#and then she treated me just like my mom and tried to gaslit me bc I was a threat to her and get me sent away so her family can be perfect

[agent-44mc]

*gets comfy in pink bed, lights lavender candle, opens pink laptop, sees my Taylor Swift wallpaper, opens google docs, smiles* ah yes, where were we? Oh right, murder! The fun part!

[marshmallowprotection]

I replayed Seven’s route and saw through the secret ending episodes (haven’t done that since 2019) and man is it me or is Rika kinda apathetic towards Saeran in the secret endings. In Ray’s route and especially his AE, she’s so fixated and obsessed with him and Saeyoung in hopes of this “happy family” and to feel needed. She was obsessive and possessive saying how much she loves Saeran like a mom loves her son. But in the Secret Ending when Saeran had a mental breakdown over him not getting the revenge Rika promised him. She got irritated and basically asked her believers to brainwash Saeran again and treated him like he was disposable, like Saeyoung can just take his place in “paradise”.

Like what happened, do you think the time between Another Story and Original Story was enough for her to lose her humanity along the way and play prophet full time. Like how Saeran’s demeanor in both those timelines are different bc he had to withstand Mint Eye’s treatment long enough to fixate on revenge completely and get a tattoo that solidified his devotion to what he didn’t know was a false cause.

Do you think Rika’s apathetic attitude is why Ray was “disposed” of in OS (I would say as an alter he was just dormant, covering his eyes and ears in a sense yknow?). Ray didn’t really play any part in OS so I thought Rika was done “playing mom” (since in the AE she said she missed Ray bc Ray was someone who needed her.) and wanted 100% focus on her plan

Sorry for rambling too much, this started off as a simple question but then my brain went “wait 🤔 what if 🤨”

-Moomi✨

So, a lot of this comes down to how you feel about connecting the two stories. A lot of people do not connect Another Story and Deep/Casual. So there are people that will say that it's just two different realities where possible circumstance can happen. I personally connect the two and I write with that in mind. Let me just say that there is a two-year time period between the two points that you can play in. That is a long time for things to happen and play out.

It's only been 6 months since he was taken in Another Story when Ray is there. Not a lot of time has passed and he is fresh in paranoia and in the manipulation that has been expended upon him. He is loyal to a T and very emotionally distraught. He is very lost and clinging to the last shred of hope that he has. There's a part of him that is cut throat and willing to destroy if that's what he has to do, but there's another part of him that's crying out when that happens.

Because he doesn't want to do those things but he has no choice.

She is the only person that's left in his life that hasn't abandoned him and he truly believes everything that she's told him. He's constantly trying to get her praise and attention because he doesn't want to be left behind. Suit Saeran said to himself that all of their vulnerable points of holding onto hope are inside of Ray. There is a reason why without the MC that Ray wouldn't be able to survive for very long. It's because Ray would never be getting positive influence. He would be a hurt more and more the longer that he was forced to lash out.

It would eventually destroy him. It would be too painful for him to exist because he would have nothing and it would be pointless. He would run himself ragged to give his savior what she wanted and he wouldn't be able to keep up with what she wanted. It would overload him. That is why Suit Saeran what eventually emerge at some point during that time period that would be after Ray combusted.

Suit Saeran isn't exactly stable either. He is built on anger and animosity, but he has just as many emotions as Ray has even though he tries to deny them. It's just instead of balling up everything inside of him, he's taking it out on everyone else because that's what he's been told his strength. He would work himself just as hard as Ray had, but there would be a part in the side of him that was just as twisted.

I personally do not see Suit Saeran and Unknown as the same person so that's important to note here. I imagine that at some point during that period after he gained control, something really bad would happen and it would cause a fracture inside of him. Unknown would be born if that split and eventually take control of the body. He is a lot more twisted. He's let go of the part of him that has hope, and the only thing that he's holding onto is devastation and destruction.

Everything is everyone else's fault and they need to pay for it. His sole purpose is completing their Revenge. He has a one-track mind and there's no doubt about that. He doesn't know what he's even going to do once he gets his revenge. He hasn't even planned that far. You can see that in a lot of the Bad Endings on Seven's Route. He is very emotionally vulnerable and on a hairpin trigger that could be easily broken. In a way he's like Ray. He and Ray have a lot more in common than he and Suit Saeran do with that.

Unknown has fully committed himself to this system. Whereas, with Ray and Suit Saeran, the both of them are able to express to the MC in the game, but they have doubts and that they know that she's not right but they have no other choice. Yes, they are committed to it in a sense but that doesn't mean that they are completely and wholeheartedly consumed by the Cult. There is still a part of them that is seeking that individuality and fighting against the pain and what sounds wrong.

Unknown has given himself to this. He sees no other point and he sees no other purpose. He's been tortured and pushed around his entire life, and it's been blamed on V and Saeyoung. This is the only thing that he's able to focus on and it's the only thing that he knows. It's the only thing grounding him. Rika is right behind him and whispering these lies and manipulation into his ear every single day. She treats him the way that she treats all of them, like a dog chasing food on the end of a string. She says pretty words and has great ideas, but if you follow her, you're never going to get the treat at the end.

And with Unknown, you know that he's been gaslit and manipulated to a degree much more lengthy than what Ray and Saeran went through; he's been stuck in this place by himself with nobody to hold on to. That just didn't stop because he started listening to what she wanted. That continued on. So did her constant denial of giving him praise. He's constantly trying to do things for her and that will make her praise him, and she always avoids doing it. He's always Chasing the Sun but he's never going to be able to touch it.

With Rika, you know that she's trying to cope by saying that she's a better mother. She's so lost in everything that she's been through and all of this anger that she's holding onto, that she's masking everything that she's doing and living her lie to the fullest. It's her way or the highway. She wants to get her revenge and she wants to prove that she was always right. She wants to be able to look at the crumbled remains of RFA as they seemingly all join her side one by one, and leave V in the dust.

She wants him to be a million things all at once. Her expectations for him are beyond what anyone could ever be. She says if you do this or that, she'll praise you and you'll be the best. But in reality, you're never going to be good enough in her eyes. That is the reality that he has to face. It's one that he tries to deny because she's made him truly believe that she's the only person that he has left. Yet, she treats him so horribly and only gives him enough so that he doesn't have enough doubts to make a fight.

She is apathetic. It's been so long and he's been failing her consistently in the secret ending. He wasn't able to get the MC. He wasn't able to get the party guests or the plans. He wasn't able to make good on any of the promises that he said that he was going to do. She's angry at him and she does what she's always done, blame him for being too emotional and punish him with more cleansing ceremony is so he can become the person that she wants them to be.

But like I said, the problem with that is that he's never going to be what she wants him to be.

She gets impatient. She stops putting on a pretty and friendly face for him. It's because he's not getting her the results that she wants fast enough. It's because he's not living up to what she wants him to be. It's because she's not happy and no matter how much she tries to use him to get what she wants to be happy, she's never going to be happy.

She's in a completely different place at this point in her life than she was in Another Story. She's had a hell of a lot more time to ruminate and get angry about how she's not getting results. At some point, she gets bored and tired of not getting what she wants. She's got a throne and she's got all of this power, but it's not making her happy. V is never giving her the response that she wants whenever they interact, and this just keeps feeding back into it. Her unchecked trauma and inability to accept responsibility for her crimes all play into this. The shame and the guilt...

I really do think that she lost whatever shred of humanity that she had. If you want to say that she had any of it. She's really had more time to get herself into place with the Savior position. She starts to think that she did the right thing by what she did to Mother Choi. She starts to think that she was right about doing what she did to the boys. What she did to V.

All of the people around her are constantly likening her to a saint and telling her that everything that she's doing is perfect and correct. She becomes more and more desensitized to the violence that she is committing. She is personally involved with many of the cleansing ceremonies. She is constantly there with all of this violence and trickery.

These are things that affect your psyche.

At some point, everyone around her is just useful for her goals. She doesn't really care what happens to Saeran because she has no more patience for him. He's constantly questioning her and fighting her. He doesn't listen like Ray listened. He makes a point of pushing back and at some point she just decides that it would be easier to get rid of him if she has to do it. In a lot of the Bad Endings, he does not know what the trigger to the bomb does. She literally just tells him that it's going to do something that will hurt his brother so much.

And he believes everything that she says. In those endings, she gives him the trip to the bomb because she wants to clear up the loose end. If she gets rid of him, she can easily manipulate his brother to do what she wants and turn him against V. She can use that opening to get whatever she wants. Seven would never know. She would just change her tactics and manipulate the other brother. Because at this point in her life, all she cares about is getting back at V. She blames him for everything and wants to destroy him for it. Nothing else matters at that point. She has a one-track mind at that point.

And what's more disheartening is the fact that she thinks that she wants that, but there's something inside of her that doesn't want that. She's just as conflicted as the rest of them are. I think it should be very telling to anyone about what's going on in her head space just by telling you to look at how willing she is to throw him away in the secret ending. She was ready to just throw him into the basement to have him used and abused again. Even if his brother tries to defend him and offer himself up, she's still pretty much ready to throw Saeran away.

She screams at him because he doesn't listen. That's why she says that she should have took his brother instead. She's tired of him fighting her and not obeying her every order and being her little puppet. She stops caring about him as a son when she realizes that a son isn't going to be her cute little puppet.

[into-control]

submission:

tw: abuse, violence: I'm gonna sound a little dumb, but I think I've only just realized that my dad is abusive (?). like I always knew he was toxic and awful, but I never thought he was abusive because he rarely hits us, and also bc he's sometimes kind. like he's not awful all of the time, he can be funny and normal sometimes.

but like, here are some things my dad's done that make me think he's abusive:

- getting mad at a dog for *looking at him* and then running it over with his car

- is anti-semitic, very sexist, very homophobic, and racist

- if something doesn't go his way, he will throw a tantrum and break things, slam doors, throw things around, etc

- he always threatens to beat my teenage brother

- my little brother is only 8 years old, but if he ever does something wrong, my dad will get in his face and intimidate him and scare him. he never hits him, but he'll swear at him and say things like, "you watch what I'll do to you"

- he punched my mom in the nose once and gave her a nosebleed

- one time, I tried to skip school as a teenager, and he punched me in the head

- he had a dream that my mom cheated on him and tried to strangle her in her sleep before he realized it wasn't real. he tells this story like it's funny

- he always tells my mom that he'd kill her if she ever left him

- one of his best friends is a convicted rapist. there was no DNA evidence, so my dad insists his friend is innocent and gets angry if you even imply there's a possibility he's guilty. he visits him in prison every month.

- he's extremely fragile and sensitive. literally the epitome of toxic masculinity

- he thinks trump is "authentic" and "not like other politicians"

- he doesn't work at all. my mom works full-time. he forces my mom to give him half of her earnings, and he controls what she can spend… even though it's HER money

- he only ever spends ~his~ money on himself, but my mom has to pay most of the bills and for food and for everything we need

- he never helps around the house but will throw angry fits if the house isn't clean to his standards

- one time, he yelled at me and threatened to smash my face in just because I said a fictional man on TV that tried to murder a woman just because she talked back to him was "victimizing himself"

- another time, he thought I tried to run away from him, and he described in graphic detail how he would break every bone in my body and murder me if I ever tried that again

- one time, he yelled at me and threw a chair at me just because I was barefoot downstairs

- another time, he told me that if I ever embarrassed him, he would strangle me to death and then drown me

- he's insanely jealous and possessive and won't even let my mom speak to another man

- one time, a guy on our street intentionally blocked him in so that he couldn't get his car out of the driveway, so my dad got a hammer and started smashing his car up and screaming. my mom had to beg our neighbor not to press charges and my neighbor eventually agreed under the condition that my dad paid for the damage

- he goes out of his way to watch movies with "unhinged" male leads that torture and murder other people - usually women. and he gets some kind of sick pleasure out of watching these movies, like he grins and talks about how much he can relate to the guy onscreen and smiles during the murder scenes

- he's the biggest immature manbaby ever. I can't explain how childish he is

- he constantly victimizes himself. "I'm a product of society", "I'm only like this because no one loves me", "I have mental health issues, it's not my fault I get angry sometimes", "if you idiots actually listened to me for once, then I wouldn't have to get angry, would I?", "I had a terrible childhood, so now I'm a bit psycho, and you're going to have to deal with that", "you're lucky to have a dad like me, I could hit you and abuse you if I wanted to, but you're lucky I'm too soft for that"

- he treats my mom terribly. he's awful to her. it makes me so angry, she deserves so much better because she's such a kind person. she's always crying over him when he's not home, and we all have to comfort her

- he's just a cruel, obnoxious, childish, fragile bully

- he's the biggest hypocrite you can imagine

- he really hates my youngest sister. he doesn't really like me and my mom and my other sister, but he DESPISES my youngest sister. she's only 14 years old. he always yells at her and puts her down. one time, he tried to beat her with a belt, and my mom had to jump in between the two of them just before he was about to hit her

- and the absolute worst part: to most people outside, he's so nice and polite to them. so everyone's always telling us, "oh, you're so lucky to have a dad/husband like him, he's so much better than other men", "make sure you appreciate your dad, he's a really kind man". it drives me fucking insane. everybody is ALWAYS on his side, and they think he's perfect just because they don't know what he's like at home. this is why it's so hard for me to think he might be abusive, bc everyone's always going on about how wonderful he is. like you really start to feel gaslit by it and wonder if you're exaggerating

so what do you guys think? abusive? or like, close to abusive? or not abusive but just really awful? he's really convinced he's a good person. like he genuinely believes he's kind and polite and that he just gets angry sometimes, but he says he can't help that because of his "issues" from childhood. if we ever complain about his behavior, he gets angry and says he's such a nice dad and we don't appreciate him and that we have it easy compared to other households where kids get treated badly and beat

————

i can’t speak for people in abused households but i’m sorry anon your dad sounds like, super abusive. especially towards your mother, he’s the classic manipulative and controlling partner. and abuse doesn’t always come in physical form, threatening to essentially kill you even if he doesn’t follow through with it is classified as abuse. it’s also classic abuser to act like a perfect family man until he’s behind closed doors with his family.

[heiterbroward]

Let's get this tacos...

Right, so everyone is saying this episode was good but am I the only one who thought it kinda made some people worse? Like why was Alice acting like her season 1 self as if nothing happened? She never learns, right? It's ok tho bc she loves Betty the most! If my mom said that to me, I'd be like "wut?" And they just accepted it like it was normal. It's like no...first of all, your favorite is Charles (whichever one is pretending to be him this week) so don't act like it's not, beast. Plus it's manipulative bc now Betty will think "oh she just treats me like this bc she loves me the most! I should be grateful!"

And the therapist wanted Betty to reconcile w Alice but for Veronica to cut Hiram out. I think Betty has every right to cut Alice out, but she can't bc the show refuses to let her be a villain bc they're obsessed w Falice for some reason. Which brings me to the next point that the show tries to act like FP is this great guy who worked so hard to redeem himself when actually he did the bare minimum of not drinking and getting a job (which was handed to him btw...he didn't earn et nor is he qualified bc Archie is the one doing his job basically). And Jughead worships him why? He is a shitty shitball.

So Betty's session made her forgive her mom (who's surprised?) and Jughead's made him give up on cases and work on writing! Jk the next scene was him and Betty talking about the case. All Jughead does is unload all his drama on Betty and use her as a human diary and she just goes "that's great, jug!" Does he even know what's going on with her? She just absorbs everyone's shit and keeps her own feelings to herself.

Why would the therapist tell Veronica to cut Hiram out when she was also aware that Veronica clearly doesn't actually want to? She offered no other solution, so now Veronica is gonna "take down" Hiram for the millionth time and be vengeful and angry when she SHOULD just ignore him. Like congrats, you're reacting exactly as he would and becoming exactly who he wants you to be.

Varchie doesn't even talk anymore; they just spend time together out of obligation js. And Bughead only talks about cases. But anyway...it's not really good that Cheryl thinks "cool im not crazy!" bc now she just thinks she's been justified doing everything she's been doing and gaslighting Toni. And now she can play the victim bc SHE'S apparently been the one being gaslit the whole time. Right...Screw Toni tho, she's such an enabler. Her only dialogue is "ok babe" and isn't a problem that Cheryl and Toni spend 24/7 yet Cheryl apparently still feels like she has no one who can comfort her except her brother's corpse? Something's not right...

And the therapist's solution to Archie was to bottle up his anger and use a hotline instead of hitting people. So instead he'll just snap a pencil out of rage and isolate himself from his mom. He's also trying to be the next Fred which I don't think is a healthy way to channel his grief. He holds himself up to being this impossible standard of the great man his father was and he'll never measure up to that ideal. But nobody talks about it.

How are Varchie gonna date past high school? I don't rlly ship Hiram and Fred and that's who they're becoming so...Ugh i hte Alice and FP. Just can't stop thinking about it! Veronica and Hiram's "obsession" w each other is getting a little weird. But at least Kevin didn't get a session. Why did he give Veronica a dirty look when she was celebrating the Harvard acceptance call? Like remember when they were friends...Archie and Betty are just competing to see who becomes the new Black Hood first. I think the real Charles is Dilpson. Where am we? Butterflinger

[bma-2020]

POST-SERIES THINGS, HOW MALLY GOT TO THE OYSTER WORLD.

(Notice for spoilers to Sy/fy Alic/e if you haven’t watched it and care abt spoilers or smthn)

     WHICHEVER method of Mally during the miniseries we go with (Method one: She joins Hatter and Alice on their endeavors when Hatter goes to find her in the forest. Method two: She’s been trapped in the Casino for awhile, after Jack Heart finds out where she is, goes to interrogate Hatter, and she turns herself in to ensure he doesn’t get in trouble for it.) This is how it ends up.

As Bean pointed out in this one post from probably 2014 or so since I was already following bean by that point, that I will forever be linking to even tho Bean doesn’t write Hatter anymore n tries to hide the fact that Bean can do math better than basically everyone or at least me, before Hatter goes through the looking glass to find Alice, it’s at least three months in Wonderland time. That’s why he’s all healed up, has nicer hair, changed his hat, god better clothes, all that. 

Whatever happened, I do have it where Mally was with him during that time. Whether it’s the healing period from being trapped for so long, or just her trying to fix him up because he’s a wreck and in denial of being a wreck, either way, she’s not the kind to ditch her friend. Especially when the new king is the same dude who she was forcibly engaged to before she ran away, gaslit her, tried to convince her to ‘work with him’ and he could ‘convince his mother to let her go’ before she was sent down to the asylum, she’s not happy about the current royalty. That, on top of how he’s treated hatter in the past (I know the series doesn’t go into it but I highly highly highly doubt Hatter was that antagonistic towards Jack just out of jealousy and because he was the Queen’s son, it seemed a bit more personal than that. ) she ain’t about that.

But, she notices just about everything about Hatter. Now, of course, as much as I don’t say anything bc I don’t want ppl to be all ‘oh you’re trying to force ship’ when a: i’m not. b: unrequited shit. c: this was canon for her when I wrote w other hatters throughout 2013 or so through 2015, I didn’t say anything, I avoided saying anything, but Mally definitely has always had some kind of love for him. It’s in her nature, she is in love with Hatter, and she won’t say anything, so I don’t either. We all know how I am, I don’t even tell people when I do ship the muses and would wanna write it out cause yknow, I have massive anxiety about that and scaring people away so if I let them come to me abt it instead its not my idea first and I can’t be ‘awful or terrible’ for being a person yknow how it is. 

Anyways, she definitely would have noticed that he was missing Alice. And, while from how we know my writing goes, she has those reflections of the original wonderland, she has vague memories of the original alice ( which, in the version where she was taken by Jack and put back in the asylum, those memories expand a lot. Thus meaning, she remembers a whole lot more about the original wonderland because she can’t avoid it in that situation.) she liked Alice H, but she didn’t view her as the ‘legend’, she didn’t see her as an ideal, she honestly would have preferred if he wanted to go find the OG Alice, but long and behold.

She’d convince him to do what was best for him.

Even in the situation where he’d be trying to help her out of that trauma, she’d still tell him not to worry about her, because she only wants what would make. him. happy. 

And yeah, that fucks her up when he actually goes.

I don’t think she said that with the belief he’d actually go, so him actually going definitely wasn’t expected. She wouldn’t have wanted him to go, she wanted him happy, but I think inside she actually thought he’d just choose her over someone he knew for three days. That’s her headspace, don’t twist my thought process on this bc I actually ship this specific version of h/attice but mally would still be like ‘you knew her for three frickan days dude’

so she’s extremely not okay during the first few weeks after he left. Jack tried to contact her during that time, he’s still trying to get her to work with/for him, she’s not about that. Even in a completely damaged state of mind, she ain’t gonna go with Jack Heart for anything.

But, during that damaged period, is when the Cheshire Cat comes back. She’s talked to him before, he’s the only one with complete memories of the prior world and the current world, he doesn’t actually tell anyone anything. He talks to her about the Wonders. She does wander off to try and find the Vorpal Blade, and she does. In the process, she comes across Necros.

Necros spoke to her for a few moments, and ultimately when she said she didn’t want to be around him, he left her alone. One of the first people since Hatter to show her any ounce of respect like that, tbh. She does have a moment of time where she ends up in the Court of Swords, learns her mom is a Queen, all that jazz, realizes her own mother wants to use her for something, nothing pretty comes of that. 

But, within a few weeks, she ends up having a breakdown in the forest, she’s alone, she’s abandoned, nobody wants to help her, everyone she meets wants to use her, the one person she thought wouldn’t hurt her left her for a girl he knew for three days. and then Necros finds her, alone in the forest of Wabe, he doesn’t say anything to her, but he does offer her a hand, and she ends up going with him. That’s how she ends up coming to the underground.

Necros, Celeste, the underground just treats her nicely. She’s not used to it, she sees that nice treatment as a huge ‘what the fuck’ tbh, she’s just like ‘idk what’s happening rn but they arent hurting me so’ Necros has Monstrous Crow train Mally further, as Monstrous Crow can replicate others powers and helps them to fully achieve their ‘perfect’ status. From what she understood, they weren’t helping her to ‘use’ them, they were trying to help her not have to isolate herself anymore. With Monstrous Crow’s powers, they were able to develop a stronger version of her brother’s injectables that allowed others to touch her (as, March and Hatter were the only two that weren’t affected by her extremely cold temperature). 

This was a lot stronger than the one her brother developed. They made one that she could take instead. Granted, if she takes it, it weakens her excessively for days at a time, so Necros doesn’t recommend she take it over convincing whoever else to do it, cause they only need one injection and they’re done, never have to worry about it again. She’d have to do it every few days and it hurts her, they tried finding a way outside of that, because she could get to the point of her own power where she can stop it, but she’s not there yet. She might never get there. 

And, she chose to stay with them because the idea of completely getting rid of the Hearts family and bringing the true royalty back to Wonderland (the High Arcana, since the White and Red families weren’t around anymore, either finding a surviving relative fit to rule or convincing the court of fools to stop keeping away from it) and Mally actually made it go beyond that. She wanted Alice to come back and rule because nobody would be more fit to rule than her and Necros agreed, thus it seemed fitting to put her in charge of their operations in the Oyster land. 

Now, a lot of the underground are magical and they’re scientists. They learned methods to transfer back and forth from the oyster world without the time shenanigans that happen with others. This basically means that they can use the looking glasses they made to traverse back and forth and the time they spend in oyster land, when they go back to wonderland the same amount of time still passed. They went beyond the study of realm travel to ensure they didn’t lose anything. 

Monstrous Crow went with her, and the original idea was ‘saving’ oysters that... were better than average humans, and who were suffering in their realm and needed to be accepted, needed people to help them feel better about themselves, honestly because who better to convince to be on your side than someone longing for positive attention. Mally still helps with that, but she’s also going beyond that, and she’s trying to find out where Alice Liddell went. What happened to her. 

She knows that after 150 years of their time, it could have been more for the oysters, and she knows oysters dont live that long. But she also knows Alice wasn’t all human, that there was something supernatural about her that gave her the ability to control aspects of Wonderland. Therefore, she believes that she can’t be entirely gone. Part of her had to be reborn into someone or something else and that’s who Mally’s trying to find, particularly hoping that she’ll be like Mally is and have recollections of the past. That’s her main goal. 

But, there’s another goal she has too. She is actually trying to find Hatter. I think it’s more for closure on her end, to learn if he’s happy, see if his ‘ditching her’ made life better for him. That would lead to a lot more emotional spikes on her end cause, lbr, she’s gonna think abt the fact that he was only happy after leaving her behind, she acts extremely self confident but internally she’s a mess.