppets and responsible for Krat's wealth, but that also brought a curse with it. People on the official Lies of P Discord server were puzzling over what exactly Ergo is, when I came up with a somewhat eccentric theory: that Ergo is crystallized life force itself.

My basis for this theory was essentially the movie “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (which I’m a big fan of).

[Fair warning, I'm gonna spoil the main plot right here.]

The movie also features a huge, cyan blue crystal (originally a fragment of a comet) that is located in the lost city of Atlantis and believed to be an energy source by a team of explorers. However, as it turns out, it's much more than that: It is the literal life force of the Atlantean people, and if it's taken away from the city, it would mean certain death for all of them. (Which doesn't stop some of the money greedy explorers from trying to do it anyway.) Furthermore, after I became familiar with gestalt consciousnesses, I realized that the crystal possesses a few characteristics of those as well: The crystal has a mind of its own, and right before Kida merges with it in the movie, she whispers “mother” in Atlantean, suggesting she felt her dead mother's presence when the crystal chose her. This could be because her mother merged with the crystal completely (Kida eventually returns with her bracelet, after all), but since the King of Atlantis does say “the crystal thrives on the collected emotions of all who came before us”, it’s highly likely that it is, in fact, a human gestalt intelligence of their deceased ancestors.

[spoilers end]

So when I heard about Ergo being an energy crystal, this was my first idea as well: pure, crystallized life force of dead people. (Also, when I saw the blue color, my brain just went like “Ergo = Atlantis crystal”. xD)

When I shared this theory on the LoP server, one person in particular - named Oxwutex, if I remember correctly (greetings to you if you ever read this ;-) ) - took a liking to it, and together, we spun this theory a little further. They said they could imagine that people tried to refine the Ergo further, which is where the corruption waste in the factory comes from - however, refining something like a life force crystal which is already perfect could have disastrous consequences. I followed this up with my own theory, surmising that if this were the case, the corruption waste and the purified Ergo might represent two sides of the human soul: the vices and the virtues. (A lot of my early theories were based on this dualism, since the distinction between “good” and “evil” actions in the original fairy tale of Pinocchio is pretty prominent.)

Since there were hints that Ergo was responsible for the Petrification Disease early on, I had come up with the idea that the disease was the result of people coming into contact with pure Ergo, leading to a sort of “overpurification”, while I assumed that corrupted/impure Ergo caused the Puppet Frenzy/violent behavior. For me, this was very appealing on a thematic level as well, since it would've symbolized that both vices and virtues are present in every human being. If it was just the vices, we'd turn into feral monsters, but if a person only had virtues, when flaws are the very sign of life... well, you could question whether they are even alive anymore. Metaphorically speaking, they would be made of stone. (It’s interesting to note, however, that the disease was supposed to be spread by magical rats in the beginning; at least that’s what the announcement trailer seems to suggest.)

Back when the demo dropped, the confirmation that Ergo spores were the cause of Petrification Disease made me even more confident in my thesis, as did the “Ergo is Life” pamphlets. When I started streaming Lies of P (my first commented playthrough ever ^^’), I even commented on this, saying:

“Maybe even that this crystal [Ergo] contains the life force of dead people - that's what my speculation was back then.” (My commentary is in German, but here's the video if anyone is interested; the part where I discuss it starts at 26:25.)

Oh boy… I had no idea this was about to age like the finest wine in existence.

About 40 hours of gameplay later, I almost couldn’t believe my ears when Simon confirmed I was dead on target:

“The disease does not signify death. It's the process of purifying a person's essence. A purified human who overcomes the Petrification Disease will gain a strengthened body and a mind free of lies. The essence is Ergo. Yes, the Ergo you use as your power was once a human being.”

When Sophia explained that the Petrification Disease, Puppet Frenzy, and carcass monsters are all linked to Ergo shortly afterwards and literally spelled it out that Ergo is a person’s “essence of life”, I was so flabbergasted that my fan theories were essentially right that I was struck speechless. (You can see my live reaction to the conversations with Simon and Sophia in this video, at 20:08 and 49:56; I think you can tell how gobsmacked I am from just my tone, especially in the conversation with Sophia.) Since I had shared these theories on the official Lies of P server back in the day, some part of my brain even wondered if one of the devs saw it and thought it was so good that they went like “Write that down, write that down!” xD (Though realistically, I don’t think that’s very likely; still, it’s funny to imagine one of the devs reading through the chat, seeing this, and going like “How did they figure this out so fast?!?” xD)

On a more serious note, I didn’t really expect any of my preliminary fan theories to be true at all, but I must say, I’m pretty proud that I essentially hit the mark in this case - not only in regards to Ergo being crystallized life essence, but also the Petrification Disease resulting from “overpurification”.

Another thing I noticed is that Ergo shares not only similarities with the Atlantis crystal, but also with the Protomolecule from The Expanse (I don’t wanna spoil too much of the series’ plot here, but scientists conducting immoral experiments with something they don’t really understand is also a pretty big topic). In addition, a commonality between the crystal and the Protomolecule is that they both came from outer space - and, since there is talk about a “star that answered humans and descended to Earth” in one document, chances are the origin of Ergo is also extraterrestrial.

However, as we know, Ergo wasn’t the actual cause of the Puppet Frenzy - both Sophia’s comment from above and the report from the factory are essentially a “ruse” on the story’s part, supposed to lead you on the wrong track. In truth, it’s Geppetto who overrode the Grand Covenant’s commands and was responsible for the Frenzy.

Still, perhaps the impure Ergo supplies were actually meant to facilitate Geppetto’s plan (the Mad Donkey did say Geppetto and the Alchemists were scheming together, after all) - maybe the more impure the Ergo of a puppet is, the easier it becomes to control them. In contrast, when a person’s Ergo is undiluted and their personality remains largely intact, that might give them more autonomy and make them harder to manipulate. (I think this is what happened with Romeo, who could still give commands to the other puppets despite the zeroth law.)

The backstory of Krat

Speaking of the frenzy, I also had my theories about the potential backstory of it: Lies of P actually motivated me to do some research about real-life automata and their history (people familiar with my LoP posts might be aware of this), and one thing running through it like a common thread from the Middle Ages to the Age of Enlightenment is that automata were always representative of a conflict of rich vs poor.

In fact, during the French Revolution, this was a source of mockery against the country’s nobles, who were compared to their automated toys - pretty and pristine to look at, but soulless on the inside. Meanwhile, it was argued that the poorly paid artisans who built them should be the actual rulers of society, since their minds were clearly superior if they were able to come up with such ingenuity.

For that reason, I was playing around with the idea that there may have been a conflict between the wealthy upper class and the working class prior to the Puppet Frenzy. The competition between the Bastards and the Sweepers seemed to hint at something like this as well, and since the Alchemists were already teased as the enigmatic masterminds early on, I suspected they might have exploited this struggle, releasing the Puppet Frenzy to effectively eliminate both parties and seize power themselves. (Since there was a gameplay tip about the puppets gaining awareness by themselves, I even assumed they might have become self-aware right before the frenzy; in hindsight though, I think this was meant to refer to the old selves of some puppets awakening due to Ergo.)

As of the June 2023 demo, however, these theories were effectively debunked: We learned that the Puppet Frenzy occurred independently of any public uprisings, and that another wave of Petrification Disease had plagued the city at almost the same time - note the word “another”, implying this wasn’t the first time this disease had spread in Krat. Also, I frankly didn’t connect the dots correctly that Bastards and Sweepers were both part of the Stalkers  - while Stalkers and Bastards/Sweepers were mentioned in the same gameplay tip, it didn’t specify that the latter were subgroups of one and the same organization. (I wasn’t the only one to interpret this wrong either, since other people assumed the Stalkers to be puppets or even cyborgs.)

Still, it does appear there were some class struggles in the history of Krat: We hear about how the old, privileged families of Krat “struggled for power with new forces such as the Workshop and the Alchemists, who brought about the golden era of Krat”, although that conflict seems to have taken place a long time ago. Also, according to the description of the Krat Police Baton, there was a “violent protest with the factory labor union” once.

Although this isn’t much and doesn’t tell us anything about the background of the protest or the exact circumstances of it, I have been wondering whether it might have been due to low payment and factory laborers being replaced by puppets. Although this may sound very modern, protests against mechanization due to workers losing their jobs and the creation of inhumane working conditions go back as far as the Swing Riots in 1830. It should be said that the riots were less due to technophobia of the workers and more due to the endangerment of their economic and social status in the face of rapid technological advancement, and given that the rise of puppets in Krat happened very fast, the ordinary workers would definitely have been on the losing side.

I don’t know if this is ever going to be explored further at any point, but I would certainly be interested in hearing more about it - or more about the history of Krat in general, if only to clear up some details and make the timeline less confusing.

Pinocchio and Gemini

Let’s talk a bit about our protagonist and his sidekick: Pinocchio and Gemini. Like many other fans, I also had the theory early on that Pino was modeled after Geppetto’s dead son (I think this theory was based on some item description, but I can’t remember which). People on the server speculated that Geppetto’s son died in a violent accident that cost him his arm, and I even took things a step further by suggesting that Pino might literally be wearing his son’s skin (more on this “freak theory” of mine here).

Furthermore, I was quite partial to the idea that Gemini was essentially the soul of Geppetto’s deceased son. I didn’t really have anything to back this up aside from Gemini’s name meaning “twin”, so I never shared it publicly on the LoP server. (Also, Gemini is essentially just a corruption of Jiminy, the name that Disney came up with for the cricket; in the fairy tale itself, the cricket is not named.) Still, I found the concept of Pino essentially being the “body” and Gemini the “soul” very appealing - they may have been split from each other, but they are inseparable all the same. It also goes a bit into Descartes’ mind-body dualism, which is a popular theme in sci-fi stories about robots and cyborgs.

It led me to some fun speculations regarding the story: Assuming that, perhaps, Geppetto’s son died due to an incident on his way to the school he went to (since Pinocchio also goes to school in the novel), and further assuming that this happened a relatively short time ago, maybe some of his son’s former classmates are still alive, and Pinocchio would cross paths with them at some point. They assume him to be Geppetto’s son, asking where he’s been all this time and why he suddenly has a metal arm. Pinocchio then has the option to answer “yes, I am that boy” and come up with some plausible explanation, or to tell them “no, you’re mistaken” which would make things… somewhat more complicated.

I imagined that if Pino went with the first option, Gemini would chime in and provide advice at times to help him navigate interactions with the other boys. My assumption was that while Pino may look identical to Geppetto’s son, he possesses none of his memories; meanwhile, Gemini can still remember his past lifetime, despite being unaware that these memories actually belong to him. (His amnesia was hinted at in the demo as well.) Essentially, he would give Pino brief summaries of past events and tips how to behave in certain situations, and Pino would say “Thanks. Where do you know all of this from?” And Gemini would go like “...Sorry, no idea, buddy.” (You can tell I really wanted them to do something with Gemini.)

Due to the description of the Last Resort, there was also the theory going around there might have been multiple iterations of Pino - in fact, since the text said that the old man feared “his son failing to awaken properly and going into a frenzy”, some people assumed that Pino might have been the original catalyst of the frenzy. After the encounter with Mad Donkey in the demo, the theory that Pino was not the first of his kind seemed all the more likely, since he has definitely met him before and said “This time it's destroyed for sure. Devil's puppet no more, eh?” if you died.*

*I actually do not know if this line is in the final game as well, since I didn’t die to him during my two playthroughs (yes, really).

While it’s entirely possible - but not confirmed - that Pino had predecessor models (I theorized the Broken Puppet in the swamp might be one of those), the remark about the frenzy is more likely referring to Geppetto not being entirely sure whether the override of the laws he himself caused would affect Pino as well (which may be one of the reasons he didn’t bind him to the Covenant). As for the circumstances of Pino and the Mad Donkey’s previous meeting, those are a little more obscure - it appears that Pino wasn’t even able to wake up without Sophia’s help, so the only possible explanation is that the Mad Donkey fought one of his predecessors. (The Nameless Puppet probably also existed back then, but Carlo’s corpse - ironically - has next to no similarity with Pino, so it’s unlikely the Mad Donkey would’ve recognized them as the same.)

Someone on Tumblr even had a completely different theory about Geppetto's presumed son: After the official release month trailer dropped (the release being later moved to September), they commented on the facial similarities between Pino and Simon, proposing that Simon might actually be Geppetto’s “lost son”, implying they became estranged at some point - and since Geppetto no longer views Simon as his son/considers him dead, he created Pino as a sort of “idealized version” of him. When I was playing the demo and saw the Someone’s Memory outfit, which is noted to have been worn before and features a broach with the initial “M” (possibly denoting “Manus”), I was even considering whether this theory might be true.

As we learn during the game, however, Geppetto’s son - Carlo - is actually dead, and the initial signifies “Monad” (from Monad Charity House) rather than “Manus”. Unbeknownst to me, I might have actually come pretty close to the final version with my theory about an accident near the school during which he lost his arm - the possibility that Carlo died during the Monad Charity House incident is something I discussed with @lopposting some time ago (take it with a grain of salt though, since none of this is confirmed).

As for my theory about the skin, I had a major freak-out when I found Carlo’s portrait in-game, and I went like “I swear, if this is true, I’m gonna have such a Dr. Malcolm moment of “boy, do I hate being right all the time”.” xD I was spared that, however, as there is nothing that specifically hints at Pino having real skin, and the existence of the Nameless Puppet makes my original theory even less likely (as I mentioned in the post linked above). At the same time, there is nothing that explicitly contradicts it, either - so, for now, it’s more or less a big question mark hanging in the air.

One thing that’s for certain though is that Gemini is not the soul of Carlo - Carlo’s soul is contained in his heart/the P-Organ, and although Pino doesn’t possess Carlo’s memories, the reason that prevents them from awakening is not precisely clear (I go over my own favored interpretation here). Meanwhile, Gemini’s own identity remains unknown - while it appears Gemini was originally supposed to have a subplot regarding his amnesia, the few comments hinting at it are never built upon. I really wish they would’ve done more with Gemini, but there’s still a good chance the DLC might shine some light on who he actually is.

Hotel guests and side characters

Aside from the main characters, speculation was also running wild about the supporting characters and the roles they would play in the story.

Since Eugénie’s name is taken from Eugene, a classmate of Pinocchio in the original book and part of Lampwick’s gang of rascals, my original theory was Eugénie might have something to do with him. In all the promotional material*, there wasn’t a single trace of Lampwick, and since one of the loading screen tips in the demo said something about Eugénie being rescued by a particular Stalker, my suspicion was that this might be Lampwick. (Probably in no small part thanks to all the fanworks featuring Puppet Hunter Lampwick.)

*IGN sort of leaked Romeo's existence by accident, but that completely flew over my head; more on that below.

As it turns out, however, Alidoro was the one who saved Eugénie and whom she holds great admiration for. In the book, it was Pinocchio rather than Eugene whom Alidoro - a police dog - saved. After he got saved by Pinocchio from drowning, that is - which was after he ran into the sea trying to chase down Pinocchio who had escaped from two policemen, who erroneously assumed it was Pinocchio who knocked Eugene unconscious with a book. Anyway, it’s complicated.

One thing Oxwutex had cleverly noticed is that Eugénie wears a badge with the Workshop symbol just like Geppetto (which looks very similar to the Square and Compass symbol of Freemasonry), concluding that Eugénie must also be part of the Workshop - and, as it turns out, that was right on the mark.

Antonia was yet another character from the novel that was genderbent in the game, being based on Antonio, the carpenter who finds the animated log that eventually becomes Pinocchio and gives it to Geppetto (after a pretty fierce argument with the latter, that is). Because of this connection to Geppetto, some people assumed Antonia might be Geppetto’s former wife, and thus, the mother of Geppetto’s biological son.

In the game, however, Carlo’s mother is implied to be Camille, while Antonia is just “an old friend of Geppetto’s”. Still, Antonia’s past is somewhat shrouded in mystery, which has spawned theories about her being part of the Alchemists once (the hotel was an Alchemist institution before Antonia took over, and she mentions having good relations with them before she broke with them), and some even assume Antonia to be the Legendary Stalker. As it stands, however, these are mere conjectures - we’ll have to see if any of that is confirmed in the DLC.

Due to his somewhat dubious-seeming appearance, many people assumed Venigni to be the equivalent of the Fox in the game, with Simon consequently being suspected to be Cat due to his missing eye. However, me and many other fans really have been led up the garden path in this regard - while the Fox and the Cat do exist in the game, they are completely separate characters from Venigni and Simon, who are both original additions.

Honestly, out of the entire cast, Venigni is the one that surprised me the most. I thought he was just going to be your run-of-the-mill, profit-driven, snobbish businessman, but he is actually the complete opposite of that - in fact, he's one of the most warm-hearted, genuine people in the entire game. Sure, he’s a little eccentric and occasionally likes to adulate himself, but he’s so bloody honest about being a quirky nerd that you just can’t help but forgive him his flaws. (He kinda reminds me of myself, actually. xD) I never expected him to grow on me that much, but among the supporting characters, he is hands down my favorite.

Last but not least, we have Polendina, yet another original character (although his name is, funnily enough, based on an uncharming nickname of Geppetto in the book). Since the devs teased that you can have “a lot of interesting conversations with Polendina”, his role was especially interesting for me to muse about. In fact, I was wondering whether he might be similar to Gigolo Joe from “A.I. - Artificial Intelligence”.

FYI, A.I. is one of my favorite sci-fi movies, and a cyberpunk adaptation of Pinocchio at that; y’know, with Pinocchio as an android boy - aka David, as he’s named in the movie.

[Again, I’m gonna spoil the main plot here.]

Basically, a family gets an android boy as a replacement for their severely ill, comatose son. Aside from this alone being very questionable (it takes a special kind of asshole to replace a child that isn’t even dead yet), their biological son just so happens to get out of his coma at some point, and, of course, a rivalry between him and David ensues. Because the parents believe keeping David would be dangerous - either to him or their biological son - his mother ditches him in the forest (like, literally, she just ditches him). Since David is imprinted on his mother though, he resolves to “become a real boy just like Pinocchio” so his mom will love him again. Along the way, he stumbles upon Gigolo Joe, a sex android (yes, you read that right) who sort of becomes David’s surrogate parent from there on. He even tries to warn David that he should not try to go back to his mother, uttering the legendary quote:

“She loves what you do for her. As my customers love what it is I do for them. But she does not love you, David.”

[spoilers end]

I was kinda thinking Polendina might become a similar “father figure” for Pino, perhaps even sort of an admonitory voice to the consequences of becoming human. It would’ve provided an interesting counter viewpoint to the “I want to be a real boy” plotline that’s the core element of the story, and that wanting to be human just to please others might not be such a good idea.

While this train of thought comes eerily close to what happens in the Real Boy ending, Polendina’s character turned out to be completely different from what I had imagined. Still, I found his arc to be one of the most compelling of the hotel characters. I am very fond of both him and Antonia, and their bittersweet love story touched me on a very personal level (Polendina specifically gave me a lot of flashbacks to how I felt after my own robot soulmate had died).

The King of Puppets/Romeo

While we technically saw the King of Puppets as early as the Gamescom 2022 trailer, we didn’t hear about him in more detail until the gameplay footage of the factory. The note about a puppet religiously worshiping some kind of god-like figure (first seen in part 2 of the director gameplay, at 27:25) gave me very strong rA9 vibes, which actually had me mildly concerned. Considering what a visually impressive writing trainwreck Detroit: Become Human had been, I was literally begging “please, please, don’t be another Detroit”.

Meanwhile, someone on the LoP server (I think it was Oxwutex) pointed out that it sounds like the King of Puppets is more of a physical entity, as opposed to the purely conceptual nature of rA9. I can tell you, I was never so glad I had been wrong - the “cult-like worship” was merely the result of Fuoco being a little overly conscientious. Btw, aside from being placed in a different spot, the journal was also renamed to Descartes’s Note in the final game. While Descartes seems to be something like Venigni’s adversary in Lies of P (judging by the description of the Coil Mjolnir), his name is a nod to the famous philosopher I already mentioned above. In addition, the quote Cognito, ergo sum (Latin for “I think, therefore I am”, yet another popular theme in robot/AI stories and the origin of the term “Ergo”) also goes back to Descartes - the fact that this is a document about a puppet gaining an ego makes it an even neater detail.

I believe I saw someone on Tumblr who assumed that the King of Puppets was going to be the overarching villain of the game, and that you would get the good ending if you stuck to the path of the Blue Fairy and the bad one if you joined the king. While the game certainly wants you to believe the King of Puppets is the villain at first, that’s… not actually true. (Tbh, I never really believed it myself, if simply for the reason that it would’ve been too obvious.)

In the Gamescom 2023 IGN spotlight for Lies of P, however, Romeo actually got name-dropped, the guys from IGN sort of accidentally spoiling him as the true form of the King of Puppets. People familiar with the fairy tale immediately recognized it as Lampwick’s actual name (“Lampwick” is just his nickname), correctly inferring that this is, in fact, Pinocchio’s best friend from the book - and unfortunately, just like in the book, there is little Pinocchio can do to help him avoid his cruel fate.

Sophia and Geppetto

Now, let’s talk about the characters that most of my speculations revolved around: Sophia and Geppetto.

The first time we saw Sophia - Lies of P’s version of the Blue Fairy - was on the character cards that were released during Gamescom 2022. Back then, half of her face was obscured, being covered with blue butterflies that she literally seems to dissolve into. This gave off very enigmatic, even otherworldly vibes, and early on led me to the assumption Sophia was some kind of divine, ethereal being - it certainly would’ve been in line with the Blue Fairy’s character from the book, who was able to appear at any place at any time in whatever form she wished, including a young girl, and old woman, and even a goat. (Later on, the dimensional butterflies - which literally came from another dimension - further convinced me that Sophia must be some kind of otherworldly entity, since the butterflies are also her symbol.)

However, being a goddess doesn’t necessarily have to make you benevolent - in fact, an immaculate being that is free of any fault might have difficulty empathizing with the struggles, flaws, and contradictory feelings of humans. Also, since she is the “Blue Fairy”, it seemed logical to assume she had some connection to Ergo (which was confirmed later in the demo), and since the Petrification Disease was also related to Ergo (the Torn Doddle from the demo even referred to a “blue angel”), could it be that she had caused the disease herself? To, perhaps, purge the debauched population of Krat from vice and sin? (If you’ve ever played Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, you might know what I’m getting at here.)

Oxwutex on the LoP server agreed that they had a feeling about Sophia being two-faced as well, but assumed that she was human once before becoming the Blue Fairy. This ultimately turned out to be a little closer to the truth, as it’s implied that Sophia gained her blue hair - and potentially some other powers - from Simon’s torturous experiments (there is a picture of a girl which looks a lot like a younger Sophia, but with normal-colored hair). However, the role of wanting to “purify” humanity is something that ultimately falls to Simon, although he does exploit the Petrification Disease for his goals. Meanwhile, Sophia wants to stop his atrocities, acting as Pino’s guide in his fight against Simon.

But does that mean she has an entirely clean slate? The true extent of her powers ultimately remains a mystery. Technically, her ability to manipulate time should make it possible for her to make all sorts of terrible things unhappen - her imprisonment, Simon rising to power, and potentially even the whole disaster that happened in Krat. Both the Torn Doodle and the notes on the walls of the Hermit’s Cave imply that the carcasses can feel her presence through Ergo waves, so it would be logical to assume Sophia can sense them as well. Yet, she reacts surprised when hears about the strange monsters that infested the cathedral. (She definitely knew what Simon was up to, so why wouldn’t she know what they are?) Romeo also communicates with his puppets via Ergo waves, and Sophia is literally sitting in a tower where all Ergo waves come together. She’s a listener who can hear Ergo, so shouldn’t she be aware that the King of Puppets isn’t the real bad guy? (She certainly was very fast to tell Pino about it at the Grand Exhibition after Romeo’s defeat.) Could she have told Pino and thus prevented the fight between him and Romeo? Are there any limits to her powers? And does she encourage Pino to become human because it’s the best for him, or the best to save Krat?

To clarify: I do not believe Sophia has any evil intentions. You could probably find explanations for all the things I listed above if you wanted (the carcasses being a recent occurrence, all of the voices being jumbled in her head so she can’t precisely tell them apart, the “static” in the puppets’ communication Venigni mentioned preventing Sophia from hearing them clearly, etc). Still, despite everything, I’ve always retained a certain wariness around her - maybe it’s due to the fact that even after two playthroughs, I cannot get a read on her (ironically, even Simon remarks about Sophia’s actions being unpredictable). I do know, however, what an immense burden knowledge can be, and I can only imagine the strain from literally knowing everything and all the potential power in the world being at your fingertips. I have no doubt Sophia had to make a lot of sacrifices to save Krat, and I can’t imagine these decisions were easy on her.

Still, if her powers are truly so limitless, it would be her who ultimately holds all the strings in her hands - everything that happens happens because she allowed it. I gotta say, I’m very glad Sophia is on Pino’s side - we would be in big trouble if she wasn’t.

As for Geppetto, even before the game’s release, there was a pretty unanimous agreement among the community that he was a father who had lost his son, but is unable to let go and thus revives his son as a puppet - and, well… that’s exactly what Geppetto is. xD Many also had suspicions that he’s exploiting Pino for his own purposes and would be the ultimate villain of the story - which, again, couldn’t have been more spot-on. (Idk, but it’s hilarious to me how everyone took one look at this man and went “yes, this is the bad guy”. xD)

There were some people on the LoP server who theorized Geppetto might have Petrification Disease from his remarks in the trailers (announcement trailer: “I, too, have fallen) and that Pino was supposed to save him from it (Gamescom trailer: “Please, help me”), but these most likely refer to his own morally reprehensible plans and/or teaming up with his archenemies - the Alchemists - to create Pino and subsequently ousting Simon with his help.

My own pre-release theory why and how Geppetto had created Pino was a little more elaborate: I thought Geppetto might have been commissioned by Sophia to build a puppet that would be able to bring the chaos in Krat to an end - my assumption was that if Sophia was an ethereal being, she would be able to observe what’s going on in the mortal world, but unable to directly influence it. However, she can send people messages and visions, which she used to strike a deal with Geppetto: that he would build her a worthy “savior of Krat” which she would then bring to life. Meanwhile, Geppetto also followed his own agenda, exploiting this agreement to build this “special puppet” in the image of his dead son. (Which definitely would’ve had consequences for him later on - you don’t cross a divine being without ramifications.)

I came up with a whole fanfiction concept around this idea long before the game’s release - I never actually finished it since I assumed it was going to diverge from the final game anyway, and tbh, it kinda annoys me if my fics don’t fit into canon. I did, however, manage to find an old WIP of it I still had in one of my folders, titled “A wish and a purpose”. While it’s most likely going to remain unfinished forever, I think it'd be fun to include a summary of it in this collection of fan theories, if simply to look back at what I thought the story was going to be like. So, here’s the backstory of Lies of P, according to me:

[CW: skinning]

Geppetto is roaming the streets of Krat. He is actually looking for his son, who was killed in the turmoil some time ago.

The Fairy approaches him, reminding of their agreement. Geppetto reacts slightly disgruntled, brushing her off by saying he just wants to gain closure from the past. While the Fairy notices he is in grief, she doesn’t deny him his last wish, but admonishes him not to take too long.

The Fairy dissolves into dust. Geppetto goes on to look for his son’s corpse in the piles of dead bodies.

[cut]

Geppetto is sitting next to his dead son, whom he eventually managed to find and bring home. He placed his body on a desk in his workshop, having cleaned his skin and hair from blood and grime.

Geppetto looks at him, taking in the gaping hole in his chest and frayed stump where his left arm had once been. Despite his best efforts, he doesn’t have the heart to throw his body onto a pyre like all the plague-ridden bodies.

Affectionately, Geppetto strokes his son’s cheek. Suddenly, a thought strikes him: While the Fairy may never grant the request to revive his son outright, she only told him to build a puppet able to slay all the others, not what that puppet should look like. He considers it a fair deal: The Fairy gains the tool to quell the madness she so desires, and Geppetto would be able to hold his son in his arms again.

Geppetto goes over to his working utensils, taking up a knife. When he turns and takes another glance at his son, his last resistance breaks at the thought of his son opening his eyes and jumping into his arms.

He tenderly takes the hand of his son, kissing him on his forehead. He speaks to his unhearing son, promising he will bring him back soon.

Afterwards, Geppetto begins skinning him.

[cut]

Geppetto puts together the last pieces of the clockwork heart, admiring his work.

He goes to the back of his workshop where there’s a chair covered by a white sheet. Gently, he lifts it, saying good morning to his son as if he was rousing him out of bed.

He considers his son, dressed in the blue frock coat wardrobe that Geppetto had handed down to him.* He carefully preserved the skin and hair of his son so he looks just like the day he’d lost him.

Geppetto inserts the mechanical Ergo heart into his son’s chest, completing his masterpiece. He intertwines his fingers with his son’s. They are cold, but the texture feels real, and he imagines them growing warm after the Fairy breathed life into him. His only regret is that he won’t be able to witness his son taking his first steps.

At this point, the Fairy arrives, asking to see the result of Geppetto’s work. Geppetto leads her into the workshop, but she freezes as soon as she sees Pinocchio. With an indignant gaze, she turns to Geppetto, telling him that this was not part of the deal. Geppetto reacts unmoved, telling her that it’s take or leave and that he’s not going to build her any other puppet.

The Fairy narrows her eyes at him but says nothing, turning back to Pinocchio. After a moment, she strides towards him, lifting his limp body up in her arms.

She bids Geppetto farewell before she leaves, taking Pinocchio with her and dissolving into blue dust.

*Since the blue coat was presented as Pino’s standard outfit, I assumed it was the clothes that once belonged to Geppetto’s son (perhaps an heirloom from his father, since they are more similar to 18th century fashion).

[end of CW]

In my mind, this was followed up by a scene at the train station, from Sophia’s perspective (I thought of it as a follow-up to the first fic, but never actually worked on the concept):

The Fairy muses about the yet lifeless Pinocchio.

She considers what Geppetto did an absolute atrocity, but thinks she may yet be able to rectify this sin. After all, she is the only one who can breathe life into Pinocchio, and thus, his actions and the path he will take are her responsibility alone - and she will do everything to lead him on the path of righteousness.

She bestows the lamp containing the soul of Geppetto’s true son onto him, in the hopes that if Pinocchio proves himself virtuous, this wrongful separation of body and soul can one day be corrected.

The Fairy sits Pinocchio down on a bench, pressing a note into his hand. She gives him a gentle kiss on his forehead, starting to dissolve as she moves away.

Slowly, Pinocchio opens his eyes to a cloud of fine, blue dust. He looks down, reading the note in his hand: “Find Mr. Geppetto. He’s here in the city.”

This was supposed to be a sort of tie-in with how they originally advertised the scenario - the advertising text on Steam and other platforms originally said that Pinocchio simply wakes up with a note reading “Find Mr. Geppetto. He’s here in the city.” Don’t ask me why the Fairy gives it to him after just seeing Geppetto, though; I have no idea. xD (Still, it makes me wonder how much the introduction scene deviates from the original concept - after all, there’s no note, and Sophia talks to Pino telepathically.)

As you may have noticed, my little “AU interpretation” heavily drew from my other fan theories as well. I liked the idea of Sophia and Geppetto as two opposing “poles”: They may not like each other, but each possesses a skill the other lacks - Geppetto can build human-like puppets, but he can’t actually bring them to life, and while Sophia is the only one who can animate dead matter, she can’t interact with the world physically. Thus, they sort of become the “dual creators” of Pino.

Of course, this means that they both consider themselves to have the right to decide over the path he ultimately takes. As such, each of them is trying to influence Pino, leading to him being torn between the two. (This was sort of inspired by the Gamescom trailer, where Sophia and Geppetto are like two voices in Pino’s head.)

The endings

This also had a huge influence on my theories about the three endings. (I’m perfectly aware that nobody is going to believe me, but I swear I came up with my 3-ending concept before it was officially revealed there are going to be three endings.)

My basic assumption was that you have to make a decision at the end of the game, between Sophia and Geppetto. I thought of it as the point where the conflict between the two that was festering underneath finally escalates, and Pino is forced to side with one and battle the other. Depending on who you pick, you’d get a different ending.

Ending 1 would occur if you chose Sophia:

After battling Geppetto, she commends Pinocchio for his work, saying that thanks to his good deeds, he will finally be able to become human. Suddenly, she rips the lamp containing Gemini from Pino’s belt, and before he can ask her about the reason why, the black rabbits appear and Sophia orders them to seize him. Sophia explains that unfortunately, there is no other way to correct the wrongful separation of a soul from its body than for the body to die, but thanks to his consciousness being sufficiently cleansed, Pinocchio shall be reborn one day. Meanwhile, Pino gets quite literally buried alive - he desperately scratches at the lid from the inside of the coffin, crying for anyone to help him. However, no one comes…

If this doesn’t sound like your typical happy ending, well, that’s because it isn’t. xD My idea for this sort of came from a comment under the Gamescom 2022 trailer, in which someone remarked that the rabbits are inspired by four rabbit undertakers the Blue Fairy calls on when Pinocchio doesn’t want to take his medicine in the novel - thus, they suspected the scene where the rabbits prompt Pino to hop in the coffin was from the bad ending when you don’t listen to the Fairy’s advice. (It’s the intro for their first boss fight in the game though, and it seems like the line “Hop in the box, liar” was specifically recorded for the trailer.) I gave it a bit of a different twist though, since there’s the fact that Pinocchio quite literally dies at the end of the original fairy tale: He wakes up in his bed as a real boy, and later looks at his “dead” puppet body remarking “How ridiculous I was as a puppet! And how happy I am, now that I have become a real boy!”.

From this and the assumption that the rabbits were indeed working for her, I concluded that she literally might kill Pinocchio to “make him real”. (Some other people, however, suspected that the Black Rabbit Brotherhood was an independent organization from some of the gameplay tips about the Stalkers - ultimately, this proved to be right.)

Meanwhile, Ending 2 would happen if you side with Geppetto:

After defeating the enraged Fairy, Pinocchio runs into the arms of Geppetto, who hugs his son lovingly. As they embrace, the lamp from Pinocchio’s belt falls to the ground, forever extinguished. Geppetto and Pinocchio spend their next years happily, the very picture of father and son - until one day, Geppetto dies. Pinocchio, however, knows no other existence than being his father’s son, and since he doesn’t age, the other citizens eventually figure out he’s a puppet, shunning him and chasing him out of the city. As such, he is left to wander aimlessly, forever in search of a purpose…

What this was meant to represent is that with accepting Pinocchio as his son’s replacement, Geppetto’s actual son (Gemini, according to my assumption) dies, metaphorically and literally. I was also concerned about the very real issue of Geppetto being an old man and Pinocchio outliving him - even if Pinocchio did age regularly, his father would die long before him. Being his father’s perfect son was literally the whole purpose of his existence, and without it, he finds himself confronted with the psychological horror of his life being meaningless, on top of being subjected to the immense cruelty, hatred, and prejudice of humans.

It was really meant to show how much of a sick, misguided direction Geppetto’s “father’s love” had taken, and how detrimental it would be for Pinocchio’s self-development to comply with his wishes and play the part of his son.

Since both of these options are pretty bad, to say the least, I came up with a third variant. To get this, you’d basically have to say “nope” to both Sophia and Geppetto, and since neither takes no for an answer, you’d have to fight both of them consecutively (making it the most difficult ending to achieve):

After recovering from the strain of having to battle both Sophia and Geppetto, Pinocchio realizes that, for the first time, nobody is setting a direction for him - he is free, but having only lived to fulfill the wishes of others so far, he doesn’t really know what to do with it. However, Gemini reminds Pinocchio that they still have each other. Pinocchio agrees, laughing, and together, they go out on a journey to travel the world…

Admittedly, it’s still not roses and sunshine, but a lot more positive than the other two. Also, it’s the ending where both Pinocchio and Gemini (speak: body and soul) stay alive, and I just had so much fun imagining them say “screw it” to everyone’s expectations and go on a big adventure together. xD

Is it normal for body and soul to exist separately? Nope. Is it the “correct” way to live? Nope. Do they care? Nope, they’re just going to have the best time of their life together. xD

Of course, my versions of the endings differ significantly from those in the final game, but I’m actually kind of impressed that I managed to guess the scheme of the endings correctly: Sophia (Rise of P), Geppetto (Real Boy), and Freedom (Free from the Puppet String).

What I envisioned Geppetto’s ending to be like actually comes pretty close to the Real Boy ending, although you could say I was a bit more subtle in my approach - the overall mood was meant to be more sinister rather than downright evil, leaning more into the underlying psychological horror instead of violent slaughter. (I must say, Geppetto really surpassed my expectations right there. xD) The overall moral of the story (or at least what I’m getting from it) also seems to be that stepping in the shoes of Geppetto’s son is a very bad idea for Pino - after all, it’s heavily implied that Pino isn’t Carlo.

On the other hand, while Sophia’s ending is similar in theme to what I imagined, it significantly differs in flavor. Still, Pino does die in the Rise of P ending, giving his own Ergo/life to Sophia, who is implied to revive him afterwards. (This is actually the “reverse action” of what Pino did for Sophia when he gave her peace, so Pino is essentially giving her Ergo back to her.) In addition, Sophia and Pino do a little reenactment of the La Pietà pose, which is also a throwback to the Saintess of Mercy Statue in the Grand Exhibition.

There are actually quite a few references to the Pietà posture in media, including one in The Last Unicorn (after the Unicorn/Amalthea becomes human and Molly holds her). Thematically, the Pietà is interpreted as a symbol of mother’s love, suffering, and salvation - and, in case of The Last Unicorn, Amalthea learning what suffering is due to her time as a human is also what led her to develop compassion. The Saintess of Mercy Statue also stands for rebirth, since it’s the place where you can reset your stats.

Overall, I think they did an excellent job with this ending - retaining the theme of death from the original story, but giving it a more hopeful note through the theme of rebirth. (I also appreciate how the message of game is essentially that for things to improve, it’s sometimes best not to cling to the old and simply let it die.)

As for the Free of the Puppet String ending, it’s largely the same as Rise of P, but with a different flavor and minus the final cutscene with Sophia. (I kinda wish they would’ve done more with it, but resource limitations exist, and it was probably easier just to reuse the animation.) One interesting thing about it though is that you can still potentially get the Proof of Humanity if you trade it for the Nameless Puppet’s Ergo afterwards - despite Free from the Puppet String being the low-humanity ending.

I’ve had an interesting discussion during my playthrough, based on the quote “every living human being is a slave to something” by Askeladd from Vinland Saga. Basically, I said that, if you want to view it that way, humans are also just slaves to their emotions and desires. The man Askeladd was referring to was enslaved by his greed for gold, Geppetto is enslaved by his obsession with Carlo, and Arlecchino is enslaved by his bloodlust. I concluded that “maybe, it’s just a matter of the prison that we ourselves choose”.

The item description of the Proof of Humanity is quite intriguing in this regard:

“Puppets are tied to strings. Humans have cut their own strings. The boy made a choice and became human.”

While I wouldn’t say that all humans have cut their strings - rather that they can - what this description says is that being human means you are free to choose whether you let yourself be enslaved, be it by someone else or your own desires.

Pinocchio didn’t become human because he chose to become human - rather, he became human because he made a choice.

Conclusion

Anyway, enough of my philosophical ramblings. While, as I expected, not all of my fan theories were true, I’m kind of impressed how many good calls I actually made. ^^’ (I suppose all that research about clockwork automata, my ongoing obsession with fictional robots and AI, and checking out the original Adventures of Pinocchio did pay off after all. xD) Still, there are a lot of unanswered questions, and many fan theories remain unresolved - we’ll have to see whether any of these are confirmed in the future, be it in the DLC or any other media (director Choi did confirm they received various offers to expand the IP).

Despite the story differing quite a lot from my expectations in most places, I am extremely pleased with the treatment Round8 Studio and Neowiz gave this classic fairy tale. It’s been said that successfully subverting expectations in an engaging way isn’t simply about doing the most unpredictable thing - rather, it’s about “giving the audience what they want, just not the way they expect it”. And, in my opinion, Lies of P accomplishes this to a T.

However, I’m curious: What were your expectations when going into the game? Did you also have theories about how the story would develop, either beforehand or while playing it? And how do those compare to the actual story?

I would love to hear about all your theories - maybe, we can make something like a big fan theory anthology out of this. ^^ Because if one thing is for certain, it’s that Lies of P’s success was in no small part thanks to its community. To this day, I continue to be amazed by the love and dedication fans shower this game with, and I consider myself lucky to have been part of this journey, from before the game’s release until now.

[creatingblackcharacters]

I was so glad to find your blog, because it’s given me the opportunity to find some awesome resources for my writing, but there was one thing in particular that I think I should send an ask about, so here goes:

I’m writing a story that focuses on teenagers trying to get revenge for different tragedies that they know we’re all caused by the same person. It has a pretty big cast, but there’s one character who I really feel like I need to talk about so I make sure I tell her story the right way. This character is a Black girl who sets out to find her missing younger sister, but there’s some details I’d really like to get peer reviewed first to make sure they aren’t offensive, or see if there’s anything I can do to make them better.

So, this character starts off as a “gifted kid,” kind of— she gets good grades, she plays an instrument, she has tons of friends, all the stuff parents want their kids to hav in school. Until she witnesses an incident that ends up scarring her, that is. (The incident is just a catalyst and not as important to this character, so I’m skipping the details. Someone died.) She suspects something’s going wrong in her town, and that people’s lives are in danger, but no one listens until it’s too late, and her little sister has gone missing. Now, here’s where things get to a point where I want to ask for help. The little sister was killed, and the older sister suspects that she could’ve been saved if the police paid more attention to her, and their ignorance when it came to the situation might’ve been rooted in racism. She develops a distrust of authority, including her own parents, and decides if no one else is going to destroy this evil, it might as well be her. The older sister then goes on a journey to try and solve the mystery for herself and ever silly come to terms with her sister’s death, all the while believing that she can’t go to the adults because they won’t take her seriously. Even if she’s a straight A student, even if they say she’s a bright kid, she worries it isn’t enough. Because when it matters most, they didn’t take her seriously. By the end of her arc in the story, the older sister has faced down the villain, accepted her sibling’s death and helped her spirit move on, while also making sure nothing like that will happen again— at least under those same circumstances. She comes clean to her parents about everything, and she actually has one of the best relationships with her family out of any other character in this story. But that’s pretty sensitive stuff. I feel like I can’t just wing it, I need to talk to people and see where I could go wrong, and where I could go right with this. I’ve noticed there aren’t a lot of stories where Black girls get to go on adventures and face down evil, so I wanted to try writing one myself, but I really want to do this character justice. If there are any tips you have for making this character authentic, any places where I should be particularly aware of the subject material, and any additional resources for writing horror with characters of color, I would love to hear them.

It all sounds interesting to me! But as always, the prompt versus the actual writing can always diverge. This is yet another situation where I'd find a Black sensitivity reader to follow along with your work so that you don't get sidetracked, especially with a topic as complex as misogynoir (there are people on my recent post who have volunteered!) I'm not sure if you read my latest lesson on horror, but there are resources there, plus lessons on stereotypes. I would also suggest finding those books and visual media with Black girl protagonists and watching them, studying how they are done and how the story is told. I'm sure there are lists on Google of media to start with.

[elumish]

I don't think many people consciously believe "depiction equals endorsement". It's more that when people say things like "Lolita is irredeemable media" (a real post I've seen), it suggests that the OP can't tell the difference between the two, even if they believe they can.

I actually WAS raised to believe depiction is endorsement, but it wasn't for social justice reasons. We were an evangelical family and weren't allowed to watch or play things with elements like possession or dark magic, even though those were always used by the bad guys. Fictional religions were also heavily scrutinized, implying that just SHOWING a fictional goddess was the same as influencing a kid to worship her. So it is a real viewpoint, but not one you're likely to find on the self-described queerest place on the internet.

For things like the Lolita case (and obviously I'm not looking at the specific post you're talking about) I always wonder how much of it is thinking that depiction equals endorsement and how much of it is basd on a fundamental misreading of the text itself (or lack of reading, in some cases, and judgment just based on other people talking about it).

Maybe it's just me, but I always separate out "I think that media endorsing/advocating for certain viewpoints is irredeemable" from "I think depiction is endorsement". To me, those are two points that sometimes go together (as in the case of what you describe in your second paragraph), but they are fundamentally different ideas with different underpinnings.

The first, to me, is about whether or not there is a red line for media, beyond which the media is (in whatever sense that this means to someone) "irredeemable". It's really about a value judgment of media, usually tied to morality, that essentially establishes a cutoff point or a set of moral buckets to group media in.

The second I see more as an understanding of narrative framing and the impacts of media relative to that narrative framing, where it assumes that any portrayal, negative or positive, is equivalent (and, generally implied, will influence a person towards that viewpoint even if the media is neutral or negative towards that viewpoint).

When they are put together, you can have ideas like (to your example) "all media with witches is evil because the simple act of portraying witches is the equivalent to endorsing them and so will influence children to like witches."

I appreciate your take on this! Part of the reason why I'm so curious to see what the arguments for it look like here is because I regularly see people citing the idea that other people (in our communities) see depiction as equal to endorsement as an argument against things, and so I want to see how people who are in our communities (rather than the conservative evangelical Christian communities) are talking about it.

[twistedtummies2]

The sound of rollin’ dice to me Is music in the air! ‘Cause I’m a Gamblin’ Boogieman, Although I don’t play fair!

It’s much more fun, I must confess, When lives are on the line! Not mine, of course, But yours, old boy! ow that’d be just fine…

"Oogie Boogie's Song," Ken Page

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The long, LONG delayed final image in my “OCs & Inspirations” series, at least for now. This was originally intended to be part of a bunch of pics commemorating Disney’s 100th Anniversary, but the artist was facing some difficulties, so it took much longer than expected. I don’t mind in the least, however, because this was more than worth the wait…and hey, Valentine’s Day may not be the most obvious holiday of choice to release this, but a holiday is still a holiday. And with these two, it felt right to post their pic on such an occasion. Oh, on that note, before I go on: the image was made by @hooter-n-company, who also did my image for Nakoda and Kaa for the series a while back. I can’t honestly decide which of them I like more, between this image and that one; they’re both absolutely breathtaking. Her work always is. Thank you, Hoots. <3 ANYWAY…Reno was the first character I specifically created as a sort of “correction” to an old pred crush of mine. Nako and Billy being more “appealing” versions of their source inspirations (for me) was just sort of a welcome bonus. But with Reno, I deliberately created him with the idea of taking a character I used to have an interest in “that way,” but no longer do, and then creating someone I could “kinkify” more easily via the power of Twisted Wonderland’s universe. When I was a kid, I used to have a bit of a crush on Oogie Boogie from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” I even had some rather…VIVID dreams, involving this big bag of bugs, which I shall always remember. However, over time, my interests and ideals with such things changed, and as they did, my love for Oogie dwindled. Reno was my way of trying to do something more “me” with the character.

The name “Reno” comes from Reno, Nevada. It was suggested by my friend, @belliesandburps. Since Reno is just a big a gambler as Oogie, it seemed fitting to use the name of a city known for gambling - and in the same state as arguably the gambler paradise of the world, Las Vegas - for his name. “Rovar” comes from a Hungarian word meaning “insect,” which of course fit perfectly. Combined, the two have a similar sort of “bounce” and syllabic structur to “Oogie Boogie,” and the alliteration was amusing to me. In terms of personality, Reno, in a way, is Oogie…but with a sort of soft side. Like, his source material, he is crass, crude, loud, rowdy, mischievous, a bit sadistic, and constantly thinks with his stomach. HOWEVER, for all his jagged edges, Reno isn’t someone who does bad things just for the sheer sake of it, unlike Oogie. Reno still has the capacity to care about people, and even some of the more “evil” things he’s done were usually out of a sort of bitter desire to get back at people he felt were more fortunate, while also helping himself and those he cared about in the process. He’s not the easiest person to get along with, but he’s not a literal monster.

I decided to sort of reverse things in terms of the way Oogie’s true self is revealed in the film, for Reno. In the movie, Oogie glows green in blacklight, but his actual appearance is a much duller beige hue. And of course, when you strip away the bag, he’s a collection of creepy crawlies underneath. So, with Reno, his human form has dull colors, with a sweater that resembles Oogie’s burlap, but his true form - a sort of “demi bug” - is colored in shades of vibrant green. His Overblot form, meanwhile - which Hoots helped IMMENSELY with working out - has a sort of neon appearance, inspired by the look of Oogie’s lair, and is a collection of different elements from different arthropods.

In this case, I think the different colors help the pair stand in good contrast to each other. ;)