#anyways onto context

[kn1ghtc0r3]

hug

[rystiel]

that annoying moment when getting left for dead in the trunk of a car in your 20s comes back to haunt you 40 years later (take a shot every time ford says “stanley”)

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

My biggest fear when I was younger was forgiving those who have wronged me, because it meant I moved on.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

forgot to specify on firearm possession when he posted that job ad

[katabay]

”—ah. seems like mother goose has been playing around in your egg salad. if you won’t dance to that tune, I got others.”

honestly, the would you kindly scene is whatever to me*, code yellow is the more interesting violation/betrayal of the body because of how beautifully it escalates the Fontaine reveal/betrayal and shows how ugly some of those ‘locks and keys’ that Tenenbaum mentions are. not only have you been a tool in another man’s hand this entire time, it goes deeper. your body is not your own.

*there used to be a meandering thought here about the would you kindly scene, but it was really just talking around the fact that I spent way too many years seeing people discuss it in the most insufferable and reductive ways possible when it’s a combination of three or four other things that make that moment compelling lmao

collage credits: heart one/heart two

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

[asurashi]

make a mess, lioness by @testarossa (carlos/oscar, 4k, rated e, complete,)

“Mate,” Carlos hisses. “When is the last time you cut your nails?”

Been so insanely obsessed with this fic lately <3

[semi-sketchy]

I know this is beating a dead horse at this point, but I just started thinking about this the other day and...

How many people that were previously enemies has Sonic ACTUALLY befriended?

Like my knowledge of some old games and the handhelds ain't great, but...

There was Knuckles, who I think is the only one in the classic era.

He never really befriended Gamma in SA1, just left him to Amy.

Also he didn't befriend Chaos, just beat the anger out of him.

The next one was Shadow in SA2, although they're still kinda rivals?

I don't think Rouge counts in SA2 since she wasn't really an enemy of Sonic specifically, even in Heroes it's really Sonic and Shadow that start the fight.

Gemerl is a robot who was reprogrammed to be friendly, I wouldn't count that as "befriending someone".

Him and Jet are rivals in every Riders game, this never changes.

Blaze in Rush is someone that fought him and they became friends, so it's clear cut, she counts.

Silver in '06 does as well.

Do we count Shade from Chronicles? I think she had a boss fight. I know very little about that game but it's not canon, right?

Merlina is kinda a grey area? Like they were friends, he stopped her evil plans and was still nice to her. I don't know if in context that meets the criteria.

On top of that I don't think the Knights of the Round Table count. Sonic is there to take the swords and they work together at the end. I don't think there's any hard feelings, but don't know if this counts as "friends".

Sage could be the next example, but she's still loyal to Eggman. I don't think what they briefly shared was friendship as much as Sage wanting to save Eggman.

I haven't played Superstars but Trip doesn't even have a bossfight, does she? I don't think she counts.

Not looking at the method, just purely if they became friends down the line. Out of all of those, there's 4 total (if you count Shadow, which I do) with 1 it's complicated and 1 non-canon. That's very few when you consider how large the game cast is.

An overwhelming majority of his friends weren't ever hostile with him to begin with, like the Chaotix, Amy, Tails, Cream, Emerl, Big, ect. There's plenty of other cast members that are still have him on their shit list, like Eggman, Infinite (if he's alive), Fang, Metal, Eggman Nega, the Deadly Six...

Now I'm starting to wonder where this idea of it being a frequent even came from.

[tempestmothstorm]

On this week’s episode of “Wtf Did They Mean By That” we have wtf did they mean by that

Ok idk if it’s just me but this line feels like it’s meant to address the whole Natsuki home life question but it answers it by just. Not????

Cause like this line could both be interpreted as a confirmation and decomfirmation of physical abuse in the side stories because Natsuki just loves being really vague like that with that last line

Cause the line could mean, “of course they wouldn’t hurt me physically, but I’m scared they might retaliate in some other way” and in like any other context it would be the normal assumption.

But knowing what goes on base game and how oddly specific it is to bring up physical harm in the first place for an otherwise normal situation it could also mean, “of course they wouldn’t hurt me physically, but the treatment from my father has made me subconsciously fear the same abuse from others” and I can’t tell if I’m going insane here like are you ok?????

At least Yuri promises to smite her enemies in the next line. Good for her 👍

[doodlejoltik]

my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator

[even-disco-baby]

YOU — “No. There is still a chance.”

DOLORES DEI — “You think so?” Her voice is weary.

EMPATHY — Everything about her is weary. She is the Innocence of weariness, of heroically borne suffering.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — That is the picture you have painted for yourself, at any rate.

YOU — “You looked back. That’s the memory, the moment, that I can’t stop returning to. You looked back. I had a chance, for just that moment…”

DOLORES DEI — She meets your eye, gaze still forever cast back over her shoulder. Time stops. The stars are stilled, the ocean silent. There is *nothing* beyond this memory. Nothing at all. All of infinity is contained in this single moment when anything and everything was possible.

“Oh, Harry…” She sighs, soft as eiderdown. “We never had any chance.”

And just like that, the wave of time collapses under its own weight, obliterating everything. This moment was six years ago. She is gone from here. Gone, gone…

PAIN THRESHOLD — You cannot leave. There was nothing outside of this moment, and now there is nothing at all. It’s all gone. There is no point. I’m sorry. I can’t do this any longer.

VOLITION — Please, don’t say that…

“Okay. Well, fuck me, then.”

“How would *you* know?! You gave up! You didn’t even try!”

“We *must* have had a chance, at some point… Doesn’t everyone get a chance, if nothing more?”

“How could you say that…?”

DOLORES DEI — “Because it’s true,” she says, matter-of-fact. “There is no moment in time that you can turn back to, no branching paths, no infinity. There is only what happened. I looked back… and then away.” She closes her eyes, turning her back to you.

“The moment ended. *We* ended. That is all.”

SHIVERS — A wave crashes against an unseen shore, ocean spray tickling the back of your neck. You shiver, but no one shivers with you. You are alone in this intersection. Why are you here?

“Why can’t *I* end?! Why can’t this all just stop? Please, make it stop…”

“Ended? I’ve barely even started! I got a chance to start completely over as somebody new! I don’t need you anymore! You’re just dead weight to me now.”

“No. That wasn’t the real ending. We’re a part of something so much bigger than this intersection, telling a story that encapsulates all of history! There’s *more* to this, it *means* something.”

“Then… What am I supposed to do now…?”

DOLORES DEI — “No, Harry.” She turns back to you again now, and she looks… sad.

“We were not metaphors. We were people. Our narrative was not intelligently designed. It simply followed the patterns of history, because those are the only patterns we *know.* We tried to create something new, but we failed. There is no narrative reward for our failure, no satisfactory ending. There is only the immutable past and the unknowable future.”

RHETORIC — There is no assurance of what is good or deserved or what may bring relief. There is no assurance of punishment, either. There is no assurance of anything. Not even of a future. I don’t know what to say to make this bearable.

VOLITION — Even so… As long as you live, *something* is promised. Can you live with that?

I can’t, I just can’t do this anymore…

I can. It’s enough.

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

I can at least try for a little longer…

VOLITION — That’s all I ask. That’s enough.

[runepixel]

hey guys. i'm not the only one who hears the lyrics to this song and thinks snowgrave kris and noelle right

[aardvaark]

expanding on that post about sophie devereaux backstories, grift ones and real ones and the things in between:

a year or two after they meet, tara and sophie are somewhere near drunk in a hotel room after a con, high heels thrown against the wall, dresses unzipped and halfway off. tara asks for her Story. the Story. and maybe she wouldn’t have asked if she were sober or maybe tara is simply a little too bloody brave sometimes, a little too determined.

so sophie tells her about a father in the military, a mother who died young, a family that moved houses, towns, regions, countries, all the time growing up. about lying to impress kids at every new school. about desperately doing almost anything to fit in for the months or year she’d stay in that area. about sweet talking her way out of a few little crimes here and there, cash that she would certainly never steal from her rich friends’ parents’ wallets, some driving rules she broke when she was too young to even have a license, yet old enough for a cop to encourage her flirting. sophie tells tara that her father died when she was 19, and the grief had led to recklessness. she made a mistake on a too-ballsy grift. she would’ve gone to jail. instead, she faked her death (for the first of many times) and never looked back. it’s the only funeral of hers that she didn’t attend.

and then, tara told her an equally untrue Story in return.

when sophie is duchess charlotte prentiss, her husband william asks far too many questions about her past. of course, charlotte has a Story. all of her aliases have Stories, even the ones she only uses for a day - they all have birthdays, childhood pets, first kisses, people they love. so she tells him that her parents died in a car crash when she was 16 and instead of going into the foster system, the authorities figured she was old enough to become an emancipated minor. she tells him how it was difficult at times, incredible at others, and sad and exciting and embarrassing and bittersweet. she weaves a damn good tale about charlottes life, if she may say so herself - one that’s just painful enough for william to stop asking questions. it works perfectly. but when she tucks astrid into bed that night, and the little girl looks up at her with big round eyes and asks if ‘charlotte’ misses her mummy and daddy and says that she’s sad for ‘charlotte’ because she knows what it’s like to miss a mama… sophie freezes. there’s a lump in her throat and goosebumps on her skin. she blinks down the tears and recovers just enough to fake a smile and kiss astrid’s forehead as she leaves the room. lying has never hurt like this before. it takes all her strength to shut it down, shove the emotions in some tiny box in her head that she simply refuses to acknowledge. she decides, then, that she has to leave this house as soon as possible.

the charlotte Story is one of many that hardison finds. it’s inevitable, when he has to cover all their tracks so thoroughly, that hardison would stumble upon various old aliases. he only learns about the charlotte one from the job in england - there’s no links between her and sophie, but he destroys a decent amount of excess duchess charlotte prentiss information just in case, and then looks for any other mysterious women who happened to pop up or vanish around that time. he notices that there are some things that all of sophie’s aliases share: their parents are dead, they have no siblings, and their life changed dramatically somehow in their mid-to-late teens (usually with those parents’ deaths, or gaining an inheritance, or moving far away). he knows that these are all pretty standard, convenient details for a fake identity. but he wonders, sometimes. couldn’t she have made up dead siblings? estranged but alive parents? a dramatic event in her early childhood or in her twenties? he doesn’t know if the consistent parts mean anything. he doesn’t ask for her Story - not outright, at least. though for the first couple months of knowing her, he does sometimes enquire about little things here and there. did she grow up with sisters, what was her high school like - that sort of stuff. information is his thing, sue him! sometimes sophie just smiles. sometimes she answers, and he eventually learns that her truths, at least, are very much relative. when he decides that she is family - which is pretty early on, to be honest - he also decides not to ask anymore. he destroys old aliases when necessary, but he never reads more than he has to. he loves sophie and that is enough.

eliot never asks anything about her life. not even the innocent, casual, unthinking questions that sophie is used to from other people: where’d you grow up? did you ever have any pets? i always had to share a room with my sister, what about you? eliot clearly avoids asking her any of it. she’s somewhat surprised by that. sure, he’s polite, but he’s also suspicious both by nature and due to certain unfortunate experiences, so she sort of expected him to interrogate her when they first met.

one night, they’re the last two left at nate’s apartment. even nate had gone to bed and left them there, long given up on shooing his team out at appropriate times. sophie’s been drinking tea and flipping through a latvian phrase book to refresh her memory for tomorrow’s grift, and apparently that 90-minute-a-day sleep schedule allows for eliot to be doing one-handed push ups in the living room at this ungodly hour. too tired to retain any more information, sophie studies eliot instead. he’s a straightforward guy. she decides to be straightforward too. she breaks the silence of the apartment and simply asks - is he ever curious about her Story? eliot pauses a moment. looks her in the eye, quiet. doesn’t brush her off gruffly like she thought he might. instead, he asks if she’s ever curious about What He’s Done. that is answer enough for the both of them. they don’t talk for the rest of the night, each going back to their own activities, but the silence isn’t uncomfortable. on the contrary - the mutual understanding ends up solidifying their relationship.

nate isn’t always so intensely careful about his questions like eliot. well, actually, there were many times back in his insurance days that he very much did ask her questions on purpose. and of course, for five years, he asks after her real name. sophie generally thinks of it as a fun game. she smiles at his useless determination and teases him when he comes back from jail. after a while, though, she realizes that the questions about her Story mostly stopped when leverage formed, and stop completely once he proposed. nate never hears any version of her Story. she’s here now, and that’s all he needs or wants to know - just like how sophie is her real name in any way that matters.

the moment that sophie realizes this is the moment she stops caring about the real Story, the burden of the secret and the guilt and shame of keeping it from her newfound family. in that moment, she understands that what happened back then is just a small drop in the ocean, irrelevant to the life she’s built and come to love. she never tells them the story, and she never needs to.

[kindred-spirit-93]

salutations of peace!

welcome to this blog dedicated to the many, many thoughts wondering in the expansive meadows of my inner mind. we have:

fandom rambles

OC galore and random lore dumps

deep life thoughts TM

excerpts of books ill never write

memes, awful puns, wordplay my beloved, rants about anything and everything

music and art and language appreciation

vivid descriptions of things that would put ebony dark'ness dementia raven way to shame

and so much more! my vision for this blog is essentially a scrapbook of sweet wrappers, weird poetry, dried flowers, inexplicable blood drops from untraceable source(s), cute little doodles, coffee stains, all tied together with glitter glue and skull washi tape ^-^

so feel free to sit back with some snacks and watch me as i take apart my mind thought by thought and have epiphanies and shit :)

*:･ﾟ✧ but before all that, a few things:

the name of this blog, Memento Vivere, is latin for remember to live. you may be familiar with its more morbid counterpart, Memento Mori, remember you must die. the reason for this choice of phrase is that due to reasons, i sometimes have to remind myself to stop and live, to really smell the roses, to appreciate my short existence on this spinning rock in space. so this blog will be my escape, my breath of fresh air, my cup of mint earl grey on a rainy january morning.

*:･ﾟ✧ a lil about me lol:

british jordanian gen z hijabi, dont have social anxiety; social anxiety has me lol, sleep deprived, herbal teas, psychiatry

medical student, full time and life long learner, salty snacks are better than sweet treats there i said it, strawberry milk supremacy

chaotic academia aesthetic, cats, existential (and assorted) crises

main @lemedstudent2021 and oc blog @bright-side-of-the-moon feel free to drop by for a chat here there and everywhere ;)

*:･ﾟ✧ general rules and guidelines:

this blog aims to be a safe space for anyone and everyone, leave your prejudices at the door or dont bother coming in :)

youre all welcome to share thoughts and ideas and suggestions, please keep it halal tho (so pg-13 and mild language). in the very least label accordingly so those yet with innocence stay safe

hate and bullying and disrespect in all forms will not be tolerated, bigots and brain dead buffoons will be blocked on sight

that said, for what remains of my sanity; zionists and anti-vaxxers DNI (i will come after you and your essential oils)

if i remember anything ill add it later, for now bring your marshmellows were making s'mores on the dumpsterfire that is life

art by the wonderful @sunshines-child ^-^

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

How's your activity feed, bud?

I am in hell.

Oh I wonder what the wider tumblr audience thinks, let me make a poll is the devil talking.

[horsegirlhob]

I just want Buffy to be happy (says the guy whose favourite season is season 6)

[getosugurusbangs]

what if i said i actually love too weird to live, too rare to die and think it’s underrated. what then.