#also. i seem to have mislead you i am sorry. i am in fact more than a romaniaboo i am romanian😇 yay yay yippee

[kalashnikovlobotomy]

rusro is the ship i didnt know i needed but i love your portrayal of it so much it scratches the tiny part of my autistic mind just right i ended up yapping so much last night over them (BANGS FIST ON FLOOR)

AHAHA im joyful thank youu.. i appreciate ur tags on my posts of them🙏 i love reading other people's thoughts on my beloved gay little rarepair i love yapping. there are many combinations of words that can be made about them.

[darcytaylor]

“I also think people need to be cautious about making definitive conclusions based on media portrayal.”

THANK YOU for saying this! In the past 24-48 hours I’ve seen people bring up a deluge of conspiracies. Another blog went from “I’ve been hearing rumors of EF being paired with a 22 year old but have not seen the evidence” to several posts later “Nic is rebounding with JD because EF is in a relationship with a 22 year old”. Isn’t that a big leap, considering this 22 year old must be a phantom lover as there has never been evidence of this. Could it be true? I guess in the reality we live in now - sure, anything’s possible as you say. But let’s stop turning our assumptions into facts, because this is literally what fuels the rumor mill.

(I will caveat that the person who made both those statements initially wrote that response as a hypothesis but may have dropped the “in my opinion” part as asks were getting repetitive.)

Anyway, I’m going to stay in this corner of Tumblr until the winds settle outside. It’s getting wild.

I appreciate your response! It's reassuring to know I'm not alone in thinking this way. Rumours can quickly turn into facts, and that’s where things can become misleading and disingenuous. People can be convinced of something that might not even be true. (This isn't just about the Nicola and Jake situation, this is a broad statement).

I’ve noticed that some people in my asks seem upset with my stance on not jumping to the conclusion that they’re dating without more concrete information. I’m sorry if my response hasn’t been swayed by the evidence - perhaps it’s just how I interpret things based on my own experiences with friends. I’ve mentioned before that my beliefs and skepticism often stem from my personal experiences, which shape how I view these situations. (I think this rings true for most people).

I'm also not even saying it's impossible that they could be in a relationship; I just think we need to be cautious and avoid making definitive statements until we have more evidence.

It's possible that they are only friends. Everything we see could indicate friendship. It's possible that they are in a relationship, I understand why some might interpret things as couple-like.

If people believe they are 100% in a relationship, that’s fine by me as well, as long as everyone remains respectful of differing views and avoid spreading hate towards the people involved.

Honestly, I am feeling a little uneasy with how things are in the fandom right now. There’s so much speculation and intensity, and I want to be careful about what I post. Just to keep some peace in my life. But don't worry, I’ll still be around, and posting when I feel it’s right.

[specialagentartemis]

love your addition to that post about misinformation earlier this month, genuinely, but your summary of the situation re: the medicinal ingestion of human corpse matter in europe is kind of misleading. among other things, i don't know anyone who would call the 17th century "medieval." paracelsus didn't even die until the 1540s. periodization is complicated and mostly bullshit when people look for hard lines between "eras" of human history, but using terms that conjure an idea of a time literal centuries removed from the things we're talking about obfuscates the proximity and connections between things like corpse medicine, anatomical theaters, criminalization/execution, and the development of the modern western medical system. sorry for the long rant in your ask box, i just have a master's degree in Literally This.

to be clear, i am not at all arguing that the mummy being used medicinally was always or even often made of Egyptian mummies. i just wanted to be annoying about time periods. though by the early 1600s physicians like oswald croll were outwardly recommending fresh (executed) european bodies as the source of mummy, so i do kind of take issue with the assertion that people always thought they were buying something different. anyway, as a parting gift thanking you for making it this far in my longwinded asks, did you know moss grown on a human skull was also a source of medicine? called muscus ex cranio humano or usnea humana.)

Ohh huh. Thank you for messaging me; this is a lot more context than I had when I made my post.

I’m an American archaeologist (that is, I work in the Americas), so my areas of specialty are the US Southwest/Mexican Northwest ca. 800-1400 CE, and New England (or okay mostly Massachusetts and some New Hampshire) 1700s-1800s. I also have a solid grounding in the Bronze Age Aegean. But what that means is that early modern Europe is not my forte at all, and I did what I caution about doing and relied primarily on Wikipedia and a tumblr user I find reliable for that information. There were some quick to find sources that supported an 11th-12th century origin for the eating of ancient Egyptian mummies as medicine, which is what I meant by Medieval. I also kind of thoughtlessly took “mummy” to mean “ancient Egyptian mummified human remains” when of course ancient Egypt did not hold a monopoly on corpses or even mummies. I wasn’t intending to speak about the ingestion of human corpse matter as a whole, just Egyptian mummies. But both of these made the result end up misleading and not fully true, and I’m sorry about that.

There’s a specific cultural image of Victorian Britons opening sarcophagi and eating mummies that they looted from thousand-year-old Egyptian tombs, and it becomes a thrilling/disgusting synecdoche for British imperialism in Africa. That’s the part that’s a myth (though 19th century Egyptomania was real and the mummy unwrappings and some mummy-paint were also real.)

However, I was not well informed about the scope of European corpse medicine throughout history, and was honestly shocked to learn just how widespread and recent it was! And for sure you’re right, the 1500s-1600s when European corpse medicine was at its peak is hardly medieval. They mostly weren’t eating ancient Egyptians by that point (though they seem to have been at least a little, because in the late 1500s bodies were still being smuggled as contraband out of Egypt and into Europe), but yeah Europeans sure as hell were eating corpses as medicine. (Those links are not a fact check @ you, it’s @ anyone who reads this and wants to read more.) That seems like it ought to count for “they didn’t teach me this in school!”

It’s good to hear from the people who have researched this stuff; it sounds fascinating. Thank you for sharing, and I’m sorry I was misleading.

And re: Usnea skull moss: that’s WILD. I would not want to stick that up my nose.

[asherlockstudy]

Hi!

Do you know why does Mycroft lie to John about Irene's fate in Karachi in ASIB?

Also, why does John say that Sherlock nearly despised her in the end when he clearly didn't? (I mean, this thing was the primary source of John's jealousy in the whole episode, wasn't it?)

All these weeks have been super crazy for me, sorry for this delay!

So, this was a question that really tormented me back in the day but I hadn't landed on a conclusion I deemed 100% safe. However, I am now leaning towards the realisation that we should take this scene at face value because Mycroft did NOT lie to John.

Mycroft waits outside 221B, hoping to meet John returning home. John is surprised to see him. Mycroft clearly is anxious to tell Sherlock himself: a) he can't decide which version of the story to tell Sherlock and b) he dreads that Sherlock might get emotional and he won't be able to deal with it. Given all the Eurus / Trevor context, we now know that Mycroft is terrified of how Sherlock will take the death of another person who is significant to him. We also know now that Sherlock considered Mycroft a terrible actor, which makes Mycroft even more anxious to lie in front of Sherlock. Mycroft points out that he neither smokes nor frequents cafes, making clear that he gets out of his way with all this situation.

Mycroft tries his story to John, Irene managed to get into a witness protection program in America. The fact that he uses promising speech like "She will survive... and thrive but he will never see her again", shows genuine sentimentality by Mycroft and not any mood for scheming. He asks John to convince Sherlock that he won't meet Irene again but at least she will continue having a happy life. There is no reason for Mycroft to say "she will survive and thrive" other than that he truly believes this would make Sherlock happy, as clearly neither Mycroft nor John cared whether Irene would survive and thrive. This is further proved by Mycroft's conviction that Irene was THE woman for Sherlock. He suspected that in the mortuary and he fully believed that when he told Sherlock "I drove you into her path. I am sorry. I didn't know (that you also like women)." Mycroft was effectively misled that Sherlock was in love with Irene. Of course Mycroft did not know Sherlock deciphered the email for John and not Irene and Irene did exactly nothing to correct his false impression. But this is why Mycroft is sorry. When John cedes to tell Sherlock, Mycroft tells him sadly that Irene is actually dead, and he does mean it as a truth This gives John a pause too, because even though he initially claimed Sherlock didn't care about Irene's fate, a finality like her actual death is something that even John fears it could sadden Sherlock. Mycroft is clearly lost and asks John what they should do.

If Mycroft wanted to mislead John, then he wouldn't ask his opinion. But, also, there's no reason for Mycroft to mislead John in this case. Whichever version was true, the result was the same; Sherlock and Irene would not meet again, so it's not like John had any antagonism, let alone that Mycroft wouldn't care so much about it. Besides, Sherlock and John had gone on with their lives normally during these two months, there was no reason for Mycroft to add a lie out of nowhere, especially since John seemed confident Sherlock despised Irene in the end.

So, the face value truth is:

John: Was it definitely her? She's done this before. Mycroft: I was thorough, this time. It would take Sherlock Holmes to fool me and I don't think he was on hand, do you? John swallows hard.

John Watson, always right. I understand that Mycroft sounds so suspicious here but perhaps it's a false perception because we know exactly this is what happened. However, it must actually be just tragic irony. Sherlock managed to fool Mycroft and he helped Irene disappear. Irene is NOT in a witness protection program in America. This is the lie Mycroft came up with because he thought Irene was dead. The only accurate information Mycroft has is that Irene was caught by terrorists in Karachi two months ago. Sherlock was secretly and independently following Irene's moves as he knew she was in mortal danger. He disguised himself as a terrorist, pretended to behead her and helped her escape while he confirmed her to be dead to the other terrorists. Since the terrorists believed her dead, this is the information that reached Mycroft. This means that after Irene fled, her and Sherlock's ways parted forever. Sherlock thought he paid her back, in a way, for her love.

It's interesting that John swallows hard when Mycroft doubts Sherlock could have saved Irene. He is pretty stone-faced throughout his encounter with Mycroft but now worry creeps in. Perhaps John remembered that Sherlock wasn't home for like a couple of days two months ago and deep inside John fears that Sherlock is the type of person who would run to Irene's rescue? He hopes he is wrong and he suppresses this momentary suspicion.

John is also torn about what to do. He hesitantly follows Mycroft's advice. Sherlock looks genuinely interested in what has become of Irene. He asks whether she's back in London, whether she's back on the game. This proves that they parted ways for good after her rescue and also that Sherlock didn't have anything to do with sending her to America or collaborating with Mycroft for it or whatever. No, Irene's traces are lost for good now. Neither Mycroft nor Sherlock know where she really is. When John tells him where she supposedly is, Sherlock appears a little surprised, but then mostly believes it if with a little hesitation. However, it seems that later Sherlock was able to decode Mycroft's lie as we see in "TSOT" that he says "God knows where she is". As a sidenote, Irene sends him a black rose when Sherlock is hospitalized in HLV. She is most likely pretty close to Sherlock, and certainly not in America, but she never shows up in Sherlock's life again.

Once he learns her case is closed, Sherlock shows disinterest in anything else, including the prospect of seeing her again. (He also does not wish to see her case file, as he knows everything inside it will be crap from the point of Karachi onwards.) Seeing this growing disinterest, John tries to tell him the "truth" just to not be a liar to his best friend since Sherlock doesn't care much anyway but Sherlock breaks him off and asks for her phone. John perceives this as a love gesture and eventually doesn't tell him what Mycroft told him.

Now, as to why John thought Sherlock despised her, I think that was mostly wishful thinking on his part. Sherlock had been played by Irene and this wounded his ego and then John chose to see everything in his reaction as evidence of Sherlock's anger. But this wasn't the case. John actually contradicts himself in front of Mycroft. I already wrote he looks pretty stone-faced, distant, he has a somewhat defensive posture. Mycroft tries to open up about Sherlock's sentimental nature but John shoots his attempt down. Perhaps it is too much for John at the moment to consider that Sherlock has emotions (and romantic ones), and especially to contemplate this in the presence of Mycroft. "He's not like that." "He doesn't feel things this way." "I don't know." And yet, in just the previous episode it's revealed to us that John thought and hoped Sherlock was a hero who wanted to do the good thing. And two episodes later, John confesses he thought Sherlock was the most human human being he ever met. So... his attitude towards Mycroft was closed-off, guarded and fake.

[transmascpetewentz]

i saw whwre you said not to trust ramcoa carrds and i was wondering if the one called "explainingramcoa" and the resources on it look okay? i found it a while ago and havent been able to go tjrough it super well yet cuz im just learning abt it all

(Disclaimer: I am not a professional nor an expert, just some guy on Tumblr frustrated with misinformation trying to be helpful. Please do not take my word as fact and be critical of everything you read, especially about topics such as RAMCOA, where misinformation of the antisemitic variety specifically tends to run rampant.)

Rating: Decently Reliable (6/10)

Further explanation and analysis under the cut. Major trigger warning, this Carrd discusses instances of abuse in great detail that I will reference and pick apart.

I apologize for not getting back to you sooner, I had a very long and exhausting shift today, and I wanted to make sure that I did my due diligence in checking this source out. This Carrd does things a lot better than I've seen other Carrds do. For one, it lists out a sources page. It also provides examples instead of just saying nebulous things such as "governments" and "a secret network of [Jewish] organizations." That said, this is still a Carrd made by someone who is not an expert, which means that it is not fully reliable, and there are some claims that the author makes that make me raise my eyebrow.

Overall, here's how I would rank this Carrd in terms of common issues that I see among RAMCOA resources:

With 0 being "this issue is not present here" and 10 being "holy shit this Carrd's helpfulness is completely overshadowed by this."

Antisemitism And Related Rhetoric:

Satanic Panic Rhetoric: 4/10

Literally uses a source from nineteen fucking ninety-one to prove their point, which includes a lot of satanic panic bullshit. I'm sorry, but this is just not okay in any universe. Also, this gem of a misleading quote, which is either intentionally or unintentionally misrepresenting why the satanic panic was bullshit.

Known for its prevalence in the “Satanic panic” and sometimes even referred to as SRA (Satanic ritual abuse), ritual abuse is often seen as highly controversial. Victims are painted as unreliable or susceptible to their therapists’ suggestions, and their stories go unheard.

Like??? This person probably has no idea what the satanic panic even was. By omitting the crucial detail that it was an antisemitic and homophobic fearmongering tactic by the Christian conservative right, they're making it seem like any person trying to analyze the antisemitism of this crowd's rhetoric is inherently disrespectful to survivors. By trying to spread the narrative that it's disrespectful to survivors to be critical of fearmongering, it's harmful to way more people, including survivors.

"Shadow Government" Shit: 4/10

This Carrd contains a lot of references to the government or governments (though doesn't specify which government or where in the world) doing RAMCOA. While I do not doubt that some governments have indeed perpetrated this form of abuse, omitting the details of where this took place can be very harmful. Below is an example that the author of this Carrd provided of organized abuse.

A government, looking for ruthlessly loyal soldiers and assassins, allows children to be brought up as fighters against humanitarian law. The children are forced to do daily military drills, constantly exposed to violence from both sides, never allowed to show their emotions, etc. Some of these children are even given steroids and other drugs against their will with the hope of increasing their reflexes and strength.

I did a little google search about the use of child soldiers in modern times, and I specifically looked for instances of them being forced to use drugs. While it is true that this does happen, it happens very little, and it is mostly done by non-government military groups. Again, while this scenario does happen, putting it next to more common instances of child rape as if they're remotely the same in scale and frequency can be seen as misleading.

While the author doesn't make any false claims in this area per se, the way that they go about making their claims feels a bit iffy. I give this one a 4/10.

Jewish Stereotypes: 0/10

I didn't see any sort of stereotyping of Jewish people or anything like that, so this Carrd is pretty good on that end. Although, as a disclaimer, I'm not Jewish myself, so I do not have the final authority on this matter.

General Shit:

Medium Unreliability: 8/10

A score of 8/10 comes from the fact that it's a Carrd with no way to contact the author or even know who they are. They claim to be a survivor, but for all anyone knows, they could be lying about that. That does not mean that they are lying, and I understand that revealing that one is a survivor can put them at risk, but nonetheless it is difficult to trust a nameless, faceless person who claims to know about such a serious subject, and who has no professional qualifications or experience.

Bad Sources: 4/10

This Carrd uses a generally acceptable list of sources, but some are unreliable, and one is satanic panic bullshit.

Conclusion

Averaging out all of my ratings on various common problems, this Carrd gets a solid 6/10 (with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best) in terms of misinformation and harmful stereotypes. This makes it decently reliable with a few issues.

[k0k0-library]

Something about the spirit animals ain't sitting right with me

Ok, so. Something's been awfully wrong about the brother's spirit animals and I can't seem to be able to put it into words actually. Sorry if it doesn't make sense and it's rude. I am literally writing this deciding if should sleep or think about retribution....

Lucifer's peacock gives me the ich. I mean, ok, sure, fine. He's the avatar of pride and stuff... but a peacock? Should I remind you that if you pluck this lil fuckers tail it dies? (I didn't actually know that when small but oh well. poor little birds). And plus, it's not even the symbol of any solemn type of bullshit. No, it's the type of pride you take on when you try to impress "ya grill".

Mammon and crows... maybe I can accept it since his personality revolves around loyalty but also stealing shiny stuff... but idk. It feels really weird that he gets to be compared with a crow. Yes, he can be surprisingly smart, as shown in his Devilgram cards. But maybe a cat could fit better. The elements of pure chaos and mischief are missing from the crow.

Leviathans... a snake. Ok, letting aside that actually in the bibble the snake is not portraited by envy, but by misleading intents and better truth; a snake....? you mean his first pet? It's like Mickey the Mouse having Ploto the dog as a pet... while he has a dog as his best friend too. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into things, maybe.

Satan's unicorn. that's it; that's all.

Asmodeus... scorpions... no. Fun fact, some species of scorpions can be pregnant from 12 months up to 20 something- anyway. What's so bombastic about scorpions? Their venom. And I get the slight intel about Asmo's love spells being like poison sometimes, but maybe an animal more related to his personality... or maybe his birthday (literally the same date as Anne Boleyn's death penalty). How about a Fleischmann's Glass Frog. Yes, a frog. But HAvE yOU seEn THosE lil' PeePErs?!!! Plus, he always said he wants to find cuteness in anything. so frog.

Beelzebub and flies.... ok, his demonic representation is literally the king fly, but we ain't seeing Riden Shogun as one, do we now?! (I bet they'll be besties. Always protecting their twin, desert~, and oh course, mourning the death of their sibling...). But maybe Fly is a bit too impersonal for Beel and his activeness... his personality. golden retriever golden retriever golden retriever.

Belphegor and cow. Cows aren't lazy. Cows also have best friends. And cows don't kill people with trap hugs! Let's give this guy the snake instead of Levi. Like, a constrictor snake. Sqeezin' the life outta you.

[witchgreen6]

Saw the Bishagate video for the 1st time & I think he knew exactly what he was saying...

I am a late comer to Supernatural & all the behind the scene 'drama'. Having read about 'Bishagate' on Tumblr, I was curious to see the actual video where Misha makes his infamous 'I am all 3 statement'. I was expecting it to show him stumbling over his words & blurting out 'bisexual' by mistake (when in fact he meant to use a word such as 'ambivert'). But the video shows that this was no 'misspeaking'! he purposely uses the word 'bisexual' then pauses for effect to give the audience time to catch up with what he has just said, he looks a bit nervous and seems to be breathing heavily the smiles then says 'I am all 3''. He then uses the term bisexual AGAIN shortly after and says that it would have been weird of him to ask the audience about how many of them were bisexual from the start so he (bizarrely) chose to start with asking them about being introvert/extrovert... I mean WTF? how did so many people in the fandom/media actually believe & accept for a second his explanation that this was 'accidental' slip of the tongue, that things were 'out of context' and that he never meant to use the term 'bisexual'. He absolutely used bisexual on purpose and knew exactly what he was saying... So the only explanations I can think of for this mess is that he ever thought it was ''funny'' to pretend to be/joke about being bisexual to get some attention/publicity which is rather crappy (I am queer & I really don't appreciate that type of 'jokes') or he really meant what he said and for whatever reason decided to get back in the closet. Neither options are actually showing him in a great light & I find all this rather disappointing. I will continue to love the Castiel character but being asked to swallow this nonsense by the actor who plays him is not happening because it defies all logic when you watch the actual footage. The statement that Misha then put out on social media is also problematic because it starts with a claim that is simply not true: ''My clumsy intention was to wave off actually discussing my sexuality''. Again the video footage contradicts this. A fan asked a question about the Covid lockdowns and what Misha had learned about himself during that period which leads him to saying he discovered he was more of an extrovert than he thought. The fan's question made no reference to sexuality. Misha brings up bisexuality out of the blue, you can even hear someone in the audience say 'where did that come from?'. So if a statement starts with a lie, it is hard to then read anything else that it contains as truthful. Celebrities, like anyone else, don't owe others details about their sexuality but they do have a responsibility not to appropriate queerness as a marketing tool if they are not queer or to treat it as a joke. SPN has a long history of queer baiting and Misha should know better than to continue that sorry tradition. On the other hand if the reason for this mess was that he felt uncomfortable with the attention he received and decided to backtrack then that's incredibly sad. I also think that him claiming the network asked him to continue to pretend to be bi is misleading: instead it is very likely that their PR people pointed out that he had dug a rather large hole for himself and that the best way was to keep quiet, let the media interest die down & decline to comment further on his sexuality from then on. Because there was no way PR-wise that Misha could avoid a negative backlash if he had to admit that this was yet another queer-baiting stunt from him/he thought that joking about being bisexual was appropriate. This would also have brought the SPN existing queer baiting/homophobia issues under the spotlight and bring in more bad publicity for the network. To conclude I wish I had just continued to enjoy Supernatural, flawed, geeky but still funny & often moving, rather than look into the behind the scene (the conventions drama, the questionable behaviour/statements made by some of the actors) because it coloured the show negatively for me after that.

[zomgbomb]

I'm sorry, but this post is incredibly confusing once you open the Wikipedia link. What happened to Aaron Swartz was incredibly tragic and without justice. However, the role JSTOR had on this doesn't appear to be what the post claims.

TLDR: From the linked Wikipedia article (and articles linked from that one) JSTOR really doesn't seem to have blood on its hands.

"in his fight for freedom of information he downloaded papers off of jstor..."

It's more simple than just "download papers". Aaron put stress on the JSTOR site which JSTOR rightfully and correctly logged. They also took countermeasures which Aaron according to the article, attempted to avoid.

However, this isn't the part of the post that seems to be the most misleading. If we looked further into the article, we see exactly what role JSTOR played in this (again according to the Wikipedia link, and its links, found in the post I'm reblogging).

As we see here, the initial arrest wasn't even specifically related to the JSTOR downloads. It was related to MIT mercilessly persecuting him for for entering an unlocked closet. I feel like the start of all this is really on MIT, not JSTOR. That's just what I'm getting from what is said here.

Of course, it should be noted that in the end the federal governemtn actually wanted to charge him with this:

This might be true, in fact it probably was. I personally don't see anything wrong with doing this as I am all for free and open information. I also don't think what the federal government was doing was reasonable or fair. What was JSTOR's opinion?

They believed he had wronged him, but wouldn't take him to court themselves. In fact, you can read their full statement here. (This is linked by Wikipedia)

Here's a screenshot of the most important part of their statement.:

and again from the Wikipedia article:

JSTOR had no interested in the merciless prosecution of Swartz. They did hand documents to the federal prosecutors, but they had been subpoenaed (i.e. they had little choice). Here is JSTOR mentioning the subpoena.

Basically, taking into account what Wikipedia and its sources, it would be very difficult to say JSTOR actually has blood on its hands.

With that said, who does have blood on their hands? The federal government (as per usual), and MIT. We already saw the ridiculous way they persecuted Swartz, but they even knew he was at risk for suicide. They just, didn't care:

Also, this screenshot shows JSTOR didn't not want Swartz to serve time. MIT held up the deal that would've greatly benefited Swartz.

Look, I'm not saying I know for certain that JSTOR is without fault here. I don't even really know much about their actions outside of what we can all read on Wikipedia about this case. I just don't see how after reading these articles OP came to the conclusion that JSTOR has blood on its hands.

Perhaps there is something out there that does, but OP just didn't link it. Either way, as far as I'm concerned JSTOR didn't do anything egregious here.

Also, I agree that you shouldn't glorify any website for any reason. There is no website that can be trusted completely.

ok so tumblr also really needs this reminder based on some posts ive seen around lately, the "babygirlification" of JSTOR is bad. like Bad Bad. did you all just collectively forget history? did you alll just forget they have blood on their hands? just because they publish science stuff in an ever so slightly more ethical way than springer and are a little silly on social media sometimes? JSTOR killed aaron swartz (wikipedia). in his fight for freedom of information he downloaded papers off of jstor (with acedemic access from MIT) to share and make freely accessible (as all information should be), for this he was charged with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer. he was facing up to 50 years in prison and a 1 million USD fee for a simple act of downloading files he lawfully had access to. with this court case the US government drove one of the most important online activists and programmers (he is behind so much stuff you all take for granted) into suicide in the name of JSTOR.

JSTOR isn't the cool girl on the block. this isnt a call to boycott them (though please learn how to use things such as sci-hub and fight for open science and freedom of information in general please <3), but please dont glorify them as some sort of cutesy platform.

[adelle-ein]

Nothing Supernatural Here: Lace’s not-very-nice AINI review/rant

ETA 01/04/23: WAY more people read this than I thought, so I went through and did a massive edit/cleanup. Fixed up the grammar and writing from “hasty rant” to “actually kind of a reasonable essay” level, threw in a few more details, and added some screenshots to break up the text chunks. Sorry it was such a mess, I didn’t proofread too much bc I genuinely didn’t think anyone was gonna read it :’)

When I finished watching AI: Nirvana Initiative on Youtube (because I could not afford to buy it, and I am happy every day that I did not dip into my grocery money to do so), I wrote a review. It was not a kind review. I hated the game and that very much shows. It seemed so harsh and mean when all the reviews were so glowing, when all my mutuals seemed to ADORE it, so I decided it was better to let this extremely mean review languish in the depths of my google drive forever.

I have now edited, added to, and completed this review, and decided to let it out. It is extremely long. Like, stupidly long. And I still left out a LOT of things I hated.

I am not being nice, I am not pulling punches. I think AINI is the worst video game sequel I have ever had the displeasure of knowing exists as well as the worst VN overall I have ever viewed in full. I have really nothing nice to say about it at all. So please know that going in, and also know that if you try to convince me the game is good, I am probably just going to laugh at you because believe me: I cannot be convinced. I have tried so hard to like this game. I cannot, and it is one of my most hated pieces of media ever. This whole review is much more “hate” than “criticism.” Anyway. You have been warned.

Spoilers for AINI and AITSF, of course. Bear in mind: AINI, even if you have spoiler toggle off, inherently spoils AITSF. You cannot discuss AINI in depth without spoiling AITSF. The pre-release press releases were lying.

CWs: All AINI-typical content is discussed, including suicide, death, parental neglect and abuse, et cetera.

PROLOGUE

Nothing sums up my loathing of AINI better than the story of Tokiko’s body. When you find her corpse while playing as Mizuki, it’s a very clear suicide scene. Her wrists were slit, she's part of a cult, she’s been discussing suicide and being sliced in half, the game makes it very clear she's been suicidal in the past, et cetera. And yet Aiba immediately announces, with no further explanation, that she “does not believe this was self-inflicted” aka "this was not a suicide." She provides no evidence whatsoever for this little conclusion (other than the would being “deep?”), but as the player, it would be logical to assume that this is meant to be a "I know what this looks like, and it isn't it, assume this was murder" from the writers to the player.

And then, much later on when the Big Reveals are coming out, it is revealed that Tokiko did in fact kill herself in that very spot, in exactly the way it looks. She slit her wrists and cut herself in half using the Very Realistic Machine because of her cult beliefs and underlying depression. It was a suicide, exactly what it looked like, all along. No further explanation is given. Aiba does not even acknowledge her lie/error.

Great writing, guys.

A good mystery misleads its audience. But, uh...that's not misleading the audience. That's just straight up telling a lie to pretend there's a mystery when there isn't one. It was in fact the thing it immediately appeared to be. I looked at an apple, AINI told me it was an orange, and then later was like “it’s an apple.” Not even “it was actually an apple all along,” just “it’s an apple.” And isn't that just straight up what AINI is about overall? Blatantly lying to the player to pretend it has any depth, mystery, or interesting content whatsoever?

PART ONE: THE TWIST

We all know The Big AINI Twist. At least, if you are reading this, I assume you do. Instead of two timelines, one featuring Ryuki in the past and one featuring Mizuki in the present, Side Ryuki and Side Mizuki are intertwined (like DNA, for some reason, which isn't even really relevant to the story's alleged themes other than its almighty biological superiority unlike those icky adopted families...actually wait, that probably is the point. oops. You And I Are Halves Of A Whole Let’s Go.) You've been going back and forth between past and present all along, playing either as Ryuki (past/present), Mizuki (present), or Mizuki Two-Only-Exists-To-Pull-Off-This-Twist (past.) Only "Jin's" body was found in halves six years apart. All other bodies were found in the past, minus Tokiko who was found in the present. There was no mystery at all. And knowing what the player does about Jin and Uru by this point, the rest can quickly and easily fall into place.

Particularly clumsy that they have to spell out the DNA thing, huh. Of course, the characters have known this all along. To sum up, the "mystery" in AINI is entirely based upon the player being told a lie right after starting the game that continues throughout the entire story. A lie that was only told to the player, not the characters. When the lie is revealed, the answer becomes obvious. As soon as you see the timeline you learn that there was in fact little to no mystery all along, the obvious answer is the real one, and the only reason you as the player didn't figure it out hours ago is because the game was lying to you (and only you - not the characters, which would, you know, actually require some real fucking writing.)

This is where the game fails. Everything in AINI happens to pull off this ridiculous and yet boring literal twist. This is why Bibi (while I can't have anything against a character who is just Mizuki Again as a person, god I loathe Bibi as a plot device and the fact that she exists) is a thing and why she is inexplicably exactly like Mizuki. This is why Ryuki, Amame, etc don't get timeskip designs. This is why Shoma doesn't age. This is why Date was shoved hastily off-screen. This is why the AI Balls have so many conveniently timed memory issues. This is why nobody experienced any significant development in six years. This is why character interactions feel clumsy and forced, such as why Shoma's feelings about his dad's death ping wildly back and forth (because sometimes it happened six years ago.) Everything in AINI - characters, pacing, gameplay, FUN - was sacrificed in the name of one big twist, and that twist isn't even good. It's boring. It retroactively ruins everything about the game. It serves zero purpose except to yell "gotcha!"

AITSF misled the player, leading you to suspect Renju, Iris, So, Date, Boss, Shoko, and Falco in turn and all at once (because, in a sense, it was all and none and each of them.) AINI, on the other hand, doesn’t mislead. It just...lies. To me, that isn't really fun or interesting. It doesn't impact the characters, it is utterly meaningless -- except for making the player think there was actually more to the plot than the obvious answer for several chapters. In the end, the real solution to the entire case was just the obvious, boring answer. Jin and Uru share body parts and Uru was Tearer. The only real reveal is that Amame killed Uru and moved Tokiko's body, but that comes far too little far too late (especially bc after a few genuinely good and heartfelt scenes with Mame, we go to the final battle scene which frankly reads worse than the Harry Potter fanfiction I was writing on the Scholastic kids’ forums at age eleven.)

Seriously though, as an aside, that final battle scene is so horrifically bad I feel like it deserves its own paragraph. Maybe multiple paragraphs. I mean, what can I say? There’s no real final boss, just nameless mooks (one has a red shirt on, wow!) It’s another boring fight scene with no fun or creativity using the AI Balls’ abilities, just “press Z to jump” Heavy Rain-ass QTEs. Using "there are only three AI Balls, and whoever doesn't have one just kinda sucks" as a plot device is stupid. Ryuki's "death" was stupid and really served no purpose at all. There’s even more of Mizuki and Date's relationship being completely discarded, and Aiba being weirdly cruel to them both. Somehow a prerecorded message is capable of predicting every single thing that happens because...reasons, I guess. Kizuna has a gun and yelled the fuck word for the screencappable moment. Wow. And I guess the mopeds can fly now?? Maybe that should have come up sooner?? Not to mention poor pacing and bad lag making the whole ordeal feel even longer. It sucks that this clusterfuck came right on the tail end of Amame's somnium, which pretty much the only story/character thing in the whole game I genuinely cared about and the best scene. But Mame was absolutely overshadowed by this trash fire (and a playable epilogue even worse than the first game’s, which I also hated ftr.)

Back to “The Twist,” I cannot describe how much I hate every choice that went into this nightmare. So many terrible, terrible decisions had to be made to make the timeline change work, and it shows. Just for starters, we have Mizuki's backstory being rewritten and flung out the window, we’ve got characters willfully acting very stupid about when things are happening and exchanging painfully awkward dialogue, and important and meaningful and emotional reactions and scenes are constantly being skipped — all in service of one twist. One twist that only matters to the player. The timelines being scrambled does not affect Mizuki or Ryuki or anyone else one iota, because they already know what order everything is happening in! They have nothing to discover, since they’ve known from the beginning, even if their dialogue is crafted to tiptoe around that fact. The entire thing is only for the player. Why does Mizuki apparently forget Date is missing after the first thirty seconds of the game and never express any care for him, Iris, etc ever again? Why are there two identical Mizukis who somehow decorated their moped identically despite completely different upbringings?? It’s all literally just so this twist can work, so that there can be two interchangeable Mizukis. Other characters have to behave identically in past and present, and other obstacles have to be safely out of the way. There is no other way for the twist to work, and none of these actively game-ruining elements serve any other purpose. The end result is that AINI is…so stupid. It doesn't feel like a story. It feels like a bunch of elements put together around a central twist. No character gets to be an actual character. They're all walking clues and nothing more, and their development is purposefully stunted so they can act the same way in past in present. It hurts Mizuki most of all, and as devotedmizukilover420, this is what makes the game unsalvageable to me. The two Mizukis might be the dumbest "clue"/element/twist of all, because the whole thing makes entirely zero sense with AITSF (or any kind of logic, really.) You're telling me that all along, Boss has been raising an adopted daughter named Mizuki who looks exactly like Mizuki and that just didn't impact AITSF at all? Mizuki was living with Boss and Saito left Hitomi tied to a bomb in Boss's house — so Mizuki 2 just...wasn't home and missed that? Didn't care that her mom went missing? Meanwhile, Boss is just keeping this secret all along bc she wanted a super secret agent who was loyal only to her or whatever? (see my thoughts below on AINI's hot anti-adoption agenda.) Yeah, sure, right. Not to mention, "AITSF/Classic Mizuki was adopted by the Okiuras" is also bullshit. Even putting aside the way it slam-dunks the message and themes of AI1 Mizuki route into the garbage. Okay, she coincidentally has Shoko's unique hair color and exact face shape, and Shoko recounts when she was a newborn and hated her stroller and wanted to be held all the time, and Renju makes a clumsy comparison between Shoko and captive animals who give birth….but the Okiuras adopted Mizuki when she was three and there's no genetic relation. Complete and utter bullshit, and character-hurting bullshit at that. But it’s a necessary twist to pull off the dual timelines because we need to be able to have an 18-y/o (identically dressed….) Mizuki running around six years ago. I wouldn’t mind this so much if it didn’t impact Mizuki’s character, and her AITSF route, so heavily, but...it does. It ruins everything. AINI just hates adoption so much that it had to wipe out the pro-adoption message from its predecessor too (I will get to all this in more detail later - there’s just so much to hate about this game!)

Gotta say though, bold move to have a clone character and have the game’s conclusion be “Yes, the two clones are exactly the same in every way, they don’t have independent identities, nothing about their lives or experiences shaped them in any way, they are literal halves of a whole with no differences between them, and they’re totally okay with that and have no negative feelings about it.” Don’t think I’ve ever seen a piece of media do that before. Because, well, it sucks. It’s silly and stupid and just awful, awful writing.

I'm sure all the Horidori Institute stuff was coined solely to pull off the timeline twist — including the two Mizukis, our Mizuki's new backstory/canon superpowers (also stupid and takes all the fun out of her cartoonish super strength - just let things be fun, AINI!), and everything with Shoma. That only adds to the way this game just feels like a singular house of cards with one sole goal, and that goal is "to lie about the timelines and then reveal it was a lie at the very end." It's not even cleverly obfuscated, you just have an incorrect timeline and then you get a correct one. The big reveal just being "Mama tells you bc she has supernatural powers now — than straight up says there's nothing supernatural about the case" doesn't help. There was no way to skillfully incorporate that so they just drop it. And then move on. Because in the end, like absolutely everything else, it doesn't matter. The final battle is pointless and has nothing to do with the rest of the game because every aspect of this game was built around a twist that has nothing to do with its characters. Even the killers were designed and created completely in service to this twist. And yet, despite all of that, no real time or effort is devoted to revealing the twist, it’s just hastily dropped and then abandoned for good. Even the writers don’t like the twist, I guess!

Now, gaze upon what I genuinely believe is the stupidest line in the entire game, and what sums up exactly why it fails.

That’s right! There’s nothing supernatural here! Nothing fun, interesting, or entertaining. Nothing characterful, nothing that adds meaning or development. It was all just a very straightforward lie. What, you expected better? You thought, after the last game harnessed a supernatural twist that developed and added to its world and characters, that this game would too? You thought in a world of exploring brains and dreams, machines that slice perfectly in half, magical suicide plagues, and bodyswapping, that there might be more to the story? You goddamn dumbass. The game knew that you would think that, and it laughs at and mocks you for it. You thought the writers put in actual effort? You thought they cared about the world they were creating? That was your idiotic mistake. How silly of you! The most straightforward, boring explanation was the correct one. Nothing supernatural here!

And that's...part one of four. I said this was long and I meant it.

PART TWO: THE CHARACTERS

Another big issue with AINI is that it has no idea if it's standalone or a sequel, and as a result, it utterly fails to be both. AITSF characters get no development in AINI, to avoid spoiling their game. But they aren't really playing any roles at all. They stick out like sore thumbs because they have no reason to be there. They get no real introduction. The new characters are shallow, sure, and they only exist to serve the Plot Twist, but they do exist and serve a purpose. Why the fuck was Hitomi even in this game for all of two scenes? This seems like it'd be really jarring for a standalone player, since they now need to keep track of like…ten potential suspects. Except they aren’t really meant to be suspects, and they actually don't matter to the game at all. So Sejima, for example, is being super suspicious, but we returning players all know he can’t be up to much of anything. How is a new player supposed to guess that? Meanwhile, even on "no-spoiler" mode, massive spoilers get dropped for AITSF. Character backstories, motivations, the connections between them — they’re either implied or stated outright. You're kinda not supposed to know a lot of this stuff going into AITSF and, well, if you play AINI first…you will. Even "Mizuki gets adopted by Date" is a spoiler and that isn't hidden at all, but that's by far one of the more minor things. This isn’t even touching on Date being in his Saito body and voice by inexplicably wearing a custom mask, which is not only bizarre but terrible, terrible character writing (though I give it a pass because it keeps DC Douglas out of this game.) The writers tried to have their cake and eat it too, and as a result they just set the whole cake on fire.

The cast feels completely flat. Tama and Ryuki fit right in with the classic crew…because they serve no purpose, play no real role, and develop in no way at all. Ryuki is always just kinda There, with nothing much to do but pine over Date, fail to solve mysteries, and act “crazy” until he gets magically cured at the end. All the new characters kinda feel like retreading old ground with tweaked personalities and designs. Kizuna is a less bombastic Iris -- she gets kidnapped a bunch and likes conspiracy theories and sings and dances. Her dad is the Morally Dubious Rich Dad Bad At Parenting With A Shifty Past...Gen is a diner owner hopelessly in love with a teenager...Bibi is literally Mizuki Again...etc. I'm not surprised the AI1 cast has pretty much nothing to do — considering this is meant to be a companion game that doesn't spoil AI1, they can't really do much with them. They can’t even be considered as murder suspects, obviously (minus Amame, who really isn’t a returning character at all.) But also it's really disappointing how shallow they all feel. Iris is like…at least 80% more manic pixie dream girl than usual. Iit's not even being offset by her tumor, or her faking, or Saito faking, so that's exhausting. Date is literally just standing around making porno mag jokes or having them made about him (and they ruined the funny part, which is Aiba repeatedly lying to him and him repeatedly falling for it. Instead he just yells PORNO MAG POWER and gets tougher which is just...so not remotely funny at all.) Mizuki feels like a passive side character in her own game. Ota and Moma still just perv on Iris and do nothing of substance, with even the better aspects of their character now cleanly wiped away to prevent having to do any actual writing. The cameos were shallow at best. Even for our alleged MCs - it felt like instead of actually having Mizuki, Date, etc, we just got pieces of cardboard with "Mizuki", "Date", etc written on them in crayon. Cheap imitations.

Meanwhile, the writers still hate women, so that's fantastic. Seriously, revealing last minute that actually Gen has a thing for Amame (an incredibly creepy and obsessive thing) while she sees him as a fucking FATHER FIGURE is absolutely disgusting, and ruined their entire route as well as Gen as a character for me. To these writers, every woman immediately becomes a sex object once they grow tits, so of course their male characters are the same way. This makes me really glad they tossed Date to the curb and he and Mizuki barely interacted, because I would be miserable if they ruined that relationship the way they ruined Falco and Iris and now Gen and Amame. Mizuki’s of age now, after all, so she’s officially a sex object! Similarly, starting off Kizuna and Lien's relationship with an age gap and stalking was a shitty call and ruins their whole storyline too, when it could have been really sweet. Lien can't mature as a person because it would spoil The Twist, and Kizuna just goes from "mostly not sad" to "sad all the time" as the entirety of her development, so that really only adds to how flat both their characters are. (Don’t get me started on her whole disability arc, which felt thrown in for brownie points at best and was terribly handled as usual.) Mizuki makes sex jokes now. which feels really creepy coming from a school-age teenager we’ve previously known as a twelve-year-old, comments on how cute and young she is a lot, and constantly whines about wanting a boyfriend. Aiba even complains about Mizuki being flat-chested?? There's maybe a little less of the perviness than there is in AITSF just bc Date isn't playable, but what there is feels very creepy. I’m not surprised they kept this aspect but damn, it still sucks.

The side ends - you know, the CHARACTER ends, where much of AITSF's best work shone - feel like they were just kinda thrown in because they're expected. They don't feel as finished as the endings in AITSF. Gen/Amame's was just all over the place (I'm not even clear on what HAPPENED in half of it, let alone why, and Uchikoshi has since said a bunch of weird lies about it being followed up on in a “third eye” on his twitter. I’m not even getting into that, but if you believe a word he says, I invite you to look into all the times he claimed Santa and Snake would make a comeback in ZTD, or how Alice’s legend from 999 would be relevant to VLR.) Kizuna/Lien just kinda randomly cuts off. Shoma/Komeji was something at least, but it was really short and premature. I don’t know if explosion really counts as an ending, but it sucked too — why would a new player care about a big rock falling on the guy who only exists to talk about porn and neglect and bicker with his daughter? Just because Ryuki's in love with him (maybe, sort of, it will never be made explicit canon)? Meanwhile, returning players know they wouldn’t kill Date off, plus he's been in his most basic boring form all game, so they have no reason to really care either. What is even the point of this ending? Kizuna is just there to become disabled so Lien can have someone to be obsessed with and sad about, and he's just there to pick locks. Mizuki losing her eye -- you know, the thing a serial killer did to her parents, including Date -- is an afterthought at best. Blah. If this is supposed to be the "annihilation" of AINI, it…really, really falls flat.

The game doesn't know if it's a sequel or not, and like I said, trying to both have and eat the cake means the cake just gets set on fire. Hitomi is here for two scenes with no significance and just bloats the cast (I am not even going to get started on how flat and lame her and Date’s relationship has become. Feeling super bad for anyone who shipped them.) Ota and Iris keep showing up just to kinda be stupid for a scene (seriously Iris is EXTREMELY dumb in this, something went really wrong with those nanomachines and they fried all her gray matter) and then they vanish again into the distance of No Purpose. Date is an insufferable ass who only cares about porn magazines, mentions them in every fucking scene, now yells "porno mag power" when he activates that power (OVER AND OVER IN ALMOST EVERY COMBAT SCENE HE'S IN) and treats Mizuki like shit. And poor, poor Mizuki gets it worst of all — she's still a snarky, kinda bratty, tough kid, but that's all she is now. All that love and devotion and determination and kindness and intelligence? Gone. If she cares too much about her loved ones or thinks about herself too much, she would be unique from Bibi and the twist would be spoiled, and heaven knows we can't have that. Aiba is the only character who feels like herself, and even she feels overly cruel to Mizuki sometimes (and Date often.) I don't know why a new player would feel any attachment to these characters, and as someone who did play and love aspects of AITSF, I just felt cheated. It would have been better to not include any of them at all than to have these crappy imitations. Meanwhile, "no AITSF spoiler mode" spoils a ton of shit. Just reveal a connection between Iris and So on "no spoiler" mode, why the fuck not? Reveal that Shoko was abusive, she and Renju both died, and Date adopted Mizuki? Mention Iris having a "condition" that is now "stable" in one throwaway line for no goddamn discernible reason??? The game does all this and more. On no spoiler mode!!!

This game unashamedly hates its characters. And thanks to that, so do I. It really is a shame. It’s the epitome of “flanderization” in one single game, but it’s for every character, over and over again.

This is easily the most-reposted screenshot I’ve seen from AINI, which...says a lot about the quality of its humor and the relevance of its returning cast IMO.

PART THREE: FUCK ADOPTION

This is the first piece of media since Once Upon A Time on ABC that presents the unique and controversial moral of "fuck adoption." All in order to make Mizuki have an older clone sister. For the Twist. The same reason we do everything around here. Mizuki’s parents can’t just be shitty parents. they must be shitty ADOPTIVE parents, because ADOPTIVE parents suck and don’t love their kids.

But don't worry guys. Because Mizuki and Bibi are clones. Therefore they are biologically related. Therefore they GENETICALLY love each other. By the end of the game, Mizuki and Bibi, despite having barely met, love each other desperately, are the most important people in one another's lives, are never seen apart from each other and treated as a singular character, and are literally Two Halves Of A Whole, Let's Go. Because, you know. They're sisters, but the GOOD kind, the BIOLOGICAL kind, the ONLY real kind.

Gag me.

I saw screenshots of Date and Mizuki doing "I'm home" / "Welcome back" after he returns and thought, well, at least I'll get thrown a few crumbs to lap off the floor. Nope. Aiba has to specifically prompt Date into saying "I'm home," saying that Mizuki wants to hear it. He begrudgingly does so, Mizuki responds...but then says she didn't want to do that anyway and they move back on to the all-important Plot. Ouch. I seriously don't know how Mizuki route came from the same team. Date and Mizuki are barely tolerating each other at best here. They actually showed a lot more affection on the AITSF B routes, which is insane since that’s the route where OTA calls Date out for being neglectful. Meanwhile, Boss uses Bibi as a special agent and keeps her very existence a secret. Kizuna's dad doesn't really seem to care about Bibi either despite having raised her for years, and prioritizes his bio daughter. And as the cherry on top...the Okiuras treated Mizuki like shit because she was adopted all along, of course! Adopted parents are evil and bad, right? And bio parents would never mistreat their bio children, right? Right. Who cares if this totally throws Mizuki's arc in AITSF out the window? Even Bibi and Kizuna's relationship is never really given focus once Bibi is revealed. Bibi only really cares about Mizuki. Her REAL sister. Because they are related and that is all that matters.

Even the villains love their biological son and will do lots of evil for him! Tokiko gives an entire speech about how much she loved her bio son even though she didn't raise him, to the point where she and her ex kidnapped a random child, groomed him into a cult, and gave his organs to her bio son. Kidnapped child meanwhile views her as his mom. On its own, I wouldn't think too much about it, but in conjunction with the Mizukis…this how adoption is treated in AINI. It is A Very Bad Thing. Adoptive parents do not love their children anymore. Both Mizukis go through two adoptive families and are treated badly or ignored by both, and this is just normal, I guess.

Also So suddenly seems to care about Iris, at least a little bit, despite his not giving a shit in AITSF. But, hey, they are biologically related....(I actually wouldn’t mind this if they like, did anything with it. But they don’t. Instead they totally destroy any depth So’s character ever had by making him a total horndog who runs around conceiving various serial killers. Wheee, the killer is the half-brother of the previous killer, and they are both the half-brothers of another character, because So can’t keep it in his pants. Seriously, what a stupid twist. Hilarious but stupid.)

The Komeji-Dois love each other and are very sweet. They are the only ones that seem to, though. Because blood. Genetics. DNA. As the only bio family with significant screentime, of course they actually love each other, right?

Also, side note, remember Ryuki's twin brother who died? He sure was significant huh :)

Part Four: Miscellany

The most baffling thing of all about how bad AINI is is its glowing reviews. Don’t get me wrong: people can like things I don’t. But the reviews I read were on so many occasions blatantly false. I saw claims that AINI has fewer or even NO dirty jokes, that it does not sexualize the 18 y/o characters, that Date and Mizuki’s relationship was explored more in-depth, that the game runs great on Switch, that the AI Vision lag was fixed, that spoilers are avoidable. All of these things are objective, and they were blatantly false. Every person I have talked to who played on Switch had lag and framerate issues even worse than the first game’s, and most of them reported at least one hard crash. AI Vision loading in high-res models is still a major issue that disrupts the game’s flow on lower-end consoles and PCs. Bibi’s mess of a Somnium just got its bugs patched a few days ago, in NOVEMBER, so you can actually play it without getting thirty game overs from touching unrelated objects. The dirty jokes are abundant and often about 18 y/o high schoolers (they even aged down Amame, which really wasn’t necessary at all - a 20 y/o and an 18 y/o can be friends, after all - just to keep her barely legal!) Date and Mizuki loathe each other. And “no spoiler mode” is, as discussed above, a fucking joke. I don’t know how this game of telephone got started or why so many big names lied in their reviews, but damn, it sure made the game even more disappointing when I realized that most of what I had read wasn’t even true. I have no idea why so many people who received review copies felt the need to lie. I have to assume they weren’t deliberate lies. But...how on earth could they have convinced themselves that this game no longer has dirty jokes? Or that there’s no lag, or bugs, or weird crashes? I get that Uchikoshi is funny and nice on Twitter, but we’re allowed to say negative things about his games!

And, on the note of Uchikoshi games, can we just say that the second time you come up with “disease that makes you kill yourself” it is less effective? Seriously, isn’t this just the same basic apocalypse plot as VLR/ZTD?? Why are we doing this again, it doesn’t work a second time!!!! aaaaaaargh

The quicktime events in this game suck so much. Just press a button to parkour. There’s no creativity, no unique use of Aiba/Tama’s abilities, no silly elaborate traps for the baddies or jokes or teamwork, just. Flip punch kick jump. Woo-hoo. The one time we do something vaguely creative it’s just exploding the damn porno vending machine and we already did that in the first game. AINI has no identity of its own.

Half To Whole is catchy but its lyrics suck. Gen/Amame BS AND Mame doesn’t get to sing. Most of the lyrics are random asides that don’t work with the characters or themes (but hey, Date, Ota, Mama, and Iris HAVE to sing about kappa catching, because it’s not like any of them got fuckall to do in the main game after all!) Mizukis whining about wanting boyfriends and singing in perfect harmony because they are not separate characters (and allegedly crying on the inside whenever they fight?? what??) Changing lyrics to make Ryuki sound straight (gay rights! Seriously why are we pretending Ryuki is gay representation??) It’s just an absolute trashfire. The only vaguely meaningful lyric is “Without you I am only half, I need to be whole” but even that one pisses me off, because it ties into the game’s ongoing weird idea that characters can only exist with one another, that they aren’t whole people alone. Especially the idea that Mizuki and Bibi are “two halves of a whole” - fuck you, they’re different people and they only just met! But no, they will never be independent people again. They don’t even get separate lines in the song outside of the first verse and otherwise harmonize everything (bless Mizuki’s VA for at least trying to give them different singing voices...). The one saving grace of an AI3 is that Bibi probably won’t get to be in it for spoiler purposes, so maybe Mizuki will get to do something without her (but probably not.)

In Conclusion (Fuck This Game)

AITSF felt like it constructed its character arcs, mystery, twists, lore, and gameplay all side by side to make one full story. AINI…only even bothered to have mystery, twists, and gameplay, and only the last one ends up working even remotely because so much was sacrificed for the mediocre twists. The big reveals of AITSF matter to the story and the characters, whereas the biggest twist in AINI has nothing to do with the game's universe and is just for the Frayer…then they do nothing with that concept anyway beyond a bonus ending. In the end, it's as flat and frankly soulless as everything else. So who cares?

My MOST hated thing about AINI is its "only biological family matters" thesis. My second most hated thing is how it takes a massive dump on every single character. And the third is how it just generally is an utter failure of a mystery with no depth whatsoever. I have always hated Bravely Second and held it up as an example of how to utterly fail a video game sequel, destroying the predecessor in the process. This game, however, is at least twice as terrible as Bravely Second. At least the aptly abbreviated BS did in fact manage to have some fun twists despite hating and flanderizing its entire cast; AINI couldn’t even pull that off. Calling it a cheap, forced cash grab the devs clearly never wanted to make still feels too generous. This game sucks.

TL;DR: AINI isn’t even half and will definitely never be whole.

[nyehilismwriting]

Ok so I've been thinking about this a lot these past few days and I have something to say if that's alright so bear with me pls. Also this is not me hating on you or anything, I just want to tell you how I see it and hear your thoughts about it if it's ok.

So I was trying to see it from your perspective but no matter what, it just doesn't really make sense to me. I get that we'll be able to explore (?) Lea's sexuality more in Ch 3 but I think we already have a lot to comment on so far. I also get that some people "treat everyone the same" like you said and it's fine ofc but there's a difference, I think. The first time I played PH (as female) I was surprised bc I thought she actually acts different around fem/nb MCs since she's a lesbian = she can feel attracted to these MCs. But then I played as male and nothing really changed and I genuinely thought it was a bug bc she's supposed to be a lesbian, why is she flirting with someone she feels absolutely zero attraction to whatsoever? And then you said one doesn't need to feel attracted to someone to flirt with them and I must admit it doesn't really make sense to me. I don't know why I would flirt with someone I'm not interested in... unless it's just to fuck with them. And that's a shitty move and I may be talking from personal experience but I just think it's unfair to another person who might think you're into them, when you're not. And that's also the problem I have with your reasoning that Lea's "just like that" bc it feels like making excuses. It's unfair to say she's "just like that" when she's basically getting someone's hopes up because she can. There is no difference in how she treats fem/nb MCs and male MCs and I think it's a problem. Even the fact that male MCs can flirt with her and she doesn't just say "sorry, I'm just not into guys". At the end of the day we can't excuse everything with "I'm just like that" or "this is who I am". It's about basic respect for the other person and their feelings. And yeah, I know they barely know each other but she's still practically leading male MCs on. All of this is really misleading, is what I'm trying to say. And I don't think her behavior can be excused when she's flirting with male MCs so aggressively (calling them different pet names, constant touching etc) just to later tell them "whoops, sorry! I'm not into guys".

And I know this whole ask may come off as if I'm hating on you or your game but again, that's not the case. I absolutely love your game and I fell in love with Lea the moment you've introduced her but just her behavior towards male MCs makes me feel uncomfortable and feels like she doesn't really care about other peoples feelings as long as she can have her fun. Anyway I still look forward to future updates etc and you obviously don't have to answer this but I'd be grateful for your thoughts regardless.

it really seems to me like you've made your mind up about this - which, fine, I'm sorry you're uncomfortable but I'm not changing the character so you can be happy.

leanna's a lesbian. she will always be a lesbian, and she is not interested in male operatives - this will be put very clearly in chapter three. bear in mind that you have had, at the point chapter two ends, approximately an hour of interaction with her - certainly not enough time to expect her to go into detail on the nuances of her sexuality, or even enough time for her to decide whether your flirting is a sincere expression of attraction or just fun banter. which is very possible, and given her own personality, what she's likely to assume. I gave male operatives the flirt option in the first place because you wouldn't realistically know she's gay straight away; she doesn't tell you immediately because you (or at least, she) wouldn't respond to a jokey line about touching by coming out.

if this isn't enough to convince you, that's on you; and while I am a little concerned that you seem to think friendliness and pet names consistutes "aggressive flirting" (cause nothing bad has ever come of people misinterpreting/wilfully misunderstanding lesbians) again, that's on you. she treats ki-ha the same way, she treats skylar the same way. it doesn't mean she wants to sleep with them - or, for that matter, a female/nonbinary operative. at no point in the 15 minutes she's known your mc does she do more than call you a few pet names and try to offer (platonic) physical comfort, things she does and would do for friends and family members.

bearing in mind mc climbed aboard her ship half-dead and obviously traumatised, brandishing weapons, is it really a surprise she's trying to be gentle with them? there is a crisis on - she's not modulating her behaviour to coddle a strange man's feelings.

I call my friends pet names. I touch people on the arm - sometimes, scandalously, I hug people I have no intention of or interest in sleeping with. "leading someone on" is not a concern when she has given no indication that she's interested, and will say so in no uncertain terms in chapter three.

I have to be honest, this message is wildly unpleasant to read, and maybe I'm reading too much into it but interpreting a black lesbian as aggressively sexual and accusing her of leading a male character on is....really not it, chief. especially when it's a character you've just met, with much bigger things on her mind than romance, and little to no reason to trust that you're safe. she is not being deliberately deceptive or misleading; she has given the operative no reason to think she is attracted to him. if he feels owed something because she called him pretty, that's on him.

[thefanficmonster]

Filterless

Corpse Husband x Plus-sized Reader (Female)

Warnings: Body Image Insecurities, Low self-esteem, Swearing

Genre:  Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: Feeling comfortable in her skin has hardly ever been the case for Y/N who’s been struggling with body image issues all her life. However, they only get worse when she sees the ‘type’ of girls her crush is into.

Requested by Anon. Hi darling! Thank you so much for your request (hits close to home 😅) I’m so sorry it has taken me so long to fulfill it and post it but here it finally is and if you’ve stuck around long enough to read it, I hope you enjoy! ALSO! - Never forget how beautiful and amazing you are. Never compare your beauty to someone else’s. We’re all beautiful people and we all shine so brightly and uniquely. No one deserves to be compared to anyone when we’re all so different yet so incredible. Love you and appreciate you with all my heart, Vy ❤

If I ever need my ego taken down a few notches - it never does, it’s barely even present, to be honest - all I have to do is go on Instagram. To be honest, regardless of how I’m feeling, opening that app is bound to make my mood plummet and come crashing into the ground so hard it drives a hole in it - probably in the form of a broken heart.

Being a content creator myself, I often get asked questions about my absence on that social platform specifically. I mean, the questions are based and rational I guess, considering I’m not a faceless YouTuber and yet my Instagram account is void of any photos. It’s not like I don’t post at all - I do! I post on my story often but it’s more often than not scenery I find pretty or a poster I’ve made for a movie/video game. Bottom line is: I barely ever allow a picture of me to make it online. The most my fans are ever gonna get of me is a selfie which is also a super rare occurrence because of how long it takes me to take and choose one I don’t hate.

Ok, but how am I supposed to find the motivation to post any sort of picture of myself when on my timeline I’m always faced with people worthy of posting pictures of themselves. People with such perfect bodies and beautiful faces. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not jealous or envious of those people - good for them! They know what they’re working with and they’re working it well. I have nothing against them, in fact, I love seeing people proud of their bodies no matter their size, shape or weight. Those are my role-models: people who are proud of themselves, their bodies, their attributes and capabilities and don’t hesitate to show them off. Those are the people I look up to but, deep down inside I know I’ll never be like.

Insecure about my body, having been referred to as ‘chubby’ and ‘squishy’ all my life. Inappreciative of the stuff I do: starting from my job as a graphic designer leading towards my job on YouTube - nothing I do, professionally or otherwise, satisfies me. Nothing I do is enough in my eyes because I feel incapable of ever being able to do enough. I’ve been called lazy and a half-asser a few too many times to be able to brush it off as a meaningless insult. 

With these problems I’ve had with myself and my own perception of who I am and the work I do, I’ve never had the time for romance or romantic relationships. I second-guess the intentions of everyone who ever shows any interest in me because in my mind I’m nothing special and I have nothing to offer - nothing attractive or likable at least. That being said, I haven’t even been one to make heart eyes at others either. I busy myself with my job and some side-gigs, brushing off any relationship questions with the excuse that I’m ‘just too busy to be in a relationship’ which is technically true.

Having spent twenty plus years with that mindset, one can imagine how surprised I was when I found myself catching feelings for someone. And that someone just couldn’t be any other than the biggest YouTube sensation at the moment - Corpse Husband.

I’m close friends with Poki - her and I were roommates at one point too - so her inviting me to play Among Us with them wasn’t so strange. One or two games, I thought, nothing unusual there, just friendly curtesy. I wasn’t expecting to warm up to the group of famous streamers nor did I expect them to welcome me among them so easily, mostly because my channel is so small and practically invisible to the YouTube algorithm. But soon enough, I became a permanent member of the team, making friends with every single one of those YouTubers I practically thought of a celebrities.

This journey of branching out to other content creators has proven itself to be surprisingly pleasant and has packed my book of friendships to the brim. All of that came unexpectedly, along with a wave of new subs and a higher view count. However, as I mentioned, it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. I came to finally understand what my high school friends were talking about when they were head over heels for a boy - the butterflies in the stomach whenever he speaks your name; the importance of the laugh you share with him, how special and different it is; how cool it is to be impostors with him - ok they never said that, obviously, but it’s what I have as a substitute to the ‘when the two of you make eye-contact’ bullshit since Corpse and I have never seen each other in person. That is, of course, because of him being a faceless YouTuber and me being a self-conscious and insecure girl.

We do talk all the time though - texting, calling, chilling on Discord, you name it. Our conversations range from deeply philosophical to ones that might mislead someone into thinking we’re high. There’s no topic we haven’t touched upon and yet we still manage to find something new to talk about. We have plenty of similarities but we also never seem to run out of differences we slowly come across as we keep getting to know each other better and better. 

And somewhere along that journey I ended up catching feelings.

Human nature of wanting to connect with other people, I curse you for what you’ve done to me.

You might think I’m being overdramatic about the whole ordeal and that this is just a normal, natural occurrence many people experience in their life - some even daily. Well, not only am I far from used to it, but it’s also taking a toll of a different kind on me.

It’s like a constant slap to the face. 

That slap turned into a punch when Corpse and I started following each other on Instagram and I started getting daily reminders of how out of my depth I am with this crush on him. In over my head, especially when you look at all those girls whose pics and videos he reposts on his story. Imagine how that makes me feel, what that does to me - puts me back into the ‘Constantly not good enough‘ basket, the one I’ve been fighting to get out of all my life. In the past and in different contexts I could easily say that it was all just my mind hating me intensely but now - now that I know for a fact I’m not good enough and don’t fit Corpse’s criteria - it hurts ten times as much. I’m not one to do shit for someone’s attention or to attract someone’s eyes, but it really hurts my feelings. Often times, it also leads me to doing dumb things and making rash decisions. 

Like the one I made two days ago.

Imagine me cringing and shaking my head at my own stupidity as I admit this: I, in a frenzy, ordered a whole e-girl getup with overnight delivery. 

Wait, hold up, it gets worse. 

I received it yesterday and spent the whole day regretting that decision, but then, in my most insecure hours - which was somewhere around midnight - I equipped the get-up, took a picture and posted it on my Instagram page. First full body pic I’ve ever posted on there. First pic I’ve posted there of any kind. There to stay, not to be gone in twenty four hours. First pic, and it’s not even of me. It’s of who I want to be in order to fit someone’s criteria. And that fucking stings.

As you might imagine, I’ve spent today’s day regretting that decision as well. Recently my mood’s been nothing but regretting rash decisions that have surfaced under the influence of my ridiculous, constantly-present insecurities. And I would’ve probably gotten over it rather quickly had I not received a message from Corpse that read:

“Didn’t think of you with an e-girl aesthetic“

I didn’t open the message, I peeped at it as it was a notification on my lock screen. It’s still there, an unread notification. It’s been two hours since I received it and I cannot think of a single thing to say in response to that. 

Truth is, I’m afraid. I’m afraid of so many things right now.

I’m afraid of becoming that girl in the photo, cause I’m most definitely not her.

I’m afraid of letting Corpse down by admitting I’m not her.

I’m afraid of what my own mind has made me do because it hates me so much and I’m terrified of what it might do in the future.

I’m afraid and stranded on things to do.

You can’t be her forever, you know. Being her won’t make your insecurities go away, it’ll only make them worse. Haven’t you learned that by now?

I sigh, frustrated and irritated with myself as I grab my phone and tap on the notification, finally deciding to face the music and allow my instincts to carry me through the interaction. Improvisation, that’s one of the few things I’m good at. Let’s hope it doesn’t fail me.

I’m just about to type out my response - not sure what it’s gonna say - when I give the message Corpse has sent me a second glance.  I furrow my brows, finding there’s more to it than that peep through the notification let me see.

“Didn’t think of you with an e-girl aesthetic. You’re personality is so bright and colorful, I could’ve never imagined you were into the darks and blacks“

Because I’m not

I fail to realize until the message has been sent that my thoughts are exactly what I typed out and sent.

And honestly, I’m glad. It feels like I’ve spoken my truth, like I’ve lifted a huge boulder off my chest.

With that rare confidence in mind I go on and delete the picture.

In its spot, I post a picture I just now took - a mirror selfie in my homey get-up consisting of hot pink sweatpants and an oversized blue tee, my hair in a messy bun, my face free of make-up.

I caption it: ‘Oops, had the e-girl filter on for the last one. This is filterless me tho so...Hi 🥴’

A lot better, I’m surprised to hear my inner voice say. I hope I don’t get used to all this kindness on my brain’s part, probably won’t last, but damn if I don’t milk every second of it.

Just then, I receive a new message from non other than Corpse.

“Now that’s the girl I see when I think of you. She’s super cute 😉“

My, oh my, who would’ve guessed Corpse has a game like that - and by that I mean the ability to make me blush so intensely with only a text message.

Now ain’t that better than being someone else, Y/N?

It sure is, it sure is.

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[chancelin-blog]

Oof, yeah I went a little overboard on how long it was, longer than even my initial Collar post, thanks for reading and responding so quickly!

I agree that Anharion/James sees Will as both Will/Sarcean, and you do bring up a good point that Anharion/James wouldn't know to explain everything to Will if he assumed Will already knew and had all of Sarcean's memories. Sure, Will threw up because of how sickened he felt by the situation, but he could have been air sick or any other reason because he never answered James's "What's wrong?". The fact James doesn't enquire further or even seem more worried is a little strange however.

James/Anharion answering "Yes" to Will's question is for sure incredibly misleading because it puts into question his free will, but if he thought Will should know the answer, it could read as "Yes, because I know what you want to hear" rather than "Yes, I literally am not able to disobey". I do still think James/Anharion is acting very strange, completely different from how James would act, very overtly obediant, to the point of being near emotionless, which is why in my reblog I posit that if the Collar isn't forcing James into submission then Anharion just kind of... acts like that, and Jame's personality has been overwritten.

I guess I should say that it would feel incredibly underwhelming for me if Sarcean turns out to be "the good guy all along" and not "both sides are bad and this is a cycle of revenge and abuse". I think just because the Light side is suspicious and certainly not good themselves, that shouldn't mean Sarcean suddenly becomes the hero, because that's a very black and white way of framing the narrative. The conflict within Will would simply deflate, because then rather than fighting against prejudice and his own dark past life that he couldn't escape, he would be fighting a nebulous "Bad Light People". It would be a bit if a cop out. I think based on Sarcean's POVs so far, he has been shown to be a very complex person, who had been brought to his lowest and feels justified in what he did. He also was incredibly loyal to those he loved, until they betrayed him. And maybe, some of it was justified and some was not. It just causes a lot of suffering in the progress for everyone.

The whole two books, Will has been grappling with his role in the world, with how he can be someone that doesnt play into destiny, and if Sarcean turns out to be good... well, then what? The world goes "Oh, sorry Will. Actually Sarcean and therefore you were a good person all along, sorry for ruining your life for nothing. You can go ahead and just be Sarcean now". I want Will to be able to break free of the horrible cycle, to look at what Sarcean did, and say "I don't want to be that, I never want to be that". No matter how low he has to be brought, because in the end even if Sarcean had just goals, what he did was unquestionably horrible in Will's eyes. I'm sure many people can relate with Sarcean's ideology of the ends justifying the means, but I think about how in the last arc of the Dark Heir, a lot of these villagers could just be innocent or ignorant. They drop dead, their bodies taken over by the white death, and occupied by outsiders who now wear their skin.

I don't think Will is Sarcean, not fully. Yes, they have the same base characteristics, the same blueprint, and will make some of the same choices. But Will has his own life, experiences and beliefs. And I don't think Anharion will stick around inside of James all things considered, or at the very least not overwrite him like he seems to have (or the Collar is what's causing him to act like a robot). I think a main theme is being able to recognize and learn from the past, without letting it rule your present. I don't think Sarcean is the protagonist at all, hence why I believe for the narrative's conflict to be satisfying, he must be something worth fighting against for all this time, and why I don't think we should attribute his crimes onto Will. Will has to prove himself, prove like he has been doing for two books that he is his own person with his own agency no matter how difficult it can be to fight against fate. Yes, it might seem incredibly unfair, but I think that's what makes the internal struggle so gripping because deep down, Will wants the same things as Sarcean. No matter what anyone else says in the story, Will is the protagonist. And he's... doing his best lol. Maybe he can bring justice for the wrongs both the Light and the Dark have done.

Well, we won't know until the book comes out but hey, maybe Pacat can frame Sarcean Good Guy in a way that I might like 😅. I'm not as completely against the idea as I'm sure I sound right now (I probably sound a little crazy). There are some reblogs from my post other people made that might be a bit more coherent than what I just wrote. Thanks again for the response!

The Question of the Collar & the Dark Rise Trilogy

I am pro collar. And Ill tell you why.

I have been seeing a couple posts on this topic and people go back and forth, but none have fully encapsulated what I see as being one of the biggest reasons I believe the collar is consensual and probably a kink. I also think there is a possibility it also allows free will, but today I shall argue for why I believe it’s consensual on James’s part, because that is where the doubt lies within the fandom it seems. It is very clear to me that Will is erotically enticed by the collar also, but who really needs convincing of that?

So, firstly, there are so many instances where we see that James is visibly turned on by the collar. See how Will acknowledges James in the quote below as looking already surrendered, and going “pliant as if the same hot gold ran like sweet need through his veins” :

James is clearly very turned on by the collar, it’s in the text in many instances. The words used here are evocative: need, pliant, sweet, and hot.  Where do you see that kind of language other than in the erotica and romance genres? It then goes on to talk about how his shirt is open, how his eyes are glazed, and how he is “yielding”. Basically, this is a sex scene without the sex. The collar is an object of lust for the duo, and this is being communicated to the audience. Authors, when writing, do not use evocative language by accident. No. They paint a picture with words to influence their readers emotionally in the direction they want our minds to go. Every detail is planted on purpose when you are a good author. And Pacat is a good author!

But there is so much more. Here, in the next scene, James is seen wetting his lips:

Wetting one’s lips is a sign of attraction. If you don’t believe me, just Google it! We also have another scene where James’s pupils are blown wide when watching the collar in the throne room scene; yet another physical sign of attraction in a human being and something we see in novels all the time.

But Pacat goes further than just showing the physical signs of being turned on. If Anharion consented to a collar that controls him (to what extent it controls him, we are still unsure) we should see the signs that this is something he is possibly interested in emotionally. Or at least, something Anharion was interested in and James responds to at least on some level. And there are so, so many signs. This is shown through what he likes, shown through what he does, says, and what others say about him (not just Will, but Sinclair as well as others). Why is Pacat seeding all these comments about James’s need to serve, to please, other than to put in our minds that there is an aspect of James/Anharion's character that this is something he likes, and that it is a possibility that the collar might have been his choice in the past? It’s a kink for sure, and something James may determine he is not interested in in the next book, but for the sake of argument, look at the screencaps below:

Will is picking up on something about James’s personality, and James is relieved and perhaps surprised that he has been so transparent. It is clear to Will that James likes to take orders. After all, before he was Sinclair’s (the Dark Lord’s) man, he was the exemplary novitiate, wasn’t he?

In an even better example of this below, we see him kind of asking Will that Will's request for James to come to him after opening the gate become an order. But, why ask this? What purpose does it serve James to make Will give him an order? Why does James want it to be an order?

Will catches on and gets it, equally turned on. His lips curl (in a smile) and lowering your lashes is a sign of submission in human interaction; James is lowering his lashes showing submission to Will. James is aroused here too, because in the next moment he asks Will to kiss him.

We have it from others perspectives too, here below, we have Sinclair telling James he likes to serve, he is a born submissive and to “belong” to someone, echoing what James himself has said to Will countless times:

And just to top this with a cherry, Sinclair’s scene with James he tells us James, upon a successful mission, liked being praised and “sitting at his feet”. This calls to mind the imagery of the chain at the bottom of the throne.  

In terms of similar character types in Pacat's work, Erasmus from Captive Prince comes to mind. He was a collared slave and we get some glorious descriptions with him being quite the submissive with the “lowered lashes” (ring any bells?) :

May I just interject to reiterate that the language around the collar is really so sexual, I don’t think I need to post more about this, because some of the screencaps above illustrate this, but I am sure you can all imagine and remember how you felt reading those scenes; they were enticing. I just cant imagine Pacat would use such romantic, erotic, and lush imagery if this collar were the instrument of coercion, compulsion, and humiliation, and even possible r*pe, that we are supposed to think because this is YA fantasy genre and not horror. Someone might argue that they weren’t sleeping together when Anharion was wearing the collar, but I would counter-argue that of course they were! Everyone who knew about the Dark King and his Betrayer knew they were in a romantic relationship, from James’s father, to Gauthier, to Kettering. And we are only supposed to think the collar is all these bad things based off the second hand knowledge passed down by characters like Gauthier, or the vague and evasive language used in the last chapter by both James and the narration (but this is not really shown by James's feelings when he has it put on him). But when James first puts it on, he is described as “hating how good it felt” as well as having some rather erotic flashbacks to Anharion and Sarcean (and that didn’t sound coerced to me, it sounded romantic and swoon-worthy, it sounded like he was being "filled up" which is a way my old therapist friend used to describe being emotionally fulfilled by one's partner). So, why would the principle couple be one that started in coercion and assault? Maybe this is something else being said by Pacat about purity culture, and how there is nothing morally wrong with kink as long as the two are consenting, loving adults who trust each other? James CLEARLY trusts Will to "hold the key" so to speak as he asks him to in the throne room. Just because some of us dont explore our sexuality in this way doesn't make it wrong and I think Pacat is challenging the readers (as Will is being challenged) to reconsider their biases about what is "wrong" not through the lens of what other people think but through what two people feel is right in the loving and trusting relationship that they have together through Total Power Exchange. This is not a story about abuse. Who would want to read that?

No, this is something else in my opinion. I think the collar is completely in line with the desires of Sarcean and Anharion, and their reincarnations are now echoing those desires thousands of years later and they will see whether it is ultimately something that they want to explore together in the next book. The collar was consensual: it is not in line with the YA romance fantasy genre to have a couple start out so grossly abusive towards each other, especially when the language is evocative of romance, and the personalities are showing desire. I think we are meant to challenge our assumptions here about people and what is considered “normal” instead of just thinking if a couple doesn’t fit our idea of a perfect mold that there must be something wrong with them. Also, please remember that Pacat is twisting our heads in one direction with the characters own misconceptions and half truths, when I believe he is planting enough evidence to surprise us (and Will) in the last novel with the revelation that has been hidden in plain sight all along: that Sarcean wasn't hurting Anharion. On the contrary. He was freeing him.

[miraculous-ninjabird]

Some Three Hopes thoughts+theories cause obviously I can’t just say nothing. Starting with thoughts and then moving on to theories:

-Okay so purple-haired Shez is the protag yeah cool I like where this is going

-Theee routes, which means lots of gameplay but my hopes for a golden ‘everyone lives’ route have been mostly dashed. Still a possibility but I think it’s unlikely.

-Holst? Is that you?

-UM CLAUDE RELATIVE? Dad? Brother? I HAVE QUESTIONS

-Dimitri is still a King and I love his new look (along with everyone’s new looks)

-Seems there can be two players here’s to hoping you can plan online

-Hmmm Monica is here…but is she the real Monica?

-So the big thing: Byleth’s the bad guy! I have a feeling we are purposely being misled hear. Obviously something went wrong somewhere, and when the house leaders were supposed to meet Byleth they met Shez instead so there’s that. But! Also I’m thinking Shez met Byleth previously and Byleth tried to kill them. (Likely while Byleth was on a mercenary job. It’s a known fact the ‘Ashen Demon’ was well know as someone who killed will no hesitation and seemingly no remorse) If that were the case, then it makes sense that Shez would be like ‘oh yeah, that guy? They’re terrifying and bad and they tried to kill me once’ and therefore paint Byleth as a bad guy to their allies.

-I would be shocked if Byleth stayed a villain for the entire game. We are missing pieces here.

-The white guy Arval, I’m sorry but if you wanted me to think that person is a good guy, you did the character design wrong. The vibes scream ‘Agarthan’ to me, and I’m reminded of both Lysithia and Edelgard’s designs as well when looking at Arval’s.

-regarding above character: I have a feeling they are similar to Sothis and have some kind of god like powers, but they’re existence is now tied to Shez. I would bet they are also Sothis’s enemy. I’m wondering if perhaps they are the Agarthan’s god? (And maybe that’s what twsitd were trying to achieve with their experiments-reviving Arval?) I’m wondering if this will play a factor.

-Also if Arval and Sothis are enemies, and Arval is aware of the fact that Byleth is Sothis’s host, then perhaps it makes even more sense for Shes to believe Byleth is the enemy…

-Fun fact Shez also had a heroes relic, do with that what you will. I’m taking it as proof of the Arval and Sothis connection.

-Sothis is connected to the flow of time, right? So I wonder if she would be able to sense this massive disturbance of how things have changed. Byleth working to try and right things? Or perhaps there’s actually a common enemy here but nobody knows that because someone else is pulling the strings and pitting By and Shez against each other in order to achieve some other, yet unknown goal.

-whatever happens, I’m interested to see how Byleth’s character changes with the change in life trajectory. Most of their growth happens during the academy phase, so without that, what happens to them? I’m not sure. Still going to be my favorite regardless. I love them to much lol.

There’s a lot going on here, but the main take away for me is that I think this trailer has been purposely spun to be wildly misleading, probably because there are some major developments in the lore and plot spoilers that they are not willing to give away just yet. I think this is purposely meant to leave us wondering.

The other main takeaway is that I definitely need to play this game, and it’s got incredible potential to answer many questions that 3H has left us with. I am so hyped and cannot wait.

[wenellyb]

Anthony Mackie is homophobic

There’s no way around it, Anthony Mackie is homophobic and here’s why.

This is how you make a headline..! You make a shocking title and then a catchphrase and the job is done.

You want it to be provocative, intriguing and you want people to click on read more, you want to catch everyone's attention.

Who cares if it's misleading or not accurate, right? People will get the rest of the idea/article when they read the whole article.

But what about those who don't click on the link and read the article? Who see the headline and then their idea is set.

Most people don't have the time to read the full article for further explanation. Some people will read the headline, take the information and move on. Sometimes they will even share that headline... without even reading the article. And I won't pretend I haven't done it too... I have done it and still do it. I've read headlines, retweeted them and shared it without reading the content because the headline was enough information for me.

And a lot of people on the Internet do this...and I think that it's part of the game. But, if you're going to use those headlines to throw accusations at someone and then share those accustions with people, the bare minimum is to read the article first.

And I feel like there has been 3 types of people in the Anthony Mackie story:

Those who read only the headlines and tweets but didn't read the article

Those who read the FULL article but didn't listen to the podcast ( This is much much better than the first one btw)

Those who read the article and listened to the audio.

And I also feel like people making the most noise are part of the 1st category.

I keep receiving some asks that I feel that some of them are missing the point so I'm going to write what I think about all of this and hopefully I can just link this post whenever I get a question.

And I am also disturbed by the fact that this is the 3rd option I get when I type Anthony Mackie on Twitter.

Now that the situation is calmer and the story died down a little, I wanted tovshare my thoughts. And of course you don’t have to read this, but I had to write this down, at least for myself.

I will be exploring 3 angles, so feel free to skip the ones you are not interested in.

It should have never been about the ship

If you say someone is homophobic, at least you have to explain why

Your minds were already made up on Anthony Mackie even before the article was published.

Part 1: It should have never been about the ship.

For the people who read only the headlines... It's a shame because the headlines made the interview all about “Anthony not liking Sam and Bucky's relationship as romantic”. '

A lot of the people based their opinion on the articles and didn't even look further... it was set that Anthony didn't like Sambucky as a couple.

It was revealed with the audio of the podcqst that it wasn’t what Anthony said at all, and he wasn't talking about Sam ans Bucky's relationship but was answering another question that the interviewer had asked about male friendships. And in fact, and it was the interviewer who said that male friendships were rare in the superhero context... He set up the question that way.

But that is the not the point, the point is that EVEN IF Anthony had said he didn't see Sam and Bucky as romantic... that is not enough to say he is problematic or homophobic.

And the intensity of the backlash he received is because he is a Black man, sure... but the accusations of being homophobic  would have been there anyway.

Because fandoms are not rational.

When Sebastian Stan said he didn't play Bucky as in love with Steve in 2016, he also received backlash from the fandom and got accusations of being homophobic, even though he had said people were free to interpret it as they wanted. And guess what he still got the accusations lesser level than Anthony, but still...

Anthony and Sebastian have both played gay characters in the past, more than once. And I repeat this so you understand, they have played gay characters more than once. So maybe, MAYBE if they say their character isn't gay or bi, maybe it isn't because they're homophobic, or because they don't want their characters to be ....but because that is how their character is written in the script?

Again, Anthony didn't say any of this about Sambucky but even if he had, it would certainly be because he played the part they were supposed to play.

Some people want to make Anthony this big bad guy who "killed the ship" but I'm sorry, Anthony doesn't own the production company, he isn't the writer or the executive producers.... The actors who be the last in line to blame for this.

And I don't want to make it seem like it's only the general public doing this...Because even some journalists have been writing articles about how Anthony shouldn't be "shutting down ships or dismissing Sambucky" because there is so little representation in the MCU... I'm sorry but what??? WHAT???

I understand the sentiment and I know that a lot of ships are there to compensate the lack of representation on screen...but how is it Anthony's responsibility or his fault?

It’s great when actors go along with the ship, do not invalidate it and leave the doors open, but it is not their fault or their responsibility if they don't, especially actors who have no clue about how shipping or fandoms work.

If it's written in the script that the charcter is straight and the actor says the character is straight you shouldn't be lashing out at the actors for "killing the ship"...Do you want him to change the script? Go blame the production company instead.

I know actors are an easy target because it is much more easier to tweet about them than look up the names of Executive Producers or CEOs and write them letters to ask for more representation. Actors are an easy target but it is literally not their call.

Some of these articles making headlines blaming Anthony because he shut down the idea of romantic Sambucky when there is so little represenration and not making headlines blaming the multibillion dollar company that refuse to have decent representation!

Sure, let's blame the Black actor who said that Sam and Bucky are just friends for the decades of nothing expect a total of 10 seconds screentime for a character nobody remembers and just calls the “Russo cameo”.

And again, Anthony Mackie didn't even say anything against a romantic reading of Sambucky, nothing! But it shouldn't matter, even if he had said they were just friends... it wouldn't justify any backlash at all... if it is about the ship.

Him shipping Sambucky or not should be the last point the fandom is focusing on.

An actor doesn't ship your ship and it bothers you? Move on, ship another couple if you want to... Don't start calling him names because of the ship.

When you make the debate about the ship, it kills the discussion before the discussion can even start because how can you have a constructive discussion if the debate has no foundations?

For instance, if Anthony made hurtful or problematic comments, the right way to deal with this,  would be to ask for apologies or for a better explanation of his words .... But since a lot of people, and even news outlet made this story about the ship, what do you want to do?

Ask Anthony to apologize for thinking/saying Sambucky is platonic?  We do realize how insane this would sound right? Or are there people who really want Anthony to come out and make a public statement about how he apologizes and supports romantic Sambucky? Is this were we want to go?

People made it about the ship, so he will also think the problem is that he doesn't "ship" Sambucky... but that wasn't the problem right? At least I hope it wasn't.

All of this should have never been about the shipping...If you are bothered by an actor not liking your ship ...it's ok. Stop shipping it if you want to and move on, but don't act like they're the worst human being on the planet because of it.

When I first read the article I was surprised by Anthony's comments about Sambucky because he had never talked like that about the relationship before... but the first thinf I said ia that he is an actor... he reads and interprets the script he has... he doesn't make the decisions...

But when I listened to the audio... I was even more horrified by the way the whole story was handled.

Part 2. If you say someone is homophobic, at least you have to explain why

This might be an unpopular opinion but I don't mind people saying that Anthony Mackie is homophobic. I don't know him, so I won't pretend to know what he is or isn't. What I do mind is people saying he's homophobic but not giving any explanation or evidence.

And I have seen people do that. A lot... And I have receiced asks like that.... "Have you seen those articles? Anthony is homophobic," “He dug his own grave”

But all of the articles and headline are talking about the ship...is that your evidence?

If your opinion is based on a headline or some tweets, I don't know how you expect people to believe you.

I have seen people calling Anthony homophobic because of his comments on the explotation of homosexuality. But to me it was clear that he wasn't talking about the Queer fans, even though I could be wrong... (I talk abour this more in the part 3)

The part where Anthony Mackie has made comments that could be dubious are the comments about how he is bothered that he can't go to bars with his friends anymore.

No matter how you turn it, making it seem like it's a problem that people think you're gay when you're with your friends, has homophobic undertones.

That is the part that really bothered me personally... It really made me feel uncomfortable.

But is it enough to say he is homophobic? I don't think so, but if I'm wrong and it means he is, in what way? You need to give an explanation. Even a short one.

And even with that comment about the bars, if you add the context, you could imagine that maybe he's not talking about the characters but about his real life experience because we know that some people ship him and Sebastian romantically, and if he was talking about that... It could be understandable that he is bothered by that because he's a celebrity and when people make assumptions about celebrity love lifes they can become annoying or even toxic sometimes.

People shipping the two of them romantically makes me unconfortable so I can't imagine how it would make HIM feel.

But anyway, that part of the interview bothered some people and I personally don't think it's enough to call him homophobic but I do think it is worth a discussion.

Unfortunately, most people didn't focus on that... they focused on the shipping or other words that were taken out of context... By mixing everything with the shipping, the battle for a legitmate discussion was already lost before it even started.

Part 3: Your minds were already made up on Anthony Mackie even before the article was published.

I think that what bothers me the most were that some people were waiting for this moment... They were holding their breath until the moment he would finally slip up so they can be hateful in peace.

This is a screenshot of a post from April 2021, way way before this whole story.... Some people already had in their mind that him being a Black masculine man, he was homophobic... and were just waiting for a confirmation it seems.

( I cropped the OP’s blog name to avoid any problems going their way)

I have said this before... But I don’t follow celebrities foolishly. If you think Anthony Mackie gives off homophibic vibes or could be homophobic... you may be right.... but I would need evidence, or an explanation, not just a “vibe”... I asked evidence to that OP or at least an example of an homophobic joke he had made and they blocked me...

I have watched a lot of Anthony Mackie interviews and never got that "vibe" so I really wanted to know. Later, I asked one of my mutual to reach out to ask them about it and the OP finally answered to my mutual and said that an example of a moment they could tell he was homophobic was the interview were Anthony talks about his soft spot.

So that person based their impression of Anthony being homophobic on the fact that Anthony doesn't like to be touched in the back by strangers...Imagine me staring at the camera like I’m in The Office

And this isn't about racism because that person who wrote the post is Black apparently. But it is about how Black men are perceived and stereotypes that are often attached to them.. People make all of these asaumptions on then wait for the moment they can be proven right.

For this OP, a masculine Black man from the south =homophobic ...

And I don't think they are the only one.

What's worse is that they make it sound like all of this is on Anthony:

"Sambucky won't happen because Anthony gives off homophobic vibes"

Not only are they sharing accusations without even a small proof... they are the acting like he would be the only one to blame if Sambucky doesn't happen... Let me tell you that sometimes when I come to Tumblr I want to scream at how irrational people are... Disney has a history of being homophobic and never having any kind of representation, but if Sambucky doesn’t happen, it would be because of Anthony Mackie.

Please, PLEASE!

Anthony Mackie isn't writing the scenarios, he isn’t a Disney Exec.... Does anyone really belive he would walk away from the movie and the contract just because his character is gay, bi or pan? When he has played gay characters in the past??? Why are people trying so so hard to put all the blame on Anthony? I don't understand....

I have also seen "Sambucky won't happen now that Anthony made that interview and said he didn't like it...." How??? How does that even make sense????

What I believe is that a lot of people already had their minds made up about him and were holding their breath until they could finally throw accusations at Anthony because the minute there was a potential scandal... they didn’t try to look for more or try to dig deeper...their mind was already set.

And from then on... their idea were already set on how they were going to interprets the things he said.

For instance, When I first read the article without the context of the audio... I thought a lot of the things Anthony said weren't contreversial because those are ideas expressed on Tumblr every day...the fetishization of some MM ships etc,... But I thought he had expressed it in the worst possible way because he seemed like he was mixing a lot of stuff.... well, I found out later that it was because it was taken out of context.

But even in the context of the article, it was clear to me that Anthony was talking about anybody BUT the Queer fans when talking about the exploitation of homosexuality etc,...

We talk about the fetishization of MM ships by straight women on a weekly basis on Tumblr etc.... What would make anybody think that when Anthony was talking about the some things being “twisted” explotation of homosexuality he was talking about the Queer shippers???

I have joined and left BL fandoms after 2 weeks because of the problems exposed by Anthony. I have seen people who shipped real life actors to the point where it affected the actors's lives. I have seen an actor from a popular M/M ship make a dramatic public statement explaining that nothing will change for his fans that he still loved them and still loved his costars... and made it seem like he had a terminal illness or something....It turned out he had just gotten a girlfriend......?????

And these examples are specific to the BL genre but I have seen similar behavior with some MCU stans.... look at how some (I insist on some) Seb stans react to Seb having a girlfriend (I have seen things).

What made people think Anthony was talking about the queers fans if not the fact that you already had your mind set on the fact a Black man talking about a topic like this was homophobic in some way or the other and some people were just waiting for a confirmation?.

I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t confused by some parts of the interview. What is  “There’s nothing more masculine than being a superhero and flying around and beating people up” even supposed to mean? And it wasn’t the only sentence. But I don’t think any part of his interview deserved the backlash he received.

A discussion? Yes. Remarks? Yes. Blacklash and hate? No.

TL:DR: If you're going to call out Anthony for what he said.... you better  be ready to give a few arguments other than.... "bohoo he doesn't ship Sambucky" or “have you seen the headlines?” and  you should probably check your own pre-conceived ideas first..

If you come in my asks to tell me I write too much I will save you the trip and tell you... I already know that😂

[dangermousie]

CFC Chapter 54

“A crashing car?” Ahahahaha I see you, Meatbun. But it was indeed an utter pileup!

I know I commented on this passage in its various iterations eight billion times already but I still have more to say. And it’s that XQC taking so long to realize that even though HY is young, his emotions and feelings are as genuine and strong as those of anyone older is so realistic - people do tend to think that especially with regard to children - think of a reaction of an adult to a three year old crying over ice cream they dropped. It’s all amused even if not meanly so. Because to an adult with vastly more experience, this is not a big deal. But what that forgets is that whether it’s ridiculous to someone else or not, to the person at issue that is a real feeling, AND that of course a person can only feel through the lens of their experience - what else is there? Emotions aren’t any less valid because they are informed by lesser or different experience.

Honestly, to me so far this is one of the driving messages of the novel - everyone is in their own world of issues and pain and none of these characters can truly look through the lens of another person and it would be so much better if they did. To XQC, for so long, He Yu’s strong feelings (and we know so many of these feelings are awful - despair, and self-loathing, and loneliness) never quite felt real and therefore never quite felt fully valid. And by the time it wasn’t the case, it was too late.

But the same is true for He Yu - he is so concentrated on his own grievances and his own pain, he cannot perceive others’ different issues. In He Yu’s mind, he’s the winner and always champion of Misery Olympics and while he’s had a horrible time of it, that doesn’t mean other people didn’t either just in different ways. Whether because of his condition, his issues or just his age, HY is not empathetic in the least.

And think about it - XQC does not have a horrible illness. He does not have unfeeling parents. But he had to watch his beloved parents brutally murdered in front of his eyes at 13 (!!!!) and then had to raise a 5 year old by himself. Is it worse or better than HY’s trauma? That’s a matter of opinion but what there is no question about is that is a different type of trauma and a different type of scar. Or think about the patient in the asylum whose name I am too lazy to look up - her life is such a theater of horrors that to me, it makes the combined issues of HY and XQC seem small, though once again that’s subjective. Nobody wins when people start this sort of competition.

My heart breaks for XQC but also - I am sorry - if/when HY x XQC hook up again (how? I have no idea! But that is one of the joys of Meatbun - I both have no idea how/where it’s going and utterly trust her), please have He Yu read up and learn things because Good God. You should not be in major pain the morning after unless you are into pain and XQC clearly is not!

The other thing is the bit about XQC forcing himself to walk in his usual ramrod-straight manner is the moment I went utterly gone for him. I mean, I liked him and found him interesting before. But this is the thing that flipped that invisible switch for me and I went rabid and irrational and now I am Team XQC and I don’t care what he wants and does from now on, he should have it. It’s so small but so real. My mother and her mother were both big on straight posture. And one of the reasons they gave was when you walk with good posture - you look confident but also it makes you feel confident and stronger. And I’ve actually found it to be true - when you throw your shoulders back and straighten your neck and hold your head up, it does not just give others a signal, it gives a signal to your own brain. So to see XQC insist on doing it, despite being emotionally and physically shattered - because of his pride refusing to give up, because he’s so unbending, but also this being some sort of instinctive armor, just hits straight through the heart.

OK, I laughed at HY as a fucking machine. But also, this is another point in the whole “everyone has issues” narrative and HY’s life could be worse. HY, with all his other issues, can pay an insane amount, an amount that XQC could not pay in a million years, so easily. It’s not even a blip to him. Hell, the fact that he forgot to pay speaks to that - I can see forgetting to pay a friend a couple of bucks back right away because it’s not much money. HY forgets because it does not loom in his mind. And this rich lifestyle is instinctive, is ingrained in him. I think he’d find it hard to be poor.

THAT is what he’s thinking about? Priorities are...

The sole good thing that came out of this insanity is that XQC is getting in touch with his emotions, even if those emotions are (rightly) rage. He’s too closed off from them normally.

The fact that you slept with a man should be secondary to the fact that you drugged and raped him, but here we are...

To me, this sums up He Yu as a moral wasteland. To still, when sober and past his fit and not under influence of wine, to still feel excitement over his revenge and to somehow twist it that it’s XQC’s fault for being raped by He Yu is !!!!!!!!!

(I suppose if I were charitable, I’d assume that the disquiet is small stirrings of almost dead conscience and his “he deserved it” is an attempt to justify the unjustifiable to himself, but I honestly don’t want to think so because I am so angry at him. Not until I see some more evidence. I don’t feel like being indulgent with He Yu since he’s indulgent with himself enough for two.)

1. The fact that you can tell from the picture XQC got taken by a man (I am gonna defer to Meatbun’s expertise here) definitely points to the fact that the pictures are going to be used for something bad later - because if it’s just oh XQC had sex, so what, he’s single what’s the big deal. But like this it becomes a different matter. No idea if it will be used for HY or XQC or both, and by whom (money is on Duan and co, but after the way HY went off, I would never say HY himself won’t use it badly somehow) but knowing Meatbun, it will go for maximum damage.

2. Ruthless? Perhaps. Unfeeling? Hmmmm. I am not He Yu’s biggest fan atm but that’s a wonderfully misleading adjective here. He does still seem to be in shock. And fixating.

3. The whole “hahahaha XQC is a hypocrite when he was all ‘I am not interested in sex’“ is - I am not sure if HY is just short-circuiting (fine) or using a rapist justification/rolling in a sea of toxic toxicity (not fine) because I am sorry, that’s totally like “he/she had a reaction, can’t be rape” writ large. Yeah, sure he had a reaction - you poured drugs down his throat. That has nothing to do with his default preferences or his actual state. THE FUCK?!

Anyway, we end on the whole “u mad bro?” bit and you know what strikes me? HY was all “I am done, we are done, my revenge is complete I don’t care” but here he is, still desperately seeking and craving reaction and interaction from XQC.

I remain utterly puzzled as to how these two will ever be a couple except for a couple being defined as “two mutually homicidal people.” Leaving aside everything else, I am willing to accept HY is in the closet - clearly whatever his orientation is, it includes men. But I do not get that sense from XQC at all. When he’s not drugged, he’s barely interested in sex with anyone and I do not get the sense he’s in the closet either. Chances of anyone, let alone He Yu, who is both a man and someone who raped him to humiliate him, being able to entice him into sexual encounters voluntarily is about the chance of me going to visit Mars. Meatbun loves doing insane things so I can’t wait.

PS I know people use the term psychopath all the time casually but ummm, I think He Yu may actually be one? When he has his father (!!!) on speakerphone, calmly carrying a conversation with the man as he’s raping his father’s friend in the club as he talks (!!!!!) that is...in RL I’d be “team lock him up for life, there is something so basic broken in him that it can’t be fixed.” Like - the hell? The ability to put things on different shelves so much is not in the same country as sane (it makes me think of 2ha and TXJ banging CWN being the curtain while performing court business but TXJ was bona fide clinically insane and also this is worse because this is his actual freaking father omg.) Of course, only time will tell whether it’s evidence of him being irreparably incapable of normalcy in terms of living in the world/interacting with others or it was an extreme psychotic (in casual parlance not medical one) break because most people are capable of truly horrific stuff if certain levers are pushed and his default is saner. It’s the question, isn’t it? Whether He Yu’s factory default setting is the monster of the previous chapters or the kid who’d cut his wrists so as not to hurt others.

Anyway, this novel is a terrifying roller coaster ride and I love having strong emotions.

[rocksanddeadflowers]

First off, I can totally share! I might actually listen to more of this guy's audiobooks cause I actually liked his! (I'm very picky about audio but I also don't like paying for subscriptions to stuff just to have nice ones.) It's very short (like half an hour, so it's like grabbing a TMA episode) so clearly missing many details form the original print, but still good! I still wanna find a nice audiobook or PDF for the long one eventually... (He does have the Beast from the live action Disney movie in the thumbnail and god I forgot how weird that one looked... what did you do to my boy? He doesn't even have his cool tusks............. just tiny fangs......)

Also, if you're interested in the history, there's other cool things to dig into! I've seen before that Beauty and The Beast had much older inspirations like mythology/folktales, specifically have seen people refer to the myth of Eros and Psyche. Actually being familiar with a Greek myth for once, I can see the overlap! Of course one of my favorite old Nordic fairytales - East of The Sun, and West of The Moon - actually has a very similar premise. Comparing what I know of both stories to this old book version of Beauty and The Beast, I actually see more resemblance to the Nordic fairytale than the Greek myth! Of course, both the myth and Beauty and The Beast are likely older, I still really like that fairytale. (East of The Sun, and West of The Moon was translated in the 1910's, but the story itself could be much older? Scandinavian/Nordic history timelines are messy and not my strong suit despite my love for it.)

Also I believe there's a real life historical couple that inspired the story! Not very familiar with it aside from hearing about it before, though. A believe there was a man born with a disease(? honesty seems like anything different or bad was always a disease or curse) or birth defect of some kind that caused hair to grow everywhere, namely across his whole face. He was "only given a wife to see if their children would end up the same". They did. I'll probably dig into that to fact check myself though and probably finish the musical throughout today.

One more bonus fun fact: The 1992 film Bram's Stoker's Dracula has a very misleading title, as though it's inspired by Bram Stoker's Dracula, there's one major difference: the intense and tragic romance between Mina and Dracula! There was no romance in the book between them (there was a little weird thing between them? Not gothic romance though, more just making her a vampire against her will or something. Idk it's been a while). The romance is very iconic despite that (at least, iconic if your goth lol?). The creators admitted that it was meant to be a mashup of Dracula and Beauty and The Beast! And honestly, despite my insistence for book accuracy in film adaptations (and a major distaste for the um... questionable scenes. I'm too ace for that and you're a minor so just no. Moving on!) I think it was well done! I think I just love tragic romance stories though... why else am I in this fandom lmao?

Anyway sorry for being so insanely rambly but I don't always have an opening to rant about history and mythology facts so I end up autisticlly infodumping at any given opportunity on accident.

oh OH OH!!!! Everything about Brian being convicted of witchcraft!!! Oh my god!!! Okay consider: Convicted of witchcraft (<- was literally trying to be helpful bc he knew what local herbs and weeds were medicinal but okay be dumb little bloodthirsty villagers I see you) and not just run off into/abandoned in the woods, but tied to a tree Hanged Man style! (The way The Hanged Man was tied was actually an old tortuous form of execution! Instead of "hung by the neck until dead" - in that case broken neck if your lucky, strangulation if not - as is commonly known, the style show in the tarot card was essentially leaving someone tied upside down until they died. I believe the idea was being left that way for so long - many times days and days - your organs would kind crumple and crush under their own weight? Of course, Brian being made of metal and immortal in HNOC, it doesn't exactly work that way for him. But pre-bot flesh Brian on the other hand...)

In that case, I can see see him escaping somehow, only too be so deep in the woods, and left so weak and frail, that wolves jump on the easy catch. Just throwing this out there for another PTSD scene when they tied him to a tree in a simpler manner, but it brings those flashes nonetheless. We should probably have a couple memory triggers of nicer things for this poor guy... also do we think Carmilla was open about how Brian came to be but she doesn't know much of his history? Or that she's hiding it from him until way later? The second open would sting .... but I feel like Carmilla might have had an idea of the witchcraft conviction and kind of felt for the guy, you know? Considering her witchy/enchantress self she has to keep closeted. (The whole Enchantress thing being related to witchcraft in the actual Beauty and The Beast is unclear to me. Of course witchcraft or anything seen as witchcraft was Devil's work and goes against the Church but the Enchantress was seemingly portrayed as a good person? Or at least a necessary being to teach a valuable lesson? Maybe they didn't view the Enchantress as a human at all. The addition of the Enchantress actually just being Carmilla being a silly witch lady could work for this AU though, especially since it compliments Brian's canonical backstory!)

Also I get what you mean by the trust thing and I'm losing it!!! She knows him so and completely trust him, and also hopes that his genuity and virtue saves Jonny in the end. Major "go to him" vibes. (Also I specifically see her coming in cloak over her head, and putting Brian's face in her hands before cutting him free..................!!!!!!)

Nastya going Out because she can't recognize her baby brother anymore and praying he learns to change before he's gone.... feeling that she can't be there to guide him as it may only make him worse and she needs the space from him to save herself ("-and I wish that I could take his hand but where I'm going is for me and me alone...")....... gently asking Aurora to look out for him while she's gone.......... sobs...............

Bright colors and stuff hurting Jonny's eye!! Low light, dark colors, and brightest light being sunshine for the win!!!! (<- am an autistic gothic person)

The "boys will be boys" type of faux theatre kid romance between them is immaculate. (The dramatic little fall as Tim talks about doomed romance is totally him swooning into Bertie's arms(? He's completely a feather duster so idk) in my mind.) Also gonna throw in another backstory idea that all the servants dealt with some wild stuff, and Tim and Bertie specifically might've been last minute soldiers fighting in defense of Jonny's royal family. Of course that means thinking up recent war history for them... yeugh....... (it could also involve Nastya's whole backstory since she'd based the Romanov family but I don't actually know her lore very well.)

Brian holding Jonny's furry face!!! Yes yes absolutely yes!!! That's like the best part ...... Brian loving on him and everything and he's so worn out that he's mentally like "fuck it I'm stupidly touch starved may as well enjoy this while it lasts" and leans in like.......

Also this went on long enough for me lmao that I need to wrap this up BUT!!! On last note is that I think Toy delivering a fatal blow to Jonny during the climax, it aimed for his heart cause that's tons of poetic irony. I think I had some other notes but I forgor so that's all okay bye!!!!

Beauty and the Beast, but it's the Mechanisms.

Jonny must be the beast because feral Jonny and the whole heart thing... prove me wrong.

Tim or Brian is Belle.

Rest of the Mechs are the servants in the Beast's house. With an exception for Marius as Gaston cause I can totally fucking see it. He would suck at it though because it's Marius. And also, short Marius HC.

This is probably not new. But it's been brewing in my head for a good few months, ever since I put my Mechs OC in the iconic Belle dress.