#anyway I ASSUME we are all on the same page that I can find a way to put these two together regardless of how the story goes

[jinogasux-fr]

Santae banned me without telling me why and won't unban me unless I send them my photo ID

Hey guys sorry for not posting in… forever? I just suck at social media lol. But you may have seen that I've reblogged some posts that advertise Santae in the past, but please disregard all that. I've since deleted those posts after learning how the site is managed and, after what happened to me a few days ago, I feel as though I should go public about this. Because boy did I just get fucked over.

Anyway, yeah, what it says in the title. On October 24th, around 10am EST, I was restocking my user shop when the entire webpage went white. I couldn't access the site at all and, when I tried to look for the Discord on my server list, it wasn't there. I knew what this had meant. I got banned from both the game, and the Discord - this is important to keep in mind for later.

I didn't receive any Discord DM or email notification about my ban, so after asking a mod what their support email was (and yes, I later verified that this is indeed their legitimate support email), I sent them this:

After a few hours, I get this back in response:

There's so much I'm confused about here. I think the one that screams out the most is that they're asking me to show them my photo ID so I can get unbanned. Absolutely not. I refuse to do this. This poses a massive security and privacy risk. They straight up banned my account, gave this half-baked explanation, and told me I need to send my personal information or... I stay banned?

Let me make something clear: The only personal thing they have on file about this account is the email address that I created my account with, which I've also used to contact them. My real name, date of birth, anything of that nature would not be connected because this was not asked for during account creation, therefore this wouldn't actually prove I'm the account holder. Theoretically speaking, I could show them any ID in the world and for all they know, that's my real information, because they have nothing else to go off of. They even say as much in their privacy page.

Secondly, "account has been compromised"? What does that mean? I think anyone's interpretation of this would be that my account got hacked. But if my account got hacked, why wasn't I informed of this? I had to reach out to support, they did not reach out to me first. That means my password, which I may share across other sites, would have been known to someone else and thus I should've been warned of this immediately, not roughly 5 hours after the fact.

Thirdly, what, was my Discord "compromised" too? If an automated system had flagged my account, does that system somehow interact with a Discord bot so they ban a user on both at the same time? How does that work? That makes no sense as to why they'd ban me on both the game and the Discord for something like this, which is why I'm calling bullshit.

Let me tell you what I think happened.

Recently, Santae has been in some really hot water with connections revealing their relation to an older petsite, Lurapets, which has a history of scamming and artist mistreatment, as well as proof coming out of them using AI art for their NPC art. You can find these posts on the @santae-salt blog if you want to see for yourself, but I'm also linking them throughout this post.

Once the post about them being directly related to Lurapets was released, several users that the Santae staff thought might be involved in the creation of the post got banned. As it turns out, I was banned at the same time as these users.

After speaking with the @santae-salt admin, we are both of the belief that I, a regular user, got caught up in this mess because they're assuming I'm an alt account of someone else and staff demanded to see my ID because they didn't think I was a different person. It may turn out to be wrong, and yeah that sounds a bit far-fetched, sure, but really, what else can I go off of here?? Santae staff has given me a very questionable and refutable explanation as to why I've been banned, and their radio silence after I refused to send them my ID is just making me believe they don't think I'm real. They don't want my photo ID to verify I'm the account holder, they want my photo ID to verify I'm not someone else.

This is unprecedented. I've never seen any petsite ask for a photo ID in any situation, and after asking around, not even those banned from Santae were asked for this. It's just me! This is an incredible attempted breach of privacy, and, with Santae now under doxxing allegations, I really don't feel confident they'd keep my personal information… well, personal.

I messaged back almost immediately after they responded to me where I told them I would not send my ID and I had asked if there were any other way I could verify myself to get my account unbanned. I've received no response so far, and after what I've learned, I feel like I'm not going to get one at all.

So, let this be a lesson to you: don't waste your time on Santae. You can be the most obedient player out there. You can abide by all their rules, be a nice and generous player, or just be minding your own business, but if they so much as think you're associated with someone who they think has wronged them, you'll be banned.

And they can't even be bothered to properly tell you why.

[didyougaming]

Hi, gamers. I know the results of the Sandwich Poll have been gnawing at you. So many people wondering whether they answered correctly, which as a reminder is a very important factor in determining which afterlife you end up in when you die. Please understand that I needed a lot of time to internally process these poll results and also that I've been kinda busy/tired. But the people need to know, so here we go.

In total, we received 372 responses. I also spent a lot of my weekend annoying anyone who would listen to me in person about these questions, but I didn't write those answers down.

Question 1 was fairly non-controversial, as it should be. It is worth noting that 3.2% of respondents chose to write-in an answer, and most of these write-in answers were what scientists would call "bad" and "not really useful." So you can assume a 3.2% margin of error on everything in this survey. That's how statistics works.

Question 2 is where we see a real divide. Most respondents consider a sandwich cut into two separate but equal pieces to be one sandwich. This is a real shame, because it's the wrong answer. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Question 3 considers whether one piece of bread cut in half and used for sandwich-making results in a sandwich, and surprisingly the majority of respondents do consider this to be one sandwich. This is really interesting, because despite ending up with functionally and aesthetically the same result as one of the pieces of the sandwich from question 2, a significant number of respondents believe the results to be inherently different. I wish there was a way to better track how much overlap there was for those two seemingly contradictory answers, but the big Sheets page Google Docs is daunting and I don't feel like figuring out how to parse that data, so we just need to accept that we'll never have that exact number. That's how statistics works.

Question 4 mostly just cements the findings of the previous two questions. I do want to point out the one person who answered "who the fuck does this". Sandwich shops do this. Go to a sandwich shop for once in your life and really watch them do their work. Open your eyes.

Question 5 did not get me a lot of useful data, as it turns out having a question that only allowed for write-in answers was a bad idea. However, there are more or less two camps for people who really took these questions seriously and gave it their all. The first school of thought suggests that intent is the most important factor, and if you deem what you've made to be a sandwich, it's a sandwich. While I appreciate the critical thinking on display here, I believe in the other school of thought, which is that when you put ingredients between two breads that's a sandwich, baby. There is a sub-school of thought here that requires those two pieces to be whole pieces, but that's wrong.

One question that I should have included in the survey I think proves my point. If you order a sandwich platter from a deli and they use a single really long piece of bread (think like a several foot long hero) into multiple sections, you would say that you have sandwiches, plural. If you wanted to grab one, you wouldn't say "I'm going to grab a 64th of a sandwich" because you would sound deranged. Despite being parts of a larger whole, they are still ingredients between pieces of bread, and thus fit the definition of "sandwich."

Anyway, thank you for coming on this non-gaming detour with me. It was extremely important that I prove a friend wrong on this topic, and even though I don't think I did that and I think he's choosing to double down on his incorrect opinions, I'm still choosing to spin this as a personal and moral victory. New actual DidYouGamings will come out as soon as I discover any new facts about video games (right now there's only a couple hundred facts about video games at all and I've basically covered all of them.)

[originalaccountname]

Thank you for your reply!

And yeah, I mean when Chuuya shows up the first time in the manga and Dazai says that he sent a letter so Chuuya can't kill him, and oops Chuuya broke the chains so it looks like he broke Dazai out. His plan to me seemed like a bit of a plot hole at first because Chuuya is stronger and there's a bunch of cells and chains at his convenience in the mafia dungeon, and even without that there's nothing stopping him from continuing to punch Dazai...but part of me wonders if they both chose to ignore that on purpose and that is very funny to me. What's your take on that scene?

I have the unpopular opinion Dazai was 100% bullshitting his way through that encounter with Chuuya. Yes he could have escaped earlier, but he was waiting for a specific moment to do so. He was estimating the timing of what the others were doing. This is happening while sskk are having their battle on the ship and the ADA just got Ranpo on finding them. I fully believe that when Chuuya showed up it was a "oh no a sudden obstacle has appeared" situation to Dazai:

They bicker and fight like we've grown used to them doing, though Chuuya is the most violent he's been to him since he rammed him into a wall when they first met. There is pent up frustration and anger there. It's also Chuuya's introduction, so we quickly need to establish that he's strong, prone to getting annoyed by Dazai, and looks very cool. I'm serious his solo panels are so extra.

When Chuuya finally asks Dazai why he stayed captured instead of escaping, Dazai has to take a moment to think before answering him:

What happens here is that Dazai starts by saying the truth, that he let himself be captured to know who wants Atsushi. That destabilizes Chuuya, because Dazai helping someone isn't something Chuuya is used to. This leads to Chuuya taunting Dazai for having "gone soft" and revealing that he just came back from a mission:

Chuuya put himself at a disadvantage that way: if he was away and just came back, he is not aware of all the details and recent developments. Look at the bottom right panel on the second page ^, all black with a thinking bubble. Dazai just got an idea. Dazai can use this.

"if that were true, they should have contacted..." <- Chuuya wasn't told about any executive meeting because Dazai is making it up right now. There was no letter. Dazai is making up a dilemma for Chuuya to get stuck on, with just enough plausibility that Chuuya can't immediately brush it off.

Plus, when Chuuya is finally cornered, he simply assumes Dazai one-upped him again by turning his own words against himself:

When he walks in:

When Dazai corners him:

When Chuuya first said he was here to spite him, Dazai looked tense. When Chuuya remembers it, it's to Dazai's little "yep" + looking away pretending this was aaaaall planned and not at all something he just came up with.

Dazai is the "improvise adapt overcome" king, I have no doubts he enjoyed making Chuuya squirm, but I don't believe he stayed for that at all. It was just a surprise treat.

Chuuya absolutely had more options than killing Dazai or letting him escape there. There really wouldn't have been any surprise to Chuuya going "yeah so I broke his restraints and then put him back sorry". He just sort of gave up the idea of holding Dazai back in any way. Yeah he could have chained him up. Dazai would have escaped anyway. Chuuya knew Dazai was only waiting for something.

And you want me to believe Mori was aware they captured and chained Dazai and expected him to stay there? They have the same escape artist hobby. Mori was taking bets with Kouyou for how long it would take Dazai to get out. Mori wants Dazai back: chapter 10-11 are in the 3rd volume, and the bonus of the 4th volume is Chuuya drunkenly calling Dazai to complain about the boss telling him he wishes Dazai would come back. Why would killing Dazai even be on the table?

My final thoughts though is BSD is a live series that has been going on for over 10 years, and it's expected that some details would change as time goes on. Dazai asked Chuuya why he bought his hat. Dazai of all people should know what the hat represents. Asagiri just didn't know yet what the hat would mean because this was chapter 10 and Chuuya was just introduced. So everything is to take with a grain of salt.

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

Chase Young/First Ninja is such a good ship though? It has it all. The tragedy. The drama. The clashing of ideals, assuming Chase even has any ideals left. The villain starting out with purely selfish intentions and ending up desperately trying to stop the hero from self-destructing, while the hero refuses to turn away from his path no matter what, which leads him to become just as inhuman as the villain--okay, I will stop. Seriously though, there's probably a parallel to be made about Chase having lost his soul to his magical transformation while the First Ninja seems to be more himself than ever despite being stuck in a book. Perhaps that's the difference between someone who lost sight of what truly mattered and someone who hyperfocused on the most important things.

Anyway, I just imagined the events of RC9GN playing out, but Chase Young is chained up somewhere really inconvenient (for Randy) and giving (bad) advice the entire time, so. Laugh rule, I need to tell you your idea rocks.

NO NO, PLEASE CONTINUE TALKING 👀👀👀

This is a fascinating angle that I haven't considered before! I mean, there is trully something very tragic about an inherently selfish villain's motivations becoming just a little bit less selfish as he tries to essentially 'save' the hero from his noble self-sacrifice/destruction in the name of duty. And it really fits their dynamic, because while Chase is an evil selfish asshole, no one can deny that he is honorable and that he can care and First is certainly stubborn enough about his duty. Gives just even more angst flavor to this ship, like WOW thats something I'm going to brood about for awhile.

And yes, their transformations (ascensions?) at the cost of their souls (i mean if we look at it closely, First basically sacrificied his soul to be forever preserved??? AND lost his mortal body in the process. so, inhuman in a sense.) in pursuit of their goals, is something that I see as parallels too! (wow anon, same brainwave!!) (It's also why i really like the ship name i made up for them haha)

akljadfkadsk xD yeah!!! thats basically the idea when I first sketched out the Captured Outcome for Chase in the VS event! Chase is just sort of hanging out in his forever prison, bothering spirit of First, and Randy somehow discovers him and Chase becomes that charismatic captured manipulative antagonist that gives morally dubious advice, than Nomicon/First, to the hero (that ultimately leads to Randy accidently releasing Chase and so on). (In my head, I call this AU a Hidden Chapter because Randy is basically browsing Ninjanomicon when he accidently stumbles on a reference to Chapter/Page dedicated to Chase and tries to find the rest of the info.)

Dude thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed it! <3 And thank you for some good ideas like 👀 gonna use that energy as fuel for some projects. >;3c

[writingseaslugs]

Octavinelle: When You're Sick

Favorite dorm here we go! This was fun to write and hmmmm I really wanna be taken care of by the Octrio. They can be good at it, I swear! As always, the intro is the same as Heartlabyul and Savanaclaw, so feel free to skip it if you’ve already read those parts.

Disclaimer: All characters in this series are aged up. For more information about my version of this world and the type of reader you can expect, please click the “Au Information” below!

Request Information | Masterlist | Au Information

Octavinelle: When You’re Sick

The worst thing to ever happen to you while attending Night Raven College had to be, hands down, getting sick. You were alone in the dorm with only ghosts and Grim to keep you company, and as much as you loved them, they couldn’t take care of you when you became sick. This meant you had to make do and hope that everything was alright. Normally if you were under the weather, you’d just suck it up and go to class so as to not worry anyone. This time however, that wasn’t an option.

You woke up with every muscle in your body feeling sore and aching with even the slightest movement. Your stomach churned something fearsome and you had a runny nose and cough to boot. You had no idea what illness you had fallen to. Having so many symptoms…you could only assume it was the flu or something akin to that.

Still, there was no way you were making it to class like this. So begrudgingly you told Grim you weren’t feeling good and needed to rest, and to go to class and get your homework so you could do it later. The demon cat was grumpy about not having his henchman, but eventually gave in, leaving you alone to rest in your room and hope that whatever you had would go away.

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul is going to be concerned the moment he hears from Floyd and Jade that you’re home sick. He knows you tend to take care of others and neglect your own health, at least in the time he’s known you at the college, so he’s automatically assuming the worst. So he’s going to excuse himself from his own work at the lounge, pack up all his paperwork, and head over to your dorm. He needs to make sure his best customer, and sometimes best worker when you were strapped for cash, was okay and not actually dying, as Floyd so eloquently put it.

He’s not half bad at taking care of others oddly enough, though he is lacking in experience. It’s one of the many things he studied in his free time, so he at least knows what he’s doing. He’ll be calling the nurse anyway just to check in on you and make sure it’s nothing too serious. Once he gets that out of the way, he’s going to do his best in following directions and making sure you recover in the most timely manner possible.

Thankfully he does care for you, so he won’t be making any comments about how helping you out will come with a price later, like picking up shifts at the lounge. In fact, he’s very gentle with you and asks questions in a softer voice than normal. He even orders food from the lounge to be delivered so you can have something warm to eat that’s also delicious. He will be doing work on the side, especially the moment you fall asleep, so don’t be surprised if you wake up to pages turning.

Once you’re better it’s like a weight is lifted off his shoulders. He’ll be in a chipper mood as well, something the twins will notice right away. If you bring up wanting to repay him, he’ll just inform you that if he ever falls sick, you’ll be the one nursing him back to health. A good compromise in the end, and something you were already planning on doing for him.

Jade Leech

Jade won’t have too much of a reaction to finding out that you’re sick, other than a frown being placed on his lips. He finds out through Floyd when he’s complaining that his Shrimpy couldn’t come out and have fun since they were dying at home from some horrible, debilitating disease. Jade knows his brother is playing things up, but this does give Jade the little push he needs to go in and visit you to make sure you’re okay.

Thankfully Jade is one of the more competent boys when it comes to taking care of others. He’s already figured out exactly what was wrong with you and is grabbing some of the best medication from Sam’s, since the stuff the nurse has is “mediocre at best”. Since Jade is normally the one having to take care of Floyd when he’s sick, he knows all the things to do if you happen to be stubborn, especially with taking medication. 

He’s just very soft with you, showing you a genuine smile as you eat the soup he brings you, and playing with your hair. He doesn’t need to do much when taking care of you, trusting the medication to do all the work, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to want to leave your side. Just expect Floyd to be paying you a visit as well, even if you’re asleep, and waking you up. Where you have one twin, chances are you have both of them, but it’s all good since they’re both amazing at making you smile. Jade stays even after Floyd gets bored and heads back though, and he’s without a doubt skipping his shift at the lounge that night.

Jade is in a noticeably better mood once you’re better, but don’t be fooled. He’s going to be using this against you in an attempt to have you join him on one of his hikes. Saying something about the fresh air and moving your body will be good for you. He won’t force you, but he’s definitely going to be playing up that he’s so hurt if you decline. Just go with him, if you get tired the string bean of a man can and will carry you up a mountain.

Floyd Leech

Floyd doesn't even know how to react when he discovers you’re sick. He’s both mad and sad, all at the same time. People are going to be parting like the red sea the moment they see him walking down the hall with a scowl on his face. His shrimpy couldn’t possibly be sick, it wasn’t fair. He had so much planned to do with you today and now you couldn’t even leave your bed? He won’t stand for this and after pouting for half the day, Jade comments that he can simply visit you and maybe help you feel better. There goes the switch and suddenly Floyd is in an amazing mood as he ditches the rest of his classes and work just to go and visit you. 

Floyd isn’t half bad with taking care of others if he’s in the mood to do it. He is the one who takes care of Jade when he’s sick (which normally Jade gets sick right after Floyd). He’s not going to be talking to you in a super gentle voice, or babying you unless he finds it fun to do so. If you happen to get flustered by him doing so, then he’ll be more inclined to literally spoon feed you.

Floyd is just going to raid your medicine cabinets rather than going out anywhere, since it’s just the flu he assumes it’s not too bad. He’s also using your kitchen to cook you some meals and bringing them to you. He’ll be smiling brightly when you’re eating the food he made, and whenever you take the medicine. He feels so accomplished knowing that you’re getting better due to his efforts. There is a good chance he won’t be spending the entire day by your bed, since he’ll get bored, but he will be there on and off the entire time you’re sick.

You’re getting a good, healthy squeeze the moment you’re all better. Floyd is just over the moon and already telling you about all the things he has planned now that you’re no longer dying. Be nice and humor him, he has been going through a lot of emotions the entire time you’ve been sick. He just managed not to show you, but anytime he left the dorm, he was back to being grumpy and irritable, to suddenly depressed and closed off. He was really only smiling when taking care of you, so he deserves to squeeze you for a good while now that you’re no longer sick.

[hatsukeii]

"WE ARE THE BLOOD IN OUR...WAS IT VEINS OR ARTERIES AGAIN?" / T. KUROO

PROLOGUE | M.LIST | NEXT. |

warning(s): a very offhanded, not serious mention of suicide, also ochem and bio!

wc: ~1.0k

When Kuroo Tetsuro sees another glaring "2" that bleeds into the white paper of his chemistry exam, he has to consciously restrain his fingers from curling up around the cover and crumpling it until it is unrecognisable to the naked eye.

"Great work, Kuroo, as expected. 84%, keep it up!"

He smiles at his teacher, only customarily, with a grin that presses tight against his lips to hide the grinding of his teeth.

"Yeah...thanks."

For the second time in his life, somebody; some monster, or formidable foe, has pushed his head into the ground and risen from the dirt in this subject. From the front of the room, Kuroo slams his paper into the desk face down, a thud sounding from the slapping of paper on wood. His head snaps around his shoulder, eyes scanning his classmates behind him for a gleam in someone's eyes, or a face that tries to stay still, but trembles at the apples of its cheeks. Chatter about specific questions drones on, heads bury themselves into clammy hands, pens tick as impatient thumbs tap anxiously at the clicker shafts. An air of dread and nihilism paints the room grey, white lab lights buzzing and flickering more like that of a morgue as hopes and dreams are slowly, but surely, dissected with the flick of a pen that etches numbers into a test paper.

He should be glad, after all, he's in second place! Just barely grazing the top spot of the cohort! The education system is largely flawed anyways! Life is not a grade! He is still worthy of merit!

Kuroo's mind races for consolation, only to find sarcastic, half-hearted sentiments plucked from inspirational TED talks watched in his showers, and mandatory wellbeing assemblies enforced by the school to prevent students from finding the urge to launch themselves off bridges. He rips through the pages of his exam, picking at every calculation error, and missed argument, and misused theory that emerges from his work. He can almost hear their laughter, screechy and squeaky as they wiggle and twist on the paper, before shooting out of the page to laugh a little louder in his face.

"Guys, just take a look over here, since almost everyone messed up drawing this diagram. LDPE is supposed to be branched, but I still need to be able to read how many carbons and hydrogens are on each chain."

The projector ahead flicks on to reveal a perfect diagram, branches and webs of polyethylene connected neatly to one another, carbons and hydrogens labelled between each spot. Kuroo stares at his own diagram, a mess of lines and scribbled letters, all rendered futile beneath the ink red cross of judgement. He bets that whoever beat him wouldn't have gotten the words "illegible" stamped beside their polyethylene diagram. Wait, is that an S, or a 5?

From four rows behind, a pair of eyes train onto a sticky note stuck on a page of the exam. Just beneath the outline that houses the same polyethylene diagram on the projector screen, a labelled neuron is sprawled across the fluorescent yellow of the note. You rip the note off, clicking your tongue at the loss of a mark on the next question, before sticking the neuron diagram into a lined notebook. Peeling a new sticky note from your notepad, a pen spins between the joints of your fingers, rolling in steady backs and forths along your hand. You bite down on the hard plastic of the clicker shaft, flipping through the rest of the pages as you wiggle the pen up and down with your teeth to ease your bubbling annoyance. Seriously, who even cares about the difference between "suppose that" and "assume that" anyways?

A flick of the page with your hand flips the test back on its cover, and you slap the fresh sticky note onto the circled "1" that graces the top of the page, before scribbling the frontal lobe of a brain on the fluorescent green square in preparation for your lunchtime duty.

author's note:

to say that i haven't been either reader or kuroo would be a lie because you bet your ASS i am arguing for anything and everything i can get in an exam paper.... ANYWHO welcome to the new series!!! I've decided to make this into a series because of both the poll and personal planning preference LOL don't hate me pls but i hope u enjoy!!!

tags: @staraxiaa @iiwaijime @hiraethwa @akaakeis @wyrcan @chuuya-brainrot @catsoupki @bailey-reeds @fiannee @cupidsblonde @she-lovesmyheartshapedsunglasses @kuroppiii

ok love u guys see u soon bye bye

[sailorblossoms-snowbaz]

Baz's raised eyebrow:

(yet another "Simon identifies as 'Baz-sexual' for very good reasons' post)

few things have annoyed me more with these books than when people do not take Simon's "I don't know anything about anything but maybe I'm just a Baz-sexual" comments seriously (dismissing it with a combination of not paying attention to what he's putting down and good old confirmation bias). He even says it in less "goofy" ways with lines such as "he's the only person I have ever wanted" (in the context of thinking about having sex) (note the emphasis on ever) (yes, it's one of the clues saying he didn't want to have it with Agatha, in case it's not clear)

"Like Baz has only ever wanted Simon, Simon has only ever wanted Baz," is necessary to bring up before I get to my point here. I have seen Simon being read as in love or attracted to Agatha ("he must have been or else how they had sex?"... I mean, Simon tells you why it happened without attraction, but even if he didn't, we could make an alphabetized list of reasons it can happen without it, the desire to fit in is no joke) or the idea of Simon liking all sorts of girls, including the girl he pointedly doesn't notice despite her being obvious to others, for the sake of drama and conflict. I have wondered if they don't believe the characters, or if they find the highlighted sentence here boring. "It's boring if the characters only want each other," "in real life people want multiple people" – indeed, but not everyone is wired the same (and why are we stuck on "real life" so much anyway in stories about half-dragon and vampire boys falling in love). But it's not like this sentence is without conflict. Note Baz's eyebrow...

In CO, when Simon says Trixie is cute, Baz's reaction is a boyish "I'm going to puke" comment, which is likely part of how he dealt with jealousy and thinking Simon was straight for years: masking his feelings with "harsh" or sort of "edgy" jokes (probably not the right words to use, but getting too hung up on precise wording is the reason I never finish these posts). In awtwb, Simon calls Pippa cute, and Baz raises an eyebrow...

By those reactions, we could say the idea of Simon calling someone cute because he finds them attractive crosses Baz's mind – or is something he feels in some way, even if the thought doesn't explicitly cross his mind. It's something the reader might assume as well... however, I don't think the way Simon uses cute – which can be used in many different situations – says anything about attraction for him. I mean, a gay man can see a girl being cute or gorgeous as well – Baz certainly does! (attraction is portrayed in these books as thoughts derailed, repetition, sentences being cut off, fixating in a detail no one else notices like they do – you see it with Baz and Simon, Agatha and Niamh, Shepard and Penny. Shep doesn't just call Penny cute – he loses his entire goddamn mind for a whole page about her cuteness and her knees. It's not just a passing comment).

I don't think those scenes when Simon says "cute" is highlighting something about him, other than the fact that he's able to note cuteness. I think it's saying more about Baz's insecurities (I know I once posted something long about it somewhere...) Baz brings attention to it in a way with his reactions... because he's bothered by it. It's something that's sort of hidden and sort of contained, but it's there.

Baz doesn't find himself desirable, partly because of his vampiric nature. But part of it is also about the complicated and messy fear that perhaps... Simon has a problem with being with a man (I know I have unpacked this in other posts, finding them though...). Perhaps "a girl would be better" (It's messier with boys than with girls, it's a thought that comes out before he catches himself with "I don't actually know anything about being with boys or girls".... "I don't know anything about being in a relationship," he says, while still being able to catch there was something wrong with Agatha and Simon's relationship when Simon talks about – because Simon will process things he would rather avoid when it's about opening up to Baz, he wants Baz to know things that would help Baz understand him better, even if he himself would rather not understand... still Baz can't let go of the programming of all those years believing in the golden couple – he has spent a longer time believing that than dating Simon, after all) (Agatha is alive and beautiful, the sort of beauty that's used to "embody" "desirability".... and Baz is "not alive"...) (as a side note, have you noticed the idea – or the actual action – of sex with Agatha is used both with Simon and Baz to indicate a lack of desire toward women?)...

While Simon thinks of Baz as the only person he has ever wanted – Baz is as desirable as it gets for him – Baz struggles with feeling desirable at all. Baz doubts and wonders and has to catch himself – even if he doesn't notice he's doing that. Even if he doesn't consciously think "a beautiful girl who is alive is more preferable than me, a gay male vampire." That is a far more interesting conflict than Baz having legit reasons to be jealous, I think. The fact that he has truly nothing to feel jealous about, and yet... he just can’t help it. It's hard to go against years of programming, of going against the idea that everything about yourself is undesirable and it's better to hide it – another way he matches with Simon. They also match in their insecurities, with small differences: Baz is so amazing and attractive while Simon doesn't feel like he's good enough for him, he can do better than him, etc... while Baz clearly only has eyes for Simon, Simon feels like Baz is merely stuck with him. And the conflict here is that you think "they need to TALK and voice their thoughts for the love of god, what do you mean Baz doesn't know Simon sees him as the love of all his lives??"... talking is not enough. That Simon and Baz only have eyes for each other is not without conflict. Sometimes we need to keep hearing some things, and even then... the fears and insecurities don't go away. Especially when we have spent a really long time believing ourselves to be unwanted, undesirable, something to be hidden. When we have been exposed to things that confirmed those beliefs for longer than we have been exposed to things that challenge them

[paper-starz]

WELCOME HOME THEORIES AND ANALYSIS! FRIDAY THE 13th EDITION!

HUH?? A surprise Welcome Home Update???

WITH LORE AND SECRETS?!?!?!

Ohohohoho! You know yours truly loves lore! And oh boy... Theres a lot to unpack here.... So buckle your seatbelts folks! I might've discovered something BIG

WARNING! THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE HALLOWEEN UPDATE! OH AND THIS IS GONNA BE VERY VERY LONG!

Ok, first things first, THE THEORY

I might've figured out who the main antagonist could be, and it's not Wally or Home. In fact, it has been staring at us the entire time, we've just never realized it.

I think the main villain of Welcome Home could be the spooky swirly void living inside of Home.

"WHAT?!?! This early on in story??" I hear you say! "This couldn't be possible!"

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE DEAR VIEWER! And truth be told, there could be multiple antagonists in Welcome Home, but all evidence points to this swirly guy being the source of everything wrong thats happening. Also, from now on, I'll be calling it the Entity. (Spooky swirly man sounds so silly!)

EVIDENCE 1: It makes people sick.

It seems like the Entity emits some kind of black "ink" that makes people sick once you touch it. It also seems like the WHRT knows about this too! Going into great lengths to order everyone to wear gloves.

Writing on sticky note atop vinyl glove box reads: Put on gloves before handling ANY art. Call me if we run out!

Not to mention that think ink also seems to effect anyone psychologically, making them want to discover more about Welcome Home, even if it harms their own health.

In the ABOUT US page:

When I unwrapped the first letter, I felt it. I heard it. Open. Open. Open. I want it out. I’m going to get it out.

In the STAFF ONLY page:

Everything is so disgusting to touch. Sometimes the mail doesn't come for weeks. I want to rip into everything I have. My head feels so muddled too. Ever since I opened the envelope.

I keep getting phone calls, now. Or at least, I assume that's what's happening. I keep hearing it ringing. All day, sometimes. I check my phone and there's no new messages. I thought maybe some of the site staff were pranking me, but I tore up the workspace and couldn't find another phone that might be ringing. All that was there were the toys for the exhibit, and obviously those couldn't be ringing. But I kept hearing it anyway. The phone ringing and ringing... ...I keep digging and digging. I've poured over every recovery the WHRP has given me access to, every inch of their website, and the things I find make less and less sense. If I didn't know better I'd say everyone was coming together to pull an elaborate prank on me. I can still hear the phone ringing now. I don't know how to answer the phone. I need to answer the phone.

The NEWS PAGE also mentions ringing! (This could be the same person who has been affected by the ringing)

So many guest signatures… So many of them are trying to communicate. What are you telling me for? Do you think I can answer? What are you trying to do to me? I’m closing that guest book, I’m not playing this game anymore. The ringing is enough.

And even affecting them physically as well!

NEWS PAGE

What is it, I hear you pleading! Clawing at your screens just as we have! Coughing, headaches, nausea- I know. I know. It will take a lot of cleaning, preparation, and polishing on our part, but it is a worthwhile labor of love.

Coughing, headaches, nausea.... The Restoration Team is growing sick, yet they are completely obsessed with restoring more evidence for Welcome Home.

They even know that they are growing sick, they wear gloves, they clean, they prepare, they polish the artwork over and over and warn anyone NOT to touch the ink, but it's not enough. They need to restore Welcome Home, even at the cost of their own health.

Heck, the entire page (and studio) is literally dowsed with black ink!

And it seems to be growing too...

Theres more stuff on the walls I keep hearing phones ring.

"More stuff" as if he's surprised, as if there were less ink on the walls than before. And he keeps hearing phones ringing... Its growing...

And it made its way into the real world....

EVIDENCE 2: SALLY'S HORROR STORY!

Ah yes! Some evidence from the Halloween Update! This time, from Sally Starlet’s Macabre Menagerie of Monstrous Mischief Making! Specifically, I want to analyze the "noticeable gap" in the audio, the only part where the WHRT did NOT transcript. (This was written by yours truly btw!)

SALLY: What?! No, no, and no! …It is because this town is rumored to have visitors at night… Something from deep within the forest, far beyond the hills and mountains… No one knows what it wants or where it’s going, just that it is persistent… Just that it arrives here. So many stories have risen about their origins… But I know what it is searching for. It is looking for neighbors who have stayed past the daytime, to gobble them up whole. That is why so few live here. It moved through the streets at night, but it doesn't break into homes. However, on rare instances, it will find itself with an appetite left…. unsatisfied by its aimless wandering. Even the occasional unfortunate insect that has crossed its path is not enough… Those who have lived through the night say it isn't quiet about it either. They always say you can hear when it gets closer to you. Do you know what sound it makes? I hear it. Every. Night. You can hear it too, if you listen. Especially if you wait next to your window. First, theres rustling in the bushes. Then, A scratching on the pavement and the walls as it crawls up. Finally, if you're quiet, you can hear its guttural sound…

Now, I know what you're asking. Why even bring up this little story at all? What does this story have to do with the Entity?

Context, my dear viewer. If you listen closely, the audio is too clear. No static, no nothing. This segment is also the only part where it didn't get transcripted because it was "inaudible". Which is strange, because you and me and you and that guy and me can hear it just fine! And THAT is why it got me theory senses tingling.

Plus, the story is about a monster too! Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

So let's analyze!

"…It is because this town is rumored to have visitors at night… Something from deep within the forest, far beyond the hills and mountains… No one knows what it wants or where it’s going, just that it is persistent… Just that it arrives here."

This could be talking about the Entity. We don't know what exactly the Entity wants, just that it looks like it's determined to reach a goal that we don't know much about.

"It is looking for neighbors who have stayed past the daytime, to gobble them up whole. That is why so few live here."

It feels like this is talking about the portal-like properties the Entity has. "Gobbling" up neighbors whole and sending them to another dimension, ours.

Sally also states "That is why so few live here", which makes me question how many neighbors used to live here before. Perhaps Julie's siblings, Howdy's family, Barnaby's mom? Were they sent to another dimension? Where are they now????

Not only that, but Sally makes it clear that it goes after neighbors at nighttime. And what time does Welcome Home usually update? 7 PM (*Now, this time could be different because of timezones, but the updates usually happen during the night)

"It moved through the streets at night, but it doesn't break into homes. However, on rare instances, it will find itself with an appetite left…. unsatisfied by its aimless wandering..."

"First, theres rustling in the bushes. Then, A scratching on the pavement and the walls as it crawls up. Finally, if you're quiet, you can hear its guttural sound…"

I think Sally is giving us an EXACT description on how the Entity managed to break into Home.

1st, theres rustling in the bushes. Home does have bushes surrounding him.

Then, a scratching on the pavement and walls as it crawls up. The Entity could've broken into Home by either climbing through the window or through the roof.

Finally, a guttural sound. Now... where did I hear a guttural sound in Welcome Home before.... Oh yeah! Wally. <- Click this handy-dandy clip and you can hear something quite monstrous right below Wally's voice!

"Wait a minute.... Did you say Wally has a guttural voice???"

I did, dear reader. I did.... Which brings me to my next point:

EVIDENCE 3: POSSESSION AND PUPPETEERING!

Throughout our inspection of the Welcome Home website, we've seen countless times of Wally becoming more and more distressed as each update comes out.

But we've also seen a lot of inconsistencies regarding our lil' Darling! In fact, I even compiled these into a theory in which there could be 2 people hacking into the website!

And while that I still do believe there are more than 2 people hacking into the website... I don't think the Question Answerer is the one doodling. He's still hacking onto the website, but unlike Wally, he writes it out.

The last piece of evidence just proves its the same guy writing this! The Question Answerer!

I want to rip into everything I have. My head feels so muddled too. Ever since I opened the envelope. (see above)

Ok but if the Question Answerer isn't the other guy doodling... then who is making all of the inconsistent doodles??

Why, the ENTITY!

Not only are the doodles inconsistent, but even the sound of Wally's voice sound... quite off if you compare enough audios.

For example! Compare the interview audio with the newest Happy Haunting audio, do you notice anything peculiar about Wally's voice? Especially in the Happy Haunting audio? (If you have trouble finding it, compare these few timestamps below)

4:08

4:51

8:45

13:39-15:29

It sounds... off. Robotic even! It's slow, and the articulation is way different from the interview audio. In the interview audio, you can hear how happy Wally sounds! Even in this audio (and this one too), you can hear Wally growing increasingly frustrated. Yes, its still monotone, but you could hear emotion!

But the Happy Haunting audio, it's neutral. Yes, it IS monotone, but it feels like someone doing an impersonation of Wally rather than Wally actually speaking himself. In fact, the audio reminds me of the phone audio right here. It has the same pauses and neutral tone, save for the very audible growl right underneath Wally's voice.

But speaking of the phone audio.... Did you catch that?

...Do you know who I am? [The heart beat and ambience resume.] [Gasp.] Oh no. Well that’s not neighborly at all. We’ve never met before. But don’t worry. Even though you and I haven’t spoken before, I’ve seen you... Every time you have looked into my eyes. I want to know… What did you see? [Silence.] I hope you saw a friend, but I’m not sure you saw a name... Stand still. Let’s start over. Ring ring ring. Click. Hi, I’m Wally. I’m so happy to finally meet you, I think you’re the absolute most.

...That's strange, isn't it? We definitely HAVE met Wally, not formally, but we do know about him (this fandom is proof of that!) So how come Wally is saying that we haven't?

Especially when in another audio, he says that we DO 'know him'.

…Why won’t you answer me, neighbor. Why can’t I hear you. You know me. You do. Please open. Let me in.

Contradictory, isn't it? We can't both know Wally and NOT know Wally at the same time. That's impossible....

Unless the phone audio Wally isn't our Wally... its the Entity.

Technically, we DON'T know about the Entity. It's not a character in Welcome Home and the things that we do know about it are just mere theories and speculations. It is our 'first' formal meeting with it.

Then why did it introduce itself as Wally? WELL BECAUSE ITS POSSESSING HIM! It's trying to convince us that it is Wally, using his signature catchphrase and even saying 'I hope you saw a friend'. Besides, if you were a weird portal monster, I doubt you would introduce yourself as one if you wanted to trick someone.

And if this possession theory does turn out to be true, it does explain the major inconsistencies happening in the website! Such as the doodles!

The Hearts!

THE HANDWRITING

THATS NOT WALLY'S HANDWRITING! He writes in CAPITAL LETTERS and in RED (not all lowercase and in blue!).

WALLY CAN'T DRAW HEARTS SO WHO'S DRAWING EM???

AND BOTH OF THOSE BARNABY DRAWINGS SURE DO LOOK INCREDIBLY DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER. ALMOST AS IF SOMEONE WITH LITTLE DRAWING EXPERIENCE DID IT.

But if you still need a bit more proof to convince ya, here's some more!

W a L L y: You won't write back Wally: You're looking for me. Silly. Silly.

I think W a L L y is our Wally! He's getting desperate, but he knows that we won't be able to write back. Wally on the other hand is the Entity, it knows that we are looking for the main big bad antagonist, and it knows. It even mocks us.

And I think we've seen evidence of these possessions before. Look at none other than the bug audios!

In every single one of these bug audios, we are in the perspective of Wally himself. But in these bug audios, Wally doesn't say anything at all. Rather, he sits unmoving, listening into the conversation whether he has been invited there or not!

In this bug audio, Wally has been listening in on Sally and Howdy's conversation the entire time!

But thats not all! All of these bug audios are connected according to the conversation between Barnaby and Home! Which means that all of these bug audios are happening on the same day at a very short period of time, which is concerning on just how frequent Wally appears to be disassociating. Or if that's even Wally at all!

If that is the Entity controlling Wally, it feels like he's observing them, studying them. Perhaps that's why the audios always cut out whenever a neighbor says Wally's name, it snaps him out of that trance and reminds him that he is in fact the real Wally!

Which brings us to our latest bug audio (and by far the most worrying one), the Candy Spider! The Halloween Bug?? Idk it's this one <-

We've just gotten proof of Wally munching on an apple. This would've been fine and dandy in any other situation, but remember viewer! Context matters! Especially if we put into consideration that that is not Wally.

BARNABY: ‘Ey, how’s my little devil doin’ over ‘ere? You guardin’ my apple for me, pal? [There is a brief pause. What is he doing.] BARNABY: Oh— heh, I guess ya didn’t do a very good job at it. [Barnaby calls out to the room] Hey! Who took a bite outta my apple? I think I see some fang marks, Frank!

Yeah that SURE is definitely not worrying. Nope, none whatsoever!

Oh boy... I think that's everything. Well, not everything everything. I still don't think the Entity is the only bad guy, just the main one! The Playfellow Workshop is very suspicious, and while I do believe Wally and Home are most likely victims of everything that is going on, I don't think I should say that they are quite innocent yet.

In the banner, they are the only two NOT separated by hearts! It seems to me that they are working together to give out more evidence to the WHRT.

And Marlo... another company that is VERY suspicious. What did their logo look like again?

A house logo with an eye in the middle.... Why does that look so familiar?

AH.

Well that's clearly not suspicious!

[still-a-morosexual-help]

okay so lately I have seen a lot of people claim they hate mammon bc he steals from mc, and like there's nothing wrong with disliking a character lol but I don't recall mammon ever stealing from mc?? like the only thing I can think of is that one time in season 1 I think where he was going through their stuff and said he was looking for something to sell (I think?? it's been a while) and beel straight up calling him a liar lmao l'm just wondered if I missed something? or if this is just newer players who maybe misunderstood that one scene? and I figured if anyone would know it would be you lmao

I got so fucking pissed about this (not at you anon <3) cos this is the third time I got an ask like this, that I scrolled all the way down my 'Obey Me Mammon' tag to June/July 2020 and then slowly scrolled my way up pulling all the receipts I could.....I saw this immediately after you sent it and I just finished now...... turns out it takes 5 straight hours to go through my Mammon tag😶

I have answered this exact same ask twice before and I can only assume it's new people? Like honestly you can't play the game for a long time and still think this (they prove this false within the game in LESSON FOUR)

Not only does Mammon NOT steal from MC, he also:

a.) Gets legitimate/legal jobs whenever he wants to buy MC something (which is pretty frequently)

b.) Shares the money with them when he comes into a large sum of money

But anyway here are the links to the posts talking about all this:

(everything is directly taken from canon or based off canon)

A.) No he doesn't steal from MC

• Full Summary of the Lesson 4 locked chapter where he goes through MC's stuff and a compare and contrast of what we know about Mammon from future lessons, events, devilgrams

• First post talking about this, goes more into detail about him not stealing from them

• Second shorter post about how he doesn't steal from them

• They're literally Partners in Crime

• He straight up refuses the Midas touch (multiple times I believe) after realising it means he won't be able to touch MC anymore

• HEADCANON that maybe he steals/borrows their clothes, with their knowledge, to wear

• In the small introductory manga page they say the thing he likes as much as money is MC

• In S3 he admits to loving MC more than he loves money

B.) He goes out of his way to get MC Presents (which we works actual jobs to earn money for)

• Mammon at the Office Devilgram, where he gets an actual office job so he can buy MC a watch he saw them looking at

• In the Movie Date Devilgram he rents out an entire theatre for the two of them because it was the anniversary of the day they first met

• In the You Always Ride Shotgun Devilgram he rents out a pool for the two of them

• He's always giving MC presents

• Usually he buys matching things for them

• He buys them shoes in their favourite colour

• Mammon's love language

• He wants to share his winnings from a lottery with MC

• He finds a secret second map in the pirate au event and tells only MC so they can share the treasure

C.) It's not just MC, he puts the others before Money too

• In the Presents From Mammon Devilgram he buys presents for everyone

• In The Guardian Demon Devilgram he saves a 9yr old orphaned homeless human girl from a mugger, fosters her and plans to pay for all her needs until she's an adult/can provide for herself - which is why he's always in debt to the three witches who look after her for him, there's also extortion going on from them towards him

• He'd rather lose the entire fortune he won than make Luke upset

• List of times he's put others before money

• He straight up tells Luke he doesn't mind missing out on a reward as long as it means Luke is alright

• Socks for Beel

• He gets a stone for his birthday which can give him whatever he wishes for, he wishes for fortune to come to whoever has the stone and then gives the stone to a student who tried to hurt him

D.) How Mammon works as a character

• Solmare makes you form certain expectations about him and then starts breaking them within the next few lessons and it's amazing to witness

• Friendship, Actions & Reality Vs Calling MC 'Servant'

• Mammon, MC and their Friendship

• Mammon being smart and why he comes off as an idiot

• His thoughts about himself vs MC

• He's actively changing and growing as a character and he knows it

• How Mammon actually views himself

• Why there's a difference in his level of affection in public vs privately

• Jerk with a heart of gold trope but better

• Mammon and how much he cares about consent

• How outsiders see Mammon vs how people from the city see Mammon vs how his close friends and family see him

• Chasing some creep away from MC

• How his relationship with MC changes and grows throughout the season

E.) Other reasons to love him

• Examples of how much he loves MC

• How supportive he & MC are of each other

• Some of his funniest moments

• He's objectively terrifying

• Mammon being a good brother

• He's extremely ride or die for MC

• He waits for MC when they've got to stay late at RAD for other work

• Despite being an ancient being all his best memories consist of the time he's spent with MC

• He created a whole line of toys based around missing MC

• Everything he says about loving MC in his 2022 birthday event

• List of things he's good at

• The amount he loves MC

And this is just a few of my posts about mammon, his character and what there's to love about him

And look it's MORE than okay for people to dislike a character but at least dislike them for something that actually happened?

[rallamajoop]

Mia Winters and the Connections

There are a lot of bad takes on Mia Winters out there, a lot of really irritating shallow misconceptions. But for now, I’m just going to tackle one of the big ones that annoys me the most.

Mia Winters is not a scientist, and it's debatable whether she had any long-term association with the project that created Eveline. She may not have even met Eveline before being assigned to transport her to South America.

Mia’s not any kind of researcher. Her job when she worked at the Connections is laid out clearly in the first document you find within moments of starting the flashback ("Orders"): she’s a member of the Special Operations Division in the English version, or a 'special agent' in the Japanese (特殊工作員, tokushu kousaku-in). The English version also gives Mia the role of 'caretaker', implicitly of Eveline, but there's not much to suggest this is a role extending beyond the bounds of this particular mission (for comparison, the Japanese doesn't mention caretaking at all).

Mia's job is exactly what we see her doing in the game: transporting important assets under cover identities, and running around doing damage control with a machine gun if things go south. She echoes the same in her letter to the Bakers, stating she 'was assigned to transport some important cargo.' Even the 'imprinting protocol' she refers to seems to be mostly part of a transport protocol (going by the very little we ever learn about it), and may not even have been implemented until shortly before they left.

Even in the one photo of her standing with the research team, you might note that Mia and her partner Alan are the only people present not wearing lab coats (and believe me, with how much other photoshopping there is in this photo, Mia would have been wearing a lab coat if they'd wanted her in one). The photo itself is far more of an easter egg than a real plot point anyway, and probably isn't worth reading too much into ‒ I mean, Alan is apparently the director of the Special Operations division, so it makes no sense to assume he's part of this one science team. But if you really want a 'canonical' explanation for this photo, considering Mia and Alan are wearing the same clothes as in the ship flashback, you could reasonably assume it was taken right before Eveline was shipped off to America ‒ a kind of "Let's get one last snapshot of the team together with the transport crew before Eveline goes to South America" deal. It's completely plausible Mia may not even have met Eveline until the same day this was taken.

So where does this 'scientist' nonsense come from? The only source which does call Mia a 'researcher' is a timeline entry in this one RE7 strategy guide which has never been published in English – and it's a good example of why sources like this are usually better treated as pseudo-canon at best. You can find various translations of it online – but you can also buy the whole ebook (which I did), so here's the page where it originally comes up.

And yes, inasmuch as I’m qualified to translate, the line does state that Mia joined the company as a ‘researcher’ (研究員, kenkyuu-in) in 2010. But the same guidebook also refers to her as an operative (工作員) just a couple of pages later, so even the guidebook is hardly consistent.

Charitably, perhaps we could read that Mia was initially hired as some kind of generic, low-level research assistant before being transferred to the special operations division after showing aptitude in that area. But it's more likely that Mia was simply going to be a researcher at some point in the game’s development history, before Capcom changed their minds, and the timeline that made it into the guidebook is just very out of date ‒ it happens. Either way, one line in an inconsistent guide book hardly trumps what actually made it into the games.

I do realise that asking people to pay attention to what's actually in the games over what's repeated in some wiki somewhere (or a gazillion different fanfic) is a big ask for any fandom, but Mia was clearly never a scientist in the game we all played. She still knowingly worked for some really evil people – she doesn’t get to claim innocence here – but the idea she's personally responsible for every bad thing ever done to Eveline is absurd.

FWIW, other details from the guidebook also back up the idea that transporting assets was a major part of Mia’s job. Her bio (above) mentions that she was away from home a lot, something that strained the Winters’ marriage, and that she told people she worked for a ‘trading company’ – a solid cover for a job focused on travel and logistics.

A very little is said about Mia’s relationship with Eveline. The guidebook does mention that the reason Eveline’s so attached to Mia is because Eveline had known her since she was ‘confined to the “mysterious organisation” that created her’, which could be taken to imply she knew Mia well before their trip began, but it's not much to go on. Mia's own feelings on Eveline are described briefly in a caption: “Although Mia found Eveline creepy, she also felt compassion for her lonely situation,” which tracks with how Mia interacts with her in-game. It doesn't track so well with the idea Mia had any real authority over how Eveline was raised or treated, however, and would be perfectly consistent with the idea Mia might not have known her long at all.

The guidebook timeline also tells us that the E-series project begain in 2000, and that Eveline herself was created in "the early 2000s." This doesn't make a whole lot of sense for reasons I've talked about already, but does put Eveline's creation well before 2010, the year the same timeline gives us for when Mia started working at the Connections. Since the guidebook also tells us Mia was 32 in 2017, back in 2000, she would have been all of 15 years old. Whatever Mia's involvement, the project long predates her joining the company.

But the real issue with trying to given Mia any major responsibility for the E-series project is that the lab that created Eveline was located in Europe. Mia, meanwhile, has a driver's license telling us she's from Texas.

The European location for the lab is another detail that gets barely mentioned in the games, though it's mentioned repeatedly in the guidebook, and the Baker Incident Report even puts it specifically in Munich, Germany. Given all we learn in RE8, that location does make a lot of sense, when the mould was found in Eastern Europe, and that Miranda herself was part of the research team (she gets multiple photos and a lab coat, you may note). And even if the lab wasn’t right on Miranda’s doorstep, Munich is a heckuva commute from Texas, or anywhere else in the US. Even if Mia was often away from Ethan for long periods, as her bio implies, how involved could she realistically have been?

I don't want to overstress the idea that it "doesn't make sense" for a special agent from Texas to have been intimately involved in a European research project ‒ making sense has never held back RE lore before. But the idea that Mia was brought in only as a handler for Eveline when she was being moved to America still makes a lot more sense than to suggest the Connections were fine with their star asset’s primary handler going home to the US every other weekend.

There are possibilities between the two extremes, of course: Mia may have had sporadic contact with Eveline before the trip, either regularly or just once or twice. It's easy to assume the 'imprinting protocol' must mean that Mia's been Eveline's primary handler for some time, but heck, maybe it's better read as the opposite ‒ something that can be quickly applied to a new handler or caretaker in a hurry, to explain how Eveline got so attached to someone she'd only just met.

Given everything we actually see of her, you could even speculate that Mia was chosen as Eveline's 'caretaker' specifically because she was someone nice and motherly enough for Eveline to bond with. Eveline was pretty clearly fucked up long before Mia ever got involved, and not actually wanting to adopt a walking bioweapon whose idea of a happy family involves mould-powered mind control really does not reflect badly on Mia's character.

Whether Mia was already working for the Connections before she met Ethan also isn't clear. The guidebook tells us she began working for them in 2010, and married Ethan in May of 2011 (later confirmed by the date on Mia's ring in RE8) – though it doesn't specify when she and Ethan met. Even by Texas standards, marrying someone you’d known less than a year would be pretty unusual, so it’s likely Ethan knew her before she took the job. But even that 2010 statement comes along with the bit about Mia being hired as ‘a researcher’, so you can always take it with a grain of salt if you'd prefer.

And that's pretty much it for what the complete RE canon ever tells us about Mia and her former employers.

So here’s where I’m left with Mia’s role at the Connections. Even if she wasn’t aware of exactly what she was signing up for when she joined the company, and even if she considered all that lying to her husband about it to be a simple matter of confidentiality around sensitive research, she’s fully aware by the disaster in 2014, and plainly has a guilty conscience when she admits to lying to Ethan in her video message. However responsible she may or may not have been, she's still complicit. Her hands are hardly clean.

But they’re still a whole lot cleaner than, say, Luis’, considering that he was a key member of the science teams at both Umbrella Europe and in Saddler’s cult, and I don’t see him getting a fraction of the same hate as Mia. They both regret what they’ve done, and they’re both willing to give their own lives to make up for it. No, Luis never lied to a spouse about it (that we know of), but he's every bit as shifty and secretive. And frankly, most of the other shit that gets dumped on Mia’s doorstep is just as much bullshit (like, people do realise the “Mia” we see having “marital problems” with Ethan at the start of RE8 isn’t Mia, right?) But that’s material for other posts.

We don’t know how Mia got involved with the Connections, or how she felt about working for them, because the games never give us this information, and that’s a real shame. But in the capitalist hellscape we’re all living in, she’d hardly be the first to find herself stuck working for truly terrible people, one way or another.

Meanwhile, everything we see her doing during the outbreak on the tanker speaks to a basically good person, desperately trying to run damage control in a fucked-up situation. She tells Alan she’s not going to let him die, even though what’s going down is his fault. She tries so hard to talk Eveline down. After she’s rescued by the Bakers in the Daughter's DLC, she insists on staying in the trailer, meaning to leave at her first opportunity – pretty significant, considering she knows she’s infected already. She also leaves them a message warning them to stay away from Eveline, even sharing information on how to make a serum if they are infected. If you pick her over Zoe on the dock, the first thing she does is try to convince Zoe to come with them anyway. Even under Eveline's mind control, you'll catch her ranting about needing to contain the outbreak, blaming herself, and telling Ethan she loves him with her last breath.

And after being infected herself, the first thing on her mind is to try and protect Ethan, recording that message admitting she’s lied to him, and warning him to stay away (Ethan never gets that message, but you can’t say Mia didn’t try). Mia loves Ethan enough to die to save him – and she will, if you choose the Zoe path, and she’ll do it without a second thought.

Mia is fascinating to me as a character because she’s so full of contradictions: a woman who leaves syrupy video messages sending ‘tons of kisses’ to her husband, but who is completely comfortable running around with a machine gun killing mould-monsters, and who shrugs off an Eveline jump-scare with 'fucking hallucinations!' Someone who’s done bad things and knows it, and is trying so hard to make up for it, but whose background and motivations are left frustratingly undeveloped. But if you haven’t caught that Ethan and Rose mean more to her than anything, you really haven’t been paying attention.

Whatever you assume about Mia’s full story, she’s complicated in a way that makes her so much more interesting to me than most of the franchise’s more popular playable characters. I am very serious in saying I want RE9 to be just the full Mia-Winters-story, because to me that’s the only remotely satisfying justification for keeping her such a mystery for so long. I know that's not at all likely, but fuck it, I can dream.

Mia’s made her share of mistakes, but holding her responsible for everything the Connections has ever done is no kind of fair.

[elekinetic]

mike,

hey asshole. maybe that's a shitty way to start a letter, sorry. i'm pretty on edge. obviously. getting stalked by a psycho maniac with powers will do that to you.

this is weird. i don't really know what to say. not exactly a letter i thought i'd ever be writing, but—despite it all—we're friends, so you deserve closure.

i don't think you and i ever really clicked. not the way i thought we might've when we met. and i get it, between will and el and everything that was happening with the mindflayer, i get why you didn't want some random girl coming in and messing everything up. i think we're the same in that way, with change. i don't like it. i can tell you don't either.

i don't know how to say this without sounding pathetic, but. hey. if you're reading this, i'm dead, so you if you think i'm lame then you're a total shithead.

i wanted you to like me. and that's so stupid because like, you're you. c'mon. but i wanted to be a part of what you had. i think it was because i was jealous of you. you had this like, perfect family with a perfect older sister and perfect friends and not in that like, superficial-high-school-way, like, actual, real friends who care about each other. and you just walked around like you didn't know how lucky you were. like, i know why now, i do. i get it. it was just so hard to watch you get everything i wanted and not even think twice about it, and then slam the door in my face every chance you got.

and calling me annoying was kind of a bitch move.

whatever.

i know this year has sucked for you too. i don't know everything about your relationship with el, and you and will are a web of shit i don't even want to try to untangle... but i know it's been hard. i'm not exactly in a position to be giving life advice (ha), but again. i'm dying, probably, so. listen up wheeler.

you have to talk to her. and shut up, i know what you're thinking. it's different. or maybe it's not, but it doesn't matter. i don't have time to fix my shit. you do, so you better fucking do it.

i know you love el. and i know i don't talk to her as much as i should, and she knows i'm sorry. (for what it's worth, i'm not gonna stop being sorry) but she deserves better than whatever bullshit is going on between the two of you right now. and you'll get through it, because you'll finally talk to her and actually say what you're thinking instead of assuming you already know how she'll react, because you don't. but someday you guys are gonna have another argument, and you're gonna fix it before it gets out of hand, do you hear me? she deserves honesty.

you have to trust her. you have to trust her. you think you're protecting her, and sometimes it works, but it's not fair. she's not someone who needs protecting or hiding or teaching. and listen to me, its not because she can do shit with her mind, okay? it's because she's her own person who is smart and capable and strong in like, a human way. you have to know that, you have to understand that.

just... understand that.

i haven't done the best job of showing it, but i do care about you. you're my friend, and i hope... i hope you're able to find happiness. like, real, lasting, forever-type shit. you deserve it. seriously.

okay. i'm running out of space and i still have like, seven letters to write. i don't know why i thought it would be a good idea to do separate notes for everyone. I should've just done one page that said "see you later, assholes." that would've been smarter. quick, sweet, to the point. i mean, i was never the writer of the group. maybe if i'd done that, you guys would just know what i needed to say. four easy words. maybe you guys would understand the shit that i can't write down.

anyway.

see you later, asshole.

— max

p.s. watch out for lucas. please.

[eriexplosion]

Okay so one thing I've noticed about the way Tech is discussed is terminology. And I've pointed it out before, but as far as I've heard, no one has actually ever called him dead - even in sentences where it would be reasonable to use it. It's always he sacrificed himself or he's gone or he's lost.

For a long, LONG while, none of the databank entries for the batch were updated all the way through the end of season 2. But I checked today and once the trailer dropped, they had been updated! And for the first time, I saw Tech referred to as 'killed' on an official anything. Specifically, Hunter's character page.

But, what's interesting is... this is the only place that refers to it like that. On Hunter's page, it says Tech was killed.

On Echo and Wreckers, it says he's 'Lost'

And on Omega and Tech's it says he 'sacrificed himself'

And we know that these euphemisms aren't needed! They can just write that he was killed, they just did it on Hunter's page! But they use the kind of sideways language anyway - it's almost like Hunter's saying Tech was actually killed was an oversight or even a representation of how he assumes it went down, because it's the only place in 10 months I've found that actually says he was killed. And that's... weird.

Because it's actually not unusual that even if a character is planned to return, in the interim, everyone just says they're dead. They really triple down on it a lot of times, yeah that guy is totally dead and gone, never coming back. Whether he was dead OR alive, there should be no problem saying it upfront, but if he was dead why on Earth would everyone be avoiding the word like this, to the point that the first time he's referred to as Killed in anything official it's on one databank page for an entirely different character? I have never seen that happen for a dead guy.

Also, Tech's entry is the vaguest of them all. He Sacrificed Himself and Plummeted out of Sight. I mean yeah, yeah he did do that, in the strictest sense.

But what's interesting about using sacrifice here in particular is that there's one other place that it's used.

Ventress' updated databank entry.

Pre-Monday, this entry said that she gave her life for Quinlan, as soon as we find out she's alive though it gets updated to 'sacrificed herself' making it immediately clear that sacrificed doesn't necessarily mean dead for good.

What does all this mean? Maybe nothing! Maybe it's all just coincidence that it's referred to this way. But after 10 months of dodging around a clear answer and reusing the same shot of him falling rather than giving us a single concrete indication that he's actually dead? It's fishy.

[cator99]

The conversation went like this: general pleasantries followed by her being like I'm so relieved you reached out to me because I really just want to have a more positive relationship with all of you guys and I know how annoying it is when a landlord isn't able to deal with things in a timely manner I get it I'm a renter too... i get the sense that, just as i had over-prepared for the conversation, she had over-prepared to apologize for the fact that the basement bathroom has a recurring leak issues that get patched up and then continue to cause issues meanwhile she's literally going through a divorce and has to keep postponing because she wants to be there when the repair dudes come to make sure they're doing their job properly but she has a big trial coming up and had to put it off by another week, it's really no big deal tbh... I assured her that she's been doing a fantastic job at staying on top of things and communicating with us oh my fucking god okay new girl is banging that fugly creepy white boy she keeps bringing over so god damn loud l cant wait for her to gtfo anyways yeah so we basically just spent 10 minutes getting on the same page like we good we good she just wants to make sure that everyone is chill in the house and we had a really good talk about what we all want from this but TLDR once we got down to business it went like this:

Me: Pins Girl is the problem

Her: omg slay I fucking hate her please go on

Me: yaaaas she fucking sucks here's some tea sis....

Her: ok work so I'm not crazy for being like maddd uncomfortable around her like one time this thing happened...

Me: omg lol no seriously she's vile here's another wild example related to your anecdote....

Her: no way bestie she did that to me too. Just 0 to 100 in an instant I didnt even know what to do just being accused of every -ism under the sun

Me: yeah no that's just kind of how things go with her you cant get so much as an innocent Hello in without her immediately labeling it a hostile attack

Her: yas okay good riddance so what's the deal with this new girl she's her friend should I be concerned

Me: oh girl.......... so, no not really she's a sweetheart and also– thank god– fully employed. Absolutelyyy messy as hell tho so that's one of my biggest concerns. I think it would be best if you didn't add her to the lease no shade but she's really not a great fit since we're all older and chill and clean af

Her: ...and the rest of the concerns? Oh my god do you think [PG] will try to move back in if we decline her friend???

Me: no wayy she wants OUT out she's already got a new place lined up and her shit in boxes at the door waiting to be hauled off forever

Her: omg like. Far? Like is she moving far? Please tell me she's moving sooo far

Me: yes lmao dont even worry I dont know the exacts but it's nowhere even near here

Her: okay slayyyyy thank you for being dope as hell it's such a relief that this crazy person is gone so we can all just chilllll

Me: okay so about that

Her: ohhh no

Me: yes so you already know what we're dealing with. You know how she deemed me unworthy of being on speaking terms with her? I didn't mind that at all and really just kept tf to myself. Then suddenly she moves in this friend of hers and I just assumed this was done with some sort of approval from you, because that would be the normal thing to do.

Her: okay that's kind of wack, do you guys not like get a vote on these sorts of things

Me: I stayed out of it plus like I'm really not gonna start questioning her and risk putting myself in the line of fire and everyone is pretty much in that position as well

Her: omg no fr...

Me: so like I just kept to myself and my work without thinking about it... then I find out she was living here totally off the record when PG sent that email requesting that she be added to the lease. That's when the conversation opened up. And listen this new girl is super young super naive didnt realize that she was even doing anything wrong and then suddenly everyone's totally freaking out and realizing that this goes against the lease agreement and that if you find out, our ability to live here is jeopardized. She got us into hot water and then just... left us to deal with the consequences.

Her: she's still legally bound by the lease until it changes so if anything goes wrong she wont be escaping accountability no matter how many -isms she throws at me. I want this to work for all of us and we got this trust thang between us and I wouldn't evict you guys omg evictions are seriously sooo annoying and *most* of you have been great tenants especially (names everyone except for the unemployed ftm) they're all super chill and mature and we've had great conversations so yeah I'm just glad she's gone

Me: incredible yaas I love honesty. She has been actively impeding our ability to have a productive working relationship with you and each other it's so crazy

Her: literallyyyy😁🥂🔥yipeee

Me: yippee yaaaaay yay 😇☝️💯

Her: okay so my game plan is to interview the new girl irl like no zoom bs I really wanna read her vibes and decide if this is worth it... I'll give her a chance but if that doesn't work out... I mean... tee hee..... the yearly house inspection is coming up...

Me: ok that's so dope. She's gonna be moving upstairs once PG vacates so its gonna be pretty hard to hide the fact someone's right there even just doing a quick walk-through

Her: yeah so if things don't go well and I decide against putting her on the lease and they still don't admit to having her there then at least I can talk to them about it when the inspection happens and be chill about it and pretend like I totally had no idea. We can work something out as long as everything is good you know what I mean... okay if you need anything at all dont even hesitate to give me a call

Me: absolutely and if I have any updates I'll let you know ASAP, lmk if you need anything srsly I dont want to cause you any more stress like from what i understand you've had a stressful enough year

Her: yes good lord i have, thank you for being considerate..... seriously it's been hellish and this conversation has been such a relief

etc etc obviously the conversation was longer and more thorough but you get the gist. She's awesome. We hung up and I skipped my way to the grocery store

[spaceorphan18]

The Rogue and Gambit Project : The Muir Island Saga

The first time we see Rogue and Gambit on the same page together is the cover of Uncanny X-Men #275 - which was one of those VERY SPECIAL ISSUES that put everyone on the cover. No, this is not a part of the Muir Island Saga -- but belongs to the previous arcs (Savage Land and Space Shenanigans). Still, it's pretty cool to see them on the cover together.

So, here's the thing about the Muir Island Saga - the next arc of the comics - despite dealing with the same adversary, and spending time with the same group of people, we never see Rogue and Gambit mix. In fact - (something I'll point out in detail in a minute) - it's almost comical how much they seem to be ships passing in the night. It's almost as if it's done purposely.

I know that years (and years and years and years) later - we'll get a retcon of their first meeting. And I really thought a lot about whether or not I should talk about that here... and, not to disappoint some of you, but I'm not going to (for now). Because I kind of want to tackle this project from a chronological point of view. To experience things as they were happening without the added layers of what we'll get next. And the retcon kind of, gets into a whole lot of issues I don't want to dig into yet. So, I promise, I'll talk about Kelly Thompson's Mini when we get there, we're just... a very long way off from that.

In the meantime, the thing about this arc that's so fascinating is trying to pinpoint how they could meet. And when. And why. And thing I keep coming back to is... comics don't make a whole lot of sense, y'all.

Let's dive in...

Uncanny X-Men #278

The whole premise of The Muir Island Saga is that the Shadow King wants to get out of the Astral Plane and kind of brainwashes the residents of Muir Island (including the X-Men) in order to do it. Don't ask me to make sense of it, I'm just the recapper!

The real purpose of the whole thing is to reshuffle the line, which had been in such flux up until this point. The X-Office was getting ready to launch the new Adjectiveless X-Men book, and Chris Claremont was getting ready to depart after 17 years of being the sole author of X-Men. Things were definitely changing and this saga finally gets all the pieces to where they need to be.

As an aside, I do find it fascinating that the beginning of Rogue and Gambit's relationship coincides with all of these changes. Not only is the decade changing, but X-Men's status quo is about to be really shaken up after being a relatively steady book for a very, very long time. It's just kind of neat that the endings and beginnings happening on an external level are also happening with our characters as well.

Uncanny X-Men #278

For some context, after the destruction of the mansion after the Inferno crossover, and after remaining X-Men all ended up going through the Siege Perilous after the Australian era, Muir Island, home of (brilliant scientist and ex-Xavier lover) Moira MacTaggart became the home of a new (and short lived) group of X-Men. I can only assume that's why Rogue returned here after her little side adventure in the Savage Land.

Though I should point out that Rogue has ZERO idea who is alive and who is dead other than the people who are already on the island. I kind of wonder what her future plans would have been if the other X-Men never showed up. Anyway... though, there really isn't any full explanation as to why Rogue went back to Muir Island other than they had no intention of writing her out of the book, and they needed all the X-Men to be in one place.

How does she feel about the events of the Savage Land? What really happened with her and Magneto? The answer is -- who cares, we're done with that plot now and moving on until another comic book writer decides to tug on that loose plot thread. :P

Uncanny X-Men #278

What is important to know that the Shadow King is mind controlling everyone. And... he does so with Rogue by making out with her after she's been in the shower? What??

Look, I'm not going to claim this stuff makes a whole lot of sense. But I can fanwank it a little...

The Shadow King's whole deal is that he's trying to corrupt everyone and bring them to their most evil (because, you know, that's what evil villains do). And with Rogue - he plays on her sense of touch. Back in the old days, Rogue used kissing as her primary way of stealing people's powers. And on top of that, one of her deepest rooted struggles (as of obvious statement isn't obvious) is the fact that she isn't able to have physical contact. So the Shadow King is tapping into both of those things, and, as the whole 'temptation' quote insinuates - him letting her give into her desires allows him to brainwash her.

Now, do I really believe she'd be enticed this easily? Can the Shadow King have that deep a hold on anyone? That is for you to decide, fair reader.

It's at least my interpretation. Honestly, I think there's a bigger part of me that wonders if they really just wanted to see Rogue making out with someone because because they can.

Meanwhile, on the opposite page, guess who is landing with the rest of the X-Men who just returning from space? That's right, everyone can relax. Gambit has arrived. ;) They're now in the same place... so if we can only get them to the same panel...

Uncanny X-Men #278

Alright guys, time to play the logistics game... these two panels are on opposite pages. Gambit, fresh off his plane, ends up running into Multiple Man - and they have a little fight. Meanwhile, Rogue runs into Wolverine and Jubilee - and they have a little fight. Are you following me? Good! Cause it's going to get crazier from here.

Also, let's keep track of Rogue's clothes because... ooff, yeah, the continuity is worse than the story line.

Uncanny X-Men #279

Before I get into it - I need to state that Uncanny X-Men 279 is the issue where Chris Claremont just up and quit during the middle. He'll be back to wrap up his run in the new X-Men book (that we'll get to after this) but I'm sure the nonsense going on in the X-Office didn't help the clarity of this story...

Anyway, the next time we see either Gambit or Rogue is here... in the next issue. What happened between Rogue and Wolverine/Jubilee? How did Gambit handle Multiple Man? Who knows! But now Gambit is with Wolverine and Jubilee and Rogue is nowhere to be seen.

Also - that's the third 'bang, you dead joke' in, like, five issues. Good lord, Claremont, if this wasn't your final Uncanny issue (for now) I'd say give it a rest. I will say, though, I almost included the entire three pages of Wolverine/Jubilee/Gambit because they are that delicious, and easily the best thing about this entire arc.

Uncanny X-Men #279

On the next page, we see Rogue again - where she is taking on Forge. Note the wardrobe change? Did she have time to add more clothes after her 'fight' with Wolverine? Is any of this making sense yet? No? Okay... onto the X-Factor issue...

X-Factor #69

This is literally the next time we see Rogue - after Forge shoots her with a ray gun that stops the mind control. Did the ray gun just change her outfit as well? Was the previous outfit too evil?? Or was it just that artists Andy Kubert and Whilce Portacio just have zero communication when getting these issues out? (Honestly, I do not blame the artists - I do blame editorial though.)

X-Factor #69

Meanwhile, where is Gambit you ask??

Alright, guys, this is where we're at -- Forge has un-mind controlled Rogue, Wolverine, and Banshee. Meanwhile, Gambit, Psylocke, Jubilee and the Muir Island peeps are still under the Shadow King. And now X-Factor (the original five X-Men - Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Angel, and Beast) are now involved. All of them are running around the island. Only, it's X-Factor who finds the rest of the mind controlled - not Forge and crew...

Also, in case you'd like me to make it more confusing, Mystique has arrived in disguise (with Nick Fury), while all this mind control is doing wonders for Charles Xavier's son, Legion, who is about to go a little crazy.

Uncanny X-Men #280

Classic cover is classic. Also, Rogue still has more of her clothes! Don't grow too attached to them.

Uncanny X-Men #280

See, I told you not to get too attached to Rogue's clothes. Apparently, when Legion went crazy and caused an explosion, it blew off all her clothes. Miraculously, no one else had this issue. I guess Jean just used her telekinetic powers to keep hers on.

Uncanny X-Men #280

And on the other side of this really not very big island is the B-team. B for brainwashed. Yes - the two teams are going to meet! Yes, a big, huge battle is about to ensue!

Uncanny X-Men #280

Gambit is going to take on Wolverine (for the 100th time it seems) while Rogue will take on Strong Guy. Every non-brainwashed X-Man is going to take on every other brainwashed X-Man. Except for Rogue v Gambit. We don't get to see that. They do not share any panels together. Not even in the big group scenes. None. Nothing. Absolutely zero.

They just knew it'd be too much...

(Honestly, I am a little curious as to why this was. It almost does feel intentional at this point.)

Anyway, the battle ends. The Shadow King is vanquished (for now) -- and has the hilariously villain closing line of "No!!! I WAS SO CLOSE!!" And all that's left is to wrap up this little ditty...

Uncanny X-Men #280

I just need to talk about Rogue's clothes again. Her panties are barely hanging on by a thread, but her gloves are perfectly intact. How convenient.

Anyway, the last line of this comic reads: The End, and The Beginning. How appropriate...

Here we are, guys. The first issue where Rogue and Gambit end up on panel together. Are you ready for this??

Let's talk about X-Factor #70

X-Factor #70

Most of the issue revolves around Xavier trying to get into Legion's head while the rest of the group is either waiting around in the hospital room or tying up loose plot threads around the island.

So... how much time has passed? It's unclear - but enough that Rogue's had enough time to find some clothes that have not been ripped to shreds.

Anyway - one of the loose plot threads is dealing with Mystique's "death" that happened ages ago. Turns out she faked it and had been pretending to be Val Cooper for a while now. Rogue had seen news of the "death" and this is their reunion.

Great, now that that's squared away, we get one of my favorite sequences in comics... the chain letting everyone know that Xavier is okay ;)

X-Factor #70

Idk why, but I love this little sequence. I love the random 'no smoking' sign. I love Gambit freaking Polaris out. I love that Jubilee just does not give a shit. And I love that Rogue doesn't seem to either.

Anyway... now to the moment y'all have been patiently waiting for...

I present to you -- Rogue and Gambit's first on panel moment!

X-Factor #70

It's sort of anticlimactic, isn't it?

While Xavier's - what do we do with fourteen X-Men - is rather iconic, the art here is... meh. I'm so glad Jim Lee is going to redesign a lot of the characters. Gambit just does not look good in the yellow costume (also, he does not have his headsock on here for some reason). Meanwhile, even Rogue looks a little off here (though this is the X-Factor book and not Uncanny).

And... we're left with a bunch of open questions. Just how did Rogue and Gambit meet? What was their first interaction like? What is their dynamic at the very beginning? As I said before -- Kelly Thompson will one day answer these questions -- both brilliantly and unbelievably.

If you were looking for any kind of set up going into the relaunch, I'm sorry to say that what I've laid out for you is what we've got. So, introductions are open to interpretation...

My own version...?

Gambit: *speaking flirtations French to Rogue* Rogue: Wolverine - who is this? Wolverine: Storm brought back some Cajun leftovers from her time as a de-aged thief. Gambit: How about a kiss, chere? Rogue: How about I punch you?

And thus a dynamic was born. ;)

Next up: We're finally going to really get into it with X-Men #1-3!

[ach-sss-no]

[In reference to this comic and more specifically this page. This is an AU where Gollum survives the War of the Ring]

you stepped on a land mine Gollum's speech patterns are interesting to me and I am using them intentionally but I'm assuming you don't want a whole 20-page dissertation about it. so I'll explain this, but I'll try to keep it brief

(Note: I'm only referencing the books for this post. All quoted sections are from The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien)

Anyway, Gollum does speak in the singular first person on occasion, and there's even a specific reason given that he does so:

`He lied on me, yes he did. I did escape, all by my poor self. Indeed I was told to seek for the Precious; and I have searched and searched, of course I have. But not for the Black One [Sauron]. The Precious was ours, it was mine I tell you. I did escape.' [...] [Frodo] noted that Gollum used I, and that seemed usually to be a sign, on its rare appearances. that some remnants of old truth and sincerity were for the moment on top.

That's the reason outright given by the text, and my own interpretation

~~we are now entering wobbly headcanon land~~

-is that Gollum also uses 'I' on occasions of stress or panic because [also my own interpretation, may be wrong] his unusual speech patterns are partly an intentional habit that he formed out of boredom because he was sitting in a cave for 500 years talking to himself. He can be shocked out of them, and he can also drop them when he's being serious.

Observe!

Yess. Yess. No! ' shrieked Gollum. 'Once, by accident it was, wasn't it, precious? Yes, by accident. But we won't go back, no, no!' Then suddenly his voice and language changed [He shifts to singular 1st person] `Leave me alone, gollum! You hurt me. O my poor hands, gollum! I, we, I don't want to come back. I can't find it. I am tired. I, we can't find it, gollum, gollum, no, nowhere. They're always awake.

As an aside, here he is swapping between 'I' and third-person. I've bolded/italicized to highlight the swaps

'Day is near,' he whispered, as if Day was something that might overhear him and spring on him. 'Sméagol will stay here: I will stay here, and the Yellow Face won't see me.' 'We should be glad to see the Sun;' said Frodo, 'but we will stay here: we are too tired to go any further at present.' 'You are not wise to be glad of the Yellow Face,' said Gollum. 'It shows you up. Nice sensible hobbits stay with Sméagol. Orcs and nasty things are about. They can see a long way. Stay and hide with me! '

Sméagol smells it! ' he said. 'Leaves out of the elf-country, gah! They stinks. He climbed in those trees, and he couldn't wash the smell off his hands, my nice hands.'

Now, to get back to why he is using first-person in the thing you actually asked about, the 'where am I', it's because he just woke up in a strange place and he's upset.

a moment later he realizes he is in a safe place with a safe person, stops panicking, and switches back to the more artificial speech pattern.

In general he will be using 'I' a little more often in the comic because this is post-canon and he's supposed to be improving/he's aware the 'we' is a little odd and off-putting and he's trying to cut back on it. the 'we' still slips out because it was such a long/ingrained habit.

you will also see:

Sméagol catching himself saying 'us' and clarifying that he actually does mean 'us'

Sméagol catching himself saying 'us,' correcting himself when he meant to say 'me'

The aim is 'Gollum is in an emotional/psychological/social situation he never encountered in canon. His speech patterns are known to shift depending on his state of mind, what he's communicating and who he's talking to. So he should in fact sound different four years post-war, but still be recognizably the same person (or else the appeal of the character is lost and i should consider original fic)'

So to answer your question:

[bloopitynoot]

Reading SVSSS: Bonus Chapter 26

For those who don't know, I am reading SVSSS for the first time and sharing my thoughts!

If you have not read it, there will be spoilers! Consider this a warning.

Also- if you want to follow along, I am aiming to post updates daily. You can find all the posts in the tag bloopitynoot reads SVSSS. You can also check out the intro post for context on my read.

This chapter took me two days to go through! It's SO LONG (120 pages). I wanted to post yesterday but I got 60 pages in and started fading. Winter is here and the sun keeps disappearing too quickly, your boy is feeling the SAD.

The tea photo is from today and not yesterday- I tried out a new one it's almond amaranth and rooibos.

let's get into this monster of a chapter!

Fuck yeah, we have an airplane POV! Though this chapter is BEEFY. I think I'm going to read half today and half tomorrow before posting it (present me: and I did! ^-^).

I love that we are getting all of these forum comments. This is so fun! One of my favourite brands of fics are fics that include elements of social media/forum/blog style au's and this is a vibe! pp140-147

This guy is not wrong "Even though this famous Lord Cucumber spewed criticism constantly and without end in 'Great Master' Airplane's comment section, his subscription payments and demands for updates never waned. Because of this 'Great Master Airplane had come to suspect that this person was a masochist". p148 I mean yeah lol

OMG what an awful way to die! Alone in your house, let's be real - likely in his underwear- via electrocution induced by his sad instant ramen noodle dinner. p149

and the fact that he transmigrated so young. He was there for a while before the plot plotted with SY. 17 years old! p150. I do wonder if there is a wiggly time thing. Like years in the transmigrated novel equal like hours in the world he came from or something. They died close together I think? anyways- any theories on this are welcome!

Same though- Airplane is so real for this. The way in which I would just want to spill all of the foreknowledge and secrets to people I held in my brain as the creator of this universe p153

The SASS [Tip Complete. We wish you the best of luck]. p155

Are you kidding! This man didn't even write the plot that led for his main spy character to becoming a spy...dang man. the potholes are real bad. p156

Okay but this would seriously be me af. I am such a wimp- and that is totally okay! In the face of most definitely death, I would submit myself to being the Little Bitch Boy and pledge myself, my body, my undying love, to my new demon overlord and master. Good for baby him ahaha. p158

"As Shang Qinghua overflowed with snot and tears, clinging on for dear life, begging to pledge fealty to Mobei-Jun - wholly without warning, the demon collapsed." p160 Again, same. I'm feeling seen with Airplane here XD Screaming, crying, throwing up.

Man. I really see how these two end up together (I'm assuming they do?). He had a solid chance to murder the guy and he just couldn't because the character is just his ideal man. p162

"This character had been created entirely to the author's own tastes" p163 MHMMM. Yeah he was.

ehehehe and here we have the only one bed trope at the inn he got to nurse his ideal man back to health. p165

This guy is so shameless. Straight up just watching Mobei-Jun strip while he sits there and snacks. p169

It is so unhinged that this man just has a string tied to his neck pp170-171

that congee- YARF "clear as water" sounds so unappealing p174

"When in doubt- just cry" - Airplane definitely p176

The security on this mountain is so shit. Demons just popping in all the time under the radar. Mobei-jun literally lived there for three days no one even knew XD p183

awww, Airplane tried to warn Liu Qingge about the upcoming Qi deviation. That was nice of him. p190

Yes! Thank you! The scene I have been waiting for; in which the other characters are all like "wtf is up with shen qingqiu? He really is 100% different overnight, but also, no one say anything to him because we like this him better" p192

Fair though, I too would think that SQQ was possessed p194

The way in which airplane is SHAKEN by the actions of SQQ right now is so funny. Him frozen expression, this is NOT the character I wrote what the fuck is happening. p206

Someone commented on an earlier chapter post I had about the theory that the system is the manifestation of airplane's actual wants for the story and like- I stand with this theory. It really checks out with this POV the man keep's fantasizing of a queer man story and like he sure does get it. p207

LOOOOL oh no. the fact that the man who created these characters - VERY different than this experience. Has to listen to Binghe "If you hold unique feelings for a certain person, how can you make them understand you intentions?" p208.

Not airplane giving LBH love advice just so cucumber bro can literally Get Fucked. pp212-213

AND THEN HIS ADVICE BACKFIRES WITH MOBEI-JUN LOL"So, if you want to be liked by a man, the best method is to act pathetic?" p214. Like he set this up for himself

Wait. Airplane had the option to return home! And he just didnt??? p217

Airplane really is weak for these villainous men. The way in which he describes Linguang-Jun is so simpy. p228

The drama. Airplane doing the MOST to save Mobei-jun. This man could have avoided all of this and just gone home. What a horrible torture! :( p235

Get it airplane! You yell at him ahaha p237-238

I AM SCREAMING. Airplane: I'm your daddy! p239 AND THEN him just leaving in a panic because he really thinks he's going to get murdered after that outburst LOL

I love SQQ sitting in domesticity with his man giving airplane love advice pp244-245

Awww, Mobei-Jun came back for his boyfriend! He's going to make him hand pulled noodles :'3 p255 I honestly think that Mobei-jun actually needed to be bossed around this entire time

BYE. LOL SGH deciding to continue writing in this world by basically writing slash fanfiction about LBH/SQQ + the other peak lords/famous cultivators LOL p256. Good for him ahaha.

We did it!

This chapter was such a ride ahaha. it was fun to see the POV for airplane but also him and the progression of his weird AF relationship with Mobei-jun. I honestly kind of love these two. They were such a mess in the beginning but it ended so soft :'3