#and none of this information is particularly useful it's just a well of Fun Facts

[chaotic-neutral-knitter]

every once in a while I'm reminded that there are a lot of people who go through life without aggressively researching everything. I'm like that xkcd comic about geologists thinking everyone knows the chemical formula for quartz except I just assume everyone has late night googled their way to knowing all the common cognitive distortions, reads the wikipedia article for every medication they take, and understands why almost every calico cat is female.

[butchvamp]

i did Lucanis's inner demons quest last night and have some thoughts [everyone groans in unison]

i admit that i definitely have a bias for Lucanis, i really like the crows (or i should say the crows from previous games & the lore around them) and my Rook is a crow so i'm inclined towards him in general.

that being said i feel i'm just. missing huge bits of information about him. he exists entirely in a void. i don't really know anything about his relationships with Illario or Caterina, the game glosses over so much of his role and what exactly he does within the crows (beyond just talking about how he was the Demon and the Magekiller) i suppose it's just too icky for the game to truly acknowledge outside of a few jokes about Lucanis poisoning the gang's food...

i know from seeing people posting excerpts from his novel that Caterina did, in fact, physically abuse him; i figured this was the case considering she's a high ranking member of the crows and thus no doubt had a role in torturing recruits, even if the game pretends like this is a thing that doesn't happen. you get a bit of banter early on where Lucanis, talking about Illario's behavior, says something along the lines of "My relationship with Caterina was complicated, too, and I was her favorite." implying some level of friction between them as well as conflicting feelings about her death.

but then that's it. we get nothing else. this should be a major piece of his story, a part of why he feels the way he does, and exploring Caterina's role in his and Illario's abuse would better expand upon Illario's resentment and make his and Lucanis's relationship more compelling beyond "Illario is a big jealous meanie."

i really wanted to like the inner demons quest more than i did, because conceptually i enjoy going into the fade/Lucanis's memories with Spite, so far Lucanis's quests have felt the most Dragon Age to me (fighting a naked woman in a giant pool of blood + seeing Spite lose control, him and Illario butting heads and having a competitive relationship before this (as the crows all should...), etc. these are fun!) but just like the rest of the game it's still holding back.

when you confront the memory of Caterina all you get are these choices:

none of these are particularly satisfying if you actually know the things Caterina has done... "Your love for him" is actually vile lol

this entire questline is a linear walk through fragments of the Ossuary & Lucanis's memories, there is nothing interesting here, Rook just plays therapist for about twenty minutes and then you make a nothing choice at the end that has no affect on anything at all... and most egregiously, we have learned literally Nothing new about Lucanis that the game hasn't already made an effort to tell us repeatedly (a real problem the game has in general, constant hand-holding and repetition).

there's Quite a bold choice to compare this quest to the Fade section in origins right at the start, with Rook and Spite joking about getting past the guards: "What did you expect, to turn into a mouse or something?" like yes, actually, i did expect something a bit more! even if you want to say the warden does the exact same thing with their companions in that quest, their dialogue is FAR better-- again, Rook's is all clinical therapy-speak (where did she even learn this shit? did the crows pay for her to get a degree in psych and become a licensed counselor?) and in origins, we do actually learn something new about each companion as well as getting to see them interact with their fantasies and/or nightmares. we get nothing here...

we could have seen him and Illario training together, being competitive, the early seeds of resentment being planted between them by Caterina's goading and abuse. we could have seen the guilt Lucanis feels about this, about Caterina's favoritism and how it's affected his relationship with Illario. we could have actually seen what happened to him when he was captured and in the Ossuary, we could have seen some of the horrible things he's had done to him and that he himself has done to become the Demon of Vyrantium, we could have learned more about why the demon inside of him became spite specifically-- because if what Zara's echo said is true, it started as an Envy demon-- so it was influenced by Lucanis in some way. what makes him spiteful? why is it spite that keeps him alive in the Ossuary...? is it spite as in defiance-- defiance of the Venatori, of Caterina's expectations and abuse, in defiance of Illario's betrayal...? unfortunately, Lucanis never really feels spiteful at all. determined to survive the Ossuary, but afterwards, never has he come across as spiteful (Spite is mostly just petty and a bit bitchy).

in my opinion the Envy demon fails because Lucanis was never envious of Illario or the First Talon position, only crushed by the loss of their relationship and guilty over Caterina's favoritism. obviously Caterina's expectations weigh heavily on him, but he knows he's the favorite, and he doesn't envy Illario for not being so-- he seems very aware of the fact that it doesn't equate to Illario having it "easier." but the game barely addresses this, only in weak voice-overs, while the majority of the quest is spent convincing Lucanis that he's not actually a demon. Lucanis is wholly a good guy that only kills blood mages and loves his poor grandma and his inner demon is entirely Literal and just him feeling bad about being an abomination :(

nevermind all that yucky complicated stuff. Illario is Bad and Jealous and deserves to be punished for... doing exactly what crows have always done.

of course it's easy to make Illario look bad when all of the other crows are treated like a found family, when we know that's not the case at all. crows have been competing and scheming and killing each other since origins. this isn't meant to make light of Illario's betrayal (in fact i still think it's quite significant given their history and the two of them being the last of their family) but instead Illario is very obviously suspicious from the start, the reveal of his betrayal was not surprising, it's predictable because, again, he is presented very differently from all the other crows we've seen in this game-- he's the Bad one, and Lucanis is the Good one. no nuance!

in his short story, The Wake, Illario is actually depicted as being extremely remorseful, getting very drunk and reminiscing on old childhood memories of Lucanis while Viago has to carry him home... of course there's no way of knowing the exact intent behind this story or what changed since (published in 2020 and written by Mary Kirby, after all) but either way, we don't get anything like that here. somewhere along the way we lost the depth and complexity of both characters; we don't get to confront this big ugly thing between them because the game refuses to engage with anything ugly at all.

[its-time-to-write]

OOOO what about Jamie having a huge crush on the reader so much so it’s effecting how he thinks like how he was in the show where he played against Man City. So Roy and Keeley follow him (like in the show) and see him spying/ watching (he’d never admit it) the reader whos working either as a waitress or a bookshop owner because he’s too nervous to go in. Or maybe even secret girlfriend where they follow him and accidentally meet the reader whos been in a secret relationship with Jamie. Lol I hope you can understand what I was trying to say 😅

Pretty sure I picked up what you put down! Here ya go!

don’t go wasting your emotion

Jamie Tartt is not acting like himself. 

The first person to notice is Roy, because it shows in his training. He seems… distracted. So he mentions it to Keeley, and asks her to keep an eye out. They have some big games coming up, and Richmond cannot afford a distracted Jamie. Keeley promises she’ll check up on him soon, but Jamie just keeps getting weirder.

He jumps and hides his phone when Dani plops down next to him on the locker room bench, passes the ball to the opposing side during practice, and keeps going offside. It isn’t long before the other coaches notice, as well as his teammates. The only one who doesn’t seem particularly worried is Sam. When Isaac asks him if he’s noticed anything off about Jamie, Sam just shrugs and says, “It’s probably nothing. I’m sure he’ll get over it soon.”

AFC Richmond does not have time to wait. They need Jamie to get his head out of the clouds and back firmly on earth. 

Shortly after Isaac’s talk with Sam, Colin catches Sam and Jamie whispering in the weight room. He catches snippets of words like, “can’t know,” “just do it,” and… “bookstore”? Surely he didn’t hear that right. Colin shrugs and heads to go see Trent. He’s an investigative journalist. He’s got to have some insight.

Colin presents this information to Trent, Ted, Beard, and Roy, none of whom have any real ideas. As they try to come up with plausible scenarios, Trent leans agains the door with his mug in quiet thought.

“You’ve been mighty quiet over there, Mr. Independent. What’re your thoughts?” Ted asks. 

“I’m not sure,” Trent replies. “We simply don’t have enough facts to come to a conclusion. What we need is someone to follow Jamie after work and see if that will provide any insights.”

“I’ll do it.”

The room turns to look at Roy. He looks uncomfortable. “Keeley and I have been meaning to talk to him anyway, and if he fucking catches any of you lot following him, he’ll never fucking trust you again. I’m your best choice.”

Beard looks at Ted, and they nod. 

Ted says, “Alright Roylock Holmes. You and Dr. Jones have fun tonight. Let us know what you find out,” and that’s that. 

—

Roy calls Keeley and tells her the situation, and it’s not hard to find a pretense for her to be with the team. It’s movie night, and she’s there more often than not. They have pretty much unanimously decided on Paddington, mostly to heal Dani’s trauma from hearing the Paddington Twitter account gave Richmond no marmalade sandwiches. That’s what they say, at least, but if they are crying within the first fifteen minutes, that’s not for anyone to say. 

Jamie sits in the back and he keeps looking at his phone. Sam pokes him and Richard catches something that sounds like, “Go- can’t expect- if you didn’t ask,” at which Jamie nods, looks around, and then slips out the door.

“Where’s he going?” Isaac asks Sam, who shrugs and says, “I would assume to use the restroom.”

Isaac turns back to the screen, but Roy and Keeley look at each other, nod, and quickly get up to follow Jamie. 

They trail him out the building and down the street, watching as he puts his hood up in an effort not to be noticed. They follow him for half a mile as Jamie makes a very purposeful trek through Richmond, unaware that he’s being followed.

Keeley and Roy turn a corner then stop, because Jamie has stopped. He’s just out of sight of some big glass windows. He checks the time, gives himself a shake, then removes his hood and pulls the door open. Keeley and Roy share a look and rush to the window.

It’s a bookstore. The sign on the door says they close an hour from now, at 9pm. Jamie is inside leaning on the checkout counter, talking and laughing with you, the cashier.

“Started that book you told me about,” he says. “You’re right. I hate it.”

“Right??” you reply. “Isn’t it awful? It makes no sense at all, and reading it makes you feel like you’re on drugs, and it’s supposed to be a classic! Thank god you only got it at the library and didn’t have to waste money on it.”

Jamie laughs. “Got any real recommendations this time? Trying to become more cultured.” 

You laugh too. “You know, you’re a lot more cultured than you think. You’ve understood most of my references, and you have an impressive vocabulary. You have a wonderful grasp on the difference between intellectual and conversational tone.”

Roy and Keeley can’t tell what you’re saying, but they’re thinking the same thing. Is Jamie blushing?

Before they can ponder this, you come out from behind the counter to lead Jamie to a shelf. You both look straight at Roy and Keeley, who duck. You turn to Jamie, humor on your face. “Friends of yours?” you quip.

“Un-fucking-fortunately,” he responds. “Oi!”

Roy and Keeley slowly pop back up and Jamie exasperatedly beckons them inside.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Roy, stoic as ever, just grunts. Keeley says, “We were worried about you! You were acting all weird and botching things at practice. We thought you were dying!”

Roy rolls his eyes. You’re doing your best to maintain a straight face. 

You know exactly who these people are. You know Keeley Jones because who doesn’t know about Keeley Jones? You know Roy Kent because he came up as a suggested search after you googled Jamie.

Jamie has been coming into your bookshop for a while now. At first it was to look for some book about forgiveness, but after you helped him pick that out he just… kept coming back. He’d lean against the counter, supported by his elbows, and stay from 8pm until closing. Usually, he was the only customer you’d get that time of night.

It wasn’t lost on you that he was a) gorgeous and b) definitely flirting with you. He wasn’t the first customer to fancy himself in love with you, but he was the first that you actually liked back. And the first who really read what you said you liked.

You just didn’t get why he hadn’t made a move yet, especially after looking him up. It didn’t make sense. You considered making the first move, but that freaked you out too much. Still, despite his inaction on that front, he kept coming back and talking to you. Sometimes he’d bring you coffee. He’d always help you close the store. You once joked that you should put him on the payroll, to which he looked at you, and deadpanned, “You couldn’t afford me.”

You’re pretty sure that’s the moment you actually fell for him. You’re a sucker for a good, stupid sense of humor.

“Why would you think I were dyin?” Jamie asks. 

Keeley shrugs and Roy answers, “Because you’ve been playing like shit.”

Jamie glares at Roy. “I have not, you dusty old twat. You take that back.”

Keeley clears her throat. “Well, actually babes, you kind of have. It’s been this whole thing. Everybody’s worried about you!”

Jamie pinches the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ. Why the fuck are you all in my business? Did Sam put you up to this?”

“Why the fuck would Sam put us up to this?” Roy asks.

“Because Sam caught Jamie looking at my Instagram,” you interject.

Three sets of eyes turn to you. “What?” you shrug. “Sam looked up my handle and messaged me about it. We’re friends now.”

Jamie shakes his head in disbelief and Roy says, “So Sam fucking knew about this?”

The tips of Jamie’s ears turn red as he says, “Uh, yeah, so Sam’s been telling me I need to ask her out for like fuckin ages now. Always on me about how it’s dumb to keep checking my phone for her texts, especially because I haven’t even asked for her number or some shit.”

You swear that is the dumbest, cutest thing you’ve ever heard. 

“You want my number?” your voice comes out an octave higher than you’d like it to.

Jamie turns to you. “Uh, yeah, yeah I do. Been meanin’ to ask you, but I dunno, I keep telling myself you’re just being nice to me ‘cause of your job. Didn’t want to be fuckin weird.”

You smile. “Jamie Tartt, for someone so intelligent you really are dumb sometimes.”

He looks pleased with the compliment, then offended, then he realizes what you’re saying. His face goes through those expressions in a moment and then your hand is on the back of his head, pulling him down for a kiss.

Keeley looks on with a smile and Roy stares at the ceiling uncomfortable.

You break apart and Roy says, “Oi, Tartt!”

You and Jamie turn to look at him, arms still around each other.

“This better mean you’re done fucking up practice.”

“Yes coach,” Jamie mock-salutes.

Roy gives him a singular nod, and with that, he and Keeley head out the door. Keeley gives you a little wave and a thumbs up to Jamie.

“Now, where were we?” Jamie asks. “Oh, right…”

[inkpot909]

How They Text the Reader Headcanons

↳ Characters included are Bruno Brucciarati, Leone Abbacchio, and Guido Mista. Gender Neutral Reader with they/them pronouns.

A/n: I’ve always wanted to try my hand at doing x Reader text messages! This was very fun to make, and I do plan to make more of this kind of headcanon list for the rest of Bucciarati’s team.

Warning(s): None.

Bruno Bucciarati

Bruno’s text messages are straight to the point and utilize proper grammar like the mother he truly is deep down.

Not the type of person to send emoji’s… ever, really. This is because he views texting as a simple tool to use when he can’t just speak to you in person or over a phone call.

However, you prefer the funnier explanation of it actually being because he’s secretly very inept at using technology (this is very much so part of it he just won’t ever say so).

In all honesty, he prefers to call you and hear the sound of your voice more than communicating over text. He’s the type to call in order to converse about whatever mundane thing is on his mind instead of sending a text.

That said, he’s definitely the type to always tell you good morning or wish you goodnight with a sweet text message.

Also, because of his job, he’s often put into long-term situations where calling isn’t exactly ideal. That’s when he’ll text the most; he just wants to check up on you regularly when he can’t be there in person do so! This became especially true after rising to the position of Capo.

His text messages may seem… bland to those unfamiliar with him.

But since you know him as well as you do, they always ring as genuine and an extension of his polite kindness.

Admittedly, it is hard to argue against the fact that his straightforward style of text often leads to misunderstandings. This is due to his sometimes unreadable tone:

Leone Abbacchio

Hardly ever texted you at the beginning.

Since the two of you started going out, he’s gotten a bit better, though. Before, he was very adamant that if he has something to say, he’ll wait when he’s face-to-face with you.

But when he eventually let it slip that he often forgets what he even wants to talk to you about, you slowly began getting him to text you more.

Arguably the best method of doing so is to get him to tell you about something he feels strongly about. Whether it’s something positive like asking him about the music he’s been listening to recently, or it’s something more devilish like bringing up subjects that really bother him.

Leone is at least very reliable.

Meaning that, although he doesn’t often start a conversation over text himself, he will respond to you reasonably quick.

Tease him by claiming it’s because he has a soft spot for you and he won’t text for an entire day (you know he loves you).

He also prefers to use proper grammar and punctuation in his texts. That said, Leone does use emojis (usually just to express disappointment) and sometimes can seem more expressive in text than he is in actual conversation.

One sweet thing he does over text is that he always sends you a message after he makes it home after a particularly dangerous mission, informing you that he’s safe. He knows you worry, and although he often puts up a front claiming it’s annoying, he truly does take note of that concern.

Abbacchio’s just not completely used to having someone like you in his life who holds a special concern for him. He is adjusting; slow and steady.

And although he forms the habit of texting you more, it’s you and only you he has the energy to do this for (outside of probably Bruno). This leads to other’s on Bucciarati’s team to text you when they want to get a hold of him:

Guido Mista

Real talkative over text, especially in the evening after he’s finished with his dinner. He’s pretty expressive and uses a decent amount of emojis.

Will plop down on his couch with an exaggerated bounce, pull out his phone, only with the purpose of talking to you and doing nothing else on the device.

The two of you actually had to work on how late you’d stay up texting one another.

Hours disappearing in the blink of an eye and leaving you both extra tired the next morning. And on occasions that it was decided to take the conversation into a call… it’s easy to see why you both have slept in late more than once.

Although not as frequently as someone like Narancia, Mista will send memes every now and then. Not only that, but he always replies to the ones you send him.

He prefers to send you embarrassing or funny pictures of others in the group over memes, though. You’ve seen photos of Abbacchio and Fugo in particular that Mista could honestly use as blackmail.

This has bitten him in the butt quite a bit, though.

After discovering Mista’s been doing this, the others now send you every single unfavorable image they own of the gunslinger. Even Bruno’s sent his fair share.

And although Mista often forgets to say good morning to you through text, he always says goodnight to you.

Not only that, but Mista will text right after he’s completed with a mission. Although a bit of a goofball, he always takes work seriously, and will leave you on delivered on hours at a time depending on what he’s up to. But the minute things have calmed, he’s letting you know.

Mista will certainly ask one of his common out-of-pocket questions designed to get a conversation going via a text message.

This isn’t a bad thing per se, except for the fact that he has a bad habit of doing so at three in the morning.

Even still, they’re not the weirdest variation of texts you’ve ever received from him:

[billpottsismygf]

Mockumentaries

The mockumentary format can be really fun, but I've been thinking more and more about how it's not always used to its best effect. Binge watching Abbott Elementary is what has really brought some of the specifics of this into focus, and it's what is freshest in my mind at the moment, but it isn't limited to one show. My problems with it manifest in many ways, and there's nuance to all of them, but to boil them down to their essentials it's usually:

Characters doing/admitting things they want to keep secret, either from the world or from other characters, while aware they are being filmed

Shows going on for years and years, which indicates either that the documentary crew are sitting on years' worth of footage or that the fictional documentary is being released year by year equivalent to how we see the real show

Characters going off to have private moments and acting as if there isn't a cameraman (or several for all those extra angles) two feet away from them.

On the first point, especially egregious examples include the breaking of laws or rules. My main example, because it's the episode I'm halfway through right now and the thing that compelled me to make this post right now, is everyone at Abbott trying to hide the fact that they got the computers as bribes from the golf course. Even if they deceive this one guy (I'm five minutes from the end), it's going to get out eventually via this documentary they're all so happily admitting it to. This goes for various things throughout the show, including more than one plot-important blackmailing.

Even when it isn't something illegal, there are plenty of things that characters are trying to keep secret from other characters, and yet they're brazenly doing or talking about it on camera. Relating this to the second bullet point, it is thus weird when characters find out information in later seasons from interactions with one another, when they should have found that out from watching the prior season (if we assume that is how the documentary functions).

I thought about these first two bullet points a lot during the latter seasons of What We Do in the Shadows, particularly whenever the characters would emphasise that vampires are meant to be secret (eg. when Nandor appeared on the news and they freaked out, or when Nadja yelled at Nandor for sponsoring a marathon during the Vampiric council stuff). They did at least fix all this in the final episode, with the vampires explaining that they've had many documentaries made about them and none of them have ever aired, which is the sort of absurdity that fits really well in the wwdits universe. Even so, this was a last minute addition and my experience of the show as a whole was (very slightly) marred by this dissonance.

On the third bullet point, this is possibly the most egregious because it often takes me out of the most emotional scenes. This especially goes for characters sneaking off to be alone. Sometimes we only see these moments from a distance, as the camera crew has to sneak an angle to catch the character unawares, which works a lot better. Sometimes, though, this goes out the window. Because I watched it yesterday, my mind goes to Janine leaving her School District party to be alone in her office, where there are two different close up angles from inside this very small room. It's not inconceivable that she'd still be able to experience this big moment without acknowledging that she's being filmed from very close up, but it doesn't feel entirely realistic, and there are plenty of similar moments throughout Abbott Elementary and other shows.

There are lots of other little things that can break the immersion - such as the (multiple) cameras already being in the flower classroom when Janine and Gregory have their first kiss, given that J&G think the place is locked and no one is meant to be there. So, the camera crew just ran ahead, got inside and waited, then Janine and Gregory break in and don't even acknowledge the fact that these people who've been filming them for however long are already in there? - but it would be impossible to name them all individually.

It works best for me when the cameras are acknowledged as part of the world. You want to make it so that these characters know they're being filmed? Use that! For example, when Janine and Gregory actually get together and have their second kiss, Gregory dismisses and shuts them out! It still felt weird to me that they started kissing when the cameras were right there, but I love that they chose to acknowledge that it would be forced and unnatural for these two characters to finally get together while a camera crew stared at and filmed them at close quarters.

Anyway, this isn't supposed to be a rant against any particular show's use of the mockumentary format (apologies to Abbott for being my main source of examples). It's more an observation of the way it's used (or misused) in general. If I could be bothered, I'd watch a bunch of shows and take notes every time something bothers me, but it's not that big of a deal. I can see why showrunners choose the mockumentary format, as it allows characters to express their thoughts directly to camera. This can be very valuable, especially since theatrical soliloqoys feel out of place in most standard TV shows. However, while I can suspend my disbelief to an extent, it does often take me out of the world and I'd love to see more care taken when figuring out how the fact that these characters are being filmed would affect the way they act.

[gabessquishytum]

Had a funny idea that hit me while writing out my last warprize hob ask, of an incident when an envoy of foreign dignitaries arrive for a visit. 😁

The kingdom this envoy is from is very prudish, and vanilla. Clothes cover everything, any and all sex stays firmly behind closed doors, and there is very little information available about anything particularly kinky. The hedonism and practice of sex pets in Dream’s kingdom is incredibly shocking and vapor-inducing for these dignitaries, but Dream doesn’t really give enough of a fuck about them to change or hide any of it for them, so he and everyone else carry on like normal.

The dignitaries are all having quiet conniptions the whole time (though some of them are also having quiet sexual awakenings simultaneously), but none of them say anything on the grounds of 1) it would be incredibly undiplomatic and improper to speak out against the normal practices of another culture, and 2) Dream’s reputation as the Nightmare King is incredibly well-deserved, and it would be incredibly stupid to provoke him. So they all try to ignore all the sexual activities happening in front of them and power through, and try not swoon in shock about it.

There is one young and green member of the envoy who is rather taken with Hob at first sight, and is therefore utterly horrified on Hob’s behalf all the public humiliation and degradation he is clearly forced to go through. Not only is he made to service the king’s dreadful lust in front of all and sundry, but he is also locked with or stuffed full of toys (that to the dignitary’s untrained eye must be torture devices), touched and groped by any passing stranger (the horny part of his infatuation is guiltily very tempted to take advantage of the situation and also touch, but the romantic part nobly refuses to add to the poor man’s humiliation), and his exposed hole is spanked raw until he cries (through his rose-colored glasses he feels that Hob’s tears must be a direct appeal to him for help). Clearly he was meant to be Hob’s knight-in-shining armor, and he will whisk him away and they will live happily ever after (and make love behind the safety of closed and locked doors)!

So he somehow manages to arrange a moment alone with Hob, and dramatically declares his intent to rescue him from this life of depravity, only to be interrupted by Hob breaking character to glare at him and tell him to piss off. He’s got a good thing going here, his entire purpose here is to essentially have his every sexual need catered to, he is in fact utterly devoted to the king, and even if he wanted to leave it is incredibly presumptuous of him to think Hob would want to run off with some kid he doesn’t know instead.

Somehow Dream finds out about the conversation, either someone was eavesdropping and informed him or he happened to be looking for Hob and overheard himself. Normally he would be seeking revenge against the interloping upstart for the insult, or maybe use the incident to start a war if he was feeling particularly bloodthirsty, but he’s too distracted by the overwhelming need to fuck Hob hard against a wall or into a mattress with hearts in his eyes. He also makes sure to fuck Hob at least one other time in front of the dignitary, and both Dream and Hob look him in the eye as they do so, both with a smug look on their faces.

-🪽anon

Omg this is great. How fun to look at the whole situation from an outsider's perspective.

'Cause. All the sex pets at Dream’s court, they're all kind of acting? Obviously they're not pretending to get sexual satisfaction, that's all genuine. But they've got "roles" that they play, when they're on display and working. While they're relaxing, they might act totally different. For example, Hob tends to act a lot more helpless than he really is, because he likes to emphasise the power-play between Dream and himself. He's a totally different guy when he and Dream are just hanging out.

But the stranger from the foreign land doesn't know any of that! He's totally convinced by Hob’s acting, and thinks that he'd better hurry and rescue this poor man. Deep down he thinks that Hob is probably a chaste and shy person who has been terribly wronged by the king. He's sure that Hob will gratefully take the chance to escape and live a proper, moral life.

When he gets Hob alone, the stranger finds a very different person from the scared, weepy sex pet he's used to seeing. Hob laughs so much he nearly falls over. And then he pulls out a knife, seemingly from nowhere and he's like "Do not ruin this for me, I'm finally in a job I enjoy, I get the best food and the king likes me a lot. I will cut your balls off if you fuck my life up."

Dream also laughs a lot where he hears about this encounter, and of course it only makes him love Hob even more. He even invites Hob to share his private apartment on a permanent basis, not wanting him to be so far away. So really the foreign dignity kind of did Hob a favour? The poor kid is so humiliated and honestly a little bit heartbroken, but it's his own fault for trying to be a white knight!

Hob is more in love with his king than ever, and he's quite happy to prove it be bouncing on his cock in front of the assembled crowds. Afterwards he lies over Dream’s lap, having his over-sensitive dick and hole played with by both Dream and the other courtiers, and for the first time he just can't stop grinning. It's very gratifying to know that the king clearly loves him too.

[dark-audit]

Deconstructing the Ticking Time Bomb

It goes a little something like this: You’re a member of an intelligence agency, and you’ve caught one of the bad guys. You know this guy has planted a bomb somewhere in a crowded civilian area, and the bomb is fitted with a timer that will eventually lead to its detonation. You don’t know where the bomb is, but the guy isn’t talking, and time is quickly running out. If torturing the would-be terrorist will reveal the location of the bomb, in turn giving your agency time to diffuse it, saving the lives of countless innocent civilians… well, should you do it?

This essay isn’t going to argue as to whether or not torture works as a method of obtaining reliable information from an unwilling subject (it doesn’t). Instead I’m going to criticize the rhetorical, ethical, and political underpinnings of the ticking time bomb thought experiment and its derivatives, and on that basis, spoiler alert, eventually conclude that it has a whole lot of flaws that might be relevant to the debate on torture.

On a Surface Level

The ticking time bomb scenario, as Alex Adams points out in their 2016 book How To Justify Torture, might be posed as an open-ended question, but the conclusion which respondents are expected to reach is never really up for debate. To boil it down to its roots: if you can stop something very bad from happening by doing something that is less bad, you should do it. This thought experiment is designed, through the use of various forms of appeal, to guide participants to a predetermined conclusion, being that while torture is normally reprehensible, it can in certain special emergencies be morally justified. In effect, this makes the ticking time bomb less of a genuine thought experiment in ethics, and more of a rhetorical argument.

Because the average person typically views torture as morally repugnant, proponents of the ticking time bomb scenario need to quickly establish torture as a rational and reliable option within this pre-supposed emergency. Analyzing the ticking time bomb at a superficial, pragmatic level will quickly reveal a set of presumptions which are made to solidify this rational framing of torture.

The investigation preceding the scenario has been reliable: We definitely do have the right guy, the bomb threat is real, not acting will lead to dire consequences, etc.

No other forms of interrogation or negotiation will be effective, and neither will other forms of non-physical coercion, such as blackmail, threats, or intimidation.

Torture will not only be effective at reliably extracting the right information, but it will also achieve this in a way that is swift. Torture will save the day here.

The act of torture is assumed to have negative consequences only for the person being tortured.

None of these presumptions are particularly realistic, and in real life, scenarios like this are pretty much unheard of. Contentions about realism would significantly muddy the water as to what rational utilitarian value you can derive from the use of torture, but because you’re not actually supposed to engage critically with the ethics here, realism can be ignored. The framer might also comment that you must be fun at parties, just to drive that point home.

Let’s talk appeal

You can glean quite a bit about where an argument comes from by dissecting what it’s trying to appeal to. This essay, for example, largely appeals to reason (logos) through the use of logical arguments. It also implicitly appeals tothe character and credibility (ethos) of me as the mediator of these arguments, through the use of tone, structure, the fact that I tell you about theory, etc. Later on, I will tell you loosely about certain real-life uses of torture, which, along with tone and word choice, are both an appeal to emotion and imagination (pathos). Using appeal isn’t inherently a sign of dishonesty – in fact, it’s impossible not to use any form of appeal – but analyzing it will give you a good idea of what a the author of a text wants you to take away from it.

Which types of appeal are present within the ticking time bomb scenario? Well, let’s break it down.

The appeal to common sense and intuition, made evident in that the answer to this thought experiment seems clear-cut and obvious to participants, is one of those appeals that doesn’t take long to disentangle. A feminist finds it intuitively obvious that men and women are equal. A homophobe finds it intuitively obvious that gay people are degenerates. That should show you the inherent meaninglessness of this type of appeal.

Appeal to rationality, in that torture itself is portrayed as the rational tool for purpose. The implicit premise behind this thought experiment is that when torture is used, the result is swift, predictable, and reliable. (It is none of those things.)

There’s an appeal to fear in that this particular thought experiment deals with the threat of terrorism. Furthermore, the fear of terrorism specifically is common in right-wing political thought. Although it is never explicitly mentioned, it’s not hard to imagine that your average conservative probably pictures the terrorist in this scenario as brown-skinned. For a good chunk of participants, therefore, this thought experiment will specifically be an implicit appeal to tribalism and out-group bias.

Appeal to consequences, as inaction in this scenario will lead to the loss of innocent lives.

Appeal to urgency though the use of the “time bomb” itself – it’s ticking, remember? You have to make a quick decision. The appeal to urgency is notably quite common within reactionary thinking.

Appeal to heroism, or a savior complex in that your ultimate goal is to save the day. Torturers are made tough through this thought experiment. It is argued implicitly that they are willing to make a difficult decision for the sake of the greater good. You can go so far as to imply an appeal to the hypermasculine ideal of protecting the weak from harm.

The appeal to authority, in the ticking time bomb’s use of police/military organizations. As mentioned, the investigation preceding the thought experiment is presumed to have led to the right suspect, something that realistically wouldn’t be as clear-cut.

There is an implicit appeal to righteousness in that the person you are torturing planted a bomb with the intent to kill civilians. You might even go as far as to call it justice. This can also be interpreted as an appeal to the hypermasculine ideal of establishing dominance over others, in this case, specifically a bad guy. This is a rabbit hole of its own within torture justifications.

In fictional derivatives of the ticking time bomb scenario, the emotional appeal is often made even more personal. Now, the terrorist has specifically planted the bomb in the school of your child, or in the shopping mall where your wife works. This is another powerful appeal to emotion and urgency; the question is no longer Is torture sometimes justified?, but instead, Do you love your family?

You might notice that these appeals seem to snugly align with certain spheres of political thought. And make no mistake – this is more often than not by design. The purpose here is not to get you to think seriously about the ethics of torture; it is to lead you to a specific conclusion about torture through reactionary aesthetics.

As a participant, you are being asked to accept the use of torture in certain cases. If you’ve done some research on the topic, you’ll notice that the CIA seems to be convinced that torture works for interrogation (it doesn’t). So, regardless of the reactionary aesthetic, what if the CIA is correct? Shouldn’t we at least take this thought experiment seriously?

Well…

Utilitarianism 101

As previously mentioned, we can boil the ticking time bomb argument down to its ethical root, which is: if you can stop something very bad from happening to lots of people, by doing something that is less bad to one person, you should do it.

This in and of itself appears straightforward, but as people much smarter than me have pointed out, ‘the lesser of two evils’-type arguments invariably lead to the acceptance of some capacity of evil, which is why they should be approached very carefully. The ticking time bomb specifically makes use of utilitarian ethics – torture is given utility – and for that reason, I think it’s important to consider some basics of utilitarian ethics that the scenario and its proponents are suspiciously quiet about.

Utilitarianism is an other-focused ethical framework that states that our behavior should be aligned with the facilitation of the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people.Here, the word good refers to predetermined axiomatic values, which are obviously highly subjective, and that’s a deep dive in and of itself. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to shorten the debate down to its most agreed-upon conclusion: it is bad when humans suffer: therefore, it is good to minimize human suffering.

Let’s have another classic thought experiment, the basic premise of which should sound familiar. You have a neighbor who kind of sucks. He sits around on his couch all day playing video games and drinking, he doesn’t produce anything of value to other people, he’s just kind of a bum. Coincidentally, down at the local hospital, five people are waiting for an organ transplant. If these five people don’t receive an organ transplant, they will die. Is it justifiable, in this scenario, for you to murder your neighbor so his organs can be harvested and used to save the life of the five transplant patients?  

Act utilitarianism posits that any act is moral if the end result leads to the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Here, it would conclude that murdering one person to save the lives of five others would be morally good, because one person dying is less badthan five people dying. Overall bad, it would argue, has been reduced in this scenario.

Rule utilitarianism is a direct response to act utilitarianism, and posits that you can justify most acts through edge-case exceptions, precisely like the organ murder thought experiment does (or indeed like the ticking bomb does). It posits that instead of judging each act independently, we ought to live by rules that overall lead to the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This version of the theory is much more focused on long-term consequences of our rule of behavior, as opposed to the here-and-now short-term utility of any particular act itself. Rule utilitarianism, in this regard, is capable of acknowledging that while certain acts can have a positive outcome in the short-term, they might also have a negative outcomes in the long-term, and vice-versa. (There is an argument to be made here that rule utilitarianism eventually loops back around to just becoming act utilitarianism, but because I’m appealing to people who aren’t in the deep end, I won’t get into that in this essay.) In the case of killing your neighbor, rule utilitarianism would acknowledge that while it is true that the immediate consequence of one death for the sake of preventing five other deaths is good, the act of murder as a rule leads to much more bad than good, and should therefore not be something we accept or facilitate within our moral framework. Rule utilitarianism would argue that even if murder has utilitarian value in exceptional cases, facilitating a rule of behavior in which murder is “sometimes permissible” is in and of itself counter to our axiomatic values.

This might all sound abstract and inconsequential to you, but in praxis, it’s the difference between a government committing a war crime and not committing a war crime. It’s why I think it’s so important for people to be familiar with the basics of ethics.

According to rule utilitarianism, the ticking time bomb scenario deals with the short-term and implies that torture in this scenario is good, but it fails to consider the possible long-term consequences of permitting the use of torture into our prescriptive framework of ethics – the rules we ought to live by.

How might the use of torture on this terrorist be viewed by other like-minded people? Is it possible it might lead to further radicalization – potentially leading to even more terrorists planting even more ticking time bombs in the future?

Torture polarizes people. How will the use of torture be perceived within the state that allows it? Is it worth the further polarization of our internal political climate? This polarization has the potential in and of itself to lead to politically motivated violence, after all.  

Straight tribalism appeal: if we use torture against them – wouldn’t it also be acceptable, then, for them to use torture against us? Are we willing to accept that?

Is it possible that allowing police or other government bodies to engage in torture might have a negative impact on these organizations’ interrogative efficacy down the line? Might knowledge of an organization’s use of torture discourage people from volunteering information, or make suspects less likely to cooperate in the first place? Joe Navarro, who is an expert within the FBI in regards to questioning techniques, has stated: “Only a psychopath can torture and be unaffected. You don't want people like that in your organization. They are untrustworthy, and tend to have grotesque other problems.” Following this line of reasoning, is the use of torture in exception cases worth the possible risks of employing torturers?

Allowing for a government-sanctioned use of torture in and of itself has massive connotations. Is the use of torture compatible with a society that strives to uphold human dignity? Is our willingness to disregard this human dignity in “edge cases” worth the utility we could get from torture?

Even presupposing that torture works as an interrogation method (which it doesn’t), proponents the ticking time bomb scenario need to actually demonstrate that the potential short-term positive outcome of using torture outweighs the long-term negative outcomes of accepting torture into our prescriptive ethical framework. This thought experiment and its derivatives within fiction, through the use of emotional, reactionary appeal, actively seeks to discourage participants from engaging with this aspect of the discourse. The rule that might reduce overall long-term suffering is disregarded in favor of the short-term good of the act.

If you take a look at ethical committees across the world, you’ll notice they don’t engage a whole lot with the ticking time bomb thought experiment. This is because at best, it’s incredibly vapid in terms of base-level ethics – and at worst, it’s a deliberate ethical fallacy.

Hang on… if it’s an ethical fallacy, then why are we still talking about it?

Running a pedo sex trafficking island in the Caribbean is usually considered morally wrong, yes. But let’s say aliens came to earth and told you they were gonna vaporize the whole planet, unless you ran a pedo sex trafficking island in the Caribbean and then invited all your buddies, allegedly including Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and Bill Clinton? In this hypothetical scenario, would it not be morally justifiable to do so? Well, maybe the best response to a thought experiment like this isn’t an immediate acceptance of the “lesser evil”, but instead posing a question back to the framer: why the fuck, exactly, are you asking me to accept a moral justification for pedo sex trafficking?

It's about politics. Duh.

And now that we’ve finally established that, we can criticize this “thought experiment” within its historical, material context. Because here’s the thing: governments and state leaders regularly frame the use of torture, following the ticking time bomb philosophy, as a necessary, justifiable evil in certain edge-case exceptions, which implicitly denies atrocity as a way to avoid accountability. Torture, you know – that thing that is internationally recognized as a war crime. In this way, the ticking time bomb scenario isn’t just a political argument – it is a legal argument.

Researchers will tell you that the public discourse around torture seemed to shift after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and that this shift was spearheaded by the Bush Administration’s “War on Terror.” The war on terror notably included actual on-the-ground military invasions throughout the middle east, like the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, the effectiveness of which are highly disputed by experts, to say the least. And a notable project to go along with these actual, literal wars, were the systematic propaganda campaigns that the United States government propagated alongside. You’ve probably already read about the US military’s funding of action movies, books, and video games, and probably (rightly) assume that these in part served to influence the public perception of the US’ participation in foreign invasions. And given what was brought into public awareness by the leak of a classified Red Cross inspection report from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in November 2004, it’s not so surprising that the US government would want its citizens to be more, ahem, openminded about the use of torture on enemy combatants. They did this by appealing to reactionary thinking. They turned torture into a terrible, but under certain exceptions, intuitively righteous act. And through the use of euphemisms – “enhanced interrogation methods” – the United States’ use of torture was even distinguished from the torture used by other (browner) nations, as a rational, even civilized act.

And this framing can still be seen in US politics to this day, most commonly along the republican party line. I don’t want to talk about Donald Trump for longer than I need to here. Let’s just say he’s been very outspoken about his support for the use of waterboarding – “or worse” – as an interrogation method, both before, during and after his presidency. This is one of the most powerful men in the world, who has a real chance of being re-elected this year, telling you explicitly that he intends to commit war crimes.

In reality though, justifications for the use of torture as morally permissible in edge-cases aren’t a new phenomenon, and it wasn’t invented by the United States. The reason the 9/11 shift comes up so often in research is that the US, as much as I hate to admit it, is the cultural epicenter of the world, and these ideas have gained global mainstream traction through Hollywood specifically. But you don’t need to look hard to find examples that predate the war on terror.

The ticking time bomb – not just the argument behind it, but that specific thought experiment – was actually popularized by French writer and former soldier Jean Lartéguy in his 1960 novel Les Centurions, which was set during the 1954-1962 French-Algerian war. Later on, General Marcel Bigeard claimed that the use of torture by the French military was a “necessary evil.” Another French general, Paul Aussaresses, wrote in 2001: “torture became necessary when emergency imposed itself.” The French army used a wide variety of torture against Algerians, including beatings, burning, electroshock, waterboarding, mutilation, and rape. Funny how bad ideas always trace back to colonialism.

Who else? The Nazis, the British in Kenya (at least they’ve finally officially admitted it was torture, I guess), South African Apartheid forces, Russian military in Ukraine… I feel like I’m missing someone relevant…

Oh.

The use of coercive interrogation, another euphemism for torture, was reviewed by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999 and deemed “unlawful, though permissible in certain cases.” Sound familiar? Torture is practiced by Israeli forces both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the use isn’t always limited to adult detainees. Torture techniques include beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions, breaking limbs with clubs, and non-physical torture, such as endless lectures along the lines of, quote: “All Arabs are Bedouin, and Bedouin are Saudis, so Palestinians should go back to Saudi Arabia where they came from. You don’t belong here.” The fog of war sure make things foggy, but I’d imagine torture isn’t above the IDF’s paygrade in the current Israeli attempt at a Palestinian genocide. Considering that allegations of torture have been coming out steadily for months now, I feel like I’m not off base here.

Do you see how the “clear-cut” argument presented within this innocent hypothetical is used by governments to shrug off accountability? Torture is described as necessary in the case of emergency – the words necessary and emergency sure do shift quite a lot depending on who’s talking, but the basic arguments are all based on the same ethical fallacy, one that conflates useful with sometimes justified. I would argue, based on actual utilitarian ethics, that when you accept torture as sometimes justified into your ethical framework, bad shit tends to happen.

Ah, and then there’s Hollywood. Popular culture is a part of public discourse, and all art, as you might know, is inherently political. Fictional portrayals of torture in western movies and literature before 9/11 tend to come away with the conclusion that torture is unjustifiable under any circumstances, and torturers are almost always portrayed as being in the wrong. Since then, portrayals have shifted to favor various derivatives of the ticking time bomb scenario. One of the most famous examples of this is Jack Bauer from the TV-series 24, who frequently makes use of torture as an interrogation method – in fact, he uses the same techniques that the United States used during the war on terror – and the show, in turn, treats him as heroic for being willing to do this. Other examples of ticking time bomb derivatives can be found in The Dark Night trilogy, Supernatural, Stranger Things, Daredevil, Taken, Fast and the Furious, Dirty Harry… Zootopia? Yeah, um, sorry, mr. Pixar, was the torture apologia scene perhaps really necessary to include in this children’s movie?

Along with the discourse seen by lawmakers and political figures, fiction influences the opinions of regular people all the time – it all adds up, you know? And I haven’t been able to find more contemporary sources on this, but according to a poll from the Pew Research Institute from 2016, 48% of Americans believed that torture is acceptable “in some cases.” According to a 2019 poll from the nonprofit Freedom From Torture, 43% of Britons are “unsure” if torture is always wrong – 29% believe that there are “some circumstances” in which torture is acceptable. In a global survey from 2014 by Amnesty International, 74% of Chinese respondents said that torture is a “necessary and acceptable” way of gaining information. Conversely, Brazilian respondents, who scored highest in regards to the fear of being tortured, scored among the lowest favorability in the world, with only 19% saying that torture can be justified “in some cases.”

Globally, over a third (36%) of respondents said that torture can be justified “in some cases.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the debate around torture isn’t whether or not it’s good or bad - the vast majority of people will agree it’s bad, we’re all on the same page there. The really insidious idea is that torture is useful (which it isn’t), mixed with the fact that your average person doesn’t know the first thing about basic utilitarian ethics. Useful, to them, is tantamount to justifiable in some cases. As I hope to have shown you, this in and of itself is an ethical fallacy, and it is inherently reactionary.

Conclusion

I guess I wouldn’t mind if you were a bit concerned.

But my greater point, perhaps, is that you should take “thought experiments” like the ticking time bomb with a tub of salt, especially if you know your grasp of ethics isn’t particularly strong. If I want you to learn anything from this essay, it’s that reactionaries will sometimes make use of arguments that seem very convincing at first glance. They mostly do this purely on accident, to be sure, but appeals to intuition often require 4100 words at least to fully break down, and since nobody likes to read, a good chunk of people are going to take the ticking time bomb scenario at face value, and then go on to believe their opinions on torture stem from actual critical thought. Maybe don’t be like them, is my point.

And if you’re a writer, I guess I’d also like to ask you to be extremely careful of using ticking bomb derivatives in your stories. Ask yourself if your story might accidentally justify the use of torture, explicitly or implicitly. Ask yourself how the torturer and victim are portrayed – how the act itself is portrayed. Ask yourself what the scene is supposed to convey, and who you might be appealing to. Think about it, actually.

Because if you don’t, there’s a good chance that a third of your audience will walk away from your writing having learned precisely the wrong lesson from it.

[toxifoxx]

how would you describe william’s aesthetic?

before freddy’s, what were his interests as a kid (besides rabbits and robots obviously /silly)

did anyone find out he was trans without his knowledge? how did it impact his influence on others? maybe the kids’ perception of their father??

what are the ways does he stim? is he like a rabbit in terms of his mannerisms?

how likely is it that i could yap with him about rabbits? /silly

what kind of music does he like (do you have a playlist,,)?

what nicknames does he have for his kids (direct to each one && referring to them all)?

uhm umm … blinks . that’s all i got in me :3c

uhmmm good question! i've recieved one like this before actually and the answer was kind of uhhh i dont know. i know about four different aesthetics and none of them are particularly similar to what william has going on. and it also depends if you mean clothes-wise or… decor-wise? whatever 'deeply repressed homosexual father who used to be a theatre kid' looks like

i suppose drawing and reading! he loved sci-fi books in particular, which eventually end up being the reason why the sister location Looks Like That. and he likes drawing but never particularly becomes a professional at it, even into adulthood.

next questions got long so readmore

i think william tried to present himself as a boy in school but most kids caught onto the fact he was trans, adding another thing onto the pile of reasons to bully him for. perhaps its the reason why he had a violent outburst, leading to his parents also finding out he's trans through the school informing them. through college, most people aren't aware he's trans because he plays it off so well. even the people he's sleeping with (he insists the lights be off, and usually both him and his partner are drunk). i kinda imagine it like that one dude who had like multiple wives and they all didn't realize he was trans (i forgor his name :[…(NEVERMIND I FOUND IT IT WAS BILLY TIPTON)). as for his kids it seems likely they might find out. lizzie might have been too young to remember william being pregnant with evan and evan wouldn't have ever seen him as such, so most likely only michael knows. and he was probably taught that it was a normal, unremarkable thing that he should not bother to tell anyone about. another notable case would be medical staff with william giving birth + the springlock injury. i think clara and henry were very set on keeping things quiet there and ensured it didn't get out. actually sorry i went off the rails a bit i just realized this says wqithout his knowledge Ermmm just ignore the stuff he'd know about

YES. he does have rabbit mannerisms. i think he thumps his foot sometimes, jumps around a bit/binkies, i suppose sprawling out counts (motherfucker takes up the whole couch/desk just because he wants to be annoying). and as for stimminggg this one also counts for rabbit mannerisms but he likes chewing things i think. taps his fingers. used to do hand flapping but he essentially forced himself to stop doing it.

very likely. he loves rabbits and could talk about them for hours. and he would be quite excited for someone to share that passion i think! its not hard to prompt him into infodumping about them

i do Not have a playlist mostly because i have very few songs that are that old. however i do think he enjoys classic rock music. and i mentioned a few artists i think he might like before but id have to look for that ask. i think if it has a guitar he likes it

michael: mikey, mike elizabeth: lizzie, liz evan: doesn't really have a nickname all of them: i think he'd call them his baby bunnies in a joking manner. but also somewhat seriously. yaknow?

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK ^_^ this was very fun to answer yippee!!!!

[imagineanime2022]

It's A Promise

Asmodeus X FTM!Reader

Word Count: 772

Requested: @your-next-daydream @tiddyanon-official

Request: Hello darling!!! Me again! I have a bit of an odd request but I'll do my best to word it. May I have Asmodeus from obey me with an insecure reader? Here's the context. Reader plays otome games as well because it's fun, none of us can lie they are fun. And reader will see the characters they interact with and see how perfect they are compared to them and will just get in their head about how they don't look good at all. I do this unfortunately it's more of a bodily dysphoria with the fact that I am trans (ftm) and I also don't particularly like myself. But you don't have to write all of that. I also hope you aren't getting tired of obey me…the fandom has seem to found your page quite well. Anyway thank you for reading I hope you are doing well in your studies! <3 AND Obey me with a closeted FTM reader that looks like a masculine Lilith? And one day, they're hanging out with one of the brothers, and they accidentally call him "sister." And at first the brother's just upset because they're reminded of their youngest sister's passing, but then they're surprised as MC just bursts into sobs at the (ACCIDENTAL) misgendering.

Warning: Accidental Misgendering, Insecurity, Slight body dysphoria

You had been coming to terms with who you were and what you wanted for yourself before you were teleported to Devildom. The demons there helped somewhat because of the fact that there was very rarely a gender normal for them. You found yourself growing closer to Asmo for that very reason, you felt that he was less likely to judge you should he ever find out about your gender identity. Levi was the other brother that you had found yourself growing closer to due to your interest in otome games.

That being said you were still hiding your transgender status and with no support system things started to get the better of you, you’d often found yourself focusing on problems that others may not have even noticed and in most cases don’t notice. Like most things these observations mounted until you couldn’t ignore it when you walked past a mirror. You spent more time playing otome games which didn’t help as you found yourself comparing yourself to all of the characters and greater defining your problems.

Asmo became a welcome distraction as he would spend time talking and messing around with you but today wanted to play dress up and you were his doll and it started out well he complimented you and you thought that it was going to get better but then he stopped his hands resting on your shoulder “you look amazing… Like Lilith did, the perfect little sister.” He said. Asmo didn’t realise that you were upset by the sentence, only snapping out of his sadness when he felt tears on his hands. “Hey what’s wrong..? Hey.” He slowly moved your face so that you were looking at him. “Sorry.” You said softly and he shook his head. “What are you sorry for?” He asked. “You haven’t done anything.” “I know you didn’t mean it.” You informed him and now he really was confused and you could see it. “You're going to have to explain.” Asmo finally said and you looked at him and nodded, you knew that he was right there was no way that you were going to be able to get passed this without telling him what was going on. “I’ve never told anyone this, so you have to bear with me.” You said voice shaking with the nerves that you were feeling, he nodded relocating you both to the bed where it was more comfortable, you had taken to playing with his fingers as he waited patiently for you to talk. “Alright…” You took a deep breath “before I came here I was in the process of figuring out something about myself.” You informed him and he nodded along with what you were saying but you had a feeling he knew where it was going and you thanked him silently for still letting you say it “I’m Transgender from female to male so when you referred to me as the perfect sister earlier.” “I’m sorry, I never meant for that.” He said as he squeezed your hands in reassurance. “I know, you didn’t know, it was difficult for me to tell you all, you were all so happy with the way that you are, you know… All demons seemed comfortable in their own skin. I started comparing myself to characters in the games that I was playing and fell further into this self deprecating hole.” You explained, it was easy to talk to him, there was nothing about him that said that he was judging you. “You my love after perfect as you are now and will continue to be perfect if you change. Do you know why?” He asked, you frowned as you waited for him to continue hanging on to every soft spoken word. “Because it’s a choice you made to make yourself happy, I want to see you smile, I want to see you choose something because you want it.” “Asmo… Thank you.” You said softly. “Can I hug you?” He asked, your heart swelled at him seeking permission. “Yes.” You nodded and he pulled you into his lap wrapping his arms around you. “You come to me when you are ready, okay… we can go shopping, get you new clothes and we can tell the others, I’ll be right by your side no matter how long it takes or who you decide to be.” He said. “You promise?” You asked. “It’s a promise.” He said softly, tightening his hold on you and hoping that it conveyed how safe you were with him and that no matter what you’d look back and see that he was ready to catch you.

Request Here!!

[password-door-lock]

Mystictober Day 4-- Royal/Rebel

Maybe it's a weird way to think about a scruffy-looking stranger crashing into your apartment, boots first, through the window, but as far as you're concerned, your prince has come to rescue you. After all, Rika’s apartment may as well be an enchanted tower, and you may as well be an imprisoned royal heir straight out of a fairy tale, for the fact that you are stuck here alone. Anyway, the hacker isn’t really any more of a stranger than the members of the RFA , though he, at least, seems to want to get you out of here. That’s good enough for you.

Besides, you haven't been getting very much out of your guest coordination experience thus far— you feel a bit awkward talking to the RFA, so you've barely even used the messenger, only scrolling through the chat rooms once or twice a day to gather the contact information for potential guests. You're willing to send out invitations, but you have no interest in anything beyond a working relationship with the other members of the organization. Unfortunately for you, many of them strike you as being interested in something... more. You can't help but feel a bit trapped, waiting patiently to be rescued by the first person to get the better of the fire-breathing dragon— or, in this case, the bomb, but same difference— that guards you.

Well, here's your hero, then. He doesn't bother stepping over the shards of broken glass from the window he just tore through; instead, they crunch under the soles of his heavy boots as he crosses the room to reach you. "Stay where you are, okay?" His voice is smooth, even and measured, like he body-slams shatter-proof glass every day and has no reason to be at all shaken by the events of the past fifteen seconds. "You might hurt yourself if you step on glass."

He's got a point— you’re wearing no footwear more protective than a pair of fluffy slipper-socks. You bite your lip, nervous despite the relief you feel at the prospect of escape. You haven't so much as felt fresh air against your skin since the special security system was hacked three days ago, and the night breeze seeping through the gaping hole in the window is providing a very pleasant change of pace. "Who are you?" You already know, of course, but it's all that you can think of to say.

"I'm your knight in shining armor, prince(ss). I'm here to rescue you from your boring task," he cackles, making the threat that he poses abundantly clear. You would have to be a fool to actually go anywhere with this man, even if he seems more interesting than the members of the RFA. But, then again, you would also have to be a fool to break into a stranger’s apartment at the behest of a complete stranger, so perhaps your track record is working against you. "I thought you would have fun talking to those people, but you’ve barely even looked at the messenger. You must really hate it here— but I didn’t expect you to get bored of them so soon." He doesn't sound particularly apologetic. If anything, he sounds mildly amused by your refusal to be predictable, like you're a puzzle that he's looking forward to solving.

He's reached you by now; the hacker is close enough to see that you're shaking like a leaf. As much as you'd love to ask him why he thought you would cooperate in the first place, there are much more pressing matters to attend to at the moment. "Somebody from the RFA will be here soon," you inform him. You're sure of it— they won't let you get away so easily. One of them will come, convinced that you need to be rescued, without bothering to ask for your opinion. They may mean well, but none of them seem to have considered your feelings, being lured into a strange, demanding organization in the middle of a work week— not that the hacker is any different. He has yet to ask you if you want to leave with him, although you suppose you could have refused to even humor his request when he sent you to the apartment in the first place. It's clear to you that you're nothing more than a pawn to the hacker; he is using you as a means to whatever end he desires, the same way that V and his followers are using you as an excuse to host a party. That being said, you have no interest in watching a battle between the hacker and the RFA unfold. When push comes to shove, you’d rather make the decision for yourself.

The hacker, for his part, seems to agree with your assessment of the situation. "You're sharper than I thought," he decides, appraising you with glimmering eyes. "Do you already know what’s going to happen? If you’re so excited to leave this place, then you and I must be a little bit similar... I think we'll have fun together." He reaches out, and his meaning is clear— maybe he's only giving you the illusion of choice, but it's your call whether you'll stay loyal to the RFA or transfer your allegiance to him, at least for the time being.

"We should probably get going." You've made your choice. Anything is better than staying in this stuffy apartment, even jumping out the window with someone you just met. 

"Let's go, then, prince(ss)." The hacker smirks. This is all a game for him, but you don't care half as much as you probably should.

You could kiss him for how relieved you are to get out of Rika's apartment— to your surprise, he doesn't lead you to the window when you take his hand, but across the room to the door. He did say that he didn't want you stepping on glass— maybe he cares about your safety, or perhaps he only wants your loyalty. "Thanks for saving me." You give his hand a little squeeze in a vain attempt to demonstrate your gratitude.

"Of course." The hacker sounds amused as he walks you to the elevator. "You were already mine from the beginning, anyway."

"If you say so," you shrug. As far as you're concerned, anything is better than being trapped in this small suite, inviting strangers to a party about which you could not care less. It doesn't even occur to you that you might be trading one locked door for another, a picture window for a wall of glowing monitors.

[yourqueenb]

Out of all the mystery books on Choices, were there any that you found particularly fun and/or well written? I'm not sure if it's just me bcs it might be a matter of taste which is super subjective, but something about the way PB does mystery stuff feels kinda...lackluster? I'm not sure what exactly it is about their mystery books (like TUH and MAH), but while they're not necessarily terrible they usually don't feel super satisfying

It’s def not just you. Idk how many times I’ve talked about this, but PB can’t do mystery. I believe that 100%. Maybe in the very beginning they could because I remember enjoying Most Wanted. But I haven’t played it in forever. And all of their mystery books after that have been lackluster as you said. (And I do mean all of them, including VoS and CoP, which are fan favorites).

I think one of the issues is that they always feel the need to make us investigate whatever noble pursuit the person had along with their death. And they really play up the fact that the victim was basically a saint and loved by all. And it’s just like 9 times out of 10, I do not care. It gets annoying and old. One of the other issues is that they also always do the collectibles for clues and stuff. And it’s usually either that you need almost all of them to understand whodunnit, how, and why (see: TUH) or pretty much none of them because they’re actually just extra pieces of information that aren’t all that interesting (see: MaH). Of course the former is worse because paywalling plot/other important story aspects is flat out ridiculous. But the latter annoys me too because premium content should add something to the story, not just little factoids.

I think writing a mystery book is a balancing act. And we all know PB already struggles with balance outside of that. They don’t know how to set the stage, build intrigue, and stop throwing in red herrings to let the story come to a conclusion at the right time. Or if they do manage to build intrigue, they still can’t craft a proper twist that feels shocking but makes sense/is believable at the same time. So that’s why VoS had a good setting/all that suspense throughout, but fell flat in the end. And that’s also why MaH never really found it’s footing as a mystery to begin with imo.

Didn’t intend to write an essay, so last issue I’ll speak on is the fact that PB also rarely writes good villains/a good dynamic between the MC and the villain. I think what their mystery books are missing is the feeling that whatever we’re investigating is a puzzle that needs to be solved. And one of the ways they could create that is by writing both villains/antagonists and MCs who are actually intelligent and fun to go up against/play as! It’s usually that the villain is 10 steps ahead. And not because he/she is particularly crafty but because they dumb MC down to drag the story out for 16-20 chapters. CoP is an exception because MC was actually pretty smart, but we had the dumbass murderer and her even dumber minion. So I truly believe that if we had characters who didn’t just bumble their way through the story and were legitimately formidable adversaries to each other, we would have a lot more fun maneuvering around the obstacles/red herrings/etc. thrown at us and solving the mystery OR being surprised by the twist/resolution but able to pick up the breadcrumbs and connect the dots after it’s revealed

[purrincess-chat]

I must admit that the idea of prpr is so deeply ingrained in the fandom culture that it's hard to give up on it. I saw lots of old fanarts of Adrienette, and they all are supposed to be post-reveal. I remember reading a reddit post saying that Adrienette basically cannot happen pre-reveal. Even when S5 has started airing, fans speculated that if they dated pre-reveal, there wouldn't be more than one date, and then they would inevitably break up. I think those who are upset about pre-reveal Adrienette, are mostly upset about the fact that they couldn't foresee that.

I've talked about this a little before, but fandom is a double edged sword. It's perfectly fine to speculate about what you think is going to happen or to come up with headcanons or AUs or silly ideas that are fun, but that's all they are. Speculation and fun. You have to draw a line between canon and fanon and also recognize that all of these analysis posts (even mine) while they may sound smart and true, we are all operating off of limited information, and therefore none of our takes are 100% accurate. People get stuff wrong all the time because new episodes come out that completely change the game. The analysis I wrote yesterday could be completely uprooted by a single episode if canon so decided. That's why I tell people to take everything you read in fandom with a grain of salt. Because even the "smartest" and most well thought out takes can be wrong because we don't have all of the episodes. I'm not an authority on this show by any means, nor is any other fan. Even the fans that got hired by Zag aren't privy to every single detail about the show. They know what they're told, and even then, stuff can change last minute. It's fine to speculate about what we think is going to happen, but if we're wrong, that's not canon's fault.

And look, prpr is a fun idea in fanon, but I never foresaw it being canon. Look at the what if episodes, those two jumped immediately to being a couple, so I never had a reason to think the actual reveal would be any different. The thing about building up these fanon ideas in your head is it sets an unrealistic expectation for canon, and you're setting yourself up for disappointment. You have to separate the two. Keep fanon in fandom, and let canon tell the story it intends to. Because the thing is, we aren't the ones in the writing room. We don't know all of their plans or what things need to happen in order for the plot to work. We can speculate all day long based on the little clues we have, but canon can still throw a curve ball. I mean, after the s4 finale, did we expect to get reverse love square and canon Adrinette midway through s5? Clearly not 😂 But here we are. Canon is going to do what canon is going to do whether we like it or not. It's fine to not particularly like some decisions canon makes, everyone has preferences, but to say canon is ruined or bad or should have done some popular fan idea instead is not only entitled behavior it's also childish lol. Canon is ruined for you. And that's fine. But it doesn't mean canon is inherently bad just because you didn't care for the direction it's going in. A lot of people would do well to remember they are one person, and no one is making them watch. If they don't like canon anymore, don't watch it anymore. 🤷‍♀️ As some have pointed out, there are tons of shows that do high school romance better, so go watch one of those.

Idk, I think people are crossing too many lines and blurring fanon with canon. Fan ideas are meant to be fun for fans, not to influence and predict canon. If something makes it into the show or we guess something correctly, great, but that's not guaranteed or owed to us. There also isn't a rule that says if canon contradicts your fan idea that you have to stop doing it in fandom? Fans can still write, draw, and make headcanons for prpr or romantic LadyNoir if they want, but like it or not, Adrinette is still canon, yall. Even all the way up to episode 20, and I doubt it's going to change in the last few episodes. Get used to it. Or go watch something else idc 🤷‍♀️

[wondereads]

Personal Review (05/01/23)

Dragonfall by L. R. Lam

Summary

Arcady is a thief, but they dream of joining Loc's academy and discovering the truth behind their grandfather's conviction and death. Everen is the last male dragon in a dying world destined to save his kind. One night, using an experimental spell, Arcady pulls Everen through the Veil separating their worlds, and they end up with a half-formed dragon-rider bond that hasn't existed for ages since the humans betrayed the dragons and banished them. Everen is tasked with killing Arcady and opening the Veil for the rest of the dragons, but Arcady is focused on a heist that could change their life for good.

Plot 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

This plot could be a little slow in places, but it was really interesting. Despite a lot of this book being dictated by an old prophecy, the one concerning Everen saving the dragons, a lot of it felt character-driven. I appreciated that a lot of the decisions felt pretty reasonable. Before they meet Everen, Arcady is already looking for a partner, someone to trust during their planned heist. The book takes place over two months, so none of the decisions or developing relationships feel particularly rushed. Everen is trained by Arcady for quite a while, and there was a natural progression from event to event.

The worldbuilding of this book was so much fun. Everen being about as foreign as one could get means a lot is explained to him about Loc and the surrounding world. There's a good amount of information about daily life in Loc and the political situation, and I really like the way Lam made gender work there, even if some of the explanations were a little clunky. I loved the way magic worked, draining energy and causing literal hunger. Repercussions for careless use of magic is immediate and visceral, turning people into Starvelings that attack mindlessly. Arcady's family's involvement in the history of Loc is also quite interesting; I have a feeling there will be some good reveals in that area.

Speaking of reveals, there are some in the last few chapters that really work. One of them in particular strikes a great balance between a little bit of foreshadowing that still took me by surprise. I think the ending of the book as a whole is very good. It wraps up nicely with the contained plot (the heist and the thing they're stealing), but there's still so much going on that it definitely makes you want to continue. As someone who struggles with read-one-book-of-a-series-and-never-pick-it-up-again syndrome, it was great.

Characters 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

The characters are so strong in this book. Arcady and Everen are likable protagonists, and their motivations are clear and easy to understand and root for. Despite the fact that they're on different sides of an ancient conflict (though Arcady doesn't really know that), they have surprisingly similar goals. They both want to get revenge for the people they care for—Arcady's family and the dragons—and that drives most of the plot.

Their bond situation is one of the best written ones I've read in a while. The bond forces them to spend time together since any injury to one of them affects the other, but it doesn't cause them to like each other or anything like that. Instead, Arcady and Everen spend a ton of time together over the course of multiple months, and their relationship builds slowly and realistically. One crucial part of the bond is that any skin-to-skin contact drains Everen's magic to Arcady, so they avoid touching as much as they can, which leads to them literally dancing around each other at some points. The tension between them is just so well done, and I was thoroughly invested.

As for the side characters, there are two major ones who regularly get their own POVs. Sorin, an assassin trained by a mysterious priest with a very complicated relationship to him, and Cassia, Everen's sister stuck back in the world of the dragons, Vere Celene. I found Sorin in particular very interesting since her verging-on-worship devotion makes me hesitant about the man she serves, Magnes, but I really can't get a read on him. Cassia was a great look into how things were going back in Vere Celene, but I do think her own personality isn't quite a fleshed out.

Of the other side characters, I want to mention the Marricks, an organization of thieves that Arcady has a contentious past with. Arcady's relationship to their leader, Larkin, was complicated to say the least, and I can't help but hope that they get an opportunity for reconciliation at some point.

Writing Style 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

I absolutely love how Lam worked with perspective in this book. First, the two main characters, Arcady and Everen, have their chapters in first person while any extra POVs, such as Sorin and Cassia, are in third person, which is a strategy I've seen used before. However, one unique trait was that in Everen's chapters, Arcady is referred to as 'you' instead of by their name or any third-person pronouns. First, it's a clever way to work with Arcady since they use any pronouns; even though most characters default to they/them for them (hence my use of it in this review), a true representation of their identity would be switching, which can get confusing for a reader. Second, it makes Everen's perspective much more intimate, hints towards the end of the book, and helps the reader connect to Arcady that much more.

As for the writing itself, it didn't blow me away or anything, but it was still great. Like I said before, the tension between Arcady and Everen is immaculate, and I also really like the descriptions of magic, especially the hunger that accompanies it.

Overall 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

I'm really glad I got an ARC of this book because I really enjoyed it! I particularly liked Arcady, Everen, and their relationship, but the plot is solid and interesting, and the writing does something new. The only downside to this is that it's going to be at least a year before the next book comes out. While there's some intense cliffhangers at the end of this book, I don't really know how the next one is going to go, and I am very curious. In the meantime, I do recommend this book, especially for anyone looking for a slow burn fantasy romance with a bit more substance to it. And dragons, which is a good enough reason alone to read any book.

The Author

L. R. Lam: British (expatriate American), 34, also wrote the Micah Grey series, Seven Devils, and Goldilocks

The Reviewer

My name is Wonderose; I try to post a review every week, and I do themed recommendations every once in a while. I take suggestions! Check out my about me post for more!

[hazbinextgeneration]

Whelp! Time to do this again. Except it's parents for cannon characters and not one of my ocs this time. NONE of this is cannon, it's just some fun au/headcannon backstory stuff I thought of. WARNINGS: Abuse, neglect, drinking, etc. Read at your own risk. -Their names are Kibishii(strict) Sakaki and Kanzen(perfection) Chikazoku. -These two are the unfortunate parents of Deidoro Sakaki and Tomoyasu Chikazoku and both are their own brand of terrible in different ways. And it all started with a partnership. A business partnership, it was what their entire relationship was to one another and still is if you were to ask either of them of their past 'romance' with one another to this day. It was strictly business. Both their families were very well off, and while they didn't really particularly like each other, they could tolerate each other enough to write up a literal marriage contract to combine assets that would benefit the both of them and their families, however they failed to calculate any unfortunate children that could and would be brought about in this long term Partnership. After all that's what it always was from the beginning. A business partnership between two people, same with an office. Nothing more and nothing less. -Kibishii Sakaki can be summed up in one word. Strict. On both herself and those around her to always get what she wants WHEN she wants it. She has also been known to be vain, stubborn, and very, VERY scary when her temper bursts from missing deadlines in her company's office. This attitude toxic as it may be, has actually benefitted her unfortunately into getting her way throughout most of her life. Whether it be to convince her family of something she wants, climbing her way through the ranks of the company she works for, or just anything in general. She is in deed a very much a 'It's my way or the highway' type of person. This did not change when she met and 'married' her partner, or when she divorced, and whenever her children were born. During her life, Kibishii grew up having to claw her way through school, often blaming her parents for their poverty, and eventually into a company that dealt with health insurance and distributing the many health plans and products heroes and their agencies would use. Many will regrettably admit that she is good at what she does, and thus it wasn't too long when she climbed her way from office worker to manager to Top Supervisor of the company in her selfish climb to success and riches. Her quirk, Puppeteer, helps her with that getting many things done at once. Her quirk allows her to force her will onto others to do what she would want them to do and, while it IS illegal and knows she'll get arrested if caught, often uses it on her many employees to make them meet deadlines, but this often leaves her with a great headache as she has to strain herself to use it. She often drinks much wine and alcohol to deal with this problem. -Kanzen Chikazoku is however the opposite of this. In the fact that he is a very, very emotionless person. He rarely if ever shows emotion other than blunt and indifferent. In short he hates people. He doesn't like being around them. Which is where his quirk, Clonage, comes much to his advantage. Kanzen is able to mold a complete clone of anyone from anything just by using his hands and willing a chair-sized object into whatever person or persons he wants them to look like and what he wants them to do. He is very scarily efficient in his work as well having worked at the same office Kibishii works and is in charge of his own floor with his own office in charge of the insurance center's entire online security which MUST be protected securely as it holds the health information of many, many heroes. In the wrong hands it could be deadly. Which is why he made sure his networking was secure and trusted no one to do anything for him but himself to make sure nothing went wrong. The only times you'd see another person who isn't a clone on his office floor, would be someone delivering something, or the occasional visit from his boss. -Which is how the two of them met one another. Kibishii being in a higher authority position than him often made 'mandatory' visits to see him which was only her asking about something he did more perfectly than her or asking him to complete a certain task within the network within a certain amount of time. In a rare display of respect from her, Kanzen was one of the few people she respected, but only because he was able to meet whatever expectations she put on him with flawless accuracy and was competent enough to manage a whole floor by himself, and he in turn thought she was an efficient boss meeting deadlines and managing so much. In fact it was him who brought up the potential partnership to her in order for the both of them to climb the ladder more. They could both mutually benefit from having a partnership using their skills to push each other higher with mutual benefits they both obviously wanted. A 'marriage' would only be on paper and ensure that if anything happened to one of them, the other would make sure to keep all the benefits in their names easier. It took a little bit of convincing on her end but ultimately she agreed and things were smooth sailing for them both for a long while as both continued to Excel at their lives. Until Kibishii fell pregnant with twins. -Both were....Not very excited at the idea of becoming parents of unwanted children. Kibishii more than Kanzen. She did NOT want these children, and Kanzen did not care and was ever indifferent to the situation. So he did nothing to stop kibishii from doing what she wanted. After all she wasn't his 'wife' outside of a small piece of paper. She was a business partner and accomplice. Nothing more than that. He was the same to her. He wasn't going to make her take maternity leave if she didn't want to, anymore than she was going to force him into being responsible for the children once they come, but she continued to strain herself even more know, and continue to drink her stress away after a hard day's work. ....And it resulted in a worse outcome but not how one would think. -Two twin boys were the result of whatever partnership the two had and were named accordingly before being dumped into the arms of a hired babysitter the first chance they got before continuing life as usual. They weren't interested in them anymore than beyond what they could do and what they could become. Which is what exactly they were disappointed to find out the results of them. Because of the results, both are disappointed and as a result, decide to 'divorce' once the twins both turn five and the results of their quirks are revealed, each one getting a child as per their 'split assets' agreement. -Tomoyasu Chikazoku (A.K.A Skeptic) has always had a slightly bad immune system resulting in him getting sick often, this was especially so as a child when he often got sick, and has a low alcohol tolerance due to his mother's actions. He is the younger twin by a few minutes and was raised by their father. Their father remained emotionless and often put a lot of pressure on his son to reach the same perfectionist level he had achieved in his life working hard. He had to succeed. After all HE was the one with the more powerful quirk abilities. So growing up, he was always applied pressure by his father and stressed to get everything right, which resulted in Tomoyasu's fear of failure and becoming a perfectionist as well, often getting stressed out when things don't according to plan which can result anywhere from an angry outburst to a panic attack. His father wouldn't really 'punish' him or do anything when he didn't meet his expectations, but he would relay how disappointed he was to have a son who couldn't meet his standards, especially since he inherited his mother's famous temper when things didn't go his way. Tomoyasu had barely if any contact with his mother outside of her dumping Deidoro onto his lap to 'babysit' which is why the two brothers were even able to have a relationship growing up at all. -Deidoro Sakaki however was the complete opposite. He has a higher tolerance for both sicknesses and alcohol. A byproduct of their mother's actions. Instead of gaining a quirk like his parents or a mix like his brother, his quirk was warped into the Sloshed quirk he has now, which angers his mother very much to the point she barely acknowledged him growing up. But what he didn't gain in brains, he certainly gained in body compared to Tomoyasu. A much more healthier body with a better immune system which can tolerate many things alcohol included thanks to his quirk. He is also physically stronger, more flexible, and he's able to climb on walls/ceiling and can throw daggers with better accuracy (as seen in the anime-) but unfortunately these traits were not acknowledged by his mother other than the occasional ''Tch. At least you can do that much." when he did sports in school as it was something he could be good at and bring home ribbons and the occasional small trophy. He sadly became used to the lack of attention from his mother and as a result, can be clingy now as an adult. Although he was able to keep a decent relationship with his brother growing up thanks to their mother often dumping him on Tomoyasu to 'babysit' whenever she needed some 'me time'. -Currently today both are either retired or struggling from the hero war destroying their built up 'legacies'. If asked about their sons, both would deny they had one or out right ignore it as they are ashamed of the two ex-villians they have became. Which considering might just be for the best

[roachliquid]

H.P. Lovecraft's Hastur, the Lovecraftian God who Isn't: Part 1: The King in Yellow

(This post was made with the help of The King In Yellow wiki. For more information on the King in Yellow and the lore that surrounds them, they're a great place to start.)

Here's a fun fact about me: I really, really love the Sucker for Love games. These are deeply silly, deeply transformative games, based on dating characters from the Cthulhu Mythos in the form of anime girls. And my personal favorite, my waifu if you will, is Estir.

Estir is based on the character Hastur, and particularly the King in Yellow. She's a loud yellow goth, an unrepentant spoiled theater kid, and generally just a delight to play with. So of course she ignited my interest in Hastur - specifically, his incarnation as the King in Yellow.

So I did what any reasonable person would do: I went to the Lovecraft wiki, read up on the character, and started looking into the works where he's introduced and defined. And that's when I noticed something weird.

Hastur, in Lovecraft's original mythos, isn't a character at all.

In fact, the name is mentioned just once, and given no definition whatsoever. It's only meant as a clue to indicate that some people that Lovecraft is talking about are adherents to the King in Yellow.

With that in mind, I decided to look deeper into the subject, particularly the character's original literary origins. And what I found was, honestly, pretty damn interesting.

As many people already know, the name "Hastur" was introduced by the writer Ambrose Bierce, in his short story Haïta the Shepherd. In this story, the protagonist Haïta worships Hastur, who is simply a god of shepherds. Similarly, another story from the same collection gives us the name "Carcosa" - which, in its original incarnation, is nothing but an ancient city that fell for unknown reasons. The two concepts are in no way linked; the stories they feature in are dramatically different, and part of a large printed collection (two, actually, but this is the one I had on tap) of assorted ghost stories.

So how do we get from there to an Elder God? Well, that's an explanation that's going to take a while. So long, in fact, that this essay is going to be split into two parts: one covering the origins of the King in Yellow character, and the second detailing how he was adapted into a pseudo-Lovecraftian deity.

The first adaptation - as, once again, many readers will already know - was done by Robert W. Chambers, author of another short story collection titled The King in Yellow. Chambers, who was predominantly a romance writer, wrote this collection - specifically, the first four stories - as a brief foray into the horror genre. And the results are, surprisingly, incredible. The collection shows us stories from the lives of four different narrators, wherein characters - often romantically entangled, but not always - suffer some gruesome hardship or fate, haunted by the presence of a play called The King in Yellow. Throughout, he references terms introduced in Bierce's stories, including Hastur, Carcosa, and Hali, but his worldbuilding is very much his own.

At this point, it's necessary to explain in more detail the mythos Chambers built - both to introduce the topic to the unfamiliar, and to establish what the original details were before the addition of further influences. First, we'll be looking at the elements that are consistent or reoccurring throughout the stories: the King in Yellow (the play), the Stranger and the Pallid Mask, the city of Carcosa, and so on.

(Before I start, a disclaimer: None of these elements are fully described in Chambers' writing. The nature of the play and any element attached to it are deliberately left ambiguous, to cultivate the sense of mystery that pervades all of the stories. What they are, and what they mean, is largely left up to interpretation - but without that interpretation, they're nearly impossible to explain at all. With that in mind, some of what I'm going to say is informed my own subjective view.)

So the first, and probably best-known of these elements is the play, The King in Yellow. It occurs in the stories only in book form - its one and only performance having ended in disaster.

Details of the play are incredibly sparse. If you want to look at them piecemeal, I recommend browsing the relevant page on the King in Yellow wiki; for the sake of brevity, I will only be describing a bare-bones reconstruction, based on the sparse facts we are given and other context clues from the stories.

The play, most likely, takes place over two acts. The first act is described as "banal and innocent," and concerns a masquerade ball, most likely put on for nobles and/or royalty. During the second scene, as the masquerade is underway, a stranger arrives wearing a "pallid mask". At the end of the scene, all attendees are asked to removed their mask, and when the Stranger does not, he is confronted only to reveal that the "mask" is simply his face.

This is implied to be the end of the first act. As for the second, we're given even less information to work from. We know that nothing in it is technically offensive, but that somehow, its contents are disturbing enough to recontextualize the first act into something too horrible to stop thinking about. Based once again on context clues, it's probably that the characters die in some terrible tragedy, but even those details are never confirmed.

(One last note before we move on: A common belief, based approximately on some details mentioned in the stories, is that the second act is so horrid that reading it drives one "mad", i.e. pop culture insanity. However, this is never really established by the text itself; there is one character who has read the book and is indeed clinically delusional, but his condition appears to have stemmed from a traumatic brain injury, not the play's contents. It's mainly implied to be upsetting, in the same vein as any good Gothic fiction - the kind of thing that leaves you reeling for days.)

Now, while the mystery of what's actually in the play is intriguing, the truth is that it's barely relevant to the purpose it serves in Chamber's stories. The few details we are given serve more as context clues to understand the overarching narrative, bridging some of the gaps in the information each story brings to the table. This is crucial to helping us interpret these other details, because it's not just the description of the play that's vague - it's everything. Chambers was the king of "I ain't describing shit", in the very way that most people misattribute to Lovecraft.

So, as briefly as I can, I'm going to go over the other pertinent elements and the part they serve in the whole.

First, there's the other King in Yellow - the figure that the play is named for. Interestingly, while the play's storyline clearly centers around this character, it's never suggested that he appears in the play in person - as he certainly does not in any of the stories. Instead, he seems to be a specter that haunts these narratives - inexorable and terrifying, but never needing to manifest physically for his influence to be felt.

He is, however, preceded by certain symbols, ones which typically seem to "mark" the characters with certain and imminent doom. The first symbol is the book itself - anyone who reads it seems to succumb to some terrible tragedy, typically the imminent death of themselves and/or a loved one. The second is the Yellow Sign, which is used by the King's followers in the first story to mark themselves, but may appear on its own in the same kind of role as the book. And the last is the Stranger - a mysterious, pale-faced man who, in one story, is revealed to be a living corpse, and in two is shown stalking characters that the King has targeted.

Now, once again, I must reiterate that these details are ambiguous. It's never made clear whether these signs are curses that call the King to their position, or simple harbingers of a fate that's already on its way. In fact, one story assigns them no supernatural influence whatsoever - the entire spectacle seems to be no more than the delusions of one or two mentally unwell people. Even in sources where they do seem to have supernatural power, almost nothing is ever so clear that it couldn't be at least somewhat explained by coincidence, periods of heightened emotion, or other natural causes.

Which is fine. Whether these things are metaphysical or not isn't a meaningful question - in fact, I'd argue that the ambiguity itself is the point. It doesn't matter if you view the King in Yellow as a real figure, a figment of the imagination, or something else. The consequences, in every case, are the same.

Luckily, the other aspects of the lore are easier to cover. First of all there's Carcosa, the well-known city that the King is believed to rule over. It's a fantastical location, with spires so tall or a moon so low that the former sometimes stand behind the latter, a pair of suns, a number of "black stars" (possibly dead stars, AKA black holes) visible in the sky. In addition to these, some regular stars can be found in its sky: the Hyades cluster, Aldebaran, and two stars, Alar and Hastur, which appear to be purely fictitious.

Another important detail about Carcosa - so important, in fact, that the largest single excerpt from the play is about this topic alone - is that it's a dead city. No one lives there, or even knows where it is, apart from perhaps the stars themselves. Even the King does not seem to dwell there - the only clue we're given to his location, "where flap the tatters of the King," suggests that he dwells in the skies above the city.

One final, but relevant element I need to bring up is the prototypical "cult of Hastur" - which is, in its incarnation, naturally anything but. This concept comes from the very first story in the series, "The Repairer of Reputations", in which the mentally ill protagonist is being taken advantage of a second man who is either also delusional or a serious grifter, and has convinced the protagonist that he is the rightful heir to an ancient bloodline. He has been slowly convincing the protagonist that if they simply murder the right people, he can become the new king of America, all while amassing a seemingly large number of loyal followers through his job as a "repairer of reputations".

There's much that isn't clear here, but what is apparent is that this isn't much of a cult. There is one man whose delusions have been carefully cultivated, and a lot of other people who feel indebted to a guy who seemingly wiped their sordid pasts clean and are willing to do anything he asks, regardless of ethicality. They use the Yellow Sign to identify themselves, but what it means to most of these people is never made clear - the protagonist himself gives it immense importance, but much like every other symbol he views as grand and powerful, it never amounts to much more than a drawing.

So that is the mythos in its original form. Broadly, it paints the King in Yellow as an angel of Death, or even Death itself - a cosmic persistence predator who never fails to kill. He has no verified physical form, yet people seem to know what he looks like, and his signs are everywhere when he comes to claim his victims.

Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding this mythos. There is so much symbolism to unpack in the story, and many different suggestions have been put forth about works that might have inspired Chambers, additional themes and meanings in the stories, and so on. If you want to know more about this topic, once again the wiki has some excellent suggestions and observations, although of course a huge amount of the topic is still based on educated guesswork.

But this is the gist of it, or at least, enough to set the stage for our next question: how on Earth has this lore ended up mangled so badly? And while I'll be saving that topic for its own post, I can leave you with a hint: His name is the same as Lovecraft's birth month, and he is one of the worst Lovecraft scholars in history.

[talenlee]

The Floating Significance of Moses

When I say ‘hey, you know that Spanish guy who discovered America?’

And you go ‘Christopher Columbus?’

You know who I’m talking about. His name wasn’t Christopher Columbus. He also didn’t discover America. He wasn’t Spanish either! In fact, in that initialising event where I tried to get your attention to an individual I want to signify, literally none of the information I provided to locate him is true. You probably knew all three of those facts aren’t true – and those truths all lay at different levels of ‘um actually’ correction.

First of all, him being Spanish isn’t even vaguely true; he was an Italian who worked for the throne of Spain. Now, in this example, you might have even known he was Italian and figured that no, wait, he said Spanish, so my memory must not be reliable. You may even have known he was Italian and when I said Spanish assumed I was wrong, but just glossed over it because what I was asking was about that individual, not about any of the specific details.

You also probably know he didn’t discover America, because Amerigo Vespucci was there first. Or maybe you think Lief Eriksson was there first? Or maybe you’re already a step ahead of me and want to point out all the people who were there already, maybe even with some specific names like the Taino?

At birth from his Italian family, he was called Christoforo Colombo, and his name in Spanish was the far more fun Christobal Colon, which makes sense because he was quite a shit. And really, he wasn’t even ‘Italian’ because Italy didn’t exist yet!

But.

You know who I was talking about, right?

As these facts get knocked out underneath that signifier, you still knew the person I was talking about and why I brought him up.

And this is one of the problems when I talk about the mythical figures of Jesus and Moses.

I’ve said in the past that I’m a Jesus Mythicist, a term that’s become pretty fraught since I said it. Particularly, when I thought it was a pretty simple term with a clear meaning when I first started using it, it turns out that it’s got a whole range of meanings and I’ve had to be specific and clarify what I mean by it. I don’t subscribe to Richard Carrier’s theory of the entire Jesus cult appearing out of an entirely non-corporeal individual, and I don’t want to listen to Robert Price any more after hearing what he thinks of… well everyone who isn’t a white dude. What the fuck dude. Not that Carrier isn’t also a what the fuck dude, both of these guys seem to suck ass, but that’s a personal opinion and not actionable defamation.

But the thing is with my mythicism, I’ve said it’s that I don’t believe enough of the events in the New Testament attesting to what Jesus said or did to believe he existed. The counterpoint is that hey, there was definitely at least one apocalyptic preacher named [Jesus] in that period of history who got executed by the Romans. And note that [Jesus] in this case isn’t the word Jesus, but it’s the name of the guy that sometimes someone will translate to Joshua (which is as much a translation as Jesus is) and sometimes they’ll get all heroic on me and give it a Yeshua or whatever. Not important, not relevant. The thing is, this is a character who people can point to and like, mathematically, yeah, there absolutely is a guy with that name who died in that time in that way, it just seems so effortless and non-unique a thing. But that’s like, so what? You can get me to admit there was a dude with kinda that name in kinda that time and then that like, the majority of the stuff in the Bible about him didn’t happen, so what does that get you?  

And that’s enough for some people! “He was a real historical person” even if all the information we have about him is fundamentally suspect because it’s in a story that includes a zombie apocalypse and eclipse and also a dude coming back from the dead. The typical rejoinder is that all sorts of mythical information is held in other texts, and I don’t doubt (say) the existence of Alexander the Great. The comparison annoys me because the evidence of Alexander is a lot better, what with the multiple cities recording when he showed up and kicked their shit in.

But that’s what I mean when I say I’m a mythicist. I don’t believe there’s meaningful evidence that any of the things attributed to a real dude who really existed in the Bible. That’s not to say ‘I believe Jesus didn’t exist.’ It’s to say that the character Jesus as expressed by the name Jesus is, to me, functionally a fictional character.

But okay, this is just restating things you probably have heard from me before.

What about Moses?

See, the thing with Moses is that Moses is a little weirder. When I’m talking about Jesus, the commonality of that name is pretty comical, it’s like saying ‘was there a dude named David in my home city when I was born’ and yeah almost certainly. But Moses is a weirder thing because Moses, as a name, isn’t a Hebrew name. It is now, people name themselves after the historical figure, but in the time period, we don’t have records of other people with that name, or names like it in the similar text. Well, in Hebrew names. It’s actually pretty common to see the ‘mose’ term in Egyptian names. I’m being coy of course – it’s commonly accepted amongst Biblical scholars and Archaeologists that ‘Moses’ is actually more likely a name of Egyptian origin. Which gets even more interesting when you look at the archaeological history of Egypt and the historical territory of the Israelites.

Like, we can be very confident the Exodus didn’t happen. The numbers don’t add up, the impact on the environment doesn’t work, the distances are nonsense and oh yeah there’s all the magic in it that doesn’t happen. The Israelite language and cultural signs are all continuous with the surrounding areas, which is to say, the people the Bible considers as ‘Caananites’  (or Hittites  or Jebusites or Amalekites). There’s no challenging narrative here for me: The people of the community built up a backstory that justified their relationship to their god in their space and over time that story became the one we see and became entrenched enough to be recorded consistently and then Gutenberg does the printing press and we’re now bickering about the placement of commas.

But why does their backstory they invented for themselves include Egyptian oppression and a hero with an Egyptian name?

That’s interesting to me. That’s interesting because, if you view the Bible as a book made up of text written by people over time to achieve ends, then some of the stories start to make sense as patching things and addressing problems. Moses being a prince of Egypt (as it were) with his backstory about the death of the firstborn gives the story a lovely symmetry (God only killed all the firstborn of Egypt because, as it were, they started it). It also explains how a Jewish hero was raised in the Egyptian palace and had an Egyptian name. But also, why?

It reminds me of lines of continuity; at some point in the story, people were very sure about Moses being Moses, and they were very sure of him being an Egyptian Prince. There was someone with that name who was important, important enough to be the centrepiece of an entire story that just so happens to be about the Exodus.

And thus we come back to Christopher Columbus. Because when people make a fuss about ‘hey, there was a historical character of these people,’ so fucking what? Those historical personae were almost certainly wildly disconnected from what the book describing them and their actions are like. That there was some dude named Moses is interesting! But also, he definitely wasn’t the guy in the Bible. The thing in the Bible is made up of signifiers and he doesn’t care if there was a historical dude or not.

Jesus and Moses are both dudes who may have existed. But neither of the dudes that existed are the dudes that are depicted in their texts. Moses’ existence is interesting because I feel like you can see the seams in the text, you can see where stories got added or invented to address a problem and it’s a problem we don’t see. It’s more obvious in Jesus’ case, where this whole dude Barabbas was produced and Pontius Pilate said he’s not executing Jesus, please don’t put it out there on the internet that he was executing Jesus. Those things make some sense, with the aims you can tell of the competing sects around the story at the time.

But what about Moses?

It’s pretty easy to tell that there needed to be stories to justify various military conquests in the time. The Amalekites, for example, were basically considered an acceptable target because of their interference with the Exodus, which suggests that that part of the story was written so it was okay to attack the Amalekites at some point. Inventing stories about how terrible your neighbours are to justify murdering them was a whole thing, like you can see it even now where Christians say that the genocide of the Caananites with all the baby murder was good, actually, because the Caananites were so wicked that their infant babies deserved to be murdered. The story validates the moral position that justifies the action.

And we don’t know what the stories were, or what the stories changed to be, over time, as they took someone who was probably named Moses, and morphed them over time to explain things like why he had an Egyptian name, but was actually an Israelite, honest. After all, we wrote it down. Story says so. You wouldn’t doubt the story, would you?

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