#anyways onto context

[kn1ghtc0r3]

hug

[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!

[i-still-dont-know-a-username]

Don't get me wrong, "The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite" is a quote that absolutely hits me square in the chest every time.

..But I feel like putting it in italics under an aesthetic picture is kinda neglecting the context, since Piranesi has Nearly Drowned when he first says that.

[triglycercule]

horror being very specific with table manners and he berates people (dust and killer) for eating like fucking pigs

i think it'd be morbidly funny that because there was no food in horrortale but the cutlery and stuff was all there that maybe he would pretend to eat with no food on the plate. it was in a satirical way that he would joke maybe around horror paps or alone where he would pretend to eat and have really good table manners but then the satire joke became REAL and now horror is incredibly specific about how to eat food

you MUST hold the fork in the left and knife in right says horror. no killer you can't duel wield the fucking knives this is a table not a slaughterhouse. dust pick up your elbows off the table. actually how about you get your entire upper body off the table tf why are you SLEEPING ON THE FOOD??? killer's sitting fetal position in the chair because of course he wouldn't sit normally like the idiot he is. dust is forced to put his hood down and reveal his face no more mysterious shadow style because it puts horror at ease. they cannot have a single peaceful meal because once they get past the table manners phase it then becomes a completion to see who can eat the least (because they suck at everything including eating)

[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.

[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.

[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.

[thanks-obillma]

behold a comic

[sntoot]

i dont have context to give bc it would take about three years to even try to explain (cat crying thumbs up emoji)

[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.

[chickennuggetdreamland]

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

[horsegirlhob]

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

[thegodwhocums]

it is so so so tempting, even as someone who's not a reconstructionist, to find the TRUE way that polytheists worshiped back in Thee Olden Days - like there's something purer and more efficacious about methods tested and proven over millennia, and like if I just Study Harder I will connect all these fucken dots and do things the RIGHT way like the ANCIENTS did

like there's a way to time-skip over the war and colonization back to the agrarian bonfire dances and the queer mystic mentorship circles

and yet, this yearning, while understandable, is misplaced.

we asked Dionysos about the deities that preceded the expansion of global patriarchy, and got a really compelling response:

Don’t get hung up on the archetypes. You’re not living in the Stone Age. You don’t need to recreate Stone Age rituals. Create rituals for now. What thanks do you need to give? What do you need to ask for? What would it serve you to have represented? I’m thinking of an expression – “form follows function.” [You’re allowed.] Your heart breaks at the beauty of the lilac. To whom do you express that transcendent joy? If there’s no one, then you have a vacuum. Who is best suited? Old gods, new gods? They’re all sort of the same. Don’t try to achieve temporal purity – to try is limiting. [The insight here is that your heart is filled with gratitude that you live in a world that has this particular kind of beauty in it, and that’s something you should be sharing with divinity.]

- Dionysos, channeled 27 May 2023

it's surprising in some ways to hear such a pragmatic approach to the gods FROM a god, but like - what does it serve divinity to have offerings from a disaffected devotee?

I think if you're determined to honor all 12 Olympians or an equivalent box-set sort of pantheon, that is a little different - if you're building your own set (to make this sound more like Lego than a spiritual practice whoops), then the advice as I'm taking it is to see where you're overflowing with the kind of passion that a mortal can offer to divinity, and follow that! be guided by the things that make your heart explode! this, as I interpret it, is the most precious thing that humans can offer to the divine: overflowing appreciation and love and agony and all the things that make us human, directed to gods and spirits who can share in those beautiful and terrible emotions with us.

still hashing all this out so it's not my most polished set of thoughts but: damn.